Wednesday, 27 August 2003

Wednesday, 27 August 2003

Wednesday, 27 August 2003

Mr Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

Visitors

Mr Bob Speller MP, Commonwealth Parliamentary Association

Mr SPEAKER: I have much pleasure in informing members that Mr Bob Speller MP, Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, accompanied by Dianne Yates, is within the precincts of this Chamber. I am sure that members would wish he be welcomed and accorded a seat on the left of the Chair.

Mr Bob Speller, accompanied by Dianne Yates, entered the Chamber and took a seat on the left of the Chair.

Committees

Business of Select Committees

Reporting Dates

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Leader of the House): I seek leave for the time by which the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee must finally report the Rodney District Council (PENLINK Toll Road) Empowering Bill to be extended to 30 September 2003.

Mr SPEAKER: Is there any objection to that course being followed? There appears to be none.

Membership

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Leader of the House): I seek leave for Nandor Tanczos to be a member of the Law and Order Committee for the purposes of its consideration of the Courts and Criminal Matters Bill but without the right to vote on any question before the committee.

Mr SPEAKER: Is there any objection to that course being followed? There appears to be none.

Questions for Oral Answer

Questions to Ministers

Foreshore and Seabed—Māori Land Court

1. Hon ROGER SOWRY (Deputy Leader—NZ National) to the Prime Minister: Does she stand by the statement in the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet foreshore and seabed pamphlet that says that the Māori Land Court would be able to consider fully the range of claims, and could this give rise to compensation where the Government is unable to give full effect to claims without awarding title?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK (Prime Minister): I stand by the actual statement, which was a little different. The Government proposal is that if the court found it was unable to give full recognition to customary interests that it found had continued to exist since 1840, then the court would be able to alert the Government to this consequence. The Government would then discuss with those affected what steps might be taken to address the issue.

Hon Roger Sowry: In the light of the Hon John Tamihere’s statement regarding customary rights to the seabed and foreshore that: “If exploration of those rights finds that they have been extinguished, then that becomes an issue for compensation.”, does this mean that the Government has now given the green light for compensation claims for extinguishment of customary rights, not just extinguishment of the title; if not, why?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: No. I am not aware there was ever a customary right to a freehold title.

Metiria Turei: Does the Prime Minister consider that raising compensation as an issue is simply a tactic to heighten groundless fears of a taxpayer burden, given that tangata whenua have not expressed any desire to exchange their mana whenua and kaitiakitanga for money?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: Some of the tangata whenua comment has, of course, come from a quite explicitly commercial angle, while other comment has come from a sovereignty angle. A lot of the Opposition comment has just come from a desire to stir the pot.

Hon Peter Dunne: Given the absence of specific definitions of customary title, customary use, and customary access, does she have confidence that the Māori Land Court as it stands at the moment would be able to make determinations on those points that would not cut across the Government’s policy objective of ensuring that everyone has equal and unfettered access to the seabed and foreshore?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: Frankly, not at the moment, and that is why the discussion document talks about a specialist division of the Māori Land Court, and the Māori Land Court needing to be resourced to deal with such issues.

Dail Jones: Is the Prime Minister saying, from her answers, and especially from her first supplementary answer, that Māoris who lose their customary rights will never be able to get compensation?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: It is not an issue of losing customary rights. The proposal is about seeing that the Māori Land Court is not able to issue a fee simple title.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. On the face of it this may be a complex issue, but it is not so complex that the Prime Minister can avoid a very straight question, which is not what the purview of the Māori Land Court, new and reconstructed as it might be in the future, might decide, but whether, if Māori or iwi were to lose their customary rights, the Government in its policy contemplates compensation. It is a totally different issue.

Mr SPEAKER: That is not a point of order. The Prime Minister gave an answer.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. With respect, this is a very important issue. The Prime Minister may have given an answer, but she did not concentrate on the question and she failed to give the New Zealand people and this House any idea as to what the Government’s thinking is, which is the purpose of this question time.

Mr SPEAKER: The Prime Minister addressed the question.

Hon Richard Prebble: Does the Prime Minister not accept that, in a country that has the rule of law, if some citizen loses a property right, then that is a matter that should be compensated by the courts, not at the arbitrary whim of the Government?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: As I said in answer to the first supplementary question, I am not aware there was ever a customary right to hold a freehold title.

Hon Richard Prebble: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Having the Prime Minister repeat her answer to a different question cannot in any way be regarded as an answer, especially when I am trying to get the Prime Minister to clarify. It is a very simple question, and I think the Prime Minister should answer it. Is the Government of New Zealand saying to one class of New Zealanders, because they are Māori, that they cannot get compensated, but everyone else can?

Mr SPEAKER: That is for the Prime Minister to determine in her answer. It might not satisfy the member, but it was an answer.

Hon Roger Sowry: Was the Hon Margaret Wilson correct when she said: “If people then want compensation or want money, then I suppose that will become, as everything is, a matter of negotiation.”; if that is so, what exactly does the Government intend to compensate Māori for?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: The proposal is clear in saying that if the Māori Land Court found that it could not give full recognition to customary interests, then the court would be able to alert the Government to this consequence. The Government would then discuss the matter and what steps might be taken. It has not drawn any firm conclusion as to what they might be. This is a highly abstract and theoretical issue at this point.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Putting aside all questions of freehold or fee simple title—and given that customary rights have to have some value, otherwise the Māori people would not be arguing for them—if they are lost to a Māori, a hapū, or an iwi, does the Government intend now, in its 6 weeks’ negotiation with Māoridom, and apparently nobody else, to compensate them if they are lost?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: This proposal is very specifically about upholding customary rights. I might also point out to the member that the consultation period is for consultation with the whole range of interested New Zealanders, and that includes marine interests, local government, recreational interests, and any others who wish to come forward.

Hon Roger Sowry: How can she portray this issue as being “highly abstract”, to quote her words, when she has two Ministers, Margaret Wilson and John Tamihere, both on the record as saying that if the exploration of those rights finds they have been extinguished, then it becomes an issue for compensation; who is being abstract, the Prime Minister, or her Ministers?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: The reason for believing that it is a largely abstract and theoretical issue is that the Court of Appeal judgments implied strongly that that was so.

Superannuation—Political Parties’ Views

2. DARREN HUGHES (NZ Labour—Otaki) to the Minister of Finance: What mechanisms exist for political parties to express support for the present provisions for superannuation?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Minister of Finance): Parties can sign up to Parts 1 and 2 of the New Zealand Superannuation Act of 2001. Part 1 entrenches current entitlements, and Part 2 protects the scheme’s future viability of our New Zealand Superannuation Fund.

Darren Hughes: Which political parties have signed up to protect present provisions for superannuation?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: The Labour Party, the Progressive party, and United Future have signed up to both parts. The Greens have signed up to Part 1, the current entitlements. The oddest response was from the National Party, which took 9 months to respond and then had no position.

Dr Don Brash: Is it true that the New Zealand Superannuation Fund will, even if it earns the unrealistically high rate of 9 percent per annum, contribute only $1 in $7 towards the cost of New Zealand superannuation during the years in which it is being drawn down, and is this why, while the Government has tried to create the illusion that it can maintain the current parameters of the scheme for ever, the Minister himself said, on 28 October 2000: “We recognise that changes in life expectancy and medical science may lead some future Government to consider raising the age of eligibility above 65.”?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: In answer to the first part of the question, no. Even if that were true, without the fund it would still mean a cut equivalent to more than $50 a week for a married couple, which one has to assume is National Party policy.

Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. In the two answers to those questions Dr Cullen has concluded by offering an opinion about National Party policy. Both of them are assumptions. They are, at least, effete in their nature, and quite outside the Standing Orders. He should be asked to withdraw those remarks.

Mr SPEAKER: If I had to make people withdraw every time they made a comment about an opinion or anything, I would be doing it on every question. The member is correct about the second answer, and the Minister should not have made that comment.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Can the Minister of Finance confirm that New Zealand First would not sign up to either Part 1 or Part 2 because the entitlements were too small, we do not condone an investment structure that sends $3.2 billion off shore and denudes our economy of much-needed infrastructural investment, and that there was not serious potential, as there should have been in the Act, to convert balances into individual retirement accounts; a very enlightened position?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: No, I cannot. In a very polite response from the member, he indicated there were aspects of Parts 1 and 2 that New Zealand First did not agree with, and therefore did not wish to be added to schedule 4. I thank him for clarification on those matters.

Gordon Copeland: Is the Minister able to advise the House in accordance with the responses received to his invitation to parties considering whether they would sign up to Part 1 and Part 2, in relation to Part 2 dealing with the formation of the Superannuation Fund to pre-fund future superannuation obligations, have any parties, in particular National, New Zealand First, ACT, or the Greens, given any indication of whether they will continue with the fund, or wind it up, or, if they are going to wind it up, what alternative they would suggest?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: Certainly the Greens have indicated that they would wind up the fund and, I think, pay off debt, or possibly build more roads if we are really lucky in that regard.

Hon Richard Prebble: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. My point is actually the opposite of Mr Brownlee’s. I do protest—there has been no comment made about the ACT party. We did not agree with any of it; we did not agree with the fund, did not agree whether it is sustainable, and we are the only party that can do arithmetic.

Mr SPEAKER: That is, as usual, not a point of order.

Peter Brown: Noting those answers, will the Minister advise the House whether he is receptive at all to the Superannuation Fund, or part of it, being invested in our infrastructure, namely roading, instead of our having to borrow off shore or impose road tolls or suchlike on the public; will he give us his view, and if his view is positive will he recommend it to the guardians?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: If the member were to use the fund to invest in roads and not to have tolls, it is hard to see what the purpose of the fund would be, because there would be no future income stream.

David Benson-Pope: What do the responses detailed earlier mean for the security of superannuation provision into the future?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: I think it is now much clearer that the provision of an adequate income into retirement depends upon maintaining a Labour-led, centre-left Government. Some 2 years ago Mr English did say that he would sign up to Part 1 of the legislation, but now he seems to have done a U-turn on that matter.

Dr Don Brash: I seek leave of the House to table a press statement by the Minister of Finance dated 28 October 2000 in which he says that he recognises that there may need to be a change in the age of eligibility.

Document, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.

Genetically Modified Sweetcorn—Prime Minister

3. Hon Dr NICK SMITH (NZ National—Nelson) to the Prime Minister: Did she phone her brother-in-law, Allan Hardacre, a scientist at Crop and Food Research, on or about 12 November 2000 to discuss the problem of GM-contaminated corn; and did she request that the then Minister for Biosecurity, Hon Marian Hobbs, also phone him for advice at that time?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK (Prime Minister): No and no.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Who is telling the truth, given that Mr Allan Hardacre, in a written submission to the committee, said that the Prime Minister did phone him, and, furthermore, that the Minister for Biosecurity also made her first phone call at the Prime Minister’s request?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: I phoned Mr Hardacre some time over the weekend of 25 or 26 November. In further discussion with Marian Hobbs, I suggested that she might find it useful to talk to him. Apparently, she did.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: How does she reconcile her statement during the election campaign, “on the chair of the board I did not get involved”, with the fact that she twice phoned her brother-in-law, a scientist at Crop and Food Research with key contracts with the industry; that she requested that Marian Hobbs ring him to discuss the issue, and that she also requested that Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet adviser Ruth Wilkie seek advice from him, and does she now accept that she was donkey-deep in the Government’s management of this issue?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: Absolutely not. I recollect one conversation, as is in my written evidence. I did not request Mrs Hobbs or Ms Wilkie to ring the gentleman.

Hon Richard Prebble: How can the Prime Minister reconcile the answer she has just given to the House, and her statements during the election campaign that she knew nothing about any cover-up, with a memo to her dated 8 December from Ruth Wilkie, who works in her department, stating: “We cannot say that we have reliably discovered contamination in the corn currently planted, but equally we cannot say that we have completely discounted it. … The blanket ban on new organisms contained in the HSNO Act runs counter to reality. The proposed level of tolerance of .5 percent contamination being found and 99 percent confidence is very low, and probably in the long term is not sustainable.”, and does that not show that her statements during the election campaign were just not true?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: Absolutely not. There was no cover-up. As Dr Prebble said in his evidence, the only advice the Prime Minister ever offered him was that if any contamination were found, the corn should be uprooted.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Noting that the Prime Minister has said that there was no cover-up, and on 11 July 2002 said on National Radio: “I believe in total disclosure. I have nothing to hide. All Government advice will be made public.”, why was the key memo from Ruth Wilkie that Mr Prebble has just quoted kept secret?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: It was certainly not kept secret on my instruction. It most certainly was not. If the member wants to check that with Dr Prebble, he should ask him to return to the committee. That was not a decision taken by me, or advised by me.

Hon Richard Prebble: How does the Prime Minister reconcile that answer with the concept of ministerial responsibility, and with a memo I have in my hand dated 17 July—10 days before the election—from Ruth Wilkie to Dr Mark Prebble stating: “I wish to register formally my concern I expressed on Saturday the 13th of July about the decision to withhold from public release DPMC notes to the Prime Minister on the management of potentially contaminated corn seed in December 2000. I consider that at least one of the notes filled an important gap in the paper trail.”, and is the Prime Minister saying that she takes no ministerial responsibility for what happens in her own department?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: Obviously, there was a debate between Dr Prebble and Ms Wilkie. I happen to think that Ms Wilkie was right, but my advice was not sought at the time.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Why should New Zealanders believe any public statement she makes of the sort: “All documents will be released.”, when the head of her own department deliberately and knowingly kept key documents secret at the most sensitive time of the electoral cycle?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: That was a decision he made. He and Ms Wilkie disagreed on the matter. As I have just said, I happen to think that Ms Wilkie was right.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Does the Prime Minister seriously expect the people of New Zealand to believe that the head of her own department would knowingly disobey her specific instructions on the most sensitive document and the most sensitive issue in the 2002 election without her having any knowledge; if so, are we also expected to believe in the tooth fairy?

Mr SPEAKER: The right honourable Prime Minister can answer the first question.

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: As I have said, that was a decision that Dr Prebble took on his own.

Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I ask you to consider the Hansard from the question that has just passed in the light of the evidential material that we are expected to take to the Clerk’s Office each day to get a question in. It seems to me that there is some concern around the fact that the question referred to “on or about 12 November 2000”. That had to be in there because the open question: “Did you ever phone your brother-in-law?” could not be asked. That would be a ridiculous question, and Parliament should not waste its time on whether Ministers phone members of their family. To quantify it in the context of the issue, and to make it a reasonable question, a date had to be put in there. From the papers that were released, it was not unreasonable for Dr Smith to put in “on or about 12 November”. I want to know whether you consider it reasonable for the Prime Minister to say no, but subsequently to answer another question by referring to the 26th of that month.

Mr SPEAKER: All I can say is that I have here the question as submitted. It has been changed only a little bit to put in the words “Ltd”, “then”, and “Minister for Biosecurity”. Apart from that, it is exactly as it was submitted. Questions have to be authenticated. Answers are a matter for Ministers, and the House decides how it reacts.

Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. With respect, that misses the point. Of course the question went in like that. I said that. I also said that it was reasonable for Dr Smith to do that. What I think is unreasonable is for the Prime Minister to say no to that, using up one of our questions, then come back a few moments later and say that it was a short period later. That is unacceptable. Members cannot lodge a question that does not make sense. It would have been unintelligible without an “on or about” date in it, and it would not have got through.

Mr SPEAKER: No, that is a matter for debate.

Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.

Mr SPEAKER: I have had enough of this matter now.

Gerry Brownlee: I have asked you to consider something. I did not ask for an instant ruling. I have asked you to consider the Hansard when it is printed. It is an important issue. We should not have to use a supplementary question to dig out the essential answer asked for in the primary question.

Mr SPEAKER: The member has asked me to consider it, and I will. I call Jeanette Fitzsimons for a supplementary question. The Greens have not had a question yet.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. They may not have had a question yet, but nor have we on this issue. They can take their turn like everybody else.

Mr SPEAKER: I beg your pardon, I have made a mistake. I am sorry, the member is absolutely correct.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Did the Prime Minister advise Dr Prebble not to release this information; if not, is he still employed with her department, and why?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: No, I did not give him that advice. He is still employed as head of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, and he is a very commendable public servant with much merit. [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: There is someone about to leave. I have called only Jeanette Fitzsimons.

Jeanette Fitzsimons: In the light of her statement in July last year: “I want anyone involved to speak totally openly.”, and in the light of Genescan’s refusal to appear and give the select committee its test results on the corn on the grounds of commercial confidentiality, will the Government require Genescan, which it now owns as a Crown entity, to appear and give the committee the information it is seeking?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: It is my understanding that the Government cannot require that company to appear. I understand—and this is only from what we are hearing in the public arena, and from what the committee is hearing—that it is citing commercial reasons. I do not believe that the Government has grounds for trying to go across that.

Hon Richard Prebble: Is the House to understand that the position is that 10 days before the election, when the Prime Minister was telling the nation that every document with regard to “corngate” had been released, the head of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet had chosen to keep a document secret that revealed that on 8 December she had learnt a great deal about the “corngate” matter that she had denied any knowledge of on TV3, and that her position is now that she knew nothing about that, and that Dr Prebble is a model civil servant—who presumably carries out the Prime Minister’s will—who should be recalled to the Local Government and Environment Committee, but that she will not front up to that select committee herself, even though we have all seen the British Prime Minister being willing to appear before a select committee; why not?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: There must have been at least seven questions in that. Dr Prebble is a model civil servant. He took a decision on his own account. Ms Wilkie disagreed with him, and I happen to think she was right.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: I seek the leave of the House to, firstly, table the memo from Ruth Wilkie to the Prime Minister in respect of contaminated corn that was kept secret during the election campaign.

Document, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: I seek the leave of the House to table a memo from Ruth Wilkie expressing serious concern that the memo was not released, against the Prime Minister’s wishes.

Document, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: I seek the leave of the House to table the Radio New Zealand transcripts where the Prime Minister said six times that there would be total openness, and that all documents would be released.

Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought to table those documents. Is there any objection? There is.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: I seek the leave of the House to table the submission from Mr Allan Hardacre, saying that he did make two phone calls to the Prime Minister.

Mr SPEAKER: I understand that is in front of a select committee. It can still be tabled.

Document, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.

Workplace Learning—Government Initiatives

4. Dr ASHRAF CHOUDHARY (NZ Labour) to the Associate Minister of Education (Tertiary Education): What progress has the Government made in expanding programmes that support learning in the workplace?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY (Associate Minister of Education (Tertiary Education)): Today I have announced that 63 new schools will join the Gateway programme next year, enabling their senior students to participate in structured workplace learning. That doubles the number of Gateway schools to 60 percent of all decile 1 to decile 5 secondary schools, meaning that we are well on the way to having all decile 1 to decile 5 schools involved. The new schools stretch from Taipa Area School in the far north to Menzies College in the deep south, and they include Rangitikei College in the member’s own area.

Dr Ashraf Choudhary: How are the programmes supporting learning in the workplace progressing?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: I can also report strong growth in Modern Apprenticeships and industry training. The latest industry training statistics show a 10 percent increase in trainees from 30 June 2002 to 30 June 2003. That is in line with our aim to have 150,000 industry trainees in 2005 and a quarter of a million by 2007. We also now have 5,739 modern apprentices as at 30 June, which is a 76 percent increase from 3,254 as at 30 June last year. We are ahead of schedule to reach 6,000 Modern Apprenticeships by the end of the year, and we are well on track to meet our targets.

Opposition Members: Oh, come on!

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: The Opposition does not like good news.

Mr SPEAKER: That answer was too long.

Simon Power: Does the Minister—who was described by Metro magazine as a “bullying social engineer”—have any concerns that tertiary education providers, which are already sporting an increasingly “faint waistline” after 3 years of frozen fees, may be further constrained from providing programmes of blameless excellence for those engaged in workplace learning by the announcement last week that they will be able to increase their fees by only 5 percent next year; if not, why not?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: The answer to that long question is no.

Ministers—Responsiveness

5. Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) to the Prime Minister: Does she have confidence in the ability of all her Ministers to be responsive to the needs of all New Zealanders?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK (Prime Minister): Yes, but that does not mean that Ministers are expected to agree with everybody all the time.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Given that answer, does she hold herself in the same regard as she holds her Ministers; will she admit being the first culprit responsible for the hundreds and hundreds of victims who were infected by hepatitis C and HIV from getting unclean, unscreened bad blood when she was the Minister of Health between 1988 and 1990, or is she just washing her hands of that, as well?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: Certainly not. The member will be aware that the police have just concluded a lengthy investigation following complaints being raised against two former Ministers of Health, and found that there was no case to answer.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Does the Prime Minister think that that is an adequate standard of public responsiveness and duty of care, which she did owe as Minister of Health from 1988 to 1990, when hundreds of people had either truncated or miserable lives, or lost their lives, and given, for example, that in Germany, in identical circumstances, two people who were responsible went to prison, and that the Minister in France, in identical circumstances, went before the higher court; is that her idea of public responsiveness?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: There are a number of unsubstantiated allegations in that question. The only thing I have ever been guilty of with regard to duty of care is caring rather too much, being too conscientious, and working too hard.

Agriculture—Agricultural Emissions Levy

6. Dr MURIEL NEWMAN (ACT NZ) to the Convenor, Ministerial Group on Climate Change: Is the Government reconsidering its decision to impose an $8.4 million greenhouse gas levy on dairy, sheep, beef, and deer farmers in the light of widespread protests across the country; if not, why not?

Hon PETE HODGSON (Convenor, Ministerial Group on Climate Change): Government climate change policy exempts farmers from emissions charges on agricultural greenhouse gases that would cost them almost $1 billion per year if they were charged in the same way as other industries. This exemption is on the condition that farmers fund more research into reducing their industry’s emissions, and the Government is not reconsidering that decision.

Dr Muriel Newman: Can the Minister categorically deny that he, or other Ministers, have instructed or indicated to officials that the Government wants a solution to the “flatulence tax” debacle, or, indeed, to reconsider it—yes or no?

Hon PETE HODGSON: We have been working with the industry to avoid a levy for around 2 years. So far, we have been unsuccessful. The whole idea of the Government’s policy was that farmers would make the investment, and that the levy that is now forthcoming would be there as a backstop.

Mark Peck: Under what circumstances would the Government reconsider the need for the agricultural emissions research levy?

Hon PETE HODGSON: The Government’s first preference has always been for voluntary industry funding for research into agricultural greenhouse gas emissions. If the agricultural sector makes its own arrangements to provide the funding needed for a serious research programme, the levy will be unnecessary.

Hon David Carter: Why did the Minister say, on 16 November 2001: “I can offer you a personal viewpoint, which is that to tax cattle and sheep in that way is a remarkably stupid thing to do.”; what level of protest from New Zealand farmers and what level of absolute ridicule from around the world will it take for the Government to back down on the “flatulence tax”?

Hon PETE HODGSON: I can remind the member that that is precisely what I and many other Ministers did, which is why the Government exempted this sector—unlike any other—from a methane tax, in return for which we had anticipated a research programme to be funded by farmers, with a levy mechanism to collect the money, if necessary.

Larry Baldock: Does the Government need to pass legislation to enable it to collect the greenhouse gas levy; if so, given United Future’s clear opposition to the imposition of the levy, does he have any idea which party in this House will give support for that legislation?

Hon PETE HODGSON: The Government will need to pass legislation if it is to collect a compulsory levy, and will search for like-minded parties as it approaches that decision.

Jeanette Fitzsimons: Will the Minister at least be reasonable and give farmers the choice of whether to start paying the research levy now or, instead, to pay a full methane tax from 2007, as all the other emitters are being asked to do?

Hon PETE HODGSON: Those who request choice do not always request all types of choice, and that is one the farmers would reject straight away.

Hon David Carter: Does the Minister stand by his statement, made to a public meeting of over 300 farmers in the Hawke’s Bay on 14 August this year when explaining the science of global warming, that “I am making this up as I go along.”?

Hon PETE HODGSON: Those who choose to take 9 seconds from a 90-minute meeting and to fail to give that any context as to whether I said—[Interruption] I do think the position of the ACT party is, however, interesting, acknowledging that it has got the bus, the petition, and the commitment from Mr Gerrard Eckhoff. That same gentleman told a group of farmers that ACT would withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol and give the sink credits back to the farmers. Members should try to work that one out.

Dr Muriel Newman: In the light of the Minister’s reply, is it not clear that he has now changed his position from one of having made an effectively non-negotiable decision to one where he is trying to find a compromise, in the face of massive rural protest—in other words, a complete U-turn—and why will the Minister not recover some of his credibility by coming clean, admitting that to the House right now, and apologising to rural New Zealand for the deep offence this Government has caused?

Hon PETE HODGSON: I can do no better than to quote from my own press statement at the time that the Government announced its policy. Let me do so. There are only two sentences: “The Government will exempt the agricultural sector from any emissions charge or trading regime in the first commitment period, provided this sector invests in research to identify options for reducing agricultural emissions. Secondly, the Government retains the option of imposing a research levy if the research effort falls below what is required.” It has.

Hon Richard Prebble: Given the Minister’s comments about the danger of taking things out of context, I seek leave for him to read the whole press statement.

Mr SPEAKER: I am sorry, but the member cannot ask for leave on behalf of another member. I think he knows that, but it was a very good try.

Care of Children Bill—Access

7. MURRAY SMITH (United Future) to the Associate Minister of Justice: Does she agree that it is usually in the best interests and welfare of a child to have regular ongoing contact with both of its parents; if so, would she support an amendment to the Care of Children Bill to that effect?

Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Associate Minister of Justice): Yes I do, particularly where parents cooperate with each other, putting the best interests and welfare of the child ahead of their own interests. The Care of Children Bill is currently before the Justice and Electoral Committee, and I am looking forward to receiving the report of the committee after it has heard the submissions. I certainly would not rule out making an appropriate amendment to clause 4 of the bill.

Murray Smith: In the light of the Minister’s positive response to this proposal by United Future, is she also prepared to reconsider the provisions of clause 17(2) of the Care of Children Bill to remove reference to ‘“the father of a child”’ as constituting a reference to the same-sex de facto partner of a mother, as requested by United Future?

Hon LIANNE DALZIEL: Yes. As I said when I introduced the bill, I am certainly happy to look at completely rewriting that. Under the circumstances, I am also happy to consider completely removing it.

Richard Worth: Is it an appropriate outcome for parents who are fit and proper parents to be denied custody of their child in favour of a third party, yet, under the present legislation, to still be required to pay child support; if so, why, in the context of the international convention on the rights of the child?

Hon LIANNE DALZIEL: There are a number of reasons that ongoing contact is actually not in the best interests of the child. There could be examples of incest, abuse, or failure to provide proper care for children. There could be mental health issues. I am sure the member is not referring to a particular individual case, because that would be entirely inappropriate in the House.

Hon Brian Donnelly: Given that the Care of Children Bill, even if rewritten, will ensure that a lesbian partner will be considered a parent—even though the biological father will not necessarily be so—will the effect of the proposed United Future amendment referred to in the substantive question ensure that regular, ongoing contact will be available for children with both their lesbian parents?

Hon LIANNE DALZIEL: No, I think that the member completely misunderstands the nature of the question that was put. The question related to the principles that would govern decisions that, under the legislation, have to be in the best interests and welfare of the child. I think the member is confusing about three different aspects of the legislation.

Metiria Turei: Is the Minister aware of the letter from Green Party MP Sue Kedgley, dated 3 May 2000, to the Hon Minister Margaret Wilson, which requests that a principle of frequent and continuing contact with both parents be included in the review of the Guardianship Act; and can she confirm that this issue has been raised by the Green Party with her office in subsequent meetings?

Hon LIANNE DALZIEL: Yes, I can confirm both those matters. But I think it is very important that, as we consider this legislation when it comes back to the House, it must be considered from the perspective of the best interests and welfare of children—not parental rights, but children’s rights.

Tim Barnett: How does the Care of Children Bill encourage an ongoing role for both parents?

Hon LIANNE DALZIEL: The bill contains provisions that emphasise the continuing guardianship role of both parents in a child’s life, regardless of whom the child lives with. It requires the Family Court to consider contact arrangements where a parent will not have day-to-day care of a child. It provides funding for formal, supervised contact sessions where a parent has been violent, and provides realistic enforcement measures to make the parenting orders work.

Murray Smith: Does the Minister agree that in the best interests and welfare of the child, the Care of Children Bill should address the issue of whether the granting of guardianship to a non-parent spouse or partner should be subject to that spouse’s or partner’s relationship with a custodial parent having met a minimum stability period, such as that provided for in the Property (Relationships) Act?

Hon LIANNE DALZIEL: That would mean that there would be two separate considerations given to a child who was born to a married couple that, for example, had married within a week of meeting each other, and a different standard applied to those who had been the subject of separation. Therefore, I think it is very important that people realise there are consequences beyond those that have an appearance of relating only to that particular matter. It is very important that on the question of guardianship rights and responsibilities, the best interests and welfare of the child come first.

Dr Muriel Newman: Does the Minister agree that present family law is tilted so heavily against fathers that literally tens of thousands of children are now totally alienated from their fathers; if so, will she support my amendment to the Care of Children Bill to introduce shared parenting?

Hon LIANNE DALZIEL: No, and no.

Question No. 8 to Minister

Hon MURRAY McCULLY (NZ National—East Coast Bays): In view of the absence of the Minister of Māori Affairs, to whom the question is addressed, I seek the leave of the House to defer this question until the next sitting day.

Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought to defer. Is there any objection? There is. Please ask the question.

Hon MURRAY McCULLY (NZ National—East Coast Bays): I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I want to seek your guidance on this matter. I asked a very similar question to the same Minister yesterday. As a courtesy to the Minister, I sought leave to defer it. That leave was denied. I have been denied that leave again today. I do understand the Standing Orders on this question, but want your guidance. I know that the Minister has no public engagements today. I want to say to you that there is a certain point where Opposition members have to conclude that a deliberate strategy is being engaged in to shield an incompetent Minister from the scrutiny of the House at question time. When that happens, I suggest to you that there must be some recourse for members on this side. To have a strategy of that sort is to show contempt for the Parliament and contempt for question time.

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Leader of the House): The member, of course, has an obvious remedy in not asking the question today, but can I make two further points. Firstly, the Minister is not here. He is absent, and he is not well. Secondly, two Ministers have responsibility for the Māori Television Service, and I am the other Minister.

Mr SPEAKER: Please ask the question.

RODNEY HIDE (ACT NZ): I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.

Mr SPEAKER: No, I have ruled on the point of order. [Interruption] Well, the member can speak very briefly.

RODNEY HIDE: We have to put in our questions by mid-morning. It is one of the difficulties that we constantly have. We in the ACT party have one question, and quite often—I am sure it is the same for the other political parties—we have a question that is specific to a particular Minister who has been dealing with the issue. We get another Minister answering, who says that he or she does not know. I was wondering whether it would be a helpful innovation to the Parliament if it could be signalled who will be in the House at 2 o’clock—whether it will be the Minister or the Prime Minister—particularly given that we have such absences.

Mr SPEAKER: The member can make that submission to the Standing Orders Committee. I am bound by the current Standing Orders. I just say, in ruling on the point, that there is no longer any leave of absence provisions in our Standing Orders. That is something that the member might want to make a submission on. I have no role in ensuring attendance; I have a role in ensuring that the question will be answered by a Minister of the Crown.

Hon ROGER SOWRY (Deputy Leader—NZ National): I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I want to raise two issues. Firstly, in putting this question down, the Opposition was aware that the Minister was interviewed on radio this morning, so the Opposition certainly had no inclination that the Minister would not be able—[Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: If I hear anybody making an interjection that member will leave the Chamber, on the spot.

Hon ROGER SOWRY: The Opposition was aware that the Minister was interviewed this morning on the radio. We heard that interview, so there was no inclination that he would not be here today. The second point I want to raise is the issue that Dr Cullen raises. He said in his comments that the member who put the question down simply had the option of not asking the question today, because the Minister is not here today. That is an option, and that is why leave was sought to delay the question until the Minister is here. It is no good the Deputy Prime Minister being part of denying the ability of the Opposition to ask a question of a particular Minister and then getting up by way of a point of order—[Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: The Hon Mr Swain will leave the Chamber. He interjected. Please carry on.

Hon Paul Swain withdrew from the Chamber.

Hon ROGER SOWRY: —and then saying that the way to deal with this is not to ask the question today. The Opposition and I seek leave again—following Dr Cullen’s invitation that we should ask the question when the Minister is here—not to ask the question today, but to ask it when the Minister next returns to the Chamber. We are happy to wait, if it does not get put down tomorrow.

Mr SPEAKER: I am prepared to put the leave question again. Leave is sought. Is there any objection? There is. Would the member please ask the question. No? I then call question No. 9, Sue Kedgley.

GERRY BROWNLEE (NZ National—Ilam): I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I appreciate that you have now moved on to question No. 9. That was the deliberate intent of the Opposition. I want to make the point that inasmuch as order in the House is your preserve, it is a point of order to point out the deep disappointment the Opposition has that the Government continues to shield incompetent Ministers and not put them through the proper scrutiny that this process is supposed to encourage.

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Leader of the House): I am not prepared to accept that statement from the member. That is an outrageous statement.

Gerry Brownlee: It’s true.

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: No, it is not true at all. Mr Horomia is not well. The fact that he can carry out a radio interview does not mean he can come to this building to participate in normal work. Some day that member will be in that position as well, and I hope some good grace is shown to him.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First): Mr Cullen can rise to his feet with a sense of outrage and anger, but he owed the Opposition some openness and candidness when he knew that the Minister would not be available for that reason, and he should have had the decency to advise the Opposition so it could rephrase the question to someone else.

Mr SPEAKER: The Minister did do that, when he was asked—

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: No, he didn’t.

Mr SPEAKER: Yes, he did. I heard him say it on a point of order.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Now?

Mr SPEAKER: No, not just then, but about 5 minutes ago. I invite the member to look at the transcript.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: He should have had the decency to advise the Opposition then, and not be outraged now.

Mr SPEAKER: I cannot be asked to rule on why a member, a Minister, or a back-bencher is not present in the Chamber. That is not part of my role. When it is requested that a question be answered by a Minister, my role is to ensure that it is answered by a Minister.

Hon ROGER SOWRY (Deputy Leader—NZ National): I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I want to make the point that in your ruling you said the Deputy Prime Minister made the offer that the question could be rephrased. In fact, he made two offers. He offered that the question not be asked, which is what has happened, and that it be put down for when the Minister is here. We twice sought leave for that to occur, and both times the Deputy Prime Minister objected. So it is a bit disingenuous of him to stand up in the House and say that we could put it down for when the Minister is here. The Government will not say when he will be here. It is an issue that the Government knows the Minister is in some difficulty on. The Government will not say when he will be here, and it will not let the question be held over until he can answer it.

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Leader of the House): I did not say that. I said the member did not need to ask the question, which he did not. He is now free to submit the question as one of tomorrow’s questions. I am afraid I cannot give the member an indication as to when the Minister will be here. He will be here—

Hon Roger Sowry: Aw!

Mr SPEAKER: The member interjected during a point of order. By rights he should be asked to leave the Chamber. On this occasion, provided he makes no further comment, I will allow the Deputy Prime Minister to continue.

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: The Minister is not well. He will return as soon as he can. That may well be tomorrow, but I cannot give that guarantee. I point out again that on this particular issue it is not a matter of any old Minister being prepared to answer the question. I am the other Minister with statutory responsibility for the Māori Television Service, and I am perfectly competent to answer this question.

GERRY BROWNLEE (NZ National—Ilam): Strong condemnation was directed towards me by the Deputy Prime Minister at the statement I made at the conclusion of question No. 8, as we moved towards question No. 9. I want to make the point that members of this House are extremely considerate of other members who suffer illness or other personal circumstances that keep them from this House. If the Minister of Māori Affairs is not able to be here to answer a question because he is ill, that surely raises the question of who the Acting Minister is at the present time. Has the warrant been transferred, and, if it has, why have we not been told? Other than that, it is perfectly reasonable for us to assume that if we put a question down to a Minister with a ministerial responsibility, that Minister will be here to answer it.

Mr SPEAKER: The Minister indicated that he was the other Minister responsible for it, and he was prepared to do so. I twice heard Dr Cullen say that.

RODNEY HIDE (ACT NZ): I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I think there is a way through this. Accepting Dr Cullen’s point that the Minister is unwell, and that he is not sure when he will be fit enough to return, it may save Opposition parties their questions—given that there are some serious questions for the Minister—if the Labour Party whip could undertake, say by 9.30, to alert the other parties’ whips that the Minister of Māori Affairs will be well and in the House.

Mr SPEAKER: That has nothing to do with me; it has to do with members.

GERRY BROWNLEE (NZ National—Ilam): I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. You have just told us that there were two Ministers who could answer the question.

Mr SPEAKER: No, I was told by the Minister—

GERRY BROWNLEE: Yes, you were told that, and you confirmed it by instructing the House, as such. If that is the case, why was the question not transferred to the other Minister this morning, so that we could have known at 11 o’clock who was going to be answering it?

Mr SPEAKER: The reason is that any Minister can answer any question on anyone else’s behalf.

Hon RICHARD PREBBLE (Leader—ACT NZ): I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I appreciate that this is not a matter within your capacity, but I do think that the point that has been raised is a reasonable one. I wish the Minister of Māori Affairs a rapid recovery, but when MPs listen to the Minister speaking on the radio and then be condemned because he is ill, that causes some trouble—and you can see that the question has not been asked. I think it is reasonable for the Leader of the House to say that he will ensure an email is put around before 10 o’clock, when questions have to be in, to let members know whether the Minister of Māori Affairs, regardless of whether we have heard him on radio, will be able to appear in the House.

Mr SPEAKER: I thank the member for the way in which he phrased that point of order. Of course it is up to the Government to do that, if it wishes.

Infant Formulae—Genetic Modification

9. SUE KEDGLEY (Green) to the Minister for Food Safety: Can she tell New Zealand parents the names of the four unidentified infant formulae that tested positive for genetically modified soy in the recent New Zealand Food Safety Authority report on food produced using gene technology; if not, why not?

Hon ANNETTE KING (Minister for Food Safety): I do not have the names of those products. The review was one of the routine audits carried out by the New Zealand Food Safety Authority, and as the genetic modification (GM) found was approved by Food Standards Australia New Zealand, and was also well below the 1 percent threshold that is provided in the standard relating to GM labelling for unintentional presence, the products did not break the law.

Sue Kedgley: Surely parents feeding their babies soy infant formula have a right to know whether their infant formula contains unlabelled genetically engineered (GE) soy, especially as GE soy has never been tested on humans, or tested for its long-term health effects?

Hon ANNETTE KING: The food standard that is in place is to do with labelling. It is not to do with safety. There are no GM products in New Zealand that have not been approved by Food Standards Australia New Zealand.

Steve Chadwick: What action does the New Zealand Food Safety Authority take regarding compliance failure?

Hon ANNETTE KING: The action it takes is to identify what products do not comply. In the recent review it found that only two products of the 117 tested did not comply. Both of them were actually making a GE-free claim. One of these was a tofu vegetarian sausage, sold in an organic shop, and the other was a smoked sausage, which was also claimed to be GE free. Both cases have been referred to the Commerce Commission for consideration under the Fair Trading Act.

Sue Kedgley: Does she agree that the findings of the food safety audit that more than half the importers and manufacturers who were surveyed did not have current information on the GE status of their food, and that 68 percent of importers did not even have verification systems in place to confirm the GE status of food, suggest that the GE food labelling system is a shambles, and what is she doing to fix it?

Hon ANNETTE KING: I have told that member, but she apparently has not heard, that part of the food-labelling regime put in place by Food Standards Australia New Zealand in 2000 was to review it after 3 years. The review was announced in August. I know that the member got a copy of the press release and, probably, the terms of reference. That labelling regime is now being reviewed. It was the first of its type in the world. We are now looking to see whether we need to change it, to bring it into line with any other labelling regimes in other parts of the world.

Hon Trevor Mallard: Is the Minister planning to further review the regulations relating to food safety and other ingested substances in order to ascertain whether the ingestion of alcohol or food of a particular sort at a dinner with the Hon Richard Prebble last night was responsible for the headaches that Bill English has today?

Mr SPEAKER: No. The member will stand, withdraw, and apologise.

Hon Trevor Mallard: I withdraw and apologise.

Mr SPEAKER: And now he will leave the Chamber.

Hon Trevor Mallard withdrew from the Chamber.

Sue Kedgley: If more than half the importers and manufacturers in New Zealand do not have current information on the GE status of their foods, or do not have verification systems in place, how can we be sure that our foods are correctly labelled with regard to GE; and why on earth is the food safety agency budget for monitoring GM food being slashed by more than two-thirds in this financial year, and how will the Minister ensure compliance when the budget is $50,000?

Hon ANNETTE KING: We have, for the first time, put in place surveillance and monitoring of the GM labelling regime. That is why we have just carried out an audit. That is how we can tell whether foods do comply. They have a spot check. There are some mandatory checks. That was never done in New Zealand, although we have had food with GM product in it for around 10 years.

Immigration—Tax Revenue

10. Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) to the Minister of Immigration: Has she received any reports from the Minister of Revenue as to the effects of immigration on tax revenue?

Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Minister of Immigration): No.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Is this Minister telling me that despite the fact that the Inland Revenue Department is aware of tax fraud of up to $30 million a year in the horticultural industry from immigrant labour and foreign, fly-by-night employee organisers, she has never received any report whatsoever from the Minister of Revenue on this very serious fraud of the New Zealand taxpayer?

Hon LIANNE DALZIEL: I am not aware of the Inland Revenue Department being aware of any of that. I would like to see some evidence, for once, from that member.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Why is the Minister always the last person to know? What the Inland Revenue Department advised the New Zealand Fruitgrowers Federation at a meeting that was reported on at the February meeting of the fruitgrowers’ Te Puke association—[Interruption] Is this a laughing matter? The biggest laugh in this House is this incompetent Minister.

Mr SPEAKER: I am warning members. I want the member to start his question again, and I ask the senior Government whip to make sure that his Ministers keep quiet.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Why is the Minister always the last one to know about a very serious issue within her portfolio, when Andrew Fenton, the chairman of the board of the Satara Cooperative Group, and the Bay of Plenty fruitgrowers’ representative on the New Zealand Fruitgrowers Federation, reported that, at the New Zealand Fruitgrowers Federation meeting before February, the Inland Revenue Department made a presentation in which it pointed out the massive losses taking place, in respect of collections, because of fraud of the Inland Revenue Department occasioned by immigration, immigrants, and organisers of foreign workers?

Hon LIANNE DALZIEL: I am aware of the shortcomings of people working illegally in this country, and I do know a lot about it. That is why this Government acted to change the law to bring in a strict liability offence for employers in that regard.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Mr Speaker—

Mr SPEAKER: No, the member’s supplementary questions have expired.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: As $30 million per annum is involved, and this is a terribly serious matter, I seek leave to ask this Minister a further question.

Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought. Is there any objection? There is.

Pacific Island Forum—Auckland Meeting

11. LUAMANUVAO WINNIE LABAN (NZ Labour—Mana) to the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade: What were the major issues under discussion at the Pacific Islands Forum meeting in Auckland last week, and what outcomes are expected from those discussions?

Hon PHIL GOFF (Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade): Pacific leaders focused their discussions on regional security, environmental concerns, trade, travel, health, and good governance. They also elected a new forum secretary-general and agreed to a review of the secretariat. Among the key initiatives to emerge was a scoping study on aviation and shipping, and a regional policing initiative to strengthen police training, competency, standards, and cooperation across the region.

Luamanuvao Winnie Laban: How will the police training initiative impact on promoting stability in the region, and what steps were taken to deal with problems of insecurity in the region?

Hon PHIL GOFF: The police training initiative aims to improve police skills and competency, raise standards and ethics, and facilitate cooperation between police forces across the region. It will involve the training of up to 900 police officers a year, and will be funded by Australia and New Zealand. Other security initiatives included the full endorsement of the regional assistance mission in the Solomons, and further encouragement to countries to enact and implement counter-terrorism and law enforcement legislation.

Keith Locke: What initiatives will the Minister be encouraging the forum secretariat to take on West Papua in the light of the concern expressed in the final communiqué of the forum that the special autonomy for West Papua is not being fully implemented, and there is continuing human rights abuse and continuing violence, unfortunately illustrated in this morning’s Dominion Post, which reported the killing of three West Papuans?

Hon PHIL GOFF: The forum did a number of things on West Papua. It reiterated the support for special autonomy as the most realistic way of getting a peaceful resolution of the situation there. The forum urged Indonesia to promulgate the necessary regulations for that to happen, and to take other steps. Members expressed concern about the continuing violence and abuse of human rights, and called Indonesia to bring to justice the perpetrators of those human rights abuses. That message was translated directly by me in the post-forum dialogue to Hassan Wirajuda, the Indonesian foreign Minister, who attended the post-forum dialogue talks.

Hon Peter Dunne: In view of reports emanating from the forum that a number of the proposals advanced by the Australians were not well received by forum members, can the Minister indicate whether that lack of good reception was due to the fact that the proposals were being advanced by Australia or due to the proposals themselves; if it was the latter, can he indicate what steps New Zealand might be prepared to take in picking up that cause?

Hon PHIL GOFF: I think the Prime Minister indicated that New Zealand played a very important role as a bridge between the aspiration of the Australians and the smaller Pacific Island countries. I think in the end the initiatives taken by Australia were welcomed. The police training initiative, the HIV/AIDS initiative, and the aviation and shipping scoping studies are amongst those issues. The currency issue was not raised, in fact, at the forum; it was raised by the Senate committee in Australia, and I could say that that proposal had no currency at the forum at all.

Question No. 12 to Minister

GERRY BROWNLEE (NZ National—Ilam): I seek leave for this question to be held over to the next sitting day when the Minister of Local Government might be available to answer it.

Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought for this question to be held over. Is there any objection? There is objection.

Local Government—Partnership with Central Government

12. GERRY BROWNLEE (NZ National—Ilam) to the Minister of Local Government: Does he still believe “a strong and effective partnership between local and central government is critical” and how does the Hon Dr Michael Cullen’s labelling of Marlborough Mayor Tom Harrison as “racist” help his primary objective as Minister of Local Government to “strengthen that partnership through dialogue”?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Leader of the House), on behalf of the Minister of Local Government: Yes, strong and effective partnerships between local and central government are critical. Such partnerships also allow for robust debate.

Gerry Brownlee: Since it was the Prime Minister who encouraged Tom Harrison and his council to “take some action” in relation to the foreshore and seabed court decision, what has gone wrong with the relationship between the Government and the Marlborough District Council that now sees the Government calling Mr Harrison a racist?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: After recent decisions by the district council to take a different position from Mr Harrison, relationships have improved significantly. But somebody who stopped being a member of New Zealand First, because he disliked the party’s Māori caucus in waiting, clearly has some difficulties.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Dr Cullen might be embarrassed because he is as guilty as sin of accusing someone of being racist, when even the Māori proponents have defended the mayor in question, but he will not malign this party with a tissue of lies.

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: I wish the member had listened. I did not malign his party at all.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Yes, you did.

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: What I said was that the person in question resigned, was turned off by the New Zealand First Party, because he referred to something he called the party’s Māori caucus in waiting. I do not see that as a criticism of New Zealand First at all.

David Parker: How does the Government foster strong and effective partnerships with local government?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: We have a regular—

Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I think you need to see where the wickets are and where that question is aimed at. Specifically, the primary question was about the comments made by a Minister, it affects the portfolio areas of another Minister, and refers very specifically to Dr Cullen referring to Mr Harrison as a racist. To go as wide as asking what programmes the Government has in place to foster partnerships is surely a long way off the intent of the question.

Mr SPEAKER: No, a part of the question did refer to partnerships, and the member is asking about that.

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: I have an extraordinarily long answer, but very briefly, the Government runs regular central/local government forums. Central government involves Local Government New Zealand in the policy development process. There are a range of joint working-groups. In particular, I mention the joint work that is going on with Auckland in terms of transport development in that city.

Gerry Brownlee: Is it fair to say that his Government’s commitment to building strong relationships with local government extends only to those local government politicians who agree with them, and if they do not agree with the Government they are likely to get labels, such as Tom Harrison being labelled a racist?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: No. We even have excellent relationships with Mayor John Banks of Auckland, who is not a well-known Labour Party supporter.

Rodney Hide: Has he any concerns that the term “racist” is in danger of being downgraded by this Government, which hurls the term at anyone who has a policy to do with Māori issues and disagrees with this Government, or, indeed, is critical of this Government; and would he not think it a wise idea to keep the term “racist” for people who truly are racists?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: Certainly, I do not think the term “racist” is as misused by the left as the term “politically correct” is by the right. But somebody who regards Māori indigenous rights as a form of apartheid is certainly bordering upon being a bit strange, in the New Zealand context.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I seek leave to table a news item dated this day where John Mitchell of Ngāti Tama iwi defends Mr Harrison and blames central government—namely, Dr Cullen.

Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is.

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: I seek leave to table a reference in an article in the Marlborough Express yesterday where Mr Harrison was accused of racist remarks by a Māori group.

Document, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.

Gerry Brownlee: Is the acting Minister of Local Government now telling us that if people want to protect what they think is theirs and claim a right to what they believe is theirs, that is an act of apartheid; if so, is he labelling every Māori claimant to seabed and foreshore in this country a person, or persons, or organisations that promote apartheid?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: No. It was Mr Harrison who made that claim.

General Debates

General Debates

JEANETTE FITZSIMONS (Co-Leader—Green): I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business. Sixty-eight percent of New Zealanders have now got the point, and they are wondering when the Government will get the point. A long time ago they gave up expecting that the Opposition would ever get the point, but most of them are Labour Party voters, and they still hope that their Government will get the point. Sixty-eight percent of New Zealanders do not want the moratorium on the release of genetically engineered crops and animals lifted in October. Sixty-eight percent of them say it is much too soon, and we do not know enough. What is more, 38 percent say they should be banned for good.

That is a poll from the New Zealand Herald. For 5 years the New Zealand Herald has been calling me a Luddite, and the Greens anti-science, because of the issues we have raised about genetic engineering. Suddenly, the New Zealand Herald has got the point, and its front page every day this week has been about the risks of genetic engineering to our economy, health, and environment.

The chief executive of the Royal Society of New Zealand, New Zealand’s premier science institution, has got the point. He states in the New Zealand Herald: “We can now tamper with creation. It is indeed exciting, awe-inspiring, and potentially terrifying.” That is the terror that this Government wants to impose on the rest of New Zealand.

Reports are that Tony Blair is getting the point. The London Independent reports that Tony Blair is dramatically scaling back his plans to open up UK farms to widespread planting of genetically modified crops. He is faced with unwavering public opposition, and two recent Government reports were highly embarrassing for the Blair Government. One stated that growing genetically engineered (GE) crops would provide no benefit to the economy, and the other that it would be impossible to grow some GE crops without contaminating organic products.

Our big export industries have got the point. “Export giants call for go slow on GM”, states the New Zealand Herald. Zespri, which presented to the select committee and adds $850 million a year and 25,000 jobs to the New Zealand economy, stated: “Our position is that no GMOs should be released into New Zealand until the risks of this are better understood.”

Many councils are starting to get the point. The New Zealand Herald also reports that a number of councils are looking at what legal avenues they have, in order to respond to the wishes of their citizens to keep GE crops and animals out of their areas.

The New Zealand Herald has been printing letters from readers. The letters are running at about ten to one in favour of keeping the moratorium in place. I will read some excerpts: “If two-thirds of our population is against GM, then the moratorium has to be extended. It’s as simple as that.”, writes one couple. “There is a very good reason insurance companies are refusing to insure experimental or commercial trials of GE crops.”, points out another. A grandmother writes: “My feelings are not based on hysteria or a fear of progress, but the many warnings coming from within the scientific community itself over many years.”

Here is one member of the scientific community, a New Zealander who reads the New Zealand Herald on the web, because he is currently running a GE laboratory in the United States. He writes: “We use and generate genetically engineered organisms (GEOs) in our research. Until phrases like ‘proceeding with caution’, ‘strict controls’, and ‘robust science’”—the Government phrases—“carry some specific meaning with respect to GEOs, lifting the GE moratorium in New Zealand defies logic, and appears to be nothing more than politics as usual.”

Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Minister of Education): I would like to talk today about four or five things. I would like to talk about meetings outside the building. I would like to talk about what is causing Bill English’s headache. I want to talk about Chicken Licken. He was the one who kept on saying that the sky was falling in, and kept on running away. I want to talk about the Brownlee-Peters deal.

Mr SPEAKER: Mr Brownlee and Mr Peters.

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: The deal between Mr Brownlee and Mr Peters. I want to talk about the $50 a week cut to superannuation for married couples. And, if I have time, I want to get on to Rodney Hide and inappropriate income, but that might have to wait for another time. I want to ask which National Party members are not having meetings outside the building?

Darren Hughes: Who with?

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: They are either with groups within their own party, or outside it. I stumbled across one yesterday. Someone else stumbled across another one last night. Three National Party members were plotting at lunchtime. They were hidden away in the Back-bencher Pub and Cafe.

Darren Hughes: Who were they?

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Mr Power, Mr Brownlee, but, most important, Murray McCully. Something is clearly going on there, and the new team is forming. But what did we get to counteract that last night? There seem to be two deals going down: Mr Brownlee and Mr Peters, and Mr Prebble and Mr English. What I want to ask is: which deal will be the winning deal? Will Mr Brownlee’s invitation to Mr Peters to lead the National Party be the one that wins, or will they convince Richard Prebble to go to the party that he has never been a member of—the National Party—and lead it, because they are looking for some leadership over there?

We could ask Mr Prebble whether the possibility of working more closely with the National Party was raised with him last night. He is not denying it, because we know that that was what they were up to. But what happened today? Bill English had a headache. Forty percent of National Party supporters say that he is the biggest obstacle to National’s re-election.

Simon Power: That’s not right.

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: That is absolutely right. Forty percent of the people who were polled, who identify themselves as National supporters, said that Bill English was the biggest obstacle to National’s re-election. [Interruption] They say it is 50 percent now. I agree that the poll is a week or two old, so Simon Power says it might be up to 50 percent. Is that the cause of Bill English’s headache, or was it the dinner last night? I tend to say that having dinner with Richard Prebble would cause a headache for me, but for Bill English it could have been something else.

I was going to draw some parallels between Bill English and Chicken Licken—

Mr SPEAKER: No.

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: But of course I will not, Mr Speaker. I could not do that. As kids we were all told about the people who said that the sky would fall in, and who kept on running away.

John Key: Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: There was too much of that in my past, that is for sure. I bet it was not Kentucky Fried Chicken with Richard Prebble and Bill English last night— [Interruption] Well, that might be Mr Brownlee’s approach. What I want the next National Party speaker to tell us is why National wants to cut the married couple’s pension by $50 a week. It has refused to sign up—

John Key: That party would cut it by $200 a week.

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: John Key—from the right—says he wants it cut by $200 a week. That is the approach from the rich boy from Auckland, but where is Bill English?

Hon DAVID CARTER (NZ National): I will continue the theme outlined by the previous speaker and talk about meetings that are occurring all around New Zealand, to which Labour Party politicians will not front up. It is a tired, pathetic, invisible man that we now have as the Minister of Agriculture in New Zealand. Where is the Minister of Agriculture when farmers want the flatulence tax explained to them? Jim Sutton will announce his retirement from New Zealand politics in the near future as a sad, broken man who can no longer defend the policies of the Labour Government. I want to know what that Minister will be remembered for.

Jill Pettis: A good deal.

Hon DAVID CARTER: A lot? I think that is true. I do not often agree with Jill Pettis, but that Minister will be remembered as the man who brought in the flatulence tax, and was then not prepared to attend any of the meetings to defend it. That Minister will be remembered as the person who brought in the exit grant through the 1980s, when the last Labour Government sent thousands of farmers to the wall. That is how the Minister of Agriculture, Jim Sutton, will be remembered.

Where was Jim Sutton when 1,500 people marched down the main street of Invercargill? Where was the Minister of Agriculture when that meeting took place last Saturday? He was sitting in Wellington, cowering in his office, hoping that he did not have to answer any of the difficult questions. Where will the Minister of Agriculture be next Thursday when thousands of farmers descend on Wellington to stand in front of Parliament? Will the Minister of Agriculture front up to them? I guarantee that he will not be there. At that meeting, the farmers of New Zealand will be saying: “Come and explain the flatulence tax.” The Greens will not front, and United Future, which is currently supporting the Government, probably will not front either. [Interruption] Jill Pettis certainly will not front, and I know that the Minister of Agriculture will not front. They are running scared.

I want to know why the Minister of Agriculture said in the House on 22 July this year that the farmers can afford to pay the tax, because, on average, they earn over $106,000 a year. What an envious line! “Tough luck, cockies, you can afford to pay, so stop whingeing.” That is what he said when he went to the Federated Farmers conference in Auckland, which just goes to explain the envy politics of this Labour Government. I have a message for Mr Sutton, and for every other member of the Labour Party: if the farmers are whingeing, they have every right to whinge. They have had 18 new taxes in 4 years; the flatulence tax is just the latest of the ridiculous taxes to be heaped on that sector.

The Labour Government is actually here because of the farmers. The buoyancy of the last few years has been because of the backbone provided by our agricultural sector. What has Labour done for it? It has heaped more taxes on it. If Mr Sutton had been prepared to front up at that meeting, or had sent any other Minister to front up, he would have heard the farmers saying enough is enough. The Government should stop heaping ridiculous taxes on to the agricultural sector, particularly when it is under economic pressure because of declining returns. Mr Sutton should stop running away and start fronting up and representing the concerns of farmers. The farmers deserve an explanation, because enough is enough.

Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Minister of Commerce): The National Party had 2 days in Christchurch last week—which I think is a perfectly acceptable use of adjournment time—so that its members could get together, strategise, and think about how they could improve their performance in the House and in the polls. What do we get after they spent 2 days away together? They put David Carter up as their speaker in the general debate. Well, that was a worthwhile couple of days to work that one out.

There is nothing that this once-proud National Party can do to lift its performance. Why? Simply because it has not one jot of credibility, either inside its party or outside its party. National’s own leader cannot drag himself out of the margin of error—and that is just within his own caucus. Everyone knows he is not up to it, and everyone knows that his heart is not in it. We are happy to support him as the Leader of the Opposition.

The National Party cannot position itself on the political spectrum because it does not know where it belongs any more. It has no leadership and the talk has started again. We have heard Mr Mallard tell us about those meetings and we know about them happening all the time. We know that approaches are being made, so who is being approached? I can tell the House that not one single member of the brat pack has been approached by anyone in the National Party caucus. In fact, caucus members are so disgusted with the appalling behaviour of Roger Sowry, Tony Ryall, and Nick Smith that they are looking again more widely, and they are looking over the fence. They are not staying within their own caucus to make those approaches. Mr English may have been mending fences with the ACT party last night because he had failed to back up Murray McCully when that member made overtures at a regional ACT party conference, or maybe Mr English was just getting some advice on how to earn an independent salary, which one does not have to disclose when one is a back-bench MP. I think Mr Hide was at that meal, and I am sure that he would have been able to give very good advice on that particular subject.

Other members of the National Party caucus have been looking jealously at the recent poll rating, which can perhaps appropriately be described as a rogue poll given its subject, namely, one Winston Peters. Certainly, National Party back-benchers are so appalled at where their once-proud party sits in the polls they are currying favour with Winston Peters so that they can at least get themselves into the headlines. But I think Mr Peters should be exposed for the incompetent, bumbling fool he has become. The media have dubbed him the “MP for Courtenay Place”, and late nights are taking a toll on him. Members should look at his behaviour over the Refugee Council. He was invited to speak at the Refugee Council’s annual general meeting. He assumed he was the only one asked to speak, agreed to attend, and then found out that I was going to be there and did not even have the gumption to front. The bottom line is that he is made a fool of in this House, over and over again.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I know that a gracious providence intervened and the bell went, but the Minister did not sit down. It does not get better in the retelling.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): I made a mistake. The bell should not have gone.

Hon LIANNE DALZIEL: That member has made an absolute fool of himself in Parliament by raising questions about immigration matters that go nowhere. He puts out press statements, but, to use his own favourite expression, he produces not one single shred of evidence in support of anything he raises in this Parliament on immigration matters. Yesterday he tabled a letter in the House that, apparently, was evidence to back up a press statement. Every single element of that press statement was wrong. The individual concerned had been removed from New Zealand 9 days before Mr Peters even put out the press statement. He had been in jail since April, so he was never “lost to the system”; he was not missing. There was no cover-up, but that member just tries to get a headline. The bottom line is that it is really sad the National Party is sidling up to such a hopeless case.

SHANE ARDERN (NZ National—Taranaki - King Country): I would like to start my comments in the general debate by thanking Federated Farmers and all the other Opposition political parties for their campaign against this ridiculous, stupid flatulence tax that has turned New Zealand into an international laughing stock. I ask the media of this country how it is that that stupid tax has appeared as many times in The Times of London and in the New York Times as it has in the Waikato Times. How has that come about? It has turned us into an international laughing stock.

I come back to some of the comments made by the Hon Trevor Mallard in his hopeless contribution. I ask him why he and the Cabinet did not listen to Jim Sutton when he said that the tax is a stupid tax and that we should not proceed with it. Why did you roll the Minister of Agriculture?

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): The member must not bring me into debate.

SHANE ARDERN: The poor Minister of Agriculture has been rolled on that, and so have all his cohorts in that Cabinet. The Minister of Agriculture said: “Farmers can’t do anything about these emissions, given current technology, so taxing them would be a pointless exercise.” That is what the Minister of Agriculture stated in the Southland Times on 2 May 2002. Today the Minister of Research, Science and Technology, the Hon Pete Hodgson, said in the House that if farmers were to fund this research themselves, then the matter would not be proceeded with. I ask Mr Hodgson what he thinks the $100 million the dairy industry is putting into research and development this year alone is being spent on. He should take some time, meet with ViaLactica Biosciences (NZ), and find out what money is being spent on. Three million alone is being spent on ruminant efficiency.

The Minister over there has been ruminating about a whole lot of stuff and contributing to the greenhouse gas emissions overwhelmingly—in fact, much more than our livestock around the country—but the facts are that industry is funding research into ruminant efficiency. What has that research shown so far? It has shown that there is as a high chance of increasing methane emissions from ruminant animals by improving their efficiency as there is of reducing methane emissions. There is as high a chance of that as there is of reducing it. I ask the Minister, given his comments in the House, whether he will front up at the meetings and back away from this stupid tax. It is a simple question to answer. Will he back down—yes or no? So far, there is no indication he will. It is a question of who it was within the Cabinet, given that it was not the Minister of Agriculture or the Minister of Research, Science and Technology, who came up with that stupid idea. Who was it?

Hon David Carter: Heather Simpson.

SHANE ARDERN: It would have to be someone as high up as Heather Simpson.

Simon Power: Rick Barker.

SHANE ARDERN: No, no, it would have to be somebody who is above the Cabinet—that must be Heather Simpson—who would come up with such a brain-dead notion as putting a levy on flatulence when, so far, the science from Ruakura and other reputable science and research and development institutions around the country has stated that the research those institutions have done shows there is as much as a 40 percent chance that the measurement of methane is wrong. I ask where that nonsensical idea is coming from. Will that Minister, or any Minister from the Cabinet, front up at the protest that will take place here on 4 September and explain this stupid notion to the farmers—yes or no? It is a simple question to answer, and nobody will respond to it. There has not yet been a Labour member at the meetings around the country that I have attended, and I have attended a large number. There has not been one, either a Minister or a member. I would like to know where they have fronted up. They tell me they have. They are honourable members, so they will have fronted up somewhere. I am just not sure where. They have not been at any of the meetings I have been at.

Opposition Member: Just get Jill Pettis.

SHANE ARDERN: That would be most helpful. That would certainly add to the flatulence.

Hon RICK BARKER (Minister for Courts): I want to put in some facts, which is unusual for this debate. In October 2001 the National Party was polling at around 33 percent. The National Party was so desperately worried about its future that it decided to dump Jenny Shipley and replace her with Bill English. It saw the future of that great party on a slide. It was slipping from being a major party to being a minor party. The facts are all bad even now, and getting worse. In July 2002 Bill English was seen by 44 percent of respondents as being a capable leader. In August 2003 he was seen by just 27 percent as being a capable leader. To the question “Would he be good in a crisis?”, in 2002, 41 percent said “Yes.” In 2003 that figure went down to 31 percent. The National Party leader has slipped on every figure—and it is little wonder. Did we see him get up in the House today and hear him ask a pointed question? No, we did not. Did we see him get up in the House today and take the spear to the Government? We did not. There is a complete absence of leadership in the National Party.

I have a great deal of respect for the Opposition. The Government deserves a good Opposition. I am prepared to put the offices of Work and Income New Zealand to work to assist the National Party. I am prepared to have them advertise a position—a vacant leadership position in the National Party, because Mr English would like to get out of it. But no one is prepared to take the job. No one wants the hot potato. No one wants to have on his or her CV: “Led the National Party from ‘leading the Opposition’ to ‘number three in the Opposition’.” Everybody has been asked to be the leader of the National Party, but no one will take the job. That is what all the meetings are about. Trevor Mallard has got it wrong; it is a question of who will take over from Bill English, because he wants out.

The first requirement we would have in the list of job qualifications is that the person will be able to read a speech. He or she does not need to be able to give a speech, just to read a speech, because that will be better than what we have currently. The Leader of the Opposition will need to have the quality of being able to ask a question. There will be no need to be able to answer a question—National will be in Opposition for a long time, so there will be no requirement for the leader to be able to answer a question. The leader will also have to be prepared to spend a lengthy time in Opposition. He or she will not need to have any policy skills—that will not be required for the National Party—and will also have to be able to take a joke, because there are lots of those around them. He or she will not need to be able to run an electorate office, because the current leader does not run an electorate office. The new leader will not have to worry about that but will have to have the personal quality of being able suffer fools gladly, because he or she will be surrounded by them.

The other thing is that the new leader will have to have a good constitution for wining and dining, because the current one does not. I understand there was a meeting of seven people last night—four had steaks, one had fish, and two had venison. And the new Leader of the Opposition will not have to worry about paying the bills, because I am well advised that the current one does not. So there are no worries about this, at all. It is a very good little job and I am prepared to help the National Party Opposition with that, because the Government does deserve a good Leader of the Opposition.

But if it is bad enough for the National Party now, with its lack of leadership, it will be even worse for National Party members when they go on the hustings, because we find, yet again, the deep abiding hatred that the National Party has for its senior citizens. The reports show quite clearly that when the National Party cut superannuation the last time, from 65 percent down to 62.5 percent, it actually had intentions of cutting the floor of superannuation to just 50 percent. That represents a cut of over $50 per week to every superannuitant.

These people here have no heart for our elderly; they have no heart at all for the people who built the schools, made the roads, and built the hospitals. As far as National Party members are concerned, once people are over 65, they are on the scrap heap. They do not care, because we all know that the National Party thinks: “We’re wealthy; we can take care of ourselves.” The National Party’s position on superannuation is absolutely disgraceful. Members opposite said some time ago that they would sign up for the first part of the superannuation deal—guaranteeing 65 percent at 65 years of age. What do we have in the House today, but a chiselling escape from that by their spokesperson on this issue, Don Brash, who said: “Well, the Government’s scheme is only going to pay for one dollar in seven.”

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First): One has to wonder whether the Labour Party remembers who put the surtax on, who brought in asset testing against the elderly, and who removed the elderly as a priority from hospital waiting lists. The Labour Party did that. Mr Mallard well knows—

Hon Trevor Mallard: Who promised to take the surtax off?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: I promised to take the surtax off, and we did. There is nothing like listening to a dog with a cleft palate. It is like some fullback waiting for a high ball—“Arc, arc, Mark!”—and he would not know what is going on. Mr Mallard knows full well that I did not dine with Gerry Brownlee last night, and his colleagues all know it. So why would he say it, unless he is a “you know what”? I cannot use the word, but someone who says something he demonstrably and palpably knows not to be true, is a “you know what”.

Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I would like to make it clear that I did not indicate that Gerry Brownlee was eating with Winston Peters last night. That was the other dinner last night.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): That is not a point of order.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Today I asked the Minister of Immigration a question. She said she knew nothing. There is nothing surprising about that. Then I sought leave to ask a further question and the Minister of Finance—of all people—denied me leave. He did not want to know. The story that I am talking about is a fraud on the New Zealand Government that has been perpetrated by immigrant operators and foreign fly-by-nighters. The loss to New Zealand revenue amounts to an acknowledged $10 million per annum by the Inland Revenue Department in Wellington, but the local Inland Revenue Department assessment is that the loss is at about $30 million per annum. I will explain how it happens. There are about 50 million trays of kiwifruit—I am not talking about squash and all the other orchard apples, I am talking about just kiwifruit—being harvested in 2003. The labour costs for picking and pruning are $2 a tray. That is $100 million in labour alone. At the February 2003 fruitgrowers association meeting, Andrew Fenton, chairman of the board of Satara, and the Bay of Plenty fruitgrowers’ representative on the New Zealand Fruitgrowers Federation, reported to those gentlemen and women that at a meeting of the New Zealand Fruitgrowers Federation the Inland Revenue Department had made a presentation, during which it admitted that 70 percent of contractors operating within the Bay of Plenty area were not paying or accounting for GST, PAYE, or accident compensation.

Dail Jones: Good gosh!

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Of course—good gosh! The Minister of Finance does not want to know about it. It also said that the money involved was in excess of $10 million in that simple assessment for 2002, but the local Inland Revenue Department says that it is more like $30 million. If we assess those 50 million trays at $2 a tray, and 70 percent of the contractors operating are not paying it, then we know what is going on. We have foreigners ripping our revenue off. We have foreigners who are causing a significant loss of revenue, and the Minister of Immigration, even though Inland Revenue Department knows about it, is so inconsequential, so hopeless, that she is not even consulted.

Jill Pettis: Oh Winston, stop telling tall stories.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: It must be market day—the fishwife is out again.

Jill Pettis: I’m stone sober.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Well, there is no sign of that—no sign whatsoever.

Ron Mark: Next thing she’ll be saying she’s sensible.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Yes, exactly. Next she will be saying she is sensible and sane. I ask this Government why it has done nothing about it. It works like this. The orchardist contracts with the contractor for $10,000—this is as an example. Then the contractor gets two subcontractors in, both of whom are foreigners, and they contract half of that contract, less the GST, $8,000 or $4,000 each. The contractor invoices the orchard for $10,000. Then—and I will call them Mr and Mrs Singh, or Mr Singh and his brother, because it is usually the Singhs who are doing it in the Bay of Plenty—they invoice the contractor for $4,000 each. Then they have a second and third invoice system; they then write invoices from and to themselves. They write the cheques and get the cash, and GST, PAYE, and accident compensation is all lost as it goes down the line, except in the first $2,000 of GST. That is it—a very simple scam, widely known by the Inland Revenue Department to be operating. This Government has done nothing about it, whilst it is out penalising farmers with the fart tax, and it will introduce a happy tax or a happy bill that says: “If you are not happy, you need more holidays.”

MARK PECK (NZ Labour—Invercargill): Bill English is being squeezed into a number of issues that he really does not want to be involved in. What I found really sad on Saturday as I watched him in the march in Invercargill was that it was almost as though it was the last march of a man on his way out.

Simon Power: Give his office a ring.

MARK PECK: Well, I will tell the member about the office in a minute. What was really sad for Mr English was that there was no enthusiasm for him. The person who got the most response at the rally was Gerry Eckhoff, because he had the fortitude to get up and say: “We will repeal Kyoto.” What National Party members have done in being squeezed into these issues is paint themselves into a corner whereby if they do not repeal Kyoto, they will have let their voters down again. What was fascinating at the rally—[Interruption] I was actually there. David Carter chose to ignore that, because I made two points at that rally. One is that Kyoto is here to stay, and the second point is that not only is it here to stay but no other Government will get rid of it. The people at the rally wanted to know whether National would get rid of it, and Mr English fudged. After Mr English got up and said: “David Carter’s doing some work as to whether or not we can get out.”—and what do we think about that; he has given it to the brains trust!—a gentleman in the crowd said: “What’s your timetable, Bill, what’s your timetable?”, and he said: “December.” If it had not been for the fact that I was there, Mr English would have got a grilling on that point, but they knew they could not grill Mr English because I was there. What was even worse for Mr English was that he was not asked for an interview after the rally. The only two people asked for an interview after the rally were myself and Peter Dunne. Nobody else was asked for an interview after the rally, which means that the National Party’s position was totally without any particular imperative at all.

I have a question for the National Party. I want the next National Party speaker to stand up and tell us why it is that Nick Smith, Sandra Goudie, and Tony Ryall are charging $10 a head for their meeting at Edgecumbe on Friday? They are charging $10 a head for people to come to their flatulence tax meeting. We are not even charging that much for a sheep. Where is the integrity in that? That is what I want to know. They are using farmers to boost their coffers by charging $10 a head. Worse than that, though, is the fact that only those who agree with them will turn up to the meeting. I am going back to Invercargill on Friday for another meeting with the farmers on this matter. Pete Hodgson is coming, as well. We will put 400 chairs out, and we have asked the president of Federated Farmers to front up and chair the meeting, and I am sure he will.

Mr English is in a terrible position. It is a sad day indeed when the staff in his office get very upset by a phone call from somebody asking how to get hold of him. I can understand the fact that his office workers, who are only part time, get upset when they get a phone call from people looking for him because he is not there.

He cannot be found in Clutha-Southland. He is nowhere around. My office deals with his constituents’ complaints. I want to say one thing that is really important: anybody who suggests that my secretary harasses anybody is in cloud cuckoo land. People in this complex would be absolutely amazed at any suggestion that my parliamentary secretary could harass even a flea. I want to say one other thing: I will continue to ring Bill English’s office every time a constituent of mine wants to get hold of him, because I am sick and tired of doing his work. If it is a crime to ring his office so that his constituents can get help, then I am guilty. If the police are going to waste their time going through my parliamentary phone bills to check whether I have rung him, I will tell them not to bother. I do ring his office, and they may as well grow up and understand that because it is time that that leader over there did something. Mr English should simply give up. He has had his day. It is time now that he is replaced by someone who can do the job.

Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (NZ National—Port Waikato): It is patently obvious why no one noticed Mr Peck at the last flatulence tax meeting. With that sort of unmitigated conglomeration, one can understand the situation. But he was a member of a party that, 4 years ago, brought out a credit card that said: “no new taxes”. I have here a little bit of paper that demonstrates that this Government—

Mark Peck: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I seek leave of the House to table an email showing that the National Party is holding a meeting in Edgecumbe for which it is charging $10 a head for people to attend.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): It is not good form in this debate.

Mark Peck: Point of order! I am seeking to table a document.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): It is not common courtesy—

Mark Peck: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I am seeking to table a document. I have sought leave to do that.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): The member has put the case. I will now ask: is there any objection to that course of action being taken? There is.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I think that Mr Peck has been around long enough—though I cannot be certain how long he will remain from hereon in—to know full well that if a member wants to table a document, it is done at the end of the member’s own speech, or at the end of the next speaker’s speech—but one does not interrupt that speaker. It is patently unfair, ill mannered, and unbecoming of him.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): I thank the honourable member for his contribution; he is perfectly right. I know that the planet Mars is close to Earth today, and that Mars is the god of war, but that should not mar our proceedings in this House. I ask for courtesy and for an understanding of the Standing Orders.

Dr PAUL HUTCHISON: The Rt Hon Winston Peters is absolutely right. Mr Peck is unfair, ill mannered, and inappropriate in the point of order he made. That is typical of his party, which 4 years ago came out with a credit card that said: “no new taxes”. I have here a piece of paper that describes Labour’s 18 new taxes, and, over and above those, seven proposed new taxes. One of them, of course, just happens to be that absolutely, utterly inane flatulence tax. What did that party say about that flatulence tax several years ago? Let us have a look at what the Hon Pete Hodgson said about that tax on 16 November 2001. He said: “I can offer you a personal viewpoint, which is that to tax cattle and sheep in that way is a remarkably stupid thing to do. It’s precisely the wrong policy approach.” Well, on that particular instance, we agree with the Hon Pete Hodgson. But what did he then say on 30 April 2002? He said: “Today the Government announced that there will be no tax or levy on farming emissions of nitrous oxide or methane. We have completely rejected that option.” Was the Hon Pete Hodgson telling the truth when he said that Labour had completely rejected that option? It is just the same as the situation with Labour’s credit card. What did his mate the Hon Damien O’Connor say? On 14 September 2002 he said: “The Government’s decision to exempt the agricultural sector from emissions charges is a clear signal that we have the well-being of our farmers and citizens at heart.”

The Government might say that it has the well-being of our farmers and citizens at heart, but let us have a look at what the ministry’s own website has to say about the well-being of the citizens of New Zealand. According to the Labour Government’s climate change website, tax revenue will be collected from individual New Zealanders through—from 2007—6 percent petrol price increases, 12 percent diesel price increases, 9 percent electricity price increases, 8 percent gas price increases, and, to top it all off, 19 percent coal price increases. That is what this Labour Government is perpetrating on ordinary New Zealanders. What does the National Bank estimate? It estimates that, by initiating greenhouse taxes and exposing New Zealand to world trade with countries not hobbled by similar restrictions, the Government has committed the country to a decrease in economic growth by as much as 1 percent a year. So here we have Damien O’Connor gaily saying that Labour has the well-being of our farmers and citizens at heart. Can we believe that? We obviously cannot.

The Hon Pete Hodgson may say that signing up to the Kyoto Protocol is a no-brainer, given the carbon credits, but what is unique about the way that this Labour Government signed up? The Labour Government is the only Government in the world that has said it will nationalise carbon credits. The Labour Government is the only Government in the southern hemisphere whose country will be significantly adversely affected by ratifying the Kyoto Protocol. The National Bank, on the Government’s own website, has estimated a 1 percent effect on economic growth. The Labour Government is the only Government of the only country in the history of personkind, if not the universe, to introduce this inane tax.

MARC ALEXANDER (United Future): I would like to address the issue of landlords’ rights, yet again. Steve Maharey has made some noises of late, and he has picked up some of the recommendations that I floated a little while ago. Some of those things included the ability of the courts to use Government-held address information to trace tenancy tribunal order debtors, new processes for Work and Income to help beneficiary tenants to meet rent arrears, and the investigation of improved access to tenancy tribunal decisions. Those are small steps, but they are in the right direction. The Minister has taken legislation that has no teeth at all, and he has given it ill-fitting dentures, instead. But that is merely a start. One of the things that has to be looked at is the simple fact that enforcement does not go to the core of the problem, which is the injustice of the legislation that landlords have to operate under. I think that the Minister has to get real, work with landlords—be like a landlord himself—and realise the kind of strain and pressure that is put on them when trying to do something that is a lawful activity: putting roofs over the heads of New Zealanders where Governments simply cannot do so, and they fail to meet the need.

One of the things that the Minister has done is to look at the ability to track tenancy tribunal decisions through the Ministry of Social Development in situations where landlords have previously been left chasing shadows, because of virtually unenforceable tenancy tribunal orders. But bad tenants are by no means always beneficiaries. There needs to be a look at how that can actually enforce responsibility. I am less enthusiastic about some of the other aspects, such as the plan to ensure that tenants are not evicted by covering rent arrears through Work and Income.

Simon Power: What!

MARC ALEXANDER: That is right. The problem is that that will do nothing to make those tenants any more responsible. It is a start, but all that it will do is to ensure that the money flows through to the landlords. That needs to be looked at and protected. But it will not make the tenants responsible, it will not make it easier to break up the tenancy agreement, and it will not be easier to get rid of bad tenants. That is the problem. Landlords are still left in limbo, whereby they have bad tenants whose rents are paid for through tax, but they are unable to effect any change in who is living under the roofs that they have provided through hard-earned, tax-paid, income. That simply is not fair.

The bottom line is that Steve Maharey has addressed enforcement and information sharing—which is good—but not the substantive inequalities that are present in the Residential Tenancies Act. Nor has he taken the opportunity to do so in the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill. The bill does very little to address any of the issues other than that of boarding houses, which is a very small component of the problem. I would like to ask him whether he will consider making further changes to the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill to include wilful abandonment of a property as an offence, and to remove the maximum limit on bond payments of 4 weeks, so that it could be the subject of negotiation instead, and could reflect the perceived risk of damage. If not, I ask him why not? It seems eminently reasonable to me that if someone has a saleable commodity, such as a roof over a person’s head—no different to any other product that is out there in the marketplace—it should be subject to negotiation between the purveyor and the purchaser of the product. There is no reason to assume that an unequal relationship exists there.

If members look at the Act, they will see it specifies what tenants must do, but there is no provision of offences if the conditions are breached. Meanwhile, sections 12, 17, 18, 19, 23, 27, 29, 30, 48, and 137, contain offences against the landlord, with fines or—members should get this—imprisonment provisions. There should be an equivalent set of obligations and penalties on both tenants and landlords. There is nothing in the Act that allows tenants to be thrown into jail if they wilfully damage a rental property or if the rent arrears fall well and truly behind. Nothing in the Act provides for any of that, at all. That is, quite simply, not fair. We are talking about 230,000 privately owned and operated rental housing units in this country. The average value of them is about $180,000 each. That is a sizeable investment for most New Zealanders. These are not necessarily big industries that can accommodate such infringements and absorb such losses.

Hon KEN SHIRLEY (Deputy Leader—ACT NZ): I say at the outset that the ACT party is the only party in Parliament that says unequivocally, at this time, that it will withdraw New Zealand’s ratification of the Kyoto Protocol. The previous National Government should not have signed it in 1997, and the Labour Government should not have ratified it last year. In 1997 it was clear that the Kyoto Protocol was failing, but by 2002, when it was ratified, it was clear that it was fundamentally flawed. It will never work. It is not in effect yet. If Russia does not sign the Kyoto Protocol it will not come into effect, but it will certainly damage the New Zealand economy. We have the spectre of farmers all over the country finally realising how nonsensical the Kyoto Protocol is. We are the laughing stock of the world. Members should go into the websites, and read the foreign magazines. They are laughing like drains at New Zealand for implementing a “fart tax”. That is ridiculous, but it is what this Government has done.

I want to reveal a bigger issue here today. It is a scandal, a scam, and a distortion.

Hon Trevor Mallard: Is the member talking about Rodney Hide’s income?

Hon KEN SHIRLEY: Mr Mallard and his Cabinet are responsible for this scam. I will run it by the House now. The scam is that this Government stripped away the carbon credits from the forest industry of New Zealand. If we were to have an economic instrument to make the Kyoto Protocol work, then we had to leave the incentives where they were. Since that property right was confiscated—nationalised by this Government—there have been virtually no new forests planted in this country. Investment in forestry has dried up. Should we be surprised at that? The Government stripped away those carbon credits and—I assure members that this is how nutty the Kyoto Protocol is—the carbon credits are actually worth more than the wood. It works out at $20,000 a hectare of carbon credit value—a nominal value stripped away and confiscated by the Government.

But what did the Government do? This is the scandal, and I ask Government members to pay attention to this. In May the Government gave carbon credits to Meridian Energy, a State-owned enterprise that the Government owns—a major generator. Why did it give Meridian Energy carbon credits? It was to invest in the Te Apiti wind farm in the Tararuas. Why was that? It was because wind farms cannot foot it. At a baseload pricing of about 10c to 12c they are not economic, so they can be effective only if they are subsidised. That is nonsense in itself, but the Government did that. It appropriated the property rights from the forestry sector on the one hand, and on the other hand gave them to Meridian Energy, its own State-owned enterprise that it owns.

Here is the scam in the scandal. What did Meridian Energy do with the property rights? Do members want to know? On 15 August Meridian Energy sold them to the Dutch Government. I have the papers here. The State-owned enterprise, Meridian Energy did that. The Government confiscated the property rights from the forestry owners earlier in May, encouraged Meridian Energy to invest in wind farms, subsidised it to do that, and then gave it the carbon credits, and what has Meridian Energy done with them? On 15 August the State-owned enterprise sold them to the Dutch Government. So the Government will get the money back as a State-owned enterprise dividend. That is theft. This Government has stolen a property right, thereby distorting the market and causing forestry investment to dry up, and Meridian Energy sold that right on to the Dutch Government. Did Harry have something to do with this, perhaps—the Harry who flies under two flags?

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): I draw the member’s attention to Speaker’s ruling 6/1 (Supplement). The member must not refer to members by their first names.

Hon KEN SHIRLEY: The Hon Mr Duynhoven is a Minister of this Government who has signed allegiance to the Dutch Government—and somehow this Government sold a property right, one that it had appropriated and stolen, to the Dutch Government. That is extraordinary. The Government will get the money back as a dividend from the State-owned enterprise. It is little wonder that the Government does not like the private sector to generate energy.

The point has already been made in this debate that this Government is introducing new taxes everywhere. This is another way that it can claw money for more State control, so that it can throw money at all its little pet social engineering programmes—Māori television—and everywhere else. The Government will grab money from the production sector, drive it into the ground, and give the money away to the non-productive sector.

Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Minister of State): Here is a news flash for Ken Shirley: State-owned enterprises are, under the State-Owned Enterprises Act, run by boards. The boards have an independent right to run their companies, and they have a fiduciary duty to do so in the interests of those companies. That member was around in the last Labour Government, and he did not make the cut—that is why he is not a member of the Labour Party now—and that member knows what the State-Owned Enterprises Act is about. He is making a very long draw of the bow, to put it kindly.

Let us remember a couple of things about the Kyoto Protocol, because there has been a bit of talk about it in the general debate today. The first thing is that on all the mid-range projections of the carbon price, New Zealand will be a net winner. The value of the credits is bigger than the cost of the taxes—from memory, by about $200 million. Even for a National spokesperson on finance, that ought to be real money. It is certainly real money when compared with the $300 a farmer, on average, that the emissions levy will cost to build good research for our agricultural sector. That is not worth the cost of the tractor ride to the meeting, or the $10 it costs to pay the National Party’s emissions levy to get in the door.

But that is not the main point of today’s speech. That is a sideshow, and that is the problem with the National Party. It is always chasing sideshows. I am starting to feel sorry for Bill English. The problem is that he—

Hon Trevor Mallard: Self-inflicted last night; don’t feel sorry for him.

Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: He is allowed a night off; he is a decent bloke, and he works reasonably hard. The problem is not that Bill English will fail to be a good leader of the National Party or a good future National Prime Minister. The problem is that he cannot be, for three simple reasons. Firstly, he has no spark, secondly, he has no strategy, and, thirdly, he has no coalition. Let me take those points in order.

Bill English has no spark, and that is obvious every day in question time when Winston Peters stands up and eclipses him like a solar eclipse. The shutters go down, a big shadow goes over Bill English, and nobody cares. Winston Peters may talk rubbish most of the time, but he does have the knack of doing it with some aplomb. He does have the gift of the gab. It is only when we actually listen to Winston Peters occasionally that we realise that what he says is complete hogwash. However, until then—and it is a sad, but true, fact that some 15 or 17 percent of the public have difficulty with the difference—Bill English is no place.

Was Bill English in the first general debate after National’s 2-day caucus? No, he was not. Has the public heard a good speech from Bill English this year? No, it has not. Who did the National Party front up with today? David Carter! Where is the great white hope of the National Party? There he is, sitting right in front of us—Mr Power. What have we heard from him? We have heard nothing from him, and do members know why that is? It is because he has the decency not to make Bill English’s problem worse.

Bill English has no spark and no strategy. As my colleague said, he is getting corralled into places where he does not want to be. Bill English is not a racist; he is a decent Southlander. He does not want to go on a campaign against Māori. Do members know why that is? He has the brains to know that within a decade, 1 in 3 voters will be Māori or Pacific Islander. OK, there is some stress around the foreshore issue in different parts of the country, but how many Māori will vote National? Very, very few of them will do that, and do members know why? It is because Bill English is caught between a rock and hard place and he is flip-flopping to prove it. He said there should be Government ownership of the foreshore, and Māori should go elsewhere. Winston Peters said the same thing. Where are Māori going? A couple of them will go to the Greens, but most of them will stick with Labour, because they know that Labour is holding the sensible middle ground on this issue. We will not overwrite customary rights, but we stop short of saying that they add up to exclusive title, because they have never done so in the whole history of New Zealand Aotearoa. Even before the Treaty of Waitangi, there was never exclusive title.

Bill English has no spark or strategy. He is caught by Don Brash, who is dragging National to the right, and he looks like he has no place to go.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.

Bills

Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Bill

In Committee

Debate resumed from 26 August.

Part 4 Complaints and discipline

Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (NZ National—Port Waikato): This part of the bill, focusing on complaints and discipline, is very important. After all, it has caused national tension over the last 10 to 20 years and a considerable amount of heartache when one goes back to the National Women’s Hospital cervical cancer inquiry, the cancer inquiry at Gisborne, and, of course, more recently, the Parry inquiry. Coming out of all of those was the Cull report. Certainly, one of the great concerns was that even though we had had those tragedies in New Zealand, it seemed as though we were unable to learn from the mistakes of history. Helen Cull QC brought together a lot of the great problems that were occurring through a lack of connection between organisations such as the district health boards, the various colleges, and the Accident Compensation Corporation. Incidents were happening that were severe, but no one was aware of the records being collated independently, and Helen Cull quite rightly suggested that a one-stop shop should be the approach towards the legislation. Whereas I have criticised a considerable part of this bill, and will continue to do so, I think that on the whole it has tended to come right in terms of the recommendations of the Cull report.

There is no doubt, however, that National’s contribution to getting this part right was in no small way due to the contributions of Dr Lynda Scott and my colleague Judith Collins, in the select committee. The processes provided by the bill are a very big jump from the way the old disciplinary and complaints procedures were held, when there were huge complaints by patients and various health practitioners that there were long delays. The whole aim of this part is to try to speed up the processes so they are fair, efficient, and coherent, and in many respects this part, on the whole, has managed to achieve that. There are some worries that some of the smaller organisations will find the compliance costs associated with the requirements considerably difficult, but, overall, because the larger organisations such as the Nurses Organisation, the medical practitioners’ organisations, and the dental groups have sufficient numbers, their organisations are sufficient to be able to cope with the costs implied in the bill.

When we get to clause 77, “Recommendations and determinations of professional conduct committee”, it is important we remember the tribunal’s recommendation that the role of the professional conduct committee should be to ascertain whether there is sufficient evidence to justify the bringing of a charge against a practitioner before the tribunal. Clearly, that is a very important issue.

Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU (NZ National): My honourable colleague Dr Hutchison opened the debate on Part 4, “Complaints and discipline”, and I am very mindful of the comments he made. Clearly, this is a very important part, and it behoves this Parliament, given the inquiries that sit in the background of this legislation—starting with the Cartwright inquiry, then the Gisborne inquiry and the Parry inquiry—to ensure that we get these provisions as good as we can get them. We do not want to see in the future more of the same that we have had in the past.

I am mindful that my colleague Dr Hutchison is of the view that, by and large, this part seems to be reasonable, but, having said that, I want to make some comments about two parts of it. The first comment is that the bill establishes a single disciplinary tribunal, the Health Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal, to hear complaints against health practitioners that warrant significant disciplinary action. I want to make the point that this tribunal will be made up of ministerial appointees. In other words, there is no provision for the profession to elect their own to judge them, and I would query that very seriously. I ask the Minister to explain why we have gone almost from one end of the spectrum to the other. I think I am right in saying that previously there was a high degree of professional representation on the tribunal, but now there is to be none. We will be subject to the Minister making all the appointments. That, in itself, I do not think is ever a good thing, because there is always the fear of politicisation of the process.

But it raises the other issue of there being very little degree of self-regulation. The people in the health sector, after all, are all professionals. A degree of self-regulation in a respectful and supportive environment is surely more likely to ensure competence—which is at the heart of this legislation—than a process that is prescriptive and that has the Minister’s hands on it. So I think that is to be regretted. There comes a time when we have to give due regard to people who are professionals. They owe it to themselves to make sure they do not bring their profession into disrepute, and therefore they can be trusted, with a degree of confidence, to make sure they behave in ways that bring benefit to them. They know very well why they are in those professions. They have the well-being and the safety of human beings in their hands.

The power of the Minister is the first point I wanted to raise as something I think we ought to be concerned about. The Minister also has the power, under clause 83, to dismiss tribunal members at will. There again, I think that that places too much power in the hands of one person, and for no good reason. Other than that, I suppose it is a feature of this Government that it tries to hold power at the centre, but that does not always work with professionals. The other point concerns representation for the sector and its members’ own ability to self-regulate to ensure competence.

JILL PETTIS (Junior Whip—NZ Labour): I move, That the question be now put.

HEATHER ROY (ACT NZ): As we have just heard, Part 4 deals with complaints and discipline. I think it is very important to have some background information, and some of the other speakers have touched on this. The complaints process to date has been far from adequate. In fact, in some cases it has been quite shocking. Patients who have very valid complaints have waited months, and in some cases even years, to have their complaints heard, and that has been unsatisfactory for everyone. Not only does the person making the complaint have to suffer and wait for long periods of time, but also the health professional at the other end of the complaint has a long wait.

Of course, there are always a number of vexatious complaints, and these are never easy. People who think they have been wronged are looking for somebody to take the blame. The health practitioner at the other end of it also often has to wait months, and sometimes years, to have a case heard—even when it is a very simple matter—so that it can be dismissed.

I think it is fair to say that the Health Committee had a lot of discussion about this part. We received several very good submissions. In particular I would like to refer to the submissions from the Health and Disability Commissioner and from Wendy Brandon of the Law Society, and also to the submissions from the professions themselves. I think that, at the end of that process, this part of the bill was the part that probably the whole committee was reasonably content with. We heard from the previous speaker that the Minister of Health still has great powers, but the provisions we now see in this bill are much better than what we have had previously. Complaints will now all go through the Office of the Health and Disability Commissioner, and it will be more like a one-stop shop than what we have had previously.

Doctors are the ones about whom the most complaints are received. The complaints mostly go to the Health and Disability Commissioner, but any complaint dating back before 1996 goes to the professional bodies, to be referred on to complaints investigation committees. Those committees will now be replaced by professional conduct committees. The select committee had a lot of discussion about the make-up of these committees, and came to what I regard as a very satisfactory decision. When a complaint is made against a health professional, a majority of that person’s peers will be on the conduct committee. Certainly, Wendy Brandon from the Law Society was adamant that that should happen, and the professions were adamant that that should happen. Some of the lobby groups were a little disappointed, but I think that in the final instance they will be reasonably satisfied with that result, once they see how it works.

There was a lot of discussion about compliance costs, particularly for the smaller professions—the people who do not earn a lot. I think those concerns were listened to, and addressed well, by the officials. I felt they did a particularly good job in that regard, and I think the outcome will be very good. The compliance costs have been partly allayed by the fact that the secretariat from each of the professions individually will run the complaints system. It will do the administration for each one, and that should see a drop in compliance costs.

We do have to take complaints and discipline very seriously. The professions do need to be transparent. As we know, this bill is about competence, despite my concerns that competence was not able to be defined in the bill because everybody felt it was too hard. I think that a level of competence is very important, and I think we should have tried harder to define competence, but the professions will manage to do it for themselves. I am pleased that professional self-regulation will be there, even if it is not the intention of the Government.

The new, one-stop shop will, I believe, be much better for the complaints system than the one we presently have. The time that people have to wait to have their complaints heard should be significantly less. Despite the fact that the work of the Office of the Health and Disability Commissioner will increase, the commissioner seems to think he will be able to cope. I am sure there will be a good outcome for everybody. I think the amount of pressure that somebody is under when a complaints process is in train is often underestimated. The waiting is the hard part.

Hon ANNETTE KING (Minister of Health): Can I first of all say that I agree with the member who has just spoken, in terms of her comments on this part, but I say to her that professional self-regulation, with responsibility towards the public, is the Government’s aim, and I think this part certainly encompasses that.

The point the member made regarding all complaints going to the Office of the Health and Disability Commissioner came out of the Cull inquiry. John Carter would be interested because the inquiry arose out of the Parry case involving Colleen Poutsma, and the need to ensure that there was one place where complaints could go. There was something like 14 complaints running against Dr Parry, and many of those organisations that had complaints laid before them did not know that other organisations also had complaints. So I think what has been put in place here is very sensible.

I really wanted only a short call, to answer Georgina te Heuheu regarding the appointments to the Health Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal, and to tell her that Part 4 is exactly the same as what is in the Medical Practitioners Act. In other words, the members are appointed by the chairperson of the tribunal, from a panel maintained by the Minister. When the member was a Minister, she was probably one of those who were responsible for this part. None of the tribunal members are elected under the Act, and, obviously, the majority of them are health practitioners. This also applies to the questions asked last night by the member for Whangarei. I want to assure those members that this part is a transfer from the Medical Practitioners Act to the new Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act.

BARBARA STEWART (NZ First): I thank the Chair for the opportunity to participate in this part of the debate. I will take only a short call. Part 4 focuses on complaints and discipline and it is a lengthy part. We believe that a complaints and disciplinary procedure is always needed and we support this part. This part is clearly set out. It is very comprehensive, and we believe, like the previous speaker, Heather Roy, that it will be very difficult for any disciplinary tribunal to be confused. We believe that professional self-regulation is a key factor in the success of this part, particularly if one has the confidence of the public in mind. One of the concerns we did have was the apparent powers of the Minister of Health—any Minister of Health—but that has more than likely been the case in previous situations anyway, so it did not really cause us a great deal of concern. There does appear to be, though, a lot of room for influence by the various Governments of the day, but we accept that that is part of the playing field anyway. We definitely support the Health Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal comprising a majority of health practitioners, because they do have the clinical knowledge and expertise to make a judgment on any charges that are brought forward, and we think that is absolutely essential.

JUDITH COLLINS (NZ National—Clevedon): In relation to this particular complaints-processing part of the bill, the Health Committee, I felt, really tried hard to get a good, consensus view. I was very impressed by the contributions of all members of the committee in trying to reach a sensible, workable solution that would work well, not only for the public but also for the health professionals and those accused of misconduct. We had some concerns, however, and we noted those in the minority report—a quite substantial minority report.

In particular, we were concerned that insufficient weight had been given by the balance of the committee to the submission from Wendy Brandon, who was representing the New Zealand Law Society. She was also there in her own right as the former chair of the Medical Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal. She is a person with 6 years’ experience in this particular area, who is known to me as a very sensible, level-headed person who is not only a lawyer but used to be a nurse, and so brings a new perspective to this area.

One of the concerns that Mrs Brandon had was that there should be two levels of charges before the disciplinary tribunal. That issue was of concern to us in the National Party, and also to ACT—that under this bill the severity of the offence makes no difference to the naming of the charge. In other words, a doctor who rapes his patient will be charged, under this particular bill—obviously, outside the criminal area—with exactly the same charge as someone who makes an error in judgment. The National Party is very concerned because there is a huge difference, in reality, between levels of misconduct. What we are talking about here is just one size fits all. One of the problems with this bill, which we have spoken extensively on in the last 2 days, is that it is trying to do too much, and to say that everyone is just the same. Well, no, everyone is not the same. I think the patients of the former Dr Fahey would feel somewhat aggrieved that he could be charged and found guilty of professional misconduct in the same way as a doctor who made an error but certainly was not a serial rapist. So that is one of our concerns with this bill.

We are, of course, always concerned about the level of political appointment to bodies such as the tribunal. We were, however, very pleased that common sense dictated that the tribunal will comprise three professional peers of the person accused, and two laypersons, one being the chairperson of the tribunal. I think that is a very sensible solution. Some groups of people representing patients or former complainants felt that there should be only one professional peer on the tribunal, or none. Some wanted no lawyers involved, which I thought was quite interesting from a natural justice point of view. They really showed, unfortunately, that they are somewhat one-sided and one-eyed occasionally in these matters. It is very, very important that any disciplinary process has the support of the professionals it deals with—the health practitioners—because without the support of the professions it will not succeed, and that is very, very clear. The medical professionals or health practitioners involved in these tribunal hearings must feel they are being dealt with fairly.

Certainly, my own experience through the Law Society, working on the complaints committees, has been that the professional peers are almost always harder and tougher on the person complained about than the laypeople are. Laypeople tend to have a much kinder and much more understanding view of mistakes and errors.

Hon JOHN TAMIHERE (Minister of Youth Affairs): I move, That the question be now put.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the question be now put.

Ayes 69

Labour 52; Green Party 9; United Future 8.

Noes 46

New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 6.

Motion agreed to.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 111 in the name of Heather Roy to insert new subclause (b)(viiia) in clause 64 be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendment be agreed to.

Ayes 46

New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 6.

Noes 69

Labour 52; Green Party 9; United Future 8.

Amendment not agreed to.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 111 in the name of Heather Roy to insert new subclause (2)(a)(viiia) in clause 95 be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendment be agreed to.

Ayes 46

New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 6.

Noes 69

Labour 52; Green Party 9; United Future 8.

Amendment not agreed to.

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 118 in the name of the Hon Annette King be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendments be agreed to.

Ayes 82

Labour 52; New Zealand First 13; Green Party 9; United Future 8.

Noes 33

New Zealand National 27; ACT New Zealand 6.

Amendments agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That Part 4 as amended be agreed to.

Ayes 82

Labour 52; New Zealand First 13; Green Party 9; United Future 8.

Noes 33

New Zealand National 27; ACT New Zealand 6.

Part 4 as amended agreed to.

Part 5 Appeals

Dr LYNDA SCOTT (NZ National—Kaikoura): Part 5 deals with appeals to the District Court and the High Court, and I think that we will see the concept of scopes of practice really being tested out in courts of law. A person has the right of appeal against a decision made by an authority to decline or suspend that person’s practising certificate, or include conditions in that person’s scope, or proposed scope, of practice. It may be that foreign doctors in this country may appeal and challenge a judgment over scopes of practice and a person’s right to practice within a particular scope. It will come down to the definition of what an individual can do. We heard about Dr Monty Hornbeck. If one were to say that he could practise in a limited scope, or try to deny him practice, if he appealed that, then he could look at grounds for denying him a limited scope, or not denying him that scope, but allowing a broader scope. This is where we will find that people will test the concepts. It will probably take some years before there is case law that will really define and differentiate where the grounds of that new term lie.

The terms we heard used about scopes of practice were “leading”, “cutting edge”, and one that was used under the Resource Management Act: “permissive”.There was a similar sort of permissiveness there about scopes of practice, in that we will find how it works when we look at people challenging a decision through the District Court. I bring up the situation in Opotiki at the moment, where nurses who are running the local health centre hospital have become quite concerned that they do not have medical cover. That happened on the West Coast as well. Because they had a real lack of locum relief, practice nurses were doing first-line call in the weekends. If we are to look at people practising within their scopes of practice—and they can be taken to the disciplinary tribunal if they practise outside their scope—what will happen to the nurses on the West Coast and in Opotiki who feel that, basically, they are being made to practise outside what would be a safe scope of practice, because there are no doctors there? There are 10,000 people in Opotiki, with no after-hours doctor service. Nurses are on the front line, and some of them are expressing concern—just as the nurses down on the West Coast did—that they are being asked to practise outside of what would be their normal scope of practice. They are having to develop diagnostic skills that they feel very concerned about, because they do not have the back-up. Nurses on the West Coast pulled out of doing the after-hours roster. They did not feel that they wished to be placed in that sort of position.

We have heard a lot from the Minister in recent times about the development of nurse practitioners. There is no problem with developing a nurse-practitioner concept, so long as they can still practise within the bounds of their training. With scopes of practice, we do not want to see our medical and nursing systems being downgraded so that there is a lower level of ability, especially in rural areas, to develop and provide services.

Under the bill, people who do practise outside their scope are really putting themselves on the line. However, People practise outside their scopes every day in this country. It will be interesting to see how that works under the appeal situation. If the system is such that people are pushed to work in that way, who will get the blame? It is always the nurse and doctor on the front line who end up before the disciplinary tribunal and who have to take the rap. Eventually, they are the ones who will appeal and use Part 5 through the appeals process.

Hon ANNETTE KING (Minister of Health): I totally agree with the member who has just resumed her seat that no one should practise outside his or her scope of practice. The member said that it happens every day now, and she wondered what would happen in the future. Although this part does not deal with scopes of practice, it is important that the Medical Council, the Nursing Council, and the councils that govern most of our health professionals have worked out, and have been working out, what those scopes of practice are so there can be no confusion as to what a person is being asked to do. No council should allow health practitioners, whether they are doctors or nurses, to work outside their scope of practice. But how does one know what his or her scope of practice is unless that council has a very clear idea? That was one of the issues that was debated earlier. The Medical Council and the Nursing Council have a very clear idea of what those scopes of practice are. They have worked very hard on scopes of practice. Many of the other professions that come under this bill have also worked hard on those.

However, this part is about appeals, and the member raised the issue that courts of law would be used to make decisions. I am sure that the Medical Council told the member that when it met me it said that often it is before the courts right now. The council goes before the court when there is a disagreement by a health practitioner who believes that it has not made the right decision. In fact, at this very moment there is an overseas doctor—a surgeon, I believe—before the courts. It is common practice. What the courts do—and what the Medical Council believes will continue to happen—is listen to the practice of the Medical Council, and what is the practice of the council that is responsible for the registration and competency of its health practitioners. They listen to the Medical Council, and that has been the case for many years. Members of the Medical Council told me they have no doubt that that is what will continue in the future.

JUDITH COLLINS (NZ National—Clevedon): I thank the Minister for taking a call, because she is certainly taking the odd call on these issues. I am disappointed that we have not yet heard from the chairperson of the Health Committee, Steve Chadwick, who I do not think has taken a call on this bill in the entire time that we have been debating it in the last 2 days, apart from closure motions.

Having said that, I think it is a good point that we have at least an appeal process, as opposed to a review process, of the decisions of the tribunal and the authority. An appeal process is one in which it is easier for a person complaining or appealing to actually bring a case. Quite often in these sorts of matters in the past we have had judicial reviews of decisions. They are extremely expensive and it is very, very difficult to bring about a change of opinion. I am supportive of an appeal, rather than simply a judicial review. I think that is a very good point.

Having said that, I point out that a significant amount of this part of the bill does, in contradiction to what the Minister has just said, deal with the fact that there will be appeals against findings of scopes of practice. It is all very well for the Minister to say that the courts do try to look at the current procedures of the tribunal that they are looking at in the decisions. However, the tribunals we are talking about here are brand-new. This is a brand-new tribunal that we are looking at, in terms of its processes, in terms of its composition, and in terms of the many different health practitioners that it is going to be regulating and looking at. That is one of the issues here. It is going to be quite some time before we get any case law. That will lead to a lot of uncertainty and cost. That is a concern.

This whole process is going to be, by way of appeal, far more inclined towards courts and court processes, and therefore towards lawyers and legal processes. There has been, again, a tremendous amount of concern from people like dental therapists, as to the amount of costs that might come to bear upon their particular professions. Several smaller professional groups are concerned that although they are very seldom complained about, they will end up having to bear the cost of the professions that are the subject of most complaint—in other words, the frontline people who are having to make life-and-death decisions. That is a concern and it is a facet of a one-stop shop, which this bill is all about. I would have thought that the Minister would listen to the advice of these groups, who are people trying to do the right thing and wanting to be properly regulated, but who are also very concerned that they are often on relatively low salaries and working in schools and other places where they do not earn huge amounts of money. They are concerned about those particular costs.

Steve Chadwick: The committee listened.

JUDITH COLLINS: It is nice to hear that the chairperson of the Health Committee can actually speak, as she is now doing. It would be very, very nice if she could take a call and speak to this particular bill.

Phil Heatley: Say something constructive.

JUDITH COLLINS: Something constructive would in fact be very good, thank you Mr Heatley. In many ways we are pleased with some of this particular part of the bill, but in other ways we are concerned, along with our ACT colleague, that not enough consideration is given to the practicalities. There is a tremendous amount of consideration given to the theory but, as is often the case with the Labour minority Government, there is a lot of effort put into the theory and very little effort put into the practicalities. The Government is being driven by particular groups that have its ear more than other groups do. That is a real concern. This part of the bill, and the bill itself, is going to be a particular bonus to the legal profession. It will be a bonus to the court system. I am concerned that there will not be enough room in the court calendar for it. It will take a long time.

HEATHER ROY (ACT NZ): I want to address scopes of practice briefly—although that issue is not really part of this part, but, as the Minister addressed it, I think I can probably say a little on it. The National Party member Dr Lynda Scott talked about the nurses in Opotiki in particular, but it was indicative of other parts of the country where people are working in crisis situations outside what will become their scopes of practice.

The Minister says that that is not acceptable, but the point remains that those nurses are doing it out of a sense of duty and out of necessity because there is nobody else at the coalface able to deal with the public when they have medical problems. If they are not going to be allowed to do anything at all, that will leave areas of the country with no medical staff at all to deal with problems.

When something goes wrong, of course, somebody always has to be found to blame, and that is where these things may well go to appeal, as Dr Scott pointed out. I will not go down that track any longer because I think she has said everything there was to say about the matter.

Judith Collins: It’s worth saying again.

HEATHER ROY: I could say it again but I have other things to address, so I will go ahead and do that. My concern with Part 5 is in relation to clause 106, “Court may refer matter back for reconsideration”. We have already heard that when a complaint process is in train it is often a very lengthy matter. [Interruption] Perhaps members opposite might like to take a call instead of just shouting across the benches at each other, if they have something productive to say. Obviously they do not have; they have quietened down again.

Pita Paraone: It’s those Māori members.

HEATHER ROY: That is right—they are very noisy. My concern about clause 106, “Court may refer matter back for reconsideration”, is that it will draw this whole process out and make it very lengthy indeed. The good part about Part 4, as I said before, is that hopefully the amount of time that the complaints process takes will go down significantly. In relation to the cases taken to the professional conduct committee after they have been referred on from the Health and Disability Commissioner, if somebody is unhappy with the outcome it can then be taken on through the court process. As Judith Collins pointed out, lawyers are the ones who will benefit from that, as there is often a lot of significant cost involved. The matter can then go the courts, and instead of making a determination themselves, which in most cases reiterates the findings of the complaints investigation committees, which will be replaced with the professional conduct committees, clause 106(1) states: “Instead of determining an appeal under this Part, the appropriate court may direct the authority or Tribunal whose decision or order is appealed against to reconsider,”—so it can then be referred back.

It may be the start of something just going round and round in circles, making the whole process very time consuming and putting a burden on people, when we are trying to get rid of that burden. The patient will be left with an unsatisfactory result, or the heath practitioner will be. Hopefully, vexatious complaints will be out of the system by then. However, patients who are really not satisfied with a ruling that has been made are able to draw the process out significantly.

We know that the professions are hardest on their own. We see it time and time again within the health practitioners tribunal, particularly in relation to nurses. Nurses are particularly hard on their own, and I have sometimes been staggered at the rulings that have been made. The majority of nurses on the tribunal have made particularly hard decisions against their own profession. Doctors, too, often do that, as do dentists and pharmacists. As they are the professions that have the greatest number of complaints, that is where we would expect to see that, but, that being the case, going on through the appeal process, then perhaps having the courts refer the matter back to the committees, is in some cases asking for a great deal of trouble.

The National Party member Judith Collins also mentioned that the practicalities seem to have been overlooked here. A great deal of thought and input is being given to the theory, but I wonder just how much input has gone into the practicalities. She is quite right when she says that the tribunals are new. The appeal processes are going to be looking at new and perhaps unresolved problems, which are always difficult to anticipate when looking at new legislation. I support my colleagues in the National Party when they talk about whether the practicalities have been looked at.

Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU (NZ National): Part 5 sets up an appeals process, and, like my colleague Judith Collins, I think it is probably appropriate in this context, particularly when, in a sense, we are embarking on quite a new area of policy. We would not want to see the process becoming overused, because then that would indicate a failure in the policy. We are dealing with people’s rights to register and practise as health practitioners in a field where everyone is a professional, and if for some reason somebody is declined from registering with an authority, then it is only proper that we should have an appeals process.

We have rights of appeal to the District Court in relation to decisions on the directions of any of the authorities that come into play under this new legislation. We also have an appeal process to the High Court against the whole, or any part of, findings or orders made by the Health Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal. Under clause 109 there is also provision for an appeal on questions of law. If the appeal is from the District Court, then the question of law must be referred to the High Court, and if the appeal is from the High Court, then it must be referred to the Court of Appeal. The tiered structure of the various courts is there, and I hope that the process will not become a field of activism for lawyers, because nobody wins, other than the lawyers, quite a lot of the time—and I am happy to say that, even though law is my background. What we want is legislation that is working well to protect the health and safety of the public. If we are to have people constantly appealing or questioning decisions made by an authority or the tribunal, then this House will not have reason to be proud of itself when this bill goes through.

I will pick up the issue of scopes of practice. I was thankful that the Minister stood up, at the beginning, and gave some reassurance that scopes of practice have been worked out by each of the sectors in this area, because under clause 101 there is a provision for appeal where an authority declines to authorise a change to the existing scope of practice of a health practitioner. I have been trying to work out what sort of situation that might apply to; I do not think the Minister covered that in her opening remarks, and that causes some worry for me, because if scopes of practice were a notion that could be clearly worked out and understood, then why would there be a situation in which practitioners would be seeking to change an existing scope of practice?

Hon Annette King: They might be too old to continue in that scope of practice. They might decide they can’t do it any more.

Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU: OK. There we go: it is very important that that provision is here. It is to ensure ongoing competence. [Interruption] Whatever—whether it is age or anything else. I wonder whether it might have applied to Dr Bottrill. In any event, although I am supportive of this part of the bill, and of the appeals process, I do have a minor worry in that I do not want it to become a plucking-field for the legal profession. It is proper that the appeals process is included in the bill. I support it.

STEVE CHADWICK (NZ Labour—Rotorua): I move, That the question be now put.

PITA PARAONE (NZ First): I want to take a short call on this. I am really pleased that two of the Māori members of the Government are here in the Committee, though I wonder whether their presence has anything to do with a possible amendment relating to which courts health professionals may take their case. Could it be the Māori Land Court? That seems to be a topic of discussion at the moment. [Interruption] Never mind; we will just wait and see.

First of all, my concern with this part is in relation to the likely cost. I think that the processes that are required by both the High Court and the District Court will certainly impose some costs on the health professionals who want to take their case to that level. My major concern is that we have a saying here in our country that we are judged by our peers, so I seek some clarification in terms of where the basis for the appeal or the court action is in relation to the vocation of the individual—I want to know whether that is in question. Will those who sit in judgment have the vocational skills to be able to judge? In saying that, I am not being critical of our judiciary system; I am talking about a sense of fairness, and of being judged by our peers.

We heard one or two examples about foreign medical practitioners, in particular, who may not be approved by their peers to practise in this country, and who may argue for their right to practise, on the basis of their professional competency. Will those who sit in the court have the skill to make that kind of a decision? Will the practitioner go away feeling that he or she has had a fair go at this? Given that that may not happen, there is the possibility that the matter may get referred back to the group that gave rise to the original appeal. In my mind, that will not only prolong the process, but it will add costs. I just wanted to make those two points about being judged by one’s peers and about the costs that will be incurred, not only by the appellant himself or herself, but by the system in terms of money and the allocation of resources.

DAVID BENSON-POPE (Senior Whip—NZ Labour): I move, That the question be now put.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the question be now put.

Ayes 69

Labour 52; Green Party 9; United Future 8.

Noes 47

New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 7.

Motion agreed to.

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 118 in the name of Hon Annette King to clauses 101 and 102 be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendments be agreed to.

Ayes 69

Labour 52; Green Party 9; United Future 8.

Noes 47

New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 7.

Amendments agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That Part 5 as amended be agreed to.

Ayes 69

Labour 52; Green Party 9; United Future 8.

Noes 47

New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 7.

Part 5 as amended agreed to.

Clause 6 Structures and administration

Dr LYNDA SCOTT (NZ National—Kaikoura): Part 6, “Structures and administration”, really gets to the heart of why National will be voting against this bill. One of the issues of immense concern is the power of the Minister under this legislation. It comes down to a fundamental question about whether professions can self-regulate. We either trust them or we do not. Submission after submission expressed concern about the powers of the Minister to appoint to the authorities and determine any dispute over overlapping scopes of practice. If there were a dispute between nurse-anaesthetists and medical-anaesthetists, the Minister would have the final say. There was dispute, because people felt there would be a major decrease in professionalism and that the professions would be disenfranchised. The Health Committee received submission after submission on that.

The New Zealand Medical Association commented on the low morale in the medical profession and amongst primary-care groups today, and it felt that this bill would make that so much worse. It said that self-regulation is a cornerstone of safe practice and that each group of health professionals must be able to elect its professional body. They have been doing that for a long time, and they wanted that to continue. Members should compare that with what some of the officials were saying, which was that they felt that the Minister “must be able to appoint, because you’re not going to get the right people otherwise”. I think that gives a very clear indication of a feeling that there is political interference in the process, and that is one of the major concerns.

We heard from the Royal Australasian College of Physicians, the Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners, and the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons about ministerial powers, and about their concerns of decreased professionalism. They certainly wanted a majority of elected people, and they did not want scopes of practice to be decided by the Minister. We debated that at length in the select committee after hearing all the submissions. We debated clause 123, “Disputes about overlapping scopes of practice”, and clause 124, “Minister may give directions to resolve dispute”. In the end, by majority, we came up with a new subclause (2A), which states: “A direction under subsection (2) may, without limitation, require each authority to co-operate with a panel of experts”—we could not get much further, as the Minister will still appoint that panel of experts—“and may also require each authority, to be guided by or (as the notice may state) to implement any recommendations of the panel concerning the dispute.” At least we got into the bill a provision whereby there would be a panel of experts that would have some ability to direct the Minister about overlapping scopes of practice. We have not seen before in New Zealand the situation whereby the Minister was able to say that one group may practise one way and another group another way.

There was an immense concern about the Minister being able to resolve disputes in any way he or she sees fit. Clause 123(3) states: “The Minister may assist the authorities to resolve their disputes in any way the Minister sees fit,” and that all he or she has to do is write to the authorities and tell them how to direct their lives. The medical profession is up in arms about that, because its members see this as a huge interference by the Minister, and the ministerial powers given by that provision really do reduce the professionalism in the system. The clause continues: “including, without limitation, by advising each authority in writing of 1 or more options for resolving the dispute”. So the Minister has an absolute hands-on approach in determining how different professions will be able to work it out between themselves. That is pretty new to New Zealand, and there was real concern that it will reduce professionalism, self-regulation, and the professions being able to determine amongst themselves how they practise in this country. If we think about how people do practise, then we will see there is major overlap in scopes already.

Hon ANNETTE KING (Minister of Health): When the member began her contribution on Part 6 of the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Bill, she raised the issue of disputes around scopes of practice, the powers that the Minister would have, how the Minister would be interfering, and how that would not be wanted. I want to relay to the Committee that just a few months ago members of the Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists came to me to ask whether I would be able to intervene in a dispute they were having with the Nursing Council over a proposal that nurses would look at a perioperative scope of practice in anaesthetics. They asked if I could help them to overcome that problem and bring them together with the Nursing Council. I told them that they needed to go away and talk to each other. One needs someone to intervene only when one cannot make a decision.

That is the environment we have now. We have a Nursing Council that is working on a number of issues around scopes of practice. Certainly, a perioperative nurse scope of practice is very much on the modern agenda. I have no problems with that, so long as it is within the competency of a nurse to be able to do that, and that the nurse is trained and has the proper qualifications—the same as a doctor wanting a particular scope of practice. But when it comes to a dispute, there has to be a mechanism. I think the lawyers would understand that. If there is a dispute—and they do occur, have occurred, and are occurring—there needs to be a mechanism to resolve that dispute. One could take them all to court, and I am sure Pita Paraone would be worried if everything ended up in court when there was a dispute.

What has been put in this bill is a provision that, as a last resort, people can go somewhere for resolution. The Minister has the opportunity to work with a panel of experts who will provide him or her with help. Because of the Acts Ministers of Health work under, they receive advice on, and are often asked to make decisions on, all sorts of things that they have not been involved in in their other lives. What has been put in this part of the legislation is a mechanism that provides that whenever there is a dispute that requires consultation and a process, at the end of the day, a Minister—whoever that Minister is—will listen to those who have the expertise. Certainly, this Minister will. I cannot guarantee that if she were the Minister, Dr Scott would do so, but certainly I would listen to expertise.

When we get to the issue of whether there should be elected members, then there is a provision in the bill, and some future Minister may decide that there will be elections. I have said over and over again: who is this bill for? It is for the safety of the public. When this bill was brought in, it had the same number of lay people and professionals. Health professionals are actually in the majority on the bodies, and a majority of health professionals makes the decisions. They are doctors or nurses, and not just people dragged off the street—the majority are the health professionals themselves. In my view, what is needed is a statutory process that is transparent and open, which shows who has been appointed and why.

The member talked about political interference. I have had the experience—and I am sure Georgina te Heuheu has had the experience—of appointing people to those councils. After all, only three have elected members—I think the other eight do not—so I am sure that Georgina te Heuheu would have appointed people to the podiatry board, the physiotherapy board, etc. I guarantee she did not look at the appointments in a political light. The nominations that come in to me are from the organisations, and I make the appointments. I do not wonder whether they are members of the Labour electorate committee, or have another political connection.

What have come in to me from those professional bodies have been their professional nominations, and I make the appointments in a transparent process. Everybody knows that I have appointed those people, because my name is on the document. I believe that gives the public some certainty that this is an open, transparent process. At the same time, it gives the profession self-regulation. After all, the people who are appointed are their own members.

PHIL HEATLEY (NZ National—Whangarei): What members will gather from that tirade is not only the concern the Minister has in defending this legislation, but a recognition from her that one can hide the flaws of poor legislation for only so long before they eventually come to the fore, and everyone recognises the legislation for what it is. That is why the Minister acknowledged during the debate on Part 5 that appeals before the District Court and the High Court were more likely to happen under the new legislation than under the current legislation. Members will recall that there are rights of appeal against any decision to decline or register a person as a health practitioner, to decline to issue a practising certificate, to cancel registration with the authority, and on it goes. Scopes of practice were discussed there, as well. It is acknowledged that this bill will lead to more appeals in both those courts, and that litigation is much more probable.

So we come to Part 6, which talks about structures and administration. Throughout this legislation we have seen the Minister decide that she will have more fingers in the pie, more political appointments, and more influence over the process. The importance of clinical safety and the safety of those suffering ill health have been put down the scale of importance. Previously, professional groups set their own codes of ethics. That is what happened in the past, and that is part of being in a profession. All of those professions we have discussed—pharmacists, midwives, osteopaths, GPs, surgeons, or whatever—set their own codes of ethics. However, this bill proposes that the relevant authorities will now set those codes of ethics. Not only that, those sitting on the relevant authorities will be appointed by this Minister, and they will set the codes of ethics. I would argue that the Minister should have an arm’s-length relationship with those authorities, and that certainly will not happen if she appoints her Labour Party cronies as they retire or get kicked out of their seats in 2005. That is a concern for me.

I see that clause 110(1) sets up the Dental Council. Clause 110(2) “establishes a body corporate as the authority appointed in respect of the profession of midwifery;” and that authority will be known as the Midwifery Council. We will see an Osteopathic Council set up as well, and in respect of the profession of pharmacy, we will see an authority known as the Pharmacy Council. All of those will be political appointments by the Minister, who may or may not ask those professions for recommendations. She might decide that David Benson-Pope would be best sitting on an authority when they put him out to pasture, and that is a concern to me and many New Zealanders.

It is inappropriate to have this function performed by a statutory body, whether or not—I have to add—it is politically appointed. It will be politically appointed, but regardless, professional groups should set their own codes of ethics. That is what works in other sectors, so why does the Minister not accept that it can work in the health sector? These two measures destroy an important check on the power of Government. That is what is happening here—we are destroying a check on this Government.

Hon RICHARD PREBBLE (Leader—ACT NZ): I had better declare an interest immediately. I am a member of a professional body—not a health body, but I am a member of a professional body. [Interruption] No, no, I am a lawyer, so I have an interest in looking at professional bodies and how it should be done. I am interested to see that we are setting up a body that Mr Cunliffe is supporting. That member is not a professional, but he clearly wants the registration of doctors done by lay people, and—worse than that—done by people selected by a Minister of Health who was a dental technician—

Hon Annette King: No.

Hon RICHARD PREBBLE: A dental nurse then, who I think has a heavy chip on her shoulder about professional dentists and doctors.

The Minister said—and I think it is an outrageous public view for the Minister of Health to have—that she believes that there is a tendency for health practitioners to look after their own members and not take the public interest enough into account. She talks as if there were a public interest in having doctors registered who are not properly qualified. I have never met doctors who were not in favour of having the highest quality standards. Whenever I am being treated—or a member of my family, or a member of the New Zealand public—I want us treated not by a quack, but by someone who is professionally competent.

Who is most likely to hold professional standards? They are the professionals themselves. The Minister may not know that, but the professionals themselves will set high standards, and those lay people will try to lower them. Lay people will raise politically correct notions about there not being enough women in this area, or not enough ethnic minorities, and they will want more women and ethnic minorities registered as health professionals.

But it goes further than that. When one reads the clause properly, one sees that the Minister—

Steve Chadwick: Have you read the bill?

Hon RICHARD PREBBLE: I have read the bill, and I am particularly concerned about clause 116. Subclause (2A) states that before the Minister appoints a member to an authority, he or she must publish a notice that: “(i) invites organisations and individuals …” to make nominations. Presumably, that could be the chairman of the Labour Party, who could make a nomination in respect of who could do registrations. Subclause (4) states that the Minister may “… appoint a person who has not been elected as a member of the authority …”, so we could have someone who had not been elected by his or her fellow professionals, who had no standing at all, but was a good friend of the Prime Minister, of Annette King, or just a good party supporter. We will now see that sort of politics in registration.

I say to the Committee that I do not understand why we are putting lay people on those bodies, at all. It appears to me to be a matter of political correctness. I would like the Minister to give us examples to support her public statements, which I regard as a great insult to the professional bodies of New Zealand, and to the doctors and surgeons of this country. I ask the Minister to say where they have been putting their members’ interests ahead of the public interest. She made that statement, and she is putting this bill in front of this Parliament. Where is the evidence for it?

Steve Chadwick: And we’re proud of it.

Hon RICHARD PREBBLE: She is proud of the fact that her Government is denigrating doctors and health professionals, and that Labour Party lackeys will be put on to those committees, which will lower professional standards. That is the comment made by the Government member, Steve Chadwick. She wants her name put across, so that every doctor in New Zealand knows that it is her view that doctors and surgeons have been putting their own interests ahead of those of the public of New Zealand. That is an insulting statement from a Government that makes political correctness its ideology, and is in no way concerned with the real interests of the public.

I say that the Committee should reject this section, and I say to the Minister that it is an insult to every doctor and surgeon in New Zealand. I cannot see how anyone can possibly believe that this bill will result in better health standards in this country.

Hon ANNETTE KING (Minister of Health): It is with great pleasure that I take a call to answer Richard Prebble’s comments. He told Steve Chadwick that he had read the bill, but I direct him to clause 116. We are talking about who makes up these bodies, and that clause states that a majority of the members will be health professionals. They are not lay people who are dragged off the streets—old Labour Party hacks—and then put on to some council. The majority are doctors, not people working down at the trade union office whom Richard Prebble does not like. The majority of members must be doctors, if we are talking about doctors.

Let me read the provision to the member. Clause 116(2) states: “… (a) a majority of members who are health practitioners; and (b) 2 laypersons, if the authority has at any time 8 or fewer members; and (c) 3 laypersons, if the authority has at any time 9 or more members.” Mr Prebble said today that he could add up, and that only ACT can add up. I say to him that he should have another go at adding up, and if he can add those numbers up to be a majority of lay people on those bodies, then: “You’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din!” One cannot do so. The majority of the members on those bodies are doctors, nurses, physiotherapists, pharmacists, dentists, etc.

I suppose Mr Prebble is saying that we have so many doctors who are members of the Labour Party that I will go around shoulder-tapping them, and putting them on these boards. If that is true, something has changed. That is not the case. In fact, the member probably does not know that until 1995 all members of these bodies were appointed under the Medical Practitioners Act of the past. They were not elected, and even now a minority is elected. So the majority is appointed. If Mr Prebble would like to look at the membership of those councils, he would see that I have not made political appointments to any of them. Members have been appointed from their professions together with a minority of lay people, and that will not change. Mr Prebble came into the Chamber wanting to make a song and dance. He did not read that clause of the bill, and he got it wrong.

He then said what an insult it was that I said health professionals were more interested in looking after themselves than their patients. I have said on many occasions before about many organisations, including the Medical Association, the Dental Association and the Pharmaceutical Society, that there is a public perception that health professionals look after their own. I have said I do not actually believe that that is the case, but there is a public perception of that. If the member does not want to believe me, he may like to speak to some of those organisations. If he rings them up now, they will confirm that that is exactly what I have said. I have said there is that public perception, and I have to say it comes from cases like that of Dr Fahey from Christchurch. It comes from perceptions about doctors who appear to have got away with things when patients have not been listened to. Perhaps the case of Dr Bottrill is a better example of what has caused that perception, as other health professionals who knew about his practice did not do anything about it. There is a perception that the medical profession looks after itself, and in this part of the bill we want to have a process that is transparent. We will know whom the Minister has appointed. We will know who the people are. They will be there for us to see, with no doubt about it, because that gives a transparent process.

The member may also not know that only 3 of the current 11 boards have a minority of members elected to them. The nurses’ council does not. The council that governs Mr Prebble’s sister does not have elected members. The boards are very happy with the way that the system works, because it is open and transparent. People are nominated for appointment, and they are appointed. So that member’s speech was about nothing. It showed a whole lot of ignorance about what is in this bill and what already exists.

SUE KEDGLEY (Green): This is a very critical point, I believe. Whether health professionals’ organisations should be entitled to elect some members to their governing bodies is an absolutely critical issue in this bill. The Minister talked about the situation back in 1997 when all the positions were appointments, but we are not interested in 1997. We are interested in 2003, in this bill, and in trying to improve the situation for the future.

The fact of the matter is that this bill gives very wide-ranging powers to the Minister of Health over all the health professions covered by it. In particular, it gives the Minister of Health the right to appoint personally up to 14 members of every single governing authority established by this legislation. If every single member of every health professionals’ organisation is appointed by the Minister, those members are, in a sense, beholden to the Minister for their reappointment. That simple fact can act as a strong incentive to toe the line, and can ultimately undermine the independence of the professions. We have seen that situation with the chief executives of the district health boards. The Minister of Health personally appoints them all, they are beholden to the Minister of Health, and they are given very clear instructions to toe the line in respect of district health boards. That is one of the reasons that those chief executives are so quiet, and that some of them do not even allow members of their boards to speak out publicly.

So the Greens attach great importance to the provision that the health professions should be able to elect some members to their registration authorities. Indeed, allowing the health professions to elect some members to their governing bodies will mean that there is some involvement by those professions, so that they have a sense of ownership of their authorities, and do not feel that the membership is just all imposed on them. The way that this bill is at the moment means that we are not talking about self-regulation, at all; we are really talking about a very, very high degree of control by the Government over those professions.

I have been involved in a marginal way in some of these appointments, and I have seen how very easily such appointments can be really just a matter of dispensing patronage. It is a case of dispensing patronage, and also of making the reappointment process dependent on the Minister, so that everyone knows that, really, they cannot rock the boat. We then end up with a whole lot of compliant authorities that, basically, will all ultimately do the Minister’s bidding.

That is why the Green Party has an amendment to this clause, to make it absolutely clear that upon receipt of a request from an authority to do so, the Minister must make regulations enabling and ensuring that at least half the health practitioners appointed to an authority are elected from among the health practitioners registered with that authority. This amendment goes further than Dr Scott’s amendment. I am perfectly happy with Dr Scott’s amendment as far as it goes, but it states that only the existing health professions should be able to elect half their members. What about osteopaths? They may want to hold elections. What if, at some distant time—say, after another 20 years—acupuncturists are finally allowed to have their authority, and they want to elect its members? I think that most health professions will end up wanting to elect half the members of their authorities when they realise the degree of patronage and control that is exerted by having the Minister make every single appointment to the governing authority of every health profession in New Zealand.

So, in my view, this issue is absolutely critical, and I really urge the Government to support democratic elections. What is wrong with a little bit of democracy in the health professions? The Government has introduced a degree of democracy with the district health board elections, so why on earth should we not do the same thing here and allow some members of the various health professions’ governing authorities to be elected? According to the way that the bill is worded at present, the Minister is not required to allow those professions that wish to hold elections to do so, and that is why we have moved an amendment to require that.

MITA RIRINUI (NZ Labour—Waiāriki): I move, That the question be now put.

PITA PARAONE (NZ First): I want to take a short call with regard to clause 116, and in particular to respond to some of the comments made by Mr Prebble. Supplementary Order Paper 122 in my name suggests that all the tribunal, or the group, should be health professionals. The Minister used the case of Dr Bottrill, where some of his colleagues knew of his shortcomings. I suggest to this Committee that Dr Bottrill’s colleagues were not part of a tribunal process. I suggest, again, that the people who make up the membership of the tribunal should be health professionals. Of course, that is in keeping with my earlier comment about being judged by one’s peers.

If the Minister is to be part of the appointment process, then the professions themselves should be invited to submit the names and, although that is stated in the bill, I think the professions should have a process of election. In some way, I support the Green Party’s suggestion in Supplementary Order Paper 114 in the name of Sue Kedgley. But the point I want to make is that all the tribunal should be health professionals, with no exceptions. Although I have some difficulty with the authority that lies with the Minister, I believe that whoever is to stand in judgment of their peers should be health professionals from those particular health fields.

Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (NZ National—Port Waikato): I must admit I was somewhat concerned that the Minister of Health must have a sore tooth tonight, because she certainly did carry on a bit when challenged about the membership of the authorities. There are some quite extraordinary ironies about this issue. The Minster has gone to huge trouble in the health and disability legislation to endorse the thought of elected members there—and God help New Zealand in terms of the 21 district health boards that have been personed by Labour Party hacks and various other cronies—and to have an extraordinary mixture of people. But when it comes to professional bodies, the Minister says no, she will appoint the lot. Undoubtedly, that absolutely undermines the independence of the professions. It undermines that whole concept, which is hugely important. An amendment that I put forward earlier on was, sadly, rejected by this Labour Government.

One of the underpinning purposes of this bill should be that professional responsibility and independence is maintained in order to serve the public best. There are two amendments regarding that. One is in Supplementary Order Paper 103 in the name of my colleague Dr Lynda Scott. It is quite right and appropriate, and it states: “Where, under any enactment in force prior to the commencement of this Act, a health profession has elected members of its governing body, that profession may elect 50 percent of the members of the authority or such lesser proportion as the governing body or authority may decide.” I think that is quite appropriate, but I must say that for once the Green member Sue Kedgley has come up with quite a sensible suggestion in Supplementary Order Paper 114 in her name. I must admit that my mind boggles at the thought of a whole lot of osteopaths, but nevertheless the principle behind her suggestion is absolutely right.

Not so long ago, the Hon Richard Prebble mentioned that this Labour Government has put political correctness in front of everything. When we look at clause 114 we see that, no more so than with any other clause. Clause 114, “Functions of authorities”, includes the requirement “to set standards of clinical competence, cultural competence, and ethical conduct”. Well, here we are with a bill in which the Minister of Health cannot even define “competence”, and she suggests that the area of cultural competence can sit well in it. I can tell members that the other day I bumped into a nurse who was coming home from her cultural class at Auckland Hospital, where she works in the intensive care unit. I asked her what her class was about, and she said it had spent the last 4 hours talking about the fourth article of the Treaty of Waitangi. Heaven knows where this politically correct Labour Government is going! Undoubtedly, that really does take the cake. Quite rightly, again, my colleague Dr Lynda Scott, in an amendment, has suggested that paragraph (i) of clause 114 be thrown out.

I want to very briefly talk about clause 123, “Disputes about overlapping scopes of practice”. That is one of the areas of the bill that has all the professions extremely concerned. I put it on the record that I would like the Minister to take a call and tell the Committee what her plans are for nurse-anaesthetists in New Zealand. The history of this issue is that only 5 to 6 years ago, for the sake of maintaining standards general practitioner – anaesthetists, who had a diploma in anaesthesia, were phased out, because we wanted to have increased standards in New Zealand. Here we go! The Minister of Health is suggesting that there be a stream of nurses who can now become independent nurse-anaesthetists. Will the Minister of Health take a call and tell us her intentions?

Hon JOHN TAMIHERE (Minister of Youth Affairs): I move, That the question be now put.

Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

JUDITH COLLINS (NZ National—Clevedon): During the debate on this bill we have tried to be constructive in the Opposition, and we tried to be very constructive during the select committee process. The Health Committee worked very hard on this bill. We worked very well together across the parties, and that was great. However, Part 6 is the worst part of the bill, and I am appalled that we have it here in the Committee. I will bring up two issues on this particular part tonight.

The first issue relates to the concept of cultural competence. When I have trotted around the country, as I have, and have spoken to people in the health profession business, I have said to them that this bill has some good bits in it, but, unfortunately, it is like the curate’s egg and has some really rotten bits, as well. If and when this bill is passed—and I hope for support tonight for this part not to be passed—it will have the regulators of health professionals concerned not only with the ethical competence and the clinical competence of professionals but also in charge now of their cultural competence. Cultural competence is not defined in this bill, because, of course, it is sort of like the fourth article of the Treaty of Waitangi: it does not exist. We are not even told which particular culture we have to be competent in. That provision is an absolute nonsense and an outrage.

All of us here tonight in the Chamber have been either the patients of health practitioners and/or health practitioners ourselves. At no stage have any of us gone along to our health professionals and said we wanted to know how culturally competent they are. I would like to hear anybody say that he or she cares how culturally competent the people in the accident and emergency department are when he or she comes in from a road crash. Not one person in this Committee with any brain at all would ever want to ask how culturally competent they are.

It is absolutely right that any person who goes to a health professional wants to know that that professional knows what he or she is doing, and is clinically competent. That is fair enough, and it is good that the Minister wants that to be included. Absolutely, people want to know that a health professional behaves ethically. They want to know that they will not be told they have to have a bit chopped off that they do not really need to have chopped off, just to get income coming in for a professional. They want to know that they will not be sexually molested by a health practitioner—and nor should they be. But, for goodness’ sake, I ask whether any members of this Parliament have ever asked an orthopaedic surgeon how culturally competent he or she is. If they have, I hope they had the result that I suspect that they would have had, which was to be told to get out of the surgeon’s office immediately.

This provision is an absolute outrage. We have a health profession that is under much stress. These people are front-line people, and they are struggling to provide the most basic necessities. They have to work in a Third World health system under this Government, and here they are being told to be culturally competent. That is absolutely rich. The Government cannot even tell us which particular culture they are supposed to be going for. That is an outrage.

If we ask who will be in charge of this provision, we all learn that under clause 116 it will be the Minister. The Minister has given us all that stuff tonight about how she will appoint doctors to look at doctors, but they will be her doctors. They will not be doctors who have the confidence of their professional peers; they will be doctors who have the confidence of the Minister. That does not give a lot of confidence to anyone else, and that is one of the problems. The Minister talked to us about how she likes to go and consult with others. I ask the Committee to look at clause 5, where she has chopped that out.

HEATHER ROY (ACT NZ): I agree with everything that the member over here in the Opposition has just said, but I will go back and look some more at clause 116, which deals with the election of people to the authorities. I will do that because when Richard Prebble spoke earlier, I think that some members in this Committee did not take him very seriously. I am not looking at anyone in particular, but there were some members who did not take him seriously. The points that Richard Prebble made were right on the dot, because I showed them to him.

Doctors, dentists, and pharmacists currently have elections for their registration bodies and professional bodies.

Steve Chadwick: A good thing, too!

HEATHER ROY: It is a good thing. At the Health Committee the majority of people wanted to retain that, and clause 116(3) states that regulations made under this Act may provide that one or more of the health practitioners who are to be appointed will be elected. But the Minister’s intention has been made very clear in a newspaper article in the New Zealand Herald on 22 July, which stated: “Mrs King said yesterday that she did not favour elections for such bodies”, and she has told us why that is.

We in the ACT party say—and I think the National Party and New Zealand First agree with us, as well—that that is not right. We believe that the elections are very important for a number of reasons, several of which have been outlined earlier in the debate on the bill. We have said that it is very important that the environment needs to be right, in order for patient safety to be paramount. However, something that we have not mentioned previously is the credibility of the registration bodies among the health professionals—the people whom they govern. For the public to be assured of the competence—that term has not been defined, but we will not go there again—of health professionals, the health professions must be able to have professional self-regulation. We have heard a lot about that. The other thing is that the professions have to be satisfied that they are working in an environment that is conducive to public safety.

We heard from many groups at the select committee. In fact, an overwhelming number of the submissions were adamant that holding elections was very important, and that even in the case of those professions that have chosen, for the moment, to nominate people to the Minister for appointment to these authorities, the ability should remain for them to have elected members, should they so choose. The dentists, the doctors, and the pharmacists certainly want to continue in that vein; they have been very specific about that.

It was interesting to hear the Minister, when she jumped to her feet just before the tea break and talked about the doctors. She specifically mentioned doctors. The doctors are so disillusioned with this bill that they do not want to be part of it any more. When the discussion papers before the bill was drafted came forward, and even when the bill was initially put forward, they were very keen to be part of it. They thought the bill was a good piece of legislation, and that it was certainly heading in the right direction. But as time has elapsed and their concerns have not been listened to, they have decided they do not want to be part of it any longer. One of their big concerns is that they can no longer elect their own people to the authorities.

We elect people to the district health boards. I ask the Minister how we know that we are electing the right people to the district health boards. [Interruption] I ask Mrs Pettis, who is trying to interject, whether that means we will have to abandon those elections, as well. If we continue to have elected district health board members, it should follow through that the professional authorities, if they want to, should be able to have elections. But, no, the Minister said that that is no good.

In looking further into this part, and I refer particularly to clauses 119 to 125, we see that those clauses concern the powers of the Minister. I think the Minister was being a bit modest earlier. She said that there would not be great power there, and that even if there was she would not exercise it. However, the fact of the matter is that all the professions are extremely worried about ministerial power in this bill, not just in this part but right throughout the bill. They are worried that—

Dr Lynda Scott: Scopes of practice!

HEATHER ROY: Yes, scopes of practice. They are worried in all areas about the powers of the Minister. The ability is there for an awful lot of political interference. The Minister of Health or future Ministers of Health will be able to make decisions that the Minister cannot currently make.

GEORGINA BEYER (NZ Labour—Wairarapa): I move, That the question be now put.

PANSY WONG (NZ National): I agreed with the Hon Richard Prebble, who spoke just before dinner. He must have touched a raw nerve with the Minister, so I will try to follow through the theme of what he was trying to say. The Minister of Health became very, very excited at that point. She stood up, and she wants to do so again. We want to encourage the Minister to get to her feet.

Before dinner the Minister said that making appointments for reasons of political patronage was the furthest thing from her mind. So I thought I would do some research on appointments. We have researched a little into what this Labour Government has achieved. We cannot quite see into the future, but I certainly think the past is a good indication of the Labour Government’s performance in this area. The Dominion Post—Wellington City’s authoritative newspaper—has an article stating that more than 3,000 people serve on some 400 quangos funded from the public purse, and up to 900 appointments a year are made without public advertisements. What do we have? Let us look at some of those appointments.

Can members guess the former profession of Chief Human Rights Commissioner Ros Noonan? She was previously a trade union official, and she has also recently been appointed by Labour to a new task force. Wow! There is more. Former Labour Cabinet Minister David Caygill, who has earned over $100,000 from chairing an inquiry into the electricity industry, also picks up $50,000 a year for chairing the Accident Compensation Corporation. He is considered a front-runner to head the new 7-member Electricity Commission, after failing to get the last one off the ground. I see the Minister is getting excited; I am sure she will take a call. A left-leaning former Race Relations Commissioner, Gregory Fortuin, earns $55,000 a year as a New Zealand Post board member.

Let us look at some more appointments.

Jill Pettis: Relevance.

PANSY WONG: The Minister tried to say Labour would not appoint former party members to positions. How about former Prime Minister David Lange, and former Labour MP Jenny Kirk? I am telling members about all the quangos that are staffed by those people—former Labour MPs Jenny Kirk, Stan Rodger, Jill White, Ann Hercus; the list goes on and on.

Apparently in 2001 Treasury recommended that the process governing political appointments be put into a law, in order to give it more force, and that appointments be done more openly. Treasury put up that paper to the Government. Can members guess what the response of the Labour Government was? The Labour Government said that it had no plans to adopt Treasury’s recommendation. It would not have a bar of it.

Now we have this legislation before us, which once again gives the Minister plenty of opportunities to reward people, and to appoint people who agree with her positions. The Minister is most welcome to stand up and take a call, and to try to reassure us as to why the public and the Opposition parties should have confidence the Minister will not exercise her discretion and appoint people whom she favours.

I do want to pick up another issue that is very dear to my heart. Members who are appointed must be culturally competent.

John Carter: Like my mother.

PANSY WONG: Oh, John Carter’s mother. I am sure she is a very cultured woman, as far as I know. I wonder how the Minister will satisfy the requirements of a lady of such high standing. But I wonder whether all the different cultures would be included under that term.

Hon JOHN TAMIHERE (Minister of Youth Affairs): I move, That the question be now put.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the question be now put.

Ayes 60

Labour 52; United Future 8.

Noes 56

New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 7;Green Party 9.

Motion agreed to.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 113 in the name of Sue Kedgley to insert new subclause (5) in clause 110 be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendment be agreed to.

Ayes 22

New Zealand First 13; Green Party 9.

Noes 94

Labour 52; New Zealand National 27; ACT New Zealand 7; United Future 8.

Amendment not agreed to.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 103 in the name of Dr Lynda Scott to clause 114(i) be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendment be agreed to.

Ayes 56

New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 7;Green Party 9.

Noes 60

Labour 52; United Future 8.

Amendment not agreed to.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 122 in the name of Pita Paraone to insert new subclause (2) in clause 114 be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendment be agreed to.

Ayes 56

New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 7;Green Party 9.

Noes 60

Labour 52; United Future 8.

Amendment not agreed to.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 103 in the name of Dr Lynda Scott to clause 116(1) be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendment be agreed to.

Ayes 56

New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 7;Green Party 9.

Noes 60

Labour 52; United Future 8.

Amendment not agreed to.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 122 in the name of Pita Paraone to clause 116(2A) be agreed to

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendment be agreed to.

Ayes 47

New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 7.

Noes 69

Labour 52; Green Party 9; United Future 8.

Amendment not agreed to.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 103 in the name of Dr Lynda Scott to clause 116(2A) and (3) be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendment be agreed to.

Ayes 56

New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 7;Green Party 9.

Noes 60

Labour 52; United Future 8.

Amendment not agreed to.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 122 in the name of Pita Paraone to insert new subclauses (2B), (2C) and (2D) in clause 116 be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendment be agreed to.

Ayes 47

New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 7.

Noes 69

Labour 52; Green Party 9; United Future 8.

Amendment not agreed to.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 114 in the name of Sue Kedgley to clause 116(3) be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendment be agreed to.

Ayes 56

New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 7;Green Party 9.

Noes 60

Labour 52; United Future 8.

Amendment not agreed to.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 103 in the name of Dr Lynda Scott to omit clauses 123, 124, and 125 be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendment be agreed to.

Ayes 47

New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 7.

Noes 69

Labour 52; Green Party 9; United Future 8.

Amendment not agreed to.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 103 in the name of Dr Lynda Scott to insert new paragraph (aa) in clause 134(1) be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendment be agreed to.

Ayes 56

New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 7;Green Party 9.

Noes 60

Labour 52; United Future 8.

Amendment not agreed to.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 103 in the name of Dr Lynda Scott to clause 134(1)(f) be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendment be agreed to.

Ayes 56

New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 7;Green Party 9.

Noes 60

Labour 52; United Future 8.

Amendment not agreed to.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 103 in the name of Dr Lynda Scott to clause 136(2) be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendment be agreed to.

Ayes 56

New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 7;Green Party 9.

Noes 60

Labour 52; United Future 8.

Amendment not agreed to.

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 118 in the name of Hon Annette King to Part 6 be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendments be agreed to.

Ayes 69

Labour 52; Green Party 9; United Future 8.

Noes 47

New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 7.

Amendments agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That Part 6 as amended be agreed to.

Ayes 69

Labour 52; Green Party 9; United Future 8.

Noes 47

New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 7.

Part 6 as amended agreed to.

Part 7 Miscellaneous provisions, consequential amendments and repeals, and transitional provisions

Dr LYNDA SCOTT (NZ National—Kaikoura): The Health Committee did a lot of work on this part. We tried our very best to improve it, because it most certainly needed to be improved. By majority, new clause 166A, “Review of operation of Act”, was added, and states: “(1) As soon as practicable after the expiry of the period of 3 years beginning on the commencement of this section, the Director-General of Health must—(a) review the operation of this Act since the date of the commencement of this section;”.

Members who were on the select committee know why the legislation will need to be reviewed. It is an absolute mess. We know there will be problems with it. We know there will be trouble. Everybody on the committee agreed that a review would be needed. It will be a National Government that will have to sort out the mess from this bill, because we will be in office when the review is done. The problems around scopes of practice will be the first thing we will have to sort out. Scopes of practice have been defined as “leading edge”, “cutting edge”, “new”, “untried”, “untested”, and “a new concept”. I believe that every time something like this is done, we end up with all sorts of problems. Scopes of practice are not found anywhere else in the world. The only place that tried having scopes of practice was British Columbia, and it stopped them.

Judith Collins: Why?

Dr LYNDA SCOTT: They just did not work. British Columbia had so much trouble with them, and I think we will in 3 years’ time. We will have to go back to the Medical Practitioners Act, because this bill is supposed to be based on it.

Tonight United Future would not vote to have elected members on authorities. Had they done that, my amendments would have won. Dentists, pharmacists, and doctors would have been very proud of United Future had its members stood up and voted for them. Authorities have elected members now. They have professionalism, and they will lose it. That Minister will appoint more “fopms”. Do members know what that stands for? It stands for “friends of the Prime Minister”. There will be more “fopms” on boards and authorities all over New Zealand. [Interruption] She thinks that if people get elected, they are right. People will not be elected. The Minister will appoint people she can control so that they will not make political noise. There will be a reduction in professionalism. Doctors do not want a bar of that, and they will be extremely disappointed in United Future, because that party could have voted for our amendment. It could have voted that one amendment through tonight to let doctors, dentists, and pharmacists have elected members on their boards. But no, United Future did not vote for the amendment.

Sue Kedgley wanted any other group that came under the bill to have elected members as well. The professions want their people elected so that they can have faith in them. But no, the Minister will appoint them all. But, hey, professions will have the right to nominate! Great! We know that this bill changes the quality assurance provisions. They have been changed from the Medical Practitioners Act, and there will be concerns amongst the professions.

Some changes in the select committee were made to the quality assurance provisions, because the professions do need to be able to engage in quality assurance activities with some protection They have to know that their meetings will be confidential enough for them to be able to disclose problems. But the provision did not go far enough. I proposed amendments to it so it would go a bit further. People can access the Health and Disability Commissioner, the Accident Compensation Corporation, and a complaints assessment process in every hospital, but if we want quality assurance to work there has to be some protection for practitioners; otherwise, they will not freely discuss what goes wrong, and that will be another problem.

Then we come to the powers of the Minister. Under the bill, that Minister—or any Minister, because this Minister will be the Minister for only a very short time longer—has a huge amount of power to appoint people and to determine the scopes of practice when there is a dispute. The Minister stood up before and said that somebody had to do it. Well, let the professions sort things out. They should be doing it. Let them work things out, because that is what they have been doing for the last 100 years, but now the Minister will have control.

Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU (NZ National): I shall refer briefly to the issue of the review of the operation of the Act. While this legislation has been described as a dog’s breakfast—not by me—if that is the case, then it is a very good reason to put in place the opportunity for review. I suggest that there is a more important reason that we must have a review of the operation of the Act. My understanding is that we have tried to encompass all health professionals in one single piece of legislation. There appear to be some new things in the bill, but the underlying purpose, which is the safety and health of the public, demands, after seeing how the Act is operating, and if we think there is any potential for that purpose to be diminished, that that is a good reason for a review of the Act. I think that clause is worthwhile.

The other area I want to comment on, and ask the Minister to enlighten me on, is the issue of the period of transition for membership of continuing authorities. Clause 211 sets out the meaning of the period of transition. Presumably, then this is the transition—gosh, it is John Tamihere in the chair; I hope the Minister is able to answer my question. I turn the Minister’s attention to clause 211, “Meaning of period of transition”, and then to clause 214, “Vacancies may be filled by Minister”. What period of transition is envisaged by the Minister? In other words—

Hon John Tamihere: Small.

Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU: A small period; that is good. Clause 214 gives the Minister the power to appoint any person to fill any vacancy that occurs during the period of the membership of a continuing authority. Is that transition period small or big? Will the conditions or criteria set out regarding the composition of the board of any authority in clause 116 still apply when and if the Minister has to appoint a person to fill a vacancy that occurs during the transition period, and if not, why not? I am assuming that it is important, because the Minister made a big thing of this, that the majority of members on an authority will be health practitioners and that two are lay persons. If a vacancy occurs that was filled by a health professional will the Minister seek to fill that vacancy with another health professional? I guess that if it was a lay person, then the replacement would be a lay person.

My point is that if it is important—and we certainly think it is important that the majority of the membership be health professionals—then I would like some assurance that under clause 214 the Minister will replace a health professional with a health professional.

The other thing is whether, in making that appointment during the transition period, the Minister will then do what she is going to do in relation to permanent memberships on the permanent authorities. Will she or he, whoever the Minister might be, also then be calling for input for appointment from those groups or persons within the health sector to whom the authority relates? That sounds like a bit of a mouthful but I hope the Minister will be able to give some assurance that like will be replaced with like, and that no vacancy will be filled by someone who is not the same status.

HEATHER ROY (ACT NZ): In speaking to Part 7, I would like to start at newclause 166A. The select committee was very pleased to have this included, because it is very important that this legislation is reviewed after 3 years. There have been grave concerns with it, as members have heard through the periods of this debate, and this review is paramount. The previous speaker referred to the dog’s breakfast and I can tell members where that came from. The Association of Salaried Medical Specialists, Ian Powell’s group, called this “an ambitious dog’s breakfast”. They did. Ian Powell called it an ambitious dog’s breakfast. He said: “Until now, along with the NZMA, the ASMS was hopeful that the bill would be sufficiently improved through the select committee process so that it was as good as the MPA, which it was intended to replace.”

All I can say to Ian Powell is that we tried. We did our best. We tried to deal with the scopes of practice, despite the fact that they are untried and untested in this country and have failed in British Columbia. But, no, we are going to have them here because we are cutting edge, we are world leaders here! We tried to address the quality assurance activities and had partial success I suppose, but certainly they are not what they should be. We tried to deal with the huge ministerial powers, with very little success at all.

Ian Powell went on to state: “While some noticeable and useful improvements have been proposed by the select committee, the revised bill remains significantly inferior to the Medical Practitioners Act.” My Supplementary Order Paper has several amendments to this part—to clauses 169, 170, 175, 194, 195, and 196—to try to extricate doctors from this bill. They are not the only group. Pita Paraone is going to tell us that the optometrists want to be out as well.

Steve Chadwick: It is too painful.

HEATHER ROY: No, it is going to be much more painful for them to stay where they are, because the legislation they have at present, the Medical Practitioners Act, is a far superior and modern piece of legislation that works very well. In the time that it has been in place, quality assurance activities have improved significantly, but that is not going to happen any longer. The protection will not be there for them when they have their quality assurance. The bill is going to discourage it, and that will erode public safety.

If we flick a little further through Part 7 to Subpart 2, “Transitional provisions”, Mrs te Heuheu—I hope I have got the pronunciation right—was talking about those provisions. For some bodies, there will be significant changes and I think in particular of the Pharmaceutical Society, which is going to go out of existence completely. Pharmacists are actually very sad about that. The Pharmaceutical Society is over 100 years old and has been quite a tradition for pharmacists. I am told that because it is such a huge job it has already started to change the assets and all the bits and pieces that go with the Pharmaceutical Society into the Pharmaceutical Council, which will be similar to the other registration bodies.

It is interesting to see the Minister’s comments to these different groups, in particular to doctors and pharmacists. We know already that Mrs King certainly does not favour elections, because she does not think doctors are capable of doing the right thing and choosing the right people to represent them. It is interesting to note what she has been saying about pharmacists. Anybody who reads Pharmacy Today might have seen a report on its front page a couple of weeks ago in which the Minister states that she does not know how pharmacists can call themselves health professionals when they process photographs and sell gifts. Apparently they are not health professionals any longer. Fancy that! Obviously the Minister’s history is a bit lacking, because if she knew anything at all about pharmacists she would know that significant development in processing photographs was made by chemists themselves. That is where it started, and that is why every chemist shop in the country sends off films that people take in to have their photographs printed. [Interruption] It is part of the bill—it is the role of pharmacists. It is sad to see a Minister of Health who has such contempt for the medical profession, for pharmacists, and probably for other health professionals as well—except, I suspect, dental nurses, whom she is probably still very fond of. It is a very sad day.

SUE KEDGLEY (Green): The clause that members have been referring to, which calls for a review of the Act in 3 years, is arguably one of the most important clauses in the bill. We had to fight very long and hard to get that clause in. When I suggested that we needed to have some parliamentary scrutiny and ability to review the legislation because there were so many new and unresolved issues in it, the officials were totally opposed to such an idea. What we see in this bill—and it is a pattern that I have noticed in a number of bills recently—is the Government setting up a broad, overarching framework, then it leaves all the implementation, monitoring, etc, to regulation, and it ensures that there is no parliamentary scrutiny. This bill is one of those where the Government has attempted to have a broad overarching framework with absolutely no ability for parliamentary scrutiny. The vast array of issues such as scopes of practice and so forth are all to be determined by regulation, which means without any parliamentary scrutiny.

We had a major fight with the officials to get the clause inserted requiring that there be a review. The only reason we managed to get it—and I am delighted that I managed to put this provision up and that it gained support—was that we referred to the Radio New Zealand and Television New Zealand bills that are similar but which require parliamentary scrutiny after a number of years.

Thankfully, we at least have this provision. Maybe some officials are hoping that we might quietly forget the clause, that it might go away and we might not require the review to take place, but I can assure them that some members have already diarised this provision and we will be waiting very eagerly for the review.

I will be looking very closely at a number of issues, for the review. The first issue is the whole question of whether the Minister has allowed elections to be held for those professions that wish to hold elections for their governing authorities. There is a clause, which once again we managed to get in, that stipulates that the Minister may make regulations to allow elections. The wording is a little bit vague and we did hope to strengthen it here tonight, but unfortunately United Future and the Government would not support us. However, there is a provision that regulations may be issued, and we will be watching the implementation of those regulations extremely closely, as I am sure will the professions that are seeking to have elections. Indeed some of them may wish to go to the Regulations Review Committee if they find that the regulations empowering an election are somehow not issued by the Minister. We will be looking at that clause very, very closely to make sure that the Minister does issue regulations that will allow those professions that wish it to have elections.

Another thing that the Green Party will be looking at very closely is the progress, or lack of progress, with acupuncturists. I have made the point many times that if this bill were genuinely about public safety and consumer protection, then one of the first professions that we would be regulating under it would be acupuncture. Arguably, acupuncture can cause grave harm to members of the public if needles are not sterilised, or if they are put in the wrong parts of the body. Great harm can occur to members of the public, for which reason acupuncturists have been beseeching successive Governments for two decades to bring them under statutory regulation. They have made impassioned and very professional submissions to this bill, pointing out all the reasons that they need to be brought under this legislation. Unfortunately, their pleas have been ignored by the Government, and I cannot figure out why.

Hon TAITO PHILLIP FIELD (Minister of State): I move, That the question be now put.

Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (NZ National—Port Waikato): In many respects, Part 7 of this bill could be labelled the funereal or wake part of the bill, because it deals with miscellaneous provisions, consequential amendments and repeals, and repeals and transitional provisions. It is a tragedy that the medical professions are not supporting this bill. As Heather Roy pointed out, this was described as ambitious legislation from the beginning, and there was goodwill at the beginning. There was a tremendous effort to make sure that there was a multiparty buy-in to this bill because it was so important, but because of the absolute inability of the Labour Minister of Health to listen to the professions—and this is clearly made out in the submissions—the chief executive officer of the association of full-time medical specialists has unfortunately referred to this bill as a dog’s breakfast. I understand that my colleagues had to fight very hard to have clause 166A, “Review of Operation of Act”, put in.

Hon Annette King: Did National vote for it?

Dr PAUL HUTCHISON: As I say, there are so many things that my colleagues Dr Lynda Scott and Judith Collins have had to work hard to get into this bill, because a review of the operation of the Act is very important. It may be that in 3 years’ time, or before, the Minister will finally come round to realising that professional self-regulation as the basis of health practice in New Zealand is extremely important. Hopefully, by then she may have sorted out scopes of practice. I would love her to take a call to tell us what her views are on nurse-anaesthetist practitioners. Unfortunately, she was not able to take in the facts when general practitioner – anaesthetists stopped practising several years ago. They had medical degrees and diplomas in anaesthetics, and the view was that in order to raise standards for the public of New Zealand, they would have to be phased out. I want to know what this Minister of Health’s plans are in terms of the nurse-anaesthetist practitioners. Will she be prepared to come clean?

My colleague the Hon Georgina te Heuheu spoke about clause 214, “Vacancies may be filled by the Minister”, and I ask whether that is an ingenious piece of ministerial mischief. Is that one of those clauses my colleague Dr Lynda Scott was talking about, by which the Minister may go berserk on “friends of the Prime Minister”? It says here that vacancies may be filled by the Minister, and she has the opportunity there to go quite wild. It will be a great opportunity for the Labour Party hacks and hangers-on.

Of course, once again it is a considerable concern that ministerial powers have become excessive. It is the absolutely Pavlovian-dog reflex of this Labour Government to control, and not to have the process, that has caused the major medical professions to lose confidence in this Minister of Health.

I will briefly comment on clause 154, “Application of Trans-Tasman Mutual Recognition Act 1997”. There has been some concern that some Australian registration authorities are not accepting New Zealand practitioners’ registrations, and I understand that the bill does address that problem.

JUDY TURNER (United Future): I will take a very brief call on Part 7. A huge number of provisions are covered in this part, and I want to pick up on just one aspect of it. In this part we get a look at the professions that are registered under other Acts, and will now be registered under this legislation. We seem to have heard a lot about doctors tonight, and I just want to give a bit of feedback from some of the other professions that come under this bill.

I have an email from the Dental Council of New Zealand, which is pleased to support the bill. I also have an email from the Nursing Council welcoming the introduction of the bill. It is really thrilling that the bill will further protect the public by ensuring that practitioners are not only fit to practise but also competent to do so. I have emails from the Occupational Therapy Board, the Dieticians Board, and the Psychologists Board, which also support this bill as it has come out of the Health Committee. The Opticians Board has emailed us to say it is happy with the bill as it has been presented. The Medical Radiation Technologists Board is happy with it, as is the Medical Laboratory Technologists Board. The Physiotherapy Board is also happy to offer its support to the bill. So I think we need to keep a little bit of perspective here.

United Future is pleased about the review clause. We are unclear whether the National Party supported it in the select committee. As this legislation fleshes itself out over the next 3 years, any tweaking that may need to happen will become apparent. We feel that some of the provisions in the bill have been worked on to the extent that we now need to put them into operation to see how, in consultation with the professions, they work out. The review in 3 years will be interesting. I am really thrilled to have had feedback from so many health professionals whose professional futures are encapsulated in this bill, and I am thrilled with their support for the bill.

JUDITH COLLINS (NZ National—Clevedon): That particular contribution from United Future is a bit of a disgrace. I am shocked by that sort of contribution. Is that member going to go out and tell the few people who voted for United Future why its members, after marching down the streets of Nelson on the foreshore and seabed issue, are voting for cultural competence? How about that? That will be an interesting one for her to come back to us on.

Let us have a look at clause 154, which deals with trans-Tasman mutual recognition. It states: “Except as otherwise provided in Schedule 4 of the Trans-Tasman Mutual Recognition Act 1997, that Act prevails over this Act.” I have a serious question—as are all my questions, of course—for the Minister of Health. How are we ever going to get the Australians to accept this sort of cultural competence nonsense, under the Trans-Tasman Mutual Recognition Act? Which will prevail? Will the Australians have to become culturally competent in whatever culture we decide they have to be competent in, or will they be let off?

The reason that is such an important issue is that the Health Committee sat through endless hearings on this bill. One of the submitters we heard from was the midwives union. I like midwives. As a mother, I can say that they are generally very nice, sensible people. They are really very helpful when one is having a baby, and an awful lot more use than most people’s husbands, although, of course, not my own, who is a wonderful person. The unionist who said she represented the midwives said she thought this bill was great because of the cultural competence aspect, which would stop foreign midwives from coming into New Zealand and practising here without being culturally competent. I piped up and asked which particular foreign midwives she was talking about, and that trade unionist, who supposedly represented the midwives, said—not some sort of strange culture—Australian midwives. I think someone will have to tell her that Australians will probably be able to sneak in, too.

There is a situation whereby some Australian regulatory authorities are putting difficulties in place for some of our New Zealand practitioners. Will they now be saying to our New Zealand practitioners who go there to work because the pay and the opportunities are so much better, and because Australia has a good Liberal Government, not a Labour one like we have here, that they want Kiwis to be culturally competent in Australian culture? That will be fun, will it not? That is the sort of nonsense this Government is putting on to us. This Government is giving us the sort of rubbish that is turning us into the laughing stock of the world. Not only does it have nonsense like the flatulence tax, which has resulted in our people being laughed at by the Australians, but it is giving us this sort of cultural competence nonsense.

I ask the Minister, in relation to clause 154, what will be more applicable. Will it be the cultural competence of the Australians? Will they be considered to comply, or will they all have to be indoctrinated, like everyone else in this country, and to go around being politically correct and utterly hopeless? Is that what they will have to do? Or will we look at these people and ask whether they can do the job, whether they are competent professionally, and whether they are ethical—in which case, boy, do we want them because we have a system that is desperately short of qualified health professionals. Under this bill, the Government will make it harder for us to get those people. Once we stop the Australians coming in, because they cannot be called culturally competent—in whatever culture we are supposed to have—it will be even harder for our health practitioners to go overseas and get training in places like Australia, because the Australians will get us back big time, and fair enough.

This part is yet another example that shows that this bill has been correctly described by the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists as nothing more than a dog’s breakfast, and it is not a very good dog’s breakfast, either. It is a nonsense, and it is a disgrace that the United Future party is supporting this rubbish. The one great thing about the Greens is that they mean what they say, which makes them better than United Future.

DAVID BENSON-POPE (Senior Whip—NZ Labour): I move, That the question be now put.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the question be now put.

Ayes 69

Labour 52; Green Party 9; United Future 8.

Noes 47

New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 7.

Motion agreed to.

JOHN CARTER (Senior Whip—NZ National): I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson. I wanted to raise this point of order after the vote had been taken, because I did not, in any way, want to challenge your right to make the decision that you made. I think it is appropriate for me to point out, as a long-standing whip, that the debate on that part started at 8 o’clock and went on for just 35 minutes—seven speeches, by my count—which, quite honestly, is not the norm. It is unusual for a part not to have at least a 45-minute debate. I have been noticing that we seem to be going through this legislation at quite a rapid rate. It may well be that the wish is to finish the bill tonight, but given that that part, particularly, was an extensive part, as are other parts, I do ask you as Chair—or whoever may be presiding—to ensure that there is opportunity for at least a reasonable contribution by members. At least two members who were seeking the call did not get a chance to make a contribution, and I do not think it is unreasonable that, on any part, particularly one of that size, we have nine contributions rather than seven.

DAVID BENSON-POPE (Senior Whip—NZ Labour): Following from the contribution of my respected colleague Mr Carter, I point out that the 45 minute tariff is not a reflection of the debate that has happened on these parts. Our records would demonstrate that clause 1, for example, was debated for 27 minutes, Part 1 for 57 minutes, Part 2 for 42 minutes, and subsequent parts for 36 minutes, 35 minutes, 26 minutes, somewhat more than an hour for the last part, and 29 minutes in this case. I think the Committee is appropriately allocating time as the importance of the provisions warrant, and I believe that the tariffs are entirely appropriate.

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): I thank both members for their contributions, and remind members that it is the Chair’s call, and that I am the sole judge of when a closure will be put. I take note of what both speakers have said.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 111 in the name of Heather Roy to clause 155 be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendment be agreed to.

Ayes 47

New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 7.

Noes 69

Labour 52; Green Party 9; United Future 8.

Amendment not agreed to.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 111 in the name of Heather Roy to clause 169 be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendment be agreed to.

Ayes 47

New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 7.

Noes 69

Labour 52; Green Party 9; United Future 8.

Amendment not agreed to.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 111 in the name of Heather Roy to clause 170(c) be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendment be agreed to.

Ayes 47

New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 7.

Noes 69

Labour 52; Green Party 9; United Future 8.

Amendment not agreed to.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 111 in the name of Heather Roy to clause 175 be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendment be agreed to.

Ayes 47

New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 7.

Noes 69

Labour 52; Green Party 9; United Future 8.

Amendment not agreed to.

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 111 in the name of Heather Roy to omit clauses 194, 195, and 196 be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendments be agreed to.

Ayes 47

New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 7.

Noes 69

Labour 52; Green Party 9; United Future 8.

Amendments not agreed to.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 111 in the name of Heather Roy to omit paragraph (b) of the definition of “relevant enactment” in clause 214A(1) be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendment be agreed to.

Ayes 47

New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 7.

Noes 69

Labour 52; Green Party 9; United Future 8.

Amendment not agreed to.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 111 in the name of Heather Roy to omit paragraph (b) of the definition of “relevant registration body” in clause 214A(1) to be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendment be agreed to.

Ayes 47

New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 7.

Noes 69

Labour 52; Green Party 9; United Future 8.

Amendment not agreed to.

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 118 in the name of the Hon Annette King to Part 7 be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendments be agreed to.

Ayes 69

Labour 52; Green Party 9; United Future 8.

Noes 47

New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 7.

Amendments agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That Part 7 as amended be agreed to.

Ayes 69

Labour 52; Green Party 9; United Future 8.

Noes 47

New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 7.

Part 7 as amended agreed to.

Part 8 Amendments to the Health and Disability Commissioner Act 1994

Dr LYNDA SCOTT (NZ National—Kaikoura): Part 8 makes amendments to the Health and Disability Commissioner Act 1994. That Act was brought in by the National Government and has been an extremely successful Act of Parliament. The Health and Disability Commissioner has been extremely effective, and I congratulate him on the leadership he has given.

Major changes were made to this part during the select committee process, and because we managed to deliver the one-stop shop that Helen Cull QC talked about, we will support this part, as it really will continue to improve things. Helen Cull QC produced a report in response to the Parry inquiry. It decided that there was no concerted approach to complaints mechanisms, with up to 14 agencies separately investigating the same adverse medical event. Can members imagine what it is like to be a doctor or patient in the front line? It is absolutely mind-boggling. People have no idea about the time it will take, the complications it will cause, and the difficulty for patients and their families. They have said that unless one is very articulate and competent, one does not manage to find one’s way through the system. So the report recommended a one-stop shop. Under this bill, pre and post-1994 complaints will go to the Health and Disability Commissioner. Not many complaints are pre-1994, but there are still some.

A lot of the complaints heard in the Parry inquiry were about how patients were treated by what were called complaints assessment committees, which were set up pre-1996. We also heard from a Mr Wilson, who talked about how the Accident Compensation Corporation had found medical error but the complaints assessment committee had thrown out the case. It was extremely confusing for people when one organisation or agency found significant error, and then the disciplinary tribunal found no error. That sort of confusion in people’s minds has been very difficult.

But if all complaints are to go through to the Health and Disability Commissioner, then obviously that agency will need more resourcing. In secret, we heard evidence about what it was like for a person to have somebody become fixated on him or her and make malicious complaint after malicious complaint. Every complaint that had gone through the process was shown to have no grounds, but every single one had to be investigated. The Health and Disability Commissioner needs to have the ability to deal with malicious complaints. The commissioner also needs time lines to speed up the process. Time and time again we heard how long it takes to get through that process, how long it takes for a complaint to be heard, and for there to be a resolution. That is something we have hoped to improve.

I have an amendment to Part 8, which I hope members will consider. The amendment takes out the Human Rights Review Tribunal. If the director of proceedings determines that there is no case to go forward, then there should not be the double jeopardy of someone being able to go to the Human Rights Review Tribunal. I have an amendment to remove that clause, which I hope will be supported tonight.

With the quality assurance programmes I talked about before, and the complaints assessment procedures that have improved markedly at our hospitals around the country, one hopes that a majority of complaints can now be sorted out at the coalface, and these days I think that often happens. When people make a complaint, they want, firstly, acknowledgement of what they have suffered, and, secondly, they want to make sure that it does not happen to anybody else. That can often be sorted out at the coalface of our hospitals if complaints are taken seriously, if the families and persons concerned are worked through the issues, and if people simply say “sorry” when there are mistakes and problems, and then move on to ensure that systems change.

Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (NZ National—Port Waikato): I am grateful for the opportunity to speak on this most important Part 8. Like my colleague Dr Lynda Scott, I would like to congratulate the commissioner on the very strong and excellent submission he made to the Health Committee. I believe it was very much that shaping and influence that led National to support this part of the bill.

It is also really important to go through just a bit of the history that led up to the Cull report, because it is a sad indictment on the New Zealand health scene over the last 20 years. It was not just the Cartwright inquiry report in respect of National Women’s Hospital; history then repeated itself with the sad saga at Gisborne, and once again and more recently, we had the Parry incident up in Northland. Helen Cull QC collated the various concerns into a report that had a huge impact, and it really shaped the basis of this Part 8.

Helen Cull concluded that the current complaints system was inadequate. Its principal problem was that there was no concerted approach to complaint mechanisms, with up to 14 agencies separately investigating the same adverse medical event. It is absolutely incredible that the New Zealand health system had got itself into such an unfortunate situation. There was the Accident Compensation Corporation on the one hand, the district health boards on the other, and the various medical bodies were not talking to each other and not collating the same statistics. Certainly, when the Health Committee went through the Parry report a year or so ago, it was quite evident that that was a major problem, so it is extremely good to see the Cull report being embodied in legislation over these next few weeks.

The report recommended three immediate solutions. The first is a requirement that various agencies be required to report practitioners whose practices are below acceptable standards to the Health and Disability Commissioner and to professional bodies. Undoubtedly, that was long overdue and appropriate.

The next solution is mandatory reporting by professional peers if there is reason to believe that a colleague is practising below an acceptable standard. With a true Pavlovian dog reflex, the Minister of Health immediately said: “Let’s dob in a doctor!”. That was the cry of the Minister of Health. That was what she wanted to do immediately. Fortunately, common sense has prevailed, because she finally recognised—with a lot of aid—that no workplace would work constructively if that sort of atmosphere were to prevail.

The third solution is to give professional authorities the power to suspend practitioners temporarily if they pose a risk to public safety, or to impose conditions on their practices prior to the laying of charges before a disciplinary tribunal.

I have just been looking through the submissions of the various major bodies, including the New Zealand nurses’ organisation, and it is interesting that all of them support the changes that have been made. But Dr Lynda Scott’s point that clause 231 should be changed has also been unanimously supported by both the New Zealand Medical Association—the association of fulltime specialist practitioners—and the Medical Council of New Zealand, as well as the nurses’ organisation. They have all pointed out that clause 231 needs changing, and I hope the Minister will take note of it.

HEATHER ROY (ACT NZ): I would like to lend the support of ACT New Zealand to Dr Lynda Scott’s amendment to this bill. There is the fear that this bill will add multiple jeopardy, and I believe that is a very realistic fear. The legislation may well open the door to wider involvement of the Human Rights Review Tribunal in medical affairs. Successful complainants to the Health and Disability Commissioner will be able to bring proceedings before the Human Rights Review Tribunal where the commissioner does not refer the case to the Director of Proceedings.

At present, it is possible to do this only if the director declines or fails to take proceedings, and that right remains. Some quite prominent lawyers have warned that some lawyers are likely, however, to test the limits of the Human Rights Review Tribunal—as is often the case when these bodies alter—and there may be an initial flurry of cases to test the potential of this jurisdiction. In fact, many people are predicting that that is exactly what will happen. David Collins QC identified this as a potentially fruitful area of growth, which could provide meaningful compensation to those whose rights had been breached. The Human Rights Review Tribunal could also award damages of up to $20,000, which is quite a lot of money.

Pre-tribunal hearing settlements have been made for compensatory damages for a range of cases. One such case was a baby, born at Hutt Hospital, who suffered severe brain damage. That can occur, as many people and health professionals in the Chamber will know, for a range of reasons. This baby later died at home, and in 2001 the tribunal awarded $20,000 for compensatory damages and this decision was upheld in the High Court. So that is just a glimpse of what we might be letting ourselves in for, if this clause is not removed from the bill.

The New Zealand Medical Association has also been quite vocal in that respect. The association said it believes that this complicates the process, and adds a new, unnecessary avenue for complainants to exercise their rights. Complainants who appeal directly to the Human Rights Review Tribunal are likely to benefit from at least some successful damages awards, and their appeals may lead to simple apologies being ascribed a monetary value, which was not previously the case and certainly is not something we want to encourage in this country.

The New Zealand Medical Association has had discussions with the Ministry of Health about that matter, and the association has asked for this provision to be removed. Certainly ACT supports the association in that, and we support Dr Lynda Scott’s amendment to this bill in that regard.

In speaking more generally about part 8, I think that there are many clauses in this part that we are very pleased with, as some previous speakers have said. At the Health Committee we had long discussions about this part, as we had with all other parts. The new provisions for the complaints process certainly, as I have spoken of before, are something that I think everybody on the committee felt was a step in the right direction. Having a one-stop shop where all complaints go directly to the Health and Disability Commissioner to be vetted and then either dismissed because they are not appropriate or are vexatious, or referred on to the new procedures committees, certainly is a step in the right direction, we believe. It should see complaints processed in a much shorter time, which is an advantage for everybody—including for the complainant, who will have his or her complaint thrown out because it is not appropriate, or dealt with in a speedy manner.

Also, for the health practitioner, of course, it is very taxing and very stressful to have a complaint laid against one, particularly if that complaint is not warranted. There are doctors whom I know reasonably well, who have had complaints laid against them, and years later they still have not been processed or dealt with. It is very difficult for the health practitioners to continue practising to a good standard when that is the case. They worry a lot about the proceedings that are before them, but no time frame is given. So time frames were mentioned, and it is important that cases are met with expediency.

STEVE CHADWICK (NZ Labour—Rotorua): I move, That the question be now put.

JUDITH COLLINS (NZ National—Clevedon): It is always nice, and such a rare occurrence, to be able to support something from this Government and, in particular, this Minister. But I have to say that it is only because of the sterling work of the Opposition members of the Health Committee. I include in that the Green member. We worked together very, very fully to get some sense into the legislation. We found a part that we can actually feel quite happy about, but with an amendment. I would like to support my colleague Dr Lynda Scott. In her Supplementary Order Paper she is asking that clause 231 be deleted. Again, I am following on from my colleague in the ACT party Heather Roy, who yet again has made another sensible and considered contribution to this debate.

We must not have a double jeopardy situation in these complaints. As a lawyer, I have acted for medical practitioners who have found themselves on the wrong end of complaints. I have also acted for people who had complaints against medical practitioners, or health practitioners, as they are now called under this bill. It is for those medical or health practitioners the most worrying thing. They are people who do not stand around saying: “Oh, well, I’ve got a complaint today; so what, who cares!”. They do not take that sort of “Black Adder” approach. What they do do is worry. They worry, and they worry, and they worry. We are talking about people who are under the most immense stress in their day-to-day lives, and who are, in many ways, never off call. They are always, no matter where they are—in a plane, for example—health professionals, and they are going to be called on if something goes wrong.

I note my colleague Dr Lynda Scott saying that, yes, she knows, because she has been there and still is. I must say that we all often consult Dr Lynda Scott and Dr Paul Hutchison on all sorts of little issues, but, fortunately, not Dr Hutchison in his previous occupation for some time! Doctors, nurses, health professionals—I want to call them health professionals; I do not like this “health practitioners” nonsense. These people are professionals, and for goodness’ sake, why can they not be called that? Maybe we should move an amendment quickly to get that changed. It is absolutely appalling that those professional people, who dedicate their lives to providing service for others, are being told that they are no longer professionals. That is a shame. What we have to do is get rid of this double jeopardy; the situation where if people cannot get them one way, they will get them another.

We have a tremendous amount of faith in the Health and Disability Commissioner, Mr Ron Paterson. We know he is someone who has the support of this House in this area. I think I can speak for all the parties here—and we are all nodding—that we have a lot of faith in his ability and in the ability of his team. We do not need somebody second-guessing him in this. We do not need to put the people through this again if he has dismissed a complaint. Why should they have to go back again? Why have another go? In this particular clause, anything that slows down the process of complaint is a bad thing. In fact, complaints, just like justice, must be speedy enough. In other words, it has to be able to be dealt with within someone’s lifetime. It certainly has to be dealt with within a period of time so that people can then get on with their lives. It should not be something that drags on for 6 years. It should not be something whereby a health professional—I will use that term again: a health professional—is being bullied and pursued by somebody who decides that he or she has a problem with that particular health professional.

Certainly, at the select committee we heard time and time again of people in the health professions who were in fact the subject of constant complaint by the same person.

Hon RICK BARKER (Minister for Courts): I move, That the question be now put.

Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU (NZ National): I appreciate the opportunity to take a call on Part 8, because this is such an important part of the legislation. Previous speakers have referred to the Cull report, the work of Helen Cull, which has informed these amendments. I congratulate Helen Cull QC on the work she did in this area. It took a lot of courage, commitment, and perseverance, because what we are dealing with here are professionals, and, of course, no professional group of people likes to get found out in any way. That is the fact of the matter. It is important that we can address what was clearly an inadequate process that had such tragic results, but, more than that, led to even further tragedy for the women involved, and for the families, because there was no provision for an adequate process. It is important that we have had good information, and that we were able to address the issue in a comprehensive way and with some confidence.

We will never forget, so, hopefully, we will never again see that situation. It is amazing to me that we had a situation where there was nothing that gave any health professional any responsibility to report on colleagues who were practising below acceptable standards. There was no power to suspend prior to charges being laid, so one wonders about the agony some of the women were going through.

This issue of no mandatory reporting is an indictment on our health system. It is an appalling situation, and, as I said earlier, it resulted in utter tragedy for a number of families in this country. Helen Cull’s report recommended three immediate solutions. I have already touched on one, which is the mandatory reporting by professional peers if there is reason to believe that the peer was practising below an acceptable standard. The other two recommended solutions are a requirement that various agencies be required to report practitioners whose practice is below acceptable standards to the Health and Disability Commissioner, and that a professional authority have the power to suspend practitioners temporarily or to impose conditions on their practice prior to the laying of charges before a disciplinary tribunal.

It is proper that we make a serious contribution to this part of the legislation. These are serious matters when the sector has failed the public of New Zealand, and this Parliament has too. That these things could happen indicates a massive failure of public policy. It is something that none of us in this Parliament can be proud of, and we should all be pleased that we are in a position to correct and address the situation in a comprehensive way. This is a time when a person is probably proud to be a member of Parliament and able to think that we are doing something worthwhile. I know we all think that we always do that, but there are times when we do something that is of far more importance than other things, and this is one of them.

It absolutely underpins the purpose of this bill, which is the protection of the health and safety of New Zealanders. It is a tribute to the women who persevered and who were not put off under the most awful circumstances in bringing their complaints forward and progressing them under what I would imagine would have been severe hardship, and also a tribute to Helen Cull, because it takes a professional of significant competence and integrity to be able to find his or her way through circumstances such as these and come up with this sort of report.

MARTIN GALLAGHER (NZ Labour—Hamilton West): I move, That the question be now put.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the question be now put.

Ayes 68

Labour 52; Green Party 8; United Future 8.

Noes 47

New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 7.

Motion agreed to.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 111 in the name of Heather Roy to the definition of “authority” in clause 220(4) be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendment be agreed to.

Ayes 47

New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 7.

Noes 68

Labour 52; Green Party 8; United Future 8.

Amendment not agreed to.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 111 in the name of Heather Roy to the definition of “health practitioner” in clause 220(4) be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendment be agreed to.

Ayes 47

New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 7.

Noes 68

Labour 52; Green Party 8; United Future 8.

Amendment not agreed to.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 111 in the name of Heather Roy to new section 42(2) in clause 225 be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendment be agreed to.

Ayes 47

New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 7.

Noes 68

Labour 52; Green Party 8; United Future 8.

Amendment not agreed to.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 111 in the name of Heather Roy to new section 42(3) in clause 225 be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendment be agreed to.

Ayes 47

New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 7.

Noes 68

Labour 52; Green Party 8; United Future 8.

Amendment not agreed to.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 103 in the name of Dr Lynda Scott to clause 231 be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendment be agreed to.

Ayes 47

New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 7.

Noes 68

Labour 52; Green Party 8; United Future 8.

Amendment not agreed to.

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 118 in the name of the Hon Annette King to Part 8 be agreed to.

Amendments agreed to, and Part 8 as amended agreed to.

Part 9 Amendments to Medicines Act 1981

Dr LYNDA SCOTT (NZ National—Kaikoura): Part 9 is about pharmacies, the restrictions on ownership, and the provisions under which they operate. Pharmacies in this country are reeling at the moment. Why? Because of stat dispensing. As a geriatrician I was very well aware that it was a sensible move to go to monthly dispensing. I used to go into people’s houses to assess elderly people, and I used to take shopping bag after shopping bag of medication out of their houses. Not only was a lot of money being wasted but the medication made people sick. People used to share the pills around. If one pill was good, they would have six of them. People got very muddled about what they were taking.

That led to something called closed control, where medication was put into little pop-out packs. Pharmac these days changes the medication that people get—the colour, the shape. It is the same generic drug, but the appearance changes a lot, and that really confuses older people. So rather than their trying to figure out every day what to do with all the different medication, under what is called closed control it now is put into a pack showing the day and the time to take it.

Pharmacists have paid for that. They have basically subsidised it out of the money they have been getting. They have done it for all the rest homes and all the elderly people who are a bit confused about their medication, but they have never really been paid for it. They have just done it. Now, because stat dispensing has gone—we are going to 3-monthly dispensing—pharmacists will lose 30 percent of their revenue. Because of that loss they will not be able to take on interns. There are a whole lot of pharmacy interns who cannot get positions.

We will see pharmacy closures in rural areas. I went to Clevedon the other day with my associate health spokesperson, Judith Collins. A pharmacist there said there is no doubt about this; she has worked out the impact of stat dispensing on her pharmacy, and it is going to close. She works next to a doctor’s practice, and that closure will mean that people in Clevedon, in rural, outlying areas of Auckland, will not be able to get access to medication. Nor will the people of Wakefield; Wakefield, near Nelson, is another place that is affected. The pharmacists there have said they will be closing the pharmacy. So pharmacists are reeling under what has happened to them due to Pharmac and the Minister of Health making these changes.

This bill talks about partial deregulation, which means that 51 percent of a pharmacy business needs to be owned by a pharmacist, and that a pharmacist can own up to five pharmacies. This is the situation currently in Australia. It is quite a move from the situation here at the moment, where pharmacists can have only one pharmacy. We are really concerned about protecting access in rural areas, and improving that access, but the Minister’s clause 254—and we will be supporting Heather Roy’s amendment—states that she can determine, by Order in Council, that a pharmacy can be owned by any particular community organisation or person, if she believes that health services, or access to those services, in that location will be improved. This is all about the Minister wanting primary health organisations to be able to own pharmacies. She wants to nationalise primary health-care in this country. She has already done it with the doctors. She has forced them to join primary health organisations, because they get no access to new funding if they do not join. Now she wants primary health organisations to be able to own pharmacies, as well.

The Minister has made disparaging comments about pharmacists being in retail as well. Well, it is the retail part of their businesses that cross-subsidises some of the other activities that pharmacists do. But now they are going to have to tell the district health boards that they cannot do those things any more for free, and that the boards will have to pay them. If the boards want closed control, if they want pharmacists to dispense medication, they are going to have to pay them to do that. I was in Kaikoura the other day, and the pharmacist there took me through some of the accounts. He showed me that to provide certain things, like methadone, costs him more; it costs him an awful lot. So I am afraid that the district health boards will actually have to pay pharmacists for what they do.

JUDITH COLLINS (NZ National—Clevedon): This part of the bill, as my colleague Dr Lynda Scott has stated, is primarily about pharmacists and pharmacies. Perhaps the most important provision in this part is one that might surprise people. It is the insertion into the principal Act of new section 55G, in clause 252. What does this section provide? It provides an exemption for mortgagees in possession. Do members know what that means? It means that all the regulations and the rules about who can operate pharmacies, who can own pharmacies, and who can be in charge of pharmacies are relieved for a period of 3 months when there is a mortgagee in possession, which means that the pharmacist has gone broke. That is exactly what is happening right now, in this country, to pharmacists.

Dr Lynda Scott came to my electorate of Clevedon, the wonderful electorate of Clevedon, and came with me to see the Clevedon pharmacist. We then trotted across to the Manurewa electorate, the electorate of the Hon George Hawkins. We did the job of George Hawkins. We went to see one of the pharmacists there who was just getting over a ram raid through her shop window. She had been burgled. Her shop window, in the electorate of the Minister of Police, had been ram-raided by people wanting drugs, and they got them. So that is what we have got; we have got a section in this bill that is devoted to what to do when the pharmacists go broke, because they surely will.

Under the stat dispensing rules that this Government has put in place, pharmacists are, in fact, going broke. They are worried people. Pharmacists are not simply sellers of medicines. It is a sad point, but it is true, that this Minister of Health has no respect for pharmacists. I do not know what she thinks pharmacists are learning in their 5 years of full-time training. I think she thinks they are learning just to type a few labels and stick some pills in bottles. But that is not true. The pharmacists whom we are talking about are highly trained health professionals, and they deserve to be treated as such. To have this Minister of Health denigrate them and say that, because they have sold a camera, they are not health professionals shows the absolute limit of her capability as Minister of Health—and that is not very much.

That is what we are dealing with here; we are dealing with a profession that is under siege. Not only is it under siege from the stat dispensing rules but also it is under siege from the fact that our qualified pharmacists, who are very well-qualified, are able to do much, much better if they go overseas. One particular pharmacist told me that he is dispensing 300 times a day. This is a pharmacist who, as he said, would normally now want to be retiring or working part-time, but he has to stay working because people have been going to him for years, and they trust him, and they trust his advice. They know that he does more than just type a few labels and stick them on bottles. They know they can trust him.

This pharmacist cannot get locums. He cannot get graduates coming out of pharmacy school to work for him, because instead of earning just $65,000 a year, which is the average, I am told, that well-qualified pharmacy graduates can expect to earn in this country, they can earn A$90,000—in other words, some real money. They can earn $90,000 a year in Australia, just like that. These health professionals do not want to stay here, under this sort of Government. They do not want to stay here, talking about stat dispensing and nonsense like that.

These people have shown me what is happening. I go around my electorate and I see what they are doing, just as I go around the Hon George Hawkins’ electorate and find out what he is doing, which is not much. They have shown me the boxes and boxes of drugs that elderly people routinely have. I think now of my dear departed mother, and the huge boxes of drugs that she used to take. It was very, very confusing, even for a woman as intelligent and vibrant as her. She used sometimes to get a bit confused, and would have to make a little list of what she had taken and when. That is quite normal. A lot of older people, particularly if they have had strokes—a lot of elderly people have a series of strokes—find that their memory becomes a little less reliable.

These pharmacists are such professionals. They put the drugs in little bubble packets, put dates on them, and go to a tremendous amount of effort. And what does this Minister do? She lets Pharmac rob the pharmacists. She lets Pharmac get away with it. She lets Pharmac actually say to the pharmacists: “We don’t care if you have extra work; we’re not going to pay you.”

HEATHER ROY (ACT NZ): I rise to speak to Part 9, “Amendments to Medicines Act 1981”. I would like to address my Supplementary Order Paper 98, which seeks to make an addition to clause 254. Basically, as Lynda Scott mentioned previously, it seeks to prevent the Government—district health boards and primary health organisations—from coming in and taking over pharmacies throughout the country, and turning pharmacists into State employees.

This Supplementary Order Paper is indicative of a growing problem within the health sector. It is the Government’s intention to nationalise or socialise the health sector, and we are seeing it with the primary health organisations. They are umbrella organisations that are being set up around the country. General practitioners are certainly being encouraged to join them, and the incentive is there to do so, because if they do not, then they miss out on cheaper health-care for their patients. The intention is for health care eventually to take this form everywhere in the country, and for general practitioners no longer to own their practices. The Minister of Health has made no secret of the fact that she wants pharmacies to be part of public health organisations. She has made very encouraging noises and wants pharmacists to participate. As yet very few have. I think only a handful of pharmacists have gone in with primary health organisations, but the Minister has certainly made her intention well known.

It is a shame that the Minister does, in fact, have such contempt for the health professions. As I mentioned previously, the Minister’s comments on the front page of Pharmacy Today a few weeks back were very revealing. She said that pharmacists are not real health professionals because they have diversified; that they sell gifts, sell cameras, and develop photographs, and that means they are not committed to providing health services for the community. Anybody who has had any dealings with pharmacies, or regularly attends pharmacies, of course would not agree with that, at all. My Supplementary Order Paper is to prevent the Government from coming in and taking over pharmacies, and in fact turning pharmacists into State employees.

The pharmacists have been under siege of late, and have been subject to concerted attacks on several fronts. It is no wonder that we see a shortage of pharmacists in this country. Like other health professionals, they are heading overseas to greener pastures where working conditions are better, where ownership is better, and where they can certainly earn a lot more money. In this country we are seeing the socialisation of health services. Certainly, one is encouraged to be part of a group rather than to own one’s own business. Small business is the backbone of this country and should be encouraged. Owner-operators, particularly, have provided a great deal to the economy of this country, and my fear is that the pharmacists will join those groups that are being really discriminated against because of increasing compliance costs, more and more difficulties in owning one’s own business, red tape, and all those things that make it very difficult to make one’s own living. My Supplementary Order Paper seeks to address that.

SUE KEDGLEY (Green): I too would like to speak particularly in relation to pharmacies. The Green Party was extremely pleased that we managed, at an earlier period in time, to stop provisions that were originally in this bill that would have completely deregulated pharmacies. But it does seem to me that what we may be seeing—and we can start to see this pattern emerging, and this bill is part of that pattern—is the Government trying to deregulate or get rid of pharmacists in a more indirect and covert way.

This bill has some quite good regulations on the ownership of pharmacies. They all look well and good until one notices that one of those little provisions allows the Minister of Health to recommend, by the making of an Order in Council—a secret provision that we continually see slipping into legislation now—the exemption of any pharmacy from all the regulations contained in this bill. We did manage to get some amendments to this provision during the Health Committee hearing, and I am pleased about that. Before the Minister makes her secret Order in Council she has to be convinced that health services will be improved, that the change is necessary to meet the needs of the community in that particular location, and so on and so forth. So we did give some parameters to this sweeping exemption by Order in Council.

But, nevertheless, we do have concerns that there may be a hidden agenda at work here. It is a great mystery to me why this Government seems to have a hidden agenda to undermine the pharmacy sector in New Zealand. I cannot understand it. I have tried to work out what is really going on here. It may just be that the Minister has had a fight with the pharmacy sector, and as a result has decided that it needs to be got rid of or undermined. I am not sure.

Anyway, what is worrying me, as Lynda Scott pointed out previously, is that stat dispensing has wiped out 30 percent of the revenue of pharmacies. Can members imagine wiping out 30 percent of the revenue of MPs, taking off 30 percent of our income, or wiping out 30 percent of doctors’ incomes or the incomes of anyone else? There would be an uproar. But, no, we just quietly wiped out 30 percent of the revenue of pharmacies. So, inevitably, there will be a demise of rural and community-owned pharmacies in particular. It might take a year or two, but very soon we will see them starting to go into receivership, as Judith Collins has said, and close down in various parts of New Zealand.

What will we do then? Well, under the provision in this bill we will start replacing the small, owner-operator pharmacies in New Zealand, which have been in existence for decades and decades. One would have thought the Government would support small, owner-operator businesses, but, instead, it will shut them down and will replace them with primary health organisations. Clearly, that is the underlying agenda here.

One of my concerns about that is the potential conflict of interest. On the one hand a primary health organisation doctor will be prescribing medicines, and on the other hand a primary health organisation pharmacist will be dispensing those medicines. There has always been a very clear distinction between the writing of pharmaceutical scripts, the prescribing of medicines, and the dispensing of medicines, for the very good reason that there are huge potential conflicts of interest, because a good way of making money would be to prescribe a great many medicines, which are subsidised, and then dispense them. But there are other conflict of interest issues as well. I do have concerns.

RODNEY HIDE (ACT NZ): Let us talk about consumers for a change, rather than suppliers. We want to make it cheaper for New Zealanders to get prescribed medicines and to enable them to buy over-the-counter medicines, like cough mixtures and flu tablets, more cheaply. We can all agree that that is a good goal, but Part 9 still provides a privileged position for pharmacists with regard to pharmacy ownership. Despite 15 years of attempts to deregulate and open up the ownership of pharmacies, the monopoly provisions continue. I still cannot believe that we in this country deliver that privilege to 931 pharmacists, rather than concentrate on supplying the best service to customers, particularly to those people who want low-priced drugs—children and the elderly, who are the ones most in need of them.

No other professional body in New Zealand has that kind of protection. Any one of us can own a doctors’ surgery or a drug warehouse, but only a pharmacist can own a pharmacy. That is wrong, because it creates an artificial monopoly that jacks up prices and lowers the level of service. I ask the Government to support my amendment that deregulates the ownership of pharmacies in New Zealand, because that will provide a better service and lower-cost drugs.

I tell Government members that I am not a lone voice in saying that. The Consumers Institute, hardly a bastion of right-ACT thinking, says that the current privileged and protected status of chemists shops prevents consumers from benefiting from lower prices and extended operating hours. Government agencies, ranging from the Ministry of Health to Treasury, the police, and Te Puni Kōkiri, all say we should get rid of the pharmacists’ monopoly, and that is what my amendment does. It removes the ownership provisions, and it ends the privileged status of chemists.

Of course, dispensing and selling medicines requires high professional standards, and those will be retained. A licensed pharmacist will always be required to operate a pharmacy. No matter who owns the pharmacy, a licensed pharmacist will always be there. My amendment contains a number of consequential amendments that are required once the ownership restrictions found in new sections 55A to 55G, inserted by clause 252 of the bill, are removed. But those are technical details. I hope the Committee sees that this amendment of the bill is comprehensive.

It is time that we stood up for the consumers in all of this. My amendment will answer the health Minister’s own concerns. The Minister of Health was quoted last month in the New Zealand Doctor as follows: “If pharmacists just sold things related to health care, it wouldn’t be so offensive, but they run Lotto outlets, they sell cameras, gifts, and you name it. They’ve turned themselves into retailers of anything they like, but they’re opposed to other retailers having a pharmacy outlet in their organisation.” I agree with the Minister. On top of that, I say that a pharmacy located within a supermarket will deliver cheaper medicines to lower-income New Zealanders, at a venue where, and at times when, they can access them.

I have another quote from the Minister of Health, again from the same publication: “Everyone knows it is a nonsense. As long as you’ve got a pharmacist dispensing, that’s what’s important, not who owns the building.” I find myself at times agreeing with Annette King, and I agree with her on this matter. Let us end this ridiculous anomaly. I urge Government members to vote—

Hon Annette King: What about those ones?

RODNEY HIDE: The National Party is all right. I urge the Labour Party to vote for working people, for our elderly, and for our young people, so that they can access low-priced drugs in extended hours. Let this Parliament stop protecting 931 privileged suppliers who have a monopoly. We have done so everywhere else. I say to the Minister that we even did that for the dental nurses.

Hon Annette King: They were never regulated; it was the dentists.

RODNEY HIDE: The dentists; I am sorry. We did it for the dentists, and the consumer benefited from that. We have done it elsewhere in the economy. Let us in this Committee fix this monopoly tonight. I ask members to please vote for my amendment.

STEVE CHADWICK (NZ Labour—Rotorua): I move, That the question be now put.

Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (NZ National—Port Waikato): Thank you, Mr Chairman, for the opportunity to speak on this part of the bill. I must say—

Hon Dr Michael Cullen: The late night port.

Dr PAUL HUTCHISON: The late night port? What an odd remark, but it has come from the left and that is totally appropriate. We have just heard Dr Rodney Hide talking about—I am sorry, Rodney Hide; we will not confer an honorary doctorate on him.

Hon Dr Michael Cullen: No, it was Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.

Dr PAUL HUTCHISON: Maybe that is more appropriate. We have heard Mr Hide talk about consumers, and that is absolutely right, because when it comes to pharmaceuticals we want to make sure there is safe dispensing. The whole point of this bill is to protect the public. That is absolutely vital, and it depends very much on the professionalism of pharmacists. This bill has been all about quality assurance, continuous quality improvement, and peer review. All those things will hopefully ensure that there is safe dispensing and that the consumer will be protected.

There has been great concern amongst pharmacies throughout the country over the last few months, particularly out in small towns and hamlets like Port Waikato. That pressure has undoubtedly been influenced enormously by the dispensing change that the Minister has ushered in. I realise that the Minister will once again get that toothache—that Pavlovian response—and say it was not him but Pharmac. But undoubtedly the change has put huge pressure on pharmacies throughout the country, and particularly, as I say, in the country areas. Pharmacists have frequently come to me and expressed their concern about the fact that the smaller pharmacies, in particular, may go out of business. They have been concerned about their trainees, and about the flight of young pharmacists to Australia. There is no doubt that it has had an incredible effect on them.

One aspect of this issue has been the gradual and stealthy nationalisation of the health system under Labour. For example, there has been the establishment of the 21 district health boards and the extraordinarily inequitable primary health organisations. I think it is absolutely appropriate that Heather Roy has brought in Supplementary Order Paper 98 to ensure that the primary health organisations are not able to buy out pharmacies throughout the country. That is absolutely right and proper, because the basis on which the primary health organisations are structured is totally inequitable. That is yet another reflection of this Labour Government’s stealthy nationalisation of the health services in New Zealand. Today the Press Club was addressed in Wellington by an English psychiatrist who said how bad the situation was in Great Britain, yet that is the very model that Dr Cullen and Annette King are trying to emulate in New Zealand. The health system is becoming worse and worse in the UK, and it will become worse here for New Zealand consumers because of what those Ministers are trying to do. However, I think that Heather Roy’s amendment is absolutely right and proper.

There is another characteristic that I think is worth mentioning in this debate, and that is the fact that Pharmac does dominate the situation in New Zealand. If we are to consider making major changes at some stage, we will probably have to think about removing the commercial protection of Pharmac. If we are to think about getting free-trade agreements in the long term, that is one of the things that we will have to think about. There is no doubt that the market in New Zealand is hugely distorted, and that is one of the effects of the dominance of Pharmac.

Hon ANNETTE KING (Minister of Health): I have been waiting for Part 9 of this bill for a long, long time. I will begin by thanking Rodney Hide for his honesty, and for having the courage to put forward an amendment that he believes in, and which his party stands for. He was prepared to stand up in this Committee and support that amendment.

I say to Mr Hide that the comments he quoted from me were absolutely correct. I firmly believe them. I would have very much liked to deregulate pharmacy ownership. I tried very hard to deregulate pharmacy ownership before the last election. I went along to the Pharmacy Guild’s conference before the election, and said that I was very keen to deregulate pharmacies. I did not think that one needed to own a pharmacy in order to be a good pharmacist; I thought that one needed to be competent, with the skills to be a pharmacist. I said that I would like to deregulate pharmacies, and I was followed by one Bill English. When Bill English spoke at the Pharmacy Guild’s conference, he said National did not support deregulation. He said that there was a safety issue in doing that, and that National opposed deregulation.

One could have knocked me down with a feather, because I happen to have 1998 Cabinet papers in my possession, and who signed those papers? A former Minister of Health named Bill English. What did those Cabinet papers state? They stated that pharmacies should be deregulated. Those papers were also signed by Mr Luxton, who was an honest member of Parliament. He said pharmacies should be deregulated. Those members said that there were no safety issues in doing that, and that we ought to deregulate pharmacies. What happened then? We got a little close to the 1999 election, so they then put in a deferral proposal to Cabinet, and that was in place until National lost the election. Now, before the next election, National is opposed to deregulation.

The story has not stopped—this is very funny—because Rodney Hide has put forward an amendment. Mr Hide, who is an honourable man, has told me that the National Party will support his amendment. National was in favour of deregulation—flip. Then it was opposed to it—flop—and what has happened? Now it is in favour of it again. There is another flip. National is the flip-flop, finger-in-the-air, which-way-is-the-wind-blowing party. What a lot of cant we have heard from that party. If any New Zealander wanted to know about a party that could not stand on its principles, that person should look at the National Party. Now National is in favour of deregulation again, and Mr Hide has said that National Party members will vote for his amendment. How could one trust them on absolutely anything? One could not. At least ACT, through Mr Hide, has had the courage of its convictions.

No members of the National Party had the courage to even speak to the amendment. They want to vote for it, but we should not ask them to speak to it, because they just want to pretend that they are in favour of it to some of their constituents. But when those members are talking to their pharmacists, they are real lions. They say that they have real courage and that they stand up for pharmacists. When they are talking to their business people, they say that they stand up for them. One would not know where they are.

I say to Mr Hide that I am sorry I cannot vote for his amendment, and neither can our party, because when we introduced this bill we gave a commitment to pharmacists that we would support 51/49 percent control.

Progress reported.

The House adjourned at 9.56 p.m.