Volume 673 Week 75 - Thursday 9 June 2011 
Volume 673 Week 75 - Thursday 9 June 2011 
[Volume:673;Page:19227] 
Thursday 9 June 2011 
Mr Speaker 
 took the Chair at 2 p.m. 
Prayers 
. 
Business Statement 
Hon SIMON POWER (Acting Leader of the House) 
: 
 When the House resumes on Tuesday 14 June the Government intends to hold the 3-hour debate on the consideration of financial reviews of Crown entities public organisations and State enterprises. The Government also intends to make further progress on the Telecommunications (TSO Broadband and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. Wednesday is a members’ day. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) 
: 
 Can I therefore seek from the Acting Leader of the House the assurance that he will not try to ram through the telecommunications bill under urgency next Thursday? 
Hon SIMON POWER (Acting Leader of the House) 
: 
 The Government has no intention of using urgency provisions in respect of that bill at this stage. 
Questions to Ministers 
Economy—Reports 
1. 
AMY ADAMS (National—Selwyn) 
 to the  
Minister of Finance 
: What reports has he received on the economy? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance) 
: 
 More good news. This morning the Reserve Bank issued its Monetary Policy Statement. It confirms the early signs of an economic recovery. GDP has probably increased modestly through the first half of 2011 despite the impact of the Christchurch earthquake. The bank expects the pace of growth to pick up supported by high commodity prices and a number of other factors including the earthquake rebuild. Businesses are expected to increase their staff hiring and capital investment. 
Amy Adams 
: What are the Reserve Bank’s economic growth forecasts for the next few years? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: It is predicating GDP growth of 1.2 percent in the year to March 2011 2.5 percent in the next 12 months and 4.6 percent to March 2013. The expected growth in export volumes has remained about the same as the central bank projected in March. Private consumption growth has been revised upwards. These forecasts are about the same as if not slightly more positive than the Treasury forecasts in the Budget. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: Is he aware that the Governor of the Reserve Bank has just confirmed to the Finance and Expenditure Committee that the only reason that the Reserve Bank is more optimistic than his own officials is the high commodity prices which themselves are surrounded by downside risk? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: The fact that our terms of trade are about the highest that they have been in a long time is a reason for optimism and of course there is a risk that commodity prices could drop back. I think the more important point is that the Reserve Bank forecasts are roughly the same as Treasury’s forecasts which are roughly the same as those of most other economists. The Opposition’s assertion that the forecasts are widely optimistic is probably overly pessimistic. 
Amy Adams 
: How do the Reserve Bank economic growth forecasts compare with the Treasury forecasts that accompanied the Budget last month? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: The Reserve Bank’s forecasts are a bit stronger than Treasury’s. They forecast 2.5 percent growth in the next year whereas Treasury forecasts 1.8 percent. But I must say that forecasts do not make an economy grow. What makes an economy grow are the decisions that New Zealand households and businesses make and my sense is that they are becoming increasingly confident but not overconfident about the prospects for this economy. That is more important than the forecasts. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: Does the Minister agree with commentary in the  
New Zealand Herald  
and on www.interest.co.nz which says nothing is being done to correct the current account imbalance nothing is being done to correct the growing international debt nothing is being done to create jobs and it is time that someone did something? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: No I do not and I am still waiting to see what the “something” is. 
Amy Adams 
: What is the Reserve Bank’s outlook for job growth over the next few years and what measures is the Government taking to support new jobs? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Again the Reserve Bank is expecting about the same level of job growth as was forecast in the Budget which is around 35000 new jobs a year. That is actually not exceptional for New Zealand; that was the average rate of job creation for the 15 years from 1990 to 2005. The Government is doing everything it can to give businesses the confidence to invest grow and create new jobs. The indications are that the combination of positive leadership from the Government and a sound Budget is helping with business confidence. 
KiwiRail—Minister’s Statement 
2. 
Dr RUSSEL NORMAN (Co-Leader—Green) 
 to the  
Minister of Transport 
: Does he stand by his statement on TVNZ’s  
Close Up 
 on 3 May 2010 regarding KiwiRail workers that “There will be lots of work for these guys there’s no doubt about that because they do a lot of things well and there’s a big rolling stock replenishment and replacement exercise that’s coming down the pipeline”; if not why not? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister of Transport) 
: 
 Yes I do; and I also stand by the rest of that quote which states “you can’t make these things conditional to the deal. The point I was making about KiwiRail a few weeks ago is that the reality is this rail company has been treated like a Cinderella in this country for a long long time with all sorts of political things about what it should do and what it shouldn’t do which don’t necessarily”— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The question was a fairly simple question. It just asked whether the Minister stood by his statement. He went on to say he stood by the rest of it but I sense then he started to get into some political comment that was not actually required by the question. 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I will hear the Minister. 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: No I was not Mr Speaker. That was the actual total quote. I was just reading back elements of the rest of the quote. The quote in the question was taken out of context and I thought I would read the rest of the quote. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I apologise to the Minister if I stopped him but I think he had read a fair part of the— 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: There is a very important part of the quote that I was not able to get to that is pretty relevant to the member’s question. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The question asked whether the Minister stood by this statement and if he did not stand by it he was asked why not. The question could be answered yes. Of course Ministers are allowed to indicate where a quote is taken out of context but they should not go on reading forever. But on this occasion I will let the Minister finish the quote. 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: Thank you Mr Speaker. The remainder was: “And I believe strongly that if we’re going to turn KiwiRail around—and it’s a big turnaround project—then we actually have to let them make the commercial decisions that they need to make.” 
Dr Russel Norman 
: Does the Minister regret the fact that as a Minister of the Crown he effectively gave these workers a guarantee that they would have a job—and they may have made certain commitments to mortgages and so forth—and today 70 workers have lost their jobs in spite of the assurance from the Minister that their jobs were secure? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: No and I do not think the member’s characterisation is at all fair as I indicated by reading the rest of that quote. I certainly acknowledge the uncertainty and concern that the affected workers will have which occurs whenever these sorts of changes take place in any organisation. However it is important that we let KiwiRail make its own commercial decisions if it has the chance to turn round and become successful. We cannot place requirements on KiwiRail that we do not place on any other New Zealand company. 
Dr Russel Norman 
: If the Minister believes that it is important to give KiwiRail the freedom to make its own commercial decisions can he confirm whether he or any other Ministers discussed with the chair of KiwiRail the implications for any of our free-trade agreements were the contracts to end up with an overseas company versus a New Zealand company? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: I can confirm that I did not. 
Dr Russel Norman 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The question asked whether he or any other Ministers had discussed it. He answered the question in regard to himself. Is he aware of any other Ministers discussing it? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The Minister is entitled to answer it for himself. I do not think he can answer for other Ministers. 
Dr Russel Norman 
: In the light of his comments that KiwiRail does do a lot of things well and that there is a big rolling stock replenishment why then is KiwiRail losing 70 jobs today from its Hillside workshop in Dunedin? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: KiwiRail has a massive number of investments scheduled over the next 10 years as we seek to turn that organisation round as part of the $4.6 billion turn-round plan. So there is a huge amount of work across that organisation which I note has 4200 staff or thereabouts. Again it is very important that we allow KiwiRail to make its commercial decisions about individual elements of its organisation. We do not place the sort of requirement that the member seems to be suggesting on any other New Zealand company. If we want to make KiwiRail successful—and I suspect that the Greens do because they are big fans of rail—then we have to allow it to get on and make its appropriate decisions. 
Hon David Parker 
: Can the Minister not see the inconsistency between his Government’s refusal to allow KiwiRail even to tender to build rolling stock and the Government’s $35 million subsidy in this year’s Budget for farm irrigation and was he involved in any cost-benefit analysis to show whether investing that money in the Hillside workshop would have been better than a further subsidy to the farming sector? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: I reject the member’s suggestion. We did not say to KiwiRail that it could not bid for the work. It has bid for some work and in relation to the work that it did not bid for it made its own decision. The reality is that the Greens and Labour are playing politics with this issue. They had one big train contract when they were in Government and they gave it to Korea to build the Matangi trains. Now they are in Opposition it is suddenly all different and I think we can call that petty politics and crocodile tears. 
Dr Russel Norman 
: It certainly was not us. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! 
Dr Russel Norman 
: With regard to the Minister’s approach that it is a singular commercial decision for KiwiRail has the Government considered the whole-of-economy approach in this issue and has he looked at the Business and Economic Research Ltd report which looked at whole-of-economy benefits? Were these contracts to be let in New Zealand the benefits would be not just to KiwiRail but to all of New Zealand. 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: The Business and Economic Research Ltd report as I think we discussed in this House at the time had a number of large issues with it in terms of the assumptions it was able to draw. The member seems to be suggesting rejecting the whole principle of trade and specialisation to allow countries to get ahead. The reality is that every country specialises in certain areas and trades with other countries. He seems to be suggesting a return to Fortress New Zealand which is fine for him but I suspect it would not be good for any other New Zealander. 
Dr Russel Norman 
: If the Government really believes that it should be left to the market and to trade and specialisation why does the Government have such an inconsistent approach? On the one hand KiwiRail tenders the contract to whomever; on the other hand when it comes to intensive agriculture and irrigation the Government has very very large subsidies to that industry. 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: I do not see the connection. Obviously Mr Parker and Dr Norman got together at lunchtime and cooked that one up. I do not see the connection at all. What I can tell members once again is that it is very important that politicians stop making political demands on what is a struggling organisation so that we can turn it round and make it a success in New Zealand. 
Parents Inc.—Funding 
3. 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Deputy Leader—Labour) 
 to the  
Prime Minister 
: Has he given Parents Inc. an undertaking to give them money? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Deputy Prime Minister) 
 on behalf of the  
Prime Minister 
: No. 
Hon Annette King 
: In light of that answer on what did he base his comments before the election that Parents Inc. delivered fantastic results and he was going to “make sure they get some money to run their programmes far and wide”? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: The member will appreciate that those comments were made by the Prime Minister in his capacity as the then Leader of the Opposition. But he has made no secret of his support which I share for a group that has for the last 15 years educated parents and communities up and down this country in courses attended by very large numbers of people. 
Hon Annette King 
: What discussions did he have with the Minister of Finance about providing funding to Parents Inc. and why was this organisation singled out before the election as worthy of funding by the then Leader of the Opposition even before an application was made? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: There were no discussions with the Minister of Finance. In fact the decision was made in the Ministry of Social Development I presume with some attention from the Minister for Social Development and Employment. It is actually not unusual at all for decisions to be made to contract social service providers without going through the Ministry of Economic Development tendering system. 
Hon Annette King 
: Why did the Government approve $2.4 million untendered to Parents Inc. for a parenting programme when the evaluation of it was not completed and the complete sample which was to be provided by December 2010 was never compiled or received? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: That decision was made within the Ministry of Social Development. But I am interested that the Labour Party just hates anyone who goes out and talks to New Zealanders in a way that is not— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The question asked why a certain decision was made; it did not actually invite an answer on whom the Labour Party hates or loves. That is not in order. 
Hon Annette King 
: Why did the Government—[ 
Interruption 
] 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I expect the House to extend some courtesy. 
Hon Annette King 
: Why did the Government use an incomplete evaluation—one that had such a low response from parents using the parenting programme—as its justification for giving $2.4 million to Parents Inc. which the Minister for Social Development and Employment did earlier this month? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: That member will know because she was a Minister in the previous Government that most Government spending is not fully evaluated. A lot of it might struggle to pass an objective evaluation according to any particular measure of political correctness that the Labour Party might apply to it. The fact is that this organisation has for 15 years educated parents around New Zealand in very large numbers. It probably has a better track record on parenting education than any organisation in the rest of the country. 
Hon Annette King 
: Is he aware that the researchers his Government relied on in handing over the $2.4 million of taxpayers’ money untendered had such a low response from the survey of parents that they decided they needed to incentivise the parents by offering them either a 16-piece Maxwell and Williams fine bone china teaset or three books but they still failed to complete the sample? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Is the Opposition now saying that the researchers were stupid or that there is something wrong with the course? I think they need to make up their minds. But I invite the Opposition to go to any suburb of Hamilton or Palmerston North and tell people they think that Parents Inc. gets it all wrong. In fact that organisation would be regarded as a bit more of an expert on parenting education than the bureaucracy or the overfunded Families Commission. 
Hon Annette King 
: Is he aware that despite the Government allocating $2.4 million to Parents Inc. for its parenting programme parents have to pay up to $90 a course; and how many low-income parents who are already feeling the effects of rising costs will be able to afford that amount? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Given the choice between believing that member’s assertion and the Minister I believe the Minister. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Do I actually need to indicate what it is? I mean the Minister has indicated there is a question about whether he believes a statement made by a member in this House. Mr Speaker you know that he cannot do that. 
Hon Simon Power 
: It is a regular occurrence for the member who has just resumed his seat to yell from that side of the House: “Tell the truth. Tell the truth.” which would seem to get us into the same territory that he is now complaining about in respect of that comment. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I think the matter can be dealt with fairly simply. When members make statements in questions they risk those statements being refuted by Ministers. It seems to me that the Minister was making it fairly plain that he disagreed totally with the statement contained in the question. He was doing it in a fairly robust way and I have no problem with that. This is the danger that members face when they put claims or allegations into a supplementary question in an area of some interest. Where strong political views are held they can get strong political answers. 
Hon Annette King 
: I seek leave to table a paper from Parents Inc.’s website which sets out the cost to parents for its parenting programme Toolbox. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is no objection. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: What lessons has the Government learnt from the Treasurer’s exercise with the Pacific Economic Development Agency which was about giving money to people with whom it was associated—lessons that have been applied to this project which again has given money over $2 million without tender to its friends? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Those statements are unbelievable coming from a former Minister of a Labour Government. Fancy a Government giving money to people that it knew—the previous Labour Government specialised in it! In fact the $2.4 million is to pay the $90 fee so that foster parents whom that Government left unsupported with the most vulnerable children in New Zealand can actually get some support. Labour should actually apologise for its record of failure to support foster parents and to get decent parent education out in New Zealand. 
Hon Annette King 
: I seek leave to table research prepared by Point Research into Parents Inc.’s Toolbox. It is an evaluation that was uncompleted but used by the Government to give money to its mates. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member will get to her feet and withdraw and apologise for that last statement. I will not have the point of order process abused like that. There is nothing wrong with seeking leave to table a document but that last statement will be withdrawn and the member will apologise. 
Hon Annette King 
: I withdraw and apologise. I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: No we are seeking leave now to table the document. 
Hon Annette King 
: Yes I am seeking leave. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is objection. 
Hon Annette King 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Will you ask the Deputy Prime Minister to withdraw and apologise for the comments he made about me? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I will not because the member knows that she made that comment under a point of order when she was seeking the leave of the House. That is quite a different process from answers to questions or any other process and it will not be abused. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. What remedy does a member have immediately when a member is called a liar— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member will resume his seat right away. This nonsense will stop; it is just petty and pathetic. Members will notice that earlier on I pulled the Minister up when a straight question was asked and he went on to make some comment about the Labour Party. I pulled him up; I stopped him. I cannot run this House in the way that one party may wish it to be run; I have to run it absolutely fairly to all parties. I stopped the Minister when he started to abuse the Labour Party—I stopped him in his tracks. But given some of the questions asked and the implication in questions—I heard the question ask whether money was being given to friends—I do not blame the Minister for giving a pretty robust answer. If members do not like to receive robust answers they should be careful about the questions they ask. 
Contaminated Sites Tui Mine—Clean-up Funding and Plan 
4. 
SANDRA GOUDIE (National—Coromandel) 
 to the  
Minister for the Environment 
: What response has there been to the Government’s announcements on contaminated sites and in particular the planned clean-up of the most dangerous site at the Tui Mine on Mt Te Aroha? 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for the Environment) 
: 
 The announcement of the funding and plan has been welcomed by the district and regional councils by the community and by local iwi. I acknowledge the strong advocacy of that member for the risk of this unstable tailings dam to be addressed and also the work of the Green Party as a result of which our memorandum of understanding includes work to stabilise and make safe this particularly dangerous contaminated site. 
Sandra Goudie 
: What lessons have been learnt from the last major contaminated site clean-up at Mapua which resulted in a very negative report from the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment and significant concern by local residents to ensure that the clean-up of the Tui Mine is properly managed? 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: It is widely accepted that there were significant failings by the previous Government in the Mapua clean-up. I am pleased to assure the member that we are taking a quite different approach. The ministry is funding the project but not managing it on a day-to-day basis. The ministry does not have the appropriate skills—nor is it realistic—to project-manage a complex job like this from Wellington. The technologies being employed have been successfully tried and tested and we have also put effective monitoring in place. These projects are notoriously difficult but I am satisfied we are applying world best practice. 
Catherine Delahunty 
: Tena koutou e te Whare. Will the Minister consider further funding for bioremediation of toxic sites given the successful model of clean-up being piloted at contaminated timber treatment sites in Whakatane? 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: Firstly I want to acknowledge the very constructive work of that member on the issue of contaminated sites and the progress we have been able to make in respect of the Tui Mine. In respect of her specific question yes the ministry has a contestable fund for assisting sites like those in Whakatane which she has raised. Funding would be considered on merit relative to other applications. In terms of any specific technology I would need to rely on expert advice as to whether it was the best way in which to ensure that the sites she refers to remain safe. 
Te Ururoa Flavell 
: Kia ora tatou. Was the pentachlorophenol poisoning and E. coli in Rotorua’s Puarenga Stream included in the Government’s announcement on contaminated sites; if not what action will the Minister take to ensure this issue is addressed? 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: The member has raised as he did in my recent visit to Rotorua the specific issues of that stream. That is more majorly an issue of water quality and there are some technical questions as to where the source of contamination is coming from: whether it is the previous timber treatment site up the catchment whether it is the previous sewerage works or whether there are other activities in that catchment that are causing it. When we get the technical advice from Environment Bay of Plenty as to the source of that contamination we will decide whether it is a contaminated site or whether we have a water clean-up issue on our hands. 
Budget 2011—Early Childhood Education 
5. 
Hon HEATHER ROY (ACT) 
 to the  
Minister of Education 
: Why has the Government budgeted an additional $550.3 million for early childhood education over the next 4 years? 
Hon ANNE TOLLEY (Minister of Education) 
: 
 Because the Government believes that early childhood education is a good investment for our young New Zealanders. 
Hon Heather Roy 
: Does she stand by her Budget day statement that early childhood education funding would focus on “increasing participation for Maori Pasifika and children from low-income families”; if so what is her best estimate of likely increases in participation rates for these groups from the extra half a billion dollars in funding? 
Hon ANNE TOLLEY 
: Yes. 
Hon Heather Roy 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The question required much more than a yes or no answer I would have thought. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: In fairness the member asked whether the Minister could confirm if I recollect correctly that money was being allocated to certain groups and then the member went on to ask if that was so how many children would benefit from it. The Minister as she is entitled to do answered the first part of the question. She said yes that the funding was being targeted to those groups. The member has further supplementary questions should she wish to use them. 
Sue Moroney 
: How does her Government’s funding of early childhood education compare with the 1 percent of GDP spent on average by other OECD countries and recommended by UNICEF? 
Hon ANNE TOLLEY 
: This Budget 2011 provides an 11.5 percent increase in early childhood education spending from Budget 2010 even in the depths of a severe economic recession. I think that is an outstanding record from this Government. 
Sue Moroney 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The question was quite specific. It was about the percentage of GDP spent on early childhood education. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I will allow the member to repeat her question just to be certain because I did not hear it clearly. 
Sue Moroney 
: How does her Government’s funding of early childhood education compare with the 1 percent of GDP spent on average by other OECD countries and recommended by UNICEF? 
Hon ANNE TOLLEY 
: If the member had put that question on notice I could have found the percentage for New Zealand. However I repeat that Budget 2011 provided an 11.5 percent increase over Budget 2010 even in the depths of an economic recession. I think that is an outstanding record. 
Sue Moroney 
: Why will early childhood education services that were paid $13.35 per hour per child under 2 years of age prior to her Government’s funding cuts on 1 February this year now receive only $11.93 per hour per child after her funding increase on 1 July which is a funding reduction of $1.42 per hour per child? 
Hon ANNE TOLLEY 
: That member continues to misrepresent that this Government has cut early childhood education spending. In fact this Government has continued to increase early childhood education spending. However we did remove the incentive for centres to move from 80 to 100 percent qualified teachers in teacher-led services and that has made a difference to the funding rates for some centres. That is because this Government has a goal of 80 percent qualified teachers in teacher-led services and we are on track to achieve that across all services next year. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Does her Government spend more per child in early childhood education or on children in their first year at primary school? 
Hon ANNE TOLLEY 
: Yes the average is higher—$7600 I believe is spent per child in early childhood education and $5500 on a child in primary school education. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Just in case I did not make it clear is this the first year at school? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: That is not a point of order. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Were the figures that she just used the figures for the first year at school? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The question was about early childhood education. The Minister may not have that information. 
Hon ANNE TOLLEY 
: Yes I do not have that information. The average spent for a primary school student is less than the average spent on early childhood education. 
Sue Moroney 
: I seek leave to table the funding rates for early childhood education to 1 February 2011. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: What is the source of that information? 
Sue Moroney 
: It is from the Ministry of Education. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is objection. 
Sue Moroney 
: I seek leave to table a document from the website of the Ministry of Education showing the funding rates for 2011 and the funding reduction for services down to $11.93 per child per hour. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document from the Ministry of Education website. Is there any objection? There is objection. 
Hon Heather Roy 
: Can the Minister explain to the House how she can justify her claim that her 20 free hours policy is caring when low-income earners are often taxed at a marginal tax rate of between 53c to 102c in the dollar to subsidise the early childhood education of the children of high-income earners? 
Hon ANNE TOLLEY 
: This Government does not have any policy of 20 free hours. In fact we came to Government and changed the name from 20 free hours to 20 hours early childhood education because the previous Government had made it so that it was not free. 
Hon Sir Roger Douglas 
: Could the Minister confirm that her policy on 20 free hours is yet another example of the Government’s extremist policies which force low-income families to pay high rates of personal tax in order to subsidise asset-rich and high-income families? 
Hon ANNE TOLLEY 
: I repeat that this Government has no policy of 20 free hours. 
Budget 2011—Sales of State-owned Assets 
6. 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn) 
 to the  
Minister of Finance 
: Is the loss of future dividends due to his planned sale of State-owned assets accounted for in the forecast financial statements in his Budget or is this cost listed as an unquantified fiscal risk? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance) 
: 
 The fiscal forecasts do not include an estimate of the specific transactions proposed under the mixed-ownership model. There are no forecast costs associated with the sale and no reduction in dividend income or receipt of sale proceeds. Instead it has been highlighted as a specific fiscal risk pending decisions. Included in the forecast is the Government’s intention to meet the cost of the next five Budgets’ capital allowance off the balance sheet—that is a zero capital allowance. It is our broad intention that most of this will be funded by mixed-ownership model proceeds. It is worth noting that the Treasury believes that the ongoing operating impact of mixed ownership is likely to be broadly balanced as any reduction in dividends is likely to be cancelled out by reduced interest payments. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: When will the Minister present to the New Zealand public an accurate and detailed statement on the cost of asset sales and will this be before or after the 2011 general election; or is he trying to keep the truth secret? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: That would depend on how we measure the dividends. I notice that while the member and the Labour Party are going around saying the Government would be foregoing $700 million in dividends if we remove the special Meridian Energy dividends to do with the sale of assets—Crown assets in Australia—under the Labour Government the average total dividend for the energy companies excluding Meridian Energy was under $100 million a year. That is why I questioned yesterday where he got his $700 million figure from. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: I am so glad the Minister asked me that because— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: No no. The member will resume his seat. The member knows that that kind of commencement to a question will lead to disorder. He is not the first person to have done that today but we need to try to avoid the temptation to make that kind of mistake. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: Given the Minister’s previous comment did he read the 2010 financial statements that bear his signature and clearly record that total dividends from State-owned enterprises and Air New Zealand were $831 million in that year; if so why did he tell this House yesterday that “The true figure for dividends from State-owned enterprises is probably about $350 million”? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Because I was using a roughly calculated average over the last 7 or 8 years. Under the Labour Government the energy companies excluding Meridian produced dividends of less than $100 million a year which was a disgraceful return on taxpayers’ capital. It showed poor performance and sloppy governance. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: Given that the Minister continues to dispute the actual figures released by the State-owned enterprises and compiled by the Parliamentary Library can he confirm that the total dividend loss across the assets he is planning to sell on a 5-year basis is $281 million on a total basis or $312 million per annum on average over the last 5 years after inflation? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: No. The member is picking a number. He could pick a different number. In 2009 total dividends from all State-owned enterprises were $223 million. As I said the dividends excluding Meridian’s large dividend from the sale of an asset in Australia were less than $100 million a year. The State-owned enterprises were badly run under Labour. We have improved things. We are getting a better return on taxpayers’ money and under the mixed-ownership model that will continue to improve. In the end we are more interested in paying dividends to Kiwis than interest to foreign lenders which is his party’s preference. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: Is his lack of credibility in accurately booking the proceeds from unmandated asset sales but not the full costs one of the reasons why Standard and Poor’s has kept his Government’s credit rating on negative outlook? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: No but I know what Standard and Poor’s might be thinking if Labour got into power and said it was going to borrow a further $15 billion which is the cost of the promises Labour has made so far no doubt with more to come. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: I seek leave to table data from the Parliamentary Library that shows the 5-year average of dividend flows from the share of assets the Minister is proposing to sell to be $281 million a year on average without inflation or $312 million inflation adjusted per annum on average. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that Parliamentary Library document. Is there any objection? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I want to clarify something. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I trust the member to make a genuine point of order. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: I just want to clarify whether the figures include the special dividend from the billion-dollar - plus sale of an asset in Australia. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: That is really a debating point. Leave is sought to table the document from the Parliamentary Library. Is there any objection? There is no objection. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: I seek leave to table a further document on dividends of State-owned enterprises paid to the Crown which shows such data— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: What is the source of that document? 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: Again it is from the Parliamentary Library and Treasury financial statements. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document prepared by the Parliamentary Library. Is there any objection? There is no objection. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Broadband Ultra-fast—Health Services  
7. 
MELISSA LEE (National) 
 to the  
Minister for Communications and Information Technology 
: What benefits will ultra-fast broadband services bring to health providers in New Zealand? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister for Communications and Information Technology) 
: 
 Health care services will make huge gains with the roll-out of ultra-fast broadband which is why we are committed to providing fibre access to all registered health care centres in urban areas by the end of 2015. Faster connections will make the transfer of information and services much simpler and will reduce the tyranny of distance. By being able to deliver health services in new and innovative ways we will be able to increase the quality of care that patients receive and reduce the costs of providing that care. 
Melissa Lee 
: What specific services will be able to be delivered over fibre in the future that cannot be delivered today? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: It is very exciting. Ultra-fast broadband will give medical practitioners wherever their patients are access to the country’s and the world’s leading researchers and specialists. Telehealth technologies will allow patients and medical staff to remotely monitor their health at home whether it is diagnostic equipment connected to the hospital or consultations conducted in high-definition video. Another enormous benefit will be the ability to transfer medical files—for example magnetic resonance imaging scans—at almost real time rather than relying on slow downloads or a courier which will save time money and ultimately lives. 
Government Borrowing—International Situation 
8. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) 
 to the  
Minister of Finance 
: Does he believe that the Government should take a cautious approach to borrowing in light of “uncertainty and volatility in financial markets”? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance) 
: 
 Yes. That is why we are committed to reducing our borrowing over the next 4 years. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Why is he then speculating on the fixed interest market by borrowing $100 million a week more than necessary? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: It has been on the advice of the Debt Management Office. Because conditions are favourable up until the end of this month the Government is borrowing more than is strictly necessary for its cash requirements. This means that over the next couple of years we will be borrowing less than is strictly necessary and in the current international environment I think that is a good thing. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Why is Treasury’s best estimate of the effect on the exchange rate and on jobs of this excessive borrowing? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: It has not given a specific estimate of that. The member may well know that Treasury is generally opposed to almost any borrowing whatsoever. 
Domestic Purposes Benefit—Proposed Changes 
CATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green) 
: 
 Tena koutou e te Whare. To the Minister for Social Development and Employment does she consider bringing up babies to be meaningful productive work; if so— [ 
Interruption 
] Excuse me— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I apologise. The Speaker will deal with the matter. I ask both members to please stop this inane interjection across the front of the House. 
9. 
CATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green) 
 to the  
Minister for Social Development and Employment 
: Does she consider bringing up babies to be meaningful productive work; if so why is she considering making young mothers on the domestic purposes benefit seek paid employment when their youngest child turns one? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT (Minister for Social Development and Employment) 
: 
 Yes to the first part; to the second part the Government is looking at a number of recommendations from the Welfare Working Group one of which is how to work with the one in four women who have another child while on the benefit. 
Catherine Delahunty 
: Will a mother fail a work test if she refuses to accept a minimum wage job that does not pay enough to cover her childcare costs? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: That is a hypothetical situation. The member is talking about changes that might be made in the future and I cannot comment. 
Catherine Delahunty 
: How will she ensure that young mothers forced into jobs with inflexible hours and conditions are still able to breastfeed their babies or does she expect them to stop? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: As I said there are a number of recommendations that the Government is currently looking at. She is giving scenarios that are not currently part of this Government’s policy. 
Catherine Delahunty 
: Does she agree that training and upskilling including studying at university is a proven and successful path for young mothers to get off the domestic purposes benefit and into high-paying work; if so why did she kick out the ladder behind herself and axe the training incentive allowance for degree-level courses? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: I believe there are many pathways for many different mothers. That pathway is still there for them and we are seeing many successes for many of them. 
Hon Annette King 
: Has she requested that those working at the convenient care clinics consider administering contraception to women on the domestic purposes benefit? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: I speak to a number of people up and down this country. I speak to them about contraception issues and how we can help those women to have better choices in their lives. I am sure I have spoken to the Rotorua convenient care centre that I think the member is talking about contraception issues quite often. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: What guarantee can she give that no child between the ages of 1 and 5 will be abused while being cared for by a boyfriend when the mother has been forced out to work and she cannot afford to pay childcare costs? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: What a ridiculous question. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. If it had been a ridiculous question you would have ruled it out. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The question was hypothetical but I think it should not be answered by saying it is a ridiculous question. I invite the Minister to answer it in a rather more parliamentary manner than that. The question was hypothetical; I fully accept that. The Minister may not have liked the question but I do not think it is appropriate to tell a questioner that the question is ridiculous if it is in order. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Notwithstanding the fact that you have just I think supported my point of order I was asking for a guarantee. It was not a hypothetical question. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member knows that what he was asking for there is something that cannot be sought in this House for something that is not even in place. There is no way that Ministers can give such guarantees but I think a more respectful answer is required. 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: At the moment 68 percent of partnered women work while their children are in care and 50 percent of sole parents currently work with their children in care. They are cared for by a number of different people and I give no guarantees about what happens with regard to those children either. 
Budget 2011—Minister of Health’s Statements 
10. 
GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) 
 to the  
Minister of Health 
: Does he stand by all his answers to oral question number 5 yesterday? 
Hon TONY RYALL (Minister of Health) 
: 
 Taken within the context of the questions yes. 
Grant Robertson 
: Can he therefore confirm that the advice of his ministry was that funding of $576 million was required for demographic and population growth for Vote Health in 2011-12? 
Hon TONY RYALL 
: That was in the answer I gave the House yesterday. 
Grant Robertson 
: Does he stand by his earlier statements that the amount of new money for Vote Health in Budget 2011-12 is $420 million meaning that there is a $156 million gap between what is in the Budget and what is needed to keep pace with population and demographic growth? 
Hon TONY RYALL 
: One of those figures mentioned by the member is in the press release of 19 May 2011 which has been widely distributed. 
Grant Robertson 
: Why then did the Minister not give upfront answers yesterday on exactly that question and acknowledge that there is a $156 million gap in this Budget between what is needed for meeting population growth and what he has provided? 
Hon TONY RYALL 
: I did answer all the questions yesterday and $585 million has been made available for health initiatives this year. 
Grant Robertson 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. We went through this exercise yesterday with the Minister and today. I make the point that we use a lot of supplementary questions for the Minister to obfuscate answers— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: No no. I might have some sympathy with the member but he cannot use the point of order process in that manner. With some Ministers questions have to be very very finely focused. 
Grant Robertson 
: Can he confirm that the Budget figures we have just been discussing do not take account of the $45 million annual cost that district health boards will face when meeting the employer contribution to KiwiSaver thereby making the $156 million gap even larger? 
Hon TONY RYALL 
: District health boards will not face that cost until the 2012-13 Budget. 
Dimethyltryptamine—Border Seizures 
11. 
JONATHAN YOUNG (National—New Plymouth) 
 to the  
Minister of Customs 
: What reports has he received from the Customs Service on seizures of the rare drug DMT? 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON (Minister of Customs) 
: 
 Excellent work by customs officers recently led to the seizure of 18 kilograms of the rare drug dimethyltryptamine (DMT). DMT is a hallucinogenic drug similar in its effects to LSD. The class A drug was detected in a package destined for Blenheim at the Auckland Mail Centre and customs officers from Christchurch later arrested a 21-year-old Blenheim man who has been charged with the importation of a class A controlled drug. 
Jonathan Young 
: What other drugs have the Customs Service stopped at our border and what methods have been used to try to smuggle them over the border? 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: On 17 May New Zealand Customs Service officers in Wellington arrested a 34-year-old New Zealand male after they became suspicious of two packages arriving from the United States. The packages contained 1.2 litres of the class B controlled drug gamma butyrolactone (GBL) which is known as the “date rape” drug. The drug had been smuggled in nail polish bottles and it was only excellent work and vigilance by customs officers that detected it. A man is now facing class B controlled drug-importing charges which carry a maximum penalty of 14 years’ imprisonment. 
KiwiRail—Minister’s Statement 
12. 
CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South) 
 to the  
Minister of Transport 
: Does he stand by his statement that for New Zealand train builders “there will be lots of work for these guys there’s no doubt about that”? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister of Transport) 
: 
 As I said in answer to an earlier question on the same quote yes and in particular the full quote which I will abridge slightly for the Speaker: “the reality is this rail company has been treated like a Cinderella in this country for a long long time with all sorts of political things about what it should do and what it shouldn’t do which don’t necessarily make commercial sense for the company itself to proceed with. And I believe strongly that if we’re going to turn KiwiRail around—and it’s a big turnaround project—then we actually have to let them make the commercial decisions that they need to make.” 
Clare Curran 
: Why is it a good idea to take a whole-of-economy approach to agricultural irrigation or to the making of movies such as  
Avatar 
 but not a good idea to take a whole-of-economy approach when it comes to capital purchasing and rail? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: Well we do take a whole-of-economy approach on issues of trade and investment and decisions about what organisations should do. In fact the previous Government did as well as we know because it allowed the one big train contract to occur when it was in Government which was the Matangi train contract to be let to Korea. That was a sensible decision. Of course Labour no longer thinks it was a sensible decision because it is in Opposition. Therefore I suspect it is just playing politics with this issue. 
Clare Curran 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I asked a specific question about why it was not a good idea to take a whole-of-economy approach to capital purchasing and rail and all he did was speak about the previous Government. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: No if I heard him correctly he said the Government did take a whole-of-economy approach. There was no need for him to explain why he did not because I think in his answer he said the Government did. I am prepared to refer to the Minister if I am wrong. No he is indicating that what I heard was correct. 
Clare Curran 
: How does he reconcile his statement today that KiwiRail must be able to operate without political interference with the repeated remarks of the KiwiRail Chief Executive Jim Quinn that he has taken a narrow commercial approach because “that is Government policy”? Who is telling the truth? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: The point I think I need to make to the member is that it is actually she who is suggesting taking a political approach because she is suggesting that KiwiRail take a view that we do not require of any other company in this country. That is simply not appropriate. We have an organisation that is very much struggling to turn itself round. We have to give it every opportunity to succeed and to make the right commercial decisions to allow it to succeed. 
Clare Curran 
: If he is so keen to see New Zealand’s rail system run at a profit can he confirm that our roads do? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: I can confirm two things. Firstly I want KiwiRail to be successful and I would have thought that the member would want KiwiRail to be successful as well. It is crucially important for this country that we take the very big investment that was made by the previous Government where it overpaid for KiwiRail and make it successful. In terms of the roads the answer is yes so much so that they work on a pay-as-you-go system. It would be a great and wonderful thing if other aspects of the transport system also ran on a pay-as-you-go basis which of course they do not. 
Budget Debate 
Debate resumed from 8 June on the Appropriation (2011/12 Estimates) Bill. 
CHARLES CHAUVEL (Labour) 
: 
 When the bell rang last night interrupting the debate I was talking about the proposal in the Budget to privatise the power companies Meridian Energy Genesis Power and Mighty River Power and also to sell the stake in Air New Zealand. I was setting out why Labour thought this was such a short-sighted policy. I listened very carefully and with interest to the interchange during question time between the finance spokesperson on this side of the House and the Minister of Finance. The Minister was trying to make some sort of case that the special dividends from Meridian Energy paid as a result of selling assets that Meridian had acquired in Australia should be excluded from the valuation and that somehow this made it sensible to sell off strategic stakes in the power companies. But I want to say to the Minister of Finance that it is ordinary business practice as he should know as a shareholding Minister for those energy companies to be buying and selling assets overseas all the time. 
If the Minister knew the portfolio well he would know that Mighty River Power for example at the moment has significant geothermal assets that it is working on overseas. There is a joint venture in Chile and some work is being done in the United States. Nobody expects Mighty River Power to hold on to those assets overseas long term. Everybody knows that Mighty River Power’s core business is developing renewable energy in New Zealand as we saw with its announcement yesterday of a very significant geothermal plant in the North Island which will take its geothermal production up to significant levels and also make that manner of renewable production a very significant part of the energy mix in New Zealand. So it is wrong to say that somehow we should take a company’s overseas activities out of the mix when calculating its rate of return to the Crown. That is simply misguided and it shows a further flaw in the thinking that selling a majority stake in our important and profitable power companies and selling the stake of about 80 percent in Air New Zealand is somehow good for the country. 
Just on the case of Meridian I tell the House that the Australian business the Minister referred to was one the company purchased when I was on the board and sold when I was on the board. That resulted in nearly $1 billion worth of value for New Zealand taxpayers and accrued no risk to New Zealand taxpayers. While the business was being held in Australia it meant that we got scale when we were trying to build wind power in both New Zealand and Australia and that we could sell that activity at a profit in an overseas market with no effect on New Zealand taxpayers at all except to make sure they got nearly $1 billion worth of extra revenue in the kitty. That not only was a good deal and a good example of a business doing something successful in Australia which unfortunately for New Zealand businesses is not always the case but also shows the lie inherent in the Minister’s thinking that somehow we should exclude special dividends from the equation when we are looking at the rate of return from State-owned enterprises. The fact is that under Labour there were frequent special dividends. Special dividends are still paid by State-owned enterprises under this Government. The Minister knows that and trying to cook the books to avoid the half a billion dollars this Government got in special dividends only this year from State-owned enterprises in respect of which he would sell a stake that once gone is gone for ever is just absolute folly. 
I will talk about what selling the rest of our power companies would mean in practice. I remember when I was on the board at Meridian and I have to say that it was a very very good board; I learnt a lot from the businessmen and women who sat on that board and who exercised excellent governance skills in the company when I was there. I think the directors’ fees were $50000 a year. At Contact Energy which ran a business of a similar size and with a broadly similarly balanced portfolio of hydro and other generation activities—because they all inherited the old ECNZ set up—the directors’ fees in total in 2010 were $993000 for doing the same job that State-owned enterprise directors do for a fraction of the cost. That is another thing that will happen if these power companies are sold off. The reality is that it will cost a lot more to run them because the private sector which will have a significant stake in them will demand a lot more to participate in governance and probably in management. 
We see this repeated all the way through in overheads executive pay and the general approach to the way in which the business is run. No one should presume that we would have the amount of renewable energy that we now have in New Zealand or indeed that we would have acquired the additional generation capacity and the efficiencies in generation that we have acquired over the last 10 years if most of the system had not been State-owned. Most of those directors sit there every day. They know that the Government thinks it is in the general national interest that there should be more and better generation capacity and that it should generally be renewable. They know that is what the people want they know it is generally what the Government wants and they sometimes take what I will say is more than a commercial approach to make that happen. That is a good thing. We should be pleased that our power companies do that and that they try their best to keep a lid on power price rises. 
If this proposal goes through and if majority stakes are sold or even if significant minority stakes are sold in Mighty River Power in Genesis and in Meridian then we will undoubtedly see attempts to put power prices up significantly. Indeed if we look at the Budget documents we can see that the Government has calculated a higher rate of return on that very assumption once the sale has occurred. The experience with energy privatisation overseas particularly in the United Kingdom is that a country does just get higher prices and greater extravagance and of course it loses for ever the dividend flow that it currently benefits from. The policy is a foolish policy. It is what this Budget absolutely relies upon in order to make the figures work but it is something we should not follow at any cost. 
Hon TIM GROSER (Minister of Trade) 
: 
 The Budget has to be considered not in a vacuum but in the context of the three Budgets that Mr English has presented. To understand where we are trying to steer New Zealand I think we have to have a close appreciation of exactly what the fiscal and structural problems are that the Budget is intended to fix. So it is worth spending just a few minutes rehearsing the context of this Budget to understand where I think we want to go as a country. 
The context of this Budget—the narrative—is now becoming I think a little clearer. By 2004 the froth of the early conditions of the previous Government had been knocked off and the traded sector—that is roughly speaking the competitive part of the sector the thing that creates wealth rather than spends wealth on our behalf—was already in recession. Not a single job had been added in the last 5 years. There was also massive ballooning of private sector debt from around $80 billion or $90 billion in 2000 to about $160 billion or $170 billion in early 2009. Inflation was at 5.1 percent—people have forgotten that—at the end of 2008. We had a massive blowout of core Government spending. From memory it was something like $32 billion in 2000 which had gone up to about $60 billion in 2008; there had been a 50 percent growth in just the last 5 years. The economy had grown by less than 1 percent in each of the previous 3 years prior to our becoming the Government compared with Australia growing at over 3 percent. As we now know New Zealand achieved the remarkable feat of entering into recession—it was the only developed country to be in recession—before the global financial crisis was triggered by the collapse of Lehman Brothers. Not just Budget 2011 but also the previous two Budgets taken in conjunction as a suite are designed to fix those problems. 
I have to say thank heaven for the election. If New Zealand had continued on that trajectory I know exactly where we would be today: we would be in an IMF recovery ward along with other countries that have comparable debt-to-GDP ratios. We proved quite conclusively as the Prime Minister put it that we can spend like a First World nation. Now is the time to prove that we can earn like a First World nation. 
What are we trying to do? First of all we are trying to manage the current fiscal situation against the background of some very severe turbulence coming out of left field. Not only have we had the global financial crisis which was the worst economic recession in the last 70 years and has tested—and let us face it continues to test—many many developed economies but also we have had two massive shocks from these two earthquakes. If anyone thinks this is just an idle comment I tell them to just look at what has happened in the No. 1 export market of New Zealand and the No. 4 export market to New Zealand. I am talking about Australia and Japan. In Japan our fourth-largest export market we have seen exactly the human impact that the dreadful disasters—the nuclear fall-out the tsunami and the earthquake—have created. There has been appalling loss of life but also it has severely impacted on their economy and their production. In case anyone did not notice although the tornados and floods in Australia did not lead to large loss of life—thank goodness—they have resulted in the worst quarterly GDP outcome for Australia in 20 years. 
These extreme events—known as black swans I think in technical literature—happen. They do not happen just in New Zealand; they have happened to two of our closest partners. And they have been an added dimension for us to deal with. Nevertheless this Budget has stuck to the task and has steered New Zealand through these difficulties while addressing the Christchurch problems in a very coordinated and structured way. 
Where are we with this Budget? First of all we have continued to restore some fiscal prudence on New Zealand. Taking account of the past and new measures to restrain the growth of public expenditure we now forecast that we will be back to roughly I think from memory a $700 million deficit by 2013 and to surplus by 2014. This will allow us to start repaying debt which many developed countries with very high debt-to-GDP ratios may not be so favourably placed to do. It will be a remarkable testimony in my opinion to Mr English and his senior colleagues that we have gone through this most difficult situation with some reasonable prospects in sight. 
Nor have we forgotten what I would call the long-term structural agenda. Nothing had been done under Labour to address an outmoded tax system or to reduce tax and incentive-sapping measures. We have had the most important tax reform in 20 years. We now have a situation where in gross terms—not in net terms because of course a fiscally neutral tax package was introduced—two-thirds of the revenue costs went to reducing taxation on people below the average income. So much for the rich mates’ ritual we hear from members on the other side! They simply will not look at the facts. We now have the highly favourable situation where three-quarters of New Zealand taxpayers pay a top marginal rate of 17.5c. To put it round the other way they are actually able to keep 82.5c of every marginal dollar they earn. 
This will take some time to seep through the economic structures of New Zealand before we can see the incentive effects coming through in a very positive way. But one thing is very clear: the advice we received from many sources—not just Treasury—was that if we wanted to do something to create a step change in New Zealand’s economic performance we had to address these tax issues. That is exactly what we have done. 
The structural programme has also advanced on a number of fronts. Education is not just a social policy issue; it is also an economic reality. I think there is a wide understanding in New Zealand that at the upper level of New Zealand educational achievement there is nothing wrong at all with our education system. In fact it is a world-class education system. The people at the bottom of the heap have been underperforming and we know what those statistics tell us. So although we started a programme of addressing some of the structural deficiencies at the tail end of the New Zealand education system through such elementary steps as introducing standards by which parents could make some judgments about whether their children are making progress we are also advanced across a number of areas. As for the suggestion that this might have been a slash-and-burn Budget I tell the House that total education spending will I think reach $12.2 billion this year which is an all-time high. We are a moderate Government doing sensible things in a moderate way and I think we have a lot of support from New Zealand for that approach. 
I will also focus on infrastructure. I recall the Prime Minister making the point a couple of years ago when he said that New Zealand is in a sense a country like a small company with outstanding assets but under-invested in its own future. We have had to ramp up structural investment in our infrastructure. The State will inevitably play a large role in that; we have no ideological problem with that whatsoever. So the State has invested very significant money in what everyone calls—I think completely correctly—the superhighways of the 21st century and this Budget has rolled out another $900 million - plus to complete the next cycle of that investment. 
I have the privilege of going around export companies in New Zealand and company after company always come to me and say what a boon this investment will be to them. One of the things that is becoming clear is that the distinction between manufacturing export companies and service export companies—what we call them—is no longer clear. I went to see a company called FRAMECAD an outstanding New Zealand export company. It is hard to describe what it is. Is it a manufacturing company? Yes. Is it an information technology company? Yes and it sends its CAD designs of framing materials through ultra-fast broadband to machines it has pre-installed in locations. It is companies like that—and sometimes we will not even be able to predict who it will be—that will take advantage of these things. We are making an investment in our future out of trust that this is the right thing to do. 
Finally I will focus on investment in water. I think that that will prove to be an outstanding background for us to exploit all the advantages of these new trade agreements. Thank you. 
GARETH HUGHES (Green) 
: 
 Kia ora Mr Assistant Speaker. It is a privilege to take a call in this Budget debate. I intend to focus on transport issues. When it comes to transport this Government under Steven Joyce as Minister of Transport is simply on the wrong track. This Government is creating monuments in concrete and asphalt to 1950s-style transport thinking. The roads of national significance—or the roads of significance to National—that dominate the transport budget are memorials to old-fashioned thinking locking Kiwis into cars trucks and an oil-dependent future. 
As Wellington debates an appropriate sign for the airport I would like to propose instead of the “Wellywood” sign a gigantic statue of Steven Joyce near the proposed Basin Reserve flyover in order to remember him the “Colossus of Roads”. 
I intend in this speech to explain the Green Party approach to transport look at the roads of significance to National and discuss the smart alternatives we should be adopting. The transport budget is primarily delivered through the Government policy statement which is currently out in draft form. It is an enormously influential document determining how we will spend more than $38 billion over the next 10 years. 
Firstly I will state the Green approach to transport. We believe that our Government is wasting our scarce national resources on uneconomic motorways and locking us into a car truck and oil-dependent future. I ask where the balance is when for every dollar we spend on walking cycling buses trains and coastal shipping this Government is pouring $7 into building more roads. Walking and cycling come off particularly badly in this Budget receiving less than 1 percent of the total transport budget even though 10 percent of Kiwis cycle or walk to work and would do so even more if it was safer. 
This Budget is massively skewed with $13.7 billion or 39 percent of the total National Land Transport Fund going towards State highways to the detriment of local roads police safety transport planning and public transport infrastructure. It is like investing in a CD store at the dawn of the iPod age. These projects lock us into old ways of getting around and constrain the smart alternatives. 
The Government policy statement allows for an increase of only $90 million in subsidies for public transport services over the next 10 years. Public transport services will receive less than 10 percent of the National Land Transport Fund. This suggests that the Government wants to constrain the high growth we have seen in patronage over the last 10 years. 
There is no joined-up thinking in this transport budget. The Government talks about roads of national significance when it should be looking more broadly at transport corridors of national significance. The Green Party believes in smart transport investments that balance roads with sustainable transport options that will future-proof our transport system so that it is more affordable efficient and versatile. 
Out of Government the Green Party has achieved the electrification of the Auckland rail network we have saved the Overlander train Johnsonville’s trains and Wellington’s iconic trolley buses and now we are working with the Government to roll out the national cycleway. The Greens are not anti-car or anti-road; we love to drive. We are pro transport choice. We do not want to stop all road investment; we just want to stop pouring billions of dollars into white elephant motorways that will make congestion worse. 
The roads of significance to National that dominate the transport spend are expensive. We are talking about $10.7 billion over 10 years and many of the roads are uneconomic under the Government’s own benefit-cost ratios. That is without measuring the true cost: the externalities of climate change obesity and road safety. The OECD report reference to the National Infrastructure Plan shows there is no correlation in New Zealand between motorways and economic growth yet there is a strong positive correlation between investment in other types of local roads and rail. 
Recent research from the United States shows that the economic stimulus spending on public transport there created twice as many jobs per dollar spent than spending on motorways created. We hear from the “Colossus of Roads” Steven Joyce that motorway projects are good for creating jobs. However that makes no sense when to create just a single job costs between half a million dollars and $1 million. Even Don Brash in his latest 2025 task force said of one of the roads of significance to National that there was no evidence that the project would provide a net benefit to the economy. 
Many of these projects are not even needed. For example the Western Link Road which was the community’s preferred option over the Kapiti Expressway or north of Auckland the Campaign for Better Transport’s “Lifesaver Highway” would cost considerably less and do considerably more for road safety in the short term than the $1.7 billion “Holiday Highway”. 
Essentially the National Land Transport Fund is the Minister’s own discretionary fund to play with and make political decisions with and he has rammed through these motorways under a shocking process. That is why I call them roads of significance to National. These roads benefit trucks primarily and are roads of trucking significance. They run through iconic and important communities of national significance and they lock us into an increase in greenhouse gases which are already up by 70 percent since 1990 in the transport sector as if the climate was not of significance. 
The Government is woefully and wilfully ignoring the price of oil. None of the business cases take into account volatile or rising oil prices nor the huge impact that current world prices are having seeing road traffic levels declining over 3 percent over the last year. Unlike many businesses councils and Governments this Government has no plan—or plan to start planning—to reduce our dependence on oil which accounts for 16 percent of our gross domestic product or 99 percent of our transport fuel. 
This huge fortune we are wasting on our motorways is based on a fuel of declining significance. These roads of significance to National will not even help motorists stuck on our crowded roads. Building roads to deal with congestion is like dieting by extending the belt buckles. These roads will increase sprawl significantly in low urban housing density meaning higher infrastructure costs and higher household commuting costs and constraining public transport more akin to the 1950s than the 21st century. 
We are at a turning point. If we keep doing things the way we always did building more motorways and spending the vast majority of the Budget on roads for trucks we will not get a different outcome. We need smart transport solutions. 
Just before Bill English read out his Budget speech I highlighted the major missing piece of the Budget—funding for the central business district rail link—when I tabled my petition signed by thousands of Aucklanders. Building the link would transform the rail network whose patronage grew over 20 percent in the last year. It would unlock the rail network unlock its constrained capacity and transform the central business district. Primarily the rail link would benefit motorists by taking cars off the road massively benefiting the regional economy. 
This Government however is determined to continue the heritage of previous National Governments by thwarting Auckland’s ambition for a central business district rail link. The Government policy statement contained only $370 million or 1 percent of the National Land Transport Fund for building new public transport infrastructure meaning the central business district rail link will stay just a dream. Auckland cannot do it alone given that this Government removed its transport revenue - raising options. The “Colossus of Roads” got his officials to produce a negative review of the business case amazingly identifying only $148 million in benefits whereas I prefer to go by the internationally reviewed and more robust Auckland Council review which showed $3.3 billion in wider economic benefits. This Government is holding Auckland back despite the clear call from the people of Auckland the strong business case and the plain need to get the loop now. 
In Wellington funding was missing for another transformational transport project—the light rail system—to link up the region’s rail network with its southern suburbs. The Greens have been champions for rail in Parliament. We love it because it is efficient better at reducing congestion safer environmentally friendly and lastly economically beneficial. 
This Budget fails to address the affordability of buses and trains to develop a smart strategy to see more Kiwis cycling to encourage car sharing or to promote better urban design. At a time when New Zealand’s Budget deficit is higher than ever we should be investing only in transport projects with strong and proven economic cases like the central business district rail loop or walking and cycling. Steven Joyce has essentially raided the transport pantry and taken all of the money to fund his pet political project—his politically inspired roads of significance to National—in the pursuit of some outdated and misguided vision of economic growth. 
In summary these uneconomic and in many cases unneeded roads of National Party electoral significance and roads of trucking significance rammed through under a terrible process through communities of national significance based on a fuel of declining significance—as if the climate was not of significance—must be stopped. We need real transport leadership and a balanced approach to transport spending but all we have is a monument to the 1950s—a “Colossus of Roads”. 
Hon PAULA BENNETT (Minister for Social Development and Employment) 
: 
 I am pleased to take a call and to stand up and support this Budget. I thank the Hon Bill English for the work he has done—and might I say that it was not easy. It has been a hard process to go through this but there is no doubt that this National-led Government has presented a Budget that is about building our future as a country it is about building a stronger economy it is about a stronger workforce it is about a platform for growth and it will make a substantial difference to where we go as a country. It is a responsible approach in these times which are our times and which indeed are a bit tougher. In Vote Social Development I am proud to say we found savings but avoided wholesale cuts to services and to programmes. We have done so through a continued focus on finding efficiencies and getting smarter at what we do how we run it as a business and how we do our business. 
Vote Social Development has a total appropriation of $21.7 billion—one-third of all spend is under that responsibility. In this Budget fiscal constraints meant that we had no new funding. So we have focused that funding and that spending on who needs it most. I am going to talk to members about youth employment children in care parenting support employment assistance the Christchurch rebuild community organisations that have had our support and of course our wonderful superannuitants. On those wonderful superannuitants we are projecting to spend about $9.5 billion in the next financial year—$9.5 billion just on superannuation. On top of that we also project to spend about $288 million in supplementary support to them. That is through disability allowances accommodation supplements and also through special needs grants and special needs loans. 
In Budget 2011 we set aside or reprioritised $250 million for social initiatives. This included of course the $55.2 million that is going into youth employment and a $43.7 million package—and I will talk to members a bit more about those wonderful children in care who need every bit of help they can get. The $55.2 million that has gone into the youth employment package is to help those youth who make up about one-third of our current unemployment benefit numbers. Currently we have about 17100 young people on the unemployment benefit. We all know that they need better lives. We all know that getting them at that age and making sure they have a future and a way forward is one of the best investments we can make as a Government. That is why we have built on what works. So we have evaluated and looked at what has worked and then we have progressed that. 
We have the Skills for Growth programme in which we subsidise an employer who takes on a young person for a minimum of 12 months and attached to that is a whole training and skills growth programme. The young people are attached to an industry training organisation. They are attached to a target industry where the jobs are needed. The intention of that policy is to make sure that those people do not come back on a benefit in their lifetime. That gives them a skill for life real job experience and also that training alongside of it. We think that is pretty exciting and will make a difference. 
We took the very very successful Job Ops youth employment scheme which currently has seen over 11000 young people in work. Those 11000 young people are in work due to the $5000 subsidy for 6 months. The scheme takes those young people in gives them a job for 6 months and most of them stay on for a lot longer. We now have training attached to that scheme so it is now Job Ops with training. That means those young people also having training systems alongside them for those 6 months. It is $13 million but funding places for 3000 young people is certainly a worthwhile spend and one that we have come up with in this Budget. 
Of course we have the Limited Service Volunteers which occasionally gets mixed up with the military-style activity camps and I do not like that. They are very different schemes. The Limited Service Volunteers scheme is for those on the unemployment benefit. It is a 6-week course that is about motivation and self-responsibility and clicking into what young people can do. It gives them those sorts of skills gives them career advice and then follows their progress afterwards. However the military-style activity camps are very very different in that they deal with very serious youth offenders. I am really rapt that the Limited Service Volunteers scheme has come along that we are putting a lot more into it and providing a lot more places. There is ongoing funding for 1500 places a year. 
I turn to community responses. We knew the recession was hitting as we came into Government and we knew there would be an increase in demand for our services that are out there with people working on the ground. However there was a decrease in funding because the foundations and the various philanthropists were not able to give the same amount of money to those services. We wanted to fill that gap. We have spent more than $55 million over the last 2 years on 700 organisations. More than $55 million has been spent on more than 700 organisations. What we really notice though is that those organisations are still feeling that pressure. As we went around and spoke to them they said “It ain’t over yet. We need a bit more help.” I am absolutely delighted that this Budget has put $25 million more into those community organisations. There will be three rounds of funding. It will be available as it is and I know that the funding is much needed. We are getting a fantastic response from the people out there in the community. I love that it is community-led organisations as well. It is people in the community on that forum who are taking these funding applications and deciding who gets them and where they are needed most. 
But I have made no secret that what I am most proud of in this Budget is the assistance we are giving to children in care. These are the children who are removed from their homes because quite frankly an adult has treated them appallingly. At worst the children have been seriously abused or sexually assaulted and in this instance the best is that they have been hideously neglected. These are our children. They are broken they are hurt and we are not doing as well by them as we could. We take about 2200 of these children from their homes each year and we take about 90 babies at birth. Literally a social worker and a policeman or policewoman are waiting outside a delivery room and the baby is taken. What we do with the children is put them into great foster homes and try to work with them to get them the right counselling. In some cases we are doing it well and in others the truth is we are not. 
What we are doing after running a pilot scheme is increasing the Gateway assessments for health and education. It is as simple as asking how we can fix their very complex problems if we do not even know what they are. How can we do what needs to be done with these children when we do not even know what their history is what their needs are and what we can do? There is a full assessment usually led by a paediatrician with an administrator next to them who collects all of the children’s educational history which sometimes can go back quite far. The children are often transitional. They have moved from before-school programmes to after-school programmes to schools because they have been moved around. We are making sure that we are going back and getting as much information as we can. 
Our pilot schemes have told us that 88 percent of those children who come into care have health needs—40 percent or more have mental health needs. Those children are not being seen and they are not getting the services they need. Of the more than 40 percent of children who are seen to have either severe mental or behavioural issues only 7 percent are currently getting assistance through the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service and that is not good enough. We then had to make sure that we were getting them the services they needed so we put $14.5 million into mental health services. To be quite blunt we can spend so much time arguing about whether something is behavioural or psychological or what has caused the major problems that these children have that we are trying to squeeze them into a gateway that is not there or it is a mental health issue. The mental health people say it is not their problem and the psychologists are saying that the child fits more there and in the meantime this child has grown up and not received the support that he or she most desperately needs. 
So I will build them their own little flexible box and I will direct-purchase what they need without the need of having to slot into those arguments of where they fit. I reckon that is one of the most important things that we can do as a Government. Let us work out what those needs are. Let us make sure we then address them. 
We will also fund early childhood care for those children from the age of 18 months through to 3 years and then of course the 20 free hours’ care clicks in. I say that this is great for the kids because we know that quality early childhood care makes a difference but I equally say that this is about respite care for those wonderful foster parents or grandparents who are raising these children. They have stepped in to look after them. Yes we are funding $2.4 million into Parents Inc. to give support to foster parents and to those grandparents raising grandchildren in our communities up and down this country. They beg us almost on a daily basis for help. They take these children on all through their own means. They live in our very small communities and they live in our larger towns as well. They want help. I am really proud to be giving that help to them. I am proud of this Budget I am proud of what we are doing for those most vulnerable children and I think it will make a difference. Thank you. 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Deputy Leader—Labour) 
: 
 We have just heard from the Minister for Social Development and Employment. It was interesting to hear her final comments in her speech about children. One of the areas where she has disappointed me most is that she has been more about talk than action in her 2½ years as Minister. Although she has said how much she cares about children she does not follow it up with action. I am looking forward to the day when there will be some real action and children in New Zealand will be put at the centre of a Government’s policy. 
I have heard the words “bland” “boring” “no vision” “no plan” “no ideas” and “a Budget for yesterday not tomorrow.” Those are some of the comments that we have heard from around New Zealand on the National Government’s third Budget. I would like to add a few other words to those ones. There has been quite a lot of “creative accounting” in this Budget. There is a fair dose of “dodgy figures” in this Budget. Some very heroic assumptions have been made in this Budget and the whole lot has been mixed up with a very big handful of fairy dust. I believe that the public over many many months have been played like a fiddle in the lead-up to this Budget. The Government has been assisted by the media by commentators and by cheerleaders for National all playing the same tune as we went into this Budget. People were softened up to expect a tough Budget. There would be no new spending; it was a Budget about savings and growth. There would be cuts to projects that were “nice to have” although it has never been defined what “nice to haves” are. It was to be about the unaffordability of the growing deficit this country has. 
We were told week in and week out over and over again that we were borrowing $380 million a week and that it was unsustainable unavoidable and unacceptable. New Zealanders were told that in this Budget they would have to take the pain. They would have to accept the pain they would have to swallow the cuts that were coming and they would have to stop complaining about selling our power companies and selling Air New Zealand because there was no alternative. The poor Government had to do this because it was forced into this position! That was the mantra we heard week in week out. I believe that the public were played like a fiddle. The truth is that the public are being fiddled by National because if we look at National’s Budget we see that it is based on some pretty dodgy figures indeed. They are now emerging. Weeks after the Budget was presented; we are starting to get the true picture of what this Budget actually meant. 
Let us take the first dodgy figure: the need to borrow $380 million a week which is equivalent to $86 having to be borrowed every week for every man woman and child in New Zealand. But we have now discovered something after the Budget was presented and it came out not by the Government being upfront about it. The public has learned that Bill English has been borrowing $100 million more per week than he needed to borrow. But miraculously before the election the Government will not need to borrow so much so good will their management of the economy be. No one would argue that they ought not to borrow when the terms are good but why not be honest and upfront about what they are borrowing and why they are borrowing it? New Zealanders are clever enough to understand if they are told but what was happening had to be uncovered and drawn out. 
The Government used that $380 million per week of borrowing as a way to scare New Zealanders. It made people much more worried than they needed to be. People worried about their own personal situations. They saw their jobs going they saw their partners’ jobs going and they saw prices rising faster than their wages. They saw their food bills power bills petrol costs and rents going up. They could see that the tax cuts that were supposed to help them and the income assistance available were less than the rising prices they were facing. They knew they were not getting compensation in their wages or from those tax cuts so they were very worried about their own situation. Loaded on top of them the Government then made them worry about the position this country was in. It was about to implode because we were borrowing $380 million a week. 
It has been beautifully orchestrated by National members. They were covering up their own economic incompetence. They used the shadow of the Christchurch earthquakes and the Pike River disaster along with alarming Kiwis to set up what I believe is an agenda to push through their old tired policies of the past. It was all about positioning for the election. There is no denying that we have to reduce our Government borrowing in this country. It needs to be tackled and a Labour Government would do that but why not be honest about what we are borrowing? Why not front up to the public of New Zealand and say what money will be spent on? The first step in a recovery plan is to be honest about the situation one faces. We have not had that sort of transparency from this Government. This Government should own up to the fact that it is borrowing for the tax cuts it gave to thousands of well-paid New Zealanders last year. It should stop the fudge about it and stop the fiddle about it. It is a fact: this Government is borrowing to pay for tax cuts for the top income earners in New Zealand. We could not afford those tax cuts but the Government gave them anyway. 
The irony of it is that Government members made changes in this Budget to Working for Families. I believe the changes they made to Working for Families bring them in about $300 million or $400 million which affects middle-income earner families earning up to around $80000 or $90000 per year in joint income. Government members could have been much fairer if they had just lifted the top tax rate a little for those who got the big windfall in the tax cuts last year and it would have brought in the same amount of money. But who did they tackle? Who did they hit? They hit middle-income earners with families to grab money off them but left the high-income earners in this country with their tax cuts and the money in their pockets. There was no fairness in that. 
Let us have a look at some of the fairy dust that Government members sprinkled around at the time of the Budget. Let us look at the jobs they said will be created over the next 4 years. They said we will get 170000 jobs. Was that not the same figure that they promised in the 2010 Budget? I believe it is. In fact if we look at the Budget’s additional information estimates we see that 155000 jobs will come between now and 2015. That is actually 10000 fewer than they had in last year’s Budget. Those jobs will not be out there unless there is a change in this Government’s direction and a proper plan to create those jobs. In fact unemployment has gone up not down. Then we had the fairy dust about how our economy was going to grow by 4 percent every year over the next 4 years. Even Treasury is backing away from that prediction. Guess what? There is more. We can look forward to wage increases of between 4 and 5 percent every year for the next 4 years. Who believes that? The public certainly do not. 
Then we had the doozy of them all: the creative accounting in the Budget. We will be allowed to choose whether we sell our assets. We will get to choose by voting at the next election. But when one looks at the Budget documents one sees that the Government has already cashed up. It has banked the money already over the next 4 years. The Government has sold our assets. It is a con job. There is no choice for New Zealanders. The Government has banked the money from the sale of those assets. 
Then we get to KiwiSaver the other bit of a fiddle that went on. We get to choose whether we want to change KiwiSaver but the Government is already cutting the $10 a week tax credit from New Zealanders from 1 July. This Budget is not about a forward plan; it is about pulling the wool over the eyes of New Zealanders. 
SIMON BRIDGES (National—Tauranga) 
: 
 Since John Key’s campaign before he became Prime Minister in 2008 and since then he has been relentlessly focused on the things that matter. We have been focused on bringing down debt bringing down taxes and really delivering a brighter future for the people of New Zealand. We can contrast that with the Labour Party. We can contrast that with Trevor Mallard for example. We are told that Trevor Mallard is campaign manager for the New Zealand Labour Party. One would think that in that role he would have a lot to do. But we have a party over there that is more focused on sports events than on the campaign. I understand that Trevor Mallard is in serious training for a cycle race. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I haven’t ridden a bike for 3 months. 
SIMON BRIDGES 
: Well on his blog he has challenged a former sickness beneficiary turned blogger to a cycle race. My question to Trevor Mallard is whether that makes him the Sonny Bill Williams of New Zealand politics. Does that make him the Sonny Bill Williams— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I have to leave the Chamber so I cannot take the next call. The answer is that unfortunately I do not quite have the body. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Eric Roy) 
: That is not a point of order. 
SIMON BRIDGES 
: I agree with the member; he does not have the body. He is not the only one in the Labour Party who it seems is focused more on sporting events than on campaigning on the issues that matter in this country. Take Trevor Mallard’s close colleague Clare Curran. Earlier this week she auditioned to be a franchise rugby team cheerleader. Then we have my old teacher Chris Carter who is not standing for the future Parliament. He is also very much involved in sports. He is training for the New York City Marathon—in New York sadly! 
National is a party that is very much looking at the policies and focusing on the issues that matter. In this current term we have brought down taxes bureaucracy and borrowing. We have continued to do that. Current projections are for 170000 jobs in the next 3 or 4 years and for real wage growth of 4 percent. We can contrast that with a party on the other side—not many of whom are in the Chamber—that wants to put up taxes spend more and borrow money. 
Todd McClay 
: Spend other people’s money. 
SIMON BRIDGES 
: Labour members want to spend other people’s money not their own because of ideologies they learnt about at university which for some of them was a very very long time ago. 
Todd McClay 
: Or when they first came to Parliament. 
SIMON BRIDGES 
: Or when they first came to Parliament which again was a very very long time ago. But we on this side of the House are in the real world. We have delivered a Budget for the times. It is a realistic Budget a Budget we can be proud of and a Budget that builds for the future of this country. 
Hon Rick Barker 
: Even Tau’s going to sleep now. 
SIMON BRIDGES 
: I say to the senior whip on the other side that Labour can be ashamed of its record over the 9 years before we were in Government. Debt as a country was up from about $100 billion— 
Hon Rick Barker 
: Debt was down. 
SIMON BRIDGES 
: The facts do not lie. Debt was up from $100 billion to $170 billion. We know that Dr Cullen by taxing more— 
Carmel Sepuloni 
: Who’s borrowing an additional $100 million a week that they don’t need? Who’s borrowing more than they need? 
Hon Rick Barker 
: Every Budget with a surplus. 
SIMON BRIDGES 
: Labour members do not like it. They do not like the facts. By taxing more Dr Cullen managed to balance his books. But we know he grew the State from 2005 on by about $2.5 billion more each year. That is not a record to be proud of. In fact that is a record to be ashamed of. All the while the real economy in this country—certainly from the end of 2004 onwards—was going backwards. If we take out of the equation the huge ballooning of Government spending and the spending on plasma TVs by the likes of the Opposition spokesman on finance David Cunliffe so he could watch himself on Parliament TV we see that frankly this economy was going backwards. Exports were going backwards. That is a record of shame. Labour left us with a decade of deficits with rising debt year on year for 10 years. 
In this Budget and in the earlier two Budgets we have consolidated our position and have taken off the sharp edges so we have done the opposite. We are moving the country over the next 3 to 4 years—2014 to 2015—back into surplus which will be by the end of a second National term. So we are bringing debt down— 
Hon Maryan Street 
: You’re borrowing more than you need and you’ve given unaffordable tax cuts. 
SIMON BRIDGES 
: Maryan Street says we are borrowing more than we need. Here is the deal: her Government if we were unlucky enough to have one in this country would want to borrow more. 
Hon Members 
: No. 
SIMON BRIDGES 
: Well let us go through it. The Labour Party says “Oh yeah let’s have a research and development tax credit.” When Phil Goff is asked what that will cost he says it is about $800 million which he will take off the farmers. We will get to that. What will it really cost? It will cost about $1.2 billion more than that. 
Hon Maryan Street 
: No Simon you don’t know what our Budget looks like. You don’t know what our policies are yet so stop talking out of a hole in your head. 
SIMON BRIDGES 
: Well the facts do not lie in respect of Labour’s uncosted research and development policy. How will Labour pay for its research and development tax policy? I will tell members: it will do so out of its farmer-hating policies. That is we have on the other side: farmer haters. Labour members want envy taxes. They will take it out of an emissions trading scheme from 2013 I think. 
Hon Maryan Street 
: Make them pay their fair share you mean? Make farmers carry their own weight like the rest of us have to? 
SIMON BRIDGES 
: Actually farmers are people who work very very hard day in and day out. 
Hon Maryan Street 
: They could be a lot more productive if they tried harder. 
SIMON BRIDGES 
: There we go. Maryan Street says that farmers could be a lot more productive if they tried harder. What a slap in the face to hard-working farmers. I hope Federated Farmers pick up on that comment. Maryan Street said that the farmers of this country should try harder and be more productive. They actually are productive. They are a brightline in this economy. 
Members on the other side of the House through their envy politics and taxes want to tax farmers more and take down the good that is in this economy. We do not subscribe to the sorts of policies that would tax farmers more. We do not cost our policies on that. We do not want to put the top tax rates up. Let me tell the House what putting up the top tax rates does. It sends the so-called rich—and let me say that there are not many of them in this country—overseas. They are the doctors the builders and the hard-working people that Ms Street does not seem to like. That would send them overseas. All the while Labour members with their wedge politics want to put minimum wages up. Labour members want to put the people they say they represent out of jobs. 
I say that unlike Labour we want to give this country a fair go but we want to do it through equality of opportunity. We want to do it through getting our debt down paying our own way getting Government finances in order delivering more jobs and investing in public services and infrastructure. Yes we will trim back where we need to because we cannot have the lolly scramble that Carmel Sepuloni wants; we cannot have that any more. Unlike the other side which seems more interested in sporting events—and in Trevor Mallard being the Sonny Bill Williams of New Zealand politics—I think we are a party that is interested in the things that matter in this country. I am proud to be part of this Government. 
CARMEL SEPULONI (Labour) 
: 
 If the $300 million per week that the Government is borrowing for this country was going any way towards alleviating the struggles that New Zealanders are feeling then we could understand it but that money is doing absolutely nothing to do with that. The three things I want to focus on today with regard to the Budget announcements by the National side of the House are first the beneficiary-bashing that has begun under this Government second the impact that the Budget will have on Maori and Pacific young people and third the social implications of the high levels of unemployment that are being brought on by that side of the House. 
I really want to start with the beneficiary bashing. I see that the Government has set aside $40 million for welfare reform and the Minister for Social Development and Employment will be convening a group of seven Ministers to look at the Welfare Working Group’s recommendations. I wonder which Ministers will be on that group and what we as a country have to look forward to. Obviously the Minister for Social Development and Employment will be on that group. She is a solo mother herself who now looks down her nose at other solo mothers and says she got the training incentive allowance but other sole parents do not need it. She says times have changed now so sole parents do not need the same level of support that she had. 
We have a Prime Minister who likes to go around saying he grew up in a State house yet in his own electorate where Labour had planned affordable State housing to be part of the Hobsonville housing development that Government decided that it did not want that in the Prime Minister’s area—that type of housing there or those types of people to be living in that specific area. We also have a Minister of Education who when she first started increased the fines for truancy but who in her own electorate recently refused to fund a school bus that would get kids from a poor rural area to the nearest school. We see it does not make for a very good committee if we look at the Ministers who may possibly be on it. 
We are very concerned on the Labour side of the House about the beneficiary bashing that is taking place. It is a deliberate attempt to shift attention away from the fact that the National side of the House has done absolutely nothing to create jobs. It would rather put the boot into people who are already experiencing hard times and shift the attention away from the fact that this Government has done an abysmal job of leading this country. What we know about New Zealanders—and I think this is something that we need to remind that side of the House about—is that generally Kiwis band together when times are tough. We are compassionate as New Zealanders. We lend our neighbours a hand when they are experiencing difficulties. We do not put the boot in when they are down which is exactly what that side of the House is attempting to do in its beneficiary bashing. 
Hon Tau Henare 
: Where’s this member standing? 
CARMEL SEPULONI 
: I met a solo mother of two children on the weekend in west Auckland I tell Tau Henare. She is a solo mother whose husband left her last year. He left her last year with two kids and one on the way. When I met her on the weekend she told me that— 
Hon Tau Henare 
: Whatever. 
CARMEL SEPULONI 
: —I know Mr Henare does not care—things are so bad that she cannot afford to keep the third baby. She will be adopting that third child out because she cannot afford to look after another one. Yet members on that side of the House like to put a stigma on sole parents as if it is their fault and as if they are bludging off the system and deserve to have everything taken away from them. The woman I spoke to is struggling so much that she would put her third child up for adoption because she cannot afford to look after it. I blame members opposite for that I say to Mr Henare. 
When we look at the beneficiary bashing that is taking place we see people like a mother who came in the other day with her 18-year-old son a mother who is fearful that her son may commit suicide. He is on the unemployment benefit but has a sickness that I will not go into detail about. He has tried time and time again to get a job and cannot get one. His mother says she sees him becoming more and more depressed. She is fearful that he may actually kill himself because of depression over the fact that he cannot find employment. That side of the House has done nothing to create jobs for boys like that one. That side of the House continues to put the boot into people like that 18-year-old who is now considering suicide. 
Talking about the boot we may as well go on to boot camps. Earlier the Minister for Social Development and Employment said the $25 million that is going into these limited service training courses will be of benefit with regard to getting those young people motivated into employment and into training. She says they are not military-style courses yet they are run by our Defence Force. I cannot understand how they cannot be military-style when the Defence Force is running them. However $25 million is going into these military-style training courses which are prefaced on the idea that our young people have no motivation or discipline to work or to study when the reality is that they are not being given the opportunities to work or study. There is no lack of discipline or motivation; there is a lack of opportunities because that Government has failed to create them for those young people. 
I am fearful for the young Maori and Pacific people who are neither in employment nor in education because in 25 years’ time they will make up over 50 percent of the New Zealand population. They will make up over 50 percent of the workforce and we will be reliant on them to move our country forward. People like—hmm let me think—Brash Banks and all those people who continue to put down and pull down equity measures and who continue to attack our young Maori and Pacific women and men will be reliant on those very same young Maori and Pacific women and men to support this country yet that Government has done absolutely nothing to invest in them. 
We see cuts to early childhood education. I do not care what the Minister of Education says; this Government has cut the money provided for early childhood education. That as Professor Gluckman has said is where the investment needs to be made yet members opposite have no understanding of the evidence and of the importance of that investment for us and our future as a country. Instead we see Maori and Pacific young people continuing to be thrown on the scrap heap and then when they cannot find employment or get into training they are attacked by that side of the House as being bludgers on the State when that is simply not the case. 
I am concerned about the social implications of the high levels of unemployment that we face at the moment. Recently I was at a meeting with west Auckland lawyers—I think some of them showed up at a meeting that Tau Henare held recently and they were not impressed—and one of the senior lawyers said that during tough economic times a family lawyer will not go without work. Those family lawyers talked about the fact that because the Government is failing to address the needs of people we face such tough economic times that family lawyers are seeing increased cases of marital splits and domestic violence. All of those things are a result of what the Government has or has not been doing. 
I am concerned about the social implications of the high level of unemployment and the poverty that we face. I was a child and a teen during the 1990s. I had two parents who lost their jobs in the 1990s and I have been a single mother so I know how difficult that is. But I have never ever seen the situation as hard as it is now. I know of parents who cannot afford to put food on the table for their kids. I know of a mother who cannot even afford to keep her third child and who is adopting her child out because of that. Some people coming through our office are sleeping under bridges or in cars because on top of everything else there is a housing crisis that members opposite have failed to address. Those members are running our country into the mud. We need to make sure as a country that on 26 November they are not allowed to continue in Government because the situation will only get worse. We are looking at repercussions that will continue for decades if that Government is re-elected on 26 November. Thank goodness it will not be. 
Hon TAU HENARE (National) 
: 
 There is a song by that famous rock and roll band AC/DC called “Back in Black”. I tell members that the Budget we have just been given will put us back in black by 2014. By 2014 we will be back in black. Today somebody referred to Labour as being petty and pathetic. I have to agree with whoever said that— 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: That’s just their good points. 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: That was just the two good points of that party. All those members could moan about were BMWs and the cost of a paint job and a few curtains. The BMWs were actually bought and signed off by none other than the Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme Helen Clark. But there was no talk of how good it will be with 170000 new jobs over the next 4 years. Nobody stood up and thanked Mr English very much not for creating 170000 jobs but for creating the conditions so that employers can get out there and start employing the unemployed. Today I heard the Governor of the Reserve Bank— 
Hon Member 
: Who? 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: That is what I expect from members of the Labour Party. That member asked who the Governor of the Reserve Bank is. All members opposite do is hate farmers but farmers are the backbone of this country. They still produce 30-odd percent of our economy and we should always stand up and thank them. 
This is the third Budget by the Hon Bill English. In 2009 we helped New Zealanders through the recession. We turned round the forecast of ever-rising debt. In 2010 we built the platform for growth savings and investments. In 2010— 
Carmel Sepuloni 
: Read the line again Tau. 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: I will get back to that member very shortly. In 2010 we made the biggest tax reform in 25 years. In 2011 we will have a faster path to reach surplus we will have faster growth and we will rebuild New Zealand’s second-largest city Christchurch. We will have done that all in the space of 3 years. 
This Government’s management over the last 3 years has been great. Oh here he is. Here comes the walking wounded “Mr Sonny Bill”. That is right. I say to him: “Have a seat; we’ll wait for 5 minutes while you sit down.” 
Why do Labour members hate the producers of wealth in this country? Is it because of jealousy? Last week I was down in Queenstown in Cromwell and in Alexandra. Queenstown is not a place I usually go to but I talked to some people on the ground. This is what I found out. They know that things are hard at the moment. They know that things are tough they know that things need a good management team and they know they have the team to do the job. I was touched by some of the words from those people in the south. 
I turn now to Auckland City. 
Todd McClay 
: Get on to Carmel Sepuloni. 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: She will be in there somewhere. I want to talk about Auckland City and how I see that city as being the engine room of New Zealand. I see it as the engine room of our economy. But there is something going on in west Auckland that is an absolute outrage. I have not heard one Labour member from the west talk about their so-called constituents. I know that we have a member of Parliament who does not even bother to turn up for work and that is an outrage too. It is an abject outrage. 
Simon Bridges 
: Are you talking about Carmel Sepuloni? 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: No I am not talking about Carmel Sepuloni or Phil Twyford but I will soon. My message to Len Brown Mayor of Auckland City is this: stop bleeding west Auckland dry. The Auckland City Council had the chance to bring in a rating system for all Aucklanders. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Rodney promised not to. 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: I say this to “Mr Crippled” on the other side: Rodney Hide put together— 
Catherine Delahunty 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I am offended by people of any side of this House being referred to as cripples or people with disabilities being referred to as cripples or people with any kind of sports injury being referred to as cripples. It is no longer a contemporary parlance that is acceptable. 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: I hear the member. I think it was done in jest. I looked at the member who was targeted and he was not responding in a way that he could have. But I hear what the member says and I just remind members that when we are in the House there is the requirement to address people by their names. I ask that we respect that point. 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: I apologise to the member. On average west Auckland businesses pay 40 percent more than anybody else in Auckland City and that is a constitutional outrage. 
I tell members that we played the game out in west Auckland. We went to see Len Brown. We made a submission. The businesses made a submission to the Auckland City Council and the council threw its hands up because its members are all lefties; they do not know what to do. They threw their hands up and said there was nothing they could do. Well the legislation that was put through under the stewardship of the Hon Rodney Hide allows them to make a change. But they have said they will not do it. 
Here is the thing: it is not as if businesses in west Auckland do not want to pay any rates; they do. They want to pay their fair share. But what they are being asked to do is an abject disgrace on Auckland City Council. Those businesses pay 40 percent more than anybody else in Auckland City. Do members know what effect that has on businesses in west Auckland? They are not in a position to pay for extra staff when times are tough. When times are tough nobody from the Auckland City Council and nobody from Len Brown’s office comes out and says that they will cut those businesses some slack for the next 3 years. No they expect businesses out in west Auckland to pay another 3.9 percent on top of the 40 percent extra they are paying in rates. 
I have just a little bit to say on Carmel Sepuloni and the other guy out in west Auckland—I forget his name. It would have been all right if Labour had a home-grown candidate but out of 180000 people in west Auckland it could come up only with somebody from Taranaki and somebody from—in fact I do not know where he is from because he has been all over. 
Simon Bridges 
: He’s from Herne Bay isn’t he? 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: No he is not in Herne Bay; that is the other west Auckland Labour member of Parliament. There are three seats in west Auckland. David Cunliffe is not from west Auckland. Carmel Sepuloni is not from west Auckland— 
Carmel Sepuloni 
: Taupo! 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: The member says “Taupo”. For goodness’ sake I am from South Auckland—25 years ago. I moved into the city and did the hard yards before I got into politics. It is time for west Aucklanders to think very seriously about the sort of representation we have had out of the Labour Party. It has amounted to nothing more than a slogan that west Auckland is an eco-city. That will change on 26 November when I come back to this House and I am the National member for Te Atatu. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) 
: 
 That speech was made by the former New Zealand First member for Northern Maori the former Mauri Pacific member for Te Tai Tokerau and now the National Party candidate—he has failed three times—for Te Atatu. He said he did the hard yards. 
Hon Tau Henare 
: That’s right. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: That member has never done hard yards in his life. He has never done hard yards. The hardest job he has ever done is lifting his arm to put on his Dirty Dog sunglasses. He uses his drinking action to put on his glasses—lifting his arm a little bit further than his mouth. That is the hardest work he has ever done in his life. 
He complained about rates in west Auckland. They could have gone down if Rodney Hide had got the legislation right. If the legislation that Tau Henare voted for worked it would have been all right for his constituents. What did we hear? The member did not even bother reading the legislation he voted for much less doing anything about it or making representations. 
I want to make a few points about the Budget. The first is that frankly it is disappointing. I thought that in Bill English’s third attempt—or is it his fourth attempt; I cannot remember whether it was Birch or English who did the last one for the last National Government—he would present something with some sort of plan in it. But unfortunately this Budget had nothing that looked like a plan whatsoever. It was ad hoc. It had a number of arrangements in it that would not be allowed under a prudent Minister of Finance like for example Dr Cullen. Even Bill Birch would not have put together the sorts of arrangements that Bill English has put together and called a Budget. For example I refer to the inclusion in this Budget of the sale of the State-owned enterprises over a 4-year period. I refer to the absence of money for the overseas advisers who apparently the Minister is lining up to sell the State-owned enterprises to the Chinese—lining up to work as consultants on it. I refer to the money that the Minister is proposing go to Featherston Street—about $300 million—to be spent on selling those State-owned enterprises. I refer to the lack of dividends from the State-owned enterprises. When we sell something the dividend flow stops and that should be taken into account. We cannot take in the money from the receipts as the Minister has done without showing the cost of the sales and the dividends forgone but that is what he has done. 
Bill Birch would not have fudged the figures as to the borrowing. Almost certainly Bill Birch would not have borrowed more than was necessary at a particular time. Bill Birch would not have speculated using Kiwi workers’ jobs on a change in interest rates. Bill English is borrowing today because he thinks he knows better than the people in Tokyo Berlin Geneva and New York what is going to happen to international interest rates. We know that Bill English has sitting beside him someone who played around quite a lot in the foreign exchange market and might know quite a lot about short-term positions but the message we have always had since the time of Muldoon is that one does not gamble in the foreign exchange and interest rate markets. That is what this Minister has done. I do not know how much higher the New Zealand dollar is as a result of that. I do not know whether it is 1c 2c or 5c but there is a view that each of those cents is worth at least 10000 jobs to Kiwis. I want to know why that Minister is keeping the exchange rate artificially high in the way that he is costing Kiwis jobs. He said and the Prime Minister said right at the beginning of their time in Government that their priority was giving Kiwis jobs. 
In the same way I ask why he and his Associate Minister of Finance Steven Joyce are prepared to idly stand by and watch New Zealand jobs be transferred from the Hillside workshops to China. Why do they not take into account the cost to New Zealand of that? Why do they not take into account the number of Kiwis who are made unemployed? Why do they not take into account the tax that would be paid in New Zealand if those jobs were here? Why do they not take into account the apprenticeships that would be created in New Zealand if those jobs were here and the training was done? That Minister and Steven Joyce specifically told the KiwiRail board not to take those things into account but to take—and I am an accountant—a narrow accounting view rather than an economic or socio-economic view of the value of that work. 
Hon Tau Henare 
: He was a teacher. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: Actually the taxpayer pays more I say to Mr Henare—the taxpayer pays more. As well as paying for the railway wagons we do not get the tax we do not get the apprentices and we pay unemployment benefits to the people who are dismissed. We pay more as a result of sending those jobs to China but that is something that Tau Henare and Bill English support. It is something they support and I think that is very very sad. 
Having said that this Budget does not even do the job the National members said it would do. They said they would attack the deficit and they said they would close the gap but what does this legislation do? It funds a $16.7 billion deficit. The Minister has got it up to a record level and he has got it to that level because he has managed to do what I thought was probably economically impossible: he has attempted to stimulate the economy with massive tax reductions aimed at people like the Prime Minister who get a tax drop of over $1000 but at the same time he has run the economy down. Normally the perceived wisdom is that if one gives tax cuts the economy will be stimulated. What that Minister has managed to do is at the same time give tax cuts and deflate the economy—to have the sort of growth that is almost unprecedented at the moment within the OECD. One has to go to places like Spain Greece or Iceland to find a country that has a plan that is so bad that it is deflating in this way. 
We know now from feedback that has come that there is a certain amount of boredom on the part of the Prime Minister that he is feeling particularly— 
Hon Maryan Street 
: Tired of the job. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: He is feeling a bit tired and a bit emotionally strained by it. There have been a few hard decisions to make. Even on this side we thought we would get some sort of leadership from a Budget that had a plan in it. We have seen nothing of that. We have heard irrigation schemes announced but not put into the Budget. We have had Telecom subsidies— 
Jo Goodhew 
: $35 million is in there. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: Oh $35 million of the $400 million is in there. I thank the member very much. She has just told us that $365 million of hidden subsidy to farmers is not in the Budget. I thank the member for making that clear. 
What the Labour Party stands for is a fair Budget. People should pay their tax and bludgers at both ends will be hit when there is a Labour Government. Beneficiaries who blatantly bludge will be hit and I make it clear that the bludgers like the “Prime Bludger”—the leader of the National Party the person who got a $1000 a week tax cut the sort of person who hides his income in trusts— 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member but his time has expired. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance) 
: 
 After almost 14 hours of debate what is striking is the enormous gap between the Opposition and the people of New Zealand in their understanding of the Budget—an enormous gap. The general public have at worst shrugged their shoulders and said that something had to happen. They are looking forward with some confidence not just to the Rugby World Cup but to the prospect that after a number of years where they have not had much in the way of wage increases and where at times they have been concerned about their job security we will have an economy that picks up speed moderately but definitely. It will demonstrate to them that they have weathered a New Zealand recession induced by the previous Labour Government and its bad policies followed by a global recession and come through the other side of it with sound and positive prospects. 
The debate I think has shown the depth of the disarray of the Labour Party. I do not think it has hit rock-bottom yet. I know it looks like rock-bottom. It looks like it could not get much worse but it will—it will. It will not turn round until Labour apologises to the New Zealand public. It will not turn round until those members roll out of bed one morning and say to themselves that the New Zealand voters were right to kick them out. How many Labour MPs do members think believe that the result of the 2008 election was the right result for New Zealand? Not one. 
Hon Tau Henare 
: Stuart Nash. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Has he apologised? 
Hon Tau Henare 
: He has apologised. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Well is that not good? What a smart young man. He is widely regarded as a smart young man around the building I understand—a bit of a mover. But until they apologise— 
Hon Paula Bennett 
: Chris Carter? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: No he will never apologise. He never will. At least he has realised that being in the Labour Party is bad even for his image—even for his image being in the Labour Party is a bad look. So he has got out. 
But no Labour members need to apologise first for the damage that they wreaked on the New Zealand economy. Thousands of people lost their jobs because of bad economic management. People’s incomes and well-being were reliant on a speculative economy driven by the fuel of borrowed money. That was actually Labour’s contribution to wealth in New Zealand. So those members have to apologise for that. Then they have to apologise for getting so out of touch with New Zealand voters that they forgot that the economy matters to voters. Labour was chucked out because its members thought that the things that mattered to Labour mattered to New Zealand. And they still do. They still think that the things that matter to the Labour Party in Parliament—which is dominated by student politicians and which is increasingly behaving like the executive of some worn-out student union—matter to New Zealand. The reason we know that is that those members keep wheeling out the same old stuff that they said when they were in Government. 
Chris Tremain 
: And filibustering on a bill for students. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Well that is what proves it actually. There is the one thing they have been really motivated about in this whole Parliament. I know that it matters to New Zealand because it fills the halls in Balclutha—I can tell the House that! If a speaker goes to west Auckland to campaign on voluntary student union membership even Tau Henare could get a crowd! The only thing that really matters to Labour members is to stop student union membership becoming voluntary. It is the only area where they have shown any focus any organisation any backbone or any leadership—from the real leader of the Labour caucus Trevor Mallard. And there is that rising star—what is his name—from Wellington Central; I cannot remember his name. All I know is that I used to think that Ruth Dyson was a hopeless health spokesperson but I have changed my mind because he has managed something that is almost impossible—that is to make Ruth Dyson look right on to it when it comes to health. He has succeeded. We will wait for “Stuart Little”—yes—“Andrew Nash” who plans to win the Napier seat does he? So the Labour Party has not hit rock-bottom yet. 
Hon Rick Barker 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I know these debates are to be free-ranging and that people like to have good humour and so on. But— 
Melissa Lee 
: I can’t hear. 
Hon Rick Barker 
: If the member has a problem she should take a point of order. 
Hon Members 
: We can’t hear. 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: Just allow the member to speak. 
Hon Rick Barker 
: We are entitled to have a free-ranging debate but members are to be addressed respectfully and the way in which the member speaking addressed Stuart Nash was not in accordance with the Standing Orders. I ask him to withdraw and apologise. 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: I just ask that there be some decorum and respect for the Standing Orders. This came up earlier in the debate. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: The Budget debate demonstrates that until Labour members apologise no one will listen to them. 
Simon Bridges 
: So say sorry. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Until they say sorry to the country for all the trouble they have put us through— 
Carmel Sepuloni 
: Say sorry for what? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: That is it— “sorry for what?”. I rest my case. I could not have put it better myself. 
This Government has had three Budgets and one plan. That plan is to rebalance the economy: to move away from excessive consumption and borrowing and move towards exports investment and savings. There is a very simple reason for that; it is pragmatic as this Government is under the leadership of the Hon John Key. New Zealanders will not be able to grow their incomes in the next 10 years from increased house prices and bigger Government spending because the world will not lend us the money to do it—full stop. That is it. Just about everyone in New Zealand knows that except Labour members so it cannot happen. We cannot indulge in wishful thinking here. The world will not lend us that money because we are one of the most highly indebted countries in the developed world. We are up there with Spain and Portugal. So we will have to earn it. That is why this Government over the last three Budgets has put in place the building blocks of better economic performance for the future at the same time as it has supported this economy through the recession. 
I will remind the House of a few of those: in 2009 we locked in one of the largest infrastructure investment programmes the country has seen in generations. And we have stuck to it despite the recession. It is long-term beneficial to people and the economy and the next bit is broadband. In the last Budget we did a tax switch. We increased taxes on spending and property and cut taxes on earnings savings and investment—the only thing that Labour had to say was that it wanted to put income taxes back up—which has changed the incentives in the economy and pushed us in the direction that New Zealand is already going. Then in this Budget we got the Government’s books under control and set out to lift national savings. 
The reason why the Government has been able to retain the support of New Zealanders through this difficult time is that we are simply pushing in the direction they are already going. New Zealanders have been admirably resilient through this recession. We have not had a national whinge-fest. They have rolled up their sleeves and got on with the job and that is what the National Government is doing. We are doing what New Zealanders do. We are being careful with their spending; they did that 2 or 3 years ago. We want to pull our borrowing back because they know and we know that too much of it is a bad thing. That is why we have so much confidence in the future. It is partly because the trading nations of the Asia-Pacific region want to pay more for more of our goods—that is very promising for the next 5 to 10 years. But the deeper reason for our confidence is that resilience that New Zealand has shown. 
I am proud to be part of a party that over the last two decades has backed New Zealand’s transition into being a small open flexible globally focused economy and now New Zealand is getting good at it. That is why New Zealanders have not complained about this recession and that is why they have strongly— 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member. His time has expired. Members this debate has concluded. The question is that the amendment in the name of the Hon Phil Goff be agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the words after “That” be omitted and the following substituted: “this House has no confidence in the National Government led by John Key which has borrowed heavily and created a record deficit of $16.7 billion; has no plan and no vision to improve New Zealand’s economic performance; has broken its promises not to cut entitlements to KiwiSaver and working for families; has made cuts that hurt but will not solve New Zealand’s economic difficulties; and has failed to act fairly in the interest of all New Zealanders.” 
Ayes 53 
New Zealand Labour 42; Green Party 9; Progressive 1; Independent: Carter C. 
Noes 67 
New Zealand National 58; ACT New Zealand 5; Maori Party 3; United Future 1. 
Amendment not agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the Appropriation (2011/12 Estimates) Bill be now read a second time. 
Ayes 67 
New Zealand National 58; ACT New Zealand 5; Maori Party 3; United Future 1. 
Noes 53 
New Zealand Labour 42; Green Party 9; Progressive 1; Independent: Carter C. 
Bill read a second time. 
Freedom Camping Bill 
First Reading 
Hon KATE WILKINSON (Minister of Conservation) 
: 
 I move  
That the Freedom Camping Bill be now read a first time. 
 At the appropriate time I intend to move that the Local Government and Environment Committee consider the Freedom Camping Bill that the committee report finally to the House on or before 1 August 2011 and that the committee have authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting except during oral questions and during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House and outside the Wellington region despite Standing Orders 187 189(a) and 190(1)(b) and (c). 
The purpose of this bill is to address the negative effects of freedom camping. Many visitors stopping along our roadsides at rest areas and look-outs face more than a spectacular view. Too often they also face a pile of human waste and toilet paper. This is often a “gift” from a visitor who hired a cheap campervan with no toilet and then used the rest area or look-out to camp overnight in order to avoid paying camping ground fees. We are an outdoors destination. We want tourists to continue to come here to explore and enjoy our countryside. New Zealanders do just that on their own holidays and we want to protect our reputation. Inappropriate camping and toileting does this country a disservice and we do not want this behaviour to be lodged in anyone’s memories when they get home. Freedom camping is an important part of our tourism industry and great Kiwi lifestyle but we cannot tolerate irresponsible campers spoiling our most iconic areas with human waste and litter. 
This is particularly important as we gear up for the Rugby World Cup. Roughly 85000 visitors are expected to arrive on our shores. For many of those this will be the holiday of a lifetime so we are acting rapidly to ensure that this legislation is in place by then. 
The number of freedom campers has doubled over the past decade to 110000 international visitors and more than 40000 New Zealanders. The existing system in which each of our 67 districts has its own bylaws is not working for the responsible freedom camper wanting to do the right thing or for councils wanting to protect their local environment. This bill will enable councils to determine where camping is allowed where it is restricted to campervans with self-containment and where it is prohibited. The Department of Conservation will be able to make similar rules on the reserves it manages. There will be nationally consistent signage and practical enforcement provisions. A website will be provided outlining where people can and cannot camp nationally. Camping at specific sensitive sites and depositing human waste on roadsides is already illegal but councils and the Department of Conservation have very limited options for dealing with offenders. This bill will increase the tools available to them by creating an infringement regime. This will avoid the need for councils and the Department of Conservation to take expensive court action and therefore provide a more effective deterrent to inappropriate behaviour. 
The bill will provide the same approach as that used for other relatively minor offences such as parking and traffic offences. People can be ticketed when they camp in an area in which camping is prohibited or camp in an area where camping is restricted and they breach those restrictions—for example by using a campervan with no toilet in an area restricted to self-contained campervans or by depositing waste whilst camping. The bill sets the infringement fee at $200 and I believe that this will provide a strong deterrent for potential offenders. Enforcement officers will still have the option of taking a matter to the courts if they consider that the offence warrants that action—for example a campervan emptying its sewage tank in a rest area. In that case a far higher penalty to a maximum of $10000 might be imposed. The ability to impose high fines already exists for breaches of council bylaws including camping bylaws but this bill provides a uniform regime across council land and public conservation land. It will enable local government agencies to effectively enforce their existing and future bylaws relating to camping. 
I must emphasise that this bill does not change the locations where anyone can camp. The presumption is still that freedom camping is not only allowed but encouraged as a core part of the back-country experience. The infringement system will apply only in vehicle-accessible areas near formed roads near the coast and near Great Walks. Councils and the Department of Conservation already restrict camping where it would be a problem in specific sites—for example in city car-parks—where camping could damage natural values or where there is a more suitable camping site nearby. This bill is designed to allow such decisions to be effectively enforced. In the case of public conservation land the bill will also provide a clear and transparent method for making such decisions in future taking into account the purposes for which land is held and any management plans. 
In summary this bill will provide my department and councils with another tool to protect our open spaces our tourism industry and the interests of back-country users and it will reinforce the back-country code. I commend this bill to the House. 
Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills) 
: 
 Conservation is one of those areas that arouse a huge amount of passion and pride from all New Zealanders. What is most disappointing about the debate that has commenced is the total lack of passion vision support or understanding that the Minister of Conservation demonstrated in her speech. That will be a big disappointment as has been this Government’s contribution to conservation over the last 2½ years. 
The Freedom Camping Bill has been warmly welcomed by many groups around this country and Labour will certainly support its progress to the Local Government and Environment Committee. I am disappointed that we will have such little time at the select committee as indicated by the Minister to consider the concerns that have already been expressed publicly. As with many legislative provisions the devil is in the detail. If we do not get it right at the select committee and report it back to the House we are likely to cause problems. The rush I understand is to make sure the provisions are enabled before the Rugby World Cup. I personally do not think that is a good enough reason to rush legislation and possibly get it wrong. 
As the Minister outlined this provision is really an empowering one so that local councils can determine areas where they say freedom camping is not allowed. That is quite a big step for New Zealand to take. We have often prided ourselves on our welcoming attitude to people who want to get out and about and see the best of our country. We do not welcome people who pollute it. We do not welcome people who abuse the beauty we are so proud of and destroy it for other people. It is important to have that protection but whether this bill is the right mechanism for doing it is certainly part of the debate we will have. 
I am not sure I agree with the Minister that the instant fine regime is the most appropriate and I do think that there will be more difficulty with enforcement than the Minister has outlined. For example if a freedom camper gets a fine and then gets in his or her car and drives to the airport to leave the country as previously planned what happens? Do we just say that that is bad luck? I am not sure we do. The legislation reads to me as if the vehicle owner has the responsibility but it could be a rental car company—more likely than not it will be a rental car company. Then what happens? Does the rental car company have the onus of passing on the fine that has been incurred—unfairly in my view? Does Hertz for example have the responsibility of chasing that person around the other side of the world in order to get that $200? That detail would be quite important particularly to rental car companies. 
Another concern I have is that there could be some relationship between motor camps and a council. The council will determine the zones where freedom camping is or is not allowed. If there is some relationship between a camping ground and a council the council might say that it is to their benefit to exclude freedom camping in a large part of that area for the benefit of the motor camp. That would not be fair on freedom campers. They would be unfairly punished because of that relationship. That is something we also might need to protect against. 
Another area of concern that has been drawn to my attention through quite considerable publicity around this bill is the issue of trampers. It is very common in New Zealand for trampers to sleep the night at the start of the track or at the end of the track and then start their journey the next day either on foot or by driving home. If that area is not allowed to be used as a freedom camping area then those trampers might have to stay some distance away and ruin what is a very important part of tramping tradition of being able to get to the start of the track the night before and then start walking very very early the next morning. Those are areas that I think deserve the rigour of attention. 
I am sure Chris Auchinvole will guide the bill very well through the Local Government and Environment Committee which in my view has developed a reputation—and a fair reputation—of paying considerable attention to detail in legislation. Our deliberations today were significantly enhanced by the presence of Aaron Gilmore who contributed very well. It was fortunate he was there because otherwise we may well have floundered on some of the detail particularly in the local government provisions. It was extraordinarily helpful and I hope he is able to sub in for some of the members as we consider this bill. 
This bill has arisen because of the Government’s desire which I certainly support to ensure that precious areas of our country—areas where people want to visit see and enjoy—are protected against anything unpleasant are damaged or are destroyed by people who are not as respectful as we want them to be. We do not know whether that happens a lot or is quite rare but we know that some councils have been particularly upset about it. I know that other colleagues will add to that. 
Rural Women New Zealand is not a group that complains lightly. It has put on public record its concerns about the damage to specific environments that is being done by freedom campers. Mount Maunganui locals have complained of behaviour in their area. I am sure they were not referring to Simon Bridges or to any other local members of Parliament; they were referring to freedom campers. That area is a magnificent part of the country and I am sure Simon Bridges wants to make sure it is protected as well. 
The same has happened in Queenstown and in Picton. Those are areas where we want to make sure that as we parade around the world inviting people to come here and saying to people that our country is the best in the world and that it is 100% Pure New Zealand we want to be able to back that up. When those people come to visit we want to show them the pristine areas we so enjoy. 
I find it frustrating though that the Minister supports this sort of legislation as she did in her introductory speech but at the same time has significantly undermined the ability of her own department—the Department of Conservation—to progress the very issues that this Freedom Camping Bill is designed to protect. Basically instead of charging the Department of Conservation with protecting our waterways protecting our land and enhancing it for the betterment of all New Zealanders and visitors to enjoy she has handed it over to Minister Brownlee and said he should have a look at the national park areas in schedule 4 to see whether there is anything there worth mining. In the most precious parts of New Zealand she has said we should have a little surgical mining as the Prime Minister described it. 
I was stunned that the Minister of Conservation was prepared to hand over that part of her portfolio which should be the area she defends most to something as outrageous as mining in those protected areas. Members of the public were outraged as well and I was very proud that we had thousands and thousands of New Zealanders marching on the street and saying they want to protect the most precious parts of our country. These are the parts of the country that we also want this legislation to protect from freedom campers who are damaging it. 
I will return to the actions the Minister has taken in terms of the Department of Conservation. The department is now required to be a profit-making organisation. That is not what the Department of Conservation was set up to do. It was designed to be the advocacy group the lobby group and the brains behind the passion that New Zealanders feel about their most important areas. 
The Minister has led a huge and negative step backwards in her own portfolio. It is a big disappointment to many New Zealanders who care about our environment more than they care about anything else. I was surprised the Minister did not take the lead when this bill was originally publicised. In fact it was the Minister for the Environment who took the lead in all of the media. I was quite surprised that the Minister of Conservation introduced the bill today. I thought it had perhaps been transferred to the Minister for the Environment for some reason because all of the publicity had Nick Smith’s name attached to it rather than that of the Hon Kate Wilkinson. That is a puzzle but I am sure it is something I will spend more time discussing at the select committee and I will see whether we can get to the bottom of it. 
As I said the principle of the legislation to protect our areas that are currently being damaged by freedom campers is supported by Labour. We will support this bill going to the select committee. I want the concerns I have raised—and others I am sure submitters will raise—to be addressed in the select committee process. I am sorry that it will be so truncated because of the Rugby World Cup. I think our rights to enjoy our country are worth protecting and I will be ensuring that that happens. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for the Environment) 
: 
 I wish to take only a brief call in respect of the Freedom Camping Bill and to acknowledge and support my colleague the Minister of Conservation Kate Wilkinson. I acknowledge that Kate Wilkinson is the most practical Minister of Conservation that the department has had in more than a decade. The practical gains she is making for conservation are far better than some of the highbrow dreamer ideas we saw in the years of Labour. We on this side of the House are deeply proud of that work. Yes this bill is a joint piece of work. The Minister of Local Government the Minister for the Environment—me—and Kate Wilkinson have worked hard on bringing this package together as we should. That is how we operate on this side of the House. I know that that side of the House is a bit incapable of that. I know that Chris Carter and Ruth Dyson do not talk these days. We on this side of the House work very closely together. 
This bill is a very pragmatic response to the real problem of freedom campers defecating in some of our most iconic spots leaving a right mess. This bill provides a practical response to that. It is no good leaving every one of our councils to make their own rules when frankly the 120000-odd international tourists who come here actually would not know which district they are in from one day to the next. That is not a criticism; it is just the nature of the international traveller. That is why having a standardised approach between the Department of Conservation and the councils makes such good sense. 
I commend the provision in this bill for a $200 instant fine for those who breach the freedom camping requirements. Labour has indicated some opposition to that. Let me just say it is totally impractical to say to the Department of Conservation or to a council that it has to spend 5000 bucks of ratepayers’ or taxpayers’ money on trying to prosecute some tourist from the other side of the world for defecating at a precious campsite. It is not practical. A $200 fine is a really sensible way of dealing with it. 
I was surprised that Ruth Dyson took issue with the provision that the rental car company should be responsible for the fine in the event of a visitor doing a runner. It is the same for speeding fines and parking fines. Do we not care for our environment as much as we care about those things? We all know what happens. If someone goes to Australia and gets a car from a rental car company the company takes a copy of their credit card. If the person picks up a fine while they are there it is charged back against them. The most important provision deals with the fact that some rental car companies—particularly those with rental vans without containers—have not been responsible. This bill will put some responsibility back on those companies to play their part in protecting the environment and that is a good thing. 
This bill does protect and retain the right for New Zealand families like mine to be able to go out and enjoy the great outdoors—and so it should. To reassure Ruth Dyson opposite I tell her that nothing in this bill will constrain the right of her and her family or me and my family to go to the end of the Heaphy Track and camp there for a night before we proceed to tramp. That is quite plain in the provisions of the bill. 
The last point I will make is that the underlying presumption of this bill is that people can camp anywhere unless a council specifically prescribes it as a non-camping area. Maybe the difference between this side of the House and Labour is that we trust the councils. We think they are pretty common sense. 
Hon Ruth Dyson 
: Yeah right! You abolished ours. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: Ruth Dyson wants to stand up for the failure of water management. Only 10 minutes ago she was giving a speech saying she is concerned about water quality. How can she defend the track record of Environment Canterbury which after 18 years did not have a plan in place for dealing with water in the precious area of Canterbury? 
The last thing I want to do is acknowledge Jacqui Dean the member of Parliament for Otago. This cause is one she has championed both in Opposition and in Government. This issue is not new. It has been around for quite a while. Jacqui both in caucus and in working with local authorities has been pivotal in this bill getting to this point. I know that it concerns a particular issue in the Otago area she represents. That district should be very proud of the contribution she has made to this practical bill being brought to Parliament to have this environmental problem dealt with. It is a good bill and I say good on Jacqui Dean and Kate Wilkinson for taking this practical step to deal with this environmental issue. 
Hon MARYAN STREET (Labour) 
: 
 I take great pleasure in rising to speak on the Freedom Camping Bill. As my colleague Ruth Dyson has said Labour will be supporting this bill to go to the Local Government and Environment Committee. 
This issue is a Nelson issue. It is a big issue in Nelson. The whole business of responsibility for the environment and the responsibility of visitors to the loveliest parts of our country is one of the presumptions of this legislation and I support that. Over the summer in Nelson this issue kept coming up. I will give a couple of particular examples from my own experience. I have the privilege of living just a block away from a park quite a large park in Nelson. Parked down the end of a dead-end street that crosses the street I live in have been a number of motor homes and campervans which began to attract a lot of public attention for two reasons. One was that up to about a dozen of them were parked there. I myself saw them there; it was not hard to see them on my way home. But those campervans were parked there in a place that was not a camping area. That is one issue. 
The second thing is that the fouling of that area really upset local residents including me. It is not good to go to bits of the road that abut parks where people have stopped and parked their motor homes or campervans and where if the vans are not self-contained they have then proceeded to use the public area as their own personal toilet. It is not responsible and it is not what we want either from tourists or from New Zealanders who are camping. It goes for everybody. This bill is about tourists who come to New Zealand to enjoy our picturesque areas. They must know that it is not acceptable for them to foul our beautiful environment any more than it is for any of us to do that. So I support this legislation. 
The issue ran hot in Nelson because there was a real concern about the bill preventing people from enjoying our environment. I hope the Minister of Conservation has this approach right in the legislation and we will find out shortly in the select committee. I think it is about right. The issue is not about preventing people from pulling up parking stopping over and enjoying our lovely environment; nobody wants to stop that. With the people being called freedom campers though there was a bit of a backlash in Nelson and it was said the bill would outlaw a way of life they enjoyed. But that is clearly not the purpose of the legislation and I would not support it if it were. However we on both sides of the House require people who want to enjoy Neale Park or anywhere else in Nelson to treat those areas with respect and those areas that give people access to lovely views water and recreation in our environment. We do not ask for any more or any less than that. 
I want to give another example that is also related to my own experience. Members of my family have a place in the Marlborough Sounds. That is not where I live; I live in Nelson but it is common for Nelson people to holiday in the Marlborough Sounds and to go there for recreation. I am one of those people and I thoroughly enjoy it. I will not tell people exactly where the place is because they might go there and enjoy it too much! It happens that in this little bay where my family has a house there is a legitimate camping site that the Marlborough District Council has said can be a camping site for 2 nights only. But the locals have had to put up signs saying “Please don’t treat this like your personal toilet.” because the abuse that has occurred in that lovely part of the Marlborough Sounds has been obscene. It has been offensive in anybody’s language. If those offenders can be fined then that is good. Let us slap an instant fine on them but more than that let us demonstrate to the people who come to our country as tourists that we are equipping the local authorities to do something about this issue. 
Where my family is in the Marlborough Sounds as I said the Marlborough District Council has allocated space for freedom campers. That is great; it is a beautiful spot. It is nice and I do not begrudge anybody spending a couple of nights there. But if their vehicles are not self-contained and are not geared for the disposing of their own waste then I am sorry but they cannot use our backyard for that purpose. It does not matter whether it concerns a park in Nelson or a dear little bay in the Marlborough Sounds where I am still trying to catch snapper the protection of the environment that this bill provides is worth supporting. 
I have a bit of a problem which I hope we can sort out in the select committee with the mechanisms around the instant fine. I think it will be quite hard to recover that from campers sometimes but if it can be done through credit card bills then that is fine. I remember a very long time ago getting a fine through Hertz because I travelled in a bus lane without knowing it while driving a rental car in Rome. 
Jacqui Dean 
: How did you know the difference? 
Hon MARYAN STREET 
: Well everybody was going at a zillion miles an hour so it was really hard to know. I was just trying to stay alive. I did not know it was a bus lane and I got a ticket later on through Hertz for travelling in that lane. But I copped that and saw clearly that it is possible a fine can be extracted later on. Billing someone’s credit card is a very easy way of doing that so let us explore the practicalities of it. 
In essence this is a constructive bill. I like the fact that it underscores people’s responsibility. We have a responsibility as citizens and keepers of this land to protect it but the people who come to visit it also have a responsibility to treat our land and this place with respect as well. I spent a large part of my youth tramping up and down Mount Taranaki. I was born and brought up in New Plymouth and there we go to the beach and to the mountain. We learnt that if we took something in we took it out; we did not leave it behind. We should not foul the environment with waste of any sort and the particularly offensive examples we have had recently in the Nelson area have made me absolutely committed to making sure that this provision goes through and works so that local councils and the Department of Conservation have the ability to strike fines and to punish people where they are caught. It goes to our reputation as a country and as a tourist destination and to our own responsibility to look after and be the kaitiaki the guardians of our environment. To that end I support this bill and so will most of the people in Nelson. Thank you. 
KEVIN HAGUE (Green) 
: 
 I am a freedom camper. I spend my holidays cycle touring this great country of ours or at least I used to spend my holidays doing that when I was able to take my holidays at times when I was not competing with peak motorised traffic on the roads. Most nights when I am bike touring I sleep in a bed especially as I have become older as it seems more comfortable. However when I go bike touring I always take a tent and I always end up camping out some nights—freedom camping. Oftentimes camping is the best or most attractive option or the only option. I guess I pride myself on leaving my campsite as I found it except for perhaps a little bit of flattened grass. To me that is a very valuable part of New Zealand tradition. 
Many New Zealanders and I think we will hear today many people in this House value it. It pains me to have seen in recent decades more and more places that I have personally camped in and that make really good campsites becoming off limits. Thus more and more people are channelled into commercial campgrounds and away from being self-reliant. 
I also say that it irritates me to see in the Freedom Camping Bill the term “freedom camping” which I think perfectly describes the New Zealand tradition that I have referred to as it is used to mean something quite different. Although the definition of that term in this bill will catch the genuine freedom camping I have described it is really targeted at one particular group of people: those who travel around in campervans that do not have toilet facilities and that are therefore cheaper. That is what the bill is actually about. 
Let me be clear. I know there is a genuine problem with that group of people. When I was a member of the West Coast Tai Poutini Conservation Board we received a number of delegations from councils coming to us to complain that almost too many tourists were being attracted to our region by the fantastic West Coast conservation estate. If any members of the House are not familiar with the features of that estate I certainly recommend it to them. Councils were saying that a proportion of those people would park their campervans in rest areas and at other points next to the road. There was both a problem of litter and a larger problem that many of those campervans did not have toilets. Council staff needed to take time and spend money on a very unpleasant cleaning up process. 
There is a genuine problem but which solution to that problem is most consistent with maintaining rights and freedoms and with continuing to encourage our vital tourism industry? Unsurprisingly the Tourism Industry Association is aware of this problem. It had been working on it for some years and had developed a solution. Its solution had an operating assumption that in general people come to this country because of our clean green reputation and they do not set out to undermine or despoil it. The people who rent these particular kinds of campervans—the cheaper ones—are in general some of the most enthusiastic about our environment. They rent these vans because they do not have much money and the fact they have chosen to spend their limited resources to come here speaks volumes about the high priority that they place on our environment. 
Although of course there are some ratbags who simply do not care for the most part the people who rent these campervans would look after our environment if they could so the smart approach is to make it easier for them to do precisely that. Put simply creating more places where campervans can spend the night that are sensibly spaced and that have toilet facilities and rubbish facilities is the smart way to go. The campervan companies would be charged with the responsibility of disseminating information about the responsibility to use these places and information about exactly where they are. That solution was being developed and had not yet been given the chance to work before this approach from the Government and indeed from Local Government New Zealand was imposed. 
Some critics will say that some local authorities have large attractive areas and a small ratepayer base and that is a fair point. I live in one such area and other members of this House do also. It is a common problem and I know it is a real one too. That problem is at the heart of the difficulty of providing good quality health services in many of our rural areas for example. It is the reason cited by the West Coast Regional Council for its being unable to adequately monitor compliance with resource consents as closely as it would like to. 
But let us also remember that these tourists are contributing to local economies by spending on everything except accommodation. They buy food fuel visitor experiences and so on from local businesses. Many businesses benefit directly from having them in the region and many others benefit indirectly. It seems reasonable to ask that the local economy contribute to some of the facilities needed by tourists particularly when those facilities alleviate other costs that would otherwise be borne locally as they would be in this case. 
In cases where a local community still cannot afford the cost of these facilities the view of the Green Party is that the Sanitary Works Subsidy Scheme needs to step up. The Government needs to ensure that the scheme is sufficiently resourced and flexible to be able to assist those local communities to provide campervan facilities. After all our whole New Zealand economy benefits from the tourism industry and it is reasonable that the whole economy therefore helps to provide the tourism infrastructure required. This is the right approach and should be allowed time to gain traction to deal with the problem. 
Instead the approach being adopted is punitive. It might work—it is possible that it will—but it seems a less likely method to work than the one I have outlined. The problem is that people want to do the right thing but cannot do it. More broadly it replaces the welcome mat that we extend to tourists with warnings of harsh penalties. This method runs a great risk of being counter-productive. 
In all of the debate which has been going on for some years now one of the facts I find most curious is that there is almost no hard information about the size of the problem. Perhaps the select committee might challenge officials and submitters to try to provide this information. I suspect that it is an extensive problem and undoubtedly a very unpleasant one but it is actually relatively small. There is some irony then that this bill is being advanced just now. 
I think we established in the House that one dairy cow produces about the same volume of excrement as 14 human beings. The Government is planning for a million extra dairy cows. Despite the Land and Water Forum having provided a historical consensus for both those who use water such as the dairy industry and conservationists to put in place a national policy statement on fresh water— 
Hon Rodney Hide 
: They hate farmers. 
KEVIN HAGUE 
: —including Federated Farmers I say to Mr Hide—the Minister has elected to not include the provision that would have required resource consent for dairy intensification. It seems a little ironic in this debate today. The extra pollution that will be caused by that one decision will dwarf the pollution that could be caused by hordes of campervan tourists. This bill sets out in the wrong direction casts the net too widely and uses the proverbial sledgehammer to crack a walnut. The Green Party will oppose it. 
Hon RODNEY HIDE (Minister of Local Government) 
: 
I must say I was a bit shocked that the Green Party has now joined— 
Chris Hipkins 
: He’s still here. 
Hon RODNEY HIDE 
: —yes unlike Darren Hughes—the attack on farmers along with the Labour Party. It is very very clear that the Green Party hates farmers and the Labour Party hates farmers. Farmers are the very people who provide the backbone of the country and the fact that those members would turn the issue of freedom camping into an attack on farmers is extraordinary to me indeed. 
Let me start by thanking the Minister of Conservation Kate Wilkinson the Minister for the Environment Nick Smith and their officials for their work on this bill because surprisingly it was a very tough policy issue to work on and to resolve. I also acknowledge the work of Local Government New Zealand in this regard. 
Freedom camping has obviously been increasing in recent years particularly in popular tourist destinations such as Fiordland Queenstown Nelson-Marlborough the Coromandel and the Bay of Plenty. That increase in popularity has also resulted in an increase in complaints. The Greens asked for some data so here is some. The number of complaints to the Marlborough District Council about freedom camping have increased from 132 in 2007 to 432 in 2009. The main problem is people who camp on inappropriate sites such as lay-bys beaches and car parks and leave behind human poo and other litter. This behaviour is offensive and it creates a human health risk. Many of the sites used by freedom campers are on local authority or conservation land and both councils and the Department of Conservation spend a lot of money monitoring and cleaning up these sites. Queenstown Lakes District Council spends $30000 a year on monitoring patrols just looking out for the poo. 
Although we want to encourage visitors to come to New Zealand and enjoy our country and all it has to offer we also want them to respect our environment and be responsible campers. At present we do not have an effective way to deter irresponsible freedom camping or an enforcement regime to address the sometimes offensive behaviour of some freedom campers—just some. Expensive and time-consuming court action is not working; therefore the Freedom Camping Bill provides a low-cost simple way of addressing the problems created by some freedom campers. The bill provides a nationally consistent infringement regime that will enable local authorities and the Department of Conservation to issue an instant $200 ticket to those who are creating the problems. This is a great bill and it has the full support of the ACT Party. 
TE URUROA FLAVELL (Maori Party—Waiariki) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Assistant Speaker Robertson. Nga mihi nui ki a koe i tenei ahiahi otira ki a tatou o te Whare. Kua tu ake au ki te korero mo tenei o nga pire Freedom Camping Bill 
. 
 E ai ki taku e mohio nei ko tona tikanga he whakarite tikanga he whakarite whainga ture ranei mo te hunga noho puni nei i Aotearoa. Kei te tautoko te Pati Maori i tenei o nga pire i tona panuitanga tuatahi nei. Na e ai ki ta matou ehara i te mea ko te iwi Maori tetahi hunga whai i tenei momo noho. Ko te nuinga o te wa ko te Ao Maori ka haere ki roto i te kainga o tetahi o nga whanaunga ehara i te mea no te mataku ki te noho i raro i nga whetu kao ehara tera i te raruraru engari he momo noho tenei e kitea ana mai i te hunga i hara mai ai i tawahi ki taku mohio no whenua ke ka hara mai ki Aotearoa nei penei i etahi o nga kaikorero i te ahiahi nei hara mai ki te matakitaki ki te ata titiro ki te ataahua o Aotearoa whanui nui. I roto i a au o Te Waiariki me ki mai i Nga Kuri-a-Wharei ki Tihirau mai i Maketu ki Tongariro ka eke mai te hunga turuhi te hunga hara mai i tawahi i runga i nga waka e korerohia ake nei ki te noho puni nei. No reira kei te marama au ki te tikanga o tenei pire me te tautoko ake i tona whainga. 
I te tau kua hipa i te Maehe ko taku hoa a Rahui Katene nana tonu tetahi korero a-nupepa nei i tuku ki te ao me te whakamarama ake mo te noho a tetahi hunga kainoho puni nei i Kaikoura; me tana aki tonu ki tera hunga kia kaha ratou ki te tiaki i te taiao ka mutu ki te ata whakatikatika i muri mai i a ratau kia kaua e waiho wa ratau para wa ratau tutae ki te taha o te rori ki te wahi i noho ai ratou. E ai ki nga korero i tera wa mai i a Rahui i noho nei tenei momo hunga ki runga i tetahi pa tawhito pa tuwatawata ko Nga Niho Pa tera. Kai Kaikoura tenei o nga kainga engari ko te mate ke ko nga para ko nga tutae i waihotia ake ki tera o nga pa tawhito. Koinei te riri o taku hoa a Rahui koinei tana i tuku ai i tetahi korero i te nupepa ki te whakahe i tera momo noho. 
Kei te mohio tatou na runga i te ahuatanga o nga korero o te Whare Paremata i te ra nei ehara i te mea ko tenei kaupapa te freedom camping 
he kaupapa hou e hia ke nei nga tau kua penei tonu te noho a te hunga hara mai turuhi nei haere i te whenua a ka noho i te taha o te rori na te toringa mai o te ra ranei na te kore waka ranei kua tu te teneti kua noho i te ngahere i te taha o te rori ranei. No reira ehara i te mea no naia tonu nei tenei momo noho. Engari kei te whakarongo ake ki te korero a te mema o te Kakariki me tana ki mai ko tera pea ko te aronga o tenei pire e hangai tonu ana ki nga mea e hara mai ana i runga i nga whene nga waka heri tangata nei nga vans 
nei. Koinei pea tona aronga. Ko te mate ke mo tenei wa tonu nei kei te mohio tonu tatou ka ekengia a Aotearoa e te hunga hara mai ai ki te matakitaki i te kapu whutuporo o te ao a ko ake nei. Tera pea ka ekengia a Aotearoa e te tini e te mano e nga waka e hia ke nei a kaore e kore ka whai i tera momo noho ara ko te noho puni nei. 
Penei i etahi atu o te Whare i te ahiahi nei ko te take nui ko te waiho ake i te para te tutae i te taha o te rori. Ka pataia te patai a tena ka taea e tatou te whakariterite i nga whare paku i nga ipu para me ki kia taea e ratou te whakatikatika i muri mai i a ratou? Koina te patai nui. Tera pea ka raruraru tatou ki reira. Ehara i te mea kei a tatou nga rawa ki te whakatika i etahi wahi hei kohikohi i nga para ka mutu ka pera ano hoki ki te ahuatanga o te tutae. No reira ahakoa kei te tautoko ake i tenei pire kei te patai te patai mo nga rawa mo nga mea hai whakatutuki i te moemoea kia noho pai kia noho ataahua a Aotearoa nei. 
I roto i tenei pire ko te mana o nga kaunihera ki te whakarite i etahi kaunihera a-rohe taku e korero nei kia taea e ratou te whakatika i o ratou ake ture mo ratou ake mo tera rohe mo tena takiwa mo tera rohe mo tena takiwa. Ka pera ano hoki te taha ki Te Papa Atawhai kia taea ai e ia te whakarite tikanga mo tena rohe mo tena takiwa. No reira he pai tonu tera kia taea ai e ratou te whakarite i tera ka mutu mena ka raru tetahi ka kore e whai i te ture o tena takiwa o tera takiwa a ka penei i etahi ka whainahia mai i te $200 neke atu ki te $10 000. 
No reira ko taku tino kaupapa i tua atu o te take mo nga ipu para me nga whare paku hei awhina hei wahi tuku i nga para ko tera e pa ana ki te wahi o te Ao Maori ki roto i nga whiriwhiringa o nga kaunihera. I tenei wa tonu nei i raro i te Local Government Bill o te tau 2002 kei reira tetahi wahanga mo te korero mo te whakawhitiwhiti whakaaro ki te tangata whenua ki te mana whenua ranei. Ko te mate ke ehara i te mea he tino pakari mai tera whainga o te ture. Ko ta matou e pirangi nei kua whakapakari ake tera wahi ara kia whai wahi te Ao Maori i roto i nga korerorero i te taha o te kaunihera a-rohe ka mutu i te taha o nga kawanatanga a-rohe—me mahi i te taha o te mana whenua. Koina te tino putake i te mea i etahi wa no te Ao Maori era whenua ka mutu me whai wahi ratou ki te korero ki nga iwi ka mutu ki te whakamana i te whainga o tenei pire. Ko te mea pai e kitea nei i roto o tenei pire ka waiho ake ki tena rohe ki tena rohe kia whakatika i a ia ano me ona ake ture e pa ana ki a ia engari penei i taku e korero nei ko te inoi atu kia whai wahi te Ao Maori te taha ki te mana whenua te tangata whenua i roto i nga whiriwhiringa. 
Ehara i te mea he nui nga korero i tua atu o tera. Hoi ano me penei rawa te korero e korerohia ana i roto i nga korero o te Ao maori ko te korero mo Ranginui e tu nei mo Papatuanuku ko ta matau o te Ao Maori ko tona tahuhu ko te tiaki i te ahuatanga o te taiao ko Papatuanuku e takoto nei. No reira kei te tino aro atu matou ki te tino putake o tenei pire. He pai tona tirohanga he pai tona kaupapa he pai tona tikanga. Koinei matou e tautoko nei i tenei pire engari ka titiro ake a nga ra kei mua i te aroaro kia kitea mai ai ko te wahi ki te Ao Maori i roto i nga whakawhitiwhitinga whakaaro ka puta ki te taha o nga kaunihera a-rohe kaunihera a-kawanatanga nei. No reira ko enei etahi paku whakaaro ake hei tapiri atu ki etahi o nga korero i te ahiahi nei. Huri noa i to tatou Whare kia ora tatou. 
[ 
Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker Robertson. My huge appreciation to you and indeed to us of the House this afternoon. I rise to address the Freedom Camping Bill. As I understand it the purpose of this bill is to find remedies that will deal with issues caused by freedom campers in New Zealand. The Maori Party supports this bill at its first reading. However I need to point out that Maori by tradition are not freedom campers. At most times they stay in the home of a relative—not because they fear sleeping under the stars; not at all that is not where the problem is. To my understanding this kind of lifestyle has come about through campers from other countries coming to see the beauty of New Zealand. Hordes of tourists and those from overseas in vehicles referred to here as campervans have a strong presence in my electorate of Te Waiariki which stretches from the Dogs of Wharei across to Tihirau and from Maketu inland to Mount Tongariro. So I have a clear understanding of what this bill is about and support what it is intended to do. 
In March last year my colleague Rahui Katene made a widely reported statement in the press about the need for freedom campers in Kaikoura to take more care when deciding where and where not to dispose of their food and body wastes; she urged that they should take greater care of the environment and ensure that they clean up before they leave and not leave their rubbish and body wastes on the side of the road or where they had parked. According to reports at the time freedom campers were using Nga Niho Pa a traditional pa site in Kaikoura as a place to defecate. That so infuriated my colleague that it prompted her to go to the press to voice her opposition to that form of camping.  
Because of what has been said in the House today we know that freedom camping is not a new phenomenon. It has been around for a long long time. People who have come from overseas and travelled the land have parked up or pitched a tent in the bush or by the roadside at sunset. But I take on board the message from the member of the Green Party in his address to us that the focus of this bill is particularly on campers in these vans. This perhaps is its focus. But the problem is that New Zealand is about to be inundated by hordes of people coming to watch the Rugby World Cup. Without a doubt a large number of those people will resort to campervans to get about.  
As some in the House have said the major issue is that there are not the facilities to dispose of human waste and litter left behind on the roadside. The question then is whether we can provide toilets and rubbish containers so people can leave the place nice and tidy after them. That is the big question. It could be our downfall. There are not the facilities to dispose of human waste and litter. So while we support this bill we question that there are the resources and tools to fulfil the dream that New Zealand should remain a beautiful and attractive country.  
Local authorities will have the power through this bill to regulate manage and control human waste and litter for this or that region or district. So that is good. The bill allows each local authority to set by-laws to suit its region or district. The bill allows for fees and fines to be set from $200 right through to $10000.  
Apart from rubbish bins and toilets to help with the removal of litter and human waste the real issue I have relates to the participation of Maoridom in consultations with councils. Currently there is a provision in the Local Government Act 2002 to consult with tangata or mana whenua. The problem is that that part of the Act is not adhered to strongly. We want it enforced more firmly. We want local councils and local authorities to engage more strongly in their consultations with local Maori particularly when it comes to enacting the intention of this bill. A positive feature seen so far about this bill is its flexibility. It enables a local authority to regulate according to its situation but as I said earlier participation of local Maori in the consultation process is a must.  
There is not much more to add. Taking care of the environment is an essential need to take care of Earth Mother lying here and Sky Father standing before us. We support the real intention of this bill and its good insight philosophy and meaning. The Maori Party looks forward to seeing a specific consultation provision for iwi in the bill. These then are but some small considerations to add to the speeches this afternoon. Thank you to us throughout our House. 
] 
CHRIS AUCHINVOLE (National—West Coast - Tasman) 
: 
 Freedom campers have an important place in New Zealand’s tourism industry. They are very important to us. Both international tourists and New Zealand domestic tourists quite rightly enjoy the freedom to park their vehicles at no cost and to enjoy our beautiful environment responsibly. For the most part freedom campers in New Zealand are responsible about where they camp and they are to be encouraged in this endeavour. They take notice of signs that prohibit them from certain areas and they are responsible with their waste. But ever since I have had the privilege of serving as an MP I have had people from all over my electorate particularly in Tasman tell me of their very serious concerns about irresponsible campers who ignore the signs park their vehicles in areas with no facilities have no facilities in their vehicles and leave their litter and human waste behind. In fact some of the anecdotal evidence I have had from local constituents has been not only disturbing but also quite frequently disgusting to hear. 
We all know that this problem should not go on. Local councils just have not had the tools to deal with it until now; neither have communities that have concerns. In addition different approaches by different councils have made it difficult for freedom campers to know where they can and cannot park for the night. 
This Freedom Camping Bill deals with the problems I have outlined. It provides better information for freedom campers and effective enforcement powers to councils. It enables councils to determine where camping is and is not allowed where it is restricted to campervans with self-containment and where it is prohibited. Nationally consistent signage and enforcement will make things clear for everyone involved. Quite frankly this is long overdue. I commend this bill to the House. 
Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Labour) 
: 
 I wonder what our pioneering ancestors would think. The Freedom Camping Bill is a nanny State bill if ever there was one because we are now going to be told where we can do poos. I will tell members why this bill is nothing but a bit of grandstanding by Nick Smith and a few members over there. If it was a true bill to address the issue it would be called the “Environmental Protection Bill”. 
I accept that there is an issue and there has been an issue here for a long time. It was not raised on the basis of people stopping for the night but of people stopping during the day and in South Westland in particular. 
Hon Tau Henare 
: Doing their business in the day? 
Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR 
: That is right. I do not think that member does; he should do it more often because it might clear his head. The issue is that in many places throughout rural New Zealand there are simply no facilities; there are no toilets. If people are travelling 200 kilometres or even 100 kilometres and stopping then the question of where they go to the toilet is a significant one for them. We ended up with and still have many stopping places—not camping places but stopping places—up and down the country that are littered and are absolutely disgusting. 
The question is what we have done to help tourists to know about the situation. We have done nothing. Our signage is pathetic. As the Minister of Tourism I raised the issue that we as a tourism industry and as a country had a responsibility to inform those people whom we were hosting in this country about some normal issues of where they should go. We tell them whether there is petrol. We sometimes tell them about the speed limits. I have to say though that that signage is quite pathetic. Many tourists coming to this country get pinged for speeding when they probably have not seen a speeding sign because those signs are so small. The same thing will happen now. 
The nanny State National Government will let the councils say people can go here and here but not there. Speakers in this debate have said the law might be used to chase people to camping grounds when they may have otherwise camped out around this country. We have a spectacular country. We have a small population. No one could say we are overpopulated. The vast majority of people visiting this country come because they want to see the spectacular scenery and enjoy the incredible nature that we have. 
I ask what is wrong with using a shovel. Will someone camping somewhere with a shovel dealing with their excrement properly be fined as well? Can Mr Henare tell us that? He does not know. The question is whether the normal sensible systems that many people have adopted over many many years will be accepted as mitigation for what has been a growing problem. I accept that it is a growing problem. But here we have for cheap political purposes a bill that will I have to say send shivers up the spines of many people trying to market and promote this country to a whole lot of people out there. 
Hon Steve Chadwick 
: That was the best the Minister of Tourism could do. 
Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR 
: The Minister of Conservation is over there. She is jumping up and down. I ask her what she or her Government has done to increase the level of facilities and toilets throughout the country and what she will do to address the issue of daytime toilet need up and down this country—up and down this country. People will be told where to go in the evening when they stop—they will be told where to go at night—but what about during the daytime? Hold on hold on! Help is coming. They will have to go down the road and round the corner and there is a spot where they can camp and go to the toilet. It is rather ridiculous. 
I think we need a more comprehensive approach to this issue. Labour will support the referral of this bill to the Local Government and Environment Committee because we accept that there is an issue but I have to say it is a bizarre approach and it is a half-hearted approach from a Government that thinks we can just fine the people who come to this country—and I can just imagine the reaction of many many tourists when they come to this country—when we have not even informed them through a normal system of signage and education about the protocols around this. The councils I have spoken to over the years Westland District Council in particular have been complaining about this issue for a long long time I have to say. As people have driven down through South Westland there have been no toilets and there have been some shocking sights at popular rest areas. But we have not even put up a sign. We have not even bothered to put up a sign that says to those travellers: “No toilets for the next 50 kilometres” implying— 
Simon Bridges 
: What should the sign say? 
Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR 
: Well just listen. 
Hon Tau Henare 
: Go to the gas station. 
Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR 
: We have that. We say: “No petrol for 100 kilometres”. I have seen signs like that. But we do not assist people by saying there are no toilets for 100 kilometres which would imply the same thing. I am raising the realistic issues of people as they travel around this country. If the nanny State party over there is going to tell people where to go to the toilet now and if the National members think they have addressed the problem of camping at night then they are kidding themselves. What will this Government do to address the issue of toilet need during the day Mr Assistant Speaker Robertson? You can even understand it yourself can you not? 
Some real issues need to be addressed here. There are some wider environmental issues and the issue of the tourism industry contributing to more infrastructure in this area is an important one. I challenge the Government to address that issue. The fact is that the Sanitary Works Subsidy Scheme—the subsidy for small communities to put in place toilet facilities and dump stations—has gone. There is no assistance at all. Small communities are expected to put in place large facilities. Even for camping grounds that might be then allocated or dedicated to this purpose I say that if one has a concentration of campers in one area one will have to upgrade the facilities. The question is who does that. Some commercial camping-grounds will be happy to do that but many many areas around this country will not be able to do that without proper assistance. 
In conclusion I say this is an ad hoc response. It is a bit of political grandstanding by Nick Smith and it does not address the major issue of infrastructure for tourists—not just at night time but during the day as well. If we are to uphold and support the “100% Pure New Zealand” brand in this country then a more comprehensive look at environmental infrastructure for tourists has to be addressed. But that Government chopped $15 million off Tourism New Zealand’s budget in the last Budget; there is $15 million less to promote New Zealand. I guess that is one way of addressing this problem because there certainly will not be as many people coming to New Zealand. Maybe that is it—in fact National might have outsmarted us; I concede that. It may be that National’s cunning plan to address this issue is to cut $15 million off Tourism New Zealand’s budget. It will reduce the number of people coming to the country and we will not have the problem. That is exactly what will happen here. 
The bill is a Draconian approach to what is a real issue. We will just fine individuals whose understanding of the English language might not be great who have had no information or education about the norm and protocol in New Zealand and who have hired a rental van with or without facilities—like elsewhere in the world. Those people will feel really gutted I am sure when they are slapped with a $200 fine. It surprises me but the nanny State the Draconian Government that National is has finally shown its true colours. It has cut the budget of Tourism New Zealand and cut the money from the Sanitary Works Subsidy Scheme and the support for local councils for toilet and sewerage facilities. It has simply slapped a fine on those people who cannot hold on any longer. Thank you. 
LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupo) 
: 
 Picture this: an international visitor is on the edge of the great Lake Taupo for the very first time when that visitor stands in a piece of —. What will that do for his or her experience of this fantastic country? There will be thousands pouring into Taupo when they come to support South Africa Ireland and Wales during the Rugby World Cup in only 92 days’ time. I am proud to support the Freedom Camping Bill this practical sensible legislation that has been led by Jacqui Dean and the Minister of Conservation Kate Wilkinson. 
Hon STEVE CHADWICK (Labour) 
: 
 I have listened to the debate in the House and I recall that I had a glorious year as a Minister of Conservation. It is a pity that Nick Smith did not even mention that wonderful practical reign! However I am following on from a former Minister of Tourism the Hon Damien O’Connor who pointed out the very problems that we had to face when we were in Government but that this bill just does not fix. This bill is absurd. 
Following the example of the member from Taupo I ask members to picture this: new tourists arrive on the shores of Lake Taupo and do not have a clue where to find the toilets. There is no signage. There is no small subsidy scheme for Little Waihi to even build a decent ablution block next to a camping ground or at a pull-over on the side of the road. So what do the tourists do? They foul the side of the road. We see it and we are aware of this problem. But now they will be pinged with a $200 fine. Who will issue the fine? Will it be the local authority? Will it be a regional councillor? Will it be a front-line Department of Conservation ranger who instead of protecting species—now that $13 million is being knocked off the conservation budget every year—will have to issue fines? Who will be responsible for issuing the fine? Do members know what the tourists will say? They will say: “I am not going to pay it.” 
So we will set up an amazing bureaucracy through the Freedom Camping Bill to catch the pooper. Is it the dog or is it the person? Who will issue the fine? Is the fine for the dog or the person? And who will check that the fine has been paid when the tourists leave the airport? Will it be a customs officer or is it the airport’s responsibility to say: “This person was found soiling the road in Tekapo so must not leave the country until the $200 fine is paid.” This is a stupid bill. That is all. It is not practical and it is stupid. It is a nanny State response to the complex issue of the spoiling of our beautiful environment which we all care about. 
Freedom campers actually came to us when we were in Government too— 
Hon Member 
: You did nothing! 
Hon STEVE CHADWICK 
: Hang on a minute! They proposed a solution with a mix of penalties for those who did not have ablution facilities in their campervans. They said there was a problem but that everyone was being pinged because some campers pay a premium to get a campervan that has a good ablution block in it. But is that going to stop the guy who has been drinking at night and goes into the bushes for a quick one? We have to think of the practicalities around this and this bill does not solve the problem we are all concerned about in respect of our clean green environment. 
There is another issue and I heard Damien O’Connor mention it too. It is ironic that the Government thinks this is the quick fix to environment protection when it has cut the very subsidy that allowed small communities to put in basic sanitation blocks and facilities wherever they saw the need along the countryside where freedom campers wanted to go. That subsidy scheme has gone—zip. I wonder whether the collection of the $200 fine proposed in this bill will go back into local authorities’ coffers through the department of tourism so that they can build decent ablution blocks and campervans can pull up and use those facilities. That was the sort of proposal and the solution we put in for other previous big events in this country. We put in more refuse collection and we started to build small ablution blocks. Members over there did not even know that scheme existed. I do not think that Government members even realised how good that scheme was. Local authorities loved it. Local authorities could make the decision about where these were to go. 
Jacqui Dean 
: What scheme? 
Hon STEVE CHADWICK 
: The Sanitary Works Subsidy Scheme. Ask Minister Tony Ryall. It was administered through the Ministry of Health and all of the funding has gone. 
The National Government has not even looked at some little tool box solutions that were there for the Government at the time. Clearly Minister Ryall has not talked to Minister Wilkinson who has not talked to the Minister for the Environment Nick Smith. Those measures that were already there are not even included in this bill. The nanny State National Government is just going to issue fines all over the country. It is not going to put up any signage. There is nothing in here about signage to say— 
Hon Member 
: Yes there is. 
Hon STEVE CHADWICK 
: No there is not. There is no information for freedom campers at all about this law change. There should be information kits for new visitors to the country to say: “Welcome to New Zealand. Now you are going to find you get a $200 fine and we will take the apple that you bring in from Australia off you too. We will ping you for that. Welcome to New Zealand. Haere mai. Welcome to the Rugby World Cup. Have we got a quick-fix solution for you.” This is a band-aid solution. I hope that the Local Government and Environment Committee can flesh out the bill and that is why Labour will support its referral to the select committee. 
In some areas in Rotorua for example the provisions in this bill sort of meet what is being done anyway. We have something called a Rotorua open public place policy and in that policy we promulgate by-laws and encourage people in freedom camping situations to go to a place where there is a toilet and ablution facility. 
This bill is just silly. It is not a bill that will give us a great reputation as a country of liberal thinkers. People love the environment and people want to come here. It is a nanny State bill. It is a stupid solution—again because of the Rugby World Cup. I think the Minister could have done much better than this. There could have been a mix of fines and a mix of the Sanitary Works Subsidy Scheme and it could have been promulgated. We could look at where the fine could go instead of just into the Government coffers as another revenue back-door facility. For goodness’ sake! Who will be policing this? Who will monitor this? If it is to be front-line Department of Conservation rangers then I think that is an appalling waste of conservation money. 
There was a whole mix and suite of solutions to what looks to be a very overt problem that causes environmental degradation. I hate this bill being called the Freedom Camping Bill. To me it is more like the “Freedom Camping is Dead in New Zealand Bill” or the “We’re Going to Tell You Where to Go Bill”. As Damien O’Connor said we could have come up with an environment protection bill and looked at this whole problem of degradation and contamination of public sites in a much more comprehensive manner that fitted our clean green environment. 
JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki) 
: 
 The real problem with freedom camping as members have noted is that although the Government can bring in any number of measures—it might be fines good signage or describing places where people can and cannot camp and whether they have self-containment—the real problem we need to overcome is that we need people who visit New Zealand from overseas and New Zealanders themselves to understand that they have environmental responsibilities. We cannot stop people going to the loo in our beautiful places in New Zealand just by the suite of measures we are proposing in the Freedom Camping Bill but they are a good step along the way. They are an excellent step along the way of reminding people who come to New Zealand that we love them—we love people coming to our country; we love the way they spend money in our country and make a contribution to our society—but please they must not foul our environment before they go home. 
The other point is that unless we get on top of this problem we are in danger of people coming to New Zealand from say Sweden parking up against the shores of Lake Wanaka seeing the mess left there and then going back to Sweden and saying that they loved New Zealand but it is actually not as good as New Zealanders crack it up to be. We need to be very careful that we maintain New Zealand’s good image. 
The reason this bill is so good is that it is making a stand. Labour members can lament the fact that the bill will not fix the problem but it will. It will help to fix the problem because we will remind people of their environmental responsibilities. As I say no single measure will fix this problem. Once again it is up to individuals to understand their environmental responsibilities. 
In closing I commend the Minister of Conservation Kate Wilkinson for her preparedness to act on this issue in advance of the Rugby World Cup. I congratulate Geoff Ensor from the Freedom Camping Forum who has worked so hard across many sectors on this bill. I commend this bill to the House. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the Freedom Camping Bill be now read a first time. 
Ayes 108 
New Zealand National 58; New Zealand Labour 42; ACT New Zealand 5; Maori Party 3. 
Noes 10 
Green Party 9; Independent: Carter C. 
Bill read a first time. 
Bill referred to the Local Government and Environment Committee. 
The House adjourned at 6 p.m.