Volume 617 Week 55 - Tuesday 4 May 2004 
Volume 617 Week 55 - Tuesday 4 May 2004 
[Volume:617;Page:12539] 
Tuesday 4 May 2004 
Mr Speaker 
 took the Chair at 2 p.m. 
Prayers 
. 
Visitors 
Australia—Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs House of Representatives 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I have much pleasure in informing members that members of the Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs from the House of Representatives of Australia led by the chairperson the Hon Bronwyn Bishop MP are present in the gallery. I am sure members would wish the committee be welcomed. 
Offices of Parliament—Presentation of Address to Governor-General 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I wish to advise the House that the Address agreed to by the House relating to the alterations to the appropriations for the 2003-04 financial year for Vote Audit Vote Ombudsmen and Vote Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment and the appropriations for the 2004-05 financial year for those votes was transmitted to Her Excellency the Governor-General on Thursday 8 April 2004. 
New Plymouth District Council (Land Vesting) Bill 
Discharge 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I have received advice dated 21 April 2004 from the New Plymouth District Council the promoter of the bill withdrawing the New Plymouth District Council (Land Vesting) Bill pursuant to Standing Order 272. The bill is consequently discharged from further consideration by the House. 
Motions 
Confidence Motion—Government 
Dr DON BRASH (Leader of the Opposition) 
: 
 Noting the growing instability in the Government I seek leave of the House to move a motion of no confidence forthwith. 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Leader of the House) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Could I check whether that is a non-debatable motion? 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Yes. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought. Is there any objection? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: Is it non-debatable? [ 
Interruption 
] It is debatable. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member did not ask for it to be non-debatable. Leave is sought. Is there any objection? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: Yes if the motion is debatable. Is it non-debatable? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: No it is debatable. 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: It is debatable. Yes there is objection. If the member wishes to move a non-debatable motion it is perfectly acceptable to do so. 
Dr Don Brash 
: Yes it is a non-debatable motion. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member did not say that. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Well he’s saying it now. [ 
Interruption 
] 
Mr SPEAKER 
: There is far too much interjection. While I am on my feet there will be none. The member has had his only warning for the day about interjecting while I am on my feet. He will be out next time. That is the only warning. The member asked for leave; leave was denied. 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Leader of the House) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The reason I asked whether the motion was debatable was that the member moved the motion in a form whereby it was debatable and the Government does object to that. But if the member wishes to seek leave to move a non-debatable motion I am sure nobody in the Government will object. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Does the member wish to do that? 
Dr Don Brash 
: I do. I seek the leave of the House— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Is there any objection? There is not. 
Dr DON BRASH (Leader of the Opposition) 
: 
 I move  
That this House has no confidence in the Government. 
A party vote was called for on the question that the motion be agreed to. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I call the honourable Tariana Turia. 
Donna Awatere Huata 
: Point of order Mr Speaker. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I have actually called another member. I will hear the member shortly. 
TARIANA TURIA (Labour—Te Tai Hauauru) 
: 
 One vote opposed. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: For the benefit of members if Tariana Turia is voting the way she has proposed the Labour Party should have called 52 not 51. Is 52 the call? Right. 
DONNA AWATERE HUATA (Independent) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I was not aware of what the vote was on. I seek your indulgence to let me know what the vote is on so that I can vote accordingly. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: It is a vote of no confidence in the Government. Is the vote for or against? 
DONNA AWATERE HUATA 
: 
 In favour. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the motion be agreed to. 
Ayes 58 
New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; Green Party 9; ACT New Zealand 8; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Noes 62 
New Zealand Labour 52; United Future 8; Progressive 2. 
Motion not agreed to. 
GERRY BROWNLEE (Deputy Leader—National) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I noticed during the taking of that vote that you took some advice from the Clerk and then required the Labour Party to change its vote from 51 to 52. Are we to take it that for parliamentary purposes—a mechanism used in the past in a previous term of Parliament—Tariana Turia remains a member of the Labour Party at this point? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I have had no advice in writing that she is not. 
Questions to Ministers 
Government—Confidence 
1. Dr DON BRASH (Leader of the Opposition) 
 to the  
Prime Minister 
: Can she confirm her Government still enjoys the support of a majority of members on matters of confidence and supply; if so why? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK (Prime Minister) 
: 
 Not only can I confirm that but I can certainly confirm that the National Party does not. 
Dr Don Brash 
: Can the Prime Minister give an assurance to this House that she will have majority support in the House in 2 weeks’ time? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: I certainly expect that to be the case. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I call question No. 2. [ 
Interruption 
] The member is overdoing it. The Minister is warned. He has had his only warning. 
Dr Don Brash 
: Mr Speaker— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I had called question No. 2. [ 
Interruption 
] No one was seeking the call. I looked around very carefully; everywhere in the House. I do not want to be unreasonable. Was the member going to seek the call for another question? 
Dr Don Brash 
: Yes I was Mr Speaker. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: In that case I will grant it. 
Dr Don Brash 
: What discussions has the Prime Minister had with New Zealand First or the Greens in the last month regarding support from those political parties on matters of confidence and supply and what indications has she received from them? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: It has not been necessary for me to talk with other members about confidence and supply. In the course of building a majority for the foreshore and seabed legislation of course I did have discussions with the two parties concerned directed at that particular issue of support for the bill. 
Dail Jones 
: Has the Prime Minister asked the National Party to continue its support of this minority Labour Government in matters of confidence and supply as evidenced by the National Party which voted twice on 17 February 2004 to support and maintain confidence in this minority Labour Government including voting against New Zealand First’s motion of no confidence in this minority Labour Government—which motion was lost by 98 votes to 22? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: To be gracious I do not think the National Party would have seen that as a vote of confidence. 
Dr Don Brash 
: Noting that just a few moments ago both New Zealand First and the Greens voted against the Government and noting recent reports in the nation’s two largest newspapers that the Labour Party has lost one—and probably two—members of its own caucus can the Prime Minister still assure this House that she has the confidence of a majority of the members? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: I suggest that 119 other members heard the outcome of the vote. 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: As one of the members who did hear the count if the Government loses a second Maori member will the Prime Minister be looking to the Green Party for support; if so how does she square that with her statement during the election campaign that the Greens are so extreme that no stable Government could be formed with them? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: The question is based on an entirely hypothetical premise. However I believe the Government will continue to enjoy the confidence of the House. 
Hon Peter Dunne 
: With regard to confidence and supply matters is the Prime Minister confident that the current arrangements she has in place with her caucus and other parties will endure and that there will be occasions from time to time on other matters where she needs to build majorities on a more infrequent basis? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: That is the basis on which I am operating. I am entirely comfortable with the present arrangements and I thank United Future for the role it has played in bringing stability to the Government. 
Immigration Act—Deportation Review Tribunal 
2.  
DAIL JONES (NZ First) 
 to the  
Minister of Immigration 
: When is the formal review of the Immigration Act 1987 and the Deportation Review Tribunal to begin and will he be seeking cross-party input into the terms of the review? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN (Minister of Immigration) 
: 
 I have asked officials to begin identifying issues that will be part of a review of the Immigration Act. One of the issues involves the appeal process and the associated appeal agencies. I will be advising the process for the review including opportunities for input in due course. 
Dail Jones 
: While taking this review into consideration what action is the Minister taking for a judicial review of the decisions of the Deportation Review Tribunal in the cases of Lin Gao and Le ManhToan involving a Chinese forgery offender and a Vietnamese charged with violent offending who have been allowed by the tribunal to stay in New Zealand despite the Minister’s deportation order? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: In the first instance the conditions of an appeal are very very limited on fact or in law. Secondly I have indicated that it does seem silly for one arm of Government to be taking another arm of Government to court. The only losers in that process are the taxpayers. 
Dr Wayne Mapp 
: Will the Minister support a zero tolerance approach for immigrants who commit serious crimes so that they are automatically deported if they commit a serious crime during their first 5 years in New Zealand? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: Certainly the objective of the review is to toughen up the rules. Of course the definition will be around what the word “serious” means. I am sure the member will be having an interest in that. But certainly the objective is to make sure people get the message that if they come to New Zealand and are resident here they obey New Zealand laws. 
Metiria Turei 
: Is there not a risk that if the decision of the Deportation Review Tribunal is recommendatory only the fate of new migrants becomes determined by the political fashions of the day and not the humanitarian merits of each individual case? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: That clearly is an issue and that is why we need to conduct this review very carefully and look at what options we have as we go forward. 
Dail Jones 
: Why has the Minister taken such a soft approach to these two criminals when for example and by comparison in the Zaoui case there was no hesitation in appeals being lodged and paid for at great expense to the taxpayer and why does not the taxpayer as evidenced by the Minister take the appeal to try to get the message clear to people that if they commit crimes out they go? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: As I said the conditions of an appeal are very very narrow and very very limited indeed. My understanding is that an appeal has not been taken and obviously one has not been successful. The issue of the review however is to look at all the issues that the member raises. 
Tariana Turia—Portfolios 
3.  
GERRY BROWNLEE (Deputy Leader—National) 
 to the  
Prime Minister 
: Did she strip Tariana Turia of her ministerial portfolios as reported by some news sources or did Tariana Turia resign her ministerial portfolios herself as reported by other news sources? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK (Prime Minister) 
: 
 Yes I did. I advised the Administrator of the Government to dismiss Tariana Turia on Friday 30 April. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Noting the Prime Minister’s precipitate actions in this case why does the Government not show the strength of its conviction over its seabed and foreshore proposals that have caused the resignation of Tariana Turia from the Labour Party and stand a candidate in the Te Tai Hauauru by-election? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: The Government does not believe that a by-election is necessary as a number of pathways forward for Mrs Turia were discussed. I might say that it is a matter of regret for me personally that she has chosen to go because I have worked closely with her for many years. However I accept that she has decided to take a different path. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Does the Prime Minister stand by her 1999 comments championing electoral integrity legislation that any member of Parliament who resigned from a party during a parliamentary term should do the honourable thing and seek a fresh mandate from his or her electorate; if so why will she not stand a candidate in the Te Tai Hauauru by-election to seek a fresh mandate for her Government’s position on the seabed and foreshore issue? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: The two issues are obviously quite different. Mrs Turia is following through on the spirit of the Act and has announced that she intends to resign from Parliament. That is not a statement that the Government needs to respond to in any particular way at all. 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: Has the Prime Minister seen the article in the  
Sunday Star-Times 
 of 2 May where Mrs Turia says that the timing of her resignation was triggered by her humiliation because she had followed some advice from the Prime Minister: “why don’t you duck down on the back seat” of the prime ministerial car; if so does the Prime Minister now regret having humiliated her Minister with that advice? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: At no point have I or anyone in the Government set out to humiliate Mrs Turia. Mrs Turia—like me—is a mature woman who must take responsibility for her own actions. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: If the Prime Minister is now saying that Mrs Turia is doing the honourable thing why did she describe her actions as a sideshow and a stunt and a waste of time and money on a pointless exercise and why is she frightened of testing her party’s policies in this by-election? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: Because a number of pathways were put forward that would have enabled Mrs Turia to continue as a member of the Labour Party; none of those were chosen. 
Broadcasting—Public Ownership 
4.  
MARTIN GALLAGHER (Labour—Hamilton West) 
 to the  
Minister of Broadcasting 
: What is the Government’s position on the public ownership of broadcasting assets? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY (Minister of Broadcasting) 
: 
 This Government is committed to keeping broadcasting assets in public ownership to serve the interests of all New Zealanders. We regard audiences the New Zealanders who own Television New Zealand and Radio New Zealand as having a stake in those assets. So our focus is on strengthening public service broadcasting unlike the National Party which has indicated there is support in its caucus for selling those assets. 
Martin Gallagher 
: What specific reports has the Minister seen on the possible sale of broadcasting assets? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: I have seen one statement that: “National would review the Crown balance sheet with a view to selling Government-owned commercial enterprises which no longer need to be owned by the State.” and another by a National MP that the National Party would favour selling the Government’s interests in radio and television. It seems that on this issue Dr Brash and Georgina te Heuheu are agreed: they want to sell State assets. 
Sue Kedgley 
: Does the Government support TVNZ’s plans to set up a third publicly owned television channel; if so why on earth would the Government support the establishment of a third publicly owned television channel simply to show “a mix of reruns of current affairs local shows minority programmes and live broadcasts from Parliament”? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: We have not seen the business case from TVNZ on this matter yet so there is nothing to support or not to support. 
Child Youth and Family Services Department—Information 
5.  
KATHERINE RICH (National) 
 to the  
Associate Minister for Social Development and Employment (CYF) 
: Why did she breach the privacy of more than 1300 children in the care of the Department of Child Youth and Family Services by releasing their names their caregivers’ names their locations and their ages to the public? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Before I call the honourable Minister she did advise me that her answer was a little longer than normal and I have accepted that. 
Hon RUTH DYSON (Associate Minister for Social Development and Employment (CYF)) 
: 
 The information to which the member refers was inadvertently included as an Excel attachment in the electronic response to a written question from the member. It was not part of the hard-copy version that I signed off for submitting to that member. The inclusion of the information was discovered only after the Clerk’s Office emailed the response to the member’s office and the member alerted both the Clerk’s Office and my office to the attachment. The question was immediately retrieved from the Clerk’s Office. I have accepted the member’s public assurance that she has deleted this information from her system and I appreciate her alerting me to its inclusion in order to protect the privacy of the children concerned. I offer my unreserved apology for this incident. 
Katherine Rich 
: If Celia Lashlie lost her job for allegedly releasing personal details about one child does the Minister think that she should keep her job after releasing the personal details of over 1300 abused children in the department’s care; if so why? 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: Had I known of that breach and had it been deliberate yes I do believe that that action would have been appropriate. But I neither knew about it nor considered it appropriate when I learnt of the information’s release. 
Moana Mackey 
: What is the Minister doing to ensure that this kind of incident will not happen again? 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: I have received an absolute assurance from the acting chief executive of the Department of Child Youth and Family Services that Excel spreadsheets which can have attachments that are not immediately obvious will not be used to provide any information—supplementary or otherwise—for answers to written questions. 
Deborah Coddington 
: How can the Minister remain a Minister when a Work and Income New Zealand staff member who released names accidentally or deliberately would lose his or her job and possibly face criminal charges and end up in jail? 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: As I indicated in my answer to the previous supplementary question I was not aware of the inclusion of the information nor was anyone else who provided it to that member. It was not done with any consideration it was not deliberate and I sincerely regret the incident. 
Judy Turner 
: Does the Minister agree that although children’s privacy is an important issue the bottom line has to be children’s safety; and in light of this why has it taken the discovery by undercover detectives in the Hawke’s Bay of children smoking P and of babies as young as 2 weeks old living with users for police and the Department of Child Youth and Family Services to decide that the Department of Child Youth and Family Services should be notified in these cases as proposed by United Future? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: That does go very wide of the original question. I think that in that circumstance although I am prepared to allow the Minister to comment very briefly she cannot be expected to have that information because it is wide of the original question. 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: The Department of Child Youth and Family Services is tragically not aware of the individual circumstances of every household in New Zealand. However in the instance that Mrs Turner referred to in her supplementary question I was very pleased at the way that the protocol between the police and the Department of Child Youth and Family Services was put into action to ensure the safety of those children. 
Katherine Rich 
: Why did the Minister not read the electronic version of the question and is she telling the House that it was not she but somebody else who affixed the electronic signature to the question before it was sent back to the Clerk’s Office? 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: Yes I can confirm that I did not read the electronic version of the question and answer—I never do. I always require a hard copy to be printed off and I sign the hard copy which is then transmitted through the electronic system. 
Judy Turner 
: Does the Minister also agree that although the release of these children’s information is a regrettable mistake this kind of disingenuous whining on side issues misses the real issue which is the need to develop constructive solutions to the massive issue of child abuse such as that proposed by United Future last month; and can she confirm that she has received no similar positive proposals from that member? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: That once again is very wide of the original question. The first part is out of order; the second part can be commented on. 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: I can confirm that I have received a number of very constructive proposals from the member who asked the supplementary question in comparison with not one single one from the member who asked the primary question. 
Katherine Rich 
: Is the Minister not aware that it is she and she alone who has the responsibility for affixing the final electronic signature to parliamentary questions and is she telling the House that it is a staff member who carries out that task of affixing her signature to all her electronic questions? 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: I do not think that there was any doubt at all in my answer to the previous supplementary question. I sign the hard copy. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The answer to the last question by the Hon Ruth Dyson raises an interesting question about who can sign out electronic ministerial questions. It appears from what the Minister has told us that a staff member does it on her behalf and that the Minister signs out a hard copy. I suggest that even if she were to sign out a hard copy it would indicate that there was an attachment. It would seem to me that a Minister on top of his or her job might ask what that attachment was. I do not think it is appropriate for a Minister to answer a question in the House in a way that attempts to dodge full responsibility for this appalling breach. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member has raised an interesting question. Of course we now have a slightly different age from when for example I was a Minister and answered questions. There was none of this electronic nonsense at all. [ 
Interruption 
] It was not all handwritten—I could type occasionally. I will come back to the member and the House with a proper ruling on that tomorrow. 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Mr Brownlee in his point of order just now implied that in the written hard copy of the question that I signed I would have been aware of an attachment. I made it very clear in my answer to both the primary question and the supplementary that that information was not attached nor was I aware of it until the member who raised the primary question alerted my office to that fact. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: That is partly a debating point but I will certainly take account of what the Minister said when I make my ruling tomorrow. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I realise that you will make a ruling but I would just point out that when I receive parliamentary questions signed by a Minister there is a place showing on the hard copy that says “attachments” and it lists them. So perhaps everything could be cleared up if the Minister were prepared to table the hard copy that she signed. It clearly is still in her office because it certainly was not sent to us. 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: I seek leave to table the hard copy which I signed. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Nuclear-free New Zealand—Government Policy 
6.  
LUAMANUVAO WINNIE LABAN (Labour—Mana) 
 to the  
Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade 
: Has he received any reports regarding changes to New Zealand’s nuclear-free status? 
Hon PHIL GOFF (Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade) 
: 
 Yes. I have seen an unequivocal statement from the Prime Minister that a Labour-led Government will maintain New Zealand’s nuclear-free status a statement by National leader Don Brash claiming that he had made no personal decision on the issue and another contradictory report that an American congressional delegation in January was told that if National became the Government the ban on nuclear ships would be gone by lunchtime. That statement was made by Dr Brash who now claims he has made no decision on the issue. 
Luamanuvao Winnie Laban 
: What is the reason for New Zealand’s nuclear-free policy? 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: The Government’s position reflects a longstanding commitment shared by a majority of New Zealanders that this country should remain nuclear-free and that decisions on this issue should be made by New Zealanders according to what we think is right rather than by conceding to pressure from some other country. Dr Brash’s statement suggests he has a policy but will not come clean on it because of political expediency. 
Hon Ken Shirley 
: Could the Minister tell the House why this Government persists with the ban on nuclear propulsion when the Somers report of 1992 stated there was no environmental risk or public safety factor justifying that continued ban and in light of the fact that Auckland Hospital emits to the environment daily twice the radiation that the entire United States naval fleet and its support services do in a year? 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: The Somers report was of course commissioned by National which had promised in 1987 that it would abandon the nuclear policy and had then changed its mind just before the election. It commissioned the Somers report to have an excuse to change its mind back again looked at the public opinion polls and chickened out. Why would I pay any attention to that report? 
Hon Ruth Dyson—Confidence 
7.  
SIMON POWER (National—Rangitikei) 
 to the  
Prime Minister 
: Does she have confidence in the Minister for ACC and the Associate Minister for Social Development and Employment (CYF); if so why? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK (Prime Minister) 
: 
 Yes because she is a hard-working and conscientious Minister. 
Simon Power 
: Does the Prime Minister believe that it is acceptable for a Minister to portray to Parliament that a taxpayer grant was not used to buy a computer for a teenage offender and then admit it had been and to respond to written questions that there had been no cases of work-related stress in the Accident Compensation Corporation since mid-2003 when such cases had been raised with her by the National Union of Public Employees; if so why? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: My recollection of the first matter is that the Minister was asked whether the computer had been given as a carrot and she correctly said “No”. I also understand that the Speaker has ruled there is no privilege case to answer on the matter. On the second question the Minister answered the question on advice from the Accident Compensation Corporation. The question was: have any claims of work-related stress been reported within the Accident Compensation Corporation; if so how many in each of the last 5 years? She answered on the basis of the information that was given. I understand that the corporation has acknowledged to the Minister that it should have provided her with better background to explain the complexity. 
Peter Brown 
: Is the Prime Minister aware that significant concerns are held by accident victims over accident compensation outcomes and treatments that there are also concerns with regard to the culture of the Accident Compensation Corporation and allegations of its bullying of staff and in addition that physiotherapists have problems with the Accident Compensation Corporation; if she is aware of all that does she still have confidence in her Minister for ACC? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: I am now aware that the National Union of Public Employees has raised issues of what it says is bullying by Accident Compensation Corporation managers. Those allegations certainly need to be investigated because it is not acceptable to this Government that managers bully staff. As for claimants not feeling happy with Accident Compensation Corporation decisions I imagine that will happen as long as there is an Accident Compensation Corporation and there are claimants. But the corporation has clear rules which it must apply. 
Simon Power 
: Does the Prime Minister believe that it is acceptable then for a Minister to release the private information of 1354 children in foster care; and when will she just admit that that Minister is hopeless and sack her? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: I have heard the Minister deal with that issue in full in the House today. That list was not attached to the document that she saw and signed out. 
Prison Officers—Inappropriate Relationships 
8.  
RON MARK (NZ First) 
 to the  
Minister of Corrections 
: How many female prison officers if any in the term of this Government have been counselled or disciplined for having sexual relationships with male inmates? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN (Minister of Corrections) 
: 
 In the term of this Government—that is since mid-2002—I am advised that three female corrections officers have been investigated for having a sexual relationship with a male inmate. Of these three cases I am advised that one officer resigned before the investigation was complete one investigation is still under way and in the third case the allegation was unproven while the officer was an employee. 
Ron Mark 
: Aside from Raewyn Houia who admitted having a love child to convicted rapist David James Shepherd whilst she was a duty officer at Paparua prison and past reports of other female prison officers being fired for smuggling items into their lovers’ jails can the Minister confirm whether another female prison officer has recently left Christchurch Prison as a result of an inappropriate relationship with an inmate or was it simply for smuggling goods into the prison? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: I cannot quite recollect the first issue the member raised. As far as the second one is concerned I understand that criminal charges are being laid. The third I am not fully aware of. If it is an allegation such as the one raised I presume it is being investigated. If that is not the case and the member has information he should give it to me and I will follow it up. 
Mahara Okeroa 
: What does the Department of Corrections code of conduct say about relationships between corrections officers and inmates? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: Relationships between Department of Corrections officers and inmates are prohibited. The department’s code of conduct specifies that staff are to ensure that they do not form financial business or sexual relationships with inmates. The department views sexual relationships as serious misconduct. All allegations into such relationships are investigated and if proven staff are dismissed. 
Ron Mark 
: Is the policy of placing female prison officers in male prisons so exposing them to the manipulations of seasoned sexual predators a politically correct gender-based policy or a needs-based policy; if it is the latter specifically whose needs is the Minister attempting to cater to? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: It is kind of hard to know how to answer that. The reality is that both male and female Department of Corrections officers do an extremely good job. These policies have been supported by many parties in this Government and I cannot see why that member would oppose them. 
Ron Mark 
: Does the Minister not accept that in these very difficult situations the Department of Corrections has clear occupational safety and health responsibilities in respect of protecting female prison officers; if he does can he explain why the public is continuing to see female prison officers involved in such incidents. 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: Yes I do accept that the department has important responsibilities as far as its staff are concerned but I absolutely reject the fact that there is a continuing stream of incidents. There are 12000 inmates flowing through our prisons every year and the 2000 staff do a thoroughly good job. 
Families—Cost of Living 
9.  
Dr MURIEL NEWMAN (ACT) 
 to the  
Prime Minister 
: Will she accept mother of four Marilynn McLachlan’s request for a meeting after Mrs McLachlan wrote to her appealing for help in finding a way to survive on an annual family income of $55000; and does she believe there are many other New Zealand families facing the same difficulties? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK (Prime Minister) 
: 
 No. However Marilynn McLachlan has been provided with the name of an Inland Revenue Department staff member with whom her family circumstances can be discussed to ensure they are receiving the assistance to which they are entitled. 
Dr Muriel Newman 
: Does the Prime Minister think it is fair that welfare beneficiaries can be receiving an income similar to the income of that struggling Waihi couple and can she explain to the House what incentives there are for such welfare families to move from welfare into work? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: The advice I saw from the Inland Revenue Department suggested that this family would be $270.85 a week better off than a family on welfare. I can also say that unlike Muriel Newman I will not be advising members of the public to take up nude modelling or sell erotic underwear to earn more money. 
Katherine Rich 
: Why was the Prime Minister happy to meet with a sheep and not with the McLachlan family? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: I respect what the owner of Bendigo Station is doing in raising money for children with cancer. That is an important charity. I receive many many letters from members of the public and it is not my policy—nor indeed are there enough hours in the day—to accede to every request. 
Sue Bradford 
: Will the Government reconsider its opposition to a universal child benefit in light of the very apparent fact raised by Mrs McLachlan that it is not only parents on the lowest wages or benefits who are facing real financial difficulties right now? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: No that is not the Government’s policy but I can say to hard-working families like the McLachlan family—and in this case the parents have chosen that the mum should be at home—that I believe the Budget will be a good Budget for working families such as theirs. 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: If Mrs McLachlan were prepared to come to Wellington with two television channel cameras six news media photographers and the parliamentary press gallery would the Prime Minister then be prepared to meet with her? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: I can tell the member that I had no idea Shrek would excite so much attention. 
Judy Turner 
: Does she consider a combined family income of $55000 to be wealthy even if it comes from one income source; if not why does her Government not value the contribution of those who choose to stay at home to raise children by splitting this income between both parents for tax purposes? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: No I do not consider that combined family income to be wealthy. It is as the facts would show above the average household income but it is not a wealthy income. I repeat again that the needs of families like this one will be addressed in the Budget. 
Dr Muriel Newman 
: Is the Prime Minister concerned that the tax burden on working families like the Waihi couple is too high; if so in light of recent Treasury work which calculates that moving New Zealand to an 18c in the dollar flat tax rate would cost less than the surplus that this Government has run up will she consider giving back the taxation surplus and introducing an 18c flat rate of tax in the Budget? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: I would have thought that the kind of flat across-the-board low tax rate that the member advocates would advantage most the wealthiest in the community. 
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: Can the Prime Minister confirm that if an 18c in the dollar flat tax rate were adopted apart from increasing tax on those on the lowest income it would offer Mrs McLachlan a good deal less than is going to occur in this year’s Budget? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: I am confident that the needs of families like these are to the forefront in the Government’s consideration in this Budget. 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The Prime Minister appears to be quoting from a document. Can I ask her to table it? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: No. That is a good point of order but as usual the point has been made. 
Rodney Hide 
: Does the Prime Minister believe that the hard-working McLachlans along with every hard-working New Zealander would be better off if we did go for a flat tax of 20c in the dollar; if not why not? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: I am now confused as to whether ACT’s policy is for an 18c flat tax rate or a 20c flat tax rate. 
Government Member 
: It depends who is leading at the time. 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: It depends who is leading at the time and we have heard from two of the aspirants so maybe these are the issues that are being debated in the primaries which I have to say are not preoccupying New Zealand at this time. 
The Government is approaching this year’s Budget with the needs of families like this family very much in mind not the needs of the richest families which ACT represents. 
Rodney Hide 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. It was very interesting to hear about ACT’s primaries from the Prime Minister but the question was whether she believes that this hard-working family would be better off with a flat tax of 20c in the dollar. She did not once address that question. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The Prime Minister did address it in the last part of her answer. If she wants to add to it she can. 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: My eminent colleague advises me that were we to go to a flat tax of 20c in the dollar families on $39000 and under would be worse off than they are at present. 
Education—Voucher Funding 
10.  
LYNNE PILLAY (Labour—Waitakere) 
 to the  
Minister of Education 
: What would be the key elements of a voucher funding system for education? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Minister of Education) 
: 
 Vouchers are an extreme right-wing form of user-pays where each parent is given what is effectively a deposit for his or her child’s education and that parent can spend it at any public or private school he or she chooses. Under a voucher system schools run like small businesses and parents who can afford to top up their voucher with their own money get access to the most desirable schools. Of course most voucher systems do not include a capital element. Schools currently cost about $15000 to $20000 per student to build. That would of course be an extra charge to parents—something poor parents would have a lot of trouble paying. 
Lynne Pillay 
: Has he seen any reports advocating the introduction of voucher funding for education? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: I have seen reports both ways. I have seen a report from the Hon Nick Smith in which he said: “The flaw in the scheme is that parental choice would depend on wallet size. Schools would rapidly become stratified based on fee size and free public education would be dead.” But then again Bill English and Don Brash are supporting vouchers. 
Hon Bill English 
: Can the Minister tell us why he has decided to attack voucher systems when our education system in New Zealand largely runs on vouchers? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: I want to make it absolutely clear to the House that because one happens to give teachers—based on roll size—operational grants based on numbers in a school does not mean that one has a voucher system. A voucher system’s key element is the ability of parents to top up to get their child into the school they want. That is what those Tories are advocating. 
Jim Peters 
: Does the Minister agree that our present system both primary and secondary does not need a cash value passport or an individual voucher to ensure educational access opportunities for all New Zealand children? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: Yes I do. 
Hon Bill English 
: If the Minister is concerned about top-ups from parents to school funding is he not aware that New Zealand schools currently employ 3700 teachers in addition to those for whom he pays their salary and that the average secondary school pulls in $200000 per year in parental fees and community fund-raising—and that is leaving out the international students who are contributing up to $1 million of revenue to many State schools? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: There is no doubt that there is considerable fund-raising by schools but in fact the extra amount paid by schools for teachers is less than the amount that the Government pays to them in operational grants. 
Students—Universal Allowance 
11.  
ROD DONALD (Co-Leader—Green) 
 to the  
Prime Minister 
: Does her Government intend to introduce a universal student allowance given her statement to the 1995 Labour Party conference that: “My aim is to return to a universal student allowance.”? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK (Prime Minister) 
: 
 No. However in my statement to Parliament in February I said that this year’s Budget will provide for more students to qualify for allowances from the 2005 academic year and the member will learn more about that on 27 May. 
Rod Donald 
: What message does that answer give to the 30000 students and other New Zealanders who signed the petition presented in Parliament today calling for an end to discrimination against students under 25 calling for an end to discrimination against students whose parents earn above a miserly $28000—a level that has not been inflation adjusted for 10 years—and calling for the introduction of a living allowance equivalent to the unemployment benefit? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: The message firstly as I have said is that the issue of how many qualify for the allowance will be addressed in the Budget. The message secondly is that this Government has to prioritise and if all students were to be paid at the level of the unemployment benefit it is estimated that the cost would be $5.5 billion over 4 years. 
Peter Brown 
: What representation has the Prime Minister or the Government had from the Greens and United Future in particular strongly advocating for the introduction of a student living allowance—any or none at all? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: I have seen various public statements from the Greens consistent with what has been said today in respect of any input United Future might have had into the Budget. That is a matter that would have to be addressed to the Minister of Finance. 
Hon Peter Dunne 
: Is the Prime Minister of the view that the existing parental income threshold set in 1992 is too low and that the 25-year age categorisation for eligibility for student support is too high; and are those matters that will be addressed as they are matters that have been raised with her colleague by United Future over the last few months in discussions? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: The answer to the first part of the question is yes the threshold for eligibility needs to be addressed. In respect of the second part yes we could all mount coherent arguments as to why 25 is too high; the problem is that reducing it also costs money and the Government has over 4½ years put quite a lot more money into tertiary education. It has also enabled students to have fees frozen and then to have increases from this year capped at quite low levels of increase plus it has done quite a lot on the student loans side. But the amount of money taken out of tertiary education in the 1990s was so great that it cannot be rectified overnight. 
Peter Brown 
: Is it not possible that a student living allowance could be phased in over a period of years? Is that part of the Government’s plans; if so how long will it take to phase it in to equal the unemployment benefit? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: No it is not part of our plan. What we are doing as I have said is making some adjustments to bring more students into the allowance net in this year’s Budget. 
Rod Donald 
: Does the Prime Minister agree that her statement in her 1995 speech that “I don’t want young people’s lives blighted by huge debts they can never pay off.” sounds hollow given that student debt has risen from $2.8 billion when she became Prime Minister to over $7 billion now? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: As the member will be aware the level of debt per student has flattened out since the Government came in and certain changes were made. Of course not only has there been the change that interest is not charged during the period while students are studying but also the repayment terms are fairer than they were in the past. 
Rod Donald 
: How does the Prime Minister justify the retention of tertiary policies such as the targeted allowance tuition fees at their current level and the loan scheme when they have been clearly shown to discriminate against women? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: When the Government put out the consultation document on student support research was brought together on the way in which New Zealand students overall were treated as against students in other Western countries and the conclusion that was drawn was that students in New Zealand on average are treated pretty much the same as students elsewhere. It would be nice to do all sorts of things but the Government does have to prioritise. 
Families—One-income Families 
12.  
JUDY TURNER (United Future) 
 to the  
Minister for Social Development and Employment 
: Does the Minister stand by his statement on National Radio yesterday that to have one parent work while the other parent stays at home to raise children “should be an ambition”; if so does he think that this is no longer possible on a single income of $55000 a year? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY (Minister for Social Development and Employment) 
: 
Yes I do stand by my statement. This Government has been ambitious for New Zealand families since its election. For example we have pursued job-rich growth and put 170000 New Zealanders into work. We have lifted the minimum wage every year. We have brought in paid parental leave we have increased the childcare assistance package—and I could go on. All of this is in stark contrast to the previous Government which tried to turn New Zealand into a low-wage low-skill ghetto. 
Judy Turner 
: Does he agree that in seeking to return more parents into the workforce by increasing childcare subsidies the Government is effectively penalising those parents who are ambitious to stay at home over and above the income they lose by bringing in only one wage; if not why not? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: No I do not. This Government like Governments all around the world is aware that New Zealanders do want to earn an income. We stand by our childcare policies that once again we will continue to improve so that people are able to go to work are able to afford childcare and are able to get a living wage. 
Georgina Beyer 
: What has the Government been doing to support families raising children? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: This Government is family friendly and along with United Future for example we have been involved in establishing the Families Commission which will oversee changes that will be all in the interests of families. On top of that we have been ensuring that families earn a decent income. We have been putting in place industrial relations regimes that allow for proper decent civilised bargaining we have invested in health and education to ensure that children have a good start in life we have instituted the paid parental leave provisions childcare out-of-school assistance income-related rents the minimum wage benefits being given to people when they are entitled to them and as Dr Cullen has signalled this Budget will be one that is good for middle New Zealand. 
Sue Kedgley 
: Is he aware that there is international research demonstrating that children benefit from having a parent at home in their early years; if so what policies does the Government have in place specifically to assist those parents who choose to stay at home while their children are young other than the domestic purposes benefit? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: Yes I am aware of research that suggests that it is good for parents to be able to look after their children particularly in the early years. Yes the Government would like to see either men or women stay at home to look after those children. The best way to do that is to ensure they can earn a decent living so that they can look after their family. 
Judy Turner 
: Does the Minister think it is acceptable that while some ambitious families struggle on a single income because they decide to have one parent at home to raise the children the Government has paid for 24728 people on the domestic purposes benefit to have additional children while on the benefit over the last 5 years; if so why? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: I cannot remember the Government—in fact any Government—paying for people to have children. 
Judy Turner 
: I seek leave to table a response to a written question that states that 24728 people on the domestic purposes benefit have had additional children. 
Document not tabled. 
Points of Order 
Parliamentary Membership—Labour Party 
Hon RICHARD PREBBLE (Leader—ACT) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I wish to raise a question about the order of the House—I did not want to interrupt question time—under Standing Order 35 and invite you to make a Speaker’s ruling about Standing Order 35. Standing Order 35 states that a party must inform the Speaker of its parliamentary membership. The Speaker must be informed of any change in those matters. You have advised the House that you have not been advised of the change in membership but the whole House saw the Clerk advise you that the Labour Party vote was one too many. 
It would appear that there has actually been a change in the Labour Party membership. Standing Order 35 requires a party to advise that change promptly. The reason for that is obvious because things like funding and the like follow a statement by the party under Standing Order 35. If a party did not have to advise promptly it could fail to tell the House that there had been a change for maybe—what is it—16 months to the next election and then say: “By the way there has been a change.” I think we need to have a ruling from you that if a party is aware that there has been a change in its membership then the Speaker should be advised immediately of that fact. 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Leader of the House) 
: 
 I think the member has made a perfectly fair and accurate point that once a party has been notified of a change it should notify the Speaker of that change—for the reasons raised by the member. In the particular case being referred to of course the Labour Party has not received any official notification of a change in its membership. In a situation where public statements have been made to the contrary we took the cautious position of voting 51. It subsequently turns out that we are still entitled to 52 votes. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I refer members to Speaker’s ruling 5/7. The Speaker acts on formal advice and does not take the initiative. How members conduct themselves politically is a matter for them to determine. 
Urgent Debates Declined 
Tariana Turia—Ministerial Dismissal 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I have received a letter from Gerry Brownlee seeking to debate under Standing Order 373 the dismissal of Tariana Turia from the Government. This is a particular case of recent occurrence involving ministerial responsibility. 
On 24 February 2004 I ruled on an application for an urgent debate concerning the resignation of the Minister of Immigration. I indicated that I was prepared to accept that application but that on that day there was another issue that took priority for a debate. I did say that not all ministerial resignations lead to an urgent debate. 
I have looked back to the results of ministerial resignations and dismissals in terms of urgent debates. In 2000 I allowed an urgent debate on the dismissal of the Minister of Maori Affairs. During the period 1990 to 1999 three applications to debate dismissals or resignations were accepted. One related to the Prime Minister himself and three were declined. 
In the present case there are two factors that help to persuade me not to accept this application. First the dismissed Minister though of Cabinet rank was not in Cabinet. Secondly the issue that has led to Mrs Turia’s dismissal—the foreshore and seabed legislation—is on the Order Paper and was foreshadowed in the Leader of the House’s last business statement for debate this Thursday. The dismissal will clearly be relevant in that debate. In those circumstances the House does not need to hold an urgent debate on the matter today. 
GERRY BROWNLEE (Deputy Leader—National) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Can you tell us how under the Standing Orders a debate on the seabed and foreshore will enable Opposition parties to discuss Tariana Turia’s dismissal given that they have only six speeches amongst them—and of course one Opposition party supports the Government from time to time. 
 It seems to me that the circumstances surrounding her dismissal are quite considerable. They lead quite unusually in terms of the last two Parliaments to a very precarious position for the Government unlike any of the other ministerial resignations or terminations. This resignation has gone further and causes a by-election. For a Parliament to be denied a right to express some views on this matter I think is quite unacceptable. 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Leader of the House) 
: 
 I wish to respond to one point only; the rest I regard as matters of judgment. On the last point there is no ministerial responsibility for the fact that the resignation has triggered a by-election. That is purely a choice made by Mrs Turia; not a choice made by the Government. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: It has not triggered one yet because I have not received any advice to that effect from the member. I am not going to relitigate my ruling. I have explained it. 
Hon RICHARD PREBBLE (Leader—ACT) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I am curious about a matter. We have to accept your ruling but you kept referring to the member’s resignation. We have learnt today that this was not a resignation. Maybe firings are now day-to-day affairs but when I was fired it was the first in 150 years. So I am a little surprised that you think a firing is now a day-to-day matter. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: If the member listened to my ruling very carefully he would know I talked about dismissal. I did not talk in relation to this case about resignation. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I want to proceed. I have ruled on this matter. 
GERRY BROWNLEE (Deputy Leader—National) 
: 
 I seek leave for there to be a snap debate under the usual conditions on the matter of Tariana Turia’s dismissal from Cabinet. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought for that. Is there any objection? There is. 
New Zealand Superannuation Amendment Bill 
First Reading 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY (Minister for Social Development and Employment) 
: 
 I move  
That the New Zealand Superannuation Amendment Bill be now read a first time. 
 At the end of the debate I intend to move that the bill be referred to the Social Services Committee for consideration. 
This bill repeals the Retirement Income Act of 1993. That Act was passed in 1993 to give effect to certain provisions in the accord on retirement income policies. The accord proposed in the Retirement Income Act established the role of the Retirement Commissioner and a requirement for 6-yearly periodic reports on retirement income policy. 
In recent years several developments have occurred that have called into question the appropriateness of the Retirement Income Act. The first of these relates to the non-observance of the accord. The accord has fallen into disuse since 1998. Many of the processes established by the accord are no longer followed. For example in the past accord signatories would meet on an irregular basis when there were issues to discuss. There have been no such meetings since 1999. The accord’s falling into disuse has created some practical issues in terms of the responsible Minister meeting his or her obligations under the Retirement Income Act. For example when appointing the Retirement Commissioner the Minister must have regard to the accord and consult other signatories to that accord. 
The second change has been the introduction of the New Zealand Superannuation Act in 2001. That Act provides for current entitlements to New Zealand superannuation and creates the New Zealand Superannuation Fund. Schedule 4 of the Act allows political parties to indicate support for either or both parts of the Act. This provides a new opportunity for political parties to indicate their support for retirement income policies and supersedes the need for the accord provisions currently set out in the Retirement Income Act. [ 
Interruption 
] I do acknowledge the support of the Labour junior whip in this matter; he has just been away increasing his erudition in Europe and I see he has brought it to bear early on his return. 
Finally the continued need for 6-yearly periodic reviews has also been questioned. The most recent periodic report was completed by the 2003 periodic report group. This group recommended the establishment of an ongoing work programme to replace the 6-yearly periodic reviews. The periodic report group considered the 6-yearly policy reviews were too infrequent to adequately inform retirement income policy. The Government agrees with the removal of the 6-yearly review. Removing the requirement for periodic reports will ensure that the monitoring and development of retirement income policies is more flexible and responsive. Accordingly the bill removes the requirement for 6-yearly periodic reports. 
As a consequence of the changes I have outlined the Retirement Income Act should be repealed. The provisions relating to the Retirement Commissioner will be transferred to the New Zealand Superannuation Act. Any reference to the accord or the requirement for 6-yearly periodic reports on retirement policy will not be transferred. 
The bill also makes some changes to the existing functions powers and appointment of the Retirement Commissioner. This reflects the Government’s new framework for Crown entities as set out in the Public Finance (State Sector Management) Bill that is currently before the Finance and Expenditure Committee. These changes will provide a consistent framework for the governance and operation of all Crown entities including the Retirement Commissioner. 
In addition there is an implication for the term of office of the current Retirement Commissioner caused by the removal of the requirement for 6-yearly periodic reports. Under the Retirement Act the Retirement Commissioner’s term of office ends on the day on which a copy of the first periodic report prepared following his or her appointment is laid before the House of Representatives. It is therefore necessary to include in the bill a provision to fix the term of office of the current Retirement Commissioner to expire on 16 January 2010. This is based on the latest date that the next periodic report would have been presented to the House under current provisions. 
Consistent with the consultation requirements in the New Zealand Superannuation Act I wrote to the leaders of the other parliamentary parties advising them of the introduction of the bill and proposed amendments. Some parties replied in agreement and others sought briefings. As required by section 73 of the New Zealand Superannuation Act the Minister of Finance has provided a statement about the consultation process and its outcome. The statement is contained within the bill’s explanatory note. 
The amendments contained in the bill will ensure that the retirement income policy framework more closely reflects the current environment. It will allow for a more flexible and responsive environment for retirement income policy. The bill will also consolidate key retirement income policies under one Act the New Zealand Superannuation Act. My understanding is that all members of the House and all parties in the House are aware of the changes in this bill and are aware of the common-sense nature of them. I therefore look forward to no doubt debate but also agreement as this legislation moves its way through the House. I commend the bill to the House and to the debate. 
JOHN KEY (National—Helensville) 
: 
 National will be supporting the New Zealand Superannuation Amendment Bill as it goes through the Social Services Committee. 
In my opinion the demographics of this nation in terms of superannuation is one of the most important issues we face. Most New Zealanders will be aware that there is a huge demographic avalanche of aging population coming down the wire so to speak. It begins in 2011 when the first of the baby boomers start retiring and moves out until the end of the 2020s when the likes of myself—a late baby boomer—will be starting my retirement which will no doubt be well earned. The interesting aspect of that avalanche of older New Zealanders coming down the wire is the demographic implications it will have on the number of people working. If we sit back for a moment to contemplate we are talking about the current situation where one in eight New Zealanders is aged over 65 but within about 30 to 40 years that number will move to one in four New Zealanders aged over 65. To put it another way the number of New Zealanders supporting somebody on the New Zealand Superannuation Fund will decline rapidly and it will become increasingly difficult to fund that pension. So the whole issue of New Zealand superannuation and demographic changes is extremely significant. 
As the Minister quite correctly pointed out this bill looks to repeal the Retirement Income Act of 1993 and its main provisions are to move the functions powers and appointment of the Retirement Commissioner to the New Zealand Superannuation Act of 2001. The Retirement Commissioner’s present functions are extremely significant because of the changes that are taking place. One of the issues the Retirement Commissioner needs to look at is the impact of New Zealand superannuation. The issue of whether New Zealand superannuation can fund a lifestyle for those who want to have retirement is really driven by whether one believes that its current funding—at about $20000 per annum for a married couple or $12000 for an individual—is enough to sustain a long-term retirement and what would be the implications of growth on those payments. 
I say this because New Zealand superannuation is linked solely to the payment of the average wage so if the average wage increases on a relative basis the amount of funding going to the elderly in the community goes up. If New Zealand continues to grow as predicted by Treasury in its long-term forecasts at about 1.5 percent then in 20 years from now average married couples will receive $27000 as opposed to the $20000 they receive today. Yet if New Zealand could grow on average just 0.5 percent more year in year out on a per capita basis then that $27000 would move up by over $8000 to $35000 a year. 
It may seem a little strange that I am making the case for growth when theoretically we are in a Parliament that signs up to growth and the Government tells members that it is pro-growth but I say it because the Budget that the Minister of Finance is about to deliver in just a few weeks’ time will do absolutely nothing for growth in New Zealand and the Treasury forecasts tell him exactly that. This is why under the Official Information Act he tried to stop me from getting the recent document of Treasury’s own assessments of growth forecast for New Zealand. That is why he prevented me from having that document even though he got Treasury to sneak it out on its website on a Friday afternoon hoping we would not see it. I hope the Minister of Finance will address the issue of growth in his up-and-coming Budget so that New Zealand superannuation can be given the treatment that it really deserves and our elderly can have a higher standard of living in their retirement. 
Darren Hughes 
: National Party policy on the hoof! 
JOHN KEY 
: That is what we would like to see not a redistribution on the basis that no doubt Mr Hughes would be asking for. 
One of the things that the bill also looks to do is to repeal the 6-yearly reviews—there have been two of them—by the periodic report group. That group did some very good work in looking at the overall impact of superannuation issues. In fact when the Minister appointed the most recent group he said he had asked it to focus on ways to improve amongst other things the private provision for retirement income. Most people will know that the recent periodic report group was headed by Vance Arkinstall who did a good job of presenting the issues as they related to the industry. The reason that overall stocktake review is being repealed is simply that it has been decided that an ongoing work programme is more necessary and beneficial on a yearly basis as opposed to 6-yearly review of the overall stocktake. 
When the National Party received a briefing from the Minister’s officials we made it quite clear that we supported this ongoing work programme because of the importance of the superannuation issue but we did make the point that there were no provisions as we currently see it for an overall stocktake and no provisions at all to demand that it actually took place. There is a risk that when one has an individual work programme looking at individual silos as they operate within the superannuation area the overall review of issues facing New Zealand is not addressed fully. We have asked the officials and the Minister to consider this issue. It is noted in the explanatory note of the bill and National will make sure the issue of overall stocktake and overall review of the provisions is addressed in the select committee. 
As I said earlier there is no doubt that New Zealand superannuation is one of the heftiest bills the Government faces and it will increase dramatically. It is so hefty that it currently costs $5 billion to provide New Zealand superannuation to superannuitants in this country and that is an amount equivalent to 4 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). As the demographics I discussed earlier change and as the baby boomers retire and the bulge flows through there will be a huge increase in the cost of New Zealand superannuation. We will see that increase go up to about 8 percent of GDP which will be a massive nominal amount of spending on behalf of the Government. 
It is one of the reasons why the periodic report group suggested three possible outcomes to address the sustainability of the issue and they were: increasing the age of eligibility altering the way that New Zealand superannuation rates are set or means testing of entitlement. They were the three options that the periodic report group gave and I have made a number of public comments related to those. It is my opinion that at some future date the age of eligibility is likely to increase in New Zealand irrespective of which political party is in power. It will come quite simply because New Zealanders will continue to live a lot longer and in my opinion they will demand more of their own capital so that they can enjoy retirement. 
I say that because  
The Economist 
 ran a very interesting review on retirement savings recently. It pointed out that longevity has been going up at the rate of 2½ years per decade. It has certainly been increasing and currently in New Zealand the average age of longevity for a man is 76 years and for a woman 81 years. Those numbers will flow further out and I do not think it is too hard to believe that in 30 years from now the average age of longevity for a New Zealander will be somewhere around the late eighties to 90 years of age. New Zealanders will live a lot longer in their retirement they will need a lot more of their own private sector capital and the fact that people will want to retire slightly later and have more private sector capital makes a great deal of sense. 
National will support the bill as I said earlier but we will monitor it as it goes through the select committee process. We will ensure that this very important issue of national significance gets the treatment that it deserves under the new New Zealand Superannuation Amendment Bill. 
Hon MATT ROBSON (Deputy Leader—Progressive) 
: 
 It is a pleasure on behalf of the Labour-Progressive coalition Government to follow a self-confessed late baby-boomer. I can assure him that if this legislation is followed through—and I listened to his support—it will provide a further step in the safety and security of our superannuitants and it was good to hear him acknowledge that. 
The Progressive party strongly supports the legislation because it aims to give back to New Zealanders the security of mind and finances that previously they had a decade ago. A decade ago the Progressive leader Jim Anderton successfully promoted the multi-party accord on retirement income to which all responsible parliamentary parties were able to pledge their support. That accord had the solemn commitment of the major parties in Parliament. It set a minimum threshold beyond which pensions would not fall and to which all responsible parties could commit. At the time that Jim Anderton promoted the accord it was a political lifeline to both National and Labour because both parties had made then broken commitments to the public of New Zealand regarding superannuation and regarding surtaxes in particular. I must say that it was a very different Labour Party from what it is today. 
It is of course an outrage that the National Party of New Zealand which signed the accord in the early 1990s to get out of an electoral hole in recent years has ripped it up. National used an Asian financial crisis to abrogate its commitment to the accord. In recent times National has added insult to injury. National now states that there can be no guarantee that the current relative level of superannuation will be available in coming years to those aged over 65. National is a fair-weather friend not only to the retired of this country but to every New Zealander who works in anticipation of one day retiring with dignity. National is still playing the awful games that it played with New Zealanders in 1990 when it went into an election specifically promising to get rid of the surtax only to do the opposite once elected. That is a lesson for New Zealanders to remember—National promises one thing before an election then does the opposite after it. 
In 1990-91 I was a member of the NewLabour Party. One of the great outrages back then was that we actually had a treasury department working on instructions from its political masters in the then National Government that studied ways of severely restricting access to pensions. Treasury was busy working on ways to raise the age of entitlement to pensions to well over the age of 70—that is right; well over the age of 70. If the National Party had had its way no one would have received a pension until aged 70 75 or even 80. It said that would be fiscally responsible because the overwhelming majority of Pakeha males Maori males and Maori females would never reach the age of entitlement. That is the callous policy that was relied on: the people in those groups—Pakeha males Maori males and Maori females—would not have reached those ages and therefore the pension would not have had to be paid to them. In 1991 the non-Maori male life expectancy rate was 73.3 years and the Maori male life expectancy rate was 67.9 years. Maori females lived on average until 72.9 years of age. Progressive forces rallied however to put an end to the new-right madness in the early 1990s and we must do it again at the next general election as I am sure people realise. Never again in my opinion must the National Party and its friends be allowed to abandon those in need. 
This bill consolidates the law relating to New Zealand superannuation by repealing the Retirement Income Act which was passed in 1993 to give legal effect to the accord on retirement income. The bill continues the Office of the Retirement Commissioner and makes provision for the appointment of the commissioner qualifications for appointment disqualification from appointment and conditions that must be satisfied before a person can be appointed. This Labour-Progressive coalition Government has provided a further step toward fairness for superannuitants with this legislation. The Progressive party is proud to be associated with such a progressive step. 
CRAIG McNAIR (NZ First) 
: 
 On behalf of New Zealand First I want to say that we will support the New Zealand Superannuation Amendment Bill to the select committee. I remind the House that until New Zealand First arrived on the political scene no Government in this country had ever really confronted the problem of funding or creating a long-term savings base for the future of all New Zealanders regardless of gender or economic background. Instead Governments relied on ineffectual political devices like the superannuation accord which we have just heard about—which New Zealand First refused to sign—an equally ineffectual superannuation task force and expensive public relations campaigns. 
Unfortunately for the elderly successive Governments have tinkered with the standard of living of elderly New Zealanders. Many citizens who have made their contribution and who are entitled to live in some degree of financial security now live in a state of insecurity because the State cannot be trusted to treat them fairly in their declining years. 
During the first term of the present Government New Zealand First voted to support the “Cullen fund” which was set up to help finance the pension bulge in about 20 years or so. It was a long way short of what we as a party wanted but it was a start and we hope to do better after the next election in 2005. Our debt level and balance of payments problems will never be overcome until we accept that national savings are critical to our future economic development and the eventual freedom from dependence on foreign money. 
The bill consolidates the law relating to New Zealand superannuation by repealing the Retirement Income Act and transferring certain provisions—notably those relating to the Retirement Commissioner—to the New Zealand Superannuation Act. I look forward to sitting on the select committee—if the bill comes to the Finance and Expenditure Committee—in order to see that it becomes good legislation that is worthwhile to vote for. We support this bill to the select committee. 
ROD DONALD (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 The Green Party will be supporting the New Zealand Superannuation Amendment Bill to the select committee. This bill recognises that the accord between the Alliance Labour National and later the United Party is now very much part of our history and that therefore that part of the Retirement Income Act is no longer functional. 
On that particular point of course this amendment bill will now become part of the New Zealand Superannuation Act. It is well known in this House that the Green Party strongly supports Part 1 of that Act which guarantees the universal public provision of superannuation to New Zealanders of retirement age—in other words those people who reach the age of 65 years. What is more we support couples who reach that age receiving 65 percent of the average wage after tax and individuals getting 60 percent of that amount. 
We also made it very clear during the debate on that legislation that we did not support Part 2 of the legislation which is the introduction of the New Zealand Superannuation Fund because we have grave fears that investing our savings—our taxes—on the overseas sharemarket will not give New Zealanders the certainty and security in retirement that they deserve. 
I could talk at length about that—and inevitably will when we come to the Budget—but today in relation to this bill I want to focus on the fact that I listened very carefully to the speech made by John Key of the National Party to see whether he would use the opportunity of debating the New Zealand Superannuation Amendment Bill to make a commitment on behalf of the National Opposition to Part 1 of the Act which is about to be amended by this bill. We did not hear a single dicky bird from the National Party. What we heard was that it wants people to have security in their retirement. What we did not hear was that the National Party will finally sign up to Part 1 of the New Zealand Superannuation Act. 
So we are in the extraordinary position whereby the second-largest party in this House—the party that is the pretender to Government—is not prepared to guarantee New Zealanders certainty in their retirement. I think it is worth highlighting the point given that we are introducing a bill that will repeal the accord that Part 1 of the legislation that has in effect replaced the accord has not been supported by National. There is an inherent contradiction within the National Party because former leader Bill English made the commitment during the third reading debate on the New Zealand Superannuation Bill that National supported Part 1. He made that commitment because he said “New Zealand can afford the payment of 65 percent of the average wage to married couples at age 65.” National’s new leader Don Brash has instead said that those of us who are under 50 will look forward to having to work beyond the age of 65. He is not being specific about how far beyond because we have learnt in relation to nuclear ships and other issues in recent days that the leader of the National Party is not prepared to be specific about anything that he knows will be unpopular. It is certainly very unpopular amongst New Zealanders that National plans to lift the age of retirement. 
Returning to the bill and the other key feature within it I point out that the consultation process spells out that the Green Party was consulted—and indeed we were—but it also states that no concerns were raised about the proposed amendments. I must say that it was a verbal conversation before the adjournment but my recollection is that we did raise some concerns about abolishing the periodic report groups. 
I think the explanatory note in the bill is a little disingenuous in stating that the Government has decided to accept the recommendation of the Periodic Report Group 2003 to remove the periodic reporting function when in fact the periodic report group actually said that a policy review only once every 6 years was too infrequent to adequately inform retirement income policy. Our position on that which is one that we are looking forward to exploring further in the select committee process is to ensure that there is an ongoing work programme and that there is some consultation with independent experts. We cannot do better at this stage than what the periodic report group proposed in its own report which was to establish a work-based savings group and a process for the ongoing monitoring of savings tax and regulatory issues. That was coupled with an advisory group to create a mechanism for stakeholders to provide comment and input into the work programme. 
We saw great value in an advisory group or in a periodic report group that included employers unions finance industry representatives and other experts. I certainly enjoyed making a submission to that group and I very much enjoyed the searching questions that it asked of me. I am sure that other parties and other submitters found the experience equally valuable. More to the point I hope that the group made good use of our input and indeed I believe it did in its report. 
The main benefit that I felt came from the periodic report group 2003 was the fact that it got around one table all the key players and representatives of all the key sectors that have an interest in retirement. There were representatives of working people with the combined trade unions representatives of employers representatives of the Government the Retirement Commissioner and people such as Vance Arkinstall from the financial services industry. That led to all the benefits of the dialogue and the discussion that come about when people who have a common cause up to a point but differences in ways of achieving it can have a meaningful dialogue discover what they do have in common recognise perhaps where there are opportunities to achieve a change in position without necessarily sacrificing anyone’s principles and also perhaps occasionally agree to disagree. Out of that flows a whole lot of benefits that cannot easily be quantified in a report but that I believe are benefits we would lose if this bill proceeds as it is and abolishes the Periodic Report Group. 
So with that one change to the legislation that I would like to foreshadow I confirm that the Green Party will be voting for the first reading of this bill. 
RODNEY HIDE (ACT) 
: 
 We should say as MPs that the pension at 65 years old and of 65 percent of the average wage for a married couple is not sustainable in New Zealand. We can show that very simply by going back just about 30 years to Sir Robert Muldoon winning the election in 1975 by making an unsustainable election promise which was retirement at age 60 with a pension of 80 percent of the average wage for a married couple. That entitlement works out to be twice what the entitlement is for a retired person now. If we take that 5 years and go from 65 to 80 percent the entitlement is double what it is now. So over 30 years the pension entitlement of New Zealand citizens has been halved. Sir Robert Muldoon campaigned through the country and said for people not to worry; his promise was sustainable. Well it was not. It was not then and it is not now. A lot of heartache was caused for a lot of people. 
Jill Pettis 
: Yes and we lost the election. 
RODNEY HIDE 
: Yes I hear what Jill Pettis said. She called out that they lost the election—because the National Party and Sir Robert Muldoon stole the election with an unsustainable election promise and did away with the Norm Kirk scheme. He said: “Oh don’t worry about Norm Kirk’s scheme. I will give you the benefit of 30 years’ saving now.” That was the promise and so New Zealanders believed it. 
What happened? Subsequent politicians through various political manoeuvrings had to reduce the entitlement. Why? Was it because politicians are hard-hearted and do not care about the elderly? No! Every political party cares about the elderly in New Zealand. But the problem was that since Robert Muldoon’s day—1975—the number of New Zealanders over the age of 60 has doubled. That was the problem. It was not whether MPs cared or whether political parties knew how tough it was to live in New Zealand on a pension. It was a problem of arithmetic; twice as many pensioners require twice as much money. So there was hardship social upheaval and political squabbles as we saw the pension entitlement reduced by shifting the age of retirement out and having the level of the pension itself reduced. 
Let us be honest here: not one political party covered itself in glory—not one. In the heat of election campaigns politicians made promises they could not meet and in office they changed them. The political imperative is tonight’s  
Holmes 
 show tomorrow’s debate in the House and the coming election. That is how far ahead we look as politicians. But for working people and for the elderly pension policy is about the next 30 years 50 years—our children’s entire lifetime. That is the time frame they are looking to. So working people who voted for Sir Robert—believing him—now retire to find that that promise was worthless. 
What do we have now? No one disagrees with this analysis. The number of elderly over the next 30 years is set to double again. In fact it is set to more than double—from about 470000 over the age of 65 to 1.3 million. The number of retired people is set to more than double. We can stand here today in Parliament and say: “65 percent at 65 years old” safe in the knowledge that the decision makers in the Government will not be in Parliament when that hits. [ 
Interruption 
] Well Darren Hughes thinks he might be. I ask him then to surrender his MP’s pension and survive on the pension that every other New Zealander has to look forward to. 
It is not in dispute either that if we are to keep that pension—all things being equal—the amount of income tax we will have to raise increases by 25 percent. That is every rate of tax has to go up by 25 percent. The 39c-rate must go up. The 33c-rate the 21c-rate—every rate of tax must go up. So what did Prime Minister Helen Clark do at the last election? She said: “Don’t worry. Vote for me and I’ll put it back to 65 percent and in 2 years’ time you’ll be $23 a week better off.” That is what the Prime Minister said and they asked how she was going to pay for it. She said: “Don’t worry. We’re going to have this big fund and the Government is going to tax the rich and save the money and look after you in your retirement.” Baloney! 
Jill Pettis 
: What a good idea. 
RODNEY HIDE 
: Jill Pettis says that that is a good idea. It might be a good idea if that is what the Prime Minister and Michael Cullen were doing. But the amount of money they are putting away—a couple of billion dollars a year—will provide on average for only 10 percent of the cost of pensions in the future. Is that true or false I ask Ms Pettis? 
Jill Pettis 
: We have provided our answer; you provide yours. 
RODNEY HIDE 
: She will not even tell us whether a simple piece of arithmetic is true or false. I tell the member not to worry. Treasury has done the numbers and Michael Cullen has confirmed it: the pension saving scheme of this Labour Government will provide for only 10 percent of the cost of the pension in the future. Well that is funny is it not? That might be all right if the number of elderly was going to go up by only 10 percent but—whoops—it is going to go up by 120 percent. 
Darren Hughes 
: I’m going to vote for Muriel Newman. I’m donating $10 to her. 
RODNEY HIDE 
: I know that Darren Hughes does not think that the pension of elderly people in New Zealand is very important and is something worth joking about and that the rip-off of the working people of New Zealand is something to interject about. But I tell him that it is a cheating system. It is cheating to put aside 10 percent and say that will cover an increase in costs for a rise of 120 or 130 percent. I know that this Government does not like to discuss people’s pensions— 
Darren Hughes 
: Oh yes we do. 
RODNEY HIDE 
: Oh well what we are going to do is—yes—support this bill going to the select committee but I want Darren Hughes and Ms Jill Pettis to front up and provide some explanations of what pensions will be for New Zealanders in 20 years’ time and in 30 years’ time. While they might laugh about it and while they might be happy to have their MP’s pensions why do they not think about ordinary New Zealanders for a change? 
GORDON COPELAND (United Future) 
: 
 I must say it is something of a hardship to follow on from the previous speaker. He took his full 10 minutes and if any pensioners were listening to that speech they would not have heard one thing that would give them reassurance about this superannuation issue or a good night’s sleep. It was a definition of the obstacles and problems but offered no solutions whatsoever. 
Rodney Hide 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. If that member wants to concede 3 minutes I am happy to tell him what needs to be done. 
Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: That is not a point of order. To interrupt a member’s speech like that is not correct. 
GORDON COPELAND 
: I think there is some hope on the horizon for our elderly people and United Future has some answers to the kinds of problems that have been outlined by Rodney Hide even though he has not been able to come up with any answers. First of all I would like to say that United Future deeply regrets the collapse of the superannuation accord. It was a very good attempt by the parties of the day to try to take this whole question out of the party political arena and to come together in unity so that we could give some assurance to the elderly people of this country that we had the means and a viable plan to provide for their pensions in retirement. Right now I still hope that in this Parliament the various parties can also agree on one or two things that need to be done and quickly if we are to achieve that goal. 
The first issue is that we need to do more to encourage people to make private provision for their own superannuation. I agree with Rodney Hide that we have to ask New Zealanders to do their bit personally if they are to have a reasonable standard of living in their retirement. 
There is a truism that applies to public policy: if the Government encourages something we get more of it; if the Government discourages something we get less of it. Right now the Government is discouraging New Zealanders from making private provision by virtue of the fact that the funds they earn on their pension schemes are taxed at a flat rate of 33c in the dollar even though 45 percent of New Zealanders are paying income tax at less than 33c in the dollar. That is a positive discouragement to save for retirement and I for one would continue to challenge the Government to address that issue in this year’s Budget and to ensure that marginal tax rates for those who pay tax at less than 33c in the dollar—normally at 21c in the dollar—will be reduced accordingly on the earnings of their pension fund. Going back to that truism we can then confidently expect that we will see some increase in private provision for retirement. 
I also think the Government needs to continue to give a strong lead in encouraging employment-based schemes to that goal. It is already doing that by again adopting—and I applaud that move—employer-subsidised schemes within the public sector. We now need to have companies and all other New Zealanders following suit and beginning to squirrel funds away for their own retirement. 
Notwithstanding the collapse of the superannuation accord I suggest that those parties in the House that have yet to make up their minds about Parts 1 and 2 of the New Zealand Superannuation Act should come to a decision rapidly. Like Rod Donald I listened to John Key from the National Party. I heard no commitment to Parts 1 or 2. Between now and the next election which is probably about 18 months away we need to see the National Party come out very very clearly and say that it will support those two parts. If it will not support them it should give people something a lot better than just simply saying that they may have to work a bit longer until they get a pension. 
That is the only concrete proposal that we have heard from the National Party so far. We have heard nothing in terms of solutions except: “You’ll just have to stay in the workforce longer.” That is not good enough. It behoves the National Party if it will not support Parts 1 and 2 to say so and say so quickly and come up with some viable alternatives. Otherwise again we will have our elderly people—that great number of New Zealanders as the baby-boomers start to hit 65—right now starting to think very seriously about hitting that age and how they will survive during their retirement. Time is short and we need to move and to move on it quickly. 
One other point occurred to me while John Key was speaking. He said that at the moment the New Zealand taxpayer pays $5 billion a year to meet the cost of pensions. He then went on to say that that would double. It is an interesting figure because our party has calculated that family breakdown is costing the New Zealand taxpayer $5 billion a year. We hear gloom and despair from Rodney Hide and others about superannuation but we need to look for positive solutions. That piece of arithmetic tells me that if we can put some real effort into rebuilding and strengthening families over the next 10 to 15 years and therefore reduce the cost of family breakdown—which will take a generation to achieve so it fits with the subject of superannuation—then from those savings we could sign off and say: “Yes we can undoubtedly afford the “65 at 65” principle. 
That is a goal we should all look to achieve and look for some positive and innovative solutions rather than throwing up our hands in despair and filling the minds and hearts of a lot of Kiwis with much gloom and doom quite unnecessarily. There are ways forward. We need to find them and we need to work on it urgently as a Parliament. 
United Future will support the first reading of this bill. 
DAVID PARKER (Labour—Otago) 
: 
 I rise in support of the bill. The need for it arises from the fact that the accord on retirement income has fallen into disuse. The Retirement Income Act which this bill repeals has become redundant through the passage of time. 
I agree with Gordon Copeland that it is important to plan properly for superannuation savings so as to make it more likely that future State-funded schemes are able to be funded but also to enable them to be supplemented by private contribution-based schemes. I also agree with him that the lead taken by the Government in introducing contribution-based schemes partly funded by employer contributions goes some way to meeting that need. A lot more has to be done. I am keen to see this bill proceed to the select committee so I recommend it to the House. 
PANSY WONG (National) 
: 
 The National Party will support this bill to the Social Services Committee. However I would like to point out that the explanatory note of the bill under the heading: “Results of the consultation” states that the National Party was very serious in raising the issue of the desirability of requiring the Retirement Commissioner to undertake a regular overall stocktake of retirement income issues and then to report it preferably with that reporting timetable linked to the statement on long-term fiscal position proposed in the Public Finance (State Sector Management) Bill. 
Some of the previous debates have been wide of the mark. This bill acknowledges that the superannuation accord has not been in operation for many years and that it transfers the Office of the Retirement Commissioner to the jurisdiction of this bill. I have some concerns and the National Party raised the very good point about this retirement office that in order to be seen to be independent and have integrity commenting on the various retirement income policies it has to report directly to Parliament and be subject to public scrutiny. 
 I raise that because section 93 “Functions” in new Part 4 inserted by clause 6 states that the functions of the Retirement Commissioner include: “(a) to develop and promote methods of improving the effectiveness of the retirement income policies from time to time implemented by the Government in New Zealand …”. 
Another thing I observed was that in section 95(2) the Retirement Commissioner may if he or she chooses “(b) deliver to the Minister a report in writing on any retirement income that he or she considers the Minister should be advised of.” Subsection (3) goes on to state that the Minister must after receiving such a report present a copy of it to the House of Representatives. But as that requirement is qualified by the words “as soon as practicable” there is no guarantee that the Retirement Commissioner after choosing to table the report or to bring it to the attention of a Minister on any retirement income-related policy will do so in order that it might reach the House of Representatives in a timely fashion. Also in the bill we find that when the Minister requires it he or she can ask the Retirement Commissioner for a report. Once again the time and the speed of that report being made public by the House of Representatives is not guaranteed. 
So I think that a provision that the select committee should look at adding is one that requires at a regular interval the tabling by the Retirement Commissioner of a stocktake of the overall Government retirement income policy. This would add credibility and integrity to the independence of that office. 
I raise that matter because I think various speakers have acknowledged that the Labour Government’s current superannuation fund has actually led to a reduction in overall savings by individuals. The reason is that there is a misleading impression that the retirement issue has been resolved leading to various independent reports stating that the amount of private savings has reduced. This matters because for various lifestyle reasons or necessity individuals are well advised to supplement the State pension with their private savings. 
Let us look at the type of Labour Government policies that hinder that or that are detrimental to it being possible. Last weekend’s  
Sunday Star-Times 
 as I think most people would now be aware reported the case of a high school teacher in a one-income working family who earns $55000 and with four children finds it difficult to make ends meet. In effect the parents are now thinking about moving to Australia to improve their situation. They have written a letter to the Prime Minister the Rt Hon Helen Clark asking her to explain and help them resolve their dilemma. They do not want to go on the benefit or become a low-income family. The husband earns $55000. I thought it was quite a depressing picture with the mother having to go without purchasing any new personal items for herself. 
Let us look at what happened under this Labour Government. First of all we find that for individuals to be able to save they have to earn enough. We know that right now with the Labour Government giving up on economic growth that New Zealanders earn on average $180 less a week than the Australians. That is per week! Apart from that there is the amount of tax that has to be paid. Ever since the minority Labour coalition Government came into power taxes have increased. Fifteen new taxes have been introduced—not only the marginal high personal income tax but various taxes such as tax on petrol and liquor. Anything that moved the Labour Government seemed to whack a tax on and it has forgotten that individuals also have to pay GST meet local government rates and so on. It is not only individuals who are paying more in taxes but also companies. 
There is also the way in which our tax money is being spent. Increasingly we hear horror stories about money going towards funding junkets overseas such as looking at some hip-hop music or in providing community education courses. There has been an astronomical growth in so-called community education courses being offered by institutions but one would doubt very much whether they will improve any individual’s earning capability. At the same time we are finding that our hospital waiting lists are growing and people increasingly are not getting the medical treatment they expect to receive. 
So tax is a real issue. It is an issue that affects an individual’s capability to earn and it also means we are losing our potential high-income earners. Every day constituents are telling us how their children are going overseas to Australia Britain and the USA because they perceive that the opportunity in those countries is much greater than in New Zealand. The difficulty in getting a job is also due to changes to our employment law. 
Most of the small business employers we talk to employ only up to five people. They cannot afford to improve or increase their businesses because of difficult employment law. We saw the saga of the long weekend at Easter—the Labour Party’s so-called gift to the working people. The Restaurant Association told us that during that weekend 30 percent of restaurants and cafes chose to close. Twenty percent opened with fewer staff. It therefore led to less employment and fewer opportunities for these people to save. 
Now we know that the minority Labour Government—[ 
Interruption 
]—if the junior whip would listen. If he wants to take a call we would be happy to hear him in his own time. In the coming May Budget the minority Labour Government will be trying to buy votes. It says it will be giving money away to the low-income working family. It needs to be warned that if it further erodes the differences between wages and benefits then that will be a further disincentive for hardworking individual New Zealanders to work. 
Bill read a first time and referred to theSocial Services Committee. 
Criminal Records (Clean Slate) Bill 
Instruction to Committee 
Hon RICK BARKER (Associate Minister of Justice) 
: 
 I move  
That it be an instruction to the Committee of the whole House on the Criminal Records (Clean Slate) Bill that it take the bill part by part. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the motion be agreed to. 
Ayes 71 
New Zealand Labour 52; Green Party 9; United Future 8; Progressive 2. 
Noes 49 
New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 8; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Motion agreed to. 
In Committee 
Part 1 Preliminary provisions 
LINDSAY TISCH (National—Piako) 
: 
 National is opposing this bill. We are opposing it for a number of reasons which we identified during the first reading and in the Justice and Electoral Committee. I was fortunate to have sat on the select committee during the committee stage of this bill to hear the various arguments that came forward. 
Darren Hughes 
: It was a select committee not the committee stage. 
LINDSAY TISCH 
: The member over there wants to interject and I know that he also sat on the select committee and he will be making a valuable contribution I am sure as this debate develops. But the point I want to make is that in the eyes of many who would support it they would say that because we have a clean slate provision any non-custodial conviction within a 7-year period will be wiped off and they will not have to account for it. What the bill does not do of course is expunge that conviction. That conviction will always be there. 
The point we make is that there is a perception that this bill will solve a lot of problems for people because they will be able if they have had a non-custodial conviction and after 7 years of a clean record to say that they have not had or have not got a criminal record. The argument is put up that many people have been affected because they have a criminal record. It has cost them in terms of opportunities for jobs being admitted to professions being able to obtain credit and being able to obtain visas for overseas travel and they believe that the passing ofthis bill will help them. 
Well unlike a number of other jurisdictions including the United Kingdom Canada some states of the United States and some states of Australia we do not have legislation for the removal or concealment—and that is what I like to call it—of a past wrong. So we see in the bill that the expectation will be that a number of people will think that they will be on a win and that this will not actually happen. 
That will be the effect of this legislation assuming it passes—and I hope it does not pass because when I look at the minority report from the select committee most of the parties are opposed to this bill and I would hope that as we progress through the Committee stage they will continue with their opposition to a bill that promotes lying. That is what it does. It promotes the opportunity for somebody to say when he or she has a conviction: “No I do not have a conviction. There is nothing untoward in my background that is going to exclude me from a job or being able to travel in whatever form I want.” 
During the select committee hearing there were certainly some very good submissions put up and I refer in particular to Clause 3. New subclause (2) states: “If an individual satisfies the relevant eligibility criteria—(a) he or she is deemed … ”. I think it is this word “deemed” that is a very important word because “deemed” in the eyes of many would seem to reflect that they would get an opportunity to get off a past sentence. 
I think if we look further at what “deemed” means for the purposes of having no convictions that is not strictly correct because individuals still have a conviction. It is the word “deemed” that I object to because people will still have convictions but will not need to disclose them and cannot be forced to do so. This is a very important part that I will be covering in Part 2. 
DAIL JONES (NZ First) 
: 
 New Zealand First opposes this legislation as it did during the Justice and Electoral Committee and during the report back. This bill is a classic example of this Labour Government being soft on law and order. If one commits the crime then one does the time. If one commits an offence one is penalised for it and one should continue to bear that penalty. This Labour minority Government in this particular part of the legislation and in the legislation generally—of course one can hardly avoid mixing the two—refers in subclause (2) of Clause 3 to the clean slate scheme limiting the effect of an individual’s convictions and is trying to conceal the fact of the matter. In many ways it is even deluding people to believe in something that is not the case. 
The preceding speaker Mr Tisch made a very good speech on the matter and set out many points. I would like to add that for example there are some people who might think that if they have a marijuana conviction and it comes within the provisions of this legislation and they want to go to the United States they do not have to reveal that marijuana conviction to the United States authorities. Of course they do have to reveal that marijuana conviction to the United States authorities. There might be some people who will commit yet another offence thinking that they do not have to reveal it to the United States authorities will conceal it from the United States authorities get into the United States and then discover—because they have made a false declaration—that they have committed an offence in the United States. This bill will lull some people into a false sense of understanding as regards their own legal situation. 
I take the view that one of the reasons for this legislation is to remove convictions from all those people who protested against the Springbok tour in 1981. This is something that has hung over people’s heads for years and years. One would have thought that those people who protested would have held their conviction with pride like a medal. But in fact— 
Sue Bradford 
: I do. 
DAIL JONES 
: Sue Bradford says that she does but that is not her only conviction so it hardly matters. She has many convictions of all kinds—sincerely held ones as well! I think she knows what I am saying but she put her hand up to say that she had a conviction for protesting at the Springbok tour and I obviously continued with the opportunity she gave me. But she holds that conviction with pride. But if there were someone now who had such a conviction from1981 under this legislation they could have it quashed. There are many people who would like to see this legislation go through especially within the Labour Party I suppose and then when they apply for a job in the public service or somewhere they would not reveal the fact that they had a conviction for disorderly behaviour and we would not like to think that our public servants or various other people for example might have been disorderly so this bill has many connotations to it. But essentially as far as New Zealand First is concerned it is the more criminal type of behaviour that we are concerned about. 
The Springbok tour connotation gets caught up but the more criminal aspect is what really matters. People will have committed offences of dishonesty. They will have gone along—like that lady did recently in the public service—and applied for a job in say the social welfare department and will have been put in a position of authority dealing with money. Then before we know it another $2 million will have gone down the gurgler. This minority Labour Government wants to allow that type of thing to happen again. 
Well New Zealand First does not support this type of “soft on law and order” approach being adopted by the minority Labour Government. If a person commits an offence then that person should know in advance what will happen to him or her and that person should be prepared to bear the consequences. We oppose this bill. 
RICHARD WORTH (National—Epsom) 
: 
 National does not support the Criminal Records (Clean Slate) Bill. In this part of the debate we are concerned with Part 1. There are only two parts—I am excluding the title clause which is yet to come. Clearly the substantive material is contained in Part 2. Part 2 sets out the application of the clean slate scheme its effect on an eligible individual certain offence-creating provisions and then of course the exceptions. I will confine my comments to Part 1 in the context of where we are in this debate. I pick up the obvious point that even in Part 1 the overview provision does not give a fair description of this particular set of clauses. Clause 3 “Overview” which has been amended in substantial measure states: “(1) This Act establishes a clean slate scheme to limit the effect of an individual’s convictions … if the individual satisfies the relevant eligibility criteria.” But this legislation does much more than that. That is of course why National has some concern about this legislation and would not wish that if it is enacted it continue on the statute book for any significant period of time. 
If there was to be an accurate statement of what this legislation was about it would certainly include the following elements as minima. First of all this legislation enables criminal convictions to be concealed rather than wiped or expunged so to talk about a clean slate is a complete misnomer. The concept of a clean slate is that one starts wholly afresh and the slate is completely cleansed. What we have here is a means for criminal convictions to be concealed provided of course they are criminal records that are eligible for concealment and for such records to be protected from unlawful disclosure. When we come to look at Part 2 we will see just how widely and loosely worded those protections are. The next thing about this legislation is that the clean slate scheme is automatic in the sense that it does not require individuals to make application to have their convictions clean-slated. So presumably significant numbers of the population who have the misfortune to be criminal offenders will never know whether in fact the process has been applied in that automatic sense. There is no plan to tell them they have been clean-slated. 
The third aspect of the legislation is that it is an all-or-nothing regime. That means that an individual must meet all the criteria in order to become eligible and that a record can become unconcealed in the event of a subsequent conviction. So much then for the concept of clean slating. Not only is the slate not wiped clean for all purposes but the slate may become again darkened just as the phoenix rises in the event of subsequent wrongdoing by a particular offender. The fourth point about the scheme is that it is question based and it requires those with access to criminal records to treat questions about an eligible individual’s records in a manner that is consistent with the scheme. The Justice and Electoral Committee spent a considerable amount of time looking at that issue in the context particularly of the employment relationship. Finally the scheme takes the phrase “criminal record” to mean an official criminal record only and it includes all material held about criminal records by Government agencies. 
That is the first point that emerges from consideration of clause 3 and what I am highlighting in the points I am making now is really that the overview of the legislation is demonstrably short in terms of its accuracy. 
STEPHEN FRANKS (ACT) 
: 
 Part 1 of the Criminal Records (Clean Slate) Bill has preliminary provisions the general overview that Mr Worth has just been discussing and the definitions. In the general overview we see a complicated decision diagram that shows the essence of this bill. If one has convictions has not been convicted for the specified period—which the bill reduced from 10 years to 7 years—and has not been to prison then one’s convictions will be concealed. The net effect we were told at the Justice and Electoral Committee was that up to 700000 people though probably more likely 500000 people would become eligible for the benefit of having a concealed record. That concealment according to the statement about this bill—the select committee’s pious intent—is supposed to help people to rehabilitate. The committee had no evidence that the net effect of a concealment arrangement like that would be more rehabilitation or less. There is evidence that people with a criminal record find it harder than others to get jobs and there is evidence that criminal records do influence the way people react to those with such records. But we had no evidence that a scheme like that described in clause 3 “Overview” will actually change anything in New Zealand advantageously and there is every likelihood that it will change things disadvantageously. 
I say that because a criminal record is objective evidence of a propensity to commit further offences. It is true that if a person has not committed a further offence for a long time after he or she was first convicted the likelihood of reoffending is low. But that likelihood is not negligible and we had no evidence that it was lower than if one had no record. In other words it is rational for people to ask about convictions if they want to get an idea of someone’s character. In the absence of objective information the people trying to make a decision about a person—whether they are employers community groups wanting to leave someone in charge of the accounts or maybe even people in a social setting or officers during an election who simply want to know that the reputation of the person they are dealing with is beyond reproach—will not just say they will make a guess. People make other assumptions. They use stereotypes. They try to make assumptions about a propensity for criminality on the basis of things like the way people dress or their accents or in this country and more seriously their colour. When over 50 percent of the people in New Zealand prisons and a huge proportion of those who come before the courts are Maori or Polynesian if people cannot get accurate information about criminal records they will make assumptions that will be adverse to those who are likely to be in the groups with a higher rate of offending. 
The Maori MPs should think about that when they look at these clauses. They should think about the effect when objective information is not available of stereotyping. Stereotyping is simply a prudent reaction; it is what one does in the absence of better information. We all do it even if we do not want to do it. What this legislation will do—and we can be certain of it because it is the way that people react—is given that it will be illegal to be given information about a criminal record and given that the law will tell people to lie about their record make the community become more cautious and more risk adverse. The community will not take chances on people who it feels may be dishonest or who might have committed offences. It will not give them the benefit of the doubt. Instead the community will try to find a way to make sure that it does not have to run that risk. One way that people will not run the risk is by assuming that if they are dealing with a young Maori they should assume criminality. 
JUDITH COLLINS (National—Clevedon) 
: 
 I think that I am the fifth speaker on the bill and the fifth person to oppose it and that says a lot. So far nobody supports the bill or in fact has the wherewithal to stand up to support it. That is because this bill is all about telling lies. I have noted the comments of my colleague Mr Richard Worth and of the previous speaker Mr Franks and I concur with their views that the bill is one where the interpretation and overview of it is a disgrace. All we have to do is to look at the interpretation clause to see that there have been vast changes made to this bill. Unfortunately those changes are not always to the betterment of the bill. The changes are an indication that much concern was expressed to the Justice and Electoral Committee by members of the public and those who will have to work with this legislation. 
Speaking as someone who used to be an employer I am appalled that the Government is putting through a bill where the purpose is presumably not only to allow but to force people to tell lies. As Mr Worth said the bill does not state that the offence is deemed to have now been wiped clean and that a person can say he or she has done his or her time and that is it. This bill requires Government departments to tell lies and to conceal. Concealment in that circumstance is a lie and it is not for the betterment of the individual concerned. We all know many people who in their youth did something foolish and who were unfortunately picked up and ended up with a conviction and we all feel very sorry for them in that circumstance. Having said that the bill does not protect those people’s ability to travel overseas—not at all. Overseas Governments are not fooled by that concealment of convictions. For instance if such people fill out an application form or a visa form to go to a country and state that they have no criminal convictions they are lying. It is a big fat lie and unfortunately this Government is in fact encouraging them to do that. Those people may think that they can put that lie in their application but unfortunately they may be caught out. If they are caught out in that lie no doubt they will be deported from and not allowed back into that particular country. So we are setting up the very people we are trying to protect in the bill to end up with a further conviction in someone else’s country and that is just not OK. 
As I said we all know of many instances of people who in their youth did something foolish and were caught. No doubt those people who may now be in their fifties and sixties feel somewhat embarrassed about having to talk about an underage drinking conviction and that sort of thing. No doubt they do. However I would rather they had a moment’s embarrassment—and I think that any sensible person would understand and feel sympathy for them and think that that conviction should not necessarily stop them from getting a job—than have them tell lies about it. What about someone who is convicted of drink-driving? I see that is an offence that a person could end up being able to say did not happen. There may well be people in this House who feel that would be a good thing to be concealed. Unfortunately some people in the public will think that that is what this bill is all about—that is concealing those sorts of things. We should not be saying that. When someone who goes for a taxi driver’s licence happens to have a drink-driving conviction 8 or 9 years ago that is probably relevant. Certainly as a lawyer I would say that most people who end up with drink-driving convictions—and certainly with more than one conviction—have a very serious problem. To be able to hide that is not in the best interests of New Zealand and it is certainly not in the best interests of those people. 
I will not and I cannot support this sort of bill. It is all about interpretation—not deeming things to have never happened but to be now concealed. The thought that later on in the bill—and when we get to that stage no doubt we will talk about it further—people who tell the truth will be subject to being fined for telling the truth is dreadful. Any employer should be able to ask a person whether he or she has any criminal convictions and to be told truthfully and honestly yes or no. This bill will protect thieves. Many people who are thieves continue to steal time and time again whenever they get the opportunity. People who are thieves will do that because they are dishonest. 
PAUL ADAMS (United Future) 
: 
 I rise on behalf of United Future to speak against this bill. As we have heard many times already this bill is about lying. Unfortunately in this country we need to be more encouraging of those who would be truthful. When one is an employer and interviewing staff with all the responsibilities that employers have now it will be criminal that we can ask a straight question of a person standing before us applying for a job and that person will now be legally entitled to lie under the bill. 
What I have learnt about lying—and I am sure that we all would have lied over the years—is that the more one does it the easier it becomes. If we are going to encourage people to lie about a criminal conviction it will then be far easier for those people to lie about most other areas in their lives. Yet as a father with young children if I can teach my children to tell the truth and show them that by telling the truth they will be adequately rewarded we will build a far better society. 
As an employer I would have absolutely no problem at all with interviewing a person of about 25 or 30 years of age and asking that person whether he or she had any criminal convictions. If that person explained to me that 7 or 8 years ago in his or her teenage years he or she had committed a misdemeanour and had a criminal conviction I would be far more likely to employ that person because I could see he or she was telling me the truth and had regretted the incident. 
Let us face it incidents have happened in all of our lives that we have regretted but we have learnt by our mistakes. I would not be one to punish those people for the mistakes they have made because there would not be any member here who has not made mistakes in life. However when we as a Government try to put in legislation that will encourage people to tell an untruth I really wonder where we as a nation are going and I will stand against it with everything we have. 
I see in the bill that no certificate will be issued confirming that a person’s old convictions are to be concealed. Therefore if a person who has had major convictions comes before me in a work situation and says: “No I have no criminal convictions.” as an employer my question to the House is what grounds would I have to check on whether that person was telling me the truth or a lie. Of course if that person is telling me a lie how different is he or she to the person who has a clean-slate record? Is that person not also telling me a lie? 
What is the problem? Will the big lie be the problem instead of the little lie? Get real! We are getting too far away from common sense here for me. The truth is the truth. If people tell the truth No. 1 they do not have to remember what they said because it is the truth. But if one tells a lie to a person who happens to know another person and one does not know that they know each other and that person tells the other person what he or she was told one starts as they say to smell a rat and ask: “What is going on here?” So I have major concerns with areas like that. 
Trust must be built back into society. Trust must be built between the people who are employing and those who are being employed even on a voluntary basis. Whether it is voluntary employment in a day-care centre or wherever employers must have trust that when they ask a straight question they will get a straight answer. So when we bring forth legislation that no longer allows that and employers interviewing people know that there is an element of society out there that has been given legal permission to lie I certainly have great concerns about that. United Future will not be supporting this bill. 
MARK PECK (Labour—Invercargill) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
LINDSAY TISCH (National—Piako) 
: 
 It is interesting that today we are debating a Government bill and the only contribution from Government members has been to stand and move a closure motion on what I would have considered from a Government’s point of view to be very important legislation. This is the first Committee stage debate today after the House has resumed following a 3-week adjournment and what do Government members do? They do not stand and debate the merits of the bill because they know in their own minds that this bill is flawed. Previous speakers have said that this bill is about lying. This bill encourages lying. It does not do away with the conviction. It does not expunge the conviction someone has. 
Judith Collins 
: Read the bill. 
LINDSAY TISCH 
: If members read the bill as my colleague says they would realise that there is no expungement provision. All it does is wipe the slate clean hide the conviction under the carpet for a little while and then hope that everything will be OK. The important thing to remember is that New Zealanders are not as gullible as that. At the end of the day people who will be employing staff will want to know exactly what the position is. But with a clean-slate recipient as an employer can I ask that person whether he or she has any convictions? He or she will be able to say: “No” because under Part 2 when we get to it an employer cannot ask those sorts of questions. 
I will talk about that when we get to Part 2. The point is that clause 3(2) and this is the point where I finished in the previous debate states: “If an individual satisfies the relevant eligibility criteria—(a) he or she is deemed …”. One would expect that that meant that the individual was able to hide behind the clause and say “No” on the basis of clause 3(2) and that by saying that a conviction no longer existed. Of course in a legal sense that is absolute nonsense. We will be discussing that later on in Part 2. An employer asking the question: “Have you ever had a conviction?” is faced with a dilemma. After 7 years if a prospective employee has a clean slate he or she will be able to say: “No I haven’t.” 
When I employ people I am interested in honesty. I want to give an example of somebody I employed who took advantage of me. Because I was going away I wrote out a cheque that my employees would be able to use in an emergency and I signed it. I was probably wrong to do that but I trusted the people who worked for me. I should be able to do that. When I came back the cheque had gone. It was not until I got my bank statement that I saw a cheque had been written for $932. There was no account to justify a cheque for $932. When I went to the bank to find out who had presented the cheque I found it was one of my employees. What had the employee done with the money? That person had moved into a flat and paid a bond. The person had paid rent in advance and paid the current rent— 
Mark Peck 
: In your flat? 
LINDSAY TISCH 
: In a flat that the person was renting. The situation here is that that person took advantage of me and of a privileged position. I had put the person in a position of trust and that person had lied about it to me. It was only through my going to my bank that I was able to discern it. Under this bill after 7 years that person will be able to hide the fact that he or she had his or her fingers in the till and was able to deceive somebody. That is why National is opposed to this bill. 
JANET MACKEY (Labour—East Coast) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the question be now put. 
Ayes 63 
New Zealand Labour 52; Green Party 9; Progressive 2. 
Noes 55 
New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 7; United Future 8. 
Motion agreed to. 
The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 191 in the name of the Hon Phil Goff to Part 1 be agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendments be agreed to. 
Ayes 63 
New Zealand Labour 52; Green Party 9; Progressive 2. 
Noes 56 
New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 8; United Future 8. 
Amendments agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That Part 1 as amended be agreed to. 
Ayes 63 
New Zealand Labour 52; Green Party 9; Progressive 2. 
Noes 57 
New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 8; United Future 8; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Part 1 as amended agreed to. 
Part 2 Clean slate scheme 
RICHARD WORTH (National—Epsom) 
: 
 This is a most curious debate for many reasons. First not one Government member has spoken in favour of this legislation. The contribution to date from Government members has been limited to moving two closure motions. I suggest that is an absolute disgrace. Why do I say it is a disgrace? Because this particular legislation which National opposes—the Criminal Records (Clean Slate) Bill—is very much the centrepiece of the Government’s criminal rehabilitation strategy. 
The Associate Minister Mr Barker is present in Parliament. He is sitting just in front of me; he is sitting silently sullenly and disinterestedly. He is simply not prepared to contribute to this debate. I say that is a pity because if this is important legislation it does deserve considered contribution from the Committee and it does deserve careful comment from the Minister. But we are not to see that. He is not even prepared to speak in favour of his amendments; instead they are put through by his ciphers. It is a shocking state of affairs. 
One of the things we have said about this bill is that it is a mandate to lie. If members want to reflect on the fact that those perhaps seem harsh words let me just refer them to clause 11(2). This is the “mandate to lie” clause that the Minister is apparently so proud of. Clause 11(2) states: “An eligible individual may answer a question asked of him or her about his or her criminal record by stating that he or she has no criminal record.” So if an offender someone who has a criminal record is asked: “Do you have a criminal record?” the offender can give the answer: “No I have no criminal record at all.” What can be the possible justification for that type of legislation? How can the Minister and his Government be proud of legislation that has as its purpose the concealment of the truth and that allows in effect perjury which represents the most gross abuse of the Oaths and Declarations Act of 1957? 
National made very specific comment in its minority report in the commentary on the bill. I would just like to refer to some parts of that report. The legislation is based on mistaken political correctness and is not as I said in the debate on Part 1 in fact a clean slating; rather it is a concealment of convictions in limited cases for limited purposes and where if subsequent offending occurs the convictions can be revealed again. 
Of course convictions may become disclosed in a number of ways. The legislation does not deal with the fact that entities may now set up private and media archives. It used to be the case that court reporters would follow quite closely what was going on in our criminal courts and the newspapers would publish material on criminal convictions that had been entered. That does not now happen quite to the same extent but this legislation will be able to be utterly subverted by the maintenance of private and media archives. I bet that a new business will spring up maintained by the sorts of companies that are involved in debt collection and credit control. There will be a legitimate public interest and the realistic expectation of commercial gain if this valuable information on the criminal records of people in New Zealand is maintained. 
That is the first way that these convictions may become disclosed. Another way may simply be by inadvertent disclosure or the offender may consent to their release. 
TIM BARNETT (Labour—Christchurch Central) 
: 
 As the person who was honoured to chair the Justice and Electoral Committee that dealt with the Criminal Records (Clean Slate) Bill I would very much like to respond to some of the points made. I have to say first of all that reading the New Zealand First minority view on the bill does not take long because it contains six words and reading the National Party minority view does not take much longer. In fact members have heard it stated at least a dozen times already in the brief time we have been discussing this bill. 
The committee did a very good job on the bill. We made a number of changes to it. What we realised as we approached the legislation was that a clean-slate structure requires a number of choices to be made in a number of areas. One choice is the length of time. When we looked at the reoffending rates we realised that to reduce the rehabilitation period from 10 years to 7 would not have a major effect so we did that. Secondly we addressed the choice whether there should be an automatic wiping of relevant convictions or whether it should be done by application. The application process which has been attacked this afternoon by National is by far the best most efficient and cost-effective way to do it. Thirdly should there be some exemptions? Clearly there should be in some areas and Government amendments will take that a bit further because there are some sensitive jobs and processes in society such as owning a weapon that require some additional questioning. Therefore the committee examined that. The issue of travel is really quite irrelevant because that is about jurisdictions overseas. There is no way that we can willingly hide information that should properly be available to Governments overseas; that is really not an issue. 
That leaves the one issue that has really been the only tangible point made by the Opposition and that is the one about concealment or removal of the conviction. The reality is that if the conviction is removed and somebody then reoffends the conviction cannot re-emerge. Therefore if one is to advocate a removal process as National effectively does at the end of its minority report one is advocating that people who subsequently reoffend will not have that old conviction reappearing. That is a dangerous line I think for the public to consider tolerating. The approach that is being taken in the bill is the approach of concealment which is the proper approach because if somebody reoffends then the offence can re-emerge. 
That leaves the situation of what happens when somebody is asked about that offence. There is no way to do it other than the way the bill does it. The bill does not encourage lying—that is a typical spin from Opposition members and their ciphers. What the bill actually does is to authorise people with very specific categories of convictions—7 years old or more—to respond in a certain way to a question about their criminal record status from certain agencies in certain situations because otherwise the whole purpose of clean-slate legislation would fall down. National admits in the last paragraph of its minority comment the complete redundancy of its arguments because it does actually advocate a “true ‘clean slate’ ” system—without explaining what it means. The implication of that system is it will leave New Zealanders vulnerable to people who have their offences removed permanently from the system then reoffend. 
DAIL JONES (NZ First) 
: 
 The previous speech highlights the importance of a short and succinct minority report that cannot possibly be distorted because there was a clear distortion on that previous speaker’s part in so far as the National Party minority report was concerned. I will leave it to National Party members to take that issue up. 
My concern is about clause 15 of the Criminal Records (Clean Slate) Bill and how originally in the clause there needed to be a police vetting under the Education Act 1989 where a position was required to be carried out through the New Zealand Teachers Council. That requirement has been removed by the Labour Party minority Government supported by the Greens. The Labour Government and the Greens do not want police vetting for people who apply for registration by the New Zealand Teachers Council for jobs as teachers. Today it is mandatory in I think every school in New Zealand for a teacher to be registered. Teacher registration is compulsory. As part of getting a teacher registration there should be a police vetting as to one’s character. As I see it that provision has been removed from the bill and now anyone can become registered as a teacher without that vetting taking place. I think that is a weakness in this legislation. 
 I see that Mr Worth will move an amendment in that regard and New Zealand First will support that amendment because there is clearly a defect in the bill as reported back by the minority Labour Government and its supporters the Greens. I am not too surprised at the Greens supporting something like that but for the Labour Party which has a lot of support from teaching groups to allow an alteration to the bill that allows primary teachers secondary teachers and people who would normally be registered as teachers not to be vetted for registration purposes in this day and age is absolutely appalling. 
Stephen Franks 
: They’re thinking of their caucus. They’re thinking of the future. 
DAIL JONES 
: It does require the commission of an offence and that is too much of a long bow for me. Broadly speaking how can the Labour Party allow this to happen? How can the New Zealand Educational Institute the Post Primary Teachers Association and all those other bodies that want to maintain high professional standards allow a situation to exist whereby people can say: “Yes you registered as a teacher but you were not properly vetted were you?”. 
Anyone can become a teacher these days. People may have committed all sorts of offences and they can still become a teacher these days as a result of the way in which the Labour Party does things. Under new clause 14A it is an offence to require someone to disregard this scheme. One can be fined $10000. I think that any school—not just private schools—wants to make sure of the character of people applying for jobs. If principals chief executives or employing officers of schools say they do not care what is in the Criminal Records (Clean Slate) Bill and that they want to know whether someone has a criminal record they can be fined up to $10000. I hope the various schools will make the point known to employing staff that now in trying to make sure that the quality of staff is beyond dispute they can end up with a fine of $10000. 
That is absolutely appalling but it shows the standard of this minority Labour Government and standard of the Greens. How low can they possibly go in this day and age? The Labour Party and the Greens are showing just how low they can go. 
The other issue I mentioned earlier was with regard to the trustworthiness of staff. Speaking as a lawyer I know that lawyers have to deal a lot with trust account money and we want to make sure that people’s money is safe. When lawyers are employing people they cannot now ask applicants whether they have committed an offence. We want to make sure that lawyers’ money is not stolen by either lawyers or their staff and in this case staff involved with lawyers are not allowed to ask people who are coming for a job whether they have ever had a previous criminal conviction especially for theft. 
That affects lawyers’ insurance policies. When lawyers take out an insurance policy they have to talk about the trustworthiness and honesty of their staff. Now the overseas companies that give insurance to law firms in New Zealand cannot rely on the information that is given to lawyers and lawyers’ insurance premiums will go up as a result. No one can be certain when dealing with hundreds of millions of dollars whether staff are honest or dishonest. 
PAUL ADAMS (United Future) 
: 
 I speak on behalf of United Future on Part 2 and I was just thinking as I was sitting here as we are bringing this bill on line that I would hope to be in a country where we actually lift the bar on achievement and not lower the bar. I was thinking about our great All Blacks. What if we said to them that they did not need to come out to practice matches now to just imagine that they were going to practice and that it would be good enough to turn up on the day of the game and do their best? All this sort of legislation is lowering the bar. I have found as a sportsman that if we want to improve things we have to lift the bar to achieve. 
We all make mistakes as we heard before and I thought it was interesting that Tim Barnett was the only one from the Opposition parties speaking for this bill. Tim and I would come from— 
Richard Worth 
: He’s from the Government not the Opposition. 
PAUL ADAMS 
: From the Government my apologies. 
Richard Worth 
: He’s going to be the Opposition. 
PAUL ADAMS 
: He is going to be the Opposition. Tim and I would come from different viewpoints on many issues and I find that when we lower the bar and lower the standards we actually get a decrease in society. Society does not improve; it goes exactly the opposite way. 
I am also concerned with what the situation is if people are convicted in New Zealand. They get caught and it is only a minor offence so they leave the country and go to another country. They continue to commit minor offences in that country which leads to more major offences. If they choose to come back to New Zealand after 7 years our police department has no record of the offences in another country. These people can come home and if this legislation is passed they can apply for work here as though nothing had ever happened. 
I do not like that. I do not think that most fair-minded straight-thinking New Zealanders would like that. I have found that New Zealanders are very fair and very forgiving but they do want to know the truth. When they see the Government setting up lies they have major problems with that. 
Let me give members a very real example. For those in the Chamber who have a heart full of compassion for people I do not object to feeling sorry for those who have committed misdemeanours. I know of a person who had somebody working with him selling quite high-priced objects. This person was caught selling something for $100 cash and pocketing the cash. Whichever way we look at it that is fraud. The person was confronted and an agreement was reached that as long as that person handed in his resignation—so the employer did not have to go through all the employment hassles from the daft legislation we have in some of these areas—nothing would be said about that $100 fraud. 
At the end of the day did we help that person? No because unfortunately he went on to another situation where his $100 fraud turned into a $20000 or $30000 fraud. The second employer had rung the first employer to ask whether there were any areas of concern to be aware of. Because of the agreement the answer was no. Therefore the second employer took on the person not knowing that there was a sign of risk. 
I ask members today as we look at this Criminal Records (Clean Slate) Bill what is the difference? What is the difference when a genuine employer is just trying to find out the facts? He wants to work on the truth. It is difficult enough to do that in today’s market as it is and now he will be confronted with a situation whereby a straight answer to a straight question ends up in a legal lie. I ask where on earth we are coming from on that sort of thing. 
As this type of legislation passes I give warning to the Government that there is a groundswell of New Zealanders out there who are sick and tired of this politically correct type of legislation that is feeding lies to the country that is trying to tell people that it is OK to lie and to cover things up and that things that are wrong are allowed to be called right. But I tell members that good old New Zealanders have had enough and are beginning to turn. United Future will not support this bill. 
STEPHEN FRANKS (ACT) 
: 
 I am very glad to follow the member for United Future. I heard the passion in his voice when he said that people are sick of a Government that not only condones lying and not only ignores offending but in this case is getting Parliament to instruct Government departments to lie. This Government is a lying Government. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: The member is a longstanding member of this Parliament and he knows that that was totally out of order. I ask him to withdraw and apologise. 
STEPHEN FRANKS 
: Mr Chairman I draw your attention to the provisions of this bill. This bill requires the Government to lie. I will not withdraw that statement. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: The member referred to the Government as “a lying Government” and that is totally out of order. It is a reflection on all members of the Chamber and therefore it is out of order. I ask the member to withdraw. 
STEPHEN FRANKS 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. The Government is not the legislature; the Government in this case is the executive. This bill requires the executive to lie. I was referring to what this bill does. I did not say “the members of this House”; I said “the Government” and I meant the Government. I am quite happy to make it clear that in this case this bill requires the Government to lie to anyone who asks about these criminal records. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I say to the member that referring to the Government is the same as referring to a member. There is a Speaker’s ruling on this situation. I now ask the member to withdraw and apologise. 
Lindsay Tisch 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I am very clear on what Mr Franks is trying to say because we have been debating for the last hour what this bill actually does. This is a Government bill. This is being promoted by the Government and when he is referring to the Government he is referring to the way that this bill is being presented. It is not a slight on members of this Committee; it is a very clear statement that this bill being a Government bill falls into the category of a bill that promotes and allows for lying—that is what the essence of the bill is about. I believe that Mr Franks is correct in what he is asserting. There is no defamation and no slight on any member of this Committee. He is making a very clear statement and he should be able to proceed with his debate. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I thank the honourable member for his contribution. I understand exactly where the member is coming from but implying that the Government was acting improperly and using the terminology that Mr Franks did is a reflection not only on the Government but also on every member in the Chamber and that is far from the truth. I am asking Mr Franks to give serious consideration to that because he is a longstanding member and I am sure he is aware of that. I now ask him to withdraw and apologise. 
STEPHEN FRANKS 
: I withdraw and apologise. This bill requires the chief executives of Government departments that hold or have access to criminal records—in the cute words of the drafter of this bill—to take all reasonable steps to ensure that they conceal the “criminal records of eligible individuals when requests are made for their disclosure” and to not use the criminal records. This bill would mean that Work and Income New Zealand would not even be able to use its own knowledge to prevent the woman who recently got away with several million dollars of the department’s money—who had previous convictions which it turned out were known to the department—from being re-employed. The chief executive would have to take steps to make sure the department lied even to itself. Can members imagine anything more fatuous? 
The Minister in the chair the Hon Phil Goff knows that this bill requires lying. The drafting changed between the introduction copy of the bill and the draft that we are now looking at but the effect is still the same. The effect is that when people are asked about their criminal record this bill states that they should say they do not have one. There is a penalty of $20000 for anyone who corrects that and a penalty of $10000 for somebody who tries to go behind that. This bill tells New Zealanders that the past never happened. 
This bill is from a Government that pretends to be worried about harsh sentencing. What can a community do when all the informal sanctions against offending such as reputation—the very first line of defence for most communities—are gone? 
We want young people to know that truth will out that honesty pays that cheats do not prosper—all of those things that depend on reputation—but the Government is now saying: “Don’t worry about your reputation we’ll hide it for you. Not only will we hide it for you we will instruct you to hide it and we will punish people who try to find out the truth.” This is not compassion. This has nothing whatsoever to do with compassion. Compassion is the act of people who say: “We know about your past and we forgive and forget.” This bill states that the Government will now decide people do not get that chance. 
KEITH LOCKE (Green) 
: 
 The Green Party is of course supporting this bill. I think the concerns of people who have spoken against it are misjudged in that it will actually help reduce offending—that is its actual consequence. It provides an incentive for people who have committed indiscretions in usually their youth—who have committed trespass or shoplifting or whatever. If on being apprehended and convicted they feel very upset about what that will mean for their future and their families feel upset after the passage of this law they will know that if they keep within the law for the next 7 years they will be deemed not to have a criminal record and that indiscretion will not chase them around for the rest of their lives. So the bill will help prevent reoffending. 
I think employers will learn that this bill is actually a good provision. Sometimes when people are working out whom to hire—and other speakers have talked about this—they might hold a youthful indiscretion against someone who would otherwise be a very good candidate for the job. I am sure there will be many employers who under this provision employ people they would not otherwise employ because they had shoplifted in their youth or whatever and because of some sort of prejudice those employers have not really understood that that person was the best applicant for the job. Possibly a few years later—and Wayne Mapp did point out that people might find out later in life through some informal network that a person was guilty of shoplifting in an earlier life—they might say to themselves: “Thank God for this law because I have employed a really top person and if I had followed my prejudice and not employed that person I would not have got the same benefit that I know I have had.” 
I think people will realise that this law is very good. The Greens think it should go a little bit further and that 6-month custodial sentences should be removed as well as is the case in some overseas jurisdictions. We are not at the forefront of the world with this bill but we are setting a bit of a model for some other countries and that is very good. 
I think there is a little bit of precedent for it in our existing law with the provision to discharge without conviction. Some law students got that at a particular time in our history because it enabled them to go on to practise law and many of them have done very well. One could say that a discharge without conviction means that technically they were guilty but they have not been given a criminal record. This bill is in some ways an extension of that so I do not think we need to get too hot and bothered about it. The Greens certainly support it as a way of being a bit more compassionate. It will help people grow and it will stop the past from chasing them around unnecessarily. It will allow people to get ahead in society to get to the forefront of society and to contribute to society without being unnecessarily punished for their past. 
Dr WAYNE MAPP (National—North Shore) 
: 
 The previous speaker represents the delusions under which the Greens and the Government have laboured all along on this legislation. They keep talking about youthful indiscretions. They keep talking about the trivial and minor. Maybe there was a case for such legislation and National acknowledges that in our minority report where we talk about diversion. But it seems that the Government has not even read its own legislation. Certainly the Greens have not because this bill is sweeping. There is no age limitation. It does not apply to just youthful indiscretion; it applies to quite serious offences no matter when they were committed during a person’s life. That is the reality. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: At least 7 years ago. 
Dr WAYNE MAPP 
: And quite serious offences I tell the Minister. For instance without doubt this bill will cover burglaries assaults and a whole range of offences of that character— 
Stephen Franks 
: Fraud. 
Dr WAYNE MAPP 
: —fraud—any offence in short that has not attracted a custodial sentence. Those of us who have practised in the courts know full well that those offences can be quite serious matters. So this bill is sweeping in its character. It allows all sorts of serious offending to be just swept under the carpet as if it had not happened. 
I have to remind Mr Locke that that was actually not the intention of his colleague Nandor Tanczos who himself referred to youthful indiscretions committed by people under 20 and the like when he introduced his own bill. Yet now the Greens are supporting a sweeping bill that as Mr Franks properly indicates sanctions lying by potentially quite hardened criminals—people who have had a whole pattern of offending. 
Richard Worth 
: Practised lags. 
Dr WAYNE MAPP 
: Well I guess they would not be lags because lags would have been given custodial sentences. But certainly people who have had a pattern of offending will get the benefits of this bill and that is wrong. That is why National in its minority report referred to a principled approach. For instance the National members of the select committee made reference to making greater use of diversion for minor offences and noted that that scheme “should be formalised to ensure consistency of application while preserving the necessary element of flexibility.” Diversion is precisely targeted at the young offender who commits a minor offence and it is envisaged that in that kind of situation the record would not follow the individual. 
Judith Collins 
: And it works. 
Dr WAYNE MAPP 
: As my colleague Judith Collins has noted—she is a senior law practitioner in Auckland and a former president of the Auckland District Law Society—that scheme works. 
So there was a reasonable approach that the Government could have taken but no it has not done that. In I guess its desire to placate the Greens it has gone overboard completely. The Government has an irrational and unreasonable piece of legislation that allows serious criminals to lie and the honest people of this community will have no recourse. It is actually worse than that; not only will they have no recourse but they themselves will then be at risk of criminal sanctions. It is extraordinary is it not that the honest are penalised and the dishonest are advantaged? What does that say about this Government? If the Government wants to know why it is so far behind in the public’s esteem I tell its members that it is because people are sick of that approach. 
Mr Adams made great play of that of course but earlier today his party voted to keep this Government—a Government that would sanction lying by citizens—in power. His party would keep in power a Government that would pass this extreme form of legislation. It might be all very well for Mr Adams to say that United Future members are keeping their word but I have to ask that party: what about keeping faith with New Zealanders? 
Hon PHIL GOFF (Minister of Justice) 
: 
 I have just listened to some speeches from members of the Opposition that suggest that somehow this legislation is going to protect “serious offenders” “hardened offenders” “practised lags”—Mr Worth who is a lawyer says—and “serious criminals”. I think the best way of responding to those comments from people who have clearly led blameless lives who have never been in breach of the law and who are ready to cast the first stone is for me to read a letter I received 7 days ago in my office. It is a short letter. I will read it in full and then perhaps Mr Mapp and Mr Franks can tell me whether this is the sort of hardened criminal they intend should be deprived of the relief that this legislation would give. 
“Dear Mr Goff I am interested in your Criminal Records (Clean Slate) Bill which I understand is up for discussion again in May. The reason for this letter is a very personal one as 23 years ago I was convicted of a minor shoplifting charge and fined $100. This has been my one and only breaking of the law and one I regret on a daily basis. It does not go away. I understand that a first offender these days on minor charges does not get convicted. No one in my family has any knowledge of this record. My husband would be devastated if he knew and more than likely should he find out this would put my 31-year-old marriage at risk—he being the most honest person I know. Travel insurances and many other things including employment are affected by my conviction and I am so hopeful that your proposed bill will be passed into law. My reason for writing this letter—and it took a lot of soul-searching to do this—is to maybe express the view of many like me who have a similar story. Basically this is a heart-felt plea to you to endeavour to see that this much-needed law change is passed.” That is the sort of “hardened criminal” the Opposition is so determined should have so little protection against his or her past being discovered. 
I have received many many letters. No issue in the criminal justice area I think has attracted as many letters as this topic has. 
Richard Worth 
: Not a typical example. 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: For the edification of Mr Worth who says it is not typical I say I believe that it is very much typical. We are introducing a conservative regime. It requires that the person has never served a custodial sentence. That by definition means that it affects those who have committed less serious offences. It requires that that person has not had another conviction for 7 years and the information given to the select committee suggests that a person who has not reoffended over that period of time is hardly more likely to reoffend than a person who has never had a conviction. 
I want to say to Mr Worth that the Ministry of Justice estimates there are some 500000 New Zealanders who fall into this category including members who sit in this Chamber. I am saying that those people were not sentenced to a life sentence for relatively minor offending. They have met the penalty that was imposed on them they have lived with that offending for a long time and for God’s sake let us show some compassion and give those people who have led blameless lives for at least 7 years the chance to put that past behind them. It is tempting in Opposition I know to try to make a political football out of this but let me tell and warn the Opposition that if there are 500000 New Zealanders who come into this category there are 500000 New Zealanders with family members who do understand that people convicted of minor offending—that is not the sort of offending the penalties for which we have increased massively in this House and rightly so—are people who made a mistake once in their lives and should be given a fair go to put that offending behind them. 
JUDITH COLLINS (National—Clevedon) 
: 
 Quite clearly the Minister of Justice has not had the benefit of hearing my previous speech on this matter; otherwise he would have had a look at the National Party minority view on the bill including the sentence that Mr Tim Barnett was so nasty about which states: “There is a case for legislation to contain provision for true ‘clean slate’ applications to be made to the Court in individual cases and not on the blanket basis of concealment of convictions which is the essence of the present bill.” 
I say to the Minister and to the Committee that there is of course a case for compassion. The very instance that he spoke of seems to be such a case. But this bill is about lying. It is about the concealment of offences. It is not about looking at youthful indiscretions; it is about allowing someone who commits an offence at the age of 50 to say at the age of 58 very very truthfully in accordance with this bill: “No I have no conviction.” It does not make any allowance for age. It does not make any allowance for circumstance. National’s idea that people apply to the court would allow judges to use discretion and look at the individual circumstances of a case. 
I have made the point before that the diversion scheme works in most cases. One of the reasons it works is that the people who commit a first offence have to admit to it. They have to go in front of a police sergeant and admit to that offence and then they are given a job to do. Sometimes that job is to make a donation to a charity and sometimes it is to do something for a particular charity. But it is the admission and acceptance of having done wrong that is absolutely vital in stopping people from continuing to do what we hopefully call youthful indiscretions but actually can be crimes. It is really important that we do not make it easier for people to hide convictions but in fact ensure they are truthful about what has happened. National members are very happy as I have said before—and we have stated it in writing in our minority view—to look at individual cases. We are not happy to have this blanket approval of lying. 
I will now deal with some of the I have to say slightly hysterical rhetoric from the Minister; there seemed to be an awful lot of personal input there. 
Clause 11 states quite clearly: “(2) An eligible individual may answer a question asked of him or her about his or her criminal record by stating that he or she has no criminal record.” Why is that not lying? People have a criminal record and all of a sudden they can say they do not have one. If they were able to say: “ I had one and it was taken away by the courts.”—that it was an effective conviction and discharge—people would understand. But this bill is about lying. 
It will not help people who travel overseas. It will not help a lot of people applying for jobs within certain Government departments. But what about people applying for jobs in banks? People who run banks should be honest people. They are dealing with other people’s money. People who work in lawyers’ firms dealing with other people’s money should be honest people. I can tell this Committee from my experience in the Law Society that a number of the thefts done by law firms are done by staff not by the lawyers. The lawyers are the people who pay for the thefts and they do not want to lose their careers and end up in jail. A lot of the those conversions are done by staff and under this bill staff will be able to say: “Oh well no I don’t have a criminal conviction.” when actually 8 years ago the last time they were working—guess what—they stole money from a trust account but they got off without having to go to jail because they told some bleeding heart story that somebody believed. 
Unfortunately that basic dishonesty goes all the way through. Leopards do not change their spots. Someone who is dishonest today is likely to be dishonest tomorrow. That is what happens. Dishonesty is not something that just goes away and it certainly does not go away unless people acknowledge that they have done wrong ask for forgiveness and move on in that way. They will not be able to do so in this case. 
LINDSAY TISCH (National—Piako) 
: 
 It is interesting in this debate to be on this side of the Committee where we have some very eminent lawyers. All parties on this side— 
Hon Phil Goff 
: Name names! 
LINDSAY TISCH 
: I do not need to name names because they stand on their own merits. They are people who have been at the coalface and understand what the law is about. Here on this side we have such people within our team in Dr Wayne Mapp Richard Worth and Judith Collins three very experienced lawyers who have had to deal with these issues over a number of years. 
As a lay person I want to focus on these issues from the point of view of an employer. If we look at clause 14A in particular we can see that an employer will face a very onerous dilemma. Most employers when employing people really want to know about their background. That is fair. If I am prepared to give someone a job that person needs to be open and frank about his or her past positions skills and experience and the sorts of attributes that will be important in my business. But the dilemma happens in that we see in this bill that it will be unlawful to ask people about their past. Clause 14A is headed: “Offence to require or request that individual disregard scheme”. Although we may have some doubts about somebody we cannot put pressure on that person to give us the sort of background information we require. 
I find that totally unacceptable and certainly National has argued this point right through. Creating an environment where people can lie about their past does not lead to good relationships. Honesty is the best policy and if someone is prepared to front up and say: “Look in my youth 20 years ago I did something I feel shameful about. I should never have done it I regret it and I feel remorseful about it.” a prospective employer is likely to say to that person: “I’m prepared to give you a go because you are being upfront.” That is the sort of open approach the sort of openness and honesty that I would expect as a prospective employer. I have employed people who have a past that is not that great but I have been prepared to give them a go because I have had the opportunity to appraise them; they can prove themselves or otherwise and that is something I am prepared to allow them to do. 
But when we look at clause 14A we can see that it states that we cannot put pressure on people we cannot deviate from what the bill intends because if we do that then we will be fined. In fact the fine is $10000. The Minister quoted a letter he had received from somebody about a past misdemeanour that had happened 20-odd years ago and the fine for which was $100. This bill will not say to that person: “Ah we’re going to expunge that offence; it never happened; you’ve got a clean slate and you can walk away.” The bill does not do that. It does not expunge past convictions. All that it does is say to the person: “You can lie about it. You have a licence to lie to say that you have never had a conviction. You can hide it.” 
That is the sort of nonsense we do not agree with. We do not agree with this bill because it encourages an environment in which people can hide their past. As I said right at the beginning I look for honesty. I look for a straight-up approach. If someone has done something wrong then let him or her lay it on the table so that we can deal with it as it comes up. We see in this bill that a prospective employer who breaches this law could be penalised $10000 and that is a nonsense. 
MARK PECK (Labour—Invercargill) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
DAIL JONES (NZ First) 
: 
 I want to take up a couple of points made in the Minister’s speech a few moments ago about the lady who wrote to him. During the course of her letter she told him she was concerned about her opportunity to travel. This bill does nothing— 
Hon Phil Goff 
: That aspect of it is not correct. I read the letter— 
DAIL JONES 
: I thank the Minister for saying that was not correct but he should have pointed that out. Once again the Minister is being caught out. Now he tells us he was not going to put too much emphasis on it but as soon as that matter is put to him he says he was going to clarify it. He should have clarified it at the time. A Labour Minister has been caught out again immediately—as though he thought he could get away with something like that! 
This bill raises an interesting issue with regard to a matter I have been bringing up during the last few days. What happens to say a Vietnamese immigrant who comes to New Zealand and commits a crime and the Minister of Immigration decides that that person should be deported? What happens if the matter goes to a Deportation Review Tribunal hearing and the tribunal says that the person can stay in New Zealand? The person might for example have been the subject only of a fine and the fine might have been a substantial one—[ 
Interruption 
] Exactly. If one has a custodial offence then that is a different matter. But I am talking about a person who has been only fined—not sent to prison; just fined—for a forgery offence and who has been the subject of a deportation review by the Minister of Immigration who says that the individual should be deported. Then the Deportation Review Tribunal steps in and says it will quash the deportation order. So not only can that person get off the deportation order but the penalty imposed by the court will be expunged by this legislation because it was only a fine. It might have been a $500 fine or a $10000 fine but the recent immigrant to New Zealand— 
Hon Phil Goff 
: See if you can make your hypothetical example any less likely than you have. 
DAIL JONES 
: It is not hypothetical. It is the case that came up this week. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: It’s very hypothetical. 
DAIL JONES 
: It is not hypothetical; it is a fact. A person comes to New Zealand as an immigrant on not much of a residence application commits a criminal offence is fined and then is allowed by the Deportation Review Tribunal to stay here and because of this legislation the fine is not even noted on the person’s record after 7 years. What a soft touch we are in New Zealand! 
If one reads the facts of that case as I have one finds it very doubtful whether that person should have been allowed into New Zealand in the first place and I will table material on that. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: Ha ha! 
DAIL JONES 
: The Minister can laugh but those are the facts of the case. 
Richard Worth 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I hesitate to interrupt Mr Jones but he is being subjected to a constant stream of interjection from the Minister. That in itself would not be objectionable except that the Minister is seated alongside you and has the microphone on and although most of the interjections coming from other members are being lost the Minister’s constant stream of interjections are being picked up by the radio. I suggest that that is unsatisfactory. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I thank the honourable member for drawing that to my attention. It is the convention of the House that in the Committee of the whole House the member who is in charge of legislation should not take an unfair advantage of a live microphone by way of interjection. It is good conduct and common courtesy not to do so. I add that courtesy is contagious and we will all prosper if we keep within the spirit of our Standing Orders and Speakers’ rulings. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I should point out what is already obvious to you which is that the mute button was pushed during my interjections. They were not interrupting the member. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I say by way of clarification that it was not always possible to do that. 
DAIL JONES 
: Clearly the Minister is embarrassed. He was caught out once by saying that a person could travel overseas. We caught him out on that. Now this Government has been caught out on the fact that a Vietnamese person who came to New Zealand and committed a forgery offence has been let off by the Deportation Review Tribunal and this Government is not appealing against that decision. It is not doing what we saw done in the Zaoui case where the legal aid people—those acting for Zaoui—went to the next stage and appealed. This Government is giving way on that particular issue. In this case so far as the fine itself is concerned the record of that fine will be expunged after 7 years. What sort of a country do we have if a person can come to New Zealand on grounds that if one reads the case are really spurious commit a crime not be deported because of a deportation review that this Government will not appeal and then the minority Labour Government says that after 7 years it will even forget the offence? After 7 years it will be deemed that that person has not even committed an offence. This Government is saying it will expunge the offence and the person need not worry about it. It is saying people should come to New Zealand commit offences where fines are involved and after 7 years all is forgiven. What sort of Labour Government—a minority Labour Government—do we have today? The Greens also support that sort of behaviour with regard to this legislation. 
Those are the facts of one of the cases I raised during the course of this week and that particular person is to get off scot-free. The offence is to be absolutely forgotten as a result of this Labour Government’s activities. The situation is absolutely deplorable. How can any self-respecting Government ever support this legislation? 
JANET MACKEY (Labour—East Coast) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the question be now put. 
Ayes 63 
New Zealand Labour 52; Green Party 9; Progressive 2. 
Noes 57 
New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 8; United Future 8; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Motion agreed to. 
The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 175 in the name of Murray Smith to insert new clause 14B be agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 17 
ACT New Zealand 8; United Future 8; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Noes 103 
New Zealand Labour 52; New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; Green Party 9; Progressive 2. 
Amendment not agreed to. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: The next amendment is to clause 15(3) and it is in the name of Richard Worth. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 57 
New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 8; United Future 8; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Noes 63 
New Zealand Labour 52; Green Party 9; Progressive 2. 
Amendment not agreed to. 
The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Papers 166 172 and 191 in the name of the Hon Phil Goff be agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendments be agreed to. 
Ayes 63 
New Zealand Labour 52; Green Party 9; Progressive 2. 
Noes 57 
New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 8; United Future 8; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Amendments agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That Part 2 as amended be agreed to.  
Ayes 63 
New Zealand Labour 52; Green Party 9; Progressive 2. 
Noes 57 
New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 8; United Future 8; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Part 2 as amended agreed to. 
Clause 1 Title 
RICHARD WORTH (National—Epsom) 
: 
 National opposes the Criminal Records (Clean Slate) Bill and in part but only in small part it is because the title is so inappropriate and improper. Of course this legislation as earlier speakers have said is a mandate to lie. It does not on any basis expunge convictions because as other members have said the convictions are only concealed and can spring up again either through inadvertent disclosure or because a person seeks a particular type of employment or because a person reoffends. 
I am glad and I am sure that National is glad that Minister Goff was prepared to make a contribution to this debate. In that regard he stood in stark contrast to the Minister in charge of the bill Mr Barker who sat silently and sullenly not prepared to contribute to this so-called centrepiece of the Government’s criminal rehabilitation strategy. I am glad Mr Goff did speak because it gave members a really good opportunity to assess how little he knew about this legislation. 
One of the things he spoke about briefly was the rehabilitation period. He said that the 7-year period of rehabilitation fixed in the legislation was a period of non-offending. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: No I did not. I said non-conviction. 
RICHARD WORTH 
: That is right. The Minister is intervening now to make a further correction and one he should have made at the outset. It is a period of non-conviction. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I will not be directly misrepresented by that member. I make it clear for the  
Hansard 
 that I said “not convicted”. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: The Minister has an opportunity at the end of Mr Worth’s contribution to take a call on misrepresentation. He cannot do so now. 
RICHARD WORTH 
: I think if the Minister looks back at his  
Hansard 
 he will find that he did make the slip to which I have drawn his attention. But then of course he went on to plop into another trap because he read to us a letter from an unidentified correspondent—an atypical letter I would say for reasons I will come to—and failed to draw to the attention of members that persons who travel have an obligation to disclose any criminal convictions at the foreign border. It is very much I would suggest the low point of this Government when legislation of this type is passed through Parliament simply by dint of numbers. 
This bill does create some exceptions and I think it is a great pity that they are so limited. I suggest for example that when a teacher is applying for a job it is a relevant piece of information that he or she should disclose any criminal convictions. I believe that there is a legitimate public interest in a prospective teacher—or an established teacher—seeking a position being required to disclose through the New Zealand Teachers Council the existence of those convictions. As a result the system might decide to disregard those convictions but at least the system should know of them. 
It is similarly the case that where a person applies for a post that involves handling money or some other position of trust he or she should be required to disclose his or her convictions—particularly if those convictions relate to a matter of honesty. Yet the Government has decided that it is acceptable for people to take employment in both the public and private sectors who may have a string of convictions for dishonesty and that they need not disclose those convictions. That is why when Government members assert that this bill is all about youthful indiscretions they run a very clear risk of misleading us all. The reality is that the threshold for non-disclosure is reached only in respect of custodial sentences. 
STEPHEN FRANKS (ACT) 
: 
 This bill now involves Parliament in lying. I use that word knowingly and carefully. There is no clean slate. The commentary from the Justice and Electoral Committee says there is no clean slate. The provisions do not provide for a clean slate yet the title of this bill says “Clean Slate”. This bill should not proceed under this title. Nothing of a clean slate is created; there is simply concealment of a record. 
The Minister may not have realised it. By reading the letter he received the Minister in his tear-jerking way misled this Committee in three different respects. 
Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m. 
STEPHEN FRANKS 
: Just before we broke for dinner at 6 o’clock I was referring to the address that the Minister in the chair Mr Phil Goff gave on this Criminal Records (Clean Slate) Bill. I was referring to the mis-description—to put it as its most kind—the inaccuracy and the untruthfulness of this title. This bill does not create a clean slate. It instructs people to lie about their records. The records remain intact. The bill instructs Government departments to lie about the records and then it provides penalties for people who ask about criminal records. 
Mr Goff read us a tear-jerking letter from a person who many many years ago had shoplifted. Mr Goff asked why we should not have compassion for someone who offended once but has since led a blameless life. Why not indeed? Most of us do have compassion. Almost every New Zealander would tell that poor woman: “Don’t worry. You have led a blameless life. We don’t hold it against you.” And they do not. I have employed people. I have become a partner in my businesses with people who have committed offences in their youth but who have since led a blameless life. I believe that most New Zealanders do that. That is true compassion. 
But this bill I say to Mr Goff does not conceal the records of people who have offended once and since led a blameless life. This bill conceals the records of people who have offended any number of times. The average New Zealand prisoner goes to prison for the first time after committing nine offences. I tell the Minister that this bill conceals all the previous eight offences. It ceases to conceal only when people have reached their ninth offence or at least reached the point of being sent to prison. To get an average of nine offences there are probably some offenders who might have 10 or 20 offences before they go to prison. So it is not about offending once and then leading a blameless life. 
Let us look at the “blameless life” claim. This bill will conceal the record of someone who has committed any number of offences gone to Australia spent time in prison gone anywhere else in the world committed any number of offences come back and led anything but a blameless life. But if they have managed to avoid being convicted—and it does not matter how many times they have been charged—then the record gets concealed. I ask Mr Goff: where is the blameless life in that? 
Mr Goff invited the House to comment on the letter. I am commenting on the letter. I hope he will take a call and explain why it is that he is supporting a bill that claims to provide a clean slate when it does not. The Minister has claimed that the bill provides for people who have led a blameless life after one offence when it does not. There is no maximum number of offences that would disqualify a person from claiming the benefit of this bill. That provision was proposed in the Justice and Electoral Committee but the Minister’s officials I assume on instruction discouraged any of those kinds of amendments that would have made this less offensive legislation. In fact the Government has just voted against amendments that would have made this less offensive legislation. 
This bill is utterly unnecessary. There is no evidence that the people who have written to the Minister asking to have their records concealed have had what the Minister called a life sentence. How offensive that is to people in this country who are asking that a life sentence actually mean something! The Minister compares a genuine life sentence which connotes seriousness of offending and proper punishment with the fact that someone is embarrassed about a past offence. How can there be any comparison? That speaks volumes about the Labour Government’s attitude to crime and punishment and criminal justice. 
RON MARK (NZ First) 
: 
 I have to say that I had not intended speaking on this bill because I thought the work done by my colleague Dail Jones was sterling work and we needed to add no further comment. But having sat in my office and listened to the heartrending bleating speech made by the Minister on behalf of some correspondent I was moved to get down here and put a few things on record. 
In Mr Goff’s speech he implied that there were many members of this House who themselves might have committed childhood or youthful indiscretions who would take advantage of this bill. In saying so he threw a slur across the House that implied various members of this House had criminal convictions and needed this bill. Well I am one member who does have a criminal conviction. Many people whom I have been honest and upfront with have stated that my conviction is one of youthful indiscretion—that is of having carnal knowledge when I was a 17 to 18-year-old soldier. But is it not ironic that when I look at the Minister’s “Dishonesty Bill”—that is what I would name it; I would call it the “Right to Lie Bill”—and at what is meant by “specified offence” I see that my youthful indiscretion is not one that is covered by this Minister’s bill. 
So I dare say he speaks out both sides of his mouth. He says that youthful indiscretions committed when one is a young person are not things that should be brought up later in life to hound a person and impede that person’s progress through life—the person having led a crime-free life since then. He says that out of one side of his mouth while out of the other side he fails to point out that the very offence I was convicted of as a young man would not be concealed. 
I would love for the Minister to talk to me now about what he considers to be a youthful indiscretion. Is a youthful indiscretion a 15-year-old boy having sex with a 15-year-old girl? I ask the Minister: is that not a youthful indiscretion? Is that a heinous crime that is forever to be hung around that young boy’s neck for the rest of his life— 
Jill Pettis 
: Does the member wear it as a badge of honour? 
RON MARK 
: —because the puritans over there and Jill Pettis is one of them in the Labour caucus cannot forgive the youthful indiscretion of a 15-year-old boy who is in love with a 15-year-old girl? Oh no! We love to have a dollar each way. 
Stephen Franks 
: She’s normal! 
RON MARK 
: But she is normal. So I do not accept the Minister’s explanation. I think it is playing with words. This bill should be titled the “Right to Lie Bill”. 
I will tell the Minister why I am voting against this bill. I have been an employer. I have been responsible for vetting CVs of people I was going to take into my employ to handle money handle customers deal with children and look after mothers. I absolutely believe I had a right to know the background of each individual who applied for a job. If I then made a value judgment that the crime that person fessed up to was not one worthy of consideration given his or her record since then or the work he or she was going to be doing then it was a decision I would make. I would decide whether that person would be employed. But I would not like to have the person stand in front of me and lie barefaced to me with the protection of this legislation and then find out later on that in actual fact he or she had been employed somewhere else and had been caught with a hand in the till there—and I had just suffered the same consequences. That is not good for this country. 
My foster parents often told me a simple little saying. They used to say: “Honesty is the best policy.” That is what I would leave for this Government to consider. Should we disclose these facts to people today or should we not? I believe that honesty is the best policy. Look at what happened to me. My personal information was disclosed to the media far and wide throughout this land. It was used to try to discredit me. I could have lied to Mr Peters when I became a candidate; I could have lied to the president of my party; I could have lied to everybody. Under this bill I could—if my offence was covered; in actual fact it is not—have had criminal offences I did not disclose. At the end of the day when they are disclosed—because the public information is out there in the newspapers—who loses? Whose credibility is then destroyed? Actually it is the credibility of two: one would be myself and the other would be the actual system and the process. I do not believe in any way shape or form that this bill should be passed and that is why I will be voting against it. 
LINDSAY TISCH (National—Piako) 
: 
 Thank you for the opportunity finally to put the case for National that this bill is a complete and an utter nonsense. I say that because during other speeches in the Committee stage it was stated that this bill allows somebody to lie about his or her past. As the previous speaker said honesty is the best policy. The Law Society’s submission stated this: “The bill does not purport to expunge a conviction but rather to provide a framework whereby the existence of a conviction is suppressed. The bill doesn’t purport to remove the fact of a conviction from someone’s record but rather enables the convicted individual not to disclose a conviction and/or precludes particular individuals or entities from requiring or obtaining such disclosure.” To me “clean slate” means exactly that: the record is wiped clean. If the bill were to state that a conviction is wiped clean and is struck from the record as if nothing had ever happened then that would be a different story. But this bill does not do that. It does not expunge the conviction; the conviction is still there. 
The bill allows somebody with a conviction to say lawfully that he or she does not have a conviction and prospective employers will not be able to ask questions in order to ascertain the background of a person they may take on. In fact the bill legalises perjury. That is one thing that the Opposition and National in particular has great difficulty with. We believe that for people to take an honest approach to business is far better than for them to be able to say they do not have a conviction. Let us be open and let us lay the cards on the table. The bill legalises perjury and that is something we find to be offensive. Somebody will be able to hide his or her conviction for a minor dishonesty offence that may have occurred—but remembering that even major offences may have occurred that did not require a custodial sentence. There could be a conviction for assault. It could be that someone had his or her fingers in the till and I gave an example earlier on of an employee I had who wrote out a cheque and tried to embezzle money from me. It could be that a person has committed an assault or a minor theft or whatever the offence is. But at the end of the day a prospective employer should be able to ask about that and to lay on the table exactly what the requirements are. 
Does the employer not have any rights in this business? The Minister may like to answer that question. What about the rights of the employer? This bill states that the employer has absolutely no rights and that all the rights belong to the employee as we see in so many other pieces of legislation. If it is to be the case that an employee can hide his or her past convictions what would occur if someone was to say he or she had a qualification that he or she did not have? If that qualification got the person the job because it made the person’s CV look better than it was if that position were to be found out the person could well get the sack. Contrary to that if a person has a conviction then he or she is able to hide it and as we have said we find that that is completely unacceptable. When we look at the prospects of someone who wants to travel especially to countries like the United States we see there is absolutely no way such countries will let people in who have committed offences. That is an issue for anybody who wishes to travel overseas. 
RON MARK (NZ First) 
: 
 Thank you for the Committee’s indulgence. I do appreciate this call as I was not able to get a call on earlier parts in the debate. I want to continue on with a couple of observations I have made. This bill and we are discussing the title could truly be called the “Lying in Unison Bill” the “Right to Perjure Oneself Bill” or the “Great Green Con Job Bill”. 
The reason the bill is here is that Labour is allowing itself to be forced into a situation promoted by the Greens. When I say that this legislation could be called the “Great Green Con Job Bill” I ask: is it not interesting that today the Green MPs were out on the forecourt of Parliament telling students that the most important thing out there to them was getting students an allowance? Yet the only thing they have really pursued to fruition in this House is this sort of stuff: the Criminal Records (Clean Slate) Bill advocacy for legalising marijuana and cycleways and footpaths from one end of the country to the other which probably will not be used by anyone except Mrs Brown’s cat and two or three kiddies on their bikes maybe. It is like the cycleway that will go between Rangiora and Kaiapoi. I do not know who the heck rides a bike down there; nobody is stupid enough to. But it will be a very expensive unusable not used road when the very things the Greens could have been concentrating on were student allowances as they told everybody today they were but have not been. That is why I say that this bill could be called the “Great Green Con Job Bill”. 
I point out to the Minister that when we talk about people who will be able to conceal their convictions and consider the comments made previously about the insignificant nature of those convictions we should get it firmly in our heads. Mr Franks said that the average inmate who gets his first jail term has committed nine previous offences. He said that to get an average of nine offences they might well have committed 11 15 or 16. The Minister should take on board that many youth offenders we are dealing with in cities today—the recidivist offenders—who finally get a conviction have between 40 and 80 contacts with the police for breaking the law. They have had between 40 and 80 contacts with various youth agencies for criminal behaviour before they ever get charged let alone get convicted let alone get a jail term. 
So what I will be faced with and what every other small businessman out there will be faced with is not only having to deal with the vagaries of the youth justice system that already conceals through the Privacy Act and through the Youth Court— 
Stephen Franks 
: Suppression. 
RON MARK 
: The laws of suppression already conceal their 40 to 80 conflicts with the law for breaking the law but now this legislation will conceal the convictions they had subsequent to that—unless of course they have finally clocked up so many they have to go to jail. I say God help any small employer who runs foul of this because he will have no recompense. The Minister will not be there saying: “We’re really sorry. We know you’ve had embezzlement and we know your garage has been ripped off and half a dozen cars stolen. Yes we know this person had a track record.” He will not be there to help the businessman pay his new increased insurance levies. He will not be there to help that business recover loss. He will not be there to counsel staff who will lose their jobs because the business has suffered embezzlement. He will be sitting back here congratulating himself for passing this “Lying in Unison Bill”. 
That is what the bill is. It is touchy feel good fluffy legislation that does only one thing. It promotes lying legalises lying and dissuades people from the simple policy that most educated people are brought up to accept—that is that honesty is the best policy. 
Every day in this House and in select committees we are dealing with youth crime. We know the problems we are facing there. Any legislation passed through this House that enables people to conceal crimes that I believe that an employer trust or social welfare agency has a right to know about and make a valued judgment on is wrong. Further I ask what it is about the social welfare system the public service and businessmen that the Minister does not trust. Why can he not let them make that valued decision as they rightly should be allowed to do? 
The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 175 in the name of Murray Smith to clause 1 be agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 16 
ACT New Zealand 8; United Future 8. 
Noes 103 
New Zealand Labour 52; New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; Green Party 9; Progressive 2. 
Amendment not agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That clause 1 be agreed to. 
Ayes 63 
New Zealand Labour 52; Green Party 9; Progressive 2. 
Noes 56 
New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 8; United Future 8. 
Clause 1 agreed to. 
House resumed. 
Procedure 
The bill was reported with amendment. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the report be adopted. 
Ayes 63 
New Zealand Labour 52; Green Party 9; Progressive 2. 
Noes 56 
New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 8; United Future 8. 
Report adopted. 
Corrections Bill 
Second Reading 
Debate resumed from 7 April. 
RON MARK (NZ First) 
: 
 I wish to refresh the House that it is New Zealand First’s intention to vote against this bill. Our reasons have been outlined in my previous 8 minutes’ speaking time and also in the minority report within the bill. I have to say that one of my greatest concerns and a mounting and rising concern is the portion of the bill that seeks to bring into statutory existence the integrated offender management system which I believe has all the potential to become Labour’s INCIS. 
I say that because the integrated offender management system which we will legislate into being in this Corrections Bill is doomed to failure. The reason I say that is that in all the annual reports I have read from the Department of Corrections I cannot find anything that gives me confidence that the rehabilitation programmes that are currently being run by the Department of Corrections work to the extent that we would throw $30 million at implementing a computerised management system to further promote them. 
I do not believe in any way shape or form that the integrated offender management system is currently working. Despite all the rhetoric that seems to pour out of Mr Byers’ and Mr McCarthy’s mouths as to what a wonderful job they are doing at rehabilitating offenders the information I receive tells me that inmates do not receive a sentence plan. Some do but many do not. This legislation seeks to make it law that inmates will receive an integrated offender management plan a sentence plan that is designed to take care of their criminogenic needs to identify pathways to their successful integration back into the community. However these plans are not able to be put together in the time frame specified; and at the end of the day when they are they do not work. 
I raise the case of Mr Jarden as a classic example of how all the rehabilitative processes within the State’s Department of Corrections failed. Not only did they fail but the Parole Board then further failed and Mr Jarden went on to create three more infant girl victims. 
Look at Mr Carroll. Look at a number of others. The warning is here and it is very clear that this bill is fatally flawed and will run the risk of incurring great cost to the taxpayer and liabilities as well. 
KEITH LOCKE (Green) 
: 
 The Green Party of course is supporting this bill. My colleague Nandor Tanczos sat in on the select committee hearings on the bill. Unfortunately he cannot be here tonight to give a presentation so I am presenting these comments on his behalf. It is interesting that the self-styled “tough on crime” fundamentalists such as Tony Ryall Ron Mark Stephen Franks and Marc Alexander praise the Australian correctional services for the humane and caring way they incarcerate prisoners while climbing over each other to savage the public service whenever it shows a similar approach. The Withers referendum which they are all so fond of reminding us about called for hard labour. That is the direct opposite of what the Australasian Corrections Management general manager at the remand prison Dom Karauria is trying to implement there. 
Richard Worth 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. It is very hard to hear the member. I think it is probably because he is reading from his notes and mumbling. I wonder whether he might speak up so we can hear him. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: That is not really a point of order but I ask the member perhaps to speak closer to the microphone so that other members are able to hear. 
KEITH LOCKE 
: Mr Dom Karauria and his supporters claim that the greatest strength of the Auckland Central Remand Prison is the involvement of tangata whenua in decision making which is exactly what ACT and National criticise the Government for. So it is good if corporations do it but bad if the Government does it! It all seems a little contradictory. Why support a facility that is the antithesis of their vision for prisons? It is not about what the prison actually does: as with education health and utilities for most of those members it is their blind ideological commitment to privatisation. 
As the Hon Paul Swain has indicated the Greens have been engaged in negotiations with the Government to progress the bill and we thank the Government for its willingness to meet our concerns. We want to see an end to the private management of prisons in this country which has been the Green policy since 1999 and we want to improve the bill and improve the prison service by ensuring firstly explicit reference to the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners to ensure that all regulations comply with such rules improved transparency of the complaints procedure by providing that all reports by the prison inspectorate are itemised in the annual report of the Department of Corrections inspectorate reports will be publicly available and then tightening up restrictions on the use of segregation. Prison policy says that segregation should not be used as a punishment but in his submission Tony Ellis made a strong case that it is so used at times. We would like decisions to be reviewed monthly and segregation should cease altogether at 3 months unless authorised by a visiting justice. New rules around how those justices are selected trained and rotated provide further safeguards. 
We also want some protection for whistleblowers by ensuring that the section 140 offences of having unauthorised communications or recordings of inmates apply only where there is a specific threat to prison security rather than where for example it is in the public interest to draw attention to abuses within the prison system. We also wish to ensure that the chief executive at the national level and local prison managers engage with local ethnic communities in developing local prison practices and programmes and that the obligation to consider cultural identity and language when planning individual management plans should be extended to macro level planning of services and programmes. 
Let me say the Greens do not and have never defended the shortcomings of the public service but we believe we have a responsibility to try to address those problems across the whole prison system. The answer does not lie in defending the profits of one company and ignoring the need for reform in the public service. The State’s coercive power is at its most extreme in a prison. Guards have very serious control over the lives of inmates. With reasonable force but relatively little justification they can inspect orifices and generally humiliate other human beings. We should not give those powers to a multinational corporation because that obviously carries dangers. The only other comparable group in society is the police and most people would not support Securitas policing them. Privatising prisons is quite different from the commercial provision of health or other kinds of social services. The “private good: public bad” mantra cannot apply here. As the Hon Matt Robson stated in his speech earlier this is about a foot in the door for the wholesale privatisation of prisons. 
Australasian Correctional Management which runs New Zealand’s only privatised prison is a subsidiary of the GEO Group. In 2000 in its former incarnation as Wackenhut Corrections the GEO Group was singled out by the  
Observer  
newspaper in England for among other things sadism greed and frightening incompetence and has been subject to allegations of sexual abuse physical violence and unsafe work practices. The Australian Medical Association and others have called for an independent inquiry into Australasian Correctional Management’s immigration detention centres in Australia based on staffing problems substandard service and child abuse. At least one court case has found Australasian Correctional Management guilty of unsafe work practices in its prisons so Ron Mark’s view that we can end abuse in prisons by getting multinational corporations to run them is just naive. 
Of course Australasian Correctional Management is on its best behaviour in New Zealand. The Auckland Central Remand Prison is Australasian Correctional Management’s glossy sales brochure selling the privatisation of the prison system. This is all about market share. All this is no criticism of the former manager Dom Karauria. It is primarily due to his excellent work that the remand prison has satisfied its community stakeholders. It is also a brand-new facility and being a remand prison is without the same pressures and obligations found in the main penal system. There is no easy way to compare the rehabilitative function because this Australasian Correctional Management prison deals with accused prisoners in a remand situation not convicted ones. 
Claims have been made by some MPs that the per head cost is less at Auckland Central Remand Prison than in the public system but this is a false comparison because the infrastructural costs such as the building and the IOM computer systems were publicly funded. The public service is cheaper when a true comparison is made. Our prisons are not effective at rehabilitation and the Greens do not defend the status quo within the public system. Disturbingly with new tougher sentencing laws in place the Government has boasted in Parliament that the prison population will soon increase by 20 percent. But the challenge for the Green Party has been to negotiate corrections legislation that will improve the prison system and to promote policies that will lead to a more inclusive and just society that makes prisons less important. 
It is disturbing that New Zealand is up near the top of the table internationally in terms of per capita membership of prisons. It is still a fair way behind America which tops the list—America has over 2 million people in prisons. But when one takes a vindictive approach to crime and puts more people in prisons and in for longer times all that happens is that there is more crime and a higher prison population. This is the vicious cycle that is operating in the United States and that can happen here if we are not careful. I think we need to— 
Hon Harry Duynhoven 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Sorry for interrupting the member’s speech but I do think it is not on for a member of Parliament sitting nearby to interject or for him to interject to say the member is lying. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Can I thank the honourable member for that. I had noted that and I would like to point out Speaker’s ruling 57/5—that backbenchers’ interjections on each other in close proximity to each other have an effect on the live microphone. The member will desist withdraw and apologise for implying that the member is not telling the truth. 
Stephen Franks 
: I withdraw and apologise. 
KEITH LOCKE 
: While this bill does not address the rehabilitation question in any depth it does provide certain greater rights for prisoners which I think will help in their rehabilitation. It is important to treat prisoners as human beings and help their rehabilitation into becoming good members of society. It is good that the complaints procedure is being strengthened up a bit and hopefully when the Supplementary Order Paper comes forward from the Minister there will be an allowance for the Human Rights Commission to enter the prison as suggested in the report. It is good that the bill does retain that guarantee that people like MPs and hopefully the Human Rights Commission can come in to check prison conditions. I have found it myself a good restraint on abuse within the prison system and I have used it on many occasions. 
MARC ALEXANDER (United Future) 
: 
 I rise on behalf of United Future to address the second reading of the Corrections Bill. Although the bill addresses numerous issues I wish to concentrate on our concern that in spite of 30 of the 33 submissions that dealt with the provisions ending the private management of prisons being in favour of maintaining the status quo this Government has chosen the fool’s path of ideology over credibility. 
Clause 194 prohibits the extension of the existing management contract for Auckland Central Remand Prison and clauses 185 and 186 prohibit any new contracts being entered into. United Future rejects the stated rationale for these provisions as being in keeping with the so-called “core functions” of the State. It is not a rationale at all but is the replacement of common sense with an ideological harlot—a triumph of socialist irresponsibility. 
This Government is utterly bereft of consistency. It conveniently overlooks the privately managed and outsourced correctional services such as escort and courtroom custodial services home detention and external providers of programmes for offenders. Chubb has been allowed to escort and perform courtroom custodial sentences—up to 26892 prison escorts and 8021 court custody tasks were undertaken in 2002 alone. Some of these inmate transfers are conducted on commercial flights—also creating profits for somebody—for inmates to attend court appearances and rehabilitation programmes and to ease overcrowding. Since August 1999 Chubb has also provided services related to the administration of home detention throughout New Zealand. Chubb provides electronic monitoring and manual surveillance services to the Department of Corrections for those offenders serving home detention orders. 
The Community Probation Service has contracted external private providers for both residential programmes and non-residential programmes for offenders. These programmes include alcohol drug and violence prevention and sex offender treatment programmes. The only private prison in New Zealand is the Auckland Central Remand Prison managed by Australasian Correctional Management Pty Ltd and despite its exemplary performance this Labour Government wants to terminate the company’s contract. Why? Because it does not do a good job? Because it costs too much or does not deliver on its promise? Not at all. It is simply because the prison is privately managed. We all know that this Government has a huge problem with anything that resembles a successful enterprise in which it plays no part. 
Normally the Government would tax the company to death—a slow economic euthanasia—but in this case it is a matter of removing it and damn the taxpayers who are presently benefiting. The facts are clear enough: where a comparable State facility costs $72000 per year per inmate the Auckland Central Remand Prison costs $43000. Despite these cost efficiencies the remand prison provides higher levels of services than State managed providers including having a New Zealand Qualifications Authority accredited training area for the kitchen; a drug reduction strategy resulting in more long-term drug users choosing to become drug free; on-site health provision including diabetes screening 24-hour medical coverage with a registered nurse a psychiatric service staff testing for cholesterol and diabetes and a whole range of other medical benefits; offender services including full-time psychologists and assessors; the provision of 60000 programme and vocational hours; the provision of 10000 cultural activity programme hours; and employment and programmes provided for 75 percent of the inmates. 
The prison provides National Certificate of Employment Skills training which is available to all inmates. This includes literacy and numeracy skills and focuses on enhancing the future employment possibilities of the inmates. It is the only prison in New Zealand to deliver New Zealand Qualifications Authority alcohol and drug unit standards and it has successfully passed the integrated offender management implementation final review. It is also the only prison in New Zealand to provide reintegration programmes to remand inmates. 
In the Law and Order Committee’s report on Vote Corrections in the 2001/02 estimates the Minister of Corrections asserted the view that privately run prisons could not integrate with the approach the Government wanted in publicly administered prisons. Given the superior outcomes of a privately managed prison what that really means is that the Minister could not have confidence that State managed prisons could measure up. In other words get rid of the competition because it embarrasses us. Bluntly the Government’s determination to exclude the private management of prisons is motivated by the prevailing political ideology the prospect of comparisons with inadequate outcomes and the influence of unions amongst correctional staff and State-run prisons. 
The Government’s assertion that coercive powers to restrict the freedom of inmates should be applied by no agency other than the State is weakened by the fact that the courts not the prisons impose this restriction. The ideological distaste for the private management of prisons is based on the assumptions that a private provider should not generate profit from crime. But the attack on the profit motive fails to stand up to scrutiny when lawyers and law firms profit from their representation and prosecution functions construction companies profit from the construction of prisons and suppliers of a range of products both material and educational profit from their service to prisons. 
What this intellectually lethargic Government steadfastly refuses to understand is that the administration of a custodial sentence is distinct from the State’s power to enforce the law and impose the sentence. At no time can private management undermine the State’s authority. The provisions are set out in a negotiated tender advanced by the Government. There is an independent monitoring of practices and standards and there is a high degree of scrutiny from visiting justices prisoner aid and rehabilitation organisations and Ministry of Justice prison inspectors. Having both State and private providers of the management of prisons competing for tenders promotes accountability. To have both will be the best assurance of the highest quality standards at the best possible price for the taxpayers and victims of New Zealand. This Minister is now trying to snuff out the candle only to be left in the dark groping like a blind bat looking for a match. 
This Government has listened to the people of this country with Van Gogh’s ear acknowledging only the Corrections Association and the faint distant heartbeat of a discredited social philosophy that distrusts anything other than the bloated State bureaucracy. This Government is hell-bent on enshrining ideology by courting the Corrections Association at the expense of inmates at the expense of New Zealand taxpayers and at the expense of common sense. Worse this pragmatically impoverished Labour Government is insulting the very victims that it pretends to care about. Not only have the spiralling numbers of victims paid a heavy price due to the offences perpetrated on them but they now have to pay more than they need to to keep those offenders behind bars. The fact is that if State-managed prisons were as economically efficient as our privately managed prison we would save nearly $400 million a year. That would mean more resources for frontline police more for restitution to victims more for drug and alcohol rehabilitation programmes and better resourced early interventions. 
It stuns me that the Greens have sold what is left of their soul for this ideologically indulgent legislation. I hope the price was worth it. When the Greens come out with comments like: “There are some officers who have a brutality of attitude that cannot be accepted in our Department of Corrections.” from April 2003 or: “The Corrections Department still seems to be mired in the Dark Ages.” from November 2003 how can they suddenly turn and support the Government on this particular piece of ideology? It is unbecoming of all people who think that they want to further the interests of the criminal justice system. Such nice sentiments but from the Greens their sweetness is as bitter as bile. The Greens have sold out on no fewer than seven northern Maori iwi the Pacific Island community the inmates the taxpayer and the growing roll call of victims in one fell swoop. The number of submitters from iwi who supported the Auckland Central Remand Prison as the best provider of services to Maori and Pacific Island inmates has not been given sufficient weight by either the Greens or the Labour Government. The decision to end private prison management was not based on either performance or efficiency criteria but on ideology alone. It is noteworthy that National ACT and New Zealand First did not succumb to the crapulent ideological nonsense espoused by this Labour Government. It was up to the underwhelming Greens and the Alliance leftovers the Progressives who with Labour make up the troika that defines political absurdity. They are three intersecting streams of ideological bankruptcy resembling three maggots festering on the carcass of common sense. United Future will not support this legislation. 
RICHARD WORTH (National—Epsom) 
: 
 Mr Speaker— 
Hon Harry Duynhoven 
: The sooner we ban reading speeches the better. 
RICHARD WORTH 
: I would like to pick up the words that Harry Duynhoven has just offered across the floor of the Chamber and say that that was an amazing speech. I commend the speaker for the care and trouble that he took in preparing those scripted words. 
 I just go back to this whole issue of reading speeches and express the hope that we might revert to previous Standing Orders which forbade that practice. 
Mark Peck 
: Hear Hear! 
RICHARD WORTH 
: Mr Peck is interjecting. His contribution to Parliament in 2002 2003 and 2004 will always be remembered. The only thing he has done is move closure motions. He is a man of minimal contribution a modest man who has much to be modest about. 
I pick up the comments that Mr Alexander made about the impoverished Labour Party. He offered another phrase about Labour being in the dark—if I wrote it down correctly—“groping like a blind bat looking for a match”. This is the party that Labour has decided to join common cause with. Today we saw this Government come within an inch of being thrown from office and it was saved by Mr Alexander’s team. When the Greens had deserted it United Future—which I judged to be a centre-right party and a potential coalition party when the Government changes in 2005—sought to keep the current Government in office. 
I have come to talk about the Corrections Bill and that is what I will devote the balance of my time to. It is interesting is it not that this bill was introduced to the House in March 2003. It was referred to a select committee in April 2003. A date was set for the closing of submissions which is the normal practice. The date was then extended which is a little bit unusual. The select committee heard a whole lot of submissions. It spent hours—30 hours and 14 minutes—considering all this evidence. Then the committee did not know what to make of this bill. Why do I say it did not know what to make of this bill? The reason is that the report of this illustrious committee—the Law and Order Committee—states: “The Law and Order Committee has examined the Corrections Bill and was unable to reach agreement on whether the bill should be passed.” 
I suggest to Mr Peck that that is a great disappointment because the Penal Institutions Act which the Corrections Bill was planned to replace was passed in 1954—50 years ago. There is not too much substantive legislation on the stocks that has lasted for that period of time. 
Hon Harry Duynhoven 
: I don’t know I paid a pretty big bill for one last year. 
RICHARD WORTH 
: Oh sure there are some examples of bills that became statutes in 1908 that float around—maybe the Pawnbrokers Act although we recently did something with that—but this is old legislation. It was to be hoped that a wise and caring Government would have had the wit to see that legislation should be implemented to pick up changes that are clearly due in respect of what is going on in the prisons. 
For a start any legislation needs to reflect modern policies and practices in prisons. Over the years there have been a whole lot of changes to the Penal Institutions Act since 1954 when it was passed. There have been powers inserted to drug test inmates to monitor inmate telephone calls and new rules relating to dungfunnel searching and that type of thing which have made the legislation complex and difficult to follow. I would also say that the law governing the administration of the corrections system needs to be compatible in its philosophy with both the Sentencing Act of 2002—much-flawed legislation—and also the Parole Act of the same year. New systems have been introduced for managing people on custodial and community-based sentences to effectively target certain outcomes. 
So there was a real case—and I do not think any of us would deny that—for updating this legislation. But the Law and Order Committee chaired by Mr Gallagher simply did not have the drive to see its way through to produce good outcomes. I am not really surprised by that because there are some hugely politically correct and inappropriate provisions in this legislation. Some of them are sort of hidden away. They emerge not from the casual reader’s gaze but rather from those who are tasked to study in detail particular provisions in the bill. Some of the worst and I would say probably the excrescence in this legislation are the transitional provisions in Part 3. Because there in very bald terms in clause 194 it is stated that: “Existing management contracts must not be extended”. The legislation is quite simple in this particular area but it brought to a close what I think has been a real highlight of prison administration in recent years—the management of the private prison. 
I am privileged to represent the constituency of Epsom which some say in numerical terms has within it the highest socio-economic grouping. I watch with bemusement as people fight against the location of prisons in their particular constituencies because in my constituency of Epsom we have three prisons and we seem to be able to manage that issue without rancour or difficulty. These are of course the great prison of Mount Eden—that forbidding stone castle—the women’s prison which is just next door and a little bit further down the road is the remand prison. I do not forget being sent as a candidate prior to my selection for the seat of Epsom to give a briefing on behalf of the National Party—ill-prepared as I might have been as a novice in these areas—to the prison guards at Mount Eden about the benefits of private prisons. I am not sure that they altogether accepted the argument. I guess I did not expect that they would but I hoped that they would be prepared to listen. They were and many moved across to be valuable contributors at the private remand prison. 
I will highlight National’s principal concerns in connection with this legislation. I have obviously foreshadowed the first point which is the whole issue of private prisons. National has made its position clear in the committee’s report as to where it stands on this particular issue. A series of questions have been asked in Parliament of the Minister and others as to what the objection is to private prisons. When this bill was introduced the current Attorney-General Margaret Wilson gave only one reason for abolishing private prisons. She said: “Prisons by their very nature involve the use of highly coercive powers against individuals. This Government believes that it is inappropriate for private sector organisations to wield such powers.” So it is an ideological objection. It is not in any basis well founded in science. In the context of what has gone on around the world I think it is fair to say that privatisation of prisons is one of the few illustrations where privatisation has truly worked. [ 
Interruption 
] It is really helpful to hear the interjections made by Mr Peck because I sense that in Mr Peck’s interjections there may be the faint possibility that he will make a contribution. I doubt it. He does not contribute but these early signs of interjection may hint at a substantive comment that may arise. 
STEPHEN FRANKS (ACT) 
: 
 I rise for the ACT party to speak on the Corrections Bill. As Mr Richard Worth explained this bill has been long in gestation was much trumpeted in its early days and has now become a serious embarrassment to the Government. The Government has managed to procure a majority to get it through with the help of the Greens. The Greens and the Labour Party also pushed through the last bill we were talking about—the Criminal Records (Clean Slate) Bill—a few moments ago. 
The bill has attracted a lot of attention because of its attack on the private prison managed by Australasian Correctional Management Pty Ltd in Auckland the Auckland Central Remand Prison. It has attracted that attention because the select committee could not find any good reason to terminate the private contract. Former Minister Robson who was first responsible for this bill had the grave embarrassment of sitting in the select committee and hearing witness after witness praise the management of the Auckland Central Remand Prison and express their fears about what would happen when the State sector took it over again. 
Although most of the Labour members were whipped to stay silent so as not to prolong the embarrassment and agony of listening to that evidence—a castigation of their policy—Mr Robson could not contain himself. He kept challenging witnesses and expecting them to crumble with his withering questioning. Instead they got stronger and more strident. The more he asked the stronger the evidence was of just how feeble his reasons were for trying to close down the management of Australasian Correctional Management Pty Ltd. 
But I do not want to spend my time talking about what is after all a very small though telling change. This Corrections Bill is the triumph of the philosophy that criminals are really victims. This bill is the final flowering—and I say it will be the final flowering because it will be one of those things that will have to be swept away when we get on top of criminal justice. This bill is the absolute acme of the view that if we are just nice enough to nasty people they might turn around and stop being nasty and be nice back. 
This bill encapsulates in its principles section—and I will quickly refer to them—the playway system of punishment. Of course it does not use the word punishment. That would be far too direct and inappropriate offensive or unacceptable—whatever other word is used as a criticism by the politically correct left. The principles start with the maintenance of public safety. Clause 6 (1)(b) states in a pious little reference: “victims’ interests must be considered …”. It does not say “taken seriously” but just “considered”. There is no definition of victims’ interests. That would be far too dangerous. Something like victims’ interests in seeing the sentence performed or the purposes of sentencing might have to be looked at because one of the interesting features about the Corrections Bill is that it has absolutely no connection with the Sentencing Act. The Sentencing Act tells us that the purposes of sentences are to denounce to hold accountable to protect to incapacitate and to rehabilitate. This bill chooses only one of those and it becomes the entire philosophy for the corrections regime—that is rehabilitation. 
Now it is strange that rehabilitation has been picked because it is the one thing that criminologists around the world agree is not achievable by prisons. Despite what we would all like to be the case and despite the hopes of literally 150 years of inspired very decent well-meaning attempts we have no real evidence—in fact we have a lot of evidence going the other way—that prisons can reliably rehabilitate. We know that they can incapacitate. 
We had a rather fantastic speech from Mr Locke who managed to tell us that the Americans now have 2 million people locked up and that they are in a vicious cycle of locking up more people and experiencing more crime. Mr Locke must be the only person who has ever studied the topic who is unaware that even the least successful state in the United States has dropped its serious crime by 33 percent its youth crime by a similar amount and other less serious crime by less. As an ordinary United States citizen one has about half the risk of being burgled that one has in New Zealand. 
Mr Locke could tell us because he feels he has no fear of contradiction—people like Mr Locke do not need to reason from facts; they reason from feelings—that the Americans must be in a vicious cycle of increasing crime simply because they are getting tougher on punishment. I tell Mr Locke that for the public the purpose of a corrections system is to punish. Punishment may have four elements to it—rehabilitation being one of them—but the more important ones and the ones we know can be achieved are to deter to denounce to give justice and to assure victims that the offender is not better off after the crime than they are. This bill does nothing to achieve them. 
This bill embodies the United Nations rules that New Zealand has never formally adopted. The United Nations standard minimum rules for the treatment of prisoners are for the first time being brought into our law. What is the most significant feature of that? It is rule 57: “Imprisonment and other measures which result in cutting off an offender from the outside world are afflictive by the very fact of taking from the person the right of self-determination by depriving him of his liberty.” It could have just said that imprisonment takes freedom and is therefore unpleasant but it goes on and states: “The prison system shall not except as incidental to justifiable segregation or the maintenance of discipline aggravate the suffering inherent in such a situation.” In other words imprisonment is punishment; imprisonment is not for punishment. 
By putting these principles into this bill this Government is giving the finger to the 92 percent who asked that crime be punished with tougher sentencing. That referendum which Government members might not wish to remember asked for hard labour. That referendum asked for things that this bill now puts beyond reach because it says that the Government cannot deliberately make prison an unpleasant experience. The only thing that is legitimate is depriving a person of liberty. 
Then the entire bill goes on to say what must be done for prisoners—not done to prisoners. This bill says that though the victim’s interests must be considered and that there may be decisions intended to reduce the risk of reoffending the offender’s family must be provided for. The corrections system must ensure fair treatment and sentences must not be administered more restrictively than is necessary to ensure the maintenance of law and the safety of the public. In other words one has to be as nice as one possibly can. 
It is perfectly proper for a bill like this to require that there should be no torture no cruelty or abuse of power and that there should be fair appeal rights. All of those things would have been perfectly proper but this bill goes on to say that one must be as gentle as one can. This bill says that one can do only what is necessary to ensure the safety of the public—not to achieve the purposes of entering not to deter not to denounce and not to hold accountable. 
When we get further into the detail it gets worse. The bill of the former Minister Mr Robson has scarcely been changed in relation to punishment. It is very plain that lawyers like Mr Tony Ellis—well meaning as they are—will now have a field day in respect of a bill that gives in almost every clause an opportunity to challenge the supervision and disciplinary decisions of prison officers. That is not because they are cruel or there is callous abuse of power but simply because they are not being nice enough or taking into account the purposes Mr Robson has managed to draw from the United Nations rules and now lock into our law. This bill should not pass. 
MARTIN GALLAGHER (Labour—Hamilton West) 
: 
 As members of the House will be aware the Law and Order Committee looked at this bill. The fact that there was a four-four split on the committee showed it was obviously unable to reach agreement on whether the bill should be passed. We had the interesting situation again of a degree of gridlock in the select committee so we reported the bill back to the House with no amendments. 
However the story in the telling is in the commentary. I would certainly like to acknowledge all members of the committee for the way in which we did work together on this bill. Obviously the commentary embraces the different views of respective parties. I certainly acknowledge the deputy chairman of the committee Marc Alexander and the Hon Tony Ryall and Brian Connell from National Edwin Perry from New Zealand First as well as my own Government colleagues Ann Hartley Mahara Okeroa and Georgina Beyer. 
Notwithstanding that we could not reach agreement I think the prime area of disagreement was the philosophical approach to the management of the prison service in terms of the role of the private sector in providing prisons versus the State and public sector. In the select committee I certainly detected quite a degree of commonality on a number of issues in spite of what a previous speaker has said. 
As has been said in previous speeches to the House—certainly from the Government side; let me acknowledge two previous Government speakers when this bill was last considered the current Minister the Hon Paul Swain and the Hon Matt Robson—and again to put this bill into perspective this is a major reform of law governing the operations of the corrections system. It will replace the Penal Institutions Act of 1954—obviously that is now 50 years old—and parts of the Criminal Justice Act 1985 and requires the replacement of the Penal Institutions Regulations 2000. The reform is clearly needed so that the legislation now reflects modern conditions and approaches to the management of offenders. In spite of what a previous speaker may have implied the bill is absolutely compatible with the Government’s criminal justice reforms—the Sentencing Act the Parole Act and the Victims’ Rights Act—which is clear evidence that this Government certainly has listened to public concern. 
We want to emphasise the central importance of public safety so it is obviously important we update the legislation. I want to make the observation that those on the other side of the House including members of the ACT party had 9 long years to do something in this area. Did they do it? No they did not. 
I want to take a bit of time—which a second reading speech allows perhaps—to deal with a couple of aspects we spent some time on. First of all I will deal with the issue of justices of the peace as visiting justices and also with the issue of information sharing and the need to refine information sharing with the New Zealand Police and the Immigration Service. I would like to use the remainder of my time in this second reading speech in contributing to those areas. 
As the report identified we had considerable discussion over the bill’s proposal to exclude justices of the peace from being appointed as visiting justices to our prisons. Supporting their exclusion were assertions that the use of justices of the peace as visiting justices was not working well for several reasons. The reasons included a perception of litigation risk and most judicial review actions relate to cases where the visiting justice was a justice of the peace. It was said that such actions could result in significant costs to the Crown particularly in legal fees and court costs even with the small number of cases subject to review and with the complexity of cases. Particularly since the introduction of drug testing in 1998 a high proportion of cases heard by visiting justices have related to drug charges. Such cases can often be overturned on procedural or technical issues related for example to evidentiary and testing procedures and legal representation. Those are the issues put in favour of excluding JPs as visiting justices. 
In terms of legal representation we talked about the potential for complex arguments to be raised and visiting justice cases have increased since prisoners have had the right to be represented by counsel. In some disciplinary cases a visiting justice who is legally trained may be able to deal more confidently with the issues raised. That was the argument. 
I want to acknowledge publicly what I believe was an excellent submission from the Royal Federation of New Zealand Justices Associations. Clearly it strongly opposed—understandably in my view—the removal of the appointment of justices of the peace as visiting justices. We certainly noted the associations’ concerns that it was not consulted about this change and certainly was not able to understand the rationale behind the proposals. Again we as a committee were not convinced that JPs should be excluded from the list of those who could be appointed as visiting justices. We also noted that only a small number of cases heard by visiting JPs have been overturned and that in the last 4 years there have been only six applications for judicial review of decisions made by JPs as visiting justices. On the whole as a select committee—and I agree with this quite strongly—we certainly do see a continuing role for visiting JPs. Let me take this opportunity to acknowledge the very good work that our JPs have done with regard to prisons. Theirs is a voluntary office and I certainly want to commend the submission and the work by the Royal Federation of the New Zealand Justices Associations. 
The other issue I want to touch on is the concerns we had in respect of information sharing—first of all with the New Zealand Police. We note that the Department of Corrections and the police have identified difficulties with the current legislative framework for information sharing which relate to the case-by-case approach required by the Privacy Act. To assist the police and the department to share information more effectively with the aim of better maintenance of law and order we support four information-sharing proposals with amendments to the bill as follows. 
We note that the department currently discloses information about offenders to the police on a case-by-case basis under the Privacy Act. However for certain classes of offenders—notably sexual offenders—the information provided is not adequate to provide the level of coordination necessary to ensure public safety. So again we have made some recommendations about how there can be a better coordination of information between the police and the Department of Corrections to boost and reinforce public safety. 
The other area of great importance to us I will say in the brief time I have left is to make sure we beef up information matching in terms of the provisions of this new bill with regard to the New Zealand Immigration Service. We have made certain proposals that the Immigration Service should identify individuals who are liable for deportation or removal from New Zealand. That will be conveyed to the Department of Corrections. We believe hopefully that that proposal for this sharing of information will largely eliminate the risk of individuals with criminal convictions escaping deportation or removal because of administrative oversights. Clearly the prison service and the authorities should be aware of the point at which a prisoner who is not a New Zealand citizen leaves so that people do not slip through the system. That is quite important. Obviously there will be a number of changes in that area—bearing in mind as I said that we have reported a bill back without any changes. It is my understanding that the Minister will introduce Supplementary Order Papers to encompass some of the recommendations made by the Government members of the committee. 
Finally let me applaud all members of the committee for the way in which they conducted themselves. Notwithstanding that we had a gridlock I believe that the commentary is a useful contribution to the progressing forward of this very important legislation. 
JUDITH COLLINS (National—Clevedon) 
: 
 I first acknowledge the role of the committee and on behalf of the National Party I would like to thank Mr Gallagher for his graciousness in acknowledging the work of my colleagues on this bill. Certainly the commentary shows they did their very best to try to help bring some sense to the bill. 
I want at this moment to deal with an issue raised by Mr Franks. He mentioned the issue of the costs of prisons—of private prisons as opposed to State-run prisons. The dulcet tones of the Government chief whip were heard singing out across the debating chamber along the lines of: “Oh they only have the less serious prisoners.” I invite that member in her ignorance to forget the words of the Attorney-General and former Minister of Corrections Margaret Wilson and actually go to see what happens in private prisons. She will see contrary to the advice given by Margaret Wilson that the private prison at Auckland the Auckland Central Remand Prison has in it some of the worst possible offenders. I note that in a Radio New Zealand  
Morning Report 
 interview on 7 March 2003 which I will seek leave to table later the Hon Margaret Wilson in answer to a question from the presenter said: “Most of the private prisoners are of course prisoners held there who are low security. In other words it is cheaper to run those prisons because of the nature of the incarceration and that’s tended to be the experience overseas as well.” Well we are not allowed to use the word I would like to use for that so I will say that that former Minister of Corrections was grossly mistaken and grossly wrong. 
The current Minister of Corrections put it straight to us when he told us here in the House that the reason for what is happening is that it is Labour Party policy—and that is the truth; that is what it is all about. The facts are that the privately run Auckland Central Remand Prison costs $43000 a year per prisoner and that cost is for a mix of low to high-security prisoners in a high-security environment. The public prison service costs $54000 a year per minimum-security prisoner and $72000 a year per high-security prisoner. That has nothing to do with the private prison’s building being relatively new because there is also a new prison down in the South Island and its costs are still high—like the rest of the public service. It is all to do with staffing levels and the way prisons are run. 
Staffing levels are all about cushy jobs—having all sorts of staff on duty in accordance with the union’s directives. I went to have a look at the privately run prison and I found it had four staff in total looking after a wing containing 40 prisoners—and those were high-security prisoners. The reason is that the prison uses technology and does not have people standing around watching each other watch other people. I have also visited publicly run prisons when I was a lawyer and I have seen what they do instead. For a wing of 40 people they have 22 staff on duty watching each other watching everyone else. That is what they do because that is the union directive. Publicly run prisons are not run for the benefit of the people of New Zealand; they are run for the benefit of the union and that is what this is all about. 
This bill will have to have a very short life because not only is it wrong but it is ruining our reputation as a country. We are moving away from where everyone else is moving to progressively—towards privately run prisons which have been proven time and time again—and proven so in New Zealand—to be better run to have better outcomes and to be an awful lot cheaper than public prisons. So it is going to have to go for it. Next time we should allow not just one private prison but allow the lot. That is what we should do; there should be none of this half-pie stuff. We should get rid of the other lot and destroy the bureaucracy that is holding this country back. 
I do not think that to be in prison should be a cakewalk and I do not think it ever is. The loss of liberty is a pretty serious issue. Having said that I point out that people who go into prisons who have committed crimes are volunteers. Not one of them has gone to prison because their country has ordered them to do their duty for the country. No they have gone there because they have committed serious criminal offences. Although when people go into prisons I would like to think that in a humane society we will not create an environment from which they will come out necessarily worse than when they went in because that is actually what happens in a lot of the publicly run prisons. When we look at the public prison environment and the attitudes of people we see how the place does not really run because programmes are not there to help those who do want to be helped and then when we look at the private prison we see what they have done with so much less money. 
For instance they look like professionals—that is not the criminals but the staff—in the privately run prisons. The Auckland Central Remand Prison is the only prison in New Zealand to have ISO 9001:2000 accreditation and to have its own full-time drug dog handler and dog. It is a member of the Equal Employment Opportunities Trust although I suppose that that is not necessarily a good thing. It has a low serious incidents rate and it has a lot fewer nasty incidents happening against its staff and other prisoners by prisoners. That is because it sets rules. Its staff show respect and they expect respect. It has in place all sorts of health provisions for the prisoners such as a dental surgery. It has all sorts of things going on there. It has a portable X-ray sexually transmitted disease screening and treatment and diabetes screening. It has something that is probably really important in terms of rehabilitation if there is ever to be a chance of it: it actually has literacy and literary programmes that people want to go to. The prison staff take their work seriously so what are we going to do in this Parliament? We are going to get rid of them because they actually do the job well. 
I know that the Green members want to stand up. Mr Locke gave a very well-read speech with so much passion that one has to wonder why he bothered. I know from listening to him that the Greens have actually been to visit the private prison. They have said they agree with all of these things but unfortunately ideologically they have a problem with it. Well it is not the provision of the services of rehabilitation—or in this case of punishment or anything else as deterrent—that should necessarily be run by the State. It is the State that already arrests people prosecutes them and sentences them; that is actually where the State’s place should be. 
Why is it OK that every provision of anything to do with prisoners—things like cleaning services building services and transportation services from courts to prisons—can be private but not the prisons themselves? The reason is that the unions do not want it and this Government is doing all it can in the few months it has left to pay back the unions. It will not work because we are going to get rid of it very fast—and we have to. If we allow this thing to continue we will continue to have the reoffending rate we already have and we will continue to have the huge drain and cost on our economy. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the Corrections Bill be now read a second time. 
Ayes 63 
New Zealand Labour 52; Green Party 9; Progressive 2. 
Noes 57 
New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 8; United Future 8; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Bill read a second time.  
Forests Amendment Bill 
Consideration of Report of Local Government and Environment Committee 
Hon RICK BARKER (Minister for Courts) 
 on behalf of the 
 Hon Pete Hodgson minister in charge of the bill 
: I move  
That the House take note of the report of the 
 Local Government and Environment Committee on the Forests Amendment Bill. 
 This bill amends Part IIIA of the Forests Act 1949 which relates to indigenous forests and was inserted into the Forests Act in 1993. The bill was introduced to the House in July 1999 by the then National Government. The current Government has confirmed modified and added provisions. 
Over the past two decades stopping the destruction of indigenous forest in New Zealand has been a major environmental objective. This Government’s indigenous forest policy focuses on enhancing and maintaining our remaining natural indigenous forest through protection or sustainable management. All publicly managed indigenous forest is now protected thanks to this Government. Much privately owned indigenous forest is also under protection. For those privately owned forests where harvest of limited quantities of timber is possible ensuring that there are sound provisions for sustainable management is a key aspect of Government policy. Part IIIA of the Forests Act promotes the sustainable management of New Zealand’s remaining natural indigenous forests by placing controls on forest management milling and exports of indigenous timber. 
The main purpose of this bill is to implement Government policy on South Island Landless Natives Act land which was allocated to Maori under the South Island Landless Natives Act 1906. About 57000 hectares of land throughout the South Island was allocated to Maori who were identified as having insufficient land to support themselves. Of the land still under South Island Landless Natives Act ownership about 17300 hectares are forested. About 8300 hectares of that land are unlogged and the remaining 9000 hectares have been logged to a varying degree. 
South Island Landless Natives Act land was exempted from the 1993 amendment to the Forests Act because the Government of the day had not determined its policy on South Island Landless Natives Act lands. The current Government has addressed the issues and announced its South Island Landless Natives Act policy package in May 2002. The package provides for $19.7 million over 7 years for conservation covenants sustainable forest management plans and improved application of the Resource Management Act. It also funds moratorium payments for South Island Landless Natives Act owners in exchange for forest protection giving South Island Landless Natives Act landowners some income while they consider the options for the future of their forests. 
Most South Island Landless Natives Act forests are in the lower South Island. A block at the Heaphy River near Karamea and two blocks on Stewart Island are not covered by the Government’s policy as they are subject to the processes set out in the NgaiTahu Claims Settlement Act. Areas of South Island Landless Natives Act forest at Waitutu and Lords River are also excluded as they have been dealt with under separate conservation agreements and legislation. 
South Island Landless Natives Act landowners have a very firm view on their ownership rights—a review reinforced by the approach that Governments have taken to the South Island Landless Natives Act issue over a number of years. Considerable consultation and discussion with South Island Landless Natives Act landowners have made it clear that they would not accept any legislative measures that made no distinction between South Island Landless Natives Act forests and other indigenous forests. This bill therefore makes such a distinction. On the domestic timber market South Island Landless Natives Act owners will be exempt from the sustainable forest management requirements of the Forests Act that apply to all other Maori and non-Maori forest owners. However South Island Landless Natives Act landowners can voluntarily place their forests under those provisions and receive Government assistance to develop sustainable management plans. 
This domestic timber market exception does not extend to exports of timber from South Island Landless Natives Act lands. The bill reimposes controls on timber exports from South Island Landless Natives Act land so that the same conditions will apply as for other exporters. Such controls applied to South Island Landless Natives Act forests through customs regulations from 1989 but in 1999 the High Court found the regulations to be ultra vires and struck them down. The bill remedies the situation by bringing South Island Landless Natives Act forests under the existing statutory controls applying to other indigenous timber exports. 
Consistent with the 1993 amendment Act which precluded compensation to all other forest owners this bill precludes compensation to South Island Landless Natives Act landowners for the impact of the changes on them. This impact is expected to be insignificant however as the only relevant change is the reapplication of export controls and there is little or no foreseeable export market for the hardwood chips exported from the South Island Landless Natives Act forests in the past. 
The bill does provide a mechanism for assistance with financial loss if export contracts signed before the bill’s introduction are frustrated by its enactment. Few if any such claims are expected. 
To the benefit of South Island Landless Natives Act landowners provisions have been added to the bill to ensure that payments made to them for conservation covenants will be tax exempt. The bill also clarifies that the $18.5 million Waitutu Forest settlement in 1997 is tax exempt as was intended at the time. 
The bill as introduced contained considerable liberalisation of export controls in order to allow export of all sustainably produced indigenous timber products. However consistent with an election promise the Government has decided to retain the existing controls on the export of indigenous timber. These prohibit the export of woodchips and logs but allow the export of some items including sustainably produced sawn beech or rimu finished or manufactured products and personal effects. The existing export controls have been in the Forests Act since 1993 and are a publicly acceptable compromise on an issue that historically has been highly controversial. Indigenous timber is regarded as a heritage material which should not be exported in low-value-added form. The Government considers that indigenous timber production should be a low-volume high-value business with an emphasis on domestic use but with opportunities for exporting finished products of high value. The existing export controls serve this purpose and the bill streamlines administrative requirements for finished or manufactured products by removing the need for the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry to approve each export consignment. 
The Government has confirmed some technical amendments proposed in the original bill and has added others to improve administration of the Forests Act. The transitional provisions in the bill relating to the West Coast indigenous production forests have been dropped because these former Timberlands-managed forests are now as a result of this Government’s policy part of public conservation land. 
On introduction in 1999 the bill was referred to the Transport and Environment Committee. It was subsequently referred to the Local Government and Environment Committee of the last Parliament and this Parliament. On behalf of the Minister I want to thank members of the committees for their diligent work on this bill. I also want to thank those who made submissions on the bill in 1999 and again last year. I commend this bill to the House. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) 
: 
 This bill speaks volumes about the mess in resource policy under this Government. I want to highlight the absolute anomalies and ridiculousness of what is going on in respect of indigenous forestry. We need look no further than the beautiful timbers in this Parliament to recognise the wonderful resource we have if we manage it properly. 
Let us look at what has happened under the Government’s policy. The very first thing that this Government did was to shut down sustainable forestry on the West Coast despite the fact that it was world-leading technology—that we were able to sustainably manage the forests on the West Coast and enjoy all the wonderful timber products that came from it. The lunacy is that at the same time we have turned a blind eye to huge clear-felling of indigenous forests in Southland—not sustainably managed; just bowled over. I tell members opposite that this is a classic case of two standards of citizenship. If a group of people on the West Coast is trying to make a living out of properly managing a forest it is shut down by this Government but if one happens to be Maori in Southland it turns a blind eye. I tell members opposite that that is a disgrace. 
But it is even worse than that. Let me give members the figures. What has happened over the last 5 years of this Government is that the amount of timber imported into this country has increased tenfold. This country imports $150 million a year of indigenous timber products. How many of those forests do we think are managed sustainably? The timber comes from Indonesia and it comes come from Malaysia. The so-called environmentalists on the other side of the House turn a blind eye to the importing of timber exported from Indonesia Malaysia and all sorts of countries where standards are pathetic but still they claim hand on chest: “Oh but we saved the forests on the West Coast.” It is a con. It is joke. It is an embarrassment. 
Let us look at the changes that are made in this bill. What is proposed is to put on an export ban even if timber is taken from a sustainable forest. What is the logic for that? 
Hon Ken Shirley 
: There’s no logic there. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: My colleague Ken Shirley a previous Minister of Forestry and someone who has worked in the industry and been part of international negotiations thinks it is a joke. There is no intellectual rigour to this policy at all. 
Hon Ken Shirley 
: We are the laughing stock of the world. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: The member is right; it makes us a laughing stock internationally. I was with Marian Hobbs at the Earth Summit in Johannesburg only 18 months ago. All the people there were arguing that we need to have consistent sustainable forest rules. Well hello! What this bill says is that even if forests are managed sustainably the Government will put export bans in place. This is the Government whose Minister of Forestry Jim Sutton only a few days ago was signing free-trade agreements. So why for goodness’ sake are we having legislation that introduces export bans? It really is something to believe that we are taking ourselves back in that regard. I am looking forward to hearing Damien O’Connor or Jim Sutton get on their feet as Ministers in this Government and justify the reintroduction of export bans to our forest regulations. It makes absolutely no sense. 
The real tragedy is that there are hard-working New Zealand citizens out there trying to make a sustainable forestry business through the permit system—the very detailed rules—of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry; they are trying to make a viable business out of indigenous forestry and doing it right and the tragedy is they are going broke. They are being driven out of the market because clear-felling of indigenous forests is going on in respect of South Island Landless Natives Act land. How can we expect people to helicopter-harvest their trees to go to extreme expense to protect the biodiversity of those forests—which is the rule for one group of New Zealanders—while down in Southland people can clear-fell take down the forest sell it on to the market and knock those other people out of business? There are good business people who are trying to do the right thing economically and environmentally and they are being knocked out of business because of the Government’s tardiness on this issue. 
When was this bill introduced? It was introduced in July of 1999 by myself and David Carter. What was Labour’s policy when it was elected to Government in 1999? It said it would deal with this issue urgently. What is the date? It is May of 2004. If it is urgent and it takes the Government 5 years to deal with it I would hate to see how long the Government would take to deal with an issue that it considered was not urgent! I say to members opposite that their tardiness on this issue is costing jobs and is costing the environment. We have a political mess because there are two different sets of rules for people based on ethnicity. We have an economic mess because businesses are going out of existence because we do not have consistent rules. Those who can clear-fell are able to bowl out those in the marketplace who are trying to do the right thing. And we have an environmental mess because forests in Southland continue to be clear-felled. Is it not interesting that Helen Clark the Prime Minister made a huge deal of stopping sustainable forestry on the West Coast but have we heard a whimper about the clear-felling of thousands of hectares of indigenous forests in Southland? There is an “h” word to describe it; I will not use it but I will say there is a double standard. 
Hon Ken Shirley 
: It’s hypocrisy. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich) 
: Order! 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: Mr Shirley uses a word that I am not going to say but it is my view that there is a double standard. It is absolute environmental lunacy. I want to know from Minister Rick Barker or from the Minister of Conservation—where is the Minister of Conservation? What has he been doing for 5 years as thousands of hectares of forests in areas like the Catlins areas on the south coast and areas all the way down through the lower South Island are being clear-felled? Where is this Government’s consistency in environmental policy? It makes absolutely no sense. 
There are some sensible provisions in this law. There are some sensible provisions that were introduced by National in July of 1999. They provide for a voluntary agreement system by which we can get the South Island Landless Natives Act forests under the provisions of the Forests Act. But they will not work without money. What this Government has failed to do is put any serious money into resolving the issue in respect of the South Island Landless Natives Act 1906 forests. That is a serious issue. The Government can pour money into buying up farms all over the South Island but it is not prepared to spend money to resolve this outstanding issue. I say again that that is a disgrace. Why does a country blessed with so many forests have to import $150 million worth of indigenous timbers from throughout the world? Why are we not sustainably managing our own resource? We are not doing that because of this Government’s warped policy and this bill represents a minor step forward and a big step backwards. I would love to hear from a Government member who can defend its disgraceful record in the management of indigenous forests. 
Dr ASHRAF CHOUDHARY (Labour) 
: 
 I take this opportunity to support this bill. As a member of the Local Government and Environment Committee I have had a good opportunity to look at this bill. I am delighted that this Government has introduced this bill and I fully support it. 
JIM PETERS (NZ First) 
: 
 If there are any South Island Landless Natives Act forest owners hearing the debate tonight I am not sure that they will be any the wiser. First of all we heard the Minister read from a prepared statement that had little to do with the issues as I understand them. I admit that I have come to this issue very very recently. Then I heard the Hon Nick Smith whose name appears over the latter part of the 1990s also making comments about the issues that he had not managed to wrought an understanding about and completion of in his day. 
I want to keep it in mind that in this bill there is not a fair and reasonable solution to the problems of those South Island Landless Natives Act forest owners in Southland. In order to do so I wish to briefly recap the facts of history as I understand them and recent actions in relation to the people their land and their forests. In order to do that we need to go right back to 1853 when first was set in motion the concept that reserves needed to be added in view of the land sales in the South Island. Then we come forward to 1888 when for the first time it was recognised that there was an issue with regard to landless natives in the South Island and in 1893 a commission was established which finally reached its findings in 1905. 
I want to read from that time because New Zealand First’s stance is based on its historical understanding of the South Island Landless Natives Act of 1906. When the Hon Mr Carroll spoke in September 1906 he said: “Generations have passed away with promises unfulfilled but we have reached the stage now when I think these matters should be settled.” He went on to say: “The natives of the South Island have great and just claims—that can be of no question.” And finally towards the end of his speech in the House he said: “But I do say that in view of the absolute necessity of bringing these matters to a conclusion and in view also of the fact that it has been a blot on our colonial reputation to allow these claims to remain unsettled and undetermined for so many years the best solution we can obtain at the present day no matter whether or not we reach the utmost bounds of what is just so long as it is considered fair and reasonable should be hailed with satisfaction.” 
Then the premier of the day Sir Joseph Ward said in this House on 17 October: “This means Maori in the South Island who are not in possession of sufficient land to provide for their support and maintenance.” I will say it again: “to provide for their support and maintenance.” 
 It is a rather sorry tale that in 2004 almost 100 years later the issue goes on. In fact it reminds me of my English II studies of the book  
Bleak House 
 Professor John Reid the  
Jarndyce v Jarndyce 
 case where decade after decade the same issues went on and on and were not solved. Is this therefore a time when we will come to a solution? I suggest not. In fact today if one went to meet with the thousands of South Island Landless Natives Act forest owners one would find no satisfaction in what the Minister has stated and no satisfaction with the Government’s policy. In fact there is a deep-seated fear about what the Government really intends. 
So firstly we have the situation that in the year 1906 what was largely wasteland allocated to landless natives becomes in 2004 a land that is now regarded as a scarce ecological and cultural heritage and therefore in the minds of this Government is suitable for impressed public benefaction on the part of the owners. It has become that because this bill does not answer all the numerous concerns that the owners have had over the past decades. 
Secondly when New Zealand First went into coalition with the National Government in December 1996 this was one of the issues that was expressly covered in the coalition agreement. Again I can say that at that time—and I will quote the language because it is quite important—it was specifically mentioned that there would be a need to negotiate to end clear-felling by consultation with South Island Landless Natives Act forest owners and to consult—and this is the issue I want to raise later on—on compensation arising out of the prevention of clear-felling of indigenous forest. The fiscal cost to South Island Landless Natives Act forest owners was clearly recognised was quoted by Doug McPhail in his notes and was a cost factor that weighed on the Government of the day. I am very pleased to say that a parliamentary colleague of New Zealand First in 1999—namely Tu Wylie—stated very very firmly to the Government of the day that following the second conference of South Island Landless Natives Act forest owners at Rehua in Christchurch he stood firmly by their demands. That meant that when this bill went in the transition period from Government to Government the issues were largely unresolved. 
So what are some of the issues there? The first one that appeared and was mentioned by the Minister is that the Minister skirted over the fact that that Government arrived in 2000 with a clear intention as expressed to the people of the South Island Landless Natives Act lands and it reneged. It reneged on the clear understanding that those people had with regard to the clear-felling of their forest. 
Secondly there has been no real attempt by the present Government to go to the owners to try to come to an understanding and an accommodation. I am suggesting that this issue is similar to that of the West Coast. In fact the Minister of Conservation recognised that in his piecemeal three attempts to take out of existence blocks of land already owned by South Island Landless Natives Act owners. He said expressly last year that there was no further money and that was the end of the matter. I suggest on behalf of New Zealand First that if there is to be this considerable and wholesome restriction on the owners with regard to their ability to manage their resources then that should be an issue as it was regarded on the West Coast for funding and the land would remain in a semi-used state because much of the timber had been milled already. 
For that reason as far as New Zealand First is concerned we believe that this bill should cease and have no further passage beyond the second reading. Despite all the fine words from the Minister this bill does not allow the owners of the land to harvest mill and sell on the international market indigenous timber products including sawn timber logs and woodchips as they would wish. It does not allow that and there is no sound reason why with management practices such as are practised today with regard to sustainable logging that should not be so. 
I mention expressly the fact that National New Zealand First ACT and United Future believe that export controls were not needed given that there are standards in existing legislation that now apply to promote sustainable forest management as well as the international recognition of a move towards third party forests certification. If recognised by those who should know that would have meant there was no need for the compliance that the Government is now attempting to force upon South Island Landless Natives Act owners. 
We agree with those submitters particularly those who came to Christchurch last year who were concerned that this bill would result in the loss of commercial opportunity. It certainly gives no recognition either from the Minister or I would say from the Hon Nick Smith of the current value of economic benefit that this bill if passed will deprive the owners of after all these years. 
The South Island Landless Natives Act is a unique Act. It is not a Treaty of Waitangi claim. It is a unique Act of this House and it needs to be honoured in this House. The Hon James Carroll said in September 1906: “We are coming now to a point where we have to settle. Generations have passed away with promises unfulfilled.” That is exactly what he meant. That is perhaps not the view of the Crown Law Office in its second opinion with regard to the Southland District Council case but that was to its disparagement. In fact the time has come when unlike  
Jarndyce and Jarndyce 
 unlike the  
Bleak House 
 of English literature the people of the South Island Landless Natives Act lands need justice and the promises that were made to this House with regard to their historical issues need to be honoured. This bill does not do that. New Zealand First strongly supports that there be no further passage of the bill. 
Hon KEN SHIRLEY (Deputy Leader—ACT) 
: 
 The ACT Party will certainly be opposing this legislation the Forests Amendment Bill. The policy for the management of our indigenous forests in this country has been a mess and a fiasco for about 15 years. Successive Governments have failed to get on top of it. This Government in particular is driven by meaningless mantras rather than intellectual rigour. I guess we can understand why it is not driven by intellectual rigour. However its policies with regard to indigenous forestry are a disgrace. As the Hon Nick Smith said New Zealand is a laughing stock when it comes to those policies. 
In the mid-1990s I was privileged to chair and convene an international committee that developed global sustainable forest management policies and those codes persist to this day. Various groups came to New Zealand at that time and our proposals to manage sustainably our West Coast beech forests were regarded as a model for the world. The Forest Stewardship Council that came here recognised that our proposals were a model for the world. 
One of the first actions of this Labour Government on being elected in 1999 was to renege on the West Coast Accord. I remind people that the West Coast Accord was signed by a Labour Government—by the Hon Phil Goff in 1986 as the Minister for the Environment. It was a negotiated accord that was to persist in perpetuity for the sustainable management and utilisation of our indigenous forests. This Labour Government reneged on that accord and the real problem we have is this: with regard to the South Island Landless Natives Act forests and to Maori ownership it is saying: “Because you have this 1906 piece of legislation you’ve effectively got a free hand. You can clear-fell your forests”—and in many areas they have—“but in the West Coast and elsewhere around New Zealand—nothing. You can’t do anything.” It is bizarre. What is the logic of that? 
If we look at what was proposed for the West Coast forests it was talking about helicopter extraction with one tree per hectare on a 15-year rotation. That is considerably fewer than the wind blows down. The wind blows down more trees than that per hectare per year let alone in a 15-year rotation but because of the mantras of this Government it said: “No; zero; nothing.”—unless one is Maori of course living in part of the landless native forests principally in Southland. Then Maori can clear-fell. What is the logic of having that sort of dual race-based policy? That is another example of the race-based policy this Labour Government has persistently developed in this country. 
But it gets more interesting still. The Maori owners of the forests covered by the South Island Landless Natives Act also hate this legislation and with absolutely good cause. This Government is saying: “While you can still clear-fell your forests when it comes to exporting we’re going to be prescriptive and have export controls. So we’re saying that because we want to see low volume high value you can’t export wood chips and you can’t export sawdust. It has to be in a sawn product.” That might be superficially seductive at first glance but with any sense of intellectual rigour one would look at it and think: once the tree has been cut down does it really matter in what form it is exported in terms of its impact on the forest? Of course not. 
The goal should be sustainable management of the forest. The standard can be set but to have export controls is counterproductive because there are thinnings prunings and wood shavings. If we are going to maximise the value then wood shavings prunings thinnings and the chip from those can be very valuable in composite products and in all sorts of developments that modern technology allows us to have. But the mantra of this Government is to say: “No you can’t do that. It has to be buried or wasted.” That emits carbon dioxide or methane then in its decomposition so the policy that this Government is bringing to the House is just utter foolishness. 
Certainly there are many beautiful timbers. We are surrounded by native rimu. In recent times we have refurbished the whole of this old Parliament Building. It has been done in solid rimu solid wood. It is not veneer; it is solid wood. But it gets better. Members will remember that just after this Government came to power it renovated the Beehive. It put up New Zealand native tawa in the Beehive foyer. Then when the Government realised it had used New Zealand native tawa it ripped it all down dumped it and imported an imitation tawa at a cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars. It was actually North American ash but the Government felt good because it was not using native timbers from New Zealand any more. The Government tore them down and dumped them pretended the trees had never been cut down in the first place and imported imitation tawa—North American ash. That is the sort of thing these loony Labour nutters do. That is a classic example and this policy epitomises that sort of foolishness. 
It just goes on and on. Can members guess whom I met on the tarmac at Tauranga Airport on my way to Parliament at the start of this week? It was Kit Richards. Do members remember Kit Richards? He was the champion of sustainable forestry a top scientist and a good friend. He is the person whom Prime Minister Helen Clark harangued mercilessly because he had the temerity to point out the foolishness of this Labour Government’s policy. In fact all the scientists I know who are associated with sustainable forestry emailed each other saying: “We don’t believe it. These are nutcases in Government.” That was back in 1999. How right they have been proven. But because Kit Richards had the temerity to say so he lost his job. He was harangued by the Prime Minister in a very vicious and vindictive way. But who was right? Kit Richards was right. And who was wrong? Helen Clark and this Labour Government were wrong. 
We have seen the dual double standard of their race-based policy on the one hand where if one is Maori because of a commitment in 1906 one can clear-fell but if one is a West Coaster and not Maori the Government will tear up the agreement and the pledges made just as recently as 1986 and one cannot clear-fell at all. By the way even if Maori are cutting down and harvesting forests under the South Island Landless Natives Act the Government will restrict control and prescribe the form they export it in. That is very foolish policy. I agree that I would like to see high value low volume but the market determines that. By allowing the various mixes the operators in a commercial world are smart enough to get the best value for products. But oh alas this Labour Government is driven by its mantras and its rhetoric and the outcome is appalling. 
GORDON COPELAND (United Future) 
: 
 It is a pleasure for me to speak tonight on the Forests Amendment Bill for reasons that will shortly become obvious. In October last year in connection with this bill I was contacted by a man called John Brosnahan. He is a man who farms in the Eastern Bay of Plenty who has dedicated the last two decades of his life to putting forward some very innovative ways of using manuka and kanuka for wood fuel to smoke food and to be used on domestic barbecues. John has not just manufactured these products he has also designed and made the machines that are used to bring these products into existence. He rang me in a high degree of frustration in relation to this bill. He had appeared before the select committee that considered this bill prior to the last election as mentioned by the Minister and bridged the two Parliaments. He had come down and explained to the select committee that New Zealand was on the verge of developing a massive export market in manuka and kanuka products. 
I want to give this potential export market some dimension for members tonight. John estimates that this export market could be worth as much as US$1 billion to the New Zealand economy. If he is right we are talking potentially about an industry that is bigger than the wine industry and the kiwifruit industry and almost as big as the coal industry. John was frustrated that in spite of the fact he was getting unsolicited requests from overseas to supply this product he was unable to do so because he was being blocked by the Forests Act and by the interpretation placed on that Act by Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry officials. To say the least he was given the run-around from pillar to post. He did manage to export a couple of products. 
I want to show members exactly what I am talking about. I have here a bag of barbecue fuel. It is called Manuka Gold. As members can see it is a woodchip from an indigenous species. This is the fuel used to smoke food. We all know that manuka smoke creates a unique flavour—unique to this whole planet. It is that flavour and the manuka that can be used to produce it that has this huge potential for the New Zealand economy. 
When John explained all this to me I could see immediately that it was crazy for New Zealand to turn down such an amazing opportunity that had been developed over more than two decades of hard work. Why on earth would we do such a thing? I concluded that probably it was not deliberate but had been done in ignorance. After all the purpose of this bill is to prevent the export of woodchips from indigenous species. Manuka is an indigenous species and these are certainly woodchips in this bag so “no go”. I took up the matter immediately with the Government. I was very disappointed when in early November last year the Government wrote back to me and continued to say: “No go.” But I decided that the matter should not rest there. I could have come to this Parliament to make a speech tonight saying what a crazy thing it was but I decided that I would quite determinedly go back to the Government and say that I was going to bring in a Supplementary Order Paper that would alter this bill to allow exports to happen. I believe that when the New Zealand public hear the story I have to tell them they will be scandalised. 
I said to the Government: “You say you have a growth and innovation framework. This is innovation; this is growth. You say you are friendly to exporters but this is a massive potential export market that we are stupidly turning down. That is how stupid we have been. We are exporting manuka seed to Australia and other nations so that they can grow manuka to make these products to sell to Asian markets. How stupid can we possibly be?” 
 Now I must say that the response from the Government eventually was that it decided to engage with me and I am very very glad it did. I have worked from then until last week on this matter with the Government. I am delighted to tell the House that last week I received a letter from the Hon Pete Hodgson saying that the Government had looked at the matter very very carefully and had decided on the basis of a legal interpretation of the law that these exports can now proceed. So I am very delighted to be able to say now that not only can they proceed but they can basically proceed without any export controls. 
How has that happened? That has happened because there is an exemption in this bill for manufactured products and it has been decided that this is a product that is manufactured which is logical because it is produced from machinery. It has also been decided that this product is manufactured to be used in its finished form. If one thinks about it that is nothing like the chipping of a beech tree. Chipping of beech trees meant we exported chips to make pulp to make paper. By contrast this product goes straight into a smokehouse in Asia and is used to give that beautiful manuka flavour to the food people eat. It is not used only in Asia; but is also in demand in Australia in the United States and in other markets. 
The process has now been certified by the Government and officials and these exports can therefore commence and continue on into the future. I think that is tremendously good news for the thousands of New Zealand farmers who have some manuka and kanuka growing on their properties. It is not just grown in forests; of course it is also grown in wood lots on many many farms up and down the country. I am very pleased indeed that because of that legal opinion on the force of the Act those exports will now be able to go ahead. 
Hon Ken Shirley 
: Why restrict them in the first place? 
GORDON COPELAND 
: I say to Ken Shirley that that is another debate for another day and another hour but the good news at this point in time is that we will now see this particular export industry go ahead. 
I believe that we will see the manuka plant itself now flourish in our country. After all when one thinks about it one really should want to continue the existence of an indigenous species. And I should also say that the Government has now recognised this by allowing exports of indigenous trees to occur provided they are grown in plantations. That at least illustrates the principle that any nation would be crazy to kill the goose that lays the golden egg. As long as we have a thriving export market for manuka products we can rest assured that plenty of manuka will not only be preserved in this country but will in fact be planted because of the commercial opportunities it opens up for people to make a living and to support their families. 
I am delighted that this has happened because John Brosnahan who has developed all this said to me in his final despair about not getting anywhere on this whole issue that he had decided to move offshore and take his technology with him. That will now not happen I am pleased to say. 
I want to add one further thing which is to say that although United Future was part of the minority view on this bill and signalled to the Government it would be voting against it we have now changed our stance and will tonight be voting in favour of the bill. [ 
Interruption 
] If members listen for a moment I will tell them why we have changed our decision. We have done so because we have received—and I believe other parties have as well—a letter from the Waimumu Trust. The trust is the owner of 4400 hectares of South Island Landless Natives Act forest and represents 7000 Maori beneficiaries. It has written to us asking us to pass this bill as urgently as possible. It has written— 
Jim Peters 
: Rubbish! Sheer nonsense. 
GORDON COPELAND 
: I have the letter right here I say to Mr Peters and it is not rubbish. What I am saying is truthful. Waimumu has lodged a claim with the Waitangi Tribunal. It expects a claim for compensation for the actions of this bill and it has written to us—and I believe to other parties as well and others may know that they have received the same letter—saying: “Please pass the legislation so that the Waitangi Tribunal can hear our claim.” I think that that is a just way to settle the dispute that has now arisen between the Government and the owners of the South Island Landless Natives Act forests. 
JEANETTE FITZSIMONS (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 This bill has taken an extraordinarily long time to pass through the House. The Local Government and Environment Committee was constantly asked to defer action while the policy was further developed and we are glad to see the bill finally progress. The resolution of the South Island Landless Maori Act forests issue is long overdue. It has been a blot on our environmental record ever since the 1993 amendment to the Forests Act. There is so little lowland indigenous forest left and what there is has been very greatly modified. 
New Zealand has taken a number of steps in recent years. We now have three kinds of indigenous forest in New Zealand. Our public forests are recognised—because there is now so little of them—as heritage icons that should not be interfered with for industrial purposes at all. That is the will of the people and is what they clearly voted for. Our privately owned native forests must be sustainably managed under the Forests Act and logged only at the rate that they re-grow. The conditions for sustainable forest management plans could be better but by and large that is a huge improvement over clear-felling. 
A third category of forests—the South Island Landless Maori Act forests—is still being clear-felled and that is an anomaly. It is both an environmental disaster because it is a loss of important biodiversity and an economic disaster because the cheap flooding of the market with clear-felled rimu and beech depresses the prices that are received for sawn timber that has been sustainably managed. 
One other point on which I agree with Nick Smith is that the whole system falls over when there are no restrictions on the import of unsustainably managed clear-felled hardwoods from South-east Asia and the Pacific. The only way we could claim environmental benefits from the New Zealand policy would be to impose a ban on the import of hardwoods coming from Sarawak the Solomon Islands South-east Asia and the Pacific which are most definitely not being sustainably logged and where the indigenous people are being deprived of the value of their forests by multinational companies that are simply clear-felling them and selling them cheaply. 
This bill has been a balancing act: a balance between environmental protection and consistency with other landowners on the one hand and on the other hand not legislating away yet again further Maori land rights—given that we have a bit of a bad history of doing that as a country. It is therefore a compromise and perhaps that is why nobody likes it very much. I believe it is probably the best compromise we can get in the current situation and that is why the Greens support it. It does not ensure that all clear-felling will stop but it does provide very strong encouragements. It does not allow the current owners to do whatever they like with their forests but it does leave them a number of reasonable options. 
In fact it leaves them with 3½ options. The first is that if they have high value forests for conservation purposes substantial funding is now available through the Nature Heritage Fund to agree to conservation covenants on the land while retaining the current ownership of that land. By protecting the land from logging the owners can get a funded stream of benefits without losing their title to it. That option will be most profitable for those groups that have never logged their land at all. There is a certain justice in that. If groups have had some income in the past from partly logging their land then it will be of less value now to the Nature Heritage Fund and there is less likelihood of groups being able to negotiate a covenant. 
The second option is for forests to come under the sustainable management provisions of the Forests Act. Contrary to what most speakers have said this does allow exports of sawn rimu and beech timber and of manufactured products from those timbers. What it does not allow is exports of whole logs or of chip and in that respect the South Island Landless Natives Act owners will be in exactly the same situation as all other private owners of forests. But they still have a third option. There is nothing in this bill that prevents them from clear-felling their forests and converting to pasture or pines if they choose to do that. But if they take that choice they cannot export any of the products from that clear-felling. 
The fourth option or the third-and-a-half option if one likes is that they have another 3 years to decide. The moratorium that actually pays them an annual rate not to log while they think about it continues for a little longer so that they can develop their sustainable management plans if that is what they want to do. Owners could get their forests valued and take the other steps that would help them make the right choice. So this is a bill that encourages rather than forces sustainability but $19.7 million of funding to encourage good environmental decisions is likely to move the whole system much closer to sustainability. 
Obviously the Nature Heritage Fund is currently seeking the best blocks—the ones that have not been previously logged and have the best biodiversity—but eventually with the money left they may move to some less desirable ones as well and those owners will benefit too. 
Maori submitters to the select committee which I chaired still believe that they suffer significant losses through this bill. I do not agree with them. I have looked into it very carefully and I simply do not believe that those losses are real. They say they are suffering losses because they will no longer be allowed to export chip. From 1993 onwards chip exports were stopped and then because of a loophole in the law that was overturned. But actually the exports never started again. It is a long time since anybody exported any chip from New Zealand. In fact chip exports need high volume. The little bit of waste made from sustainably harvested forests with selected trees does not produce enough chip to be worth exporting. The hulls of those huge ships need to be filled in order to export chip so it is not a very serious option. 
We investigated whether it would be more consistent to allow the export of chip from sustainably managed forests but not from clear-felled forests and we found that there were intractable practical problems with doing that. First of all it is possible these days to make logs traceable—to label them and to determine which logs come from a sustainably managed block and which do not. It is simply not possible with chip. There is no way a distinction can be ensured right through the value chain of chip from one kind of forest rather than another kind of forest. 
But there is now no market for chip from New Zealand indigenous timbers. The market is being flooded overseas with eucalypts which are being produced in larger and larger volumes—nobody particularly wants New Zealand native timber chip. The price if anything can be got for it at all is extraordinarily low and that is unlikely to change because more and more eucalypts are coming on stream. There is however a domestic market for waste wood in a lot of parts of the country particularly near urban areas and that is for firewood. So we believe that that is a better option for the owners of these forests. 
This whole policy package has actually handed a significant financial advantage to the owners of forests with millable timber because the price of rimu has risen a lot since the 1993 Act and the price of beech has risen somewhat and is likely to continue rising. In my view that ought to balance out any losses that the owners have sustained as a result of the export ban. 
I was fascinated by Gordon Copeland’s performance just now. It reminded me of a Christchurch television show some years ago called  
Susan Sells 
 where people used to come on and advertise their products. Or maybe it was a little bit like a Tupperware party. I do wonder how he proposes to distinguish between manuka sawdust from a sustainably managed forest or from a clear-felled forest or is there no intention to make that distinction at all? If there is no intention at all what we are doing is encouraging farmers everywhere to denude their manuka and kanuku areas for sawdust exports with serious damage to our farmland and our biodiversity. 
MARTIN GALLAGHER (Labour—Hamilton West) 
: 
 It is with great pleasure that I rise to support what I believe is a very good bill. I compliment the Local Government and Environment Committee and acknowledge the work its members have done. I also want to acknowledge Gordon Copeland. I will differ slightly from Jeanette Fitzsimons in terms of my view of his contribution although I did enjoy her  
Susan Sells  
allusion. I thought she did very well and maybe there is a career there for her in terms of television. 
Hon Ken Shirley 
: After the next election. 
MARTIN GALLAGHER 
: Well I would put my money more on Gordon Copeland than on the party that that interjector represents—if I were a betting man which I am actually not. 
Hon Ken Shirley 
: How much? 
MARTIN GALLAGHER 
: I am not a betting man. I thought that Gordon Copeland’s contribution was very interesting and certainly I compliment United Future on its ability to work through some issues and to negotiate. That is again what this Parliament in an environment of MMP should be all about. I compliment the United Future party’s members accordingly. 
One of my pleasures I guess—and it certainly was a great education—in the previous Parliament was to be involved with the Primary Production Committee in looking at the report that was published in 2002:  
A Sustainable Future for our Indigenous Forests 
. I also want to acknowledge to our New Zealand First friend over there on the Opposition benches that Doug Woolerton was a very very useful and valuable member of that committee. I found that exercise to be extremely interesting and extremely valuable. Certainly we were focusing on the sustainable production if one likes of indigenous timber on privately owned land and on trying to get a balance with the key word being sustainability. I note in particular that one of the features to stress in this bill is ensuring that the relevant export controls apply equally to all indigenous forest owners. Obviously that will also provide a mechanism to help South Island Landless Natives Act forest owners to opt into sustainable forest management. I think that that is a very very good thing indeed. 
Finally I again commend the Local Government and Environment Committee which has worked a long time on this bill. I compliment very much the chair and deputy chair of the committee. They have done a good job and by and large reported a good and constructive bill back to this Parliament. 
SANDRA GOUDIE (National—Coromandel) 
: 
 Such are the extraordinary activities of this Government that way back in 1999 its members actually voted against this bill yet here they are promoting it through the House. Is that not absolutely extraordinary? We had the Hon Mr Sutton calling my colleagues Nick Smith and David Carter “twerps” as they spoke in support of this bill and in support of the sustainable management of logging so I find it extraordinary that the Labour members are now supporting the passage of this bill through the House. I have to take issue with Gordon Copeland with regard to supporting his friend’s exemption for a woodchip product. It looked pretty much like woodchip to me yet he has an exemption so he is OK. Here we are having a ban on the export of chips justified by the Greens. They are saying that there is no market for that product so the ban is OK. Well that is an absolute nonsense. We should let the market decide if that is the case. We do not need the ban. The honourable Gordon Copeland—well not even honourable— 
Darren Hughes 
: All members are honourable. 
SANDRA GOUDIE 
: Absolutely—and United Future may like to rethink their position and support National in trying to ensure that the export ban is removed. Everybody else would therefore have the same level playing field that is enjoyed by that member’s friend Mr John Brosnahan in his export of product. 
Debate interrupted. 
The House adjourned at 10 p.m.