Volume 647 Week 77 - Thursday 19 June 2008 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Volume 647 Week 77 - Thursday 19 June 2008 
[Sitting date: 19 June 2008. Volume:647;Page:16751. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Thursday 19 June 2008 
Madam Speaker 
 took the Chair at 2 p.m. 
Prayers 
. 
Business Statement 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Leader of the House) 
: 
 When the House resumes next week the first order of the day on Tuesday will be the first reading of the Affiliate Te Arawa Iwi and Hapu Claims Settlement Bill followed by the second reading of the Appropriation (2007/08 Supplementary Estimates) Bill. This is a 3-hour debate and will include debate on an Imprest Supply Bill. On Wednesday priority will be given to the first readings of the Central North Island Forests Land Collective Settlement Bill and the Lawyers and Conveyancers Amendment Bill (No 2). We will also seek to progress the remaining stages of the Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill (No 2). 
GERRY BROWNLEE (National—Ilam) 
: 
 Could the Leader of the House give some indication of when item No. 20 on the Order Paper might be further advanced—that is the Climate Change (Emissions Trading and Renewable Preference) Bill. 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Leader of the House) 
: 
 Discussions continue on that bill. I am sure the member will be kept up to date both by the Government and by media comment. 
Questions to Ministers 
Corrections Department—Kuchenbecker Inquest 
1. GERRY BROWNLEE (National—Ilam) 
 to the  
Minister of Corrections 
: Does he stand by the statement from his department yesterday that it accepts the findings from the coroner’s inquest into the murder of Karl Kuchenbecker at the hands of Graeme Burton? 
Hon PHIL GOFF (Minister of Corrections) 
: 
 Yes the Department of Corrections does accept the findings of the coroner. Also the department along with the Parole Board and the police acknowledges the mistakes that were made that contributed to Graeme Burton remaining at large which in turn resulted in his murder of Karl Kuchenbecker. All three agencies have expressed their deep regrets and apologies and just as important have moved to remedy the deficiencies in the system. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: If the Department of Corrections accepts the findings of the coroner why did it put out in a press release yesterday statements that downplayed the coroner’s view by saying “there was only one occasion in … October and then in late November that Burton did not fully comply with the rules” and say that it “worked extremely hard … to get him back on track.” when the coroner makes it clear that he was supposed to be on a zero-tolerance regime and that the Department of Corrections should have locked him up; if the department accepts it was wrong why it is making excuses? 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: The department is not making excuses and I am certainly not making excuses on its behalf. Mistakes were made that should not have been made. They were made across three agencies. It is rather a tragedy that human error resulted in what occurred because of the mistakes that were made. I would however point out to the member that the coroner in his report identified those mistakes as things that should have been done but were not done but did not accuse the department of carelessness or negligence. 
Martin Gallagher 
: What recommendations did the coroner make regarding remedial actions that needed to be taken by the Department of Corrections? 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: The coroner made no recommendations because he said that the Government had moved quickly to enact a raft of amendments to the Parole Act and that both the Department of Corrections and the New Zealand Police had taken what he described as firm steps to deal with the systemic deficiencies made apparent by the circumstances of Karl Kuchenbecker’s death. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Has he seen the statement in the coroner’s report that had the Department of Corrections taken enforcement action against Burton’s parole breaches earlier “the prospect of an early arrest would have been considerably advanced.”; if so does he now think the statement of his chief executive in March of 2007 that “I don’t think there’s a nexus between the tragedy and the management of his parole.” indicates an attitude in the department that contributed to Karl Kuchenbecker’s death and in fact leads to the responsibility for his death lying with the department? 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: The direct responsibility for Karl Kuchenbecker’s death of course lies with Graeme Burton and no excuses should be made that anybody other than he is directly and squarely responsible for a senseless murder. Having said that had actions been taken in a different way as they should have been by the Department of Corrections the Parole Board and the police it is likely that the circumstances would not have arisen where Karl Kuchenbecker was murdered.  
Gerry Brownlee 
: Why should the public of New Zealand believe his department’s acknowledgment of failure now when during the coroner’s inquest the department continued to argue that it had no basis for charging Burton with breaches of parole by the end of November 2006 and does that not indicate that routine lenience on parole conditions still operates in the department? 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: No but a series of mistakes were made each of which contributed to the tragic result that we saw. The Department of Corrections accepts its share of responsibility for that and more important has moved to remedy the deficiencies that were pointed out as was stated explicitly by the coroner in his report. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: If his department accepts that it was wrong does it also resile from the key message of the communications plan for the release of its own internal report in March 2007 which stated it “cleared Corrections of allegations of wrongdoing or incompetency.” and the plan also advised the department to “Find a sympathetic reporter and give them a scoop.” and further stated “Provide the Minister with all the information necessary to refute Mr Simon Power’s claims.”? 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: I am not familiar with that document. If there is such a document—and I am somewhat reluctant to take the member’s word for it because he often gets things wrong—it would have been created before my time as Minister. I make no excuses for those who made mistakes. I can convey to the member and to the House the deep regret of the Department of Corrections that those mistakes were made and a determination to remedy those deficiencies which the coroner reports the department has indeed done. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Does he admit that his department’s response to the Kuchenbecker tragedy merely reflects a culture within the organisation that not only tolerates frequent mistakes but then seeks to deny responsibility even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary like that today where a corrections file has been found in a street and corrections staff are able to say only that a file is missing but cannot say whether it is actually the department’s file? 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: The department of course has to front up for any error on the part of an employee that might be made and it is important that that should happen. What I want to say about the Department of Corrections is that at least the department did not do what it did under Nick Smith which was to allow Graeme Burton and four others to escape from Paremoremo. The department has brought down by 84 percent the level of escapes from our prisons and reduced by two-thirds the abuse of drugs. The department still has improvements that can be made and it and I are determined that it will make those improvements. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I seek leave to table documents showing that the Department of Corrections produced material saying that its internal report cleared it of allegations of wrongdoing and incompetence and that it further sought to provide the Minister with all information necessary— 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Oil Prices—Transport Planning 
2.  
JEANETTE FITZSIMONS (Co-Leader—Green) 
 to the  
Minister of Transport 
: What advice if any has she received about the likely price path of oil over the next 5 years; and how will this impact on transport planning? 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Minister of Transport) 
: 
 Clearly oil prices affect the movement of people and freight and the amount of revenue from fuel excise duties that goes into the National Land Transport Fund. Officials are keeping a watchful eye on price movements. 
Jeanette Fitzsimons 
: Is the Minister satisfied that when Land Transport New Zealand determines the economics of new motorways it uses the 2002 oil price of $26 a barrel adjusted only by the consumer price index when today the cost of oil is over $130 a barrel; and when will the Minister demand that her ministry and Crown agencies use realistic oil prices in their cost-benefit calculations? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: When calculations were made for decisions around roads particularly in Auckland those decisions were made based on the best evidence available at the time. It does not mean the roads are not necessary—those roads will be built. 
Jeanette Fitzsimons 
: How long will the Minister accept the advice of officials who consistently undervalue oil prices undervalue carbon prices undervalue the time of public transport users compared with the time of drivers count the positive external effects of roads but not the positive external effects of public transport and use a ridiculously high discount rate when evaluating public transport options? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: I will continue to take advice from my officials because they also give me advice on our passenger transport needs and on our needs in terms of more cycling and walking. They also give advice on the need for roads. As the member herself said yesterday we will always have cars so we will always need roads. To believe that we will now stop building roads is just not realistic. 
Keith Locke 
: Given the Minister’s comments just now that the oil price estimates relate to decisions on road building in Auckland what price will oil have to rise to before the Government redirects its nearly $2 billion budgeted expenditure on Auckland’s Waterview motorway into better public transport for Aucklanders? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: This Government has in fact done both. We have directed considerable funding into public transport in Auckland and we are looking to do even more. We are also mindful that the western ring route State Highway 20 which takes traffic around Auckland rather than through it needs to be completed otherwise we have a part of a network of roads that do not link up. That would be seen by Aucklanders to be silly because on that road will also be trucks and buses; one needs roads for both as well as for cars. 
Peter Brown 
: Does the Minister share New Zealand First’s view that had roads been more appropriately funded in the 1990s by the then National Government we would not have the problem that we have now? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: That is a very good question. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: 9 years! 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: The 9 long years of this Labour Government have seen more investment in transport than this country has ever seen. We have seen investment in transport go from less than a billion dollars under a National Government to $2.7 billion this year. If National had invested in transport we would not have the congestion in Auckland that we do today. For the first time ever yesterday at a transport forum Maurice Williamson admitted that National had not invested into transport. The reason he gave the forum for that was that Ruth Richardson would not let him. 
Jeanette Fitzsimons 
: If the Government cannot get a majority in the House for the regional fuel tax ironically because petrol prices are becoming unaffordable will the Minister provide a funding guarantee for Auckland’s electric trains so they can be ordered now rather than leaving a part-network of rail system that cannot be used—just as she has provided a funding guarantee to 2011 for motorway expansion projects and as the Government has provided a funding guarantee for the Huntly gas-fired power station—or is Government underwriting available only for projects that increase our fossil fuel use? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: Obviously not because the Government has invested considerably in rail. We will get to that question when we need to.  
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: If the National Party had not stopped both the 1995 bill that sought to ensure that all road taxes went on roading and the 1998 budgetary measure that by compounding over 10 years sought to take 2.1 percent extra into the roading account would it have taken 9 long years for those measures to have happened?  
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: Obviously the answer is no. And there has been little—little—commitment from the National Party in terms of transport. But as we get to an election I know that National members are going around New Zealand promising absolutely everything. They will fix the entire transport network and—you know what—they will do it in a year they are so good! 
Rodney Hide 
: Could the Minister of Transport give a clear goal for this Government in respect of petrol prices: is it to put up the price of petrol and other fossil fuels to combat climate change through the emissions trading scheme or is it to try to get the price of petrol and other fossil fuels down which is why it is having an inquiry into pricing—which one is it I ask the Minister; does the Government want prices up or down? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: I have no responsibility for climate change or for the inquiry that is being undertaken. 
Rodney Hide 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. I did not suggest for a minute that the Minister had responsibility for emissions trading schemes. But the question is down about petrol pricing and the price path of oil and my question asks whether the Government has a goal to put up the price. If the primary question is in order then asking whether the Government has a goal about that certainly must be in order.  
Madam SPEAKER 
: The primary question also relates however to transport planning. I listened to the member’s question and heard that it had several thoughts contained within it some of which were certainly not within the Minister’s ministerial responsibility.  
Te Ururoa Flavell 
: Tena koe Madam Speaker; kia ora tatou tenei rangi. Has the Minister seen the editorial in Tuesday’s  
New Zealand Herald  
that described the inquiry to examine the pricing behaviour of domestic suppliers as “a well-trodden path of inquiry unlikely to tell us anything new let alone offer a practical response to the oil shock.” and does she not agree that the Maori Party’s proposal for a cross-party commission on peak oil is a good idea that could offer practical solutions; if not why not? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: I have seen the editorial in the  
New Zealand Herald 
. I imagine that it would not matter what this Government did; it would get a negative editorial from the  
New Zealand Herald 
. 
Jeanette Fitzsimons 
: I seek leave of the House to table two documents. The first is an answer to a written question that shows that the 2002 oil price is still being used in land transport— 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? Yes there is. 
Jeanette Fitzsimons 
: The second is the Government’s advice to Ministers on how to answer transport questions from the Green Party which shows where many of the Ministers’ answers come from. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I seek leave to table two documents: the 1998 Budget that sought to take extra taxation for roading and the 1999 Budget in which National repealed that measure having of course signed up to it in the coalition talks. 
Document not tabled. 
Election Advertising—Departmental Material 
3.  
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Deputy Leader—National) 
 to the  
Minister of Justice 
: Is it Government policy that political parties may electioneer with advertising material produced by Government departments; if so why? 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Minister of Justice) 
: 
 No. 
Hon Bill English 
: Has the Minister been advised that following the public endorsement by Mike Williams president of the Labour Party of a strategy of having Labour activists use Government department - produced advertising material the Inland Revenue Department has instituted formal systems to monitor the use of its publicity and to identify any MPs’ offices ordering high numbers of pamphlets; if so what does she think this says about the Inland Revenue Department’s faith in the New Zealand Labour Party? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: It could say two things: firstly that the Inland Revenue Department is being cautious or secondly that it is very interested to see just how many people are interested in what was happening in terms of tax cuts. 
Hon Bill English 
: Has the Minister also been advised that following Mike Williams’ statements the Inland Revenue Department’s internal emails show that its communications staff expressed the belief that a KiwiSaver flyer intended for delivery to every household in New Zealand was “too far towards the promotional” and that the flyer was subsequently cancelled? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: No I am not aware of that. But I imagine that all Government departments would be being very cautious. 
Hon Bill English 
: Has she been advised that following the statement made by the president of the Labour Party Mike Williams that Labour activists could use Government department - produced advertising material the head of corporate services at the Inland Revenue Department suggested that all information programmes such as household flyers should cease until after the election? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: No. 
Hon Bill English 
: Is the Minister disturbed by the fact that after all this the State Services Commission and the Inland Revenue Department told the  
New Zealand Herald  
that the reason they had pulled the pamphlet was “strong uptake of the programme” when the emails show that in fact they pulled the ads because they believed they promoted the Labour Party too much? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: I would believe the word of the Inland Revenue Department and what it said publicly. But I am concerned that this member raises questions in this House about everybody in every other party and about the way they are acting in relation to the Electoral Finance Act while always of course pretending that his party’s hands are clean. I would ask the member what he has done about the pamphlets I have here which were handed out at the Fieldays. They are unauthorised and were paid for by taxpayers’ money and they will be sent off to the Electoral Commission because this is nothing more than two-faced hypocrisy from the National Party. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. Day after day you have accepted answers to questions on this topic from this Minister that have been woefully inadequate on the basis that she has said that the Minister does not offer an opinion on the Electoral Finance Act. She has just done exactly that. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: I am not sure whether that is a point of order. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Seeing that the Minister has put into contention the issue of various political parties being at Mystery Creek is she aware that at that occasion of a few days a lot of political parties had their own booths there including New Zealand First the National Party and the Labour Party but that of course the National Party members went around photographing everyone else’s booth and not their own? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: That tells this House one thing: National members are more interested in being the tell-tale tit of Parliament than they are in getting on and having an election campaign fair and square. They probably even used parliamentary money to buy the camera to take the photographs. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. I take exception to the comments made by the Minister. The reality is that we just did not want those parties to feel lonely. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: The member has made his point. 
Rodney Hide 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. Time and time again you rule questions out of order—and I would have asked you about this question but I was quite interested in the answer so I let it pass—but I am sure that the Minister of Justice is not prepared to accept responsibility for National Party members or for whom they might or might not take a picture of yet that question was allowed. I fail to see how the Minister of Justice has any ministerial responsibility for that matter. You upheld that question yet when we ask her questions about the law and she says that she does not have any responsibility for that— 
Madam SPEAKER 
: I think I get the member’s point; he is making a speech now. I listened very carefully because the questions from Mr English also could have been ruled as being within the ministerial responsibility of the Minister of Revenue but he phrased his questions in a way that asked whether she received any reports about them without doing that and so did Mr Peters. It was on that basis that I allowed both lots of questions. They did not directly go to ministerial responsibility and the Minister answered in that way.  
Hon Bill English 
: Can the Minister tell us what it says about the faith of the Public Service in the integrity of the Labour Government when even after the Prime Minister backed away from her party president’s strategy of using publicly produced pamphlets for electioneering purposes and despite the Prime Minister saying that she had done that the Inland Revenue Department went ahead and implemented a system to monitor the behaviour of Labour MPs to ensure that they did not use publicly produced pamphlets for electioneering? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: That is all in the mind of the member who has just asked that question. 
Hon Bill English 
: I seek leave to table the internal emails from the Inland Revenue Department that show it implemented a monitoring system to ensure— 
Document not tabled. 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: I seek leave to table National Party pamphlets handed out at the Fieldays which were not authorised— 
Documents not tabled. 
Sentencing—Serious Offenders 
4.  
MARTIN GALLAGHER (Labour—Hamilton West) 
 to the  
Minister of Corrections 
: What reports has he received on the length of sentences for serious offences since the passing of the Sentencing Act 2002 and the Parole Act 2002? 
Hon PHIL GOFF (Minister of Corrections) 
: 
 I have received various reports from the Department of Corrections and the Ministry of Justice that show that the Sentencing Act 2002 and the Parole Act 2002 have played a significant role in keeping serious and high-risk offenders in prison for much longer. Under the Sentencing Act aggravated murder attracts a sentence of life with a minimum non-parole period now of 17 years up from 10 years under National. The average non-parole period imposed for life sentences is today 25 percent higher than it was a decade ago. The reports also show that the proportion of sentences served is much longer. Those convicted of sexual violation for example are serving sentences that are 40 percent longer than sentences served before the new Acts; the average sentence served for burglaries has increased from 44 percent of the sentence to 70 percent; and for serious assaults it has increased from 54 percent of the sentence to 70 percent. That gives the lie to National claims that the law is anything other than much tougher on serious offenders than it was before. 
Martin Gallagher 
: Is there evidence for allegations that parole and bail are much easier to get today? 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: No; in fact the evidence is absolutely to the contrary. Following the Parole Act 2002 the percentage of applications declined by the Parole Board has gone up from just over 50 percent to over 70 percent. The bail law was toughened in 2000 to reverse the onus of proof regarding hard-core offenders so that they had to persuade the court that they were safe to be bailed rather than the other way round. That was opposed by Tony Ryall when he was the Minister of Justice in 1999. We put it into the legislation. The growth in prison remand numbers at significantly higher levels than the growth in the number of sentenced prisoners is proof of the fact that today it is much harder to get bail. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Has the Minister quoted today from the same Ministry of Justice report that was released in April that shows that the average length of prison sentences imposed for all violent offences including murder has dropped by 11.9 percent since 2002; and is he also quoting from a report of the Department of Corrections that was released this month that states there has been “significant growth in the number of offenders starting short-term prison sentences”? 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: The second part of the question answers the first part of the question. There are far more shorter term sentences for violence because violence does result in offenders going to jail. The average length of sentences goes down because lesser incidents of violence are included. But the member has got something to explain: if the law is not much tougher how come prison numbers are 70 percent higher than they were when that member was in Government? 
Te Ururoa Flavell 
: Tena no tatou. What international research evidence is there that harsher sentences are effective in reducing reoffending and preventing crime? 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: They are not necessarily effective on their own. But we do know that the category of people who are recidivist offenders are not liable to be changed by rehabilitation and often the only way that we can deal with them is to keep them locked up provided that they constitute a risk to the community. And under the new legislation risk to the community has to be the paramount consideration in decisions of the justice system. But I agree with the member in so far as he is saying that to bring crime rates down in society being tougher is not enough; we have to do more to deal with the causes of crime which include dysfunctional families and drug and alcohol abuse. We have to ensure that children are brought up without abuse without violence and with good parenting. 
Martin Gallagher 
: Further to the Minister’s previous answers have the tougher penalties for serious offenders been reflected in growth in the prison population in New Zealand? 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: They most certainly have. That is why four prisons have been opened that is why 2300 additional prison beds have been created and that is why the prison population has gone up by 71 percent since the mid-1990s. I emphasise that those steps were taken to deal with the rising level of crime under National. If we look at the police statistics we see that the total number of recorded police offences was lower last year than it was a decade ago. 
Immigration Minister—Oughton Inquiry 
5.  
Dr the Hon LOCKWOOD SMITH (National—Rodney) 
 to the  
Minister of Immigration 
: On what date did the Minister of Immigration first advise the Minister of State Services formally or informally that an inquiry was being conducted by David Oughton into unlawful decision-making involving the head of the Immigration Service? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Leader of the House) 
 on behalf of the  
Minister of Immigration 
: Information was conveyed at officials’ level. I am advised that the then chief executive of the Department of Labour gave the State Services Commission an informal heads-up when the audit process first found issues around the application matter and it became clear that an investigation was necessary. Later the then acting chief executive gave a further heads-up that David Oughton would be conducting the investigation. 
Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith 
: Is it correct that the State Services Commission has some responsibility for maintaining public confidence in the wider State Service; if so why did the Minister of Immigration not alert the Minister of State Services about such a major issue as an investigation into unlawful decision-making involving the head of the Immigration Service when the Minister had been briefed on the inquiry in April and August last year? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: On the first matter clearly the Minister of Immigration is not responsible for that matter. 
Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith 
: Why after at least three briefings last year on an inquiry into unlawful decision-making involving the head of the Immigration Service did the Minister of Immigration not ask any further questions when yesterday the State Services Commissioner told the Finance and Expenditure Committee that if he had been familiar with the content of the Oughton report last year he absolutely would have asked further questions? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: The member tries to draw an illogical connection between ministerial knowledge and the fact that the State Services Commissioner chose not to take certain action. 
Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith 
: Is the Minister telling the House that the three chief executives of the Department of Labour—James Buwalda Graham Fortune and Christopher Blake in that order—all overlooked two of the three recommendations in the Oughton report that required ministerial action and that all three told the Minister that the report covered only individual employee matters when the State Services Commissioner yesterday told the Finance and Expenditure Committee that when he became familiar with the content of the report he could see that it clearly did not relate only to employment matters but covered wider issues as well? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: Much of this ground has been covered before. But to take just one item on these matters the member will be aware that the new chief executive of the department Mr Blake sought to reopen matters and was told that he could not do so because they involved individual employment matters that had been settled. However of course subsequently the State Services Commission was involved in a review of those matters. 
Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith 
: Can we get a clear answer on this; who actioned the first recommendation of the Oughton report when it was received in July last year that “these people need to have their applications”—that is for residence—”considered for special treatment as they have been disadvantaged” because that special treatment would have involved exceptions to residence policy? Who actioned that recommendation? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: I do not have information in front of me on that particular matter. I am advised that there are processes that need to be gone through as I understand it for special applications. The department itself does not have the power to refer that to the Minister. 
Social Development Ministry—Moderation and Thrift 
6.  
JUDITH COLLINS (National—Clevedon) 
 to the  
Minister for Social Development and Employment 
: Is she confident that the Ministry of Social Development is meeting the Prime Minister’s expectation of moderation and thrift? 
Hon RUTH DYSON (Minister for Social Development and Employment) 
: 
 Yes because I know that the ministry is constantly reviewing and prioritising its funding to ensure that it achieves the best possible outcomes for children young people and their families. As the member did not raise any questions about the ministry in relation to moderation and thrift at the Social Services Committee yesterday I assume she shares my confidence. 
Judith Collins 
: Does the Minister agree with the Prime Minister that “Labour wants to be able to look the ordinary hard-working taxpayer in the eye and say that their tax dollars are being spent on the things which matter.”; if so does she think that increasing the communications media and public relations staff to a whopping 61.5 this year—up from 54 last year and up from 22 in 2002—is spending on things that matter? 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: The answer to the first part of the question is absolutely yes. I would be interested to know whether the National Party would stop efforts to ensure that every New Zealander receives his or her full and correct entitlements such as the outward calling programme to actively search out people and ensure that they are receiving their entitlement. In respect of public information and awareness campaigns on programmes such as Working for Families there have been 97 significant events at malls throughout the country at which an estimated 1.3 million New Zealanders had contact with the staff to ensure that they were aware of their full entitlement and were receiving it. Which part of that communication would that member’s party cut? 
Russell Fairbrother 
: What has been the impact of the building of policy capability in the Ministry of Social Development? 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: In 2001 the Hunn review pronounced the former Department of Work and Income to be a department without a brain. The Ministry of Social Development has since built policy capability in order to develop policies such as Working for Families Working New Zealand and Pathways to Partnership. It has also built regional policy capability. For example a number of regions have completed a seasonal labour strategy and valuable work on housing sustainability. That is ridiculed by Tony Ryall and Judith Collins but is critical to achieving better outcomes for New Zealand families. 
Judith Collins 
: Can the Minister guarantee that the tax dollars of hard-working taxpayers are being spent on the things that matter when 450 front-line caseworkers have been cut in the last year but policy staff have increased from 200 people in 2002 to a staggering 350 people today? 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: Yes. 
Judith Collins 
: How can it be that having fewer beneficiaries was cited yesterday as the reason for the reduction of 450 in front-line staff yet there has been no corresponding requirement to reduce or even contain the bureaucracy now that there are fewer beneficiaries than there were previously? 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: That assertion is incorrect as the member had explained to her at the select committee. 
Judith Collins 
: Does she agree with the Hon Dr Michael Cullen who said yesterday that— 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: Yes. 
Judith Collins 
: —do not be too eager honey—”The economic situation is challenging.”; and if that situation results in more people losing their jobs does she think it is wise to get rid of 450 front-line staff at a time when a lot of New Zealanders are losing their jobs? 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: I wish the member could make up her mind. Does she support having fewer or more staff in the Ministry of Social Development? I can confirm categorically that I agree with the deputy leader of my party far more often than she would ever agree with her deputy leader. 
Organised Crime—Government Actions 
7.  
LYNNE PILLAY (Labour—Waitakere) 
 to the  
Minister of Justice 
: What action has the Government taken to address organised crime in New Zealand? 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Minister of Justice) 
: 
 The Government has introduced a wide-ranging package of measures to address organised crime that have been developed over the past year. Earlier this year I released the national Organised Crime Strategy. We have established the form the powers and the functions of the new Organised and Financial Crime Agency of New Zealand to be located within the New Zealand Police. The Serious Fraud Office (Abolition and Transitional Provisions) Bill has been introduced. We have introduced the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Bill which will further enable property and profits from crime to be confiscated. Today I have tabled the Organised Crime (Penalties and Sentencing) Bill. Finally a range of amendments is currently being drafted to increase search and surveillance powers in order to help further tackle organised criminal gangs. 
Lynne Pillay 
: What does the bill tabled today do? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: The Organised Crime (Penalties and Sentencing) Bill increases the maximum penalty for participation in an organised criminal group under section 98A of the Crimes Act from 5 to 10 years. The increase in the maximum penalty to 10 years will make interception warrants available for investigations. The bill also amends the Sentencing Act to provide that it is an aggravating factor where an offence is committed partly or wholly because of the offender’s participation in an organised criminal group. 
Dail Jones 
: Can the Minister confirm that although this recently announced change to section 98A of the Crimes Act is a positive move her Government was responsible for the much-heralded 2002 amendment of the same section that despite a massive rise in prosecutions for membership of an organised crime group resulted in a dismal conviction rate of just 13.9 percent of those prosecuted between 2003 and 2006 and can she assure the House that this proposed change will be any more successful? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: I believe that it will be considerably more successful and I welcome the support from New Zealand First for the bill I have tabled today.  
Lynne Pillay 
: What reaction has there been to the bill tabled today? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: I am pleased to hear that John Key has indicated support for our bill. That goes against National’s lack of support for the toughening of the laws against violence and organised crime. For example National voted against the Parole Act 2002 which significantly increased the amount of time that offenders spend in prison; and National voted against the Sentencing Act which introduced tougher sentences for the worst murders and lifted the standard non-parole period within a life sentence from 10 years to at least 17 years. So I can only say that National has had a conversion on the way to the ballot box. 
Climate Change (Emissions Trading and Renewable Preference) Bill—Changes 
8.  
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) 
 to the  
Minister responsible for Climate Change Issues 
: What changes if any will he be making to the Climate Change (Emissions Trading and Renewable Preference) Bill in light of the statement by the Kyoto Forestry Association last week that “Helen Clark and Jim Anderton’s record on forestry is the worst of any Prime Minister or any Forestry Minister in New Zealand’s history. … It is the shameful legacy of a failure to listen to the forestry industry and instead target us with punitive policies despite us being the environmental good guys and the only sector capable of sequestering carbon.”? 
Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister responsible for Climate Change Issues) 
: 
 I am glad the member asked that question because there is little doubt that that statement was prepared by Matthew Hooton. 
Hon Annette King 
: Who is he? 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: He is a former National Party employee. He is the lobbyist for the Kyoto Forestry Association. He is one of the “hollow men”. He seldom discloses his private interests and associations in his newspaper column; yet he regularly accuses others using strong language such as “corruption”. The reality is that deforestation is way down because of the emissions trading scheme. Without the scheme emissions would increase sharply at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars.  
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Does the Government not accept responsibility for the 40000 hectares of deforestation that has occurred since 2004 noting that it is the first deforestation at all since records began in 1951; and does he accept that these figures will get worse as they are only up to 31 March 2007 and that the chainsaw massacre revved up considerably— 
Hon Members 
: Ha ha! 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: —those members can laugh but those were millions of trees—the chainsaw massacre revved up considerably between March and the end of last year meaning that the deforestation figures are set to get worse? 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: We all know that because of some of the underlying drivers of conversion to dairying etc. without some regulatory intervention or price responsibility for deforestation emissions deforestation would have continued this year as high as it was last year and it would come at the cost of hundreds of millions of dollars to the taxpayer and at considerable cost to the environment yet National will not vote for the emissions trading scheme. 
Moana Mackey 
: What was the estimated deforestation last year and what is expected this year? 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: I am advised that last year’s deforestation totalled some 19000 hectares— 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: The worst ever. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: The member is quite right. It would have been repeated this year and every year into the future and would have got even worse. As a consequence of Government policy because the emissions trading scheme is coming in deforestation is already substantially down to a projected 2400 hectares this year. Of course without the emissions trading scheme deforestation emissions would increase enormously. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Has the Minister received any reports of a certain member of Parliament and spokesman for his party who went to a Bali conference of 42 countries and came back and protested that New Zealand was the 38th worst which he then interpreted as being fourth from the bottom when in fact if one is not confused or of an addled mind one knows that that is fourth from the top? 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: I have heard that a number of Opposition members are often confused on these issues. They are somewhat complex. One of the latest things I heard from the National Party was that its members somehow expect that New Zealand should be the one developed country to be a pariah by ignoring our Kyoto Protocol obligations when the reality is that the rest of the developing world is doing more not less and that the United States is now engaged in these issues yet the National Party would have us ignore these underlying issues presumably on the basis that as Dr Lockwood Smith said yesterday we should now pull out of the international efforts. [ 
Interruption 
] 
Hon Harry Duynhoven 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker.  
Madam SPEAKER 
: Please be seated Dr Smith if you want to stay in the Chamber. Would members please settle. They are starting to get silly. I presume Mr Duynhoven’s point of order is because he could not hear. Is that correct? Would members please keep the noise down. I know it is Thursday but we still have to get through question time. 
Hon Harry Duynhoven 
: My point of order is that I certainly take objection. I am not sure whether the Minister heard the comment but I take objection to Dr Lockwood Smith yelling out “pack of lies” or words to that effect. He should be asked to withdraw and apologise. That is not acceptable in Parliament. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: I did not hear the comment but if the member made it then I would ask him to withdraw and apologise. 
Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith 
: I withdraw and apologise. I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. Members place their colleagues in this House in some difficulty when they intentionally make false statements. The Minister David Parker knows he did. 
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker.  
Madam SPEAKER 
: These points of order will be heard in silence otherwise members will be leaving the Chamber so that we can get through this question time. 
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: The member cannot get away with making that statement. To accuse somebody of intentionally making a false statement is to repeat the previous allegation which the member has just been ordered to withdraw and apologise for. I suggest he is approaching the point of having to withdraw from the House. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Does the Hon David Parker have anything further to add before I rule? 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: I think I probably did overstate what Dr Smith said yesterday. Dr Smith rose yesterday and said that it was the Government that ratified the Kyoto Protocol as if that was a bad thing implying that we should not and implying that National would withdraw. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Does the Minister agree that there is a serious flaw in the Kyoto Protocol in respect of forestry in that land use can be changed with minimal carbon cost for deforesting by replanting with seedlings and then clearing those small seedlings? 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: I do agree that the Kyoto Protocol is an imperfect instrument. None the less I also think that some of the arguments that are put by the forestry lobby are exaggerated and do not withstand scrutiny either. We are trying to improve the rules under future versions of the Kyoto Protocol and indeed are able to exert influence there because of our responsible conduct as a country which is most recently evidenced by the fact that the chair of the working-group that is considering these rules is a New Zealander from the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry. 
Te Ururoa Flavell 
: Why has the agricultural sector been exempted from the emissions trading scheme during the first 5 years yet been subsidised for 90 percent of its 2005 emission levels and what would that exemption and subsidy cost the taxpayer? 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: It is actually not correct that the agricultural sector is being exempted from the emissions trading scheme. It is responsible for its transport emissions in full and it is responsible for its electricity and process emissions on farm. It is true that it is exempted from its agricultural methane and nitrous oxide emissions until the start of 2013 but that is on the basis that there are considerable technical issues in respect of measurement that still need to be worked through and it is also true that although in some sectors there are substitutionary technologies where one can completely remove some sources of emissions in agriculture one cannot entirely remove emissions although one can reduce them.  
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Why is it Government policy to encourage foresters wanting to change land use to temporarily replant those trees and then bulldoze them over at 8 years old as is provided for in his emissions trading scheme legislation and where is there any benefit for the environment or the economy from that sort of policy lunacy?  
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: The advice from officials which was given to the select committee and accepted by the select committee and accepted by me is that it is going to be a very strange practice to try to avoid emission reduction obligations or emission costs by going to the cost of replanting a forest leaving it in the ground for 8 years with all that lost cost of production and then pulling it out so as to avoid a cost. Look the underlying point here is that some of those who want to escape any obligation in respect of deforestation emissions want different rules for themselves than for industry. Industry is being told that if it increases emissions above historic levels it has to take responsibility for those increases. Those wanting to increase deforestation above historic levels—still an emission still a cost to the country—want to put all that cost to taxpayers rather than take responsibility for it themselves. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Was not the Minister of Revenue Peter Dunne correct when he said that this emissions trading legislation is sounding more and more like the Electoral Finance Act where bland assurances were given by Ministers day after day in the House that it was all OK yet it has subsequently turned completely to pickle and should he not heed the advice of Mr Dunne that he slow down and take the extra time to get this important emissions trading scheme legislation right? 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: Those who were fortunate or unfortunate enough—I am not sure which it is—to sit on the select committee or on the ministerial committees that have been considering these issues in detail for well over a year can say hand on heart that this would be one of the most picked-over issues and one of the most extensively researched. There have been longer hearings more consultation and greater periods of consideration and I think this process is actually a credit on all those who participated in it. 
Question No 9 to Minister 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 Madam Speaker— 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Tell us about the ETS. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: You will have plenty of time to discuss the emissions trading scheme. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: That’s an admission. It will be in the House with a long Committee stage. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Well at least I have not ended up with a Maori nose after having had my face pressed up against the window of power for the last 9 years like the member has. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Would the member please just ask the question. [ 
Interruption 
] 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: It will go on for a lot longer if the member carries on in that arrogant way. As for Mr Carter I ask why he has lost three seats already. He has been refused nominations for all three seats he is now on the list and he lost the court case as well. He has already paid his lawyer $160000 in legal costs trying to defend himself against a defamation case from me. Is he winning now? No he is not. [ 
Interruption 
] There he goes again. He is big time here but he cannot even stand— 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Please be seated all of you. This is what happens when interjections create disorder. The member will put forward just his question and there will be silence so that we can get the question out. 
Gangs—Police Estimates 
9.  
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
 to the  
Minister of Police 
: What are the latest police estimates of the number of criminal gangs patched gang members and gang associates in New Zealand? 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Minister of Police) 
: 
 The police advise me from the latest figures they have that the estimated total number of patched gang members and associates is between 3000 and 3500 across New Zealand. They advise me that they are actively working on reviewing those figures. They stress that obtaining accurate figures is very difficult due to factors such as people being dishonest with the police about their gang membership or associations and because not all gangs wear patches and if they do those patches are not worn all the time. 
Ron Mark 
: How many dedicated squads within the police deal with crime involving gangs and how many officers are involved in each of those squads? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: I am unable to give the member that information just now but I will get it to him as soon as question time finishes. As the member is aware there are a number of units. I do not have the figures with me. 
Chester Borrows 
: Can the Minister confirm her answer to a written question that stated that despite the fact that the police had their own organised crime strategy from 2000 to 2004 when it expired it was never replaced or revised and that the ministerial crime reduction group did not meet for 4 long years until 2007 so that for several lost years prior to the drive-by shooting of Jhia Te Tua in May last year the Government did nothing to target gangs? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: No that is totally wrong. As the member knows although the strategy date expired the work did not stop. As that member found out when there was a drive-by shooting in Wanganui out of which a lot of political capital was attempted to be made the police did their job. They brought in the resources they had their gang unit working and they made the arrests that it was necessary to make. 
Ron Mark 
: Does the Minister consider that having fewer than 200 officers dedicated to policing a group of criminals that is the size of the population of Napier and who are responsible for almost all of the $1.5 billion annual methamphetamine trade to be an acceptable response to the situation? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: That would be true only if those police did not have the support of many other police with expert and specialised skills. There is no doubt that the police work as a team; they do not work in isolation. 
Ron Mark 
: Can the Minister explain why the Asian crime unit has only five staff only one of whom is Asian when it is widely known that most of the methamphetamine and precursors that have been imported into the country are sourced from family and business connections in south China? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: The member will be aware that in terms of recruitment a lot of effort is going into recruiting more police officers with Asian backgrounds. But the police do not rely on just that; they have formed very good international links with colleagues in those countries where precursors come from. The intelligence work and the international work they do are not spoken about very loudly but that work is very important in terms of combating the importation of precursors for methamphetamines. 
Ron Mark 
: When can the public expect to see our police given the powers and extra resourcing to make a real impact on criminal gangs so we arrive at a situation where the number of gang affiliates is falling rather than the current situation where it is increasing daily? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: As I already answered in replying to a question earlier today considerable work has gone into increasing the powers of the police and also into establishing an organised crime agency to tackle organised crime in which gang members operate as organised criminals. The increased powers in the bill that I tabled today will be important as will be the search and surveillance powers that come from the very good work that has been done by the Law Commission. I will be tabling a bill on that very soon as well. 
Education Ministry—Confidence 
10.  
ANNE TOLLEY (National—East Coast) 
 to the  
Minister of Education 
: Does he have confidence in the Ministry of Education; if so why? 
Hon CHRIS CARTER (Minister of Education) 
: 
 Yes I do have confidence in the Ministry of Education but it like all of us I am sure can do better. 
Anne Tolley 
: Does the Minister think that spending nearly a quarter of a million dollars on packs with “Let’s get it on!” and “Out there!” written on them and on DVDs bookmarks and badges that have “Wassup!” and “Nice!” written on them is in any way a good use of taxpayers’ money when schools are already crying out for more funding just to teach reading writing and maths? 
Hon CHRIS CARTER 
: I can say that any investment that lifts the potential and the learning outcomes of 21.9 percent of our students in New Zealand schools who are of Maori heritage is money well spent. My badge says “I love Maori success”. Every member of this House should be wearing this badge.  
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. In no way can it be acceptable to have 10 members from one political party shouting from the time that question was sought to be answered—and all 10 members are doing it again right now. It demonstrates two things: that they elect to do this activity and that they are a leaderless rabble for them to be allowed to get away with that—all 10 members. We cannot remotely hear what the answer is down here because of that noise. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Yes I agree. It was very very difficult to hear and it was obviously an orchestrated attempt so that people could not hear what was happening. Would members please take note: everyone has a right to hear. 
Anne Tolley 
: What sort of a kick in the guts is it for schools when in the same week that the Minister tells them to “stop moaning and start teaching” they are sent packs worth nearly a quarter of a million dollars containing DVDs that they will never watch bookmarks that will be thrown in the bin and badges with statements so patronising to students that teachers are refusing to wear them? 
Hon CHRIS CARTER 
: The member is attempting to trivialise what is in fact a really important issue. In New Zealand at the moment 21.9 percent of our students are of Maori heritage. Maori students at the moment have 2½ times less of a chance of success in school than European students so there is Ka Hikitia which is what this pack is about. The member attempts to trivialise it by citing the badges. The badges are a small part of the pack. The pack is about Ka Hikitia which is about lifting success in learning for Maori students.  
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. I must insist that there is no way that we can now have 14 members of Parliament all shouting—I have just counted; it is the whole of that front bench and four more members over here—during the answer to that question. With respect Madam Speaker why do they get away with it? If we tried it we would be out of the House but they do it every darned day. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: No I understand the member’s point. Those members who sit closest to the Chair are unfortunately the loudest. If it continues I will be asking members to leave the Chamber.  
Hon CHRIS CARTER 
: The member who asked the question represents an electorate where 61 percent of students are of Maori heritage. These are incredibly talented young people many of whom are not achieving educational success at the moment. She should be wearing a badge like mine because she should be sending out the message that she supports the aspirations of her constituents. 
Dr Ashraf Choudhary 
: What reports has the Minister seen about funding for education? 
Hon CHRIS CARTER 
: Under the Labour-led Government school operations grants have increased by more than 40 percent since 1999 or by nearly 20 percent after inflation. New Zealand invests 4.4 percent of our GDP on compulsory schooling which is way ahead of Australia the US and the UK. I am advised that today the National member Anne Tolley told the Auckland Primary Principals Association breakfast this morning that under National there would be no extra funding for education on top of the cost of living. At last we have a policy that has been released. 
Judy Turner 
: Has the Minister received advice from ministry staff about policy inconsistencies that see for instance the answer to written question No. 3369—that the Ongoing and Reviewable Resourcing Scheme funding is eligibility-led not capped—while school principals report having to divert money from their operations grant to fund shortfalls in such funding for children with special needs; if he has been advised about this what does he plan to do about it? 
Hon CHRIS CARTER 
: No I have not been advised of that. But I would like to share with the member a piece of advice I have just had from Mana College referring back to our badges which stated: “The staff of Mana College send support to you in regard to the buttons issue. Today we are wearing a button each to stimulate discussion with our students as you intended.” Some people need to get a life. 
Judy Turner 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. I appreciate the Minister’s answer but it was not an answer to my question; he was still answering the previous question. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: No he did address the member’s question at the beginning.  
Anne Tolley 
: Can the Minister tell the House— 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. With all due respect the Minister did not mention the Ongoing and Reviewable Resourcing Scheme funding once during that answer. That is what the question was about.  
Madam SPEAKER 
: No but I heard that the Minister did actually address it by saying that he could not and he then went on to move from there. So he was addressing the question. It may—sit down! It may not be a satisfactory answer but Ministers are entitled to answer addressed questions in that way.  
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Are they? 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Yes they are; would that member please leave the Chamber.  
Hon Dr Nick Smith withdrew from the Chamber. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Order in the Chamber has been slowly deteriorating as the afternoon has gone on and it is becoming very difficult actually to hear. If members could only listen to themselves—at times I am sure they will be silly as my emails will tell me when I get back to the office. Now if we could all please just address the question. As I said that was not a satisfactory answer according to some but the question was addressed.  
Anne Tolley 
: Can the Minister tell the House— 
Madam SPEAKER 
: I am sorry. Would Tony Ryall please leave the Chamber. This way we might steadily be able to get some order back in the Chamber. 
Hon Tony Ryall withdrew from the Chamber. 
Anne Tolley 
: Can the Minister tell the House what the word “Wassup!” means what the Maori etymology of the word “Wassup!” is how that word “Wassup!” on badges on kids in schools will help with Maori literacy and why it was worth wasting $56000 on badges with this word on them when principals are dismayed that Ministers can tell them there is no blank cheque for them but there is when it comes to gimmicky and patronising promotional material? 
Hon CHRIS CARTER 
: It is interesting that the member mentioned principals. She told them this morning of course that they were getting no more cash. It will be really interesting to see what their reaction is to that. “Wassup!” is something that a group of students might say. They are the sorts of people with whom we want to connect with these badges—not middle-aged middle-class people but youngsters who currently are not succeeding in our education system. I am really appalled that that member and members of the National Party are today trying to trivialise a strategy and a project that is about lifting educational outcomes for Maori students. Anne Tolley represents a constituency where 61 percent of pupils are of Maori heritage. She should be ashamed of what she is saying in the House today. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. You will no doubt rule that that addressed the question but it was not by any stretch of the imagination an answer. The Minister was asked for the meaning of the word on his badge. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: The member well knows—as he said—that the Minister addressed the question. The Speaker is not responsible for the answer to those questions. 
Dr Ashraf Choudhary 
: What reports has the Minister received about support for the implementation of the Maori education strategy Ka Hikitia—Managing for Success? 
Hon CHRIS CARTER 
: I have received a very positive report and I am glad to say that it came from a National Party member. I have seen a report from a media interview on Radio New Zealand 
National this morning where the MP Colin King who is one of National’s education spokespersons said in relation to the pack that Mrs Tolley has just been attempting to denigrate: “Whatever can be done to engage people so that they come out of the other end of their education with a positive experience has to be good for all New Zealanders.” If there is a cost-benefit analysis done and it pays then we can prove that it will be fantastic. At least one of Mrs Tolley’s caucus members has some concern about Maori students— 
Madam SPEAKER 
: The Minister knows that he went too far. 
Anne Tolley 
: Why does the Minister think that schools should listen to him and “stop moaning” when they see this sort of tasteless waste from the ministry—waste that does nothing for the 150000 kids who are failing in our schools in the tail of underachievers and does nothing for the literacy and numeracy skills of the 46 percent of Maori boys and 42 percent of Maori girls who are leaving school without any form of qualification? 
Hon CHRIS CARTER 
: I have heard no criticism of Ka Hikitia anywhere in the education sector. Mrs Tolley is trying to trivialise the pack with her attack on the buttons. These handouts are summaries of the Ka Hikitia programme. They went out with and were the main thrust of the pack that each teacher in New Zealand received. They are about lifting the achievement of Maori students. Surely that is something that everybody in this House would support. I seek leave to table the pack that went out to all schools in New Zealand 4 days ago on Ka Hikitia. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Smoking—Reports 
11.  
LESLEY SOPER (Labour) 
 to the  
Associate Minister of Health 
: What recent reports have there been on smoking in New Zealand? 
Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Associate Minister of Health) 
: 
 This excellent Labour-led Government recently announced that New Zealand’s smoking rate has fallen to a record low of 19.9 percent—the first time on record that it has ever been below 20 percent. The latest New Zealand Health Survey shows that smoking has fallen by almost 5 percent across the population since 2003. This means there are 150000 fewer smokers half of whom would have died as a result of smoking. Fewer youth are smoking now too. The latest Action on Smoking and Health year 10 survey shows that under this Labour-led Government youth smoking has more than halved from 28 percent of youth in 1999 to 12 percent in 2007. The record shows that our Government has had significant success in reducing the smoking rate in this country. 
Lesley Soper 
: What is the Government doing to further lower the smoking rate? 
Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR 
: That is another excellent question. In this year’s Budget the Government committed an extra $8 million a year for smoking cessation. This is on top of the extra $10 million per year we announced last year and takes the total annual spend to $55 million. We are funding many cessation programmes: nicotine replacement therapy; this week we launched Txt2Quit; and last month we launched our new hard-hitting TV advertisements. Our policies to reduce smoking are working. They are about stopping children and young people from starting and about helping people to quit. They are not about sitting around in corporate boxes blowing smoke in people’s faces. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Given that the latest United Nations health report says that the country with the greatest incidence of longevity or the lowest incidence of heart failure and strokes is also the country with the greatest per capita intake of cigarette smoking—namely Japan—why is the Minister not focusing on that which is important which is diet rather than poking his nose into the minds and lives of ordinary working people who have very few pleasures and are simply trying to survive in this difficult world? 
Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR 
: That is an excellent question. This Government is doing a huge amount in the area of healthy eating and healthy action. We have a number of programmes under way. But I do not buy into that member’s assumption that Japanese people live longer because they smoke more. 
Police Response—Navtej Singh Shooting 
12.  
CHESTER BORROWS (National—Whanganui) 
 to the  
Minister of Police 
: Is she satisfied with the timeliness of the police response to the robbery and shooting of Navtej Singh at his liquor store in Manurewa on 7 June; if so why? 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Minister of Police) 
: 
 I will await the outcome of the police debrief and I suggest the member does the same. 
Chester Borrows 
: Does she acknowledge the concern of New Zealanders who are still wondering why police waited nearly half an hour to secure the scene before sending in medical help yet Mr Navtej Singh’s wife friend and at least 10 customers were able to enter the store while Mr Singh lay dying and repeatedly told police that the offenders were long gone? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: I feel for the family hugely; I know they want answers and of course the public do too. But I will not pre-empt the investigation that takes place after such an event. As a former police officer that member knows that an investigation will take place and that the police will look at whether they could have done things differently or better. But to pretend that before that investigation takes place we know what happened does a disservice to the police. 
Chester Borrows 
: Can she confirm that the latest information available on police response times to priority call-outs is for the year ended 30 June 2005 because a new reporting system that was to be completed before the end of September 2007 got pushed back to the end of 2007 and is now due on 30 June 2008; and how can the public be assured that the police are improving their response times to emergency calls when they cannot be held accountable for their performance in the last 3 years? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: Of course they are held accountable and they are held accountable in the most public way possible; the spotlight is on the New Zealand Police every day of the week. In fact no other organisation in my view has the same sort of scrutiny that the New Zealand Police has. 
Chester Borrows 
: Does she accept the view of the Sikh Society that there are still some unanswered questions for the police and other authorities about why Navtej Singh did not get treatment when he was shot; and if the Sikh Society were confident that an internal review would be sufficient why would it decide to make a complaint to the Independent Police Conduct Authority “to ensure no one else is put in the same situation”? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: I share the society’s concerns because it does want answers. But I would say to the member that I have read the comments made by the secretary of the Sikh Society and they include this statement: “We would like to put on record our appreciation of the proactive stance taken by New Zealand Police to address our community concerns regarding the circumstances around the death as well as the concerns of the general owner-operated retailing business community.” That was said by the Sikh community. We could play politics with this matter all day but I believe we ought to wait until the debrief has occurred before we jump to conclusions. 
Chester Borrows 
: Does she accept the information given to those of us who met with retailers in South Auckland last week that businesses are robbed with violence or threats on a daily basis and that those incidents go unreported because the victims do not believe that the police can respond in an effective and timely manner? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: No I do not accept that because anyone who does not report to the police a robbery of his or her premises is being very foolhardy. How can the police respond if a robbery is not reported? 
Chester Borrows 
: Does she agree with the local Labour MP George Hawkins when he said that he did not have confidence that the police would adequately review their response to the robbery and shooting of Mr Singh and can she explain how a former Minister of Police for 6 years under her Government could make such a statement without his calling into question the integrity of previous police inquiries? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: I think the member will find that George Hawkins subsequently said that he is pleased with the action the police have taken in the appointment of— 
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. I really do think that on this question which is about the murder of someone and the subsequent police inquiry we could actually avoid for once guffawing and laughter from the Opposition. 
Hon Bill English 
: We find the implication of that comment unpleasant. The guffawing and laughter was about the obvious division between the Labour Party machine and the local member George Hawkins. That was what the guffawing was about—not the tragic death of an inhabitant of Manurewa. 
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: That was a pretty pathetic attempt at a rescue. The fact is Opposition members easily fell back into their usual behaviour forgetting the seriousness of the question—and Mr Borrows has been asking his questions seriously as well. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: I think members have noticed that and they will be judged accordingly by those who are listening and viewing them. 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: Mr Hawkins is perfectly capable of speaking for himself. But I can tell that member that George Hawkins has said that he is pleased with the police action in appointing the Tasman police district commander Superintendent Grant O’Fee to undertake a review and the community has been told that that review will be made public. 
Third Readings 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Minister of Justice) 
: 
 I move  
That the Crimes Amendment Bill (No 3) the Criminal Disclosure Bill the District Courts Amendment Bill (No 5) the Juries Amendment Bill the Summary Proceedings Amendment Bill (No 4) and the Victims’ Rights Amendment Bill be now read a third time 
. This legislation amends the Crimes Act the Summary Proceedings Act the District Courts Act and the Juries Act and it also creates a new Criminal Disclosure Act. The overall purpose of the amendments is to maximise efficiency and fairness in the criminal justice system. Victims will benefit from a number of reforms in the legislation. The legislation responds to Law Commission recommendations and developments overseas. Many of the areas included in this legislation have not seen fundamental reform for many years. The rules have not kept pace with changes in society including changes in technology and reforms in other common law countries.  
Major areas of reform included in the legislation are changes relating to jury trials exceptions to the double jeopardy rule and reforms to preliminary hearings and disclosure. There are also reforms affecting middle-band offences and I will briefly outline some of the key reforms in each of these areas. 
The legislation proposes to introduce 11:1 majority verdicts instead of the current unanimous requirement. There are a number of reasons for this change. It helps to address the problem of rogue jurors who refuse to participate in deliberations and produce a hung jury for reasons outside the merits of the case. Another reason is to prevent a single juror from being pressured by the other 11 to return a verdict that goes against his or her conscience. The outcome will therefore be a more honest result. The change will also make jury tampering by bribery or intimidation more difficult for organised criminals to achieve. As a result all those involved in jury trials including jurors witnesses and victims will benefit. A large number of amendments have been made to the Juries Act 1981 to improve the administration of jury service and to recognise the consequences that jury service has on the people who fulfil this important role. 
In addition to those jury trial amendments other reforms in the Crimes Act allow judge-alone trials in cases where the trial is likely to be long and complex and in cases involving juror intimidation. These reforms will ensure fairer trial processes and will reduce the prospect of people serving as jurors for unnecessarily long periods. 
The bill also creates two exceptions to the double jeopardy rule which currently provides that a person can be tried only once for an offence. The first exception is where the accused has committed an administration of justice offence that results in his or her acquittal—a tainted acquittal. Administration of justice offences include offences such as perjury bribery of a judicial officer and fabricating evidence. This change will ensure that those who use such tactics cannot benefit from their wrongdoing. 
The second exception is where there is new and compelling evidence that was not available at the time of the first trial and indicates that the accused committed the offence of which he or she was acquitted. If such evidence surfaces after trial and acquittal the person can then be brought to justice. This exception is subject to a number of safeguards including that it applies only to serious criminal offences such as murder and rape. In addition the evidence must not have been available at the time of the first trial. The evidence must be reliable and consent must be sought from either the Solicitor-General or the Court of Appeal to proceed to different stages in a case where compelling new evidence is the issue. The reforms to the double jeopardy rule will benefit victims and society as a whole ensuring that criminals are brought to justice. 
An amendment that was added by the Law and Order Committee permits changes to be made to the middle-band offences by way of Order in Council rather than the need for the District Courts Act to be amended. This will enable class A drug offences to be put into the middle-band and dealt with by the District Courts rather than by the High Court. This would ease pressure in the High Court arising from the significant volume of methamphetamine cases. However it should not be assumed that the High Court will send all such cases to the District Courts. I am confident that the High Court will use this power with discretion to ensure that the pressure that exists in the High Court will not simply be transferred to the District Courts. Appropriate protocols will need to be developed to ensure that this process is administered in a manageable way. 
The third major area of reform is the replacement of oral preliminary hearings with committal on the basis of formal written statements unless the court orders an oral hearing. These hearings are largely redundant and they require victims and other witnesses to duplicate their court appearances. This in turn is stressful and unduly demanding. As recent cases demonstrate this is especially so for victims and family members faced with the daunting prospect of having to recount painful experiences at a trial when they have already been required to do so at a preliminary hearing. The legislation provides a standard pre - jury trial procedure under which the parties present their evidence in the form of written statements with automatic committal for trial unless either party applies for an oral hearing. 
We are all aware that this legislation has had a protracted journey from the introduction of the original Criminal Procedure Bill to the final readings of this legislation. However the Government’s Supplementary Order Paper which was developed in consultation with colleagues in the National Party has paved the way to the successful progression of this legislation. The amendments effected by the Supplementary Order Paper give the parties the right to make oral submissions in support of an application for an oral evidence order. Further it requires the new committal process in the legislation to be reviewed by the Solicitor-General or a nominated person as soon as practicable after it has been in operation for 2 years. 
To complement the removal of preliminary hearings the legislation creates a new Criminal Disclosures Act which provides a comprehensive regime of prosecution and pre-trial disclosure in criminal proceedings. This single and easily accessible statute will replace the current arrangement whereby prosecution pre-trial disclosure is regulated by a mixture of case law and statutory rules under the Official Information Act and the Privacy Act. 
I thank the Law Commission for its work in this area. I also thank the members of the Law and Order Committee who considered this legislation and those who made submissions on this legislation. I particularly thank my colleague and Associate Minister of Justice Rick Barker who worked very hard to ensure that we had the support for this very important legislation to pass through this House. Finally I thank the members of this House who are supporting this legislation because I believe it will enhance the efficient management of criminal proceedings while ensuring maximum fairness to everybody involved. I am pleased to commend this legislation to the House. 
Dr RICHARD WORTH (National) 
: 
 This legislation which started life in this House as the Criminal Procedure Bill is not without controversy. I do not doubt that there will be many within the legal profession and on the edge of the legal profession who will have some concern about its content. But it does have the support of National as it now proceeds as six divided bills. In saying that—that there are six divided bills—one certainly gains an early appreciation that the legislation is far-reaching for the Criminal Procedure Bill is to be split into the Crimes Amendment Bill (No 3) the Criminal Disclosure Bill the District Courts Amendment Bill (No 5) the Juries Amendment Bill the Summary Proceedings Amendment Bill (No 4) and the Victims’ Rights Amendment Bill.  
The previous speaker Annette King commented that this bill has been delayed in its passage. That is clearly right because it was introduced and had its first reading in June 2004. If the Government was truly concerned about any particular issue in the bill then there was no reason why other parts of the bill could not have been advanced instead of what was the case—that is that the bill languished for a very substantial time in this House until it emerged today at the third reading. 
Let me just say something about the state of the courts which is directly relevant to what we are being asked to vote on today—that is that there are major problems in the courts system. It is truly clogged and a herculean effort will be required to deal with that particular issue. The median waiting-time for High Court jury trials in Auckland has more than doubled since 2003 to 304 days. That is the time between committal and the start of a hearing in the High Court to determine the guilt or innocence of an accused person. That person has to wait for 304 days. In the context of the interests of justice that is too long. It is too long for that accused person too long for the witnesses who will be called to give evidence and too long in the context of any legal system that must have a substantial degree of integrity. In the same period the median waiting-time in the Auckland District Court has jumped 17 percent to 293 days since 2004. And the number of outstanding High Court jury trials in Auckland has more than quadrupled since 2002 from 47 to 203 while in the District Court they have increased 17 percent to 175 cases. These are not good figures. These are not good statistics. These are simply unacceptable in the context of that well-worn but nevertheless very true phrase that justice delayed is justice denied.  
I will talk about some of the major changes that are implemented by this legislation. One of those most significant changes—no doubt about it—is in respect of majority verdicts in criminal cases. English common law and the United States Constitution recognise that the right to a jury trial is a fundamental civil liberty or civil right. It may be that many other nations do not recognise that as such because jury trials have evolved within common law systems rather than civil systems and it is right to say that jury trials are of far less importance in countries that do not have a common law system. But they are very much a fabric of our system and in most common law jurisdictions the jury is responsible for finding the facts of the case while the judge determines the law. These people—we can call them peers of the accused—are responsible for listening to a dispute evaluating the evidence presented deciding on the facts and making decisions in accordance with the rules of law and their jury instructions and typically of course the jury judges only the guilt on a verdict of guilty or not guilty with the actual penalty being set by the judge.  
It is also right to say that in countries where jury trials are common juries are often seen as a very important check against State power. There are other common assertions about the benefits of trial by jury in that they provide a way of injecting community norms and values into judicial proceedings and they legitimise the law by providing opportunities for citizens to validate criminal statutes and their application to specific trials. It is in that context that we are moving away from this very fundamental law principle of unanimity in jury verdicts. One needs only to look around the world to see that that sadly has become a circumstance that has been picked up in a number of cases.  
We have the present law that in New Zealand all criminal cases must carry with them a unanimous verdict from the jury but sadly the rate of hung juries has continued to rise. According to the latest information it is now at about 10 percent. When we look around the world we see that a number of jurisdictions now allow majority verdict decisions. In the United Kingdom it is a majority verdict of 10:2. We are proposing 11:1. This means that 11 jurors say guilty and one says not guilty or perhaps one stands out. In the Northern Territory it is 10:2. In Tasmania it is 10:2. In South Australia it is 10:2. In Victoria it is 11:1. In Oregon it is 10:2. In Hawaii it is 10:2. In Alaska it is 10:2. We have not run with 10:2; we have run with 11:1. That is one of the big changes. 
Christopher Finlayson 
: What about Manitoba? 
Dr RICHARD WORTH 
: I know that when Mr Finlayson stands to speak he will talk about the very special circumstances of Manitoba. I do not want to steal his thunder on that particular point. So that is the first issue.  
The second thing is of course that there is to be trial by judge alone on a greater basis instead of a jury trial where there is evidence of juror intimidation or where the trial is complex and long. I will just say something briefly about juror intimidation. It is very difficult to measure juror intimidation obviously but there is anecdotal evidence to suggest that it may be common in gang-related prosecutions and the presence of mobile telephones with cameras in courtrooms has heightened concerns. It is very hard to detect but I think it is appropriate in the context of the growth of the gangs in New Zealand and the seeming reluctance by the Labour-led Government to deal with organised crime that we have that exception incorporated within the body of the criminal law. 
The second aspect that I would like to deal with in the context of trial by judge alone is the case of complex and long trials. The jury system has often been criticised in that it may be difficult for jurors to determine complex and difficult issues where trials are long and clearly it could be difficult for some jurors to assimilate large amounts of complex evidence. And of course long trials put huge pressure on jurors’ personal lives. So now we will have a provision in the law which National supports and which I support that in certain circumstances—in particular where the penalty faced by an accused person is less than 14 years’ imprisonment and the trial is likely to last longer than 20 days—there may be abandonment of that absolute right to trial by jury. There are major changes relating to juries. I do not want to deal with them at any length but I note that the Juries Act is subject to substantial change.  
Another very significant area is that of double jeopardy which is the circumstance reflected in the legal principle that a person should stand trial once and if acquitted should not face the criminal law again. It is a very longstanding principle—the idea that one should not be put in jeopardy a second time. Two exceptions are proposed in this legislation. The first is where evidence is tainted through perjury or witness intimidation and in the United Kingdom changes have been made that similarly reflect what is proposed to occur here. The second exception is more problematic and it is when strong evidence of guilt has been established after a person has been acquitted of an offence punishable by imprisonment for 14 years or more. People will be divided on the merit of including that second exception. Some people would argue that the police have one opportunity to get it right and if they do not a guilty person may walk free. National supports this legislation. 
Hon RICK BARKER (Associate Minister of Justice) 
: 
 I want to speak on the third readings of the bills that were formerly part of the Criminal Procedure Bill. Firstly I thank the Law and Order Committee for its excellent work on this legislation and in doing so I feel compelled to acknowledge in particular the work of Martin Gallagher. I also acknowledge the work of the parties across the House on this very important issue because as Dr Worth has said it is a significant and substantial reform in our justice sector. 
I will deal firstly with the issue raised directly by Dr Worth which was about advancing parts of the legislation. There was an implied criticism of the Government’s handling of this issue. Dr Worth said that the area where we could have middle-banded some cases such as those involving methamphetamine should have been proceeded with and therefore should not have been held up because this reform would have affected court pressures in the High Court. Although that is true what Dr Worth has not said is that by shifting the work from the High Court to another court we are simply shifting the work in the system and there have been no improvements in the efficiency of the system. If we accepted Dr Worth’s contention and just shifted the burden from one area to another we would not be solving the actual problem. It is a little bit like taking drugs to mask the pain—it does not effect a cure. We want to have a cure and this legislation is about effecting a cure. 
In the second part of Dr Worth’s opening lines he said that the courts were under pressure and to a degree he is correct. But what he has not told the House about is the very good detailed presentation given to the Law and Order Committee yesterday which talked about how we have significantly improved the throughput of cases in our court system. Some courts have improved by 12 percent some by 15 percent and one court has had a staggering 24 percent increase in throughput. However despite this achievement the number of cases coming before the courts has been higher. Yes Dr Worth is able to focus on one aspect—on waiting times—but in doing so he does not set out with any degree of clarity the nature of the circumstances in which our courts find themselves. Our courts should be commended for their increases in productivity. Let us imagine that in health we were getting a 24 percent increase in the number of people getting hip operations or a 15 percent increase in the number of people getting surgical bypasses. There would be substantial cheering about that. 
This Government has been able to bring about a remarkable success in our court system. The difficulty for the court system of course has been that it has no control over the number of applications informations and cases that are laid before it. These have increased at a greater rate than the rate at which the court has been putting cases through. The National Party should celebrate that because it is a reflection of this Government’s active stance against crime—more police on the streets more investigations and more cases being resolved. Under this Government there has been a higher rate of resolution than was ever achieved under a National Government. A National Government never got anywhere near a 40 percent resolution rate on crime. This Government is achieving in excess of a 40 percent resolution rate. In fact it has a resolution rate of over 45 percent. We have more police investigating crimes and achieving a much higher rate of resolution. Naturally this is leading to more people being charged and brought before the court. 
This Government has responded in a number of ways. Firstly in Auckland we have reopened the Papakura court. We have built more courts we have extended courts and we have refurbished courts. We have put new technology in place added judges added staff and increased training. I am pleased to tell Dr Worth that in Auckland in particular where the case pressures are greatest we are seeing the first signs that the rate of disposals is exceeding the rate of new filings. So we will see an improvement on the workload that is coming along. It is a very important achievement. 
The application of new courts and so on is but one part of it. We have to look at the processes that lead into the court’s work. The Criminal Procedure Bill is one of those pieces of work that does so. Work on the bill was led by the Law Commission which made some excellent recommendations. I advise the House that more work is to follow. That bill makes a number of improvements such as the exceptions to the double jeopardy rule. Middle banding is now possible if it is decided to do that. We have overcome problems with the jury system in terms of majority verdicts. We have increased the range from which people can be drawn for jury service—and so on. 
I want to highlight one area where we did not have immediate consensus and that is the area of depositions hearings. My colleague the Minister of Justice Annette King has spoken about this issue and I emphasise to the House that we have reached broad agreement on the need for reform of the depositions process. I acknowledge that some members have doubts about the merit and benefit of this reform but I advise them that the Government will examine this issue in great deal. The Supplementary Order Paper agreed to by the Committee of the whole House requires the Solicitor-General to commence a review 2 years after the oral depositions process is changed and to report within 6 months on what those changes mean. We can speculate either way on whether this will be a good thing or a bad thing but the Law Commission recommended the change on the basis of thorough consideration and in the light of overseas experience. 
Experience shows that if there is a clear strong regime for disclosure the defence will have all the information it needs prior to the case going to trial and the defendant can then decide whether to plead guilty. Some members believe that defendants are likely to plead guilty only if they are given the information orally and that somehow people are unable to comprehend the information in writing and would therefore come to a different decision. I do not agree with that view. I think that people would make the same decision regardless of how the information is conveyed to them. 
Prior to the trial there will be full disclosure to the defence and the normal regimes will apply. This change to the legislation means that victims will have to turn up to court only once and that defendants will have exercised their right to a fair trial. Contrary to what was asserted previously defendants will be presumed to be innocent until proven guilty. If there is a failure in the system then defendants’ rights are preserved because after that they will have the right to appeal. They will also have the right to appeal on other levels. So we have very strong appeal rights in New Zealand. 
In my view the changes to this legislation will speed up the pre-trial process. Thousands of hours of court time are taken up in hearing oral depositions. Those thousands of hours of court time will become available for trial time and trials will therefore be able to move through the system more quickly. This will bring about a significant improvement in our court system and it will be beneficial to everybody. It will be beneficial to victims because they will appear in court only once and inevitably the trial will occur earlier. It will be beneficial to defendants because their trials will be concluded earlier and this legislation will guarantee them full disclosure of information prior to the trial. 
In conclusion I think the House has worked very cooperatively on this legislation. It is a major reform it is overdue and it will be effective in ensuring that the New Zealand justice system is as modern as we can make it. Although this reform will bring great improvements further improvements will need to be made in the future. I look forward to seeing that legislation brought before the House which will continue to be led by a very good Labour Government. 
CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (National) 
: 
 I too am pleased that we have reached the third reading stage of these various bills because I have found from speaking to various members of the legal profession that for some time they have been very concerned about the slow state of litigation particularly in the High Court in Auckland and that is primarily because of the number of methamphetamine trials. So the fact that we have reached a happy conclusion is a good thing. I am delighted that the various parties in this House worked together to reach a resolution and I endorse what the Minister of Justice said: one of the safeguards will be a review of the deposition changes in a couple of years’ time. That is all good. It is an illustration of what happens when we have cooperation across the House. 
It is interesting that just this morning and Mr Tanczos will recall this the Minister of Justice came before the Justice and Electoral Committee to talk about the estimates. She gave us quite a touching homily on the desirability of bipartisanship or multi-partisanship in certain justice areas. I agree that that is a very desirable aim. This matter was able to be progressed because the Government after some months condescended to speak to the National Party—and I acknowledge the activity of the Minister for Courts Mr Barker in that regard. All I say is it is a shame the Government did not bother to talk to us in a constructive way prior to a couple of weeks ago. 
I contrast that touching plea for multi-partisanship with the approach of this Government to other legislation—for example the odious Electoral Finance Act. I refer in passing to what parliamentary counsel said during the select committee process on that bill. He said that if we want legislation in that kind of area that is enduring we have to have a multiparty accord. He said that that was what had happened in 1993 when the Hon David Caygill and the Hon Murray McCully worked together on legislation. For his efforts he was essentially told by the member for Wellington Central to go and see a taxidermist. She simply said that it is our kaupapa and he should stay out of it. Now of course the Labour members are reaping the reward for their spiteful partisanship. 
I come back to the legislation. These bills address a number of major issues and the first one I want to touch on is the reform of juries. As Dr Worth said in his speech a number of major changes are introduced in relation to majority verdicts. I am not going to repeat the comments he made because I thought he summarised very well indeed the proposed changes set out in sections 29C and 29D in clause 82 of the original Criminal Procedure Bill. 
There is one change that I have to say I am a little disappointed in and I want to elaborate on it at length. Clause 70 of the Criminal Procedure Bill set out some amendments to section 8 of the Juries Act. Section 8 says that certain persons may not serve on any jury in any court on any occasion—members of the Executive Council members of the House of Representatives judges and various other people. The only change made to the question of who can serve on a jury is the addition of the Governor-General to the list of those who may not. But I think the time has come for a realistic review of jury service. I happen to agree with the attitude to jury service that is expressed in the United States where juries are revered: a jury is one of the hallmarks of a well-functioning democracy. As one person has said a citizen cannot be imprisoned or have his or her liberty taken away simply by the act of an official such as a judge and that is why juries are put on such a pedestal. I think perhaps the Americans go too far in putting juries on a pedestal but juries do play a major role in the criminal justice system and to a lesser extent in the civil justice system. 
I am a little disappointed that we did not have a good look at section 8 of the Juries Act 1981 bearing in mind the Auld review of the criminal courts of England and Wales which occurred in 2001. Sir Robin Auld came up with a number of proposals for the removal of all categories of ineligibility based on occupation. He had a reservation about judges but decided that judges should not ipso facto be excused from sitting on juries. That is certainly the case in the United States where even someone as eminent as Justice Breyer of the United States Supreme Court had to take part in jury service. One New York columnist described it as a foolish experiment in injudicious pseudo-egalitarianism. In England the proposed changes have come through and judges do indeed serve on juries. A great effort has been made to clamp down on the so-called middle class opt-out from jury service. Judges lawyers the police and others connected with the justice system have just as much of a duty to the State to take part in a jury as anyone else. 
I believe that in this country too large numbers of the middle class opt out and get away with opting out. The absence of professionals from the bench has fuelled an unfair caricature of juries as being over-peopled with the feckless the grudge-bearing and the unemployed as one anti-jury commentator put it. I think everyone has a duty to serve on a jury and there should be very few exceptions. I do not believe that judges should be excused from service and I do not believe that lawyers should be excused either. But my having said that some major changes are introduced by the Juries Amendment Bill and I endorse those kinds of changes because they are very important indeed. 
The second set of changes that I want to touch on and several members have already referred to them are the changes to the depositions procedure. I can understand why my very good colleague the member for Whanganui has been concerned about them and has taken part in some of the cross-party discussions. I believe that the safeguard that the Government has agreed to of reviewing Part 5 of the Summary Proceedings Amendment Bill (No 4) after a couple of years will satisfy me. I tend these days to regard depositions in a criminal case in much the same way as I regard interrogatories in a civil case. In one out of 10 cases they may serve a useful purpose but generally I do not think they do. They are very expensive. For example—and this is only one take on expense—five or six lawyers in a complex criminal case undertaking depositions in the District Court over a period of 5 or 6 days can be very expensive indeed. 
There is an important rearrangement of the jurisdiction of the District Court. I endorse what the Minister said. Prima facie these cases can now be heard in the District Court but one hopes that the High Court and the District Court will work together to ensure that all the burden is not put on the District Court. Hopefully we can get some of these methamphetamine trials which go on and on out of the High Court in Auckland so that some of the civil litigation can be given priority. 
Next I will refer to the Crimes Amendment Bill (No 3) which deals with the important issue of the retrial of previously acquitted persons. It makes sense given the march of technology. The old rule used to be that people could not be retried but in the circumstances set out in the bill I think that what is proposed is sensible. 
Finally and the Minister for Courts referred to this the Criminal Disclosure Bill is the mirror image of the tightening up of depositions and will greatly facilitate the disclosure of information on the part of the prosecution to the defendant and in certain cases disclosure obligations on the defendant to the prosecution. 
In conclusion I am very pleased that this legislation will go through today. It will go some way towards alleviating the pressures in the criminal justice system. For myself I think a lot more has to be done; I would even go so far as to say there should be a fundamental rethink of whether the purely adversarial system of criminal trials is the right way to proceed or whether we should be moving towards some sort of inquisitorial system. That is a subject worth discussing. I certainly hope that before too long we will have some reforms to the civil justice area. I know that the Rules Committee of the High Court has been working on rules to reform District Court procedure and High Court procedure and I certainly hope we can have those matters resolved before Parliament rises for the election. I am very concerned about the fact that justice is being denied to people or if they have access to justice it is too expensive. 
DAIL JONES (NZ First) 
: 
 New Zealand First will be supporting the third reading of this legislation as I indicated in the Committee stage. During the Committee stage I indicated my disappointment that on my return to Parliament in February this year I discovered that the Criminal Procedure Bill was still on the Order Paper. 
Nandor Tanczos 
: Ha ha! 
DAIL JONES 
: Mr Tanczos was on the Law and Order Committee and as he will recall I was on the select committee for a little while in 2005 so he will know exactly what I mean. The bill could quite easily have been disposed of in all but one of its parts in 2006 but the Labour Government grimly hung on to the bill as a result of which we have had all the delays with methamphetamine cases in the High Court and other problems that have arisen in the administration of the justice system.  
I was wondering why the National Party capitulated on the question of depositions hearings. It seems to me very clear that the reason was that Mr Chris Finlayson based on the speech he has just made obviously does not understand the depositions system. In his comments he said he would like to see all the methamphetamine trials moved from the High Court down into the District Court so that the civil cases might then proceed. That indicates where his interest in the justice system lies. I would have thought that anyone who knows anything about the criminal situation in the High Court would like to see some of the criminal cases that will still be dealt with in the High Court by way of jury trial proceed so that people who are in custody can have their cases heard and victims who have been waiting endlessly can have their cases heard. But no the priority of the National Party would seem to be helping those people who want to deal in cases where tens of thousands of dollars of fees can be charged rather than being concerned about the victims of crimes and the people who are in custody. That was a very interesting disclosure on the part of the National Party and I am sure it will be borne in mind.  
New Zealand First was opposed to the removal of depositions hearings and really we can understand now why Mr Barker is in favour of removing them: he clearly does not understand them as he indicated in his speech. He said in his speech that it is very simple to see what is in written form and to take the evidence as it is in written form and believe everything that one reads in written form. Well as everybody knows the reason for depositions hearings is so that one can get the person in the witness box. It is amazing how once a person is in the box and is asked to confirm what is in written form that person realises that the words must be taken seriously. People realise that when they are in the box they cannot commit perjury. They realise they must tell the truth and lo and behold they change the version that is in written form and tell the truth. In many cases at depositions hearings the case is held to be no case to answer and that is the end of it and there is no need for a High Court trial.  
What will happen now is that something like 1600 cases which can be dealt with before a High Court trial and are dealt with via depositions hearings and on the papers will now require a High Court trial or a District Court jury trial. That will really clog up the system. Mr Barker Chris Finlayson and the National Party clearly do not understand that that is the case.  
The most serious thing that will come out of this will be the new disclosure system. We as practising lawyers in New Zealand saw when the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act came out that about 8000 drink-driving cases were immediately dismissed because the prosecution had not complied with that Act. When we see this new criminal disclosure system as has been explained by Mr Chester Borrows in the Committee stage we realise there will be all sorts of problems on the part of the prosecution in terms of not complying with the new system. I sincerely repeat what I said in the Committee stage. I do hope the prosecution gets its papers in order makes full disclosure does not make mistakes as it did in the Kahui trial which the prosecution none the less still lost despite all the public support that was available for it and that we do not have cases being dismissed on the grounds that they fail to comply with the criminal disclosure system.  
Comment has been made on delays in the court and I would like to comment on that and refer to an excellent letter in the New Zealand Police Association magazine by Judge Russell Johnson. In a very recent issue I think April or May he comments on why we have the situation of delays. It relates in a way to new legislation that was passed in 1989 and we have to worry about that because of the new legislation that is being passed today. In responding to the question of what went wrong he makes this point: “In 1989 the Court of Appeal ruled that under the Official Information Act 1982 and the common law defendants were entitled to disclosure from the prosecution. The New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 provided for speedy trials. But the Summary Proceedings Act 1957 knew nothing of these and provided no mechanism for enforcing compliance or overcoming delay. At the turn of this century in a series of cases—Keogh was one—the Court of Appeal affirmed that the District Court had no power to make pre-trial orders enforcing compliance. That set the scene for judicial tolerance of delays through non-compliance because without compliance cases would be struck out.” That is probably legal gobbledegook but it does make the point that when there is a serious change in the law that requires compliance things can go wrong.  
It is pleasing to note though that in the District Court system the Chief District Court Judge Russell Johnson and other judges have already taken steps without this legislation—which makes one wonder whether it is even necessary for depositions—to do the following things. The New Zealand Police have developed the concept of a criminal justice support unit that will prepare files for court on behalf of officers in charge and will assess charges. The Ministry of Justice and the Law Commission are designing a new legislative replacement. From 1 July 2008 the Manukau and Tauranga District Courts will trial aspects of the new simplified procedure. The Auckland District Court from 1 June will assign the same five judges for extended periods to the five summary courtrooms to provide consistency and to reduce tolerance for non-compliance. And—this is important—even now the Auckland District Court has reduced the delay for the hearing of jury trials to 33 weeks from 54 weeks a year ago and is aiming for a reduction to 26 weeks. Plans are being finalised to establish three more jury trial courtrooms in the Auckland District Court by 2010. Work is going on for the development of the Manukau court to incorporate more courtrooms and behind the scenes a review of courthouse needs in Greater Auckland into the future is well under way.  
I just make those points and I would like to congratulate the Chief District Court Judge Russell Johnson and the other members of the judiciary who will work together to ensure that there are improvements even within the present system without the necessity for this legislation immediately.  
I readily say and am pleased to say that this legislation in many respects will help to ensure that there is an even greater improvement than that I have outlined. A feature of a civilised society is that it has a very good and well-functioning judicial system and a well-functioning justice system as a whole. All the measures in this legislation except I suggest some amendments—in particular those to the Summary Proceedings Act—will ensure that that will take place. It is disappointing that we have had to wait so long for the legislation because most of the work could have been done in 2006 but at last it is getting under way. It is quite remarkable that we started on the Committee stage of the Criminal Procedure Bill on Tuesday of this week. Yesterday was a member’s day so we did not touch on this legislation but here we are on Thursday and after 2 days we have passed this legislation. Why was most of that work not done in a similar way in 2006? That very simple question should be asked.  
New Zealand First will be supporting the passing of the legislation and will be voting in favour of all of the bills. However we have made it very plain that we oppose the removal of depositions hearings which we regard as one of the cornerstones of an efficient judicial system. 
NANDOR TANCZOS (Green) 
: 
 It is a miracle! I thought that the Criminal Procedure Bill had expired I thought that it was dead and gone but like Lazarus it has returned thanks to the intervention of Simon Power. It has not been raised from the dead so much as turned into the undead. Its stinking ambulant corpse will now haunt the statute book and the courtrooms of the land for years to come. It is not so much voodoo economics as zombie legislation. I imagine that my good friend Chester Borrows is feeling particularly betrayed that after his driving a stake through the heart of this cadaver it walks again. 
Chris Tremain 
: You’ve spent a lot of time on this speech haven’t you? 
NANDOR TANCZOS 
: It is an illuminating story. 
Dail Jones 
: He had plenty of time to do it. 
NANDOR TANCZOS 
: That is right Mr Jones; there has been plenty of time! 
For those who are unaware the Criminal Procedure Bill was stalled part-way through the Committee stage over the removal of depositions hearings. There were a host of reasons to oppose the bill and I will enumerate them shortly but the crunch point was an amendment by Chester Borrows to delete the provision that got rid of depositions hearings. He managed to garner and maintain a majority in support of his amendment over a long period of time and in the face of considerable pressure from the Government which was simply not prepared to lose that provision. So the bill was halted in its tracks. I commend Mr Borrows because that was quite a feat. I imagine that some of his caucus were a little uncomfortable about it but he carried the argument because he actually knows how it goes. He has been a cop he has been a criminal lawyer—perhaps I should say he has been a lawyer practising criminal law—and he knows how it goes. I am not a lawyer; I have to rely on advice. The Government’s advice on this matter was apparently based largely on the views of judges and the advice was that depositions hearings make no real difference to the outcome of cases and simply waste time and money. 
Well the Green Party approached the matter with an open mind so I rang up a few lawyers and asked them what they thought. The unanimous view of all of the lawyers I spoke to every single one—defence and prosecution—was that getting rid of depositions hearings would be a terrible mistake. I asked them why judges would have such a different view. The reply was that judges do not sit on depositions hearings except in the case of sexual offences. JPs do depositions hearings so judges do not really see the effect of having them. Depositions hearings speed trials up the lawyers told me. They said that they bring out the arguments and allow early identification of what evidence needs to be tested and what is not in dispute. Depositions hearings can persuade defendants to change a plea to guilty when they see the evidence against them. Despite Rick Barker’s comments and as Mr Jones pointed out what we see in the newspapers and what is said on the stand can be two quite different things. They all said that depositions hearings benefit the efficient administration of justice. 
Government members said to me that of course lawyers would say that because they are paid to do depositions. I simply do not believe that that explains either the unanimity or the strength of feeling of those lawyers. I spoke to a number of lawyers—people I have known for years. They are lawyers of absolute integrity who regularly do pro bono work because they feel an ethical imperative to do so. They do not do legal aid because it pays well; in fact it pays very poorly compared with their normal rates. It is insulting in terms of the rates of pay the hours that are provided for and the conditions—especially for experienced counsel. These people do legal aid because they feel an ethical responsibility to provide legal representation for people who cannot afford it. It is not the legal aid lawyers who deserve criticism but a Government that refuses to pay proper rates to defence counsel. Many lawyers I spoke to had concerns about other areas of the legislation but all were of the view that the issue of depositions hearings was the single most important issue in the legislation. 
Other parties must have got a similar message because the support for Mr Borrows’ amendment held. So we have to ask what caused it to fail. After the acquittal of Chris Kahui who was tried for the murder of his twin children pressure went on the police for failing to reopen the investigation. They were openly criticised for their tendency to decide early in an investigation who is the suspect then look for evidence to convict. Their prosecution of Mr Kahui seemed to some people to be based on a blinkered view of some of the evidence. It is also clearly well established that the police are biased against young males compared with females. I have no view about who was guilty of murdering those poor children. I have no way of knowing who did it; I do not have any information that would allow me to make up my mind. But I do think that the police practice left a great deal to be desired and the same criticism can be made in a number of other cases. 
Deflection of this criticism came through a call for the double jeopardy law to be changed and that is one of the things that the legislation does. The Greens oppose those provisions. Firstly we are of the view that an acquittal secured because of perjury intimidation of a witness or something like that could be better remedied through our strengthening perjury and similar laws. Where a retrial will be based on new evidence under this legislation we are even more concerned because of the incentives that creates for the police to fabricate evidence if they fail to secure a conviction in order to have another go. For those people who think I am being dramatic I remind them that police have fabricated evidence to get a conviction before. We just have to remember the Arthur Allan Thomas case. I am also personally highly suspicious about the Scott Watson case. When forensics staff went through the hairs taken from Mr Watson’s boat no hairs from either Ben Smart or Olivia Hope were found. Amazingly on the second go a long blonde hair leapt out and that was coincident with a slit being found in the bottom of the evidence bag. Was that hair planted? I do not know but I have to say it really worries me. 
Removing the protection against double jeopardy where there is new evidence will clearly create a strong incentive to plant evidence when the police really believe they have the right person—as they do with Chris Kahui because they have said they will not reopen the investigation. But the ability to retry him would not seem to make it any more likely that he would be convicted given that the jury on his case took just a few minutes to decide on its verdict. So it is curious that that case gave rise to a media call for the double jeopardy rules to be changed. 
The Government’s response was to blame National for holding up the legislation. National countered by saying that it supported the legislation’s removal of principles of justice such as protection from double jeopardy and unanimous jury decisions but opposed the removal of depositions hearings. Then a High Court judge came out publicly—and some would say inappropriately—to chide the National Party and other political parties for wanting to retain depositions hearings and unfortunately the National Party folded. 
So I give my very sincere sympathies to Mr Borrows who has had a real taste of party politics. I thank those members of the legal profession who strove to head off this disastrous legislation and I thank all the parties that continue to oppose it. It somehow feels familiar to be once again part of a small minority in this House standing up for civil rights and the protections of a fair trial.  
CHESTER BORROWS (National—Whanganui) 
: 
 It is an irony of life in Parliament that it is true that some members of Parliament take incredibly lightly the privilege of making a law. It was from the standpoint of taking this privilege seriously that National proposed under my name the Supplementary Order Paper that put forward the withdrawal of Part 5 of the original bill. Part 5 removed the right for a defendant to have oral depositions. So I want to address my comments in respect of depositions and disclosure rules. 
Whenever we talk about a defendant’s rights there are two reactions. There is either apathy from the majority or apoplexy from those who would prefer a regime similar to those under Mugabe and Bainimarama. The measure of a civilisation is how it treats its most vulnerable and in this country we treat the innocent vulnerable—the victim—pretty appallingly. But we treat the guilty vulnerable—offenders—much worse. I ask those who would pass this legislation with no consideration or reflection to think on this and to think on just what we are doing here today. 
I came to Parliament to reflect and represent the electorate of Whanganui and that is my chief role but I like every other member of this House bring with me certain qualities experiences and characteristics that define me. There are questions on the defining issues and those issues are on a continuum of issues that go to who we are as individuals. Although they may be ethereal to some they are truly salient to the true believer and the continuum runs from the strongly held belief to the absolute bottom line. It is not a good political move to declare publicly one’s absolute bottom lines but what should be perfectly plain is the moral imperative to live up to the expectation of those who put us here given who we are. There should be no surprises. 
It is interesting to note then that the person most surprised at my voting for Part 5 is me. My experience prior knowledge and skills mean that among those I came to Parliament to represent are victims—innocent victims and guilty victims. Those who appear before our courts are frequently the authors of their own misfortune or of calculated cold and callous offending. Often too they are the result of negligent manipulative indifferent or absent parents and caregivers. Does anyone believe for instance that Bailey Kurariki is not both an offender and a victim? He should carry the can for his offending and the bad decisions that he freely made but we all want to believe that we live in a country with equality before the law and with equity of arms in respect of access to justice. Our rights in this country are here to protect us all—the most innocent and the most despicable the deserving and the undeserving—because that principle of justice for all is what separates us from Zimbabwe and Fiji or Burma and China. The simple clarifying question is this: would one rather be an accused person in Suva Harare or Auckland? 
My having said that it is important to note that what we are doing in respect of the removal of depositions is altering legislation that for generations has protected in a fair way those who have been accused before the courts. It has been a hallmark of our justice system and it is encapsulated in the phrase that it is better that 10 guilty people go free than one innocent person is convicted. 
In looking at the two elements that I want to speak to—Part 2 of the original bill around criminal disclosure and Part 5 around depositions—I want to make a number of points. I am voting for this legislation now because we have managed to achieve some concessions from the Government. Those concessions are firstly—and we achieved this one a long time ago—that one of the bases on which a judge may award an oral evidence order is that he believes that it is in the interests of justice. Another concession is that in making written submissions in respect of seeking an oral evidence order an applicant can make oral argument to it. Previously that provision was not there and it was not a feature of the Law Commission’s report to the Ministry of Justice in preparing this legislation. The third reason is that the Government has agreed to a 2-year review of how depositions work. 
The main reason for opposing depositions being in the form that they are in this legislation from my point of view was that disclosure does not work. Also the removal of depositions was supposed to speed up the trial process but there are other ways of addressing delay that have nothing to do with depositions. But the validity of depositions in the form that they are in this legislation will hinge critically on disclosure. The main reason why depositions are lagging and there are delays is around disclosure by the police. We have to remember too that currently common law and precedent force the police to make disclosure yet in spite of all that disclosure is not made. The most recent obvious case of that is the Kahui trial where in front of the jury it was shown that police had not disclosed and—what do you know—before too long the jury found that it could not convict. So how are the courts in seeking to review how well the system works able to measure whether disclosure has been made when they do not know what it is? At the moment the disclosure is made on the papers but there is no way of testing it by an oral discussion or cross-examination before the court. How does one know what one does not know? That will be the challenge for anyone seeking a review—the Solicitor-General in particular. 
I would suggest to the department for courts within the Ministry of Justice that what it needs to do is to institute a policy where where practicable the judge who will hear the trial—the trial judge—also hears the pre-depositions conference. At the moment pre-depositions conferences are not heard by a judge; they are generally heard by a deputy registrar but where they are heard by a judge a much more strident view is taken of lack of disclosure. If we want to hold to account the parties to an action we need to ensure that a judge hears the pre-depositions conference because he or she then has ownership of the matter as it travels through the court system. Through the depositions process the judges know the case they know the parties and they know the glitches and the hitches that will come along and work against justice unless the provisions in relation to disclosure are well kept. 
The next thing that needs to be done is that the Ministry of Justice needs to ensure that it is keeping tabs on the exact number of depositions cases that are made; the applications for oral evidence that are made; the reasons why judges are not awarding them and those notes must be full; the number of cases for instance where there are changes of plea before depositions and before the trial; the number of section 344A and section 347 applications that are made; how long those applications take to be heard; and what those issues are as they are raised. 
I raise this matter now for a particular point: the department for courts would have to be the worst department to seek information from. Every time one seeks information from the department one is told that it does not collate the information one is seeking that it cannot give it or that it would take too long to find out. It is absolutely hopeless. Time and time again one needs to go before the Ombudsman to get the information. It is the department for courts’ lack of ability that we are most concerned about. 
The other point that needs to be made here—and I make it again so that it is recorded—is that there must be acceptance by the police that this legislation requires them to make full disclosure. They cannot simply adhere to the disclosure rules as they are to date; the police cannot address the disclosure law under this legislation so slovenly. It is for the courts to then determine what the punitive aspect for the police not disclosing in a timely manner will be. I predict that the Crown will lose matters before the courts at trials trials will be longer and pre-trial applications will be longer and more expensive because they will be heard before a judge. It must be reinforced that there must be a cost for not adhering to the disclosure rules under this legislation. 
I look forward to a review in 2 years. I look forward to it being open and honest. Mostly I look forward to the department for courts supplying the information that will allow the Solicitor-General to make a proper decision in this matter. 
Dr PITA SHARPLES (Co-Leader—Maori Party) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Assistant Speaker. The Maori Party is the newest political party in this Chamber. We are always happy to share our experience of the innovations and initiatives that we have drawn on in establishing ourselves as the proud and independent Maori voice in Parliament. 
One development we are very proud of is the effectiveness of tangata whenua processes in achieving consensus which is the outcome of kotahitanga. Kotahitanga is the principle of unity and of purpose and direction. It is demonstrated in an environment where all are encouraged to make a contribution and to have their say and then together a consensus is reached. All decisions of our electorate council of our national council and of our annual hui are made by consensus. Candidates are selected by consensus. Consensus is our mode of operating. 
Consensus also helps to build whakawhanaungatanga. It honours whanau decision-making processes where collective action is strengthened and progress is made towards attracting commitment. This is not an easy option by any means. People do not necessarily agree with the outcome but they may agree to support it being satisfied that it was the best decision that the group could make at that time. 
The process of building consensus requires active participation. It demands respect it stimulates debate and it takes time. The path of true democracy never runs smoothly but it ends with a sound basis for moving forward into the future. Consensus means that all shades of the argument are heard not just the majority view the winner or the minority view the loser. The creation of a majority implies the creation of a minority. The process of consensus has a precedent handed down by our tipuna. Decisions were never made by a majority of rangatira or ariki as leaders. Hui were held amongst whanau so that collective responsibility was achieved with the group’s interests riding over those of the individual. 
So we in the Maori Party came to the Criminal Procedure Bill knowing understanding and appreciating a concept that could have been crucial in promoting the rights responsibilities and obligations of offenders and victims in the justice process. But instead we were confronted with a proposal to have trials by judges instead of juries. Rather than encouraging community involvement and ownership of the justice system this legislation puts in place the means by which the judge can dispense with a jury. The right to be heard by a jury is one of the cornerstones of our current legal system. It is not perfect by any means but having a public trial in front of a jury of one’s peers has a public benefit as well as a private benefit. 
The other related proposal is the introduction of a majority decision over a unanimous verdict. Such a proposal flies in the face of consensus and compromises on the principles of social justice by removing the need for listening and for dialogue. It is greatly disappointing to see the justice sector resort to settling for mediocrity rather than taking on the challenge of the consensus process. The majority verdict is another way of saying that we will just accept the fact that consensus could not be achieved. It is another example of the make-do mentality rather than striving to work through the differences and arrive at a verdict that everyone can sit with. 
Section 17 of the Juries Act states that every jury shall comprise 12 jurors but it says nothing about the explicit numerical balance required to support a verdict. With this legislation we are now being presented with a possibility of 11:1 majority verdicts which is the system used in some Australian and United Kingdom jurisdictions. There is no doubt that a unanimous verdict requires far more certainty than a majority verdict but there is plenty of doubt as to the rationale for making such a fundamental change to the legal system. Is it to do with the fact that roughly 8.2 percent of jury trials end in a hung trial? Is it to do with dealing to the so-called rogue juror—the jury member who no matter how persuasive the evidence cannot entertain the thought of changing his or her mind? Is it an incentive to prevent corruption or jury tampering? Is it to do with the fact that we believe in juries only when the verdict they arrive at is the one we agree with—because someone has to be found guilty? Or is it because our desire to find someone guilty has overwhelmed an accused person’s right to the benefit of the doubt? 
The really distressing thing about the context of this omnibus legislation is that some very worthwhile ideas which we in the Maori Party could support are promoted within the greater framework of the legislation with the hope that its less favourable aspects will not be revealed. All of the publicity around the legislation has focused on the initiative to allow depositions to occur based on written evidence rather than a preliminary oral hearing. The effect of this development is that victims of crime will not be forced to go through the oral depositions process as well as submitting written evidence. For many victims who appear before the court the impact of giving evidence twice adds a whole new level of trauma to the reporting of violence and criminal offending. 
We in the Maori Party absolutely support such a proposal and believe it will have many positive effects. Written depositions would not only introduce a layer of compassion and fairness for victims of crime but also enhance administrative efficiency and make for a more effective use of policy and judicial resources. The Maori Party is happy to support any moves to prevent the persecution of victims on the stand which would in effect make them feel as through they were being brutalised all over again—this time by the legal system itself. So we support Supplementary Order Paper 206 which paves the way for an oral submission to be heard before the judge or any other party. 
But we are cognisant also of the advice of Geoff Vause a Wellington advocate for Victim Support. Geoff suggests that the criminal justice system itself is at a point of collapse and he has found that the adversarial system is being bogged down in process. Vause puts forward the case that adversarial justice leaves judges with a narrow range of sentencing options which leads to a filling up of even more jails. His parting shot is: “The community is demanding to see justice done with transparency consistency and reliability.” That is not a lot to ask one would think. Perhaps we could also add the following phrase to that sentence: “in pursuit of kotahitanga collective responsibility and ownership.” 
We are disappointed that the legislation has lowered the standards in terms of settling for majority verdicts and enabling trials by judge rather than jury. Even though there is overwhelming support for the legislation we will not be supporting it. Thank you. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the Crimes Amendment Bill (No 3) the Criminal Disclosure Bill the District Courts Amendment Bill (No 5) the Juries Amendment Bill the Summary Proceedings Amendment Bill (No 4) and the Victims’ Rights Amendment Bill be now read a third time. 
Ayes 108 
New Zealand Labour 49; New Zealand National 48; New Zealand First 7; United Future 2; Progressive 1; Independent: Copeland. 
Noes 11 
Green Party 6; Maori Party 4; Independent: Field. 
Bills read a third time. 
Summary Offences (Tagging and Graffiti Vandalism) Amendment Bill 
Third Reading 
Hon DARREN HUGHES (Deputy Leader of the House) 
 on behalf of the  
Minister of Justice 
: I move  
That the Summary Offences (Tagging and Graffiti Vandalism) Amendment Bill be now read a third time 
. This bill takes important action to address New Zealand’s graffiti vandalism problem by strengthening the legal framework for graffiti-related offences.  
The bill amends the Summary Offences Act 1981 by creating specific offences of tagging graffiti vandalism and defacing; creating a specific offence for possession of graffiti implements in circumstances where it can be reasonably assumed that they are intended to be used to commit a graffiti offence; prohibiting the sale of spray-cans to under-18-year-olds; and restricting access to spray-cans in stores so that the public cannot access them without the assistance of a shop employee. The penalties for committing the graffiti vandalism offence are a $2000 fine or a community-based sentence or both.  
Graffiti and tagging are highly visible forms of vandalism that the community will want quickly addressed. The bill’s option of community-based sentences whereby offenders clean up the damage they have caused to themselves and to the community is therefore likely to be seen by the community as an appropriate and effective penalty for many offenders. The bill does not require retailers to implement expensive sophisticated security measures to prevent spray-can theft. They must simply ensure that spray-cans are not accessible in shops without the help of employees. Retailers will not be left alone to deal with the requirements of this bill. Support will be available in the form of compliance information and recommended store signage to enable them to comply with the new provisions.  
Labour recognises that this legislation alone is not enough to combat the serious problem of tagging and graffiti in our country. That is why the Government has agreed to the core components of the nationwide Stop Tagging Our Place (STOP) strategy which will empower communities and territorial local authorities to act. The strategy which is due to be considered by the Government by the end of July will include a range of legislative strategic and operational components to address graffiti vandalism nationwide. This bill represents the strategy’s legislative component only. Under the STOP strategy the Government has also committed $6 million over 3 years to communities and territorial local authorities to establish new or enhance existing anti-tagging and anti-graffiti activities. These activities may include education prevention diversion of offenders improvements to enforcement and prosecutions and more effective sentencing.  
No specific agency has been given responsibility for enforcing the bill’s provisions. A key feature of effectively enforcing the bill is keeping enforcement responsibility as flexible as possible. It is important that police or territorial local authorities can enforce any part of the bill while having primary responsibility for enforcing certain parts of it. This flexibility will enable local prioritisation and collaboration and alignment of enforcement between the police territorial local authorities and any other Government agency that may wish to enforce the bill’s provisions. Operationally the Minister expects that the police will be the primary enforcement body for the graffiti vandalism offence. It is expected that spray-can sales and restriction measures will largely be enforced by territorial local authorities with support from police where necessary. This aspect of the bill fits more appropriately with the regulatory functions of territorial local authorities and it provides a mechanism for them to contribute to the prevention of an offence of which they are often victims.  
Tagging and graffiti vandalism are not simply a nuisance activity. They are an invasion of private and public property that is often intimidating and antisocial. The majority of graffiti and tagging in our communities cannot be considered simply as art. It is often mindless scrawl that causes great financial and emotional costs which the perpetrators seem to care nothing about. Graffiti vandalism is not committed only by bored individuals. It often has links to gangs seeking to mark their territory and to other forms of juvenile delinquency that form the basis of future more serious offending. By making it more difficult for young people to obtain spray-cans and by creating the specific offences of graffiti vandalism and possession of graffiti implements our bill attempts to stem the flow of young people into more serious offending.  
This bill and the STOP strategy which sits behind it acknowledge the pain suffered by decent citizens of our country throughout our communities who are subjected to this type of crime. Over the course of this bill the Law and Order Committee and the House have heard anecdotes that show that tagging and graffiti are serious issues for our communities. The Minister the Hon Annette King thanks all the submitters for their valuable contributions to the formation of this bill. She also acknowledges the time and expertise of officials and members of the House especially the members of the exceptional Law and Order Committee who have worked hard to bring this legislation to fruition. On behalf of the Hon Annette King I commend this bill to the House for its third reading this afternoon. 
JUDITH COLLINS (National—Clevedon) 
: 
 It is my pleasure to rise on behalf of the National Party to support the Summary Offences (Tagging and Graffiti Vandalism) Amendment Bill.  
The first duty of any Government is to protects its citizens and although graffiti will not of itself kill people it certainly does help to create an environment in which people think they do not have to respect other people’s rights other people’s property or other people’s lives. We have seen in the last week or so some pretty appalling headlines as a result of some of the activities in South Auckland. They are not headlines that I—or any other member of Parliament who represents a South Auckland electorate—want to see ever again. We have had a crime wave that has resulted in deaths of innocent people and people have been living in fear. Headlines such as: “Fear on streets of Manukau” are not the sorts of headlines we want to see ever again.  
I have some information for the House about why this bill is important. We know that this bill will not stop graffiti. We know that. We know that graffiti vandalism is already an offence under the existing law. So why are we doing this? Well partly it is because we actually need to show some leadership in this community and the leadership of a country needs to set an example. If we continue down a track of treating graffiti vandalism as though it is a minor issue as though it is some form of resistance artwork—as the Children’s Commissioner described it—as though we will take it as some sort of rite of passage then we will continue to see a breakdown of law and order and of the rule of law in our country.  
Anybody who wishes to travel by train in Auckland from Papakura in my electorate through to Auckland City will be greeted by a mass of graffiti. All the way along the track line every building is absolutely smothered in it—just like the Los Angeles - style gang graffiti. That is because we now have—in South Auckland in particular and in other parts of the country as well—a Los Angeles - style street-gang culture which has emerged over the last decade or so. I can tell this House that I have seen youth gangs—or street gangs as I should refer to them because many of their members are in their 30s—recruiting outside our high schools. I have seen that happening. I have seen them strolling along the streets with their particular colours and I have seen the fear that they engender in the eyes of dairy owners and others who have to deal with them. I have had these property and business owners come into my electorate office in Papakura and tell me about the stand-over tactics that occur. I have talked to the police about it; I have been to see them. They have been to see me and we have been to see the victims. But it is all really a bit late by then because by that stage the culture and the climate have been set.  
Until we start to take small crime seriously we can expect big crime to come from that. I know that generally nobody is killed by graffiti itself but I certainly know that when we look at street-gang killers we see that every single one of them has started off in the culture of the Los Angeles - style street gangs. In fact they have started off with graffiti handbag snatching—all those sorts of things that we used to call reasonably petty crime—graduating their way up the scale until they move on to murder the manufacture of P and all those sorts of violent and awful offences.  
We have to send a message to New Zealand that we do not indulge in that sort of behaviour. We have to send a message to our police that we will support them when they have to make tough decisions. We have to send a message to our police that we will not always judge them with the benefit of hindsight because that is what we tend to do in this country. It is all very well being an expert on what the police should have done or should not have done until one is in the situation of having one’s life endangered. It is all very well expecting the police to be all soft and cuddly and caring at all stages when they have to deal with some pretty difficult characters who are not soft and caring in any circumstance.  
We have to back our police; we have to get tough. It is not of course just about our getting tough with laws; it is about allowing the police to have the power to actually do the job for us. The police these days are not necessarily confronting the same risks that they confronted 30 years ago. There was then no such thing—that we knew of anyway—as methamphetamine use. We did not know about this thing called P. We did not in fact have Los Angeles - style gangs.  
Nandor Tanczos 
: We had a heroin epidemic! 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: The member over there wishes to talk about heroin. Well we certainly did have some heroin but I can tell the member that the effects of P in this country today are significantly more devastating than the effects of the use of heroin about 30 years ago. A large amount of that is about the availability of it. A large amount of it is about the celebrity culture that is now part of this drug culture. It is the fact that we have a Los Angeles - style American-style gang culture that is celebrated by some parts of our society who frankly should know better and who should understand that part of leadership is about saying that some things are right and some things are wrong and it is wrong to go into someone’s dairy or bottle shop and kill them for fun. It is wrong to do that. It is wrong to deface other people’s property. It is wrong to graffiti all over streets just to show whose patch it is. It is wrong to do that and it is wrong for our society to stand by and say: “It doesn’t really matter because it’s not my place.”  
The people who are most affected by the harm of the culture that graffiti vandalism brings with it are our poor people—the people who do not have choices about where they live. It is all very well for members who want to hang out in Wellington Central or other places like it that are high-income areas to say: “Well is this really important?” because they do not have to face it every single day. They do not have to face it on the train from Papakura to Auckland City. They do not have to face it in their school. They do not have to wake up and see it all over their fences. They do not have to live with it and they do not have to see themselves and their children being threatened.  
When we talk about representing children—and this is one of the things that is most disappointing about the Children’s Commissioner’s comments on graffiti—how about the children who do not want to be part of the graffiti vandalism culture? How about the children who want to go to school and not be in fear because of the street gangs that will try to recruit them after school? How about them? How about their civil liberties? How about taking that seriously?  
When we talk about the Summary Offences (Tagging and Graffiti Vandalism) Amendment Bill and what we can achieve we know we can certainly achieve one thing: we can achieve a great deal of cross-party support. The reason for that is that—particularly in South Auckland but also in other places in this country—we have seen MPs coming together across parties to say what their constituents want. Certainly some people have asked why we in the National Party are supporting a Government bill and why we supported George Hawkins’ previous bill on this. It is because it is actually about trying to do something. It is actually about trying to understand what our constituents want what they need and what we can do. So it is our job to send a message to New Zealanders that we care enough about them to do what we can and it is also our job to send a message to New Zealanders that we are there for them that we listen to them and that we will do our very best. 
Hon GEORGE HAWKINS (Labour—Manurewa) 
: 
 I want to start by talking about Manukau City which led the way for legislation on graffiti. It would also be most appropriate for me to take this opportunity to wish the Mayor of Manukau City Len Brown all the best with his health. He is going through difficult times a bit like Manukau itself over recent years.  
Manukau had its own local bill but today’s bill—the Summary Offences (Tagging and Graffiti Vandalism) Amendment Bill—is far better because it covers the whole of New Zealand. I listened to the first two speeches from Darren Hughes and Judith Collins and I agree with them. I have been in this Parliament 18 years and in that time I have seen the problem of graffiti get worse and worse. But in South Auckland we are a special breed. We have got together and sorted out the problem so to speak. I think there is a lot of value in the MMP style of Parliament when one is dealing with legislation such as this. We can go and talk to Opposition members and to members from other parties although we do not always convince them.  
What is particular about this bill is that many people in New Zealand think that as a result all of a sudden graffiti will disappear overnight. The reality is that it will not disappear overnight but this is a way of showing New Zealanders that we do not appreciate people painting on someone’s house or fence. We have to say as a Parliament that that is not right. Quite often we blame the police when there are social problems such as graffiti. Why do the police not catch these characters? Why do the police not round them up? Well we have the best police in New Zealand in my electorate of Manurewa. I want people to know that Inspector Alan Shearer and the men and women who work for him do a splendid job and that sometimes other things—worse crimes—take their minds off graffiti.  
Parliament is actually sending a message to people about respect for one another and respect for one another’s property. Elderly people who have had their house painted on do not have the ability to grab a paint brush and a can of paint and paint out the graffiti. They worry they panic and they feel unsafe. Well Parliament is now saying that we will not have any more of that. We will support the councils. Some excellent councils have worked on this issue. Obviously Manukau City Council has been at the forefront but so have Waitakere City Council Auckland City Council and especially one small council very close to home called Papakura District Council. Papakura’s mayor goes out at night and talks to the kids from 11-year-olds upwards who are out there. He will feel far more empowered when he knows that Parliament is right behind him.  
This Government has listened to the people and it is acting. I am pleased that so many other members of Parliament will support this bill. Some think that graffiti is art. Well in a former life I was the head of an art department of a secondary school in South Auckland and I can tell the House that painting on people’s fences and spraying slogans and signs to show that one belongs to a gang is not art. People display gang-type behaviour and go around spraying like an old tom-cat with devastating consequences. The TV media show people doing graffiti art—that sends out the wrong message. People on the radio talk about graffiti being an art form—that is the wrong message. The clear message from this Government is that graffiti is not acceptable. We are giving councils more power and the community more power and I think that is really important.  
There are some really good people in every community. In Manurewa most people are superb. We have a lot of graffiti but it is not all performed by locals. People travel a long way to graffiti. We also have people like the Rev. Mark Beale who runs the beautification programme. He spends hours working with people many of whom have been unemployed getting rid of graffiti. Manukau City spends a million dollars a year doing that. It would not be proper for me not to mention also the work done by the previous mayor Sir Barry Curtis and by the present mayor Len Brown.  
When we have a bill that is a part of an overall strategy—as Labour has—we start to make progress. We start to make people think they can have their neighbourhoods back. We start to make people believe they can feel confident. When we look at this issue we realise that we are supporting not only our community but also our young people. Just imagine being a young person and because of peer pressure having to go out with one’s mates in winter and graffiti. We saw the tragic consequence of that recently where a resident was charged with the murder of a graffiti artist. I do not want to talk about that too much because the case is before the courts but it shows the frustration felt. Many people have come to me to say they really support this legislation.  
I am pleased to speak about this issue. I was quite chuffed when the Manukau City Council (Control of Graffiti) Bill was passed by the House but I am even happier today because the Summary Offences (Tagging and Graffiti Vandalism) Amendment Bill is for all of New Zealand. It never hurts to be the first one to say something—others then realise that what is being said is important. That is one of the really great things about this particular Parliament. People talk to each other and sometimes we manage to work together to solve community problems. It is really important in Parliament that we talk to each other instead of “at” each other. When we can do that we can get results. I am very pleased to support the third reading of the Summary Offences (Tagging and Graffiti Vandalism) Amendment Bill. 
PANSY WONG (National) 
: 
 It is a pleasure to follow the previous two speakers: my colleague Judith Collins but particularly the Hon George Hawkins. I think those two deserve credit because without them we would not be able to pass this Government bill—the Summary Offences (Tagging and Graffiti Vandalism) Bill—in Parliament today. Two years ago George Hawkins brought a bill to Parliament that had been started off by the Manukau City Council because it saw that graffiti was causing real problems. Graffiti is a sign of a society and the local community tolerating or normalising behaviour that can be very intimidating.  
This past week has been very tough in South Auckland. I went past Riverton Liquor Store where Navtej Singh was brutally killed for a few bottles of beer. I realised that the menacing graffiti on the walls and shop windows of that block of shops has an intimidating and menacing impact on ordinary residents who live around there. Many of them have been interviewed by media from various sources and they talk of living in fear and of getting used to it. Today Parliament at long last is taking a small step towards sending a message to offenders that this behaviour will not be tolerated.  
As I have said 2 years ago the arrogant Labour Government unfortunately treated one of its own members the Hon George Hawkins with arrogance. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: It’s a bipartisan afternoon Pansy. 
PANSY WONG 
: I am now being dictated to about how to speak in this Parliament. Well I have news for the Hon Darren Hughes: his powers have not extended to commanding what an Opposition MP can or cannot say. After 9 years New Zealanders are fed up with this Government which keeps on legislating and telling people what they can and cannot do. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: Get off your high horse. 
PANSY WONG 
: He can take a call and have his say.  
Hon Darren Hughes 
: I spoke first. 
PANSY WONG 
: Tough luck! He should say something worth remembering.  
Two years ago the Government ignored George Hawkins and his bill. The Manukau City Council (Control of Graffiti) Bill sponsored by George Hawkins foundered in the Local Government and Environment Committee because the Labour members said the bill was useless that there was not a problem with graffiti and that there were existing laws to deal with it. To the credit of the Hon George Hawkins and my colleague Judith Collins we now see this bill in Parliament. With the cooperation of other parties like New Zealand First we have seen the bill survive.  
Today the Government’s Summary Offences (Tagging and Graffiti Vandalism) Bill comes before us for the third reading. It will take over George Hawkins’ bill but it will not take away any credit from him as the local member championing the local issue. I am very happy to be associated with the passing of this bill which in substance is supporting an initiative started by the Manukau City Council. Like all the other members say in Manukau a great number of people are in fact law abiding and they are fed up with antisocial behaviour. It is important for Parliament to send the correct message to the community. I know that two minor parties in Parliament would oppose the bill because they insist it does nothing to cure the problem but sometimes messages are important. The message to the offenders out there is that if they want to become a graffiti artist they should practise on their own doorstep. It is not within anybody’s rights to paint on other people’s property without their permission and that is a very important message.  
When I door-knock in Botany I find that a lot of the residents feel there is a lack of respect for other people’s property. They feel that over the years there has been an erosion of personal responsibility. Therefore today we are taking a small step towards sending a message of support to law-abiding New Zealanders giving them the tools they need but more important giving them the moral support of knowing that Parliament is on their side. This coming Saturday there will be a rally in Manukau Square to be followed by a march against crime. The march will finish at the car-park where Joanne Wang was brutally run over. It has been a tough week for Manukau for South Auckland and for New Zealand. The passage of this bill can be seen as our trying in a small way to take hold of a worsening situation. We are taking a small step to support law-abiding people in South Auckland and in New Zealand as a whole.  
We want to put on record that this single piece of legislation definitely will not solve all the problems. As the Hon George Hawkins and Judith Collins said it will not make graffiti disappear but it is the right start. We hope that Parliament in this cooperative spirit will also support the total package that National has started to put forward. For example we have to target youth offenders once again starting with education. If they intend to leave school without achieving certain standards then we need to provide them with an alternative training opportunity rather than allowing them at 15 or 16 years of age to go on a benefit. We need to instil in them the value of working and becoming a contributing citizen of society. If they start to go off the rails we should empower the Youth Court to issue parenting orders and a training regime.  
We need to get tough with the gangs out there. Various members have said that gangs are openly recruiting young members. That is why National members are happy to support the bill that has been introduced today by Annette King that will lengthen the sentence for gang membership. We have to declare war on gangs because they are destroying our community and intimidating our people. It is very sad for me to receive emails from ex - New Zealanders who have gone to Australia. They tell me that a reason for their leaving New Zealand for good to live in Australia was their concern about safety. They tell me they now live in Queensland and feel a lot safer. We need to let our people know that a safe community is our priority. For many people that is very important.  
I want to put on record that I am very happy to be part of the team supporting this bill. Manukau city councillors have expressed their gratitude to me. I join with George Hawkins in wishing Mayor Len Brown all the best. He and his family are going through tough times and I hope it will be a small comfort to him that Parliament is supporting a very good initiative for the Manukau City Council. 
PITA PARAONE (NZ First) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Deputy Speaker. Tena hoki tatou. I stand on behalf of New Zealand First to speak in the third reading of the Summary Offences (Tagging and Graffiti Vandalism) Amendment Bill. I say from the outset that we will be supporting this bill. Our support is without reservation and is similar to the support we gave to the bill that the Hon George Hawkins sponsored in regard to Manukau City. I suppose that we as a Parliament should not be surprised that the Manukau City (Control of Graffiti) Bill sponsored by Mr Hawkins was a reflection of the progressiveness of that city. A former Mayor of Manukau City often described his city as being the most progressive in New Zealand. I suggest that the Manukau City (Control of Graffiti) Bill and this bill are a result of the progressiveness that Sir Barry Curtis often reminded the rest of the country about. 
Graffiti has been described by some members of this House as an art form. I say that graffiti and tagging are a nuisance and a violation of private property and people’s lives. I think the comments made by earlier speakers in this debate support that view. However there are members who have stated that the bill is an attack on an art form and on youth in particular. The truth is that the perpetrators of this crime are youths and mostly in their teens. I cannot imagine pensioners committing this crime. If there is any involvement on the part of pensioners they are invariably the victims. The art of graffiti is not a crime in itself but it is a threat to life. Recent events in South Auckland are testament to that fact. 
Although I personally feel that the bill does not go far enough in terms of penalties I certainly support the notion of going beyond just community sentencing as is provided by this bill. I know that one member of the judiciary recently had the intestinal fortitude to exercise the power that was available to him to jail a persistent tagger even if it was for only 28 days. I think the disappointing part about that whole issue was that a member of this House actually criticised that member of the judiciary for carrying out his duty. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: He got told off. 
PITA PARAONE 
: Yes the member said he got told off by his mum. In other words he is blaming his mum for having to apologise knowing that he was the only one in the whole of New Zealand who had that view. He realised that it was an election year and that obviously he was alienating himself from his party support so he thought that he had better apologise. But he blamed his mum! Well my leader often says that people are tigers in the House here and lambs on the marae or is it vice versa? But never mind enough of that. 
I make the point that the whole issue of graffiti—vandalism and tagging—is a major issue for this country. If we do not do anything about it then the events that are often part of the scene in overseas countries will become the norm here in New Zealand. That is No. 1. Moving on to No. 2 Manukau City is often described as the doorway to New Zealand because of the international airport being sited in that fine city. To have visitors to our fair country witness the graffiti and vandalism that have become so evident in that community is a sad commentary on their experiences compared with what visitors wish to enjoy when they come to this country. 
I will come back to the bill. There are those who will oppose this bill and say that it does not address the real issue as to why youth are so disaffected and that youth are led to this sort of activity out of rebellion gang association attention seeking the influence of video games and other similar sentiments. Therein lies the issue: these factors obviously lead to this activity moving from a form of art to one of vandalism which is a form of attack on property—and it is usually other people’s property. As the previous speaker from National said if people want to enter into this type of exercise then they should do so on their own property. That is why I say that this bill is not an attack on this particular art form but is intended to address a growing problem associated with graffiti vandalism and tagging. Sadly this attack on property has in recent times had tragic consequences for two families in particular. 
Opponents of this bill have slammed it because they say it unfairly targets youth and that it does not address the real issue of why youth are so disaffected in the first place. Others say it is a shameless piece of electioneering and that it will not stop tagging. I think that we recognise that it will not stop tagging but this bill is intended to signal to those who want to enter into this type of activity that the system is putting in extra penalties extra barriers and extra preventive-type legislation that will slow down this particular activity amongst our young people. 
Graffiti once scored on walls in ancient Greece and Rome may have been considered art and may have historical significance but graffiti scored on a person’s garage or wall is nothing more than shall I say a dog urinating on a patch to mark its territory. I do not agree that taggers and graffiti vandals are expressing their social and political views when they mark property; rather they are doing it to cause criminal damage. We are hearing of more cases where taggers and graffiti vandals are being given custodial sentences. Although this bill will not provide that at least it will provide a reminder for them that this Parliament is certainly looking at this issue more seriously than it has done in the past. New Zealand First welcomes the stance of this bill and commends those of the judiciary who have taken a hard line for doing so so far. These cases should send a clear message to other taggers and graffiti vandals that New Zealanders will no longer tolerate this criminal behaviour. 
I conclude by reminding this House that we have a responsibility to help New Zealand citizens to protect their property. I believe that this bill is a step towards doing that and on behalf of New Zealand First I say that we will support this bill in this third reading. 
HONE HARAWIRA (Maori Party—Te Tai Tokerau) 
: 
 Tena koe. Tena tatou katoa e te Whare. First of all let me extend a formal apology to Claudette Hauiti of Front of the Box Productions and say that my sincere wish is that we can work together on projects in the future.  
Let me begin my speech today with the words I used when I spoke on this bill the last time it came up: “I do not mind saying right up front that I am not a fan of tagging … not today not yesterday not tomorrow. It is ugly it is offensive it makes one’s town look like crap. People do not want to stop in those towns because they see the existence of tagging as a clear mark of the existence of crime. I personally do not mind some of that cool looking stuff like they did for Sir Edmund Hillary but I do not like ugly tagging.” But just because I recognise that reality does not mean that I have to agree with some of the garbage spoken on this issue by others in this House.  
Yesterday a certain female member of the National Party made a complete ass of herself by trying to link the murders in South Auckland with tagging and gang membership and by suggesting that stopping tagging would stop people joining gangs which would in turn stop people getting murdered. Well I do not mean to sound rude but that is rubbish and I will tell members why. A lot of the kids who tag are the same kids who can be found scribbling in class. They scribble in class because they have been shunted to the back of the class by an education system geared towards suspending and expelling black kids from school faster than anyone else. They scribble in class because they are hoha with schools that do not give a stuff about their future and because they are angry that their teachers do not care about them either. Tagging ain’t a step to murder and anyone who says it is is a blind and lazy fool.  
Tagging is the result of the growing frustration amongst youth with a society concerned more about profit than about people. Tagging is what we get from kids who do not think that anyone cares. Tagging is what we get when our rangatahi want to get attention and the world ain’t interested. Tagging is the reaction of the poor to alienation anger boredom frustration and low self-esteem. We will reduce tagging by reducing the factors that lead to it: poverty poverty and poverty. The last time the House discussed this issue someone said that poverty was not the problem. Well all I have to say to that is that members should open their eyes and take a look around. They should look in all the rich suburbs. Do those kids tag out their towns? No not even. Members should then take a swing through the poor part of town and what would they see? Tagging tagging and tagging. This ain’t rocket science folks; this is as obvious as the blinkers that some politicians seem to have over one eye. Ramping up the penalties will hurt the ones who get caught. But if we want to stop tagging we need to put an end to poverty.  
I do not disagree with the decision to fine people $1500 for selling spray-cans to teenagers. But in the same way that we cannot stop 13-year-olds from smoking cigarettes by passing a law to make it illegal to sell cigarettes to kids under 18 we will not stop tagging by increasing the penalty for people who sell spray-cans to teenagers. I also point out a couple of other facts. Firstly tagging is already illegal and secondly we already have laws in place to deal with property crime. Increasing the penalties may make us feel as though we are doing something but in fact we ain’t. Poor places will still be tagged and rich places will not. That will continue until we start to address the root causes of poverty and do not just sting the poor dumb clucks who sell spray-cans and tag fences.  
To digress ever so slightly I would like to congratulate all of the schools—wharekura kura Maori Maori boarding schools and secondary schools—for making this week so very very special for all of the Maori members of Parliament by sending down all of those dynamite groups for the 2008 National Secondary Schools Kapa Haka competitions over the road at the TSB Bank Arena. More than 1500 dynamic talented explosive performers from all around the country have taken the stage to strut their stuff and show off how good they all are at poi haka waiata mau taiaha and whaikorero. Thirty-six of the best teams from throughout Aotearoa have given their all for their kura their whanau their hapu their iwi and their communities. They have lit up the hall with their confidence their passion and their panache and they have been simply electrifying in their exuberance and their energy. There have been 3 days of power intensity and vigour. I thank all of those rangatahi for the energy they have given to all of us Maori MPs. I thank all of the seriously stressed-out teachers and parents who have been trying to keep tabs on 1500 sets of rampaging hormones I thank the judges for their patience and I even thank Parliamentary Service for politely pointing all the hundreds of stray Maori in the right direction in order to catch up with their MP or with somebody else’s MP if they could not find their own.  
I might be so rude as to ask where on earth the rest of Parliament has been while all this has been going on. It is one thing to slag off our kids when something goes wrong but it is even better when we applaud them when things are going well. That says we care about making a positive statement about our kids’ future it says we recognise the strides that the great majority of them are making to excel in a darkening world it says we care enough to honour them for their efforts and it says we care about them. But this I know: 80 percent of the Pakeha MPs in this House did not even bother to walk across the road to take a look. So to all my fellow Pakeha MPs let me just say that they should not be surprised that nobody cares about what they think is important when they show by their own absence that they do not care about what others think is important.  
So yes tagging is a crime against property and yes tagging sucks. But as Derek Fox the Maori Party candidate for Ikaroa-Rawhiti said to me recently poverty sucks too. Poverty is an even greater crime than tagging because poverty is a crime against humanity. Poverty is a crime against society. When we see the Child Poverty Action Group suing the Government for denying 150000 children an entitlement granted to other children we all know which one of the two crimes should have priority. If this bill at least recognised the widening gulf between the haves and have-nots which exacerbates problems like tagging and offered solutions based on that we would support the bill. But it does not do so. It is punitive and it simply affirms the desperation of the poor and the refusal of this House to recognise their plight.  
Discussion of crime is often grim and tinged with blame and finger-pointing but every now and then we get a message that puts a whole new perspective on things. Here is an email we have had that we would like to share with the House from a guy called Rob Beckett: “Hell. I’m going to rely on the younger generation to care for me when I’m frail and old. Maybe I need to take more notice of them now and listen to their issues and be prepared to make changes before its too late. What can I do? Hey join the real world and ask the kids what they want and look to long term solutions. Together we can achieve.” 
In the same way that we grieve for those who have been killed recently in South Auckland so too do we grieve for the young man killed a few months back for simply tagging. None of those deaths were necessary but what is necessary is that we in this House step forward with realistic options to deal with the causes of crime rather than hope to simply garner votes by just attacking crime.  
In closing I acknowledge Pita Paraone’s comments about me and my mum. Whenever she tells me to jump I am more than happy to say “How high Mum?”. Kia ora tatou.  
NANDOR TANCZOS (Green) 
: 
 The Green Party has a very balanced view on this issue. We acknowledge that like many bills we oppose this bill does one good thing in that it repeals the Manukau City Council (Control of Graffiti) Act 2008. That legislation was so bad that I am almost tempted to support this bill just to get rid of it. Actually maybe that was the Government’s strategy in supporting that local bill sponsored by Mr Hawkins to become law. To pass a truly terrible law and then to repeal it with something marginally better is the old “lesser of two evils” approach. It is kind of like the Labour Party’s election strategy. How else can we explain the passing of a local bill that is about to be superseded by a Government bill?  
I would not like to suggest that the Government or Mr Hawkins was deliberately wasting House time on a members’ day so there must have been some reason for doing it. My message to the Government is that it did not work; we are still opposing this legislation. For all the grandiose words of Judith Collins and other speakers who seem to think that tagging is some kind of gateway crime to murder this bill will not stop tagging. Judith Collins told us that street gangs recruit outside schools in her electorate and use stand-over tactics in the community. She complained about graffiti on the train route into town because of course grey concrete is way more attractive—right? What she and other speakers in support of this bill fail to elucidate is how this bill will actually reduce tagging never mind reduce antisocial behaviour in general.  
Even on the remote off chance that the bill does reduce tagging—and no one seems to think that it will because this is all about sending a message as Pansy Wong so clearly stated—what do we think those young people will do instead? We have to address the conditions that give rise to tagging otherwise just like kikuyu grass we will knock it back in one direction but it will come back from another. That is the issue. This bill is really about being seen to be responding to tagging rather than actually doing anything about it. That is why I call it electioneering.  
We need to spend some time looking at what is going on for young people in our country. We need to think about how we can enhance opportunities for them to express their creativity to be more connected and to participate. This bill does not even try to do that. It is a punitive symbol that tells kids to shut up and go away. As I said no one seems to be interested in spending time talking about how we can actually reduce tagging. Certainly this bill will not do that. Speakers do not feel that they need even to talk about that. They just talk about gangs and P and bag-snatching and then they talk about graffiti and hey case proven—not! Mr Paraone even suggested that tagging was a threat to life. Excuse me! I think we all need to step back and take a breath because I think this is getting a bit out of hand.  
The really funny thing is that alcohol—which actually does have a clear link to violence and crime; according to police 75 percent of violent crime is conducted under the influence of alcohol—is treated significantly less seriously than spray-cans will be under this legislation. Judith Collins would be on her high horse again railing against the nanny State’s intrusion on her civil liberties if we were to try to pass a law that said her chardonnay had to be kept under lock and key or that she needed to get a supermarket assistant if she wanted to buy a pinot noir. Once again in this House we strain at a gnat and we swallow a camel. Once again let us be clear. 
I have already said plenty of times that I do not like tagging but not liking tagging is not an argument for supporting this bill. Mind you I find a lot of tagging less offensive than the sea of trite cheesy often misogynistic selfish and grasping advertising that pollutes every public space in this country. But those advertisers can do it because they pay for it. At least tagging is just people putting their names up and I prefer that to slick advertising that encourages me to increase my contribution to global warming through the power of consumption.  
Speaker after speaker talking in favour of this bill has gone on and on about how bad tagging is and then they have almost universally said that this bill will not stop tagging. It is just too weird. We are debating a bill that is about to be passed with a huge majority but we all agree it will not change anything. So what the hell are we doing? Oh that is right I forgot; it is about sending a message. Well I prefer to spend time in this House passing legislation that actually does something. I do not believe that it is the proper role of legislation to send a message.  
Passing legislation that has no effect except to send a message to young people in this country is I think contemptuous of what this place is. This is a legislature—this is our national legislature. If people want to send a message they should go and talk to some young people. Judith Collins George Hawkins and all those people have met with police with shopkeepers and with victims of tagging but have they met with any taggers? Have they talked to any taggers? Maybe that is the root of the problem. They should try talking to some young people instead of shouting at them all the time.  
Lastly I have to comment on the Government putting up its “Minister of Funk” Darren Hughes to front the bill because Darren does not count as a young person. Talking to Darren does not count. Darren came out of his mum wanting to be Prime Minister so he does not count. Maybe the Government thought it could disarm the Opposition by having Mr Hughes the ever youthful and charming Mr Hughes front this bill or maybe it was just punishment for his scratching his name on his desk. I do not know. Anyway instead of getting the youthful Mr Hughes to front the bill the Government should have got him to write it. Then maybe we would have seen something more imaginative creative and effective than this old man’s law. 
CHESTER BORROWS (National—Whanganui) 
: 
 As the last speaker from the Opposition in this debate on the Summary Offences (Tagging and Graffiti Vandalism) Amendment Bill I need to make a number of points. 
People do take seriously the content of the speeches made by previous speakers including Hone Harawira and Nandor Tanczos. However that does not detract from this legislation. To think that passing this legislation which in effect will be unable to stop graffiti is superfluous or meaningless is as ridiculous as it is to think that we can stop poverty by legislation. In actual fact it is just as ridiculous to argue that because people support this legislation they do not care about the causes of poverty and could not recognise them if they jumped up and bit them on the nether regions. The fact that legislation is being made in this way does not prevent the creation of policy and legislation that will address the very real matters that were raised by those previous speakers. 
It was interesting to note that Mr Harawira to underline his point spoke about where graffiti does and does not occur because I had notes along the same lines to underline my points. The fact is that right across the board where offending occurs it generally occurs within the offenders’ own neighbourhood. If we look at where most violent offences occur where most dishonesty offences occur and where most antisocial offences occur we see that they occur amongst the peers of those who are creating the offending. 
I think we should take stock too of the argument that graffiti is a means of self-expression or an art form. The likeness between graffiti and dogs urinating to mark out their patch has been referred to by several speakers. Calling graffiti self-expression is a misnomer because usually the graffiti expresses only the fact that a certain person has been at a certain place in the neighbourhood. So there is a pretty strong correlation between leaving a signature and peeing on a lamp post. Graffiti also frequently includes the initials or insignia of local gangs—sprayed not necessarily by gang members but by people who look up to them aspire to be them or want to use their marks. Swear words are also often used to decorate bus stops walls fences trees etc. So when we look at the purpose of graffiti and the reasons behind it we see that it obviously is not driven by any form of self-expression because it does not leave anything behind that expresses anything other than an expletive or as I said earlier the fact that someone has been there. 
When we look at the neighbourhoods and the locations where graffiti happens we see that it happens in places where people are least able to afford to remedy the graffiti by painting it out or replacing the surface. It also occurs in areas where people are least likely to take the message—if there is a message. If for instance someone sprays on the side of a fence “Mongrel Mob” or “Black Power” or draws a fist or a bulldog the people in that neighbourhood will say “So what?”. If it is supposed to denote that the area is the turf of a particular gang the people most likely to read the graffiti know that it is—or is not depending on the circumstances. Graffiti is most likely to be sprayed in areas where people are least likely to care and least likely to respond. 
A common theme in all of this is that the solution to offending of any kind whether it be violent antisocial or destructive is education. That point is being made right across the House. Just because the answer is education does not mean there is no place for legislation such as this because what are we supposed to do in the meantime? It is all very well to say we can enact legislation we can remove or mitigate or lessen poverty we can enhance education or we can enhance self-esteem by putting in educational policies that teach the sorts of things that have been applauded this afternoon—poi kapahaka karakia waiata and all the rest of it which are terrific. Regardless of what Mr Harawira says every one of us black or white applauds those activities and looks forward to living within a culture where those things are enhanced those things are blessed and those things are valued. In fact after every visit to a kohanga reo or kura kaupapa I am left feeling completely embarrassed by my lack of ability to reciprocate in te reo beyond a few words or a few sentences. I aspire to the day when I can do so fully and meaningfully. 
But I come back to the point: what do we do in the meantime? We need a punitive measure that at least acts as a deterrent because there is an awfully long lag time before we educate people out of doing these things which tend to arise out of where they come from. The fact is a number of young people who are involved in graffiti lack a history of seeing things put right. When we look around the neighbourhoods where graffiti is prevalent we see that other things are prevalent too. There is an abandonment of a sense of responsibility around for instance looking after property whether it be as simple as mowing lawns or removing old cars or cleaning up an empty section or replacing a broken window. We know that all of those things require a bit of money and in those neighbourhoods frequently money is not thick on the ground. And as we have learnt and heard a number of times in this House over the last few days there is an abundance of places where money can be wasted at the expense of nourishing children and family values. 
I remember hearing a school psychologist talk about a family whose septic tank had broken. It was a mucky job and all sorts of muck was left over the lawn. Dad had to go out and dig a hole get bits from Plumbing World and fix the hole in the pipe in order to get the septic tank working properly. Everyone in the household could see that that was what happened. In the same way when a window breaks someone gets a bit of glass removes the putty puts the glass in and fixes the window. Fixing things teaches young people about taking responsibility. Leaving things broken and in a state of degradation only underlines the fact that those people are valueless and can be left to live in a valueless world. I accept that we need to encourage policy that addresses poverty and addresses all the underlying issues that lead people towards offending. But nobody drags them along by the nose and forces them to offend; they offend in response to those underlying issues. We can address those underlying issues in time but that does not take away from the imperative for us in this House to take responsibility for things that are broken—in this case a society that lends itself to the production of graffiti. I am proud that National is prepared to support this bill. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the Summary Offences (Tagging and Graffiti Vandalism) Amendment Bill be now read a third time. 
Ayes 107 
New Zealand Labour 49; New Zealand National 46; New Zealand First 7; United Future 2; Progressive 1; Independents: Copeland; Field. 
Noes 10 
Green Party 6; Maori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 2. 
Bill read a third time. 
Births Deaths Marriages and Relationships Registration Amendment Bill 
Third Reading 
Debate resumed from 17 June. 
SUE KEDGLEY (Green) 
: 
 Mr Deputy Speaker I request that the House adjourn at this point in time. One of the members of the Green Party who would wish very much to speak on this bill is not able to be in the House at this time. 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: The member may seek leave. Are you seeking leave? 
SUE KEDGLEY 
: Yes I am seeking leave. 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: Leave has been sought for that course to be followed. Is there any objection to that? There appears to be none. 
Debate interrupted. 
The House adjourned at 5.57 p.m.