Volume 660 Week 34 - Wednesday 17 February 2010 
Volume 660 Week 34 - Wednesday 17 February 2010 
[Volume:660;Page:8947] 
Wednesday 17 February 2010 
Mr Speaker 
 took the Chair at 2 p.m. 
Prayers 
. 
Wanganui District Council (Port and Harbour) Bill 
Discharge 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I inform the House that I have received advice from the Wanganui District Council the promoter of the bill withdrawing the Wanganui District Council (Port and Harbour) Bill pursuant to Standing Order 269. The bill is consequently discharged from further consideration by the House. 
Standing Orders 
Sessional 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Leader of the House) 
: 
 Following agreement in the Business Committee yesterday I seek leave for the following sessional orders to be adopted: that following the coming into force of this sessional order where the member in whose name a member’s bill stands postpones the order of the day for its first reading for a second or subsequent time on the members’ day on which the bill next becomes available for debate it is set down for first reading after all other orders of the day for the first reading of members’ bills with Standing Order 71 to be read accordingly; and that the number of orders of the day for the first readings of members’ bills that may be before the House at any one time be increased from four to six with Standing Order 272(1) and (4) to be read accordingly. 
These provisions have been agreed to after considerable discussion by the members of the Business Committee representing the whole of Parliament. Last year we faced a situation where members exercised their right to withdraw bills on a members’ day which left us with a relatively short amount of work to do and the loss of considerable parliamentary time. This is a compromise between the need for some members to postpone bills because various facets of their support are not in place and ensuring that the time the House sets aside for the hearing of members’ bills and the opportunity for members to advance bills is not unduly affected. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Is there any objection to that course of action being followed? There is none. 
Points of Order 
Select Committees—Minority Reports 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour—Waimakariri) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. It is a serious point of order on which I would be grateful for your considered ruling. It concerns a serious procedural matter of constitutional import. The issue relates directly to a ruling delivered in this House by one of your predecessors Speaker Hunt in response to a point of order. I refer you to the  
New Zealand Parliamentary Debates 
 Volume 589 at page 6893. In that ruling Speaker Hunt addressed the obligation of majorities on select committees to allow minorities to express their views in the reports of committees. Speaker Hunt was quite clear that a majority cannot adopt a report that misrepresents the diverging views on a select committee. 
I acknowledge that it is not your normal practice to deal on the floor of the House with matters relating to select committees. However as the ruling by Speaker Hunt in 2000 clearly shows it is not without precedent for a Speaker to rule on a particularly serious matter relating to select committees that goes to the heart of the democratic process in respect of this House. This being the case I feel obliged to bring to your attention and seek your considered ruling on the troubling events at the Law and Order Committee this morning. Those events are public given the tabling of the interim report and we have had advice from the Clerk that we can discuss them. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member will sit down. It is important that the matters the member will be raising are not still before the committee. Can I just check that an interim report has been tabled? It has been tabled. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: This morning the chairperson Ms Goudie insisted that a minority report drafted by Labour members could not be included in the committee’s interim report to the House on the Sentencing and Parole Reform Bill. This is an unprecedented act that came as a great shock to Labour members. We sought advice—[ 
Interruption 
] 
Mr SPEAKER 
: A point of order is being heard. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: —from the Clerk of the House who advised the committee that she had no recollection of such decisions taking place in the past except perhaps where there was unparliamentary language or something completely out of order. It is clear that Ms Goudie is attempting by her actions in the committee this morning to prevent Labour members from raising our very serious concerns about the process relating to this bill. 
Finally I seek your considered ruling on whether it should be within the power of Ms Goudie to prevent members from including their genuine views in a report of the House. If it is what options are open to members to inform the House of concerns they have? 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Leader of the House) 
: 
 I refer you Mr Speaker to the second bullet point of Speaker’s ruling 91/4. It says: “A minority contribution like every contribution must be relevant to the subject before the committee. A chairperson rules on relevancy.” The same Speaker ruled that “A majority can refuse to admit differing views altogether. If a minority’s views are objectionable or too long there may be a trade-off whereby the minority agrees to cull its contribution. But this must be done consensually; the majority cannot just rewrite a minority’s view.” In other words the minority view from the minority itself has to be considerate of the wider committee report. There is specific reference elsewhere in this ruling to unparliamentary language so I doubt that that is what Speaker Hunt was referring to in 2000 when he said that if “views are objectionable or too long there may be a trade-off”. 
I am suggesting that there has clearly been a discussion at a select committee and there has clearly been a disagreement. Throughout Speakers’ rulings there are references to the chairperson’s ability to rule in these matters. If there was any doubt about that the only course of action would be for the party that feels a little aggrieved to seek to have the report sent back to the committee. That would require a vote in Parliament. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I do not believe I need to hear more on this matter because this is not a matter of order in this House although I accept the point made by the honourable member that it is a matter that is serious in respect of the Standing Orders of the House. It is my understanding—and if I am wrong in this matter I stand corrected—that it is within the power of a committee to decide by resolution whether a minority view is to be included in its report. It is my understanding that the particular committee to which the member is referring resolved that way. As far as I am concerned that must be the end of the matter. If the member wants me to consider further matters he is most welcome to come and see me about them. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour—Waimakariri) 
: 
 I seek leave to table the minority report on the interim report written in respect of the Sentencing and Parole Reform Bill which was blocked by National and ACT members today. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is objection. 
Questions to Ministers 
Finance Minister—Statements 
1. 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn) 
 to the  
Minister of Finance 
: Does he stand by all his recent statements? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance) 
: 
 Yes. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: Does his Government’s promise that the vast bulk of New Zealanders would be better off after a GST change include compensating renters for both the increase in GST and the increase in rent they face as a result of property owners passing on both GST and property increases to them? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Any impact on rents or on the property markets will depend to some extent on the details of the decisions the Government comes to. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The Minister did not address the question other than with a truism. I asked whether renters would be compensated under the Government’s definition for any possible flow-through. The Minister did not address that question. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: With respect to the honourable member he is asking about something where the Minister indicated that no specific decisions have been made. It is very difficult for the Minister to give the precise answer the member is seeking ahead of any decisions being made as to exactly what the Government might do. That is my dilemma in asking the Minister to answer further. But the member has a further supplementary question. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: What does the Minister say to Grey Power who have in response to his claims that superannuitants will be automatically compensated for an increase in GST pointed out that such compensation will arrive a year after the increase in GST; if so will they be better off? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: In his speech the Prime Minister indicated clearly that the Government understands the impact an increase in GST would have on superannuitants. He is quite open for the Government to make choices about what measures it uses to compensate them for those increases. I also add that in a tax package that reduces income tax rates superannuitants will benefit from that because superannuation is tied to the after-tax average wage. So if the tax on the average wage goes down superannuitants will be better off. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: Does the Minister intend to ensure that all homeowners are better off after a rise in GST given the resulting increase in interest rates and a rise in local rates? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: The member is getting well ahead of himself. Firstly the Government has not made any particular decisions about it and secondly it is not altogether clear how the housing market would react to any particular change in taxation. In respect of high interest rates that member would know a lot about it because under his Government they reached record levels. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: Does the Minister think that the 59 percent of New Zealanders who are already sceptical about his promise that they will be better off will be more or less confident that they will be better off after it was revealed he broke his promise not to increase GST? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: I think their confidence will increase as they understand the significant problem in the New Zealand economy which is that we spend more than we earn. This tax package is one way we can change peoples’ choices so that in the future we invest save and grow our exports. That is how we will get more jobs better jobs and higher incomes. It will not be by following the failed policies of the past. 
Craig Foss 
: What reports has he seen on the need for reform after many years of economic underperformance in New Zealand? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: It has become clear that since 2005 the economy has been performing worse than was thought as the Department of Statistics has just produced revised growth figures showing that from 2005 to 2008 the economy grew at less than 1 percent per year. The result of that is that we have record high levels of Government spending and household spending but record low levels of export earning. That is a huge challenge for New Zealanders who want more jobs and higher incomes. This Government last week outlined a programme in this House to increase our earning capacity so we can have the things we want. 
Government Expenditure—Value for Money 
2. 
AMY ADAMS (National—Selwyn) 
 to the  
Minister of Finance 
: What is the Government doing to ensure value for money in its expenditure? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance) 
: 
 After years of reckless spending the Government needs to correct New Zealand’s habit of spending more than it earns. There are many opportunities for gaining better value for money in particular where there are multiple agencies offering a range of social services to the same people in the same area. Whanau Ora is part of a suite of initiatives that will contribute to the Government’s aspirational agenda for New Zealand by eliminating the continued waste of overlapping programmes so that we can increase our social capital improve the welfare of families and achieve better value for the money that the taxpayer is spending. 
Amy Adams 
: What are some of the value-for-money initiatives that the Government is or will be implementing? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: There are two in particular. One is the high-trust contracts where the Government has a new type of contract with non-governmental organisations whereby it operates on the basis of outcomes rather than by ticking boxes and secondly there is Whanau Ora which is a philosophy and an approach to working with families that builds on their strengths and helps us to sort out the money that is wasted in overlapping social programmes. 
Amy Adams 
: How will Whanau Ora deliver better value for money? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: As we have explained there are any number of areas in New Zealand where there are many overlapping contracts with overlapping requirements for auditing and monitoring. This problem has been around for a number of years. But it appears that Whanau Ora which focuses on positive benefits for families will be a very useful tool in bringing together these contracts and in ensuring we can deliver focused services that achieve outcomes rather than ticks in boxes and make progress for many New Zealand families. 
Prime Minister—Statements 
3. 
Hon PHIL GOFF (Leader of the Opposition) 
 to the  
Prime Minister 
: Does he stand by his comment yesterday “I have been busy running the country. But I am the first to admit it was a bit sloppy”? 
Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister) 
: 
 Yes I stand by my response to the question which asked me how I was unaware that Jackson Mining merged last year and sold its non-uranium interests. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: Does his sloppiness extend to his management of the flagship home insulation programme where an audit has found that 63 percent of the work was substandard and that half of it had serious quality issues including fire safety risks; and what responsibility will he take for that sloppiness and incompetence? 
Hon JOHN KEY 
: No but it is living proof that I have been busy running the country—given that we will insulate four times as many houses in a quarter of the amount of time that Labour did and hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders will thank us for warm homes. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: Was it sloppy or was it more likely to have been irresponsibility and thoughtlessness that led the Prime Minister to name the hitherto anonymous soldier pictured in Kabul as Willy Apiata against all the advice given to him by the Special Air Service and the New Zealand Defence Force? 
Hon JOHN KEY 
: No. There are a couple of things there. Firstly the Defence Force had already made that statement but I am prepared— 
Hon Members 
: No they hadn’t. 
Hon JOHN KEY 
: Well they had. 
Hon Members 
: They hadn’t. 
Hon JOHN KEY 
: Yes they had. They did it 2 hours earlier at a press conference but I was more than happy for them to do so. Secondly for the record both Television One and TV3 had left messages to say that they would specifically ask me because they had recognised it was Willy Apiata. At the end of the day I am not going to spend a week of having two pictures in the paper playing identikit games when it had already been printed. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: Was it sloppy that this time last year he was promising the country 4000 jobs from a national cycleway and now by his own admission he has created only 280 and even they are not up and running yet? 
Hon JOHN KEY 
: No but what I can say is that there has been an overwhelming response to the over 2000 kilometres of the cycleway up and down the country. There are 54 requests. What I can say is that it has been such an overwhelming success that I have no doubt that future National Governments may well look to extend the cycleway and I have full intentions of speaking to the Minister of Finance in the second term of a National Government should we be lucky enough to get one to ask for another $50 million. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: Was it sloppy for the Prime Minister to have promised this country a youth guarantee whereby every young person under 18 would have a job or be in training and education when the reality of what the Prime Minister has delivered is a third of Maori and Pasifika young people not in work not in training and not in education which is a disaster for those communities and New Zealand? 
Hon JOHN KEY 
: No because 2000 young people are going on Youth Guarantee this year and 2000 next year not to mention the thousands that have gone on the Job Ops or Community Max programmes. We know that the real future of young people up and down the country will be secured when we have national standards and they can read and write properly. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: Was it sloppy of the Prime Minister to have described unemployment 2 months ago as being at a level that was a pretty good result given that 168000 New Zealanders are now without a livelihood and that the Salvation Army reported to us last Friday that 30000 more children are now living in households where neither parent is working? 
Hon JOHN KEY 
: No given that New Zealand’s unemployment rate is below the OECD average. Obviously the fact that any person has lost his or her job is an unfortunate thing. Secondly contrary to what the member has been telling people up and down the country in the last quarter of last year there was a very small contraction in the number of jobs. Yes a lot more people are staying in the country. People looking to come—[ 
Interruption 
] No it was actually 2000 people in the last quarter. One interesting point did come out of the Salvation Army report. The report showed that 69 I think or 70 percent—it was either 69 or 70—of young people who live in homes that are based on a benefit are living in poverty. That is one of the reasons why this Government will undertake welfare reform. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: Was it sloppy management on the part of the Prime Minister that the young girl he used as a photo opportunity at Waitangi has now been described by her mother as having been used by the Prime Minister and that his promise that those on Struggle Street would be better off has been the reverse—that they are now worse off—which is because the Prime Minister has looked after the high-income people and not those who are disadvantaged? 
Hon JOHN KEY 
: I do not have the  
Sunday Star-Times 
 to hand as I did yesterday but if I did have it I would be able to read out all the improvements that have happened in McGehan Close which are quite some in number. What I think is informative about the questions from the Leader of the Opposition today is that he has never been around a political leader who could ever say that he or she had made a mistake. Well guess what? Sometimes we all make mistakes. 
Education National Standards—Independent Advisory Group 
4. 
LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupo) 
 to the  
Minister of Education 
: What recent announcements has she made about national standards? 
Hon ANNE TOLLEY (Minister of Education) 
: 
 Today I have announced the appointment of a national standards independent advisory group. The group is comprised of five respected figures who have an outstanding mix of education and public policy experience. I am looking forward to receiving their ongoing independent free and frank advice on the implementation of the standards and on any refinements that can be made to enhance their effectiveness. 
Louise Upston 
: Who are the members of the national standards independent advisory group? 
Hon ANNE TOLLEY 
: The group will be chaired by Professor Emeritus Gary Hawke who is a very well-known expert in the field of public policy. It has a strong core of education sector academic experience from New Zealand with the inclusion of Professors Tom Nicholson and John Hattie and of Tony Trinick. Finally Dr Avis Glaze is a well-respected Canadian educator who has played a pivotal role in education reform in a number of countries and he will bring a useful outside view to the group. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Does the Minister understand the difference between a ministerial committee and an independent committee; if so what is it? 
Hon ANNE TOLLEY 
: I have set up this group by asking its members to give me their independent free and frank advice on the implementation of the national standards. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Does she still claim to fully understand the national standards system and in particular does she fully understand inter-school moderation of her literacy standards? 
Hon ANNE TOLLEY 
: Yes. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: What is her best estimate of the cost of her inter-school moderation of literacy standards? 
Hon ANNE TOLLEY 
: I well understand that that is a concern that has been expressed by people such as Professor Hattie. 
Hon Member 
: What’s the estimate? 
Hon ANNE TOLLEY 
: I have no estimate on the cost of inter-school moderation. The actual difficulty New Zealand has and the reason for our national standards policy is supported by the Programme for International Student Assessment data which shows that the greatest variation in student achievement in New Zealand schools is within schools not between schools. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: In light of her reply to my second to last supplementary question how does the inter-school moderation of her literacy standards work? 
Hon ANNE TOLLEY 
: I am sorry but I cannot— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I think it was perfectly fair. The Minister did not hear the question. I ask the Hon Trevor Mallard to repeat it. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: In light of her answer to my second to last supplementary question how does her system of inter-school moderation of her literacy standards work? 
Hon ANNE TOLLEY 
: It is not “my” method of inter-school moderation that is at stake here. What we have put in place to examine the implementation and monitor the implementation of the national standards over the next several years to be carried out by the Ministry of Education is a contract that will evaluate and monitor the standards including between-school differences if there are any. Also the Education Review Office will have direct responsibility for examining the basis on which teachers are making their judgments. The Opposition members cannot have it both ways. On the one hand they argue that if we use assessment we run the risk of teachers teaching to the test; the minute that we allow teachers to use their judgment and their relationship with the students then the members opposite start worrying about inter-school moderation. We want to have professional judgments from professional teachers about the progress that students are making against the standards. This Government is determined to address the one in five students whom the previous Government left to fail in our education system. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Can the Minister now explain to the House how the inter-school moderation of literacy standards will work? 
Hon ANNE TOLLEY 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Can I take you back to the primary question. I have engaged with and tried to answer the member but the primary question was about recent announcements that I have made. I have made no recent announcements on inter-school moderation. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Speaking to the point of order Mr Speaker. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I am not sure that I need the member’s assistance. [ 
Interruption 
] I am on my feet. The dilemma I have is that the Minister was asked a question if I recollect correctly about her understanding of how the moderation of national standards will work. The Minister—if I recollect correctly; it was about three supplementary questions ago—said “Yes.” The Hon Trevor Mallard therefore under our Standing Orders is entitled to question further about that answer. That is what he has done; he has asked for an explanation of how the standards will work. My dilemma is that the member’s question therefore is absolutely in order. 
Hon Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Notwithstanding the fact that the Minister of Education is dealing with these questions very factually and in a very direct manner I think it is worth noting that although the Standing Orders control the way in which the House operates they are moderated by Speakers’ rulings. If I take you to Speaker’s ruling 160/2 you will see it states: “Supplementary questions must arise directly from the Minister’s reply; they must be related to it not indirectly but directly.” Now that of course relates to the primary question which was as the Minister quite rightly pointed out about the announcement of the ministerial committee to give her free and frank advice on the implementation of the standards. To start running down the track of how we are doing inter-school moderation is the sort of thing we might have at a select committee quite appropriately. It is fascinating that the member opposite needs to ask those sorts of questions but none the less they do not really comply with the direction by Speaker Algie. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I probably do not tell you this because you are absolutely aware of the fact that the replies referred to are replies not only to the primary question but to supplementary questions also. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: My dilemma is that the Standing Order and the particular Speaker’s ruling that the Hon Gerry Brownlee has referred to are quite clear that supplementary questions that relate to answers given are perfectly in order. In fact if one goes to the Standing Order—I think it is Standing Order 378—on supplementary questions one finds that it states that further questions can be asked about either the primary question or the answers given. My dilemma is that the member the Hon Trevor Mallard asked a very specific question about the Minister’s understanding of the moderation system to which the Minister said “Yes” and now the member is pursuing that answer further. I would like the Minister to see whether she can answer that further question because it is absolutely in order. I would feel that I was not doing my duty if I did not ask the Minister to answer. I would appreciate her doing that. 
Hon ANNE TOLLEY 
: I am perfectly happy to answer; I just really wanted to point out that we were heading off down a different track from the primary question. I say to the member he is concerned about inter-school moderation but actually the national standards at their heart are to address inter-school moderation. Currently a large number of assessment tools are used by schools and no one standard applies across them. That is what national standards are. So the existing assessment tools will remain in place and the national standards will go right across all those tools so that it will not matter which school a child goes to or which assessment tool a particular school uses because there will be a standard that is national. That is the essence of national standards so the inter-school moderation is exactly that. Parents will know whichever school their children attend— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: This is embarrassing. 
Hon ANNE TOLLEY 
: Well it just shows that you do not understand—[ 
Interruption 
] It just shows that you do not understand what national standards are— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The Speaker is on his feet and as a former Minister of Education the Speaker might understand. The Minister should not be saying “you do not understand”. I think we have heard a sufficient answer. 
Hon ANNE TOLLEY 
: I should have said that the Opposition members who continue to put misinformation out into the community about what national standards are do not understand. It is not a new test; it is not a new assessment tool. It is a common standard across them. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I now ask the Minister not how national standards will work and not about the fact that there is going to be moderation but how will that moderation work? 
Hon ANNE TOLLEY 
: I say to the member that I give him the same answer. It is exactly as I have explained it. That is how it will work. If the member would like to come and have a briefing I am quite prepared to provide it. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I say this with some reluctance. I have not quite counted the number of attempts that I have had to have that question answered. Offering a briefing is not an explanation of how moderation will work. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Serious issues are being addressed here; this is question time working. I have to say to the honourable member that I have supported the quite clever questioning he has pursued but I have a dilemma now. He rightly used supplementary questions to highlight that he wanted to dig into an answer he was receiving that to him was unsatisfactory. But he is now asking me to intervene and my dilemma is that the primary question was broad. Had the primary question been more specifically in respect of the moderation of national standards I could have gone further in supporting the member in his questioning. But given the nature of the primary question I believe that in the interests of fairness I have gone about as far as I reasonably can in supporting the member’s questioning. I think that in fairness to the Minister with such a broad primary question it would be unreasonable for me to expect any more specific answer than has been given. 
Whanau Ora—Extension to All New Zealanders 
5. 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Deputy Leader—Labour) 
 to the  
Minister for Social Development and Employment 
: What work if any has she undertaken to extend Whanau Ora to all New Zealanders? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT (Minister for Social Development and Employment) 
: 
 I can inform the member that decisions are yet to be made and that we are expecting announcements to be made as part of Budget 2010. 
Hon Annette King 
: Does she agree that Whanau Ora is a cross-sectoral whole-of-Government concept that uses a structured process of Government agencies and community organisations working together to achieve better education housing health and social outcomes for families in which both Government and non-governmental and community organisations will participate; if not why not? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: Yes. 
Hon Annette King 
: Is she aware that the description I have just given is that of the Strengthening Families programme which has existed for 6 years has been evaluated and is operating effectively? Why are we going through the pretence of saying to New Zealanders that the Government has a new programme for vulnerable families and wasting time and money pulling the wool over their eyes? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: We have to wonder why Labour has an issue with Maori coming up with solutions to their own problems. I mean Labour’s big idea was closing the gaps which according to the head of Te Puni Kokiri was a heavily— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I heard the member ask a question but I am not hearing much of an answer relating to the question at all. If I recollect correctly the question asked was: “Was the Minister aware that a description given was the description of”—from memory—“the Strengthening Families policy?” or something. Some attempt to answer that question would be helpful rather than a launch into the Opposition. 
Hon Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The second part of the question was: “Why is the Government doing it?” which of course gives the Minister an opportunity to ask why if the programme was so good for all those years so many families are still living in poverty. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I am perhaps suitably censured. Maybe the question should have been briefer. I ask the Minister though in responding not to launch straight into the Opposition. 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: We have Strengthening Families; unfortunately we also have as much dysfunction and as many families struggling as there were under years of Labour’s just putting out more and more programmes and driving stuff from Wellington into areas that did not work. We are talking about something that is grassroots; we are talking about something that is going back to those communities and to those families and working in quite a different way. 
Hon Annette King 
: Does she still insist that it is the media’s fault that no one knows the definition of Whanau Ora even though her own ministry’s website has no clear definition and even though she thinks it is one thing Minister Turia and the Maori Party think it is another and the Prime Minister thinks it is a waterbed? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: No I do not. I think that it is kind of clear and that it is Labour that is having issues. We could go back to closing the gaps and “reducing inequalities”. I just don’t understand Labour’s issue with Maori coming up with their own solutions to their own issues in their own communities and coming up with stuff that really works. It is because it is not Wellington-driven. 
Hon Annette King 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I listened carefully to the Minister’s answer and I did not hear any addressing of my question at all. 
Hon Gerry Brownlee 
: Mr Speaker— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I do not need assistance on this one. In fairness—given the nature of the member’s question on this occasion which became somewhat flippant towards the end—I say that if one wants to inject that kind of thing into the question the answer will never be quite as objective as the member might have wanted. I do not think I can intervene on this occasion. 
Hon Annette King 
: Does she agree with the Prime Minister that most of the funding for Whanau Ora will come from existing baselines; if so how much does she expect to be taken from Vote Social Development? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: As previously answered the member must wait and see. Those announcements will be made in Budget 2010. 
Election Spending—Political Party Cap 
6. 
METIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green) 
 to the  
Minister of Justice 
: Why is he proposing election campaign spending caps for political parties? 
Hon SIMON POWER (Minister of Justice) 
: 
 Spending caps have been in place for political parties since the Electoral Act 1993. However the limits for parties and candidates have not changed since 1995. In response to the review of electoral finance laws there was broad agreement that these limits should be adjusted by a CPI rate. As a result this is one of the Government’s proposals for reform. 
Metiria Turei 
: Does the Minister agree with the Royal Commission on the Electoral System when it stated: “It is illogical to limit spending by parties if other interests are not also controlled. … Nor should powerful or wealthy interest groups be able to spend without restriction during an election campaign while [the parties] are restricted.”? 
Hon SIMON POWER 
: I understand the point but submissions on the electoral finance proposals as I said to the member yesterday were sharply divided between those who proposed that parallel campaigners be tightly regulated including a spending cap and those who wanted minimal regulation. In the absence of consensus the Government is proposing that those who spend over $12000 should register to provide more transparency than exists under the current law without unduly limiting freedom of speech. The member may be interested to know that this was the suggestion of both the Human Rights Commission and the Employers and Manufacturers Association which suggests we might have the balance—initially—about right. My overriding concern has been to ensure that in the initial stages the electoral finance reforms have broad-based support heading into that select committee so that they can endure. 
Metiria Turei 
: Does the Minister agree with the royal commission when it went on to state that it is not fair if some in the community use their relative wealth to exercise disproportionate influence in determining who is to govern and what policies are to be pursued? 
Hon SIMON POWER 
: Again I understand the point but the requirement to register as currently proposed would make it clear who was behind any parallel campaign. I think the public and the media are smart enough to join the dots. In addition a parallel campaign would be restricted by the fact that under the proposals as they exist today the parallel campaigner could still not advertise on television or radio. I note in respect of the member’s suggestions around big groups—I think she used the phrase “big campaigners” “big business” or something similar—that the 25 groups and individuals who registered as parallel campaigners in 2008 were far more diverse than that and included 11 unions the national students’ association and a group called “Vote for the Environment”. 
Metiria Turei 
: How will his proposals prevent a political party from giving money to a third party so it can run an uncapped political campaign? 
Hon SIMON POWER 
: As I said I am confident that the registration proposal which is currently part of the Government’s package will bring increased transparency over and above those requirements that currently exist in the Electoral Act 1993 with the donations portion of the Electoral Finance Act 2007 clipped on. As the member is aware and as I said to all political parties yesterday in briefings on the matters of parallel campaigning donations and broadcasting I remain very interested in what the select committee comes up with. If a broad consensus can emerge from that particular forum which was not able to emerge on those issues from three or maybe four stages of consultation leading to this point I would be very interested in hearing about it. 
Metiria Turei 
: Can the Minister then confirm that there is nothing in the proposals thus far that will prevent a political party from giving money to a third party to run a supportive and uncapped election campaign? 
Hon SIMON POWER 
: On the contrary I think the suggestion that has been made which is actually tighter than the regime that existed prior to the 2008 legislation will in fact enhance transparency in the area that the member is concerned about. 
Metiria Turei 
: What in his proposal is there to require a third party to disclose campaign donations from a political party? 
Hon SIMON POWER 
: Off the top of my head nothing. But again the select committee could well provide an opportunity for a broader consensus to develop on that point. As I said to the member yesterday one cannot draft a piece of legislation that has options and operational clauses. We have to put down a proposal to send to a select committee to hope that the debate will produce the consensus that may be lacking on these one or two remaining issues. 
Metiria Turei 
: Does the Minister not agree that the absence of a spending cap for third parties means that Governments can very well be beholden to the wealthy interests that pay for the parallel campaigns and not to the voters who are an essential part of this democracy? 
Hon SIMON POWER 
: No I do not share that view. 
Referendum on MMP—Proposed Question Format 
7. 
CHESTER BORROWS (National—Whanganui) 
 to the  
Minister of Justice 
: What is the proposed question format for the upcoming referendum on MMP? 
Hon SIMON POWER (Minister of Justice) 
: 
 The first question at this stage is to ask voters whether they wish to retain MMP or change to a different system. The second question will ask voters irrespective of how they voted on the first question what their preferred alternative system is from four options those being first past the post preferential voting the supplementary-member representation system or the single transferable vote system. 
Chester Borrows 
: Will the public have any input into the proposed approach for the referendum? 
Hon SIMON POWER 
: Yes. I will be introducing a bill in the next month or so that provides for a referendum to be held. I am pleased to say that agreement has been reached that a special all-party select committee will be established to consider this legislation as well as the reforms that are being proposed in the electoral finance rules area. Both bills if it is the wish of Parliament will receive the normal 6-month consideration by the committee which I hope will allow the public and political parties to make submissions on these important matters. 
Step Change: Success the Only Option  
Report—Recommendations 
8. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) 
 to the  
Minister of Education 
: Has she received the report entitled  
Step Change: Success the Only Option 
; if so which recommendations does she agree with? 
Hon ANNE TOLLEY (Minister of Education) 
: 
 Yes; I am yet to make a decision as to whether I agree with the central recommendation which is to appoint a task force. I will make that decision after further consideration and advice. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Are her national standards with their inter-school moderation able to be used to assess which students fall into the top 5 percent or the bottom 20 percent of their cohort which are the key figures in that report? 
Hon ANNE TOLLEY 
: As I have said to the member I am considering the report and I believe that any further comments on the report would be premature. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. It was actually a very simple question about whether her national standards would identify the top 5 percent and the bottom 20 percent. It would not require any thought from a Minister on top of her portfolio. 
Hon ANNE TOLLEY 
: The essence of the question implies that I have accepted the report and that I agree with what is in the report. The point I made was that I had only received the report and I was still considering it. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Speaking to the point of order— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I do not want this debate by way of point of order to go on. I understand what the member who asked the question is getting at but in fairness I have to say that as I understand it the report was received only in the last 24 hours or so. I think it is reasonable for the Minister to answer that she needs time to consider the report. I realise the member’s question is about how the report interacts with national standards proposals but it is reasonable that the Minister may need time to reflect on that and I think that is a reasonable answer. 
National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research—Annual Temperature Data 
9. 
JOHN BOSCAWEN (ACT) 
 to the  
Minister of Research Science and Technology 
: Does the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research maintain an up-to-date schedule of adjustments of all changes made to the raw temperature data that are used in calculating the official series “Mean annual temperature over New Zealand from 1853 to 2008” published on the institute’s website; if not why not? 
Hon Dr WAYNE MAPP (Minister of Research Science and Technology) 
: 
 The “Mean annual temperature over New Zealand from 1853 to 2008” analysis which was referred to by the member does make adjustments to the raw data from the seven stations. The reason that is necessary is that in some cases the location of the stations has changed. For instance the Wellington site has been moved from Thorndon to Kelburn a difference in height of 125 metres. That requires an adjustment. All of the information to explain the methodology used to adjust the data is on the institute’s website. The original methodology to do so was developed in Dr Salinger’s PhD thesis which is also publicly available. 
John Boscawen 
: Given that we have been through the information the Minister refers to and found no schedule of adjustments can he point to where in this mass of information it is contained; if he cannot can he commit to table in Parliament the simple schedule of adjustments? 
Hon Dr WAYNE MAPP 
: The member is correct; there is a complex range of information on the institute’s website. The methodology for the site changes is published in the peer-reviewed  
International Journal of Climatology 
 which has been referred to a number of interlocutors on this case. That particular article is by Rhoades and Salinger and is called “Adjustment of temperature and rainfall measurements for site changes”. The huge volume of information indicates that this is quite a complex area. 
Hon Rodney Hide 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. With great respect the Minister did not answer the question. The question is a very simple one. It is not about the methodology; it is about the simple schedule of adjustments. In his answer to the primary question he said that the schedule was on the institute’s web page amongst this mass of information. We have been through it. There is no schedule of adjustments. So the Minister was asked whether he could point to the actual schedule of adjustments not the methodology and if he could not whether he could table in the House the schedule of adjustments—not the methodology; the schedule. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I hear the honourable member and I am sympathetic to the member’s point of order because the question was on notice. The question asks specifically whether the institute maintains an up-to-date schedule of adjustments of all changes made to the raw temperature data. It does not ask why changes are made to raw temperature data or how those changes are made; the primary question asks whether the institute maintains an up-to-date schedule of the adjustments made. That information should be available and I believe that the House deserves an answer. I invite the Minister to give the House an answer. 
Hon Dr WAYNE MAPP 
: As I indicated in my answer the information is contained in a wide range of information rather than in a simple one-page schedule which the member seems to be requesting. In fact that has been previously advised to the member in this regard. As I indicated it is a complex issue. As Minister I have advised the institute that it should provide as much information as possible on how the adjustments were made so that they can be independently analysed. 
Hon Rodney Hide 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. With the greatest of respect I have two points. One is that the PhD thesis referred to is not publicly available. We have had a great deal of difficulty getting it because it is subject to copyright and is not available to the public. The second thing is that as the Speaker pointed out the question is not about a mass of data; the question is whether there is a schedule of adjustments. The Minister said that it is somewhere in the data on the institute’s web page. We have been right through it because we got this information last Christmas. We cannot find it. Is it there or not? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: This should not be debate by point of order but again I am sympathetic to the member’s point of order. The question was on notice. The institute has had at least a couple of hours to advise the Minister on a very simple question: basically is there a schedule of the data that has been adjusted or is there not? The question is not about how it is adjusted or why it is adjusted; it simply asks whether a schedule of the data changes is kept. That is either available or it is not. I believe that the House deserves better because this issue is of interest to the House. The House deserves better. I am very sympathetic to the Minister too; if the Minister has not been provided with the information maybe he should acknowledge that to the House. But I believe that on such a straight question that was on notice no Government agency should be allowed to not provide an answer—unless to do so is not in the public interest; it may not be in the public interest and I accept that. I invite the Minister to indicate that the information is available or that he has not been advised or whatever the answer is. [ 
Interruption 
] We will hear the answer. 
Hon Dr WAYNE MAPP 
: As I indicated in my previous answer the information is not set out as a singular document in the way that has been noted here. Rather it is a range of material all of which is available on the institute’s website. Effectively it is not in a schedule in the form of a one-page document but rather a methodology and I have indicated the sources of information for that methodology. Mr Speaker I believe I have addressed the question in precisely the terms that you as Speaker have requested me to do. 
Hon Rodney Hide 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I say this carefully because I think the Minister is trifling with your ruling. You said that the question was on notice and that the question asks whether there is a schedule of adjustments. The Minister has said that it is in a mass of data that it is not in one place which I guess is sort of saying no but he is actually trifling with you because you have said that the question was on notice: is there a schedule of adjustments—yes or no? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I think I have made very clear my concern. The question was on notice and the answer sought is very simple. The question does not ask about methodology; it simply asks whether the data has been maintained. That is not a matter of whether it has been maintained on a single sheet or anything; it is a matter of whether the data is available. I have tried to support the member’s point of order as far as is reasonable today. There are more days to question the Minister on this issue if it is one that concerns the relevant members but I think the House should move on today. 
John Boscawen 
: Is the Minister aware of revelations involving the previously prestigious climate research institute at the University of East Anglia which has been found to be deliberately breaking official information laws arbitrarily adjusting raw data hiding the reasons for those adjustments and contriving to lose the original unadjusted data so that it could not be independently checked? Does it not concern him that the same could be happening to the records of the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research particularly when Dr Jim Salinger previously worked there? 
Hon Dr WAYNE MAPP 
: Yes I am aware of the extensive controversy on these issues. Can I also make it clear that no changes at all have been made to the raw temperature data itself. Obviously adjustments have been made because of the variations but the original information is available on the institute’s database and members are able to have their own independent analysis made of it to effectively check verify or indeed disprove the institute’s information. 
Hon Rodney Hide 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. With the greatest respect given the difficulty that we have had with this question I seek leave of the House to ask one extra supplementary question of the Minister. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought for the Hon Rodney Hide to ask an additional supplementary question. Is there any objection to that? There is no objection. 
Hon Rodney Hide 
: Is the Minister aware that the raw data of the graph in question shows no warming for the period in question—that is from 1853 till now—and that the entire warming indicated in the graph which has been used to highlight the 0.92 degrees of warming a century that the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research has been talking about is entirely a consequence of the adjustments that the scientists made and it is those adjustments that need to be explained? 
Hon Dr WAYNE MAPP 
: Yes I am very much aware of the issues that have been raised by the member. That is precisely why adjustments are made when locations are shifted. For instance it is a very significant difference to change the location from being virtually at sea level to being 125 metres above sea level. That is precisely why the methodology that I referred to in previous answers had to be applied to achieve the adjusted result. A rigorous scientific process has been undertaken to achieve that. 
Auckland Transition Agency—Performance 
10. 
PHIL TWYFORD (Labour) 
 to the  
Minister of Local Government 
: Is he satisfied with the performance of the Auckland Transition Agency? 
Hon RODNEY HIDE (Minister of Local Government) 
: 
 Yes. I am very satisfied because the Auckland Transition Agency is getting on with the job. I agreed with that member when he said that Auckland has not been working for a long time and that the previous Labour Government did nothing about it. I am pleased that Mark Ford and the team at the Auckland Transition Agency— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member will resume his seat. A moment ago he was questioning other Ministers’ answers. The question simply asked whether he is satisfied with the performance of the Auckland Transition Agency; it did not ask him why. I think we have heard sufficient. 
Phil Twyford 
: Does it meet his openness and transparency test to have a former National Party president and current mayoral campaign advisor to John Banks contracted to recruit senior executives to run the super-city? 
Hon RODNEY HIDE 
: I have taken some care with this answer because I suspected the question would be asked. I am advised that the Auckland Transition Agency’s HR adviser and the former Alliance leader Laila Harré led this process and that the agency considered Ms Boag’s company Momentum had the best proposal “in terms of quality process and lowest cost structure”. Momentum is one of several companies assisting with the very important job of recruitment at the new Auckland Council. I am pleased that Aucklanders from across the political divide are getting in behind the Government’s changes for Auckland and are focused on getting the very best result. I am not responsible for what Michelle Boag does in her spare time just like I am not responsible for what Laila Harré does in her spare time. 
Phil Twyford 
: Is he aware that Michelle Boag told the public she had nothing to do with the recruitment bid yet the tender documents profile her as a member of the recruitment team and identify her specifically as the person who will recruit the super-city’s chief spin doctor? 
Hon RODNEY HIDE 
: No I am not aware of those public statements. 
Phil Twyford 
: Is he concerned that Michelle Boag’s recruitment company Momentum may have misled the Auckland Transition Agency when it stated in its business proposal that it had no conflicts of interest to declare? 
Hon RODNEY HIDE 
: No. 
Phil Twyford 
: Will he order an investigation into the Auckland Transition Agency tendering process to assure himself and the Auckland public that the process is all above board and that there is no hint of cronyism in the awarding of tenders; if not why not? 
Hon RODNEY HIDE 
: No. The reason is that apart from this member’s allegations there appears to be no reason for such an investigation. I suggest to the member that if he has concerns he should frame them up and send them to the Auditor-General who can independently consider whether an investigation is called for. 
Phil Twyford 
: I seek leave to table the business proposal from Michelle Boag’s recruitment company Momentum to the Auckland Transition Agency which profiles her as a key member of the project team responsible for recruiting the chief spin doctor for the Auckland super-city. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is no objection. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Step Change: Success the Only Option  
Report—Maori Students 
11. 
TE URUROA FLAVELL (Maori Party—Waiariki) 
 to the  
Minister of Education 
: E pehea e rereke ai te noho o nga tauira Maori i roto i nga kura auraki na runga i te aronga nui i te purongo Step Change ki te matauranga ahurea na kei te whakaae atu ia ki ta te ripoata “it is difficult to see how success for many students in New Zealand can be achieved without this component of learning”? 
[ 
How will the experience for Maori students in mainstream schools change as a result of the commitment to cultural competence outlined in the Step Change report; and does she agree that “it is difficult to see how success for many students in New Zealand can be achieved without this component of learning”? 
] 
Hon ANNE TOLLEY (Minister of Education) 
: 
 I have already made the comment in the House that I have not made a decision about the report yet. But I completely agree with the member that commitment to cultural competence is crucial. I also agree with the member’s comments yesterday that “the same old same old been there done that” approach cannot continue. That is why the Government has invested in a further roll-out of the Te Kotahitanga programme and to He Kakano a professional development programme for principals and school leaders to embed cultural competencies. Maori students in mainstream schools have much to gain from these programmes. 
Te Ururoa Flavell 
: Ka ahatia ki nga kura me nga kaiako e koretake ana ki nga ahuatanga mahi ahurea ahakoa tona kaha ki te hapai i nga taumata matauranga Maori? 
[ 
How will schools be held to account for teachers who are failing to demonstrate the cultural competence that contributes to success in Maori education? 
] 
Hon ANNE TOLLEY 
: At the moment I would expect that that problem would be picked up by the Education Review Office’s regular review of schools and that the Ministry of Education would then provide support for that school to address the issue. The introduction of national standards means that from 2012 schools must report the progress and achievement of cohorts of students to their community and to the Ministry of Education and this includes a specific requirement to report on Maori students’ progress. This will ensure that any problems can be addressed much earlier. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The Opposition seeks your assistance. The Minister gave quite a detailed response—in fact a written response—to a supplementary question from another political party about the  
Step Change  
report a report that at question No. 8 she said she had not had time to read— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member is stretching a long bow there. That is not a point of order. 
Te Ururoa Flavell 
: Ka ahatia e te Minita ki te whakautu i te awangawanga o etahi whanau e mea ana kaore etahi kaiako i te whai i te kaupapa o Te Kotahitanga engari kei te utua te kura ki te whakatinana i tenei kaupapa na runga i te hiahia ki te hiki i nga taumata matauranga Maori? 
[ 
What will the Minister do to respond to concerns from whanau that some teachers are refusing to participate in the Te Kotahitanga project yet the school has been funded to do so in a desire to 
lift Maori educational achievement? 
] 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. My point of order just goes to the relevance of that question to the primary question or to the supplementary question. Refusal to take part in a particular programme currently existing and not related to this other than the fact that for the Minister’s information it is mentioned in the report is I think a long bow and certainly given the Minister’s lack of familiarity with the report— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: No the member must sit down now. That is not acceptable. I think it would be unfair for the Speaker to intervene and rule such a question out of order. 
Hon ANNE TOLLEY 
: I have not heard those concerns before and that information is of concern. I would appreciate some further information from the member and I would be happy to discuss this with him further. But I can say that as a Government we expect a professional response to the issue of continued Maori underachievement in mainstream schools and I would be really disappointed if some professionals are refusing to participate in what is a very effective project. 
Transport Stimulus Projects—Progress 
12. 
DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East) 
 to the  
Minister of Transport 
: What progress has been made on the transport stimulus projects announced last February? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister of Transport) 
: 
 I am pleased to report that all five medium to large transport stimulus projects announced last year plus the Victoria Park project are now under construction. They are well on their way to improving transport efficiency and boosting growth. They are together employing around 500 New Zealanders in construction jobs not to mention the additional jobs created downstream in the supply of services and materials. These 500 jobs are all in addition to the significant construction activity already under way across New Zealand. 
David Bennett 
: How is this injection of funding being received by the road-building industry? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: Both the Contractors Federation and Roading New Zealand have indicated that they are pleased with the responsiveness of both the Government and the New Zealand Transport Agency. The New Zealand Transport Agency has brought forward a further $10 million worth of work this construction season further helping contractors through the tail end of the recession. With work on roads of national significance now also developing quickly the sector has a substantial pipeline of Government projects to look forward to. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: What areas of New Zealand received the money in last February’s announcement by the Minister for road maintenance and road renewal given that so many regional mayors around New Zealand have voiced concern about the safety of New Zealand roads the budgets for which they say have been effectively cut? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: I do not want to take up the House’s time reading out every single one of the 87 different local authorities that were allocated funds in the last round; they are of course available on the New Zealand Transport Agency website. I point out to the member that the funding increased by around 17 percent across the country for the next 3 years over the last 3 years. That 17 percent increase is shared across a range of territorial local authorities. 
Questions to Members 
Sentencing and Parole Reform Bill—Consideration 
1. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour—Waimakariri) 
 to the  
Chairperson of the Law and Order Committee 
: When did the committee last meet to consider the Sentencing and Parole Reform Bill? 
SANDRA GOUDIE (Chairperson of the Law and Order Committee) 
: 
 As the member should well know being the deputy chair of the select committee we met today—Wednesday 17 February 2010—from 10 o’clock until 1 p.m. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: Have any requests been made to the chair to make Ministry of Justice officials available to provide advice on the bill; if so what decision was made? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I do not believe that the member can ask about decisions of the committee because they are not within the responsibility of the chair. 
Sentencing and Parole Reform Bill—Timeline for Submissions 
2. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour—Waimakariri) 
 to the  
Chairperson of the Law and Order Committee 
: What is the timeline for submissions on the revised Sentencing and Parole Reform Bill? 
SANDRA GOUDIE (Chairperson of the Law and Order Committee) 
: 
 The committee is inviting submissions from those who previously submitted on issues directly related to the current proposed amendments with a deadline on Friday 5 March 2010. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: How many hours of oral hearings have been set aside for those submitters? 
SANDRA GOUDIE 
: Decisions in relation to legislation before a select committee are decisions of the select committee and in committee. 
Sentencing and Parole Reform Bill—Report-back Date 
3. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour—Waimakariri) 
 to the  
Chairperson of the Law and Order Committee 
: When does she expect the Sentencing and Parole Reform Bill will be reported back to the House? 
SANDRA GOUDIE (Chairperson of the Law and Order Committee) 
: 
 The bill is scheduled to be reported to the House by 30 March 2010. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: Is it the case that a minority report was presented that highlighted that the Government and ACT members had blocked Ministry of Justice officials from becoming advisers to the committee? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I do not believe that that question meets the requirements of the Standing Orders. 
Points of Order 
Select Committees—Minority Reports 
Hon DARREN HUGHES (Senior Whip—Labour) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I waited until the end of question time because we have spent a lot of time on select committee business at the front of the hour. I want to pick up on the invitation the Leader of the House made earlier—that perhaps one way of resolving what is normally a pretty bipartisan process of minority reports would be if I sought leave to move a motion without debate to instruct the report to be referred back to the Law and Order Committee so that it can resolve the minority report issue and report back to the House by tomorrow. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought for that course of action to be followed. Is there any objection? There is objection. 
Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Debate resumed from 16 February. 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister of Transport) 
: 
 Last year the world was gripped by the global financial crisis. It is quite easy in the New Zealand context to forget that as the rest of the world is still coping with some of the financial conditions and the aftershocks of that crisis. In fact in Europe now countries like Greece and Ireland are still grappling with the effects of the global financial crisis. 
Last year this Government worked hard to mitigate the worst effects of the global financial crisis in the New Zealand environment. With the help of our friends across the Tasman and the Asian countries we were able to prevent the worst of the recession from coming home to this country to the point where most New Zealanders are now of the view that the global financial crisis was not too bad. But across the rest of the world of course it was very harsh indeed. 
This year we have a different set of challenges. This year we have different decisions to make. Those decisions which are for all New Zealanders were alluded to by the Prime Minister in his speech. We will take some decisions to enhance growth for the benefit of New Zealand families in 2010. Will we deal with this country’s tax issues which discourage savings and growth and result in the exporting of some of our most skilled labour overseas? Will we take reasonable steps to advance some industries that can add growth and wealth to New Zealand and New Zealand families like the mineral sector and the aquaculture sector to name just two? 
Will we take reasonable steps to control State sector spending to stop the State sector crowding out the private sector and to improve productivity in the State sector which has lagged the private sector in productivity growth in this country? Of course productivity is a huge part of creating growth and wealth. Will we invest in infrastructure? Will we give ourselves the ability to do more in the infrastructure space? Will we tackle the skills shortage that has bedevilled this country for a long period of time? Will we tackle the underachievement whereby 20 percent of children are leaving school without suitable levels of literacy and numeracy? 
These are the questions we have in front of us and some of the answers are not easy. Some of them are a little discomfiting at times and some of them are a little challenging but these decisions do need to be made. And that is the challenge the Prime Minister has laid down before us this year in his statement to Parliament. Are we going to make the changes that will encourage economic growth and prosperity for New Zealand families? 
Labour did not take those chances. It did not meet those challenges and it did not make the decisions. During 9 years in Government Labour spent a lot of time calling for reports then not acting on them. It had lots of reports. It had the Knowledge Wave the growth and innovation framework and things like the Skills Strategy. It had a group called the Small Business Advisory Group. It got that group together and asked it to come up with a whole range of things and then it ignored most of them. 
Labour’s other solution was to not make any hard decisions around public spending. It layered spending programme on top of spending programme. If a programme was not working it would not stop it. It would just add another one and if somebody asked Labour members why they did not stop the first one they would say that it might upset a few people. Labour just kept putting programme on top of programme and this Government is left with trying to unpick some of the mess it left. If it did try to do something for growth and encountered any opposition then it would throw more money at the problem. That was its solution. I personally am very familiar with that in relation to a certain roading project in Auckland that came up with a highly expensive $2.8 billion option because the Government was not prepared to discuss the project with the community and come up with a sensible mitigation proposal that did not place the country further in hock. 
Under Labour the Government sector grew hugely the private sector grew anaemically and the tradable sector went backwards for 5 years. As a result we were the first country in the world to go into recession in 2008 before the global financial crisis. It is no coincidence that with a new National Government we have come out of it better than we would have if we still had the old Labour Government. 
Labour members still do not understand what is required. They still believe in the fiscal fairies at the bottom of the garden. They opposed every change in spending priorities that this Government has put forward. They have called for more public spending all the time. They have called for us to legislate for higher wages. It is true economic illiteracy to suggest that we can legislate for higher wages when wages are paid for by people who actually get out engage in entrepreneurship and pay what they can afford. We cannot legislate for a wealthier economy and it is time the Labour Party worked that out because if it does not it will remain an economic joke. 
Labour members have opposed all significant changes in regulation and some of the insignificant ones. I note that the chainsaw massacre of trees has not yet occurred in Auckland. A few trees are still up in that proud city—apparently only a couple but they are all still there—and the Armageddon of trees did not come to pass in that city. 
But the nadir of Labour’s economic understanding came with its little committee last year to try to tie down the New Zealand exchange rate. Labour members just did not understand the grand irony of that because the one big contribution the Government makes to high exchange rates is high levels of public spending which lead to high interest rates which contribute to high exchange rates. They were all sitting in a room saying that they wanted to get exchange rates down but they did not want to talk about the rather large elephant in the middle which was how much they grew public spending over the last 9 years. 
I think New Zealanders are ready for change. I think New Zealanders are ready to step out for a brighter future. They are ready to make the decisions that the 9-year Labour Government did not make. This year we will make those decisions and the Prime Minister’s statement lays them out very carefully and very sensibly indeed. One of the most important which I want to focus on for a couple of minutes is on tax. 
Why is tax so important? It is because tax is the one area where the Government is pervasive in people’s lives. Like it or hate it—it is death and taxes is it not? The Government fortunately does not control death but it certainly controls taxes and that is the one thing where the Government has the greatest impact on the economic outcomes. It is tax that determines the incentives for New Zealand families. The greater the tax burden on a particular part of life the less people do it; the lesser the tax burden the more people will do it. So in New Zealand what do we do? Currently we tax labour at a high rate. We tax people’s personal work at a high rate. We tax savings and investment at the same high rate. We tax consumption comparatively at a lower rate and we tax investment property negatively. 
As I said people respond to incentives so is it any wonder that in this country people over-invest in property over-consume relative to their incomes and do not save enough? Is it any wonder that a huge swag of our skilled people and their families take themselves off to Australia—which was incidentally Labour’s skills strategy? People respond to incentives and if we want to lower consumption stop people over-investing in property reward people better for their labours so they stay and labour here and reward people for savings and interest we have to make adjustments to the tax rate. Until Labour works that out it will not know how to grow an economy. That is the reality of it and it is time Labour learnt that fact because we could not afford another 9 years of its economic mismanagement. So we need to deal with taxes. 
We need to get a much more productive public sector and we are working very very hard on that. We need to encourage innovation and the Prime Minister has laid out some challenges in the areas of science and research and technology. It also has to be said that we are working very hard in the trade area. We have our two men about the world Mr Groser and Mr McCully who are out there working very very hard. We have trebled the efforts of the previous Government in striving to achieve free-trade agreements. 
We are also reforming regulation. We are driving reform in the regulation area to allow more things to be done and of course we are doing huge things in terms of infrastructure. Modesty prevents me from going on at great length about the transport sector and the communications sector but we are flat out and we are putting a lot of work into the rail sector as well. 
Finally education is crucially important. The irony is that Labour which is supposedly the education party—nobody believes that except Labour members and their union mates—has been arguing against tackling the shameful tail of underachievement that comes out of our school sector. They have been afraid of tackling it and now they do not want us to tackle it. 
This year is a year of change. This year is the year for us to grow the economy much faster. I believe that New Zealanders are ready for that change. I know the Prime Minister does; that is why he laid out the opportunities for New Zealand in the brilliant speech he read out in Parliament just over a week ago. We are ready to step out for a brighter future. Thank you. 
Hon DARREN HUGHES (Labour) 
: 
 That speech by Steven Joyce was probably the best example of an eloquent description of what the Government would like to do. The problem is that it is not doing any of it. I thought that the most revealing part of Mr Joyce’s speech was when he talked about the speech that the Prime Minister “read out”. The reason he said that is—everyone knows that Steven Joyce is kind of a Voldemort figure of the Government—he wrote it. He was so disappointed that his eloquent words which were tabled were not the same ones that were read out by the Prime Minister when he gave his speech. Normally parliamentary convention requires that a Minister or member who has given the preceding speech stays to listen to the person speaking afterwards. But I invite Mr Joyce to go back to his office now because I think that what happened in question time today means that Anne Tolley will be gone by Easter and he will be Minister of Education as well. So I take no objection to his departure. He is a busy man with a big Government to run. He should go and read all about that portfolio because that will be his next one. 
The next thing we have to deal with is the fact that in the Prime Minister’s statement this Government has failed on its own election promises. This might be National members’ new policy agenda but it is not what they campaigned on at the last election. The member for West Coast - Tasman did not go around the communities of the West Coast telling them that GST would go up. Did he do that? 
Chris Auchinvole 
: The ah member for West Coast - Tasman— 
Hon DARREN HUGHES 
: He said “um”. Normally he has so much to say but when it comes to whether he fronted up at community meetings and said: “Please vote for me it is time for a change. I would like GST to go up.” that was not quite the campaign strategy he adopted and neither was it adopted by all those other members. No one knows what the member for Wairarapa would have said; he is not really one for the party line if I can put it that way. He may well have said that GST should go up but none of the others did. 
The other key difference in what the Prime Minister has told the country is that at the last general election National said that there would be tax cuts for every New Zealander. What was very clear about last Tuesday is that there will no longer be tax cuts for every New Zealander; there will be tax cuts for only some people in our country which is a direct change from the approach that National took when it was campaigning at the last election. Will it be a tax cut for people on low middle and average incomes? Will it be a tax cut for people on high incomes? I think so given what Mr Joyce the Associate Minister of Finance was saying. Apparently we are being strangled in this country by having a top tax rate of 38c. Well a lot of countries would love to have 38c as their top income tax rate. I ask Mr Burns what the top rate in Australia is; he says it is 48c. The UK is about to have a 50p top tax rate. But apparently in New Zealand the biggest issue is getting the top rate down even if people who earn average incomes pay more of their money across to the Government in order for that to occur. 
The one thing that no Government speaker has been able to explain to any of us yet is how this can be a tax package where there are no losers. How will there be no losers? If every single person ends up paying exactly the same level of income tax after the Budget as he or she is paying before the Budget then how can this be so? Of course not a single Government speaker has told us how it will be possible. By definition if some people pay less tax and the whole package will result in the same amount of revenue being paid to the Government then there must be some people who will pay more tax. 
I will tell members who those people will be. They will be the people whom no Government has ever been able to help out in a meaningful way by way of changes to the tax system—that is single people or couples whose children have already left home or who have no children. They make up the vast bulk of taxpayers in New Zealand. They are people who have done a good job of raising their kids who have now left. They are middle-income people who always feel that they fall between two stools when it comes to Government assistance. They cannot receive a tax cut to compensate them for GST. 
Despite the fact that the Government gets the majority of calls in this debate and that those members all get to speak for 10 minutes none of them—and I have listened carefully—have been able to explain to us how we can have equitable changes which the Prime Minister said when he launched the Tax Working Group report was the aim of the whole process. [ 
Interruption 
] Mr Auchinvole says that it will all be revealed. I do not think that he is on the Government strategy committee. I have a feeling that he might have just missed out on membership when it comes to the ninth floor strategy committee. I suspect that he does not know and that none of the other Government speakers know. 
The other problem is that a 20 percent increase in GST will hit our pensioners. Our pensioners know that there is not a single increase the Government can make by way of a CPI adjustment on 1 April that will put them in a better position because the CPI adjustment that Government speakers have been referring to takes place after the year in question. Pensioners have to go through the whole year paying higher prices. In Kapiti and Horowhenua the power prices have gone up just in the last week. It will be plus 5 percent on the power bill and plus 15 percent GST that our older citizens are paying. There is no way of compensating them for those changes for a full year. The Government does not even know its own mechanism for supporting people in that respect. 
What I loved most about the Prime Minister’s statement was how proud of it National members were on Tuesday. Of course members on the other side of the House have an enormous degree of sycophancy so they have kept the pride; the reasons for it have just changed. When National members started to speak in the debate on Tuesday they all said: “This is an amazing plan. It’s got 9000 words.” That was the end of the debate basically because they said that they had been getting all of this criticism about the fact that there was no plan for jobs and they had the Job Summit which was not going to be a talkfest—now it does not even meet the test for a talkfest let alone a job summit—but they thought that if they could say how many words were in the Prime Minister’s statement then that would make people think that National has a plan for the year. 
That all started to fall apart during the course of the week because on Tuesday the Prime Minister said that GST would go up to 15 percent. That was the direction he was boldly taking New Zealand in. By Friday on  
Morning Report 
 he had said that the Government had not decided that yet that Cabinet had not signed up to it and that if the Maori Party did not want it then the Government would not do it either because he did not want the Government to fall over. He was not at all quite sure what was going to happen. Then obviously a bit of steel was put into the spine by Mr Joyce and Mr English over the weekend and now this week the tax rise by way of GST is back on. 
But nowhere is there a better example of the fact that the Government can never stick to tough positions than on the foreshore and seabed issue. After Waitangi Day on the Monday the Prime Minister said in the way that he does that we have all moved on together now because mud does not get thrown at people at Waitangi. That is the definition of nationhood apparently but that is a speech for another day. The big definition for Mr Key was that he has found an “elegant solution” to the foreshore and seabed issue. On Tuesday Government members were all going to come together and support it. In the Prime Minister’s statement he described the Foreshore and Seabed Act as a “weeping sore” on the nation’s conscience. By Thursday Mrs Turia had said that the elegant solution about the “public domain”—those words are familiar—was not going to be a goer. So by Friday Mr Key was saying: “Oh well if no one agrees we will just keep with the current legislation.” This is the legislation that was a weeping sore on the country’s soul on Tuesday. 
In terms of strong leadership we know that the Prime Minister does not like criticism. He had a good year in the opinion polls last year no one can deny that. This year has been a bit tougher. It has been a bit scratchier out of the starting gates this year and I think that this week’s performance—particularly yesterday’s performance at question time—shows how brittle the Prime Minister is when it comes to criticism. When everyone does not like him he does not get all that happy. When columnists on the right wing of politics say that National is not going far enough to implement a National agenda and when the Maori Party does not like things we find that National members cut and run from the position. 
In fact at one point last week the Maori Party held the power of veto over whether there would be a rise in GST. The party of 58 members was saying to the party of five members—even though I am pretty sure that National will have ACT’s votes locked up on tax cuts for the upper income earners in this country—that it would have that power of veto. As soon as the Maori Party realised that it had that power of veto it did not want it which is sort of the opposite of tino rangatiratanga in a sense. Those members were given the power and they said no they did not want that to happen at all. 
So far we have seen from the National - Maori Party - ACT Government a week where those members have been sloppy they have been slippery and everything has been a shambles. It is coming through so clearly because Government members’ own election manifesto is disintegrating in front of us. We now have a tax plan that is focused on only some New Zealanders not on all people. The Government will cut adrift the average-income earners in New Zealand so that they pay higher GST. Mr Goff gave the example of the Prime Minister in one of those scenarios getting a $500 a week tax cut although the people working in this building who give us key support would get only 35c a week in tax cuts. We know that the minimum wage has moved by only 25c an hour this year which is an absolute disgrace and that the cost of living for all families is going up right at the moment. I have not even had time to talk about tertiary students who spend 100 percent of what they get. Of course they cannot possibly be compensated through all of this. 
I will finish by touching on the issue of what is happening out in the community where all the words that are said in here count and where the rubber really hits the road. I am absolutely shocked that Tony Ryall who dances and prances around telling us that he will fix the health system is overseeing some of the most massive cuts in community-based health all across the country. In my area of Horowhenua and Kapiti as Winnie Laban knows there are massive cuts to home support for older people. People have been rung up and told on the phone that up to 75 percent of their home care is being cut and the Government refuses to step in and do anything about it. In Levin we opened a $16 million hospital just 2½ years ago. It was a hospital that I campaigned very very hard to achieve for the people of Horowhenua. The National Government wants to rip out the 24 hospital beds in that centre—24 beds. 
Hon Ruth Dyson 
: How many would be left? 
Hon DARREN HUGHES 
: There would be zero beds left for assessment treatment and rehabilitation for our older people. How can that be sooner better and more convenient health care for the people who have to travel to Palmerston North? 
The statement from the Prime Minister shows what the real priorities of the National Government are. Those members want to look after their supporters only. When the heat comes on they cannot stick to their principles because in the end it is about popularity not principle. 
Dr CAM CALDER (National) 
: 
 It is a huge pleasure to rise and speak in support of the Prime Minister’s statement. I thank the Hon Darren Hughes for his dynamic diatribe. John Key leads a Government that is principled pragmatic and committed to finding solutions to the many challenges facing our nation—a nation that sadly has woefully underperformed under the previous arthritic administration. 
Despite in the years 2000 to 2007 enjoying some of the best global economic conditions in generations this country lagged in its tradable sector performance. The sectors that drive our overseas earnings and that grow the economic cake—forestry agriculture fishing and manufacturing—failed to deliver under the late benighted Labour administration. It failed to deliver year after year. Instead the long-suffering New Zealand public was treated to the spectacle of an ailing administration crouched around a simmering cauldron of bile and dogma casting legislative spells and incantations seemingly seeking to strip New Zealanders of their birthright of self-belief and initiative and any ideas of personal responsibility. The country woke up in the second term of the Labour administration but Labour though lost and forlorn limped into a third term teetering on the brink of irrelevancy for 3 more dark and dismal years—3 more years of attempting to plaster over condone or ignore evidence of mismanagement misdeeds and manifest malfeasance within its ranks. Perhaps the most egregious example of Labour’s arrogance self-interest and contempt for New Zealanders was the Electoral Finance Act. 
The people have spoken and we are acting to address their concerns. The days of gloom doom and despondency and a diet of wormwood and gall are behind us. New Zealand is looking at a brighter future. John Key leads a Government that is committed to unlocking the treasure trove of vast and varied potential that beats within the heart of every New Zealander. We applaud and this Government will reward the pursuit and attainment of excellence. This year we will be rattling the cage a little as we maintain a focus on the economy and on jobs and act to reshape the mesh in different areas and different levels to lift the long-term performance of our economy. We are acting to make New Zealand a more prosperous country capable of providing well-paid jobs and a better standard of living for us all and to provide the world-class public services needed to give opportunity and security to New Zealanders and their families. 
At the heart of the Government’s economic plan lie six main engines. Members may have heard us mention them before: a tax system that is growth enhancing; better more efficient public services; support for science innovation and trade; better regulation including the regulations relating to natural resources; investment in infrastructure; and improved education and skills. 
We are acutely conscious that New Zealand’s wealth is ultimately generated by the private sector. The Manukau-Manurewa area where I am privileged to be National’s support MP is a perfect example of the mix of small firms big companies and sole traders that generate the jobs the profits and the return on investment that drive our economy. The Government agrees with the Tax Working Group that New Zealand relies heavily on taxes most harmful to growth—as intimated earlier by the Hon Steven Joyce—particularly corporate and personal income taxes. There is a hole in the tax base around the taxation of property and real risks to the sustainability of the tax revenue base itself. We need and New Zealanders deserve a tax system that encourages savings and boosts the productivity of investment that is fair that is easy to comply with and to administer and that encourages people to work hard improve their skills and get ahead right here in New Zealand. We will be announcing measures to achieve these ends as part of the Budget in May. 
We are also acutely conscious that New Zealand’s future economic performance depends to a large extent on generating and using new ideas. As a country we have a proud track record of innovation and New Zealand companies regularly produce world-beating products and services. We aim to support those companies. This year the Government will alongside industry invest up to $40 million in the Primary Growth Partnership in research and innovation to boost New Zealand’s primary forestry and food sectors. We are also investing significantly in the domestic Centre for Agricultural Greenhouse Gas Research and the Global Research Alliance on Agricultural Greenhouse Gases to drive much-needed investigation of agricultural greenhouse gas emissions. The potential value of intellectual capital generated in this field is enormous. We believe that Crown research institutes are centres of excellence that could do more to drive growth. We will be introducing measures to facilitate the commercial realisation of their research and knowledge and thus grow the economic cake. These are just two spaces we are working in. 
We promised a brighter future; we are acting in these and many other areas to create a more prosperous nation and to make that brighter future a reality. We are not perfect. We do not have a magic wand and we cannot change things overnight but the feedback I am receiving from the hard-working citizens of the Manurewa electorate tells me that our efforts are making a difference. Let me tell members of my experience there just 2 days ago. On Monday just before 6.30 a.m. I was at the Manurewa Train Station meeting members of the electorate and offering them a copy of this Government’s 2009 report card. Being hard-working individuals ambitious for themselves and their children they read it avidly. Standing on the platform as the sun rose over Manurewa those commuters read of the multitude of initiatives taken to deliver New Zealanders from the worst effects of the recession; to lay the foundation stones of a flexible robust and growing economy; to deliver better health care sooner and more conveniently; to help keep them safe in their communities; and to lift educational standards in our schools. They read for instance of the $7.5 billion spent on infrastructure in roads houses schools and broadband and the nearly 17000 youth opportunities provided in work and training for 16 to 24-year-olds over the next 2 years to help cushion them from the worst effects of the recession. The commuters learnt of the 180000 homes to be insulated in the Warm Up New Zealand: Heat Smart campaign. 
We are a trading nation and this year the Government will continue to open up New Zealand exporters’ access to world markets. We want to make it easier for New Zealanders to sell their goods overseas so that they can create more jobs back home. In 2009 we signed free-trade agreements with Malaysia and with the 10 countries of the ASEAN bloc. We will soon be signing agreements with Hong Kong and with the economies of the Gulf Cooperation Council. The Government will also press ahead with perhaps our most important trade negotiation—that of working towards a free-trade agreement with the United States through the Trans-Pacific Economic Partnership Agreement. We will also be undertaking important trade negotiations with India and Korea. Efforts on the multilateral front will continue as we strive for a conclusion to the Doha rounds. 
We are looking at reforming legislation. We have completed the first stage of the Resource Management Act reforms and have taken decisive action to sort out the electricity sector. We have published the Electricity Industry Bill which contains major reforms to New Zealand’s electricity system and is now with the Finance and Expenditure Committee. This bill contains a suite of changes to New Zealand’s electricity system to improve competition and constrain price increases to increase security of supply and to ensure effective and streamlined governance in the sector. 
As the Zen master said to the hot dog vendor “Make me one with everything.” The Prime Minister’s statement makes no attempt to detail everything we will be doing but it clearly outlines that this year we will be putting our foot on the accelerator in a number of key areas to drive this country to a brighter future. I relish being part of the John Key team. Thank you. 
SHANE ARDERN (National—Taranaki - King Country) 
: 
 I rise to support 150 percent the Prime Minister’s statement to the House at the opening of Parliament last week. I think there is something quite nice in the notion from this side of the House that Labour members limped to their final political death on their arthritic legs as my colleague Cam Calder so eloquently said before. That is the reason I guess why they have been absolutely no good in this debate at all and have not been able to bring forward anything of any substance as to why they think the Prime Minister’s statement was not the right way forward for New Zealand. 
Who can argue with a Government that has an economic plan to introduce a world-class tax system that is fair to all and that will make a better job of managing public services over the next 9 years than what happened in the last 9 years? Who intends to introduce a higher standard to our education system so that pupils going to our schools will know as they are going through school how they are doing compared not only with their own cohort but also with the international standard? Who will invest in infrastructure on a level that has not been seen in this country for over 50 years? Who could argue that it is an unnecessary or undesirable outcome? Who will reform the regulatory regime in this country—the biggest area of course being the Resource Management Act—and remove roadblocks to business and innovation? 
On the subject of innovation which has already been touched on $40 million this year will be invested in the Primary Growth Partnership by business and the Government in conjunction for research and development in very essential areas such as agriculture which will grow the economy. Labour over 9 years of some of the best times we have ever seen in this country’s economy saw negative or very slow growth. It has been stated recently by the Governor of the Reserve Bank and others that it will be enormously challenging for New Zealand to catch up to Australia. I do not agree with that actually. Our Australian colleagues are very competent and their economy is very strong but in New Zealand we have everything that Australia has plus some. We have more minerals per capita than the Australians; that is the real irony. And we have something that is actually much more sustainable than that—we have protein which comes from three sectors: fish meat and dairy. I hope that we can unleash the potential that lies there. It is happening of course with the very good work that our trade Minister Tim Groser is doing internationally by signing up to new trade deals all over the place. Work is going on in the World Trade Organisation and others are assisting him in that work. I acknowledge my colleague John Hayes who is also playing an active role in that area. 
With those opportunities opening up to us New Zealand has never been better placed to seize on a strong growing economy that will see most of our hopes and aspirations met. The Prime Minister you see does not base his assumptions on pure academic rhetoric; he has life experience in how to make the ship go faster how to make the cake grow quicker and how to earn money and then invest it in an area that will help to grow the economy even beyond that. We are not talking as we have in the past about people who have theory about how they can do it; we have someone who actually has done it. I often refer to the American experience—the American dream of being prosperous. We do not have to look to America for a dream; our Prime Minister is the New Zealand equivalent of the American dream. He started off from a humble background and has been able to make it on his own merits. So we have someone now who has a vision for New Zealand unlike the past when most of the driving was done by a Government that was looking in the rear-vision mirror. We have someone who will take New Zealand forward and who stated in his opening comments to Parliament how he intends to do that. 
In terms of protein we need to look at all of the roadblocks that are stopping those industries from developing growing and being able to carry New Zealand forward. One of those roadblocks concerns the augmentation of water: the distribution availability and storage of water. This Government is looking at what can be done about that particularly but not entirely restricted to the eastern belt and more particularly and probably more important at the moment in regard to Canterbury. We will hear more from the Government over the next few months and years about what can be done in that regard. We look forward to growing the economic cake by growing the agricultural base. That is the thing we are good at the thing we are world class at the thing we are leaders in and where we can do the best we can going forward. 
This Government will not do what the last Government did and put up roadblocks one after the other to every good idea put forward for innovation and investment in these areas. I have always asked how it is that in New Zealand we can grow a  
Pinus radiata 
 tree 5 years quicker on average than the Australians can yet the Australian forestry industry has grown and ours has at best stagnated. How is that? What are the reasons? When we ask the industry they answer that there is too much red tape that it is because of the Resource Management Act that they cannot get consent to put in cogeneration that in Australia they encourage investment—the list goes on. We need to address those issues. The area we are most likely to have the greatest success in addressing those issues at the moment is taxation; and more will be announced about tax in the upcoming Budget. I look forward to finally having a tax system that is competitive not only with Australia but internationally. 
We always hear Labour Governments say that we must be able to put up a fence around New Zealand and pretend that the rest of the world does not exist that we must put up barriers to any type of industry or innovation and that we must put up barriers to growth wherever we can and the world will sail past and not bother us. The problem with that notion is that we are an export nation. The dairy industry exports 94 percent of what it produces; we consume 6 percent of the production. The domestic market is so insignificant to us that putting roadblocks in the way of growth is very destructive to the growth of the New Zealand economy. It defies logic that people would do so but the last Government did. 
The Prime Minister’s statement will take New Zealand forward. It is a vision for New Zealand. It is a plan a blueprint for us to look to to reference and to ask whether we have done this or that and whether we are on track. It is for the first time an achievable goal—an aspirational one but an achievable one. Members on this side of the House are totally in support of the direction the Prime Minister has taken. For me in particular the area of agriculture—the growth in our economy that will inevitably come from the opportunity we have to unleash for rural New Zealand in terms of protein—was clearly outlined in the Prime Minister’s statement. It showed the direction we are heading. There is no doubt that the Labour Party hates it and I can understand why that is the case. 
MOANA MACKEY (Labour) 
: 
 I cannot believe we have had so many 10-minute speeches from members of the Government. They clearly do not understand what the plan is either because not a single one of them has articulated it in his or her speech. To the member Cam Calder who spoke recently I would just say put down the thesaurus back away from the thesaurus. Can I say to National members that I think they need to stage an intervention get Parliamentary Service to remove the thesaurus function from Microsoft Word and I think that his speeches will be all the better for it. I will not say anything mean about Shane Ardern because I actually respect that member. It is a shame he is undervalued in his own caucus. He should be doing a lot more. He knows a lot more about agriculture than David Carter does and it is a real shame he is not given the respect he deserves by his own colleagues in his own caucus. 
All I want to say is where is the plan and I want the next National speaker to tell us what the plan is. From listening to the National members apparently the only problem we have in New Zealand is that we do not charge people enough for food. The biggest problem we have is we do not charge people enough for food. We do not charge people enough for services. We do not charge them enough for rates. We do not charge them enough for clothes for their children. The only answer this Government has to what is going on in our economy is to put up GST: to increase GST by 20 percent. It is a 20 percent increase in GST. I tell National members to wake up because they may still be partying on the top floor but people are suffering in this country. 
I was out at the protest earlier this afternoon for the cleaners who clean this building. How many National MPs bothered to turn up to support the cleaners who clean the Beehive and who clean the Parliament Buildings? Not a single one turned up. [ 
Interruption 
] They all have excuses why they could not be there. We met the woman who cleans John Key’s office. Cleaners get $12.55 an hour. Bill English thinks that the person who cleans his house should get $20 an hour. I say that for the cleaners who clean this place we should lead by example and they should not be getting $12.55 an hour. National MPs if they disagree with that should have had the guts to turn up and to tell those workers why they do not believe that the workers should be paid more than that for cleaning these parliamentary buildings. The Labour members and the Green Party members who were out there support those workers and we are proud to do so. 
It was interesting that the Prime Minister John Key said today that last year there had been a small contraction in jobs and that we should not be concerned because we are still below the OECD average when it comes to unemployment. Well that is pretty cold comfort to all those New Zealanders who lost their jobs last year who are continuing to lose their jobs this year—168000 New Zealanders—because our Government has no plan. In Australia across the Tasman they put billions and billions of dollars into their economic stimulus package to deal with the recession and guess what has happened to their unemployment? It has stopped rising and now it is going down. The National Government just thinks that is a coincidence and that Australia is just lucky maybe that that is the case. 
The fact is our Government has absolutely no plan for jobs and that has been reiterated by every single National MP who stood up and has been unable to say what the Government is doing in this area. Do members know what Tim Macindoe said yesterday? He said we just need to instil a work ethic. Well maybe Tim Macindoe should have gone and talked to those 3500 New Zealanders who queued for 150 supermarket jobs if he thinks that Kiwis do not have a work ethic and they do not want to work. The fact is the jobs are not there and our Government does not care. 
Our Government’s answer to people who do not have jobs—and Nicky Wagner can sneer at me because she does not like what I am saying and she should not like it because it is terrible and she should be ashamed—is that the Government will whack an increase in GST on top of the people for whom they are doing nothing to get them into work. That is National’s answer and if that is not what it is doing and if it wants to let us in on this great secret plan it has where apparently it will be revenue neutral so it will keep the same amount of revenue but everyone will be a winner—some people will pay less tax no one will pay more tax but everyone is going to win—we would be very interested. 
Nicky Wagner says yes that is the plan. Well I think that what has happened is that National wants to use national standards to dumb down numeracy in this country so that people will buy that economic argument. We can talk about national standards and I really want to mention this because every single National MP who has stood up and defended those standards has said that the schools in his or her electorate currently do not provide information to parents on how well their kids are doing. Katrina Shanks said it outright. Katrina Shanks said that the school that her kids go to does not do a good job in telling her how her kids are doing. 
Nikki Kaye said that none of the schools in Auckland Central—and I cannot wait for Jacinda Ardern to go around and visit those schools and tell them that she said this—do a good enough job at telling parents how their kids are doing. They are all doing a lousy job. That is what National says—they are all doing a lousy job. We look forward to going around to all our schools and making it clear that National MPs think their schools are doing a lousy job. That is what they have been saying. 
I will talk about housing. I am so pleased the Minister of Housing is in the House for my speech. I know he got pre-warning. He came down because he is looking for some more policy ideas. He has run out and he is hoping I might give him some ideas in my speech. I will not do that because I think he needs to learn to stand on his own two feet. He has run out of Labour legislation to pass now. He will have to do a little bit of thinking. Overall I think it will be character building for Mr Heatley. I am all about being here to support him so I am not going to give him some more Labour ideas to pass into National policy. 
I thought it was very interesting that the Prime Minister specifically mentioned the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill in his speech. I started to think that the only reason the Government has been putting off passing this legislation is so that they can still talk about the fact that it is doing something. There is no reason why that legislation should not have been passed before Christmas. It is Labour legislation. We support it. Minister Heatley took it on. He made it a little bit worse but it is still better than the status quo. The fact is that over Christmas we heard stories of boarding-house tenants who were asked to move out during the sevens rugby event in Wellington. They did not have the protection of the residential tenancy law. If Minister Heatley had had that legislation reported back from a select committee in September and passed it before Christmas that could not have happened. I think this Minister needs to explain where that bill has gone why he has not passed it and why he is refusing to give vulnerable boarding-house tenants the full protection of the law. What has Minister Heatley done in his first 15 months in Government? He has sold one State house to a tenant he created an Options and Advice Service which has done nothing except keep people off a waiting list— 
Hon Phil Heatley 
: Pretty much. That’s it pretty much. 
MOANA MACKEY 
: Yes that is right. They do not get a needs assessment I say to the Minister. They get kicked out of the Housing New Zealand office and they end up in emergency accommodation. I am pleased the Minister has admitted that all this has done is keep people off the waiting list so that he can claim that the waiting lists have not increased. The fact is if every person had a needs-assessment he or she could have Options and Advice Service for those who are C and D category who are unlikely to get a house in the short term. But we had people who would have been A and B category turning up in emergency accommodation because they had been turned away by the Government’s Options and Advice Service from a State house that they would have qualified for. The Minister should know this and the fact that he is laughing is a little bit of a worry actually because these are our most vulnerable families whom the Minister does not seem to care about. What is very telling is that the Minister barely talked about housing in his speech. 
Hon Phil Heatley 
: I seek leave to table a statement in the House from the Hon Ruth Dyson that says that the C and D applicants will never be housed under a Labour Government. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Rick Barker) 
: I say to the member that the convention in this House is that when members wish to seek leave it is done at the end of a member’s speech. To do it during a member’s speech is disorderly and interrupts the flow of the member’s speech. That is not a Standing Order; it is just the colour of this House. I ask the member to respect that. I am not going to take the leave at this point. If the member wants to move it at the end of this member’s speech I will certainly entertain it at that point. 
MOANA MACKEY 
: Well he has just upped his work rate for the year anyway with that point of order. I am pleased we were able to help out in that respect. Minister Heatley in his speech—after we heckled him enough so that he actually started talking about housing and vaguely kind of mentioned it in passing—said that he wants to achieve even more this year than he did last year. I say to the Minister that I think it would be physically impossible for him to do less this year than he did last year. That is a very very low bar to reach. 
I will briefly mention also research science and technology because this is an area that obviously I am very passionate about as well. I think this Government has a gall to stand up in this House and claim that it cares about science and it cares about innovation after it slashed the Budget last year. It slashed the Budget last year for science and for research and development. National members may be johnny-come-latelys to this whole science and innovation thing but it will take more than words to have a step change in this country. I do not believe that this Government has what it takes in order to achieve that. 
I will focus on the research and design tax credits because it is a really important point. Most other developed countries OECD countries have research and design tax credits so even if those members do not like them it makes sense to have them when everyone else has them. Otherwise we are automatically behind. We have lost research and development capacity overseas since the National Government cancelled the research and development tax credits last year. Why did it cancel them? Bill English said it was corporate welfare. But apparently it is not corporate welfare to subsidise jobs at McDonald’s which this Government is doing. Todd McClay said he knew that they were not being used for the purpose for which they were intended. How he knew that when they were applied for at the end of the tax year—and they were cancelled well before people had even put applications in—is beyond me. 
NICKY WAGNER (National) 
: 
 I speak to the Prime Minister’s commencement speech. It is all about stepping up. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I see that the member Phil Heatley was distracted. He made a commitment to seek leave to table something. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Rick Barker) 
: I say to the member that he has committed exactly the same transgression that Mr Heatley did. Nicky Wagner was speaking and the member knows well that he cannot seek leave on behalf of another member to do something. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I was not. I was just reminding him. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Rick Barker) 
: I remind members that it is respectful of this House to let people continue to speak. I also remind them that points or order are about the order of the House. The member Phil Heatley was out of order when he sought leave to table a paper. This member Mr Mallard was out of order to take up the issue himself. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Rick Barker) 
: Is this in order Mr Hughes? 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: I certainly do not want to be called out of order by you Mr Assistant Speaker and I would not raise the matter unless we were already discussing it. My understanding was that you rightly pulled Mr Heatley up and you said you would put the seeking of leave at the end of the speech in order not to interrupt the member. The member did seek leave—it is a convention that one does not break up a speech but he did seek leave—and your response was to say you would put the seeking of leave at the end of the member’s speech and that time has now come. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Rick Barker) 
: As I recall it I said to the member Mr Heatley that I would take his seeking of leave at the end of the speech. It is up to that member to stand at that point and seek leave. I will not seek leave on the member’s behalf. I was not going to give the member the advantage of seeking leave during Ms Wagner’s speech as to have done so would have been to condone the disorderly behaviour. I was not going to do that. The member wanted to seek leave and it was up to him to do so at the end of the speech. 
Hon Members 
: Take it now. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Rick Barker) 
: We are taking nothing now. We are listening to Nicky Wagner who had started her speech. Nicky Wagner the floor is yours and a respectful House will listen to you. 
NICKY WAGNER 
: Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. 
The Prime Minister’s statement is all about stepping up—stepping up for 2010. The Prime Minister is committed to a step change which is long overdue in New Zealand’s economic performance with a focus on growing the economy and creating sustainable new jobs. 
As Moana Mackey commented 2009 was a tough year for New Zealanders. As the Government managed the fall-out from the international fiscal meltdown and the worst recession for 50 years its focus was on protecting families from the sharpest edges of the recession supporting jobs and preparing for future growth. Last year was particularly tough for those who lost their jobs or whose jobs were downsized. It was also a tough year for those who have worked longer harder and for less return and it was a tough year for everyone who was fearful and worried about what the recession could do to them and their families. 
Since the last election the Government has focused firmly on stimulating the economy. It has focused firstly on maintaining jobs and then on actively creating job opportunities. It has invested in infrastructure in roads in schools and in broadband. It has invested in those projects to create jobs now and to underpin future productivity. 
We have provided opportunities for young people through the Job Ops and the Community Max schemes. I have seen some really good examples of this working in Christchurch. We have also provided financial support and encouragement for people who have lost their jobs and we have helped many people find new ones. Now after surviving 2009 and with indicators that the economy—both national and international—is improving it is time to make some real change. It is time to make changes in taxation in education and in investment in science and technology. 
The taxation system is a powerful lever for change. Intuitively most of us have always felt that there were problems with our tax system. Appointing an expert technical tax advisory working group to look at the issues was an intelligent first step. The group’s analysis identified major problems in terms of integrity fairness and incentives. It said that the taxation system is broken. That means we must make change and the Prime Minister has outlined reforms to the system. The taxation reforms will create incentives for people to work hard improve their skills and get ahead. The reforms must encourage savings and boost productivity and the reforms must be fair for all New Zealanders. 
I think anyone would agree with these broad intentions. But members of the Opposition even though they know there has to be change have scaremongered about every possible taxation scenario in the most negative of terms. They have not offered one positive suggestion. National will address these issues and the Budget will present a well-thought-out taxation package. It will reduce personal tax rates to encourage investment and savings and it will change the way that property is taxed to ensure that the tax system is fair. 
The Budget will also protect the vulnerable and low-income families. It will make no major changes to Working for Families and it will compensate low and middle income earners beneficiaries and superannuitants if GST is raised. The framework as outlined has generally been well received. In fact it is hard to argue against it. Accountants KPMG stated: “This is the right way to go about tax reform to ensure a fair and coherent tax regime.” Charles Finney from the Wellington Regional Chamber of Commerce stated: “We are pleased with the government’s intention to rebalance the tax system and we strongly support the direction outlined.” So people can expect to see in the Budget an intelligent reorganisation of the tax system that will be fair to all and will produce positive change in our economy. 
I will talk a little bit about education. Education opens doors and allows choices and it is the key to future opportunities and prosperity for our young people. Most people understand that. In fact I find that particularly the young people of Third World countries understand the power of education and are thirsty for educational opportunities. They make enormous sacrifices to get access to learning. They even stop people in the street to practise their English. But too many young New Zealanders are unengaged in terms of school and education and consequently they are not getting the opportunities they deserve. 
I believe that in New Zealand we have sold out our young people. We have sold them short. One-fifth of school leavers cannot read or write enough to hold down a job. That is a crime. The fact that many employers have to teach basic numeracy and literacy skills in their businesses in order to upskill their workers says it all. As the greatest percentage of our jobs become more sophisticated high-tech and demanding there are dwindling opportunities for those who do not have a decent education. 
We need to take action now to involve and engage all young people in learning and educational achievement. I support national standards. I believe they will help schools families and young people to understand educational standards and the expectations of schools and of life so that a far greater percentage of our young people will get an education that will fit them for the world of work and allow them to take up future opportunities and fully engage in our communities. 
Finally I will talk about encouraging innovation in science research and technology. I am particularly interested in the stimulation of what I call blue-green businesses—businesses that are environmentally friendly sustainable and profitable. The Primary Growth Partnership fund underpins $40 million for research and innovation to boost New Zealand’s primary forestry and food sectors and this will be a catalyst for work in the blue-green business area. 
There are plenty of ideas to develop. On the rural news on Radio New Zealand National yesterday we heard of two new initiatives. The first was about processing wool. Wool is getting a new persona as a natural high-quality and environmentally friendly product. Yesterday the programme was promoting eco-certification of wool processing to underpin that clean green image. Yesterday we also heard about new research into grains particular oats to extract biopolymers which can be used for high-cost all natural and environmentally friendly cosmetics. New Zealand is ideally placed to produce valuable new high-tech products from the quality animals we breed and the crops we cultivate. 
The Government is also investing in both the Global Research Alliance on Agricultural Greenhouse Gases and the domestic Centre for Agricultural Greenhouse Gas Research. These initiatives are invaluable in creating new opportunities and new low-carbon technologies and products. New Zealand can and will lead the world in this area. 
New Zealand is also known for its high-quality food products and the Government is giving food technology and innovation a shot in the arm by providing open-access food development and commercialisation facilities across New Zealand. New Zealand has always been good at ideas and innovation but not so good at commercialisation. 
So there we have it: three good reasons why New Zealand is better off under John Key and the National-led Government. We will deliver a better fairer taxation system that will incentivise economic development. We will demand that our education system produces a much higher percentage of young people who can read and write. We will invest in innovation and we will back the can-do ability of New Zealanders to produce better more sophisticated and more environmentally friendly products and services. 
GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) 
: 
 It was fascinating to hear Nicky Wagner end on the topic of the importance of supporting science and innovation in New Zealand. No one on this side of the House would disagree with that. But let us turn to what the Prime Minister’s statement says about science and innovation. It states: “Science and innovation are therefore key elements of the Government’s economic agenda both this year and into the future.” That sounds good. But then we read a little further down: “As I indicated earlier the fiscal situation means that future new spending allowances can only be very modest and most agencies will miss out on funding increases altogether.” So there we go: the Government thinks science and innovation is important and that it will contribute to growing our economy but it does not want to fund it. 
That is typical of the Prime Minister’s statement that we are talking about today. Some people have criticised the Labour Party for suggesting that the statement was both timid and dangerous that it was a kind of “Danger Mouse” statement by the Prime Minister. The reality is that the statement is both timid and dangerous because we have a Government that is forced by electoral imperatives to adopt a vast range of popular Labour policies but is bridling against them. John Hayes does not really support Working for Families 20 hours’ free early childhood education or interest-free student loans but he knows National had to support them in order to get elected. The desire is there to reward National’s mates and to get back to trickle-down economics because that worked really well did it not? The Government wants to get back to privatisation and to reducing the size of the State. That is what Government members really want to do. 
We saw in the Prime Minister’s statement the Government bridling against that. Bill was not happy though was he? It took him a long time to get up in the debate and when he finally did he kept saying: “Well we’re just considering it. We’re not quite sure whether we’re going to go through with this.” It was a timid speech but what underlay it was a dangerous agenda to take New Zealand down a path where we look after only the few not the many. It is a dangerous path to be going down when we look at a situation where a tax cut change could deliver $500 a week to the Prime Minister and only 30-odd cents to somebody on the minimum wage. That is a very dangerous path for New Zealand to go down because it is a recipe for inequity and instability in our society. It is not a path that the Labour Party favours going down. 
It has been a difficult time for the Government since the Prime Minister delivered his statement. Things have got very very messy in terms of some of the key elements like GST. We are not certain where the Prime Minister stands on GST. However the one thing we do know is that before the election the Prime Minister ruled out an increase in GST but now he is not so sure. He is contemplating an increase in GST to 15 percent but only if the Maori Party agrees to it. However that position appeared to change this week as well. It was the same with Whanau Ora. After the speech we began believing that Whanau Ora was only for Maori. Tariana Turia developed it and we understood that it would be funded through Te Puni Kokiri. That is fine; it was only going to be there. That was the Maori Party’s clear position. Suddenly John Key says: “No it is for everybody—and it is also a waterbed. It is both of those things.” He is a master of the English language. There is total confusion about Whanau Ora and about GST. 
My colleague Darren Hughes has already talked about the foreshore and seabed. There is complete confusion about what is happening there. This is a very very messy coalition arrangement and the Prime Minister is reduced to being some kind of deranged ambulance driver running around and trying to pick up all the casualties of his coalition. He is trying to hold it all together and as a result there is no clear plan emerging from this. All we see emerging is a Government that is grappling with itself and with the fact that what it really wants to do is move further in the direction of privatisation and of rewarding National’s friends. But National members know they cannot do that because they will not get re-elected. That is the tension. That was the “Danger Mouse” speech by the Prime Minister. He came through with a speech that does not deliver a plan because he cannot quite manage to do it. 
A key element of the Government’s agenda is supposedly to get us better public services. All New Zealanders want better public services. Certainly the Labour Party wants to see public services adapt and change and to look like the 21st century public services we want them to be. Labour made some good advances in that direction in our term in Government but there is much more to do. National’s vision for public services simply will not deliver improved public services. In its first year in Government it said the message was: “We want to do more with less.” The problem is that National is now doing less with less. It has managed to cut indiscriminately across the public sector. It has cut into institutions like Child Youth and Family and the Ministry of Social Development. Those places are under even more pressure now as we come out of the recession. They are the places that National has cut. National has a policy that is based on a complete fabrication about something called front-line services and backroom services. 
In the select committee deliberations on the estimates we managed to ask most of the agencies what front-line services were. We managed to get almost every agency to deliver a different definition of what front-line services are. Some people said they had been told by the State Services Commission what they were and some people said the State Services Commission did not have a definition. Archives New Zealand is an institution that I am personally very proud of but I did not quite agree with it when it said that 80 percent of its staff are front-line workers. I am struggling to work out how it could be 80 percent. I think Maurice Williamson probably would not agree that 80 percent of Archives New Zealand’s staff are front-line workers. This is the problem when we set up artificial definitions but that is the cornerstone of National’s policy. 
The reality is that if we start making arbitrary distinctions like that in institutions such as district health boards we will start to get into trouble. We have already seen it with administrative staff being laid off in district health boards and that means only one thing: doctors and nurses spending less time with patients and more time filling in forms and doing administrative work. Making artificial distinctions between the front line and the back room simply will not deliver better services for New Zealand. 
I hate to say this but morale in the public service in New Zealand is very low at the moment. It is because people are having to do the jobs of two and three people. They are under huge pressure. They have been told by the Prime Minister in his statement that there will be no funding for 5 years in many of those departments—5 years. At the same time the Government is saying that it also wants the Public Service to be innovative take on new technology and look at different ways of doing things. Well that is proving impossible for people who are covering for their mates who have lost their jobs and they are having to do more and more work with fewer resources around for them. It simply is not on to suddenly say to snap one’s fingers and public services will be better. We have to invest in public services. We have to invest in public servants to ensure they can deliver the 21st century Public Service we all want. 
The other point concerning public services is that this is the year in which primary school teachers and nurses will renegotiate their contracts. I think the Government needs to tread very carefully here. It is saying to those people that there is no new money for 5 years. We are already seeing industrial action in places like the Ministry of Justice with court staff. The Inland Revenue Department is not far away from the same thing. We will have major problems and disruption in this country if the Government is not prepared to invest in public services invest in the teachers and nurses and make sure they have good rates of pay. That is a major problem coming ahead for this Government and I do not see anything in this statement that would enable us to believe that the Government wants to invest in public services. We see a recipe for increasing unfairness in the Prime Minister’s statement. It is Robin Hood in reverse. It is taking from the poor and giving to the rich. That is what we are seeing in this statement. 
I want to end on a positive note about what Labour is doing at the moment. Labour is working through its policy process at the moment. The important thing for Labour at the moment is to work out how we can take this country forward with a sustainable economy. Time and time again I hear colleagues in the National Party tell us that the economy and the environment are two separate things. If this country is to go forward prosperously we need to ensure that the economy and the environment are considered together. It is ridiculous to find in the Prime Minister’s statement a section called “Unlocking resources” which is code for mining our national parks. If we cannot bring the economy and the environment together New Zealand has no future. We need to ensure that we invest in people we support children in the early years of their lives and we educate people and give them the skills to contribute. Then we will have a productive economy. Unfortunately there is none of that in the Prime Minister’s statement. 
COLIN KING (National—Kaikoura) 
: 
 It is a pleasure to stand and speak in support of the Prime Minister’s statement. I note what a difference a year makes. This time last year the richest countries in the world were virtually in meltdown banks were being bailed out and the Government was giving handouts and rescue packages to businesses which made the very eyes of the most financially literate water. Now 12 months on we see that the situation was the worst in 70 years. It has grown to a stage where we see a lot of the developed world very much still in the grips of a recession. However the Government held its nerve it managed its resources and it achieved an outstanding result. Through the whole experience one can only describe the performance of the Government as excellent. In actual fact it would be fair to say that even the Opposition would concede that. We are out of recession 12 months on and last week the Government delivered the next important steps for success on the road to prosperity. 
The Prime Minister’s statement demonstrates that this Government will back the individual to know how best to manage his or her resources educate his or her children and invest his or her savings. The wonderful thing about New Zealanders is that they are beginning to trust and have confidence in themselves again. This Prime Minister’s statement has gone a long way to further reinforce that. New Zealanders need to be taught again to believe in themselves along the lines that they can keep up with Australia that we are a nation of achievers and that we are winners. Provided we work together we will enjoy the fruits of success. 
I wish to concentrate on just three points within the Prime Minister’s statement. There are many many points covered there but time does not allow me to go over them and canvass them all. I will concentrate on science and innovation unlocking this nation’s resources and potential and a growth-enhancing tax system. 
The Prime Minister’s statement has articulated the most efficient and effective manner of funding science and innovation. The Government is ready and able to fund good top-quality science and the Prime Minister’s statement addresses the challenges of getting more of our firms using science research and technology to deliver more valuable products and services. This will make New Zealand companies more successful and more competitive in our export markets. In turn it will create new jobs and better-paid jobs for all New Zealanders. This Government is determined to develop a public science system able to support such a dynamic economy. This year the Primary Growth Partnership will contribute $40 million and up to $70 million in future years which will be matched dollar for dollar by industry. In my mind there is no doubt that this will be the most appropriate model to follow. This model will produce quality science and research that no other country can aspire to. It will deliver value for money and it will also deliver the ground-breaking scientific discovery that such an inspirational Government attains to. 
New Zealanders can have confidence in this Government’s agenda. I refer to what has become known as the most progressive alliance to occur in modern scientific times within the context of climate change and that is the Global Research Alliance on Agricultural Greenhouse Gases. It now involves 23 nations who will be meeting in New Zealand later on this year. We have high expectations of a very successful meeting when those nations come to New Zealand during 2010. Sadly the only dissenting voice in this whole debate around the alliance has been Labour member Charles Chauvel. This only further demonstrates how this Government is able to gain international traction and buy-in from other countries leading to scientific success and why the Opposition is so last century and out of touch with global thinking. 
If there is one thing this Opposition fails to grasp it is that if we want first-class health first-class education and first-class law and order we must have a first-class economy. The Prime Minister’s statement took us through a number of things that are very very positive and constructive. It told us that presently there are 10 separate work streams that are under way covering economic growth areas like infrastructure urban design and critical work on improving New Zealand’s freshwater management. The Prime Minister’s statement outlined how the Government will progress an action plan to further unlock New Zealand’s petroleum potential. Estimates are that the petroleum sector will generate many billions of dollars in the near future and with that many many jobs. There is also the extraordinary economic potential in the mineral estate residing in Crown-owned land. The Prime Minister’s statement also recommended that areas within Crown land from schedule 4 plus additional land that is not yet in schedule 4 be added for the purposes of harvesting some of the minerals within those areas. 
Within the speech the Prime Minister talked about the Government action to remove particular regulatory roadblocks and progress water storage in Canterbury. So I will take the opportunity to focus on that for a moment because it is one part of the debate that I feel has been overlooked somewhat. When this is achieved it will contribute enormously to the New Zealand economy. This project which is large in anyone’s terms is compared to having the Rugby World Cup in New Zealand every year; such is the contribution and potential of this project to the New Zealand economy. This major regional development will create thousands of jobs and contribute many hundreds of millions of dollars to the New Zealand economy annually. Entire communities in the east coast dry parts of the South Island are heartened that after many many years we have a Government that is prepared to take action and not one that will engage in endless meetings and talking. These communities are finally saying that we have a Government that will take action and by placing the environment at the forefront of all considerations will work towards prioritising a win-win situation for all stakeholders to the future prosperity of all New Zealand. 
We will now move on to the issue of a growth-enhancing tax system. This Government is not prepared to stand by and allow New Zealanders to miss out on a prosperous future by continuing to rely on a tax system that possesses inconsistencies and perverse consequences. We have a tax system that taxes labour and investments hard at a high rate yet we tax consumption at a very low rate. It is of no surprise then that we need to adjust this taxation system to ensure that we get better incentives going forward. The Government has a number of objectives to attain with these tax reforms. Clearly this country of ours needs a tax system that creates incentives for people to work hard improve their skills and get ahead. Most important and something that is always overlooked by the Opposition is that people learn to do that under their own steam. We need a tax system that encourages saving and one that boosts productivity. 
I have referred here to only three of many points brought out in the Prime Minister’s statement. I assure the Opposition that 2010 will be a year to remember for all the right reasons. So in conclusion it is with immense pride that I speak in support of the Prime Minister’s statement. It is appropriate it is a step change and it is the first step towards a brighter future for all New Zealanders. 
HEKIA PARATA (National) 
: 
 Tena koe e te Mana Whakawa huri noa i to tatou Whare tena tatou kia ora tatou katoa. “Whaia te iti kahurangi ki te tuohu koe me he maunga teitei”. When translated that whakatauki or proverb means “Strive for the ultimate and if you must bow your head let it be to a lofty mountain”. It basically means be aspirational be ambitious be positive be productive and be determined. These are all the hallmarks of our Prime Minister John Key of his leadership and of the work programme that was established in the Prime Minister’s statement early last week. That statement sets out a comprehensive work agenda for 2010 that is possible only because last year in 2009 this Government powered through a huge clean-up programme that was the legacy of the previous Labour administration. That work in 2009 has created enough space to allow us to now focus on the important structural and systemic issues that face this nation. 
What did we inherit from the previous Labour administration? We inherited both economic and social despoliation of New Zealand. It was a squandering of a decade of the best economic conditions. New Zealand was a country strangled by debt. But worse the previous administration had the belief that it was better to place the Government the State at the centre of New Zealanders’ lives rather than support them to build their own personal and professional capital their own whanau and their own communities. There was a belief that Government programmes should and could fix everything. It was a behaviour that squeezed people and communities out of their own lives. It was a mishmash of contracts and compliance regimes that mistook activity for achievement busyness for business and contracts for caring. Labour Opposition members now have the cheek to ask questions in this House about issues that are the consequence of Labour’s own inept administration. They ask questions about schools hospitals roads and other important infrastructure that was left to languish while Labour wallowed in the largesse of the best economic conditions of several lifetimes 
Chris Hipkins 
: Talk about wallowing in largesse! 
HEKIA PARATA 
: Well I cannot comment on the size of the Opposition’s wallowing in lard and I will leave that to Opposition members. We have been left to deal with the legacy of the Labour administration which seems to have contracted some sort of political amnesia. 
This National-led Government does not underestimate the capacity of New Zealanders or their aspirations for a brighter future nor their willingness to work creatively harder and smarter. This Government is committed to supporting that ambition. We have an absolute belief in the potential of the people of this nation and our role is to create an environment in which that potential can be realised. So what has to be done? The Prime Minister’s statement sets out a comprehensive and clear agenda of work with the economy as the No. 1 priority and reform in the social sector as our No. 2 priority. These are complementary and mutually reinforcing goals which together will provide the structural and systemic responses necessary to achieve the brighter future that New Zealanders voted us into Government to help build. 
We must rebalance the economy towards investment savings and exports and away from the unsustainable consumption borrowing and Government spending that were the hallmarks of the previous administration. We need to change the incentives so that resources flow where we want them to go. After hearing back from several panels and review teams over recent months we are considering a range of options to deliver a faster-growing economy that creates jobs and improves Kiwis’ living standards. 
There is as the member opposite said no one quick-fix solution. I think that the member opposite needs to be aware that we have been in Government for 14 months and have managed to clean up a great deal of the bad Government that members opposite had 9 years to offer this country. There is no one quick-fix solution. Instead we need to do several things. For example we can shape the tax system to deliver the incentives that the Government supports. For ordinary New Zealanders we want a tax system that rewards effort encourages savings and helps families to get ahead. For the economy we want a tax system that helps fix our structural imbalances which were built up under the previous Government. Shoring up the tax base and lowering personal taxes are important to this Government. We must also ensure that our company tax rate is competitive internationally. We need to do this at the same time as continuing to make progress with reducing deficits and controlling debt. 
The Prime Minister last week made it clear that the Government is considering across-the-board personal tax reductions as well as upfront increases in benefits New Zealand Superannuation and Working for Families payments. That will give people choices and help families to get ahead so it is incorrect to say that only the top personal tax cuts are being considered. In the previous Government’s last 3 years in office the economy grew at a meagre 0.9 percent a year on average. What an achievement for the previous Government! It was a growth rate of 0.9 percent a year on average. That was less than half the growth rate of major overseas economies and less than one-third of Australia’s growth rate. Shaking one’s head does not make it untrue regrettably; the facts speak for themselves. That is why we need to change the way that we do things. 
For hard-working Kiwi families lower personal taxes across the board are good because they give people incentives to work hard improve their skills and get ahead here in New Zealand but we have to pay for them. At an economic level we want to encourage more investment savings and exports and we want to have less borrowing and consumption because New Zealand spends a lot more as a country than it earns and that is unsustainable. 
Sue Moroney 
: That’s under National. 
HEKIA PARATA 
: That was the approach I say to the member opposite of the previous Government and not the approach of this Government. 
As part of a package of tax changes to help achieve these things the Government is carefully considering a modest increase in the rate of GST to no more than 15 percent. We are acutely aware that a rise in GST would have an impact on lower and middle income New Zealanders so we are not interested in a tax package that adversely affects those groups. No decision has yet been made about increasing GST. The Government has asked for more work to be done on this. But let me give members a quote from someone who texted me just today: “If tax increases I would prefer it to be GST offset by a reduction in PAYE because this means I have more choice”— 
Chris Hipkins 
: How much do they earn? 
HEKIA PARATA 
: Whakarongo whakarongo ko enei nga reo o nga tangata a-rohe e korero ana ki tenei Whare Paremata. This is the voice of an actual New Zealander saying what that person thinks. 
Hon Members 
: How much do they earn? 
HEKIA PARATA 
: I object to the idea that I have to pay people to speak to me. Perhaps that is those members’ experience but it is not mine. The text message continued: “That is if I can’t afford to buy something then I won’t buy it. I don’t have this option with PAYE.” This John Key - led Government believes in the potential of New Zealand and New Zealanders. That is why not only are we concerned to ensure that we have a better economy and a world-class tax system but also we are committed to ensure that any changes meet the tests of equity and fairness. They must deliver benefits to households and the economy that outweigh the costs and given that we face another 6 years of Budget deficits they must be fiscally neutral. 
But tax is just one policy lever that we can pull to help rebalance and grow the economy. We are equally concerned about our social sector. I will turn and speak for a minute about education an extremely important part of the work programme of this John Key - led Government. The quality of education as we are all aware expands and improves our life choices. Those life choices good and bad have an impact on the individual the family the community and ultimately our society. Ensuring an excellent education for all our school students is therefore a critical personal and public investment. National standards will allow us to have an early warning system that tells us whether our students are doing well and if they are not it will tell us what kind of support they need. 
TODD McCLAY (National—Rotorua) 
: 
 It gives me great pleasure to rise today and speak on the Prime Minister’s statement which was delivered such a short time ago. What a wonderful speech that was—9500 words of action 9500 words of direction and 9500 words of inspiration that New Zealanders have overwhelmingly welcomed and supported. What was his speech about? It was about aspiration. It was about looking to the future. It was about meeting challenges head on and focusing on economic development. At the end of the Prime Minister’s speech others got up to speak as well and I thought for a moment as I was thinking of what to put in my notes today of what some of those speeches were about. The Leader of the Opposition Phil Goff stood up and it was a little bit like the stories that my wife reads to my children. I nicknamed him “fairytale Phil”. There was everything in there except for a happy ending— 
H V Ross Robertson 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The member has been here for some time and his father has been a member of the House so he has some idea about Standing Orders and Speakers’ rulings. He well knows that when he refers to a member he must do so by using the member’s full name or using the member’s honorific. In this case he referred to the Leader of the Opposition by his first name only. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Rick Barker) 
: The member is correct. I just say to members that when they are raising points of order we do not need a lot of prefacing of them. The member will refer to other members of the House respectfully in the address that is agreed to. 
TODD McCLAY 
: After I heard the speech made by the Hon Philip Goff whom others have nicknamed “fairytale Phil” it was clear to me that members opposite were looking glum. I jotted down the names of a few of those members when we looked at the TV later on and I jotted down what I thought they were thinking. I ask why members of the Opposition would be feeling glum when their big strong able leader who sits on a motorbike and rides around the country in his time off is talking about his vision for New Zealand. Well they would be concerned because there was not a lot of vision in his speech. I had a look at this and asked who they were. Were they only members on the backbenches or were they members on the front bench? It was interesting that Chris Hipkins was looking quite concerned and I looked at what happened at the last election. The reason for that was I think that Mr Hipkins is not at all sure that with leadership like the leadership that has been shown by the Hon Phil Goff whom others have nicknamed “fairytale Phil” he can get back into this House in 2011. I am sure that he is thinking that he will have to work extra hard now in Opposition just because of those members’ leadership. 
Clayton Cosgrove was looking quite disappointed too. This is the Hon Clayton Cosgrove who is not to be confused with the Hon Philip Goff whom others have nicknamed “fairytale Phil”. Why would he be looking concerned? His nickname— 
Sue Moroney 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I know that the member is a new member but he has failed to recognise your previous ruling. He has just committed the offence of using nicknames for a member another two times. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Rick Barker) 
: The member is trifling with the ruling in that members should be referred to respectfully. The member was referring to how others may or may not refer to the member. I just say to the member that all members in this Chamber are honourable members. Yes we should accept a little bit of jousting and once or twice is OK but I ask that we get on to the substance of the speech. I look forward to the member continuing. 
TODD McCLAY 
: I do have great respect for the Leader of the Opposition the Hon Phil Goff and I think he will find great respect in the community when he is no longer leader and he goes out and starts looking for other employment. 
I will just go back to where I was because it is the crux of what the Prime Minister’s speech was all about. Clayton Cosgrove is worried about his majority which is thinner than what is under his hat. Labour list MPs are looking glum. Some of them thought that they would be in Government at the moment. Some of them are in Parliament only because they were on the list and they are a little bit worried that they might have to get back out into the real world. Only two people were not looking glum. One of them was Shane Jones. He seems to think that the Leader of the Opposition’s speech was part of his plan to lead the Labour Party. The other person is Parekura Horomia and I heard it mentioned earlier that he is looking to be Shane Jones’ No. 2 when Shane Jones is the leader. I think it is because Parekura Horomia did not think he would get back in 2008 so he does not have very high hopes for 2011. 
Let me tell members a bit about the area of New Zealand that I am a member of Parliament for—the central North Island area. Every single seat in that area is now a blue seat. Every seat is National. Do members know why that is? It is because our Prime Minister has vision and his speech showed us where that vision was. A few MPs from that area who have limped back into Parliament on the Labour list will be concerned about the Prime Minister’s speech. In a moment I will go through some of the things he set up for this year. 
We do not see Labour in Taupo any more. Labour has moved its office from Rotorua to Tauranga which is a seat that it has not held for 12 years. The people of Rotorua are really glad they can phone an 0800 number! I want to recognise the Hon Stephanie Chadwick who announced a short while ago that for the good of the people of Rotorua—because she misses being a Minister—she will stand again in Rotorua in the 2011 election. By golly I am looking forward to that. People have said they will be coming to see her in her office in Tauranga. We do not see Labour in Hamilton and it gave up on Tauranga a long time ago. 
The Prime Minister made a very gifted directed speech that touched on many of the problems left to this Government when we came in. Let us think about the economy for a moment. Members opposite have spoken at great length about how strong the economy was in the 9 years they were in Government. Let us dig down a little deeper than that. I accept what the member says. Absolutely unemployment was lower. But the size of the Public Service was growing and growing. The Labour Government did not work out that it is not a Government that should be employing people it is businesses. What we have to do in this country is back businesses so that they can get on and create employment. Governments create direction and the Prime Minister has created a great deal of direction in this area. 
Let us go back to the productive economy to those people who produce things and sell them or export them they go out and invest and after they invest they employ other people. The productive economy in New Zealand has been in recession since the year 2005. The members opposite who are smiling must be proud of that statistic. Since the year 2005 our productive base has been dwindling. Here we are in the year 2010 and do members know what level it is at? It is at the same level that it was back in 2000. So after 9 years of a Labour Government and the wonderful surpluses it tells us about the wonderful things it was doing and the excellent things it was fixing in this country where are we now? The New Zealand productive sector which should be employing investing and exporting is at the same level as it was when Labour limped into Government. Of course it did not limp out of Government; it was chucked out. Some changes are coming. 
Why is the New Zealand productive sector struggling? I went out in my electorate a little while ago and asked people in the productive sector. I asked those in the kiwifruit sector where some of the blockages have been for them. It is pretty clear that for them getting their produce to the port and exported has taken too long has been too difficult and has cost far too much money. Here is a little bit of good news for Mrs Chadwick who I notice likes to wag a finger around. The people of Rotorua liked that finger a few years ago. Here is some great news: our Minister of Transport has fronted up and there will be a new road from the middle of my electorate that will go all the way across to the port—a Te Puke bypass. Do members know what the farmers there the foresters and those who drive trucks are telling me? They say: “Our Minister of Transport is a great great Minister of Transport and that’s a very good road.” 
Let us think about another road in my electorate in Rotorua. Forty years ago somebody said that Rotorua might grow or it might not but we need a new road that will bring us from our airport into town and it is a bypass. For 40 years people have been talking about that. Last year the people of Rotorua realised that although a few weak limp promises had been thrown around about the possibility of roads it was only if they let their petrol be taxed locally which would mean they would be less productive. The Minister of Transport has fronted up and the good news is that Rotorua got $1.5 million of funding to move to the next stage of the road that Labour members and others have been talking about for more than 40 years. It is a great road; bring it on. If we had not got the money last year it would be many many more years until the project could get even close to getting under way. 
I want to come back to the productive economy because it is something that New Zealanders are concerned about but members opposite conveniently forget about it because they know the great damage they did in that area during their 9 years in Government. Why is it that we have not had good investment in the productive economy in New Zealand? It is because a number of the things the Labour Government did pushed New Zealanders in the wrong direction. It was too hard to invest. It was too difficult for businesses to get on and everywhere they went there were regulatory roadblocks. During the campaign and since that time I have not had a single person except the friends of Mrs Chadwick in Rotorua say: “Todd leave the Resource Management Act alone; it’s working really well.” We get overwhelming support for good changes whereby people can get out and get good projects moving forward and can look clearly at what we need to do there. 
Trade is another example. A lot of trade work has been done by our new Minister of Trade. He is a very active Minister and he is in and out of countries talking about trade and freer trade. We had a wealth of trade agreements last year. On the agenda this year is a trade agreement with the United States with India and with Korea. The forestry community of Rotorua the kiwifruit community of Rotorua and the other groups of farmers who produce in this country and who have been held back tell me that they are glad of this. Do members know that for kiwifruit Korea has a tariff of 45 percent against New Zealand produce? In Chile where we have a trade agreement it has been reduced to 25 percent. Tariffs make us less productive and less competitive and it means that the farmers in my electorate who are having a great kiwifruit year this year would find it more difficult to compete. I think that our Minister Tim Groser is doing wonderful things. I am glad that he is the Minister because he is a Minister of action. All of our Ministers seem to be Ministers of action. 
My time is almost up and there is so much that I could talk about in relation to the Prime Minister’s speech because there was so much in it so much depth and so much detail. I want to touch upon national standards and here is a little lesson for the Opposition: they should stop talking just to union officials and the odd teacher and instead get out on the streets and talk to parents. Parents want us to back their kids and national standards will do that. I will conclude by saying I have been reading a few blogs lately. Some of them are hugely humorous and some of them are very serious. I want to touch on one blog I read a little while ago. The suggestion was— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Rick Barker) 
: I regret to advise the member that his time has expired. 
H V ROSS ROBERTSON (Labour—Manukau East) 
: 
 Kia ora tatou no reira te Whare e nga iwi e nga reo e nga hau e wha tena koutou tena koutou tena koutou katoa. I say to matua Rick Barker haere ra. When I first read the Prime Minister’s statement I thought surely this is not the best the Government can do but I am still waiting to find anything of substance in the statement from the Prime Minister. Where is the leadership that is required to motivate and inspire New Zealanders to effort? It is not on that side of the House. I rang around some business contacts who asked: “Is that it?”. I say to the Prime Minister that tax is not a silver bullet. 
I say to the honourable member Todd McClay who preceded me that Steve Chadwick is out knocking on doors now. She has acknowledged her candidacy for 2011 and she will fight it tooth and nail. While Todd McClay has to stay here in the House we will have our candidate out there wresting the seat back for the Labour Party and we will give her all the support that we can. 
With this Prime Minister’s speech we have a half-hearted effort. The speech is shrouded in uncertainty until we see the Budget and it is full of sound and fury signifying nothing. It is time that the Prime Minister delivered on his promise to lift our country’s performance. I believe as do my Labour colleagues that Alan Bollard was right when he said that the Prime Minister has over-promised and he cannot deliver. Although we have had the Prime Minister’s statement to Parliament I acknowledge the speech made by the Hon Phil Goff. His speech to the nation in Hamilton resonated with the many and not the few whereas the Prime Minister’s speech pandered to the few while ignoring the many. It was a speech of a smiling Muldoon; I remember him well. 
GST the major initiative unleashed by the Prime Minister is a regressive tax taking more as a percentage of earnings from the low paid than it does from those with more discretionary income. Let me give members an example. If people take home $200 a week and their grocery bill is $100 that bill currently includes a GST component of $12.50. So they pay 6.25 percent of their take-home pay in GST. But if they take home $1000 and their grocery bill is $100 that $12.50 in GST is only 1.25 percent of their take-home pay. Therefore the less people earn the greater the percentage of GST they pay. Personally I would prefer to live in a country that prioritised looking after the many not the few. What it means is that those who are the most vulnerable in our society and those who are on fixed incomes—and I stand here as the Opposition spokesperson for the elderly most of whom are on fixed incomes—will be greatly disadvantaged by the implementation of an increase in GST. Not only that but they will lose their purchasing power while they are waiting for a catch-up. 
I have been inundated with calls from constituents about the impact of GST on their standard of living and they ask why they should trust this Government’s word and its rhetoric when the Prime Minister promised not once not twice but three times not to raise GST. He can use all the weasel words he likes here in Parliament to deny it but the people know differently especially the elderly. They are the reason that I stand here speaking up for them. I have the senior citizens portfolio; it is a challenging one but I enjoy it. I have been inundated with calls from around the country and I intend to hold this Government to account. 
David Garrett 
: How many? 
H V ROSS ROBERTSON 
: The point about GST I say to Mr Garrett is that it is a regressive tax. So those at the bottom are paying a greater percentage of their income than those who are earning much more. 
As a result of this Prime Minister’s statement to the House what we see is that the elderly will continue to suffer under this regime. To date a number of changes have affected senior citizens. There has been the issue of home support on the Kapiti coast. We have heard that the district health board has been ringing people to ask whether they are OK and when they say that they are the board cuts the number of hours of home support that they are entitled to. The Safe with Age driving programme which was implemented in the South Island has been changed and cut as has senior citizens’ access to student loans and allowances. These things have all been cut. 
My Labour colleagues and I have been vocal in opposing cuts to health accident compensation and adult education and we have been drawing attention to the axing of the Safe with Age driving courses and speaking up against the freezing of the contributions to the Superannuation Fund. We also oppose the recommendation of the Tax Working Group to increase GST to 15 percent a policy that we know would hit our elderly citizens particularly hard. 
Chris Tremain 
: So why did you raise it from 10 to 12.5 without reimbursing senior citizens last time? 
H V ROSS ROBERTSON 
: Let me just say to the member on behalf of senior citizens that during my regular visits to Grey Power around the country I have been alarmed to hear of instances of a general lack of care and empathy for some of our most vulnerable seniors including where one district health board informed and gathered information by telephone to justify cutting back home support hours. Other district health boards are discharging patients from accident and emergency departments late at night without considering whether those people have the necessary resources to get themselves home. 
The honeymoon I say to this Government cannot go on for ever. When the gloss comes off we will be waiting and thank goodness we have a democracy in this country. I want at this stage to acknowledge all of those who have fought and those who have died so that we might have that privilege. I look at the plaques around the Chamber starting over here with ones for Malaysia Viet Nam Korea Cassino Pacific El Alamein Crete Fortress Europe River Plate South Africa and Atlantic to name just a few. Those people did what they did so that we might have a democracy here so that we might have change. Change will come again because more and more people are recognising that this Government is not delivering what it promised. 
Alan Bollard made it quite specific last week when he said that we would not be able to achieve what the Prime Minister had set out to do. He fronted up; he told the people of this country that they cannot believe everything they hear from the Prime Minister. 
We will continue as Her Majesty’s loyal Opposition to hold this Government to account because the speech read to this House by this Prime Minister was lacking in vision it was lacking in commitment and dedication and it is holding all of us up in the air while we wait to see what is in the Budget. Leadership is about motivation it is about inspiring others to follow and to date that has not happened. Let me say to the people of New Zealand and to the senior citizens whom I represent kia kaha—stand tall. The elderly are not to be taken for granted and we on this side of the House will continue to speak up for them. Tena koutou tena koutou tena tatou katoa. 
SUE KEDGLEY (Green) 
: 
 I will focus on the paragraphs of the Prime Minister’s speech in which he spoke soothingly and reassuringly about how Auckland governance reforms will simplify and streamline the governance structures within the Auckland region. This is a classic example of Orwell’s double-speak which is a language that seeks to make the bad seem good and the inappropriate seem appropriate. In fact the Auckland governance structuring will not so much streamline and simplify the governance structures in the region as decimate them and will wipe out seven perfectly well-functioning local democracies replacing them with what will really be a corporatised structure masquerading as democracy. 
I noticed that the editor of the normally conservative  
Local Government 
 magazine recently said in an editorial: “A cynical observer might think that the Auckland supercity juggernaut is all part of a cunning plan by politicians in Wellington to remove local government entirely.” I think the editor has hit the nail on the head because the reality is that the Government’s so-called super-city plan is a master plan by Rodney Hide—aided and abetted of course by every member of the National caucus including every National member here today—to corporatise most of the Auckland councils’ functions and of course their $28 billion worth of assets and ready them for privatisation. The plan is also to remove layers and layers of local democracy and to reduce the ability of ordinary Aucklanders to participate in local government. 
Under Rodney Hide’s master plan which I have deemed to be Rogernomics II seven perfectly well-functioning city councils will simply cease to exist. Councils like Waitakere City Council and Manukau City Council—which are amongst the most innovative the best supported and the most successful councils in this land—will disappear in October for no good reason. They will be replaced instead by a form of State government—a huge bloated bureaucracy of 6000 staff led by a mayor with sweeping new executive powers. It is called the “strong mayor” model. There will be 20 councillors who between them will represent 1.2 million people or one-third of New Zealand’s population. The 20 elected councillors will represent constituencies that are larger than constituencies probably anywhere else in the world. Of course they will be far larger than MPs’ constituencies. Some councillors will represent constituencies with 88000 people which is far more than the 55000 people the average constituency MP represents—almost twice as much. One can hardly call that sort of representation local government; it is a form of State government pure and simple. 
It turns out however that under Rodney Hide’s master plan the 20 councillors will not have a lot to do except perhaps thump on the council table in frustration and impotence. Virtually every important Auckland Council function—water transport sewerage economic development tourism property development all the regional facilities stadiums the zoo and of course the council investments in the airport and the port—will be siphoned off from the council into corporate businesses run by corporate boards where decisions will be made in secret by unelected and unaccountable directors appointed by none other than Rodney Hide. They will not even have to publish their agendas or their minutes. I have direct personal experience of how those council-controlled companies operate. I was on one in the Wellington City Council for 8 years and I saw that they are basically nothing more than a corporate company masquerading as somehow being within a democratic structure. They are not; they are a way of sabotaging it. 
It is worth reminding ourselves that the main purpose of local government in the Local Government Act 2002 is “to enable democratic local decision-making and action by and on behalf of communities.” That is stated in the Act. These changes will completely undermine the central purpose of local government by removing most of the Auckland councils’ functions and virtually all of their $28 billion worth of assets from the control of democratic decision makers. Really it is nothing short of a coup d’état. The wonder is that the Government is getting away with it although I note that the polls suggest Aucklanders are waking up and are increasingly opposed to what is happening. 
I took the trouble to look up the definition of “coup d’état” and it perfectly describes what is happening in Auckland. A coup d’état occurs when a small group of the existing Government establishment infiltrates a Government and succeeds in getting rid of one form of government and replacing it with another. Well that is exactly what is happening in Auckland. Rodney Hide and his hand-picked members of the Auckland Transition Agency have wrested control out of the hands of the democratically elected councillors whom Aucklanders elected in 2007. Instead the unelected and unaccountable members of the Auckland Transition Agency appointed by Rodney Hide are pulling all the strings and deciding what the councils may or may not do in their last few months of existence. The National Government has imposed radically new power structures on Auckland in which unelected officials will make virtually all of the key decisions. 
It is good to see that some Aucklanders and even some of the business community are waking up and speaking out against it. Even Michael Barnett head of the Auckland Regional Chamber of Commerce and Industry said that there was a growing perception that the super-city reforms were being imposed by Wellington and a select group of bureaucrats. He is right about that. Even he is opposed to the idea that Rodney Hide and the Auckland Transition Agency will appoint all of the directors and the senior managers of the company boards and so he should be. It is an unprecedented level of interference for central government to decide what companies will be set up in Auckland what their functions will be and when they can be disappeared and to appoint virtually all of the members to those boards. For every single other board in New Zealand the council decides what they will do and who will be appointed to them. 
I noticed today just before I came to the Chamber that it seems the only people who support the council-controlled entities that are being set up are the members of the Council for Infrastructure Development which has put out a press release rushing to support those entities. Of course they would: their members are rubbing their hands as they wait to get them on the $28 billion worth of infrastructure at the Auckland Council. 
Finally a word about the local boards which the Government is holding up as a sort of fig leaf to argue that that is the way ordinary New Zealanders will be able to have some say in the decisions that are being made. Local boards are not even units of local government; they are unincorporated bodies. They have absolutely no power in their own right—no resources no staff and no ability to set rates—and any powers that may be delegated to them by the Auckland Council will be able to be removed at any time on virtually any pretext. 
I am sad to say that Wellington is turning its mind to the issue of amalgamation and that Mr Dunne is trying to fast track Wellington into a super-city. Wellingtonians are far too clever to be fooled by Rodney Hide and his merry men—far too clever. They will not fall for this master plan by Rodney Hide but I am concerned that the proposed terms of reference for the Wellington region as put out only have the public being consulted about the plans at the end of the entire consultation process—that is in a few years’ time. That is not good enough and I will be seeking with my Labour colleagues to make the people of Wellington— 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: I am sorry to interrupt the member but her time has expired. 
Hon Dr WAYNE MAPP (Minister of Defence) 
: 
 As the Prime Minister said last week New Zealand has a substantial challenge ahead of it and that is closing the income gap with Australia. I say to members opposite that they also recognised that that challenge existed in 2000 and they totally failed to even think about closing that gap. There is no doubt that it will be a huge challenge because it requires that New Zealand has a sustained higher growth rate than Australia over time—not for 1 year not for 2 years but over a sustained period of time. We in New Zealand can be sure of course that Australia will not rest on its laurels during that period of time. 
One of the key opportunities that New Zealand has in bridging that gap is by the effective application of science to business innovation. It may be true that Australia has a large amount of accessible minerals but New Zealand has clear advantages in agriculture and other areas and the success of New Zealand’s agriculture has always been built on the application of science. Many places in the world have good rainfall and temperate climates but few have achieved the productivity levels of New Zealand in this sector and we have done so fundamentally on the basis of the application of science. Many of the Crown research institutes in fact are completely directed to that purpose: AgResearch the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research Landcare Research and Scion just to name a few in that field. In addition there are the emerging sectors of biopharmacology digital film and sophisticated manufacturing particularly where there is no long-range production but rather there is short-run production with unique requirements. 
Today I went out to Weta Digital which of course is where  
Avatar 
 was made. That movie has been a world-wide success so it makes sense for New Zealand to co-fund the next stage of that technology. Those members who have seen the film and the imagery of running water and so forth may have thought that that was a natural New Zealand river. In fact the scene is entirely digital which is the innovation that Weta Digital brought to that production. When the Foundation for Research Science and Technology invested $5.8 million along with Weta Digital—which is putting in $2 for every $1 that the foundation is investing—that is intended to take what we saw in  
Avatar 
 to the next stage of technology. That is the competitive edge. There were a thousand people working in Wellington in that sector and a leading edge technology has been built in this area. A whole fabric of companies that do that has been built around Weta Digital and this is one of the sectors that has proved that it is successful in the marketplace. 
It pays for the New Zealand taxpayer to back that sort of success because for the nation’s investment we will benefit from $300 million being spent primarily in the Wellington region through those companies and then going out into the wider economy. It is similar with more traditional areas like Zespri. The co-funding of $15 million— 
Chris Hipkins 
: The what? 
Hon Dr WAYNE MAPP 
: —the co-funding—over the next 7 years will enable Zespri to develop in essence the next Zespri Gold kiwifruit. It might actually be red in truth but gold kiwifruit produced just last year $400 million in revenue which was a direct payback for the research expenditure to date. Plant and Food Research alone received $10 million in licensed revenues. The reason I am focusing on these success stories is that this is how we grow the New Zealand economy. This is in fact the sort of example which the Prime Minister referred to in his speech that shows how we can build the New Zealand economy to go forward. I mention for instance another case in point: Fisher and Paykel Healthcare. That company has grown over a relatively short number of years to be one that had $500 million in revenue last year. I will repeat that for the benefit of the House—half a billion dollars. The foundation has invested in that company in its research space and I stress for members that that investment is in research the next level of technology and is for $3 million. 
The Government has looked at the opportunities around this area and we say that if we can put more emphasis on science that will be a core driver of innovation the next stage of economic growth. That is why we have chosen that as one of the six sectors; that is why we have in fact said to the nation that we see it as the pathway for an accelerated level of growth. We have to have an accelerated level of growth if we are to bridge that wealth gap with Australia. I say to members that when I became the Minister of Research Science and Technology it was clear that the science sector needed a substantial improvement so I have spent a lot of time listening to scientists and to science managers and talking to businesses and asking them what things need to be done that will make the difference. They say that we should get rid of the complexity get rid of the bureaucracy and focus on expenditure that enables scientists to get on with their business. So that is precisely why we established the Crown research institute taskforce and it will be reporting back to Ministers shortly. It is our intention to get more outcome—more science in fact—out of the Crown research institutes which will enable us to drive the innovation sector ahead. 
I want also to say what we did in 2009. In 2009 we increased funding for the Marsden Fund by 23 percent. It was the largest increase in its history. We increased funding for the Health Research Council by 20 percent. We increased funding for the Crown Research Institute Capability Fund by 18 percent. These are real gains that are building the research infrastructure of our country and the Crown research institute taskforce is intended to build on that. The appointment of the Chief Science Advisor to the Prime Minister Sir Peter Gluckman has also been part and parcel of that. I can say to members on both sides of the House that I along with the Prime Minister am working closely with the Chief Science Advisor to build the next platform of growth. 
Members might ask how we will bridge the gap with Australia. The way we do so will be to build the innovation culture of this country—to build on existing success and then to power it up and take it forward to the next level. I can tell members that the next Budget will set out the platform that will drive our economy ahead. The Prime Minister’s statement has made the clearest set of priorities and 2010 will be the year in which we will lay the foundation for growing the economy. When I listened to Mr Ross Robertson all he could focus on was GST. All he could do was focus on GST. He said it was going to go up by 2.5 percent; I have to remind members on that side of the House that their Government increased GST from 10 percent to 12.5 percent and there was no compensation. National has said to all New Zealanders that everyone will be better off under our tax package and that we will be growing the economy. Budget 2010 will set that platform. 
LYNNE PILLAY (Labour) 
: 
 Last November John Key celebrated being Prime Minister for a year but survivors of sexual abuse and disabled people in “New Zilnd” or New Zealand as we say here have nothing to celebrate. John Key promised there would be a brighter future for all New Zealanders but survivors of sexual abuse and disabled people in New Zealand do not have a brighter future. In his speech in this House John Key promised there would be improved opportunity fairness and security for all New Zealanders but that is not the case for survivors of sexual abuse or for disabled people. John Key promised a New Zealand in which his Government would improve the opportunities available to our most vulnerable citizens but that is clearly not the case. 
There is absolutely nothing in the Prime Minister’s statement that could give any hope whatsoever to New Zealanders—no innovation and no support for the vast majority of Kiwis. National has failed New Zealand families. Let us look at the rise in the GST rate which will push more costs on to hard-working New Zealanders—and they are already struggling to make ends meet. Will the tax cuts deliver more to low and middle income earners? No they will not. Will they deliver more to the 10 percent of high-income earners in this country? Yes they will. 
Let us look at how much those people will receive. The Prime Minister will get another $509 a week— 
Dr Ashraf Choudhary 
: How much? 
LYNNE PILLAY 
: He will get another $509 a week. That figure is around the minimum weekly wage in this country and is almost exactly the same as the wages of the cleaners who rallied outside Parliament today. Labour Party members and Green Party members went out to meet them but did National Party members Maori Party members or ACT members go out to meet them? No they did not. If those members had listened to those people they would have heard that all they were asking for was a small increase so that they could make a living. But they were not listened to by the National Government. I say again that currently the cleaners’ weekly wage is almost exactly the same amount as the additional money that John Key would get under his Government’s tax cuts. Those same cleaners will also suffer a 20 percent increase in GST on what they spend just in order to look after their families—to feed and clothe their kids. Where is the justice in this? That is a line that John Key took from Labour’s statement: “opportunities for all for a brighter future”. Yeah right! Labour will fight alongside every community group every family the majority of all New Zealanders— 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: “The many not the few”. 
LYNNE PILLAY 
: —the many not the few to oppose this GST rise. That is what we are about. As my colleague Darren Hughes said we are about the many not the few. 
Yesterday there was another rally outside Parliament. This is the rally season and that protest was against the huge hike in accident compensation levies the cutting of all the entitlements and quite clearly the lining up of the accident compensation scheme for privatisation in the future. A wide range of people were there and I congratulate everyone who turned up. The biking community were there in their leather gear. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: They looked really good. 
LYNNE PILLAY 
: They did look really good. The people who are getting dealt to under the accident compensation scheme were there. The victims of injury were there. The Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) has referred to them in terms of “draining the swamp”. Those were the people who turned out but I want to talk about— 
Dr Ashraf Choudhary 
: Who wasn’t there? 
LYNNE PILLAY 
: Again the National members were not there to listen to that group. 
I want to talk about another group that turned up: the victims of sexual abuse and the professionals who support them and provide counselling. Those victims and survivors have suffered the most horrendous forms of abuse that one could ever contemplate. This Government introduced a new pathway for dealing with those claimants. Well that pathway was nothing short of a high wire. The latest figures show that 70 percent of those claims were turned down in a 6-month period. Victims are being pushed from pillar to post; they are forced to retell and retell their stories in order to apply for the help they need and deserve. The system is so shocking that many counsellors have felt compelled now on ethical grounds to not even participate in it. 
Let us hear some of the reasons given by ACC for declining claims. It decided that sex with a 12-year-old was consensual and that a childhood rape was sexualised play. Two young boys who were raped and thrown out of a window were deemed not to need counselling. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: What? 
LYNNE PILLAY 
: That is the new policy. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: That’s the policy? 
LYNNE PILLAY 
: That is Nick Smith. This cost-cutting exercise is without a doubt one of the most cruel and shameful we have ever seen in our country. 
I have a message for the National Government and it is this: victims and survivors of sexual abuse counsellors therapists organisations and members on this side of the House will not go away—not in 6 months not in a year not ever—until this Government accepts that what it is doing is absolutely wrong and reverses the cuts to accident compensation. 
The other thing I want to talk about is another group who have been seriously dealt to and that is people who are living with disabilities. The cuts in this area have been nothing short of mind-blowing. I will start with Minister Paula Bennett’s cutting of the training incentive allowance. That allowance is not only about single parents; it supports disabled students in tertiary education. That is gone. Community education has also been cut. I predicted as did my colleagues quite rightly that that cut would lead to the axing of sign language classes. Anne Tolley said no no that was not true. I notice that Anne Tolley is not saying a word now; she is heavily involved in sorting through her papers. Anne Tolley stood in this House and said that that was not true but now we are seeing the axing of those classes. I tell Anne Tolley that is shameful and it is no wonder she is looking embarrassed. We see the sacking of support and teachers for deaf children and their families. Again Anne Tolley should hang her head in shame on that one. We see the cutting of support for tertiary students in the Auckland region. Again Anne Tolley should hang her head in shame. It is no wonder that the Government dumped her from the tertiary education portfolio and I say to Mr Joyce it is his time now to fix it. 
We are also looking at the extraordinary organisations that help children with disabilities. Has Anne Tolley been moved to tears or am I imagining that? 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: No you’re imagining that. 
LYNNE PILLAY 
: I am imagining it OK. We see cuts in the funding of other organisations that help disabled students and support them to reach their full potential. The cut in that area is absolutely shocking stuff. This is a roll of absolute shame for this Government. In just a few short months we have seen all the support be slashed and that was done under a Prime Minister who has said he cares about our vulnerable people. 
Well in the House today the Prime Minister said sometimes politicians get things wrong. On that I agree. In his Prime Minister’s statement he said he wanted to improve opportunity fairness and security. In order to do that his statement should have said other things. It should have said the Government would stop the attacks on accident compensation and return to a fair system. It should have said the Government would shelve the GST hikes and stop giving huge cuts to high-income earners and would reinstate the cuts to disability organisations. I can see Mr Joyce looking at that and thinking it is not a bad idea. The statement should have said the Government would reinstate the 2 percent employer contributions to KiwiSaver which National actually snatched away from workers and reinstate the funding for community education. It should also have said the Government would make sure that the cleaners who clean our offices in Parliament received a fair wage rise. If John Key had said he thought that his proposed tax cut whereby he will get more money than the cleaners who clean those offices was unfair then he would get some positive words from members on this side of the House. Will the National Government do that? No it will not. Will it front up to those injustices? No it will not. Will it stop wrecking our education system with its national standards? I tell Mr Joyce that he will have to build a heap more roads after the new education statement that was made today because people are going to be whirling all over Auckland City taking their kids to the school of their choice. 
I will finish now but I say the Prime Minister’s statement is an absolute travesty and an absolute insult to ordinary New Zealanders. 
Hon ANNE TOLLEY (Minister of Education) 
: 
 This is a fantastic exciting year 2010 for education. This is probably one of the most important years in education in New Zealand in the last 20 years. I just want to read something from the Prime Minister’s statement. He said: “We believe a high-performing education system at all levels is essential to ensuring New Zealand’s young people have the skills they need to acquire the jobs of the future. The status quo is not good enough.” This Government is passionate about education. This Government is determined to give every single child in New Zealand the chance to reach his or her full potential. We came into power with a promise to address the completely unacceptable fact that up to one in five—one in five—of our young New Zealand students is being failed by the education system. It is not that they are failing in the system but the system is failing them. Up to 150000 children are being failed by the system and are leaving school without the reading writing and maths skills they need in order to succeed. We want them to have a chance and we are determined to do something about it. Too many—they can laugh but the Opposition actually had 9 years to do something about this. They sit there now on the crossbenches where the community have confined them because they did nothing about it. They talked about it and they still want to talk about it. This Government is going to do something about it. 
How are we going to do that? Through national standards. One would think from listening to that side of the House that national standards were the devil incarnate. What are national standards? They are simply clear expectations of what a child should have learnt and by when in reading writing and maths—reporting clear information to parents so that they can be involved in what happens next for those children who are struggling to make progress against the standards. I would have thought that every single New Zealander would think that that was a great thing to do. In fact we know that 73 percent of New Zealand parents think it is a great thing to do but that lot over there do not support kids. That lot over there do not support parents; they support the union. They support the union that is worried about things like performance pay. Teachers are worried about their own about how it will affect them. On this side we are worried about the kids. The previous Minister of Education left teaching and came to Parliament in—was it 1975? It was 1984. It seems like 1975. That was 27 years ago. They did things differently then and he has not caught up. 
Our schools this year are getting on professionally implementing national standards. This Government unlike the previous Government is happy to say that it will watch and see how this goes. We in the National Government are going to have some evaluation we are going to have some monitoring and we have set up an independent advisory board. If things need to be changed we will change them because it is about the kids. It is about getting it right for the kids. We are not like that previous Government—when it was told that the National Certificate of Educational Achievement was not working the Minister of Education did not listen. He did not listen to the experts he did not listen to the teachers he did not listen to the principals and he certainly did not listen to the kids. Well we are going to listen to all of them. If we need to make changes we will make them. 
The second thing I want to talk about is the Youth Guarantee. What a great policy that is. Do members know what we have done already? The Opposition members sit there and weep because all they had was Schools Plus. There was no money no policy they released it three times—and in less than 12 months this Government has started to make changes for our young people so that they have better pathways and better opportunities— 
Chris Tremain 
: A brighter future. 
Hon ANNE TOLLEY 
: —and a brighter future about their education. So what have we done with Youth Guarantee? 
Hon Annette King 
: What are you doing? 
Hon ANNE TOLLEY 
: That is exactly right. The Opposition does not know. Well the kids know. The kids know and the sector knows that it is more than talk like Schools Plus which was nothing. There was no policy work and no money. We have put 2000 places into tertiary education—2000 within 12 months; 2000 fully-funded places. We have funded the Manukau Institute of Technology tertiary high school. That has never been done in New Zealand before. They talked about it; we funded it and made it happen. We have added another seven service academies. Another seven service academies have been opened this year for young people to give them the opportunity— 
Hon Parekura Horomia 
: All the community providers are closed up. 
Hon ANNE TOLLEY 
: There is one in our own town I say to Parekura Horomia. That gives students the opportunity to get a Defence Force background. That is a partnership between the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Defence to create more opportunities for kids who are interested in the services. We promised in the election to open five trades academies by 2011. How many are we going to open next year? Six and we have another five being developed. So that is what is happening in the Youth Guarantee and ex-Minister King had better make a few notes about it because people out in the sector know that that is what is happening with Youth Guarantee. Those members should just wait because we are on a roll. We are going to roll it out. We are rolling it out for young New Zealanders. I am pleased that those members are applauding because it is a policy that is worth their applause. I think that they should be sitting over there ashamed of themselves. They should be ashamed of themselves. They had 9 years to address young people in this country who were relying on them as a Government for some sort of assistance to help them build a career. But what did that previous Government give them? They gave them Schools Plus. What was that? The previous Government was going to keep students in school until they were 18. That was all that it had. This Government is delivering for New Zealand children. This Government is determined that every single child will have an excellent education. 
Hon DARREN HUGHES (Senior Whip—Labour) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Deputy Speaker. The previous speaker Mrs Tolley started her speech at 5.39 p.m. My understanding was that valedictories were normally 15 minutes in length. 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: That is not a point of order. 
Hon TONY RYALL (Minister of Health) 
: 
 It is a great privilege for me to stand in the House today to support the Prime Minister’s statement and the tremendous leadership he is providing for New Zealand. It was a statement that showed the failed policies of the past and of the previous Labour Government. That Government cannot be remembered for anything other than its members who squandered the best years this country has seen for many many years. When the members of the previous Government had an opportunity to invest in putting more money in peoples’ pockets through tax reductions to reward New Zealanders for their hard work they said no. When they had an opportunity to improve the standards in New Zealand schools they said no. They had some pin badges which they put out. Did those badges say “Wassup!”? That was their education policy. 
I tell members to know that this Government has an education policy that is being rolled across this country with great support from parents and right-thinking teachers with 74 percent of New Zealanders backing national standards. Those 74 percent of New Zealanders are backing national standards because they know we have to do more for the one in five kids who are leaving school unable to read or write. That is not good enough. It is good that we have strong support across the country. The unions and the media can beat it up as much as they like but in the end parents know that they should have the information on how well their children are doing. The Minister of Education Anne Tolley will provide them with Plunket book - type charts to show parents how well their kids are doing and what they need to do to work with their teacher to help their children get ahead. We are totally in support of that. 
I also back the Prime Minister when he talked about the need for a growth-enhancing New Zealand tax system. We simply have to do more to create incentives for people to work hard improve their skills and get ahead to encourage and boost productivity and to be fair to all New Zealanders. The Prime Minister has been very clear. This Government is considering a tax switch to get this economy moving further ahead from what we inherited from the previous Government. How many people here know that the statistics that crowd over there used to justify their growth all had to be changed? How many people here know that the Minister of Finance has revealed that there were revisions to official statistics issued late last year? They showed that in the last 3 years of the failed previous Labour Government before the impact of the global financial crisis our economy grew by less than 1 percent a year. The previous Government members did not tell New Zealand that before the election did they? They did not tell New Zealand how they were wasting the best years in a generation. We say to New Zealanders that our Prime Minister has set out a comprehensive plan of work that this Government will do to improve public services in New Zealand move resources from the back office to the front line and provide a safer smarter and healthier New Zealand. 
Judith Collins is providing strong leadership in a portfolio area that lacked leadership for 9 years. When we needed a tougher approach in our prisons and stronger support for the police who did we get? 
Hon Members 
: Who? 
Hon TONY RYALL 
: George Hawkins Damien O’Connor and Phil Goff. That is all the previous Government could provide. Judith Collins has delivered more police into South Auckland a focus on the crimes that matter and a much tougher penal system in New Zealand which sends a clearer message to the criminal element that this Government will deal with them. 
This is also a Government that has capped the Public Service. The core Public Service grew by almost 50 percent in the 9 years of the previous Labour Government. It grew by 5 percent a year year on year and that meant more growth in bureaucracy policy analysts and officials in Wellington and less service for the public. It is part of our responsibility to have the Public Service backing the economic recovery New Zealanders need. We have capped the growth in the core Public Service. That is a major achievement by this Government. We have capped the growth but at the same time we have moved a lot of extra resources into improving front-line services. There are more front-line people at the desks in the police in the prison service in Child Youth and Family and in our various Work and Income offices which are providing support for beneficiaries. We are lifting the quality of the public services we inherited. 
Goodness would it not have been easier to be in Government when members opposite were when there was more and more money every year? They had billions of dollars extra every year and still they could not deliver the quality public services that New Zealanders needed. More money was going into the health service year on year but fewer people were getting the care they needed. More and more money went into bureaucracy and less and less money went into the front-line services that back New Zealanders. 
While we are talking about backing New Zealanders I ask members about encouraging innovation. The Minister of Research Science and Technology is doing great work to invest in research science and technology and to roll out the Primary Growth Partnership. I think that is superb. There are real opportunities there for New Zealand. As for infrastructure the Minister of Finance was in Auckland today and will be again tomorrow with the Minister of Education talking about what this Government is doing for strong investment in our infrastructure. The previous Government talked about it for 9 years. Do members remember all the strategies plans and directions? Annette King was launching a new road plan every 5 minutes but never a new road— 
Hon Phil Heatley 
: A paper road! 
Hon TONY RYALL 
: That is right—Annette King and her paper roads. We have started large new State highway programmes in Christchurch the Waikato and Auckland. We have made real progress on Auckland’s rail network. There is the $1.5 million investment in ultra-fast broadband. We have made a huge investment in schools. The Minister of Education Anne Tolley is putting tens of millions of dollars into building new schools in our communities that the party opposite never would. This Government is also putting millions and millions of dollars more into building our health infrastructure in New Zealand and making sure we back it with the improved quality services that New Zealanders want. 
The difficulty we inherited from the previous Government is appalling but this Government is determined to make the changes we need to get this country moving. People should be confident that the leadership of the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance and the strong support of the parties that support National are delivering New Zealanders the future they deserve. 
I think the Minister of Education was right. I do not think the Labour Party lives in the real world. Trevor Mallard lectures the Parliament on education. He does not realise that when he was last a teacher 26 years ago education was different. It has moved on from when he was a teacher 26 years ago when he first came to Parliament. Times have changed and parents have higher expectations of the schools than when Trevor Mallard was there. It is 26 years since he was last in front of a classroom. Children want to learn and that is why we have our national standards policy and our Youth Guarantee. It is a huge investment in education for New Zealand. 
The Prime Minister is providing the leadership that this country needs. Members of the party opposite who as has been said are struggling with relevance deprivation syndrome will continue to grasp at straws and lose every opportunity they have to show New Zealand that they could once again be in a Government of this country. Chances are they are still a very long way away from that opportunity. 
JACINDA ARDERN (Labour) 
: 
 Questions might be raised by anyone who is watching the House today as to why so many National members have descended on this debating chamber at 5 to 6 just before the dinner hour to listen to this national debate. I think they have come down to find out what national standards are all about because anyone who watched question time today would be left none the wiser as to what they are all about. I think there are two questions in this debate. Viewers may ask today whether New Zealand prior to now was in a situation where parents were absolutely devoid of information about how their children were performing in schools. Was there not an ounce of information? If listeners were to believe the Government they would think that not an inch of information was being provided. That is absolutely not the case but that is what this Government has claimed national standards are all about. We know that schools were providing that information. We only need ask some of our excellent principals including one on our own side of the House Kelvin Davis who will tell members that the provision is already there for that information to be provided to parents. If there were situations where schools were not providing that information to parents that problem did not have to be rectified via national standards. 
So what is the real agenda? The Government tells us that the real agenda is to assist vulnerable children and children who are not performing— 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: I am sorry to interrupt the member. The time for this debate has expired. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That this House express its confidence in the National-led Government and commend its programme for 2010 as set out in the Prime Minister’s statement to Parliament. 
Ayes 69 
New Zealand National 58; ACT New Zealand 5; Maori Party 5; United Future 1. 
Noes 53 
New Zealand Labour 43; Green Party 9; Progressive 1. 
Motion agreed to. 
Children Young Persons and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill 
In Committee 
Debate resumed from 16 February. 
Part 1 Amendments to principal Act ( 
continued 
)  
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East) 
: 
 I want to complete my call because when we were last debating this matter I had a series of questions for the Minister for Social Development and Employment Paula Bennett. These were essentially focused around the primary issue of why the Government when it is so close to announcing the Whanau Ora programme which we are awaiting with bated breath has brought forward this bill. We heard the Deputy Prime Minister talk in the House today about what Whanau Ora is intended to bring about so why are we bringing down the age of criminal responsibility for offences beyond murder and manslaughter which are already covered by the existing legislation? It makes no sense to attach youth liability—young person liability—to a child when we are in the midst of changing the way we approach early intervention. That is the issue I am concerned about. We are essentially saying that someone who is too young to be a babysitter is not too young to appear in a Youth Court. That is fundamentally wrong. 
In the second reading I asked a question around the names of certain individuals. I asked who Alexander Tokorua Peihopa Whatarangi Rawiri Phillip Kaukasi Rika Rapira and Joe Kaukasi were. Nobody in the House knew the answer to that question. I took a long time to find the answer to the question when I went looking for it. Eventually I found it. The only consistent report on the case these people relate to read: “Michael Choy was brutally murdered nearly 4 years ago by six thugs including this country’s youngest killer Bailey Junior Kurariki.” Bailey Junior Kurariki is the only one we ever hear about in the media. Why is that? It is because he was so young. He was this baby-faced killer. But although Bailey Junior Kurariki did wrong in terms of the group he was involved with and the phone call he made to entice a pizza deliverer to the house so that an attack could be made it is not clear whether he knew when he made that phone call that the pizza deliverer would end up being killed. No one will ever know the truth of that. The bottom line is that he did not physically kill Michael Choy. Two people were convicted of murder and four others were convicted of manslaughter. 
Why does the Minister want 12 and 13-year-olds put in the position of Bailey Junior Kurariki for offences less serious than murder and manslaughter? How on earth will we ever start talking about rehabilitation of the very young? We are talking about children. Why would we want to make them liable to appear in a Youth Court and expose them to the kind of coverage that Bailey Junior Kurariki was exposed to? Look at the consequence of that coverage on that young man’s life—it is almost irreparable. 
Hon PAULA BENNETT (Minister for Social Development and Employment) 
: 
 I am happy to address some issues around 12 and 13-year-olds but before I do I think it is important to get a wider view of this part and what it means. I want to give a better understanding of where we are coming from. We are talking about a whole package of initiatives Fresh Start for the Youth Court. It is about giving the Youth Court a box of tools that it can apply to individual young people in order to serve the different needs they have. It is about extending court orders and the follow-up that goes with that which is the most important and certainly from our perspective the most exciting thing about this bill. 
This package starts with community youth programmes and there will be 1000 more of them. Seven hundred will be administered via the police and 300 will be administered by Child Youth and Family through other programmes. The police will work directly with providers. They will see what works in their areas. They know these young people and they will try these programmes before things get to court. We are talking about 1000 new programmes that will have places for lower-level youth offenders who are yet to come before the courts. 
We will also have court-supervised programmes and camps. For example if it is not the first time a young person has come before a judge the judge can say that we need to do something different. The young person needs an extended court sentence. At the moment we are seeing a number of young people committing some pretty serious crimes. We are talking arson; repeat burglaries; rape in some instances; some pretty heinous aggravated robberies—some pretty awful stuff. At the moment— 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: It’s about 12 and 13-year-olds actually. 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: The part talks about a lot more than just 12 and 13-year-olds and I am happy to get to that shortly. At the moment those young people usually go into a youth justice facility and it can sometimes take 6 to 8 weeks for them to get to the Youth Court. When they appear before the Youth Court they are given a sentence of 3 months and go back to the youth justice facility but that means they only serve another 3 or 4 weeks there so there is no time for rehabilitation; there is no time to be turning that behaviour round. 
This bill will first of all extend the period of time that youth can be sent to youth justice facilities. The bill will also provide for real mentoring programmes. A judge might believe that a young person needs a parenting order. Many of these young people are actually parents themselves at that stage or about to become parents and it is important that we address that issue and break some of that intergenerational stuff. 
The bill also provides for drug and alcohol orders. In the second reading we heard some angst from the Opposition about drug and alcohol rehabilitation and what it will actually look like. The department has been working very hard over the last year with providers who work in drug and alcohol rehabilitation. Those providers are very excited about the extra resources and the opportunity they will have to work with young people and make a real sustained long-term difference. 
Another part of the package that is not talked about much is the innovation fund. We are talking about $1.4 million that will go back into our communities; we are offering a fund that will address some of the issues that can turn that behaviour round. I know that Opposition members are concerned about how these young people get to the place where they commit these crimes and we are too. This bill is about getting some of the orders and interventions right. 
We have heard the name of one young man bandied around in the Chamber already. We have already heard about Bailey Junior Kurariki. He started offending when he was 7 years old unfortunately. He was well known to police at 10 and 11 years old. We are talking about early interventions and what we can do. I have just outlined a number of the interventions for Opposition members yet they criticise me for mentioning them. Let us try to get in early. But by the time we get to some 12 and 13-year-olds we are talking about some young people who are committing very very serious crimes. This bill will address 40 of the worst offenders. The police have asked for the bill. They are saying that these are not kids who have gone a bit off the rails. These are young people who are committing very very serious crimes and leaving a number of victims behind them. They are offences like serious assault burglary arson armed robbery rape and attempted murder. We are not talking one-offs. We are talking about determined repeat offenders who are getting more and more aggressive unfortunately as they move through the system. These are hardened young offenders whom we simply cannot continue to turn our back on. They have been before the Family Court and it has not made a difference. 
The Youth Court is more experienced at dealing with high-end serious young offenders. It has more tools and it has greater powers. Our Youth Court is a world-leading specialist jurisdiction designed specifically to deal with young offenders. Quite frankly it will take a radical approach to turn round those who really are hardened offenders. As I have already stated the police support this move. I also recognise that the Youth Court can turn round and say there are a number of care and protection issues with this particular young person and send him or her back to the Family Court. That is certainly what we want to see. I certainly have huge faith that the Youth Court judges will do what is right for those young people. I think that is what is most important. 
The Youth Court does require accountability and that is what this small hardened group of very young offenders needs. We hear much criticism of some of the current system and how we are working with those who need it most. As I have stated we will be holding them to account for very very serious offences. It is one part of this bill and it is certainly one that unfortunately we have had to introduce because of that hard end of young offenders. 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Deputy Leader—Labour) 
: 
 This part of the Children Young Persons and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill is probably the most significant. We wish to raise a number of points on it. The Minister in the chair the Minister for Social Development and Employment Paula Bennett in her contribution said that this bill has some more tools to put in the tool box that could be used by officials judges police and so on. I ask whether the Minister would put an eggbeater into a tool box to fix a car. Would the Minister not put into the tool box something that she knew would work on the vehicle she has in front of her? Unfortunately the Minister’s bill does not address the real issues. 
The question I ask the Minister to answer is what evidence she based her changes on. What evidence did she receive before she wrote this bill? We did not hear any compelling evidence put before the Social Services Committee as to why the Minister would make these changes for children and young people in New Zealand. It was quite the contrary. We had some of the best brains and the best experts in New Zealand appearing before the committee saying that the Minister could not back up this bill with evidence to show that it would work. In fact many of the things she is proposing do not work. 
I think it was interesting to read the comments released by Kim Workman today. When National agrees with him it loves him but when it does not agree with him it rubbishes him. I thought the statement he put out today was very very appropriate because we are debating this bill tonight. He said: “The Ministry of Social Development Research into the effectiveness of Youth Court Supervision Orders confirms what we have always known—they are not effective at reducing reoffending … Around 80% of the serious young offenders studied reoffended within the follow-up period. Overseas research has confirmed time and again that there are three things that don’t work for young people and are not cost-effective—boot camps ‘scared straight’ programmes and intensive supervision.” He went on to say that when supervision is over young offenders return to their previous levels of criminal activity. He states: “The deterrent effect of supervision wears off when they are no longer under supervision.” In addition if there are multiple conditions added to the supervision order young offenders become defiant and find other ways of avoiding detection. 
I thought that was very interesting and it ties in to the excellent contribution from Lianne Dalziel. Research in New Zealand has found that the older the offender is when placed under supervision the less likely he or she is to reoffend. That in turn challenges the idea that lowering the age of offenders being dealt with by the Youth Court to include 12 to 13-year-olds will somehow change their lives for the better. This bill has not been thought through. It is not about trying to improve the lives of young people and turn their lives around. It is about populist politics. It was about announcing something called “boot camps” before the election. They were going to solve the problem of our young offenders—a very very small group of young offenders in New Zealand. They say there are about a thousand of those young offenders. In fact we are talking about a number far less than that. The boot camps would deal with around 80 apprehensions—not 80 offenders but 80 apprehensions. Those were the police figures given to the select committee. One young offender might have been apprehended several times which means that we could be talking about as few as 30 young offenders. We have a whole piece of legislation based on that small number of people. 
I think the Minister has got it wrong. The evidence before the select committee was that boot camps do not work. The members on the committee did not like them being called “boot camps”. The reality was that the concept was not a given the name “boot camps” by the select committee and it was not given by the submitters to the select committee. That name was given to the programme by the Prime Minister of New Zealand John Key. He was the person who labelled them “boot camps” and he was the person who said this was going to be the mainstay of the Government’s approach to young people in New Zealand. We heard at the select committee that they do not work. Making them a little longer than they were before does not make them work. We heard something else and I ask the Minister to answer this question: why did the Minister need to put military-style or boot camps into this legislation? What was the purpose other than for political point-scoring? We know that the Minister does not need this legislation if the Government wants to run boot camps in New Zealand. The Minister has already got a pilot running at Burnham without the passage of this legislation. The Minister pointed to other programmes that exist in New Zealand and said we want something like this. The Minister does not need legislation for it so why was it necessary to write it into law wasting the time of Parliament and wasting the time of the Social Services Committee with something that was totally unnecessary. 
The other point I make is if the Minister was really interested in an evidence-based approach to trying to fix the problem why would she not listen to what was told to her about Te Hurihanga? The fact is she had a residential programme that worked far better than any other we have had in this country. I believe the reason the Government closed it was because it was a Labour programme. There can be no other reason. The members of Parliament who represent the town of Hamilton where the programme was based know it works and wanted us to go and see it. Members of Parliament in the past knew it worked and wanted us to go and see it. We knew it worked and we wanted it to continue. Then we had the ridiculous situation of the Minister of Justice Simon Power alongside the Minister for Social Development and Employment Paula Bennett loading the entire cost of a new programme including capital works on to the children who were in there at that time. 
Hon Paula Bennett 
: That’s not true. 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: That is absolutely true. The Minister should read the statements of the Minister of Justice. The cost was allocated to every one of those children. I will prove that to the Minister and table what was said by the Minister of Justice. It is as if we opened the new public hospital in Wellington at a cost of $300 million and said the first hip operation cost $300 million—the entire cost on one of the patients. It was a ridiculous argument then and it is a ridiculous argument now. 
If the Minister in the chair really wanted to do something about young offenders then she would look at what works. She would look at the evidence and at what works not only in New Zealand but also around the world. But the Minister knows best! Sadly we will not see a big change in our serious youth offending in New Zealand because the evidence shows that this is not the right approach to take. 
I heard Lianne Dalziel’s contribution and I will add to it. There is something that this Minister along with the Minister of Education might have liked to consider doing rather than talking about it and that is implement their universal Youth Guarantee so that every young person under the age of 17 is in a job in training or in education. John Key said before the election that 25000 young people were in the category that needed education training or a job. There are now over 40000 young people in that category— 
Hon Ruth Dyson 
: They’re doing nothing. 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: —doing nothing and what did the Minister of Education tell us today? She said that there will be 2000 places— 
Hon Paula Bennett 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I think you have been reasonably tolerant but this is well away from this part of the bill. The member is talking about the Youth Guarantee and the Minister of Education. 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: Speaking to the point of order I related this to things that worked. I know that the Minister might not like it but I was relating it— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: Just deal with the issue. 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: Yes; I was relating it to programmes that worked and I was relating it to the need for young people to be in education training or employment. We are talking about youth offending and I believe that I am well inside the scope of this bill. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: I think there has always been a case where comparative debate has been used. If the connection is not made then it is outside the scope of the bill but in this case I think that it is inside. 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: I reiterate that just 2000 positions have been promised by the Minister of Education for over 40000 young people. They will be doing nothing. As they say idle hands will mean that there will be young people tempted into all sorts of activities that we do not want to see them tempted into. There are not 25000 of those young people any more; there are over 40000. If this Government was serious about turning round the lives of young people who face a hopeless situation where there is no job and no future for them it would be doing more than bringing in this pathetic bill. 
KATRINA SHANKS (National) 
: 
 It is my pleasure to take a call tonight and support this bill in its Committee stage. One million New Zealanders gave this Government a mandate to do something about child offending in New Zealand. One million people in New Zealand decided that they had had enough of the child offending that was happening. The previous Labour Government had 9 long years and it could not address the issue properly—9 long years. [ 
Interruption 
] Those members say to move it forward. They had 9 long years to do something but they did not have any answers and they still do not have any answers. 
This Government is committed to every child having the opportunity to get back on track. This bill is about tougher sentences. This bill is about more programmes. In fact this Government has already committed $59 million to this programme. The previous Government was very good at having ideas but it never backed those ideas with any money. We have put $59 million on the table. There are 1000 positions in community youth programmes. There are 1232 positions for mentoring parenting drug and alcohol orders with funding of $9.4 million; 200 places for court-supervised camps with funding of $5.4 million; 205 places for greater Youth Court powers with funding of $9.3 million; 230 places for the innovation fund with funding of $4.6 million; 50 places for supervision with activity orders with funding of $15.5 million; and 40 places for military-style activity camps with funding of $5.3 million. That is $59.1 million. This National Government is committed to these children. 
The previous speaker Annette King said that there are only 40 children only 40 bad offenders. If one is a victim of one of those 40 bad offenders one wants something to happen. This Government is not about to say that those 40 children can just run around rampantly and reoffend because there are victims on the other side of those 40 offenders whom the member talks about. This Government is making a difference. 
The select committee process was interesting and many submitters came in. One of the key submitters was a young person from Young Labour who said that in 2007 Labour decided that youth justice was a priority. It took Labour a fair bit of time to realise that in 2007 we had a problem with youth offenders. We have had this problem for quite some time. Labour members have left their run to make youth offenders a priority a little bit late but that is what this Government is doing. 
At the select committee Judge Andrew Becroft was critical of how hard and complex the current system is to understand. He said that it needed to be simplified. He said that there is a lack of tools in the tool box a lack of long-term sentences and orders and a lack of resources and that there is no quantitative research. [ 
Interruption 
] He did say that because this is right out of his paper. He said that something needs to change and that is absolutely what this bill is about. This is what this Government is committed to doing. Thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to speak tonight. 
JACINDA ARDERN (Labour) 
: 
 I want to reflect on the comments that were made by the Minister in the chair the Minister for Social Development and Employment. I acknowledge and I appreciate the faith that she has invested in our Youth Court judges. She spoke about the reason why it was appropriate for children to be dealt with in the Youth Court and I think she felt that it would be a safe option because of the high quality and the high calibre of those judges. I share that trust in those judges which is why I listened carefully when they appeared before the Social Services Committee and gave us their view on this fundamental change to our youth criminal justice system. I use the words “fundamental change” because that is the language that they used. They said that this change would fundamentally reorientate the way that we deal with child—I make the distinction of “child”—and youth offenders. 
What did they tell us? They told us that with regard to 12 and 13-year-olds they did not feel adequately equipped to deal with those young offenders in the Youth Court. They said that they did not believe they had the appropriate ammunition to deal with child offenders—12 and 13-year-olds. If the Minister genuinely places her trust in those Youth Court judges and believes that they are good at what they do then I ask why she did not heed their advice from the beginning and why she is making this fundamental change. That is something that stayed in my mind throughout the select committee process: why were we making this change? 
The first question that I thought would be relevant was the size of the problem and Annette King has already talked about that. We asked at great lengths in the select committee how many children would be affected by this change and the answer was 80 apprehensions. That does not mean 80 children; that means 80 apprehensions. Some of those who went through Te Hurihanga had up to 30 offences in their name so we could be talking about a very small pool of children. Some might say that the number does not matter. Well it did matter to the Government when it said that we should close Te Hurihanga because it was not dealing with enough people. Here we have an example of an entire piece of legislation orientated at a group of young people that is probably of the same size—a group of children in this case. For me and I think for the members of the select committee from Labour and for the Labour Party generally the question is that if the Minister cannot give us an evidence base for this fundamental change and if we cannot even quantify the number of children who would be affected by it why are we making it? If the Youth Court judges whom we are giving the powers to resist them why are we making this change? 
I guess I was charitable in also wanting to ask a different question: was it simply as the Government claimed that the Family Court did not have the powers it needed and that the Youth Court would have more powers? Why not look at this differently? If the Family Court has the power of care and protection which is a crucial power—and even the Youth Court judges have said that it is crucial—when dealing with all young offenders but in particular 12 and 13-year-olds why does the Government not look at giving greater powers to the Family Court? Why did it not look at that option? We asked that question not only of officials whose response was that it was simply out of scope but also of the Youth Court judge and the Family Court judge. Both said that it would be an elegant solution. If this was really about dealing appropriately with those child offenders why did the Government not shift powers to the Family Court? 
I fear that it was about moving the goalposts. I fear that it was an acknowledgment on the Government’s part that it does not know how to deal with these child offenders. So it will move the goalposts and start dealing with those offenders as if they are adults at a younger and younger age. That changes absolutely nothing. That is why the Labour Opposition tabled a Supplementary Order Paper today that will remove the clauses in relation to 12 and 13-year-olds. We will be voting strongly against this element of the bill because of what it stands for because it is a fundamental change because it has not been justified and finally because it will not work. In New Zealand we have a tiered system in our criminal justice system when dealing with young people and I fear it is becoming murky. We have already talked about the fact that that could make the outcome for these young children worse. 
I want to move on to another area of Part 1 and that is the additional orders we are looking at in this bill. New section 259A in clause 8 is headed: “Family group conference must consider attendance at parenting education mentoring and alcohol or drug rehabilitation programmes”. This is something that has been widely trumpeted by the Government as an important way of dealing with young offenders. I would like to believe that perhaps it has a chance to make a difference but I have some grave concerns. 
Some of those concerns were highlighted in the report released this week by the Ministry of Social Development which stated that court orders have a very low success rate. I think we can see some of the reasons why when in comparison intensive residential activity programmes have a better success rate. They are longer term they use greater interventions and they deal with the family as well and the social circumstances from which that young offender came. Court orders are quite the opposite. Court orders can often be quite short term. Court orders can for instance be short sharp shocks. Those relating to drug and alcohol programmes can have quite loose arrangements around them. In fact I spoke to some young people who had undergone court orders that were specific to drug and alcohol issues. They told me that they simply sobered up for the short time they had to be in attendance and that did nothing. 
The programmes that did work were longer-term residential-based drug and alcohol programmes like those provided by Odyssey House. The Social Services Committee heard that Odyssey House has a 12 to 18-month waiting list. It does not currently have the funding to deal with any of these potential court orders and I question how many would be residential anyway. I ask the Minister to take the next opportunity to stand and tell us what additional funding the Government will commit to drug and alcohol programmes. I know of a few that have already closed under this Government’s watch yet we are going to be extending the amount that they will be used. 
Chester Borrows 
: What? 
JACINDA ARDERN 
: Drug and alcohol programmes in Dunedin have closed on this Government’s watch. 
On the submissions I am happy to recall for the benefit of the Committee that the submission from Dr Sue Bagshaw stated that already there are not nearly enough placements in youth alcohol and drug programmes. The submission from the Alcohol Drug Association New Zealand stated that it recognised that staffing was a primary consideration and that recruitment of staff was a serious challenge facing youth services in New Zealand. We have to make sure that we are prepared for these orders over and above the question of whether they will work. Judge Andrew Becroft has already told us that 80 percent of young people coming before his court are manifesting some kind of drug and alcohol issue but we are dealing only with those who have committed a crime. There is a whole debate about what we should be doing to intervene in the lives of these young people before they get to the court. 
In relation to the mentoring programmes I would like the Minister to share with us if she could the outcomes of the mentoring hui that she had. I know that some of the concerns raised at that hui were around whether mentoring would work if there was an element of compulsion. It is something I have heard from those who have worked in the field: whether we will lose the success of mentoring programmes if compulsion is a core element; whether volunteers will be adequately trained to deal with the quite weighty issues faced by the young people who will be going through these mentoring programmes; and how long the mentoring programmes will be for. Some of the people in this field I have spoken with have said that 12 months is the bare minimum and that some of the most successful interventions they have made have involved mentoring relationships that have lasted up to 6 years. Can we genuinely expect that from these mentoring orders? I have serious doubts about that. 
I also have concerns about an omission that was pointed out by Judge Andrew Becroft when he came before the select committee. He said that nowhere in this legislation has there been adequate discussion about the mental health issues that a lot of these young people are presenting with. We already know about the issues of dysfunctional families family violence poverty social deprivation lack of engagement in education and lack of employment and the contribution they make. But mental health is an issue that the Youth Court judges are coming up against time and time again and they pointed out to us that there are not adequate programmes to refer these young people to. 
CHESTER BORROWS (National—Whanganui) 
: 
 It is good to take a little bit of a stocktake in respect of the Children Young Persons and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill as to where members on both sides of the Committee sit in relation to not only the things they disagree with but also the things on which they agree. 
The last Government produced a Children Young Persons and Their Families Amendment Bill. National agreed with a number of things within that bill and it did not agree with some other things and the same applies vice versa in respect of this bill. We know that members on both sides of the Committee agree that supervision with activity and supervision with residence orders are not long enough to do any good. We find that people who are ordered to attend supervision with residence courses end up doing several of them back-to-back. They are released too soon for the same reasons that the Minister for Social Development and Employment outlined: they take 8 weeks or so to get to court and by that time given the time they have already served they have only 3 weeks to go and they are out before there is any real intervention. While they are on remand the staff involved in looking after those facilities are able to insist on compliance in only so many things. So in actual fact what is intended to be say a 3-month course ends up being 3 weeks in relation to what can actually be done. Both Labour and National agree that these courses should be extended out. Labour’s bill said so and our bill says so so there is no real scrap there. 
The next thing is the argument about what works and what does not work. We know that what does not work is locking people up and doing nothing with them for a period of time. In the extension of supervision with activity under Labour’s bill and National’s bill the deal was that we would do more with the kids while we had them to make those things worthwhile. Labour agreed with that and National agrees with that. When the Principal Youth Court Judge Andrew Becroft came before the Social Services Committee he agreed that the courses out in the community that were working—for instance supervision with activity—and were very good were those that had some what we call wraparound things: they addressed drugs and alcohol they addressed violence they addressed literacy and numeracy while they could and they addressed family relationships. They intervened with family relationships and made sure that they brought family into the programmes. 
A prime example of that wraparound approach is a programme in my electorate START Taranaki. When the Hon Ruth Dyson was the Minister for Social Development and Employment she agreed with that programme. She extended its funding and enabled it to go on to produce far better results. We know from actual measures that 65 percent of the young people who attended that course never offended again. They were checked up on and we knew whether they were offending again. These young people were monitored and had mentors placed with them and they were there because they were ordered to be there. Yes they had to consent. However both Labour and National agreed in both bills that the consent provision for community-based sentences should be removed as a right from young people. Members on both sides of the Committee agree that young people should be compelled to attend these courses—it was in Labour’s bill and in our bill. So let us not squabble over that matter because it is actually common ground. 
Going back to START Taranaki we found that 65 percent of the young people who attended and completed the course—that is virtually everybody according to the numbers that were produced—never offended again; 15 percent of those who left the course within a month committed a dumb crime at a lesser level than the one they had gone there for and after that never offended again; and 20 percent went on to have a pretty horrific record of offending. But an 80 percent relative success rate out of all those attending is bloody good. What should we do? Members on both sides of the Committee agree that we should replicate that programme around the country. So whether there is supervision with residence or supervision with activity both sides in this debate agree that we should extend those programmes and that we should make sure that those programmes are more than just having kids either walk around the bush and then do menial tasks or sit in a cell; we should do something with those young people while we can. 
We also agree that there should be an extended period of supervision after these courses finish. The argument we are having now is about what level of close monitoring or intensive monitoring there should be. 
Another huge area of argument is about what we do with 12 and 13-year-olds. Initially we had a response from the Principal Youth Court Judge who said we are not talking about a whole truckload of 12 and 13-year-olds; we are talking about a relatively small group of 12 and 13-year-olds who need to be dealt with because they are offending at a far more sophisticated level. By that we mean that it is not a huge escalation in numbers; it is a huge escalation in the seriousness of violent offences committed. And we are seeing a change in the trend across gender: we are seeing young girls offending far more violently than they have in the past and we have to do something about it. 
National’s response to that was to put those offending in front of the Youth Court because that court can give a wider range of orders and offer a wider range of resolutions. The Principal Youth Court Judge said that we were wrong and what we really needed to do was move the powers of the Family Court into the Youth Court because the Youth Court resolutions were too short. But we found that we could not do that within the scope of this legislation. The other thing he said when we looked at moving those powers was that it would be quite good if the Family Court could exercise some of the provisions that are available only within the Youth Court jurisdiction. There was not a hell of a lot of disagreement across the parties in respect of that change either but when we wanted to do it what did we find? The members who were sitting on the select committee will know that we found that we were not able to do it under this legislation. So the Minister for Social Development and Employment has asked to look at what we can do with Family Court jurisdiction further down the track. 
The big point Andrew Becroft made was that the real detraction from putting 12 and 13-year-olds before the Family Court was the slow and cumbersome way that the Family Court worked and he asked us to fix it. He asked us to make it more streamlined. We said OK and asked him about having the opportunity to bring 12 and 13-year-olds to the Youth Court where the Youth Court judge would act as a person on a drafting gate to decide whether the level of offending of the 12 and 13-year-olds should be dealt with back in the Family Court or should be moved to the Youth Court. He said that that was a way of streamlining the system and that it would add confidence to those practitioners using it. He agreed with that process. 
The other big thing that we have had huge debate about across the parties is what the Government calls Fresh Start camps and others prefer to call boot camps. 
Hon Annette King 
: The Prime Minister. 
CHESTER BORROWS 
: Let us have a wee listen for a minute. We said then that we know what works. We want to take supervision with activity combine it with supervision with residence and take account of the security needs of the high-end offenders who will be part of that programme. But we want to include in Fresh Start which members on the other side of the Chamber call boot camps— 
Hon Annette King 
: The Prime Minister. 
CHESTER BORROWS 
: I concede that the Prime Minister on one occasion referred to them as boot camps. I will concede that just to get those members to shut up for a minute and listen to the argument. 
The point is that we amalgamate supervision with activity with supervision with residence. A whole lot of other stuff in there bears absolutely no resemblance at all to corrective training which is what boot camps were way back in those members’ day and in my day—back in the 1980s. That is what boot camps were. We have described Fresh Start camps and I am sure members are enlightened to the fact that they bear no resemblance at all to boot camps. Even Principal Youth Court Judge Becroft agreed that the Fresh Start programme that we have outlined bears no resemblance to corrective training and no resemblance to what he called boot camps when he condemned them. 
I thank members for listening. I look forward to further calls on this debate. 
LYNNE PILLAY (Labour) 
: 
 I will actually take issue with Chester Borrows who is the chair of my— 
Hon Member 
: He should still be the Minister. 
LYNNE PILLAY 
: He should be the Minister of Social Development and Employment; I take the member’s point. Chester Borrows is a very reasonable chair of the Justice and Electoral Committee but on this occasion I would say that he is being less than honest. 
The reality is that the Government thought the introduction of boot camps was a very popular message to put out there. The Prime Minister when he was the Leader of the Opposition spoke about boot camps constantly. It was all part of National’s agenda. It was all part of the rhetoric that we heard before the last election—that the whole country was crime-ridden and everything was a mess. People were told that if they elected a National Government then it would get tough on crime and my goodness its toughness on crime would get rid of all the problems that we had with the escalating crime rate in New Zealand. None of that was true but unfortunately—and I say that quite sincerely—a number of New Zealanders believed National. A number of New Zealanders believed that. We are in a small country and every incident that we have no matter how abhorrent gets reported. Every New Zealander is aware of it and that is a good thing; it is a painful thing but it is a good thing. 
What is not a good thing and what is a shameful thing is the way that National members exploited it. They used it to wind New Zealanders up. I saw a pamphlet from the Minister in the chair the Minister of Social Development and Employment stating: “Blood on the streets. Sick of it? We are too. We are going to fix it. Come to a public meeting.” Well those members have not fixed it. Guess what! There is still blood on the streets. But I am proud that the Opposition has more integrity than to utilise violence and violent acts against people and to capitalise on their grief and anxiety in the way that members opposite did. They did that to such a great extent. I say to Chester Borrows that I am really sorry because I get on pretty well with him. I ask him whether that would be a fair statement. 
Chester Borrows 
: That’d be fair enough. 
LYNNE PILLAY 
: That would be a fair statement. But I tell this Committee that if John Key said “boot camps” once then he said it a hundred times as did Paula Bennett. 
Chester Borrows can try to cover for his boss. We never have to do that on this side but I know that those guys have to do it a lot. I know that they have a leader who constantly changes his mind as he is now doing—before the Minister in the chair tells me that I am getting off the topic—with GST and all of these things. He said today: “Hey no one is perfect. We all make mistakes.” 
Members opposite utilised grief and anxiety in order to wind up people to support a model that is proven to be a failure. It is a complete failure. National members said that they had the one true answer. They said that they were the National Party they were two decades behind and they talked about boot camps. It is just like what they are doing with education and what they are doing in terms of— 
Hon Steve Chadwick 
: Health. 
LYNNE PILLAY 
: —health. But it is also what they are doing in terms of their latest bright idea in education where people will be whirling all around the cities to find the best place for their child to be educated. It is an absolute nonsense. 
This model was put up and members on this side of the Chamber—I say to Chester that I am really sorry about this—found it absolutely abhorrent and offensive. Now when the rubber has hit the road National has had to explain to reputable organisations to judges and to everyone else who is learned in this area. These people have so much more grassroots experience. They came to the Social Services Committee and said that the National Government had made a big mistake. They said that the Children Young Persons and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill was a crock of the proverbial. 
What did the National Government say? John Key says: “Hey we got it wrong. Sometimes we all get it wrong.” Did he say that on this occasion? No. Did National members say that? No but instead they said: “Let us reinvent the story. We are here to help. We are here to be all things to all people so we will talk about these youth camps as though they are not what they really are. They are there to help young people.” Well we know that is not the case. 
But what saddens me is that National will ram this model through and what will we see in 2 or 3 years’ time? When we go overseas people say to us that New Zealand is visionary. They say that they really admire our victims’ rights and a lot of our progressive stuff. With this model we will be an embarrassment. It is not only that—it is not about egos apparently; it is never about egos in this country—but what will be even worse is the loss of opportunity for young people to right themselves. 
What Labour members said and what the experts were telling us was that we should put the money and resources into the programmes that are working. What did National say? Those members said that they will go the boot camp way and go with military-style training. That will be their answer to all things despite the fact that we know that it is a failed model in the UK. The UK has abandoned it. The United States we know is not at the forefront on progressive things but even it accepts that it is not the way to go. In the interests of appearing to do the right thing this Government has window dressed just like it did in the—what was it—100 days of action? 
H V Ross Robertson 
: What action? 
LYNNE PILLAY 
: Exactly! That was all part of National’s thing. 
I will talk about my amendment which adds what is sadly missing. We have been able to utilise previous Labour bills that looked at the rights of victims more. Despite our opposition to the bill I would urge Government members to give very careful thought and their support to my amendment if they are committed to caring about victims which they say they are. We will not go into the pitfalls and the criticisms there but my amendment certainly ensures that victims are part of the process and that their views are taken into account. These were the standard clauses in Labour’s bill that are missing in this bill. This will not be a good bill. The Government is not in a good situation with this bill but at least my amendment will go some way towards victims being able to participate and have a say in the process when they have been victims of a young person’s crime. This Government says that it cares about victims so I would urge its members— 
H V Ross Robertson 
: Says one thing; does another. 
LYNNE PILLAY 
: Well exactly. We need only look at the accident compensation debacle to know that that just simply is not true. We only need to see that the Government would not pick up the previous Government’s bills that gave far more support to victims of crime and domestic assault and that gave much more protection. Many bills that were more in-depth have been ignored by this Government and instead we see this rubbish wasting the time of this House. 
Tim Macindoe 
: You support a lot of it. 
LYNNE PILLAY 
: In your dreams! What we are trying to do is to improve a bill that is about rubbish. In a couple of years’ time when Labour members are back in Government we will take no satisfaction whatsoever from saying to National: “See that was a failure. We told you so and it is going to go.” Thank you for the opportunity to speak. Labour vehemently opposes this bill. 
HEKIA PARATA (National) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Chair. Tena tatou e te Whare. I am delighted to stand and take a short call on this bill. Indeed it has been very difficult to sit here and listen to the errant nonsense being spouted from members on that side of the Chamber. In fact I would like to invite that member to join us on this planet and in this country in particular where at the end of 2008 over 1 million people joined us and said they were concerned about those issues. In fact they were concerned about a whole range of issues and they were tired of the rhetoric that had been dished up to them for the previous 9 years. They actually wanted people who were prepared to grapple with the hard issues tackle the difficult things and do all the things that we actually said we would do. 
Labour members sit on that side of the Chamber and ask vaguely what the 100 days were. I tell members on that side that those were the 100 days that followed the election of a National Government by an overwhelming majority of people in this country who want to see action taken. The Children Young Persons and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill is yet another example of the action we are taking. National is not an either/or Government. We completely recognise that education strong families powerful communities— 
Hon Annette King 
: Shh! 
HEKIA PARATA 
: No I beg the member’s pardon but I feel totally vehement about this so I am prepared to keep putting my views across. Perhaps if members opposite just listened they would hear that National members are not about and/or. We are absolutely committed to strong education. We are committed to the one in five students who were the legacy of the previous administration who are being failed in the education system and out of which I imagine that the 1000 most serious youth offenders which this bill is directed at are generated. 
Although we are taking action on national standards we also recognise that the population of New Zealand is concerned about this particular serious recidivist young group. We have put before this Committee a menu of options—not a one-size-fits-all plan—all of them well researched all of them well-thought-through and they will work. They are well supported because our purpose is not only so that New Zealanders feel safe in their homes but so that those young people get the chance and the opportunity to turn their lives round. They require much more targeted support than has generally been available. That is why we are expanding the Youth Court’s ability to provide those particular tools in order that those young people get the attention that they deserve and need. 
The suggestion that members on this side of the Chamber are engaged in exploitation means that members on that side of the Chamber do not understand what taking responsibility is about. They do not understand that members on this side of the House are prepared to confront the difficulties and put in place what is necessary to give those young people the opportunity to turn their lives round. 
So yes I stand in support both of this bill and of national standards. I also stand in support of investing in the social sector because this Government has a full range of options to offer to the community of New Zealand—a full tool kit. We do not compare ourselves with members on that side of the Chamber who were tool-less and toothless for the 9 years of the Labour administration. 
I commend this bill to the Committee. I thank the Minister for Social Development and Employment Paula Bennett for having the courage to take this kind of leadership. I thank the Committee for giving me the opportunity to speak so passionately albeit while apparently hurting the ears as well as the minds and the sensitivities of members opposite. Kia ora tatou. 
Dr RAJEN PRASAD (Labour) 
: 
 I do not mind listening to a passionate speech and I do not even mind listening to one I disagree with but I do mind when the member who has just taken her seat Hekia Parata begins to shout without really reflecting on the facts. I will concentrate on that for a few minutes. 
Todd McClay 
: We can arrange some counselling for your soft ears if you want. 
Dr RAJEN PRASAD 
: I say to Mr Todd McClay that he might also like to reflect on the facts I am about to talk about. I want members opposite to name one example of this side of the House not supporting a good idea since National came to power and brought this suite of legislation before this House. Which bills designed to address the problems of our young people today and the issues of the day in this particular area have members on this side of the House not thought about and supported? Members opposite and Mr McClay in particular might want to think about why a number of us feel so passionately—if that is the word—about a particular aspect of this bill that is a most fundamental shift. 
Our first speaker our second speaker and our third speaker have asked for that question to be answered. They have asked the Minister in the chair the Hon Paula Bennett to take a call but the Minister has not answered the question. However one of the members Chester Borrows came very close. Chester is a reasonable person. He was reasonable throughout the hearings and reasonable in coming to an accommodation. He came closest to beginning to explain and give an answer. I do not agree with his answer but at least I give him credit for trying to answer the question. 
The Minister dismissed the question. She did not go anywhere near it yet it is the Minister’s responsibility to answer. The question I am talking about is the change in the age of criminal responsibility and I say to the Minister that her answers simply did not go there. I want her to take another call and address the specific question of how we make ethical and philosophical sense of changing the age of criminal responsibility in respect of 12 to 13-year-olds and what fundamentally lies behind it. If the Minister could convince me I would be impressed because she has not addressed this issue and it ought to be addressed. 
The change is fundamental because when we take 12 and 13-year-olds and put them into a youth justice jurisdiction we are taking away from and giving less authority to the primary responsibility of a decent society to care about the care and protection needs of young children. That is fundamentally where this side of the House disagrees. 
Judge Becroft pointed that out powerfully. He is not stupid. He can see that this change is a fundamental change that needs discussion and justification. But no justification has been provided other than for the Government to say: “Well these are very difficult ones. We will have to deal with the more difficult kids.” That is no justification. You know we are not ethically stupid and I think that members opposite owe it to the citizens and the children of this country to provide the explanation. That explanation must be given and it does no credit to this Parliament when it is not provided. 
In the absence of robust evidence and robust argument what do members opposite expect people on this side of the Chamber to assume? We can only assume that the rhetoric the Government got into during the election campaign is the only rhetoric that now guides it. The rhetoric was an attempt to ratchet up the concerns of our nation State about violence and offending. As the Government members make decisions on this point we believe that they are incapable of riding beyond those decisions. 
Hon Dr Wayne Mapp 
: It’s benchmarked against most other nations—Australia Canada Britain and most of the United States. Are you going to ignore that altogether in the debate? 
Dr RAJEN PRASAD 
: I say to Mr Mapp that his approach is entirely punitive. This country has had enough. Successive Governments have done the punitive thing to an extreme and I tell Mr Mapp that his Government is doing the same thing. I do not think that the member is a violent person himself but why does he not try to come up with some ethical explanations? The Government owes it to the country and to the children to come up with that kind of explanation because it is not there. 
Our 12 and 13-year-olds primarily need care and protection and when they appear before the Family Court then that is the perspective that guides that particular court. When we raised the issue at the Social Services Committee as Jacinda Ardern talked about I think that the officials could see that this was something that should have been visited but it was not. It seemed again as if there was a directive from the Minister not to compromise on this as well. 
This bill took a lot longer for the officials to report on for reasons that have still not been provided to us. We were told that more work was being done. I suspect that somewhere in the Minister’s own heart she must have said “By golly these are 12 and 13-year-olds.” because I do not believe that the Minister is as heartless as that. But somehow the rhetoric that drove National in the election campaign is what came to the fore and I think that our country deserves better. 
The other option I tell the Minister is still there. One option is to reform the Family Court. It does not make any sense for the Minister to say to us: “But they take too long.” as Mr Chester Borrows said. Well I say to members opposite that they are the Government and if the Family Court takes too long then the Government which has lots of resources should address the problem through resources or through legislative provision. The Government can do that. What the Government should be saying is: “Yes there’s a small group that does veer off the track quite seriously but they are still young children and they have care and protection needs. We will not desert our young people.” 
A previous speaker in this debate talked about Bailey Junior Kurariki. That is one case—and I do not defend him for anything he did; what happened was awful. But what we as a society have done to him does not do us any credit either. Bailey Junior Kurariki was 12 years old and what life does he have today? Can we as legislators as people who developed the system he experienced take any credit at all? This Parliament designed a system that could have taken him in when he was still a kid and could have provided him with high-quality provisions and systems that might have turned him round and no matter how bad these young kids are that is what we owe them. We cannot lock them away and throw away the keys because that is not the kind of society we want. 
I come now to the section of the bill that deals with the new orders. This side of the Chamber I tell the Minister does support the notion of greater options being available to the Youth Court. We said that at the select committee and our minority report shows that. We are not against that at all. But a message is given in that section and it relates to the first point I made which is that the Government has accepted a punitive approach in this bill and believe you me like most legislation that is what will endure for the next 5 10 or 15 years. That is what will endure and that is how people will make decisions. 
An impressive array of people came to the select committee and said: “Please don’t go down the track of boot camps.” I know Chester Borrows’ defence of them but the submitters said that they do not work. We have read the evidence they quoted and we have quoted it as well. 
Chris Tremain 
: I guess we’re going to find out pretty quickly aren’t we? 
Dr RAJEN PRASAD 
: The member should not be too sensitive about boot camps. It is the idea that his Prime Minister— 
Chris Tremain 
: I’m not sensitive. I’m saying that we’re going to find out pretty quickly whether they work—whether the new style works. 
Dr RAJEN PRASAD 
: A group of people presented information time and time again at the select committee and they said we should not go down that track. When will the Government listen to people who present information from their experience and say that this ought not to happen? What is the point of people making submissions? 
Chris Tremain 
: It depends on how you define boot camp. 
Dr RAJEN PRASAD 
: What I ask Mr Tremain is the point of people making submissions at select committees when there is not even a gentle move a little bit towards the direction they take? The bill still shows that that is the intent. The first flush might be fine but two or three generations down the track it will happen again. 
Hon PAULA BENNETT (Minister for Social Development and Employment) 
: 
 I would like to address a few things that have been raised by previous speakers on this particular part of the Children Young Persons and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdictions and Orders) Amendment Bill. 
I will address some of the concerns about 12 and 13-year-olds. Yet again I reiterate where this change is coming from. We are talking about the most determined most recidivist offenders of 12 and 13 years of age who are getting more aggressive and are creating havoc wherever they go. I think of those young people not as our hope for the future but actually as our fear. Last month a 12-year-old in Palmerston North stabbed a stranger three times. The man needed 3 hours of surgery and was pretty close to death. So we are not talking about slight offences. 
The best thing I can do is give members the Police Association’s submission which said that changing the jurisdiction was not a matter of getting tough but more about gaining access to the specialist expertise that the Youth Court offered. The submission said that for 12 and 13-year-old serious repeat offenders a more direct youth justice response is not only appropriate but required. The Youth Court requires accountability and provides a restorative approach for both victim and offender. Where necessary it is able to protect the public interest through limitations on the freedom of those 12 and 13-year-olds. Unfortunately that is necessary for some of those young people. 
Let me give some assurances to the Opposition. Within our youth justice facilities the most serious young offenders will be separated out and kept in different wings. Sometimes they will be put with girls. We do not want 12-year-olds to be living with 16-year-olds. That was a huge concern for me when looking at the issue of the facilities. I give some assurances to the Committee that that is being looked at. I also assure the Committee that I am very keen to see the results of the select committee inquiry into child offenders and I will be taking it very seriously. 
I have had a very real concern about care and protection requirements being dealt with in the Family Court but not in the Youth Court. I feel that many of those 12 and 13-year-olds have care and protection issues that need to be dealt with. The news is that they can simultaneously have their offending issues dealt with through the Youth Court and their care and protection issues dealt with through the Family Court so we can make sure that we address the issues of these offenders. 
I make absolutely no apologies for the military-style activity camps. I do not think any members saw the one we ran as a trial. It was voluntary so those young people got to stand up and say they wanted to do it. These camps are for our toughest young people. Some have gone through a youth justice facility 11 times. That says to us that we are not getting it right. It says that we are not actually dealing with the issues behind the offending that we are not doing enough rehabilitation that not enough mentoring is going on and that not enough work is going on to change the behaviour back home. Those issues are all part of this bill and all part of this package. 
But it also says that there are some young hardened criminals whose behaviour is such that they need a short sharp shock that will be sustained over a period of time. One need only see the look in the eyes of some of those young people who have had that shock. They have seen another side of life. Staff have worked with them over a period of time; the mentoring has continued. It surprises me constantly to hear Opposition members vehemently oppose the bill. All the evidence shows that if we back this policy up with mentoring if we back it up with the right drug and alcohol programmes and if we back it up with what really needs to be done then we will see sustained change. 
Recently I saw some research done in England—[ 
Interruption 
] Opposition members are asking for evidence so I will give them some. The research said that the outcomes of parenting programmes—I am pretty sure some of the research also related to mentoring—were exactly the same for those who were compulsorily on the courses and those voluntarily on the courses. The outcomes were the same. Ninety percent of those who went on compulsory parenting courses said they would recommend them to other people. They turned round and said that the programme had made a sustained difference in how they acted and in what they did and they would recommend other people to do them. 
I want to touch on drug and alcohol rehabilitation because Jacinda Ardern asked how that is going. We worked on that issue over quite a long period last year. We met with Odyssey House Ronga Atea and Te Ropu Whariki and we asked them how they thought it could work where the capacity is in what they are doing and how we could make sure that the right resources were behind it. They agreed that for the first year they would like to see the residential part of the programme being run by Ronga Atea and we are certainly supporting them in that decision. As we roll it out further and the capacity comes up they will roll it out to other organisations. They have made decisions on where they can best meet the needs of offenders and they are really welcoming it in all respects. 
We also ran parenting focus groups with organisations that are used to working with these people. We heard from the University of Auckland Genesis Trust the Otara Boards Forum and many other organisations. The group met three times to talk about what the compulsory parenting orders might look like how they might get together what happens when the orders are made compulsory because I think that is a very fair question and how the parenting does actually change. But certainly a lot of the research that we have seen says that the legislation does have the capacity to make sustained change. 
We also ran focus groups on the mentoring programmes and they were certainly an interesting bunch of people. I do not know whether anyone else knows it but if we ask people who had got into some pretty serious trouble when they were young what turned their lives round they all have a “someone” story. Someone backed them over a long period of time. Someone helped them work towards change encouraged them and believed in them. It is often about believing in them and helping them over a long period of time and that is what this bill does. That is what those mentoring programmes will do. We will see the introduction of supervision with activity and we will see programmes like START Taranaki and Genesis Trust. 
Those who are undergoing supervision with activity courses will make that link to mentoring and that mentoring could follow them for up to 12 months. So they could spend 6 months under supervision with activity and then they could receive mentoring for up to another 12 months on top of that. The mentoring can be almost daily with some of the supervision with activity courses. For example mentors go back into the community with those young persons showing them how to get on a bus and how to get to a job. The mentors take them shopping to get the right clothes to get them into the right course and follow through on their areas of interest. They try to get them back into firstly education because to be quite honest most of them are pretty young. When that is not working it is about training and linking them up with employers but following them over a long sustained period of time. 
I know that we keep saying it and it can seem like it is not believable but a military-style activity camp on its own will not work; supervision with activity on its own will not work; and sticking a kid into a youth justice facility even with the therapy that goes on there on its own will not work. I can assure members that within those military-style activity camps there is a therapeutic component: a social worker is with the young people at all times 24/7. It is about behavioural change and everything else. But none of that will work unless it is sustained over a long period of time going back into the community and going back into the home. That is what this package this suite of options and activities gives to judges. We will follow up those young people and that is what will make the difference. 
IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North) 
: 
 It is a pleasure to join in the debate this evening on the Children Young Persons and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill. Before I get into the material that I had intended to speak about I would like to just reflect on the example that the Minister for Social Development and Employment gave of the stabbing that occurred in Palmerston North recently and to reflect on some of the response that we have had from within the community. Yes people were appalled that a child could be involved in such a crime but the community response has not been to lock him up and throw away the key or to send him off to boot camp or anything like that. The community response has been: “How can we do something that is effective and does something positive for the victim and does something positive for the child who was involved? How can we ensure that this will not happen again and that this young person will not continue down the path that he appears to be on at the moment?”. 
In fact this has become so important to people in Palmerston North that a local gentleman who is not known for left-leaning tendencies by any stretch of the imagination but is quite well known in the community has asked me to help him call a public meeting to discuss the direction this Government is going in on justice and sentencing. He wants to discuss his concerns that the Government seems to be focused on harsher and longer prison terms and knee-jerk reactions that feel good in the short term but actually do nothing for him—he has recently been a victim of a high-profile crime—do nothing for victims and do nothing to assist and protect the community by getting offenders particularly young offenders back on track and to perhaps prevent a life of crime further down the track. 
The reason I took this call this evening was to discuss some of the issues around alcohol and drug treatment and particularly the submission made by the Alcohol Drug Association New Zealand. It states in its submission to the select committee: “… it is our considered opinion that the orders contained within the expanded orders are too prescriptive are not based on overseas and New Zealand research or on the twenty plus years of experience of the addiction treatment sector in New Zealand in working with disadvantaged young people with both criminal offending and addiction related issues.” This is I suppose what the key problem is: the Government just does not appear to be listening to solid research or to anything that makes sense. It is more interested in simply appearing to do something and having knee-jerk reactions such as boot camps and the like. 
There is a place in the justice system for the health sector. There is a lot of good that the health sector can do to reduce crime. In fact the research tells us that there is a reduction of between $4 and $7 in the cost of drug-related crime for ever dollar spent on addiction treatment. It is that kind of focus on treatment and it is that sort of thing that the Law Commission was getting at recently when it issued its issues paper on the Misuse of Drugs Act which sadly the Minister of Justice and the Government seem to have written off out of hand. They do not want to listen to what the public has to say about where we might go on drug-related crime and how we might deal with those things. This is certainly a key issue for young people. The Alcohol Drug Association New Zealand really highlighted the fact that without a greater focus on workforce development and without a greater focus on residential programmes and multi-systemic programmes that deal with the complex needs of young offenders there will just be nothing to change behaviours and to protect the community through changing behaviour. 
Frankly sending young people off to boot camp is not the answer. It just is not the answer because these are complex issues. There is no simple answer. Sadly this legislation like a lot of what the Government is doing seems to be looking for the simple answer that will grab a headline and will seem like it is responding to what the community wants but in fact does not actually deal with the complex needs of young people—and in dealing with alcohol and drug issues that is what is required. There simply is not the capacity. 
TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West) 
: 
 I point out to the member who has just resumed his seat Iain Lees-Galloway who spoke about drug rehabilitation programmes and the effectiveness of the dollars spent that that of course is a major part of this programme so it is good to hear he is in support of it. However I suggest that he also talks to his colleague sitting beside him Lynne Pillay who pointed out just a short time before that that she and her colleagues are passionately opposed to every aspect of the Children Young Persons and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill. That member was not a part of the Social Services Committee which worked on this bill. I suspect that her comment will be news to her colleagues if she goes and speaks to them because there is much about this bill that her colleagues did support albeit they are obviously talking tonight about the things that they did not support. 
This debate is on Part 1 of a very important bill. I am proud to speak in support of it. As my colleagues have pointed out tonight we campaigned on this major initiative. We are doing it with a mandate from the people of New Zealand. I think many who have listened to some of the things coming from members opposite tonight will be saying “May it be a very very long time before that party with that rigid and outdated thinking ever returns to office.” This is a pragmatic measure it is a compassionate measure it is an effective measure it is based on common sense—[ 
Interruption 
]—and most important I say to Dr Prasad and Miss Ardern it is based on practical needs and evidence. It is not based on blinkered thinking and outdated rigid ideology. 
It is very important for the Labour members if they are going to continue this line of attack to confront the reality that the Police Association strongly endorsed this measure when it appeared before the select committee. It may be that others disagreed with the Police Association but it is the Police Association and the officers whom it represents who are at the front line of dealing with these issues. The men and women of our police are the ones who are out there day in and day out dealing with those young offenders. Remember we are talking about a thousand of the most seriously at risk seriously disturbed and seriously dangerous young people in our community. If we are not prepared to give our wholehearted backing to the police then God help this country! They are the people whom we really depend upon to do something at the front line and turn this issue round. 
What is the message that members opposite want to send to our front-line police? They are concerned that this measure is too tough. They demean this measure with dishonest slogans such as “boot camps”. The deputy leader of the Labour Party earlier this evening suggested that it was akin to putting an eggbeater in the tool box. It is clear that her preferred style of eggs reflects her thinking: thoroughly scrambled. She was also opposed to intensive periods of supervision and suggested that this measure will not work. 
So I will turn her questions and her comments back on her. What is her evidence for that claim? Why is the member for Rongotai opposed to the wraparound services that will accompany the supervision that this measure has at its heart? Does she oppose drug and alcohol rehabilitation programmes for the young? If she does I can tell her that the member for Palmerston North has just been telling us how important they are. Does she oppose mentoring? Many of her colleagues actually have told us at other times that that is an important aspect as well. Does she oppose parenting courses for our youth at risk who are already parents? Most of us know that some of the youngest parents in our country are also delinquents who are severely at risk and their young children therefore are greatly at risk as well. I want to do everything I can to protect those children of today those children of tomorrow. This measure will go a long way towards helping us to do just that. 
Then the deputy leader of the Labour Party also lectured us about the cessation of the Te Hurihanga programme in my city. Let me say to that member that no one in this House opposes the intention of the Te Hurihanga programme and we share the respect of members opposite for the providers. But we have to acknowledge that it is horrendously expensive and it caters for a very small number of offenders. We have to ensure that we reach a much larger number of youth with the considerable sum that we are investing in dealing with youth offending. Contrary to the misinformation that members opposite have been spreading on this issue I pay my compliments to the Youth Horizons Trust team which have been running that programme. I hope that they will transfer their expertise and commitment to the Fresh Start programmes that will be run from the same facility in Hamilton East in the years ahead. 
Hon Annette King 
: What nonsense! 
TIM MACINDOE 
: Of course they will because the Youth Horizons Trust already runs a whole range of programmes. It is a respected provider. There is no criticism of the trust. It has the skills and the commitment to run a wide range of programmes and that is what it is already doing. I thank the trust for that but we cannot afford that particular programme. 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Deputy Leader—Labour) 
: 
 So far we have had quite a number of contributors to this very important part of the Children Young Persons and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill. First of all I acknowledge the contribution from Chester Borrows. He comes from a background in policing and in law and in practice. Mr Borrows is always worth listening to. I do not always agree with everything he says but he would make a very splendid Minister in my view. 
We have just heard from the member for Hamilton West who pointed out that the Police Association supports this bill. I was the Minister of Police and that is exactly what I would expect from the Police Association. I have a great respect for the association but I do not always agree with it. I do need to tell members that some of the stars of the police themselves are the Youth Aid officers who work on a daily basis with our young people. They understand how young people work and they try not to criminalise young people but to keep them out of the criminal justice system in a whole variety of ways. In fact when I was the Minister I was told that our Youth Aid officers in New Zealand are amongst the best in the world in terms of their practice and what they do. So I am more inclined to listen to the Youth Aid officers than to the association on this matter. The association is often right on other matters and I have agreed with it. But I was not at all surprised that the association was one submitter out of perhaps two of all the submitters who agreed with this bill. 
The member also mentioned Te Hurihunga and how the Government is going to use this facility which was built for a programme that was working for some of the toughest children we could find for Fresh Start. That is what Tim Macindoe said: the Government is going to use that facility for Fresh Start. Will we put the cost of the facility on every Fresh Start child who goes through it so that we know the cost for the children who go through the facility? Why is the Government stopping something that has had an evaluation and been shown to be successful? The facility was dealing with “hard nut” kids. 
The Minister mentioned her little pilot in the South Island. There has been no proper evaluation of that programme; no real work has been done to see whether it works. Something that the Government has had for a few months can hardly be evaluated over a long period of time. Why would we stop a programme that could make the very thing happen that the Minister has said she wants to make happen? That makes absolutely no sense to me at all. 
The Minister has forgotten a really fundamental thing. It is that 12 to 13-year-olds are not young people; they are children. Can the Minister remember what it is like to have a 12 or 13-year-old? They are children; they are not young adults. They still have developing brains and bodies and although those who offend need to be held accountable for their offending they also need to be given care and protection. It is the State’s responsibility to provide that care and protection when failing parents have not been able to provide it. What is wrong with this bill is that it puts emphasis on the Youth Court without giving that attention to care and protection. We can punish those children put them into boot camps and require them to have mentoring and we can require their parents who are already dysfunctional to have parenting training. But at the end of the day those children need to receive proper care and attention in order to ensure that they have a chance to grow up as decent young people. 
The Minister then made a fundamental error by saying we can do things like imposing a short sharp shock. If we heard anything at the Law and Order Committee it was that short sharp shocks do not work. They might last as long as the short sharp shock is being given but the children go away angry and defiant and the shock does not work. So why would that be in the Minister’s thinking? I think it shows where she comes from. It is not from a basis of evidence in terms of what she is trying to do. I tell the Minister I would like to know how she will judge this programme in 1 year’s time. 
TODD McCLAY (National—Rotorua) 
: 
 It gives me pleasure to rise to speak in the Committee stage of the Children Young Persons and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill. It has been an interesting debate as interesting as it was when we were in the Social Services Committee where many submitters came to speak to us. Certainly Opposition members are handpicking little bits that they want to talk about. I thank the Minister for Social Development and Employment Paula Bennett for her openness and responsiveness not only for answering questions here this evening but also for the interactions we have had as we have gone along from last year in looking at this bill. 
There are a couple of points that I really must touch on. One of them is that during the course of the debate in the select committee members opposite asked for more time. The Minister was responsive and gave us more time. 
Hon Annette King 
: She gave us more time because she wasn’t ready. 
TODD McCLAY 
: Not at all. The Minister gave us more time so we could consider the bill and look at it. I thank her for that. The reason I thank her for that is that she along with every member on this side of the Chamber wants to make sure we get this legislation right. Do members know why we need to get this legislation right? It is because on this very night when Labour members opposite are speaking about all these things that will or will not work and about what they used to do or would be doing if they were in Government we have young people in New Zealand who started committing crimes when they were very young out there in the streets tonight now that it is dark committing them again. 
The sad reality I say to members opposite is that for the last 9 years studies— 
Dr Rajen Prasad 
: Oh there you go again. 
TODD McCLAY 
: Surely Mr Prasad cannot stand up in this Chamber and tell me that he is proud of the previous Government’s record in this area. The reason I know he cannot be proud of that record is that these young kids were committing crimes when all of the studies were being done. When the Families Commission was very busy with families working out what should be done—sitting on couches and so on—those kids got to the age of 18 and now they are in our prisons. We know as a society and a country that we have not done well enough. 
I will pick up on a couple of things that members have said in the debate tonight. Chester Borrows is a man whom I greatly respect. He is a man who has been out and been involved with young people as a policeman for many years and he has worked hard to make their lives better. I say to members opposite that they should go and buy Chester a cup of coffee—he does not take sugar in it—and listen to him. They should not talk to him but listen to him because he has some real experience about what happens on the ground. When I listen to the rhetoric that comes across from the other side of the Chamber I know that clearly those members have to sit down with somebody like Chester and listen to his experience. I would listen to and trust Chester Borrows’ views on these issues because of his experience long before I would trust the hollow rhetoric from the other side of the Chamber. 
I will now touch on the speech of Hekia Parata who spoke with great passion. Of course members opposite were critical of her because she was speaking too loudly. Well I will back a member of this Parliament who wants to stand up and talk about those lost youths the ones who are languishing in our jails and their lost opportunities any day of the week. 
There are two issues in respect of Part 1. One is the military-style camps. Members opposite really need a reality check when it comes to what they think these things will be about. Of course they are about mentoring. Of course they are about drug and alcohol rehabilitation. Of course they are about wraparound services but do members know what? Mrs King is not correct. A sharp short shock will help some people some of the time. These are the ones whom we do not have to worry about because a policeman coming to their door and talking to their parents could well be enough. Do members know what happens to most of these young people who may end up in the military-style camps? They will have had lots of chances as the Minister said often having been 11 times through Family Court jurisdictions. These are the kids for whom we have as a society one last chance to help before they go on to an adult prison. They will spend time with adults who will teach them to respect themselves and ask them to offer respect in return help them to work through some of these issues particularly drugs and alcohol and support them in the communities when they go back into the communities. This is one of the last chances we will have to make sure their lives are not ruined and they do not end up in prison. This is an initiative that we have had support from the community for. Those who have been involved in some of these programmes support them fully and I think this bill will do great things. 
We have heard from members opposite about 12 and 13-year-olds. It is very interesting. We had a lot of submissions on that and again my recollection of some of the things the Youth Court judges said when they came to us is quite different from that of members opposite. But I accept that the Principle Youth Court Judge said that he had concerns in some cases. One of the changes the select committee made will mean that when a 12 or 13-year-old appears before a Youth Court judge for those crimes the judge can use some of the tools that are in the Family Court or refer back to the Family Court if he or she chooses to. 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East) 
: 
 I believe that the Committee is entitled to an answer to the question I posed earlier about a change that is described by the Chief Judge of the Youth Court as constituting the most fundamental change to the system since its inception in 1989. That is why I think we are entitled to an explicit answer on the question of the age. I ask about the age of criminal responsibility for offences in addition to murder and manslaughter which are already covered in legislation. The examples we are often given out there in the public arena are those that are already covered by that extension by way of exception. This provision makes it more of the rule rather than the exception. 
I want to know what evidence the Government is using to lower that age. What evidence does the Government have that shows that changing the age and shifting the jurisdiction to the Youth Court will in fact make a difference in terms of turning around the lives of children? I want to know why the Minister cannot say “children”. These are children under her own Act. Under the Children Young Persons and their Families Act 1989 a person is a child until he or she is 14 and then a young person. It is unfortunate that she will not pick up on the language. 
I have another important question for her. Just over a week ago we referred another bill to the select committee. It was a bill not in the Minister’s name but in the name of the Minister of Justice. That was to make an amendment to the offence provisions of the Adoption Act 1955 so that the Government could ratify the optional protocol to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. I ask how on earth this legislation stacks up with that convention and our obligations as a country to that convention to which we are a party. 
My understanding is that the Government failed even to mention that this bill was in Parliament when the Government appeared before the United Nations Human Rights Council last year. That suggests to me that this bill runs directly counter to our United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child obligations. The Minister Paula Bennett should get up and explain whether that is the case—and if it is the case why on earth we would want to go down one track with the Minister of Justice and his changes to the Adoption Act and down another track with this Minister in order to counter our obligations under that convention. 
For me the evidence base is the issue. I do not think the Minister was around when I was quoting the very excellent appointment the Government made to the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet Professor Gluckman. I was relieved when the Prime Minister appointed him to such an important position because by way of that appointment the Prime Minister was saying that it was important to have an evidence base wrapped around social policy decisions—as we would have around all other elements of economic and scientific endeavour. I will quote Professor Gluckman—I raise a point of order Mr Chair. I understand that if the Minister is in the Chamber the Minister has to be in the chair. The Minister is having a conversation with one of the members at the back of the Chamber. I do not think she understands the Standing Orders in that regard. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker) 
: The member is quite right. I say to the Minister the Hon Paula Bennett that if she is in the Chamber she is required to be in the chair. The Minister will either resume the chair or leave the Chamber. She is leaving the Chamber. 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL 
: I wanted to quote Professor Gluckman for the benefit of the Hon Paula Bennett but unfortunately I am not able to do that and will have to find another occasion. It is very important. Professor Gluckman talked about the “need for evidence to be rigorously based and inform policy formation”. He said—and this I thought was really relevant—“that there can be many cogent reasons why evidence and policy need not align: the evidence may not be complete”—well that is a reasonable reason why they may not align. He said: “the public may not accept the evidence”—that is a challenge then because one has to explain things to the public—“it may conflict with the accepted values of a society”. That is certainly an issue in terms of some of the harm reduction approaches we would like to take. On that note I was very disappointed at the immediate knee-jerk response of the Minister of Justice Simon Power to the Misuse of Drugs Act report from the Law Commission. 
JACINDA ARDERN (Labour) 
: 
 It is a shame to interrupt my colleague and the previous speaker Lianne Dalziel who I feel was about to make a very good point. It is a shame that the Minister responsible for the Children Young Persons and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill Paula Bennett is no longer in the chair because I wanted to reflect on some of the comments she made. I agree with one of her points. She said that for initiatives to work they must be sustained. The use of the word “sustained” is something that broadly I agree with. My concern is that the evidence to date demonstrates that the Government’s intention is not to invest in sustained initiatives. 
All of the Government’s language around short sharp shocks is indicative of that as is the closure of Te Hurihanga. I want to go back to this point. Te Hurihanga was an 18-month programme. Those boys who were still in the programme will not get the sustained assistance that was planned for them—and nor I must add will the next intake. The member for Hamilton West Tim MacIndoe should acknowledge that the Government is not proposing an exact replica of the programme; it is proposing a shortened version of the programme. It is proposing a programme that will cost significantly less and that will not have the same staff who are acknowledged—and this comes directly from the independent review of that programme—as some of the most skilled in their area in this country. The cost per offender in that programme was less than the cost of locking up one of those individuals for a few years. I would call that more than affordable; I would call it a necessary investment. 
I also appreciated the response the Minister gave around drug and alcohol programmes and her sharing of the conversation she had with those from Odyssey House and the like but I still have a question. Given that there are significant waiting lists for residential places in those programmes I ask her how many beds and places will be available nationwide. At the moment the programmes are centred around the cities and in few other places. I would like a little more detail on that. The Minister also read from a Police Association submission and the Hon Annette King has touched on the problems that come with relying solely on the views of the association. The only other submission that seemed to be broadly in favour of the Government’s proposals was that of Graeme Dingle from the Foundation for Youth Development. The significant reason for his favourable submission—and he acknowledged this at the Social Services Committee—was the fact that he had put in a bid for the Fresh Start tender that had been put out by the Ministry of Social Development so I would expect him to give a glowing submission on the programme he hoped to provide. 
It is very interesting that soon after all of this the Minister asked the committee to delay the report back. Cabinet papers revealed that she was asked to downsize the cost of Fresh Start. Surprisingly—or not surprisingly as the case may be—the contract was not awarded to Mr Dingle. In fact the Fresh Start programme is being provided solely by the Ministry of Social Development and the army. I ask members opposite to forgive us if from time to time we revert to the language of the Prime Minister and call the programme a boot camp when one of the primary providers is the New Zealand Army. One would default to that position given that the army is a heavy part of the programme. In the minority report the Labour members acknowledged the confusion around the Government’s intention for the programme. That is why we said that we believed that the Government had been disingenuous in the way it had presented its initiative. Publicly it described the programme as a boot camp but after intense opposition from those working in the sector it tried to paint quite a different picture. We acknowledge that and we have always acknowledged that. 
I talk now to the international obligations. We have already talked about Labour’s amendment regarding 12 and 13-year-olds. We also have an amendment before the Committee that shifts the age at which someone is a “young person” up to 18. That shift is for a very simple reason. We proposed it under the Children Young Persons and Their Families Amendment Bill (No 6) which I believe is still on the Order Paper. I would like to hear the Government’s view on that bill. We are currently breaking our United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child obligations. My colleague Lianne Dalziel spoke about the fact that the Government did not even acknowledge that when it appeared before the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva. 
TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
STUART NASH (Labour) 
: 
 I was not going to take a call in this debate but I decided to do so when I understood that Graeme Dingle had put forward a proposal to run the Fresh Start programme but it was awarded to the army. I want to talk about that because I was one of the mentors on Graeme Dingle’s Project K programme. That programme was about providing at-risk youth with a mentoring supportive environment. 
I will tell members about the little fellow that I looked after. He was from a very poor family; of that there was no doubt. The family ate KFC three times a week—he was slightly undernourished. He had asthma yet his mother and her partner smoked two packets of cigarettes a day between them. But I understood that the mother actually wanted what was best for her son. She understood that her little boy was going off the rails but she was prepared to try anything to make sure that he did not end up in jail like his father. 
That was the sort of project that Graeme Dingle ran. It was a supportive project. It was about mentoring; it was about bringing the best out of kids. It was not about locking them up and saying that they would get fitter and faster by being sent away after six months and then seeing them in another 12 months when they are over 18 years and can go to jail. Project K was about turning kids round. It was such a positive experience that I learnt a lot about myself as well as a lot about that little fellow. 
I will talk about youth offending in a slightly different way by continuing with the quote that my colleague the Hon Lianne Dalziel was in the process of giving before her time was up. Professor Gluckman said “There is the beginning of the recognition that there is a far greater need for evidence to be rigorously based and inform policy formation although I hasten to say that there can be many cogent reasons why evidence and policy need not align: the evidence may not be complete the public may not accept the evidence it may conflict with the accepted values of a society the cost implications may be contrary to the approach supported by the evidence and ultimately the democratic process will put constraints on decisions that can be made. The important point however is not to deny the evidence but to acknowledge it and explain when and why policies are developed that are not in accord with the evidence.” In terms of how we can improve the use of evidence by a Government Professor Gluckman went on to say his “goal is to try in an unbiased way to look at the evidence that explains why New Zealand adolescents have such high morbidity—second only to the USA—and to identify what we know about childhood and adolescence which might impact on policy settings in health education social welfare and justice that might lead to better outcomes.” 
I acknowledge and I understand the need to seriously address the problems of youth offending. I think we all agree on that; the issue is just one of how we go about doing that. I think first and foremost we need to address the problems of disaffected youth. In respect of my little fellow his friends and a lot of his peers they had lost their cultural identity. Once people lose their cultural identity it is a very short step to losing their personal identity and from there it is just a short step to losing the ability to aspire. People in that situation do not care about anything and do not see any prospects for themselves at all. There is no vision and there is no ability to appreciate the value of other people’s property. Then what we get is graffiti violence and all those sorts of things from disaffected youth in our society and our communities. They should not be there; Labour put in place policies to address those issues. 
Let us look at the policies that this Government has put in place which actually do not address poverty—for example tax cuts. This Government gave tax cuts but anyone who earns under $40000 per year—we are talking about 75 percent of the people in the Napier electorate for example—did not get any tax cut. Those sorts of policies and the sort of tax proposal that we have on the table at the moment widen the gap between the most privileged in our society and the most vulnerable. That reinforces stereotypes and that comes back again to a lack of ability to aspire. That is an absolute death knell for a lot of our young kids and a lot of our communities. We need to have policies that alleviate poverty. When I heard that the minimum wage was going up by 25c an hour I thought about those who earn the minimum wage. They are people who are working in two three or sometimes even four jobs because they need to work 24/7 to put food on the table clothes on their backs and occasionally to provide schoolbooks. I think it was identified by Tim Macindoe that some children are growing up without parents because their parents need to work such horrendous hours earning dreadful salaries just in order to survive. It is a vicious circle and it is our role as parliamentarians to provide policies that alleviate poverty. I am just not seeing that from members on the Government side of the Chamber. 
DAVID GARRETT (ACT) 
: 
 I was not intending to take a call on the Children Young Persons and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill and I will make it very brief. 
There are a couple of points to be made about the programme that is not being continued. I just asked my colleague Rahui Katene the name of it but she could not think of it either. We both know that it is Te something. 
Hon Members 
: Te Hurihanga. 
DAVID GARRETT 
: Well I do not profess to have any great knowledge about it but the evidence is quite clear from overseas even from criminologists who are in the “rehabilitation is not possible” camp. The camps are broadly divided into two. Some criminologists say nothing works and that is one recognised camp of criminologists whereas others say lots of things work. Even the “nothing works” camp agree that if enough money is spent and a programme is intensive enough the results will be OK or better than OK. But the question then becomes one of how much we should spend and for what sort of OK result. 
I think the figures given by Ms Ardern yesterday were that there had been no reoffending by any of the graduates for 10 months. Is that correct? 
Jacinda Ardern 
: I never said that. 
DAVID GARRETT 
: Someone said that the graduates from the course thus far had not reoffended for 10 months after completing it. Sadly that is not very significant. If the period was 2 years or 5 years then that would mean something. In this country we have lots of manipulation of the statistics about sex offenders. We say graduates of particular courses have a 20 percent or 6 percent reoffending rate but we have to know over what period that is. So although this programme may well be effective for a small number although at a vast cost the sad reality is that getting bangs in return for the bucks spent is important. We have to achieve rehabilitation of the greatest number—the greatest good for the greatest number; utilitarianism I think it is called. That is one reason that sadly this legislation is necessary. 
Secondly I think Ms King whose opinion I have considerable regard for said we are talking about children. She was a little passionate about the issue and said these children need to be given care. Sadly I say there are 12-year-olds who are no longer children. They might be children chronologically but they have offended seriously. They have no background; they have no values. 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: Where are their parents? 
DAVID GARRETT 
: Yes. Well members on that side of House have encouraged their parents not to care through the welfare system. That is the whole problem. We cannot say that all the young people—or young children—at my daughter’s school who are aged 10 11 12 and 13 are children. Sadly they are not. 
I am all for rehabilitation. Members can laugh over there; let us hear it. But I say rehabilitation is wonderful. As I have said in other speeches I would be delighted if no one was ever locked up under the “three strikes” law on the third strike. But sadly that is not reality and we have to target the available money to those who are most likely to benefit from it and to areas where the greatest number will benefit from it. This is what this part of the bill does. Thank you. 
LYNNE PILLAY (Labour) 
: 
 I will take the opportunity to speak again to my proposed amendment to the Children Young Persons and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill relating to the rights of victims. I will give a little bit of background to this amendment. From the previous Parliament I acknowledge Nandor Tanczos who as part of the agreement with the Labour Government at the time undertook an inquiry into victims’ rights. As chair of the Justice and Electoral Committee I recall that time very very clearly because of the number of people who came along who were victims of really tragic situations and circumstances that affected their dear and loved ones and because of the commitment they made to the committee and how important it was to them. It was not that so many of the submissions were not what we so often hear. As my friend and colleague Iain Lees-Galloway talked about before it was not about locking up the offenders and throwing the keys away; it was about the role that the victims played in terms of reconciling and coming to terms with what happened and the ability to be part of the process in terms of dealing with the person—in this case a young person—who has committed the offence. 
I acknowledge that I have been very critical of this bill. But I did so very much from a principled position on things that we in the Labour Party hold very dear and as so many of us have stated things that we are opposed to. But I very much urge— 
Tim Macindoe 
: You’re not opposed to all of it now? 
LYNNE PILLAY 
: No I am talking about something that I believe will constructively improve the bill and certainly improve the bill in terms of victims and in terms of coming to terms and the resolution of very legitimate grievances. 
I am seeking to amend clause 5 by including an amendment to substitute section 208(g) of the Children Young Persons and Their Families Act. The new paragraph (g) will state: “the principle that—(i) in the determination of measures for dealing with offending by children or young persons consideration should be given to the interests and views of any victims of the offending (for example by encouraging the victims to participate in the processes under this Part for dealing with offending); and (ii) any measures should have proper regard for the interests of any victims of the offending and the impact of the offending on them:”. 
Dr Rajen Prasad 
: Tim will support it. 
LYNNE PILLAY 
: I hope so. This is not a controversial amendment; it will add value to the existing bill. If I were being naughty I might say that it is probably the most valuable part we will see in the bill. But I will not do that because I have been critical of the bill and I think I have said all that needed to be said about it. 
Again when we are looking at a situation where family group conferences are convened I urge members to note how important it is that victims are involved in that process. There should be a requirement for the chief executive to ascertain whether victims want to be informed of the progress. It is not mandatory by any stretch of the imagination but victims may want to be informed about decisions recommendations or plans made by family group conferences to which their agreement has been obtained. They may also be informed of any penalty or reparation for an offence. There should be a requirement on the chief executive’s part to ensure that if victims wish to be notified of the child or young person’s progress in taking the action that has been agreed to by the family group conference then that will happen. 
As I said before I urge members to give careful consideration to my amendment. I believe that I have had a very constructive conversation with the ACT member and I thank that member for taking the time to talk to me and to make inquiries about that matter. I urge other members of the Committee to give equal consideration to this important amendment. Thank you. 
TODD McCLAY (National—Rotorua) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
DAVID CLENDON (Green) 
: 
 I have come late to this debate but I want to take just a very brief call in order to make a few comments to reaffirm the Greens’ opposition to the Children Young Persons and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill and to support some of the statements that have been made tonight. 
The first point that I must make has already been made but it is worth repeating and repeating: 12 and 13-year-olds are children. To the surprise of neither of us I disagree with Mr Garrett who tells us that some of these young offenders are no longer children despite their chronological age. In fact they are children. They are damaged children; they are corrupted children. They are children who have been formed and shaped by poverty by neglect by a lack of opportunity by a lack of basic nutrition and by a lack of education. I recently had the pleasure of spending some time with a niece and some of her friends who are 15 and 16-year-old young women. I use the words “young women” deliberately. That young lady is a very very different person from the one that she was 3 and even 2 years ago. A substantial evolution a significant change occurs at that age between a child of 11 or 12 and a young woman of 15. To deny that is I am afraid a denial of what many of us who are parents and carers of children know to be the reality. 
There is a question of responsibility. We share responsibility for the offences that young children commit. They are terrible offences and it is tragic to see that young people are committing these crimes. But the fact is that it is our responsibility—ours more than anyone else’s as parliamentarians. This bill does not address the resolution of the issue of how we face up to those responsibilities. Punishment is not the appropriate response to a failure to nurture young children in a way that prevents them from turning into damaged children. Why are kids on the street at night and conceivably committing crime? Today we had a rally at the front of Parliament’s steps by the cleaners who keep this place habitable and a nice place to be in. They earn $12.55 an hour. A minimum wage of $15 might go a long way towards enabling those people to spend more time in their own homes. We need to ensure there is a decent basic wage for every family. When I was bringing up my daughter I was able to support a small family on a single income but that is simply not an option for many people today. 
Beneficiaries—in particular those on the domestic purposes benefit—are now under enormous pressure to return to work when their youngest child hits around the age of 6. I fail to see the simple economic calculation in that. It seems to me that that is a very expensive policy. We are forcing women into the workforce and taking them away from the care of their own children but I ask who is better to look after a child than a parent? The fact is that people who are on low incomes and benefits can seldom afford stable housing. We know that children who are transient who do not have a secure stable home are those who are most likely to offend. Again a number of policy settings can improve the likelihood that children will be nurtured and brought up in a stable family home but we are not seeing those emerge from this Government I have to say. 
A reference was made earlier to the opposition to this bill perhaps reflecting an outdated view. I would put it to the member who made that comment that this bill—and I am echoing my co-leader who made the point—sounds like something from the 18th or early 19th centuries. The fact is that we would punish the child rather than look in the mirror and challenge ourselves to make sure that damaged children do not emerge. 
The point was made that the Police Association supports this bill. I would just make the passing comment that it opposes the “three strikes” legislation so let us give the same mana to the association’s statement as some would have us give to this bill. I say that in the context clearly of supporting the police in their work. 
That is probably as much as I need to say but I reiterate that this issue is a social tragedy. We need to take responsibility for it. We need to find an intelligent informed and long-term solution to it and this bill is not that solution. Kia ora. 
Dr JACKIE BLUE (National) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the question be now put. 
Ayes 64 
New Zealand National 58; ACT New Zealand 5; United Future 1. 
Noes 57 
New Zealand Labour 43; Green Party 9; Maori Party 5; Progressive 1. 
Motion agreed to. 
The question was put that the following amendments in the name of Jacinda Ardern to clause 4 be agreed to: 
to omit subclauses (1)(a) and (b); 
to omit from subclause (1)(c) “a child or”; and 
to omit subclause (2). 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendments be agreed to. 
Ayes 57 
New Zealand Labour 43; Green Party 9; Maori Party 4; Progressive 1. 
Noes 64 
New Zealand National 58; ACT New Zealand 5; United Future 1. 
Amendments not agreed to.Amendment agreed to. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker) 
: The next amendments in the name of Jacinda Ardern to clause 4A are ruled out of order as having impact on the Government’s fiscal aggregates and the amendments were not lodged within the 24-hour deadline—Standing Order 320(1). 
The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Lynne Pillay to clause 5 be agreed to: 
to insert the following new subclause: 
(2) Section 208 is amended by repealing paragraph (g) and substituting the following new paragraph: 
“(g) the principle that— 
“(i)in the determination of measures for dealing with offending by children or young persons consideration should be given to the interests and views of any victims of the offending (for example by encouraging the victims to participate in the processes under this Part for dealing with offending); and 
“(ii)any measures should have proper regard for the interests of any victims of the offending and the impact of the offending on them:”. 
The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Lynne Pillay be agreed to: 
to insert the following new clause: 
9ANew section 269A inserted 
The following section is inserted after section 269: 
“269A Chief executive to ascertain whether victims wish to be informed of progress in implementing decisions recommendations and plans 
“(1) This section applies to any action or steps to be taken or completed by the child or young person in respect of whom a family group conference was convened— 
“(a) under any decision recommendation or plan made or formulated by the family group conference and to which agreement is obtained under section 263; and 
“(b) by way of penalty or reparation for an offence. 
“(2) The chief executive must take reasonable steps— 
“(a) to ascertain whether the victim of the offence wishes to be notified of the child’s or young person’s progress in taking that action or completing those steps; and 
“(b) if so to ensure that the victim of the offence is notified from time to time of that progress. 
“(3) The chief executive’s duty under subsection (2) 
must be performed by another person if that other person— 
“(a) was nominated for the purpose by the family group conference; and 
“(b) has agreed to perform that duty.” 
Amendment agreed to. 
The question was put that the following amendments in the name of Jacinda Ardern to clause 10 be agreed to: 
to omit subsections (1)(b) and (1)(c) from subclause (2);  
to omit subsections (1A) and (1B) from subclause (2); and 
to omit subsection (2A) from subclause (2). 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendments be agreed to. 
Ayes 57 
New Zealand Labour 43; Green Party 9; Maori Party 4; Progressive 1. 
Noes 64 
New Zealand National 58; ACT New Zealand 5; United Future 1. 
Amendments not agreed to. 
The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Jacinda Ardern to clause 11 be agreed to: 
to omit this clause. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 57 
New Zealand Labour 43; Green Party 9; Maori Party 4; Progressive 1. 
Noes 64 
New Zealand National 58; ACT New Zealand 5; United Future 1. 
Amendment not agreed to. 
The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Jacinda Ardern to clause 13 be agreed to: 
to omit this clause. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 57 
New Zealand Labour 43; Green Party 9; Maori Party 4; Progressive 1. 
Noes 64 
New Zealand National 58; ACT New Zealand 5; United Future 1. 
Amendment not agreed to. 
The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 107 in the name of the Hon Paula Bennett to Part 1 be agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendments be agreed to. 
Ayes 64 
New Zealand National 58; ACT New Zealand 5; United Future 1. 
Noes 57 
New Zealand Labour 43; Green Party 9; Maori Party 4; Progressive 1. 
Amendments agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That Part 1 as amended be agreed to. 
Ayes 64 
New Zealand National 58; ACT New Zealand 5; United Future 1. 
Noes 57 
New Zealand Labour 43; Green Party 9; Maori Party 4; Progressive 1. 
Part 1 as amended agreed to. 
Part 2 Amendments to other enactments 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East) 
: 
 I am speaking to Part 2 of the Children Young Persons and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill. Reading this part of the bill was quite interesting; I think we might need a little bit of detailed explanation of what is intended. I assume that it simply adds 12 and 13-year-old children to the Criminal Investigations (Bodily Samples) Act 1995. The legislation—previously covering only those charged with murder or manslaughter but now including those being prosecuted for a wider range of offences—will now apply to children. 
It is quite an interesting area and it is quite ironic that we are having this debate the day after an event that occurred here in Parliament last night. I attended the 20th anniversary of DNA testing in New Zealand an event hosted by the Minister of Research Science and Technology along with the Royal Society and the body that brings all of the Crown research institutes together. It was a fascinating history of the development both of the technique of DNA testing and also of the development of databases of information and the quality of the results taken from them. In a way we are reflecting here the tragedy of the reoffending rates of our young people who get to this stage. 
I think probably the point I was trying to make most of all in the debate on Part 1 of this bill was that if we have not successfully intervened early on then this is really the last chance. I know I heard the ACT Party member indicate that these children were not able to be saved and were not really worthy of being saved because of where they had got to. He said they were not children. I think what he meant was that their behaviour was no longer childlike but he ignored the dreadful reality of the lives of so many of these children who get to this stage of serious offending. 
I do not normally give movie reviews when I debate a bill in the Chamber but I went to see the movie  
Precious 
 and if anyone wants to be completely drained and to have a real sense of hopelessness then they should go to see that movie. I read a review of it that said that it had an uplifting aspect to it because of the meeting or connection with an alternative education teacher that gave Precious a hope that she could have a life. But I felt no sense of being uplifted by the end of that movie. In fact I felt utter and complete desperation for the reality of those lives which are so dysfunctional so tragically destroyed at an early age by parents who either neglect or abuse children or abuse each other and who allow their children to grow up without a moral compass and to head off down a pathway to inevitably ending up with their bodily samples their DNA on a database. What a tragic record that is. 
I think quite relevant to this part of the bill are the issues that came up in the evaluation of the Te Hurihanga pilot because I do not think that Parliament has quite understood the extent of the development of the practice of the model that went on during that pilot. In fact it makes me weep now that I have read the evaluation—I would really like to know from the Minister of Justice why the evaluation took so long to be publicly released since it is dated October 2009—which states: “The current treatment model is aligned with ecological approaches used in New Zealand and internationally. These approaches target known risk and protective factors that contribute to conduct disorder and youth offending by: increasing opportunities for the young people to mix with prosocial peers through positive activities (eg education work and recreation); …”—I guess that is the Youth Guarantee that we heard about before—“reducing opportunities for the young people to mix with antisocial peers and engage in antisocial activities (eg by creating alternative positive opportunities and developing young people’s positive self-identities); building consequential thinking; and strengthening whaanau/families (eg though skill enhancement building positive parent-youth relationships positive reinforcement).” That is the only direction that we should be heading in. 
What bothers me about passing this amendment to the Criminal Investigations (Bodily Samples) Act is that it really takes on board something else the ACT Party member said which was to indicate that the only measure of success—the only outcome that we should look at for Te Hurihanga—is the reoffending rate. What about the participants’ pro-social choices and their ability to choose better peers? What about substance abuse reduction and identity development outcomes for young people? How about mental health safety and physical health outcomes for young people? How about the cultural and life skills outcomes for young people? How about the reduction in gang identity? How about increased thoughts and behaviours relating to personal appearance? How about some of the enhanced moral reasoning and enhanced consequential thinking? 
David Garrett 
: So reoffenders with a nice haircut and a shower—that’s all right? 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL 
: That member might well mock but he actually does not even begin to understand what an ecological approach to treating those damaged children is. Those children are damaged. The reason that we insist upon them being called children is that they are entitled to the care and protection of their parents of their families and of their communities. I will always stand in this Chamber and say that we have a collective responsibility for the children of our nation. This bill is not the answer. 
JACINDA ARDERN (Labour) 
: 
 It is my pleasure to speak to Part 2 of the Children Young Persons and Their Families (Youth Courts Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill. I think that this part demonstrates as my colleague has already touched on what the overwhelming ripple effect of what we are doing today on the age bands within our youth justice system will have beyond just which court a young child or young offender will appear in and beyond just what powers may apply to that particular given court. It has a knock-on effect. 
House resumed. 
The Chairperson reported progress on the Children Young Persons and Their Families (Youth Court Jurisdiction and Orders) Amendment Bill and no progress on the Judicial Matters Bill. 
Report adopted. 
The House adjourned at 9.55 p.m.