Wednesday, 12 November 2003

Wednesday, 12 November 2003

Wednesday, 12 November 2003

Mr Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

Visitors

Parliamentary Delegation: House of Assembly, Tasmania

Mr SPEAKER: I have pleasure in informing members that a parliamentary delegation from the House of Assembly, Tasmania, Australia, led by the Speaker, Mr Michael Polley, is present in the gallery. I am sure that members would wish that they be welcomed.

Parliamentary Committee B on Foreign Affairs, Defence and National Security, Timor-Leste

Mr SPEAKER: I also have pleasure in informing members that Parliamentary Committee B on Foreign Affairs, Defence and National Security from Timor-Leste, led by the Chairman, Mr Jose Manuel Fernandes, is present in the gallery. I am sure that members would wish that they be welcomed.

Committees

Business of Select Committees

Membership

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Leader of the House): I seek leave for Brent Catchpole to be a member of the Government Administration Committee for the purposes of its consideration of the Architects 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

Meetings

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Leader of the House): I seek leave for the Primary Production Committee to meet after 6 p.m. on Wednesday, 12 November 2003, notwithstanding Standing Order 196(1)(c), for further consideration of its inquiry into the administration and management of the scampi industry.

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

Questions for Oral Answer

Questions to Ministers

Algerian Refugees—Suspected Terrorists

1. Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) to the Minister of Immigration: Why has she answered questions with regard to Ahmed Zaoui, Obaidullah Rahemy, Wahidullah Rahemy and Mohammed Saidi, when the acting Minister of Immigration yesterday repeatedly refused to supply any details of an alleged case involving another suspected terrorist from Algeria?

Mr SPEAKER: The Minister advised me that she has a slightly longer answer than usual.

Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Minister of Immigration): Mr Zaoui impliedly waived his right to confidentiality under section 129T(4) of the Immigration Act. The Rahemys did not claim refugee status under their own names, and details were made public by the court. I have commented on Mr Saidi’s case only to the extent that I am able to under the law, and to respond to that member’s assertion that I gave him residence when I did not. The New Zealand Immigration Service has not received information from any local or international agency alleging that we have “another suspected terrorist from Algeria”. I should point out that even Mr Zaoui’s security risk certificate is not based on him being a suspected terrorist. There was concern about him on arrival in New Zealand, as it was believed he admitted membership of the Armed Islamic Group. The Refugee Status Appeals Authority found that he did not. The lesson to be learned from the Zaoui case is not to mount a media beat-up from speculation and rumour.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Given the Minister’s previous reluctance to answer any questions on suspected terrorists, bogus refugees, and fraudsters, can we assume that she is now trying to avoid further embarrassment by claiming she is unable to disclose any information about a 22-year-old’s arrival from Algeria; and when will she stop hiding behind her department and privacy clauses, instead of giving New Zealanders the right to know when their national security may be at stake?

Hon LIANNE DALZIEL: The public interest always needs to be balanced against the need to maintain national security. In addition, under section 129T of the Immigration Act—this was made very clear to the House yesterday—information on refugee claimants may not be released unless the person waives that right or matters are already in the public domain, which impliedly gives that right. That is the case with regard to Mr Zaoui.

Dr Wayne Mapp: Can the Minister verify that the Immigration Service spokesperson was correct when she was quoted in today’s New Zealand Herald saying: “In neither of those cases have we been advised by other agencies that they are considered to be, or are suspected of being, a terrorist.”, or is the case actually similar to the case of Ahmed Zaoui, which resulted in a national security certificate being issued some months after his initial detention?

Hon LIANNE DALZIEL: The information the member read out first is the correct statement of fact—that is, no agency, either internally within New Zealand or externally outside New Zealand, has indicated any security risk threat from those two individuals.

Keith Locke: Given that the Minister has commented on the Ahmed Zaoui case, why will she not withdraw the security risk certificate against Mr Zaoui—which she can, by law, do at any time—as Mr Zaoui is now having to go to the High Court to get any more than the vaguest idea of the charges against him under the security risk certificate; and how can she countenance such an abuse of judicial process as this secret justice that applies under the security risk certificate?

Mr SPEAKER: There were three questions there. The Minister may answer two of them.

Hon LIANNE DALZIEL: Part 4A of the Immigration Act makes it very clear that there has to be a balancing between the public interest and the individual’s rights. The individual’s rights in that case are protected by the fact that the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security gets to see the classified security information upon which the security risk certificate was issued that I have made a preliminary decision to rely on.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Can the Minister tell this House why she treats it with such contempt that she, her Associate Minister, and all others on the Government side of the House have refused to give information to this House but have happily told the New Zealand Herald the story last night when the House had risen; and what is stopping her from telling us the circumstances of Salah Eddine Bouta, whom, according to the law, any MP can visit if he or she likes—why can we not hear about those circumstances or is she again overseeing a department that has agreed to “lie in unison”?

Mr SPEAKER: There are three questions there. Two can be answered.

Hon LIANNE DALZIEL: The Refugee Status Appeals Authority decision in the Zaoui case made it very clear that media speculation about his status as a suspected terrorist—which were the authority’s words, not mine; they were never mine—was part of the problem that was faced in this country. Section 129T of the Immigration Act does not allow any information to be given under those circumstances.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I ask the Minister again how it is that this man, Salah Eddine Bouta, comes all the way from Algeria, past scores and scores of Muslim countries, to New Zealand; and how is it that she has allowed this country to be advertised as the softest touch in the whole world?

Hon LIANNE DALZIEL: I would be surprised if this country were described as “the softest touch in the world”, given that it was under this Government that the operational instruction operating at the border has made it a much tougher regime—because we have a right to know who is in our country, where people have come from, and why they are here.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: If that is true, how on earth did he get here?

Hon LIANNE DALZIEL: I will not provide any information about any individual, because I have an absolute obligation under the legislation that the member voted for.

Child, Youth and Family Services, Department—Confidence

2. JUDY TURNER (United Future) to the Associate Minister for Social Development and Employment (CYF): Does she have confidence that the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services’ systems and front-line staff consistently deliver best social work practice; if not, why not?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY (Minister for Social Development and Employment), on behalf of the Associate Minister for Social Development and Employment (CYF): In general, yes. However, the two reports released today clearly show that high-quality social work practice is not happening as it should. In the particular cases of Saliel Aplin and Olympia Jetson, the chief social worker’s and the Children’s Commissioner’s reports show that social work practice did not comply with social work standards within the department. That is totally unacceptable.

Judy Turner: In light of the fact that Department of Child, Youth and Family Services staff failed to follow not one but a number of established policies and procedures in the Olympia and Saliel case, which the service acknowledges contributed to the deaths of the girls, can she give an assurance that New Zealand’s children are made safer by simply restating the policies to the service’s staff over the last year?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: The point the member makes is a good one, and that is that both these reports show that over the last 4 years a large number of protocols, practices, and training programmes have been put in place, but in this case it appears they were not followed. It will be a challenge for the department to ensure that those processes are indeed followed by every single social worker in every single situation.

Georgina Beyer: What is being done to ensure that the department’s systems and front-line staff can consistently deliver best social work practice?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: Since this Government was elected in 1999, we have been committed to the best possible social work practice. For example, we have increased social work wages, recruited more staff, and instituted an increase in the baseline of this department’s funding, which is now 50 percent higher than when we came in. With the completion of the recent baseline review, we have continued those improvements with an investment of $11.55 million over 3 years, to ensure that the department’s systems are efficient and effective. We are recruiting even more social workers, strengthening regional management, instituting social work professional registration, and investing more in training.

Mr SPEAKER: I will not warn members again about interjecting from a seat very much more favourable than their own.

Katherine Rich: When the roopu team in Masterton overseeing the Aplin sisters’ cases had a caseload 36 percent higher than the non-Māori case team, managed files of greater complexity, and had a key leadership position in that office eliminated, does she accept that as a result of the Labour Government’s restructuring at the front line, front-line staff on that team were on a hiding to nothing; if not, why not?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: The Labour Government has not restructured the front line of social workers in this country. The major restructuring that took place around front-line social work was the institution of the practice managers system, which runs across the country, and indeed provides the support of supervisory staff for those front-line staff workers.

Barbara Stewart: Given the difficulties experienced by the service in providing the level of care and protection required by at-risk children, has the Government considered developing a team-based approach that would utilise the resources of the police, the Ministry of Education, and the Ministry of Health, and reduce the likelihood of children slipping through the cracks in the system; if not, why not?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: As a direct result of the report on James Whakaruru, a child who died in 1999 and whose death was reported on by the Commissioner for Children, the Government did indeed institute protocols among the police, educators, the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services, health workers, and other people who come into contact with the community. These reports show that those protocols are in place, and unfortunately on this occasion did not get used.

Sue Bradford: Will the Minister consider supporting changes to the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services, so that the chief social worker can in future be an integral part of the top-level leadership team for the department, so that some of the problems that have happened up till now will, hopefully, no longer occur?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: Yes, the chief social worker in the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services has traditionally occupied the position of being leader of the profession, rather than being a line manager. I think it is partly a compliment to the current chief social worker, Shannon Pakura, that so many people would like to see her have line accountability. That is, of course, a matter for the department rather than for the Government, but it certainly makes good sense to me.

Judy Turner: Does the Minister agree that the comment from the Masterton social work supervisor that Olympia and Saliel’s social worker “knows them better than they know themselves” demonstrates the reality that investigations of ongoing abuse must be done objectively by an independent team, in order to ensure that the same failure of the social worker and supervisor to comprehend the significance of the allegations does not occur again?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: That makes very good sense.

Judy Turner: Does the Minister believe that the failure of the social worker and her supervisor in this case to follow established policy and procedures was a result of systemic problems, or was it an individual error in this case?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: Both the chief social worker’s report and the Commissioner for Children’s report would indicate that the systems were in place, but they were not used by that social worker and by that social worker’s supervisor.

Judy Turner: In light of the fact that the social worker had a longstanding and familiar 13-year relationship with the Aplin-Jetson-Howse family, and presumably understood the volatile dynamics of the situation, can the Minister explain why a letter was sent to the home in which Bruce Howse resided, referring to “new information”, which ultimately incensed Howse and contributed to the murder of the two girls?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: Yes, I can confirm that this case does stretch back to 1994, and in the case of the letter the member describes, I find it inexplicable that a letter was sent to the household, enabling it to be opened by that man, which, of course, led to the tragic events we now face.

Judy Turner: Does the Minister intend to implement the Commissioner for Children’s recommendation that independent teams carry out investigations?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: The Government has yet to consider all the recommendations, which were divided up amongst departments to look at. At the present time, as I mentioned, we have already had a report that has required teams within communities to be involved where child abuse is in place. We will have to consider whether we can improve on that, in the light of this report.

Question No. 3 to Minister

KATHERINE RICH (National): I seek leave of the House to hold over my question until the Associate Minister for Social Development and Employment (CYF) is available to answer questions.

Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought to hold over the question. Is there any objection? There is.

Katherine Rich: It’s funny she is not here.

Mr SPEAKER: The member knows that is out of order. She will stand, withdraw, and apologise.

Katherine Rich: I withdraw and apologise.

Child, Youth and Family Services, Department—Masterton Murders

3. KATHERINE RICH (National) to the Associate Minister for Social Development and Employment (CYF): Were the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services’ policies and procedures followed in the case of Saliel Aplin and Olympia Jetson; if not, why not?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY (Minister for Social Development and Employment), on behalf of the Associate Minister for Social Development and Employment (CYF): There are clear departmental and inter-agency policies and tools to guide every social worker in his or her work, and both the Commissioner for Children and the chief social worker found that those policies were, and are, fundamentally sound. In this case, however, these policies and procedures were not followed by the social worker and the supervisor involved.

Katherine Rich: When Ron Burrows’ concerns for Coral Burrows’ safety were not judged by the department as worthy of being a notification, and when Olympia Jetson’s note that “My dad is going to kill me.” was not treated as a separate notification, why should the people of New Zealand have any faith that other heartfelt calls to the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services will be dealt with effectively?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: These were tragic situations—there is no doubt about it—but people around the country need to know that around 27,000 notifications are filed with the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services each year. The number of child deaths remains much the same each year—as tragic as that figure is. People need to know that we have not yet heard in full what happened in the case of Mr Burrows’ phone call to the department, one of many hundreds of thousands that have been received—

Katherine Rich: 21 minutes!

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: The phone call lasted 21 minutes. I repeat that the member knows nothing about social work. That is not an unusual time to spend on the phone with a social worker about a case. We need to wait until we get further information on that case.

Moana Mackey: What has been done to ensure that social workers have clear processes and procedures in place, and are able to follow them?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: Protocols and practice guidelines have been developed and implemented for social workers to assist them in their duties, partly as a result of the death of James Whakaruru in 1999. These include clear processes in the case of suspected child abuse, whereby the social worker is required to use the risk estimation and sexual abuse protocol. These are specifically designed to lead to appropriate action. Social workers are required by departmental standards to inform the police of sexual abuse allegations, and to work cooperatively with them. We have also put in place more resources to support front-line social workers, including practice managers and more supervisory staff. These processes have been put in place for a reason—to protect children. Tragically, it appears that in this case they were not followed.

Dr Muriel Newman: In light of yet another damning report on Labour’s child welfare agency, what responsibility does the Minister for Social Development and Employment accept?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: When one is a Minister one takes full responsibility for what goes on in one’s department, and I am sure the Associate Minister feels that that is exactly the way things should be. I point out that there would not be a person in this country who would not want the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services to be in the hands of this Government, with the resources it has put into it, rather than in the hands of the previous Government, which cut its resources year on year.

Katherine Rich: While the Whakaruru report of June 2000, Judge Mick Brown’s report in December 2000, and today’s Aplin report all raise serious concerns about social workers not using the tools provided to assist them in determining the level of risk to children, why, under the Minister for Social Development and Employment’s watch, is the current recorded use by social workers of the risk assessment tool only 80 percent nationally?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: It is tragic that James Whakaruru died in the 1990s. One of the things Labour has done on our watch is to ensure that the recommendations of the Whakaruru report, prepared by the previous Commissioner for Children, are implemented. Part of that has been to ensure we have protocols across the country. But the member points out something that both the commissioner and the chief social worker have pointed out: we have good policies, and fundamentally sound policies. Tragically, in this case they were not followed by two people, who, of course, no longer work for the department.

Katherine Rich: When Saliel Aplin had voiced fears that “Bruce will kill us.”, and Olympia Jetson had written “My dad is going to kill me.”, and Howse had threatened to do a “Ratima”, why were none of those cries for help classed as notifications?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: I think the member knows that that is the subject of the two reports that have been released today. It is up to the two people involved to explain fully why they did not report the allegations made by the children, leading to their deaths. It is a tragedy. Those social workers clearly did not follow the practices that were in place. Our challenge as a department is to make sure they are followed by every social worker, in every circumstance, in the future.

Katherine Rich: When cases like these ones often are first assessed as being at the lower levels of urgency in terms of rankings within the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services, how can the Minister sleep at night knowing that 3,132 children in the lower urgency rankings are currently waiting to see a social worker?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: Not only do Ministers at times lie awake wondering about these kinds of issues; there is no doubt that every social worker in the country who is involved in these circumstances lies awake at night, too. We have in this country a highly professional group of people working within the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services, and I repeat: there would not be one person in this country who would not want to see this department in our hands, because we are increasing resources and working with it, rather than in the hands of that member’s Government, which cut resources almost every year it was in office.

Mental Health—Patient Safety

4. SUE BRADFORD (Green) to the Minister of Health: Is she confident that patients and staff are safe in psychiatric units around New Zealand, including those in the Taharoto unit on Auckland’s North Shore?

Hon ANNETTE KING (Minister of Health): I am confident that patients and staff in psychiatric units are generally safe. However, there will always be times, when patients are very unwell, that both patients and staff face risks. I am advised that the Waitemata District Health Board adheres to national standards of safety and follows best practice to minimise those risks.

Sue Bradford: Is the Minister aware of a number of recent serious incidents at the Taharoto this year, including one in which a female staff member was held hostage by a patient with a knife; and why are such incidents not being properly reported and dealt with by police and health and safety officials?

Hon ANNETTE KING: Yes, I am aware of recent incidents within the inpatient unit at Taharoto. As the member is probably aware, the Waitemata District Health Board has initiated a review of that, which it hopes to have available in early December. There has been wide consultation with staff and consumers, and the results and the recommendations will be shared with all interested parties. Having said that, I know the member is aware that within inpatient mental health services we have some very seriously unwell people, and at times staff are required to be put in positions where they are at risk. Although the services try to minimise that as much as possible, a risk always exists within mental health units.

Dr Paul Hutchison: Why did the Minister promise more nurses, therapists, and beds for acute mental health services in June, yet the result at the Taharoto acute mental health unit was a cut-back from 41 to 35 beds; and even if the beds are restored, how can anyone have confidence in the mental health system when the Minister does the opposite of what she says?

Hon ANNETTE KING: Quite to the contrary. I have increased mental health funding across the whole of the Auckland region—a part of New Zealand that was starved of mental health funds for years. That there may not be beds in one unit—an old unit in Auckland—does not mean that other new beds have not been, and are not being, opened. That is exactly what is happening in Auckland. Thank goodness this Government has shifted money into the Auckland area, because it was not funded to anywhere near the level of funding of the South Island and the lower North Island.

Sue Bradford: Is it true that, as I have been reliably informed, around three-quarters of the staff, or more, at the Taharoto unit on weekends are actually bureau casuals; if so, does she believe that that is a safe way to operate an acute unit, especially given what she has just told me earlier, and in the light of the findings of the Buckle inquiry released yesterday, which dealt with some of the same matters?

Hon ANNETTE KING: The Buckle inquiry and many other inquiries over the years have shown us one continuing problem—that is, a shortage of people prepared to work in mental health services. Staff training and retention are very high priorities. In fact, some of the additional money we have put into mental health services has been earmarked for wages, services, and training for mental health staff. I am pleased to say that the latest report of the Mental Health Commission shows there has been an increase in the mental health workforce in New Zealand, within both inpatient and community services, but we still have some way to go to have the staff we need.

Sue Bradford: When will the Government stop reviewing the situation at the Waitemata District Health Board and its mental health services, and, instead, deal effectively with those who, it appears, are refusing to take immediate action to improve what is, in fact, a critically desperate situation at the Taharoto unit?

Hon ANNETTE KING: As I said in my first answer to the member, one of the things the staff wanted was a review of staff safety. So I am not quite sure whether the member did not want that to happen—the staff certainly did. As I said, the staff will be advised of the review outcome in early December.

Child, Youth and Family Services, Department—Masterton Office

5. KATHERINE RICH (National) to the Associate Minister for Social Development and Employment (CYF): What specific concerns, if any, did she or her officials have concerning the administration or management of the Masterton office of Child, Youth and Family Services and how have these been addressed?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY (Minister for Social Development and Employment), on behalf of the Associate Minister for Social Development and Employment (CYF): The chief social worker’s report finds that, rather than management issues, in this particular case the departmental policies and procedures were not followed by the social worker and supervisor concerned. However, as I noted earlier, we have had a highly experienced supervisor as well as additional social work resources in the Masterton office for some time.

Katherine Rich: When the Commissioner for Children’s report says that the Masterton roopu team had a caseload 36 percent higher than that of the non-Māori team, managed cases of greater complexity, and had a key leadership position eliminated, does she support the department’s dismissal of the commissioner’s recommendation to ‘Review the effectiveness of Roopu teams and the resourcing, training and professional support of these teams.”; if so, why?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: As I mentioned earlier in answer to another question, one of the jobs now for all departments will be to take both these reports, in the light of their both now being released, and to judge how we can build on the improvements of the last 4 years. It may be that that particular recommendation will need to be considered.

Moana Mackey: What support has the Masterton office received during the time of this Government?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: We have taken a number of steps to support the Masterton office over recent years, including on-site management; providing additional support and practice advice from the chief social worker’s advisory team; additional social work resources, including a full-time practice manager; strengthening collaboration with other agencies; contracting an additional position of social worker in schools in Masterton; and working closely with community partners on initiatives to address family violence, such as the community campaigns initiated by the local mayor, Bob Francis, and the local MP, Georgina Beyer.

Dr Muriel Newman: Is his best defence to those damning reports on Labour’s child welfare service and the human tragedies they describe simply to assert that there would have been even more tragedies if he had not been the Minister for the last 4 years?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: Our best defence, of course, is to say that this is a tragedy, that we have been rebuilding this department for the last 4 years, and that we will continue to build this department until we get it right. We take full responsibility for things when we are the Government, and that is our best defence.

Katherine Rich: Can the Minister explain to the House why the roopu team in the Masterton office had a caseload 36 percent higher than that of the non-Māori team?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: No, I do not have the details of why caseloads were higher at that particular time for the Māori team versus the general team. But what I can say to the House is that caseloads vary across the country, and they vary because of the circumstances of different offices. We would need to inquire specifically as to why that was the case here.

Deborah Coddington: Can the Minister look any woman in the eye in New Zealand and say he trusts the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services to look after any children, let alone children at risk; if not, why does he not take accountability for the department?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: Accountability is an interesting issue, and the Associate Minister, I am sure, takes responsibility for her department. But can I just say to the House that the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services, like the health services, like the police, and like all services that deal with the very difficult situations in our society, will have occasions when cases arise that all of us deplore, but the department answers 27,000 notifications every year. Those social workers do a fantastic job, and they have my 110 percent support in doing that job.

Katherine Rich: When the Commissioner for Children states in her report that the roopu team did have 36 percent more cases than the other team in the office, and the department says in its report: “There is no reason to believe that Roopu teams are resourced and supported in any way different from non-Roopu teams.”, who is correct?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: What the Associate Minister would say, I am sure, is that we have received these two reports today, that particular issue clearly is one of concern, and it will be explored.

Katherine Rich: What is the point of having separate services for Māori if they are going to be under-resourced and over-lumbered with caseloads higher than those of general teams?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: Of course there would be no point in putting resources into Māori social work services if they were over-worked and under-resourced. We are a Government that, of course, has lifted the baseline by 50 percent in this department. We have increased the number of social workers. We have put new practices in place, right across this country. One of them is to ensure that we do have Māori social workers who can work with Māori clients. That is our commitment and we will get it right, unlike the previous Government.

Employment—Reports

6. MARTIN GALLAGHER (Labour—Hamilton West) to the Minister for Social Development and Employment: What recent reports has he received on employment and unemployment?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY (Minister for Social Development and Employment): Twenty-six thousand more people were employed in the September quarter, according to the household labour force survey.

Hon Trevor Mallard: What a good Minister!

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: That is right. This is the biggest quarterly increase in employment since the series began in 1985. Overall, 176,000 more New Zealanders are in paid work since the Labour-led Government took office, which is a 10 percent increase in the number of people employed. The ANZ job ad series released today shows a 2 percent rise in October, confirming that we are entering summer with a very healthy labour market. I cannot imagine worse news for the National Party.

Martin Gallagher: What progress has been made on reducing the unemployment rate amongst groups that have historically experienced higher levels of unemployment?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: With unemployment at an overall low in 16 years—at 4.4 percent—it is particularly pleasing that unemployment has fallen amongst those groups that have been at higher risk. Unemployment amongst 21 to 24-year-olds has dropped by 6 percent, Māori unemployment has dropped to 9.7 percent, Pacific unemployment now stands at 6.6 percent, and long-term unemployment has dropped by 17 percent. We now have the fifth-lowest unemployment rate in the OECD, with our unemployment rate lower than that of our main trading partners.

Sue Bradford: What will the Minister do to ensure that new workers who have benefited from the growth in jobs are not punished by the Reserve Bank pushing up home mortgage interest rates, and is he concerned that approximately 151,000 New Zealanders are still jobless, while a further 104,000 part-time workers want more work than they can currently get—in some cases, a lot more work?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: What the Reserve Bank Governor does, of course, is up to the Reserve Bank Governor, but there is certainly nothing in the results that were released yesterday that we believe should imply a need for a change in interest rates. Yes, we are always concerned when New Zealanders are looking for a job, but once again I have to say that, along with unemployment going down, we need to stress that employment has risen dramatically. We now have more people in employment than ever in the history of this country, and if we can carry on in this way, we will ensure that anybody who wants a job can get one.

Paul Adams: Is the Minister aware of reports from industries that face serious skill shortages, such as those experienced by electricity network companies seeking linesmen, and does he acknowledge that these shortages hit consumers by pushing up prices for services, such as the case of electricity linesmen where the Commerce Commission has been told that the shortage will push up electricity prices?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: Yes, we are aware of shortages of skill, and that is why the Government has adopted a wide range of policies to try to address that problem. They range from the Modern Apprenticeships scheme to the target of 150,000 people in training by 2007, and large increases in funding, but the list is way too long to go through. So, yes, we do understand that there are skill shortages; yes, we know that puts pressure on prices, and that is why we are investing so much in skill.

Hon Mark Gosche: Has the Minister seen other policy suggestions to assist more people to move from benefits into employment?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: Yes. Against the backdrop of booming employment and dropping unemployment, I have seen suggestions that the unemployed should queue outside post offices, wait for a job, and be paid up at the end of each day. I have seen suggestions that the unemployment benefit should be axed altogether. I have seen suggestions that work-for-the-dole schemes should be returned instead of people getting a real job with a real wage. The author of all these brilliant ideas is “Dr Mogadon Brash”.

Mr SPEAKER: The Minister knows he cannot say that, and he will withdraw and apologise for that comment.

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: I withdraw and apologise.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I seek the leave of the House to table the list of post offices closed by a Labour Minister called Prebble.

Document not tabled.

Rodney Hide: I seek the leave of the House to table the list of post offices that were opened while Mr Peters was in power.

Document not tabled.

Navy—Prisoner of War

7. RODNEY HIDE (ACT) to the Prime Minister: What action did she take on receiving my letter to her dated 19 March 2002 detailing Mr Ross Lynneberg’s pay dispute, dating back to when the New Zealand Government transferred him from the Royal New Zealand Navy to the Royal Navy, and does she agree with the Hon Mark Burton’s letter of 26 September 2003, confirming that Mr Lynneberg’s pay was ₤238-10-0 short while he was held prisoner of war by the Japanese but that he will not be paid the shortfall and that “all options have now been fully explored”?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK (Prime Minister): When the letter was received from Mr Hide, staff sought advice from the office of the Minister of Defence. Dr Cullen then responded to the member on my behalf in June 2002, and noted that the Minister of Defence and the New Zealand Defence Force were taking the issue up with the British Government. They did that without success. Mr Burton last wrote to Mr Lynneberg in September this year, saying that he will personally raise the issue with the British Defence Minister when he is in London. I understand that that meeting will occur this week. Mr Burton will contact Mr Lynneberg when he returns to New Zealand.

Rodney Hide: How does the Prime Minister square her Government’s failure simply to pay Mr Ross Lynneberg the pay that he is owed with her statement to the Returned Services Association’s annual national meeting on 9 June this year that: “As a Government we have put a high priority on seeing that those who serve our country overseas get properly thanked and acknowledged.”; and does she think that Mr Ross Lynneberg has been properly thanked and acknowledged when he has not even been paid what this Government acknowledges he is owed?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: What the Minister has acknowledged is that Mr Lynneberg was owed the money by the Royal Navy, to which he was seconded—and volunteered to be seconded, I understand—in 1941. I understand that the New Zealand Defence Force did meet its pay obligations to Mr Lynneberg at the end of the war.

Simon Power: As the Prime Minister will travel the world to honour veterans and attend ceremonies throughout New Zealand, why has it taken so long for this matter to be actioned by the Hon Mark Burton?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: There has been quite a lot of toing and froing on this matter from the time it was first raised with Ministers by Mr Lynneberg. I am satisfied that Mr Burton and his officials have gone to a great deal of trouble to try to track who owed what, when, and how.

Ron Mark: What kind of message is this Government sending to the men and women of our Defence Force when on the one hand it crows about its massive surpluses and oversees the payment of $42,000 to a violent convict in Dunedin, yet on the other hand it dismisses most callously pleas for assistance from former soldiers, such as Damien Nepata, who was severely burned in an accident, and George Nepata, who is now a tetraplegic, and now we find out from World War II veteran and former prisoner of war Ross Lynneberg that he only wants to be paid for the job he did?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: The point is that he was in the employment of the British at the time. That is why Mr Burton is quite properly taking up the matter with the Secretary of State for Defence this week.

Rodney Hide: On looking through this file, does the Prime Minister realise that when Mr Lynneberg headed off overseas to war on behalf of all New Zealanders, the New Zealand Government made a solemn promise to him to top up his pay that the British would provide, and that 60 years on this Government is saying that is not its problem and there is nothing doing?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: The New Zealand Government did top up the pay. Furthermore, I am advised that all the topped-up pay it was responsible for was paid to Mr Lynneberg at the end of the war.

Rodney Hide: In light of the Prime Minister being able to find $60,000 for writers that she and her expert literary panel like, why can she not just find the $17,500—not counting interest—owed to Mr Ross Lynneberg, who suffered terribly at the hands of the Japanese and who has travelled here today to see this Prime Minister’s response?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: The member is asking the New Zealand Government to pay the wages owed by another Government. That is the point that has been made consistently. We all feel tremendous sympathy for Mr Lynneberg, who was a prisoner of war for 4 years. He was in the employment of the Royal Navy at the time he was captured.

Peter Brown: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I seek to put a motion that parliamentarians have a whip-round, pay the man the money—$17,000—and reclaim it from the British.

Mr SPEAKER: The member does not need leave for that. He just has to write to every member.

Peter Brown: I will lead the way. I will put in $300.

Mr SPEAKER: The member does not need leave to do that. I will certainly help. He does not need leave.

Rodney Hide: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I have discussed this with my ACT colleagues. Each MP could put in $100—we have each got that in our pockets. Mr Lynneberg is here. He does not want charity, actually. He just wants his pay, which this Prime Minister is denying him.

Mr SPEAKER: This is becoming farcical. The member knows that this is not the place to raise that particular issue. Any member is entitled to write to any other member, asking for that sort of thing. It is not part of question time.

Rodney Hide: I seek leave to table my letter to the Prime Minister, dated 19 March 2002.

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

Rodney Hide: I seek leave also to table the letter from the Hon Mark Burton dated 26 September 2003 to Mr Lynneberg—

Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought to table that letter.

Rodney Hide: —stating yes, he is owed the money, but he is not going to get paid.

Mr SPEAKER: That is the last warning for the member.

Rodney Hide: I am sorry, Mr Speaker.

Mr SPEAKER: I do not care. Please be seated while I am on my feet. The member knows that that is out of order.

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

Rodney Hide: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I am perfectly entitled to explain what is in a letter, without you interrupting. It may have escaped your notice that this is a terrible injustice to a serviceman, and if I am not allowed to table a letter properly, that is a disgrace in this House.

Mr SPEAKER: The member knows the letter is referred to in his question. He asked to table that letter; no one had any objection to it. The member went outside the bounds of what is acceptable. [Interruption]

Ron Mark: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I want to draw your mind back to when many of us first came to this Chamber. We received very formal instruction, on behalf of the Speaker’s office, by senior members of this House as to how we were to behave inside this Chamber, and on the processes and procedures we were to follow. One of the courses of instruction we received was on how to table documents. In that course of instruction the Standing Orders were made very clear to us, and it was clear that we were to do a number of things: give the title of the document, the date, where it came from, and a brief outline of what was contained in it. My concern is that increasingly, over the last few years, the impression has been given that the House does not want the contents of certain documents to be aired publicly here on the floor of the Chamber. Right at the point in time when a member of Parliament is about to explain specifically—according to the Standing Orders—what a document is about, he is promptly sat on his butt. I would ask you to consider exactly how that has been administered, because it does seem a little unfair.

Mr SPEAKER: It has not been administered in any different way in all the 37 years I have been in the House. I repeat that all that is necessary is to identify sufficiently the document to be tabled. I judged that we had identified that document.

Rodney Hide: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.

Mr SPEAKER: I warn the member that I have ruled, and this had better be a new point of order.

Rodney Hide: I seek leave of the House to table the Rt Hon Helen Clark’s speech to the Returned Services Association’s annual national council meeting this week.

Document laid on the Table of the House.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. During that last discussion with Mr Hide, Mr Mallard made a statement that is bound to lead to parliamentary disorder. It was an allegation against a member of this House, and he should be asked either to back it up or to stand, withdraw, and apologise.

Mr SPEAKER: I will ask the member whether he made an unparliamentary comment about another member. If he did so, I want him to stand, withdraw, and apologise. [Interruption] I did not exactly hear it. There was a noise, and I did not hear the exact statement. I was listening to a point of order. If the member made an unparliamentary statement, he is to stand, withdraw, and apologise. He did not. I accept his word.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Let me tell you what he said, without mentioning the member’s name. He said: “Tell X to pay her bills, too.” He knows he said that. We all heard him over here on the Opposition benches. You take his word; I do not. I want an apology.

Mr SPEAKER: The statement is ambiguous. It is not unparliamentary, but the member was out of order for interjecting. I ask him to withdraw for interjecting.

Hon Trevor Mallard: I withdraw.

Dunstan Hospital—Redevelopment

8. STEVE CHADWICK (Labour—Rotorua) to the Minister of Health: What progress is being made towards the redevelopment of Dunstan Hospital?

Hon ANNETTE KING (Minister of Health): Considerable progress has been made towards a new facility at Dunstan. I visited the hospital in December 2002 to see the state of it, and since then the district health board, the Ministry of Health, and the trust have undertaken a lot of work. As I have already announced, I will be in a position to outline the time frame for redevelopment and funding before Christmas.

Steve Chadwick: What representations, if any, have been made by MPs on this issue?

Hon ANNETTE KING: I have received endless representations from the local member of Parliament, David Parker, who in fact has worn a track to my door and overheated the telephone line on this issue. He took me to the hospital in December last year to advocate further for a new facility. I had one letter from the Hon Peter Dunne in August 2000, but I have never heard from Katherine Rich, although according to news reports she would have people believe that she was the main promoter of it. As far as I can see, she has promoted only herself.

Pita Paraone: Why has Dunstan Hospital been allowed to deteriorate to the point where it has posed a health and safety hazard; and how many other hospitals are there in similar circumstances?

Hon ANNETTE KING: I am pleased to tell the member that there are not many hospitals like Dunstan Hospital left. Most of them are part of a building project, including the old Kew Hospital in Invercargill. It waited for years for redevelopment, and did not get the money until we became the Government. I could also name many others. Dunstan Hospital needed redevelopment; it had been neglected for a long time. I am glad to say we have taken that seriously, and will fund it.

Mark Peck: When was Dunstan Hospital last substantially upgraded?

Hon ANNETTE KING: The last substantial redevelopment was about 50 years ago. For the last 3 decades National held the Otago electorate and it did not redevelop it. In the most recent decade two former leaders of the National Party—both were Ministers of Health: Mrs Shipley and Mr English—did nothing. They did not upgrade it. It was not until we became the Government that the issue was taken seriously. People will have a new hospital in Dunstan, and they can thank this Government for listening to them rather than going out, making speeches, and pretending to listen.

Capital and Coast District Health Board—Mental Health Patient Death

9. Hon ROGER SOWRY (National) to the Minister of Health: Will she be ensuring that the 20 recommendations made in a recent report into the death of a mental health patient in the care of Capital and Coast District Health Board will be followed up; if not, why not?

Hon ANNETTE KING (Minister of Health): Yes, I am advised that most of the recommendations have already been implemented, and the rest will be completed by December this year.

Hon Roger Sowry: If the Minister has been advised, and accepts the advice, that most of the recommendations have been implemented, why was it that Mr Chad Buckle was able to walk out of the Capital and Coast District Health Board’s mental health unit just a month after the hospital had committed itself both to reducing the number of exits from wards and to introducing a swipe card system; and is this the same ward that allowed a patient to walk out of it earlier in the year who was then killed after entering a tiger enclosure at Wellington Zoo?

Hon ANNETTE KING: It is the same ward—ward 27 of Wellington Hospital. It is a ward with patients who are there under compulsory treatment orders. It also has voluntary patients, who are allowed to leave because they are not committed patients. However, the district health board has recognised that it did not have good enough surveillance. It has now put in place a number of measures to address that issue and make it more difficult for those patients who should not be leaving, to leave.

Darren Hughes: Has the provision in mental health services in the Capital and Coast District Health Board area improved?

Hon ANNETTE KING: Yes, I am advised by Dr Peter McGeorge that mental health services have improved in that district health board over the last 5 years. For example, there has been a 26 percent increase in access to services, a mental health helpline was set up in March last year, and new services such as home-based care and respite care have been added.

Hon Ken Shirley: Does the Minister accept that many of the mental health problems at the Capital and Coast District Health Board result from misdirection of resources, and how does she justify the fact that the man she mentioned, Dr Peter McGeorge, the head of that mental health sector, has commuted to work from Auckland to Wellington for the full duration of this Government’s administration?

Hon ANNETTE KING: The decision to have Dr McGeorge come from Auckland to Wellington was made by the board, and I think it probably reflects the fact that we have in New Zealand a shortage of highly skilled psychiatrists. However, I would say that the flight of Dr McGeorge to Wellington would be able to give a lot more service to the people of New Zealand than that member flying from Auckland or wherever it is to come to Parliament.

Hon Roger Sowry: How can the Minister claim in the House today that the mental health services for the Capital and Coast District Health Board have improved, when Mr Buckle’s father phoned the staff the night before, emailed the staff, and then phoned them on the morning of his son’s death, regarding his son’s mental state, and when will the Minister institute a proper inquiry, rather than accepting the manager’s word that the unit is safe, when there have been two deaths, which she seems to pass off lightly?

Hon ANNETTE KING: I certainly do not pass any death off lightly. I need to say to that member, if he is going to look at reports into mental health problems, there were 70 of them before I became Minister. A proper review was carried out, not a manager’s report. It was the review that Mr Buckle was talking about this morning. Maybe the member missed that.

Immigration, Minister—Confidence

10. Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) to the Prime Minister: Does she have confidence in the Minister of Immigration given recent publicity of events surrounding the New Zealand Immigration Service?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK (Prime Minister): Yes.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: She is no longer hard-working and conscientious!

Mr SPEAKER: The member was asked a question and an answer was given. There was no other reason required.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: When did the Minister of Immigration tell her as Prime Minister that she had become aware of senior officials at the New Zealand Immigration Service operating their own “jobs for visas” scam for would-be immigrants by providing job offers at the service that would enable foreign nationals to secure fast-track, permanent residency within 1 month; how many of these job offers were made available, and what action did she take as Prime Minister when the Minister of Immigration told her that?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: I do not recall having any specific advice on such allegations. If the member wants to put down a proper question, one will look at it.

Dr Wayne Mapp: How can the Prime Minister have confidence in a Minister who refuses to answer specific questions in Parliament on her portfolio responsibility, when the whole nation can read many of the details of particular issues in today’s New Zealand Herald, and where is the accountability of that Minister to this Parliament, which is surely one of the basic requirements of ministerial responsibility?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: Of course it is one of the basic requirements of responsibility, but a Minister of Immigration will always be somewhat constrained in what he or she can say in individual cases.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Is she telling the House that the Minister of Immigration has not told her about the New Zealand Immigration Service assisting with the recruitment of foreign nationals into jobs at the service, effectively replacing and displacing New Zealand citizens and residents already here in the employ of the service, and overlooking suitably qualified persons from within resident ethnic communities—is she telling the House she knows nothing about that?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: I repeat that I do not recall having a specific briefing on such allegations. If the member wants to ask a proper question about it, he should put it down.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Has the Prime Minister seen a document entitled The Sweeping Pool, in which the front page is written by her Minister, describing the “lying in unison” press man Ian Smith as “Puff Daddy”, and on the back page, she will see the names of the recruitees, one of whom came here from India, got the job for 1 month, and then resigned from the department and set up his own immigration service; what sort of sham is going on under her Minister, and when will she take account of it herself as the Prime Minister?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: I cannot recall any specific brief about these allegations, which is all they are. If the member wants to put the question down properly, he will get a full answer.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I seek to table the front page of the November 2002 Sweeping Pool issue, which sets out some of the evidence about which I was speaking and which quotes the Minister of Immigration.

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

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. With respect, we have a Prime Minister who tells a member of Parliament, on a matter on which she is apparently ignorant, to put down a question, and then—

Mr SPEAKER: This is not a point of order.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: But I have not finished it.

Mr SPEAKER: Please be seated. I am not warning the member again, I will name him. This was a request to table a document, and the request was denied. Any member can do that, and it was done. The member may not raise by way of a point of order a rejection of that particular point.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: My point of order is that I do not think that, on a matter to do with the department, it is fitting for the Prime Minister to tell a parliamentarian who has been scandalised for years by that sort of thing under this Minister, to put a question down, when it is her job to put a question down to her Minister.

Mr SPEAKER: In fact that is just the point I made: that is not a point of order.

International Students—Pastoral Care

11. LYNNE PILLAY (Labour—Waitakere) to the Minister of Education: What steps is he taking to ensure that international students studying at New Zealand secondary and composite schools receive a high standard of pastoral care?

Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Minister of Education): Under the Code of Practice for the Pastoral Care of International Students, schools must provide a range of support services for foreign fee-paying students, including advice on accommodation, courses, welfare facilities, and health services. From next year the Education Review Office will start assessing in-depth the extent to which the code has been implemented, including through inspecting a random sample of home-stay placements.

Lynne Pillay: How will the Education Review Office go about monitoring the implementation of the code?

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: The Education Review Office will monitor the implementation of the code through its regular education reviews, and will include information from the new, in-depth investigation in its regular reports on individual schools. By mid next year, the review office will also produce an education evaluation report on the pastoral care of foreign fee-paying students, based on information and recommendations from those individual reports.

Bernie Ogilvy: In the light of the focus of the primary question on pastoral care for school students, will he give serious consideration to United Future’s proposal to extend the Social Workers in Schools programme to all decile 1 and 2 schools?

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: It is not a matter I have immediate responsibility for. If the member’s social services spokesperson took it up with my colleague the Minister for Social Development and Employment, that would be useful. I might say that if the economy continues to be damaged by the sabotage work of Pansy Wong in China, the ability to do that will not exist.

Mr SPEAKER: The member knows he is out of order in saying what he said and commenting in that way on a member of Parliament. I want him to withdraw and apologise.

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: I withdraw and apologise. I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I know it is very unusual to ask for an explanation or reason in this area, but when a member of Parliament is deliberately undermining the New Zealand education industry in China, that is, in my opinion, sabotage.

Mr SPEAKER: That is not a point of order, and the member knows that.

Douglas Fir Seedlings—Destruction

12. IAN EWEN-STREET (Green) to the Minister for Biosecurity: Why was a shipment of Douglas fir seedlings infected with pine pitch canker seized and destroyed this week, and why was it ever allowed to leave California for New Zealand?

Hon JIM SUTTON (Minister for Biosecurity): A consignment of Douglas fir scions—unrooted cuttings—in a secure quarantine facility in Kaiapoi was destroyed last week because it was infected with a fungus provisionally diagnosed as pine pitch canker, a disease New Zealand does not have. The cuttings were from an area considered to be free from pine pitch canker, and had been in quarantine for the past 9 months so any infection could be detected and destroyed without risk to our environment.

Ian Ewen-Street: Is it not the case that the destruction of the seedlings was, effectively, the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff, and became necessary only because 3 months before the seedlings were imported the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry had removed the fence at the top of the cliff by declaring 20 counties of California to be free of pine pitch canker, against the specific advice of Dr Michael Ormsby, the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry’s national adviser on forest biosecurity; if that is not the case, what is the case?

Hon JIM SUTTON: The rules for the import of either animals or plants are made not by me or any Minister but by the chief technical officer, and on a scientific basis. In the light of this occurrence, the ministry has immediately suspended any further imports of pine pitch canker host material from the United States and will review its long-term requirements.

David Parker: What does this interception demonstrate about our biosecurity surveillance system?

Hon JIM SUTTON: Quite simply, it demonstrates that quarantine works. Imports are required to be held in quarantine where there is any potential risk, so that the disease status can be ascertained. As the Douglas fir case last week shows, the system has worked. The Government has a strong commitment to biosecurity, with annual baseline expenditure having been increased by more than $50 million since we were elected in December 1999.

Ian Ewen-Street: Given that the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization describes a pest-free area for phytosanitary purposes as being “demonstrated by scientific evidence”, on what specific scientific evidence was the decision made to declare these 20 counties in California to be free of pine pitch canker?

Hon JIM SUTTON: I am not qualified to instruct the member on the scientific evidence, but I can say that this country relies very much on people applying honest science to quarantine and import-export requirements, and it would be most inappropriate for New Zealand to make decisions on what is acceptable in terms of quarantine on the basis of political comments rather than on the basis of honest science.

Ian Ewen-Street: Given that pine pitch canker has caused so much damage to natural pine forests in California that radiata pine has been classified as an endangered species there, does the Minister agree that our biosecurity agencies should be focused on managing the necessary risks associated with trade and tourism, rather than flirting with utterly unnecessary risks as in this case; if not, why not?

Hon JIM SUTTON: To accuse the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry of flirting with unnecessary risks simply illustrates the reason why politicians are not given charge of decisions on quarantine.

Questions to Members

Smoke-free Environments Amendment Bill—Lobbying

1. Hon PETER DUNNE (Leader—United Future) to STEVE CHADWICK (Member in charge of the Smoke-free Environments Amendment Bill): Is she concerned that the payment of taxpayer funds to anti-smoking groups for the purposes of lobbying members of Parliament and media to support smoke-free legislation will have an undue influence on the consideration of the Smoke-free Environments Amendment Bill?

STEVE CHADWICK (Member in charge of the Smoke-free Environments Amendment Bill): No. I have confidence that MPs are capable of forming their own opinions.

Hon Peter Dunne: Can the member assure the House that in her roles as both the sponsor of the bill and the chairperson of the Health Committee that considered it, she did not at any stage advise the Ministry of Health or groups such as Action on Smoking and Health that they ought to start lobbying members of Parliament to support this legislation?

Mr SPEAKER: The member cannot answer the question as the chair of the select committee, but she can answer as the member in charge of the bill.

STEVE CHADWICK: No.

Sue Kedgley: Is the member concerned that the hospitality industry, which organised vigorous postcard campaigns and vigorously lobbied MPs on the bill, may have unduly influenced the consideration of the Smoke-free Environments Amendment Bill?

STEVE CHADWICK: No. All sides of the debate and all points of view were put to all members of Parliament.

Rodney Hide: Supplementary question—

Mr SPEAKER: No, I have awarded two supplementary questions to members.

Rodney Hide: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. This is a very important issue. I am waiting to ask my question. Where does it say that the ACT party is not entitled to ask a question of this member?

Mr SPEAKER: It is entirely at my discretion. The member should read Standing Order 2.

Rodney Hide: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I ask you to use your discretion and allow ACT to ask a question.

Mr SPEAKER: I will allow ACT to ask one supplementary question on one of the three questions to members. Does the member wish to take it on this one?

Rodney Hide: No, I will defer to my good friend Heather Roy.

Smoke-free Environments Amendment Bill—Scientific Evidence

2. Hon PETER DUNNE (Leader—United Future) to STEVE CHADWICK (Member in charge of the Smoke-free Environments Amendment Bill) : Is she satisfied that all available scientific evidence has been considered during the passage of the Smoke-free Environments Amendment Bill?

STEVE CHADWICK (Member in charge of the Smoke-free Environments Amendment Bill): I am satisfied that all positions on the Smoke-free Environments Amendment Bill were fully canvassed and supported, where appropriate, by scientific evidence. The Health Committee heard carefully and considered 397 submissions. No organisation that wished to put its views forward was denied this opportunity. All the scientific evidence placed before the committee was considered before the committee made any recommendations.

Hon Peter Dunne: When the member wrote to Mr Jonathan Olsen of the Cuba Cigar Emporium Cocktail Lounge and Bar—with regard to the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research report—that “While Gavin Fisher’s methodology for an exhaust emissions report was accepted, the reason that his other report into air quality at Bream Bay was not was because he never set out for the report to be used to support an air quality standard with relation to the current legislation before Parliament.”, on whose advice was that conclusion reached, given that the select committee did not consider the original National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research report?

STEVE CHADWICK: That is quite correct. The National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research report came in after the closure of submissions on the Smoke-free Environments Amendment Bill.

Hon Peter Dunne: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I appreciate that you are not responsible for the content of the member’s answer, but I put it to you that the primary thrust of that question did not relate to the timing of the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research report as much as it related to the advice that she, as the sponsor of the bill, received about it. The member did not answer that point at all, so I seek your indulgence to have her answer it.

Mr SPEAKER: If the member would like to add a sentence or two, she can if she wishes.

STEVE CHADWICK: Could the member repeat the particular portion of the question that concerns him?

Hon Peter Dunne: I will do it very briefly if I may. I am sure the member is familiar with—

Rodney Hide: No, we need a bit longer.

Hon Peter Dunne: I am a reasonable person.

Mr SPEAKER: Please be reasonable and do what you said you were going to do.

Hon Peter Dunne: I am assuming that the member does not want me to read the quote again. The essence of the question was that given that the committee did not consider the report, and her quote rejects it, on whose advice did she make that rejection?

Hon Dr Michael Cullen: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I refer you to the principal question. The question was whether the member was satisfied that all available evidence had been considered—not whether she had considered it, or whether particular evidence had been considered at a particular time, but whether all evidence had been considered during the passage of the bill. That includes during the debates on the second reading and in the Committee stage. To get into this kind of detail is to go well beyond the range of that question.

Mr SPEAKER: Yes, but the question was about advice given to her, so I will allow it.

STEVE CHADWICK: I was happy with my original answer to the question.

Rodney Hide: In hearing all the available scientific evidence, was the select committee ever advised by the—

Hon Dr Michael Cullen: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The member—

Mr SPEAKER: Yes, I was just about to rise and say that the question was out of order.

Rodney Hide: I will rephrase it.

Mr SPEAKER: No. The member has had his chance.

Rodney Hide: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I notice that oftentimes, when a question has been put wrongly, the Speaker allows it to be rephrased. You have specifically said that the ACT party can ask a question, and now you are denying us one.

Mr SPEAKER: No, there was another member calling, and I will call that member, because he has not had a go yet. The member will get a go on question No. 3.

Peter Brown: Will the member clarify her position: is she saying that the select committee—

Mr SPEAKER: No, she is answering not as the chair of the select committee but as the member in charge of the bill.

Peter Brown: Will the member clarify her position: is she saying that she is aware of all the scientific evidence that people chose to put there, or is she saying that she has heard all the scientific evidence per se?

STEVE CHADWICK: As I said originally, I am satisfied with my original answer relating to the Smoke-free Environments Amendment Bill.

Peter Brown: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I took that question because the member’s original answer was not clear to members on this side of the House. It was a very simple question.

Mr SPEAKER: I cannot judge the quality of the answer. The member has given an answer. It addressed the question.

Rodney Hide: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I seek your indulgence. You promised the ACT party a question.

Mr SPEAKER: You will get one on question No. 3.

Rodney Hide: What about question No. 2?

Mr SPEAKER: I am sorry; all right, the question will be on the Smoke-free Environments Amendment Bill.

Rodney Hide: As the member in charge of the Smoke-free Environments Amendment Bill, was she aware that the Ministry of Health was funding lobby groups to lobby MPs—yes or no?

Mr SPEAKER: That is not relevant to this particular question.

Masterton District Council (Montfort Trimble Foundation) Bill—Second Reading

3. MARC ALEXANDER (United Future) to GEORGINA BEYER (Member in charge of the Masterton District Council (Montfort Trimble Foundation) Bill): Has she received any positive feedback from her Wairarapa constituents regarding the scheduled advancement of the Masterton District Council (Montfort Trimble Foundation) Bill through its second reading today?

GEORGINA BEYER (Member in charge of the Masterton District Council (Montfort Trimble Foundation) Bill): No, and neither have I received any negative feedback.

Marc Alexander: In light of the fact that the passage of this bill will release $5 million from the Montfort Trimble trust to the Masterton district for further reinvestment in forestry, what sort of reaction does she expect to face from her constituents if she allows this bill to be delayed a second time for the sake of progressing the anti-choice smoke-free legislation?

GEORGINA BEYER: I have no intention of delaying the bill any further. Whatever the House may decide is up to the House.

Urgent Debates

Department of Child, Youth and Family Services—Report

Mr SPEAKER: I have received applications from Katherine Rich, Judy Turner, and Dr Muriel Newman under Standing Order 376 to debate the report of the chief social worker of the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services into the deaths of Olympia Jetson and Saliel Aplin. This is a particular case of recent occurrence involving ministerial responsibility, and, notwithstanding that the House held an urgent debate on 4 November on a baseline review of the department, I am prepared to accept the applications. The first application was lodged by Katherine Rich, and I therefore call on her to move that the House take note of a matter of urgent public importance.

KATHERINE RICH (National): I move, That the House take note of a matter of urgent public importance. The report on the investigations into the deaths of Saliel Aplin and Olympia Jetson makes incredibly sad reading. If we look at the short lives of those girls, we begin to question whether they had any chance at all. Those girls lived in 10 homes. They attended six different schools and they lived in an incredibly violent home. They lived with their grandparents for a space of time, and for most of their lives were continually under the notice and watch of the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services. They were continually under the watchful eye of counsellors for most of their lives.

It is quite clear that all the different social services agencies had a fair understanding of one piece of this family’s story. Each of the social services agencies held one piece of the jigsaw puzzle that made up the total picture. Unfortunately, because those groups did not speak with one another, because there was insufficient communication, the pieces in that jigsaw puzzle never came together so that the risk to those girls could be identified. I am not going to pretend that the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services—[Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Would the member’s own colleagues allow her to have her say.

Dail Jones: On both sides of the House.

Mr SPEAKER: I am talking particularly about people very close to her.

KATHERINE RICH: I am not going to pretend that the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services held the knife. I am not going to pretend that the department is responsible for the deaths of Saliel Aplin and Olympia Jetston—Bruce Howse is responsible for the deaths of those girls. However, I would not be doing my job as an Opposition spokeswoman if I did not hold the department to account and highlight the deep concerns that I think most members in this House have about the workings of the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services.

Over the last 4 years we have seen a lot of reports. In June 2000 we saw the James Whakaruru report, and in December 2000 we saw the Judge Mick Brown report. We have seen blueprints, we have seen reviews, and we have seen report after report, but, sadly, most of those reports gather dust because the Government has failed to implement most of the recommendations and suggestions they contain. The names of the children have changed, but many of the issues remain the same. Many of the issues facing the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services have not changed in the last 4 years. Sadly, that has been to the detriment of Saliel Aplin and Olympia Jetson. That has meant that the services those girls received from the department were not up to scratch and befitting the care of New Zealand citizens, particularly New Zealand citizens who are in need of the type of support that the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services should, hopefully, be able to give.

The Masterton office has an incredibly difficult job. At the moment, that whole area is the child-death capital of this country. That community has faced a number of really difficult issues, such as the Lillybing case and the Ratima case. But that means that the onus on the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services to provide better services is all the more important. In the last 4 years, that office has been restructured. In the last 4 years, it has lost staff—staff with leadership roles.

One particular staff member had played a very important role in terms of setting up the roopu team within that office. The roopu team looks after the cases of Māori children in the area. It is supposed to provide specific, culturally sensitive services to Māori children in Masterton. Unfortunately, though, while on a chalkboard the theory may have looked as though it would work, the staff members who were part of that team were, in my view, on a hiding to nothing. They were overworked. For some reason—and the Minister today was unable to explain why—the roopu team in that office had a caseload that was 36 percent higher than the general team’s caseload. The members of that team lost one of their key staff members who had played a huge role in the establishment of the service they provided. They were restructured. They had a difficult time. Frankly, it was a time-bomb ticking. If the mistakes had not been made in respect of the Aplin and Jetson girls, they would have been made elsewhere.

We need to have very high expectations of the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services. It deals with the nation’s most vulnerable children. It is not good enough for the Minister to blame just two staff members and pretend that the rest of the department is going along swimmingly. We all know that that is not the case. The baseline review has told us that that is not the case.

The baseline review made very disturbing reading, and I think the Government was quite cynical in its timing of the release of that report. Because it wanted to release that report at the time so that it could say “Oh, well, we’re going to be doing something about it.”, when this one came along. We have been waiting for this report to come along since the beginning of the year, and the Minister has sat on the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services report, and I believe actively discouraged the Commissioner for Children from releasing its report.

I feel sorry for the Office of the Commissioner for Children, because it puts its heart and soul into many of the reports it writes. This morning I reread the report of the James Whakaruru case. Many of the recommendations in that report, in my view, have been ignored, and many of the recommendations are retold today in the Aplin report. The names of the children have changed, but the facts of the difficult nature of the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services, and the dysfunctional nature of that department, have not changed. We have seen no progress in 4 years. We have seen no progress in an area where all New Zealanders, frankly, deserve to have a better service.

I cannot understand why parents like Ron Burrows can ring up and talk about incredibly concerning issues for them and not even have a note taken. I cannot explain, as a mother, how any child’s note stating “My father is going to kill me.” is not even seen as worthy of being a separate notification. I cannot understand how Saliel Aplin can say things like “Bruce is going to kill us.”, and for that to be largely ignored or dismissed.

The real issue here is that one does have some people working at the frontline who have largely become desensitised to the issue of family violence, and I include the police in that as well. We have a group of people who deal with some gut-wrenching situations; but that is no excuse to pretend or to believe that family violence has become normalised in New Zealand society. We need to be able to aspire to a better situation for our families in this country. Right now, how can any parents feel confident when they ring up the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services that their views are going to be, first, noted down; second, listened to with any seriousness; and third, dealt with in an appropriate way?

At the moment we have 3,132 children whose cases have been classed as notifications by the department, but they have not even been allocated to a social worker yet. The sad thing is that 75 percent of all abuse cases come from the lower rankings of urgency, and that is the level of urgency of those 3,132 cases; so who knows whether there is another Coral Burrows, another Saliel Aplin, or another Olympia Jetson waiting amongst that large group of 3,132 children.

Judge Mick Brown must be feeling very frustrated because he put together an excellent report. In that report he told the Government that it needed to reduce the unallocated case list to zero within 6 months. That Minister over there signed up to that recommendation. Sure, later on he diluted it down into a blueprint or some other diluted version, but at the time he said that the Government would put in place that report. Right now, with the unallocated case list being so incredibly large, not only has the Minister failed, but it looks like he has abandoned that particular objective altogether.

I believe that New Zealand children do deserve to have a better service than they are receiving from the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services right now. There is no way, given the performance of this department, that I would let it anywhere near my children. When I am dealing with Department of Child, Youth and Family Services cases, I find it difficult to explain to often very distraught parents who have had their children removed why, in certain circumstances, the department failed to protect them better than if they had been at home. In Dunedin, where I am from, we had children absconding and taking drugs. In Christchurch some children absconded out of the department’s care to prostitute themselves in the Square. We have also seen stupid mistakes made like putting children who have been abused into care with other children who are abusers. We need to have incredibly high standards.

The Opposition would not be doing its job if it were not raising these issues as being important. As I said, I do not believe for a moment that the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services is responsible for these kids’ deaths. But who knows: it might have had an influence. If the risk had been assessed in a way that most New Zealand families would have liked, then perhaps those girls might not have been in the care of that family at that time. I always remember Judge Mick Brown coming before our Social Services Committee. I asked him what one does when one sees intergenerational dysfunctionality in some families. He looked at the members of the committee and said: “Well, frankly, we have to come to terms with the fact that there are some families in this country that I wouldn’t leave my dog with.” I think that more often than not, some children are left in situations where family violence has become normalised and accepted, and in situations that most New Zealand parents would be very hard pressed to believe were good for children.

There are a few ideas in this report that I think deserve better research. I am extremely disappointed that the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services has dismissed the commissioner’s suggestion that the roopu teams be reviewed. I do not see the point in having separate services for Māori if they are going to be under-resourced, understaffed, and put under such immense pressure that they are on a hiding to nothing and will be in a position where they will fail the Māori children they are looking after. I do not see why the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services ignores the commissioner’s recommendation that a review of resourcing be done immediately.

I think it is also important to look at the whole issue of child protection teams. We all know that local people—local communities—have a better understanding of some of the families in need than some call-centre stuck in the middle of an urban centre where it has been unable to work closely with the families. We need to be able to look at local protection teams, because if that had been the case, perhaps some of these puzzle pieces would have been put together so that a full picture of the condition and care of these girls could have been established at the time.

Hon STEVE MAHAREY (Minister for Social Development and Employment): I join with Katherine Rich, who has just resumed her seat, in saying today that I am glad these reports are now in the public domain. I thank the Children’s Commissioner for her report, which was prepared partly under the previous commissioner, and also the chief social worker. These reports are from people who have standing, ability, and insight, and we should take them seriously—as I know Katherine Rich has done.

What do these reports say? They make, I think, a very, very important point. They say that the systems are working well, but that the practice carried out by two people in these cases was not as it should have been. That is not to blame those people, to point the finger at them and say that they are to take full and total responsibility for this—although I point out that they no longer work for Child, Youth and Family Services—it is simply to say what these two independent people have concluded. This is a case of: system, good; and the use of that system, not good at all. That is what these reports conclude, and that tells us a way forward.

I also want to mirror the comments made by Katherine Rich in saying that this story began in 1992. That is when the elder of those young girls was born. By 1994 we are talking about a mother who was seeking a protection order against her partner. We are then talking about the ongoing changes in those girls’ lives—where they lived, who looked after them, and the circumstances they had to encounter. As Katherine Rich has just said, one wonders, when one looks at this, how those girls ever, ever had a chance, anyway. In the end, the tragedy came to a head when their stepfather Bruce Howse killed them.

We also know from these reports that there was a good possibility that if practices had been matched to the protocols in place and to the way things should have been done, those two young girls may well still be alive. That is the tragedy the reports tell us about. What will New Zealanders do? How will they respond to these two reports? They know, when they are looking at this Government, that they are looking at a Government that puts every ounce of energy it can into trying to improve the circumstances of young people who come into contact with Child, Youth and Family Services. We do not ask people to take our word for it. Labour has been in office for 4 years. Therefore, I am happy to stand on any platform in this country and list the amount of money put in—a 50 percent increase—the number of social workers, the changes in protocols and practices, the ways we have asked Child, Youth and Family Services to work with other departments, the changes in practice management for good social work, and so on. I could list page after page of changes this Government has instituted. I have no fear of standing on any platform and answering any questions about this Government’s commitment to these children and families in this country.

I remind those people who get up in here and ask for reports to be read out and to be reminded of them, and so on, that we were the ones who asked for the reports. I personally asked Mick Brown to write his report. I personally asked Treasury, the Social Services Commission, the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services, and the Ministry of Social Development—

Hon Trevor Mallard: And State Services.

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: —and the State Services Commission to work together on the baseline review. That was totally supported by my colleagues Michael Cullen and the Minister of State Services. All those Ministers worked together to make sure that the baseline review worked. So when people get up in the House and debate this report, they should remember it was the Government that asked for it. We saw it through. We are transparent, we are accountable, and we are responsible. We do not duck a single question, because we want people to know, we want New Zealanders to know, and we want Murray McCully to know—he is laughing about this, over there—that for 4 years we have been serious about this issue.

I will sit down soon, but I want to leave New Zealanders with one simple choice. When they look at this report, they will be asking themselves: “Who would we want to be stewards of Child, Youth and Family Services?”. Would we want a Labour-led Government to be stewards of Child, Youth and Family Services? This is a Government that has put in money, time, and workers. It has had reviews, it has had support, and it has had non-governmental organisations working with it. Government members have travelled to talk to social workers about what we want and need. We have put in every ounce of energy. We have backed what we have said with real money. Would people want that Government, or would they want a National-led Government? Under the National Government there were seven restructurings in 9 years, five changes of name, and a cut in budget every year between 1993 and 1997. Griff Page, who led this organisation in the middle of the 1990s, in on the record as saying: “This is the most demoralised organisation I have ever had any contact with.” Would people want that? Would they want the performance of Katherine Rich? She came into the House and used James Whakaruru to try to justify her argument. James Whakaruru died when the National Government was in power. Labour was the Government that received the report. We were the ones who put what was in that report into practice. Mrs Rich went through the whole report without mentioning one policy or one promise, without putting one dollar on the table, and without showing one sign of what a National Government would do if it were in this position. So the choice is easy. People do not have to take our word for it; they just have to ask: “What would Labour do?”. It would do more of what it has done. It has put the money in; it has done the hard yards. What would National do? It would destroy this department. There is no choice.

These reports are received by the Government. They are taken seriously by the Government. They will be acted on. People know that if anybody else were in this position, nothing would happen. They know that we can be trusted to be responsible and accountable, and that we will act.

BARBARA STEWART (NZ First): The review of the deaths of Saliel Aplin and Olympia Jetson is yet another devastating commentary on the ineptitude of the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services. This is a further example of systemic failure, where policy and guidelines were not followed, and it must bring some response from the Government to recognise that the current model of Child, Youth and Family Services is flawed, and that much more can be done to ensure that education, police, and health and welfare agencies work together far more collaboratively than in the past. The price of failure is the loss of young lives, as we have seen with these two young girls. It is totally unacceptable.

Within New Zealand First, we have deep concerns about the working of this particular Government department. It does need higher procedural compliance standards. I notice that the Minister said that the Government has had only 4 years in which to sort out this department. I remind the Minister that he has had far more than 4 years—in fact, he has had 13 years: 9 years in Opposition and 4 years in Government. And still this department has not delivered on some of the things that it should have. We have seen many, many reports—the report today is not the first—and they are damning. The issues remain the same. Many children are paying with their lives. The names that we see continually roll on. I wonder how many more lives will be lost before we have some action. It is not that I blame the social workers totally, or the Government in entirety, but this department does need to take stock.

One of the things that concerns me, and it became evident in question time today, is that there are policies and procedures in place in the department, but they are not followed. What is the point of having policies and procedures if they are not followed? Do the social workers know what is contained within their policies and procedures? Do the social workers and the team in the department need to have some revision on those policies? Time and time again in the reports we see lots of recommendations, but what is the point of the recommendations and of spending time on the reports if there is no accountability and if the recommendations are not followed? Today, in question time, we heard that within the department the Minister has implemented a team-based approach with the police, the Ministry of Education, and the Ministry of Health. But, guess what? The procedure is not followed.

How many more times will we see events like this? We know for a fact that the caseloads within the department are extremely high and that the number of social workers is lower than perhaps it should be. We know that last week an advertisement was put in all the major newspapers, to ensure that social workers of a high quality will be brought into the department. What appears to be happening is that there are a lot of children but an insufficient number of experienced social workers. What happens? Children appear to be slipping through the cracks. It is not good enough.

We have waited for this report for a long, long time. Now we have some more disturbing information. I remember asking at the last financial review about this particular report, and was told it would be coming within the next couple of weeks. But did it? No, it did not. It is months and months late. The advertising for social workers is continual. We do not want a service such as this to be under-resourced, but it always appears to be lagging behind the action. We need to have a far better situation in Child, Youth and Family Services than the one we have. The families of New Zealand deserve a far better service. If we asked people today whether they had any confidence in this department, unfortunately, the answer would be a resounding no. That is not something that we as politicians want to hear.

It is imperative that this department is able to perform its statutory functions well, but time and time again we hear that it is falling over and not following its procedures. What is more, there does not appear to be any accountability. When are the procedures going to be followed so that the people of New Zealand can have some confidence in this department? From the various reports we have seen—and I am sure that everyone else will be looking for them, too—many, many changes have been advised. We need to hope that they are implemented in a far better way than in the past. We will monitor them very carefully in our Social Services Committee, and the individual political parties will also do that. The reports indicate ways to go forward, and monitoring closely is one of those ways forward.

I would like to state that New Zealand First believes that child protection should be a priority for the Government, but the Government seems to have been diverted by its pursuit of the politically correct. Privacy issues need to be put aside and the safety of at-risk children put first. It is the birthright of our New Zealand children to have a safe environment to grow up in. These children are our future, and they must be safeguarded against violent behaviour. It is time that the Government got tough on crimes towards children, and the only way to do that is to ensure that the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services works in the way it is supposed to, and in conjunction with all other social agencies. The procedures are obviously in place, but the implementation of those procedures is not as it should be.

The way forward is clearly mapped out by the various reports. We need to follow that way forward. The price of failure is far too high for the children of New Zealand and for New Zealanders. We need to be confident about this Government department. We often see editorials in the papers decrying what is happening with our children in New Zealand. It is time, too, that the fence at the top of the cliff was replaced by a requirement for more parental responsibility. Extra funding for the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services ambulance at the bottom of the cliff will cure nothing.

SUE BRADFORD (Green): The case of Saliel Aplin and Olympia Jetson, the two girls who were murdered by Bruce Howse in December 2001, hangs like a grim backdrop to the more recent loss of 6-year-old Coral Burrows. Today we have seen the release of the two long-awaited reports from the chief social worker of the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services and the Commissioner for Children, Cindy Kiro, which outline the details of what went wrong from a Government perspective and make a series of recommendations for change. I know some of my fellow MPs who are here today will have read those reports from cover to cover by now, as I have. They will be sharing my feelings of both sadness and disbelief that, yet again, a whole community could somehow fail those two young girls, despite all the overt talk in most parts of New Zealand society about how our children must come first and about how much we love them.

Letting two children live their lives in an almost never-ending stream of violence and emotional abuse is not about love or putting children first. It is about the New Zealand underbelly—a place where beating up and abusing women and children is such an everyday matter that it is accepted by the family, neighbours, community groups, police, the Department of Youth, Child and Family Services, and other adults as OK and just something to get along with. It is about a New Zealand where adults, even when they are police, teachers, or social workers, appear to prefer to listen to and believe adults rather than to listen to and believe children.

Those two reports are not just a harrowing indictment of some of the State agencies involved with Olympia and Saliel—and I stress that the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services is not the only agency talked about—but also provide a chilling insight into the reality around New Zealanders’ tolerance of violence against children.

The reports reveal a whole range of issues, which I do not have time to go into fully this afternoon. First of all, it is quite apparent there were a number of critical failures in the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services social work practice. The critical failures included social workers who were so familiar with the family that they seemed not to comprehend the serious nature of what they were dealing with. One of them wrote a letter to the children’s mother that was intercepted by the killer and, in all likelihood, helped to precipitate the children’s deaths. In this case there is a more direct causal relationship between the action of a social worker and the deaths of children than I have seen in similar reports. I would think that common sense alone, much less years of social work training, would suggest that to send a letter about possible abuse by a stepfather into the home where he lived might actually create a dangerous situation for the abused people living in that home. But, no, that social worker obviously did not give this factor any consideration when he or she wrote that letter.

I am not here to denigrate social workers. They have one of the most thankless and difficult jobs in our community, especially those who work for statutory agencies like the Department of Youth, Child and Family Services. However, when social workers are working with one of the most disempowered and vulnerable groups in our community—abused children—surely higher standards must be expected at every point in that social worker’s working life. The Brown report and the baseline review of the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services have both clearly demonstrated systemic failures on a number of fronts. Those latest reports are actually a case study of what goes wrong when a department is poorly managed, has chronic failures in its information systems, and does not train, supervise, or support its social workers properly.

One thing that needs to happen if the Government is serious about reforming the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services is that the chief social worker needs to be enabled to play a much more significant role as part of the leadership team of the organisation, rather than being someone in a minor position off to the side, as appears to have been the case up until now. The key role of care and protection—the statutory function of the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services—is played by social workers. Best practice needs to be led from the top, not diverted by dodgy management systems that are focused on maintaining the status quo and making the numbers look good, instead of ensuring that the department has enough social workers who are experienced, well trained, and sufficiently supported in their work to not make the kinds of fundamental mistakes that have been highlighted by those reports. I am pleased that the Minister for Social Development and Employment, Steve Maharey, indicated earlier this afternoon in the House that the Government has some sympathy for the chief social worker playing a bigger role at the top of the organisation.

A second key issue arising from these two reports is the seeming inability or unwillingness of adults to listen to what children are telling them, and their preference for hearing the evidence and statements of other adults. There is a need for adults, whether they are social workers, teachers, mental health workers, or police, to be prepared to spend time with children and to listen to what they are actually saying. If the New Zealand Government is to support the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which we are about to pass into law through the Commissioner for Children legislation, we should expect public servants to be willing and able to listen to children and not just ignore them in favour of what they, as adults, are hearing from other adults.

Thirdly, it is apparent from these reports that there is a semi-acceptance in many parts of our society that domestic violence is OK—that it is really just a minor matter—and that, somehow, sexual abuse is a lot worse and domestic violence is somewhere much further down the scale. The adults around this family seem to have accepted that the domestic violence in their home was just a fact of life that rarely needed any action taken. That is very peculiar, especially given all the training and focus that has gone in recent years in trying to ensure that the police take domestic violence seriously.

Again, the needs of the children involved seem to have been of minor importance. The report found that social workers have used a lack of resources as an excuse to try to disguise poor social work practice. That is simply unacceptable at any level. The care and protection of children should come first, and I commend the writers of both the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services and Commissioner for Children reports for not trying to hide behind a lack of resources as some excuse for what happened. This Government is pouring more resources into the department. I hope that in future, the Government, the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services, police, the Ministry of Education, and all sectors mentioned in the report will take the recommendations of the report seriously regarding how they deal with children who report and who are visibly victims of abuse.

One aspect of the report in relation to schools particularly disturbed me, which was the suspension of one of the girls from school for a month because of her poor behaviour at school. I find it incomprehensible that the reaction of the school, when dealing with children from a situation that it did know about, was to suspend the child and put her back into the home, rather than keep her at school. I hope that the education sector is paying as much attention to this report as the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services is.

The Green Party supports the push from the Commissioner for Children for a return to community child protection teams to protect abused children. Those teams existed until they were abolished foolishly by Labour in 1989. It seems from that report—and all the other reports—that the ability to work cooperatively between agencies is a critical factor that we need to have integrated into social work practice again.

The Commissioner for Children’s report also highlights the inadequacies and gaps in the provision of mental health care for children and adolescents. I renew my call, which I have made very often, to the Government to act more urgently to bring the resourcing of child and adolescent mental health services back up to a more reasonable proportion of the blueprint guidelines. Again, it is children who miss out, because their mental health services are the least well funded, proportionately, of all our mental health services.

I commend the Commissioner for Children and the chief social worker of the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services for the honesty and lucidity of their reports into this most difficult case. I just hope that those reports are not, yet again, wasted and used as a parliamentary doorstop or filed in the rubbish bin.

Finally, it is important to note that the Commissioner for Children’s report does make considerable mention of the way in which the media dealt with children in the family and outside it, and with the victims themselves in the aftermath of the killings. Some of it makes most distasteful reading, and I hope that the Press Council, schools of journalism, journalists, and editors will pay some attention to the commissioner’s findings and recommendations in that area.

But in the end, all of us are accountable. I hope, yet again, that this might be an occasion when New Zealanders think a little more deeply about our fundamental attitudes to children in our care. The serious way in which all colleagues in the House have talked about this matter this afternoon reflects, I think, the way that we all feel about it. We all want to change for the better what has happened. I hope that that determination can be reflected in every level of the New Zealand community, right now.

Dr MURIEL NEWMAN (ACT): The two reports from the Commissioner for Children and the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services are a damning indictment on the Labour Government’s ability to provide a child welfare service that adequately caters for at-risk children. The reports are quite frightening. Again, they highlight systemic failure within the department. It is very easy for us in Parliament to forget that we are dealing with real people and bad things.

I want to put on the record what the commissioner reported about Saliel, who was 12, and Olympia, who was 11, each of whom were killed by a single knife wound on the night of 3 December 2001. According to the police, Saliel was found lying on her back surrounded by blood. She would have lost consciousness within a minute and died within 10 minutes. Olympia was found leaning over her bed in the prayer position. It could have taken anywhere between 30 minutes and 2 hours for her to die from blood loss. Their stepfather was convicted of their murders.

I say that we have to do something so that this situation does not happen again. It is so awful for members of Parliament to read these reports and to hear that Government departments have failed again in one way or another—whether by social workers, the police, or education services. It is easy for us to read that, but the reality is that it is children’s lives we are talking about. At-risk children are the most vulnerable children in society. The Department of Child, Youth and Family Services has tens of thousands of at-risk children to deal with. What all of us want to know in our hearts is that the Government has got its act together so that this sort of situation does not happen again. The really worrying thing about the reports is that they highlight the poor social work practice, the serious practice errors, and the flawed investigations that all contributed to the tragedy. But what comes through more than any of that is the fragmentation of social work in New Zealand, at every level.

The report states: “Many opportunities for appropriate interventions were lost because no single agency had the whole picture or a complete understanding of the risks present in their lives.” No one agency stepped back and asked: “What is going on here? Are these children safe?’ The report goes on to say that New Zealand has a fragmented approach to the well-being of children. While no lead agency is responsible for at-risk children, their rights, interests, and well-being will continue to be compromised. The most important finding in the reports is that we have service groups that try their hardest and do their best. But those services—none of them having the whole picture—do not understand the crisis that is developing and therefore do not act in a way that, after the fact, we wish they had.

The reports go on to confirm the vital role the education sector plays in the care and protection of children. It is the education system that sees these kids for most of the day. It notices whether things are going wrong. It is the first line of defence for children, yet it is not properly tied in with the process of painting the picture of what is happening in the children’s lives. The report also states that social workers failed to recognise the risk that family violence played in respect of those children—that in an environment where warfare was going on between parents, the children were in danger. It also stated that the police called at the house 18 times over a period of years, but, again, because they did not believe that in that environment of quite severe domestic family violence the children were at risk, they did not notify the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services.

Every time we read such a report, what comes back to us is that so many New Zealand children are born into families where they are loved, supported, and cared for, with parents and grandparents and the rest of the family who just fall head over heels in love with them and love them to bits. Yet other children are not born into such surroundings. It is to the Government that we turn for support and help for those children whose parents are failing them. I want to talk about what we should be doing about the situation we have in New Zealand today where children in tens of thousands of families are at risk every single day of their lives. Some of that is preventable, but I shall come back to that.

Page 16 of the Commissioner for Children’s report paints a picture of the lives Saliel and Olympia were leading. It states that in their short lives they lived in 10 homes, attended six different schools, lived in eight different towns and cities, and lived with grandparents for 2 years, having been removed from their mother’s care. They lived apart from their younger sister for 5 years; lived with their mother and two different partners, both of whom were violent; and lived in a house intermittently with up to 10 children for 4 years. They were exposed to 12 recorded incidents of violence, and at least 35 violent incidents were not reported. There was alleged abuse on at least five occasions. They had attended counselling intermittently since they were 3 and 4 years old. They were psychologically assessed by court order on at least two occasions, and they were monitored by the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services for nearly all their lives.

This is a family where the red alert flag should have been waving, where, when things happened to those kids, somebody should have stepped in. However, people can do that, I suppose, only if they know what else is going on with all of the other organisations also working with the children. The mother was 15 years old when she had her first child. She had Saliel when she was 19, and 20 months later had Olympia. There were five children living with that young mother in an unstable family environment—and we have to wonder why there were tragedies.

The Opposition—and the Government when in Opposition—always calls for fences to be built at the top of the cliff. We have ambulances at the bottom—the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services, the police, and so on—but we need to do more to stop child abuse. The Children’s Commissioner has called for new community-based child protection teams. But that will not go far enough. We will have an organisation, the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services—and we will have the police and all the other support agencies—and then we will have a brand new agency. The fragmentation will increase.

I believe that we need to do three things in New Zealand if we are to put a stop to the terrible legacy we have in this country of growing child abuse and if we are to take a stand of zero tolerance on that abuse. First, we need to do something about a welfare system that pays people to be irresponsible—to have children they cannot care for; to not realise they cannot rely on the taxpayer to give them a living all their lives, if they are able-bodied; to not realise that they have a responsibility to get out there to earn a living and fend for themselves and their families. We need welfare reform urgently, but not the sort that the Minister of Social Services talks about. We want to address the problem of long-term welfare dependence, and that involves women on the domestic purposes benefit, as well. Many women on the domestic purposes benefit have it as their aim to get off that benefit, because they know they will do better for their children by being out in the workforce. We need to encourage adoption for those families that genuinely cannot look after their children, because there are lots of families out there who can. When we come to child welfare, we need a one-stop shop, community-based agency, with police, welfare, education, and health officials working side by side, and with the police taking a stronger role in the investigation of child abuse and in the catching and sentencing of perpetrators.

JUDY TURNER (United Future): I stand on behalf of United Future to express our huge regret that we even have to be speaking on this matter today. I commend the Office of the Commissioner for Children and Shannon Pakura from the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services for the very honest reports they have written about the tragedies we are talking about today. The circumstances of Saliel Aplin and Olympia Jetson prior to their deaths were nothing short of diabolic. Let us not for a minute assume that families of this level of dysfunction are rare. I appreciate that the Commissioner for Children has today in the newspaper challenged us as communities to ask ourselves questions about why we hesitate to report, why we hesitate to act, and why we stumble over the question of children in our neighbourhood about whose safety we are unsure of. I have been a classroom teacher, and I have known times of having serious doubts in my mind about what was going on in some children’s homes, and of being unclear as to when to act and when not to. We need to start to empower people who work directly with children to have the confidence to take the steps that need to be taken.

I am interested in why some groups I have spoken to in community schools and community groups have been reticent about approaching the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services with some of their concerns. The reason is the double-edged issues that have gone on with the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services. In this situation, we look at what has obviously been a huge under-reaction to the situation of Olympia and Saliel and cases like James Whakaruru. But what has made people resistant to approaching the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services and referring children to it, is the huge number of cases where there has been an enormous over-reaction.

I have recently met with social workers that knew of a family of eight children. The mum was not coping very well. There had been some concerns, and the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services went around to investigate. The house was a mess. The children were removed on the basis of neglect, and 18 months later they are still not back with their family, despite the fact that the principles in the Children, Young Persons, and their Families Act state that children should be returned to their families, where possible.

I am concerned about the pressure on the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services being the final stop and place of last resort. I am also concerned about the huge expectations on social workers who work for that organisation on a wide range of cases, and about the levels of criticality they have to respond to. We believe that child protection should be investigated by a team that has, at the end of an investigation, two clear options. One is that they should uplift the children for their protection, if that is deemed necessary. We also believe that when children are uplifted, the families from whom those children have been uplifted should be supported and encouraged to become a safe place to which those children can be returned, where possible. The other option is that families can be referred to one of the many fine community-based organisations that serve our local communities: to Family Start; to Family Help and the amazing work it does with high-risk families in Christchurch; to Te Aroha Nui in Palmerston North; to the Nest, run by the Salvation Army in Hamilton; and to the many branches of the James Family, supplied by Presbyterian Support Services. For social workers at the end of the line, it is hugely important to have that option of being able to refer cases that they do not think are serious enough for children to be uplifted.

When we look at Olympia and Saliel’s case, we find that there were social workers who had a long-term involvement with the family—and we applaud the fact that social workers should be able to work long term with families, but they should not be the same people who are called on to investigate when there is a worry about children’s safety. We look at the involvement of police in this case and find that they focused too much on the safety of adults during the 6 years of call-outs to domestic violence incidents. When we look at the school the two children attended, we find that one child was suspended, and a request was made at that time by the mother for counselling for the child. There was disclosure by the other child of violence, and a reluctance, noted by the school, by that child to go home, and we find that the neighbours were acutely aware of the level of domestic violence that was going on next door. A specialised investigative team, with a clear mandate to find all the pieces of the jigsaw, would have been able to assemble the picture very easily.

Instead, we have social workers who, in responding to a vast array of cases with a wide range of criticality rating from the call centre, are easily able to overlook or misread the facts. We have busy schoolteachers who cater for a large number of children and their diverse needs but who do not have all the information at their disposal. What is of most concern about these findings? Yes, there are policies and procedures in place to deal with complex cases, but they were not followed. The department said that the normal checks and balances of care and protection systems did not operate in this case, and we need to be assured that those checks and balances are properly in place. There is the problem with familiarity, and United Future believes that if we were to have a specialised team that focused just on those high criticality cases, with an investigative role to bring together all the pieces of the jigsaw that are often out there, we might not be facing the situation we have today. The police, who completed 12 family violence reports and referred the girls’ mum to the Women’s Refuge, would have referred the children to the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services if they had for a minute considered the children to be in immediate danger. The problem is that the Masterton office of the department believes itself to be under-resourced. However, the department is not able to evaluate even whether it was underfunded, because there is no workload assessment tool to see whether social workers are overworked. We believe that the need for that assessment is urgent.

I finish by making the point that the case of these two girls and the appalling manner in which they died is, I believe, the tip of the iceberg. There are literally thousands of children in this country who have been shifted from school to school, from house to house, and from home to home—as we heard the previous speaker read out from the report. They are probably as at risk as those two girls were. We must do everything in our power as members of Parliament to change the environment in which social workers, teachers, and the police work. We must also be party to the Commissioner for Children’s call for community responsiveness, in order that neighbours will take the courageous step of making the reports they need to make. We need to look very seriously at the way we are delivering our services, and United Future will support any initiative to that end.

Hon ROGER SOWRY (National): It gives me no pleasure to speak in this debate. As a previous Minister of Social Welfare, I want to start by saying how disappointed I am that the Minister has not seen fit to stay in the Chamber to listen to the debate. I cannot believe that the Minister would not stay here and take the medicine and the responsibility for that which he is paid to take. Instead, he has decided to go and hide in his office.

I was the Minister of Social Welfare in November 1998 when a young girl, a child of 8, was seriously sexually abused, after the department in south Auckland had been notified that she was seriously at risk but had not taken the notification seriously. I remember full well that the responsibility for that came home to me as the Minister, and we instituted a couple of things. Firstly, an independent inquiry was instituted, which has not happened in this case. The office of the Commissioner for Children is having a look at it, but we had an independent barrister come and have a look. We made recommendations to change the way that office operated—I will come back to those changes in a minute—and I apologised to the family. Yet here we are today debating not the rape of an 8-year-old, which is hugely serious, but the deaths of two young girls—and the Minister has not apologised. He has not seen fit—

David Benson-Pope: This is pathetic.

Hon ROGER SOWRY: Oh, Mr Benson-Pope thinks that is pathetic. He might think the death of two small children is pathetic, but some of us take it seriously. I had the courage to sit in this House during the debate on that earlier case, and I had the courage to apologise. The Minister should do the same, and Mr Benson-Pope should stop laughing. Two young girls died—

David Benson-Pope: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Mr Sowry just put a deliberate untruth into the Hansard. I ask him to withdraw and apologise. I was certainly not laughing.

Mr SPEAKER: The member said he was not laughing. The member speaking will withdraw that comment, and carry on.

Hon ROGER SOWRY: I withdraw. The member should stop smiling. Two young girls died—

Mr SPEAKER: No. We have ruled on that point of order. I want nothing further about it, please.

Hon ROGER SOWRY: Two young girls died, and the Minister should be here to listen to the debate and make sure he understands the outrage that this Parliament feels. I will not go through all the details of this case, because others have done that, but I want to say a few things. Firstly, the notification went to the roopu team from the Masterton office. That is the exact replica of what happened in the south Auckland office. There are racially based teams of social workers who are unable to cope with a huge workload, so a notification that comes into the office is classified not on need, or danger, but on race.

We know that in this country we have an over-representation of Māori and Pacific Island children coming to notification in the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services. We do not like it, but it is a fact, and we have an under-representation of Māori and Pacific Island staff in the department. That is a fact. I know that the department is trying to solve it, but it will take time. So when political correctness overtakes common sense, social workers end up being overworked. I am not blaming social workers. There are teams of them out there ripping their hearts out because of this case. It has probably ruined and ended some careers. But I am blaming a Government that is so hell-bent on instituting political correctness right through the State sector that when a young Māori kid gets notified to the department, he or she has to be dealt with by the Māori social work team—not by the social worker who has the time and expertise to deal with the child.

That is a nonsense; it is an outrage—and it may have cost those girls their lives. We must stop it. We must be big enough to say that we are not going to have social workers deciding in their offices to set themselves up in racially based teams. That is what they did in South Auckland, and that is what, as Minister, I stopped. I apologised to the family concerned—but the Minister today has done neither. I would hope that the one thing that can come out of this—probably the only thing—is that the Minister will say: “I’m going to make sure we do not have racially based teams, any more.”

We instituted a red light system in south Auckland—some members will remember it—so that when the phone call came into the office, was a serious notification, and needed to be dealt with immediately, the person who took the phone call switched on a red light. It was as simple as that. There was a great big red light on the wall, and no one went home until it was switched off. That meant the case was being dealt with. It was pretty basic, but it was recommended by the barrister who looked into the office and tried to make sure that we did not have cases such as this that fell through the cracks. Now we have another one.

This Government has huge surpluses. It pats itself on the back every day in the House about all the money it has, but none of it has been invested in Strengthening Families. The report says that Strengthening Families was not even notified of those two kids. Why not? Because this Government does not like Strengthening Families. It is not politically correct to strengthen families, and Strengthening Families teams get no resources. Does Strengthening Families get one dollar in the Wairarapa? No, it does not, and I have checked—not a dollar. Not one dollar anywhere in the region goes to Strengthening Families. No new Family Starts, no new social workers in schools, and not a thing to pick up cases early on—nothing. It is a disgrace, an absolute disgrace.

Those programmes might not have saved those two young girls. The tragedy is that family violence in this country is not the responsibility of an agency, and I do not want to blame the agency, because it is something we all have to take responsibility for. When we hear the neighbour losing it with the children, how many of us walk inside and shut the doors, when what we should be doing is seeing if things are OK? It is not a matter of being nosey parkers, but there is stuff we can do. It is time we changed our attitudes about family violence in this country. All parties believe that. More important, it is time the Minister at least apologised to the family concerned, and it is time the Minister took some responsibility, instead of hiding in his office.

GEORGINA BEYER (Labour—Wairarapa): It is with some relief that these two reports into the deaths of Saliel Aplin and Olympia Jetson have now been publicly released into the public arena. The release has been long awaited, certainly by myself. With regard to the reports directly, I think eloquent words have been spoken today by most members who have contributed to this debate. Having read through the reports, I would like to congratulate the authors of both of them on the information contained inside. I concur with their findings, with their views, and with the recommendations they have made. More than most members in this House, I have been closely associated not only with this particular tragic event, but also with several others that have occurred in the Wairarapa over the past decade. One other member of this House has had a close association with those matters, and is Edwin Perry of New Zealand First. He and I have concurred on a number of occasions about what we can do about this problem.

What I would like to offer the House is this: after politicians and other public commentators have vented their spleens and tried to point the fickle finger of fate at whoever they believe should take the most blame or responsibility for it, one thing is certain, and it is that the entire nation has to take responsibility for the domestic violence dealt out to the children of our society. I believe that this country, and not just my own community, would like to endeavour to do that, and so I ask my colleagues to put the politics aside. It does not move the matter forward if we stand here bitching and—excuse me, I will withdraw and apologise for that—whingeing, at least, over what is the best way to do it.

We need to support input from all our various and diverse communities on the best way to deal with these matters in our own localities and what suits us best, because one size will not fit all. The overarching departments that have the substantive responsibilities, such as the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services and other social agencies, also need to look and review—as the baseline review for that service did. Many other reports that have come out subsequently have alluded to the improvements that must be made, and we can do it.

After the deaths of Saliel and Olympia, and because of the outrage of the Masterton and Wairarapa community, the House may recall that I reported—on the infrequent occasions I had the opportunity to speak in general debates—on what that community was doing, and, in particular, on the “Rise Above It” campaign. I dispute Mr Sowry’s statement that nothing has been put into our area since that particular time. In fact, a meeting is occurring in Masterton today, facilitated by the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services, to extend the role of everyday communities. What we did after those deaths in starting the “Rise Above It” campaign in the Wairarapa was the beginning of the community taking greater responsibility.

As mentioned in the Commissioner for Children’s report, the community had a role to play in the breakdown of that family. That community in its anger reacted and said: “Come on, leadership. Get it together and show us the way!” The community first approached the Mayor of Masterton, and then I became involved, and we tried to do that. I am no expert in these things, nor necessarily is the Mayor of Masterton, but we took the best advice we could. I did bang on the doors of the Minister for Social Development and Employment and others responsible, and I have to say to Mr Sowry that we were somewhat comforted by the immediate reaction. Too little, too late, would be the counter-argument that somebody might make, but I do not care about that. Better late than never! Let us move on and improve what we are doing.

I would like to pay my respects to this particular family, who, as these reports make clear, endured for many years the hellish life that ended up in this tragic event. I would like also to acknowledge the extended whānau, the immediate community, and the wider community of New Zealand, whose hearts have been torn by these experiences—not just by this particular event, but by numerous well-documented others that have occurred in the Wairarapa and elsewhere around the country.

In conclusion, I want to make the point again to my colleagues: let us make politics minimal in this debate, and let us look for resolution, solution, and the collaboration of ideas. Picking the best out of that may be where we can, as a country, move forward on this matter.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.

Bills

Smoke-free Environments Amendment Bill

Procedure

Hon PETER DUNNE (Leader—United Future): Under Standing Order 71, I want to move that members’ order of the day No. 1 be postponed until the first members’ day after 1 March 2004.

Mr SPEAKER: We are coming to the general debate now.

Hon PETER DUNNE: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I am aware that the Leader of the House is to move some motions a little later on that will have the impact of making some change in the order of that debate. My understanding is that as the Leader of the House, his motions will take precedence over mine. If I can have your assurance that I can move this motion at a later time I certainly will do so, but the reason for seeking to move it now is to ensure that the opportunity to move it is not lost.

Mr SPEAKER: I will do it by leave now. Leave is sought. Is there any objection? There is. We proceed to the general debate.

Hon PETER DUNNE (Leader—United Future): I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. This is just a very quick point of clarification: does that decision therefore mean that I cannot move the motion again at the time that that order of the day is called?

Mr SPEAKER: I will consult and come back to the member on that.

General Debates

General Debates

Hon MATT ROBSON (Deputy Leader—Progressive): I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business. I have just returned from Canada, where I was able to speak to members of Parliament from many countries around the world on the question of nuclear disarmament. I found there was great admiration for New Zealand under the present Labour-Progressive coalition Government, particularly for our economic policy, our social policies, and, as one would expect, our defence of nuclear disarmament. There were delegates and members of Parliament from many countries present there, including a Republican congressman who is the chair of the bipartisan Congress committee.

What was interesting was that those countries and their members of Parliament were interested in whether New Zealand would still be at the forefront of nuclear disarmament. I was able to tell them that that would be the case as long as there was a Labour-Progressive Coalition Government. I was able to outline to them that many parties in this Parliament—the majority of parties, as I saw it—supported that position. But I stated very clearly that the National Party and ACT, if they formed a Government, would put that policy in danger, and that their policy was to gradually take us back under the nuclear umbrella. I pointed out that other parties that are looking to go into coalition with such right-wing parties—New Zealand First and United Future—would be put on the spot as to where they stood on the nuclear question.

As well as that, I was able to point out that the present Government, the Labour-Progressive Government, is firmly in support of publicly owned industries, and I was able to talk about the success of Kiwibank. Delegates and members of Parliament from other countries were interested in the fact that we had reversed the right-wing economic policies of the previous Government. I pointed out also that that was in danger if ACT and National, with the support of United Future, became the Government, because those three parties have all talked about the sale of New Zealand’s public assets. The delegates had never heard of New Zealand First, but I pointed out that previously New Zealand First had campaigned against the sale of publicly owned assets but then welshed on that when, in 1996, it joined with the National Party in forming a Government that was against the interests of those who had voted for it.

I also pointed out that there was a party in New Zealand that was dividing the New Zealand public, which was New Zealand First, with its constant attacks on immigrants and refugees. Members of Parliament found that disturbing, because they were able to compare that with Pauline Hanson in Australia, Le Pen in France, and with other parties that use immigrants and refugees as scapegoats for their policies.

There was a lot of interest in the fact that New Zealand had taken its stand on the Iraq war on the basis of international law. Delegates from the United States were particularly interested in that, as dead Americans and many Americans with missing limbs and gruesome wounds come home, and as the lies of the Bush administration come more to the fore on the question of Iraq. Delegates from the United States, in particular, noted that in the reconstruction of Iraq, the companies that had contributed to the Bush campaign, particularly companies like Bechtel and other large companies, were getting the lion’s share of the untendered reconstruction contracts in Iraq.

I was able to point out that while the United States has an unemployment rate of 6.1 percent, here in New Zealand we have reached a low of 4.4 percent. I was particularly proud to be able to point to the role of the Progressive leader, Jim Anderton, as Minister for Economic and Regional Development, in reaching that achievement for New Zealand’s economy.

The whole purpose of delivering a world-class economy is to be able to afford to deliver the framework for a work-life balance for all our people, so they can enjoy with their families the fruits of a world-class economy. At the conference the news came through that the Labour Party leader had announced at the Labour Party conference that 4 weeks’ leave was to be part of the Labour Party programme. The Progressive party, which has pushed for that, and first had the support of the Greens and now of the Labour Party for that, knows that it has a parliamentary majority for 4 weeks’ leave. I informed the conference that we had that parliamentary majority, but that it seemed to me that the conservative parties in Parliament—National, ACT, and United Future—would combine to vote against that policy.

Hon TONY RYALL (National—Bay of Plenty): As the House meets this afternoon, violence in this country remains at intolerably high levels. Drug-related gang violence is spreading across the country, and young people are committing more and more serious crime. Under Labour, crime is becoming more ruthless and more wanton, yet this Prime Minister says New Zealand is a safer place. Just in the last few days we have seen how desperate this Government is to try to convince New Zealanders it is doing something about the rising tide of violence in this country, and we have seen the absolute failure of this Government to give proper leadership to the Department of Corrections and the prison service in this country.

I want to tell members about the most humiliating back-down by Government officials I have ever seen in my 13 years in Parliament. It occurred this morning, when this Government’s officials admitted that they could supervise a paedophile 24 hours a day, 7 days a week only if the offender agreed to that. At the Law and Order Committee this morning, departmental officials lectured the select committee that Mr Goff’s “toughest law in the world” paedophile bill would allow them to personally supervise serious sex offenders 24 hours a day for up to 10 years. It was only when I came to this House, got the bill, and sat before them that the officials checked and admitted that they had got it wrong, and that Mr Goff’s bill provides no such power whatsoever. Mr Goff’s bill is all about an electronic bracelet that monitors where an offender is, not what he is doing, and officials admitted in the select committee today that no one will be monitored for 10 years. Do members want to know what this great, extended supervision from Mr Goff is? It will start with 2-weekly home visits from a probation officer, and after 2 years it will be a 3-monthly home visit from a probation officer. Is this Minister really saying that a 3-monthly visit from a parole officer would have kept Barry Allan Ryder on the straight and narrow, or stopped Lloyd Alexander McIntosh committing an assault in his own home? It would not have done so. The Goff “get tough” paedophile bill is nothing but a joke.

There is another example of this Government’s underfunding of the police, and of law and order problems in this country, with the headline on the front page of our major newspaper today: “The 15-year-old killed running a drug house” in South Auckland. Here was a 15-year-old, a young man, whose life was snuffed out in a violent, frenzied attack in a drug house he was running. The police knew that drug house was being run, and what were they doing about it? Absolutely nothing! That was because they just do not have the resources in the Counties-Manukau Police District to go and investigate a crime that has been reported to them. This Government is not prepared to put its money where its rhetoric is and to support the New Zealand police in cracking down on the drug-dealing gangs in our community. There is a crisis in South Auckland, where robberies are up by 13 percent, non-cannabis drug offences are up by 30 percent, and car conversions are up by 27 percent—and this Prime Minister says New Zealand is a safer place! Crime under Labour is more random and more violent than before, and this Prime Minister says New Zealand is a safer place.

In the Dominion Post yesterday, we saw another example of the Government’s neglect of the methamphetamine crisis flooding across our country, with the news that Wellington police have to take five cops off the street in order to fund a clandestine drug lab bust here in the capital city of New Zealand. That shows more neglect of crime by that hopeless Government.

Hon ANNETTE KING (Minister of Health): Breaking news—today is Wednesday, and so far there has been no leadership challenge in the National Party. At this moment, as far as anyone can tell, the plotters, the plonkers, and the permanently peeved-off members of the National caucus are united, with dagger at the ready, behind their new leader—the new face of the National Party, Dr Don Brash. I could be being a little hasty; there are still 2 working-days left for the National caucus. They may well change their minds, and I am not prepared to put any money on it. But after a shonky ballot, which was then disputed by the new deputy leader of the National Party, to the extent that it left him unwell, Dr Brash moved very quickly with his portmanteau to his limousine and into his new office. It was “Bye-bye Bill, and hello Don.”

In his first speech to the New Zealand Chambers of Commerce and Industry, Dr Brash said that he has a great team—in fact, he emphasised it several times, hoping that that would make it true. I say that the great team looks more like a line-up of unwanted dried arrangements than a winning combination that could lead New Zealand into the future.

Let us have a look at them. Let us start with Mr Sowry. He is bitterly disappointed. He is angry, because he was dumped off the front bench. He was dumped out of the deputy leadership, and not only has he lost to the youngest member of Parliament—with the biggest majority ever held by a member in that seat—but he is now being called a loser in his own party.

Next to him is Mr Ryall. He is absolutely livid, because his progress backwards is nothing short of spectacular. Then we have Dr Lynda Scott. She was desperate to stay on the front bench of the National Party’s line-up. She even went to her local newspaper, the Marlborough Express, the day after the leadership change, and said that “Brash will be better”. That was the headline in the Marlborough Express, a day after the dumping of her close friend Roger Sowry, and the former leader, Bill English. She thought that if she was to cosy up to Dr Brash, he might just leave her sitting on the front bench. She is devastated, and a wounded brat pack is a dangerous brat pack indeed.

Then we have some of those who were always on the fringes, but they have been wounded, as well. Georgina te Heuheu is very disillusioned. She supported Don Brash, but she was bumped back even further than when Bill English bumped her back, because National believe that her views on Māori are irrelevant. Then we have Dr Wayne Mapp, a very serious man, who felt he deserved his front-bench seat. It fitted very nicely around his bottom. He had become very used to that front-bench seat; he has been demoted and demeaned, and is very disgruntled indeed.

Then we have Gerry Brownlee. Gerry Brownlee could not care less, quite frankly, about whether National is coming or going, because he figures that it is all about to fall into his lap. All the pearls will fall into his lap, and Gerry Brownlee will just carry on as Gerry Brownlee does.

The person who I think is the most maligned and disaffected in the National Party must be John Carter. He is loyal, he is hardworking, and he has been long-suffering. He had his integrity questioned by the new deputy leader of the National Party. What an insult that was to John Carter, a man whom I respect. For years he has had to put up with constant coup-plotting, with dysfunctional leadership, with underperformers, and with prima donnas. He did not deserve it.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First): Before I begin, I will address some of the comments made by Matt Robson, who has apparently been on an overseas trip—I know that, because people are still laughing. Mr Robson had the temerity to challenge New Zealand First on the question of State asset sales. Unlike Mr Robson and his party, New Zealand First puts its principles first. We walked out of the Government over the question of State asset sales.

David Benson-Pope: The Government left you.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Labour members can laugh, but one of the reasons the Labour Party went out in 1990 was that furry-headed people like the one from Dunedin, who is shouting out, sold out their birthright, and happily supported the party regardless of it. Then he had the effrontery to say that New Zealand First would be put on the spot on the question of nuclear ships. This party, before its formation, changed National’s view on nuclear ships coming to this country. We take the credit for it. I was there. For Mr Robson to come into the House and make those statements tells us what a deceitful, duplicitous person he is. He knows the facts full well. He is incapable of repeating them.

The last thing I want to say to him, and to his “NewLabour, Alliance, Jim Anderton party”, and the other names of the Progressive Coalition party, is that his party is over, gone, finished. We started a party after them, got into Government before them, and we will be back again when they are all gone. Today was a great day in New Zealand politics. New Zealand First announced that it would hand back real power to the people of this country, by introducing binding citizens initiated referenda.

Government Member: Ha, ha!

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Labour members laugh. They laugh now, but they will be crying later. New Zealand First has just announced the end of the political careers of 21 people in the House. We will put democracy back where it belongs—with the people, not with the old parties and their political puppets. We will be very fair about reducing Parliament by 21 MPs. We do not care whether they come from Labour, National, the Greens, or United Future, but 21 of them will go.

I know that turkeys do not vote for an early Christmas. I know that turkeys do not like Christmas. But I have bad news for the Labour Party. A stack of its members will go, first of all at the election, and secondly, by way of reducing Parliament to 99 members, and not the 120 that we have now.

ACT and the Progressive Coalition are doing it to themselves. By the end of this Parliament, ACT and the Progressive Coalition will be able to hold a meeting in a phone box. Binding citizens initiated referenda mean that when the people vote to reduce Parliament to 99 MPs, we reduce Parliament to 99 MPs—no ifs, no buts, no maybes. People came out in 1999 and said they wanted Parliament reduced. Helen Clark said: “Run away. I am going to be in charge now, I will do what I like.” New Zealand First says that we will do that, and it is a non-negotiable element in our policy. When people vote for tougher sentences for offending, and for more emphasis on the rights of victims, that is what the New Zealand people will get.

Only 7 years since the introduction of MMP, first National and now Labour have pervertedly brought us back to the first-past-the-post system. They cannot bear the thought of all the people having a say in the running of New Zealand. Democracy in this country is a disgrace. All the tough decisions are made secretly, out of sight of the people. The back-benchers of the Labour Party are a bunch of cannon fodder merchants. They do what they are told.

Clayton Cosgrove: They blew your men away.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: I know what will happen to them. Those members can shout now, but I can tell them that I have been here a long time, and I will be here a long time after they have gone—make sure of that. New Zealanders are losing their country, their identity, their culture, and their self-respect. This is government by stealth, government by sham, government by spin doctor, and government by greed. It has all been taken away by a Government besotted with its own self-importance and self-indulgence, led by the politically correct Prime Minister, who struts around the world stage like a puffed-up Antipodean chambermaid. There she was in the Afghan desert, looking like some sort of desert-dwelling beekeeper, out to see our troops. Today she was asked why she cannot give $17,000 of the State’s money to a decent New Zealander who suffered agony and put his life on the line, and she will not move a muscle. She tosses money around like an eight-armed octopus to every fad and weirdo group in the country, but for decent, ordinary New Zealanders—nothing. Not even a cent. Let me warn Labour that its day of reckoning is coming.

Hon JIM SUTTON (Minister of Agriculture): I am so glad I gave up smoking nearly 10 years ago, otherwise I too might sound like the sort of rather hoarse Pauline Hanson from whom we just heard. This has been a remarkable recent period in New Zealand politics, because what still passes for the main Opposition party has changed its entire front row 20 minutes into the game, put all its substitutes into the game, and pulled off its star performers of the first 20 minutes. When “Honest Bill”—the Hon Bill English—was leader, National’s strategy was clear. It was the traditional strategy of the National Party—sit tight, do nothing, upset as few people as possible, and wait for voters to get bored with the Government they had last elected, and put National in again for its turn.

National gave up a quarter of the way into the game—into the life of the Labour-led coalition Government—and it has a new recruit. He has a completely different strategy. No longer will National contest the centre ground, the mainstream of New Zealand politics, with the Labour Party. National has abandoned the centre. It wants to tackle the extreme right. Its leader wants to embrace ACT, as a snake embraces a rabbit, and digest it to make it one, to stop the remorseless slicing away of the salami on its right-hand end that has been happening to the National Party recently.

So National has a new set of policies. It is interesting, because we can anticipate the slogans it will use at the next election: “Vote National. Sentence the unemployed to community service.” Don Brash wants to make local government the employer of last resort so that anybody who does not have a job can turn up at the local post office at 8 o’clock in the morning, and say: “Look, I would like to work today.”, and the local government body would be obliged to give that person some kind of work.

Here is another slogan: “Vote National and work till you’re 70.” Don Brash believes that 4 percent economic growth requires major changes in the terms on which New Zealand superannuation is provided, including an increase in the age of eligibility. It is disgraceful. Another slogan will be: “Vote National. Mortgage your home to jump the queue at the public hospital.” I quote the good Dr Brash: “If you offer to supply something for free, the demand for it will be enormous, and if you don’t use price to limit that demand you will soon be unable to meet the demand and will be faced with long queues. The problem area of health care”, the good doctor says, “can be solved through the price mechanism.” Well, if one has to pay enough to get on the waiting list, then I guess the waiting list will get shorter. That is what National plans.

On education, Dr Brash says: “We might well be better off to look carefully at other models, where the Government funds education but where most schools are privately owned and operated. For my part,” he says, “I don’t care who owns the schools.” Well, I say to Dr Brash, most New Zealanders do care who owns the schools.

RODNEY HIDE (ACT): All of us, last Sunday, attended church services for the 85th remembrance of Armistice Day, and all of us, I think, would have given pause for thought at 11 a.m. yesterday to remember the huge sacrifice that the two generations preceding us gave so we might enjoy our freedom. I think it is fair to say that all of us—every party in this Parliament—want the best for our veterans, and we have a struggle, all of us, to provide a good pension. I want to share with the House the story of one veteran, Mr Ross Lynneberg, who signed up and was mobilised in 1940, served several months in the Pacific with the Royal New Zealand Navy, then, through our New Zealand Government, was transferred with three other New Zealanders to the Royal Navy and headed to Hong Kong. His timing was bad. They arrived in Hong Kong on 7 December Hong Kong time, and the next day the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour. The Japanese then proceeded to attack Hong Kong, and Hong Kong fell on 25 December 1941. The men who were rounded up included Mr Ross Lynneberg, and they were held for 9 months in Hong Kong in intolerable conditions. Several men died every day, each and every day.

At the end of those 9 months, 1,816 men were lined up and loaded on to a freighter, the Lisbon Maru, bound for Japan. They were stowed in three holds. The conditions were tough, and there was not enough room for all of them to lie down at once. There were no markings on the Lisbon Maru, and the submarine, USS Grouper, torpedoed her fatally. The Japanese locked the holds so the men could not get out. They off-loaded the 700-odd Japanese soldiers, left a skeleton guard and the crew, and attempted a tow. The ship started to sink. Men were dying in the holds from the heat, the fetid conditions, and the diseases. They managed to escape by means of a secreted kitchen knife, and were shot as they reached the top. They jumped into the sea, where they were also shot, and attempted to reach the patrol boats. The patrol boats, their screws, were used to cut them up in the water. Eventually, the Japanese changed the policy, because when some lucky men were rescued by Chinese fishermen, they realised the game was up.

Mr Lynneberg was among those who were put on a patrol boat. Some of them died from hypothermia that night. When a roll-call of the 1,816 men was taken in Shanghai, only 970 answered their names. It was a death ship. Mr Lynneberg survived. He was taken through to Japan, where he spent 3 months in what was laughingly called a hospital. A lorry load of men a day would be brought there; at the same time a lorry load of corpses would be taken out. Mr Lynneberg survived and spent something like 3 years in a Japanese prisoner of war camp. He returned to New Zealand on 27 November at 4 p.m. He started work in a John Newton and Sons soap factory at 8 o’clock the next morning, and worked his entire life.

He discovered in 1997 that he had not been paid. He wrote to Mark Burton, complaining about it. Mark Burton said that there was nothing he could do. Mr Lynneberg wrote to me, and I wrote to the Prime Minister in March 2002. In September Mark Burton admitted that Mr Lynneberg had been short-changed by an amount in the order £283/10/0. In today’s terms that is $17,500. He said: “I have finished all options. There is nothing we can do.” I plead with this Government to show some compassion. I know that Helen Clark cares. I know that each and every member of this Government cares. Every member of Parliament must feel for Ross Lynneberg and his generation for what they went through. We recognise that Mr Lynneberg has been short-changed. It may be that it is the British who owe the money, but let the New Zealand Government pick up the tab, and then let the Government get it off the English Government. It is not charity; it is the money he is owed.

CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour—Waimakariri): Over the last couple of months and weeks this Parliament has witnessed some incredible activities that give us an insight into the modus operandi of the ACT party. I want to look at its form. First, there was Richard Prebble and the Pipitea Street fiasco, which involved an electorate office owned by Mr Prebble’s trust and used by him. Secondly, Mr Prebble’s own electorate staff, who were supposed to be doing constituent work, were doing political work. There is a word for that, but I will not use it.

Then we come to Rodney Hide. That is the man who attended the well-known, shonky Investors International conference in Fiji.

Rodney Hide: Same old speech.

CLAYTON COSGROVE: I know he does not like me reminding him of it. The conference was run by a convicted US fraudster, the chief executive officer and owner, Rudolph van Lin, who attended the conference with Mr Hide. Yet to this day, 4 years later, Mr Hide refuses to answer some simple questions—questions about who paid his air fares, who paid his accommodation, who assisted him to get there, and who invited him. To this day he will not say how he got involved with the organisation. I have asked him how it is that he came back and was told it was a shonky conference, a scam conference, but then did nothing to assist the hundreds of Kiwis who lost millions of dollars. The great scam-buster did nothing.

Rodney Hide: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. This member is chairing a Finance and Expenditure Committee that for 2½ years has been sitting on an investigation, and he is doing nothing. The idea that he will stand up here, not spare my name, and not do his job is a disgrace.

Mr SPEAKER: That is not a point of order.

CLAYTON COSGROVE: While we are on that point, Mr Hide is the member of Parliament—and he is right there as a member of a current fraud inquiry live before the Finance and Expenditure Committee—who bitterly opposed the committee’s inquiry into a scam. He did nothing when he came back from the conference. He was told that the conference was a scam and a shonky deal. He did not do anything to assist the Serious Fraud Office, the police, or the Securities Commission. In this House I tabled an affidavit from a family who lost in excess of $400 million because they invested—

Rodney Hide: $400 million?

CLAYTON COSGROVE: —$400,000—because they heard so-called people of credibility, like him, speaking at a conference. Subsequently, when Investors International did over hundreds of Kiwis, what did the member do? Did he go out and help those people? Oh no! He sent the boys around—he sent the lawyers in. That is the mark of that person. Even now we know that at that conference everyone except Mr Hide got paid. We know Dave Henderson, his best mate, got paid. We know that Dolf de Roos, his other best mate, got paid. But of course Mr Hide—as he said—did not get paid.

Then we come to Donna Awatere Huata—the sort of female version of Michael Jackson; the makeover queen in this Parliament. But one cannot actually make over the dubious activities she is now charged with. She is a disgrace in this Parliament, but she is not the only one. The ACT party is a disgrace because it was the party that selected her twice. Even though she had received Pipi Foundation money previously, they subsequently selected her twice. She should resign from Parliament but she will not do it because, as with all ACT members, it is the dollar she would lose that is most important to her.

Then we come to Alister Taylor, who is, we are told, accused of not publishing and supplying books to good people who paid in advance, on both sides of the Tasman. We know he has a labyrinth of companies. We know he changed company names from Who’s Who New Zealand in 1990 to New Zealand Who’s Who Aotearoa Ltd in September 1991, which metamorphosed into Roger Jamieson Ltd on 30 June 1997. Then, the day after that happened, he set up another company on 1 July 1997 called New Zealand’s Who’s Who Publications Ltd. My question is: why all the similar names? Why set up all those companies?

Then we have another so-called company. In this year’s invitation for the New Zealand Who’s Who Aotearoa, an invitation was received in the name of New Zealand Who’s Who Publications 2004 Ltd—except when one checks with the companies office and the companies register, the company does not exist. Is that misleading? Is that against the Fair Trading Act or the Companies Act? Should there be an inquiry? Of course, we know that Ms Coddington is the ACT spokesperson in respect of the Fair Trading Act and the Companies Act. I believe that is a disgrace. The gang of four—Richard Prebble, Donna Awatere-Huata, Deborah Coddington, and Rodney Hide—are on 4 percent.

RODNEY HIDE (ACT): I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. It is clear that Mr Clayton Cosgrove has not finished his speech. There will not be anyone from this side of the House who will oppose his seeking leave to add another 5 minutes to his time.

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

ROD DONALD (Co-Leader—Green): It is good to be back where we belong.

David Benson-Pope: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I ask that that leave be put again, please.

Mr SPEAKER: No, leave has been put. I have called Mr Donald, and he is already into his speech.

ROD DONALD: Dr Michael Cullen tried to pull a giant confidence trick on Monday. His so-called first principles review of the Overseas Investment Act is all about selling off the business and the building, while claiming to protect the facade. Dr Cullen’s review has everything to do with chasing after that elusive free-trade deal with Washington, and very little to do with keeping rural land affordable, making sure our high country is accessible to our trampers and fishers, protecting vulnerable rural communities from the wholesale conversion of farms into forestry, and preserving the Kiwi dream of one day being able to own a bach at the beach.

Let us make no mistake about this: the Green Party does want greater protection from overseas ownership for iconic sites of historical, cultural, or environmental interest. We agree with Dr Cullen’s concerns that overseas trophy hunters are buying up our backcountry and our beachfronts in order to create hideaways down under. But the fact is that what Dr Cullen wants to do is not a patch on what the Finance and Expenditure Committee recommended a couple of years ago—a series of recommendations that the Green Party proposed and that were adopted by a majority on the committee, particularly the Labour members of that committee. If I get a chance, I would like to return to those recommendations later.

This review is a smokescreen. It is a smokescreen to mask the Government’s real agenda, which is as plain as day in the first page of Dr Cullen’s release. That agenda is all about lifting the restrictions on overseas investors, so that they can gobble up New Zealand companies. That is what it is all about, because Dr Cullen wants to remove consideration of such purchases from oversight by the Overseas Investment Commission. Dr Cullen states in his release that he is committed to maintaining a liberal investment regime. Therefore, it is no surprise that this review is being led by Treasury. The fox is guarding the chickens, and we know what will happen to them.

I ask this House whether it is a coincidence that one of the major demands from our trading partners during the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) negotiations was to scrap the Overseas Investment Commission, allowing foreign firms and individuals unrestricted access to New Zealand property and businesses? Is it a coincidence that one of the very first US free-trade deal demands on Australia was to reduce or eliminate restrictions on overseas investment in Australia? Does that not send the signal that that will be one of the US’s bottom-line demands in any negotiations with New Zealand? I do not see what the Americans’ problem actually is. Our Overseas Investment Commission has turned down just on 2 percent of overseas investment applications over the last 5 years; it is already totally ineffective at keeping foreign hands off our silverware. That is all the more reason for tightening the rules on foreign investment, not for allowing a free-for-all.

Yesterday Mr Sutton claimed that New Zealand could, if it wishes, tighten the conditions surrounding the purchase of land by overseas people in New Zealand. I have news for Mr Sutton: he has actually been caught by his own GATS commitments. It would be a breach of our GATS commitments if we decided that certain iconic urban sites could not be sold to foreign investors without Overseas Investment Commission approval, if we decided to reduce the level at which the Overseas Investment Commission’s approval is required to below $10 million or 25 percent of overseas ownership, or if we chose to change the overall structure of the Overseas Investment Act in a way that made it more restrictive than the current Act in any way whatsoever. Notwithstanding what previous Governments have locked New Zealand into under the GATS we want foreign investors to be brought under control, because they do not come here to help us.

DAVID BENSON-POPE (Senior Whip—Labour): I seek leave of the House for a further 1-minute contribution from Mr Cosgrove, so he can complete his comments.

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

MARTIN GALLAGHER (Labour—Hamilton West): In the words of Donna Awatere Huata, the ACT party quite rightly stood by Owen Jennings when he was taken to court and found guilty of defamation. It stood by him while he launched and lost his appeal. It stood by Rodney Hide when it was alleged that his support for a Fiji investment conference had cost investors their life-savings. It also stood by Muriel Newman when she and her husband were accused of misusing a boatbuilding permit by building a house. That was in a press release by Donna Awatere Huata.

There is a sniff and a whiff in this Parliament, from that party, that Don Brash is claimed to be its ninth member. The ACT party is supposed to try to represent the battlers. I say to members that we should listen to Queenslander Trish Clutterbuck, aged 61, who according to the Sunday Star-Times “sent away $173.81 to Australian Roll of Honour to have her husband Ben included in National Honours and Awards,’’ and then said “she was ‘amazed’ that his partner was an MP. How she ever got into Parliament without this being dug up, it’s absolutely astounding. I’m absolutely amazed to find that she’s an MP. I can’t imagine her lasting very long.”

ACT dumped Owen Jennings and another member of Parliament, as well, in order to bring a couple of people higher up on its list. Dr Don Brash, while you last as the leader of the National Party Opposition, do you honestly, in your heart of hearts—

Mr SPEAKER: The member will address the Chair.

MARTIN GALLAGHER: I ask Dr Brash whether, in his heart of hearts, he honestly wants that lot as his key coalition partner. I ask the Rt Hon Winston Peters, can you honestly contemplate ever—

Mr SPEAKER: The member is warned for a second time that he must not speak in the second person. His time is ebbing away. The member should carry on.

MARTIN GALLAGHER: I ask the Rt Hon Winston Peters whether he wants that lot to be in a future centre-right Government. That is what I would say to Dr Brash and the Rt Hon Winston Peters.

Quite frankly, I think this country is sick and tired of ACT having the gall and the temerity to lecture to us about being the perk-busters and the great high moral guardian, taking the high moral ground and being the watchdog of the public. If a watchdog is needed, it should be one appointed to oversee the activities of the ACT party. I think it is very, very rich that ACT members have suddenly discovered their morality. They have suddenly discovered that, for now, Donna Awatere Huata no longer suits their purpose. The reality is that in 2001, when they named Donna Awatere Huata to go back on their list, they knew the deal. Yet she was still reappointed to the ACT list. Now it all comes out. In the grubby gaze and glare of publicity, the ACT members run like scaredy-cats—like the scared hares that they are.

CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour—Waimakariri): I am sorry to interrupt the debate, but I seek leave to table two documents. The first is a document containing the name New Zealand Who’s Who Publications 2004 Ltd—a company that does not exist.

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

CLAYTON COSGROVE: The second is a certificate of incorporation, showing various other companies with extremely similar names set up by Mr Alister Taylor.

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

GORDON COPELAND (United Future): During last year’s election I found myself on a couple of occasions telling journalists and others that I had developed a deep hatred for the doctrine of political correctness. When I was asked why that was so, I replied that political correctness is, in reality, a form of mind control. We human beings cannot control what people think, although, God knows, over the ages many people have tried to do that. But we can do the next-best thing, which is to circumscribe, through political correctness, exactly what they can or cannot say. I have long been able to see, therefore, that political correctness is an insidious and a dangerous doctrine. That is instinctive for me, because of my belief that freedom of thought and speech is an inalienable human right. I believe that human freedom and democracy flow from free, full, and rational debate.

I was personally unaware, however, until I recently read an article on it, that the expression “political correctness” was first used and fashioned by Vladimir Lenin in May 1921. Lenin was obsessed with party ideology, orthodoxy, and control. That included party mindedness, and even party truth. In other words, the truth and the only truth was whatever Lenin decided it should be. Chairman Mao of China took political correctness to a wholly different level. He insisted that speech had to follow correct formulations, and he had an absolute belief in the power of the word to change the world. If members think I am exaggerating, let me give them a direct quote from Chairman Mao: “Not having the correct political orientation is like not having a soul.” We all know the results of that kind of thinking. It reached its peak through Red Guard terror and the great proletariat revolutions, which some estimate may have cost as many as 50 million Chinese their lives.

Let us, therefore, make no mistake. Political correctness is both a pernicious and fundamentally evil doctrine, and one that, sadly, is alive and well in New Zealand, particularly, I have noticed—and I say this in a non-judgmental sense—in some parties of the left. We are told, for example, in the face of distressing figures concerning the growing number of fatherless families and sole parent families in New Zealand, that we should rejoice in the diversity of the family. I am sorry, but I for one am not prepared to rejoice in the fact that children are growing up in poverty, without fathers in the home, and in distressing situations, simply because I am only too aware of the reality of the suffering that many people in those kinds of situations undergo. Therefore, it riles me that I am told that somehow I should ignore reality, that I should ignore the concrete circumstances in which human beings live, and somehow form a view that that is OK because it represents diversity. I say no, it is not OK.

On this day, when the Families Commission Bill is to be reported back, I say that all of us should put away political correctness. We should put away a certain blindness to the reality of simple human suffering. We need, both as human beings and as MPs, to act with compassion for children, and in particular for those who are in unfortunate situations. Our compassion should lead us to a further determination to improve the lot of New Zealand families—something that we are expressing today in seeing the Families Commission Bill reported back to this Parliament. We must never let ourselves be intimidated by the label “politically incorrect” from being strong advocates for the rebuilding of family life and strong interpersonal relationships at every level, if we are to have a strong New Zealand society.

I see the family as being akin, in a way, to the cells of a body. We cannot have a healthy body if many of our cells are sick. We cannot have, and will never have in reality, a healthy nation if many of the cells in our nation, our families, are sick and broken. There is a linkage between those two things. We must be prepared to rationally, compassionately, and realistically face up to the situation we have in this country and begin, through this bill, to build a better future.

BRIAN CONNELL (National—Rakaia): Martin Gallagher MP is confirmation that New Zealand really is the land of unlimited opportunity. I say to Clayton Cosgrove that the last time I heard an outburst like that was when I was standing behind one of the bulls on the farm—and it was fresher. I want to allay some of Mr Robson’s fears, also, about Kiwibank. What a joke that bank is! It is an indictment on Jim Anderton that he was ever associated with it. Michael Cullen knows Kiwibank is a dog. It will not be sold, because nobody will buy it. Its book is appalling, and the large banks do not want it. It will not be given away, so I tell Mr Robson not to fret.

I would now like to turn my attention, in a little more detail, to the Department of Corrections, and in particular to the performance of Paul Swain.

Simon Power: A good idea.

BRIAN CONNELL: I think it is a good idea; yes, I do. Mr Swain is new in the role of Minister, so I think he can be forgiven for falling into the classic trap of believing everything he is told by his advisers. We can put that down to his limited managerial experience. Last week the Minister was asked a patsy question, which read like this: “How has the Department of Corrections, under the leadership of the current chief executive, performed over the last 5 years?”. We got back the usual wishy-washy nonsense, but the Minister omitted some key points. We will call that selective memory loss. He did not mention staff turnover in the psychological services or at headquarters. When averaged out, staff turnover is about 22.5 percent. That is indicative of a sick organisation—one that has appalling staff morale, lacks direction, and suffers from a crisis of confidence. This morning I had the opportunity to ask the chief executive officer why staff turnover was so high. I asked him to tell me whether the organisation did exit interviews. He looked at me, said no, and asked what they were. Exit interviews are pretty standard management tools, but he still had no idea what they were. All that I really got was a shake of his shoulders.

The Minister did not mention certain statistics when he reported on the performance of the department over the last 5 years. The department has investigated 151 prison employees in the past 12 months for breaches of its rules. That really sounds like a department that is cooking on gas! Nor did the Minister mention the emergency response unit, better known as the “goon squad”. The appalling activities of that unit are subject to an inquiry, and I commend the Minister for that. At least that is progress. However, there has been a systematic cover-up of the unit’s performance over the last few years, and despite the scurry of secret management meetings in Christchurch motels the truth will come out. I would say that right at the moment some of the senior managers in the department are feeling rather nervous.

The Minister is now turning his attention to getting rid of the department’s only shining star. The central remand prison in Auckland is privately managed, and it costs less to keep prisoners there than in the State-run prisons—in fact, tens of thousands of dollars less. That prison is run more efficiently, has a better environment physically and emotionally, and has better rehabilitation programmes for prisoners than the State-run prisons. Prisoners are treated with more dignity and respect, turnover is exceedingly low, and morale is extremely high. However, the Minister now wants to terminate the contract to run that prison, and one must ask why that is. The answer is that the union powerhouse of the Labour Government, which is the Government in drag, wants to terminate the contract because that prison is an embarrassment to the unions. The union said their members were demanding action, so the Minister is caving in despite the fact that there is daylight between the performance of the two organisations.

I ask the Minister why he does not demonstrate some courage and do the right thing. He should stand up and be a man, instead of being led around by the nose by his union mates, or he should resign, for goodness’ sake!

Hon RICK BARKER (Minister for Courts): The divide between this side of the House and the Tory side of the House in Opposition could not be bigger if we tried. I do not think I have seen quite such a huge gap.

I want to draw the attention of the House to a very insightful piece that appeared in the New Zealand Herald recently. Peter McCardle, a former Tory MP, then a New Zealand First MP, and now the head of the ACT research unit, who tells his political masters what they want to hear, said: “… I do suspect most of the secretaries spend a lot of time filing their nails and reading the Woman’s Weekly, but this is only to be expected, isn’t it?” That epitomises the arrogance of the so-called ruling class—the born to rule. It epitomises members of that class; they have such a dismal and mean-spirited view of ordinary New Zealanders. They are people with celluloid souls. They are churlish and anti-worker.

It was also very insightful to learn that Mr Stephen Franks had asked how people would describe an ACT person. I will help Mr Franks and ACT. I would describe ACT members as self-absorbed, self-centred, self-regarding, self-seeking, self-serving, self-righteous, smug, and arrogant.

They are little different from the new leader of the National Party, Don Brash. Don Brash is anti-worker, anti-person, and anti-everything that the Labour Party stands for. He has such a dismal, mean view of New Zealanders and is so removed from them that he said he wants people to line up for the dole at 8 a.m. outside a post office. I tell Mr Brash that post offices have gone.

Even though he made that mistake—which he has readily acknowledged—he has now said he will attack people’s holidays. I am really proud to be part of a Labour Government that says ordinary working New Zealanders should get 4 weeks’ annual leave. These are the people who have built New Zealand. These are the people who go to work to type letters for that pompous, stuffed up, arrogant person, Mr Peter McCardle. They also go home, look after their kids, feed their families, and do all those other things that we expect them to do. These are the people who look after the next generation, and they are helping to create the next generation—which Mr McCardle thinks so dismally of. These are the people who turn up every day at the freezing works and cut thousands of throats and render down thousands of stomachs. These are the people who do all the hard work in this country, and without them this country would have nothing. Without these hard-working New Zealanders, Mr Peter McCardle and his like would be simply pieces of trash blowing in the wind.

These hard-working New Zealanders deserve a decent holiday. Labour will provide them with 4 weeks’ holiday. Don Brash said he would take it off them. Mr Brash wants a holiday: he wants every worker’s holiday! But he wants more than that. He wants to cut minimum pay rates so that wages fall as low as he thinks they should do. He wants to cut benefits, to put lifetime limits on benefits. He wants to push up the time at which people are eligible for superannuation, and, no doubt, cut superannuation.

He is the same person who, like the ACT party members, says out of the other side of his mouth that New Zealand has a drain of skills and all our good people are leaving to go overseas. They are doing that because National cut wages and conditions in this country with the Employment Contracts Act. National Party members went to the country and said: “We will not cut penalty rates.”, but they did, and drove wages down. Thousands of New Zealanders went overseas and worked in Australia. We now have a building boom in New Zealand and we cannot get the resources for it.

New Zealand would be a dim and dismal place if Don Brash ever got his hands on the Treasury benches. In my view that is impossible.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.

Bills

Rodney District Council (PENLINK Toll Road)Empowering Bill

Procedure

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Leader of the House): I move, That the order of the day for the second reading of the Rodney District Council (PENLINK Toll Road) Empowering Bill be postponed until after members’ order of the day No. 1.

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

Ayes 62

New Zealand Labour 52; Green Party 8; Progressive 2.

Noes 53

New Zealand National 24; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 7;United Future 8; Independent: Awatere Huata.

Motion agreed to.

Bills

Masterton District Council(Montfort Trimble Foundation) Bill

Procedure

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Leader of the House): I move, That the order of the day for the second reading of the Masterton District Council (Montfort Trimble Foundation) Bill be postponed until after private and local order of the day No. 1.

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

Ayes 62

New Zealand Labour 52; Green Party 8; Progressive 2.

Noes 53

New Zealand National 24; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 7;United Future 8; Independent: Awatere Huata.

Motion agreed to.

Bills

Smoke-free Environments Amendment Bill

Procedure

Hon PETER DUNNE (Leader—United Future): I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I move, That the order of the day for the Committee stage of the Smoke-free Environments Amendment Bill be postponed until the first members’ day after 1 March 2004.

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

Ayes 53

New Zealand National 24; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 7;United Future 8; Independent: Awatere Huata.

Noes 62

New Zealand Labour 52; Green Party 8; Progressive 2.

Motion not agreed to.

Referral to Health Committee

Hon PETER DUNNE (Leader—United Future): I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I move, That the order of the day for the Committee stage of the Smoke-free Environments Amendment Bill be discharged and the bill be referred to the Health Committee.

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

Ayes 53

New Zealand National 24; New Zealand First 13; United Future 8;ACT New Zealand 7; Independent: Awatere Huata.

Noes 62

New Zealand Labour 52; Green Party 8; Progressive 2.

Motion not agreed to.

In Committee

Debate resumed from 15 October.

Part 2 Amendments to Part II of principal Act (continued)

Hon PETER DUNNE (Leader—United Future): I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I move, That the Chairman report progress and ask for leave to sit again.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): That request is out of order.

Hon PETER DUNNE (Leader—United Future): I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. Why is it out of order?

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): That request must be done on a call, and not on a point of order.

Hon PETER DUNNE: Mr Chairperson, I sought advice from advisers from the Clerk’s Office about the way to proceed, and was advised that I could do this by way of a point of order the moment you assumed the Chair.

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Leader of the House): To move to report progress is to take a call in the Committee stage. Indeed, Mr Chairman, you may have noticed that the senior Government whip was already seeking a call, which was why Mr Dunne called for a point of order—to get precedence. If he had been merely seeking a call to move a motion, which is the normal procedure for reporting progress, Mr Benson-Pope would have had the priority call.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): I thank the member for that. That clearly explains the position. As I said before, a motion to report progress must be done on a call. It was done on a point of order. I have dealt with the matter.

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

Hon PETER DUNNE (Leader—United Future): I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. You will recall that when this matter was last before the Committee, I raised with you both formally and informally the fact that my colleague Mr Alexander had been seeking a call all evening. You had been retaining a very strict record of parties getting the call, you had been punctilious in ensuring that every party got a number of calls in proportion to its strength, and you acknowledged to me at that time that Mr Alexander was—if one likes—one call short, and that he would get a call before Part 2 was put. Mr Chairperson, I seek your indulgence to uphold the commitment you gave to me when we last considered this matter—that is, that before you accept a closure motion, whether it be now or later in the debate, you will give Mr Alexander the opportunity to make a speech.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): The member is quite right. Calls were being sought by others.

Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON (National—Pakuranga): I am delighted to be able to take a call in this debate, because for me the issue of the Smoke-free Environments Amendment Bill comes down to those of us in this Parliament who truly believe in the right of individuals to make choices, compared with those of us who believe that the Government can dictate what we do in our own lives.

I would much rather go to a restaurant that was smoke-free. I do not like cigarette smoke. I prefer not to be around it. But I would prefer by far to be able to make that choice myself; to be able to look around, see that a restaurant has a sign up saying it is completely smoke-free, and say: “Wow, I quite like the idea of that. It’ll get my business.” But on the other side of the political spectrum in this House are those who say: “No, we know what’s best for individuals. We are going to be dogmatic and have an across-the-party vote.” I know that a number of members in the Labour Party think this bill is nonsense, but will Labour let the whip off and let there be a free vote? No, it will not.

So we come down to something that I think has some real substance to it. I want to hammer home this point of choice. I refer to the Returned Services Association. In my own case, most of the old diggers in the Howick Returned Services Association have for many years told me they are Labour voters, they support the workers, and they vote Labour. That is all right; that is OK. I say to them that that is their choice, that I have just come along to have a chat, and that is fine. If members went to the Howick Returned Services Association tonight, they would not hear them saying that any more. They have had a gutsful of this Government.

Those old diggers were sent off to fight in a war, the Government provided them with tobacco, and they got hooked on it. They are addicted to it. That Returned Services Association club has done everything it possibly can to fix the polluted air in its club. It has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on an air management system that rips the air out from the bar areas and the restaurants and flicks it up through the filtering systems. I have seen it happen. One can light a cigarette and see the smoke just go whoosh and it is gone. Someone a couple of feet away does not get any of that smoke. The association has also set aside a part that is guaranteed to be smoke-free. It has also set aside a restaurant area as smoke-free.

The association has surveyed its members; it has asked its own members. Members should remember that that club is not a public institution. It is not like a restaurant. It is a members-only club. It has asked its members what they want. If I recall properly, 96 percent want the choice to smoke to remain. That is why I have moved an amendment in my name to section 12, in clause 6B. All that my amendment does is exempt the Howick Returned Services Association. I know that a lot of other members in this Parliament have gone for such an exemption for their own Returned Services Association clubs.

But I want someone from the Labour Party to tell me why an institution that is a club should come under this provision. A person cannot just walk into that club off the street; he or she has to be a member, or to be signed in by a member. It is a person’s choice to go to that club, because of his or her membership. No one is compelled to go there. It is not like sitting on a bus or in an aeroplane and having to breathe somebody else’s air with smoke in it. A person chooses to go to a Returned Services Association club. Those people fought for their country. They were hooked on tobacco by the Government itself. Now what are we telling those old diggers? [Interruption] No, Jill Pettis is telling them she knows best. I can tell the Committee that not a single member of the Howick Returned Services Association thinks Jill Pettis knows best about anything, but she says she does.

All that I say to the Labour Party is that if it truly believed this legislation had merit, it would take the whip off. Some of its own members are quietly sneaking around the lobby saying it is just a disgrace. This is the old centrist attitude of “We’ll take control of people’s lives. We’ll determine what they do.” There are a number of Labour members—I will not embarrass them by naming them, but some of them are here today—who would simply love to have the freedom to vote against the bill. Ross Robertson, the member for Manukau East, whose electorate comes right up to the Howick Returned Services Association, is always there telling its members he is their friend. They like him, because a lot of them are Labour voters. Well, I do not know whether Ross Robertson will get many invites back unless he does the decent thing and supports my amendment.

MARC ALEXANDER (United Future): I am glad to finally get a call. I sat here for hours on end and never got the chance to take a call. A lot of the other members spoke once, twice, or three times. This is the first chance I have had to actually get up and say something.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): The member will please make his contribution.

MARC ALEXANDER: I ask the question of who will be liable for the loss of revenue to the businesses adversely affected. We are talking about individuals up and down the country who employ thousands upon thousands of Kiwis and who have put their money into an enterprise, a hospitality venue, and now some do-gooder Government spokesperson will come along and tell them what they can and cannot do in their comfort of their own investments. It makes absolutely no sense. Yet at the same time the State-funded prison system allows those at Her Majesty’s pleasure to smoke. Taxpayers are paying for that—apparently, what is good for the goose is not good for the gander—but people who want to pay for their own hospitality venues are denied that right. How on earth does that make any sense? If the Government is going to disallow people from making decisions in their own investments, it should at least have the gumption to apply the rule right across the board and disallow smoking in all prisons, yet the State will not do that, because it is in the too-hard basket.

Who will be liable for the loss of choice to the proprietors of the various hospitality venues when the numbers of people going to them go down? Will the State be liable for that, as a direct result of its interference in what should be a micromanaged business decision taken by the people who actually run the businesses? The Government will not make up the shortfall. It will not even give them a tax cut on the money that they earn, despite the huge amounts of money that it is raking in from them and stealing from their pockets. Taking away their choice and their revenue is another nail in the coffin of the hospitality industry.

Who will be liable for the loss of choice to the customers in choosing the businesses they wish to frequent? There are people who want to go into certain bars and have a drink, have a chat to their mates, have a cigar or a cigarette, and the Government is taking away their choice. It is ironic, is it not? What sense does it make that those who want this bill to pass will be exercising their choice to vote, with the result that those affected by that choice will be deprived of their own choice by this legislation? There is an irony there that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

It is often true that the people who pass these sorts of bills are the very people who do not have to live with the consequences of the decisions that they impose on others. It makes no sense for the Government to come along and impose something else on those people who have built up their businesses and who have sometimes scrimped and saved and borrowed money from the bank to get their businesses to a certain level of success. That makes no sense whatsoever. I would have a little more respect for the members who are pushing this legislation through if they were in the hospitality industry and would be directly affected but—guess what—they are not. They are immune to that, because they are here in Parliament earning taxpayers’ money, not opening their own businesses and being a part of the hospitality industry, thus suffering the effects of the decisions that they have made.

We have made appeals using scientific evidence to show that ventilation systems can and do work, but Labour is not interested in science when it has its own ideology and prejudices to ram through. Again, that makes little sense. There is no common sense here, at all. The Government will not listen to reason or to the evidence that science can provide that there is a perfectly reasonable common-sense answer to the problem of air quality. We have made appeals using common sense to show how nonsensical are the health reasons advanced by the health zealots, the health Nazis of Labour.

Something that happens in the rural areas—which is not something that I subscribe to—is that parents will go into the pub and take out a packet of crisps to the kids in the car who will be waiting while the dinner gets ready, or whatever. Now what will happen is that those parents, instead of smoking in the pub, will come out, join their children in the car, and smoke in front of them. That is exactly what will happen. The Government will not stop smokers from smoking. All it will do is shift the problem and take it somewhere else. That makes absolutely no sense, whatsoever.

Why does the Government not go after people who smoke in homes where there are children, who have no choice at all? Why does it not go after that? Instead, what the Government is doing is taking its health zealotry to the people who want to choose to go into—

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

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): We have had 38 speakers and there have been eight closure motions. I will take one last speaker.

RODNEY HIDE (ACT): Here is a Government that has no respect whatsoever for private property, because that is what a restaurant is. That is what the Cuba Bar is. It is private property. No one has to go into it. If a person sets foot into a cigar bar, that person is likely to know that cigars will be smoked there. No one is holding a gun to that person’s head and telling him or her to go and smoke a cigar. What will happen under this Helen Clark Government is that a person will go into the cigar bar, have a wee brandy, buy a beautiful Cuban cigar, and then walk out on to Parnell Road in the cold to smoke it. That is what Helen Clark wants.

Hon Maurice Williamson: The “Heleban” are in charge.

RODNEY HIDE: It is the “Heleban” for smokers. I do not understand it. How come, under this legislation, one can still smoke in Parnell Road? Members should imagine it. People will be going along on the footpath. It used to be that all the smokers were in the cigar bar. Now people will not be able to get past, because they are all out there puffing away. Where is the freedom in that? They will have to stand out in the cold, smoking away, and, according to the “Heleban” it will be suddenly be dangerous to be on Parnell Road. What is wrong with people choosing to go into the Cuba Bar or into the Returned Services Association for a puff? It is because the “Heleban” does not like it.

Hon Maurice Williamson: The Greens want us to walk. We’re going to walk down pathways.

RODNEY HIDE: The Greens do not mind if someone lights up a joint. They are happy about that because they say it is safe, but people are not allowed to sit in the cigar bar and have a cigar.

Here is another thing. Where is the logic, according to the “Heleban”, in allowing people to still smoke in their own houses? People visit us in our own houses. As I understand the “Heleban”, we can sit at home and light up, not just once but several times. We can sit at home, having dinner and smoking.

Marc Alexander: What about State houses?

RODNEY HIDE: No, one would not be able to smoke in a State house. I am sure the “Heleban” would apply to State houses, because they belong to the Government. It will have all the people in State houses smoking outside. God forbid, if this Government lasts another year—

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

Brent Catchpole: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. Before the dinner break you indicated that that would be the last call. I would like to point out that I have not had a call on this part, at all, and I have been calling for the last 2 days on it.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): Thank you for that.

RODNEY HIDE: Before the dinner break we were discussing the mad effects of the “Heleban” and how, we understand, it will now apply to State houses. I am looking at new section 10 in clause 6B, which will apply to ships. People will not be allowed to smoke on a ship that is sailing in coastal waters unless it is a foreign ship. So people on a foreign ship can sail around New Zealand puffing away on pipes to their hearts’ content, as long as it is not a New Zealand ship. Why is the law not applied in the same way to everyone, including foreigners in New Zealand? I know why it is not. Foreigners would think that that was the maddest thing they had ever heard of. Someone sitting in the captain’s mess puffing on a pipe would have to put the pipe out when the boat crossed into New Zealand waters, because the “Heleban” police might chopper in, in a night-time raid, and discover foreigners on a boat puffing on pipes. So foreigners have had to be excluded.

Everyone here, except for Craig McNair, is old enough to remember the radio pirate ship Hauraki. We can all remember it. Well, I have a cunning plan to make money. We are going to have in Auckland the pirate ship “Cuba Bar”. That is what we will do, and we will put that ship along and pile it up with all the people who would like to smoke a cigar with their friends, in comfort. They will be able to smoke their pipes on the pirate ship “Cuba Bar”. I invite people to come on board. We will steam out 13 miles, give the proverbial fingers to the “Heleban”, lie out there, and smoke to our hearts’ content.

Hon RUTH DYSON (Associate Minister of Health): I move, That the question be now put.

PANSY WONG (National): I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I have put in a substantial number of amendments and I really would appreciate a call to explain the amendments I have lodged. There are some 20 pages of them.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): I thank the member for making that plea. We have been debating this part for a long, long time—with some 40 speakers—and I have decided that I am going to—

PANSY WONG (National): I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): Is this a new point of order?

PANSY WONG: Yes. I seek leave to have a 4-minute call to speak on this part.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): Leave has been sought for that course of action. Is there any objection? There is.

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

Ayes 61

New Zealand Labour 52; Green Party 9.

Noes 57

New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 8;United Future 8; Independent: Awatere Huata.

Motion agreed to.

DAIL JONES (Junior Whip—NZ First): I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. We are still taking the vote on a split vote basis, are we not? For example, it could be 12 against and one in favour. I am just making sure.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): Yes, but on the closure motion they are all cast one way.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 121 in the name of the Hon Damien O'Connor to clause 6(2) be agreed to.

Amendment agreed to.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): The amendment to clause 6A in the name of Larry Baldock is ruled out of order because it is outside the scope of the bill.

Hon PETER DUNNE (Leader—United Future): I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I raise it now because I suspect we will have a number of similar incidents during the time we vote on these amendments. As you indicated, there are a myriad number. Although members will be keeping track of them on the Supplementary Order Papers they have in front of them, it might be useful, particularly if you are about to rule an amendment out of order, if you indicate to the Committee the broad tenor of the amendment so that members who are desperately trying to follow where we are at can be better informed. I happen to be familiar with the tenor of Mr Baldock’s amendment, but I am not sure that every member will be. Therefore, members will be a little at odds to wonder what the ruling is. So I suggest it would be helpful if you were to indicate, without going into huge detail, just what the amendments are about before we have to make decisions on them.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): Yes. I thank the member for that. In respect of the amendment we are dealing with, I tell members that it relates to private areas, and the bill and the principal Act are concerned with smoking in public places only. Therein lies the conflict, and I rule that amendment out of order.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 123 in the name of Peter Brown to section 10(2) in clause 6B be agreed to.

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

Ayes 53

New Zealand National 24; New Zealand First 12; ACT New Zealand 8;United Future 8; Independent: Awatere Huata.

Noes 65

New Zealand Labour 52; New Zealand National 3; New Zealand First 1;Green Party 9.

Amendment not agreed to.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 95 in the name of Richard Worth to new section 12(1) in clause 6B be agreed to.

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

Ayes 53

New Zealand National 24; New Zealand First 12; ACT New Zealand 8;United Future 8; Independent: Awatere Huata.

Noes 65

New Zealand Labour 52; New Zealand National 3; New Zealand First 1;Green Party 9.

Amendment not agreed to.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 117 in the name of the Hon Peter Dunne to new section 12(1) in clause 6B be agreed to.

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

Ayes 53

New Zealand National 24; New Zealand First 12; ACT New Zealand 8;United Future 8; Independent: Awatere Huata.

Noes 65

New Zealand Labour 52; New Zealand National 3; New Zealand First 1;Green Party 9.

Amendment not agreed to.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 117 in the name of the Hon Peter Dunne to new section 12(2) in clause 6B be agreed to.

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

Ayes 53

New Zealand National 24; New Zealand First 12; ACT New Zealand 8;United Future 8; Independent: Awatere Huata.

Noes 65

New Zealand Labour 52; New Zealand National 3; New Zealand First 1;Green Party 9.

Amendment not agreed to.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): A great number of amendments have been handed in. There are very large numbers of such amendments in the names of Katherine Rich, the Hon David Carter, John Carter, the Hon Maurice Williamson, Simon Power, Lindsay Tisch, and Pansy Wong. They are amendments to clause 6B: to add a new subsection (4) to section 12 and to add subsection (4) to section 13. I have had the opportunity to look at these amendments over quite a number of days, and those amendments seek to exempt certain premises from the provisions of the bill. There are also amendments in the name of Richard Worth to insert a new clause 7AA, and those amendments are to exempt other premises. All of these amendments are out of order, as they are in the nature of private legislation and are not admissible as amendments to a public bill.

JOHN CARTER (Senior Whip—National): I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I must say that I anticipated your ruling. I think, indeed, that some in Parliament may have done so. Given the fact that you are ruling all of them out of order and that there are a whole number of them—I think that in total they probably amount to the hundreds rather than the tens—I wonder whether the House might consider having just one vote on them as a whole. I will seek leave for that to happen, so that at least we can vote “Yes” or “No” on them. Even though you have ruled them out of order, the Committee could nevertheless give itself leave to vote on them one way or another. I seek leave accordingly to put them all as one vote.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): I make no comment when leave is sought. Leave has been sought to do that. Is there any objection to that course of action? There appears to be.

Hon PETER DUNNE (Leader—United Future): I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I hesitate to question your ruling, but if I heard you correctly, you are ruling all of these amendments out because they seek to exempt premises, or categories of premise, from coverage under this legislation. Yet a little earlier in this round of voting, you did allow amendments moved by Mr Worth that exempted cigar bars. It seems to me that there is a potential inconsistency in allowing us to vote on that amendment, which, given the relatively low number of cigar bars in New Zealand, is highly specific, and then not allowing the Committee to vote on the amendments you have just alluded to, which are equally specific. The difference is that those amendments name particular premises, but Mr Worth’s amendment, while it might appear to be generic, was actually highly specific, given that there are only about two or three cigar bars in New Zealand. So we have a potential inconsistency here, in that it was perfectly proper in your judgment for the Committee to vote on an amendment that, because it was generic in form although specific in substance, did not breach that sort of specificity rule, yet now you are going to rule out a whole series of amendments that specifically exempt premises. I think there is an inconsistency there that needs to be addressed.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): I thank the member for that. One could say that the amendment in the name of Richard Worth was just put in there to test you, but it was not. It was a generic amendment. We have passed that stage, and we have voted on it. In looking at all the amendments I have just ruled out of order, I mentioned that the bill is a public bill, and it contains matters of public policy that affect the general law. The vehicle for an exception to the public law is a private bill, and exceptions could be, for example, for an individual, a statutory company, or a private corporation. Exceptions of this nature cannot be accomplished by an amendment to a public bill. They can be achieved only by means of a private bill. That is the reason I am ruling them out of order. I would like now to move on to the amendments we have at hand.

Hon PETER DUNNE (Leader—United Future): I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. If I heard you correctly, you talked about an individual, a statutory company, or one other public institution—I forget the precise terminology. None of those organisations come into that category, so I would be grateful if you could indicate to the Committee what the source of your ruling is by reference to a Standing Order or a Speaker’s ruling, or some other authoritative text. It appears that the amendments you are ruling out are being ruled out because they seek to exempt particular premises, yet the categories of premise you outlined do not cover those types of organisation.

JOHN CARTER (Senior Whip—National): Indeed, if you follow the logic of that, the premises we are talking about are public places. The very reason why they are in business is that they expect people to come in as part of the service they provide. They are not private in that sense at all, as a home might be. They are places where the public congregate, and that is the reason why we have this bill before us. Some people believe that some of the substances used there are harmful, and they are trying to stop the public from being harmed by them. So by that very logic, one cannot say that we could exclude them on the basis that they are private, or that there is some other description for them. They are public places, and therefore by your very ruling we now have a contradiction. The fact is that these are public places. If this is a bill that affects public places, then you would have to rule that the amendments are in order.

DAVID BENSON-POPE (Senior Whip—Labour): You have ruled very clearly and quite unequivocally on two occasions. That ruling has being relitigated and challenged by the previous two speakers. I move, That the Speaker be recalled.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich):I thank the member for that. I was going to explain matters further, but that stops that. I would be very happy for the Speaker to return.

House resumed.

Motion agreed to, and

Speaker Recalled

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): Mr Speaker, you have been recalled to hear and adjudicate on the matter I was dealing with in Committee.

Mr SPEAKER: Thank you. Would you please explain the circumstances.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): On Part 2 of the Smoke-free Environments Amendment Bill, which we have been debating, there have been several hundred amendments of a particular nature. These amendments came from many members. They were to section 12 in clause 6B to add a new subsection (4), and to section 13 in clause 6B to add a new subsection (4). All the amendments sought to exempt certain premises from the provisions of the bill. It was my judgment that the amendments were out of order, because they were in the nature of private legislation and not admissible as amendments to a public bill. With some explanations, I so ruled, and the authority for it is on page 849 of Erskine May.

Mr SPEAKER: Thank you very much. Does anyone wish to contribute to the debate?

Hon PETER DUNNE (Leader—United Future): I raised a point of order concerning that decision, on the grounds that earlier in the process of putting the questions, the Chairperson accepted an amendment from Mr Worth relating to cigar bars. There are very few cigar bars in New Zealand—and there will be even fewer after this measure is passed—and the Chairperson commented that it was essentially a generic resolution, whereas the amendments he ruled out of order were specific. The counter to this is that because there is a very limited number of cigar bars, the application of the phrase is particularly limited. There appeared to be an inconsistency in allowing that amendment to be put—which was not questioned by the Committee—and then ruling out a large number of amendments. I have a latent suspicion that they were ruled out more because of the inconvenience and time it would take to deal with them all individually, than because of any substantive argument.

I also took a second point of order in response to a comment from the Chairperson, when he referred—I do not have the precise words in front of me, but I think they were from the page 849 of Erskine May he referred to—to categories of bodies that cannot be included in this legislation, which are individuals, public corporations, and one other. My submission was that these institutions did not come within that ambit, at which point Mr Carter—who may well want to take a call—then took up the cudgels and raised another very valid point in respect of this matter.

JOHN CARTER (Senior Whip—National): I brought the Chairperson’s attention to his comment that the amendments being private was one reason why they were ruled out. Like Mr Dunne, I cannot remember the exact wording as I do not have the book in front of me, but you have, Mr Speaker. I made what I thought was the very valid point that these places are, by their very nature, public places. Hotels call themselves public bars, and people gather there to celebrate, associate, partake, or do whatever it is that they might wish to do in those public places. It is not right to say that they are private. They might be privately owned, but they certainly are not private in the sense that they are private homes, or that the public are not allowed to be involved in them. By their very nature, that is their purpose, and that is the reason why we are dealing with public issues.

Mr SPEAKER: I thank honourable members for the very interesting points that have been raised. There are four types of bills, as prescribed by Standing Order 249. There is a distinction between members’ bills, which deal with matters of public policy, and private bills, which are for the benefit of a person, or a body of persons. These rules about the contents of bills are reflected in Speakers’ rulings 79/4 and 79/5, and prevent matters that should be in private bills from being introduced into public bills by way of amendment. Amendments to exempt individual establishments, or establishments that are part of a particular association, from the general law, are clearly matters for the particular interest or benefit of a person or body of persons. They should therefore be promoted in a private bill by that person or body of persons—see Standing Order 249(1)(d). They cannot be introduced into a member’s bill or a Government bill by way of amendment. Katherine Rich’s amendments, for example, all relate to particular establishments owned, leased, or operated by someone. If the owner, leaseholder, or operator wishes exemption from the general law, it is for him or her to promote private legislation.

Referring to the argument raised by the Hon Peter Dunne, to which I listened with a lot of interest, a generic amendment relating to cigar bars is in quite a different position. Even though it has only limited application, because there are few such bars, it is drafted generally, and is permissible. I declare the House in Committee once again for consideration of this matter.

In Committee

resumed.

Debate

Part 2 Amendments to Part II of principal Act (continued)

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 117 in the name of the Hon Peter Dunne to new section 13(1) in clause 6B be agreed to.

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

Ayes 53

New Zealand National 24; New Zealand First 12; ACT New Zealand 8;United Future 8; Independent: Awatere Huata.

Noes 67

New Zealand Labour 52; New Zealand National 3; New Zealand First 1;Green Party 9; Progressive 2.

Amendment not agreed to.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 117 in the name of the Hon Peter Dunne to new section 13(3) in clause 6B be agreed to.

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

Ayes 53

New Zealand National 24; New Zealand First 12; ACT New Zealand 8;United Future 8; Independent: Awatere Huata.

Noes 67

New Zealand Labour 52; New Zealand National 3; New Zealand First 1;Green Party 9; Progressive 2.

Amendment not agreed to.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 117 in the name of the Hon Peter Dunne to new section 13A(1) in clause 6B be agreed to.

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

Ayes 53

New Zealand National 24; New Zealand First 12; ACT New Zealand 8;United Future 8; Independent: Awatere Huata.

Noes 67

New Zealand Labour 52; New Zealand National 3; New Zealand First 1;Green Party 9; Progressive 2.

Amendment not agreed to.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 117 in the name of the Hon Peter Dunne to new section 13A(3) in clause 6B be agreed to.

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

Ayes 53

New Zealand National 24; New Zealand First 12; ACT New Zealand 8;United Future 8; Independent: Awatere Huata.

Noes 67

New Zealand Labour 52; New Zealand National 3; New Zealand First 1;Green Party 9; Progressive 2.

Amendment not agreed to.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 117 in the name of the Hon Peter Dunne to new section 13B(1) in clause 6B be agreed to.

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

Ayes 53

New Zealand National 24; New Zealand First 12; ACT New Zealand 8;United Future 8; Independent: Awatere Huata.

Noes 67

New Zealand Labour 52; New Zealand National 3; New Zealand First 1;Green Party 9; Progressive 2.

Amendment not agreed to.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 117 in the name of the Hon Peter Dunne to new section 13B(3) in clause 6B be agreed to.

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

Ayes 53

New Zealand National 24; New Zealand First 12; ACT New Zealand 8;United Future 8; Independent: Awatere Huata.

Noes 67

New Zealand Labour 52; New Zealand National 3; New Zealand First 1;Green Party 9; Progressive 2.

Amendment not agreed to.

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 117 in the name of the Hon Peter Dunne to clause 6C be agreed to.

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

Ayes 53

New Zealand National 24; New Zealand First 12; ACT New Zealand 8;United Future 8; Independent: Awatere Huata.

Noes 67

New Zealand Labour 52; New Zealand National 3; New Zealand First 1;Green Party 9; Progressive 2.

Amendments not agreed to.

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 121 in the name of the Hon Damien O’Connor to clause 7 be agreed to.

Amendments agreed to.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 119 in the name of Sue Kedgley to omit new section 17(10) in clause 7 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 67

New Zealand Labour 52; New Zealand National 3; New Zealand First 1;Green Party 9; Progressive 2.

Noes 53

New Zealand National 24; New Zealand First 12; ACT New Zealand 8;United Future 8; Independent: Awatere Huata.

Amendment agreed to.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 119 in the name of Sue Kedgley to omit new section 17A(5) in clause 7 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 67

New Zealand Labour 52; New Zealand National 3; New Zealand First 1;Green Party 9; Progressive 2.

Noes 53

New Zealand National 24; New Zealand First 12; ACT New Zealand 8;United Future 8; Independent: Awatere Huata.

Amendment agreed to.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 119 in the name of Sue Kedgley to omit new sections 17B to 17D in clause 7 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 67

New Zealand Labour 52; New Zealand National 3; New Zealand First 1;Green Party 9; Progressive 2.

Noes 53

New Zealand National 24; New Zealand First 12; ACT New Zealand 8;United Future 8; Independent: Awatere Huata.

Amendment agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That Part 2 as amended be agreed to.

Ayes 67

New Zealand Labour 52; New Zealand National 3; New Zealand First 1;Green Party 9; Progressive 2.

Noes 53

New Zealand National 24; New Zealand First 12; ACT New Zealand 8;United Future 8; Independent: Awatere Huata.

Part 2 as amended agreed to.

Part 3 Other amendments

Hon PETER DUNNE (Leader—United Future): I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I want to refer you to a ruling made by Mr Speaker on 17 September 2003, when we were having a previous discussion about this bill. At the time, we were some way into the debate on Part 2. You may recall that on that occasion Mr Speaker was recalled to the House over a number of issues, including the way in which the bill had been drafted, which is not relevant to this point of order, and the nature of the debate that was to be held. Mr Speaker ruled, and I quote from his ruling, that “there must be a very full and wide-ranging debate.”, which related to Part 2. When we discussed this bill again at our last encounter with it, I raised a similar point of order. I sought an assurance both from you, I think, as Chair, and from the Speaker, that that wide-ranging debate would mean we would have a fairly lengthy debate, which turned out to be the case. At that time there appeared to be some confusion, because I thought that the Speaker had said the debate should be wide-ranging on Part 2 only, and, if you check back over the record, you will find that Mr Speaker, when asked to clarify that point, made it clear that, given the nature of this bill, he felt there should be a wide-ranging debate on each of its parts.

We are now about to embark on the debate on Part 3, which contains a number of quite significant aspects relating to the changes before us. I am simply seeking your assurance that, just as you allowed about 40 calls on Part 2—I am not trying to put a figure into your head—you will be equally prescient and fair in terms of the allocation of the call as we debate Part 3. It might appear on the face of it to be a smaller part than the one we have just dealt with, but it does include a number of significant clauses. In fact, I have some amendments, and I am sure other members do as well, that we will need to tease out quite carefully. I am just seeking your assurance that the Speaker’s ruling that was given last time—affecting both parts of the bill that remained at that time—will apply to the now one remaining part and that there will be as full a debate as is possible.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): I thank the member for that. I ask the member to clarify whether he said the Speaker’s ruling was from 17 September 2002.

Hon Peter Dunne: 17 September 2003.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): I was not able to recall one from as far back as 2002. I intend to follow the ruling. Part 3 is a large and important part, and it does insert a new part into the bill. I intend to allow wide-ranging debate. We will see how we go.

PANSY WONG (National): I want to share with the public the fact that this bill does not prohibit the smoking or selling of cigarettes. The way the bill is drafted makes very interesting reading. I wonder how many retailers know that there is a very specific and detailed requirement about the signage they have to have if they sell tobacco. I really would appreciate the member in the chair, Steve Chadwick, taking a call to explain the signage specification. Section 23A(1)(h) in clause 8A states that the signage has to be displayed at each point of sale, and that the words “Smoking Kills” has to be printed in black. I wonder why it does not have to be painted in red, to remind people that it is the red Labour Party that intends to dictate to people in every walk of life how they should behave and breathe.

Anyway, the words have to be printed in black and within a black rectangular border that is no wider than an upper case letter “i”. But it also states in paragraph (h)(iii) that those words have to be in the typeface known as Helvetica. I would like the member to take a call and explain to me what that typeface is. What if the retailers fail to express their signage in a Helvetica typeface? Subparagraph (iv) states that it also has to be “in roman font, and upper case and lower case letters, as it is set out above; and (v) the word ‘Kills’ has to be centred below the word ‘Smoking’; ”. This is ridiculous. If we believe that smoking is bad for people, why does that member not go upfront and have a referendum on banning smoking, instead of making the lives of retailers hell but continuing to make the selling of cigarettes legal?

Unlike the Minister with responsibility for Auckland Issues, Judith Tizard, I took the trouble to ring up restaurants and bars in the fantastic Auckland Central area. They are diverse and exciting places. I got a sample of 50 bar and restaurant owners who would like to be exempt from this legislation, including our very own Cigar Lounge, Bar of the Stars, Rose and Crown Tavern, the Corner Bar, and The Elbow Room Auckland Central. I am reading out these names so that when the good people from other parts of New Zealand visit Auckland Central they will know there is a wide choice of fantastic restaurants and bars there. They include: Starks; The Oval; Safari Lounge; Beaches; Verona Café; Harlequin Bar and Café; Hobson’s Lounge Bar; Suede in Symonds Street; QF Tavern; Kenny’s Bar and Grill; Spice Bar; Tabac; Occidental Belgian Beer Cafe; Float; Tavern; O’Neil’s Point Irish Pub; The Muddy Farmer; The Playhouse; Bubble; Lenin Restaurant and Bar; O’Carolls Irish Bar; Sponge Restaurant; The Paddington; Bar De Baz; Queens Head Tavern; Creole Bar and Brasserie; Mr Luckies Cafe; No. 17 Albert Street; Lime at Ponsonby; Pickle; Plum; 24 Seven Bar; Kings Arms Tavern; Allpress Espresso; Quay Sports Bar; Danny Doolan’s; Euro; Green Room; Shed 5; Pog Mahones; Chicane; Platform 54; the Viaduct Grill; Pasha; and The Drake.

That is a sample of just 50 restaurants and bars in Auckland Central. When I talked with their owners, they said they could make very sensible decisions themselves. They said they knew that their patrons would perhaps not like to be exposed to smoke during their meal, so they have separate smoking and non-smoking areas. Usually the patrons of those establishments are very understanding. I do not understand why the member in the chair, and the minority Labour Government, are hell-bent on not allowing those good, responsible people to have a choice about whether their patrons can smoke in their establishments. Certainly, they are entrepreneurs who understand that for their business to prosper they can carry out only those practices that are welcome to, and popular with, their patrons.

BRENT CATCHPOLE (NZ First): Part 3 has within it another Part 2A, which is an interesting way of constructing this bill. It is entitled “Powers of enforcement officers”. Those enforcement officers are allowed to go on to the premises of places where there is a restriction on smoking. I would like to point out that a lot of Returned Services Association members are very upset with this bill. When they went to war and into battle, they were given cigarettes to calm them down. Those fighting men were addicted not from their own choice but because they were told to smoke. Now we are turning round and trying to tell them to stop smoking or they will not be able to go and visit their old friends in Returned Services Association clubs.

I have talked to Returned Services Association members around the country. Last Saturday I was at the Armistice Day celebrations in Papakura, and went back to the Papakura Returned Services Association and talked to members. It became clear that the associations did not want to be singled out as exemptions on their own. They wanted to be recognised with other clubs to have the choice of whether to have smoking in their establishments. With these powers of enforcement, the association is now forced to open its rooms to the enforcement officers who will make sure there is no smoking in their clubs.

New section 30AA in clause 9 refers to supplying tobacco products or herbal smoking. I wonder whether the Greens are particularly keen on that one. I think they would like to see herbal smoking a lot broader—

Rodney Hide: They want to make it compulsory!

BRENT CATCHPOLE: Compulsory now—well, there we go! The reference to herbal smoking is an issue that the Greens would be very, very upset about, and I am surprised they are supporting this bill, which wants to have smoking banned in bars, clubs, and public places, because that means they will not be able to partake of their herbal medicines. Herbal products for smoking are banned and the supply is also restricted, so they would need to be careful.

This bill is nothing more than an abuse of the workers. They no longer have the choice. We have considerable restrictions in Part 3 with the supply of tobacco—restrictions on what people can smoke and where they can partake of smoking. I find it disappointing that all clubs, which include the Returned Services Association, were not given the choice to decide themselves whether they would allow their members to smoke. Clubs have to open up their premises to any enforcement officer who wants to walk in off the street to check whether they have set aside a small room out the back, and whether, when it is a freezing-cold night, their members have snuck in a back room to smoke indoors. That is a hardship, particularly on members of the clubs. After all they are club members, and these clubs want to have the option to decide for themselves whether they will be smoking or non-smoking. It is disappointing that this Government does not care about those people, particularly those from the Returned Services Association who went to war and fought for this country. Now they are being told that they are not allowed to make that choice themselves. I think that it is despicable on the part of this Government to enforce a restriction on those men and women who went to war and fought for this country. It is a despicable way to treat those members.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): Before I call the next member, I point out that I did say that a fairly wide-ranging debate would be acceptable—wide-ranging in so far as members might seek to explain what they are discussing in terms of what is in Part 3. But let us not range too wide, because we have covered most of those issues in the earlier parts.

STEVE CHADWICK (Labour—Rotorua): I am pleased to take a call to draw us back to Part 3 and the specifics of it. Many of these elements were discussed during the debate on Part 1. But Part 3 is really about compliant product display and signage—that is really all it is. I must admit, on this rather quick call, that we ourselves on the Health Committee did reach a point of a lot of confusion about compliant product display. I can assure that member over there–who is a little confused, obviously; I hope I can help him—that we worked with the industry on this. The Ministry of Health withdrew from the select committee and worked with the industry, and that is why we have this rather interesting figure of 100 packets for sale. The industry worked very well with officials to reach agreement on product display, and the amendments that we have here are a reflection of the working through of those issues with the industry and the officials at the Ministry of Health. So I hope that that helps those members draw back to the Part 3 debate and the specifics of it. We did cover those other wide-ranging issues at the beginning of the debate.

Hon PETER DUNNE (Leader—United Future): I want to speak to the amendment that I am moving to Part 3 to insert a new clause 11A relating to minimum air-quality standards, which are one of the key issues surrounding this bill. If members believe the argument advanced by the sponsor of the bill, Steve Chadwick, in a very simple phrase it is to say that no such things as minimum air-quality standards can possibly be established. She says it is simply too hard to do that. We can put men on the moon, and can make all sorts of other scientific breakthroughs in medicine and other areas, but according to her we cannot define an air-quality standard. Members should just put those comments to one side, and think about the member who has just resumed her seat as being the promoter of those comments when I tell them the British Medical Journal of 13 August 2003 has just reported a massive study regarding environmental tobacco smoke, which is second-hand smoke. The article states that the actual risks associated with it are minimal, and there would appear to be no rational reason why ventilation cannot be approved for use in the hospitality industry. The report states that small-business persons have been persecuted by their Governments for long enough.

I just want to reflect on that. It is merely the British Medical Journal stating that, and it merely quotes a study undertaken at the University of Glamorgan. There have been other studies undertaken by other reputable international institutions. In our own country, the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research undertook a study, which the chairperson of the Health Committee now seeks to discredit. Members will recall that she was asked in the House this afternoon about the basis of the evidence she has to discredit the report of the institute, let alone to discredit the British Medical Journal, the University of Glamorgan, a whole raft of companies, and the vice-president of Firestone International Associates in the United States. They have all talked about the ability and capability of air-quality standards, in terms of ensuring the air is filtered and provides a clean environment. That is all rejected by the sponsor of this bill who, when asked for her evidence this afternoon, had this to say to the House: “I stand by my original comment.” She gave no evidence—no facts—and it was utter prejudice. When the Committee heard her speak a moment or two ago, I am sure the comments made by my colleague Gordon Copeland during the general debate this afternoon about political correctness took on a fresh and very relevant air.

We have here a concerted effort on the part of those behind this bill to deny every fact available in favour of their predetermined prejudice. And their expert, so-called, is the Ministry of Health. The officials are there in that ministry to tell one about disease, illness, and health policy. They have now become, by their own claim, experts on ventilation, engineering, and all sorts of other issues well beyond their ken. Yet, because those officials share the same prejudices as the members who support this bill, they are now held up to be the experts. The British Medical Journal study can go to hell, and likewise the University of Glamorgan. Every other reputable organisation in this country and around the world that has upheld the notion of clean air - quality standards is dismissed, and no reason is given for that. They are dismissed simply because upholding that goes against not the prevailing wisdom but the prevailing politically correct prejudice.

What I really resent about this debate is the utter absence of the real facts being revealed. This bill is not about the health of workers. Nor is it about protecting unborn children, or about all the other arguments that have been raised as to why this prohibition has to be put on. This is about an agenda, which those who promote it simply know they could not achieve if they were open about it. They want to stop every smoker in New Zealand from smoking. They know that is impossible to achieve, and they know they dare not do it by an upfront prohibition, because Dr Cullen would lose several hundred million dollars in excise duty. So they come around by stealth, deny the evidence, and seek to put in place half-baked measures that will be ignored—and properly so, because they are unenforceable. Then, when we ask the promoter of this bill to refute the international evidence, she says the health department advises her, and that she stands by her original answer and has nothing to add to it—as though that gives that member credibility in this field.

This measure is an outrage, and it will make us an international laughing stock. I will have great pleasure, when the public around the world laugh and sneer at New Zealand, in saying whom the instigators of this measure were.

RODNEY HIDE (ACT): Here we have the sharp end of the “Heleban”. I turn to section 41A, inserted by clause 12, relating to the powers of the enforcement officers. Those of us who were lucky enough went to the Returned Services Association last Sunday. We heard from the men who fought against the Nazis, and lost their comrades while fighting against the Nazis. Now, what do we discover? The “Heleban”, under Steve Chadwick, and Helen Clark, has the power to enter the Returned Services Association—I am reading exactly from section 41A—and to bring at any time a video camera or a device to sample the air. I am not kidding.

In fact, under this legislation the enforcement officers will have to power to stop someone in his or her company car. That person may be driving along, in the back of wherever, on a lonely road at night, and it may be raining. If person is a smoker, he or she is not allowed to light up.

Hon Taito Phillip Field: Nonsense.

RODNEY HIDE: I know it is nonsense. That is why I cannot understand why Phillip Field is voting for it. Under this bill, if it comes in, a person will have to stop the car, stand out in the rain, and smoke. Why? Because under section 41A the “health Nazis” can pull up that person. Phillip Field is right; this bill is nonsense. Those “Heleban” officers can parachute in, like the SAS, on to a ship if it is within 13 miles of the shore.

Hon Taito Phillip Field: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. The member can scream all he likes, but when he refers to members by name I would appreciate it if he used my correct name.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): That is right. I thank the member for that.

RODNEY HIDE: This is a disgusting bill. A ship may be 12 miles off shore and the “Heleban” can parachute in its “health Nazis”, who may see that the captain is in the mess, having a pint. That is what this bill is about. If someone who is sitting at home gets burgled and calls the police, no one comes, because this Government has run the police down. But if someone lights up, the enforcement officers will be there. Mark my words, the “Heleban” will be there, and they will be kicking the doors down.

I take members to section 23A in clause 8A, “Compliant product display”. This Government says it is reducing red tape. Do members know that more than two tobacco cartons of the same kind are not allowed to be exposed for sale at any point of sale? The “Nazis” will kick the door down, and the “Heleban” police will come in. If they discover, my God, that there are three cartons on display, someone will be fined thousands and thousands of dollars. This bill states in section 23A(1)(h) that there has to be a sign stating: “ ‘Smoking Kills’ printed in black—(i) within a black rectangular border that is no wider than an upper case letter ‘i’ in the point size used for the words; and (ii) on a white background within that border; and (iii) in the typeface known as Helvetica; and (iv) in roman font, and upper case and lower case letters, as it is set out above; and (v) with the word ‘Kills’ centred below the word ‘Smoking’; and (vi) in type that is clear and legible, of normal weight …”. The sign must be one square metre in size, or otherwise Helen Clark’s “health Nazis” will kick down the door, drag the person off to court, and fine him or her thousands of dollars.

I am pleased that “Georgie Beyer” is going to take a call to try to explain this rubbish to her local workingmen’s club and to the Returned Services Association, and I say good luck to her.

Georgina Beyer: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson.

RODNEY HIDE: I have not finished.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): I have called a point of order.

Georgina Beyer: I would like a ruling from you about the term “health Nazis”, which the member Rodney Hide has used on several occasions.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): I take the point. It is a matter of taste. We will have a look at that, just to see whether a ruling has been made on that specific issue. If it is not used in relation to members or parties, then I do not think it has been ruled on. I do not need any assistance.

RODNEY HIDE: It is quite clear that what I am saying is that they are “health Nazis”, and they are working for Helen Clark. It is her legislation, it is Steve Chadwick’s legislation, and it is Georgina Beyer’s legislation. Who are they working for? This Government.

I say to you, Mr Chairman, that the Returned Services Association fought against this overweening Government telling what we believe to be a free people what to do, when to do it, and how to live. I say that this is a disgraceful bill. It is typical of this Government that it has paid lobbyists to turn up and lobby MPs. It is typical of this Government that it has tried to shut down debate. It is typical of this Government that it would not let members of Parliament call it like it is—“health Nazis”.

RICHARD WORTH (National—Epsom): I intend to confine my remarks to Part 3 of the Smoke-free Environments (Enhanced Protection) Amendment Bill, although I think the words “Enhanced Protection” have been stripped from the legislation. I know that what I say tonight would have the support of Action on Smoking and Health representatives, if they were present in the Chamber. I want to speak to my amendment, which is set out on Supplementary Order Paper 106. It makes changes to a provision that has been the subject of earlier comment: clause 8A, which inserts new section 23A relating to compliant product displays. The short point is that without my amendment being passed, two paragraphs in the bill as presently drafted limit to 100 the number of tobacco packages to be displayed, and limit to 40 the number of tobacco cartons to be displayed. The commercial result of that restriction will be that retailers will not display cigars. The displays will be limited to cigarettes and cigarillos.

I do not accept the health arguments that lie behind this bill, but for the purposes of what I now say that is irrelevant. This bill is not about restricting legitimate commercial activity. For as long as it remains lawful to sell tobacco and related herbal products, provisions like that should not find their way into the legislation. The bill proposes that retailers will not need to meet the display limitation in respect of cigars, which in any event are carried by non-tobacconists in limited numbers only. I have explained briefly the context in which my Supplementary Order Paper 106 finds its place. The result of the bill as drafted—and I ask the member responsible for the bill, Steve Chadwick, to reflect carefully on this proposition—is that a grossly anti-competitive outcome arises. That is because the permissible number of packages on display will be far less than the number of different packages that are available on the market. The outcome will be that retailers will be forced to deny display opportunities to many slower-selling brands, and that is quite contrary to the principles of the Commerce Act. The consequence will be that only the major brands will be on display, thereby depriving minor brands of the opportunity to compete against them.

It is a sadness for me that issues like this should be the subject of a conscience vote—and for some parties they are. However, in the case of the present minority Government, while this may be in some nominal sense a conscience vote, the reality is very, very different indeed. The reality is that this will be a directed vote, with clear guidance and riding orders being given to Labour Party members to vote this legislation through. That is why I say to the member in the chair, Steve Chadwick, who has current charge of this bill, that careful consideration should be given to the merit of Supplementary Order Paper 106. I am uncertain whether she is a cigar or cigarillo smoker; she may very well be. But even if she does not smoke them, I would think that it should lie within her heart to give consideration to the undoubted merit of the amendment.

The cigar market in New Zealand is less than 0.2 percent of the total tobacco market, and the product has no appeal to children. In fact, it is smoked by few adults. Yet that legal product—and I am talking of cigars—will simply disappear from display shelves, because even the small amount of display space cigars require will be allocated to fast-selling brands of cigarettes. If this amendment is passed, a minuscule amount of permitted display space will enable those few adults who choose to smoke the occasional cigar to be aware of the different and competing products available to them.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): I thank that member for a model contribution, in terms of speaking to the relevant part.

Hon PETER DUNNE (Leader—United Future): I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I do not want to delay other speakers, but I wish to raise a point of order that is occasioned largely by the speech that you have just been so complimentary about. I would have been equally complimentary about it. The point of order is that the member raised some very valid technical points. I notice that there are no officials actually present to offer advice to the sponsor of the bill or the Associate Minister, who I saw was around here a moment or two ago, on matters of this nature. I wonder how we can therefore seriously give consideration to matters such as Mr Worth has posed—and Mr Hide—relating to various technical provisions of the Act, if the sponsor of the bill has no professional advice to back her up—or does she simply know it all?

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): I thank the member for raising that issue. That matter is of course entirely up to the member in the chair, Steve Chadwick, but I thank the member raising it.

PITA PARAONE (NZ First): I want to speak in relation to my Supplementary Order Paper 92, which affects section 23A(1)(h) in clause 8A. It refers to the use of the Māori language as part of the warning signage to be added to smoking products. In proposing this Supplementary Order Paper I do so in the knowledge that, firstly, Māori is one of two official languages in this country, and, secondly, smoking affects a lot of my relatives and, indeed, those in the Māori community. It seems to me that if this bill is to come into law, then it is only appropriate that the warnings should be indicated in both English and Māori. The words that I would like to have added are: “Ka mate koe i te kai hikareti”. I notice that the interpreter has come back into the Chamber, and is among the officials who could help with this bill.

The reason I support this Supplementary Order Paper is not because I myself am a Māori, but because it is important that we convey to a community that is a large consumer of tobacco products the dangers to one’s health of smoking. With regard to the poor status of Māori health, much of it can be attributed to smoking. I take on board the comments made by speakers who have stood before me, and I agree in principle with what they have said. I think it is important that we append this warning in Māori. I know that a subsequent Supplementary Order Paper may go a little bit further than my one, but I certainly seek the support of the sponsor of this bill for my Supplementary Order Paper. If we are able to do that, then at least we will fulfil our social obligations not only to one part of our community but also to New Zealand.

I know that a lot of the returned servicemen whom people have alluded to tonight are Māori. This issue probably affects them more than a lot of the younger generation. Those Māori soldiers who went to war during the Second World War were fluent Māori speakers, and their first language was Māori. Those who are still alive and still smoke would appreciate that while they would probably have ignored the message, they would have appreciated having their language appended to such products.

Rodney Hide: What differences will it make?

PITA PARAONE: Perhaps they may get a clearer understanding of the effects of smoking on their health. The hope is that that is the difference it would make.

Rodney Hide: If they read it in Māori, will it make a difference?

PITA PARAONE: They will not only read it Māori but have a better understanding of the effects of smoking on their health. That is the point. That is what the warning is all about—to communicate to those who decide to smoke the effects that smoking will have on their health. Kia ora.

RICHARD WORTH (National—Epsom): I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I did not want to interrupt the previous speaker, but we did not have an interpretation of what the Māori tag on the relevant packet means, and it may well influence the way I vote in respect of any amendment that may be forthcoming. I ask that a translation be given, in accordance with the Standing Orders.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): The member is free to give his own translation if he so wishes.

PITA PARAONE (NZ First): I am quite happy for the interpreter to interpret.

[An interpretation in English was given to the House.]

[Smoking will damage your health.]

DEBORAH CODDINGTON (ACT): Speaking to clause 8A, I would like the member in the chair to take a call to explain to us what would happen in the case of a duty-free shop. If I go through the enforcement regulations that the Government will be putting on to retailers—breaching their property rights—I can see nothing that relates to a duty-free shop. We all go into duty-free shops and we see stand after stand of cigarettes and alcohol—all those terrible things that this Government wants to save and protect us from. The bill does not exclude duty-free shops at all. They will be caught. Duty-free shops will not be able to have any “tobacco product exposed for sale … visible from outside the place;”. What is “the place”? Is “the place” the whole airport terminal, or is it the actual area where duty-free goods are being sold, or is it the international terminal? What is it? It is not explained in the bill. That will just lead to endless court cases and case law, and to the courts trying to interpret what the Government has written really badly.

If one moves further down the clause, one sees that unless the place of business is a tobacconist shop, not more than 100 tobacco packages are allowed to be exposed for sale at any point of sale, and not more than 40 tobacco cartons can be exposed for sale at any point of sale. Who will compensate the supermarkets for the huge expense they will be put to when this legislation comes into force? Who will compensate them for this Government breaching their property rights and forcing them to change all their stands so that they comply with this stupid, inane legislation, which will not do anything to protect people’s health or to lift the health of this country? If this Government were really serious about doing that, it would ban smoking and cigarettes altogether. Instead, something like 17 part-time smoke police, or enforcement officers, or whatever they are, will be trying to enforce legislation that is totally unenforceable. Who pays the rent of these businesses? Who pays the wages, the resource consents, the rates? It is not this Government. Owners pay them, because the businesses are their property. So what right does the State have to go in and enforce all this legislation and all these little rules on them?

The Hon Peter Dunne talked about this Government being an expert on ventilation. It is also an expert on signwriting, it seems. I cannot believe that grown-ups actually drafted this law. Will people be running around with little em rulers, checking that the signwriting complies with the law? What will happen to businesses if they do not comply? What will happen if the rectangular border of a sign is “wider than an upper case letter ‘i’ in the point size used for the words;”? The word “Kills” has to be centred below the word “Smoking”. Would the Minister please explain to this Committee what on earth that does for public health? It does nothing for public health. It is just about control, compliance costs, and forcing the Government’s nanny-knows-best, bossy-boots philosophy on all the small retailers around the country.

If the Government wants to enforce those laws, the onus to obey them should be put on the people who break them. If the age for people to be able to buy cigarettes is 18, why force the penalties on to the retailers? Why not put the responsibility on to the people who break the law by buying cigarettes? Why is the Government putting all the penalties on to the retailers?

I can see that the member in the chair is not taking any notice. Obviously, she does not care about duty-free shops and places, because they are not mentioned in the bill. Are they exempt, or will they have to comply? If they do have to comply, how on earth will they do that?

PAUL ADAMS (United Future): It never ceases to amaze me what foresight some of our forefathers had. New Zealand was called Aotearoa, the Land of the Long White Cloud. Once this law passes, that is what it will be—the land of the long white cloud. All the smokers will be outside and one will be able to see the smoke. Maybe as a tourism promotion, a cloud of smoke will be hanging over New Zealand so that people clearly recognise our fine land when they come here in their planes.

Let us look at the purposes of the bill, in clause 3. One is “to prevent the detrimental effect of other people’s smoking on the health of people in workplaces”. I would question the motive behind the bill. If smoking is really so bad for people, why do we not just ban cigarettes? But, no, we could not do that, because look at the tax take on cigarettes. How could we possibly ban cigarettes? No, this legislation is more anti-business. This legislation loads up small-business people, the very heart of New Zealand business, with extra rules. [Interruption] I am speaking on clause 3, on the purpose of this bill in relation to the workplace.

Let us take a situation where a small business has only one room where, traditionally, the employees have gone to have their break. It used to be called the smoko room. Now what will it be? Will it be a smoko room or a non-smoko room? What I have found with bureaucratic legislation that affects small-business owners is that if I decide my workplace is a smoking workplace, all of a sudden my non-smoking employees will have me up for discrimination, because they are non-smokers. If I make the workplace non-smoking, then, of course, the other employees will have me up for discrimination, because they are smokers. Really, a business cannot win on these sorts of things, and that is a real problem.

Other purposes are “(b) to prevent young people who are being taught or cared for in registered schools or early childhood centres from being influenced by seeing other people smoke there; and (c) to prevent the detrimental effect of other people’s smoking on the health of young people who are being taught or cared for in registered schools or early childhood centres.” What about other places? Do we not care about young people there? Do we not care about young people in the home? Is not that what we are really concerned about? The trouble is we want to legislate for what we think is right, but, of course, that never works. If we try to protect a little child who is learning to walk, if we put a little cradle around that child so that he or she never falls over, that child will never walk properly. A person has to make decisions for himself or herself.

Business in New Zealand well knows that any business runs on supply and demand. If a restaurant is a smoking restaurant— [Interruption] I am talking about the places referred to in clause 3.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Part 3 deals with the sale of products.

PAUL ADAMS: It does deal with the sale of products. If a restaurant permits smoking, and all of a sudden customers do not go to that restaurant, because they would rather go to a restaurant that does not permit smoking, then soon the owner will wake up and decide that his or her restaurant will become non-smoking. We do not need legislation continually coming in that dictates where we will eat or smoke. Thank you, Mr Chairperson, and seeing as I have been pulled up so many times I shall sit down.

Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON (National—Pakuranga): I do intend to stick to a very specific provision within Part 3—that is, section 23A(1)(h) in new clause 8A. Given that the person sponsoring the bill has not seen fit to bring in officials, I assume she will be able to answer the details of this particular issue when I raise it.

I think there is an inconsistency in this bill that almost renders it void. It is to do with typeface and it is to do with the difference between different fonts. I have to say a number of members will not know about serif fonts and sans serif fonts. For those who do not know—and I am sure the member sponsoring the bill does know—a serif is a little wee twirl on the edge of a letter. In relation to a capital T, if it is just a nice, straight vertical line with a cross across the top, it is a sans serif font—a square block.

We find an inconsistency. The bill is talking about a typeface known as Helvetica. It is mandated by this bill. I am sure members of the public will want to know about this in the morning; they will all race to their word processors and select the Helvetica font, and they will see it is a sans serif font. It is a square, very block letter. However, section 23A(1)(h)(iv) states “in roman font”. I ask the member sponsoring this bill whether she realises that a roman font is actually a serif font. It has the little curls on the letters. I can see a major inconsistency—which I am sure most members of the Committee can now spot—and I am sure it will cause a serious problem for the bill’s progress. In fact, I think it might be worth reporting progress, sending the bill back to the select committee, and getting in an expert on fonts, to make sure that that inconsistency—[Interruption] The member laughs, but it is not good enough for Parliament to pass a bill that has that sort of inconsistency in it.

John Carter: What do you want?

Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON: I want the member sponsoring the bill to take a call and tell us whether she means serif fonts, in which case Helvetica is out and we have to scrap that provision, or whether she means sans serif fonts, in which case Helvetica is in but the roman font is out. There will be people listening tonight who think this issue is trivial, but the member has put it in the bill.

Georgina Beyer: No.

Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON: Georgina Beyer does not think it is trivial. She thinks it is OK for a bill to tell us exactly what particular character set we have to write the warning in—as if New Zealanders are so stupid that they could not read it if it were in a Times New Roman font, or even in an Old English font. Pita Paraone says it should be in Māori. I think that should be optional. If it were in Māori, that would be fine by me.

The member says she does not need officials. She does not have officials here to answer that question. But she has to tell us tonight, as the Committee needs to know. There is a total inconsistency between subparagraph (iv), which provides for a roman font, and subparagraph (iii), which states that the font must be Helvetica. I think she knows the answer, and I am happy to yield if she will take the call and explain that. If she does not, it is quite clear to me that the member sponsoring the bill does not know the difference between those fonts. She has got down to that level of minutiae, to defining what people have to do in terms of their signage—the size and the font of the characters—which is bizarre, in my view, and she has done all of that without knowing what a serif font and a sans serif font are about.

Georgina Beyer: Tell us.

Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON: Georgina Beyer wants me to tell the Committee. I am happy to take some time on it, because it is important. I can see the gallery starting to fill up. Those people who have a font addiction will be gathering around their crystal sets. Those who like a nice, square typeface on their “Smoking Kills” warning signs will be outraged that the font will be Times New Roman. I can understand why people would be upset about a roman font. It has the little squiggles and the curls. It can be less clear when someone is standing at a distance. I know that The Times of London uses it for headings because it captures the attention better, but, no, this member says that Helvetica is the way to go. That is an outrage, quite apart from all the other nonsense in this bill, such as allowing smoking in prisons and on marae but not allowing it in restaurants.

SUE KEDGLEY (Green): I want to talk about the—

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Diabetes.

SUE KEDGLEY: That is right. I want to talk about a provision in Part 3, but before I do so, I want to respond to a couple of comments that have been made in this debate to date. The first one I would like to refer to is Peter Dunne’s comment that if we pass this law, we will become a laughing stock. I would like to contemplate, for a moment, whether California has become a laughing stock. As I recall, the Holmes show interviewed people who said it is fantastic. Is Norway about to become a laughing stock? Is Ireland? Is New York?

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member, but I say to members on the cross benches that under Speaker’s ruling 53/4 they should please note that it is convention not to interject in the cross benches. It muffles the microphone of the person speaking.

Dail Jones: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I accept your ruling, of course, but if we are invited by the member to respond to her, clearly we must respond. After all, this particular part of the Chamber is very well filled by members. It is a shame the other sections of the Chamber are not similarly well filled. It is therefore not surprising that our views will be heard better than others. If she desists from asking us questions, we will desist from responding, especially when the questions are so stupid.

Rodney Hide: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): A point of order will be heard in silence. I refer members to Speaker’s ruling 16/6. I call Rodney Hide.

Dail Jones: I had not finished my point of order, Mr Chairperson. You allowed Mr Hide to stand up and start a point of order, and now you are having a go at me.

Rodney Hide: I certainly do know those Standing Orders, but I make the point that when a member on his or her feet calls out and asks for a response and that response is not provided, then that member on his or her feet is perfectly entitled to say that members cannot answer and then use it as part of the rhetoric and propaganda of his or her speech. If the member invited a comment, as my learned colleague pointed out, it is a bit rich for the Chair to admonish those of us who were responding. If we sit here like little lambs, Ms Kedgley might think that we support the wacky ideas she is supporting here tonight.

Hon Peter Dunne: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): It had better be a fresh point of order, Mr Dunne.

Hon Peter Dunne: The speech being made by the member is actually out of order. Given your familiarity with Speakers’ rulings and Standing Orders, you will be aware that it is not in order for a member, during the course of his or her speech, to pose it in such a way that it is a series of questions. That is precisely what the member was doing, and is what caused the reaction you properly took exception to. I might add that your comment about muffled sound presumably applies to the sponsor of the bill, who is sitting to next to you, applauding. It must have had the same effect on your microphone as the interjections from the members in this quarter of the Chamber that you took objection to. The issue is about a series of questions being posed during the course of a speech, which has long been held to be out of order because it invites disorder by way of response.

Rodney Hide: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): I have already ruled on this point of order, Mr Hide.

Rodney Hide: This is absolutely a new one. I have two. The first point of order is that you have been very hard on members who are opposed to this bill being within the confines of Part 3. I would like to know when Ms Kedgley was speaking to Part 3, as you never pulled her up. You were very hard on members on the cross benches because of the muffling effect on the microphone. I note that you have said nothing about the member in the chair beside you chipping in over the microphone, which we could hear very clearly. It seems to me that you have to apply the rules consistently in both cases. I make the final point that there has been a series of points of order, and you have not ruled on them.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): I thank Mr Hide for drawing that to my attention. The problem is that the issue was getting quite noisy. I myself was unable to hear what the honourable member was saying. I also want to rule on the issue of the person sitting beside me interjecting on a live microphone. In Committee, members in charge of legislation shall not take an unfair advantage of a live microphone by way of interjection. It is good conduct and common courtesy not to do so, and courtesy is contagious. We all prosper if we keep within the spirit of our Standing Orders and Speakers’ rulings.

SUE KEDGLEY: As I was saying, the other place that has similar legislation is New York. There was an article in the New Zealand Herald by someone who was very sceptical about the legislation there and was determined that he would dislike it. He stated that there was just one problem: it works. Its impact has been magnificent. It has been truly wonderful reclaiming the city from smokers, who almost never act considerately. The fact is that the ban works in New York, and it will elsewhere.

Rodney Hide: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I do not know what we have to do to draw your attention to this matter, but what on earth has what happens in New York, and what someone thinks about New York and this legislation, got to do with Part 3? If you are going to allow Sue Kedgley to debate in such a wide-ranging way, then that is all right for a third reading speech but not for the Committee stage on Part 3—

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Thank you, Mr Hide.

Rodney Hide: I have not finished. You have consistently pulled us up, waved your arms around, and disrupted us. You are sitting there and smiling like a cherub because Sue Kedgley is speaking.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): I take exception to that. The member will now stand, withdraw, and apologise.

Rodney Hide: I withdraw and apologise.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): I remind the member speaking that this is a wide debate, but relevant to the part. I accept that she has strayed a little, as happened with the previous speaker, so would she come back to the party on Part 3.

SUE KEDGLEY: The reason I was drawing that example was—

Simon Power: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I apologise to the member, and it may be a matter of my lapse of concentration, but I was not sure whether you ruled on the Hon Peter Dunne’s point about a series of questions. I wonder whether the Hon Peter Dunne was right in his interpretation of Standing Orders, and I would not mind some guidance on it.

Hon Peter Dunne: In the words of Mr Prebble, I can assist members here. If members refer to Speakers’ ruling 39/6—one made by the eminent Mr Barnard in 1936, the other by Sir Matthew Oram in 1952: “A member may not direct a continuous series of questions during a speech to members on the opposite side of the House.” That was precisely the point I was drawing attention to. Mr Power is quite correct; you did not rule on that. I now invite you to draw to the attention of the member speaking, and to every other member, the ruling of those two eminent Speakers that a member may not direct a continuous series of questions during a speech to members on the opposite side of the House.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): I say to the member that any questions should be directed through the Chair.

SUE KEDGLEY: As I was saying, I made that point because other speeches had said that New Zealand would be a laughing stock. I said that far from being a laughing stock, we have been encouraged to follow other nations that have been held up as wonderful examples to us. The arguments of many of those opponents of the bill would stand up, were it not for the fact—

Rodney Hide: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson—

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): The member is trifling with the Chair.

Rodney Hide: I am not trifling with the Chair. I say to you that if we tried that, we would not get away with it. What has this got to do with Part 3?

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): The member is replying to some of the criticisms made under Speaker’s ruling 38/1, and I am allowing her a certain amount of time to do that. But she must bring her speech to this part of the bill.

Dail Jones: Point of order—

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): I am making a ruling, Mr Jones. The member must bring her speech to the point. It is a wide debate, but it must be relevant to this part. The member has had enough time to respond to other arguments, so would she please now come to the point.

Rodney Hide: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. While you were ruling, the member to my left, Ms Sue Kedgley, called out in an unparliamentary way on your ruling and said it was pathetic. I think I had to withdraw—

Sue Kedgley: I said you were pathetic, not the Chair.

Rodney Hide: Well, she is now saying that I am pathetic. How many times do we have to explain to this member that when the chairperson is speaking, we should not have someone calling out “You’re pathetic!”? I have to say that she was not looking at me; she was looking at you, sir. I think she should withdraw and apologise. I was asked to withdraw and apologise just for saying that you were a small cherub.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Thank you. If the member made such remarks to the Chair, then she should stand, withdraw, and apologise.

SUE KEDGLEY: Well, I did not, so I will not.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): I call the honourable member Sue Kedgley.

SUE KEDGLEY: I wonder what the next interjection will be—

Rodney Hide: She will get one right now! I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. You well know that after being pulled up on a point of order, a member taking the call is not allowed to refer to it, at all. I would like you to rule accordingly.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): The member had only just started, and had been speaking for only about 2 seconds. I am listening very carefully to what she has to say.

Ron Mark: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I am seeking just a bit of clarification on the consistency of rulings from the Chair. Can I draw your attention to an incident that happened in the House yesterday when an honourable colleague of mine, Mr Edwin Perry, who does such a tremendous job in the Wairarapa, was thrown out of the House for interjecting whilst a point of order was being taken and simply saying “Hear! Hear!”. Now we have a member who has admitted—and you yourself have noted—an interjection whilst a point of order was being taken, not once, not twice, but three times. Yet you now consider it acceptable that she should remain in the Chamber. I would hate the Committee and all listeners to gain the impression that the Chair is somewhat biased against New Zealand First, so possibly, in order to prevent such a perception taking hold, we could have consistency in rulings, and that member could be invited to leave the Chamber.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Yesterday that ruling was taken with regard to Speaker’s ruling 123/7, which is to do with there being no interjections while questions are taking place. Ms Kedgley had only just risen to her feet, and had been speaking for only a matter of seconds, when there was another point of order. I am prepared to give her the benefit of the doubt. I take her word as an honourable member.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. In respect of what you just said, the exiting of my colleague Edwin Perry yesterday was not to do with question time. It was to do with a point of order I was taking, when seeking that the Minister answer the question. I have never seen such an outrage in my life in Parliament, and I have never seen such a unique circumstance in my time in Parliament. My colleague Mr Mark is pointing out the terrible inconsistency where much worse is being done than just the utterance of the words “Hear! Hear!”. That is hardly an interjection; it is actually an expression of support.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): I thank the member. I cannot relitigate what was done yesterday, and I recognise the situation we are in. I would now like to call the honourable member Sue Kedgley to finish her speech.

SUE KEDGLEY: Referring once again, as I have previously, to points that have been made in debate, one of the issues I want to speak about is ventilation systems. The Green Party was very attracted by the issue of ventilation systems—

Rodney Hide: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I have never seen in my time in Parliament—which is short compared with that of Mr Peters, but he may care to back me up—a person on his or her feet so repeatedly defying the Chair. You have said time and time again that it is Part 3, but now we are hearing about ventilation systems, for goodness’ sake! This is not a third reading speech; it is Part 3—[Interruption] Now she is interrupting me while I am on my feet giving a point of order. I resent the fact that on the four times I have got up to take a point of order, you have done nothing. If it were a New Zealand First, an ACT, or a National MP, he or she would not get one chance, but as it is a Green MP it is all OK because the Greens are supporting the Government on this bill. I think it is a disgrace—

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): I thank the member, but I am on my feet. I ask the honourable member to withdraw and apologise.

SUE KEDGLEY: I was asking my colleague whether ventilation systems were included in Part 3. If you wish me to withdraw and apologise for that, I will.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): This part is not about ventilation; it is about signage.

Hon Peter Dunne: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I am about to support Sue Kedgley, which will be rare and unique. She was responding—[Interruption]

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Can I ask for order during a point of order.

Rodney Hide: No, because you don’t throw her out when she interjects.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): I tell Mr Hide that he now has his first yellow card under Speaker’s ruling—[Interruption] Leave the Chamber!

Rodney Hide: Good. It just shows the difference.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Just go!

Rodney Hide withdrew from the Chamber.

Hon Peter Dunne: The point the member raised was in response to comments I made regarding my amendment to insert new clause 11A in Part 3 of the bill. New clause 11A inserts a new section 39A in the principal Act: “Minimum air quality standard”. Much as it pains me to have to do it, I am forced to agree with Sue Kedgley that she was commenting on matters contained in that part. While I would profoundly disagree with what she is about to say, she does have a right to say it. I think that when you reflect upon the content of the bill and the amendments to this part, you will come to the same conclusion and allow her to continue, for whatever time remains, addressing this particular point.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Thank you very much, Mr Dunne. I appreciate your consideration and wise counsel.

SUE KEDGLEY: I was referring precisely to the comments Peter Dunne had made about ventilation systems. I was referring to the fact that the Green Party had been very attracted by the idea of having air quality standards, and that we had several caucus discussions about whether that could work, but the truth is, it could not.

Dr the Hon LOCKWOOD SMITH (National—Rodney): In speaking to Part 3 of this Smoke-free Environments Amendment Bill, I want to focus particularly on clause 8A. We have already heard from my colleague Maurice Williamson about some of the stupidity in this bill. I have not been involved in this bill right the way through the process, but as I look at what is contained in it I find I do not recollect, in my 20 years in this place, such stupidity going into legislation, right down to the size of signs and the number of packages that are allowed to be on shelves. But, given that stupidity, I ask the member responsible for this bill, Steve Chadwick, and the Minister a few things in this Committee about what is going on here.

I am interested that the Government did something very relevant to this legislation back on 16 June 2003, when it signed the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. Not many New Zealanders know about that, but on 16 June the Government signed that convention. If we look at clause 8A and new section 23A(2), we see it provides: “The sign must have at least the lesser of the following areas: (a) 1 square metre: (b) 10% of the area of the display in which the tobacco products are exposed for sale.” The Government has just signed the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, so the first question I have for the member responsible for this bill is this: is that measure in this bill consistent with that convention? That is my first question to the member responsible for this bill—and, let us face it, this bill is just a facade for a Government measure; we all know Helen Clark is behind it. Is that measure in this bill consistent with the convention that the Government signed on 16 June? I suspect it is not, because if one looks at something that the Minister, who is sitting opposite us in the Chamber, said on 7 October, then one sees that in fact the convention requires health warning messages to cover no less than 30 percent of the principal display. Why on earth is the Government bringing in legislation that is totally inconsistent with the damned Framework Convention on Tobacco Control? That is my first question.

But I have a more important question: how much taxpayers’ money has this Government secretly spent on the whole issue of tobacco control, which this bill now brings to the surface in New Zealand? I have some questions for Government members in this Parliament, and they can answer them. How many meetings in Geneva have Government officials involved in issues relating to Part 3 of this bill been involved in? Would it have been just one, two, or three meetings in Geneva that were involved in sorting out these dopey rules on tobacco control? I charge that Minister over there to tell the Committee this: was it 31 meetings in Geneva that taxpayers’ money has been spent on—31 meetings in Geneva—to sort out the nonsense of all the detailed control on signs and the size of the warnings concerning tobacco?

But the situation gets worse. That is just the meetings in Geneva. It is not just the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, which I happen to know a little bit about, that has been involved in that nonsense. The Ministry of Health has been involved in it, too. Do members know how many times that ministry’s officials have been right across the world to Geneva, to play around with the nonsense in Part 3? The member in the chair, Steve Chadwick, who is responsible for this bill, is smiling. The taxpayers may care a little more about this than she does, because Ministry of Health officials have flown across the world 11 times since this Government has been in office, just to play around with the nonsense in Part 3 of the bill as part of signing the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control—11 times to Geneva, but only once to New Delhi.

I have all the background stuff on that here in the Chamber. The Government has been secretive about that; no one knows about it. The officials have been to sunny Noumea, though. As they worked on this stuff they have been to sunny Noumea, but only once to New Delhi, and they have been to Geneva 11 times for 31 meetings. The time involved is a whole month of our officials’ time—and I can see the Minister looking very embarrassed about that, because it is a scandal. I have more to expose about that.

Hon DAMIEN O'CONNOR (Associate Minister of Health): I move, That the question be now put.

PETER BROWN (Deputy Leader—NZ First): Mr Chairman—[Interruption] Am I meant to speak through this?

Rod Donald: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I would just like to acknowledge the group in the gallery that has been performing Kia Mau Mana Whenua in Parliament tonight. It is beholden on us to display behaviour in this Chamber that holds this Parliament in high standing, and not to demean ourselves. I invite members to consider that we have a group that is here with a message about changing people’s lives, and I invite all members to reflect on that.

PETER BROWN: I want to talk principally about Part 2A, which I gather is to be inserted into the Smoke-free Environments Act by clause 12 of this bill—in other words, the powers of the enforcement officers. We must bear in mind that we are talking largely about places of leisure, where people go for a beer and a smoke with whomever they choose to go with. Under this bill, an enforcement officer can go in there with a still or video camera, or a device for taking samples of air, or both. Enforcement officers can inspect those places, take photographs at whim, and, if I am correct—and maybe the member can address this—do not have to produce identification under new section 41A, inserted by clause 12. Under new section 41B, people have to produce identification to enforcement officers, but under new section 41A enforcement officers can go into bars, places of leisure, or Returned Services Association premises and take photographs, samples of the air, or whatever photographs or videos they like to take—all without saying who they are, or what they are doing. There is no restriction in this bill, as far as I can see or understand—and maybe the member will explain this—on passing on photographs that show Mary and Joe or whoever else were together, whenever that was, to the police or to anybody else who may be interested in those people’s whereabouts.

I draw that member’s attention to what occurred when Government members were in Opposition, and they went berserk when Maurice Williamson wanted to bring in a transponder car system, whereby people could be picked up in their cars at any time of day and charged levies. The Labour members, then in Opposition, went berserk over the privacy implications of that, and would not have one single bar of it. I am not advocating that we have such a system; I am just pointing out the hypocrisy that is behind this bill. I hope the member will take a call and explain new section 41A, which allows enforcement officers to walk into bars, restaurants, or anywhere they suspect people are smoking—and it does not even state they have to suspect that, as far as I can see—with video or still cameras, and to take whatever photographs they are inclined to take. I do not think many New Zealanders know that. I do not think many New Zealanders are aware that that is in this bill, and I do not think many of them would agree with that.

The member Steve Chadwick is sitting there in the chair and looking as though she has all the answers. I look forward to her taking a call and telling me whether I am correct. Can all that occur, as I have suggested, without an enforcement officer giving any identification? Enforcement officers have to be given identifying information under a duty specified in section 41B, but do not have to give identification under section 41A, which states that not only can an enforcement officer take cameras into places but he or she can “take photographs or videos with any camera he or she brings with him or her”. I ask the member to explain that to us, as she understands it. I know that she does not have the officials with her, so she will have to go by what she recalls.

I hope she does a better job of explaining that than she did when she was asked this afternoon whether she was aware of the scientific evidence that related to changing the quality of air. I will comment briefly on that issue. In shipping, we can change the air in a compartment space very rapidly. We could put a fork hoist that fumed like nobody’s business in the hold of a ship, measure the air quality, and change it. This bill does not even take into account—

Ron Mark: What about sucking all the air out of the Labour caucus room?

PETER BROWN: I have to say that sometimes ours gets a little bit hot, too. On a serious note—

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

Hon DAVID CARTER (National): I start by asking the member in the chair, Steve Chadwick, to clarify the important point that has just been raised by Peter Brown, who said that enforcement officers do not have to identify themselves. I want the member to then read section 41E in clause 12, “Offences in respect of enforcement officers”, which states that: “Every person commits an offence, and is liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding $1,000, who—(a) intentionally obstructs, hinders, or resists an enforcement officer”. If patrons are in a pub having a beer—and I know that a killjoy like the member does not really imagine that sort of circumstance occurring, but it does happen in pubs up and down the country, as people enjoy a bit of friendship with their mates after a day’s work—and enforcement officers are spying in the bar, doing their job by detecting who is lighting up a smoke, someone who happens to step in front of that officer is not to know that the person is an enforcement officer. Yet the person who does that is up for a $1,000 fine.

Simon Power: They will have a clipboard.

Hon DAVID CARTER: The enforcement officers will have a clipboard. We know they will have a camera; we know they are allowed to have a camera.

Enforcement officers are allowed to go in to pubs and spy on who is there and who should not be there, because that is the sort of law that the member sponsors—

Hon Maurice Williamson: Fear not, the enforcement officer will never be seen again!

Hon DAVID CARTER: I guarantee that the enforcement officer who goes into the “Chelty” will not be welcome. We have heard about the “Chelty”, that well-known pub in the Manawatu, in relation to which we tried to move an exemption today. I understand that while I was away from the Committee this afternoon that exemption was ruled out of order.

John Carter: David Benson-Pope stopped it.

Hon DAVID CARTER: David Benson-Pope stopped it. I will let everybody know that that member had something to do with the 100 amendments that I tabled being ruled out of order. Those people wanted to have their say.

David Benson-Pope: They were out of order.

Hon DAVID CARTER: The member says that those amendments were out of order. This Committee could have accepted them by leave, but David Benson-Pope did not want people to have that occasion.

I want the member Steve Chadwick to answer the question we have raised. Do enforcement officers have to reveal that they are enforcement officers—yes or no? It is a simple question for Steve Chadwick to answer. She is meant to be sponsoring this bill on behalf of the Rt Hon Helen Clark, so let us find out whether enforcement officers have to identify themselves. Otherwise, how can it be fair that somebody who steps in front of those people, and hinders them from doing their so-called enforcement work, is liable for a $1,000 fine? Why will the member not take a call and clarify that?

Hon Maurice Williamson: She won’t.

Hon DAVID CARTER: She may do so. She cannot be so ashamed about doing Helen Clark’s work that she will not take a call.

Hon Maurice Williamson: She is.

Hon DAVID CARTER: She probably is.

When the member takes a call, I want her to clarify for the Committee the issue around fines. I understand that amendments are now being accepted whereby a person who lights up a cigarette anyway in a pub is let off completely scot-free, and the operator or licensee is liable to a fine of $4,000. That cannot be right, can it? I think that is probably what is happening here. Is that happening? I say to Steve Chadwick that members on the Opposition side of the Chamber seem to think that that is the state of affairs. So I think she should rise before the closure motion is taken, and make sure that she answers those valuable questions. We are to vote on this legislation, and we want to know whether we should be voting for it. I doubt whether we will do so.

I certainly want to know about the issue of enforcement officers, because I think it is fundamentally wrong for those sorts of people to go into places armed with a camera, so they can—[Interruption] I am not sure whether they will carry a clipboard. Those people will not be highly intelligent; they will not be able to handle a camera and a clipboard. But I want to know whether, after those people have spied away and taken photographs, there will then be any liability at all on the person who lit up a cigarette. I say to Steve Chadwick that I think it is grossly unfair if she is promoting legislation—

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

RON MARK (NZ First): I think that this is only the second speech I have made in the entire passage of this bill. I have a couple of points. In respect of clean air, I know that we have allowed the debate to go a little bit wider than it should have on Part 3. Peter Brown made a comment earlier on. I would like to put on record that people who have advocated that one cannot change the air in a room to a sufficient standard should bear in mind that for decades now we have had armoured vehicles in use in Europe that are nuclear, biological, and chemical - capable. To protect the crew, those vehicles have ventilation systems that are able to filter out all nuclear fallout and the radiation that may be contained in dust. If we can do that with armoured vehicles in combat situations, and if we can build tented hospitals and produce sufficient clean air for people to have major surgery, then I am sure that we can clear the air in bars. [Interruption] That is right. All we have to do is to clear the tobacco out of the air.

I appreciate Mr Donald pointing out the group of young folk visiting the Chamber today, because I want them all to understand that Part 3 is probably targeted at those of them who smoke. The member of Parliament in the chair, Steve Chadwick, is a person who does not believe that young people have the right to go and smoke in a bar with their friends. People like Steve Chadwick have passed other bills that enable young people to drink at the age of 18, but those young people are not to dare to have a cigarette while they are in a bar, because the person described in Part 3 as an enforcement officer may be the person standing beside them.

Those people do not come in uniforms. I would have liked Part 3 to provide for a uniform for these officers—an armband with crossed cigarettes in the form of a Nazi swastika, or something like that, because that is the type of person they will be. I say to these young people that those officers will be spying on their every little move, because it would appear, according to the Labour Government—which wants to dictate everything they do in their lives—that young people do not have the brains and the smarts to make up their own minds as to whether they will smoke, where they will smoke, and when they will smoke. These enforcement officers will be in disguise, working undercover in bars, in nightclubs, checking on all these young people—

Hon Maurice Williamson: In shorts and bobby socks.

RON MARK: Yes, we are bit worried about the type of people who will be employed. Perhaps this is an employment opportunity for any young person who wants to be an enforcement officer. Young people may want to go and see Steve Chadwick in Rotorua and ask for a job, and then they can spy on their mates. They may even pick up a bounty for doing so. How wonderful!

It would seem that the Labour Government is more interested that young ladies should not smoke in bars but be put out on to the footpath and made to look like hookers. This is the Government that legalised prostitution. This legislation is going to push young women smokers—who are not prostitutes—out on the streets at night, while all their mates are in the bar having a drink, enjoying the band, and having a great time. All I am saying is that enough people have expressed their concern that a certain group of New Zealanders are being treated so differently and not being allowed to stay in a bar with their friends and smoke.

This Labour Government does not seem to understand that everybody here is perfectly capable of making a decision for himself or herself. If people go out at night to a bar with their friends to have a quiet drink, and if they choose to be with a person who smokes, they do not want an enforcement officer to be hanging off their shoulder, checking, monitoring, and watching what they are doing. These enforcement officers will be taking samples of air in a place, using any device for that purpose that they bring with them. What device? Are they going to take a big lungful of air, rush outside, blow it into a bag and run away secretly and test or sample it? Are they going to come in with a big vacuum cleaner and hoover up the air, then rush away with a little sealed bag? The bill does not mention whether that device is a scientifically proven, credible device. What sort of legislation is that?

DARREN HUGHES (Labour—Otaki): I move, That the question be now put.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): The question is that the question be now put. As many as are of that opinion will say “Aye”, of the contrary opinion will say “No”. The Ayes have it. A party vote is called for?

Hon PETER DUNNE (Leader—United Future): I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. When this debate commenced, I sought the assurance of the Chair, who was not yourself, that the ruling given by the Speaker on 17 September 2003 that there must be a full and very wide-ranging debate—and I am quoting from his ruling—would be upheld. In seeking that assurance, I noted that some 40 calls had been allowed on Part 2 of the bill before the closure motion was accepted. By my recollection, the debate on this part began at approximately 20 past 8, which means that, at the most, some 16 or 17 calls—not 40 calls—have been accepted. It seems to me that under any reasonable assessment of the Speaker’s ruling that there must be a very full and wide-ranging debate, just 16 or 17 calls—as opposed to 40 on the previous part—does not meet that description. I accept that this part is more specific, but it is not so specific as to warrant the closure being taken so early, so I think that the only course of action is that I move, That the Speaker be recalled.

Motion agreed to, and House resumed.

Speaker Recalled

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Mr Speaker, you have been recalled because there has been a request by the Hon Peter Dunne, who is concerned that there were not enough speakers on Part 3. The member did refer me to the previous rulings you gave some time ago. As the Chair, I listened to the debates. I had some trouble in getting relevancy on some parts of this legislation, and having listened to the debate and accepted 19 speakers, I felt it was time that the closure motion be accepted.

Hon PETER DUNNE (Leader—United Future): I referred at the commencement of the whole proceedings this evening to your comments on 17 September, which were reiterated the last time we debated this measure, that because of its significance—and I am quoting you from 17 September—there must be a very full and wide-ranging debate. You will be aware that on Part 2 the Chairman allowed some 40 speakers to be heard. When the Committee moved into Part 3, I took a point of order to seek his assurance that the ruling you gave about a very full and wide-ranging debate would be upheld. He gave that assurance. I accept that the Chairperson was a different one from the one presently in the chair. My point of order leading to your recall was that the Chairman—in accepting 19 calls on a part that is more limited but still has some very important measures in it, compared with the 40 calls that were accepted on the earlier part—did not seem to me to be upholding your requirement of a very full and wide-ranging debate. Hence my request for you to come back and rule, given your original ruling.

Dail Jones: Point of order, Mr Speaker—

Mr SPEAKER: I need no further assistance. The member will please be seated while I am standing, or he will leave. I am not having any nonsense on this. I refer members to Speaker’s ruling 54/2, which is quite specific. It goes back to 1931, to Speaker Statham, and states: “The [chairperson] is the sole judge as to whether or not he ought to sanction the putting of the closure motion, and it must be left entirely in his”—or her—“hands. The [chairperson], who has been presiding and has listened to the debate in committee, must be the best judge whether the closure ought to be put. I can only express the hope that it will not be applied too harshly.” I listened to the member, and I heard the debate over the radio. I heard him say that Part 3 was not as wide as Part 2, and I note that point. I uphold the rule of the Chairperson, and that is where the matter ends.

DAIL JONES (Junior Whip—NZ First): I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. When the Chairman addressed you a moment ago, he raised the question of relevancy. He said that a speaker had been not relevant. I have been here for the entire time during the debate on Part 3, and the only speaker who was not relevant was the speaker supporting the Government, Ms Kedgley. The Chairman had to constantly call her in, and we had about 20 minutes of points of order because Ms Kedgley was not being relevant. Are those members who are opposed to the bill to be punished by the very fact that a Government-supporting member was the one who was not relevant, whereas all the speeches on the Opposition side of the House have been extremely relevant? Mr Lockwood Smith brought in a new concept, as did Mr Williamson, Mr Brown, and Mr Mark. I believe that you have been misled by the Chairperson, which is wrong.

Mr SPEAKER: I thank the member for his contribution, but Mr Robertson gave his reasons for accepting the closure, and under the Standing Orders and Speakers’ rulings, I cannot review those. That is the end of the matter. Of course, this carries on now that the member has accepted the closure. The closure will be put before the House adjourns this evening.

HEATHER ROY (ACT): I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I am the ACT health spokesperson and I sat on the Health Committee hearing this bill. I have been here for over an hour now, trying to get the call on Part 3. In fact, I was here for the end of Part 2 as well and sought the call then. I have not had one single call tonight on this bill, and I think that as ACT’s health spokesperson I should have been given the opportunity to take a call this evening.

Mr SPEAKER: I want to repeat what I said. The Speaker cannot review the reasons for accepting the closure, and that is where the matter ends. I declare the House now—

PETER BROWN (Senior Whip—NZ First): I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Can the Chairman reassess his decision? My colleague here, an ex – school principal, has been seeking a call for a long time, to talk about the effect of enforcement officers in schools.

Mr SPEAKER: I thank the member for that, and that is an interesting point. By leave the Committee could do that, but that is a matter for the Committee, not for me. Mr Robertson gave his reasons for accepting the closure, and I cannot review them.

Hon PETER DUNNE (Leader—United Future): I withdraw my point of order because it was to be the same point that Mr Brown raised. But if I heard you correctly, members of the Committee could seek leave for the Chairman to accept additional speakers?

Mr SPEAKER: That is absolutely correct, but once the presiding officer has accepted the closure we proceed from there and we finish the debate this evening. There is no interruption to that. I declare the House in Committee on this bill.

Hon DAVID CARTER (National): I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. If I do not raise it, I think we will have to call you back again. You said that when we go back into Committee, a member who feels he has not had the chance to debate the issue fully can seek leave.

Mr SPEAKER: If it is granted, then it carries on.

Hon DAVID CARTER: But you subsequently said, as you went to leave the Chair, that we had to proceed with the vote before the option of seeking leave occurred, as I understood it. So we need clarification.

Mr SPEAKER: I thank the member. Perhaps I was not clear enough when I said it. Leave can be sought, but if leave is denied, then the original motion stands. I declare the House in Committee again.

In Committee

Debate Resumed.

Part 3 Other amendments (continued)

Hon DAVID CARTER (National): I seek leave for, certainly, myself to take one more call. I have taken a huge interest in this debate from the outset. I was out of Wellington until I returned around 6 o’clock this evening, then I sat on a select committee until 9 o’clock. The moment that select committee concluded I rushed to the Chamber to take calls on this particular part. I have had but one call and on that occasion I addressed the issue around enforcement. I have a number of letters before me from people who have written to me expressing concern around packaging, particularly with regard to cigar displays. I would like the opportunity of leave from the Committee to speak to that, because I think it is an important part of this debate. Certainly, whilst I have been here during the Committee stage this evening nobody has had the opportunity to address the important topic of point of sale.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Leave has been sought. Is there any objection to that course of action being taken? There is objection.

PETER BROWN (Senior Whip—NZ First): I seek leave for my colleague Jim Peters to make a contribution. Mr Peters is an ex-headmaster. Up until I spoke, which was only a few moments ago, nobody had touched on enforcement officers. Nobody had raised the words even once in the course of this whole debate. My colleague has been seeking the call to talk about the effect of enforcement officers with cameras and videos going into schools. I believe that is a very important point.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Thank you, Mr Brown. Is there any objection to that course of action being taken? There is.

HEATHER ROY (ACT): I seek the leave of the Committee to have one speech on Part 3. I am the ACT health spokesperson. I was on the select committee that heard the submissions and undertook the clause by clause analysis of this bill. I have not had the opportunity to speak on this bill at all this evening. Despite seeking the call at the end of the debate on Part 2, I was not called to speak, and, despite seeking the call for almost an hour and a half, I have not had the opportunity to speak on Part 3 either. I think it is imperative that the health spokesperson for each party has the opportunity to speak. I seek the leave of the Committee to do that.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Is there any objection to that course of action being taken? There is.

JOHN CARTER (Senior Whip—National): I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. We now have ourselves in quite a serious difficulty. Normally the Committee would shut down at 5 to 10; the Committee would close, the Speaker would be called back, and you would report progress. However, there is a Standing Order that states that when the Committee has commenced voting, it must conclude the voting before it rises and before you can report progress. What has happened in this case, however, is that you have accepted the closure motion, but we have not started voting. I say to you that therefore we are not in the voting procedure. We do have a question before the Committee, but voting has not yet started. It has not been voted on. The voting procedure has not started. None of the amendments or the parts have been voted on. We are merely in a part that asks whether the closure should take place. You have not yet decided that we should now vote on Part 3, because the Committee has not even made a decision as to whether it accepts the closure. Therefore, we have actually gone past the appropriate time for you to lift the House. It seems to me that, procedurally, you should now tell the Committee that the House is now adjourned, and you should report progress to the Speaker.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): It is my recollection that I called that the question be now put, I said: “All those in favour say ‘Aye’.”, and the Government side said “Aye”, then I said: “All those against say ‘No’.”, and those on the other side said “No”. Just as that was done, Mr Peter Dunne took a point of order. So I actually did put the question.

DAVID BENSON-POPE (Senior Whip—Labour): I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. There are two points that I would like to raise. First of all, my recollection of the events is exactly as you have just recalled. But I would also like to add the fact that the Speaker, in ruling on this matter on his recall, made it quite clear how this process was to proceed. In my view, the previous speakers have been trifling with the Chair. We have had five requests for leave declined. I move, That the Speaker be further recalled to clarify this matter.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): The closure was actually accepted, which means I do have to carry on and take the vote.

Hon PETER DUNNE (Leader—United Future): I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I think I can be of assistance.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Well, I hope so.

Hon PETER DUNNE: Your account of events is not correct. You certainly attempted to put the vote. There was a lot of interruption. I was calling for a point of order from the moment Mr Hughes moved the closure motion. I called for a point of order several times. You were not looking in my direction, because of the general uproar. You then noticed me, right at the end of the process but before you had declared the vote, and you called me for the point of order that led to the Speaker being recalled. So the two points I make are that, firstly, I had been seeking a point of order before you even put the motion, and, secondly, you acknowledged that and called me before you had declared the result. Therefore, the process had not commenced.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Thank you, Mr Dunne. I again say that it is my recollection that I asked, and Government members said “Yes” and members on this side said “No”, and in-between that I heard your point of order. Because there was such an uproar, it was difficult for me to hear, as well. I have a different recollection of the situation. The chief Government whip has asked that the Speaker be recalled. The question now is that the Speaker be recalled. Is there any objection to that course of action being taken? There appears to be none.

Motion agreed to, and House resumed.

Speaker Recalled

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Mr Speaker, there seems to be some concern over the acceptance of the closure motion. It is my recollection that I put the question that the question be now put, I turned to the Government side and members said “Yes”, and I turned to the Opposition and members said “No”. There was quite an uproar while this was going on and it was difficult to hear. I did eventually hear the Hon Peter Dunne take a point of order. I then took the point of order straight away. There the matter rests, but there is some disagreement on how that happened.

Mr SPEAKER: I will hear one comment.

Hon PETER DUNNE (Leader—United Future): My clear recollection is that Mr Hughes moved that the closure take place. There was uproar because a number of members, particularly on this side of the Committee—I think I counted about 12 or 14 members—were seeking the call. I immediately saw what was likely to happen, and sought to call very loudly for a point of order. I did so several times. The Chairman commenced, but did not complete, the vote before he heard me, then called me to speak. That led to your recall where you ruled that had the motion been put and carried we would have to proceed with the vote. My point is that the vote had not been completed, no result had been declared, and there had been no request for a party vote or anything of that order. Therefore, the vote was not completed. Therefore, when the Committee got to five to 10 this evening, and certainly now at two minutes past 10, the business is not complete and it is appropriate for the House to be lifted.

Mr SPEAKER: I refer the honourable member to Standing Order 51, which deals with this matter absolutely precisely. The chairperson did accept the closure motion and commenced to put the question. It does not matter how far he got; under Standing Order 51 the time to report progress is deferred until the closure is determined and any consequential questions are determined.

In Committee

Debate resumed.

Part 3 Other amendments (continued)

Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Port Waikato): I would like to seek leave to have the opportunity to speak in this debate. I say that humbly and sincerely as National’s science and associate health spokesperson. During the moments of confusion that, Mr Chairman, you have described, I observed that the members in front of me, in their enthusiasm to talk on this very important debate, actually made it difficult for you to see that I was seeking a call. I had not done so during this part of the debate. I have had very strong views in favour of this very important bill. I believe that there has been considerable excess of emotion in respect of the views on this bill. Perhaps partly because of that, individuals such as myself who hold a strong view about this bill have been prevented from having the opportunity to speak. The Hon Peter Dunne pointed out that Part 2 had 40 speakers, but this part has had only 19 speakers.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): I say to the member that under Standing Order 84(3) points of order are to be terse and to the point.

Dr PAUL HUTCHISON: I would greatly appreciate the opportunity to speak, and I seek leave to do so.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Is there any objection to that course of action being taken? There is.

BRENT CATCHPOLE (NZ First): I would just like to point out that over the last two sitting days I have been present during the debate on this bill and have received only one call. I therefore seek leave to have a further call on this bill.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Is there any objection to that course of action being taken? There is.

Dr the Hon LOCKWOOD SMITH (National—Rodney): In this entire debate I have had the privilege of just one call. I went to the trouble, though, of obtaining a lot of material under the Official Information Act about what the Government had been up to. I indicated to the Committee after that call that I had information that would be quite revealing to the public about what had been going on, and was, in fact, verging on the scandalous. The perception evolves that Government members sought to close down the debate so that I could not do that. That is a very unfortunate flavour to be left. I have official documentation here that I think the Committee deserves to hear about, and I seek leave to have a further call.

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Leader of the House): I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I have been out of the Chamber but listening to a succession of points of orders that are out of order. When one seeks leave, one seeks leave. One does not give a speech either before or after the seeking of leave. The seeking of leave is done precisely—that is, “I seek leave to take a speech.” One’s history, marital relationships, and various other things are irrelevant to the matter of seeking leave. A very formal procedure is adopted in this House that has been used for many generations.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Thank you very much. I just say to members that members may seek leave, but leave has been denied on a number of occasions already this evening. I remind members that constantly raising points of order can itself be seen as being disorderly. When a matter has been the subject of a decision of the Committee, that situation stands. Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith has sought leave. Is there any objection to that course of action? There is.

Hon PETER DUNNE (Leader—United Future): I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I am not seeking leave to—

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): It had better be something different, because I have already ruled.

Hon PETER DUNNE: Yes, it is a completely fresh point of order, Mr Chairperson. I submit that the entire procedure from the time of the acceptance by you of the closure motion is out of order. I cite as my authority Speaker’s ruling 53/6 from 1931, and I want to quote it to you, with particular reference to Mr Hughes: “The closure must be moved by a member rising in the member’s place pursuant to the Standing Orders.” Mr Hughes was not sitting in his place at the time that he moved the closure motion. He was therefore completely contrary to that Speaker’s ruling. It should not have been accepted. The procedure from that point on is entirely out of order, and the Committee should have lifted.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Thank you. There has already been a ruling on this. A number of rulings outline that a member may sit in any block of seats that are held by that particular party. I now intend to put the vote.

PETER BROWN (Senior Whip—NZ First): I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. This book—

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): I have already ruled on the issue.

PETER BROWN: This is a new point of order.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Continuing points of order—

PETER BROWN: It is a new point of order. Throughout this evening you or other members have referred to this book and Standing Orders, to the letter. Now, when the Hon Peter Dunne has pointed out a clause, are we seeing some sort of flexibility? I am asking you to rule to the letter, and if not, I am asking for the Speaker to come back.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): I will do that, Mr Brown. I would like to refer the member to Speaker’s ruling 7/1: “Within the areas allocated to each party group or caucus in the Chamber, the allocation of particular seats to individual members, by practice of the House, is left to the party leaders and whips and the Speaker does not intervene.” That means that members may sit in any seats that are allocated to that particular party. I refer members now to Speaker’s ruling 17/3. Members are free to raise points of order, but where things start to get out of order, and members are asked to desist, it can lead to disorder, and members can be asked to leave the Chamber. We have had a number of points of order on this issue already.

PETER BROWN (Senior Whip—NZ First): I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I respectfully say that Speaker’s ruling 7/1 does not relieve Speaker’s ruling 53/6 of the responsibilities. It simply states that a member can sit anywhere, but Speaker’s ruling 53/6 states that when a member wants to move the closure motion, that member has to be in his or her correct seat.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): I refer Mr Brown to Speaker’s ruling 17/3. The member is persistently challenging the Chair, which makes it a highly disorderly situation. He should also refer to Standing Order 85(1). He has his first yellow card.

RICHARD WORTH (National—Epsom): I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. This is a fresh point of order that is utterly unrelated to what has gone before, and it arises out of the Speaker’s ruling, with particular reference to Standing Order 51. It is a complex point, and I will pause while you look for the Standing Order.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Thank you, Mr Worth. I refer members to Standing Order 139 and also Speaker’s ruling 54/2. Standing Order 139 states: “If the Speaker accepts a closure motion, a question is put on the closure and decided without amendment or debate.” The question now is that the question be now put. As many as are of that opinion will say “Aye”, and to the contrary will say “No”. A party vote called for?

RICHARD WORTH (National—Epsom): I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I will ask that the Speaker be recalled, if you are not prepared to listen to my point of order. It is neither frivolous nor vexatious.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): In that case, I will listen to the member’s point of order.

RICHARD WORTH: It is founded on Standing Order 51, which the Speaker gave a ruling on. The point, as most tersely stated as I can put it, is that it is not possible to complete the Committee stage this evening. The reason is stated in Standing Order 51, which the Speaker drew our attention to: “Whenever, at the time for the Speaker or the chairperson to interrupt business, a question is being put to the House or a vote is in progress or the closure is carried,”—which is the relevant part—“the interruption of business is deferred until the question (in the case of the closure, the main question)”—which is the part I am emphasising—“is determined.” The only remaining business that the Committee can transact tonight is whether Part 3 shall stand part. The consequence of that—and I am seeking that the Speaker be recalled if you do not agree with this proposition, because I believe it to be correct, and I do not offer it in any but a sincere and determined manner—is that the Committee stage cannot be concluded tonight, with the consequence that the farthest point to which we can get is a vote on whether Part 3 stands part.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): The vote was in progress.

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Leader of the House): I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. The point the member was making was a different one. It is an interesting point, but it is drawing an extraordinarily long bow, and one that is likely to remove his own kneecap when he starts to think about it as it comes back again. Standing Order 51 states that once we have begun the process of voting, whether the closure motion or subsequently, we have to continue until the main vote is decided.

Hon David Carter: No.

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: Yes. The interruption of business is deferred until the question—in the case of the closure, the main question—is determined. The reason it says that is because all amendments have to be put before the main question is determined. After the closure vote is determined—if the Committee agrees on the vote for closure—then the amendments are put, then the main vote is put, and once the main vote is put the Committee is adjourned, the Chair of the Committee reports progress, and the Speaker declares the House adjourned until tomorrow. [Interruption] We cannot have two members standing at once. Mr Worth should sit down. I have the floor. So, Mr Chairperson, the facts of this case are very simple. If the member had been here slightly longer, he would know that this procedure has been followed many, many times, where a closure motion is put before a normal time for business to be interrupted—whether that be 6 o’clock, or 10 o’clock at night, or, indeed, 1 o’clock when the House is under urgency. Voting then proceeds; it proceeds through to the amendments before the Committee of the whole House at that point, then on to the main vote. At that point, business is interrupted as normally provided for in the Standing Orders.

RICHARD WORTH (National—Epsom): What Dr Cullen has not bothered to answer is the primary question that I put, which was to assert that the main question was whether Part 3 should stand part. He has not answered that. He has been glib in his response—and abusive.

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Leader of the House): The question that was put was that the question be now put. The main question that that referred to was that Part 3 stand part.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): I want to make a ruling on this matter. The vote on the closure was in progress. The Committee must continue and decide that vote. The vote was a closure. After it is determined, the remaining votes on Part 3 must be decided, and then the Committee reports. The question now is that Part 3 stand part. As many of that opinion will say “Aye”, the contrary “No”—

RON MARK (NZ First): I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. You know that I have been seeking a point of order, so deliberately to pretend you did not see me is totally unacceptable.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Would the member please get to his point of order.

RON MARK: I seek that you make this a personal vote, because given the time now—17 minutes past 10—and the propensity for certain members to leave the Chamber dead on the dot of 10 o’clock, I do not believe in any way, shape, or form that the Government whip would have any idea about how many votes he has got right now.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): This is not a conscience issue; it is not a personal vote. The question will be put.

Hon PETER DUNNE (Leader—United Future): I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. This whole matter began over the timing of a closure. I want to ask you to advise the Committee why, if we commenced the vote at about a quarter to 10, when this process got underway, and if the vote is already, therefore, ongoing in the sense that we have started it so we cannot stop until we finish it, you are now proceeding to put the vote again.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): There has been a lot of going backwards and forwards, and I did it to try to clear matters up. I want to reiterate for the member—

Hon PETER DUNNE: In now putting it again you are accepting that it was not put in the first place—which is the problem we have got into. Either we put it, and it has been disposed of, and we are about to commence voting on the amendments, or, at 20 past 10 or thereabouts, we have not put it, in which case the Committee rises.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): I tell the member that the vote had not been completed; it was in progress. I want to read this again. The ruling is that the vote on the closure was in progress. The Committee must continue and decide that vote. The vote was a closure. After it is determined, the remaining votes on Part 3 must be decided, and then the Committee reports.

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

Ayes 61

New Zealand Labour 52; Green Party 9.

Noes 56

New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 7;United Future 8; Independent: Awatere Huata.

Motion agreed to.

RON MARK (NZ First): I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I just confirm that the vote was 61 in favour and 56 opposed, which means a differential of only 3 votes would have had a large impact. Given the closeness of the vote it is my view that the absence of one or two members from the Chamber, because of the timing of and the confusion about the vote, would have had a very serious impact on the passage of the bill. Therefore, after looking at the Standing Orders pertaining to personal votes, I seek that you call a personal vote.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): The vote was 61 to 56. That is quite clear, and we have already had a number of votes like that this evening. I repeat that this is not a conscience issue; it is a party vote.

DAIL JONES (Junior Whip—NZ First): I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. You cannot rule that this is not a conscience issue, when it is a conscience issue. As far as the Opposition side of the Chamber is concerned, this is a conscience vote. How can you say it is not a conscience vote, when we regard it as being one? The Labour members have been drilled into having the vote as a Government vote, and that is a different matter. But you are taking part in the debate if you start to make that ruling, and I believe you are not supposed to do that. It is not up to you to decide whether a matter is a conscience vote; that is for the members of Parliament to decide on. We in New Zealand First regard this as a conscience vote. You are entering into the debate, which you should not be doing. You should be here on the benches if you want to do that type of thing.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): The member has made his point. There is a wide margin. The vote is 61 to 56. It has been that way, and we have had votes like that, before. There was no need for a personal vote, and I have ruled against it.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 119 in the name of Sue Kedgley to insert new clause 7C be agreed to.

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

Ayes 64

New Zealand Labour 52; New Zealand National 3; Green Party 9.

Noes 53

New Zealand National 24; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 7;United Future 8; Independent: Awatere Huata.

Amendment agreed to.

The question was put that the amendment to new section 23A(3) in clause 8A, set out on Supplementary Order Paper 120, and the amendment to insert new section 23A(1A) in clause 8A, set out on Supplementary Order Paper 134 in the name of Steve Chadwick, and the following amendment to new section 23A(1)(h) be agreed to:

to omit proposed new section 23A(1)(h) of the principal Act, and substitute the following paragraph:

(h) there is displayed at each point of sale where tobacco products are exposed for sale a rectangular sign, with its longer sides horizontal and its shorter sides vertical, and the message ‘SMOKING KILLS Ka mate koe i te kai hikareti’ printed in black across it—

(i) within a black rectangular border that is no wider than an upper case letter ‘i’ in the point size used for the words ‘SMOKING KILLS’; and

(ii) on a white background within that border; and

(iii) in the type face known as Helvetica; and

(iv) in roman font; and

(v) with the words ‘SMOKING KILLS’ printed centred, in upper case letters, in one line; and

(vi) with the words ‘Ka mate koe i te kai hikareti’ printed centred, in upper case and lower case letters (as it is printed in this subparagraph) in one line—

(A) beneath the words ‘SMOKING KILLS’; and

(B) in a point size such that its risers are two-thirds the height of the words ‘SMOKING KILLS’; and

(vii) in a type that is clear and legible, of normal weight, and of such a point size that the words ‘Ka mate koe i te kai hikareti’ do not touch the vertical elements of the border, but as nearly as possible take up the full width of the sign between them.

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

Ayes 65

New Zealand Labour 52; New Zealand National 3; New Zealand First 1;Green Party 9.

Noes 52

New Zealand National 24; New Zealand First 12; ACT New Zealand 7;United Future 8; Independent: Awatere Huata.

Amendments agreed to.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): The next amendment, which is set out on Supplementary Order Paper 121 in the name of the Hon Damien O’Connor, is to clause 8, and it is out of order because Ms Chadwick’s amendments have been agreed to.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 121 in the name of the Hon Damien O'Connor to new section 23A(1) in clause 8A be agreed to.

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

Ayes 65

New Zealand Labour 52; New Zealand National 3; New Zealand First 1;Green Party 9.

Noes 52

New Zealand National 24; New Zealand First 12; United Future 8;ACT New Zealand 7; Independent: Awatere Huata.

Amendment agreed to.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): The amendment in the name of Pita Paraone to clause 8A is ruled out of order because Ms Chadwick’s amendments have been agreed to.

PETER BROWN (Senior Whip—NZ First): I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I did not hear why the amendment was ruled out of order.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): It is inconsistent with previous decisions, given that the honourable member Steve Chadwick’s amendments were agreed to.

PITA PARAONE (NZ First): I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I just want to seek some clarification, in terms of the sequence of when the Supplementary Order Papers were lodged and when they should come before the Committee for consideration.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Amendments in the name of the Minister or the member in charge of a bill always come first.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 106 in the name of Richard Worth to new section 23A in clause 8A be agreed to.

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

Ayes 52

New Zealand National 24; New Zealand First 12; ACT New Zealand 7;United Future 8; Independent: Awatere Huata.

Noes 65

New Zealand Labour 52; New Zealand National 3; New Zealand First 1;Green Party 9.

Amendment not agreed to.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 121 in the name of the Hon Damien O'Connor to omit new section 23A(4) in clause 8A be agreed to.

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

Ayes 65

New Zealand Labour 52; New Zealand National 3; New Zealand First 1;Green Party 9.

Noes 52

New Zealand National 24; New Zealand First 12; ACT New Zealand 7;United Future 8; Independent: Awatere Huata.

Amendment agreed to.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 121 in the name of the Hon Damien O'Connor to section 36 in clause 10 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 65

New Zealand Labour 52; New Zealand National 3; New Zealand First 1;Green Party 9.

Noes 52

New Zealand National 24; New Zealand First 12; ACT New Zealand 7;United Future 8; Independent: Awatere Huata.

Amendment agreed to.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 119 in the name of Sue Kedgley to insert new clause 10A be agreed to.

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

Ayes 64

New Zealand Labour 52; New Zealand National 3, Green Party 9.

Noes 53

New Zealand National 24; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 7;United Future 8; Independent: Awatere Huata .

New clause 10A agreed to.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 121 in the name of the Hon Damien O'Connor to clause 11(1A) be agreed to.

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

Ayes 65

New Zealand Labour 52; New Zealand National 3, New Zealand First 1,Green Party 9.

Noes 52

New Zealand National 24; New Zealand First 12; ACT New Zealand 7; United Future 8; Independent: Awatere Huata.

Amendment agreed to.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 121 in the name of the Hon Damien O'Connor to clause 11(2) be agreed to.

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

Ayes 65

New Zealand Labour 52; New Zealand National 3; New Zealand First 1;Green Party 9.

Noes 52

New Zealand National 24; New Zealand First 12; ACT New Zealand 7; United Future 8; Independent: Awatere Huata.

Amendment agreed to.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 117 in the name of the Hon Peter Dunne to insert new clause 11A be agreed to.

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

Ayes 53

New Zealand National 24; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 7;United Future 8; Independent: Awatere Huata.

Noes 64

New Zealand Labour 52; New Zealand National 3, Green Party 9.

New clause 11A not agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That Part 3 as amended be agreed to.

Ayes 65

New Zealand Labour 52; New Zealand National 3; New Zealand First 1;Green Party 9.

Noes 52

New Zealand National 24; New Zealand First 12; ACT New Zealand 7;United Future 8; Independent: Awatere Huata.

Part 3 as amended agreed to.

House resumed.

Procedure

The bill was reported with amendment.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the report be adopted.

Ayes 65

New Zealand Labour 52; New Zealand National 3; New Zealand First 1;Green Party 9.

Noes 52

New Zealand National 24; New Zealand First 12; ACT New Zealand 7;United Future 8; Independent: Awatere Huata.

Report adopted.

The House adjourned at 10.37 p.m.