Volume 640 Week 50 - Thursday 26 July 2007 
Volume 640 Week 50 - Thursday 26 July 2007 
[Volume:640;Page:10759] 
Thursday 26 July 2007 
Madam Speaker 
 took the Chair at 2 p.m. 
Prayers 
. 
Business Statement 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Leader of the House) 
: 
 Next week the House will go into a 1-week adjournment. When the House resumes progress will be made on the remaining stages of the Mental Health Commission Amendment Bill the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Remedies) Amendment Bill the Wills Bill the Major Events Management Bill and the third readings of the Arbitration Amendment Bill and the Succession (Homicide) Bill. Priority will also be given to any first readings on the Order Paper. 
Points of Order 
Auditor-General—Officers of Parliament Committee 
Hon PETER DUNNE (Leader—United Future) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. It is one that you may wish to reflect upon and it is with regard to the Officers of Parliament Committee. Under the Public Audit Act 2001 the Auditor-General has certain powers to inquire into the use of resources by any public entity as defined in the Act or its schedules. But he is also required to submit an annual work plan to the Speaker. The question I want you to reflect upon Madam Speaker is whether the annual work plan prepared by the Auditor-General this year included reference to a conflicts of interest register and whether that has been considered by the Officers of Parliament Committee to whom the Auditor-General reports. If that has not been the case will you be convening a meeting of the committee to remind the Auditor-General of his primary role as the auditor of the Government’s books not to be the new Senator McCarthy? 
Madam SPEAKER 
: I thank the member for raising that point. As he rightly said I will reflect on it and report back to the House. 
Questions to Ministers 
Health Care—Primary Health Care Services 
1. LESLEY SOPER (Labour) 
 to the  
Minister of Health 
: What steps has he taken to improve the affordability accessibility and quality of primary health care for all New Zealanders? 
Hon PETE HODGSON (Minister of Health) 
: 
 Quite a few. On 1 July this Labour-led Government completed the roll-out of cheaper doctors’ fees halving the cost of going to the doctor and lowering the cost of most prescription medicines from $15 to $3. We know that means New Zealanders will seek help from their general practitioner or other primary health care provider earlier than previously. Last month I doubled the number of funded places for general practitioner training and last week I announced a $6 million innovation fund to help general practitioners and nurses to spread the remarkable innovations that are already under way. 
Lesley Soper 
: Can New Zealanders be confident that they will continue to access affordable and quality primary health care? 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: The answer to that question is no and yes. The reason it is no is that the National Party still needs to clarify its position on low fees and low prescription charges. It is on record as both supporting improvements and opposing them. The answer is also yes because National’s indecision month after month year after year means it will not become the Government any time soon. 
Barbara Stewart 
: Is he aware of a statement by a New Zealand Medical Association general practitioner spokesperson that the $39 payment per visit for children under 6 does not reflect true costs; if so will the Ministry of Health be raising the level of that particular subsidy; if not why not? 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: The member asks a good question as is often the case and I appreciate New Zealand First’s interest in this matter to the point that it is part of the agreement with New Zealand First on confidence and supply. I can say to the member publicly that the Government is engaged on this issue seriously. 
Sue Kedgley 
: What cross-party support has he received to widen the scope of the treatment options available in primary health care particularly for chronic care? 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: Quite a lot. Given that the question is coming from the Green Party I think I should say that with the Greens’ support and indeed encouragement we have introduced new complementary and alternative medicines capacity within the Ministry of Heath precisely because integrated health care is an area of increasing interest both for members of the public and for an increasing number of health care professionals. 
Hon Peter Dunne 
: As part of the possible extension of primary health care for all New Zealanders is the Government giving consideration to an annual free health check for initially older New Zealanders but ultimately for all New Zealanders? 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: Yes but not for the age group the member may have in mind. From February 2008 the Government will be introducing a free health check for children ready to go to school—the ready-for-school check. That follows on of course from a number of free Plunket checks that they have got in. The outcome of the Well Child review currently under way is that the free health check will I think be reasonably comprehensive and a new contribution to health provision in this country. 
Reserve Bank of New Zealand Act—Powers under Section 12 
2.  
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Deputy Leader—National) 
 to the  
Minister of Finance 
: Will he invoke section 12 of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Act 1989 now that the official cash rate has increased to 8.25 percent? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Minister of Finance) 
: 
 No. 
Hon Bill English 
: Why did the Minister raise the issue of intervention in monetary policy last week when he knew that it would put pressure on the Governor of the Reserve Bank to raise interest rates this week if only to prove his independence? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: I do not believe that the Governor of the Reserve Bank is so petty as to wonder about who has got the biggest whatsit when he comes to make a decision about interest rates. 
Hon Mark Gosche 
: What is the Government doing to reduce pressure on monetary policy? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: Despite claims from those opposite we continue to run what Standard and Poor’s— 
Hon Member 
: Oh Iceland! 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: No actually Iceland is twice as high in interest rates as New Zealand. Despite claims from those opposite we continue to run what Standard and Poor’s have described as a conservative fiscal policy. That is why it confirmed our current credit rating. Dr Bollard acknowledges the importance of savings which is one of the reasons why the Government’s KiwiSaver scheme is so important in the long term in redressing the imbalances in the economy. I wait to hear National’s position on those extensions of KiwiSaver. 
R Doug Woolerton 
: Does the Minister share New Zealand First’s belief that it is time to rationally debate the failings of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Act and consider introducing a far more coordinated approach between monetary and fiscal policy both to combat inflation and to keep the economy balanced? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: I am very encouraged by the way the select committee inquiry is already proceeding. A number of very interesting submissions have been made to the select committee. Clearly Mr English has not read any of them. I would recommend them—for example the submissions from ASB the New Zealand Exchange and a number of others. All are very interesting and very well considered and it is quite interesting to have a debate on such matters. 
Hon Bill English 
: After 7 years of mismanaging economic growth what does the Minister have to say to a person with a 2-year $200000 mortgage who now when it is renewed will face additional outgoings of around $45 a week and to exporters who face an 80c-dollar—a level they never imagined possible—and if he wants to take all the credit for good economic management should he not take the blame for the highest interest rates in the developed world and the highest exchange rate we have seen since the float? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: We do not have the highest rates in the developed world. That is wrong for a start. Secondly the time when the member was the Minister of Finance was the only time we managed to get negative growth in the last 10 years. Thirdly we have reduced unemployment to around 3.5 percent. Fourthly we have had the longest period of sustained growth—the second-longest since the Second World War and the longest in the last 30 years. We have seen strong household-income growth and strong real personal-income growth. What about that does the member not understand? 
Hon Bill English 
: How much less inflationary pressure would there be in the economy if the Minister had stuck to his original and already generous Budget spending allocation rather than deliberately overspending it by $4 billion as recorded in the pre-Budget Cabinet papers? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: All the inflation measures so far are still reflecting a year in which the Government ran a cash surplus over $2 billion took another $2 billion out by way of the New Zealand superannuation fund and reduced demand by $4 billion - plus dollars in one year while that member’s leader was still promising a tax cut of $2.5 billion dollars. 
Hon Bill English 
: Does the Minister recall his own words in his own Cabinet paper in which he stated that Cabinet should stick to the spending allowance because not to do so would “risk higher than necessary inflation and interest rates”; did he then go ahead and sign off a Budget that overspent those allowances by $4 billion and was that not sacrificing homeowners and exporters in the cause of Labour’s big-spending re-election campaign? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: First of all the shift in the spending for the current year that we are now in mirrors almost exactly the shift in the forecast revenue for the current year that we are now in so the balance remained the same. The second thing is that the two big initiatives in the Budget were the KiwiSaver extensions to expand our savings—which National cannot make up its mind about—and the business tax package which cuts taxes for the productive sector. This member keeps calling for cuts in the bureaucracy while his leader is saying that public servants’ jobs are safe. They are the same people you know. 
Hon Bill English 
: Is the Minister now telling us that the one thing that might offset his big spend-up is the higher than expected tax revenue that arises from higher inflation—the tax revenue that will be paid by the same people who will be worse off by $50 a week because of these interest rate increases? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: Let me explain it again to the member. This Government will be running cash deficits over the next 4 years on forecast that are much much less than the total transfers into the superannuation fund. In other words this Government will continue to take money out of demand in the New Zealand economy over that period of time. I remind the member that his leader has spent the last 4½ years attacking me for running excessively large surpluses and suddenly National has decided that surpluses should be much bigger. 
Hon Bill English 
: Can the Minister tell us just who has been more rattled by his erratic behaviour—[ 
Interruption 
] I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. The Government is interjecting on every question that I ask. I know we can have some interjections on questions but interjecting on every question is going a bit far. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Please be seated. I note that from the member and I also noted that the member interjected constantly on the answers that were given. I just remind all members—[ 
Interruption 
] That member will leave the Chamber if he does that again. I just remind members that however tempting it is to comment please keep your interjections rare. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: When the Minister looks back at the last 6 months of various proposals he has floated that have been shot down at the various times he has been shut down by the Prime Minister and at his threat of intervention in monetary policy last week who does he believe is more rattled by his erratic behaviour: Japanese housewives or his own colleagues? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: At a time when the leader of the Opposition cannot wait to get out of this House because he is shaking so much whenever he is in it we are not rattled at all. 
Oil Market—Supply 
3.  
JEANETTE FITZSIMONS (Co-Leader—Green) 
 to the  
Minister of Finance 
: What economic and fiscal strategies is he developing to prepare New Zealand for the impact of an “extremely tight” oil market within 5 years where oil production may not be able to keep up with demand as predicted by the International Energy Agency’s Medium-Term Oil Market Report earlier this month? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Minister of Finance) 
: 
 Low debt and projected surpluses give New Zealanders as much fiscal flexibility to respond to changing circumstances as almost any other developed country has. The development of an emissions trading system and measures to support energy efficiency to support biofuels and to support passenger transport will help directly. Of course as oil prices rise individuals also react by in fact adjusting to more efficient vehicles. 
Jeanette Fitzsimons 
: Will he discuss with his colleague the Minister of Energy the need to amend this statement in the draft New Zealand Energy Strategy: “It is unclear whether conventional oil production will peak in the next decade or a decade or two later.” so that it reflects a greater sense of urgency given that the Government has always relied on the International Energy Agency’s fool’s paradise view that we still have around three decades until peak oil despite all the other views to the contrary? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: I do not propose to do that at this stage at all. I am old enough to remember the report from the Club of Rome in I think 1975 stating that we would have run out of oil by this point. In fact proven commercial oil reserves now are still larger than they were 20 years ago. 
Gordon Copeland 
: Can the Minister confirm that a steady increase in oil prices to the point of an extremely tight market in 5 years also provides economic incentives for reductions in oil consumption such as switching from cars to public transport and for oil substitution through increased investment in alternative technologies; if so how does the Government plan to assist that process? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: I think the member is right; there are basic market signals coming through and we are seeing the results of that. When did we last see nearly all motor vehicle manufacturers or importers in New Zealand advertising diesel vehicles as part of their major offering instead of petrol vehicles because of diesel vehicles’ greater efficiency? What the Government can do in all of that is look at areas like fuel efficiency ratings and standards and look at doing what it has done which is to mandate a beginning towards including to start minimal biofuels content within our fuels but that can increase. The Government itself is reviewing its own vehicle fleet. It is looking to use much more fuel-efficient diesel-powered vehicles and others and vehicles with low carbon footprints. 
Jeanette Fitzsimons 
: Does he believe that biofuels useful as they will be when used on some scale can provide for a continuing 4 percent annual compound growth in demand for transport fuels given the International Energy Agency’s statement in the same document I just quoted that biofuels are already running into competition with food production for suitable land and that the economics of biofuels are still uncertain and raise doubts as to whether ambitious supply-growth scenarios can be realised? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: To pick up on that one important point it seems to me the economics of biofuels is like almost anything else: dependent in large part upon the price of the alternative. In that respect the Green Party should be welcoming high oil prices even if the rest of us complain when we go to the petrol pump. 
Jeanette Fitzsimons 
: What plan does he have to deal with the impact on the economy of even faster accelerating oil prices if strategies to correct the exchange rate actually work and we are no longer protected from real oil prices by an overvalued dollar? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: The member of course points out the conundrum that is faced at the moment; that if the dollar starts to come back to a level that is more favourable towards exporters there will be an increase in petrol prices and indeed in diesel prices. That is one of those variable prices that business in New Zealand has coped with for a very long time. Petrol prices at the pump now are significantly lower in real terms than they were for example in the early 1980s. It is not as though we have not been through these kinds of variables before. It is important to remember that other countries are going through the same experience. 
Jeanette Fitzsimons 
: Can the Minister place on record then that he expects the current rise in oil prices to be a temporary phenomenon just as the oil price rises in the 1970s were and that it does not signal a long-term depletion of oil supply? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: I thought it was very clear from what I said that that was not what I was saying at all—in fact rather the opposite. I said that I expect that there are long-term pricing signals here that will lead to significant change in behaviour and practices by individuals by business and by others. 
Jeanette Fitzsimons 
: I seek leave to table an article quoting Goldman Sachs Group headed: “$100 oil price may be months away says”— 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is objection. 
Environment Ministry—Confidence 
4.  
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Deputy Leader—National) 
 to the  
Prime Minister 
: Does she have confidence in the Minister for the Environment; if so why? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Deputy Prime Minister)  
on behalf of the 
 Prime Minister 
: Yes; because he is a hard-working and conscientious Minister. 
Hon Bill English 
: Can the Prime Minister confirm that she has told the public that the reason David Benson-Pope has not been sacked is that she believes him that she looked him in the eye and took his word and how does she feel about that 2 days later when he has changed his story in two significant respects—firstly about whether he knew of the rumours of a conflict of interest; and secondly over the number of phone calls between his office and Hugh Logan? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: I can confirm that that is what the Prime Minister said. She has seen no evidence at this point to change her view on that matter. 
Hon Bill English 
: Is the Prime Minister not aware that despite David Benson-Pope’s frequent statements that there was one phone call between his office and the chief executive of the Ministry for the Environment it was revealed yesterday that there were at least four calls over 2 days and how likely does she think it that a Minister would not know that a discussion about an employment matter was going on between his close friend and chief adviser and the chief executive of his department for 2 days? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: The Minister has been clear that he did not know that Mr Hurring made the initial phone call to Mr Logan. He has already confirmed that Mr Logan informed him about matters the next day. 
Hon Bill English 
: Can we take it that this is another example of the Prime Minister’s slippery analysis when she has just told the House that Mr Benson-Pope did not know about the “initial” phone call and does that mean that she does not believe him when he said there were no other phone calls there was only one? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: Given the nature of that question I advise the member that one thing more dangerous than trying to put words into my mouth is trying to put words into the Prime Minister’s mouth. 
Hon Bill English 
: Given that the Prime Minister is aware that David Benson-Pope’s story has changed in two significant respects how many changes to his story does she have to hear before she will decide she does not believe him? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: The member clearly did not listen to my previous answer. He continues to preface a question with an assertion then base the rest of the question on that assertion. 
Hon Bill English 
: Is it not true that David Benson-Pope has been caught out twice before with less than fulsome explanations on the public record and why is she the only person in New Zealand who believes him on this matter? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: As the Prime Minister said in the House earlier this week a member’s word should be taken unless there is clear evidence to the contrary. 
Hon Bill English 
: Can the Prime Minister understand that the real situation is probably that David Benson-Pope heard the rumours and said as quoted yesterday “I don’t want that woman in my office.” and his close friend and political adviser Mr Hurring went off and did the dirty work? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: I think the member has already managed to exceed J K Rowling in extended works of fiction in this House. 
Hon Bill English 
: Can the Prime Minister answer the question I asked earlier: how many significant changes does she need to hear from David Benson-Pope’s story—one of which he confirmed himself so it is not fiction unless that is what she thinks of everything he says—that he said himself there were four calls; how many more examples of this does she need before she concludes what everyone else concludes which is that the gentleman is not telling the truth? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: The member has come up with nothing that changes the essence of what happened. 
Hon Bill English 
: What’s the essence? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: He does not really want to know does he. That is the problem. Mr Hurring rang Mr Logan to say to Mr Logan: “Is this rumour true?”. Mr Logan came back to respond to Mr Hurring and Mr Logan briefed Mr Benson-Pope on what Mr Logan had done in conjunction with the State Services Commission. I might say in fairness to Madeleine Setchell if only the information she had originally given had been passed on to the rest of the people involved this probably never would have got to the point where this immense pile of paranoid mystery would have been built around it by Mr English. 
Rates Rebate Scheme—Uptake 
5.  
MARTIN GALLAGHER (Labour—Hamilton West) 
 to the  
Minister of Local Government 
: What reports if any has he received on the uptake of the Rates Rebate Scheme? 
Hon MARK BURTON (Minister of Local Government) 
: 
 I can advise that by the end of this week for the 2006-07 financial year ratepaying Kiwi households will have rebated approximately $50 million. That is a seventyfold increase in Government funding when compared with rebates for the 2005-06 financial year. The expanded scheme has proved a success for tens of thousands of New Zealand ratepaying households particularly those on fixed or lower incomes such as the elderly. 
Martin Gallagher 
: Has he seen any other reports on local government funding? 
Hon MARK BURTON 
: Yes. I have seen a report of a recent speech made by a politician to the Local Government New Zealand conference that described John Key’s proposals as to quote the  
Otago Daily Times 
 editorial “irritatingly non-committal”. It said that Mr Key vaguely suggested “there would be more money for local authorities”—more money I note again—“but did not say why where it was coming from or how much or what it would be for.” In contrast this Government through initiatives such as the Rates Rebate Scheme Working for Families and KiwiSaver is helping New Zealand families to build secure futures. 
Hon Brian Donnelly 
: Has the Minister noted within the reports on the uptake of the Rates Rebate Scheme that many eligible people were not claiming a rebate because of embarrassment at having to reveal personal income information to their local councils often to people who live in their close vicinity and if he has does he believe some changes are required to the way the system operates? 
Hon MARK BURTON 
: Although there has not been a high level of reporting of that concern certainly there is some indication of it. One of the things with the massive increase in the utilisation of the scheme is that I have officials reviewing a number of factors to look at whether we have got it just right or whether further refinements can be made in order to ensure that as many people as possible make use of their entitlement. 
Environment Ministry—Communications Manager 
6.  
GERRY BROWNLEE (National—Ilam) 
 to the  
Minister for the Environment 
: Did the Chief Executive of the Ministry for the Environment ever ask him for his opinion on the appointment of Madeleine Setchell as the communications manager of the ministry; if so what did he say? 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE (Minister for the Environment) 
: 
 No; I had one conversation with the chief executive relating to this matter before it was resolved. That conversation happened when he drew me aside in the context of a meeting about other issues and advised me there was an issue he was dealing with involving the partner of a National Party staff member and that he had formed a preliminary view that there was a conflict of interest and that he was working with the State Services Commission to manage that issue. I noted two things: first that this was clearly an employment issue and therefore his responsibility alone to manage and secondly that from the point of view of my office I would likely be less free and frank in meetings with such a person. That was a statement of the obvious. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: What miraculous events have occurred overnight for the Minister to have this greater recollection of the meetings held on 29 May that he could not remember yesterday and has he also perhaps forgotten that he did say to Mr Hugh Logan: “I won’t have that woman in my office.”? 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE 
: No miraculous events have occurred and I did not make that statement. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Does the Minister expect us to believe that after the flurry of phone calls between his office and Hugh Logan’s office on 28 May which caused Mr Logan to drop everything conduct an urgent inquiry and involve the State Services Commission that at a meeting the next day the Minister was neither asked for nor offered his opinion on the actual appointment of Madeleine Setchell beyond the scant comments made by the Minister in the House today? 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE 
: For the benefit of the member let me run through the chronology again. I was not aware when my adviser began his inquiry but I now know that it was Monday 28 May. I was first informed of the relationship later on 28 May when it had been confirmed by the chief executive. That there was formally the possibility of a conflict of interest was notified to me after that date personally by the chief executive. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: When the Minister said to Mr Logan that he would be able to be less than free and frank should Ms Setchell be in any meetings in his office what conclusion could Mr Logan reach other than the Minister was instructing him to dismiss Ms Setchell? 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE 
: The member has misrepresented my quote. I said I would likely be less free and frank. I am sure the member understands fully that that is a statement of the obvious. He would be less likely to conduct a conversation as frankly with a member on this side of the House as he would with his own colleagues one would assume. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Why did the Minister not simply make that admission—this new revelation—right at the start of this particular issue and the investigation into it; and is the Minister surprised that when Mr Logan was asked by the media if the Minister had said to him: “I won’t have that woman in my office.” he could not answer that question for himself with a simple “No”? 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE 
: There are about five questions there. Can I repeat that I did not make that statement. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Can we assume from Mr Logan’s refusal to deny the Minister told him: “I won’t have that woman in my office.” with a simple one-word answer that it is a fact the Minister did instruct exactly along those lines and could any other conclusion be reached from what the Minister has told the House today? 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE 
: No members cannot make that assumption and other conclusions can definitely be reached. These are the facts of the matter. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Can the Minister assure the House that if Mr Logan were to speak in a free full and frank manner and tell the media what the Minister said to him he would keep his job? 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE 
: I can assure the House that I have confidence in the professionalism of Mr Logan and I have no concerns in that respect. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Can the Minister assure the House that there will be no adverse consequences for any one either in his office or in the Ministry for the Environment who blows the whistle on what the Minister actually said to Mr Logan? 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE 
: I am not the employer either in my office or in the Ministry for the Environment. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Can the Minister give the House an assurance that he has not in the past pressured any Government department to remove staff because of his perceptions about their political connections? 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE 
: It would be totally inappropriate to do so. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. We know that it would be inappropriate to do so. We are asking whether the Minister is prepared to say he has not done that before. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: The Minister is answering as the Minister for the Environment. That is his ministerial responsibility in this context. I also remind members that they cannot require a specific answer to their questions. In that instance the Minister addressed the question though it may have been outside his ministerial responsibility. 
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: In relation to the question about the employment of Mr Logan has the Minister received any report that when Mr Brownlee was asked whether Mr Logan would have a job were there to be a change of Government he refused to answer yes? 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE 
: I think it is one of the ironies of this issue that the behaviour of Mr Logan and I believe my staff has been honourable and that reflection cannot be conveyed about the behaviour of those members opposite. 
Reserve Bank—Price Stability 
7.  
R DOUG WOOLERTON (NZ First) 
 to the  
Minister of Finance 
: What impact has the Reserve Bank’s primary function to focus on price stability had on New Zealand’s interest and exchange rates over the last 6 months? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Minister of Finance) 
: 
 I think that to answer the question completely would be almost impossible because to do so would assume a series of scenarios about what would have happened if the primary focus were different. At a purely factual level retail interest rates have risen on average by somewhat less than the 1 percent increase in the official cash rate over that period. The trade-weighted index of the exchange rate has risen by 10.3 percent but much of that will be due to very strong growth in milk prices and a weakening US dollar and cannot be assigned solely to movements in the official cash rate. 
R Doug Woolerton 
: Has the Minister seen any alternatives proposed to change the status quo and widen the primary function of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Act; and would he agree that a $2 billion tax cut package would do nothing to combat inflation in the short to medium term? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: I have seen many suggestions for alternatives particularly in terms of widening the focus of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Act. I am yet to be convinced that that would actually help the Reserve Bank in its work. Certainly a large tax cut feeding further demand into the economy would clearly place further inflationary pressure into the economy thereby leading to even tighter monetary policy. 
R Doug Woolerton 
: Is the Minister concerned that the 20c increase in the exchange rate of the New Zealand dollar in the last year has wiped at least $2 billion from the revenues of the seafood and sheep and beef industries alone; and would he agree that our prospects as an exporting nation are grim if the level of our interest rates continues to be the highest in the developed world? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: There has to be major concern about that rise in the exchange rate of the New Zealand dollar. Clearly therefore what it tells us is that the interest rates are probably less important for the success and viability of the exporting sectors than the level of the exchange rate is despite the obvious connection between the two in terms of the way things operate. I think that underlines the utility of what the Finance and Expenditure Committee is engaged in which is actually a very thoroughgoing review with some very useful submissions coming in that may well assist in the further development of the operation of monetary policy in New Zealand. 
Hon Bill English 
: You don’t believe that. 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: I do actually believe that. 
Hon Bill English 
: No you don’t. 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: I do believe that. The member is silly enough to think that he arrived at perfection 18 years ago in his life. At least he should get a mirror which would demonstrate that that is not true. 
Hawke’s Bay District Health Board—Caregiver Training Contract 
8.  
Hon TONY RYALL (National—Bay of Plenty) 
 to the  
Minister of Health 
: Was the Hawke’s Bay District Health Board’s $1.1 million caregiver training contract with Wellcare a subsidiary of Healthcare New Zealand publicly tendered; if not why not? 
Hon PETE HODGSON (Minister of Health) 
: 
 No the district health board did not tender for that contract. The reason as I understand it is that the contract was first initiated by the Ministry of Social Development and the Hawke’s Bay District Health Board then joined the contract. 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: Is it really believable that a department putting $72000 into a contract has all the say over a district health board putting over $1.1 million into the contract and is it not so that the Ministry of Social Development has confirmed publicly that the Hawke’s Bay District Health Board was consulted in the selection of that provider? 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: It may well have been; I would not know. I am not responsible for the Ministry of Social Development and I am not a member of the Hawke’s Bay District Health Board. But the fact remains that the Hawke’s Bay District Health Board joined the contract after it had been first let. Why did the Hawke’s Bay District Health Board put in $1.1 million? Well because the deal was that it was to employ those people for 2 years and most of that money has gone on wages. 
Russell Fairbrother 
: Is the caregiver training contract regarded as being successful; if so how is success measured? 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: The Ministry of Social Development certainly thinks so. It is on record as stating that it has been an excellent pilot so much so that it is trying it elsewhere in New Zealand. 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: Can the Minister confirm that Mr Hausmann the principal contractor in this case and a member of the Hawke’s Bay District Health Board did not declare an interest in Wellcare Education when Annette King appointed him in 2005; and in light of this information how can the Minister justify his advice to the House that Mr Hausmann made full disclosure when Annette King appointed him in 2005? 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: As I stand here I have no knowledge as to whether Wellcare existed in 2005. But I will say that this is all part of the continuing innuendo against Mr Hausmann that occasioned him to write to me some weeks ago asking me to please review afresh his management of conflict of interest even though it has been done before. I have agreed to examine the management of his conflict of interest afresh and that review is under way now. 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: So is it acceptable under this Labour Government that a district health board can enter into a $1 million - plus contract with one of its own board members without having a public tender process with no consultation with the board and with that same board member declaring that interest only a few days before the contract was signed? 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: The member asks the wrong Minister. I will just say again that Wellcare Education was approached by the Ministry of Social Development not the district health board. I am sure that people consulted with one another. 
Hon Bill English 
: So what? 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: Well I am not the Minister for Social Development. That is what. 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: Is the Minister aware that the person who presented the contract to Healthcare New Zealand Wellcare to sign was in fact a Hawke’s Bay District Health Board employee and that that employee first discussed skills and training in the sector with Mr Hausmann following an invitation to have that meeting with him after a district health board meeting in the Hawke’s Bay? 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: My best guess is that the only reason the member is able to ask that question is that all of the information around it has been put into the public arena. But what is more there is now an independent review of the management of the conflict of interest issues surrounding Mr Hausmann which was originally sought by Mr Hausmann. It will be looking at all of that data in the cold light of day to see whether the management was accurate. 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: I seek leave to table a document detailing meetings and activity pre-contract for the Ministry of Social Development and that district health board from what appears to be Healthcare New Zealand. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: I seek leave to table a chronology of events on 29 May 2006 from the Hawke’s Bay District Health Board. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: I seek leave to table a memo from Diana Curtin on the Healthcare cadetship dated 30 May 2006. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Volunteer Support—Promotion 
9.  
TIM BARNETT (Labour—Christchurch Central) 
 to the  
Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector 
: What is the Government doing to encourage and support volunteering? 
Hon LUAMANUVAO WINNIE LABAN (Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector) 
: 
 This Labour-led Government values the work of our volunteers and continues to support them. The first round of 2007’s Support for Volunteering Fund has just opened. It will support Volunteering New Zealand and 10 volunteer centres around the country to continue serving their communities—volunteers like Hamish Hickley who mentors disadvantaged children in Porirua and Sonya Ford who helps international students in Wellington. 
Tim Barnett 
: What is being done to support and encourage volunteering among Pacific peoples? 
Hon LUAMANUVAO WINNIE LABAN 
: Volunteering New Zealand has recently received funding for a new project to explore encourage and promote Pacific volunteering. Work is also in progress on a new study about Pacific people volunteering and cultural obligations. This Labour-led Government promotes volunteering in our diverse communities. Volunteers contribute to our national identity as proud Kiwis. 
Teachers—Internet Sex Sites 
10.  
KATHERINE RICH (National) 
 to the  
Minister of Education 
: What specific steps did he or his office take last week to check whether the art teacher who posted hard-core pornographic pictures of himself and two women on internet sex sites with messages for girls “the younger the better” was not working in any capacity in any school which led him to make the categorical statements that “this person is not teaching anywhere right now.” and that he “is not employed at any school.”? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Minister for Tertiary Education) 
 on behalf of the 
 Minister of Education 
: The Minister said last week that he had checked with the Teachers Council. More specifically his office rang the Teachers Council which advised that the person’s practising certificate had lapsed so he could not legally teach. After making inquiries the Teachers Council also advised the Minister’s office that the person was not employed at any school. 
Katherine Rich 
: Can the Minister of Education confirm that despite his assurances last week this teacher taught in a New Zealand secondary school for around 10 days over a 3-week period and stopped teaching only the week before last? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: No. The Minister’s statement was correct according to the knowledge he had at the time from the Teachers Council. [ 
Interruption 
] I am sure that for members opposite that is some form of conspiracy but I think the member asking the question actually wants to investigate the issue seriously. The member is quite correct: the person was involved in teaching subsequently and that situation is leading obviously to a review of the guidelines. The teaching appears to have been illegal and the Teachers Council is investigating the breach. If proven it will issue a warning that he has breached the Education Act 1989 and taught illegally. That offence is punishable by a fine of up to $5000 on both the school and the illegal teacher. 
Moana Mackey 
: What action has been taken to ensure that no similar case occurs in which a teacher is only censored and not deregistered due to flaws in the council’s disciplinary guidelines? 
Paula Bennett 
: He’s still teaching! 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: No he is not now actually. The Teachers Council has reviewed its guidelines as a matter of urgency. The council board is this afternoon considering a proposal to revise the guidelines to ensure that no improper activity can fall through the cracks because it is not covered by any specific criterion which appears to have been the problem in this case. The revised criteria will be formally drafted and go out for early public consultation. 
Hon Brian Donnelly 
: Would the Minister of Education give a categorical assurance to this House that notwithstanding his limited powers in matters relating to the employment of teachers he would use all his influence to ensure that someone who would engage in such behaviours as described in the primary question could never again teach within a New Zealand school or indeed in any school worldwide? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: I am sure the Minister would use whatever powers he can in that regard. I would go further than that and say that if it becomes clear that the powers that are available are completely insufficient in that respect then clearly we would need to look at strengthening those powers to prevent a recurrence of this kind of situation which is totally unacceptable. 
Katherine Rich 
: Can the Minister confirm that there is actually nothing to stop this teacher from teaching in another classroom whether as a reliever as he was until last week or ultimately as a permanent staff member; that a principal looking to recruit this teacher would have no idea what the censure was for; and that basically the Teachers Council as set up by his Government is doing nothing to ensure a high standard of professionalism of our teachers when faced with this kind of situation? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: No I do not think I would agree with the member in that regard. Any person whose practising certificate has lapsed can teach for only up to 10 additional teaching days from that point—and this person has already taught for those 10 additional days—even in any circumstance in which that teaching might have been legal. A school I believe should check to make sure the person has a practising certificate. That can be done I understand on the Teachers Council website. If something is wrong with its system we need to follow up on that to make sure the information that goes up goes up quickly and there no delays. I am not aware of any problem in that regard but I am happy to listen to the member further. 
Katherine Rich 
: Can the Minister confirm that the Minister of Education who stood in the House last week and denied that this teacher was working in a school—only for us to then find out that this teacher has been teaching New Zealand kids in a classroom—and who makes such categorical statements has no ability to ensure that this teacher will not be teaching in a school next week and has no ability to ensure that the Teachers Council will deny registration and that actually the Teachers Council is worried that it will have to re-register this guy because of a technicality? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: I cannot comment on that very final point. I do not have sufficient information in front of me and I welcome anything the member may be able to give me about it. On the other point she made no I do not agree with that. The practising certificate has lapsed and for that person now to try to teach would be illegal. Indeed it would be illegal for the school to employ such a teacher. 
Katherine Rich 
: Why did the Minister of Education last week say this teacher was not teaching when in fact he was; surely the Minister was not relying on the technical argument that last week was the school holidays and therefore there were no classes? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: No not at all. As I explained in the primary answer inquires were made of the Teachers Council which advised the Minister’s office that this person was not employed at any school. At the end of the day Ministers have to— 
Katherine Rich 
: He was. 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: In the school holidays one is still employed. Ministers have to rely upon the information they are given. That information was clearly inadequate. 
Question No. 9 to Minister 
Hon LUAMANUVAO WINNIE LABAN (Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. At the conclusion of my answer to question No. 9 I heard Nick Smith make a comment that I take great offence to. I ask that he be asked to withdraw and apologise. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: The member should have raised that at the time. 
Civil Aviation Authority—Runway Safety 
11.  
TE URUROA FLAVELL (Maori Party—Waiariki) 
 to the  
Minister for Transport Safety 
: He kaha tana whakapono ki te Mana Tohu Rererangi o Aotearoa otira ki tana ake mahi whakamana topito wahi pareora o nga taunga rererangi? 
Translation: 
 Does he have confidence in the Civil Aviation Authority of New Zealand in particular in its work relating to the certification of runway end safety areas? 
Hon HARRY DUYNHOVEN (Minister for Transport Safety) 
: 
 Yes. I am very happy with its work in that area particularly in the development of the runway end safety area rule. 
Te Ururoa Flavell 
: He aha te Mana Tohu Rererangi o Aotearoa ki te whakaaro o te Ropu Whakahaere a-Rererangi o Rotorua kia tau aua waka rererangi nui nei e haere nei i te ao pena i tera Airbus 320 i tutuki i Brazil ina tata nei na 190 te hunga i mate engari he poto iho te papa rererangi i Rotorua a kua tata eke te wahi here kei nga pito ki te 90 mita e tika ana? 
[An interpretation in English was given to the House.] 
[What action can the Civil Aviation Authority take over Rotorua Regional Airport’s proposal to operate the same type of aircraft on international services as that used in the recent Airbus 320 crash that killed more than 190 people in Brazil but with an even shorter runway and a marginally compliant 90 metre runway end safety area? 
] 
Hon HARRY DUYNHOVEN 
: First at present Rotorua airport is not an international airport. Therefore I think that the Airbus A320s which are mostly used by New Zealand airlines in an international role are unlikely to fly there. However in respect of the runway length at Rotorua there is at present a proposal by the airport authority to have it extended. If such a proposal was brought to the Civil Aviation Authority it would obviously consider it. Secondly if the airport runway was to be extended by more than 15 metres runway end safety areas would be required. That is the trigger point at which runway end safety areas are required. Thirdly if the airport became an international airport then obviously the runway end safety areas would have to be added. 
H V Ross Robertson 
: What is the Civil Aviation Authority’s role in terms of runway end safety areas? 
Hon HARRY DUYNHOVEN 
: As I said before under the existing rule Rotorua Airport is not actually required to have a runway end safety area within the existing runway length and I am very proud to say I did sign off on the rule after many years of nothing having been done. [ 
Interruption 
] 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Please be seated. Members in this House constantly ask Ministers to address questions fully. We have a Minister who is attempting to do that. The least we can do is to listen to him. 
Hon HARRY DUYNHOVEN 
: Thank you Madam Speaker. If the airport were to become an international airport or if it should decide to increase its declared runway distance by more than 15 metres it would be required to introduce a runway end safety area and at that point the Civil Aviation Authority would have a role in respect of monitoring the airport’s compliance with the runway end safety area rule. 
Te Ururoa Flavell 
: He aha i aro kore ai ia ki te tutohutanga mai i te Ropu Whakakotahitanga o nga Kairere o te Ao e mea ana kia whakaheke i nga raru hauora me whai nga taunga waka rererangi katoa e whakamahi nei i nga waka rererangi i nga tikanga here nei ara kia kore e poto iho i te 240 mita te roa o te wahi here kei nga pito ki te kore me whakarite i tetahi taputapu whakatu i te rere o te waka rererangi? 
[An interpretation in English was given to the House.] 
Why has he ignored the recommendation from the International Federation of Air Line Pilots’ Associations that in order to reduce safety risks all airports that airlines operate at should have a minimum runway end safety area of 240 metres or an engineered materials arrester system? 
] 
Hon HARRY DUYNHOVEN 
: I certainly have not ignored the issue at all. That is one of the reasons why the runway end safety area rule was put in place—and I am very pleased with that. The argument is over the trigger point at which an airport has to install a runway end safety area. It was decided that when airport runways are extended or indeed when an airport becomes an international airport then the extensions would have to include a runway end safety area. 
Te Ururoa Flavell 
: E whakapono ana ia ka whai hua tana whakaaetanga ki te whakaaro o te Ropu Whakahaere a Rererangi o Rotorua ka whakakaha ake nga raru hauora ki te hunga haere me nga kairere ka mutu mo taua hunga e noho mai ra i raro tonu i nga waka rererangi tae atu ki te hunga noho nei kei nga pito o te taunga waka rererangi ara ko te Kura Kaupapa Maori o Ruamata tera ko te tupuna whare o Uenukukopako tera ko te marae o Ruamata tera ko te whanau o Cookson tera? Ki te kore he aha tana hei whakatika i te take nei? 
[An interpretation in English was given to the House.] 
Does he believe that approving the Rotorua Regional Airport’s plan will provide the maximum level of safety possible for passengers and crew and those immediately within the possible undershoot and overrun areas including children at Te Kura Kaupapa Maori o Ruamata Uenukukopako Wharenui Ruamata Marae and the Cookson whanau who live at the northern end of the runway; if not why not? 
] 
Hon HARRY DUYNHOVEN 
: The airport company is proposing a northern runway extension of 150 metres to allow for larger aircraft and international flights. That is clearly a business decision by the airport’s owners. If it does go ahead they will have to incorporate a runway end safety area which will at least address the issues of overrun raised by the member. That will be in conformity with Civil Aviation Rule Part 139 and the physical standards for runway design and runway end safety area design will obviously have to be met. The Civil Aviation Authority will ensure that is the case; that is the role of the Civil Aviation Authority. But the commercial decision as to whether to extend the runway is properly within the purview of the airport authority and of course local ratepayers will have plenty to say about that issue. 
Talented (Accredited Employers) Work Policy—Applicants 
12.  
Dr the Hon LOCKWOOD SMITH (National—Rodney) 
 to the  
Minister of Immigration 
: What was the average time for the approval of applicants under the Talented (Accredited Employers) Work Policy in 2006-07? 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Minister of Immigration) 
: 
 I am advised that the average processing time for the talented accredited employer work applications for the period 1 July 2006 to 30 June 2007 was just 10 days. 
Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith 
: Is it correct that the financial information required by Immigration New Zealand for applicants for accredited employer status is considered official information by Immigration New Zealand and will be released on request to trade unions unless the applicant can prove that to do so would unreasonably prejudice his or her commercial position? 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: The member is well aware of the relevant provisions of the Official Information Act and of course commercial confidentiality is a reason established under the Act for the non-provision of such information. 
Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith 
: What steps is the Minister prepared to take to ensure that Immigration New Zealand does not need to pressure applicants for accredited employer status with letters that ask applicants to clarify exactly how the release of their confidential financial information would be likely to unreasonably prejudice their commercial position—what steps is he prepared to take to make sure that applicants are not pressured in that way by Immigration New Zealand? 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: Quite clearly the member concerned had the opportunity to refer to some specific information in his primary question and that would have allowed me the opportunity to prepare a considered response. I would be most willing to prepare such a response if he would like to send me the correspondence. 
Darien Fenton 
: Why does the Government run an employer accreditation scheme and what proportion of applications are approved? 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: The employer accreditation scheme simplifies the process for employers recruiting talented workers. Under the talented worker policy once the employer is accredited then the process for the grant of work permits is vastly streamlined and the processing time is reduced. It is worth noting that in the last year the approval rate under that scheme was 98.3 percent of all applications. 
Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith 
: Does the Minister consider it appropriate administration of a policy for which he is responsible for a Northern Distribution Union delegate to tell an applicant for the accredited employer status during collective employment negotiations that the union has the power to tick off or not tick off that employer’s application for an accredited employer status? 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: Unions quite properly have a role in representing the interests of their workers but it is certainly not true that unions have an automatic sign-off right on consultations around the accredited employment scheme. 
Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith 
: Does the Minister consider it appropriate administration of a policy for which he is responsible for the Northern Distribution Union to be able to tell applicants for accredited employer status that the union is currently sitting on nine applications that will not get the tick off unless certain union demands are met; if he does not consider that appropriate what does he intend doing about it? [ 
Interruption 
] 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: It must have been a slow day for them to get excited about that. As I have said to the member already the union is not the decision maker in this case; the Immigration Service is. 
Peter Brown 
: Noting the subject matter of that question and the Minister’s answer will he give the House an assurance that prior to people from overseas coming into this country to work for an accredited employer there will have been a maximum search for an appropriate New Zealander to take the job? 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: The member makes an excellent point. It has been a longstanding part of our immigration policy that jobs should be available for New Zealanders first and that New Zealanders should always have the opportunity to fill vacancies where they exist. But coming back to the other member’s previous point of course it is relevant that of all employer applications for accredited status over 98 percent are approved. So if the Northern Distribution Union is such a big bogey it is hard to see how that could be true. 
Peter Brown 
: Supplementary question. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: I do not think there are any more supplementary questions. I think we have expired the number that we are entitled to. 
Peter Brown 
: I haven’t expired yet Madam Speaker. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: I thank the member for making that obvious. 
Peter Brown 
: I appreciate your assurance Madam Speaker. Will the Minister give an assurance that before anybody comes into this country as an immigrant under this scheme it will be determined that he or she is of good health and good character? 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: I can only say that in the case of the member it is good to see that he is in rude good health and that rumours of his expiry were vastly exaggerated. 
Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith 
: I seek leave to table a recent letter from Immigration New Zealand to an applicant for accredited employer status. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Points of Order 
Reserve Bank (Amending Primary Function of Bank) Amendment Bill— Leave to Introduce 
R DOUG WOOLERTON (NZ First) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. I seek leave for the Reserve Bank (Amending Primary Function of Bank) Amendment Bill to be introduced and set down for first reading as a members’ order of the day despite Standing Orders 276(1) and 277(1). 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought. Is there any objection? There is objection. 
Electoral Finance Bill 
First Reading 
Hon MARK BURTON (Minister of Justice) 
: 
 I move  
That the Electoral Finance Bill be now read a first time. 
 At the appropriate time I intend to move that the bill be referred to the Justice and Electoral Committee for consideration. I also indicate to members that I will be seeking leave assuming that the referral of the bill to the Justice and Electoral Committee is successful for the voting membership of the committee to be extended to mirror that of the Finance and Expenditure Committee in order to give all members and parties the opportunity to fully participate in the consideration of this bill. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I am wondering in noting the comments just made by the Minister that he will seek leave for the course of action he proposes whether the Minister has misunderstood the arrangement that has been put in place. The arrangement was that he would seek leave and it would of course be a debating matter. We observe that although the Government is very keen to put this electoral bill together without consultation and in a partisan fashion it seems very very keen to have the bill considered in a bipartisan fashion. We cannot have one thing without the other. I think the Minister may have meant to say that he was going to move that the Justice and Electoral Committee be reconfigured as if it were the Finance and Expenditure Committee for the purposes of hearing this bill alone. That of course would be a debatable motion. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I thank the honourable member for that. 
Hon MARK BURTON 
: Speaking to the point of order I say that I was clear about what I intended. I indicated to the House that at the conclusion of the debate assuming that the House votes successfully for the first reading of the bill I would seek leave for the voting membership of that committee for the purposes of consideration of this bill to be extended to mirror that of the Finance and Expenditure Committee. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: This House usually operates quite smoothly because there is agreement about the way in which things should progress. I just indicate to you Mr Assistant Speaker because the Speaker obviously has an interest in the House maintaining its order that this sort of riding roughshod approach where we have a partisan approach to a bill that affects the entire electoral process in New Zealand and this idea that the Opposition should simply roll over and capitulate to what the Government wants to do as far as hearing the nation’s views on the bill is completely unacceptable and simply exacerbates the already ham-fisted way in which the Government has dealt with this. 
Hon Peter Dunne 
: I have been listening to the points raised by both the member and the Minister. As I understand it the composition of a select committee is determined by the Business Committee in the first instance and ratified by this House at a later date. The question of either augmenting the membership of an existing committee or changing it in the way the Minister indicated he would seek leave to do has to be cleared by the Business Committee first. I wonder whether the point that Mr Brownlee raises is really tied up with the issue of the matter being referred to the Business Committee to make the changes in the membership which can then proceed. I think there is a misunderstanding around that point. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: The issue has not been discussed in the Business Committee. However the House can seek leave to do so. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The point Mr Dunne makes is an interesting one. You are right Mr Assistant Speaker that the issue has not been considered by the Business Committee. In general select committees are agreed on by the Business Committee at the start of a Parliament as far as proportionality and all the rest is concerned. But the formation of select committees takes place by virtue of a debate here in the House—a motion on the Order Paper and a debate in the House. There has been no consultation in any significant way on the Electoral Finance Bill. There is a desire to have as many parties represented in the process as possible but I do believe that it would be most appropriate and proper at this late stage of the proceedings for there to be a debate over the constitution of that select committee. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I just advise members that the leave that the Minister has foreshadowed can be debated by members in the course of this debate. 
Hon MARK BURTON 
: This bill deals with one of the most important aspects of our democratic system the fairness of elections. At the heart of the bill is the principle that the public should have the highest confidence that our electoral system is honest and open and that money spent in the run-up to an election is clearly accounted for. Alongside this a second principle promoted by this bill is that there should be fair and equitable participation in electoral campaigning. Wealthy interest groups should not have a disproportionate influence on the outcome of an election simply because they have access to greater financial resources than the general public. 
The 2005 general election brought concerns about campaign financing into sharp focus. This led to debate across the public and political spectrum about the nature of the electoral finance regime. To this end the bill is directed at reforming the rules governing electoral finances. It also responds to recommendations from successive Justice and Electoral Committees including the committee I consulted with that reported last year. Finally the legislation also addresses some of the unimplemented recommendations of the 1986 Royal Commission on the Electoral System. 
The bill is a detailed one and I know that members will be very interested in the fine detail of its provisions. The key features of the bill are as follows. Firstly it makes a raft of changes to the accounting audit and disclosure framework that applies to candidates and political parties in the run-up to a general election. Under the bill candidates and parties will have to provide much more detailed information about their election expenditure. In tandem with this the bill will require all expenditure and donations to go through a financial agent who is appointed expressly for this purpose and who also will be responsible for filing a candidate’s or party’s expense and donation returns on their behalf. These measures will create an environment of accountability and transparency in the run-up to an election thereby making the campaign finances of candidates and parties a matter of clear public record. The proposals are also in line with other comparative regimes such as the United Kingdom and Canada which place strict limitations on who can authorise spending and pay for campaign expenditure. 
The bill contains a much stricter regime for third parties that choose to enter the campaign arena. During the 2005 election it became evident that third parties could mount campaigns that had the potential to undermine candidate and party expenditure limits. It is simply unacceptable to the general public that a third party should be able to in effect buy an election result. The key features of the new third-party regime are as follows. Firstly every third party will be required to notify the Chief Electoral Officer of its involvement in electoral activities when spending over a certain threshold occurs or is anticipated. The Chief Electoral Officer will keep a list of all third parties so that everyone is aware of their identity during the lead-up to an election. Alongside this such third parties will be required to account for their spending in a detailed manner and provide comprehensive information about any donations they receive that are to be spent on campaigning. Third parties will also be subject to strict election expenditure limits under the new regime. A third party will be limited to spending $60000 nationally or $2000 in an electorate contest. This will help to guard against parallel election campaigns. 
The Government in introducing these third-party proposals is seeking to encourage full and open expression from a diverse range of interests in the run-up to a general election. Some members have already suggested that the third-party reforms unjustifiably restrict freedom of expression. They do not and the Crown Law Office advice on this matter is clear in that regard. The aim of the reforms is to ensure that wealthy interests do not have a disproportionate voice in our electoral system; nor for that matter should they be able to overwhelm the speech of political parties and candidates. To this end the bill sets a fair limit on the amount that third parties can spend and introduces much greater transparency around their identity and financial expenditure. 
Another important new measure in the bill is that the regulated period for election expenditure will significantly increase. The bill proposes that where a general election is held in the final year of the parliamentary term candidates parties and third parties will all have to account for their expenditure from 1 January. This is a significantly longer period than the 3-month rule that currently applies and it should provide a much more accurate picture of campaign expenditure. This is in line again with other comparable jurisdictions. For example the period is less than that of the United Kingdom which provides for a regulated period of a full calendar year before polling day. For early elections—that is any general election that is held in the first 2 years of the parliamentary term—there will be a fixed 3-month regulated period for candidates and parties. For third parties the regulated period will run from the date when the Prime Minister announces the election. 
The bill also seeks to clarify issues that emerged from the  
Peters v Clarkson 
 election petition about the interpretation of the current law. Amongst other things that case raised questions about the allocation of election expenses between a candidate and a party where an advertisement says: “Vote for me vote for my party”. These issues are clarified so that the clearly defined rules are in place for the next election. 
The bill also strengthens the electoral penalty regime. The penalties for the most serious electoral offences—corrupt and illegal practices—will be significantly increased. Alongside this changes are proposed to the time limits for prosecution which will make New Zealand’s system again comparable to that in jurisdictions such as the United Kingdom. The bill provides a new penalty that will allow the courts to require persons convicted of an offence under the electoral finance regime to pay any benefit they have received from their offending to the Crown. This recognises the significance of these types of offences and ensures that people who breach the provisions cannot profit from their offending. 
There are also changes to the broadcasting regime. The most significant change relates to the membership of the Electoral Commission. The bill will remove the requirement for political representatives to be appointed members of the Electoral Commission when exercising their functions under Part 6 of the Broadcasting Act. The bill also simplifies some aspects of the broadcasting regime. 
The Government has also considered the question of the structure of electoral agencies. In 2001 the Election Framework Taskforce recommended that there should be a single electoral agency with integrated responsibility for all parliamentary electoral administration. That recommendation has I believe significant merit. However it needs to be reconsidered in the context of the bill that is before the House now which confers new functions on the Chief Electoral Office and the Electoral Commission. 
As part of the preparation of this reform package the Government also looked very closely at the way in which political parties are funded. One possibility that was considered was that political parties might receive some public funding as this system already operates in a number of other countries. The Government also looked at implementing much stricter rules around the donations that candidates and parties receive from private individuals. However the reality is that such proposals require very detailed consideration and also a measure of consensus. In the United Kingdom for instance Sir Haydon Phillips was recently asked by the Prime Minister to conduct a review of political party funding. His report was published in March this year. The report for those members who have not read it provides a very useful examination of the substantive issues. More important Sir Hayden has built consensus among political parties about the reform of party funding. 
To enable full and careful consideration of these matters the Government is establishing a review of electoral administration and political party funding. The review will report back in December 2008. This will give time to consider the recommendations and if appropriate and required to introduce legislation before the 2011 election. 
In conclusion I reiterate that many of the measures in the bill are consistent with those of comparable jurisdictions. Other countries are moving in a similar direction. There are some very valuable measures in the bill and it is my view that it will enable far greater public confidence that our electoral system is open and fair with clearly defined rules to protect it from abuse. I strongly encourage members of the public to make submissions on the bill when it is before the select committee. I commend the Electoral Finance Bill to the House. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Deputy Leader—National) 
: 
 This advertisement that I am holding up appeared today in the  
New Zealand Herald  
and the  
Dominion Post 
. It is an advertisement from the Post Primary Teachers Association (PPTA) and it is the start of what I think will be a long and difficult campaign to get pay rises out of the Government. It is a vigorous kind of advertisement. I was the subject of such advertisements personally when I was an education spokesman. 
The PPTA with its advertisements in today’s  
Dominion Post  
and the  
New Zealand Herald 
 has spent half of the annual allowance that this legislation gives to anyone in New Zealand to influence public opinion with. If the PPTA ran this ad after 1 January next year the $30000 it has spent today would be half of the $60000 limit that under this bill any third party can spend to influence public opinion. That $30000 for the ads does not include the posters in the staffrooms or the pamphlets it is distributing. It does not include the email which is covered by this bill. It could well be—[ 
Interruption 
] That member should listen because the PPTA is going to come kicking her door down. It could well be that this week the PPTA with what it has spent on all the other material that goes with this ad has spent the lot. In an election year it would not be able to do one more thing to influence public opinion. 
That shows us just how paranoid Labour is. That is the impact it is having on its mates—the people who vote for Labour who deliver its pamphlets and who raise its money loyally election after election. The PPTA and the New Zealand Educational Institute which represents 60000 New Zealanders will between them be able to run four full-page ads for 1 day each next year. Do they know that? Imagine the size of the riot there would be on the front steps of Parliament if National said to the teacher unions: “Between you you can run four one-page ads all election year. That’s all you’re allowed because we’re worried that you’ll criticise us.” 
This week we have seen how deep the paranoia in the Labour Party is. We have had a long-running scandal about the sacking of a civil servant not because of her political views but because of the political views of the person she lives with. That paranoia extends to the introduction by the State Services Commission of a register of interests for senior civil servants whereby they will have to declare the political interests of people with whom they are associated. That is how deep the paranoia is and this bill is a case of more paranoia. This bill represents a Labour Party that is worried that someone might criticise it. Someone might run an ad in the newspaper. 
John Carter 
: Who? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: The PPTA—that is who. 
What will happen when Greenpeace wakes up and realises what a shambles Labour’s climate change policy is? 
Simon Power 
: Amnesty International. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Amnesty International the Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society—they know that the climate change policy is a total shambles. The people who are opposed to battery hens hold their convictions deeply I can tell members. 
John Carter 
: What does Nandor think about that? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: All the people he says he represents are by this bill virtually banned from trying to influence public opinion. The $60000 is only the start of it. They are limited to $60000 at the top but if someone spends $5000 that person has to register as a third party. Labour cannot stand the idea that someone out there is spending $5000 which is about the cost of one mail-out going to a couple of thousand homes. That sum of money could not cover Gore. A mail-out in Gore means that someone qualifies as a paranoid critic of the Labour Government. 
The SPCA in Gore and the Women’s Refuge are trying to raise money. Do members know why those organisations would count? Let us look at the definition of election advertising in the bill and see just how broad this paranoia goes. Clause 5(1)(ii) states that an election advertisement is any form of words or graphics or both that can be regarded as “encouraging or persuading voters to vote or not to vote”—we are familiar with that; it is the rule now in terms of the 3-month period—“for a type of party or for a type of candidate that is described or indicated by reference to views positions or policies that … are pursued (whether or not the name of a party or the name of a candidate is stated):”. So election advertising is anything someone says that might persuade someone to vote or not to vote—and members should listen to this—that is “described or indicated by reference to views positions or policies that are or are not held taken or pursued …” whether or not the party is named. So someone does not even need to say: “This is a National Party position.” Someone can just say: “I am against good climate change policy.” and that counts because National has the position of having good climate change policy. 
But it gets worse. Clause 5(1)(iii) states: “taking a position on a proposition with which 1 or more parties … is associated;”. So if National is associated with people working hard with self-reliance and with getting ahead and a person goes out and runs an ad that says: “I want New Zealanders to get ahead. Please get out and vote.” then that will be covered because it is a proposition—hard work—that is associated with National. Someone cannot advertise in favour of hard work because that is associated with National. Someone cannot advertise against corruption because that is associated with Labour—it is that simple. 
This is straight out of Zimbabwe. In fact if members read the rules of the former Soviet Union about election campaigning they will see that those rules were less restrictive than these ones. 
John Carter 
: Mugabe wrote them. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Mugabe would be proud of this. He cuts out the middle man; he just locks them up. 
Labour has come up with the worst possible result in respect of electoral reform. All Labour’s mates thought they would get State funding. Well the public said no to that. The Christchurch  
Press  
said that Labour would bring in a clear robust and transparent set of rules that would do away with the dark and potentially corrupt practices of the past like the pledge card. Then the  
Press 
 said that that was not what had happened and that this legislation had Dr Cullen’s and Helen Clark’s fingerprints all over it. Helen Clark has paranoia and Dr Cullen is bluffing. Dr Cullen sounded big and tough all through last year about what Labour would do but the Christchurch  
Press  
said the bill was a botch-up. Well we could have told the  
Press 
 that because Minister Burton was doing it. The bill fails to fix the obvious flaws in the present system. 
The Government is setting out to regulate political opinion for the whole of the election year. After 1 January next year nobody can have an opinion without it being counted against a spending limit. If anyone wants to have a public opinion and spends more than $5000 that person will have to register. A person will have to register in New Zealand to have a public opinion! That is a disgrace! That is why this bill will go down. National members will oppose it with every fibre of their effort because it must go down. The registration of Government critics is deeply paranoid it is offensive and it must be stopped. I say to Helen Clark that New Zealand will stop it. 
Helen Clark is wrong again. She was wrong about the pledge card she was wrong about Taito Phillip Field she was wrong about the smacking bill and she has totally misjudged public opinion on this. Will New Zealanders roll over and say: “Yes Helen please make me register because I have an opinion you don’t like.”? 
LYNNE PILLAY (Labour—Waitakere) 
: 
 I am absolutely appalled at that member Bill English standing in this House and saying what he did when a select committee with National Party members unanimously pushed that we should have a change to electoral law that we should have transparency and that we should have accountability—all the things that are really important. That member stands in this House and says the National Party will not support this bill. He does not even say National will let the public of New Zealand have a say—not even that. He says it will oppose this bill. Why? And what was he frothing at the mouth the most about? It was about third-party funding. Why did that cut such a nerve? Bill English the champion of the Post Primary Teachers Association (PPTA) and the friend of the unions! He is worried about the unions’ ability to communicate with their members and that they will be stymied by being able to spend only $60000 on third-party advertising. That is just a smokescreen. 
We know why Mr English is so upset that he and National are not going to support the referral of this bill to a select committee. We know why he is going to insist on being part of the Justice and Electoral Committee and hearing submissions when he is not even prepared to have an open mind and listen to what the public of New Zealand says listen to what unions say and listen to what the employers associations say. The Exclusive Brethren may even front up and have a view on the legislation. I know they do not vote but they may have a view on third-party funding. 
I am really proud to stand and speak in support of this bill. It is very very welcome. The Justice and Electoral Committee will be delighted to have this bill before it because at the heart of this bill is the principle that the public should have the highest confidence in our electoral system. They should have that and I know they will when this bill has been through the select committee process and is back before this House. We need to have an electoral system that is transparent fair and not open to the undue influence of wealthy interest groups. We want to have a democracy that is informed and where in fact interest groups can directly inform their members; where employers associations can directly communicate with their members as can unions churches and any other organisation. But Labour says that when it comes to third-party funding there has to be accountability: that the funding is declared that it is clear where the funding comes from and that there is a limit. We think that is very appropriate. So I am really proud to stand in support of the bill. 
Indeed it was the Justice and Electoral Committee that said this legislation was due. When the Minister was before the committee very recently he was asked by members of the Opposition—and he will confirm this— 
Hon Mark Burton 
: National Party members! 
LYNNE PILLAY 
: —by National Party members—when we would get this legislation before the committee. National members said they wanted this legislation and now they stand in this House and say that they will not vote for it and that it would not even go to the select committee under National. That is appalling. 
We are not cutting freedom of speech; we are ensuring there is freedom of speech. We are ensuring that votes will not be bought that the public will have the information available to them and that they will make an informed decision—and they will be able to do so under this legislation. 
I commend the Minister. I know he has been very committed to this legislation. I know that the public of New Zealand are committed to it and I really look forward albeit at a bigger select committee to hearing the submissions. I really look forward to the legislation coming before our committee. I commend this bill to the House. 
SIMON POWER (National—Rangitikei) 
: 
 One thing that the motion Mark Burton will seek the leave of the House for later today does not deal with is replacing the chairperson of the committee that will hear submissions on the Electoral Finance Bill. After listening to that speech I say that one thing is for sure: the current chairperson of the Justice and Electoral Committee Lynne Pillay will be completely out of her depth when it comes to dealing with those complex and technical issues. National will be making sure that I and Tony Ryall are on that committee for the hearing of submissions on the bill. 
National has some major concerns about the way that this particular bill has been put together. Many of those concerns have been outlined by the Hon Bill English. I have spent some time over the last 24 hours on thinking about why Labour would take such a partisan approach to what has historically been a bipartisan topic—that of electoral reform. Yesterday when we were in the general debate I was thinking to myself as a former chief National Party whip and as someone who has been on some of the more bipartisan committees that exist in this Parliament that generally speaking senior Labour members who have been on those committees have been thoughtful about the way legislation is enacted and about the way the rules and conventions about Parliament are developed. They have been careful about that because they realise that at some point Labour will be in the Opposition and will have to deal with the convention rule or legislation that has been put in place on that basis. So I got to thinking about why Michael Cullen and Helen Clark would want to pass legislation that would in future limit and restrict Opposition parties as blatantly as this bill does. 
Then the answer came to me. Actually Helen Clark and Michael Cullen do not care about the Labour Party after they have finished with it; they are not in the slightest bit interested in the rules regulations and legislation that future Labour caucuses will have to work under. They are not in the slightest bit concerned about what will happen to the Labour Party in future if Labour members are sitting on the Opposition benches. All that Helen Clark and Michael Cullen are worried about is creating a legislative environment that regulates opinion that could in any way disagree with their programme leading into this election. Those senior Labour politicians who have historically seen rule making and convention setting as being enduring and going beyond the next two or three Parliaments because of the fact that those that fill the Treasury benches move back and forward would have looked at this legislation and said it would disadvantage any Opposition party no matter who was in Opposition. 
But Helen Clark and Michael Cullen do not care about the Cunliffe-Cosgrove years to come. They do not care about whether Shane Jones will cope with this issue when he is in Opposition. Helen Clark and Michael Cullen do not care about Maryan Street and other MPs of the same intake having to deal from the Opposition with what this legislation does. They are regulating and legislating for one election and for themselves. That is what makes this legislation not only partisan but incredibly short-sighted in respect of the enduring life of Parliament. It should not be about just the political careers of Michael Cullen and Helen Clark. That should concern those members of the Labour Party who will inevitably end up in Opposition at some point. 
I am deeply concerned about the partisan approach that this legislation has taken when historically electoral reform has been negotiated and shared between the major political parties and the other parties in Parliament and has operated in an enduring way. The curious thing about this legislation is that on the substantive issue there has been no consultation and no discussion with the major political parties but when it comes to the procedural matter of the make-up of the select committee that is a different kettle of fish altogether. All of a sudden the Minister of Justice is very interested in having conversations about how those matters can be expedited. 
What this bill will do apart from the matters pointed out by my colleague Bill English is to have Greenpeace the anti-whaling lobby the battery hen lobby Amnesty International the Post Primary Teachers Association the New Zealand Educational Institute the Council of Trade Unions and the Engineering Printing and Manufacturing Union all limited in any one calendar year in terms of what they can say what they can print and the message they can convey even to the Labour Party. Expression of the political opinions of those organisations will be severely restricted and regulated. Do those groups understand that? This legislation is not just about shutting out Opposition criticism of Government policy; it is also about saying to third-party interest groups who seek to influence Government policy that they will be limited in the way they put out those opinions as well. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: Hear hear! 
SIMON POWER 
: Well I am sure that those parties that seek to influence Government policy would be very interested in that approach. This bill says to those parties and to Opposition parties that from 1 January there are limits and that they will be regulated in what they say or do. 
But in the meantime Government departments and ministries will continue to spew out so-called education campaigns about Government policy over which this legislation funnily enough does not have any authority whatsoever. We know that for the last 12 months or so with regard to the issue of KiwiSaver for example across the areas of TV press and online advertising the advertising campaigns in respect of that Government initiative have cost just under $1.3 million. We know that there will be no problem in advertising for just under $500000 the issues relating to the educative aspects of the so-called 20 free hours of early childhood education. We know that the $16000 spent in recent months on advertising and promoting Working for Families will not be caught by this legislation. What do we know? We know that a Government has an unlimited capacity through ministries and departments to promote and advertise Government policy but that when it comes to Opposition parties or for that matter to any interest groups that want to convey a position on a particular issue their opinions will be regulated. Their opinions will be regulated but as far as Government initiatives go there will be no such limitations at all. The New Zealand public should be deeply concerned and worried about that. 
I would ask the next Labour speaker one simple question: what happened to the tub-thumping around anonymous donations? Let us hear from the Labour members who stood in this House for 6 months in general debates banging the table and saying they would deal to anonymous donations and expose the funders who are supposedly behind other political parties—except allegedly the Labour Party. What happened to that tough rhetoric? Perhaps the next Labour Minister or member to speak could let the public know where that particular point is contained in this bill. I am just a simple boy from the provinces but I could not find any reference in this bill to the hard-line rhetoric we have heard from Labour members on that issue. 
If the Government thinks it will refer this bill to the select committee and get away with the Opposition parties rolling over on those technical and thematic issues then I say that that will not happen. The playing field in every democracy should be level and this Government is trying to tilt it in a way that excludes not only political parties but also interest groups with genuine policy concerns and issues that they want to put before the public. We must remember that this bill is not for the benefit of the Labour Party; it is for the benefit of Michael Cullen and Helen Clark. 
R DOUG WOOLERTON (NZ First) 
: 
 I have listened to previous speakers with a lot of interest. I have listened particularly to Mr Bill English and Mr Simon Power. They should be ashamed of themselves and I have listened for that reason. 
Mr English described this Electoral Funding Bill—which New Zealand First will support being sent to a select committee—as like something that would come out of Zimbabwe because he believes that it stifles free speech. I will tell members in case they have forgotten about something that was very Zimbabwe-like. It happened when New Zealand First was formed. In the very first election we fought we were not only barred from getting a share of public broadcasting money but also barred from using our own money. That is what happens in Zimbabwe and that is what the party of Mr Bill English and Mr Simon Power did to us. It was aided and abetted by the Labour Party whose members should be ashamed to hear that. We were barred in those years from going on public radio to send out our message. That is what Zimbabwean policies are all about and National is guilty of doing that. 
The other thing that those two speakers in particular talked about was 1 January being the date in an election year that the countdown of election spending clicks in. National members should be reminded that that is critical because after the 2005 election they were the ones who called the cops to use my colloquial language. I still have contacts in the National Party and we know that its members spent more public money on the election than any other party in this House. [ 
Interruption 
] Yes they did. They spent more public money on the 2005 election than any other party in this House by a considerable margin. 
Members of the public who are listening to this debate will be hearing Mr David Bennett saying “Pay it back.” and they will be wondering what I am talking about. I am talking about the 3-month rule. Nobody knows when the clock starts ticking because nobody knows when the election will be called. National did not know either in 2005. Does anybody know why I say that? Because I have absolutely cast-iron evidence that National members believed that the election would be in July 2005. They started spending 3 months prior to July because they believed that the election would be then. Mr David Bennett is quiet now; he knows that that is correct. National members started spending 3 months before July and they poured it out. They poured it out. The ACT party was so confident that National was correct that the local ACT candidate in Hamilton went on holiday. He booked his holiday for October because he thought the election would be in July. He had been reliably told that by the National Party and the National Party tipped the dough out 3 months before July. 
But we never know when that 3-month clock will start ticking when that 3-month period prior to the election will start. In the case of the National Party it had spent the bulk of its money before the 3-month period and that is why that party got away with a seemingly correctly funded election. But it was exactly the opposite. 
John Carter 
: That was so bad! It was naughty! 
R DOUG WOOLERTON 
: Mr John Carter is saying it was naughty and he is tapping his hand. And he is right: it was naughty. But what was really naughty was for those members to say that National was the only honest party in this House and that they did not spend public funds. They spent more than anybody else and that is able to be proved. They spent it before the 3-month period by mistake. 
I want to mention another reason— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I am sorry to interrupt the member but there is far too much interjection. It is almost getting to the stage of being barracking which is not permitted. I refer members to Speakers’ ruling 57/3 and remind them that politics is the art of the possible and the possible we will explore today is good order. 
R DOUG WOOLERTON 
: Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker for your fairness. I draw the attention of the public to another reason why New Zealand First is supporting this Electoral Finance Bill. It concerns an election campaign in Tauranga. This is the first time that I have seen people’s names mentioned in a Bills Digest and it is the first time that I have seen an issue mentioned in a Bills Digest: “The Peters v Clarkson election petition”—I am reading this directly—“although not upheld in court raised questions about the interpretation of current law for example the treatment of dual-purpose advertisements.” It was argued—successfully as it happens—that a billboard and in some cases a whole wall of advertising in Tauranga were meant for another purpose. They were not meant for election advertising. Because the advertising had been done skilfully by Mr Clarkson’s team—it had not been done by Mr Clarkson personally—the court could not get enough evidence to rule it out. 
We cannot have those sorts of things happening because that is not working to the intent of the law. It is using every damn trick in the book to get round the law and that is what the National Party did. Its members themselves are responsible for this bill coming into the House. New Zealand First members say that it is about time because we need clarity around these things. We need some honesty to come into electoral law and we need to go forward being able to sell our messages without the threat of big money winning every time. Thank heavens it did not win in the last election and we hope it will not win in the next! 
New Zealand First also applauds the removal of political representatives from the Electoral Commission when it comes to radio broadcasting. We think that should have happened a long time ago. That situation is an overhang from the first-past-the post system. In fact New Zealand First members have for a number of years tried to get ourselves on to that commission to even it up but our first preference was always to get rid of political appointees so we are pleased to see that that will happen. 
I have not spoken a lot about third-party advertising and what has become known as the Exclusive Brethren contributions to political campaigns. Clearly that is something that must be attended to. It is relatively new. Everybody understands—and it is fair cop—that business will give to National will give to Labour and will give a very small bit I must say to New Zealand First. We understand that that is offset on the other side by the contribution from the unions which in the main back the Labour Party but some unionists vote for National New Zealand First the Maori Party United Future or whatever. But it is clearly wrong for a group to come in with a completely full-on campaign with the knowledge as we have found of the party that is to be the beneficiary of its largesse. It is completely wrong for a group to come in in that way and this bill attends to that as well and we applaud it. 
JEANETTE FITZSIMONS (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 It is fundamental to our democracy that it is one person one vote—not one dollar one vote. It is fundamental to our democracy that the election should not be bought by the biggest spender which is the way it has always been accepted it should be in the United States. The pre-election debate needs to be a contest of policies but in that country which has no caps on spending it is a contest of who can attract the most campaign donations. 
Already the United States presidential contenders are being ranked in the media by how much campaign funding they have been able to attract. Under that system no party representing ordinary people could ever win an election over a party representing the very rich and the big corporates. So it has proved to be in that country. 
 The 2005 election brought those concerns to the fore in New Zealand and highlighted a number of very undemocratic practices. The Exclusive Brethren conducted an initially secret campaign to discredit Labour and the Greens on behalf of the National Party—and we know from the emails that National knew about it—spending over $1 million that did not count towards National’s campaign spending cap. Other non-party organisations such as unions spent significant money advertising on behalf of other parties although they did so quite transparently not clandestinely and it did not involve anything like as much money. 
As the book  
The 
Hollow Men 
 made clear National received $1.7 million of anonymous donations from trusts that were designed to disguise the origin of those donations—because if they had not been they would have been given directly to the party. But senior officials in the party knew of the source of that money and therefore knew whom the party was beholden to. 
Labour received $300000 of anonymous donations which may be why it is not keen to curb the practice. A great deal of money was spent on campaigning including electioneering billboards before the 3-month period before the election. Therefore it did not count towards the spending cap. 
The Green Party is deeply concerned that those practices should not happen again. So what is needed to ensure that? We believe that there are five areas that need immediate change and that others should be considered in the longer term. 
First there must be limits on what parties can spend so that policies and credibility not budgets determine the outcome and that must be the case not just for the 3 months before the election. Second there must be limits to spending by proxy organisations so that they do not just become a way for parties to get around the spending cap. 
Third anonymous donations over a small amount—we propose $1000—must be outlawed. It is fundamentally important that voters know who is funding parties and to whom they are beholden. People and particularly corporations give large donations to political parties not out of altruism but in order to influence or reward policy. That information must be before the voters when they look at the policies the parties are offering. 
Fourth there must be limits we believe on the size of donations. It is fundamentally undemocratic if parties representing big business or very rich individuals can raise their entire campaign budget from a few very large donations and have no need for broad-based grassroots support. 
Fifth we must end the practice of having representatives of the two old parties on the Electoral Commission when it allocates broadcasting funding under the pretence that the largest Opposition party can represent all the smaller parties. The Tui billboard has a good expression for that. 
The Greens are voting for this bill because it goes halfway. It deals with Nos 1 2 and 5 of the concerns I have expressed but we are very disappointed that the Government has backed away from dealing with the other two. 
We are supporting the bill because it implements Green Party policy on extending the pre-election period back to 1 January in an election year. That will ensure that an election campaign like the National Party billboards in 2005 can still happen but it will be part of the capped election spending. We support the rolling disclosure of donations above $20000 during a campaign because it is not much help to voters to find out in April of the year following an election who has bankrolled the new Government. 
We support the bill because it removes all political appointments from the Electoral Commission when it is determining broadcasting funding leaving that to independent analysis rather than horse-trading on the commission. We have been arguing about that for many years so it is good to see that in the bill. 
We support the bill because it attempts to control the practice of re-routeing election spending via third parties. I was appalled to hear the National Party this afternoon defending the campaign by the Exclusive Brethren. [ 
Interruption 
] Oh yes. They did not mention the Exclusive Brethren. They talked about the unions the Post Primary Teachers Association and the environmental movement—and we know they have always been strong supporters of those organisations! But we know who they really meant. 
Numerous authorities here and overseas including the New Zealand royal commission and many commissions on electoral campaign funding reform overseas have supported controls on non-party participation in elections. This is not a new idea; it is New Zealand catching up with what many others in the world have proposed. 
I think that the National Party has gall to base its opposition to the bill around defending its mates in the Exclusive Brethren and their right to do what they did at the last election. However we do believe that the way this legislation attempts to control third parties needs another look and we will be very involved in the select committee scrutiny of the bill. 
There is a fine line to tread between controlling ways of bypassing parties’ spending caps and completely muzzling freedom of speech by many citizens’ organisations and this bill goes a bit too far. Does it mean for example that any organisation that expresses any views in an advertisement in an election year even if it does not mention parties voting or the election is breaching the rules? Organisations have an absolute right to influence public opinion if they identify themselves and if they do not do it in support of a political party. 
The Kyoto Forestry Association has already said it will breach these rules in its attempt to change policy on the allocation of Kyoto Protocol forest credits. I do not agree with Roger Dickie that credits are a property right belonging to forestry investors but I will stand up for their right to put forward that view publicly as long as they do not use the opportunity to say: “Vote for X and do not vote for Y.” And I hold that view even though they are in fact likely to tell people to vote for the Greens because they said we have the best policy on forest credits even though it is not the same as their policy. It is in this case a matter of principle for us. 
Would the Environment and Conservation Organisations of New Zealand’s Vote for the Environment 2005 campaign which invited parties to complete a questionnaire about their policies and published the results be illegal now if it cost more than $60000? We have to find a better way of doing this and I look forward to the select committee debate. 
But we in the Green Party are very disappointed that the bill goes barely halfway to giving us a fair campaign finance system. It still does not address the serious issues of anonymous donations and it does not address caps on individual donations. There are no controls on secret donation laundering trusts there is no cap on what a large corporation can give and there are no restrictions on overseas donations including donations from foreign Governments. 
I wonder whether members have ever reflected on the extent to which foreign Governments would have the capacity to influence the New Zealand elections by funding some of the participants. I refer here to Raymond Miller’s book published in early 2005  
Party Politics in New Zealand 
 where he quoted Peter Dunne as saying that United Future drew on the expertise offered gratis by an American political consultant who was put in touch with the party by the US embassy in Wellington. So the US Government’s representatives in Wellington provided a US consultant’s services free to the party that was trying to give the Government a way out on genetic engineering—and it succeeded in giving the Government that way out. I do not think that overseas organisations should be able to participate in our elections. 
Finally I will comment on the question of the select committee because there was some discussion of that matter at the beginning of the debate today. The Green Party has been calling for months for this bill—ever since the beginning of its development—to be considered by a select committee that represents all parties. Therefore we were keen to support the proposal that it go to a select committee that has that representation. However at the same time there is logic to having it go to a committee that has the background in the issues and has discussed them before and that also has the start-up intellectual capital to deal with them. 
So when we told the Government that we were minded to support a proposal where this bill would go to a committee representing all members and the Government offered the way out of extending the Justice and Electoral Committee to represent all parties we thought that was an ideal solution and we will be supporting that. I hope that no member will be churlish enough to prevent those members from being added to the Justice and Electoral Committee. 
Dr PITA SHARPLES (Co-Leader—Maori Party) 
: 
Tena koe e te Kaihautu. I nga marama 18 i heke te ngakau tapatahi o te Paremata na te whakapono o te iwi tera pea me kore ratau e whakapono ko tatau o tenei Whare he tangata totika. Na te aha? Na nga mahi o nga pati tawhito e rua i nga mahi utu papaho a Nahinara me te kari ki taurangi a Reipa. E hika ma! Ko te mutunga mai o te he ko te wa i uru mai tetahi pire i ro Whare nei hei whakatika i nga mahi i mahia i waho i te ture ara te whakapaunga he o te $1.17 miriona. Ka taea e tatau te kite ka pehea to tatau tu i te rangahau a te  
Readers Digest 
 i ta ratau rangahautanga i waenganui i te 600 tangata i Aotearoa nei. Ko te patai “Ko wai o enei momo tangata ka whakapono koe?”. E 26 nga momo tangata i whakararangihia a ko tatau kei raro noa atu i nga kaihoko whenua nga kaituhi niu pepa nga kaihoko motoka hoki.  
He maha noa atu nga take kare te tangata e whakapono ana ki a tatau nga kaiwhakaara ture penei i enei: nga kaupapa Mahi mo nga Whanau e whakaparahako ana i nga tamariki ko o ratau matua kei runga penihana; te Hanganga Ture Ika i puta mai ahakoa kare i hui i te taha o ratau kei te hi kei te hoko ika ranei; nga mahi whakaiti i a tatau ano i ro i teneki Whare; te takahi i nga ingoa pai o nga kaimahi a-Kawanatanga ahakoa ko nga Minita ke kei te he; he mahi ngawari noa iho te whakaae kia haina tetahi o tatau i te Tikanga Whanonga.  
Na tenei ahuatanga o te noho ka hiahia te Kawanatanga kia whakapono te iwi ka marama ake te titiro whakatau tika i nga nekeneketanga a nga kaitono nga pati me era atu kei te kimi poti. Ko taku kare pea e ea enei wawata.  
Ko nga tikanga whakatau tika kia mahi pono a kia kite marama kia huraina nga mahi koi nei nga tohu e hiahia ana e te Maori hei kaupapa whai. Ko nga kaupapa e pa ana ki te pire ko nga kaupapa e ki ana kare e taea e era na te nuinga i whakatau hei kaiwhakahaere mena he mahi he a-ture he mahi tukino he mahi pirau ranei. Ko te kaupapa o te kaitiakitanga he kaupapa kia mohio marama tatau me mahi nga mahi i runga i te whakaaro pai ki te ao me te whenua a me manaaki hoki i te iwi. Me manaaki i nga rawa a te iwi. Na te ahua o te kaitiakitanga ka tono matau kia kaua te moni e whakaritea ko wai ka wikitoria i nga wa poti. 
Koi nei te ahua o te New York City i whakatauirahia e Michael Bloomberg. Nana i toha te $140 miriona o ana ake moni kia wikitoria a ia i nga poti e rua mo te tunga koro matua o Te Aporo Nui. A kati ka taea pea te ki ko te $140000 i riro i a Nahinara mai i nga ropu tiaki moni he koha kore noa iho te iti hoki mena ka whakatakotohia i te taha o tera a Bloomberg engari ko te kaupapa ke te korero. Ko te kaupapa “korero ai te moni” nga kaupapa ranei kia marama ake te titiro whakatau tika kia mahi tika i raro i te ture koi ra ke nga kaupapa. Ko ta te Pati Maori kia kore nga torangapu e nanakia ki te hanga ahuatanga a-roia nei kia kore e mohiotia ko wai nga kaituku moni ki a ratau.  
Na te pire nei ka taea kia riro e nga torangapu nga koha piki atu ki te $10000 te rahi a ka taea hoki te huna ko wai te kaikoha. I te mutunga ka riro e nga torangapu etahi koha kaita mai i era he nui o ratau rawa a ko te waka hei kawe mai he waka kare tatau i te mohio no hea a ko nga kaikoha kare tatau e mohio ana ko wai. E hangai pu ana nga tikanga a te koha ki tenei take kia mohiotia whanuitia ko wai kei te koha torangapu. I mua o te taenga mai o te “tikanga puhera moni” ka whakatakotohia nga koha i runga marae kia kite te katoa tino marama rawa ana hoki.  
He pera tonu te ahua o o tatau whanaunga o Te Puku o Te Wheke me a ratau takapau rauiti hakaru tapa hoki ka whakatakotohia hei koha i a ratau hui whakahirahira. Ka taea pea e tatau te whakarite mena kare te kaikoha e hiahia ana kia mohiotia ko wai ia tera pea me kore ia e whakatakoto koha. 
Kei te mohio matau o te Pati Maori ehara ma te moni anake ka wikitoria. Ko ta nga kaipoti he kaingakau i nga mahi a te kaikimi poti a mena ka tu motuhake taua tangata mo nga kaupapa i whakaritea e nga kaipoti. Ahakoa he awhina ta te moni kare e taea e ia mena he koretake te kaitono. Engari ka hoki ano ki te waiwai o tenei ara te traumata paparua. Mehemea ko te whakaaro kei muri i te pire nei kia nui ake a ngai tatau kia whai wahi te uru ki nga ahuatanga poti. 
Na te mea kare he aukatinga i nga koha huna nga koha ranei kei te haramai i nga ara kare tatau i te mohio no hea ka puta te korero o te Ropu Huaki Mahi Kawanatanga kare i ea te ki taurangi a te Kawanatanga kia whakatuwheratia kia kore ai e uru mai te pirau ki nga tikanga poti.  
Ko tetahi ake o o matau tino take ka pa ki nga tikanga whakamohio whakapiri atu ki te katoa. Ka tautoko rawa matau i te tono kia tirohia nga kaupapa poti e tetahi ropu wehe ke a ka tirohia ano te ahua o nga putea mo tena mo tena o nga torangapu. Engari ko ta matau he whakatu ropu a-iwi whanui wehe ke hei titiro i te ahua o nga putea ka riro e nga ropu torangapu. Ko ta matau whakapono ehara ma tatau nga mema Paremata e hanga i enei ture i runga i te ahua kua wehe atu tatau i te iwi. Ko te korero a te kotahitanga me kimi tatau i nga whakaaro whanui a-iwi kia taea e ratau te ki ae na matau ka mana te kawanatanga a-iwi. 
Mena he mana kei nga korero a tenei Paremata kia pumau te iwi ki nga mahi o ro Paremata me timata mai i o tatau rangatahi. I kitea e nga rangahau i tera tau e 51 paiheneti o te Maori kare i te poti i taka i waenganui i te tau 20 ki te 30. He orite te ahua o te poti a te Maori ahakoa he poti whanui o Aotearoa he poti whaiti o te rohe. Na i a tatau e kimi huarahi ana kia ngakau pai te iwi whanui i te kawanatanga a-iwi me ako tatau me pewhea te mirimiri i te rangatahi i te tuatahi. 
Mena kei te pono tatau me te ahua mo apopo me uru pono ki nga korero whakawhitiwhiti whakaaro kare matau e whai i nga tikanga whakamohio a Reipa. Kare matau i te ki me hui hei wananga whakaaro ahakoa i tu te hui i nga haoro e rua i muri mai o te panuitanga o te kaupapa mo te hui i ro nupepa ara te  
Dominion Post 
 i taua ata. 
He mana rangatira kei muri i nga kaupapa o tenei pire he korero mo te tika te pono mo te kore huna. Ko te raruraru “Kei runga te korero kei raro te rahurahu.” Ka hunaia tonu no hea nga koha kare e rere ke ki era tikanga kei te mau i tenei wa. Mena ka noho tonu nga mahi huna ka taea e etahi te whakapirau i te tangata. Kei te pa pouri matau kare i te tu tetahi hui i waenganui i te iwi na te mea ko ta matau wawata kia whai wahi te iwi whanui ki te whakatakoto i o ratau whakaaro. Kia taea hoki e ratau te ki a na matau tenei kawanatanga a-iwi. 
Kare matau mo te poti mo tenei pire. Kare hoki he kiko i roto a ko nga korero kei nga ngutu noa iho e titi ana. Ahakoa te korero kare te korukoru e poti mo te Kirihimete ko nga korukoru kei roto i tenei Whare kei te poti mo to ratau Kirihimete na te mea ko te mea pouri ki a matau kei ratau te mana i tenei wa. Tena koe 
. 
[An interpretation in English was given to the House.] 
[ 
Greetings Mr Assistant Speaker. Over the last 18 months the integrity of Parliament has been thrown into disrepute to such an extent that people’s belief that politicians can be trusted has been badly eroded. The degenerating political environment arose out of the actions of both of the older parties with their interpretation of rules over broadcasting spending and the pledge-card fiasco. Gracious me! Events sank to an all-time low when a bill was pushed through the House to validate unlawful spending—$1.17 million of misspending to be precise. How low can be gauged by the Reader’s Digest annual “Who do you trust?” survey of 600 New Zealanders in which politicians ranked at the bottom of 26 professions scooping the barrel below real-estate agents journalists and car salesmen. 
Of course declining trust in politicians is also caused by things such as Working for Families proposals which fail to highlight their discriminatory impacts on the children of beneficiary parents; Fisheries Act legislation which emerged without the key industry sector groups having been first consulted; personal character assassinations of members across the House; besmirching the reputation of public servants for the faults of Ministers; or even as simple a thing as failing to grant leave for an MP to sign up to a code of conduct. 
It is against this sort of setting that the Government seriously wants the New Zealand public to believe that this bill will bring about greater transparency and accountability on the part of candidates parties and others engaged in election activities. 
I do not think so somehow. 
For the people of the land the concepts of accountability transparency and integrity are central to the trust that iwi Maori place in others. 
And particularly relevant to this bill are policies that highlight the fact that democracy cannot run when there are illegalities abuse of power or corruption. 
Kaitiakitanga leads us towards an active sense of responsibilities in a manner that is beneficial to resources and the welfare of the people.  
Public moneys should be treated with respect. 
It is in respect of kaitiakitanga that we would seek to prevent the undue influence of wealth on electoral outcomes. 
That is the New York City factor—epitomised by Michael Bloomberg who spent more than $140 million of his own money to win his two mayoral elections in New York. 
One could say that the $140000 that National received from trusts pales by comparison—roughly 0.1 percent of the New York factor—but it is all about principle. 
The principle of “money talks” or the principles of transparency honesty and integrity: that is the question. The Maori Party believes that political parties must desist from the devious use of trusts or lawyers’ accounts to obscure the identity of donors. 
The Electoral Finance Bill enables political parties to accept donations of up to $10000 without the donor revealing his or her identity. In essence parties are able to receive huge donations from wealthy donors funnelled through secret trusts and anonymous donors with no one being the wiser. The concept of koha is I think relevant to this issue of declaring the identity of the source in political donations. Prior to the invention of the “money in the envelope” ritual gifts were often laid on marae for all to see—and it was indeed extremely transparent.  
We see amongst our Pasifika whanaunga too the very public nature of the gifting process—finely woven mats or tapa cloth being laid down as a contribution to a significant ceremony. One could perhaps conclude that if the sources did not want to be identified then perhaps they should not gift. 
We in the Maori Party recognise of course that money does not guarantee victory. What attracts the voters is the experience of candidates and whether they are prepared to stand up for the issues the constituency expects of them. While money helps it cannot rescue a poor candidate. But it does get back to this essential double standard if the aim of the bill is to restore confidence and increase public participation in the electoral process.  
The fact that there is no specific ban on donations from trusts or ones made anonymously prompted the Coalition for Open Government to say that it falls far short of the Government’s promise to create a more open and incorruptible election system. 
The other major issue the Maori Party has with this bill is around the process of consultation and public engagement. We absolutely support the proposal for an independent review of the structure and organisation of electoralagencies which will also address how political parties are funded. 
 But we would go further and establish a publicly appointed independent body to inquire into campaign finance reform. We believe that election finance laws must not be designed and determined by politicians and parties in isolation from the people. The expression of kotahitanga would encourage all citizens to have a say to make a contribution towards the realisation of democracy. 
We believe that if this Parliament is really serious about creating public and political confidence and participation in parliamentary democracy then the place to start is with the hope of our future—young people. Research released last year by the Electoral Commission found that 51 percent of Maori non-voters were in the 20 to 30-year-old age-group.  
Maori non-voters did not appear to be especially dissatisfied with national and regional politics but are simply disengaged from it.  
So we are looking to create public confidence in the democracy; learning how to engage young people could be a good place to start. 
If we are really committed to tomorrow we need to be committed to engaging and truly involving ourselves in the debate. We do not mean consultation as Labour sees it—which in our case was a briefing a couple of hours after the Dominion Post had already told us everything we needed to know.  
The intentions of this bill are honourable mouthing commitments to democracy transparency and integrity. The problem is that the fine print does not match the platitudes; the fact that donations are still anonymous in effect endorses the status quo wherein political influence and corruption can occur through secret means. We are also greatly disappointed that consultation amounted to nothing. That is a particular concern because we do have such a huge interest in ensuring that the Parliament is connected responsive and accountable to the people of the land; being able to have discussions together around that is what we would think could happen in a democracy. 
We cannot vote for a bill that has so much rhetoric attached to it and lacks real substance. While it is said that turkeys never vote for Christmas it appears that the turkeys in this House will be voting for their Christmas as they have the numbers at this time. Thank you. 
] 
Hon PETER DUNNE (Leader—United Future) 
: 
 United Future will support the introduction of the Electoral Finance Bill and its reference to a select committee because it thinks there are at the moment issues relating to the way in which the financial treatment of elections occurs that need to be updated. I am one of those who think that laws relating to electoral finance and spending ought to be changed rarely that changes should occur only when circumstances permit and that they should occur on the basis of the widest possible consensus about what those changes might be. I am always wary of members of Parliament being seen to set out our own rules in this respect. I must say that as this debate has unfolded over the last few months United Future has been concerned that it is being conducted in an excessively partisan manner. 
The trick to electoral change and laws relating to electoral change is to get buy-in from the earliest stage. We have been advocating for some time that prior to the presentation of this legislation to the House it would have been prudent for the Government to involve at least the major Opposition party in the work it was doing and we consider it to be a matter of some regret that we have proceeded to this stage without that occurring. In that regard the proposal for an enhanced select committee albeit through some adjustments to the membership of the Justice and Electoral Committee is a useful and positive step. It will mean at least that all the parties in this Parliament will have the opportunity of hearing the evidence on the bill and hopefully then reaching some measured conclusions about the way forward. But I repeat the concern that it would have been better in retrospect for that to have been the case from the time the bill was being crafted because in many respects the issues that this bill deals with are not deeply contentious between the parties. 
There are some issues where people have strong views but in reality I think most of us are aware of the fact that there needs to be some tidying-up of the law in this regard. It is not acceptable in a free and open society where free expression of opinion is paramount that some people’s opinions account for more not because of the merit or otherwise of the opinion but because of the financial support that lies behind it. The rules in New Zealand have generally been interpreted pretty fairly by all the players in the electoral scene. But it is fair to say that the instance of the Brethren church campaign at the last election did go beyond that element of fairness that most of us have traditionally understood to be the case. 
I am not saying that the Brethren Church campaign is the only instance of its type over the years because clearly it is not but it is certainly the most blatant. Equally I am not saying that outside groups have no role in the electoral process or have no right to express an opinion or seek to influence other people’s opinions on that process. After all that is what political parties which we are all about do routinely. But where that practice occurs just as there are constraints on the ways in which political parties must operate and the accountabilities that apply to them so too should there be similar constraints and accountabilities on those seeking to influence the voting choices of others. I see the changes proposed in this regard being addressed really to that particular point. 
There will be issues—and I am happy for the select committee to give a lot of consideration to these—about whether for instance the $60000 figure that has been included in the bill is the appropriate one. If it is not appropriate then let us devise a figure that is more appropriate but that also reflects the fundamental point of ensuring a free and fair competitive election process. I think that the changes that the bill proposes with regard to the electoral clock starting to tick from 1 January each year make some sense in an environment where we do not know until comparatively late in the piece precisely when the election will occur. 
I do have some concern about whether the amount set in the legislation is in fact a fair and adequate one noting always because of the ways in which electoral law is interpreted and the ways in which we as members of this House do our job that whatever limit is set there will always be an inbuilt advantage to the incumbent. It is one of those matters that simply goes with the territory because we are out there in our respective guises day in and day out being members of Parliament. Those seeking to be members of Parliament are simply always competing against that incumbency. So again if a different figure is to be set let there be no illusion that this somehow will resolve the difficulty because it will not. It will perhaps make it a little fairer in some senses but essentially the point will remain. 
I also note with approval the bill’s provisions regarding the way in which electoral broadcast time is to be allocated and the removal of political representatives from that process. It used to be easy in the days of a bipartisan system to have one representative from each side making that choice or being involved in the making of that choice. It becomes more difficult in a multi-party environment and I think it actually places grave strain on both the representative of the Opposition and the representative of the Government to have to take on other representational roles as well. Clearly to have a broadcasting authority with eight representatives from all of the different parties would be impractical so I think in an environment where the formula is fairly clear-cut the understandings are clear and people have a chance to make their submissions and to be heard before the authority the best option is the removal altogether of political representation from that body. 
A number of other measures set out in this bill are much more technical in nature—for instance relating to the way in which donated time is to be calculated and how services performed that do not have a distinct financial value are to be interpreted as well. But there are some issues that are beyond the scope of this bill. I suspect that they come into the category of still being too hard. They relate to all of the electronic communications that are now becoming far more paramount. For instance how could we if we ever tried value a text messaging campaign that some parties may well choose to adopt as part of their election expenditure? 
The point behind this is that whatever law we put in place and however well meaning and earnest we are about it we will quickly find that the political parties and the human beings who populate them being the creatures they are will find ways of getting around those provisions. So to that extent our electoral law is always a catch-up law. It is always taking a situation that has been found to be obviously failing and seeking to correct that. We cannot write the perfect law in this regard and that is why I have some suspicion about the academics and the theoreticians who say: “This process should be handled by us. Set up an independent commission to run these things and make these decisions.” With all due respect to their well-meaning intent I do not think that would work because ultimately this is a political process. It is about the way in which our political system works. Our political system comes with a lot of nuances and subtleties that the well-meaning theoretician standing on the outside simply would not understand. 
I conclude as I began. I think this bill has some useful measures in it. United Future members will certainly be supporting its going to the select committee. We are looking forward to participating in that committee and hearing the submissions but it is a matter of regret that will taint the passage of this bill that it has been put together in a way that has seen a bare majority involved in its construction and a significant minority excluded. The one lesson to emerge from this process is that for robust credible law in the future it is best to have as many people as possible involved in its drafting or its evolution at the start to get the buy-in to get the support and to remove the suspicion that it is being done at the behest of one group to advantage it at the expense of another. I hope that is not the case with this legislation when it comes back to the House and is eventually passed. It will be a test of the select committee and the participation of members in that to ensure that that is not so. 
Hon TONY RYALL (National—Bay of Plenty) 
: 
 The previous speaker talked about his suspicions about this seedy Electoral Finance Bill and how he hopes that it is not all about giving one group an advantage over all others. Well I have to tell the member that this bill is all about giving the Labour Party an advantage over all others. The party that stole the last election now wants to buy the next one! It wants to buy the next election by having restrictions on everybody except the Government. Every New Zealander who wants to express his or her view will be restricted in how much money he or she can spend except the members of the Labour Government. 
This is a Government that has spent tens of millions of dollars in the last 12 months promoting itself—Working for Families police recruitment and KiwiSaver. It has spent millions and millions of taxpayers’ dollars promoting itself and what has it brought to Parliament this week? It is a seedy Louisiana Huey Long - type bill that will suppress free speech in this country. I repeat what I told the House earlier on: the party that stole the last election intends to buy the next through using millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money. 
But I will tell members one thing: good will overcome evil time and time again. The evil of this legislation will not be allowed to stand. When New Zealanders find out that the Labour Party is going to restrict all public advertising and how much can be spent for the whole year of election year they will ask: “What’s gone wrong here?”. 
We take our democracy for granted in this country. Free elections and a free press help to protect our democratic rights—our rights of free speech and our rights to criticise the policies of the Government. But these rights are not automatic. We have to stand up for them and we have to stand up against those who want to undermine our rights to have a say. This bill does not apply just to political parties. This bill applies to any New Zealander who wants to speak out against the Labour Party. If people oppose a political party’s policy and wish to publicise their opposition they will have to register. If people want to put out an ad that says: “Let’s be hard-working and get ahead” and the ad does not mention a party it does not say to vote for National or not to vote for Labour it just says they want people to work hard and get ahead—and that is associated with the National Party and certainly not with the left—they will have to register their views. If people oppose a political party’s policy and wish to publicise their opposition to it wherever their organisation spends over $100 a week they must register with the Government to exercise their right to free speech. If their organisation is going to spend over $100 a week in an advertising campaign over a year then they will have to go to the Government and register so that they can say what they want. 
Under this bill it will be illegal for any third-party organisation to spend over $60000. Well actually I do not think the lefties in the Council of Trade Unions the Post Primary Teachers Association and the New Zealand Educational Institute have worked that out yet. If we look at the advertising in most election campaigns who do we see are the big third-party spenders? They are the unions—the very same organisations who are clicking the ticket with the bargaining fee that they are cleaning up out of everybody. For instance in the case of the Spotless Services workers of the $16 million for low-paid workers the unions got $1 million. That is the sort of stuff that is going to fund the Labour Party at the next election. 
Labour wants to restrict New Zealanders from criticising its policies. Labour will have unlimited Government funds. It is spending $15 million to promote Working for Families $7.5 million for KiwiSaver and $5 million for the Accident Compensation Corporation’s Covered campaign. Imagine what it will do in election year. 
Imagine that there are huge restrictions on political parties. Do members realise that if a candidate is selected in February next year and the election is in October all that the candidate will be able to spend is the $20000. Do members realise that that is all they will be able to spend? We will have this situation where New Zealand First will start doing what happens in England. People there are not selected as the party candidate; they are selected as the prospective party candidate. If someone is a prospective party candidate he or she is not a party candidate. That is why they have that phrase over there—so they can avoid all the campaigning rules. That is what will happen here. 
I say to Labour that these policies simply cannot last. The unions which will now find they are restricted will ask Helen Clark to measure this bill against all her rhetoric about anonymous donations. I ask members to remember that this is the woman who got over $800000 of anonymous donations when she first became Prime Minister. It was the biggest lot of anonymous donations in the history of New Zealand and it was received by the Labour Party when it came to power. 
What did Helen Clark say about this issue? She said in December 2006: “I think the public wants to know who is funding political parties. They want to know who is pulling the strings if they are pulling the strings through funding.” That is what Helen Clark said. Then she said: “I look forward to the National Party support for clamping down on anonymous donations.” Helen Clark said on 6 September 2006: “I understand that in Australia everything over $250 has to be declared. That sounds like a good idea to me.” But what did she say yesterday? Ms Clark said: “Banning anonymous donations in their current form without providing additional State funding would have led to parties across the spectrum struggling for funding.” So this is the party that said: “Let’s get rid of anonymous donations.” but now she says we are not going to do that because it would lead to parties struggling for funding. 
What does that mean? Banning anonymous donations would mean no money for Labour therefore what does Labour do? There will be no money for anybody! Well that is not what Labour is doing. There will be no money for Labour so it will not let anybody else spend anything. That is what Labour is proposing. Helen Clark said: “No money for Labour so we won’t let anybody else spend anything else.” Every member of that Labour Party should have been hanging his or her head in shame as I read that this morning. For over a year it was reported that Labour spent every day moaning about these secret donations and as has been noted in a publication today: “The National Party agreed that these donations should end. Helen Clark and Labour have decided unilaterally to leave it out because Labour would have struggled for funding without such money.”—that is according to www.kiwiblog.co.nz. Is that not inconsistent? 
Hon Bill English 
: It’s completely normal for Helen Clark. 
Hon TONY RYALL 
: That is right. On the one hand she was saying to get rid of these anonymous donations but when that was going to affect Labour’s funding it was: “Oh no we don’t think we can do that.” That is completely deceitful. That is what this bill is about—it is deceitful. This bill means that the Labour Government can spend whatever it likes but no one else can. 
I have to say that the best thing about this bill going to a select committee is that all the parties will have an option to have a say. All the parties will be able to decide whether this bill is democratic. I think it is undemocratic. If anybody had stood up in this House and said that in Zimbabwe Mugabe had just passed a bill that said parties could not advertise or promote over the whole year of the election third parties could not spend more than $60000 but Mugabe could spend whatever he liked Phil Goff would have frothed and his veins would have popped in outrage. The veins would have popped in outrage that Mugabe was limiting the free speech period putting restrictions on what third parties could advertise and making critics register with the Government. Phil Goff’s veins would have popped like nothing we have ever seen before. 
But that is what the Government in New Zealand is doing today. In New Zealand Helen Clark now wants the critics to register their conflicts of interest—she did yesterday; maybe she does not today—and that is the sort of Government that New Zealanders will turf out in less than 12 months’ time. New Zealanders will get a Government that will respect the views of the people one that has not become tired arrogant and out of touch like that aging front bench opposite. 
CHARLES CHAUVEL (Labour) 
: 
 I rise to take a call on the first reading of this very good bill the Electoral Finance Bill. What a shame it was to hear and see the contributions from National members in this debate on the radio and in the print media over the last couple of days since this bill was tabled. The reality of this legislation is that no group will get special treatment. The new rules will limit the campaigning done by everyone including unions business groups and religious organisations. 
At this point we have not had State funding introduced. I personally think that is a matter for regret but clearly the group that will be set up to review future directions will be able to consider that matter. 
I would like to deal with some of the worst examples of propaganda and misinformation that we have heard in the House today and in the media since this bill was tabled. First I will address this shibboleth this nonsense that this legislation is an attack on free speech. It is not rocket science to know that where money and politics mix—as they do on the other side of the House—one had better have rules in place to safeguard the system from abuse. 
Members know that political parties have had limits on their spending in this country since 1895. It was not until the last election though that New Zealanders realised that groups could pretend to be independent and then pour millions of dollars into backing a party—and we know which party that was. The very people who are rallying around their hollow cries in the defence of free speech are some of the very people who were at the centre of those abuses at the last election and it is a disgrace to hear them try to defend those practices in the House today. 
Then there is the misinformation being put out that Labour is trying to silence its critics and is putting in self-serving rules ahead of the next election. Well this bill delivers a level playing field. All parties will be treated fairly and all third-party groups like unions business groups and religious organisations will be covered by the same rules. That is an excellent advance and it is beyond time that we should see it. Again the people who gained most from the abuses in the 2005 election are trying to spread misinformation and propaganda in order to block what they know are fair-minded reforms that will prevent these rorts in the future. One just needs to follow the money to realise what is going on here in this debate. 
Then there is this misinformation that claims Labour is giving special treatment to the unions. Of course we are not; unions will have to abide by the same rules as everyone else. People who claim that unions are being treated differently are not being truthful. Corporates will be able to communicate directly with their shareholders employers and manufacturers associations and unions will be able to communicate directly with their memberships and Churches can provide information to their congregations. None of this means that they are able to put ads in the paper without playing by the rules that everyone else has to play by. 
Then there is the propaganda being put out that National will lose the most out of this situation. This bill will not disadvantage National; it will simply take away the disadvantages faced by all other parties that did not have access to the secret third-party ad campaigns that helped National at the last election. This is especially true for the smaller parties which would never have been able to compete with the millionaire financing that National had access to. 
I would just say that one of the notable aspects of this first reading debate has been the contributions made by the third parties. I enjoyed listening to the speeches made by the leaders and representatives of those parties and I think their contributions bode very well for our making this an even better bill in the select committee. 
Then there is the misinformation that claims Labour is still trying to get State funding through at the next election. As I said this bill will not provide for State funding. It is true that the independent review foreshadowed by the Minister of Justice will look at State funding amongst other things such as stronger watchdogs donations and thresholds and that it will report back after the election. But the review will not have anything to do with what Labour prefers one way or another. 
It is true that in many other countries State funding has been shown to be the best way to keep abuse out of the system and to avoid a plutocracy where one well-funded party can simply get its way and try to snow the public. Personally I am a supporter of State funding and I think it is important that independent people look at what it might mean for New Zealand which is what successive reviews of general elections by the Justice and Electoral Committee have called for. 
In conclusion I say that I welcome the independent review that the Minister has foreshadowed. Clearly it will be good to have a three-member panel—with one member to act as the chairperson—to publish a discussion document invite submissions consult with political parties and provide a final report to the Minister of Justice with recommendations for consideration by Cabinet. It is good to see that the review will cover issues as broad as the structure of the electoral agencies State funding and the wider question of political party funding including the sources of donations and relevant thresholds. 
I think this bill is a good start. As has been signalled hopefully the House will be generous-spirited and will grant leave for the select committee to contain a decent representation from across the parties in the House. I think that mechanism will be able to improve the bill even further. I hope the public are not snowed by the propaganda and the misinformation that I have mentioned in my speech and I hope there is full participation in the deliberations of the select committee which I greatly look forward to. 
A party vote was called for on the question That t 
he Electoral Finance Bill be now read a first time 
. 
Ayes 65 
New Zealand Labour 49; New Zealand First 7; Green Party 6; United Future 2; Progressive 1. 
Noes 54 
New Zealand National 48; Maori Party 4; Independents: Copeland Field. 
Bill read a first time. 
Bill referred to the Justice and Electoral Committee. 
Hon MARK BURTON (Minister of Justice) 
: 
 I seek leave for the membership of the Justice and Electoral Committee for the purpose of its consideration of the Electoral Finance Bill to be increased to 13 members through the addition of one further member from each of New Zealand Labour New Zealand National New Zealand First ACT New Zealand and United Future with those members to be appointed by the leaders or whips of each respective party; and for Hone Harawira to have the right to vote on any question put to the committee in relation to this bill. 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: Leave has been sought for that course to be followed. Is there any objection? There is not. 
Electricity (Disconnection and Low Fixed Charges) Amendment Bill 
First Reading 
Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister of Energy) 
: 
 I move  
That the Electricity (Disconnection and Low Fixed Charges) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. 
 At the appropriate time I intend to move that the bill be referred to the Commerce Committee. 
This bill responds to recent concerns about the disconnection practices of electricity retailers particularly in relation to vulnerable consumers. It is designed to ensure that the Government can if necessary regulate the content of the disconnection guidelines that have been recently developed. This bill amends the Electricity Act 1992 as the Act does not currently contain sufficient powers to regulate disconnection processes or to regulate the full content of the guidelines. The bill also amends the regulation-making power in the Act relating to consumer contract terms because at present the Act requires retailers to include only the regulated matters in their contract. Once retailers have done this they have complied with the regulation. If they breach their own contract they are not breaching the regulations so they are not subject to the penalty provisions in the Act. 
The Electricity Commission has been working with electricity retailers Government ministries and social agencies to develop new guidelines for dealing with disconnections. Retailers have been given the opportunity to follow the guidelines and this bill will allow for the content of the guidelines to be regulated if retailers fail to adhere to the guidelines voluntarily. The new guidelines will ensure that consumers having difficulty paying their bills are advised of the assistance available from community service providers and Government agencies. The guidelines will also protect vulnerable consumers and those reliant on electricity for medical equipment that maintains life. 
In summary this part of the bill improves the ability to regulate for arrangements regarding the process for disconnection following non-payment of accounts for reconnection for billing information and processes and for alternative payment options such as smooth payments redirection of income and debt recovery. The bill also regulates for the process of identifying consumers who would be at risk if their electricity were disconnected and includes proposals relating to mandatory terms and conditions for the supply of electricity and line function services by electricity retailers and distributors. 
The bill consists only of regulation-making powers. It does not alter any of the existing processes or requirements in the Electricity Act relating to the making of regulations. Under the Electricity Act 1992 regulations or rules can be made only if they implement a recommendation from the Electricity Commission. The Electricity Act requires the commission to satisfy itself that other options such as voluntary arrangements are unlikely to achieve the Government’s objectives. Nothing in the bill overrides the Privacy Act either. 
I have been encouraged by the attitude of retailers who have dedicated time and resources in recent weeks both internally and with the Electricity Commission to ensure that their processes are adapted to prevent any repeat of the events in May. I am confident that they are willing to follow the guidelines. The regulation-making powers that the bill will create are important as a measure of last resort to enable regulations to be made to ensure that Government objectives are met. 
The bill also addresses specific concerns around the regulations for the low fixed-charge tariff options for domestic consumers. The low fixed-charge regulations were introduced in 2004 with the purpose of assisting low-use domestic consumers and encouraging energy efficiency. Prior to the introduction of those regulations low-use consumers in many areas faced unreasonably high fixed daily charges for their limited or low electricity usage. The introduction of regulations provided these low-use consumers with a tariff option that was more equitable for low-energy users and compatible with the Government’s energy efficiency objectives. 
At present these regulations require networks and retailers to make available a low fixed-charge tariff option to all domestic consumers whom they service who have consumption at their primary dwellings of less than 8000 kilowatt hours per annum. That same 8000-kilowatt-hour threshold is used across the entire country despite the reality that in colder parts of the South Island the average power use is higher in large part because the climate is colder and there is little reticulated gas. Analysis of average consumption data shows that an adjustment to the low fixed-charge eligibility threshold of 8000 kilowatt hours per year is warranted because far fewer consumers are on a low fixed-charge tariff in the lower South Island than in other parts of the country. For example in Auckland and the north currently over 52 percent of domestic consumers are covered by the low fixed-charge tariff whereas in the lower South Island being Christchurch south and excluding Westland that figure is only 9.2 percent. 
The bill alters the definition of a low fixed-charge consumer from being a consumer with a fixed threshold of 8000 kilowatt hours as currently defined in the Act to being a consumer under a definition to be provided in regulations so that different regional locations and averages can be used. Subsequently the regulations will be changed to set that threshold in the lower South Island from Christchurch south and excluding Westland at 9000 kilowatt hours which is the average domestic consumption level for that region. This will enable a greater number of lower South Island consumers to benefit from having a low fixed-charge tariff option. I do not want to overstate the benefits here. The differences between the tariffs are not huge but they are material for some low-income consumers. 
Another change in the bill is the extension of the Minister’s powers to grant an exemption from the application of the regulations to electricity distributors or retailers. The change is directed at small isolated networks that are not connected to the national grid. In these small isolated networks the cost of servicing customers can be far higher than is the norm for grid-connected networks and in such circumstances the compliance requirements and business costs of administering the low fixed-charge tariff can be excessive. This has the potential to affect the economic viability of these small isolated networks. In this circumstance it may be more equitable to exempt the entire network from having that low fixed-charge tariff requirement so that the proposed amendment enables such networks to apply for an exemption. The amendment is required because the existing wording in the Act allows for only a subset of customers within the network to be exempted not the entire network. Thank you Mr Deputy Speaker. 
GERRY BROWNLEE (National—Ilam) 
: 
 The National Party will support the Electricity (Disconnection and Low Fixed Charges) Amendment Bill going to a select committee because it does not hurt to have these sorts of matters discussed. But we cannot be overly enthusiastic about what the bill actually does because it is clear that this is the Government’s response to everything that Helen Clark had to say at the time of the tragedy that beset the Muliaga family in South Auckland. Essentially this bill appears to give the Minister the power to regulate as to how disconnections might be carried out if the industry itself does not come up with a satisfactory arrangement and put it in place in a way that means that that sort of event could not occur again. That is all fine; that is just what one would expect in a country like this. I doubt whether the Minister will ever have to use those regulations because I think it is in the interests of the power companies—which are in the main Government-owned anyway—to make sure they have good protocols in place. 
The issue of the low fixed charge is an interesting one because there is no doubt that in the South Island the opportunities to heat homes are pretty much limited to either solid fossil fuel burning or the use of electricity. We do not have a large gas market down there. People do not have reticulated gas anywhere and certainly do not have natural gas in the way that people have it in the North Island. A number of people use bottled gas etc. but by and large the growing need for heating is being met from electrical energy. It is just a simple fact that it is colder in the South Island than it is in the North Island and we still do not have in my opinion adequate incentives in place to encourage people to retrofit their homes with the proper insulation they would need in order for the greatest efficiency to be achieved by the use of that electrical energy. I think we also have some funny views in that regard about the use of solid fuel but that issue is not up for comment in the debate on this bill. 
The Minister quite rightly says that the threshold at which the low-user charge applies is to be moved out by 1000 kilowatt hours a year. On the face of it that measure looks reasonably good. But we have to remember that people are using that 1000 kilowatt hours so it is only an extra 1000 kilowatt hours at the low tariff whatever that might be and we are hearing evidence that that may be as little as $18 a year. So here we have legislation to give low end-users as little as $18 a year. It would be many many years before they could possibly save enough to pay for the cost of putting this bill through Parliament in the first place. 
The big problem in New Zealand with regard to electricity prices is that we have a scarcity of supply. Everyone says that that is not right because the lights have not gone out and we are meeting demand etc. But it is a fact that we are reasonably well balanced. If anyone chose to look at the retail portfolios of the generators then they would find that the demand from their retail portfolio is pretty much balanced with their capacity to generate. We know that each year there is a further demand for another 2 percent or so on top of the electricity that is currently generated. So the market is growing and the industry is only just keeping pace with the demand that it has to supply. 
That is not a recipe in which to see power prices fall. I know that in some parts of the South Island at least one power company has sent out a letter in the last couple of weeks stating that on 1 October electricity prices will rise by about 4.5 percent. Even with the passing of this legislation one can guarantee that it will mean that people at the low end of the scale who take advantage of the low fixed-charge rate now will in fact pay more for their electrical energy simply because the price will go up. Until the Government does something about increasing the amount of available electrical energy and encouraging power companies to invest more in generation then we will not make much progress as far as prices are concerned. 
 I think that one of the things that is holding up decisions on where our generating industry goes is the whole issue around climate change and what it will cost in climate change terms to generate electricity in the future. We know for instance that without the Huntly power station the lights would be out right now. This year when we get into peak-load situations without the E3P gas plant at Huntly we would be in dire straits. So we are heavily reliant on a sector of the industry that is likely to face significant climate change costs. We have a dual-edged sword if you like where we know that demand is just being met so therefore prices can rise but we have those other added costs about to go into the industry which will further force prices up. With all due respect I tell the Minister I think this bill is a nice idea but it is not quite enough for those people who need some help. The only way that prices will go down in my opinion is if we have a considerable amount more in generation. 
I understand that this bill is to be referred to the Commerce Committee. It is my privilege to chair that committee and I look forward to the submissions that we will receive on this bill. If we do not get very many we will require various organisations to come along and talk to us about it. 
I do not see in the bill any suggestion that there is a time line for electricity retailers to comply voluntarily with the disconnection arrangements. I think that without that the general power given to the Minister means very little. It would be nice to think that there was a window of say 6 months where power companies themselves could come up with their proposals and then if they did not meet those they would know that the Minister at a fixed date would regulate on what was to happen. As I have said before most of those power companies are State-owned so one would think it would be pretty easy for the Minister to get voluntary compliance on that from a large sector of the industry. 
I am sorry; I have not finished but I am just— 
Darren Hughes 
: Wrong bill. 
GERRY BROWNLEE 
: —no—taking a moment to consider whether we could widen this debate a little because the issue of transmission costs is one that needs to be looked at here as well. I do not see in this bill any particular reference to Transpower or to what its particular proposals are. The Minister Mr Parker is shaking his head which leaves me wondering why he has not mentioned Transpower in the bill. A lot of the charges do come from transmission; we have to be realistic about it. A good deal of our power is generated in the South Island and a great deal of our power is used at the other end of the country. So there is an issue running through there of getting the stuff out of the South Island. We know that the full capacity of South Island generation is not being fully utilised because of the constraints on the transmission lines. So although we have this bill about disconnections and low fixed charges it might have been interesting I would think to have had some comment in the bill about the expectations that the Minister has of Transpower which is the major delivery agent for electricity throughout the country. 
National members will consider these matters appropriately at the select committee and I welcome the opportunity to discuss this bill with all those whom I know will be interested in making submissions to the committee. 
MARYAN STREET (Labour) 
: 
 In May of this year New Zealand witnessed a tragic event when the Muliaga family had the power disconnected at their home. That brought out some glaring gaps in the operation of our State-owned enterprises. State-owned enterprises originally came out of public services which were previously wholly operated by the Government through the Public Service. In corporatising them in the 1980s and later commercial imperatives which had previously been absent were introduced so that the Crown’s investment in these services could be rewarded. In some measure this bill represents a righting of the balance if you like a restoration of some social imperatives to services that are no longer luxuries but essentials. 
In the first instance the Minister of Energy talked about the new guidelines that will apply to electricity retailers. These retailers must advise consumers who may have difficulty paying their bills of the assistance that is available from Government agencies and community service providers. They must also take steps to identify vulnerable consumers who are having difficulty paying their bills and consult with the Ministry of Social Development and Employment before disconnecting vulnerable consumers. At no time during this process can a retailer disconnect vulnerable consumers. Retailers must also identify those consumers reliant on electricity for medical equipment to maintain life and not disconnect those consumers. 
We are confident that electricity retailers will follow the guidelines to prevent a repeat of the May tragedy but the regulating power contained in this legislation is an important last resort to ensure that the Government’s objectives are met. These objectives are both commercial and social. 
I commend the electricity industry for the steps it has already taken as witnessed by the television advertising campaign with the inspired choice of Jonah Lomu fronting the campaign. The use of an icon such as Jonah Lomu will bring the message home very quickly and very clearly. I commend the industry for that. Clearly that is an example of the industry responding proactively. However as I say the regulating power is an important last resort to ensure the Government’s objectives are met. 
In respect of the second purpose of this bill it is clear that as many as 70000 households from Christchurch south could face smaller bills under the proposed changes to electricity tariff charges. The Minister was careful not to overstate that benefit but in fact any assistance to households particularly low-income households in respect of the provision of adequate heating during winter is to be welcomed and not sneered at. It would appear that although 50000 or so lower South Island households may have already benefited from the 8000 kilowatt limit another 20000 should be eligible under the higher threshold and that is helpful. 
I trust that this bill—if it proceeds as the Minister intends to the Commerce Committee—will get an adequate and appropriate hearing. I have the privilege of sitting on that select committee and I look forward to the discussion around the two essential items that this bill brings to the supply of electricity in this country. It should be registered that the social imperatives for the provision of electricity supply should not be overtaken again in the future. I look forward to the consideration of this bill at the committee. 
CHRIS AUCHINVOLE (National) 
: 
 I rise to speak to the Electricity (Disconnection and Low Fixed Charges) Amendment Bill and in keeping with the advice already given by Gerry Brownlee I add that National supports this bill’s referral to the Commerce Committee. There are two aspects of this bill the first being the disconnection of electricity and the second being the low fixed-charge tariff options for consumers. 
The Minister has just told us that this bill does not really alter the Electricity Act 1992; it just introduces more regulations. Well well well! What a surprise; more regulations from a Labour Government! What a surprise! How do Labour members really imagine that this will make a difference? 
Maryan Street 
: Don’t lose sight of the purpose. 
CHRIS AUCHINVOLE 
: Indeed let us look at the purpose. The bill ensures that the Government can regulate the content of voluntary disconnection guidelines that the Electricity Commission has recently developed in response to the sad tragic and avoidable death of Mrs Muliaga. These guidelines include the requirement for the following: regular communication to all consumers on their payment options—is that not something that should already be built in to standard commercial treatment—arranging debt recovery in time frames that are suitable for the retailer and that minimise hardship to the consumer; ensuring that consumers enter into the most appropriate contracts for their needs; providing consumers with the opportunity to identify themselves as potentially vulnerable; consultation with the Ministry of Social Development to assist vulnerable consumers who are unable to pay; a visit to a consumer’s home before the final disconnection takes place; and the fact that consumers who require electricity for critical medical support will not be disconnected for non-payment. 
One would be forgiven for saying that they look like sensible points and that surely they are built into current practice. But do they really need to be put into legislation? Are electricity companies so far removed from reality that they have to be told every minutiae of detail? Are we simply trying to impose liability? Is this not a little like so many of the other regulations this Government loves to make? 
Darren Hughes 
: Sit down and vote against it then. 
CHRIS AUCHINVOLE 
: No no—let us look at it. It is like microchipping dogs. How will that stop a dog from biting someone? It is like so many of the regulations that Labour members live by and stand by to give the appearance of doing something. 
Darren Hughes 
: Vote it down if it’s so hopeless. 
CHRIS AUCHINVOLE 
: Voting it down is not quite the point. I guess the member would prefer that. He would much prefer that because that is his style: vote it down do not discuss it and do not debate it; this is it take it or leave it. I think that that is what will happen now with the proposed legislation on changing the electoral law. We have already had an example of that. It will be rammed through. It will be a case of: “Let’s not discuss it and let’s not criticise it.” Well that is not my experience of working on the consumer— 
Darren Hughes 
: Experience! 
CHRIS AUCHINVOLE 
: No no on the Commerce Committee. It has a remarkably good record for picking up Labour’s legislation and turning it into something meaningful. I could illustrate that point with the bill about the drainlayers plumbers and electricians— 
Darren Hughes 
: Gasfitters I think you’ll find. 
CHRIS AUCHINVOLE 
: Gasfitters—that is the one. I think we have even had a Minister say the Commerce Committee changed that bill into something meaningful and that was done mostly at the instigation of National members. So I say that the member should stand by because we might be able to do something with this one as well. 
But what background are we operating against? Can we have confidence in this Minister’s administration? I really do not know. [ 
Interruption 
] Did someone say no? Oh Bob Clarkson did and I think he is quite right. 
 Let us look at it. The energy policy is tied up with the shambolic climate change policy resulting in uncertainty and investment delays. Why can people not pay their bills? I speak as someone who was brought up by a widow. Paying electricity bills was a big problem. We have seen the difficulty that can occur in a domestic situation. But—here we go—residential power prices have gone up by 48 percent in 5 years from 2003 to 2007 compared with an increase of only 25 percent for industrial and commercial users. A further rise of 2.5c or 3c a kilowatt hour is required in order to deliver the steeply falling emissions profile that Labour’s Energy Strategy outlined as a trade-off between security of supply and reduced emissions. That is stark. 
The Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority has had $110 million in funding since its inception in 2001 yet the 2006 review of its energy efficiency strategy of 2001 concluded that a 0.4 percent gain in efficiency was less than the gain of 0.7 percent when there was no strategy. This is the background we are looking at in terms of this legislation being introduced and it is not a very satisfactory background. 
Will the regulations work? The power in this case is being given to the Minister. In other words it is something at the bottom of the cliff because how will he know he should enact these regulations until it is too jolly late? Surely the State-owned enterprises can be expected to provide monitoring and acceptance of these regulatory provisions on a voluntary basis and have it as part of their commercial practice. But that would not suit the profile of the present Government. 
Let us look at the eligibility threshold for the domestic low-fixed charge. I would have to say coming from the West Coast of the South Island that the telephones have been running hot in my little blue office with questions about why the West Coast has not been included in this strategy. Well having had a look at it—having put the ruler across it—I guess that the West Coast should be delighted that it has not been included because the strategy will not work at the present rate. Indeed I think the Minister is on record as saying he would speak to power companies and others to explain how it should work. 
It would appear from the Minister’s spin that the scheme will address inequality but let us remember that it does not talk about discounts or amounts; it talks about margins. Yet although lower-use consumers who have not yet signed up to the low-fixed charge scheme might get a slightly lower power bill—perhaps $20 a year—everyone else including people who are already on the scheme will probably pay more as the power companies simply raise tariffs across the board to make up the lost revenue. I understand that economists call this the “waterbed effect”. Meanwhile residential power prices are up compared with the industrial ones which have risen by only half as much. So people should be entitled to wonder what the hang is going on. Increasing the threshold for the lower South Island may not actually be needed given this Government’s inaction over climate change its mismanagement of deforestation and the amount of carbon dioxide the State-owned enterprises power stations keep pumping out. 
The industry is in a bad shape. It was interesting to attend as one of its members the Commerce Committee when questions were raised about Roy Hemmingway’s suitability. Roy Hemmingway addressed the committee. He talked about our limited reservoirs for electricity about our limited capacity and about the perilous state of the transmission lines. I understand that 75 percent of power transmitted to the upper half of the South Island including the West Coast is generated outside of the region and has to be pumped into the region and that there is a 30 percent loss in transmission. That is frightful. Yet does this Government permit localisation of generation? Does it hang! 
Darren Hughes 
: Where did the member get that 30 percent figure from? 
CHRIS AUCHINVOLE 
: The 30 percent? 
Darren Hughes 
: Where did he get that figure from? 
CHRIS AUCHINVOLE 
: I got it from the power companies I deal with. They brought it to me as a complaint over the loss of transmission that occurs in the lines. If that figure is not correct then I would like to hear from members opposite what the figure really is and just how good the transmission supply lines are. I think they will find that they are living again in a state of denial. Thank you Mr Deputy Speaker. 
PETER BROWN (Deputy Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 Let me make it clear from the outset that New Zealand First supports the Electricity (Disconnection and Low Fixed Charges) Amendment Bill. The sad thing about it is that we have to have this bill at all. That is a sad indictment on this country. 
Let me talk a little bit about the disconnection regulation. It is to underpin and ensure that the electricity companies actually do the job that is required of them. What happened in May with the Muliaga family was a disgrace—an absolute disgrace. I listened to the Labour speaker Maryan Street who said that she commended the companies for having the Jonah Lomu advertisement. Every time I see that ad I think of sadness and ask myself why we have to pay out this money to do something that is really just decent common sense: people who are on a life-support system do not get their power turned off. Everyone has a great love for Jonah and a great respect for him not only for what he did on the rugby field but for what he has gone through in his private life. 
Hon Mita Ririnui 
: He was on life support. 
PETER BROWN 
: Yes he relied on it and he is a good man to use as an example but we should not have had to use him. We should have contractors who when they walk into a house and see someone on a life-support system or even suspect that someone is on one will say they will not turn off the power until they get the matter clear one way or another and check with their employers or whoever gave them the contract. Now we are in the sad situation of having to produce legislation that will underpin the power companies to ensure they take a compassionate view and a compassionate attitude to this type of predicament. So New Zealand First has no hesitation in supporting this bill for that reason alone. 
The second area that the bill covers the low fixed charge also makes common sense. The threshold of 8000 kilowatt-hours is not enough for the colder parts of New Zealand—people do not sign up to it. We need to increase the threshold lower the line charge and raise the charge per kilowatt-hour. At 9000 kilowatt-hours it all balances even and if people use less than that they should make a saving. I do not know much that saving is—I think Gerry Brownlee alluded to it being $18—but the thing is we have to deliver electricity to all people everywhere particularly elderly people living in very cold areas and we welcome this change. Whether it is enough I do not know. 
I have to say that I agree with Gerry Brownlee—and this is probably a little bit worrying—on his point that we do not generate enough electricity in this country. I think he is spot on. Something went wrong after the Bradford reforms. We were told at the time of the Bradford reforms that a competitive environment would get these generating companies competing and that they would all have a surplus and the price would go down. But actually the reverse has happened; the generating companies produce just what they need—what they can sell and at the price they can sell it—and the market price goes up as a result. 
I have to say—and I know people will call me a heathen—that I would maximise our use of hydro power. They will not call me a heathen for that. I would maximise our use of wind power. I would maximise our use of tidal power. I would even look closely at wave power. The Minister of Energy will shudder now but I would have a gas-fired power station in Otahuhu tomorrow. Contact Energy would have a gas-fired power station in Otahuhu tomorrow if it got the OK and I would agree with it. I will go—I hope if Genesis invites me—to the official opening of E3P with glee. 
I ask members to imagine the situation we would have if E3P had not occurred. This Government gave the go-ahead and underwrote the gas and now “gas” is a dirty word. An even dirtier word is “coal”. It is an absolute dirty word. We have one coal-fired power station and we have all the greenies kicking up here there and everywhere. China brings on stream three or four coal-fired power stations a month and we say: “What about global warming? Close down Huntly!”. Or some people say that; I do not say it—I hope that the Huntly power station goes on forever. 
I am moving into the subject of climate change and have digressed from the bill but I know that the members opposite are learning and are finding this quite interesting. Let me say that if we want to solve climate change at a practical level—never mind that we introduce carbon tax or emissions trading schemes—we will have to address at a practical level the emissions that come from coal. Forty percent of the world’s energy is derived from coal. In Australia 75 percent of energy is derived from coal. China as I said is producing a coal-fired power station every 10 or so days. If we want to change the climate to change the carbon dioxide emissions or the carbon dioxide equivalents we will have to address the coal problem on a global basis. 
Hon David Parker 
: I agree. 
PETER BROWN 
: The Minister agrees. So I am against chastising and slagging off New Zealanders—as my Green Party colleague will stand up and do immediately after me in all probability—because we have one coal-fired power station delivering 1000 megawatts. That is all we have. 
I have digressed quite a lot on this bill. I want to see it go to select committee. I have read the bill fairly quickly a couple of times and I cannot see that it is in need of a great deal of amending; it seems to set out pretty clearly what it intends to do. I have no doubt that the select committee will give the bill a thorough examination and possibly find that a few adjustments are needed. But I hope at the end of the day and in reasonably fast order that this bill comes back to the House and we can do something a little bit positive—although if we had done the right thing in terms of the disconnection policy we would not need a bill like this and it is sort of sad to think about it. 
But we do need the bill and we do need to address the low fixed-charge rate and make it fairer all round for New Zealanders certainly for those who live in the cold and certainly for the elderly people who are living on fixed incomes in the cold. I shudder from time to time to think how they exist. When I was in Dunedin a few years back I met a few elderly people who told me stories of sitting in their beds all day wrapped up in blankets. There is an obligation on us to show a little compassion on the two fronts here. New Zealand First will support this bill. 
TE URUROA FLAVELL (Maori Party—Waiariki) 
: 
Kia ora tatou. Kia ora tatou i tenei Wiki o te Reo Maori. Tera tetahi korero: “Ma te mea matamuri ka wehe atu i Aotearoa e tinei te raiti?”. I enei wa tera pea ka kite tatau kua wetohia ke te raiti! 
Kei te marama matau o te Pati Maori mo nga take i tae mai ai tenei pire ki runga i te Pepa Rarangi Korero o te Whare ara na te ahuatanga pouri nei i pa ki a Folole Muliaga. Ko tona matenga na te wetonga o te hiko i tona whare mo te aha? Mo tana nama $168.40. Ki ta matou mohio koi nei te ahuatanga mo nga tangata e hia ke nei i Aotearoa. Na te ripoata a te Manatu Whakahiato Ora o te tau 2006 i ki mai hau tekau o nga Pakeha me te hauwha o te Maori kaore i utu i tetahi o a ratau nama hiko korohu wai ranei i te tau 2004. Hei ta te purongo he taumaha ake tenei ahuatanga mo nga whanau Pasifika. 
I te wiki kua taha ake nei kua rongo te Pati Maori i nga karanga pakanga nei e ki ana mo nga kaute ke te ahuatanga mahi torangapu. Kati ka pehea enei whika? E 26.7 o-rau o nga whanau Maori katoa kaore i utu wawe i a ratau nama hiko wai korohu i te tau 2004. A e 12.7 o-rau o nga whanau i Aotearoa ara tata pea ki te 266700 mano kaore i utu i o ratau nama mo te wa kotahi i te tau i mua. Ka taea pea e nga takuta whatiwhati korero te hanga momo whakautu mo te ahuatanga o enei kaute. Kei te tangata tonu ranei te tikanga ki te utu i ana nama i te wa e tika ana a me ata titiro nga kaituku hiko i o ratau raupapa mahi a me ata titiro ranei te iwi ki te ahua o wa ratau whakapau moni. Kare he paku raru ki enei karero a he tika hoki etahi engari kua tau te he ki wahi ke ko te Karauna tena e noho pai ana. 
Engari anei matau o te Pati Maori te reo Maori motuhake kei te Paremata e akiaki nei i te Kawanatanga mo ona kawenga ki nga nohoanga tangata ki te hapori ki tenei whenua hoki. I aro ake matau ki nga korero a te rangatira o Mighty River Power a Doug Heffernan me tana ki mai i te 25 o Pipiri ara “Ko nga take rawakore he raru ka pa ki te nohoanga tangata a kei a tatau katoa te whakautu. He akiaki tonu tera ki tena ki tena kaua ko nga kamupene hiko anake engari ko nga tari awhina tangata me te Kawanatanga hoki.” 
Na ko te pire nei he timatanga kia uru mai te Kawanatanga. Maku tonu e ki i te tuatahi ka tautoko te Pati Maori i tenei pire na te mea he take tenei ka pa mai ki te katoa mo nga mahi weweto kaihoko hiko. Ki ta te Hahi Salvation Army na te kaha o te mana o nga koporeihana kaore nga kaimahi i te tino ngakau nui i te hapori i runga i te ngakau atawhai. Ko ta Child Poverty Action Group ko te putake o te raru ko tera e ki ana “Kaore e taea e nga kaupapa o te makete te whakarite huarahi hei manaaki i nga whanau.” He kaha ake te kupu o nga Uniana me ta ratou korero i ki nei: “Kua kitea ano ko te kaupapa nui o nga koporeihana a-Kawanatanga ara ko te moni i mua noa atu i te tangata i Aotearoa nei.”  
Na te kaha takariri koi nei ta ratou panui i te 31 o Haratua ki a Mercury Energy: “He momo kaiwhakaweti tera hunga ko ta ratau kai ko te hunga rawakore te hunga pohara o Tamaki ki te Tonga. He orite ratau ki era tangata tuku moni ratau he pirau te ngakau a kei roto i o tatau rohe e noho ana. Ka whakawhirinaki ratau ki te hunga mokemoke ki te hunga noho manene.” 
Ko te pire e wanangahia nei e tatou i tenei rangi he whakaaro kotahi anake ehara ko te titiro whanui ki te hiahia kia rere ke tonu nga mea whai hua. Ko nga whakatikatikatanga e whakaarohia nei mo te mahi tope hiko mo te kore utu nama ara nga momo huarahi hei utu i nga nama i nga wa ka ka ano te hiko a ma te hunga raruraru ka tautoko katoa matau i aua kaupapa. Engari kaore tenei pire e muru i nga taumahatanga whai hua o tenei wa. Ko tona tikanga ara ko te mahi a te Kawanatanga he tiaki i nga whanau kia taea ai e ratou nga whanau te utu i nga nama penei i o ratau ake nama hiko.  
Kei te mohio tonu matau kua whakaritea ke e te Komihana Hiko i te tau 2005 he kaupapa hei awhina i era ara te hunga pohara. Kua titiro matau ki aua kaupapa a he mea whakamiharo era hiahia hei awhina i era e noho raruraru nei na te kore mohio. me pehea e taea ai te utu i o ratau nama hiko. Engari ko te tino raruraru i whakatakotohia e te Perehitini o Grey Power ara e Graham Stairmand nana te Kawanatanga i wero kia ngakaunui mai ki era kua piki atu te utu mo te hiko i te 60 o-rau i nga tau e wha ki muri. 
Ka whakaatu a Child Poverty Action Group i te raru ki “nga whanau he noho rawakore te noho” i runga i te patai: “Meina ka aukatihia te hiko ka pehea nga tamariki i o ratau mahi ako i te kura kia whangaihia i nga kai mahana ki te mahi i wo ratau rorohiko ki te horoi hoki i a ratau ano kia kore ai e mate i nga mate tahumaero me pehea hoki?”. Ka hoki mai ano ki aua take ano kua piki te utu o te hiko o te wai o nga waka i runga ake i te ekenga o te wariu a i runga ake hoki i nga utu mahi; kare e orite te ngahoro o nga painga ki nga whanau katoa i raro i nga painga o te kaupapa Mahi mo Nga Whanau ka riro i etahi ka noho pohara tonu etahi; he whanau tonu kare i te whiwhi i nga painga o te kaupapa Mahi mo nga Whanau na te kore mohio kei reira tonu taua awhina.  
He whakaaro arorau era i roto i te pire e ki ana. me rere ke nga utu mo ia rohe mo ia rohe. Kua rongo nei matau he tino whanui tonu te rere ketanga o te take mai i tetahi rohe o Aotearoa ki tetahi a ko nga take iti nei he moemoea noa iho mo ratau e noho nei i nga wahi kaha matao kaha maku ranei na reira e whakaae ana matau ki nga rere ketanga kei te whakaarohia mo tena rohe mo tena rohe. He whakaaro pai era. 
Tera pea ko te kaha o te riri otira o te aroha nga mea nui kua ngau nei i te ngakau o te motu. Ko ta matau ara noa atu nga tino patai hei tuku mo te ahua o te mana o era ara ko nga kaiwhakarato nei mo te hiko ki te kore mahi i ana mahi na te kore utu nama ahakoa he mea waiwai tonu. Ko te ture e akiaki nei i nga kaiwhakarato katoa kia noho tika te mahi ki tau te mahi kia ora te mahi i a ratou e kimi nei i nga nama he ture tau ake kia waihangatia e tenei Paremata.  
Kei te koa ki te kite e maumahara ana nga torangapu tawhito ki nga tino kaupapa ara kia haere te tangata i mua o te ture a ka hangai taua kaupapa mo te painga mo tatau katoa o Aotearoa. Ko ta matau wawata ano ka titiro ano ratou ki o ratou ake poti a me te kimi i te tika me te pono o te ngakau kia taea ai e ratou te ki tuturu nei ko te ara ki nga mahi tika he tino kaupapa nui mo tenei Paremata. No reira huri noa tena koutou kia ora tatou katoa.  
[An interpretation in English was given to the House.] 
[ 
Greetings to us all in this Maori Language Week. There used to be a saying Would the last person to leave New Zealand switch off the light?”. In these times we might instead find that the light was disconnected!  
The Maori Party comes to the Electricity (Disconnection and Low Fixed Charges) Amendment Bill acutely aware of the dire circumstances that prompted this bill on to the Order Paper—the circumstances given focus through the tragic situation of Folole Muliaga and the fatal disconnection of power to her house because of an outstanding bill for $168.40 circumstances that we now know to be a common fact of life for far too many New Zealanders. The Ministry of Social Development’s Economic Standard of Living report released in 2006 found that one-tenth of European families and one-quarter of Maori families fell behind on at least one bill for power gas or water in 2004. The situation was and continues to be worse for Pacific families. 
The  
Maori 
 Party has been harangued over the last week with the battle cry “Politics is all about the numbers.” Well what about these figures: 26.7 percent of all Maori families fell behind with their utility bills in 2004 and 12.7 percent of New Zealand families—that is about 266700 in real terms—could not keep up with power gas or water payments at least once in the previous year. The spin doctors could probably respond to these numbers in a variety of ways—New Zealanders need to take responsibility for paying their bills on time; the electricity industry might be invited to review its processes; or New Zealanders need to look at their spending patterns. There is nothing very wrong with any of these versions of the truth—except of course that they let the Crown off the hook. 
But we of the Maori Party—a proud and independent Maori advocate in Parliament—are always happy to remind the Government of the responsibilities it has to consumers to the community and to the country. We were interested in a statement that Mighty River Power boss Doug Heffernan made on 25 June when he said: “Financial hardship is a social problem and it requires a co 
ordinated 
 community response. It requires us all to play our part and that includes not just the power industry but social agencies and Government as well.” 
This bill then is the Government starting to play its part. From the outset I say that the Maori Party will support this bill on the basis of shared concerns from across the nation about the disconnection practices of electricity retailers. The Salvation Army has suggested that the corporate environment is so influential that staff are discouraged from making decisions on humanitarian grounds. The Child Poverty Action Group  
emphasised 
 that the problem was that “The purely market-based approach is failing to provide secure access to essential services for too many families.” The New Zealand Council of Trade Unions put it in even stronger terms claiming that "yet again" a "so-called State-owned enterprise put profit before people in New Zealand". It issued an angry call to picket Mercury Energy on 31 May with the following statement: “They are corporate bully boys who prey on the weak old and vulnerable of south Auckland and are no better than the corrupt moneylenders who plague our communities. They rely on the fact that people feel alone and isolated.” 
The bill we are considering today is but one part of a greater picture that reflects the need for economic changes to occur. The arrangements that are being mooted about disconnection following non-payment of accounts about alternative payment options about reconnection and about identifying vulnerable consumers are honourable proposals and proposals we will support. But this bill does not take away the responsibility of addressing current economic realities. It is surely the duty of a responsible Government to ensure all whanau are able to meet basic costs such as electricity in the first place.  
We know that there have been guidelines in place prepared by the Electricity Commission in 2005 to assist low-income domestic consumers. We have looked through those guidelines and their intention to assist consumers whose income makes it genuinely difficult for them to pay their electricity bill is admirable. But the central problem lies in the facts outlined by Grey Power National President Graham Stairmand who challenged the Government to have some sympathy for consumers who have experienced a 60 percent increase in the cost of electricity over the last 4 years. 
The Child Poverty Action Group also highlighted the “parlous existence of many low-income families” asking the simple question: “How can children do their homework get fed a hot nutritious meal use the computer or wash themselves adequately to prevent infections when the power is cut off; how indeed?”. Yet again it comes back to the perennial problems that electricity water and transport price rises are well above the rate of inflation and certainly well above most wage increases; 
 that W 
orking for Families privileges certain families while families on benefits are experiencing little change if any in the income support available to cover rising costs; 
 and that e 
ven those families eligible for Working for Families may be missing out because of a lack of knowledge of the assistance that could be available to them. 
The other set of changes in this bill around the Low Fixed Charge tariff options seem to be logical with the emphasis on being region-specific. We are told that there is wide disparity in the Low Fixed Charge tariff coverage in New Zealand; that the low-use threshold is unrealistic for many living in colder wetter places; so the changes to recognise the different climates of New Zealand's different regions in the setting of tariffs seem sensible. 
The moral and ethical outrage that has captured the compassion of the nation has focused perhaps too heavily on blame and shame. We believe there are very serious questions to be asked about how any utility provider has the power to withhold services on the basis of debts incurred—services that we would classify as essential. Legislation that reminds all utility providers of the need for consistent safe processes in recovering overdue amounts is thus a very positive thing for this Parliament to bring in. 
It is pleasing to see that the two older parties in particular are remembering the essential values of access to law and justice and to the application of the law for the benefit of all New Zealanders. We hope too that they may look further at their own voting record and search their souls for the truth as to whether they can say with all honesty that they believe that access to justice is an essential principle of this Parliament.  
So to all of us thoughout greetings to you and thank you 
.] 
JEANETTE FITZSIMONS (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 The Greens will not be opposing this bill because we see it as essentially harmless. I have to say though that we cannot muster a huge amount of enthusiasm for it either. 
Everyone of course was shocked at what happened to the Muliaga family and wants to make absolutely sure that a disconnection can never again cause the degree of distress experienced by that family. The matter is being dealt with largely through the guidelines of the Electricity Commission which the companies are signing up to and of course we support a back-up power to regulate if the companies ignore those guidelines. But I think the retailers have pretty much learnt their lesson by now from the huge public outcry at what happened. I cannot imagine that that incident is going to be repeated. Nevertheless we do support a power to regulate just in case. 
Clause 4 however is a very minor tweaking of a largely ineffective existing law. I think we ought to be bolder and start asking why just one industry out of the very many that have high fixed costs is able to charge fixed prices before it charges for use. If I drive on to a petrol station forecourt I do not have to go through a barrier and put in $20 before I get to the pump and buy my petrol at 50c a litre. A petrol station has very high fixed costs including storage of fuel the checkout counter the building and the bowsers and it would be in serious trouble if everybody who came in bought only 50c worth of petrol and went out again. But petrol stations do not have the right to charge a fixed entry cost. A supermarket has very high fixed costs too but when we get to the checkout it does not say: “OK that’s $20 for coming in the supermarket door and now you get a discount off all your groceries.” So why is the electricity industry any different? 
In the electricity industry we pay a substantial part of our power bill just to be connected to the lines. A lot of people mistakenly call it a line charge. They think it is the lines companies that charge the fixed bit of the tariff and the retail companies that charge the variable bit. But that is not true. The lines companies charge quite a lot of their return on a variable basis and the retail companies charge a fixed charge for metering and billing. When did we ever have to pay a fixed cost for having our meters read before we bought any electricity? 
 The Green Party has always had a policy that there should be no fixed charges and that fixed costs for companies should be recovered out of the unit charges. That would mean that unit charges would be higher and the price of electricity at the margin would higher but it would mean that using less would become cheaper. For example it would mean that the return people got on insulating their houses or on installing a solar water heater or by just turning off dripping taps would be very much higher than it is now. Most people who save half of their electricity use save only about one-quarter of their bill and that is not a very good incentive. Getting rid of fixed charges used to be Labour’s policy as well but that somehow went by the board. 
In 2001 I spent a lot of time discussing with the then Minister of Energy the Hon Pete Hodgson the 2001 electricity legislation where Labour sought our support. I argued very hard for zero fixed charges. The best the Minister would offer as a compromise was the low fixed charge for those consumers who used less than half the average amount of electricity because their bills would then go down without the bills of higher consumers going up. That compromise has not been particularly effective. Power companies have all kinds of ways of disguising the fact that optional low fixed-charge tariffs exist and because it applies only to some consumers the benefits of it are actually pretty small for most people. 
This bill tweaks this situation a little bit further and it is the only legislative outcome of the 2006 Ministry of Economic Development study called  
Pricing in the New Zealand Electricity Market and its Economic Impact 
. That study found that electricity needed to be priced at marginal cost to prevent shortages and subsidies and to encourage efficiency but if all electricity was priced at this level—as it is now—it would be unaffordable for some and it would make huge windfall profits for generators which it currently does. 
The report concluded that there were three ways of addressing this problem but it recommended against all of them. The most sensible way to address the problem is through progressive pricing where all households have a basic block of power at a low price per unit and the price per unit rises with each block of power used above that. The power company receives the same total revenue but basic needs are affordable. People do not get into the situation in which the Muliaga family found itself in respect to their power bill but everybody has an incentive to conserve because the last unit that people are using always costs more than the average that they are paying. However this report advised against that because it was not consistent with the ideology of competitive market arrangements. 
Instead the Minister proposed to Cabinet that it tweak the optional low fixed charge in the South Island to recognise that the average use in the South Island is higher. That is not a bad thing to do; it will do no harm and it might do a tiny amount of good but it is actually hardly worth the legislative time that it is taking. It is a huge missed opportunity to price electricity in a way that would ensure that everyone could afford to meet his or her basic needs but would face a higher cost at the margin and have an incentive to use electricity wisely. 
JO GOODHEW (National—Aoraki) 
: 
 I rise to take a call on the Electricity (Disconnection and Low Fixed Charges) Amendment Bill. The National Party supports this bill going to the select committee. The previous speaker Jeanette Fitzsimons mentioned that this bill is perhaps harmless. I have to say straight up that if one reads the  
Timaru Herald 
 one would think that some parts of it are not only harmless but also useless. But I digress. 
I will start by saying that there are of course two parts to this bill: the disconnection of electricity for domestic consumers and the regulation-making powers relating to that and the low fixed-charge tariff options for domestic consumers. I want to start by talking about the first part the disconnection of electricity for domestic consumers. In this day and age we have become very very reliant on our electricity. We do not like being cold. 
Debate interrupted. 
The House adjourned at 6 p.m. 
"