Volume 682 Week 19 - Wednesday 15 August 2012 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Volume 682 Week 19 - Wednesday 15 August 2012 
[Sitting date: 15 August 2012. Volume:682;Page:4377. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Wednesday 15 August 2012 
Mr Speaker 
 took the Chair at 2 p.m. 
Prayers 
. 
Questions to Ministers 
Government Borrowing—Debt Levels and Transport Funding 
1. 
Dr RUSSEL NORMAN (Co-Leader—Green) 
 to the  
Minister of Finance 
: Does he stand by his statement that “we are firmly focused on keeping the Government’s overall debt as low as possible”? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance) 
: 
 Yes. The Government believes it has made reasonable judgments about the appropriate use of debt. Through the recession we have borrowed extensively to support our public services and our income transfers to New Zealand families and households as well as borrowing extensively to fund the rebuild of Canterbury. We made clear at the time of those large commitments that over time we would expect to stop borrowing more money and eventually reduce our debt. So we have had quite high levels of debt in the last couple of years—high levels of Government borrowing—but that is rapidly tailing off. 
Dr Russel Norman 
: If the Government’s goal is to keep overall debt as low as possible why is it planning to sell high-returning energy assets for about $6 billion but to borrow a similar amount to build motorways with low or negative returns that have not passed Treasury’s business case guidelines? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: There is no suggestion of the Government borrowing billions of dollars for motorways. The motorway investment is largely funded—or all funded actually—from the dedicated road-user charges and excise tax that go into the road-user fund. 
Dr Russel Norman 
: Is the Minister aware of the 2011 briefing to the incoming Minister of Transport which warns that there is a $5 billion - plus hole in the Government transport Budget over the next two decades caused by its uneconomic motorway projects which is similar to the amount it hopes to raise from asset sales? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: I do not believe the briefing does say that. In fact I think it is a bit of a time-honoured ritual that every incoming Minister of Transport gets told there is not enough money. Every incoming Minister of Transport regardless of their party tells the transport agencies to go and do a better job and almost inevitably they do. Without significant increases in funding they are managing a large investment in roads and the main reason for that is that most people drive cars and need good roads to drive on. 
Dr Russel Norman 
: In light of the Minister’s answer I seek to table the briefing to the incoming Minister which says at— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! These documents are readily available. We are not going to have quotes from it for that purpose. 
Hon David Parker 
: Did the Minister say: “Currently the Government debt is still rising rapidly. Because we are running deficits by 2014-15 we would hope that we were able to stop the increase in Government debt …”; if he did say that will he be stopping the plans by the New Zealand Transport Agency to borrow money? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Yes I am pretty sure that I did say that; it sounds sensible to me. On the second issue the Minister of Finance has to sign off any borrowing by the New Zealand Transport Agency so yes we could stop it. 
Dr Russel Norman 
: If debt is such an important issue for this Government why has it not reassessed the need for these motorway projects at a time of rising petrol prices and falling traffic volumes rather than going ahead and giving itself the power to put billions of dollars on the public credit card to fund projects that have never been put through Treasury’s guidelines? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Well the Government—both the previous Government and this Government—has done a number of assessments about the need for roads. I know that the member disagrees with some of the highway projects and favours pretty expensive rail projects that need massive public subsidies to make them work. We stand by our judgment. We believe that it will help the economy to grow and will provide better services for the public. 
Maggie Barry 
: Has the Government succeeded in controlling the build-up of debt? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: The answer to that of course is yes. When we came into Government in 2008 the briefings to the incoming Government showed that under the previous Government’s settings net Government debt would reach 60 percent of GDP by 2026. As a result of the decisions that this Government has taken we would expect net Government debt by 2026 to be around 0 percent of GDP not 60 percent of GDP. 
Dr Russel Norman 
: Is the Minister aware that most of the Government motorway projects have very poor returns—according to the Government numbers for example the Warkworth to Wellsford project would cost $1 billion to produce just $600 million in benefits and that is a net loss—while the Budget shows that the energy assets have very good returns well above the cost of Government borrowing? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: I do not agree with the member’s numbers but I would point out to him that it is a bit rich for the Opposition parties to campaign on dire poverty in Northland and a lack of economic opportunities and then campaign against the most vital piece of infrastructure Northlanders need to develop their economy. 
Maggie Barry 
: Has he seen any reports about policies that would increase the Government’s debt? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: There are so many of these reports that it is hard to keep up with them but I can list just a few: 13 months of paid parental leave at 100 percent of the average male wage universal student allowances for full-time tertiary students and giving the in-work tax credit to beneficiaries as well as the dole to all unemployed students over the summer holidays. Just this list of promises made by Opposition parties particularly the Green Party would cost $11 billion a year. 
Dr Russel Norman 
: What is the logic in selling assets that produce healthy returns to the Government in the name of reducing debt and then turning round and increasing Government debt by about the same amount to build uneconomic motorways?  
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Most of those statements are wrong as the Government has said. In respect of debt the sale of assets will mean that we can avoid borrowing another $5 billion to $7 billion in difficult global financial markets. Alongside that the Government is overseeing pretty impressive fiscal restraint to make sure that we do not borrow any more than we need to provide the public services that we are required to. 
Dr Russel Norman 
: Is the real reason that the Government is planning to sell $6 billion worth of profitable strategic energy assets to avoid debt and then to borrow about the same amount to build motorways that do not have an economic business case that these policies are not driven by economics but by an outdated ideology from this Government and for purely political reasons? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: No. If there is any outdated ideology it is the ideology that says that we should spend as much as we like and borrow it all and an ideology that is totally opposed to the private sector and economic development as articulated by the Green Party. 
Business Growth Agenda—Main Components and 
 Building Export Markets 
 Progress Report 
2. 
JOHN HAYES (National—Wairarapa) 
 to the  
Minister of Finance 
: What steps is the Government taking to help give businesses the confidence to invest grow and increase exports? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance) 
: 
 The Government has taken a number of steps to help New Zealand businesses become more competitive. These include reducing company tax cutting taxes on work and savings reducing costs to businesses and passing on the benefits of public sector reform such as a significant reduction in ACC levies. Today the Government set out the next steps in its Business Growth Agenda by issuing the first of six progress reports. Today’s one called  
Building Export Markets 
 sets out the next steps the Government will take to assist export businesses. 
John Hayes 
: Why is it important that the Government supports businesses in becoming more competitive and selling more to the world? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: The key to more jobs and higher incomes is strong export businesses. We will not be able to thrive as a country in the next 10 years by selling things to each other. The Government recognises that a critical aspect of more growth and higher incomes is business confidence—that is the confidence of a business to invest a bit more money and pay higher wages. We are working hard to turn round the decline in competitiveness that this economy suffered under the previous Government. 
John Hayes 
: What are the main components of the Government’s business growth agenda? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: It is a very good question. Today we launched one component—the progress on export markets. There are more to come: documents covering innovation skilled and safe workplaces infrastructure natural resources and capital markets. These will all focus on assisting businesses to make the decisions that grow the economy. [ 
Interruption 
] 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! I want to hear John Hayes’ question. [ 
Interruption 
] Order! That is enough. Every member has a right to ask questions. [ 
Interruption 
] Order! That is enough. 
John Hayes 
: What reports has he seen on business confidence particularly in the regions of New Zealand? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: The  
ASB / Main Report Regional Economic Scoreboard 
 for the March quarter ranks New Zealand according to 16 regional council areas. Among other things it shows that the Tasman region has continued to edge up the scoreboard and now takes out the top spot. Businesses in the Tasman region are more likely to believe their assessment than the assessment of the Leader of the Opposition who went there and told a very small audience that the Tasman economy was in poor shape. 
Hon David Parker 
: If business confidence is a true indicator of economic performance in the regions why is that they all losing record numbers of New Zealanders 40 percent of whom are between the ages of 18 and 30? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: As we have discussed in the House before today the key to turning round the choices that young New Zealanders have about where to live and work is to support the businesses and the workplaces that can provide them with opportunity satisfying work and reasonable incomes. That is why we are backing businesses to grow and I cannot understand why the Opposition parties are against everything that is going to create jobs and incomes for those young New Zealanders. 
Ministers—Confidence 
3. 
DAVID SHEARER (Leader of the Opposition) 
 to the  
Prime Minister 
: Does he have confidence in all his Ministers? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Acting Prime Minister) 
: 
 Yes. 
David Shearer 
: Why does he have confidence in Steven Joyce when his new ministry has approved companies bringing in hundreds of foreign workers while New Zealanders are leaving New Zealand because they cannot find a job? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Well the Prime Minister I can assure him has a great deal more confidence in Mr Joyce than that member has in Mr Cunliffe. 
David Shearer 
: Why does he have confidence in Steven Joyce who has overseen a skills exodus from the regions over the last year with 2200 people leaving Northland 4800 leaving Waikato and 4000 leaving the Bay of Plenty—all heading for Australia? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Mr Joyce is working with other Ministers on the Business Growth Agenda which is all about turning round the destruction of this economy and its export capacity by that previous Government. 
David Shearer 
: How can he have confidence in Steven Joyce who devised the roads of national significance about which the Ashburton Mayor Angus McKay said: “We are frustrated that the Government appears to have chosen to focus their expenditure on city motorways at the expense of the rural areas that generate a significant proportion of income for the country.”; and will he direct the Minister of Transport to give the rural areas a fair go? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: The Government stands by the roads of national significance and would be keen to hear from the Labour Party just which roads of national significance it is against. Can I say that the Prime Minister asked the Minister of Finance who represents the area with the two largest roading networks in New Zealand—Southland District and Clutha District—and he is very happy with the Government’s contribution to rural roading. 
David Shearer 
: How can he have confidence in the Minister of Finance when he is increasing Government debt by billions of dollars to pay for marginal motorways that have a lower economic benefit than regional roads? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: The Prime Minister does have confidence in the Minister of Finance and I am keen to hear from the Opposition which roading projects it is against because it objects—just one. 
Hon Steven Joyce 
: Just one. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Yes just one. 
Hon John Banks 
: Does the Prime Minister have confidence that all his Ministers have no confidence that he will be Leader of the Opposition in 3 months? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Ah yes. I think the answer is yes. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. [ 
Interruption 
] 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! A point of order has been called. Order! 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I think you might have been distracted during the question. It was a question about an area in which none of the Ministers has responsibility. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I have to confess the noise was such that I could not hear the question myself at all. In fact it does appear that the question was out of order. I apologise to the House that I did not hear that and deal with it at the time. But given that I am not going to invite the member to repeat his question. I think I have got to accept that I am responsible for that mishap in the House and I will try to make sure it does not happen again. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: How can the Prime Minister have confidence in the Minister for Land Information given his inaction over the unauthorised purchase of four farms by May Wang—the same May Wang who failed the good-character test to buy the 16 other Crafar farms? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: The Prime Minister does have confidence in the Minister for Land Information. As I understand he is overseeing the Overseas Investment Office which is dealing with those matters. 
Business Growth Agenda— 
Building Export Markets 
 Progress Report 
4. 
SHANE ARDERN (National—Taranaki - King Country) 
 to the  
Minister for Economic Development 
: How is the Government working to ensure our exporters are able to access international markets? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister for Economic Development) 
: 
 As the Minister of Finance mentioned earlier today Mr Groser Mr English and I released the  
Building Export Markets 
 progress report at the Wedgelock Equipment exporters in Upper Hutt. It outlined the initiatives the Government is taking to improve access to international markets by negotiating free-trade agreements improving international air links lowering taxation barriers simplifying border processing leading international trade missions promoting international education and so on. The report lays out the opportunities New Zealand has in markets—particularly such as Asia—and what needs to be done and will be done to boost our export performance and grow our economy. 
Shane Ardern 
: Why has the Government released the export markets report first? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: The first report is important as it lays out the challenge for achieving the sort of growth that New Zealanders are seeking which is about being much more closely linked into the rest of the world and taking advantage of our opportunities. Although the world has been going and continues to go through tough times the growth in Asian incomes will occur rapidly over the next 20 years. So there will be job growth. The challenge for New Zealand and for New Zealanders—and in fact for the Opposition benches—is to ensure it occurs in this country not in Australia or elsewhere. That will require us to take advantage of all our opportunities whether it be in areas such as mining and oil and gas exploration aquaculture more intensive agriculture high-value manufacturing tourism and so on. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: Can the Minister confirm that of the 55 new projects outlined in the document 47 of them are existing projects that are simply being repackaged and only eight are in fact new? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: Well actually the member has missed entirely the point but he has been on holiday so I understand. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: He was having a go at me Mr Speaker. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! It just does not help the order of the House. I accept the question you know had some political content but it was a fair question. 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: Well I do not know that it was a fair question but given that we are here the reality is it is a progress report that outlines a series of initiatives—most of which as I pointed out at the release of the report are already under way; some of which are new—which are about preparing and showing a full range of projects that the Government is undertaking right now and seeking feedback from the business sector and indeed if he likes from Mr Cunliffe as well so that we can actually continue to work with the business sector and grow our export market opportunities. All the reports as they will be released will be a mixture Mr Cunliffe of things that are already ongoing and new initiatives. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: Can the Minister confirm that of the eight new projects in the document the majority are public relations or communications related? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: If the member thinks that actually creating a stronger New Zealand story for our New Zealand businesses operating overseas—to pick just one of those initiatives—[ 
Interruption 
] Well it is hugely important. If the member took his time to go and talk to exporters to talk to education institutions and to talk to tourism organisations they would tell him how crucially important that is. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I waited some time to see whether the Minister approached the question. The question was whether the majority of the new items new projects were in fact public relations or related ones— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! It seemed to me the Minister was not disagreeing with the questioner. He had the chance to disagree with the questioner and he did not. It seems he was basically confirming the questioner’s point. 
Te PuniKokiri—Review of Whanau Integration Innovation and Engagement Fund 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 My question is: what prompted the urgent review of the Whanau Ora Whanau Integration—[ 
Interruption 
] 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! I want to hear the Rt Hon Winston Peters. 
5. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
 to the  
Minister for Whanau Ora 
: What prompted the urgent review of the Whanau Ora Whanau Integration Innovation and Engagement (WIIE) fund when she is on record as having said in relation to the Mongrel Mob’s alleged use of WIIE funds “everything they have looked at shows the money was used for proper purposes.”? 
Hon TARIANA TURIA (Minister for Whanau Ora) 
: 
 The fact is that there has been no urgent review. This was business as usual because as one would expect with any new project the ministry has been undertaking regular reviews to ensure that the operations of Whanau Ora have been running well. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Why did it take so long to appoint an inquiry into New Zealand First’s repeated warnings of misuse of these funds and misuse of the expenditure? 
Hon TARIANA TURIA 
: Given that there are 33000 individuals of New Zealand descent participating in Whanau Ora we have had no reason to conduct a full review of the use of that funding. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Well given that every allegation thus far has been a coconut what confidence can the public possibly have in Te PuniKokiri’s review of Whanau Ora given that this is the very same agency handing out the money in the first place? 
Hon TARIANA TURIA 
: The only allegation that was identified was in fact identified by the police in Dunedin not by New Zealand First. Every other allegation that it has made has not been proven. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Is the Minister not aware of the circumstance of the Palmerston North women’s refuge and will she now seek an independent review by the Office of the Auditor-General to look into this fund and other Whanau Ora spending to ensure there is rigorous independent scrutiny; if not why not? 
Hon TARIANA TURIA 
: In regard to the Palmerston North women’s refuge when it was discovered that there were issues regarding its funding that particular funding was not given to it. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I asked about an independent review by the Auditor-General’s office not one— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! The member asked whether the Minister was not aware of the matters to do with the women’s refuge in Palmerston North. That was the first part of his question. The Minister answered that and she is not obliged to answer more than one part of a supplementary question. The member does have a further supplementary question should he wish to use it. 
Te Ururoa Flavell 
: Has she read reports in the  
New Zealand Herald 
 this week about Whanau Ora and does she agree with the newspaper that Whanau Ora has among other things helped to reduce expulsion rates at Ngaruawahia High School opened the doors to decent housing to whanau in Northland supported whanau of disabled people in Northland and instilled a sense of identity to whanau in the Waikato? 
Hon TARIANA TURIA 
: I think that what the  
New Zealand Herald 
’s stories do which have been told by the families concerned is say that of the 33000 people who are participating if there are any issues that have been highlighted they are minimal. 
Government Borrowing—Infrastructure Investment 
6. 
Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour) 
 to the  
Minister of Finance 
: Does he stand by his statement “The Government is committed to investing in modern infrastructure that helps build a faster-growing economy with more exports and more real jobs without borrowing more from overseas lenders”? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance) 
: 
 Yes. 
Hon David Parker 
: Under the Land Transport Management Amendment Bill will the New Zealand Transport Agency be borrowing to pay for modern infrastructure? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: In fact the New Zealand Transport Agency has arrangements that allow it to do some borrowing now to smooth out the profile of projects. 
Hon David Parker 
: Is the reason his Government plans more borrowing to pay for infrastructure because he has failed to grow jobs and exports? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: No. 
Hon David Parker 
: When he said he was selling State assets instead of borrowing to pay for infrastructure was he misquoted and did he actually mean he was selling assets and borrowing to pay for infrastructure? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Well as outlined in the last Budget the Government is setting up the Future Investment Fund. The proceeds of the share sales will go into that fund. Some commitments have already been made against that fund particularly the rebuilding of our schools. That will enable us to borrow $5 billion to $7 billion less. I am still waiting to hear from the Labour Party as to whether it plans to buy back the assets with borrowed money. 
Cyber-bullying—Law Commission Report 
7. 
TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West) 
 to the  
Minister of Justice 
: What reports has she received on the potential impact of cyberbullying? 
Hon JUDITH COLLINS (Minister of Justice) 
: 
 Cyber-bullying has a wide-reaching impact in our increasingly online and digital world. Our young people whose lives are increasingly enmeshed in social media are particularly at risk of cyber-bullying. In May I asked the Law Commission to fast track its recommendations—[ 
Interruption 
] 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! I apologise to the Minister but I simply cannot hear the answer. I know my ears are not great but I need to be able to hear the answer and the level of interjection is unreasonable on a question that is a perfectly fair question. 
Hon JUDITH COLLINS 
: In May I asked the Law Commission to fast track its recommendations on harmful digital communication as part of its report on new media. Those recommendations have been released today in the commission’s report on rights responsibilities and regulations in the digital age. 
Tim Macindoe 
: What steps will the Minister consider to address the harm being done through cyber-bullying? 
Hon JUDITH COLLINS 
: The Law Commission has made a range of recommendations. We will consider all the recommendations. In particular we will consider creating a new offence targeting offensive indecent or obscene digital communication that causes harm. We will also consider changing existing laws to make sure provisions apply to digital communications and we will consider making it an offence to incite a person to commit suicide whether or not the intended victim attempts suicide—[ 
Interruption 
] I must say I would have thought the Labour Opposition would take this seriously. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! 
Andrew Little 
: Will the cyber-bullying laws prevent a Minister from trawling through a citizen’s personal details and making them public to score political points? 
Hon JUDITH COLLINS 
: Well of course there have not been changes made yet and we are looking at the recommendations. But I would have thought that that member would want to be involved in serious discussion on this not silly comments like that. 
Tim Macindoe 
: Mr Speaker—[ 
Interruption 
] 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! I want to hear Tim Macindoe. 
Tim Macindoe 
: Why is cyber-bullying such a concern for the Government? 
Hon JUDITH COLLINS 
: Bullying is no longer confined to the classroom or the playground—which I have to say has been evidenced by the behaviour today from the Opposition. Bullies are targeting their victims by cellphone instant messaging devices and social networking websites. I have to say that the worst of it is under the guise of anonymity. We must not underestimate the devastating effects of this new form of bullying particularly on young schoolchildren. It has been shown that it increases truancy failure at school and the emotional problems of many young people such as depression self-harm and suicide. Again it is absolutely very concerning that the Labour Opposition does not take this situation seriously. 
Transport Funding—Projected Borrowing by New Zealand Transport Agency 
8. 
PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatu) 
 to the  
Minister of Transport 
: How much is the New Zealand Transport Agency expected to borrow for land transport projects in each of the three financial years after the Land Transport Management Amendment Act comes into force? 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Minister of Transport) 
: 
 As the available revenue for each of the 3 financial years after the Land Transport Management Amendment Act comes into force is currently unknown no specific answer can be given. Since 2010 a facility has existed for short-term borrowing by the New Zealand Transport Agency to smooth out the pay-go system of funding as was provided in the 2008 amendments to the Land Transport Management Act 2003. The short-term facility is currently set at $250 million. Any further borrowing over that has to be and will continue to be approved by the Ministers of Transport and Finance. 
Phil Twyford 
: Is the plan to allow the New Zealand Transport Agency to borrow—the new plan that is not the existing power to borrow merely for cash-flow purposes—a response to the projected $1.5 billion shortfall in the National Land Transport Fund by 2020 or the scenario of a $4.5 billion shortfall from 2021 to 2030? 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE 
: No. In fact the capacity for the New Zealand Transport Agency to borrow has existed for a very long time. The member will be aware that the Northern Gateway Toll Road a project that was consented designed built and funded by debt by the previous Government was done outside of the National Land Transport Fund. What this bill allows is for those sorts of projects to be completed inside the National Land Transport Fund. 
Brendan Horan 
: If the New Zealand Transport Agency has the power to borrow for major roading projects will a similar borrowing mechanism apply to public transport including KiwiRail; if not why not? 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE 
: All Crown entities have a capacity to borrow but that is constrained by section 106 of the Crown Entities Act which requires that the appropriate Minister and the Minister of Finance agree to that borrowing. 
Phil Twyford 
: Does he agree with the Prime Minister when he said: “The Government has to stop borrowing so much money; if we don’t quite frankly New Zealand will be downgraded and interest rates will go up for all New Zealanders.”; if so why does he want to borrow to fund projects many of which have such low benefit-cost ratios? 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE 
: The question is based on the member’s own view and assumption about things. The reality is that there is no plan for the course of action that the member is asserting is going to take place. 
Phil Twyford 
: Does it make economic sense to borrow to fund the Puhoi to Wellsford “Holiday Highway” which has a benefit-cost ratio that barely breaks even and costs $1.7 billion when a $400 million upgrade would fix the congestion and safety problems? 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE 
: Although I disagree with many of the assertions made in that question I would say that I think that providing a stronger link to Northland where there is so much poverty yet so much economic potential is a good idea. 
Phil Twyford 
: Does he remember a set of projects of national significance handpicked by the National Party in the 1980s called Think Big which left the country saddled with debt for decades afterwards; and did he ever imagine that they would return from the dead as the roads of national significance? 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE 
: I think that is a completely erroneous sort of comparison. Some analysis of those projects will show that the member’s assertions are wrong but I would say that the city rail link in Auckland certainly sounds like a project that would fit the bill he describes. 
Health Personnel—Voluntary Bonding Scheme 
9. 
Dr JIAN YANG (National) 
 to the  
Minister of Health 
: What progress can he report on the Government’s Voluntary Bonding Scheme which incentivises and rewards graduate doctors midwives and nurses in hard-to-staff regions and specialities? 
Hon TONY RYALL (Minister of Health) 
: 
 For the 4th year in a row registrations for the Government’s hugely successful Voluntary Bonding Scheme have attracted great interest with a total of 2300 health graduates now accepted on to the scheme. The scheme encourages New Zealand health graduates to stay in New Zealand after graduation. This year we have accepted all 510 health graduates who applied for the bonding scheme. 
Dr Jian Yang 
: What payments have been made under the scheme so far? 
Hon TONY RYALL 
: Payments totalling almost $3 million have been paid out to 278 graduates who have completed their first 3 years on the Voluntary Bonding Scheme and more payments will be made as these young people bring forward their claims. These graduates will join the 1000 extra doctors and over 2000 extra nurses working in our public health services as compared with 4 short years ago. 
Hon Maryan Street 
: How is it then that the Resident Doctors Association has described the administration of the scheme as being like shifting sands making up the rules as they go along and that some 17 only of the 100 who should have received payment by August 2012 received it? 
Hon TONY RYALL 
: First of all I would say that that is what you would expect from a union that opposes the Government at every opportunity. The fact is that we have got lots of young people receiving benefits under this scheme as part of the Government’s plan which has delivered over 1000 extra doctors and over 2000 extra nurses into our public hospitals. 
Housing New Zealand Corporation—Time Frames for Maintenance Requests 
10. 
HOLLY WALKER (Green) 
 to the  
Minister of Housing 
: Does he stand by his answer to written question 04915 (2012) where he stated that the Housing New Zealand Corporation “does not distinguish between response and completion times” for maintenance requests? 
Hon PHIL HEATLEY (Minister of Housing) 
: 
 Yes. However after I spoke last night with the member who raised this question I checked with the corporation and it told me that this arises from the nature of its relationship with regional contractors who in turn let work to subcontractors. The corporation informs me that it holds the main contractor responsible for delivering the performance expectations that I outlined yesterday. It does not necessarily have visibility of what “subbies” are doing. So a “subbie” may respond to a job on Monday and complete it on Monday or they might respond to a job on Monday but complete it on Tuesday. The important thing for the corporation is that the job is completed. 
Holly Walker 
: So when he told the House yesterday that 93 percent of urgent health and safety jobs are completed within 4 hours did he actually mean that Housing New Zealand Corporation had simply responded to those requests in some way not that the work had actually been completed? 
Hon PHIL HEATLEY 
: My advice from the corporation is that that measure is about completion so it would expect an urgent health and safety job to be completed within 4 hours. If that was not done then the contractor would be outside the agreement—as I indicated yesterday 93 percent are completed and 7 percent are not—and therefore the contractor would be held to account for this. If there are cases like that and clearly there are some then I think the corporation should know about them and I would love to hear from the member. 
Holly Walker 
: Is it acceptable that the request of a Wellington mother who asked for large holes in her lounge floor to be repaired in August 2011 would be included in that 93 percent after a mere phone call from Housing New Zealand Corporation when in fact she had to wait more than 7 months for the holes to be fixed and still has issues with mould and rotten carpet on the floor which have led her children to develop skin infections? 
Hon PHIL HEATLEY 
: I accept that that may very well be a case. I know that the member is sincere on this issue. The reality is that in that situation if that is the case Housing New Zealand Corporation would not be working to its own standard and contractors would not be working to the standard of Housing New Zealand Corporation and it needs to know about that case and investigate it. 
Holly Walker 
: Is there not a big difference between answering a call or engaging a contractor or subcontractor and actually ensuring that the work is completed and what is the average time that elapses between when an urgent health and safety job is lodged and when the work is actually completed? 
Hon PHIL HEATLEY 
: As I outlined Housing New Zealand Corporation requires certain types of urgent or non-urgent maintenance to occur within a time frame. For example for urgent health and safety work the work has to be done within 4 hours. If it is done in 2 hours or 3 hours or 4 hours Housing New Zealand Corporation does not necessarily have visibility on this because that is the subcontractor’s job more often than not. What it has visibility on is whether it is completed within the 4-hour time frame. So you cannot measure an average time. What you can measure is whether a contractor directly has met the standards that Housing New Zealand Corporation has set. If they have not Housing New Zealand Corporation wants to know about it and I want to hear from the member so I can pass that on. 
Hon Annette King 
: Mr Speaker—[ 
Interruption 
] Very good. I am going to talk about lino. Is he aware that it took 4 years— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. My colleague on my right just made an outrageous suggestion about one of our colleagues and I think he should withdraw and apologise. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! The Speaker did not hear it and the member is lucky. 
Hon Annette King 
: Is he aware it took 4 years to have the hole in the lino replaced before he did not visit Symonds Street Auckland and is that the standard he expected when he campaigned in Opposition against slum landlords? 
Hon PHIL HEATLEY 
: As I made out—as I made clear yesterday as far as I am aware the member made up—[ 
Interruption 
] 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! I apologise to the Minister. I say to the Labour front benches on this occasion that that noise is unnecessary. 
Hon PHIL HEATLEY 
: As I said yesterday in the House as far as I am aware the member made up the idea that I visited Symonds Street and she made up the idea that there has been no maintenance. So I do not think this House or journalists can take the member at her word in any scenario. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! [ 
Interruption 
] I am on my feet—I am on my feet. To suggest that a member’s word cannot be taken is out of order. I ask the Minister to withdraw that and to now actually come closer to answering the question. If I recollect correctly the Minister was asked about the time involved in getting this famous piece of lino laid at this particular location and I do not think the Minister even approached answering that. I would ask the Minister to withdraw that comment and answer the question. 
Hon PHIL HEATLEY 
: I withdraw and apologise. I have no confidence in the information that the member is giving the House and so I cannot comment. 
Migrant Workers—Immigration New Zealand Labour Market Testing 
11. 
DARIEN FENTON (Labour) 
 to the  
Minister of Immigration 
: Does he have confidence in Immigration New Zealand’s labour market testing? 
Hon NATHAN GUY (Minister of Immigration) 
: 
 Yes. 
Darien Fenton 
: Why has Immigration New Zealand allowed an increasing number of overseas workers into New Zealand over the past 3 years despite 57000 more New Zealand residents being unemployed and available to fill jobs than in 2008? 
Hon NATHAN GUY 
: The member should be aware that the approval in principle process is showing that from 2007-08 to 2011-12 it has declined by well over 50 percent and also the number of temporary work visas has declined by 44 percent from 2007-08 to 2011-12 which shows to me that the process is indeed working in a tight labour market. 
Darien Fenton 
: I seek leave to table a graph from the library that shows the number of people unemployed and shows that there are 57000 fewer jobs since National became the Government. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document from the Parliamentary Library. Is there any objection? There is no objection. 









Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Darien Fenton 
: Is he aware that in 2007-08 when those overseas workers were brought into New Zealand the unemployment rate was just 3.5 percent whereas now it is 6.8 percent and 57000 more New Zealanders are out of work than when he took office; if so why is he bringing in overseas workers to fill jobs that 162000 New Zealanders desperately need? 
Hon NATHAN GUY 
: Yes I am aware of those figures. It is interesting to note the member’s blog entry on Red Alert. I do not happen to read Red Alert but one of my staff found this on 27 July. I just want to quote what the member said: “we will need migrants to work in New Zealand—especially in areas of skills shortages …”. I agree with the member. 
Darien Fenton 
: In that case what made the jobs at 289 hospitality businesses that brought in overseas workers—[ 
Interruption 
] 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! The Minister must be able to hear the question too. The member has not got the biggest voice in the House. 
Darien Fenton 
: Thank you Mr Speaker. What made the jobs at the 289 hospitality businesses that brought in overseas workers last year so highly skilled and specialist that Immigration New Zealand could not find New Zealand workers able and willing to do them? 
Hon NATHAN GUY 
: As I have explained to the member before employers need to demonstrate genuine attempts to recruit New Zealanders first and then there is a process. I can go through that process for the member once again. That process is simply that once employers have tried to establish whether there are New Zealand workers they then consult with Work and Income to see whether there are New Zealanders available. Then they also need to consult with the unions the guilds and importantly the industry training organisations. Specifically to the member’s question on hospitality the member should be aware that there are parts of New Zealand where they need to attract migrant workers. In some isolated parts of New Zealand in the hospitality sector it is difficult to specifically attract the likes of chefs. 
Darien Fenton 
: Has he or the previous Minister of Immigration given any direction to Immigration New Zealand that it should tighten its labour market testing criteria given the 162000 Kiwis who are out of work; if not why not? 
Hon NATHAN GUY 
: I am very happy with the process that Immigration New Zealand follows. 
Financial Reporting Bill—Reforms and Response 
12. 
KANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI (National) 
 to the  
Minister of Commerce 
: How will the Financial Reporting Bill reduce compliance costs for small and medium size businesses? 
Hon CRAIG FOSS (Minister of Commerce) 
: 
 The recently introduced Financial Reporting Bill overhauls financial reporting rules and cuts compliance costs for small and medium sized companies. It will remove general purpose financial reporting requirements for small and medium companies. Small and medium sized companies should not necessarily have to produce the same complex financial statements that are required of large companies. Cutting down on expensive and unnecessary reporting obligations will assist to build a more productive economy. 
Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi 
: What reports has he seen supporting the introduction of the bill? 
Hon CRAIG FOSS 
: I have seen a report from the New Zealand Bankers’ Association welcoming the introduction of the bill. It has commended the Government’s decision to streamline financial reporting requirements. It acknowledges that this will support New Zealand business growth and development which is vital to improving our economic performance. 
Point of Order—Questions Containing Statements with Alleged Errors 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON (Minister for Land Information) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I chose to wait until the end of question time to raise this point. It is to do with Standing Order 377 particularly Standing Order 377(1)(a) which says that questions must not contain “statements of facts … unless … [for example].” In question time today in question No. 3 the Rt Hon Winston Peters asked a question of the Acting Prime Minister: did he have confidence in me as Minister for Land Information for having given approval to May Wang to buy four farms? May Wang has never been given approval to buy any farms— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! Order! [ 
Interruption 
] No order! Members have a right to ask questions. The member is correct that under the Standing Orders questions should not contain more alleged fact than is necessary to make the question intelligible. That question clearly required that bit in it to be intelligible. Whether or not the member’s question was right is something that can be dealt with in the answer. I mean as Speaker I have tried to allow the House to flow during question time. There are many supplementary questions that do contain far more allegation of fact than the Standing Orders really envisage should happen. When that happens I allow Ministers more leeway in answering those questions. The more unsubstantiated the more politically loaded the allegations of fact in the question asked the more leeway and latitude I will give Ministers in responding to them. To me that is the most appropriate way to handle this rather than have the Speaker endlessly ruling out questions because the Speaker considers they contain one phrase too many of suggested supposed “fact”—in inverted commas—that may or may not be correct. Members cannot though raise by way of point of order allegations that other members have matters wrong. That is to be dealt with in answering the question. Points of order should not be used to challenge whether or not members are right. That is why you have not answered the question because if a member in asking a question is wrong the Minister answering can point that out and that is a perfectly fair answer to a question. If I have misunderstood the member’s point of order I am very happy to hear further. 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON (Minister for Land Information) 
: 
 Mr Speaker I think you are absolutely right were a question of that nature asked to the Minister of the portfolio who should know the answer and should be able to respond. But the question today was asked to an Acting Prime Minister answering on behalf of the Prime Minister: did he have confidence in another Minister and then an allegation that that Minister had done something. The assertion was that the Minister for Land Information had approved the sale of those farms to May Wang. You could not expect an Acting Prime Minister to be on top of every portfolio on every matter and therefore— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! I invite the honourable Minister just to reflect on what he is putting to the Speaker though. What he is asking the Speaker to be able to do is have sufficient knowledge of all matters to know whether the content of a member’s question is right or wrong and the Speaker cannot do that. I mean there is no way the Speaker is in a position to know whether or not a member’s question is right or wrong. That is why—I accept that when there is a Minister answering on behalf of another Minister the risks of not being able to answer so accurately are higher. I accept that absolutely. But there is no way in my view that the Speaker could have ruled that question out because the Speaker is not to know the matters relating to whether or not the Minister for Land Information had approved a certain purchase or not. The Speaker has no way of knowing that. I think the question was in order because it asked whether the Prime Minister had confidence in a Minister because of a certain event that the questioner believed had taken place. The Speaker cannot judge the accuracy of that. Although I fully accept that it related to a decision of another Minister I think that all the House can hope for there is that Ministers answering questions even on behalf of other Ministers have sufficient information to correct matters if they think there is error contained in a question. But I do not see how the Speaker could have ruled that question out because it was asking about confidence because of a certain event that the questioner believed had taken place. It was up to the Minister answering. If the questioner was wrong in believing that the event had taken place it was up to the Minister answering to point that out. The Speaker cannot rule out questions on the basis of judgment as to whether they are right or wrong. 
I will hear further. I will hear first from the Leader of the House the Hon Gerry Brownlee. 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Leader of the House) 
: 
 Thank you—[ 
Interruption 
] 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! I have called the Leader of the House and I want to hear from him. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: How about some fairness here? 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE 
: Well it is not a contest I did not think. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: It is so. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! The right honourable member—[ 
Interruption 
] Order! I apologise to the Leader of the House. I will come to the member. The member may note that I have actually been defending his right to ask his question and he should not interject when a point of order is being heard. I want to hear from the Leader of the House. 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE 
: I think the first point I would make is that the Hon Maurice Williamson was not asking you to rule the question out. He deliberately waited until the end of question time to speak to you by way of point of order about the matter. Earlier in question time you made it very clear to the Hon Phil Heatley that although he himself knew that he was not in a place when the questioner asserted that he was in a place the questioner’s word could not be contested. Similarly I think that if Mr Williamson is now saying that in fact the information is wrong it would not be inappropriate for the Speaker to at least give the opportunity to the questioner to withdraw and apologise for the assertion. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! No no. I do not think I—[ 
Interruption 
] No no I do not need further assistance on this. If a Minister feels that he has been—if a member any member feels that they have been wronged by any statement of any other member in the House there is a standard procedure under the Standing Orders. Instead of the Minister raising a point of order to question the appropriateness of the question the correct course of action would have been for the Minister to raise a point of order to seek to make a personal explanation. That would have been the correct course of action. I am sure the House would have granted leave for the member to make a personal explanation because I can see that the member feels that there is an understanding left in terms of the behaviour of the Minister in relation to a certain issue that is wrong in the Minister’s eyes. I can sense that. The Minister is perfectly at liberty to raise a point of order and seek leave to make a personal explanation but not to question the right of a member to ask a question. That would be the correct procedure. Now I will hear the Rt Hon Winston Peters. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 The fact is that this Minister has raised a Standing Order and then misused it. He had the full opportunity twice to lay out his case even though he is erroneously reciting the nub of the question. I am happy to give him my question—it is written here—because what he said was his reason for a complaint is not part of the question. My point is— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: You heard him; now how about hearing me? After all I am the one who is being offended here not you. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! The member will resume his seat. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Typical. This is typical. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member had better be a little careful. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I understand the rules of this House. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Well the member clearly—[ 
Interruption 
] Order! The member will be leaving if he does not desist immediately. The member clearly does not understand because the Speaker’s judgment was being questioned. The Speaker ruled that the right honourable member’s question was absolutely in order. Therefore the member has no right of grievance at all because the Speaker ruled that his question was in order. The matter that remains is should a member wish to seek leave if a member feels they have been wronged by any statement made by a member they can seek leave to make a personal explanation and that is in the hands of the House. I will hear further from the Hon Trevor Mallard. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) 
: 
 Yes Mr Speaker. I thought you might have come to Speaker’s ruling 163/1 in this and indicated to the Minister concerned that in fact he did have a right to object at the time and effectively have that part of the question struck out if he had taken a point of order in an appropriate way at the right time. That is my first point. The second point is that of course this is a ministerial action and not a personal action and he does not need the leave of the House in order to tell the House what he did. [ 
Interruption 
] 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! No no. Members should not be interjecting on a point of order. I read the Speaker’s ruling that the member is referring to and I will investigate that ruling on the basis of the Standing Orders to make sure that I am absolutely satisfied with it because what is hugely important in this House is that the point of order process is not used to question statements by other members. During question time Ministers have the right to answer questions and if there are errors in questions the proper process is to deal with that while the question is being answered. If the matter relates to another member or Minister those members have the right to seek the leave of the House. I want to avoid points of order being used to question what other members have said because that tends to lead to disorder. However I will undertake to further explore the issue that the member has raised in respect of Speaker’s ruling 163/1. [ 
Interruption 
] Does the honourable Minister wish to raise a point of order? I had better come first to the Rt Hon Winston Peters. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. My point of order is that the Minister erroneously used a Standing Order and he should have been stopped not given a chance to twice get out his erroneous explanation. That is my point of order and I have got every right in this House as a member to tell you what that point of order is. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I thank the right honourable gentleman. 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON (Minister for Land Information) 
: 
 I seek leave to make a personal explanation on this matter. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to make a personal explanation on the matter that has been discussed. Is there any objection to that course of action? There is objection. [ 
Interruption 
] There is objection. Point of order the Hon Trevor Mallard. [ 
Interruption 
] Order! A point of order has been called. [ 
Interruption 
] Order! No the honourable Leader—[ 
Interruption 
] Order! No no I am on my feet now and the member must stop interjecting. Any member has the right to deny leave. It is most unusual I say to those newer members to deny a member the right to make a personal explanation. That may not be something well known to newer members and I am prepared to allow the member to seek leave again. 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON (Minister for Land Information) 
: 
 I seek leave to make a personal explanation on this matter. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought for that course of action. Is there any objection? There is no objection. 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: During our processing of an application by Natural Dairy to acquire the Crafar farms it came to our knowledge that a consortium consisting of May Wang Jack Chen and others had already gone ahead and bought four dairy farms without seeking any approval at all from either the Overseas Investment Office or indeed the Minister. As we began process to make them divest themselves of those farms we were notified by the courts in Hong Kong that charges of corruption had been laid against those people and a stay had been put on those farms as they were assets involved in the court case. Now that that case has finished and the stay has been removed the Overseas Investment Office has decided to bring civil proceedings under section 47 of the Act to make those farms be down-sold. I repeat again: no approval was ever sought from anybody nor was any approval ever given by a Minister or the Overseas Investment Office. 
General Debate 
Dr RUSSEL NORMAN (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 I move  
That the House take note of miscellaneous business 
. This week we have seen the economic incoherence at the core of this National Government. If you recall the asset sale programme was justified on the basis of reducing debt. The Government told us that it had to sell these energy assets which were returning 18 percent total shareholder return according to Treasury to raise about $6 billion to avoid accumulating $6 billion worth of debt. 
However what we have found out over the last few days is that the Government intends to actually take on more debt possibly in the order of $5 billion or $6 billion according to the briefing to the incoming Minister of Transport in order to build new uneconomic motorways. These are the motorways that were decided on by National before it went into Government as Bill English told us in May. These motorways were chosen for political reasons not economic reasons. These are motorways that have very low rates of return or in some of the cases negative rates of return. In some of the cases the motorways cost a billion dollars to build and the return is only $600 million which is the Warkworth to Wellsford motorway. The Government wants to borrow $5 billion to $6 billion in order to build these motorways which have low or negative rates of return. 
It told us that we had to privatise the energy companies which have very high rates of return—about 18 percent total shareholder return according to Treasury—in order to reduce debt. Now it has told us that it needs to borrow about the same amount again to invest in motorways. This Government does not have a coherent economic agenda. Watching this Government in action is watching people who have no idea how to pull together a sensible economic policy. It is not surprising that since it took office New Zealand has slipped from having the eighth-lowest unemployment in the OECD to the 14th lowest unemployment in the OECD. There are 65000 more people unemployed than when it took over because it seems that the economics of “Planet National” are extremely damaging to the economics of New Zealand. 
We have a Government that does not understand some basic fundamental economic realities. By throwing billions of dollars of borrowed money at new motorway projects that do not have an economic case the Government is increasing our oil dependency and hence our oil bill so making our current account deficit worse. It is increasing the greenhouse gas emissions because we will have induced traffic on those motorways. Of course we are causing higher oil imports which will affect the external balance of the New Zealand economy which is our No. 1 problem. 
The Government has not taken a rational economic approach which would be to get these motorway projects and put them through Treasury’s guidelines for capital spending—and that has never happened under this Government. If you were taking a rational approach to building new motorways you would put them through Treasury’s guidelines. The Government has never done that. The reason it has never done that as Bill English told this House in May this year when I asked him about it is that these motorways were chosen during the 2008 and 2011 election campaigns. So they were chosen for political reasons rather than for economic reasons. This is a political and ideological strategy by the Government to borrow billions of dollars so that it can spend them on motorways that do not have a business case—motorways that have never been put through Treasury’s guidelines for capital expenditure. 
If we had a smart Green economic approach we would be investing in transport options that actually reduce congestion. They take freight off the highway system and put it on railways. Let us remember that about a third of all our exports already travel by rail. Rail is critically important to the New Zealand economy. If the Government had a rational smart Green economic agenda that would be the priority. We would actually invest in public transport walking and cycling compact urban form in our major urban centres to reduce congestion so that those people who need to use the roads to get around—the plumbers whom Michael Cullen was always so very fond of telling us about—would have roads that were less congested so that people who needed to use the roads could actually use them. That is the cheapest way to reduce congestion. That is the smart Green economic opportunity that this Government is turning its back on. 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister for Economic Development) 
: 
 I think we should thank the “Leader of the Opposition” for that contribution because at least it was an argument even if it was an incoherent argument. For Mr Norman’s benefit the roads of national significance are not there necessarily for political reasons; they are there for congestion reasons—they are there for congestion reasons. The reason that we do not build motorways in small regional areas is there is no congestion. In Auckland weirdly there has been congestion. The Victoria Park Tunnel project has actually already been successful the Waterview Connection is being successful and the Waikato Expressway is hugely important for the New Zealand economy. That is because these roads are— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: How about Puhoi? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: Yes the Puhoi to Warkworth motorway still carries more traffic every day than the entire Auckland rail network. It still carries more than the entire Auckland railway network. 
So here we are with the Greens’ incoherent economic policy. Of course the other problem for Mr Norman is that he says we should have a “smart Green economy” which means we just subsidise jobs with taxpayers’ money. He should visit the communities where his policies are having the most negative impact where the Greens are out there arguing against economic growth in places like Northland and places like Gisborne. He should go there and actually tell them to support oil gas and mineral exploration if he really cared about jobs in this country. But he does not; he cares about them elsewhere. 
But at least they have an argument. At least the Greens have some form of argument. In the Labour Party the argument is amongst the Labour Party about that vexed question of which David should lead the Labour Party. The continuing saga of David and David and David continues. We have of course “Denying David” in the House right now—Mr Parker. Mr Parker is “Denying David”. He has actually gone on to become “Mr Deluded David”. He is now “Mr Deluded David” because he actually thinks that Labour has an orthodox economic policy. He actually thinks it has a positive pro-mining policy. He has not spoken to its energy and resources spokesperson who says that oil and gas should stay in the ground. He has not spoken to Mr Shearer who thinks that mines should be banned—I have seen the placards that Mr Shearer was carrying. So that is “Deluded Dave”. 
Then of course we have “Dark Dave”. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! Members should be referred to by their correct names. 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: I am just getting there Mr Speaker. Mr David Cunliffe I was referring to—the Hon David Cunliffe. He has been wearing quite a scowl—at least I thought it was a scowl but I suspect it may actually be 5 o’clock shadow—since he did not get the leadership. I do not want to cast aspersions but I think we now call him “Denuded Dave” because he has indeed had the shave. He has had the shave and of course it was a close shave that he did not get the Labour leadership. We always said that if he had a shave that meant that the challenge was on. Indeed the challenge is on because he turned up at Parliament yesterday with the three musketeers with Ms Dalziel Su’a William Sio and Ross Robertson. The interesting thing about it being Su’a William Sio who turned up with David Cunliffe is that he was the one who ran the criticism of the Labour Party’s policy last week and completely tripped up the pro tem leader of the Labour Party David Shearer. Right when he was trying to do something there was Mr Su’a William Sio. He turned up in Parliament yesterday alongside David Cunliffe who was grinning from ear to ear and saying Arnie Schwarzenegger - like “I’m back. I’m back. I’ve had my shave and I’m ready for the challenge.” 
Then of course there is the third Dave—what is his name? I cannot remember his name. But anyway he is the one who is not not having an impact. He is not not having an impact that David. We are just not quite sure who he is but I suppose it is true that it is better the David you know—or the David you do not know. Maybe it is better the David you do not know than the one that you do not know even worse. That is possibly the issue. 
So we have at least with the Greens some sort of argument. It is a very very poor argument and it is a bad argument for New Zealand. In Labour the argument is all within the Labour Party. Meanwhile on the Government side of the benches we are focused on one very very important thing: the massive opportunity that exists for New Zealand if we want to take it up for our exports over the next 20 years. The opportunity in Asia is absolutely phenomenal. It is absolutely phenomenal. 
Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour) 
: 
 That was a very shallow contribution from the Minister for Economic Development who did not even get around to talking about economic development. 
Grant Robertson 
: No there is no plan. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: Well that is right. There is no adequate plan for that. He misrepresented David Shearer as being out there with a placard saying “anti-mining”. Actually Mr Joyce he was with a placard protesting against mining in national parks. 
Grant Robertson 
: With 50000 other people. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: That is right—with 50000 other people. The National Government eventually admitted its error and reversed what was the major part of its economic plank for the last term. 
 You know the National Government is in trouble in the regions when a National member asks a Minister a patsy question like in question time today about how things are in the regions and the Minister quotes a business confidence survey. Why is the Government doing that? Well we know that the polling of the National Party is declining quite markedly in just about every region in New Zealand—just about all of them. Why? Why? Well because record numbers of New Zealanders are leaving New Zealand and leaving the regions. And the sad reality is that National does not seem to know about it—either that or it does not care. Why do I say that it does not seem to know about it? Well I asked a primary question of Bill English a couple of weeks ago about whether the numbers of people leaving New Zealand are being replaced by people coming from overseas and he said in answer: “as I understand it there are no regional statistics that specifically isolate the number of people leaving any particular region to move overseas.” 
Unfortunately he was wrong. There are. There are Statistics New Zealand— 
Hon Parekura Horomia 
: How many? How many? 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: —series that show who is moving from each district council area and each regional council area. Parekura Horomia asked me how many. Well the answer is record numbers. Of the 53000 people who left from New Zealand to go to Australia last year—and that is just Australia—on a permanent basis a lot of them go from the regions. Some of our greatest rates of population growth are from the regions. 
The saddest part of all that is that 40 percent of them are between the ages of 18 and 30. We have got to ask ourselves why it is that so many 20-year-olds no longer have hope and opportunity in New Zealand but instead feel that they have got to go to Australia. The answer is because our economy is not performing and they have not got jobs. 
Today the National Government said that it advanced another part of its export agenda. 
Grant Robertson 
: Another plan. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: Another plan. Well you know this is the last in a long list of them and none of them seem to make any difference. I am going to tell the House why in my opinion that is the case. It is because the Government is not addressing the issues that need to be addressed. It says that it has a plan to develop the export economy yet it is not removing the tax bias that fights against investment going into there. And then the Government is surprised that people go to Australia. The Government says that we need more money in those industries yet it opposes improvements to KiwiSaver to make sure that everybody saves. It says that it wants to make improvements to the innovative sector yet it opposed a research and development tax credit. Its actions speak louder than its words and the consequences are visited upon our young people who are voting with their feet. 
The regions are feeling ignored. They are also right to feel ignored on roading. We had questions today about all this money going into the roads of national significance some of which are of marginal economic benefit. There is no doubt about that. The Government’s own cost-benefit analysis shows that these are a poor spend yet it insists on spending billions there to the detriment of the regions. The mayors in the regions are now complaining that they are not getting enough money to maintain and improve their roads because it is all going to these roads of national significance—and it just about all is. It is an exaggeration to say that it all is but there is a huge predominance of that money— 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: But which one would Labour can? 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: —going into those—what was that? 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: Which one would Labour can? 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: We would can the Puhoi to Wellsford road because—[ 
Interruption 
] Yeah. We would instead spend about $1 billion less—about $1 billion less. We have been saying it for about a year. The National Government still does not understand it. We would spend $400 million and fix the road but we would not waste the other $1 billion. 
New Zealand is not being held back by a lack of infrastructure; we are being held back by the lack of a decent economic plan. 
Mike Sabin 
: You come trotting up there for fish and chips at Maunganui. Send us a copy of that  
Hansard 
. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: Fish and chips in Whanganui are as good as it gets under the National Government. That is an economic plan under its watch. 
Hon HEKIA PARATA (Minister of Education) 
: 
Tena koe Mr Speaker. Tenatatouhurinoaitotatou Whare. I want to talk about the brighter future that this side of the House is committed to and is working on. I want to talk about how we see the central importance of education because we understand both its transformative power in terms of building a strong and productive economy as well as how it contributes to strengthening the cultural and social backbone of our community. We have one of the best education systems in the world and it must remain so because we are part of a very competitive international community. New Zealand’s education system must continually strive to get better and better. At present on average four out of five of our students do very well and we should thank the principals and teachers who in classrooms up and down this country every day make that possible. 
But we are not a Government about averages. We are committed to five out of five students being successful and we understand that that takes investing in. In order for that brighter future to be available to all New Zealand students they need to leave school with secure good quality education—something this Government is committed to working on. Unlike Labour which when it was in Government spent all its time wringing its hands and crying over the litany of poor statistics we are doing something about it. How do we know that? Because this is the fourth Budget in a row that this Government has increased Vote Education—$9.6 billion for 2012-13. Despite the tough fiscal times this Government has invested more because we want to build a brighter future for New Zealanders. We know that early learners who start behind stay behind. We are committed to 98 percent of all new entrants in 2016 having participated in good quality early childhood education. We know that it is more affordable now—32 percent more affordable now—than it was in 2007. We are committed to getting 3000 more early learners into quality early childhood education over the next 4 years so that they can go on to primary school and have the strong platform of general education built there. 
In order to do that we know that one of the characteristics of a high-performing system is good quality data and information. That is why last week I launched the 5-year plan to build Public Achievement Information—that is right Public Achievement Information. It will include but not be confined to national standards. National standards will be core to that because we know that understanding how well our children are doing at school as they are doing it—not waiting until they get to year 9 nor waiting until they get to year 11 or year 12 but much earlier—means that parents can be empowered alongside their children and their teacher to know how they can invest to make a difference. 
 We are not afraid of information. We are not afraid of driving up good quality. We are committed to achievement for absolutely every one of our students. We do not deal with myth and slogans; we deal with an evidence-based approach and quality information is part and parcel of that. We want to work with parents and that is why on the back of this brochure are the five basic questions parents should be able to ask their teacher about how well their child is doing. 
Then on to secondary school where we know that we need to have more and more students—actually about 10000 more over the next 5 years—securing National Certificate of Educational Achievement level 2 or equivalent. Why? Because without it these young people do not have a passport to a quality life and they do not have the learning that allows them to earn. This Government is committed to making a difference. We will not continue to turn a blind eye to the statistics that the previous administration produced in the 9 long years it had to do something about it—but it did nothing. This Government is committed and we know that this should be learner-centred responsive education where the parents are respected. The parents should be respected as companions in this drive to raise achievement for their young people. This Government does not tell them what to do; we work with them so they know what to do. Information does that together with these targets which we are prepared to hold ourselves accountable to. Those targets are—just one more time—98 percent of all early learners going on to primary school having done quality early childhood education and all of our young people through years 0-1 to 8 having quality data and information about themselves so they their parents and their teachers understand. 
BRENDAN HORAN (NZ First) 
: 
 Rail is a critical—[ 
Interruption 
] 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! I apologise to the honourable member but the previous debate has concluded. I want to hear from Brendan Horan. 
BRENDAN HORAN 
: Thank you Mr Speaker. Rail is a critical part of New Zealand’s transport infrastructure. Right now its future is being compromised and undermined. New Zealand First considers that there is a strong case for a public inquiry into the state of the rail network because of a long list of issues that need to be addressed. 
Considering that this is Rail Safety Week let us first consider safety. New Zealand First has brought to the public’s attention and to this House the issue of rotting rail sleepers. A lot of people do not really understand what that means—what is a rotten railway sleeper? Well sleepers were brought in from Peru. There are thousands of them and the truth is that they do not know how many are really out there. They have workers coming into the yards they have had them coming into the yards and they have had work outsourced so contractors have been going into the yards grabbing sleepers and then going and trying to do maintenance. 
Yesterday I spoke in the House and alerted the House about the safety issues involving sleepers that may be at many of the road crossings in New Zealand. But what does that mean? It means that if we have a fully laden train coming to a road crossing and let us say that road is running parallel to the railway line and those sleepers collapse we will have a derailment. We could have a catastrophic derailment if that happens in peak hour. I can say to those people from Tauranga who are watching today that you need only think about the Bayfair Drive roundabout and the roundabout that is a little bit further down near Baypark. There you have a kilometre and in peak hour traffic you could have hundreds of deaths. This needs to be investigated. 
Let us look at some of the other issues and the locomotives. Of 20 brand new locomotives only one is actually working to its potential. The main distance between the failure rate of those locomotives is 14800 kilometres whereas some of the 50-year-old locomotives that KiwiRail has go for 80000 kilometres before they have to have that essential check. We have locomotives that do not work and one of those 20 brand new locomotives has not been seen on the railways tracks—no they have turned it into parts. They are using a brand new locomotive for parts. 
Then we take a look at the wagons which are an absolute disaster. These wagons were designed apparently by some KiwiRail people and they have a bubble in them. They have the bubble because when they put a container on it the bubble lowers and you have a flat platform then they use the locking levers and lock that container into place. But if you have light material within the container they cannot lock it because the bubble is still there. What KiwiRail workers are having to do is to drive a large forklift on top of the container to squash it down so they can then lock it. This is unsafe. This is ridiculous. It is quite simply a mistake in the design of these 500 railway wagons that were brought from China. It is ridiculous. We are getting a lot of damage within KiwiRail because of this. You have these locking mechanisms breaking you have brake failure and you have bearings failing. All of these are very very important safety issues. 
Things are so bad that when they are doing maintenance on a locomotive they have to leave the engine running but they cannot open the engine bay doors because they are extremely worried that they are going to have fans disintegrating—more safety worries. Let us also look at the job losses that we have with 181 KiwiRail workers being made redundant by October. This is part of a 3-year plan to get rid of 370 jobs. How can that be good for the economy? What happens to those families who have been made redundant? Well some of those workers will be able to go into the workforce but others will end up going on welfare. 
The list of issues I have mentioned today—I have a whole lot more—all add up to a compelling case for a full inquiry into the state of New Zealand’s railways. 
Hon CHRIS TREMAIN (Minister of Internal Affairs) 
: 
 It is an exciting time to be in Government I have to say—an exciting time. I think that the opportunities that are ahead of this nation are unprecedented and certainly unprecedented in my lifetime. I am privileged to be part of a Government that is taking up those opportunities with both hands and going forward. 
 When I talk about those opportunities firstly I ask members to just think about where we sit in the globe at the moment. It is just an unprecedented position. We are on the precipice of major trading nations that are growing ahead of many other nations around the world. Secondly we are close to those nations. And thirdly those growing middle classes want our export products. They want our high-value exports. So we are in a wonderful position in that regard. What is great is to be on this side of the House at this point in time and to be part of a team that is making a huge contribution in that regard—a huge contribution. 
When we came into Government at the start of this term we had four major objectives—four key priorities. The first was to rebuild Christchurch. What have we done? We delivered a central business district rebuild plan just a couple of weeks ago. The second key objective was to responsibly manage the books. We saw a Budget that will bring us back to surplus by 2014-15 and not take Government debt any higher than 28 percent. We have committed to delivering better public services. The Prime Minister in that regard has rolled out 10 key result areas and we heard just a couple of them from the Minister of Education Hekia Parata such as focusing on getting 85 percent of our kids to National Certificate of Educational Achievement level 2 and 95 percent of our kids into early childhood education. These are the things that will make a difference. 
But what is exciting about today is that fourth priority area where we have committed to building a productive and competitive economy and I have got to hand it today to Ministers Tim Groser Steven Joyce and Bill English who are out in the Hutt Valley launching the  
Building Export Markets 
 report on the new Business Growth Agenda. That is part of the agenda that we are taking forth—part of six key parts of the agenda—with export markets being the first one that is being launched. The others are innovation skilled and safe workplaces capital markets natural resources and infrastructure. 
These are initiatives that set the progress of this Government and what I hear from the other side of the House is: “Where’s the plan?”. “Where’s the plan?”. This is a progress report and if you turn to the back of the document you can see that we hold ourselves accountable. We are bringing together all the streams of work that we are doing here. We are actually holding ourselves accountable through all the initiatives that we are implementing as we speak to drive a better future for this country. It is absolutely fantastic. But where I want to focus on— 
Kris Faafoi 
: Where’s the cycleway in that book? 
Hon CHRIS TREMAIN 
: I am glad you have brought up the cycleway. That is something I definitely want to focus on. One of the key initiatives within this export markets initiative is tourism and tourism is our second-biggest industry. It is a wonderful industry that has continued to grow through the global financial crisis and we are seeing significant changes in this. New markets are expanding into Asia. There is the Chinese market. If you look at the agenda here in terms of the increasing value from tourism you see that we have got a focus on increasing value from that Chinese market because we know there are going to be a lot more tourists coming from China. We need to understand how we can look after them better and actually improve the value added through that market. 
On top of that we have got a major focus here on investing in major events. Major events are a huge revenue earner for this country and we are investing in that. That is pulled together in the work stream: $10 million there. There are things like the World Masters Games coming in 2017 and the FIFA U-20 World Cup in 2015. They are a huge opportunity to bring export dollars into our market. 
The cycleway—I am glad the Opposition has mentioned that because they love the cycleway over there. I have to say I am passionate about the cycleway and you can hold me to account anytime you want on the cycleway. We have got 18 rides that we are rolling out. We have clearly seen from the Otago Central Rail Trail what value that cycleway can add. It has taken 10 years for that cycleway to build to the level it is at. It will take time for each of the cycle trails to build value but there are genuine businesses that are being built around each of those cycle trails. There are people who are coming to cycle not only from around the country but from around the world. It is an exciting proposition and opportunity for this nation—an exciting opportunity. 
On top of this we have investment in Maori tourism and I think that is a wonderful opportunity in this country growing on from what is available in Rotorua and bringing that stream of tourism and offering it throughout the country. I think we can really do a big— 
PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatu) 
: 
 It is always a pleasure to follow the member Chris Tremain the member whose hair is his finest political asset. But the member I am afraid is going to be in trouble in 2014. He is in trouble because he is supporting the amalgamation of Napier and Hastings. He has no regard for the wishes of his constituents. He does not care what the local people think. He favours amalgamation and he is going to be in trouble in 2014. The member Chris Tremain has I think come out in favour of retaining the Gisborne to Napier rail link. I think he might have come out publicly in favour. Would the member like to nod if he is in favour of retaining the Gisborne to Napier rail link? Because this is an issue that is very much at the top of the minds of the people in his constituency. Like all over New Zealand they are losing jobs under National. They are losing public services. Their economy is suffering because this Government has no economic plan for the regions. They are suffering because they are having to pay more rates because National has cut the funding for local roads in their electorate. 
I want to talk briefly about how the roads of national significance have taken away money from almost every provincial region in New Zealand. They have squeezed every provincial council and every local council. They now face the choice of either subsidising the roads of national significance or shelling out from their own pockets to fund local roads whose funding has been cut or they have to let the local road network fall into disrepair. This Government has committed $12 billion to the roads of national significance and now for the second 3-year period it is flatlining the funding for local roads which means in the face of inflation and rising costs for things like bitumen that local roads budgets are facing real cuts. 
Ask the ratepayers and ask the councillors and the mayors in any rural and provincial councils. In the last few weeks I have been to Southland Clutha Gore Central Otago Queenstown Waitaki Timaru Ashburton Invercargill and Dunedin and I am here to tell you that every single mayor in those council areas is angry with the National Government for what it has done in cutting the funding of local roads. In many of those councils the budget for local roads amounts to half the operating budget of those councils. In places like Ashburton which has got 2600 kilometres of local roads to maintain it has only 12000 ratepayers. That is an enormous burden that this Government has placed on those communities in New Zealand’s provincial heartland by forcing them to either subsidise the roads of national significance or let their local roads fall into disrepair. I want to quote Mayor Angus McKay of the Ashburton District Council who said recently: “We are frustrated that the Government appears to have chosen to focus their expenditure on city motorways”—the roads of national significance—“at the expense of the rural areas that generate a significant proportion of income for the country.” 
When I was in Timaru last week they told me about the two roads in and out of the Clandeboye Fonterra plant. That plant at Clandeboye accounts for 5 percent of this country’s export earnings. That is a massive amount of our export wealth as a country yet the 12000 ratepayers of Timaru have to fund and maintain that road and all the heavy traffic on it out of their rates. They have been put in a position where they are literally begging this Government to declare the roads in and out of Clandeboye as a road of national significance. That is what you have to do in this country under this Government to get any sort of serious attention and get the resources needed to keep those roads in good nick—you have to make them a road of national significance. 
Drummond dairy farmer Geoff Lindsay a few weeks ago at the Southland District Council long-term plan hearing had this suggestion. He suggested that the Southland District Council dig up the road outside the finance Minister’s sometime residence in Dipton as a way of conveying the plight that the people of Southland feel— 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: His holiday home. 
PHIL TWYFORD 
: His holiday home—thank you Mr Cosgrove. They are so angry in Southland about the neglect of their local road network that they want to dig up the road outside the finance Minister’s holiday home in Dipton. That says something about the mood in provincial New Zealand. They are losing jobs they are losing public services and they are having their local roads funding cut. Why does National treat provincial New Zealand with such utter contempt? 
MELISSA LEE (National) 
: 
 I am actually recovering from a comment that the previous speaker Phil Twyford made. I always thought of Mr Phil Twyford as a gentleman and I could not believe that he was attacking somebody with lots of hair especially since he is slightly follicly challenged. Maybe that is what happens in Labour because— 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. [ 
Interruption 
] 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! A point of order has been called and it will be heard in silence. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: If anybody is follicly challenged it is me on our side not Phil Twyford. I take that title. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: It was no point of order but let us get on with the member’s speech. 
MELISSA LEE 
: That was very noble of you Mr Cosgrove. Maybe that is what happens as I said. I always thought of Mr Twyford as a gentleman but that is what happens in Labour. Those members have to have venom within their caucus and actually show it in the House to actually get somewhere. 
It is generally accepted that the other side of the House lacks credibility. Those members focus on sideshows obviously—and we have seen that performance in the House—and often those kinds of sideshows fail miserably. I can remember a particular case of a bus that went around the country and was supposed to have public meetings which nobody turned up to. It was such a sideshow. It was so memorable that nobody remembers what it was about. Perhaps Mr Cunliffe will have a better chance. He has turned up to the House you know to Parliament without his moustache. It has been shaved off and he is clean-shaven with a new look and a new tan. Perhaps he might be the success story of the Labour Party by toppling Mr David Shearer as the leader. Perhaps the House boxes of the Labour members are in fact the telling signs. I do not know whether other members have noticed but the Labour members’ House boxes do not have their normal signage. The signage has all been removed and it seems that perhaps a new label is required because of the imminent new leader—maybe. But those sideshows aside let us talk about— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I think it is one of the rules of this House that you are not to be brought into debate. My understanding is that the things were taken off our boxes at your recommendation. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Well the Speaker is not going to be brought into the debate. But neither should the member’s speech be interrupted. 
MELISSA LEE 
: Thank you very much Mr Speaker. Let us not actually ponder about what is happening over on that side of the House. Let us talk about the priorities of this Government. Previously the Hon Chris Tremain talked about the four priorities of this Government. They are responsibly managing the Government’s finances building a more competitive and productive economy delivering a better Public Service and rebuilding Christchurch. 
I want to talk about the Government’s finances. In an economic climate where New Zealand is like one-quarter of 1 percent of the world’s economy I mean we are affected negatively or positively by what is happening around us. Countries that traditionally actually did better than New Zealand are suffering in this economic climate and we can see that in Europe. But in New Zealand we are actually on track to getting back into surplus in 2014-15. That would mean that we will become one of the very few developed economies not increasing public debt in these difficult times. To me that is fantastic management. How are we actually achieving this? Well by better management skills I guess on this side of the House compared with the other side and also by building a more competitive and productive economy. 
Budget 2012 forecast economic growth on average of around 3 percent. I think Chris Tremain talked about our neighbouring countries the growing countries in Asia—for example Indonesia which has 245 million people. It has a market that is 60 times bigger than New Zealand’s and it is growing way faster than New Zealand. We need to actually entice their investment and their tourist numbers into New Zealand to spend their money in New Zealand. I think it is actually very very important. On average we will grow 3 percent in the next 4 years with 154000 new jobs created. That is on top of the 60000 new jobs already created in the past 2 years. National is increasing annual spending on science and innovation by $385 million over the next 4 years to more than $1.3 billion a year by 2015-16. 
Earlier this afternoon we were talking about investment and Crafar farms. Well I have to say that I cannot believe that we have had xenophobic rhetoric coming from the Opposition. Shame on them. Grow up. 
MOANA MACKEY (Labour) 
: 
 Apparently according to Melissa Lee and the National Government everything is just going great in New Zealand at the moment. 
Melissa Lee 
: It is. 
MOANA MACKEY 
: Oh it is! Everything is fantastic! People are not finding it hard to pay the bills! People are not finding it hard to put food on the table! Everything is hunky-dory in the National Party. Well it might be hunky-dory as they sit there on their parliamentary salaries and their ministerial salaries but they may have forgotten that there are an awful lot of New Zealanders out there who are finding it incredibly tough going at the moment. That kind of speech claiming that everything is going great and the Government has got all the answers just shows why New Zealand is going further and further backwards and why New Zealanders are finding it harder and harder to make ends meet. 
I want to talk particularly about provincial New Zealand and how hard people are finding it in the regions of New Zealand. We have seen a mass exodus over the last year from provincial New Zealand. New Zealand is already one of the most urbanised countries in the world. That is not a healthy state of affairs for a country that relies on agriculture and its primary industries as the backbone of its economy. We need strong growing regional economies. We need them there so that we have the schools the hospitals and the infrastructure that those regional communities need to survive. This National Government just as it did in the 1990s is undermining the very backbone of our country in the provinces. Two and a half thousand people left for Australia from Gisborne and the Hawke’s Bay last year alone; 4000 left from the Bay of Plenty. How is it good for the New Zealand economy to have a mass exodus of young people in particular from provincial New Zealand? 
Then you look at what the Government is doing in roading. Melissa Lee defended motorways. We know why she likes motorways—she thinks they are part of National’s law and order and crime prevention package. But the reality is that the National Government has taken money out of the regional roading fund which used to go to support and help small provincial councils pay for their local roading and put it all into roads of national significance which are mostly around Auckland. In the eastern Bay of Plenty we have a Fonterra factory at Edgecumbe. The local mayor has actually tracked the movements of the trucks that service that Fonterra factory and found that 70 percent of those truck movements are not on State highways; they are on local roads paid for by the local councils—70 percent. So when you undermine that roading network you are undermining the very businesses that keep those provincial communities going. I invite any member of the National Party including our local MP to come to Gisborne and to have a look at the state of the roads in Gisborne. In the city of Gisborne the roads are full of potholes. It is absolutely appalling how the roads have degraded over the last few years and how our council is struggling to pay to repair those roads. 
We have a rail line in Gisborne that the Government is about to close. I am fairly certain it is about to close it from the answers that it has been giving and the fact that it blocked our petition at the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. Mayor MengFoon and 10000 people signed a petition calling on the Government to save the Gisborne to Napier rail line. Government members have not even bothered to contact our mayor to tell him that they have stalled that petition because they do not want to deal with it because they are about to close our rail line. Well do you know who one of the biggest users of our rail line is? It is trucking companies. It is counter-intuitive but it is trucking companies because it is so uneconomic to run trucks from Gisborne down to Napier because of the state of the roads because of the difficulty of the terrain because of the wear and tear on the wheels and because of the cost of fuel. So it is trucking companies that are putting their containers on to our rail line. 
Until we had the washout of our rail line we had added four extra trains a week at the beginning of the year. The Hawke’s Bay Regional Council was given a report that said that the Gisborne to Napier rail line cannot cope with demand—it has got nothing to do with lack of demand—because the Government will not provide it with locomotives to run even more trains on that rail line. It is economically viable. It is fixable. For $4 million we could save the Gisborne to Napier rail line and those companies that rely on it to get freight in and out of Gisborne—one of the most isolated parts of the country with one of the most vulnerable roading networks. There was a point in which the road north through the Waioeka Gorge was closed. Because of bad weather the road south was closed the road around the coast was closed the airport was closed and nothing could get in or out of the port. For a few days our rail line was the only link in and out of the Gisborne district until a washout took out the rail line as well. That washout happened because culverts were not being cleaned and so the water was forced through under the rail line instead of where it should have gone. That rail line needs to be saved. It is an integral part of the provincial infrastructure. This National Government continues to undermine regional economies. 
TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West) 
: 
 What a wonderful time it is to be a citizen of the mighty Waikato. Last time I spoke in this House I celebrated the stunning “come from behind” win of the mighty Waikato Bay of Plenty Magic over the Melbourne Vixens in this year’s ANZ championships—the first New Zealand team to win that competition and they did it in style. Had I not been speaking in the context of the Joint Family Homes Repeal Bill that afternoon—some might say it was more the contortion than a context—I would have treated the House to a rendition of “You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet” because what a privilege it was to be at Waikato Stadium just about 10 days ago to watch the Chiefs thump the Sharks 37-6—37-6 it was—and I was there a week earlier for that heart-stopping semi-final against the Crusaders. In fact I have to say that that night I empathised with the bloke who wrote to the  
New Zealand Herald  
demanding after the Rugby World Cup final a refund of three-quarters of his ticket price on the grounds that he had been sitting on the edge of his seat for the whole night and had not used most of it. 
Well what a great battle that particular game was between the two best teams in New Zealand. I want to say congratulations to Craig Clarke Liam Messam Dave Rennie and all the players and the support crew of the mighty Chiefs franchise. I am very proud to be the “MP for Waikato Stadium” and in fact Minogue Park our netball centre in this House. We are all so proud of our Magic and our Chiefs players. 
But wait there is more. Our Olympic successes have been widely celebrated and nowhere more so than in the Waikato where our rowers train at that superb high-performance centre we now have at Lake Karapiro. We are so proud of MaheDrysdale Hamish Bond and Eric Murray Juliette Haigh Rebecca Scown—of all of them—and also in fact of Mark Todd. That maestro of an equestrian rider the remarkable Mark Todd is also a Cambridge boy. And so it goes on. Did they not all do so well and we in the Waikato are so proud of them. 
Well it is no coincidence that in such a successful region every electorate is held by the National Party. Ours is a region of doers and grafters and achievers and ours is a party and a Government that backs these people backs those who work hard and believes in them. Unlike the negative and divided bunch opposite we are focused on what needs to be done in very challenging times just as our Olympians and our top sportspeople dug deep through those very challenging times of their various seasons and showed what hard work can achieve. 
We see that spirit every day in Canterbury as those who have suffered so much roll up their sleeves cope with the cruel blows that they have suffered since September of 2010 and work towards rebuilding that beautiful city of Christchurch and their wider region. This Government stands shoulder to shoulder with those people of Canterbury. Our commitment to Canterbury’s recovery is unwavering notwithstanding the very challenging times in which we all live. We have committed to the most ambitious goals imaginable for delivering better public services for New Zealanders and already we are seeing some spectacular results particularly in the health sector where we are seeing shorter waiting lists and less time in the emergency rooms. We are getting people through and they are getting the operations. We are not having to send cancer patients over to Australia. There is so much more being delivered for the health dollar thanks to the impressive leadership the vision and the strategy and we are proud of it. 
But we can do even better because getting better public services is all about the prudent use of finite resources. It is not as the Opposition would tell us particularly those on “Planet Labour” that there is money aplenty and you just keep on finding it from somewhere but actually realising that we are in the real world and that we have finite resources and that it is clear vision and good leadership that are required. 
Well what do we have opposite? We have a leader—I think he is a leader—who has disappeared somewhere in the regions. Do you know the extraordinary thing about it is that his colleagues have not even noticed that he is missing so they have not yet sent out a search party for him. Ms Mackey just told us that we need stronger regional economies. Well absolutely! So we do. So why does she and every one of her colleagues over there oppose every measure that this Government has put forward in order to achieve that? Every one of them— 
IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North) 
: 
 I have seen more coherence in a French back line than I saw from the speech of that member Tim Macindoe over there. What a rambling mess. Could he tell us what the National Government has done for Waikato? No. Could he tell us about regional development from this Government? No. Could he tell us about economic development from this Government? No. All he could talk about was the success of other people—other people who have done things that have got nothing to do with the National Government at all. All he could do was ride on the coat-tails of sportspeople and Olympians because he has nothing positive to tell his electorate or the country. 
I would like to point out to that member that I appreciate the win by the Chiefs. I appreciate the fact that Aaron Cruden did most of the work—a good Manawatu man. You can have him as long as he keeps winning for you and he is coming back to keep winning for us as well. 
I visited Hamilton in the Waikato and I got exactly the same message there as I get from people in the Manawatu and the Rangitikei. When I talk to small businesses in the regions I hear two stories. One is that there is no work. There is no work out there and businesses are struggling to stay afloat because this economy has stalled. This Government has done such a pathetic job of getting the economy moving that there is no work out there for small businesses and they are struggling to keep people on. But I hear another story as well. There are some businesses out there that are starting to recover and they want to take people on. They want to employ people in the regions. But guess what? They cannot find the people with the skills they need to grow their businesses. 
That is why we end up with graphs like the one I am holding up which was in the  
Dominion Post  
on the weekend. The top line is the unemployment rate which is remaining stubbornly high. But the bottom line the blue line is the job vacancies. There is an increase. This goes from 2009 through until today. Job vacancies have gone up by 72 percent yet people still are not employed. Why is that? It is because this Government is not investing in the skills that are required to grow the regional economies of New Zealand. 
So what do you think the Government should do? I think it should invest in tertiary education and particularly invest in teaching the skills that are required to grow our regional economies. In my area in the Manawatu we have got the Universal College of Learning or UCOL. It has had its funding cut by $4.4 million. That is a 12 percent cut for the Universal College of Learning. But it is not just us. Our friends over in Taranaki have had a 13 percent cut to their institute of technology. Worst hit of all is Aoraki Polytechnic down in South Canterbury. It has had a 20 percent cut—one-fifth of its funding has been cut. It is the same across the regions of New Zealand because this Government is not interested in investing in skills. 
This Government is not interested in backing New Zealanders. This Government is not interested in growing the economy. All it is interested in is roads of national significance. That is the only item on the agenda. 
Hon Member 
: And the cycleway. 
IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY 
: Oh and maybe a cycleway—a jobless cycleway. Sell a few assets and build a few roads—that is it. I find it fascinating that this Government is selling off profitable assets in order it says to keep down debt but it said today it is happy to borrow money to build roads of national significance. 
What the Government should be doing is allowing the regions to play to their strengths. In my region of Manawatu we want to build our capacity as a transport hub. But guess what? The Manawatu Gorge road has been closed for nearly a year because it is not a road of national significance. The Government is taking away the Capital Connection because it lies alongside a road of national significance so it will not get any funding. It is great! A railway that has a benefit-cost ratio of between 1.6 and 3.0 cannot be funded at a rate of $300000 a year but the road next to it which has a benefit-cost ratio of less than 1.2 is having millions of dollars spent on it and the Government is going to borrow to put the money into that road. It is ludicrous—it is absolutely ludicrous. 
In the Manawatuwe have the defence forces. Because of the mess that this Government has made of the change programme in the defence forces we have lost 293 of our defence personnel from Linton and Ohakea. Again it just does not seem to matter which portfolio it is this Government is overlooking the regions. 
ALFRED NGARO (National) 
: 
 I just want to acknowledge the previous speaker Iain Lees-Galloway and I want to acknowledge that he talked about rugby. In fact I was honoured to play with him over in Palmerston North. He played there and he played such a great game. He represented Labour greatly in that game. It was great. The unfortunate thing was that he was the only one from the Labour Party there which is a true reflection of the party. Rather than being a team party it is a party of loners of lone individuals going off and doing their own little things. But I must admit he did a great job a sterling job. 
There is a saying about this: “Success has many fathers but failure is often an orphan.” We have talked about the rugby and we have talked about Waikato. In Waikato the Chiefs coach David Rennie—and everyone wants to claim someone from there—is actually a Cook Islander. So it was great to have that success. Who was the one who coached them to get over the line? It was a Cook Islander. 
How that fits into this speech is that last week was an adjournment week. It was a great opportunity for us to be able to get into our constituencies and to see our people. On Friday was the celebration at the end of Cook Islands Language Week. We began to celebrate those things we celebrate as our successes as Cook Islanders. It was great. The celebration on Friday night was epitomised by a young woman called PhillisMeti. She has a long list of achievements in the sporting world and it was great to be able to see her there. She summed this up very well when she talked about vision and hope for the future. She said this: “You simply need to have a plan and you need to have small steps that achieve that goal.” That is what we look for in leadership. 
How apt it is then when we talk about a plan. The other side says we do not have a plan. We have this plan and this is a plan that is taking us forward. These steps of achievement are what we also want to talk about. Here is the interesting thing: at the end of that night the conversation moved into politics. People began to ask what is happening in the Labour Party. They were asking what is happening to poor Mr Sio. He is talking about these things that are important. He is beginning to shake the Pacific community. All of a sudden people began to ask the question of whether the Labour Party is the party they wanted to choose to follow. 
In 2005 when the Labour Party won the election Mike Williams the then President of the Labour Party said that if it were not for the Pacific votes it would not have won the election. In that very community which has become the heart and the lifeblood of the Labour Party all of a sudden they are quiet—like they are now. Why? It is because the truth is beginning to sink in. 
Kris Faafoi 
: You want to speak? We’re listening to you. 
ALFRED NGARO 
: Thank you Mr Faafoi. Thank you. That is right. You speak on behalf of the party. Why? It is because the truth is beginning to sink in. What is that truth? Labour is not a Government-in-waiting. It is not a Government-in-waiting. It does not give confidence that it has a plan that it even has goals that it even has little baby steps to achieve those goals—not even a step at all. But hey we should say that on “Planet Labour” you know when things are getting bad: when they start eating their young. That is right. This is how it goes. Where do we look for that evidence? Here it is. Brian Edwards says: “David Shearer has been branded ‘invisible’ by the commentators while his opposite number John Key continues to bask in the warm sun of electorate approval.” Let us go a little bit further. Chris Trotter a left-leaning political commentator says: “Above all other things a political leader must be a communicator—and Mr Shearer isn’t. Not surprisingly the major public opinion polls are all now registering”—hear this—“declining levels of public support for both Mr Shearer and his party.” 
But it gets even better. Here are the Ginsu knives Mr Mallard. Here it is: Matt McCarten political organiser and activist. What a beautiful article he wrote on Sunday. This is what he said: “Here’s the real question: Do Labour front benchers look like they are ready to govern?”. Do they look like it? I will tell you what all of New Zealand is asking that. And guess what? They are not. Matt McCarten asks “Have they earned the confidence of the public?”. They have not. So for all the bantering and for all the waving around and attacks on the National Government have we declined in support? No we have not. In fact we have increased. But it gets even better. At the end this is what he says: he says his point is that most of the caucus is not up to the task. No one knows who the members of the front bench are. No one knows who they are. 
 I could continue to lament on but let us talk about positive things that we are achieving in this Government. Why? Because we are busy working on four priorities. Let us just name what they are. Let us see the four plans: responsibly managing Government finances building a more competitive and productive economy delivering better public services and—let us wait for it—rebuilding Christchurch. We do not forget Christchurch. The general public get it; they know that we are simply trying to live within our means. We are simply being responsible and managing Government finances. Thank you. 
The debate having concluded the motion lapsed. 
Hutt City Council (Graffiti Removal) Bill 
Second Reading 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) 
: 
 I move  
That the Hutt City Council (Graffiti Removal) Bill be now read a second time 
. I want at the start to thank the Local Government and Environment Committee for the hearing that it gave this bill and the suggestions it has made for the House to adopt all of which I as sponsor of the bill concur with. I will go to those at the end. I am not going to breach Standing Orders by acknowledging the Mayor of Lower Hutt who is in the gallery today because if I did then it would. Therefore I will not. But Ray Wallace when he was campaigning for the mayoralty and when elected mayor declared war on graffiti in Lower Hutt and has had a coherent approach with a team for rapid action in private areas where graffiti is visible and where access is approved by the owners and in public areas for rapid response often the first day that it is reported. But also there is a coherent programme of art for kids and other things in order to move some of the real talent on to positive work. 
The main aim of this bill is to empower the city to remove graffiti that is on private property where the owner cannot be found or identified in order to give consent or for that matter to decline. I do want to make it clear that if owners do not want graffiti removed then it will not be removed. What this does is fill a gap in the law which was the cause of quite a number of eyesores in Lower Hutt—and actually around the country as well—where there are effectively absentee owners people who have semi-abandoned properties where they pay the rates maybe or pay them very late but they are completely out of contact. Some of these are Kiwis who have shifted offshore but in New Zealand more and more there are cases of overseas companies owning small commercial areas where maybe they have not made a good investment and as a result of that there is an inability to make contact with them. 
It is my view that having a lot of graffiti around and a lot of tagging in a community is a signal of a lack of social cohesion. It gives a perception of danger it does reduce property values for owners who are nearby and it has a detrimental effect on the image of a city and often therefore on its well-being. Under the Summary Offences Act 1981 if people are caught in the act there is some deterrence in there but it does not give the ability to clean up graffiti on private property unless there can be good contact with the owner. 
The Local Government and Environment Committee heard a range of submissions—not a large number but a range of submissions; most of those I think made useful suggestions—and has recommended some changes to the bill. The first of those changes is to clarify the purpose statement to state that the purpose of the bill is “to allow the removal from private property of graffiti that is visible from a public place.” So if the graffiti is inside or it is around the back it is not the role of the council—it is not wider—to remove it. It is what is visible from a public place. 
 There is a definition of graffiti and I want to thank Holly Walker for the work that she did in that area. It is a definition that essentially picks up the definition consistent with the Summary Offences Act 1981. Another amendment requires a council to state on the graffiti removal notice the power relied on so that people know which section of the legislation is being used and requires the person removing the graffiti to take a copy of that notice and also to have adequate identification with them when they are removing the graffiti. On the vast majority of occasions—the way that this works in the Hutt—it is a contractor who is doing that work and it is not seen as a problem for all of those staff to carry identification because my understanding is that they do anyway. 
Probably the biggest change that the select committee made was that in the bill as introduced there was a protection from civil liability from civil proceedings arising out of actions conducted in good faith even if there was not reasonable care. That has been removed and the select committee decided that it was appropriate to rely on the general provisions of the law but also acted on the briefings of the council that it is its requirement on its contractors to carry public liability insurance. That public liability insurance is already being carried so there is not an additional cost as a result of this change. What it does is put people who are implementing this new legislation on the same basis as other people who are doing graffiti removal whether or not they are council employees or contractors as are used in the Hutt. 
I would like to finish where I started and that is to congratulate the Hutt City Mayor Ray Wallace on this initiative and to say that I am proud to be the local member for Lower Hutt and I want to thank the select committee and the House for their good work on this bill. 
NICKY WAGNER (National—Christchurch Central) 
: 
 I rise to support this Hutt City Council (Graffiti Removal) Bill. I have to say that I think it is a good practical straightforward local bill brought to us in the name of the Hon Trevor Mallard. The Local Government and Environment Committee canvassed the issues widely. We made a few amendments and some minor tweaks and we are now returning the bill to the House. 
As we have heard from the Hon Trevor Mallard the bill empowers the Hutt City Council to enter private land within its district and to take action to remove graffiti from a building that is in public view. We have already heard that it is not about stuff that is round the corner; it is about graffiti that is there in the community and makes people feel as if the community is being neglected. This council does have a significant problem with graffiti but it also has very good processes to deal with it. It works very cooperatively with property owners and people who are in the community and they are generally supportive. It has a very good rapid graffiti removal process and I think that it is something that other councils might need to look at. However there is an issue with some property owners and often these property owners may be absentee landlords who do not respond to the council’s requests to gain access to remove graffiti. This bill will solve that problem. 
There were seven submissions on the bill. The majority of them supported the bill and there were some suggestions and some concerns. Actually the main concern was the lack of a definition of graffiti. There were submitters and even members of the select committee who wanted to be sure that there was a clear distinction between art and graffiti. We are very aware that there is a whole new genre of graffiti art and we wanted to make sure that some inspired artwork perhaps by young people in the Hutt was not destroyed by mistake by people who were thinking they were cleaning up. 
We made three major amendments. The first was the insertion of a definition of graffiti. We chose a definition that was consistent with section 11A of the Summary Offences Act 1981. In this case it identifies “graffiti” as something that damages or defaces “any building structure road tree property or other thing by writing drawing painting spraying etching or otherwise marking it”. The definition has two provisos: that the work is done “(a) without lawful authority; and (b) without the consent of the occupier or the owner …”. 
Submitters were also concerned that owners and occupiers needed to know under what authority the councils were operating so we made an amendment that required the council to state on its graffiti removal notice the source of the power relied upon which of course is this bill. We also wanted to make sure that the council’s workers when they are cleaning up the graffiti are easily identified so clause 7 requires council operators to take a copy of the notice that they have served and to carry identification when removing graffiti. As the Hon Trevor Mallard has stated this is quite simple it is already part of their processes and the operators seem to be working well in the community. 
Finally there was clause 8 which sought to protect the council from civil proceedings arising out of actions done in good faith but without reasonable care. As I have said we have heard about the successful graffiti eradication programme and the fact that the Hutt City Council was spending up to $500000 a year to keep its city free of graffiti. We also heard that it had a very experienced operator who did an excellent job and was particularly good at matching the colours of the paintwork. That sounds like a trivial thing but if you have ever been involved with cleaning off graffiti the matching of colours is particularly important. However the select committee still felt that the council should not be exempt from taking reasonable care when removing graffiti from the buildings so we deleted clause 8 so that the council had the same responsibility that we would expect of others. I believe that the council was happy with that decision. 
Overall I think this is a good bill and I think it will serve the Hutt City Council well. In fact I think there may be demand from other councils to have similar legislation. Finally I would like to thank the staff of the Local Government and Environment Committee and all the members who worked hard on this bill. I would like to thank our advisers and I would like to congratulate the Hutt City Council on bringing this bill to the House. I think it is a job well done. 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Labour—Rongotai) 
: 
 I join the two previous speakers Trevor Mallard and Nicky Wagner in supporting this Hutt City Council (Graffiti Removal) Bill brought to the House by the Hon Trevor Mallard a very good local member who works hard in his constituency. I would like to congratulate the Mayor of Hutt City Ray Wallace whom I would never mention is here to witness this today. The work that was done by Mayor Ray Wallace and his council is to be applauded. 
I would like to also thank the Local Government and Environment Committee. This was one of those bills that went through the select committee very well chaired by Nicky Wagner who gave good opportunity for people to make submissions and for there to be input on what was seen to be a very sensible piece of legislation for a local community. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Put her on Finance and Expenditure. 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: Perhaps Nicky Wagner would like to chair the Finance and Expenditure Committee. She has got a very good way about her. I would have to say that I would like to see this bill extended across many councils throughout New Zealand. I hope it does become a Government bill. Perhaps Trevor Mallard as a new Minister in the next Labour Government in 2½ years’ time might like to take this issue up to become part of Government legislation. 
I have to say that I was highly annoyed when I went out of my house last week and found on my dark green garage a piece of tagging. There was absolutely nothing artistic about this tagging on my garage at all. So I say to Nicky Wagner that there is a difference between something that looks appealing and attractive or even acceptable and somebody’s ridiculous scrawl over your garage. The worst thing about it is that you do not necessarily have any of that paint left to paint it out. 
I think this bill is a very good move for local authorities. This move is because they had a particular problem out in the Hutt. In fact Lower Hutt is on a par with one of the worst areas for tagging in New Zealand. The worst tagging is tagging that is not removed from private property. Businesses are very keen to get it off their businesses. Most residents are keen to get it off their fences but there will always be some private residents who do not actually live in the area or who do not get around to cleaning it up and what it does to a community I think is give a message somehow or other that people do not care about their community and that they do not have pride in it. And as Trevor Mallard said it can make the place look as if it is unsafe. So removing graffiti from private property as soon as possible is very important particularly if the private resident does not get around to doing it. 
We looked at this bill and actually there were not a lot of changes made to the original bill. One of the things that we did do was clarify the purpose statement to state that the purpose is to allow the removal from private property of graffiti that is visible from a public place and could not be any wider. This is not about a grab by local authority to invade people’s private property and slap its paint on other people’s property; it is very much narrowed to the removal of graffiti on private property that is visible from a public place. 
There was some concern at the initial stage that maybe councils might misuse this power. We also said that we require the council to state on the graffiti removal notice the power that it is relying on. We also require the person removing the graffiti to take a copy of that notice and to carry adequate identification with them when removing the graffiti because it is important that the right people do the job and that they have got the right authorisation. 
These were some of the minor things that we actually did correct in the bill itself but overall it is a very good bill. It is supported by members of this House. You know sometimes the public out there think that we spend all our time battling with each other over legislation and issues. There are times when we come together on an issue and we agree. I think there would be very few people around the country who would disagree that graffiti is unwanted in our community. If we can do something to remove it as quickly as possible then it is good for all of us. Of course those who tag your property would like to see it there as long as possible. It is kind of like showing off only it is showing off at the expense of innocent people who do not deserve it. 
Congratulations to the Hutt City Council on this bill. We support it and I hope that it can be looked at for other councils in New Zealand. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) 
: 
 I want to make just a brief contribution to support the colleagues who have previously spoken on both sides of the House for this Hutt City Council (Graffiti Removal) Bill. It is a good pragmatic piece of legislation in that the processes that this council is currently required to go through to clean up graffiti makes it impractical too difficult and an additional cost for ratepayers. Effectively what the bill is doing is enabling that to be cleaned up more effectively. 
You could take a very pure private property perspective that says that there is a really high threshold for allowing people to go on to a person’s private land and to add paint or do other work. That is effectively the basis for the pretty strong protections that exist in the current law for council officials going on to property to clean up graffiti. What is so pragmatic and in my view necessary about this bill is that graffiti actually collectively makes our communities worse. We all know that communities that are covered in graffiti get an overall atmosphere of lawlessness that actually drags down communities. That is where I join with others in congratulating the Hutt City Council on the work it has done in this area. 
I also think that by removing the graffiti as quickly as possible you detract from the satisfaction of the vandals of seeing their artwork signature symbol or whatever you want to call it being displayed for longer. It is true that those communities that get rid of the graffiti quickly have less of it and that is a further reason why we should support this bill. My hope as one of those who believes in strong disincentives for those who get some perverse satisfaction from graffiti is that the Hutt City Council might gang up with the police and with the courts with some of those that are caught and actually have them scrubbing off and doing some of the painting to remove the graffiti. I suspect that they will have to do that only a couple of times to realise what elbow-exhausting work it is and will then be a bit more respectful of both public and private property. 
The last point I want to make is that I suspect that this is a bill that if successfully implemented in Hutt City is something that we will want to apply across the rest of the country. Yes this issue of graffiti is a particular issue. There are actually surveys that show that sadly Hutt City is more adversely affected by graffiti than many other communities but actually it is a problem throughout New Zealand. I am hopeful that Hutt City is able to show that this is an effective new tool for councils to be able to quickly remove graffiti and that further down the track Parliament could look at applying this law more broadly. 
It is a good bill. I commend the chair of the Local Government and Environment Committee and Trevor Mallard the sponsor of the bill. We should put it into law. We should give the Hutt City Council these powers. Let us see how it goes and be open-minded about extending it nationwide. 
HOLLY WALKER (Green) 
: 
 I am very pleased to be able to take a call to speak in the second reading of this Hutt City Council (Graffiti Removal) Bill. This is a bill—a fairly unassuming piece of legislation—that will always hold a very special place in my heart. That is because it was the first piece of legislation that I ever rose to speak about in this House back in the first reading debate at the beginning of this year. It seems particularly fitting as someone who was born and raised in Lower Hutt and lives there still that it is a Hutt City Council piece of legislation that has this particular honour for me. 
I want to congratulate the Hutt City Council on its ongoing efforts in swiftly dealing with vandalism in our city and also to congratulate it on at the same time channelling the energy and creativity of many of our city’s talented young people into positive street art projects like the mural of TanaUmaga and PiriWeepu in Wainuiomata. I think this council has shown a real willingness to support and empower young artists and a positive identity-building support of street art that improves our city and I hope that that support will continue long into the future. 
But this bill is not about graffiti art or street art. It is about vandalism and particularly tagging which does have a tendency to proliferate on buildings in the Hutt Valley that are abandoned and unoccupied. We have already heard that the Hutt Valley has a particularly high rate of graffiti vandalism compared with other parts of the country. Where this occurs in public spaces the council already has a current and very successful and rapid response to this with an excellent response and removal programme that has proved very effective for removing tagging from public property. 
Rapid removal is important in this context because we know that the more tagging and vandalism that exists on a building fence or wall the more of that it is likely to attract. For an example I need look no further than around the corner from my own home in Petone to the site of the former Petone College or even before that Petone Technical College. It is very sad to see the state of that once thriving school site which is now abandoned. It is covered in tagging its windows are smashed and it was of course recently the site of a major arson. In that particular case I guess the only solace we can take is that that site is soon to be redeveloped into a retirement village although I have long wished that it could once again be used for educational purposes. But that site which I certainly would not feel safe entering is an example of why rapid removal is very important because as tagging and vandalism proliferates people begin to feel unsafe. Many residents in the Hutt Valley have identified graffiti as an area of concern that does make them feel unsafe. We know that it can discourage people from engaging actively in their community so a rapid response is important. 
 The problem is that tagging and vandalism in the Hutt Valley are often a particular issue on abandoned or unoccupied private properties and in those cases the council does not have the legal ability to enter those premises to remove it. It certainly has the willingness and the capacity but it does not have the legal right and that is what this bill seeks to address. 
It should be noted that it is not the intention of the bill that the council should be able to enter private property and remove graffiti that the property owner consciously wishes to remain there. In fact owners in that situation will be able to respond within 10 working days to the notices issued by the council to say “Thanks but no thanks; I want to leave that particular piece of art there.” The council and its contractors will take no action if that is the case. That is an important provision for respecting the rights of property owners and I was pleased to see that provision extended from 10 days to 10 working days to really make sure that owners have had a chance to exercise that right if they wish to. 
This is further reinforced by another very important amendment that the Local Government and Environment Committee has made and that is to insert a definition of graffiti into the bill. This was something that I first raised with the mayor and with Trevor Mallard the sponsor of the bill. In fact I first raised it before I was even elected as an MP—which just goes to show you how keen I am about local issues in the Hutt Valley—because I was concerned that a lack of definition really meant that we were not making good law. Good lawmaking should include clear definitions of its terms so I am pleased to see that that definition quoted by Nicky Wagner from the Summary Offences Act has been inserted into the bill by the committee. There are two important qualities of that definition. It talks about graffiti as being only that which is there without legal authority or without the consent of the property owner. Authorised street art whether it is authorised in public spaces or authorised by the owner of the property is not included in the definition of graffiti in this bill and that is very important. 
I was also concerned about the provision that would have exempted the council and its contractors from civil liability if they accidentally damaged the property while on the premises to remove graffiti. That is especially important because it is important to acknowledge that this bill does allow the council to enter property without the knowledge potentially of the owner. If they have not responded to the notice within 10 working days the council may enter the property. So I was pleased to see that the select committee saw fit to remove that exemption from civil liability. We did hear that the contractor who does this work actually has public liability insurance already so they would not actually need this provision in order to be able to safely carry out their work. But also this provision did create some concern and some concern was expressed by submitters about the potential for damage caused by contractors. So I am pleased to see that that has gone and that the council is happy with that. 
Last time the House considered a graffiti removal bill which was the Manukau City Council (Control of Graffiti) Bill the Green Party opposed it. We did that partly because of concerns about a similar civil liability clause as well as the wider Draconian provisions of that bill. So I am very pleased to see that a more reasonable consensus-based approach has been taken to this bill both by the council and by the select committee. I would like to say however that our support of this particular bill and its local ramifications for the Hutt Valley where I am from does not necessarily guarantee that we would support similar bills in other jurisdictions in future. We would have to consider those on their merits and on a case by case basis. 
I would like to conclude by congratulating Mayor Ray Wallace and his council and thanking them for both their proactive efforts to remove graffiti but also their efforts to channel the positivity and the creativity of youth in the Hutt Valley into street art and graffiti art projects. I would like to congratulate Trevor Mallard my colleague in the Hutt South electorate on bringing this bill to the House I thank the select committee for working very constructively on this bill and of course I thank those who took the time to make public submissions. I commend the bill to the House. 
KRIS FAAFOI (Labour—Mana) 
: 
 I stand in support of this bill the Hutt City Council (Graffiti Removal) Bill. I think the reason it has got widespread support across this House is that everyone in this House acknowledges that when communities look bad they feel bad and that we do need to take some action to make sure that our communities are looking as good as they can. So I do want to congratulate the Hutt City Council and Mayor Ray Wallace and also my Wellington colleague Trevor Mallard on bringing this bill to the House. It does give the Hutt City Council the right to remove graffiti from private property. This is an issue that is not just as many members have already mentioned particular to Lower Hutt. It is also an issue in specific parts of my electorate of Mana. 
I do acknowledge that although this bill gives the Hutt City Council the ability to crack down further on graffiti we do need to acknowledge the work that is already being done to eradicate graffiti—the work that is being done by our local bodies and also by our police to crack down on those people who think it is wise and fun to go out and tag public and private property. I agree with my other Wellington colleague the Hon Annette King that there is an element of “cats spraying their territory” to tagging and the sooner that we can take down graffiti from public places the sooner that we can crack down on these people. I am not sure whether they are all necessarily young but most would be young and that behaviour may lead on to a higher level of offending. In that respect it is making communities feel much much safer. 
I want to acknowledge that Trevor Mallard in his first reading speech said that this if it is a success could be extended out beyond the Hutt City Council area. As the member for Mana I have had conversations with Porirua City Council officers and also councillors and the mayor and they would be very keen for these powers to be extended to them if indeed the Hutt City Council graffiti experience with this bill is a successful one. 
I also want to acknowledge the work that the Porirua City Council is doing. Holly Walker spoke earlier about rapid removal of graffiti and the Porirua City Council is certainly on top of that. But it also looks to implement positive things in the community such as murals which have also been mentioned in this debate already to ensure that there is a good look and a good feel about a community therefore bringing the spirits of the community up. As Trevor Mallard spoke of before it does also have an effect on property prices. 
I think we all in this House have been victims of graffiti usually about every 3 years. When election time comes around we are victims of graffiti. I put a hoarding up on my house and 45 minutes later someone had got to it. I went inside the house and there you go! Someone had managed— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: But in my case it’s always an improvement. 
KRIS FAAFOI 
: Yes that is right. Trevor Mallard is still using his photo from 1995 I believe— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: 1987. 
KRIS FAAFOI 
: From 1987 sorry. So there is a fair bit of airbrushing that needs to go on. I should not talk for too long in that respect. 
As I said this bill is something that could be broadened out and I would welcome the opportunity for this to be stretched out to the Porirua City Council. As I have mentioned we would certainly welcome that—I as a local electorate MP and the local body representatives. 
I do want to thank the Local Government and Environment Committee. It has made what Trevor Mallard has said are some practical changes to the bill. I note the fact that we are making much more explicit in the bill what graffiti is and also that we have to have a much more explicit system around notification for those people who are private property owners and whom we are going to contact within the provisions of this bill. We are also making sure that the officers within the council have to identify themselves explicitly. I think those are all practical measures in the bill that have come through the select committee stage and are fitting. 
As I say I think that the three local bodies in my electorate—the Wellington City Council the Porirua City Council and the Kapiti Coast District Council—would all welcome being given these powers if the Hutt City Council experience is a successful one. There are some property owners within the Mana electorate who have defied requests from the council to try to get on to their properties to remove a significant amount of graffiti. Although this bill does not compel them to remove that graffiti it does give the local body another option to try to remove the eyesore from the public view. 
In terms of making sure we crack down on that “looks bad feels bad” factor I think this is a positive thing and I think the acknowledgment from across the House that this is a positive thing means that we can all stand here within this Parliament today and support this move by the Hutt City Council and my Wellington colleague the Hon Trevor Mallard. 
JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki) 
: 
 National supports this bill the Hutt City Council (Graffiti Removal) Bill. A number of speakers have noted today—and throughout the course of the Local Government and Environment Committee consideration and also in the first reading debate—that graffiti on private property within public view has a negative impact on anybody who sees it whether or not you are a visitor to the particular town or neighbourhood. You see the graffiti day after day after day and you just go: “Ugh!”. It has a negative impact. 
We saw recently up in Counties-Manukau a really good example of how graffiti can do huge damage to a neighbourhood but then subsequent to that—once it has been dealt with and had a bit of community input as well—how it can have a really beneficial impact on a community. The Law and Order Committee did a visit to Counties-Manukau. We went to a neighbourhood that comprised a liquor store a dairy and a takeaway store and not only was the whole little block of shops covered in graffiti upon graffiti upon graffiti but also it was dirty there was rubbish all around and the grass was growing. It was not a good place for the community—there were houses all around—and we were told by the community constables that children going to get something after school or going on an errand for mum to the dairy were prone to be stood over by various gangs and groups of people and it was not a very safe place for them. 
So together the police and the local community tidied up the graffiti with the cooperation of the local shopkeepers. That community input and tidying up critically the graffiti on those buildings have seen a complete change in that community. The afternoon we were there it was after school and there were kids going into the dairy and buying ice creams and the things that kids buy from dairies after school all around New Zealand—maybe not ice creams down south; it is a bit cold at this time of year—like hot chips and that kind of thing. The community was restored to something like what it should be. A large part of that was due to the removal of the graffiti and the willingness of the community to deal with the problem. 
That is what we are seeing in this bill the Hutt City Council (Graffiti Removal) Bill. The local authority has identified a problem—and good on it—and it has identified a solution. This House supports that approach. If indeed other local authorities when this bill has passed through the House wish to take up the opportunities presented by this local bill then good on them. They together with their communities can overcome some of the problems presented by graffiti vandalism. 
As I have said and as the House has demonstrated this bill has enjoyed wide support and a very collegial passage through the Local Government and Environment Committee ably chaired by Nicky Wagner but also with good input from all committee members. One of the things that the committee needed to tie down was a good definition of “graffiti”. Under the Summary Offences Act of 1981 “graffiti vandalism” means a person damaging or defacing “any building structure road tree property or other thing by writing drawing painting spraying or etching on it or otherwise marking it … without lawful authority; … and without the consent of the occupier or owner or other person in lawful control.” 
The select committee did make a number of recommendations to amend the bill as presented. One of those was in clause 3 which was to make it very clear that the purpose of this bill was to allow the removal from private property of graffiti that is visible from a public place—that is if any one of us were driving through town or walking along the footpath and that graffiti were visible from the street or the footpath. The purpose of this bill is to allow the removal of that graffiti from private property. That took a little bit of working through. When introduced the bill had a wider and broader effect than really I believe was intended by the local authority. 
We recommended amendments to clause 5 to include a definition of “graffiti” that was consistent with the Summary Offences Act. We also recommended amendments to clauses 6 and 7 that would require the council to state on the graffiti removal notice the source of the power it relied on. The amendments would also require people authorised by the council to take a copy of the notice served under clause 6(3) and for them to carry an adequate form of identification when removing graffiti so that it was clear to anybody who took notice of what was going on that the person removing the graffiti was empowered to do so. We also recommended deleting clause 8 which seeks to protect the council from civil proceedings arising out of actions done in good faith. The reason for that is the committee does not believe that council employees should be given such protection when other local authority employees are generally not. It is just applying a little bit of consistency. 
I have noted that graffiti impacts negatively on the image of a city of a neighbourhood of a street and of a town. It also has a negative impact on property values and that is certainly not a good thing for any of us. Many councils have a zero-tolerance policy on graffiti. Some remove it for free from private properties and places like Wellington City Council provide free kits so you can remove it yourself. So there are a lot of options there but we are now considering this Hutt City Council (Graffiti Removal) Bill. It is a good bill. It takes account of private property rights it takes account of community interests and it has enjoyed a lot of support through this House. I commend it in its second reading. 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: I call Andrew Little—my apologies. I have a habit of doing that. It is Andrew Williams—sorry. 
ANDREW WILLIAMS (NZ First) 
: 
 Thank you Mr Deputy Speaker. I think it is a case of “three counts and you’re out”. I take a call on behalf of New Zealand First on the Hutt City Council (Graffiti Removal) Bill. New Zealand First will be supporting this bill alongside the other parties. I concur with the comments made by fellow members of the Local Government and Environment Committee in respect of the good merits of this bill. Congratulations to the Hon Trevor Mallard on bringing it to the House on behalf of Hutt City Council and Mayor Ray Wallace and his team. Well done to them for putting this forward. 
I have had a little bit of involvement with graffiti during my 9 years in local government and I was informed I can recall that tagging apparently originated on the subways in New York. That was where it first became of significance—many many decades ago. It spread from there and somebody picked up— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: “Kilroy was here”. 
ANDREW WILLIAMS 
: What was that? 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: It was English. 
ANDREW WILLIAMS 
: Was it? Unfortunately with the age of television in New Zealand somebody saw what was happening in New York and it was picked up in New Zealand and it kicked off. So people— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: This was 1920s England. 
ANDREW WILLIAMS 
: Yes I know. This was New York that I was told about. It is unfortunate because as other speakers have commented communities that have high levels of graffiti tend to also go along the lines of increased crime and increased activities such as vandalism and other negative things towards a community. It is disappointing when that occurs. When you go to some countries and you see no graffiti at all it is very very welcome. It is certainly nice to go to places where there is no graffiti and some countries and some communities have been able to achieve that. 
I can recall that from the North Shore City Council’s point of view at one stage we were spending up to $600000 a year on graffiti tagging and vandalism. We managed to reduce that significantly over a period of 4 or 5 years when we dedicated a tagging team of several staff members who started mapping and profiling the taggers and building up profiles of the regular taggers. When they were able to catch them with the support of the Waitemata district police they were able to then take them to court and try to get some restitution. Taking photographs of the tags and building up a good profile of the regular offenders certainly did reduce tagging significantly. In many cases and in many cities and communities it is only a handful of people doing much of the damage and they can be prolific. They can get around significant amounts of geographic areas. It is very disturbing when one person or a handful of people can do so much damage. 
It is also very disturbing for people. I can recall one Sunday being rung by an elderly gentleman who was most disturbed that their whole cul-de-sac near their retirement village had been graffitied. It was all over the tarmac of their cul-de-sac. They felt almost invaded. They felt that they and their community had been attacked in a sense. I was very grateful to the staff at the time and to the people who did our tag removal on the North Shore. They moved in and had it removed within about 12 hours. It was all gone. They actually sandblasted the road and removed the tagging. That was a great relief to the people who felt at the time you know most threatened by this horrible tagging all over their street. 
One of the things we also did—and I know that many communities are doing this throughout New Zealand now—was make sure that access to aerosol cans and some of the various things that they use to put the graffiti on is restricted. This is a good thing. Communities most certainly must ensure that wherever possible they restrict access to particularly aerosol cans in lockable cabinets from the various DIY stores and hardware stores. Also ID should be required to purchase them when they are being sold to people of perhaps a more youthful age and those selling them can inquire as to what the real purpose of the purchase is. That is a good thing. I certainly would hope that responsible retailers throughout New Zealand will be doing that. What we certainly do not want to see is the likes of what was occurring in the past which was corner dairies and corner shops selling aerosol cans. You knew full well that the main purpose of the purchase of those cans was certainly not to go home and do their homework or decorate some form of furniture; it was to go out and tag. Therefore restricted access to aerosol cans is a good thing. 
New Zealand First does have a couple of concerns. One is that of course the lid on the budget for the police and police resources is putting more pressure on the councils and the local authorities to do the likes of this work when in fact if there were greater police resources and a bigger budget available to the police to apprehend many of the offenders perhaps the source of the problem would not be there to the same extent. Instead we have the situation where you are having to be the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff to fix the end result rather than stopping it in the first place or apprehending those in the act. We certainly—from New Zealand First’s point of view—would like to ensure that in the future there are increased resources in policing to do the likes of the mapping and the profiling and the keeping of good registers of the main tagging offenders in order to properly apprehend them take them before the courts and have them correctly dealt with by our justice system to try to get either restitution or certainly community work out of some of the offenders and actually make them remove some of the works they have been guilty of. 
There will definitely be other councils in New Zealand that will want to see this moved on throughout the country and I certainly would hope that this is the beginning of it becoming a nationwide policy and a nationwide Act in the future because it has merit. Again we seem to be getting a lot of piecemeal legislation where one community can benefit from it while another community literally over the road will not and that is a shame. In the likes of the Wellington area where there are some hot spots for graffiti this would certainly be advantageous and very helpful to them. So I would certainly hope in the future that this Government or the next Government with New Zealand First involved will take this on to more of a national basis and ensure that all communities in New Zealand can respond in the same manner. 
Just in closing I congratulate those involved with this bill. I also congratulate the members of the Local Government and Environment Committee. The bill was handled in a very collegial manner. We did work through this and all the various issues. We did cover off some of the concerns about the authorities and some of the civil rights issues that were involved. Therefore it is good legislation that we have as a result because it has been hashed around a great deal and has been fine-tuned to come up with a very good solution that was acceptable to everyone. Congratulations again to Trevor Mallard on bringing it forward. Well done. This is a good piece of legislation. 
NIKKI KAYE (National—Auckland Central) 
: 
 I am pleased to speak on the Hutt City Council (Graffiti Removal) Bill. I want to start by acknowledging the chair of the Local Government and Environment Committee Nicky Wagner and other members but I also acknowledge the local member for Hutt South Trevor Mallard for bringing this bill to the House. It is not often that we have a collaborative approach on some of these matters and just on this local bill we have had a very very collaborative approach. 
I think at the heart of this bill are a couple of basic principles—actually some principles that are very close to the National Party’s heart—and they are safer communities but also private property rights. I just want to talk a little bit about that but I also acknowledge from the speech of Kris Faafoi a Labour member of the House that many of us have been victims of graffiti so we personally know what it is like to have your property damaged. Some of us or a lot of us have been involved in campaigns so we have mastered the art of removing moustaches and various other things from hoardings with a bit of meths and a rag. That is a very small example of how it feels to have your property damaged but I think there are many members in this House who know what it feels like to have that lack of respect and to have your property damaged. 
I think the other point that I would make is that we in this House can pass legislation that may try to rectify some of these issues but underneath it we must always remember as well that the basic principle—and we know from some of the statistics that a lot more young people are involved in graffiti—of teaching people respect and the value of other people’s property is not necessarily something that will come from legislation. It comes from families. It comes from communities. But I think that this bill will help in a couple of ways. The first thing is if we are able to remove that graffiti in a timely manner in the Hutt area then what that says to some of those young people who do it for a particular status is that we are not going to tolerate it. We also know that if that graffiti does hang around it is more likely that there will be other graffiti and that communities will be less safe. So I think it does help to be able to make communities safer and reduce crime. 
What has been great about this collaborative process in the select committee is that we have seen some very valuable amendments and I want to touch on them. One of the amendments is around the definition and I think it was Holly Walker from the Green Party who helped provide that very clear definition. The other amendment that I was very keen on was the deletion of clause 8. This originally was in the bill and we spent a reasonable amount of time on this. It provided the council with protection from civil proceedings arising out of actions that it may have had even with reasonable care. I think members really felt that this protection was not needed and that council employees should not be given greater protection than other local authority employees. I think that is a really important point because the whole way through this bill our discussion was not only how do we ensure that we can get rid of this graffiti in a timely manner—I think it costs $300000 to $500000 without this legislation for the Hutt City Council to be able to get the required consents to be able to remove that graffiti—but also how do we protect basic private property rights? I think that we saw clause 8 as being unnecessary because it did mean that local authority employees would have greater protections over other local authority employees. 
 I think the other main point that I would make is that as I have said before this legislation can do so much. Although we may have done some great things to tighten up some of the clauses there is a need to recognise that some of the young people who are engaging in graffiti are doing that for various social reasons so we on this side of the House are supporting programmes like Youth Guarantee to make sure that they are engaged in education and in work and are not necessarily out there vandalising people’s private property. 
I am not going to spend too much longer but I just want to say that I do commend the local member Trevor Mallard—I think I have said twice now—for bringing this bill to the House. I do want to say that I think all members of the Local Government and Environment Committee have engaged in a very collaborative process to deliver what is a very important bill for the Hutt and its community which involves making sure that our communities are safer and also protects some basic private property rights. I think that the member who spoke previously Andrew Williams is probably right. There will be communities around New Zealand that will be looking at this local bill and saying that they might be a little bit jealous. But I think overall it has been a very very productive worthwhile process and I want to commend this bill to the House. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch) 
: I understand the member is taking just a 5-minute call so I will ring the bell at 4 minutes. 
EUGENIE SAGE (Green) 
: 
 I am very pleased to take a short call on this bill the Hutt City Council (Graffiti Removal) Bill. As a new member of this House it was very encouraging being in the Local Government and Environment Committee and it having such a constructive collaborative approach to the legislation. Like others I congratulate the member Trevor Mallard on bringing in this bill. 
The Hutt City Council operates a free service to remove graffiti within the Hutt and it spends over $200000 on this annually. The bill will mean that council staff or their designated contractor no longer need to get permission to go on to private land to remove graffiti that is visible from a public place. That is provided that the council has given 10 working days’ notice to the property owner or occupier that it is going to do this and provided that it has received no objection from them. If there is an objection the graffiti stays. 
The council wanted this bill because of the high levels of tagging and graffiti in the Hutt and its experience that swift removal helps avoid further tagging and helps prevent buildings from appearing neglected and then being targeted for more tagging. So it addresses the issue of absentee property owners and building and property owners who did not respond to the council’s request for permission for its graffiti contractor to remove the tags or similar graffiti. 
When I first read this bill as introduced I was concerned that it potentially gave the council excessive powers to remove political comment and graffiti art. That was because the bill had no definition of graffiti and no protection for property owners who may have allowed their fence or their blank concrete wall to be decorated with a political slogan with a political hoarding or with some form of graffiti art. Of course what may be one person’s graffiti might be someone else’s pungent political comment. The bill as introduced would have allowed an overzealous council officer or contractor to paint over whatever he or she considered to be graffiti. So it was pleasing that the select committee agreed to include the definition of graffiti from the Summary Offences Act. That Act requires of course that there be an element of damage or defacement and that the graffiti is done without the lawful authority or consent of the owner or occupier. 
There have been suggestions that this bill be applied nationally. Certainly the Green Party would obviously consider any such bill on its merits but I have some concerns there. The Hutt City Council has been very progressive on the one hand when it has been controlling and eradicating graffiti; it has also been very progressive about channelling the energy that goes into tagging and graffiti into graffiti art. As long ago as 1999 the Dowse Art Museum ran a Style Crimes exhibition of graffiti art and a festival that involved break-dancing music and the painting of a huge mural. So the council has been working hard to be very constructive in terms of the way in which youth can express themselves through graffiti art in a positive way. It is important that that is done because it is a validation and a valuing of youth culture. If we create legislation that eliminates any form of human and youth expression by labelling it “graffiti” that is not validating youth culture. So what the council has done is progressive in doing that on the one hand as well as removing graffiti. 
Another very significant change by the select committee was as the previous speaker Nikki Kaye noted the deletion of clause 8 because it protected the council and its agents from civil proceedings. The advice to the committee was that it was unclear why council employees should be given this protection when other local government staff carrying out their responsibilities under other statutes like the Local Government Act did not have a similar protection from legal action. So as long as council staff are taking reasonable care they are very unlikely to be held to be negligent. 
This is a very good bill. The Green Party is pleased to be supporting it and I commend the member for introducing it and the work of the select committee. Thank you. 
MAGGIE BARRY (National—North Shore) 
: 
 I stand now to talk to the Hutt City Council (Graffiti Removal) Bill at its second reading. I spoke at the first reading as well. This is indeed a good piece of legislation because it fills a gap in the law. I think we are all agreed on this side of the House anyway and in the Greens pretty much and possibly even on the other side that graffiti actually encourages even more criminal acts. This piece of legislation allows any graffiti that is visible from a public place be removed. Others have outlined the measures including serving at least 10 days’ written notice to the owner or occupier of the land which does serve to protect property rights in the sense that if the owner does want to be responsible and step forward then that is also allowable. But the owners do need to clean it up. Graffiti does need to go. The zero tolerance that is shown by some councils is I think to be commended. 
This could be a bill that we all watch very carefully. As many others have said before me—and being the penultimate speaker in this most of the points have been made and reaffirmed many times—I think it is very important that we can all learn from this and I will be watching very carefully what the mayor does with this. I congratulate him and the team on having a very good tool to work with. Graffiti has been a very expensive problem for the Hutt Valley. For those of us who know it well it is a place that has been plagued with it for some time. I think that this is the kind of measure and this is the kind of bill that will not only save you $300000 to $500000 a year in the Hutt Valley but also allow people to not gain encouragement from seeing this stuff up on the walls and up on the fences. It does create an air of neglect in a city and it is something that really needs to be addressed. I think of the North Shore certainly in the Auckland area where it is a problem from time to time. 
We will be looking at this bill and seeing whether it might actually be able to be rolled out nationwide and certainly used in other areas. It is indeed an effective new tool and I commend the chair of the Local Government and Environment Committee Nicky Wagner for marshalling it through in an orderly fashion. There was indeed a great deal of collaboration and cooperation between the parties. Holly Walker from the Greens had put together a good working definition. I think everyone made a valuable contribution including of course the person who has sponsored this bill the member for Hutt South who is not someone whom I have ever had cause to congratulate on a positive contribution. He is far more usually associated with unpleasant and negative remarks in the House. This may be a one-off. The leopard may change his spots or he may not. I would certainly raise the challenge to him that making a positive contribution in the House and being pleasant and not shouting people down might be something that he chooses to take up because it has worked rather well in this instance. 
I commend the bill. I commend the process of the bill. I think it has worked very well and I commend the bill to the House. Thank you. 
Bill read a second time. 
Overseas Investment (Restriction on Foreign Ownership of Land) Amendment Bill 
First Reading 
Debate resumed from 25 July. 
STEFFAN BROWNING (Green) 
: 
 At the cut-off point I was pointing out that Governments around the world are buying up land to protect their national interests. We too should be protecting our national interests. It is not in New Zealand’s long-term strategic economic interests to approve large-scale purchases of our farmland to overseas buyers. Our land is the goose that lays the golden egg. We should sell golden eggs to the world but we should not sell the goose to the world or our goose will be cooked. 
This bill is about protecting family farmers in New Zealand. Small and medium sized New Zealand farmers are being priced out of the market by overseas buyers who purchase our farms. Overseas buyers looking to get a foothold in New Zealand can and do outbid local farmers. Shanghai Pengxin outbid Landcorp and Michael Fay’s group in the process driving up the price of rural land with the only beneficiaries being the Australian banks that had lent the Crafars the money. Those farmers who want to sell out love overseas buyers because they drive up the price but the long-term effect is to drive out family farmers and replace them with overseas corporations. Those who care about the long-term future of family farming in New Zealand will support this bill. It is about keeping families on the land. 
This bill is about cleaning up New Zealand’s shambolic and confusing system for approving overseas land sale applications. Currently the Overseas Investment Office is supposed to make a dispassionate assessment of whether applications by overseas persons to buy New Zealand land meet the tests set out in the Overseas Investment Act. In fact the Overseas Investment Office does no such thing. The Overseas Investment Office is a rubber stamp for approving the applications because that is what successive Governments have expected of it—nothing less. 
As the High Court recently found in the judicial review of the Overseas Investment Office’s handling of the Crafar farms application the Overseas Investment Office is not applying the law correctly. It is applying it in a way so that it can approve the applications. Figures released to the Green Party show that over the last few years the Overseas Investment Office has approved virtually all applications by foreign investors to buy sensitive land. But even so it is a confusing system. This bill makes it crystal clear with a clear guideline that sensitive New Zealand land is for New Zealand citizens permanent residents and New Zealand corporate entities. 
Technically what this bill does is use the existing definition of “sensitive land” in the Overseas Investment Act and then ensures that such land cannot be purchased by those defined as “overseas persons” by the Overseas Investment Act. “Sensitive land” is defined as farmland over 5 hectares in area or land greater than 0.4 hectares on an island or land greater than 0.2 hectares on the foreshore and some other specialist definitions. “Overseas person” is defined as someone who is not a New Zealand citizen or ordinary resident of New Zealand and for companies the definition is a company incorporated overseas or which is more than 25 percent owned offshore. 
Let us protect our strategic economic interests. Let us protect our family farmers. Let us clean up our overseas ownership rules. Let us keep ownership of the golden goose. I commend this bill to the House. Thank you. 
Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN (Minister of Defence) 
: 
 What a shocker of a bill! This Overseas Investment (Restriction on Foreign Ownership of Land) Amendment Bill would have to be the most stupid bill that will be brought to this House during this Parliament. I just cannot believe that the Green Party members have the audacity to bring this here as a member’s bill. It is like something that they have cooked up over a joint out the back of the Green Party conference. It is “spliff-onomics” “dak-onomics”—that is what it is “dak-onomics”. 
Gareth Hughes 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I take offence at the allegation that the Green Party is engaging in criminal activities. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: Point of order— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch) 
: No no. The member needs to withdraw that comment. I call Jonathan Coleman. 
Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN 
: I am sorry what am I meant to withdraw? 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch) 
: You made a derogatory comment and the Greens have taken exception. I ask you to withdraw and apologise. 
Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN 
: I withdraw and apologise. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: Point of order. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch) 
: No we are moving on. Dr Jonathan Coleman has the floor. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I think there is also a convention that there is an apology. If anybody knows about blowing smoke— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch) 
: That is not necessary. 
Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN 
: Well I would just like to see the Green Party members go out to their core constituency and tell them that they are opposed to the smoking of marijuana because that would be really really interesting. 
What I can say is that—I will not call it anything derogatory—what we will call this is “yokel-nomics”. Basically if this bill were to be passed we would be going back to the yokel economy of 11th century Europe where people pulled ploughs with oxen they ran around with pitchforks and they farmed little subsistence plots. For these guys the Greens to think that you could seriously go into an international forum and say that we are going to ban land sales to all foreigners is a joke. 
What is really interesting about this is that this is a vision of what you would get if we ever had the misfortune to have a Labour-Green Government. You would have Russel Norman as Minister of Finance—and obviously this is his pet project—and he would be rushing this through. This would be part of his first 100 days: to ban land sales to all overseas interests and to ban all sales of sensitive land. Clayton Cosgrove and David Parker would have to sit there in that Cabinet with these Green crazies and go along with this stuff because if they did not they would be out of Government. So this is the price that New Zealand is going to have to pay. It will be the Luddite vision of the Greens and they know it and they have been badly embarrassed over this. 
I do not know where Russel Norman cooked this up. I have given you my thoughts on it but I reckon he would have been thinking ever since this went into the members’ ballot: “You know I really do hope that bill doesn’t come out quite frankly. I really do.” because actually it was a pretty damn stupid bill and he is going to regret having put it in there. 
What has been interesting over this debate—and we had the snap debate very foolishly called by the Labour Party yesterday and it got completely thrashed in that because the actual fact is that it has changed its position on overseas investment so many times that it has been an embarrassment. Do not forget that Labour actually introduced in 2005 the Overseas Investment Act which this bill today which Labour is supporting effectively repeals. So it is completely over a barrel on this. 
Poor old David Parker. He is really taking one for the team today—big time. He signed off the sale of thousands—hundreds of thousands—of hectares of land. It is absolutely incredible. When he was the Minister for Land Information—it is absolutely incredible. But I can tell you he is going to be the next speaker and he is going to get up and tell you that Labour is backing this Green bill. [ 
Interruption 
] They are. They are. Those members are backing it and they are going to be getting up and saying that they do not support the sale of land to any foreign interests at all. It is absolutely true. That is what he will be doing in a moment. He is going to have to get up and all the National speakers are going to look to David Parker’s record as Minister for Land Information when he sold hundreds of thousands of hectares of land. 
The Labour Government sold 665000 hectares of land in its time and 380000 hectares in 2006—most of it signed off by David Parker. It got in this very difficult situation yesterday when Clayton Cosgrove I believe was saying that Labour’s position has evolved over time. It has continuously evolved. It has evolved in the last 24 hours. Yesterday those members were saying in that debate that they were in favour of the sale of some sensitive lands but they just were not in favour of the sale of the Crafar farms but today it has evolved further. They are now not in favour of the sale of any sensitive land— 
Hon John Banks 
: Xenophobic. 
Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN 
: —yes xenophobic—to any foreign interests. But that is what this bill is. This is blatant xenophobia. This is an embarrassment a national embarrassment that Labour and the Greens are backing this bill in this House and I really hope New Zealand First is going to see sense on this bill. I know those members have a different position to us but actually they are sensible practical people and they will see the madness of this absolutely ridiculous bill. 
Look Clayton Cosgrove does not agree with this bill. These guys are just laughing at it. They know that it is a joke. In actual fact he is a sensible centre-right man Clayton Cosgrove. Actually he is quite a cuddly little fellow but you know he just hates this. He hates this stuff eh? He is caught in such a terrible position because he knows that if he wants to get back into Government he has to agree to rubbish like this. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: I enjoy putting the sword into you mate. 
Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN 
: What is that—putting the sword into me? Well if that is all you are living for. You see Clayton Cosgrove—look at the face of that man. That is the face of a man who truly hates himself. He does. He is torn apart with self-hatred. He has lost his seat he is back here he is in the purgatory of Opposition— 
Hon John Banks 
: Did he lose his seat? 
Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN 
: Yes badly. He lost it—he got the kick all right—to Kate Wilkinson. Absolutely. And now he is so desperate that the only leverage he can get in this Parliament is by putting bills in and out of the ballot and talking to people in the constituency who are not coming to see him as their electoral MP and putting forward legislation of dubious benefit and then having to withdraw it. But that is another issue. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: Oh! Shall we have a look at your return or hers or yours? 
Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN 
: You can look at my return any day of the week. 
Back to David Parker. This is what David Parker signed off: Hancock Natural Resource Group Inc. He sold land to an American company in October 2006. David Parker sold 240000 hectares of sensitive forestry land worth $1.5 billion to Americans and in a moment he is going to get up and say that he agrees with this crazy Green bill. He also signed off to Ernslaw One Ltd a Malaysian company almost 14000 hectares. That was in March 2008. 
Hon Member 
: Was it sensitive? 
Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN 
: It was $117 million of sensitive land. But I tell you what. We have got Raymond Huo over there. Raymond is a good guy a sensible guy and a good representative for the Chinese community. He has got to go back to his community over the weekend and explain why the Labour Party is supporting xenophobic anti-Chinese legislation. I feel for Raymond because he signed up to the wrong party there. 
These guys here from the Green Party and the Labour Party are going to take us into a very difficult space internationally. They are going to take us into a space where New Zealand diplomats and politicians are not welcome in international fora because we will be the people if this bill passes who do not want foreign investment and who say that foreigners are unwelcome in New Zealand. I tell you what. The only losers from this legislation if it were to pass—and thankfully it will not but I will get on to that in a moment—would be the New Zealand people and the New Zealand economy. I can tell you what will happen if this goes through. There will be less capital coming into New Zealand. There will be less investment. There will be fewer people coming here to put capital into our economy and the economy will not grow. 
Russel Norman the Australian who now does not want Australians to be able to buy land here says that this bill is going to be defeated today by an evil coalition—an evil coalition. That is the National Party United Future and the ACT Party. Well I have got to say that I am very proud to be part of this coalition part of this Government because we have got sensible economic growth policies that are actually seeing us get ahead. It is about looking outwards. It is about earning our income by trading with the world. You cannot trade with the world if you say: “Actually you’re not welcome to come here and buy land.” We cannot go down the path of “yokel-nomics” that Russel “Green” Norman wants us to follow. 
Russel Norman this bill you are putting forward here is an embarrassment. There is no intellectual grunt or input that has gone into this. Russel Norman is a man who is better than this bill. He is brighter than this. He is severely misguided an unreconstructed Marxist but this is not his best work. He needs to get up and explain how the heck he came up with this because he knows that this should never have seen the light of day. It is a big mistake and a political stunt. He is going to completely embarrass David Parker who has to get up and explain that he now opposes land sales having signed off hundreds of thousands of hectares of land sales to foreign interests. I just think this bill is a joke. It is actually a waste of parliamentary time. It should be dead and buried and it is a very serious warning to the New Zealand public. 
Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour) 
: 
 Of course the National Party’s economic plan for this country is to flog everything off. There is no more depth to it than that. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: That’s right. At any cost—at any cost. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: At any cost. What is the biggest part of National’s agenda this term? Sell State-owned enterprises. Changing who owns what already exists does nothing to grow the output of your economy. It is true of asset sales and it is also true of our rural land. 
We heard a diatribe from the previous speaker Jonathan Coleman accusing the prior Labour Government of allowing the sale of rural land. Most of it was forest. The Minister was quite correct to say that. Most of it was in fact the resale of land owned by Carter Holt Harvey that had previously been sold into overseas ownership moved back into New Zealand ownership for a day and then onsold to new foreign investors. That is what those big hectares relate to. In any event the lessons that New Zealand has learnt as a consequence of what happened through the sale of our forestry sector ought to be a salutary lesson as to why it is that we do not want to make the same mistake in respect of all of our other rural land. 
There is no doubt that the sale of our forestry estate has meant that we have ended up processing fewer of our logs as a proportion of our total. There is no doubt about that at all. If you want to see third-party commentators who have analysed that have a look at what Brian Gaynor has written about how if you lose control of the ownership of some of these interests in land you end up depriving New Zealand of the full value stream that flows from the use of those lands. There is no economic advantage to New Zealand from flogging off our dairy land. We know this from the analysis of the High Court when it overturned Minister Williamson’s initial decision to sell the Crafar farms. The court said that it was not convinced that the improvements to productivity to production that would happen under the purchaser Shanghai Pengxin would not have happened anyway under alternative purchasers. That is just common sense. 
We know that we are very efficient farmers in New Zealand and that we increase farm output where it is economic to do so. That is why we are successful in these industries around the world. These are our primary industries. They are our premier industries. They are the way in which we keep control of Fonterra. Ownership of land is what leads to ownership of Fonterra. That has been diluted a little bit through the share trading bill that this House passed without the appropriate protections in respect of Fonterra recently but generally landownership is what controls ownership of our cooperatives. Those cooperatives have been very successful at maintaining vertically integrated ownership of a decent share of the profits that can flow from the land. 
We heard some assertion that this bill the Overseas Investment (Restriction on Foreign Ownership of Land) Amendment Bill is all some crazy economic vision being brought forward by the Greens and supported by the Labour Party. Well do you know what happens in Japan? It has a very successful economy. Does it let foreigners buy its land? 
Hon John Banks 
: Really? Really? A successful economy. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: Yes it has a successful economy Mr Banks. It would have a per capita income that is far higher than New Zealand’s. It runs a current account surplus year after year after year unlike the New Zealand current account deficit which has been four decades in length. It controls its sales of land. So does China. What about the land of the free? What about the United States of America? Why did you not mention it? Why was the land of the free the United States of America not mentioned? There are a number of states in the United States of America that stop foreigners purchasing their rural land. [ 
Bell rung 
] One minute? Is this a 5-minute speech Mr Speaker? 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch) 
: Yes it is. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: Oh right. OK I thought it was 10. Thank you Mr Speaker. 
There are problems with this bill. This bill is not perfect. It does go too far. It says that no sensitive land ought to be sold—that is no rural land at all. We say that there are exceptions that need to be made. For example if someone was bringing in intellectual property or was going to bring jobs that would not otherwise occur then we are willing to look at that as a matter of ministerial discretion. That can be fixed at the select committee. We think that there are some revisions that are needed in respect of that but it is better than the status quo. Those things can be fixed at the select committee and those changes ought to be allowed to be made by this bill getting the vote at first reading. 
If parties cannot evolve their positions as circumstances change then democracy becomes moribund and we might as well not have democracy. We might as well have dictatorship. It is appropriate that— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch) 
: I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member. His time has expired.  
Hon JOHN BANKS (Leader—ACT) 
: 
 The ACT Party opposes this xenophobic exercise in economic nationalism. That is what the Overseas Investment (Restriction on Foreign Ownership of Land) Amendment Bill is. It is a xenophobic exercise in economic nationalism. What a cheek—the Australian leader of the Green Party coming into this Parliament and wielding this xenophobic piece of legislation in the House. But at least he is smart enough to line up the Labour Party to go with him like one of the lemmings. 
One of the great leaders of this country once said to me: “Some doctors make you well and others make you sick.” Well I can tell Dr Norman that if he wants investment growth and jobs in this country then this proposition is sick. This bill is diametrically opposed to the best interests of this country. Members should know that when it comes to welcoming foreign investment in New Zealand New Zealand is already an international laggard. Every few years the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development measures how open countries are to foreign investment including investment in land. Members should get used to the idea. The same members might be surprised to hear that out of 55 countries measured New Zealand is the sixth most restrictive country on foreign investment. What are foreign owners going to do with the land? What is a self-respecting Aussie who wants to come to this Parliament going to do when he buys his one-bedroom flat in Manukau Road in Epsom in my electorate? He cannot take it back to Aussie when he has finished with his political career come the next election. It stays here. It is an investment here. There are fewer restrictions on investing in Russia than there are here. 
If we wish to prosper we need foreign investment. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: Where is Dotcom from? 
Hon JOHN BANKS 
: I can say to “Mini-Mike” that if we want to prosper— 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: Better that than “Mini-Rodney”. 
Hon JOHN BANKS 
: The downmarket version of Mike Moore—that is whom we are hearing from—is yapping across the other side of the House. I want to hear him. I cannot understand the Labour Party members who want to be on this side of the House. The previous speaker David Parker was parachuted into the Epsom electorate got 2000 votes and we have not seen him on Broadway in Newmarket ever since. 
I want you to know that we know we need foreign investment because up until approximately 1000 years ago there was no foreign investment in New Zealand. There were no jobs either 1000 years ago. There was no foreign investment and no jobs. Foreign investment equals jobs foreign investment equals productivity foreign investment equals foreign exchange earnings and foreign investment equals the fact that New Zealand is going to go ahead and be able to compete with the rest of the world. 
Take this example Labour Party people over there. James Cameron listening on his crystal set in the Wairarapa tonight will be appalled. The best film director in the world will soon live within an hour of this Parliament. He is bringing his capital he is bringing his know-how and he is going to bring many many jobs to this country. But the Labour Party and the Australian leader of the Green Party do not want James Cameron here. The Australian leader of the Green Party does not want James Cameron here. With this legislation if we pass it through here James Cameron the greatest film director in the world—one of the great ones—will not be welcome in this country. Only the Green Party would want to discourage that kind of investment—only the Green Party. Only an interloping Australian leader of the Marxist Green Party in this Parliament would want that kind of legislation foisted on the people. 
This bill actually tells us quite a lot about the Green Party does it not? It is a party of old dudes and young fogies—old dudes and young fogies. One of the older members Steffan Browning said that this bill is “totally timely”. That is what Steffan said—that it is totally timely. As modern as it sounds this bill would be a step backwards towards fortress New Zealand of old. This would be fortress New Zealand of old. People would be packing up their bags and fleeing to where that joker fled from—Australia across the Tasman. Well we say to the Australians unlike the Australian leader of the Green Party in this Parliament that if you want to come to New Zealand invest in New Zealand buy land in New Zealand buy property in New Zealand create jobs in New Zealand and create wealth for New Zealand then you are welcome. 
This bill would be a disaster for this country. It would close down New Zealand when it needs to be opening up and would leave the nasty aftertaste of Green xenophobia in our mouths. That is what it would do. It would leave a nasty aftertaste of Green xenophobia. I have not heard in the last 8 months what that party stands for in terms of investment growth jobs and creating wealth and foreign exchange earnings. [ 
Interruption 
] Ah the little yapper there. He has never had a real job in his life— 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member but his time has expired. 
ANDREW WILLIAMS (NZ First) 
: 
 I take a call on behalf of New Zealand First on the Overseas Investment (Restriction on Foreign Ownership of Land) Amendment Bill. I guess it will be of no surprise to most people listening to this or watching this or in this House that New Zealand First will support this bill because we do not support the sale of land to foreigners. We have consistently opposed the sale of land to overseas interests and we will continue to do so. In fact back in 1997 New Zealand First first brought in the initiative to drastically reduce the sales of land to foreigners each year. Just imagine—if that had been enacted all those years ago then we would have a lot more land in New Zealand ownership today than is currently the case. 
At the present time about 70 percent of our forestry is in foreign ownership. New Zealand First has always opposed the sale of land to foreigners so this bill is very much in New Zealand First territory. However New Zealand First is not opposed to foreign investment as long as such investment stands the test of being to New Zealand’s advantage. New Zealand First stands firm against asset sales to foreign interests. 
New Zealand First’s foreign investment policy also includes the premise that such investment must be in the interests of all of New Zealand and New Zealanders. The private interests of foreign owners and shareholders are not our concern but the public interest of New Zealanders is. We also are in favour of rewriting the foreign investment policy framework and operational requirements as they relate to the work of the Overseas Investment Office to protect the national interest—and that is where this bill comes in—in line with long-held New Zealand First policy. 
When you look at the definition of sensitive land in the principal Act—and perhaps Government members need to have a look at it—it is interesting to see that it includes things such as islands apart from the North Island and South Island—and we are talking about many sensitive islands around New Zealand’s coasts—the bed of lakes the land held for conservation purposes the foreshore and seabed and many other sensitive areas along those lines including heritage sites wahi tapu sites and the like. So when we are talking about sensitive land it also means that foreign interests cannot buy some of our cherished heritage some of our very very sensitive conservation areas or areas adjoining waterways or foreshore areas which again could be perceived as being sensitive. So in this regard it is good. 
I am a fifth-generation New Zealander. Both my mother’s and my father’s side of the family arrived in the 1840s. I am one who most certainly wants to see New Zealand land kept in the hands of New Zealanders and not sold off to foreigners. We do not want to become tenants in our own country. We do not want people coming to this country just to use it as a convenient place to have some sort of spot in the South Pacific that they can come to once or twice a year but who are in fact giving nothing to the economy. 
I was aware of a number of instances where people were coming great distances to stay in holiday houses in New Zealand that they owned in very very sensitive strategic locations while New Zealanders themselves could not access some of those same areas of New Zealand coastal land. It is a great shame when we get to that sort of a situation. We do not want to be in a situation in this country where good New Zealand Kiwis no longer have the same access to all of our sensitive areas of this country. 
We certainly would hope that this will have a flow-on effect through the current asset sales petition that is going around New Zealand. We certainly hope that the likes of this is another feather in the cap in that more and more New Zealanders will also sign that to ensure that there are not State asset sales per se going on under this Government and that basically we are striving to keep New Zealand for New Zealanders. In that situation it is very much fitting that the New Zealand First Party stands for putting New Zealanders first and in that respect we commend the member in charge of this bill Dr Russel Norman in terms of also wanting to ensure that New Zealanders are put first in terms of our sensitive land in our beautiful country. Thank you. 
KANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI (National) 
: 
 Thank you for the opportunity to speak on the first reading of the Overseas Investment (Restriction on Foreign Ownership of Land) Amendment Bill. On behalf of migrants I would like to say that such a bill will be a disappointment for them. They bring a lot of investment which in turn creates a lot of jobs. Such a bill will restrict them from bringing in their investment. I hope my good friend Raymond Huo will stand and join me in saying this on behalf of migrants. 
This bill is designed to retain ownership and control of sensitive lands within New Zealand. It amends the Overseas Investment Act 2005 to prevent overseas persons from purchasing sensitive land. This critical bill also means that nobody can buy sensitive land unless they are a citizen or an ordinary resident nor can any company that is 25 percent or more foreign-owned. 
I call this bill critical for a number of reasons. Our colleagues on the opposite side of this House want New Zealand to enjoy a high standard of living minimum wages to be raised and to compete with Australia. However these wonderful colleagues of ours who have all these bright theoretical ideas do not share their wisdom on where as a country we are going to fund these theoretical ideas from. Our colleagues suggest we raise the company tax at a time when our largest competitor and trading partner is contemplating lowering the tax rates. We do not need a supercomputing brain to calculate the impact of this decision on our economy our businesses and our jobs. 
I also take this opportunity to remind my colleagues that most countries are facing the global financial crisis. This means that investors are looking for alternatives to the traditional economies of Europe and America to invest in. Therefore I believe that this is our opportunity to benefit from the current situation that New Zealand and the world at large is in. This is also our opportunity to provide our people with more much-needed jobs and economic growth. This is definitely our opportunity to provide New Zealanders with the kinds of lifestyles they are entitled to. 
As the Prime Minister the Rt Hon John Key said we have been spending like First World countries and it is high time that we start earning and building up an economy that belongs to the First World. Unless we take decisive action now future generations stand to bear the burden of our inaction and our wrong decisions. This country needs overseas investment so that our businesses have access to much-needed capital. Access to capital means they can expand their operations which in turn means they will employ more people. It will also mean that our businesses can look at not just national but international expansion of their operations. This will boost our exports thereby improving our lifestyle and wages. 
On one side we talk of New Zealand being an open and internationally competitive economy and on the other hand we have Opposition members proposing that we turn New Zealand into a fortress where there is a limit on who can invest. This attitude of the Green Party will no doubt limit our incomes and lead to a depreciation in the quality of public services and it will most certainly not lead to any job creation. I oppose this bill. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour) 
: 
 Mr Speaker— 
Hon John Banks 
: Ah “Mini-Mike”. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: John Archibald Banks who interjected just before I stood up called me “Mini-Mike”. I presume that refers to my good friend—a very close friend of mine—Mike Moore who— 
Kris Faafoi 
: The right honourable. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: —the Rt Hon Mike Moore who does have a good memory unlike the Hon John Banks. I say this: if the insult from Mr Banks is that somehow I look up to Mr Moore then that is true. Better that than being “Mini - Rodney Hide” with the credibility in this Parliament of John Archibald Banks whose credibility we know is in the toilet. I will not waste any more time on him. At least Mike Moore and other members in this Chamber can remember their own name not just when it suits them and can tell the truth. 
Hon John Banks 
: I’m being savaged by a sheep. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: Well you would know. You would know being a pork-barrel politician. 
I want to address the Overseas Investment (Restriction on Foreign Ownership of Land) Amendment Bill. Labour will support this bill. Labour will support this bill’s referral to a select committee. We and other parties in this House have been accused of xenophobia. I will just say this on the Labour Party position: we have a bill in David Shearer’s name actually which restricts foreign investment in land where there is—and this is the bit that those members do not understand—no likely economic benefit to New Zealand such as farmland but would still allow investment where there are clear economic benefits. That is the Labour position. How can it be xenophobic to require foreign owners to add value to our economy? How can that be xenophobic? 
What we say is that if you want to buy it you have got to add some value. You have got to create some real jobs not just employ one or two people to make it look good. You have got to add value innovation technology and market access—add value to New Zealand. But simply just swapping ownership from domestic ownership to foreign ownership with no value add in critically important land assets in New Zealand simply does this: it transfers the revenue streams out from domestic owners to foreign owners. That benefits no one in New Zealand. So we say that where there are critical assets where there is a clear economic benefit then investment can take place. Investment can take place but you have got to actually— 
Hon John Banks 
: That’s not what the bill says. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: I am talking about our position “Banksie”. I am talking about our position. But you see then we have the position of National over there which is to sell everything holus-bolus whether or not they are State-owned assets aided and abetted by Rumpelstiltskin in the corner there who trots along hanging on to the coat-tails of his National Party brethren desperate to hang on in this place. He has no credibility and has done nothing—done nothing. The only bit of legislation that genius has put into this House is to repeal 31 Acts that do not exist. What an absolute genius! His credibility is in the political sewer—everybody knows it—but he is clinging to his National Party mates. That is what this is about. 
This is about John Key and his pride. He will sell anything at any cost. We see that with the State-owned enterprises with a tribunal hanging over him with court action hanging over him and with the worst possible economic environment in which to float a company and sell off a State-owned asset yet John Key will do it. To hell with the taxpayers who have built those assets up for generations. He will do it simply because his and the National Party’s pride is at stake. And the little snivelling one in the corner there whose credibility is in the dunny clings to his National Party mates turns up to the trough and will vote accordingly with National in order to preserve his own little future. He is a man who has “honourable” in front of his name which for that member is now an oxymoron. We say that where there is an economic benefit to New Zealand where foreign ownership can prove that it can add value then that is the appropriate way to execute the sale of certain land. 
We think this bill does need some changes. We will be promoting some changes but we do believe that it is appropriate to support the bill’s referral to a select committee so there can be a proper examination of the issues before a select committee. And by the way it will allow us to show up the ineptitude the policy gaffes and the contradictions once again of the National Party when it comes to land of significance and when it comes to State-owned enterprises because all it is willing to do all it wants to do is sell New Zealand out. John Banks has done that with the people of Epsom. 
Dr RUSSEL NORMAN (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 I rise to speak on the Overseas Investment (Restriction on Foreign Ownership of Land) Amendment Bill. This is essentially a bill that makes sure that New Zealand farmland stays in New Zealand ownership. That is the nub of the bill. Fundamentally what drives this issue—and it is not just an issue for New Zealand; it is a global issue—is that on a finite planet food-producing land is becoming more and more valuable. That is the fundamental reality that sits behind this bill and the global debate about the global land-grab. So whether you read the  
New Scientist 
 where there has been a lot of debate around the global land-grab or whether you read Oxfam reports all over the world there is a debate about what to do about the fact that large sovereign States—particularly some of the Gulf States but elsewhere as well—as well as large corporations are buying up large tracts of land. The reason they are buying up large tracts of land is around food security fundamentally. South Korea is very concerned about food security as are China and other food-importing countries and the way they are trying to address that is by trying to buy up food-producing land. 
The figures on this are hard to come by because it is not very well regulated but possibly 2 million square kilometres of land has been bought up in the global land-grab in the last decade. That is the equivalent of Spain France Britain Italy and Germany combined. It is a very very large area. This global phenomenon of food-producing land becoming more valuable is being driven by a few things. The first of course is the growing population. The second is the growth of the middle class within those populations who obviously are looking for more and more protein-rich foods such as the dairy from New Zealand. It is also being driven by climate change. We are seeing real problems around food-producing land with uncertain and unstable weather which has meant that there have been significant crop failures in various places. All of that has put enormous pressure on food prices. We have seen a big spike in food prices over the last few years and that of course is being reflected in land prices. New Zealand is in the fortunate position of having access to quite a lot of food-producing land with access to water. That land over time is becoming increasingly valuable and they are not making any more of it. 
So we need to have a debate about how we respond to those global pressures. One option which is the Government option is to have a free-for-all. If people want to buy land then it will rubber-stamp the applications that come before it as we have seen from the Overseas Investment Office. That seems to me to be a particularly stupid approach and does not take account of what is happening internationally. I was hoping tonight that we would hear some reasons from the Government but all we heard from Jonathan Coleman and Mr Banks who are going to form—National and ACT together and Peter Dunne—the majority that will probably defeat this bill was an attack on me for being a migrant. I think it is extraordinary that the Government members got up in this House and accused the Green Party of xenophobia and then attacked me personally for being a migrant in New Zealand. I would say to every migrant in New Zealand: “Do not listen to Jonathan Coleman. Do not listen to John Banks. You are welcome in this country.” Every migrant who comes here has a right to be in this country every migrant in New Zealand has a right to buy land and we in the Green Party believe it is important that migrants and all other New Zealanders are able to afford to buy land. 
If land in New Zealand becomes part of a global market—an unregulated global market—the price of land will be driven up so that family farmers will be driven out of business. It will not be possible—it is not possible—for ordinary family farmers to compete with the likes of Shanghai Pengxin and other very large players which are backed by sovereign States that are buying up land. There is no way to compete with the kind of money that they have available to buy land. So whether you are New Zealand - born and bred a citizen here or whether like me you have come here as a migrant—and I am proud to say I am a migrant and I say to John Banks and Jonathan Coleman that you might attack migrants but we are not going to listen to you—this bill is about making sure that everybody who makes New Zealand their home can afford to buy land here. Because if we have open slather from all of the international forces we will drive up the price of land out of the reach of ordinary residents and citizens in this country. That is fundamentally what this bill is all about—dealing with the international pressures to make sure that family farmers have a future in this country and to make sure that ordinary citizens and residents can afford to buy land in New Zealand. That means keeping New Zealand farmland in particular for New Zealand citizens and residents and New Zealand - owned companies. Otherwise that land over time will become more and more expensive. 
PAUL GOLDSMITH (National) 
: 
 This bill the Overseas Investment (Restriction on Foreign Ownership of Land) Amendment Bill is enlightening. We have seen Mr Norman make a great effort to appear more reasonable and focused on the economy and he has been sensitive to the charge that the Greens are merely watermelons—green on the outside and red in the middle. He is focused on the economy in all of his questions he looks serious and he evinces great concern about the economy. That is very good and I applaud it in many ways. 
But this bill shows us the Greens’ true colours—its raging unreconstructed closed-economy piece of policy. It is anti-growth it is based on fear—like most of what the Green Party is doing—feeding on fear that the world is about to implode and that all sorts of foreigners are going to come in and take our land. It is based on fear. It is about wrapping New Zealand up in a cocoon of protection and regulation and I am against it. 
The basic effect of this bill would be to stop virtually all foreign investment in land. Anything could be described as sensitive. This is a party that stood under the campaign slogan in 2011 that it was For a Richer New Zealand. Well what a joke. You actually have to earn a living in this world and by closing our borders and sealing the borders as this bill would do we are not going to get very far. 
It is a good job that Mr Norman and the Greens were not around in the 19th century because nobody would have come to this country the country would not have developed it would not have happened if you did not have the ability for people to come from overseas and buy property and invest in it. This country—this economy—has been built on men and women from distant lands coming and investing their money in businesses and in land in this country. Some remained overseas and their capital built enterprises and developed the land providing jobs for locals and improving the productivity of this country. That is how we grew as a country. More often than not once they had made that investment they decided eventually to settle here with their families and that is how New Zealand made its progress. 
So I am not surprised that the Greens have come up with a bill like this but I am shocked however to see that the once-proud Labour Party is supporting this bill as well. Mike Moore would be turning in—well not his grave; he has not got there yet—his bed in Washington DC right at the moment at the thought that his party the Labour Party which once stood for free markets and for being open and for free trade has now given in to pusillanimous me-too-ism following the Greens in this to the bottom. 
Let us run through some of the arguments of why foreign investment is good for the economy. Small high-productivity economies rely on international connections of people of capital of trade and of ideas. All those things are linked. With the money come the people the ideas and the opportunity for trade. That is what foreign investment is all about. We do not have to be terrified of foreigners. Look at the wonderful things that people like Julian Robertson have done for New Zealand. They have come in bought farms invested in vineyards and golf courses fallen in love with the country and started donating great paintings to the art gallery and there are many such stories. These are not people to be afeard of. Foreign investment greatly helps to add to the overall dynamism and diversity in a society and it is not something we need to be afraid of. 
Of course the system proposed by this bill would—where it is talking vaguely about sensitive land—be so capricious and so hazardous that no one in their right mind would consider coming to New Zealand and investing in this land in that environment. A second area of course is that a growing economy needs investment and New Zealand has always needed capital since the start of European settlement. We have imported capital. We are a young growing economy still. That is nothing to be ascared of. What we see here is a bill from a party that does not want growth is anti-growth and there is nothing to be commended in that. 
It is worth remembering too—sorry I slipped off the step; I was getting carried away there—that foreign direct investment tends to lead to higher wages. Let me explain. I would just like to say that this bill has all the intellectual coherence of the speech that we heard from the leader of the Labour Party yesterday. I just want to quote the leader— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch) 
: I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member but his time has expired. You should not have fallen off the perch. 
RAYMOND HUO (Labour) 
: 
 Mr Paul Goldsmith’s gesture just confirmed how important it is to strike a balance. To that end and in that regard Labour supports this bill the Overseas Investment (Restriction on Foreign Ownership of Land) Amendment Bill but we do have some concerns about its scope and focus. Therefore Labour supports this bill being referred to a select committee because we are interested in hearing what the submitters may say about it. 
Jami-Lee Ross 
: What does the Chinese community think of that? 
RAYMOND HUO 
: The interjections from the National members are very interesting and very helpful. As Labour’s first member of Parliament of Chinese ethnicity it is very fitting for me to reiterate that it was under the Labour Government that in 1972 New Zealand established a full diplomatic relationship with the People’s Republic of China. This year marks the 40th anniversary of the diplomatic relationship between New Zealand and China. 
In reply to Mr Jami-Lee Ross it is very important for me to reiterate that it was under Labour that New Zealand apologised to the Chinese people in 2005 over the racially discriminatory legislation and poll tax. More relevant to this bill is that it was under a Labour Government that New Zealand signed the free-trade agreement with China in 2008 making it our second-largest trading partner. Our exports to China have increased to over 60 percent with more money being injected into the New Zealand economy which flows on to more jobs being created. 
Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m. 
RAYMOND HUO 
: New Zealanders have widespread concerns about this issue and these are valid. As a Kiwi-Chinese I share these issues. I share these concerns because we are not addressing these issues for ourselves now; we are addressing these issues for their future generations. It is all about striking a balance. Labour supports foreign investment but we cannot afford to sell our future. To quote the Prime Minister John Key we cannot afford to become tenants in our own land. As I said— 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: You can’t be giving this speech. 
RAYMOND HUO 
: Well that Minister Maurice Williamson is laughing. I do not know whether he is laughing at my contribution or laughing at his Prime Minister’s quote. I will quote it again: New Zealand cannot afford to become tenants in our own land. 
As I said however we do have some concerns about the scope and the focus of Dr Russel Norman’s member’s bill because effectively it prevents any foreign ownership of sensitive land. Labour’s own bill in that regard has taken a balanced approach. It limits the discretion of the portfolio Ministers to approve applications for the purchase of rural land. It would therefore significantly narrow the type of investment in rural land and ensure that the economic benefits job creation and increases in our exports are the most important factors to be considered. It does not prevent all foreign investment in New Zealand but it does recognise that buying land in New Zealand is a privilege. 
I have just quoted what the Prime Minister said that New Zealand could not afford to become tenants in our own land. In a similar vein we cannot afford to lose control of our best income-producing assets. Talking about our best income-producing assets a  
New Zealand Herald  
story by Adam Bennett says that the Government’s sell-off firms are top performers. A report by accounting firm Ernst and Young released just before Christmas last year confirmed that those State-owned energy companies that this National - ACT Government is so passionate about selling are generating returns well in excess of the Government’s cost of owning them and out perform most similar private sector companies. It is a matter of striking a balance. If we fail to strike a balance New Zealand is going to tumble down. Thank you. 
Dr RUSSEL NORMAN (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 I rise to speak on the Overseas Investment (Restriction on Foreign Ownership of Land) Amendment Bill which is about protecting New Zealand farmland for New Zealand residents and citizens. This is part of a broader debate that we need to have about foreign investment in New Zealand. 
The Green Party is not opposed to foreign investment. We think however that before the New Zealand Government and people approve foreign investment there should be some value-adding for New Zealand. There should be new capital new networks and new technology. There have to be some reasons to approve such foreign investment. Unfortunately we have not been able to have the mature debate in this Parliament that we need. For example from the National Party Jonathan Coleman and Maurice Williamson we have just had abuse directed at me for being a migrant. That is National’s approach and we see them sniggering over there. They abuse migrants and they argue that migrants do not have a right to speak in New Zealand. I disagree with that and I would say to Maurice Williamson and Jonathan Coleman and to John Banks who also said this that migrants have got a right to speak in this Parliament. 
I say to migrants in New Zealand that the National Party the ACT Party Jonathan Coleman Maurice Williamson and John Banks abuse migrants but the Green Party stands up for migrants and the rights of migrants to speak in this Parliament and the rights of migrants to own land in New Zealand because this is about New Zealand citizens and permanent residents being able to afford to buy land in New Zealand. 
If we have unrestricted overseas buy up of land in New Zealand as part of the global land-grab it will become unaffordable for ordinary New Zealanders whether those New Zealanders were born here or whether they are migrants like me. So if you are a migrant do not listen to the abuse from Maurice Williamson do not listen to the abuse from Jonathan Coleman and do not listen to the abuse from John Banks. Actually stand up for your rights. Because you are a citizen in this country you are a permanent resident in this country and you have rights. 
Under this Green Party bill you have rights to own land. In fact you will be able to afford land under this bill because as opposed to the National - ACT Government—the John Key - John Banks Government—we think that land should be affordable for all New Zealanders. That is the purpose of this bill because those who understand what is happening with global capitalism at the moment will understand that there are these enormous capital flows and there is enormous value being placed on food-producing land all over the world. There is what is called a global land-grab under way; a massive area of land has been bought both by sovereign countries and by large corporations because they value food-producing productive land. New Zealand land is a target for that global land-grab and if we do not protect the golden goose—the golden goose that lays the golden eggs—then we have only ourselves to blame. New Zealand is a target if we are not smart enough to have the intelligent debate which obviously the National Party is incapable of to discuss how we engage with foreign investment what kind of foreign investment is good for New Zealand and what kind of foreign investment does not add anything to the New Zealand economy but simply becomes a drain on the New Zealand economy. 
That is the kind of sophisticated discussion that we need to have as a country as we engage as a small open economy with the rest of the world. It is very difficult to have that conversation in this Parliament when of course the National Party and the ACT Party just flaunt abuse. But I am very thankful that my colleagues in the Labour Party New Zealand First the Maori Party and Mana are all supporting this bill through to the select committee stage because I accept that not everybody thinks that this bill is perfect. But it is part of the debate we need to have in the select committee and elsewhere in New Zealand about what the right kinds of policy settings are so that we get the most from foreign investment but do not lose control of our country and do not lose control of the profit streams that come out of land as well as other kinds of assets in New Zealand if they become overseas-owned. 
We have seen problems in the banking sector and the telecommunications sector where overseas purchasers have simply bought up existing companies and have dominated those sectors and they have become drains on the New Zealand economy as those profits have travelled overseas. So it is very important that we protect key strategic parts of our economy like our food-producing land and make sure that those profits and the benefits from that land actually flow back to New Zealand. That is what this bill is all about. 
This bill is likely to be defeated tonight on the vote of John Banks—that one person; that man who solicited and received donations and then declared them as anonymous. It is John Banks that one vote that is likely to defeat this bill and that is morally repugnant. This bill should go to the select committee. This bill has the support of New Zealanders. This bill is the bill that will actually keep New Zealand farmland under New Zealand control and all New Zealanders support that as a matter of fact. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the Overseas Investment (Restriction on Foreign Ownership of Land) Amendment Bill be now read a first time.  
Ayes 59 
New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 8; Maori Party 2; Mana 1. 
Noes 61 
New Zealand National 59; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1. 
Motion not agreed to. 
Habeas Corpus Amendment Bill 
First Reading 
CHRIS AUCHINVOLE (National) 
: 
 I move  
That the Habeas Corpus Amendment Bill be now read a first time. 
 I nominate that the Justice and Electoral Committee consider this bill. 
The genesis of this bill the Habeas Corpus Amendment Bill occurred when I was in Opposition and was placed on the Justice and Electoral Committee. At the first meeting I attended the Law Commission represented by the Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey Palmer appeared before us for a financial review of its activities. The Hon Chris Finlayson who had explained to me that he thought it important that membership of the Justice and Electoral Committee should not just be the preserve of those with legal training and practice experience invited me to lead the queries to Sir Geoffrey. It was a great experience. One of the questions I asked Sir Geoffrey was: “How much of the commission’s revised work is taken up by parliamentarians and processed?”. In response he said that very little was taken up and he qualified it by saying that he understood that successive Governments had heavy legislative programmes and that it was not easy to fit revision bills into the programme. 
In response I undertook to introduce a member’s bill this particular one which adopts many of the Law Commission’s recommendations to further improve the Habeas Corpus Act which in itself was a member’s bill initially put in and passed through by the Hon Simon Power. It is a privilege to be following in his footsteps with this bill particularly with regard to this writ. 
The writ of habeas corpus is known as the “great writ” for good reason. It requires that the applicant be brought before the court and that the court examine the legality of detention whether public or private of that person—that is the writ exists to protect personal freedom from unlawful detention. It is a fundamental guarantee of liberty that no one can be imprisoned or detained without lawful authority. It has been called by New Zealand courts “the most famous of all writs” “the ancient and powerful prerogative remedy” and “an ancient and specialised jurisdiction”. It is a very old piece of legislation older indeed than Magna Carta. 
In spite of this or perhaps because of it—its importance as a foundation stone of a free and fair society—it has had a long history of being updated and improved as the ideal of freedom evolved and expanded. Even before the writ was brought to these shores it had already been through changes challenges and great improvements and had continued to prove its importance. As the Rt Hon Lord Sir Alfred Denning noted in his work  
Freedom under the Law 
: 
“In 1627 when the executive Government cast Sir Thomas Darnel and four other knights into prison because they would not subscribe money for the King the Court of the King’s Bench to its disgrace held that if a man were committed by command of the King he was not to be delivered by habeas corpus. Those were the … days when judges took their orders from the executive. But the people of England overthrew [that particular] Government which so assailed their liberties and passed statutes which gave the writ its present power. Never thereafter have the judges taken their orders from anyone.” 
The changes proposed in this bill are not quite as dramatic as was the case then. The situation today does not require such sweeping change but they are important changes for the continuing relevance of the writ. It is important that we have a modern justice system to deal with modern times technologies and legal practices. 
The writ was previously purely an instrument of the courts in common law but it was codified in the Habeas Corpus Act. In 2007 the Law Commission reviewed the workings of that Act and the practices that surround it and recommended certain amendments in order to improve its operation. Among these recommendations were removing the priority rule the extension of the 3-day rule and summary dismissals of inappropriate applications. 
By removing the priority rule—to explain each of those points—the High Court or a judge of that court will be given the ability to dispense in appropriate cases with the rule that habeas corpus applications take precedence over all other business. Currently that is the rule—habeas corpus must take precedence over all other business. The presumption will be in this bill that habeas corpus applications have precedence over other matters but with the ability of a judge—a High Court judge—to relax that presumption if circumstances demand it. The Law Commission gave examples of a court needing to intervene to ensure that children receive lifesaving medical treatment or an interim injunction to prevent publication of material that could endanger national security. The Law Commission was very clear that the requirement of priority and urgency for applications will remain. It said: “By amending the requirement for absolute precedence over all other court business it is not suggested that habeas corpus applications be dealt with in any other way than as a matter of priority and urgency.” 
The second amendment the extension of the 3-day rule will state that although a 3-working-day time frame for hearing an application should remain the ordinary rule—the ordinary rule—the High Court or a judge of that court should be given the ability to dispense with this exacting requirement again in cases that are appropriate. Applications should always be treated urgently. But in complex cases it may be well be and it is sometimes found that parties actually require more than 3 days’ preparation to argue the case properly. Otherwise there is a risk of inadequate decision-making or of judges issuing interim orders that have the effect of delaying a substantive decision longer than is necessary. 
Andrew Little 
: It’s about freedom not preparation. I thought you were the party of freedom. 
CHRIS AUCHINVOLE 
: As the Law Commission has said: “An inadequate timeframe can operate to the disadvantage”—Mr Little—“of the applicant as much as it can to a respondent.” Again this bill does not diminish the substantive rights and safeguards of the applicant during the process. 
The bill will provide a new power to dismiss applications without the need for the defendant to establish the lawfulness of the detention where the application is statute barred under section 15(1) of the Act or involves the wrong procedure. The judge could indicate the procedure by means of which the application is appropriately brought. Sometimes it is clear on the face of an application for habeas corpus that the writ could not be issued and this is one of the central problems that need to be addressed—for example when the writ has already been refused by the court or when a prisoner is serving an unexpired sentence. In that case an immediate release is not a possibility and yet the legal fraternity uses this as a device. 
The Law Commission noted that some of these applications appear to have been brought by applicants who know that it is the incorrect procedure. I am sure that members in the House with legal practice experience will be able to elucidate on the way applications for habeas corpus can be used as a device to defer High Court activity and for other reasons. Allowing judges to summarily dismiss such applications will save time and make our courts more efficient. 
The bill also provides an express provision permitting pre-hearing conferences by telephone video link or other technology authorised by the rules of the court so it brings it into modern communication practice. This will allow greater numbers of applications to be disposed of with more efficiency especially for the summary cases I have just referred to while still being consistent with the rights and freedoms affirmed in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990. 
To conclude this bill further clears courts of inappropriate stalling tactics it allows judges to serve justice in a timely fashion and it is part of this Government’s focus on promoting an effective efficient and fair justice system. This bill promotes a better justice system and I hope it will garner the support of this House as its intentions towards the great writ are noble and in keeping with the intentions of the writ itself. I thank the House for its time and look forward to hearing discussion from my esteemed fellow members of Parliament on this bill. Thank you. 
CHARLES CHAUVEL (Labour) 
: 
 This bill the Habeas Corpus Amendment Bill would implement word for word the recommendations of the Law Commission in its 30-page 2007 report  
Habeas Corpus: Refining the Procedure 
. Law Commission reports normally have great merit. This one does. Labour will therefore support this bill through all its readings and all its stages. 
But I do want to say this: Law Commission reports should be progressed by the Government. The last Labour Government introduced procedures in its third term of office to ensure that Law Commission reports would be expedited. Those procedures have been abandoned by the present Government and that is why so many Law Commission reports now sit on the list of unactioned items from that body. Instead of the Government of the day implementing Law Commission reports we now see this tactic from the National Party backbench of using up members’ day time by putting up— 
Hon Members 
: Oh! 
CHARLES CHAUVEL 
: —Law Commission - recommended bills. 
Hon Simon Bridges 
: This is cutting! 
CHARLES CHAUVEL 
: This is not the purpose of members’ day. Although members opposite think that this is a joke I know that those watching Parliament and listening to Parliament tonight will not be impressed by the fact that this tactic involves the Government of the day getting two bites of the cherry at Law Commission recommendations and essentially stopping every other member of the House from using members’ day for what it was intended to do—to progress important matters of conscience or other issues that matter to them. 
Well the Government might decide that this is an appropriate use of the House’s time. I think it is disrespectful to Parliament and to the Law Commission which is entitled to have the time and the public money that it expends on its law reform work better credited. 
Tim Macindoe 
: Do you remember the Parana Park bill? How long did you spend on that? 
CHARLES CHAUVEL 
: It should be responded to by the Government of the day by way of Government legislation. 
Dr Cam Calder 
: Mr Chauvel you shame yourself. 
CHARLES CHAUVEL 
: The Government members of the Justice and Electoral Committee ought to listen carefully to this point. Rather than waste the time of that committee as well on protracted debate on a bill that has been extensively researched and is the subject of a 30-page report of the Law Commission I am going to do now what I am going to suggest in the committee and that is commend the Law Commission’s 30-page report to every member and suggest that we get on and not waste time debating this bill but spend much more time on the important and genuine members’ business that remains on the Order Paper. 
TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West) 
: 
 It is a great pleasure to stand in support of this bill the Habeas Corpus Amendment Bill. I do want to commend my friend and colleague Chris Auchinvole for his initiative in introducing it to the House and I congratulate him on having it drawn from the ballot because it is always a significant achievement for a member to be given the privilege of introducing a bill to the House through this means. I commend him for that. 
I do want to acknowledge that Mr Chauvel has indicated that Labour will support the bill through all its stages. I am very pleased to hear that and I thank him for that. But I also want to make the point to Mr Chauvel that far from being an abuse of the members’ bills process this bill actually introduces a measure that was recommended to the House by the Law Commission. For 5 years it has sat unenacted and for some of that time of course the Labour Government was in office. I want to say to him that there are a number of members of the public of New Zealand including many in my electorate who would much prefer this House to be spending its time discussing measures of this nature than some of the other bills that come forward. So it ill behoves the Labour Party to criticise members on this side of the House for bringing bills of their own nature forward when many of their own bills are actually abhorrent to other members in the country. This is a House of many different shades of opinion and it is a time and it is a place for us to be considering all the bills not to be casting aspersions on the motives of some who bring a bill to the House. 
As the member who has introduced the bill has told us in 2007 following consultation with the judiciary and Government agencies the Law Commission issued a report proposing tweaks to the procedure for habeas corpus applications. Just as was the case a fortnight ago when we debated the first reading of the Joint Family Homes Repeal Bill in the name of my colleague Simon O’Connor the member for Tamaki here again we are dealing with a specific recommendation from the Law Commission. It would be quite wrong I believe for us to be ignoring these recommendations. We owe it to the Law Commission which plays such an important role for us to give due weight to its recommendations. 
As every law student learns early on in his or her tertiary training habeas corpus is an ancient writ requiring a person in State detention to be brought before a judge or court to determine whether their detention is lawful. That is absolutely fundamental to our legal system and it would be quite wrong for us to understate that and to mock what is behind this bill. That is a very very important constitutional procedure. In fact habeas corpus is understood to date back as far as the 14th century and how often do we get the opportunity in this House to debate measures of that constitutional significance in history? A key provision— 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: Quite recent. 
TIM MACINDOE 
: Well Mr Williamson having been here since the 14th century remembers plenty of them— 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: I wrote some of them! 
TIM MACINDOE 
: As he says he did write many of them. But most of us not having the advantage of his advancing years sadly have not had that opportunity. 
A key provision of this bill is for the High Court or a judge of the High Court to be able to dispense with the rule that habeas corpus applications take precedence over all other business. It is also to give judges more flexibility to dispense with the 3-working-day time frame for hearing a habeas corpus application where it would be appropriate for more preparation time. As my colleague has indicated it is expected that if this bill passes its first reading tonight it will be referred to the Justice and Electoral Committee which I have the privilege of chairing. I look forward if that happens to hearing from the profession and members of the public and to working on this bill. It does in my view fit very neatly with National’s commitment to the delivery of better public services in the justice sector. 
I will simply close at this point by saying that I look forward to working on the bill. I look forward to hearing the submissions that we will receive on it. I again commend my colleague for promoting it. As I say it was recommended more than 5 years ago by the Law Commission. This is sound and sensible legislation. If it is passed tonight my select committee will give it the attention and the intelligent examination that it deserves. 
ANDREW LITTLE (Labour) 
: 
 As my colleague Charles Chauvel has noted Labour will support this bill the Habeas Corpus Amendment Bill but we will support it because it needs examination. As other speakers have said the holy writ—almost—of habeas corpus is very important. It goes back to the Magna Carta. Those were feudal days. The National Party will be familiar with them because those are its underlying values those are its underlying precepts—it understands feudalism. But what is important about— 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: This is how the EPMU used to work in the feudal days. 
ANDREW LITTLE 
: Everybody in the Engineering Printing and Manufacturing Union was delivered up on request I can tell you that. It is a very important protection of liberty and freedom. On this side of the House we value it and we treasure it. This writ is not a matter of statute; it is part of the inherent jurisdiction of the High Court—a court of inherent jurisdiction. It is not something that should be lightly interfered with. It is not appropriate in my view to justify changes to this important institution—the institution of the writ of habeas corpus—on the grounds of greater efficiency. 
The Better Public Services mantra that we hear all the time might be good for the cost-cutters the accountants and the bean counters but this is a question of individual liberty and individual freedom. Although we can do some things better procedurally when it comes to habeas corpus when it comes to the oversight that the High Court has to preserve and protect freedom and protect citizens from unlawful detention we should be very careful about the erosions of those principles—the priority principle—and the requirement for the body to be delivered up in an appropriate time frame. It is entirely appropriate that the court be given guidance that where clearly the detention is lawful and the application is frivolous or otherwise not meritorious there should be some scope to dismiss it without the Crown having to defend the detention. 
I want to say that in my researches about recent applications for habeas corpus the House might be interested to know that the most recent application in the Commonwealth jurisdiction was in the High Court of Bombay in the last day or so. It related to the delivery up of a cow and of course that was in the context in which the bovine species is very important to them. Some chap had lost his cow had his cow detained last November and wanted it delivered up. The habeas corpus application was the only way he could think of to do it. The cow sadly had passed away some months ago and was not capable of being delivered up except perhaps as a set of steaks. 
I want to say this though which is very important: part of the examination of this legislation will coincide with the examination by another select committee of another piece of legislation that is a Government bill and that is the Immigration Amendment Bill. That is a hideous piece of legislation. It is the total erosion of liberty and freedom. There could not be a greater erosion of it. It is interesting. Mr Auchinvole the sponsor of this member’s bill which purports to preserve and enhance habeas corpus is a Government member presiding over a bill that will do precisely the opposite when it comes to the destitute persons who turn up on our border applying for refugee status because that piece of legislation will do the opposite of habeas corpus. It will allow the Crown to detain unfortunate persons who turn up on our border for up to 6 months without having any say on any application to detain them with limited scope for judicial review and with limited scope for judicial oversight. So we should examine that legislation as against this member’s bill to preserve protect and advance habeas corpus. 
I just hope that now as these two bills move through the House this House will look at these two pieces of legislation and will look askance at Mr Auchinvole and at the members opposite and ask how can it be that that party—the great party of freedom and enterprise as it purports to be—will allow mass detention for up to 6 months without recourse to appeal and also then say that it supports habeas corpus. The two do not stand together. 
DAVID CLENDON (Green) 
: 
 Kia ora koutou. The point has been made already that habeas corpus is one of those fundamental precepts of our constitutional system of our rule of law. The Greens will be content to support this amendment to the core Act the legislation. It is interesting that the 2001 Habeas Corpus Act is itself derived from a 1997 report of the Law Commission which at that time saw fit to look at the existing situation then found that it was not as good as it could be and sought to make it better. In 2007—some 10 or so years later—the then Minister of Justice invited the Law Commission to once again have a look at the operation of this legislation and the result of course is the proposed amendment that we are debating or beginning to debate tonight. I think it is worth noting that that is an entirely appropriate process and it is useful to have that substantial piece of work already done which should ease the task of the select committee. 
I would have to echo Mr Chauvel’s comments about the appropriateness of how this is coming to the House however. We know that of course every member of this House has every right to put a bill into the ballot and every day that the ballot is drawn there is an intake of breath as we hope we will be the lucky ones. I was interested to read  
McGee 
 and of course that reinforces the point that any member may put in a member’s bill but the inference is clear that the expectation is that this is something a tool a mechanism that the Government will use lightly. The question must be asked why has this fairly pragmatic technical amendment to an existing Act not been included in some form of omnibus bill or included in another justice bill? It is a peculiar tactic and it is interesting that a particular journalist some weeks ago was moved to speculate on perhaps the motivation behind these members’ bills we are seeing from the Government that are popping up. I do think Mr Chauvel might have traversed that territory very well and come to the right conclusion. 
The principle behind habeas corpus in this particular bill the Habeas Corpus Amendment Bill clearly is not put at any risk. I was interested to hear Mr Little’s remarks but generally speaking the notion of habeas corpus—the right of a person to be brought before their accusers to be able to speak in defence of their actions or whatever it might be—is fairly well protected. We ought never to take it for granted. We have seen the ongoing indefensible abuse of the principle of habeas corpus in the United States over many years in the ongoing stain on the American reputation that is Guantanamo Bay—the detention of people without trial without access to legal information and in some cases without even being properly identified. One hopes we never see a stain on New Zealand’s reputation but I think it is an apt reminder that we ought never to take these things for granted to continue to value these fundamentals of our legal system and to be thoughtful about any amendments any changes we make to them. 
As I say I am sure this bill is coming from a very sound and a very straightforward foundation. I did note initially with a minor concern that there is a clause in this bill that enables the use of audiovisual technology. I am a person I must say who immediately hears a wee alarm bell going when we introduce technology into the practice and the execution of justice. In this instance however it is clear that the judge may initiate the use of an audiovisual link for example but I do note that the test that the judge must be convinced of is that it is in the interests of justice before he or she determines the use of such a technology. I think that is an interesting test. It is perhaps a useful conversation for the select committee to have just to think through exactly what that would mean in the real world in the application of this bill. So with those few comments I do reiterate that the Greens will be supporting this bill. We have our suspicions and questions about the mechanism used to bring it into the House but that will not prevent us from supporting what we see as a useful piece of legislation. 
DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First) 
: 
 The right to apply for a writ of habeas corpus as we know is a basic right under English law that has developed over centuries and the English Act of 1679 is the most important historical Act of those. There is an interesting story attached to the passing of that Act. It had had difficulty in passing through the House of Lords and had gone to and fro between the House of Lords and the House of Commons. On the last occasion in the Lords Lord Grey was one of the tellers. Seeing one very fat Lord going through the Ayes door he counted him as 10 in jest. 
Hon Member 
: No no—oh! 
DENIS O’ROURKE 
: He did. So the bill passed by 57 to 55 even though only 107 Lords were sitting at the time. So I just thought you would like to know how it arose. 
But habeas corpus in New Zealand is under the Habeas Corpus Act of 2001 and section 7(2) of the 2001 Act will not we think be affected by this amendment because it preserves “the inherent jurisdiction of the High Court to hear and make an order on an oral application at any time in circumstances of unusual urgency.” So we think the ancient law is preserved and this amendment does not alter this. Also it preserves no disqualification for lack of standing or capacity it preserves no discovery of documents available and it preserves no fee payable to file an application and all those are quite important issues as well. 
Section 9 of the 2001 Act is amended in three ways fundamentally. Section 9(1) giving habeas corpus precedence over other court matters is amended by adding the words “unless the court considers that the circumstances require otherwise” and secondly in section 9(3) the existing requirement for the application to be heard within 3 days remains. But now that will be subject to the words: “Unless a Judge otherwise orders”. We in New Zealand First think that is appropriate. It provides for some flexibility for the court in appropriate cases to allow for the efficient ordering of court business and prioritisation without compromising the need for prompt attention ordinarily within the 3-day limitation and it prevents abuse by applicants who ought to be using other procedures. Thirdly the new section 9(4) requires that parties be given an opportunity to be heard and that is very important as well. 
 In clause 6 which inserts new section 10A(1)(a) a judge can extend the 3-day time limit for the “just and efficient determination of the application”. The requirement for “just and efficient” should ensure a prompt hearing even if it goes beyond the 3-day rule so we see no problem there either. 
Clause 7 which amends section 14A(1) says that even if a defendant has not proved the lawfulness of the detention a judge can refuse to grant habeas corpus only if—two circumstances—firstly section 15(1) applies which prevents more than one application on substantially the same grounds or secondly the habeas corpus procedure is not the appropriate one having regard to the applicant’s allegations. That seems appropriate as well. It does not infringe the right of habeas corpus really at all in any genuine application. 
Finally the amendments to sections 17(1) and 17(1A) allow the Supreme Court in appeal not to comply with the usual requirements for habeas corpus if the court decides that “circumstances require otherwise” while otherwise giving precedence over all other court matters. That again we think is quite appropriate and allows some flexibility for the court to order its business efficiently. 
New Zealand First does approve and support the bill as a whole. We think it is well drafted is in accordance with the Law Commission’s recommendations and continues to preserve the fundamental right for any person to apply for a writ of habeas corpus and to have that dealt with expeditiously but with some flexibility for the court to reorder its priorities. So we will be voting for it. Thank you. 
Dr CAM CALDER (National) 
: 
 It is a huge pleasure to rise and take a very brief call on the Habeas Corpus Amendment Bill. I appreciate the contributions from all sides of the House. I notice with great delight and pleasure that the whole House is supporting this bill and I commend my colleague Chris Auchinvole for his eminently pragmatic bill. I must say that I do appreciate the contributions of Mr Charles Chauvel both in the select committee and in the House on matters legal but I did find his comments today a trifle judgmental and churlish especially with regard to the filibustering on the Royal Society of New Zealand Amendment Bill that the other side was party to only a few short months ago in this very Chamber. 
I was not a great Latin scholar. I did it only until fifth form year 11. I did manage to get through School Certificate. I can still remember the first line in the Latin primer: “Supra est via Romana via et lata et recta est.”—above is a Roman road the road is broad and straight. I can still remember that. “Habeas corpus” means I think “you have the body”. I was wondering what Su’a William Sio and the Hon David Cunliffe were speaking about in the House during this debate. I wondered at the new cleanly shaven trim tanned and Olympic hopeful haircut on David Cunliffe and I wondered whether my colleague from South Auckland was saying: “Habeas corpus. You have the body. You have the body to be a leader of our party. You have the body to be a leader of our party.” That was just a thought. I cannot confirm that. Of course another David could say “Ecce Davidus habeas corpus.”—alas David you have the body. But then again it has to be a living body as we heard from a previous speaker when talking about a cow in Mumbai. It has to be a living body so that may be a line call with some members of the Labour caucus. 
Colleagues habeas corpus is an ancient writ. It has been called a great writ and not being of the legal fraternity I did look up Blackstone’s  
Commentaries on the Laws of England 
 which of course is the repository of all legal wisdom. I learnt that habeas corpus ad subjiciendum—habeas corpus ad subjiciendum—was actually a writ issued first in the reign of King Edward I in 1305. There have been other writs as we have heard preceding that with a similar target but the basis of the writ is that “the king is at all times intitled to have an account why the liberty of any of his subjects is restrained wherever that restraint may be inflicted.”—so basically to answer the question of whether that detention is lawful. The writ exists basically to ask that question and to protect thereby the personal liberty of a subject and a citizen. Then as now the writ of habeas corpus issued by a superior court is in the name of the sovereign and commands an addressee—perhaps a sheriff a lower court or a private subject—to produce the prisoner before a royal court of law. 
We have heard an excellent summary from my colleague Tim Macindoe the chairman of the Justice and Electoral Committee and also Mr Auchinvole outlining the history of how it came to pass that in 1997 the Law Commission decided that we needed to simplify procedures for dealing with habeas corpus in the New Zealand jurisdiction. This led to the Habeas Corpus Act of 2001 which implemented the changes of that report and formalised habeas corpus in legislation. There were however some anomalies which have been pointed out by previous speakers. In 2007 the Law Commission in consultation with the judiciary and Government agencies came up with the report we are considering now. As Charles Chauvel so well pointed out it forms the basis of this legislation. I do commend this bill to the House. 
KRIS FAAFOI (Labour—Mana) 
: 
 Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak in the first reading of the Habeas Corpus Amendment Bill. It is always a pleasure to follow Dr Cam Calder in this House. He is always entertaining but rarely informative. This bill is in the name of Mr Chris Auchinvole and I will congratulate him and commend him for the fact that he has had this bill pulled out of the ballot. It is a pleasure I have not had in my time in the House. 
This bill has come about because there was a perception that the procedure for dealing with habeas corpus applications has been misused where some applicants have used it to obtain priority on hearings that should have been dealt with by other means. It does come about from a Law Commission report in 2007 that my legally learned colleagues Andrew Little and Charles Chauvel have already talked about and there are examples within that report. Because of the nature of its being a Law Commission report as Charles Chauvel and Andrew Little have said we will be supporting this bill through all its stages. 
As Charles Chauvel pointed out in Labour’s first contribution on this bill we do question why this law is navigating its way through this House as a member’s bill. We do believe it should be a Government bill. I did congratulate Mr Auchinvole on his luck in getting the bill pulled out of the ballot. We do think that it could have been given more priority and probably a little bit more seriousness if it had been a Government bill. 
There were some comments made earlier by Tim Macindoe that our comments in regard to this bill and how it is navigating its way through this House were that we were ignoring the issue. We were not. We are not ignoring the issue. We absolutely fundamentally support the substance of this bill. As I say we just question the manner in which the Government has brought it through this House. We also praise the initiative of Mr Auchinvole for submitting this as a member’s bill but there is not so much initiative when you just highlight your name then push Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V on a Law Commission bill that has been submitted. 
We will be supporting this bill in the House but as has been mentioned earlier in our contributions this is just a tactic by the Government to use up members’ time. 
KATRINA SHANKS (National) 
: 
 It is my pleasure to take a short call on this bill tonight. It is an honour and a privilege to be speaking on such an important topic at the first reading of the Habeas Corpus Amendment Bill. Obviously my colleagues are very well read on Latin and I cannot compete in any way whatsoever apart from to say “Ad astra per aspera” which are the four words that I know. They mean “To the stars through endeavour” which was my school motto so that is as good as I get I have to say. 
Hon Simon Bridges 
: What does it mean? 
KATRINA SHANKS 
: What does it mean? To the stars through endeavour—very important. That is a girls’ school for you. [ 
Interruption 
] It does indeed. 
So I would just like to acknowledge my colleague Chris Auchinvole for the work that he has put into getting this bill to the ballot and drawn for its first reading today. I would also like to acknowledge the Law Commission for the work that it has put into the bill’s early stages to get it to the House today and also the Justice and Electoral Committee which is led by the fabulous Tim Macindoe and deputy chair Cam Calder for the work that they are going to do when it gets to the select committee of course. Obviously it will be a quick turn-round for this bill to get it back to the House for the second reading. 
Habeas corpus is a pillar of the criminal justice system. It safeguards the liberty of New Zealand citizens. This relates to an application under the 2001 Act which allows the validity of any arrest or detention to be tested. If it is found to be unlawful the court may issue an order and that person is released. This reflects one of the most important ideas in a free and democratic society—that there is a general right to liberty unless there is a legal basis for that liberty to be removed. This idea is so important it is enshrined in our New Zealand Bill of Rights Act in recognition of the importance of this. This bill helps us to recognise and modernise the process under which the courts examine the wrongful detention of applications. These changes prevent the erosion of process through misuse and allow for technological advancements to be incorporated facilitating the progression of applications through the courts. This bill does come in the light of the Law Commission’s report and the anomalies of how the original Act has been applied. I know that previous colleagues in the House have spoken to that in detail so I do not need to speak to that. 
Obviously the history of habeas corpus is long and varied. It comes from way back in the 14th century so it has a long history in our court judicial system through New Zealand and the United Kingdom as well. With its enactment there was a requirement that the applications take precedence over all other court business and this was a reflection of its absolute importance. However some applications including from prisoners serving sentences have been applying this inappropriately. Because of that this bill has come about to ensure that the courts have a bit more flexibility and it allows the justices of the High Court the freedom to dispense with the rule that the applications take precedence in cases where the system is being abused. It provides them with the flexibility and makes our court more modern. It also allows them to use more technology but more technology in a safe way ensuring that every application is inspected by a High Court judge as it should be. This bill allows for teleconferences or audiovisual links and it will also allow for a number of applications to be disposed of in a very timely manner. 
This is a Government whose priority is about better public services. This is just one more example of that to ensure we have efficient and effective management of our justice system. I commend this bill to the House. Thank you. 
Dr KENNEDY GRAHAM (Green) 
: 
 I do not wish to take up very much time of the House primarily because I tend to agree with the points that have been made earlier about the undesirability of producing these kinds of bills as members’ bills. There is no point in rehearsing the history of habeas corpus which we have been treated to a few times already; I think we are all pretty much boned up on the Latin and the history. But suffice to say as my colleague Dave Clendon did earlier that the Green Party will support the Habeas Corpus Amendment Bill because the bill is inherently a valid one and should be passed through. 
But let us pass it through as fast as we can so that we do not unduly waste the time on members’ day. After all “fides servandaest”—faith must be kept. And faith must be kept with the principle of the original purpose of members’ bills which is that they offer members of Parliament on all sides of the House the opportunity to develop and advance in legislative form their personal vision of what needs to be written into the New Zealand legislation—personal vision. I just cannot thank Chris Auchinvole enough for the blood sweat and tears that he must have shed long into the night burning the midnight oil drafting this bill in the pristine way! I mean here is the bill. Here is the bill. I read through this bill word— 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: Read it. Read this bill. 
Dr KENNEDY GRAHAM 
: Well I am tempted to because I think it is the height of legislative artistry and we have it here. Then I looked and I chanced across a document here. I open it up. Lo there is telepathy going on here because here is a bill and I can tell you now—and I do not know whether this comes as a surprise to our colleague—it is word for word. 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: So which one should we be voting for? 
Dr KENNEDY GRAHAM 
: Well we could substitute it and call it the “Geoff Palmer Bill”. But I think in deference to the effort and the initiative—I think it was Tim Macindoe who commended Mr Auchinvole for his initiative and I think it was Mr Bridges who commended him for his exceptionally passionate approach to this bill—we should all pay a tribute to our colleague here for the sacrifice he has made in bringing this bill through on members’ day. I commend you to the House. 
Could I ask Mr Auchinvole whether there is going to be any word that he might conceivably alter in this bill as it wends its tortuous passage through the committee— 
Hon Simon Bridges 
: No. He chose each one carefully. 
Dr KENNEDY GRAHAM 
: Indeed I think that is quite quite clear. For example let me make a suggestion. Just for the sake of generating some enthusiasm for this bill as it goes through the committee clause 5 “Section 9 amended (Urgency)” inserts a new subclause (4): “A Judge may not make any order under subsection (3) without giving the parties to the proceeding an opportunity to be heard …”. Can I suggest that in deference to what we heard from Mr Andrew Little our colleague we could say “without giving the parties human or bovine to the proceeding the opportunity to be heard”. Is there going to be any word that will be changed in this respect? Ecce homo ecce bovum. I leave it to Mr Auchinvole to give it thought with his colleagues the learned gentlemen there Mr Macindoe and Mr Williamson. He can discuss it and decide whether there is any change at all and he will no doubt have the support of this House whether it is cows— 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: That can’t be the only section you have a problem with. 
Dr KENNEDY GRAHAM 
: No I know that with the experience that Mr Williamson has had in his longevity in this House he will be able to advise Mr Auchinvole whether there is any scope for improving this bill whatsoever because I have to tell you in full admiration that I cannot find it. 
CHRIS AUCHINVOLE (National) 
: 
 I am very grateful indeed for the support of all the parties that have spoken this evening. I note the concern expressed principally by those who are of an academic bent but I would like to just refer back to my opening speech where I think I said I gave an undertaking to Sir Geoffrey Palmer that I would do this and I am fulfilling that obligation. So I do not— 
Hon Simon Bridges 
: With you and him in the room it wouldn’t be a short conversation. 
CHRIS AUCHINVOLE 
: No it was a tremendous occasion and well I could talk about that later on if you wish. But I do not resile from the appropriateness of bringing this Habeas Corpus Amendment Bill before the House on members’ day. 
I do not resile from using the good offices of the Law Commission in doing the preparation. Not everything it does is perfect. Not everything it does has an untrammelled passage through this House. I think in this case it is a honey of a little bill. I have been to Runnymede I have involved myself in reading the history and I think it is a very appropriate bill to bring forward because it will work and it is of interest to the common people. It would be of interest to me on a technical point having listened to Charles Chauvel saying that they made provision to process revised bills—I would like to know how many they actually processed. 
Darien Fenton 
: Who’s “they”? 
CHRIS AUCHINVOLE 
: He did not say and declined to say. It would be interesting though. 
I was grateful to Andrew Little for his contribution. I respect his legal experience and his acknowledgment that practices that use habeas corpus as a device for delay or devious purposes need to be addressed. This bill—joke about it if you will—has a serious aspect to it. 
Hon Simon Bridges 
: Oh it’s a honey of a little bill. 
CHRIS AUCHINVOLE 
: It is. 
The contributions from all the parties have shown I think—including the last one which I enjoyed—that we as a Parliament take serious matters seriously all jokes aside. All parties have given careful consideration to this bill before giving their consent for the bill to go further. To all thank you; to those who have spoken thank you; and to members of the Justice and Electoral Committee which will handle this bill if its first reading is passed I am sure that you can be entrusted to handle it with an efficient effective and careful level of consideration. Thank you. 
Bill read a first time.  
Bill referred to the Justice and Electoral Committee. 
Local Government (Salary Moderation) Amendment Bill 
First Reading 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Labour—Rongotai) 
: 
 I move  
That the Local Government (Salary Moderation) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. 
Hon Simon Bridges 
: This is a honey of a little member. 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: I nominate the Local Government and Environment Committee to consider the bill. Thank you to the member who has just interjected. This is a honey of a bill. In fact it is a very very exciting night for this member in the House because it is a totally new experience for me as a member of Parliament. Never in my many years—not as long as Maurice Williamson and a few others—of being in this House have I had a member’s bill drawn from the ballot. So you can imagine the excitement I felt— 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: The ecstasy. 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: —the ecstasy—when this bill was drawn out of the ballot. I have introduced Ministers’ bills very good ones and not so good ones. I have voted for many other people’s bills and have been very very proud to do so. But this is the first opportunity I have had to have a member’s bill in my name. You know this whole member’s bill opportunity is very very addictive because there are many many more bills to come from this side of the House. We are very excited about being able to make a difference in New Zealand by being able to introduce bills that people are keen on. Of course what we have managed to do is to shame the National Party into lodging something like 14 members’ bills over the last 2 weeks. 
But I want to start with this bill and thank the writer and author of the bill who did the work for me Charles Chauvel. He is an asset to any party in Parliament. He has the ability to write legislation for us in a very short time and he does most of the law drafting for us on this side of the House. We do not have a bevy of law drafters to do the work for us unlike Mr Auchinvole with his Habeas Corpus Amendment Bill. Of course when the Law Commission provides a report it also writes the entire bill and hands it over to the Government of the day and Mr Auchinvole was very lucky that all he had to do was pick it up and table it. Well in this case Charles Chauvel was the author of this bill. 
I want to thank my colleagues who have supported me in this bill. I want to thank the members of the Maori Party who have said they support this bill and New Zealand First members who have given me an assurance that they are supporting it. In fact they have a similar bill in the ballot and they are looking to move a Supplementary Order Paper should it get to the select committee stage and back into this House. The Green Party has also indicated support for it. I am unsure as to where the National Party sits on this bill. I am also very pleased with the community who brought this issue to politicians’ attention. 
This bill is aimed at helping local government not hindering it. It is aimed at providing an evidence-based approach to setting remuneration for chief executive officers of local government. It is aimed at providing a transparent accountability mechanism which will ensure that it is very open to the public as to what is happening when it comes to the setting of pay conditions and remuneration. And it gives the ratepayers some confidence that there has been put in place a process where an independent rigour has been applied to salaries and conditions and it is able to be compared with others in a similar situation. I also think it provides protection for elected councillors from public criticism. 
Where did it all start? Well it started in December 2011 following the devastating earthquakes in Christchurch. The Christchurch City Council through a very small committee of councillors including the mayor set the remuneration for their chief executive officer at an additional $68000 a year—an increase in salary of 14 percent that took his pay to $538529. Many councillors had no knowledge of how and why this figure was reached. It was done secretly and it was considered by many local people to be an obscene increase in the chief executive officer’s salary. Consider the conditions that people in Christchurch faced in December 2011. They were still without their homes. They had lost their jobs. They had lost family. Some of them still had no water and no sewerage. They were working long hours. Some of them had no pay and had hard work. And they had all the pressures that that community has had on them. They could see no justification for a pay increase that was 1½ times more than the average salary at that time. And it was not helped by the chief executive officer taking an overseas holiday during the earthquake spending time during work time at the golf course and then going out and adopting a very public and arrogant justification towards the pay increase that he got. For some it was the last straw. 
But Christchurch was not alone in this respect. There has been disquiet in many local government areas about the remuneration of chief executive officers and how it is set. We had the case in Kapiti of a pay increase of $44000. Although I understand there were different circumstances there was still not the transparency and openness that ratepayers have been expecting. You see different approaches taken by different councils when it comes to setting chief executive officer remuneration pay and conditions. Some have small committees that are done in private some have full councils and some pay their chief executive officers right up to the top of the market in the private sector which is what some of the complaints have been about. Others pay under that. There is no consistency. 
So what is this bill about? This bill is aimed at ensuring from a hit-and-miss affair that we have now that there is a uniform approach and transparency which are absent now. What I want you to do is to compare what happens with the public sector and how we set remuneration terms and conditions and appointments in the public sector. To begin with Cabinet does not appoint a small group of Ministers to sit around and interview chief executive officers performance review them and set remuneration. It is actually done at arm’s length because under the State Sector Act 1988 the conditions of employment of chief executive officers are determined in each case by agreement between the State Services Commissioner and the chief executive in the first instance. But the commissioner then obtains the agreement of the Prime Minister and the Minister of State Services before finalising the conditions of employment with the chief executive. The process is tried and true is based on experience and is appropriately moderated between other chief executive officers looking at what their responsibilities are the size of the job and other benchmarks. It provides the appropriate evidence as to why a chief executive has received the level of remuneration. 
Well this bill amends the Local Government Act to add a requirement that terms and conditions including remuneration of a chief executive of a local authority must be approved in advance by the State Services Commissioner. At the outset the condition of employment will be determined between the local authority and the chief executive. That can be done in whatever way the local authority decides but before it is finalised announced and decided the territorial local authority must obtain written consent of the State Services Commissioner to any such agreement or any variation of that agreement. There would then be a requirement on the State Services Commissioner to ensure that the remuneration is comparable to that in a similar job size and so on. I think it gives a very clear and transparent path using the expertise that is available in the State Services Commission and having been a Minister of State Services I understand the work that they do and the very high quality of that work in assisting a Government in setting remuneration pay and conditions. I think it would be a very good tool for local government to be able to use and when the comparisons are done by the State Services Commissioner they can then say: “We know the Rangitikei District Council is paying this amount because it is comparable to a similar job size. It is not way up above the level it ought to be. It is not set against unknown benchmarks. It is done in a proper transparent open and fair way.” I commend this bill to the House. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) 
: 
 This bill the Local Government (Salary Moderation) Amendment Bill which imposes on local government the strictures of the State Services Commissioner is a desperate attempt by the Labour Opposition to play catch-up on the necessary reform that needs to take place within local government. You see there is quite deep concern across New Zealand about the cost of rates and about the huge increases that have occurred over the last decade and the people of New Zealand are looking for a Government that will show leadership around addressing that issue. 
In March this year the Government announced a comprehensive package of reform to deal with the challenges within local government. Labour which has been opposed to those reforms has suddenly woken up to the fact that it is on the wrong side of the public argument has desperately pulled this bill out of a drawer and is trying to get into the public discussion around costs within local government. But the first challenge for members opposite is that they need to be accountable for their record in Government around the increase in rates caused by their reforms. 
You see in 2002 Labour put in place the biggest changes in many decades to local government laws. Labour rewrote the Local Government Act it rewrote the Rating Powers Act and it rewrote the Local Electoral Act. Members now on this side of the House said then that that was going to be a very costly reform. We warned Labour not to embark down that path. Members opposite members of the Labour Government of the time assured New Zealanders that there would be no spike or increase in rates arising from those reforms. Exactly the opposite occurred. 
What we saw after 2002—and it is a matter of record by Statistics New Zealand—was that rates increased faster than any of the other 186 components that make up the Consumers Price Index. They have gone up by a compound rate across New Zealand of 7 percent for every year since 2002. That 7 percent increase means that New Zealanders today in this time of economic difficulty are really struggling to pay their rates bills and change is required. 
If we look at the rates increases that occurred in the decade prior to Labour’s reforms we see that they averaged just 3 percent. I want to draw to the attention of the House the advice from the Department of Internal Affairs that if rates rises over the last decade had been what they were in the previous decade the average Kiwi household would be paying $500 a year less in rates and we as a country would be paying a billion dollars a year less in rates. So I challenge Labour and say that its legacy of local government changes has been a hugely expensive burden for households for businesses and for farmers and change was required. 
The Government announced in March a comprehensive package of reform to refocus the purpose of local government on to the infrastructure the local public services and the regulatory functions that can be done only by our councils. Equally so we have strengthened the governance powers of what councils can do including very significantly a requirement for councils to disclose not just the salaries of their chief executive officers but the salaries of all their staff in their annual reports. That package of change changes the Local Government Act 2002 and actually gives the power to our elected representatives our mayors and councils to not just have a say in the salary of their chief executive but actually to set down a remuneration policy for all of the 23000 staff who work across New Zealand’s nearly 70 councils. That same package of reforms makes it easier for councils to be able to reorganise. It sets down improvements in the fiscal responsibility requirements of councils and is a far more comprehensive package of reform than this lightweight teeny-weeny little change that Labour has put on the agenda of the House this evening. 
There are a number of significant flaws in this bill. The first is that the member Annette King who sponsored it has said that it increases the openness and the transparency of the appointment of chief executives. It does no such thing. There is absolutely nothing in this bill that requires anything other than the State Services Commissioner to approve a contract between a council and a chief executive. The member would well know as an ex - Minister of State Services how much transparency is there. Does that involve disclosure? In terms of when the Government appoints chief executive officers it makes not a dime of difference. 
If those members were interested in transparency in the salaries of chief executives they would have voted for National’s reform bill that very specifically requires disclosure of not just the salaries of the chief executive but also the bands as is required of public entities all the way through. It is a matter of record that Labour voted against that bill which provides for that increased level of transparency. 
This is the real fraud with this bill. There are 23000 employees of local government. Annette King somehow pretends that by making a change in the salaries or in the way in which the contracts are drafted for just 68 of those 23000 staff somehow it is going to make a difference to ma and pa’s rates. We know that is not true. That is not real Annette and the member knows it. It is as we have said a flaky bill that is not dealing with the substance of the issues that face local government. 
It also is rather rich because I checked on the speeches from Labour members when National introduced its local government reforms. They had the audacity to say to this Parliament that National was treading all over the rights of councils. Well that is a bit odd. I would say one of the most important decisions that a council makes is who it appoints as its chief executive and what it pays them—what is in the contract. Everybody who is practically involved in governance knows that the appointment of your chief executive is one of the most important decisions and now Labour is saying that a council cannot appoint a chief executive without getting the tick-off of central government. If that is not a nanny State approach to councils I really do not know what is. 
I have a challenge for the Labour members who are interjecting. Why would you impose a tighter control on councils appointing their chief executive than the vast bulk of State entities for which this House is responsible? What is the logic behind that? Why would you have the process by which a school board appoints its chief executive officer or a district health board appoints its chief executive officer—the controls that are imposed in this bill go significantly beyond that and that has no rhyme nor reason. 
You see the member says this bill arose out of the issue in Christchurch over the appointment of its chief executive. The interesting thing is that when we appointed a Crown observer Labour criticised that. But it is interesting to know—and it shows how slow Labour is—that Annette forgot to mention that actually the chief executive of Christchurch City Council has not taken that $68000 pay increase. This shows just how much behind the pace Labour is in terms of addressing the issues that are of concern to New Zealanders. 
If we are to make local government more efficient if we are to make local government more fiscally responsible and if we are to make it more transparent and accountable then members of the public need to look to the sensible eight-point plan of reform that National has set down and is before the Local Government and Environment Committee. What we do not need are these small flaky bills that pretend they are dealing with an issue. This bill really is about Labour playing catch-up. It has suddenly realised that it has made a hash of local government and that it has caught itself on the side of big rates and big cost increases and in a desperate attempt to play catch-up it has introduced this puny bill which does not deserve the serious attention of the House. 
MOANA MACKEY (Labour) 
: 
 So speaks the former “Minister for Manufactured Crises” Nick Smith. So speaks the former Minister not for local government but against local government. I congratulate my colleague Annette King on bringing this bill the Local Government (Salary Moderation) Amendment Bill to the House. It is a matter that impugns all of local government and it does not need that when it has an enemy in the current National Government. And it has a very real enemy in the current National Government. 
Let us not forget that the former Minister who just took his seat was the one who manufactured a crisis in ACC so that he could push through reforms that he knew were deeply unpopular and that would undermine our world-leading scheme. He then went on to try to do exactly the same thing with local government with figures that were so dodgy that they were taken down off the Government website not long after they were put up. The reforms that he has lauded here in the House today were all based on figures that were so shoddy they had to be removed from a Government website—so shoddy. 
Local government debt is at prudent levels. In fact it was not that long ago that local government was being accused of having lazy balance sheets and of not borrowing enough to fund infrastructure. It was not that long ago that that was a criticism of local government. The good thing about the 2002 Local Government Act was that it required long-term planning. This is one of the areas where local government had gotten into trouble. Instead of looking for a long-term plan for its infrastructure needs and spreading that cost out over a period of time so that massive rates increases would not be required local government was not doing that. So we did see some big rate increases to pay for core infrastructure. 
Everything this National Government does now continues to undermine that position of local government. Let us look at the issue of local roads for example and the cost to local government of them. Well our provincial councils have lost huge amounts of support and assistance from central government because it is all being sucked out to pay for the roads of national significance. How does that help those provincial councils? They are now facing rate increases not because of the Local Government Act 2002 and not because of the former Labour Government but because this Government is making decisions to suck money away from them to stop assisting them. That is what is causing rates increases in a number of the provincial councils Dr Smith. 
The Local Government Act 2002 did a very important thing: it allowed mayors and councillors to decide what was really important to their communities what was really going to be the game-changer and what was really going to assist their communities to grow economically environmentally culturally and socially. The mayors have taken that job on with two hands and relished it. They have led charges against youth unemployment. In Kawerau they have led charges against youth suicide. They have led charges for economic development. Local government is not just about potholes rubbish and waste water; local government is about communities. That is why Labour does not support the approach of the current National Government which wants to take those abilities and those powers away from local government based on figures that are so dodgy that the Government itself had to pull them from the website. 
 I hope that the Hon Dr Nick Smith who is a member of the Local Government and Environment Committee will attend all the submissions so that the local mayors can actually say direct to his face in a way that they have not been able to before what his reforms are going to do to local government in this country. They are retrograde they will take communities backwards and no amount of dodgy figures made-up reasons and manufactured crises change the fact that those reforms are going to be very very damaging for local government. And what is damaging for local government is damaging for the country. 
So I welcome this piece of legislation from the Hon Annette King. It provides a process for local government that is welcome. It provides some kind of comparison between like jobs which I would have thought would be welcomed. The Local Government and Environment Committee is about to hear submissions on the Government bill. This would seem to me to be a good time to send Annette King’s bill to select committee alongside that local government bill so that we can consider the two together. 
The issue of remuneration of chief executives is important but how very telling that Nick Smith said that that is the most important thing local government does. He said that the most important thing local government does is set the chief executive’s salary. That is not the most important thing local government does. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: The appointment of the chief executive. 
MOANA MACKEY 
: It is important but the appointment of the chief executive in my mind and from what I see local mayors in my community doing is not the most important thing they do. They are community leaders. They are the face of that community when something goes wrong when we have a civil defence emergency when there is some kind of social issue and when there is an economic issue. They are the ones who front on behalf of their community. To say that the most important thing local government does is to set the chief executive’s salary shows just how much contempt the National Party has for local government. Nick Smith can roll his eyes— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch) 
: I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member. Her time has expired. 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Labour—Rongotai) 
: 
 I seek leave to table the figures in the first version of the Department of Internal Affairs’  
Better Local Government 
 only for them to be removed a few days later. I then seek leave— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch) 
: Is this a public document? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: No. I tell you what: it has been removed so it ain’t public. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: This is a public document. 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: No it is not. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch) 
: Order! [ 
Interruption 
] Order! There is a point of order being heard. 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: No it is not available because it was on the website and then removed— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch) 
: Order! I will put leave. Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there any objection? There is objection. 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Labour—Rongotai) 
: 
 I seek leave to table version two of the Department of Internal Affairs’  
Better Local Government 
 which has got the figures removed from it. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch) 
: Is that—[ 
Interruption 
] Hang on. 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: Yes it is available. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch) 
: Well we are not putting leave on something that is available. 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Labour—Rongotai) 
: 
 I seek leave to table a letter from the current Minister of Local Government to me saying that he will not release the corrected— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch) 
: Order! 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: You need to know what it is about. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch) 
: No. You have told me; it is a letter from the current Minister of— 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. There is a long-established Standing Order that you cannot seek leave for the same document twice. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch) 
: No this is not the same document; this is a letter. She is asking for leave— 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I think we misunderstood each other. On a previous occasion the same member sought leave— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch) 
: I have already ruled on that and that is the end of the matter. Leave is now sought to table— 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: I object. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch) 
: Well I have not put it yet. Leave is now sought for—[ 
Interruption 
] You cannot say that. Leave is sought to table this letter. Is there any objection? There is objection. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) 
: 
 I seek leave to table the Department of Internal Affairs’ official advice showing that in the 10 years after Labour’s local government reforms— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch) 
: Is this a public document? 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: It is advice provided—[ 
Interruption 
] 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch) 
: Order! We are asking; he is speaking. Is this a public document? 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: It is individual advice so it is not a document that has been openly on a website. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch) 
: Is it in the public domain? 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: Like any document that has been provided as departmental advice it can be obtained under the Official Information Act— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch) 
: Well we are not going to table that. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch) 
: If it is on the website then it is in the public domain. [ 
Interruption 
] Hang on. I will need clarification. [ 
Interruption 
] I am dealing with a point over here. I will ask the member whether this is on the website. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: No. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch) 
: It is not on the website so I will put leave for this purpose. Is there any objection? There is no objection. 






Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I just briefly seek your advice. I am not challenging the fact that leave has been declined for a series of documents—that is the House’s right and privilege—but where a member has constantly made statements around figures for instance being untrue as that member has repeatedly and then he denies leave for the figures to be tabled what are the remedies— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch) 
: No. We have put leave—[ 
Interruption 
] Order! We have put leave for these purposes. It has been declined. We are moving on. I am calling Nicky Wagner. 
NICKY WAGNER (National—Christchurch Central) 
: 
 I rise to take a call on this Local Government (Salary Moderation) Amendment Bill. I understand that there are some concerns about the level of salaries of council chief executive officers because coming from Christchurch I am particularly familiar with the argument. There has been considerable angst about the salary of the Christchurch City Council chief executive officer increases in that salary—particularly because they were made during particularly difficult times in our city—and how the back payment should be made. But generally speaking councils manage the employment and remuneration of their chief executive officers with good judgment they seek remuneration advice and except for a couple of high-profile situations generally it is under good control. 
Of course the National Government is extremely interested in the costs of local government. We are appalled by the rates increases that have happened in New Zealand to ratepayers since 2002 and the change legislation. We want our councils to be more efficient more responsive and better focused. Ratepayers need to be confident that their councils are spending their money wisely that they are operating in a cost-effective manner and that they are delivering the services that they need and want. As has been discussed in the House we are working hard on reforms that will provide that stronger governance more responsible financial management and improved efficiency. 
We agree with Annette King that ratepayers would like a more transparent process of managing the chief executive officer’s appointment—both their employment and remuneration policies. Under the new legislation that is going through the House at the moment councillors will be empowered to set these policies and to put explicit limits on staff numbers. This is not just about the chief executive officer; this is about all the staff who are employed by councils across the country. We will also require increased disclosure in the annual reports of the numbers of staff who are employed and their salary bands. We believe it will be that disclosure—those open-to-the-public information requirements—that will keep costs in check. So although the National Government is concerned about the costs and the chief executive officers’ remuneration is a significant expense we think it is something that locally elected councillors can and should manage. 
This bill requires that the State Services Commissioner should approve the terms and conditions of remunerations. We do not believe that this is the role of central government. We trust local decision-making for local communities. It is particularly important that decision makers in this process are accountable to their ratepayers. Certainly the State Services Commissioner would not face that accountability. Councillors would be very unwise to make flamboyant decisions in this case because they tend to be voted out. It will be interesting to see what happens to councillors in the long term. In summary we support local democracy and decision making as close as possible to the communities that pay so we cannot support this bill. 
EUGENIE SAGE (Green) 
: 
 I am puzzled. The previous speaker the member for Christchurch Central said “We trust local decision-making and we trust local democracy”. Yet this Government with its programme of sweeping change in local government is taking a stab at the heart of local democracy as one mayor said to me today. Its proposals to deny local electors a vote when there are proposals for amalgamation is substantially reducing local democracy. Its proposals in the changes to allow Ministers to interfere much more in appointing Crown observers review panels and managers is again not trusting local democracy. So why if we have the Minister-in-exile saying that one of the most important things that a council does is to appoint the chief executive is the Government not trusting local councils to do the other much more important things we think which is provide the services and facilities that communities value? 
The Green Party supports this bill the Local Government (Salary Moderation) Amendment Bill because it is an example of how some issues in local government can be addressed in a constructive way without undermining the current purpose and intent of the Local Government Act. The bill seeks to bring local authority processes in line with other Public Service chief executive remuneration processes. It requires any local authority to get approval from the State Services Commission on the remuneration rates—not on the appointment per se as some previous speakers have suggested—for their chief executive and that these rates must be moderated by reference to other comparable positions in for example Government departments and the public sector generally. 
Local government provides huge value to communities. It is involved in a whole range of services that make places pleasant to live work and retire in. Local councils are responsible for significant assets—up to more than $92 billion of infrastructure and other assets—and it is very appropriate that the salary scale for chief executives reflect the significant responsibilities of councils. But it is also really important that they are not out of step with council staff who provide those key services. They are the staff who manage the libraries the swimming pools and the parks and who organise the sewage treatment the stormwater the provision of water and the recycling collection. 
In Christchurch we know that it is those people who are most important for our quality of life. It is the people who dig the drains who connect the sewerage pipes and who keep the water system running who are some of the most valued council workers and contractors in Christchurch. They do the strenuous and dirty work; they are often not rewarded adequately for that work. We have seen as the member Annette King noted the very controversial process around the remuneration for the chief executive officer of Christchurch City Council when he was given a $68000 pay rise taking his salary to $538000. That was partly because the consultants advised the council and it was the council’s own policy to align the salaries with the general market—a mix of public and private sector salaries—rather than aligning them as this bill seeks to do with public sector salaries through the involvement of the State Services Commission. 
 The whole process of setting chief executive officer salaries from my experience in local government can become incredibly politicised. It puts media attention on the salary rather than on the issues that the council is dealing with. This bill is a sound step toward depoliticising that process introducing transparency and having a check and balance on what the council does. It is a bill that we will be supporting. Thank you. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour) 
: 
 I want to reflect briefly on the contribution from Dr Nick Smith who for those who do not know was the Minister who checked out of Cabinet—or maybe he does need to be checked out; it is one of the two. That member got up and gave an array of figures about the historical cost of local government. He made it up then he accused speakers on this side of the House of not telling the truth when they disputed it and then of course he blocked singularly—I think he was the only National MP who blocked—the tabling of those figures that show the truth. I just say to Dr Smith as his hair stands on end as he speaks that he has no credibility when it comes to— 
Hon Christopher Finlayson 
: At least he’s got some. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: That is true Mr Finlayson. I grant you that but I do not need to be checked out unlike that member. I say this: Dr Smith has absolutely no credibility when it comes to citing figures given as Moana Mackey said his disgraceful conduct in respect of manufacturing crises and saying as Minister that ACC was going to go broke so that he could slash and burn it. And now we know of course that its investments are at a record high. That member is a bit like John Banks. His credibility is in the political sewer. 
I stand as a Canterbury member as a person who has lived in Canterbury for most of his life—both as a politician and before being a politician—and I can say this. In respect of the salary increase of the chief executive of the Christchurch City Council and the controversy around that individual and the mayor not just because of the salary but because of the lack of performance I have never seen—and I am sure Mr O’Rourke who is a former councillor will probably agree with me—conservative business elements and others in the community so united to rid themselves of an individual. I am not making a judgment on that but they are so united to rid themselves of an individual because of the lack of performance. I just place that on the record. I am not making a judgment on Mr Marryatt but the facts speak for themselves. I have never seen a time when businesses came together and demanded that he go and demanded accountability from that council. Therein lies the difficulty because we have a crisis in Canterbury. 
Let us just speak about Christchurch. We have sadly a dysfunctional in my view local authority where there has been infighting and where there has been a lack of transparency. I would cite even Councillor Tim Carter who is related to a member opposite and is a good councillor. He may not be the political colour that I am but he is a good councillor. He and others have joined hands across the aisle in demanding accountability from that local authority. I commend Councillor Carter and others for that.  
What the Local Government (Salary Moderation) Amendment Bill simply seeks to do is to obtain some accountability from that council. When you have a council in Christchurch that is dysfunctional and not performing and a local authority area in Canterbury in crisis and suddenly there is an approval for a $68000 salary—and Nick Smith said of course in his usual slipshod way slippery with the facts that the chief executive officer did not accept the $68000—in Nick Smith’s small myopic world this system works. Well maybe he has forgotten the outcry that came from all quarters of Christchurch—all quarters of Christchurch and across by the way the political divide including some of his mates few though they are—saying that this is not on. This is not on. Very few levers exist for a council to stop that behaviour. Why did Mr Marryatt not take it? Well Dr Smith wakey-wakey it was the strength of public opinion. He did take $26000 though of course. He did take that. 
If Dr Smith demands accountability and transparency he should support this bill. If he does not like it and he wants to improve it then what he could do is allow it to go to the Local Government and Environment Committee show his real steel—if he has got any—and propose some amendments to improve it. But oh no tonight it is pray and spray from Nick Smith. He has no ideas himself. If he had legislation that we voted against he could put it up again when he is a Minister but he has checked out in a number of ways and he knows it. He has checked out completely. I would say that that member will not be back in Cabinet any time soon. If he does not agree with the legislation and he thinks it can be improved then he has an option and that is to get up and vote for it send it to the select committee and prove us wrong. But he does not like it. It has been proposed and yet again he and his party have sold out the people of Canterbury. 
DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First) 
: 
 New Zealand First supports the Local Government (Salary Moderation) Amendment Bill because increasing the salaries of local government chief executive officers has caused strong public protest—very strong public protest—throughout the country. That is especially so in Christchurch. Despite the comments by Nick Smith it is the chief executive officer’s salary that is upsetting people and quite justifiably. It is not the general salaries received by people who work in local government. It is not the general salaries of people who work in local government that is upsetting people. It is in fact the chief executive officer’s salary that is upsetting people. That is a fact. Go and ask them if you do not believe me. 
It is complete nonsense for Nicky Wagner to say that the processes by which councils are currently assessing chief executive officer salaries are satisfactory. I know nobody in the community who knows anything about local government who believes that the current processes are anything like satisfactory. So for Nicky Wagner to say that they are OK is complete and utter nonsense. 
The Christchurch City Council did increase the remuneration of its chief executive officer by 14.4 percent—$68000—to $538000 and that was declined only because of the most extraordinary level of protest that has ever been seen in that city on any subject. This increase was despite the functions of the city council now being more limited because of the role currently performed by the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority. That simply does not seem to have been taken into account in the decision to increase the remuneration of the chief executive officer. 
The council’s performance in Christchurch and especially that of the chief executive officer was widely criticised in Canterbury by both the people of Christchurch and the business sector. They had some justification for that. The performance failures were in fact partly admitted by the council itself and it therefore makes it very difficult for the council to explain the magnitude of the remuneration increase for the chief executive officer in those circumstances. As a result it was only great public concern that led to that increase in fact being declined in the end. 
The Local Government Act 2002 specifies mandatory criteria for consideration by the Remuneration Authority in fixing the remuneration of mayors councillors and community board members but it is silent about the remuneration for chief executive officers. This bill proposes an amendment to the Local Government Act that preserves chief executive officers’ salaries being negotiated and agreed between the chief executive officer and the council but requires that agreement to be approved by the State Services Commission effectively a power of veto. 
New Zealand First agrees with that. But New Zealand First says that that does not go far enough. There is in fact another bill in the ballot in my name which has not yet been drawn that would establish some appropriate criteria for application by local authorities in fixing chief executive officers’ remuneration. Those issues were not addressed by Nick Smith—a glaring omission of substance on his part because it is not just about transparency; it is about the lack of criteria. The sorts of things that need to be included are to take into account special circumstances such as the existence of the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority in Christchurch. It also needs to take into account what the chief executive officer of a local authority should receive in comparison with the chief executive officer of a commercial organisation. That is an extremely important point. 
Those criteria would qualify the words “quite comparable to those that apply in similar positions” as in this particular bill. There is a precedent for such a discount because the directors of State-owned enterprises have what is called the Public Service element taken into account as a discounting factor for their remuneration. 
So New Zealand First would support this bill but at the appropriate time will move a Supplementary Order Paper to insert in this bill the same matters that I have set out as a list of criteria for the assessment of chief executive officers’ salaries in the bill that I have drafted and that is in the ballot. With those qualifications New Zealand First will support the bill going forward. We look forward to further debate on those other issues that I have mentioned. 
JAMI-LEE ROSS (National—Botany) 
: 
 Ratepayers across the country are receiving rates bills at the moment and ratepayers across the country are telling elected members of Parliament how the rates in their city are hurting them. We have got together a package of reforms that will have some real impacts on driving down costs for ratepayers in New Zealand. 
The guys on the other side are absolutely opposed to everything that we are doing but their great reform their great change in local government is to change the way in which the chief executive’s salary is set. That is their only solution to the issues with local government. I have to tell you that this is not the solution to any of the problems that ratepayers across the country are telling us as parliamentarians that they have to face on a daily basis. 
The way in which the chief executive’s salary and employment conditions are set at the moment is spot on. I have to say as someone who has actually been through the process of setting a salary for a chief executive on a local authority—and I have done that several times sitting on a chief executive review committee—that councils go through a very detailed process. Councils get expert advice from independent human resources people. We spent a huge amount of time going through the process of setting the chief executive’s salary at an appropriate level. Sure you might not agree with absolutely every decision made by a council but those are the decisions that should be left to councils to make. 
Council officers are all accountable to the chief executive and under the system of local government in New Zealand the chief executive is the only officer whom the elected councillors have influence over and have control over. Now we have members of this Parliament wanting to take away the control over the salary and the employment conditions of the only officer whom a council is able to have control over. I have to say that it certainly blurs the accountability lines as well. Accountability is very important in legislation. We have to get that right. 
Accountability is important because in this case if this bill was to go through we would have an unusual situation where a chief executive would not only be accountable to the council but also would have a link to the State Services Commissioner. The State Services Commissioner is accountable to the Minister of State Services and that would lead to a position where the State Services Commissioner would have to be answerable to the Minister of State Services who would be answerable to Parliament on how a chief executive’s salary is set. That is absolutely wrong. 
What we know is that we have people on the other side of the House who say it is OK for councils in the last 10 years to have raised their rates by 6.8 percent when over the previous 10 years it was at 3.9 percent. That is OK! They are saying it is OK for in the last 10 years council debt to have quadrupled from $2 billion to $8 billion. They do not care about that but a small portion of council costs that of a chief executive’s salary they are now expressing concern about. If this bill was to go through it would be parliamentary overreach. It would be interference by Parliament in the roles of councils and chief executives. 
Members opposite do not like what we are proposing which is to limit the scope of councils which would have a huge impact on the costs of councils and would help to get the costs of councils down considerably. No they want to tinker around the edges. They want to interfere in the role of a chief executive within a council. That is their only solution and it would do very little for ratepayers. It would do absolutely nothing. If they really wanted to get on board and support ratepayers in getting the costs of their councils under control they would be supporting our legislation. They would be supporting some real changes some real reform in local government and some real reform that would help to keep costs down. If a council is spending roughly $300 million let us just say as an example on expenditure but its chief executive’s salary is say $300000 that is one one-thousandth of the costs to the council. That is the only tinkering we are getting from the other side. 
The process in place for setting chief executive salaries and employment conditions is sound. It is rightfully the councils’ decision and the councils’ decision only. This Parliament should not be interfering in council decisions on chief executive employment conditions. We should change the purpose of local government. We should change the scope. We should put in place fiscal responsibility to get their costs under control. But councils should be the ones setting the chief executive salaries. That is their core responsibility; they should be sticking with that. 
PAUL GOLDSMITH (National) 
: 
 It is my pleasure to speak on this bill the Local Government (Salary Moderation) Amendment Bill. To be honest I would be happy to support this bill if it was the “Local Government (Rates Moderation) Amendment Bill”. But that is not what we have got. We have got only the Local Government (Salary Moderation) Amendment Bill. If it was rates moderation I would be very in favour of this bill because that is the biggest issue that we are facing up in Auckland particularly at the moment with rates going through the roof in Epsom—10 percent a year—year upon year upon year. It does not matter so much how much money the chief executive officer is getting in his or her bank but by how much the rates that people face are rising that we are concerned about and that is what this Government is focused upon. 
In Auckland we do have a real issue. The current mayor can blame all sorts of things for that but there are two drivers that are driving rates up to unaffordable levels whereby people—particularly those on fixed incomes in some parts of the city—are finding it difficult to make ends meet. The first of the two drivers is spending—undisciplined continual spending. The Government has got its spending under control and is focused on getting back to surplus. Households around the city and around the country are readjusting their spending habits. They are saving more and responding to the global situation. But unfortunately too many councils in this country have not quite got the message. They continue to go on increasing spending by 10 percent or 15 percent each year as if somehow the households can afford to pay it. So we need to adjust ourselves to the situation. 
The second driver of course—in Auckland particularly—is the way that the rates have been organised with a very very low uniform charge which has put so much emphasis on to property valuations. That has driven huge rate increases into areas such as the North Shore which some members here should be worried about. 
Looking at this bill which is really just a diversion and is not dealing with any of the broad issues in local government that are about controlling spending it is a piece of nonsense that we will not be supporting. I would urge the House—and I would urge Annette King who has a great interest in local government—to pay more attention and focus more on the issue that householders are concerned about which is rates and getting them under control and to focus on some of those basics that we need to focus on there. One of the main areas that we are going to be dealing with over the next few weeks is focusing local government back on some of the core activities and not getting so carried away with the four well-beings which have been a charter for the massive growth in spending in local government over the last decade since the 2002 legislation. So I am looking forward to hearing Annette King explain to us what is going to be happening there. 
Thank you very much. I would so much like to have had the opportunity to show some bipartisan spirit and to have supported Mrs King in her legislation here but unfortunately—like I say if it was the “Local Government (Rates Moderation) Amendment Bill” I would be very supportive. But it is not so I have to stand opposed to it. Thank you. 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Labour—Rongotai) 
: 
 Can I first of all thank most of those who have made a contribution in the debate tonight on the Local Government (Salary Moderation) Amendment Bill including the member who has just resumed his seat Paul Goldsmith and Nicky Wagner the members from the Greens and New Zealand First—thank you very much for the support—and my own colleagues. But I have to say of Nick Smith’s contribution that it was a very very shallow contribution indeed. I have got more to say about that in a moment. 
But I have to say to Mr Jami-Lee Ross that he is very very concerned about rate rises at the moment and why we need local government reform. Well what an irony because what is in the paper today under National’s local government reform? “Homeowner stunned at 225 [percent] rate rise increase”. Where did this happen? This happened in Auckland and what does this poor person get? They get no footpaths no streetlights no sewerage and no water and their rates have gone from $4300 to $14000. That is the reform from National when it comes to local government. 
Then we come to the contribution from Nick Smith. This is the man who brought in a policy that within days was proved to be made up of myths and a handful of egregious examples. He proudly had put up on a website figures that showed rate increases and debt of local government. Within 5 days they were removed from the website— 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Not true. Not true. 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: Go have a look. It tells you that they were removed. It tells you that they were wrong and they have never been replaced. Why were they not replaced? Well the new Minister of Local Government who I am sure was incredibly embarrassed said he is not going to give the corrected figures because it would distract from the reforms. Let us not base any reforms in local government on anything to do with evidence! 
Of course local government has got about $8 billion of debt. What did the Prime Minister say at the forum for employment? Remember that big forum he had on employment? He told local government at the employment forum that they had lazy balance sheets and they ought to be taking on more debt when there is a global financial crisis. That is what he told local government. Local government brought forward much of its infrastructure spending. When you go through and look at what the money has been spent on in local government in terms of debt it has gone into infrastructure. That is another myth from Nick Smith. I have to say his whole attack on the 2002 Local Government Act has been totally rejected by local government around New Zealand. I give a warning to the rural and provincial members of the National Party and those who have got a little bit of knowledge about local government: your local governments and their communities are very very unhappy with the reforms proposed— 
Hon Members 
: No they’re not. 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: Oh yes they are and Nick Smith will be listening to the submissions when they come in. 
I have to say that the National Party is totally out of touch with the public. To think the public do not care a hoot about what chief executives are paid is to be in la-la land. They do care and they want a process that is accountable. They want one that does some good comparisons—that compares local government from one end of New Zealand to the other. They want a process and what do we get from National? We get a collection of amendments and reforms based on myths wrong examples and figures that are incorrect and based on a view that Nick Smith had before he came into Parliament that he wanted every council to be a unitary authority. When he lost in his own area—because Tasman voted not to have a unitary authority—he brought in a bill that takes away the right of communities to vote for amalgamation. You talk about democracy Dr Smith but you take away the right of local communities to make local decisions by local people by taking away the right to vote for amalgamation. Lost the vote in Tasman—decided to punish the lot. This bill at least is a sensible helping hand to local government and not a big sledgehammer to crack a small nut. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the Local Government (Salary Moderation) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. 
Ayes 59 
New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 8; Maori Party 2; Mana 1. 
Noes 61 
New Zealand National 59; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1. 
Motion not agreed to. 
Prohibition of Gang Insignia in Government Premises Bill 
First Reading 
TODD McCLAY (National—Rotorua) 
: 
 I move  
That the Prohibition of Gang Insignia in Government Premises Bill be now read a first time. 
 I nominate the Law and Order Committee to consider this bill. 
Gangs cause harm and misery in this country. In January of 2009 16-year-old Jordan Herewini was mown down in what was described at the time as an armed gang hit in Murupara. He died from head injuries after being hit by a stolen ute. Kawerau gang member Quentin Duane Pukeroa a man twice the age of his victim was convicted of his murder. Earlier that day Pukeroa had hassled Jordan telling him to remove his yellow school polo shirt because the colour yellow represented a rival gang. On 3 October in 2009 17-year-old Kaingaroa resident Kaine Lewis died following a gang fight in Murupara. His scalp was split his skull was fractured following two punches causing his brain to swell. He died in Rotorua Hospital a short time later. Nineteen-year-old Norton Taoho was found guilty of his murder and Joshua Leslie-Whitu aged 18 and Hemi Winitana aged 19 were found guilty of manslaughter. During the trial the Crown solicitor told the jury a gang fight had broken out in the town between Mongrel Mob and Tribesmen associates following previous tit-for-tat incidents. 
In May of 2010 a 4-year-old Whakatane boy was abused by a Black Power affiliate for wearing a red shirt. The boy was screamed at was prodded and had his shirt ripped off him as he was playing in a city reserve—a truly traumatic experience for a 4-year-old boy and his family. A foreign exchange student was allegedly punched for wearing a red shirt in a blue town in Kopeopeo in December of 2011. The 17-year-old visitor to New Zealand was knocked unconscious in a seemingly unprovoked attack. The assailant had demanded he take off his sweater he was wearing and punched him in the head and left him unconscious. There had been other reports of people being targeted for wearing red which is a colour adopted by the Mongrel Mob by people wearing blue which is a colour worn by Black Power supporters. In July of 2012 gunshots were fired into a children’s bedroom in Masterton in a suspected gang-related shooting. Following the attack the police stopped all gang members on the street. The Wairarapa area commander said: “A gang patch is only worn for one reason and that’s to make people fearful.” 
In July of 2012 a 25-year-old Hawera woman Yahanna Karaitiana was jailed for 7 months for attacking a woman who was also wearing red. Karaitiana planned an attack on the woman after meeting her at a bar. With some friends she staked out the woman’s home and when she returned they beat her up in front of her children—in front of her children. In August 2012 the founder of the Killer Beez street gang was sentenced to more than 10 years in prison for selling large amounts of P and passing it on to associates. He was found to have $20000 in his home. He was on a sickness benefit—receiving $175 a week. The list goes on and on and on. This is a list of the consequences of gang membership and gang harm. 
You see gangs serve no useful or legitimate purpose in New Zealand society. Their members prey on the weak and the vulnerable. They profit from the harm that they do to everyday law-abiding citizens of our country. They are responsible for the drug trade. They are responsible for poisoning our communities through the distribution of P—methamphetamine. They are the driving force behind organised crime and they are responsible for misery in every part of this country that they are present. They attract young people to them and ruin their lives. Jordan Herewini and Kaine Lewis are dead. The people guilty of their deaths are in prison—all under the age of 20 all young men whose futures have been ruined because of gang bravado and intimidation. 
Of the 54 councils that responded to a recent Local Government New Zealand survey a large majority—83 percent—reported the presence of gangs in their districts. The Police Association estimates there are around 3500 full-time adult gang members in New Zealand and it also suggests there are many thousands more who are associated with or attracted to gangs at a very young age. Indeed in 2006 the police identified that three-quarters of offenders associated with clandestine drug laboratories were linked to recognised gangs and I fear—for members opposite—the statistic has not changed. Indeed the Department of Corrections estimates that 30 percent of prisoners have gang affiliations. It has said that gang membership in prisons has doubled in the last 5 years. 
You see people feel intimidated by the presence of gang members. They feel intimidated by what they stand for and they feel intimidated every time they see them in a Work and Income office in council swimming pools in schools and in hospitals around this country. Law-abiding citizens deserve to go about their business free from gang-instigated intimidation. This bill is modelled on the Wanganui District Council (Prohibition of Gang Insignia) Act sponsored through this House by Chester Borrows and championed by Michael Laws. The police estimate that between March 2009 and March 2010 gang membership in Whanganui decreased by 15 percent as a result of this law. They also said that overt gang presence was less notable by the general public and there was a reduction in the levels of intimidation in the community and a reduction in confrontations between gangs. 
This bill aims to reduce this intimidation. It introduces restrictions around gang insignia being displayed on the premises of departments of the Public Service and Crown entities as well as local government in New Zealand. Gangs are commonly identified by their insignia which associates the wearer with an organisation that has criminal intent. The insignia is often worn as a badge of pride demonstrating a high probability that the wearer has committed crimes as a means to earn the right to wear gang colours or insignia. They are not badges of pride; they are badges of misery and of crime. This bill names specific gangs to be covered by the law. It will be futureproofed to allow the Minister of Police to add gangs to the prohibition list through regulation-setting powers. It will cover all signs symbols and representations commonly displayed to denote members and those with an affiliation to or who support a gang. 
It includes all offices buildings and facilities both permanently and temporarily under the authority of the departments of the Public Service and Crown entities and all offices buildings and facilities under the authority of local authorities as defined in schedule 2 of the Local Government Act; it includes the grounds of public schools and early childhood education facilities; it includes the grounds of public hospitals and health facilities under the authority of district health boards; it includes all the grounds of public swimming pools and aquatic centres under the authority of local government authorities; and it excludes residential dwellings of the Housing New Zealand Corporation—all places where everyday New Zealanders go to seek support and all places they deserve to be free of intimidation. 
Contravention of the law will result in an arrest and a fine of up to $2000 and the destruction of gang insignia. 
I want to thank a number of councils around New Zealand that have expressed support for this bill. I particularly want to offer my thanks to Mayor Malcolm Campbell in Kawerau Mayor Tony Bonne of Whakatane and Mayor John Forbes of Opotiki for their strong support. These are three men who are willing to stand up and be counted and who are doing the right thing for the communities and I commend them. 
If you live in provincial New Zealand then you are likely to have known or know of some form of gang-related intimidation. This bill sends a clear message to gang members: “Your intimidation will no longer be tolerated.” It says: “This Parliament puts the rights of law-abiding citizens and your victims before those of criminals.” To gang members I say this: if you go to government premises with a patch your government will not serve you. Instead a policeman will. He will want to talk to you about all the nasty things you and your criminal mates have been involved in. 
I want to thank Peter Dunne of United Future John Banks of ACT and Winston Peters and the members of the New Zealand First Party for their support. This bill gives important tools to our police. This bill gives important powers back to our communities. It targets more than 3500 people who seek to harm law-abiding citizens in this country. I commend this bill to the House. 
CHARLES CHAUVEL (Labour) 
: 
 If a person does anything on central government property to make people feel intimidated the law provides a remedy. The responsible Minister or the chief executive of the department or the entity can make rules issue trespass notices or take a range of other meaningful actions under the existing laws of New Zealand that stop the intimidation. If a person does anything on local government property to make another person feel intimidated the law provides a remedy. The council can make and enforce bylaws. The chief executive can make rules or issue trespass notices or take a range of meaningful actions under the existing laws of New Zealand to stop the intimidation from happening. 
This Parliament costs thousands of dollars a minute to run. This bill the Prohibition of Gang Insignia in Government Premises Bill merely duplicates existing law and is a waste of—[ 
Interruption 
] 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch) 
: Order! I am sorry to interrupt the member but interjections across the floor are unacceptable. I want to hear what the member is saying. If you want to interject you interject against the speaker and do not have this free flow across the cross benches. 
CHARLES CHAUVEL 
: Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. 
As I was saying this Parliament costs thousands of dollars an hour to run. This bill just duplicates the existing laws of New Zealand and is a waste of time. The Opposition will not cooperate in wasting this Parliament’s time. We will vote against this piece of window dressing masquerading as legislation. 
Hon SIMON BRIDGES (Minister of Consumer Affairs) 
: 
 For several years I was a Crown prosecutor in the Bay of Plenty prosecuting jury trials in small provincial towns and provincial cities. Can I say that in the course of doing that I met and had really quite a lot of interaction with patched gang members—probably in the hundreds. I met them in court I have examined them I have cross-examined them I have met them outside of court I have talked with them I have briefed them and I have actually been in their homes in small towns around the Bay of Plenty. I have been in gang pads. I have seen how they live. I understand I think probably as well can I say as anyone in this House who was not an officer—and I know we are going to hear from some officers in this debate—about gang members. 
Let me tell this House that they can be personable one on one. They can be articulate. They can be smart. They can be cunning but together and when they put their patch on it is a very different story. Let me say to this House that there is nothing good about gangs—not a single thing that is good about gangs. They are thugs they are drug dealers they are rapists and they are murderers. They do those things all around this country every week of the year. This country does not deserve to suffer the consequences of that. There is nothing good about gangs in this country. 
There is a different somewhat trendy view from the Rajen Prasads of this world from the do-gooders of this world who say: “Actually you know gangs are OK. They’re friendly cuddly motorcycle clubs. As they get older they reform themselves. They have whanau barbeques and everything is OK.” Well I say that is rubbish. I have contempt for that view because there is nothing good about gangs and this bill the Prohibition of Gang Insignia in Government Premises Bill is doing something about it. When gang members put the patch on they become a different person. They put it on for one reason: to create fear and to intimidate others. There is no good reason as I say for gangs and there is no good reason for gang patches. 
I say that the Labour Party’s view and position on this bill is contemptible. Andrew Little says: “Oh you’re just doing this to get tough.” That is what he says. Well yes we are tough on gangs and crime in this country. If that party opposite wants to know why it is doing so poorly in the polls and why the provinces wholeheartedly reject it maybe it wants to look at its soft approach to crime. Maybe those members want to look at themselves and understand why they are doing so poorly because actually we are tough on crime and we are tough on gangs and we make no apology for everything we do that makes it harder for gangs to operate in this society. We have contempt for them. We have contempt for what they do. They are thugs they are rapists they are drug dealers and they are murderers. I wholeheartedly support anything that makes it difficult for them against a trendy sort of liberal view that we have from the other side that somehow we should be apologists for them. Well we will not be on this side of the House. 
KRIS FAAFOI (Labour—Mana) 
: 
 Todd McClay in his opening speech started with a roll call of offences that gang members had committed. I challenge him and Simon Bridges to think that there is any member on this side of the House who is not angry or outraged at that offending. For Mr Bridges to sit there and call us contemptible and do-gooders and have this faux outrage that we will not be supporting this bill the Prohibition of Gang Insignia in Government Premises Bill I say is contemptible when they put this bill before this House to try to get tough on gangs. 
John Key in 2007 said: “My Government will search out all legal and practicable means available for making it much much tougher to be a member of a criminal gang in this country.” What that says is: “We’re going to get tough on you—don’t wear your jacket. Don’t wear your jacket.” That is how this Government is getting tough on gangs. It is saying: “Don’t wear your jacket in public places.” 
I agree with Mr McClay that gangs serve no good purpose in this country. I agree they are out there committing crime which all of us hate. But if we are going to get serious about tackling gangs then take some serious action in some legislation. Do not bring this piece of legislation before this House. You sit across on the other side of the House with your faux outrage and call us contemptible when you put this bill in front of this Parliament. 
This is not enough. This bill is not enough to get tough on crime. It is not just a provincial problem—I have got a gang problem in my electorate as well. But if we are really going to get serious about gangs then let us take some serious action against them and not bring a piece of legislation that honestly—in all honest opinion—is not going to make a serious iota of difference. 
There is a difference between appearing to be safer and actually being safer. So let us take some serious action against gangs. Yes we are outraged. We are upset that they are out there and we share the concern of the Government about what is going on with gangs in this country. But take it seriously. Todd McClay should go back and resubmit a bill that is really going to take some action against gangs. 
Gang members love the brotherhood. Gang members love the brotherhood of being in a gang and Mr Bridges brought that up too. But they also have too much spare time on their hands. So this Government could take some real action in making sure we do not have young people going into gangs by making sure there are opportunities for them in our country. 
As Charles Chauvel said we will not be supporting this bill. I am upset that that side of the House can call us contemptible and are outraged because they say we are not getting tough on gangs when they bring this legislation in here. 
JAN LOGIE (Green) 
: 
 The Green Party will be voting against the Prohibition of Gang Insignia in Government Premises Bill tonight—surprise surprise—though I must admit I have a certain sympathy for what I imagine is the intent of this bill if not for the idea itself. 
I have worked in the community and I have seen young people recruited into gangs and I have seen what it does to their lives. I understand that patches and colours hold a power and a symbolism that attract as much as they induce fear. Every time I saw a young person being prospected I felt like a failure. But the very sight of them wearing their colours alerted me to the need to step up our support. Without those visible colours we would not have known their need. We need to address the root causes that drive people to gangs and to support vulnerable people within gangs to engage in positive societal contributions. 
This bill effectively bans gang-associated bandanas in Government buildings. So I would be banned from Parliament for what I am wearing on my wrist if it had the normal squiggles on it or I might have it ripped off me—forcibly—because that is what this bill allows. Some of you might scoff at that as if it is ridiculous and actually you are right to scoff at it because it is ridiculous. It would not be ripped off me because I am not young and the fact is I am white. There is nothing about me that indicates I might be a gang member which tells you that this bill is not actually about the insignia. This bill is about the underlying assumptions we have about people and our insider and our outsider status. 
The Green Party will be opposing this bill because we do not believe it will do anything to protect our young people and we do not believe it will do anything to reduce the drivers of membership in gangs. 
RICHARD PROSSER (NZ First) 
: 
 I am pleased to rise on behalf of New Zealand First to speak in support of this bill the Prohibition of Gang Insignia in Government Premises Bill. It is a bold and commendable initiative from our fellow conservatives on the opposite side of the House whose resolve I might say with regard to some matters of social policy we have had cause to be concerned about in recent times—in very recent times at any rate. Mr McClay has done much to allay certain of our fears where this direction—or perhaps I should say lack of it—is concerned with the introduction of this admirable and very necessary bill. I am gladdened—fortified indeed—by the knowledge that Mr McClay brings this bill to the House with the blessing and who knows perhaps even at the direction of his party’s leadership. 
 It is a comfort to those of us on this side of the House who count ourselves as traditionalists that the National Party has chosen to send such a powerful message affirming that its old-time stance on social issues is indeed intact and alive and kicking. We look forward to that stance being reiterated particularly by the National Party’s leaders in respect of other issues of social order and morality as and when they come before the House. We are encouraged by the knowledge that National does indeed possess the fortitude to be true to the same values of old which we ourselves continue to espouse. It is good to know that we are not alone as we may have been given cause to suspect. 
In the explanatory note of the bill the bill’s author states: “Gangs serve no legitimate purpose in New Zealand society and the public has a right to be protected from their intimidation and the significant harm that they do.” That is indeed so. I have no qualms whatsoever in saying that New Zealand First agrees with that sentiment unequivocally. 
There is a paradigm shift required in New Zealand society and in our thinking where gangs are concerned. For too long we have not simply tolerated gangs but through our inaction with regards to their various deviant and criminal activities allowed them to become glorified to a degree. Young people impressionable people the lost and the wayward are drawn to gangs because of the stability and the acceptance that they perversely offer to those whose lives lack any other kind of structure. They are drawn into the web of crime and deviancy that gangs epitomise and promote. They become trapped in the devolving lifestyle that such organisations inevitably gravitate towards and in so doing they become part of the problem. They become pawns in the perpetuation of the antisocial and criminal underclass and underworld that is gang culture and the people who live it and live by it. 
Well it is not good enough. I say to this House that it is not good enough in New Zealand. We have to stop this rot. It falls to us to the good people of New Zealand to put a stop to the evil that is the gangs and the gang culture. The buck has to stop with the members of this House whom the people send here to be their representatives. We have to set the standard. We have to set the message. We have to send the message that gangs are no longer acceptable that their time has passed that we will not and do not tolerate them any more. 
The so-called badge of pride that gang members wear needs to come to be seen as a badge of shame. The gangs and their various acolytes need to come to realise that we do not fear them. They need to come to realise that we have become angry that we will not put up with their intimidation any longer and that we will not tolerate them any further. This bill will remove the identity of the gangs from the public eye. It will remove the identifying marks of these packs of weak-minded ferals from public display and from display in Government departments and other places where they gather to prey as parasites on decent society from what they erroneously perceive to be some kind of position of respect. 
Respect—what is that? Do they seriously believe that we respect them? Do they seriously believe that we fear them—these weak sick fat unfit drug-addled retards? Do they seriously believe we cannot do anything about them—that we cannot remove them from society? Well we can. We are the Parliament and we are powerful. We represent the people and we create the law. We have the strength of numbers the resources of the nation and the capabilities of the police and the military if we so choose to call upon. We can pass this bill. We can pass this bill into law and it will become another stepping stone a flagstone in the path towards the complete elimination of gangs from our society and from our culture and I say we should. I say we should do that. New Zealand First says we should do that. We are proud to support this bill. We urge all parties and members of this House to do the same. Thank you. 
JAMI-LEE ROSS (National—Botany) 
: 
 Gangs in this country are a cancerous corrosive stain on this society. For members of this House to stand up and defend the rights of gangs to show their colours and to show their pride when we know that gangs have no rightful place in New Zealand society and when we know that they stand for crime they stand for harassment and they stand for intimidating good New Zealanders—for members to say that gangs should be supported and that this legislation is a waste of time—is contemptuous. It is an insult to everyday New Zealanders who just want to live their lives free from harassment. 
Members opposite tell us that this bill the Prohibition of Gang Insignia in Government Premises Bill is a waste of time but members opposite spent month after month after month wasting this House’s time with a bill about the Royal Society filibustering their own legislation. They now tell us that a piece of legislation like this which will help to keep New Zealanders free from intimidation is a waste of time. It is poor it is wrong and I do not support what they are saying. 
I see Mr Speaker that you are about to call the adjournment— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch) 
: Sorry to interrupt the honourable member. The time has come for me to leave the chair. 
Debate interrupted. 
The House adjourned at 10 p.m.