Volume 609 Week 27 - Wednesday 18 June 2003 
Volume 609 Week 27 - Wednesday 18 June 2003 
[Volume:609;Page:6329] 
Wednesday 18 June 2003 
Mr Speaker 
 took the Chair at 2 p.m. 
Prayers 
. 
Visitors 
Uganda—Parliamentary Delegation 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I have much pleasure in informing members that a parliamentary delegation from Uganda led by the Hon Zachary Olum is present in the gallery. I am sure members would wish they be welcomed. 
Voting 
Correction 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I wish to correct the results of four votes that occurred during the Committee stage on the Prostitution Reform Bill. On the question in respect of new clause 2A in the name of Dr Paul Hutchison that the amendment be agreed to the result was originally Ayes 16 Noes 99. The correct result is Ayes 15 Noes 99. On the question in respect of the amendment to clause 3 and new clause 3A set out on Supplementary Order Paper 71 in the name of Stephen Franks that the amendment be agreed to the result was originally announced as Ayes 33 Noes 83. The correct result is Ayes 33 Noes 82. On the question in respect of new clause 6BA set out on Supplementary Order Paper 90 in the name of Sue Bradford that the amendment be agreed to the result was originally announced as Ayes 63 Noes 52. The correct result is Ayes 63 Noes 51. On the question in respect of the amendments in the name of Dr Wayne Mapp to Supplementary Order Paper 91 that the amendments to the amendments be agreed to the original result was Ayes 27 Noes 85. The correct result is Ayes 26 Noes 85. 
Points of Order 
Question—Misleading Information 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. You will recall that some of us have been very assiduous in demanding that Ministers who mislead the House come down to the House at the first available opportunity after their knowledge of misleading of the House and correct the mistake. It is clear that yesterday a question was asked in the House by Mr Hide the content of which was demonstrably untrue. I would like to give Mr Hide an opportunity to correct that information now before he mistakenly asks any more questions on it. 
Personal Explanations 
Hemana Waaka—Commentary 
RODNEY HIDE (ACT NZ) 
: 
 I thank the House for allowing me this opportunity to make a personal explanation. I feel a little like Jonny Wilkinson after having missed a kick from halfway. Yesterday I stated that Hemana Waaka did not commentate the game between Australia and New Zealand Maori in Perth on 15 June 2002. I understand through the media that Sky Network Television has confirmed that the commentary did take place on that day. I apologise for my error. 
Hon KEN SHIRLEY (Deputy Leader—ACT NZ) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. When you asked if there was any objection to the member from ACT seeking leave I heard John Tamihere say “Yes”. I am not sure how that matter was resolved. One member can deny leave. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The matter was resolved by that member withdrawing that objection. 
Questions to Ministers 
Te Puni Kokiri—Chief Executive 
1. Hon ROGER SOWRY (Deputy Leader—NZ National) 
 to the  
Minister of Maori Affairs 
: Does he have confidence in the chief executive of Te Puni Kokiri; if not why not? 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA (Minister of Maori Affairs) 
: 
 In general yes but there have been some areas of Te Puni Kokiri’s performance that will be the subject of a State Services Commissioner’s review. 
Hon Roger Sowry 
: What specific concerns about his chief executive or Te Puni Kokiri has he expressed to the State Services Commissioner as part of the commissioner’s review of chief executive officers’ performance or at any other time and when were these concerns expressed? 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA 
: That is between me and the State Services Commissioner at this time. 
Mahara Okeroa 
: What will the State Services Commissioner’s review cover? 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA 
: That is a matter for the State Services Commissioner but I understand that the terms of reference for the review are currently being developed and will include ministerial support the monitoring of Crown entities including Te MangaiPaho and the general capability and performance of Te Puni Kokiri. 
Hon Ken Shirley 
: In light of the Minister’s answer to the substantive question how many of his replies to questions in Parliament have been corrected and who does he hold responsible for his answers being wrong? 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA 
: The person who wrote the question—who wrote the answer. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: That was the second part of the question. There was a first part to the question about how many answers. Could the member please repeat the question. The first part was not answered. 
Hon Ken Shirley 
: My question was: in the light of his answers to the substantive question how many of his replies to questions in Parliament have had to be corrected and who does he hold responsible for his answers being wrong? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I asked the member to ask the first part of the question. That was all I asked and all he had to do. 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA 
: As I said earlier on I have tabled 13 answers to incorrect questions made. 
Hon Roger Sowry 
: What specific concerns have been expressed to him or to the chief executive of Te Puni Kokiri by his Cabinet colleagues or other chief executives about the performance of Te Puni Kokiri and what specific action has been taken as a result? 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA 
: It is between my colleagues and myself and especially between me and the State Services Commissioner at this stage. 
Hon Roger Sowry 
: Perhaps the Minister could tell the House then what are the “systemic issues within Te Puni Kokiri that need looking at” as indicated by the State Services Minister earlier this week? 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA 
: That is something that will be undertaken in the State Services Commissioner’s review. 
Rodney Hide 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. During his answer to the primary question the Minister of Maori Affairs said that it was my fault for having written the questions that his answers were wrong. I took offence and I would ask him to withdraw. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member corrected that. 
Rodney Hide 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. He did not correct that. 
Government Member 
: He did. 
Rodney Hide 
: Well they can interrupt my point of order as much as they like— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I took advice on this matter and it was exactly what I recollected. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I just want to point out again an issue that was raised with you last week which was to do with the practice of Ministers answering a supplementary question—usually the second supplementary question which is asked by the primary questioner—with a very bland answer only to have a similar question come from a Government member in this case Mahara Okeroa with the Minister then giving an answer that would be a complete answer for the first supplementary question effectively wasting questions available to the Opposition. It raises the question that if we are to have a question time where there are a limited number of supplementary questions offered to each party and we have to choose how we use them it would be unfortunate if the practice of the Chair became such that it allowed Ministers to abuse the answering process to take up the Opposition’s time. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: If that were so that would not be in order; but it was not the case here. 
Nursing Graduates—Loans 
2.  
NANDOR TANCZOS (Green) 
 to the  
Associate Minister of Education (Tertiary Education) 
: By what percentage has the number of nurses graduating from tertiary institutions fallen since 1996 and has the average student loan debt of nursing graduates increased by a similar figure since that time? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY (Associate Minister of Education (Tertiary Education)) 
: 
 Between 1996 and 2001 the number of people graduating from tertiary providers with a bachelor’s degree in nursing increased by 15.5 percent. Analysing student loan debt by qualification has been possible only since the student loan data integration project was implemented at the end of last year. It was not possible to obtain information on changes in average student debt of nursing graduates in the time available but I am willing to give that information to the member if he sends me a note. 
Nandor Tanczos 
: Even given the expected increase in the number of nurses graduating this year is he concerned that participation in nursing studies is significantly less than other areas such as law and commerce which have grown significantly over the past decade and is he concerned that 60 percent of nurses are considering going overseas because of student loan debt and what concrete and specific steps is he taking to address their student debt problem? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: That was three questions. The Minister may answer two. 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: On the first question no. On the second question the Ministry of Education estimates that 7 percent of Bachelor of Nursing graduates were overseas in the year 2000. That compares with 8 percent amongst holders of bachelor’s degrees in general. The corresponding figure for doctors however was 17.5 percent. In other words nurses have a slightly lower propensity to leave New Zealand following graduation than holders of other first degrees. 
Mark Gosche 
: Have recent education initiatives addressed health workforce issues? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: Noting that the Minister of Health has a health workforce planning process under way there are two other initiatives in this Budget that are worth mentioning. First the cap on funded medical students will increase from 285 full-time students to 325 per year coming into effect next year. Secondly bonded scholarships will attract students into areas to meet pressing workforce needs. The Ministry of Health advises that its top priority is doctors and further announcements will be made about that in the near future. 
Barbara Stewart 
: Is the Minister concerned about the implications for the future of New Zealand when it has been reported that student loan debt has been cited as having influence over graduates’ decisions to have children—if they decide to stay in the country at all; and is the impact on community welfare given any weight in policy decisions in respect of the student loan scheme? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: The answer is yes it does concern the Government that there may be an impact on student choices around things like buying a business or having a family and so on. That is why we have moved so swiftly on the issue of student debt in the last 3 years. 
Paul Adams 
: In the light of the critical shortage of nurses in New Zealand and worldwide would the Minister consider measures to mitigate the financial impediments to studying as a nurse such as extending the interest-free period on student loans when a nurse agrees to a fixed-term position in New Zealand? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: Issues like that will probably be considered within the context of the work being undertaken by the Minister of Health. Of course we want to retain the nursing workforce but I point out the figures I have mentioned today in answer to other questions—that is in respect of the tertiary education system we do not have a problem in relation to nurses that is any different from a general degree. 
Sue Kedgley 
: Is nursing one of the professions the Government considers critical to the future success of New Zealand; if so why will nurses not be included in the recently announced $23 million package of bonded scholarships and research fellowships that has been developed to attract students into study and professions that are considered critical to the future success of New Zealand? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: Yes nurses are regarded of course as critical to the future of the country. But in the discussion around what is a relatively small amount of money for scholarships and bonding as we work out how that policy will work the top priority identified by health was doctors and that is where the money will most likely go. 
Sue Kedgley 
: Is the gender pay gap and gender loan gap that result in nurses struggling to repay average student debt of $20000 on a medium wage of $32000 being considered as part of the student support review and when can we expect to see this review which was due in May? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: I should point out that the time taken for nurses to pay back the loan as suggested by what is called the Iverson model—the one that was used for the nurses information released yesterday—differs greatly from the one that the Government uses which is the Tesler model. We would regard the Tesler model as much more accurate and it shows a much faster payback time for nurses. However those issues do concern the Government in terms of how long it takes to pay back debt and that is why we will continue to look at issues of allowances and the issues that the member has just raised around a student loan. 
Nandor Tanczos 
: In reviewing the student allowances as the Minister just referred to has he considered the particular issues faced by nursing students such as work placements and the hours and nature of study that make it difficult to maintain part-time or holiday work for these students and will he reconsider the Green proposal from way back in 1999 of introducing a universal student allowance? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: The Government is committed in its policy to extending access to allowances so that more students get a full allowance. The abatement period for that money allows more students to get more money before the abatement fully takes place and nurses will of course benefit from that. 
Employment—Pathways to Arts and Cultural Employment Programme 
3.  
RUSSELL FAIRBROTHER (NZ Labour—Napier) 
 to the  
Minister for Social Development and Employment 
: What employment outcomes have been achieved by those participating in the Ministry of Social Development’s Pathways to Arts and Cultural Employment (PACE) programme? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY (Minister for Social Development and Employment) 
: 
 The Pathways to Arts and Cultural Employment programme is an employment programme designed to help job seekers who have skills for employment in creative industries. One thousand two hundred and thirty employment placements have been made since the Pathways to Arts and Cultural Employment programme began in November 2001. That demonstrates the success of the programme in helping people to find work in the creative sector or the more general employment area. I congratulate the Work and Income staff clients and employers who have involved themselves in this innovative programme. 
Russell Fairbrother 
: What employment opportunities exist in the creative sector and how is the Pathways to Arts and Cultural Employment programme assisting job seekers to take up those opportunities? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: Industry New Zealand reports estimate that the economic contribution of the creative industries is around 3.1 percent of total gross domestic product (GDP) with some $7 to $7.5 billion in domestic consumption of creative sector outputs. A figure of 3.6 percent of total employment which is over 50000 jobs is directly in the creative industries. Job growth in the sector is strong at an estimated 3.5 percent a year and the Pathways to Arts and Cultural Employment programme ensures that job seekers are able to take up employment opportunities in what is a growing area of our economy. 
Katherine Rich 
: Does the Minister agree with his Associate Minister Rick Barker that “PACE is not a separate unemployment scheme; it is a resource pack” and when one of New Zealand’s most successful artists told me today that “the only true way of supporting creative people is by buying the work they have done” why does he think that handing out a bunch of Government pamphlets will do anything to create the next Michael Hight Stanley Palmer or Grahame Sydney? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: My Associate Minister and I always agree on everything. The Pathways to Arts and Cultural Employment programme is essentially built around the notion that we recognise creative industries as a proper area of work. For example I would point out to the member that the most often taken-up jobs as a result of the programme are those of artist craftsperson musician film and television production staff actor sculptor painter and related artist or graphic designer—all very good jobs in the creative industries. 
Dail Jones 
: How many works of art—that is paintings poetry literature or sculpture—of even a modest significance have resulted from the resource pack entitled the Pathways to Arts and Cultural Employment scheme referred to in the press statement made by Rick Barker on 3 December 2002 when 2149 people were registered on it? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: I do not have a list here in the House of the artworks produced but I repeat to the member that 1230 people have found jobs through this programme. They are in mainstream areas of work within a burgeoning creative sector in our economy. If the New Zealand First Party does not want to support the creative industries that is fine. We will do that for the member. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member will please be seated. That last sentence was unnecessary. 
Sue Bradford 
: In the review of the benefit system that is currently being carried out is the Minister considering options such as annualising income for benefit purposes in relation to arts and cultural employment as well as self-employment in the broader sense? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: Yes. 
Judy Turner 
: Is the Minister aware that of the placements into paid employment of those on the Pathways to Arts and Cultural Employment scheme between November 2001 and March 2003 only 36 percent went into jobs that related to the arts and that that constitutes a 15 percent success rate if the total number of those on the scheme is considered? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: Yes I am. I have to remind the member that what happens with the Pathways to Arts and Cultural Employment scheme is that people register their interest in being in one of the categories of jobs within the creative industries. If they find a job elsewhere then that is fine. They may do that. However many artists like to find themselves a job and earn an income. That helps them to support the kind of creative industry that they wish to go into. 
Marc Alexander 
: With regard to the list of those registered on the Pathways to Arts and Cultural Employment scheme released by his office in October last year can the Minister tell the House whether the eight acrobats 13 fashion models 20 television announcers and one stuffed toy - maker listed have found a job because I am sure we are all dying to know? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: I am sure the member is exploring some job options for himself with that list. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Know your friends! 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: Friends can always chip each other. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I objected to an answer that Mr Maharey recently gave. Surely there should not be a discriminatory rule that states that those who oppose this Government have a different rule to those who lie down as a doormat like Mr Dunne does. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: That is not a point of order. I took the Minister’s remark as humorous. Occasionally we have humorous remarks in this House—although it is rare I agree. 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: People can of course list their preferred options when they apply for work with Work and Income. It may well be that they move off into other jobs rather than stuffing toys. 
Question No. 4 to Minister 
RODNEY HIDE (ACT NZ) 
: 
 I seek the leave of the House to shift my question to the Hon Rick Barker who is sitting beside the Minister and whispering the answers in his ear. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member can seek leave. Leave is sought. Is there any objection? There is objection. That was a frivolous point of order. Would the member please ask the question. 
Te MangaiPaho—Performance 
4.  
RODNEY HIDE (ACT NZ) 
 to the  
Minister of Maori Affairs 
: How many performance reviews did Te MangaiPaho Chairman Toby Curtis undertake of Te MangaiPaho chief executive Trevor Moeke and did the Te MangaiPaho board agree to roll over Trevor Moeke’s contract for another 3 years? 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA (Minister of Maori Affairs) 
: 
 My response to that member is this: because the chair has changed Te MangaiPaho has not been able to provide the information concerning performance reviews in the time available. I undertake to provide that information as soon as I have it. I understand that the chair and the board agreed to roll over Mr Moeke’s contract at a board meeting in October 2002. 
Rodney Hide 
: When the Minister provides his answer will he also check to confirm that Mr Toby Curtis in every performance review undertaken every quarter checked every box as “excellent” for Mr Moeke and that that is the reason that Mr Moeke is still on the taxpayers’ payroll; and how come this Minister does not understand what the problem is? 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA 
: I want to ensure that there is validity in my responses and I am waiting for Mr Gardiner’s response at the end of the review. 
Janet Mackey 
: In the light of the external review report into allegations concerning Slightly Off Beat Productions what action has the interim chair taken concerning the performance of the chief executive? 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA 
: Mr Gardiner is currently reviewing the performance of the chief executive officer. 
Katherine Rich 
: Further to his answer that the board considered the rollover of Mr Moeke’s contract in December 2002 why did he not ask for a copy of the board’s minutes to be faxed over this morning and why would it take 4 hours to confirm one way or the other whether that decision has been made? 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA 
: I have been a bit busy this morning and I have asked for more information to be provided. I look forward to getting that this afternoon. 
Hon Roger Sowry 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Questions put down on notice for Ministers to answer surely require the attention of the Ministers and their staff. [ 
Interruption 
] Well Mr Barker and Mr Cullen may interject and think differently but they clearly—Mr Horomia might think differently too judging by the way he is face-pulling— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Carry on. 
Hon Roger Sowry 
: —but clearly they are a priority for Ministers before 2 o’clock. It is surely not acceptable to say and surely you are not going to let Ministers come to the House and say: “Well I know the question was put down but I just haven’t had time to get it.” It takes only a phone call and a fax. 
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: It certainly did not. I can assure the member that in fact the Minister’s office has made every effort to obtain that information. Partly because there has been a change in the chairmanship and partly because much of the other membership of Te MangaiPaho has changed information has simply not been available to be produced in time. The Minister’s office is making every effort to get that information and it will be made available as soon as it is here. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Mr Speaker— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: No I do not need any assistance. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Well it’s rubbish. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Please be seated. The member will not interject when I am speaking. As far as I am concerned the comment made by the Minister about being busy is not something that I think was useful to make. However I took it from the Minister’s reply that he had been trying to ascertain the information and that he would get it as soon as possible and then make it available. I took that from the first answer and that is in order. 
Hon Roger Sowry 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Can you give us a ruling on how this information will be made available? This is a matter of public interest. The press galley is full watching the Minister and recording his answers. Is the Minister going to come down to the House and read the answer into  
Hansard 
 is he going to table the reports or is he going to just stick the answer in the mail? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: That is up to the Minister. Usually when a Minister has said that he will give further information to a member he does so to the member personally. Once that information is given it can become public immediately it is given. [ 
Interruption 
] 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! The member does not know how lucky he is. 
Rodney Hide 
: On what date did the Minister learn that the Te MangaiPaho board had rolled over Mr Trevor Moeke’s contract—which expired on 23 January this year—and why did he not share that information with the public of New Zealand to explain that this whole review process was a farce? 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA 
: I do not have that information at the moment. However I assure the member that I will put it in writing and send it directly to him. 
Katherine Rich 
: Noting the Minister’s mention of Wira Gardiner once again does he stand by his statement yesterday that “most certainly” Maoris should consider voting National; if not why not? 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA 
: Most certainly not. 
Hon Dover Samuels 
: I seek leave of the House to read and table a copy of a sworn affidavit I have just received from Hemana Waaka of Maori Sportscasting International Ltd. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to read and table a document. Is there any objection? There is. 
Rodney Hide 
: Can the Minister explain why he does not know the date he learnt that the board had agreed to roll over Mr Moeke’s contract for 3 years or does he have to run off and check with Wira Gardiner? 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA 
: If that member puts down the specific information that he requires I will respond specifically to that member. 
Rodney Hide 
: In the light of the Minister’s failure to answer my questions in Parliament will he front up on marae around the East Coast with me as he challenged yesterday to answer those questions with him providing a translation in English so that we can get the answers in the form that he says he is most comfortable with? 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA 
: I am more than certain that I can assure that member that I will be more than welcome on those marae. I am not too sure about him though. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Given the party allocation for questions I wonder whether you would reconsider today’s one. I have listened to the answer to question No. 4 and I have yet to find out anything at all or to get any information at all in respect of that question. After 4½ hours of preparation the Minister has said that he intends to refer the matter to Wira Gardiner for an answer at some other time. That being the case I think that we should be allowed extra questions above our allocation. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: No. I listened to the Minister answer the first question and he did give out some information. He then indicated that he would get extra information. The point of order does not stand. 
Rodney Hide 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I hope that this is a new point of order from the subject of your ruling. I believe it to be so. The original question I asked was how many performance reviews were undertaken. Those would have been set out in Mr Moeke’s contract and are quite a serious thing. I did not ask what the contents or the results were; I asked how many there had been. The Minister has come to the House and said he has not had time to find out how many reviews there were because he has been very busy. You have accepted that as an answer. I find that we are now in a difficult position whereby a member can ask a simple question such as how many what happened and on what date and the Minister can say he has been very busy that morning and will get back to the member. Mr Speaker you should give a direction not just for today but for the future that you will be adjudging answers and that if it is fair and reasonable that a Minister could have got that information in the 4 hours available to him or her then you would expect that Minister to have done so. I also think that in this particular case because it is such a blatant attempt not to answer a simple question you should suggest to the Minister of Maori Affairs that he get that information today and share it with the House as any capable Minister would. 
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: That is a blatant misuse of the point of order procedure simply for the benefit of the television cameras. First of all let us have some facts. Ministers’ offices do not get questions at 10 o’clock; it is far closer to 11 o’clock by the time questions arrive. I know because I get them first of all—the entire set. Second we have been over this point already and Te MangaiPaho was not able to give the information requested in time for question time. The Minister’s office does not have the information. It has to be obtained from Te MangaiPaho and it was unable to provide that information. That information will be provided to the member who asked the question as soon as it arrives. I repeat that the chair has changed and most of the membership of the body has changed over recent months. Therefore there is not the institutional memory for somebody to remember all those performance reviews however many there were. Those are the facts and to question those facts or the answer given for the sake of appearing on the 6 o’clock news again—with false information as happened yesterday which the member will not repeat outside the House—is a misuse of the point of order procedure. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The Minister answered the second part of the question regarding the rolling over of the contract and I heard the answer given as a very specific answer. He did not answer the first part of the question because he said that he had to get some more facts and that he would proceed to get them. That is a perfectly acceptable way of answering a question. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: This had better be a new point of order. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I am pointing out to you that you have just taken a point of order from Dr Cullen suggesting— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: No I did not take a point of order. He spoke to it. The point of order was raised by Mr Hide. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Yes and you allowed Dr Cullen to go on at some length criticising Mr Hide and setting out a case that effectively was to excuse the Minister Parekura Horomia for his inability to answer a question today. We now have a situation where through a reply to a point of order the Deputy Prime Minister and Leader of the House has effectively said that although Mr Moeke has been suspended the Minister apparently had no idea of what his employment conditions were. That is simply not believable. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: That is not a point of order. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Mr Hide asked about how many performance reviews Toby Curtis undertook. Strictly that could mean as mentioned in the contract of employment of Mr Trevor Moeke. I cannot believe that that document is not obtainable and that that information could not be simply read from one clause in that document. He has had 3½ hours and to slide over this matter is to treat this House with contempt for the facts. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: No the member is putting his own construction on the question and that is not a point of order. I call question No. 5. 
Rodney Hide 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. It may assist matters enormously if the Minister through you could explain to this House at what time he expects to be able to provide this information and that he will come before the House and give it. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: No. The member will know from reading his Standing Orders that that is up to the Minister. It has to be in a reasonable amount of time and I am sure that it will be. I call the Hon Peter Dunne— 
Rodney Hide 
: There’s no point in coming here and asking questions. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I warn members to be quiet. 
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I raise it on the grounds that there is no point in him coming here. I think the rest of us would agree with the second point; you might care to take up the offer in the first. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: No on this occasion I had called Mr Dunne but he had not started. I think on reflection that I will now move to question No. 5. I call the Hon Peter Dunne. 
Rodney Hide 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I notice that twice now the Leader of the House has made points of order that were not points of order. Not once have you pulled him up. You have pulled up members from this side of the House every time they have made a point of order and I stand by my query: what is the point of asking questions in this House? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I think on reflection that part of the comments of the Deputy Prime Minister was not in order. That is why I ask him to withdraw those points. 
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: I withdraw. I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I assume that you will now be very tough on the continual points of order from members of the Opposition that are ruled not to be points of order. There were two just before that one when no member was required to withdraw. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I take this question very seriously because we have too many points of order in this House. From correspondence I have received from all over New Zealand I must say that that is something that is constantly referred to. The Standing Orders are quite specific: every member has a right to raise a point of order. That is the Standing Order. I have to abide by that. It is not even a Speaker’s ruling; it is a full Standing Order. Because I have always believed that every member should have that right I would not like it to be curtailed. But I think it is in members’ interests that they regard this issue very seriously. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Having taken very careful consideration of what you have just said I think it is still not appropriate for Mr Hide to criticise your ruling from his chair and to get away with it. That is a clear breach of the Standing Orders and I ask you to correct that. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: No I am going to move on at this stage. 
Sexual Offences—Women 
5.  
Hon PETER DUNNE (Leader—United Future) 
 to the  
Minister of Justice 
: Will the Government introduce legislation to fix the legal anomaly whereby women cannot be prosecuted for having a sexual relationship with a minor but men can; if so when? 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Acting Minister of Justice) 
: Yes. The Government has been working on a comprehensive review of those sections of the Crimes Act that deal with sexual offences including the gender neutrality anomaly that the member refers to. Cabinet approval for the changes involved was granted on Monday so the question is very timely. I expect a bill to be drafted and introduced in the very near future. 
Hon Peter Dunne 
: Given that the Minister of Justice said in April that he had been working on this for some months and that legislation would be introduced imminently can the Minister now explain why a further two-and-a-bit months down the track we still have no definite date for the introduction of this legislation which is a comparatively simple amendment? 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL 
: As the Minister wrote to the member concerned in April this year Cabinet will be making decisions on a revised sexual offence regime in June. That is exactly what has occurred. Cabinet made the decision on Monday. I appreciate the member’s concern about the need for legislative change. However it was important to address a whole range of other anomalies. The review deals with a significant number of other issues including for example time limits on prosecutions for certain offences against 12 to 16-year-olds. I think the House would agree they were important amendments to make. 
Dianne Yates 
: Has the Government’s review of sexual offences considered the issue of drug rape; if so what has the Government decided? 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL 
: Yes. As I said before this was a comprehensive review of sexual offences. The Government has agreed to include amongst the matters that do not constitute consent to sexual connection that the person is asleep unconscious or too affected by alcohol or drugs to have the capacity to consent to sexual activity. 
Richard Worth 
: What issues if any are more pressing in the Minister’s portfolio than the resolution of the issue referred to in the primary question? 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL 
: A number of issues have been of concern in respect of the justice portfolio. The fact that we have taken this opportunity to undertake a comprehensive review of sexual offences when the Government that that member was a part of took 9 years to do nothing in this area is a good indication of our priorities. 
Hon Peter Dunne 
: In view of the announcement made by the Minister in April that some form of change was imminent does the Minister think it right that in the interim in the case of the swimming coach and the 13-year-old boy it has now been left entirely to Swimming New Zealand to deal with the issue? 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL 
: No I do not find the current situation satisfactory. That is why the Government has made the decision to change the law in this area. It would have made no difference to that case if the law had been introduced earlier or we were introducing the bill today because its application will not be retrospective. 
Maori Affairs Associate Minister—Confidence 
6.  
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
 to the  
Prime Minister 
: Does she have confidence in her Associate Minister of Maori Affairs Hon John Tamihere? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK (Prime Minister) 
: 
 Yes. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: How does she arrive at that conclusion after his attack in the last 24 hours on the elderly leadership of Maoridom questioning their skill sets and their competence to take us into the next generation when we have a Minister who was guilty of forgery of uttering of numerous drink-driving offences and of having the books changed at the Waipareira Trust to disguise an $800000-plus deficit by declaring an unrealised profit—all of which is grossly illegal—and worse than that how can she have confidence in such a person’s criticism of people like Api Mahuika of Ngati Porou? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: I understand that the matters referred to have been covered by a personal statement made in this House before. Nothing the Minister said was as offensive as Mr Peters’ reference to Sir Graham Latimer in this House 18 months ago as New Zealand’s leading teat-sucker. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Is the Prime Minister aware that Sir Graham is about to be the subject of a report from the Maori Affairs Committee—a draft of which she has no doubt seen—and is she not also aware of the fact that Mr Tamihere’s record in business is not what he claims it to be and that the other circumstances as with Fortex would have seen him behind bars? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: If the member is making allegations of wrongdoing I suggest he make them to the appropriate authorities and show his good faith by repeating them outside the House. 
Hon Roger Sowry 
: Will the Prime Minister be apologising to kaumatua and kuia for her Associate Minister of Maori Affairs’ accusations that those leaders are “strangling their young successors” or will she just give her usual apology for any offence that may have been taken? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: I expect that most of the leaders referred to will agree with Sir Graham who said today that throughout history young people want to take over from their elders. Mr Peters may experience that at some time. 
Stephen Franks 
: Does the Prime Minister share her Associate Minister’s view that it is time for detribalised young urban Maori to take control of the sums now expected by iwi in treaty claims settlements; if so how will she make sure that wronged iwi are not wronged again as claim damages are taken by descendants of kaupapa Maori many of whom have never lost so much as a fish or a tree through a breach of the treaty? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: It is hard to know where to begin with such a question. The Crown settles with iwi on historic claims. Iwi have decision-making structures for how they deal with the proceeds of those claims. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Noting that I stand by my comments about Sir Graham Latimer being a crook and have stood by them for decades and noting that the Inland Revenue Department convicted him of nine offences of straight out non-payment of tax how can the Prime Minister say she is not aware of Mr Tamihere’s offence in respect of the Waipareira Trust business when it was part of an auditor’s report—a public report I might add—which in any other circumstance would have seen that person convicted and put behind bars as happened in the Fortex case; how can she plead ignorance on this matter? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: My understanding is that those matters have been dealt with by way of personal explanation in another debate in this House. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Will the Prime Minister please tell us on what day Mr Tamihere got up and made the issue of the falsifying of the Waipareira Trust books a matter of personal explanation in this House? If not stop misleading this House! 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: I do not have knowledge of Mr Tamihere falsifying books. The member should step outside the House and make that allegation. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The Prime Minister has given that answer twice. The second time I gave her a clear steer in saying that the audited accounts are a matter of public record. I do not have to step outside this House to say what is in those records; it is a matter of public documentation referred to by newspapers. I am entitled to an honest answer on this question. We have a Minister challenging the senior figures of Maoridom—like Api Mahuika whose family 
involvement with Ngati Porou leadership goes back centuries—and I am asking the Prime Minister about the information she has in respect of this simple matter. She first told us that it was a matter of personal explanation. That is not true—and Mr Tamihere is not denying that. Secondly on a matter of public information she said that I should disclose that information outside this House. This is a serious matter. The Prime Minister has covered up for someone who has committed numerous crimes and been convicted. She slides past those crimes as though we should all accept that. When he insults Maori— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I think the member has gone too far. I want him to come to his point of order— 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: When he insults the leadership of Maoridom some of whom have worked decades for their people and in many cases are unblemished then he has to be questioned in this House. All I am asking is for the Prime Minister to give an answer. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member can ask that and he can debate that in the House; we have freedom of speech in the House. That is not necessarily a point of order in relation to the question that is being asked at question time. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. It would be expected that a Prime Minister more than any other Minister would have the talent and the ability to give honest open direct answers not slide behind “You say it outside the House.” 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The Prime Minister did give an answer that perfectly addressed the question in her terms. That does not mean to say the member cannot debate the answer but that is not the point of order procedure. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I am getting tired of these points of order. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I am aware of what the requirements are in this House but it is not a debatable matter when the Prime Minister says that this matter has been disclosed by way of personal explanation. True or false it is not. The second issue is whether I should disclose this matter outside the House in public. It has already been disclosed in the audit report. Mr Tamihere knows that. So what is your defence of the Prime Minister’s failure to 
answer these questions? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: There is absolutely nothing for me to rule on. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: It is a cover-up. 
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. There are two matters I wish to raise. Firstly we just had a series of non – points of order from the member. I was required to withdraw for one very short one. We just had one that took about 4 minutes in its various angry phases. Secondly the member said that it was a cover-up. If that is referring to your rulings on those matters that is grossly disorderly in this House. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I did not take that to be the case. I take it the member was not referring to anything that I said. Is that correct? 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I am referring to what you said. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Then the member will stand withdraw and apologise. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I withdraw and apologise. 
Schools—Leadership 
7.  
LYNNE PILLAY (NZ Labour—Waitakere) 
 to the  
Minister of Education 
: What reports has he received of schools showing leadership and excellence in education? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Minister of Education) 
: 
 Mountain View Primary School in Mangere was today named the 2002 Goodman Fielder School of the Year in recognition of the school’s leadership in seeking academic excellence and a quality learning environment for its pupils. This decile 1 school is an excellent example of a school making real progress in literacy and numeracy under real pressure. 
Lynne Pillay 
: What can other schools learn from the 2002 Goodman Fielder School of the Year? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: This school has achieved academic progress through a number of initiatives including research-based programmes and assessment tools focusing on literacy. It is focused on programmes in both Maori and English to maximise learning for its students. This school has displayed excellent financial management which has freed up resources for computers and other learning materials and specialist teaching. In short Mountain View Primary School is a model of what this Government is striving for in the education of our children. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: In stark contrast to that school’s achievement why in response to the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study released in April this year—which showed that New Zealand was 13th in literacy and the second-lowest of English-speaking countries—did he say that those results were “very pleasing”; and would he if our All Blacks later in the year come 13th in the world cup also say that that was very pleasing; and by describing those results as “very pleasing” what sort of leadership in excellence is he showing? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member does not have responsibility for the second part of the question but he can answer the first part. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: The first part shows some confusion on the part of the member. What we do know is that this school would have its funding cut by about a total of $150000 if the National Party leader had his way. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I asked a question about New Zealand’s 13th ranking in an international literacy study and the Minister’s comment that: “these are very pleasing results”. I get an answer from the Minister that has absolutely no relation to that or any fact as a matter of National Party policy and I cannot see how that can be deemed an appropriate answer to the question. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I thought the Minister said he did not agree with the member. That is a perfectly reasonable response. That is a debatable matter. 
Craig McNair 
: Can the Minister deny that there is emerging a core of schools and students who are underachieving such as two out of four colleges in the Rodney area in which I am based which has some of the highest suspension and stand-down rates in the country? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: I think the word “emerging” is not the right word. We have had for some time a core of schools—some in low-decile areas and some in high-decile areas—where there has been systemic underachievement. For the last 4 years this Government has been working on that. We have made enormous progress in the suspension area. We have also made enormous progress in literacy in low-decile schools. 
Hon Peter Dunne 
: Has the Minister received any reports about schools that have been successfully introducing and promoting character education programmes; if he has received such reports what steps will he take to ensure that those programmes can be expanded—particularly since character education has been part of the curriculum since 1993? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: It is fair to say that the vast majority of successful schools have as their basis especially in the social studies and health areas values and character education courses and approaches. Some schools do it as a stand-alone subject using outside agencies to lead it; others have integrated it into the curriculum in a positive way. The latter is probably the best way of doing it. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: I seek leave of the House to table the statement from the Minister that these literacy results are very pleasing results. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that statement. Is there any objection? There is. 
Hernia Operations—Elective Surgery 
8.  
Dr LYNDA SCOTT (NZ National—Kaikoura) 
 to the  
Minister of Health 
: Have district health boards such as Lakes and Waikato ceased performing elective hernia operations in their public hospitals without public consultation on this rationing; if so why? 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Minister of Health) 
: 
 I am advised that no district health boards have ceased performing elective hernia surgery. 
Dr Lynda Scott 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. In the past you have always asked that we raise a point of order at the end to table documents. But I have documents here that show quite clearly that these two district health boards have sent out letters saying that they do not. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Ask for leave now—but that is unusual. 
Dr Lynda Scott 
: I seek leave to table documents from the Lakes District Health Board and the Waikato District Health Board saying: “We have decided that at present we will not offer consultation or inpatient lists for inguinal hernias umbilical hernias”— 
Documents by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Dr Lynda Scott 
: Does the Minister believe that when a general practitioner is immensely concerned about the impact of having a patient rejected from the waiting list and has asked the hospital to reconsider that decision the patient should at least be seen for a first specialist assessment; if not what are general practitioners supposed to do to care for a patient they clearly know needs surgery and needs it now? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: I agree with the member that a doctor has the right to refer a patient to a specialist when he or she believes that a person has reached a condition where he or she requires the attention of that specialist. I would expect that doctor to make that referral. 
Steve Chadwick 
: What are some of the reasons that have influenced a drop in the need for hernia surgery? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: There has been a drop in the need for hernia surgery and some of it comes from the use of improved surgical technologies such as laparoscopic surgery. In the past where large incisions were necessary during surgery it often led to hernias; and with the changes in the way operations are carried out patients are less likely to herniate following surgery today. 
Pita Paraone 
: Given the Government’s pledge to reduce the numbers on hospital waiting lists and the present practice of rationing some elective surgery can the Minister give an assurance that this practice will not compromise the health and safety of people on waiting lists who are requiring such surgery? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: The purpose of a booking system is to ensure that those who need surgery first get it first and that is why they are prioritised to get surgery within 6 months. The way we rationed in the past was to leave people on waiting lists for 6 or 7 years waiting for hernia operations they would never get. 
Sue Kedgley 
: Does the Minister agree that removing a patient from a waiting list when a patient has given his or her consent for surgery and there is an implied understanding that surgery will happen is ethically unacceptable and a breach of the health and disability code; if not why not? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: No I do not believe that it is a breach. If a person has been taken from the waiting list because he or she cannot receive the surgery within 6 months and sent back to the doctor for active review that does not mean the person will not get surgery; it means the surgery cannot be provided within the 6 months required. 
Heather Roy 
: In relation to the funding available for operations does the Minister deny that the ministry’s view in December 2001—at the time of the Minister’s big package announcement—was that the package would produce a total deficit of $79 million in 2002-03; and how is it that this morning at the select committee she confirmed an explosion in the size of this deficit to $192 million? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: That is very wide of the original question but the Minister may comment. 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: That was the predicted deficit at the time. The deficit did become larger than that but I am pleased to tell the member as I told her this morning that the predicted deficit for this next financial year is considerably less and I believe that it will be one of the lowest we have had in many years in this House. 
Dr Lynda Scott 
: What is her response to Dr Falconer a general practitioner of Te Awamutu who has a 42-year-old patient who has had to be put on a sickness benefit because he cannot work due to an inguinal hernia that Waikato Hospital has twice refused to even consider repairing and who states: “I consider this grossly unreasonable and a total waste of welfare resources to condemn this man to unnecessary disability.”? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: I suggest that the doctor take this up with the Waikato District Health Board because as of today both Lakes and Waikato district health boards inform me that hernias that cause major pain and discomfort or are disabling are being operated on. 
Dr Lynda Scott 
: Why did the Minister not know that the Lakes and Waikato district health boards are not offering hernia operations and why does the patient have to wait until a hernia strangulates—that is necessitating urgent and life-threatening surgery—before a patient can get public health-care and is her advice that all New Zealanders should try to take out private health insurance because that is the only way they will get elective surgery? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: That was three questions. The Minister may reply to two. 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: According to the Waikato District Health Board as of today it does not require a strangulated hernia for a person to receive surgery. In fact the board has said to us that hernias that cause major pain or discomfort or are disabling are being operated on. 
Dr Lynda Scott 
: I seek leave to table a letter sent out from Waikato District Health Board in respect of patients with inguinal hernias. 
Document not tabled. 
Dr Lynda Scott 
: I seek leave to table the letter from Dr Falconer expressing his immense concern. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Shipping Industry—Review 
9.  
PETER BROWN (Deputy Leader—NZ First) 
 to the  
Minister of Transport 
: Having ruled out the taxation issue for the New Zealand shipping industry will he be reintroducing cabotage when he announces the assessment of the Shipping Industry Review? 
Hon HARRY DUYNHOVEN (Associate Minister of Transport) 
 on behalf of the 
 Minister of Transport 
: The Government is still considering the proposals from the Shipping Industry Review. As the member is aware the review members were not able to agree on the cabotage option. 
Peter Brown 
: Has the Government definitely ruled out a favourable taxation regime—and I note that very recently the Hon Jim Anderton announced that the Government was considering such a regime for the film industry? 
Hon HARRY DUYNHOVEN 
: The review’s key proposal was special tax arrangements for New Zealand coastal shipping. Ministers did consider the proposal carefully. They did not support special tax breaks for New Zealand shipping because it did not fit the Government’s general tax policy and it could cause problems for other transport modes. 
Dave Hereora 
: What were the different views on cabotage within the shipping industry review? 
Hon HARRY DUYNHOVEN 
: There were different views on cabotage within the Shipping Industry Review. Some members considered that New Zealand’s domestic cargo should be treated as part of the domestic economy—carried on New Zealand vessels employing New Zealand seafarers and subject to New Zealand employment conditions. They also considered that cabotage was sustainable and would give support to domestic shipping and road and rail services. Other members of the review doubted that cabotage would do much to increase New Zealand’s participation in coastal shipping and also considered that it could lead to increases in freight rates. So the review was quite undecided on that issue. 
Jeanette Fitzsimons 
: Does the Minister agree that the abolition of cabotage has led to predatory pricing and that the restoration of cabotage has widespread support from the shipping industry and shipping unions as a key measure to ensure that New Zealand retains a coastal shipping industry; if so what is he doing to advance this issue? 
Hon HARRY DUYNHOVEN 
: Certainly I do understand the member’s point of view and it is widespread within the industry and obviously supported. As I said earlier the review members were split on the cabotage issue. I can confirm that the Greens are involved in ongoing discussions regarding the final decisions to be taken in respect of the review and I hope those decisions will be made within the next month or two. 
Peter Brown 
: Is the Minister aware that the shipping industry and seafarers are the only people in this country competing against cheap foreign people and companies and that the Labour Party when in Opposition and through the member himself made many speeches outlining that the Government would do something about this practice; when will it happen and what is the thrust of it? 
Hon HARRY DUYNHOVEN 
: Yes certainly I am aware of the heavy competition in the international shipping industry and the removal of cabotage which brought that to our shores. The member himself had the opportunity between 1996 and 1999 as part of a Government then to change the issue. It is a complex issue— 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: It is complex now! 
Hon HARRY DUYNHOVEN 
: Certainly and it always was I tell the member opposite. It is a complex issue and if it were so simple to fix it would have been fixed long ago. The Government is working on it. The review stated that extensively and a report has been given to the Government. As I said earlier I hope that the results of that review and the Government’s decisions on it will be announced in the next month or two. 
Peter Brown 
: I seek leave to table the Shipping Industry Review report in case the Minister has forgotten about it. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that report. Is there any objection? There is objection. 
Television New Zealand Act—Broadcasting and Transmission Companies 
10.  
KATHERINE RICH (NZ National) 
 to the  
Minister of Broadcasting 
: Does he stand by his statement of 27 March 2003 that “Following the passage of the Television New Zealand Act two separate broadcasting and transmission companies will come into effect on 1 July 2003”; if not why not? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY (Minister of Broadcasting) 
: 
 The Government made the decision to separate the television and transmission arms of TVNZ in December 2002. In February officials advised that there was a possible Australian tax issue related to TVNZ (Australia) but expected this to be resolved in time for separation to occur by 1 July 2003. In case this issue did take longer to resolve the Act was drafted to allow until 31 December 2003 for separation to occur. When I released my 27 March statement it was still expected that separation would occur by the 1 July date. In May officials advised that that resolution would take longer and we are allowing them to discuss the matter. 
Katherine Rich 
: When the Government was told in March 2001 that shifting TVNZ (Australia) into the new State-owned enterprise would trigger a multimillion-dollar capital gains tax payment to the Australian Government why was this issue not addressed much sooner given that the Government has been aware of this risk since March 2001? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: I think the member is mistaken. The arrangements to separate the transmission and broadcasting arms of TVNZ are a new arrangement as decided in December last year—that is the Australian part of TVNZ is to be handled differently from what was originally decided. So the first date that officials were able to advise the Government on this issue was around February and as I said we expect that those issues will be talked through by officials and a suitable solution found without any costs. 
Mark Peck 
: Why did the Government revive the separation option for broadcasting and transmission businesses of TVNZ? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: The separation of the transmission business of TVNZ enables each company to focus on its core role given their different nature and their objectives. TVNZ is a Crown-owned company and it gives effect to the charter while maintaining its commercial process. The Transmission Holdings Ltd part of the business of course is in transmission and is a State-owned enterprise. I can report to the House that the separation is going well. Both companies are now operationally separate and trading profitably. 
Gerrard Eckhoff 
: Why did the Minister ignore the advice in the Arthur Andersen report that stated that the potential risks of the transfer of TVNZ (Australia) into a new State-owned enterprise are not counterbalanced by the new expected revenue arising from any transfer to BCL? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: The advice was not ignored and the arrangements that were expected by that report to cause a problem of course are not being entered into. 
Sue Kedgley 
: If the issues are not satisfactorily resolved by the end of the year as the Minister is hoping what will happen to TVNZ (Australia) on 1 January 2004? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: We are not expecting any difficulty as we will be arriving at a solution by that time. 
Marc Alexander 
: Is the Minister confident that the separation of the transmission and broadcasting arms of TVNZ will produce an efficiently operating and more transparent structure as opposed to the clumsy three-board hydra that was previously proposed despite the present short-term implementation issues that have surfaced? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: Yes. 
Katherine Rich 
: When the Minister said that he did not ignore the 2001 report from Arthur Andersen has he overlooked comments made in that report that putting its Australian subsidiary into a new State-owned enterprise could have a severe impact on TVNZ’s Australian arm creating “a risk of loss of key personnel” and “would put at risk the international business strategy of TVNZ” and that TVNZ (Australia)’s ability to make money would also be under threat if it were separated from TVNZ? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: No. We did not ignore that advice. 
Search and Rescue—Boating Accident Oamaru 
11.  
DAVID PARKER (NZ Labour—Otago) 
 to the  
Minister of Transport 
: Why has the Government decided to initiate a review into the circumstances surrounding the search and rescue response to the boating accident off the Oamaru coast on 11 May 2003? 
Hon HARRY DUYNHOVEN (Associate Minister of Transport) 
 on behalf of the 
 Minister of Transport 
: The Government asked the Search and Rescue Council to review the circumstances surrounding the search and rescue response to the Oamaru boating incident because of concerns about the timeliness and adequacy of that response. 
David Parker 
: What is the purpose of the review? 
Hon HARRY DUYNHOVEN 
: The purpose of the review is to establish what occurred following the incident whether any improvements in current search and rescue arrangements and procedures are necessary and to make any changes if required. The purpose is to learn from the incident not to allocate any blame. 
Racing Industry—Gaming Machine Trusts 
12.  
LINDSAY TISCH (NZ National—Piako) 
 to the  
Minister for Racing 
: Will the racing industry continue to have access to grants from gaming-machine trusts and what advice has he received about the effect on racing clubs throughout New Zealand of ending access to these grants? 
Hon DAMIEN O'CONNOR (Minister for Racing) 
: 
 A number of racing groups have advised me that there could be a negative impact on racing clubs if they are no longer allowed to apply for grants from gaming machines. The Government is aware of these concerns. This House will decide whether the racing industry can continue to apply for gaming-machine grants when it considers the Responsible Gambling Bill. 
Lindsay Tisch 
: Is the Minister prepared to accept an estimated $6 million loss of funding to the racing industry if clubs cannot access grants from off-site gaming machines and charitable trusts with the result that many racing clubs may go bankrupt; if so why and how will racing clubs replace the $6 million? 
Hon DAMIEN O'CONNOR 
: Our officials are seeking to verify the statements that have been made in the media concerning the potential loss from the benefits that clubs have. Early estimates are that those figures are somewhat overinflated. 
Tim Barnett 
: What has the Government done to promote the long-term viability of New Zealand racing? 
Hon Annette King 
: Heaps! 
Hon DAMIEN O'CONNOR 
: As my colleague says heaps! On 1 August 2003 the new Racing Act will come into force. The Act simplifies racing administration by establishing a single statutory body the New Zealand Racing Board to take over the combined functions of both the Racing Industry Board and the TAB. The industry has been waiting a long time for this and we are very pleased as a Government to carry out its wishes in progressing the racing industry into the future. 
Lindsay Tisch 
: How does the Minister reconcile his statement in the  
Sunday Star-Times 
 of 15 June that he was working hard to ensure that any provisions in the new Responsible Gambling Bill were beneficial to racing when further in the article he stated that he could give no assurances to the industry that it would continue to have access to grants from gaming machines? 
Hon DAMIEN O'CONNOR 
: I am always working hard on behalf of the racing industry. The industry itself is aware that it cannot guarantee into the future that it will always have access to the money from non-casino gaming machines. 
General Debates 
Hon ROGER SOWRY (Deputy Leader—NZ National) 
: 
 I move  
That the House take note of miscellaneous business 
. Last week and again this week this Parliament and this nation have watched a Minister of Maori Affairs who is simply not up to the job. Day after day we see the spectacle of a Minister who is unable to do the task that he is paid for. We see the spectacle of a Minister who is not in control of his department. We see the spectacle of a Minister who has not done the basic reading and work that is required and that taxpayers expect of that Minister for the salary and the perks that they pay him. We see the spectacle in this House of a Minister who is constantly being babysat.  
In my experience I have not ever seen what occurred yesterday in this Chamber where the Minister of Maori Affairs had sitting beside him not his usual bench mate but the Hon Ruth Dyson who gave him the answers to every question but one. In stage whisper Ruth Dyson said to the Minister: “Just say this. Just answer that Wira Gardiner will review it. Just answer the following way.” Despite that that Minister still managed with one answer of his own to drop himself in it with another real clanger.  
His colleagues hang their heads. We see them shuffle around in their seats. The other day a bit of pass the parcel went on. As Mr Mallard was thinking of the answer he whispered it to Dr Cullen Dr Cullen relayed it back to Mr Benson-Pope he told the Hon Ruth Dyson and she whispered to the Minister—sorts of Chinese whispers to the Minister of Maori Affairs and the Minister got it wrong question after question day after day. The Labour Party might think it is clever and funny the Minister might think it is clever and funny but New Zealanders do not think it is clever and funny. New Zealanders expect the Minister to be on top of his game. They expect the Minister to be able to answer questions. They do not expect the Minister to be hiding behind the skirts of his officials.  
When something goes wrong he quickly falls back and blames the officials. I remind the Minister of the  
Cabinet Office Manual 
 paragraph 2.26. Has the Minister read that paragraph? I bet that he has not. It states: “Ministers are individually responsible to Parliament for their own activities and the activities of public servants in administering their ministerial portfolios.” The  
Cabinet Office Manual 
 makes it clear that the Minister is responsible. 
Hon Parekura Horomia 
: Useless! 
Hon ROGER SOWRY 
: I accept that the Minister might be useless but he is also responsible. I say to this House and to this Government that it is time for the Prime Minister to stop trying to carry the Minister of Maori Affairs—it is not a pretty thought; but the Prime Minister has a whole series of Ministers who come down to this Chamber for question time after question time with the sole job of giving the Minister of Maori Affairs the answer to the question.  
At the beginning of the week I thought the Minister would be gone by the end of it but I do not think he will be now because his Associate Minister Mr Tamihere has gone out and fallen on his blunt sword for the Minister. The Associate Minister of Maori Affairs manages to go out there today insult Maori elders and then get pulled off a radio programme midway through an interview. I have never seen that happen before. We have a hopeless Government in total disarray. 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Minister of Health) 
: 
 Do members need a good recipe? I have a recipe for them. It is recipe for a good old-fashioned coup. Let us take a pinch of opportunity: Bill English leaves the country. Everybody warns him of the dangers of leaving. Let us look at the history. Whenever a National Party leader leaves town they gather around to form a good old-fashioned coup. So the opportunity is there. Bill English has left the country. People told him not to go. In fact the old coup-master himself Murray McCully said: “Billy don’t go. Don’t go Billy because if you do they will be scheming they will be plotting and they will be planning.” Matt Robson put it into perspective this week when he said: “Leadership coups traditionally occur when three events coincide: the leader is out of town McCully is in town and the party’s support is half that of Labour’s.” What a mix what a recipe! 
Add to that a cup of cold opinion polls—that is what the National Party has been facing month in and month out for the last 4 years. Let us look at those polls. Of course National members decided that none of the polls were any good because none of them show that National is improving. They said: “We don’t like the NBR poll; it’s useless. We don’t like TV3’s poll; that’s hopeless. The only poll we like is Television One’s poll; that poll we can trust.” What did the Television One poll show this week? The Television One poll showed this week that Labour is on 54 and National on 28; Labour up National going nowhere! I want to know whether National members still think that Television One’s opinion poll is a good poll—or are they going to write their own? In fact I believe that they will have to write their own. 
They said that TV3’s poll was no good. They were going to give TV3 a second chance I think but I wonder what will happen if they go down in the polls in TV3’s poll tonight. What will happen if they go down? What will happen to Bill English if he goes down in tonight’s TV3 poll? So we can add to this recipe a cup of cold opinion polls and we can mix into this recipe desperation and a potential coalition partner dogged by scandal. That is the ACT party—a desperate potential coalition partner dogged by scandal. 
Let us look at the scandals. There is the matter of Donna Awatere Huata. They would have washed their hands of her—if they could. But not a single New Zealander believes that she is not an active member of the ACT party and they were right behind her until she embarrassed them. Then she was no longer part of them in the meantime. The second scandal is that Rodney Hide stands up in this House day after day attacking the Minister of Maori Affairs but he has not had the fortitude to leave this Chamber and go outside and say some of the things he said yesterday. Let us see where the real tough strong ACT party is dogged with scandal. The third thing— 
Hon Ken Shirley 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. It is longstanding tradition in this House that one cannot challenge the courage of another member which is what the member who is speaking just did. It has long been agreed that the word “fortitude” is totally unacceptable. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: That is right. The member will withdraw that comment. 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: I withdraw that comment but I do want to tell the House about the third scandal of the ACT party. I wonder whether many people have read ACT’s latest newsletter written by Richard Prebble. Richard Prebble said this: “Dunedin heart patients are being sent home to die because they are white.” What did his own health spokesperson say? She said: “He’s gone too far. I don’t believe what he has said. He has gone too far.” She declined to back Mr Prebble. There we have it mixed in this recipe: desperation and a potential coalition partner dogged by scandal. 
All we need to do now is to stir all that with a long-handled ladle and that is exactly what is happening. In this mix we have Gerry Brownlee in his corner of Bellamy’s plotting with his little tiny group of supporters and we have Roger Sowry and the ones they used to call the Young Turks or the young whatever they were. They are in their corner of Bellamy’s having their little plot. What is going on? They are looking for the big coup. When will it happen? Who will it be? “Nobody knows who it will be” those members are saying “but let’s have a coup anyway.” Put it in an oven let if fester and serve it up cold. 
Dr MURIEL NEWMAN (ACT NZ) 
: 
 Three years ago the ACT party started a campaign to open up the Family Court. It was driven by the recognition that family breakdown was leading to increased fatherlessness in New Zealand and that the fall-out was increasing levels of child abuse teenage pregnancy youth crime and substance abuse amongst young people. The ACT party realises that children who are not brought up with both their mother and their father in their lives end up suffering more poor consequences in life than anyone else. But because of the Family Court most New Zealanders do not understand how bad the problem is. The Family Court operates like a secret society. It denies people the right to have their say about what has happened to them. It denies the media the right to report on what is actually going on. We urgently need to model New Zealand’s Family Court on that of Australia. I will read from the Australian Family Court website: “The privacy of people who come before the Family Court is protected by the law. That means that while court hearings are generally open to the public the media cannot use the names of people involved when reporting a case. The judge has the right to lift that restriction on a case-by-case basis.” 
I say that in New Zealand we have a justice system that colludes with feminist lawmakers. It prevents good New Zealanders from understanding what is going on. We have a secret system that is denying New Zealanders their proper rights to open justice. 
Just this week a spokeswoman for the Australian Prime Minister stated that he was mindful of the need for male role models for children and the desire for both parents to have continuing responsibility for their upbringing. The Australian Prime Minister will push for shared parenting in Australian law. The reason he is doing that is that Australians know what is happening with family breakdown in their country because they have an open Family Court. It is about time that New Zealand’s Family Court was modelled on that of Australia’s. If it were we would not have situations like the Family Court judge who denied a 10-year-old girl her annual beach holiday with her family because he wanted to punish the father by denying him the opportunity to be with his daughter at the beach. The judge said it was in the best interests of the child and stated that it was a mere 5 days in that child’s life. To stop a child sharing her summer holiday with her father is punishing that child. That judge would not be allowed to get away with that if the Family Court were open. 
New Zealanders are getting sick and tired of a Family Court that is hiding behind closed doors. We are sick and tired of headlines like “Father in court over Christmas card” and “Dad convicted for sending present to his daughter”. Those things should never be allowed to happen. This country needs a proper independent review of the Family Court—not the politically correct Law Commission type of review but a proper independent inquiry that looks at where New Zealand’s Family Court is now where the open Family Court of Australia is sitting and puts down a step-by-step process to take us from one to the other. 
The Family Court is denying children in this country their right to be with their fathers and their grandparents. It is long past time that we grew up and realised that dads are important in children’s lives and an open Family Court would be a step in that direction. As I said I hope members of the Opposition will join in the call for an independent inquiry into the Family Court. I would be happy to work with all of them. 
DAVID BENSON-POPE (NZ Labour—Dunedin South) 
: 
 What a time it is to be out of the country. Two weeks ago Mr English was in Australia taking advice from John Howard on how to throw people off the boat. With the caucus that he has we know why he would find that sort of advice useful. Where is he now? He is in the United States. 
Lindsay Tisch 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I understand that a member cannot refer to a member who is not in the Chamber. He is overseas on business. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Yes. The member can now carry on with his speech. 
Ron Mark 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Can you give the House some guidance? Is it appropriate for the chief Government whip to be making such statements about the Prime Minister of another country throwing people off a boat? Is that appropriate in this House? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member knows that is not a point of order. 
Ron Mark 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member will leave the Chamber if he is going to raise that sort of point of order. It is not a point of order; it is a point of debate. 
Ron Mark 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: A point of order Mr Mark and it had better be one. 
Ron Mark 
: It damn well is! 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Please make it. 
Ron Mark 
: My point of order is that I am getting tired of being treated by you as some sort of whipping boy when I ask a straight question and get an answer like that. I would expect a little respect from you as you would from me. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member will now leave the Chamber. 
Ron Mark withdrew from the Chamber. 
Hon Ken Shirley 
: Speaking to the point of order— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: There is no point of order. The member can raise a point of order but it has to be a point of order. 
Hon Ken Shirley 
: I raise a point of order. I took deep offence at the statement made by the Government chief whip that the Leader of the Opposition is overseas learning “how to throw people off the boat”. We all know the connotation of the John Howard debate about the Timor strait and the allegation of people being thrown off the boat. I am sure that is what the chief whip was implying. I know that the whip of New Zealand First also took the same offence. I believe that it was a valid point of order. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: No I do not. It is a point of debate. 
Hon Ken Shirley 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I am pressing the point to you that I took offence at the comments of the chief Government whip. I ask that he withdraw and apologise for those offensive statements. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The comment was not addressed to Mr Shirley. Mr Tisch raised a point of order and he is quite entitled to. I said that was to be the end of that reference to a member being overseas. Comments about other heads of State and what have you are for the judgment of members. It is not a point of order; it is a point of debate. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I do not want to be the one to disagree with you but I think there is a very real question here when a Leader of the Opposition announces that he is on an official trip overseas on taxpayers’ funds and reference is not allowed to be made to that. There is a difference between saying that someone is absent from the House and a reference to someone who is funded by the taxpayer quite directly and has made media statements to indicate that that is the case. I think reference to that is appropriate. It is not referring to the absence of a member from the House; it is referring to the presence of the member overseas on what is meant to be official Opposition business. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. My concern is not so much about that comment and those outside of the Standing Orders in referring to the absence of a member—particularly in a debate like this one. However if a member were to say that the leader of any party was overseas learning how to commit for example corrupt acts that would be regarded as grave and disorderly. Throwing people off a boat is equally a criminal offence in the way that the senior Government whip has portrayed it. That illegality is not just a matter of debate; it is slightly more serious than that and that is what two colleagues in this House took grave offence to. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I agree with the member on that comment. If objection has been taken to that particular comment I want the member to withdraw and apologise for it. 
Hon Ken Shirley 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. That is the exact point I made to you and you said it was not a point of order. You have just now accepted the exact point from Mr Winston Peters. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Let me just say that I have had time to reflect on it and I might occasionally be wrong. This is one of those occasions. 
Dail Jones 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I trust that no time will be deducted from Mr Tisch’s speech? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Mr Tisch is not speaking. Mr Benson-Pope is. 
DAVID BENSON-POPE 
: Who does the Leader of the Opposition choose to take with him on that official visit to the United States but Simon Power Lockwood Smith and Wayne Mapp? It would be hard to understand why he would take two of those people but one could easily understand why Simon Power has to be with them. At least that is one knife that he can keep an eye on but the other two? We do not know much about weapons of mass destruction but with Messrs Smith and Mapp giving him advice we know where the unguided missiles are. What an embarrassment! 
However when we look at the National Party front bench—and the back-benches come to that—I guess we see that is as good as it gets. Increasingly the National Party is looking more and more like a rhinoceros. Why a rhinoceros I hear members ask? One might think that the rhinoceros comparison applied more to the ACT party. That is certainly the view of the  
Truth 
 newspaper which refers to Mr Hide by that name. However Mr Hide—that soft underbelly of bigotry—is not really the rhinoceros that the National Party is. As will be well known to most zoo watchers the greatest characteristic of a rhinoceros is its tiny brain. That is why it is such an appropriate image for the National Party. I would like to paint a small verbal picture of the activities of that amazing beast the rhinoceros. I have to give credit to the Swiss author Peter Bichsel—also a well-known social-democratic voter—who created this image. The rhinoceros as everyone knows stands very still for a very long ponderous time. Anyone who has been to the zoo has seen the rhinoceros behave like that. In its enclosure it suddenly just bursts forth and runs in circles then runs and runs and suddenly stops. It started running because it thought of something but being a rhinoceros—like the National Party—it just starts running an ever-so-little bit too soon. After running it forgets what it thought of and has to stop think of it again and stand still—dead in the water still in the enclosure—for a very long time. That is exactly how the National Party has been behaving politically in this country and in this House. 
I cannot think of a better example than its behaviour over Tranz Rail. I say: “Poor Mr Sowry the National Party’s spokesman on Tranz Rail. What a hospital pass that one is!” There he is sitting in the middle of those Government-owned tracks seeing it bearing down on him not knowing where to go and what to do. Like everyone else in this country Mr Sowry remembers only too well the detail of that great Tranz Rail privatisation. What did those previous National Government members do? They retired $1.2 billion worth of debt and injected $360 million into that company New Zealand Rail to get it ready for sale. So there was $1.2 billion and $360 million and in part 3 what did they do? They sold it for $328 million. Was that a good deal? Is it any wonder that that rhinoceros party sitting in the middle of the tracks is just a tad worried when it realises that 90 percent of the population of this country want to grasp the opportunity to get those tracks back into public ownership? And poor old Mr Sowry and his poor benighted party are sitting there with a blunderbuss coming down the tracks straight towards them. 
I say to that party’s members that if they do not improve their polling in the TV3 poll tonight it will be an unmitigated catastrophe for that party and Mr English—wherever he is—might as well stay there. 
MIKE WARD (Green) 
: 
 Last week during an examination of estimates in the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee I complimented the Minister on his ambition after he indicated he would fix up Auckland’s transport problems. I then asked him whether he was concerned about the greenfields retail development recently proposed for south Manukau. I asked that in view of the fact that such a development will add to the already serious transport problems there. He said that he was not. He said that the development would create jobs and would create wealth. 
I have to ask where the evidence is for that. I ask where the evidence is that any of the communities that have been blessed by the presence of a megastore in recent years have actually benefited. Are their citizens any happier? Are any more of them working and is the quality of the work they do more rewarding? Is it any more enjoyable? Are the products that those stores are peddling of a higher quality or are they designed to fall apart and to contribute to the more than 10 million kilograms of stuff that New Zealanders throw on to New Zealand landfills every day? Do those “big boxes” reduce dependence on private motor cars by locating their premises so that their customers are encouraged to walk cycle or take public transport? I ask where the evidence is of community benefit because research from Canada indicates that the big-box retail developments remote from the central business districts drive retail sales down and cause store closures in adjacent and pre-existing shopping centres. 
Anecdotal evidence suggests that declining retail sales are just part of the problem here in New Zealand. I have some sympathy for local authorities that are faced with yet another request for a zone change to permit yet another retail development on the fringe of yet another New Zealand town. If they turn it down they are likely to face the cost of defending their decision in the Environment Court and in the absence of a very robust district plan and in view of the dearth of research into the economic traffic social environmental and employment consequences any decision to decline consent can be extraordinarily difficult to defend. But permitting big-box stores in the lower-value city fringe or greenfields sites with lower rates creates a most un-level playing field. If we add the obvious benefits of scale enjoyed by the big stores it is clear that business closures and declining profitability are likely to result. 
Whether or not local communities get additional retail space is an issue for councils to rule on in consultation with their communities but permitting the kind of urban development that undermines local economies and creates communities increasingly dependent on private motor cars for going shopping is an issue that should be of concern to everyone in this House. Although I believe that a moratorium on big-box approvals until the necessary research has been done is a reasonable ask if the Government is unwilling to make such a ruling at the very least the Minister of Transport and the Minister for Industry and Regional Development need to implement a review of their impacts—that is the impacts of those big-box stores—and their desirability. They also need to make the results of that review available for local communities so that they are better equipped to make their decisions on the facts rather than on the desire of large retail entities to strip-mine local economies. 
The new local government legislation increases the capability of councils to better care for their communities but creating healthy sustainable New Zealand communities is a team effort and providing all councils with the kind of information they need to contest these issues is a reasonable job for this Government. 
LYNNE PILLAY (NZ Labour—Waitakere) 
: 
 There is 54 percent support for the Labour Government and 44 percent support for Helen Clark. That says it all. This Government has got it right. We are straight up we are accountable we are fiscally prudent and we are forward-thinking. We have good politics good policies good initiatives and good government. What do we see? We see more New Zealanders in work than ever before—an increase of 132000 New Zealanders employed since December 1999. Also as a former nurse I am so pleased to see reduced health costs in primary health-care. Thirty-four primary health organisations in our country are delivering cheaper more affordable quality health-care to New Zealanders. And baby boomers—and I am one of them—feel a lot more secure knowing that we now have a superannuation fund that is working. That is good for all New Zealanders. 
Our kids are having much better chances—through the Gateway programme initiatives apprenticeships affordable tertiary education with a fee maxima regime and a fair day’s pay for trainees. All trainees will now receive the minimum youth rate of $6.80 per hour. That is good for New Zealand. And why? It is because we want to see 150000 people in training by 2005. We need their skills and we want to ensure that all 15 to 19-year-olds will be in either training or education or work by 2007. 
We are investing in our future. Our growth and innovation strategy will strengthen this country’s growth and it is working. We are getting support—yes we are—of 54 percent compared with 26 percent for National. 
Lindsay Tisch 
: 28 percent! 
LYNNE PILLAY 
: And 7 percent for Bill! And where is Bill? He is closing his electorate office— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member must refer to members by their full names not just by their Christian names. 
LYNNE PILLAY 
: Where is Bill English? He is closing an electorate office and now he is off to the USA—if the heat is too hot get out of the kitchen! 
I quote from Bill English: “We want to create the kind of relationship (with Washington) we’ll need in government.”—dream on—“I’m confident. There’s no question about the leadership.” Dream on! Here is the doozy: “But he said the group was not going ‘trophy hunting’ by looking for meetings with senior members of the Bush Administration. ‘We will be meeting a range of mid-level people.’” This comes from a party that is not even engaging with mid-level people in its own country. It cannot do it here because it is too hard so it goes and tries it some place else. 
The trend for National is downwards. Let us look at the statistics. We see National has lost support in the main centres and among women and young people. It may be up 1 point but support is down 5 points in Auckland to 20 percent; it is down 6 points in Wellington to 16 percent; and in its heartland the rural areas it is down 13 points to 27 percent. When Bill English took over National had 39 MPs. It now has 27 and of those very very few are women. What about ACT the perk-busters the party of values not politics? Where is the missing member? The leader says they do not want that member in the party but will they expel her? No they will not expel her because they will lose the money. They will lose over $100000 of party advertising. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 Lynne Pillay would put Mogadon out of business if she had one more minute. There is an old saying in the Good Book that pride goes before a fall and I want to tell her that the polls might look good now but we saw at the last election when the media bias in looking after Labour could not go on any longer that in the closing 4 weeks Labour lost almost 14 percent. It lost almost 14 percent in 4 weeks flat. We intend to make sure the media does not get away with it this time. We will make sure the media gives us a fair go this time and Labour will fall a darn sight further and faster than that. 
I want to ask this: what could be more frightening than having Parekura Horomia as the Minister of Maori Affairs? What could be more frightening that that? Do members know what it is? It would be having John Tamihere the Labour Party’s bright-eyed boy whom Helen Clark keeps promoting beyond anything to do with his talents. I want to deal with that because I saw Helen Clark deal to a Minister of Maori Affairs in the most despicable personal way I have seen in my whole career in politics. She never had one leg to stand on. She gave fuel and fire to the allegations of criminal behaviour and she dumped him and she has the effrontery to bring back other Ministers although she did not bring him back. There was a full-scale police inquiry and were there any facts? No. I have never seen anyone so destructive in terms of dealing with someone to whom that person owed loyalty. But she tells me that John Tamihere is the man—the man who in today’s  
Dominion Post 
 comes out attacking Maori leadership. He can mention Graham Latimer—Graham Latimer has been called a crook for years and he is one—but when he starts on someone like Api Mahuika a man with a far better brain far better background far better lineage and training and a far better record of behaving himself according to the law then he will buy himself some trouble. What is John Tamihere’s record? He had a practising certificate in law once as a solicitor. 
Craig McNair 
: What happened? 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: He resigned it before he had it taken off him. 
Craig McNair 
: Why? 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Why? He was guilty of charges like forging documents. 
Craig McNair 
: Are you serious? 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Yes forging documents. 
Opposition Member 
: A lawyer? 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: That is right—he was a lawyer. I know it is hard to believe. He was guilty of offences like uttering. These are serious offences. Forging and uttering are not grounds for promotion in politics unless you are under Helen Clark of course. What else did he do? He headed the Waipareira Trust at a time when it had a business and was in serious deficit. Its whole liquidity and solvency was in question so what did it do? It got hold of a building that it had not sold and entered its unrealised profits—despite the fact that there was no sale—in the books as income for that year. What is that called? That is called fraud. In the Fortex case the directors got a loan and entered that as income and ended up in jail. What is the difference between this case and that case? There is no difference whatsoever. A man who was the former solicitor for the Waipareira Trust came before the Maori Affairs Committee—and that is why this Parliament stinks sometimes when it comes to a lack of accountability—and he alleged that Mr Tamihere had forged the names on 34 cheques. There are members here who were at that committee. They heard this evidence and what did they do? Nothing. There are senior Ministers here like Trevor Mallard and others and what did they do about this allegation? They gave John Tamihere a ministerial post. In any other society that would be the end—but no. There was one offence after the other: covering up the books uttering forging and falsifying cheques and on top of that there were five drink-driving convictions. 
Craig McNair 
: How many? 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Five. I can understand that a guy might have a bit too much on one night. 
Lynne Pillay 
: How many have you got? 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: I have got no drink-driving convictions. Sorry! [ 
Interruption 
] The member should not make an allegation that has no merit whatsoever. [ 
Interruption 
] I see. That is funny. [ 
Interruption 
] 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: No Mr Speaker I can handle this. I can always handle lies. What does the court case say? It says no such thing but of course lies are stock-in-trade where Trevor Mallard is concerned. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Minister of Education) 
: 
 That member has twice been a Minister and twice failed. He does not stick it out and when the heat comes on he cuts and runs. That is the member who I never thought would join the Greens and what did we see today? We saw him join the Greens—I have never seen a bigger case of recycled nonsense than we saw in the House today. He said he had a big hit and he was going to do John Tamihere over. What did he do? He brought up the stuff that had been brought up before and explained in the House. Winston Peters is a green. That is a kiwifruit I suppose—brown on the outside and green in the middle. That is the new Winston Peters. That is the approach he is taking now. The one positive thing I can say for him is that he is doing a helluva lot better than Bill English. He might have cut and run twice as a Cabinet Minister—it got too hot in the kitchen so Winston threw in the towel—but I think that is probably something that Bill English should do now. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. He can call me Winston Peters or Sir Winston but he cannot call me Winston. He should be more respectful. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: That is perfectly correct. I would ask the member to obey the rules. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: He threw in the towel. He threw it in twice when it got too hot in the kitchen. When he lost the argument when he lost sway when he was regarded as hopeless by the rest of Cabinet he tossed in the towel. But I wonder about Bill English. He said that the TV3 poll last time was nonsense and that it was far too low. He said that if he took another big hit he would go and I want to know whether that is true. I want to know whether if there is another hit and the National Party goes down in the TV3 poll tonight he will keep his word and resign. 
Hon Member 
: Let him stay in Washington. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: No we are not going to give him the job in Washington—let me make that absolutely clear. He will not be the ambassador in Washington if the TV3 poll says that the National Party has gone down. 
Hon Roger Sowry 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I want to know what ability we have to deal with a matter that is patently untrue. The Minister on his feet knows full well that Mr English never made any of the comments that have been attributed to him. He never comments on any polls—he never has. The Minister should stop making it up. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member knows that that is a political point not a point of order. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: I reiterate that it is my understanding that the Hon Bill English has given an undertaking to his caucus that things would go up and not down. 
Hon Roger Sowry 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The member has absolutely no understanding of the National caucus—luckily for us. He should not keep making it up. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: That is a point of debate. The member should listen to what is being said; I thought it was very flattering. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: What is really important in this Parliament is to find out whether Bill English gave the undertaking that things would be going forward that National’s polling would be going up and that he would be delivering or he would go. Did he say that or not? 
Government Member 
: Of course he said it. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: Well they are not denying that he said it. There are no denials at all from the Opposition members so we will take them at their word. We will be watching television very very keenly tonight. We will see whether there is any expectation of delivery on the part of the National Party caucus for Bill English. Will he deliver or will he not? I see that John Key is going to speak. I ask Mr Key to say whether after Bill English’s promises he will be satisfied if the National Party goes down again. Will the member be satisfied? I think that Bill English is in the end quite honourable. He will keep his undertakings to the National Party and if that is the result I make another prediction and that is that John Key will be deputy leader of the National Party within the next 6 months. 
JOHN KEY (NZ National—Helensville) 
: 
 Twelve days ago the Government once again waded into New Zealand’s corporate arena; this time it was to bail out Tranz Rail a company that for months has teetered on the edge of insolvency. The Government was so sure that Tranz Rail would go broke that it did not even wait for the liquidators to be called in. Instead it relied on the directors of Tranz Rail which is something the investors after multiple downgrades and the obliteration of shareholder value have learnt not to do. 
Dr Cullen was so confident that his deal would be approved by battered shareholders that he spent most of the press conference giving Toll Holdings a lecture about how unwelcome it was in New Zealand. As he put it Toll Holdings was on a collision course with the Government. What the Minister failed to consider was what the shareholders want to see happen to the company. He was so confident that the deal would be approved by the shareholders that he refused further meetings with Toll Holdings. He refused to talk to it about what might happen and he refused to see its managing director Paul Little when he came to New Zealand; instead the Minister dispatched one of the minions from his office as he was a little bit too busy that day. All the while the Minister was locked in secret negotiations with the directors of Tranz Rail over a deal that will see a failed board and failed management locked in a monopoly for 64 years. 
Well I have some good news for the Minister and for New Zealand. The New Zealand financial services industry has more confidence more brains and far more business acumen than the Minister. It will accept Toll Holdings' offer and what is more it will do it within the next 6 weeks prior to the Government having an opportunity even to put its deal on the table. And why would the industry not do that? The Government’s deal is so vague that the institutions have not got a clue as to what they can expect from Tranz Rail in the future. All that the institutions do know is that they will be stuck for decades with a failed management team and with a cap on their return that will inevitably lead Tranz Rail back on to the track of wastage and inefficiency—the very hallmark of New Zealand Rail prior to deregulation. The institutions will sell and they are so angry that they have written to the directors of Tranz Rail with a very strong message. They have said: “Do anything that wilfully breaches the conditions laid out by Toll Holdings do anything to scupper this deal sell Tranz Link before this transaction can take place and we will see you in court.” 
The Government had better work out fast that if it wants any ownership rights to New Zealand’s rail it is negotiating with the wrong party. It is high time that Dr Cullen dismounted from the high horse that he is well and truly perched on rolled up his sleeves and started to nut out a deal before the New Zealand taxpayers have to pay a whole lot more for the privilege. Mark my words: sticking two fingers up to Toll Holdings is not endearing the Minister to that company a well-capitalised company that will be able to negotiate from a much stronger position than an under-capitalised desperate company can. 
The New Zealand taxpayers up and down the land will pay for the arrogance of the Minister. They will pay for the way that he has treated with them and the Minister will learn that dealing with that company is very different. Maybe the Minister should learn just one thing and that is to stay well away from this deal and to allow Toll Holdings to run an efficient and effective railway in New Zealand like it does in many other parts of the world. The Minister should let the corporate sector do what it does best which is to run an effective rail network for the people of New Zealand. 
DARREN HUGHES (NZ Labour—Otaki) 
: 
 This has been a particularly interesting Wednesday general debate in the House. It started off with the National Party's so-called deputy leader railing against a Government Minister repeating sentence after sentence of the same tired old political rhetoric without mentioning a single National Party policy. The deputy leader has major portfolio responsibilities affecting very serious public policy issues that the Government of New Zealand is addressing and he did not mention one of those issues. His speech was full of all the usual vitriol and made a personal attack against one member of the Government and it was a shameful performance. 
It was followed by a smattering of applause from a few of his colleagues who had stayed behind to listen to what he had on offer. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Where were the rest? 
DARREN HUGHES 
: I do not know where the rest were but when the Hon Annette King got up in this House to lead off for the Government very early on in her piece she mentioned opinion polls. She mentioned an opinion poll that might be on TV3 at 6 o’clock tonight and National members could not scarper out of this House fast enough. If there had been speed cameras outside in the lobbies this Government would have had a significant revenue collection because they could not wait to go back to whatever little part of this parliamentary complex they now occupy to find out what the results would be. 
We have focused on the polls and no matter which poll one looks at it is bad news for the once-great New Zealand National Party. It keeps changing the goalposts in terms of what poll it wants to take notice of. It wants to look at the TV3 poll but then it is bad so it does not want to look at it. It then looks at the  
National Business Review  
poll but it is no good so it moves away from that one too. It then puts huge emphasis on the Television One poll. 
There are three reasons the National Party feels so good about itself and is so puffed up. One is that it has isolated its poll swing to between 21 percent and 28 percent. Apparently when one is trying to become the leading party in the Parliament of New Zealand it is some great victory to have a poll rating that stabilises in the 21 to 28 percent range. It is absolutely ridiculous. National is also feeling good because Dr Brash has said: “I don’t think Mr English is doing disastrously now; I just think he is doing very very badly.” That means the National Party now has a sense of unity in its team to go along with the new-found fantastic poll rating that it thinks it has. 
But the most telling reason of all that the National Party feels so great about its political prospects in New Zealand is the fact that Mr English has now started to be taken seriously by Mr Peters. Apparently Mr Peters granted Mr English an audience at 3 a.m. at the Hummingbird “convention centre” down Courtenay Place. All of a sudden Mr English feels as though his leadership has purpose and progress because Mr Peters allows him to drink with him in the early hours of the morning down at Hummingbird. Those are the kinds of measurements the National Party now makes of its political progress. 
The National Party is being run by people who call themselves the brat pack—four MPs who like to go to McDonalds and have their photos taken with one another as they order a Big Mac Combo and probably try to trade with each other the little toy that one gets. What happened? The National Party rolled into Parliament in 1990 with 47 percent of the vote. This Chamber was full of National Party MPs. Today the brat pack is in charge and the party is down at 21 percent. It has gone from 47 percent to 21 percent and its members believe they are political geniuses. It is extraordinary. They just get everything wrong. 
Mr Sowry criticised Mr Horomia for not being able to find out some information within 4 hours. Mr Sowry had 4 and a half hours to get his supplementary question right and he could not even say the word “kaumatua”. This is the man who wants to be Deputy Prime Minister of New Zealand and he talks about “kaa-mah-tuas” whoever and whatever they are. National members have no vision for New Zealand because they cannot even understand what ordinary New Zealanders care about. It is a terrible state of affairs for them to be in. 
John Key gave a speech and talked about Tranz Rail. I congratulate John Key on that. He actually talked about a policy issue rather than just spouting vitriol and that is why the seat he is currently occupying in the Chamber which belongs to Mr English is one that I believe will be thrust upon him very very shortly. All his colleagues are just useless. He is someone who focuses on the facts. But of course getting it wrong being a typical National Party trait that party gets the issue wrong. On the issue of Tranz Rail when the country is asking who the idiots were who hocked off our rail service in 1993 and put a key infrastructure investment at risk and when the Labour-Progressive Government buys back the tracks securing the assets and infrastructure for New Zealand in a hugely popular move what does the National Party do? It is so desperate to have a policy that its members come out and oppose something that everyone else thinks is common sense. They are an extraordinary bunch of people in that regard. 
So the brat pack must move on. We will give Nick Smith a job as a modern apprentice doing darning or something like that so that he can make rugs for Meridian Energy at a low price. We will try to cure Mr Ryall’s bitterness by making him a bank teller at Kiwibank where he can promote the new credit card. We will give Mr English a job somewhere. He basically agrees with the Government so much that he will limp out of this Parliament join someone’s Labour electorate committee and probably offer himself as a Labour Party candidate somewhere but we cannot promise much. As for Mr Sowry he can pack up his things in his shoebox. 
CLAYTON COSGROVE (NZ Labour—Waimakariri) 
: 
 It has been an interesting day in the House. First I want to touch on some comments that Mr Peters made. I have seen Mr Peters in many forms in and out of the House—we will not go into that—but what he demonstrated today by his brutal attack on John Tamihere which simply regurgitated a whole lot of things that have been talked about previously in the House by Mr Tamihere was the biggest display of the politics of envy that I have ever seen. Mr Peters referred to Mr Tamihere’s comments about the old guard in Maoridom. It is very interesting that Mr Peters concentrated on that because Mr Peters of course is the old guard. He is like one of those old wethers—I am not a farmer but I am told that is a very old sheep—that when it gets too old is taken to the works and dealt to. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I wouldn’t describe him as a wether. 
CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: What would you describe him as? I say to Mr Peters that he knows that John Tamihere is better than him and twice the politician he is and I think it has finally got to him. 
I want to concentrate on what we have seen in the last week. I want to concentrate on Mr Hide’s attack on Mr Hemana Waaka. At the conclusion of this speech I will seek leave to table the declaration made before a justice of the peace that was given to Mr Dover Samuels that refutes according to Mr Waaka Mr Hide’s allegations and also challenges Mr Hide to make those allegations outside the House. We have seen that the ACT team is the party of rorters. I and others have talked about this. We know that Mr Hide came down to the House and made a personal explanation today which I will not refer to and apologised to the House. 
He never apologised to the hundreds of New Zealanders who lost millions of dollars in respect of a Fiji rort involving a conference that he attended. He never apologised to SydTaare the victim whom Mr Tamihere and I represented. What he did was to send the boys around—the lawyers—and threaten to sue him. He never apologised to the people of New Zealand for ACT denying Donna Awatere Huata her vote in order for ACT to retain $111000 of taxpayers’ money. The taxpayer is now forced to pay for the biggest beneficiary in our nation Ms Awatere Huata who is on $90000-plus per year but does not vote and is not allowed to speak. She should be out of here. But of course the ACT people somehow reconcile that as a fair go. Mr Hide never apologised regarding the Pipitea Street electoral office rort. I am told that the office is now moving from Pipitea Street to a location close to the High Court so the walking distance will be shorter—which is quite convenient for Mr Hide and Mr Prebble. He never apologised for that. He never came down to the House and apologised for acting in a thuggish way on Waiheke Island. He never apologised to the person whom he harassed in a certain latrine. He never apologised at all to that person. 
Then of course he came a gutser yesterday. I am all for accountability and everybody on the Government side of the House has said that they are all for cutting out corruption and dealing to those who misuse taxpayers’ money. I am all for that. We should get those people. They should be nailed. But what I am against is slander. I do not know Mr Waaka but when he says that a member of Parliament has wronged him in this House and challenges the member of Parliament to say it outside the House I think that member Mr Hide should front up and do that. Mr Hide’s modus operandi is very interesting. His modus operandi goes like this: whenever his feet get put to the fire he whips out a personal explanation because then we cannot talk about it. Whenever his feet are put to the fire he is like the school bully hiding behind the teacher—in this case behind parliamentary privilege. 
I would never accuse Mr Hide of being gutless. That would be out of order. I think he has a ton of it. I say to him that he should front up go outside the House and lay it all out. But what does he do? He comes in here and grandstands. I acknowledge the issues that we are now dealing with as a Government in terms of corrupt practice misuse of taxpayers’ money and people rorting but I find it just a tad ironic that when Mr Hide comes down to the House and apologises he does not apologise to that chap’s family. I do not know him. All I know is that there is a declaration refuting the allegations. Mr Hide does not apologise for the hurt he has caused but comes down here and grandstands. I say it is about time he fronted up outside the House and showed the guts he possesses. 
I seek leave to table a sworn declaration made by one Hemana Waaka JP to one Angela Gillespie JP outlining and refuting Mr Hide’s allegations. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is objection. 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY (Minister for Social Development and Employment) 
: 
 I think most members would acknowledge that one of the basic rules of the House is that Oppositions should oppose. They should scrutinise Ministers they should ask questions about departments and they should make sure that money is spent in the way that it should be spent. That is their job. 
It does not matter who or what someone or something is whether a Maori Minister a Maori department or any other part of the State or part of the Government machinery that person or thing should be under scrutiny and accountable for what is spent. Questions from the Opposition should be able to be answered in terms of what has been done. Te MangaiPaho is no different from any other organisation. 
It is an organisation that stretches back some time. It goes back to section 53B of the Broadcasting Act 1989 when Te MangaiPaho was charged with the responsibility of advancing the Maori language and culture by making funds available on a variety of terms and conditions so that people could make programmes for broadcast for that purpose. There is a vision that says: “Speak Maori every day every way every where. It is a vision that has been very clearly stated and very clearly followed through since that organisation was put together basically by Maurice Williamson of the National Party—and well supported of course by the National Party. 
Problems have arisen with Te MangaiPaho over the last little while. Quite reasonably there have been questions asked about what it is doing. That has resulted in the chairperson stepping down the chief executive officer being on indefinite leave and Wira Gardiner being brought in to spend his time as chairperson of that organisation ensuring that everything is being run as it should be and that it is being properly overseen by the Minister of Maori Affairs who is keen to make sure everything works as it should. 
 Through all of this of course has run the number of questions raised by members of the House—in particular Mr Rodney Hide. Mr Rodney Hide has raised a number of questions usually by coming down at question time standing and in a pontificating way saying across the House in that imperious tone of his that he wants answers to some latest accusation that he wants to raise. And he has raised many. He has wanted to cast aspersions on all the activities of Te MangaiPaho despite his being repeatedly told that out of the many contracts let by this organisation only a few of them are in question at all and despite his having access to reports from the Auditor-General and other people who tell us that overall this organisation is running well and doing its job as it should. 
There is a definable small problem here to be resolved. Mr Hide comes down to the House time and time again to raise questions. I ask this question of the House: if this organisation were not a Maori organisation would Mr Hide have been doing this? This is the litmus test. Mr Hide came down here yesterday asked his question yet again and told us the long story of a sad saga about broadcasting that he had to reveal to us. Then I woke up this morning to find like everybody else that Mr Hide would not appear on the radio. He could not be found. He had nothing to say. He did not know what was going on with his question because as it now turns out he has had to apologise for having absolutely no evidence at all. That is the test that I do not think Mr Hide has passed. Mr Hide would not have come down to the House without evidence and assumed that something was wrong assumed that he could get away with saying whatever he liked about this organisation without proof and assumed that somehow it would just be OK—that he could make these kinds of accusations without any proof and he would get away with it it would be OK—if it were a Pakeha organisation. I do not believe he would have done that to the Inland Revenue Department to the Ministry of Social Development or to Treasury; he would have got his facts right. 
Mr Hide is no fool. Mr Hide is a man who spends his time in the gutter getting the scandals out—that is the nature of his trade as a parliamentarian. He is not a Don Brash; he does not want the issues. He wants only one thing—the scandals. He checks his facts usually before he comes down but not this time. That really does raise something in my mind that I want to reflect on today and that I want members to reflect on. We all say to each other in here that there is one rule of accountability for us all and we agree with that. Well let us see Mr Hide do that. Let us see Mr Hide come down here and raise questions only when he has proof and not cast aspersions as he did yesterday that prove to be wrong. 
The debate having concluded the motion lapsed. 
Imprest Supply (First for 2003/04) Bill 
First Reading 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Minister of Finance) 
: 
 I move  
That the Imprest Supply (First for 2003/04) Bill be now read a first time. 
Bill read a first time. 
Appropriation (2002/03 Supplementary Estimates) Bill 
Second Reading 
Imprest Supply Debate 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Minister of Finance) 
: 
 I move  
That the Appropriation (2002/03 Supplementary Estimates) Bill and the Imprest Supply (First for 2003/04) Bill be now read a second time 
. It is with pleasure that I rise to speak on these two bills. I noticed that while the Imprest Supply Bill was tabled not a single Opposition member went to pick it up to read what it says. That gives an indication of how informed they intend to be for the remainder of this debate. Opposition members will have had their speech notes written out long in advance without any reference to what is actually said in the Imprest Supply Bill. That is the nature of the modern Opposition. 
The supplementary estimates provide for new spending of some $312 million over and above that voted in the 2002-03 main votes. The majority of it $194 million goes to education in three main areas one of which is purely technical—depreciation of $83 million because of higher asset valuations requiring therefore higher depreciation provision. The other areas are the teachers’ pay settlement which cost $45 million in this year—somewhat less than the National Party thought we should have settled for—and the tertiary subsidy of $58 million which is a result of growth in the tertiary education system being higher than that forecast. Most of the rest consists of a series of technical adjustments rather than representing major new spending initiatives. 
The Imprest Supply Bill provides for supply for 2 months—in other words through to the end of August because the main bill has to be passed by 23 August. So funding will be sufficient for that 2-month period which is the norm—differentiated last year because of the Air New Zealand situation requiring rather more. Also the oncoming election required the Government to carry through to later in the year because the bill would not have been passed in time. 
It is worth repeating many features of the Government’s accounts and the economy and indeed the fiscal position that New Zealand faces at the present time. Over the last year or two—indeed the last 3 years—New Zealand has experienced strong economic growth. In the year ended March we had almost certainly one of the highest levels in the OECD and we are expecting continued growth above the OECD average over the coming 2 years despite the expected slow-down. It is the relative rate of growth that counts not the absolute rate of growth in terms of our relative standard of living. We have seen low unemployment dropping down to 5 percent which is the lowest for 15 years. It is not expected to rise significantly above that level over the forecast horizon. We have seen modest inflation of around 2.5 percent or so and we are expecting to see that figure fall back significantly as a result of the falling United States dollar impacting therefore on a strengthening New Zealand dollar. 
We are expecting as every forecaster is a slow-down during this year. Indeed it is clear that that slow-down is already occurring at the present time. It is not impossible that one of the quarters in the middle of this year will produce a negative figure. The second quarter in particular could produce that given the impact of reduced hydroelectricity generation and the impact that that has on the calculation of gross domestic product as a value-added measure compared with thermal generation of electricity. It is a technical effect rather than a real economy effect. We are expecting those figures to pick up again later in the year but there is great uncertainty still around the international outlook. We still have the follow-on impacts of the sudden acute respiratory syndrome epidemic (Sars); there is still considerable uncertainty in the Middle East; the European economy is clearly showing considerable inability to grow; and the Japanese economy is not moving outside the frame that it has been in for a good decade or more. 
But against that a number of things can be said. The United States economy's numbers are all starting now to move in the same direction; up until the last 3 or 4 weeks one could have said the numbers were looking pretty conflicting but those coming in now pretty much look towards a US recovery in the latter part of this year. The Sars epidemic seems to be getting under control and that I think will have an impact upon the regrowth of tourism in New Zealand later this year. As I said the slow-down is beginning to show up in some of the data—in retail sales figures in  
ANZ Job Ads  
indices and so on—but they are pretty much in line with the forecast within the Budget of a slow-down to growth of 2 percent or so over the coming year picking up thereafter but with a small increase in unemployment then falling back again subsequently. 
What that does say is both with the slow-down and with the uncertainty surrounding the outlook for the coming year and with indeed some somewhat contradictory taxation numbers starting to come through in the figures—which will be released before too long—the Government’s indication of fiscal caution is the wise one. This is not the time for Governments to be engaged in massive new structural spending or massive changes on the revenue side given the uncertainty of that outlook. [ 
Interruption 
] Of course Muriel Newman would give a structural adjustment. The ACT party has said that the figure for the operating balance excluding revaluations and accounting changes—$4 billion—should all be spent. It would actually spend the entire difference between cash movement in and out. 
I think the member should correct herself. She should read the pamphlet she has been having put out to every household which rashly is promising a tax cut that requires us to spend the entire $4 billion surplus. Of course the final operating balance is $1.4 billion. But more than that—as Dr Brash will realise not being silly enough to have made those kinds of remarks following the Budget—if we did that we would be rapidly moving back into substantial borrowing on the Government’s accounts because that $4 billion surplus does not include a large amount of capital spending which of course is not counted against the operating surplus under accruals accounting. We would very rapidly start moving back to rising debt-to-gross-domestic-product ratios with all the implications that would have for future Government financing. 
This Government has no intention of taking New Zealand back down that path and we are supported by 70 percent of New Zealanders in that respect; 70 percent of New Zealanders said in a poll that the Government was right to take a cautious approach and to keep its fiscal surplus. Those who argue otherwise are in the 30 percent minority and we are quite happy for all the other minor parties opposite to fight amongst themselves for that 30 percent of the vote if the parties on this side of the House can maintain the support of something like 70 percent of New Zealanders. There was a time in our history I have to say when the leaders of a Labour Government thought that getting more than 30 percent support for any measure meant it must be wrong and proved that the Government was being insufficiently courageous. This Government tends to take the rather different view that in fact it is desirable to work in harmony with the people rather than be in continuous warfare with them—not least because we all come up for a 3-yearly performance review carried out by the public at large and they tend to make their decisions in a fairly brutal fashion if a Government has got offside with them. 
The key budgetary features were funding for the growth and innovation framework in terms of support for research and development support for business incubators support for a whole range of initiatives in the business development area and looking forward to some significant tax changes particularly in the small to medium-sized business area. What we have had from the Opposition ever since then is simply a continuation of its history of sort of scab-scratching incompetence which is all it seems able to manage as a party. Mr English has fled to friendlier pastures in Washington DC. The latest polls show and we will see some more tonight on TV3 that the National Party is continuing to muck around in the doldrums while the Government is maintaining support at well over 50 percent within the opinion polls even the one the National Party relies on—the Colmar Brunton. 
On every key issue National members have decided to oppose what New Zealanders want. When we said we wanted more electricity they said that it should be free that there should be no cost attached to increasing the electricity supply within New Zealand. A brilliant piece of economics! 
On rail they have said we should flog it off again 100 percent to the Australians. That was actively supported by Mr Key in the House today despite the fact that on Monday night it became clear that Mr Little does not even know there is no subsidy of Tranz Rail at the moment—he thinks there is a $20 million a year subsidy of Tranz Rail now that the Government offered—despite the fact that Toll Holdings does not know about the safety problems on Tranz Rail which are public knowledge and in the public arena; and despite the fact that it seems to think it can have carry-forward of tax losses when it takes over Tranz Rail. It has not read our tax laws in that particular respect. The Toll Holdings business is a kind of “toll of doom” in terms of its approach to Tranz Rail. Meanwhile National Party members run around like a flock of sodden sheep in the rain hoping that Mary Poppins is coming down with an umbrella to try to turn them dry again at some time in the future. 
The ACT party has got itself into the funny position of being the biggest suckers on the public teat that there is keeping Mrs Awatere Huata’s $110000 while denying her a vote. Then we have the fraud over the operation of its electorate offices which all suddenly happen to be in Wellington. Then we have Ms Coddington going off at the Government’s expense for 4 months at Cambridge University while being paid a full parliamentary salary. And Mr Hide comes down to the House and talks about Maori broadcasters! That is from a party— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member but his time has expired. 
Dr DON BRASH (NZ National) 
: 
 It will not surprise the House to know that I am not proposing to vote in favour of the Minister’s resolution. Indeed I will oppose the Minister’s resolution. Let me say that I agree with one or two of the things he said. For example he does say that the New Zealand economy has grown well in the last few years. He does not however acknowledge why it has grown well in the last few years. The New Zealand economy has grown well because of the successful policies of the past—because in the last few years we have had the lowest exchange rate in New Zealand’s history; because with security concerns overseas we have had a strong net inflow of people over the last little while; and because in 2001 monetary policy was eased rather aggressively. Those reasons for our success have nothing whatsoever to do with this Government’s policies. 
But now as the Minister also acknowledged the chickens are coming home to roost. He said that in the year to March 2003 New Zealand would have one of the strongest growth rates in the OECD. What he did not say was that the first quarter of this year—the last quarter of that 12 months to March 2003—would have a growth rate of about 0.5 percent according to most estimates or an annualised rate of 2 percent; and that the second quarter of this year looks like seeing a contraction of the economy. Both Treasury and the Reserve Bank estimate that over the 12 months roughly starting now the New Zealand economy will grow at just over 2 percent. The building industry is slowing down job advertisements are down quite sharply and business confidence is at one of the lowest levels in New Zealand’s history. Although the Minister says the economy will bounce back to about 3 percent growth in the next financial year there are many respectable observers—such as the Institute of Economic Research—who suggest that even in the year to March 2005 the New Zealand economy will grow at only about 2 percent. 
The real problem is not this cyclical slow-down but rather the fact that the trend in the rate of growth of the New Zealand economy will be between 2 and 3 percent over the next decade. Over the last 10 years the New Zealand economy measured by gross domestic product (GDP) has grown at an average rate of 3.5 percent. Over the next 10 years as revealed in the Minister’s own Budget the estimate is an average growth rate of 2.5 percent. Growth in per capita GDP over the last 10 years—the 10 years to 2002—averaged 2.25 percent. Treasury estimates that in the next 10 years per capita GDP will grow at only 1.8 percent—significantly slower than over the last decade. 
Yes as the Minister is fond of pointing out this is a projection not a forecast but it reflects the best judgment of the Government’s official advisers on labour productivity trends. The Government’s official advisers are projecting that labour productivity will grow at only 1.5 percent per annum over the next decade. That is lower than the growth rate of 1.75 percent projected by the Australian Treasury for Australia. That means of course that the gap between our living standards and those in Australia will continue to widen. It means also that our Prime Minister was simply acknowledging the fact that there is not a dog’s chance of New Zealand recovering to the top half of the OECD within a decade. Indeed at the present rate of progress we might not make it in two decades or three decades. 
The Government is doing nothing of substance to change that situation. At almost every turn the Government erects barriers to growth. There is a failure to fix the problems in the Resource Management Act the Local Government Act the Health and Safety in Employment Act the Land Transport Management Bill and on and on. All those things make business more dangerous more risky more difficult and they will slow New Zealand’s growth rate. 
Since we are talking about the Imprest Supply Bill the Budget and similar matters I want to talk about one particular area of failure. In 1999 the Labour Party campaigned on the fact that it was proposing to increase the top rate of tax from 33c to 39c and it said that would affect only the top 5 percent of taxpayers. What do we have now? Ten percent of all taxpayers are now into the top 39 percent tax bracket and almost 20 percent—one in five—of taxpayers in full-time employment are now into that 39 percent tax rate. If we want to restrict the increase in the tax rate to the top 5 percent of taxpayers the threshold will have to go from $60000 a year to $80000 a year. Some of the people indeed all of the people who are earning more than $60000 a year face paying almost half their income above $60000 in tax—39 percent in income tax and about another 6 or 7 percent in GST. Some 60 percent of full-time employees—taxpayers—are now in a 33 percent tax bracket and paying over 40 percent of the income they earn above $38000 in income tax and GST. In addition the Government has increased taxes on cigarettes very sharply—the excise tax went up by 23 percent back in 2001. The Government has recently increased the tax on some kinds of alcohol petrol taxes have gone up and now the Government proposes a tax on electricity. In addition fiscal drag—the impact of inflation on people’s incomes—has pushed more and more people into higher and higher tax brackets. 
How can we expect to have a growing economy when we punish the most successful people in our society so aggressively? We take it for granted that if we want to discourage the consumption of cigarettes alcohol and certain behaviours we increase the tax on them. That is taken for granted by most members of this House. Surely the same effect exactly applies to income tax. If we increase the tax on higher levels of income we discourage people from earning income we discourage investment we discourage work and we discourage business risk. That cannot be good for New Zealand’s growth rate. 
It is sometimes contended that to be fair we need to have a very high rate of tax on the people who earn higher levels of income. What we sometimes overlook is that the levels of income tax paid by people earning a little above the average are already substantial. For example someone earning $100000 a year with a non-earning spouse and two children under 13 is paying approximately 1000 times more in income tax per year than someone who earns $25000 with the same family circumstances. If we want growth in this country we cannot afford the luxury of a tax system that penalises the people who work and take business risk. I am strongly opposed to this bill. 
PETER BROWN (Deputy Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 Well that was an academic’s view of the economy. I want to be a little more hands-on. If we want to develop this country we have to develop some of our infrastructure particularly roading. The roads in this country have not kept pace with traffic volumes or vehicle type. That is putting it simply but bluntly. Roads in many areas of this country are a disgrace and it is an absolute disgrace for us to say that the roads in Auckland are inadequate. It is costing the country $1 billion a year but we will sit around the table and talk about it and procrastinate for ever. We should be addressing the roading problem of this country with some urgency. 
I am encouraged that the Minister Dr Cullen has now got a small group of Ministers to recognise that there is at least a problem in Auckland. But he has done nothing announced nothing and is simply saying that it will be a talkfest. When one moves a little further away from Auckland down to Tauranga where I come from the biggest export port in the country— 
Mita Ririnui 
: It is a lovely place. 
PETER BROWN 
: It is a lovely place but it is being besieged with trucks and the trucking industry and the roading issue in Tauranga has to be addressed with some urgency. Urgent attention needs to be applied to roading in Auckland Tauranga and other places in this country. The Government got into cahoots with the Greens went around talking wacky baccy or something and the Greens came out with a road traffic reduction bill which the Government appears to think is the best thing since sliced bread. I tell those Government members over there that roading in this country is in dire straits in many areas and it should have urgent consideration. I believe that the only solution is to borrow and I say that with some reluctance. I notice from the Government’s own Budget figures that to borrow $1 billion will cost this country $57 million a year. 
David Benson-Pope 
: Where will we borrow from—foreign banks? 
PETER BROWN 
: The Accident Compensation Corporation has about $2.5 billion maybe $3 billion that it invests in all sorts of areas. The corporation apparently invests in breweries and it could be encouraged to invest in roading. But the area I think we should be borrowing from is the Superannuation Fund which is sitting there doing nothing. 
Ron Mark 
: It’s losing money. 
PETER BROWN 
: Is that right? Well it is going backwards because inflation is sucking it away. We should be investing that money in our roading infrastructure. When it gets loaned out overseas—as I am sure it will be under Dr Cullen’s instructions—it will end up being invested in the infrastructure of some other country. I want to make it quite clear now that New Zealand First believes that our roading infrastructure should be developed and we should be using Superannuation Fund money to develop it. Frankly to do nothing is not an acceptable solution. It is a problem that will not go away. 
I want to touch a little bit on shipping. When Labour came to power the shipping industry put great store on that party in particular to address its concerns. It is a shrinking industry and it is on the verge of almost totally disappearing. New Zealand is an island nation tucked right down at the bottom of the South Pacific where 99 percent of our external trade—that is our exports and imports—comes and goes by ship. Yet we have a policy that is to the detriment of New Zealand shipowners and seafarers. 
In its first term the Government came out with  
A Future for New Zealand Shipping 
 which was a report from the Shipping Industry Review. That was completed in December 2000 and we have yet to hear the Government’s response. Its silence on this issue is deafening. Meanwhile we are losing more and more ships on the New Zealand coast. We have lost all our international ships—they have all disappeared and been replaced by foreign ships with foreign crews. Many of the people who bring trade to this country seek the assistance of New Zealanders to help them do their jobs—not all of them but many of them do. I urge this Government to get on with it and announce what it will do for the shipping industry in this country. 
The Government has basically two choices. Firstly it can instigate a favourable tax regime that will encourage the development of shipping services and employment. We dearly need the skills of competent seafarers in this country. We have 13 ports and all of them require maritime expertise coming on stream in the future. 
 The other alternative is cabotage. I have some reservations about cabotage but speaking personally I would prefer it to doing nothing and letting the industry just slip away. I say to those Government members over there that they should take on board the fact that our shipping industry is still in existence but only just and it needs urgent help. 
When Harry Duynhoven was the Opposition spokesperson for transport he was very strong on this issue. He went around the country attending meeting after meeting and promised that Labour would do something to address the ills and concerns of the shipping industry. Thus far nothing has been done except for Labour commissioning a Shipping Industry Review that came out in December 2000. I do not know what will happen but I am waiting with bated breath. 
The third area of concern we have is in relation to the Government’s bid to buy the rail track back from Tranz Rail. I applaud the Government for that but we are concerned that the Government has given monopoly rights to Tranz Rail to run trains on that track. That is wrong and it will backfire on the Government in the longer term. The railway service in this country needs a competitive environment and will be all the better for it. We do not believe—as United Future alluded to the other day—that all the trains will run on the same track at the same time. That is ridiculous. It can be carved up in a proper and rational manner. But we applaud the Government for buying back the rail track and we hope it goes through. I see the member shaking his head. 
David Benson-Pope 
: I’m nodding. 
PETER BROWN 
: I am glad that the member agrees with New Zealand First. If the member studied our transport policy he would see that it is a very enlightened policy and in the longer term would aid the development of this country. 
I urge Government members to look at what they are proposing in terms of the buy-back of Tranz Rail and remove the monopoly they have given it to run on the tracks for 67 years — 
David Benson-Pope 
: We didn’t do that! 
PETER BROWN 
: Yes Tranz Rail came cap-in-hand to the Government and it gave Tranz Rail that monopoly. Although the Government had all the strength on its side Tranz Rail wanted help from the Government. The Government could have said: “We’ll buy the tracks back; we’ll allow you to run on them but we’re going to set up a competitive regime.” I urge Government members to look more closely at that issue so that we can achieve that. Transport infrastructure in this country is very very important to our long-term growth. 
STEPHEN FRANKS (ACT NZ) 
: 
 I rise for the ACT party to say that we too will not vote for this motion. The amounts that the Government has been claiming and obtaining from New Zealanders to spend with or without approval have been excessive. In particular I want to focus on one small area of spending where it appears that the spending is planned without any knowing or conscious parliamentary approval. 
In the  
New Zealand Police Statement of Intent 2003/2004 
 distributed with the Budget package there is an item called output class 2. In that output class there is an item 2.4 “Firearms Licensing”. When we look at the description of the performance measures that are expected by the Government for firearms licensing we see it looks very similar to that for the current year. The police expected to receive 20000 to 25000 licence applications in 2002-03 the period we have almost completed and they expect to receive the same number in the next year to June 2004. The police also expect to inspect 100 percent of pistol clubs and their members to inspect 100 percent of arms dealers and to check them for security and legislation compliance and to contact 80 percent of the holders of expiring firearms licences. In other words it is exactly the same plan as now. The police expect 100 percent of licences to be processed within 30 working-days of the completion of inquiries and they expect the cost per licence to stay the same as it is now at $110. 
Why have I raised the issue of firearms licensing in the context of expenditure that has not been properly explained or flagged? There are two differences between the current year and what the police expect for the next year. First they expect to spend nearly $1 million more on the process. There is an arithmetic problem there. The police expect to spend $1 million more yet they state that the cost per licence issued will stay the same and the number of licences issued will stay the same. It may be that the police are stating that the charge per licence issued will stay the same—the charge to the licensee—but that the actual cost is something quite different from what is stated and will actually be $916000 more in the next period than the police anticipate spending on firearms licensing in the current year. 
The other little change is that there is a line that previously stated: “Number of firearms licences revoked” with no entry for the estimated output or performance measure this year. The police expect to revoke at least 100 firearms licences in the next year. There is a little footnote that states: “New measure introduced 2003/2004.” So we have a signal however oblique or covert forced out of the Government by the financial reporting and forecasting process that confirms the rumours we have been hearing—and indeed they are more than rumours; they are the simple statements of honest and concerned police staff—that the police will be expected in the next year to start another assault on their relationship with firearms users in this country. 
In the next year the police will be required to start a gun registration process despite the evidence that this House received in the report from the Law and Order Committee which considered the firearms amendment bill. The Labour members who went on to that committee were determined that they would not listen to the “Rambos in camo gear” as one of them described the gun lobby at the beginning of the process. The Minister and the police had said initially—the police of course with their arms up their back—that this country needed a firearms registration system such as that recommended by Sir Thomas Thorp. Despite all that preparation that committee came to the conclusion after hearing the evidence not only that was there no justification for proceeding but that firearms users were right in saying that there were no problems with lawful firearms owners—or no problems that would be solved by putting a complete new set of laws and requirements on them—that all the problems were with illegal firearms and that the illegal firearms problem was highly unlikely to be cured in any way by putting new burdens on lawful firearms owners. 
We have prospective expenditure here. I have no doubt that some of this imprest amount that the Government wants us presently to vote for without any detailed description may end up being spent as part of the anticipated cost of this new scheme. We have the expected waste of at least $1 million in new police money. We can assume that the cost is probably an awful lot more than $1 million if we look at the experience of one country that our left-wing socialist Government likes to compare itself with Canada. That country expected to spend $85 million on a firearms registration system that would mark it out from its southern neighbour the United States. The cost for each firearm was to be around $5 to $10 at most and the benefit in political gain was widely expected by the Canadian Government to be a no-brainer advantage with urban women in particular who were concerned about firearms offences. 
But what does Canada have 7 years later? The cost is just under a billion dollars now for Canada’s firearms registration scheme. It was $500 million by the end of the year 2000 and at least 30 percent of owners have still not registered. There has just been a revolt by the provincial governments which have decided they will not prosecute the owners of unregistered firearms. Registration has had no discernible effect on firearms offences and Canada has a registry that is almost completely unusable by the police because until it is complete it is completely useless. The police cannot rely on the firearms register for one of the purposes that was cited so often—that they need to know whether they can safely approach a house by knowing whether they risk a firearms offence being committed. The Canadian police cannot rely on any such register until they know that they have every firearm registered. The situation is that the Canadian Government itself has now admitted that the cost per firearm is somewhat over Can$100 and that it is no further ahead. 
Let us look a little closer in terms of our history at the United Kingdom. It banned handgun ownership after the Dunblane massacre. The United Kingdom had 2 years ago a 40 percent increase in handgun homicides. This year it looks as though the rate of armed robbery with handguns will be nearly double the rate that it was when the Government first started talking about that ban. There are no-go areas in the United Kingdom where the police simply will not police that kind of offence. 
The real tragedy about the spending that this Government is planning in this area is in fact that the problem of policing as it is with so many of the things that trouble New Zealanders—it is the same with dogs and with boy racers—is that the registration system or non-compliance by ordinary citizens is not the issue. Rather the problem is that the police have lost the confidence the equipment the resources and the ability to take the risk of going after the criminals. The fact is that the real dog problem—as with firearms; it is the same with dogs—is with people who do not register their dogs at all. The problem with firearms in this country is the same as it is in Australia and in the United Kingdom. It is the people who do not comply with the law that the police should worry about. 
What do we have instead? This Government sends the police out to chase generally law-abiding people—people who do register their cars and do comply with law—with instant fines and traffic tickets. The kind of resource that it will take from this Government that extra million dollars will be the mere tip of the iceberg. We know that when this Government comes out in the next week or so with a firearms registration proposal it will be wasted money and a political bribe. 
JEANETTE FITZSIMONS (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 I rise to the challenge of saying something interesting about the supplementary estimates. For those who are listening I point out that we are debating the small adjustments that the Government wants to make to its 2002 Budget appropriation in order to reflect changing priorities and needs during the last year. However part-way through this financial year the Government did announce an important new policy which we would expect to see reflected in the supplementary estimates. As part of its Sustainable Development Programme of Action announced in January the Minister said that sustainable development must now be at the core of all policy-making. So I looked carefully to see whether that new emphasis was reflected in the supplementary estimates. 
Sustainable development is about integrating policy across economic social and environmental aims so that they are mutually reinforcing rather than in conflict. It is a very worthy objective it is long overdue and the Greens are hugely supportive of that approach. The Government has announced four areas of particular focus in its work on sustainable development: energy fresh water cities and young people. Those are well-chosen issues. Energy is at the heart of our economy—if energy is not sustainable nothing can be. Water is the most essential requisite for life. If we do not have an adequate quantity and quality of water then our well-being is seriously affected. Cities are an issue because that is where most of us live and young people are mentioned because they are the future. So it was to those areas that I turned first in the Supplementary Estimates hoping to find some evidence of that new shift. 
Vote Energy shows a number of changes that underline pointedly the growing unsustainability of our energy system and the damage that that unsustainability is doing to our economy. If ever there was proof that environmental sustainability has economic impacts it is in the energy sector right now. The first thing one notices when one looks at Vote Energy in the Supplementary Estimates is the loss of $6.5 million of revenue. That revenue was expected at the beginning of the year but it will not be realised because it is the energy resources levy on Maui gas and that gas is no longer there to levy. It is interesting is it not how little the Government knew for so long? There was a 30-year depletion profile for the Maui gasfield. The Government had the right to seek information at any time about how it was going. It did not really do so for most of those 30 years and then suddenly about last November we learnt that the gas will run out a bit early. Not only will it run out a bit early but it has seriously started to do so now and the amount that we have in the current year is very significantly less—impossible I must say to find out at the moment how much less—than we expected. 
As a result of that of course we are running the Huntly station on coal so we have an increase to the Government revenue of $400000 from energy resources levies and of $300000 from royalties to the Crown from the extra coal burnt at Huntly. That does not really compare with the $6.5 million previously expected from Maui Gas  but it is a little bit more revenue. Of course if this had happened 5 years from now when the Kyoto Protocol will be in effect we would have had to make budgetary provision for the extra carbon credits we would have to buy on the international market in order to cover the extra coal that we are using as a result of not managing our gas well over the last 30 years. 
Sticking with Vote Energy I say to members that we all know that there has been a huge amount of churning in the Minister’s office and a huge amount of frantic activity across the Government to figure out what to do about the dry winter and the lack of energy from our hydro resources. That is reflected sure enough in the supplementary estimates with more than another half-million dollars for policy advice on gas and electricity markets. That reflects the legal action that is going on over access to the remaining Maui Gas—as to who should get how much of it if there is less than we thought—and the setting up of the Electricity Commission to do the job that industry self-regulation failed so miserably to do. 
Now that we have such overwhelming evidence that our energy patterns are not sustainable—we have virtually run out of gas we frequently run out of water our oil supplies will start to taper off from about 2010 to 2015 and we cannot turn to coal without frying the planet—I looked in the Supplementary Estimates for new initiatives to encourage renewable energy sources to take the place of those energy sources—and saw there was nothing. Perhaps that is because the Government did all that in the 2003 Budget and there is not really time to implement more spending on renewables before the end of this financial year. So I looked in the 2003 Budget again just to check that and well no—I saw there was $200000 to assist the implementation of 400 solar water heaters on houses. That was the sum total of assistance to renewable energy in Budget 2003. 
But much worse than that just after Budget 2003 we had an announcement that next year’s supplementary estimates—the adjustments to the Budget for the 2003-04 year—will make provision for $21 million for exploration in search of new oil and gas finds. So not only are we spending next to nothing on developing the renewable energy that will get us through into the future and put our economy on a sustainable basis but we are spending $21 million on trying to prop up out-of-date technologies and fuels. That is not a path to sustainable development. This is supposed to be a sustainable development programme of action? 
Secondly I looked for evidence of greater activity on water quality and allocation which is the second matter that the Government said it was specialising in. Where would I find that? I looked in the environment estimates. I thought maybe there would be funding for more policy work on fresh water because we do need some of that. I saw there was nothing on water in the environment estimates. However the public has got involved. We have had the formation of the Water Rights Trust in the South Island and it has said we simply cannot allocate any more water from South Island rivers until we have done a proper assessment as to whether there is anything more to allocate. That shows how concerned the public are and hundreds of people turned up to the trust’s first meeting concerned about water allocation water quantity and water quality. There is huge concern in the South Island that by the time the Government gets around to having a sustainable development programme of action on water the Waitaki River may not be our largest braided river any longer because more than 70 percent of its water may have been taken completely out of the river channel for Project Aqua. 
I did find in the environment estimates evidence of further delay on contaminated sites. I mention Mapua the worst contaminated site in New Zealand. The Local Government and Environment Committee has been chasing the Ministry for the Environment for 5 years now to my knowledge asking when it will get on with cleaning up the Mapua site. Funding was allocated years ago and every year it is rolled over to the next year. Would members believe that the $3 million allocated for Mapua has been rolled over again to the 2003-04 year because the ministry is still not ready to start the clean-up?. That is hugely disappointing. 
We looked to see whether something was to be found in the estimates for research science and technology because a lot of that work needs research funds. We found that the Government could not spend all the money allocated for environmental research grants. Instead it gave the balance of it to Crown research institutes focused on commercialising science for industry to spend as they would. 
I looked at the third issue of children and young people to see whether provision for them has changed this year. I found nothing that will help the 29 percent of children euphemistically described as “suffering restrictions on their standard of living”. That means poverty. It is the most serious issue facing children at the moment and nothing has been done for those children in the supplementary estimates. 
There are many fine words but when one looks at how a Government spends its money one finds out what it really means. The Sustainable Development Programme of Action is a programme of words and we have yet to see any deeds. Yesterday we expressed our huge disappointment that even the grants that the Government is giving to business are not subject to any sustainability criteria at all. There are no criteria for energy efficiency nor even requirements to be a good employer for waste minimisation or for sustainability reporting. 
GORDON COPELAND (United Future) 
: 
 One aspect of the supplementary estimates for the year ending 30 June 2003 swamps all else. I refer to the overall increase of $1.5 billion in the tax collected over and above the forecast included in the original estimates at the time of the 2002 Budget. The main components of that increase comprise GST of $282 million company tax of $358 million income tax from self-employed people of $118 million income tax from salary earners and wage earners of around $441 million and withholding tax increases—a category that includes companies wage earners and salary earners and self-employed people in relation to things like interest earnings on bank deposits and the like—of $146 million. Treasury which prepares the forecast tells us that the major contributor to that spectacular windfall of tax riches to the Crown bank account is the strong growth of the New Zealand economy during the 12 months ended 30 April 2003—a growth I might add that has now slackened considerably to the point where we may find that growth in gross domestic product (GDP) is in minus territory for the quarter to 30 June 2003. 
I of course rejoice that our economy grew so quickly from late 2001 through until just a couple of months ago. A number of favourable factors came together for us during that period. But if I want to single out the most important factor it would have to be the strong net migration that we experienced both from Kiwis coming home after 11 September 2001 and the economic slow-down in Europe and the USA and from people from a wide variety of other nations choosing New Zealand as their preferred long-term place of residence for work family and retirement reasons. I note in passing that United Future appears to be the only party in this Parliament that has formally adopted a policy of ongoing population growth by an increase in the fertility rate by creating conditions to limit the continued loss of our best and brightest people to greener pasture overseas and by net inward migration from the rest of the world. 
We need more people in New Zealand not fewer. I find sometimes that that policy is questioned by people in the older age group—and I can include myself in that group since I am approaching 60—who have such fond memories of the prosperous crime-free and egalitarian society that existed in New Zealand during the 1950s 1960s and the first couple of years in the 1970s. What is overlooked however is that our national demographics are now remarkably different from those we had then. In those days it was the post - World War II economic expansion the Korean War and the baby boom that provided the fundamental underpinning for a fast-growing economy. Whole suburbs throughout New Zealand were created as people rushed to capitalise on the family benefit pick up their 30-year fixed 3 percent State Advances Corporation loan construct their three-bedroom one-bathroom home on their quarter acre plot of land and get on with raising the kids. Indeed it was a kind of half-gallon quarter acre paradise—the very stuff of nostalgia. 
Today’s New Zealand is very different. Our population growth has slowed significantly and the baby boomers are now in the eventide of their working life with their eyes fixed towards retirement. Those realities raise the all-important question of who will pay the pensions to support them. The New Zealand Superannuation Fund established by Michael Cullen is part of the answer provided it is not used by the National Party for roading. However the rest necessitates strong ongoing population growth. 
That brings me back to the supplementary estimates for Vote Immigration where a further $23 million has been appropriated to cover costs associated with services provided to increase the capacity of New Zealand through immigration. United Future fully accepts that we must select potential immigrants to New Zealand with care. Ideally if we are to address our demographic problem of an ageing population immigrants need to be young. They also need to be English-speaking. I note in passing that I find for example immigrants from both the Philippines and India are able to assimilate themselves relatively quickly into New Zealand culture precisely because they have learnt English at school and have been speaking it as a second language for many years. 
But I believe that we need to do a better job in terms of the assimilation of immigrants into mainstream New Zealand culture. I believe that all immigrants should be required to attend say during the first couple of months that they are in New Zealand—and presuming that they have good English skills—classes in the basics of New Zealand’s culture manners and way of life. Likewise we should require all our secondary schools and tertiary institutions to run a class of that kind for international students. The courses could cover some fairly basic things that all of us take for granted. For example in this country we walk on the left-hand side of the footpath but that is not the custom in many countries overseas. The courses could cover our habits of not pushing people—in some countries overseas the custom is that one pushes people out of the road—of holding doors open for other people and of not shouting at one another in supermarkets. Driving habits are frequently a bone of contention so that area would also need to be addressed. 
Then there are such important matters as the bilingual but multicultural aspect of our society—the special place of Maori in New Zealand—freedom of religion including very importantly freedom to change one’s religion or to have no religion and dating and marriage customs and the like. In all those areas the experience of many of us is that we are sometimes involved in great cultural misunderstanding that leads to tension and puts pressures on families whether those are immigrant families or families that have lived in New Zealand for some time. I believe that courses of that kind could go a long way towards smoothing those people’s integration into mainstream New Zealand society and we should always stress that our goal is to make immigrants feel at home and to become fully active citizens of the nation they have chosen. I think we could see a lot of niggles dissipate in that way to the benefit of all New Zealanders. 
Let me return briefly to the huge above-forecast tax gain included in the supplementary estimates. As I mentioned for companies it was at least $358 million—probably more. By my calculations that would be enough to fund a 2 percent reduction in the tax rate for companies. The Minister of Revenue would no doubt counter immediately that that would be imprudent given the halving of the GDP growth forecast for the next year. That may be fair enough but what about a 1 percent reduction? I think that would meet the test of prudence but at the same time clearly signal how valuable companies are to New Zealand society. We need to do a lot more to support companies and small businesses in this country—particularly start-up companies. 
I make a similar comment in relation to taxes for individuals. I accept that the Labour - Progressive Coalition Government has a strong preference for a progressive tax system but why do we not at least adjust the bands every year for inflation? It is fair to do that and therefore it is unfair not to do so. In real terms we are increasing the tax on all New Zealand workers be they low middle or high-income earners and I think that that saps incentive and innovation gives the wrong signal and—at least at the margin—means that a few more of our best and brightest people will decide to pack their bags and leave for greener pastures overseas. Being prudent is one thing; being unduly tight is another. Given our current weak economic outlook a little fiscal stimulus—prudently using say $500 million of that $1.5 billion tax windfall—in the current financial year would in my view have been good for New Zealand its people its families and its economy. I think that alongside monetary policy there is a place for counter-cyclical fiscal expansion or contraction and that the Minister of Finance may rue not moving now if as the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research forecasts our economy contracts not just in 2003-04 but also in 2004-05. 
I conclude by saying that United Future very much welcomes the commitment of the Government to review family support tax credits in next year’s Budget. 
Hon JIM ANDERTON (Minister for Economic Development) 
: 
 Last night in the debate on the New Zealand Trade and Enterprise Bill the National Party slated Industry New Zealand its operations its quality of service and particularly me as the Minister in charge of it. Evidently I was described as some kind of joke around the regions. Well in my reading late last night I came across a full-page advertisement in the Wellington  
Dominion Post— 
which is not exactly a Progressive party newsletter I would hasten to say—and in it I saw an advertisement for a company called Fraser Engineering Group. Industry New Zealand was charged last night with accusations that no one has ever benefited from it. Even the subject of Sovereign Yachts was raised for about the 976½-time even though there are 40 or 50 more jobs there than when the firm started—because there were not any then.  
However Fraser Engineering Group named in the  
Dominion Post  
on Wednesday 14 May is located at 18 Peterkin Street Wingate Lower Hutt. So it is a local company headed by a good young couple Martin and Raewyn Simpson and with John Fraser as a partner. 
The company has been going for 50 years and this young couple took over the company a few years back. I can assure members that they are certainly not paid-up supporters of any party I have ever belonged to. They have developed their business and now have premises at Wakefield St in Alicetown Petone. They are specialists in the manufacture of waterway and firefighting equipment. I have been to their factory and had a look because they did not think that Governments ever did anything for anybody and thought that we were all useless. That is what they said at a public meeting I spoke at. I said: “Well look we’ll show you something and see whether we can prove that’s wrong.” 
When asked what was its biggest business triumph last year Fraser Engineering said that it was purchasing and moving four companies on to a custom-designed site and winning contracts worth over $30 million for fire appliances for New Zealand Australia and Fiji. That is not the only thing it does but $30 million of firefighting equipment and appliances is not too bad for a little company in Lower Hutt. The company became an accredited supplier to General Motors internationally and that is not a bad effort either. So there is a company that has been doing well. 
Here is an interesting thing. The next question was: “How can the Government”—this is the Labour-Progressive coalition Government—“specifically assist your industry?”. Last night members would have heard from National and ACT that “there’s no way they should be doing this; they should be keeping out of it.” and “They’re useless anyway even if they do get into it.” What is the answer? What would members pay for the following kind of comment from one of our high-growth intellectually proficient and progressive high-tech companies? The answer in the  
Dominion Post 
 from Fraser Engineering was: “Continue to fund Industry New Zealand so they can continue to provide advice and assistance which we have found to be invaluable.” Did I actually put that advertisement in the newspaper? No I did not. I could not have convinced the  
Dominion Post  
to write that if I had paid it $100 million. But here it is in the advertisement for Fraser Engineering. The next thing the company said when describing what the Government could do specifically to assist its industry was “Keep the Hon Jim Anderton as Minister for Economic Development.” 
Last night I was a joke over there on the Opposition benches but one of our most high-growth high-tech companies took out an advertisement in the paper and said “Please keep Industry New Zealand.” ACT members are in the House today. That party thinks Industry New Zealand is a load of rubbish and should not be in existence. Last night I was slated and rubbished by the National Party yet here is one of our young high-tech engineering companies saying “For goodness’ sake keep Industry New Zealand because it is doing a great job and keep Jim Anderton because he is doing a great job as Minister for Economic Development.” 
The point about all that is to ask members when they last saw an advertisement in the paper that said: “Please put Richard Prebble in as Minister of Rail.” I have looked but I have not seen one. I can imagine a whole lot of New Zealanders saying: “For goodness’ sake don’t get Richard Prebble back as Minister of Rail.” What do members think about John Carter as Minister of Agriculture? He had a lot to say last night about how terrible the north is when that region actually has one of the highest growth rates in New Zealand right now as I speak. 
When I came into office with the Labour-led Government in 1999 the Northland region was one of the basket-case territories of New Zealand. John Carter was there when it was a basket case and he is there now when it is really going well. What is the difference between the time when he was there when the Northland region was a basket case and now? The difference is that now there is a Labour-Progressive Government and when he was there when it was a basket case there was a National Government. What is there about that that we do not understand? Have those members of that Government learnt anything? No they have not. When did I see an advertisement that said: “Please keep Gerry Brownlee as Minister of Education. We need him as Minister of Education. What more could you do for us than put Gerry in as Minister of Education?”. I have not seen an advertisement from the health sector that said: “Could we have Roger Sowry as Minister of Health?”. I have never seen an advertisement like that. I have never seen an advertisement that said: “Please please please can we have Mr Don Brash as our Minister of Finance?”. As for having Bill English as Prime Minister—no I do not think so. 
So when we think about the debates going on in the House about what this Government is or is not doing I say that I cannot honestly remember when I have seen private sector organisations putting in advertisements like that without any solicitation from the Government. And if members want any evidence—and I know there are questions about the Progressive party a new party but we will see at the next election—this Government is a totality of every component of it and if the Government is successful it is successful because everyone in it is working towards that success. That is the reality of it and the Progressive party plays its role. 
The challenge for everyone in Parliament and for the political parties that are represented here is to get good things done for people. Have we helped to get good things done for Fraser Engineering? The answer is yes. Does that mean we have done good things for the people who work at Fraser Engineering? The answer is yes. How many staff did it have when it started? It had about 30. I know that because that is what it had when I first went to see it. How many does it have now? It has about 75. If every company in New Zealand was doubling or tripling its staff in a 3 to 4-year period how about that for some growth? This is in a high-tech engineering area where we have taken contracts off the best engineering companies in the world making fire engines for Australia and the South Pacific and defence equipment for the American company General Motors Defence International. This is what this Government has been about—doing things for people. 
When I made a decision in 1998 to join as a potential coalition partner for the Labour Party the reason I did it was that the people we represented needed people in Government to do things. I look at the ACT party. I had a thought the other day. ACT has been in Parliament since 1996—I think that is when it first came in—and by the time of the next election it will have been a decade in Opposition. ACT had a chance of going into Government when the collapse of the National - New Zealand First Government took place but it chose not to. It chose to stay outside the Government and fire potshots—wet bus tickets of press releases—at the Government while staying in the safety of Opposition. ACT did not come over into the Government try to make some of the hard decisions and try to do something to lift the country. No it chose the safety of Opposition. The people of New Zealand have a sense of that. That is why the ACT party is where it is and why it will stay there. 
I say to the Greens that they have had choices to come into Government influence Government policy and do something about it but no they have chosen to stay over there. They have all sorts of reasons every time. But it is much easier to be in Opposition firing press releases. It is much easier being in Opposition and being holier-than-thou on every single thing that happens. Over here we make things happen. This is where the action is and I am proud to be part of this coalition. 
GERRY BROWNLEE (NZ National—Ilam) 
: 
 That was a “Helen please pick up the phone I am still here.” speech from Jim Anderton. How many times has any Minister had to come into the House and put his curriculum vitae before the House hoping the Prime Minister would hear it and decide to keep him inside Cabinet? Jim Anderton is the leader of the Progressive party the party in Parliament known as the “Progressive duet” that is propping up the Labour Government. We had no idea on this side of the House that things were in such turmoil and that Mr Anderton’s security in Cabinet was so thin. 
Quite clearly the National Opposition has been very very effective in sending a message to Helen Clark that poor old Jim Anderton after 4 years of running around the countryside handing out $2000 cheques and getting photographs in all the local papers has to come into the House and present one example of a company that says he is doing a good job. He then went on to tell us that it is doing so well it has tripled and quadrupled its growth in the last 4 or 5 years. The question must arise that if the company is so busy running the business would it not just have decided when one of Mr Anderton’s minions came toddling into its office with a big cheque it did not need and said: “Look can you thank us?’’ to say: “All right we’ll put a bit of an ad in the paper for Mr Anderton.”? That is not a real endorsement of the policy. It is just a simple recognition that it wants the environment for growth in the economy of this country to be as it is and better. And it will be better when this country gets a National Government. 
I want to tell the House that although everybody out there might think the energy crisis has passed this country is in the grip of a very very deep energy crisis indeed. It is not one that is about saving a few kilowatts in our homes every winter but one that will seriously impede the ability of New Zealand businesses to expand in the years to come. When I look at the estimates I do not see the issues that are facing New Zealand being addressed at all. 
The other day the Minister of Energy was questioned about his estimates at a select committee. He was asked whether we were potentially likely to see the 2003 electricity shortage which was due to lack of water repeated in 2004 because of a lack of gas coal and oil supplies. The Minister said he thought the answer was yes. Then he went off as he often does on a series of ponderous statements about whether the Rimu field was going to produce very much how long Kapuni would run and the uncertainties existing over the current Pohokura field. Then he said again that when we consider all those uncertainties the answer is yes. New Zealand in 2004 could be facing the same sort of electricity shortage according to the Minister not because of a lack of water this time but simply because of a lack of the fossil fuels necessary to fire up those big North Island plants. 
What is the Government’s answer to the problem? Because it is a big problem. By the Minister’s own admission some 1250 megawatts of new generation were commissioned in this country between 1996 and 1999 and since he has been the Minister 166 megawatts have been commissioned 105 of which were started and substantially completed under the previous National Government. We have not seen investment in generation in this country for some time. The Minister’s answer is that it is not an issue of generation; it is an issue of fuel supply. But I do not see anything in the select committee report that deals with fuel supply. It does not deal with the shortage of gas or whether enough coal to fire up Huntly is being taken out of various deposits around the country. It says we are going to create an Electricity Commission. 
Lindsay Tisch 
: Another committee. 
GERRY BROWNLEE 
: Another committee that will supposedly fix the problem! It states that in particular the Electricity Commission “will contract with generators to provide a dry year reserve generation capacity and fuel. It will withhold these reserves from the market until dry year conditions look likely at which point they will be released into the market at a higher price.” 
The question I have is: where is that reserve capacity now? It does not exist. If the intention when that capacity may be on stream is to hold the spot price down why is the Government going to do that by putting the price of reserve generation up above where the spot price is likely to go? That is the real question that has to be answered. 
How does anybody who has responsibility in this area hold down the price of electricity to reasonable levels if the Government has come along and said it will purchase a reserve capacity at a much higher price and release it into the market only if it is needed? Then the question is: who will pay for that reserve capacity that may never be used? It is the poor old electricity consumer. The Minister says it should not cost any more than half a cent a unit. Half a cent a unit is about $200 million a year and this is from the Government that said “no new taxes no new taxes no new taxes”. Tell that to the pensioners around the countryside who are frightened to turn on the heater—not because they think there may not be any electricity there to supply them but simply because they cannot afford to run their heaters. 
It is an utter nonsense for anyone to suggest that by setting up a committee which is what this group is a whole lot more capacity will suddenly be created for the generation of electricity and that it can be held back in dry years. It just will not work. The Minister himself acknowledged that in a speech the other day where he said the distinction between new generation needed to meet national demand growth which is about 150 kilowatts a year and reserve generation needed for dry years is an important one. So he understands the problem but he is caught up in the Government spin machine that says: “We’ve got trouble here and we need to convince people that we’ve got an answer.” So the Government has gone out with the very silly idea of setting up this big committee. Incidentally I am told that the committee will initially operate using the rules for governance of the industry that have just been rejected by the industry by the consumer group outside the industry and by Grey Power a most conservative organisation that is not known for favouring a market solution but which totally rejects the proposal the Minister currently has on the table. 
As I said at the outset we have a very deep energy crisis in this country. It is not one that will see the lights go out immediately but it is most definitely one that will see New Zealand business unable to expand at the rates that it would like to. New Zealand entrepreneurs who want to start new businesses are unable to do so because there is not good supply. I ask some of the clever members on the other side whether they have looked at how many businesses have withdrawn proposals particularly for timber processing in this country because they cannot get adequate electricity fuel supply. There are a number of such businesses and for Mr Anderton to come in here today and beg the Prime Minister—who is clearly considering giving him the chop—to keep his job on the basis that one firm in the Hutt has said “Please keep him.” really shows how much this Government has its head in the sand and how convoluted its policy is for business development and for fostering growth in this country. It is right out of control. 
Furthermore the contribution this afternoon from the Green Party on the issue of energy should alarm anybody who is concerned about living a good and decent lifestyle in this country. None of us are rabid polluters. None of us are out there attempting to destroy the environment in a free and cavalier way. To suggest that we should not have big generation projects happening in this country and that we should somehow be reliant on wind and biomass is utter nonsense but it does fit very well with the convoluted policy being offered to this country by Helen Clark and her Ministers. 
Hon JOHN TAMIHERE (Minister of Youth Affairs) 
: 
 It is always a pleasure to speak after the National front-bench heavyweight has spoken because if one speaks after him anything one says has to sound reasonably good. I want to commend the Appropriation (2002/03 Supplementary Estimates) Bill to the House and I will shape my speech particularly around pages 25 and 26 of schedule 1 which are about Parliamentary Service’s budget and what the taxpayer might spend for value in that regard. I want to look at a couple of cases to explore that. There was once a person called Donna Awatere Huata who had great credentials before she came to this House. Her biggest problem in coming to this House was that she got involved with the ACT party. She would not have understood and would not have been able to keep together the Pipi Trust unless she had seen the way secret trusts secret commissions and a range of other secretive deals might well have been engineered and geared. So the difficulty Donna Awatere Huata has is the company she keeps. If one wants to know how to rort something if one wants to see a scam—whether it is in Fiji or anywhere else—one has to go to the ACT party because ACT is a specialist in those sorts of things. [ 
Interruption 
] Yes it could run tutorials. 
Let us work a bit further on that. Rodney Hide the perk-buster extraordinaire went on a 3-week taxpayer-funded holiday. He was missing in action. Where did he go? Well he travelled. Did he travel economy class? No he travelled business class and he went to New York London and on to Geneva. Who lives there? The underwriters of the ACT party the people who pull the strings—that is who lives there. That is where he goes to get instructions but not on behalf of the Kiwi taxpayer. Rodney Hide can travel business class but Hemana Waaka like Rosa Parks has to sit in the back of the plane. Hemana Waaka a Maori boy is no good up the front. That is disgraceful. Maori people are told: “Get down the back of the plane!” That is the type of treatment we get served up and that is the amount of money Kiwi taxpayers pay. Is it any wonder that the ACT party is just about on the margin for error in the polls? We will see how it goes in today’s TV3 poll. 
It worries me desperately when people come into this House and are actually on the take outside it. I am not saying that the ACT party particularly Rodney Hide gets cash for questions—I am not saying that. I would never say that; I would never even try to allege it. But I would say that we have to be very careful about people’s motivations and intent and that we must look behind those things. That is what worries me with the “rort party” the ACT party. Time and again in this House its members get up and do nothing on the policy front-foot. They are not here on the policy front-foot; they are here to hunt down a few heads. I think the “rort party” is disgraceful whether it is the Pipitea office that is not an office or you name it whether it is the pyramid scheme operating out of Owen’s office or wherever else. It is disgraceful. So I am pleased we are starting to put more money into the Parliamentary Service so that Rodney can go on more 3-week holidays. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: The member may not refer to someone by his or her first name. He must refer to members by their title or their full name. 
Hon JOHN TAMIHERE 
: Yes Rodney Philip Hide. Not only does Rodney Philip Hide go on a 3-week junket flying business class to take his instructions from New York London and Geneva— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: No. The member cannot imply that the member is taking instructions from somewhere else. 
Hon JOHN TAMIHERE 
: Advice—he took great advice. That was part of the trip. He picked up advice—and it was not from the stewardess or from someone in the urinal; it was actually from somebody who is a bit closer than that to Rodney Philip Hide. We all know who the underwriters of the ACT party are. They all live over there in New York London and Geneva and they keep trying to pull the strings over here. It is disgraceful. 
The other juxtaposition is that Hemana Waaka was paid by way of a contract to do a job. He was paid by a purchasing agency and he did the job. Whether he wanted to travel business class is his business—he had the profit to do it. Oh but Maori are not allowed to travel business class! What a joke! It is absolutely disgraceful discriminatory and prejudicial. What an ugly evil man Rodney Philip Hide is—and I do not say that in terms of his external presence which is bad enough but internally. 
The next dollar value that one has to ask oneself about relates to the pinstriped one from Tauranga. He is well past his use-by date—we all know that—but apart from that he is the champion of honesty integrity and credibility; that beacon of justice from Tauranga! Here is the truth of it. He has misled this House and the Kiwi voter more times than Richard Prebble. How bad is that? It is absolutely disgraceful. But it gets worse. When one actually starts to crawl through the times that he has been misleading one starts to understand that it gets worse—and it does so for this reason. There is a chap called Michael John Laws—his confidante and closest lieutenant. 
 He deposes in an affidavit that the wonderful one the one with integrity credibility and honesty rorted the Electoral Act; committed a fraud—discriminatory— 
Peter Brown 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. It is totally out of order where he is going and I seek your advice to give him some advice. 
Hon JOHN TAMIHERE 
: What do you expect from a £10 pom? 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I caution the member that the path that he is going down may well lead to gross disorder in the House. I ask him to come back to the point. 
Peter Brown 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. For the member’s enlightenment I am not a £10 pom; I came here for nothing. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: That is not a point of order. 
Hon JOHN TAMIHERE 
: Is that not a wonderful confession! A stowaway! The immigration-busting party has a stowaway as a member of Parliament! That is absolutely disgraceful. I will tell Winston that tomorrow. “Peter Brown Wong”—that is what we will call him. Anyway I will continue on the topic of that wonderful affidavit signed out by Michael John Laws. It is quite clear that the honourable one from Tauranga is not as squeaky clean as he would have us believe in the House or out on the street. It is quite clear in the same affidavit that Doug Woolerton knows all about it because he is named in the same affidavit. One does not waltz into the House and make all sorts of serious allegations and believe that one is squeaky clean. That particular member from Tauranga has never made it in the legal profession and has never made it out in the street in terms of business. He would not know how to run a chequebook but more important he knows how to rort the Electoral Act. That is a fact. That is what was deposed in that particular affidavit. 
Peter Brown 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The Rt Hon Winston Peters has never been convicted of or even charged with anything. 
Hon JOHN TAMIHERE 
: Not yet. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Points of order will be heard in silence. There are a number of yellow cards coming. 
Peter Brown 
: For that member to make an allegation such as that is an absolute disgrace. He is not entitled to besmirch a person’s reputation and that is what he is doing. I repeat that the Rt Hon Winston Peters has never been charged with or convicted of anything unlike that member who has a track record of being charged and convicted of quite a lot. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I thank the member for drawing that to my attention and I refer the member to Standing Order 117 about personal reflections. Let us leave it at that. I know it is an open and robust debate— 
Peter Brown 
: With due respect Mr Assistant Speaker I believe it has gone a little bit further than that. This is the second time I have taken a point of order and I believe that the member should be asked to withdraw and apologise. 
Clayton Cosgrove 
: We have witnessed Mr Peters raising a large number of inflammatory allegations against Mr Tamihere in the House. They were heard. Secondly Mr Assistant Speaker I point out to you that Mr Brown has three times raised points of order that are not points of order—and I think you have ruled so on two occasions—in order to break up the member’s speech. I would ask you to ask him to pull his head in. 
Ron Mark 
: That member is quite incorrect. It is quite in order and within Standing Orders to demand that members who are besmirching an MP’s reputation be pulled into line and that they be asked to withdraw and apologise if offence is taken. Offence has been taken. The bottom line is this: if a member of Parliament comes to the House as I have with criminal convictions then people quite rightly can say that I Ron Mark have a criminal conviction. There is not a lot I can say about that because it is a fact. When a member stands up and says that I Ron Mark have defrauded the electoral system or have defrauded a bank and there is no proof no charges and no evidence of such a thing then that member has just crossed the line and all the honourable Peter Brown is asking you to do is to bring members back within Standing Orders and as offence has been taken to ask for a withdrawal and an apology. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I refer the member to Speaker’s ruling 33/3 which states: “Words or phrases used robustly in debate but which do not impugn the honour of a member will not be ruled out of order.” It is up to the member him or herself to take exception. 
Ron Mark 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I have already ruled. 
Ron Mark 
: I am asking for your guidance on this because this goes from the sublime to the somewhat ridiculous. How can members who might not be able to be here to stand and take a point of order be defended? We are caught in a bit of a catch-22. [ 
Interruption 
] I am on my feet. Given that one cannot refer to members who may or may not be present in the House as per the Standing Orders who then can object? If the Prime Minister is away on official business and I stand up and besmirch her reputation it is perfectly in order for the Deputy Prime Minister the Government whip or anyone else to demand a withdrawal and an apology. I think that we are getting ourselves a bit crossed here and that last ruling creates some difficulty. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I take the opportunity to caution the member as to the manner in which he is addressing the House. 
Hon JOHN TAMIHERE 
: They do not like it. They can dish it up but they do not like it. The honourable pinstriped one from Tauranga who is well past his use-by date can waltz in here ambush anybody when that person is not in the House and run all over him or her. His team over there chortles. They are getting very excited—they are “over-Viagra’ised”—but I tell them that this is Parliament. One cannot zip the lips of the highest court in the land. That is what it is for. It is for identifying people who live double lives in that regard. All my stuff is out of the closet. Mr Peters’ is not; not by a long measure. So the reality is that I am allowed to waltz down here in this debate and actually put some evidence on the Table—they will allow me to table it. There will be no problems over there and away we will go. For the edification of the New Zealand First members over there—none of whom we know apart from Winston Peters—I just want to say: “Have a great time!” I will leave that issue because I have been cautioned by the Assistant Speaker. 
I conclude by saying that it is really wonderful to be on this side of the House in such a great Government which is going great guns in terms of every measure from the gross domestic product measures all the way up to all the others. I say to the Rt Hon Winston Peters that when I go home up to Auckland the people in Waiparera are proud to be Waiparera people. The people in Waitakere City who are part of us are proud of us. We are into nationhood-building. We on this side of the House are solution drivers. So when that member climbs and slithers and slides outside the sewers and the gutters or wherever they come out from in that caucus the reality is that we over here are going great guns. We have all the solutions and those members have all the problems. They are welcome to keep them. 
RON MARK (NZ First) 
: 
 I rise again to signal that New Zealand First will not be supporting this bill. There are no surprises there. I just wish—and so do a lot of people I know—that our colleagues in the United Future party would not support such legislation and would not fund this Government’s rather obscure programmes. 
I want to speak to one issue in the Supplementary Estimates of Appropriations. Let us look at the D1 appropriations for Vote Police Vote Courts and Vote Corrections. The D1 appropriation for Vote Corrections takes a broader interpretation. It is not just about advice but about information services. Is that not typical? We have come to expect a lot from the Department of Corrections and the one thing it is very very good at is spin doctoring. Its information services are booked out at about $26 million. All I have to say to the Government and everybody who is listening is that that money does not need to be spent on policy advice for this Government because one it does not listen to good advice and two on the track record thus far— 
Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m. 
RON MARK 
: I was drawing members’ attention to the D1 appropriations in Vote Police Vote Courts and Vote Corrections which deal with advice. But before I go further in dealing with advice I want to reflect on the speech made by the Hon John Tamihere the aspirant to the Maori affairs portfolio—which I do not think will happen now. I have some advice for Mr Tamihere and it comes directly from the leader of New Zealand First the Rt Hon Winston Peters. In response to that speech this evening he said that Mr Tamihere’s allegations of electoral fraud against New Zealand First were the ravings of a bum lawyer practising without a certificate. He said that the facts are that in 1996 a complaint was made by two disgruntled New Zealand First candidates. New Zealand First vigorously defended the charges and the District Court in Wellington struck the complaint out on the basis that there was not a shred of evidence to back it up. He said that Mr Tamihere was floundering around desperate to defend himself but that as Al Jolson once said: “You ain’t heard nothing yet!”. That is direct advice from the Rt Hon Winston Peters. 
The bloke-to-bloke advice I would give to John Tamihere is that he should not come into the House making allegations of corruption and fraud if he does not have the evidence to back them up. That case brought by two disgruntled people was totally thrown out of court. It was not backed up. There is an old saying that the member needs to know: “If you’re going to take on Winston Peters you need to know who you’re picking on mate!”. I leave the member with that bit of advice. 
The issue I want to talk about now is the advice to the Government. I have a piece of advice to give the Government—[ 
Interruption 
] One gets tired of hearing that from that guy over there. What is his name? Al Bundy? I cannot for the life of me think of his name. 
Peter Brown 
: Alf Garnett. 
RON MARK 
: I did not realise Alf Garnett had been elected to the Parliament of New Zealand but I get tired of hearing interjections from him. 
The advice I have for the Government is that it should stop wasting all its money on advice that it ignores. It should come straight to me or to New Zealand First if it wants advice on Vote Police Vote Courts and Vote Corrections. If members are wondering why I am saying that I simply draw their attention to what has been going on in the last few months. In the last few months I have raised a number of issues one of which has been home detention. The hapless Rick Barker over there was overseeing the Department of Corrections and when he was asked about violent offenders being on home detention he said that violent offenders were not on home detention. He said that in this House. What did we find out within about 3 minutes after he had sat down? We found out that people who had raped who had assaulted children with firearms who had threatened to kill and who had committed grievous bodily harm were on home detention. It took only about a week or so for the Minister of Corrections Paul Swain to come out and say there are problems with home detention and some of the recording data and the Government was reviewing the situation. 
I raised a stack of issues on home detention. All those issues I have to say had been flagged to the Government previously by other people—people like Joe Public who had pointed out that home detention was being abused; people like Glen Goodman who had worked for the probation service for 16 years and said that the home detention system was being abused. Did the Government listen? No. Has it finally admitted it was wrong? Yes. Is it moving to tidy up the situation? Yes. So I tell the Government to stop wasting all its money on bringing in all this advice; it should just come and talk to me. I am only too pleased to help. 
Where else have we been able to help? Let us talk about deferred sentences. When I first raised the issue of deferred sentences it was about a woman who had embezzled money from her employer. She was convicted in the court was given a jail sentence of 2 years then was allowed to go home. Where was she found? She was found back on the pokies gambling again. What did people say? They said it was not an issue. What did Mr Phil Goff eventually say? He said: “Well there is an issue and we want to bring a Statutes Amendment Bill to the House to amend the law.” We said: “Actually let’s do it the right way put it through for public submissions and tidy up a few other problems.” But it is good to know that finally the Government knows it has got it wrong. In relation to justice issues Government members should not just sit there pretending they know it all. They should come and talk to me. They should stop wasting Government money on all this advice that quite frankly does not seem to be doing any good. 
Another issue to look at is quota ticketing and unpaid fines. Here we have a Government that has clocked up according to the Supplementary Estimates of Appropriations $90 million worth of traffic infringement notices. That was for this year just gone by. It is in the Supplementary Estimates. The figure has been downsized a wee bit actually. Not as much was picked up as was hoped. I think the shortfall is a few hundred thousand dollars. How sad! The projected figure was $94.5 million and it finally ticked off at $90 million. 
But here is the real kick: the Government is aiming to increase that amount by 30 percent. That is in the latest Budget. It wants to up those figures by 30 percent. Why is it doing it? It is to improve road safety. Well there are a whole heap of problems about handing out carte blanche hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of fines. One is that the fines have to be able to be collected. The Government says it does it because it makes our roads safer; that people who get a ticket say they will not speed again. But that is not the truth. We now know from what I have brought before this Government that people are not paying their fines. That is why this Government has $488 million in outstanding fines. What has the Government said about that? It has finally conceded that there is a problem. So now what is it doing? It has a bill coming to the House that will help deal with the fines collection problem. The sum of $315 million is outstanding in traffic fines; $488 million is outstanding in fines across the board. It is nice to know that finally the Government has said that yes there is a problem. It is nice to know that the Government has said it will do something about it. That is three strikes. I would say: “Three strikes and you’re out.” 
The point is we are spending a fortune under these appropriations on ministerial advice from all these various departments and quite clearly either the advice is wrong or the Minister does not want to accept it. 
From where else have we got advice? We had advice recently that the police wanted 169 extra police. What did they get? They got 55 extra police. What is the result? The result is that someone like Mr Scotty Watson a Ready to Retail coordinator in Rotorua is saying: “We need police on the beat again. In 17 months I have never”—underlined—“seen police on the streets and on two occasions I have called police. They never have anyone to send. It is going to get to the stage where we will take the law into our own hands.” It is good advice to put more cops on the beat. It is good advice from the commissioner—“Give us 169 extra police.” What is the Government’s response? Its response is to provide 55 extra police over 4 years. 
The bottom line message is that this Government is paying an absolute fortune to get advice. Its Ministers receive advice—we have watched Parekura Horomia and what has happened with some of the advice he has been given—but consistently they have denied the accusations and the issues we have raised only to find themselves falling flat on their faces having to defer to New Zealand First and saying: “Ron Mark you and New Zealand First were right all along.” 
MARK PECK (NZ Labour—Invercargill) 
: 
 I can do no better than to start by looking at tonight’s poll figures. 
Government Member 
: What are they? 
MARK PECK 
: They make very interesting reading: Labour 52 National 24 New Zealand First 8 and nobody else made the margin to get in. I say to United Future not to worry because I think it will be judged better in time. But to ACT I say: “You’ve gone!” I ask Gerry Eckhoff who is sitting over on the ACT benches now to answer a question—and he can do so by way of interjection if he likes. As Donna Awatere Huata is one of ACT’s members of Parliament New Zealand would be very interested to know who is paying for her husband and daughter to be with her in Australia on the select committee trip she is on right now. Can the member tell us who is paying for that? 
Gerrard Eckhoff 
: That member is suspended from our caucus. 
MARK PECK 
: He says that is why she is suspended. Maybe he could also tell us why his party is continuing to pocket her $111000 of electoral funding. Furthermore maybe he can tell us why Deborah Coddington is spending 4 months in Britain at the taxpayers’ expense beefing up her qualifications. That is the party that goes on about integrity. Let me say there is a word for that sort of action but we cannot use it in this Parliament. I ask the next ACT speaker— 
Darren Hughes 
: What is it? 
MARK PECK 
: I cannot use that word and I am not going to. I ask the next ACT speaker to stand up and put a few things on the record because we could say it smells. We were talking about hippopotamuses before; well the hippopotamus that is that party rolls in the mud. I am surprised at the way in which its members behave because it is supposed to be a liberal party. What do they do? They roll in the mud. I say to them: “Grow up!” It is about time they listened to someone in their party like Stephen Franks. I do not like his policies much but at least he is policy driven not muckracking driven like the rest of that party. It is time they grew up. 
I must say I feel really quite sorry for John Carter— 
Gerrard Eckhoff 
: Who creates the muck? 
MARK PECK 
: Who is that little man chortling over there? I feel quite sorry for him in the position he is in. He needs to pick up the phone and ring the Leader of the Opposition. He needs to tell him he has to come back here because somebody finally has to give Bill English the message that he is not going to make it. The cruellest thing that the National Party can do now is to retain him in the leadership. 
Bill English is my next-door neighbour in electoral terms and I despair to see the position he is in. He probably is a decent man. I heard a magnificent speech from Kim Beazley one time after a Government Minister had decided to retire. He said: “Well now that he’s going we can praise him.” Now that Bill English is going I can praise him. I say to John Carter that it is his job as chief whip to be straight with his leader and to tell him he is not going to make it. The figures tonight that show that Bill English and Don Brash together do not get anywhere near a quarter of the support that Helen Clark enjoys are quite revealing. The National Party used to be the party that got elected to government more often than most and now it has been reduced to a minor player in political circles. The good news for John Carter is that National will go up from 27 to 31 based on tonight’s poll but there— 
Darren Hughes 
: That’s seats. 
MARK PECK 
: —that is seats—but there is one thing he needs to understand about that figure. It is the traditional mid-term return of votes to the two major parties. Unfortunately the National Party can no longer be called a major party in this situation. It is a serious matter for National. I tell those members that they should get out of their unmarked cabs and travel in ordinary cabs like ordinary members of Parliament. They should start to understand they have been voted into Opposition start to understand that the National Party is no longer the Government and get rid of the trappings of privilege. It is an interesting thing that the three people in the National Party who look to be going anywhere have very interesting names: Power Rich and Worth. It is the rich the powerful and the worthy as they see it. I say to them that they have very unfortunate names for politics. 
This Government has been an extremely good Government. My electorate has done enormously well in this period of time and not only with growth in the economy; we are starting to attack some of the infrastructure matters that need to be dealt with. I am looking forward also to seeing some work done as far as Stewart Island’s infrastructure is concerned and I am sure that once the final report on that is done— 
David Benson-Pope 
: Eric Roy never did it. 
MARK PECK 
: No Eric Roy talked about it a lot but never did a thing. I tell the National Party that I actually have its economic policy. 
Clayton Cosgrove 
: A blank piece of paper? 
MARK PECK 
: No. I say to the member that is a silly interjection on this occasion because it is a very well-detailed policy and it was given to the knowledge wave conference by Don Brash. If the National Party has not voted for it yet it will not be long before it does. I will tell members what it is. Actually I quoted Don Brash’s speech in my economics essay as one of the possible approaches New Zealand could have taken to the unemployment of the 1990s. We had to talk of two competing areas and I thought Don Brash’s comments did set out a competing area. 
But here is what he would do. He would remove all remaining tariffs—not review them but remove them. His attitude is let us not learn the lesson from the 1980s that if one takes away all protections one should not be surprised if there is a crash which is what happened. Not only did the stock market crash but once we had removed industry protections we actually had an enormous crash of people hitting the scrap heap. He says let us not worry about that. 
He would introduce a capital gains tax. While he was the Governor of the Reserve Bank he was on record as saying at the Finance and Expenditure Committee that he supported a capital gains tax and he has not recanted from it. It is still in his policy as outlined to the knowledge wave conference. 
He would go to the Singapore model of welfare—no superannuation and no support for those who are a bit down on their luck or who are ill or injured. He would have none of that because it is inflationary and one cannot have inflation in the economy. He would drive it out with those measures. I say to him he should come down here and tell us what he would do then to prop up the justice system and the prison system to make sure that people who own property are protected. They would need to build fences. People who do not have anything to live on will find a way of living. 
He would also reduce tax for the very wealthy. In his speech he went on asking what damage would be done if those on half a million dollars a year paid only a small proportion of their income in tax. He asked what difference it would make. It would bring people to New Zealand as he saw it who might be prepared to invest. That is the National Party policy. 
People understand that this Government has introduced good policies which are working. People have had enough of the right-wing experiments that were undertaken by National and ACT. People have had enough of the double standards of the ACT party which have been exposed in the House tonight and that is why this Government is riding so high and that is why the National Party is in deep disarray. That is why I say to John Carter he should get on the phone get Bill English back here and deal with that party’s systemic problems. Lord forbid we do not want a situation where New Zealand First ends up being the major Opposition party! At least the National Party should stand for something decent. But in the condition it is in it has not got a prayer of even starting to form a policy much less the next Government 
SUE BRADFORD (Green) 
: 
 Just last week representatives of the non-governmental organisation umbrella group Action for Children and Youth Aotearoa travelled to Geneva to make a formal presentation to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child. Among numerous recommendations contained in its excellent report is one relating to article 4 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child which New Zealand officially ratified 10 years ago. Article 4 states that Governments must do all they can to implement the rights contained in the convention including taking measures to fulfil the social and economic needs of children to the maximum extent possible given their country’s resources. Picking up on this the non-governmental organisation's report to Geneva contains two pertinent recommendations. The first states firmly that the New Zealand Government should implement a framework in its annual Budget allocations that accounts for its obligations under article 4 of the convention. The second recommends that the Government should prioritise the elimination of child poverty and services for children and youth in its budgetary allocations. 
 How well do this past year’s Budget and the supplementary estimates we are looking at tonight stack up against these recommendations? The Green Party says “not very well” despite some of the excellent reforms that Labour has carried out over the last 3½ years. In a whole range of areas relating to the way we treat our children and the value we place on them we are falling far short. Many of our children and young people are badly impacted by social and economic inequity and still live in poverty—a third of them overall according to the Ministry of Social Development’s briefing to last year’s incoming Government. Too many of our children continue to miss out on adequate access to health education and employment opportunities a situation exacerbated by the housing crisis which disproportionately affects low-income families. 
Just to pick up on one very specific example on looking at the supplementary estimates for the Ministry of Social Development I see that the provision of income support for unemployed unsupported 16 and 17-year-olds was underspent by nearly $2 million. This comes at a time when I continue to hear cases of young women desperate to leave the life of prostitution who are still being denied access to the independent youth benefit. If people in that situation cannot access it I seriously wonder who can especially given this House’s avowed support for exit strategies from the sex industry as shown in a certain other debate we are having in Parliament at the moment. 
I use this example only because I believe it exemplifies an underlying attitude towards children and young people when it comes to our spending Government money on them. In the mental health area the grossest underfunding continues to occur in the area of child and adolescent mental health. The Department of Child Youth and Family Services still has long waiting lists and big gaps in the quality and timeliness of care and protection. Above all child poverty remains despite protection from poverty being a right identified specifically in articles 4 6 26 and 27 of the treaty. The Green Party believes along with many groups in the community that children should not be discriminated against because their parent or parents are unemployed. Family support and family assistance should be made equitable and increased immediately and a universal child benefit should be introduced as a non - income tested non-transferable payment to all primary caregivers. The thresholds on the amount that beneficiaries can earn before losing their benefit should be raised along with core benefit levels. The minimum wage should be lifted to $10 an hour immediately. More needs to be done to increase the level of social housing and improve the access to housing finance of low to medium-income earners. 
I hope that these and many other measures I do not have time to list tonight will be included in next year’s Budget. Surely a Labour Government that is running a surplus and that feels able to pour billions of dollars a year into a superannuation fund to invest on the overseas markets should be able to see its way clear by next year at the latest to prioritise the needs of our children in line with our international obligations. 
DAVID PARKER (NZ Labour—Otago) 
: 
 I rise to speak in support of the Minister’s motion. In talking in relation to the supplementary estimates I think it is important to put the general background first. New Zealand has had one of the highest growth rates in the OECD in the last year and one of the lower unemployment rates. The Government is running a healthy surplus and Crown debt is at the lowest level it has been for about 30 years—and that is after the Government has been making prudent contributions to the Superannuation Fund. So one wonders whether against that background there would be some analysis or some attempt to find some bad news in the supplementary estimates on the part of the Opposition. Have we heard much talk about the detail of the supplementary estimates? No we have not. One would expect an analysis of the detail but no we are not getting that. What we saw today was the Rt Hon Winston Peters making a vicious attack against Mr Tamihere—the same old tired allegations that have been made over the previous 3 years. There is nothing new in them. 
Most members of the public—and I am certainly of this view—know that Mr Tamihere is a man of some considerable ability. That is reflected in what he did before he got to Parliament. In his brief time on this planet compared with some of the old dogs on the other side of the House he has achieved far more than they will ever achieve. That was reflected in 1997 when  
North and South  
named him Man of the Year. The next year the  
Sunday Star-Times 
 named him Man of the Year.  
Metro  
did something similar when it named him New Zealander of the Year in 1999. They are all high accolades. Mr Tamihere’s considerable efforts on behalf of the Waipareira Trust are a shining example of the good things that can be done for Maori on a limited budget. He is a man of some talent. It is obvious that the Rt Hon Winston Peters recognises that. He is threatened by that and is attempting to tear him down. Instead of focusing on the positive things that Mr Tamihere does and instead of looking at the strengths of this very important part of our Labour Party Mr Peters is spouting unjustified negative comments. 
I wish now to refer to the supplementary estimates which we are here to debate. John Tamihere is the Minister of Youth Affairs the Minister for Land Information the Minister of Statistics and the Minister for Small Business. Let us have a look at the supplementary estimates to see whether the accounts are in order in Mr Tamihere’s departments—looking at the actual numbers is a rare event in this debate. If we look at the total appropriation for Vote Lands we see that the supplementary estimates show that Land Information New Zealand is actually giving money back. Its supplementary estimate is a return of some money. If we look at the total appropriations for Statistics New Zealand—John Tamihere is the Minister of Statistics—we see that the total of appropriations for that department is $59 million. The small amount of $3 million is supplementary appropriation all of which is described as being a change of outputs between output classes and departments. There is actually no additional Government spending. 
John Tamihere is a man well in control of his ministries. If we look at the appropriations for the Ministry of Youth Affairs we can see that his ministry is actually handing money back. 
Government Member 
: What is he doing? 
DAVID PARKER 
: He is handing money back. He is not actually getting additional money. 
I would like to turn briefly to some of the outrageous comments that we heard earlier from Dr Don Brash in relation to his suggestion that we are not growing fast enough and that the Labour Party is not to be trusted. I refer him to his comments which were reflected in his article around the time of the Budget in the  
Dominion Post  
on Thursday 15 May when he was comparing us with Australia. He said: “There is too slow a rate to narrow the large gap in living standards between New Zealand and Australia that emerged during the 1970s and 80s.” Now that seems to be a strange comment when one thinks about it in 2003. It is strange to see reference to the 1970s and 1980s and no reference to the 1990s. When I read that I thought I would have a look at the statistics. The OECD statistics which compare economic wellbeing show that in 1980 Australia was No. 10 on the list. New Zealand at that time was at No. 18. The 1980s was the decade of the Labour Party effectively. During that decade—between 1980 and 1990—Australia went back six places on the OECD tables. New Zealand went back only one place—compared with Australia that was a far better performance. Let us now look at the decade of the National Party—the 1990s. What would one expect to find? I thought that this deserved particular attention—it was the decade of those failed policies of the National Party and it was omitted quite conspicuously in the comments of Dr Brash that were reported in the  
Dominion Post  
of 15 May. One sees that during that period—the 1990s—Australia started at position No. 16 in the OECD rankings. By the year 2000 it had advanced to position No. 12. It had gone up by four places. In comparison during the 1990s—the decade of the National Party—we in New Zealand went backwards. 
Mark Peck 
: Where did we go to? 
DAVID PARKER 
: We went backwards from position No. 19 to position No. 20. This is no basis at all for the National Party to argue successfully that its policies are better. In fact it shows the contrary. It shows that the fundamentalist policies that are backed by National and ACT—which they still cling to which they have not moved past and which they still believe in rigidly—are not the policies that would improve the lot of New Zealanders. We know that that would be a return to that decade the 1990s when New Zealand went backwards while Australia was going forwards. They cling to their old-fashioned fundamentalist ideology. They have no faith at all in the ability of New Zealand to do better than look to its past. That past the decade of the 1990s makes sad reading. Lynda Scott is shaking her head but I will show her these statistics and she will see that they do not lie. 
Mark Peck 
: As far as Lynda Scott is concerned National never did anything wrong. 
DAVID PARKER 
: That may be right—some people do not learn from their mistakes. In 1990 Australia’s position was No. 16 and in 2000 it had advanced to No. 12. In 1990 New Zealand’s position was No. 19. We went backwards to position No. 20. 
Mark Peck 
: Who was in power? 
DAVID PARKER 
: The National Party was in power. Who was in charge of the Reserve Bank? It was Dr Don Brash. What happened to provincial areas? They were strangled. One of the points that comes out in the supplementary estimates is that in the last year the funding from Industry New Zealand to incubators increased. Under the National Government there were no incubators. They are associations of like-minded businesses that are given a bit of a hand up by the Government’s providing of some mentoring or its facilitating services that are not very expensive. The National Party just does not believe in that stuff but I can tell those members that as of May 2003 there were 15 incubators in New Zealand and three emerging incubators—103 companies in incubators have received some Industry New Zealand funding. The incubators have received the funding not necessarily the individual companies. The companies in those incubators have doubled their staff numbers. They are small emerging companies. They have also raised more than $10 million in equity funding and their turnover has increased. Those are all good statistics and that is a small part of the reason that in the last few years so many new jobs have been created in New Zealand under the wise governorship of this Labour-led Government. 
Hon Ruth Dyson 
: As opposed to what National did in the 1990s. 
DAVID PARKER 
: Exactly—as opposed to what National did in the 1990s when it closed down all of the funding. Max Bradford did not ruin just the power industry; he dealt to Tranz Rail as well. National also withdrew funding of the business support that was available through the then agencies. That had a negative effect and it is one of the reasons that in that decade New Zealand went backwards from No. 19 to No. 20 while the Australians advanced from No. 16 to No. 12. 
Dr LYNDA SCOTT (NZ National—Kaikoura) 
: 
 I want to talk about the decline in the public health sector. Today at the Health Committee we debated the radiation waiting times. New research has come out and it shows quite categorically that if people wait more than 8 weeks for radiation therapy post-mastectomy or lumpectomy they have a far greater risk of local recurrence. A report was finished in 1999 by the oncology working party. The report is called the New Zealand Radiation Oncology Advisory Committee Report. The Minister of Health said that the reason she did not see the report for 2 years was to do with the Hon Wyatt Creech and was nothing to do with the ministry. I tell this House that Colin Feek set up that working-party that the Ministry of Health was totally involved and that the report went back to the Ministry of Health. The Minister of Health is continually trying to blame the National Party and is continually trying to pass the buck for what is going wrong in the health sector in this country and that is absolutely unacceptable to us. She should front up to the issues and instead of passing the buck she should tell us what she is going to do to improve things. But she does not do that. 
The radiation waiting times at the moment mean that women who know the risks of local recurrence are choosing to have a mastectomy and lose a breast rather than lose a life. This situation has been going on for the last few years with nothing being done to improve it. The Minister stood up in this House and said that nobody was waiting more than 12 weeks. That is not the case and she knows it. The individual cases that I have raised are the only way that we can get this Minister to take a look at the issue. Those people know that their lives are put at risk because of these delays. The public health system is in decline. Those women have no other choice because there is no private provision for this. We have to send patients to Australia to use its private hospital system. The Minister said today that she does not object to public-private partnerships. So I asked her how many new public-private partnerships had been set up in the last 4 years. How many do members think? 
Lindsay Tisch 
: I’ve got no idea. 
Dr LYNDA SCOTT 
: She could think of only one in the last 4 years. Before that under National there were public-private partnerships all over New Zealand and they were improving health services. We had it happening in radiology and in urology and it was happening in hospitals with private wards using spare space. Services were improving and we were keeping our consultants in rural areas. The incomes for staff were improving and we were not losing them overseas. 
The boards’ objections now to private involvement are simply and utterly ideology. If the Minister agrees with public-private partnerships then maybe she should not have appointed all those board chairs who do not—because they are totally ignoring her. That is absolutely why Capital Coast Health cancelled the Wakefield Hospital contract. It is why Waitemata District Health Board cancelled the birth-care contract. Contracts have been cancelled not increased. This country needs good public and good private health-care to be able to deliver for New Zealand. We are a nation of only 4 million people. We are the size of Melbourne yet we have 21 district health boards. The Minister trumpets the fact that this year the deficit will be only $194 million! Can members believe that? In 1999-2000 when she took over all bar two—they were hospital and health services then—were in the black and only two were in the red. What do we have now? Do we have any that are actually in the black? We have one breaking even—that is it. 
Opposition Member 
: Where’s that? 
Dr LYNDA SCOTT 
: South Canterbury. Huge amounts of money are being spent and that would be more acceptable if people were getting more service but 25000 patients have been culled off the waiting list. The Minister said that there would be no health cuts. In Canterbury alone 10500 received a letter saying: “Goodbye we aren’t going to treat you. There is going to be no publicly funded service for you.” One would think that the general practitioner who knows the patient best would actually know what is right for the patient and whether the patient had to have surgery. 
Today in the House I brought up the case of a patient who has a hernia and has been put on a disability pension because he cannot work. He cannot get his hernia fixed. He will never be able to afford to pay to have that hernia fixed privately. But the Waikato District Health Board the Northland District Health Board and the Canterbury District Health Board have all said that they will not treat people with hernias unless they strangulate which is a life-threatening situation. I am talking about a 42-year-old man who is the father of two children. He is a solo dad and he is working part-time. His employer has said: “I can’t employ you. You’re too unreliable. Every time you’re in pain you have to go home.” Do members know what the hospital said? It said: “Take a Panadol.” Well people cannot do that because they cannot swallow them. Pharmac has bought such a cheap one that people cannot swallow them. They are terrible to try to take. But that is what the hospital said. 
Darren Hughes 
: Tell us your policy! 
Dr LYNDA SCOTT 
: I will tell the member what our policy is. We want the general practitioner to have far more say in what— 
Darren Hughes 
: That’s not a policy. 
Dr LYNDA SCOTT 
: Yes it is. The member should ask the general practitioners. They want to have more say. The general practitioner I have referred to sent the patient back to Waikato Hospital but the hospital said no it was not even going to see him. Not only would it not give him surgery but it would not see him to assess him. That is unacceptable to us it is unacceptable to general practitioners and it is unacceptable to patients. 
Then there are all the other people who are being bumped off that list. What are general practitioners supposed to do with them? They have no solutions for this situation because their patients are just being bumped off the list. Another thing we talked about today was primary health organisations. Elective services are being severely rationed around the country—with no debate. There is no core health services debate with the local communities. Those patients have not been asked. The general practitioners have not been asked. They have just been told that no sorry the patient is off the list. At the same time that that is happening public health organisations this year alone are having $163 million poured into them in an untargeted unfair funding formula. The Government has changed the script for public health organisations about 16 times. Every time a new one develops there is a new script. It has not been trialled anywhere. 
I worked as a doctor in the Hokianga a few years ago. They had absolutely free health-care yet there is no research or study to show that the outcomes were better. Yet we are pouring money $163 million in an untargeted fashion just to a location. Do we think do we know whether it is of benefit? Is there any trail of this? Do we know that there is any evidence that it is going to improve health outcomes? No. 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: It’s just ideology. 
Dr LYNDA SCOTT 
: That is right. It is absolutely ideology. It is the socialisation of medicine. Medicine is being socialised in this country and because of that there are doctors’ practices that are worthless. There are doctors who have worked hard bought into a practice and now found that the practice is absolutely worthless. If we take the example of the Drury practice in south Auckland we can see the stupidity of what is happening. If those guys move their practice 2 kilometres down the road they would be inside the boundary and they would get cheaper care for their patients. But if they stay where they are they do not. Does that makes sense? So they either go broke or they move. It does not make sense and they have asked the Minister of Health to visit them and try to sort the problem out. But she does not. She just passes the buck. She just says it is the district health board’s problem. She is the Minister who has said that the buck stops with her but no no she just passes the buck to the district health boards every time she is asked a question. That is not right and we will hold her to account for that. 
Public health organisations have their funding untargeted. It is not based on need. A lot of it is based on the fact that an area has to have 50 percent Maori Pacific Island or low-decile people. The problem with that is that there are a lot of people in that area who do not have high need. So the Government is using a lot of funding to pay for those patients in places like Gisborne and south Auckland. 
Darren Hughes 
: But it’s a good start for Maori health needs isn’t it? 
Dr LYNDA SCOTT 
: No it is not a good start. If the Government wants to put money into primary health care it should target it to those in need. That is what it should do—target it to the individual need. Then it might get some outcomes. But the way it is happening is just pure ideology. 
DIANNE YATES (NZ Labour—Hamilton East) 
: 
 What a litany of whines and moans and groans from Lynda Scott—which explains why the National Party is now on 24 percent in the polls. If there is one thing we can say about Lynda Scott it is that she actually contributes to the poor performance of the National Party. That is probably her great talent. 
The public health organisations are part of a marvellous scheme for distributing funds to those who are in need. It is population-based funding and we thank Annette King the Minister of Health for introducing the scheme. I remind Lynda Scott that $9.5 billion is going into the health sector. This year’s supplementary estimates show that there is an 11.3 percent increase from last year. While we are talking about the money in this year’s Budget I remind Lynda Scott that the health sector has received the largest increase in funding—31 percent or $443 million of new money. What is next? Education. That sector receives $437 million. That is 31 percent new spending. Growth and innovation receives 4 percent new spending. Social services justice and the environment are other areas with increased funding. I will go through those again. Health has had the biggest increase. 
Can I say to Lynda Scott that I as an electorate MP can remember when the National Party was in Government. I remember that many many people came to my office. I am talking about people who were on accident compensation and were constantly waiting for operations. I am talking about people who could not work in their usual jobs because they needed hip replacements or other operations. I have not had one of those people in my office for months and months. Lynda Scott should get real. People are getting their operations. People have rung me and said: “I waited while that National Government was in power for my operation. I was unable to work. I was unable to take part in my normal occupation.” That was the legacy of 9 years of National. I say to Lynda Scott that she should get off the grass look at what is happening and look at what her Government delivered for the 9 years it was in power. At least this Labour-Progressive Government has some new policies some new ideas and creative people in it. We can see from those members opposite and their rating in the polls that they are absolutely bankrupt of ideas and bankrupt of personalities. National is literally a bankrupt party. 
Government Member 
: Impotent. 
DIANNE YATES 
: “Impotent” is the word I hear from a colleague behind me. National is a totally impotent party. In this House and even in select committees there is actually very little contribution from the Opposition. New Zealanders are showing through the polls that they agree with what I have just said. 
As we are talking about the supplementary estimates and the amount of money that this Government is putting into New Zealand I want to say that the Budget is a good Labour Budget. The priorities are health as I have just said—the biggest increase in spending is going into health—and education. There is more money 31 percent new spending going into education. More than 700 new teachers are being paid for. While we are talking about education I want to congratulate a couple of schools in my electorate. Waikato Diocesan School for Girls and Hamilton Boys’ High School were today finalists and runners-up in the Goodman Fielder School of the Year award. Two schools from Hamilton were in the final: one is the secondary school Hamilton Boys’ High School and the other is the Waikato Diocesan School for Girls which was a runner-up in the combined schools contest. I thank Goodman Fielder for running that contest. It is a very very good scheme. It was very encouraging and great to see the young people here in Wellington and I was pleased to celebrate their being in the finals. More than 90 schools entered and two schools from the Hamilton East electorate were in the final. So I say a big “Congratulations!” to the principals to the boards of trustees to the teachers and to the young people themselves on being in that award ceremony. 
The education sector as I have said is where there is big spending. There is increasing funding in health education and housing. We have not said a great deal about housing. The 2003 Budget injects almost an additional $100 million over the next 4 years into the Government’s State house purchase programme. That means another 318 houses in addition to those State houses already planned. Can I say that one of the most horrendous things that the National Government did was to sell off State houses. National sold off 13000 houses. No wonder we have waiting lists! That is the situation that National left us with. Can I also say—and I am really pleased about this—that Steve Maharey is encouraging the third sector and local government to be in partnership. Sixty-three million dollars in the Budget is to be spent encouraging greater involvement in housing by third sector groups and local government. So that is an extra amount of money that is going into partnerships with those who are involved in social housing. I commend Steve Maharey for that particular initiative. I trust that local government and those who are involved in social housing will participate to the full in that partnership. So that is the situation with health education and housing. 
I come now to the job situation and that is where we can see that the Labour-Progressive Government is particularly proactive. I thank Jim Anderton for the involvement in the Regional Partnerships Programme. Twenty-six regions involving 57 local authorities have taken part in regional partnerships and spending has gone into that area. The Waikato Innovation Park in Hamilton forestry training in Rotorua food processing in Napier and wine research in Marlborough are particular highlights of that programme. I commend those people in my electorate and the Minister and the trusts that have been involved in that community partnership. This Government is about partnership not only in its rhetoric and not only in its work with local government. The Government is putting its money where its mouth is and it is coming up with its share. It was particularly good in Hamilton to see Jim Anderton pitch in and say “Here’s my money.” then say to the city council and the local trust “Where’s yours?”. That partnership is creating 2500 jobs in my electorate and I thank the Minister for Economic Development for that initiative. 
There is job creation through Industry New Zealand. Steve Maharey a proactive Minister is putting $85 million into job training. For 10 years a National Government wound down modern apprenticeships. What did we get? We got the leaky buildings problem. That problem was not caused by George Hawkins I can tell members that. George Chapman a National Party stooge was put in charge of the Building Industry Authority. That was when Mr Prendos first wrote in 1998 to George Chapman and said they had a problem with leaky buildings—a problem that was largely due to deregulation a National Government that got rid of apprenticeships and a number of other causes. I thank Lianne Dalziel the new Minister who is working on new legislation on building. She is doing an excellent job in bringing forward new legislation to straighten up one of the major problems that was created by the National Government. It is interesting that a Labour Government has had to clean up the messes of the incompetent National Government. What did the member call it? 
Hon Ruth Dyson 
: Impotent. 
DIANNE YATES 
: An impotent National Party had a great belief that it could do everything through market forces. That has been totally impossible and we have inherited the messes. Look at what has happened to our airways and our railways. The Labour Government has had to clean up an enormous amount of mess. I reiterate once again that the emphasis in the supplementary estimates is on education health housing and jobs. 
GERRARD ECKHOFF (ACT NZ) 
: 
 I listened with some incredulity to Mr Mark Peck that well-known cold-climate sex symbol from Invercargill criticise a colleague of mine for accepting a scholarship to London where she will be studying. She will be actually seeking knowledge. [ 
Interruption 
] Yes she is guilty of seeking knowledge overseas and yes she is guilty of having talent. That is something that Labour Party members need not concern themselves with. They need not worry about accepting a scholarship overseas or anywhere else. What a mean-spirited bunch they are to deny any person in this country the opportunity to go overseas and increase his or her knowledge base! What a pathetic speech Mark Peck delivered! 
In the short time I have I would like to talk briefly about a scoreline that this Labour Government knows nothing about. I give members the scoreline of Australia: it is 145 and New Zealand’s is 15. Does anybody in the Labour Government have any idea what I am talking about? Well they should because it is probably the single most important scoreline that will affect New Zealand for years and years to come. I refer to the number of trade negotiators. I think that even the Labour Government recognises the importance of trade. Australia has 145 full-time trade negotiators overseas doing the business for Australia—and what do we have? We have 15. I look at the supplementary estimates and I see—oh it is pathetic! Members will have to excuse my laughing. I would cry otherwise; it is so pathetic. We have a paltry $3.5 million to support the World Trade Organization negotiations. The Australians have 145 people full-time; we have 15 and we are increasing our expenditure by $3.5 million! It is so pathetic and it clearly shows to everybody in this country that nobody in this Labour Government understands the importance of the rural sector the manufacturing sector or the export sector of this country. It is just absolutely tragic. 
Let me ask the House this question: how much has the Prime Minister cost us in terms of trade with her gaffes over the last 3 or 4 months or so? How much have her gaffes cost us? It is very very clear that the Prime Minister’s heart is a long long way from her lips. What the Prime Minister says about positioning New Zealand in the top half of the OECD does not really matter to her because she knows that once she is done with the ordinary people of this country—[ 
Interruption 
] Yes she knows all about ordinary people as somebody observed a wee while ago. The Prime Minister has studied ordinary people. She has spent some time looking at ordinary people. 
One of the greatest problems this country has is the absolute refusal of this Government to understand the significance of the rural sector to this country. The Government has increased expenditure roughly speaking in the order of $13 million. Then it took it all back. It whacked the rural sector with an $8.5 million levy—which it said would never happen—on flatulent sheep and so on. No other country in the Southern Hemisphere has even considered doing something as dumb as that. The Government has whacked the productive sector yet again. That seems to be the only sort of philosophy this Government has. Accident compensation levies and occupational safety and health levies are all costing this country. 
CLAYTON COSGROVE (NZ Labour—Waimakariri) 
: 
 As Gerard Eckhoff rose to speak he looked like a man who had risen from a warm seat at least five or six times tonight clutching pieces of paper—especially after seeing tonight’s TV3 poll. That poll put ACT at 4.5 percent and falling which is consistent with the Television One poll of 4 percent. 
In referring to the supplementary estimates I want to touch on a couple of things that Mr Eckhoff talked about. Mr Eckhoff—that great genius of the ACT party the man who will tell us the secret of his and his party’s success—talked about the rural sector. He should read some of the statistics on economic growth. The urban sector had 3.7 percent growth this year and the rural sector 3.9 percent. That is real growth real jobs and real productivity. And he calls himself a farmer now and again! He touched on that and also talked about Deborah Coddington who has gone to seek knowledge on a scholarship to Great Britain. She has I think been away for a couple of months. There is nothing wrong in my view my party’s view or the view of anybody in this House with people seeking knowledge. In fact if Rodney Hide and Richard Prebble did a bit more of it their party might rise slightly more in the polls. But what is wrong and what is a rort is when someone gets a Qantas Media Awards scholarship that pays all his or her expenses and gives a few bob to have a pint down at the local pub in Oxford or Cambridge—or wherever it is that Deborah Coddington is for the next 3 months—but the taxpayer still picks up the tab for the salary. That is wrong. That is a rort and is it any wonder that it is just one of many rorts to come out of the poor old 4-percent ACT party? 
Then Mr Eckhoff went on to do the old “tried and true”. ACT party members really are political strategists. They have pulled every cat out of the bag that they can and they are being advised I am told by some great Australian political strategist. He attacks the Prime Minister. He attacks our fantastic trade diplomats. We are small in numbers as a country. We are small in numbers in terms of our diplomats but I would put our diplomats up against those of Australia the United States or the UK any day of the week when it comes to world trade. Our people and I think even some of the National Party people would agree that our diplomats are some of the best in the world. But Mr Eckhoff desperate to try to find anything negative in these supplementary estimates attacked our diplomats and our Prime Minister yet again. 
I have a message for the ACT party. That party is on 4 percent in the polls but it keeps attacking the Prime Minister whose measure of leadership and confidence from the people of New Zealand keeps going up. ACT members are on a loser in attacking her. They try to get the people to lose confidence in her but it does not work. Tonight the people have spoken—they have spoken two nights in a row—and they are sick to death of Mr Eckhoff’s party and its grubby little muckraking tactics. 
What a spectacle we have had tonight in this Parliament. Coming to the Chamber tonight I had a revelation. I saw groups of National Party members of Parliament huddled in little teams around television sets. In the dining room there were little groups of National Party and ACT members of Parliament ashen-faced. They know they are in deep deep trouble. They know that the people of New Zealand who have spoken through the polls want more than platitudes and Lynda Scott’s fake pity and bravado; they want words matched with deeds. What grinds down the soul of every National Party member and every drongo from the ACT party is that these supplementary estimates deliver. 
My colleague Dianne Yates talked about the priorities in this Budget—health education housing and training. It is worth noting that this Government has delivered a $4 billion surplus and a growth rate of 4.4 percent. That might be a hard concept for Mr Eckhoff to get his head around but when we go to the towns and cities in this country—and I invite some of the ACT party members to do that; to come out of the flash boardrooms to close the cocktail cabinets and to actually go out on the street and talk to some of our Kiwis—we find that people are feeling pretty good about this country and about their own well-being. There has been growth of 4.4 percent. In my own half of the country the South Island there was 4.3 percent growth. In the North Island it was 3.7 percent. As I have said in urban New Zealand there was growth of 3.7 percent and in rural New Zealand growth was at the rate of 3.9 percent. That is real substantial growth. That is a building block on which we can go forward as a country and it would be nice if just once or twice—in fact it might earn them a brownie point or two in the polls—the Opposition  the ACT party and the National Party said something positive about our people about our nation and about where we are going as a country. 
Since we came into office 120000 new jobs have been created—real ones. Suddenly the clatter from the Opposition benches has ceased and there is a hush of silence from those members because they know that it is true. There is a current account balance of 4 percent of gross domestic product. Inflation is at 2.5 percent. Interest rates are some of the lowest around the world at 5.38 percent. This Government in these supplementary estimates is backing our young people through the Modern Apprenticeships scheme. Every time we go around the constituencies including mine and we mention the word “apprenticeship” to constituents two emotions are displayed. One response is that they ask: “Why did those fools in the previous National Government abolish apprenticeships? The second is that they acknowledge that this Government reinvented them. We have 5100 young people on the go getting real training and in these estimates we have committed to having 7500 in total by 2006. That is not the sort of Don Brash philosophy of the unemployed going to the Post Office and cutting grass with scissors or doing something inane just so that Mr Eckhoff and his fat-cat privileged mates can say that someone is sweating for his or her social welfare benefit. What use is that person to an employer in getting a job if he or she has not been properly trained? None! 
I want to turn for a moment to Lynda Scott’s contribution. 
H V Ross Robertson 
: If you can call it that. 
CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: My colleague says if I can call it that. 
Hon Damien O'Connor 
: Rant! 
CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: My other colleague says it is Lynda Scott’s rant. Lynda Scott another member of the National Party again takes any opportunity to find a negative. She does not make one move towards announcing a health policy from the National Party but rants and raves. I find it a bit distasteful. There are people on the waiting lists who are hurting but they will get there. There are people in our society who have it a bit tough but they will get help. But that member Lynda Scott’s—Mr Carter laughs and that says it all—getting up every day in this House and jumping on the back of people’s tragedy and misfortune for her own political gain is behaviour not worthy of the so-called once-great National Party. It is desperate. It should circle the wagons because every tactic it tries does not work. Members can look at the polls. Even Mr Sowry was booted out for the first time in his career. 
After their best week of having a go at us the message for the National Party is that people have had a gutsful of all the peripheral rubbish that its members keep going on about. What people want is an Opposition that comes out with some policy so that they can then measure it against us and then we could have a debate. But the problem is that we cannot have a debate if there is no policy coming out from a weak and lazy Opposition which spends its time whingeing and whining and lamenting the fact that it has had 9 long years—Lynda Scott should remember—to put all those great grandiose ideas that they never announce in place. They did nothing and now all they do is criticise us. Lynda Scott failed to mention that we are putting $9.6 billion into health this year—an increase of 31 percent. She failed to mention that because that might be good news; that might actually be telling the truth. Then she could say what her party and her prospective Government—though National will never make it—would do. 
I say to the National Party and the ACT party that they are on a loser. The people of New Zealand for the second night in a row have spoken. We can hear a sort of death rattle in the Opposition around this Chamber. We have the C-team with David Carter who will be up speaking next I am sure. We can hear the death rattle and see the body bags coming out. They are not up to it economically they are not up to it socially and they are not up to it politically. They ought to take note of the people and what they say. 
Hon DAVID CARTER (NZ National) 
: 
 I start by referring to a comment that that member made about the current growth rate of 3.9 percent in rural New Zealand being a building block for our economy. 
Clayton Cosgrove 
: Absolutely! That’s right. 
Hon DAVID CARTER 
: The Labour member for Waimakariri interjects and says again that that is right so I invite that member who claims that all is well in the rural economy to read— 
Clayton Cosgrove 
: And getting better. 
Hon DAVID CARTER 
: I invite him to read the press release put out on Monday this week 16 June by his colleague Jim Sutton the Minister of Agriculture. In it he said that the rural sector of New Zealand is under extreme pressure. The Minister of Agriculture has belatedly realised that the Labour Government has squandered the opportunities that were presented to it by 3 years of buoyancy in rural New Zealand but he has not taken the opportunity to brief his junior members in caucus to say what is happening. We have just had a contribution from the member for Waimakariri who claims that the Waimakariri electorate is a rural electorate and who has not bothered to read the statements made by his Government’s Minister of Agriculture. I think that says it all because the Minister of Agriculture is finally aware that all is not well in rural New Zealand. Clayton Cosgrove needs to get out of Rangiora and drive around his rural electorate and he will find out that farmers are under pressure because commodity prices are falling. 
Clayton Cosgrove 
: Really! 
Hon DAVID CARTER:The 
 member did not know? The rural member had no idea that the dairy payout this year is less than last year? He had no idea that the price being received for lambs in Canterbury at Tuesday’s market is less than last year? Had the member for Waimakariri not realised that the dollar has continued to increase and the exchange rate is putting pressure on rural New Zealand? It appears not. A real threat that the member ought also to take some responsibility for is that trade access is now under threat because of the incompetence of the Prime Minister and the threats she made to the Americans. 
I want to reiterate the points made by the ACT member Gerry Eckhoff because today the Labour Government can “celebrate” almost 6 months to the day its ratification of the Kyoto Protocol. Its headlong rush to ratify the protocol against all sensible advice is now coming home to roost. Within 6 months we have another press release from the Minister of Agriculture Jim Sutton which I invite the rural member for Waimakariri to read. In it he will find that the Government by stealth has today announced an $8.4 million tax on the farmers of New Zealand. I will say one thing: at least Clayton Cosgrove has gone white and quiet for a change because he now realises that New Zealand has put itself in an unenviable position over the Kyoto Protocol. We are the only country in the Southern Hemisphere that has ratified the protocol and has a commitment to it. No other country in the Southern Hemisphere was as dumb as New Zealand. What makes the matter even worse for New Zealand is that this country is absolutely unique in that 50 percent of our emissions come from animal emissions. 
Hon Damien O'Connor 
: You signed up to it. 
Hon DAVID CARTER 
: Minister Damien O’Connor now says the National Government ratified the Kyoto Protocol. If the Minister had listened he would have heard me say the ratification occurred 6 months ago last week and if the Minister used his brains he would realise that he was a Minister in the Government 6 months ago which means it was not possible for the National Government to have ratified the protocol. That Government made the decision against all advice including the advice from the National Party yet today we have the announcement of a discussion document. This is the sneaky way this Government does tax increases. It puts out a discussion document that says it is going to extract $8.4 million out of the livestock farmers of New Zealand with the exception of pig and poultry farmers—and I would like an explanation of that from the next member who stands up— 
Darren Hughes 
: Did the member put in a submission on the discussion document? 
Hon DAVID CARTER 
: Mr Hughes interrupts to ask whether I put a submission in. I say to him that the discussion document was released by his Minister of Agriculture only today so the chances of my putting in a submission within 6 hours of its release are not so great. What a silly member. This particular tax has a lovely name. It will be called an “AER”—an animal emission research levy. I am not sure how it will be collected. The discussion document states that it may be collected via the producer boards. Well hello the Primary Production Committee has just reported back legislation that gets rid of one of the producer boards but Mr Sutton the Minister in charge appears to have forgotten to tell Mr Hodgson the Minister in charge of climate control that that is happening. I say to the Government that when it gets junior members to stand up in here and say that all is well in the rural economy it should advise them to at least manage to read the press releases put out by their own Ministers. It is not much to ask. 
The other issue I want to talk about is the growth rate that Clayton Cosgrove took the opportunity of being so happy with. The growth rates will decline over the next year to half what they were the previous year. We see in the Budget an outlook for this country to grow at somewhere around 2 percent. I do acknowledge big surpluses and that is why I was absolutely disappointed to note that the Minister of Agriculture who is also the Minister for Biosecurity was happy to present to the select committee recently the budget for Vote Biosecurity which has been dramatically cut from $176 million a year to $138 million a year yet he tried to argue that those figures were not a cut. There is money around. There is money to spend on biosecurity—the biggest single issue facing this country—but the Government is intent on investing in sharemarkets and transport infrastructure—Air New Zealand and Tranz Rail so far and maybe Mainfreight next week; who knows? 
I want to finish very briefly on the issue of trade access because this country survives on its ability to export. 
Hon Jim Anderton 
: It’s surviving a lot better than it used to. 
Hon DAVID CARTER 
: Jim Anderton interrupts and says it is surviving a lot better than it used to. If the Minister really seriously believes that by insulting the Americans and allowing Australia to sign a free-trade agreement with New Zealand being left out— 
Hon Jim Anderton 
: Haven’t signed one yet. 
Hon DAVID CARTER 
: The Minister says Australia does not have one yet but he does not seem to realise that we have been cut out of the equation. The Minister for Economic Development has learnt only tonight that we have been cut out of free-trade discussions and Australia is proceeding. That says a lot for the current Minister for Economic Development. 
GEORGINA BEYER (NZ Labour—Wairarapa) 
: 
 The comments of the member who has just resumed his seat are a little sad but quite remarkable. They smack of a party in denial. This Labour-led Government is a strong stable Government and a responsible cautious fiscal manager. The Opposition benches can deny it if they like but it is true. This year’s Budget is about fiscal certainty and stability in an uncertain environment and balanced policies. That is a new innovation for this place. Surpluses will be used to ensure long-term fiscal stability and will not be thrown away at the first cheap sale that people think we should throw our money into. No we are fiscally prudent and this year’s estimates would bear that out. 
We are determined to continue the task of building a shared vision and national consensus around the goal of lifting New Zealand’s economic performance and improving our social outcomes. The foundations have been laid and bedded in over the last three Budgets and this year’s Budget is about staying on course and maintaining our strong position in times of uncertainty. 
I ask members to imagine if they will—and what a thing it would be—that National and not Labour had been running New Zealand’s economic policy for the last 3½ years. Let us run through a list of possibilities that might have happened if that were the scenario—though thankfully it is not. In welfare National would have kept the work test for sole parents and sickness beneficiaries that was introduced in the 1990s. Had Dr Don Brash become the Minister of Finance the unemployed would be queuing at the post offices in the mornings for their work for the dole. 
Regarding superannuation here is something that our old mothers and fathers would cringe at: if National were on the Treasury benches New Zealand superannuation would have been cut again—yes déjà vu and that kind of thing—and the age of entitlement would more than likely have been raised. Not a good idea I would have thought. 
Asset sales are another topic of interest. The intention would have been to sell off the remaining family silver including New Zealand Post the Accident Compensation Corporation Television New Zealand and Radio New Zealand. This Government has taken the initiative on behalf of New Zealanders to claw back some of the rail that this country so badly needs for its infrastructure. That is a responsibility we are taking on to try to fulfil that aspiration for New Zealanders. 
As for work life unions would still be dwindling under National. The minimum wage had been frozen at $7 an hour for almost 3 years and it might still have been there by the 1999 election which would have been a worry for most working New Zealanders—the ordinary New Zealanders of this country. In economic development research and development spending would more than likely have been slashed by National. Business incubators would have been non-existent and the job of innovation and growth would have been left solely to the whims of the free market. 
Under a Labour-led Government we have spurned the hands-off policies of the previous 15 years and New Zealand is benefiting. That is why the Opposition tends to find itself in denial over the good news that the estimates offer New Zealanders particularly this year. We have developed the growth and innovation framework with the objective of returning New Zealand’s per capita income to the top half of the OECD. Budget 2003 continues the Government’s commitment to the innovation and growth framework. Those initiatives include for example $140 million—excluding capital—over 4 years for research science and technology. That is reinvesting in New Zealanders; it is reinvesting in people we believe in. I think the Opposition would struggle to try to justify its position on those matters. There will also be $73 million over 4 years to promote overseas trade. 
Where do I hear that we have let this country down? I hear it from the Opposition benches. We have not let this country down. The polls that have been talked about in the debate this evening and in the previous evening’s debate would bear out the fact that there has been little damage to this Government undertaking strong stable action under the strong stable leadership of a Prime Minister who cares who has compassion who is pretty smart and who is a darned sight better than the Leader of the Opposition. He has had to escape the country at a time when I would have thought it was particularly dangerous to do that. What is he doing? Is he cosying up to “GW” in the White House over there in the United States? I do not think so. We have seen very little of what he is actually doing and I would be worried if I were the Leader of the Opposition. 
But let me come back to the point which is the estimates for this year. We have put in $19 million for the pre-seed accelerator fund. That is for projects that have moved beyond eligibility for grant-funded research but which are not yet at the stage where they might attract venture capital or other forms of private sector financing. I could go on on that particular tack but I just want to finish with this: our policies are working. Our strong performance over the last 3½ years has left us in a solid position while we go into a period of uncertainty. The economy has grown 4.4 percent and unemployment is hovering around 5 percent. With that I conclude and thank the House for listening to this fantastic speech. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the Appropriation (2002/03 Supplementary Estimates) Bill and the Imprest Supply (First for 2003/04) Bill be now read a second time. 
Ayes 62 
Labour 52; United Future 8; Progressive 2. 
Noes 56 
New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 7; Green Party 9. 
Bills read a second time. 
Appropriation (2002/03 Supplementary Estimates) Bill 
Imprest Supply (First for 2003/04) Bill 
Third Readings 
Hon RUTH DYSON (Minister for ACC) 
: 
 I move  
That the Appropriation (2002/03 Supplementary Estimates) Bill and the Imprest Supply (First for 2003/04) Bill be now read a third time 
. 
Bills read a third time. 
New Zealand Trade and Enterprise Bill 
Third Reading 
Hon JIM ANDERTON (Minister for Industry and Regional Development) 
: 
 I move  
That the New Zealand Trade and Enterprise Bill be now read a third time 
. In moving that motion I take the opportunity to thank all those who have contributed to this legislation—the people organisations and businesses that made submissions; members of the Commerce Committee particularly the chair Mark Peck for considering the bill in such a short space of time; officials from the Ministry of Economic Development and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade who worked on the bill; my colleague Jim Sutton; and members of the House. 
The bill was referred to the Commerce Committee which presented its report to the House on 23 April. The establishment of a one-stop shop agency with a comprehensive programme of actions for industries regions and businesses is a major achievement for this coalition Government. The legislation creates a new economic development agency that will provide a full range of business assistance and advice in the key areas of investment exports production and marketing. New Zealand Trade and Enterprise will be in operation from 1 July. The Government’s aim in establishing this new agency is to support the growth of internationally competitive New Zealand businesses. 
The decision to merge Trade New Zealand and Industry New Zealand has also been motivated by the need to respond to a strong message from the business community. The business community said and the coalition Government agreed that as there were two agencies that work with the same companies and deal with overlapping business and developmental issues it made absolute sense to streamline them and to have advice delivered from just one; in other words it is a one-stop shop. 
Last night in the House during the Committee stage of the bill John Carter member for the far north asked for evidence that this coalition has had any success in working with businesses regions or industries. He asked whether I could name just one company that we had had success with. When I went back to my office I found a whole page in the  
Dominion Post  
that was interesting because one of our very promising high-growth engineering companies Fraser JJ Engineering Ltd of Lower Hutt had been nominated for a gold award in the business competition for the Wellington region. That company which has recently won contracts worth over $30 million for fire appliances for New Zealand Australia and Fiji as well as being an accredited supplier to General Motors Defense internationally was asked how the Government could specifically assist its industry. The answer in the  
Dominion Post 
 which is not exactly a Progressive party newsletter was: “Continue to fund Industry New Zealand so they can continue to provide advice and assistance which we have found invaluable in the past and keep the Hon Jim Anderton on as Minister of Economic Development.”  
It strikes me as odd that the National Party and other Opposition parties have not figured that out. John Carter was keen to ask about the success we had had in regional development terms. I remind Mr Carter and the National Party that this Government has provided $30 million for fully funded regional roading to be built each year. Interestingly the two regions that were selected for the first tranche of that money were Tairawhiti on the East Coast of the North Island and Northland. I would have thought that John Carter would know that something like $10 million is as we speak being spent without any cost to the northern local authorities on the development of roading that is essential to “the wall of wood” that is coming on stream in Northland.  
If the member for the far north does not know his local community he might be interested in the fact that the Mayor of the Far North District Council Yvonne Sharp has acknowledged the benefits of that funding being able to make John Carter’s region a much better economic proposition for the future than it has ever been. She said: “The announcement that the Far North District would receive $9.7 million totally subsidised regional development roading funding for the current year is amazingly positive for the district. For years there has been stripping of infrastructure from rural areas such as ours and our communities have suffered accordingly. The Government in 1999 gave a commitment to position regional development partnerships and there was no way that Northland could have coped with the forthcoming wall of wood without the direct intervention from the Government.” I repeat: “the direct intervention from the Government”.  
That is the reason the coalition Government has the full support of regional communities in New Zealand. There is not one local authority local community or regional community that does not know of the work that is being done in partnership with the local regions and through the agencies of the Government that this coalition has sponsored and developed. The New Zealand Trade and Enterprise agency will develop and continue that work.  
I am surprised that John Carter did not know that Northland is one of the fastest-growing regions in the country. It certainly was not when Mr Ryall was on this side of the House I can assure members. It was a basket case. As I speak there is not one single region that is in negative growth mode. Is that an accident? Is it something that just happened? No it is not. This Government has worked extraordinarily hard in cooperation and partnership with businesses individual and collective industries and local communities and local authorities to see that every single New Zealander business and region gets a chance to develop its full potential.  
There is an amazing array of innovation creativity and successful development going on in this country at the present time. We have every reason to be extraordinarily optimistic. There has not been a time that I can remember when other major economies like the American the Japanese many of the so-called “Asian tiger” economies or the European economies have been doing a lot worse than New Zealand. Usually when those economies catch cold this country has caught pneumonia but we have been out-performing our traditional trading partners for nearly 3 years and that augurs very well for our future. It is true that we have had some luck in terms of commodity prices weather and so on. 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: Some luck! 
Hon JIM ANDERTON 
: Mr Ryall complains that this Government has got lucky. It is amazing that in 9 years in Government his party never had any luck at all! It reminds me a bit of Gary Player the famous South African golfer who once won the PGA championship in America. After the tournament a reporter came up to him put a microphone in his face and said: “Mr Player you were very lucky on the putting green today.” He said: “You know the more I practise the luckier I get.” I do not think the National Party practises getting lucky at all. This Government practises a lot and—guess what—we get lucky a lot. 
This is a policy-based Government. Those policies are working. This policy of a one-stop shop agency for the development of business in New Zealand for the regions of this country for our economic development and for the well-being of our people is a very positive move in the right direction. I commend this legislation to the House. I thank those who have been associated with it in the House in hearing the issues involved and in reporting back the bill which was almost unamended. The only amendments we had were a few frivolous ones that suggested that we should do all sorts of extraordinary things. Those amendments were frivolous because those things were already covered in the bill and the members putting the amendments did not understand the full import of the developmental policies of this Government. I commend this bill to the House. 
Hon TONY RYALL (NZ National—Bay of Plenty) 
: 
 On cinema screens all around the nation tonight the new Jim Carrey film has been shown. It is called  
Bruce Almighty— 
and that was a speech from “Jim Almighty”! It is his great leadership that has given New Zealand farmers the best commodity prices in a generation it is “Jim Almighty” who has delivered the best weather conditions for a generation and it is “Jim Almighty” who has delivered the lower dollar that has really benefited provincial New Zealand and really given this country the get-up-and-go that we have seen in the last 4 years—but I thought it was all to do with the Lord Almighty and what was happening internationally! I was completely unaware that it is all to do with “Jim Almighty”. Is it not great to be “Jim Almighty” to come into Parliament— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich) 
: The member will use the correct address please. 
Hon TONY RYALL 
: Is it not great to be “Mr Anderton Almighty” who came into Parliament with 13 MPs but is now here with two? That is how great the Alliance’s policy was! Do members remember before the last election how well the Alliance was going to do out of the Jim Anderton “jobs machine”? Do members remember the spin that the Alliance would become the party of small business? It is the party only of people with small houses small cars and small minds. That is what one gets from Mr Anderton who has taken credit for everything that has gone right with the weather the dollar and international commodity prices. 
The New Zealand Trade and Enterprise Bill is a wasted opportunity. We had an opportunity to bring together the 32 different funding and granting organisations of the Government and to bring that $800 million of investment under one umbrella to remove the ridiculous duplication that people in business report—they can have five or six representatives of Government funds knocking on their doors offering money—to remove the foolish waste of public resources whereby Industry New Zealand has $130 million to give out and an administrative budget of $45 million and to remove the hideous inequity whereby the Warehouse can get a cheque for $75000 but a whole lot of small-business people with a good idea cannot get a grant because they cannot provide the matching funds. 
What sort of system gives the company of one of the richest men in New Zealand almost $100000 yet small-business people with a good idea who have not got matching funds cannot get a dollar out of the Jim Anderton “jobs machine”? What sort of economic development strategy spends hundreds of thousands of taxpayer resources on putting a failed yacht business called Sovereign Yachts into west Auckland yet the ordinary businessperson cannot get an Industry New Zealand grant because he or she has not got the $5000-$10000 of matching funds one needs to get an enterprise award? 
 What sort of economic development strategy do we have in this country when it is all about giving the Minister a photo opportunity—and if people say they do not want their photo taken with Jim Anderton the bureaucrats say: “Oh you’d better think twice about that. You might not get your cheque.”? What sort of economic development strategy do we have in this country when we have a budget of $130 million to encourage business and we are spending $45 million on the administrative overhead? What sort of country with a sensible economic development strategy has five agencies knocking on the door of a business in Auckland all offering money for virtually the same thing? It just does not make sense. It is excessive duplication and it is not delivering the results. 
What sort of economic development strategy do we have in New Zealand when the Prime Minister of this country said that the Sovereign Yachts project was the flagship of the Government’s economic development strategy and that it was going to deliver $600 million worth of exports and provide hundreds of jobs for west Auckland—and people are being laid off as this Parliament meets? This is a system that needs reform. 
It is amusing to hear Mr Anderton say that business endorses this amalgamation. The  
Independent 
 newspaper went to virtually all business organisations in this country and asked them whether they supported this bill. It could not find anyone in business who supported what is proposed in this bill. The  
Independent 
 could not find one business organisation that had even been consulted by this Government on the introduction of this bill. 
David Benson-Pope 
: What a pathetic speech! 
Hon TONY RYALL 
: I agree with Mr Benson-Pope—it is a pathetic bill. It is pathetic because it is a missed opportunity. If that member wants to keep interjecting we will start talking about what he did on the Dunedin City Council and about what he should be answering for in terms of the use of public moneys when he was on that council. He will not like it if we go through how he spent the Dunedin City Council’s money and what he spent it on when he was a member of that council. 
This bill is a wasted opportunity. New Zealand Trade and Enterprise will not survive the change of Government that is coming in this country. It will not survive. It will be changed. We will bring together the 32 different funding and grants authorities that exist because the “jobs machine” is a failure. The Prime Minister said that the Sovereign Yachts investment was the flagship that would create hundreds of millions of dollars in export earnings and hundreds of jobs in west Auckland 
Brian Connell 
: What happened? 
Hon TONY RYALL 
: Mr Connell asks what happened to the flagship. It sank. 
Brian Connell 
: Without trace. 
Hon TONY RYALL 
: There is a slight trace. There is that sort of shimmery petrol-type stuff floating on the water which is the wasted taxpayers’ money that was involved in this project. I urge the House to be well aware that this is a wasted opportunity. It is an agency that should have been expanded to include the other 32 different grants and funding organisations. It is a waste of taxpayers’ money that we have missed this opportunity. But that is what one gets from the small people who think they have a plan to run this country when really it is the productive sector that should be supported with lower taxes less regulation and a Government that is prepared to free up the economy and back the productive sector. That is not the sort of Government they are getting at the moment. 
GORDON COPELAND (United Future) 
: 
 I am old enough to remember the days when the then Prime Minister Keith Holyoake used to say that New Zealand was the greatest trading nation in the world. In fact it was true in those days. On a per capita basis we were the No. 1 trading nation in this world. Would that conditions were as benign today as they were then. In more recent times particularly in the last 25 years or so it has become more and more difficult in many ways and at many levels for New Zealand to expand its export trade. For that reason Trade New Zealand has been tremendously popular with the export and commercially orientated sectors of the New Zealand economy. Therefore we support the merger of Trade New Zealand with Industry New Zealand. We very much hope that—and I believe this is the way it will turn out to be—Trade New Zealand will be if one likes the leading culture of the two organisations as they come together. Also we very much hope that the tremendous commercial orientation that Trade New Zealand has built up and that is so popular with New Zealand exporters will go right back through the whole organisation into the more “within the borders of New Zealand” parts of the merger which traditionally were the preserve of Industry New Zealand. 
Small business in New Zealand has to be nurtured and assisted in every way never more so than when it takes that fateful step of trying to branch out into export markets. So often these days it seems to me the cards are stacked against New Zealand. Today for example a new Border Security Bill was introduced to the House. That bill is necessary because the United States of America has introduced new and extremely strict controls on the importation of goods to that nation. It will mean that in future New Zealand exporters have if one likes a higher hurdle to clear before they can get their goods into the United States of America—and that is just the latest example. That one I know is the result of the September 11 event and the battle of the US against worldwide terrorism but it is just another thing that impacts quite negatively on New Zealand exporters. 
Incidentally sometimes when the US does that it seems to me that it looks like a thinly disguised import-protection scheme. I hope that is not the case in this instance and that the new US border controls will be applied to all nations and not just to ports and airports but also to the border trade between the US and Canada to the north and Mexico to the south because I think that the latter in particular is a more likely entry point for terrorist organisations. I give that as just one example of the need we have for a well-resourced Government agency that has high expertise to get alongside and help foster the export growth of New Zealand and its businesses. United Future has pleasure in supporting the third reading of this bill. 
DAIL JONES (NZ First) 
: 
 New Zealand First has supported this bill from the first reading and will continue to support it in the third reading. We have pointed out from time to time however that this bill epitomises the failure of Labour Party policy. It epitomises it by the fact that it repeals the Industry New Zealand Act of 2000—an Act that will have cost this country many thousands if not hundreds of thousands of dollars. It came into effect and at the time New Zealand First supported the concept. We thought it was a good idea. At the time though we pointed out that we thought this Government would not be able to give full support to the officials and the department in so far as the Industry New Zealand Act was concerned and we have been proved correct; because here we are in 2003 repealing the Act brought in by Jim Anderton with such a big hurrah at the time saying that he was going to cure all our ills and that the Industry New Zealand Act was to be the answer. But he has failed and it does not matter what he says about how well the regions are doing as a result of good weather good trading conditions and the reliance upon the immigrants’ dollar. The fact is that Government policy in this area has failed and this Act which repeals the Industry New Zealand Act is a clear example of it. 
However we still retain the hope that this minority Labour Government—I see it is falling in the polls—will be able to this time perhaps take the advice of New Zealand First and give more support to officials and perhaps even consider giving the job to someone with more energy and a greater spark so that this time the legislation will be a success rather than the obvious failure it has been. 
Even with this bill this minority Labour Government could not even get the name right. It is a simple enough thing when one is introducing legislation to at least get the name right. If one cannot get the name right it suggests that maybe one is having difficulty with the rest of it. This bill came in as the Industry New Zealand and Trade New Zealand Integration Bill and during the course of submissions it was decided that that was not right and it would be renamed the New Zealand Trade and Enterprise Bill. Well New Zealand First has gone ahead and supported that change. After all one might say: “What’s in a name?”. But it does suggest that little thought has gone into the legislation. 
During the course of the Commerce Committee hearings the committee decided to include trade unions as being a group that should have been involved in the legislation and New Zealand First has supported that amendment. During the Committee stage the National Party put forward an amendment to remove trade unions from the legislation and New Zealand First opposed that amendment. We were consistent in our support for the fact that in a body like this we need the various groups referred to in the bill and I refer to clause 9(1)(a)(i)—it is a complicated bill to find one’s way around—which refers to “fostering collaborative networks and partnerships between central government local government industry trade unions”—having been inserted—“regions education and research organisations potential investors and individual enterprises;”. 
It is important in any partnership of trading and enterprise that one should have not only employers but employees and their representatives from both those groups involved in any development. New Zealand First was delighted to support the insertion of “trade unions” and to oppose the National Party amendment to delete it. 
During the Committee stage we were fairly broad in our support of and opposition to various matters. Sometimes we supported the Government sometimes we supported other Opposition parties in amendments to the legislation. One of the amendments where we supported other Opposition parties related to clause 31 “Personnel policy” in subclause (2) where this minority Labour Government consistent with its patronising approach to Maori people has been able to have inserted “(d) recognition of—(i) “the aims and aspirations of Maori; and (ii) the employment requirements of Maori; and (iii) the need for involvement of Maori as employees of NZTE;” etc. 
What a patronising clause! We have consistently said that Maoris can stand up for themselves. They do not need special treatment and they do not want special treatment. We in New Zealand First have proportionally more Maori members of Parliament than has the Labour Party. Our members express the view of the modern Maori and this type of patronising clause is not required. However the Labour Party with its majority supported by United Future insisted on that clause staying in the bill. We opposed it unsuccessfully during the Committee stage. 
We are also disappointed that no reference has been made in this legislation to tourism. Tourism plays a very big part in our economy and one of the results of people coming here through tourism and the industry surrounding tourism is that there are industries working to help the industry of tourism and we would have thought that in a New Zealand Trade and Enterprise Bill some recognition would be given to the tourism sector. But there is nothing in the bill to that effect despite our minority report from the select committee. 
One of the things that pleased me most about this legislation and why I was generally delighted to support it was the fact that in the functions clause—clause 9(1) to which I have just referred—there is this provision for collaborative networks and suchlike and in paragraph (b) the functions include to “provide a conduit for input and advice from industry trade unions local government regions education and research organisations potential investors and individual enterprises on programmes to implement the Government’s policies for economic industry and regional development:”. 
I say that especially in regard to the region that I have in mind which is the Whenuapai area in Waitakere City. As will be well known to many members of Parliament there is a suggestion that the RNZAF base in Auckland will close and the Labour Government has a programme to close it. In the event that that does happen and steps are taken in that direction on a final basis then it seems clear to me that this type of legislation is very very appropriate for the development of that area. We are talking about an area that currently is estimated to contribute $60 million per year to the Waitakere – North Shore economies. It is the Waitakere City Council’s single biggest employer with 14020 fulltime-equivalent employees. There are 453000 people currently living within 6 kilometres of Whenuapai; 27 percent of the families within 10 kilometres of Whenuapai have an annual income over $70000. This is a very important area for Waitakere City for North Shore City for Rodney District. If one looks at the growth of Auckland in the future in that north and north-west direction one sees that something needs to be done on a programme basis. 
This type of legislation I believe can play an important role in working with the local government people of Waitakere City Rodney District and North Shore City in much the same way as way back in 1975 when I was elected as member of Parliament for Waitemata. We had those many hundreds of acres of land around Albany that we developed and had meetings and programmes over many years which the Hon Don McKinnon continued. Now we have a wonderful development in the Albany basin area of industry and also residential areas. They are the perfect mix so one can ensure growth in a proper way with good clean industries and a good quality of development. 
If we had had a Labour Government in 1975 that area would have been State houses because that was the Labour Party plan. Imagine what that Albany area would be like if it were full of State houses in much the same way as Otara which is the way the Labour Party looked upon it then. If we look at west Auckland now Waitakere City now and Whenuapai and Hobsonville we see that is what the Labour Party plans—another Otara-type development there. I dread to think of it. I believe that the type of development we have in Albany is something that this trade enterprise committee should be looking at. 
We have had a promise from Ministers that they have established and are jointly leading the establishment of a working-group that will recommend a process by which decisions will eventually be made with regard to the Whenuapai area. This is a public message of 12 March 2003 from the Hon Mark Burton: “This group will consult with a range of Government local government and community interests.” Is that not like the situation we have in this legislation? It seems to me to be totally in keeping with it. 
Finally in this note from which I wish to read as they say it states: “Initial reports are expected from this group by the middle of this year.” Well that is this year—2003. We have not heard anything yet. The people of Whenuapai Waitakere City and surrounding areas can be sure that I will be chasing along the Ministers to make sure we do get a report. I have been pleased to support this bill for New Zealand First because I can see it playing a very very important role in the future development of Waitakere City and surrounding areas and I look forward to the way in which it will be implemented. 
MARTIN GALLAGHER (NZ Labour—Hamilton West) 
: 
 I rise to support this bill and pay a compliment to the wonderful chairmanship of Mark Peck and his team. I have just one message for the Opposition. I heard the Hon Tony Ryall wax lyrical or try to but I would rather be the Minister for Economic Development the Hon Jim Anderton for just 1 minute than be the Leader of the Opposition on 24 percent in terms of tonight’s TV3 poll for 3 years. What was it 7 percent? 
Government members 
: Yes 7 percent. 
MARTIN GALLAGHER 
: At that rating he will not even win Balclutha. That is the difference between him and this Government. Mark Peck would win Balclutha. Bill English cannot. This is a good bill good work by the Commerce Committee and excellent work by the Minister for Economic Development. 
Hon KEN SHIRLEY (Deputy Leader—ACT NZ) 
: 
 That was actually a very sad speech by Mr Gallagher from Hamilton. He had nothing to say about the substance of the bill and gave a short couple of sentences that made some pathetic attempts at political point-scoring. I think it is appalling when legislation like this is treated with such disdain by Government members. ACT opposes this legislation. Like other Opposition parties we have spoken strongly against it. I have listened to other Opposition parties and substantially agreed with their arguments. But ACT not only speaks against this bill we will be voting against it. In fact I believe that only ACT and the Greens will be voting against this legislation. 
Rod Donald 
: For opposite reasons. 
Hon KEN SHIRLEY 
: The co-leader of the Greens Mr Donald says it is for opposite reasons and I would like to make that point very clear to the House—they are quite different reasons. The Greens hate trade. They go around the world campaigning against free trade. They hate trade but love bureaucracy so they are voting against this bill; whereas ACT hates bureaucracy but loves trade and we are voting against this bill. I think that is a fair enough assessment of it. 
But the problem with this bill from ACT’s perspective is that we have two conflicting cultures. The bill attempts to meld the Trade Development Board which has been in existence in various forms since 1988 with a very recent organisation Industry New Zealand. It is questionable whether it is a legitimate role of Government to be an active commercial participant in trade promotion. It is clear that the role of Government is to create the climate to facilitate trade. It is certainly a legitimate role of Government to do those things that only Governments can do and that is to negotiate with other Governments to break down the barriers to trade. 
When I look at our record as a country I see we have really left undone most things that we ought to have done and done those things that we ought not to have done. 
David Benson-Pope 
: Throw everything out! 
Hon KEN SHIRLEY 
: Oh the member recognises it does he? The point is that trade negotiations—gaining access—are the legitimate role of Government but when we compare ourselves with Australia we see that Australia has 140 full-time trade negotiators working on World Trade Organization issues and access to various markets around the world like free-trade agreements with the United States. New Zealand has a mere 15. Think about it! Australia is four times the size of New Zealand on a per capita basis yet it has eight times more dedicated professional trade negotiators working on access. Is it any wonder Australia is cleaning us out in market after market? That is where Government should be working and that is where Government is not working. 
We have a few people like Mike Moore whom we appoint as sort of honorary legends for life and send them off. That is not good enough. We need professional middle-management people doing the hard yards and we have not had that. Instead Government gets involved in all the sorts of things that it should not be involved in like going off to trade fairs and trying to be the generic promoter of product. That is not the role of Government. Private sector business will do that best and always has done it best. Government deludes itself by establishing bureaucracies to try to do the business of trade. It should be doing business with other Governments to set a framework and a climate wherein trade can flourish. That is where the effort should go—not into trying to do the commercial business of trade. Philosophically that would be my criticism of Trade New Zealand although I have to say that it has also done some great work. Peter Shirtcliffe did some brilliant work in the early days of the Trade Development Board. 
But Industry New Zealand is a politicised farce. It is the dreamchild of Jim Anderton. Obviously the Labour Government was prepared to buy him off fob him off and throw just a few more taxpayers’ millions into his little pet project. The philosophy of Industry New Zealand was: “Hey I’ve got this big fat chequebook and I’m going to bribe you with your own money.” So the Government employs all these middle-management characters who fly around the country stay in the top hotels and go up to business and say: “Boy I’m going to give you some money.” In other words: “I’m going to give you some of your own money back. We’re going to tax you more so that we’ve got this big bucket of money and Government can go around the country giving out largesse.” That is why one ends up with crazy things like Sovereign Yachts which was not a commercial project but a politicised project. Jim Anderton goes out has his photograph taken and says: “I’ve got 400 new jobs here.” 
Ron Mark 
: That is a housing project. 
Hon KEN SHIRLEY 
: Well it has turned out to be a housing project. That is the other problem—the Government fast tracks the Resource Management Act and all those other obstacles that the battling industries of New Zealand struggle against picks a winner and says: “I’m going to bribe you with your own money and clear the track for you because I Jim Anderton and the Labour Government have decided that you’re on a winner.” Politicians should not try to act commercially because they never do it well and never have. That is the lesson that this Labour Government clearly has not learnt from history and it is destined to relive it and so we end up with fiascos like Sovereign Yachts. We do not have the 400 jobs. We do not have the yacht-building industry we were promised and we have already spent the money. It was an absolute rort. 
While I am on that subject why did Jim Anderton’s little team of Industry New Zealand people go up to the Warehouse and say: “Here’s $100000 of taxpayers’ money. You need it.”? 
Ron Mark 
: They needed it. 
Hon KEN SHIRLEY 
: “Everyone gets a bargain!” Did Stephen Tindall make a donation to the Labour Party election campaign? Is that the payback? What else could it possibly be? EDS (New Zealand) is a multinational corporate as big as the New Zealand economy. Have a guess how much Industry New Zealand thought it would give EDS (New Zealand)? How much? 
Dail Jones 
: $1 million. 
Hon KEN SHIRLEY 
: EDS (New Zealand)—a multinational corporate—was handed $1.5 million of taxpayers’ money by Industry New Zealand. I love multinational corporates; I think they are great but let me assure members that they are big enough and ugly enough to look after themselves. They do not need socialist Governments taking money off hard-working battling New Zealanders to dish out to them. They will take the money and put up a wonderful story about why they need it but let me assure members that they do not. They should not be receiving taxpayers’ money. 
ACT New Zealand has spoken against this bill and we will be voting against it. What we have here is the very bad culture of Industry New Zealand being melded to Trade New Zealand. Trade New Zealand has done some very good work but it is very questionable that that is a legitimate role of Government. The role that Government should be playing is putting more effort into breaking down trade barriers removing the compliance costs on industry and business and creating a climate where the private sector can flourish. This business that “I’m in partnership with you I’m from the Government I’m here to help you.” is a nonsense. Wherever it has been tried around the world it has failed. 
STEVE CHADWICK (NZ Labour—Rotorua) 
: 
 I rise to support this bill. It is a wonderful next step from the Industry New Zealand Bill that I was involved with on the Commerce Committee when we decided that we did need to move to this next step. 
The rhetoric of the Opposition members astonishes me. They say they want the Government out but they also want the Government to get more markets and help with trade negotiations. One needs to be consistent about what one wants. This bill is consistent. It is the next step in terms of developing a strong rigorous body to manage our overseas trade markets and maximise our opportunities on the world stage. It is a great piece of legislation. 
ROD DONALD (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 The Labour Government could have led the world with this legislation. It could have demonstrated by its actions that it means what it says when it claims on the international stage to be a world leader in sustainable development. It could have put its money where its mouth is and shown that it is possible to create jobs and make the economy more self-reliant at the same time as strengthening our social fabric and protecting—indeed enhancing—our environment. What a landmark day this could have been. Sadly it is not. It is not because the Government has failed to live up to its own rhetoric. It is happy to talk about sustainability it is happy to plan for sustainability and it is happy to start the process of implementing sustainability around the edges but it refuses to implement sustainable development at the core at the sharp end of its drive for economic growth. 
Early in this Government’s first term we were optimistic that Labour would steer New Zealand in the right direction. Prime Minister Helen Clark stood on platforms around the country advocating sustainable development and triple bottom line reporting. But when the Industry New Zealand legislation came to the House we were downright shocked to find there was no commitment to sustainable development in that bill or in the Ministry of Economic Development bill. 
What a contrast and a contradiction between what Helen Clark said at the Redesigning Resources Conference and at the Local Government New Zealand conference and what Mr Anderton has brought into this Parliament—especially given that Mr Anderton had been part of the Alliance that we made a significant contribution to. Mr Anderton said: “Don’t worry”. He promised to issue a ministerial direction to Industry New Zealand to ensure that it would work within a sustainability framework. He did not deliver. Once bitten twice shy! But always the optimist the Greens took the Government at its word when it launched  
Towards a Triple Bottom Line 
 in March this year. In her foreword Minister Marian Hobbs said: “Sustainable development is the cornerstone of the Government’s economic social and environmental policies. Triple bottom line reporting is part of a whole-of-Government programme to find better ways of measuring and reporting on progress towards sustainability at several levels ranging from national to local to organisational.” 
Those are very fine words and I congratulate the Minister and her ministry on being one of the first ministries or departments to produce a report on the Ministry for the Environment’s environmental economic and social performance. However I am afraid her lead has not been followed with any enthusiasm. Most Government departments Crown entities and State-owned enterprises have not followed its fine example; neither have they embraced the Sustainable Development for New Zealand: Programme of Action launched by the Minister in January this year. 
The programme of action is stirring stuff. The principles for policy and decision making are superb and I urge all members in the House to read them. I would like to quote from the last paragraph of those principles: “Sustainable development must be at the core of all Government policy.” There it is! According to Minister Marian Hobbs the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet has informed all chief executives about those principles and that decision-making framework. So what are the Ministry of Economic Development and Industry New Zealand doing to implement them? I have to say not a lot. Here is what they said in reply to a question for written answer that I put to them. In relation to the triple bottom line reporting they said: “No specific arrangements to monitor Crown entities on this basis are being put in place at present. This is because the whole-of-Government approach referred to was intended for the testing of triple bottom line reporting not to implement or apply it across Government. There is no obligation at present to apply triple bottom line reporting as a monitoring device in respect of Crown entities or other Government bodies.” Would that shatter members’ optimism? It certainly shattered ours which is why we were not surprised when there was a complete absence of reference to sustainable development and triple bottom line reporting in this bill. 
We are here to help. We offered the Government our support to ensure that this bill gave effect to the Government’s stated commitment to sustainable development. I concede that we achieved one change at the select committee. We got the words “sustainable economic growth” changed to “sustainable economic development”. I guess we should be grateful but instead I think the Government should be extraordinarily embarrassed. 
When this bill reached the Committee stage yesterday we tried very hard to give the Government the opportunity to give effect to its own polices and we failed I am afraid. The Government refused to adopt any of our amendments. We said to the Government that it should put some sustainability principles into the bill. After all it put sustainability principles into the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Act. The Government has required local government to take a sustainable development approach. So having done it around the edges the easy bits why not go to the core? Why not introduce sustainable development and sustainability principles into this bill? The Government refused and in so doing it is in effect opposing a requirement that all persons exercising responsibilities powers or functions under this soon-to-be Act must take account of the health and safety of people and communities and their social economic and cultural well-being. The Government is opposing incorporating into this bill the need to maintain and enhance the quality of the environment. It is opposing adding to this bill the need to take account of the reasonably foreseeable needs of future generations and also the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi. 
I invite the Government to reflect on what it is doing today by not incorporating sustainability principles into this bill. The Government is saying to the people of New Zealand that it is happy to talk about sustainability but is not happy to practise it. It is all about the talk and not about the walk and that should be of concern to communities up and down New Zealand especially when the Government blocked the Greens’ amendments to incorporate local communities the community economic sector and relevant environmental and tangata whenua groups in the process of involvement and consultation under this bill. 
The domestic manufacturing sector needs to be very very afraid that we have failed to convince the Government to match the commitment in this bill to exports with an equal commitment to import substitution. The Government rejected our amendment that would require the new trade and enterprise body to contribute to increased import substitution or in other words to buy New Zealand - made to buy local and to develop the Industrial Supplies Office through a range of processes. 
That was rejected as was our request to make sure that anybody who received funding from this organisation met the very same good-employer criteria that the Crown entity itself will have to apply. Indeed we even wanted the Government to implement its own policies to strengthen that by offering an amendment that the good-employer criteria should have recognition of equal pay for work of equal value. The Labour members voted against that as I might say did members on the other side of the House. 
Finally we thought that there might be one last chance. We thought we might be able to get what Marian Hobbs wants to achieve in this bill by seeking that the annual report include a statement of sustainability performance covering economic environmental social and cultural outcomes. Did we get that? No I am afraid we did not. It has been a failure but it has not been a failure on the part of the Greens. We tried very hard. We tried to ensure that organisations that receive funding from the ministry will live within our natural income rather than deplete our natural capital; that they would move to cleaner production methods both within industry and in the agricultural sector; that there would be a shift from more toxic to less toxic production methods; that they would address waste management issues in a meaningful way; and that they would engage actively in energy conservation and efficiency. But we have not got those outcomes we were looking for and that leaves us very very worried. It leaves us concerned that this new body will continue to fund organisations like Central Plains Irrigation which does not meet any triple bottom line requirements that we can think of. 
BRIAN CONNELL (NZ National—Rakaia) 
: 
 I want to take a relatively short call to canvass three or four issues. I start by saying that National does support this legislation. Conceptually we think it is right. We believe strongly in the concept of a one-stop shop that brings these types of business structures together which makes it easy for businesses to interact. The difficulty though that I foreshadow is that there are 32 different funding agencies out there and it would have been nice if the legislation had cast its net wide enough to incorporate these organisations into the new structure. 
I foreshadow another concern—that the two entities really have not been merged; they have been lumped together. A true merger which is fairly technical and sophisticated looks for synergies from the two different entities and tries to put those together so that there is more focus on one’s business with less bureaucracy and of course less compliance cost and a sharper structure. I simply argue that if one puts two small bureaucratic entities together one ends up with one bigger bureaucratic entity and it will not have sufficient focus. 
One has to ask oneself why that is being done. That question has been posed simply because I cannot find an answer—and I know that the select committee could not get an answer—to the question of whether a cost-benefit analysis had been done to support the decision-making process that underpinned the merger. There is no doubt that the select committee was not alone in that concern because business after business around the country was approached. Their position was that they were not consulted and they were not aware of any cost-benefit analysis that has helped the Government make that decision. I foreshadow those issues as concerns. 
I now turn to the bill itself and in particular to clause 9(b). If members will bear with me I shall read some of that clause: “provide a conduit for input and advice from industry trade unions local government and relevant community groups regions education and research organisations potential investors and individual enterprises ...” and so forth. I have to say to members that I am not sure what that means. If I were an investor and if this were a private entity I do not think that would make me reach for my cheque book. I do not think that that would spin the wheels. [ 
Interruption 
] If Mr Peck wants me to take longer I will be happy to. He can just keep going. If that is the way the Government wants it I will. 
Another area of concern is the unnecessary detail that has been written into the bill. In particular I refer to schedule 2 which deals with membership of the board. There is a saying in business that there is no point in having a dog and barking too. Why not simply appoint a board and let it manage according to normal commercial practice? I believe that schedule 2 and its 18 clauses could have been reduced to one clause with wording such as: “The board will act in accordance with standard commercial practice being cognisant at all times of its fiducial responsibilities.” That would be the end of the story. It would have covered the whole shooting match. Instead we have not gone down that track. 
I said that I would take a short call and because of the hour I will conclude on that point. I thank the House for its indulgence. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the New Zealand Trade and Enterprise Bill be now read a third time. 
Ayes 100 
Labour 52; New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; United Future 8. 
Noes 16 
ACT New Zealand 7; Green Party 9. 
Bill read a third time. 
The House adjourned at 9.55 p.m. 
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