Volume 640 Week 47 - Wednesday 20 June 2007 
Volume 640 Week 47 - Wednesday 20 June 2007 
[Volume:640;Page:10013] 
Wednesday 20 June 2007 
Madam Speaker 
 took the Chair at 2 p.m. 
Prayers 
. 
Questions to Ministers 
Office of Treaty Settlements—Ngati Whatua ki Orakei Process 
1. Dr PITA SHARPLES (Co-Leader—Maori Party) 
 to the  
Minister of Maori Affairs 
: He aha tona whakautu ki te reta a Tiati Carrie Wainwright i ki ra “ko te mutunga mai o te he nga mahi kua kitea e te Taraipiunara” ara “i te ahua o nga whakariterite i waenganui i te Tari Whakatau Take e pa ana ki te Tiriti o Waitangi me Ngati Whatua ki Orakei a ko te mutunga e he ke atu ana nga mahi me nga kaupapa here a te Karauna mo te hatepe me te putanga?” 
[ 
How does he respond to the letter he received from Judge Carrie Wainwright that in the process followed by the Office of Treaty Settlements with Ngati Whatua ki Orakei a process “more flawed than any the Tribunal has inquired into” that “the Crown’s policy and practice has been unfair both as to process and outcome”? 
] 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA (Minister of Maori Affairs) 
:  
Kei te ata whakaaro matou nga Minita i nga korero me nga tuhinga i roto i tenei ripoata. 
[An interpretation in English was given to the House.] 
[ 
The statements recorded in this report are being considered by myself and fellow Ministers. 
] 
Dr Pita Sharples 
: A ki te Minita he aha kei a ia hei whakatika i tera kua kitea e te taraipiunara ara “Ko nga tikanga hei whakatau tono kei te whakawehe kei te tino tukino i a ngai Maori. He tino he tenei mahi tukino whanaungatanga tukino taura tangata ka pa hohonu ki te whatumanawa o Te Ao Maori.”? 
[An interpretation in English was given to the House.] 
[ 
What remedies are in place to respond to the finding from the tribunal that “The process for settling now being followed is creating division within Maori society that is very damaging to relationships and connections and affects the very core of Maoridom.”? 
] 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA 
: E mohio ake ano tatou mai ra ano te ahua o te wehewehe penei tonu. E tautokotia ake ano nga nawe e korero ake ano te takuta nei. Engari kare e tika e waiho ake ano ki a ratou o rawaho te whakatika a tenei take. Engari kei te whai kaha ake ano te Minita Maori me tenei kawanatanga ki te whakatikatika nga take e korerotia ake ano e te takuta nei. 
[An interpretation in English was given to the House.] 
[ 
We are well aware that divisions such as this one are longstanding. The concerns raised by the member are endorsed. However it is not appropriate for those from outside to seek a remedy for this matter. But I as Minister of Maori Affairs and this Government are working very hard to rectify the concerns raised by the member. 
] 
Russell Fairbrother 
: What has the Government achieved in Treaty settlements since 1999? 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA 
: Mai i te tau 1999 matou i whakatau enei take tekau; Te Uri o Hau Ngati Ruanui Ngati Tama Nga Rauru Kitahi Ngati Awa Tuwharetoa ki Kawerau Ngati Mutunga Te Roroa Te Arawa Kaihautu Te Arawa Nga Roto o Te Arawa. Kaore ake noa ratou e mohio ake noa no te reka o te reo Maori  a porohewa i reira.  
[An interpretation in English was given to the House.] 
[ 
Madam Speaker since 1999 this Government has resolved the following claims: Te Uri o Hau Ngati Ruanui Ngati Tama Nga Rauru Kitahi Ngati Awa Tuwharetoa ki Kawerau Ngati Mutunga Te Roroa Te Arawa Kaihautu Te Arawa and Nga Roto o Te Arawa. They have not experienced the sweetness of the Maori language even to the stage of losing their hair. 
] 
Christopher Finlayson 
: Is not the Government’s go-slow approach to Treaty settlements exposed by the fact that of the 19 settlements reached to date 10 were started and completed by National in the 1990s a further eight were started by National and the Labour Government has taken just one claim from initial negotiation through to final settlement in 7½ years? 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA 
: That point is well taken but it is very very interesting. It is very interesting because this Government has been about expediency and trying to ensure that we can define what finality is not rabbiting on and hoping these settlements take another 20 years. What a load of rubbish! 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Has the Minister received any reports particularly those related to the last questioner’s claims that National effected all those settlements with the Maori people and can he explain how he reconciles that claim with the billboard campaign mounted by Don Brash and his colleagues over there at the last election—it is called hypocrisy of the highest sort? 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA 
: As always those people we care about— 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Please be seated. I think I can anticipate that this is not within the ministerial responsibility— 
Gerry Brownlee 
: No. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: That is not your point of order? 
Gerry Brownlee 
: It is about the hypocrisy statement. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Would the member mind recasting his question without making such comments while also making sure that the question is in fact within the Minister’s ministerial responsibility. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Has the Minister received any reports particularly relating to the last questioner and the substance of his question which in effect claimed all sorts of settlements by the National Party with the Maori people; do those reports reconcile with the “Kiwi not iwi” campaign and all the other billboards that were up at the last election and is there a word for that that starts with the letter “h”? 
Madam SPEAKER 
: That last comment was inappropriate but would the Minister please respond. 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA 
: I definitely agree with the points that the member has just made. 
Metiria Turei 
: Who will be held accountable and what will happen to those responsible for the officials’ process failure to interact with cross-claimants as they promised; failure to provide accurate information about their status in the negotiations; failure to involve cross-claimants in the deliberations of officials; failure to respond to cross-claimants unless they had persistent lawyers; and finally for the provision of misleading information to the Ngati Whatua o Orakei tribunal hearing? 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA 
: I have no responsibility for the Office of Treaty Settlements but certainly my colleague Minister Burton and I have been discussing those issues and that supportive role will continue from the Maori ministry. I certainly have an interest in the cost of all of these settlements and how it keeps the great legal fraternity going in this country. 
Te Ururoa Flavell 
: Tena koe Madam Speaker. Ki te Minita he aha tona whakautu ki ta te Taraipiunara panui i tera Mane ara i kite nei ratou i etahi “tino ngoikoretanga i te ahua o nga uiuinga i waenganui i a ratou me era ropu o Te Arawa kaore i te whakatau tono” a i te mutunga ake i “awangawanga te Taraipiunara ka waimeha nga tikanga a Te Arawa a nga ra kei mua i te aroaro? 
[An interpretation in English was given to the House.] 
[ 
What response does the Minister have to the finding released on Monday that the Waitangi Tribunal found “serious flaws in the way the Crown consulted with non-settling Te Arawa groups” concluding that the tribunal was left “fearing for the customary future of the Te Arawa waka”? 
] 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA 
: Kei te korero tahi ake ano a Te Arawa kei a ratou tera. E mohio ake ano te tangata e patai ake ano i tera patai i reira ke ratou i te ra i tuhia wetahi o Te Arawa e kore e tuhia. 
Te Ururoa Flavell 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. Tena koe Madam Speaker. Kia huri ki te reo tuarua nei. The point of order is in respect of the question which was about his response as opposed to what Te Arawa did or did not believe. I ask the Minister to reconsider his response. The question was about his response not that of Te Arawa. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: I think we will have the interpretation then we will make a judgment on that. 
[An interpretation in English was given to the House.] 
[ 
Te Arawa are indeed talking amongst themselves. They are dealing with that. The member who asked that question is fully aware that they were indeed there on the day; some of Te Arawa signed and some did not. 
] 
Madam SPEAKER 
: I think that answer did address the question. 
Pita Paraone 
: Tena koe Madam Speaker. Does the Minister consider that the recent reports from the Waitangi Tribunal on the Ngati Whatua ki Orakei claim and that of Te Arawa will impact on the timeliness of these and other settlements; if not why not? 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA 
: It may do so but certainly it is interesting that these two reports are the two that never went through the tribunal process. 
Dr Pita Sharples 
: Ki te whakaae koe ki ta te Taraipiunara i ki ko ta te Karauna he tuku whakaatu ki te katoa o nga patapatai a mena kei te whakaae he aha ai i taka roa kare hoki i wawe te tuku korero a kaititiro i te wa o nga tono i Tamaki-makau-rau a he aha hoki nga mahi i mahia e Te Puni Kokiri i tenei wa i runga i tona mana whakahaere mo te ahuatanga whakatutuki whanaungatanga i waenganui i te Karauna raua ko te Maori? 
[An interpretation in English was given to the House.] 
[ 
Does the Minister agree with the tribunal that it is the Crown’s job to provide evidence on all issues in the inquiry; if so why was the documentary evidence in the Tamaki-makau-rau settlement provided late reluctantly and piecemeal and what part did Te Puni Kokiri play in this role given its responsibilities in the output class Crown-Maori relationships? 
] 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA 
: Kei te whai kaha ake noa te Tari o Te Puni Kokiri i te tautokotia ake noa nga take nei mai ra ano na te mea e puta ake noa taku korero ki te Kaiwhakahaere a Leith Comer hei whakatere tae i te tu ake noa nga kanohi e mau mohio e mau matatau ki nga take katoa i roto i a tatou o te iwi Maori. Kei te mahi awhi ake noa a Te Puni Kokiri. 
[An interpretation in English was given to the House.] 
[ 
The Ministry of Maori Development has been working vigorously for a long time in supporting these matters. I have been in consultation with Leith Comer the chief executive seeking to hasten the process of bringing aboard staff who are experts in all matters pertaining to our Maori people. Te Puni Kokiri will continue to play a supportive role. 
] 
Early Childhood Education—Free Hours Surcharges 
2.  
JOHN KEY (Leader of the Opposition) 
 to the  
Prime Minister 
: Does she stand by her statement that “20 hours free means the regulated standard is free”; if so how many early childhood education services will be able to offer “20 hours free” without also charging parents extra top-up fees donations or surcharges? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK (Prime Minister) 
: 
 Yes. All who sign up will have agreed to provide the regulated standard for free. 
John Key 
: When the Government announced the policy of 20 free hours for early childhood education during the 2005 election campaign was it always the intention of the Government to actually continue to charge New Zealanders for receiving a service that it was trying to tell them on one brief would be free? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: No. This was a full cost model with the rate responsibly set after a survey of all costs. 
Darren Hughes 
: Has she received any advice in respect of claims made in the House yesterday that the Ministry of Education had approved information about the policy that was sent out in a private sector newsletter? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: Yes. The advice I have is that Paula Bennett’s claims were false. That seems typical of the National Party’s campaign of denigration. 
John Key 
: When the New Zealand public start to consider the definition of the word “free” does the Prime Minister think they will use their standard definition something for nothing or does she think they will use her definition something they still have to pay for? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: What the public will be relieved to know is that the rate was responsibly set after a survey rather than our deciding like a money trader just to write out a blank cheque. 
John Key 
: I do not think the Prime Minister should publicly indicate that Labour’s poll ratings are going down. It is not a very good sign. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: If there are any more peripheral comments we will hear these questions in silence. 
John Key 
: Under the Prime Minister’s policy how should centres actually deal with parents who cannot will not or do not pay the optional fee over and above her regulated standard fee? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: There is no obligation to pay an optional fee. 
John Key 
: Does the Prime Minister not realise that many centres simply cannot afford to offer a service of 20 hours free without charging a top-up and that without that top-up many New Zealand children will receive a service that is completely substandard to the one they receive today which is why so many centres are not opting in? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: As I said yesterday the member is going to be very disappointed that his campaign to try to stop centres signing up has been such a spectacular failure. 
John Key 
: Is the Prime Minister aware that the people who are very disappointed are the New Zealanders who believed her when they thought they were getting 20 hours’ free early childhood education only to find out when we are not in an election year that they actually have to pay for it—or are they getting used to broken promises under Labour in the same way that the Minister of Finance in the 2005 Budget told them they were to receive a tax cut only to now know they are not to receive a tax cut? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: The only people who will be very disappointed are people like the Leader of the Opposition and Sue Thorne who have campaigned to try to stop people from taking up this very good policy. 
John Key 
: Does the Prime Minister stand by her statement made in the House yesterday: “Kidicorp has been a very good supporter of this policy.” and does that mean we can take it that she endorses Kidicorp’s sensible argument that “20 hours free is nothing but a subsidy that cannot be made to work unless parents pay the top-up fees.”? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: I repeat that it is full costs for the regulated standard. This is a great policy which I confidently predict the National Party will adopt—if not by lunchtime then probably by the election. 
Financial Products Providers and Intermediaries Review—Objectives 
3.  
MARYAN STREET (Labour) 
 to the  
Minister of Commerce 
: What were the principal objectives of the review of financial products providers and intermediaries and how have those objectives been achieved? 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Minister of Commerce) 
: 
 The principal objectives of the review were to give investors confidence to improve consumer protection and to ensure that New Zealand meets its international obligations. These have been addressed with the announcement that all financial service providers will be registered subjected to a range of background checks and required to belong to an approved consumer dispute resolution scheme. Non-bank deposit takers will come under the prudential supervision of the Reserve Bank and as part of that will be required to have credit ratings enabling investors to know the risk they are taking with their hard-earned money. 
Maryan Street 
: What was the process for conducting these reviews and what has been the response to the announcement? 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL 
: The reviews involved input from a task force and from several expert groups that were involved in developing the discussion documents that were put out for public submissions last year. It is therefore not surprising that the response from the financial sector has been incredibly positive with financial service providers welcoming the greater professionalism that will result from the new framework. As one finance company chief executive officer said in describing credit ratings as a good move: “By having ratings it creates that platform whereby the investor can actually compare one opportunity with another.” I think this has been a very good result. 
Simon Power 
: Can she advise real estate agents and bank tellers whether information they provide to people who wish to invest such as “The term deposit rate for today is 8.5 percent.” will see them categorised as financial advisers under this new regime? 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL 
: I have not heard a real estate agent offer that advice before but I can tell the member that the detail that he has asked for is in the public arena in the form of all the questions and answers that we provided his office with yesterday. Real estate agents will be covered as financial advisers if they are providing advice on investment property. If they are providing advice on investment property they will be caught by the new regime. Bank tellers will not be caught by the new regime because they are not giving financial advice when they are simply providing information that is available at the bank. 
Maryan Street 
: Will fringe moneylenders also known as loan sharks be included in the publicly available register; if so what sort of people will not be operating such businesses in the future? 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL 
: Yes they will. Those with dishonesty or fraud convictions within the last 5 years money-launderers undischarged bankrupts and those subject to a confiscation or forfeiture order under the Proceeds of Crimes Act will not be able to operate as moneylenders in the future. In addition these loan sharks will have to belong to an approved dispute resolution scheme which means they will have to be more careful about compliance with the Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Act which we suspect is not always the case at the moment. This regime represents a substantial strengthening of the existing law and I am sure the Minister of Consumer Affairs will be watching the implementation very closely. 
House Prices and Rents—Ring-fencing of Investment Losses 
4.  
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Deputy Leader—National) 
 to the  
Minister of Finance 
: What effect would ring-fencing any losses from investment in housing have on house prices and rents? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Minister of Finance) 
: 
 Given the effective tax advantage on investment in housing it should cool the housing market particularly over the longer term The impact on rents is less certain particularly as it may become easier for those renting to purchase their own homes. Generally speaking one would expect a convergence between house prices and rentals over time as a return on investment. 
Hon Bill English 
: Can the Minister confirm then that the effect of ring-fencing losses would initially be to force rents up and to force everyone’s house value down? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: A change of this sort takes some time to occur. For example when ring-fencing was removed in 1991 we did not move immediately to a position where rental losses outweighed rental income. That did not occur until about 1996. 
H V Ross Robertson 
: Can the Minister advise the House whether the Government is taking any steps to support people who might want to save for their own homes? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: Those who join the KiwiSaver scheme which comes into effect on 1 July and save 4 percent of their income for 3 years will have access to a first-home deposit subsidy of $1000 per year of membership up to a maximum of $5000 for 5 years for each member subject to certain eligibility criteria—so potentially $10000 for a couple. The Minister of Housing is currently developing a shared equity scheme and this will be considered as part of Budget 2008. 
R Doug Woolerton 
: Does the Minister share the views of the Governor of the Reserve Bank and New Zealand First that rampant immigration has had a major impact on house prices and rents and will he be seeking to limit immigration numbers to help ensure that Kiwis can still afford to own their own houses in their own country? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: I do not think it is fair to describe Dr Bollard’s view as being that “rampant” immigration has had an impact on inflation. He pointed out that obviously an increase in population whether by immigration or by other means has an impact upon the housing market. Equally of course immigration has served to provide additional labour into a tight labour market which otherwise might have seen high rates of increase in the cost of labour. 
Gordon Copeland 
: Is the Minister open to alternatives to the ring-fencing of tax losses for evaluation against the criterion of increasing housing affordability and as a supplementary monetary policy instrument whether arising from Finance and Expenditure Committee inquiries or from elsewhere including those alternatives that other parties in the House may care to offer? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: I am always open to alternatives and discussion. If the member is capable of bringing another 48 votes with him on this matter I will be extraordinarily grateful. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Supplementary question the Hon Bill English. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. I was on my feet asking for a question and you gave the question to somebody who was sitting in his seat. That is not the way it is done Madam Speaker. I was on my feet. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Yes well I am on my feet now Mr Peters. I determine who gets the call. New Zealand First had had a call. There is a convention that the call goes on rotation. When I do not do that that member I am afraid also criticises the Chair. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. Would you please explain to me which Standing Order Speaker’s ruling or convention requires you to seek someone who is not on his or feet and give that person the question? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: Speaking to the point of order I say that the member raises a point that is useful in a wider context because a habit has developed in the House—I think partly because of the rotation of supplementary questions—whereby a lot of members do not now actually rise and call before receiving the call. I think that often the Speaker sees that for example it is time for a Green call and if a Green person is rising to his or her feet the assumption is that he or she is doing so to ask a question. I think it would be helpful if we reverted to the more traditional practice where people have to rise in their seats and call. It is quite correct that Mr English did not call at that point and began to sit down again when Mr Peters sought the call at that point. Madam Speaker it is worth bringing to the attention of the House that it is helpful from your perspective if people do actually stand and call when they are seeking to ask a supplementary question. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: I thank the member for that. In the past I had noticed that Mr Peters had risen then actually sat again. I will consider the issue and I will come back tomorrow with a considered ruling on it. In the past if parties did not get the call in the rotation when they were expecting it then matters were raised—as the member has done himself. That is fair enough. I think we do need some clarity on this. I also am aware—and I want to put this as sensitively as I can—that some people take some time to rise to their feet. I am trying to be sensitive to that as well. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: If the Minister is saying that the job market was filled by high immigration numbers then what evidence does he have that is different from the briefing of the Department of Labour post election 2002 which said that up to that point fewer than one out of two immigrants had been placed in the economy; what has changed in the last 4 years to make that false? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: What has changed in part is the significant change in the criteria for immigration to place far greater emphasis upon the general skills category. Of course if a person is immigrating with a family then not all of that family will be entering the job market necessarily—particularly if there are children. But the reality is that if the member cares to look at the data over a significant number of years he will see that the balance of immigration has moved very significantly in the direction of an emphasis upon the skills element. 
Hon Bill English 
: What does the Minister believe will be the effect on homeowners with large mortgages when their 2-year interest rate goes from 7½ percent to 9¼ percent as will occur for thousands of them in the next 6 months; and why is he not satisfied with that impact on their pockets and their house values without his adding another measure which may have the effect of pushing their house values down even further than high interest rates will? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: One of the reasons for considering measures around this is in fact to aid monetary policy so that interest rates do not need to be raised as much. This member has been calling for higher increases in interest rates by the Governor of the Reserve Bank as a means of throttling off demand. It is a bit rich now for him to turn round and bemoan the consequences. In the immortal words of Tom Paine he “pities the plumage but forgets the dying bird”. 
Hon Bill English 
: Where has the Minister been for the last 6 years when house prices have been rising continuously; if he thought that this measure was effective at all why did he not bring it in 5 years ago? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: The member bounces around from opposing such a measure to suggesting that it already should have been done. Once he settles at some particular place I will know how to explain to his leader John Key why and where he differs from him. 
Hon Bill English 
: Does the Minister have the support of the Prime Minister for his campaign to push down house values in the light of her comments on Monday explicitly ruling out a capital gains tax; and does her failure to rule out ring-fencing losses mean that it is now Government policy? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: No such proposal has been taken to Cabinet therefore by definition it is not Government policy. One of the problems with a capital gains tax—apart from the fact that if it were done it should apply to all asset classes—is that countries overseas that have capital gains taxes have significant inflation in house prices on occasion. 
Hon Bill English 
: In reference to overseas data has the Minister seen the data in the Reserve Bank submission that shows there is absolutely no correlation between the tax treatment of housing and the rise in house prices—in other words it does not seem to matter what tax treatment different countries have; their house prices have risen to roughly the same extent? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: If the Reserve Bank is saying that I am stunned. In fact the variability in house price increases in the last 10 years even in developed countries has been extremely large. Some countries such as Japan have seen a fall in house prices over that period of time. Some countries such as Ireland have seen very much higher increases than those in New Zealand over that period of time. What is significant in New Zealand is that before ring-fencing was removed in 1991 net rental income was more than 80 percent of gross rental income in total whereas on average over the last 7 or 8 years net rental income has been less than 10 percent of total rental income. That points to very heavy gearing of purchasing property for rental purposes. 
Climate Change—International Negotiations 
5.  
STEVE CHADWICK (Labour—Rotorua) 
 to the  
Minister responsible for Climate Change Issues 
: What recent reports if any has he received on New Zealand’s role in international negotiations for much-needed agreement on climate change post-2012? 
Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister responsible for Climate Change Issues) 
: 
 New Zealand has been taking a leading role in climate change negotiations in Sweden. We were asked to lead discussions on the critically important topic of emissions pricing to speed up the use of low-emissions technology to help the world beat global warming. This was indeed a high honour with the other two lead speakers being China and the European Union and it recognised the Labour-led Government’s leadership in this important area. 
Steve Chadwick 
: Does the Minister have any early indications of who might sign up to a post-2012 agreement? 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: One hundred and seventy-five countries ratified Kyoto. Only three backed out of their earlier agreement: Australia the United States and Kazakhstan. Of course we know what side the National Party is on. Australia and the United States have recently modified their positions— 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Borat! 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: The member is quite right; we can only assume that perhaps Dr Smith takes his instructions from Kazakhstan. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: How will the record of his Government since 1999—which is that greenhouse gas emissions have increased by 10 million tonnes per year an increase double the rate of what occurred during the 1990s and one of the fastest growth rates in the developed world—how will this awful record— 
Rt Hon Helen Clark 
: Carbon neutrality. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: I say to the Prime Minister that it is her awful record. It does not look much like carbon neutrality to me. How will an increase of 10 million tonnes a year which is the fastest growth rate in the developed world help our credibility in trying to get the rest of the world to constrain its emissions? 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: I am quite happy to contrast the record of this Government with the National Party’s position and I really do not expect much better from the National Party. I have a quote here from Dr Smith which I think illuminates his attitude to this issue in which he boasts about being “at the coalface” of environmental policy. I suspect he got that from Borat too. 
Peter Brown 
: Noting the Minister’s comments about Australia is he aware that Australia has reduced its emissions over recent years yet has not signed up for Kyoto whilst with us it is exactly the reverse; is he aware also that Australia has recently released a detailed report on how it will effect a “cap and trade” system by the year 2012; and does he believe that this is such a serious global issue that it would be well worth our while getting involved with Australia? 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: Australia has not reduced its emissions. Australia had the softest proposed Kyoto target of any target country in the world which was 108 percent of emissions an 8 percent increase in emissions over the 1990 base level—and it is not yet clear whether it will make even that 8 percent increase. It may go even higher. In respect of its proposals to develop an emissions trading scheme I would have thought that people would be somewhat suspicious of an emissions trading scheme that is projected to be 5 years out from one of the three countries in the world that said they would not commit to their agreement. 
Jeanette Fitzsimons 
: Does the Minister agree with India’s former environment secretary Pradipto Ghosh that it is “now up to the world to decide how big the ‘carbon pie’ should be at a certain point in the future—say 2050—and then agree that by that date all nations should have an equal entitlement relative to their size of population.”; if he does not agree with that approach what alternative criteria does he support for allocating emissions globally after 2012? 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: It is clear that developed countries will have to reduce their emissions in gross terms towards the much lower levels of emissions that are coming from developing countries. But it is also true that convergence alone will not cure the problem because if there were to be convergence at realistic levels that would see the growth in emissions in developing countries causing global warming to reach levels that really no one wants to get to. 
I seek leave to table a report in the  
Marlborough Express 
 in which Dr Smith said he wanted to consult on National’s environmental policy at the coalface. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: I seek leave of the House to table the Government’s actual record which has seen a 10 million - tonne increase— 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is objection. 
Jeanette Fitzsimons 
: I seek leave to table the quote from the Indian former environment secretary which makes clear he was talking about the size of the pie— 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Early Childhood Education—Free Hours Surcharges 
6.  
KATHERINE RICH (National) 
 to the  
Minister of Education 
: What advice has his ministry given early childhood centres regarding the setting of optional charges and what are the appropriate steps for a centre to take in the event that parents refuse to pay any optional charges under the Government’s 20 free hours policy? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY (Minister of Education) 
: 
 The advice is the same as mine. The Government is funding 20 hours of quality early childhood education. Any additional charges are optional and parents have a choice as to whether or not to agree to pay them. That is why as I think Paula Bennett quite rightly says parents will be clearly better off. 
Katherine Rich 
: What is a centre that takes up his 20 free hours policy to do if it is faced with a parent who refuses to pay optional charges which many centres will be relying on not to pay for luxuries but for day-to-day costs like books teachers’ salaries and electricity? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: As the rules are set out a centre cannot refuse to enrol a child on the grounds that the child’s parents have not agreed to pay an optional charge. The second part of the question by the member of course is really fictitious. What we are talking about here is a fully funded model based upon a survey of the entire sector. As the member learnt at the select committee today there has been a 56 percent response to that survey which is twice the size of the sample that the reviewers said was needed to get an accurate idea of costs. 
Moana Mackey 
: Does he have any specific reports of how families will benefit from the Government’s 20 free hours policy? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: Our understanding is that the costs to families of early childhood education will go down that access will go up and that centres themselves will find that they will get more stable and more predictable funding. It is therefore a pity that the National Party campaign of misinformation has perhaps meant that some centres will not enrol just now. They will wait to see how it goes. That means that mums and dads and their kids will miss out on 1 July but I am sure they will come in at a suitable time. 
Katherine Rich 
: Regarding the families that will benefit can he confirm that after 1 July some Kiwi parents who are not near a centre offering 20 free hours could miss out while a non-resident non-citizen long-term holidaymaker or overstayer who is living beside the right centre could get 20 hours free? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: The member asked this question in the select committee today. The information given to her was that 0.25 percent of enrolments in early childhood education centres currently fit that description. Our opinion is that that is a reasonable place for a young child to be. It is better for them to be there than to be nowhere. 
Katherine Rich 
: How does the Minister think that some Kiwi parents will feel—those parents who will miss out on 20 free hours because they do not have access to it in their local community—when they hear that some parents who are not residents who are not citizens and who may be here for a long-term holiday or overstaying for some other reason could get 20 hours free when they cannot get it in their local community? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: I think when they know it is 0.25 percent of enrolments they will think that the member’s question is pathetic. 
Katherine Rich 
: When some centres that may offer 20 free hours will potentially have extremely long waiting lists why will he not specify in his new policy of 20 free hours that priority must be given to New Zealand residents New Zealand citizens and Kiwi mums and dads and not to people who may be here for an extended holiday? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: As the member knows public services are for Kiwis first but we are talking about 0.25 percent of enrolments. The member herself when asked today at the select committee what her policy would be said as usual that she did not have a policy. 
Paula Bennett 
: Could the Minister give us his definition of “free”? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: In relation to the early childhood policy that we are talking about we are funding 20 hours of quality education for 3 and 4-year-olds. 
Paula Bennett 
: As the Minister continually uses school donations as a comparable example is it not true that if a parent does not pay a school donation there are no consequences except maybe that the child does not go to the school ball whereas not paying a donation to an early childhood education centre under the 20 hours free policy could mean that a teacher loses his or her job? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: The example that the member is using comes from the head of the New Zealand Educational Institute who has praised the 20 hours policy saying it is the best thing for families and is a huge step forward for education. I am very glad that the member is referring to Irene Cooper because she is a huge supporter of this policy. I say to the member opposite that we are funding 20 hours of early childhood education to the quality level and if there are any additional services then those are optional charges. 
Primary Health Organisations—Maori Enrolments 
7.  
DAVE HEREORA (Labour) 
 to the  
Associate Minister of Health 
: Has he received any recent reports on the number of Maori enrolled in primary health organisations? 
Hon MITA RIRINUI (Associate Minister of Health) 
: 
 I am advised that as at April 2007 the number of Maori enrolled was 523673 and from July they will benefit even more from this Government’s commitment to make doctors’ visits and prescriptions more affordable. Our investment in primary health care has reduced doctors’ fees by around $27.50 and has lowered standard prescription charges from $15 to $3. 
Dave Hereora 
: Has he received any regional reports of the impact of those investments in primary health care reductions? 
Hon MITA RIRINUI 
: I receive reports on a regular basis through the Ministry of Health. I will give some examples of the work that is being done out in the regions that complement the Government’s policies on primary health and the primary health sector. For example the Te Pou Ora o Te Piringatahi Northland primary health organisations’ mental health initiative was basically designed to improve the identification treatment and support of people with mental health and addiction issues in the primary-care setting also to provide better follow-up and coordination for people with mental health and addiction issues in Northland and lastly to promote better understanding and prevention of mental health and addiction issues in that area. I also receive other reports on a regular basis—for example from Ngati Porou Hauora and the University of Otago on their Ngati and Healthy programme which is run through the Tairawhiti District Health Board. To cut a long story short Ngati Porou Hauora was the supreme award winner in the 2006 Whanau Ora awards. I have many other examples here. 
Unemployment—Household Labour Force Survey 
8.  
JUDITH COLLINS (National—Clevedon) 
 to the  
Minister for Social Development and Employment 
: Does he agree with the statements of his predecessor the Hon Steve Maharey that the household labour force survey is “the only credible and consistent measure of unemployment” the “best way of measuring New Zealand’s performance internationally” and “the only accepted measure of unemployment”? 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE (Minister for Social Development and Employment) 
: 
 I am somewhat surprised that the member has nothing better to do than to trawl through Steve Maharey’s press releases from 7 years ago good reading though they are— 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Please be seated. The Minister knows that such comments prefacing an answer to a question are bound to create disorder. So I would ask Ministers to refrain from doing so and to please just address the question. 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE 
: For the member’s information and for the information of the House I point out that the household labour force survey is New Zealand’s only official measure of the unemployment rate. Let me remind the House of the unemployment rate that the Labour-led Government inherited when coming into office shortly before Mr Maharey made those statements. In 1999 the unemployment rate was 6.8 percent; it is now 3.8 percent. In 1999 the youth unemployment rate was 16.7 percent; it is now 14.1 percent. In 1999 the unemployment rate for Maori was 16.6 percent; it is now 7.9 percent. In 1999 the unemployment rate of Pacific peoples was 13.6 percent; it is now 6.5 percent. I think members would agree that this is rather a credible and consistent improvement. 
Judith Collins 
: If the household labour force survey is the official register of unemployment was the reason the Minister said in the House last week that the survey had shortcomings because the data confirms that unemployment amongst 15 to 19-year-olds has actually increased by 16 percent from 24000 in March last year to 27800 in March this year according to the most recent household labour force survey? 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE 
: It is important that the member does not confuse the unemployment benefit figures and the household labour force survey. The household labour force survey I note for members’ information includes all people who are seeking 1 hour or more employment per week including full-time students and retired people. Many people of course such as full-time students or those receiving New Zealand superannuation are quite reasonably not entitled to any unemployment support. The numbers can therefore be and are in fact quite different especially for youth because the household labour force survey unemployment figure will include for example any school or tertiary student seeking part-time work. 
Lynne Pillay 
: Could the Minister remind the House how many young people were on an unemployment benefit in 1999 compared with now? 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE 
: I can report that in December 1999 there were 17514 18 and 19-year-olds receiving an unemployment benefit. In March of this year there were 1566 young people receiving such a benefit. I can now report that in the most recent figures at the end of May that number was only 1227. That is a massive 93 percent reduction in unemployed 18 and 19-year-olds since this Government took office. That success is equally mirrored with impressive results for Maori and Pacific young people. The number of 18 and 19-year-old Maori unemployed at the end of May was 477 which is a 92 percent reduction since National was in office. Pacific unemployment numbers for the same period are now 125. That is a 91 percent reduction since National was in office and let me stress that that number of 1227 only 407 have been receiving an unemployment benefit for more than 13 weeks. 
Judith Collins 
: When will the Minister confirm that New Zealand still has a major problem with teenage unemployment that 15 to 19-year-olds have been shunted off the unemployment benefit to other benefits or to dubious employment schemes and that the 2002 goal of getting all 15 to 19-year-olds into employment education or industry training has been abandoned by the 27800 people who are now unemployed teenagers—which that Minister will not admit? 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE 
: I think that most New Zealanders would welcome the very strong Government focus which is on reducing benefit dependency and in particular on ensuring that young people who are at risk of under-employment unemployment or long-term unemployment or who have low skills are appropriately supported. The success of those initiatives is only too well demonstrated with the dramatic fall in benefit numbers that I have detailed several times in the last few days. 
Judith Collins 
: Why does the Minister use household labour force data sometimes—when it suits his version—as he did on 10 May this year but when it comes to using it as a measure of teenage unemployment he discounts it and insists on using the same Work and Income figures which he has quoted today that Steve Maharey said were no more than an administrative tool? 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE 
: I talk about the household labour force survey when I am talking about the household labour force survey. When I talk about unemployment benefit numbers I refer to unemployment benefit numbers. 
Judith Collins 
: Why does the Minister choose to use figures that his predecessor Steve Maharey called just “an administrative tool” when Mr Maharey has also stated that using Work and Income figures rather than the household labour force data was “to play fast and loose with unemployment statistics”? 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE 
: I use the household labour force survey because it enables us to track participation rates and employment and unemployment rates and to compare them with the OECD statistics which are measured in a similar fashion. The household labour force survey conforms with the standard International Labour Organization guidelines for comparability. It helps us recognise our successes in international terms. The household labour force survey has enabled us to see for example that we have the fifth-lowest unemployment rate among the 27 OECD countries with comparable data—that shows a pretty considerable improvement. In December 1999 we were 14th; now we are fifth out of 27 OECD countries. 
Judith Collins 
: Can the Minister explain why 3 years after his predecessor announced a $56.9 million package in Budget 2004 to provide all 15 to 19-year-olds with a “kick-start to their working lives” the number of unemployed 15 to 19-year-olds has actually increased by 16 percent according to the official register of the household labour force survey? 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE 
: I have already explained to that member that the household labour force survey includes all people who may be looking for 1 hour’s work or more and includes students. It is a good example of why it is often more important to look at the actual unemployment figures. I think the best answer for the member’s question is if I read the trending— 
Madam SPEAKER 
: It is becoming very difficult to hear the Minister. 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE 
: The best answer I can provide for the member is to read the trending in one cohort. I will choose 18 and 19-year-old unemployment numbers from 1998 to the present day. In 1998 there were 14000 receiving that support; in 1999 there were 17000; in 2000 there were 13500; in 2001 there were 11000; in 2002 10000; in 2003 9163; in 2004 5991; in 2005 4271; in 2006 3262; and the last figure in 2007—and remember that the starting point the highest point was 17500—in May was 1227. 
Judith Collins 
: I seek leave to table “Playing fast and loose with unemployment stats won’t wash” by Steve Maharey. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is objection. 
Judith Collins 
: I seek leave to table the article “ ‘Honest’ job figures sought” from the  
Dominion Post 
 in October 2002 
. 
Madam SPEAKER 
:  
Madam SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is objection. 
Judith Collins 
: I seek leave to table “Budget 2004: $57 million boost for young people”. 
Madam SPEAKER 
:  
Madam SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? Yes there is objection. 
Judith Collins 
: I seek leave to table the household labour force survey—the latest one out this year. 
Madam SPEAKER 
:  
Madam SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? Yes there is objection. 
Judith Collins 
: I seek leave to table the article “Mayors give up target date to end teen joblessness” of 23 April 2007. 
Madam SPEAKER 
:  
Madam SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? Yes there is objection. 
Judith Collins 
: I seek leave to table the article “Complacency kills students’ dreams” of 11 May 2007 in the  
New Zealand Herald. 
Madam SPEAKER 
:  
Madam SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? Yes there is objection. 
Question No. 7 to Minister 19 June 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE (Minister for Social Development and Employment) 
: 
 I seek leave of the House to table the  
Hansard 
 from the British Parliament giving the complete quote by Mr Rooney that was used selectively yesterday. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Schools Primary—Half-days Open for Instruction 
9.  
Hon BRIAN DONNELLY (NZ First) 
 to the  
Minister of Education 
: For how many half-days will primary schools be required to be open for instruction in 2007 2008 2009 and 2010? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY (Minister of Education) 
: 
 The length of the school year varies in order to accommodate requests from teachers and parents for a 7 February start to ensure that at least some of the summer holidays occur in summer and to prevent the nuisance of the stop-start beginning of the year brought about by the Waitangi Day public holiday. The actual half-days that primary schools are required to be open for instruction are: in 2007 386; in 2008 384; in 2009 386; and in 2010 388. 
Hon Brian Donnelly 
: Will the Minister confirm that the requirement set in the Education Act notwithstanding his discretion and also set out in the 2006 and 2007 Budgets is in fact 394 half-days and why has he used his discretion in this particular way? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: In fact both Labour and National Governments over the last little while have used that discretion because the original figure was 398. Of course it was dropped down 4 days by the National Government— 
Hon Brian Donnelly 
: It was 400. 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: It was 400 earlier still—that is right. It has been changed by National and by Labour. But in my own case as I said before we have had quite a significant number of requests from teachers and parents about the fact that schoolrooms were hot and that there was a disturbed start to the beginning of the year which meant there was that stop-start effect. But wait there is more: the member might like to know that I have also responded to requests from schools that in some cases have said they would rather start before 7 February. I have allowed them to have that flexibility as well. As long as they provide students with the required number of half-days they can do that; they can start before Waitangi Day if they want to. 
Dr Ashraf Choudhary 
: How does pupil-teacher contact time in New Zealand compare with that in other countries in the OECD? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: New Zealand ranks second-highest coming after only the USA in the OECD table of pupil-teacher contact time and it remains the second-highest under the term dates set for 2008 through to 2010. In addition to those favourable statistics on pupil-teacher contact hours of course we want to point to the fact that quality is also important and I point out that on international measures of quality we do pretty well. 
Hon Brian Donnelly 
: Has the Minister had drawn to his attention the large body of research that demonstrates that time spent in engaged academic learning significantly impacts on learning outcomes; if he has how will reducing engaged academic learning time improve learning outcomes? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: Yes I am familiar with that research but I remind the member of two things. First as reinforced in a quotation from Irene Cooper from the New Zealand Educational Institute it is the quality of what happens that matters. And I take him back to the fact that if he is concerned he knows that we are sitting at No. 2 in the OECD in terms of the amount of pupil-teacher contact time. I hardly think we have fallen down the ranks in comparison with other countries in terms of contact time. 
Hon Brian Donnelly 
: Has the Minister heard the complaints from teachers and teacher associations that there is currently not enough time to teach the curriculum; if he has why has he not only reduced the time available for curriculum delivery but also introduced an additional curriculum component into year 7 and 8 programmes? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: Yes I have heard the complaint from teachers about the enormous number of things that people want to have go on in school. The curriculum development at the moment has highlighted that with everybody asking for the curriculum to carry one or other interesting idea. I just say to the member though that those very same people who come from all of the associations to do with education and with parents were consulted about the changes in the length of the school year and agreed to them because they saw them as a good quality measure. However I would say that if we could clone the member and have him in every class I am sure students would turn up voluntarily. 
Shared Equity Scheme—Nationwide Roll-out 
10.  
PHIL HEATLEY (National—Whangarei) 
 to the  
Minister of Housing 
: When does he anticipate the nationwide roll-out of the shared equity scheme which is to be preceded by a “targeted pilot” to be “considered for next year’s budget” and how many New Zealanders does he expect will eventually be able to take advantage of the national scheme? 
Hon CHRIS CARTER (Minister of Housing) 
: 
 I would expect that the roll-out of a shared equity scheme might occur when we have completed the targeted pilot scheme assured ourselves of the effectiveness of the scheme and resolved any issues identified in the pilot scheme. I cannot be more specific about the timing of any roll-out at this stage because we are still in the design phase of the pilot scheme; nor can I provide figures of how many people might be able to participate in a roll-out scheme because those are details that have not yet been decided and again will be influenced by the pilot scheme. 
Phil Heatley 
: Why is he still at the design stage of a shared equity scheme this year then perhaps a pilot scheme next year when answers to parliamentary questions say that the Government has been looking at such schemes since 2004 and the then Minister of Housing said that Labour was likely to introduce a scheme in the 2005 Budget? 
Hon CHRIS CARTER 
: Shared equity is a new model of homeownership for New Zealand. It is not full ownership; it is partial ownership and that carries a host of new legal and technical implications. We need to test demand for this model of homeownership and we also need to take care to introduce it in a way that does not create market distortions that defeat the purpose of the scheme. That takes time. 
Jill Pettis 
: Could the Minister advise what other homeownership initiatives the Government has already introduced apart from the shared equity scheme? 
Hon CHRIS CARTER 
: The Labour-led Government has introduced the Welcome Home Loan scheme which underwrites families on the margin of traditional bank criteria and helps them to get a home. About 2600 households have used the scheme so far. We have also introduced the KiwiSaver scheme which offers some first-time buyers assistance with a deposit and provides a pathway to saving more quickly a much larger deposit on a home. We have also introduced a $2.5 million homeownership education programme which has been rolled out across the country. 
Bob Clarkson 
: Why is he still designing the scheme when Helen Clark said the Government will “introduce an equity scheme in 2006” and “The Government had flagged the scheme as an election promise”— 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: He should know! 
Bob Clarkson 
: If you want to debate something Winston we will talk about scampi deals. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Would the member please start his question again. We will hear it in silence. 
Bob Clarkson 
: Why is he still designing the scheme when Helen Clark said the Government will “introduce an equity scheme in 2006” and “The Government had flagged the scheme as an election promise and was committed to delivering it.”? 
Hon CHRIS CARTER 
: The Prime Minister and other Ministers in the Government have signalled that we will be having a shared equity pilot scheme for the reasons that I outlined in an earlier answer. This is a complex process this is a new product and I can ensure the member that the pilot scheme will be offered. 
Phil Heatley 
: Is the Minister telling us that he announced the scheme in 2004 again in 2005 again in 2006 and again this year without doing any design work at all and without seeing whether there was any need for it or public desire for it; if so why has he announced a shared equity scheme every year for the last 4 years without doing the design work for it? 
Hon CHRIS CARTER 
: What I can tell the House is that the Government is committed to firm actions to try to create housing affordability and provide access to homeownership. I have outlined a number of schemes that are already in place and have signalled that the shared equity pilot scheme will happen next year. What is interesting is that I looked at the National Party’s website before question time today and found no reference to housing at all. Does that mean that party does not have any housing policy at all? 
Phil Heatley 
: What is the Minister doing to address housing affordability if it is not encouraging district councils to release more land for subdivision if it is not fixing the Resource Management Act 1991 and there is no sign of his flagship nationwide shared equity scheme anywhere on the horizon for the next 2 years? 
Hon CHRIS CARTER 
: I have already outlined a basket of initiatives that the Government has taken. I remind the member who has just asked me the question that there is no reference to housing at all on the National Party’s website. When is that party going to offer us any solutions? 
Phil Heatley 
: Has the Minister had discussions with the Minster of Finance on the introduction of a policy to ring-fence tax losses on rental housing; if not why not given that he is the Minister of Housing and is looking at housing and affordability; if so what is his opinion on ring-fencing tax losses on rental housing? 
Hon CHRIS CARTER 
: Like all members of this Government I am in constant dialogue with the Minister of Finance. 
Phil Heatley 
: I seek leave to table the answer to written question No. 10742 which states the Government has been working on this matter since 2004. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? Yes there is objection. 
Phil Heatley 
: I seek leave to table the article “Help for home-buyers likely” from the  
Press 
 of 3 March 2005. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is objection. 
Phil Heatley 
: I seek leave to table the press release headed “More help for first-home buyers” dated 22 August 2005. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? Yes there is objection. 
Phil Heatley 
: I seek leave to table Labour’s election policy “Our Own Equity Share Scheme” from 2005. 
Document not tabled. 
Phil Heatley 
: I seek leave to table the article headed “First-timers to get cheap homes” from the  
Sunday Star-Times  
of July 2006. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? Yes there is objection. 
Phil Heatley 
: I seek leave to table the article headed “Shared equity schemes among options to lift home ownership” from a  
New Zealand Herald  
of August 2006. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? Yes there is objection. 
Phil Heatley 
: I seek leave to table the article headed “Housing Boom: Shared equity on Gov’s housing agenda” from an  
Independent  
of January 2007. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? Yes there is objection. 
Phil Heatley 
: I seek leave to table the article “Carter urges NZ banks to consider shared equity schemes” dated March 2007. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table the document. Is there any objection? There is objection. 
Phil Heatley 
: Lastly I seek leave to table Labour’s Budget announcement that there will be a pilot shared equity scheme some time at the end of next year. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is objection. 
Hon CHRIS CARTER 
: I seek leave to table a copy of the official National Party website which contains no reference to housing initiatives or any housing policy at all. 
Document not tabled. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. My point of order is a request for you to consider what this House has just experienced which in my view was a gross waste of Parliament’s time. For someone to get up and read out his recent reading bibliography is not an acceptable practice in Parliament. If we all did that there would be a hopeless lack of work being done in this Parliament. That is surely a procedure that that member and his party in particular should reflect on. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: I thank the member. The member will be interested to know as may other members that this matter is being actively considered by the Standing Orders Committee. 
Gambling—Inquiry into Relationship with Loan Sharks 
11.  
SUE BRADFORD (Green) 
 to the  
Minister of Internal Affairs 
: Will he call for a full public inquiry into the relationship between loan sharks and gambling in New Zealand; if not why not? 
Hon RICK BARKER (Minister of Internal Affairs) 
: 
 Although I have no responsibility for the treatment of loan sharks and the sometimes questionable behaviour they exhibit I am concerned with ensuring that gambling operators follow the rules. For example allegations have been made that loan sharks were preying on gamblers at the Christchurch Casino. I assure the House that the moment officials of the Department of Internal Affairs became aware of those allegations an investigation was initiated. When the investigation is complete I expect the Department of Internal Affairs to take the appropriate action and my own response to that will be informed by the result of the inquiry and not before. 
Sue Bradford 
: Why does the Minister think that that will be enough when loan sharking inside casinos is endemic around the country not just in Christchurch; when dealers are themselves actually introducing gamblers to loan sharks; and when young women unable to pay their loans are working off their debts in brothels owned by loan sharks? 
Hon RICK BARKER 
: I read with interest the press release put out just hours ago by that member which makes those allegations. I invite the member to forward those allegations to me either anonymised or otherwise and I will have my department and officials investigate them thoroughly. If there is substance to them action will be taken. 
Sue Bradford 
: Will the Minister investigate reports that Department of Internal Affairs inspectors are being given free lunches at the Christchurch Casino and does he think that that may impact on their ability to fully and fairly investigate activities there? 
Hon RICK BARKER 
: I am aware that those allegations have been made and I intend to make no comment until an investigation is complete. To do so would prejudice it. 
Sue Bradford 
: Why does the Minister think that an investigation solely by the Department of Internal Affairs will be sufficient when the department appears to be so unaware of what is really going on in casinos across the country and when there is an urgent need for affected parties to be able to give full and frank evidence under conditions of anonymity given the threats of violence and kidnapping that underpin aspects of this loan-sharking industry inside casinos? 
Hon RICK BARKER 
: The Department of Internal Affairs has monitors that examine every aspect on the floor of a casino. They check all the money that goes in and out of a casino and have very very thorough checks. I am confident the department has a good idea of what is going on. As to the member’s allegations I make my offer again that I would appreciate it if she would forward those allegations to me anonymised so people are not identified or she can direct the people to me and I will arrange an appropriate investigation. This is the first time the matter has been brought to my attention. 
Pharmac—Replacement of Ritalin SR with Rubifen SR 
12.  
Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN (National—Northcote) 
 to the  
Minister of Health 
: Why has Pharmac replaced Ritalin SR with Rubifen SR as the subsidised medication for the treatment of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder? 
Hon PETE HODGSON (Minister of Health) 
: 
 Pharmac did so because it can save $1 million per annum for the same drug and use the money elsewhere to buy other drugs. 
Dr Jonathan Coleman 
: Is the Minister aware of reports that children whose medication has been changed from Ritalin to Rubifen have displayed a marked deterioration in behaviour which in some cases has resulted in children having to be removed from school; if so what action will be taken? 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: Yes I am aware. The reactions to this drug or to any other drugs are collected always by the centre for adverse reactions monitoring which is based in Dunedin. It advises that of the more than 6000 children currently on this drug fewer than 20 have reported any effects. Of those 20 there is no pattern to the effects and the centre for adverse reactions monitoring therefore at this point has no advice to offer Pharmac. 
Dr Jonathan Coleman 
: Does the Minister acknowledge that this is a problem for families like the Celliers family of North Shore whose little 8-year-old’s behaviour deteriorated so badly when he was changed from Ritalin to Rubifen that he had to be removed from school and was unable to go back until his parents started paying for the Ritalin themselves? 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: Yes. I do not myself name individual New Zealanders who have issues but I am aware of the case. I just say to the member that this is the same drug. It has the same active ingredient and when we look at the bioavailability graphs which by the way have been sent out to every prescriber we see the graphs are super-imposable. That does not mean there is not some idiosyncratic response from some young children from time to time. My understanding is that this family has reapplied for an “exceptional circumstance”. 
Dr Jonathan Coleman 
: Can the Minister see there is a fundamental disconnect between Vote Education and Vote Health when a little 8-year-old has to be taken out of school like that with all the disruption and cost that that entails; and what would the Minister say in the case of children who are removed from school who need Ritalin in order to go back but whose parents cannot afford up to $145 per month to pay for it? 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: The member is a doctor and he has not heard me! So let me say this again. We are dealing with exactly the same active ingredient and when we look at the pharmacokinetics we find exactly the same bioavailability. In other words the drug levels are the same. Therefore the drugs are the same. What happens is that the coating of the drug may have caused some effect in some child. This is happening to a very modest degree. It would happen if the change in drug had occurred the other way. What is most likely so advises one paediatrician is that there is a reaction between the little boy’s long-term Ritalin and his short-term Ritalin. 
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: Is there an interesting disconnect between people arguing for improvement of productivity in the health care system and always opposing any kind of cost reductions that occur within it? 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: The member makes a good point. This drug had $1 million shaved off the cost by virtue of a tendering process. The tendering process is an effort to get competition into the drug industry. It is an effort to get value for money in the health system. Since 1998 tendering has saved $300 million. The Government does not lack ambition when it comes to getting value for health in the health system. What is more we monitor all drug reactions to ensure that if there are any responses there is no pattern to them. If there is a pattern to a response then there is reconsideration—on the spot. 
General Debate 
Hon PETE HODGSON (Minister of Health) 
: 
 I move  
That the House take note of miscellaneous business 
. To my right is the given leader of the National Party Mr Key who wants a loose fiscal policy. To my left is the other leader of the National Party Mr English who wants a tight fiscal policy. The leader to my right wants large tax cuts now; the other leader to my left wants small tax cuts later. The leader on the right wants to ditch part of the Working for Families package now to fund those tax cuts. The other leader to my left wants to keep the Working for Families package. The leader on the right the given leader of the National Party wants to review monetary policy. The other leader the co-leader of the National Party the person to my left Mr English does not want to review monetary policy. The person on my right Mr Key the given leader of the National Party is in favour of the Reserve Bank intervening in respect of exchange rates. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I am sorry to interrupt the member but would members leaving the Chamber please do so quietly. Show some courtesy to the member trying to address it. Courtesy is contagious. 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: But the leader on my left does not think the Reserve Bank should have done anything like that at all. The leader on the right—the fellow who says he is the real leader of the National Party Mr Key—does want taxpayer investment in broadband. The leader on the left says he does not want taxpayer investment in broadband. The leader on the right Mr Key the given leader of the National Party does support 20 hours’ free early childhood education and the leader on the left the other leader of the National Party does not want 20 hours’ free education. Finally the leader on the right Mr Key does want to tighten asset testing for rest homes and the leader on the left the numbers man does not want to touch the asset-testing regime at all. 
We have the aspirational leader and we have the numbers leader. We have the hollow man and we have the angry man. We have “Mr Hollow” and “Mr Angry”—aspiration and numbers. That is what we have and the divide continues to grow as they try to keep up appearances that there is no divide. 
While all that is going on amongst two members of the National Party from Sunday week this Government completes the roll-out of the Primary Health Care Strategy low fees programme. This is a remarkable package. This is a package that could have occurred only under a Labour Government. It could not have occurred had Annette King not started it. It could not have occurred had Helen Clark not been chair of Cabinet. It could not have occurred if the Minister of Finance had not been Dr Cullen. 
On 1 July Sunday week 4 million New Zealanders will find that they have access to cheap doctors’ fees and what is more that their prescription fees fall from $15 to $3 in most cases. In most cases doctors’ fees will come down by about 25 bucks and in most cases prescriptions will come down by about 12 bucks per script. That is the difference between Labour and National. National went into the last election saying it would not do any of that. National went into the last election saying it would double the fees. National went into the last election saying it would put the prescription fees up again. That is National’s policy: to reverse the single most important change in the New Zealand health system in recent times which is cheaper access to primary health care to general practitioner services to practice nurses and to all of the other people who work in the primary health care sector. 
The reason that matters is that better health is the result. This is not just a subsidy. This is a policy change designed to ensure New Zealanders can get access to primary health care earlier and can go to a doctor more often should they choose. For someone who needs to go to a doctor often—a person aged 65 or over for example—the savings in that household will be significant: maybe from about $800 per annum on average down to about $350. It will depend on the superannuation couple. Generally speaking the aim is to ensure that better primary health care is delivered to New Zealanders in a timely and affordable way. Why does that matter? Because it means that there are fewer hospitalisations or that hospitalisation is delayed. It means that the severity of conditions is reduced. It means that management of chronic disease can occur in a more reliable way. 
This is a significant policy change in our health system. It is one that has been put in place by a Labour Government over a 7-year period and it is one that National—should it ever be elected to the Treasury benches—is on the record as saying it will reverse. Of course Mr Key and Mr English may have different views on that as well. 
SUE BRADFORD (Green) 
: 
 The Green Party has been alarmed this week to hear new information about the prevalence of loan sharking inside New Zealand’s casinos. The Christchurch  
Press  
on the weekend did a sterling job with its revelations of the resignation of several senior staff of loan sharking in the casino’s VIP lounge and of allegations of irregularities in prize draws and discrepancies over gaming returns. The 
 Press  
alleged that loan sharks based at the casino were charging interest rates of 6 percent a week and that there were connections with loan sharks in Macau and with the ownership of local brothels. That was bad enough but since then we have learnt that loan sharking is endemic in casinos around the country and even in some class 4 venues—that is pokie parlours—as well. 
For example there are believed to be around 10 loan shark groups working at Skycity Casino in Auckland both on the ground floor and in the VIP lounges. It has been reported to me that the minimum loan in the VIP area is $10000 and that some gamblers are actually introduced to the loan shark by casino dealers. The loan shark has then visited the gambler’s home to ensure that he or she has a family that can be threatened. Any default on the loan or any late payment can lead to the person or his or her family members becoming seriously intimidated or actually hurt. Loan sharks also target Asian students on the ground floor of the Auckland casino where the minimum loan is $1000 to $3000. When some of those gamblers get into trouble with their loans they risk being recruited as agents for the loan sharks thereby perpetuating the cycle. It is reported that the dealers in the casinos sometimes refer gamblers to the loan sharks for help to get the money to keep them going. I have also heard that women who get badly into debt have sometimes been forced to work in massage parlours owned by loan sharks or by their associates in order to work off the debt. 
The Green Party has serious doubts about whether the Government is taking the nature and extent of this problem seriously enough. The responsible Minister the Hon Rick Barker has promised that his department will investigate accounts of loan sharking at the Christchurch Casino as recently revealed in the  
Press.  
However that is simply not enough. In relation to the pokie venues in February of this year the Department of Internal Affairs gaming investigations unit was criticised by the Auditor-General for doing too few audits of non-casino gaming operators. In relation to the casinos it has also been reported again by the  
Press 
 that according to someone with many years of experience in the casino business all the departmental inspectors do is to “come in eat our food (the inspectors eat for free in the casino staff canteen) read our newspaper and then go home not having done very much”. 
 What is really needed is not another Department of Internal Affairs investigation but a full public inquiry where the victims of the loan sharks and the staff and management in the casinos will have the ability to speak out freely without fearing retribution from either the loan sharks or their employers as the case may be. The Green Party remains concerned that perhaps the Government does not realise the nature of what it is dealing with here. The reality is that the profitability of casinos and pokie parlours comes in large part from desperate people who will do almost anything to get more cash in order to keep on gambling. All over the world gambling outlets—legal and illegal—are vulnerable to exploitation by criminals. Just because we are an isolated nation in the South Pacific that does not make us any different from the rest of the world. 
The Government must take action now to investigate fully what is happening with regard to loan sharking and associated criminal activity in casinos and class 4 venues. This inquiry should cover the whole gambling sector and the whole country not just part of it—and not just the Christchurch Casino. Evidence should be invited from all affected parties and people should be able to speak in confidence and in anonymity for obvious reasons. The Government should commit to taking all necessary actions following such an investigation to make sure that abuses are brought to an end and that casino and pokie operators are conscientious and careful in adhering to the Gambling Act and associated regulations. Dr Cullen told this House a few weeks ago that the Government has about $115 million invested in Sky City. Pending the withdrawal of the Government from investments of such a dubious nature the least that he and his colleagues could do is to ensure that the company and other gambling operators here foster a gambling environment that is as scrupulous as possible. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Deputy Leader—National) 
: 
 I am one of those old-fashioned politicians who believe that there should be an election to change the Government. But the more I watch Labour the more I believe that its members have gone into Opposition already. They have gone into Opposition already because the answer to every question about Government policy is that there is something wrong with National’s policy. Dr Cullen is conducting his whole approach to economic management as if John Key and I are running the Government and he is there to try to catch us out. Well that is what it shows. I thought Labour members were getting ready for retirement but they have retired in their hearts and minds already. Now the principal activity of Ministers is looking at the National website to see what our policy is so they can criticise it. 
I am also old-fashioned enough to believe that when Ministers say they will do something the public have every right to expect that that is what they will do. 
Simon Power 
: The member is old-fashioned. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: I have found out that I am very old-fashioned and I have been going around telling audiences that we have found some Government programmes that consist only of a launch. There is nothing else; there is only a launch. I found out today that there is one—shared equity—that consists only of four launches and it is still not happening. The pilot is being designed and the programme may start at the end of next year. Yet that programme was one of the centrepieces of a speech Helen Clark gave one year about the ownership society. The homeownership pilot that has not happened yet after four launches was the centrepiece of her ownership society. What we see day after day here is the fundamental dishonesty and hyperreality of this Government—a housing pilot programme that was launched four times but still has not happened. 
The single core benefit is apparently now in phase two. Phase one started in 1989—that is when it started—so phase one is 18 years long and the benefit’s introduction still has not happened. Even after having 10 years to think about it while in Opposition and 8 years in Government Mr David Benson-Pope who turned a bright future into a black hole gets up and says that it is going to happen. Well the news for David Benson-Pope is that not even his colleagues believe him. Worse than that they are embarrassed by his restatement of an obvious stupidity. It has failed; it will not happen; and he should stop pretending it will happen. 
And the same thing applies to the tertiary education reforms. At the select committee this morning I asked Dr Cullen a simple question. There have been 8 years of tertiary reform which has cost $400 million to think about so has it started yet? No! It has not started. It will start on 1 January when the person who was putting it all together will be hopping on a plane and going back to England. The chairman of the commission that is implementing it is to retire and Dr Cullen as the Minister will be leaving soon after. Tertiary reform has taken $400 million to think about and 8 years but nothing has happened—nothing has happened. 
But that is completely normal for a Government that says: “Free is what you pay for”. Now the “regulated standard” is the new term and what is free is the regulated standard. So the regulated standard cheeseburger is the bread—it is the bun. The regulated standard is the bun and that is free. If people want optional extras like cheese want the bun to be warmed up or want to have it in a box then they are really unusual because that is optional. People do not have to have cheese let us remember. When we say that people have to pay for the cheese and the box it is only because they have agreed to pay for them. If they had not agreed they would have been given the bun with nothing in it. And the Government is going to launch that stupidity on our families! If they agree to pay for food for their children at their early childcare centres then they will get it. If they agree to pay for food for their children who are aged 3 then they will get it. If parents do not agree to pay their children will not get any lunch. Which parent will disagree with paying? You see the free 20 hours policy is totally manipulative. 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA (Minister of Maori Affairs) 
: 
 That was the co-leader of the National Party talking about old-fashioned values. At the end of the day it is interesting when he talks about homeownership to think about who sold State houses in this country. Who did it—under whose steerage was it? It was under his. Who got rid of income-related rents? Who got rid of them? Bill English got rid of them—“Wiremu Pakeha” got rid of them. He talked about tertiary education. He was the member who was pushing make-believe diplomas and tohu. That is what he did and he put a whole lot of people asunder. 
At the end of the day it is fascinating to watch the two co-leaders in the sense of the “tight and loose” paradigm. At the end of the day finance is fundamental but the member for Rangitikei would not understand. If his party talks about tax cuts at the top end all that does is help that party’s rich mates. I am fascinated that there is not a murmur. Winston was right—not a murmur. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: The member will use the member’s full name. 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA 
: The Rt Hon Winston Peters was right. He was right in respect of the wine-box inquiry and those two people who are paying back $20 million. You know I want to say to members of the press that if those people had been Maori the press would have splashed the story continuously for 10 weeks. But because it is the mates of the rich the press will not say anything. 
I find this tussle between the two co-leaders fascinating in respect of the tax paradigm. One says that we have to tighten it. He parrots and mirrors what the great Minister of Finance Michael Cullen says and he tries to copy it. That is what he tries to do. He tries to stay tight because he knows that Michael Cullen will be remembered in this country as one of the finest and wisest financiers even above the Rt Hon Winston Peters. The policy of Labour has been quite simple: it is fundamental that the equity and the profit-taking in this country are shared with all peoples. The economy even tells us that. But the boys at the top end would deliver tax cuts which their friends would get. There is some simple logic in this: the money has to be taken from somewhere. So the health area the education area and the housing area will suffer dramatically. 
I wonder who works National’s figures out. I was asked a question the other day by Georgina te Heuheu. She asked what I had to say about the percentage increase in Maori unemployment figures. I think the co-leaders have been advising her on how to count and add up fiscal policy. I tell her that when Labour came into Government the general unemployment rate was 121967. Of that figure Maori numbered 24640 which is about 25 percent. So she had those figures wrong. She said that the figure was 30 percent when we came into Government and that it has now climbed up to 31 percent. I say to Georgina te Heuheu that the Maori unemployment rate is a lot smaller at 8238. 
At the end of the day Fonterra is really happy with this Government. It knows that Maori are big single shareholders and they are profiting well. All the dairy farmers are getting paid out. Farming is in a strong position and on 1 July parental leave which I know Katherine Rich is very very supportive of will increase. It will go alongside the great early childcare policy that this Government has brought in. 
The question to ask through the terrain of nonsense is what National’s policy is. What is it? Where is National’s policy? It is nowhere. National is flip-flopping around; it really is. National voted against parental leave. That is disgraceful. People in this party and the Labour-led Government are keen on ensuring that mums and kids get a fair crack at being in a better position. At the end of the day we have done that. So I find it fascinating that National has been tight then loose then maxing out on looking after the people in the upper echelon. We have increased the minimum wage seven times. National in its time in Government did not even increase it over a dollar. So here we have these people who are like Tarzan swinging through the trees talking a whole lot of rubbish. 
KATHERINE RICH (National) 
: 
 I just love listening to that member. No other member in the House has added more to parliamentary discussion than Parekura Horomia—to the terrain of nonsense to the matrix of dysfunction. I am hesitant to ask what “tight loose” and “maxing out” means but I am sure the member will have an explanation. 
Bill English was right. The Government side of the House has given up because that speech was already in the past tense. That eulogy delivered by Parekura Horomia discussing Michael Cullen’s legacy and what he will be remembered for is just another example of how that Government is already thinking about itself in the past tense. It is already packing its bags and imagining what it will be like in Opposition. It was the same in the select committee today. Steve Maharey thought he was in the Opposition. He started asking National members questions and was disturbed when we refused to answer him. We reminded him that his role as the Minister was to give us on that committee answers to our questions. 
The 20 free hours policy is an example of how to spend $178 million and please nobody. I repeat: it is an example of how to spend $178 million and please nobody. Even those who are opting into the scheme are doing so reluctantly and pointing out all the problems with that policy. One of the things the Minister has refused to tell us even though this policy is going live in only 7 working days is how many centres have opted in. He likes to pretend that he does not know. Well we know that those forms are sitting over in the Ministry of Education in a bit of a pile and all the Minister has to do is have some officials count them and personally tell him how many centres are opting in and how many are not opting in. The Minister cannot tell us how many centres are opting in. He cannot tell us how many of the up to 92000 children will actually get this service after 1 July. 
But what he has confirmed to us today is that although some Kiwi parents will be angry to find out that the scheme is not being offered in their local communities some non-residents non-citizens and in some cases long-term holidaymakers and overstayers here in New Zealand will be eligible potentially to get 20 free hours’ early childhood education for their children. That will be salt to the wounds of parents who find they cannot get access to the scheme for their kids because they live in the wrong place—a place that has no centre offering the service. 
One of the things the Minister fudges of course is this whole issue of optional charges. He pretends that some families will have a say in what the optional charge will be and that it will be for luxuries. Actually it will not. I have not spoken to one centre yet that is not looking at levying some kind of surcharge for a luxury. They are doing it to cover day-to-day costs such as books—like the centre that is considering putting in place a $100-a-week fee for access to reading materials. 
Jill Pettis 
: You’ve always had to pay. 
KATHERINE RICH 
: Jill Pettis might have come to Parliament to say to parents that she wants them to pay for books in early childhood education centres because they are a luxury but over on this side of the House we believe that those kids should have access to books and that that should be part of a quality service. And what does a “quality surcharge” mean? What does a “$7-a-day charge for musical appreciation” mean? Does it mean that someone’s child will not get access to the musical instruments or will the classical music just be turned off when that child goes near the stereo? It is just not going to work. Centres are saying they will have to cut their costs and their quality. In some cases they have asked staff to take a pay cut. 
Jill Pettis 
: What a load of rubbish! 
KATHERINE RICH 
: There she is over there—a so-called representative of the workers of New Zealand. As a result of her Government’s policy some early childcare workers are being asked to take a pay cut. Well that is nice is it not? It is representative of her party at the moment. 
Back in the 2005 election campaign members opposite promised that all 3 and 4-year-old children would get 20 free hours’ early childhood education. It was a lie. I do not know anybody who would think one had to make a payment for something that was free. Those members may have a definition of free being that a payment is made. Under this Government “free” means paying a fee. That is why those members are so dark about it. On this side of the House we know that Labour is deeply disturbed. Some Labour members are saying that this policy is a dog’s breakfast. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Before I call the next speaker I remind members that under Speakers’ ruling 57/3 interjections are out of order unless they are rare and reasonable. If someone wants to make a speech then they can take a call and do so. 
STEVE CHADWICK (Labour—Rotorua) 
: 
 This is a hallmark month for Labour. It is a month in which we are going out with policy not spin and it is policy that we developed well before we were elected into Government in 1999. We have centrepiece policies not just spin over substance. Our policies are good for New Zealanders especially families from the cradle to the grave. Everybody in New Zealand is a winner with Labour. 
I want to talk quickly about the primary health organisation roll-out. This completes policy undertaken in 2001 with 25 to 44-year-olds now paying low-cost fees when visiting doctors. That is the end of the cake. The scheme now extends right across the age spectrum in New Zealand and I say “well done” to Pete Hodgson for finishing this work. It has taken $2.2 billion to make this happen. National members support raising fees for doctors’ visits in this age group. They said so in the last election campaign. They will do it again and we will be out there reminding New Zealanders to be very afraid of their hollow promises. 
I am just getting started. In my electorate of Rotorua we have covered the entire district with low-cost access to doctors. It is wonderful policy not spin. Everybody can get to the doctor for half of what it cost in 1999. In 1999 it cost $50 to visit the doctor; now in Rotorua visits to the doctor cost $22. 
KiwiSaver begins on 1 July. People will get a $1000 kickstart when they open an account. What a wonderful thing for New Zealand families. Young people in Ponsonby Road were asked after the Budget announcement whether they would join. “I’ll join up”—they said—“I’d rather start a savings scheme now than have a tax cut.” That attitude is spreading like wild fire throughout New Zealand. Security in their old age and getting a savings mentality is what KiwiSaver will help people to get on 1 July. That is good for New Zealand families. It builds resilience for their children and opportunities for a secure future. 
 KiwiSaver adds to the superannuation scheme. It is designed as a top-up. National has already dropped hints about scrapping universal superannuation. The old-age pensioners and Grey Power remember when National cut the superannuation rates. National should come clean. If National ever gets the reins of power people should be very afraid of what it would do to senior citizens in this country—lest we forget. 
Labour’s policies are from cradle to the grave. From 1 July paid parental leave is rolling out even further. We have over 90 percent buy-in in this country now and from 1 July parents are going to get an increase from $372 per week to $391 per week. Is that not fantastic? The Opposition and the women members in the Opposition voted against paid parental leave. Women in New Zealand will never forget that. We women members of this Labour Government will make sure that every women’s group we meet in the country will be told about the Opposition’s hard-hearted approach to paid parental leave. What is wrong with parents being paid to be at home with their children until they are able to enter the workforce again if they choose to? 
Now let us go to the next aspect of cradle to the grave which is early childhood education. The comment from the Leader of the Opposition today that it is “something for nothing” is simply outrageous. We are laying the best possible foundation for our young children for access to quality learning experiences with 20 hours’ free education. Paula Bennett is simply wrong on this one and she knows it. We will make sure New Zealanders know it. This is exactly the strategy that the Opposition undertook with the primary health organisations’ roll-out and low cost doctors’ fees. Opposition members went around every general practitioner’s surgery to say: “Don’t join the PHO. Stay out of it.” It is the same strategy that they used then. Hello when 30 percent of general practitioner practices in New Zealand joined the primary health organisations the whole country tumbled and the Opposition hated it. Well we are hearing the same rhetoric now about 20 free hours’ childcare. Those centres that have joined up—and good on them—have done their sums; they are joining up. Once we hit the 30 percent threshold all the centres will be in there. Who is going to benefit from this? It is going to be our children and our children’s future. 
PAULA BENNETT (National) 
: 
 I stand in this debate to deal with some of the facts and to put them on the record when it comes to certainty of income for those centres that are opting in to the 20 free hours policy. Today I asked a question about school donations and how if someone does not pay his or her school donation it does not mean much and it does not have many consequences. However if someone does not pay his or her donation to an early childhood centre it is very clear that there is a good chance that a teacher may lose his or her job. 
Let us clarify that a little more because I am quite happy to back this up. If as the Prime Minister states and as the Minister states they are funding for the minimum standard legal requirements and we have a centre that say receives funding for eight teachers but has decided to have an extra teacher it will be going above the minimum. The centre says: “We are going to ask for an optional charge or a donation from our parents to pay for that ninth teacher.” If parents do not pay the charge that teacher cannot be paid. It is as simple as that. 
This Labour Government needs to front up and be honest with parents and it certainly needs to be honest with centres. It should front up and let centres know that under the 20 free hours policy they will not have a certainty of income. Certainty of income is what they are asking for. They know how much it costs to run their businesses and they cannot get compulsory top-ups to run their businesses on a week-by-week basis. They are relying on a donation they are relying on an optional subsidy and that will not work. 
Parents want the subsidy. We make no bones about that. Who would not want a bit of extra money each week in their own pocket that they are not having to pay for childcare or childhood education? It does not take rocket science to know that. Members can ask a question in the House to try to make me look a little silly by saying that parents want their childcare subsidised. That is not rocket science. However it is not 20 hours free and that is what the Labour Government promised New Zealand parents. 
This Labour Government clearly promised parents 20 hours free and they will not be getting 20 hours free. Parents are now asking: “What price will I have to pay for 20 hours free?”. Parents are saying: “What price do I have to pay for 20 hours free? Is the cost going to be the quality of the education that my children get? Is the cost of this going to be that my centre ends up having to close down?”. 
UK centres have recently been closing. New childcare legislation was introduced in the UK in April 2006 and we have just had a report from a UK centre that said: “Underfunding the ban on top-up fees and masses of regulation prompted me to make the decision to close.” It is happening in the UK. This Government needs to take a lesson from it and not see our sector going in the same direction. 
Parents are saying: “Well if I pay my optional extra or a donation am I going to be subsidising another parent next to me who does not pay?”. The payment is not compulsory. How fair is it that some parents will pay the optional extra or a donation but others will not? Why should those parents subsidise each other? 
This Labour Government promised parents 20 hours free for all 3 and 4-year-olds and it is not delivering it. That is a travesty and it will come back to bite the Government. Parents are asking: “At what cost will I have to pay for 20 hours free? Will that cost be that I pay more for my under-threes? Will that cost mean that other parents perhaps who have under-3-year-olds are going to pay more for their 2-year-olds so that I can get 20 hours subsidised from this Government?”. That ain’t going to be a cost that they will be prepared to bear for long. 
Will there be a place for part-time education and care as centres move away from sessional care and into full-time care because that is the only way they can make this subsidy work? This Labour Government professes to care about those people who are disadvantaged and those people who are underclassed. This policy does not work for those people. 
Hon PETER DUNNE (Leader—United Future) 
: 
 One of the roles that United Future as a modern centre party seeks to perform is to hold the major parties in this Parliament to account. One of the other roles we seek to perform also is to ensure that when policy solutions to major issues are proposed they are not in the nature of a knee-jerk or instant reaction. When we look at the current debate around housing affordability in New Zealand we see many of those knee-jerk elements to policy being applied and offered as panaceas for the crisis that we face particularly in terms of young people having access to their first home. 
In this regard I refer particularly to the comments made last week by the Governor of the Reserve Bank in his submission to the Commerce Committee’s inquiry into housing advocating the introduction of a capital gains tax. That is something we totally oppose. Capital gains taxes are unfair they are largely unworkable they are distortionary and they will not achieve the objectives that the governor might seek for them in respect of the housing market in New Zealand. Other measures that have been floated over the last few months come into the same category. Members will recall the mortgage surcharge proposal that was floated a few months ago. Equally I have to say that I am far from convinced about the merits of ring-fencing tax losses on properties for the same reasons that the distortion they create is far greater than the mischief they resolve. 
What lies at the heart of all these issues is that the short-term “let’s have a simple solution” approach outweighs the need to get to the bottom of the fundamental issue. In this instance I think that the big issue we are grappling with and need to confront is the way in which monetary policy is operated at the present time. We have a situation of an overvalued dollar because of high domestic interest rates which are being imposed by the governor because he wants to curb domestic economic growth. All that does is simply to fuel more foreign investment more growth and higher interest rates. The difficulty is that the mechanism that we have adopted for the last 22 years since the dollar was floated and since the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Act was introduced in the late 1980s is a reliance on the interest rate mechanism as the way to control inflation. There are other steps available to the governor. I believe that what the current debate ought to be focusing on is the adequacy of existing mechanisms and whether other steps can be employed to equal effect. I refer to the ratios of cash that the banks have to hold back as an example. 
The danger we face at this stage is that if we do not have that wider debate we put in place a series of short-term measures that will ultimately prove to be ineffective and that will only ensure that at some point in the future we will have to unwind them and start all over again. I see the inquiry that the Finance and Expenditure Committee has decided to undertake into the operation of monetary policy as being a critical exercise here. It is very important that that committee is able to have a full and proper discussion of the issues and is able to make some considered recommendations to the Parliament about the way forward. That debate is not being helped by some of the situations we are seeing at the moment. 
I respect the autonomy of the Governor of the Reserve Bank; I respect his right to express his views. But the difficulty I have with the way in which the debate is being conducted is that essentially it is being sensationalised and individual aspects of a package are being presented as total answers to a particular problem. That will not work. United Future will ensure to the best extent we are able that when we are looking at all of these issues the totality of the issue is under consideration not simply some of the symptoms around the edges. I know that my colleague the Minister of Finance and members from the other side of the House have been involved in discussion and I think that process should be allowed to continue and to mature. But I do not want to see it hijacked by some of these short-term external interventions—these knee-jerk reactions—that are being proposed which simply ensure that nothing of substance will eventuate. So as we grapple with the problems of an overheated housing market and an exchange rate that simply seems to show no signs of wanting to lie down and take a bit of a rest for a while we need to take a more comprehensive approach. 
MARYAN STREET (Labour) 
: 
 1 July will be a very significant date for the people of New Zealand. It will be a very significant date for this Government as we deliver on promises that we have made and policies that we have developed over time and 1 July will go down as a red-letter day for many many New Zealanders who will for the first time be able to take up a number of opportunities. 
In the short time I have I want to highlight a couple of those. I will deal first with our health policy and the primary health organisations. First of all the cost to families of visits to the doctor will be cut in half. From 1 July all New Zealanders will be able to access affordable doctors’ visits and prescription drugs. This is a historic achievement that only a Labour-led Government could deliver. We have invested $2.2 billion to make primary health care affordable for all families. This investment has reduced doctors’ fees by around $25 and has lowered standard prescription charges from $15 to $3. Three million New Zealanders are already benefiting from lower fees and they will be joined by people in the 25 to 44-year age group. 
Nearly 4 million New Zealanders are now enrolled in primary health organisations. I do not want to shy away from the figures because they are significant and I want to return to them at the end of my 5-minute call. Since last October primary health organisation practices that have agreed to maintain very low fees received additional funding. From 1 July this year that top-up will increase from 15 percent to 17.5 percent. This very low-cost access initiative currently involves 23 percent of primary health organisation practices and it benefits over 900000 people. That is a lot of people and many of those have high needs. 
From 1 July a major milestone will be reached when the final stage of our $2.2 billion funding roll-out will take effect and apply to 25 to 44-year-olds. Standard consultation fees charged by very low-cost access practices will remain very low at $15.50 for adults—that is 18 years and over—and $10.50 for children aged 6 to 17 years. Fees will remain zero for children under the age of 6. Further funding announcements in primary health care can be anticipated later in this calendar year. 
We have listened to more volume than content from the National Party contributions to this general debate this afternoon. It is legitimate for us as a Government to ask where those members’ alternative policies are because all we get is a ringing silence every time we ask. What are the Opposition’s priorities in the health sector? Currently as I understand it National members are going around the country trying to pick up some ideas so that they can develop a health policy and policies in other areas because they have none of their own. Basically they weigh positions of interest groups for vote weight and if they think something weighs in well then they will probably adopt it. Never mind if it is not the right thing the fair thing the compassionate thing or the durable thing to do they will just weigh the votes and then write it into their policy. 
Will National members raise the cost of going to the doctor? Will that be one of their promises? Will they raise the cost of prescription drugs? Will that be one of their promises? In early childhood education which is another policy area entirely and has been the subject of debate in the last few minutes will they take away 20 free hours? 
COLIN KING (National—Kaikoura) 
: 
 18 June will go down as a “blue-letter day” from the point of view of National and for all those people who will gain enormously from skills and trades being reintroduced into our curriculum. Only a National Government will be able to achieve this because effectively we have witnessed over the last 8 years successive Labour Ministers of Education presiding over this portfolio standing by watching and wringing their hands as the technology curriculum has descended into an abyss of confusion and theory. It has become the subject where one can actually draw a scone but can never get to bake it and is described as being able to write how to make a cart but never being able to build it. The rhetoric of this Government around its educational aims its glib answers is overwhelming and it gives me pleasure to inform the Government that New Zealanders are no longer prepared to swallow that level of rubbish. 
It amazes me how a Government can deny New Zealanders and rob them of confidence and self-belief. We do not have to look too far afield to see just what a positive Government can achieve in Australia for instance. Yet on this side of the Tasman we can see clearly that this Government prides itself on denying people their self-reliance and self-belief. 
On that basis I wish to congratulate the leader of the National Party John Key on the form and measure in which he articulated the comments about introducing trades back into schools. It is very pertinent because we have seen such an abysmal performance from this Government. What did John Key the leader of the National Party say? He said: “It’s time to put hands-on trades and industry training back into the heart of our [education] system. 
The National Part has a vision of doing this and of achieving this.” Let us contrast this sort of thing with the shameful legacy of Labour. Each week 30000 youth are absent from schools. 
Anne Tolley 
: How many? 
COLIN KING 
: There are 30000 children not attending schools. It is very interesting when we ask questions of the Minister as to the Government’s solutions for that. Those members say: “We’re implementing a range of policies.” It is a bit like saying the cheque is in the mail. When we look at the granting of exemptions from school before the official leaving-age we see there were 4000 last year. One in five children is not achieving level 1 of the National Certificate in Educational Achievement (NCEA). But probably the most disappointing performance from Labour and horrifying fact for all New Zealanders is that 53 percent of Maori boys do not achieve level 1 in NCEA. So Labour’s legacy around education is quite shameful. It has forgotten about an enormous part of New Zealand’s young. 
What was John Key’s message about this urgently needed change? It was this: “We need to do a better job of exposing students early on to some of the hands-on industries that might fire up their appetite for education.” I can assure members that the message going around and the message given to us at meetings with various educational experts is that teachers are crying out for methods to engage children. I would just like to make the point that we should not think that because somebody is interested in  
Macbeth 
 he or she will not be equally stimulated by trades and hands-on skills at school. 
So what will National do? National will make it clear that schools must provide students with opportunities to learn practical hands-on skills. It is as simple as that. After all this blather around the edges—social conversations and so on—what have we got? We have a disaster. Principals at these secondary schools are telling us to get the feel of the size of the resulting crisis. These are some of the ways they describe the shortage of technology teachers: “a nightmare” “a major problem” “almost impossible” “a significant problem that will get worse not better” “dire” and “the death knell for the technology learning area”. 
SHANE JONES (Labour) 
: 
 Kia ora Mr Assistant Speaker. It is a pleasure to rise and take a short call. 
Yesterday my colleague Lianne Dalziel spoke at length about the development promotion and introduction of a new framework that will give people greater confidence when they pursue the KiwiSaver opportunity that their resources funds and savings will not be raided or vandalised. I stand with a great deal of pride after yesterday’s speech and following Winston Peters and my senior colleague Lianne Dalziel in sending a message to New Zealanders that yes we have a new savings scheme. That savings scheme will be bound by a robust set of frameworks an enhanced set of rules and laws to deal with the security laws so that people will not have to live through the heartache shame and embarrassment of the 1990s. 
Yesterday Mr Bill English had an opportunity to stand attack and criticise the criminal wrongdoing associated with Michael Fay and David Richwhite and his silence was thunderous. The burden of his shame was palpable given the very subdued speech he made. We should never forget that during that period—shameful in our recent history—when corporate larceny was at large members of the National Party had an opportunity to correct matters. They chose not to do so. So I give Lianne Dalziel full marks for bringing forward this bill which will be referred to our select committee. 
Yesterday Mr Winston Peters was reliving a bit of history. He reminded members of the House—us younger members—and members of the public about the ravaging damage that was visited upon honest families shareholders ordinary toiling Kiwis as a consequence of the rorts that were allowed to prevail in the 1990s. He reminded us that we must never ever allow individuals such as Fay Richwhite and their ilk to believe that they are either more elite or because of their wealth in a higher class or entitled to dip into the public purse to enrich themselves. I give full marks to Mr Peters for having also given some momentum to these new rules and laws that are soon to materialise. 
When I think of Mr Fay I am reminded of the meaning of the word “fey”. “Fey” means someone who has an interest in the supernatural or someone who is fated to die is doomed. The people who were doomed were the honest New Zealanders whose shareholdings and minority interests were rorted and thrown on to the scrap heap of impoverishment as a consequence of what happened to our rail industry. We must never forget that or that members of the National Party—who had an opportunity to challenge and correct that—were absolutely silent. The deputy leader yesterday stood like a broken subdued figure and struck a pathetic stance. Boy I hope New Zealanders never ever forget that. 
There is another interesting thing about Mr Richwhite. And I must say I have never had so many emails and calls. Of course one steps with trepidation outside this House to speak in quite the candid manner I have enjoyed the opportunity to do here. Someone who can write out a cheque for $600 million and still have $50 million in the bank is someone to be regarded with a fair degree of caution. But where I come from in Tai Tokerau there are two things at a place called Ngawha. One is the thermal pool—and in that thermal pool apparently is a taniwha—and the other is a jail. There is an empty jail cell and on top of that jail cell is a sign that says “Rich white” because that jail is full of our people—young Maori males. Whatever their wrongdoing may be the costs that they represent in terms of their wrongdoing pale into insignificance in relation to what Fay and Richwhite did to the reputation of our nation to the confidence of families and ordinary honest Kiwis in the capital markets and in the savings industry. Thank goodness we will have a set of laws and a set of frameworks that give people the confidence to move away from our fascination with housing and put their resources into KiwiSaver which will be a Kiwi saver. 
SHANE ARDERN (National—Taranaki-King Country) 
: 
 It is an honour to follow my colleague Shane Jones from the far north who spent most of his speech attacking the deputy leader of the National Party for not putting up what he would describe as a strong defence of National’s policies in the 1990s. I would remind the member that while he was in the United States studying at university in the 1980s we had a Labour Government in this country and that Government described the main industry in the area that the member comes from as a sunset industry. 
We know when a Government is in its dying hours. We know because the only thing its members can do is to get up and attack a Government that was in power 9 years ago. They cannot promote any of their own policies. They are absolutely bereft of new ideas. Their programme is completed and they have run out of new ideas. 
When we look across at that tired Government what do we see? We look across at the Hon Parekura Horomia and we know that consciousness is that annoying time between naps. That is what we see. When we look at the Hon Steve Maharey we know as the Hon Steve Maharey says: “I have a degree in liberal arts and of course I know that manual labour is the Mexican Prime Minister. Of course I know that.” Then we look and we see the Hon Dr Michael Cullen staring back at the Opposition and we know that the Hon Dr Michael Cullen said in his maiden speech: “I ripped the farmers off then and I will get stuck into them again over the next few years.” And over the next few years he most certainly did. 
When we look at forestry our third largest export industry in this country what do we see as a legacy of this Government particularly for the area of the previous speaker? What do we see? We see for the first time in 50 years deforestation. What do we see in the area of Minister Burton from Taupo an area that is very very dependent on the forestry industry? We see deforestation for the first time in 50 years. What do we see? What do the figures tell us? In 1999 68000 new hectares of trees were planted. In 2006 the figure was minus 15000 hectares; 15000 more hectares were felled in 2006 than were planted. That is deforestation and it is an absolutely atrocious track record. 
Who is the Minister of Forestry? The Minister is the Hon Jim Anderton. He is a sunset industry Minister that is for sure or is he just a sunset Minister in a tired Government? Poor old Jim Anderton does not know whether to throw his hat off or to just move away and retire. The Hon Jim Anderton is clearly one of those sunset Ministers. 
I would ask this Government to look at what it is doing to some of our major export earners such as the forest industry. It should look at what Labour did to those industries in the 1980s and learn from its mistakes. It should not rake up something that it thinks might be harmful to the National Party. The Government should tell us what it will do about its abysmal track record in the time it has been in office. It should tell us what it will do towards introducing something like personal freedom—one of the cornerstones of the National Party. This Government should tell us what it will do to give all people a fair go because what we have seen so far is the major economic drivers of this country on their back legs going nowhere. 
Under this Government we have seen things that one cannot do. One of things people learn in this place when they come here is not only what one stands for but also what one stands against. We have seen from Labour Governments time and time again that they are consummate Opposition politicians. They are in Opposition even when they are in Cabinet. Their tools are petrol and matches whereas National Party members generally come from a background where they have been builders where they make things happen and where they show people how to better their lives and to go forward. 
What we see now in the last 6 months of this dying Government is an Opposition in the making. Labour members are honing their Opposition skills. They know what they stand against; they are good at what they stand against. They have always been good at what they stand against. But if we ask them what they stand for we will get a desert because there is nothing. They know that they stand against for example therapeutic medicines. They will not have them; they are going to regulate them out of business. They are absolutely opposed to complementary medicine. 
The debate having concluded the motion lapsed. 
Social Security Amendment Bill 
In Committee 
Debate resumed from 15 May. 
Schedule 1 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That schedule 1 be agreed to. 
Ayes 61 
New Zealand Labour 49; New Zealand First 7; United Future 2; Progressive 1; Independents: Copeland Field. 
Noes 58 
New Zealand National 48; Green Party 6; Maori Party 4. 
Schedule 1 agreed to. 
Schedule 2 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That schedule 2 be agreed to. 
Ayes 61 
New Zealand Labour 49; New Zealand First 7; United Future 2; Progressive 1; Independents: Copeland Field. 
Noes 58 
New Zealand National 48; Green Party 6; Maori Party 4. 
Schedule 2 agreed to. 
Schedule 3 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That schedule 3 be agreed to. 
Ayes 61 
New Zealand Labour 49; New Zealand First 7; United Future 2; Progressive 1; Independents: Copeland Field. 
Noes 58 
New Zealand National 48; Green Party 6; Maori Party 4. 
Schedule 3 agreed to. 
Schedule 4 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That schedule 4 be agreed to. 
Ayes 61 
New Zealand Labour 49; New Zealand First 7; United Future 2; Progressive 1; Independents: Copeland Field. 
Noes 58 
New Zealand National 48; Green Party 6; Maori Party 4. 
Schedule 4 agreed to. 
Schedule 5 agreed to.  
Clauses 1 2 and 3 
JUDITH COLLINS (National—Clevedon) 
: 
 The Social Security Amendment Bill we are debating today and that we have been debating for the last few weeks is a bill that could possibly be more properly called the “Single Core Benefit (Phase One) Bill”. I say that because this is a bill that brings in an amendment that the single core benefit was supposed to bring about—effectively a work requirement for some people whether they were sick or simply under-employed whether or not they wished to work and whether or not they could work. Given that this Labour Government has been talking in various stages since 1989 about the single core benefit I think that we could just hold off putting this bill through and instead wait for phase two which we have been promised since 1989. 
A huge amount of money has been spent on resourcing and doing the policy work behind this bill. A huge amount of work has been put together. In fact it is so huge that the current Minister and the previous Minister have been incapable of listing the number of reports on the single core benefit or its progress because apparently to do so would require a great deal of manual collation. Apparently it would require so much manual collation that those reports cannot be counted. 
We support some parts of this bill. We support the idea that those who can work should work if they are to be recipients of benefits under the social welfare system. However we do think that some things could change. We are a little bit worried that some people who are genuinely incapable of working and who are genuinely unable to participate in the workforce will feel they need to try to work even if they simply cannot. That is something that people have certainly spoken to us about at the Social Services Committee. We have received submissions from various groups including IHC New Zealand that felt that if people did not work then under this bill if it goes through they would be noted as simply not contributing. People can contribute to the community in lots of ways; paid work is certainly one of them and raising children well is certainly another. In fact in my opinion the most important contribution people can make to the community is to raise their children well. But they can also contribute by helping out others by helping those who are less well-off and by working with children in a voluntary way. All of those things are commendable activities that can be supported as contributing to the greater community and the greater good. We think the concept of “work first” is good but we also think it needs to be looked at from the point of view of what people can actually do. We do not want this to be a country where those who simply cannot work in the paid workforce feel they are not valued and feel they are not able to contribute in some other way. 
We are also very concerned to see that the “activity in the community” programme which we think could have been developed properly but which has not been under this Government—it has in fact been ignored and under-resourced—will not be taken seriously under this bill and we think that that is a real shame. 
We would like to see phase two put in though so that we can see this bill in its entirety. Phase two which is what we now call the single core benefit is about amalgamating seven main working-age benefits into one and calling it a single core benefit with multiple add-ons. How will that work with this bill? We think it is somewhat premature to have one without the other. Given that we have been waiting since 1989 for the single core benefit and that this Government has been in power for almost 8 years one would think that we could have had some idea about when the single core benefit will happen. Instead we hear constantly from the Minister that apparently Cabinet will look at it either later this year or next year. It is always in election year that something is going to be looked at. Just like the housing policy and everything else it is always going to be announced going to be launched and going to be the newest thing. Particularly when Mr Steve Maharey is in the ministerial role it is going to be the most fantastic and outlandishly exciting scheme that has ever been seen. But what happens? As soon as the election is over Labour members forget all about it and say they are going to look at another phase. 
So we will now have this new part of our vocabulary in Parliament—phase two. Phase two means the bit of the bill the bit of the policy that is promised but that frankly cannot be done because first the Government does not have the votes to do it. We know that there is no appetite in this Parliament anywhere except on the front-bench of the Labour Party to amalgamate seven main working-age benefits into one benefit and call it a single core benefit. We know that nobody in the Greens wants that. We certainly know that the National Party does not want that. We know that the Maori Party does not want that. We know that actually nobody wants it except the Minister. 
ANNE TOLLEY (National—East Coast) 
: 
 I stand to speak on the title and commencement of the Social Security Amendment Bill following my colleague Judith Collins’ excellent discussion of the never-ending planning and discussion phase of the single core benefit. Perhaps we should have called this bill something like the “Social Security (Pre - Single Core Benefit) Amendment Bill” or the “Social Security (Phase One and a Half) Amendment Bill” because we have had phase one and we are looking forward to phase two. We are not quite sure where it is at. We seem to be dealing with amendments to the social security legislation in a piecemeal fashion prolonged by this Labour Government’s interminable fiddling with the unemployment benefit. 
We are told that this bill will focus on changes for youth and that the goal is to have all 15 to 19-year-olds either in employment in training or in an educational institution of some sort. 
Judith Collins 
: In prison! 
ANNE TOLLEY 
: Hopefully not in prison. Yet we find that according to the household labour force survey 27000 youth are unemployed. So they are not in employment they are not in any form of sensible training and they are not in an educational institution. That number has grown under this Government by just about 10000. We have to ask this Minister the Hon David Benson-Pope what this bill will do to get those 27000 youth into either employment training or education. I have looked through the bill and listened to the debate in the House and I really cannot see anything stunning that will move those figures in the opposite direction. 
We are told that this bill focuses on providing the right services and support for people to enable them where appropriate to find or move towards finding employment. I ask the Minister what that actually means. I know there are sanctions in this bill for those for whom work is made available but who do not turn up. 
I say to the Minister that I recently got some figures from a kiwifruit pack-house in my electorate that had provided people on the unemployment benefit with work. The employer tells me that the work provided would be for approximately 9 months of the year. I would have thought that was pretty good. There are plenty of career opportunities in the kiwifruit industry. Good training is provided and there are footsteps through to some excellent prospects of full-time work. This pack-house provided me with some statistics that it had kept on the workers that WINZ had provided it with. Twenty-one names were provided and there was an 18-week course of employment which began with 2 weeks’ training. Let me say that by the end of those 18 weeks out of those 21 people in the last week one worked 11½ hours two worked 8½ hours and the rest were no-shows. When one looks through the 18 weeks one sees that the no-shows grow and grow until as I say by the end 18 out of 21 people are not bothering to turn up for work. After all the training that had been put into them after the company had provided vehicles to go round and pick people up from their homes—the drivers knocked on people’s doors waking them up sometimes—many of them said the work was too hard and they could not be bothered. In many cases they were just not prepared to take part in any work. 
The question I have for the Minister in the chair is what sanctions will be placed on those people through this bill. I rather suspect having read through the bill having listened to the expert advice from the officials and having listened to some of the submissions that were made that the sanctions are very sparsely applied. Certainly none of those people were sanctioned by WINZ despite very good evidence that they had not bothered to turn up. Two of them had not bothered to turn up from day one. Four of them did not bother to turn up from week two and the numbers just grew. I would really like the Minister to tell us just what in this bill will address the issue of people who are offered good jobs with good training good career prospects and the possibility of working for 9 months of the year in a good industry but just do not bother to turn up for work. 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE (Minister for Social Development and Employment) 
: 
 I rise to respond immediately to the previous speaker. I would be very surprised if those people were not sanctioned. How that member would ever know what action Work and Income—by the way it is Work and Income; there is no such thing as that other acronym she was using and there has not been for some years—has taken is beyond me. But I can assure her that if she were to give me the details of the employer and the names of those concerned I would check that that was the case because there is no need to introduce sanctions in this bill around work testing. That exists right now and that does not change. 
What this bill does do though is to mandate the success that is already happening out there in our communities. It is the sort of success that has led to the extraordinary numbers that I have canvassed for the House previously such as the stunning reduction we have seen in unemployment benefits received in this country since National left the Treasury benches. Just to remind those people who did not hear the figures on unemployment at question time I say that in 1999 the number of unemployed in this country was 161000 and a bit. As of May this year that number is just over 24000. That is an extraordinary change. The most pleasing change of course as part of that—as members of the House know—is the huge reduction in youth unemployment from 17500 in 1999 when the National Party was last in Government to around 1200 now receiving benefits. It is always good to have the opportunity to compliment the professionalism and work of our front-line people in Work and Income—that is Work and Income not “WINZ” I say to Mrs Tolley—and I do that again. If we couple that success with the policy initiatives of this Government such as Working for Families we do get a very powerful force for good in this country. 
I want to quickly share with the Committee two of those success stories. Both of these young people are happy for me to use their names but I will stay with using only their Christian names. Brodie from Gore is 19 and he began to receive a sickness benefit in January 2007. Brodie was keen to find employment and he worked closely with his case manager to determine his skills and his appropriate job opportunities. The case manager liaised with a local ground-spraying business and secured an interview for Brodie. Work was begun with that firm at the end of March and Brodie is still successfully employed there. Brodie finds the job very rewarding and the new opportunities available are welcomed. He no longer receives benefit support which he had been receiving previously. 
Then there is Natelle from Whakatane. Natelle is a sole parent; she has a child. She had been receiving the domestic purposes benefit for 14 months. After her case manager explained the benefits of Working for Families to her Natelle was quite motivated to find employment. With the assistance of her case manager she did that. She found a part-time position working 20 hours a week at a childcare centre and was able to cancel her benefit in March 2007. With Natelle’s part-time wage and Working for Families assistance she now earns $117.52 more a week than she did when she was receiving the domestic purposes benefit. She is understandably pretty pleased to be working and enjoying the financial benefits that Working for Families coupled with Working New Zealand—the new employment initiatives of Work and Income—are providing for her.  
That is what this legislation is about. I have said that this legislation mandates what is already happening out there. Since 1 April this year the Working New Zealand regime—the new service approach—has been the way that people operate in all Work and Income front-line offices. People who come through the door whether they are new and in need assistance or whether they are on a regular rotational check from their case managers are receiving a level of support that was previously available only to people in receipt of the unemployment benefit. It is a simple equation actually because one can understand how busy Work and Income staff were when they had to cope with 161000 people who were looking for jobs that were not there under the political regime of our predecessors. Now that human capacity and the skills that have been further enhanced of Work and Income staff are available to all beneficiaries irrespective of the class of support they are receiving.  
That is a very powerful shift. It is a shift that is showing incredible results. It is a shift that is about supporting people not punishing them and that support works for the good of the people in this country. I know most New Zealanders would welcome a continuation of the sort of success that we have already demonstrated. 
KATRINA SHANKS (National) 
: 
 I rise to speak to the Committee stage of the Social Security Amendment Bill. This bill amends the original Social Security Act 1964 which was the principal Act. In fact the 1964 Act consolidated and amended the Social Security Act of 1938 and its amendments. In essence the title “Social Security” has been consistently applied from 1938 until today in 2007. However we must consider whether the title is as relevant now as it was then in 1938. 
In short the 1938 Act provided for the payment of superannuation benefits and other benefits designed to safeguard the people of New Zealand from disabilities arising from age sickness widowhood orphanhood unemployment and some other things. It goes on to say that it will provide a system whereby medical and hospital treatment will be made available to persons requiring such treatment and provide such other benefits as may be necessary to maintain and promote the health and general welfare of the community. Thus the 1938 Act was considered “social security”. Let me fast track to 2007. The general policy statement in the explanatory note states: “It puts into effect the Working New Zealand: Work-Focused Support package of proposals to reform the social support system.” So we have now changed from “social security” to “social support”. 
The objectives of the new bill are to “increase opportunities for people to participate in the labour market where work is an appropriate outcome; and [to] continue to provide social and financial support for people with temporary or long-term barriers to work.” The fact is that there is significant change between the Act of 1938 and the bill of 2007 and their relevance to where we are today in our society. The original Act that provided social security was directed to those people of New Zealand who were disabled due to age sickness widowhood or orphanhood. But now we use words such as “increased opportunities to enter the labour market where work is an appropriate outcome”. Somewhere along the way we have lost the focus of what social security is about. Social security is now about the acceptance of those who choose a lifestyle of not entering the workforce in some instances. Has our society moved so far from that objective in this bill that it has to be to begin the movement towards a work-focused system for some people who we know can go back to work but choose not to? I believe we have moved away from providing a safety net for those in need through sickness age and circumstances beyond their control. We should be questioning how an intergenerational choice not to work has become so acceptable to us. 
I reviewed the assistance provided by our social security system and there are 45 grants allowances and benefits available. In many cases a person can apply for at least half a dozen of these allowances. Let me give an example. A person who has a family may be eligible for: childcare subsidy out-of-school care and recreation subsidy family assistance recoverable assistance payment child disability allowance advance payment of benefit home help temporary additional support care supplement and the special-needs grant. That is a total of 10 grants benefits or allowances for which the family may be eligible. This bill is right in saying the objective has moved to social support. This bill takes away a person’s independence of the State and the ability to stand on his or her own two feet. The legislation no longer provides an invaluable safety net but introduces a level of interference in people’s lives. Instead of just getting on and living they have to justify to a Government agency what they are doing how they are doing it and how often they are doing it. They are losing choices in their lives. They are justifying to strangers what they are doing in their homes. 
This legislation has moved significantly since 1938 from social security to social support. Our expectations for people’s contributions to our society have been watered down. The State now plays a major role in many people’s lives. Independence and the desire to help themselves have been slowly eroded. With this erosion comes a state of dependence: a lowering of expectations and the standard of living and eventually a lack of self-esteem and confidence. 
This bill legislates for things that most New Zealanders presumed Work and Income already did—that is helping New Zealanders into work. 
SUE BRADFORD (Green) 
: 
 The title of this bill reflects once again the morass that is the Social Security Act 1964 as amended once again. Various parts of this Act have been amended literally dozens of times since 1994—54 times at my last count which may well be an underestimate. It is way past time that this antique mosaic of fragmented law change was thrown out and a new Social Security Act written. Rather than amending it piece by piece we should be starting again with a comprehensive law based on principles of simplicity equity and sufficiency. All the brave talk of the universal core benefit starting in 2000 led some of us to believe that we might conceivably see such a new streamlined Social Security bill by 2007 or 2008 but it is manifestly not to be and random amendments like the one we have before us today continue. 
I feel that this particular rendition deserves its own unique title not the ubiquitous Social Security Amendment Bill which has as usual been applied. Given the new direction in which the Government is now sending the welfare system perhaps this little number could be more rightfully called the “Work First Welfare Last Bill”. After all this is the overarching tenor of the changes contained in the purposes and principles provisions. As I have pointed out in earlier debates on this bill although there are good features to this legislation and I do not want to disrespect them—for example the reduction in the length of the stand-down period and some beneficial changes to the domestic purposes benefit—there is an underpinning problem with the new interpretation of welfare provided in clause 23. As Louise Humpage and Susan St John said in an article in the  
New Zealand Herald  
last week this bill “wipes away any notion that our social security system is about ensuring everyone can participate as citizens.” 
Getting as many beneficiaries as possible into the paid workforce as quickly as possible now appears to be the primary purpose of the welfare system which is a long way from the original 1938 Act and from the recommendations of the two royal commissions on social security in 1972 and 1988. This new direction for welfare means that people with long-term and major injuries illnesses and disabilities will be subject to the same planning for employment requirements as are sole parents as will their spouses or partners even when they are in a primary-carer role. The problem with this is not that these people now have access to employment services—I think that is great and I welcome this change in approach by the department—but that the overall sense is that the only kind of work that is valued by this society is paid work not for example the work of caring for children if the person is the primary carer of those children. 
Even worse should a more conservative Government come to power this bill ironically promoted by a Labour-led Government will make it very easy for a Government to introduce and implement things like forced work for the dole not only for unemployed people but also for those on the domestic purposes benefit invalids benefit and sickness and emergency benefits. If that is not a policy of the National Party I would really welcome clarification from National members at any time as to what their welfare policy is. 
Work first and welfare as a last resort is where this bill takes our social security system which is why a title along those lines would be more appropriate. The Green Party will continue to oppose this bill not because we do not support some of its more beneficial changes but because its overarching purpose is to take our welfare system in a direction over time that is likely to become more and more harmful to those most affected especially if and when we again enter a major recession. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That clause 1 be agreed to. 
Ayes 61 
New Zealand Labour 49; New Zealand First 7; United Future 2; Progressive 1; Independents: Copeland Field. 
Noes 58 
New Zealand National 48; Green Party 6; Maori Party 4. 
Clause 1 agreed to. 
The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 114 in the name of the Hon David Benson-Pope to clause 2 be agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 61 
New Zealand Labour 49; New Zealand First 7; United Future 2; Progressive 1; Independents: Copeland Field. 
Noes 58 
New Zealand National 48; Green Party 6; Maori Party 4. 
Amendment agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That clause 2 as amended be agreed to. 
Ayes 61 
New Zealand Labour 49; New Zealand First 7; United Future 2; Progressive 1; Independents: Copeland Field. 
Noes 58 
New Zealand National 48; Green Party 6; Maori Party 4. 
Clause 2 as amended agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That clause 3 be agreed to. 
Ayes 61 
New Zealand Labour 49; New Zealand First 7; United Future 2; Progressive 1; Independents: Copeland Field. 
Noes 58 
New Zealand National 48; Green Party 6; Maori Party 4. 
Clause 3 agreed to. 
Bill to be reported with amendment presently. 
State-Owned Enterprises (AgriQuality Limited and Asure New Zealand Limited) Bill 
In Committee 
Debate resumed from 24 May. 
Part 1 Preliminary provisions ( 
continued 
)  
ERIC ROY (National—Invercargill) 
: 
 I am keen to get some answers in relation to some questions that I raised in the first reading of the State-Owned Enterprises (AgriQuality Limited and Asure New Zealand Limited) Bill. You see there are a number of things I do not understand and there are things that I need to get my head around in terms of some quite significant issues that concern not only the meat industry but the way in which we conduct an assurance programme because that is what these two companies AgriQuality and Asure are responsible for. There is also an issue in respect of contract work with the Animal Health Board and my colleague the Hon David Carter has tabled a Supplementary Order Paper on that which I am sure we will be talking to later. 
In the first reading of this particular bill I asked the Minister to outline why these two companies needed to be merged and why we were debating this legislation. National intends to oppose the legislation unless good reasons are given as to why this is the best way forward. I say to the Minister Trevor Mallard that the two elements that we need to have identified— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: The member intends to oppose it anyway. 
ERIC ROY 
: The Minister should just listen to the question. He needs to explain why this is happening then assure us that a merger is the best way of resolving that problem. Those are the first two points that we would like some answers on. Let us be quite clear that New Zealand is totally reliant on a robust system that gives assurance that we comply with the Codex Alimentarius code of practice and that the products that we export are safe wholesome and as I say meet all of the requirements of Codex Alimentarius. I do not think there is any doubt in regard to that. 
The second thing is that we need to be assured that removing competition will improve the service or bring about some cost savings. I say to the Minister that this is where I am totally confused because if I read the explanatory note of the bill as it was introduced I see that at the end of the second paragraph it states: “The Government wishes to prevent this competition from occurring as it considers that it would result in a net cost to the Crown as the owner of both AgriQuality and Asure.” I ask the Minister to explain—and I look forward to his response—because this is where I see the contradiction. The Minister himself has introduced a Supplementary Order Paper and it is almost as big as the bill itself which I have some real difficulty with. So it seems to me that the legislation was not thought through before it was presented as a bill—that is the only conclusion I can draw from that. 
The explanatory note of the bill states that the Crown does not want competition—and I am looking forward to the explanation on that—but the explanatory note at the end of Supplementary Order Paper 120 in the Minister’s name contradicts that position. The explanatory note which is on page 3 states: “ 
New subpart 4 
 provides for the Crown to continue to negotiate with its international trading partners in order to allow animal material and animal products examination services to be provided by agencies other than the Crown.” But the explanatory note of the bill itself says that the Government does not want competition— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Are you for or against it Eric? 
ERIC ROY 
: I am absolutely unequivocally for competition as a model that drives both good outcomes and cost compliance is cheaper brings about innovation and reduces significant costs. That is what I am for. I am not for a contradiction that occurs between the bill as tabled which we debated in the first reading and the Supplementary Order Paper. 
So I say to the Minister that I need to know just why on the one hand he is saying that competition will bring costs to the Crown—I want to get my head around that and understand that—and on the other hand in new Subpart 4 he is contradicting that position. Is this just some kind of tease or enticement for us to accept the bill an enticement that the Minister will never enact? I ask the Minister to please respond. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Minister for State Owned Enterprises) 
: 
 The answer to the first question is a relatively simple one. When we have two State-owned enterprises with a large workforce in one and competition from the other we have in place a very clear redundancy arrangement. If any significant work shifts from one to the other then tens of millions of dollars in redundancy gets paid. It could well be the case that the same workers end up working for the other company or inexperienced meat inspectors end up working for the other company and the Crown or farmers going forward will bear the cost of that. I think that is not a good cost to bear. 
Eric Roy 
: We will take the risk. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: The member says he will take the risk. He might want to take the risk with taxpayers’ money; I do not. 
ERIC ROY (National—Invercargill) 
: 
 This may not be a very long call. I think the Minister in the chair Trevor Mallard raises an interesting point. He says that I may well be prepared to take the risk. At the end of the day the person—the farmer or the supplier—who supplies the product about which this assurance is given does pay the cost. It is a deduction from the product at the end of the day. That is the very point that I wish to represent to the Minister: that in fact it is the farmers the suppliers of the stock who pay at the end of the day and they have a very clear view that they want competition. I tell the Minister that I am not persuaded that this redundancy thing is a huge issue. 
In terms of the meat industry assurance issue these people are sometimes contracted in. They are not all employees of each agency; they operate on fixed contracts. Is that not right? The Minister can respond to that question. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: No. They are employed by Asure. 
ERIC ROY 
: Well then on the second point of significance the animal health work contracts are let for animal health I think in the vicinity of about $70 million per year now and we must get that down to the prescribed level of 0.002 percent or whatever it is—it is absolutely critical that we do that. This is the second element that I have some significant concerns about: we are reducing away the competitive model of delivering that service and the people out there are contracted. I ask the member to consider the Hon David Carter’s Supplementary Order Paper which says to separate that bit out. If in fact it is an issue that is so significant that it drives the decision-making about the assurance programme under Codex Alimentarius then separate that argument out and look at it as a separate argument for those agencies that are tendering to do the Animal Health Board work in terms of vector control where there is a TB situation. Can the Minister respond and say whether he is prepared to separate that out if in fact it is an issue on the first point? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Minister for State Owned Enterprises) 
: 
 Going back to the original point I think the member is making too much of the question of competition in this area now. There is one supplier. It is a State-owned enterprise. In just about every competitor country there is one supplier and that supplier is a Government department. The reason is that people internationally generally—not universally but generally—require meat to be inspected by a responsible Crown agency or a State— 
Hon Members 
: Certified. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: Yes a certified one. But the requirements from the US and from Europe at the moment—at the moment—are that it be a Crown agency. That does not look likely to change because people internationally have seen shonky certification— 
Nathan Guy 
: Not from here. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: I accept what the member says. That is why when—and I think it is unlikely the member accepts Supplementary Order Paper 120 in my name—and if there is a shift so that two-thirds of the world accepts private sector certification we will shift and do it. What we are saying is that we should not hold in place an artificial competition that does not exist because there is only one supplier at the moment in this particular area. 
On the Animal Health Board question I tell Mr Roy that every time a contract comes up it attends. That will continue to be the case. There is no change in that area. There is no change if either Asure New Zealand Ltd or AgriQuality Ltd have a contract at the moment; the new company will do it. When it comes to the end of that contract and it is up for tender there will be as there is now private sector competition with it and that will continue to be the case. So frankly— 
Nathan Guy 
: So you support this SOP? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: No no; David Carter’s amendment undoes current contracts. His amendment effectively says that Asure has a contract for now but because the companies are going to merge the contract will be taken off it and I just think that is a nonsense. 
COLIN KING (National—Kaikoura) 
: 
 Speaking to the State-Owned Enterprises (AgriQuality Limited and Asure New Zealand Limited) Bill I appreciate the Minister’s being so forthright. It is refreshing and quite candid of the Minister to come out and answer those questions. But I would like to say as we consider Part 1 that I think it would have been a lot better had the bill gone to the Primary Production Committee. I would like the Minister to tell us why it did not go to that committee because those organisations those State-owned enterprises in effect come before the Primary Production Committee and we as farmers find it quite challenging to be a third party to a lot of the debate. 
Really when we look at the bill we look between the lines—to borrow a line from Minister Maharey today—and when we see that the Government wishes to prevent this competition from occurring because it considers it would result in a net cost to the Crown we look a bit deeper into some of the activities that we know about in relation to AgriQuality Ltd. We want to see why in fact the Minister is trying to prevent a State-owned enterprise from going belly up because of the transactions it was involved in such as Target Pest and things like that. 
We do not have a lot of confidence around some of the explanations and trade-offs on redundancies that the Minister speaks about; we look at the side of the debate around meat companies. I pick up some challenges that the Minister likewise obviously picks up—for example that there has to be a measurement of costs going forward and the Minister talks about the fact that within 3 years there will be a Commerce Commission examination of costs going forward. That can all be forgotten about if the meat companies and the Commerce Commission agree to walk away from it. But I put it to the Minister as my learned colleague Eric Roy mentioned— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: No he’s not learned; he’s not a lawyer. You’re only learned if you’re a lawyer. 
COLIN KING 
: Farmers are very learned. I want some assurance from the Minister that farmers are involved in that process as well because at the end of the day they pick up the charges around the costs of inspection slaughter and so on and so forth. Where Part 1 talks about animal materials and animal products it is talking about a very large industry—about a $5 billion or $6 billion industry. It is talking about carcasses being inspected for health reasons so that we give integrity and certainty to the quota markets we have and about materials which would possibly be by-products and exports into other countries that also need certification. 
But I come back to that original point: why did the bill not go to the Primary Production Committee? That committee does the financial reviews for these organisations. It would have dealt with the bill in a way that would have given comfort and certainty to the agricultural sector and to the farming community as a whole. Farmers whether or not we like to admit it are the biggest players in this field. On that basis I would really like the Minister to try to answer a couple of those questions especially the one about why the bill went to the Commerce Committee and not to the Primary Production Committee. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Minister for State Owned Enterprises) 
: 
 I am happy to do that. The bill went to the Commerce Committee because we have a lot of faith in Gerry Brownlee and his ability to chair and the House made the decision. Members from within parties of course could have substituted from one committee to another if they thought they had the expertise to add value and their whips agreed with them. 
R DOUG WOOLERTON (NZ First) 
: 
 New Zealand First supports the State-Owned Enterprises (AgriQuality Limited and Asure New Zealand Limited) Bill because this bill gives the opportunity to merge those two State-owned enterprises. Those State-owned enterprises I might say—and the Minister can confirm this to us—had a court case between them that lasted for 6 months or a year or something like that. It was quite outrageous. As the Minister has said the competition that people talk of here as being something dear and wonderful and not to be lost is illusory. This is a situation of a State-owned enterprise competing with another State-owned enterprise that is contracted to a Government agency and to some other quangos here there and elsewhere. So the competition is illusory and even the Supplementary Order Papers we see in front of us are couched in terms of providing some competition at some time in the future. In the case of the Minister’s Supplementary Order Paper that will be when two-thirds of the industry agrees to that. 
The industries we are talking about are industries that export their product overseas to countries that do not like the meat they import to be ticked off by a bunch of cowboys down in New Zealand. They want the Government’s stamp. OK they are happy enough with a State-owned enterprise’s stamp because they understand that that is a Government stamp. But it is they not we who are demanding those things and I think that it makes a lot of sense to merge the companies even though this bill does not do that. It gives the opportunity to do that and I think there are gains to be made here. When there is no real competition the only other thing to be done is to get the price down or to get the costs down of the institution that gives the service. That is what I think is in the Minister’s mind here and we applaud that. Transparency is a great thing. But the smoke and mirrors business of having two State-owned enterprises competing and then our saying that we have fair competition in the market is a nonsense. 
I know that when it comes to the TB testing contract some crunching was going on following a court case and so on and so forth. There was an advantage to farmers. Because one chief executive officer basically wanted to stick it up the other chief executive officer farmers received a good deal. 
Hon Dover Samuels 
: See you later—go on see you later! 
R DOUG WOOLERTON 
: See you later! But I have to tell everybody including the Animal Remedies Board that that was going to be a very temporary thing indeed and I understand from the Minister’s comments that in any case there will be the ability to contract out those things in the future if— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: The world changes. 
R DOUG WOOLERTON 
: —the world changes and there is two-thirds agreement to do so. I do not think that anything is being lost here and I think that this is a genuine attempt by the Minister and the Government to get the cost of delivering those essential services down. 
Before I sit down I want to give some praise to the people who carry out those duties and the meat inspections. Mr King I am sure and others will join with me in that. Those people are involved in a particularly skilled job in not the most wonderful of circumstances. They do not have heaters at every workstation or anything like that. Often they are looking for shadows on a carcass. It is hugely skilled work and our exports depend on those people as well as on others in the chain. I could not make this little speech without saying how indebted to those people we are. I know they are paid well but they have the skills and we rely on them for the integrity of our product. The product is not cheap; it is quite an up-market product by the time it gets to its destination. 
SHANE ARDERN (National—Taranaki-King Country) 
: 
 I agree with the last comments made by our colleague from the New Zealand First Party Doug Woolerton. I often agree with comments he makes and the last one he made about the important role meat inspectors play and the skill they require is absolutely right. Other than that I disagree—which is a rare thing—with everything he said in his speech. 
I would like to challenge one or two of the proposals put forward by the Minister. One is that because the Crown would be exposed through the redundancy law—or through the potential gaming I guess one would call it of the redundancy law—between one Crown entity and another if they were to merge under the Minister’s proposal we therefore should have a new clause in Supplementary Order Paper 120 that stops that from happening. Yes I guess that for an Associate Minister of Finance who is protecting the Crown’s asset that is a responsible position. But the first question that springs to mind is whether a private industry company finding itself in the same circumstance—where a merger is to take place between two entities providing the same service—would get that kind of protection. What we see under Part 1 is one standard for the Government and another standard for all the rest of the workforce. 
The second point the Minister made which is also one that our colleague from New Zealand First made is that two State-owned enterprises are competing with each other and therefore this concerns some kind of quango or non-competitive environment. Well that does not show a failure in the structure; it shows a failure in leadership from the Minister and from the chief executives who are appointed or employed by the Minister. That is what that shows. 
Here are the facts. After the reforms of the late 1990s that set up the current structure meat inspection costs went down. That is what happened; they went down. There is no guarantee now that those same costs will not go back up once the merger puts the entities back together. What assurance can the Minister give us—and I will be pleased to yield to him so he can give us that assurance—that meat inspection costs will not go up substantially under the new proposed structure that is being put forward here today? Those are the reasons why National is opposing this bill here tonight. 
I say to the Minister in the chair the Hon Trevor Mallard that there are some problems in this current State-owned enterprise structure. We accept that; I do not think anybody denies it. Some problems occur when the situation arises of two State-owned enterprises taking each other to court. There is no doubt that that is not a well-organised way to run a business. But what is the root cause of that? Is it the fact that there are two entities or the fact that there is a total lack of leadership? So I ask the Minister whether meat inspection prices will go back up or will— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich) 
: Can I just say that the question was that Part 1 would stand part. It covers the interpretation section and the fact that it is hoped the Act will bind the Crown. I think we are drifting a lot. We could at the outset have had one debate for the whole lot but we did not. 
SHANE ARDERN 
: I was really responding to the proposal put forward by the Minister. It was clearly— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: You don’t want to do it in one debate so we can then have a broad debate? No? OK it’s the member’s call. It’s just easier. 
SHANE ARDERN 
: Part 1 clearly states that it covers the interpretation and that the Act binds the Crown. In my earlier comments I was talking about the structure and the fact that the Crown is bound by that structure in its employment obligations. I really am at a bit of a loss to know where I strayed off course as far as you have suggested I have Mr Chairman. That having been said I am happy to come back to the points that are absolutely stated in Part 1 of this State-owned Enterprises (AgriQuality Limited and Asure New Zealand Limited) Bill and talk about the Minster’s Supplementary Order Paper that amends what the bill proposes. 
I ask the Minister why we have a Supplementary Order Paper to debate tonight on this section of the bill that is almost as large as the bill itself. We have to ask whether the bill went to a select committee that had no expertise in this topic. Did the Minister himself have any idea of what the hell was being proposed by his officials? Or did the officials go out and consult the industry after the bill had been drafted only to be told that if they did what the bill proposed there would be some pretty substantial consequences and that they had better go back to their Minister quick smart and get a major change to their proposals? These are all questions the Committee would be interested to know the answers of in the debate tonight. So far we have not had any answers to those questions. 
MARYAN STREET (Labour) 
: 
 Day after day I come into this Chamber and search for some kind of consistent ideology coming from the Opposition. Finally today I found a sliver of ideology and it is around competition. It is for that reason only not for any sensible reason or practical or common-sense reason that the National Party has chosen to put a minority view in the report of the Commerce Committee and to proceed to oppose this bill. 
The common-sense situation that we find ourselves in when looking at these two existing State-owned enterprises has already been explained. If there were to be competition from AgriQuality for the meat inspection services that Asure New Zealand provides there is likely to be a very substantial contingent liability over redundancies. It would seem to me that if Asure is doing its job adequately—and by all accounts and especially according to its interim report for the 6 months ended 31 March 2007 it is in fact doing extremely well in its job—then there is no need for additional competition to provide alternative services. There has not been nor was there represented at the select committee to my recollection any submission complaining about current costs and cost structures relating to meat inspection fees and services. There was none and there is no reason to believe that that should be any different under this legislation. In other words if members opposite look at Supplementary Order Paper 120 which stands in the name of the Minister they will see that in fact that issue has been covered. 
But it seems to me also that the introduction of competition is wrong on two counts here. First of all what is the sense of having two State-owned enterprises competing with each other? That is an unnecessary waste. The other reason is that quite frequently when competition has been introduced into all sorts of facets of life corners have been cut in order to provide the lowest cost structure. Corners have been cut. 
 This is one area where for a whole raft of reasons corners must never be cut. They must never be cut in order to preserve New Zealand’s reputation in the export market. They must never be cut in order to preserve the integrity and the expectations of Treaty partners such as the UK and the United States with regard to the purchasing of meat products. Further corners should never be cut in the delivery of inspection services that allow for proper tracing of disease or infection. Such cutting of corners would undercut the integrity of our borders and the protections that are required in order to maintain the quality of our product and the reputation amongst our customers that New Zealand currently enjoys. 
The whole purpose of this bill is to avoid unnecessary waste in order to make sure that this slim thread of ideology that the National Party clings to despite all sensible opposition and sensible arguments to the contrary should not prevail and does not apply. 
CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (National) 
: 
 Having heard that thoughtful and intelligent contribution from Maryan Street I have a question that I would like to ask the Minister. It relates to section 4(1)(a) of the State-Owned Enterprises Act. I think he was the member for Hamilton West when this legislation was passed— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: A member of the select committee. 
CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON 
: He was a member of the select committee. Well he will certainly be able to understand that the principal objective of a State-owned enterprise is to be a successful business. I quote: “(1) The principal objective of every State enterprise shall be to operate as a successful business and to this end to be—(a) as profitable and efficient as comparable businesses that are not owned by the Crown;”. So how is it that when one is talking about competition which means— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: You are talking about the next part. You are on the wrong part. 
CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON 
: I am happy to talk about the interpretation clauses and in particular the board of directors of AgriQuality Ltd which is a State-owned enterprise. This is the fundamental point. It is supposed to operate as though it were a successful business not owned by the Crown. It is doing exactly that. Competition in terms of the Commerce Act is to be workable and effective competition. Where is the problem with State-owned enterprises competing? Mighty River Power Genesis Power and Meridian Energy compete. It is a fundamental point that the Minister really has to address. It was always intended that State-owned enterprises would on occasion compete. Where is the harm in that? If these two State-owned enterprises begin to compete where is the mischief? 
The member who has just resumed her seat said that corners would be cut and there was a risk of negligence. Well that is easily dealt with. If people do not achieve their statutory or other requirements they can be sued. But it seems to me to be an odd situation where legislation passed by a predecessor Labour Government to specifically encourage competition between State-owned enterprises is bypassed in favour of this rather odd legislation. It is a simple point. If the Minister could take a call and address it we could move on. 
The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 120 in the name of the Hon Trevor Mallard to clause 3 be agreed to. 
Amendment agreed to. 
Part 1 as amended agreed to. 
Part 2 Matters concerning AgriQuality Limited and Asure New Zealand Limited 
ERIC ROY (National—Invercargill) 
: 
 I wish if I may to respond to the comments made initially by Maryan Street because they do relate to Part 2 and the whole issue about competition and the probable impacts she foresaw of that degrading the service and putting at risk the integrity of the system. There simply is no chance of that happening. As my colleague Chris Finlayson said there is the obligation to sue. But Codex Alimentarius is itself one of the most robust international agreements that exist. If we looked around the world for treaties and agreements that have the degree of robustness that Codex Alimentarius has I suggest we would find very few. New Zealand has such a vested interest in assuring its programme that no meat company nobody who is exporting and nobody who is producing would countenance the thought of doing anything that would negate devalue or put in question the robustness of the assurance that is in there. So I do not see that as being an issue. 
Again I would refer members to the point I made in the first instance. When I was talking about Supplementary Order Paper 120 in the name of the Minister and about the explanatory note of the bill I pointed out he had mentioned talking internationally about having agencies other than the Crown involved. I applaud that; I think that is good. 
I want to tease out a little more about the competitive model because under clause 9 of the bill as first drafted Part 3 of the Commerce Act would not apply to any merger of the two agencies. I thank the Minister for now putting in some triggers so that the Commerce Commission could have a look at that. I am referring on Supplementary Order Paper 120 in his name to Subpart 3 clause 12(3)(a) which states: “the Minister of Commerce and the Meat Industry Association of New Zealand (Incorporated) agree that an investigation and a report under subsection (1) are not necessary;”. There is a trigger that can allow the Commerce Commission to look at the practice and see whether there is price gouging overcharging or anything else that we are concerned about in the competitive model. 
But I have to say that the Boston Tea Party story comes to mind when I read that subsection. The very agencies that can trigger an inquiry by talking to and requiring the Commerce Commission to hold one do not have representatives of the producers on them. The Minister of Commerce has overall oversight of—fiduciary responsibility or whatever it is for—the behaviour of State-owned enterprises. The Meat Industry Association represents the industries that do the processing but there is nobody who represents the producers. At the end of the day if there is unseemly charging or if the lack of a competitive model brings up some issues that the Commerce Commission should look at the producers do not have a trigger that they can press. I have tabled an amendment in my name that says we need to include Meat and Wool New Zealand in that loop. That will complete the three elements that are quite important there. 
 As I say the notion we have here brings to mind the Boston Tea Party. If the State and the industry association say they are not happy then the Commerce Commission can be required to do an examination. But in the event that they are not convinced of the need for an examination and the prices are up who pays them? That is the end of the line. That comes off the product price received by producers. Anybody who is out there talking to producers finds that is the No. 1 issue. 
Right now the sheep industry is not in good shape. The Minister needs to put his hand up and say that he hears the cries of anguish about the meat industry which is in serious trouble. One of the things that producers continually say is an issue is the cost of compliance and the lack of a competitive model. This Labour Government took the competition out of accident compensation. Hooray! Oh yes it thinks that we have to have one State-controlled situation to deliver that. I can cite the figures in my own case to demonstrate the cost of that: there has been a 250 percent increase. I have never had an accident compensation claim and there has been a 250 percent increase. It is right across the board. The Meat Industry Association would say that the cost to producers is 90c a lamb or some such figure but has that triggered the Commerce Commission to look at it? No the industry has just passed the costs on back to producers and it comes off the bottom line. So why should we be so encouraged about the provision in clause 12(3)(a) on Supplementary Order Paper 120? 
After our debate at the first reading yes the Minister listened. He has done something but it has not gone far enough because at the end of the day he who pays the piper needs to call the tune. Be it the Boston Tea Party or the Meat Industry Association if there is a tax then there needs to be representation. Any member of this Committee who wants to vote against the amendment I have put forward should stand up and explain why when we are setting up a monopoly agency producers should not be included in the loop that can trigger an examination by the Commerce Commission. I look forward to receiving any response particularly from the Minister in the chair the Hon Nanaia Mahuta who seems to be otherwise engaged at the moment on that very point. Thank you Mr Chairperson. 
GORDON COPELAND (Independent) 
: 
 I may want to take a couple of calls on this State-Owned Enterprises (AgriQuality Limited and Asure New Zealand Limited) Bill because I want to talk about the chain of events that has led to Supplementary Order Paper 120 in the name of the Minister and also about the amendment that I have put forward in respect of Subparts 3 and 4 of the bill. 
I was on the Commerce Committee that heard the submissions from the Meat Industry Association. Its representatives pointed out that the effect of this bill which is undeniable is to create a monopoly in respect of red meat inspection services. The member Maryan Street said that that was the status quo anyway but she failed to mention that there is a big change here because although in practice there is a monopoly now there was also at least the possibility that AgriQuality Ltd would come in to provide red meat inspection services in competition with Asure Ltd. That is the very thing that this bill removes thus creating an actual monopoly in every sense of the word. 
After the submissions came in to the select committee I entered into discussions with the Minister Trevor Mallard about the fact that that was an unacceptable result and that it would lead to the possibility of price gouging etc. in the provision of red meat services because there is now an actual monopoly. As Chris Finlayson has pointed out that is very much inconsistent with not only the purpose of the State-Owned Enterprises Act but also the purpose of the Commerce Act which we in Parliament enacted in order to ensure that competition exists and to ensure that where a monopoly exists it is subject to oversight by the Commerce Commission. This bill pretty much negates all of those safeguards as it was originally drafted. 
The Minister to my pleasure said that he was open to amending the bill to ensure that at least the potential for competition would be allowed to continue. By the way he also said that he was happy for the Commerce Commission to review the way in which prices had operated; hence we went away to draft a Supplementary Order Paper. I might add at this stage that he said to me that his view was that two-thirds of the total of New Zealand’s trading partners should agree to accept red meat inspection from non-Crown agencies before the Government would be prepared to trigger competition but that was just the starting point and matters have moved on significantly from there. 
I then worked with the Meat Industry Association and we made an important change to the wording so that instead of the two-thirds idea we would make specific reference to New Zealand’s trading partner singular or trading partners plural. As I mentioned in my second reading speech that is because there are three major blocs of trading partners in respect of red meat exports—that is the European Union the USA and China. We drafted some clauses that would say that if any one of those major markets was to agree to that change in red meat inspection services the New Zealand Government would then allow competition to proceed. 
The detail of that wording was communicated by my office to the Minister’s office by way of an email on 1 May and a reply came back that same day. I will read that reply to the Committee: “Trevor”—meaning the Minister Trevor Mallard—“agrees to the proposed United Future New Zealand amendments but would prefer that they are adopted at the Committee of the whole.” That situation was considered subsequently by the Commerce Committee of which I am the deputy chair where the Labour members present signalled their support for the amendment that I had brought to the committee. That amendment was contained in the minority report of United Future and at that stage National also indicated its support for the amendment. So the Government had on all occasions agreed both in writing to my office and through its members on the Commerce Committee that it would agree to draft an amendment along those lines and that was done. 
A press release was issued and was widely reported in the media. The Meat Industry Association and the meat growers were delighted. It was also agreed that when the Supplementary Order Paper came back it would be in my name. However the Minister returned suddenly from overseas and immediately communicated to me that he would go back on his office’s written agreement to the wording that had been suggested by the Meat Industry Association. In fact he said that he was going back to where he started and that two-thirds of the total market would have to agree to the provision of red meat inspection services by non-Crown agencies before the Government would open up to competition. 
That is why there is now no Supplementary Order Paper in my name. I immediately signalled to the Minister that I was withdrawing my support and that I regarded that process as dishonourable and indeed a betrayal of the agreement that he had previously communicated in writing to me. I think that that is bad enough but much more important is that it is also a betrayal of the thousands of red meat producers in this country. I know that those producers will not forget that the Government having given its word subsequently went back on it. Thank you. 
I seek leave to table the written response of the Minister’s office dated 1 May 2006 whereby he agreed to the amendments I had proposed. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich) 
: Leave has been sought for that course to be adopted. Is there any objection? Yes there is. 
Hon DAVID CARTER (National) 
: 
 It is with delight that I rise to speak to Part 2 of the State-Owned Enterprises (AgriQuality Limited and Asure New Zealand Limited) Bill. I start by acknowledging the work that Gordon Copeland did with regard to trying to correct this legislation and make it at least partly acceptable to the red meat producers of New Zealand. I would suggest after listening to Mr Copeland as he recounted the history of his involvement with Mr Trevor Mallard that Mr Copeland has had lesson 101 in politics. He trusted the Minister and he has been let down completely. 
I had the opportunity of sitting on the Commerce Committee when the submitters and the objectors to this legislation were heard. Mr Copeland sat just alongside me at that select committee. I have absolutely no doubt that if Mr Copeland had not accepted the word of Mr Mallard that a reasonable and effective amendment would be allowed in Mr Copeland’s name and would be supported by the Government then Mr Copeland would not have supported this legislation in the select committee. Now what we have is a Supplementary Order Paper which has been tabled by the Minister today. I have had a brief opportunity to read Supplementary Order Paper 120 as I rushed in from Wellington Airport and it is correctly called a sop. It is absolutely meaningless in terms of delivering any opportunity of competition to meat inspection services. 
Let me start discussing Part 2 by acknowledging the real reason for this legislation being before the House. It is because of the demand made by the New Zealand Public Service Association Inc. (PSA) a demand by the largest union in New Zealand. It is very interesting that the legislation appeared in the House in the same week that the Labour Party was finally able to raise the money to pay back to the taxpayer $850000 that it had stolen during the last election campaign. The timing is worth noting. Suddenly the Labour Party known to be short of funds comes up with $850000 in the very week it delivers the legislation that the PSA has been asking for since the original two State-owned enterprises were set up. 
I listened to a number of contributions on the way in from the airport just now. The first one I would like to comment on is that of New Zealand First member Doug Woolerton. What became clear with Doug Woolerton’s contribution is that he has absolutely no idea of the effect of this legislation. He has been led like a little puppy dog to Winston Peters’ desk and Winston Peters told him he is supporting the legislation. That is the sum total of the work that Doug Woolerton has put into this legislation. 
The second contribution I heard was from Maryan Street and that is worth commenting on. What she said if I recall her comments correctly is that no one came before the select committee and argued against the exorbitant rates that are now charged for meat services at our meat processing plants throughout New Zealand. That is true. No one came and complained because despite the fact that only Asure now provides those services there is the potential for competition. Maryan Street then went on to say that by removing the potential for competition fees would not increase. That is the sort of argument we would expect from a person who is a born socialist a person who has never been in business. Members should mark my words: the PSA would not have demanded this legislation and Labour would not have delivered it unless the PSA saw an opportunity to march the fees up via unreasonable wage demands. That is what this legislation will deliver. 
George Hawkins laughs about this. I have just been in North Canterbury amongst rural constituents. They know the effect of this legislation. I guess it will not be a huge issue in George Hawkins’ electorate—if Helen Clark even lets him contest an electorate at the next election—but this will be a big issue amongst rural New Zealanders. Our red meat producers are actually not enjoying the buoyancy they have had in the past 3 years. They are under extreme pressure at the moment and the last thing they want is another level of cost put on them because the PSA sees an opportunity to deliver a real blow to wage negotiations—a real blow that is then passed on to the industry. That is what this bill is all about. 
I congratulate Gordon Copeland on the amendment that I see in his name. It is a step in the right direction. It is about noting what is happening in the international community around the acceptance of non-State entities delivering certification. I want to continue my call because I want to take the opportunity to talk about a Supplementary Order Paper in my name. But with regard to the Gordon Copeland amendment I will finish by stating that if the Committee saw fit to pass that amendment it would make a considerable difference to the acceptance of this legislation amongst our red meat producers. 
I will move on to discuss an amendment I have placed before the Committee. It was put forward quite some time ago so it had the opportunity of being widely circulated amongst members. The basis of this amendment is to change clause 10 and the reason it is before the Committee today is that at the moment the Animal Health Board effectively delivers TB services to cattle farmers throughout New Zealand. It is doing a very good job. One of the reasons it has been able to do this job and to hold costs for the farmers is that it has been able to competitively price TB testing amongst these two State-owned enterprises. It was aware of the strength of the PSA as it signed contracts which are running as we speak to the two organisations providing TB testing services to various parts of New Zealand. 
Therefore the Animal Health Board specifically said that if this merger took place it would reserve the right to cancel those contracts and immediately look elsewhere. This is about sanctity of contract. But Mr Mallard because he saw that this could further lessen competition between these enterprises has specifically said that any contracts in place regardless of clauses that are subsequently written in by the Animal Health Board as the purchaser are null and void and that under no circumstances can those contracts be cancelled simply because this merger takes place. That is completely unfair to the beef farmers throughout New Zealand. 
Brian Donnelly is surprised to hear of this but I know that discussion has been occurring between agricultural representatives and Mr Doug Woolerton and I would have hoped Mr Doug Woolerton had taken the opportunity of informing the New Zealand First caucus so it would at least be aware of the issue. But the puzzled look I am getting from the Hon Brian Donnelly suggests that that is the respect with which this amendment is being treated by the New Zealand First Party. 
So I certainly hope the amendment gains support here tonight. It is an important amendment. Why should the Animal Health Board not be able to cancel its contracts if this merger takes place? Why should it not be allowed to go out there—in what is a competitive market with the private vet practices throughout New Zealand—and gather the best most efficient and price-effective means of delivering TB testing in this country? I say that Mr Mallard is doing a great disservice to our beef industry by not agreeing to support my amendment. 
I go back to my first point. The legislation before the House is about a demand from the PSA the largest union in New Zealand. This legislation will cause a complete rift between the employees involved in meat inspection services at our meat plants throughout New Zealand. It will inevitably lead to a rise in costs which again will be passed on to the farming community in New Zealand. That is the last thing this industry needs when it is under so much pressure at the moment to maintain profitability against a rampant exchange rate caused by Dr Cullen’s reckless spending of taxpayers’ money and against sheep meat prices that are under extreme pressure particularly in our premium markets of the European Union and the United Kingdom. 
This is an important piece of legislation on which the Government has clearly conned Mr Gordon Copeland completely. The Minister gave his word. We know how much Mr Mallard’s word is worth tonight—he gave his word to Gordon Copeland that he would support a sensible amendment placed before the Committee tonight. But when he finds he can muster the numbers without Mr Gordon Copeland he will ram this legislation through insensitive to the damage it will do. 
Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m. 
Hon DAVID CARTER 
: People connected with an excellent Supplementary Order Paper have been busy over the dinner break. This Supplementary Order Paper which is about to be moved by my colleague Eric Roy is to include Meat and Wool New Zealand as part of the consultation process with the Commerce Commission and the Meat Industry Association. The Meat Industry Association would be very comfortable with this and in fact it thinks this would be a worthy addition to the consultation process. Meat and Wool New Zealand also thinks it would like to be involved. So that Supplementary Order Paper will be moved by Eric Roy and will certainly be supported by the Opposition side of the House. We are hoping that Mr Mallard will see fit to instruct his caucus accordingly. 
MARYAN STREET (Labour) 
: 
 I just want to take a brief call in response to some of the issues raised by David Carter in his speech. In particular I state my very profound objection to the kind of politics that David Carter alluded to. I know farmers are very good at dog whistles and that member is obviously very good at dog whistle politics. But to suggest—to imply—that there was a connection between the Labour Party repaying some money and the appearance of this bill in connection with the Public Service Association (PSA) is a despicable suggestion and it is not worthy of that member. If it is worthy of that member it is not worthy of this House. 
I take absolute exception to what he said on two grounds. Firstly the PSA has never been an affiliated union of the Labour Party. Secondly the political neutrality of the public service is also safeguarded and is an important value of the PSA. If the members opposite find that the PSA does not like them then they have to look at themselves about why that might be the case. To advance their opposition to this bill on those grounds I find reprehensible. If the member sits there and smirks because he is incapable of understanding the critical nature of the point that he implied then there is no hope of the Opposition ever understanding the role of the public service and more than that the role of unions within the public service. I take extreme exception to what he said and this will not be the end of the matter. Thank you. 
CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (National) 
: 
 I thought we were here to discuss competition law because this is a very interesting bill and I am addressing Part 2. It seems and I think I am right this is the only time post-Fonterra that there has been as it were a bypass of the Commerce Act and perhaps the Minister will correct me if I am wrong. 
When briefly dealing with Part 1 earlier this evening I began by referring to section 4(1) of the State-Owned Enterprises Act which sets out a fundamental purpose of the State-owned enterprise concept and that is this: “The principal objective of every State enterprise shall be to operate as a successful business and to this end”—and this is the first one—to be “(a) As profitable and efficient as comparable businesses that are not owned by the Crown;” So that is a fundamental principle and it is one that is borne out when one reads for example the second reading debate on the State-Owned Enterprises Bill on 11 December 1986. I refer members to  
Hansard 
 Volume 476 at page 6117 when the then Minister of Justice said: “The Bill provides for a clear separation of commercial and non-commercial objectives. The State-owned enterprises will be able to be held accountable for performance and return on taxpayers’ investments against clear commercial objectives.” 
What we have in Part 2 of this bill however is the removal of competition and the bastardisation or subversion of the State-owned enterprise concept. This really is an extraordinary part. Indeed I had to read clause 5(1) a couple of times before I actually believed it was there. It was a direction given to the board of a State-owned enterprise that the State-owned enterprise not engage in what as I have said is its core business. It must not engage in any activity that amounts to competition in the market place. Having created State-owned enterprises this Government the heir to the Lange Government does not want competition between those State-owned enterprises. 
As I said this is a naked bypass of Part 2 of the Commerce Act. It is a step on from the Fonterra exemption in that it precludes competition even if there is no merger and that is a very important point. It is worth pointing out that ordinary mortals who breach Part 2 of that Act can expect to be very harshly treated indeed and I refer the Committee to sections 80 to 82A. Even in certain circumstances exemplary damages may have to be paid. It really is a most unsatisfactory situation. 
Subpart 3 of the bill is also quite an extraordinary subpart. Although no merger has actually taken place it is something the Government is considering. Just in case it decides it will merge the two State-owned enterprises it is taking steps to ensure that Part 3 of the Commerce Act will not apply. Again compare this situation where the State-owned enterprises are being placed above the law with the position of mere mortals and I refer the Committee to sections 83 and 85 of the Commerce Act. 
As Mr Carter has said on a number of occasions—and it is what inspires his Supplementary Order Paper—clause 10 is a real shocker particularly subclause (1)(a) because it compels the Animal Health Board to continue its contracts with the State-owned enterprises notwithstanding what it may have negotiated earlier on an arm’s length basis. So much for sanctity of contract! The board contracts in good faith and at arm’s length with a State-owned enterprise and then legislation is introduced that if it comes into effect will override sanctity of contract. 
In my submission if State-owned enterprises can compete then State-owned enterprises should compete and be subject to the rigours not only of the State-Owned Enterprises Act but also of the Commerce Act. If the Commerce Commission had to consider any authorisation by these two State-owned enterprises under Part 2 then I am sure no clearance would be given because as is well known there are two fundamental questions. Has there been a loss of competition? The answer is yes. The next issue is “Where is the countervailing public benefit?” and there is none. That would be so too with any application under Part 3. These matters should go to the Commerce Commission but what the Minister is saying is that the State-owned enterprises can be above the law. 
I want to conclude by saying something briefly about the Minister’s Supplementary Order Paper which again I think is hopeless. A monopoly is created but it is a regulated monopoly. This is just another name for Labour Party regulation. The Minister has killed off competition yet has created by this Supplementary Order Paper a new layer of bureaucracy. It is notorious that these Part 4 inquiries can be horrendously expensive and lengthy. I wonder whether the costs saved by the Government by this legislation may well be illusory and may be outweighed by the costs that will be incurred by these lengthy Part 4 inquiries. 
In my submission from a competition law point of view ignoring the New Zealand Public Service Association and all the other dramatics that were mentioned just after the dinner adjournment this is bad legislation. It confuses the concept of what a State-owned enterprise is supposed to be about it denies to those State-owned enterprises the full rigours of the Commerce Act and it introduces a new subpart to the Commerce Act that can result only in increased costs and regulation; and that is unsatisfactory. 
Hon DAVID CARTER (National) 
: 
 I want to respond to the rather spirited contribution from the Labour member Maryan Street when she objected to my connecting to the New Zealand Public Service Association (PSA) the $850000 that was paid back from the Labour Party— 
Colin King 
: How much was that? 
Hon DAVID CARTER 
: It was $850000 that had been stolen from the taxpayer at the last election. Maryan Street objected to my comment that this was connected. I can do no other than refer to a submission from the Meat Industry Association that came before the select committee. The Meat Industry Association said that it was also alarmed at the role of the PSA. The association was never made aware of the Government’s intention to draft this bill to ensure the amalgamation of these two State-owned enterprises. But in July 2006 according to the Meat Industry Association representatives of the PSA sought a meeting with the Meat Industry Association at which it said that an agreement had been reached between the PSA and the Government regarding meat inspection. I quote: “It was explained that the PSA had secured an assurance from Government to reinstate meat inspection as a service delivered through a single Government entity (that is an Asure monopoly).” 
The Meat Industry Association went on to attach an email that the PSA had sent to its members in June 2006—almost 12 months before the legislation was tabled in this House—stating: “In recent meetings between the PSA Government Ministers the Prime Minister the Food Safety Authority the PSA had been informed that the Government will promulgate Government policy stating meat inspection is to be done only by the Government and delivered by one Government agency Asure.” 
For Maryan Street to suggest that I made it up suggests to me that she sat through the select committee process either with her mind made up or else she was completely asleep because that was the strong representation made by none other than the chair of the Meat Industry Association Bill Falconer one of the most respected men in the New Zealand meat industry. Bill Falconer also said in his submission that he had never been treated more shabbily by a Government in all his time in meat industry politics. So for Maryan Street to come here and suggest that I am at fault for even raising the connection between the PSA and this legislation when that submission came from the Meat Industry Association shows how closed her mind is to the damage that this legislation will do. 
I will not take much more time on this call because I am aware that we have a number of other members who want to speak and who will make excellent contributions. But I just repeat that it was the Meat Industry Association that was informed of this legislation not by the Government but by none other than the PSA almost a year ago to this date. 
COLIN KING (National—Kaikoura) 
: 
 Part 2 of the State-Owned Enterprises (AgriQuality Limited and Asure New Zealand Limited) Bill refers to State-owned enterprises. I can attest to what my colleague David Carter has said. From my own point of view the first time I heard about this bill was when the Meat Industry Association came to me with huge concerns about the bill’s intent. When I spoke on Part 1 I asked why the Minister did not direct this bill to where it should have rightfully gone—the Primary Production Committee—and he came back with the glib answer that he had absolute confidence in Gerry Brownlee and I do too but I am now not too sure about Maryan Street when she comes out with comments that clearly indicate that a lot of stuff is happening well and truly above the heads of backbench Labour MPs. 
This bill is of huge concern. When we look at the whole structure the bill has been to a select committee and come back; we now have the Minister’s Supplementary Order Paper which quite frankly endeavours to rewrite the whole process. It is a last-minute introduction that does nothing to give confidence to farmers and the wider meat industry that a deal was not done via the Public Service Association (PSA). From the diatribe before us at the moment it appears that the Government is trying to run a dollar each way. My honourable colleague David Carter alluded to the possible reason for this: to repay the debt that Labour incurred through its overspending by $857000 at the last election. 
Quite honestly it is very hard to understand given the logic of what has made New Zealand what it is why we should be considering this bill. The only sense I see coming out of it all is in some of the amendments being proposed. One amendment that I strongly endorse is Eric Roy’s amendment that as far as having the Commerce Commission and the Meat Industry Association decide whether prices in meat inspections services have gone up that a third party Meat and Wool New Zealand should be included. That would certainly bring in farmer input because it is meat and wool farmers who pay the levy be it beef dairy lamb or whatever. There is a principle that guards all levy payers—that is no tax without representation. I make that point very clearly. I hope that through this whole debacle—it has turned out to be a farce in relation to the amalgamation of Asure and AgriQuality for whatever reasons; I leave those who are listening to the parliamentary debate to draw their conclusions—we at least factor in the significance and the input of whoever pays the bill and at the end of the day that is the farmer. 
It is with a great deal of sadness that I look at Part 2 where it talks about the Government requiring 66.6 percent of the total New Zealand post-mortem red meat exports when it comes to a decision on where to allow competition to occur. When we consider the whole process as it goes through to see Subpart 4 “Ongoing negotiations and obligations concerning examination services” tacked on in a Supplementary Order Paper gives me the impression that this bill treats rather lightly the importance of the integrity that has been built up over 125 years since the first shipment of frozen meat left Port Chalmers. To see it turned into a political football involving the PSA as it is at the moment is something that I cannot understand. 
It is sad that the Minister who is handling this bill is not in the chair because he was quite forthcoming earlier—before he shot away—in giving answers. I would be very very interested to know how all this balances out. When we consider that in the last financial review we did of Asure we found that it was carrying the redundancy responsibility on its books to roll that out as a reason why the Crown wanted to stop that from happening is quite misleading because the contingency liability sat there all the time and was accrued and rolled over. 
It gives me a huge amount of concern having been largely on the outside of this debate from the select committee point of view but having heard this diatribe here tonight and standing here as a farmer representing my constituents the farmers of North Canterbury—where my learned colleague David Carter was today at the Tamania bull sale enjoying the company of the farmers—that we are doing this for reasons that do not represent the best interests of the meat industry going forward. In actual fact this legislation is a sham. 
NATHAN GUY (National) 
: 
 I take a call on Part 2 which is really the meat of this nonsense bill. 
Colin King 
: The meat! 
NATHAN GUY 
: It is—it is I say to Mr King. This is the meat of it. When we cast our minds back just a few months we see that this bill has been a rush job from the start. It had a very tight time frame when it went to the Commerce Committee. About nine submissions were received I think mostly opposing it. When we think back we realise that only last year the Minister for State Owned Enterprises was writing to all of the State-owned enterprises to suggest that they should diversify—that they should move away from their core business and try to return even more money and get into even more trouble. 
Now we see in front of us in the Committee stage this evening Mr Mallard the Minister for State Owned Enterprises suggesting that competition is a bad thing. We have heard from Maryan Street this evening that competition is all about cutting corners. What an absolutely ridiculous statement! I cannot believe that Maryan Street would even think that competition would mean cutting corners when the reality is that competition as we all know means that the price comes down. That is the thing in a fair market. 
There has also been talk about the quality of the product. The quality of our New Zealand red meat product is fantastic. It is fantastic that we have two State-owned enterprises producing a reliable high-quality red meat product that meets world standards. I have listened tonight to the debate from the other side and it was really interesting I thought that when the Hon David Carter was challenged by Maryan Street about the involvement of the Public Service Association (PSA) Mr Carter was able to produce documents showing that this bill was a fait accompli in July 2006. The deal was done by the biggest union to ensure that this was going to happen. I think that it is terrible—I really do—that the deal was done last year in 2006. The Minister jibed at me tonight when he was in the chair and said that if this bill did not go ahead it would cost farmers $10 million in redundancies. Well if he had bothered to have a look at the Asure books he would have seen that the $10 million is sitting there in the contingency fund. It has been collected and it is sitting in the bank in case this actually happens. So I think that that is actually a whole lot of hogwash from the Minister. 
During the submission process it was interesting that Bill Falconer—who has been around Government departments for about 47 years; he has been chair of the Meat Industry Association—said that he has never seen a major trade organisation treated so shabbily by a Government in his 40 years of involvement. We saw that the Minister of Agriculture Jim Anderton did not even bother to meet the Meat Industry Association. I think once again that that is a terrible indictment from our Minister of Agriculture on what is a serious issue in rural communities. 
I have some real concerns about this bill this evening. There is not even a business case model for the bill and the economic analysis has not been done on it—not at all. I turn to the Minister’s Supplementary Order Paper 120 and in particular to new clauses 12(1) and 14(1) and 14(2). Clause 14(1) states: “if there has been a merger of AgriQuality and Asure … the new company formed as a result of the merger must pay to the Crown the levy prescribed …”. But where will that levy come from? It will come from those people producing the product—that is the people at the farm gate. 
In front of us this evening we have some very good amendments. We have a very good amendment in the name of the Hon David Carter and I found out this evening in talking to the Animal Health Board that if this amendment goes through—and I challenge the Government to support it—it will reduce costs to farmers by $1 million to $2 million. That is the estimation by the Animal Health Board. 
Hon David Carter 
: Increase! Increase! 
NATHAN GUY 
: That is right. 
Darren Hughes 
: What is it? Up or down? 
NATHAN GUY 
: If Labour votes against the amendment then the cost will go up between $1 million to $2 million. If the member actually got out on some farms and talked to some people in rural communities he would know that if this bill goes ahead—and no doubt those members on the other side will support it—it will be an indictment on those in the rural industry. I think the important thing to realise is that the Animal Health Board is able to get a competitive price because of the tendering process between these two State-owned enterprises. Fundamentally tuberculosis needs to be reduced by 2013. That is the Government’s target and I urge the Government to support the very good amendment by David Carter. 
The other amendment which Colin King has talked about is from Eric Roy and is to do with proposed clause 12(3)(a) in Subpart 3. In essence it adds “Meat and Wool NZ” in order to allow farmers to have a greater voice when costs are reviewed. There is also an amendment there that we are supporting from Gordon Copeland who was offered a deal by the Government then had the deal withdrawn. So that is interesting in today’s politics is it not? That amendment will mean there will be a review within 3 years of prices charged. 
To sum up for the Committee I say that this legislation is a rush job that we believe will add a lot of cost to those at the farm-gate level. It is interesting that Labour did the deal with the PSA the biggest trade union right back in July 2006 and that fact has been brought into the House tonight and become apparent. That deal is of huge concern to National and it is one of the many reasons why we are going to be voting against this. 
Hon DAVID CARTER (National) 
: 
 In talking to Part 2 I want to conclude my contribution with one point that has not been raised in the debate that I have heard so far and that is the very strange way this merger has actually been proposed. This legislation allows the merger to proceed if the Government decides it wants the merger to proceed. At first sight that seems a very very strange way of doing things unless one realises the connection between the Labour Party and the New Zealand Public Service Association (PSA). In the normal course of events most Governments would do a cost-benefit analysis to work out whether there would be any benefit in putting two State-owned enterprises together and then if there were that Government would usher the legislation into the House to enable that to happen. 
But Mr Mallard who is not known for his economic prowess has done it a completely different way. He has put the legislation before the House which he will make sure passes the Committee stage today; then he says we will initiate a cost-benefit analysis and if by chance the cost-benefit analysis comes up suggesting that a merger will occur the Government will take it through the Cabinet process and decide that a merger will take place. Yes I say to Mr Finlayson this is exactly what Mr Mallard is doing. 
In actual fact I have heard quite recently that despite Mr Mallard saying when this legislation was first put before the House that members should not worry because the Government would do the work and make sure that the cost-benefit analysis stacks up the decision has already been made. Those members of the two boards who will not be involved have already been told that their jobs have finished. It has been agreed that there will be an interim board involving some members from each of the current boards of Asure New Zealand and AgriQuality. In other words despite the promise that the Government will look at it fairly in the light of a cost-benefit analysis Mr Mallard and the Labour Government have already decided that the amalgamation will occur—despite any cost-benefit analysis. I suspect to be fair to Mr Mallard some cost-benefit analysis will be trumped up. In fact I suggest that it will show a saving of around $2.5 million. Even with an industry worth as much as this to New Zealand the Government in order to satisfy the demand of the union is prepared to put this merger through on the trumped-up saving of $2.5 million. 
I want also to talk briefly about my amendment to clause 10 which attempts to save $2 million for all the beef farmers of New Zealand. At the moment the Animal Health Board does a very good job and farmers pay the lion’s share of the costs of operation of the board. Farmers put in $50 million every year for the TB eradication process. This legislation will immediately up that cost by 4 percent next year but the same testing result will be achieved and for the same sort of coverage around New Zealand. The Animal Health Board has estimated that the cost to New Zealand farmers will be another $2 million instantly. I support completely Eric Roy’s amendment which would at least bring Meat and Wool New Zealand into the consultation process. That is a good move and I certainly hope Mr Mallard will stick to his word which he gave Eric Roy in the House earlier today and support the amendment. But frankly his ability to stick to his word as shown in the way he treated Gordon Copeland gives me absolutely no confidence at all that we will be successful with that amendment; not until it is finally voted on tonight. 
The last point I want to make is that the Supplementary Order Paper put forward by Mr Mallard is a real sop. New subpart 3 in new clause 12 states that the Commerce Commission must within 3 years investigate the prices charged for meat inspection services in New Zealand. We might think that sounds all right but look further through the small print. Who pays for that investigation? Well knowing the Labour Party we say it would probably be the farmers of New Zealand and that would be dead right. The cost for this investigation by the Commerce Commission which is normally funded by the Crown will be passed on in this particular case to the farmers of this country—because Mallard hates New Zealand farmers. 
This legislation is outrageous. It will cost the farming industry dearly. It is all about satisfying the long and lengthy demands of the PSA. 
ERIC ROY (National—Invercargill) 
: 
 I seek leave after consultation in the Committee that the vote on the Minister’s Supplementary Order Paper to add new subpart 3 in new clause 12 and the Supplementary Order Paper in my name be taken as separate questions. The Minister’s Supplementary Order Paper is something of an omnibus measure and there is good reason for us to separate out clause 12 given the way the debate has gone. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: The member is seeking leave for a separate vote on clause 12. Is there any objection? There is not. Leave is granted. 
The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 120 in the name of the Hon Trevor Mallard to clause 5 be agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 70 
New Zealand Labour 49; New Zealand First 7; Green Party 6; Maori Party 4; United Future 2; Progressive 1; Independent: Field. 
Noes 49 
New Zealand National 48; Independent: Copeland. 
Amendment agreed to. 
The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 115 in the name of the Hon David Carter to clause 10 be agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 49 
New Zealand National 48; Independent: Copeland. 
Noes 70 
New Zealand Labour 49; New Zealand First 7; Green Party 6; Maori Party 4; United Future 2; Progressive 1; Independent: Field. 
Amendment not agreed to. 
The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Eric Roy to the proposed amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 120 in the name of the Hon Trevor Mallard to insert new clause 12 be agreed to: 
to insert in proposed paragraph (a) of subclause (3) after the words “Meat Industry Association of New Zealand” the words “and Meat and Wool NZ”. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment to the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 49 
New Zealand National 48; Independent: Copeland. 
Noes 70 
New Zealand Labour 49; New Zealand First 7; Green Party 6; Maori Party 4; United Future 2; Progressive 1; Independent: Field. 
Amendment to the amendment not agreed to. 
The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 120 in the name of the Hon Trevor Mallard to insert new clause 12 be agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 70 
New Zealand Labour 49; New Zealand First 7; Green Party 6; Maori Party 4; United Future 2; Progressive 1; Independent: Field. 
Noes 49 
New Zealand National 48; Independent: Copeland. 
Amendment agreed to. 
The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 120 in the name of the Hon Trevor Mallard to insert new clauses 13 14 and 15 be agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendments be agreed to. 
Ayes 70 
New Zealand Labour 49; New Zealand First 7; Green Party 6; Maori Party 4; United Future 2; Progressive 1; Independent: Field. 
Noes 49 
New Zealand National 48; Independent: Copeland. 
Amendments agreed to. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: The next amendment a typescript amendment in the name of Gordon Copeland to the new subparts following clause 11 is now out of order as it is inconsistent with the previous decision of the Committee. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That Part 2 as amended be agreed to. 
Ayes 70 
New Zealand Labour 49; New Zealand First 7; Green Party 6; Maori Party 4; United Future 2; Progressive 1; Independent: Field. 
Noes 49 
New Zealand National 48; Independent: Copeland. 
Part 2 as amended agreed to. 
Clauses 1 and 2 
Hon DAVID CARTER (National) 
: 
 The debate has been well canvassed so I will not take long except to say that it is with great sadness that we note the progress of the Supplementary Order Papers. We thought that we had an agreement with the Minister Trevor Mallard following Eric Roy’s involvement in suggesting Meat and Wool also be involved in the consultation process. It was certainly our understanding that the Minister has agreed to that and I think it is a great shame that that has been lost. 
I take the opportunity of repeating what was said earlier in the Committee in the debate on Part 2. This is a bill to satisfy the Public Service Association (PSA). There is absolutely no doubt about that. Bill Falconer chairman of the Meat Industry Association said to the select committee that the association was first advised of this legislation in June of 2006 not by the Government but by the PSA which requested a meeting with the Meat Industry Association. When that meeting was convened it was the PSA that announced to the Meat Industry Association that a deal had been done with Labour caucus members with Ministers and with the Prime Minister and that the Meat Industry Association had better get used to it. The Meat Industry Association then followed with a letter to the Minister of Agriculture the Hon Jim Anderton requesting a meeting as soon as possible to discuss this issue. Mr Anderton totally refused to meet with the industry. That is how our Minister of Agriculture treated this issue—he refused to meet the industry. 
Next the legislation finally came before the House and it was sent to the Commerce Committee where the Government at that stage thought it had the numbers because Gordon Copeland sat on that committee for United Future. Mr Copeland to his credit listened to the submissions. He knew that this was dangerous because of the costs that would then be imposed on the meat industry. He had a deal done with Mr Mallard again that a Supplementary Order Paper would be tabled that would lessen some of the damage of the legislation—something that would be done in association with the Meat Industry Association and to its satisfaction. When that Supplementary Order Paper was finally produced by the Minister today Gordon Copeland was completely let down. He now regrets that he supported it through the select committee because he knows that this is some of the worst legislation that we have passed on the meat industry since the employment relations legislation and the accident compensation legislation were passed by the Government in its earlier years. 
Suffice to say we will watch with interest as the PSA now has the ability to impose substantially increased charges on our meat producers throughout New Zealand. We will watch that and we will certainly hope we see a responsible union. But on past performance in this industry I do not think that will be the case. 
DARREN HUGHES (Labour—Otaki) 
: 
 What a sad position the Hon David Carter finds himself in now that he is reduced in Parliament to being the official spokesperson for Gordon Copeland an Independent member of Parliament. David Carter takes it upon himself to explain Mr Copeland’s position and how he is feeling about the bill in that regard. 
My only reason for taking a call is briefly to put on record in  
Hansard 
 that Mr Carter and consistency were not great friends this evening when he claimed in the Chamber that the Minister Mr Mallard had come to an agreement with Mr Roy on his amendment. That is not correct. I suspect that Mr Carter knows that is not correct and as he has taken his opportunity in his speech to put that claim on the record I want to make sure that no one is under any belief that what he said was correct. It is wrong. He should stick to his new role of speaking on behalf of Mr Copeland on these matters. I think he is much better suited to that than to misrepresenting the position of the Hon Trevor Mallard on these matters. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That clause 1 be agreed to. 
Ayes 70 
New Zealand Labour 49; New Zealand First 7; Green Party 6; Maori Party 4; United Future 2; Progressive 1; Independent: Field. 
Noes 49 
New Zealand National 48; Independent: Copeland. 
Clause 1 agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That clause 2 be agreed to. 
Ayes 70 
New Zealand Labour 49; New Zealand First 7; Green Party 6; Maori Party 4; United Future 2; Progressive 1; Independent: Field. 
Noes 49 
New Zealand National 48; Independent: Copeland. 
Clause 2 agreed to. 
Bill to be reported with amendment presently. 
House resumed. 
The Chairperson reported the Social Security Amendment Bill with amendment and the State-Owned Enterprises (AgriQuality Limited and Asure New Zealand Limited) Bill with amendment. 
Report adopted. 
Te Roroa Claims Settlement Bill 
Second Reading 
Hon MARK BURTON (Minister in charge of Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations) 
: 
 I move  
That the Te Roroa Claims Settlement Bill be now read a second time 
. This bill is an important milestone for the people of Te Roroa. It addresses the significant and longstanding grievances suffered by them as a result of acts and omissions by the Crown. It will not only enable Te Roroa and the Crown to move forward together in a positive Treaty relationship but also provide the foundation for Te Roroa to build a better future for its people. 
Te Roroa have travelled a long and difficult journey to get to this point and I want to underscore that for members: they have travelled a long and difficult journey to get to this point. I suggest to members—and I will return to this theme—that it is for Te Roroa to have determined that they were ready to reach this point and it is not for others to derail or attempt to derail. All Treaty settlement negotiations are complex and take time but Te Roroa know this better than any other group. Not only have they sought redress since 1861; they have been negotiating their Treaty settlement claim with the Crown since 1992. 
Settling this claim is another important step towards settling all historical Treaty claims. It continues the progress evidenced by other recent milestones such as the draft agreement in principle for the settlement of Waikato-Tainui’s Waikato River claims and the signing of terms of negotiation with Turanganui a Kiwa claimants recently in Gisborne. 
I encourage every member of this House to read the preamble to the Te Roroa Claims Settlement Bill with considerable care. It sets out the history of the claim and records how the Crown breached its Treaty obligations in respect of Te Roroa. It tells us why it is so important that this bill is before us today and why it should not be hindered by any in this House in its progress. 
The negotiations for this claim have covered a lot of ground. They have been wide ranging comprehensive and certainly challenging. Both parties have demonstrated commitment and I think tenacity in achieving a settlement despite the obstacles along the way. The people of Te Roroa themselves have demonstrated their support for the settlement with a ratification approval rate of 92 percent. 
I want to emphasise again to members of the House that in considering their position on this bill they remember that the people who are affected by the bill—the people to whom this settlement belongs—have ratified this settlement with an approval rate of 92 percent. 
I acknowledge the efforts of Te Roroa kaumatua and kuia who are no longer with us but who years ago sought redress for the Crown’s breaches of the Treaty of Waitangi. Ka huri atu ki nga mate o tena iwi o tena iwi haere haere haere. 
[ 
I turn to each of the tribes and acknowledge their deaths. Depart the dead farewell depart. 
] 
I also acknowledge the commitment of members of the Te Roroa negotiating team over the 13 years of negotiations and the members of the Te Roroa governance entity who have been working hard over the past 12 months in order to see this settlement go through to fruition. 
The Te Roroa settlement includes a wide range of redress designed to meet the interests of Te Roroa as well as to provide a foundation for their future. This includes financial redress of $9.5 million which Te Roroa have chosen to receive mostly as property; cultural redress including an overlay classification over the Waipoua Forest; protocols; statutory acknowledgments and deeds of recognition all designed to facilitate Te Roroa’s role in Crown decision-making and to enhance the Treaty relationship; and the gifting of 24 sites of cultural significance comprising an area of over 2000 hectares. 
The Maori Affairs Committee has considered this bill and has submitted its commentary to this House. The majority of the committee has recommended that the bill be passed with minor amendments. I thank the committee for its thorough consideration of the bill and I do believe that that consideration has been thorough. 
In their submission to the committee the trustees of the Te Roroa governance entity spoke of the pressure of exercising the first stage of the right of deferred selection. The Government was pleased to be able to address these concerns by offering to extend that for a further 6 months after the settlement date. I note that this change does not require an amendment to the claims settlement bill. However an amendment to the deed of settlement is being made by agreement. 
I am aware that concern is expressed by some that Kaharau and Te Taraire are not included in the land to be transferred to Te Roroa in the settlement. Kaharau is predominantly in private ownership which is a matter that members need to be clear about. It is predominantly in private ownership. The committee’s report states that some members find this unsatisfactory and they say that the quantum should be increased to allow Te Roroa to purchase both properties or to allow for the acquisition of those wahi tapu already identified within the two blocks. The National Party members say that the settlement is not durable because these properties are not being returned through the settlement. 
This settlement has also been criticised for not addressing issues raised by the Waitangi Tribunal in its reports. I remind members opposite that the Te Roroa report was released—and I remind members opposite of this—in 1992. In the report the tribunal made recommendations that affected private land including the area of Kaharau. It was the National Government of the day that determined the response to the Te Roroa report. I am sure that many members will remember the division and the dissent both in the local Dargaville community and indeed nationally when the Crown tried to purchase other private land that the tribunal had recommended be returned to Te Roroa. As a result the Treaty of Waitangi Act was amended by that Government shortly thereafter to prevent the tribunal from making recommendations in respect of private land. 
Kaharau is discussed extensively in the Te Roroa negotiations and as the people of Te Roroa know the fact that it is not part of the redress is not about the sufficiency of the quantum. Te Roroa have said that it is inappropriate for them to purchase Kaharau and that they do not want wahi tapu areas identified publicly. Thus in negotiations the parties focused on enabling Te Roroa to secure the return of the maximum amount of land while ensuring they were in the best possible position to obtain Kaharau themselves should it become available. The Crown is also gifting the one small part of Kaharau that it owns to Te Roroa as cultural redress through this settlement. 
We also strengthened other elements of the package in recognition of the fact that Kaharau is not being returned. For example Te Roroa is being gifted over 2000 hectares of land as cultural redress. I point out to members that that is the highest figure for land gifted in any settlement since that of Ngai Tahu. 
The Te Roroa settlement includes a wider range of redress than was recommended in the Te Roroa report. Additional redress includes the quantum much of the land being gifted as cultural redress the relationship redress such as the overlay classification of the Waipoua Forest and protocols issued by a number of Ministers. 
Te Roroa do not need others including politicians to tell them of the significance of the lands we have discussed. Ultimately the decision as to whether this settlement is acceptable to Te Roroa should be a decision for the people of Te Roroa. During the ratification process there was a vigorous debate about the merits of accepting this settlement. The overwhelming majority of Te Roroa chose to proceed. As I noted earlier 92 percent of those who voted voted to accept this settlement. 
We all know that settlements cannot and do not fully compensate Maori for the losses they have suffered either in economic or in cultural terms. We all know that for every wahi tapu on Crown land returned to tangata whenua there are many in private ownership that are not. But compromise on both sides has been a critical ingredient of every Treaty settlement since the 1990s—on both sides and of every Treaty settlement. Every settlement is about the Crown and Maori reaching a point where they can agree to shift their focus from the past to the future. So although Treaty settlements cannot be about full compensation they should be—and I believe that each has been since the early 1990s through to this day—an honest attempt to heal the past and provide for the future. The Te Roroa settlement is about Te Roroa making the decision to build to plan and to look to the future. 
This settlement enables the people of Te Roroa to look forward with anticipation and to view the years ahead with optimism and enthusiasm. It provides them with a platform of their own building to grow and develop. This settlement establishes relationships to ensure Te Roroa are involved in the decision making that affects them and it returns land to them from which they have been separated for too long. 
Perhaps most important this bill gives effect to the settlement that Te Roroa have determined to ratify. Their decision should be recognised their decision should be respected and their decision should be honoured by this House. The Te Roroa Claims Settlement Bill should proceed through this House without delay. 
CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (National) 
: 
 National opposes the second reading of the Te Roroa Claims Settlement Bill and as we said in our minority report we do so with great regret. On other occasions in my short time in this place I have said that settlement legislation should be a cause of bipartisan celebration and of course I stand by that. But this bill represents a cause not for celebration but rather for regret. I note the Minister Mark Burton’s comments about National and other parties derailing or trying to derail the settlement. I tell the Minister that I have read not just the preamble to the legislation but the full Te Roroa report of 1992 known as Wai 38. I know what the issues are in this settlement process what needs to be addressed and what has not been addressed. 
I also know what the response of the Maori Affairs Committee is when dealing with settlement legislation. As we say in our minority report it is a very blunt instrument. We can say either yes or no and on this occasion National says no. The key reason why we cannot support this legislation is that this settlement is not durable. Admittedly the deferred selection process in the bill as reported back does represent an improvement on the bill as introduced but it is still not particularly good. Of greater moment is the failure to address key items of cultural redress. How can there be a durable settlement when the issues we have identified in our minority report have not been addressed? I am referring to the return of koiwi to Te Roroa and to the Kaharau and Te Taraire sites. National says that this settlement should have substantively addressed issues that were raised by the tribunal in its report but major issues remain unresolved. 
A word needs to be said about the course of the select committee hearings. There were a number of submissions and they fell into three categories. First there were those from representatives of the iwi. These were heard in Dargaville and I was touched by the depth of feeling surrounding the settlement. The preponderance of views seemed to be that the settlement was not really a cause for rejoicing. Some people grudgingly said it was the best they could get in the circumstances. Others contended that one cannot have a settlement when key issues remain outstanding. I must say that I had a tremendous sense of sympathy for all submitters on behalf of the iwi. Rather than the settlement process healing division this negotiation seems to have caused division. Secondly there were a number of independent submissions and I was very impressed by the submission made by Brendan Lyne of the firm of Grant Thornton in Auckland. Mr Lyne had given a great deal of assistance to Te Roroa over the years. As I understand it he also has a property in the area and his contribution was compelling and thoughtful. Finally some submissions were disgusting both in terms of content and language. Some of them had to be returned by the select committee because the language was so inappropriate. Once expurgated they were permitted to be re-filed and they were carefully considered by the committee. Whatever the depth of feeling about an issue select committees should not have to receive obscene submissions. 
At the end of the submission process my colleagues and I became very uneasy about the durability of the settlement because something seemed to have gone wrong. We also received a briefing on cross-claim issues. I must say I do not like the term “cross-claim”; I prefer the term “other tangata whenua claims”. We thought a real issue was involved here so I was less than impressed to be told shortly before we deliberated that a mediation that had resolved most of the issues had been held in 1997. How can the Office of Treaty Settlements simply come across a mediation agreement at such a late stage? As we say in our minority report this is unsatisfactory and confirms our belief that the Office of Treaty Settlements lacks ministerial leadership that it has inadequate institutional memory and that the whole settlement process has become bureaucratised and process-driven. 
I recall that in response to a question from my friend and colleague Mrs te Heuheu an officer of the Office of Treaty Settlements said that there had been five or six negotiating teams during the course of this inquiry. How can one expect the Office of Treaty Settlements to have a proper institutional memory when there is such a regular changing of the guard? How can one expect Maori to be other than extremely frustrated and disillusioned by a settlement process where the other side’s negotiating team changes as frequently as Italian Prime Ministers? If it were me I would become extremely annoyed at having to re-educate the new team on what were the principal issues that needed to be addressed or wait until the new team upskilled itself. 
Of course in recent days the whole process has been called into question with two scathing reports from the tribunal about the Crown’s approach to negotiations. How can there be anything other than a serious problem with the Crown’s approach when the tribunal has labelled the behaviour of the Office of Treaty Settlements as cavalier unfair generally uncooperative providing of only partial answers to questions and being less than open in its dealings with the tribunal? What sort of chaos is there when junior staff are making decisions about the relevance of documents and then Crown counsel are criticised by the tribunal and when employees of Crown Law have to go around to the Office of Treaty Settlements to spend a few days going back through documents to sort out what is relevant? This is simply unacceptable. It can be tolerated no longer. 
What is Labour’s response to all these concerns? As the Prime Minister’s comments earlier this week would indicate the emerging theme seems to be that if we do it properly settlements could well be slowed up and the 2020 deadline will not be able to be achieved. So we have to be negligent and sloppy if we are to keep up with the deadlines. What an unacceptable approach to some of the most important negotiations that could possibly occur in contemporary New Zealand. Taking care to do things properly and eliminating slapdash clumsy and hopeless approaches to negotiations will have two benefits. First New Zealand will see durable settlements and secondly momentum will be gained. As Doug Graham and Jim Bolger showed in the 1990s the first few settlements take some time but then momentum is built up and things start to move. Under this hopeless Government the momentum has now been lost and it will behove a John Key administration to get that momentum back. 
I asked the Minister of Maori Affairs a question today about the Government’s botched approach to Treaty settlements and the fact that whereas of the 19 settlements reached to date 10 were started and completed by National in the 1990s and a further eight were started by National Labour has taken just one claim from initial negotiation to final settlement in 7½ years—just one. As the Minister said in response today this Government is all about expediency. Exactly! And it is so disappointing when one considers how much good work has been done in the past. So as I say it is with such great regret that we have to oppose the second reading of this bill. 
DAVE HEREORA (Labour) 
: 
 I take this opportunity for a call in support of the Te Roroa Claims Settlement Bill. To start off with I thought I would raise a bit of the background to the deed of settlement. Te Roroa has sought redress on a range of issues since 1861. The Waitangi Tribunal heard the claims of Te Roroa from June 1989 to May 1991. The Te Roroa report was published in 1992 and in 1993 Te Roroa and the Crown signed a framework agreement to begin negotiations. In 1996 the Crown formally recognised the mandate of the Te Roroa negotiators and signed comprehensive terms of negotiation specifying the objectives and general procedure for negotiating. 
 Negotiations intensified in 2003 with substantial progress being made during 2004. In December 2004 Te Roroa and the Crown signed a non-binding agreement in principle which recorded that in principle Te Roroa was willing to settle its historical claims on the basis of the Crown’s settlement proposal as set out in the agreement. In June 2005 the Government approved the proposed settlement package for Te Roroa and invited the Minister in charge of Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations to initial the deed of settlement on behalf of the Crown. A deed of settlement for presentation to the Te Roroa claimant community was confirmed by an exchange of letters of 10 September 2005 and following ratification by the Te Roroa claimant community the deed of settlement was signed on 17 December 2005. 
I thought it was important just to place on the record the background to the process that led to the signing of the deed at which I was present late last year. I recall the discussions held at that signing and particularly the issues raised by Judge Joe Williams who spoke of his early involvement in the process as a young graduate lawyer at the time. He felt he had been shunted into what was then considered to be a controversial grievance settlement process but it was certainly according to him a steep learning curve for a young graduate. More important he acknowledged a lot of the Te Roroa settlement group and the kaumatua and kuia who had spearheaded and platformed the claim some 10 years previously. Having raised that point he said that because a lot of them had not survived the process they were unable to witness the final stages of this bill. He spoke emotionally about his association with the claimant group obviously having been a young graduate lawyer at the time. He spoke about the trust and the willingness of the group to try to strive towards a settlement which to it represented a positive change in direction. 
I do think it is important when we hear from the Opposition that this settlement is not durable to place on record that the deed of agreement and indeed the bill now before us are signs of an agreement between Te Roroa and the Crown and that they have not been influenced by an outside group. If that is the case then surely we must accept on the basis of trust and goodwill that this bill strikes a position of acceptance for us to be able to move on in the passage of this legislation. 
The other matter that I want to raise relates to the issues that the Maori Affairs Committee handled. We heard from the Minister about the area of deferred selection. Although committee members raised concern about what the committee could and could not achieve in this particular case we have managed to have some substantial movement by extending the deferred selection time frame by a further 6 months. Although that does not have an effect on any changes or alterations to this bill we have learnt from the Minister that there has indeed been some agreement on and acceptance of it from Te Roroa as well. 
All in all having heard a cross-section of concerns from submitters when the committee travelled to Dargaville at the end of this process and following the report back of the bill to the House as chair of the committee I want to take this opportunity to extend thanks to committee members for the work they have conducted throughout this process and also to acknowledge the Office of Treaty Settlements. Mr Finlayson raised the issue of the change in the number of negotiators who have come through that office. I understand he mentioned about five or six teams within that office over that period of time and given that there had been some changes he raised that as a question of durability. 
I do think though it is important to look at the other side and to acknowledge the claimant group’s team—the Te Roroa negotiating team—and the vast changes that it must have experienced in just trying to keep up with the process. But again I want to reiterate that Judge Joe Williams in his address on the day that the deed of settlement was signed was very careful to say he wanted to acknowledge all those negotiators from Te Roroa who had not survived the process. It would have indeed been an opportunity for them had they survived it to be here to participate in this final stage. 
Finally I want to say that because Treaty claims settlements are agreements between claimant groups and the Crown we are keen to know that they have both accepted them. On that basis we know that this settlement will be durable that it does represent a positive change in direction for this claimant group and that Te Roroa is getting on with the business. Kia ora. 
Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU (National) 
: 
 It is with mixed emotion that I rise to speak on the second reading of the Te Roroa Claims Settlement Bill. When the bill was introduced to the House in March earlier this year along with other colleagues of this House I expressed my congratulations on and support for the fact that Te Roroa had after many many years in negotiations—not to mention the generations over which they had carried this burden—finally secured a settlement. I remain supportive of them for making the decision to settle with the Crown. To make such a decision after carrying a burden for generations is a big thing. I think we probably saw that at the first major tribal settlement back in 1995 when Tainui and Sir Robert Mahuta as leader finally took the step to settle with the Crown. 
Like all settlements of course Maori achieve a fraction only of what they claim. We accept that. But it does seem that in this case Te Roroa has had to accept much less and maybe the size of the tribe highlights this. They seem to have had to accept much less than they deserve. But the mixed emotion that I feel comes from the fact that although I respect entirely the right of Te Roroa as an exercise of their rangatiratanga to settle their longstanding grievance with the Crown National cannot support the legislation because we believe that this Labour Government has failed utterly to ensure durability for the settlement. 
I mentioned that I rise with some mixed emotion. Of course on the day that we rise to support the introduction of a bill until we have a chance to scrutinise the legislation and to meet face to face with the claimants and all others who believe they have an interest in the settlement we are not to know that the settlement might fall short of what Te Roroa are entitled to. That is the value of the select committee process which enables closer scrutiny of the settlement. But there is the qualification in this case—and this is the downside when we are examining settlement bills—that there is no opportunity to change the bill because it results from a deed signed by two parties one of which is outside of this place. So a committee cannot make any change unless the two parties to the deed of settlement which forms the basis of such legislation agree to any such change. 
We in National are not unaware of these matters. For goodness’ sake! It was our party in Government that introduced for the first time proper Treaty settlements—real Treaty settlements. It is our party that will go down in history as being the party in Government for the first time ever to embark on a Treaty settlement process. So we are not unaware of the issues that members on the other side of the House raise. We are intimately acquainted with all of the detail of how these settlements work. 
But as my colleague Christopher Finlayson has said we find that we do not support this settlement. We acknowledge that an improvement was made to the deferred selection process as a result of representations to the Minister but we do not believe that that is enough. As my colleague has already said and I will repeat it there remain other issues that have not been resolved. Those relate to the return of koiwi to Te Roroa and to the Kaharau and Te Taraire sites. We think that as long as these issues remain unresolved this settlement runs the risk of not being durable. We hope that it will be obviously but we think that those two issues in particular are real flaws in this settlement. 
I suppose that when one has the opportunity to sit on the select committee and when one bears in mind the issues that sit behind this legislation one is reminded again of the Waitangi Tribunal report published in 1992. Those findings were that the Crown used unfair methods to purchase Te Roroa lands and failed to make proper provision for reserves for Te Roroa; the Crown adopted unprincipled land-purchase methods in acquiring interest in the Waipoua No. 2 block; the Crown through its land purchases and land administration destroyed the sense of community of Te Roroa at Waipoua; the Crown through its land purchases and economic policies denied Te Roroa the benefits of borrowing for development enjoyed by other New Zealanders at the time of the settlement of this country; the Crown failed to protect Te Roroa wahi tapu and allowed their taonga to be violated; and the Crown failed to listen to their grievances or act on recommendations for redress. That is what sits behind this settlement. It is a damning indictment on the behaviour of the Crown way back during the time when Te Roroa were dispossessed. 
So when it came to looking at the settlement the Minister unlike those of us who were on the committee did not have to sit there and listen to the submissions from the iwi. They were heartfelt. The pain was still real. They were very mindful of what the tribunal had recommended and very mindful as well that the settlement falls far short of the recommendations of the tribunal. That is what the Minister does not know that is what he did not hear and that is what he does not have to live with now. Regardless of the fact that they have signed this settlement the feeling was—and we felt strongly about this—that they had no choice. They had no choice; that was what they told us. 
Hon Mark Burton 
: I met with them far more than you did. 
Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU 
: That was what they told us at the committee. As I say the Minister was not there so he really did not have to face it. He really did not have to face it. It is like when we ask the Office of Treaty Settlements who came up with that quantum and it says that the claimants accepted it. But can anyone imagine given the findings of the tribunal that Te Roroa would go along to the Government and say that they are happy to settle for $9 million? Rubbish! It is absolute rubbish. They would not say that and you can bet your life that if they have finally settled for this they have been beaten down and beaten down. They are a small iwi. They are a small iwi but they are an important iwi. Like all iwi they are an important iwi. 
I have already said that I respect entirely their exercise of their rangatiratanga in signing this deed. I will just make one last comment. Settlements are not the end of the process; they could never be regarded as the end. They are more likely to be regarded as a beginning. I hope that the iwi’s hurt—which was on show genuinely to the committee when we travelled to Dargaville to hear their submissions—for what they have been forced to accept will in time subside. I hope that they will see that this settlement can represent a beginning for them and that they will be able to build on this settlement as modest as it is and build a future for those young people who also showed up when we went to hear the iwi submissions. 
Settlements are not the end. They are certainly the end of a phase of grievance and again we trust that that feeling of grievance subsides as well. They are a beginning and I hope that the Crown uses its best endeavours to make sure that this settlement is implemented in a timely fashion so that the sense of loss that has been there for so long begins to subside. As I say we cannot support this settlement. It is a disappointment to me personally that we cannot. I was a member of the tribunal for 10 years in my past career and I know how important it is that this House be in agreement with these settlements but this one we cannot be in agreement with. I certainly acknowledge the rangatiratanga of Te Roroa and their right to make a decision to move this to the next phase. 
Hon DOVER SAMUELS (Minister of State) 
: 
 Te mea tuatahi maku kei te mihi atu ki nga whanaunga o Te Roroa na ratou nei tenei taumahatanga e Tari mai ra ano i te tau 1882. 
I am just paying tribute to and acknowledging the people of Te Roroa in terms of this resolution to the injustice that they have been fighting for since 1882. Of course we acknowledge the negotiations and the Waitangi Tribunal’s report in 1992 and a lot of things have happened between those dates. But I say to the House that I am certainly amazed at and very interested in some of the contributions that have been made tonight by members of the Maori Affairs Committee and specifically the National members. I remember the negotiations and the discussions that took place in terms of the Ngai Tahu settlement when Doug Graham said that the integrity of the settlement agreement that has been negotiated by two parties cannot be undermined. I want to repeat that. This was from a member of Parliament whom Maoridom has a lot of respect for—Sir Douglas Graham—and I think that he made this statement before he became the honoured Sir Douglas. He said that it is not the role for this Parliament or any of its members to play political humbug with a settlement that has been made by two parties and in that case it was between Ngai Tahu and the Crown. 
I remember very very vividly that that message was endorsed by the chairman of the Maori Affairs Committee which I was a member of at that time. That chairperson was none other than the Hon Georgina te Heuheu. So sometimes in the affairs of Maoridom some of the words that we say beforehand come back to haunt us afterwards. There is a reference to that in terms of Maori whakapapa but sadly I am not permitted to utter those types of references in the House this evening. 
I was also interested to hear the heart-touching contribution from Chris Finlayson when he said that he was “touched” by the genuine contribution from the submitters who had made submissions to the select committee. I would say to that member that Maoridom deserves to be touched by more than just some sort of throwaway line to say that he as a member of the select committee was touched by the integrity and the emotional depth of the submissions made to the select committee. Let me say that if the member was so touched by it he would change the policy of the National Party when the National Party is committed to demolishing the Maori voice in this Parliament. How touched can the member be? You see one is examined and scrutinised by Maoridom in terms of one’s whole attitude and whole approach to the issues that involve Maori people not in terms of just one part of it. 
 But I want to acknowledge the process and I want to acknowledge the commitment of Te Roroa and many of them are whanaunga of myself Tau Henare and Shane Jones. For us who live in the realms of Ngapuhi in Tai Tokerau I want to congratulate them. Kia kaha kia manawa nui. 
[ 
Be strong and stout-hearted. 
] 
It does not matter where we go in terms of the settlement process with regard to treaty claims; not unlike Pakeha we will never ever get 100 percent consensus. That is an impossibility. It is a dream and a fantasy. But what we can do is give commitment and encourage and salute the people who have made a commitment to resolving this ongoing process and this ongoing injustice when we reflect that it started back in 1882. We come to the issue of wahi tapu such as Te Taraire which are sacred areas for Maoridom and sacred areas for Te Roroa. Kaharau is another area that is very sacred and significant to the people of Te Roroa. Yet they recognise that in fact parts of that land are not owned by the Crown. 
Let me say that when I read the preamble and I read the contribution as to the reasons that members of the National Party are opposing the settlement they say it is because those pieces of land were not returned to Te Roroa in terms of the settlement. But who proposed the legislation to prohibit private land being part of any Treaty redress? Who did it? It was not this side of the House. I want to remind the honourable Chris Finlayson— 
Hon Tau Henare 
: So do you agree with the policy or not? Are you going to change it? 
Hon DOVER SAMUELS 
: —and Tau Henare the captain of the waka jumpers. He has forgotten. [ 
Interruption 
] Hang on; we are talking about the integrity of the Te Roroa people. If it were permitted in law for the tribunal and for the Crown arbitrarily to take private land then we would have some very interesting ongoing discussions between that side of the House and this side. We support the view that the taking of private land should not be allowed. But if there is an opportunity for the people of Te Roroa to negotiate a private sale between a willing buyer and a willing vendor kei te pai. But which party was it that introduced legislation prohibiting the Waitangi Tribunal or the Crown from acquiring compulsorily land to be able to satisfy Treaty claims? It was not this side; it was that side. Unfortunately Chris Finlayson just dropped down in the last shower and he does not know. I thought he would know. He is a man of integrity. I appreciate his thoroughness because like him I have actually read the report. 
I thank my relation here Tau for saying: “Old man; well old man.” I am proud of that because he acknowledges me as his elder. I have to say that one day he might get there. He may achieve that maturity. I am hopeful for him. In fact after the contribution I am making tonight I will have a karakia to make sure that one day he will reach the age of 69 and 70. I thank him very much for the compliment because in our culture when one acknowledges one’s elders one is in fact acknowledging that there is wisdom in the words of one’s elders. 
At the end of the day I expect that every Maori in this House would support the settlement and do members know the reason why? Because it is a settlement that has been negotiated between Te Roroa and the Crown. 
Na reira kei te mihi whanui atu ki a koutou katoa mo tenei po hakawhitiwhiti korero nei ki a tatou i roto i tenei Whare a Mr Deputy Speaker te rangatira te kaiwhakahaere o te Whare huri ana tena koutou tena koutou tena ano tatou katoa. Kia ora tatou. 
[ 
So I acknowledge you all broadly in this evening’s debate in the House including you Mr Deputy Speaker chief and judge greetings. To us all throughout the House greetings greetings and greetings again to all of us. Thank you. 
] 
PITA PARAONE (NZ First) 
: 
 Given what appears to be a reluctance on the part of some other members to stand and participate in the second reading debate on the Te Roroa Claims Settlement Bill I on behalf of New Zealand First will take this opportunity to do so. Engari i mua i te haere tonu o tenei o aku korero e tika ana kia mihi atu ki nga hunga o Te Roroa e noho tonu ki te wa kainga ki te hakarongo i te ahuatanga o nga korero i puta mai i roto i te Whare nei e pa ana ki ta koutou pire. Na reira tena koutou. 
[ 
But before I continue with my address it is fitting that I acknowledge those ones of Te Roroa who remained at home to listen to how this debate relating to your bill fares. Greetings to you. 
] 
First of all I just say that I declare a vested interest in this bill and I do so for the simple reason that by whakapapa I am linked to Te Roroa although I will not be a beneficiary to this settlement. 
On behalf of New Zealand First it is my pleasure to take a call in the second reading debate on the Te Roroa Claims Settlement Bill. The bill has come back from the Maori Affairs Committee where we heard from submitters most of whom were linked by whakapapa to Te Roroa. I want to say that some disquiet was expressed by a number if not all of the submitters on a number of issues and all of this was in spite of their being part of the process that gave Te Roroa negotiators a mandate to accept the settlement with the Crown. 
Although some may disagree with what I am about to say certainly the feeling that some Te Roroa people presently have is that the quantum to settle this claim and all subsequent claims of Tainui and Ngai Tahu has in fact been affected by the terms of those two settlements—that is Tainui and Ngai Tahu. This gives rise to the thought of whether settlement quanta may not be as durable as they could be. However I am mindful that the negotiators have obtained the mandate from their people to accept the quantum in terms of this settlement and like the Hon Georgina te Heuheu I recognise the tino rangatiratanga of Te Roroa to do so. Some members of Te Roroa have mentioned to me on the side that they felt aggrieved that the negotiators had accepted the terms of settlement and that they had a sense of there being a fait accompli in terms of the offer made to them. 
I remind the House that this claim is the second from the north to actually reach this stage of settlement—the first of course being that of Te Uri o Hau. I also want to remind the House that the Waitangi Tribunal’s report on this claim was issued back in 1992 which is a reminder as to how long the people of Te Roroa have had to wait. In addition the 1992 report gave rise to the issue surrounding the “acquisition” of privately owned land for settlement. Of course that recommendation led to subsequent legislation ensuring that this did not occur. Notwithstanding that it ought to be noted that some of the lands that make up this particular settlement were once in private ownership and the owners of those lands are still feeling aggrieved by that. I ought to say that during the select committee’s hearing of submissions two submitters whom my comment applies to wanted to make submissions but for various reasons the committee judged not to accept their submissions. 
However this bill is about the claim from Te Roroa and it gives effect to the deed of settlement agreed to by the Crown and Te Roroa and signed by them on 17 December 2005. This bill legislates for a full and final settlement of all of Te Roroa’s historical claims and after listening to the tenor of some of the contributions made to the debate so far this evening I can see quite clearly that there is some doubt as to the durability of those settlements. I have come to realise that unless there is a willingness on the part of the Crown to take heed of whatever might be recommended by the select committee on the issue of quantum whatever we might think in terms of its fairness we are somewhat hamstrung. However I will acknowledge that in this instance some latitude was extended to allow for the extension to the deferred selection provisions that essentially will give Te Roroa up to 6 months after settlement date to purchase those properties included in the agreement at the date of the deed of settlement. If we consider that the time frame is roughly 2 years we see that the value of those lands would of course have increased in that time so I thank those who are responsible for making that decision in extending that time frame to Te Roroa. 
I want to comment on what the settlement provides for Te Roroa. In this settlement the quantum is regarded by some as one that places into question the durability of this settlement. In particular I make reference to the Waipoua commercial forest and the Kaharau block. In regards to the Kaharau block and the significance to Te Roroa of the wahi tapu status in which they regard this block there are some who feel that this settlement does not come anywhere near the heart of the Te Roroa claim. Although the opportunity for Te Roroa to acquire the total block may lie somewhere in the future the reality is that their financial resources are limited in terms of what cash resources they will have at their disposal following this settlement. I would have thought that a possibility could be for the Crown to take responsibility for the purchase of this block now or sometime in the future at least when the present landholders were prepared to sell. As the Rev. Daniel Ambler mentioned in his submission “Until this is settled Te Roroa elders will continue to feel enslaved.” 
Another submitter commented that enacting the proposed legislation would change the present iwi state of depression and grief mixed with hope to a state of a permanent sense of tangi once the Act removed the obligation of the Crown to address this grave injustice. 
The other part of the settlement I would like to comment on which is described in the bill is that of the commercial forest. The settlement must be reasonably acceptable to Te Roroa and it must be fair if the Crown’s stance is to hold on to land or profit from its sale and to continue to use returned Te Roroa land for another generation. I make reference specifically to the Waipoua commercial forest which will be returned to Te Roroa after the present forest has been felled. I would have thought that there might be an opportunity for the Crown to include those forests when returning it to Te Roroa. 
Quite clearly there is some doubt not only amongst the wider community but certainly within Te Roroa about the durability of this settlement. I take on board exactly what the Minister has said about the right of Te Roroa to make their decisions and for the right of Te Roroa alone to decide whether to accept this settlement. I know for a fact that the leader of the negotiators Mr Alex Nathan was not available to provide a submission when the select committee met in Dargaville for various reasons. I would have liked to hear him make his submission in public in order to gain an idea as to how the negotiators felt when dealing with this settlement and in particular how those who represented the Crown felt during the negotiations. 
Having expressed some disquiet about the settlement I want to place on record that New Zealand First will support this bill recognising the tino rangatiratanga of Te Roroa in the decision they have made to settle with the Crown. Kia ora. 
METIRIA TUREI (Green) 
: 
 The Green Party will vote for the second reading of the Te Roroa Claims Settlement Bill and we will see how the Committee stage goes but we reserve our position on further stages of the legislation. 
Te Roroa have sought redress on a wide range of issues since 1861. The Crown has successively failed to appropriately deal with the grievances of Te Roroa prior to and I think including this settlement. This settlement provides some redress to them but it does not provide real justice. Lands stolen are not being returned. 
One of the primary purposes of the 1992 Waitangi Tribunal claim by Te Roroa and the subsequent settlement was to remedy the Crown’s failure to set aside Kaharau Te Taraire Manuwhetai and Whangaiariki from the lands that were purchased in 1875 and 1876. Protest over Kaharau Te Taraire and other smaller Waimamaku wahi tapu is as old as 1887. It was 120 years ago when a surveyor began the process of cutting the area up. The iwi were consistent in their understanding that those areas were to be set aside from any sales but the Crown rejected that and would accept only that “any old graves on the block a few acres surrounding them could perhaps be reserved under the provisions of The Land Act without causing any inconvenience.” And that title would remain in the hands of the Crown. Indeed the Kaharau block with its very long history of dispute will not be returned to iwi not even in this settlement 120 years after the first cutting up. 
I do not accept Minister Burton’s comment made earlier in the process of this legislation: “the settlement falls shorts of your desires in relation to Kaharau. It is my hope that you are able to be reunited with Kaharau at some time in the future.” In fact it is the Minister’s job to reunite Te Roroa with Kaharau and he has failed to do that. I know that the Government argues that Te Roroa could have used the settlement quantum to buy the land but this disguises the fact that Te Roroa need to acquire a number of other Crown-owned properties to make sure that the settlement is economically viable into the future. Kaharau is an area of about 600 hectares with an approximate rateable value of over $1.5 million. The residue of the quantum that Te Roroa have left after they purchase the other Crown-owned properties that they have to purchase is $70000. They have no hope of getting this land back with that. 
The Government’s position on Kaharau and Te Taraire was neither fair nor in good faith. The point of the settlement was the return of those lands. The settlement quantum should have been sufficient to include the purchase of those two key properties and it was not. The Government simply did not consider that the return of those properties was of sufficient importance to increase the quantum. If it had it would have made sure that those properties were returned. 
This is one of the key problems with the Office of Treaty Settlements and with the settlement process: claimants and their needs are simply not taken seriously enough by this Government or I think previous Governments. I think this is obvious in the recent critiques against the department in the Waitangi Tribunal report on Ngati Whatua o Orakei. The Office of Treaty Settlements was severely criticised for failing to engage with tangata whenua groups failing to give them accurate information and failing to communicate with them in any meaningful way. The Office of Treaty Settlements would not assist Ngati Whatua in dealing with cross-claimants and left them to manage the problems that the Office of Treaty Settlements had caused by its failure to engage properly in the first place. In effect the Office of Treaty Settlements has become complacent to a point where it simply ignores what it does not want to engage with or does not need to engage with and instead uses its considerable resources to bulldoze settlements through. 
I understand that the Government probably thinks that it is meeting the needs of the public by its unseemly haste to conclude settlements regardless of the inherent unfairness of them. I think it has been driven by focus groups and by the resonances of the racism from the last election. But the fact is that the New Zealand public do not all think like Don Brash. So before I conclude my speech tonight I want to read some quite long extracts from a letter from Stephen King a founding trustee of the Waipoua Forest Trust which established the Millennium Kauri Forest and a member of the Pakeha community who lives within the Te Roroa rohe. 
He says this: “Tena koutou katoa as you are aware our trust and the parent NZ Native Forests Restoration Trust have been working for 22 years working hard to restore the Waipoua Kauri Forest for which Te Roroa are the kaitiaki. We have invested more than $4m in land protection and restoration and for the past 9 years worked in a formal partnership with Te Roroa to restore this national treasure. I have lived at the forest and worked with Te Roroa for more than 13 years. During this time in the community I have observed the grief of Te Roroa and been to claims hui and to the tangi of numbers of kaumatua and kuia who did not survive the negotiation process. I have shared the pain of two negotiators who suffered heart attacks as a direct result of the crippling and heartless negotiating terms and process. 
I have seen the sacrifice of 18 years of prime leadership particularly of Rev. Daniel Ambler and Alex Nathan whose outstanding abilities would have been better invested in forwarding Te Roroa and our community than being bogged down in unnecessarily protracted negotiations. During 15 years of protracted negotiations the crown has continued to take logs and profit from Te Roroa land amounting to a sum substantially more than that offered to settle the claim. Now the Te Roroa Claims Settlement Bill is set to consign another generation of Te Roroa to economic hardship (having to borrow money to purchase back its lands) while the crown continues to profit from another full rotation (27 years) of log extractions. It is impossible”—he says—“to see how the crown has acted fairly or sincerely in settling this claim. 
… Following parliamentary submissions commencing 1907 the court awarded in their favour in 1932 and then endorsed by Wai 38 in 1992. Signing and enacting a deal won’t erase this issue from the community. Despite signed agreements I advise the government that this is unresolved and will remain so until a provision is made for crown purchase now or in future when landholders are ready. One landholder has been awaiting an approach from the crown for the last 10 years. The other major landholder is receptive to future acquisition or acquisition with lifetime use. … 
Until this is settled Te Roroa elders will continue to feel ‘enslaved’ ”—as my colleague has referred to—“… because they do not have control of the bones and resting places of their ancestors. Further their mana will be eroded within Northland for failing to deliver on a core of the claim something that generations before have fought for and they carry the mantle for. … 
I implore you to address the situation. Failure to do so will affect not only Te Roroa but the pakeha community as well particularly the farmers whose land will always be affected by the knowledge within the community it is stolen land that rightfully belongs to Te Roroa. Te Roroa will always feel they belong to that land. Legislation will not break the link or expectation for resolution.” 
He goes on: “2008 will mark exactly 100 years since a Waipoua Kauri National Park was first promulgated to parliament by govt. ecologist … Waipoua was the site of NZ’s first lowland forest conservation battle in the 1940s. For 20 years successive politicians and public have patiently awaited the settlement of Wai 38 to enable the formation of a Kauri National Park. After years of work and careful thought we have a new style of park which the trust will be putting to government and key leaders for acceptance in 2008. The first priority however is ensuring that the Wai 38 settlement bill does in fact lay a secure foundation upon which Te Roroa can plan progress and afford the space to embrace a project which will become an internationally recognised natural wonder. Whatever form the park takes it is imperative that it is founded on a healthy relationship with Te Roroa and a proud recognition of their kaitiakitanga together with the guardianship role of the ordinary kiwi constituency … This is all part of our heritage and sense of national identity. Being fair to our tangata whenua partners is an essential part of bringing integrity to our proudly espoused kiwi values and moving forward together.” 
This is the view of the Pakeha community which the Government should be listening to. Kia ora. 
Hon MITA RIRINUI (Associate Minister in charge of Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations) 
: 
 Otira kia ora tatou e te Whare. Tena hoki koe kai te Kaihautu o te Whare nau tonu e arahi nei i nga korero e pa ana ki tenei pire kua takoto kei waenganui i a tatou i tenei po. Ki a koutou nga mema ahakoa kei tehea kokonga o te Whare e noho ana mai ra i Te Tai Tokerau ko koutou nga mea i whawhahia ai hoki i nga taumahatanga o te Karauna i nga rau tau kua pahemo ake nei. No reira tena koutou. 
[ 
Greetings indeed to us the House; to you also Mr Deputy Speaker of the House as you guide us through our debate tonight on this bill before us. Also to you the members regardless of seating greetings to you as well. Especially to those of you from the north touched by the burdens of the past 100 years upon the Crown greetings. Greetings indeed to you collectively. 
] 
Before speaking to this bill I want to acknowledge the contributions of all members in particular the members from the Tai Tokerau the Hon Dover Samuels and Pita Paraone and the contributions soon to come of the Hon Tau Henare and Hone Harawira. It is important to acknowledge them because they are close to this claimant community not only are they part of the whakapapa but they are also part of the history that has been spoken about in the House today. It is important to acknowledge that. I also acknowledge your affiliation with that area Mr Deputy Speaker and that too is quite often understated in this House. 
I am impressed by the contributions but there are some aspects of the speeches this evening that I am not impressed with at all. Without being too unkind to the previous speaker I wonder when people like Stephen King are quoted on behalf of the Pakeha community why it is that in spite of that man’s acknowledgment of Te Roroa’s history and its association with the Waipoua Forest and the hills valleys and coastlines of the north he has not in the past gone out and advocated for the acknowledgment and return of these lands and assets. 
Metiria Turei 
: He has. 
Hon MITA RIRINUI 
: No he has not. In fact he came before the Maori Affairs Committee and in my view he spoke with a lack of sincerity. He also made a very very unforgivable gesture. He brought in one of the mighty kauri of the north and when he had finished his speech he chopped it up. He chopped it up as if it were a piece of kindling. Now that is the sincerity of this person for whom I have absolutely no time and I have no time for those types of gestures. [ 
Interruption 
] One would think that Green members would be totally opposed to those sorts of actions but it seems that they are not. So what is the story? Is it that they are “green” out there but they are a different colour in here? They should make up their minds where their kaupapa is otherwise they will get themselves confused. 
Metiria Turei 
: What about the bill? 
Hon MITA RIRINUI 
: Speaking of the bill I think that a lot of the issues raised by the submitters who appeared before the select committee in Dargaville were quite relevant but what was lacking were the explanations behind a lot of the decisions made. Although the National Party says that it will not support this bill and gives us reasons why I am thinking hard as to whether it has ever supported any settlement legislation in this House in the past 9 years. I cannot think of one example but maybe someone can. I think that all that National is doing is following its traditional line of opposing everything whatever it is that this Government does. 
Pita Paraone 
: That’s what happens when you spend so much time on that side of the House. 
Hon MITA RIRINUI 
: That is right; after 9 years in isolation one tends to think like an isolated person. 
I also wonder about the contribution made by Chris Finlayson—and at the select committee he has proven to be quite an intelligent person—and why he would refer at this point in time to the Waitangi Tribunal reports pertaining to Ngati Whatua and Te Arawa given that he must know the consequences of those reports on the Ngai Tahu settlements and other claims settled by National when it was in Government. The member has his fingerprints all over the Ngai Tahu settlement in his role as legal counsel. He is well aware of the overlapping issues raised by other claimant groups at that time but he made no mention of those in the House this evening and I wonder whether there was any sincerity in his statements or in his concerns. I doubt it very much. 
That member also mentioned National’s record for dealing with claims. He said that during the time of the National Government it initiated eight claims—it started them. I am not quite sure what he was saying. Were they starters but not finishers or were they just weak starters and even weaker finishers? When we picked up those claims all they had were Wai numbers. There had been no progress on them whatsoever. 
If National members are talking about instruments to progress the settlement of outstanding claims then they should look right back to 1975 when the first bold moves were made by the then Minister of Maori Affairs the Hon Mat Rata. I am sure that Hone Harawira will agree with me at this particular point in time—it may be one of the only times—but certainly his kaumatua Mat Rata played a significant role in ensuring that the right legal instruments were in place so that future Governments could deal with claims in terms of breaches of the Treaty of Waitangi. In 1984 more advances were made. The tribunal was able to hear claims back to 1840. But it seems in recent days in light of the tribunal’s decision in terms of Ngati Whatua and Te Arawa the Crown may have to go even further back. I wonder whether there is any common sense in that because how far back do we go? 
Many of the submitters who came before the select committee in Dargaville had a number of issues that they felt should have received a better hearing. We asked them questions as we normally would have and at this point I want to acknowledge the commitment of the negotiators in particular Alex Nathan and David Ambler. David gave us the history of Te Kaharau and Te Taraire and the significance of these two areas of land to their people. What was difficult to get him to understand was that because of the decisions made by previous Governments this Government is not in a position to acquire private lands for the purposes of settling grievances. 
Those blocks are very important to this particular iwi of Te Roroa but at the same time acquiring those properties by statute or by any other means when they are not on the market for sale would essentially be described as raupatu. Regardless of who those owners are it would still be raupatu. We did not want to venture down that avenue because this is about settling grievances—rectifying to some degree the actions of the Crown—and one cannot do that by perpetuating more grievances although there are members in this House who say that that is exactly what has been achieved. I do not agree with them at all. 
The Hon Dover Samuels made comments in relation to the statements by Sir Douglas Graham when he ventured into his policy on Treaty settlements which were supported by the then chairperson of the Maori Affairs Committee the Hon Georgina Te Heuheu. Those statements set the platform for the settling of claims into the future. 
On hearing the submissions I say that it was interesting to note also that although many of the submitters who were there acknowledged that the Te Roroa claim has a very long history—as has been spoken about by a number of members in this House today—they wanted to see an end to this process. They basically wanted to settle their historical claims so that they themselves could get on with building a future for their tamariki and their mokopuna. In their view this was made difficult because of a number of outstanding issues. 
I am confident that some of the issues they raised are issues that they themselves need to settle. The repatriation of koiwi cannot be the responsibility of anyone else but Te Roroa. This is a very very sensitive area and for anyone to suggest that the Crown repatriate those koiwi is basically a ridiculous suggestion. Only Te Roroa—including the members in this House with affiliations to that area—know of the sensitivities around that type of activity. I recall the Hon Tau Henare as Minister of Maori Affairs repatriating taonga belonging to our tupuna back to this country for proper burial. He adopted an appropriate process at that stage and I certainly hope that he will not suggest that a different process be adopted for the repatriation of koiwi particularly in relation to Te Roroa. 
I also need to acknowledge the work undertaken by the Office of Treaty Settlements. It has taken quite a bit of punishment in the last few days in the light of the tribunal report. It is also important for this House to acknowledge that officials are instruments of Government. They are there to act on behalf of the Government and I am not aware of any case at all during the time we have been in Government where officials have been the negotiators. In my time as Associate Minister in charge of Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations I myself and the Minister in charge of Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations the Hon Mark Burton have been the front-line negotiators in every case. To suggest that officials have usurped that role is absolutely ridiculous. 
HONE HARAWIRA (Maori Party—Te Tai Tokerau) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Deputy Speaker; tena tatou katoa e te Whare. Me mihi ake ki a koutou katoa e oku whanaunga i tu mai ki te korero ki tenei kaupapa i te po nei. 
[ 
Greetings to you Mr Deputy Speaker and to all of us in the House. My acknowledgments to those relatives of mine who rose to speak to this matter tonight. 
] 
We are debating the second reading of the Te Roroa Claims Settlement Bill. The submission from Te Roroa Mana Whenua Trust and Te Roroa Whatu Ora Trust on the settlement was six pages long and four of those pages were a list of the names and signatures of those who had died during the prosecution of this claim—a graphic and solemn testimony to the suffering of Te Roroa in its quest for a just settlement. No reira e Te Roroa anei to mokopuna e mihi atu ana e tangi atu ana ki a ratou kua ngaro atu ki tua o te arai te utu mo nga mahi tahae mahi morikarika a te kawanatanga. 
[ 
So to you Te Roroa here am I your grandchild acknowledging you and grieving for those who have passed away as a consequence of the thieving and abominable actions of the Government. 
] 
Another submission from the Reverend Daniel Ambler described in some painful eloquence the grief he felt for the mana of his tupuna and at their wahi tapu being ripped out of their arms by the Crown—a grief he says “which has left us feeling so diminished and incomplete.” One can almost touch the sense of defeat and emptiness that runs right through the 25 submissions received by the Maori Affairs Committee. The people of Te Roroa—nga uri o Ngati Kawa Ngati Whiu and Te Kuihi—did not deserve to be treated in such a callous and an uncaring way. The descendants of Manumanu of Ngakuru Pana of Rangitauwawaro of Parore Te Awha of Hapakuku Moetara of Kohuru Te Whata of Tiopira Kinaki and Marara Mahuhu and many many others are worthy of far more respect than this Government is showing them. 
To Te Roroa I say this: “I greet you today and those who stand with you—you whose spiritual and physical home runs from the Kaipara up to the Hokianga; you who have fought to protect those sacred lands and who have guarded and preserved the significance of Waipoua for us all to enjoy; you who stood strong like Tane Mahuta trying to shield and defend your future descendants from any further grievance and wrongdoing. Your honour is evident in the way you have fought for your mokopunas’ future in the same way that your fathers and grandfathers fought for the future of the whole of Aotearoa in the First and Second World Wars. What cost does the price of citizenship have? I acknowledge in particular those who have fought to protect the sacred sites of Kaharau and Te Taraire which the Government has refused to return. For what it is worth Te Roroa this moment is yours.” 
But in acknowledging the significance of Te Roroa’s efforts since claims were first lodged with the tribunal way back in the 1980s we must also look at the part the Crown has played in reaching the deed of settlement in December 2005. The submissions describe that part in vivid detail. Gary Hooker highlighted the lack of sincerity in the Crown apology by pointing out the Government’s continuing attempts to sanitise Te Roroa’s history and its own crimes against Te Roroa. Sheena Ross spoke of the unsatisfactory registration and voting procedures of defects in the proposed cultural redress and of the pathetically inadequate quantum offered to Te Roroa. The Waipoua Forest Trust said it was critically important that the settlement be finalised so that the present generation could move forward economically while also restoring the unique character of the landscape but it concluded rightly that the present deal failed to do that and failed to create a sense of settlement. 
It seems that those words continue to fall on deaf ears. Indeed less than a week ago the Waitangi Tribunal itself stated: “The burden on both Maori and Pakeha of the great wrongs that were done in the past will not be lifted if the process of settling creates new wrongs. We consider that the process for settling now being followed is creating divisions within Maori society that are very damaging. Damage to whanaungatanga to te taura tangata is a great wrong: it affects Maori society at its very core. It also goes to the heart of the Treaty guarantees in article two.” That was said just last Friday. Three days later the tribunal reported again that it was “left fearing for the customary future of Te Arawa Waka” because of the “ ‘serious flaws’ in the way the Crown consulted with ‘non-settling Te Arawa groups’ ”. 
Yesterday we were told that the Te Roroa Claims Settlement Bill would not be coming up today and then at the last minute bam it is back on the Order Paper. It seems as though the Government is determined to rid itself of all three disasters at once by ramming through another seriously flawed settlement. 
Brendan Lyne head of the New Zealand corporate finance division for one of the world’s largest accounting firms Grant Thornton is Pakeha and he is hardly the type one would think to want to bother himself with the Te Roroa settlement. But even he felt moved to make a submission noting that like past attempts at settling that were later seen to be unfair this one too would be unlikely to endure. He described himself as “a New Zealander who passionately believes that all within this country should be treated fairly and justly” and his assessment of the Te Roroa settlement was that: “The failure of the Crown to return Kaharau is an injustice perpetuated on the back of the original injustice. Adding insult to injury the Crown appears to be inviting Te Roroa through its own resources to attempt the impossible task of seeking to acquire Kaharau”. 
As well as the grievances created by the exclusion of Kaharau and Te Taraire the Hokianga whanua hapu land and resource claims collective also raised the concern about overlapping claims. Will Ngakuru described the cost of this process in his submission when he said: “The settlement process has divided Te Roroa. … Trustees need time to communicate with the whanau and involve them in the process. OTS have indicated a July settlement this would place a large amount of stress on Te Roroa and lead to further division.” 
Over and over again the submissions have spoken of a flawed process of scepticism about the integrity of the registration and voting procedures of the anguish experienced over the exclusion of Kaharau and Te Taraire and of an insultingly low quantum that fails to recognise the seriousness and extent of the Crown’s Treaty breaches against Te Roroa. 
So the Maori Party will be splitting our vote on this bill. We will give one of our votes towards respecting the right of Te Roroa to seek justice for its claims but our other three votes will be abstentions. We will not vote against Te Roroa for it deserves redress and it deserves an immediate response. But we will not vote for the disgraceful way that the Crown forced Te Roroa to the wall. We will not vote for a process that is driven by the Government’s tight-fisted attitude to Treaty claims and we will not vote for a process that has led to a serious miscarriage of justice for Te Roroa. 
Stephen Naera’s submission summed the situation up well when he said: “Take anything out of this Bill that reflects full and final settlement… Return our taonga and koiwi at crown expense… Remove reference to the crown acting with honour during this process.” To Te Roroa I say this: “We do not believe that this is a full and final settlement. We do not believe that justice has been done and we do not hesitate to say to you and to your descendants: kahore ano kia ea to koutou tono. A tona wa me hoki mai kia oti tuturu ai. Your request has not been honoured. When you are ready come back and complete the job.” No reira e te Whare tena koutou tena koutou huri rauna kia ora tatou katoa. 
Hon TAU HENARE (National) 
: 
 Thankfully there will be a reshuffle on that side of the House. I say that because that Minister and his predecessor have not given all their heart and all their will to a job that deserves a hundred percent. I do not believe that if when one is given a job and when one takes that job one does not give a hundred and fifty percent of one’s heart and will then there is no legacy. Quite frankly that Minister and his predecessor leave no legacy whatsoever. 
Is the settlement of Te Roroa durable? No it is not. Is it fair? No it is not. There are two questions in any settlement. It does not matter where the settlement is—whether it is in Te Roroa whether it is in Taranaki or whether it is in Ngai Tahu. Is it durable and is it fair? Those are the two questions that I ask myself more often than not. And more often than not the answers to those two questions are “Yes”. Yes it is durable. Yes it is fair. Unfortunately this settlement is neither durable nor fair. 
There has been talk tonight about whether the settlement was signed and agreed upon under a certain amount of duress. After 13 years or so the settlement was absolutely signed under duress. 
I do not mean that the Minister or people from the Office of Treaty Settlements sat there with a big hammer and knocked the participants around. But 13 years of a process is enough for anybody to one day say: “OK I agree; let’s get on with it. Hopefully we will get something out of it.” That is what I mean by duress. 
I turn to the issue of cultural redress the return of koiwi. I heard my colleague the Hon Mita Ririnui speaking about that. Yes I did repatriate some taonga and I am still as proud as punch for that even though I think I got a bad rap for it when it happened. But that is water under the bridge. I want to say that it would be very very easy for any Government—not only Labour but any Government—to get a meeting with the museum and work something out about repatriation. Because that is essentially what happened when I went overseas; I sat down with a couple of museums and talked about repatriation. It is easy when one puts one heart and soul into it. 
As my learned colleague Chris Finlayson said the submissions on this bill were interesting. The ones from Te Roroa were heartfelt and one could see the pain and the struggle of years gone by. These submissions were not from people who in the last 3 or 4 months had written a submission and produced 25 copies to the select committee. They were from a group of people who had worked tirelessly for more than 13 years. One could see the weathered look of those people who had survived the process of negotiation. Their submissions were ones that I think we will all remember. 
There were the submissions from the independents and yes there was the submission by Stephen King—not the author of horror novels although when he walked into the select committee I thought he was out of a horror movie. I had always heard of this bloke; I had seen him on the TV. I too share the sentiments of the Hon Mita Ririnui that when Stephen King cut the tree only a baby tree I felt so sorry for the tree. 
Then there were the ugly submissions—the ugly submissioners. In all my time in the House—to some it is not long; to some it may be far too long—I had never ever seen submissions like I saw in the Te Roroa settlement process. These ugly submissions were full of language that even I—from South Auckland from Otara—baulked at when I read them. Not a lot worries me; not a lot phases me. Those submissions from Allan Titford and the One New Zealand Foundation did. I am glad to say there was a unanimous decision in the select committee to make sure that we would not hear those submissions because of the language. So I say kia ora to my colleagues on the select committee. 
I know that my colleague Chris Finlayson does not like the term “cross-claims” but I suppose it is what I have been brought up with. There are issues about cross-claims in this settlement—as there certainly are in Ngati Whatua and Te Arawa—which tell me that the processes this Government has are not particularly right. If the processes were right then there would be no problems things would move smoothly and we would all be in favour of a durable and fair settlement. Because some things have not been done properly we say no; we say that we cannot support a settlement where a number of things have not been signed off properly. I respect my colleagues from New Zealand First and Labour for wanting to get this bill through but I also reserve the right to say that National will not stand by and see people treated in such a manner that they do not get a hell of a lot out of this deal. Nine million dollars—OK that is a couple of Saturday wins in Lotto. That may be good; that may be bad. But what really riles me is the fact that after all that has been said and done the cash that Te Roroa gets to purchase other lands—such as maybe some of Kaharau some of Te Taraire—is only $74000. I think that when we put it in those terms—and this is a settlement to say sorry to apologise for the past—we see that it does not go anywhere near it. I do not want to be a member of a party that wants to unpick settlements along the way and we will not. We will not unpick settlements that have been done in good faith. 
Hon David Benson-Pope 
: What are you doing? 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: What are we doing? The member asks what we are doing. Well he does not know—“Old Spanky” does not know. He has most probably never even once in his whole career in Parliament sat down with a bunch of Maori and actually discussed the issue of settlements. Never have I seen that man on the marae talking about settlements—never ever—having his 5c worth because that is all it is worth 5c. And they got rid of the 5c coin a long time ago. 
But let me get back to the whole issue. From that side of the House tonight I have heard a speech from a Minister who was as pious as I have ever heard a Minister talking in this House. I have never heard such a condescending and pious speech in all my days. Yes the quantum is not enough to purchase—[ 
Interruption 
] Look I tell that member not to mind about us. National was in power without me for a while and then it was in power for 3 more years and we did a whole lot. We did a whole lot in terms of Treaty settlements so that member should not bother going there. Labour will lose in an argument or discussion about what National has done in terms of Treaty settlements. I mentioned before a legacy. Well the legacy for National in terms of Treaty settlements is Sir Douglas Graham. The party he belonged to was National. The party he belongs to is National. 
Lastly I want to say that I am dumbfounded at the ability of a select committee not to be able to make changes in a settlement process and I think that that is something this House must address in the very near future. 
 It does not say to the Crown that it must do this; all it says is that the select committee proposes or wishes the Government to take a course of action. It does not hold a power of veto and it certainly does not say to the Minister that he must listen to the select committee. So I urge the House shortly to have a discussion and come up with a better way of dealing with Treaty settlements when they appear before a select committee. Kia Ora. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the Te Roroa Claims Settlement Bill be now read a second time. 
Ayes 66 
New Zealand Labour 49; New Zealand First 7; Green Party 6; Maori Party 1 (Turia); United Future 2; Progressive 1;. 
Noes 50 
New Zealand National 48; Independents: Copeland Field. 
Abstentions 3 
Maori Party 3 (Flavell Harawira Sharples). 
Bill read a second time. 
The House adjourned at 9.56 p.m.