Volume 627 Week 95 - Tuesday 2 August 2005 
Volume 627 Week 95 - Tuesday 2 August 2005 
[Volume:627;Page:22163] 
Tuesday 2 August 2005 
Madam Speaker 
 took the Chair at 2 p.m. 
Prayers 
. 
Visitors 
Canada—Speaker of the House of Commons 
Madam SPEAKER 
: I have much pleasure in informing members that the Hon Peter Milliken MP Speaker of the House of Commons Canada is within the precincts of this Chamber. I am sure that members would wish that he be welcomed and accorded a seat on the left of the Chair. 
The House will also wish to welcome members of his delegation who are present in the gallery. 
Points of Order 
David McGee—Clerk of the House of Representatives 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Leader of the House) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. Perhaps I could use this moment to take the liberty of referring to the fact that yesterday Mr David McGee achieved the position of being the Clerk of the House for some 20 years. Perhaps colleagues might like to join me in noting that fact. 
Responses 
Omar Ali and Amer Salman—Statements made by Rt Hon Winston Peters 
Madam SPEAKER 
: I hereby present a response under Standing Orders 161 to 163 on the application of Mr Omar Ali and Mr Amer Salman relating to statements made by the Rt Hon Winston Peters MP on Tuesday 31 May and Wednesday 1 June 2005. 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Leader of the House) 
: 
 I move  
That that paper be published.  
Motion agreed to. 
Points of Order 
Questions for Written Answer—Standing Order 366 
RON MARK (NZ First) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. My point of order relates to Standing Order 366 “Lodging and publication of written questions and replies”. Throughout the last 3 years we have had problems—and we have raised these matters with you and sought your assistance on them—in getting in a timely manner replies to questions for written answer in particular from the Minister of Police. I am not happy that the replies to questions for written answer Nos 8400 8401 8402 and 8408 all submitted on 20 July and due for reply on 28 July arrived at the New Zealand First office only this morning—ironically or interestingly enough after the time in which we could formally have lodged questions for oral answer so as to follow up on the information that was presented. That Minister has consistently through his entire era of incompetence refused your instructions and refused to comply with the Standing Orders. Once again New Zealand First finds itself disadvantaged by his failure. I ask you on behalf of all Opposition MPs to bring the Minister into line and make him do his job in accordance with the Standing Orders. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: I thank the member for his comment. I will check on the matter and report back. 
STEPHEN FRANKS (ACT) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. I would be obliged if you could also look at exactly the same issue in relation to questions for written answer Nos 8409 8412 and 8431 in which the Minister was asked about his response and his interest in self-defence in the exercise of citizen powers to help apprehend people and advised that it has not been possible to obtain the information required to enable him to respond to the question by due date. These are questions about his own actions and they did not require anyone else’s information. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: I thank the member. I will look into the matter and if I understand that that was the response then under the rules that is the response. It may not be a satisfactory one but it is a response. However I am happy to look into the matter. 
Questions to Ministers 
Prime Minister—Motorcade 
1. RODNEY HIDE (Leader—ACT) 
 to the  
Prime Minister 
: For any prime ministerial motorcade who makes the decision about the speed at which the motorcade travels and what responsibility does the Prime Minister have for that decision? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK (Prime Minister) 
: 
 I am advised that operational decisions regarding motorcades are taken by the police. I as Prime Minister have no involvement and I will make no further comment on matters related to a case before the courts. 
Rodney Hide 
: Will she take this opportunity now publicly to apologise to those New Zealanders who were left in fear from the speeding motorcade particularly as she was quite happy at the time to say that she did not have any fear for the safety of other New Zealanders when in fact that is not so; if she will not why not? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: I will not be making any further comment on this matter. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: How could she not know about the speed of the car she was travelling in on the day in question when the windscreen of her car had to be repaired and replaced and a front paint job done because of the gravel and stones coming off the car in front of her car the one she was riding in and would not that be something she would notice in her busy schedule of reading her documents at 140 kilometres an hour? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: As I have said I will not be making any comment on a matter before the courts. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Now that the matter is sub judice the Prime Minister might take that stance but why would she not tell the truth when it was not sub judice and when she was previously asked about that travel? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: As the member knows it is a requirement to tell the truth in this House. I have nothing further to say about a matter before the courts. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I raise a point of order Madam Chair. I asked the Prime Minister why she did not outline the facts of the case prior to the matter being sub judice which has nothing to do with the questions being asked in this House but has to do with a prior time and she cannot evade it on the basis of her answer today. It is simply a case of whether she told the truth outside the House when she was originally asked about the speed of that motorcade. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: I remind the member that I am not in the position of Chair during question time; it is the position of Speaker. I also note that the Prime Minister did address the question though obviously of course it may not have been to the satisfaction of the member. 
Dr Muriel Newman 
: What does the Prime Minister say to those New Zealanders who see ordinary policemen being hung to dry for just doing their job which was trying to get her to a rugby game that she did not really care about watching but she did want to be seen at? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: I repeat I have no comment to make on a case before the courts. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: If the Prime Minister has no comment to make now why did she say at the time: “It wasn’t Helen Clark private citizen rushing to a rugby match. It was Helen Clark as Prime Minister with a set of public engagements for the day.” and does she accept that that view would have put high expectations on those who were accompanying her on that day? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: I repeat what I said earlier—that operational decisions around motorcades are taken by the police. 
Ron Mark 
: Is the Prime Minister asking the people of New Zealand to believe that as a passenger in a car that was travelling in excess of 170 kilometres an hour over gravel roads with stones that were being thrown up hammering her car so badly that it had to be repainted and the windscreen had to be replaced when braking accelerating and overtaking cars on the road was going on all the while she had her head down totally oblivious to everything that was happening because she was concentrating on her work and would the public not be right in thinking that most normal New Zealanders’ knuckles would be white as they clenched to hold on in such a circumstance? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: I have no comment to make on a matter that is before the courts. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Does the Prime Minister think for a moment that the people in charge of the speed of the car would have driven that car at that speed if she had not agreed with the speed they were travelling at; and if she does not think so why has she not come out and at least made an apology to those men who are now before the court rather than hide behind her putative office? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: There is nothing putative about the election of the Prime Minister. I repeat operational decisions about motorcades are taken by the police. 
Rodney Hide 
: Can she confirm that the Government is considering using Greg Murphy to spearhead an advertising campaign targeting young drivers against speed—which the ACT party fully supports especially in light of the tragic events at the weekend—and will she consider funding the second part of that advertising campaign which would be her going on television to apologise for the speed of the motorcade and explaining to New Zealanders that speed kills? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: I have no knowledge of any proposed advertising campaign of that nature. 
Rodney Hide 
: Was the Prime Minister telling the truth outside the House when she said that she was so engrossed in conversation and so hard at work in the back seat of a car travelling in tight convoy that she had no idea that they were travelling at speeds in excess of 170 kilometres an hour? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: As I said in earlier answers I have no comment to make on a matter before the courts. 
Student Loans—Interest-free Policy 
2.  
Hon PETER DUNNE (Leader—United Future) 
 to the  
Minister of Education 
: Does he agree with recent reports which suggest that the interest-free student loans policy announced last week will cost significantly more than the $300 million per annum currently estimated; if not what assumptions has he used to reach that conclusion? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Minister of Education) 
: 
 No. As I told the House last week the costing is based on 70 percent of all full-time students and 13 percent of part-time students paying their fees through a student loan and up to 50 percent of full-time students drawing down living costs. The costing is also based on up to 60 percent of full-time students and 18 percent of part-time students drawing down course-related costs. 
Hon Peter Dunne 
: What has changed since February when the Minister said that major changes in student loan policy were likely to happen only “if the country struck oil and we were guaranteed economic security for the next 50 years” and that improvements to the loan scheme will be “at the margins rather than a massive change”. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: If the member looks further down the quote he will see that I said: “but you can never rule out anything in politics”. 
Lynne Pillay 
: What feedback has he received on the proposal to scrap interest on student loans? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: What I have seen in Nelson last night is the fact that Kiwis just love it. Grandparents love it parents love it and hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders who are concerned about their families’ debt love it. This policy is travelling very well. 
Hon Bill English 
: Has the Minister seen further commentary from the National Bank which says: “While risking getting a political pasting we have to say that we agree with the thrust of Westpac’s analysis. We find it hard to believe students will not be smart enough to take advantage of the implicit arbitrage opportunity presented to them. They are supposed to be our best and brightest after all.” or does he regard that as another statement of lurid self-interest as compared with his policy? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: I note a bit of jealousy do I? As the member knows—I think he is a former Treasury official—the maximum arbitrage position is at the end of someone’s study and up until that point of course loans are already interest-free. 
Ron Mark 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. It may well be a joke to some political parties that the elderly do not receive the same degree of attention in this House but I take offence at the continual belittling of the elderly people of New Zealand by comments such as that. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: I thank the member for his intervention. 
Hon Brian Donnelly 
: Is it not true that one of the reasons that some have got their calculations wrong is that they have not been aware that under present policy there is already a partial interest write-off for those not in study which was introduced in the 1998 Budget by the then Treasurer the Rt Hon Winston Peters? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: I cannot remember the exact detail of which Budget it was in but my understanding is that it actually occurred in 2000. 
Hon Brian Donnelly 
: It was in 1998. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: I accept the member’s word as to the timing but one of the reasons that a number of commentators have got it wrong is that they have not taken that and a number of other current Government policy factors into account and we are quite happy to brief either Bill English or economists on those particular questions. 
Nandor Tanczos 
: Does the Minister agree that in order to work policies aimed at addressing student debt have to be balanced by a commitment to increasing access to student allowances such as through the universal student living allowance advocated by the Green Party? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: I think we are making considerable progress with this particular policy. The policy that he has suggested would be even more regressive than the National Party’s policy suggestions. 
Hon Peter Dunne 
: Will the Minister consider to reduce the chance of a student loan cost blowout being caused by students taking out bigger loans in the future making student loans interest-free only for those who have successfully completed their course of study so that there is no chance of people accessing the cheapest loans around without any intention of actually attending a course let alone completing a degree; if not why not? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: I think that takes a fairly negative view of the majority of New Zealanders. There is not much point in someone getting a student loan for fees paid to a university if the person ends up having to pay it back. A maximum of $150 a week can be borrowed as opposed to the $800. I would point out to the member that the people who take a very long time to pay off their loans are those who do lower-level courses and do not end up with the very high incomes that are being targeted by the persons opposite. 
Hon Peter Dunne 
: Can the Minister assure the House that this policy will not be accompanied by a secondary policy to tighten up the conditions of loan repayment so that what is given with one hand is rather stealthily taken back with the other? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: I have seen no such proposals. 
Terrorist Groups—New Zealand 
3.  
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
 to the  
Minister in charge of the NZ Security Intelligence Service 
: Is she aware of any terrorist groups operating within New Zealand? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK (Minister in charge of the NZ Security Intelligence Service) 
: 
 As the member is aware I do not comment on operational activities of the Security Intelligence Service. As I said yesterday every society has people from a range of backgrounds who are of interest to the authorities but that is not to say that New Zealand is somehow under imminent threat. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Does it concern the Prime Minister that a world-renowned al-Qaeda expert Dr Rohan Gunaratna who happens to be the head of the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research has spoken out to the effect that about 10 groups linked to international Islamic terrorist networks are operating out of New Zealand; does that not pose a great risk to this country? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: The annual report of the Security Intelligence Service last year which got front-page treatment on the  
Dominion Post  
newspaper at least referred to issues that the service had investigated over the previous year which included apparent links between individuals in or from New Zealand and international terrorist activities and also the people who sought to raise funds for such organisations. The service also stated that it assessed that there were individuals in or from New Zealand who support Islamic extremist causes. I repeat: that is something known to the service and publicly reported on. It is not to say that New Zealand is under imminent threat. 
Keith Locke 
: Does the Minister agree that statements such as one made last Thursday that both “moderate and militant” Islamic groups “fit hand and glove everywhere they exist.” smear all Muslims and incite religious division and distrust; does she agree with Dave Moskowitz President— 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. I am surprised you have allowed the member to go on for so long because the Prime Minister is not responsible for anything but her own and her Ministers’ speeches. That is my major point. More particularly she just told us that she will not answer any of those questions anyway because the matter happens to be within her portfolio and she leaves operational matters to the Security Intelligence Service. She is not responsible for the quote from that speech. Therefore the member is merely asking for an opinion for which she cannot have any responsibility. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: I thank the member. Yes the Prime Minister has ministerial responsibility for the Security Intelligence Service only so could the member please frame his question within those terms. 
Keith Locke 
: Has the Minister received from the Security Intelligence Service any report relating to extremist activities that gives any credence to the statement made last Thursday that both “moderate and militant” Islamic groups “fit hand and glove everywhere they exist.”; does that divert the Security Intelligence Service from its work and instead create religious mistrust and hatred—in the words of Dave Moskowitz President of Temple Sinai in Wellington such statements are “racist hateful and driven by greed for political power”? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: Obviously I have received no such advice and it is no more fair to smear all Muslims because some people of that religion commit acts of criminal murderous violence than it would have been to smear all Irish people because of the acts of the IRA. 
Hon Matt Robson 
: Can the Minister advise the House what standard of proof would be required to establish that a group was carrying out terrorist activities in New Zealand; would it be higher than the proof given by the Rt Hon Winston Peters in the case of Omar Ali and Amer Salman? 
Madam SPEAKER 
: The second part of the question is out of order. The Prime Minister can address the first part please. 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: In order to suspect that someone is planning a terrorist attack one would have to have some evidence of it. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: On the question of evidence what connection does the Prime Minister have as the Minister in charge of the NZ Security Intelligence Service when she goes on to Apna FM on 10 July at a time when there is vehement abuse and a tirade going over the airwaves about the West and about this country and appears smack in the middle of the programme; what sort of information is she privy to when she puts herself in that position and is she aware and concerned that that same outfit will shortly with its connections through Mirchee Television Network Ltd New Zealand open up our airwaves to al-Jazeera the unique Arab television and radio station that gets a direct line to Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda—does she know about that? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: I think I would have considerably better information than the member who denounced the station as being Islamic when I understand it is largely Hindi-speaking. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. Hindi and Urdu are the same language. Let us have this Prime Minister be halfway informed about her portfolio. The second thing is: how many other radio stations are running Islamic prayers five times a day? So she is fooled again. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: I thank the member. That is not a point of order. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: My point of order is that the Prime Minister has clearly not given any kind of accurate answer as I have proved two mistakes. Could we now have the honest answer? 
Madam SPEAKER 
: That is not a point of order. The right honourable Prime Minister did address the question. The member may like to ask a supplementary question. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. With respect I have proven categorically that the Prime Minister did not address the question at all. She made two palpable demonstrable mistakes. Could we have an answer based on the original question? 
Madam SPEAKER 
: No I have ruled that the Prime Minister did address the question—obviously not to the satisfaction of the member. 
Dail Jones 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. Can I just say perhaps as a matter of information that the Prime Minister did not address the question. She does not realise that in India Urdu is called Hindi and Urdu and Hindi are the same language. Urdu is a Muslim language. So if she tried to avoid answering the question by saying that the radio station was a Hindi-speaking station and therefore had nothing to do with Islam that is absolutely wrong. Urdu and Hindi are the same thing and Urdu is Islamic. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: I think the member for his information but I would note that inaccuracy is not a legitimate complaint by way of a point of order. The original ruling stands. 
Keith Locke 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. When I was speaking there was a reference to Pol Pot. I seek leave to table  
Hansard 
 of December 1979 at page 4844 when Mr Peters was in the National Government and where the Acting Minister of Foreign Affairs David Thompson explained that Government’s support—that is the Government Winston Peters was a member of—for what he called the Pol Pot regime in answer to a question from Stan Rodger. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is objection. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I do not oppose the tabling of that document but I seek leave to table two documents that show effusive support of both Pol Pot and the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan by this reformed man Keith Locke who wishes to excuse his past stupidity and idiocy. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? [ 
Interruption 
] It relates— 
Keith Locke 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. The member says there is a document he will table that mentions Pol Pot. I challenge whether he will table such a document. Such a document does not exist so how can he table it? 
Madam SPEAKER 
: I thank the member for his contribution. Is there any objection to the tabling of the document? Yes there is. 
Student Loans—Interest-free Policy 
4.  
Dr DON BRASH (Leader of the Opposition) 
 to the  
Prime Minister 
: Does she stand by her reported statement that the student loan policy she announced on 26 July had been properly costed and was affordable; if not why not? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK (Prime Minister) 
: 
 I believe that the policy is affordable and that the costings are based on reasonable assumptions over the forecast period. Labour believes that tackling student debt decisively is a top priority and that is what the policy is about—unlike National’s rather mean one. 
Dr Don Brash 
: Has the Prime Minister asked Treasury to forecast the long-term fiscal impact of her Government’s proposed interest-free student loan policy; if not how can she assure this House and New Zealanders that her gift to students in this election year will not be a noose around the neck of hard-working taxpayers for years to come? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: No this is a Labour Party policy not a Government one. Even the most expensive and ill-founded estimates of its cost are significantly less than what Dr Brash thinks he could spend on tax cuts. 
Dr Don Brash 
: Is the Prime Minister seriously telling the House that her Government is so desperate for votes in election year—[ 
Interruption 
] 
Madam SPEAKER 
: I say to members that this is their last warning. I know it is the last day for question time but the member is entitled to have his question heard in silence. The member will please start again. 
Dr Don Brash 
: Has the Prime Minister asked Treasury to forecast the long-term fiscal impact of her Government’s proposed interest-free student loan policy or is she so desperate for votes in election year that the proposed significant new student loan policy will go to the public without any advice from Treasury the Ministry of Education the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet or the Inland Revenue Department; and is this the standard of policy we can now expect from her Government? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: If desperation for votes is measured by the amount of money that parties are prepared to chuck around then the National Party wins that contest hands-down. 
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: Has the Prime Minister received any recent reports about the responsibilities of leadership in relation to costings? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: Indeed I did see an extraordinary reference to Dr Brash telling an economist that he had no command of the detail of National Party policy at all. 
Rodney Hide 
: Why will the Prime Minister not simply ask officials to cost the zero interest loans to students and the long-term implications; or is she not prepared to do that because she is scared of the results? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: Labour may follow a different practice from those followed by National Party Governments and their allies in the past but we do not expect officials to write Labour Party policies. 
Nandor Tanczos 
: With regard to the costings of the Government’s policy announcements will the Prime Minister tell the House how many of the 50 percent of students who would become eligible for student allowances under another term of a Labour Government will be eligible for a full allowance and how many of them will have to be satisfied with $10 or $20 a week? 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. It might be the last day for question time but one would think that after 6 years everyone would know the rules. That question is a mile wide of the wicket and it is a waste of the House’s time. 
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: It is because eligibility for borrowing is the difference between the actual student allowance paid and the $150 a week. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Would the Prime Minister please address the question. 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: Obviously not all the students who have eligibility for an allowance will get a full one. What I can say is that the Labour Party’s policy is immensely more affordable than paying a universal student allowance—estimates of which come rather closer to the billion-dollar-a-year mark than the costings for this policy. 
Dr Don Brash 
: Is the Prime Minister aware of the predicted consequences of her Government’s student loan policy—the one not assessed by officials—that would see $1.7 billion written off the Government’s balance sheet on account of the loans already made which is equivalent to some $400 for every man woman and child in the country; if she is not aware of that what does that tell us about the dangers of making policy on the hoof? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: The member may well want to reflect on making policy on the hoof when he tries to reconcile his sad offering due in a couple of weeks with promises that every New Zealander would get a significant tax cut. 
Dr Don Brash 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. The Prime Minister in no sense attempted to answer the question. I asked whether she was aware of the $1.7 billion to be written off the Crown balance sheet on account of her interest-free student loan policy. She did not answer that question at all. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: The difficulty for the member is that by his adding the last bit to his question technically the Prime Minister did address it. Maybe she would like to expand on it for us. 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: Of course I am aware that there are balance-sheet implications. But I am also aware that if the National Party is assuming that people will want to borrow a whole lot more under this policy then one assumes that that party is also aware that its own tax policy on the same assumption could lead to more borrowing—something that the National Party has not been very keen on emphasising. 
Question No. 3 to Minister 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 I now seek leave to table this document from Keith Locke which shows clearly that the Government at the time was not in support of Pol Pot at all but was seeking to give aid to the Kampuchean people despite the nature of the Pol Pot regime which is something totally different from what he told you when he sought leave in the first place. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? [ 
Interruption 
] 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Would the members both sit down. Leave has been sought to table a document. 
Keith Locke 
: I am allowed to make a point of order. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Would you please be quiet. 
Keith Locke 
: I am allowed to make a point of order. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: No. Would you please sit down. I will put the original seeking of leave. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
KEITH LOCKE (Green) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. I think it is wrong when a member seeks to table a document and misportrays the document that is to be tabled. This document clearly has David Thomson stating: “New Zealand’s continued recognition of the Pol Pot regime”— 
Madam SPEAKER 
: That is not a point of order. If the member feels that another member has misled the House there are other ways in which that matter can be addressed. I suggest that the member see me after the session. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. I objected to the way you told us both to sit down. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Oh I am terribly sorry— 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 Well you should be. You are there to do your job properly. The fact is that if a member is seeking leave he is entitled to be on his feet and not be interrupted by somebody who is grossly out of order. Next time Madam Chair—and I know that this Parliament has only a few days to go but in the hope of improving Parliament before we rise—perhaps you could stick to what the Standing Orders and prior Speakers’ rulings state and not be so abrupt when some other party is at fault. That member should have been stopped in his tracks from the very moment he got to his feet. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: I thank the member but I was making my ruling. I did not need any further contribution to the debate. Can we please return to questions. 
Question No. 4 to Minister 
Dr DON BRASH (Leader of the Opposition) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. I asked the Prime Minister whether she was aware of the $1.7 billion write-off required to the Crown’s balance sheet on account of loans already made to students as a consequence of her Government’s announced policy of wiping out interest on those loans. She has not answered that question. 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Leader of the House) 
: 
 The Prime Minister stated that she was aware that there were balance sheet implications. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: The Prime Minister did address the question. 
GERRY BROWNLEE (Deputy Leader—National) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. I think it is rather unfair that Mr Winston Peters and Mr Locke managed to interrupt the flow of this question with their valedictory-type performances. I think that if you had been able to concentrate on the whole issue you would have found that the Prime Minister has avoided answering a question. She may well have addressed it but surely when we are talking about such a sizable sum—such a big policy such a flagship policy—we would expect the Prime Minister leading the party promoting it to know the implications and be able to say simply “yes” or “no” to the figure Dr Brash raised. Clearly the Prime Minister has no idea what is going on. 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Leader of the House) 
: 
 Given that the leader of the National Party has been reported as stating that he has no idea of the costings of the details of the policies announced by his colleagues—and that was in the newspaper just last Sunday—I see no reason why the member should expect the Prime Minister to have in front of her at this point the full details of balance sheet changes. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Ruling on the point of order I did concentrate on the answer to the question and I was not distracted by the other members’ points of order going back to a previous question. As the member who raised the original point of order knows all that is required under our Standing Orders is to address the question; it is not necessary to have the answer satisfy those who asked the question. 
Hon PHIL GOFF (Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. You may have noted that Mr Brownlee interjected continually through that point of order. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: I am sorry I did not. I was concentrating on my own ruling. If he did he— 
Hon Phil Goff 
: Let me assure you that he did so continuously. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Because I did not hear it I will just ask the member to refrain in future from commenting on rulings that are being made. 
Hon CHRIS CARTER (Minister of Conservation) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. From where I am sitting I could not hear what Dr Cullen said in his point of order. Could I ask him to repeat it please? 
Madam SPEAKER 
: This is getting a little silly. Could we please move on to question No. 5 now. 
Nuclear-free Policy—Reports 
5.  
JILL PETTIS (Labour—Whanganui) 
 to the  
Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade 
: What reports if any has he received on changing New Zealand’s nuclear-free policy? 
Hon PHIL GOFF (Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade) 
: 
 I have seen a report in which a senior National MP asked United States political leaders for the United States’ assistance to persuade New Zealanders to change our nuclear-free legislation. That senior National MP was Dr Lockwood Smith and that request was made to United States senators in the presence of the Leader of the Opposition Dr Don Brash in the same meeting in which Dr Brash promised the senators that New Zealand’s nuclear-free policy would be gone by lunchtime. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. We challenge the Minister to table that transcript. We have challenged him repeatedly to table the full transcript not just the little bits that his Labour Party lackeys passed on to him and that we are expected to take as gospel. Mr Goff should table the whole transcript. 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: At the end of this question in response to that request I will table the precise words that were said by Dr Lockwood Smith and the response made by the United States senators. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. Before we ask any question in this House we are expected to prove the veracity of the question being asked. Why has this Minister repeatedly been able to refer to comments provided to him by some little lackey from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade who has breached every protocol we might have in place yet the Minister is not willing to provide the entire transcript of that meeting? If you are going to allow the Minister to engage in that sort of activity I think the House will be in a dire state for many years to come because it will mean that Government Ministers can simply stand up lie through their back teeth back it up with some scrappy bit of paper concocted in their own office and expect the House to accept that. The whole transcript should be tabled. 
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: That bluster of course is merely trying to divert the attention of the House and the public away from the essence of the question and the answer. The Minister is perfectly prepared to table the exact comments made by the Hon Dr Lockwood Smith in seeking United States funding to try to persuade New Zealanders to abandon their antinuclear policy. 
Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Is it talking to the same point of order or a new point of order? 
Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith 
: It is exactly the same point of order. This relates to the requirement for questions to be authenticated. Under the Official Information Act that Minister’s ministry has released to me transcripts of everything I said to the senators and there is nothing in what his ministry has released to me that indicates in any way what that Minister has claimed in the House. 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: Talking further to the point of order—and it was the point I was going to make before Dr Smith’s intervention—for 11 months Dr Smith has had the information from that meeting that Mr Brownlee wants. He has at no time indicated to me that he felt those comments were in any way inaccurate in terms of what he said at that meeting. He has the statement. Shortly when question time resumes I will tell the House precisely what he asked of the senators. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: I thank members. We will go back to the original point of order. Ruling on the point of order I note that as members know answers do not need to be authenticated under our Standing Orders but questions do. 
Jill Pettis 
: Can the Minister advise what the nature of the request was and what the response to it was? 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: I will quote precisely what Dr Smith said. The transcript states: “Dr Smith asked whether it would be worthwhile for a United States think tank to assist with a public campaign in New Zealand following the National Party study review.” The National Party study review that he had been talking about was the review done by Wyatt Creech of the nuclear-free policy. The response from the leader of the delegation was: “… that it was an internal issue for New Zealand and as such it should be left to a New Zealand think tank. The United States should not involve itself in such a national issue.” The importance of that answer is that even the United States Senate delegation recognised that Dr Lockwood Smith was being entirely inappropriate in asking the United States to support them with the resources of a think tank on something that is an internal matter for New Zealand. Apparently not only do Dr Lockwood Smith and Dr Brash want the policy to be written in Washington but they want Washington to do their work for them in persuading public opinion in New Zealand as well. That is a disgrace. 
Rodney Hide 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. It might be helpful for the House if Mr Phil Goff could table the document now so we could see it in order to help with supplementary questions. It is plain that the ACT party has a clear policy on the visits of nuclear-powered warships but I am confused because the accusation from the Government was that Washington DC was writing the National Party policy and then funding it and now Phil Goff is getting up and contradicting Trevor Mallard and saying that it refuses to do so. That is why I think it would be best if Phil Goff just tabled this document now during the question rather than at the end of this sequence of questions. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: I thank the member but it is not for me to rule on that. It is for the Minister to decide when and if he wishes to table a document. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. I am just following on from what Mr Hide said. It is your role to make sure that question time is conducted in a reasonably orderly fashion. That was a very very long answer from Phil Goff and it sounded very much like the beginning of the post-election leadership battle in the Labour Party. It is interesting—the front-benchers are laughing but the back-benchers look terrified. It is only fair that you constrain the Minister. You have now ruled that he can talk any garbage he likes when it comes to an answer does not have to verify anything can twist any statement he likes and can present the answer any way he likes. But he does not have carte blanche to give that sort of a lecture to the House. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: The member has also made a lengthy presentation and I appreciate him for that. But it is not for the Speaker to rule on the quality of answers although I do note that both questions and answers have been getting longer. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Is the Minister prepared to read out any disclaimer that came at that time from the Leader of the Opposition seeing as he would have heard the suggestion—a disclaimer as to the impropriety of such a suggestion or even that it had been conceived of as appropriate in a country that is a self-governing democracy and has been for a long time; could he please read out the disclaimer that surely must be in that transcript? 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: I regret to disappoint the member. I read right through the report for a disclaimer from Dr Brash. Dr Brash never made any disclaimer about that improper suggestion from his foreign affairs spokesperson unlike when he not only issued a disclaimer for but sacked Simon Power as the spokesperson on defence for his comments that New Zealand would do whatever Australia the United Kingdom or the United States wanted. As the member will appreciate the difference between those two comments is that Simon Power was honest enough to make them publicly and Dr Lockwood Smith was not. 
Jill Pettis 
: Has the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade made Dr Smith aware of his reported comments and has he disputed them? 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: Yes at the request of Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith his comments from the incident were written up for him and given to him and to the best of my knowledge he has never sought to correct anything I quoted from him in the report or any of his other comments. He had the opportunity but he never chose to do so—certainly not with me and I understand not with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. 
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. I notice that Dr Lockwood Smith has been talking on his cellphone. I would just like an assurance that it was not an international call just a local call. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: That is not a point of order. 
Hon Ken Shirley 
: Can the Minister confirm that New Zealand’s so-called nuclear-free policy does not provide a legislative ban on nuclear electricity generation in New Zealand; and how does he reconcile our so-called comprehensive nuclear-free status with the fact that a mini nuclear reactor has been operating in a residential suburb in Upper Hutt—on the old Tasman Vaccine Laboratory site—since the 1960s and is still operating today? 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: The nuclear-free legislation that was passed by this House some two decades ago deals with the question of nuclear-armed and nuclear-propelled warships. There is no legislation to the best of my knowledge that prohibits a nuclear power plant but no party in this House has ever been stupid enough to advocate that unless the ACT party is doing that now as its valedictory statement. 
Student Loans—Interest-free Loans 
6.  
JOHN KEY (National—Helensville) 
 to the  
Minister of Finance 
: Was any advice sought by him from Treasury on the student loan policy announced on 26 July; if so will he release that advice? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Minister of Finance) 
: 
 The student loan policy is Labour Party policy not Government policy. As such Treasury does not give advice on that policy. Prior to the policy being adopted costings were done at my request in relation to the ongoing and uncompleted work referred to in the Budget documentation. I am aware that the information in relation to the Labour Party’s policy has been released to wide public acclaim. 
John Key 
: Will New Zealand as per the requirements of the Financial Reporting Act adopt the international accounting standards after 30 June 2007; if so what impacts will this have on the valuation of New Zealand’s net worth as a result of Labour’s proposal to change student loans? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: We are getting into tricky territory between the Labour Party and the Government here. Of course the Government has not produced estimates on that. I would assume that the impact on net worth would be negative. That shows the enormous danger of confusing an operating balance and net worth with the Government’s cash position. 
John Key 
: Can he confirm that New Zealand’s net worth will be reduced by approximately $1.7 billion or $400 per person after 30 June 2007 as a result of Labour’s proposal to change the student loan policy and what impact will this have on Labour’s Budget pledge to reduce net debt to zero by 2007? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: No I cannot confirm that at this point. If the member is confusing net worth with net debt and gross debt he is showing a gross misunderstanding of the accounting principles. 
Gordon Copeland 
: Did any of the costings or advice requested by the Minister on the student loans policy include projections of the effect that tax cuts such as the $3000 tax-free amount and the adjustments to the existing threshold proposed by United Future would have on disposable incomes and therefore on potential loan repayment rates? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: Absolutely not. The member of course has those costings. That runs into some billions of dollars a year which would lead to a substantial rise in the Government’s borrowing requirements high interest rates and therefore if interest were still being applied to student loans higher interest on student loans. 
John Key 
: Can the Minister confirm that New Zealand’s net worth would be reduced by a further 25c for every dollar of every new student loan written on top of the $1.7 billion it would be required to write off on the existing loans due to Labour’s proposal to change the student loans policy? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: No I have not sought advice from Treasury so I cannot confirm the numbers. 
Gordon Copeland 
: In light of the previous answer would it therefore surprise the Minister to know that most graduates would be better off under United Future’s tax reduction policy than under Labour’s zero rate student loan offer? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: Yes of course on that basis they would be much better off if we scrapped taxation altogether and simply funded all expenditure out of borrowing. 
John Key 
: I seek leave to table a letter I have written today to Kevin Brady the Auditor-General asking him to confirm that in fact under the Financial Reporting Act New Zealand will be required to adopt the international accounting standards that New Zealand will be required to calculate fair value on the student loan portfolio that that loss will be $1.7 billion and that there will be an ongoing liability to all New Zealanders that will see fair value for every dollar reduced by 30 percent. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Resource Management Amendment Legislation—“Pet Projects” 
7.  
JEANETTE FITZSIMONS (Co-Leader—Green) 
 to the  
Associate Minister for the Environment 
: Does the Resource Management and Electricity Legislation Amendment Bill create a “backdoor for pet projects”; if not why not? 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE (Associate Minister for the Environment) 
: 
 No the Resource Management and Electricity Legislation Amendment Bill is about getting better decisions on resource consents and getting them faster; about improved processes for working with councils especially on cross-boundary or complex resource consents; and New Zealand - wide consistency in consenting planning and environmental standards. It is certainly not about favouring special interests over and above the interests of all New Zealanders. 
Jeanette Fitzsimons 
: In light of the Minister’s statement last week that: “In essence National’s plan would allow a Government of the day to specify minimum standards for any development project pylons prisons or motorways and would give a developer an unstoppable green light to go ahead.” what is the difference between National’s policy and Labour’s leaked list of 39 fast-tracked major projects including pylons prisons and motorways? 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE 
: I cannot answer that better than in the words of the  
Otago Daily Times 
 editorial on 29 July this year part of which reads as follows: “The Government wants faster decision-making for resource consents more power for local councils to work with developers to speed things along and national guidelines to avoid the conflicting standards between regions. National wants to go much further—too far in fact. … Under National’s proposals we very much doubt whether for example the campaigns which succeeded in Lake Manapouri being saved from destruction or Aramoana from smelter construction would have been more than pipe dreams. National’s proposals to scrap the inexpensive provision of legal aid for objectors and reintroduce security for costs from objectors are a bare-faced attempt to erase basic rights of dissent while its measures intended to diminish the rights of local government in resource consent matters would actually extinguish a basic premise of the Act which is that communities most affected by applications should have the principal say in decision-making.” 
Madam SPEAKER 
: That answer was too long. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: How many flip-flops has the Minister’s Government done on the Resource Management Act noting that in 1998 it described direct referral to the Environment Court as “evil and dangerous” but it is now included in its bill; noting that he claimed in February that removing de novo hearings in the Environment Court would reduce costs and delays but now that has been abandoned; and noting that in 2000 the party opposed limited notification but later adopted it; and is it not the truth that Labour has no idea how to try to reduce the costs the uncertainties and the delays of the Resource Management Act? 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE 
: The ministerial referral included in the bill reported back is quite different from the developer-driven referral that Dr Smith has always advocated. 
David Parker 
: What reports has the Minister seen with regard to community consultation? 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE 
: I have seen a report that National will scrap the environmental legal aid fund. That was Dr Donald Brash at the Local Government New Zealand annual conference. We know that that view is not shared by the Port Levy Environmental Protection Society which received $29565 last year from the environmental legal aid fund. Of course the leader of the Port Levy Environmental Protection Society is none other than David Round National’s candidate for Christchurch East. 
Larry Baldock 
: Can the Minister confirm that proposals to reduce delays in the Resource Management Act such as by enabling resource consent applicants to refuse further information requests from councils and having their consent accepted or rejected on the information provided expanding the capacity of the Environment Court and councils to reject vexatious and frivolous objectors and enabling an applicant to seek direct referral to the Environment Court for major consents that are likely to be appealed regardless of income are by and large in major part dealt with in the bill before the House this week and will be fixed by about lunchtime Thursday and that those come from the National Party policy to change the Resource Management Act? 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE 
: Yes I can confirm those statements. I would like to take the opportunity to thank that member for his very positive contribution in the select committee and in this very good policy development that I consider is evolutionary rather than revolutionary. 
Jeanette Fitzsimons 
: Why did he exclude any representation of community conservation Maori or recreational groups on the six reference groups set up to develop national infrastructure standards on pylons power stations roads stormwater telecommunications and gas facilities choosing instead to leave the job to the industries that want to build them and to Government officials? 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE 
: As I think the member is aware from the news release from my colleague Minister Hobbs at 11.58 this morning the status of those proposals is as scoping studies only. Those non-governmental organisations and the full community will have every opportunity to be involved in the development of any such national environmental standards or national policy statements should a decision be made to proceed with them in due course. 
Jeanette Fitzsimons 
: Is it not true though that once the reference groups have developed drafts written submissions from the community will make little difference given that there is no provision for public hearings or debate and that the judges of the submissions will be the officials who wrote the first draft? 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE 
: No. 
Jeanette Fitzsimons 
: Is not the only difference between National and the “Labour-Progressive-United” Government on the Resource Management Act the fact that National is upfront about shutting out environment and the community and that the Government wants to maintain a facade of consultation? 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE 
: No. I am sure that member is aware that these consultations have taken place within industry with local government with organisations such as the Law Society and the Business Council for Sustainable Development and are widely supported and greeted by them. [ 
Interruption 
] If the member had read their letter he would find quite the contrary. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: I seek the leave of the House to table the press release of Mr David Benson-Pope on 14 February this year saying that the de novo hearings would reduce costs and delays but that he subsequently had to abandon them. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is objection. 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE 
: I seek leave to table a number of documents. The first one is the incorporation document of the Port Levy Coastal and Marine Protection Society. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE 
: The second is a report from the  
Otago Daily Times 
 editorial of 29 July 2005 entitled: “It’s our environment”. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is objection. 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE 
: The third document is a column from the  
Nelson Mail 
 dated 26 July entitled: “RMA shake-up would limit local input”. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is. 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE 
: The next is an article from the  
New Zealand Herald 
 under the name of Raewyn Peart entitled: “RMA plans an attack on rights. National’s proposals to change the Act will cut people out of decision making”. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is. 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE 
: I have two more documents. The first is a letter from the New Zealand Law Society dated 1 August in support of the changes proposed in the draft bill. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE 
: The second document is a letter from the Business Council for Sustainable Development which is generally very supportive of the same bill. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Health—Recent Developments 
8.  
STEVE CHADWICK (Labour—Rotorua) 
 to the  
Minister of Health 
: What reports if any has she received on recent developments in the health sector? 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Minister of Health) 
: 
 I have seen a report from Counties Manukau District Health Board on its most recent achievements. This is an area of New Zealand with some of the highest health needs and in this last year the district health board has provided mental health services for 18 percent more people achieved an 11 percent reduction in acute admissions for children enrolled over 6500 in chronic care management and in Care Plus delivered all three doses of meningococcal B vaccine to 90 percent of primary school - age children and has spent less on management and administration than it did before it became a district health board while at the same time achieving a 29.5 increase in medical staff and a 16.8 percent increase in nursing staff. What does the National Party want to do about that? It wants to go back to the future and wreck all that progress to pay for tax cuts. 
Steve Chadwick 
: What other reports has she seen on recent developments in the health sector? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: I read a report in the  
New Zealand Herald 
 last week that talked about rationalising small primary health organisations because they are inefficient. Yet the Counties Manukau district has several small primary health organisations and they provide excellent examples of current primary health care policies and chronic care management programmes. Everybody knows that rationalisation is another name for cut-backs and that is exactly what National promises to do so that it can pay for its tax cuts. National calls that choice. Yeah right! 
Dr Paul Hutchison 
: Does she deny the damning statement of the July 2005 New Zealand OECD report specifically relating to health which states: “Although it has long been assumed that an expansion of inputs would directly feed into a rise in outputs it is now increasingly obvious that this assumption is false.” which sums up the waste bureaucracy and inefficiency under her watch over the last 5 years—does she deny that report? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: No. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Does one of the reports she has received on recent developments in the health sector include reference to the 1329 people who died on hospital waiting lists last year because she and her administration could not get them an operation or to the almost 2700 who have died in the last 2 years and in addition to the boast that we are at 54 percent of Australia’s cost on pharmaceuticals and at one-third of the OECD’s? Has she got those reports yet; if so what will she do about them? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: There is no such report that states that over 1000 people died of conditions for which they were waiting for operations that they did not receive. In fact that is palpably and demonstrably false. There is a report on people who died while they may well have been waiting to have their carpal tunnel fixed or their cataracts done. They may well have died in a car accident or of old age but there is no such report that states that they died of the condition for which they were waiting for an operation. 
Sue Kedgley 
: Is the Minister aware that the Australian Government has published a comprehensive and detailed plan outlining how it would respond in the event of a bird flu pandemic and has allocated $156 million to bird flu preparations; why has her ministry still not published a similarly detailed plan outlining how New Zealand would cope in the event of a bird flu pandemic and in particular how the Government plans to plug gaps such as a lack of facilities to quarantine and isolate patients a lack of laboratory surveillance to enable us to rapidly detect the virus and a lack of preparedness in the primary health care sector generally and on how the ministry would resolve ethical issues such as the rationing of the Government’s limited supplies of the antiviral drug Tamiflu? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: That member has requested a briefing from the Ministry of Health which is to be held at 1 o’clock tomorrow so she will be better informed about what New Zealand is doing and we will certainly be able to show her the comparison between what New Zealand is doing and what Australia is planning to do. As I was at the meeting of health Ministers in Australia last week I think I probably have a better idea as to how ready they are in comparison with New Zealand. 
Judy Turner 
: Does the Minister agree that the recent DigiPoll result showing that the majority of people believe doctors’ fees have increased under Labour can be explained by the fact that there are over 1.2 million adults many of them parents who are struggling with the costs of raising a family who are paying in excess of $50 or $60 to visit the doctor or even worse who do not go because they cannot afford it; if so does she believe New Zealanders might think differently if all families were targeted as a priority to get subsidies? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: I agree with the member and by July 2007 under this Labour Government all New Zealanders will have universal access to affordable primary health care something that National would get rid of. Unfortunately DigiPoll surveyed everybody not just those who are receiving subsidies now. It is not a very valid poll at all. 
Steve Chadwick 
: What other reports has the Minister heard of the way the Government’s primary health care policy is working? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: We have many reports of how well the primary health care strategy is working in many different parts of New Zealand. In fact I could tell members of different parts of New Zealand that are now addressing issues like diabetes and chronic conditions like cardiac conditions cancer and so on. We are starting to see some real progress. What does National want to do? It wants to get rid of it to give less than 20 bucks a week in a tax cut to all New Zealanders it says. Yeah right! 
Student Loans—Interest-free Policy 
9.  
Hon BILL ENGLISH (National—Clutha-Southland) 
 to the  
Minister of Education 
: Does he stand by the statement he made earlier this year that major changes in student loan policies were only likely to happen “if the country struck oil and we were guaranteed economic security for the next 50 years”; if not why not? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Minister of Education) 
: 
 In the same interview I also said that Labour had a commitment to keep improving things. I think last week’s announcement that we will scrap interest on student loans makes good on that commitment. I think that many of those responsible for the 620000 hits on the Labour website agree. 
Hon Bill English 
: Can the Minister confirm that the real reason he changed his mind was that Labour was behind in the polls and that he and Helen Clark have rolled Dr Cullen and decided to abandon Labour’s claims to fiscal credibility? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: No to all of that. I would like to add that one of the people who has been leading the policy in this area because of his concerns for the long-term economy and the community as a result of the overbearing loan scheme approach has been Dr Cullen. 
Nanaia Mahuta 
: Has the Minister seen any alternative proposals to change student loan repayment policies? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: I have seen an approach. It is a rather unusual one. What it says is that the higher one’s income the lower one’s effective interest rate is. That means that someone on an income of $100000 or $200000 has a much lower effective interest rate than a mum at home or a poor Pacific Island family on a very low income. I think that approach from Bill English is disgraceful. 
Deborah Coddington 
: Can the Minister confirm that Mr English actually paraphrased and that what the Minister really said was: “if the country struck oil and we were guaranteed economic security for the next 50 years or we’re down in the polls 2 months out from an election” and that that is the real reason for this election bribe? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: From memory the decisions on this were made when Labour was ahead in the polls but that is an irrelevant point. At the moment a person who is jumping before the ship goes down is hardly the one to talk about poll ratings. 
Hon Bill English 
: Can the Minister confirm that only 25 percent of borrowers have a loan balance of over $20000 but that that 25 percent of borrowers will get 80 percent of the proceeds of a multibillion-dollar interest write-off; how does he justify channelling 80 percent of the multibillion-dollar interest-rate write-off to just 25 percent of the borrowers—those with the biggest debts? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: I am slightly bemused by that question. The National Party of course excludes from its policy mums at home looking after their kids. Their loan balances will go up— 
Dr Don Brash 
: They aren’t paying interest now. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: They are paying interest. That shows again that Dr Brash does not know the detail of his own policy. Under the National policy a woman at home with kids has her balance going up while the person with income of $100000 has a highly discounted interest rate. Dr Brash should get on top of the detail of his own policy; showing his ignorance in the House is not good. 
Dr Don Brash 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. The student loan scheme provides that for mothers at home their real loan remains constant. Can the Minister confirm that? 
Madam SPEAKER 
: That is not a point of order. Would the member like to rephrase it as a question. 
Dr Don Brash 
: The Minister asserted something that is factually wrong. I challenge that. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: That is a debatable issue. If the member would like to ask a question then the Minister should respond to it. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. I made a complaint about the way you were conducting the House earlier today and I am making another complaint now. A member cannot rise on a point of order and ask a question. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: I entirely agree with the member but I was saying that that was not a point of order and that if he would like to ask a question he should ask one. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: The second thing is that points of order are always heard in silence. We cannot have this sham as we close for the election—it will be a big enough sham after when these people go from here. My real point is that if Dr Brash was going to make a point in his point of order it was that the thing was consumer price indexed—that is all it means. Dr Brash has got it wrong again. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: It might just be a matter of advice to the member opposite but the way to ask a question is to stand up say “Madam Speaker” then say “supplementary question” and maybe the member should do that. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Would the member please sit down. That is not a point of order. 
Hon Bill English 
: Can the Minister of Education explain to the House how he justifies the following figures: a borrower with a balance of $15000 according to his calculator will benefit by $4600 over the life of the loan but a borrower with a balance of $40000 will benefit by 10 times as much? Why does he sit here shedding crocodile tears for people on low incomes when the vast bulk of the benefit of this policy goes to people with loans over $50000? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: As I pointed out to the member before and as the member should know the people who are best off under this policy are in fact the people who are at home—the people whose loan balances would keep on going up and up while they stayed at home looking after their kids. I do not know why the member hates women at home so much but what I do want to say to that member is that Labour’s policy is based on people paying back what they borrowed; National’s policy is based on giving extra discounts to the highest-income earners in New Zealand. 
Hon Bill English 
: If the member describes National’s policy as extra discounts to people on the highest incomes why will someone with a loan of $60000 benefit according to his calculator by $92800 over the life of this policy whereas someone with the average balance will benefit by about one-twentieth of that amount? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: What is clearly obvious is that people who have lower incomes and higher loan balances benefit more. 
Immigration Minister—Confidence 
10.  
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
 to the  
Prime Minister 
: Does she have confidence in her Minister of Immigration; if so why? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK (Prime Minister) 
: 
 Yes; because he is a hard-working and conscientious Minister. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: If that is the case what was wrong with the last Minister of Immigration because she was a hard-working conscientious Minister as well? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: That is right. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Oh she was! I will ask the Prime Minister two questions then. If that is the case one why did she fire Lianne Dalziel—a hard-working conscientious Minister—if she was not proved to be incompetent; and two why is the Prime Minister keeping this man who has just written to me saying: “Don’t write to me; write to the department.” his having of course got up in this House countless times to say: “Please give me the information.”? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: I am aware that as recently as only 25 July the member had a letter from the Associate Minister of Immigration informing him that we appreciated his sending in his 22 cases and additional information on one individual and that of those cases the department was already aware of nine and we were following up the other cases that the member had been kind enough to bring to our attention. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: If this Minister is a hard-working diligent conscientious capable Minister what has happened to the family of 16 all of whose families were deconstructed in the Middle East then reconstructed falsely here; and why does it take months to find out what would take any investigator about 3 hours to find out? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: Obviously I cannot comment on the details of cases like that. I simply do not have the details in front of me. I have no idea whether they are true. 
Hon Paul Swain 
: Can the Prime Minister confirm the importance of checking details accurately when information comes across given that the last time that member raised a particular person’s name in this Parliament he went out for a terrorist and came back with a mechanic? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: Obviously it is important to get the facts right because people’s status in New Zealand hangs on it. 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: In respect of the Minister of Immigration why should the people of New Zealand have any confidence in this Government which always lets in the bad ones but makes the good ones wait in the line for years on end? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: My recollection from answering questions along these lines for some time is that a number of the people we have had to act against were people admitted during that member’s time in Government. 
Treaty of Waitangi Claims—Deadline 
11.  
GERRY BROWNLEE (Deputy Leader—National) 
 to the  
Minister in charge of Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations 
: Does he stand by the reported statement of then Minister in Charge of Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations Hon Margaret Wilson in 2002 that National’s policy of putting a time limit on Treaty of Waitangi claims was out of touch and ignored the complexity of the treaty settlement process; if not why not? 
Hon MITA RIRINUI (Associate Minister in charge of Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations) 
 on behalf of the 
 Minister in charge of Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations 
: Yes and I note that the former Minister’s comment was in response to National’s policy that was to have a cut-off date by the end of 2006 and a target of 2008 for the settlement of all claims. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Can the Minister confirm that under the Labour Party in Government there will be no restriction on how long claims take to settle and no end in sight for the treaty grievance industry; if not can he tell us what dates it has in mind for settling such grievances? 
Hon MITA RIRINUI 
: We have been foreshadowing for some time that we will need to set a cut-off date because the historical claims process can never be completed if there is an open-ended entry point. I suggest that the member wait for the announcement on 21 August to know what the policy is. 
Russell Fairbrother 
: What other reports has the Minister seen about time limits on Treaty of Waitangi settlement deadlines? 
Hon MITA RIRINUI 
: I note that National’s 2005 treaty policy now sets down 2010 as being the date for total completion of historical Treaty of Waitangi grievance settlement claims. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Can the Minister rule out that the 21 August announcement he just mentioned will set settlement date limits? 
Hon MITA RIRINUI 
: The member will have to wait and see. 
Stephen Franks 
: What weight does the Minister give to warnings in the House against time limits for treaty settlements complaints that ACT member Derek Quigley’s bill in 1998 brought them into the “games of party politics” and claims that “… trying to set deadlines in legislation … is exactly the wrong approach. Artificial deadlines carved in stone will not work. They are a falsehood … I will bet that member the best bottle of Nelson wine … that if we go down this track a future Parliament will be undoing those deadlines …”; and would the Minister care to repeat with me Dr Nick Smith’s bet that this will not be the only piece of ACT policy that Labour and National will eventually adopt? 
Hon MITA RIRINUI 
: I give no weight to those claims. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Does the Minister accept that the statement by the Prime Minister: “Our treaty obligations extend beyond the settlements for historic claims—the closing of the huge gaps which have developed in almost every field between Maori and Pakeha.” means that the public simply could not accept that Labour would ever enforce a closure date for the settlement process? 
Hon MITA RIRINUI 
: As I said the member will have to wait and see. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Does the Minister have any reports as to who gave the most legs to the policy about which the National Party is currently complaining and who gave Doug Graham a knighthood for his work on the Treaty of Waitangi industry? 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. You may well be indulging Mr Peters given that it is the last day but I think it is only fair to say that the National Party is firm in its policy that there will be closure on these matters but is very proud to be promoting the idea that New Zealand should settle treaty grievances. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: I am not sure where all that takes us but that is not a point of order actually. [ 
Interruption 
] Yes but I also note that the Minister in charge of Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations is not responsible for the awarding of honours. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I know that but I am asking whether he has received any reports as Minister of the National Party’s involvement in the Waitangi industry per se and any reports as to how that actually graduated into giving Doug Graham a knighthood for it—contrary to the words they speak nowadays? 
Hon MITA RIRINUI 
: The reports that I have heard have come from the National Party itself. 
Home Ownership—Government Initiatives 
12.  
GEORGINA BEYER (Labour—Wairarapa) 
 to the  
Minister of Housing 
: What initiatives if any have been put in place to assist New Zealanders into a secure and affordable home? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY (Minister of Housing) 
: 
 The good news is that 57000 New Zealand households with 78000 children are an average of $35 per week better off as a result of the income-related rents policy. This has contributed directly to the reduction in poverty levels in this country. Two thousand five hundred families have had their homes modernised made more healthy or improved and another 2300 families have received an energy efficiency retrofit. We have also launched Welcome Home Loans to help Kiwis buy their first house. Over 1000 households have been helped into their own homes at this pilot stage. That will be expanded to 5000 homes next year with another 5000 to 8000 first home buyers per year to be assisted through the new KiwiSaver programme. It is good news. 
Georgina Beyer 
: Is the Minister satisfied that the current number of State houses is sufficient to meet the need of the community for affordable low-cost and quality housing? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: No not yet. That is why we have been providing for an additional 5700 State houses since 1999 and why we have budgeted for another 3288 houses over the next 4 years. We had to do this because 13000 houses were sold during the 1990s to provide at least $2 billion for the National Party to pay for its latest round of tax cuts. 
Georgina Beyer 
: What responses has he seen to the Government’s housing initiatives? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: Most people such as all church leaders have been very clear in their support of the Government’s housing policies. However one group stands out because it has labelled income-related rents as a complete disaster; it has rejected the idea of KiwiSaver; it has said through its leader Dr Don Brash that New Zealanders would rather rent than own a home so it rejects home ownership; and it has also said through its spokesperson on housing that it would sell houses to speculators if it had a chance. That is the National Party which sold $2 billion worth of State houses and will do so again if it gets a chance. 
Question No. 8 to Minister 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Port Waikato) 
: 
 I seek leave to table the relevant pages of the July 2005 OECD survey. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is objection. 
Valedictory Statements 
Hon ROGER SOWRY (National) 
: 
 The time has come for me to say my last words in this Chamber. It is fitting I think that I say them immediately following question time because question time is still one of the most robust parts of this Chamber. 
In fact I can well remember my first parliamentary question written for me by the research unit and delivered to me. With much excitement I rang home and alerted my family to the fact that I was about to ask a question and that they should listen on the radio. The question was to the Hon Denis Marshall the Minister of Conservation at the time. It was my maiden question the House was quiet and I stood and asked the Minister what he was doing to keep rats off Kapiti Island. The House remained silent and Mike Moore who was then the Leader of the Opposition leaned forward and in a loud voice shouted: “Stopping the member from visiting!”. To laughter that I thought at the time was far more vigorous from my side than that of the Opposition I learnt an important lesson: never ask a patsy question. I am proud of my record during my first 3 years in Parliament in that I asked the least number of questions as a Government back-bencher. 
Like many here I worked my way through the party organisation for a nomination to a seat and a place in this Parliament. I have had the privilege to serve as both a constituency member of Parliament and a list member and I have had the opportunity over the last 15 years to serve on the Government back bench on the whips’ desk as junior and senior whip as a Minister as the Leader of the House as a minority Government manager as deputy leader of the National Party and then as an Opposition back-bencher. 
Throughout it all I have had a great opportunity to work with some outstanding and dedicated staff. At the risk of leaving someone out I would like to thank in particular Susan Palmer my secretary here in Parliament who has worked for me for 12 of those 15 years and Sue Reid my constituency office secretary who has worked for me for 14½ of those 15 years. They both deserve medals. I thank my ministerial office staff many of whom are here in the Chamber today: Sarah Boyle who came to me from the Clerk’s Office who has worked for me in a number of capacities and who has been an outstanding friend; and Belinda Milnes Susanne Joyce Vanessa Simpson Kathleen Lambert Celia Roundtree Debbie Sturmfels Louise Dooley and Kathy Kerr all of whom worked for me over a period of time in Parliament. I think back on those days with fondness; we were I believe a great team. 
In my electorate I have been blessed with a wonderful electorate and campaign organisation and I want especially to thank today my electorate chairmen over my period of time in Parliament David Gibbons Vaughan Chetwynd Alan Wells Eric McCabe and Ted Cobb—Ted in particular has done a sterling job for the last 6 years. I thank my campaign chairs: Jack Wilson my first ever campaign chair who taught me a lot; Trevor Roberts who has campaigned with me for three elections; Paula Tessarero; and Lorraine Pollark. To them I owe a great deal of thanks. There are many others too many to name—people who have worked in my organisations my branch committees and my electorates who have been branch chairs and treasurers who have run the membership organisation and who have done all the tasks that have needed to be done. One simply cannot function in this House without their support and I thank them all very very much. 
Fifteen years ago when I delivered my maiden speech my oldest daughter Katherine was 1 year old. Katherine Erica David and Phillipa have known nothing other than politics in their father’s life. My wife Shirley like all parliamentarians’ spouses has carried the responsibility of—and cared for—our family all too often on her own. The hours of work are long; it is not always easy and I thank her and the family for all their huge support. 
I have enjoyed my time in Parliament but I have to say that I miss the pre-MMP debating chamber. I miss the tactics. I miss being able to go into the caucus and spring urgency on it. I miss the voting in the lobbies and the comradeship that developed by our going through the lobbies. I miss the debates in which both sides of the House used to participate rather than one side participate and the other side move closure motions. I miss the speeches from the heart and sometimes even from the head that were given in this Chamber—speeches that were not read from some research unit paper but that were delivered with passion and with feeling. I miss all those things and find today’s Chamber somewhat formulaic. The House today is far more representative than the House I walked into 15 years ago but it has far less flavour in it. I loved the ebb and flow of this Chamber; it was unpredictable. 
I remember—and some of my colleagues will remember well—my speaking on a welfare bill from the Government whip’s desk. It was a small piece of legislation in the early 1990s that was going to stop the payment of invalids benefits to people who were on an invalids benefit and overseas for more than 4 weeks. The Labour spokesperson at the time was Clive Matthewson. He had put up an amendment in the Committee stage that allowed disabled athletes to go overseas and spend a longer period of time there because they might be training. Neroli Fairhall was the example given in the Chamber during the debate. 
During the Committee stage in those days a speech was 10 minutes. I was giving a damn good speech and was 5 minutes into why we were not going to buckle on that legislation—why our ideas were pure and right and correct—when I noticed that Don McKinnon had slid out of the seat in front of me and Michael Cullen the Opposition Leader of the House had slid out from the other side. About 5 minutes into my speech Tony Ryall passed me a note that said we were accepting the Matthewson amendment.  
Hansard  
will show that in the first 5 minutes of my speech I totally opposed the amendment and in the second 5 minutes I gave all the reasons why we would then be voting for it. 
The biggest opportunity I have had in politics was given to me by Jim Bolger. It was a huge privilege being the Minister of Social Welfare and I cannot leave here without saying two things about that role. The first concerns the Family Start programme of which I am immensely proud. It is an outstanding programme it is a programme that is world-class and world-leading and it is a programme that Labour has been too slow in expanding. 
The second concerns the people I met when I first became Minister of Social Welfare who not only are the real heroes in the welfare area but are I think often unsung unseen and unsupported—the group of New Zealanders who are foster parents. They do an extraordinary amount of good work in mending the minds and bodies of young people and in helping young people who are at risk. Foster parents are some of our greatest assets in this country. I found that the time when I was Minister of Social Welfare was a very humbling experience and my time in dealing with foster parents was something that not only made me humble but made me very proud to be a New Zealander. 
I could not leave here today without reference to the brat pack: Bill English Nick Smith Tony Ryall and myself. I do not know how we got the name “brat pack”. I see that several people have claimed to have given it to us the latest claimant being Michael Laws. All I can say to that is that success has many fathers. 
We were four of a big intake. We came in here in 1990 as part of the largest new intake of MPs this country had ever seen. We became great friends. We were the youngest of that intake and we have been able to offer I think great support to each other. I certainly have received a huge amount of support from Bill Nick and Tony. 
More importantly our wives and families are here today. We have holidayed together. We have had outstanding times together. It has not been all politics; there has been a lot of fun. You could not ask in any job or any career to find such great friends. We do not agree on everything. I wish we had; it would have boosted the numbers a lot particularly on the conscience votes on my side. I have been bench mates with all three of them at various times. In any work environment anyone would count themselves privileged lucky and honoured to be able to work with those three colleagues and to have such friends as Bill Tony Nick and their families. I certainly count myself as being very fortunate. 
Finally today I want to wish Don Brash the National Party caucus and Otaki candidate Nathan Guy all the very best for a successful election. I came here 15 years ago excited about playing a role in a National Government. I leave here older wiser balder and heavier but I leave here excited about the prospect of a National Government and excited about some new challenges with Arthritis New Zealand. 
JANET MACKEY (Labour—East Coast) 
: 
 Nearly 12 years ago the people of Gisborne elected me to represent them in this Parliament. I woke up the next morning and thought: “Janet what on earth have you done? You’ve conned them all; you’ve persuaded them you know how to be an MP.” Shortly afterwards I gave my maiden speech. I still felt like an impostor because I just did not feel as I thought an MP should feel. I was very proud to have a seat in this House but I was sure my tenure would be brief as a result of the good people of Gisborne coming to their senses. 
Today I rise to give my valedictory speech after 12 years of representing not only the people of Gisborne and the East Coast but also those of Wairoa Maraekakaho Crownthorpe Ohope Opotiki Taneatua Whakatane Ruatoria and a hundred other small communities. And I have to admit today that every 3 years I have woken up on the morning after the election and thought: “Janet what on earth have you done?”. 
My first months in Parliament were an absolute nightmare. Richard Prebble may have had trouble finding furniture; I had trouble finding my office. I have no sense of direction—for those who do not know me well—and coming from Gisborne I found this place an absolute labyrinth. It was no better in the electorate. On several occasions I have had to phone colleagues from neighbouring electorates to rescue me from God knows where in the middle of Hawke’s Bay. Thank you Rick Barker. I was invited several years ago to Crownthorpe School a delightful small school whose location I am still not 100 percent sure of. I accepted the invitation. I left Wellington early on Friday morning and found the school four Fridays later. The next week driving to Wellington from Gisborne I apparently took a wrong turn somewhere around Taihape and I drove past Crownthorpe School seven times. 
Parliament in 1993 was full of formidable and daunting people. The first time I went to get into a lift in the Beehive David Lange Jonathan Hunt and Koro Wetere preceded me. These are not big lifts. I got in the doors tried to close and the buzzer sounded to say that we were terminally overloaded. David Lange suggested that it would be very helpful if I got out. 
Last week Richard Prebble acknowledged David in his valedictory speech and I want to do the same. I had the unique experience for a lowly back-bencher of sitting beside David on the back benches shortly before his retirement. He was a wonderful bench mate in so far as he kept me amused for the whole of question time with his interjections. I wish I had written them down. I remember congratulating David on the birth of his daughter Edith. I said: “Why have you called her Edith? Is it after Edith Piaf ‘The Little Sparrow’?”. He said in that wonderful voice of his: “No it’s Edith Lange the little kereru”. I hope Edith does not hear this. He was also extremely irritating in that if I left my cryptic crossword unattended for more than a minute he would complete it by the time I got back leaving me feeling utterly inadequate. Shortly before he left Parliament I was able to seize the moment. David went out. He left his cryptic crossword on the desk with two clues still unanswered. I summoned up every ounce of intellectual energy I possessed and I finished those two outstanding clues. I was surprised that David did not immediately pick that I was the intellectual giant who had finished his crossword but after a while he did look at me and give me a couple of grunts. Over the years I have decided to interpret that as extremely high praise. 
But there was also the David Lange who proved to me that he was generous to a fault. Shortly before nominations for the Gisborne seat were called in 1992 I rang David with the news that the local law society which had bankrupted my ex-husband was now pursuing me for my house. David’s immediate response was to pay the law society and annul the bankruptcy. I declined his offer but I have never forgotten it. He continued to assist me with advice as I met the local law society in the District Court and then in the High Court. Shortly before the election I received notice that the law society was pursuing me to the Court of Appeal. I was of course unable to defend myself in that court and I could not afford a lawyer. David’s advice was: “Stall them Janet.” and I did. Three weeks after I was elected to this Parliament the society withdrew that application. I wish David and his family well. 
When I arrived in Parliament I was a single parent. If Muriel Newman were here I am sure I would be able to hear her grinding her teeth and I am sure that Larry Baldock is sending a quick one up for my poor fatherless household. I stood for the seat under first past the post and although the electorate was large by first-past-the-post standards I could still get home for dinner most nights when I was in the electorate. That is no longer the case under MMP. Looking back I wonder where I ever found both the nerve to stand and the energy to do the job. I had a big and marginal electorate that required not only hours of work but also hours of driving. I had small children living at home with a housekeeper during the week and on the weekends I was both mum and dad. 
I take this opportunity to thank my children Moana Erin and Turei for the good humour with which they have accepted—and in one case imitated—my choice of career. They have always supported me in my work. They have propped me up at times when I was flagging. What amazes me is that they have all turned out to be such nice people. They have grown up while I have been in this Parliament. Turei is off to Cuba after this election—and anyone who knows Turei will not be surprised by that. Erin is now a wonderfully competent chef working in Wellington and Moana will be the best MP the East Coast electorate has ever had. Can I say that that is just fine by me because I still intend to claim the credit. 
In 1993 I was a wee bit of an outsider. I was a single parent and I lost my job when I announced that I was standing for Parliament. So for a total of 8 months the children and I were very grateful for the domestic purposes benefit. It did mean however that I had no choice but to come first on the night and winning the seat on election night with a majority of 1900 votes was my second proudest moment. My proudest was being the first general seat Labour MP ever to win the East Coast booths and I thank Ngati Porou and the people of the East Coast communities for the unflagging support they have given me and the children for 12 years. That night my campaign manager thought that winning the first booth returned was the most momentous thing and he has called me “the member for St Mary’s Hall” ever since. Thank you Bevan for your valuable contribution which has lent much to the past 12 years. 
In 1996 I was really guaranteed a hiding to nothing. Under MMP the seat had expanded to take in every farmer from Hawke’s Bay to Opotiki. I was predicted to lose on the night by approximately 5000 votes. At 1 a.m. on election night the vote finally came in. My mum who had stayed in Auckland because she could not bear to watch me lose rang when the final vote was announced. “Oh Jan” she said “you’ve won.” Mothers say things occasionally that are very obvious. Then she said: “You know dear you were such a difficult wee girl but I think you’re going to turn out all right.” I had won two elections I was 42 years old and my mother was Irish. Mum died just weeks before Moana entered Parliament. I wish she could be here this evening; she would be so relieved that I am finally going to get a proper job albeit as a publican. 
I have tried over the years to deliver a good service across a vast electorate. I have four offices and there have been years when I have paid for extra offices myself. I pay tribute to all the staff who have struggled on less than shoestring budgets in my electorate offices to provide a great service to my constituents. To Peta in Whakatane to Lynda and formerly Di and Renee in Opotiki to Sue in Gisborne and Maxine and Lee who preceded her to Sonya Denise and Nigel in Wairoa: thank you all. 
Under MMP my electorate has continued to grow like Topsy. It now includes the whole of Whakatane Ohope Opotiki the entire East Coast and south towards Hawke’s Bay. One of the great mysteries of the workings of the Parliamentary Service is the determination that rural MPs who drive 60000 kilometres a year should receive 19c a kilometre for providing and using their own vehicle to do their job yet an urban MP who drives less than 5000 kilometres a year for some reason receives 96c a kilometre. I have always hoped that somebody would be able to explain to me before I go why this should be so but nobody has as yet. Nothing will change the fact that it has cost me a considerable proportion of my income to provide my own vehicle and drive it but I hope that my raising the issue here this afternoon may lead to a change for other rural MPs and for those who follow me. It seems to be a failure of Parliament’s administration that it just does not recognise that rural seats in New Zealand can be enormous yet a cornerstone of our political system is that all people should have access to their elected representative. 
Over the years I have developed a very rewarding relationship with the farming communities I inherited under MMP. I remember the first time a farmer contacted me. It was about 6 o’clock in the morning—as they do. The voice on the end of the phone said: “I suppose you’re not even out of bed yet even though half the day’s gone.” That was my introduction to telephone calls from farmers. They always ring me at 6 o’clock in the morning and I always return the call at 10.30 at night. Most of the contact I have had from farmers has not been about access issues or the Kyoto Protocol. It has always been about the school bus about the health system or about the risk of losing the second classroom in their two-classroom school building—and it is hard to believe that the Ministry of Education would leave any school in New Zealand with one room but it used to. Farmers have an extraordinary sense of responsibility to their communities and I have learnt to admire them and respect them. In fact when I talk to farmers I always get great pleasure from discussing with them the parallels and the similarities between farmers and the Labour Party. At the end of the day we are both paralysed unless we form a collective. I look forward to continuing my relationship with the farming community in the electorate albeit through a slightly different channel. 
I have done a number of things in my time here some big some small all of which have given me great satisfaction. In 1999 I chaired the review of firearms legislation and as a committee we travelled the country hearing 6000 submissions from firearms owners. I think I am probably the only select committee chair to have ever been roundly told off for calling a public meeting during the roar. I decided that the further south we headed the more sensible were the attitudes and arguments against gun registration although I have to say that the elderly gentleman in Dunedin who confided to us that he had built a cannon and was keeping it in his basement caused us all a wee bit of a worry. But I was pleased that my caucus accepted as did others the committee’s unexpected recommendation and another costly and inevitably ineffective bureaucracy was avoided. 
Writing a rural education policy recognising the unique challenges faced by my little schools was for me immensely satisfying. For so many years in New Zealand we have had a policy of one-size-fits-all whether it be for small rural schools or for their larger urban cousins. Singling out the issues that made life difficult and often impossible for small one and two teacher schools was very satisfying and I thank all the wee schools in my electorate which were so much a part of the development of that policy and so supportive of it. 
Finally persuading a Minister of Transport to allow the New Zealand Coastguard to claim back the road-user charge it paid on petrol and use it in saving lives for us on the water has made a real difference to a voluntary organisation that has to fund-raise for the hundreds and thousands of dollars it costs it to provide us with a vital service. Thank you Mark Gosche. 
Perhaps the thing that makes me most proud is looking out of my window and seeing new life in the provinces. Six years ago people were moving out of Gisborne in droves. Today they are breaking down the doors to get in. Six years of attention to and investment in the provinces has given us a new lease on life new growth new jobs new businesses new faces in the street and new children in the classrooms. I want to acknowledge the work this Government has done and also the work Jim Anderton has done in helping us to bring about an enormous regional revival. 
There are so many thanks owed. To my children to whom I owe so much and to Robb who is such a doer. If a hoarding needs to go up you do not make a note of it; you go out the door and you put it up. Thank you Robb for everything. He makes sure I eat he makes sure I rest and he makes sure I take time to have fun. Thanks too to my sister Lynore and Graeme. After working for my entire parliamentary career for Mark Gosche and Richard Northey they have now moved to Taneatua where they can work for Moana. To my friends and party folk in the electorate—there are too many of you to name. But to Pat and to Norman I have to say a special thanks. We have been working on campaigns together since the 1980s and you are the only two people I know who can make the worst part of election campaigns fun. 
To Status Taxis drivers my Wellington social life—you have provided me with a level of service at times that has gone way beyond the call of duty. I am going to miss travelling with you enormously. To lobbyists who approached me in my first year in Parliament—one of them on my first day in Parliament—and who today I am pleased to say are my friends. To Mark Unsworth who arrived in my office with a carton of Cocoa Pops for my son in 1993 and to Tony O’Brien from Sky known in Gisborne as “the man from Sky”. We have had a lot of fun over the years and I look forward to continuing our friendships. 
To the security staff and the messengers and in particular to Gray’s mum who has baked me date and lemon slice for years—thank you. To the people who have worked in my office including in 1993 the amazing Raewyn who I employed after she worked for Hamish MacIntyre. To this day I have no idea how Raewyn ever persuaded me to go with her to Cuba Mall where we ended up in Roger’s Tattoo Parlour but I still bear the scars. I will never forget Raewyn sitting there observing the damage being done and she said to me: “Hamish MacIntyre used to take me to prayer meetings.” To Adrienne who worked in my office and who in true Kiwi tradition 5 years’ later ended up employing my daughter in her restaurant thank you; and to Wendy my current parliamentary secretary. 
To the people who have made my coffee cooked my food and cleaned my parliamentary office I say thank you but in particular I want to thank our amazing select committee clerks. I do want to say here in their support that the new idea that our committees should lose all historical knowledge from one Parliament to the next because of a new rule that will force them to work on a different committee every 3 years would have to be one of the daftest ideas I have ever heard of. I hope that those who return after the election will support the select committee staff in making sure it does not happen. 
To colleagues and friends from all parties I wish you well in the next Parliament whatever its make-up and it is with a little sadness that I leave you all to run the country on your own. But I would ask you to remember that this is the seat of democracy. Democracy is something we talk so much about but I was taught that democracy requires tolerance towards different political beliefs. A little more tolerance and a little less personal attack in this Chamber may elevate Parliament and its members in the eyes and in the hearts of the people we work for. 
But my biggest thanks goes to the people of the East Coast electorate who have shown so much confidence in me and have been so extraordinarily kind to me and my children. When I was first elected I wrote in a column that I was sorry that I had not mowed my lawns but that they would be mowed and property values would go back up. Erin and Turei rang me from home and said: “Please don’t do that again mum. There are six men out front mowing your lawns.” Somebody continued to mow my lawns for a very long time. To this day I am not certain who it was but I have my suspicions. One summer I set about painting my large two-storey house. A constant stream of men in overalls came through the front gate telling me I could not possibly paint it myself. I came home one weekend to find it had been done. I have been hugged in the supermarket by complete strangers and then asked to wait there while they got their mother who was in the next aisle because she would like to hug me too. But best of all they voted for me and without them none of this would have happened. 
It has been a privilege to serve the people of the East Coast in this Parliament. It has been the best of times and the worst of times and if I had the chance to go back and do it again with a little tweaking yes I would. It has been an honour and a joy. Thank you all. Ka kite ano. 
MARK PECK (Labour—Invercargill) 
: 
 Today I make my last speech to this House as a member of Parliament and can I say it is probably about 100 years too early. Tomorrow I commence a new journey with no idea of where it will lead me. 
My father encouraged me into a life of public service. He encouraged me both in his deeds as a parish priest and in discussions with me as I grew up. As I listened and learned I developed a passion for helping people. I wanted to change the world even at a very young age and as time went on I pursued interests that eventually led to my being elected to Parliament. 
But getting here was no plain sailing. John Husband will be known to many in this Chamber. He is a Southland artist and musician and was in 1993 the host of a popular radio talkback programme on Invercargill’s Foveaux Radio. I know that the Rt Hon Helen Clark certainly spoke to him on a regular basis. There was one occasion in 1993 when he uttered across the air for all to hear: “The estuary will freeze over before Mark Peck wins Invercargill.” 
Well I happened to hear that too so what to do? I travelled to Riverton—I was going out to Riverton Hospital to say goodbye to some of my union members—and I put in his box on my rather large calling card which was really large so that the senior citizens could read it the words: “Watch the estuary freeze over in November. Get your skates on special from The Warehouse.” I left that in his mailbox. That became a theme of my election campaign in 1993 and especially so when John Husband was chairing those meetings. But he was right. The last time Labour had held the Invercargill seat was in 1972. Prior to that the last time it had been won by a Labour member was in 1935. One could have put up a swede with a hat on it in Invercargill and National supporters would have voted for it! 
Not only that but I had qualities that would be unattractive to a conservative electorate—and I use “conservative” in a generous way because some of the conservative values held by people in provincial New Zealand are actually rather good values that people should adopt. I was a trade union official. I was not a Southlander. In fact I was a goddam Yankee from Kentucky. I might have been more endearing if I had been what a good friend of mine calls “a Dixiecrat”—namely a southern American Democrat. 
But what John Husband and others had not reckoned on was the incredible mood shift that was occurring amongst decent people who were concerned that the economic experiment the nation had been undergoing for more than a decade by 1993 had seriously damaged Invercargill and Southland. They had been promised a decent society. There were no longer any slogans that could explain away the high levels of unemployment the closure of business the decline in population the increase in lawlessness and the decline in social services. There was no way of explaining away why our senior citizens should be punished by having their pensions reduced at a time in their lives when they needed economic security as they never had and when that security was at risk. People had not reckoned on a little person like me frankly. 
I was totally driven by a childhood dream. My dream was awakened by my childhood experiences. I was a child living on the Mason-Dixon Line—for those who do not know what the Mason-Dixon Line is it was the dividing line between the northern and southern states of America during the civil war. I lived there during the time of the civil rights upheaval in the United States. It was the time of President Kennedy my personal boyhood hero and Martin Luther King the sensible voice of the civil rights movement. It was a time of bussing black kids to white folks’ schools. It was a time of violence towards blacks. I will never forget the bombing of the Alabama Sunday school where four little children lost their lives. The next Sunday my father led a march through Maysville in Kentucky attended by our local congregation and those people in the black community who had the courage to front up. I will never forget it. The town was lined with the good folk of Maysville who shouted abuse at those of us who dared to stand up for the black people. I was 8 years old. I knew even then that racism and injustice were wrong. Maybe I could not put a name to them but I knew what they were. 
Those early childhood days of mine made me more determined than ever that if I could ever use the talents I possessed to do good for people then I would. So with fire in my belly and a small team of activists we set about doing the unthinkable—winning the Invercargill seat for Labour. And we did. My very first duty was to deliver a pair of plastic ice skates to John Husband on the Monday morning. I suppose I was destined to be an MP. My name is wonderfully suited to politics—Mark Peck MP. I am going to patent it. It might be a nice little earner after Parliament. I will still identify my golf ball because I play a little bit of competitive golf with the initials MP. 
I really must say thank you to the people of Invercargill for their support of and trust in me to be their member of Parliament for the last 12 years. I always felt very humbled on election night. Public office is held at the pleasure of the people. They bestow that awesome responsibility critically and they judge it critically. I hope that when the ledger is finally totted up I am found to have been their good and faithful servant. 
Invercargill has come a long way since 1993. When I first came into Parliament people were saying: “Last out please turn out the lights.” I am proud of what Invercargill is now. It has a thriving student population house prices are up we have almost full employment and we have a new hospital—I will say more about that later. Coopers Corner is at last being fixed. We have new regenerated schools—I will say more about that too—and a vibrant economy. The airport is being upgraded and I tell Tim Shadbolt to get his head out of the sand if he thinks that is guilt money. That is good money. It is about providing an opportunity for our city and he should welcome it not be angry about it. 
What has pleased me more has been to see the diversification in Invercargill. Yes it will always have agriculture as its base and as long as it is economically feasible to do so aluminium will be produced. But in recent years we have seen a move into smart technology value-adds tourism and niche products. That did not happen by accident. It happened as a result of a Government that said to the regions: “You matter.” In Southland Topoclimate was the thing that gave hope to people that the regions mattered once more. 
Those of us who are constituency MPs will have gained real enjoyment out of helping people with their problems and dealing with what on occasions can be seen to be inflexible bureaucracies. On a lighter note some of the most blessed people come to see us. One gentleman who came to my office genuinely believed I could fix his cataracts. A lovely old lady who used to come and see me told me quite seriously and quite often that she was the Queen’s sister. That was wonderful because I always knew that on any occasion when we had a serious citywide problem we would get the help of her sister. 
The change that really appeals to me though is our new hospital. I know the effort that went into getting that hospital and I know that the negotiations with Treasury were extremely raw. I want to thank Dennis Cairns for refusing to accept second best. He took on the battle and the hospital in Invercargill now is a compliment to him and his team. 
What has pleased me even more than that over the last 6 years is the change in areas of social justice. The removal of the Employment Contracts Act and its replacement with fair labour laws the restoration of the pension and its future-proofing the re-establishment of an apprenticeship system and the targeting of assistance for families through the tax system have all brought about substantial relief and assistance to the people who need it most. I spoke to one young mother the other day who told me that as a result of the Working for Families package she can now take time off to stay at home with her children. Her income is actually better through working fewer hours and she is investing that time in looking after her children. Surely that has to be good if we are looking at social investment for the future. 
Now I want to talk about the schools’ review. That is probably the single issue that has driven me from this Parliament 99 years earlier than I wanted to go. I want to say something about that review. I went around those schools 3 years before the review took place and said to them that they should look now at what economies of scale they could make. One did not need to be a rocket scientist to know that if a school had a roll of 100 or just over 100 it was not going to survive for terribly much longer. It is difficult to persuade people to negotiate away their own jobs so nothing happened. There is no easy way to close schools. Everybody is against it. It is the reverse of motherhood and apple pie. But it was the right thing to do. Even in this my last hour in this House I say that it was the right thing to do. For Invercargill to have a solid schools network rationalisation had to be made. The results I am getting from the people who talk to me now tell me that we have strong schools that are working well. If I am the sacrifice for that so be it. History will judge that issue better than the petty politics that preceded it and I stand firm that that was the right thing to do in Invercargill. 
I want to mention two issues that stand out for me as a member of Parliament. Without going on about all the years in which I did this and did that I want to say that two issues were important to me. The first was mental health. Shortly after I arrived in Parliament there was an armed offenders incident at H and J’s Outdoor World. A man called Eric Gellatly held up the shop and threatened to kill anybody who tried to get him. That incident ended with Eric being shot dead by the police armed offenders squad. Eric was mentally ill. His family had tried to get assistance for him as had the people who were working with him but to no avail. The snap debate that followed in Parliament ended with mental health going to the top of the policy agenda. From that came the Mason inquiry and from that came ring-fenced funding which meant that health boards could not siphon that money off into other areas of their operation. 
I am confident as a result of that that Eric Gellatley’s death was not in vain. There will always be incidents in mental health. No Minister of Health and no politician will ever be able to stand in this House and say that people will not take their own lives because of course they will. That is the nature of the illness. But I am confident that Parliament did its duty on that occasion. Even though it might have been dragged kicking and screaming into the process of doing it Parliament did its duty. 
I want to talk about the Pardon for Soldiers of the Great War Act—legislation that I championed. New Zealand is the first jurisdiction in the world to deal with the stain of dishonour that is visited on the families of those soldiers and I am proud of that. Campaigns are under way now in Canada and the UK to similarly remove the stain from the families whose loved ones were executed during World War I. Some have said that that bill revisited history and put the norms that we understand now on the situation that existed back then. I disagree. The campaign was about exposing the awful reality that those soldiers faced in that particular war and their frailty as human beings. It was about setting that right and giving those families that live with this now today some serenity. Later on this year the Prime Minister will be presenting medals to those families whose loved ones were executed during World War I. I acknowledge the role of Dr Aaron Fox who has managed to contact the next of kin of all those soldiers. I have seen the effect that that Act has had on the lives of two of the families in particular and I know that the Act matters. 
I want to say something about race relations and as an American I think I am entitled to do so. If we listened to the debate in New Zealand we would think our race relations in New Zealand were bad. I say poppycock to that. New Zealand should start to celebrate its diversity. I have had enough of those politicians who come in here and say that our race relations are bad. What is bad is a nation that has reserves for its Indians. What is bad is a nation that institutionalises racism against blacks. What is bad is a nation that is only now pursuing the lynchings of decades ago. It is time that this House stopped the phoney debate on race relations and celebrated its diversity as a nation. I hope that future generations of politicians will lower the tone of this debate in the House and let us get on as a multicultural nation and celebrate our diversity. 
I can see the whip moving. I am just about out of time but I am not finished and I will finish soon. I want to spend a moment thanking some of my activists. I acknowledge two who are now deceased—Danny Cairns and Maurice McGowan. I visited big Danny Cairns; he was a huge man. He gave me a cuddle days before he died. He had just had an argument with his boys about mowing the lawns. He said to me: “Mark so long as I have strength I’m going to mow those lawns because I love the smell of cut grass.” I will never forget him. I will never forget Maurice McGowan. 
I also acknowledge Noel Valentine who will be listening to this speech at 283 Ness Street in Invercargill. Noel has been my mentor since I have been a member of Parliament. I know that he is listening to this debate today and he was the last candidate who stood against Ralph Hanan in 1966. Noel was not one to tell me what I wanted to hear. Noel would always tell it like it was. 
I thank my electorate staff: Judy Christie who no longer works with me John Watson Stacy Dow and Nicola McLaughlin. They have managed to get me in the right place at the right time and God knows on some occasions that has been a challenge. I thank my parliamentary staff: Kay Martin Trish McLean Helen Toner and Lorraine Griffiths. I particularly thank Helen who has come back to work with me since the birth of her son. Helen has been able to work with me at a time when I have undergone some enormous change in my life and I thank her for that. 
I thank the select committee staff: the wonderful people I have worked with such as Julian Kersey Matthew Louwrens Graham Hill Michelle Malyon and Paul—I am terribly sorry I have forgotten his name but I am feeling a little nervous just now. I particularly thank Anthony Flux in the Parliamentary Library who worked me through my economics assignments. The messengers have been really good to me at a time in my life when I have been a little down; they have been there and have made me feel good. And I thank the Status Taxis drivers as Janet Mackey did—I never graduated to Crown cars—for the way they looked after me too. Rest assured I will use their services every time I am back. 
I arrived here in 1993 in a daze. I had to pinch myself to remind myself that I was a member of Parliament. Twelve years later I leave. I no longer have to pinch myself. I know that I am a politician. The question is whether I leave here bitter and resentful or whether I leave here with some hope for the future. 
Only a few short weeks ago I would have said that I leave here bitter and resentful. The most important question that ever gets asked around the time that jobs are being given out is: “Why not me?” In my case it was never answered in the affirmative. I could never accept that it was my own behaviour that caused me to miss out on those jobs. I became so obsessed with my own defects of character that on 12 January this year I nearly killed myself. I faced a serious personal crisis and I was given no serenity to deal with that personal crisis as there were considerable rumours around here. I knew that there could and would be mischief done to me. So I made a full disclosure and I told my story. Although I might have been a bit discomfited in the process of doing so I gave others hope. Alcoholism affects many families in this country. For an MP to stand up and say: “I’m an alcoholic and I have a problem and I am dealing with it.” is something I am proud of. I also want to say that I have been overwhelmed by the messages of support and good wishes. I thank all those who have taken the opportunity to contact me. I wish them and their families all the best. 
The Chinese symbol for crisis and opportunity is the same. The crisis I have suffered has given me an opportunity to sort my life out not by denying my past but by cleaning up the wreckage of the past making amends and moving forward. I am indebted to Trevor Grice and the people at the Capri clinic for the help they have given me during a very difficult period of my life. I was going to talk a lot about rehab but I want to say one thing. It is a bit rich to expect families to deal with rehabilitation on their own. At that time they need a break from their family member as well. 
Now I want to say a few things to my family. They are here today in the gallery. To Jenny Christopher and Andrew you are the most amazing children you have done so well so early in your lives and I love you all. To Stuart who cannot be here today you are a father-in-law’s dream mate. I thank you and I wish you and Jenny all the best for your future. To Margaret we are still together Margaret against all the odds. We got through it and we are still here and I love you dearly. To my granddaughter Lara who is in the audience today as well there will come a time when you will say to me: “Grandad what was it like to be an MP?”. I want to say Lara that it is a privilege a great pleasure and a dream come true. I want you to live your dreams too. Would I encourage my children or my grandchildren to go into politics? You bet I would. It is time to go. There is one good thing about me going. It will be the first time since 1972 that the next member for Invercargill is slightly more than 5 foot 3¼ believe it or not. 
Debate interrupted. 
Tabling of Documents 
Question No. 5 to Minister 2 August 
Hon PHIL GOFF (Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade) 
: 
 I seek leave of the House to table a piece from a reporting cable that I indicated I would table during question time today. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Valedictory Statements 
Debate resumed. 
IAN EWEN-STREET (Green) 
: 
 This is a moment of exquisitely divergent emotions for me. On the one hand I am deeply saddened to be leaving this place and the many friends I have made here. On the other hand I am elated to have the freedom to be a normal human being again. I am really looking forward to being able to spend some quality time with my partner Sue and our daughter Ysabella. She is my first and I am assured only child and she turned 18 months old yesterday. 
Hon Annette King 
: And she’s beautiful. 
IAN EWEN-STREET 
: And she is beautiful—just like her father obviously! 
What a privilege it has been to be a member of Parliament and I mean that in both senses. Obviously we lead lives of considerable privilege in this House but it is also an absolute privilege for me to have been able to serve my community here. I thank all the members of the Green Party who have supported me in becoming a member of Parliament. They put their trust in me. In particular I thank all the members of the Kaikoura Greens. I cannot possibly mention them all but I want particularly to mention Alison and Norman Fletcher and Sally Atkinson who led a tireless team for me. Without their support and love I would simply not be here. Thank you all. 
What an amazing wonderful life-changing experience it has been in this House—6 years to treasure for the rest of my life. It reminds me of when I was first shoulder-tapped to become a candidate in the Kaikoura electorate in 1996. I clearly remember telling Danna Glendining that she “had to be bloody joking”—and here I am. At that time there was absolutely no way I wanted to become a member of Parliament. I could not have thought of anything worse. But when Danna Glendining and my ex-wife Marg ganged up on me I did what all men do when they are ganged up on by two women: I capitulated. I thought it was easier to be an MP than to stand up against two women and have them on my back. So I am here now and I am about to go. I have been wondering how people will remember me how I will be remembered by my colleagues here in the House. 
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: Tall dark and handsome. 
IAN EWEN-STREET 
: Tall dark handsome and young! I have wondered how I will be perceived by the wider public. My ego wants me to be remembered for the good things I have done—for saving the world and all those things. Perhaps I did not quite achieve that but I did achieve a few things. 
I am proud to have initiated the inquiry into organic agriculture by the Primary Production Committee. As a consequence we now have national standards for organics. We have funded the organic sector strategy and I think I was the person who actually brought organics into the mainstream in this country. I certainly introduced it to this House and although I was probably the butt of a few jokes in the early days I think it is now reasonably widely accepted that organics is here for the long haul and is not something to be scoffed at. 
I would also like to be remembered as somebody with a passion for biosecurity. I brought out into the open the problems we have with sea container inspections. I spent a lot of time campaigning against the aerial spraying of the painted apple moth in Auckland. But I think that the most famous insect I brought to this House was the glassy-winged sharpshooter which my colleague Clayton Cosgrove always referred to as the “glassy-eyed shitshoveller”. That shows how much he knows about biosecurity. Never mind. 
Fundamentally though I suppose I would like to be remembered in this House for being a hard-working intelligent sensible and general all-round good guy. But the reality is that I will not be. I will be remembered I suspect for my decision to stand down from the select committee inquiry into the scampi industry. The reason I stood down was that I perceived there was going to be a conflict of interest because I had established a personal relationship with a lawyer who was appearing on behalf of one of the submitters to the inquiry. That decision I thought at the time was reasonably newsworthy. I thought that the  
Marlborough Express 
 might have run something about it on about page 5. Well it probably did run something but what really blew me out of the water was that not only was I banner headlines in all the newspapers but we led the television news as well. I was gobsmacked. I really had no idea that the decision was going to be so important to so many people. Maybe it was just a slow news day that day. I suspect that was more likely the case. 
Perhaps the headline that has stuck most in my mind though is one that Richard Prebble coined here in the House and that the  
Press 
 in Christchurch picked up on. It came out the following day with this big banner headline: “Sex for questions scandal”. I read that and I thought: “God! That’s terrible! Sex for questions scandal.” and then I saw pictures of me and Sue underneath and I thought: “God! Moi? Sex scandal?”. Richard Prebble is not here today but I hope he is listening. I say to Richard that in case he had not noticed Sue is young beautiful and highly intelligent. And I—well I am not any of those actually. Even my kindest friends would probably say that I am middle-aged overweight bald and seriously boring. So Richard that was not a scandal; that was a bloody miracle. But I knew I had chosen the right woman a few days later when Sue and I were walking on the travelator over to Bowen House and Richard was walking the other way. Sue and Richard had never met so I introduced them. Sue said to Richard: “Thank you Richard for making me famous.” We do not often see him gobsmacked and at a loss for words but he did not know what to say. He sort of backed off down the corridor; he literally did not say anything. As he went around the corner Sue chased after him and said: “But watch out for my father because he still wants to kill you!”. That is my girl! I knew I had made the right choice. 
So that was the scampi scandal. I know I can joke about it now but it was a pretty difficult time in my life. It was a fairly rich experience in the rich tapestry of life—a great one for finding out who one’s friends are and perhaps more pertinently who one’s friends are not. 
I would particularly like to thank all of the members of the Primary Production Committee whom I will name: David Carter Doug Woolerton Clayton Cosgrove Gerry Eckhoff Dover Samuels Phil Heatley Janet Mackey and Harry Duynhoven. I know I was the butt of quite a few jokes for you guys at the time but the reality was that you kept me sane during that period. It was a very tough time for me and you were there for me. I will never forget that. Thank you. In fact working for the Primary Production Committee was always a highlight for me. I enjoyed the work I enjoyed the people and I enjoyed the committee staff. Bob Bunch Mary Hay Steven Mitchell: my thanks to you. I will miss you guys. It was a great time. It was the highlight of my time in Parliament in many ways working in that select committee. 
Having said that I also have to say that I am convinced you got parts of the scampi inquiry badly wrong. I believe you shot the messenger and allowed the real culprits to get away with perpetrating one of the biggest frauds and one of the gravest injustices in New Zealand history. I really struggle with the suggestion from some people that there was no evidence of wrongdoing. There clearly was. Affidavits are sworn evidence. Affidavits have convicted murderers in the past. I agree with the argument that if there is a whole sequence of events and if we go through the sequence of events and find a causal relationship between each event then we can prove that the beginning finished up at the outcome. If there is a break in the chain then we cannot prove guilt. But there is another way of looking at evidence and that is to say that it is like a jigsaw puzzle. If we have enough of the pieces and they all interlink even though a few pieces may be missing we can still see the overall picture. 
In this case I believe that there is a very clear picture of premeditated offending. And please do not forget the evidence of those people who made submissions to the Primary Production Committee but who because they were alleging criminal behaviour had their evidence returned to them. It was returned because it was outside the scope of the inquiry—I accept that. But one cannot then say there was no evidence. There was a considerable amount of evidence. 
If the next Government whichever colour it may be wants to follow up on the scampi issue—and I really hope it does because that would restore some of my faith in the political system—I suggest that a good place to start would be with Helen Cull QC. She was the lawyer who convened the State Services Commission inquiry that ran in parallel with the Primary Production Committee one. She got it right. She knows pretty much what happened but she was also constrained in what she said because her terms of reference were limited to looking at the Ministry of Fisheries and not at the offenders. I believe she should be asked to publish her real findings and that the people guilty of raping and pillaging the scampi fishery should be brought to account. 
I think that the incoming Government—again whatever colour it is—should also heed the words of former Prime Minister Sir Geoffrey Palmer when he said that the criticism of the Ministry of Fisheries by both inquiries was the most scathing criticism of a Government department in New Zealand history. I agree with that. But what has happened? Did anybody get sacked? Did anybody get moved sideways? Did anybody get rapped on the wrist with a wet bus ticket? No nobody did. At the time the chief executive officer of the Ministry of Fisheries put out a press release to say that his staff had been vindicated. They had not been vindicated. He should have been falling on his sword not continuing the fantasy that the ministry is a law unto itself and can ignore the rulings of Parliament the High Court and the Court of Appeal. I believe that the Ministry of Fisheries should be made aware of its responsibilities under the Fisheries Act and under international treaties and that it should address the social and economic well-being of coastal communities. It is simply unacceptable surely that small fishers in fisheries like cockles whelks geoducks paddle crabs pilchards and others including scampi can be put out of business and their lives destroyed by the whim of ministry officials. The quota management system is a tool in the tool-box of fisheries management. It is not an end in itself. It is most certainly not there for the purpose of hugely enriching a small number of people at the expense of others and of the ecological sustainability of the fishery. 
Enough of the serious stuff. I want to talk about the people I will remember from my time here in Parliament. Perhaps it would be easier to talk about the people I cannot forget. There are lots of characters here whom I would like to thank. I cannot possibly mention you all but I do really want to mention a few. The first one has to be my colleague Doug Woolerton who has the good sense not to be here. Doug is the joker of the Primary Production Committee—the master of the one-liner. How can I forget him? I am sure other members will not be able to forget him either. He kept us in stitches with his irreverent humour. I do remember a few incidents that I would like to share with you. At one time we were discussing surveying errors—we deal with land information as well as other things in the Primary Production Committee—and it became apparent that Mark Peck had had a dispute with his neighbour over a boundary. When it was surveyed it was found that the boundary was 9 metres in Mark Peck’s favour—in other words he had a 9-metre bigger property—at which point Doug said: “Geez Mark that must be a real bugger for your wife when she has to mow the lawn.” Then there was the time I asked him what it was like working with Winston Peters. Perhaps I should not tell this one. Doug said: “Look he’s like a racehorse. For 10 minutes every day his eyes are bright his ears are pricked and his nostrils are flaring. He races around the track and just hates to be beaten. But after the roar of the crowd dies down for the rest of the day he’s just like the other horses. He’s back in the stalls snoring and farting and rolling in the hay.” Sorry Doug! 
Who else will I not forget? It will be a long-term regret of mine that I did not keep all the notes that Clayton Cosgrove passed to me. To call them irreverent is probably praising them up. I just wish I had kept them to give to Helen or the media. That would have been the end of that political career for a start. Michael Cullen—I will not forget you either. You deliver a very boring Budget but your general debate speeches are gold. Thank you. They are fantastic. 
Simon Power 
: Oh come on! 
IAN EWEN-STREET 
: Simon’s are not too bad either. 
Mike Ward my mate here from Nelson: when he was elected in 2002 I invited him to come and stay in my apartment for a couple of weeks while he found some permanent accommodation. Three years later he is still there and now he complains that I gave him the small bedroom. But Mike really is a character. He lives the Green philosophy in a way I could never aspire to. He is a cycler and a recycler of considerable repute. Thank you Mike for your friendship and your support. I really do appreciate it and I think the planet also owes you a debt of gratitude for your decades of dedication to its survival. 
For entirely different reasons I will never forget David McGee. What a treasure that man is to Parliament. Dave thank you for your advice particularly during the scampi inquiry and the traumatic times I was having then. I really appreciated your advice your kindness and your friendship. Go well. 
Before I close I would like to say a few words about genetic engineering. There is good science and there is bad science. It may well have potential for the future but at the moment genetic engineering is indubitably bad science. To release alien species—and that is what GE species are—into our unique ecosystems is folly of the highest order. At this stage we simply do not know enough about the technology and we need to be cautious. We need always to err on the side of caution. In the meantime of course we have to be aware that ours is a market-driven economy. The market signals are very clear. Our consumers in our elite markets simply do not want to buy GE food. We already have a market made in heaven. It is one of the greater miracles of my 6 years in Parliament that we were fighting against GE when I first came in and we are still GE free. Hallelujah to that! We are still nuclear-free as well and hallelujah to that except that I think Ken Shirley wants to have a nuclear power station in his backyard. 
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: No not in his backyard—in somebody else’s backyard. 
IAN EWEN-STREET 
: He wants to have one in somebody else’s backyard. 
Parliament has given me much more than I have been able to give in return and I thank you all for that. This has been an experience to treasure. But the greatest gains to me personally are two women who are sitting up there in the gallery. They are the reason I am standing down at this election. They are the two people who have rejuvenated my life and given it new direction. Ysabella who is my first and only child is the most amazingly gorgeous wee—[ 
Interruption 
] Hello! That is her up in the back corner there. She is gorgeous—I am slightly prejudiced maybe—and everybody who meets her loves her. She is my pride and joy and the apple of my eye. Sue her mother—I did not know I was capable of loving somebody so much. At last I have a soulmate and I just cannot wait to spend more time with her. 
Thank you all for your friendship and your support. I shall miss you very much. 
DEBORAH CODDINGTON (ACT) 
: 
 It feels somewhat presumptuous to be making a valedictory speech when just 3 years ago I stood here and gave my maiden speech. Just last week a press gallery journalist in the context of my not seeking re-election asked me whether I felt I was a failure as a politician. I certainly do not. I do not believe that the success or failure of any job should be measured by the length of time spent in it. I doubt whether that journalist would consider herself a failure if she had spent 3 years working for say radio and then moved on to another position in television. I prefer to measure my achievements against my own standards. The past 3 years have certainly been pretty action-packed and I can honestly say “never a dull moment”. So I am happy to leave here with a feeling that it has indeed been worth it; that I have actually managed to make a little bit of difference for the better albeit in a small facet of a few people’s lives. 
I came into the House under the leadership of Richard Prebble and with his support and encouragement I threw myself into the job. I only lately found out that when Mr Prebble was told in 2002 that I would be standing for ACT he mused: “She’ll be trouble but she’ll be good.” Well I have been both. I was trouble but I was good too. 
I put my career in journalism on hold to come here so analogies are inevitable. One catches a whiff of the smell in the back of the cave and instinctively just as others want to run away form it the journalists want to go in to find out what is causing the smell. As an Opposition MP too this applies. One does the research asks the questions and checks out the problem. But an MP lets the journalists do the writing and it is the writing that I have missed so much and that I cannot wait to get back to. Just as good editors have encouraged pushed bullied and cajoled me into writing award-winning stories Richard Prebble made me want to work hard to be an effective MP. His experience and knowledge were invaluable and I am grateful to him for his generosity in giving advice to a novice. 
The first advice was that I should not to be scared to make mistakes; an MP who does not make mistakes is not doing his or her job. I remember that not long after the election the Hon Steve Maharey wrote to the Speaker raising a possible abuse of the privilege of free speech by me in a general debate. I had proof that despite statements to the contrary Child Youth and Family Services were still placing vulnerable children in the care of convicted sex offenders; in this case a paedophile I had named in my 1996 book. It was late at night. I nervously showed a copy of this letter to Mr Prebble thinking that I had really done it now. I was expecting a bollocking. He took the letter and read it and we got the usual scratching of the back of the head and hitching up of pants. “Hmm. This is very serious” he said as he read through the letter and he kept saying: “This is serious.” Then he said: “Well Mr Maharey has suggested to the Speaker that he ‘have a discussion with Ms Coddington’ about raising such concerns in the future. This letter itself could be a breach of privilege.” said Mr Prebble. “Go down to the House and read  
Erskine May 
 and see what you think.” 
It ended up that I happily wrote to the Speaker with a counter-charge that Mr Maharey could be just as much in breach of privilege as I was because he was trying to frustrate and impair my freedom of speech and impair the proper carrying out of my duties and performance as a member of Parliament. The complaints of course never amounted to anything but I wonder how many second or third-term MPs have sat up late at night studying  
Erskine May 
—let alone an MP in his or her first few months. Richard Prebble’s guidance helped to make this place feel slightly less alien despite the fact the former Speaker kept muddling me with Heather Roy for months. Serving with a parliamentarian of Richard Prebble’s calibre has been a rare honour and privilege. 
One of the main reasons I leapt the divide from the fourth estate was that I am driven by a desire to do more to help and protect children—not just protect them from sexual abuse but help them in terms of improving their chances for a good education. There is no doubt that most of our children do extremely well at school but not long before I left  
North and South  
magazine I wrote a feature on the appalling situation in this country whereby around 18 percent of school leavers are unable to read write or add up to a sufficient ability that they can cope with everyday life. I call this child abuse of the mind. If the same portion of students left school physically crippled there would be an outcry. 
When Qantas sponsored me as a press fellow to Wolfson College Cambridge in 2003 I studied the effect of parental choice on literacy standards in the Netherlands and Sweden. When I got back here I published my research in a little book called  
Let Parents Choose 
 and campaigned hard on the merits of a voucher system which would allow all parents not just the affluent to take children to the school they choose—an ACT policy since 1996. That policy is now being adopted—albeit incrementally—by other parties in this house. The voucher system is no longer a dirty word. “Let parents choose” became the catchcry from Russell to Blackball during our crusade against the massive school closures. Then just last week at a political meeting in Auckland a candidate for the Maori Party agreed that ACT’s education policy is the best for Maori—30 percent of whom leave school with no qualifications. 
My stance on sexual abuse has been unflinching since 1996 when I compiled my first  
Paedophile and Sex Offender Index 
. One of my express aims upon entering Parliament was to follow the lead of the United Kingdom and Canada and introduce my Sex Offenders Registry Bill. I am grateful to Allan Bracegirdle for drafting my bill so quickly and concisely and I was very lucky to have it drawn from the ballot so early in my term. It unanimously passed its first reading and is ticking its way smoothly through the select committee process. I have spoken to several MPs in other parties who firmly support the bill and I am confident that under Stephen Franks’ care this will become law in the next Parliament. That would see New Zealand stand alongside other First World nations with similar legislation. 
It is with huge satisfaction that I now see widespread recognition of the faults of the National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA). I started campaigning against this also in the pages of  
North and South 
 magazine. Before I was made education spokesperson for ACT the Education and Science Committee refused leave sought by ACT for an inquiry into the NCEA. Undaunted Richard Prebble Donna Awatere Huata and I held our own inquiry travelling around the country hearing submissions both for and—especially from parents—against the NCEA. Now as I leave the Labour Government has agreed to not one but three inquiries with the results that we all predicted when this dreadful experiment was first foisted on our school children back when National was in Government. 
Of course I do not take sole credit for these changes in attitude. The ACT party has been hugely influential on other political parties whether they care to recognise it or not. Key ACT policies are now accepted at least nominally by most parties. Issues that once made ACT a radical party—welfare abuse low taxes zero tolerance for crime ending the treaty grievance industry opening up the Family Court and honouring the right to self-defence—are now widely accepted by the New Zealand public as essential for this country’s development peace and progress. I consider myself very very fortunate to have been an MP in a party that not just tolerated my obsessions but gave me the utmost freedom to pursue my objectives. 
I have absolutely no doubt that my colleagues will be back in the next Parliament because their work in terms of being the party of influence fresh ideas and new policies is certainly very successful. They have made enormous achievements but their work is far from finished. So I do leave with a sense of achievement and accomplishment and I believe  
Hansard  
will reflect that. In select committees I have cooperated where appropriate with opposing politicians for good outcomes. For example on transport legislation Lianne Dalziel and I worked hard together to clean serious sex offenders out of the taxi industry. 
I have hugely enjoyed my time here. I have made friends across both parties from pale Katherine Rich here to brown John Tamihere over there. It is certainly a brutalising place—that is for sure. But I do not blame anyone for the battles I had to face and the demons I stared down. Even the bad times were good. I am sorry for my children; they did not like reading some things about their mother and they were hurt by it. But nobody ever said that life would be easy and when the tears were dried we always managed to sit down together bring things into perspective and have a good laugh. 
I believe members of the press gallery owe me in terms of some of the copy I inadvertently provided for them. For those who hyperventilated and billed me as a star and future leader I hope your excuse for the non-appearance of your “we got it wrong stories” is that they were spiked. There are no stars in politics just 120 MPs doing the best they can in an environment that—unjustifiably in my opinion—ranks their profession as the lowest in society. My advice to journalists is: do not knock it until you have tried it. 
 I do hope that what I went through does not deter people from standing for Parliament. I also hope that my controversial publicity does not cause the ruling hierarchy of political parties to over-sanitise those whom they decide to promote as high-ranking MPs just to save their parties from embarrassing publicity. This is the House of Representatives. People who have made mistakes who have fallen over and skinned their knees who have picked themselves up and fought another day and who have lived life to the full will have made embarrassing decisions in their past. But I doubt that New Zealand wants to be represented by 120 individuals who have never made a single mistake in their lives. That really would be a Parliament of freaks. 
So I am moving on to another pasture now which includes a happy marriage and a chance to make some fine Pinot Noir. To those who suspect I am going soft be warned: I have not finished with politics and I will not rule out a come-back. I shall be up there with the fourth estate—the nit-pickers—watching you and remembering exactly what you have promised in this election campaign. 
Thank you to my staff especially Janice Lopez Scott Dennison David Young and my electorate chair Lyn Fitness. Thank you to my colleagues who have supported and tolerated me. Kia kaha and remember: it is better to fall on principle than to stand on lies. I wish all of you the very best and I leave you with the words of Viktor Frankl a neurologist who survived 3 years in Dachau and Auschwitz: “We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances to choose one’s own way.” Thank you. 
Urgency 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Leader of the House) 
: 
 I move  
That urgency be accorded the passing through its remaining stages of the Appropriation (2005/06) Estimates Bill; the introduction and passing of the Imprest Supply (Second for 2005/06) Bill; Government notice of motion No. 1; the passing through its remaining stages of the Resource Management and Electricity Legislation Amendment Bill and any bills into which that bill may be divided; and Government notices of motion Nos 2 and 3. 
 This motion is moved so that the House can complete the business the Government wishes to see finished before the House is dissolved for the upcoming general election. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That urgency be accorded. 
Ayes 61 
New Zealand Labour 51; United Future 8; Progressive 2. 
Noes 57 
New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 8; Green Party 9. 
Motion agreed to. 
Estimates Debate 
In Committee 
Debate resumed from 28 July on the Appropriation (2005/06 Estimates) Bill. 
Vote Transport ( 
continued 
)  
MIKE WARD (Green) 
: 
 When I was cut off in full flight the other night I was talking about travelling by public transport—by the train in fact. I had hoped that the motorists who were clogging the highway outside were sufficiently grateful to me my fellow travellers those who happened to be walking or cycling on the day those who work from home and the car-poolers. The benefits of public transport are for everybody who travels on our roads. 
The Green influence was obvious in last year’s release of the national walking and cycling strategy and in the public transport strategy. Thanks to the New Zealand Transport Strategy and the Land Transport Management Act we are heading in the right direction but too slowly. The big transport issues now are climate change and the end of cheap oil. When I spoke about this issue last week the price of oil was US$58 a barrel. This morning it was US$62 a barrel and heading upwards. 
We are looking at spending a vast sum of money on roads and the idea that it is business as usual just will not do. The fact that 80 percent of the transport budget which went from $285 million in 2000-01 to a record $518 million this year is targeted at roads in the form of new State highway construction spells to me that it is a case of business as usual. Our children will not thank us for white elephant motorways which will be memorials to our lack of foresight when we can no longer afford to drive on them. 
We have to move away from building infrastructure that perpetuates behaviour that even if it were sustainable can only be described as bizarre. Instead we have to change people’s behaviour. I have spoken about my concern for my grandchildren and it puzzles me that people in this generation persist in living far too far from all the places they need to be. The future may look bleak but sitting in slow-moving queues of traffic day after day travelling to destinations that we should have lived much closer to is not exactly a bundle of laughs either. 
The Greens want a fairer deal for alternatives to cars. Urban and rural State highways receive 100 percent State funding. Urban public transport requires matching funding from local rates. To get real investment in public transport we need to level the playing field; otherwise the money allocated to public transport depends on weary ratepayers coughing up the funds. The Greens are committed to changing this outdated system. I want to talk about where we need to be. It is about redesigning our lives. 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON (National—Pakuranga) 
: 
 Given that we are debating the transport estimates I will keep the focus deliberately on road funding. I very much want to talk about how the current Government has used something called “smoke and mirrors”. A year ago the Government announced the huge figure of $18.7 billion for roading over the next 10 years. I have to say quite honestly that as an Opposition member I was gobsmacked by that figure. That is the biggest number for roading that I had ever heard under any circumstances and I said: “Wow! How do we counteract that?”. I thought that we simply could not counteract it and that we had better be silent because that is what one should do in Opposition if one cannot counteract something. But then I went back to my office. I sat down with an Excel spreadsheet I looked at the last 10 years of road funding and I looked at what the average amount of growth had been which was around 6.9 percent per annum—and I ask members to remember that that is just growth from petrol tax road user charges and so on. It is nothing to do with the largesse of the Government; it is just that as people use so they create the revenue. So I took that average 6.9 percent I took last year’s base figure I put in growth of 6.9 percent for the next 10 years and it came out at $19.1 billion. In other words this huge number which to be fair was bigger than ever before was actually slightly less than the historic growth that we have been experiencing. I have noticed ever since that the current Minister Pete Hodgson—and I would like to hear his comments on this—often says that the Government is spending more on roads this year than ever before. 
Dr Wayne Mapp 
: Not true. 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: No no. My colleague from the North Shore says that it not true but Pete Hodgson is correct. That is true for every year in the history of the country for the last 20 years—for any one year and for any Minister of Transport. I have here the table that was developed for us by the researchers in the Parliamentary Library. It shows all the subsidies and spending. There was though one big year when it jumped and I wondered how it went up in 1990 so much. But it turned out that that was a 15-month year because we realigned the accrual accounting. But in every other year that was the case. 
Let me give members the figures. I will start with the next year 1991 when the amount was $503 million. In the next year it was $528 million the next year $541 million then $581 million the next year $601 million the next year $624 million the next year $637 million the next year $757 million the next year $813 million and the next year $884 million. Do members get the pattern? Every year the spending on roading was more than the spending in the previous year. So it is no great claim when Pete Hodgson comes into this House and says: “We’re spending more on roading than we have ever spent.” That is true—but it has always been true. The real test is what percentage of the economy the Government is actually spending on roading. That is the true measure. As the economy grows—and the GDP has grown every year along the way—so should what the Government is spending match it. 
I want to go through a few tables. Here is a chart and I think that Paul Swain when he was Minister of Transport answered the first 3 years of it and then Mr Hodgson filled in the last ones. This graph is called “Auckland Roads: Capital Expenditure on New State Highways and New Local Roads”. If we listen to the Labour Government it would have us believe that what it was spending in Auckland compared to the spending of the National Government was huge. Well members should have a look at the graph. The blue tower on the left represents National’s last full year in office. The purple tower the next one up is a part year—it is 7 months of National and 5 months of Labour. The rest of those towers for the next 4 years represent the Labour Government in full. Now these are the Minister’s answers to written questions on how much money was spent on Auckland roads. Only in the 2003-04 financial year did the spending actually get above what National had been spending back in 1999. So I tell the Minister that he should forget the smoke and mirrors and forget the argument: “Well we are doing better.” 
What do members think of this graph? Here is a graph that shows the spending on roading right back from 1990 as a percentage of GDP. Now everyone who is involved in road funding overseas—such as the big financial houses or other Ministers such as the roading Minister in New South Wales or Victoria—will say that the real test is what percentage of GDP is being spent on roads. If members look at this graph they will see that spending actually peaked back in 1999 at about 1.1 percent and that for the next 4 full years under the Labour Government and not the part year—it did change last year; it came back to where it had been—it was less as a percentage of the size of the economy. So no wonder we can use— 
Lindsay Tisch 
: Labour lies! 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: No no. My colleague is not being fair. This is a case of using smoke and mirrors. Let me tell members once again that the figures can be used as the Minister uses them. One can say that every year there has been more spending than in the year before. 
Hon Judith Tizard 
: You had nothing ready to go. 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: I challenge Judith Tizard today to tell me of one year in the history of road funding where the amount of funding was not more than in the previous year. I have the answer; it has happened once. Members should listen to this because they will love it. In the first full year of the Labour Government—that is the 2001 year—spending went from $884 million the year before to $846 million for its first full year. It is the only time I tell Ms Tizard in the history of the National Land Transport Programme and right back to the time of the National Roads Board when the funding for roading dropped in actual terms—not in real dollars not in percentage of GDP but in actual dollars. 
Hon Judith Tizard 
: You are telling lies. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I say to the member on my right that there were two indiscretions there. The member brought the Chair into the debate and she used a word that is unparliamentary. I ask the member to desist. 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: I ask her to withdraw and apologise for the sentiments. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: The member will withdraw and apologise. 
Hon Judith Tizard 
: I withdraw and apologise. 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: And in case the member for Auckland Central does not know the figures— 
Hon Judith Tizard 
: Tell the truth! 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
:. Well I am going to go through the list of them. They are here—here is the total amount of money spent on roading. They are the Government’s figures and to be fair I note that they have gone up in every year. But as I pointed out to my colleagues there was one year where the spending dropped in actual dollars. [ 
Interruption 
] Could someone get her some medication—she is having another one of her fits over there. It is unfair to leave her unattended. Someone needs to help her. 
Hon Judith Tizard 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. There was an extensive interchange where a member on this side of the House told a member on the Opposition side to take pills and that member was required to withdraw and apologise. I require the same. [ 
Interruption 
] 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: There is a point of order on the floor and both members are interjecting. It is wrong to imply a personal reflection in the way the member did. I ask him to stand withdraw and apologise. 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: I withdraw and apologise. I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I am not a person who normally does that but I am a person who gets sick of someone continuously shouting all the time. You Mr Chairperson often say that interjections should be rare and reasonable and hopefully witty. You would like them to be that way but during the second part of my speech Ms Tizard has not stopped yelling the whole time. I ask you to call her to order too Mr Chairperson or you will bring this Committee to disorder. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Thank you Mr Williamson. The member had been called to order and I am sure she was coming to order. 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: I get back to the focus. As I said this is smoke and mirrors. Now my adoring drive-time audience in Auckland will be listening right now and the real test would be to ask them whether they think that Labour has fixed the problem in 6 years. In 6 years a helluva lot of roads can be built. Members should go to Sydney and look at what had been built in the last 6 years or go to Melbourne and look at what has been built in the last 6 years. There is kilometre after kilometre of tarmac all over the place and cross-Sydney tunnels and the Citylink’s Mitcham-Frankston spur is now under way in Melbourne. So nobody should say that we cannot do that in 6 years—others do—but the reason we have not done so has been the shortfall in funds. 
We saw how worried the Government got when National announced that it would take all the petrol tax and move it to fund the roads. The first response from Dr Cullen was that it was an outrage and fiscally irresponsible. The second response was to say: “Hey this is helping them in the polls.” The third response was that Labour would spend some more money as well as the normal funding for land transport and that it would be called Crown funding. So there is “N funding” from the National Land Transport Programme; there is “R funding” from the regional—the little special pot—there is “JA funding” which is Jim Anderton’s special thing through which he likes to give away some money to the regions and now there is “C funding”. 
The Government announced just a couple of weeks ago $660 million extra for Wellington. It had already announced $225 million extra and there will be a little bit of largesse coming for the Bay of Plenty this week. We will also see a lovely Waikato package announced just before 17 September—just watch! Mark my words! When Don Brash said National would build the Waikato Expressway Labour said that it was an outrage and talked about how fiscally irresponsible it was. You watch how Labour will find that money—like the $500 million and the— 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Order! 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: Actually Mr Chairperson I am speaking to you—you watch how they find that money sir because I can tell you that it is just like the $540 million Dr Cullen found under the mattress the other day by chance and then said it was all for roads. Have we ever seen a panic button like that? 
Dr Wayne Mapp 
: There will be more. 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: There will be more. But where is the certainty? The contractors want some certainty. They want to know that in the long term the petrol tax will be committed to road funding so they can gear up their capability and capacity but we are not hearing a mutter nor a murmur from the current Government on the issue. Well hang on; help is on the way. National believes that what comes from the roads should go back to the roads—including Judith Tizard. I say to members of this Committee that that is what National will do. It will take every cent of petrol tax— 
Hon Member 
: Put it down the highway. 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
:—and put it down the highway for a number of them actually—and start building some roads. 
Darren Hughes 
: Yeah right! 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: And Darren Hughes should be out there fighting for that money. That is what he should be doing instead of sitting in here carping away like a schoolboy who has not yet started shaving. He should be out there fighting for the money so the people of Kapiti can get some decent roads in their electorate and not end up with the shambles that is out there now. 
I am very happy to say National believes that there are other barriers to roading. The other barriers are the things like the Resource Management Act and we were told at the select committee that it now takes longer to gain consent for a new road than it does to construct it. I will repeat that in case members did not hear. It takes longer to gain consent for a new road than it does to construct it. That is an outrage. I asked Transit afterwards whether there was any other— 
Darren Hughes 
: Nine years and you didn’t do it! 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: That member says: “Nine years and you didn’t do it.” Actually in 1999 National introduced quite substantial amendments to the Resource Management Act to fix those barriers. Guess what—the incoming Labour Government made Jeanette Fitzsimons chair of the Local Government and Environment Committee and it bowled them. Well they are coming back. Let me tell Mr Hughes that those amendments are coming back. The only good news I have for that member is that the people of his area will start to see some good roads built. It will require funding. That will come from $4.5 billion on top of everything that is in the current National Land Transport Programme announced by Labour. The funding is on top of that. It is extra in addition over and above and more—let us get the words right—than what is currently in the National Land Transport Programme. National is committing another $4.5 billion because that is what the petrol tax would come to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That Vote Transport be agreed to 
. 
Ayes 61 
New Zealand Labour 51; United Future 8; Progressive 2. 
Noes 36 
New Zealand National 27; ACT New Zealand 8; Maori Party 1. 
Abstentions 21 
New Zealand First 13; Green Party 8. 
Vote Transport agreed to. 
Vote Maori Affairs agreed to.  
Vote Emergency Management agreed to.  
Vote Internal Affairs agreed to.  
Vote Police 
Hon TONY RYALL (National—Bay Of Plenty) 
: 
 As I speak to the appropriations for Vote Police people up and down New Zealand will be asking themselves whether they remember a time when the police were held in worse esteem by the people of New Zealand. There is no other. This Parliament is meeting on what may officially be its last day of this session and we know that every single piece of market research information shows that public confidence in the New Zealand Police has plummeted. New Zealanders no longer believe that this Government’s priority is dealing with crime and drugs; they believe its priority is dealing with revenue gathering. 
Up and down the country communities know that if they dial 111 the chances are that they will not get the level of service they want. The Opposition revealed a few weeks ago that 180000 phone calls to the police communications centres had gone unanswered. The Opposition has revealed case after case of human tragedy involving the 111 system. Iraena Asher dialled the police when she needed them most and got a taxi. Then we had the folks from Te Puke Mr and Mrs Bentley. Mrs Bentley dialled 111 when they needed assistance because crazed lunatics with a gun were beating up Mr Bentley. What happened? She was lied to and the police did not arrive in time. The emergency services were not informed that a gun was involved. It was an absolute catastrophe. Time and time again we hear those kinds of dreadful stories of events taking place under the watch of this Minister of Police who does not even deign to come down to the House and face accountability for his appalling performance as Minister of Police. 
We have never seen a time when New Zealanders have had less confidence in their police force. Let us look at the reason for that. It is because of a complete and utter lack of leadership by this Minister and because of appalling leadership by the Commissioner of Police. Neither of them has grasped the full extent of the understaffing and the under-resourcing of the New Zealand Police. Right now New Zealanders know that if they need the police the policemen and policewomen of New Zealand will do their level best to provide the sort of service they want but that those people are under incredible staffing pressure. The Opposition revealed a few weeks ago that 1100 unallocated cases were sitting on the desks of police officers in Counties-Manukau Police District. Do members know what happened then? The police administration picked up the phone and said to every police district in New Zealand that it should quickly move the unallocated files and put them on officers’ desks. The districts were told that it did not matter whether the officers actually dealt with the files but the administration could say they were allocated. That is why we got the incredible situation—even in my own police district—where when we rang each of the police areas to find out how many files were unallocated and we added them up the total was about four times what police headquarters said it was. 
In Counties-Manukau we had and still have today a number of unallocated sexual complaints that the police have not investigated. We found out that in south Auckland nine serious sexual assaults were not being investigated because of police understaffing. Information that will come out in the next 24 hours will highlight to members of this Parliament how bad the understaffing of for example the Criminal Investigation Bureau in central Auckland is and the fact that the police simply have not had the resources they need to keep up. Our police staffing is way below what any New Zealander would expect of the police force and that is because of this Government’s priorities. This Government has made revenue gathering the priority over crime and drugs in this country. This Government has increased the number of traffic tickets by over 65 percent when still only one in every nine burglaries is solved and the time it takes the police to respond to priority one calls is getting longer and longer in every police district. 
I have a message for the communities of New Zealand: help is on the way. Support for the police will come. 
RON MARK (NZ First) 
: 
 We are here today to discuss the estimates for the new fiscal year. But it is I have to say a rather pointless exercise. It is pointless because on the issue of law and order on the issue of the police and on the question of whether our communities are safer feel safer have confidence in this Government to protect them have confidence in the Minister of Police to give the police the resources they need and have confidence in the Commissioner of Police to manage those resources this Government fails on every count. 
It is sad but I guess in some ways encouraging that when we go out into the streets clubs pubs and rugby clubs of New Zealand the New Zealanders we meet say unanimously that this Government has failed them in the area of police. This country will look back on the 111 debacles and say: “How could that ever have happened?”. When New Zealand First looks at the resources allocated by this Government to the police we see quite clearly that this Government does not understand in any way shape or form the problems the police are facing. 
The police ask for only three things. They ask for adequate resources—and police numbers within those adequate resources—they ask for the tools to do the job and they ask that appropriate priorities be accorded. But what do we see? In terms of resources in ratio terms we have a totally inadequate ratio of police to citizens in this country when compared with other likeminded nations. In terms of money the money that the Government crows about its having increased in the Budget goes no way to addressing the police’s ability to actually investigate the levels of crime that we are dealing with today. In terms of tools the police still want some simple tools. They want on-board data systems in their cars they want body armour they want stab-proof vests—actually they want simple things like socks to arrive on time; they do not want to wait 9 weeks to get a pair—and they want legislation like an amendment to the Children Young Persons and Their Families Act that would enable them to put young men away earlier rather than have them kill themselves on our motorways. 
They want the tools to put boy racers away at the earliest stage and not be dealing with them 30 40 or 50 convictions down the line. They want the tools to deal with people who rack up $70000 $80000 or $90000 worth of fines and thumb their noses at the law. They want priorities and they do not want the priorities built around traffic policing. 
But this Government has none of those things in its policy and I have to tell the public of New Zealand not to worry about it; after this election all those issues will be dealt with by New Zealand First. Why this Government insists on passing laws legalising prostitution—or lowering the drinking age which the previous Government did—and telling the public that the police will enforce the laws and failing every time in every Budget to deliver to the police the resources to do precisely that is absolutely beyond me. 
We have a crisis in the police force in terms of confidence. We are losing experienced officers hand over fist and one of the reasons we lose them is that we have an incompetent Minister of Police who when he is told that there are problems in the 111 system and is told 2 years in advance by a brave police officer in uniform he does nothing about it and the first time the public knows there is a problem is when a young lady goes missing and is never seen again. 
Police officers are leaving the force because they are sick of writing out tickets to pump up this Government’s revenue which is what it is. I ask the Minister if the speed cameras and the quota ticketing are working why are so many young men still dying on our roads? They are dying because the policy of issuing quota tickets does not work because it is catching law-abiding citizens in the main. It is not focusing on or targeting the recidivist offender—the person who should have been taken off the road. How ridiculous it is that a man with 23 convictions for being drunk in charge of a vehicle is still at large. How sad it is that young men who are clocking up $20000 or $30000 worth of fines get away with it only to die on the roads later. 
Dr RICHARD WORTH (National—Epsom) 
: 
 Members are speaking at the moment in connection with the appropriations debate and it is perhaps interesting to reflect on why we are doing all this. The reason is that the Crown cannot spend money levy taxes or raise loans without the authority of Parliament. So in the course of the parliamentary financial cycle a number of pieces of legislation are passed through Parliament to provide the support for funding and maintain the system of democracy as we know it here. Appropriations are of course made for specific purposes and are grouped into votes. I will follow the previous speaker by speaking about Vote Police and I do that in the context of the responsibilities I have in the National Party for justice. 
The previous speaker has said that we do not feel safe on our streets and in our communities. That is in marked contrast to the position that this Government has taken. The Minister of Police Mr Hawkins has made it clear on a number of occasions that he considers the police are fabulously well resourced. I recall him stating on 3 February 2005 in answer to a question in this debating chamber “… the police are well resourced.” and he was to repeat that line some 12 days later when in a second answer to a parliamentary question he stated: “The commissioner and I often talk about resources and he is very pleased with what I get him.” The Minister was again to reaffirm the Government’s position when he stated in answer to a question asked on 4 May 3 months later: “I am satisfied that the police are very well resourced under this Government …”. Well that is absolute nonsense! One need only to look by way of comparison at the ratio of population per police officer in countries similar to our own to see that New Zealand is critically starved of front-line police officers. 
Darren Hughes 
: Give us the exact number that National proposes. 
Dr RICHARD WORTH 
: I am going to give the exact numbers by way of comparison in a number of countries. 
Before I do that though when we are talking about front-line police—and as the Government member knows National has made a commitment to increase the number of front-line police—we need to define exactly what we are talking about. When we are talking about front-line police we are talking about police officers in police cars and detectives in the front line. These are the ratios. In France for example the ratio of population per police officer is 255:1 in Scotland it is 321:1 in England and Wales it is 393:1 in Australia it is 427:1 in the United States of America it is 438:1 in Canada it is 531:1 and in New Zealand it is 554:1. What will happen is that by including additional sworn police staff in the 2005 Budget New Zealand’s population to police ratio will decrease from 554:1 to 544:1. Of the countries that I have just used as an example our percentage is the worst. Yet we have a brave and some would say foolish Minister stating that the police are well resourced: “The commissioner and I often talk about resources and he is very pleased with what I get him.” Finally he stated: “I am satisfied that the police are very well resourced under this Government …”. What a load of nonsense that is! That is why no doubt the Police Association is calling for 10000 sworn officers by 2010. 
One of the things that has happened in the context of police funding is that tagged funding has occurred. Government members may be interested to know if they are wide awake enough to listen that the tagged funding has done nothing substantial—nothing significant—and nothing at all to increase the numbers of front-line police officers. We have seen increases in tagged funding so that at Auckland airport the number of police officers has dramatically increased. That is a response to treaty obligations which New Zealanders have accepted but it has done nothing to increase the number of front-line police. 
National’s pledge is to substantially increase the number of front-line police officers. That we are capable of doing that we will do and that we will fund. 
STEPHEN FRANKS (ACT) 
: 
 I thought Mr Mark made a very good contribution to this debate in summarising the problems we have with the police but I just want to take a much smaller area which does not usually receive much public consideration but which is very indicative of why no amount of money under the current control is likely to fix the problems. I want to look at the culture of secrecy. Mr Mark also raised this issue this afternoon. We have a Minister of Police who receives $1.5 million for policy advice including advice on answering questions who simply chooses not to answer them. 
 What kind of police force can we expect with a Minister who decides that the rules do not apply to him or just decides that when it is embarrassing he will forget about supplying answers? It is a culture of secrecy where the police are in fact our only defence in court. In our justice system wrongly the public do not have a voice. The victims do not have a voice in court. The only people speaking up for the victims and the public in court are the police prosecutors and the police are headed by a man who does not bother to answer parliamentary questions when they are embarrassing. The police should be fighting bitterly to make sure there is a general expectation in this country that truth will out cheats do not prosper and honesty pays. But they do not. I believe that this is as much a source of grievance to local police—the police on the beat—as it is to us. 
Three high-profile cases at the moment exemplify the tolerance that this Minister has supervised—the tolerance of cover-up that means New Zealanders are simply treated as plebs kept in the dark and have their trust in the justice system not just the police affected by it. 
Ron Mark 
: Helen’s little mushrooms! 
STEPHEN FRANKS 
: Exactly. Wrongdoing is kept under wraps by name suppression; and by the habit of judges—the justice insiders—to decide that they can know all about cases but it will not suit the plebs or them if others know. Name suppression which the police do sometimes oppose is a cancer in the public confidence of the justice system. I have asked this Minister about his attitude on these matters and have not got answers. 
ACT policy is for open courts—to restore the tradition of British justice that prevailed until only 40 years ago. Last week I asked the Minister of Broadcasting about a State-owned enterprise I believed was complicit in a cover-up of a Northland case. It appears to me now that the State-owned enterprise if it is involved has covered its tracks deeply though the Minister of Broadcasting’s answers are ambiguous to say the least. 
But in this case we have a perfect example of the suspicions that emerge about the motives of people in the justice system when we have secrecy. The insiders have their vanity satisfied by knowing all about it. The connections of an accused whose name is suppressed usually end up knowing all about it. Those who want to can find out on the Internet what is going on. We have three cases like this at the moment. We have the sports celebrities whom everyone except Joe Public is not allowed to know unless they go on to the Internet and we have the Northland case—the Whangarei case—where it appears that a contractor to TVNZ has helped persuade the court to allow a cover-up for 9 months. 
There is an arrogance about this in the system and it is an arrogance that is not shared by front-line police who do not like it. It is an arrogance that comes from the insiders feeling that they may be capable of putting aside their previous knowledge and acting objectively but the punters who will perhaps end up on a jury cannot. It is the arrogance that says: “Let’s dispense discretionary privilege of information”—that is the court speaking and the police when they go along with this—“but let’s not let New Zealanders know that justice is being done.” 
These high-profile cases do absolutely nothing for confidence. Veronica Jacomb in the series  
To Catch a Thief  
made a mockery of the public’s interest in that series. The police appear represent the public and represent the victims and then we see the spectacle of virtually the whole of New Zealand with ideas of who it is but a whole series of people having to issue statements purporting to clear themselves. This does not do anything for confidence. This does not do anything for a general belief by the public that the justice system is just serving those who have money to get Queen’s Counsel and those who are rich. 
This leaves us all in a position where we believe that justice is available to or justice can be manipulated by people who have access to power. The Minister of Broadcasting did not choose to resolve this. The Minister of Police—to be fair he has not had the 10-day time allowed to answer the questions I have asked him about police support for any of these cover-ups—will have 10 days to answer questions. He has a budget of $1.49 million to do that. His answers that I received today to four other important questions say just what I expect he will do with this embarrassing question on name suppression. He has told me: “It has not been possible to obtain the information required to enable me to respond to this question by the due date. I undertake to provide the member with a copy of the information once it is available.” My guess is that that information will not be available until well after the election. 
In the Whangarei case name suppression has been extended to 22 September well after the election. In the Whangarei case it cannot be the interests of the accused that have been considered by the court it must be the financial interests of those he is associated with because everyone in Whangarei has a good idea of the nature of the charges and who the accused is—everyone who knows the accused. It cannot be the normal charitable concern about family and close relationships it has to be commercial interests. 
The Minister of Police who could have helped resolve this and who could have been seen as a Minister who was keen to see open justice has set a pattern of cover-up. This is the same Minister of Police who when I first asked about the Te Puke couple Maggie and Peter Bentley told me that the inquiry would look into whether there was lying and would look into why he called it a textbook case. The police told the Bentleys that there were police on hand when they were at least an hour away told the Bentleys that they had called their neighbours when they had called no neighbours and blocked Mrs Bentley with reassuring words that were entirely false. 
The Minister of Police assured me in answers to written and oral questions that that matter was the subject of a police investigation that would later be reported on. I have read the investigation report and it does not touch on those matters. There is no explanation that I have seen of why the Bentleys were lied to or why the Minister then described that as a textbook case. The Minister as the political leader of a police force should have made it his business to insist on an adequate answer to that. He should have made it his business to be setting a model of openness and a pattern that respected truth and when he made a mistake fixing it immediately. 
When I implied in my parliamentary question last week that the Queen’s Counsel in the Whangarei case had been directly supported by TVNZ I made sure as soon as I learnt that that was not the case that that was revealed. What does the Minister of Police charged with statutory duty to uphold the confidence of people in the police do? He goes to ground. He does not answer the questions. With all the hundreds of thousands of dollars—the $1.49 million—that he has at his disposal to answer questions and provide policy advice we get nothing more. I do not think he has even asked for any more. I see in the new initiatives his sum for ministerial policy advice has increased by $13000. There is $13000 extra yet his excuse to me and to Mr Mark of New Zealand First for not answering his questions is lack of time. 
Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That Vote Police be agreed to. 
Ayes 61 
New Zealand Labour 51; United Future 8; Progressive 2. 
Noes 31 
New Zealand National 25; ACT New Zealand 5; Maori Party 1. 
Abstentions 21 
New Zealand First 13; Green Party 8. 
Vote Police agreed to. 
Vote Veterans’ Affairs - Defence 
BILL GUDGEON (NZ First) 
: 
 I am going to cover three main points concerning Vote Veterans’ Affairs. The first is that the community will be aware of the role that veterans played and continue to play in developing New Zealand as a nation. A seriously wounded Gallipoli veteran told his grandson that Anzac Day is a day when politicians speak fine words of the glorious dead but they always avert their gaze from the living survivors who gave them democracy. I recognised this when I was invited to the Montecillo Veterans Home and Hospital in Dunedin. It is a home for veterans who are struggling for finance to be relocated. Did the local Government MP support them? No. Who pushed the issues to get them to where they are today? One guess—it was New Zealand First. 
The second point I would like to refer to is that the veterans’ perspective is considered as part of Government decision-making on issues that impact on veterans’ lives. A mere apology no matter how sincere from the State is simply not enough to redress the gross injustices that have been built up over a number of years or discrimination against the New Zealand Viet Nam veterans. My appeal to the Government is this: will this Government rectify the misdemeanours that have taken place in reference to the discrimination against our Viet Nam veterans and their families; if not why not? 
For more than 30 years successive Governments have salted the wounds of poisoned veterans and their families. Two Government reports one ordered by National and the other by Labour pooh-poohed the veterans’ claims that they were dying after serving their country. No one wanted to know about the chronic disabling illnesses afflicting veterans and their genetically harmed children who were dismissed as a statistical blip. If one dithers for long enough the problem usually dies but the legacy of Agent Orange will haunt us long after the last-affected veteran has perished. 
The Agent Orange issue needs putting to rest. Allegations that New Zealand soldiers in Viet Nam were exposed to the defoliant and have suffered severe repercussions have been current for some three decades and no Government has stepped forward to sort this out. All of a sudden when there is to be an election we hear promises about what parties would do with the veterans. This is what the veterans have said: “The bidding by the political parties for veterans’ votes is as distasteful as the grandstanding that now disfigures every military celebration in the calendar.” The  
Press 
 article continued: “It is difficult not to be moved. The stonewalling the Vietnam veterans have been subject to should not have happened to men who risked their lives for their country—a conclusion that stands even in the face of the fact that the war they fought was controversial and bitterly opposed by many New Zealanders.” 
When troops returned from Viet Nam they were ordered to wear civilian dress and to turn up in the dark. Who are the people who opposed them and attacked them? A greater number repeatedly re-elected the Government that deployed the troops. 161 Battery fired the first shot on 16 July 1965. Three months before they were deployed the Holyoake Government—and Holyoake was the Prime Minister—allowed it to happen. Why are our veterans being treated in such a manner when we enjoy the freedom that resulted from what they did? 
Vote agreed to. 
Vote Veterans’ Affairs - Social Development agreed to.  
Vote Defence agreed to.  
Vote Defence Force agreed to.  
Vote Tourism agreed to.  
Vote Treaty Negotiations 
GERRY BROWNLEE (Deputy Leader—National) 
: 
 It is perhaps on the issue of treaty negotiations that Labour has been most spectacular in demonstrating its incapacity to govern appropriately. The template for treaty negotiations was set down during the 1990s and is widely accepted by the vast majority of the New Zealand population. New Zealanders we are often told are fair people—and they are. They do know that where there is a grievance and it is settled then there is progress. [ 
Interruption 
] I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I cannot speak while a conversation is going on 2 feet in front of me. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Your point is taken Mr Brownlee. Perhaps the conversation with the Clerk could be held to one side. You have not lost any time Mr Brownlee. 
GERRY BROWNLEE 
: I look at the entries in the Government’s books for treaty negotiations and see that little has changed over the years and that is good. It means that the fiscal envelope set by the National Government some 15 years ago has still not been exceeded. That I think is a tribute to the process that was originally put in place through Mr Bolger the then Prime Minister and the Rt Hon Doug Graham. Many people ask about all the money that is going to Maori and wonder why they should get it. The reality is that we were pouring money back in the early 1990s through the Maori Affairs Department into all sorts of programmes that never benefited people directly or as directly as the treaty settlements do. 
 The thing that I find most interesting here—and I want to receive an answer from the Minister on this—is under the heading “Sector Outcomes and the Ministry’s Intermediate Outcomes”. Before I go on to that I want the Minister to tell us why the Government appointed two new people to the Waitangi Tribunal almost 12 months ago who have yet to hear any historical grievance. An answer from the Government would be good if we can get one. Why are people currently being appointed to the Waitangi Tribunal who do not have any caseload allocated to them? 
I now go back to the other issue under the heading “Sector Outcomes and the Ministry’s Intermediate Outcomes” which states: “a fairer more credible and more effective justice system being a system in which people’s interactions are underpinned by the rule of law and justice services are more equitable credible and accessible.” Why does that have to be a goal for the Office of Treaty Settlements? I would have thought that that goal was something we would want for all New Zealanders. That is a perfect demonstration of how the Labour Party is out there with a message that would tell one audience that it is taking a lot of race-based stuff out of its programmes but then it quietly slips this sort of thing into the Government accounts. I would have thought that the Office of Treaty Settlements was just about negotiating the settlement of grievances and would not have that wider social objective. I would hope that the Minister may be able to give us an answer on that. 
Another objective set for the Office of Treaty Settlements is safer communities. Those communities are described as those “in which there is reduced crime and in which safety and wellbeing is enhanced through partnerships …”. What does that state? Does it state that this Government believes that much of the criminal element in this country resides amongst those people who are harbouring an unresolved treaty grievance? That is how it reads to me and that has to be an utter nonsense. Safer communities are what all New Zealanders should expect. To state that a safer community is one where there is reduced youth offending reduced offending by Maori reduced violence reduced family violence a reduced number of burglaries reduced organised crime and reduced theft of and from cars is something that all New Zealanders want. I want to know whether the Labour Government seriously believes that those things can be achieved through the process of treaty negotiations. That just seems to me to be an utter nonsense. So I would like the Minister to take a call to explain what that means. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That Vote Treaty Negotiations be agreed to. 
Ayes 61 
New Zealand Labour 51; United Future 8; Progressive 2. 
Noes 26 
New Zealand National 25; Maori Party 1. 
Abstentions 21 
New Zealand First 13; Green Party 8. 
Vote Treaty Negotiations agreed to. 
Vote Corrections agreed to.  
Vote Immigration 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I call Paul Adams. 
SIMON POWER (Senior Whip—National) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I understand that in Committee or in the House it is inappropriate for us to challenge your ruling. Far be it from me to speak on behalf of New Zealand First—it certainly does not need my protection—but it would seem to me that as the third-largest party in Parliament the first call on a vote should go to New Zealand First unless it yields to United Future. My understanding is that Dail Jones has not done that. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I thank the member. He is perfectly correct and I stand corrected. But the problem now is that under Speaker’s ruling 25/4 because I have already called Mr Adams I have to give him the call. I will certainly come to Mr Jones straight after that. 
DAIL JONES (Junior Whip—NZ First) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I was going to seek two calls. Now I am in the invidious position where if Mr Adams goes first I will have to seek two calls in a row. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: The member can have two calls in a row. I have already taken two calls in a row before. 
GERRY BROWNLEE (Deputy Leader—National) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. Notwithstanding Speaker’s ruling 25/4 which you quoted you have an opportunity here to make a bit of a mark and perhaps make your own ruling in this matter. I know that sounds like a rash thing to do on the last day that Parliament sits officially—although today rolls on into tomorrow in one of the vagaries of the parliamentary system—but here is an opportunity for H V Ross Robertson MP for Papatoetoe to be noted in  
Speakers’ Rulings 
. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: The member is questioning my ruling. I have made the ruling. I am not creating a new precedent; I am following Speaker’s ruling 25/4. I call the honourable member Paul Adams. 
PAUL ADAMS (United Future) 
: 
 To build a prosperous nation first obviously we have to build prosperous people. As spokesperson on immigration for United Future I asked the library to look up some figures so that I could see exactly what has been going on in the people area over the past 6 years seeing as Vote Immigration is $160 million. 
In 1999 our estimated population was 3832900 people and by 2004 it had grown to 4054300 people which is an increase of 221400. Live births in the same period were 337641 and deaths were 165537 which brings an increase by natural births of 172104 people. It should be noted that those births were genuine Kiwi kids. Their parents would have come from a wide variety of countries and cultures—just as many of ours did—as we are a very multicultural nation. However those children were born New Zealanders. Natural births therefore accounted for over 75 percent of our population increase in that period. 
So what did we have to do to achieve over 6 years an increase of an additional 49296 people—an increase in reality of only 8216 per year? Despite all New Zealand First’s negative talk about immigration and the pressure it has caused on our infrastructure even New Zealand First will have difficulty arguing with the reality of those figures and our ability as a nation to handle that level of increase. Our infrastructure problems are obviously in part due to an expanding economy and growing tourism industry. Surely they are good challenges to work through but no the third tired old party wants to take New Zealand back to the Dark Ages and United Future says “No way!”. 
However those figures should certainly indicate to us that we do not have the formula right yet as we need to consider seriously the things we need to do better. Permanent long-term arrivals in that period were a massive 461210 people. Our permanent long-term departures were 294938. That is a difference of 166272 people in a 6-year period. From 166272 people how come we achieved a net gain of only 49296 which is a retention rate of only 30 percent? Are we becoming only a transfer station to other nations? What are we doing so wrong that people who wanted to make New Zealand their home are finding it impossible to do so and have to move on? They are questions the incoming Government should seriously address. 
In closing I note that we had an inflow of 461210 people to achieve that 49000 gain yet in the same period we aborted 112116 genuine New Zealand babies who would have become true New Zealanders. Yes future doctors carpenters dentists schoolteachers and union delegates to name a few die at the hand of the abortionists. If that number had even been halved our population increase would have been better than what we achieved over those 6 years. That is why United Future believes that a decrease in the number of abortions must be good for our families and good for our country. 
We are proud to grow our own meats and our own wines. We have discovered that what we can grow at home in New Zealand ends up being among the best in the world. Our children have been no exception. Many of the world’s greatest achievers—such as Michael Campbell whose success we have celebrated just tonight—have been New Zealanders. We need to realise this with our children who after all are the fruit of the womb. If we lift the rate of home-grown children we will find that many of our current challenges are a lot easier to handle. Therefore let us keep the issues the issue and not blame immigration for pressures that immigration in itself simply has not caused. 
DAIL JONES (NZ First) 
: 
 I would like to thank the member who has just resumed his seat for his speech. He and I have been to a couple of meetings together and he has obviously listened to what I have to say and he has been working around the information I have been putting forward. 
New Zealand First has made it clear that we need a population policy and the Rt Hon Winston Peters made this very clear in his Orewa speech about 5 or 6 weeks ago. New Zealand First intends to stop the knee-jerk annual immigration planning and start working on 10-year and 25-year plans for New Zealand. We want to establish long-term labour market demands and import the skills needed if sufficient New Zealanders cannot be trained. We want to target people with the skills needed and ensure that immigrants have jobs to go to. We want to consult New Zealanders about the make-up of those people coming here and we want to produce a targeted programme aimed at retaining skilled New Zealanders and encouraging others offshore to return. 
New Zealand is the only First World country with an agricultural base. We have to decide the size of our population and the nature of our environment. We rely on our clean green image to encourage tourists to come here—in fact tourism is now our major foreign exchange earner. Yet our population increased by more than 25 percent in the last 18 years to take us to over 4 million and the suggestion from United Future from the member who has just spoken that we should have a population of 5 million in another 10 years must give us cause for concern. 
What is happening in New Zealand at the moment to say that such a policy is overdue? Well the member has just given us some figures. From 1976 to 1986 New Zealand’s population increased by 160000. But from 1996 to 2004 for example eight years out of 10 our population increased by 329400 which is more than double the increase from 1975 to 1986 in four-fifths of the time. In 1986 our population was 3298000. In 2004 it was 4061400 an increase of 772400 in 18 years which is a 25 percent increase. Where did it all go? In the Auckland region the population increase from 1986 to 2004 was 435000. Almost 60 percent of that new population in those 18 years went to Auckland. That increase in Auckland’s population in 18 years—and I am talking about the Auckland region—is almost the same as Wellington’s entire population in the region from year one. 
So the problem for Auckland is this: did we get the same number of schools that Wellington has the same number of hospitals that Wellington has and the same number of roads that Wellington has in order to compensate for that 18-year growth in Auckland’s population—which was the same as the total population of Wellington since the year dot? The answer is no. In speaking about the effect of immigration on the people of the Auckland area for example in west Auckland when I was the member of Parliament from 1975 to 1984 a new school was built in 1975 and good on the Kirk-Rowling Government and the previous planners for doing that. On the North Shore at Long Bay a new secondary school was built in about 1975. Has another secondary school been built in that region since 1975 when Auckland’s population has shot through the roof? No. Not one other secondary school has been built. No wonder the schools have large rolls. There has not been another secondary school built in west Auckland in the Waitakere College or Long Bay College area since 1975. I went to the opening of Waitakere College in 1975. Mr Garelja does a wonderful job at Waitakere College but that is the problem we have in Auckland in so far as immigration is concerned. 
What are we going to do about it? We see the effects of this massive immigration to New Zealand which is totally out of control. We have an electricity crisis in Auckland now. We read about it every day. What will be one of the consequences of that? Well I am pleased to see that they will have electricity power stations but there is nothing to stop them from building a nuclear power station. There is no law that stops the building of a nuclear power station. The Royal Commission on Nuclear Power which we set up from 1975 to 1978 indicated that as of 2005 two nuclear power stations should already be commissioned. The plan was to have two in the North Island and one in the South Island. They should be commissioned now based on that 160000 increase in population every 10 years projected back in those days and we have gone well beyond that today. 
That is one of the effects that immigration has. We know that law and order is out of control and that housing is out of control and these are all indications of the failure of successive Labour Governments starting in about 1988 when they opened the floodgates and of National Governments in the 1990s. There was a slight decrease when New Zealand First was part of the coalition as we were trying to turn the tap down and another roaring increase in the last few years. 
From 1996 to 2004 the increase has been 329000 people in that short space of time. That is an impossible rate of growth for New Zealand. It is about the size of the Canterbury region’s population in total. We have had increases in Wellington of 15 percent in Canterbury of about 20 percent and in Tauranga of 30 percent but in Auckland the biggest city the population increase has been over 50 percent in 18 years. That is a disgrace. New Zealand First says and I suggest that we have what David Lange suggested once: not a cup of tea but a pot of tea and a good long think about where we are heading now. 
It does not matter how many roads the Labour Party puts in and I am really pleased with the roading programme that the Labour Party has put up; over the upper harbour bridge in Mount Roskill on the northern motorway and the city motorway. It is doing a great job. But it does not matter how many roads we build for the current population because if we increase the population by the same amount again in 10 years from 4 million to 5 million no amount of roading can ever stop the problems that Auckland will feel. When I come to Wellington I come to a city that is the same as it was in 1984. I think that the way in which Wellington’s population has increased should have been the master plan for New Zealand at about 15 percent over 18 years or about 60000 in about 18 years in the region and not the 50 to 60 percent Auckland has had. 
Wellington is old New Zealand to me. When I come here I see that there has really been no change since I was here in 1984. When I go to Auckland it is a foreign city. Auckland is a foreign city to Aucklanders now. If one is a fair-dinkum Aucklander in the mainstream walking up and down the main street of Auckland one feels that Auckland is a foreign city. That is what Aucklanders feel. I welcome multiculturalism. I know what it is to be a minority of 0.001 percent myself but we must have an infrastructure. Immigrants get the blame but it is the Government’s fault. It is the fault of the Labour Party and it is the fault of the National Party. Immigrants get blamed for all these things but it is the fault of successive Governments. That is what the real problem is and that is what New Zealand First highlights time and time again. We have to put in the infrastructure and that is why we in New Zealand First say that we need a population policy. I am so pleased that Taiwanese people agree with me. 
A party vote was called for on the question that Vote Immigration be agreed to 
. 
SIMON POWER (National—Rangitikei) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. There must be some mistake. The New Zealand First member has just spent 10 minutes railing against immigration policy and now he is abstaining. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: That is not a point of order. 
SIMON POWER 
: How can he abstain? 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: That is not a point of order. 
A party vote was called for on the question That Vote Immigration  
be agreed to. 
Ayes 61 
New Zealand Labour 51; United Future 8; Progressive 2. 
Noes 31 
New Zealand National 25; ACT New Zealand 5; Maori Party 1. 
Abstentions 21 
New Zealand First 13; Green Party 8. 
Vote Immigration agreed to. 
NANDOR TANCZOS (Green) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. My apologies to the Committee but I think I may have inadvertently said “nine abstentions” in the previous votes after the dinner break rather than eight. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: The member has to seek leave to correct the vote. 
NANDOR TANCZOS 
: I seek leave to—[ 
Interruption 
] 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I say to honourable members when there is a point of order on the floor there is to be absolute silence. The member is seeking leave to alter the vote. Is there any objection to that course of action being taken? There appears to be none. 
PETER BROWN (Senior Whip—NZ First) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. The member should tell us what particular vote he wants to change. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: It concerns Vote Treaty Negotiations. 
RON MARK (NZ First) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. Actually your intervention did not help because in order for us to understand what the honourable member is requesting we need to hear precisely what his dilemma is. That was not clear. He said he “thought” he had made an error. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Can I ask the member to clarify— 
RON MARK 
: We are being asked right now whether we object to something about which we are not clear. I think the member deserves an opportunity to make clear precisely what the problem is so we can decide. 
NANDOR TANCZOS (Green) 
: 
 Mr Chairperson if the Committee will give me a moment I will clarify that and then seek leave. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I just say that not too many minutes are left in this debate. Is there any objection to that course of action being taken? There is no objection. The vote will be corrected. 
GERRY BROWNLEE (Deputy Leader—National) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. What is “that course of action”? 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Does the member wish to change the vote which is as I understand it and correct me if I am wrong Vote Treaty Negotiations? 
NANDOR TANCZOS (Green) 
: 
 Yes. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Instead of nine votes it should be eight? 
NANDOR TANCZOS 
: Correct. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Leave has been sought. Is there any objection? There is not. 
Vote Labour agreed to.  
Vote State-Owned Enterprises agreed to.  
Vote Environment 
MIKE WARD (Green) 
: 
 The appropriation for Vote Environment totals about $57 million which is quite a lot of money. The total amount across all ministries is something like a billion-plus dollars—2 percent of the vote. That is a lot too. One could ask whether it is enough. In fact real savings could be made. There are things we could be doing to look after the environment. We certainly do not look after it—not in the way we might—and those things would cost a lot less than what we are doing. In respect of waste New Zealanders still throw away about 10 million kilograms every day. Between 1981 and 2001 the population of this country grew by 19 percent but the amount of stuff we threw away increased by over 100 percent. New Zealanders throw out something like 10 million kilograms of waste every day. My grandchildren’s inheritance goes into those holes in the ground. 
I do not want to talk about recycling. We have done a good job in terms of getting people to think about the stuff they are throwing away. We have a good waste strategy; it just needs to have some more teeth. But we have to move on from recycling to persuading people not to take home stuff that they will throw away in short order. We import extraordinary amounts of stuff. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member. The time for this debate has expired. 
MIKE WARD 
: I seek leave to continue. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I am sorry. The member cannot seek leave because this is a set-time debate. 
MIKE WARD 
: I seek leave to continue. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: The member is seeking leave to complete his speech. Is there any objection to that course of action? There is objection. 
RON MARK (NZ First) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. That is ludicrous. Labour will be looking to the Greens to form a coalition Government after the election yet it turns the Greens down and treats them like some sort of doormat— 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: That is not a point of order. The Government has made its objection quite clear. 
GERRY BROWNLEE (Deputy Leader—National) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. As far as I recollect although Mr Mallard is of course an important instrument for the Government he is not the Government on his own. Perhaps he thought Mr Ward was seeking to change a vote again or suchlike. It seems to me to be an extreme demonstration of a lack of generosity not to allow the man to take another 2 minutes to finish what may well be his last speech in Parliament. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I thank the member but I have made a decision. 
GERRY BROWNLEE (Deputy Leader—National) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I had requested that perhaps the leave could be put again as your decision was unclear. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I have already made a decision. The leave has been denied. All the remaining votes will be taken together. 
The question was put that Vote Environment Vote National Archives Vote National Library Vote Official Development Assistance Vote ACC Vote Child Youth and Family Services Vote Senior Citizens Vote Women’s Affairs Vote Conservation Vote Local Government Vote Community and Voluntary Sector Vote Courts Vote Customs Vote Fisheries Vote Consumer Affairs Vote Racing Vote Communications the preamble clauses 1 to 13 and schedules 5 to 7 be agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the votes the preamble clauses 1 to 13 and schedules 5 to 7 be agreed to. 
Ayes 61 
New Zealand Labour 51; United Future 8; Progressive 2. 
Noes 32 
New Zealand National 26; ACT New Zealand 5; Maori Party 1. 
Abstentions 21 
New Zealand First 13; Green Party 8. 
Votes preamble clauses 1 to 13 and schedules 5 to 7 agreed to. 
Bill reported without amendment. 
Report adopted. 
Imprest Supply (Second for 2005/06) Bill 
First Reading 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Associate Minister of Finance) 
 on behalf of the 
 Minister of Finance 
: I move  
That the Imprest Supply (Second for 2005/06) Bill be now read a first time. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the Imprest Supply (Second for 2005/06) Bill be now read a first time. 
Ayes 61 
New Zealand Labour 51; United Future 8; Progressive 2. 
Noes 32 
New Zealand National 26; ACT New Zealand 5; Maori Party 1. 
Abstentions 21 
New Zealand First 13; Green Party 8. 
Bill read a first time. 
Appropriation (2005/06 Estimates) Bill 
Third Reading 
Imprest Supply Debate 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Associate Minister of Finance) 
 on behalf of the 
 Minister of Finance 
: I move  
That the Appropriation (2005/06 Estimates) Bill be now read a third time and the Imprest Supply (Second for 2005/06) Bill be now read a second time 
. I think we have witnessed something just now that is particularly interesting: an Opposition that a week or two ago was so keen to go to an election and now is not even prepared to support the Imprest Supply bill in order to clear the decks for that election. That is an interesting approach and I think that an Opposition that a couple of weeks ago— 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I do not like to interrupt the member mid-speech—in fact at the very beginning of his speech—but I do so because it is quite plain that unless we seek leave for this debate to be wide-ranging he will have nothing at all of any material value to offer the House. Accordingly I seek leave for this to be a very wide-ranging debate without limitation— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: That is not a point of order. But the House is the master of its own destiny. The member is seeking leave. Is there any objection to that course? There is. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I have not finished. I have not put my whole leave yet. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: It is already a wide-ranging debate. What is the member going on about? He is being dopey. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: No I want it to be a very wide-ranging debate. Quite often Mr Assistant Speaker you will say that members can range across all matters that relate to the Government’s financial policies when it comes to a bill like this. But I think there are issues about trust integrity and experience that the Government will not want to face too much discussion on—issues that I would be very happy to have brought in here particularly the one about the integrity of the Prime Minister who of course has shopped five policemen in the South Island. That is what I am seeking leave for. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Order! I am on my feet. It is a wide-ranging debate. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: We can see now why the National Party is in real trouble. Leaving aside the poll results for a second I just say that when the leader of the Opposition was asked whether he thought his dithering on Iraq and other issues was responsible for National’s dive in the polls what did he say? He said: “I can’t say.” Then what happened tonight? When asked whether Mr Goff was correct when he accused Lockwood Smith of asking American senators for support in order to push National Party pro-nuclear policy what did Dr Brash say? He said: “I can neither confirm nor deny.” Well well well! I can see Simon Power smiling because he is vindicated to a certain extent. What a sad Opposition and what a difference a week makes in politics! 
Ron Mark 
: Oh come on! You can’t leave New Zealand First out of that. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: No and to be fair to New Zealand First members I do not regard them as being a major part of the Opposition. But I think it is fair to say that at the appropriate points in time when it has been important and when the principles have been right New Zealand First has supported the Government and I do want to give it credit for doing that. It is not blind in its opposition in the way we have seen the party opposite to be. I ask members opposite whether Kirkcaldie and Stains has had a sale this week and whether orange is the colour of the ties on sale. What is the story? Why is such a high proportion of National Party front-bench members wearing orange ties today? It is an interesting approach. They used to have blue ones then they had green ones and now they have orange ones. They are getting ready to stop. 
I return to the debate. It is clear that our economy has been going through a period of sustained solid growth that is well above OECD averages for the past 5 or 6 years. Between March 2000 and March 2005 260000 new jobs were created—[ 
Interruption 
] The member says some of them are casual and he is absolutely right. But for a lot of people in my electorate getting 40 45 or 50 hours of casual work and money in the pocket to buy a house pay the rent and pay the bills actually makes a difference. That might not make a difference to some of the New Zealand First members who have a silver spoon in their mouth but it makes a lot of difference to us. 
Ron Mark 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Is it appropriate for a member to refer to working 50 hours a week as “casual” labour when we know that working 50 hours a week should be a full-time job and there is no such thing as a 50-hour-a-week casual job? 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I am on my feet. That is not a point of order. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: That just shows how out of touch members of New Zealand First are. A number of people have two and three jobs that build up to 50 hours a week. That is not an ideal situation—it is one that is certainly improving—but that member would deny those people those jobs and that is very very sad. And the member is now complaining because he does not get redundancy. Well he will get 3 months’ pay if he is not careful with that sort of approach. I am not sure where he is on Winston Peters’ list. Has New Zealand First put its list out yet? 
Hon Member 
: No no no. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: It has not put the list out. New Zealand First is a bit sneaky; it is waiting until the dissolution of Parliament so that Barbara Stewart and a number of others including Ross Meurant cannot complain. 
Simon Power 
: Susan Baragwanath. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: Who? Not seriously. 
Simon Power 
: Read the newspapers. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: Oh that would be very sad. That actually cracks me up. I always thought she was a Tory. 
Darren Hughes 
: Get on to National’s tax policy. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: Well I actually had a spot in my speech for the National tax policy because John Key promised that 3 days after the date of the election was announced we would have the National Party tax policy. Have we got it yet? We do not have it because it does not add up. I think that Bill English has a good point in his— 
Ron Mark 
: He’s the future leader. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: I do not know whether National’s leader will be Bill English whether Bill English will be John Key’s deputy whether John Key will be Simon Power’s deputy or whether Simon Power will be Katherine Rich’s deputy— 
Darren Hughes 
: What about Gerry Brownlee? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: For goodness sake! The idea of Gerry Brownlee being on the front bench in 3 months’ time does not bear contemplation. But I will say that this Imprest Supply Bill will ensure that we do have enough money to implement the decisions taken after the finalisation of these estimates to cover the demand-driven expenses and other risks and contingencies that will face the Government between now and later in the year. It seeks authority to incur expenses of $1800 million and capital expenditure of $1300 million. That is a similar amount to the amount sought last year other than of course the treatment of GST which has changed over that period of time. 
There is a change and I think it is important to note that this bill seeks approval for the aggregate net asset holding of departments and Offices of Parliament to exceed the thresholds set in the Appropriation (2005/06 Estimates) bill. Approval for that is sought for an aggregate net asset holding of $16000 million. 
It is interesting that as we progress and improve our arrangements that things are made clearer. There is a lot of money in the estimates for education. I am particularly proud as the Minister of Education as well as an Associate Minister of Finance that the resourcing that is going in— 
Ron Mark 
: How come kids leaving school still can’t read? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: I think it is fair to say that there is a decreasing proportion of kids whose literacy skills are not the best. But the member also knows—because I know that Brian Donnelly told him—that our kids’ literacy is third in the OECD. 
 Our 15-year-olds are right up at the top of the OECD. 
Ron Mark 
: Except the ones who can’t read. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: I refer to the ones who can read. Literacy is the ability to read. The member might recognise illiteracy as being a condition he is slightly more familiar with. The point I am making is that— 
Ron Mark 
: What do you mean by that? I can read the writing on the wall for Labour. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: Well I have actually looked at a poll trend over the last week or so for New Zealand First and if that trend keeps going for another 2 weeks that member will be in a particularly interesting position. 
I say to John Key that some people are looking forward to his contribution. I think that a lot of people now—especially given the happenings earlier in the day—are looking forward to this speech staking out his position for the period after the election which would involve his shifting about two or three places to his left within the Chamber. There are some very high expectations on that relatively new member now. I regret the fact that urgent public business will stop me from staying to enjoy his speech but I am looking forward to reports that once again he will outshine Don Brash in the House today. 
JOHN KEY (National—Helensville) 
: 
 That was the Hon Trevor Mallard—the Minister for muckraking. When the going gets tough around Labour it does not roll out the intellectual giants. We do not see Helen Clark or Michael Cullen; we see the shin kicker who is put in to try to roll out the mess. It is very interesting. 
We are in the appropriation debate that started with Michael Cullen reading his sixth Budget in the House. That is the last time we saw Michael Cullen anywhere around that Budget because it was so soundly rejected and trounced by the public of New Zealand that Labour cannot afford to roll out Michael Cullen any more. He is persona non grata. The Government has sent the Minister of Welfare for the tax debate and the shin kicker for the appropriations debate. We do not see Michael Cullen anywhere around anything economic. In fact we are struggling to believe that we will see him in any of the debates on the hustings because when the public see Michael Cullen and they leap back to economics they will think only of Budget 2005. They will think of receiving 67c in 3 years’ time and will ask whether that is as good as it gets after 6 long years of Labour. They will have to wait 9 years to get anything and that is not good enough. 
Yesterday we saw something quite remarkable that relates to the appropriation debate. Trevor Mallard the muckraker could not help himself from continuing the previous roll he was on and he launched into a press release attacking Westpac. He went after Westpac in one of the most vicious attacks that a Minister of the Crown has ever bothered to mete out to the financial markets. He did that not because Westpac’s data was wrong; or the numbers in Brendan O’Donovan’s report were wrong—that the student loan policy will not cost $300 million per year; it will actually cost $1 billion per year—or the amount of debt on the New Zealand balance sheet will not rise from the current situation which is about $35 billion to about $47 billion in the next 10 years; or the Government will not have to write off $1.7 billion from its net worth in about 18 months’ time. It was not for any of those reasons. He attacked Brendan O’Donovan and Westpac because he did not like somebody who was independent of the Government actually calling it the way it was. 
Trevor Mallard’s press release was backed up by the Prime Minister of this country which was nothing short of disgraceful. It was an attempt to intimidate those who seek to challenge economic analysis and data from an independent non-political non-partisan basis. The message from the Government to such analysts was to not go there or the Government would mess them up in a very untidy fashion. That has been noted by analysts around the country who have said that they will not be intimidated by a bully boy like Trevor Mallard because there is no place in New Zealand’s economic debate for that behaviour. 
We saw something quite remarkable today. On the back of the document from Brendan O’Donovan of Westpac the most ridiculous and most intimidating press release that we have seen from a Minister of the Crown for quite some time—Trevor Mallard—and some very inappropriate statements from a Prime Minister of this country a second bank came out and said that it would not be intimidated by Labour. That was the message. That bank came out and backed another bank that is its competitor. The message was that it would not be subject to stand-over tactics by Trevor Mallard and that the Government’s numbers were wrong. 
This Government is trying to feed the people of New Zealand nothing short of a mistruth which is quite wrong. The banks stood up stood their ground and were backed by the financial markets. I say: “Good on them!” for having the guts to stand up to Trevor Mallard who is trying to intimidate independent commentary in this country. This is nothing short of a police State when Ministers of the Crown start acting in that way. My prediction is that Trevor Mallard will live to rue the day he did that because when those numbers come back to haunt the Government—if it ever gets a chance to roll that policy out—it will know what weak ground it is on. I am very surprised indeed that Trevor Mallard who is known to have stooped to some pretty low territory and who is down in the sewer at the best of times has managed to get under the sewer pipes. That is how bad it has become for Labour. 
Today we saw Phil Goff come down to the Chamber and launch his leadership bid. That is what he was doing in the House this afternoon. There was not one skerrick of truth in what Phil Goff was saying. He does not have the guts to— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: The member cannot refer to a member’s lack of courage. The member will apologise. 
JOHN KEY 
: I apologise. He did not have the fortitude to come down to the Chamber today with the full transcript because the Labour Party wanted to deal in little excerpts and that was the way it would work. Phil Goff will regret doing that because the public of New Zealand have no place for that sort of muckraking. 
That is why National has a Budget out there. We will see what happens on Budget day because when the election rolls around in 46 days’ time one party will be out there. [ 
Interruption 
] That is right—bring it on! For the record and for Trevor Mallard’s benefit I say that we want an election and that it cannot come soon enough. That is the view of the people of New Zealand as well because when we go to the polls in 46 days’ time we will be standing up and telling honest hard-working New Zealanders that we are behind them. The Labour Party may have forgotten about them. All those blue collar workers out there who toil from dawn to dusk and who used to look to the Labour Party for a bit of support will now look to the National Party. 
Here are the options. Option A is called Labour in which one gets the option to fund a bigger booze allowance for more students and universities around the country. That is option A. The message from Labour to young New Zealanders is that they can feed themselves on a diet of debt and that they should not bother working striving to get ahead or backing up the foundations this great country is built on. Instead they should go out there borrow more money and while they are at it they should get their mates to borrow money as well. 
On ShareChat today I saw that a system was being organised to get that money and put it into interest-earning accounts. That is the message under Labour. My prediction is that 60 percent of New Zealanders who are at university or have studied currently have a loan. Only 60 percent have borrowed. Members should mark my words: the other 40 percent will be borrowing to the hilt—as will the rest—because they do not have enough brains to work out that this is not free money; it is even better than free money. They do not have enough brains to be at university so they will borrow to the max. 
Option A is the Labour Party which is out there telling working New Zealanders that it does not care about them that it does not care about people on building sites slogging their guts out first thing in the morning and that it would much rather support a bigger booze allowance for students. Option B is the National Party which will roll out a tax plan that says to working New Zealanders that it cares about them. They might have been forgotten for 6 years— 
Hon Marian Hobbs 
: Show us the money—$50? How much? 
JOHN KEY 
: Marian Hobbs is asking me to show the money. I make this prediction. It is a good thing that votes are anonymous because in 46 days’ time when we go to the polling booths and when New Zealanders get a chance to vote my prediction is that some on the Labour side will vote National with their party vote. It will not even be Labour Party members; we can forget about them. Labour Members of this Parliament will actually vote for National because they will look at themselves in the mirror when they get up to go down to the polling booths and ask what sort of country they want. They will ask whether they want a country where there is only debt and where working New Zealanders have to pay for a bigger booze allowance for students or whether they want the really strong message that when they get up and go to work in the morning there is something in it for them—a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work. 
Some Labour members will vote for National with their party vote because they know a good thing when they see it. They will come over to the Opposition benches in the House—there will not be many of them left in 46 days’ time—look across and secretly in their heart of hearts they will know that they did the right thing for New Zealand. That will make them proud even though they will be in Opposition because they will know that National will not deliver a Budget that is so thick the messengers cannot even carry it into the Chamber. National will deliver a Budget that really makes sense for New Zealand and I cannot wait for Budget day. 
I cannot wait for election day—bring it on! I predict that many of those Labour members will vote National. 
Debate interrupted. 
Personal Explanations 
Question No. 5 to Minister 
Dr the Hon LOCKWOOD SMITH 
: I want to take this early opportunity to clarify and put in context a statement I made in the House this afternoon in relation to which the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade subsequently tabled an edited document. 
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade refused to release to me under the Official Information Act notes claimed to have been taken at a meeting I had with a group of visiting US senators. A confidential summary of notes taken at the meeting was eventually made available to me but it contained none of the Minister’s claim. Under the Privacy Act part of what the Minister has claimed was released to me. 
The allegation by Labour that I proposed a US-funded campaign to change our antinuclear legislation is utterly untrue. To the extent that the note released by Mr Goff implies that I wanted to invite a US think tank to run such a campaign in this country is equally untrue. New Zealanders will note that Mr Goff continues to refuse to release the full notes from the meeting because he knows that any balanced report of the discussion will show his Labour Government in the poorest of lights. 
Appropriation (2005/06 Estimates) Bill 
Third Reading 
Imprest Supply Debate 
Debate resumed on the Appropriation (2005/06 Estimates) Bill and the Imprest Supply (Second for 2005/06) Bill. 
RON MARK (NZ First) 
: 
 And is that not sad? That is becoming the template of this Government. We can play the great spin doctor— 
Jill Pettis 
: Ron this is for the big boys. 
RON MARK 
: That I tell listeners is the plaintive cry of an about-to-become- extinct parrot. 
Jill Pettis 
: I don’t think so. 
RON MARK 
: Well if they want to throw it around it has got to come back—boomerangs have a habit of doing that. This Government has a habit— 
Jill Pettis 
: What seat do you represent? 
RON MARK 
: Oh here we go! This is the arrogant elitist Labour Party. If the Government wants to know if the public wants to know and if the Labour Party wants to know why it has become so detached from its membership there is the perfect example; the air of arrogance the air of “We won. You lost. Eat that!” the air of “I am a victim of my own success as a most popular and competent Prime Minister.” the air of Jill Pettis running around saying: “Oh New Zealand First is so unsophisticated.” and the air of a Labour Party whose members would rather attend a symphony concert or an art show or be seen at the World of Wearable Art Awards in a costume—doing the very things that it ridicules the National Party and supposedly its supporters for doing: flitting and flirting in high society but being so out of touch with working-class people that we end up with Ms Pettis uttering across the House: “What electorate do you represent?”. 
Well the message for Ms Pettis is this: one is not superior I tell the member because one has an electorate as an electorate MP. Every MP in this House stands here on equal terms. Georgina Beyer the person who sits beside that member will no doubt be a list MP after this election. She is worth no less than Ms Pettis’ pompous arrogant selfish self. That member should get the message now because paid-up card-carrying members of the Labour Party are sick of her arrogance and her elitism and they are sick of her being out of touch. She displays all the airs that ooze from her Prime Minister—that she would rather mix in high society with academia and the elite rather flit through art galleries than go and sit in a pub and talk to a working-class New Zealander who drives a bulldozer or sit somewhere on the West Coast and talk to an unemployed seamstress who is redundant because a business has folded. Ms Pettis now through  
Hansard 
 is immortalised in her arrogance and we will carry that flame for her in the next election. 
I want to go to Ms Marian Hobbs and Mr Mallard who sit here and champion the handling of the economy by their Government by proudly stating that they have created more work—more employed and fewer unemployed. When I say that there are far more casual workers and that the vast majority of the people they boast of as being employed are only casually employed Ms Hobbs says: “Oh but we have casual workers doing 50 hours a week and three jobs.” She is proud of that? Labour is proud of that? Labour is proud of the fact that working-class New Zealanders— 
Hon Marian Hobbs 
: Point of order Mr Speaker— 
RON MARK 
: You had better make it damn clear. 
Hon Marian Hobbs 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I do not intend to be intimidated like that across the House. Can that speaker withdraw and apologise for threatening me across the House by saying it had better be “damn clear” I make it clear? May he withdraw that? 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I ask that the tone of the House ease a little bit. There was fault on both sides. The member is concerned about misrepresentation and action about that can be taken only at the end of the speech. I ask Mr Mark to come to order please. 
Simon Power 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I am sorry to interrupt the member but we find ourselves in a slightly tricky situation. If the Minister is saying that she has taken offence at Mr Mark’s comments then the Standing Orders deal with that in a very specific way. If she is not saying that she takes offence then the manner in which you have ruled is of course absolutely correct. I think for the sake of creating the tone you desire Mr Assistant Speaker we should ask the Minister which of those camps she falls into. 
Hon Marian Hobbs 
: Can I clarify it Mr Assistant Speaker? In the first place the speaker on the floor misquoted me. I stood to say that and he said in a very threatening tone for me to make myself clear. It was that that I took offence to. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: The first part concerns misrepresentation which is covered by Speaker’s ruling 35/3. The second part is that one parliamentary indiscretion does not justify another. So there was fault on both sides; it is one all. 
RON MARK 
: We live in a day and an age when Peter Brown stood in this House when the Employment Relations Bill was being passed and tried to get this Government to incorporate within that bill recognition in legislation of and protection for casualised workers. Marian Hobbs voted against the Supplementary Order Paper and Steve Maharey voted against that Supplementary Order Paper. Right now Labour is boasting; Mr Mallard stood there and said that 50 hours a week of casual labour is a good job. Well excuse me but the average Labour voter thinks it sucks that people have to do three jobs to get 50 hours’ employment a week—with no protection from the Employment Relations Act with no redundancy agreement and with no holiday pay. It stinks! It stinks that Labour—Ms Hobbs and Mr Mallard—can interject across the House and tell members of New Zealand First that that is acceptable. It is not acceptable in this day and age. It is not acceptable that supporters of Labour a party once led by Mickey Savage Norm Kirk—“Big Norm”—and Mike Moore should have to sit back and listen to those MPs in a Labour Government say that casual employment is a good thing. [ 
Interruption 
] Ms Soper knows of what I speak. It is an abomination that Labour voters all over this country are working casual hours and Labour says that unemployment is down. 
Hon Marian Hobbs 
: I didn’t say that. 
RON MARK 
: Well Ms Hobbs tell the House how many people are casually employed today. 
Hon Marian Hobbs 
: A lot are casually employed. 
RON MARK 
: No how many? Do you know why you do not know Ms Hobbs? Because you have vetoed— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich) 
: Do not bring the Speaker into the debate. 
RON MARK 
: No I said “Ms Hobbs”. Stop protecting her Mr Assistant Speaker. Do you know why the Government does not know? Because it vetoed Peter Brown’s— 
Hon Harry Duynhoven 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. You might not— 
RON MARK 
: Oh! It hurts. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich) 
: The member on my left well knows that when a point of order is being taken it is to be heard in silence. I know what the Hon Harry Duynhoven will say and I can say that I was not intimidated. 
RON MARK 
: I know that the pattern that is emerging of interjecting and taking points of order is intended to shut me down because I am hitting home. Labour voters all over the country know that this Government does not care about the number of people who are casually employed. Marian Hobbs says—[ 
Interruption 
] Did she just call me a liar? Marian Hobbs knows and has admitted that she cannot say how many casual employees there are because the Government vetoed Peter Brown’s Supplementary Order Paper that would have required the keeping of statistics on exactly that. I have only to ask Labour why. I ask Marian Hobbs why Labour vetoed that. Why? There is still no answer. I will ask Marian Hobbs again. Why did Labour veto that Supplementary Order Paper? That is the point. 
Jill Pettis 
: Porangi! 
RON MARK 
: What does that mean? Does that require a ruling from you Mr Assistant Speaker? I will move on because Labour members are simply trying to use up my time. 
In terms of Vote Police what we are dealing with is exactly what I started my speech with: the silent innuendo. The Prime Minister was asked questions in the House today about the “Waimate Run”—the equivalent of the “Cannonball Run”—which has resulted in five police officers and a civilian facing charges. She sat there in the sanctity and security of being the Prime Minister totally above it all. What did she say in response to the questions that were asked? She said that the requirement is to tell the truth in the House. By implication she said that she can say what she damn well likes on the street. She can go out on the street and say that she was totally oblivious to what was going on because she was so busy working because she had her head down in the back reading Cabinet papers. Yet we in New Zealand First know that that motorcade would not have done what it did if she had said stop. 
We in New Zealand First know that five police officers’ families—Dianne Yates just gave a big sigh. I will tell Dianne Yates this. This involves six families who have sat by and watched their partners and parents go through the stress and trauma of an investigation. Now those wives and children must watch those people go through the court procedure. Now they must sit there and wait and wonder whether their families will have a job and an income. They know that one person could have put an end to it. But Dianne Yates’ answer—it is in  
Hansard 
 and boy are we going to use it—is a sigh; she is bored. We will let the six families know that Dianne Yates is bored by our questions about what this Government thinks of their situation. 
There it is again. What a lovely way to finish! I started speaking of the arrogance that has permeated Labour. I was once a proud member of Labour but I do not look with pride upon the arrogance and contempt that came out of Jill Pettis’ mouth earlier and Dianne Yates’ mouth just then. It reveals the underbelly of Labour. The underbelly of Labour is: “We’ve been in Government for 6 years we’re going to be there for another 3 and we’re above it all.” Well it is not above it all and chances are it may not be in Government again. When that happens Labour members will have time to sit on this side of the House and reflect on the utterances of those two women and the comment of the Prime Minister that she is required to tell the truth in the House only; that she does not have to fess up and support those police; she can sit by and watch them hang when she knew precisely what was going on when it was being done for her and when she could have stopped it. It is just a repeat of “paintergate” and of her being a “victim of her own success as a popular and competent Prime Minister”. 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY (Minister for Social Development and Employment) 
: 
 As we move towards the end of this Parliament with questions finishing today and people doing valedictory speeches people are looking forward to getting out on the hustings. Mrs Coddington told us that she wants to leave Parliament because she has no anger any more. I think Mr Mark was telling us that he wants to stay because he is about as angry as he could possibly be. That was a fairly angry passionate committed speech from him. I look forward to seeing Mr Mark out there on the hustings telling people what he is actually committed to. The speech he gave really did not get to the heart of what this election will be about. 
I think this election will be about a very very clear choice. There will not be a lot of parties left in this House after this election. MMP has got to the point where it is now maturing. People are starting to settle on what their choices will be. It seems to most pundits that the National Party and the Labour Party will offer people two different approaches to the future. I want to come back to that. 
Ron Mark 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I offer my sincere apologies to Mr Maharey for interrupting his speech and I hope he believes me when I say that I am not doing this to interrupt his speech. Mr Speaker I have just had a conversation with the Hon Marian Hobbs who made it very clear to me that the comment she made across the House was not in support of the fact that New Zealanders some of whom she knows are working for 50 hours a week as casual labourers. She is not proud of that. She told me so and she made it clear to me that my comments upset and offended her. I wish to offer the Hon Marian Hobbs an apology. I accept that she is an honest person and when she says to me that she is not proud of that fact then I accept that wholeheartedly. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich) 
: Thank you for that. I let you carry on. It was not a point of order but—all right. 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: On behalf of Ms Hobbs I pass on that that was a noble act from somebody who obviously saw that there was a different way of looking at the issues. I was saying that I think that with MMP maturing the way it is we are going into an election after which we will not have the same cast of characters back in this House. It is clear that Mr Nandor Tanczos and the Green Party are running reasonably well out there in the electorates but when we look around the rest of the House we see obviously the demise of ACT some deep trouble for United Future and probably a reduced position for New Zealand First. 
The contest will come down to two big major pictures for the future. Those pictures really—and it is good to see John Key in the House this evening—will be driven by the choice in relation to a tax cut - driven agenda which Ken Shirley quite rightly is spitting tacks over. He himself—the ACT party—drove the notion that tax cuts were the only way forward. Unfortunately since the arrival of Don Brash the National Party has taken on that mantle so ACT is irrelevant and Mr Shirley is on his way to one of his last drives back to the airport as a result of that. What we have in front of us is the tax cut agenda which we know means cuts to social services and borrowing—exactly what happened last time a Government drove that formula—versus what I would call the investment agenda: the agenda of the last 6 years. The investment agenda is about investing in health investing in education and investing in the things New Zealanders care about like good housing regional development the police force and all the things that have led to the stunning headlines around the world concerning this country. What does the OECD call us? It calls us a “jobs miracle”. What does Lonely Planet call us? It calls us a “hot country”. What are we known as in the cultural and film world? We are known as virtually the world centre of arts and culture whether it is in fashion film or music. All of those things add up to this little country of 4 million people having a staggering reputation all around the world for its economy its society its environmental leadership and its cultural leadership. 
The National Party is offering to change that. Let us imagine really sensible people sitting down and asking themselves what they should offer New Zealanders at this election. We have a country that is running hot in the eyes of virtually every other leading country in the world and National says to New Zealanders that it wants to take them in a radically new direction. That is after 6 years of amazing success following decades of failure. Do people remember that incomes in this country fell every single year from 1972 until 1998—and then what happened? Labour was elected. People should remember that incomes fell every single year. I am not sure whether Murray McCully is the National Party’s strategist. I know that the great Liberace of the Opposition side of the House the “lounge Lothario” Mr McCully no doubt thought National’s agenda up himself as he thinks he is in touch with New Zealanders. He thought National should go out as the Opposition and offer to change everything. 
I just want to tell people that I am a local provincial MP as are Mr Darren Hughes and Ms Soper who are sitting behind me. We are simple folk in the provincial centres. All that we want is to have evidence of what works. I would ask Mr Hughes whether that is not right. We do not want to hear fancy arguments from the sharebroker from London. We do not want all that market-speak. We do not want to hear all the stuff that comes from the eggheads across the road from Parliament. We do not want to hear all the stuff that comes from rich boys who live in huge houses because the people we represent simply want to know what difference it would make to have this Government or to have another Government. 
Let us look at my province and at Ms Pettis’ province the Manawatu-Whanganui region with regard to jobs. Basically at the end of the 1990s after the National Government had finished with us in the Whanganui-Manawatu region we were arguing over who would turn the lights out when we left because there was no growth. There were no jobs. Our biggest enterprise in the Manawatu-Whanganui region was to export people out of the region. What is it like 6 years later? We went from an unemployment rate—queue if you like—in the city of Palmerston North of 11900 people. Do members know how many people are unemployed and on the unemployment benefit in Palmerston North today? There are 715 people. If we take businesses in Palmerston North we find businesses were leaving in droves in the 1990s one after the other. Light manufacturers were going somewhere else. When people come through and look at our city at the present time they will see that EziBuy a large mail-order fashion company is pouring a concrete floor the size of about five football fields for its new factory. The largest refrigerator in the Southern Hemisphere is being built by Kapiti Cheeses which also produces ice creams and so on in the Manawatu. That growth is happening in Palmerston North right now and in Simon Power’s electorate. He is very grateful to the Labour Government for stimulating the economy so that he has an electorate where things are absolutely happening. 
Darren Hughes 
: He’s a Labour MP at heart. 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: That is what is being said at home. People are saying that Simon Power is a Labour MP because he backs growth and jobs and he welcomes the fact that 500 more businesses are operating in Palmerston North since we came to power—500. In the 1990s businesses were leaving; now they are coming. Those businesses have created 6900 new jobs in Palmerston North in the last 6 years. 
Let us take an area like training. There are 10000 people training in the Manawatu-Whanganui area right now because of this Government. Modern Apprenticeships are giving young people a route into industry and a real job. Crime dropped by 15 percent in Palmerston North in the last year alone—it is 15 percent down. We can walk through our square now; it used to be a place where people did not want to go. It is now a place where people want to go because there is no crime for them to worry about when passing through that square. If we look at health we see the spending on health is amazing—and we have a base hospital. We are a place with a lot of retirement homes and money has been flowing through that area—$42 million has been budgeted for older care alone in Palmerston North. A tsunami of money for health has been coming through our region. It is the same in education. We also find that in the defence area it is the same. We are the defence capital of the country and Simon Power knows that as a former defence spokesperson. We are the defence capital of the country. There is $4.6 billion for defence a large amount of which will flow through the Manawatu region because of this Government. 
That is all that Darren Hughes and Lesley Soper say when they are out on the hustings and that is all that Ashraf Choudhary says. We say to people that they have a simple choice at this election: a tax cut agenda with spending cuts borrowing and all the things we saw in the 1990s or a track record of stunning success for our regions. We will not turn the lights off now. The lights are burning incredibly brightly in provincial centres like mine because of this Government and its investments. In every meeting when I finish I ask people which box they will tick and they say they think they will tick Labour. 
Hon KEN SHIRLEY (ACT) 
: 
 What an incredible lot of crowing we have just heard from the Labour Government! Government members do not realise they have been picking the low fruit of the hard yards of the reform that was done through the troubled times of the 1980s and that was carried on by Ruth Richardson in the early 1990s. They inherited those benefits and are plucking the low fruit while they waste and squander the period of prosperity we have had. 
Who really believes that Jim Anderton and the Labour Government turned round the Southland economy? Time and time again we hear the Labour Government claiming credit for it. It had nothing to do with its policies whatsoever. The international dairy price and investment in dairying turned the Southland economy round and Government members forget that point time and time again. 
But let us come to taxation. This has to be the meanest Government this country has ever seen. We actually have a rich Government but poor people because this Government is taking the money from them. Government members think it is their money. If we talk to these folk we find they actually believe that it is their money. They do not recognise that Governments do not have any money other than the money they take from hard-working people under the pretence that they can spend it better than those people. The hard reality is that they cannot. I do not know of any bunch of bureaucrats or politicians who can make better decisions on how money should be spent than those who worked for it and can get a better outcome. 
But this Government believes that doing that is its right. If we look at Australia across the Tasman we see that Australians have just been given a comprehensive tax reduction across the board. 
Darren Hughes 
: $6 a week. 
Hon KEN SHIRLEY 
: The Australian Government could afford it I say to Mr Hughes. That Government could afford it having a surplus. It could afford a comprehensive tax reduction on the basis of having a surplus of 1 percent of GDP. The Labour Government in New Zealand is sitting on a surplus of 4 percent of GDP—a $7 billion surplus—and it says it cannot afford it. The Government just wants to take more and more money. 
What does it spend it on? Let us look at some of the things the Government has spent it on—for example Te Wananga o Aotearoa. Last year alone $239 million of hard-working Kiwis’ money was gouged out of them and just thrown out and this Government was totally culpable for that. Its tertiary education policy was a sham and a farce—an absolute sham and a farce. Anyone could enrol in any course. There was no measure of quality no check on the numbers and no integrity. People just turned up and were bums on seats. The Government threw taxpayers’ money at the wananga; it threw it out of the window. That is the trademark of this Labour Government: it just shovels taxpayers’ money out of the window with gay abandon. 
Well I have news for the Labour Government. Global economies go in cycles and we have had the good times. The Government has chewed the fat wasted it and not carried on with the reforms that were desperately needed in this country. When the cycle turns who will we be blaming? Successive generations of New Zealanders will look back on this Labour Government; sure it got two terms—that is quite a record for a Labour Government in itself; it does not happen very often—but it is the culprit. Its members were the ones who squandered the opportunities through the good times on bad spending and a lack of courage or vision actually to carry on the reform processes that were urgently required. 
If we look around the world at all successful economies we see that not one of them has become successful by increasing taxation. Essentially only one OECD country has increased taxation in the last 6 years and which one is it? Let us have a guess. It is New Zealand. New Zealand is the only OECD country that has increased taxation. If we look at the miracle economies of the former Soviet bloc that are experiencing growth and progress—Estonia Latvia Lithuania Moldova and the Czech Republic—we see their tax is down at 12 percent. They are former Soviet bloc countries. They learnt the lesson of the big State—that central command policies do not work. They have gone to 13 percent tax. Investment is flowing in. They are getting significant growth and their people have rising prosperity. 
Here we have a very wealthy flush Government but very poor people. New Zealanders are not any better off than they were 6 years’ ago in spite of the so-called good times because this irresponsible Government has squandered it—absolutely squandered those hard-earned reforms and the benefits that flowed from them. 
Let us look at the energy sector in this country. What an absolute mess! There has been no significant investment in new generation. There has been no investment in the national grid for 10 years. It is right at the end of its limits and this Government—this outgoing Labour Government—has made a succession of policy decisions that are fundamentally against the better interests of New Zealand such is its eagerness to rush in and sign up to the Kyoto Protocol. Finally the chickens are starting to come home to roost. What a stupid thing to have done! We are the only Southern Hemisphere country with a Kyoto obligation. We are the only ASEAN country with an obligation. Only two other APEC nations Japan and Canada have the obligation that we have imposed on ourselves. 
I put it to members that if we look at the New Zealand economy we see that we have three advantages compared with other nations. One is actually climate. Our moist or relatively moist temperate climate is actually what underpins our biological economy and our production. The second key factor has been a relatively well-educated population and I think we are sliding there. The third factor has actually been an abundant supply of competitively priced energy. The policy of this Government is actually to drive up the price of energy so that its chosen renewables be it wind or whatever become competitive. That is a recipe to destroy the New Zealand economy—an absolute recipe for destruction. Yet this Government is proud of the fact. It wants to drive up the price of energy. New Zealand’s energy supply is one of our key comparative advantages as a trading nation; fewer economies are as dependent on trade as we are yet the Government is hell-bent on destroying and throwing away that comparative advantage. 
The ACT party does favour low taxation. We always have right from day one. When we came to this Parliament in 1996 we were advocating lower taxation. We were the only party doing that then. We could not get the then National Government to move. It did not see the wisdom of lower taxation. Fortunately National has now come to its senses and has recognised the meaningful nature of lowering taxation to get investment and growth in the New Zealand economy. 
But I think the outgoing Labour Government will be most condemned for the way that on the social side of policies it failed to carry on the reforms that were required. It had the opportunity it had the money and it had the good fortune to inherit the structure that gave us a time of prosperity and it squandered it wasted it and flushed it away. 
Hon PETE HODGSON (Minister of Transport) 
: 
 The member who has just resumed his seat has a bible. It is called “ 
Unfinished Business 
”. 
The business remains unfinished. The party will be finished. The low-tax policies that are promoted by the ACT party have fallen into disfavour to an extent and just the same the member continues to promote the idea that the electorate has rejected. I must say that the ACT party is consistent. It has been consistent from its outset and it has been consistently wrong. 
The ACT party is not of much concern to me but Ken Shirley who resumed his seat did make some interesting comments about energy. He said that there was no generation going in and that there was not enough investment. He said that we had put up the price of electricity in order to get our favoured wind generation away etc. Then he went on in a remarkable admission in the same speech—actually it was within 1 minute of that—to say that one of our great advantages as a nation was a reliable equable mid-latitude island climate. That is what the Kyoto Protocol is about and yet a minute or two earlier that gentleman had spoken against Kyoto even though it is easily the best opportunity we have to protect that which the same member holds dear. 
Here are a few facts about the energy scene. The price of Maui gas was set about 30 years ago in a contract and it has risen by half the rate of inflation for all of those 30 or 35 years which is why gas out of Maui is worth $2 or $1.80 a gigajoule. It is a subsidised fossil fuel and the Maui gasfield unsurprisingly is running out. That is what happens when one subsidises the price of anything. The replacement gas is not $1.80. It is about $6.50 or $5.50 a gigajoule depending on the gasfield involved. That more than anything is what has been driving electricity prices in this country. Wind generation has another story to tell. Wind generation in this country got under way because of carbon credits which exist because of Kyoto. Without the protocol there would be no credits and no wind energy. The member should get that. There was a loop to be closed there and this Government did it. 
But as far as the National Party is concerned one would never know what its policy was on energy. National has had a different energy spokesperson about every 6 months. It has never recovered from the disaster of Max Bradford who decided that a person who owned a lines company could not own an electron flowing through it. The remarkable restructuring that took place at that time did this country no good at all. That man said that on 1 April 1999 electricity prices would fall and they did not. They rose and Max Bradford left politics as a result of that. That member made a mess of the portfolio and the subsequent National Party energy spokespeople have never got their heads around it. That is why National continues to change its energy spokesperson. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: Who is it? 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: I do not know whom the present energy spokesperson is. It used to be Pansy Wong. It used to be Roger Sowry but he gave his valedictory speech today so it cannot be him. It used to be Gerry Brownlee but he found energy too difficult and took up Maori affairs instead. I do not know whom the spokesperson is. It may be Simon Power but I thought he was the whip. The point is that the National Party does not have a good policy on energy. 
Actually National does not have much of a policy on anything. It has a tax policy which is yet to be released. It has a nuclear policy times nine it has an Iraq policy times seven it has an issue about the ownership of schools times five and it has a view about health organisations times three. It depends on the time of the day it depends on the audience it depends on the mood and it depends on the poll ratings—it depends on those things. The National Party will not be able to print a manifesto unless it is one that has so much sandpaper over it that one will not know what National stands for. The National Party does not know what it stands for and if one does not know what one stands for in politics one should not stand. Yet the National Party has decided to contest this election by saying that that kind of platitude generalisation and vagueness will get it through. Well it will not because the democratic process is about close scrutiny—close scrutiny on television close scrutiny in the town hall and close scrutiny in the newspapers. Close scrutiny will result in people seeing the National Party for what it is: a bunch of flip-floppers—a bunch of people who have a point of view that changes at every occasion. 
 That is not the fault of most of the National caucus. The fault rests with the leadership. The fault rests with the leadership because National’s leader has in earlier times spoken freely and given his mind. There was Dr Brash’s comment on nuclear ships that they would be “gone by lunchtime” his comment that “Frankly I do not care who owns the schools” and the idea that he would have followed President Bush into Iraq—those three will do. There are plenty of other examples like: “If a person was associated with the local marae I probably wouldn’t employ him.”—a further statement by Dr Brash. As the heatwave has come on Dr Brash—as the blowtorch has gone on him—he has found himself changing his position to make it less unacceptable. He has said things like: “These are irrelevancies.” “This is not the issue of the day.” and “We will have a referendum on the nuclear issue.” A referendum on the nuclear issue—called by whom I wonder? Would it be called by the National Government if there were ever to be one? There is silence on that. Would it be called by the Americans? Well we know that Lockwood Smith wanted the think tank to come and soften us up but the Americans bless them said that no that was our business and that they would not interfere in domestic policy. That is exactly what the Americans said. There are somewhat higher standards from US senators than we see from our own Opposition MPs. 
But the question does arise: who would call the referendum on the nuclear power issue if National ever formed a Government? National has not yet answered that question. Under what pretext under what circumstances for what reason and over what period of time might National arrange for there to be a referendum? Would it be in the first 3 years? No answer has been given. So even now on the nuclear issue just to pick on one issue—it is such a simple thing because the answer is either yes or no which is why it is a good political issue to pick on—we cannot get an answer from National. We can get only seven answers. That is exactly what is wrong with the National Party as it finds itself 6 weeks and 3 days out from an election. It does not have a firm view on anything. Of course if National did have a firm view and I felt that that view was wrong it would be a different thing. We would then contest for the 4 million New Zealanders—those amongst them who have votes—to say who will win at the election. But we do not know where the National Party stands because it flip-flops. 
What we do know is that the underlying rhetoric of National’s leader is radical. It is swirly-eyed; it is really very different. It is really quite scary. The gentleman is rather odd. We know that about the National Party leader. We do not need to go to his utterances to learn that; we can just read the authorised biography. We know the gentleman is odd. But what we do not know is what National would do in Government. We suspect it would be radical and we suspect there would be significant change. We suspect we would go back to the future in a rerun of the 1990s. But we cannot tell what National would do because National has not said clearly what its policy is. We are 6 weeks and 3 days away from polling day. It really is time for the National Party to front up to stop flip-flopping to stop trying to disguise its policy to come clean on what its policy is to have the courage to say what its policy is to spell it out to give it some detail and to point out where the detail cannot yet be determined because that is fair enough and to put its policy out clearly to the public so that we know what the National Party in the year 2005 stands for. No one seems to know that now because it does depend on the time of the day the speaker and the audience. That is not the way to run a democracy and National will get caught out as we move closer and closer to a campaign for having more than one viewpoint on virtually any subject really. 
Primary health organisations would be a cracker. Would they be gone by lunchtime? Would they be gone slowly? Would National just amalgamate the little ones first? Would it change their governance? Would National turn them back in order that they come under greater control from general practitioners? Would National require primary health organisations to have high levels of auditing? Would it get rid of them by punishing them with high levels of compliance? Or would National get rid of them in a clean sweep? That is not clear. We do know that National does not like primary health organisations even though New Zealanders do and even though New Zealanders enrol in them at a huge 99-point-something percent rate. We know that New Zealanders like primary health organisations and we know that those organisations are working but we do not know how National would get rid of them. We just know that National does not like them. We just know that the primary health organisations would go backwards but we do not know the detail of how that would occur. National itself perhaps does not know that and it has 6 weeks and 3 days to find out. If National does not have a clear position by then we will tell people what its position is and National will be in the position of having to deny that. That is how it works. So too it is the case on almost any other subject. The National Party needs to know what it stands for because it is about to stand. 
PANSY WONG (National) 
: 
 We have heard very clearly the urgency in the tone used by the Hon Pete Hodgson together with the other two speakers Trevor Mallard and Steve Maharey to see a National Government in 6 weeks’ time. The Hon Pete Hodgson cannot wait. We heard the anxiousness in his speech. Do members know why? None of those three Labour members who have spoken in the debate mentioned even once the last Budget speech of the Hon Michael Cullen. In fact Labour members want to put that nightmare Budget behind them. I bet all of them like the public cannot wait to see the incoming Minister of Finance the Hon John Key deliver an alternative budget because Labour simply does not know how to proceed. It has totally run out of options and solutions. 
Where is the Hon Michael Cullen’s KiwiSaver? Why are no members standing in the Chamber to say they can campaign for the so-called third-term Government on this Budget 2005? They have thrown the Budget away. The Hon Michael Cullen the Minister of Finance preached to the public to be fiscally responsible and said there was no fat in the Budget to reward hard-working New Zealanders. Oops! Suddenly $300 million came up from nowhere for interest-free student loans. 
Let me lay out the reasons why Labour is so anxious in a tone that we can hear for National to come in and to see John Key’s budget because Labour cannot proceed. Look at education. What is the solution? I refer to Labour’s pre-school policy. Its own Minister from Auckland does not even know which pre-school childcare facility would qualify for the 20 hours. We have the carers calling for Labour to scrap that. 
How about schools? They have no answer because Trevor Mallard not too long ago wanted to close 300 schools. Oops! He changed his mind. I refer to tertiary education. What is the answer? The answer is 200 bureaucrats. The Hon Michael Cullen talked about quality education—singalong courses that were supposed to be closed down. When? It was last year. Well I have bad news for Labour. Enrolments were still open until yesterday. Another class is to start in August. 
Then worse student loans—what is the answer? Interest-free loans! Pete Hodgson mentioned that National members should stand and be prepared for close scrutiny. Well he is a fine one to talk! When the Westpac economist scrutinised the so-called $300 million cost he came out with a figure that was at least double and it could rise to a billion dollars. That is amazing is it not? Labour does not like scrutiny. Labour does not like its numbers to be scrutinised. So here we go. Education has nowhere to go. 
I want to tackle the Hon Pete Hodgson because he wants to talk about solutions. Nobody would be able to tell or to predict this about the Hon Pete Hodgson. He was the Labour Opposition spokesperson on energy for 9 years. When he became the Minister of Energy his first policy was to seek an inquiry into the energy sector. He was 9 years in Opposition and his first role as Minister was to ask for an inquiry. Even today I do not think that people out there actually know what Labour’s policy on energy is—whether it is more wind farms: not possible due to objectors using the Resource Management Act. The next minute it wants clean fuels and suddenly it comes up with a concession for the oil exploration industry. What a contrast! Then there is the billion-dollar problem with the Kyoto Protocol. How can people have confidence in Labour? 
What about the police? We thought Labour had spelt out its commitment for a safe New Zealand community and that it would put some money into police. Now the word on the street is that it will come up with even more money for the police. But people are still looking for police on the streets. Everywhere I go including public meetings it is obvious that every single individual who turns up to public meetings tells all the candidates that priority for police under Labour is on issuing tickets. No matter how much Labour members try to convince the public that New Zealand is now enjoying its safest period and that the police have the highest budget no single individual whom I have come across throughout New Zealand actually believes that Labour has any answers for keeping the New Zealand community safe. 
That is why during all those three speeches none of those members was proud enough to talk about Michael Cullen’s Budget. Instead I could hear the pleading in their voices that they wanted to hear about the alternative budget of John Key—the incoming Minister. They seemed to be secretly asking us to help Labour because they did not know which way to turn or where to lead New Zealand in terms of Michael Cullen’s word that the long-term economic and social health of New Zealand is waiting to be improved. 
In the last 6 long years Labour has just squandered the best economic situation and conditions that have faced New Zealand. It did nothing but reconfirm that Labour is a high-tax and income redistribution party that basically is keen only to tax people and then hand it out to its favourite groups without paying any attention or respect to hard-working New Zealanders. It holds the business sector in contempt. It has absolutely no respect for business. I do not know why. That is the sector that provides jobs but it gets nothing from this Government. 
The fact is that everywhere I go I am asked what sort of a Government it is that would insult its citizens by telling them after 6 years that they have to wait another 3 years to get a 67c tax cut per week. That is why there is silence on Dr Michael Cullen the Minister of Finance and they have chosen to forget this Budget statement. The 2005 Budget is a total failure for Labour and I can tell that all members opposite are anxious and waiting to see what National will come up with. They are waiting for a new Minister of Finance who has an alternative budget that would reward New Zealanders not subject them to high taxes. 
RON MARK (NZ First) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. It relates to a point of order that I raised with the Speaker in the Chair earlier in the debate. The chief Government whip used a Maori word to describe me as she walked across the floor of the House. She used the word at least twice. I asked the Speaker whether he was going to allow that reference to go unchallenged. He did not intervene and I continued with my speech. I subsequently checked that Maori word and I now ask you to see whether Jill Pettis wishes that word to stand; otherwise will she accept that I might refer to her as kairau in the future. I ask whether she is prepared to stand withdraw and apologise for calling me a drunk in Maori and getting away with it. I take extreme exception— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich) 
: The member has made his point. 
RON MARK 
: So I can call her kairau any time I like? 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich) 
: No we cannot get into hypothetical situations. The member Jill Pettis said something in Maori. She should have translated it. I ask her to translate please. 
JILL PETTIS (Labour—Whanganui) 
: 
 I said “porangi” which means mad. But if the member is tired and emotional and has taken offence I apologise. 
RON MARK (NZ First) 
: 
 I raise a further point of order Mr Speaker. I much prefer a gracious magnanimous withdrawal but if it is beyond that member to do such a thing then we will let it lie where it lies and will deal with it in public. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich) 
: Ms Pettis is quite aware that a withdrawal should not be qualified. An apology would be helpful. 
JILL PETTIS (Labour—Whanganui) 
: 
 I apologise. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich) 
: Thank you. 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Minister of Health) 
: 
 There are 6 weeks and 3 days until the election. Obviously it cannot come soon enough for some people in this House who are looking forward to a long holiday indeed. In fact the bell is about to toll for a large number of MPs and parties in this House. It is past time for some of them to front up speak up and own up to New Zealanders as to what their policies will do to New Zealanders. It is time that those politicians put on record what their policies are so that New Zealanders can make their choices. 
I have to say that Don Brash and the National Party have been playing New Zealanders for suckers week in and week out in this Parliament and in the little meetings in halls that they have been holding around New Zealand. They have been playing New Zealanders for suckers. Don Brash has been doing the equivalent of a political striptease with his major policy plank. He has been doing the political striptease with his tax cuts. It is a sordid little peep show that he has been teasing New Zealanders with. He is the proverbial teaser of the voter. What he has been doing is talk about when he will announce the tax cuts. I want to take New Zealanders who are listening tonight on this political striptease of Don Brash and his tax cuts. 
On 1 April this year he said that he did not propose to announce National’s tax policy and that indeed he would defer any detailed announcement on its tax policy until after the Budget on 19 May. On 13 May he said that not long after the 19 May Budget in the run-up to the election he would be announcing a very different set of policies from those of Helen Clark’s Government and that lower taxes on families would be firmly on the agenda. The next day the National Party leader Don Brash said to the Otago chamber of commerce that National’s tax policy would be announced in the next 2 or 3 weeks. When was that? That was on 14 May. We got to the next day 15 May. He said that National would lessen the burden on hundreds of thousands of middle-income families and would be announcing its policy once it had seen what was left in the Budget. 
The Budget was on 19 May. Obviously National members are slow readers as we hear from the rest of the story. On 21 May at the launch of his post-Budget roadshow Dr Brash confirmed that he would offer big tax cuts to all workers but he refused to repeat the Budget night assurance that it would amount to billions of dollars. John Key had told New Zealanders in the  
Sunday Star-Times 
 that the tax cuts would amount to billions not hundred of millions of dollars. Dr Brash refused to confirm that figure or to provide details of National’s tax plan. 
He said on 21 May that he would be announcing details of the tax cuts in a few weeks’ time. Well we got to 22 May and Dr Brash said that National would bring in a tax system that rewards enterprise and rewards skill and hard work and that he would announce it in a few weeks’ time. That was on 22 May. On 23 May Dr Brash said that he hoped to provide wide-scale tax relief for New Zealanders to restore some kind of incentive for hard work and initiative but that we would have to wait because he intended to announce it in a few weeks’ time. It was reported that he said that teasingly on  
Morning Report 
 on 23 May. Well we got to 26 May and he said that National’s tax policies could not be announced until after the Budget. Well the Budget had been the week before! He said that National would announce them shortly in the next few weeks—that he would do that. 
By 11 June he had this to say: “The reality is we will announce our tax policy well ahead of the election. We said we would do it in a few weeks after the Budget was announced.” National was going to do it a few weeks after the Budget was announced; we were now at 11 June. “Why are you holding this back?” asked the presenter; “Is it for strategic advantage?”. Dr Brash said: “That is correct.” This is all about strategic advantage. It has nothing to do with wanting to be honest and upfront with taxpayers. 
Then we got to 6 July and Dr Brash said this: “We will be revealing more and more bits of policy over the next few weeks.” Then we got to 7 July and he said: “We will be rolling it out next month. We don’t have a particular date in mind. We want to see when the election will be.” Then we got to 13 July. He said: “We will put it out in our own good time. Just ask Helen Clark when the election is and at that point I will tell you exactly when we will announce our tax policy.” 
We have had this political striptease going on since April this year. 
Darren Hughes 
: We’re down to the pyjamas. 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: We are not down to the pyjamas; we are down to the Y-fronts and people are waiting eagerly for the final act so that they can see what lies beneath. I have a terrible feeling it is going to be a great disappointment to many many New Zealanders. 
John Key said there will be tax cuts by Christmas if National is in Government. So not only have we had this slow striptease about the tax cuts but we are told that if National is in Government we will have them before Christmas. Of course that all changed quite quickly when Don Brash heard about that. Of course a National Government could not actually give tax cuts before Christmas. A few things would have to happen before it could do that. First of all it would have to decide who is going to get them. Along the way Dr Brash has told us that every single New Zealander would get a substantial tax cut. Do members know what New Zealanders are saying? They are saying that “substantial” means 50 to 100 bucks a week. That is substantial. That is what they are expecting. Every hard-working New Zealander toiling away out there is expecting between 50 and 100 bucks a week. That is what would make a difference; that is what people say would make them vote National. I can tell members that those people will be very very disappointed. It will be the final act of treachery when National takes off the last veil and there is nothing there at all. It will be a great disappointment. 
We heard today from Dr Brash about the fact that this Government has announced a very attractive student loan policy. He said it is a bribe to the voters and how dreadful it is to have a cynical bribe to the voters like that. Of course promising a substantial tax cut to every single New Zealander is not a bribe at all; no it is just sensible policy! It is what parties do when they are in Opposition! 
We then get to National’s promises on health. I have been looking for the policy. I have searched for the policy. I have been on Google. I have read everything I could. I have read the  
New Zealand Herald 
 and I have read the  
Dominion Post 
. I have read the websites. Have we found a health policy? No we have not. But I did read the general election report in  
Pharmacy Today 
. There is a little bit of policy there! It is the first little bit of policy I have found. It states: “The National Party supports the amalgamation of district health boards.” Well let me tell Jill Pettis—and perhaps Mr Power would be interested—that the Whanganui District Health Board would be gone under National Party policy. So would the Taranaki District Health Board. They would be amalgamated with Palmerston North’s. That is where they would be. National should tell the people of Tauranga and the people of Rotorua because their boards would be amalgamated with Waikato’s. National should tell the people in the far north; their board would be amalgamated with Auckland’s. And so on down New Zealand. 
We are talking about a party that would force amalgamations of district health boards up and down New Zealand. That is not what the people necessarily want and it is not what they will be consulted on but because National needed a policy—it had to have something to say—it would force amalgamations. Well I would like to see National impose that policy on New Zealanders. It will not work. When it comes to local government amalgamation Dr Brash said National is in favour of amalgamating councils. Of course when it comes to the local council we notice the views of political candidates such as the National Party candidate in Otaki. He is suddenly not in favour of this sort of amalgamation. He is saying: “Amalgamate everybody else but not my council.” So let us see how this policy would work. It is a half-baked approach to health but is about the best we have from National so far. 
JEANETTE FITZSIMONS (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 This is the sixth Budget since Labour became the Government and as the last Budget of Labour’s second term it is perhaps a good time to assess its overall economic management over the last 6 years. In conventional terms using the conventional measurements of economic management Labour has been very successful. Economic growth in the last 6 years has been much higher than in the previous 9 years. The unemployment rate is down and although business always grizzles no matter who is in Government business has on the whole been pretty happy. The latest Budget gives advances in access to housing in family support and in workplace savings. But along with the growth in GDP a lot of other things have grown too and there is somehow a reluctance to talk so much about them. 
Economic growth has been driven to a considerable extent by immigration: building housing and providing the infrastructure for extra people. So house prices have grown. House prices have grown to the point that for more and more ordinary New Zealanders owning a house is completely unaffordable. Some middle-income New Zealanders can see no way of getting on the housing escalator at all. Along with GDP growth traffic congestion has grown. In Auckland it has grown out of sight. There is a limit to how much space in a city can be taken up with roads and vehicles. Along with traffic congestion the time that it takes to get from one side of Auckland to the other has grown as well. 
 We have had a lot of growth in the last 6 years. We have had a lot of growth in the dairy industry and with that we have had a lot of growth in nitrate runoff from our farms into our waterways. We have had a lot of growth in water pollution to the point where the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research now tells us that 95 percent of our lowland rivers and streams are not fit to swim in let alone to drink. 
Simon Power 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member but I for one think it is the height of rudeness for there to be these types of sit-around conversations and for people to have their backs to the Speaker while Jeanette Fitzsimons is trying to make a contribution. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich) 
: I thank the member for raising that; he is quite right. The member has now moved away. 
JEANETTE FITZSIMONS 
: Along with the growth in GDP we have had huge growth in the use of energy both transport fuel and electricity and along with that we have had a huge and rapid growth in greenhouse emissions. They have grown faster than GDP has. For every unit of GDP growth we have had even more units of growth in greenhouse emissions to the point where quite a healthy half a billion dollars of projected Kyoto Protocol credit has turned into a projected half a billion dollars of Kyoto deficit. 
The other deficit that has doubled in this time is the trade deficit. We have paid for the growth in our exports by an excess of imports and of course by the undercutting of local industries as we import more and more from countries with cheap labour. Student debt during those 6 years has more than doubled—from about $3 billion when Labour came to power to $7 billion today. That is an albatross round the necks of many of our young people who will not ever manage to get a home together or to have a family unless that burden is relieved. 
Those things are seen conventionally as simply the costs of a successful economy. They are regarded as a shame but the important thing is thought to be that the economy grew. Therefore it is argued we just have to put up with the consequences of having more traffic more greenhouse gases more pollution more of a trade deficit and more student debt. In fact the operation has been a complete success; it is just unfortunate that the patient died! So much for looking back. 
When I look forward I hope there will be a third-term Labour-led Government but at the moment we are seeing no big new ideas for that third term. We can predict that stable economic management will continue as long as the real world does not change. But actually the real world will change. It is changing now and there is no vision for how we could address the big challenges that are coming. In fact there is no recognition that there are big challenges coming. 
I refer members to the Christchurch  
Press 
 of 30 June this year which had a whole list of reports that together added up to a significant warning. Half the Nelson fishing boats the  
Press 
 reported on that date had stayed in port because fuel costs made it uneconomic to go fishing. Cropping farmers in Canterbury were considering scaling down their production because of the costs of diesel which had risen in a little over a year from 55c per litre to 93c per litre. Federated Farmers said that fuel for farming is one of the biggest costs of business now—for machinery for irrigation pumps and for transporting fertiliser. Freight costs have risen by 40 percent and freight charges by 10 percent. The  
Press 
 further reported that community-care workers were seriously considering whether they could continue to do home visits because of the cost of fuel and the lack of a budget to pay for those transport costs. What will happen to people marooned in their homes by their health needs if it is not possible for the district nurse to visit their homes any longer? 
The airlines are all charging a fuel surcharge on their fares. Why is that? While the price of crude oil has doubled in 2 years New Zealanders have been protected from that by the high exchange rate of our dollar but that rate is now starting to fall. We could well be hit with the double whammy of crude oil prices continuing to rise and the falling exchange rate of the New Zealand dollar exacerbating those price rises. Last year the December Economic and Fiscal Update predicted that the crude oil price would fall to $43 per barrel by March of this year—that is fall to $43 per barrel by March 2005. Today it is $62 a barrel. The Budget Economic and Fiscal Update in May predicted that the price of crude oil would fall to $47 a barrel. Currently is it $62 a barrel. 
This Budget totally ignores the oil prices that underpin our economy. It makes no concession at all to that change in the fundamentals pretending that it is some kind of temporary blip caused by geographic factors by unrest or by other short-term interruptions to supply. But those so-called short-term and temporary interruptions have been going on for several years now and alongside them we have predictions that we are actually at the end of the age of cheap oil. We are entering the age of very expensive oil which comes before the age when we can get very little oil at all. This Budget threw another $100 million at roads on top of the extra 5c a litre tax on petrol and a record number of litres being used. Then post-Budget Dr Cullen threw another half a billion dollars—which he has suddenly discovered—at roads as well. The Government says it is not just for roads but is for land transport which includes public transport. But actually until the Government changes the financial assistance rate none of that money will be spent on public transport. It cannot be spent on public transport because local and regional authorities cannot raise their rates high enough to pay their share without which they get nothing from the National Land Transport Fund. 
More than two-thirds of our car imports are used vehicles now and three-quarters of them are more than 7 years old. Our motor vehicle fleet is becoming older every year it is becoming dirtier every year and it is becoming less fuel efficient. Twenty-two percent of the new cars that come into New Zealand are sport utility vehicles. Every year we use more and more fuel to travel 100 kilometres than we did in the past. Fuel efficiency is going backwards. We have not had a word of warning from the Government about how we will afford to run all those inefficient vehicles how we will maintain the huge numbers of new motorways that are being built all over the country or what in fact will run on them. Where is the planning for more fuel-efficient cars? There is none. Where is the planning to run our farms on less fuel? There is none. Where is the planning to shift freight to the rail network to fix up the rail lines so they can cope with it and to build more public transport in cities? There is very little. 
National of course would make things even worse. There would be more big roads less public transport no interest at all in fuel efficiency—the market would suddenly transform our old fleet when prices go over $100 a barrel. National in fact would make congestion in Auckland much worse because it would abolish school zoning and encourage parents to cart their kids all around town at rush hour driving one tonne of metal tens of kilometres in order to get one child to school. 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Associate Minister of Finance) 
: 
 It is a pleasure to follow the member who has just resumed her seat. Indeed the Green Party has made a contribution to the long-term thinking of this Government around energy issues. It has to its credit been making the case for renewable energy for some time now and that is to be applauded. Of course it supports the Government’s decision to ratify the Kyoto Protocol which has made available some of the credits that have contributed to renewable energy in the form of wind power where New Zealand is now taking an international leadership position. It is ironic however that the member criticises the Government for spending too much on roads and too much perhaps on urban rail because often other members opposite criticise the Government for spending too little. The truth of the matter is that we are now spending on a per annum basis in Auckland alone 10 times what was being spent when we came into office 6 years ago. 
But I do not want to dwell on that track record—good as it is—because I want to cast my mind back to a time before I even entered Parliament. It is appropriate in this type of debate where we take stock of the Budget and where Parliament has got to in the last days of this session. Before I entered Parliament I was a diplomat and I worked latterly in the New Zealand Embassy in Washington DC. It was my pleasure to support the visits of such high-ranking Ministers as Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith and the Hon Philip Burdon who occasionally fell asleep in meetings with US Congressmen. There are other exciting stories that I will not go into now. It is a very great surprise to me to find that a former Minister like Lockwood Smith who was experienced in those circles would be the one to put on the table in front of a visiting group of US senators the idea that a group like The Heritage Foundation or the Cato Institute ought to help educate Kiwis about our nuclear-free policy. For those who do not know the people involved with The Heritage Foundation let me tell members that those people think Attila the Hun is a liberal and Genghis Khan is PC. These guys are seriously right wing. They are the sort of people that Ken Shirley thinks are right on. That is how far to the right they are. Those are the people whom Lockwood Smith thinks ought to be educating everyday New Zealanders about our foreign policy. 
Well we have news for him. We are proud of New Zealanders and we trust them to have good sense. They have said that although they are prepared to invest our resources and risk the lives of New Zealand service people who are overseas making this a safer world they will not go blindly into that dark night and they will not go where any other country says just because it is that country. They will make up their own minds. That is a prerogative as a sovereign nation that our forebears fought and died to secure and we are not about to give it away on a whim. Nor will we ask any foreign power to fund our election campaign on the basis of a promise like Lockwood Smith sought. 
I believe that when asked this evening whether Dr Smith really said that Dr Brash echoed a famous phrase. I ask members to guess what it was. I believe he said he would “neither confirm nor deny”. Well the worm comes full circle because this is Dr Brash’s latest utterance. One could even call it position No. 10. He has more positions on nuclear ships than the Kama Sutra. He has 10 positions so far advancing on that advance by Simon Power who said that wherever George goes they go. Going back— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich) 
: I caution the member not to refer to what it is alleged that Dr Smith said. He has made a personal explanation in the House and we need to accept that. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: I was not aware of that. I was in my office at the time the personal explanation was made. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich) 
: It has been done so there will be no more references to that. 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: I take your point Mr Assistant Speaker. I think it is a matter of public record that Dr Brash has had 10 positions now if we include the “neither confirm nor deny” policy on nuclear ships. He has told people that the nuclear-free policy would be gone by lunchtime that he wants a referendum that he will change it if he has got a mandate and that he has not got a policy yet. What does Dr Brash think? 
The question facing New Zealanders is simply this: who do they trust? Do they trust Helen Clark in a Government that has stood up for New Zealand’s independent foreign policy stance over these last 6 years or do they trust a man who is new to politics who cannot make up his mind who will not say what his real agenda is and who is apparently even let down by former Ministers making embarrassing statements about foreign funding? 
That is one issue but of course there is an even bigger flip-flop on an issue that is very close to many New Zealanders’ hearts. That is about whether they can trust Dr Brash with the nations’s chequebook. Once again we get the same treatment. My colleague Annette King called it the great striptease. I just call it the policy vacuum. I have not seen a policy from the National Party. What I have heard is $7 billion worth of spending and tax cut promises so far. National has talked about a 3c cut across the board in the tax rate. That is about $4 billion worth roughly speaking by a back of the envelope calculation. To give a real life example if you are a family with a $50000 income that is worth—wait for it—$28 a week. I do not refer to you Mr Speaker. I am sure you are on more than $50000 and you deserve to be and it would be worth more than $28 for you. But for a family on $50000 it would be $28 a week. 
 Now if National’s $4 billion of tax cuts let alone its $3 billion of spending promises were to hit Dr Bollard’s desk at the Reserve Bank and he were to put rates up by say a percent that would be $38 a week off that same income with a mortgage of $200000. So someone with an average mortgage would be worse off—and that is even before National has done away with the Working for Families package. So again I ask who New Zealanders trust. They trust Dr Cullen. 
Hon David Carter 
: Ha ha! 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: No no. They trust him not just to be a good manager of the chequebook or to restore New Zealand’s international reputation for good Government and fiscal stability but to front up and say what he will do. No one can argue with this: we did not embellish that Budget. We told it as it was. There is no $7.4 billion surplus because every Kiwi knows that when you get your wages and pay the bills at the end of the week— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich) 
: Order! 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
:—not you Mr Speaker; I am sure that you get your wages and pay your bills. As the average Kiwi knows if one has a surplus it comes down to what is left in the purse. This Government as made clear in the Budget statements will be running a cash deficit for 3 out of the next 4 years which will increase to around $3 billion in 2008. Well that is a funny kind of surplus and it is not what New Zealanders understand by the phrase. 
This Government is committed to making life better for all New Zealanders not just to giving a tax cut for the wealthy. We know that even an across-the-board tax cut falls disproportionately to the top table and that those at the bottom end miss out. At the end of the day that is often what politics is about is it not? It is not about grand speeches in the House it is not about policy papers that are 5 yards long and it is not about the fine rhetoric; it is about who gets what. It is about whether the next John Key who grows up in a State house will get a good State education so he will be able to make the best of his life or whether we will give away the resources of the generation next to this one so that we can continue a spending boom beyond our means. Will we be responsible will we look after our children and will we look after our futures by spending only what we can afford to spend as we can afford to spend it? I see Mr Shirley nodding because he has dedicated most of his career—which ends this week—to good fiscal management and I commend him for that. He knows that the argument has been won on this side. He knows— 
Simon Power 
: Gotta love him! 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: —and Simon Power knows as he slumps down in his seat that they are there on the Opposition benches for another 3 years. It is not all bad for Simon Power. He is quite well positioned for the next round and I think he will be a formidable opponent in 2008. But those members need that 3 years clearly to come up with a policy because they do not have a policy on nuclear ships they do not have a policy on tax cuts and they do not have a policy on superannuation entitlements. Hell they do not have a policy! 
New Zealanders know who they can trust—a hard-working good Government led by Helen Clark and her front-bench team her Cabinet. They know that we might not put a lot of fluff around the package but we tell it as it is. New Zealanders can trust us to do our very best for every New Zealand family because that is what we have done for the last 6 years and what we will continue to do for the next 6 years. 
Hon DAVID CARTER (National) 
: 
 The sad thing about that contribution from David Cunliffe is that he is so arrogant he actually starts to believe his own rhetoric. We are talking about the “chewing gum Budget” in which Dr Cullen himself generously promised tax cuts of 67c a week provided New Zealanders patiently wait for the next 3 years. But the New Zealand public will not wait 3 years for 67c a week because on 17 September they will vote overwhelmingly for a new Government that does something about the 41 taxes this Government has imposed. 
Debate interrupted. 
Sitting suspended from 10 p.m. to 9 a.m. (Wednesday)