Volume 606 Week 15 - Thursday 20 February 2003 
Volume 606 Week 15 - Thursday 20 February 2003 
[Volume:606;Page:3631] 
Thursday 20 February 2003 
Mr Speaker 
 took the Chair at 2 p.m. 
Prayers 
. 
Business Statement 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY (Minister of Social Services and Employment) 
 on behalf of the  
Leader of the House 
. Next week in the House it is the Government’s intention to make progress on the first reading of the Holidays Bill the remaining stages of the Television New Zealand Bill and the Government Superannuation Fund Amendment Bill (No 2) and the second reading of the Taxation (Annual Rates Maori Organisations Taxpayer Compliance and Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill.  
GERRY BROWNLEE (NZ National—Ilam) 
: 
 Noting that the Government saw fit to hold a press conference late last week advertising changes to the Resource Management Act that would allow numerous projects of national interest to progress under a different regime can the Leader of the House give us some indication of when that legislation may get to the House so that it becomes a reality rather than just a vague hope for the future? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY (Minister of Social Services and Employment) 
: 
 I cannot at this point but I will inform the member as soon as I am able. 
Sittings of the House 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY (Minister of Social Services and Employment) 
 on behalf of the 
 Leader of the House 
: I seek leave for the House at its rising on Wednesday 26 February to adjourn until the ringing of the bell on Thursday 27 February. This is to allow for the luncheon for the European Parliament delegation. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Is there any objection to that course being followed? There is not. 
Questions to Ministers 
Road Toll—Reports 
1. LUAMANUVAO WINNIE LABAN (NZ Labour—Mana) 
 to the  
Minister of Transport 
: What reports has he received on the road toll for 2002? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN (Minister of Transport) 
: 
 The Land Transport Safety Authority has advised that last year’s road toll of 404 was the lowest in 40 years. This is despite the large increase in vehicle numbers over that time. The mixture of education enforcement and engineering measures introduced are paying off. However we must continue to make progress if we are to reach the goal of no more than 300 fatalities by 2010. 
Luamanuvao Winnie Laban 
: What other reports has he seen on road safety issues? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: I have seen a report from Mr Roger Sowry saying that National would build a multilane highway between Auckland and Wellington to reduce traffic problems. This is estimated to cost $5.5 billion. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The Minister has no responsibility for that.  
Hon Roger Sowry 
: Does he agree with Land Transport Safety Authority director David Wright that the greatest scope for future reductions in the road toll lies in engineering work such as providing more passing lanes removing power poles and designing safer new roads and intersections; if so does he then agree that the greatest impediment to carrying out that work is his inability to obtain the funding necessary? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: Just for that member’s information in the last year that he was in the Government funding was $563 million—compared with $603 million. 
John Carter 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Again the Minister was referring to something for which he has no responsibility. He should answer the question rather than allude to stuff that has happened in the past. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: No on this occasion the Minister was perfectly in order. He was comparing figures and he is perfectly entitled to do that. I thought the Minister had finished his answer. 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: Yes Mr Speaker— 
Rodney Hide 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I accept your point with regard to the figures but the question was whether he agreed with the statements. The Minister was showing no indication of even getting to that question. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The Minister had given only one sentence. He wants to continue and I will hear him out. 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: The Land Transport Safety Authority director has made a number of good and useful comments. Of course engineering is important and it will require funding. The Government does not agree with spending $5.5 billion on a superhighway between Auckland and Wellington. It would mean that no more projects would be funded for 20 years. Plus they want to cut petrol taxes by 4c! The ghost of Bill Birch and “think big” is alive and well in the National Party caucus.  
Hon Roger Sowry 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. At the beginning of this year’s parliamentary session I think we should clear up whether you intend to interrupt Ministers or whether you want the Opposition to interrupt them through points of order. We are happy to do that but where a Minister is clearly breaching the rules we would also be more than happy if you as Speaker would take the initiative to sit the Minister down. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I thank the member for his very valuable advice. I shall interrupt when I consider it necessary to do so. 
Peter Brown 
: If the fatality and accident rates on the roads continue to go down can we expect the Minister to make strong recommendations to his colleagues to reduce the accident compensation charges on motorists instead of continually increasing them? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: That is a good question. The perverse problem we have at the moment is that fatalities are going down but as cars and road engineering become safer the number of injuries rises. That is the reason that accident compensation levies have had to increase. 
Deborah Coddington 
: My question for the Minister follows on from that question. Was the startling reduction in motor vehicle deaths and injuries passed on to the Minister for ACC and other relevant Ministers before they increased fuel taxes in March 2002 motor vehicle registration taxes in July 2002 and drivers’ licence fees for 10-year licences; if not why not? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: The Government had a range of information before it considered the 4c petrol tax rise. But that 4c petrol tax rise has made a real dent in some of the backlog of work that was not able to proceed under the previous National Government.  
Hon David Carter 
: Whose? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: The building of superhighways worth $5.5 billion is not the answer. 
Jeanette Fitzsimons 
: Would transferring more long-distance freight off road on to rail be more cost-effective and better for road safety than spending $5.5 billion on a superhighway? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: Yes. That is why rail is an integral and important part of the transport strategy that the Green Party and Government members released late last year. Making rail more efficient is important for the long-term economic development of New Zealand.  
Treaty Claims—Settlements 
2.  
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
 to the  
Minister in charge of Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations 
: What is the timeframe to settle all Treaty claims in line with the Government’s stated priorities at the last election? 
Hon MARGARET WILSON (Minister in charge of Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations) 
: 
 In the Labour 2002 election manifesto there was a commitment under Maori development to continue with and improve the treaty settlements process. We have continued to do that and aim to complete the settlement of historical grievances as soon as possible. No artificial time frame has ever been set by Labour.  
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Given the priority list that the member referred to and having regard to the fact that only nine claims have been settled in the last 28 years and 989 claims are still outstanding can the Minister tell us whether that means that it will take us another 3090 years to settle the rest and what are the poor Maori people going to do in the meantime? 
Hon MARGARET WILSON 
: As I said one could put an artificial time frame on anything but at the moment we are making settlements at the rate of about one every 6 months. At present we have 25 different claimant groups at various stages of negotiations. So compared with the progress over the previous 10 years I think there is improvement in it. 
Mahara Okeroa 
: Why is it not sensible to have a predetermined termination date for the settlement of historical claims under the Treaty of Waitangi? 
Hon MARGARET WILSON 
: The settlement of historical grievances under the treaty involves two parties. Both parties must agree to the process and to any time frame. The days of the Crown unilaterally imposing its will on the claimant party are over. Further the process of settlement cannot usually commence until the tribunal has issued its report on the claim. If the Crown imposes an artificial time frame on either the tribunal or the claimants it runs the risk of creating further grievances. 
Hon Georgina te Heuheu 
: Can the Minister confirm the statement made by the Secretary for Justice and the head of the Office of Treaty Settlements that at the current rate of progress and with current resources it will take 20 to 25 years before the historical claims are settled; if not how long does she estimate it will take? 
Hon MARGARET WILSON 
: As I said one can guess any time and I guess that only time will tell whether that estimate is correct. As I understand it it was based on the fact that the tribunal which now has a new system of district casebooks thinks it will be about 2010 before it has completed all the districts. Given that negotiations normally continue after that I therefore presume that that was the reason for the time frame being given. In the meantime I have instructed that we look to see whether we can involve ourselves in direct negotiations on some matters while the tribunal is hearing. That is the approach we are testing with the central North Island. 
Stephen Franks 
: What time frame does the Minister estimate for the new claims that must surely be generated by the Crown’s deep ignorance of the treaty shown yesterday when a Minister scoffed at the core property guarantee of article 2 which he referred to as “something in the Treaty of Waitangi that I have missed after reading it many many times’’; and has she organised a tutorial for Mr Sutton? 
Hon MARGARET WILSON 
: I think the question asked what the time frame will be for new claims and I assume the member means contemporary claims as opposed to historical claims. Contemporary claims are somewhat difficult to estimate in terms of their time for settlement so it would be unwise for me—with contemporary claims just as with historical claims—to impose an artificial time frame. 
Stephen Franks 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The Minister was guessing at the question. The question was very simple. It was about new claims generated by Cabinet’s demonstrated ignorance of the treaty. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The Minister is entitled to interpret the question the way she wishes and she addressed it. 
Metiria Turei 
: Can the Minister guarantee that no further treaty grievances will be created by this Government given its policy to build a prison in Ngawha that desecrates wahi tapu and is arguably a breach of article 2 of the treaty? 
Hon MARGARET WILSON 
: The Government is using its very best endeavours to make sure that no new grievances will be created which is why we are not prepared to put artificial time frames on the claims process. In terms of the specific matter the member raised my understanding is that yes of course there are differences within iwi on that matter but all the processes that should have been followed were followed but obviously not to the satisfaction of everyone. 
Murray Smith 
: Has she conducted an appraisal of the claims development team initiative instigated last year; if she did what was the outcome of the appraisal and if she did not why not? 
Hon MARGARET WILSON 
: No we have not offered an appraisal of that. It is just part of the normal performance review of the office. We are however in the process of doing an evaluation of the Waitangi Tribunal’s new approach. To some extent the two questions are combined. So far on the evidence we have we are very supportive of the tribunal’s new approach. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Given that she has put into contention her glorious record and the fact that only five claims have been settled in the last 3½ years since she has been the Minister at a processing cost of over $40 million and claims still remain outstanding does that not mean that it will take 646 years to settle the rest of the claims at a cost of over $8 billion in processing costs? 
Hon MARGARET WILSON 
: As I have said before one can speculate but that speculation will not necessarily be accurate. Therefore I prefer to refer the member to his own very sensible advice that he gave us all which was that it is time to recognise that hypocrisy and grandstanding must end. The time for the grand gesture and final solutions is over. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I know that is part of a glorious speech but it has no relevance whatsoever to the time frame and cost of Waitangi settlements 989 of which remain outstanding. My question asked the Minister to give us some sort of time frame. I am not trying to obfuscate and evade the facts. She has a responsibility to this House and to this country. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The Minister might care to make an additional comment. 
Hon MARGARET WILSON 
: I can only reiterate that to put artificial time frames on a matter that involves two parties and not to recognise that there are two parties to that process would only invite further grievances. 
General Agreement on Trade in Services—World Trade Organization 
3.  
ROD DONALD (Co-Leader—Green) 
 to the  
Minister for Trade Negotiations 
: Will the Government give the House the opportunity to debate the offer it intends making under the General Agreement on Trade in Services before it presents it to World Trade Organisation members in March; if not why not? 
Hon JIM SUTTON (Minister for Trade Negotiations) 
: 
 There is no requirement for New Zealand’s initial offer under the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) to be presented to Parliament as it is only a starting point in the negotiation. It remains entirely conditional and revocable. 
Rod Donald 
: Given that GATS commitments are permanent why has the Government given other parties in Parliament and the public only 25 days to make submissions on the request and offer phase of GATS when it has been consulting with vested-interest groups for over a year? 
Hon JIM SUTTON 
: The member obviously did not hear what he had been previously told. What is being tabled after 28 days is the initial offer not our GATS commitment. 
Martin Gallagher 
: Can the Minister outline precisely what the New Zealand Government’s position is on its participation in the GATS negotiation? 
Hon JIM SUTTON 
: The New Zealand Government’s position is set out clearly in the discussion document. Cabinet has agreed to 10 guiding principles for New Zealand’s participation in those negotiations which I will table at the conclusion of the question. I recommend that all members who have not read them do so. In particular I draw members’ attention to the commitment on public health public education water local government and Maori.  
Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith 
: Will the Minister give an assurance that the Government will not do another back-room deal to placate the Greens the way it did with Keith Locke’s International Treaties Bill when in October 2000 the Greens threatened to abstain on the next vote of confidence if the Government continued to ignore its concerns about the free-trade agreement with Singapore? 
Hon JIM SUTTON 
: My understanding is that that bill was dealt with by Parliament chucking it out. 
Dail Jones 
: Why does the Government refuse to accept such a debate as was set out in the original question which would give the Government an opportunity to refute the views being expressed at the Catching the Knowledge Wave conference indicating that the Government has no strategic plan for the future; are such criticisms so irrefutable that the Government wishes to shy away from them in this House? 
Hon JIM SUTTON 
: The Government is delighted to debate the principles of its trade policy and will take up suitable opportunities to do that whenever they arise. The fact of the matter is that it would be neither informative nor helpful for the House to have a debate every time another offer is made or received in the course of the World Trade Organization negotiations. We would be doing very little else in this House for the next 2 or 3 years if that were the approach. 
Hon Peter Dunne 
: Where does the Minister draw the line between the Government’s executive responsibility in terms of pursuing a negotiating process and putting forward proposals etc. and its responsibility to this House also in terms of necessary legislative approvals; and can we expect as we are to see later this afternoon in respect of another measure subsequent legislation to ratify agreements coming before this House? 
Hon JIM SUTTON 
: The Government has adopted a policy of putting trade treaties before the House for debate before the Government finally commits the nation to them. That practice will be continued. 
Rod Donald 
: Why should we believe the Government’s claim that it is not about to trade away protections for public services under the GATS when it has asked other countries to do exactly what it claims it will not do itself? 
Hon JIM SUTTON 
: There are countries that need to make changes in their policy settings but this country’s policy settings are such that we do not need to make any changes in them in order to comply with our initial offers. 
Auckland District Health Boards—Pharmacy Contract 
4.  
Dr LYNDA SCOTT (NZ National—Kaikoura) 
 to the  
Minister of Health 
: Is the reason that the three Auckland district health boards refuse to settle the pharmacy contract and pay pharmacists the same rate as 15 other district health boards because of the financial crisis the Auckland district health boards are facing with a combined projected deficit of over $100 million and her instructions to them to get rid of their deficits; if not what is the reason? 
Hon DAMIEN O'CONNOR (Associate Minister of Health) 
 on behalf of the 
 Minister of Health 
: No that is not the reason the three Auckland district health boards refused to settle the pharmacy contract and pay pharmacists the same rate as 15 other district health boards. It is not because of the financial crisis at the Auckland District Health Board. It is because this is a devolved contract and the Auckland district health boards have decided to continue to consult and work with the pharmacists in the area as is their right irrespective of the outcome of any negotiations. This will not affect payments made by patients because district health boards are required to ensure that patients pay no more than the user charges set down by the Government in the Crown funding agreement. 
Dr Lynda Scott 
: As the three Auckland district health boards have been funded for a 5.12 percent increase in the number of prescriptions and the projected growth of Auckland is 2 percent Counties-Manukau 5.5 percent and Waitemata 4 percent for the 2003 year are the district health boards once again just keeping the extra money to pay off their crisis-level deficits at the expense of burnt-out community pharmacists; if not why will they not settle? 
Hon DAMIEN O'CONNOR 
: No that is not the reason as I stated in the first response to the member’s question. The three district health boards will receive an extra $149 million in the next year. They will as the member states receive a 5.1 percent increase in the amount of money for pharmaceuticals. I have the utmost confidence as does the Minister of Health that those pharmacists will continue to provide safe pharmaceutical services to the people of those district health board areas. 
Steve Chadwick 
: What are the three Auckland district health boards discussing with pharmacists? 
Hon DAMIEN O'CONNOR 
: I am advised that the three Auckland district health boards do not want to increase dispensing fees without exploring directly with pharmacists other ways to develop agreements. Those agreements should recognise the challenges and opportunities for patients pharmacists and district health boards by discussing the financial risk around dispensing costs including avoiding uncapped demand-driven cost increases. District health boards are also looking to increase the opportunity for pharmacists’ services to be integrated into the primary health-care strategy and see a role for pharmacists in district health boards’ chronic-care programmes. 
Heather Roy 
: Is her refusal to become involved with pharmacy contracts as she promised last December that she would due to the fact that she approves of individual contracts or because she is determined to avoid all responsibility? 
Hon DAMIEN O'CONNOR 
: As that member should well know section 33 of the New Zealand Public Health and Disability Act precludes the Minister from any involvement. I am aware that three members of this House—Mrs Scott Mrs Kedgley and Mrs Roy—did attend a meeting last night in Auckland where they encouraged pharmacists not to compromise with the district health board and they sought to have ministerial intervention. This is a new policy from the ACT party which now wants political interference in what is a commercial negotiation between the district health board and the pharmacist. 
Hon Roger Sowry 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I wonder how appropriate it is for the Government which was invited to the meeting but did not turn up to now come into the House and try to interpret what did happen at the meeting. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: That is a political point. 
Sue Kedgley 
: Does the Minister agree that it would be grossly unfair and discriminatory if the three Auckland district health boards were to draw up a separate contract for pharmacists in their area that had a lower dispensing fee than pharmacists receive in all the other district health board areas that have signed the national contract and will she therefore step in to prevent that and ensure that pharmacists in Auckland do not end up getting paid less than the rest of the country; if not why not? 
Hon DAMIEN O'CONNOR 
: As the member for West Coast - Tasman I am very well aware that there are different prices around the country for all kinds of services. It is not for us to determine what the appropriate price is. That responsibility has been devolved to the district health board to negotiate with the pharmacists in their particular regions. 
Dr Lynda Scott 
: With the six district health boards of Auckland Waitemata Counties-Manukau Northland South Canterbury and Hawke’s Bay still not having settled their contracts is it not time to admit that this process is increasing bureaucracy and fragmentation wasting money time and effort and when will she use some common sense and return to a national contract? 
Hon DAMIEN O'CONNOR 
: I am astounded at the new policies from the National Party regarding centralised control of such services. Fifteen district health boards have signed up with the pharmacists. I suggest that that is a very positive move and I am confident that the six others will sign up in the near future. 
Dr Lynda Scott 
: I seek leave to table metropolitan Auckland pharmacy expenditure statistics that show that Auckland is expecting 2 percent growth Counties-Manukau 5.5 percent and Waitemata 4 percent. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is. 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: I seek leave to table a report from today’s  
Bay of Plenty Times 
 that shows that because of a lack of funding the region’s palliative care service will have to remove all its beds. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that. Is there any objection? There is. 
Work and Income Department—Placements 
5.  
GEORGINA BEYER (NZ Labour—Wairarapa) 
 to the  
Minister of Social Services and Employment 
: What recent reports has he received on Department of Work and Income employment placements? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY (Minister of Social Services and Employment) 
: 
 I am advised that in the last 6 months of 2002 the Work and Income service of the Ministry of Social Development improved its long-term employment placements by 7.6 percent. In other words Work and Income helped 25000 New Zealanders into jobs lasting at least 3 months—up from 23000 the year before. With unemployment at a 15-year low the Work and Income folks are managing to offer sustainable work opportunities to thousands of New Zealand families. 
Georgina Beyer 
: How do the most recent employment placement results compare with earlier years? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: Work and Income has achieved a more than 100 percent improvement in long-term employment placements in each duration band compared with the same period in 1998. This includes people who have been unemployed for 4 years or more who often have difficulty re-entering the paid workforce where their performance has improved by over 250 percent; as well as those who have been unemployed for up to 6 months where Work and Income has placed a staggering 372 percent more people into work compared with the last full year of a National-led Government. 
Katherine Rich 
: In the light of his comments about employment placements can the Minister explain why there is still a dire shortage of workers in some industries like trucking and the fruit industry why Maori unemployment is still at 11.5 percent and the cost of the invalids benefit is predicted to nearly double under his stewardship to $1.2 billion by 2007? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: The reasons that we have shortages in areas like trucking and the seasonal fruit-picking industry and unemployment amongst Maori of course take longer to explain than I can take today. One of the things I would say about trucking for example which the industry itself acknowledges is that it has not planned for its own needs in that industry. So we are working with the industry training organisation to cure that. In the fruit-picking area we have for example labour shortages in many of the areas of the South Island at the present time. We simply do not have the people to pick fruit because we have been so successful in getting them into jobs in that area. Can I say in relation to Maori that the unemployment rate has dropped from around 19 percent to around 11 percent under this Government.  
Dr Muriel Newman 
: Can the Minister explain why he gloats about stable employment placements when his own answers show that nearly half of all those people are not in stable placements at all but end up back on the dole within 6 months? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: It is never the intention of this Government to gloat about anything to do with employment and unemployment. We realise that these areas have a lot of complex reasons as to why we are doing so well. What we do is simply report the facts and the facts are that we are staggeringly successful in this country at the moment—a 15-year low in unemployment figures. 
Points of OrderQuestion No. 6 to Minister 
RODNEY HIDE (ACT NZ) 
: 
 I seek leave to hold my question over until such time as the Minister in charge is here to front up.  
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to do that; is there any objection? Please ask the question. 
Sovereign Yachts—Sales 
6.  
RODNEY HIDE (ACT NZ) 
 to the  
Minister for Economic Development 
: Why was the House told on his behalf on 28 March last year when questioned about Sovereign yachts that “In 8 weeks construction will begin on a second boat” and does he stand by the statement then that “This is a real success story which is only beginning to unfold.” given that the  
New Zealand Herald 
 reported on 18 February this year that construction still hasn’t started on the second boat because of “some dispute about freight charges”? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN (Associate Minister for Economic Development) 
 on behalf of the 
 Minister for Economic Development 
: Because that is what Sovereign Yachts told the Ministry of Economic Development; and yes. 
Rodney Hide 
: In the light of his answer is he confident that his Sovereign Yachts project will deliver the $24 million in net benefits promised by his officials when so far only one boat has been built on spec the second boat’s construction is now a year late and staff are being laid off; and does this Minister expect his officials to prepare a report on just what his Sovereign Yachts project has cost taxpayers and what it has returned? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: The Government is proud that there are jobs in Hobsonville now; there were not under the previous Government. But Mr Hide continually asks questions that are best directed to Mr Lloyd. I understand that Mr Hide has been out on the boat enjoying the hospitality of Mr Lloyd so I presume he has his cellphone number.  
David Cunliffe 
: Can the Minister outline some of the highlights of the Government’s economic development programme? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: No. That question is totally out of order. It is far too wide. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I certainly want to have a supplementary question in a minute but it might be only fair to ask Mr Cunliffe to rephrase the question. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: No. I will decide whether a member does not ask a question correctly. I am not obliged to have that member ask it again.  
Gerry Brownlee 
: If the Minister for Economic Development stands by his comments reported in the  
New Zealand Herald  
on 4 February 2001 in which he talks of a partnership between Sovereign Yachts the Ministry of Economic Development and the Waitakere City Council that enabled Sovereign Yachts to buy 10 acres of land and get favourable resource consents for a sum of some $500000 and as that same land is now valued at over $10 million does he accept that all that his ministry has done is relieve the New Zealand taxpayer of at least $9.5 million in favour of Sovereign Yachts? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: No. As the Minister has said on many occasions the land was sold according to the provisions of the Public Works Act. But the important point about this matter is that under this Government there are jobs there; under that member’s Government there were none—not one zippo.  
Dail Jones 
: How can the Minister say that there are jobs there now while under the previous Government there were not when for at least 30 or 40 years there have been hundreds if not thousands of jobs at Hobsonville and Whenuapai as a result of the Royal New Zealand Air Force bases in Auckland being there—jobs that are worth $500 million or more to Waitakere City—and as a result of this Labour Government’s decisions and the decisions of the previous National Government Waitakere City will be suffering considerable unemployment as a result of the closure of those bases with thousands of jobs being taken away by this Government? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: There are jobs in the marine industry on that part of the land that were not there in the time of the previous Government. I suggest that that member stops whingeing and get in and support the private sector. 
Rodney Hide 
: Given that the Minister’s Sovereign Yachts project has failed to deliver on the promised three superyachts a year and the promised annual turnover of $100 million does he still stand by his statement to Parliament on 16 April 2002 that: “We need more developments like the Sovereign Yachts development if we are to create the jobs and incomes that New Zealanders need.” or is this blatant failure and fiasco acceptable to him on a project that he himself declared to be the triumph of his “jobs machine” policy? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: Of course the Government believes that there needs to be more kinds of investment in jobs along the lines of the ones that have already been promoted by the Minister and the Ministry of Economic Development. But the important point is that the Government believes that putting energy into real initiatives out of his ministry is much better for the New Zealand economy than promoting pyramid selling or Fijian investment seminars.  
Special Education—Closures 
7.  
METIRIA TUREI (Green) 
 to the  
Associate Minister of Education (Special Education) 
: In light of the Court of Appeal decision  
Attorney-General v Daniels 
 issued yesterday that the then Minister of Education acted unlawfully when in 1998 he disestablished special needs classes units and services does she agree that the money spent on the appeal and preceding cases would have been better spent on direct funding for special needs children than on litigation; if not why not? 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Associate Minister of Education (Special Education)) 
: 
 My answer to that question would usually be yes but on this occasion it is no because the High Court judgment against the Crown was so broad and had such serious ramifications not only for education but for other aspects of public policy that the Crown had no choice but to appeal that decision. Prior to the original proceeding being brought by the parents against the previous Government I did meet with them in an attempt to find a resolution to their concerns. The Court of Appeal decision backs up my strong view that litigation is no way to resolve public policy issues. 
Metiria Turei 
: Will the Minister agree first not to seek costs against the parents in this case and second to contribute to the legal costs of the parents whose concern to protect their children’s right to appropriate quality education was upheld by both the High Court and the Court of Appeal? 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL 
: The judgment specifically rules on the issue of the closure of units. The real issue that the Crown had to appeal was that relating to the implications of the High Court ruling on sections 3 8 9 and 10. We succeeded on those appeals and there is now going to be a remedies action in the High Court in respect of the situation in relation to the units. What I do hope is that the parties can talk to each other in the intervening period because I would like to see a win-win out of that as the Court of Appeal case has been a win-win for the parents and the Government. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: What is this Government’s commitment to special education that sees young Bernard O’Regan in Reefton deprived of school bus transport each day when all that was required was for the school bus contract tender to include provision for wheelchair access and what is this Minister going to do to fix this obvious stuff-up? 
Rodney Hide 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I ask you for some consistency here. Right through Dr Nick Smith’s supplementary question we had constant chipping because the Government did not like it. You pulled the members up. The Minister over there refused to follow your instructions and continued chipping and you are looking right at her. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member has raised a valid point of order and the member concerned will keep quiet when questions are being asked. 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL 
: I do fail to see what that question has to do with Wyatt Creech’s decision to close units which has just been held to be unlawful by the Court of Appeal. 
Hon Brian Donnelly 
: Can the Minister confirm that the issue in the Daniels’ case was precipitated by the fact that the Minister at the time Wyatt Creech followed Ministry of Education advice that the Education Act did not require amendment to accommodate the Special Education 2000 policy a policy that increased expenditure on special-education students by hundreds of millions of dollars? 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL 
: From the advice I have I cannot confirm whether the specific question was directed to the Minister. What I can say though is that what Cabinet considered at that time was a report back to the Minister of Education on the impact of the proposal on the disestablishment decision in terms of ensuring the continuity of the general capacity to offer choice to parents between mainstreaming or a special-education unit but that was after the decision had been made. 
Jill Pettis 
: Did the Court of Appeal comment on the funding of special education in respect of the introduction of Special Education 2000? 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL 
: Yes. The Court of Appeal found that “extra funding has throughout been a critical part of the development of SE2000”. Special education funding for 2002 was $329.62 million compared with $170 million in 1995. The number of students directly receiving assistance has risen from about 20000 in 1995 to over 50000 today. 
Deborah Coddington 
: Does the Minister support bulk funding for special-needs students and indeed the principle of bulk funding for all students’ teaching; if not why did this Government appeal the High Court decision? 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL 
: I suggest the member read the decision and she would understand why we appealed it. If she had read the Baragwanath decision she would know very clearly that there were very important grounds to do that and we have succeeded on those grounds and that will be a significant benefit. I also suggest the member look at the Special Education 2000 policy because this issue is only one very small component of the total triangle that is funded by way of bulk-funded grant—the special-education grant. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Supplementary Mr Speaker. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: No I call question No. 8—[ 
Interruption 
] I am sorry; I call Metiria Turei. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I sought the call and you made the judgment to move on to the next question. Why is it suddenly possible for you to change the tune and having disallowed my having the opportunity allow a Green member to have the call? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Because the member knows I allocate a distinct number of supplementary questions each day. In actual fact the Green Party advised it wanted two calls on this question. It misses out on a large number of others. 
Metiria Turei 
: Will the Minister now accept that the special-education grant funding which is part of Special Education 2000 has failed to provide assistance to hundreds of children with moderate special needs and will she instead ensure that the said grant for children with moderate needs is based on and used specifically for the actual number of special-needs children in each school? 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL 
: The member well knows that this Government introduced the enhanced programme funding last year specifically to address the needs of schools that have a higher level of students with moderate special needs than other schools. 
Te Hauora o Te Tai Tokerau Trust—Fraudulent Expenditure Recovery 
8.  
PHIL HEATLEY (NZ National—Whangarei) 
 to the  
Minister of Social Services and Employment 
: Following Police confirmation that Te Hau Ora O Te Tai Tokerau Trust did invest $100000 of taxpayer and Department of Child Youth and Family Services money in a fraudulent investment scheme did purchase $20000 worth of gym equipment from a key executive’s son and did spend nearly $25000 on an unapproved overseas trip what accountability will the department be seeking from the Trust and will it recover any money from the Trust? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY (Minister of Social Services and Employment) 
: 
 In terms of seeking accountability the Department of Child Youth and Family Services has withdrawn contracts commenced legal proceedings to freeze and recover public money and requested a police investigation into possible criminal conduct and given that the trust is now in liquidation it is pursuing fund recovery through that process. Of course how much money is available will depend on the liquidator. 
Phil Heatley 
: Given that Plunket first warned the Department of Child Youth and Family Services in writing 2½ years ago staff warned it 1½ years ago—again in writing—and the department eventually gave Te Hau Ora O Te Tai Tokerau Trust a 60-day ultimatum why did it still take the Minister another 6 months to act which gave the trust even more time to spend up large on barbells bench presses overseas trips and shocking investments? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: As I have said in the House and to this member before I think the department behaved appropriately in this matter. When the matter was brought to its attention by Plunket it began monitoring the organisation. In 2001 when the department was written to about the organisation it began the process of working through with the organisation which resulted in the withdrawal of its funding. The member will also know that about 3 weeks before we proceeded with criminal proceedings I said in the House that I thought the Department of Child Youth and Family Services had done its job as it should; it had taken about 2 or 3 weeks too long and that is why I told it to go to court and freeze the assets. 
Darren Hughes 
: For what reasons do Government departments like the Department of Child Youth and Family Services contract with community agencies? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: Government departments contract with a wide range of community agencies to deliver community social and other services. Many groups of course offer excellent and innovative services run by local people for local people. The vast majority of them do exactly what their contract requires of them. It would be an unfortunate day if the actions of a few individuals in one organisation such as this were to tarnish the reputations of the many thousands of people who run successful services across the country. 
Hon Brian Donnelly 
: Will the Minister concede that this Te Hauora o te Tai Tokerau case demonstrates appalling contracting processes including monitoring within his ministry and will he guarantee to this House that the steps he has taken to make these processes more robust will ensure that no more such scandalous examples of wastage of taxpayers’ money will occur? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: No I would not concede that this indicates that our contracting across the board is a problem. In fact the Department of Child Youth and Family Services contracts with something over 1000 organisations; this organisation is just one which we have heard about. But I repeat to that member whom I want to thank for the way he has approached this issue—supporting people in his community to get the services up and running again—that what we do not want to see is this one case involving in particular one individual being allowed to taint other community groups or the success of this approach. 
Dr Muriel Newman 
: Does the Minister believe the trustees’ spending was properly authorised and accountable; if not could he advise the House whether he has asked or intends to ask the Attorney-General to do her duty as guardian of charitable trusts and take action against the defaulting trustees? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: Working back through the question I first say that of course the trustees are now in voluntary liquidation. The person she is referring to in relation to the misappropriation or the misuse of funds has lost her job and therefore has been fully accountable for what has occurred. 
Dr Muriel Newman 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The question was whether he had asked the Attorney-General. I would like the member to answer that question. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I thought the Minister said no to that. 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: No. 
Judy Turner 
: What investment guidelines does his department give to recipients of funds who need to manage the use of that money over a length of time and where short-term investment may be considered an option? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: I am sorry but as I understood the question it was what assistance is given to organisations in terms of— 
Judy Turner 
: What guidelines do you give? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: Treasury has issued guidelines for all community groups in relation to the use of their money and one of the things it makes very clear is that groups should not be investing that money in a short-term way looking for interest. That money is there for them to invest in the services they provide. 
Phil Heatley 
: Will the Minister support the Controller and Auditor-General’s proposal to me—because I have written to him—and to this Parliament to have a wide-ranging study of contracting practices right across the State sector in the light of what we can learn from the Minister’s Te Hauora o te Tai Tokerau fiasco? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: No because we do this as a Government ourselves. We are absolutely committed to the principle of delivering services through local people unlike it seems the National Party and because we are doing that we are very vigilant in relation to the way contracting is done. 
Phil Heatley 
: I seek leave to table a statement in this House made by the Hon Ruth Dyson last year admitting that Plunket and staff had written to the Department of Child Youth and Family Services years ago. 
Document not tabled. 
Phil Heatley 
: I seek leave to table a 6-page police report confirming Te Hauora o te Tai Tokerau’s slightly uncurbed spending habits. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Phil Heatley 
: Finally I seek leave to table a recent letter to me from the Controller and Auditor-General proposing a wide-ranging study. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Points of OrderQuestion No. 4 to Minister 19 February 
Hon PAUL SWAIN (Associate Minister for Economic Development) 
: 
 Further to a question yesterday where Mr Winston Peters made a request of the Minister for Economic Development I seek leave to table research into the Buy New Zealand Made scheme. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Prostitution Reform Bill—Human Rights 
9.  
LARRY BALDOCK (United Future) 
 to the  
Minister of Justice 
: Is he concerned that New Zealand may be in violation of its international commitments to uphold human rights if the Prostitution Reform Bill is passed; if not why not? 
Hon PHIL GOFF (Minister of Justice) 
: 
 No this is a matter that has been considered by the New Zealand Human Rights Commission. Its view of the modern approach taken by the United Nations human rights instruments is that they focus on the exploitative elements of prostitution as giving rise to human rights violations rather than on determining that prostitution per se is a violation of human rights. This bill is entirely consistent with that approach. 
Larry Baldock 
: Is the Minister concerned that since New Zealand is a signatory to the United Nations Protocol to Prevent Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons Especially Women and Children supplementing the United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organised Crime the passage of the prostitution law reform may create an environment in New Zealand that is in violation of our obligations under that protocol; if not why not? 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: No I am not concerned that would be the case. That particular protocol deals with the trafficking of people including prostitutes where force or coercion is involved or alternatively abduction fraud or deception. In fact the contrary of what the member is saying is true. I believe there is a greater prospect of the use of coercion fraud and trafficking where prostitution remains illegal. In those cases the women who are the victims of that find it harder to take their cases to authorities. 
Tim Barnett 
: Has the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women—CEDAW—expressed a view that the decriminalisation of prostitution is in breach of the convention on that? 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: The answer to that is also no. That committee emphasises that prostitution poses for women risks of exploitation and violence and whether or not prostitution is legal it is minimising those risks that is the important point. That committee for example has raised the issue with regard to the Swedish model of the risks that forcing prostitution to be clandestine has for trafficking in women. It thinks there are greater risks of trafficking where prostitution is forced to be clandestine.  
Richard Worth 
: Will New Zealand as a party to the United Nations trafficking in persons protocol be exercising its rights of denunciation under article 19 if we become a safe haven for the forced organised travel of prostitutes coming from off shore to take advantage of the freer environment that will be given to them if the Prostitution Reform Bill is enacted? 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: The Government has been active on a number of fronts to ensure that the appalling crime of trafficking in persons is restricted and we have worked through the Bali conference with other countries to do that. We have worked through greater cooperation between the police forces of the countries of origin and the countries where the women may end up. We will take every step possible to stop the coercion of women into either slave labour or prostitution. 
Peter Brown 
: Noting the Minister’s answer when he referred to the Swedish model does he have evidence that in Sweden there is more trafficking of women than in any other European city or State because those of us who are opposed to prostitution have evidence that the situation is the reverse of that and the trafficking of women has gone down considerably in Sweden? 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: The matter I was referring to was the concern expressed by the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women that by making prostitution clandestine— 
Peter Brown 
: You raised Sweden. 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: Yes it was referring to Sweden—that has increased the risk of trafficking in women. The member can shake his head all he likes but I am quoting to him what that committee found. I welcome that member tabling any evidence that he has to the contrary.  
Keith Locke 
: What measures has the Government taken to reduce the incidence of child prostitution? 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: In March 2001 this Government passed the Crimes Amendment Bill which brought New Zealand legislation into full compliance with ILO Convention 182 concerning the worst forms of child labour. That legislation made it a criminal offence in New Zealand to be the client of a prostitute under the age of 18. It also prohibited all procuring of children whether male or female for prostitution. Those were two major gaps in the law and this Government has closed them.  
Larry Baldock 
: Is the Minister aware that article 9.5 of the protocol I referred to in my previous supplementary question states that States shall adopt or strengthen legislative and other measures such as educational social or cultural measures to discourage demand that fosters all forms of exploitation of persons especially women and children that leads to trafficking and will the Minister therefore explain how the liberalising of our laws against prostitution will discourage that demand? 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: I am of course aware of that but the member has brought forward no evidence that the decriminalisation of prostitution in New Zealand would increase the level of trafficking of women into New Zealand for that reason. I repeat to him the concern expressed by the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women that in fact when prostitution is made clandestine it actually increases the prospect of trafficking. That is what the report of that committee states. 
Dail Jones 
: The Minister was referring to a report and I seek that the report be tabled.  
Mr SPEAKER 
: The Minister can table it if he wishes. The member cannot ask someone else to table a report. 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: I do not have that report in the House. I can give the member the reference to it so he can find it for himself.  
Inquiry into Airfield Activities—Commerce Commission Report 
10.  
PETER BROWN (Deputy Leader—NZ First) 
 to the  
Minister of Commerce 
: Does she have confidence in the recommendations of the Commerce Commission contained in its final report on its inquiry into airfield activities; if not why not? 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Minister of Commerce) 
: 
 I have not yet made any decisions on the recommendations of the Commerce Commission report on its inquiry into airfield activities. 
Peter Brown 
: Does she believe that in Wellington Airport’s overall charges an increase of 78 percent is significant and if she does will she ensure that the airport activities are controlled as per the Commerce Commission’s recommendations in that report? 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL 
: The advice that I have is that most of Wellington International Airport Ltd’s price increase relates to terminal charges which are outside the scope of the Commerce Commission’s inquiry. Having said that its increased price for airfield activities of 27.6 percent is certainly greater than the 10 percent increase factored into the commission’s analysis. I will be taking all those matters into account. 
Hon Roger Sowry 
: Is the Minister still seriously considering placing price controls on Auckland airport given that one of its major customers United Airlines has just withdrawn its Los Angeles to Auckland service and that with the prospect of war soon the international aviation market is expecting a 20 percent downturn in business? 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL 
: I have received the Commerce Commission’s report and I am awaiting advice from officials. I will make my decision after that. 
Mark Peck 
: When is the Minister expecting to make a decision on the report? 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL 
: I anticipate receiving a report from officials in the next few weeks. On that basis I would be hopeful of making a decision on whether to recommend control by the end of March. 
Peter Brown 
: Is the Minister aware that these new charges implemented by Wellington Airport will make the cost of landing a Boeing 737 at Wellington twice as much as at Auckland or Christchurch and will she tell us personally whether that is acceptable to her? 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL 
: As I have said the Commerce Commission did identify the fact that Wellington Airport might in fact be increasing its charges during the period within which I would be making my decision. I have said to the member that I will take the matter under advisement. 
Points of OrderQuestion No. 9 to Minister 
Hon PHIL GOFF (Minister of Justice) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. With regard to the question asked by Mr Jones and others the reference is to the report of the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women sessions 24 and 25 in 2001 and the General Assembly records at page 79 paragraph 354. 
Workplaces—Injury Rates 
11.  
HELEN DUNCAN (NZ Labour) 
 to the  
Minister for ACC 
: What recent reports has she received on workplace injury rates? 
Hon RUTH DYSON (Minister for ACC) 
: 
 I recently received an update on the Accident Compensation Corporation’s employer intervention programme which is targeted at workplaces where high injury rates have been reported. I am delighted that for the 6 months to December 2002 the programme achieved injury reductions of between 8 percent and 22 percent compared with the same period in the previous year. That amounts to nearly 900 fewer injuries over a 6-month period. 
Helen Duncan 
: What other measures is the Accident Compensation Corporation taking to reduce workplace injury rates? 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: It is taking a large number but I will just highlight one that I would like to draw to the attention of the House. The safer industries programme is targeting 10 high-risk industries including farming construction and forestry. Under the programme 40000 construction workers have received site safety training. The aim of the programme is to halve the injury rates in those high-injury-risk occupations over the next 10 years. That benefits the workers and their families their employers the economy the health system and our communities. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Given that the most dramatic drop year-on-year in workplace injuries in New Zealand in recent years occurred after the introduction of the competitive model to the provision of workplace accident insurance why did the Government remove the scheme and replace it with a non-incentivised monopoly scheme? 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: I look forward to the day when we can move on from that debate and focus in a united fashion on the goals that I am sure underneath it all we all share—that is to reduce the total cost of workplace injuries in our community. I have just given the House two examples of the incentives in the renationalised accident compensation scheme that directly benefit employers and reduce injuries as well. 
School Attendance—Youth Offenders 
12.  
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (NZ National—Nelson) 
 to the  
Minister of Education 
: Why was only one of the five young offenders convicted on the murder or manslaughter of Michael Choy on Thursday 13 September 2001 enrolled in a mainstream school and attending regularly? 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Associate Minister of Education (Special Education)) 
 on behalf of the 
 Minister of Education 
: Of the five young offenders concerned one was in school and one was not required to be at school as he was over 16. The three remaining offenders were involved with education and other social service agencies in an attempt to address the wide range of issues in those young people’s lives including schooling. They were not in mainstream schools at the time of the offence because they had displayed a range of behavioural problems that despite considerable effort were beyond what a school could be expected to manage. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Having dismissed previous concerns from the Opposition about truancy on the basis of the protocol between the Department of Child Youth and Family Services and the Ministry of Education can the Minister explain why in the year concerned the ministry’s truancy service received notifications of 5350 long-term truants but only made 118—or 2 percent—of those referrals to the Department of Child Youth and Family Services and does that not suggest that his much-vaunted protocol is nothing less than a joke? 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL 
: It is fully accepted that the protocol needs strengthening which is why we are doing just that. 
Dr Ashraf Choudhary 
: What is the key to improving the responsiveness of the education sector to participating in problems among at-risk students? 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL 
: On reading the report into the death of Michael Choy I became aware for the first time that Ministers had collective knowledge about those young people’s lives that none of the individual agencies had in the lead-up to that tragic event. Although nothing could have predicted that homicide one of the solutions lies in accepting that the challenge of keeping at-risk young people engaged in education is a responsibility shared by schools the wider education system families and other agencies. We are working to achieve just that. 
Bernie Ogilvy 
: How does the Minister expect truancy officers to effectively police persistent truants when their funding has not increased for the last 5 years and some truancy services like the one in Patea are paying their staff from community grants in order to maximise the resources the ministry has given them? 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL 
: There is a very good question in there in relation to the two forms of services that we have. We have the Non-enrolment Truancy Service and we have the district truancy services. There are some crossover issues some funding issues and some resource issues. That is why this Government is reviewing the truancy services as a whole. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Noting that Bailey Junior Kurariki was one of 7407 at-risk students enrolled at the Correspondence School when he committed the manslaughter of Michael Choy will the Minister now accept that such enrolments at the Correspondence School of at-risk students are a farce and simply sweep under the carpet thousands of school-age children who are at risk to both themselves and others? 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL 
: It is easy to establish in hindsight that a particular option was not working well for an individual child. The member should note that the number of at-risk students enrolled in the Correspondence School at the end of last year was 100 fewer than in 1999 when he was the Minister. 
Bernie Ogilvy 
: Will the Minister consider increasing the penalties under the Education Act 1989 for the parents of persistent truants given the laughable fines of between $15 and $150 if prosecuted under the current legislation and the fact that parents are often complicit in their children’s behaviour? 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL 
: If the member had read the report into the death of Michael Choy he would know that the parents struggled very hard with children whose behaviours they could not control themselves either. I do not think the solution lies in punishing parents. It lies in working with parents to try to assist them to keep their children engaged in the education system. We know that if we can keep the children engaged the risk of them offending is reduced significantly. 
Questions to Members 
Immigration—English Language 
1. GERRARD ECKHOFF (ACT NZ) 
 on behalf of  
Hon RICHARD PREBBLE (Leader—ACT NZ) 
 to the  
Chairperson of the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee 
: Has a committee meeting been set to consider the petition of Kenneth Wang and others requesting a review of the new English Language immigration tests? 
Hon PETER DUNNE (Chairperson of the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee): 
 No. 
Gerrard Eckhoff 
: Has the committee taken into consideration when setting its time table for hearing that petition that thousands of people are affected by the Government’s sudden change in immigration criteria; if so; how can the committee justify the lack of urgency given to the issue? 
Hon PETER DUNNE 
: The committee has received that petition and at least one other of a similar prayer and will proceed to consider them at the appropriate time given its other priorities. 
Dr Wayne Mapp 
: Will the committee when finally considering that petition allow a full range of evidence including the Prime Minister’s statement to the House last year in which she said: “We’ve also eased the English language testing requirement to make New Zealand a more attractive destination for migrants. The last Government’s position of a stringent English language test had an adverse impact on migration.”? 
Hon PETER DUNNE 
: As I said in my original answer the committee has yet to determine when it will hear that petition. That also means it is yet to determine the shape of such a hearing. I am sure given the spirit in which the committee works that we will come to some acceptable agreement about the range of issues to be considered and the way in which members may participate in that process. 
Imports and Exports (Restrictions) Amendment Bill 
First Reading 
Hon JOHN TAMIHERE (Associate Minister of Commerce) 
: 
 I move  
That the Imports and Exports (Restrictions) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. 
 I will be recommending that the House refer the bill to the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee for its consideration that the committee have the authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting except during questions for oral answer and during any evening in 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 despite Standing Orders 193 and 196(1)(b) and (c) and with an instruction that the committee report back to the House by 8 May 2003. That report back date should allow New Zealand to ratify the Rotterdam and Stockholm conventions before they come into force.  
This bill amends the Import Control Act in order to provide for the making of export control regulations to give effect to the requirements of the Rotterdam Stockholm Basel and Waigani conventions and any other international obligations that bind or become binding on New Zealand. That provides for the restriction on or the prohibition of the exportation of certain chemicals products organisms wastes or other substances that pose a risk to human health or to the environment. Members may wish to refer to reports of the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee that examined both conventions and that reported to the House in February 2002 that there were no matters to bring to the attention of Parliament.  
Importantly members should note that it is expected that there will be no cost to the economy arising from the export controls in the bill. The key measure in the bill mirrors the Import Control Act’s import control mechanism and provides for the Governor-General by Order in Council to make regulations that prohibit the exportation of specified goods. Any prohibition may be general limited absolute or conditional. A conditional prohibition permits exportation of goods subject to the grant of a licence or permit by the Minister or prescribed person.  
The bill also includes provision for export controls to be made to meet the requirements of the Basel convention on the control of transboundary movements of hazardous wastes and their disposal. The Waigani convention is to ban the importation into Forum Island countries of hazardous and radioactive waste and control the transboundary movement and management of hazardous waste within the South Pacific region. Currently export controls to meet New Zealand’s obligations under the Basel and Waigani conventions are in place through in Order in Council under the Customs and Excise Act. Those must be reviewed every 3 years. The bill provides a more durable mechanism to meet the obligations in those conventions and will consolidate the existing export controls with those required to implement the Rotterdam and Stockholm conventions.  
The bill together with certain amendments to the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act will enable New Zealand to ratify the Rotterdam and Stockholm conventions thereby adding value to efforts to protect the health of New Zealanders the quality of our food and demonstrating our commitment to multilateral solutions to global problems. I commend the Imports and Exports (Restrictions) Amendment Bill to the House. 
Dr the Hon LOCKWOOD SMITH (NZ National—Rodney) 
: 
 The National Opposition will be supporting this bill to the select committee because it covers some important issues. The Basel convention and the Rotterdam convention are matters that have been around for some time. The Basel Convention was signed way back in 1992 and the Rotterdam convention in 1998. The Stockholm convention is rather more recent with New Zealand signing it in 2001.  
The issues are important ones and they do need to be dealt with carefully by the select committees that deal with them because there is the potential to get things a bit wrong. It is not simply a matter of ratifying these conventions but of making sure that New Zealand’s law complies with them. One of the first things I would recommend to the Government is to make sure it sends both this bill and the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (Stockholm Convention) Amendment Bill to the same select committee. I do not know whether the Government is planning to do that because I did not hear the Minister who gave the first reading speech on this bill mention that both bills would go to the same committee although he mentioned the amendments to the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act.  
Let me explain why I think that is quite important. The purpose of the Imports and Exports (Restrictions) Amendment Bill is “to enable New Zealand to give better effect to its international obligations to restrict the exportation of certain goods.” So the purpose of the bill we are debating right now relates only to restricting the exportation of certain goods. However clause 6 defines what the international obligations for New Zealand mean. Members should remember that the purpose of the bill is to give effect to those international obligations. If we look at the interpretation of international obligation we see that the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants includes all the documents that are or will become binding in New Zealand. That in this bill is the interpretation of our international obligations. Quite clearly this bill does not give effect to all of our international obligations under the Stockholm convention. I hope the Minister is listening to this because it is quite important. I do not know whether he has even read the bill but if he does read his Government’s bill he will see that the interpretation clause states that the legislation will enable New Zealand to implement the requirements of all the documents that are part of the Stockholm convention. They will become binding on New Zealand. This bill does not do that. The purpose clause does not do that.  
We should go back to the explanatory note of the bill and have a look at what the Stockholm convention is all about because I would not mind betting that most members of this House have never heard of it. I have to confess that I was not aware of it. The Government signed this one back in 2001 and I had to find out exactly what was covered by the Stockholm convention. I was aware of the Rotterdam convention and the Basel convention because they were signed under the last National Government but I was not aware of the Stockholm convention. It is interesting to see that the Stockholm convention is not just about banning trade in certain pollutants. The Stockholm convention also includes requirements on countries that ratify it. It includes requirements on them to control internally the emissions of those pollutants.  
I come back to why this bill and the next bill on the Order Paper should be considered by the same select committee because quite clearly this bill according to its purpose does not enable New Zealand to ratify the Stockholm convention. I make that very clear. This bill would not enable New Zealand to ratify the Stockholm convention. I believe it would enable New Zealand to ratify the Rotterdam convention the Basel convention and probably even the convention around the control of transboundary movement and management of hazardous wastes in the South Pacific region commonly known as the Waigani convention; but the Stockholm convention includes a domestic matter not a trade matter. The Stockholm convention includes controlling the emissions of certain dangerous substances. This bill does not provide any mechanism for New Zealand to do that.  
I think there is a need for the next bill on the Order Paper to receive its first reading. I have not looked at the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (Stockholm Convention) Amendment Bill but I presume that it is the legislation that will in conjunction with the Imports and Exports (Restrictions) Amendment Bill enable New Zealand to meet the requirements of the Stockholm convention. But as it will affect what can happen domestically in New Zealand not just our trade the whole thing becomes much more complex. I believe that both these bills should go to the same select committee and New Zealanders need to have time to have a decent look at them. We need to make sure that what is being slipped through in this legislation which is something most New Zealanders are totally unaware of is something that New Zealanders think makes sense.  
For example with regard to the list of dangerous substances that are covered by the Stockholm convention is New Zealand satisfied that the emissions from those substances should be minimised or constrained in New Zealand? Is there a provision in the Stockholm convention to extend that list? What other substances of economic significance to New Zealand might be incorporated in that Stockholm convention list? If New Zealand ratifies this what other mechanisms are there for New Zealand to satisfy itself that it is not locking itself into minimising emissions of some economically important substance to New Zealand? I think it is fair to say that the 10 substances covered by the Stockholm convention at present are the kinds of things that New Zealand would be pretty happy to minimise the emissions of. They are the kinds of things we have used in New Zealand extensively in the past. I am just trying to see whether I can find a list of them but from memory they include things like dieldren and aldrin which were used in New Zealand quite extensively in my youth and childhood. In fact I have had plenty of dieldren and aldrin sprayed all over me because they are the active ingredients in sheep dip. All I can say is that if they are as evil as this Stockholm convention would have us believe then I am obviously in for a pretty bleak future because I have had a fair bit of contact with them at a pretty young age—and for a number of years what is more. I do not believe it has done me too much harm just yet but one never knows what is around the corner with these things.  
These are serious matters and that is why I think it is in order for a parliamentary select committee to be able to assess whether New Zealand should ratify these conventions especially the Stockholm convention because that is a new one. New Zealanders have had less time to be aware of it. I believe that both these pieces of legislation the Imports and Exports (Restrictions) Amendment Bill and the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (Stockholm Convention) Amendment Bill should go to the same select committee. There should be focus on satisfying New Zealand that the list of substances involved in the Stockholm convention which is not just about trade but about domestic emissions as well is one that New Zealand feels is sensible and that any mechanism for adding to that list is a mechanism that New Zealand is satisfied with. We must make sure that we do not get ourselves bound up in a treaty that we have ratified that may prevent us from using a substance of economic importance to New Zealand.  
This is important legislation. We do support it to the select committee but it needs thorough examination. There will not be many members of this House who are very familiar with the four conventions that this legislation covers. They are important but we need to make sure we satisfy ourselves that there are no fish hooks in any of them. That is National’s position on this important legislation and I trust the House will support its passage to a select committee. 
Debate interrupted. 
Tabling of Documents 
Question No. 3 to Minister 
Hon PAUL SWAIN (Minister of Transport) 
: 
 Further to a commitment made by the Hon Jim Sutton during question time I seek leave to table a document that has information on the Government services trade position. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Imports and Exports (Restrictions) Amendment Bill 
First Reading 
Debate resumed. 
Hon PETER DUNNE (Leader—United Future) 
: 
 I was grateful as I am sure other members were for that little bout of true confessions towards the end of the previous speaker’s speech. It answered a number of questions that we have long pondered about and I was grateful to him for his candour.  
More seriously turning to the bill one of the difficulties we have in looking at this measure is that it is impossible to consider it without considering the next bill on the Order Paper the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (Stockholm Convention) Amendment Bill. It would have been appropriate to have one debate where we could have dealt with the whole range of issues rather than two somewhat staccato and artificial debates where we will go over the same material twice. 
Hon Marian Hobbs 
: But we will in the select committee. I expect so. 
Hon PETER DUNNE 
: That may well be so and I expect it will be the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee that will have the privilege of dealing with both of those bills.  
The other observation I want to make is that there is an irony in this debate occurring at this time. The House was in a flurry yesterday and indeed during question time today about the way in which we consider international treaties and conventions. One might have been tempted to draw the conclusion that apart from anything else going on in the world at the moment this was really one of the most critical issues facing the country. If that is the case I observe the level of interest in this debate where we are doing precisely what various people have been arguing we ought to do as a matter of routine. I say that with no disrespect to the Minister who gave his introductory speech in a moderately perfunctory way about the provisions of the Rotterdam convention the Stockholm convention the Waigani convention the Basel convention and various others in such a sense that implied we all knew intimately every last detail of them and we are pretending that we do.  
What we will do is send those measures to a select committee where they will be considered. There is clearly no objection to them. In fact the select committee has already reported that the Government ought to proceed with the measures. But this is the sort of regime we would get into if we routinely considered every international treaty and agreement that came before the House. We would salve our consciences that we were doing a good and noble job. The people who are listening to this debate who are observing it would simply scratch their heads and ask: “What are they wasting their time on now?”.  
None the less these are important issues and I am not minimising their significance in any way. However they are extremely technical matters that do need careful consideration and that has been given by the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee earlier and also by our officials and representatives overseas in terms of the negotiations that have taken place leading to the finalisation of these agreements. So what we have in the House is the rubber stamp in effect and I say that in the most positive sense. This is the ending of the process rather than the commencement of it in terms of some profound consideration of our international treaty-making responsibilities.  
Having said that issues will be raised by the specific provisions of each of those conventions which two groups will want to have an interest in: firstly the domestic parties that might be affected by the provisions; and secondly there will also be groups that will have an interest in terms of shall I say the legal issues in terms of compliance and other things that may well flow from this in the domestic environment. I am not minimising the relevance of select committee consideration. I am simply making the observation that there is an irony given our high-blown moral integrity about the need for careful consideration of international treaties and the way in which we are giving effect to it by this debate this afternoon. 
Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith 
: We’re changing the law here. 
Hon PETER DUNNE 
: We certainly are changing the law. We are recognising that changes to New Zealand law are required in relation to those international agreements. My point though is somewhat ironic. [ 
Interruption 
] I am sure it would be but then I would not have expected anything different. But given those people who argue that every single agreement and treaty ought to come before Parliament and be ratified in this way I would have thought those same people might be here taking a vigorous part in the debate this afternoon and I observe no more than that.  
The Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee expects to have these bills referred to it. As chair of that committee my intention would be that we would consider them in tandem because the measures do flow one from the other. This bill takes a broad overview in terms of the three or four agreements that are mentioned. The subsequent bill the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (Stockholm Convention) Amendment Bill specifically deals with provisions relating to the Stockholm convention that the earlier speaker referred to. These matters are not controversial. I do not imagine that they will arouse a huge degree of public lather. However there will be matters that people will want to consider as part of them. That will be appropriate and I hope we are able to deal with them relatively quickly and get them back to the House and passed before too long. 
DAIL JONES (NZ First) 
: 
 New Zealand First will support the forwarding of this legislation to the select committee. However I do take the point raised by the previous speaker and I am confident that I will be followed in this debate by Keith Locke who will speak at great length on the international treaties contained in this legislation. He will tell the House how important it is for us to consider all treaties legislation and will take his full 10 minutes to explain each one of those particular conventions which most of us have very little idea of whatsoever.  
However looking at this from an analytical viewpoint we have before us a bill that is 18 pages long. The first 12 pages are an introduction. I am just trying to understand this legislation. The first page tells us nothing and the second and third pages are all interpretation. By the time we get to the fourth page we discover that all the bill does is state that it entitles the Government to do things by way of Order in Council. It does not tell us anything else about what is in the bill. I am trying to find out what it is we are sending to the select committee but this bill does not tell us. All it states is that the Government can do all sorts of things by Order in Council.  
I have a great dislike of things being done by Order in Council. It goes against anyone’s legal training. It goes against anyone’s support for parliamentary democracy that we leave things to be done by some bureaucrat somewhere who puts a piece of paper under a Minister’s nose and says: “This is fine. Nothing controversial here.” The Minister sends it on and then we have a long debate on it in the House when something does go wrong. This bill does not tell us anything and I will not waste the time of the House on it any further. I wish the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee good luck and perhaps when the bill comes back we will all know something more about it. 
CLAYTON COSGROVE (NZ Labour—Waimakariri) 
: 
 Like Mr Dunne I rise with intense enthusiasm. I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in what is necessarily a narrow but technical issue and an important piece of legislation. This bill has been introduced to enable New Zealand to ratify the Rotterdam Convention on the Prior Informed Consent Procedure for Certain Hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides in International Trade. Together with certain amendments to the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act it will also enable the ratification of the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants. New Zealand signed the Rotterdam convention on 11 September 1998. This convention requires information to be exchanged between parties about trade and hazardous chemicals before any trade takes place. Once parties are informed of the potential trade and their attention is drawn to any related health or environmental risks they may consent to importation with or without conditions or not consent to the trade at all.  
The convention currently lists 31 chemicals and pesticides for which all parties must notify import requirements. Its scope extends to controlling exports and notifying an international secretariat of all additional chemicals currently banned or severely restricted at the national level which in New Zealand amounts to approximately 100 substances. I reiterate the point made by my colleague the Hon John Tamihere in whose name the bill sits that the costs to the economy of the measures that arise from export controls are expected to be nil based on the current absence of exports. New Zealand signed the Stockholm convention on 23 May 2001. This convention seeks to protect human health and the environment by banning the production use or trial of certain persistent organic pollutants. These persistent organic pollutants are highly toxic. These pollutants can accumulate— 
Rodney Hide 
: Has there been research about that? 
CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: And when I say that I talk of persistent organic pollutants I must say that I do not refer to the ACT party although the description may well be apt. These pollutants can accumulate in living tissues and pose a threat to the quality of food particularly meat products—in which I know Mr Hide has a high degree of interest.  
Again the costs to the economy are expected to be nil based on current use and trade whereas as for the Rotterdam convention we will need to have the controls in place in case there should be such exports in the future. I commend the Minister’s management of this bill. I acknowledge Mr Dunne’s points about the level of enthusiasm with which the House deals with legislation like this. I look forward to Mr Ardern’s contribution which as always will be highly valued and expert and I commend the bill to the House. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (NZ National—Nelson) 
: 
 I was amused that in the closing comments from Mr Clayton Cosgrove he wanted to congratulate the Minister on the management of this legislation. I refer him to the explanatory note of this bill we are to consider and ask him to read it very carefully. The House should take note. It says that the enactment of this bill will enable New Zealand to ratify the Rotterdam and Stockholm conventions at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in September 2002. By my calculations September 2002 was about a good 6 months ago and the enactment of this legislation will enable the Government to do something 6 months ago. If that is what Mr Clayton Cosgrove says is great management of legislation I say it is a truly Houdini act.  
I do though want to make a serious contribution not because I am an expert on any of those conventions but I have spent a great deal of time both as a Minister and chair of the legislation on hazardous substances on these issues. First I want to say that National welcomes an international approach to the regulatory environment for chemicals. One of the shocks I had in the process of addressing some of these issues was to find out just how many different chemicals are used and pivotal to the New Zealand economy. Under that new hazardous substances and new organisms legislation we already have over 48000 different chemicals registered. The idea that we as a country of 4 million people can have a rigorous system to ensure that they are not a danger to the health and safety of our population is simply not correct. In a global economy we need to take a global approach.  
The second reason we need that sort of global approach is that our air and our sea particularly are truly global resources. If one country does it fine; if others do it poorly then we all pay the price.  
Some of the motivation behind the conventions that we seek to ratify through this Imports and Exports (Restrictions) Amendment Bill is around the concern of dumping dangerous chemicals and ratbag regimes. There have been a large number of tragedies where First World countries with dangerous chemicals and that are keen for cash have sold them off to ratbag regimes and they have been stored and have been a danger to both the populations and to the environment of those countries. So the core value behind this bill and those conventions is to say that we need to have some rules about that. For instance in my own area at Mapua and Nelson we had a large number of chemicals stored and it would have been very easy to put them on a boat and ship them off to some ratbag regime where they would present a danger to someone else’s health. While that might be financially advantageous for New Zealand and for that company it would certainly be to the world’s detriment. That is why we have these sorts of conventions and New Zealand should be part of those.  
I also have a challenge for the Government. Huge compliance costs are associated with the labelling of chemicals. At the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg there was the report on the end of the trial on the international labelling regime. It just makes such common sense when a country is using a particular chemical that the world community—Europe the United States New Zealand Australia and Canada—actually adopt a common labelling regime rather than every single country developing its own rules. There has been a good international standard developed and I urge the Government to adopt that as quickly as possible because it makes good sense.  
There are legitimate issues around these two bills that we are debating this afternoon with regard to compliance costs. That will be one of the issues that National members will be looking to. In meeting those environmental objectives quite properly we will be making sure that as well as taking account of health and safety issues New Zealand companies are taking a responsible approach to the use of such chemicals in a way that minimises the cost for business because that makes sense for our country.  
National will support the introduction of this bill. We will be asking a series of questions at the select committee about its operation. We do have some concerns about the broadness of the export controls that may be required to do it but the principle behind the bill and those conventions is sound. 
JILL PETTIS (NZ Labour—Whanganui) 
: 
 I am pleased to rise in support of this bill as was stated when our Minister introduced the bill just a short while ago. This bill is related to the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act and the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee has also closely examined the Rotterdam and Stockholm conventions. I am pleased that this bill is progressing through the House and I support it. 
RODNEY HIDE (ACT NZ) 
: 
 Once again Jill Pettis has made an erudite and insightful contribution to a debate— 
Jill Pettis 
: At least I win my seat. 
RODNEY HIDE 
: —and I was thanking her for that contribution. I should point out that the ACT party will be voting to send these two bills that work together to the select committee— 
Clayton Cosgrove 
: How many of them? 
RODNEY HIDE 
: Seven of them will be voting today. But I want to pick up on a point that Clayton Cosgrove raised in saying that the Minister the Hon John Tamihere had done such a fine job in managing this bill’s process. My colleague on this side of the House Dr Nick Smith queried that. I think that John Tamihere might have done a great job because here is the point: we are passing this bill so that we can ratify the Rotterdam and Stockholm conventions at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in September 2002. It is now February 2003 and I have to hand it to John Tamihere—if he pulled all that off. So here is my first question for the Minister. Did we sign those conventions in September 2002?  
Hon Paul Swain 
: We ask the questions.  
RODNEY HIDE 
: Well I will ask Jill Pettis. Did the Government sign those conventions in 2002? Did it ratify them? Here is Marian Hobbs to tell us.  
Hon Marian Hobbs 
: I have just come into the House. 
RODNEY HIDE 
: We did not ratify them in 2002 so when are we going to ratify them? 
Hon Marian Hobbs 
: As soon as we have the bill passed.  
RODNEY HIDE 
: Ah! [ 
Interruption 
] No no. This is an important point because when a Minister brings a bill to the House and says: “We have to pass this so we can ratify two conventions in September 2002.” members on this side of the House say: “Say that again?”. We think that that is toying with the House because clearly the reason is wrong. The Minister for the Environment has now explained that the management of Mr Tamihere has not been all that it might have been or all that Mr Clayton Cosgrove has cracked it up to be. [ 
Interruption 
] She did not say that; I am saying that. She said that we failed to ratify the conventions back in September 2002. That was what the Minister said was it not? We failed to ratify them in 2002 because this legislation had not been passed. But Mr Clayton Cosgrove got up there—typical of Labour’s spin—and said that Mr John Tamihere had done a great job. But by their own purpose for this bill he actually failed.  
So now we hear and I am getting the picture now that we are busy passing this legislation because we failed to ratify in September last year. Did anyone hear the Minister explain that in his introductory speech? Here again are the Opposition members doing their job—calling this Government to account. I ask the honourable member John Tamihere whether he read this introduction where it says “the purpose”.  
Hon John Tamihere 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Is the member yielding? 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: No I do not think the member is yielding at all. That is not a point of order.  
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I think it might be helpful and I seek leave for the Minister to give an explanation about the date and timing as set out in the explanatory note. I think it would be helpful for the bill.  
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: The Minister can seek leave on his own behalf if he so wishes; other members cannot do it for him.  
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: I seek leave for the Government to provide an explanation. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: No. I call the honourable member Rodney Hide. 
RODNEY HIDE 
: I appreciate the Speaker pointing out that if the Minister who failed to explain these dates in his introductory speech wanted to explain it to this House he does not need me to yield; all he needs to do is to seek leave and explain it. So when I have finished my speech the Minister can stand up and make this correction. But I do make the point: it is trifling with the House to come down here and say that we have to pass this bill so that we can ratify something that clearly we could not have ratified because the bill was not passed at that time. I ask the Minister whether he had read that before his speech today. There is silence. We know that the reason there is silence is that he had not read it. He had not bothered to read the reason we are passing this jolly bill so that he could explain it to the House. He came along with the stuff that his officials fed to him and expects everyone else to go along with that.  
They clearly wrote that speech before September 2002 expecting that the Minister would have had it done. They are rummaging around there because the Government does not know what bill it is going to pass and they pulled out the speech they had prepared for the Minister. He walked down and gave that speech and it is clearly at least 6 months out of date. I say to the Minister that if he is to succeed he had better get a bit more up to date than that. 
Clayton Cosgrove 
: He’s more successful than you. 
RODNEY HIDE 
: I understand from Mr Cosgrove who also read his speech and was talking about these conventions and all the rest of it— 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Can the member explain it? 
RODNEY HIDE 
: I ask Mr Clayton Cosgrove whether he could explain why the Government is passing the bill now when it was meant to ratify something in September last year. I think the answer is no. Mr Cosgrove is sitting here having been fed the same notes from the officials. He got up and explained this then said a curious thing. He said that it was to stop these toxic chemicals. We do have an issue with organochlorines which this bill deals with because they are persistent in the environment but I ask Mr Clayton Cosgrove why he thinks they are toxic. Why does he think that organochlorines are toxic and what are they toxic to? There is complete silence. That member gets up in the House talks about these chemicals and says that they are toxic and when I ask him what they are toxic to he cannot explain. So now we have already on the first reading of this bill a failure by the Government to make the most obvious points which are all on the first page of the explanatory note.  
I point out to Government members that the concern we have with these chemicals is their persistence in the environment not their toxicity. The Greens understand that. The ACT party understands that. I expect the Government to do a bit better job.  
My final question—and I am so pleased that John Tamihere has indicated a willingness to seek leave to give the explanation he failed to give in his first reading speech—is: given that the Government did not ratify the conventions at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in September 2002 when is it intending to ratify these conventions? 
Bill read a first time. 
Hon JOHN TAMIHERE (Minister for Land Information) 
: 
 I move  
That the Imports and Exports (Restrictions) Amendment Bill be referred to the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee that the committee have the 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 despite Standing Orders 193 196(1)(b) and 196(1)(c) and that the committee be instructed to report back to this House by 8 May 2003 
. referred to the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee 
Motion agreed to. 
Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (Stockholm Convention) Amendment Bill 
First Reading 
Hon MARIAN HOBBS (Minister for the Environment) 
: 
 I move  
That the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (Stockholm Convention) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. 
 At the appropriate time I intend to move that the bill be referred to the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee for consideration with an instruction that the committee report back to the House by 8 May 2003.  
The Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (Stockholm Convention) Amendment Bill together with certain amendments to the Imports and Exports (Restrictions) Amendment Bill will enable New Zealand to ratify the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants. The purpose of the Stockholm convention is to protect human health and the environment from persistent organic pollutant chemicals—or “POPs” as they are commonly referred to; and that is not affectionately. 
New Zealand became a signatory to the Stockholm convention on 23 May 2001. The convention will come into force once the 50th country ratifies. We are very close to having that number of countries ratifying. I think we are up to the late 40s and it is this Government’s intention that New Zealand become a ratified party as soon as practicable. Between 23 May 2001 and today these two conventions—the Stockholm and Rotterdam conventions—were considered by the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee. The committee found that there were significant advantages and no disadvantages to New Zealand ratifying the two conventions. So already we have been through a select committee process that has looked at the conventions. We have weighed up advantages and disadvantages and said: “Let’s go to it.” and having been given that advice from the committee we are now doing the necessary amendments to the legislation in order that we are able to ratify the conventions.  
This bill is necessary because the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act while providing a general framework for compliance with the Stockholm convention’s requirements does not guarantee that prohibitions on the import use and manufacture of persistent organic pollutants will be put in place and maintained as required by the convention. Therefore an amendment to the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act is needed to prohibit as a matter of course the import manufacture and use of the persistent organic pollutant substances listed in the convention. This bill prohibits the manufacture import or use with specific exemptions of the 10 persistent organic pollutant substances currently listed in the Stockholm convention. As the Minister in the previous debate mentioned the 10 chemicals are: aldrin chlordane DDT dieldrin endrin heptachlor hexachlorobenzene mirex toxaphene and polychlorinated biphenyls. Each chemical has the characteristics of being environmentally persistent of being toxic of being bioaccumulative and of being able to be transported by the movement of air water and migratory species to places far from their original point of release. With the exception of small quantities of polychlorinated biphenyls still in use by the electrical sector in New Zealand and subjected to a regulated phase-out timetable New Zealand does not use these toxic and bioaccumulative chemicals and has no need of them.  
New Zealand intends to implement the Stockholm convention fully. The benefits of ratifying the convention and implementing it through this bill include the protection of the health of New Zealanders now and in the future by reducing exposure to persistent organic pollutants; safeguarding the quality of food especially meat and dairy products; strengthening and protecting New Zealand’s clean green image; and addressing persistent organic pollutant chemical stockpiles wastes and contaminated sites—orphan or otherwise. 
 I note that a parallel bill the Imports and Exports (Restrictions) Amendment Bill which gives effect to the export prohibition requirements of the Stockholm convention has been introduced and given a first reading by my colleague the Hon John Tamihere.  
I will now briefly outline the key provisions of the present bill which provides amendments to the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act. As I noted earlier the main purpose of this bill is to provide for the absolute prohibition of the manufacture import or use of persistent organic pollutants in Annex A and Annex B of the Stockholm convention unless specific exemptions have been granted in accordance with that convention. All prohibited chemicals and any exemptions together with the expiry dates are recorded in new schedule 2A of the bill. In fact members will see that the bill is largely made up of annexures and schedules. The only specific exemption granted is for the continued use for a limited time of polychlorinated biphenyls already approved under the Toxic Substances Regulations. 
There are three further more general exemptions provided for in the Stockholm convention that apply to each persistent organic pollutant chemical. The Environmental Risk Management Authority can approve small amounts of a persistent organic pollutant chemical to be imported or manufactured in containment—firstly for use as analytical standards and secondly for research in a laboratory. The third exemption provides for the importation of persistent organic pollutants for the purpose of environmentally sound disposal; and I understand that is if somebody from the Pacific Islands wanted to bring material over to us. This will enable a treatment service to operate in New Zealand and import persistent organic pollutant chemical waste for the purpose of environmentally sound destruction disposal. Where the manufacture import or use of a persistent organic pollutant chemical is prohibited in New Zealand—that is there are no exempted uses recorded in new schedule 2A or an exempted-use has expired—the Environmental Risk Management Authority can issue a direction requiring any amounts of the substance already in New Zealand to be disposed of in an environmentally sound manner.  
Because additional substances may be added to the annexures of the Stockholm convention—this was a point Dr Lockwood Smith was making—the bill contains an Order in Council mechanism enabling persistent organic pollutant chemicals that are added to the convention to be included in new schedule 2A of the hazardous substances legislation. Any exemptions permitted by the convention which New Zealand decides to adopt can also be added. This mechanism also allows the Environmental Risk Management Authority to approve the import and manufacture of a persistent organic pollutant for use during a foreseeable emergency—such as the use of DDT in the event of a malaria outbreak. Any such emergency use must however be approved in accordance with the rules of the Stockholm convention.  
In conclusion the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (Stockholm Convention) Amendment Bill together with certain amendments to the Imports and Exports (Restrictions) Amendment Bill will enable New Zealand to ratify the Stockholm convention. We did want to do this at Johannesburg but because of the weight of legislation going through the House we did not meet our commitments to get the bill through in the legislative timetable. I am quite sad about that. However New Zealand will be able to ratify the convention and be within the first 50 nations to do so. In company with the global community New Zealand will act responsibly. We will commit to eliminate the use of persistent organic pollutant substances to meet other Stockholm convention obligations thereby protecting the health of New Zealanders and strengthening New Zealand’s image. I wish to emphasise that the Stockholm convention enjoys an almost unparalleled level of support among United Nation countries. It is supported by the chemical industry and by the full spectrum of non-governmental organisations concerned with the safe use of chemicals the protection of human health and the environment.  
It is hoped that the passage of this bill and of the Imports and Exports (Restrictions) Amendment Bill will proceed expeditiously through the House so we can ratify the convention. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (NZ National—Nelson) 
: 
 National members will be supporting the referral of this bill to a select committee and we welcome the fact that the two bills that are closely related will both be dealt with by the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee.  
I want to challenge the Minister on a number of issues of process that are quite untidy and sloppy. Again the first is the issue of timing. I think it reasonable to expect that when bills come before this House there is some accuracy associated with them. With both this bill and the previous bill debated by the House we have an oxymoron on the very first page. The second paragraph of this bill states: “The enactment of the Bill (together with certain amendments to the Import Control Act 1988) will enable New Zealand to ratify the Stockholm Convention before or at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in August-September 2002.” That is a nonsense. How can the Minister come to this House 6 months later and say that that is what the Government will do? 
Hon Marian Hobbs 
: Because the bill was sitting waiting and ready to go. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: Well is it not too much to ask— 
David Benson-Pope 
: Sit down and keep it rocking. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: The member for Dunedin South Mr Benson-Pope wants to stand up for the great parliamentary process but tells me not to bother reading it. The fact that the bill is a bloody nonsense—excuse my French—should have no impact at all; we should just forget about it! Frankly I would be being derelict in my duties as a member of Parliament. If the bill presented to the House is a nonsense our duty is to point that out and hold the Government to account. It is not too much to expect that a bill presented before the House makes some logical sense and this one does not. Further than that I wonder whether the member Mr Benson-Pope has read the regulatory impact statement that is provided in the bill. 
David Benson-Pope 
: I have seen the one on Meridian. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: The member does not want to talk about the bill; he wants to talk about everything else. He wants to talk about irrelevancies and he wants to get into personality attacks—as he did yesterday. I asked him to address the bill before the House and I ask him whether he has read the regulatory impact statement. 
David Benson-Pope 
: It is my duty. Don’t waste your time. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: If the member had bothered to do his job and read the regulatory impact statement contained in this bill he would know that it is a nonsense. He would know what the statement was meant to do. As members would well know the whole purpose of regulatory impact statements is to try to ensure that costs of compliance are addressed and are not a total nonsense. The analysis of benefits and costs is grossly deficient and we on this side of the House say it is simply not good enough. If the process of regulatory impact statements is just going to produce that sort of garbage all we are doing is bowling over trees for no good purpose.  
I want to challenge the Minister further on timing because this Minister has a bad habit. Time after time we are seeing timetables slip behind in important environmental areas. Take the Resource Management Amendment Bill which we were promised would be dealt with in October 2001. October 2001 came and went. The Minister responsible for that bill then told us it would be passed in October last year. October 2002 came and went. The reason the Minister has given for the delays on the Resource Management Amendment Bill is that there is no House time. Anybody who knows some of the issues associated with resource management knows that that bill has a far higher priority than this one. I want to know why the Minister would put this bill as her No. 1 legislative priority albeit it—like the Resource Management Amendment Bill—is months and years late.  
This bill and the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants are sound and well-based conventions. I made a point earlier with regard to chemicals in New Zealand that are outdated and need to be disposed of. There are shocking stories of shonky businesses buying up dangerous chemicals taking them out on the high seas and tipping them overboard. Every single New Zealander and every citizen of this globe knows that that sort of conduct is totally irresponsible and that we need conventions like the Stockholm convention to be able to deal to that sort of behaviour and ensure the proper management of such chemicals.  
We have a concern that we want to explore with officials in the select committee and that is the provisions that allow the Cabinet by Order in Council to add to the list of prohibited chemicals provided for in schedule 2. We do not have a difficulty with those that are specifically listed in schedule 2 but if for instance a new chemical—a pesticide or an industrial chemical—is going to be added to the list of prohibited chemicals we need to be careful that there is a proper process around it. There needs to be some consultation and we need to be satisfied that there will be a thorough process around adding those chemicals to the schedule and to this legislation.  
So National members say yes good job but we need to have clear rules around those particularly dangerous chemicals and persistent organic pollutants—because they are toxic and biocumulative and because they are persistent. We think this is a pretty good framework for doing it but we wish to pursue some fine points in the select committee and make sure that we get it right. I challenge the next member of the Government to provide some explanation for the completely illogical statement on page one of the bill. I cannot believe any Minister would want to come to the House with such a statement which given its timing is a nonsense 
PAUL ADAMS (United Future) 
: 
 United Future will be supporting this bill going to the select committee. As we have heard the two bills tie in together. This is really just dealing with the Stockholm Convention aspect of the bill and most things have already been said about it. Our gallant leader the Hon Peter Dunne will chair that committee and so I have no doubt that we will have his normal common sense approach as the committee deals with all the issues.  
DAIL JONES (NZ First) 
: 
 As I read this bill look at the time it has spent on the Order Paper and see just what it will achieve I think we have to be concerned about the way the Government handles its legislative programme. This bill has been on the Order Paper since 21 May 2002 as was the previous bill. We are not taking terribly long in the first reading to move it on to the select committee and one wonders why 20 or 30 minutes were not allocated 10 months ago to move this bill along. If this bill is important it should have been moved on; if it is not important why are we bothering with it? The Government really does not seem to know what it is doing when it comes to legislation before this House.  
I look at some of the aspects set out in the explanatory note. They state that there are “no major disadvantages to the Stockholm convention entering into force for New Zealand.” We read statements such as: “It has been unlawful to use POP pesticides for agricultural or horticultural purposes since the Pesticides Board finally deregistered such uses in 1989.” I speak mainly as a lawyer not a farmer but all I can say is that if these things are illegal now why do we need this bill to do something that is already the case? What is the point of this legislation? Is this Government so short of legislation that we now have to spend time some 10 months later as a fill-in job because the Government has nothing better for this House to do?  
I wonder what the costs will be. The explanatory note states: “No additional costs will be imposed as a consequence of the proposed legislative amendment.” But then it states: “Economic costs to the public sector for controls on import use and export have been estimated as follows: Ministry for the Environment NZ$0.024 million…Secretariat NZ$0.018 million…”. We cannot get away without having some bureaucracy being created by this Government but the note further states: “Costs to the economy of measures aimed at import use and export controls are expected to be $0 based on the current lack of use and trade.” So we are passing legislation for something that seems to be illegal. “Use and trade” are currently lacking but we will spend the House’s time on it and send it to the select committee. If it is that simple a measure why has it taken so long for this Government to bring it before the House? We in New Zealand First do not intend to delay it any more. We look forward to the report of the select committee in due course. 
Hon RUTH DYSON (Minister for ACC) 
: 
 I would like to be so bold as to offer the member who has just resumed his seat a little bit of advice. If his wish is to have a legislative procedure progressed rapidly he can assist that process by sitting down quickly after the beginning of his speech rather than using the full 10 minutes he is entitled to. I certainly intend to follow my own advice on that very point because the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (Stockholm Convention) Amendment Bill should be progressed as rapidly as possible. I support it. 
RODNEY HIDE (ACT NZ) 
: 
 I thank Ruth Dyson for her short contribution. We have to worry: fresh from victories in managing Television New Zealand “boo-boo” turns up with a high-sounding bill—the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (Stockholm Convention) Amendment Bill. This is what the general policy statement says and I ask Paul Swain to reflect on these words: “The enactment of the Bill ... will enable New Zealand to ratify the Stockholm Convention before or at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in August-September 2002.” The Minister is interjecting and getting all excited; I can imagine her concern. The legislative programme failed because obviously the Government could not ratify the convention in August-September 2002—[ 
Interruption 
]  
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member. I refer members to Speaker’s rulings 51/5(3): “a running commentary of interjection is out of order;’’.  
RODNEY HIDE 
: Thank you Mr Speaker but I do not need any protection from Marian Hobbs. In fact I am quite pleased to agitate her and get her to do something.  
The other point I want to make is that in her speech to this great nation that we all inhabit the Prime Minister said we had a very full legislative programme. Yet I remind Dr Nick Smith that here we are in the second week of this Parliament and what do we have? We have a bill before us that should have been passed before August-September 2002. We look down the Order Paper to what this Government has been promising the people of New Zealand in terms of the amendment to the Resource Management Act and we see that it just sits out there. Nothing happens.  
It might upset Marian Hobbs that members of the Opposition want to point out the failure of this Government’s legislative programme its failure to do something positive for the economy and instead its grand gestures—as my colleague Mr Dail Jones has pointed out—that take up Parliament’s time. We will take the opportunities to hold this Government to account—not just for its policies but also for the handling of its legislative programme. 
David Benson-Pope 
: ACT should hold its members to account. 
RODNEY HIDE 
: David Benson-Pope is sitting over there getting excited but why does this Government not give some priority to bringing legislation to this House that will be of benefit to New Zealanders—something that Government members have been talking about over the summer break—rather than legislation that was not important last year? Here we are in the second week back in Parliament after the summer break and this bill is what the Government brings into the House.  
When members of the Government bring legislation to the House they should explain what is going on—both good and bad. They should not rely on the spin that comes out of the ninth floor of the Beehive to explain everything away. The Minister must try to treat this House with the dignity it deserves—that is with an explanation why this bill was not passed last year. The second paragraph on page 1 of the explanatory note states that it was supposed to be passed before August-September 2002—so that Ministers could look good at the World Summit on Sustainable Development. Clearly that time has passed and even the great Helen Clark cannot take us back there yet. 
JEANETTE FITZSIMONS (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 Unlike some other members of the House the Green Party believes that these two bills do deal with serious and important issues and that we ought to be debating the content rather than the trivia. Obviously the Green Party supports these two pieces of legislation which are needed to ratify the Stockholm convention the Rotterdam convention and to enforce the Basel convention and the Waigani convention which New Zealand has already ratified. 
The 10 persistent organic pollutants outlawed by the Stockholm convention are extremely hazardous and extremely persistent. Despite not having been used in pastoral farming since the 1970s DDT still contaminates soil in Canterbury to the extent that it is unacceptable in some of the produce that is grown there. Environmentalists have been agitating for many years for those materials to be outlawed and it is good to see it happen. Of course it will make no immediate difference in practice because they are not currently used. But until there is a law that actually prevents them from being used the convention is not being implemented and cannot be ratified. These two bills provide mechanisms and I want to deal with the two bills together. The House is dealing with them side by side and the select committee is dealing with them side by side so I am not going to confine myself totally to the second of the two bills.  
The bills provide mechanisms to control the movement of hazardous substances as specified by those international conventions but they still allow the export of hazardous and other wastes if approved by the Minister of Customs under certain conditions in accord with the Basel convention. The problem is that the Basel convention itself is an inadequate tool for ensuring the environmentally sound management of wastes which is the supposed objective of the convention because it actually regulates and legitimises trade rather than stopping it. It allows the trans-boundary movement of wastes from industrially developed to industrially less developed nations. Yet the latter countries generally have neither the technical capacity nor the regulatory provisions to ensure environmentally sound management of those wastes.  
The Basel convention was adopted in 1989 although New Zealand did not ratify it until 1994. It was seen as a means of legitimising the waste trade rather than restricting it. As a result many European and developing countries negotiated and passed in 1994 under the convention the Basel ban despite opposition from the USA Canada Australia and international chambers of commerce and industry organisations. That ban prohibited all exports of hazardous waste from OECD countries to non-OECD countries. To come into force of law the Basel ban requires 62 parties to ratify it. As of last month only 35 parties had done so. New Zealand has not ratified the Basel ban but instead we are one of the countries that has supported a study that is actually a vehicle for continuing the questioning of the efficacy and the viability of the ban. New Zealand is actually trying to undermine the ban so that non-OECD countries will continue to be recipients of wastes from the industrially developed world—basically to continue to be our hole in the ground.  
In reply to an oral question last December the Minister stated that some non-OECD countries have perfectly sound disposal facilities. When I further asked what monitoring we do of the hazardous wastes we export the ways they are treated and the environmental and health effects the Hon Pete Hodgson answering on behalf of the Minister for the Environment was not able to say. Let me tell the House what I found when I followed up with some written questions.  
New Zealand exports hazardous wastes to the Philippines as well as to several OECD countries. The receiving facility in the Philippines has been assessed for its capacity to manage the materials in an environmentally sound manner and tracking documents confirm that it has been received there. So that looks very good on the face of it. The Philippines obtains all of its lead for car batteries from recycling imported used lead acid batteries. However the official licence facility contracts most of the work out to unlicensed unregulated backyard and home-kitchen operators which leads to massive exposure of people and the environment to highly toxic lead. Children of battery workers have been tested at five times the blood lead level that is associated with reduced intelligence. Sulphuric acid from batteries is dumped into streams. Backyard smelters do not filter emissions. Soil lead has been measured in the Philippines at 26000 parts per million which compares with 140 parts per million around smelters in Europe. We have moved past the time when such environmentally unsound waste management is acceptable in our own countries and we should be supporting measures to protect non-OECD countries from pressure to be our dumping ground by ratifying the Basel ban.  
Instead New Zealand continues to support only the convention—a legacy from the right-wing extremism of the 1980s and 1990s which legitimised the waste trade. It is time to reassess this position. But once again the World Trade Organization trade rules have caused some concern that if we stopped sending hazardous waste to the Philippines they might succeed with a complaint to the World Trade Organization. The bigger picture is that we should be arguing for a clear rule that international environmental treaties take precedence over trade rules under the World Trade Organization.  
These two bills are a good step forward but I urge the Government to consider the wider issues involved under the Basel convention and to consider seriously ratifying the ban in order to protect the people and the environment of countries like the Philippines from the appalling practices that are happening there at the moment with our wastes. 
LYNNE PILLAY (NZ Labour—Waitakere) 
: 
 This is a good bill. This bill will enable New Zealand to ratify the Stockholm convention. By becoming a party to that convention New Zealand will contribute to global efforts to protect human and animal health and the environment. It is yet another example of this Government holding its head high on the world stage. I commend this bill to the House. 
SHANE ARDERN (NZ National—Taranaki - King Country) 
: 
 I rise in support of the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (Stockholm Convention) Amendment Bill. I recommend that it goes to the select committee for a number of reasons but not for the reason that is obvious and that most have already spoken about—that the Government have the ability to ratify the Stockholm convention by August-September 2003 because clearly that is going to be pretty hard to achieve. I congratulate Clayton Cosgrove on suggesting that I would have some learned comments to make on this because he is absolutely right. Even the Rt Hon Helen Clark will struggle with the spin on being able to get this convention ratified in that time frame.  
I suggest that the underlying reason this bill has suddenly been given urgency by the Government to come up the Order Paper and be in the House today is so the Rt Hon Helen Clark can once again stand on another world stage as a signatory to something that will give her an opportunity to promote herself in a job beyond being the Prime Minister.  
The bill does a few things that I think are essential. Schedule 2 lists hazardous substances that should not be dumped disposed of or used willy-nilly in pastoral New Zealand. The one that particularly sticks out as far as I am concerned is DDT. As someone who has been involved in farming for a long time I understand the reason that DDT was used extensively in the 1940s and 1950s. It was used to control grass grub a highly invasive insect that used to wipe out pastures and drop production in pastoral farming by up to 50 percent at times. But there is an irony in the fact that the Green Party strongly supports this process. It was through the use of gene technology and the development of pasture species able to resist insects like grass grub that we have been able to move away over years from using some of these chemicals that were clearly detrimental and still are. The residues are still there. They are still an issue in the dairy industry because they can be detected in milk and milk products and create problems for our clean green image in terms of exporting our products around the world.  
I come back to the point that in this country we could have either extremists on the right or extremists on the left given that the Green member spoke of extremists on the right and this type of science and technology development would be stopped if we let them have their way. That would have meant that chemicals that are obviously not ideal would continue. As far as I can tell and without a helluva lot of knowledge about them on the surface the Stockholm and Rotterdam conventions seem to be a very well-principled concept. I suspect that most Western nations will sign up to that. But that is the reason this whole process should be subject to a very robust select committee process. I hope the Government resources that select committee with the scientific knowledge it will need to make a decision on this. The chemicals listed in the schedules such as Aldrin and Dieldrin were used extensively in farming in my youth. As far as I know they have had no detrimental effect on me but who knows? There will be members on the other side of the House who will have a different view of that I am sure. I would not be sure that some of those members have been on something much more toxic than these chemicals. But I can be sure that the use of those chemicals over the years has reduced substantially because of technological advances. That is a good thing and long may it continue. The clean green image that we have in terms of our trade is an absolute essential.  
The other issue that has been raised in this bill in the commentary and in the research notes and so forth that I have that go with the bill is having consistency of labelling around the world. Different chemicals can have a different name in a different place. Nobody actually knows what is being talked about unless there is some consistency. I congratulate any moves that the Government may be taking in that regard but I do have some concerns that cost may be loaded on to the end-users of these substances. There will be reasons that some of these substances should be used—that is medical reasons and a whole range of other reasons. I ask the select committee to make sure that it gives fair time—and that the Government gives the select committee the opportunity to have fair time—to exploring some of those issues and making sure we do not have preservation at all costs and with no regard for business.  
The final point I would like to make and this is very significant relates to introducing a convention that bans the exporting or manufacturing of a listed number of substances and the connection between that and biosecurity. The fact is that there is an overlap in these things. We will intercept this at our borders through customs through our biosecurity checks and through the personnel in the various departments that are involved and detect these substances if they are coming in. If somebody wants to import them illegally then that is how it will be found.  
I hope that the Government recognises the importance of this particular interest in biosecurity because up until this point in time there certainly has not been a great deal of evidence of it. We have breaches of our biosecurity all over the show and it is not only by people who are illegally importing stuff. I have heard that as much as 800 tonne of raw meat products were intercepted. It is good that we intercepted that amount. But how much did we actually not catch at the borders? One has to wonder how much of this type of foreign substance—if that is what we want to describe it as—could be imported into this country undetected in a range of ways. I suggest to this Government that it should give some real teeth to biosecurity on a range of issues but in particular to hazardous substances as this is the bill we are discussing today.  
I suggest to biosecurity Ministers—there have been a number of them in this portfolio already—that they go back and have a look at all the options there are for people to import hazardous substances along with other types of biosecurity breach and have a thorough investigation as to what might be done there. We are talking about an insurance policy here. In my view the security of biosecurity is more important than any other type of security and it needs to be given the attention it deserves. I do not believe it is getting it at the moment. I certainly do not believe that the Minister—the Minister for Trade Negotiations the Minister for Rural Affairs the Minister of Agriculture and the “Minister of This That and Everything Else’—can honestly give the time necessary for all these important portfolios. I know that the Minister is fairly earnest in his work but he is not a miracle worker and he will not be able to do it. This Government needs to give the resources to those different areas.  
When we look at the reasons the Government has decided that the legislation dealing with the prohibition of import manufacture or use of persistent organic pollutants is so important—other than the fact that it is now about 6 months past the time by which the Government was to ratify the Stockholm convention—one really struggles to find what the potential major breach was that brought this legislation to the House today for the debate that it is getting at the moment. The only conclusion I can come to is that it will give the Rt Hon Helen Clark an opportunity to travel overseas once more stand on the world stage present her credentials to the world in terms of a potential future job once she finishes as the Prime Minister of New Zealand in a very short time and take up some grand role where she can tour around and drink lattes. 
DAVID BENSON-POPE (NZ Labour—Dunedin South) 
: 
 I am pleased to rise in support of this legislation. In terms of the timing the sooner the two matters are sent to the select committee the sooner we will be able to make the ratifications necessary. 
JOHN CARTER (NZ National—Northland) 
: 
 I want to take a call on this bill because there are three important issues that I have picked up on. 
Rodney Hide 
: What does your mother think? 
JOHN CARTER 
: I am sure my mother would be distressed if she could read some of these things. [ 
Interruption 
] I will explain very shortly. My mother is well read and she worries about those sorts of things. I will tell the House of the three things that are of concern not only to my mother but indeed to a whole number of New Zealanders.  
The first thing that Parliament will want to consider is on page 2 of the explanatory note of the bill. In the paragraph headed “Stockholm Convention” we find that parties are required to provide financial contributions. I carried on reading the bill and I thought that I would find a clause that told Parliament what specifically that meant. If we are under an agreement—a world agreement—signed in Stockholm one assumes seeing as it is called the Stockholm convention— 
Rodney Hide 
: It’s a worldwide tax. 
JOHN CARTER 
: What does that mean for New Zealand taxpayers? I would have thought that we would have heard an explanation of that because we know in this country that although the Government’s coffers are going to be quite full this year—[ 
Interruption 
] No quite full. 
Richard Worth 
: They’re going to be plump. 
JOHN CARTER 
: That is right. Indeed it is estimated that the Minister’s expectations will be fulfilled and more. The worry is that in the next year or two the slump in world commodity prices the droughts that we are experiencing the energy crisis the possible loss of the America’s Cup and the possibility of a war in Iraq will impact on the Government’s income. I ask the Government this: if those things come upon us in the next year or two or three what does that mean with regard to the providing of financial contributions as the parties are required to do?  
Rodney Hide 
: Does “Boo Boo” know? 
JOHN CARTER 
: I cannot answer that question. I am not sure whether anyone in the House can. The Minister may well be able to. I would have seriously thought that the Minister would want to give quite an explanation about that aspect. Given that that explanation has not been made I thought it was my responsibility to bring that to the attention of the House. I expect that the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee will want to pay a whole lot of attention to that issue of providing financial contributions. That is point No. 1.  
The second thing I want to draw to the House’s attention is also in the paragraph headed “Stockholm Convention’’ in the explanatory note of the bill. Are members listening? It states: “10 POPs”. When I read that I wondered why the Minister did not explain to us what “10 POPs” means. I thought it was quite extraordinary. I have seen all sorts of terminology and hieroglyphics used in this Parliament but—[ 
Interruption 
] Yes I do know what “10 POPs” means but we need to make sure that the public knows. 
Rodney Hide 
: I don’t know. 
JOHN CARTER 
: See? There is the problem. Here we have a member of Parliament who is listening to the debate and does not know what “10 POPs” means. Was it explained what “10 POPs” means? 
Rodney Hide 
: No. 
JOHN CARTER 
: Does it mean the hit parade? Does it mean a convention of grandfathers? It worried me when I read it. Then I read the first paragraph of the explanatory note which mentions “Persistent Organic Pollutants” and I thought that maybe it did mean a convention of grandfathers! I looked through this bill for an explanation and I could not find one. What is more I wondered why we ended up with 10. What is so significant about 10 POPs? Why can it not be 12 POPs? [ 
Interruption 
] My very good colleague Richard Worth has just pointed out that although there are 10 POPs in the explanatory note there are only nine in the schedule. 
Richard Worth 
: A POP has been added.  
JOHN CARTER 
: No it has not; a POP has been lost. We have lost a grandfather! I ask the Minister to explain to the House why there are 10 POPs in one part but only nine in another. 
Shane Ardern 
: 10. 
JOHN CARTER 
: Oh is it 10? Well it was a good point while I was making it. We have just had a recount and found out that there are 10. My final point is something that does worry me—on all sorts of legislation particularly legislation relating to this Government. The explanatory note states: “The Bill contains an Order in Council mechanism”. One of the things this Government said when it came to power was that it would be open and accountable. 
Rodney Hide 
: The member didn’t believe it though did he? 
JOHN CARTER 
: Well one is always hopeful that a Government means what it says. Here is a Government that stands on the world stage and on stages around the country and says that it is open and accountable. What is it about to do? It is going to do things by Order in Council—which has become an absolute habit with this Government—which is merely a sneaky way for Cabinet to pass laws without telling the public. It gives more power to a small select group of people selected by the Prime Minister which then carries out her every wish and requirement. Did the public get an opportunity to have a say? Not on your nelly! That whole issue of Orders in Council really worries me. I accept that there are occasions when it is sensible to have an Order in Council mechanism for urgent reasons or emergencies but it has been done far too often. I urge the select committee to take that point on board and study it deeply to make sure that there is a necessity for that Order in Council mechanism.  
I refer to the wider issues of the bill. My very good friend and colleague Shane Ardern made a very good address with regard to the whole issue of biosecurity and we must make certain that the legislation fits in with the whole issue of biosecurity. Shane Ardern has already made that point. He is not sure whether this legislation does dovetail neatly into the current situation. He is uncertain as to whether this is going to be of assistance to our rural sector. 
Shane Ardern 
: The backbone of New Zealand. 
JOHN CARTER 
: Yes the backbone of New Zealand; the people who keep this country going. If there is anyone who knows about these issues it is Shane Ardern and if he is questioning this then it really really worries me. Shane Ardern knows more about issues like biosecurity than Phil Goff has ever heard about. 
Shane Ardern 
: That’s right. He doesn’t know what it means. 
JOHN CARTER 
: That is the problem. We have a Government that is uncertain but here we have a member who knows about it lives in the community works in the community and understands these issues and he is raising questions about it. I have to say that members on this side of the House will be perturbed. If Shane Ardern is perturbed about it we will be perturbed. Absolutely so! 
Rodney Hide 
: If the National Party is perturbed the country will be perturbed. 
JOHN CARTER 
: There we are. If the National Party is perturbed the country will be perturbed. We should be concerned about this bill. There is a lot of work for the select committee. I hope it is able to spend enough time on this bill because it is an important piece of legislation. It is not one of those sorts of bills that members can get up and speak on for 10 minutes not knowing what they are talking about. It is an absolutely important piece of legislation that this Parliament should take seriously. I hope that others can make a contribution of the quality of the one that has just been made. 
JILL PETTIS (NZ Labour—Whanganui) 
: 
 In the light of the speech made by the member who has just resumed his seat I say that I support the bill. 
Bill read a first time. 
Hon MARIAN HOBBS (Minister for the Environment) 
: 
 I move  
That the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (Stockholm Convention) Amendment Bill be referred to the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee and that the committee be instructed to report back to this House by 8 May 2003 
. referred to the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee 
JOHN CARTER (Senior Whip—NZ National) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. Just so the House understands it is because the bill is being reported back early that we are objecting and intend to vote against this motion.  
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the motion be agreed to. 
Ayes 74 
Labour 52; ACT New Zealand 7; Green Party 7; United Future 8. 
Noes 36 
New Zealand National 23; New Zealand First 13. 
Motion agreed to. 
Hon MARIAN HOBBS (Minister for the Environment) 
: 
 I seek the leave of the House for the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee to have the authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting except during oral questions and during any evening on a day in 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 despite Standing Orders 193 and 196(1)(b) and (c). This is in order to be consistent with the previous bill which we want considered at the same time. 
Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought. Is there any objection? There is objection. 
Independent Police Complaints Authority Amendment Bill 
First Reading 
Hon PHIL GOFF (Minister of Justice) 
: 
 I move  
That the Independent Police Complaints Authority Amendment Bill be now read a first time. 
 The bill amends the Police Complaints Authority Act in order to enhance the independence of the Police Complaints Authority. The bill arises from the review of the Police Complaints Authority conducted by the Hon Sir Rodney Gallen at my request. Sir Rodney released his report entitled  
Review of the Police Complaints Authority 
 in October 2000. A perception of and a concern about a lack of independence of the Police Complaints Authority were at the heart of the review.  
I want to emphasise that the decision to review and amend the Act does not reflect overall dissatisfaction with the Police Complaints Authority’s track record. During its 14 years in existence the Police Complaints Authority has done a lot to promote public confidence in police accountability. The overwhelming majority of complaints to the authority have been shown to have been dealt with thoroughly and fairly. The reforms are intended to address the public concern that police investigation of complaints of a serious nature against themselves such as a police shooting is neither independent nor appropriate. It is critical that when serious complaints are made against the police there is no doubt as to the impartiality of the investigations and findings of the Police Complaints Authority.  
The major decision arising out of Sir Rodney’s review is to provide the Police Complaints Authority with an enhanced investigative capacity of its own independent of the police. While the authority already has a statutory authority to conduct its own investigations it lacks the resources to do so. The Independent Police Complaints Authority will be resourced to allow it to investigate itself the most serious complaints against the police rather than reviewing police investigations of their own members. An investigative team of up to six is being established consisting of a team leader investigators and a support person. Last year’s Budget provided $307000 in new money to help establish that team with a further $385000 in additional funding to be provided from the 2003-04 year onwards.  
Sir Rodney noted in his report that the name of the Police Complaints Authority has given rise to misunderstandings about its independence. The fact that investigations of complaints against the police are currently carried out by the police has reinforced that misunderstanding. Renaming the authority the Independent Police Complaints Authority will emphasise its independence while clearly stating the role of the new authority.  
Currently the Police Complaints Authority is a single person appointed by the Governor-General on the recommendation of the House of Representatives. The bill provides for the membership of the Independent Police Complaints Authority to increase to three persons. The chair will be a current or retired judge and will be supported by two other members. Expansion of the authority’s membership will allow representation from the wider community and will thus assist in engendering confidence about its independence. As is the case with the Police Complaints Authority at present all three members of the Independent Police Complaints Authority will be appointed by the Governor-General on the recommendation of this House.  
The bill is divided into three parts. Part 1 changes the name of the Police Complaints Authority Act to the Independent Police Complaints Authority Act. It also specifies that the bill is to come into force on a date to be appointed by the Governor-General by Order in Council.  
Part 2 sets out amendments to the Police Complaints Authority Act. In addition to the two changes referred to above this part inserts provisions to provide for a number of matters relating to administration and to the appointment of members of the authority. Those provisions are consistent with the Government’s Crown entity reforms. There are also amendments relating to the procedure of the authority—for example powers under the Commissions of Inquiry Act are conferred on the authority for the purposes of holding a hearing. In addition provision is made for the disclosure of exculpatory information held by the Independent Police Complaints Authority in limited circumstances to ensure that a person charged with an offence punishable by imprisonment receives a fair trial.  
Part 2 also sets out transitional provisions to facilitate a smooth interface between the old Police Complaints Authority and the new Independent Police Complaints Authority. In particular it provides that when the bill comes into force the existing Police Complaints Authority will become the chairperson of the new Independent Police Complaints Authority. All other employees and officers of the existing authority will be transferred to the Independent Police Complaints Authority.  
Part 3 sets out consequential amendments and repeals required as a result of this bill. All of those amendments are minor and non-controversial.  
In conclusion the objective of this bill is to enhance the independence of the Independent Police Complaints Authority. It is vital that there is full public confidence in the integrity of the investigations of the Police Complaints Authority. This legislation will assist in achieving that. I intend to move that this bill be referred to the Law and Order Committee for consideration. 
RICHARD WORTH (NZ National—Epsom) 
: 
 As the spokesperson on justice for the National Party I tell members that National welcomes this bill and will speed its passage. It is obviously critical to the maintenance of an effective legal system that the police are competent are accountable for their actions and enjoy public confidence. That could be put in a line by saying that the fount of justice must not be sullied. I join with the comments made by the Minister in welcoming this bill. In respect of the bill I seek to make just three points.  
The first point is that it was a major decision arising out of the review to which the Minister has referred that the Police Complaints Authority should have an enhanced investigative capacity of its own independent of the police. For a few moments I just want to explore the case in support of that proposition. It is clear to me and to members of the National Party that it is time now for the authority to have such a capacity. Similar conclusions have been arrived at in England and in Australia and the literature makes it clear that such a conclusion has eventually been arrived at in just about every other jurisdiction where an authority of this kind has been set up. While it may seem to favour the concern of the complainant for independence there are also advantages for the police in the adopting of an independent investigative procedure. The police would no longer be subject to the same criticisms but more importantly they would be less likely to be affected by doubtful complaints brought by persons who are the subject of criminal proceedings for ulterior motives. They would also be relieved of that very uncomfortable obligation of investigating their colleagues.  
In New South Wales the audit report on the investigation of police complaints noted the importance of the recognition of links and patterns that identified serious shortcomings. I believe that the authority being independent and involved solely in matters of this kind is in the best possible position to identify such links or patterns and that is a strong argument for the authority to be involved in direct investigation itself. In addition there is a protection for so-called whistle-blowers. If members of the police were aware of undesirable practices occurring it would be difficult to deal with those through the ordinary police channels of authority. It would be much simpler to ensure that the necessary material was available to the authority which would be in a position to take any necessary action.  
There is also the question of police morale. It is obvious that if the authority is seen as being an unsympathetic and a constant critic of the police that will have an effect on morale. But if on the other hand the authority is able to build up the confidence of the police—and they have that confidence at present—there should be no effect on morale. I would hope rather those members of the police who include the vast majority of persons in the service can feel confident that if there are undesirable activities occurring they will be dealt with and the standards of the service maintained.  
Concerns have been expressed in the past on behalf of both complainants and the police of delays in completing investigations. I think it has been acknowledged that such delays would generally seem to have been the responsibility of the investigating police officers rather than the authority. No doubt in some cases at least delays have occurred because the authority investigation was seen as having less immediate urgency than other work on which an officer was engaged. I argue that it would clearly be advantageous to both the police and complainants if that kind of delay could be avoided and on the whole it seems more likely to be avoided if the authority has in appropriate cases an investigative capacity. This will clearly be a significant issue for the Law and Order Committee to whom this bill is to be referred. That is the first issue that I would like to deal with.  
The second point is to invite Government members to consider an extension of this bill. I believe this new Police Complaints Authority could be expanded. In offering that view to members I wish to acknowledge the work that the Hon. Tony Ryall as a former Minister of Justice has done in that area. I support the innovative views that he has offered to me which I now offer to Parliament. He says—wisely in my view—that the Independent Police Complaints Authority could be expanded to deal with prison inmates’ complaints. The same arguments about the police investigating themselves apply equally to Department of Corrections staff investigating complaints against prison officers. Obviously there would be financial savings and other efficiencies in such an amalgamation. As we begin the debate this afternoon on this bill to establish the Independent Police Complaints Authority I believe we should be looking at the possibilities of extending the jurisdiction of that authority.  
The situation with the Department of Corrections is broadly this. Currently inmates’ complaints of mistreatment breaches of rights and illegality are dealt with by a five-person inspectorate in the Department of Corrections and a three-person team in the Office of the Ombudsmen. Last year the inspectorate—and I am talking about issues of complaint in the Department of Corrections—dealt with 2000 formal complaints and the Office of the Ombudsmen apparently dealt with a similar number. Very few complaints are upheld. Mr Ryall believes and I support his view that the investigative skills and processes of investigating police and inmates’ complaints are quite consistent. I hope that issue will be looked at by the Government and certainly by the Law and Order Committee to which submissions on the bill would be addressed.  
The third issue I would like to deal with concerns some of the machinery aspects in the bill. I do not know whether it is appropriate that this authority be entitled the “Independent Police Complaints Authority”. The Police Complaints Authority has always been independent—the police would accept that and so would the public. This change may just be another instance of the political correctness that so characterises every foot fault of this present Government. But it seems important for those politically correct reasons for this politically correct Government to change the name of the Police Complaints Authority to the Independent Police Complaints Authority. National has no quarrel with the proposal to increase the authority’s membership to three persons but we do have a concern given the revamped jurisdiction and the additional powers that are to be given to the authority that the authority is properly resourced. It would be a tragedy if the Government for ideological reasons made a decision to starve this particular authority of sufficient resources to do its work and transferred the funding that should be available to it to other more questionable enterprises of which there are many.  
Finally I refer to the specific clauses dealing with particular issues. I note that there are three parts to the bill and that the legislation deals not only with issues of substance relating to the Independent Police Complaints Authority but also with a number of machinery issues. So questions of salaries and allowances staffing personnel policy and superannuation or retiring allowances are dealt with.  
It would not be fair to say that this change is long overdue. But it is right to pay tribute to the Hon Sir Rodney Gallen who in his review of the Police Complaints Authority has identified many of the issues that have been carried forward into this legislation. National supports the bill; we will speed its passage. We would like the Government to consider the proposal to expand the Independent Police Complaints Authority’s role in the way that I have described. 
MARC ALEXANDER (United Future) 
: 
 United Future welcomes the initiative shown by the Government in requesting a review of the Police Complaints Authority. We commend the swift move to review the authority and we are also encouraged that the recommendations of the review have produced this amendment bill. Rather than getting into the minutiae of the detail of the bill we recognise that much of the written material will of course change during the course of the select committee process on the bill so there is little advantage in going through it line by line like that previous speaker.  
The review of the Police Complaints Authority was conducted by a former judge the Hon Sir Rodney Gallen. He was right to point out that in order to ensure that the Police Complaints Authority operates effectively to investigate and resolve complaints and incidents concerning the police it should be given greater independence. The problem is—and this is part and parcel of the point that this legislation is trying to address—that instances like the Waitara shooting on 30 April 2000 certainly added some urgency to reviewing the Police Complaints Authority after the police investigation found the officer had acted in self-defence. Then a civil case was initiated against Constable Abbott thereafter taking him out of his work for 2 years although that case was essentially baseless. I think this legislation might address some of the problems like that hopefully.  
The United Future party believes that the Police Complaints Authority needs to have respect in the community and part of that can be achieved by giving the authority a greater sense of independence. It needs to be seen to act independently of the police and the public needs to be assured that any decisions that are made are made independently and without bias. It is important that all enforcement agencies are accountable that the rhetoric of “who polices the police” is simply that—rhetoric—and that police procedures are transparent and accountable through agencies such as the Independent Police Complaints Authority.  
The bill makes major changes to the authority. It will have an enhanced independent investigative capacity and a new structure. Its title is to change—not that that really matters very much. The authority will ensure that no person in New Zealand is above the law and will give the public confidence that an investigation is both thorough and professional. There are however cautionary flags that we would like to wave at this stage. In the review Sir Rodney Gallen proposed that a layperson and a Maori representative should be the other two members of the authority apart from its chair. This bill proposes that appointments to the authority will be in consultation with the Ministers of Maori Affairs Women’s Affairs and Pacific Island Affairs. We believe that the best persons should be appointed to the positions irrespective of where they come from and taking into account their understanding of cultural issues—as we all must—and societal issues. We do not support appointments based on tokenism. United Future recognises the tension associated with investigating the police. It is part and parcel of that cultural aspect. We support the authority being independent and believe that the investigating team members need to have knowledge of police procedure and that their appointments should not be just be token gestures to minority groups.  
In this bill the Independent Police Complaints Authority will remain a Crown entity. There will be no Ombudsman involved. We would like to discuss further the merits of the authority being a Crown entity—as opposed to having the status of an Officer of Parliament—funded under Vote Justice in order to remain independent of the police. If it remains a Crown entity United Future will advocate that an audit takes place within 3 years including a review of public and police confidence in the new authority and of course of the rate of success of the resolution processes. We support the secrecy and privacy provisions that have been retained in this bill although there needs to be some discretion in those matters because sometimes the interests of one outweigh the interests of another. We will be looking to discussing those aspects of the bill in the select committee.  
United Future supports this bill going to the select committee. We support a bill that addresses the public concerns for accountability and transparency. We want the best complaints processes for police officers and the public—ones that are not onerous and that justify faith in the authority from both the public and the police. We need to support the police in their increasingly demanding role and the last thing we want to do is to undermine their self-confidence in doing the job they have been given. Public safety and confidence in the police therefore need to be promoted. We look forward to the submissions on and further discussion of this bill. We will support it. 
BRIAN CONNELL (NZ National—Rakaia) 
: 
 I am delighted to take a call on this bill because like many New Zealanders I believe that it is an issue of State importance and I feel very strongly about it. We live in a country that is especially fortunate in that we have many things denied to a majority of nations in the world. We have clean water education freedom to vote freedom of speech freedom of association and so forth. I also believe that most New Zealanders would agree that one of our greatest assets is that we are well served by a strong and well-disciplined police force. Unlike some other police forces ours does not meddle in politics or brutalise its citizens. The police do a difficult job and generally they do it well despite their constant battles with top-heavy administration resource shortfalls and lack of staff. That shortfall in staff is nowhere more starkly manifested than in our police’s inability to control violent and out-of-control crime in Auckland.  
One thing we must remember though is that our police force is not perfect. We have all heard stories and allegations of police misbehaviour and ineptitude. Some are related to individual cases such as the Bain trial the Tamihere trial the Bouwer affair and of course some members in the House might remember the Arthur Allan Thomas trial. Others were larger in their scope such as the allegation that the police removed their identifying numbers just before they baton-charged students at a sit-in protest at Otago University in the early 1990s.  
On the whole people overwhelmingly respect our police force for the work that it does but given cases like those is it any wonder that people doubt that the police always act in accordance with the standards we set them. Everyone hears rumours and urban legends about a range of suspicious behaviours by the police. Typical examples would be of evidence being conveniently discovered under unlikely circumstances or of hardened criminals who suddenly start to sing like songbirds to secret police witnesses and who by the way subsequently get significant reductions in their sentences.  
Whether or not those stories are true does not matter here today. The fact is though that we have all heard them. No one who relays them believes that the police will be brought to account for their actions in those cases by an authority that is perceived to be a part of the old boy network. The need for an independent authority to rule on complaints against the police is as needed here as it is needed in the legal and medical professions. No one takes a body seriously if it is not seen as being independent and impartial and worse if it makes allegations against the police seem more believable because a clean verdict from the Police Complaints Authority means nothing and no one expects a guilty one.  
Under the current system there is no credibility whatsoever when complaints are investigated only by serving police officers and when the entire conduct of the inquiry is kept secret. Even the reports of their own investigations are normally not made public so how can they possibly ever show the public that they are actually doing the job rather than whitewashing the actions of fellow officers? Take the case of the Waitara shooting for example. Constable Abbott and his family went through hell on earth over the killing of Steven Wallace. The taking of a human life is always a serious matter but that poor officer endured close to 3 years of agony. His story might have been different if the Police Complaints Authority had had credibility. The public needs to know that there is more to it than a rubber stamp; otherwise the reaction will always be: “Oh well of course they cleared him.” As a result of the authority’s status as a spineless body in the public’s view the exoneration of Constable Abbott was worth essentially less than a Labour campaign promise.  
That is why I was gladdened to see this legislation. As I perused the bill it became clear that here was an intelligent sensible remedy to problems that have been increasingly evident for some years. It is a vital step to rebuilding the image of the police within our communities. All in all I was delighted with the common sense displayed in it. Then I got to the section about how the authority should be constituted and for me it all came crashing down—not I hasten to add from any fault in the legislation but in the clear knowledge of how the Labour Government would apply it. According to section 4A which clause 6 inserts into the principal Act the authority will consist of three members appointed by the Governor-General on the recommendation of the House of Representatives. That sounds eminently sensible and reasonable until we consider the recommendations in Sir Rodney Gallen’s review of the Police Complaints Authority in 2002 in which he proposed that the authority should consist of three persons; that the chairperson ought to be a person who holds or has held judicial office; that there should be a Maori member which recognises the significance of the Treaty of Waitangi; and that there should be a layperson who represents the community generally.  
I predict that when it comes to the time to appoint the representatives of this authority Labour will once again crawl back to its cringing worship mentality of political correctness. As surely as a dog returns to vomit Labour members will be unable to resist the delight of appointing someone because of his or her supposed knowledge of the treaty but who in reality will probably be a person whose chief credential has been to insult a vast number of New Zealanders who do not spend their entire lives apologising for events that are over 160 years old or who do not worship all things Maori with blind fanaticism. Once again we will find Labour seeking out the loudest mouth with the fewest credentials as it has done before. After all that is how Labour got its front bench. That is what it will do because that is what it always does. Any reasonable person would say yes to the appointment of a judge and yes to the appointment of members of a community and he or she would probably suggest that a third member should be a retired police officer. Yet it does not seem likely that that will happen given Labour’s track record of pandering to the politically correct clauses of treaty arranging.  
In my view an independent properly constituted Police Complaints Authority would ease the work of the police. Currently there is a perception that police complaints are not always given the treatment they deserve. It is easy to understand that people do not have faith in the ability of an authority to be impartial when it is constituted and run by the very people it scrutinises in cases where allegations of wrongdoing may exist. I do not believe that we have serious ongoing problems within our police force. Yet as the saying goes “Caesar’s wife must be above suspicion.” I put it to members of this House that that must be the case with our police force. 
JILL PETTIS (NZ Labour—Whanganui) 
: 
 I am pleased to rise in support of this bill. 
STEPHEN FRANKS (ACT NZ) 
: 
 What a stunning speech in support of this bill from the Labour Party. I am pleased to rise in support of this bill and I have already doubled the time that the previous Labour speaker decided to devote to its first reading.  
This bill is important. It is important because of the concerns that people have about the Police Complaints Authority whether or not justified as any member who has spent any time in this House will already know. We have all come across constituents who sooner or later establish that their concerns are genuine and then say that they are not prepared to go to the Police Complaints Authority because they do not believe it is independent. It is a very long-held concern. The Police Complaints Authority itself has been well aware of this concern and has strived to overcome it to no effect. Although I could say that this bill is primarily a smokescreen and I think that a careful look at the provisions will speak for themselves there is nothing being done here that could not have been done by simply giving the Police Complaints Authority enough money to hire people to make independent investigations so they do not have to rely on the supply of internal investigators.  
Although there is nothing substantially different it is perhaps important to rebrand the operation. The rebranding of course to call the authority “independent” is the most significant part although I am quite satisfied that the eminent people who have filled the role of Police Complaints Authority for so many years have regarded themselves as independent. But the serious doubts about our legal system do need a response and ACT will support this bill to the Law and Order Committee because of the requirement for that response.  
There are fears that convictions have been secured with manufactured evidence. The previous National Party speaker mentioned the concern about secret witnesses—those hardened criminals who suddenly start singing to their cell mates in prison and the cell mates then go to court. There are concerns whether or not they are justified in almost every high-profile case that we now have. We have the group who are lobbying for David Bain a group on the Christchurch crèche case and even a group on the Sounds murderer. It seems now that there has been enough fire where there is smoke or enough to satisfy many New Zealanders that they can no longer trust the prosecution and through that implicitly the police and that is a grave shame.  
As I said we could simply have dealt with that if it had been nipped in the bud quite a lot earlier by ensuring that the authority was able to hire people overtly from outside the police for investigations and to carry through the investigations in good time without having to be so obviously dependent on the police.  
But the real strength that keeps any uniformed force healthy productive and trusted is internal discipline. I am concerned that this community will be offered the Independent Police Complaints Authority Amendment Bill as a panacea to problems that it does not touch. Vigorous internal discipline comes in a uniformed force when its members are proud but of course they can be proud thugs so that is not enough; when they know exactly what their priorities are but of course it is not enough just to know them they have to be the right priorities; when they know that the rules mean something and the constraints are applied; and when they feel that they have a reputation to uphold and they want to hold up their heads not only among their peers which can easily be a gang member uniting against outsiders but also hold up their heads with their families and with the people they went to school with and in this little community that should be something we can sustain.  
Uniformed forces are especially vulnerable to a corruption of culture to morale leadership problems and to the failure of having clear objectives. I say to the House that the circumstances and fears that have prompted this bill should be a big warning to us. The fact is that so many New Zealanders are now concerned—and I am concerned—about a lack of commitment by senior police to the values that they need to uphold. I sat on the Justice and Electoral Committee that inquired into the reaction to the visit of the President of China. I was very concerned at the way in which senior police officers treated the evidence to that committee. It is clear in the committee’s report that we simply did not believe them.  
I started then to take more seriously one or two of the complaints I was getting in my justice portfolio from people who Mr Goff may describe as scumbags and did. They were coming to me with complaints about police conduct which were seriously worrying. One of those complainants secured convictions a month ago against a police witness in a very serious case. That person secured convictions for perjury and the police would not pursue them. He had to bring a private prosecution—this is a person who had spent time in prison. He had to educate himself to the point where he could bring a private prosecution to the stage where the Crown Law Office eventually took it over and secured a conviction in circumstances that worry me deeply.  
I am concerned that while we still have enough of a nucleus of police who are not bad corrupt lazy or oppressive—indeed most police are not—and we have a commitment by the police to maintain that we have all the conditions for losing it and when it is lost it goes quickly. It happens when the police are unacknowledged; when they are poorly paid although that should not be a problem at the moment; when they are snubbed; when they are poorly led; and when they are frustrated. Of those last things we have all three.  
We have a Minister of Police who snubs police who overrides them and who does not respect their statutory independence. We have a Minister of Police who has put out a directive that MPs are not to be spoken to by police without his consent a Minister who has told the police they are not allowed to come into the precincts of Parliament without his consent and a Minister who is so afraid of the police speaking to the Opposition that he has gagged them in a way that has not been the case in the living memory of the police members who have told me about it. We have a Minister who is running a police force that is riding on its cultural capital and it is using it up. We have police who want to catch thieves and who are instead being told to incur the wrath of the community by blocking motorways for hours on end chasing people who are not evil just careless stupid or perhaps criminally stupid. The priorities that are being set for the police are not inspiring them. 
Worse still we have a Minister who is so weak in Cabinet that he has not been able to stop the law from being a revolving door. The Police Complaints Authority is only a palliative. The authority cannot cure a culture of absolute frustration at catching thieves and seeing them out the door the next day. It is no wonder police forces start taking the law into their own hands. It is no wonder they start saying that they will see justice irrespective of whether the evidence is there. It is no wonder they beat people in the cells because they think the courts will not do anything. This is a problem that the Minister of Police and this Government are fully responsible for.  
If members want to see the evidence they should look at this pathetic bill. While we support it to select committee we want to know what the Police Complaints Authority will do with its employment policy. It is told to go out and get independent staff and what does it have to do? The authority has to make sure it recognises the aims and aspirations of Maori the employment requirements of Maori and the need for the involvement of Maori as employees of the authority. That is a need. The authority has to go out there and racially appoint.  
Worse still is the need for opportunities for the recognition of the aims aspirations and cultural differences of ethnic or minority groups. Gangs are a minority group. The police have to recognise a gang’s need to be staunch. What about the cultures that think the highest value is loyalty to one’s family? Or the cultures that think that a good beating does not do anyone any harm? Or the cultures that think it is rude to ask direct questions or demand yes or no answers? The Police Complaints Authority is not allowed to go out and get those tough experienced shrewd incorruptible people. Instead it has to go through this politically correct list that the Minister of Police is going to inflict on the authority. It even has to go out and hire people to meet the requirements of persons with disabilities. What does that mean? Those who are overstressed? There are policemen who are “perfing” out of the police now because they cannot cope with the stress. Is the Police Complaints Authority going to pick up its ration of those cases? This Minister has introduced a bill that is an absolute insult to the cause he should be serving. 
DARREN HUGHES (NZ Labour—Otaki) 
: 
 I rise to speak in support of the Independent Police Complaints Authority Bill and after listening to Mr Franks attack the bill he is voting for and attack the Minister when this is about the complaints authority and all the problems he perceives in the police I could not help but think of this morning’s  
Dominion Post  
where I read of another ACT person in trouble and I thought to myself that we need an independent ACT complaints authority to deal with all the problems over there.  
I am very pleased to support the bill because I think it does address some issues where there could be a perception that there is some bias in the authority’s work. It is very important for the public confidence in this body that that perception does not exist. I think that what Sir Rodney Gallen has done is very good and it is a bill I am happy to support. 
EDWIN PERRY (NZ First) 
: 
 New Zealand First supports the introduction of the Independent Police Complaints Authority Amendment Bill but there are some concerns and I am happy to go through them. Firstly the Police Complaints Authority plays a very important role. We wish to ensure that it is as independent as possible. We believe the public are entitled to have an independent watchdog to supervise as guardian of the police. All we want to say about the representation that has been put before us in this bill is we should make sure that it is still within this area and that there are no jobs for the boys. That is a very important part and whoever are the representatives they should be in there for the right reasons. 
Brian Connell 
: Selected on merit. 
EDWIN PERRY 
: They should be selected on merit as my fellow MP has just mentioned. We know there are serious problems within the police force such as deaths in cells and complaints the public have presented to the police not being carried out in the right manner. I am sure the public are entitled to make sure their complaints are treated correctly and the right answer is derived from their complaint. Cases in history have shown us there is possible corruption within the police force. In the Arthur Allan Thomas case history has told us the shell case was planted and the result of that obviously cost Arthur Allan Thomas 9 years of his life. He was acquitted and was paid out a large sum of money. If we look at the police force off shore Australia has experienced police corruption at its highest. It nearly destroyed the New South Wales police force and to get over its problems New South Wales had to go to England to engage a Police Commissioner Ryan to pull its police out of its doldrums and restore public confidence.  
That is a reasonable complaint here within New Zealand. The police are not held in high regard in some areas and their self-esteem and image have been damaged. With regard to the police in Masterton which is where I am from there are issues within that police force that need to be attended to. I am sure this independent complaints authority will sort out some of the problems affecting the public in the Wairarapa district—and not only there but also within the central district of the Wellington region. I sit on the central police liaison board and complaints have come in that would raise the hairs on the back of one’s neck. They are not very nice. [ 
Interruption 
] Some are about Labour but most are about the police force. The racial overtones within the police system need to be corrected.  
Like other speakers who have laid their concerns out I believe this bill is overdue. We will watch the passage of this bill as it goes through the House and we will ensure the right ingredients are put into it for the safety of all New Zealanders and to build the self-esteem of the police force again. 
RUSSELL FAIRBROTHER (NZ Labour—Napier) 
: 
 I rise in support of the bill. We do not need an Independent Police Complaints Authority because there is anything wrong with our police; to the contrary we in New Zealand have a very good police force probably as good as there is in the world—and that is the precise reason that we need an Independent Police Complaints Authority. The police intersect in areas of people’s lives where there is stress dissent often violence and often the need for a quick reaction. The fact that our police continually do so well is a tribute to them. But in the area of conflict there needs to be resolution and there needs to be confidence that the resolution process is a sound process.  
What we have learnt from the present Police Complaints Authority is that most complaints are not valid but the investigation of them is important. The difficulty for complainants is to differentiate between the integrity of the process—because those investigating are members of the police—and the integrity of the result. An Independent Police Complaints Authority will not reveal our police force to be corrupt inefficient or bad. What it will do is give members of the public confidence that we are well policed and confidence that when things do go wrong the appropriate action is taken. I am enthusiastic for this bill and I urge the House to vote for it. 
SUE KEDGLEY (Green) 
: 
 I want to make just a few comments on behalf of our spokesperson on these issues who is not able to be here today. We like everyone else it seems in this House will be supporting this bill going to Law and Order Committee. We also regard it as an important bill that takes a step in the right direction. It does not go nearly as far as we would wish and we will be pushing to see some new amendments when it goes to the select committee. We believe that the Gallen report was a very worthwhile report and we are pleased that this bill does at least implement the recommendation to expand the membership of the Police Complaints Authority from one to three. But I have to say our preference would have been to accept Sir Rodney Gallen’s recommendation that the authority should no longer be a Crown entity but should be an Officer of Parliament much like for example the Ombudsman the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment or the Controller and Auditor-General. In our view it is absolutely critically important that the Police Complaints Authority is independent and is seen to be independent. I think those particular institutions authorities that I mentioned before—the Ombudsman the Commissioner for the Environment the Controller and Auditor-General and so forth—have by virtue of that appointment an independence that is widely recognised and widely respected. We believe that it would be extremely appropriate for this body to have a similar independence and the recognition and respect that come from that independence. 
We would also like the Government to take on board the Gallen recommendation that the authority should be better resourced to do investigations with its own investigatory staff not mainly through seconded police as is the present practice. In our view using seconded police does not make it fully independent. We also think that any police that are used on the complaints authority should be taken off all other duties during their investigation for exactly the same reason—it gives them an independence that is very hard to have if one is really just an employed policeman or policewoman undertaking such part time. We think it is also very important that the authority can report directly to Parliament if it is required to do so. That is another of the recommendations that we shall be pushing for very strongly during the select committee’s consideration of the bill.  
In short we support the legislation. We think it has implemented some of the measures of the Gallen report. It does represent an advance a strengthening of the authority. It does not in our view go far enough. It does not provide the independence that the Gallen report recommended and gave very good reasons for. We can see no reason that those recommendations were not implemented in this legislation and we will do everything in our power to try to persuade the Government to take on board those recommendations that I outlined. We are quite sure that if we do do that the independence and respect of the Police Complaints Authority will be greatly enhanced. 
DAVID BENSON-POPE (NZ Labour—Dunedin South) 
: 
 I am pleased to rise in support of the bill and I recommend it going to the select committee. 
JOHN CARTER (NZ National—Northland) 
: 
 I want to take about 7 or 8 minutes to speak on this legislation. There are three or four things that I want to comment on. The first is that a number of people have commented on the fact that we are now talking about a change of name and a change of impression—we are talking about the Independent Police Complaints Authority. I think that that is a good thing. But I want the House to reflect on this: I think that it is a great shame that we have to have a Police Complaints Authority at all. It is a reflection on our society actually. The police in this country do a great job for us. I am a strong supporter of the police. They certainly work hard and they do very very well in the community I represent. I think it is a great pity that it has become common for people who are unhappy with the police because they have been found out over some event or other to lay a complaint. It has become a regular thing and is not because the police have done something wrong; it is more likely because people are fighting against the system. The cases are often frivolous. In fact I think that Russell Fairbrother made the point that many of the cases that are drawn to the police’s attention are found out to have no substance at all.  
 I think it is a great shame for our society that we have to have a structure whereby people are able to make frivolous complaints against an organisation that in the main is hugely respected in this country and certainly does a great job for us. That is the first point that I want to make. But having said that I note that we are now at a stage where the Police Complaints Authority is part of our everyday functioning and infrastructure. Therefore I think it is important that—as Stephen Franks has suggested—we give the impression that it is a totally independent complaints authority. There has certainly been concern amongst the community that there is a bias. I do not believe so myself but there are those in this society who think that because the police are involved in the complaint and actually operate the authority they do so with bias. Whenever I have had any involvement with a police investigation—and I am sure other members will feel the same—I had the view that it has been thorough it has been without bias and it has been accurate. I think the police do a great job.  
However it seems that it is time now that we move on. In that context I want to make one or two comments about the bill itself. I think that the Law and Order Committee has a fair amount of work to do with regard to this legislation. New section 4A(2) inserted by clause 6 states: “The powers of Authority are not affected by any vacancy in its membership.” That is fair enough but what happens if there are three vacancies and the membership is three? What happens if for some reason there are no members? Who then has the authority of the Independent Police Complaints Authority? Who is to run it until those vacancies are filled? 
The second point that concerns me is that under new section 4C inserted by clause 6 the chairman of the authority is to be a judge or a retired judge. First I question why a retired judge would be put in charge of an organisation like this. I think it is important that we have someone who is currently working and is au fait with what is happening within our society. 
The issue that I want to raise in that context is the matter referred to in new section 4D. New section 4D also inserted by clause 6 states that the judge is not only to be paid a salary and an allowance as determined by the Higher Salaries Commission but is also to retain his or her rank title status precedence salary and annual or other allowances as a judge. So they will get a double whammy. I would have thought that that is probably not proper in our day. The person is either going to be a judge or a chairman of an authority. But to appoint somebody who will as a judge attract a huge amount of revenue from the taxpayer—we are talking about an income of more than a couple of hundred thousand for a judge—and have a salary or an allowance on top of that while they are not doing the work as a judge but performing as the chair of the Independent Police Complaints Authority speaks to me of a double whammy. I think that the select committee really does need to study that. The person is either paid as a judge and performs as a judge or the person gets paid as a chairman of the Independent Police Complaints Authority. I do not think it is proper that he or she should have two incomes and be performing in only one capacity.  
The last issue that I want to raise—and Stephen Franks amongst others has alluded to this already as has my colleague Brian Connell—is with regard to new section 10A “Personnel policy” inserted by clause 8. I have to say that when one reads through this the mind boggles. I am sure that the select committee will want to spend some hours over this because to try to fulfil what this section sets out would be beyond belief. If the Minister believes that we can achieve—not just attempt but achieve—what this clause sets out then I have to say that his aspirations and his beliefs in being able to deliver are far better than mine. When we look at some of these things I am not sure how anybody can possibly achieve them. One of the things about law that I have found in my time in this Parliament is that if we write law that is not achievable or is silly then it gets ignored and we will end up with a silly result here quite frankly. The select committee needs to look at that section very hard and very long. It needs to really address that section and get it back into the perspective and context of our modern-day society. I think that this legislation is far too politically correct. It just reflects where the Government wants to take us. However having said that I think that there are some issues for the select committee to study and obviously that study is needed. The National Party supports this bill and I will now take my seat so that that can happen. 
Bill read a first time and referred to the Law and Order Committee. referred to the Law and Order Committee 
New Zealand Symphony Orchestra Bill 
First Reading 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY (Minister of Social Services and Employment) 
 on behalf of the 
Minister for Arts Culture and Heritage 
: I move  
That the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra Bill be now read a first time. 
 It is my intention that it be referred to the Government Administration Committee. The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra has long been one of the country’s most prized cultural assets. For nearly 60 years originally as part of the then New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation and then as a stand-alone organisation the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra has provided New Zealanders with outstanding performances of orchestral music. More broadly it is one of the platforms on which over time New Zealand has constructed a strong sense of artistic potential. The excellence of our national orchestra signals something very important about our culture and our cultural expertise both to New Zealanders and to the rest of the world.  
The significance and quality of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra has been well understood by successive Governments. Since the orchestra was founded all Governments have supported the funding of this publicly owned orchestra that has become a national icon. In the year 2000 the Government put the orchestra on a more secure financial footing. At that time as part of the cultural recovery package the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra received a significant capital injection. An extra $1.4 million annually was put into its operational funding.  
The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra has its own Act of Parliament. Under the current Act the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra Act the orchestra is established as a limited liability company. It operates within the requirements of the Companies Act but without any legislative guidance in respect of its purpose or functions. That primary concern with a commercial focus is an anomaly. Few people would assert that the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra exists principally for commercial reasons. It has been owned and funded by the New Zealand Government because as our national touring orchestra it plays a key cultural role. It would be an irresponsible Government that as owner and funder did not have expectations about the orchestra’s performance in that role. The Government believes it is now appropriate that those expectations are made explicit.  
The purpose of this bill is therefore to provide the orchestra with clearly defined objectives and functions and with a legislative basis for its operation as a non-company Crown entity that is consistent with those objectives and functions and that accurately reflects the orchestra’s relationship to its owner the Government. Among other things the bill signals the Government’s expectation that the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra will provide the public of New Zealand with performances of symphonic music of an international standard. It will be required to seek to contribute to the development of a distinctly New Zealand cultural environment and to encourage New Zealand musical composition. Its formal functions will include presenting a broad repertoire of orchestral performance including New Zealand works and recent works encouraging the development of New Zealand musicians and encouraging the development of New Zealanders’ knowledge and appreciation of orchestral music.  
Significant sums of taxpayers’ money are involved in funding the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra. It is therefore appropriate that the clearest possible legislative mandate is in place for the orchestra. This legislation provides the people of New Zealand as both music lovers and taxpayers with a meaningful accountability mechanism. It provides a firm basis for the discussion between the Government and the orchestra each year over its funding and provides Parliament with a touchstone for its examination of the performance of the orchestra each year during the estimates and financial review processes. The new legislation will guide the orchestra itself in its continuing development and in its continuing contribution to our lively and evolving cultural sector.  
Let me add that the bill has been drafted with the support of the orchestra’s board and management and there has also been consultation with the orchestra’s players’ committee. Nothing in this legislation diminishes the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra’s artistic independence or integrity. The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra will continue to act without ministerial or indeed parliamentary direction in artistic matters. The orchestra will continue to be required to make prudent financial decisions. The fact that the Government is involved with the orchestra for cultural rather than commercial reasons does not mean that the orchestra is exempt from commercial imperatives. The Government will expect the orchestra to operate in a financially responsible manner and to maintain its financial viability.  
The Government recognises the very great importance of our cultural sector. It recognises that many cultural organisations among them our committed and expert regional orchestras contribute to the well-being of that sector and therefore to the richness of our lives as New Zealanders. We do however have special expectations of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra as one of our foremost cultural institutions and the public makes a considerable investment in its ongoing success. This bill is consistent with both the status of the orchestra and the expectations that the Government and New Zealanders have of it.  
In closing I add that I am of course introducing this bill on behalf of the Prime Minister Helen Clark who would like me to say that she endorses this legislation fully and looks forward to its passage through the House. 
DAIL JONES (NZ First) 
: 
 New Zealand First supports this bill being referred to a select committee. I asked some questions in the House last year about the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra and I was particularly concerned that in this year’s programme there was a dearth of New Zealanders enjoying major roles. At that stage there was only one New Zealander taking part in this year’s orchestral programme. I would be interested to hear from the next Government speaker just how many New Zealanders do have principal roles in the orchestra’s programme this year. The Minister highlighted what was effectively a direction from Parliament to the orchestra which was that there should be more New Zealand involvement. He said in his speech that Parliament would not be directing the orchestra but we clearly are. It is unfortunate that we even have legislation for the orchestra. It has managed for all these years without legislation. There seems to be a demand by this Government that we have to legislate for everything so we are legislating for the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra as well.  
I enjoy the orchestra’s programmes both by way of live performance and by listening to them on the Concert Programme on the radio. Concert FM is probably my favourite radio programme. One must not forget that there are other orchestral groups around the country. Those of us in Auckland enjoy the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra and other chamber orchestras. I am sure that the people of Christchurch of Hamilton and of various other parts of New Zealand enjoy their orchestras as well. The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra is very well funded. I support all its funding—it is probably inadequately funded—but we must not forget that there are other orchestras as well. 
I look forward to hearing Lynn Harrell this year playing Elgar’s Cello Concerto and Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No. 1. There is an excellent line-up of conductors this year. The Tchaikovsky piano competition winner Barry Douglas and Peter Donohoe will be playing and the brilliant young violin star Ilya Gringolts will be performing as well. There is a composer focus this year with three concerts of music by Richard Strauss Rachmaninov and Prokofiev respectively. 
Debate interrupted. 
The House adjourned at 6 p.m.