Volume 695 Week 61 - Wednesday 4 December 2013Text is incorporated into the Bound VolumeVolume 695 Week 61 - Wednesday 4 December 2013[Sitting date: 04 December 2013. Volume:695;Page:15197. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Wednesday 4 December 2013Mr Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.Prayers.Business of the HouseHon GERRY BROWNLEE (Leader of the House): Following discussions in the Business Committee I seek leave for there to be no general debate on 11 December 2013. I understand that later that day there will be an adjournment debate in which members should be able to traverse most of the matters that might be covered in a general debate.Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought for that course of action. Is there any objection? There appears to be none.Questions to MinistersGovernment—Relationship with Support Partners1.Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Leader of the Opposition) to thePrime Minister: Does he have confidence in the stability of his Government?Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister): Yes.Hon David Cunliffe: Will he depend on Mr Banks’ vote to pass legislation for the remainder of this term?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: That will depend obviously on whether it is either a confidence and supply issue or case by case as we deal with every party in Parliament. But in principle yes where Mr Banks chooses to exercise that vote on behalf of the ACT Party.Hon David Cunliffe: If it is on a case by case basis as the Prime Minister has said what does it say that he could not muster a majority for his copper tax or the Resource Management Act changes and how can the country be confident of stable Government over the next year?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: The fact that we have not introduced the Resource Management Act legislation does not mean that we cannot actually command a majority. The member might actually be quite surprised by that but we will leave that actually for another day. In terms of the copper tax that was never actually tested. We were aware that our partners would not vote for it and we decided not to introduce it. But anyway we would not have done so because after that point the retail service providers decided that they did not want to do a deal with Chorus so it was a moot point.Hon David Cunliffe: Does the Prime Minister now know for certain that the Hon Peter Dunne did not leak theKitteridge report?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: No I do not know the answer to that. I do not believe that was the purpose of the privileges claim.Hon David Cunliffe: Then how could he accept him back in his Cabinet?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Because firstly we have not done that and secondly we accept the member at his word.Hon David Cunliffe: Does he agree with Colin Craig that man may never have walked on the moon?Mr SPEAKER: The Rt Hon Prime Minister as far as he has responsibility.Rt Hon JOHN KEY: No and one of the great privileges of being Prime Minister is that you get the opportunity firsthand to have some unique experiences. One of mine was having—Grant Robertson: You’ve been on the moon?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: No I have not been to the moon. I have not been to the moon although I know that Labour’s economic policies are developed up there. But no. As Prime Minister I had dinner with Buzz Aldrin one night. Buzz looked pretty convinced that he had been to the moon and he would know.Hon David Cunliffe: Will one of his unique experiences be to have Colin Craig land on “Planet Key”?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Well there are a lot of people who would like to be part of “Planet Key” as we saw in the last election when over a million people voted for National. And how many voted for Labour? Was it 300000 or 400000?Hon Clayton Cosgrove: Not any more Johnny.Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Well actually our polling last night did not indicate that.Hon David Cunliffe: Which is worse: propping up a dying Government based on the vote of a potential electoral fraudster—an ex-Minister whom he thinks may have released secret documents—or an extremist who put out 20000 leaflets saying that John Key should not be the Prime Minister?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: We deal with MMP. That requires any political party or group of parties to get 61 votes. Come the next election it will be the same situation. It will be no different for the Labour Party than it will be for the National Party. But what I can say based on all the things I see is that the probability of National being able to get those 61 seats is far greater than it is for Labour. The one difference though between election 2014 and election 2011 is that I will go into election 2014 with 100 percent of my caucus wanting me to get there and you Mr Cunliffe will go there with less than a third of your caucus wanting you to get there.Hon David Cunliffe: In the run-up to this election does the Prime Minister continue to intend to hop from cloud to cloud; if so under which cloud will he find the Hon John Banks and on which cloud will he find Colin Craig?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I do not know but I will find the Labour Party’s economic policies in cloud-cuckoo-land.Rt Hon Winston Peters: Does the Prime Minister’s statement that he has to take Mr Dunne at his word in respect of his denial mean that he believes Mr Dunne did not leak theKitteridge report?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: The member has on numerous occasions strongly said that he did not leak the report. I accept the member at his word. There was no conclusion to that report.Dr Russel Norman: How legitimate does he believe his asset sales programme is given that it was passed by a single vote in this House and that that single vote was the vote of John Banks the discredited MP who is currently in front of the courts for electoral fraud?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Well firstly I think it is really important that we recognise and actually respect that every New Zealander is innocent unless they are proven guilty. We as members of this House actually have a responsibility I believe to at least accept that basic principle which we expect other New Zealanders to accept. Secondly in a parliamentary majority in this Parliament you are required to get 61 votes and those 61 legitimate votes are required. We have them; that is called a majority. If Russel Norman is telling us that if one day—goodness knows if it ever happens—he is part of a Government he would not count that as a majority that is a really interesting proposition which he should get to his feet and tell New Zealanders about now. Thetruth is that it is just typical Russel Norman—says one thing will do something completely different. [Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! And that includes the member.Dr Russel Norman: My question to the Prime Minister is in relation to his previous answer. Given that the courts have found that John Banks took a $15000 donation from—Mr SPEAKER: Order! The difficulty I am anticipating with this question is that there is a case now that is sub judice—before the court. I am certainly not ruling that question out of order but I am going to ask the member to rephrase it in such a way that he does not breach Standing Order 112 by referring to a case that is now potentially sub judice.Dr Russel Norman: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I was actually quoting from the judge’s decision in the most recent judicial review that Mr Banks went to court about—exactly that case.Hon Gerry Brownlee: No. Speaking to the point—Mr SPEAKER: I will hear from the Hon Gerry Brownlee.Hon Gerry Brownlee: I think that is a very reckless comment for Dr Norman to have made. There has been no finding; there has been simply a determination that it should proceed to a trial—quite a different matter. Dr Norman has I think got himself in some trouble by implying that there has been a judgment when there has not been.Rt Hon Winston Peters: Mr Speaker—Mr SPEAKER: I will hear from the Rt Hon Winston Peters.Rt Hon Winston Peters: With respect the sub judice rule here involves whether or not Mr Banks knowingly had a declaration filled out and that is the matter that is before the court. It is not whether he received the money. That has been accepted by his lawyer and it was by him at court. The sub judice rule concerns his knowledge as to that declaration of return. That is a different matter and Dr Norman has not traversed that at all.Mr SPEAKER: Let me hear again from the member but I would just ask him to be careful and consistent with the Standing Orders and Speakers’ rulings on this matter which is quite complicated and difficult.Dr Russel Norman: Given that John Banks received a $15000 donation from Skycity does he believe that it is legitimate for him to rely on John Banks’ vote in giving Skycity concessions to massively expand its operations?Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Is that not going right to the heart of the case that is going to the court?Hon Members: No it’s not.Hon Gerry Brownlee: No well I am sorry. There are constitutional experts and lawyers over here who might think so but—Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! The member will resume his seat. I accept that this is a very difficult issue but I think the way that question is now worded is in order and it is stating facts that are now in the public arena. The Prime Minister can answer that question.Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The issue though is how any donation was received and for him to assert it was received by Mr Banks is at this point wrong.Mr SPEAKER: But that was not the question that—Hon Gerry Brownlee: It was. He said: “Given that he received …”. Those words are wrong.Mr SPEAKER: Order! The issue is how it was then described—the receipt of it. That is the issue. I do not think there is much doubt to the best of my knowledge thatthe donation was received. It is then a matter of how it was returned. I have ruled that the Prime Minister can answer the question and that is the absolute end of the matter.Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I do not accept the premise of the question.Dr Russel Norman: Does he believe that it does damage to the reputation of this House that the vote on the Skycity bill which gave enormous concessions to Skycity was reliant on the vote of John Banks who received a $15000 donation from Skycity and is currently before the courts on exactly that issue?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Once again the member has proved that he cannot count. The majority was two not one.Dr Russel Norman: Did he or any of his advisers or colleagues pressure John Banks to stay on as an MP despite the fact that he faces a trial for electoral fraud because his Government relies on the single vote provided by that MP in this House to pass his most unpopular legislation like asset sales?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: No not to the best of my knowledge.Economy—Export Sector Performance Government Financial Position and Growth2.KANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI (National) to theMinister of Finance: What reports has he received on progress in lifting New Zealand’s export performance and reducing its reliance on borrowing from overseas lenders?Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance): I have received a number of reports confirming strong performance by New Zealand’s exporters particularly in those areas where the Opposition was most concerned—that is in the regions and in manufacturing. Exporters have performed well despite strong headwinds from a high Kiwi dollar and difficult export conditions in our traditional markets. Our terms of trade rose 7.5 percent in the September quarter due to export prices rising faster than import prices. This is the highest terms of trade level since 1973 as determined by prices for our exports in world markets. The trade deficit for October was $168 million the lowest for any October month since the mid-1990s. So prices in world markets are higher than we expected but our exporters are performing better than was expected.Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi: What progress is the Government making in reducing New Zealand’s external vulnerabilities particularly in bringing down the longstanding current account deficit?Hon BILL ENGLISH: First of all the Government cannot have a direct effect on the current account deficit. What we can do is try to create conditions where our exporters thrive and where imported inflation is relatively low. Last week Statistics New Zealand issued the national accounts for the March 2013 year. They included significant upwards revisions to the estimates of spending by overseas visitors. This has had the effect of boosting our service exports and decreasing the amount that was originally attributed to the private consumption of households. As a result our recorded level of household and national saving has increased whereas the current account deficit for the year to March 2013 has decreased. It was estimated previously at 4.5 percent of GDP and it has now been re-estimated at 3.9 percent of GDP. So the statisticians have discovered that we are doing more exporting and less consuming than they thought.Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi: What steps has the Government taken to help to rebalance the economy towards more savings and exports and to veer away from excessive consumption borrowing and Government spending which marked the mid-2000s?Hon BILL ENGLISH: There is certainly more to do to rebalance this economy. It has been difficult to have the amount of export growth we would like to see when the exchange rate has been so high. And it has been a wee bit difficult to reduce Government spending when we have had the earthquakes in Christchurch requiring usto commit up to $15 billion to rebuild Christchurch. But despite those headwinds we implemented a tax package in 2010 that favoured savings and exports over consumption and property speculation. The Business Growth Agenda supports businesses to invest and employ and as a result the tradable sector which was in recession for several years up to 2008 has grown by 11.6 percent from its trough in the second quarter of 2009. But there is still much more work to do.Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi: What economic approaches would halt the progress being made in supporting exports productivity investment and jobs?Hon BILL ENGLISH: We have a reasonably good idea what would have a negative effect on New Zealand’s now positive growth prospects and those are the things that affected our growth prospects badly in the mid-2000s. Three factors were pretty clear from that: an excessive rise in house prices which doubled in about 10 years; runaway Government spending particularly from 2005 onwards; and regulatory change that inhibited business and export investment and savings. They were the policies of the Labour Party. We want to avoid those traps this time around.Student Achievement—OECD Report and Impact of Government Strategies3.HONE HARAWIRA (Leader—Mana) to theMinister of Education: What responsibility does she accept for the New Zealand results as identified in the OECD’s PISA report released yesterday which shows New Zealand’s test scores in maths reading and science have all deteriorated under her watch and that New Zealand’s education system has failed to keep pace with the educational achievements of other countries also under her watch?Hon HEKIA PARATA (Minister of Education):Tēnā koe Mr Speaker. I am the Minister of Education and these responsibilities fall to me. These results are serious but not surprising. The Government is serious about the plan we have for fixing this. The group of 15-year-olds who were assessed last year has been in the system for about 11 years since 2001-02. Playing the blame game does not help them. These students were not caught by national standards but they will be caught by National Certificate of Educational Achievement level 2 and the Youth Guarantee where the Government has ambitious targets to make sure our children and young people are succeeding.Hone Harawira: What responsibility does the Minister accept for the fact that the OECD recommendation talked about equity increasing resources and targeting disadvantaged children through additional economic assistance including free meals in schools for students from poor families yet her Government has chosen to ignore all of that and focus on everything else including national standards private education charter schools cuts for science advisers attacks on the unions criticising teacher standards and then paying them through a broken system called Novopay the sum result of which has been to confuse confound and demoralise—Mr SPEAKER: Order! That question now is sufficiently long enough.Hon HEKIA PARATA: Our Government is this year investing $9.7 billion into Vote Education—the highest it has ever been. That is a 74 percent increase on early childhood education and a 40 percent increase on schooling. We have invested $37.5 million this year in raising the quality of teaching so that all across the system every child will get a better education. We are investing in a data-rich environment because we do not want to guess; we want to know specifically who and where we need to be helping and for what. So last week we announced $10.5 million into maths and science resources and we announced $31.5 million to invest into Building on Success which are the best elements of TePūtahitangaMātauranga HeKākanoStarpath and Gateway all of which have been proven to be successful for Māori and Pasifika. In terms of—Mr SPEAKER: Order! That is now a very long answer to a very long question.Dr Cam Calder: What do the Programme for International Student Assessment 2012 results tell us about the achievement of New Zealand’s young people?Hon HEKIA PARATA: The results from the Programme for International Student Assessment 2012 confirm what we know about student achievement in New Zealand. Our highest-achieving students are comparable with the best in the world. However the whole education system needs to be better geared to support all of our students to succeed. We continue to work to ensure we have a well-performing system but it is not performing for all. That is why we are focused on raising achievement for five out of five learners.Catherine Delahunty:Tēnā koe Mr Speaker.Tēnā koutou e te Whare. How is it not a failure after 5 years of her Government that New Zealand is one of the only countries in the developed world where the chances of poor kids doing well at school has actually decreased in the years that National has been in power?Hon HEKIA PARATA: What the Programme for International Student Assessment results tell us for those who have actually analysed them is that of the factors that contribute to failure there is a correlation between underachievement and low socio-economic status and it amounts to 18 percent. Eighty-two percent relates to quality of teaching and leadership relates to turning up to school every day and relates to turning up on time. We are interested in all of those factors because it is a partnership between schools and parents in the community that will affect the results we want for all New Zealanders.Catherine Delahunty: Why has equity in New Zealand education deteriorated according to the Programme for International Student Assessment since National came to power while Australia has managed to increase the chances of poorer kids doing well there in exactly the same time period?Hon HEKIA PARATA: Rather than get into comparisons between those particular systems—because actually that information is not accurate—what we have happening here is that we now have nearly 96 percent of all kids under 5 going to early childhood education. This is a significant increase and addresses equity issues.Catherine Delahunty: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The Minister is giving a great background on early childhood education but the question was—Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member will resume her seat. The question was around the difference of equity and performance in New Zealand and Australia. The Minister addressed that straight away. She was saying that she did not agree with that information.Hone Harawira: What responsibility does the Minister accept for saying that “New Zealand has a good track-record on the international stage ranking 7th in the world … in reading …” when just 4 months later under her watch we dropped to 13th in the world; or does she instead hold to her new view that it is not that we are doing so bad it is just that the Chinese are doing so much better?Hon HEKIA PARATA: If the honourable member had used the full quote from me what I actually said was that under the previous Programme for International Student Assessment results New Zealand was seventh on that ranking for reading. But disaggregated by ethnicity Māori were 34th and Pasifika were 44th. In every speech I gave I pointed that out and pointed out that the challenge to us was to get excellence in the system for everyone.State-owned Assets Sales—Estimated Revenue Genesis Energy and Public Support4.Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour) to theMinister of Finance: Why has he revised the estimated proceeds from asset sales down to a minimum of $4.6 billion?Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance): In the first place it is Treasury’s estimate rather than the Government’s. As I said this morning Treasury figures in the Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update will revise the estimated range of proceeds to $4.6 billion to $5 billion with a mid-point of $4.8 billion. The revised assumption of the share sale proceeds is based principally on the fact that Solid Energy is clearly in no position to be sold any time soon. The proceeds will be less mainly because one less company will be sold. It also takes account of the results of the share offers to date and of course these provide the only real market valuations that the energy companies have ever had. Those values reflect the fact that all electricity companies in New Zealand have lost value partly because of uncertainty around the future price track for electricity and partly because of political uncertainty generated by alternative regulatory proposals.Hon Clayton Cosgrove: Why has he taken so long to revise the estimated proceeds from asset sales given that he told the public as far back as August last year that Solid Energy was not fit for sale and he has already come in more than $1 billion short on the sales so far?Hon BILL ENGLISH: As I said it is Treasury’s role to make the estimates and it has statutory requirements that have to be met for the degree of certainty about any estimates it makes.Hon Clayton Cosgrove: How does he reconcile his statement to the Finance and Expenditure Committee today that “The Government never said it was going to maximise the value for taxpayers from the sales.” with his statement at the media stand-up directly after his presentation at the Finance and Expenditure Committee today that “We have an obligation to protect the value of taxpayers’ investments.”?Hon BILL ENGLISH: Very easily. In the Finance and Expenditure Committee I was asked about the conditions under which the Government made the sales and I made it clear for instance that the Government decided it would retain 51 percent of the companies when if it sold 100 percent of the companies it would get more for them. In the stand-up I was asked about KiwiRail in quite some detail. I made it clear that the Government’s role in respect of KiwiRail is to protect the taxpayers’ value bearing in mind that the reason we own these assets is that hard-working New Zealanders get to the end of the week and very generously hand us 25 percent of their pay packet. They could make good use of it. When we get it just because it adds up to billions it does not mean we should be irresponsible. It means we should be very very careful with the $200 and $300 weekly payments that New Zealanders make to us.Hon Clayton Cosgrove: How can he claim the asset sales programme is a success when he will not achieve the minimum $5 billion he promised after the forecasting by his own Prime Minister in 2011 that $10 billion could be raised from this plus he failed to achieve widespread ownership and the power companies are today trading at record lows?Hon BILL ENGLISH: The Opposition cannot have it both ways. If it says that the shares trading below their sale price is a failure it certainly would say that if the shares were trading above the sale value then that was a failure. The Opposition cannot have it both that we ripped off the investors and that we gave away the taxpayers’ assets. Both of those things cannot be true. The sales were a success. We gave out share certificates to New Zealanders and in return for that we have $4 billion in the bank. I know it worries the Opposition that we are going to be spending that on public assets when it cannot—because it would have to borrow that money from foreign bankers whom it seems much more interested in—and when we want to provide investment opportunities for New Zealanders.Hon Clayton Cosgrove: Will the Government still proceed with the partial asset sale of Genesis Energy on the current timetable; if so why?Hon BILL ENGLISH: Yes that is our intention. If the member means that the referendum should determine that decision I would put this proposition to him: if the Opposition believes the referendum will show overwhelming opposition to the sales then it should take it seriously and promise to buy the assets back. Everyone knows what the Government will say. The question is whether the Opposition takes the referendum seriously. If Opposition members will not promise to buy the assets back then they are defying the will of the New Zealand public.Science and Technology—Science and Society Project and Other Initiatives5.SIMON O’CONNOR (National—Tāmaki) to theMinister of Science and Innovation: What steps is the Government taking to improve the understanding skills and adoption of science and technology in New Zealand society?Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister of Science and Innovation): The Government’s view is that science is vital for New Zealand’s future. We have of course increased total funding for science innovation and research across the Government to $1.36 billion. Along the way we have established Callaghan Innovation committed $278 million just this year for 51 new projects in science investment and committed just under half a billion dollars for 10 National Science Challenges. The National Science Challenges panel recommended a further special challenge to improve New Zealand’s understanding and appreciation of science and last week the Minister of Education and I announced the Science and Society project to lift achievement in maths and science plus science literacy across New Zealand.Simon O’Connor: What steps is the Government taking to lift achievement by young people in maths and science?Hon STEVEN JOYCE: As the latest Programme for International Student Assessment results demonstrate it is critical that we keep improving the understanding of science and technology in this country and improve young New Zealanders’ skills in this area. New Zealand needs more young people with science technology engineering and maths skills in our workforce to help us be internationally competitive and to meet our future labour market needs. As part of the first phase of the Science and Society project last week Minister Parata and I announced that the Government has committed $10.5 million in additional funding for schools to raise student achievement in maths and science. Also more than half a million dollars is going into the development of more than 60 science learning resources.Simon O’Connor: What are the objectives of the Science and Society project?Hon STEVEN JOYCE: The Science and Society project is a unique venture between the science sector and the education sector to lift achievement in science technology engineering and maths subjects and also raise New Zealanders’ science literacy more generally. [Interruption] Of course there are some people we cannot help and they are on the other side of the House. Aside from improving young New Zealanders’ science skills we also need to improve science literacy right across the population. A 2010ACNielsen survey showed that although public trust in science and support for science funding is healthy a lot of people have a low appreciation of the benefits of science and the Science and Society project will coordinate efforts across Government to lift our literacy. The Prime Minister’s Chief Science Advisor Sir PeterGluckman will chair the reference group of experts to advise officials and Ministers.Health Targets—Progress6.Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Hunua) to theMinister of Health: What improvements in health services are shown in the latest health targets results?Hon TONY RYALL (Minister of Health): The latest health targets results have recently been published and they show continuing improvement with record numbers of patients benefiting from surgery and 91 percent of 8-month-olds immunised. These improvements in getting elective surgery mean that over the last 5 years on average 8000 more patients a year have been treated. These latest results also show that 93 percent of emergency department patients were seen treated or discharged within 6 hours. This is the best winter emergency department result since the targets began. These better health services are the result of the hard work of our health professionals helped by the average extra $500 million a year this Government has invested into our public health service.Dr Paul Hutchison: What reports has he received on emergency department patients benefiting from information technology advances?Hon TONY RYALL: There are some exciting information technology advances that are improving emergency department clinicians’ ability to provide better patient care. In the Wairarapa District Health Board the Waikato District Health Board and the Canterbury District Health Board with the patient’s permission emergency department clinicians are able to access a summary of the patient’s primary-care information held by their general practitioner. This includes the medicines they are on their lab results and any other problems the patient may have. This technology gives the emergency department clinicians the opportunity to act much more quickly knowing they have up-to-date data they can trust and more important the patient does not have to tell their story umpteen times to every clinician they meet.Hon Annette King: In light of that answer and if there are such positive results by district health boards in meeting his health targets why has he dumped the chair of the Canterbury District Health Board Mr Bruce Matheson whom people in the district thought was doing an excellent job and is it because the relationship with him has been tested by Mr Matheson’s strong advocacy for the people and services in Canterbury?Hon TONY RYALL: No.Hon Annette King: I seek leave to table a document from the Canterbury District Health Board from board papers public excluded which states the relationship with Wellington has been tested—Mr SPEAKER: Order! The document has been well described. Leave is sought to table that particular document. Is there any objection? There is objection.Welfare Fraud—Information Sharing Between Agencies and Further Deterrents7.Hon PHIL HEATLEY (National—Whangarei) to theAssociate Minister for Social Development: How is the enhanced information sharing between the Ministry of Social Development and Inland Revenue delivering on the Government’s promise to crack down on welfare fraud?Hon CHESTER BORROWS (Associate Minister for Social Development): Our enhanced information-sharing between the Inland Revenue Department and the Ministry of Social Development is working well. Since it began in March this year the ministry has identified and put a stop to more than 5300 benefits that people were not entitled to and corrected another 3000 who were not receiving correct support. Those 5300 were costing the taxpayer a bare minimum of $56 million per year. Although it is great to see these people getting back into work they should not have been taking money they were no longer entitled to.Hon Phil Heatley: How does this enhanced information-sharing fit with other new measures the Government has introduced to prevent detect and punish welfare fraud?Hon CHESTER BORROWS: The key aim of the package of reforms that this Government introduced earlier this year is to stop welfare fraud as soon as possible. I am pleased with the results of our information sharing as it is allowing us to catch fraud we might otherwise have missed and stop illegitimate benefits early before the debt really mounts up. This perfectly complements other preventive measures such as streamlined investigation processes greater scrutiny of beneficiaries who have previously ripped us off and providing follow-up support to new sole parent support beneficiaries.Hon Phil Heatley: What is the intention behind trialling home visits to check in with new beneficiaries receiving sole parent support?Hon CHESTER BORROWS: We recognise that for those receiving a benefit dependent on their relationship status navigating the benefit rules can be challenging. Although most do it successfully those who do not end up taking money that they are not entitled to and can be left with a massive debt and a fraud conviction at the end of the process. The intention behind trialling a number of methods of contact including offering to meet at their home is to look at the best way to keep in touch with sole parent beneficiaries at a time when we know that their circumstances frequently change at 14 weeks to 16 weeks after starting to receive the benefit. There is no sinister intent. This should be a check-in and not a checking-up.Student Achievement—OECD Report and Impact of Government Strategies8.CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka) to theMinister of Education: Is she satisfied that the Government’s educational priorities are leading to an improvement in student achievement; if so why?Hon HEKIA PARATA (Minister of Education): Yes although we constantly strive to do better. Why? Because the data speaks for itself: the highest-ever early childhood education participation rate at 95.8 percent; national standards show an overall improvement with nearly three-quarters of our students on average above or at national standards; last year we had the highest-ever number of school leavers achieving the National Certificate of Educational Achievement level 2 at 74 percent of school leavers; and exemptions have fallen from over 4000 under the Labour Government to just 300 under this Government. Furthermore AndreasSchleicher who is a special adviser on education policy at the OECD and responsible for Programme for International Student Assessment noted in an email to me late last week that many of the school policies that New Zealand is now pursuing are very much in line with the conclusions in the OECD international reportPISA 2012 Results: What Makes Schools Successful?.Chris Hipkins: Why did the Government cut funding for school science and technology advisers and does she now accept in light of our recent plunge on the OECD rankings from 13th to 23rd in science that that was a mistake?Hon HEKIA PARATA: We have introduced a number of student achievement function advisers because we are interested in raising achievement for all. We have focused on maths and science through those particular experts.Hon Trevor Mallard: Answer the question.Hon HEKIA PARATA: We have also introduced the Learning and Change Networks which focus on issues like that and last week we invested $10.5 million into science and maths resources—having answered the question.Chris Hipkins: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The question asked—Mr SPEAKER: Order! I do not need the question repeated. I am going to ask the member to repeat the question but to be fair to the Minister it was very difficult to hear the question as it was delivered which may have been part of the challenge the Minister faced.Chris Hipkins: I am happy to speak louder Mr Speaker.Mr SPEAKER: No. What would be helpful would be just to get the cooperation of the member’s own colleagues as the question is asked.Chris Hipkins: Why did the Government cut the funding for school science and technology advisers and does she now accept in light of our recent plunge on the OECD rankings from 13th to 23rd in science that that was a mistake?Hon HEKIA PARATA: Because we decided to put that funding into student achievement advisers who would work across the entire curriculum including in maths science and technology. We also decided that we would target resources to those who need it the most. We also decided to invest in research that told us for instance that 40 percent of teachers do not feel confident to teach science and maths so we are investing to make sure that they do have that confidence and will raise their teaching practice.Chris Hipkins: Why did the Government cut $35 million from teacher professional development in its first Budget in 2009 and in light of her statement yesterday that New Zealand’s decline in OECD rankings was partly due to “under-investment in raising teaching practice” will she now admit that that was a mistake as well?Hon HEKIA PARATA: Under this Government we are investing on average $70 million a year in professional learning and development—$70 million a year. We have also taken heed of what the sector wanted which was to have more of it distributed out in the regions. However in listening to the profession and hearing that it still does not think that it is quite right I announced this week that we would review professional learning and development and are involving all of the organisations that have an interest in it because the profession which we listened to has asked for it.Paul Foster-Bell: How does New Zealand compare with other countries participating in the Programme for International Student Assessment?Hon HEKIA PARATA: New Zealand remains above the OECD average. The highest-achieving students in New Zealand are comparable with the best in the world. I am sure all of us in this House are pleased about that but there is no doubt that we are now facing an achievement challenge. Fortunately this Government has been working to a plan to address this. The other countries that we benchmark ourselves against Australia Canada Sweden Finland have to varying degrees declined—[Interruption] I am sure that the Opposition members are interested going by their response. Those countries have declined while the performance of education systems in Asia—Shanghai China; Hong Kong China; Singapore for example—continues to rise. This is both a national and global challenge that we can and must rise to and that is why our Government and I as Minister of Education are focused on raising achievement for every one of our children.Chris Hipkins: Why does she continue to attribute our drop in the OECD rankings to the rise of Asian countries when New Zealand has been overtaken by other countries—among them Liechtenstein Estonia Poland Ireland Belgium Germany Austria Australia Slovenia Denmark—or perhaps we should focus a little bit more on delivering a broad and balanced curriculum that might include things like geography?Hon HEKIA PARATA: Because regrettably this is a complex issue. Unfortunately for the member linear single correlations do not actually work here. What the Programme for International Student Assessment data tells us is that there are a range of challenges and we have a plan focusing on each and every one of them.Chris Hipkins: How much money has been spent on the implementation of national standards in primary and intermediate schools and how does that compare with the amount the Ministry of Education spends on teacher professional development in reading writing maths and science?Hon HEKIA PARATA: I do not have to hand the precise figure about the development and implementation of national standards. I do not have that precise figure to hand but what I can tell you is that we invest $304 million over 4 years in the professional learning and development of teachers.Hon Trevor Mallard: I seek leave to table in the House a map showing Europe is not in Asia.Mr SPEAKER: Order! Order! Most members have no trouble Mr Mallard in finding a map to have a look at where countries are.New Zealand Defence Force—Joint Amphibious Task Force9.JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki) to theMinister of Defence: How have recent New Zealand Defence Force exercises contributed toward the Government’s goal of developing a Joint Amphibious Task Force?Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN (Minister of Defence): The New Zealand Defence Force recently completed Exercise SouthernKatipō one of the largest military exercises ever conducted—[Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! I just need to stop the family chatter that is occurring between both sides of the House. Could the Minister please start his answer again?Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: The New Zealand Defence Force recently completed Exercise SouthernKatipō one of the largest military exercises ever conducted in New Zealand. This involved 2200 military personnel from 10 countries. The exercise tested the New Zealand Defence Force’s ability to mount a medium-scale amphibious operation involving maritime land and air assets. I am pleased to advise the House that the exercise demonstrated that the New Zealand Defence Force has made great progress in building amphibious capability and remains on track to have a fully operational joint amphibious task force by 2015.Jacqui Dean: What is the value to New Zealand in the New Zealand Defence Force developing a joint amphibious task force?Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: TheDefence White Paper 2010 placed a greater focus on security within our own region. Accordingly the Defence Force turned its focus towards developing the capability to deliver humanitarian assistance and respond to security situations in the South-west Pacific. The ability to deploy land forces across large stretches of ocean by sea or by air and sustain those forces once there is therefore crucial to the New Zealand Defence Force.Jacqui Dean: What capability upgrades has the Government invested in to help deliver the joint amphibious task force?Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: Recognising that amphibious operations would require strength and capabilities the Government has committed to a number of capability purchases including a new fleet of medium and heavy operational vehicles capable of being deployed in medium and high threat environments and an increased number of upgraded Seasprite helicopters with a range of upgraded avionics communications radars weapons and other systems on board that are superior to the existing fleet.State-owned Assets Sales—Estimated Revenue Legitimacy and Treasury Forecasts10.Dr RUSSEL NORMAN (Co-Leader—Green) to theMinister of Finance: Has he been advised whether the Prime Minister stands by his statement on asset sales that “mixed ownership will free up $5 billion to $7 billion”?Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance): Yes I just checked with the Prime Minister and he does stand by his statement. He also advises me that he stands by the statement that if the Greens are really opposed to the asset sales policy then after the referendum they will promise to borrow billions of dollars and buy back the shares. So far they have refused which the Prime Minister advises me means the Greens do not really mean what they say.Dr Russel Norman: Does he believe that the asset sales programme has legitimacy given that it was passed in this House by a single vote that of John Banks a man who received a $15000 donation from Skycity of which Justice Heath yesterday said that “Those donations were not expressly disclosed in [John Banks’] Return. Rather they appear to have been classified as having been made anonymously.”?Mr SPEAKER: Order! We have now got into the difficulty again of where we were where the member is now starting to refer to details of the case. I will invite the member to ask the question again in line with Standing Order 112.Dr Russel Norman: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. This is a case that is from yesterday. I am reading the judgment. I am not doing anything other than reading the judgment from Justice Heath yesterday. It is a settled case. John Banks is going to trial.Mr SPEAKER: I will invite the member to repeat the question. If I am dissatisfied with it this time I will rule it out of order.Dr Russel Norman: Does he believe that the asset sales programme has legitimacy given that the deciding vote in this House was that of John Banks and that Mr John Banks has been found by the courts yesterday to have received two donations from a company associated with Kim Dotcom and one from Skycity Entertainment Group and “Those donations were not expressly disclosed in the Return. Rather they appear to have been classified as having been made anonymously.” as referred to in the judgment by Justice Heath yesterday?Hon BILL ENGLISH: Yes. Parliament passed the legislation. The Supreme Court examined the whole process. The Financial Markets Authority examined the whole process. A whole lot of interested investors bid on the shares and legally received their share certificates and we now have $4 billion in the bank—$4 billion we do not have to borrow off foreign bankers in the way that that member will need to if he decides to buy back the assets.Dr Russel Norman: Why did Treasury advise the Government in the Budget Policy Statement that asset sales would increase the Government’s deficit as measured by the operating balance excluding gains and losses which is the standard measure of the deficit?Hon BILL ENGLISH: I think as we have discussed in the House before there are a number of ways of measuring the impact of asset sales on the Government’s fiscal balance. The calculations that have been done under one version show it is mildly positive another version mildly negative and a third version roughly neutral. As I explained to the member this morning at the committee the impact directly on the Government’s balance was not the main driver of the sales. The Government set outsubjectives for this process some time ago. The real question now though is if the referendum votes show a majority are against the asset sales will the Greens and Labour take the referendum seriously and promise to buy the assets back?Dr Russel Norman: Has he actually read the Budget Policy Statement where Treasury says that the asset sales programme will increase the Government’s deficit and will that increase in the deficit not now be larger because he has raised less money than originally projected?Hon BILL ENGLISH: I think the member’s question points to the problem with those calculations and that is they are all hypothetical. For instance if the Government still owned those assets the fact is we now know they would be worth considerably less today than what is on the Government’s books. Treasury actually has not done that calculation. It is actually pretty meaningless. The most important issue is that the Government’s debt is at least $4 billion lower than it otherwise would be but if the Greens can get around to promising to buy the assets back—which you would think they would judging from their criticism of the sales process—then they will have to go and raise at least $4 billion of debt to buy them back.Education Sector—Learning Media and Student Achievement11.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) to theMinister of Education: Is she satisfied with her own performance as Minister of Education; if not why not?Hon HEKIA PARATA (Minister of Education): Yes. Having said that I will not be satisfied until we raise achievement for five out of five of our children.Rt Hon Winston Peters: How can she be satisfied with her performance when Learning Media has gone under and after the Government changed the contract rules left millions of dollars of unpaid debt owing?Hon HEKIA PARATA: That is not so. We have worked significantly with that company over a long period of time and regrettably it was unable to be successful. My focus as the Minister of Education has to be to ensure that theNew Zealand School Journal and the Māori-medium resources that which Learning Media has developed over time are transferred to equally capable—in fact more capable—providers than it had become.Rt Hon Winston Peters: Does the Minister not understand that this is a matter of integrity and honesty when dealing with elderly people in particular; and why did the Government buy four lots of shares in Learning Media after she had announced on 4 September at the wind-down that four lots of shares were issued to the Government to enable Learning Media to pay off a debt of over $4 million to Westpac a foreign owned bank and yet it left all the other creditors high and dry? Where is the integrity in that?Hon HEKIA PARATA: That is not correct and we have worked legally appropriately and prudently through this process.Alfred Ngaro: Does the Minister have a plan to raise student achievement across the board?Hon HEKIA PARATA: Yes. Since I became the Minister of Education I have been relentlessly focused on how we fix every part of education from early childhood to primary to secondary to senior secondary and to the secondary-tertiary interface because we want every young New Zealander to get a better education. This Government has been investing in and delivering on a plan to better engage with parents to report on achievement data to value and strengthen the teaching profession and to support 21st century learning environments. We must continue to build on our successes investing in quality teaching and education leadership to raise achievement for five out of five of our children.Rt Hon Winston Peters: What is not correct: that after 4 September—the announcement made then of course was by that Minister and Mr English as the shareholding Ministers—the Government then arranged four separate loan issues byway of shares to a defunct declining company to pay Westpac over $4 million in debt and left the other creditors likeAnaro Investments with a number of old people with their life savings high and dry? What is not correct about that?Hon HEKIA PARATA: We have not paid off all of Westpac’s debt.Rt Hon Winston Peters: What action will she now take to make sure that those elderly investors who were after all the landlord in this case are paid not a lousy $300000 but the $1.3 million they are owed by way of money on the outstanding lease; and when will she ensure that the financial arrangements entered into by a company she owned are honoured?Hon HEKIA PARATA: That is a commercial matter that is being worked through.Housing—Homeownership Affordability and Supply12.PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—TeAtatū) to theMinister of Housing: Does he stand by all his statements?Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister of Housing): I do. I stated that we needed to free up land supply particularly in Auckland and we have passed and are now implementing the special housing legislation. I stated that we needed to reform social housing and we have passed that bill and supported the bill with a record number of community social houses. I stated that we needed to expand our help for first-home buyers and we have doubled the number of KiwiSaver first home deposits and trebled the number of Welcome Home Loans. I stated that we needed to get our own houses in order and we have this year delivered on our commitment to insulate every single State house. I stated that we needed to rein in housing development costs and yesterday we passed the first reading of our bill to do just that. I could go on and on.Mr SPEAKER: No you cannot.Phil Twyford: Does he stand by his ambition to make the dream of homeownership a reality for more New Zealanders given that census data shows a 2 percent reduction in homeownership largely on his Government’s watch; first-home buyers have disappeared from the market because of loan-to-value ratios; the average house price in Auckland has gone up by $180000 since 2008; and mortgage repayments on an average Auckland house—assuming a 10 percent deposit and a 25-year mortgage—have gone up by $430 a month since 2008?Hon Dr NICK SMITH: The data from the census released by Statistics New Zealand shows that homeownership levels in New Zealand have been in decline consistently since 1987 and that is why the Government is making major policy changes. But if you look at the history of homeownership in New Zealand the single most important factor for New Zealanders being able to afford their own home is interest rates and they are at their lowest level in 50 years and are half what they were when Labour was last in Government.Phil Twyford: Has he sought advice on the likely further reduction in homeownership given that the Reserve Bank is predicting interest rates of 8 percent next year and does he realise that 8 percent interest rates—assuming a 10 percent deposit and a 25-year mortgage—would increase mortgage repayments on an average Auckland house by $850 a month?Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I can assure that member that this Government is very focused on keeping interest rates low for longer. That is exactly why the Reserve Bank has introduced the loan-to-value ratio mechanisms which members opposite have vigorously opposed. The biggest threats to interest rates are the very policies that he and his Green mates are advocating.Melissa Lee: What advice has the Minister received on housing affordability over the past decade?Hon Dr NICK SMITH: TheHome Affordability Report the Massey University index that compares average house prices incomes and interest rates shows that they deteriorated by 57 percent between 2003 and 2008. In fact according to Massey University housing affordability was at its worst in 2008 when compared with any other time in New Zealand history. That same index shows that housing affordability has improved in every year since 2008.Phil Twyford: Does he stand by his statement that housing supply is the core of the challenge now that the latest building consent data shows that seasonally adjusted building consents have gone down by 2.3 percent since the introduction of loan-to-value ratios—that is from 1625 in September to 1588 in October—and will he heed the warnings of the Registered Master Builders Federation that loan-to-value ratios threaten thousands of new builds every year?Hon Dr NICK SMITH: The biggest threats to first-home buyers are high interest rates and house prices going up like they did between 2003 and 2008. Unlike members on that side of the House we on this side of the House respect the independence of the Reserve Bank because that is the best long-term way to ensure financial stability.Melissa Lee: What advice has the Minister received on home building consent numbers and increased activity in the construction sector?Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I am advised that the number of building consents issued in the last quarter was the highest in 5 years. We are building 4000 more homes per year than we were a year ago and building a lot more houses than we were building in the last quarter of 2008. Last week the GDP figures came out and what they showed was the biggest ever—the biggest ever—increase in residential house building. That shows that this Government’s supply policies are working.Phil Twyford: I seek the leave of the House to table a document showing the Minister that there was an earthquake in Christchurch.Mr SPEAKER: I ask the member to use a bit of sense before he raises a point of order.Phil Twyford: Why does he think that the Prime Minister told journalists that he was tracking Auckland building consents week by week and that they were going up and has he advised the Prime Minister that in fact Auckland building consents have gone down by 24 percent since May and have decreased every month for the last 4 months?Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Oh the member is making his numbers up. The number of building consents in Auckland is 25 percent higher than it was a year ago. It has been consistently growing quarter by quarter and as we have seen with the special housing areas legislation already we have freed up another 5000 sections. Before Christmas we will be doing at least that number again. My question to members opposite is: why have they opposed every single measure such as the special housing areas legislation that will actually enable Auckland to build more houses?Phil Twyford: I seek leave to table the report from Statistics New Zealand on building consents—Mr SPEAKER: Order! Statistics New Zealand information is very freely available to all members.Hon Clayton Cosgrove: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Although accepting your ruling I just say that as I understand it you did rule a couple of weeks ago that where a member calls another member’s word into question—and the Minister did say that the member was making it up—even though a document was public it could be tabled under those circumstances in order to substantiate the member’s point.Mr SPEAKER: Yes and on occasions that would be useful for the House when the information is not freely available. In this case the member asked a question with apolitical loading. The Minister is at liberty to dispute those figures and that is exactly what the Minister did.Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I seek leave to table a report that I have just received from the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment on the number of building consents issued showing—Mr SPEAKER: Order! Can I just clarify. Is this a document and information that is freely available?Hon Dr NICK SMITH: No it is not. It has become available to me as Minister in only the last 2 days.Mr SPEAKER: I will therefore put the leave for that information to be tabled. Is there any objection? There is objection.Urgent DebatesStudent Achievement—OECD ReportMr SPEAKER: I have received a letter from Chris Hipkins seeking to debate under Standing Order 386 the release of the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment 2012 data collection on the performance of school students in reading literacy maths and science. The release of the results is a particular case of recent occurrence. As an OECD study there is no ministerial responsibility for the data released but they deal with matters involving ministerial responsibility. The results confirm a gradual decline in performance and echo findings from earlier studies. Although that may represent an existing situation the release of the OECD results is a significant new occurrence of considerable public interest. Educational achievement is of fundamental importance. The public need confidence in the Government’s response and its education plan focus on a number of fronts to lift educational achievement in order to give all young people a better education. I consider it important enough to warrant the immediate attention of the House by way of an urgent debate.CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka): I moveThat the House take note of a matter of urgent public importance. The public do indeed deserve to have confidence in their Government’s education policies but they cannot with this current Government. What we have seen under this current Government is that every time it has been called upon to make decisions about education it has consistently made the wrong call.In the National Government’s first Budget in 2009—its first Budget—it cut the professional development funding for teacher professional development. It cut that by $35 million. In the same Budget it gave another $36 million to private schools. That says everything about this Government’s education priorities.We should be concerned about the fall in our OECD rankings. The Minister of Education yesterday argued that this is an ongoing trend. There was a modest decline in 2009. That modest decline has turned into a freefall under this Government. Our figures have absolutely plunged. We have fallen significantly from seventh to 13th in reading from seventh to 18th in maths and from 13th to 23rd in science. Those are significant drops that have occurred under this National Government and those are issues that we should be very very concerned about.I have spent a lot of time going into schools over the last year and talking to teachers about what is making a difference to them and why it is that our kids in our education system are not achieving to the level that we should be able to expect. What they are saying quite clearly is that this Government is so focused on constantly measuring the problem on constantly testing kids that the teachers have not actually got time any more to teach the kids. The teachers want this Government to remove the red tape so that they can get on with the job they entered the teaching profession to do which is toactually teach kids. What they are doing now is filling in forms to satisfy this National Government. That is not leading to better educational outcomes for kids.The studies that have been coming out in the last few days and weeks have clearly shown that the Government’s education approach is absolutely failing. Let us look at the New Zealand Council for Educational Research’s report that came out last week. Only 14 percent of principals—only 14 percent of principals—and 23 percent of teachers say that national standards provide a valuable record of student learning. If national standards are the Government’s flagship education policy for lifting student achievement and yet the people who are being forced to implement them say they do not work and they do not provide reliable information how is it that they are supposed to lift student achievement? They simply do not. Only 7 percent of principals—7 percent of principals—and 15 percent of teachers believe that national standards are robust. They are flimsy standards that are neither national nor standard—they are neither national nor standard.It is no wonder that this Government has got our schools and our teachers focused on the wrong things. Hekia Parata in her answers to questions today talked about how wonderful national standards were and how parents were so happy with the information they were getting and yet overwhelmingly parents are complaining that the information they are getting as a result of national standards is inferior to the information they were getting before national standards were introduced. Fifty-four percent of parents did not agree that national standards were providing a valuable record of students’ learning. What was HekiaParata’s response to that? It was to attack the survey. Rather than actually listen to what parents are saying Hekia Parata decided to instead attack the survey and once again she was totally wrong.Sixty percent of teachers and 70 percent of principals say that national standards have created more work for little gain—more work for little gain. What that means is that more of our teachers more of our principals and more of the people who work in schools every day with kids are spending more time filling in forms for the Government constantly assessing kids but not actually focusing on raising student achievement which is exactly where they should be focused. If a child comes to school hungry putting them on the scales every day to see whether they have gained weight simply will not work. The same principle applies with their learning. If a child cannot read at school simply giving them the same test every day to see whether they have improved is not going to improve their ability to read. Giving them some additional support so they can actually learn to read is what the Government should be focused on but it is not.What it is busily devoting all of the resources in the education system towards is implementing national standards. Of course national standards as I said are neither national nor standard so now the Government is putting the money into trying to make them more consistent. Well again making the standards more consistent will not improve student achievement. What it will do is put a whole lot more money and a whole lot more time and energy in to a bureaucratic exercise rather than actually focusing on lifting student achievement.If we are going to get serious about lifting student achievement why does the Government not look at the things that actually work? Take Reading Recovery a programme that has established credibility and that works. The Labour Party has said we will extend Reading Recovery so kids who need that support will be able to get it. That is actually a very very important and a very very sensible thing to do. Reading Recovery says that if a child is falling behind in their reading they need intensive one-on-one support—they need intensive one-on-one support. We cannot simply go to teachers and say that if students are falling behind in their classes—and they have gotquite large classes—they can give all of the time they need to absolutely every student. Sometimes some of those kids do need more intensive levels of support and that is where we should certainly be putting money. The Government is simply turning a deaf ear to those concerns from teachers principals parents and everyone else who is saying they are not getting the support they need.The Government says it needed national standards to identify where students were falling behind so it could target the resources to deal with that. The problem is we already knew where students were not achieving. When National came into office in 2008 it talked about the areas where students were not achieving already and said that it would do something about that. What it has done is spend its entire 5 years in Government measuring the problem over and over again and it has done nothing to actually address the concerns and the issues.What was National’s one solution? Let us go back. What was National’s one solution in last year’s Budget? Its one solution in last year’s Budget was to make class sizes bigger. HekiaParata’s best attempt at improving the quality of teaching and learning in classrooms was to put more kids in front of every teacher—more kids in front of every teacher. That is not going to improve student learning in New Zealand. Of course National was forced to back down because every parent in the country understood something that Hekia Parata and John Key did not—that putting more kids in a class is not going to allow the teacher more time—That is right. Well I will get on to private and charter schools in a moment Mrs King. It is not going to allow the teachers more time to spend with each child to focus on actually raising student achievement.So where is the money going under this Government? Well we have seen a significant increase in funding for private schools and of course we have seen money ploughed into that ideological experiment that the National Government would have us believe was forced on it by that convicted criminal John Banks—Mr SPEAKER: Order!CHRIS HIPKINS: —when he forced upon it the charter schools experiment which every credible academic doing research has argued will not work and will not lift student achievement.Let us go back to the OECD study. The OECD study proved very very clearly that in fact when you control for socio-economic factors private schools do not do any better than public schools do. And yet under this Government because of its ideological predisposition we have seen significant amounts of extra money going into the private schooling sector through private schools and through charter schools. Actually we should be focusing on making sure every school in New Zealand is a good school. The Government has put in place Aspire Scholarships so that it can send more kids into private schools and yet the results from that are abysmal. The kids who are attending private schools under those Aspire Scholarships are not actually achieving—they are not achieving. It is not a good use of money.We know the things that are working. If the Government members actually took the time to get out there and visit schools to listen to teachers and principals to listen to parents and to listen to the academic experts they would actually know what is working in schools. But they do not. They are completely deaf to the feedback that educators are giving them. This is a Government that has declared a war on teachers—a war on teachers—because it believes that National knows best. It believes that the people who are in the classroom every day teaching kids every day do not know what is going to raise student achievement and that they have to be told by the National Government what they need to do to raise student achievement. Well I tell you what. I would put my money on a schoolteacher or a school principal knowing what is best for the kids in their school far ahead of HekiaParata’s knowledge of those issues. I trust theprofessional judgment of the people who are in our schools and who know how to raise student achievement. That is not something they will get under this National Government.Let us look at HekiaParata’s list of excuses for the decline in our OECD ranking because that is what they are—they are simply excuses. First of all she talked about the fact that we have had a “significant increase in the number of teachers but under-investment in raising teacher practice;”. Well yes we have had under-investment in raising teacher practice because this Government cut the funding for that in its very first Budget in 2009. Coincidentally that was the last time we had the Programme for International Student Assessment results out. So we are seeing now in the next Programme for International Student Assessment study after the Government cut the funding for teacher professional development what the impacts of those kinds of Draconian policies are.Other excuses from Hekia Parata include that there is “a focus on compliance rather than … performance;” and yet national standards are all about compliance. That is what this Government is focused on. It is all about compliance and—Grant Robertson: Bureaucracy gone mad.CHRIS HIPKINS: —bureaucracy gone mad—tying schools and teachers up in red tape and not trusting them to make judgments about what is best for students. It is about making them fill in forms to satisfy this quest of the Government to rank everything and to have league tables rather than focusing on teaching the whole curriculum which is where our schools should really be focused. Hekia Parata said there is “Inadequate … data on student achievement …”. That is absolute nonsense. We have always had very good data on student achievement. What we have not been good at doing as a system is matching the additional resources to where student achievement is failing. This Government has been among the worst because what it has been doing is cutting the funding to programmes that have targeted areas of underachievement.We in the Labour Party recognise the links between inequality in our society and under-performance in the education system. That is something to which this Government turns a blind eye and a deaf ear. This is a Government that refuses to measure child poverty—refuses to even measure child poverty. And yet we acknowledge that the conditions that kids are growing up in have an impact on their readiness to learn when they get to school—something that the National Government is simply not willing to hear.This is a wake-up call to the Government; its education policies are failing. Other countries that have experienced a similar decline in the education rankings are taking that very very seriously. They are willing to reassess and re-examine the policies they have put in place that are not working. So why is our Government trying to continue to push along the policies that have been proven to fail? They have been proven to fail and that is exactly what is happening with this Government. It is arrogant and out of touch. As in so many other areas this Government is not listening to the people whom it is relying on every day in schools to get out in front of kids to teach kids. It is not listening to them.The first thing this Government should do is admit that it is wrong. Then it should actually go out there and say to teachers and principals: “Actually we think that you are professionals. We actually trust your judgment. What is it that we need to do as a Government to lift student achievement?”. That is the very first thing this Government should do. But we will not get that from Hekia Parata because Hekia Parata knows best. Instead she will go and lecture schools about all of the things that they are doing wrong and about whether they are pronouncing their kids’ names right but she will not actually put the effort the energy and the resources into areas where we know that kidsare not achieving. Instead National wants to import failed ideological experiments from overseas. It is no surprise that other countries that have adopted standardised assessment and standardised testing are either stagnating or declining in the education rankings as well.What we need to be doing is embracing the whole curriculum. We have one of the best curricula in the world. It is internationally recognised. It was put in place by the previous Labour Government. I will say that it was put in place by the previous Labour Government but it was supported by the then National Opposition. National was right then; what it has done instead since it came into Government is undermine the world-leading curriculum that we have. It has undermined that consistently by saying to teachers and to schools that it does not want them teaching the whole curriculum; it wants them to focus on only a narrow range of things. That is not going to lead to a more prosperous future for our country. The OECD statistics that are out this week show that the Government’s education policies are failing.Hon HEKIA PARATA (Minister of Education):Tēnā koe Mr Speaker. I am delighted to be able to participate in this debate because despite the hysterical tone being adopted by the Opposition member Chris Hipkins New Zealand has a fundamentally sound education system. I have said since I became the Minister of Education that the system is top performing for many but not for all. That has not happened by accident nor will it continue without attention and this Government is paying attention. Ever since I became the Minister it has been paying attention. Unlike the assertion by the Opposition member that this is a wake-up call it is not. Our alarm clock rang 5 years ago when we looked at the system we had inherited from those people who are now on the other side and that is why we got straight into fixing this.We knew that we had to understand exactly where every child was in our system in order to be able to target resources specifically to them to help address their learning needs right there and then and not wait for 3-year samples that yes are extremely helpful and inform our decision making. But it is a call to action. As I said in my speech to the Iwi Chairs Forum last week to which the forum responded magnificently this is an endeavour that all of us need to be engaged in. That means that we need to know where our kids are at in the system what their particular learning needs are whether we have the resources to support them and how we can make a difference for each and every one of them.New Zealand has slipped in the latest Programme for International Student Assessment rankings. This is serious but it is not a surprise. We are serious about fixing this. That is why our plan is about every part of the education system.At early childhood about which all the research is really clear investing early is investing for life. That is why we have—despite the Opposition ignoring the brutal facts of reality—raised investment in early childhood education by 74 percent. The reason why we have invested in this is that we trust parents as much as professionals. There are many parents who deliver great early childhood learning to their children in their own homes as do qualified teachers in centres. We are agnostic as to which choice parents make. It is up to parents to decide how and where to send their children for early childhood education. If that is at home with their parents we applaud that. If that is in a teacher-led centre whether kindergarten orkōhanga reo we applaud that.This Government has focused on having a target of 98 percent of our earliest learners participating in early childhood education and we are now at 95.8 percent. We will keep on focusing on what works for communities. So whether that is a Pasifika language - led playgroup or a kindergarten we will support those earliest learners to have that opportunity.When children enter school we want them to develop a strong general platform in primary school. We want it understood whether or not they are able to read write and count at the earliest age and we want to make a difference as soon as we understand whether that is occurring or not.We have invested $9.7 billion in Vote Education this year alone and we have increased that investment every year because we understand how important and how critical education is to every one of our children. It has not been acceptable to us that an average of four out of five children leave senior secondary school with National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) level 2. When we came into Government it was two out of five Māori and three out of five Pasifika. We are not looking at averages and in fact we have raised achievement ever since 2009.Sue Moroney: No it’s going backwards.Hon HEKIA PARATA: I get that the members opposite and one in particular are not interested in reality or facts or evidence but we have actually had improvements year on year. How do we know that? It is because we have invested in a data-rich environment. We understand that without data it is just another person’s opinion.We are interested in data and in making a difference. That is why we introduced national standards. Every parent and teacher wanted to know specifically where their child was once every 3 years but also every year and every 6 months which is what is required under this Government. But they can also find out how their child is doing in national standards at any time. We are not asking teachers as has been asserted by the Opposition to do more assessment. We are asking them to use their overall teacher judgment to make a decision as to how well their children are doing and what we need to do next to improve that and to ensure that their parents understand because parents want the best for their children and they want to be involved in helping their children to improve.I do go out to schools. In fact I have a very structured 40 Friday programme because there are 40 Fridays in a school year. I am in schools every Friday somewhere around the country. I listen to what teachers have to say and I take action as a result of that.Sue Moroney: It’s no wonder they’re going backwards.Hon HEKIA PARATA: Most recently—if the member cared to listen instead of haranguing from that side of the House—it was said that professional learning was not meeting their particular needs so I have introduced a review. We heard that teachers required more maths and science resources so we have invested in that.We know that kids do better if they participate early. We know that kids do better if their parents are engaged. We know that kids do better if the community in which their school is located holds high expectations of and for them. So this year for the first time we have published by local authority and rohe the specific achievement of kids so that those communities can join together in raising achievement for each and every one of them.The 4000 15-year-olds who sat the Programme for International Student Assessment last year showed that our best are still best in the world but also that our least capable students are some of the lowest in the Programme for International Student Assessment countries. Our spread between those who are doing very well and those who are not is one of the widest in the OECD and we are focused on how we get excellence and equity for all. Unfortunately these kids—these 4000 kids—were not caught by national standards but they have been caught by our Youth Guarantee initiative by the fees-free places in tertiary institutions by the increased number of apprenticeships and by the vocational pathways that offer opportunities to kids in the primary sector in the services sector in manufacturing in health and shortly in the creative industries. They willalso have greater focus on NCEA level 2 and we are working with schools school by school on how we raise that achievement.We are prioritising parents by better reporting to them. We are providing better information for the wider community. We are putting more funding into the New Zealand School Trustees Association which is the most formal and structured way in which over 16000 people—mainly parents—volunteer every 3 years to be on the boards of our schools. We have had an 84 percent increase in its funding this year.The biggest effect on in-school raising achievement is the quality of teaching and education leadership and we have invested $37.5 million this year in a quality teaching agenda. The cornerstone of that is the transformation of the New Zealand Teachers Council into the Education Council of Aotearoa New Zealand. Its acronym is EDUCANZ not “Edu-can’t” so we can ensure that the professional body of teachers is fit for the 21st century. We are also introducing from next year initial teacher qualifications that strike a much stronger balance between education theory and great classroom practice. We have introduced excellence awards because we want to be able to highlight and spotlight to the community what excellence looks like. There are many examples of that up and down the country where teachers are creating magic in classrooms every day with their students. We want to highlight that.Most particularly we want to create a more constructive public conversation around education. We want to be able to attract the best and brightest to join the profession. If all they ever hear is binary oppositional statements about education then why would they be attracted to doing that? So we are investing next year in education—Sue Moroney: You cut the funding for teachers in early childhood.Hon HEKIA PARATA: The member keeps parroting that we have cut the funding. How can you have a 74 percent increase in early childhood education and a 40 percent increase in schooling and say that it constitutes a cut? It just does not bear scrutiny. It is laughable frankly. It is just absolutely ridiculous. In fact it is an example of exactly what I have just been alluding to. We cannot get a constructive education conversation in this country. Until we grow up and start having a constructive—Hon Members: Oh!Hon HEKIA PARATA: —a constructive—education conversation it will be very difficult to persuade young people to choose teaching as a career.I grew up in a community where teachers were revered. I was really proud that my father was one of those teachers and I am proud that my sisters joined the profession. I am proud of all the people I know who have committed their lives to this vocation of teaching. That is why we have invested $9.7 billion—Dr Megan Woods: Why do you denigrate them as union hacks then?Hon HEKIA PARATA: Actually I do not denigrate teachers at all.Dr Megan Woods: You do.Hon HEKIA PARATA: I do not denigrate teachers at all. Can I just—Dr Megan Woods: They shouldn’t have an opinion—Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member can take a call shortly.Hon HEKIA PARATA: Yes that would be great.Can I just speak to the particular issue of pronouncing children’s names correctly. Can we start with the fact that mine is Hekia Parata and can we recognise that relationships of respect established between 5-year-olds and the teacher between 10-year-olds and the teacher and between 15-year-olds and the teacher actually do start with pronouncing a child’s name correctly whether it is Mary-Anne orMereana. I do not see why that should send anyone into a frenzy. It is a basic common courtesy.So we are working really hard and the reason we are doing so is that we want—Chris Hipkins: I thought it was Trish.Hon HEKIA PARATA: Yes it is and I am not hung up about that because I am a comfortable bicultural New Zealander.Nō temea heingoa tipunatēnānōakutīpuna.[Because that is an ancestral name from my ancestors.]Ko Patriciaiheke maiiakutīpunanōKōtimana. Kotakuingoa a Hekia heingoa tipunanōNgāti Porou.[Patricia comes from my Scottish ancestors. My name Hekia is an ancestral name fromNgāti Porou the clan or tribe of Porou.]So yes I am Patricia Hekia Parata. I am proud of both sides of my heritage:Pākehā and Māori. I think many New Zealand kids are.So we want to have an education system that makes our children competitive both internationally and globally and that also embraces those things that are uniquely New Zealand. Our kids—and these things are not measured by the Programme for International Student Assessment—are good at working in teams. Our kids are good at finding creative and innovative solutions to problem solving. Our kids are good at relationships. Our kids are good in the environment. Our kids are committed to fairness and sportsmanship. We want to have an education system that is about kids both being globally competitive and having that Kiwi can-do attitude which is unique to New Zealand. I am bound and determined that the New Zealand education system will deliver both of those opportunities to every one of our children.I am proud to be the Minister of Education in the National Government raising the vote investment every year committed to modernising our education system and making some people uncomfortable with change because if we keep doing what we have always done we will keep getting what we have always got. What we have always got has not been good enough so we are facing forwards informed by what has happened in the past but really focused on what makes a difference. Funnily enough opinion and prejudice are outweighed by evidence and research.Thank you Mr Speaker for giving me the opportunity despite the haranguing of the parrots on the other side—the Opposition—to talk about all the great things we have in our education system and also how much better we need to be doing.CATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green):Tēnā koe Mr Speaker.Tēnā koutoui te Whare. It is very very pleasing to be part of this urgent debate and very interesting. I listened closely to the Minister of Education. I think that there are many parents in this country who would love to see all of us in this House working together on education. But there are some fundamental problems and the Programme for International Student Assessment report actually highlights those problems. It talks about slippage. It talks about slippage and it also does a very interesting analysis of why the direction the Government has taken education policy in is not going to work.I want to quote AndreasSchleicher—[Interruption] I am sure you will Minister. I am sure you will quote him. He is quoted as saying when he unveiled the international student assessment results: “My organisation is very strong on choice enabling citizens to make choices and you would expect that systems with the greatest choice would come out better … You expect competition to raise performance of the high performers and with low performers put them out of the market. But in fact you don’t see that correlation … Competition alone is not a predictor for better outcomes. The UK is a good example—it has a highly competitive school system but it is still only an average performer.”Others have said: “His comments could be seen as a blow for MichaelGove England’s education secretary who has placed great importance on the findings of Pisa and has also promoted increased school choice as a key way of raising educational standards. This has been done in England through more academies and the introduction of state-funded free schools”—also known as charter schools—“partly inspired by thecharter schools in the US.” AndreasSchleicher is quoted as saying: “Our data does not show much of a performance difference …”. So what AndreasSchleicher from the Programme for International Student Assessment is saying is that the direction that the Government is trying to take the education system in is not going to work.That is why as deeply as the Green Party would like to get past ideological battles in binary opposition and start focusing on the best most innovative most creative and most culturally inclusive school system in the world we have a problem in this political situation. That problem is that choice does not work in education. If you are talking about why achievement is slipping and why we have gone down in maths science and literacy or reading in the report’s figures it is because a programme based upon increased choice and teaching to tests cannot deliver what the Government says it wants to deliver for all children. Therefore the Green Party has many many other ideas that would be more positive.But it is really important to think about the Programme for International Student Assessment and what its report said in this round because the report is talking about the last 3 years and it is talking about our country being in a state of failure. It is a wake-up call. It is not actually something the Government should be making light of or walking away from and saying that it is an ongoing problem that it was well aware of. I have never heard the Government admit that choice is not going to work.The report says and this is one of the things that I find interesting that one of the most important things is professional development. I heard the Minister say onMorning Report that she is doing everything that the programme suggested. But actually she is not because the cuts to science advisers and to professional development in science have been a disaster. I am sure I am not the only MP in this House who has received emails from science advisers drama advisers and cultural advisers saying: “We have lost jobs but that is not the only issue for us. What is happening is that the broad curriculum which we are only just rolling out is being undermined and narrowed because we are not getting the professional development to allow our teachers to do the magic that they are supposed to do.” So this is a direct contradiction between what the Minister said onMorning Report that she is fulfilling all of the programme’s suggestions and the reality that instead of greater professional development and a broad curriculum less choice but more focus on local quality public education will get better outcomes for all.The report’s information is worth reading because it talks about the importance of universalism and it talks about the importance of quality teaching and attracting quality teachers. No one is going to disagree with that. But the problem we have got is that the plan that the Government is rolling out in this country at the moment will not deliver those outcomes. That plan is all about national standards which is called teaching to test and they are neither national nor standard.If you read the latest research that came out last week you will find that the New Zealand Council for Educational Research and MartinThrupp’s study both raised red flags about what is happening with national standards. They are very concerned about the narrowing of the curriculum. That is why the Programme for International Student Assessment results have to be taken in the context of what is not working in this country. What is not working is measuring the cow not feeding the cow. There are many ways we could say that.But the Government is not listening to teachers parents and principals. Seven percent of principals in the Council for Educational Research study said that national standards could be considered to be robust. That is 93 percent who said they could not be considered as robust—93 percent of principals in the study said that they could not consider the standards to be robust. What we have with that kind of statistic isevidence that one cannot build a political consensus if the teaching profession the principals and indeed many parents are deeply unhappy with the strategies that the Government has brought in since 2008 which are not strategies for promoting a broad curriculum individual learning plans and success for all students.I heard the Minister list all the wonderful things that the Government is doing. I have heard her talk about those in glowing terms. But unfortunately the slippage and particularly the socio-economic data that is in the report show that the context in which the Government is trying to promote the global education reform movement is not working for it. That is why in the student assessment study the programme has identified this country as failing on socio-economic disadvantage strategies.The programme is saying that we are not doing enough for the vulnerable students whether it is through providing them with food as my colleague Hone Harawira has promoted through his bill or whether it is through providing them with a broad curriculum with better cultural inclusion strategies more qualified teachers and better early childhood education instead of cutting the ratios which is what the Government has done to the qualifications of early childhood teachers. It cannot keep putting up these contradictions. On the one hand we have heard the Minister say that early childhood education is wonderful but on the other hand the Government is going to cut the target of having 100 percent registered teachers. That is an unbelievable contradiction. If you talk to the early childhood sector it is deeply distressed by what has happened as a result of that strategy.Moving on to the compulsory sector we have the collapse of professional development and the introduction of the most unpopular policies that the Government could get through. The Government could not get class sizes through so it continued with national standards. Teachers are regularly telling me things like that one school is writing in school reports “working towards the standard” but another school is describing it as “well below”. There is nothing consistent or standard about the way that schools are describing these measures that they are supposed to impose. Some schools are actually doing two reports. They are doing one report for national standards and they are doing another report for what the parents actually want to know about their kids.But I want to talk briefly in the time I have left in this urgent debate about educational solutions. The Green Party is totally passionate about creating solutions. Tomorrow I am hosting a forum at Parliament in the theatrette and you are all invited. I have some of the most innovative and creative people coming to talk about the solutions that the Green Party and others have to make sure this country works better. They are going to be about facing up to equity about stopping the teach-to-test mentality and about introducing and supporting professional development for the broad curriculum. They are going to be about looking at schools being genuinely accessible to all children and genuinely free. These people whom I have brought together for tomorrow are about finding solutions to the challenges that the Programme for International Student Assessment has put out.I think it is an important duty of all politicians—but particularly of the Greens because we actually think positive solutions and a fairer future are important for all children—that we start articulating what will work. The report from the Programme for International Student Assessment and the quote from AndreasSchleicher that I just gave from show that inequality is a fundamental issue. Unlike many other countries in the study New Zealand’s results are getting worse. We have had in the last 5 years a serious increase in inequality and socio-economic disadvantage in terms of education. The OECD is being quite brave because it has always been a great believer in choice but it is now admitting that choice is failing. It is brave enough to admit that we actually need different strategies.So tomorrow we are going to be talking about some of those strategies including things like early childhood education in the language of the sector’s own people. I look forward to talking about this further with you. We need positive solutions. We need a fair future and a good life for all our kids. We do not need the current Government’s strategies.TRACEY MARTIN (NZ First): Kia ora Mr Speaker. Can I first of all thank you Mr Speaker for allowing this debate to go forward because this is something of full concern to the country. It is a matter of great urgency. However the first comments I want to make are that unfortunately statements that the Minister of Education has made today and the Prime Minister made yesterday show the ignorance that they have about the current system. Both the Minister and the Prime Minister have made statements that these children were not captured by national standards and that these children were not inside that system from 2008 forward. In 2008 this cohort which is my son’s cohort were actually in year 7. Year 7 and year 8 are primary school children. They were inside the national standards system.Hon Anne Tolley: They were not. They were introduced in 2010.TRACEY MARTIN: These children were primary school children at year 7 and year 8. They were covered by the primary school New Zealand curriculum and they were captured by national standards.At the same time as this Government came in—and I note that Minister Anne Tolley is there because it was Minister Tolley who brought national standards in and campaigned against teachers in 2008 the most vicious campaign against the teachers of New Zealand that has ever been seen. The devaluing that that Minister and this Government did in 2008 to the morale of our teaching community has never been seen before.These teachers today our teachers today are the most undervalued and the most under attack as has ever been seen in our nation’s history. It is a shame that that is the National Government which created the world-leading New Zealand curriculum in full consultation—in full consultation—with the sector and with total agreement with all parties inside this House and with every teacher who had to implement it. That was the way under the guidance of the Hon Dr Lockwood Smith—that was the way. If that was where we needed to go as a country that is how it should have been done. But it was not done that way. There was an arrogant solution from behind closed doors by a Government that was trying to play up for a vote in 2008.I was sitting on the board of trustees of Warkworth Primary School in 2008. I sat on that board with some parents who wanted to bring back ranking inside our classrooms. National standards are about as close as you can get without going back to ranking of students inside classrooms. It is the ranking of schools inside league tables and it is the pressure of competition to try to create better outcomes instead of actually deciding to invest in professional development.I want to take up the point that the Minister has made about the pronunciation of children’s names. I absolutely agree with her. But why then does the Minister continue to argue against compulsory professional development? Why is it that if we proved that the Te Kotahitanga programme had maximum outcomes for Māori students we did not make it compulsory for every teacher in this country to take that professional development? Why is it that if we need to have our teachers in our classrooms—and interestingly enough we are importing them from other nations. We are not saying that they have to take any professional development about our culture about our languages and about the way New Zealanders are and the nuances that we have with our young people. We place them in front of the classroom. Why is it that this Minister says that professional development must remain contestable? It makes no sense to New ZealandFirst that if you have a teaching fraternity who you say must take professional development why you do not make it compulsory and why you do not fund it appropriately.We also reiterate that we agree with the Minister. We knew where these children were. It is interesting that the catchphrase at the moment for this Government is “a data-rich environment”. Why is it then that school entry data is not captured? Why is it that school entry data—knowing where these children are when they actually come in to the school predominantly at 5 even though the law says that they do not have to enter our schools until 6—is not being captured? Why is it then when we already knew that we had children requiring Reading Recovery—and let us be clear that Reading Recovery is for those children who need that little push to get over the lip of their difficulty in order to be at the same place as their peers—that we still have Reading Recovery funding based on a decile rating? A decile 8 school gets funded for half a child no matter how many children actually require Reading Recovery. If we are front-ending the spend why are we not putting that funding for that child as soon as we know that they need assistance? We already knew that but that is not what is happening—that is not what is happening. Children are being identified as needing that support of Reading Recovery. At Warkworth Primary School 12 children get identified say in a year and the school gets funding for half a child. So what does the school have to do? It has to fund-raise to try to put in that support for those children—and these are 5-year-olds and 6-year-olds we are talking about—or it needs to take from its operations grant or it does not provide it.If the Minister and this Government were truly invested in lifting and front-ending the spend and lifting the performance of these young people so that by the time they enter the Programme for International Student Assessment exams they have that solidity of foundation those two questions need to be answered. Why should professional development be contestable? And why are we not providing the support for a child as soon as it is identified and it is identified under the assessments that have not changed?The other part to this and why it is important is that this is our international reputation. We try to sell our education system overseas. So of course it is a great concern to everybody in this House to everybody in New Zealand and I would have thought predominantly to those schools that are over there now marketing themselves for international students to come here because we have such a great education system. This is of concern.When the Minister talks about growing up and people having a cross-party consensus my experience in the 2 years that I have been in this House is that actually it is the National Party that never shows up. It is the National Party that never enters the conversation. I have been invited over the last 2 years to education panel after education panel and there has been no National Party representative there. I take that back. Cam Calder—and Mr Ngaro though that was actually something about social services not education necessarily—came to the adult and community education panel and read statements from the Government. New Zealand First would love to have an opportunity to gather together all members in this House who are concerned about education take the politics out of the room and bring in the Principals’ Federation the New Zealand Educational Institute and the Post Primary Teachers Association. They care about these children. What about the boards of trustees? There are the parents. There is your parent body that you should bring into the room.Hon Judith Collins: They’re not all parents.TRACEY MARTIN: But apparently Miss Collins we do not provide them with compulsory professional development either. The Minister quite incorrectly stated that they were volunteers. These people are elected officials from their communities. Theparents who sit on the boards of trustees have been elected from their parental community. Only the parental community can vote for them and that is how they gain a seat. You have to have a child inside the school to be able to vote for anybody to be on to the board of trustees.Hon Judith Collins: Not to be a trustee.TRACEY MARTIN: Miss Collins obviously needs to go back and study the Education Act 1989 because she is completely mistaken around her abilities. The boards of trustees are the parental voice out of those communities and they should be in the room. Too often they have been ignored not only by this Government but by the education sector itself. It is those people who should also have compulsory professional development. Some money has been placed aside and I commend the Minister for actually placing that money with the School Trustees Association but we still have not recognised that these are the leaders of our schools. We still do not acknowledge that it is through their work and their leadership that they represent that community and the outcomes that that community chooses for its children. We must widen the success criteria not narrow the success criteria so that all our children can succeed inside the current State school system. Kia ora.Hon NIKKI KAYE (Associate Minister of Education): I am very pleased to speak in this debate. I think I share with many members in this House the concern about the Programme for International Student Assessment results. The first thing that I want to say is that every week I visit schools I meet parents I meet teachers I meet principals and I meet people who are absolutely passionate about our education system. But I think it is really important that when we enter this debate we actually analyse what the Programme for International Student Assessment is telling us. There are a number of very clear things coming through from this report.The first thing that I want to address is that we have had a number of things raised by the Opposition that are just not true. The first thing that we heard from Labour was that these results were actually because National had under-invested in our education system. Well this is not true. We are spending $9.7 billion—the highest ever investment in Vote Education—with year-on-year increases. There has been a 40 percent increase in Vote Education since 2007. We are investing 20 percent of all public expenditure in education which is the second highest in the OECD.The second thing that we heard from Mr Hipkins was that this was actually all our fault. Well actually when you look at the Programme for International Student Assessment results the reality is that these children came through between 2003 and 2012. What we need to do in this House is actually stop the blame game and accept that this is a serious issue that it needs proper analysis and that it is an education system issue and all members of the House need to band together to actually look at how we address some of these issues.The third thing we heard was that the reason for these Programme for International Student Assessment results was actually national standards—I know that we have just heard from Tracey Martin on that—but actually that is factually untrue. National standards were introduced in 2010. The reality is that the children in this cohort could not benefit from the targeting of national standards—knowing where children needed to be lifted—because national standards were not properly implemented through that period. They were introduced in 2010 and children could not have been targeted in that 2003 to 2012 period.The next thing that we heard was that this is actually somehow because of charter schools and investment in private education. Again I think many New Zealanders listening to this debate would realise that that is ridiculous.So now we actually get to the point where we can ask what is going on here. I think that the most important thing that we need to remember is that for the last decade there has been a group of voices in this country that has said “We need change.” right? Then there has been a group of other voices that has said “No we need no change.” It has been our Government and our party that have been consistent in saying that actually the only way that we can ensure that every child gets the kind of opportunities that we want for every New Zealander is to have change. That is why we are unashamedly proud of national standards.The biggest thing that I say to many audiences and to many teachers principals and parents when I get out in the community is: “How can we possibly help those children if we don’t know where they are and we don’t know where we can help them?”. It is so simple. The reality is that now we do know where those children are and we are putting in resources to help them.The second thing that we have really focused on is recognising that we do need to ensure that we raise the value of the teaching profession. That is about professional development. We did announce a review this week and that is going to be very important in terms of raising the value of the profession and raising quality teaching. The next thing that we have done is that we have been really clear that the reform of the Teachers Council is incredibly important to ensure that the teaching profession as well has greater responsibility and a greater role in terms of lifting standards.I think there has traditionally been a problem in New Zealand in terms of truancy and school-leavers. The other thing that the Programme for International Student Assessment results show which I think is really interesting is that more kids are staying at school which is great. Early leaving exemptions fell to 313 last year from a peak of more than 4187 applications in 2005. That is a 93 percent decrease under National. That is incredibly significant because how can we possibly improve our education system and raise opportunities for young people if they are not actually at school? I think there are some quite amazing results here in terms of areas like school- leavers.There are some other very positive things happening in terms of national standards and professional development but all people in this House need to realise that this is serious and the only way that we can really do service to the rest of New Zealand is by taking responsibility and making change.Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram): There can be no surer sign that you have got a Government that is on the run from its own record in education when you have the Minister of Education and an Associate Minister of Education stand up and say that we need to take the politics out of educational achievements—this from a party that campaigned hard to get into Government in 2008 on its headline policy of national standards. Well National you have failed your standards in education. This is a fail grade for what National is doing to our education system.This report is seriously concerning for New Zealand. It has shown The programme for International Assessment that there are systemic failures within our education system which are being exacerbated by the introduction of national standards. The dramatic drop that we have seen in the international standing of our education system should be a real wake-up call to the National Government. Its approach is simply not working and the mad spinning to try to explain this away does nothing for our children who are being failed by a Government that is systemically chipping away at what was once a world-class education system with a world-class curriculum and world-class teachers. This is being undermined by our own Government.National’s attacks on education have seen our overall rankings fall. Let us go back and think about those numbers again: from seventh to 18th in science from 13th to 23rdin maths and from seventh to 13th in reading. This is from a Government that talks the big game on innovation. We have Minister Joyce standing up time and time again and telling us that the salvation for the New Zealand economy is going to be innovation led by world-class science. Well here is a revelation Government: if you want an innovation-led economy that relies heavily on the sciences you need to have our students performing at a world-class level in science and mathematics. You do not have them sliding down the OECD rankings and thinking that we can be a country that can perform on the international stage as a global innovator. It simply does not work. The maths does not compute.We had the Minister of Education stand up and say that her Government is one that is interested in data and an Associate Minister who said that we need to analyse. So I will put it together again for the Minister and the Associate Minister. Here is some data for you to analyse. In 2000 New Zealand was seventh in the OECD in mathematics. After your Government made its changes we are now 23rd in the OECD.Let us analyse that data Government and see where you come to. Let us look at science for a Government that is supposedly committed to a science and innovation-led economy. In 2000 we were seventh in the OECD. After this Government has been in power for 5 years in 2013 we have slid down the rankings to 18th.What we have is a Government that has systemically chipped away at science within our education system. We have a Government that thought it was a smart move to cut technology funding in the 2012 Budget. The Government had to back-pedal on it because its own voters told it that it was a dumb idea. This is not a Government that matches its rhetoric on innovation with what it is doing in our education system. This is a Government that cut $35 million out of professional development for our teachers in Budget 2009. Yet the Minister will stand up and berate us with the fact that we need our teachers to continue learning. Yes we do and the Minister slicing off $35 million which saw the demise of science advisers in schools is not the way that New Zealand can have an innovation-led future.Dr Cam Calder: That was a very—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Order! I have not called the member yet. The member must wait to be called. I call the honourable member Dr Cam Calder.Dr CAM CALDER (National): No member of this House can take pleasure in these Programme for International Student Assessment results. It is a serious concern but the Labour Party and its union cronies can have nothing to be proud of—nothing to be proud of. Dr Megan Woods mentioned 2000. You got your statistics wrong. You got your statistics wrong—2000 was after 9 years of a National Government where our successive Ministers of Education were relentlessly criticised by the Labour Party and its union acolytes for our education policy.Dr Megan Woods: Ten seconds to denigrate teachers.Dr CAM CALDER: It was after 9 years of a National Government that we had these statistics: third in the world for reading fourth in the world for maths and seventh in the world for science Dr Megan Woods. There was a steady decline from 2000 to 2009 where Labour did absolutely nothing nada null zero. It was seduced by the education unions’ sibilant assurances and weasel words that all was right with the education sector that nothing needed to change and sadly we have heard that again from the Opposition speakers. Labour was blinkered and steadfastly ignored the growing disparity between our best students where we were up there with the rest of the world and our poorly performing students and the relative underachievement of our Māori and Pasifika students.After National came into office New Zealand’s rating in 2009 after the supervised neglect showed seventh for reading 13th for maths and seventh for science. You would think that well that is ostensibly not bad but let us disaggregate them as we did. Disaggregated for readingPākehā are second Asians are seventh Māori are 34th equal between Slovenia and Slovakia and Pasifika are down there at 44th around Mexico. We saw this information. We actually thought about it interpreted the results and knew that this disparity and inequity were unacceptable as was the decline. We set about doing something about it. Sadly the unions continued to cry that all was well aided and abetted by their Labour Party cronies and ferociously fought and continue to fight every single measure that this perceptive National Government has introduced to arrest the decline and turn it round.The 2012 Programme for International Student Assessment results are a saddening vindication of what we already knew about student achievement in New Zealand and have been working to address. That is our highest-achieving students are comparable with those in the rest of the world. However the whole education system needs to be better geared for all students to succeed and it is wrong and foolish to believe that just the education unions know how to do this. If they knew how to do it why are we in the state we are in? As we have been saying for the last 5 years our education is not performing for all and we are relentlessly focusing on refining it and ensuring that our work raises achievement for five out of five of our students so that they can unlock that potential that lies within themselves. This was a well-signposted decline and it is appropriate and relevant to note that the 15-year-olds tested will not have benefited from many of the innovations that we have introduced. I am of course talking about national standards the progress and consistency tool and the Positive Behaviour for Learning programme which this Government has introduced. Of course those tested would not have benefited from the $1.5 billion assigned to early childhood education. Successful education of necessity must be infinitely varied in its engagement strategies. No one size fits all.This Government is ahead of the game and the multiple new strands in the cable of educational pathways we have introduced will help turn round this observed inherited decline in Programme for International Student Assessment performance. Our goal of 98 percent participation in early childhood education will ensure that our young people will get the best start and our current rate of participation of 95.8 percent is the highest ever. National standards will mean that teachers and parents can intervene early when their children and our children are falling behind. As I said the progress and consistency toolPaCT will be a huge help enabling teachers to deepen their understanding of the New Zealand curriculum know how their students are progressing and know how they might support each individual student and indeed it will provide detailed reporting to parents with examples and help engage students themselves in directing their own learning.Lifting the achievement level of National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) level 2—the numbers achieving at that level—will be important. The transition into further education and employment for most of our young people will be helped by that. In 2012 74 percent of our school-leavers left with NCEA level 2 the highest rate ever. Our policies are already working. Thank you.TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West): I am astonished that the Labour Party would initiate a snap debate on this topic this afternoon. It has to amount to one of the greatest political own goals that I have seen in my 5 years in this House. The reason is very clear but I want to restate it particularly for the benefit of anyone who may have just tuned in to the debate in the last 20 minutes.What we are talking about here is clearly a result of the failure of policy initiated and enacted by Labour because not one of the children whose results we are looking at in this particular exercise is in any way caught up by the policies that the National Government has taken in order to turn things round. The reality is that the children who did well under the Programme for International Student Assessment back in 2000 had been educated under a National Government in the 1990s. Then we had 9 years of the Clark Government during which time Labour told us: “You don’t need to assess. You do not need to monitor. You do not need to have accurate reporting. All you need to do is trust that all will be well.”Well I want to remind members of this House that I was a teacher and I am very proud to say I was a teacher. I was a secondary school teacher and I found that to be one of the most rewarding and challenging things I have ever done in my life. We all know that teachers have a hugely challenging job. It is a dynamic very complex very rewarding and at times very frustrating profession. So I acknowledge the huge job that is done by teachers the length and breadth of this country and I am very proud to have worked with many of them and to consider many of them my friends.I have to say I was not impressed by the absolute baloney and propaganda I had to sit through last Friday night in a DVD put together by the New Zealand Educational Institute which was nothing but a slanderous attack on the current Government and our Ministers. If that was a professional thing by a group of teachers then I have to say thank goodness that more and more of them are turning away from the New Zealand Educational Institute. But let us not for one moment negate the important job that teachers are doing and I do acknowledge them.So why have we got to this point? Is it a lack of investment? Well clearly it is not because successive Governments have increased the investment in education and this Government I am very proud to say has increased Vote Education by 40 percent since 2008. We are now investing 20 percent of all public expenditure in education which is the second-highest percentage of any Government in the OECD invest in education. So it is not a lack of investment. Could it be the lack of a coherent and effective and relevant curriculum? No that is not true either because we know that the New Zealand curriculum is highly regarded internationally.So it has to be something else—and it is a range of factors. There is no question about that. We all know that many children are dragged into school or pushed into school and many of them do not get there. Truancy is a factor. Dysfunctional backgrounds are a factor. We know that there are a whole range of socio-economic factors that go into the mix. But what we have to do is say: “We’ve got to get them there and we are not going to accept the fact that some of them are doomed to failure.” And unfortunately that was the philosophy of the previous Government.We are saying that one in five not achieving anything is not good enough and we are determined to raise the bar. I salute Anne Tolley for the huge work she did in the face of some appalling opposition and personal abuse to show when she was the Minister of Education that we were serious in our commitment to the New Zealand public that we would raise achievements in education. We are doing it and the results are showing through. In 5 to 10 years’ time when we are having another debate in this House on the Programme for International Student Assessment results I guarantee that we will be looking at better results.I want to salute the Hon Hekia Parata for carrying on. She took the baton from Anne Tolley after the last election and she has continued to do a good job. I want to tell you how incredibly proud I am to be a colleague of Hekia Parata. I have seldom seen any Minister subjected to such appalling abuse and such misinformation as she is. Whenever she comes to Hamilton she makes a terrific impression. I have hosted her at a publicmeeting. The media is not interested in covering it but she tackles head-on all the topics the people are interested in. She answers in a very full coherent and reasonable way all the questions. And I have to say what is most important is that she is absolutely passionate about education. She speaks with the passion of one who really cares about what she is doing. She loves the job and she is achieving what we need her to. I am confident that we are on the right track under our policies and I say shame on the previous Government for getting us to this position.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): I just wish to advise the House—[Interruption] Order! [Interruption] Order! Order! Relax—relax. [Interruption] Order! Order! We have members interjecting on each other and it is not permitted under Speakers’ rulings. I call the honourable member Jacinda Ardern and advise the House that this is a split call.JACINDA ARDERN (Labour): Can I take National’s one? I am going to go for 10 minutes Mr Assistant Speaker. If you buzz me at 5 then I will know it is split and if it is not then I will sit down.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): You have got a split call with the Mana Party.JACINDA ARDERN: It is my pleasure to rectify some of the absolute rot that has been flying around this House not least the last call taken by someone who purported to be a part of the education system and who claimed—Tim Macindoe: Attack me personally because you don’t want to deal with the issues.JACINDA ARDERN: —that there was no testing in our education system under Labour. That is an absolutely ridiculous statement.Tim Macindoe: I’ve talked about the issues and you attack me.JACINDA ARDERN: If he was a teacher he would know that I have not made a personal attack. I have simply pointed out that if Mr Macindoe was a member of the education system under Labour he would know that there was testing and there was.My second point is that we heard within 10 seconds of Mr Calder’s speech and within MrMacindoe’s speech blatant attacks on the teachers of this country who have taken it upon themselves to raise their concerns about the teaching environment. That was absolutely legitimate that they did. To be vilified as union hacks in doing so is an absolute disgrace.The point I want to come to is this: the environment that that Government has talked about has been solely isolated to the teaching environment. We on this side of the House have raised our concerns with what has happened in the last 5 years but what that Government refuses to acknowledge is that a child does not go to school and exist in a bubble. In the last 5 years that these children and these young people have been attending and been part of our education system there have been other things going on in their lives that affect their educational outcomes.The OECD acknowledges that—the OECD acknowledges that. I want to refer to the section from the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment report that has not been talked about yet. It talks about the impact of inequality on educational outcomes. It states this: “New Zealand and Chinese Taipei are the only two high-performing countries/economies with below-average levels of equity in education outcomes. Targeting low-performing and/or disadvantaged students is a policy option for both of these countries as the steepness of the gradient suggests that low-performing students could rapidly improve their performance if their socio-economic status is improved.” Chinese Taipei and New Zealand virtually get their own graphic indication of the fact that young people who are growing up with economic disadvantage are alsoperforming badly and that inequality is having an impact on the kids who are tested in this report.If that Government wants to stand there and say that the last 5 years have not mattered it clearly has absolutely no idea about the reality that these kids are growing up with. To assume that the economic environment of their parents and of their families has no impact on their educational outcome is to turn a blind eye to the environment that they are living in. If the Government needed any more evidence in the equity and outcomes section of the report there is also more discussion about disparities and performance related to socio-economic status where again New Zealand is isolated as one of only two schooling systems where there is a complete disconnect given the fact that we have a well-performing economy but children who are living in absolute disadvantage are not performing—are not performing.This is part of the problem. There is a lot more going on in our education system which has been talked about by Chris Hipkins but for that Government to ignore that its 5 years of government has not had an impact on those children is an absolute disgrace because what kind of outcomes does it lead to? Well we know from the reports that have come out of the Ministry of Social Development that material deprivation includes lack of access to educational tools. Kids without computers in homes kids who cannot afford to go on school trips—these are all measured and we are failing them. Kids for instance who do not have more than two pairs of school shoes kids who do not have uniforms and therefore do not go to school because they cannot afford them and they are ashamed children who do not have enough food to take to school and sometimes stay at home because of it as well—if this Government was serious about improving educational outcomes it would supportMana’s Education (Food in Schools) Amendment Bill. It would support that bill to demonstrate that it is worried about the environment that these children are growing up in but clearly it thinks that it is all down to the fact that teachers are part of a union and that somehow that has been the failure of our education system. That Government needs to acknowledge the environment that young people are experiencing and then perhaps we might see some educational improvements.HONE HARAWIRA (Leader—Mana):Tēnā koe Mr Assistant Speaker.Tēnātātou katoa e te Whare e noho tahiana ekōrero tahiana kitēnei kaupapawhakahirahira kaimuai atātouitēneirā.Nō reiratēnā koutoutēnā koutou kia oratātou katoa.[Greetings Mr Assistant Speaker. Greetings to us all the House seated together and speaking together to this important matter before us today. And so I acknowledge and greet you collectively and thank us all.]National’s education policies have just taken a major hammering in an international assessment that has heavily downgraded New Zealand students’ achievements in maths science and reading yet all the Minister of Education can do is trot out some irrelevant philosophical rubbish and tell the Opposition to stop playing the blame game. But the ugly reality—and I have not heard people mention it too often and somebody needs to say it—is that New Zealand’s education ranking has fallen from seventh to 18th in science from 13th to 23rd in maths and from seventh to 13th in reading according to a report released by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development last night. Yet this Government point-blank refuses to accept that the deteriorating test scores and New Zealand dropping out of the top 10 are because of its out-of-touch education policies.The Programme for International Student Assessment—PISA—highlights the fact that National’s approach has increased inequities between schools. It notes that the gap between test scores in high-decile and low-decile schools is bigger than ever before andranks this country New Zealand firmly in the bottom third of OECD countries in terms of equity ratings. Yet despite all of the Government’s hot air about lifting the achievement of all learners and especially those in low-decile schools it has done precisely nothing to address the fact that poverty and inequality matter hugely to learning achievement.Instead this Government has done everything it can to entrench and exacerbate poverty and inequality like cutting funding to early childhood education and State schools while increasing funding to private schools and now charter schools and grinding down the already low incomes and living conditions of strugglingwhānau. This Government continues to refuse to acknowledge the fact that poverty and inequality matter at all even though it has had ample evidence from experts about how important it is to address equity issues if it seriously wants to address educational underachievement. For example we know that the Government currently helps to feed children throughKidsCan andKickStart Breakfast but we also know that 80000 children are still going to school hungry. All of those children are our children and they are going hungry. We know—because all of the facts tell us so—that hungry children of whatever race colour or creed simply do not learn well. We know too that a Government-funded food programme as spoken of in the Programme for International Student Assessment report in low-decile schools has been recommended as an immediate way to help address child poverty raise educational achievement and improve child health by a range of groups and organisations right here in New Zealand in recent years and most recently by the Children’s Commissioner’s Expert Advisory Group on Solutions to Child Poverty in its final report released in December last year.We know too that my Feed the Kids bill—whether it is mine or David Shearer’s Education (Food in Schools) Amendment Bill—aims to provide free meals to all students in decile 1 and 2 schools and won broad support from groups and organisations right across the country including the Child Poverty Action Group Every Child Counts Unicef New Zealand Save the Children IHC the Methodist and Anglican churches TeRōpūWāhine MāoriTokoi te Ora the New Zealand Educational Institute the Post Primary Teachers Association the New Zealand Principals’ Federation the CTURūnanga the New Zealand Nurses Organisation and the Māori Medical Practitioners Association. Yet this Government still refuses to acknowledge the importance of equity of nutrition and of the need for a fully Government-funded food in schools programme.The Programme for International Student Assessment report also recommended increasing equity increasing resources and providing help for poor children but this Government has chosen to put its energy into other areas like national standards private education and charter schools. The Programme for International Student Assessment report pointed out that disadvantaged schools struggle to attract qualified teachers and that poor kids suffer as a result.It also pointed out the obvious fact that high-performing countries—I have not heard the bell Mr Assistant Speaker—pay teachers well and actually choose that as a policy priority over reducing class size and that they also put a lot of focus into ensuring that high-performing teachers actually get placed in socially disadvantaged schools. Yet what does this Government do? It continues to blame teachers and the education system. It attacks teachers unions criticises teachers’ standards cuts back on curriculum advisers and even goes so far as to suggest that 6-year-old kids rate teachers all the while paying those teachers through a broken Novopay system the sum result of which has been to confuse confound and demoralise teachers in what has been widely recognised as one of the best teaching collectives in the world.Tēnā koutou. Kia oratātou katoa.Hon ANNE TOLLEY (Minister of Police): Excuses excuses and more excuses. Every time we talk about education what do we get from Labour and its close friends the unions? All we have heard for the last few years is excuses excuses and all the while our students have been falling behind—slowly steadily and surely falling behind the rest of the world. It is always someone else’s fault. It is never Labour’s fault. It is never that Government’s fault. And when we dared to suggest that we actually follow and measure a child’s progress and talk to the parents about that child’s progress what did we get from the unions and from Labour—nothing nothing helpful nothing constructive. They fought it actively every step of the way. They said to us: “We don’t need to measure anything.”I have heard principals stand up and ask “Why are we measuring kids’ progress because actually if they fall behind a little bit in those first years they will catch up when they’re ready”. I have had parents say to me that they have been told time and time again by their teachers: “Don’t worry about little Johnny if he’s not learning to read yet because he’ll catch up when he gets a bit older.” Well they have not caught up.Now that the evidence is clear Labour and the teacher unions should be hanging their heads in shame because they have failed those kids. There are no excuses. They have to take responsibility. They sat there for 9 years as a Government and believed it when the unions told them that everything was OK. The union mantra was “We know who these kids are who are failing.” And I heard Chris Hipkins say that again this morning—“We know who these kids are who are failing.” Well my question is always “What did you do for 9 years while you watched those kids fail?” because this Programme for International Student Assessment result is telling us that you watched them continue to fail and you did nothing. You had huge surpluses. You could have done something and you did nothing.Hon Trevor Mallard: She is the guilty woman. She cut the professional development.Hon ANNE TOLLEY: You were a Minister Mr Mallard and you were responsible—after National had been in Government.I have a quote on my whiteboard on my office. I have kept it because to me it sums up everything that is wrong with the New Zealand Educational Institute and the New Zealand Principals’ Federation in this country. It was from a principal who was a member of both. In a letter to me he said: “The implied message from these national standards is that everyone in New Zealand has to be literate and numerate. What a sad place school will be if this type of nonsense continues.” That is from a New Zealand primary school principal a leading principal in both the New Zealand Educational Institute and the New Zealand Principals’ Federation who does not think it is important for kids to learn to read and write. That is why our prisons are overflowing with prisoners who cannot read and write.Hon Trevor Mallard: Go toKimi Ora and say that. The Minister’s talking nonsense.Hon ANNE TOLLEY: This member should take a call if he wants to take part in this debate instead of casting aspersions across the House and no one is really interested. That is why our prisons are full of prisoners who cannot read and write. They have not been able to hold down a job and they have no skills that would make them employable and that is why we are now facing the truth about our education system— that our 15-year-olds are not the best in the world any more because actually when it came down to it Labour did not care. It did not care enough to stand up to the teacher unions and demand change in an education system that was failing kids.Well on this side of the House we do care. We have put students and their parents first we have stood up to the unions and we have introduced a range of changes designed to address the failure that we all knew was coming—because we did know that this day was coming. We were warned. I went off to the OECD as Minister of Education and it told me that it had warned the previous Labour Government too that the education system in New Zealand was getting complacent that it was not based on evidential learning—Hon Trevor Mallard: That’s a lie—didn’t tell me that.Hon ANNE TOLLEY: That is not a lie. MrSchleicher warned the Labour Government that it had to make systemic changes and he warned me. We were putting in national standards and the OECD has continued to back the changes that this Government has made. But it is not going to happen overnight and I said in 2010 when we introduced those standards that it could take 5 years or more before we saw substantial change in our system. I said in 2010 that there had been no change in our reading performance since 2000—that was 9 years under a Labour Government—and no change in maths since 2003. So we should not be surprised when we see the results that we are facing here today.Remember that national standards were introduced by the Labour Government because one in five of our kids in school was failing. In other words the schools were failing them. The education system was failing them and the Labour Government had failed them. Education Minister after education Minister did not have the courage to stand up to the unions and make the changes they knew needed to be made. Minister Mallard knew that there needed to be changes made and the union actually backed him down. He did not go through with what he knew needed to be done.This Government introduced the Youth Guarantee which was designed to give free education to students up to age 18 who had dropped out of the schooling environment. They had been deserted by Labour whose only answer was to lift the school-leaving age. Well actually those kids were not at school anyway. They were some of the 30000 truants every day from our schooling system. This Government tackled those kids with some innovative programmes between secondary and tertiary institutions—things like trades academies service academies and tertiary education for trades education in tertiary institutions and now we are seeing over 10000 of those young people re-engaged in education and getting skills and training and qualifications. These are fantastic results for kids whom Labour abandoned.Labour continues to back the unions over kids. We have heard it from Labour members today. They want no change in the system. They are promising to roll back all the changes that National has made over the last 5 years should they ever—for the unfortunate sake of the country—reach Treasury benches. So they want more of the same as through those years of the 2000s when kids were being failed by the education system. Is that really what they are promoting? Well I welcome these Programme for International Student Assessment results because they show that National has been right all along. The education system did need a systemic change. We have been right to shake up the education system on behalf of kids and on behalf of their parents.I am still approached by parents in airports who say “Thank goodness you guys stood up for us and made sure that we got good information about what is happening to our children early on in their school time so that we can make sure that we support them and we help them learn while they are in those all-important primary years.” So all I can say to Labour is “Just get out of the way.” because this side of the House is absolutely determined as the Minister of Education has said to make sure that five out of five kids succeed in our schools. We have got a lot of work to do and we want those people out of our way.JAMI-LEE ROSS (Junior Whip—National): I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Throughout the speech of the Hon Anne Tolley the Hon Trevor Mallard was making a number of interjections that were clearly unparliamentary and offended Speakers’ rulings 42/2 and 3. I would ask that he be asked to withdraw them.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Can I just say to the member that if there is offence taken it should be taken at the time during the course of the debate not afterwards.Hon ANNE TOLLEY (Minister of Police): I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I did take offence at some of the comments that were made. I was in the middle of a speech and of course if you interrupt your speech to address comments that are being made across the House they are recorded inHansard. I did not want those recorded inHansard but I do take offence. It was extremely unparliamentary language and insults that were being hurled across the House.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Can I thank the honourable member and just say that this is a robust Parliament and it is a wide-ranging debate. The Minister should have taken a point of order at the time. That is the way it operates in this Parliament.Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman: Speaking to the point of order—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): I have already ruled.Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman: Can I raise a new point of order?The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Yes you can raise a new one.Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN (Minister of Defence): I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Separate from the issue of whether a personal insult was made those interjections were not rare witty or to the point; they were actually continuous barracking to try to put the speaker off her stride and you should have ruled—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Can I just say again—look we have a robust Parliament here. This is open for debate. It is a very passionate issue for all the members involved and one has to expect that in a healthy democracy.The debate having concluded the motion lapsed.General DebateHon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister for Economic Development): I moveThat the House take note of miscellaneous business. This afternoon yet again we have had another couple of revealing glimpses of the true state of the New Zealand Labour Party. There are two particular points this afternoon—firstly during question time and I have to say the incredibly lazy incredibly deluded performance of the Opposition leader who turned up and wasted three-quarters of his side’s questions on a lazy attack on the Prime Minister which was of absolutely no substance. There was absolutely no preparation. It had absolutely no point. And on top of that he was well and truly spanked by the Prime Minister. It is not as if this was the first time. The Opposition leader persists in coming down here with his airs and graces and pretending that he knows stuff and absolutely is as shallow as a puddle.Speaking of shallow puddles the second glimpse we got of the New Zealand Labour Party this afternoon was its incredibly shallow political attack on the Programme for International Student Assessment results. Actually it is quite revealing if you have a look at it because Labour’s first move actually happened yesterday when it broke an international 34-country embargo to score a shallow political procedural stunt in this House before the results were released. That has to be the most juvenile approach to what is a serious subject for New Zealand. Then having made the juvenile attackwhich was completely over the heads of most New Zealanders it proceeded to attack the Government for the results. Well let me tell you one thing. These results if we want to be political about it were nurtured and created by the previous Labour Government.Some maths lessons for the Opposition: 15-year-olds last year were 5-year-olds in 2002 and they were 3-year-olds in 2000. They spent their entire preschool and primary school years in Labour’s utopian school system. People in glass houses should not be throwing stones. Mr Hipkins worked then for theuber-Minister of Education one T Mallard—he of the “The world is lying.” sort of accusation—and the deal is that they were the Labour Government’s results. We can all accept that the numbers have declined and that means frankly that we are all responsible as a country. And because of the time it takes for education results to appear everybody in this House has to have a look at themselves because this decline is not new. It has been around for a while. So even now the maths decline—what were the numbers in 2009? Thirteen. They have declined since then. But what were they in 2000? We were at four 2000 so we declined then. So if the criticism is of the National Government now then what about that period? It is adolescent of Mr Hipkins I have to say to blame the current Government. Let us accept that there has been a decline.So what new innovative things are parties proposing to actually achieve with this stuff? Well partnership schools—a National Party initiative. Network for Learning—a National Party initiative. Participation targets in early childhood education—a National Party initiative. The Youth Guarantee—a highly successful National Party initiative. National Certificate of Educational Achievement level 2 targets performance-linked funding in tertiary education and national standards in primary schools—we need more of this innovation not less. You cannot manage what you cannot measure and the Labour Party and the Green Party in this House today using measures to criticise the Government for having measures was ironic. That is what they were doing. They were saying that the Programme for International Student Assessment measures are the things that we should have to criticise the Government for measuring national standards. If that is not hypocrisy what is?The sad part about it is that the Labour Party and the Green Party have no solution except to wind everything back. That is the trouble for the Labour Party and that is the other thing we have noticed today: the lazy inept attack on national standards and the fact that it has done absolutely no work on policy in this area except to say that it would roll it back. That says that the Labour Party is lazy. The Labour Party after 5 years in Opposition is still arrogant because it still believes that it does not need any new policies to get itself re-elected. I have one suggestion for those members. When they go away in the break for goodness’ sake do some work because your laziness is showing.ANDREW WILLIAMS (NZ First): I hope my voice holds out for this debate. This is not a bad Government. It is not a mediocre Government. This is an awful Government. It is such a woeful Government that it is difficult to know where to start and where to stop. Well a good place to start is today. During question time today our leader the Rt Hon Winston Peters brought into the daylight just the latest in a long line of failures. We have exposed just how unethically the Government has acted over the defunct Learning Media. We have revealed how the Government changed the contract rules that are sending Learning Media into bankruptcy yet it is advancing capital to the company to repay Westpac a foreign-owned bank creditor in full. Never mind the rest. Never mind the others who will be left out of pocket—elderly investors who own the building that Learning Media resided in.The list of this Government’s failures is a long one. The recent revelations about falling education standards are deeply alarming to all those who have school-age children. I certainly can recall my three children growing up in a period when we pridedourselves on our education system and that continued right through with my last child leaving college in only the last year or so. I can recall when the school system was good and was continuing to provide for our young ones. Under this Government we have the cuts the changes the move to the likes of charter schools and the funding of $36 million to the likes of private schools to the detriment of State schools. It all goes on and on. This Government has a woeful track record in terms of education.The country has had its best terms of trade in 40 years but that is not something that this Government can take credit for. It is because of our agriculture. It is because of our dairy. It is because of our forestry our meat our seafood and all our other manufactured exports.The housing market is in crisis. The plight of first-home buyers is absolutely dire with Kiwis—good Kiwis—dreaming of homeownership and young ones sick to see what is happening. Just last week I attended an auction in my own suburb ofCampbells Bay on the North Shore and was aghast to see a small piece of land less than 500 square metres sell for over $1 million—for a bare piece of dirt. And do you know where the buyers were from? They were not good honest everyday working Kiwis. All the Kiwis got knocked out at around the $800000 mark and it was sold to people from abroad. We do not even know whether those people from abroad had New Zealand residency.Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman: That’s racist.ANDREW WILLIAMS: No it is not racist. It is what is happening Mr Coleman all over Auckland at the present time. New Zealand First stands for putting in place that you must be a New Zealand resident and you must be domiciled here in this country to purchase here. You cannot sit back in some foreign country—whether it be in Europe whether it be in the United States whether it be in Asia—and buy land from under the noses of good hard-working Kiwis.Immigration is out of control. It is a total shambles with young New Zealanders having to contend with tens of thousands of immigrants in a very weak market for jobs. For the people of Christchurch they must endure a stumbling bumbling recovery of their city. The Government has taken a bit of a bath this last weekend in Christchurch East where people are still in dire straits. The Government has plans to rejuvenate the central business district pull down perfectly good public libraries and pull down perfectly good other buildings so that it can build its convention centre down in Christchurch while people in the eastern suburbs are still suffering.Let us remember some of the many other fiascos this Government has brought about—the likes of South Canterbury Finance. It was allowed a blowout of $800 million and 6 months went by while the Government turned a blind eye as more investments were being made in South Canterbury Finance. The Government gave $30 million to RioTinto without making sure there was an assurance of job security for the future for the people of Southland. The Government was responsible for the absolute abomination that is Novopay and it allowed that hideous situation to continue where teachers in this country are still suffering from disruption to their pay cycles. The Government gave Warner Bros $67 million for a movie that grossed over $1 billion worldwide when a loan would have seen the taxpayers’ advance secured.Hon PAULA BENNETT (Minister for Social Development): I want to address the reforms the way we are working with young people and the difference that we are making in their lives. We have heard a lot of rubbish from the Opposition today about how we have seen the demise of young people how dreadfully they are all doing and how it is everyone’s fault of course except theirs—and mainly ours. Well I want to stand up here today and say that I actually think young people are thriving and doing incredibly well. They have an awesome future and the ones whom I meet if our handsare in theirs I think we are going to be pretty much all right. There are some things we can do better and you have already heard from previous speakers from this side of the House on where that attention is going where the resources are at and how we are targeting more to those who need it most. I stand here certainly myself and I am proud of the fact that we get the right information on the right people so that we are able to make sure the right resources are getting to them.If ever there is an example of where that is happening the most it would have to be in youth services within our welfare reforms particularly for those young people aged 16 17 and 18. Let us cut to the facts of what we did not know before but we do know now. Of those aged 30 to 39 years old who are currently on a benefit 60 percent went on as a teenager—of those currently aged 30 to 39 who are on a benefit 60 percent went on as a teenager. Of young beneficiaries 43 percent will still be on a benefit 15 years later. Of disengaged 16 and 17-year-olds 90 percent will go on an adult benefit at age 18 or 19 unless we intervene differently.So of course that is exactly what we did. We went out there. We contracted. We got all that new money in the Budget of 2012. We then implemented our youth services and we see substantial differences for these young people. Of those who were not in education employment or training—so those who were “neets”—we now have 59 percent enrolled in education another 17 percent in training and another 4 percent in work-based learning. That is outstanding. We have 1300 who are on the new youth payment which are those 16 and 17-year-olds. Of those 1300 71 percent are in education—71 percent. I can tell you that that number was pretty much zero before these reforms came in. But—and it will not surprise many in this House—the ones who really get me going the most and who I think are making the biggest difference are those teen parents. Of teen parents aged 16 17 and 18 years old we have got 1400 who are on a young parent payment. Of them 70 percent are in education 13 percent are in training 48 percent have done a budgeting course and 44 percent have done a parenting course.But there is a reason I got into politics and I have been reminded of it this week. I get to indulge myself in the general debate which is a pleasure we do not often get in this House. I am thrilled to say that I had a young woman who wrote to me and said: “Because I was now single with no income I had to apply for a solo benefit. I went to Youth Service to sign up for the youth benefit. I had absolutely no levels from school as I had dropped out so young at 14. Basically I had nothing to offer my girl. When I met the Youth Service officer they made me go into education and told me I wouldn’t get a benefit unless I was enrolled in some type of course.”She then goes on further. She says: “They were all absolutely welcoming to me and absolutely loving and caring. I had to break the habit of staying home all day long to actually get up early and do something with myself for the day. After the first term was over and the second term started I was still not attending regularly so my teacher spoke to me and told me I had to attend at least part time if I wanted to keep getting paid my youth service benefit. That was when my life practically changed. I didn’t want to struggle with a baby so I carried on at TPU the teen parent unit. The second term at TPU was the best time I had in a long time. I finally felt like I belonged somewhere. School was always hard for me to attend but now I am achieving.”I had another one who wrote to me and said: “Before I started at the TPU and was made to go I only had level 1 Achieved. I didn’t actually realise I had any NCEA credits. But now since the teen parent’s coming to an end with only 6 weeks left I have level 1 2 and 3 and only need 11 more credits to complete university entrance.” I have another young woman here who told me that the reality for her was: “I have gained level 2 while I have been here and am 10 credits away from completing level 3. I havealso put credits towards university entrance. The TPU and the girls here have motivated me so much to make a better change for myself.”That is why we come into Parliament—to change these girls’ lives to see them get educational achievement and to see them grow into who we know they can be. This side of the House backs them.JACINDA ARDERN (Labour): There is absolutely no doubt that despite the odd positive anecdotal story from a Minister—we could probably count them on our hands—this is absolutely a Government in decline. It is difficult for me to narrow down for a 5-minute speech the various ways in which we can see that this is a Government in decline. Probably the biggest demonstration of that the best example I could come up with is that in order to return to Budget surplus this is a Government that could do nothing else but sell all our stuff—sell all our stuff.The first thing that the Government could do the best option it came up with when it wanted to make sure we got out of the red was to sell our assets. That is absolutely a relevant issue for us to continue to debate today. This is a Government that is arrogant enough to absolutely ignore the views of New Zealanders. It has dismissed from the beginning poll after poll that has demonstrated that it was a completely unpopular policy to the point that the Prime Minister has arrogantly claimed time and time again that simply by voting for National everyone said they were happy with assets being sold. That is absolutely untrue. More people voted for parties that did not agree with asset sales than for those that did.So the message that needs to go out clearly in the midst of this referendum is that this is a Prime Minister who will interpret every vote that is not cast as simply someone saying that they love his work. So everyone must exercise their democratic right if they would rather not have the Prime Minister skew their view. We will continue to do our job by ensuring that this Government listens to the voices of New Zealanders who time and time again have expressed their anger over these asset sales.But I would also ask that people cast their vote on behalf of those who are unable to have their say—those who are not eligible to cast a vote but who are the generation from whom we continue to strip everything away. They are a generation that is suffering in the wake of a Government in decline. They are the No Generation. We have heard every other label for a generation that is possible: Generation Y theMillennials and the C Generation. This is the No Generation: no house no free education and potentially no superannuation given the way this Government has no plan to ensure that their future retirement is secure. This is a group of young people who are suffering because this is a Government that has absolutely lacked vision for what it is that they will need in the future.There are 78000 members of this No Generation who are currently not in employment not in education and not in training. They are the next cohort of 15-year-olds who will be measured by the Programme for International Student Assessment report and they are failing. We had Anne Tolley say: “It is their fault”. We had Hekia Parata say: “It is not my fault”. We had Steven Joyce say: “It is everyone’s fault”. At the end of the day Labour has not been in Government for 5 years. The buck has to stop somewhere—the buck has to stop somewhere. These young people have been walking through a school gate to a school where teachers have been stripped of professional development have had every change under the sun bearing down on them and have been attacked by this Government. And these young people themselves have experienced deprivation that has negatively impacted upon them.There are 270000 children growing up in poverty in this country. Ms Bennett may stand up here and tell us about all the teenagers who are doing well. I agree that there are some who are doing phenomenally well who are wonderful young people and weshould be proud of every single one of them. But there is a cohort that is not doing well and we cannot ignore that fact. TheYouth’12 survey told us that 29 percent of young women in our high schools are self-harming—29 percent—and 21 percent have seriously considered suicide in the past year. It is no wonder that in this OECD report we come 39th in terms of students’ happiness at school.That side of the House may dismiss that as not being a measure that is included in something like national standards but an unhappy young person does not succeed. A young person who is depressed does not succeed. One in five of our students in our schools is experiencing mental health issues. One in five students is also being cyber-bullied—all of these things are connected. This is a generation that is suffering under the weight of a Government in decline.Hon AMY ADAMS (Minister for Communications and Information Technology): Today we have been discussing education in some detail and it is a critical topic. It is a topic that is fundamental to the success of our country. What we have seen overnight from the Programme for International Student Assessment out of the OECD is that the decline in our educational standards that began in 2000 is continuing. That is a matter that I know is of concern to the entire House because if our people are not coming through schools with the skills that they need to build a future for themselves we all need to be worried about that.This is not a simple issue. It is an issue that requires a multi-pronged approach to its solution. That is something that this Government recognised from the day that it took office and it has been delivering real changes to the way that we educate our children to turn that round. Every single time that this Government has had a plan to do something tangible about that Labour has opposed it. Labour has opposed it because it is far more interested in protecting its union mates than it is worried about the children.This is the Government that brought in national standards. We want to know whether our children are succeeding. We need to know this in primary school not once they get to high school and then think: “Gosh why are we not getting there?”. In fact the children that this Programme for International Student Assessment surveyed went through those critical primary school years under the Labour system of education. Now we have national standards that will help us to identify and address those shortcomings considerably more.We are investing a huge amount in the quality of our teachers because we know that the one thing that will make a difference more than anything else is high-quality teachers. We want to support that. But it is also about providing the resources to our schools to raise educational standards and to make sure that every child in every school has access to the resources that they would have in the best schools. A big part of that is through digital enablement.I want to commend my colleague the Hon Nikki Kaye who is leading a programme of work through the Network for Learning. This programme is taking advantage of the ultra-fast broadband that National is rolling out to schools because we know that that sort of digital connectivity is absolutely critical in preparing children for the modern world. The ultra-fast broadband has so far been rolled out to more than 1900 schools. By 2016 every school in this country will have access to ultra-fast broadband and will have access to the Network for Learning. That means that every child in every school from the smallest to the largest will be able to access the best resources offered in the best schools in the world. Is that not interesting?The Labour Opposition has done everything it can for 5 years to derail ultra-fast broadband. It voted against it. It tried to block it. It complained that it was all happening too fast; it complained that it was all happening too slow. We are now seeing the Opposition getting behind a campaign to try once more to derail it. Why is it doing that?It is doing that for its own selfish political short-focused short-sighted self-serving gains. That is the only reason it is doing it.Do you know who benefits from this? Do you know who would benefit from derailing the build of ultra-fast broadband? I can tell you who it is not benefiting. It is not the consumers; it is the retailers. So if we insist on a lower price for the wholesalers as Labour wants to happen—follow the money. Follow the money. I will tell you who benefits: the large corporates like Vodafone which benefits from the extra money. That is what Labour is supporting. That is what it wants to see happen.I will tell you what will happen now. The consumers will not see anything at all I predict. If they do it will be a tiny fraction of any drop. Do you know why? Because now we are going to be embroiled in years and years of litigation while the retailers fight very hard to keep those profits. If anybody in this House is naive enough to think that this is about consumers they are dreaming. This fight is about making the retailers keep the extra money. It is the big corporate retailers that we are seeing Labour get in behind. The retailers are now coming out and saying: “Oh well we don’t think we will be able to pass any of it on. Sorry about that. Oops!”. Well that is exactly what we have been saying.I would suggest to the opponents in this House who are trying so hard to derail ultra-fast broadband—who are trying so hard to stop New Zealand schools New Zealand families getting access to world-leading education and world-leading health services—that the economic benefits alone of ultra-fast broadband are massive. It is creating so many jobs around New Zealand. It has been independently modelled to add about $33 billion worth of economic benefits. Labour and the Greens are once more saying: “Let’s just block it. Let’s stop it. Let’s say no. We are more interested in ourselves and our own point-scoring than in the people of New Zealand.” We are not going to let that happen.Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Labour—West Coast - Tasman): This Government is failing. This is a shambolic Government that is a disgrace to democracy. I received an email today and so did most MPs saying: “Please remember those who died for democracy died for the freedom to vote died so that people could be heard. Please do not dismiss the result of any referendum as though it is a pain in your side or with remarks akin to ‘It won’t change anything.’ because it is a slap in the face to all those who have served and currently serve in the armed forces; those who have committed their lives to the protection of our rights.” That is from a third-generation armed forces member. All those people whom we acknowledge on Anzac Day would be rolling over in their graves if they knew what is going on in this country today.Thirty pieces of silver $30 million to RioTinto and 30 percent of the population at best support asset sales—what is the common thread there? Well it is in one word “treachery”—treachery. I went toWikipedia—as we all do today of course; to the font of all wisdom—to ask what the definition of “treason” is. It said: “citizen’s actions to … seriously injure …” the nation. I put it to you that that is exactly what this National Government is carrying out by ignoring the views of New Zealanders. It is treachery that is seriously undermining our ability to move forward as a country.This Government is failing in many areas. Today we heard about education. The balance of payments deficit—oh terms of trade are good; the balance of payments deficit is disastrous. Well I look at a couple of areas of the economy and at primary industries in particular.Let us look at forestry. There are record export earnings in forestry—well so we are told. There are certainly record log exports. So what we have seen is a record to $4.3 billion which I think is about the fourth-biggest export from this country. The majority of it is now going out in logs. It is $120 for a tonne of logs and $400 for a tonne oftimber. The National Government is exporting jobs from this country every single day from the forestry industry. And do you know what we are left with? We are left with an industry under huge commercial pressure—financial pressure—to the point where it is killing people in the forests on a regular basis because of the financial pressure put on contracting firms to rip down those logs and get rid of them as quickly as possible. That is the failure of the National Government in the forestry industry.Let us look at meat—the once-proud meat industry. National is the party that champions the rights of farmers. What is happening in the meat industry? Farmers are leaving to go dairying. Even in the area of dairying we are seeing unhidden environmental and financial costs. Let us go back to meat—the wonderful progress—because the National Government has committed half a million dollars to the Red Meat Sector Strategy and then committed $350 million of taxpayer and farmer money through the Primary Growth Partnership to grow the red meat industry. And do you know what the latest innovation is? It is to take the carcasses cut them into six pieces and send them to China for further value-added processing. This National Government is a disgrace to the agricultural sector. The farmers and the meatworkers who have worked hard to build value in the meat industry have seen it destroyed in 1 single year.Look at manufacturing. National has failed in manufacturing. At best it has been flat—exports of manufactured products—mainly off the back of the primary sector because of the dairy industry.Take away the dairy sector influence and in every measure of our economy this National Government has failed. It is indeed carrying out treacherous acts of selling our assets and failing to build up any additional value in this economy. This Government is a disgrace.CHRIS AUCHINVOLE (National): Well I am astonished as is everybody who has just heard that last speech by the Hon Damien O’Connor. It was not a speech; it was a rant. It was a rant. There were some parts of it that were so funny it was not true. Did I hear it right? People are going out of farming into dairying.Hon Trevor Mallard: Out of meat farming.CHRIS AUCHINVOLE: Oh out of meat farming into dairying as if suddenly farming is coming to a complete halt. Is that a future Minister of agriculture? I do not think so—I do not think so. I was shocked and I was also aghast when that member suggested that the Government has killed people in forestry. That is an appalling thing to say and that member should be deeply deeply ashamed. He plays fast and loose with personal tragedies and I have seen it from him before. I did not accept it then and I do not now.We are engaged in the general debate. Unlike the previous speaker I intend to talk about the place I live in and that is the West Coast and Tasman. It is one of those splendid areas where people are worth their weight in gold. It is one of those areas that is a truly revenue-generating area and what a wonderful place it is.Hon Trevor Mallard: And they tossed the member out.CHRIS AUCHINVOLE: Say again?Hon Trevor Mallard: And they tossed the member out.CHRIS AUCHINVOLE: Not particularly. I do not think that was—Hon Christopher Finlayson: Who won the party vote?CHRIS AUCHINVOLE: Well who won the party vote? We have consistently won the party vote since I have been standing. I held the seat and indeed there was a change. But stand by Mr Mallard for the seat to be returned to National and National will be back on the Treasury benches. Nothing is more certain than that.Tasman and the West Coast supports dairying fishing mining horticulture forestry and tourism. Think of that. Think of those aspects. I will say it again: dairying fishingmining horticulture forestry and tourism. They are basic real industries in New Zealand. It is an area that has frequently been ravaged by Labour—ravaged and savaged and neglected just as that member neglected to mention it during his 5 minutes of ghastly ranting. But especially that area was ravaged by the cruel policies of the Hon Trevor Mallard when he was the Minister of Education and the school doors slammed as he walked through the West Coast—slammed. Indeed he was vilified—vilified.We have had a very busy month down there. We have had Tony Ryall in Tasman opening the Golden Bay Integrated Family Health Centre. Just compare that with what Labour ever did in health in West Coast - Tasman. It was zilch—absolutely zilch. You will not be hearing much from Labour about health in the next election. The Hon Tony Ryall has dedicated $60 million to the Grey Base Hospital rebuild. What a legacy—what a legacy. It was a pleasure to host Maggie Barry in the electorate for a weekend during the last month. Her easy and natural speaking style was greatly appreciated by all who heard her. She is an inspiration to all. The Hon Chris Tremain the Associate Minister of Tourism joined an Olympic gold medallist cyclist to open the West Coast Wilderness Trail inKūmara a couple of weekends ago. It was a classic example of small community recovery through a splendid policy of development—a policy of the Prime Minister’s in fact.We had Simon Bridges who came down to open the Amethyst Hydro Scheme electricity generation point. It was possible because National allows line companies to go into generation. An extremely good day was held there after which we took him to visit a goldmine—a true working goldmine—as the Minister of Energy and Resources. It was an insightful day.Picture if you will—picture if you will—the sort of description I have given for West Coast - Tasman. Picture that under a Labour-Green mixture with perhaps New Zealand First hanging around on the fringes. Would we have the development? Would we have the revenue earnings? Or would the Coast consistently be closed? I think it would be closed. I think and the people of the West Coast think—and let us remember that they did come down and they did have a Forest and Bird meeting. It did not generate much enthusiasm for anybody—no. It was sad. It was sad and it will be a sad day if we have a Labour-Green Government down on the West Coast. Thank you.CATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green): It is a pleasure to follow the Shakespearean tones of the National MP Chris Auchinvole. He painted a very evocative picture of a post-apocalyptic world where the West Coast is closed. However the boom and bust cycles that are attached to the industry that he was describing—the mining industry—is one of the reasons for those apocalyptic moments in the history of areas like the West Coast andWaihī.However I am not going to talk about that; I am going to talk about the education system which has been the theme this afternoon and whether it is working. Even before the Programme for International Student Assessment survey one might worry when you get people who are aspiring to be leaders of political parties in Parliament who are not sure whether man landed on the moon or are not sure whetherchemtrails are real or not. It does make us wonder whether the education system is not working or whether those are just the ramblings of an individual who has lost touch with reality for some other reasons. However it is very important—Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman: So do you thinkchemtrails are real?CATHERINE DELAHUNTY: The Green position onchemtrails is that many people have too much time on their hands for conspiracy theories.Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman: No do you believe in them or not?CATHERINE DELAHUNTY: I absolutely do not believe inchemtrails.In the urgent debate that we just held on education however the Minister of Education told the Opposition that we should stop being binary and we should have a constructive educational conversation. Then she yelled at the Opposition to grow up. Unfortunately for the Minister this is a failed educational method for inspiring dialogue let alone change. Just agreeing with the Minister is not dialogue. Being yelled at does not work.I do agree with the Minister that we need to strengthen the teaching profession and we need to support all children in Aotearoa to get the best but what the Programme for International Student Assessment survey tells us is that the bad educational policies of the last 5 years in particular have entrenched disadvantage. We need to really look at that survey but it is not the be-all and end-all. What it is telling us this time in the chapter on economic disadvantage and educational equity issues is that our country is decreasing when everyone else is increasing. Our country is failing when everyone else is succeeding.It is no good to just keep trotting out these programmes for success without looking at the context that we are operating in. The education system does not exist in a vacuum. It is very much part of the economic situation of our country which right now is bedevilled with a number of Government policies that are not working. Education is just one of them. There is also the asset sales debacle and I would urge everybody out there to vote to make sure that the Government gets the message about that very very clearly—that we do not want to sell our assets. Also there is the debacle over Skycity youth rates the gutting of the Resource Management Act and even one of the most mean-spirited things which is the cup of tea. No one is allowed a cup of tea at work. They do not have the right to a break. That one to me is one of the most mean-spirited pathetic and ghastly things that you would possibly imagine you could say to people in the workplace who do not have a lot of power. After spending the night with the cleaners in this very very hot building boy did we want a cup of tea.However going back to the survey if the Minister is serious about listening to it then she needs to adopt a Green programme of positive solutions such as a living wage for the parents—there is a thought. If the survey tells us that socio-economic disadvantage is critical one of the ways we help children to get socio-economic advantage is to pay their parents enough money to be able to provide them with the necessaries of life. Then all the programmes about food in schools and all the charitable good works that in the end do not empower people but are necessary for survival at the moment will not be needed because people will be earning a living wage. Another brilliant idea would be to extend the family in-work tax credit to all families so that everybody would have enough to feed those children. There is an idea.We really need to be serious about addressing what the survey has identified. As I said earlier the survey is not the endgame for education and some of the countries that have been ranked really high—the Asian countries—have authoritarian models that are not the best models for our educational success. They do not result in innovation critical thinking and creativity which are needed in the world today as opposed to the world of yesterday. Those countries although ranking highly in the survey are starting to acknowledge that models such as the creative broad curriculum that New Zealand was once famous for are the kinds of models that we need.I think that one of the most vital messages of the survey is early childhood education and that is where we are missing out. We have cut the 100 percent registration requirement and what we are doing to Pacific heritage languages through the Education and Science Committee is a disgrace. It is the opposite of the survey and it is very disappointing.JAMI-LEE ROSS (National—Botany): About 18 months ago I started to take a much closer interest in education. It was not an area I had been involved in before and it was not an area that I had taken a huge amount of interest in. But 18 months ago my wife and I had a child and once you have a child you start to take a much closer look at the education system. I have to say that after looking at the policies that the Hon Anne Tolley and the Hon Hekia Parata have been putting in place for the children of New Zealand I have great confidence in the education system that my son will be going through. He has started in early childhood education and in a few years’ time he will be entering school.We have discussed quite a bit today the Programme for International Student Assessment results and it is fair to say that New Zealand has seen some decline in those results. But I have to say I have been absolutely appalled by some of the comments levelled from the Opposition at the National Government’s national standards policy. Let us just remember that in 2012 the children who were assessed under the Programme for International Student Assessment system were 15. They did not go through an education system with national standards in place. It is actually the people who were involved in that system who are saying that a national standards - type system in their early years would have helped those children.Jacinda Ardern: When we were coming seventh they didn’t go through it either.JAMI-LEE ROSS: Opposition members can yell and scream at us across the House as they have been doing all day but the bottom line is that the children assessed under the Programme for International Student Assessment system which has seen the results for this country drop were the kids who came under an earlier system through primary school under Labour Government policies. In fact in 2000 when we were doing very well as a country those children had benefited from 9 years of a National Government and its education policies.But the important thing is that we are working to increase the level of achievement for all New Zealand kids. I am proud that in our country we have just doubled the budget for the early childhood education system—doubled the budget for those children. We have got the national standards system the exact system that the Programme for International Student Assessment people are saying will help those children. It will give them more opportunities to succeed and to be able to read and write when they get to high school. We have also seen the upgrades in the digital literacy area. That huge investment will mean that those kids are going through a schooling system that is working in the 21st century. We have also seen the Teachers Council being reformed and HekiaParata’s work in that area will help those children in the long run by helping to improve the quality of teaching in New Zealand.I also want to counter some of the arguments that Jacinda Ardern was making. I quite like Jacinda actually. We sat in the Television New Zealand green room most Thursday mornings for a while. She is relatively normal as Labour MPs go. But for her to say that this Government is in decline is absolutely wrong. I want to give her some figures. This country is experiencing 2.5 percent growth at the moment. It is one of the fastest growth rates in the OECD. Tell the people who own businesses in the greater eastTāmaki industrial area in my electorate that we are not doing better as a country. They will absolutely disagree with you. Tell those employers that the 90-day trial which has led to 13000 extra people being employed is a bad thing. They will tell you that it is an opportunity for them to take on new people and give them an opportunity. Go and talk to the principals and the teachers in schools likeBaverstock Oaks School in my electorate and tell them that the policies in the education area that we are putting in place are bad for children. They will absolutely disagree with you as well.Talk to the people who commute from Botany to the city and tell them that the investment we are putting into Auckland transport is not good. Tell them that the Auckland-Manukau Eastern Transport Initiative the City Rail Link and theWaterview Connection are going to be bad for Auckland transport. They will absolutely disagree with you as well. They will tell you that the improvements we are making are going to be hugely beneficial for New Zealanders. Go and talk to the people who want to purchase homes in the Flat Bush area who will be able to access more affordable housing in the long run through the special housing areas which are going to lead to more housing supply in Auckland. Tell them that increasing the housing supply is bad for them. They will absolutely disagree with Labour on that too. Tell the people who are developing houses that the policies around development contributions and around local government are bad for them. They will disagree with Labour on that too.This Government has a wide range of programmes and a wide range of policies that are doing a lot for the New Zealand economy and that are doing a lot for New Zealanders. We are doing well as a country. This Government is far from being in decline. This Government is just getting up and going.Kris Faafoi: Ha ha!JAMI-LEE ROSS: New Zealanders know that. That is why Kris Faafoi is laughing. He knows that Labour has got nothing that can counter it.Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills): I was very interested in the comments that the member Jami-Lee Ross made just before he resumed his seat. He said that we should get out of here and talk to the principals. I will recommend some principals. I recommend that that member comes to Christchurch. He should talk to the principal the staff and the parents atPhillipstown School. He should talk to the principal the staff and the parents atBranston Intermediate School. He should talk to the principal the staff and the parents in the communities that have been wracked with division—not by the quakes not by the bureaucracy but by Minister Hekia Parata who rode roughshod over democracy and fair process in an already vulnerable and damaged community and told us where our communities were going to be in the future. At the heart of every community is the local school and many of our communities no longer have them.I know what the principals the staff and the parents at those schools and in those communities are saying. They are saying that John Key is arrogant he has disappointed them he has lost touch and he is going to lose his job. They get excited at the thought of a change of Government. I have not heard that level of excitement for a long time. It certainly was not obvious going into the 2011 election but I know it is going to be obvious going into the 2014 election.The look on John Key’s face at question time says it all. It is not fun for him any more. He has lost the fun out of the game that he has been playing with our communities. He said to some communities in my electorate: “Oh well if they do not like the offer that the Government is making”—these are people who have lost their land to red zoning introduced by Gerry Brownlee—“we can say: ‘It’s been fun.’ and just walk away.” Well that is what the public of New Zealand are doing to John Key and his Government. They are saying: “We don’t think it is fun with you any more and we are walking away.”If you look at the issue of asset sales Tony Ryall Steven Joyce and John Key continue to say that they have a mandate for asset sales and they know that that is wrong. They know by the opinion polls. They know by the polling within their own party that National Party members do not support asset sales but their ideology and their need to get some money in the bank so that they can fritter it around next year to try to buy votes drives their asset sale programme. This is not because they want a sensible restoring of our budget and not because they care about long-term investmentin New Zealand; they just want some quick wins. Well they are not going to get them. The public are saying: “We don’t like asset sales. It’s being driven by a Government that is out of touch.”If you look at the tragedy of the families who lost their loved ones in the Pike River mine explosion they were expecting some financial support from the Government. They were expecting a lot of things because Ministers including the Prime Minister went down there and promised a lot and have delivered little. On the issue of the Government Communications Security Bureau New Zealanders are outraged that the Prime Minister thinks so little of our security agencies spying on New Zealanders. He seems to think it is not a problem. Well actually privacy and the integrity of individual rights are very important parts of democracy. Again the Prime Minister is out of touch. He just brushes it off.He is looking for—well not looking for; searching for—a future coalition partner. He is getting into a bit of bother with his current ones. John Banks does not seem to be reliable long term. He has confirmed it today. He is off at the next election. Peter Dunne does not seem to be in favour. The Prime Minister is very lukewarm in his assurances of confidence in whether he leaked theKitteridge report or not. The Māori Party is crumbling as we watch it. We have seen its problems over the last little while. So now we have got the Prime Minister courting Colin Craig. He is a present that just keeps on giving is he not? We have got early Christmas presents and I am sure that we are going to have him as the gift that keeps on giving right throughout next year.Kris Faafoi: Does he believe in Santa?Hon RUTH DYSON: I do not know whether he believes in Santa Claus or not.Hon Trevor Mallard: And clouds ofchemtrails.Hon RUTH DYSON: He does believe inchemtrails. I can see him as the Minister of Science and Innovation in a future coalition arrangement.Chemtrails will be banned under a Conservative Party - National Party confidence and supply agreement. He is not sure not able to confirm whether man has walked on the moon. He has got a wide range of interests and experience. I think that the other members of the National Party will be very wary of him.What the public said in Christchurch East was what the rest of the country is saying: this Government is arrogant it is out of touch and it is time it packed its bags.SIMON O’CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): Well that was all rather jejune really. A little bit boring.Hon Shane Jones: Turgid?SIMON O’CONNOR: Yes. You have to look it up actually. It is a quality of a good education and most of my life has actually been under a National education. As a great fan ofsesquipedalianism I am very happy to be here today.There is one word that I am not allowed to use today. So I want instead to use the word “irony” or the word “duplicity”. Thank goodness there is not an international ranking of Opposition parties that makes sense because that lot across there would be in a lot of trouble. Consider the logic that we have heard today. Consider the rhetoric and the logic that we have heard today. The Opposition is incredibly happy to compare us with international standards but is not willing to allow national standards.Let us just sit with that again.Chris Auchinvole: Say that again?SIMON O’CONNOR: Those members have been sitting with the Programme for International Student Assessment things today Chris. They have been saying: “Oh look at all these Programme for International Student Assessment standards. We are going to use them to try to clobber the Government.” Yet of course then they are against national standards. There seems to be a certain irony here. Today National is pleased toknow how New Zealand is doing compared with the rest of the world but Labour seems to be talking a lot about that today too. Where we differ—Hon Shane Jones: Which planet? Uranus?SIMON O’CONNOR: Oh terrible! Here is a man who is attempting to be scientific by knowing about the planets. He probably still thinks that there are nine planets in the solar system.Anyway where we differ on this whole standards issue is that we believe that New Zealand parents should have the same access to the knowledge about how their children are doing as everyone else. But here we have heard again from Labour from the Greens and from New Zealand First: “Oh we are very happy to accept international standards and understand where New Zealand stands there but parents you should not know about how your children are doing. That would be terrible.” In fact Chris Hipkins whom I have got a lot of time for basically was saying that the next Labour Government—whenever that might happen God forbid—would scrap national standards. But it does not seem entirely committed to that.Labour tells us that it would like a scheme to track student progress against the national curriculum.Chris Auchinvole: Oh!SIMON O’CONNOR: Chris says: “We think that”—another Chris the Mr Hipkins one—“parents deserve quality information about how their kids are doing.” But I am not sure exactly what that means when you look at what we have already got with national standards. Maybe Labour the Greens and others want some sort of holistic feel-good assessment in which juggling basket weaving and tree hugging are ranked alongside secondary concerns like reading writing and arithmetic. It is very depressing that the major aim of this Labour Party is to deny parents and the Government straightforward information on how their children and their schools are doing. That has been the irony of the debate throughout today—this huge desire to use the international standards of Programme for International Student Assessment to attack the national standards.Hon Shane Jones: What about astrology?SIMON O’CONNOR: Oh no! You do not want to do astrology. It is astronomy.Hon Shane Jones: That’s what your coalition partner’s into—astrology.SIMON O’CONNOR: Oh no no! That is your group down here actually. You want to go and look at some of theHansard debates from the Greens in particular with their sort of Gaia worship and other things.Hon Christopher Finlayson: Have you ever met Catherine Delahunty?SIMON O’CONNOR: Absolutely—indeed. I think my colleague Minister Finlayson points it out very well.In fact that is one of the other ironies today. We have all this talk of science from the Opposition saying that it is all about democracy. Well it is only democracy to the Opposition if it gets its way.Tim Macindoe: “Do it our way.”SIMON O’CONNOR: Absolutely. We saw what happened with the Greens when one of their party members dared to challenge the leadership. Was he allowed a democratic manner? Definitely not.Tim Macindoe: That was democratic wasn’t it?SIMON O’CONNOR: Absolutely. Democracy. Absolutely perfect.And science—oh they are all about science. Well let us talk about the science of genetic engineering. Let us talk about the science of genetic modification. Let us talk about the science around drug use. But oh no! The Greens and Labour are not so much interested in that. They are very very selective.We are a Government committed to education. I see that firsthand in my own electorate ofTāmaki. Almost 89 percent of young people inTāmaki have achieved National Certificate of Educational Achievement level 2. They are achieving over the target that this Government has set. They are achieving not only because of what the Government is driving but because we have excellent teachers. I think that amongst all the debate today is an element of thanks that is required still to our teachers who do an enormous effort going around and visiting the various principals and teachers of my schools—secondary and primary. They do an amazing job for our kids. I think most of them—teachers in Auckland and New Zealand—are not afraid to have some standards and have some tests. If we want to help our children we need to know how they are operating. Thank you very much.MEKA WHAITIRI (Labour—Ikaroa-Rāwhiti): I rise as the proud member of Ikaroa-Rāwhiti a lively innovative and extremely enormous electorate on the East Coast of the North Island. It extends from Te Kaha in the north toWainuiōmata in the south which is by car an 11-hour drive. The people of Ikaroa-Rāwhiti are not seeing any benefit from this Government’s economic strategy.Darien Fenton: What strategy?MEKA WHAITIRI: That is right—what strategy? When I first came into this House one of my first questions was to the Minister for Economic Development Mr Steven Joyce. I asked what was his Government was doing to grow the number of jobs in Ikaroa-Rāwhiti. His reply? I paraphrase here. He said that it was growing jobs in three areas. The first was oil exploration just like in Taranaki; the second was theRuataniwha Dam; and the third—wait for it—was a cycle track. A cycle track people. That is it folks. That is the economic plan for Ikaroa-Rāwhiti Hawke’s Bay and Gisborne. I can tell you that there is no one that I know who has a job from any of those think-big projects of this Government and I can guarantee you that neither will they see one.Clearly this Government is out of touch. It is out of touch with Ikaroa-Rāwhiti. It is out of touch with the regions throughout New Zealand.Ikaroa-Rāwhiti is home to many iwi: Ngati Porou TeAitangi-a-Māhaki Rongowhakaata NgaiTāmanuhiriNgāti KahungunuRangitāne and TeĀtiawa. Some 13 territory authorities are nurtured traditionally by a primary base economy of farming fishing forestry horticulture and viticulture. We are manaaki people—hospitable. We are aroha ki te tangata—caring people—who believe that in time of need the manaaki and the aroha will be returned. The people of Ikaroa-Rāwhiti are not seeing the manaakitanga or aroha from this Government. Instead the people of Ikaroa-Rāwhiti are being ignored and neglected by this Government.No amount of spin and no amount of make-believe from that side of the House will remove the struggle many of ourwhānau are experiencing in terms of getting real jobs training opportunities apprenticeships for our rangatahi warm and affordable housing and access to quality health care. But do not listen to me let us look at the statistics. There are job losses. Cedenco Foods Gisborne 2009: 129 job losses. Ovation meatworks Waipukurau June 2011: 304 job losses. GodfreyHirst woollen mill Dannevirke this year: between 50 to 80 job losses. New Zealand PostPētone: 70 job losses this year. Clyde Lumber Wairoa: 25 losses in April this year. The impact of those job losses in those small communities is still being felt today and where is the Government? Where is the Government to provide some safety and some safety nets for thosewhānau? It is asleep at the wheel. It is asleep at the wheel and is neglecting these communities throughout Ikaroa-Rāwhiti.Let us turn to youth unemployment something that I am very passionate about. According to the household labour force statistics in September 2013 since Nationalcame into office the overall number of unemployed 20 to 24-year-olds has increased by 12800 to 29000. That is disgraceful. Since National came into office the number of 15 to 24-year-olds not in education employment or training has increased by 5000 to a total of 72000 people.You can ask what Labour will do when it comes into Government in 2014. Labour believes in economic gain for all and in a fair and just society where people can live and in dignity and protection for all. Kia oratātou.The debate having concluded the motion lapsed.PrivilegeConsideration of Interim Report of Privileges CommitteeQuestion of Privilege Regarding Use of Intrusive Powers Within the Parliamentary PrecinctHon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (Attorney-General): I moveThat the House take note of the interim report of the Privileges Committee on a question of privilege regarding the use of intrusive powers within the parliamentary precincts. This year the Privileges Committee has looked at a number of important issues. The last report that we debated in this House related to the mutual respect that is required to be shown between Parliament and the courts. This report which has been the subject of some work on the part of the committee since July 2013 looks at the tensions that can arise in the parliamentary precincts between the powers and the privileges of Parliament and the executive branch of Government. In particular it deals with issues arising from the fact that the Parliamentary Service is responsible for holding and administering information relating to the executive.I want to begin by expressing my thanks to all those who gave evidence and assisted the committee particularly the Deputy Clerk of the House for her invaluable assistance. Let me begin by explaining what the report was about. A question arose about the use of intrusive powers in the parliamentary precincts so the Speaker asked the committee to inquire into the exercise of those intrusive powers against members of Parliament and in particular the release of information from parliamentary information and security systems.In his reference to the Privileges Committee the Speaker set out some basic principles. As he said “The exercise of intrusive powers … threatens members’ freedom to carry out their functions as elected representatives and the House’s power to control its own proceedings and precincts without outside interference.” So it is a very very important question that came to the committee.The committee was also asked to look at the release by the Parliamentary Service of information that it held concerning a journalist including phone email and swipe card access records. It is a statement of the obvious that the media is not one of the three branches of Government but they have long been regarded as the fourth estate because of the hugely important role that they play in informing the public about the actions of their elected representatives.Contrary to what some people may contend this inquiry was not about trying to relitigate the findings of the Henry investigation as to who leaked theKitteridge report nor was it about investigating a contempt of Parliament or assigning guilt or culpability to individuals. Its purpose was to establish the facts of how certain information was released by the Parliamentary Service and to use those findings to inform the next step of establishing guidelines to protect the ability of members as well as all those who use the parliamentary precincts—and I refer here particularly to the fourth estate. Thoseguidelines will be the subject of the next stage of our work and we hope that it will be finalised early next year.So it was not an inquiry into unlawfulness and the disclosure of the information. The question does not arise because the Privacy Act and the Official Information Act do not apply. This in fact contributed in my opinion to the lack of firm principles to be applied by the Parliamentary Service in disclosure of information. Hopefully in the next report we will be addressing precisely that point.Evidence was called from a number of people including representatives of the press gallery and others involved in seeking and disclosing the information held by the Parliamentary Service. At the end of the day I think it is fair to say that most of the background facts were probably relatively uncontested.The Henry inquiry was issued terms of reference by the heads of the Government Communications Security Bureau and the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. It sought the information initially provided for in the terms of reference. The inquiry obtained the correct authorisation to access information of ministerial staff held by the Parliamentary Service on behalf of Ministerial Services. The General Manager of the Parliamentary Service was also satisfied that Ministers had—pre-emptively at least—given their consent for the information described in the terms of reference to be released. However he held back or demurred when the inquiry sought further email content not covered by the terms of reference and I think this is where things started to go wrong.An MP who was also a Minister had emails released by the Parliamentary Service to the inquiry without his permission. That member was asked for access to his swipe card records for he said a single day but extra records were then produced. Very seriously a journalist’s swipe card access records were handed over without her knowledge on the basis the Parliamentary Service said of a potential security breach when such a breach had not been alleged by the inquiry in its request. The journalist’s full phone records which had been generated purely incidentally by the Parliamentary Service were handed over. That was an error.In the report we conclude that the Henry inquiry frequently acted in what could be called an over-vigorous manner. In turn the Parliamentary Service failed to put in place procedures to deal with these issues. Both agencies failed to involve the Speaker who as the Minister responsible for the Parliamentary Service could have approached these somewhat novel and perhaps difficult questions with the correct constitutional weight.One issue that was identified was that the Parliamentary Service for historical reasons administers information systems and security matters for the entire parliamentary precincts. Obviously those in the precincts include not only members of Parliament and their staff but Ministers media employees of various agencies and contractors many of whom are not covered by parliamentary privilege.The former General Manager of the Parliamentary Service told us that his general principle was that information belonged to members and that in general they had the right to control access to their particular information. This principle may be a good starting-point but it does not catch the numerous complex situations when the Parliamentary Service is holding information that does not relate solely to members of Parliament including the facts that we were inquiring into here.Two matters flow from these findings. The committee did not seek to and obviously cannot dictate how the executive is organised. The principles of parliamentary privilege have little to say about the responsibilities a Minister owes to Cabinet and to the Prime Minister at whose pleasure he or she serves. Those are questions obviously for the executive and not for a parliamentary committee.The second important point is that the responsibility for running Parliament’s affairs ultimately resides with Parliament. In the evidence we heard about requests from the inquiry for information we heard that the inquiry received information that it was not entitled to.Although this is a disappointing set of events ultimately we need to work out where we are going to go to from here. As I said there is going to be the second report which picks up on the interim findings and hopefully we will be able to come up with a set of principles that will assist those dealing not only with members of Parliament but with media and the other people who work in these precincts. Importantly Parliamentary Service is the administrative gatekeeper to information held on behalf of MPs. Mr Thorn told us that this was his basic principle that material held on behalf of MPs would be disclosed only to those members.There is a lot of work required to be done before the committee can issue its second report. It hopes as I said to finalise the report early next year. I cannot speak for the committee but I think some clarification legislation is going to be required. Perhaps the time has come to consolidate all the relevant legislation in an Act of Parliament that will deal with the Parliamentary Service and parliamentary privilege. We have dealt recently with the remuneration of MPs. There is legislation dealing with the Clerk of the House the Officers of Parliament and so on. I think that people are entitled to find the law relating to this branch of Government in one statute rather than scattered throughout the statute book as it is at the moment. Perhaps the time has come also to take a fresh look at the Constitution Act which is structurally incoherent and a poor piece of legislation.Those are the sorts of issues that we will need to look at. We will not dwell on culpability. That was not the purpose of the inquiry; it was to find out what went wrong with a view to fixing things up in the future.GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central): It is a pleasure to rise and speak on this interim report from the Privileges Committee. I would certainly accept one thing that the Attorney-General said in introducing his comments which is that there were a number of very serious issues that arose during the Privileges Committee inquiry into these matters. It is important to note that this interim report is about establishing what happened in this particular incident what we can learn about went wrong and what changes are needed. This part of the inquiry is very much grounded in what happened and what happened was a sorry tale of an inquiry that quite frankly was a shambles from day one.On day one the terms of reference for the inquiry were set and that was done by John Key in accordance with WayneEagleson AndrewKibblewhite from the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet and Ian Fletcher from the Government Communications Security Bureau. They were the people responsible for the setting of the terms of reference. We were told at the Privileges Committee that it was John Key as Prime Minister who signed off on the terms of reference. So let us set that right at the start—this was John Key’s inquiry and those terms of reference were set in such a way that it was nearly impossible to find out who actually leaked theKitteridge report because the powers of that inquiry were set in such a way that Mr Henry was prevented from having people appear on oath or from having any kind of subpoenaing situation. Inevitably given the small range of people who actually had access to theKitteridge report he was going to run into trouble.So the question was raised during the Privileges Committee hearings as to whether or not the terms of reference were set up to really find out who leaked theKitteridge report. As at today although we have somebody who is acknowledged by everybody from the Prime Minister down as the chief suspect—Peter Dunne—we do not actually know who leaked theKitteridge report. The Henry inquiry was set up in such a way thatthat was almost inevitably going to be the outcome—beyond a stark confession from somebody in the process.Peter Dunne today is an MP and not a Minister but John Key has told us that it is quite possible he will return as a Minister. If John Key is comfortable with Peter Dunne returning as a Minister then he is implicitly saying that Peter Dunne did not leak the report. That has to be the conclusion and that means that this whole process—theKitteridge report the Henry inquiry—has left us none the wiser as to who leaked a sensitive confidential document. It is frankly slack leadership by the Prime Minister and wilful blindness as to what was actually going on in this case.So the facts established in this inquiry were that all of Mr Henry’s attention went to Peter Dunne and yet the Prime Minister is prepared to say today that maybe he will come back into Cabinet. I find that an unbelievable situation and quite clearly the terms of reference I believe were set up in such a way that they were never going to get to the bottom of who actually leaked this report.The major issue that came out from the Privileges Committee investigation was around the blurring of the lines between the executive and Parliament. The Parliamentary Service Act actually says in section 6 that Parliamentary Service is not “an instrument of the executive government.” That is quite an unusual thing to find in an Act—a negative statement about what Parliamentary Service is not—but that is because Parliamentary Service was set up very deliberately so as not to be able to be encumbered by the executive. What we saw throughout the process of this inquiry was the blurring of those lines.The blurring of those lines occurred once Parliamentary Service agreed to release information about Ministers and their records. It is very important to note that three times the then head of Parliamentary Service Geoff Thorn said he did not want to release the information when he was asked firstly in two different ways by the Henry inquiry and then by Janice Calvert from Ministerial Services. It was only when the Prime Minister’s chief of staff WayneEagleson intervened on 9 May—Hon Trevor Mallard: Speaking for the Prime Minister.GRANT ROBERTSON: As he does Mr Mallard on every occasion. As John Key has told this House: “If you speak to my chief of staff you are speaking to me.” That is what John Key has told this House. So when WayneEagleson wrote to Geoff Thorn in an email and said: “Further to our discussion this is to confirm that the Prime Minister would like Parliamentary Service to make available to the Inquiry team records from Ministerial Office photocopiers and any other relevant material requested.” that is the Prime Minister blurring the lines between the executive and Parliament.That is what fundamentally went wrong here. That phrase “any other … material requested” became hugely significant as this inquiry went on. It is true that David Henry and his inquiry team overreached their mandate—there is no doubt about that—but that opened the door. WayneEagleson saying “any other … material requested” was the Prime Minister telling Parliamentary Service: “This is how it will be.” So the fault for that blurring of the lines ultimately lies at the Prime Minister’s feet and I do not believe that that has been properly accepted by the Prime Minister.So we have Geoff Thorn we have David Henry and we have WayneEagleson who are all part of the blurring of those lines and I do support the comments of the Attorney-General with regard to the clarification of that. Within that there was quite clearly a conflict about the different roles that the people in Parliamentary Service were expected to play.Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.GRANT ROBERTSON: As I was saying before the dinner break one of the major issues within this report is the blurring of the lines between the executive and Parliament. As parliamentarians we guard jealously the privileges and rights that are given to us here. The distinction between what Parliamentary Service does for us as parliamentarians and what is done for Ministers was one of the issues that arose but the significant issue was around the release of data that was about members. As I said before the break Geoff Thorn who was then the head of Parliamentary Service three times refused to release that information but on the intervention of the Prime Minister’s chief of staff acting on behalf of the Prime Minister he did release that information.We believe on this side of the House that that contradicts what the Prime Minister said throughout the period of this inquiry—that he was not involved in it. He quite clearly was. He set the terms of reference for it. He was the person whose chief of staff was intimately involved throughout the process and made the very critical intervention that saw data released. As I also noted before the dinner break I am not saying that that was the only piece of blame that could be apportioned out of this. It is quite clear there was plenty of blame to go around and David Henry and his inquiry team overreached but this was the Prime Minister’s inquiry that they were undertaking.In the time remaining I want to talk about a couple of issues. One of those is the question of metadata versus content which was a significant debate during the Government Communications Security Bureau bill. It is worth noting that in this inquiry it was the release of metadata—the so-called information about information—that was actually critical to what happened. David Henry found out that there were 86 emails between Peter Dunne and Andrea Vance because of the metadata. Some of that metadata was not meant to be released apparently and that argument—that the Government felt it was not to be released—is one that I will come to in a minute.If New Zealanders are to have confidence in the security of their information metadata is significant. The content of emails was requested and eventually some was released inadvertently some was released deliberately and some was pulled back but it was that metadata that was the critical element in this investigation. When we are considering the security of New Zealanders’ data generally I think we have to bear that in mind.This is a sorry saga. The Henry inquiry was poorly run. It was poorly set up. Those involved in it were not conscious of the boundaries between the executive and Parliament. They rode roughshod over those boundaries but at the end of the day New Zealanders are still none the wiser as to who actually leaked theKitteridge report—a sensitive confidential document. The Prime Minister set up an inquiry to do that. Today he tells us he may let Peter Dunne back into Cabinet and it is possible for him to do that only if he believes that someone other than Peter Dunne leaked theKitteridge report. New Zealanders are owed an explanation by John Key as to who leaked theKitteridge report. He has not provided that and as a result New Zealanders will not have confidence in his word.DAVID CLENDON (Green): Could I just begin my comments by noting the remarks of my colleague Kennedy Graham who sat on the Privileges Committee for much of the work that led to this interim report to the effect that the committee worked well was well chaired and despite the rather unfortunate task they were given and the constraints laid upon them delivered a useful document. My colleague looks forward to participating in the work that will lead to a final report next year.This interim report reflects a bizarre episode in our parliamentary history an episode that reflects well on no one who was involved. The best we can do is to put in place arrangements to endeavour to ensure there is no repetition of this. The origin of the whole debacle of course lies in the illegal self-empowerment by the GovernmentCommunications Security Bureau (GCSB) which came to light more or less by accident and required theKitteridge inquiry. ThatKitteridge report as we know now was leaked. The Prime Minister then ordered another inquiry to identify theleaker. The Henry inquiry failed to do that but did rack up an extraordinary series of errors that in the words of one commentator would not be out of place in the script of aDad’s Army episode.The catalyst for the committee’s work was a complaint from our Green co-leader Dr Russel Norman. The Speaker in his wisdom chose not to accept it as a complaint but referred it instead as a general question of privilege. The result was almost always going to be unsatisfactory by definition. The committee was not given the task of finding who leaked theKitteridge report so the public to a large extent is none the wiser as to the facts of the case. What we have learnt with some clarity is more to do with the dangers of taking constitutional principles for granted because this interim report does highlight some gaps in our practice in that sense. It is when things go wrong that we regret the lack of clear constitutional guidelines.We are one of the very few countries in the world that does not have a written constitution. It is probably fair to say we have the least developed mechanisms to compensate for that lack of a written constitution. The mistakes of the Henry inquiry were largely those of individuals: excessive zeal in one case; a relative indifference from the inquiry leadership to procedural practice; and an emerging cult that seems to treat directives from the Prime Minister’s office as some form of holy writ that must be obeyed. These kinds of problems can be neutralised by constitutional protection. Without it they can be exacerbated and even run amok. That is the primary lesson of the Henry inquiry.We shed no tears for the ministerial resignations throughout this episode but we do have considerable sympathy for the Parliamentary Service resignations for they were the product of actions against better judgment under duress from the executive. Diligent and well-intentioned officials ought never to be put under that sort of pressure and should never be subjected to that and there should have been protections in place against it. The interim report accurately critiques the shortcomings of the whole sorry affair and the Green Party endorses this critique. The main test will be the remedial measures recommended in the final report.In terms of the process to date the Green Party is dissatisfied with the decision by the committee not to have the Prime Minister or the Speaker appear before it. As the Minister responsible for the GCSB Mr Key initiated the inquiry he appointed the co-commissioners he was consulted over the terms of reference and the choice of inquiry and he publicly released the report. He acknowledges ministerial responsibility for the inquiry. He formed the apex of the executive branch of Government in this whole exercise. For his part the Speaker being responsible for the Parliamentary Service formed the apex of the legislative branch in this matter. He too bears responsibility for certain aspects of the inquiry. It is difficult to see how the Privileges Committee exploring the shortcomings of an inquiry could perform the job entrusted to it with some irony by the Speaker when the two members of Parliament who bore primary responsibility for it did not testify.Then there are the findings of fact. The evidence gathered in the hearings revealed a series of avoidable errors—political or procedural—by virtually every individual who was directly involved in the Key inquiry. Firstly the Prime Minister decides a ministerial inquiry should be set up appoints the co-commissioners is consulted over terms of reference and choice of investigator receives the report and makes it public. He acknowledges he has ministerial responsibility yet his only engagement in his own inquiry is to declare that he expects all Ministers to cooperate.Secondly the chief executive officer of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet is a co-commissioner of the inquiry. The chief executive officer draws up the terms of consultation with the Prime Minister and is actively engaged in the inquiry and yet he is seen as one of the potential suspects. The chief executive officer of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet seconds a staffer to the inquiry. The staffer acts we are told under the supervision of the investigator yet exercises personal freedom in visiting Parliamentary Service on his own initiative at a third-tier level undermining the authority of the general manager of the Parliamentary Service.Thirdly the inquirer adopts a belief that he is free to ask for any information he deems necessary without considering whether its release is constitutionally appropriate. He leaves it to the recipient of the request to determine constitutional propriety. He neither receives nor seeks guidelines on the constitutional and procedural requirements and constraints pertaining to the operation of a ministerial inquiry. He displays a general indifference before the committee to the importance of constitutional constraints. The main recipient of the request the Parliamentary Service had serious doubts about releasing information on the communications of a Minister and journalist plus their parliamentary access records yet it felt compelled not to second-guess the request because of their security implications. The material does not involve issues of national security but rather domestic politics which should have heightened and not diminished those concerns.The chief executive officer of the Prime Minister’s office became engaged. He took it upon himself to “authorise the Parliamentary Service to release data pertaining to Ministers and journalists”. He did this on the basis that the terms of reference had been made public and that the Prime Minister had made it clear that he expected Ministers to cooperate with the inquiry. Despite three denials by the head of the Parliamentary Service nevertheless the Prime Minister’s cock crowed and vowed and the data was released. In fact there was no cause for the chief executive officer of the Prime Minister’s office to become involved in the inquiry given that it had been commissioned by the head of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet.The co-commissioners clearly harboured uncertainty over the particular status of one Minister who had been given the report in the capacity of coalition party leader but who subsequently was expected to cooperate as a Cabinet Minister. This blurred further the distinction between his role as a member of the executive a Government Minister and as a member of the legislature an MP and it seemed that nobody seemed to care.No official involved in this whole sorry saga whether from the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet or the Prime Minister’s office appears to acknowledge that requests for data pertaining to communication between a Minister and a journalist unavoidably means obtaining information about a journalist. Refusal to acknowledge this is strange. They seemed bemused by this self-evident fact through the hearings. The Evidence Act 2006 protects the rights of a journalist to privacy over sources and that is a well-accepted convention at least.The information platform maintained for Ministerial Services and the Parliamentary Service became operationally merged in late 2011 for reasons we are told of efficiency. This appeared not to bother the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet the Prime Minister’s office or the inquiry. The constitutional separation of powers appears not to be a matter of concern for them either. At no stage did the chief of the Parliamentary Service discuss matters of concern with his responsible MP the Speaker. At no stage did the Speaker judge it necessary to become engaged in decisions pertaining to the release of information by the agency under his control. He should have.The press gallery has no contractual relationship with the Parliamentary Service only with the Speaker. A computer technician contracted from a private company took it upon himself to pass information relating to a journalist directly to the inquiry. Although existing legislation protects the media from releasing such information no procedural rules were put in place by the inquiry to govern his actions.The sloppy operation of the inquiry rests on a series of individualmisjudgments. The task remains for the committee in its final report to identify ways in which these shortcomings can be rectified. Kia ora.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First): This is a very sad and sorry saga. The Prime Minister has acted incompetently and with a cavalier attitude to his responsibilities to get at the embarrassing truth which is that there was a serious leak of a classified document. I want to say from the outset that if the Prime Minister had wanted a proper inquiry he would have first of all picked someone competent to do the job; second provided the powers to do the job properly; and third provided the inquiry with the right terms of reference to complete the job which was to find out who leaked this classified document.A couple of my colleagues have said that at the end of the dual sets of inquiries no one is any the wiser. With respect yes I am because I was the person who said on that day at the Finance and Expenditure Committee “You leaked the document didn’t you Mr Dunne?” and that was the beginning of the end. I did not do it because we were taking a guess or a pot-shot; we knew that he had been the leak—not on one occasion but on five different occasions. It is not difficult to work out because you have got four classified leaks and then you have got one in theDominion Post written by the same journalist which says that the Inland Revenue Department is helping out in the Novopay scandal. If you put that all together you have got to say to yourself “What’s the common factor here?”. Well it was the man who was heading the Inland Revenue Department. You did not have to be a rocket scientist to work it out. Then there were a number of what you might call evidentiary matters that we looked at to come to our conclusion. So at the select committee when that was said to Mr Dunne we knew where we were going.But back to my point—the interim report of the Privileges Committee into the Henry inquiry following theKitteridge report leak is a seriously disturbing read on a number of levels. And anyone who gives a damn about democracy—and New Zealand First does—would be deeply unimpressed by what has been revealed: something is seriously rotten in the State of New Zealand.We have had confirmed what we were saying from the outset that Mr Henry was not qualified in any way shape or form for this inquiry. What is my evidence? Well I was the person who raised way back in the 1990s the absolute abomination that was being foisted upon this country by way of interpretation of form over substance on the matter of tax law and the man heading up the tax department at the time was one David Henry. He did his utmost to discredit us and tried to defend these raids on the New Zealand Treasury and all sorts of illegal activity. Then just before there was a full-scale—as you know—commission of inquiry he jumped ship from the Inland Revenue Department and set off overseas. So that was our reason for saying that. If he could not get even such a fundamentally simple thing like the tax law right why would you repatriate him as the Prime Minister did by giving him a role first of all on the Electoral Commission in this country then make him a Pike River commissioner when his forensic ability to get to the truth is zero and then make him the inquirer on this matter?Sure enough—and I am disappointed to say this as there is nothing so antiseptic as the saying “I told you so.” but we darn well did. We darn well told all of you that this man was incompetent. You can laugh and scoff but the taxpayer paid him a fortune todo an incompetent job. We had confirmed what we were saying from the outset: he was completely inappropriate as an appointment. Of course that is precisely why Mr Key picked him for the job. That is why he picked him for the job. We have now had an inquiry but no answers from Mr Henry—just more mud flung in the public space.He got to the conclusion that it must have been somewhere near the office of Mr Peter Dunne who by the way is finding it so difficult to get off his high horse gracefully. Did you see his press release yesterday? Oh no he was not going to lose this massive long-held century-old right of confidentiality between constituents and an MP—as though that is what happened. No no Mr Dunne you leaked a classified document and in our crimes legislation that is a crime. Just because the police are not prosecuting you does not mean that you are exonerated because they could and it does not mean that it is because they are things of no matter. What was being leaked from that committee was of great importance. The Henry inquiry just left more unanswered questions but one of them was not left: who theleaker was. Theleaker was a serialleaker who leaked five times and has been discovered.It is an indictment on Mr Key and his contempt for the democratic process. Our democracy is not just the right to vote every 3 years. Real democracy is a web of spoken and unspoken rules and conventions that give it genuine meaning and not just the appearance of democracy. To have a proper inquiry have the correct terms of reference so that they can get to the truth give that person the powers to get to the truth and then pick the right person who can be trusted to get to the truth. He did none of those three things. He just did not care. The privacy of media communications is one of those aspects that are vital to a functioning democracy and it is a privilege that must not be abused. The media has a right to be protesting in this case because what happened in respect of this journalist was constitutionally and legally just plain wrong—just plain wrong.But Mr Dunne can find no haven in that complaint because it does not include him. The Privileges Committee makes it clear that there was contempt for this principle not just by Mr Henry but by parliamentary officials. But sadly I think if the report is slightly unfair it is in the fact that these parliamentary officials were being blamed in circumstances of undue illegal pressure. In the end somebody made a mistake. These parliamentary officials are the guardians of democratic practices because if they are not who is? But screaming through the inquiry and what came out with our discussions with these officials was that they had resisted and resisted and resisted and in the end thought: “Well he has got the powers because the Prime Minister says that he has given these powers for the investigation and Ministers must comply.” But of course in the case of Mr Henry what he did was he distinguished between Ministers and people on the select committee and the leader of the United Future party as though that was of any moment whatsoever. It was not but he distinguished between them. He does it on page 2 of his report and he goes straight off track thereafter.As the Green Party has said where was the Speaker when all this was happening right under his nose? Why did he and the Prime Minister not appear before the select committee inquiry? The report talks of errors of judgment by parliamentary staff. That must be understood I say within the context of undue unlawful pressure. And it leaves a sour taste at least in my mouth that Mr Thorn has fallen on his sword has accepted his accountability and has gone and yet the Chief Executive of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet MrKibblewhite offered his resignation but it was not accepted. How many times have I seen this not even complicated exercise in deception? John Key is deeply implicated in this mess too but do not expect any accountability from him.The report of the Privileges Committee is a wake-up call. What this report shows is how the essential props of democracy can be kicked away. And when John Key is around hyper-vigilance is called for. Key and his cronies will trash our democracy like they are trashing—Dr Paul Hutchison: Who wrote this?Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: I am able to write all this brilliant stuff myself unlike those members over there who have to have the research unit write their speeches. I wrote it all myself. Key and his cronies will trash our democracy like they are trashing so much else in our country. Fortunately next year the public gets its say and the opportunity to teach them a long and enduring lesson.Hon JOHN BANKS (Leader—ACT): I enjoyed working on the Privileges Committee very much. The work led by Christopher Finlayson QC was well done and the contributions from all sides of Parliament were also well done. I take you to the conclusions of the report first. The conclusions of the report say: “In coming to our conclusions we acknowledge that to the best of our knowledge the circumstances giving rise to this question were unprecedented.” I am staggered that it has taken this Parliament so long to get to a situation where it had to deal with privileges circumstances that were unprecedented. The report continues: “That these are uncharted waters has for example necessitated us”—that is the select committee—“making inquiries of other jurisdictions to assist us with the second part of our examination of this matter.” That included Canada and the United Kingdom. That was very interesting reading. Canada the United Kingdom and Australia are well ahead of us on these things. It continues: “We accept that the unique circumstances of the situation had a part to play in the events leading to this referral.”These matters did not bring any great credit to this Parliament. Unlike following the complaint in question the leaking of the documents which I make no comment about it triggered off this work of Parliament to make sure that the issues that we had to deal with in this first part of this work do not occur again.Although the executive branch of Government is important in New Zealand it is not all-important. The executive branch of Government is not all-important. The fulcrum of our democracy is here on the floor of this House and every single member of Parliament is equal here on the floor of this House in the fulcrum of our democracy. This central role is recognised through the ancient rights and privileges of the House that allow Parliament to control its own processes and procedures and as the Rt Hon Winston Peters said in his previous speech we did not have any processes and we did not have any procedures. We had nothing to follow and we were leading blind with the blind. These laws of Parliament that form part of our general laws of New Zealand allow this House to function without fear or favour and for better and for worse. As the interim report of the Privileges Committee observes we are somewhat in uncharted waters. Well that is a classic understatement—somewhat in uncharted waters.We observed that with electronic communications of members of Parliament—they did not exist when I was here 10 Parliaments ago—we are well behind other Parliaments in developed democracies in these matters. In most cases they do not attract the protection of the privileges of the House. In other words the electronic messages going around in the stratosphere around these buildings do not attract any privileges of the House. As classically formulated they are not speech in this House or in the committees and are not a process of Parliament. That said the ability of members of Parliament to use electronic communications in confidence is central to the functioning of members of Parliament and there were classic far-reaching breaches of that proposition.If agents of the executive branch wish to access these records they should do so only with express legal authority or with the express consent of the member of Parliament concerned. I have this rather simplistic proposition that says that communications between members of Parliament and anyone else should be private between the member of Parliament and the constituent or anyone else and not accessible to anyone else of a political persuasion in this House. They should be accessible only to agents of the State and other agencies that are duly representing law and order with a warrant from the High Court.This should be the case even if a member of Parliament is also a member of the ministry. However it is slightly different. That is because not all communications of Ministers are ministerial. Some might be in their legislative capacity or in another party capacity. I also think this is just good practice. The Prime Minister of course with the ministry has the remedy available to him if a Minister unreasonably withholds consent to access this data and information. He can of course lose confidence in the Minister and the repercussions of that are obvious.It is also clear that Parliamentary Service an organisation established to support the House and one that is not part of the executive of Government did not properly understand the constitutional relationship between agents of the executive and this House. It had no idea. It had no idea and much wrong was done particularly to one member of the fourth estate. Much wrong was done. It is disturbing that when in doubt Parliamentary Service did not bring to the Speaker the matter of access to electronic communications and associated records. Parliamentary Service did not raise that with the Speaker who is in charge of the fair and reasonable running of this Parliament and the rights of members of Parliament which are equal amongst men and women of all corners of this House—the fulcrum of democracy in this country.I agree with the report that some rules and processes need to be developed so that members of Parliament and the agencies that support the working of Parliament know how information requests should be and must be handled. The relevant law is a bit of a thicket—sometimes the Official Information Act in other cases not in some circumstances the Privacy Act and sometimes it is covered by a general obligation of confidence. Some written guidance would help those who make these things work work their way through these things.I want to talk about others who occupied and worked these precincts particularly the press gallery at this stage. Although I do not always enjoy what the media say about me and most members of Parliament would share that view about themselves I recognise that they are an important part of the democratic process. The best presumption is that their movements communications and associated records will be treated confidentially unless there is clear evidence of a crime and the necessary express legal authorisation for access to those communications and electronic records by a law enforcement agency. Otherwise the fourth estate—the gallery the media—should have the privilege of being able to communicate with whomever they want in this building and outside this building without prying eyes from anyone including the politicians unless they have a warrant from a law enforcement agency signed by the High Court to go about such endeavour.In the view of some members of Parliament or the executive branch they might use this presumption to misreport or misrepresent politicians. That is the necessary price we pay for democracy. That is the price. The best response to irresponsible reporting is not to consume the news products being produced.Finally I note that our report concludes that what happened occurred primarily because of miscommunication and misunderstanding. This report affords the House the opportunity to ensure this never happens again and that protocols will be set up. In thelast two paragraphs of the conclusion of the report it says: “In our view the absence of appropriate policy guidance on what information can be released and when or when issues should be escalated and to whom and indeed the disappointing actions taken result primarily from these underlying deficiencies.” which need to be addressed. And in our second report they will be addressed.Hon ANNE TOLLEY (Minister of Police): I want to take a short call in this debate on the report of the Privileges Committee. I have to echo the comments from previous speakers that it was a very interesting process picking apart the actions of a variety of people. I echo the comments of the Hon John Banks that this was an episode that did not reflect well on this Parliament. Perhaps I have been here a bit long to talk of being naive but actually I naively in hindsight thought that a committee with the gravitas of the Privileges Committee would operate in a reasonably non-political manner to try to get at the facts in the interests of all parliamentarians. By and large I have to say that during the workings of the committee apart from the occasional sortie from various people to settle old scores actually the committee worked very well to do that. So it is quite disappointing having produced what is a pretty comprehensive report to then come to the House and find that all the politics surfaces and all the things that perhaps were not explored satisfactorily in the committee are now being aired seeking to lay blame at the feet of people like the Prime Minister like the Prime Minister’s chief of staff who actually—in the case of the chief of staff—came and gave evidence to the Privileges Committee. He was questioned and he gave very satisfactory answers.The report sets out very clearly what we were actually asked to do and—to the frustration of some of our members—what we were not asked to do and that of course was to determine who was responsible for the release of the document in the first place. Then as a committee we set out to establish the facts. I thank the people who came before us for the very constructive honest and open way in which they appeared in front of the committee. They gave us a clear indication of their view of the events. That enabled us then to put together a very good summary which appears in this report of what happened when and who was involved. So I do thank them and in particular the Clerk of the House and her office for the help that was given to the committee.Three things stood out for me during the investigation of this committee. The first was the complete lack of understanding by someone of the stature of Mr Henry. I am interested to hear the Rt Hon Winston Peters’ categorisation of him but he has a reasonably distinguished career. As I said to him in the examination for someone who has been around this place and been involved in politics for quite some time there was a complete lack of understanding of the different nature of this place that he showed in conducting this investigation. We all came to the conclusion that the first person he should have gone to see was the Speaker who is our representative who speaks for this House and who is in control of all the staff who work in this Parliament. So that complete lack of acceptance that this was a different environment set this investigation off on the wrong foot from the beginning.Secondly again for someone who has had such a long career involved in Parliament to not understand the very special nature of the media in this place and its special role in the rights if you like and the responsibilities that go with that again that was completely underestimated and completely overlooked. There was no respect at any time from Mr Henry in conducting the inquiry for the hierarchy of Parliament. So the Speaker was not involved. I think we were surprised that Mr Henry did not make early contact and maintain contact with Mr Thorn the General Manager of Parliamentary Service who was responsible for the staff who were going to be providing information. Those two critical mistakes made by Mr Henry set the scene for what became inevitable—that things would go wrong that the wrong people would be accessinginformation and that information would be made available without any regard for some of the privileges that we hold here as parliamentarians.The next thing that struck me during the investigation was the almost casual attitude shown by a variety of staff to the very complex nature of the information that they were required asked and able to access. We have heard some of that talked about by other members. What is the difference in the role of a Minister and the information that you hold as a Minister as against the information you have in your email in-box as a member of Parliament who is dealing with constituents as against an individual who happens to work here at Parliament? The complexities of that were not recognised by some third and fourth-tier people who were working for the inquiry and giving access to information at the request of people involved in the inquiry. I found that casual attitude to that complex data by people at very junior levels in the organisation and with very little oversight by management quite extraordinary.Thirdly I have to say that I was amazed at the lack of alternatives that were sought or not sought by Mr Henry in his conduct of the inquiry in order to get his information. This is a point that I think Grant Robertson raised on a number of occasions—or it might have been David Parker—that Mr Henry did have other options available to him. In fact he did indicate that he could have taken the inquiry to part 2 but decided not to when the information that Mr Dunne held was withheld. So he did not try any other alternatives. Again you would have thought that he might involve the Speaker to talk about what those alternatives might be. That was not done. Those were the three things that I can add to the debate here tonight.I would say that it is interesting to hear both the Greens and New Zealand First—as they did at the Privileges Committee in fairness—seeking to show the general manager Mr Thorn as a bit of a victim of the inquiry. There is no doubt that as a consequence of the circumstances he did resign from his job. But in actual fact when you look at the way that that inquiry rolled out at any stage with the requests that were coming to him and his clear “uncomfortableness”—is that a word—he was clearly uncomfortable about—Nicky Wagner: Discomfort.Hon ANNE TOLLEY: Discomfort thank you. There was discomfort with some of the requests for information that were being made. Again his backstop his support and his defence was the Speaker. That is no different from anyone who is a Minister and has an organisation an agency that reports to them. If there are difficulties if there are things that are concerning those agencies then any Minister would expect them to be brought to them for some discussion—at least to make them aware of some of the consequences of those requests. At no stage did Mr Thorn raise with the Speaker any of those concerns that he had. I admire the man’s work and I am very sorry to lose him from the organisation but I do not see him as a victim of the inquiry other than by the circumstances he placed himself in.It has been a very interesting exercise. Again it has shown clearly that we have more work to do to make sure that this does not happen again and that there are good procedures put in place to ensure that the data that is so sacrosanct to all of us is respected and that the processes of Parliament are respected.CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka): I want to add one additional concern to the many concerns arising from these hearings that Anne Tolley raised. It is to do with the understanding of many of the people who deal with the Official Information Act as to how this Act works and how it should work.I think that it is very important that we draw a clear distinction between information that is official information with grounds to withhold it and information that is not official information. In the case of ministerial emails there will often be informationthat is official information but with grounds to withhold it and then there will be information that is exchanged using those email accounts that is not official information. For example a Minister arranging with a member of their family over email to have dinner is not official information. It is not covered by the Official Information Act and therefore it is simply not part of the consideration. But there will be emails that Ministers exchange between each other or between themselves and officials or between themselves and others that are official information but where there are grounds under the Act to withhold it. What really struck me was that many of the people who were dealing with these issues did not understand that distinction.The other distinction that they did not necessarily understand was that the vehicle of communication does not alter the status of the information. A Minister exchanging official information using a Hotmail account does not make it not official information; it is still official information. I think this point was really important because we ended up in quite an extensive discussion in that meeting including with Mr Dunne. There seemed to be this distinction that suggests that because one type of account was used over another then that changed the nature of the information. It does not. Official information is official information—simple as that. It does not matter how it is communicated it is still official information.That is very important I think in terms of the Privileges Committee’s future deliberations because one of the challenges for ministerial email accounts is that you have to have a mechanism for determining what is official information within them covered by the Official Information Act and what is not. I do not think that we have an adequate mechanism for doing that at the moment and that is part of the issue. Also what became very apparent during our consideration of the Henry inquiry is that the inquiry could have obtained—possibly legally—much of the information that it sought simply by lodging an Official Information Act request. The inquiry never did it. It never actually used the channel available to it to obtain the information that it was looking for. That suggests a real lack of understanding by those who were conducting the inquiry about how things should unfold and happen.Before I talk about some other issues I want to talk about what this report does not do because actually I think everybody who saw this issue go off to the Privileges Committee and who was eagerly awaiting this report still has one question—one fundamental question—that has not been answered: who actually did it? The Privileges Committee was specifically prevented by the terms of reference given to us from actually looking into who did it. The evidence overwhelmingly points in one direction but the committee was unable to look into that.One of the things that I think Mr Dunne certainly displayed in his evidence was a total lack of remorse for any of his actions in this entire saga. I think people who have had their emails hacked or accessed completely unfairly have grounds to feel aggrieved. Someone who has been accused of leaking confidential Government information who has failed to dispel that who is still the prime suspect and who is refusing to cooperate with an investigation to determine whether or not he did it does not have any grounds to get on his high horse and complain about the way he was treated. All of the evidence still points to the fact that on the balance of probabilities Peter Dunne probably did it. Yet he is now on his high horse and claiming that he has been unfairly treated. That is not right; it is simply wrong. Peter Dunne probably did it. All of the evidence seems to suggest that.What is really interesting is that Peter Dunne—and this is one of the reasons that this has become a lot more political since the report came out—came out and claimed that the report vindicated him. It did not. This report does not vindicate Peter Dunne at all. In fact the people writing the report the Privileges Committee were specificallyexcluded from being able to look into whether he did it or not. Actually I think all of the evidence we heard still points in Peter Dunne’s direction.The reason all of this is important of course is that we have now got the Prime Minister leaving the door open to Peter Dunne coming back as a Minister. The question for John Key is a very very simple one: if he is willing to have Peter Dunne back in the executive back as a Minister is he comfortable that Peter Dunne did not leak the report? Because if he is not comfortable that Peter Dunne did not leak the report he has no grounds in saying that he should be a Minister. If a Minister cannot be trusted to not leak confidential Government information particularly security-related information they have no place being a Minister. Why is John Key leaving the door open to Peter Dunne? It is basically because he is that desperate to cling on to power. He is quite happy to have Peter Dunne a knownleaker in his ministry; quite happy to be propped up by that convicted criminal John Banks. That shows very clearly how desperate to cling to power this Government is.One of the things that was very concerning in the inquiry that the Privileges Committee undertook was when we got into the time line. When we got into who did what to whom and who said what when it became very very clear that there was high-level pressure on Parliamentary Service from the Prime Minister’s office.Ultimately why did this information get released? Well there are two reasons. One was incompetence on the part of the inquiry. It went directly to junior staff and it asked directly for the information. It should not have done that. It should have followed the appropriate channels for obtaining the information. So the inquiry bears some responsibility.But the second reason that a lot of this information was released wrongly was that pressure was applied by the Prime Minister’s chief of staff and by the head of Ministerial Services for that information to be released. They share responsibility for the problems. John Key said “When someone speaks to my chief of staff they speak to me.” and his chief of staff was one of the key people implicated in the release of this information. He made it very very clear to Parliamentary Service that he expected the information to be released. The Prime Minister’s chief of staff and therefore—by John Key’s own definition—the Prime Minister himself was involved in applying pressure for this information to be released.I think that that is something we need to take very very seriously. Parliamentary Service holds a lot of information that the Prime Minister has no responsibility for. Parliamentary Service holds all of the information to do with the Opposition. Are we comfortable with the idea that the Prime Minister’s chief of staff could exert pressure on Parliamentary Service to dictate what it does with our information—the Opposition’s information? That is not democracy; in fact that is an affront to democracy. Would we be comfortable with the idea of the Prime Minister or his chief of staff exerting pressure and influence to do with the release of information held by Parliamentary Service about journalists or other users of the building? Fundamentally no. It is wrong and in fact it is dangerous to democracy.What is dangerous to democracy is that it has been allowed to happen but what is more dangerous to democracy is the fact that the Prime Minister and the Prime Minister’s chief of staff did not think they were doing anything wrong. All the way through this Privileges Committee hearing not once did the Prime Minister or the Prime Minister’s chief of staff admit that they had exerted undue influence on Parliamentary Service to release information that it should not have. I think the Prime Minister needs to front up and accept his share of responsibility for this. He set the terms of reference for the inquiry. He did not set the terms of reference properly and well and the inquiry was doomed to fail from the beginning. The interference of his chief of staff in theprocess then led to the inquiry receiving information wrongly which it should not have received and John Key needs to accept his share of responsibility for that as well.Peter Dunne is not vindicated by this report. Peter Dunne should not be reinstated as a Minister because all of the evidence still points in his direction. The odds are that Peter Dunne almost certainly leaked the report. I tell you what: there is a condition with parole right? When someone comes up before the Parole Board one of the things it looks for is whether that person admits they have done something wrong and shows regret. Peter Dunne shows no remorse for the fact that he leaked this information so he should not be reinstated as a Minister.Hon PHIL GOFF (Labour—Mt Roskill): Let me concur with the comments made by my colleague Chris Hipkins. This inquiry into the Peter Dunne affair failed on all levels. First of all it failed because the inquiry showed an absolute inability to distinguish between the role of the executive and the role of the legislature. The inquiry rode roughshod over the right of this House to control its own operations free from external interference. Parliaments over the ages have fought tooth and nail to prevent that form of interference. It failed because the inquiry sought out information that was confidential and it breached the right of parliamentarians to maintain confidentiality—confidentiality about their constituents confidentiality about their party matters and confidentiality about information that should be kept personal. The inquiry failed to acknowledge the right of members or even the Speaker to be told about what was happening.The inquiry failed on the second level because it failed to respect the role of the media and the role that the media must play as an independent watchdog in ensuring that democratic institutions behave properly. When you start tracking reporters around this building without their knowledge and when you gain access to the data that they are sending and communicating that is breaching the line between the executive and the role of the fourth estate and its right to be independent.So if this inquiry failed who do we blame? I have been listening to the National Party speakers. They blamed David Henry firstly—David Henry. Well my question is this: who appointed David Henry and who approved the terms of reference under which he operated? The answer to that question is very clear. John Key appointed David Henry John Key approved the terms of reference that he operated under and suddenly John Key as always is nowhere to be seen when it comes to accepting accountability and responsibility. But Mr Key is responsible for setting up that inquiry and for the way in which it operated.Then there was Mr Geoff Thorn. Geoff Thorn was the chief executive officer of the Parliamentary Service and he was the prime scapegoat in this case—the prime scapegoat. Geoff Thorn was sacked despite the fact that on three occasions he questioned the appropriateness of seeking that information from members—on three occasions. He was overruled. Who overruled him? He was overruled by a man called WayneEagleson who is the chief of staff of the Prime Minister John Key—the Prime Minister who says: “What I want my chief of staff will articulate and you will do his bidding.”I want to recall what WayneEagleson sent in an email to Geoff Thorn. He confirmed that the Prime Minister wanted the Parliamentary Service to make available to the inquiry team any records or “relevant material from ministerial offices.” No wonder the chief executive of the Parliamentary Service handed that material across—material that he had initially resisted giving. He had received an edict from the voice of the Prime Minister through his chief of staff WayneEagleson. So it is a bit rich for the National Party members to come into this House and say: “This is terrible. This is terrible Mr Henry Mr Thorn. How could they have got it so wrong?”. They got it wrong becausethey were acting under the instructions or the perceived instructions coming right from the top of the National Government—the Prime Minister—and that should not be forgotten.This inquiry also failed because it failed to do what it was set up to achieve and that was to find out who leaked the report. Who leaked the report?I want to make this comment. I am not a person who is incredibly sympathetic to witch-hunts about leaks. Often aleaker—I think of Edward Snowden—will be acting because they believe that the truth should come out. That is an honourable role for a whistleblower. NeilPugmire in New Zealand who led me to introduce a protected disclosures bill leaked information that the National Government of the day did not want out but he felt that the information was important because people who were dangerous to the safety and well-being of the community were being released from a mental asylum. He took the punishment for releasing that material. The whistleblower missed out because the Government punished the whistleblower.So generally I will look at a person’s motivation and say: “They have the right to make the truth known to the public. They have the right to provide information that the public is entitled to get.” but in this case there are no such motives for the leaking of theKitteridge report. We know who leaked theKitteridge report. Peter Dunne a Minister of the Crown leaked theKitteridge report.He had no fine high-blown motive for letting the truth out. In fact Mr Dunne should never be a Minister in a Government again because he broke one of the oaths that we all swear when we become Ministers—the oath to maintain the confidentiality of proceedings at the Executive Council. He broke that oath. He has no right to be a Minister. That is why he resigned. That is why it is totally improper that John Key should be talking now about bringing Peter Dunne back as a Minister.How do we know that Peter Dunne leaked it? Well we know that there was over this period something like 86 emails between Peter Dunne and Andrea Vance. I have never sent more than a couple of emails over the space of a week to anyone let alone 86 emails over a short period of time. It indicates an obsession—an obsession. Is there any doubt really from any member of this House that Peter Dunne leaked that report?Listen to what John Armstrong said in this morning’s paper and this is a quote: “You can probably count the number of people who believe Peter Dunne did not leak theKitteridge report on the fingers of one hand. The same people also believe the moon is made of cheese and you will find fairies at the bottom of your garden.” That is what one of the more experienced columnists said this morning about whether there was any doubt about Peter Dunne’s role in it.What I object to is that when there was a leakage from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade the people whom there was any suspicion of had to give their evidence on oath. Why did this inquiry not put Peter Dunne on oath so that he would have to tell the truth? The decision that the Government made was that that would not be a requirement. Double standards. When evidence was sought from the people in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade who had a genuine cause for concern and a genuine cause to speak out because their ministry which is one of the most competent ministries in this Government was being destroyed they not only had to go on oath but faced an inquisition—everything except the fingernail-pulling and the thumbscrew. That is what they faced yet the approach was softly softly on Peter Dunne.Actually John Key did not want to know that Peter Dunne had done it. He said that he accepted him at his word. Yeah tell that to Richard Worth and to Pansy Wong. What about those double standards?What I am most concerned about is that we now have a Government supported and sustained in office by a former Minister who in his ministerial role leaked ministerialinformation a Government supported by a man who faces criminal charges and a Government that wants to be supported by a man who believes that the Americans never landed on the moon and that by the way 9/11 was an American conspiracy. This is a shabby tawdry Government that is increasingly desperate to cling on to power by relying on people of those standards and those ethics. Did John Key not promise us that he would raise the bar on ministerial standards? That has become a joke. This inquiry has failed and that Government is responsible for its failure.Motion agreed to.Kaipara District Council (Validation of Rates and Other Matters) BillIn CommitteeJAMI-LEE ROSS (Junior Whip—National): I seek leave for all debatable questions on the Kaipara District Council (Validation of Rates and Other Matters) Bill to be taken as one question.The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Is there any objection to that course of action being taken? There is none.Parts 1 and 2 Preamble and clauses 1 and 2MIKE SABIN (National—Northland): Mr Chair—Hon Annette King: This is your big moment.MIKE SABIN: I do not know about that. Firstly can I just acknowledge the members of the Local Government and Environment Committee in respect of what has been a very very challenging piece of legislation. It is something that no one takes any pleasure in and certainly no one wants to deal with it. I would just like to acknowledge the chairperson Nicky Wagner Mr Twyford and members from Labour and members from right across the select committee. They have done a very good job of getting their heads round something that is very complex.I also want to acknowledge the Minister of Local Government. Actually there have been three Ministers through the journey on this particular bill but the latest Minister is Chris Tremain who in the main has dealt with this matter and I want to acknowledge the support he has given. I also want to acknowledge the commissioners and the chief executive officer from the Kaipara District Council for the role they have played in preparing this particular piece of legislation and their objective of trying to return the Kaipara District Council to democracy and stability.I want to acknowledge some people from the local community—Mike Howard JohnDickie Larry N Mitchell Mark Farnsworth Greg Gent Peter and John Bull and a number of other people who have worked very hard. We did not always agree on things but we worked very hard to try to ensure that the light was indeed shining where it needed to be.I just want to set the scene for this bill so that members can traverse some of the ins and outs at this Committee stage. First and foremost I just want to say that no one takes any pleasure in being involved in a piece of legislation like this. This council found itself in trouble and it became something of a perfect storm of challenges that involved everyone—the councillors the chief executive officer JackMcKerchar and the Audit Office which includes Audit New Zealand and the Office of the Auditor-General. Yesterday the release of the report from the Office of the Auditor-General into the MangawhaiEcoCare Wastewater Treatment Scheme and the auditor shone a very very damning light on all of those parties and Audit New Zealand and the Office of the Auditor-General did not escape that.This bill deals with a number of matters not only related to the Kaipara District Council waste-water scheme. It goes a lot further than that. There are a number of other matters being dealt with such as theMaungatūroto water scheme other waste disposal schemes in Dargaville and the forest owners’ road impact rates. This bill actually incorporates a number of failings on behalf of this council over a significant period of time dating well back into the 1990s. Although the lightning rod certainly has been the waste-water scheme at Mangawhai this bill is remedying a number of other issues that absolutely need the attention of this House.If we turn now to what is the most substantive matter theEcoCare scheme we see that it goes back to the mid-1990s when a decision was made to investigate and ultimately plan for and build a reticulated waste-water scheme for the community of Mangawhai. Indeed it is well recognised that some form of a waste-water scheme was certainly needed. But I just note how the council went about it how out of its depth it got in the course of doing that the way in which it contracted out or sought the advice of others because it did not have that advice within the council and ultimately the way in which it lost complete control of this particular project seeing the debt blow out. The scheme was originally costed at around $11 million but ultimately ended up costing somewhere in the vicinity of $63.5 million.If we just go back to the history of that scheme in the mid-1990s a decision was made to progress the scheme and it was going to progress as a “BOOT” scheme—build-own-operate-transfer—over a 25-year period. The aim of this small council was to try to keep the debt off its balance sheet. Although that may have had some merit at the time it all unravelled in 2002 when a law change meant that the public-private partnership was no longer workable. The council then set about reinventing a process—a morphed “BOOT” scheme if you like—that was never going to be fit for purpose. So rather than having a 25-year period in which that scheme could be transferred and having the incentives in the right place in terms of the public-private partnership the aim was to immediately transfer that debt straight back on to the council within a very short period of time which changed the incentives and set this whole tailspin off.So the council found itself in a position where it was under-equipped it was under-qualified it was seeking advice outside interested parties within the council and it did not stop to think and reassess the implications of what it was doing with the change of law in 2002. It set itself on a path that ultimately has led to where we are now. At the end of 2004 and the beginning of 2005 this was not helped when the contractor for the plant its parent company went into receivership. Rather than going back to the market to build a new scheme under the new legislation the council persisted and carried on as if on a treadmill with only one direction to head in. It engaged another contractorEarthtech Contractors to take the project—one that was certainly more expensive than originally envisaged. But that continued to actually complicate the process thereafter.The council then found itself in a position where by the time it signed a contract for this scheme in late 2005 it had practically lost control of the project and I am not sure whether it really knew what it was getting itself into. At this stage the scheme was projected to be in the order of $35.6 million. But just to give one small example of how far the council got this wrong the disposal for the waste-water scheme had not been included as part of that consenting resolution and approval process. Something it had allowed $360000-odd for ended up costing $14 million. So when we start looking at the way in which this project got out of control that is one small example of some of the failed decision-making.I just want to cover off where things have got to in the last few days. As a result of the election in 2011 obviously I was elected and this was the No. 1 the first priority to actually try to make some sense of. Since that time a Government-appointed reviewteam got in around there and the damning report that was released as a result of that review team saw the resignation of councillors and we saw commissioners put in place. Obviously one of the issues that they needed to deal with was the fact that you had had a council for a number of years that had failed to set rates and failed to manage due process in accordance with its requirements—something that was obviously highly litigious and needed to be remedied.When we look at the opportunities to do this they are very limited. That is why no one wants to actually be in the position that I am in today having to be confronted with this particular legislation. It is an acknowledgment that a lot of people have got it wrong and blame needs to be sheeted home and it will be sheeted home. In very recent times I have made some very strong comments about the role I think the Auditor-General has played in this and also of course the councillors the contractors and JackMcKerchar the chief executive officer.Before I was willing to sponsor the Kaipara District Council (Validation of Rates and Other Matters) Bill I needed an assurance from the commissioners that there was no better way to actually achieve this. There clearly was not. Refunding the rates where some would have an enormous windfall of rate refund and where others would suddenly be burdened with a massive rates bill that they in no way shape or form deserved would be wrong. Then to go about resetting rates by working through each individual rate through each individual resolution and through each individual process again over that period would take probably a year to 18 months and would be almost impossible and unworkable. So we find ourselves where we are here today. I said that I would not sponsor this bill if it absolved anyone of responsibility—members will cover that—and if it was seeking to validate stuff that the council could not otherwise do in law. In other words it had to be stuff that could be done inside the law in the first place. I said that I would not support anything that validated behaviour that was ultimately criminal and the decision to expand the scheme the $30 million decision was not part of that.Su’a WILLIAM SIO (Labour—Māngere): Talofa lava Mr Chairman. Thank you very much for the opportunity. On 6 September 2012 commissioners were appointed following the completion of work by the review team that was put together by the Minister of Local Government in June 2012. That review team was asked to assess the financial management and governance challenges facing the Kaipara District Council. The review team concluded that the challenges were beyond the ability of the mayor and councillors to manage. Elected councillors then agreed that the Minister of Local Government would appoint commissioners. It is the commissioners’ work that has led to the Kaipara District Council (Validation of Rates and Other Matters) Bill being tabled in the House as sponsored by Mike Sabin.Tonight there is a need for this Committee to help the people of the Kaipara District the people of its many small towns and villages people who work hard day in and day out to carve out a life for themselves in Kaipara. There is a need for this Committee to help them and a need for the Committee to help the council the commissioners and the wider community of people who live in that area and need to draw a line somewhere somehow under this deeply sad and woeful affair. I would ask this Committee just to be careful with speeches as the decisions that we are making tonight will have painful ramifications for some ratepayers in the Kaipara District. I do not believe that politicising this affair is going to be helpful in any way.The Labour Party will support this bill. We have no choice but to do so in order to assist in drawing a line so the Kaipara District can move forward and look ahead. If we do not pass this bill Kaipara District will continue to carry about $17 million of rates plus the level of rates that are currently being withheld as a burden on all the ratepayers there. In addition the council currently has $77.5 million of external debt of which$52.5 million relates to the waste-water scheme. This debt is currently due to expire in July 2014 and carries the favourable interest rate margin of 55 points. Not passing this bill puts that debt at risk with the local government financial authority. It puts at risk the services the people of Kaipara continue to receive today from their council. In addition there are other costs that continue to add up the longer this bill is delayed such as the loss of the New Zealand Transport Agency funding of about $450000 per month the increased debt-renewal cost of about $50000 per month the working capital cost of about $30000 per month and a $400000 one-off cost to amend the long-term plan if this bill is not passed. It would irresponsible for us to delay this bill any further as we would then impose this cost upon all Kaipara District Council ratepayers.The Labour Party has deliberated on this bill on a number of occasions before arriving at its final decision. It has been difficult because of relationships we have with ratepayers who oppose this bill and the need for us to do the right thing for everyone in the Kaipara District. We considered our position a few times as information was made available to us from Government advisers commissioners individual ratepayers the leaders of the Mangawhai Residents and Ratepayers Association and its legal counsel. We found ourselves upset and angry with the way the previous councillors mayors and management failed on so many grounds to meet their legal and managerial responsibility towards the people of the Kaipara District. We sympathise immensely with the Mangawhai Residents and Ratepayers Association the way it felt about the whole process that was undertaken and its need to pursue the legal avenues available to it. We met and received submissions directly from some of its members including Mr Bruce Rogan its chair. We also met with its legal counsel. Some of the communications we received from the Mangawhai ratepayers group were very thoughtful deliberate and considered. Other communications I received reflected I believe the tremendous stress those people were under. They have every right to feel the way they do.The Labour Party sought from the Government and its commissioners relief for ratepayers by way of an amnesty of the penalties for rates withheld. We are pleased that the commissioners have agreed to provide this rates relief on penalties and extend this rates relief to ratepayers in relation to the Mangawhai community waste-water scheme to 1 January 2014. A line has to be drawn under this relief to allow all Kaipara ratepayers to move forward. This relief will cost approximately $1 million which will be borne by all Kaipara District Council ratepayers.It would be wrong for this House given the information we received from commissioners and Government officials to entertain a scenario where the rates were not validated and where the council would be required to refund about $17 million of rates affected by the irregularities to the 4812 properties that have paid them. Under this scenario the council would still be required to recover this income in the 2014-15 year in addition to the administration costs plus the estimated interest costs over the period between refund and full payment.The net effect of that scenario on sample properties would see the residential and commercial properties in Mangawhai that had paid the full capital contribution to the waste-water scheme get a refund on average of about $5065. But their 2014 rates would on average be $5400 higher. Where the ratepayer entitled to the refund remained the ratepayer for that property they would be $343 worse off. Where the property had changed hands the original ratepayer would receive a windfall of $5065 while the new ratepayer would have to pay an extra $5408. Those ratepayers who paid a first instalment of $676 of a capital contribution to the waste-water scheme in 2013-14 would get a refund on average of $1853. But their 2014 rates would on average be $2151 higher—a difference of $298.We acknowledge the whistleblowers who brought attention to this woeful saga. We heard strong submissions from submitters absolutely opposed to this bill. There were strong allegations made of corruption collusion and conspiracy to commit fraud. I accept that it was easy to make those allegations given the way the council behaved with backroom deals and workshops a lack of proper systems in place a lack of in-house staff expertise substandard work by the auditors a reliance on outside contractors and consultants and a lack of best practice. There are so many people we can blame for this but we all end up having to pay especially the people of Kaipara. Kaipara has the waste-water scheme that it needed and it works though through bad decisions mismanagement and incompetence it has cost the people of Kaipara more than it should.I agree that someone or all those people should be taken to court. We therefore at that time sought a commitment from the commissioners that the right to bring proceedings be unaffected by this bill. We are pleased that the amended clause 14 extends this right to include not just the council; any other person can “bring proceedings against any person arising out of or in connection with any actions or omissions associated with matters validated by this Act.”As I said at the beginning of my speech we need this House to help the people of Kaipara draw a line under this woeful saga. I know that there are people listening in Kaipara who will not be happy with the statements I have just made on behalf of the Labour Party but notwithstanding that I accept they have every right to feel the way they do. I was one alongside other members on the Local Government and Environment Committee who was actually waiting for the Auditor-General’s report to identify and provide evidence that would enable us to take somebody to task over this whole sad affair.There are many to be blamed and they include the residents of Kaipara who had the democratic ability to challenge their councillors and who did put up new councillors. The chief executive officer of the time according to the feedback I have received was not a member of any professional organisations and therefore did not have access to best practice. The fact was that the council did not have in-house staff and although it lauded the fact that it had reduced rates for many many years it was able to achieve that by the sacking of skilled staff and by the reduction in the number of skilled staff. Therefore it did not have in-house expertise that it could rely on and it ended up being captured by consultants and contractors.Kaipara has a population of about 20000 people living in numerous towns and villages. It is a community that has a strong spirit with numerous local clubs volunteer organisations a Rotary club an art festival beautification groups and a strong Dalmatian club. Kaipara District deserves to move forward and it is my hope on behalf of the Labour Party that by passing this bill we are able to give it that opportunity.ANDREW WILLIAMS (NZ First): I take a call on the Kaipara District Council (Validation of Rates and Other Matters) Bill on behalf of New Zealand First. New Zealand First cannot support this legislation. We believe that retrospective legislation is absolutely the worst way to deal with this because it exonerates the guilty. In so doing I would like to give a corrected history of how this sorry saga came about. In about 2000 the Kaipara District Council awarded the role of head consultant for the Mangawhai sewage project toBeca Group. Reading fromBeca Group’s own website it states: “Beca is one of the largest employee-owned engineering and related consultancy services companies in the Asia-Pacific. As well as numerous engineering consultancy services [Beca offers] architecture planning project and cost management land information valuations and software services.Beca supplies engineering and related consultancy services to many markets including industrial buildings governmentwater transport and power.” At the time—and this is back in around 2000—Beca Group evaluated tenders for the project and awarded the tender to itself providing $675000 of ratepayers’ money to manage the bid process.Beca Group then in cohort with the Kaipara District Council’s Chief Executive Officer JackMcKerchar very quickly settled on an Australian outfit called Simon Engineering as the preferred bidder. This outfit was represented by one Mr Peter Elliott who was shepherded everywhere by theBeca Group project leader Brent Johnston. Mr Elliott made a sales pitch to the full Kaipara District Council. He said that his firm Simon Engineering had dozens of projects in Australia like the Mangawhai one. They were a dime a dozen for the firm he said. In fact the biggest scheme the firm had ever done was a trailer park equivalent to a single subdivision in Mangawhai. At the time Councillor Bruce Rogan who is now the chair of the Mangawhai Residents and Ratepayers Association said that what this council would really appreciate is a referral from one—just one—happy customer from among Simon Engineering’s stated hundreds throughout Australia and the Pacific so that Mr Elliott’s claims could be verified independently. Councillor Rogan was savagely attacked by both Mr Johnston and the mayor for being so rude and discourteous to a guest. The information requested by that councillor was not forthcoming.In 2002—some months after—the new Local Government Act 2002 came into effect. The Government changed the law relating to infrastructure projects. The whole MangawhaiEcoCare project had been conceived as a 25-year build-own-operate-transfer project. These were banned under the law change. NeitherBeca Group nor the chief executive officer MrMcKerchar wanted to revisit anything because the deal had already been secretly committed to. They refused a request from Councillor Rogan to reopen the tenders. He argued that because the project could no longer legally proceed as planned and because the project builder was now no longer required to finance the construction many much smaller local organisations would possibly be able to bid for the job. This was refused because that was the last thing that they wanted.Just before Simon Engineering was publicly awarded the contract—and it had already had it for months in secret—Councillor Rogan sought and got a resolution from council to advise Simon Engineering that if it exceeded its budget the entire district would have to be consulted about its willingness to pay the overrun because it was not going to fall on the hapless community saddled with the overpriced white elephant. If the district as a whole declined to wear that then Simon Engineering needed to understand that it would not get paid. The chief executive officer JackMcKerchar was instructed to write to Simon Engineering to that effect. However the chief executive officer JackMcKerchar did not write as instructed by the Kaipara District Council. This was discovered at the next council meeting where Councillor Rogan requested that that letter be tabled for perusal. MrMcKerchar stated that he had not done so because it might have frightened the horses.After the meeting Councillor Rogan himself wrote to Simon Engineering informing it of the earlier council decision. This did have an effect because it bolted and subsequently the company went belly up. Still there was no appetite to change anything so moves were made to find a replacement for the contractor Simon Engineering and leave everything else intact.Earthtech Contractors were ushered in but in parallel and possibly under separate coversBeca Group acquired the skeletal remains of Simon Engineering and created an enterprise calledBeca-Simon which promoted itself as a multinational infrastructure builder. So now we have the project manager building projects using the resources of the company that it awarded theEcocare contract to. It is not easy to ascertain what happened toBeca-Simon but it may have morphed into Tyco Wastewater or been absorbed by it. Tyco Wastewater through a subsidiary called WaterInfrastructure Group ended up running the entire wastewater system project and it still does.During this whole period other Kaipara District councillors became increasingly alarmed by the Mangawhai scheme. Requests for full financials were declined. Quarterly reviews—and we heard this at the Local Government and Environment Committee—which are usually provided by all local authorities to elected members were not given to Kaipara councillors. Councillors who stood up to the chief executive officer JackMcKerchar and to the mayor faced legal threats. But questions need to be asked about the relationship between JackMcKerchar andBeca Group over an extended period of time. How was it that MrMcKerchar was in a live-in romantic relationship with one of his council staff employees who was involved with the planning for the Mangawhai sewerage scheme? When the sexual liaison was uncovered that particular council employee transferred out of the council and guess where she turned up? AtBeca Group. She turned up atBeca Group which then contracted her back to provide services to the Kaipara District Council. What a convenient relationship this was betweenBeca Group this woman and the chief executive officer JackMcKerchar.Why was it also that another $7 million - plus sewerage scheme being planned on the west coast of the Kaipara District got awarded to the same contractors as those for the Mangawhai scheme despite the known financial blowout problems with the Mangawhai scheme? I am informed that another major contractor assessed the scheme at some $2 million less but was warned off tendering for the project because that would jeopardise it receiving roading contracts in the Kaipara District the following season. This is disgraceful. This is corruption.Where are these glaring commonly known disclosures in the Auditor-General’s report that was released yesterday? They are not there. Yet today at the Finance and Expenditure Committee the Auditor-General was asked these exact questions. The Auditor-General said she was aware of these rumours but had not made inquiries into them. She did not feel they were relevant. They are relevant. There is an insidious incestuous relationship here betweenBeca Group the Kaipara District Council the chief executive officer and others involved there. Council executives and councillors who stood up to this MrMcKerchar were knocked back very swiftly. Staff lived in fear for their positions if they questioned his decisions. Some chose to leave because the situation was intolerable. MrMcKerchar in the end was taken out when they appointed commissioners and he was given a $240000 golden handshake.New Zealand First as a result of extensive investigation discussions and analysis is of the view that this Parliament cannot confirm this legislation and cannot pass this legislation. The illegalities in entering into loans are not mere technicalities or formalities. They go to the heart of local government’s obligation to consult ratepayers before entering into large financial commitments and where the rates can be set to cover illegal loans. In this case the community consultation stopped at $34 million but the scheme ended up being double that in price.Through all this contractors have taken large margins. ANZ now we are told has taken the loans over from the former National Bank Lloyds Bank the Royal Bank of Scotland and ABN AMRO Bank at a 40 percent markdown on the loan value. The banks should have done due diligence on the whole scheme. Now ANZ should step up and write down these loans to a level that will reduce the burden on the ratepayers of Kaipara. Likewise I thinkBeca Group should be stepping up to the mark. It has been there since 2000 advising on this whole scheme and it allowed this to double in costs in the end.Beca Group should come forward and also take a haircut on this as well. At the same time the Audit Office should be taking a haircut as well. It allowed 5 years ofclean audits to go through on the Kaipara District Council. That is unbelievable. Again the Auditor-General needs to front up and this Government should front up.As a result I am challenging Mike Sabin and I am challenging this Government to step forward and ensure that all these parties come forward and pay their dues in terms of returning some of the funds that are rightfully due back to the ratepayers of Kaipara so that they do not suffer and they do not carry on paying rates for the next decade after decade for mistakes and corruption that occurred within this Kaipara District Council. New Zealand First is here to stand up for these ratepayers. We know that this legislation is going to be passed tonight but we think it is wrong. I have also got Supplementary Order Paper 406 in here for later but I do honestly believe and New Zealand First honestly believes that this has got to be investigated. The Auditor-General’s report is insufficient. There needs to be proper police investigations into this matter. There needs to be investigations carried out at the highest level and the people responsible for this should be held to account.NICKY WAGNER (National—Christchurch Central): The Local Government and Environment Committee unanimously supported the Kaipara District Council (Validation of Rates and Other Matters) Bill. We supported it not because we liked the bill not because we are keen on validation legislation but simply because this bill is the best possible solution to a very difficult very messy and very unpleasant situation.This is not a time to play politics. It is a time to make good decisions for the people of Kaipara. There is no satisfaction and no pleasure in dealing with this type of bill. I want to thank the select committee and the officials for their goodwill for their hard work and for their willingness to work together to come up with the best possible compromise.We unanimously agreed to recognise the input of the ratepayers who have raised concerns asked questions and challenged the council over the years. We did that by making sure that late penalties on rates were rebated. However all the rates that could have been struck legally need to be paid so that those who have so diligently kept paying their rates are not disadvantaged.A very comprehensive and independent Auditor-General’s report covering the period of 1996 to 2012 and covering the planning and the construction of the Mangawhai waste-water scheme was presented to Parliament yesterday. It records long-term mismanagement and poor governance from the council and its management team. It records a lack of records improper decision-making and poor auditing oversight. It identifies negligence and a lack of prudence but it does not—does not—identify corruption or any criminal wrongdoing.The select committee is very keen to receive this report and we wanted to receive it before we passed the bill but the Office of the Auditor-General assured us that it would not affect this validation legislation and it was right. We were very aware of the increased cost to ratepayers every month while this legislation was outstanding. So we made the commitment to pass this bill before Christmas rather than prolong the agony and the mounting costs to ratepayers.There is no doubt that the Kaipara District Council has had a tough time over the last few years trying to manage the waste-water project. It has tested the community emotionally and physically and it has challenged ratepayers financially and socially. The worry the uncertainty the frustration and the anxiety have taken their toll.This bill is designed firstly to stop the bleeding—to stop the bleeding of costs and disruption—arising from the present situation. It then looks to address the wounds to work through the errors and irregularity of rates. The select committee went through this meticulously. We have validated only rates or decisions that could have been made correctly if the council had been more pedantic about its systems or its wording. Inother words we validated only decisions and rates that were technically invalid rather than illegal or inappropriate.Finally the bill looks to heal—to provide the certainty the consistency and the finality that will allow this community to move on. Without this bill the district and the ratepayers could have been bogged down in misery and uncertainty for another decade and that is expensive and unhealthy for any community.The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): I call the honourable member Philip Twyford.PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—TeAtatū): Thank you Mr Chairman—it is only you and my mother who call me that.I am not going to rehearse the history of this issue. I think we probably recounted enough of the details in the various debates so far. I want to say that if it was up to me—and I do not mean any disrespect to the member Mike Sabin who is sponsoring this Kaipara District Council (Validation of Rates and Other Matters) Bill—I would not have brought this bill to the House. I think in my view the Government should have shown some political leadership earlier on and first instituted a thorough and independent inquiry into the goings-on at Kaipara District Council. It should have established who was to blame and held them accountable and then negotiated a burden-sharing agreement. However it is clear that there is not the support in this Parliament for that approach.Most people have supported this bill—in fact it was supported unanimously at the Local Government and Environment Committee—as a way to move forward. The bill is bluntly a validation of unlawful actions by the Kaipara District Council in the setting of the rates struck to fund the debt incurred by the Mangawhai waste-water scheme. The Government-appointed commissioners asked the member Mike Sabin to bring this bill to the House because they wanted to validate the unlawful rates demands thus opening the way for the council to bring an end to the rates strike and to return to the Kaipara District Council a measure of solvency. This is a bitter pill for the rates strikers of Mangawhai to swallow. Their rates strike was designed to force the authorities to properly investigate and hold accountable those found responsible for the financial mess that the Kaipara District Council finds itself in.We debated at the select committee whether or not this bill should be progressed before the Auditor-General’s report was released. After all in a matter as complex and vexing as this how often does this Parliament have the luxury of a comprehensive inquiry like that done by the Office of the Auditor-General and released in the last couple of days? I want to make a few comments about that report. I have great respect for the institution of the Office of the Auditor-General. It provides an indispensable accountability role for this Parliament and is an important part of our democratic institutions. The report is especially important because in part the Office of the Auditor-General is investigating its own work. Audit New Zealand is a business unit that reports to the Auditor-General. It is one business unit of the Auditor-General that is investigating and reporting on another business unit of the Auditor-General. Indeed the reputation and the integrity of the Auditor-General’s office are at stake on this issue.I want to say that I think it is a good report. It is thorough it is systematic and it is clear. It does not shy away from holding Audit New Zealand accountable. In fact when you read the report it is an indictment of the failure of the auditors to do their job properly. I want to read into the record some quotes from the report of the Auditor-General: “This review acknowledges that many of the concerns that correspondents raised”—that is the aggrieved ratepayers of Mangawhai—“have proved to be well founded.” The Auditor-General acknowledges that “with the benefit of hindsight it would have been appropriate to reconsider the situation”—in relation to the waste-waterscheme—“more fully in late 2011. … If we had done so this inquiry might have begun a few months earlier. … There were problems with the way some of the audit work of [Kaipara District Council] was carried out. … in the years 2006 to 2009 the auditor did not reassess the status of the wastewater project despite it undergoing significant changes during these years and did not identify it as an audit risk. Nor did the auditor identify problems with [Kaipara District Council’s] rates.” I find that mind-boggling and it is indeed an indictment on the work of Audit New Zealand.I want to call on the Government now with the passage of this bill to do the right thing. First I believe that the Minister responsible for the Auditor-General should note the findings of the Office of the Auditor-General in respect of the failures by Audit New Zealand and should then negotiate an appropriate financial settlement with Kaipara District Council that recognises the critical role of Audit New Zealand’s failures in the ill-fated decisions in relation to the waste-water scheme. The member Mike Sabin has talked publicly about a figure of $30 million and I think that would be a pretty good starting point. Second the Serious Fraud Office should take all possible steps to hold to account the councillors and officials who broke the law. They too should be pursued to the fullest extent possible.Labour will not be supporting Andrew Williams’ Supplementary Order Paper 406. We considered it seriously and the arguments put up by Dr Matthew Palmer the legal counsel for the Mangawhai ratepayers that the effect of the bill will be to extinguish much of the claim taken by the association and its legal action currently before the High Court. He argued that denying the members their day in court runs against the rule of law. We took the view however that this matter needs to be resolved in the interests of not only the few hundred rates strikers of Mangawhai but the 10000-odd other ratepayers of Kaipara District Council and that legal action that could result in several years of rates being struck down altogether is simply not tenable. It would not be a sustainable outcome.But—and there is a big caveat here—if the Auditor-General’s office does not contribute substantially financially for the inadequacy of Audit New Zealand’s actions and if the elected members and council staff who made this appalling sequence of decisions are not made to pay as well then an injustice will have been done. This bill does not deliver a solution to the Kaipara problem. It has a very narrow scope. It simply validates unlawful actions taken by the council in the setting of the rates and its long-term plan. A fair and enduring solution now relies on the Government doing its bit to ensure that the wrongdoers in this case are held to account and forced to share the financial burden.EUGENIE SAGE (Green):Tēnā koe Mr Chair. Like others in this Chamber I am not pleased to be speaking on retrospective legislation but I am pleased to take a call on the Kaipara District Council (Validation of Rates and Other Matters) Bill to explain the Green Party’s position and why we are supporting the bill. I would like to congratulate the Office of the Auditor-General on its very thorough report and inquiry into what happened with theMangawhaiEcoCare Wastewater Treatment Scheme. It tells the story of what happened over the 15 years of the project’s life and sets out the facts as the Auditor-General understands them in what she describes as a “woeful saga”. It is written in a very clear and accessible way and it is very easy to read.What the Auditor-General said was that she was shocked by the state of the Kaipara District Council’s records and its loose approach to decision making given that it has involved a huge amount of investigation and effort to actually analyse piece together and describe what happened. Certainly many submitters told the Local Government and Environment Committee that the Kaipara District Council had failed to meet its fundamental obligations both legally and in terms of its accountability to thecommunity. The Auditor-General has confirmed that the council did not have a grasp at all really of the very complex contractual financial and borrowing arrangements that it was involved inin relation to the waste-water scheme and it effectively lost control of that scheme and the cost of it blew out. So it has been a saga of poor governance of poor management of poor record-keeping and of a council that was completely out of its depth in terms of decision making.One of the other reasons why I would like to comment on the report is the way in which the Auditor-General and her staff have done a very thorough review and made a full and frank disclosure of the significant inadequacies in the way in which one of the office’s business units Audit New Zealand did its work particularly between 2006 and 2009. As the Auditor-General admits “some of the audit work has fallen disappointingly short of the [expected] standards”. Some of the problems there were just the whole quality of the documentation supporting the audit judgments—as Phil Twyford noted—the failure by the auditors to reassess the status of the waste-water scheme despite the significant changes to it—and the over-reliance of Audit New Zealand on the information that council management was providing.So there are a number of lessons that can be learnt from reading this report. Other councils throughout New Zealand particularly councillors and staff would do well to read the report and to look at whether they have the capacity to effectively control what is being done on their behalf when work is contracted out.But this is little consolation to the people of Kaipara and particularly to the people of Mangawhai because it has been their rates that have increased significantly in order to repay the cost of the blowout in the scheme. They are paying for the incompetence and poor governance of the council. It is there that we share with Labour the need for Government to take action because the chair of the commissioners John Robertson said in a media release in February: “At some point council may wish to take action against the decision-makers involved in issues at Mangawhai. We don’t want to prejudice our legal position by including this in the Bill. [The commissioners] want to keep their options for seeking redress on behalf of ratepayers open.”In the commissioners’ terms of reference two of their key tasks are to engage with the community and iwi to rebuild trust and confidence in the council and to “ensure financial resilience and equitable and sustainable funding”. The commissioners have applied a huge amount of effort to getting the council’s finances on a clear footing going forward. Now they need to apply that same energy to seeking redress for ratepayers to reduce the debt burden on the council and to restore the community’s trust in the council by putting it on a sustainable footing.It was the Minister of Local Government who appointed the commissioners and to whom the commissioners report so he has the very real responsibility here of ensuring that there is that sustainable solution. Reducing the debt burden on ratepayers is essential and central to ensuring that the council is financially resilient and is sustainable in the longer term. Although the Auditor-General did not find any illegality in what happened in Kaipara the factual situation that this report outlines is a very strong platform for the Kaipara commissioners and others to consider taking legal action against a range of parties to share the burden of those cost blowouts.We agree here with New Zealand First that the commissioners should consider pursuing companies such asBeca Group Bell Gully the directors of the now defunct EPS ConsultantsEarthtech Contractors and also Audit New Zealand and their insurers given their admission of inadequacies in undertaking the audit role. It should not be ratepayers who are lumbered with the whole bill for the council’s incompetence and mismanagement of the contracts involved in constructing the waste-water scheme. The scheme started out as a public-private partnership initially a build-own-operate-transferwhich morphed into a design-build-finance-operate model—a very different type of contracting arrangement with quite substantial increased risks to council.A public-private partnership is about shared responsibility. It is not about the public in the form of the Kaipara community and ratepayers picking up the tab for everything that went wrong with the scheme and then having private sector engineering consulting construction companies law firms and the banks all just collecting their fees their interest on the loans the profits and then just wandering off into the sunset. The private companies involved to preserve their reputation must step up and must bear some of the responsibility and contribute to the burden of reducing the cost of the blowout. Otherwise the public cannot have any confidence in public-private partnerships being used to construct major new infrastructure such as waste-water schemes and public transport in the form of light rail if citizens and ratepayers are going to be left to carry the can and private companies and the banks can simply profit by taking their fees.The Auditor-General has been very frank in investigating and outlining the shortcomings of Audit New Zealand and certainly Mr Sabin in his public statements has focused on Audit New Zealand contributing to reducing the burden on ratepayers and the need for a financial settlement. But the net must be cast much wider and the commissioners must look at the professional and contractual responsibilities of all of those involved in the eco-care scheme. It is not fair to put it just on Audit New Zealand because it has owned up. The net has got to go a lot wider. We think that some of the work that the Auditor-General has done in reconstituting the records of the Kaipara District Council and actually finding out what did happen may help in pursuing that legal action because it is fundamentally unfair if it rests just on ratepayers.I would like to finish by just commenting briefly on Supplementary Order Paper 406 in Andrew Williams’ name. Like Labour we considered very carefully the issues involved in this we met with Dr Palmer legal counsel for the Mangawhai Residents and Ratepayers Association and we looked at and recognised the important constitutional principles about Parliament not overriding existing court action—in this case the Mangawhai residents’ and ratepayers’ judicial review proceedings in the High Court. This bill does not explicitly prevent that legal case from proceeding but in validating the mistakes in the rating resolutions it will of course remove some of the legal grounds for the association’s actions.But we will not be voting for the Supplementary Order Paper because we believe that Parliament is sovereign and although Mangawhai residents have been unjustly treated by council supporting the Supplementary Order Paper would do a greater injustice to the wider Kaipara community. The bigger Kaipara community needs financial stability. It needs the council to have a clear plan for the future. That means the council must have the certainty that it can levy rates and collect rates to fund council services from roading to stormwater to waste collection and libraries. We do not see any benefit in the council—MAGGIE BARRY (National—North Shore): I would like to echo the sentiments that have been expressed by others today but I am not going to go over the history and track that through. I think that this weight of material here which in fact weighs more than my son did when he was born—and it is just a small proportion of the material that we have on the Kaipara debacle—really is living weighty proof of the extent of the engagement and intellectual rigour that the Local Government and Environment Committee and the people who have submitted the ratepayers and everyone else have put into this woeful saga.Lyn Provost the Auditor-General spoke today at the Finance and Expenditure Committee. I questioned her closely—not about the red herrings that preoccupiedWinston Peters; those are distractions. The essence of what went wrong at Kaipara has been acknowledged in the report of 400-odd pages from the Auditor-General. Blame does need to be sheeted home. I think that the Auditor-General did front up yesterday to people in Mangawhai andMaungatūroto and spoke to them about the problems. She acknowledged the responsibility of the Auditor-General’s office up to a point and there is certainly more to be said around some of the issues and the motivations of the individuals who were involved in the Kaipara District Council.But as others have said before me the point of this legislation the Kaipara District Council (Validation of Rates and Other Matters) Bill—even though we are all vastly uncomfortable with validating rates in this way—is that it must protect the people of the district who are paying these rates. There is no end in sight. It will be a very difficult situation unless this piece of legislation goes through.I will certainly not be supporting the Supplementary Order Paper 406 in the name of Winston Peters. I think it is just a piece of mischief-making and political machination—typical of that member—and it is coming in at the eleventh hour as well. As Nicky Wagner did point out it was unanimous up until one point.But one thing I would just say is that I echo absolutely what the Auditor-General’s office has said. There is a lot to be answered for but I commend what the member Mike Sabin has done here. This is an issue that has also touched me on the North Shore very much and many of my constituents have been touched by it. It is a very difficult situation. This is the best possible alternative and that is why we must carry this out tonight and pass it. I will not delay the Committee any further but I do urge us all to concentrate and focus on what is necessary tonight.Hon MARYAN STREET (Labour): The only thing that is good about passing this legislation the Kaipara District Council (Validation of Rates and Other Matters) Bill this evening is that it might bring at least part of this episode in the life of Kaipara District to some kind of closure.I want to refer in the first instance to the report of the Auditor-General Lyn Provost. I must say with the reports being tabled only yesterday I have not read the 450-page one but I have read the shorter version. I want to refer to it in some detail because it seems to me that in the course of traversing the history of what the Auditor-General herself has called a woeful saga—and that term is one that members have picked up on this evening—she has done a very good job in highlighting many of the shortcomings.Before I get on to quoting her summary report I must say that if ever there was an advertisement for amalgamating small local authorities then this is it. I look forward to Northland uniting its five local authorities and territorial authorities in due course in accordance with the recommendation of the Local Government Commission recently. There are questions of capability of competence and of capacity. Sometimes there were not enough people across this issue sometimes there were the wrong people across the issue and sometimes there were people across the issue who were not competent to deal with it. It is patently obvious from the observations of one who sat on the Local Government and Environment Committee and who listened to the submissions not just to the Auditor-General’s report that there are plenty of people to whom blame should be apportioned. We are not in want of those.But I just want to highlight some of the things from the Auditor-General’s overview report because I think they do go to the heart of the matter. She says that the Kaipara District Council had poor governance poor management and poor records. Her staff were not able to establish exactly what happened at certain points in the development of this waste-water scheme because the records were inadequate who made the decisions was not clearly spelt out and who was responsible for enacting decisions was not clearly spelt out either.She went on to say that the Kaipara District Council was “out of its depth”—to use her words—with thepublic-private partnership decision. She goes on to say that the district council followed all the right basic steps when it initially engaged with the scheme but as it became more complicated it became very clear that catering for risk and accounting for risk were not dealt with in a way that was either competent or careful.She also said that there were poor contracting practices that went on that the district council negotiated directly with one of the tenderers and that the approach to the funding of the project was inadequate. The contract was signed in 2005 without the scheme being completed by having an identified disposal site for the effluent. She said that all of this was “unwise”.She also said that although again there was consultation that went on in the early stages with the communities in the district council’s jurisdiction this fell to bits in the later stages of the scheme.But the thing I want to focus on most from the Auditor-General’s overview is the very robust way in which she dealt with the criticisms of staff in her own office. Right from the outset when we were hearing submissions on this bill we heard from people—and Mike Sabin mentioned this in his introductory speech on this bill—that there were inadequacies in the Audit Office’s work. She does not shy away from that.She made the point that although some people suggested that it was inappropriate for her to review the work of her own business unit she disagreed. It is absolutely appropriate for heads of organisations to do that critical analysis when it is necessary internally inside their organisation. She did commission an independent person to carry out the review and provide a report and the process surrounding her own examination of part of her business unit was totally transparent.She said that yes there were some problems with the way that some of the audit work of the Kaipara District Council was carried out. The audit quality varied over a long period of time she said although there was notable improvement in later years. The review done by the expert independent reviewer criticised the quality of documentation in some audit files particularly documentation that should explain why particular audit judgments were reached.She goes on to say that between 2006 and 2009 the auditor did not reassess the status of the waste-water project despite it changing quite substantially during that period of time. She admits being deeply disappointed by the findings of the reviewer. But at least she says the general systems and the methodology of the Auditor-General’s office were not in question. Although there was some question about the quality of work performed neither the methodology nor the process within the Auditor-General’s office was found to be at fault. This has got to be one of those moments when a chief executive says: “Well what can we do better? What do we need to do to ensure that the quality of work is up to standard?”.This bill will not please anybody. Any other outcome would not have pleased everybody either. Whichever way the select committee came down there would have been somebody in the Kaipara District who was not happy with the outcome.The chairperson of the select committee Nicky Wagner has done an extremely good thing not only in the way she ran the select committee but also in the fact that she made the committee become very activist in trying to arrive at a solution. I commend her for that. This bill is not the sort of thing that we like to see in this House but it has to pass.Dr JIAN YANG (National): I moveThat the question be now put.HONE HARAWIRA (Leader—Mana): I would actually like to start with a little bit of a history lesson here. The Native Land Purchase and Acquisition Act is an Act that was passed in 1893. It was called “An Act to authorise the Acquisition of Landowned by Natives for the purpose of Land-settlement.” On 6 October 1893 “whereas at least seven million acres of land principally situated”—I am not going to read the whole Act of course—“in the North Island of the colony owned by Natives are lying waste and unproductive and in the interests of the Natives and of Her Majesty’s other subjects in the colony and more especially for the extension of settlement it is necessary that such land should be made available for disposal under the land laws of the colony: And whereas the existing law for extinguishing by purchase the Native title over a large proportion of such land fails to afford adequate means for supplying the rapidly increasing demand for land for settlement purposes and great injury is thereby occasioned and the progress of colonisation is retarded and it is therefore necessary to provide further and other means by which lands owned by Natives may be acquired for the purpose of disposal under the land laws of the colony:”. Then it goes on over pages and pages in a legal language that I would struggle to cope with today. I doubt that any of mytūpunawould have understood it back in 1893. This Act later became known as the Validation of Invalid Land Sales Act.I refer to that because it seems that what we are doing here is the same sort of thing. This bill is called the Kaipara District Council (Validation of Rates and Other Matters) Bill but in fact it is the “Kaipara District Council (Validation of Crooked Activities by the Council its Senior Officers and Other Independent Contractors and Consultants) Bill”. This bill is not just about validating rates; this is about far more than that. I think that we need to see it in that light. This issue has been the subject of much concern and comment from across Kaipara and indeed Northland. And here we are looking to retrospectively address the significant failures of the council to follow proper process and meet the requirements of the Local Government Act.Since 2006 the council has continually and consistently breached the Local Government Act and the Local Government (Rating) Act in a whole range of areas such as the setting of rates in a series of failures to comply with various provisions of the Local Government Act. If you do not mind I would like to read some of these because they are ongoing. The council in relation to the water supply rate forMaungatūroto Station Village did not comply with section 19 of the Local Government (Rating) Act of 2002. In relation to the waste-water disposal rate the council did not comply with section 18 of the Local Government (Rating) Act of 2002. These two I have just mentioned came from the 2006-07 financial year.It goes on to point out the failure to comply with section 23 of the Local Government (Rating) Act also in that year of 2006-07. It then points out again that in the 2007-08 financial year the council did not comply with further sections of the Local Government (Rating) Act. It did not comply with sections 18 and 23 of the Local Government (Rating) Act. It failed to comply with section 45 of the Local Government (Rating) Act. If you do not mind me pointing this out I then turn to 2008-09. We see that again the council failed to comply with section 19—I can shorten this—with sections 18 and 23 with section 17 and again with section 23.I am pointing this out because these are ongoing failures. They are ongoing not just up until this became an issue. It continued in the 2009-10 financial year. The council did not comply with sections 19 18 and 23 etc. It simply continues into the 2010-11 financial year. The council failed to comply—[Bell rung] Mr Chairman I have got quite a bit that I would like to get on the record here and this is the only time that I have spoken on this. If you do not mind I would like to continue to debate this please.The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): I call the honourable member Hone Harawira.HONE HARAWIRA: Thank you very much. I point this out because this failure to comply continued on in the 2009-10 the 2010-11 the 2011-12 and the 2012-13financial years. This is not what you would call just a one-off case of somebody making a mistake. This bill covers years of criminally poor governance a massive debt blowout allegations of fraud and a very public and acrimonious rates strike. This bill seeks to validate a series of what are clearly unlawful actions. I say “unlawful” because if they were wrong in the first year you can excuse it. In the second year they get a smack on the hand. In the third year you have to say that something is wrong. In the fourth year you have to say: “You are going to jail mate.” and in the fifth year the sixth year and seventh year this continues. The bill seeks to validate a series of what are clearly unlawful actions by the council in setting rates to legalise illegal rates demands and to end the rates strike. Rates strikers rightly oppose this bill because once their strike ends they will no longer have the leverage to negotiate a solution that they deem to be fair.There are outstanding issues about the role of Audit New Zealand in failing to identify financial issues. There is a case to be considered against the bank for failing to do due diligence in its lending to the council. The case was made to the Government to provide assistance to Kaipara ratepayers to pay back their debt but that was rejected because the Government did not want to set a precedent for other local authorities. The commissioners tell us that not supporting the bill would significantly increase the cost to the Kaipara community because the council’s deficit would increase and services would be cut if the council did not get its hands on the withheld rates. It rankles that the burden of debt repayment will fall on the Kaipara community which was not responsible for incurring the debt but the bill seems the only way forward.People councillors senior managers advisers and independent consultants and contractors seem to have all acted in an appalling manner. There would seem to be in my view a clear case of continual and consistent fraud in respect of the multiple and ongoing breaches of local government legislation. The bill supposedly does not validate the overspend associated with the Mangawhai sewage treatment plant but I wonder whether this bill is in fact the first step to another bill coming before the House for exactly such a bailout.I am told that this is the best solution in a difficult and challenging situation but I challenge that. I challenge that on the grounds that the iwi have not been consulted on this. I spoke to the chairman of TeRōroa who are the local iwi in and around Dargaville who was most upset that this bill had actually got to the House. The iwi sit on the mana whenua committee of the Kaipara District Council and have not been engaged in this process at all. I would like to also point out the fact that although TeRūnanga oNgātiWhātua seem to have given their support for this bill there is another member of the mana whenua committee who has also been ignored.Accordingly I think we should not be just passing this bill without taking some serious action against some of these senior leaders. I know for example Donna Awatere who was a member of this House ended up in jail over a bill of about $200000. I know that Doug Graham who was a member of this House got off a case for about $170 million. I know that here we have got a council all of whose councillors are looking to not go to jail over this and this is going to be a $50 million to $60 million blowout. I think that at some point—and I understand there is another bill coming up the Tasman validation bill—sooner or later this House has to say: “If you continue to do this sort of activity you’re going to end up going to jail.” because unless this House sends that kind of a signal then I think we are going to find ourselves in dire straits as we continue to move forward on these issues. These bills are coming thick and fast and yet nobody is being made to pay. I think it is entirely within the rights and expectations of all of the members of this House—TIM MACINDOE (Junior Whip—National): I moveThat the question be now put.The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): The question is that the question be now put. As many—Andrew Williams: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I have Supplementary Order Paper 406 on the Table here and I have had not had an opportunity to speak to it as yet. I think it is important that I have an opportunity to speak to it.The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Well I can only say to the member that we have had about 17 calls and everyone has been given a fair go. The situation is now that the question has been put. All business is deferred until the question is determined.Hone Harawira: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. The gentleman was on his feet and calling for a point of order before you made your ruling. He called on numerous occasions—The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): No no. The member will be seated. Not true. I want to refer the member to Speaker’s ruling 10/4. Whenever a question is being put—and that was being done to the Committee—the interpretation of business is deferred until the question is determined. Now I will put the vote. The question is all those in favour please say Aye—Hone Harawira: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. Is it not parliamentary procedure that a Supplementary Order Paper on a bill should be heard? That Supplementary Order Paper was tabled in accordance with parliamentary procedure. Mr Andrew Williams is here and as the author of that Supplementary Order Paper he was willing to stand up and speak to it as part of the debate on this piece of legislation. He may not have been successful with that Supplementary Order Paper but surely he had the right to have that Supplementary Order Paper properly heard. I again make the point apart from that that he was actually on his feet and calling for a point of order to have that Supplementary Order Paper heard before you ruled that the Committee would vote on this piece of legislation. So I think that for those reasons the Supplementary Order Paper should in all fairness be heard.The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): All I can say is that a point of order cannot be raised until I have actually taken the closure motion because no member would know whether I was going to accept it or not. I have already put the question. All those in favour please say Aye to the contrary No. The Ayes have it.Andrew Williams: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I actually was standing to take the call and I got to my feet before the honourable Tim Macindoe. I was actually on my feet. Your view might have been obscured by the honourable Hone Harawira in front of me but I had stood to speak to my Supplementary Order Paper and I was advised earlier—and we checked with the Clerk—that I would have an opportunity to speak to my Supplementary Order Paper. I am—The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): The member is just relitigating the issue. I have made a ruling and it stands.Barbara Stewart: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. New Zealand First called for a party vote. Obviously you cannot hear us down there.A party vote was called for on the questionThat the question be now put.Ayes112New Zealand National 59; New Zealand Labour 33; Green Party 14; Māori Party 3; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1; Independent: Horan.Noes8New Zealand First 7; Mana 1.Motion agreed to.The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 406 in the name of Andrew Williams to Part 2 be agreed to.A party vote was called for on the questionThat the amendment be agreed to.Ayes8New Zealand First 7; United Future 1.Noes112New Zealand National 59; New Zealand Labour 33; Green Party 14; Māori Party 3; ACT New Zealand 1; Mana 1; Independent: Horan.Amendment not agreed to.A party vote was called for on the questionThat Parts 1 and 2 the preamble and clauses 1 and 2 be agreed to.Ayes112New Zealand National 59; New Zealand Labour 33; Green Party 14; Māori Party 3; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1; Independent: Horan.Noes8New Zealand First 7; Mana 1.Preamble Parts 1 and 2 and clauses 1 and 2 agreed to.Bill reported without amendment.Report adopted.Third ReadingMIKE SABIN (National—Northland): I moveThat the Kaipara District Council (Validation of Rates and Other Matters) Bill be now read a third time.Bill read a third time.Sittings of the HouseTIM MACINDOE (Junior Whip—National): As it is 1½ minutes to 10 and we have made good progress tonight I seek leave for the House to rise at this point.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there anyone opposed to that course of action? There is not. Leave is granted.The House adjourned at 9.58 p.m.