Wednesday, 28 July 2004

Wednesday, 28 July 2004

Wednesday, 28 July 2004

Mr Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

Questions for Oral Answer

Questions to Ministers

Foreshore and Seabed—Infrastructure Development

1. GERRY BROWNLEE (Deputy Leader—National) to the Deputy Prime Minister: Can he confirm that where customary rights recognised under the proposed foreshore and seabed legislation are in an area where a major infrastructure development is planned, for example part of the Auckland eastern corridor motorway, the development will only be allowed to proceed with the sanction of the customary rights holder?

Hon MARGARET WILSON (Attorney-General), on behalf of the Deputy Prime Minister: No, the local authority has the final decision in such a case.

Gerry Brownlee: Do we take it then that the Government no longer backs the previous position, which Dr Cullen explained to the House, that a customary rights holder who had, say, an entitlement to take some buckets of sand would, as of right, have the opportunity to block a major infrastructure development where it was felt that that particular development would impinge upon the customary right?

Hon MARGARET WILSON: No, it is not my understanding that Dr Cullen has ever said that. There is a customary right in that instance to take sand, if that is the member’s example. But if someone wants to have a development where he or she is taking sand, then the normal consent process must be gone through.

Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The “bucket of sand” issue was not my example; it was Dr Cullen’s example. We have a bit of a problem here, in so much as we have been told quite clearly—not only by Dr Cullen but by those who are advising on these matters—that a person who has a customary right does have a right to veto such projects. Margaret Wilson, the acting Minister, has given us two answers that contradict those previous positions. I know you will say to us that we have a natural remedy in these circumstances, but surely it would be better if we had answers that are consistent.

Mr SPEAKER: That is not my job. My job is to judge whether the question is addressed, and it was.

Russell Fairbrother: Is there a right of veto for a customary rights holder?

Hon MARGARET WILSON: No, there is no veto because it is for the local authority to make the final decision once the process set out in the legislation has been gone through.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Can the Minister confirm that the local authority may well have the customary right reposed in itself, as with, for example, the Auckland regatta, which was commenced back in 1840, thereby it being an unbroken use since that time and therefore conferring upon the local authority the right to grant special permits for that day?

Hon MARGARET WILSON: That raises some very interesting possibilities, and it may well be perfectly right.

Hon Ken Shirley: Does the Minister acknowledge that clause 93 of the bill requires the written consent of the holder of a customary right, and what does she say to Transpower, which this morning at the select committee said that a bucket of sand could effectively hold up the Cook Strait cable or the replacement of it?

Hon MARGARET WILSON: I was not at the select committee, obviously, so I do not know exactly what was said. However, I would be surprised if it was put in those terms, because there is a process to be gone through. In answer to the first part of the question, certainly, if the member is referring to clause 93, then that does state that there are restrictions on the granting of resource consents, and it sets out the criteria the local authority is to take into account under those circumstances. I would be quite happy to read them out, although they are quite long. Essentially, the local authority must decide whether there is a significant adverse disadvantage if the resource consent were applied to the holder of the customary right.

Gerry Brownlee: Is she telling the House it is her belief that there is no right of veto for customary rights holders; if so, does she think Michael Cullen was wrong to spend so much time yesterday discussing the possible sale of those customary rights, or the setting aside of those customary rights, for koha payments?

Hon MARGARET WILSON: My understanding of the question yesterday was that it addressed a slightly different matter, but—

Gerry Brownlee: No, it wasn’t.

Hon MARGARET WILSON: Well, that is the member’s view. All I am saying is that the way in which the question has been put, as to whether the holder of a customary right has a veto in the sense of saying: “No, that is it.”, then that is not the case.

Dail Jones: Returning to the original question, can the Minister confirm that where a major infrastructure development is planned—for example, part of the Auckland eastern corridor motorway—the development will be allowed to proceed only provided that matters of national importance under the Resource Management Act, such as, under section 6(e), “The relationship of Maori and their culture and traditions with their ancestral lands, water sites, waahi tapu, and other taonga:”, as passed by the National Government, will have to be considered?

Hon MARGARET WILSON: Yes, that is precisely the situation as it stands at the moment.

Hon Ken Shirley: Is she and her Cabinet colleagues concerned that the provisions of clause 93 could well be abused, as we see in the Resource Management Act, with the powers conferred there inviting extortion as payment for consent approval?

Hon MARGARET WILSON: No, I have no such concerns. Of course, any holders of a property right can in fact object under the Resource Management Act if that right is to be effected in a way that is adverse to them, and then the process determines whether that is the case.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Has the Minister received any reports in respect of promises to repeal legislation such as this, or any such legislation in respect of the Treaty of Waitangi, emanating from the National Party, given its present campaign? [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: I ask Mr Brownlee to please not interject while questions are being asked. The member holds a responsible position, and I just caution him. The question was perfectly in order. The Minister was asked about reports.

Hon MARGARET WILSON: There have been numerous contradictory reports coming from various members of the National Party, but I do think it is interesting that the leader of the National Party, Don Brash, has in fact noted in his speech that the National Party would protect customary rights. That was in his speech to the Marine Industry Association on 22 April.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Has the Minister received any reports suggesting that there will be a repeal of the legislation so that the foreshore and seabed could then be in private, personal, or iwi ownership, and therefore be capable of being alienated forever to a foreigner—as advocated by the National Party?

Mr SPEAKER: Everything except the last part is in order. That is to be ignored. Just the question as stated.

Hon MARGARET WILSON: I cannot recall any report in precisely those terms, but I can recall that the customary rights of Māori would not be protected, and access for those rights to be exercised would not be protected, either. Therefore, that could be drawn as a consequence, that that foreshore and seabed could be privatised.

Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. You have encouraged us in the past, where a Minister has given answers that are unsatisfactory, to take the remedy of going through the privileges process. Given that we have not been at all successful in taking a privilege case so far, can you tell the House what sorts of criteria you would require? The Minister today has said there is no veto or effective veto, when in fact I am holding the bill in front of me and it could not be more patently clear that that is exactly what would happen. It states that a consent authority must not grant a consent without the written approval given by the holder of the customary right order. The Minister has denied that. The Minister has said that is not the case and that we have it wrong. This is the Minister’s own legislation. I want to know, if that is put in front of you, whether it would be enough to bring a privileges case against the Minister for misleading the House.

Mr SPEAKER: No. I have given numerous rulings on ministerial answers. This is debatable material that the member is raising.

Dail Jones: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I seek clarification of what is a privileges matter and what is not. Is it a privileges matter where the member does not quote the section accurately?

Mr SPEAKER: I have ruled on the matter. The member has made a point, but it is not in order.

Schools—Enrolment Scheme Legislation

2. HELEN DUNCAN (Labour) to the Minister of Education: Has he received any reports on possible changes to the current school enrolment scheme legislation? [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! We have moved on to question No. 2. I am issuing a general warning now: questions will be heard in silence.

Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Minister of Education): Yes, I have seen a report of one individual who has pledged to do away with enrolment scheme legislation. I have seen another report of another individual who argues that removing zoning would not solve any problems, at all. That person says there should be limitations on parental choice in areas of high population growth. The first person—the person who says that the enrolment scheme legislation should be done away with—is Don Brash. The second is Bill English. Given the fact that the capital cost of new secondary schools is around $20,000 per student, it is clear that Mr English has the most logical position.

Helen Duncan: What are the main advantages of the current school enrolment scheme legislation?

Mr SPEAKER: Before I call the Minister I want to say that if he reads Speaker’s ruling 131/3 he will see it states that the Minister has no responsibility for the Opposition, and cannot answer for its policy. He can state what he has heard, but he cannot then draw those sorts of conclusions.

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Is one not allowed to agree with an Opposition member in the House these days?

Mr SPEAKER: The member knows full well that he is trifling with me now. That was not all that he was doing. Please answer the question.

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Currently enrolment schemes are put in place only where schools would otherwise become overcrowded. An enrolment scheme guarantees that students have a right to attend their local school, and any extra spaces for schools are allocated according to a ballot, rather than having principals hand-select whom they want. One of the points I have found interesting is that while a particular party and a new leader of a party want to abolish enrolment schemes, that leader is running in the very seat where they are most important.

Hon Bill English: When will the Minister make good a promise made to over 1,000 people in Invercargill that when he closed nine of their schools he would not force the remaining schools into zones?

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: I made no such promise.

Hon Brian Donnelly: Can the Minister confirm that geographical zoning was reintroduced by the National Government, unopposed by ACT, in November 1998—

Peter Brown: Really?

Hon Brian Donnelly: —yes, by the National Government—contingent upon the public demands of National MPs such as Christine Fletcher from blue-ribbon electorates, because of the chaos the non-zoning policy was causing in their areas—[Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: I will not have people interjecting like that to me in the second person. I am getting sick and tired of the member. He has now been officially warned. That is it. I just want to say—[Interruption]. Please be seated; I have not finished. I listened to that question carefully, and the Minister cannot be asked about other parties’ policies. The Minister can be asked the question as the Hon Brian Donnelly set it out, but he has to be very careful with his answer.

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Yes, the essence of what the member said is correct. The situation came to pass that people who lived next door to schools were in a position whereby they were able to be denied enrolment to those schools. People like Christine Fletcher took a leadership role within the National Party to ensure that the legislation came in in that form, and it was broadly supported within this Parliament, including by the ACT party, because then—

Mr SPEAKER: The member has gone on long enough. That is enough of an answer.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Shortly there will be an election in the United States, and also one in Australia. In every other self-respecting democracy, politics is a matter of record. What was sought in that last question was to put on record who did what, where, and when. It may be tedious for parties to hear about their sins of the past, but that is part and parcel of the business of politics. I think it was unfair to sit the Minister down in those circumstances, particularly when he was being so accurate about his answer.

Mr SPEAKER: We have a general debate coming after question time in which that can be raised, and the member knows that full well.

Bernie Ogilvy: Does the Minister consider requiring integrated schools to accept enrolment schemes or zones to be a subterranean resurgence of last year’s failed area reviews; if not, why not?

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: There are two important things that interplay with each other with regard to integrated schools. One is the question of preference, and then there is the question of how, when limits are reached for particular schools—because all integrated schools have limited numbers—the choice should be made, amongst those people of a particular religious or belief group, of who is to have access to those schools and of who should make those choices. The enrolment scheme legislation that was introduced by the National Party applies to integrated schools, as it does to other State schools.

Capacity-building Grants—Policy

3. KATHERINE RICH (National) to the Minister for Social Development and Employment: Does he stand by his statement, in relation to capacity-building grants, that: “We’ve taken exactly the right approach to ensure that if we’re going to have taxpayers’ money in the hands of people who’re going to be delivering a variety of services, they’ve got the capacity to do so.”; if not, why not?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY (Minister for Social Development and Employment): Yes, I do. I stand by the statement I made in July 2001 that if we are going to have taxpayers’ money in the hands of people who are going to be delivering a variety of services, we need to ensure they have the capacity to do so. If, as we all agree, local solutions to local problems is one of the key ways forward, then we first need to develop the capacity of local groups, so that they can deliver the services efficiently and manage the money properly.

Katherine Rich: When the Community Employment Group guidelines for capacity-building grants clearly state that salaries are not to be funded through the schemes, what is his response to a Community Employment Group worker, quoted in an official evaluation report, who described the continued flouting of this rule by saying: “… you tell the group they can’t use the grant for a salary but then you tell them you can contract someone from your group to do the work—it makes it so unclean.”?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: My reaction is to freeze the grants process and to ensure a full review of the Community Employment Group’s operations.

Moana Mackey: What results have been achieved from capacity-building grants?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: There are a large number of positive reports I could give from a wide range of departments, but because the member from the National Party has raised the Community Employment Group, it is worth pointing to, for example, Māori land development. The evaluation shows that, with very few exceptions, the reports are able to provide good, positive outcomes, with projects meeting their objectives and people now being able to move on to deliver social and economic goals. In the Pacific organisational development area, we are able to look at groups that have been enabled through capacity building to now begin to apply for money. They understand how they can operate in social and economic areas, and are now able to begin providing services directly.

Dr Muriel Newman: What responsibility does the Minister take for the hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars that taxpayers consider to have been wasted on misguided and race-based programmes?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: All Ministers, of course, are warranted to take full responsibility for what occurs in their departments. One of the things I would point out, as I pointed out before, however, is that—and I assume the member is referring to the Community Employment Group, as it has been raised today—there would not be a member in the House who does not have a positive and useful example over the years that he or she could point to of the work of that particular group. In my own area, for example, and in Simon Power’s area as well, over the last little while, we can certainly point to work around the floods that took place in the Manawatū and Rangitīkei that Community Employment Group workers did very well.

Katherine Rich: As the Minister has mentioned the Māori land development grant scheme, can he respond to comments made by the Community Employment Group’s staff that information provided on that scheme was “intermittent, incomplete, late, inconsistent, and unresponsive to field adviser input”?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: I certainly can. Wherever I see, and I have now seen, advice like that from members of staff, it leads me to do what I have done, which is to freeze the grants process and ensure a thorough review of that organisation.

Katherine Rich: When guidelines are flouted, fieldworkers say they do not understand what a scheme is supposed to achieve, and so many projects of dubious quality have been funded, does he accept that his Government’s flagship capacity-building initiatives have flopped; if not, why not?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: No, I do not. The member is probably referring to the report she received recently, which was part 2 of a three-part review of capacity building within that particular organisation. But, as I mentioned before, capacity building is a broad policy running across Te Puni Kōkiri, the Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs, Housing New Zealand Corporation, the Ministry of Social Development, and the Community Employment Group. There is a wide range of those kinds of grants and, as I say, someone like Bill English has quite rightly pointed out that, from the National Party’s point of view, local solutions and local problems need people who can do those things locally. We back that view, and will carry on ensuring that people do have that capacity.

Resource Management (Waitaki Catchment) Amendment Bill—Planning Process

4. LARRY BALDOCK (United Future) to the Minister for the Environment: Is she satisfied that the proposed planning process in the Resource Management (Waitaki Catchment) Amendment Bill is fair; if so, why?

Hon MARIAN HOBBS (Minister for the Environment): Yes, although the bill, as currently written, is more prescriptive than it needs to be. I hope soon to table a Supplementary Order Paper to simplify the bill to ensure a fair and open planning process in the Waitaki catchment. All those with an interest will be able to put their issues before the Waitaki Catchment Water Allocation Board for consideration.

Larry Baldock: What specific steps, if any, has the Government taken to respond to the concerns raised by the Mackenzie basin farmers regarding the allocation of water for irrigation with particular reference to the relevant 1969 Order in Council?

Hon MARIAN HOBBS: Due to the particular history around the 1969 Order in Council, I have asked the Ministry for the Environment to prepare information about the issues involved for the water allocation board’s consideration. My wish is to ensure the injustices felt by those affected by the 1969 Order in Council are heard by the board, as the rights they had were not renewed and were eventually legislated out of existence by the National Government in 1993.

Lianne Dalziel: Could the Minister perhaps give members some detail as to how the guarantees of water for irrigation in the 1969 Order in Council came to be extinguished in this way?

Hon MARIAN HOBBS: I am delighted to. In 1991, the Order in Council was replaced by water rights, and the allocation disappeared, but the order was recognised when the Resource Management Act came into force later in that year. An amendment bill in 1993 removed the section from the original Resource Management Act that gave the 1969 order virtual resource consent status, meaning it could never be renewed. That legislation was passed by National.

Jeanette Fitzsimons: Has the Minister received any advice as to why applications for Project Aqua, which are listed in the schedules of that bill and which she called in, have not been withdrawn, despite the March announcement; and is she expecting the Resource Management (Waitaki Catchment) Amendment Bill to proceed with or without Project Aqua being a live application?

Hon MARIAN HOBBS: I expect that Project Aqua will be a live application, and I understand that they are leaving their applications for consent in there in order to be able to present before the Waitaki Catchment Water Allocation Board. However, I do not believe that they are actually going to proceed with the said Project Aqua.

Larry Baldock: Can the Minister give an assurance that when dealing with the Waitaki catchment issues, the Government will seek to uphold property rights and the rule of law; and has she seen any reports calling for her to act otherwise?

Hon MARIAN HOBBS: I can give those assurances. Yes, I have seen calls for the Waitaki bill to give water specifically to farmers in the Mackenzie basin for irrigation. The High Court is currently considering the nature of water rights in the upper catchment, so to do this would cut across that process and, depending on the court’s findings, involve a major interference in existing property rights to the water. So I was surprised to see both Don Brash and Nick Smith making those calls.

Jeanette Fitzsimons: When the Minister said that Meridian Energy was leaving its applications in, in order to be able to present a submission to the board making the water plan, did she mean that people who do not have applications for consent currently in the process will not be able to make submissions to the board; if not, then why is that a valid reason for leaving the applications in?

Hon MARIAN HOBBS: I have two points to make there. First, anyone, regardless of whether he or she has consents in, can make submissions to the water allocation board. That is about allocation, not about the granting of consent rights. Secondly, I understand, although I have not actually had a conversation with Meridian Energy, that it wants to have its consents live, if not actually used, so that those issues of hydroelectric power and irrigation, and the life of the river, may be given full consideration.

Larry Baldock: What representations has the Minister received that advocate to ensure that Mackenzie basin farmers receive a fair deal under the proposed Waitaki catchment planning processes?

Hon MARIAN HOBBS: I have received strong representations from the farmers themselves in January, when I met them down in Tekapō. The local member and Minister of Agriculture, Jim Sutton, has also met the farmers and constantly passes on their concerns to me. Larry Baldock has also been a strong advocate for their issues. But not once have National Party members directly approached me. As usual, they prefer to fly in with a tame news crew rather than to offer considered solutions.

Larry Baldock: Given the Minister’s answer to Jeanette Fitzsimons’ question earlier, can she understand the uncertainty and concern in the Kurow community concerning Meridian Energy’s intentions, and will she work with that community to allay its fears throughout this process?

Hon MARIAN HOBBS: We will continue to work with that community.

Spring Hill Prison, Waikato—Iwi Consultation

5. RODNEY HIDE (Leader—ACT) to the Minister of Corrections: Is he satisfied with the Department of Corrections report on Iwi Consultation and Other Matters Related to the Spring Hill Corrections Facility dated 14 April 2004; if so, why?

Hon PAUL SWAIN (Minister of Corrections): Generally, yes. The Department of Corrections provided a frank report covering the issues well, given the time frame I set. I note the Environment Court in its judgment on Spring Hill praised the department for its consultation with Māori.

Rodney Hide: Does it concern the Minister that the Department of Corrections, in its frank report, never advised him that it had deducted, but then reimbursed, a double payment to the same consultants of $18,928 from a contract with the Waikato Raupatu Lands Trust, which the Tainui people themselves discovered in their own forensic report, and will the department seek reimbursement for these duplicate payments made; if not, why not?

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

Hon PAUL SWAIN: The department was extremely aware of the fact that double-dipping might occur and it advised me that it went out of its way to ensure that this did not happen and deducted amounts billed separately before making payment to Tainui. The internal audit of Tainui’s finances is a matter for Tainui to deal with. If the auditors have concerns, I am certain they will raise them.

Rodney Hide: Here it is.

Hon PAUL SWAIN: Is this a leadership bid?

Mr SPEAKER: Order!

Hon PAUL SWAIN: I am sorry, Mr Speaker. If the auditors have concerns, I expect they would raise them with the department.

Martin Gallagher: With reference to the Environment Court hearing about Spring Hill, what did the court have to say about the consultation process regarding the Spring Hill Corrections Facility?

Hon PAUL SWAIN: The Environment Court decided in favour of the proposed Spring Hill Corrections Facility proceeding. In its judgment the court said that the Government “went beyond the call of duty to make sure that such problems of mandate within the various groups consulted did not emerge,” and went further by saying that the Government had “met its obligations of consultation with Māori in a very full and complete way.”

Hon Tony Ryall: Which Department of Corrections staff, contractors, or ministerial staff were hosted by Tainui at a corporate box at Wellington stadium while they were conducting consultation on the new prison, and is he satisfied that these arrangements are appropriate?

Hon PAUL SWAIN: I am not aware, nor have I been advised, of any such arrangements.

Tariana Turia: Who else did the department pay consultant fees to in regard to Spring Hill Corrections Facility, for what purposes were they paid, and how much were their fees?

Hon PAUL SWAIN: The amounts and the consultation process were detailed in a report mentioned in the primary question from Mr Hide. I am happy to make a copy of that report available to the member. I have tabled it before, but I am happy to give her a copy after question time.

Gerrard Eckhoff: Why did the Department of Corrections pay Mr Ngakete $11,735 for work in October, November, and December of 2002 when he was, at the same time, employed as a corrections employee with the Waikato Raupatu Lands Trust and received $16,875 for corrections work during that same period?

Hon PAUL SWAIN: The whole issue of iwi consultation and who got paid for what, when, is detailed in the report. I am keen for the member to have a look at that report and to read it carefully.

Rodney Hide: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The whole point is that it is not detailed in the report. If Mr Swain cannot answer the question, then he should say so. To point to a report where that is not detailed, and it has been pointed out in a forensic report by the Tainui people, it seems to be a hopeless situation for a Minister to say: “Oh, it’s in this report.”, when it demonstrably is not.

Mr SPEAKER: There is nothing wrong with the Minister answering by referring to a report. One hopes that the Minister is accurate. If he is not, there will be appropriate action for him to take.

Ron Mark: Has the Minister noted the disproportionate amount of attention being paid to the inappropriateness of the use of certain Māori consultants and contractors to that of the appropriateness of the decision to give preferential contractual consideration to Jagcon and Mr John Hamilton; if so, could the Minister venture an opinion as to why that would be the situation, given that Jagcon’s involvement was first questioned in this House by Brian Neeson MP in June 2001?

Hon PAUL SWAIN: That is a fair point, and it was detailed in the report. The member may be interested to know that when Jagcon’s contract was due for renewal it was put out to tender.

Heather Roy: Why did the Department of Corrections pay for Haydn Solomon and Tahi Ngakete to travel to Perth and Melbourne on 21 to 27 May 2002, while employed by the Waikato Raupatu Lands Trust, under contract to the Department of Corrections, and what did that travel achieve?

Hon PAUL SWAIN: I cannot answer that. Presumably, that is a matter for Tainui to resolve.

Hon Tony Ryall: Is the Minister saying to the House he is unaware that Department of Corrections staff or contractors were hosted by Tainui at the Wellington stadium, and if he is saying that, how then can he stand by his comments in light of reports that such comments were referred to him and he declined to comment?

Hon PAUL SWAIN: No comments were referred to me about that matter. They were to do with the issue of the internal audit of Tainui. I rightly said that that internal audit of Tainui’s financial matters was not only funded by Tainui but was an internal matter for Tainui, and that is where the matter should lie.

Rodney Hide: Now that Tainui’s own forensic accountants have shown his Department of Corrections report to be a whitewash and a cover-up, is the Minister prepared to call in the Auditor-General to determine just where each of the $1.5 million given in what that report shows to be soft contracts, fake time sheets, and double payments to those consultants; if not, is it a fact that he is just covering up for a department that has wasted money?

Hon PAUL SWAIN: I have not read the report, but I am certain that it states no such thing. The answer to the second question is no.

Rodney Hide: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I know that the Minister is not the brightest one on the front bench.

Mr SPEAKER: That sort of comment is out of order, and the member knows it. Please come to the point of order.

Rodney Hide: It is just a logical inconsistency in the Minister’s answer when he said that he has not read the report, but that the report states no such thing. I have the report. I can assure the Minister that it says exactly that.

Mr SPEAKER: That is a debatable point.

Housing—Community and Local Government Involvement

6. GEORGINA BEYER (Labour—Wairarapa) to the Minister of Housing: How is the Government working with the community and local government to increase the range of housing available?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY (Minister of Housing): The Government has established a $63 million housing innovation fund to help third sector community groups and local government to provide rental housing and homeownership opportunities for low-income families and people with special needs. Over the break the first six projects have been approved, providing housing in Auckland, New Plymouth, Rotorua, Hamilton, and Palmerston North. Another 31 projects involving local councils and community-based organisations are currently being considered for approval, and, hopefully, they will go ahead this year.

Georgina Beyer: Why is the Government supporting community groups and local authorities to develop social housing?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: The real value of working in partnership with like-minded community-based organisations is that we can combine our capital resources and expertise in projects that otherwise would not be able to go ahead. Community groups, churches, and local government have long played a role in the provision of social housing, and with the new funding they are now able to take on that role on a number of occasions when they would not otherwise do so. I should also point out that it will take some time to replace the 13,000 houses sold by the National Government during the 1990s, and those groups will help us to replace them.

Sue Bradford: Has the Government carried out any assessment recently as to the level of true housing need in Te Tai Tokerau, and what is the Government doing, if anything, to urgently increase the community-based, local government, and State housing stock in Northland, given the desperate circumstances in which so many people are living?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: I will mention two pieces of work that members of the House may like to keep their eyes on. The first is the housing strategy that has just been consulted on right throughout the country. The second is work being undertaken through Statistics New Zealand, working with Housing New Zealand Corporation, where we are undertaking a survey right across the country of what actually constitutes a baseline for adequate housing and adequate building. I will just mention to the member that she said that in Northland there are some difficulties in relation to housing. We have been chasing those stories over the last little while, and in the first case I was told of a woman living in a van for 4 months with two daughters aged 14 and 7. I am informed that the emergency housing provider does not believe that person has yet applied for a house from Housing New Zealand Corporation. In other words, if we are in a position here of talking about that case, Housing New Zealand Corporation, which is accused of not dealing with it, has had no approach from anybody to deal with it yet, and will deal with it as soon as it can contact the person.

Tertiary Institutions—Funding

7. Hon BILL ENGLISH (National—Clutha-Southland) to the Associate Minister of Education (Tertiary Education): How will budgeted spending cuts of $144 million be applied at individual tertiary institutions over the next 3 years?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY (Associate Minister of Education (Tertiary Education)): The system for allocating community education funding was designed following extensive consultation with a sector working-group. Funding will be allocated by the Tertiary Education Commission through profiles, using the following five priorities for adult and community education: targeting previously unsuccessful learners, foundation skills, strengthening communities, lifelong learning, and social cohesion. If an institution’s programme fits with the priorities, the Tertiary Education Commission can fund it up to what is called its notional allocation. An institution will be able to receive more than that allocation only through a small additional allocation for priority areas. This ensures that total community education provision remains within a capped amount.

Hon Bill English: Can the Minister confirm that all of that process he has described covers up the fact that polytechs like the Waiariki Institute of Technology in Rotorua will have their funding cut by over $1 million even though they did not abuse the community education funding, at all?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: It is worth advising the member that these—

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Just answer the question.

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: Well, I am answering the question, if Mr Smith would like to shut up for a little while.

Mr SPEAKER: Please come to the answer.

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: If I can say to—

Hon Bill English: Just say it’s a cut.

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: Is that member going to shut up, as well? Mr English should watch his blood pressure. I will just advise the member that these are not historical funding levels; these are set on the 2004 funding levels, and therefore there is no cut against this year’s funding. Just like the member opposite, however, we have other areas we want to spend the money on. We have the tools to do it. In the 1990s he could not have done it; he ran a market-based demand system that students drove.

Dr Ashraf Choudhary: What alternative approaches to allocating community education funding has he been advised of?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: I am advised that an alternative approach to the one we came up with in consultation with the sector working-group would be to tightly target so-called “bad” institutions. These institutions would have all, or almost all, of their community education funding stripped away from them, and the Minister would be given the power to sack council members whether or not they were ministerial appointees. “Bad” institutions would be identified, not based on the scale of their educational provision or on any other measure, but on the personal opinion of the approach’s sponsor, Mr Bill English.

Hon Bill English: Does the Minister agree with the chief executive of the Waiariki Institute of Technology, who says: “Those that blew the budget are now to be rewarded for doing so. From Waiariki’s perspective it’s grossly unfair.”?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: No, I do not. This formula has been worked out, as I said, on funding during 2004. Those organisations that have been acting responsibly, therefore, will move forward in much the same environment as they had before; others that have been behaving in a way that they should not will have to scale back to fit within that cap.

Hon Bill English: Given that the Minister has tried hard to create the impression that there will be no cuts—that everyone is, in fact, moving forward with a new allocation—what is the House to make of the statement made in the Budget that he plans to save $144 million in the next 3 years?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: I sometimes struggle to understand what the member’s point is, because, like the Government, he is now an adherent to the view that we need to spend our money wisely across the tertiary education system. Going forward, we intend to make sure that community education occupies a smaller part of our Budget, and we will, therefore, ensure that other areas of the system have money available, such as Modern Apprenticeships.

Economic, Industry, and Regional Development—Promotion

8. Hon MATT ROBSON (Deputy Leader—Progressive) to the Minister for Economic Development: What measures has the Labour Progressive Government announced during the recent adjournment to promote economic, industry and regional development?

Hon JIM ANDERTON (Minister for Economic Development): There have been too many coalition Government initiatives during July to possibly recount them all here today. However, to mention just a small sample of initiatives for the benefit of members, it was announced yesterday that Electronic Data Systems—EDS New Zealand Ltd—has already created over 200 jobs under its Best Shore programme, thereby achieving the first target of a $1.5 million grant scheme it entered into with Investment New Zealand and its strategic investment fund. Last week projects as diverse as new funding of $1.765 million to close skill gaps in the information and communications technology industries in Canterbury, and $40,000 to assist the impact study of proposals to develop all-weather access to commercial boat facilities for the Ōpōtiki harbour were announced.

Hon Matt Robson: Why were these initiatives funded, and what evidence is there that they are benefiting all New Zealanders?

Hon JIM ANDERTON: The coalition Government is actively involved in supporting industry and regional development, because we know that intelligent partnerships between the public and private sectors are assisting the whole economy to leverage more out of New Zealand’s considerable natural advantages. Earlier this month I attended a happy farewell function at the rapidly expanding Government-supported incubator in Christchurch where the well-known company, DataCol NZ Ltd, which started with four staff and $1.5 million in turnover, now has 22 staff, 140 contract workers, and a clear path to increase its revenue to $20 million.

John Key: Why does the Minister think that the recent survey by Statistics New Zealand on innovation in New Zealand found that “if Government assistance was received”, the majority of businesses found it to be of “no value”?

Hon JIM ANDERTON: The Minister for Economic Development is following up that Statistics New Zealand report, and I will be happy to advise the Minister of the facts. If the member is wondering why New Zealand has not followed an innovative, constructive, creative path in recent years, he should look in the mirror at the 9 years of National Party administration.

H V Ross Robertson: Can the Minister tell the House whether he has seen any alternative reports or proposals for New Zealand’s economic and social development, released during the recent adjournment?

Hon JIM ANDERTON: Yes, one that grabbed my attention was a proposal from the leader of the National Party to build a lot more prisons. I understand this desire to build prisons around the regions of New Zealand is the National Party’s idea of regional development, but I would note—

Mr SPEAKER: The Minister has no responsibility for that.

Jeanette Fitzsimons: Is it the Minister’s intention that economic, industry, and regional development should proceed, regardless of environmental and social damage, as indicated by the list published yesterday by his department of 65 proposed hydro projects that divert rivers out of national parks, require the lifting of water conservation orders, and ignore the values of biodiversity and recreation?

Hon JIM ANDERTON: This is a study of the potential for hydroelectricity development, a renewable resource development in New Zealand, led by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry and the Ministry for the Environment. The information is on the website of the Ministry of Economic Development so that all New Zealanders can access it. If the Green Party is so opposed to renewable energy, such as hydroelectric stations, I look forward to their proposals to close all the ones we have now and open a nuclear plant.

Judy Turner: Does the Minister intend to announce an expansion of the regional immigration initiative that was successfully piloted in Wellington and Clutha-Southland to help overcome skill shortages in other regions, and is he giving active consideration to any proposals to better facilitate internal migration to achieve the same means for regional development?

Hon JIM ANDERTON: I will answer the question in two parts. The Ministry of Economic Development and the New Zealand Immigration Service are working very proactively with all ministries, particularly those associated with economic and industry development in New Zealand, to make sure that those migrants who can add value to the New Zealand economy are given every encouragement to come to this country. The whole world is in a race for skill and talent, and New Zealand is no exception. In terms of the second part of the question, the regional development success, where every region in New Zealand is in positive growth mode and has been now for 16 consecutive quarters, is the best effort I know in recent history of any Government to assist New Zealanders to stay in their own regions, develop their opportunities there, and not have everyone shift to downtown Auckland or Sydney to get a job.

Algerian Refugee—Refugee Status Appeals Authority Judgment

9. KEITH LOCKE (Green) to the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade: Why did the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade set mid-January 2004 as a deadline for obtaining comments from the Belgian, French, and Swiss Governments on the Refugee Status Appeals Authority judgment on Ahmed Zaoui?

Hon PHIL GOFF (Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade): The ministry referred copies of the Refugee Status Appeals Authority decision on Mr Zaoui to those Governments whose judicial actions were commented upon in that decision. Responses were sought by mid-January because the review of the security risk certificate by the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security was expected to start early in the new year. I am advised that these responses were sought to assist the inspector-general in relation to whether the criticisms contained in that decision were valid or otherwise.

Keith Locke: What precedent or principle was the Government operating under when it repeatedly hounded those three foreign Governments for information to undermine the well-considered judgment of the quasi-judicial body the Refugee Status Appeals Authority?

Hon PHIL GOFF: The member has made a number of assumptions in his question that I reject. Firstly, the action was not designed to undermine any decision of the Refugee Status Appeals Authority; nor did the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, to the best of my knowledge, “hound” other embassies. What it indicated was that if the review of the security certificate was to take place early in the year, it was important to have that information by that date if it was to be used for the purpose for which it was requested.

Tim Barnett: What is the role of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade in respect of the Zaoui case?

Hon PHIL GOFF: The ministry has a rather limited role, as the matter is predominately the responsibility of the New Zealand Immigration Service. It has helped, where its advice has been sought, on the requirements of international conventions, and also when contact has been needed with other Governments. It is interesting that one of the things the ministry did was to approach the Belgian authorities last year, at the request of the Refugee Status Appeals Authority, in order to get a copy of the Belgian judgment.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Have three First World economies, with First World judicial systems, adjudged this man to be a terrorist; if so, and as what he has cost the New Zealand taxpayer has now passed $900,000, why does the Government not just throw him out and send the bill to his chief apologist in this House, Mr Locke?

Hon PHIL GOFF: There are two questions there. Firstly, yes, the judicial systems in Switzerland, France, and Belgium—all countries actually known for their respect for human rights—all reached a similar conclusion about Mr Zaoui. Why does the Government not just throw him out? The reason is that this Government believes in the rule of law, in obeying the law passed by this Parliament and the requirements on the Government, and, of course, in being consistent with international law, including the requirements of the United Nations convention on refugees.

Keith Locke: If the ministry was just gathering information, did it also gather information from the distinguished French critics of the French judicial system in counter-terrorism cases; if not, was it just obtaining information that it thought the SIS might be able to use against the Refugee Status Appeals Authority, a judicial body whose independence the Government should respect?

Hon PHIL GOFF: I would have thought that the role of approaching any critics of the French judicial system was that of the defence counsel for Ahmed Zaoui, and I am sure they do their job very thoroughly. It is important, however, if the Government and the inspector-general are to rely on information that is before the Refugee Status Appeal Authority, to know whether the criticisms made by that authority in terms of the legal process against Zaoui in three Western countries were valid or not valid, and that was why the information was sought. I would have thought that that member, as well as everybody else, would be interested in the answer to that question.

Keith Locke: Was it not true that the information was gained for the SIS in its case against Mr Zaoui, and not, as the Minister said, for the inspector-general, given that the information was requested urgently on the first working-day following the High Court decision, which required the SIS to provide a summary of allegations to Mr Zaoui?

Hon PHIL GOFF: This was a decision made by officials. It had no political overtone, at all. In fact, it was not done in conjunction with Ministers. But I advise the member to read the document that was released under the Official Information Act. I will quote the relevant sentence: “Their responses will be relevant to the inspector-general’s review of the security risk certificate.” That was the reason the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade gave, in contacting its embassies in those three countries, as to why it needed that information. And it needed that information by the time the review was thought to take place; otherwise, it would not have been material for that purpose. I would have thought that was self-evident.

Keith Locke: Why did New Zealand’s deputy head of mission in France, Simon Gimson, selectively leak information about the French note to the New Zealand Herald journalist Catherine Field, apparently without telling her that it had been solicited by repeated and renewed requests to France by the New Zealand Government, and that the French had not felt it necessary to give any information until those requests, ever since the 1 August decision of the Refugee Status Appeals Authority?

Hon PHIL GOFF: The member makes the allegation that a Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade official leaked material to Catherine Field. I understand that Catherine Field herself has said she got that information, in fact, from the Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, not from a leak from Simon Gimson.

Keith Locke: I seek leave to table an article from the Listener dated 31 July, which quotes a Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade document stating that Mr Gunson did tell Catherine Field.

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

Lake Wānaka—Lagarosiphon Lakeweed

10. DAVID PARKER (Labour—Otago) to the Minister for Land Information: What is the Government doing to save Lake Wānaka from the infestation of lagarosiphon lakeweed?

Hon JOHN TAMIHERE (Minister for Land Information): David Parker, the MP for Otago, has recently been instrumental in brokering an agreement for a new lakeweed control programme in Lake Wānaka. The arrangement involves Land Information New Zealand—the department responsible for the administration of the lake bed—Queenstown Lakes District Council, Otago Regional Council, and the Guardians of Lake Wānaka. The work programme will include diving, suction, dredging and spraying. Land Information New Zealand has agreed to more than double its funding for Wānaka, to $120,000 per annum. The vast majority of the cost of that work will be covered accordingly.

David Parker: Why has Land Information New Zealand not contributed as much money as that to solving this problem before now?

Hon JOHN TAMIHERE: From 1999 to the end of June 2004, Land Information New Zealand has spent $315,000 on the control of Wānaka lakeweed. Recently Land Information New Zealand has been granted in this Budget an additional $1.7 million over 4 years on top of existing funding for the control of weeds and pests on Crown-administered land. This Government is committed to addressing the problems of lakeweed and water quality in iconic lakes.

Air Force—Sale of Aermacchis and Skyhawks

11. SIMON POWER (National—Rangitikei) to the Minister of Defence: Will the Aermacchis and Skyhawks be sold in the 2004-05 financial year; if so, what advice has he received from Government officials or Ernst and Young that supports this?

Hon MARK BURTON (Minister of Defence): They will be sold when negotiations are satisfactorily concluded. Negotiations for both fleets are well advanced.

Simon Power: Will the sale of the Aermacchis and Skyhawks proceed this financial year, given that Official Information Act information shows that in November 2002 Ernst and Young were confident a contract for both the Aermacchis and Skyhawks would be “forthcoming before Christmas”, and again in December 2003 Ernst and Young believed that a sale was expected for the Aermacchis, yet here we are in July 2004 and there is no contract for either set of planes?

Hon MARK BURTON: As I said in answer to the principal question, the aircraft will be sold when the negotiations are satisfactorily concluded. The Opposition member may be satisfied to sell them for scrap; I am not.

Jill Pettis: Can the Minister advise whether the time frame of the sale has meant it has not been possible to deliver on any other acquisitions projects?

Hon MARK BURTON: It will certainly not. We have delivered on rather a lot in terms of the Air Force, Army, and Navy. In terms of the Air Force, we have two Boeing 757s to extend the strategic airlift capability. We have well-advanced work on the C130 and P3 Orion upgrades and helicopter replacements. Great progress is being made.

Ron Mark: When the Government chose to disband No. 75 Squadron RNZAF, what consideration did it give to the families of such people as Sergeant Norman Edward Whiting, a 27-year-old rear gunner in that squadron who was killed on 16 May 1942 when he was shot down over Germany; and in the light of the Government’s inability to sell the Skyhawks, may one option be to erect all of them on pedestals around the country as memorials to the 500 brave New Zealanders who died defending our freedom and guaranteeing us the lifestyles we currently enjoy?

Hon MARK BURTON: I can tell the member that not a day goes past when I do not consider the contribution Defence Force members, present and past, make and have made to the service of this country. But the sale of those aircraft will contribute to the work that goes on with our Defence Force now.

Hon Peter Dunne: Has the Minister been advised that Pratt and Whitney will no longer service the engines of the A4 Skyhawks after 2007; and if he has received that advice, can he indicate to the House what impact that has on the saleability of those aircraft?

Hon MARK BURTON: No, and the negotiations, which are well advanced, are not in any way being hindered by the question the member asked.

Simon Power: Does the Minister admit that the sale of the Aermacchis and Skyhawks for scrap is an option that has been considered by the Government; if so, does he admit that, despite confident assurances from Ernst and Young, the chances of this country’s disbanded combat Air Force aircraft finding themselves in an airplane scrapheap are growing higher by the minute?

Hon MARK BURTON: As the member knows, the issue of scrap was simply included in a Cabinet paper—

Simon Power: The whole thing is a shambles.

Hon MARK BURTON: Does the member want to hear the answer or not? It was included in a Cabinet paper as a highly unlikely last-case scenario. It is absolutely not my expectation that that will be the case. I expect that a satisfactory conclusion will be reached and a reasonable return for taxpayers will be made.

Ron Mark: I seek leave to table, sometime later this week, a photograph of a Harvard in the Pahiatua playground with a slide sticking out of its mouth, as one option that the Government may like to consider for the Skyhawks, should it not be able to conclude the sales.

Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought to table that. Is there any objection? There is no objection.

Document not tabled.

Simon Power: I seek leave to table official information documents obtained from the New Zealand Defence Force, showing that selling the aircraft for scrap is one option currently before the Government.

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

State Housing—Allocation

12. BRENT CATCHPOLE (NZ First) to the Minister of Housing: Is he satisfied with the current State housing allocation system used by Housing New Zealand Corporation; if so, why?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY (Minister of Housing): Yes. It is a good policy, designed and delivered by an innovative Government committed to repairing the damage done to State housing by the last National-led Government.

Brent Catchpole: Is the Minister concerned about reports from the Auckland City Council requesting a review of housing allocation, after residents complained that too many high-needs families are being placed in the many State houses in their area; and is he concerned that his policy could create ghettos around New Zealand?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: I am always concerned when I hear people raise issues. Housing New Zealand has already been in touch with that city council and they are talking through those issues.

Lynne Pillay: What progress has the Government made in restoring social housing?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: Since December 1999 the Labour-led Government has introduced income-related rents for more than 56,000 families—that is 168,000 people; increased the State and community stock by 4,516 houses, with another 3,000 homes slated to be added over the next 3 years; invested millions of dollars in modernisation and healthier housing; put the Rural Housing Programme in place to address substandard housing, and over this year the programme provides $180 million to improve housing; supported homeownership; and established a $63 million housing innovation fund. I know, Mr Speaker, that you want me to sit down, but there is much more good news, so I will come back again if people want to hear that.

Dr Wayne Mapp: In light of all those facts, can the Minister explain why there are 12,317 people on the Housing New Zealand waiting list, and why there are a further 1,055 people scheduled for a needs assessment so that they can actually get on to the waiting list?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: The main reason is that the National Party sold 13,000 houses, and Labour is busy making up that particular deficit. [Interruption] I would be ashamed if I were a National member, and no doubt that is why they are calling out.

Brent Catchpole: Can the Minister demonstrate how the 10,565 State housing tenants, for whom he could not give me their ethnicity in a written answer, are in greater need than the 12,205 tenants on Housing New Zealand’s waiting list as of 31 January 2004?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: Ethnicity is not a qualification for need, in terms of getting into the social allocation housing process. What we want to do is to make sure that we are getting people who are in serious housing situations and that they move through the four tiers of that social allocation housing system. We are now making major inroads into the people who are worse off. That is how they get into the system. That is how we house people. For the benefit of Dr Smith, that is what social housing is.

General Debates

General Debates

Hon STEVE MAHAREY (Minister for Social Development and Employment): I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business. We are in the midst of the estimates debate. For those who are at home listening today, that is the debate that takes place in Parliament when the Government outlines what it wants to spend its money on, and we would hope that Opposition members would rise to say what they, if they were given the opportunity, would spend the money on. The Government’s agenda has been very clear. This is it: we want people to get a job and go to work. We want to have a very strong economy. We want middle and low income households to be able to afford to pay the rent, raise the kids, and get out there and afford all the things that go with being a New Zealander today. We have said that we want to have good, strong public services like the health system, the education system, and the care and protection systems for young people. We want to ensure that we are housing people well, and we want our economy to be out there exporting around the world—to create the kind of economy that we all want. That is what we want to have, and it is working.

I have heard speaker after speaker from the Opposition side of the House start their debate, and they have been forced, after 5 short years of outstanding Government by Labour, to say that it is not luck but outstanding management by the people on the Government side of the House that has led to an economy that is performing. There is a very low rate of unemployment, more people than ever are employed, more operations are being done, there is better education, more people are in education, more people are housed, small towns are booming, and the regions are growing. That is the picture, and even the Opposition now has to say that it is the picture.

Perhaps that is why we have not heard one single idea in the estimates debate from the National Opposition that tells us what it would do if it were able to spend the money. What we have had to do is to go back and look at those members’ real agenda. I will touch on only some of it, but this is where they have been going. This year there has been the Ōrewa speech. The agenda there was clearly social division. Those members say that is not the case; they do not want to turn Māori against Pākehā, they say. But having lit the fuse, have they given us one single idea of what they would do? Having lit the fuse of racial division, what would they do if they got into power? We do not know that; they just want to have the argument. That is wrong. Simon Power has said that what he wants to do is to allow the Americans to tell us what our foreign policy should be. We are a sovereign, independent, small, feisty, self-determining nation, and we will tell people what we want to do. But the National Party wants the Americans to tell us what to do. That is wrong. On crime, those members tell us they want to spend the money on prisons and all the things that punish people, but they have not one single idea about overcoming the causes of crime. They are tough on crime and pathetic on the causes of crime. They have nothing to say about where crime comes from. They are trading on fear, and that is wrong.

The National members tell us they want to roll back to the 1990s’ economic agenda—the one that gave us an 11.9 percent rate of unemployment, emptied out the regions, stopped us growing, and drove up our national debt. That is the agenda they want to return to. They want to do that because of their ideology and because a few of their friends in big business want that. That is wrong. We are about to hear National’s next big speech, which will be about welfare, time-limited benefits, people being put on work for the dole, and work-capacity testing of the kind that had to be cancelled in the last decade. National members will attack the most vulnerable people in this country, to try to win power. That is wrong. National is a party that is so bad and so wrong that Mr Sowry and Lynda Scott are already leaving. They are getting out now while they can; they do not want to be part of it. I want to say that some of the other leading lights are being driven out of National, because they have a conscience. They come from places like Rangitīkei.

Hon TONY RYALL (National—Bay Of Plenty): That was a sad and pitiful speech from the Minister for Social Development and Employment, who tries to hide the unemployment figures by moving tens of thousands of New Zealanders on to the sickness benefit. He surreptitiously tells his public servants to put people on the sickness and invalids benefits, so that he can stand in Parliament and say the number of people on the unemployment benefit is coming down. I tell that Minister that these are the things that will remove him from office in the next 12 months. National will abolish the race-based privileges of the Labour Government. National will reduce crime by keeping career criminals in jail for longer. We will not let the Parole Board release rapists after serving 33 percent of their sentences. We will put beneficiaries back to work and will lower taxes for hard-working, middle-class New Zealanders. We will have them paying lower taxes, rather than being beholden to this Government and its beneficiaries.

In the Bay of Plenty in the last 10 days, the people of the community have pulled together in a way that is unprecedented since the earthquake in Edgecumbe, to support their neighbours and the community in recovering from the Eastern Bay of Plenty floods. I want to say that—

Hon Dover Samuels: George Hawkins was there.

Hon TONY RYALL: Well, if we want to say who was or was not there, I think Mr Samuels should be careful. Once people have been rehoused and the farms are back in business, it is important that we in the region find out whether things could have been handled better than they were. Was this a freak flood or one caused by global warming? Should the river schemes have been stronger? Should the dam have been managed differently? Those are all questions the community will need to seek answers to later on. But I want to report that the people of the region are pulling together, and we look forward to the Government’s announcement of the rural recovery package to help families, and farmers in particular, to re-establish their businesses in the aftermath of the disaster.

As the National Party’s law and order spokesperson, I want to turn to the tremendous leadership that Dr Don Brash is providing this country with in his plan to improve the fight against crime. The law and order system is simply a mess. In significant parts of this country, the police turn up to an emergency in the required time in only just over half the incidents that they are expected to attend. If one rings up with a life-threatening emergency, the police are supposed to be there within 10 minutes, but in south Auckland, it is likely that they will turn up within that time frame in only just over half those emergency cases. That is because this Government has underfunded and under-resourced the New Zealand Police, and has the police under such considerable pressure that they are unable to deliver a lower rate of crime. Since Labour has been in Government, crime is up across every region. Violent crime is up by 15 percent under this Labour Government. Every year, the chances of being bashed, mugged, or attacked are the highest they have ever been. In Wellington City, there has been a 40 percent increase in burglaries. In Rotorua, burglaries and violence go unchecked, and the Government offers nothing. Right now, we have a horrible situation whereby people who are before the courts for quite serious offences are on the verge of walking free, because of stupendous delays in the nation’s court system. We know that the Ministry of Justice states that 40 percent of the jury cases in Auckland are at risk because of those delays.

Hon MATT ROBSON (Deputy Leader—Progressive): There is a man who objected to a prison being located in his area when he was offered one. Yesterday, in the estimates debate, Parliament said yes to the Labour-Progressive Government’s $263.128 million investment in economic, industry, and regional development. Funding has been approved for 26 new initiatives in the 2004-05 financial year, totalling $98.398 million. Some of the more exciting investments propelling the economic transformation of our nation include programmes to enhance New Zealand’s ability to attract new investment, the opening of new international market opportunities to a number of our industry sectors, significantly greater participation in international trade fairs, and the promotion of New Zealand’s goods and services. The Large Budget Screen Production Grant fund is paying dividends for all New Zealand. New Zealand is increasingly a technologically advanced and forward-looking society that is confident of its place in the world and confident of where it is going as a nation.

The Labour-Progressive coalition Government relishes its vital role in contributing to that process of economic transformation. The reason the coalition Government is active in supporting industry and regional development is that we know that intelligent partnerships are assisting the whole economy to leverage more out of our existing skills and advantages. It is a multiplier effect, and we need to have a lot more of it to ensure that the exceptionally strong economic performance we have seen over the 5 years since 1999 continues uninterrupted for many more years yet. It does not seem very long since 1999, because so much has happened since then and it has been so good. We are a Government that is actively encouraging new investment and new job-creating businesses, including those with export potential. Strengthening the international connections of our businesses plays an important part in lifting our national economic competitiveness, and therefore delivering higher average living standards. The Progressive Government’s hard work constantly pays dividends for all New Zealand.

Yesterday, Jim Anderton and EDS (New Zealand) announced that EDS has already achieved a major milestone stipulated in an investment partnership forged between it and the Government in March of last year: EDS has created more than 200 jobs in just 15 months. It has created all those jobs in the wake of this Government’s $1.5 million investment in the company via our Strategic Investment Fund. That is great news, of course—which is why John Key is celebrating it now—for our expanding information and communications technology industry. EDS’s next target is to create 360 new jobs, in total, by March 2006. Increasing the number of high-value, high-skilled jobs is an important step towards the Labour-Progressive Government’s goal of raising the living standard of every New Zealander. The flow-on effect to the wider society from the Government’s partnership with that global company is that all New Zealand benefits from having a stronger information and communications technology sector based on our shores. Of course, all New Zealand benefits from increased export earnings and from a sophisticated, skilled workforce. EDS (New Zealand)’s managing director, Rick Ellis, says that the Government grant was an important factor in assisting EDS (New Zealand) to compete in the global market for work from overseas EDS subsidiaries, because the investment partnership reflected the strong level of Government support enjoyed by EDS (New Zealand).

The Government is committed to working in partnership with New Zealand in order to get more and more New Zealanders into jobs. As of March 2004, there were 1,985,000 people in work. That is 193,000 more than when we were elected as a coalition Government in 1999. The growth in jobs far exceeds the growth in the labour force. If members want to know what the opposite of the Progressive Government’s economic development policies would look like, then they should look no further than to the National Party members on the Opposition benches. Those members strongly oppose the new jobs created at EDS and the positive partnership that this Government has. Instead, they have a scenario of reckless, big Government spending. National proposes, on the one hand, to end the Government’s investment in our future prosperity, while, on the other hand, recklessly spending more on building prisons and employing more police to keep order in the streets of the alternative society it wants to build. New Zealand would become the Uzbekistan of this part of the world. National would have trouble in building the prisons, because Paul Hutchison, Shane Ardern, Phil Heatley, Bill English, and Tony Ryall do not want prisons when those prisons are to be sited in their areas. National’s is a vision of a society that is failing economically and socially, and therefore has to use precious taxpayers’ money to build ever-increasing numbers of prisons. New Zealand currently imprisons 155 people per 100,000 inhabitants, the seventh-highest imprisonment rate in the OECD. That is the only competition in the OECD National wants to win—the one for the highest level of imprisonment—and that is what it probably would achieve.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First): That was a valedictory speech from a member of a once-important party in our country, long since so, which is why the name of the party is spelt with such a small “p” these days. I want to talk about something the Alliance used to believe in, which is New Zealand ownership of New Zealand assets. In the period between 1988 and 1999, a total of $9.2 billion of State assets was sold, first by the Labour Government and then by the National Government.

There is one party in Parliament that has principles in respect of New Zealand ownership of assets—so much so that we walked out of the Government on that principle, back in August 1998, on the issue of whether the Wellington Airport would be sold to a majority foreign ownership. We say that our sovereignty as a country has been taken by stealth, by successive Governments of a Labour and National hue that allowed this country to become putty in the hands of big business abroad that has conned short-sighted politicians here into believing that we need it to bail us out. The truth is that we are not better off as a country as a consequence, in respect of our assets and wealth—quite the converse.

The current Government has not learnt the lesson at all. Its blind strategy is obvious, although it is not so visible as it used to be. Just recently it moved the threshold in respect of overseas ownership to $100 million before there is any scrutiny at all. Can anyone tell me how many New Zealand companies have $100 million? That means 20 percent of our market can be purchased tomorrow without any scrutiny whatsoever. We are being priced out of our country and no Labour-led or National-led Government is going in to bat for New Zealanders any more. Already 97,000 hectares of South Island high country has been sold to overseas interests—an area equivalent to three Paparoa National Parks. Farms in this country are being sold like second-hand cars at a vehicle auction. All this has been under a Labour-led Government, and National would be so much worse.

Dr Cullen said his intention was to ensure that the new criteria took a broader view. Yeah, right. What he is scared of is being called “anti-business”, although 95 percent of New Zealand businessmen know this is a bad idea. They know because of our balance of payments crisis amongst other things. The Government claims that buyers will be required to stipulate in their applications how they will manage land with special heritage or environmental value. So there it goes, a doff to the left, and the massive sales will go on to foreigners; a little doff to our environmental areas and the massive sale programmes will go on.

Do members know that Cabinet rejected a Treasury paper that stated the figure should be not $10 million, which is what Labour inherited, not $50 million as it changed it to, and not $100 million, which it has got up to now, but that Treasury recommended the figure be $250 million? Do members know what Cabinet said? It said that was a tad high; it was a bit high. When we have a Government that takes such a casual approach to New Zealand ownership, then we have a Government that needs to be tipped out of office.

The Government states that the $100 million rule is expected to cut the annual number of businesses that are able to seek approval from 20 to 12 on average. That is good. So now we are to have fewer people owning more of our land. That is the result. Land with an unimproved value of more than $10 million—and that will be in our central cities—no longer requires any consent whatsoever. Dr Cullen and his Labour colleagues are so nervous that overseas investment has declined that they have lost faith in New Zealanders to create more market access and new technology ideas. All this time we have billions of our savings dollars in the “Cullen fund” parked off shore, making a fortune for some other economy. Who can figure that out? He says that we must change these rules to attract foreign investment. It is not that at all, of course. It is a foreign takeover. We would not see that in Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, Ireland, or any other country in the world. He opens up this country to all sorts of takeovers whilst he has parked off shore billions of dollars of New Zealand - saved money in the “Cullen fund”. That is utter madness.

Hon PHIL GOFF (Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade): I listened in amazement, a few speakers back, to Tony Ryall. Remember Tony Ryall? He was Minister of Justice in 1999. Remember 1999? That is when the referendum was held—a referendum on 9 years of a National Government, where 92 percent of this country said: “Not enough, no action, a do-nothing Government!”. People threw out that Government and signalled quite clearly what they wanted from this Government, and we have delivered.

But let us remember that Tony Ryall also said something about the new legislation discounting sentences. Now, Nick Smith was a member of the National Government in 1993. He remembers the amendment to the Criminal Justice Act that cut parole from 50 percent to 33 percent. In 1993 we had a National Government. What else happened in 1993? The National Government passed legislation stating that a serious, violent criminal, no matter what risk he constituted to the community, had to be released at two-thirds of his sentence. Then National members say how terrible it is that people sentenced under their own legislation are getting out at two-thirds of their sentence, when they still constitute a risk of committing further crimes.

Remember the National Party? Bill English was the Minister of Finance. Bill English has on the record of this Parliament an acknowledgment by him, as a National Minister, that he would cut police numbers and resources to pay for the failed INCIS scheme. So why would any New Zealander believe this National Party? National members are lions when in Opposition but lambs that do nothing when in Government, even though they say they will crack down on crime. It has been shown time and time again that we cannot trust a National Government. Tony Ryall rails against home detention. Who introduced home detention in this country? It was Tony Ryall in 1999. It was one of the last things he did in Government. How can we trust a party in Opposition that pretends it should be the Government, when it shows such duplicity time and time again?

If we want to talk about double standards, National is promising the country 10 more prisons. However, I have a report from the Waikato Times in 2001 stating that eight National MPs, including Paul Hutchison, Shane Ardern, Richard Worth, and others were out there telling the people of Waikato why they should be opposing a prison in their own area. Don Brash is now saying that National would change the Resource Management Act so that people can be told: “There is a prison coming in your street soon and you won’t have any rights to do anything about it.” Yet we had the hypocrisy of eight National members in 2001 saying to people that they should exercise rights that the National Party has now acknowledged it would take away from them.

It is no wonder people do not have confidence in the National Opposition. One cannot trust National members. They say they want DNA testing. Where were they last year when we changed the DNA legislation to ensure that any persons committing serious crime in this country would have to have their DNA taken, and where every person committed to prison in this country would have to give DNA samples? Well, that was tough, but not tough enough for National members, who say: “We want to extend it to those engaged in unlawful assembly and who are drunk and disorderly.” At $200 a time, that would clog up police resources and the Institute of Environmental Science and Research. That is what they would do, because they are going to be tougher than the Labour Government. Then those members say: “No parole; more prisons.” Over a decade, the promises already made would cost $9 billion.

What do we see from the United States, the one country in the Western World that has a higher prison rate, with 3.2 percent of the adult population in the justice system—2 million in prison and 5 million on probation? In California, the home of “three strikes and you’re out”, there is an 85 percent recidivism rate within 6 months of being released from prison. That is what no parole means—an 85 percent recidivism rate. Texas is now emptying out its jails. It is letting people out before they have completed their terms, because the jails are overcrowded and it cannot afford them.

The wrong people have been put in prison. This Government has unashamedly said that those people against whom the public need to be protected will be locked away, and for a long time. William Bell has to serve 30 years before being eligible for parole. But we will not do the stupid things that the National Party is promising to do. They do not work and they would waste the Government’s and the people’s money.

DEBORAH CODDINGTON (ACT): The Minister of Education is on record as calling the National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) a triumph. Well I call on Mr Mallard to tell that to the pupils of Glenfield College in Auckland, particularly the students in a year 11 history class last year who walked into their history exam expecting to answer questions related to the topic they had studied for most of the year—a topic that was compulsory. The topic was set by the New Zealand Qualifications Authority for the level 1 history exam. That topic was: “Tangata and Whenua: the effect of population movement on Maori society”. A considerable portion of the academic year had been devoted by these students and their teacher to studying and revising for this topic. It was a major part of the level 1 history exam. But what did they find when they walked in? They found that not one question had been set on the topic that they had studied for that standard. Those students were effectively denied four credits attached to that standard. Their teacher wrote to me and said they came out of the exam confused and terribly upset, as was their teacher, John Watson, confused and upset.

He went to the website to find out what had happened. The New Zealand Qualifications Authority website specifically stated that the level 1 history paper in the NZCEA would have the topic “Tangata and Whenua” available for examination in 2003. Does Mr Mallard call that a triumph? The teacher wrote to Trevor Mallard in February this year telling him what had happened and asking why that topic was still stated on the website as being available. His students had spent 9 months studying it. The Minister took nearly 3 months to reply to that letter, and stated absolute gobbledygook. In fact, he refused to address the complaint.

Six months later the Minister wrote again to John Watson stating that he felt in his mind that there was no need to do anything about it, because he had checked it out, and overall, those students had done well in the NCEA. That would have been a bit like saying in the old days that if students walked into the history exam and there was no question set on the subject they had studied all year, it did not matter that they failed it, because they had passed their School Certificate, anyway.

Worse than that, the Minister’s excuse for there being no questions on that topic in the exam was that the examiner had not been able to come up with satisfactory questions to ask in the exam. But he had been able to come up with an assessment of the completed exam. The Minister also thought that it was OK, because he said that a circular was delivered to schools a couple of weeks before the students sat the exam. Can that be called an NCEA triumph? Most New Zealanders would call it grossly unfair. Those students had paid fees to sit their exams. The fees they pay to sit the NZCEA are not inconsiderable. Tangata whenua was a compulsory topic.

In other words, the Minister ordered those students, and all students in New Zealand, to sit a New Zealand topic in history. The teacher had taught the topic. He told me that those students were above the national average in intelligence and ability. They had studied and revised the topic, and when they went into the exam, unbeknown to them there was nothing in the exam on that topic. I call that a disgrace. The Minister of Education quite happily spent $15 million on a closing-the-gaps campaign called Te Mana, which basically involves printing a whole lot of glossy brochures to encourage Māori to be educated. At the same time he thinks nothing of dumping the tangata whenua topic from New Zealand history. The Minister is showing that he is quite happy to dump on New Zealand schools, teachers, and students. That is totally unfair. He should give that teacher and those students a better explanation than a cursory letter full of unintelligible language and then turn around and say that because they did OK overall, it would not matter. To excuse himself by saying that no reliable questions could be formed on the subject is just not good enough.

Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA (Minister of Māori Affairs): Madam Speaker, tēnā koe. Ko tēnei anō Te Wiki o te Reo Māori. E tika ake anō I runga I te tū nei ki te mihi ake anō I ā tātou mai I te motu, kei te whawhai tonu ake anō mō tō tātou reo. E mōhio ake anō tātou, ko tēnei anō te reo o te tangata whenua o Aotearoa. I nui ake anō ngā tamariki e whai kaha I roto o ngā kura, ngā kōhanga pērā tonu.

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

[This is Māori Language Week once again. It is therefore fitting that in rising to speak I should extend a greeting in the language to all of us throughout the country, and assure everyone that the battle for our language continues. We know that this is the language of the indigenous people of New Zealand. The number of children with the language in the schools is strong. It is the same in kōhanga.]

This week has become a national annual event and it is of major significance. Two hundred and ten languages are spoken in New Zealand, with te reo Māori ranking second with 160,500 speakers. Te Wiki o te Reo Māori—Māori Language Week—is a time when we embrace our Māori language and when we elevate it as an icon of Aotearoa and as an official language of New Zealand. “Give it a go. Kōrero Māori.” is the theme of the week, and the plea that is going out is that we want everybody to get into it. The message behind Te Wiki o te Reo Māori to all New Zealanders is to have a go at speaking the language. I am 101 percent behind that take. This Government has been committed to that in recognising the tangata whenua language and the status that it does hold, and has, by right in this country.

We believe in the idea of creating a supportive environment for giving it a go, to lighten up, and be free and easy about some of the tabus like the mixing of English and Māori, as they do very effectively on Māori Television’s Kōrero Mai, and about other people’s levels of vocabulary and fluency. The official language status of te reo Māori can only be enhanced when enjoyed by using and sharing it.

Forty-two percent of Māori adults have some speaking ability in Māori, although only about 9 percent are highly fluent. It is definite that not only are more speakers essential to revitalisation but also greater numbers of speakers with high proficiency levels to create solid maintenance are required. This Government’s vision, as established in the Māori language strategy, is that by 2028 the majority of Māori will be able to speak Māori, so there is a clear target.

This Government is in a unique position to show leadership in bilingualism. That is something that the Opposition, given the opportunity to govern, which is very unlikely, will not do. That is why many services can be accessed in Māori. Let it not be that we just do the haka in Māori, when the All Blacks turn out, and we all get excited. Let it be an everyday part of this language and no different from other countries.

Interestingly, the majority of New Zealanders—56 percent—support some level of Māori language tuition of all school students, so that is good. However, there is a balance, and we will not get a positive attitude towards language used by forcing it on people. In other words, knowing the language of our ancestors is part of our belonging.

More positive stuff for te reo Māori is that over 350,000 New Zealanders watched Māori Television in its first 3 months on air and that does not include those watching digital. At the moment it is estimated that 60 to 65 percent of Pākehā watch Māori Television, especially the Kōrero Mai programme. Estimates based on survey suggest as many as 700,000 may have watched Māori Television in the first 12 weeks.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: For how long?

Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA: Māori Television attracted strong interest from non-Māori audiences, with 65 percent having watched Māori Television over the first 12 weeks, and a lot longer than before, when that member was in Government, because they did not care about the tangata whenua. This Government will stand on the platform of its achievements in relation to moving Māori forward.

Quite clearly, in the health area, Māori boys are expected to live to 69 years. That is a lot more years than they were in 1995 and 1997. Māori women are expected to live to 71.3 years. It was previously reported that they could be expected to live only to 68 years. In education, as that member pointed out, tertiary education enrolments have doubled, from 32,825 in 1999 to 62,574. Right now there are 21,737 Māori in industry training and they are doing a whole lot more things.

JEANETTE FITZSIMONS (Co-Leader—Green): “Coming to a river near you!” Members might like to study this map to look at the orange dots in their electorates. Those 65 orange dots are the plans that the Ministry of Economic Development has for our rivers. Those 65 are only the publicly known opportunities to dam, divert, and put into canals. They are only the ones that the Ministry of Economic Development believes have a high-to-medium level of confidence of proceeding. Altogether, they add up to over 12,000 gigawatt hours, which is nearly a third of the generation that New Zealand used last year.

They claim to have removed the projects with environmental issues that would be difficult to resolve, and they claim to have removed projects in national parks. However, quite a number of those are still illegal and require changes of the law before they could proceed. They rely on the lifting of water conservation orders that have been fought for by local communities often for a decade or so before they have finally been put in place. They propose the lifting of water conservation orders on the Ashburton River, on the Mohaka River, and on the Gowan River. They do affect national parks. They proposed to divert the Mangawhero River on the edge of the Tongariro National Park into the Wanganui River. They contain numerous examples in forest parks such as up in the Tararuas where many local Wellingtonians have their recreation and tramping.

Two of the main rivers in Molesworth Station just acquired by the Department of Conservation for the benefit of all New Zealanders—the Awatere River, currently running free and unmodified would be dammed, and the Clarence River—would be diverted through a range of hills into a dam on the other side in a major tourist and recreational area.

The examples are legion. There are four dams on the Ngaruroro River, which currently has no dams on it. The East Cape, the Bay of Plenty, Gisborne, and the Hawke’s Bay region is particularly affected. There is the Waiohine River, a tributary of the Ruamahanga River, with its headwaters in the Tararua Ranges; the Ashburton River, which requires a variation to two water conservation orders, with a proposal to divert waters from two catchments, and run canals through the basin where The Lord of the Rings was filmed—it would have looked great with canals in the background would it not—and the damming of the river at the gorge.

There is a proposed diversion of the river draining Lake Koroko in the Fiordland National Park, and diverting a discharge of Lake Wakatipu down into Southland. Chief amongst all these proposals, of course, is Project Aqua, which is still on the books, whose applications have not been withdrawn, which provides the largest amount of power out of the 12,000 gigawatt hours, and with which it is clearly still aimed to proceed if a suitable regional plan can be drawn up under the Waitaki bill.

All of these rivers have natural values that are important to New Zealanders. All of these rivers are habitat for biodiversity for indigenous species. All of these rivers have recreational and scenic values. They are people’s favourite fishing spots, favourite swimming spots, and favourite tramping places. The Ministry of Economic Development shows no sensitivity at all to those values. It is simply: “What is the hydro potential? Let’s go for it if we think we could get consent.”

There is also a strong link here to the proposed amendment to the Resource Management Act in that the website refers to these rivers as water bodies of national importance. We know that one of the proposals to amend the Resource Management Act is to put a clause in allowing the national interest to override people’s local amenity interests, and the environment, and this is what that override will be for. This is what that national interest clause in the Resource Management Act will be about. There will be about 65, but there are a whole lot more to come that are perhaps a little less likely than these. These are just the most likely ones on rivers all over the country.

All of this could be avoided. We have large opportunities in New Zealand for energy efficiency and conservation. We have the best wind sites in the world, we have waste wood for co-generation, and we have a lot of solar heat. All of those things are possible. We do not have to sacrifice rivers throughout the country.

Hon DOVER SAMUELS (Minister of State): Ko te mea tuatahi māku, kei te mihi atu ki a koe te Whaea Kaiwhakahaere o te Whare, ā, me ngā mema katoa. I acknowledge Madam Speaker, and also members of the House.

Kei te tū atu ki te tautoko I tēnei wiki, arā, tumanako kia whakaatungia te reo Māori ki te motu katoa. I stand up to support Māori Language Week.

Ko te tumanako, ko te wero ki a tātou ngā mema o te Whare Pāremata kia kōrero Māori tātou I ngā wā katoa. Pēnā whara kau tātau e mohio ana ki te kōrero Māori, me haere ētahi o tātau ki te kōhanga reo. I invite our colleagues and all members of Parliament to take up the challenge and learn the Māori language. Perhaps I could help them by advising them to start off with kōhanga reo.

And also ngā wero katoa ki ahau, ki ngā tari katoa a te Kāwanatanga, ngā tumuaki katoa, kia mōhio ai rātau, kōrerotia te reo Māori I roto ā rātau mahi katoa. The challenge is also to Government departments right throughout the country, to inspire them to be able to speak Māori in their communications, not just with Māori people but also with all people in our country.

I rise to talk about Māori aspirations, ambitions, and visions for Māoridom. I want to share with the House that there is virtually no difference between the visions and desires of our Māori people and those of non-Māori and Pākehā. We all want good jobs, and we all want sustainable employment so that we can earn money to put kai on our tables. We also want a decent roof over our heads. We want education and employment for our children. We are really no different to the rest of New Zealanders. In fact, our people want to participate in the opportunities that are available for them, and to that end this Government has prepared a landscape in order for our people to achieve.

I want to make a few comments about that. When we are talking about the Māori language, we are talking about the Government appropriating something like $4 million over 4 years for the Māori language programme. That is something unique.

But the other thing I want to talk about is the emergence of that other party. I tell the House that I am prepared to put my name down, right beside the achievements that have been made by the Labour Government. I am prepared to put my signature to the achievements that have been made by the Labour Government in terms of its aspirations to move forward Māoridom in its entirety, and in its commitment to Māori social and economic development. I will name some achievements.

I will start first in Kaitaia. We put $9.5 million into Kaitaia Hospital. No other party, not even this new party that has emerged, has come out and said that it would put in any money. I challenge any party, including this new party, to deliver for the Māori people. I say to them: never mind about the rhetoric, never mind about flying the tino rangatira flag, never mind about blocking up the Auckland Harbour Bridge—produce the goods and deliver for our people!

I will stand with my colleagues here, and we will put our signatures to the things we have delivered for Māori. We have the lowest unemployment rate in a decade in Te Tai Tokerau: 9.4 percent, down from 17.5 percent in 3 years. We are delivering. We have 6,000 apprentices—young Māori training in building and engineering—in Te Tai Tokerau. If any others can match our aspirations they should deliver. I do not care what name they call themselves—this party or that party, having a party—who gives a hoot? Māoridom wants a party to deliver, and I tell members that this Labour Government has delivered—plus. We will stand on our reputation.

Every Māori member and every member of the Labour Party and of this Government will put their signature to the treaty of delivery. That is a new treaty—the treaty of delivery. Never mind about the rhetoric. Never mind about jumping up and down, doing the haka, having the hīkoi, or flying the flag. That will not put kai on our table, put a roof over our heads, or educate our children. All that people have heard is utter humbug, because at the end of the day our people will say: “Which is the Government that will deliver?”

I say to this House that the treaty for delivery rests with this Labour Government. Our people understand that the party to deliver has to be either the Labour Party or the National Party. National will deliver the abolition of the Māori seats, the abolition of Māoridom, and the abolition of the treaty. That is what the National Party will deliver—humbug!

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson): One of the reasons this Government will go out on its ear next year is the way in which it has dumped responsibilities and costs on local government that have resulted in a record increase in rates. In the figures that have just been released by Statistics New Zealand, the rate increase for the first year of the new local government legislation is 10.4 percent. That is over a 10 percent increase in rates, and Dover Samuels talks about what they have delivered! What that delivers is increased costs for families on fixed incomes and a reduction in the competitiveness of New Zealand business. It amounts to an extra $200 million taken out of the pockets of hard-working New Zealanders so that we can pay out for the political correctness and bureaucracy that this Government has imposed on New Zealand.

Let me explain just how bad that 10.4 percent increase is. If we go back over the Statistics New Zealand records for the past 10 years, the biggest increase in any other year was 4.6 percent. That was a Labour year, too. In fact, rates have gone up in this country by 32 percent since Labour has been in Government. Over the same period the consumer price index has moved by 12 percent.

So what sort of rhetoric do we get from Government members, who say they care about the poor people? What about the poor people who have to pay rates? The Government hands out Government grants for business when businesses are having to fork out tens of millions of dollars more in rate bills. How has it done it? Well, let us reflect back on the Local Government Act 2002, which is one of the biggest statutes passed by this Government. We asked for assurances from the Minister that the Government would not put up rates. Yet exactly the opposite has happened. In the very first full year of that Act we saw rates go up by four times the consumer price index over the June 2003 to June 2004 period.

How has the Government done that? Well, it just keeps dumping extra costs on local government. I have been attending the Local Government New Zealand conference for the last 3 days, and there is a mood amongst the councillors and mayors of New Zealand that they have had it with this lot. The Government has dumped on them with dogs. It has dumped on them with new responsibilities under the Resource Management Act. It has dumped on them with new gaming responsibilities, and so it goes on. I was speaking to Darren Hughes’ councillors and they were saying that the rates bill responsibility should rest with that member and his Labour mates who have passed dumb legislation that simply pushes up the costs for ordinary New Zealanders.

I ask members opposite whether they will take responsibility for this record rate increase. There is silence. They will probably try to pass the buck to their mates in local government. Members on this side of the House say that we have to go back to the drawing board. It is not acceptable to dump 10-plus percent rate increases on the families and businesses of New Zealand. That is why we will reform the Resource Management Act. That is why we will revisit the bureaucratic politically correct nonsense in that Local Government Act. The story of the Wellington Regional Council having to spend over $200,000 in its first year on consultation with iwi is a story that is repeated up and down New Zealand. That must change. National is saying it must redress this nonsense idea with dogs—that we have every single dog microchipped in New Zealand without any thought for the cost that that imposes on ordinary New Zealanders. My colleague Lindsay Tisch well knows the sorts of costs that the Building Act is dumping on ratepayers and councils all around New Zealand. We will revisit the gaming legislation that again puts up all these sorts of costs.

The answer, which those members opposite do not understand, is that the citizens and businesses of this country are far more capable of spending their money wisely than the bureaucracies of central and local government. That 10.4 percent rate increase is the death knell of the Local Government Act that that Labour Government has imposed on the people of New Zealand. It is a failure, and Chris Carter should get down to this House and explain why a 10.4 percent increase in rates bills works.

LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East): The Government won its second term in office 2 years ago yesterday. Apart from the total disarray of the National Party at the time, which was helpful, it was a positive vote for the continuation of the good work of a good Government, whose members had said before an election what it was going to do, and who delivered on those promises after the election. National cannot stand that. Every time we deliver another pledge, it reminds people that National broke promise after promise all through the 1990s.

The bottom line is that this country is doing well. Areas of deprivation in the 1990s are today building growth rates that are higher than the national average, and the National Party cannot stand that either. Dr Brash says we are a lucky Government, which I suspect means that he thinks Ruth Richardson was just plain unlucky when she plunged our economy into recession with her “mother of all Budgets”. Maybe he thinks he would have better luck now, because he is really stuck in that ideological mindset of the 1990s, which this country firmly rejected in 1999, firmly rejected in 2002, and will firmly reject again next year.

My view is that we would see history repeat itself if National were to gain control of the Treasury benches. I was talking to an older constituent on Monday who said to me that Dr Brash would ruin the New Zealand economy if he had the chance, giving tax cuts to the richest New Zealanders and taking service away from the poorest New Zealanders. National will learn that it cannot fool the people even some of the time. The question I am asked is that if National is doing so well, why are so many of its members now leaving—deciding that they are not going to stand for the National Party? Obviously, Roger Sowry has made a good decision. It is better to jump ship than to suffer a humiliating defeat at the hands of the National list-ranking committee. To decide to stay on would only be delaying the inevitable. Linda Scott was furious that Dr Brash could not bring himself even to include health as one of National’s top five priorities. No wonder they are going.

Although there is speculation about Georgina te Heuheu leaving voluntarily, and Richard Worth or Clem Simich being forced out, there is no speculation about the one member of the Opposition who should stand down because of the dishonour he has brought upon himself as a member of Parliament, the dishonour he has brought upon this House by being here, and the dishonour he has brought upon his party—Nicholas Rex Smith. Nick Smith was convicted of contempt of court, but not because he breached the privacy provisions of the Family Court, as his colleagues seemed to think. They gave that man a standing ovation in this Parliament for trying to force, in the most high-handed manner imaginable, a genuine litigant in a Family Court proceeding to withdraw from that proceeding. Nicholas Rex Smith rang the caregiver in a family dispute and asked her whether she felt guilty for stealing the mother’s child. How dare he! He said to her words to the effect that he was a member of Parliament, that Parliament is the highest court in the land, and that everyone is answerable to Parliament. That is intolerable behaviour from somebody calling himself a member of Parliament.

Lindsay Tisch: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The member is casting aspersions on the credibility of a member on this side of the House by referring to a court case that has been heard and is over. Her attack on Dr Nick Smith is uncalled for and unparliamentary, and I ask that she apologise and withdraw those comments.

LIANNE DALZIEL: Speaking to the point of order, I am quoting from the court case.

Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I wonder whether it is appropriate that we get into this sort of slanging match. The reality is that the court, at the end of the day, vindicated Dr Smith’s position, without a doubt. In fact, it is very clear that it was a politically motivated prosecution. There is no doubt that undue influence was brought to bear on various parties in this case, and Nick Smith, in my view, was totally a victim. I think for the Labour Party to have a member stand up now and talk like this is just outrageous.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich): I thank members for those comments. The last speaker was simply furthering the information that was in the original point of order. I say to the member who was making those remarks that she is quite entitled to make them because they are from a court case, but I and the House would appreciate it if she desisted—certainly, in the tone that she was delivering them.

LIANNE DALZIEL: To quote from the court case, the member concerned rang the caregiver in a family dispute and asked her if she felt guilty for stealing the mother’s child. He said to her words to the effect that he was a member of Parliament, that Parliament is the highest court in the land, and that everyone is answerable to Parliament. He denied that in court, but the court did not believe him and found against him. If Nick Smith had one ounce of integrity, he would say he must stand down because he had led his own party and the wider public to believe that he was a martyr to the cause of openness in the Family Court, and he knew he could rely on the local media—apart from the Christchurch Press, which actually reported it accurately in its editorial—not to tell the real story. I invite members to read the decision of the Solicitor-General on Nicholas Rex Smith, TV3, and Radio New Zealand, and ask why such contemptible behaviour is acceptable to the National Party.

I want to quote from the supplementary judgment from the other two judges in the case: “The list of contempts just given demonstrates that what he did went well beyond simply making public details of a proceeding in the Family Court. It will have been clear to you from our judgment that we regard your contempts as serious ones, not the least because they occurred on four different and separate occasions. Your subsequent conduct is devoid of any expression of regret—indeed, quite the opposite. To be unrepentant is your prerogative. We find it disappointing and, for someone of your standing, surprising. On the more positive side we accept that your motives were a desire to help your constituents.” He did not achieve that end.

LINDSAY TISCH (Junior Whip—National): I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. That was the longest 5 minutes I have heard for some time.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich): I accept that the member’s speech did go slightly over time.

JUDY TURNER (United Future): New Zealand’s rate of family breakdown is a major concern. Current statistics indicate that one in three marriages will end in divorce, and, of these, approximately half involve children. A further 45 percent of New Zealand children are born to parents who are not married, which suggests that the real rate of breakdown is higher than the divorce figures indicate. Some families handle separation well, and the parents are able to handle disputes in a way that shields children from conflict. But, sadly, recent social research highlights that for many families who do not handle separations well, a significant measure of psychological and developmental damage is done to children.

Not only do children frequently experience considerable distress during the first year of their parents’ separation, but longitudinal studies tell us that negative outcomes of increased rates of school dropout, a lack of educational achievement, socioeconomic disadvantage, and relationship breakdown can follow the children who experience painful family break-ups right through into their adult years. Recent visiting speakers to New Zealand have told us that children of divorced parents are up to 300 percent more likely to have significant mental health problems, and that the children’s relationships with the parent they do not live with, which is often their father, takes a huge toll. This relationship is hugely important, particularly for boys. A number of children find themselves in an environment where parents are openly hostile, which is, obviously, most damaging. However, studies also indicate that even more common, yet still a major detriment to children’s development, is the situation where parents mutually disengage. Parents in this situation tend to resort to what is called parallel parenting, where two sets of rules apply, depending on where the child is staying at any given time. While the risks are high, it is not an inevitability that parental separation will have damaging consequences for children. Research and experience show that to the extent that conflict can be minimised or avoided, and children are protected from it, the opportunities for them to have a healthy development can be advanced.

In addition to Family Court counselling services, numbers of overseas jurisdictions, particularly through the US and Canada, have well-established parent education programmes for parents who are separating. These programmes educate parents about the potential impacts of separation on their children; help parents refocus their attention on the best interests of their children; give parents skills to manage their conflict, and cooperate with each other in providing consistent boundaries and discipline for their children; and also provide an idea of what parents can expect from the Family Court process. These courses generally comprise two to three sessions of about 2 hours each, and parents can attend separately.

Already, a pilot programme called Children in the Middle is being run by the Family Court Association of the North Shore, in line with recent recommendations of the Law Commission that such parent education programmes should be introduced into New Zealand. The goals of this programme on the North Shore are fourfold: that children are made the first priority; that the impact of parental separation on children is minimised; that parents learn positive communication strategies with both their ex-partner and children; and that families make better use of counselling and mediation services that are offered by the court.

Well, I am impressed by this pilot and the commitment of volunteers to see the intervention happen in the lives of these families at an early stage. It is my vision that this initiative would move beyond the pilot stage and become a mandatory part of the Family Court process. As a result, I have drawn up a member’s bill that would see all parties seeking a parenting order—following the passage of the Care of Children Bill—attend a parent education programme before their hearing is set down for trial. Like Family Court counselling arrangements, parents would also be free to attend at an earlier stage, but these measures would ensure that parents take a few hours out to learn about the process, and to stop and consider what they can do to ensure that children are not as detrimentally affected as they have been in the past. Those involved in the pilot scheme tell me that almost all of those who have initially been reluctant to attend the sessions say afterwards that they would wholeheartedly recommend them to others.

I have read that other parties are yet to consider what early intervention schemes can be employed to prevent negative cycles of family breakdown, youth justice problems, and family violence. I am pleased to say that implementation of this bill would see another plank of United Future’s policy of focusing on prevention, rather than merely throwing more and more resources into the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff. Along with my United Future colleagues, I am looking forward to this bill being drawn from the ballot. I particularly look forward to seeing this important initiative being placed on the agenda, in the hope that it is one that all of us, in the interests of seeing our families and communities change for the better, will get behind.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.

Estimates Debate

In Committee

Debate resumed from 27 July on the Appropriation (2004/05 Estimates) Bill.

Vote Attorney-General agreed to.

Vote Commerce agreed to.

Vote Parliamentary Counsel agreed to.

Vote Serious Fraud agreed to.

Vote Treaty Negotiations

GERRY BROWNLEE (Deputy Leader—National): This vote must be one of the truly great embarrassments for the current Government. While there is an overwhelming desire among all sectors of New Zealand to see treaty issues settled fairly and justly and at a speedy pace, the Government has not made any effort to progress the great work of Doug Graham during the 1990s. Rather, it has slid along on the coat-tails of the work that Doug Graham did, and in fact has achieved very, very little. What bothers us is that while all of this is happening the Government is about to pass legislation, with the help of other parties, including the hopelessly directionless New Zealand First, to put in place seabed and foreshore legislation that will see the treaty grievance industry considerably enhanced—well, not enhanced; in fact, it will see it grow at an alarming rate.

I ask the Minister whether there is any explanation for the fact that the proposal for next year is to settle just $31 million worth of settlements. That is certainly a lot of money, but in the overall context of treaty settlements it is a very, very small amount, indicating that not much work is being done. I would also like to have some explanation of why the Government claims to have settled so many treaty negotiations, when, in fact, they were started under the watch of Sir Doug Graham. That was 5 years ago. We have had 5 years of Māori being pushed to the back and told that their interest is not that of the Government, and that they will simply have to wait for their settlement time to come. Where is the additional resourcing for the Waitangi Tribunal that might see some of these matters dealt with before my children are old enough to vote in parliamentary elections, or, indeed, to stand in this House to consider legislation on these matters? We are simply shuffling things around a bit and leaving them for future generations.

The question must be how long the fiscal cap will hold in place. How long will it be before various tribes start saying: “What you’re offering us in the year 2005, 2006, or 2007 is not enough, because it is based on a figure that was struck in 1990, some 15 years ago.”? We learnt recently that the income disparity between Māori and non-Māori in this country is of such a magnitude that if at any point the two figures were to be brought together, then, over a 10-year period, an additional $45 billion would be delivered to Māori New Zealand families—families that would be participating in the wider New Zealand economy. The fiscal parameters around the treaty settlements and any fisheries settlements amount to just on $2 billion. What we cannot understand is why we would not want to get that capital into the hands of those who can make a difference with it, so that the whole country can benefit from those larger incomes, and so the infrastructure of New Zealand in terms of social services, educational services, and health services can be enhanced by virtue of fewer people at the bottom end being so far away from the average income.

So this is a very, very sad record that the Labour Government has totalled up. It really does speak of the neglect it has inflicted upon Māori in this country, who are well-meaning in most of these cases, and simply want to get on with their lives, to remedy past injustices, and to move forward.

Darren Hughes: Has your leader benefited?

GERRY BROWNLEE: Let us make it very clear that when Don Brash said in his Ōrewa speech that he wanted to take out undue references to the Treaty of Waitangi from legislation, he was very much defining the difference between National and Labour. I tell Mr Hughes that we are not interested in putting flash words into legislation that confuse people; we are interested in making a difference to the lives of New Zealanders who want to get on with it. Treaty grievances are, by and large, understood. People know when there was a bad deal, and they want a better deal. They will not get it, of course, until this Government has gone.

Dr WAYNE MAPP (National—North Shore): I want to report on the Māori Affairs Committee report on the progress of treaty negotiations. In this year’s report we note two things. Page 4 states: “Some of us remain concerned at the suitability of staff to conduct negotiations with senior tribal leaders. In particular, we note that OTS does not regularly engage lead negotiators who have equivalent community standing.” The Minister may well think that it is only the National Party that says that. I can tell her that that sentiment is shared by her colleagues, the Māori members who represent the various Māori seats that Labour holds. It is a widespread concern. The trouble is that we have a Minister who thinks that treaty negotiations are best conducted by a policy of benign neglect—that she can leave it to the Office of Treaty Settlements, and occasionally helicopter in to sign a document or deliver an apology. Well, that does not work. What is required is an intensive, ongoing effort by the Government, with a Minister actively seized of the negotiating process.

We know that the Minister prefers the area of labour relations. We know that she prefers—although perhaps not this week—issues to do with the Supreme Court. The one area of her responsibilities that is perhaps more important for the future of the country than any other is concluding the treaty settlement process. The reason we say “concluding” is that it is about actually unifying and healing the nation. Whilst we remain a nation in the middle of the treaty settlement process, we will, to a large extent, remain divided. We have only to look at the example of Ngāi Tahu, in particular—but there are others, as well—to see that once the settlement process is complete, there is a bringing together of communities. That is what is required, and it is what the Government has simply failed to understand. That is why Dr Brash, at Ōrewa, talked about the need to complete the settlement process.

We have made an undertaking that we will complete the settlement process in 5 years. That means a new way of thinking. It means new and fresh approaches to dealing with the process. Some of that does involve getting high-powered, highly qualified, well-respected people—senior people whom iwi negotiators will respect, and whom they will understand and be able to deal with—to speed the process. That is what occurred in the 1990s. It also involves the Minister taking a keen interest, and being closely involved, in the process. For instance, back in 1999 the then Minister, Sir Douglas Graham, was able to complete five heads of agreement with five Taranaki iwi. We are 5 years down the track, and not all of those are yet even into legislation. Last month I issued a press release, in which I said that in the space of 5 years Parliament had passed only four Treaty of Waitangi settlement Acts. The Minister clearly did not read that release accurately, because she claimed that I was wrong and that the Government had many other things in train, as well. I guess it does have things in train, but she could not say that, in terms of the legislation—the final event that actually creates the settlement itself—there were any more than four settlements. I know that the Minister says—and I would like her to take a call—that she has legislation afoot to put to Parliament to settle some Taranaki iwi claims, and we will support that, because we have been waiting a long, long time for it to occur.

We on the Opposition side of the Chamber are concerned to see the relatively low level of the vote for treaty settlements over previous years, ranging from a high of $60 million. It is noteworthy that that was in 1999-2000. Since then, it has been down to $27 million, $31 million, and so forth. That represents the slow pace and low number of settlements. The fact that the vote has collapsed to such an extent shows how woefully behind the pace the Government is. The Government has said that it believes the process can be completed in 15 years’ time. We have asked that question of the Office of Treaty Settlements—and, indeed, of the Minister when she appeared before the select committee—numerous times. Each time, the answer has been that it would require 15 years, give or take a few years. Fifteen years has been the consistent answer.

Well, that answer has been given now for 5 years. What that means, of course, is that in the Government’s mind its framework has already been extended out to 2020. I recall—and the Minister herself should recall—a time when she and the Office of Treaty Settlements were talking about 2012-15. That is what she said in 2001. But today we are talking about 2020—effectively 15 years down the track. So it was not surprising that, when the chief executive of the Office of Treaty Settlements was challenged on the slow pace of the settlements, he started talking about time frames and the need to put in some shape. One got the fundamental impression of a degree of frustration creeping into the office, because it has a Minister who simply does not care and does not take the focused effort that is necessary to expedite the process.

It is for the benefit of the country to conclude these settlements. I say it is for the benefit of the country, but perhaps more significantly—and the Minister of Māori Affairs certainly knows this—it is for the benefit of Māori themselves. Part of concluding the settlement process is not just the restoration of particular assets or sums of money. It is the sense of restoration of the iwi—the sense of iwi pride—that is an important part of people’s development. Those of us—and I presume this includes the Minister—who have gone to various iwi that have completed settlements and have moved into looking at the opportunities for the future can see the advantages that have resulted from those settlements. We can see that those iwi have been able to provide funds for students to attend universities and polytechnics, and to provide a whole range of services and facilities for the members of the iwi. The process and completion of the settlement is an inherent part of building capability and capacity within the Māori people. The money itself is not the critical issue, because in reality it will never be enough to give individuals a real opportunity to close the gaps. But what it does do is to heal the spirit. Once that is done, the development of people can be advanced. That is precisely where the Government has failed to seize the opportunity.

There will come an opportunity in 12 months’ time, when the public will get to choose which party it prefers to do the real business of concluding settlements that are to the benefit of this country. I would have to say that, based on the Government’s lackadaisical and lazy progress to date, Labour will not be the preferred choice.

Hon MARGARET WILSON (Minister in charge of Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations): This is an estimates debate, so I think it is appropriate to record that the recent Budget saw an increase of $1.2 million for treaty negotiations. That does not include any extra funding that would have gone to the Waitangi Tribunal, and the support that we have given there. I have listened with interest, as I always do, to the comments of my colleagues in the Opposition. They certainly do give truth to the cliché that National is really quite brave when it is in Opposition, but when one examines its record from the nearly 10 years when it had the opportunity to do something about treaty settlements, one finds it was rather poor.

I, unfortunately, have had the position as the current Minister of having to clean up the mess that was left behind by the previous Government. That is one of the difficulties one has with the Ngāi Tahu settlement, which is much vaunted—and a very good settlement it was. But the fact that we are only now starting to implement it is a classic example of how if one rushes to judgment, so to speak, one repents for quite some time. The Tainui claim, of course, was settled by National—or was it? The easy bits were. The previous Government left all the hard bits, because it is Labour that cleans up the mess. Then we come to the Whakatōhea and the Te Ātiawa settlements. Those were great examples of the National Party’s approach to treaty settlements: to get there and tell people what to do. When Māori got an opportunity to speak for themselves, they said “wait, wait”. That is exactly what happened.

We are about to be treated to a new policy, called the fiscal envelope policy, that will undoubtedly be presented by the National Party at the next election. We will look forward with interest to see the next series of disasters that National will create in terms of imposing its will upon claimant groups, without taking into consideration the most essential aspect of the whole treaty settlement process: that it must be done in a way that takes account of the wishes of both parties—not only the wishes of the Crown, which has been the National Party’s approach to the issue as it imposed its will on claimants. We have gone into genuine negotiations with claimant groups. Yes, it does take longer than imposing the Crown’s wishes on claimants, but we have done that because we want to have lasting and durable settlements.

Dr Wayne Mapp: Are you suggesting Ngāi Tahu—

Hon MARGARET WILSON: Some of those settlements that the member talks about are now being reopened—not Ngāi Tahu’s, but I am told that some of the other settlements were not quite as full and final as they should have been. Perhaps the detail was not actually attended to by the previous Government. We have fine rhetoric from National, but when it comes to the hard work and the professional approach needed to get fair and durable settlements, its record is absolutely abysmal.

We are engaged now with over 25 claimant groups. In recent days we have had the Prime Minister’s apology, and I did not note that the honourable members were there to back up their fine words when the apology was given to Te Uri o Hau.

Dr Wayne Mapp: They didn’t invite us.

Hon MARGARET WILSON: The members should not have needed an invitation. If they were so concerned for claimants they would have been there—no problem, at all.

Dr Wayne Mapp: No respect.

Hon MARGARET WILSON: Precisely. The Opposition has no respect for the claimant group, or for the fact that you are part of the Crown and you should have been there to be represented at the same time as the Government. But you walked away—

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

Hon MARGARET WILSON: I am sorry; I apologise. National walked away.

Rodney Hide: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairman. My complaint, Sir, is not against the Attorney-General and Minister in charge of Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations, who has apologised. My complaint is against the chief Government whip, who consistently browbeats someone who tries to take a point of order. I do not want to be particularly pedantic, but I think it was a bit rich—[Interruption] Now we have the Minister of Māori Affairs, Parekura Horomia, interfering on a point of order. I think you should suggest to the chief Government whip that she lets Parliament deal with Parliament and does not always scream out across the Chamber like a demented hen, as she tries to stop MPs from taking legitimate points of order. Surely you would agree that standing up to protect the Chair is a responsible thing to do, without having Jill Pettis screaming out.

Jill Pettis: Speaking to the point of order—

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): No, I do not need any help on this matter, thank you very much. You are quite right, Mr Hide, and I hope the Committee will take notice of that.

Hon MARGARET WILSON: I take the point, and I apologise to the Chair. The point I was making was that if National was serious and genuine about its concern for claimants, it would have a united approach to the settlement of grievances. Certainly, this Government has tried to work with the precedents that were established by the previous Government, in the interests of certainty. We have tried to do that as well as we can, because we saw that this process is bigger than either of us—in fact, it is important to the whole country. It saddens me that we have a debate like this that comes down to personal attacks, instead of looking to be able to resolve those differences.

Vote agreed to.

Vote Māori Affairs

GERRY BROWNLEE (Deputy Leader—National): In looking at Vote Māori Affairs, we really are looking at a Government department that seems hell-bent on entrenching grievance and misery in this country—a department that does not seem to have any idea of where it is heading, or any idea of what it is supposed to achieve. One thing that really winds me up is that we are constantly told that Māori are special, are set apart, and have particular and exceptional rights inside this country, and that then there are the rest of us, who are, apparently, the Crown, and who have some obligation—in fact, a considerable obligation—to that other group. I want to make it clear that the National Party rejects that concept completely. I want the Minister to tell us this afternoon what positive things his department is doing, because I am struggling to see in the list of this year’s estimates just what those things may be.

Hon John Tamihere: He will struggle all right!

GERRY BROWNLEE: There is Mr Tamihere coming into the Chamber, making smart comments again, and chipping away at anybody and everybody who disagrees with him. He has just presided last evening over an utter debacle up in the far north, involving a totally crook organisation of which he was once the chief executive. That is the sort of thing that those of us who are told we are the Crown—and who have, therefore, some obligation to Māori—cannot understand. We are, quite frankly, sick of it.

I want the Minister of Māori Affairs to explain to the Committee what the whānau development programme is all about. The 2004 Budget puts $14 million a year into whānau development. We cannot work out quite what that is all about, but we do hear that there are people in various Māori organisations who refer to that money as “the Horomia picnic money”—people can put in an application, get a few thousand dollars, and go and have a hāngi on Parekura Horomia. What is whānau development, and why do we have to have whānau development for Māori, when there is no such equivalent for other families in this country? Māori, of course, under this Government are different; they are not part of the community of New Zealand. Māori are the reserved elite, and this Government is determined they should be kept there. The sad deception is that Māori, under Labour, are still at the bottom of every social statistic that represents the worst aspects of life in this country. Māori still lag very significantly behind the rest of the nation when it comes to average income, Māori are the ones who die of the worst kind of diseases and of other diseases that could be prevented, and Māori families are the ones that struggle with the issue of poor housing in the far north and in various other parts of the country. But we have a Government that is utterly hoodwinking Māori into believing that it is on their side.

I want to know how a poor Māori family will get anything out of Te Māngai Pāho being given another $26 million this year. That organisation has just had an audit run over it, and there were no fewer than 40 discrepancies in the management of that organisation.

Brian Connell: How many?

GERRY BROWNLEE: Forty discrepancies were picked up by the Audit Office. And I tell members that the Minister has decided to give Te Māngai Pāho more money. Not one Māori who is suffering from diabetes and not being treated, not one Māori kid struggling with his or her reading at school, and not one Māori living in substandard housing will benefit from that. But Māori should not worry, because Parekura Horomia is there, and if they write him a nice letter he will send them a few bob for a barbecue.

I want to know why we are spending so much money on the Māori television channel. There will be those who say that part of the Government’s obligation from the early 1990s is to ensure that the Māori language is preserved and has its place in broadcasting. But when I look at mainstream television, I see most of Sunday morning is devoted to Māori television. The children’s programme modelled on What Now is another chunk of such programming. I want to know why there has to be a separate channel for Māori. Why does there have to be a separate organisation for Māori, and why can that organisation not hold its management structure together? Why does it have to be so riddled with the sort of disasters that we have seen since the appointment of John Davy? Why did the Government not use its State broadcasting charter to simply insist that the goals of Māori Television were delivered through the State television already owned by the taxpayer?

I look at Māori Television programming, and I say that there are a couple of programmes that I very much enjoy, like Kai Time on the Road.

Hon Parekura Horomia: Ha, ha!

GERRY BROWNLEE: I tell members that I am almost encouraged by Kai Time on the Road to write a letter to Mr Horomia myself, to see whether I can get some of his barbecue money. Those programmes are about New Zealand discovering its own identity. There is an easy transition between te reo Māori and English, but it is all done in the context of what happens in this country. I think the Government wants to create the illusion that by having a separate Māori television channel, that group of people is a separate nation. If there is a separate nation it is a pretty bad state, because the people who overwhelmingly represent the lowest and worst of our social statistics are part of that nation. So there is a long, long way to go.

I think this Minister has not done the sort of work he should be doing in order to make a difference. I still cannot get an answer from Te Puni Kōkiri about what capacity building is. What one receives are screeds of paper that generally rabbit on about all sorts of garbage. One is handed that and expected to accept that that is what capacity building is. I recently wrote to a number of Māori trusts, asking them whether they had received any funding from an assistance with management fund that was available to them. The answers I received stated that none of them had had any money, that some of them had had some literature from Te Puni Kōkiri, and that one had had a letter from Te Puni Kōkiri stating that the trust was not subject to the Official Information Act, so it did not have to reply to me, and that it should simply send my letter to Te Puni Kōkiri, which would write back to me. I am still waiting for that letter. I think that that Government department needs to have a serious rule run over it.

I have been incredibly patient, quite frankly, for almost 6 months now, while trying to get my understanding of these things upskilled a bit, but I cannot see anything positive coming out of Te Puni Kōkiri, at all—nothing. What we get is—[Interruption] There—did members see that? I want that comment to go in Hansard. That was the senior Government whip, from the Labour Party—the Labour Party, mind you—once again offering my trade background as a sort of derogatory comment. That is why that crowd will be slung out of Government. That is why Whanganui is a dead seat for Labour, and why that member will not be on the Government benches after the next election. Those members have no respect for working New Zealanders, and they have no respect for Māori New Zealanders, who just want to get on with their lives.

TARIANA TURIA (Leader—Māori Party): The tragedy of any estimates is that the majority of money spent on Māori is spent by others, and mostly inefficiently and ineffectively. But I do want to recognise the importance of the funding that has been allocated in the new initiatives for strengthening whānau and community Māori language use. We believe te reo Māori is the cornerstone of all that is Māori, and, given this, it would have been great if the Government had in fact made a more significant commitment. What our party would like to see is that all te reo Māori courses offered by tertiary institutions are freely available to our people. Our people should not have to pay to learn their own language, given that it was successive Governments’ policies that prevented our people from using the reo from some time ago, and I think of my own mother as an example of somebody who ended up losing her mother tongue.

It is a matter of great pleasure for me today that when I stated my affirmation in the House in te reo, I did so as the first member of Parliament to deliver the affirmation in our own reo without it having to be translated into English. Te reo Māori is not my first language, so I have a personal appreciation of the desperate need for our language to survive. Language is about identity, which is why I respect the right of other nations to retain their languages as they live in this land. The next step for te reo Māori would be for all members to pronounce each other’s names correctly in this House. That is about being respectful.

I want to refer to four other areas targeted in the Māori affairs portfolio—three pertaining to State bureaucracy, and the whānau development package. When analysing the appropriations of new initiatives, I was concerned to see the level of funding dedicated to propping up departmental and agency infrastructures. Budget 2004 sets aside funding for Te Puni Kōkiri, Te Māngai Pāho, and the Māori Trust Office. All of this will be greeted with cappuccino and cheers along Lambton Quay, but I wonder how many of the people who journeyed down to sit in the public gallery yesterday will benefit from the $6 million to enhance the capability of Māori affairs. I wonder how those mokopuna who looked down on our proceedings yesterday from the gallery will appreciate the importance of the $1.4 million for technical and development funding for the Māori Trust Office, and the $2.036 million for capability funding for Te Māngai Pāho. It is the people who need to be invested in, not Government agencies.

My key focus today in looking at the Māori affairs portfolio is more to address one specific aspect of this year’s estimates, and that is whānau development. While I can appreciate that the honourable Gerry Brownlee does not understand what whānau development is about, it is a very important plank for our people. The Māori Party has no doubt that our people are our greatest taonga, and, in this regard, we are delighted that the work I had commenced over 2 years ago, with the national whānau development hui, followed by 13 regional hui, has seen good results in the $14 million allocated for whānau development. The Māori Party is delighted there will be support for whānau to achieve their own aspirations. Only our whānau know what is best for themselves, and our role is to ensure that any Government intervention is one that resources and empowers whānau to address our own social, cultural, and economic aspirations. We will no longer tolerate others looking from afar and determining the solutions and, frankly, the problems for our people; we can decide that for ourselves.

We are particularly delighted to note that there is $8.5 million dedicated to action research programmes. Action research is designed to achieve change. The focus is to take action to improve a situation, and the research is the conscious effort, as part of this process, to build on our knowledge. Whānau development action research programmes will therefore achieve change, improve situations for our people, then continue to inform and guide them in their ongoing planning processes. Whānau will be doing this for themselves, and we will all be watching to see that no outsiders looking in are taking the lead. The critical component in all of this, of course, is whānau.

Hon JOHN TAMIHERE (Associate Minister of Maori Affairs): I want to take a short call to respond to the honourable member who is a spokesperson for the National Party for matters Māori, Mr Gerry Brownlee. On a number of matters, and in every speech he has made since his appointment, we have yet to know what that party would do in power with regard to some of the difficulties that are being managed by this Government with regard to our communities. At no time do we hear any detail. One hears the buffoonery and all the rest of it, but one never hears any detail, substance, or policy. [Interruption] That member is always very good, like the member for Rakaia, at screaming and yelling across the Chamber. [Interruption] There he is, yelling and screaming at me again, for the listeners. The reality is that he is one of the cheerleaders for Gerry Brownlee, which is probably why he got into the caucus.

But let me just point out a number of things. Under this Government—a Labour-led Government—Māori have surged forward in the last 5 years, more so than they ever did in the previous 15. Māori unemployment, with regard to which these estimates are very well calibrated, will continue to drop. It is now down to its lowest level for the last 16 years, and it will continue to drop. In terms of the whānau development fund about which the great Mr Gerry Brownlee opined he knew nothing, I agree with that—he knew nothing about it. Let me just disclose for members what that budget might go towards—and it is not “might”; some of it will. We know in our communities which families are in difficulty, and we know in our communities exactly where our babies who are in difficulties are. At the moment, we will ring fence them by way of a wrap-around care plan, and look at the whole family’s difficulties—not just when they come to the attention of the care and protection or youth justice agencies, or are managed by our criminal justice system. Early intervention, early risk identification, is where that funding is going. It will drop youth offending overnight, once it hits the communities that it can roll out in. Māori families will start to lift their performance, as they are doing right now.

We are in a wonderful stage of our evolution, and we will move on from the victimhood and grievance policies being suggested by the Māori Party. We are moving on, but not from the deficit model of the Māori Party or the National Party—in fact, I now know why Tariana Turia gets on so well with Don Brash, after that speech. We are moving forward in a positive and progressive framework. We understand the latent and wonderful potential of our communities, and they have to be talked up. Our children will start to march for things; they will not be told by leaders of the Māori Party to march against things. They will be told that they are as good as every other baby, and that they have the same opportunities as every other baby in this country to be wonderful and positive Kiwi citizens moving forward, albeit Māori and with a love of their heritage and their culture. They are still Kiwi babies, but they are Māori in terms of their culture, their reo, and their tikanga.

That is the sort of estimates and Budget that are being brought down, and that this Minister of Māori Affairs will champion on behalf of our people. A huge amount of money has gone into the retention of our reo and our tikanga. It is now time to feel and understand the fruits of that victory, rather than always be grasping for something else in that regard. Let us start standing up now, and let us deliver. These estimates commend to the leadership in our communities that they start to stand up and take some ownership of our problems, to acknowledge that they have responsibilities, duties, and obligations, and to stop putting them off on other communities or on others. That is why, when the scrutiny comes on a number of the leaders in our communities, they run to the Māori Party, because they understand control and victimhood but they do not understand solutions, at this particular point in time.

I commend the estimates, and I also commend my colleagues in the Māori caucus who have held the faith and held true to the Labour Party, which has a history of always delivering to all communities, but, particularly, of lifting Māori performance.

Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA (Minister of Māori Affairs): I heard the prattle from the deputy leader of the National Party. It suggested—like his leader, Don Brash, who mirrors Don Quixote in the sense of tilting at windmills—a whole lot of hot air in relation to what we have not done for Māoridom. I say to Mr Brownlee that he is mirroring the practices of Dick Whittington in looking back too much. We are not into the deficit model and we are not into Māori remaining in dependency. We are certainly surging forward, and the last 5 years have shown as much.

I pick up in relation to Te Māngai Pāho, as he suggested, that there were 40 recommendations and 60 percent of that has been done. Māori Television did get started, whereas that party failed even to consider it. These estimates provide for substantial investment in realising a positive future for Māori through whānau development, enterprise development, partnerships, education, employment, and housing. Key areas of investment include new initiatives, strengthening whānau, investing in sport and cultural activities—where our people are at—and promoting whānau and enterprise activities. We are clear about the differentiation between mana and moni. Mana, our tikanga, our culture, our inheritance, tuku-ed to us—passed on to us—by our ancestors as the first indigenous people of this nation. We do want to make money. We do want to get into commerciality. There are just some people who want to keep us behind false mirrors and in a make-believe world in which we have to be dependent on the Crown and those things that take us backwards.

We are strengthening Māori language. This is the week of Māori language. I tell that lot to try harder. It is encouraging when one goes overseas to understand that most people recognise indigenous languages—that they do have two or three languages under their belt. What is wrong? Why do that lot fear it? That is the problem. All that we do is do the haka and get macho, encouraged by the dastardly game of rugby.

We have really tried hard to ensure that the expansion of the Māori Business Facilitation Service goes forward. The Labour Government continues actively to demonstrate its commitment to accelerating the advancement of Māori. Our focus is on Māori succeeding as Māori wherever, and in whatever field, they choose. We have provided a real platform for Māori to reach their potential, not stymie it. The appropriations contained in the estimates for Vote Māori Affairs demonstrate the commitment of this Government to Māori development by providing the resources necessary for Māori to reach their aspirations. This Budget is designed to provide a pathway for Māori, to elevate their profile from dependency to vision, and from grievance mode to economic and social opportunity.

Without a doubt this Government has a lot to be proud of in relation to its achievements with Māori. Māori unemployment is almost at its lowest for 20 years. That is progress! There are 40,000 more Māori in work, and in the last 10 years there have been more Māori in trade and industry than there ever has been. Māori participation in tertiary education has almost doubled. The Leader of the Opposition prattled on, suggesting that Māori qualifications are less significant than their Pākehā counterparts. What a lot of rot! That was what the Ōrewa speech was about—scratching that itch, which some of those members are well practised at doing. That was what that speech was about. Do not make believe that it was about something else!

Māori Television and Iwi radio stations are a great asset. Māori are now managing an increased proportion of the commercial assets in the fishing and forestry sectors. Thanks to this Government, Māori are now living longer and enjoying life more fully. All that the deputy leader wanted to talk about was eating—opening his mouth and going to barbecues. He should lose some weight! This Government is demonstrating a real commitment to supporting Māori in their aspirations to be healthy, wealthy, and wise. We will be the people of the future. We will become healthier, wealthier, and wiser. We aim to strengthen Māori whānau, and to ensure that all Māori have a secure sense of culture and an opportunity to participate in this great nation. We are not a divisive or a separatist Government. We believe in recognising the rights of the tangata whenua in this country.

Vote agreed to.

Vote Emergency Management

JUDY TURNER (United Future): Members will be aware that civil defence emergencies are times when, in stressful, tragic, and often dangerous circumstances, ordinary people who have had their lives turned upside down perform amazing acts of kindness and bravery for the benefit of others. Officials charged with the task of organising relief and providing leadership work outrageous hours. Voluntary agencies work round the clock to provide comfort and support. It was a privilege to be part of that activity in the Whakatāne area last week. I want to take some time to mention very key organisations: the Whakatāne, Ōpōtiki, and Kawerau District Councils and their staff, for the work they did; Environment Bay of Plenty; the New Zealand Fire Service; Street John Ambulance; the citizens advice bureau; Victim Support; Ngāti Awa Social Services; church groups; the police; the New Zealand Army; Te Whare Wānanga o Aotearoa; Federated Farmers; and Radio 1XX; and, of course, our civil defence people. All those people contributed to the crisis and recovery phases of this emergency.

It is important, because of the millions of dollars that will be required to restore the area, that members are made aware of what it was like to be on the ground in Whakatāne over the last while. It began with days of heavy rain, and with a busload of people in transit attempting to pass through Whakatāne but being unable to because of slips on the roads. They were blocked and had to stay overnight in the local Salvation Army hall. The following night, residents in the suburb of Awatapu were woken in the middle of the night by police and army personnel, and told to grab some things and to leave immediately. They waded or were carried through flood water to army trucks, leaving behind their own vehicles, which often had, by that time, been swamped. They were taken to the local war memorial hall. Within hours, systems were being set up to register evacuees and to attempt to track their whereabouts. At the hall, people—some still in wet clothing—were sitting in plastic chairs around trestle tables. There was no heating in the hall. Children, bored and poorly supervised by tired and stunned parents, ran around, getting on the nerves of elderly evacuees. The Salvation Army set up some tea and coffee. The citizens advice bureau continued to register a steady stream of people as the evacuations continued, hour after hour.

There were some queries: “Where are the new forms we’re meant to be registering people on, and why are we using the old ones?”. I challenge the Minister, with the emergencies we have had this year, that as well as money being spent on the restoration of those areas, it is also time for the civil defence organisation to look very closely at some of its systems and to check that everybody has everything that is required for those emergencies.

Kitchens sprung into action as the early food donations started to come in. There was no radio at the centre, so it was very difficult to track what was happening outside the hall. District councillors donned civil defence identification and became great sources of reference, and worked extremely well. Friends and relatives from unaffected areas arrived and took people home. Others opened their homes to complete strangers. Additional accommodation was needed. Te whare wānanga and the Salvation Army set up warmer and more comfortable facilities, and the elderly and families with small children had to be relocated to those points. People were anxious. They had left their pets behind, and they wanted to go home and attend to that. They wanted to go back and get some more clothes. Some could; many were not allowed.

The water treatment station was shut down. There were reports of raw sewage on the streets. Tar-seal was lifting as water bubbled up from below. And then we had swarms of earthquakes, which set everybody’s nerves on edge. The report of the death of Bev Freeman came as a real shock to people; her death was the consequence of an awful landslide. Roads were blocked. There was a serious breach in the stopbanks that resulted in the flooding of huge areas of farmland. The engineers were trying to manage a full dam, and tidal changes had to be balanced as water was released from that dam. Te Teko was evacuated. Edgecumbe was evacuated. Awatapu was evacuated. Landslides threatened homes at Ōhope beach.

I would like to thank the Minister and the Prime Minister for responding so quickly to the invitation to come into the area, and for taking the opportunity to go up in helicopters to see the very big picture. It was very important to local people that those people saw the full picture.

Hon GEORGE HAWKINS (Minister of Civil Defence): May I start off by thanking Judy Turner for the work that she was doing when I arrived down on the Sunday. I have been there four times, of course, and I have seen the progress of the emergency. One thing I really want to say about civil defence emergencies is that it brings out the best in the Kiwi spirit, where people set aside any differences and lend a hand to each other. That is really very important. I also congratulate the civil defence organisations—people working, concerned about their fellow citizens—and the mayors of the two districts, John Forbes from Ōpōtiki and Colin Hammond from Whakatāne.

The Government has responded very quickly. Task Force Green is up and running. We have the one-stop shop up and running. We have rural advisers in there. We have had people from the Earthquake Commission there, as well. We are looking at how we can help a number of farmers. The situation is at the stage where the total damage cannot be estimated, because the water has not cleared, as yet, and unfortunately today they are expecting more rain. There will be more rain on top of the huge falls of rain in the weekend before last, and earthquakes. So there are a lot of people who are really worried.

I also have to say that it is good to have the buy-in from the local radio station 1XX. Its work in this emergency has been tremendous and I want to compare that with places like Tūrangi that got caught up in the floods in February. The Tūrangi radio station goes on to a network over the weekend, and people could not get local messages. Here, 1XX was able to do that.

This Government has always treated people in emergency situations with generosity—with a real human hand. That is what is going to happen this time. That is what has already been started and it will continue to happen. I thank the local members—Mita Ririnui, who was there on the ground, day after day. I thank my colleague Parekura Horomia. He was up there giving comfort to his people. I thank Damien O’Connor, who was getting a fix on the rural, agricultural problems that people are facing.

Brian Connell: I think you will find it was water.

Hon GEORGE HAWKINS: Well that person can yell and shout. That is all he does—hollow words—he has not got the Kiwi spirit that everyone else has. I think his snide remarks are cheap. I say to Mr Connell that he can do better than that. When I went to a sports hall, to see the people in there; people, possibly some very—

Brian Connell: Wet people.

Hon GEORGE HAWKINS: Well, very wet people—not as wet as that member, who is giggling at the plight of other people. Mr Connell does himself no good and he should shut up. These people have been cooking for one another and arranging entertainment for kids who have been there for days. They have been supporting one another. It has been about people saying: “There is always someone worse off than me.” When we went to Bryans Beach, where Mrs Freeman died, to see the neighbours there with their shovels, trying to clear water away, after they had suffered that big tragedy, that showed how people really do care.

Brian Connell: Where were you when we had the droughts in Canterbury? You weren’t seen.

Hon GEORGE HAWKINS: I get to see and do more in Canterbury than that member ever will. He is just a big bag of wind.

I also want to mention Janet Mackey, who was stuck on the other side of Ōpōtiki. She was there lending her help. The MPs, including Tony Ryall, worked in the area. I acknowledge the work of all the MPs, across party lines, who have given generously and who have not been demeaning, as Mr Connell wants to be.

Vote agreed to.

Vote Internal Affairs agreed to.

Vote Police

BRIAN CONNELL (National—Rakaia): What a muddling mess this Minister, the Hon George Hawkins, is making of this portfolio. It does not matter where one goes across the country, on one extreme the front-line coppers are saying: “We are under stress and under-resourced.”; and at the other end of the spectrum, up the executive ladder of the New Zealand Police, they act more like politicians than anything else, and they say, as they have one eye on the Minister of Police to make sure they are giving the right answers: “No, we have got plenty of resources. Our front-line police are not stressed.” Right in the middle of all of that is the public of New Zealand, who are the victims of rising crime every day. A tidal wave of crime is coming over this country, and all this Minister can do is say that things are OK. It is the leadership of this Minister that is causing the New Zealand Police to be in disarray. Front-line police—

Hon David Cunliffe: What a sad, sterile speech.

BRIAN CONNELL: There is a member calling out. I do not recognise him. I think he may have had his head in an oven somewhere. I do not know whether anyone knows his name, but he looks very, very strange. I do not know what it is about the Minister of Police that he can thumb his nose, when he comes to the select committee, and say to people that crime is on the way down. He says: “We are getting on top of crime.” The Minister is confused and has selective memory loss. He cannot even read things put in front of him.

Before I came down here I got some statistics about crime and how it is trending. These are police statistics that go back to the year 1999 and relate to total recorded crime. In 1999, there were 438,704 recorded crimes in this country; in 2002 there were 440,129; and in 2003 there were 442,489. Yet the Minister of Police looked me in the eye at the select committee and said: “We are getting on top of crime; it is trending down.” I asked him: “What about violent crime?”. He gave me this answer: “Violent crime is on the way down.” Even this well-meaning buffoon could not have got that wrong. In 1999 the figure for recorded violent crime was 39,688; in 2002 it was 44,960; and in the year 2003 it was 45,614. The Minister thinks that that is being on top of crime and that it is going the other way.

Well, I have news for him, and here is some more news. He said that drug crime was plateauing. I dragged out the statistics on drug crime as well. Recorded drug crime statistics in 2001 were 53,340; in 2002, they were 55,366; and in 2003, they were a whopping 58,822, and the Minister of Police told everyone that they were on top of crime. Violent crime, drug crime, and property-damage crime—the crime that leads to the next spate of burglaries—is trending up, and that Minister thinks that it is going the other way.

Let us talk about the Southern Communications Centre. I have to commend the Minister for at least turning up today. When these questions were posed yesterday he ran a mile. He was not going to be seen anywhere to answer those questions, but today we have him. When the Minister went to the select committee to deal with the estimates he said that the stress and the under-staffing at the Southern Communications Centre was a problem and he recognised it. When I asked what he would do about it he said they were going to get more staff.

That was fine. I gave him a tick for that. I asked whether he had budgeted for more staff—“Er, um . . .”! I said that I would help him by asking whether he had budgeted for more staff at the Southern Communications Centre than the 79 staff he had already allocated for policing. The Minister said “No”. I thought that was OK; it was fairly short notice. My next question was whether over the next 3 years any of 109 staff allocated were going to the Southern Communications Centre, and his answer was “No”. Then on 23 June this year he changed his tune. He was asked in the House about staffing and performance at the Southern Communications Centre and he said that there was no problem.

RON MARK (NZ First): I intend to carry on in a similar vein about what a horrible mess we have. I recall being very proud, as a member of the Labour Party, of some of the speeches delivered by the Hon Phil Goff and George Hawkins on what they would do about crime and law and order under the leadership of the Rt Hon Mike Moore. I believed that those people meant what they said and would do what they said. Years went by, things changed, and I ended up in a coalition Government with National, listening to the screaming and the ranting from that side of the House. On some occasions I feared for the very life of Phil Goff. I feared that the vein in his forehead would pop as he went ballistic about parole, bail, and the things that were happening in the streets with violent crime. I fully expecteded that when those two men got to the Government benches they would get rid of gangs, smash the methamphetamine rings, smash organised crime, and make our streets safer, because those were the things they promised whilst they were in Opposition.

After 5 long years of governance, on the back of 9 years of preparation, we look at this rubbish. That Minister is not smashing organised crime or the methamphetamine industry. He is policing it. The last time I heard the word “policing” being used was by the United Nations. I think it was in Uganda. I think it might well have been in Bosnia, where they stood by, and through their policing action, watched 8,000 people being slaughtered. That is what is happening on the streets of this country. I am tired, and the citizens of New Zealand are tired, of hearing this Government and that Minister say that the police have adequate resources. I get messages from a gentleman who sent a personal plea—

Clayton Cosgrove: Another source?

RON MARK: This is a letter to the Minister, from another man, stating: “Just when are you going to stop trying to pull the wool over New Zealanders that there are sufficient police in New Zealand? Over the weekend I attended a family function in a large New Zealand city of 60,000-plus. During the evening I had contact with the constabulary who advised us that he was one of two patrol cars on duty that night, and there was only one person—that is, himself—in his car.” Crime is down? What an absolute load of rubbish! Members should look at the police statement of intent and at the graphs. The graphs of recorded crime are going up and have consistently gone up since this Government came to power—and that is according to a Government document. The worst thing about it is that it is recorded crime. The national survey on victimisation states that unreported crime is two to three times greater than recorded crime.

The Minister of Police and the Minister of Māori Affairs have the audacity to tell us that crime is going down. Their own documents, and answers to written questions, show quite clearly that they are telling porkies to people. Crime is going up.

If members want evidence they should go to the Bay of Plenty, where people are struggling because they do not have insurance to cover their homes. A tragedy is in front of the Minister’s eyes in relation to his other portfolio, and why do those people not have insurance? It is because they cannot afford it. The net result is that when people get burgled they do not report it. How many burglaries go unreported and give us a false impression of real crime? The reality is: two times as many more burglaries as are recorded.

The only way this crime wave can be dealt with, and the only way people can be made safer in their homes, is to have more police on the beat, as we have consistently been asking for. The number of police should be doubled. If people do not believe that, they should see the over-stressed, over-worked, and over-pressured bobbies on the beat, or get in a car to go around with them at night. Maybe they should spend a whole weekend, or sit in a communications centre for 24 hours and see for themselves the pressure those people are under.

CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour—Waimakariri): I rise to support these estimates. With regard to that member’s contribution—and I believe he has family connections with police, and obviously they are honourable connections—it would be nice if occasionally he supported his local police force and the police in general. Generally, all we have from that member is the boot going in. I shall contrast that member’s contribution with what the general public thinks in terms of how the police are doing their job. If members looked at the police annual report in relation to the estimates, they would note that comments on public satisfaction surveys were “very satisfied” and “satisfied”. All contact was “75 percent satisfied”; crime-related contact “70 percent people satisfied”, and “all other contact”, 83 percent of people satisfied—[Interruption] The member says that it is not right. I invite him to open his eyes and look at the statistics and data in the police annual report. [Interruption] The Minister does not write that report, so Mr Connell should not play politics. The police write that report, and I do not believe that they lie.

Mr Mark waved a piece of paper, as he is wont to do, banged his finger on the desk, as he is wont to do, threw his pen down, and cited yet another source. When that member talks about his crime sources I can do no better than quote an article in the Christchurch Press on 17 July titled “MP Feels heat as cold facts revealed”. That member leapt into print on a rumour—from a police source, so he said—about the young hoons who had stolen cars, were apprehended by the police, and placed in the custody of the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services. It was then alleged that they went on a ski trip. That story was proved to be wrong. I challenge the credibility of that member and his so-called sources in the police. I believe that the police are credible.

The Christchurch Press stated in relation to Mr Mark’s statements that the only problem was that Mr Mark’s statements were not true. But in its haste to publicise the story, the MP’s party, New Zealand First, failed to check the facts. What did Mr Mark say in response to that? Mr Mark, “a law and order spokesman, conceded last night that his sources could have got it wrong. ‘This would be the only time any of my sources have been wrong. I stand by my sources.’ ”

Hon David Cunliffe: Was he lying?

CLAYTON COSGROVE: I will not comment on what that member behind me said. I challenge the credibility of Mr Mark. He had a few years in Government, as the chief Government whip, to do something about policing. When he was in Government in coalition with the National Party, Bill English launched a staffing review to cut police numbers by 540. That is a fact. The answers proving that fact are not sources such as Mr Mark talked about; they are answers to parliamentary questions.

Since we came to power 450 extra police are on the streets. There are now more police staff than at any time in history—and that is not from some ghostlike fictitious source; that is a fact, and we stand by that because we deal with facts, just like the survey of citizens who had interactions with the police force—83 to 70 percent satisfaction. That is a fact. This Government puts its money where its mouth is.

The people of Oxford in my electorate battled for 10 years for a second policeman. They now have it. They have now also got an extension to the police station. That community battled for 10 years. There is a new police station in Kaiapoi. My predecessor, Mike Moore, in Opposition worked his guts out to get a new police station, but now, under this Government, we have it. He could not get them out of the National Party, but we now have extra police numbers in my electorate. There are now extra police in Papanui, Oxford, and Kaiapoi.

Brian Connell: Not true!

CLAYTON COSGROVE: I challenge that member to say that to the police in Kaiapoi, because under this Government the people got extra police in Oxford and an extension to the police station; Kaiapoi got a new police station; more resources went to Papanui—and it took the Minister a couple of years to do it. It took that former Government over there 9 years to refuse those communities in my electorate. I am proud to stand by those facts; they are not unattributed sources.

RON MARK (NZ First): I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson. I seek leave of the House to table the New Zealand First - National Government coalition agreement that specified and catered for, and delivered 500 extra police under New Zealand First governance.

Document not tabled.

CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour—Waimakariri): I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson. I seek leave to table a Christchurch Press media report entitled “MP”—referring to Mr Mark—feels heat as cold facts revealed” of 17 July 2004.

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is.

KEITH LOCKE (Green): Firstly, I want to praise the police for tracking down and trapping those Israeli Mossad agents who were trying to obtain fraudulent New Zealand passports and undermine our sovereignty. The police did a great job, and it shows that resources should be put into the estimates for the police to allow them to do that sort of national security work, rather than too much funding sitting in the Security Intelligence Service budget. It is obvious that in this particular case the Security Intelligence Service and its Australian partner did not catch Eli Cara, one of the agents who have been imprisoned who had crossed the Tasman 24 times. It seems that the Security Intelligence Service in this particular case was seen as a bit of a soft touch, and according to the New Zealand Herald yesterday there is information that Mossad approached the Security Intelligence Service to try to get its help to have the charges against those Mossad agents dropped. The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation did not seem to do anything about Mr Cara or about the operation, which may have been largely run from Australia. In fact, it seems that the Australian Government is too closely associated with the Israeli Government. A few days ago it was one of only six nations in the United Nations to support the Israelis building the West Bank wall, which has been condemned by the International Court of Justice. I think the Australian Government and its intelligence services have fallen down very much in not supporting New Zealand in that important matter.

I would also like to praise the police activities on the hīkoi. The police did very well in making sure it proceeded peacefully and in a very orderly fashion from one end of the North Island to the other. I would like to contrast that with some of the mistakes that the police have made recently in prosecuting other protesters.

In the court last week Mr Hopkinson, who had burnt a flag at a protest last year, was let free. It was not right for the police to proceed with that prosecution in the first place. That law has been on the books for 22 years. There have been plenty of flag burnings in that time but no prosecutions. That law is contrary to the New Zealand Bill of Rights, as Justice France pointed out in his decision last Friday, and the police should not have proceeded in that case.

The police should not have proceeded, either, with the prosecution against Aucklander Bruce Hubbard for sending an email to the United States Embassy referring to the United States “napalming babies”, which was considered offensive by the people at the embassy. However, that case had to be dropped after quite a bit of harassment of Mr Hubbard, because, whether or not we like what he said, the prosecution infringed Mr Hubbard’s right to free speech. All of us have the right to free speech.

The third case that the police should not have proceeded to prosecute, and was a waste of police time and of the money put into the police estimates, was the case of Auckland teacher and animal rights protester Jesse Duffield. He had drawn the attention of the threat assessment unit of the police because last October he had gone up to Tegel chicken headquarters with a couple of mates, and he had handed out a letter saying they did not like the way the company treated chickens, and a couple of his mates had thrown a bit of straw on the floor. He was subject to a charge that has now been dropped. For 9 months he had a large proportion of his possessions seized—his computer, hundreds of disks and videos, cellphones, posters, and even an anti-GE T-shirt produced by the Young Greens in Christchurch a year or two back. It was just a simple, anti-GE T-shirt, but it was seen as an illustration of nefarious activities.

The police should take heed of those three cases, which were either overturned by the court or dropped due to public pressure, and they should do the sort of thing they did on the hīkoi.

CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour—Waimakariri): I am grateful to colleagues that I have been given a second shot at that mob over there. I am very grateful because, like all Labour members, when I get a chance to get those members and the odd New Zealand First member in the cross hairs, I enjoy the opportunity. It is a bit like shooting ducks on the water.

Brian Connell: That’s illegal.

CLAYTON COSGROVE: I know, and we would never do that. And I would never liken National Party members to ducks—maybe a few other animals, but never to ducks.

Some mention was made of comparative crime figures. I remind members of what this Government’s appropriations have done. I will deal with facts here, of course, not unattributed sources. In respect of Mr Locke’s comments about Mossad, maybe some of Mr Mark’s unattributable sources have something to offer there, as well! Let us look at the crime rate figures. Violent crime rose 77 percent in the period 1990 to 1999, and has risen just 15 percent since 1999. Let us look at overall recorded crime, which rose 16.6 percent from 1990, to peak in the calendar year 1996 at 477,596 recorded offences. Members over there do not like the facts; they prefer ghostlike sources, but we will give them the facts, anyway. Since 1999, total recorded crime has risen just 1 percent, and is now 35,000 offences—7.4 percent—lower, and the crime rate per head of population is 13.8 percent lower than it was in 1996. Unfortunately—and I do apologise to the Opposition for the humiliation that those statistics cause them—those statistics are facts.

As I said in my previous contribution, the facts are that National was going to cut 540 police out of the system. Members should ask any policeman or policewoman around the country; the police remember what the previous Government, aided and abetted by its coalition partner, was proposing to do if it were re-elected in 1999. We came in and we said we would put more police on the beat, and we did—in the order of, I believe, 450.

Mr Mark challenged people to go out and talk with the police, and to get in police cars at night, all of which I have done. I regularly go around my police stations every couple of months or couple of weeks, and talk with police. We had the Minister of Police down there about a month or so ago, and he listened to what the police had to say. Of course the police, like any other honourable civil servants—especially the police, who put themselves in harm’s way—always want more resources in order to do a more effective job. But I tell members that when I go into the Papanui Police Station and talk about the history and about what is happening now, I find that the morale there is fantastic, with people like Andy McGregor leading a great team of individuals. I go to the Kaiapoi Police Station and talk to the lads and the women police there; I talk about morale, and I listen to those people. They are out there actually doing the job while Mr Ron Mark puts the boot into them every day about the job they do. I understand that Mr Mark was a soldier, and an honourable one. I do not know the details of his history, but I assume he was in harm’s way at some point in his career. I have not been in harm’s way, but I would have thought that a man who had been in harm’s way in the soldiering profession would have deep respect for, and would deeply support, others such as the members of the New Zealand Police who go out every day to protect ordinary folk—and also flash individuals like Mr Connell, with his ranch or whatever it is in Ashburton—and their property.

I can point to many, many constituents in my electorate who have been assisted by the resources given to the police. Their crimes have been resolved. I just tell Mr Mark that he ought to stand beside the police, get behind them, actually encourage them, and get up in this Parliament every once in a while—not every day, not every week, just once in a while—and say something supportive about the men and women in blue, and not put the boot into them every day. He should not do what he did to a policeman in my electorate in Rangiora, and that was put the boot into a very good community cop because that community cop actually wanted to continue serving as a member of the Waimakariri District Council. Why does he not support people like that man—one of the most popular community cops we have—instead of putting the boot in?

BRIAN CONNELL (National—Rakaia): We have a new nickname for that member now—“Repetitive Clayton”. He was really starting to scramble. I think he said the same things about 10 times in the last minute. Never mind, one has to commend the guy for getting up and trying to defend the indefensible. George Hawkins does not have the courage to stand up and take a call, so he said to Clayton Cosgrove: “Mate, can you help me out, because I’m really scrambling here. These guys have got the better of me.”

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): The member knows that is not acceptable. He will stand, withdraw, and apologise.

BRIAN CONNELL: I withdraw and apologise. That Minister is not prepared to stand up and take a call, and he would rather have someone do his bidding for him. But he has forgotten something. After his name is the title “Minister of Police”. That, in my book, means he has to take some responsibility. That man should get on his feet, take some responsibility, and try to defend the men in blue, as the last member was trying to do.

I tell Clayton Cosgrove, the “Clayton’s” member for Waimakariri, that this piece of paper emphatically states that crime is on the way up, not on the way down. It does not matter what the village idiot says when he comes to the select committee—the crime rate in this country is going up. One cannot say that black is white, or white is black, when it is not true; one simply cannot say that. As for Clayton Cosgrove saying he had done so much work in getting police resources for the good people of Waimakariri, he completely forgot to say that the majority of those resources had been programmed under the last National Government.

The other issue I want to take him to task over is this. I have never in this House—and I do not do it publicly—bagged front-line coppers. The coppers in Darfield, Ashburton, Leeston, and Lincoln know that I come to this House, line up the Minister of Police, and say we want more resources in those areas. No matter what I say, he is not giving them to us. I was quoting an example of the Southern Communications Centre before, and I will go back to it, because it puts it into some sort of stark reality. The Minister came to this House on 23 June and said that there was no problem with the Southern Communications Centre—that its performance target in despatching coppers to 111 calls was to do so within 2 minutes, and 90 percent of the time, he said, it was being achieved. Well, barely a week before that I had in my possession, and the Minister would have had access to it as well, a memorandum from the manager of the Southern Communications Centre, who said: “We on some occasions only achieve 73 percent of that target.” The other thing this Minister of Police said to me in the select committee was that sick leave at the Southern Communications Centre was not a problem. Well, someone is confused, because the Southern Communications Centre manager, in the same memorandum, stated that sick leave was going through the roof. Do members know what the response of the Minister is when we say that issue has to be fixed? “Oh, I am going to find some more staff, but I haven’t budgeted for it.”

The real rub about the stress and the strains at that Southern Communications Centre is that coppers are not being despatched to crime scenes quickly enough. The waiting time in some cases, down in the South Island, for coppers to get to burglaries is nearly 4 days, and the Minister of Police sits there and will not take a call. He sits there with a smile on his face—a pathetic smile because he knows that I am right and he is wrong, and he is on the way out because we will not tolerate that.

Do members know what is really bad about all of this—his response to limited police resources? He is directing more and more of them to trap hitherto law-abiding motorists on the road.

Hon Richard Prebble: Like the Prime Minister!

BRIAN CONNELL: Well, that was an exception, was it not? She can zoom through south and central Canterbury at 160 kilometres an hour with police affirmation, and nothing happens. The Minister gets up in the Chamber and says: “If you don’t want a ticket, don’t speed.” Well, I will not use the “hypocritical” word, but, boy, we have got him on his feet at long last.

Hon GEORGE HAWKINS (Minister of Police): We have heard another case of exaggeration—a wee bit like that member’s CV that used to circulate around the place. I must bring it down to the House and table it again just to remind people that that person is always into fiction. He is probably related to—a direct descendant of, possibly—Hans Christian Andersen. They are fairy tales.

I just want to put a few facts. The amount of violent crime increased by 77 percent between 1990 and 1999. I tell Mr Connell it was 77 percent, and he should listen. Violent crime has risen just 15 percent since we became the Government. Overall recorded crime rose 16.6 percent from 1990 to its peak in 1996. That was a huge increase. That is National’s record. Our record, of course, has been far better. I say to the member that under National crimes reached 477,000, and last year there were 442,000—and that number is dropping. I know that that member does not have the nous to be able to work that out, but if he had a calculator he could work out that crime is dropping. But the rate of crime is also dropping.

What did the National Party Government do when it was trying to look after the police? It had a computer scheme called INCIS, which took all the money, so National could not build new police stations, like those Clayton Cosgrove has in his area. That Government spent only $720,000 on capital works at police stations in each of the last 3 years it was in power. This Government is spending well over $70 million in 5 years—$70 million compared with $720,000. See the difference! When it came to police cars, what happened? One year the previous Government spent only $4 million on police cars—just $4.7 million. How much is this Government spending this year? We are spending some $29 million.

We have settled the police wage round for the next 3 years. The police are not marching on Parliament, as they did when National was in power. The police marched on Parliament in huge numbers because they could not get a fair deal from that Government. What that Government was doing was cutting police numbers by 540, as part of the Martin review. The numbers were going down. The numbers of non-sworn staff were also going down. We had immediately to inject extra money. I know that my colleagues now call me the “Billion-dollar Minister” because I got a billion dollars for the police in the Budget. It was the first time that had ever happened. What happened under National? The amount was just over $850 million. It was pitiful. National members were not prepared to put the money where they said they would. National members say we need more police, but the reality is the National Government cut the numbers.

I can tell members of some very good results on the North Shore. I heard last week that household burglaries on the North Shore have gone down by 54 percent, over 3 years. That is great. I have been to Wanganui and the crime rate there has dropped by 34 percent since Labour has been in Government. There is always good news. But, of course, what do those negative members do? They put the boot into the cops and say they are not catching enough criminals. Well, they are catching more than ever. Under National, 29 percent of crimes were resolved. What is it under Labour? It is 43.7 percent, and it will probably rise. That is one of the best results anywhere in like countries around the world. We have more police, more equipment, and better laws. DNA sampling is actually helping us to catch more criminals, and some of the crimes have been serious. Burglary suspects now have to give DNA samples.

Hon John Tamihere: Boy racers.

Hon GEORGE HAWKINS: What happened there? A problem has been solved. I have to say my good friend and colleague Clayton Cosgrove did an excellent job. I went down to Christchurch with him and saw the haul of cars that had been taken from young people. This Government moves; it addresses problems. I have to say we have a different police force from the one under National and under the National - New Zealand First coalition, where the idea was to cut money. They tried it and they did.

RON MARK (NZ First): It is always good to see a Minister rise and defend himself, as opposed to relying on another member of Parliament to do so. I want to touch on a couple of points. There is an old saying—and most grandmothers tend to remind us younger people of it—that there are lies, damned lies, and statistics. Do members remember that saying? This afternoon’s debate about statistics, as to whether the crime rate is up or down, can be very simply put into perspective by picking up a Government document and turning to page 18 of the statement of intent for 2004-05. This is not a source; this is a Government document. It is easy to read. The graph there is the one that the Government’s agency has printed for the Government. It has not been sourced from Mr Connell or from myself. The Government, the Minister’s own department, has produced the graph, and what does it show? It shows that the trend in violent crime, every year from 1995 to 1999, was steadily and consistently tracking down. It is not my document; it is the Minister’s own document. What happened from 1999 until now? The Government’s own statistics show that the graph has steadily and consistently, after a massive leap between 1999 and 2000, continued to rise. If we pick up the national crime statistics trends as published, what do we see? We see that in 1999 there were 39,688 cases of violent crime, and in 2003 there were 45,614. Excuse me! If the Government’s own documents give us those figures, what credibility is there in the Minister’s claims and in the claims of Labour members of Parliament that they have violent crime under control—that it is going down? There is no control on it, as the public would see it.

What is the crime that most concerns, upsets, annoys, and worries elderly New Zealanders, and mums and dads? It is violent crime. I am sorry, but long and loud speeches do not change the facts in the Minister’s own documents, which are that violent crime is going up. We do not like that, and I know that the Minister does not like it. But we need to look clearly at why those things are happening. Some of us would point to the methamphetamine rings. It is fair for the Minister to criticise past Governments and to talk about police staffing cuts. Yes, there was a party that sought to replace cops with a computer, and that was wrong. New Zealand First tried to curb that by getting in 500 extra police, which countered directly against the then Government’s intent.

Hon George Hawkins: Voted for it.

RON MARK: The Minister can say that, but the facts are the facts in the coalition agreement, and in the subsequent estimates and the subsequent financial reports. They are there for everybody to read; no amount of yelling will change that.

I challenge the Minister by asking whether, if at the end of this year violent crime has again gone up, he will resign from Parliament. It is a simple question. Helen Clark came to this Chamber and in her opening speech, when Government members took the benches for the first time, said that New Zealand would see a new era of accountability. That is what she said. The country said: “Halleluiah, on the back of the last 9 years we are looking for that. On the back of Fay Richwhite, we are looking for that. On the back of the wine box, the bloodstock industry, and the film industry, we are looking for that.” I say to the Minister that now we want to see it. It is time to put the money where the mouth is. It is not about what is said before an election and what is said after an election—the “Maharey principle”. It is about accountability.

We accept that everybody cannot get everything right every time. Mr Cosgrove has made some criticisms of me, but I ask whether I was right when I said that home detention was a mess. Yes, I was right. How do I know that? The Minister himself admitted it to me. Was I right when I said that there were people on home detention who were baking P, and that someone had died from a P overdose? The Minister’s first reaction was to say it was wrong—it was a made-up story. But I was right. The Department of Corrections confirmed that. Was I right when I said there were rapists, thugs, and wife-beaters serving home detention? Minister Barker stood up and said there were no violent offenders on home detention. Was I right? I was right. Was I right when I said that the light armoured vehicle project would blow out to $700 million? Yes, I was right. The Minister cannot be right all the time, but there is one distinct characteristic that comes before a fall, and I will bring members back to nana again. Apart from saying there were lies, damned lies, and statistics, she also said that pride comes before a fall. Arrogance tends to be a commensurate requirement in order for pride to be allowed to get out of control, and I am seeing plenty of that now.

Vote agreed to.

Vote Veterans’ Affairs - Defence agreed to.

Vote Veterans’ Affairs - Social Development agreed to.

Vote Defence, Vote Defence Force, Vote State-Owned Enterprises, and Vote Tourism agreed to.

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

Vote Communications agreed to.

Vote Corrections

RODNEY HIDE (Leader—ACT): What we have in the chair is a Minister of Corrections who is engaged in a cover-up and a whitewash. The Minister spent $1.5 million of taxpayers’ money on fake and phoney iwi consultation, and when confronted with that said yes, the money seemed to be excessive, and he would demand a report. He then had an internal report written by the Chief Executive of the Department of Corrections, and it covered nothing. It is a disgrace that Minister Paul Swain, when confronted with the allegations of misspending, went to his own department for a report. I tell members that Minister Paul Swain will be found wanting.

The great Tainui people did not accept what Minister Paul Swain found out. They did not rely on the Department of Corrections; they employed a forensic accountant. Rather than looking at the $1.5 million, they looked at just one contract, for $305,000. I have here a copy of the report on that. It shows that the Department of Corrections has been spending taxpayers’ money out of control, not on iwi consultation but to get a result. And what do we find? We find soft contracts without specified deliverables, fake time sheets, duplicate payments, and the Department of Corrections spending taxpayers’ money on iwi consultation in a corporate box. And who happened to be there? Staff of the Department of Corrections were there, on that iwi consultation.

Hon Paul Swain: How many corporate boxes have you been in?

RODNEY HIDE: Now the Minister wants to know how many corporate boxes I have been in. Well, I can say that I have not been in any that were paid for by the Department of Corrections.

John Carter: He wouldn’t know.

RODNEY HIDE: He would not know. Then what happened in the Chamber when the Minister was asked about that report, which has seen the co-chairman of Tainui fired because the Tainui people have standards and expect accountability? I do not know why Labour has an MP from Tainui, because she has not alerted Labour’s own Minister to this problem. The report found there had been $42,000 of duplicate payments. The trust was being paid to employ four full-time people, and the department was then paying those employees, as well. Those were the duplicate payments. The Department of Corrections said it would hold back the money because there had been duplicate payments. When the four people complained, the department paid it. The report by the forensic accountant, Dennis Parsons, states that that money should never have been paid, because it was an incorrect payment. That is what Tainui found.

I ask the Minister whether his own department alerted him to that. Either it did or it did not. Did it alert him to the double payments, to the fake time sheets, or to the corporate box? Did it alert him to the fact that his department was paying for consultants, who were on contract to do a job, to fly to Australia? Did it alert him to that? And what did the Minister say in the Chamber today? He got up and said he did not believe any of that. He said he had not read the report, but he did not believe that could be true. If I were the Minister, I would be asking for an independent report into where that money went. I would be going to the Tainui people, and saying I had heard that Rodney Hide had a report, and asking if they could maybe share a copy of it with me, so I could have my people look at it. The Minister’s chief executive has sold him a pup, and he has bought it. The chief executive has written a cover-up and engaged in a whitewash, and the Minister has done nothing about it.

MARC ALEXANDER (United Future): There are three areas in the estimates for corrections that I would like to concentrate on: prison construction, home detention, and the integrated offender management system, and I will try to get through the lot if time allows. We are to have four new prisons: Ngāwhā, opening in 2005, Auckland Region Women’s Corrections Facility, opening in 2006, South Auckland Men’s Corrections Facility at Spring Hill, opening in 2007, and Otago Region Corrections Facility, opening in 2007. We are talking here about over half a billion dollars a year being spent on running the Department of Corrections. The total cost of the projects I have just mentioned has ballooned to $624 million. That is an abject lesson that no Government project should ever be pursued without adequate tendering—and I do not believe that has been done—without front-end cost appraisals, without true accountability, and without due respect being given to the taxpayers who are forced to pay for it. When we look at how prisons are being built and run, we see that it is nothing more than a sop to the unions and a sop to Labour Party ideology—and I will get on to that a little later.

The facts are, firstly, that the estimated costs were not set for the projects. Secondly, they were inadequately tendered, having incremental decisions made all the way through the different stages of each project. If that were done in private enterprise, the plug would have been pulled a long time ago. The shareholders in private enterprise would have complained. In this case the shareholders are the public of New Zealand, and they should complain. Thirdly, no consideration was given to viable alternatives in providing the safety and security that is rightly demanded and expected by innocent and law-abiding taxpayers. For example, why should there not be double-bunking? Why should prisoners be kept in conditions that are better than those of many of our aged citizens and some of our more at-risk families? Also, we could increase the muster capacity of our current prisons by adding extra wings, rather than necessarily having to build new, expensive facilities to house criminals. Again, why on earth did we not have private management, such as has been done in the case of Auckland Central Remand Prison, tendered out?

Brian Connell: Union payback time.

MARC ALEXANDER: That is exactly right; it is a sop to the union. When privately managed prisons run effectively, they can do so with the public interest and the public purse at heart. The Auckland Central Remand Prison saves taxpayers $27,000 per inmate per year, yet this Minister and this Government have decided to get rid of the one bright spark in our Department of Corrections. Why? Because it embarrasses the hell out of the Minister’s department, and because it upsets and embarrasses the union responsible for the State-managed prisons.

If we look at the situation regarding home detention, we find the hopeless, cost-reducing, ideological mess that is this Government’s home-detention policy, and it can be nothing else. It has not reduced reoffending, it puts the public at risk, it is difficult to monitor, it is not cost effective, and it is administered contrary to the expectations of the public and their interests in the justice system of this country. United Future does, however, congratulate the Minister on his signal that he will have a review. We look forward to its conclusions, and trust that it will not be another socialist whitewash of the existing failed policy.

Brian Connell: What about the “goon squad”?

MARC ALEXANDER: I am waiting for that with bated breath, along with everyone else.

I question the validity of the integrated offender management system, which is the greatest con job perpetrated by the Department of Corrections. We asked for the empirical basis upon which that system was being pursued as our prisoner management model. We received nothing. We asked for the benchmarks upon which its success or failure would be determined. We received nothing. We asked for information about when and how its efficacy would to be determined, rather than having a swarm of partial reviews, committee assessments, and apologetic kowtowing to technical issues about the questionable reliability of the rehabilitation quotient. We received nothing. That system is nothing more than ideology masked as common sense, and it does not do that very well, at all. In fact, it does the reverse of that. We were told that there were factors that would affect the success of the integrated offender management system, such as the personal decisions made by the offender, the ability to lead a non-offending lifestyle, and so on.

Hon PAUL SWAIN (Minister of Corrections): There were a couple of contributions: one that was worthy of reply, and one that was not. I want to begin with Rodney Hide’s contribution. I felt that it was a typical leadership bid, and I say to Rodney Hide that he should stop undermining Richard Prebble, and should come out and be honest and open about his leadership ambitions.

Darren Hughes: Hang on! He is the leader.

Hon PAUL SWAIN: I am sorry; yes, he is the leader of the ACT party. I forgot that. Members will remember that Rodney Hide was going to be a statesman. He said that he would stop doing all the muckraking, and would be a leader. He said he would talk about the vision thing, and particularly things in the future, and he would get away from corrections. He said he did not want to talk about corrections any more. That lasted about 2 months, because ACT went from 2 percent in the polls down to 1 percent. So now Rodney Hide is back to undermining the ACT spokesperson on corrections, and no one really knows whom that is at this stage. The point is that it is hardly worth even talking about the ACT contribution.

I will spend some time making a quick contribution on Marc Alexander’s points. Marc Alexander gets a bit obsessive about a couple of things, but by and large he makes a reasonable contribution in this Chamber. He said a number of things, and I just wanted to cover a couple of them. He said that there was no tendering for prison construction, and that it was all done on an incremental basis. That is true, and that started under National in 1997. That was the basis of the policy.

Dr Paul Hutchison: Good government.

Hon PAUL SWAIN: It is funny to hear that it is good government, because now we have Paul Hutchison, whose leader wants to build more prisons. But Paul Swain opposed a prison! National members of Parliament oppose prisons being built in their electorates but support Don Brash for wanting to build the 10 new prisons that would be needed under the new parole provisions of the National Party policy. I come back to Marc Alexander’s point, and say the incremental policy was started under National, on the basis that the then National Government decided it would not be able to give a whole pile of money to the Department of Corrections. It said the department should go away and do the site selection first, and then come back and ask for more funding. National said that after the department had done a bit of building, it could come back and ask for more funds. That is what has happened. That policy started under National, and the funding has been increased as a result of that.

Mr Alexander also talked about double-bunking. The member knows that probably about 1,000 of the 6,000 or so cells are double-bunked. But what the member does not understand is that going to prison is not like picking up a flatmate and deciding to live in Mount Victoria. One has to be very careful about who goes in with whom in a prison, as the fact is that a lot of the people in there are violent. They stand over people, and if the member thinks that simply double-bunking and putting violent people in with other violent people is the way to solve the problem of the prison population, he does not have any understanding of prisons. If he talked to a few of the corrections officers, they would tell him that double-bunking is enormously difficult. It makes prisons hard to manage, and it leads to a higher incidence of potential riots and chaos within the prison system. I invite the member, because I know he does visit prisons, to ask prison officers whether they think double-bunking is a good idea. They will tell him that one needs to be very careful.

Marc Alexander: Rubbish!

Hon PAUL SWAIN: It is not rubbish; it is what the corrections officers will tell the member. Of course, one of the problems is that if there is contraband—drugs or something—in a cell, double-bunking makes the problem of isolating who is at fault much more difficult. The member needs to talk to corrections officers. Here is the deal: if he goes and talks to corrections officers and comes back and tells me that they all support double-bunking, I will rethink the policy. That is a fair deal.

Then Marc Alexander asked about expansion—expanding existing sites. The problem is that we need to get consent to do that, and people like him would probably oppose it every time consent is sought. We do try to expand on existing sites where we can, like the Rimutaka Prison, but there is a limit to how much it can expand. Marc Alexander would also be told by staff that the bigger a prison is, the harder it is to manage. The National Party actually started the regional prisons policy, which was not a bad policy. It stated that if an offender went to prison and wanted to be reintegrated back into the community, he or she should go to prison somewhere close to the family and whānau. That is not a bad policy. The problem with the National Party is that every time we try to build a regional prison, it opposes it.

Darren Hughes: What did Tony Ryall say?

Hon PAUL SWAIN: There was the possibility of some suggestion a long time ago that there would be a prison in the Bay of Plenty. Who was the first to oppose it? Tony Ryall. Who is the strongest supporter of Don Brash’s policy of building prisons? Tony Ryall. It is a kind of voodoo economics. The National members cannot promise to build prisons on the one hand, as a result of getting rid of parole, and on the other hand oppose every prison that will be built, ever. There will have to be a prison in Nelson, and I call upon Nick Smith to say whether he supports a prison being built in Nelson. I want to know whether Nick Smith supports that. And what about Bill English? Would he support a prison being built in Southland? What about Lockwood Smith, in the case of Kaipara? Or what about building a prison on the North Shore? Paul Hutchison is another example of National’s opposition to regional prisons. There is a big prison to be built at Spring Hill, in Paul Hutchison’s electorate. Instead of that member supporting the prison, he came out and opposed it. So we can see that it is all voodoo economics, and that it will not work.

In terms of private prisons, they were a clear point of distinction between the Labour-Progressive Government and National, ACT, and United Future. We consider that keeping people in custody is a role of the State, and we are very proud of that.

Mr Alexander then asked about the integrated offender management system policy. In fact, that is such a good policy now that a lot of the prison systems in Australia are following it. I think the member should know that. He should get out more. He should get on a plane, go overseas, and look at what is happening, instead of being stuck in a narrow little isolated view in New Zealand. The Australian prison system now is modelling much of how it runs its prisons on the integrated offender management system, because the Australians consider it to be a good system. I tell that member to go out and look around the prisons before coming to the Chamber with those views.

The Government is now really keen to put three things together. Those are early intervention—making sure people do not get to prison in the first place—and, if people do get to prison, building some programmes to make sure that when they come out they do not reoffend. But the most important thing that I am putting my effort into this financial year under these estimates is reintegration—making sure that when prisoners come out of prison, they do not go back. Members may be interested to know that one in four prisoners return to prison within the first 12 months after their release. If we could reduce that to one prisoner in five in the first 12 months, we would not have to build a new prison. It is as simple as that; the maths are pretty compelling. We know it is very, very important to get the resettlement process going better, so that we can have people going back into the community and getting a job and a house, and going back to their whānau—all that sort of thing. It is very important that we do that properly. In these estimates we have been able to get some funding to do that.

We will be piloting reintegration into the community first in the Wellington region, by making sure that no one comes out of prison without a proper programme—potentially a job, somewhere to live, and some support around the person. We know that it works. It is simple; we know it works. In the past we have not done it as well as we should have, and we have acknowledged that. We have acknowledged that we need to do it better, and now the officials are working away with some of the funding that I was able to extract from the very generous Minister of Finance for reintegration. We will be piloting reintegration into the community. In the future I am sure we will see that, as it becomes successful, it will be rolled out in other areas. A number of colleagues have come to me to ask whether they could have a reintegration person who is responsible for taking that up at each prison. I am sure that will come. We need to do it for our youth offenders and our women offenders, because they are in different categories and have different needs.

We need to make sure that people who come out of prison come out with opportunity. We know that building prisons is part of the answer, but a good Labour-led Government worries about the other two things, which are early intervention—stopping people from going to prison in the first place—and then making sure that when people get out of prison, they do not go back. That is what a Labour-Progressive coalition Government does. That is the way to tackle the law and order problem in New Zealand.

Vote agreed to.

Vote Immigration agreed to.

Vote Labour agreed to.

Vote Environment agreed to.

Vote National Archives agreed to.

Vote National Library agreed to.

Vote ACC

Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Port Waikato): Certainly, over the last few years under Labour we have seen some very disturbing trends in the Accident Compensation Corporation portfolio. I look to the non-earners account, which has gone up from $500 million in 1999 to $728 million in the current year. Over the same time period we have seen the Labour Government bring in its so-called Injury Prevention, Rehabilitation, and Compensation Act. There is no doubt that everybody is in agreement with the ethos of concentrating on injury prevention, and this Government has just said it now spends $48 million per year on injury prevention. But what is the real record of injuries under this Labour Government? The real record is an increase in moderate to severe injuries over the last 4 years, despite the increased expenditure, and despite the so-called increase in focus on injury prevention.

We have heard a lot of talk by this Labour Government but have seen absolutely no results in this very important area, apart from barmy practices out there on our roads, where the Government concentrates very rare police resources to give out fines in low-risk areas and totally neglect high-risk areas. One of the reasons the chief executive officer gave for the increased number of injuries was that more people were surviving traffic accidents. Well, that is absolutely pathetic. We see, on the one hand, this utterly crazy policy of the Labour Government that has police officers concentrated in the low-risk areas of our highways and neglecting the high-risk areas, a far higher mortality rate on our roads than we should have—about twice that of Britain—and higher expenditure on injury prevention, but we see the number of moderate to severe injuries going up.

What is more, the Labour Government has, in its new, monopolistic policies, brought in industry risk rating. It has totally neglected the hugely important signal of individual risk rating, which sends a signal to individuals, individual workplaces, and employers that absolutely directly brings attention to greater workplace safety, early case management, and early rehabilitation—the very things that have slowed down under the monopoly that this Labour Government has brought to us with its so-called rehabilitation and compensation Act.

Let us have a look at long-term claimants. In 1997 there were 30,000 of them—hugely important and hugely costly to the Government. Under the National Government that figure had come down to the order of 15,000 by the year 2000, and since then it has hardly budged. This year the aim was to bring the figure down by another 500, but the Government achieved something like only 225. Once again, if we look at the very basis of the State-run, monopolistic system, we see there is very little incentive for early case management, early rehabilitation, and workplace safety. With the introduction of the competition model back in 1999, we saw rapid improvement in all those areas. Despite the Minister in the chair, Ruth Dyson, laughing in her seat, she has failed miserably in the basic statistics that are so important to this country and to any accident prevention scheme. She has absolutely failed. There is no doubt that the key to reducing the tail lies in making sure that the signals are realistic ones so that individuals will indeed respond to them.

Hon RUTH DYSON (Minister for ACC): I begin by acknowledging the sadness of that speech, and saying it issued a very dire warning to the taxpayers of New Zealand, because there was a commitment from Paul Hutchison to privatise the Accident Compensation Corporation again. If the lessons of our past 1-year experiment with private insurers in New Zealand were not enough, why does the member not look across the Tasman to what happened when HIH went bust? Our private insurers were loss leading in exactly the same way that HIH was. When HIH collapsed it left the taxpayers of Australia owing millions and million of dollars. That has to be a very basic lesson. Loss leading in insurance causes collapses, and in the end the taxpayer has to pick that up.

Despite my disappointment with that speech, Dr Hutchison and other members of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee had a very engaged and engaging time, and I thank them for the courtesy and genuine interest they showed to me as Minister and to the officials from both the Accident Compensation Corporation and the Department of Labour, when we considered the estimates. I notice that many of the points I went through with the select committee have been picked up in its estimates report, and I would like to share those with other members who may not have had the opportunity to read them in the last little while.

One of the key focuses for the coming year is to improve access to the accident compensation scheme, because, unfortunately, although the majority of members would consider that we know our entitlements and know how to put forward a claim if we have an injury—it is quite straightforward for us—there are many people who are, clearly, under-represented in claim reporting, particularly Māori and Pacific people, older New Zealanders, and people who have English as their second language. For those key groups, who obviously have the same legal entitlement as others, there will be a real emphasis to ensure they have full access to information about their entitlement under the scheme.

The second focus I want to mention is on improving rehabilitation outcomes. That starts right from the beginning by ensuring that we have high-quality early-intervention rehabilitation programmes available to claimants. It also looks at the business centre, where the response time to claimants’ enquiries has been greatly improved. The length of time it takes for the Accident Compensation Corporation to respond to queries has rapidly decreased, and that is a very good thing in terms of the frustration of claimants but also their rehabilitation outcomes.

That aim of further improvement over the coming years has been reflected, though, in the claimant satisfaction survey. I want to report to the Committee that since 2002 the Accident Compensation Corporation has improved its percentage of claimant satisfaction from the low 70s to 84 percent, which is nearly a 15 percent improvement in claimant satisfaction in the last 2 years. For those who have been on the scheme for a long time the claimant satisfaction level has increased from 78 percent to 89 percent, and for those on it for over 52 weeks it has increased from 68 percent to 73 percent. I would like to see continued improvement in those claimant satisfaction levels, and I hope that in next year’s estimates I can report a further improvement.

The other area I discussed with the select committee was my commitment that the Accident Compensation Corporation would work with a whole-of-Government approach, so that its relationships with other departments and agencies—particularly with the Ministry of Social Development, but also with the Ministry of Health and others—are greatly improved. One of the initiatives we have been working on with regard to the collaboration with the Ministry of Social Development is ensuring that people who, under the previous National Government, were totally ignored and denied any support or assistance to move off accident compensation and into a decent job are now offered help by experienced work brokers. People who are on accident compensation long term would much prefer to have the dignity and income of a job, but a lot of support is needed to get them to that position. That is the gap that we have filled, and I am very proud of the Accident Compensation Corporation for doing that.

The final point I want to talk about is one that we also discussed at the select committee. It relates to the legislation soon to be tabled in Parliament that will introduce major changes to the medical misadventure scheme. The medical misadventure provisions in accident compensation have been an anomaly for a long time, in that they are the only part of the scheme where there is a necessity to attribute fault or to meet some bizarre lottery of having both a rare and a severe injury.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): The question now is that Vote ACC stand part of the schedules.

John Carter: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I hate to do this, because it is not a thing I would like to think is happening in this Committee, but I clearly saw you being guided by the junior Government whip.

Clayton Cosgrove: You need your glasses.

John Carter: I do not need glasses, and the member should not interrupt while there is a point of order.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): There is to be silence during points of order.

John Carter: As much as it may be denied, it was pretty obvious to me what was happening, and it should not happen. If the junior Government whip wishes to make an instruction to the Minister, then he should do so before the Minister gets on her feet, and, similarly, you should stop looking into her eyes to take guidance, as well. So can I suggest that we now carry on, but I just wanted to make the point. [Interruption] I was going to say “longingly”!

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): I understand where the member is coming from, and I can accept what he is saying. I will just let the member know that I was not looking into the Minister’s eyes, and it was up to the Minister whether or not she spoke.

Vote agreed to.

Vote Child, Youth and Family Services

JUDY TURNER (United Future): I just want to touch on a few issues, because United Future has a very strong interest in this particular agency. Some very recent research has revealed that 80 percent of children murdered in New Zealand in recent years were not known to child protection agencies, prompting child advocates to urge people to dob in abuse. The Canterbury University research to be published next month found that only nine out of the 47 children murdered between 1996 and the year 2000 had been referred to the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services. “Most people think that when a baby dies CYFS must have known, but in four out of five cases that is not the case.” That is a quote from researcher and former chief social worker Mike Doolan.

So the figures demonstrate that the people best able to help are not professional social workers but neighbours, friends, and family. A study of 91 child homicides from 1991 to 2000 found that almost two-thirds of the children were under 5, which is too young for them to come to the notice of teachers or social workers in schools. More than a quarter—26 percent—were under the age of 1. Most were killed by their parents, and a quarter of them by their mothers or other relatives.

United Future has put forward a policy platform for the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services, and it is a solution that supports the development of a system that supports families to ask for help early. Departmental officials admit that many notifications they receive are actually about family support needs. So the question that has to be asked is why they are not channelled to family support services. The question has to be asked which agencies genuinely have real contact with families, young children, and babies. They are obvious: the Plunket Society, midwives, and general practitioners are more likely to have regular contact with families of extremely young children than any other agency. Yet, from talking to those agencies, particularly some of the Plunket nurses, one finds that they feel that the advice they have to offer about what they are seeing up and down the country, in people’s homes as they go in to attend to mothers with young babies, is not wanted. They are told: “Stick to your job—we’re not interested in hearing your information.” It makes absolutely no sense at all that very effective agencies that are making real contact, and getting real insight into homes where there is genuine risk, are then unable to pass that information on or be given some sort of credibility when they ask for help.

The number of suspected child abuse cases has soared to a new high, with 10,000 more complaints reported to the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services in the past year. In the year ended 30 June the department received 43,414 notifications of child abuse. That was an increase—get this—of 10,212 cases, or 30.8 percent, on the same period 12 months earlier. For social agencies, the most worrying aspect has been the rise in the number of suspected critical cases—those where the department is required to act within 24 hours. Those numbers were up dramatically in every part of the country. Nationally, critical cases were up by 41.1 percent.

What United Future is proposing, and what we implore of the Government, based on the fact that there are thousands of cases of children in the in trays of the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services, waiting to be allocated case managers, is that we separate out the two key functions of this organisation, so that they can stop competing with each other for the precious resources available. We want child protection handled completely separately from the other important mandate of the Act, which is the prevention of child abuse in the first place. If the notifications coming in are largely about low-risk to medium-risk cases where the need is for support, let us get those cases out to those agencies that already exist in our communities by the dozen that are well equipped with highly qualified staff, and well able and keen as mustard to be given the opportunity and the resourcing to step into the breach.

Hon RUTH DYSON (Associate Minister for Social Development and Employment (CYF)): I thank the member who has just resumed her seat, not just for that contribution but also for her support for a department that is often the subject of political criticism in a way that is sometimes unfair. I also thank her for the acknowledgment of the hard work that the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services does around the country—work that is often unacknowledged from a political perspective.

At the Social Services Committee, we enjoyed quite a lot of debate about the way that the department has improved over the last little while, primarily as a result of the baseline review. The focus of that review on the core functions of the department has enabled the department to start moving away from the “we are all things to all people” sort of attitude that was really part of the culture of the organisation before. The department is very focused now on meeting its statutory responsibilities, but it has also showed an incredible ability to link in much better with our community organisations, which provide services that link in very well with the department. One of the issues we discussed was how to ensure that the community organisations were able to pick up work at different levels. One of the considerations now being undertaken is the checking of our legislation, to ensure that the statutory requirements that are clearly the work and the responsibility of Department of Child, Youth and Family Services social workers are maintained, but that we ensure we have a process whereby other work that could be done by non-statutory social workers is able to be picked up by the community. That is a really exciting challenge for us in the future, and I look forward to being able to report back to the select committee on that in the next little while.

Obviously, the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services has been considerably strengthened by the increase in resources. It has had Dr Russ Ballard as its acting chief executive for the last little while. Dr Ballard finishes that job on this coming Friday, and I would like to place on record my admiration for the tremendous leadership he has undertaken in that position during what has been a very significant period of change. Next Monday we will welcome the new chief executive, Paula Tyler, who is from Alberta. I am sure she will be very warmly welcomed as part of the public service in New Zealand.

Some of the key highlights we discussed at the select committee were the family group conferences. Although those conferences are often not recognised in New Zealand, internationally they are regarded as a leadership model in dealing with family problems, in terms of ensuring there are links in with the different social services agencies, and in terms of ensuring the responsibility of both those agencies and, more important, the family are recognised and supported through to implementation. We have also recruited 17 permanent social workers.

One of the issues Judy Turner raised in her speech in the debate was the fact that a number of children come back into the care of the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services, and that is clearly a problem. It has happened because in the past we have focused far too much on quantity, rather than on quality. We have a much clearer focus now on the quality of the interventions we undertake, and that will reduce the number of children who come back through the system. But in the last 6 months, we have had record numbers of notifications to the department, and that, of course, was discussed with the select committee, as well. For me as the Minister, it is a bit of a rock and a hard place, frankly. Of course we would like to have no child abuse at all in our community; that would be the ideal in the view of all the members of this Committee, I am sure. But where there is child abuse, we want it to be notified. So by encouraging the debate on and zero tolerance for child abuse, we actually increase the pressure on notifications. Our responsibility is to make sure that we are there when it counts—that when the phone rings, we have a total system in place to deliver services that are able to ensure our children are safe, that they are in strong families that are free from abuse, neglect, and offending, and that those families can contribute positively to the wider community.

Since we reported last year on the estimates, I have seen a tremendous lift in the confidence and the competence of the department, driven and supported by the baseline review, and I am certainly very proud to be its Minister.

Vote agreed to.

Vote Senior Citizens agreed to.

Vote Women's Affairs agreed to.

Vote Lands

GERRARD ECKHOFF (ACT): Vote Lands is a very important vote for the farming community, and especially for the farming community of the South Island. Increasingly, concern is being expressed right throughout the South Island over tenure review. An appropriation of $56.83 million is being set aside for tenure review, yet the process has virtually stalled. A few high-profile properties have gone through the process, but by far and away the majority have not, and they will not, despite what the Minister for Land Information says. The whole issue is really about the clearances of the South Island high country, something that is akin to the clearances of Scotland that took place back in the 1790s right through to the 1840s and 1850s. In such cases, landlords decided they had a more appropriate use for the highlands of Scotland, and they cleared the peasants from the land. That is no different from what this Government is doing right now.

Many of us from that area thought the process could be quite reasonable—a bit like the Resource Management Act. It had some real benefits and some real promise. In fact, the reality is that the whole process has been captured by the green lobby, the recreational lobby, and the conservation lobby, and it is designed purely to turn so much of the South Island high country into a recreational park. Members of the Committee, and ladies and gentlemen listening to the debate, should have a guess who that is for. We all know that New Zealand’s leading tramper is the Prime Minister, and she does not want to have to ask—

Rodney Hide: Are you calling the Prime Minister a tramp?

GERRARD ECKHOFF: I am certainly calling her a tramper. The Prime Minister and her coterie of friends do not want to have to ask permission of farmers or runholders—it does not really matter which—to enter their properties and enjoy the great vistas and everything else that goes along with that particular experience. There can be no question about that.

But I say that the money being spent is not the Department of Conservation’s money or the Minister’s money; it is the taxpayers’ money, and it is being spent in an entirely inappropriate way. We have witnessed, in relatively recent times, $10 million being paid for just one property—Birchwood Station in the Ahuriri. That has, effectively, driven up the market. For any New Zealander who wants to buy land anywhere in New Zealand at, typically, about $600 a stock unit—it may be $500, it may be $700, but it is around that figure—it has driven up the value of those sorts of properties to $1,200 a stock unit. It has effectively doubled the price to the average New Zealander.

So who can purchase this land? Probably, now, only the wealthy foreigner who comes in. Even those people do not understand that they are in for a double whammy, because the Overseas Investment Commission is now going to whack those individuals who have a pastoral lease. When they enter the tenure review process, the commission will tell them that if they want to buy freehold land in this country, they must go through the process again. That is completely and utterly wrong, and I ask the Minister what he will do about it.

The other question I ask the Minister is whether he intends, through his department, to purchase 10 more properties with that $56 million - odd, and if so, where the money will come from for the nuts and bolts—for the other properties that the Department of Conservation wants to ensure go into the conservation estate, but that he will not purchase outright. Where will the money actually come from? I ask the Minister to break down that $56 million and tell us.

Hon JOHN TAMIHERE (Minister for Land Information): That speech was totally without context, and I just want to give a bit of context to it. There are 304 leasehold properties in the high country, which cover 2 million square hectares of Kiwi land. It is leasehold estate, not freehold estate. In 1998 the then National Government, with the support of the ACT party—of which that member was a member—passed the Crown Pastoral Land Act. It set a consensus-related negotiation process that either party could walk away from—and they do. We have papers coming through the Cabinet process now. We have a whole negotiation and consultation process for the high-country farmers. They are fully informed as to how we are bringing certainty and definition to this process.

The member raised the issue of the Overseas Investment Commission. Dr Michael Cullen has just recently released this Government’s review of the Overseas Investment Commission. We are, out of the 40 OECD countries, one of the fifth most regulated countries with regard to foreign direct investment in our land. We acknowledge the high-country estate as being of significant value, not just to high-country farmers but also to every Kiwi. It is iconic. It is of the utmost, highest cultural, social, and political value to Kiwis, and New Zealanders want it retained in the public estate.

I conclude by acknowledging the work that the Government is conducting in the high country, with consultation. We do understand that generations of families have worked the area. We do understand their strong commitment, to the extent of our even acknowledging that they have a cultural attachment to the high country. The ACT party, when it comes to Māori-related issues, does not want to hear anything about cultural attachment, but we as a Government of the people of all communities even acknowledge that high-country farmers do have a spiritual and cultural attachment to that estate. When the boot is on the other foot the ACT party challenges Māori having the same right.

I also wanted to make one other point very carefully and clearly to Mr Gerry Eckhoff. This Government provides certainty and definition. This Government provides clear decision-making. That member abstained on voting for the leadership of his own party. He could not make up his own mind, and what did he get? He got “Shrek Jnr” for leader.

That answers the questions raised by that honourable member and I would like to conclude there.

Vote agreed to.

Vote Statistics agreed to.

Vote Youth Development agreed to.

Vote Conservation

EDWIN PERRY (NZ First): I begin by congratulating the Minister of Conservation on his achievement at the annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission. The commission endorsed the Minister’s resolution requiring commercial whalers to reduce the suffering of whales they kill. Every step in that direction is a victory and the Minister deserves our acknowledgment of the work he did there.

But I would like to discuss conservation closer to home. The Department of Conservation aims to create a network of parks and reserves in the high country and it is holding tenure review negotiations with more than half the country’s 304 pastoral lessees. In the latest Budget, around $79 million was set aside to fund the process. This included $18 million over 4 years for the administration of the new conservation lands. The Government clearly envisages the high country as a tussock theme park.

However, I would like to raise a few questions that the taxpayers will eventually want answered by the Minister. For example, once the initial administration fund has been spent, how will the Department of Conservation maintain these huge areas of land? One matter that I want to bring to his attention is weed control. For the small acreage that we farm in the Wairarapa, the cost of controlling weeds is astronomical over a year. When we look at the large blocks of land that will come under the Minister’s administration, I have some concerns with regard to that area.

For anyone with a vision of flocks of sheep being replaced by flocks of tourists, I have a word to the wise. Tourists can be like overseas students—here this year and gone the next. They are not a 100 percent reliable source of long-term funds. The loss of income from the loss of the huge blocks of land that the Government has purchased is $33 million with regard to the wool cheque for merino flocks, which equates to approximately 750,000 merinos. That is a loss not only to the farmer but to the community for the rest of people’s lives.

In February this year the Department of Conservation admitted that it controlled stoats on little more than 2 percent of the land within national parks, and possums on as little as 12 percent. That is not exactly confidence-inspiring when we consider that the department wants to control another 1.3 million hectares. There are also the department’s existing responsibilities—for example, preservation of our national bird. At this point I thank the Minister for letting me visit the kiwi-breeding programme up north. With kiwis dying at the rate of 10 a day, kākāpō in intensive care, and kea now described as being under threat by predators, there is plenty of work to be done in this area and the money needs to be made available.

There are sanctuaries that the Department of Conservation should be assisting, such as the excellent Karori Wildlife Sanctuary in Wellington, which is working hard to preserve wildlife without any financial input. I know that the Minister has spent some money on the Mount Bruce sanctuary, but it is now having to go out and publicly fund-raise to keep the programmes going. I would like the Minister to have a look at that, because I do not think it will work long-term for the breeding programmes that he has already established at Mount Bruce. There is even a rumour that any financial help from the Government will be made contestable, which I have just touched on. As well as doing the department’s job, the sanctuary will now have to bid for whatever assistance is available.

Then there is additional expenditure. The Department of Conservation will become liable in the future should the Marine Reserves Bill become law. Policing that law will be the department’s responsibility, but, again, we have no indication of likely costs. I say to Māoridom that it should be more concerned about that bill, under which 20 percent of the coast will be locked up. This year there were warm fuzzy pre-Budget announcements from the department about the establishment of two island sanctuaries at a cost of $7 million. That initiative makes better sense than having a Government department become a landowner and a tourism promoter on a very big scale.

I say to the Minister that it is time that the taxpayers were given figures for the public fund. The department will need to maintain its extra responsibilities. Anything less than full disclosure is grossly irresponsible.

Hon CHRIS CARTER (Minister of Conservation): I thank the New Zealand First list member Edwin Perry for his very positive comments about my recent work at the International Whaling Commission promoting the New Zealand position on our commitment to conservation of marine mammals, particularly whales, but also dolphins, dugongs, and other marine mammal species that are under threat internationally. I am proud to say that New Zealand is the staunchest country on conservation at the International Whaling Commission. It is something that has been unique not just under this Government but under the previous Government, as well. It is something we can be very proud of. We are recognised as world leaders in our commitment to conservation and the preservation of endangered species.

The member raised a number of issues and questions about how much work we were doing funding the protection of our indigenous biodiversity species—iconic species like the kiwi, the kakapo, the kea, and others. We can always do more, but I am proud to say that since this Government came into power in 1999 the budget for the Department of Conservation has increased by 40 percent. We have recognised that there are specific problems with some bird species. I have set up Operation Ark, which is an intervention programme. It is an emergency response programme to bird species that are endangered, such as the orange fronted kākāriki, whio or blue duck, and yellowhead. We have identified all of those species as being under particular risk. We have a special $600,000 fund—Operation Ark—as an emergency response programme. At the same time we are funding extensively kiwi recovery. The Ōkārito sanctuary, for example, which I know that a number of members have visited, is a very good example of the really intensive pest control management programmes that the Department of Conservation is setting up and running.

The member asked what we were doing about weed control. The Department of Conservation spends $10 million on weed control, which is more than any other agency or individual in the country. We manage one-third of the land area of our country. Much of that does not need weed control on it. It is mountains, glaciers, and quite thick indigenous forest. There is not a weed problem there. However, in areas that are undergoing restoration or recovery, there is a weed problem. I remind members that the Department of Conservation spends $10 million, and it has budgeted another $18 million for the management of lands that will be passing into the department’s management through the 10-year review process.

Earlier, my colleague John Tamihere spoke of the 10-year review process. He reminded the House, and I will reinforce that, that the 10-year review is an entirely voluntary process. The 304 properties that could enter the process—and some two-thirds of them have done so—do that at their own initiation. They can withdraw at any time. I am very sceptical and cynical about some of the claims Opposition parties have made in this House about how the land 10-year review process is a sort of land grab. It is not at all. It is entirely at farmers’ instigation. The farmer can at any time withdraw from it.

We have also had some comments about the purchase of strategic properties. Of course, approximately half of the land that goes through the 10-year review process will enter into Department of Conservation management. What do we do with that? The Government has signalled its intention that it will have a network of parks and reserves through the high country of the South Island. That is a sensible way to deal with that sensitive natural environment, with its unique biodiversity. It has great tourism opportunities. The previous speaker spoke about tourism in a sort of cynical way. I remind members that tourism has now replaced dairying as our largest source of foreign revenue. We have visits to the conservation estate. Last year there were 28 million individual visits. This year there have already been 33 million visits to the conservation estate. Tourists come to New Zealand for its natural environment. They do not come here to go to the casino or just meet lovely New Zealanders. They come to New Zealand because of its natural environment.

The Department of Conservation, in its management of that one-third of our land area, looks after that natural environment. It is the custodian of our greatest economic asset. This land is not locked-up land; it is protected land. It is land that offers not only vast potential in biodiversity protection and recreational opportunities—33 million visits to national parks this year alone—but also enormous economic opportunity through tourism. That opportunity for tourism is something that I am really keen to develop. I meet with my colleague Mark Burton, the Minister of Tourism, every 6 weeks or so, so that we can synchronise better the synergy between conservation and tourism.

As Minister of Conservation my statutory duty is to be an advocate for the biodiversity of our country. I have to make sure that we will not compromise that through any activity, and that includes tourism. However, I do recognise that tourism, now our primary source of foreign exchange, is an incredibly important industry to New Zealand. I want more tourists and more New Zealanders to be able to enjoy our natural environment. However, we have to also balance that with protection. So working with the Minister of Tourism every 6 weeks or so we will look to develop new tourism opportunities in the conservation estate, and, at the same time, provide adequate protection for the integrity of that estate.

The previous speaker raised the question of marine reserves. He made a statement that the Government wanted to lock up 20 percent of our coastal area. That is not true. The aim, as stated in the Labour Party’s policy programme, both for the 1999 election and the 2002 election, is that it seeks to protect 10 percent of our marine area. The marine area of New Zealand is the third-largest in the world. It is 15 times larger than our land area. It is approximately the size of the continent of Australia. It is a vast, vast area. We seek to protect 10 percent of it. We do not seek to have it in marine reserves only. We seek to have a variety of protections. They might be marine mammal sanctuaries and areas for recreational fishing only. Of course, the core of that protection, just like in our national parks, will be no-take areas—marine reserves. We currently have 17. We are lagging far behind the ambitious programme of our Australian neighbours to protect their marine environment. For example, just recently the Australian Government made one-third of the Great Barrier Reef—a natural ecosystem that stretches over 7,000 kilometres—into a vast marine reserve and a no-take area. That has been a fantastic achievement by the Australian Government in protecting its natural environment.

I asked the Australian Minister for the Environment, Dr Kemp, how he managed to achieve that, because we had such enormous resistance from selfish recreational fishers who kept saying: “Yes, OK, marine reserves might help to restore the biodiversity, but we are not having them in our favourite fishing spot.” I asked him how he achieved one-third of the Great Barrier Reef as a protected marine reserve. He said: “Because, Minister, tourism in Queensland is more important than fishing.” That might have been a cynical approach, but there was a powerful message that biodiversity is in itself intrinsically important, but it offers enormous tourism opportunities, too. The Australians recognise that by protecting that one-third of the Great Barrier Reef in marine reserve they are creating, protecting, and reinforcing an economic asset.

Sometimes I wonder about the attack by the ACT party in particular, but also National, on the Department of Conservation and its programme of protecting the natural environment; it is so short-sighted. If they really believed in economic progress and opportunity, they would be seeing the protected estate that we have, both terrestrial and marine, as an enormous economic asset. That is what it is. That is what brings millions of visitors to our country. It is what defines us as a people. It makes New Zealand a special place and it protects our unique biodiversity. What a fantastic package! All parties in this Parliament should be embracing the idea that protection and encouragement of our natural environment is the best investment we can make for future generations.

Hon KEN SHIRLEY (ACT): That was a very sad reflection from the Minister, because it shows this House that he is totally captured by his department. It has wrapped him in cotton wool and he comes here and dishes up that sort of nonsense. The basic folly of what he was saying is that he equates success with the amount of resource and control his department wields and the amount of money he spends, rather than the measures of outcomes and successes. He went on about iconic species, but look at the absolute failure that he is the steward of—and that is a sad thing.

I was taken with Mr Edwin Perry’s speech. He made some very valid points. The Minister did not respond to that at all. Mr Edwin Perry highlighted the concern that huge areas of rural New Zealand have with regard to the Department of Conservation. They live alongside the department. They have the dinkum oil, and the Department of Conservation is the neighbour from hell. The department uses taxpayers’ money, buys up vast tracts of land it cannot look after, has a whole bureaucracy supporting it—more taxpayers’ money—yet where are the weeds the greatest, and where are the pests the greatest? It is all on department land.

Just recently we saw his department gobble up Molesworth Station. Landcorp was doing a brilliant job. I am very familiar with Molesworth Station, going back many decades. We have turned that around. However, under the Department of Conservation we will see noxious weeds come back, and the broom and gorse come back down the river valleys. The pigs, the goats, and noxious animals have been the legacy of the department. Unfortunately, the Minister and his bureaucrats are so busy swanning off around the world to all of those UN conventions and conferences, signing up all sorts of protocols and world heritage nonsense that look good on paper, but the farmers and the rural landowners of this country know that out there the Department of Conservation is the neighbour from hell. It is not looking after the land. It is squandering and wasting resources, and all the Minister can say is how wonderful it is that his budget is getting bigger and bigger, and his estate is getting bigger and bigger.

I understand that $10 million has just been set aside as a contingency for the lahar on Mount Ruapehu. I can produce support for that. Is that not interesting? The Minister commissioned a report. He got an engineering report and also a report from the Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences Ltd that stated that the most cost-effective method of overcoming that potential hazard and problem—and it is a very real problem—was to do minor engineering work on the tephra rim and cut a channel.

This Minister said: “No, it would be spiritually offensive. We can’t send equipment and machines into the national park.”, and he tried to blame Māori. But it is not Māori, because it was Tūwharetoa who donated the Tongariro National Park, and Tūwharetoa do not oppose the engineering works on the crater rim. It is actually the Department of Conservation that thinks it might threaten our world heritage status if we take machinery up to the crater rim and avoid a potential disaster. The Minister knows that that is a ticking time bomb. The Minister said that he has overcome the problem and put up warning sirens. That is like saying that a smoke alarm will prevent a fire. At great cost to the taxpayer he has put all these warning sirens around Mount Ruapehu so that when it bursts the sirens will go off and say: “Hey, folks, you’ve got 2 or 3 hours before your property will be severely damaged.” We are also spending hundreds of thousands of dollars lifting the rail bridge across the Whangaehu River.

Hon Chris Carter: Two million!

Hon KEN SHIRLEY: The Minister advises that the figure is $2 million. We also have to upgrade road bridges across the Whangaehu River. There is also the risk that it will break out across the catchment boundary between the Tongariro River and write off a very substantial tourism industry in trout fishing. The Minister claims to be interested in tourism, yet he condones this incredible threat, and for absolute mantras and rhetoric he is not prepared to stand up to his department and see the logic and the overwhelming evidence that would say that we should go up and drain that crater lake. We have the technology to do it. The engineers tell us it is the most cost-effective and simple way to remove the hazard, yet the Minister leaves that hazard in place. Some reports are stating that that tephra rim could collapse later this year.

Vote agreed to.

Vote Local Government, Vote Courts, Vote Customs, Vote Fisheries, Vote Consumer Affairs, and Vote Racing agreed to.

Preamble, Clauses 1 to 13, and schedule 6 agreed to.

House resumed.

Procedure

The bill was reported without amendment.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the report be adopted.

Ayes 61

New Zealand Labour 51; United Future 8; Progressive 2.

Noes 57

New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; Green Party 9; ACT New Zealand 8.

Report agreed to.

Bills

Children, Young Persons, and Their FamiliesAmendment Bill (No 4)

First Reading

Hon STEVE MAHAREY (Minister for Social Development and Employment): I move, That the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Amendment Bill (No 4) be now read a first time. I introduce this bill, which will amend the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act and improve the operation, care, and protection of the youth justice systems. It is my intention to move at the appropriate time that the bill be referred to the Social Services Committee, that that committee be required to present its final report on the bill by 15 November 2004, and that the committee have authority to meet while the House is sitting but not during question time, during the evening of a House sitting day, and on a Friday of a House sitting week. That will enable the provisions relating to the remand of young persons to penal institutions to be reinstated by the end of this year.

This bill contains an amendment that will enable the Prime Minister to allow responsibility for certain provisions of the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act to pass to the chief executive of the Ministry of Social Development consequent on the establishment on 1 July 2004 of the family and community services group within the ministry. This bill contains measures that are designed to make the operation of the youth justice system more efficient and effective. The youth justice amendments contained in this bill largely stem from the ministerial task force on youth offending that was established by the Government in the year 2000. The Government accepted the findings of the task force, which were that overall, the youth justice - related legislation was sound, but that improvement was needed in the sector’s coordination, in information gathering, and in operational practice. The bill amends the objects of the Act to explicitly make the reduction of reoffending the focus of services delivered to young offenders. That will signal that actions taken under the Act should be aimed at preventing children and young people from developing patterns of offending that persist into adulthood.

The second group of amendments relate to victims’ rights and interests. The bill includes an amendment to modify the youth justice principles in order to signal the importance of addressing victims’ rights and interests. The bill will enable a victim or his or her representative to attend a court youth hearing without needing the leave of the court. The bill will also more closely match youth jurisdiction reparation provisions with those in the adult jurisdiction.

The next group of amendments relate to bail conditions and remands in custody. The bill includes an amendment to empower the police to get young people to comply with bail conditions without having to make an arrest, or if it is more appropriate the police will be able to arrest a young person without warrant for breaching his or her bail conditions. The bill includes an amendment to enable police bail to be granted to a young person following his or her arrest for a purely indictable offence. An amendment is also included to extend the Youth Court’s powers to order the detention of a young person who has seriously breached his or her bail conditions.

Remanding young people to institutions in certain circumstances is also covered in this bill. The bill will also extend until 30 June 2008 the ability of the Youth Court to remand a young person to a penal institution under certain circumstances. The renewal of those provisions is sought in recognition of the need for more time for alternative measures to meet the demand for residential beds to take effect. I note that the provisions introduced in 2002 expire on 30 June this year; therefore there will be a gap in the options available to the Youth Court until this bill has been passed into law.

Another group of amendments relate to the operation and enforcement of Youth Court orders. An amendment is made to ensure that orders imposed by the Youth Court on young persons approaching the age of 17 are completed. An amendment is made to allow the Youth Court to cancel and replace a supervision or supervision with activity order after the order has expired, where there has been a failure to observe the conditions of the order. An amendment is also made to allow the Youth Court to issue a warrant for the arrest of a young person who has failed to comply with an order. To ensure consistency with practice in the adult jurisdiction, an amendment is made to give the informant, usually the police, the right to appeal a sentence order imposed by the Youth Court.

The bill includes three amendments to improve the operation of the family group conference process. Those amendments will, firstly, provide additional discretion for family group conferences to be waived; secondly, simplify the structure and language of the section governing the power to waive family group conferences; and, thirdly, provide discretion to exclude certain relatives or caregivers from attending a family group conference where their presence may endanger the safety of the young person and disrupt the family group conference. Those are very practical changes.

The bill amends the Act by empowering the Youth Court to transfer all related charges to the District Court or High Court for hearing. That would occur when a young person is to already have one or more charges heard by a judge and jury in a District Court or a High Court.

The bill includes a number of procedural amendments. There is an amendment that will mean that breaches of a community-based sentence made by the District Court will be automatically dealt with in the District Court. The bill clarifies that the processes used for preliminary hearings in the Youth Court relating to sexual offences will be in accordance with the special provisions in Part VA of the Summary Proceedings Act. The bill makes an amendment to enable the police to lay charges for an offence within 6 months of the completion of an “intention to charge” family group conference when the young person fails to comply with the family group conference plan and has no reasonable excuse for that. The bill clarifies that when Youth Court proceedings have been completed, State agencies can retain the records relating to the investigations of the offence and the prosecution. The amendment is made to enable young persons under the age of 15 who have been proven to have committed a purely indictable offence to be transferred to the District Court for sentencing.

The bill includes an amendment to clarify that the role of care and protection resource panels is to promote the coordination of the provision of those services in relation to individual cases or a case. Those amendments will improve the care and protection and youth justice provisions of what is already a sound piece of legislation recognised for its innovation the world over, and that is the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act.

That completes what I need to say in relation to the bill. But as someone who has been around this bill and this area for a wee while—and I am looking across the House at other members who have been as well, and behind me is the current Minister responsible for the delivery of these kinds of public services—I say that the changes here are ones that all of us who have been in this area have experienced as ones that need to be made. Therefore I commend the bill as one that is full of good, practical ideas. I look forward to what people have to say about the bill, but I do expect it to have a good, productive passage through the House.

Hon ROGER SOWRY (National): It is easy to see why the Minister for Social Development and Employment did not talk with any enthusiasm about the bill. Really, he went through his departmental notes on it with a lack of enthusiasm that shed light on the fact that this bill does not deliver the sorts of reforms that need to be made to the children, young persons, and their families legislation.

I want to start with a couple of things. It is interesting that a lot of this bill is about youth justice issues, and the way that the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services works in dealing with young offenders. It is interesting that the Minister of Justice, who talks particularly tough on youth justice issues, is not in the House today. I can see why when I look at the bill. National believes that this bill, in fact, waters down victims’ rights. The Minister was very quick to skip over that part of the bill, but we believe that it relegates victims’ rights to the periphery of the whole system, because what the bill does—and no doubt United Future has had a big part to play in this—by the inclusion of clause 6, is downgrade the principle of the court being required to have “due regard to the interests of any victims” to the court just having to “recognise properly” the interests of victims. Well, what does that mean? What is the legal test for “recognise properly”? We have checked it out and have found there is no legal test for “recognise properly”. It is something totally new in the law. The advice we have had is that, in fact, it waters down the rights of victims. The Minister should stay in the Chamber and listen to this; he gives a pious speech where he says he wants to hear the debate, then runs like a scared rabbit! In fact, this bill waters down victims’ rights.

The next point—and I will be really interested to hear what United Future has to say on this—is why this bill says that the youth offender can have as many support people in the room as he or she wants, but the victim cannot. Why is that? What is fair about that? The offender, some young, out-of-control thug, can front up with 20 of the gang, and the victim is not allowed to bring into the room whomever he or she wants. How fair is that? I tell Judy Turner that it is clause 31 of the bill, if she has not read it, which, going by the way she is looking, she clearly has not. Victims’ rights should be fundamental to the system, not some afterthought, which this Government seems to treat them as. We will be very interested to see whether that provision is toughened up, or whether we will have another weak youth justice bill from this Government.

I also want to talk about the key recommendations of Judge Carruthers of the Ministerial Task Force on Youth Offending. I am sure that members who have read that task force report will look at it and ask how come Judge Carruthers did a whole report on youth offending, and none of the recommendations were picked up. Why was that? Why did the Labour Party Government not pick up Judge Carruthers’ recommendations? Were they wrong? Labour members do not want to answer that. Was the judge too weak or too tough? There is no answer to that question. Why is the Government ignoring Judge Carruthers’ report just like it ignored Judge Mick Brown’s report on the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services? Why is it doing that? Is it that the Chief Youth Court Judge, Judge Carruthers, had nothing of value to say on this issue? Is that the reason?

Why does this bill not take up the recommendation of longer periods of residence with supervision? I tell this House that there are young people out there committing crimes who have a range of issues that are wrong in their lives. They have conduct disorder problems. They have mental health issues. Judge Carruthers went away and studied that. He came back and said that the Government needed to have places where those people can go and be supervised and looked after for long periods of time, so that we can wrap some services around them and look after them. Does the bill do that? Not at all! There is not even a mention of it in the bill.

Hon David Benson-Pope: What a loss this member will be to Parliament.

Hon ROGER SOWRY: Mr Benson-Pope has woken up from his deep slumber. Why is that measure not in the bill? Does Mr Benson-Pope think Judge Carruthers’ report had any value? No, he does not. He shakes his head.

Hon David Benson-Pope: What a waste of space. No wonder he is leaving.

Hon ROGER SOWRY: He says the report is a waste of space. I think that is a disgrace, and I am surprised that United Future would support David Benson-Pope in saying that Judge Carruthers’ report is a waste of space. I am surprised about that. It is vital, if we are going to get young people out of a bad environment, that this Government does something, but it is not doing anything.

Hon David Benson-Pope: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. That member is deliberately misrepresenting my comments. I called the member a waste of space. I did not refer to Judge Carruthers’ report.

Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: That is not a point of order. [Interruption] The member will be silent when I am ruling on a point of order. That is not a point of order. When the member interjects he takes his chances. That is not a point of order.

Hon ROGER SOWRY: The member decides that the judge’s report is a waste of space, then thinks he is going to get told off by upstairs, so he tries to change what he said. He is the man who shook his head and said the report was hopeless.

Hon David Benson-Pope: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. That is the second time the member has deliberately misrepresented what I said. Is that acceptable in terms of the Standing Orders? [Interruption]

Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: I warn all members that when a point of order is being heard there will be silence. That is not a point of order, and I ask Mr Sowry to continue.

Hon ROGER SOWRY: The member knows there is a remedy if he thinks he has been misinterpreted. He knows that he sat there, shook his head, and said that report was a waste of space. He knows that the Government is doing nothing to—

Hon David Benson-Pope: The member’s telling lies.

Hon ROGER SOWRY: No one is in control here.

Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member will withdraw and apologise for that interjection.

Hon David Benson-Pope: I withdraw and apologise.

Hon ROGER SOWRY: It is good to see that Mr Benson-Pope is keeping up the standard that he has long held in this House. It is a very high standard for other members to aspire to!

This bill does nothing for youth offending—not a thing. The next time a youth offender mugs, maims, or hurts somebody, and—under this bill—fronts up at the hearing with 20 of his mates whereas the victim is allowed only one, people will need to blame the Government. When the youth offender is not given proper supervision, is not given a residential sentence with proper programmes wrapped around it, which is what Judge Carruthers recommended, people need to blame the Government, because none of that stuff is in this bill, and that is a disgrace. This bill is a lost opportunity for young people who need those services. They just want somewhere to go to be kept safe. They will not be given the chance to turn their lives round. Justice is about locking people up but it is also about putting programmes around them to see them through. The Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act actually has done a pretty good job of that. This bill does not add to it, but makes things worse for the victim and worse for the young person. Is it any wonder that David Benson-Pope has been sent down to the House to hurl some personal abuse across the Chamber to try to distract things, and that the Minister gave a lacklustre speech then scurried out of the Chamber so that he would not have to be held accountable for this legislation?

I say to the United Future party members that I hope they have as much influence over the Government as they claim—it would be nice to think they have as much influence as they claim—and will stand up and say to the Government that they do not support victims being sidelined, they do not support Judge Carruthers’ report being sidelined, and they do not support the bill.

Hon RUTH DYSON (Associate Minister for Social Development and Employment (CYF)): It is a real pleasure for me to speak during the first reading of the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Amendment Bill (No 4). As the Hon Steve Maharey said in his opening remarks, this bill improves the operation of the care and protection systems and the youth justice systems by amending the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act of 1989. It contains measures to ensure that the operation of our youth justice system is more efficient and more effective. Its primary focus is to ensure that the aim of the legislation and the policies that underlie it are focused on reducing reoffending, and that is its overall theme—looking at the interventions that are offered, the programmes that are offered, and the services that are delivered to young people who are within the youth justice system. That focus on reducing reoffending is fundamental to the principles of this bill.

This legislation that we are considering tonight is a direct response to the findings of the Ministerial Task Force on Youth Offending, and, despite the ignorance of the previous speaker, implements all the key findings of that task force—the ones that are required in legislation. A number of the issues that were referred to by the previous speaker are not required to be implemented by legislation, but one can see from the results of the Residential Services Strategy, and from the range of programmes that the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services is developing in the youth justice area, that that task force has made a significant contribution to this work. The task force found that, overall, the youth justice - related legislation was sound, so we did have a fundamentally sound basis on which to build; the key improvements that were needed were in sector coordination, information gathering, and operational practice.

The bill also recognises the central role of victims and victim reparation in response to offending. That is a critical and important focus that I am sure will be welcomed by not only members of this House but the wider public. It allows the victim to attend the relevant Youth Court hearing without the leave of the court, and amends the provisions relating to Youth Court reparation. It empowers the police to make young people comply with bail conditions without the police having first to make an arrest, which has long been a source of frustration for the police. They can now become much better engaged with the young person, and can ensure that the young person complies with his or her bail conditions, without their having to go through a formal arrest process.

It also improves the operation of the family group conferences. Family group conferences are regarded internationally as being a leadership model in terms of ways of dealing with people in the youth justice system. The bill provides additional discretion for family group conferences to be waived. If a family group conference has just been held and there has not been time to implement all the recommendations, there seems very little purpose in having another conference to duplicate a previous process, so we now have a legislative trigger for that waiving to occur. The bill also provides discretion so that certain relatives or caregivers can be excluded from a family group conference because their presence might endanger the safety of the young person and disrupt the conference. For sensible operation of the family group conference, that legislative provision is welcomed. And the bill clarifies the role of care and protection resource panels.

I know that the select committee will enjoy the wider debate that will be enabled by this legislation. It does improve both the care and protection provisions and the youth justice provisions of what is a fundamentally sound Act. In my view the bill is excellent legislation. I commend its progress to the select committee.

DAIL JONES (NZ First): The previous National Party speaker in this debate will be sorely missed from the House. He gave a speech much more in keeping with the needs of children and young families, and dealing with young offenders, than the Minister. I had written the word “lacklustre” on my speech notes, after listening to the Minister. Mr Sowry had obviously come to the same conclusion. It was not a very difficult conclusion to reach, at all.

This minority Labour Government is clearly coming to the end of its term of administration as a Government. It has no enthusiasm for children and young family work—none whatsoever. It was hardly even a bland speech by the Minister. He was bored to tears while giving his speech, and he could not even stay in the House long enough to hear any sort of response from the Opposition. There was no enthusiasm whatsoever for what he had to say. As far as the next Labour speaker is concerned, she merely read out a few departmental notes before she decided to vacate the House, as well.

I say to the Minister: what about doing something about Saliel Aplin, Olympia Jetson, Kelly Gush, Coral Burrows—all the children who have suffered under her administration—and people like them who will be coming before the courts, if they are given the opportunity to live, because of the poor family situations in which they are found? They will be up before the children and young persons and their families legislation before too long. This Minister just could not be bothered. She has no real enthusiasm for what she is doing, either.

What needs to be done in the area of youth justice is that young people and their parents must be made more accountable to the community for their crimes. We have to do something not only about dealing with young people, but we have to do something about their families and their parents, as well, so they will have a wider degree of responsibility for the offences that are being committed.

New Zealand First’s view is that we will focus on entry-level crime in order to put a stop to young people entering a life of crime. We will lower the age of criminal responsibility, and young offenders will be dealt with by the District Court and the High Court, as opposed to just the Youth Court. Family group conferences are becoming a soft touch for young offenders and those who attend them. Along with staff of the Ministry of Justice and the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services, they go there and hold hands. That is just a soft sop to what is happening today. New Zealand First will make sure that the conferences remain available for those under the age of 14 years who choose to offend, but even then, offenders under that age will be entitled to be dealt with under this provision only three times—just three times. If they choose to offend again, they will be dealt with by the adult criminal courts.

Judith Collins: That’s our policy.

DAIL JONES: That was our policy at the last election, which I am repeating. I note from the comments made by Judith Collins that it is now the policy of the National Party, as recently announced by Dr Don Brash. I thank the member for reminding me of that fact.

New Zealand First will also provide the Youth Court with guidelines as to when anonymity of proceedings should be removed. We do not want anonymity of proceedings there; we want these young people to be responsible publicly for their misdoings, and we will provide for the Youth Court to have guidelines as to when anonymity of proceedings should be removed in order to reinforce the offender’s accountability to the community.

One of the important things in dealing with youth crime is prevention, and one of the ways of preventing youth crime is to increase the drinking age again. That is our policy. It was our policy at the last election, and we have maintained it. The drinking age must go back to 21 years, because we have seen younger and younger people committing offences under the present rules governing the drinking age. New Zealand First will make it clear that violent young offenders should indeed be treated differently from non-violent offenders.

Our attitude is quite different to those of this minority Labour Government, which has no enthusiasm for dealing with young offenders. It just slaps them over the wrist and sends them on their way. We intend to be tough on young offenders. We will have the options of special, secure training-order sentences involving supervised controls and intensive rehabilitation. That is the key in many respects—rehabilitation. It is all very well putting people in jail and it is all very well giving them parole, but we have to make sure that a proper rehabilitation process and a relearning process is available to them. In certain circumstances we will have secure and even military training options. We have long maintained that view, and we will continue with it. Also, we will widen the range of offences for which youths are automatically subject to adult processes, such as attempted murder, aggravated sexual assault, and serious repeat offending.

If the Labour Party is serious about dealing with youth crime—I am talking about the choices available in respect of youth crime, as mentioned in the introduction to this bill—then those are the sorts of things it should really be dealing with, rather than pussy-footing around with measures as it is doing with this legislation.

One of the issues when dealing with young offenders and locking them away is that they should be kept separate from adults—and that would be for quite a time, as well. We have too many situations where not enough provision is made for young people to be kept separate from adults when they are locked up. That is a failing of the present system, and it has been a failing for many, many years.

New Zealand First will support this legislation only to the select committee, at this stage. We are hopeful that the Government might be encouraged to take a firmer hand, with the support of New Zealand First, in doing something more to prevent youth crime. Too often young people commit crime because they do not believe they will ever really have to suffer any particular penalties. Today some of them offend, secure in the knowledge that after 10 years—thanks to Labour and the Greens—their crimes will be clean-slated and they will have no responsibility whatsoever for them. That is how soft this Labour Government is on crime. It is a sad day when we have no enthusiasm from this Government and its Minister for Social Development and Employment. He is filling in for the Minister of Justice, who could not be here, obviously. Neither was there any enthusiasm from the Associate Minister for Social Development and Employment (CYF), Ruth Dyson, in the area of the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services, where there are great tragedies. Of course, as far as children and youth crime are concerned, by the time those children commit the crimes at this level and rate, at the ages of 12, 13, 14, and the like, they are already well and truly on the way to a life of crime. Often it is part of the way they have been brought up—or have not been brought up, as is the case with many of them—and they find themselves in difficulties.

I would have thought we would hear more from the Minister in charge of the Department of Child, Youth and Families Services about what is being done to prevent these types of things from happening. Rather, we heard a rather bland, boring speech being added to the Minister’s lack-lustre one. New Zealand First wants to make sure that young people are not totally dependent on benefits and the like, and that their families are encouraged to get on with making a contribution to society, rather than slipping away and being forgotten about, as is the case under this minority Labour Government.

NANDOR TANCZOS (Green): The Green Party will also be allowing this bill to go to the select committee. The bill contains a number of provisions that we think are worth supporting and we would like to see them progress. However, we have concerns about a number of provisions. There is quite a mixed bag of provisions but, on balance, we decided that we would allow the bill to go to the select committee where we can look at it. There is a lot of detail to be worked through, and we will see where to go from there.

I would like to address the comment in the explanatory note that the bill is about implementing what came out of the ministerial task force on youth offending. It states that the task force found that, overall, the legislative and philosophical underpinnings of the New Zealand youth justice system were sound. That is something that the Green Party does concur with. It identified that major areas needing attention were sector coordination, information gathering, and operational practice, especially with regard to young people with serious offending patterns that were likely to persist into adulthood.

Again, that is something that the Green Party agrees with. We feel that the philosophical foundations of the youth justice system are extremely sound. In fact, the New Zealand youth justice system is hailed around the world as being at the forefront of good practice in terms of youth justice. I note also the comments made by Judge Becroft, when he was the head of the Youth Court, that there has been a lot of media and political hype around youth offending. But if one looks at the evidence, at the facts—and that is something that we here in the House should be more prepared to do—we find that youth offending has not increased disproportionately and that youth offending patterns have been fairly stable. The big panic about young people seriously offending is not borne out by the evidence.

It is interesting that one of the provisions that the bill proposes to put into the Act is a better recognition of the reduction of reoffending. That is extremely important. It is so obvious as to go almost without saying, but it concerns me that often our debates around justice issues focus on punishment, to the exclusion of all else. I do not say that punishment has no place in a criminal justice system—of course there is a place for it, and we must make provision for it—but it is not the most important aspect. The most important aspect has to be to reduce reoffending. It has to be to reduce the numbers of victims in the future and the severity of the harm caused to victims in the future. Therefore, a clear focus on the need to reduce reoffending is absolutely vital, and we think it is important that that should be in the bill. We also support the better recognition of the role of victims and victim reparation in responding to offending.

I sat on the Justice and Electoral Committee when we looked at the Sentencing Act and the Victims’ Rights Act and sought to put in place some rights for victims in the system. We think it is absolutely vital that the same rights for victims should be extended to the youth justice system. That is absolutely important.

When we talk about reoffending we are talking about rehabilitation, and Dail Jones mentioned that in his speech. I am not sure the Green Party would share his view that the way to achieve that is through military boot camps, but we agree that rehabilitation is absolutely important. It is interesting to go back to the Roper report and look at what it said about the need for habilitation centres. It made a very valid point, which is that there is no point in talking about rehabilitation for people who were never habilitated in the first place. What we have to do is find ways of teaching people how to be effective and functioning human beings, because it is the tragic case in Aotearoa in 2004 that there are people growing up who are not being socialised properly into being human beings. They are treated worse than we would treat an animal, and that is the tragedy.

With those people, there is a pattern set up of intergenerational cycles of offending and it is absolutely vital that we start to address that and break those cycles. That is where we have to look at habilitation and whether it is possible to socialise someone into humanity at that stage. I believe that it absolutely is possible for the vast majority of cases. There are always some cases where it is simply too late, but that is a rarity and I think we have to put all of our resources into ensuring we do everything we can to make that happen.

We are concerned about some of the provisions in this bill—for example, automatically sending a youth to the district court who breaches a community-based sentence, and allowing a youth under 15 years of age to be sent to the district court for sentencing on purely indictable offences. The Greens are concerned that this is part of a broader push to bring young people into the adult justice system and to bring the same kind of “tough on crime, we will be meaner than you are to criminals” rhetoric—that I think is motivated by politics more than evidence of what will actually work—to bear on young offenders. We think that is entirely inappropriate. We have seen the problems that happen when young people are treated in the same way as adults. I notice that there is provision in terms of the detention of young people and there are real concerns about that. We do not think that the way to approach this is by taking that “tough on crime” approach to young people. We think that our international obligations require us to recognise and treat young people distinctly. Once again, the boot-camp approach is not the one that we would support.

As I said at the beginning, we are supporting this bill to select committee. As I have said, there are areas that we think are of serious concern and we will be addressing those in the select committee. We will be talking with the Government to see what changes we can achieve, but we also recognise that there are a number of things in here that are useful additions. They are about making the youth justice system work better. One of the things that I do not think this bill effectively deals with is the question of enforceability around family group conferences. This has brought family group conferences into the greatest disrepute, because young people apparently express remorse—perhaps genuinely do so—but when they come out and find that the agreements are not enforceable in any practical way, then they have no incentive to fulfil those agreements. We think that that is the key thing that needs to be addressed. I know that Stephen Franks is concerned about that. Judith Collins was also nodding her head. Stephen Franks has talked about this with restorative justice, and it is the same issue.

We think that is absolutely vital. The philosophical approach is the correct one, and the concern for us is how we extend that more fully into the adult justice system through the use of restorative justice, Māori justice processes, and the like. But it can work only if it is properly enforceable and if it is able to maintain the respect and the regard of the public. We have to remember that in the vast majority of cases family group conferences are extremely effective, and it is only a small minority that have the problems, and that is really what we have to tidy up.

STEPHEN FRANKS (ACT): I was quite prepared to fill in the gaps after Judith Collins, who I am sure would have given a speech based on direct personal experience of and a long familiarity with the criminal justice system. Listening to my colleague Nandor Tanczos, someone who intends to support this bill, was an interesting exercise. The ACT party will not support this bill, not even its referral to a select committee. We think it is a waste of time for the select committee and for this House. What the bill does is commonly referred to as tinkering, but we believe using the word “tinkering’ demeans the criticism of the bill. The problem with this bill is that it maintains a pattern that fills our jails. If there is a message that ought to be sent by the youth justice system, it is that the community is serious about crime, that it does not tolerate silly excuses, and that it is not easily gamed. The sort of exercise that we see not with first or second offenders, for whom the family group conference system was developed, but with people who have had four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, or 10 second chances, shows the system is entirely unsuitable.

It does not matter to me or to the ACT party that the international community has been persuaded to applaud the family group conference, on the basis of its fine objectives. A justice system should be measured by its outcomes. The measure of those outcomes should not be recidivism or reoffending rates but the offending rates, because the purpose of criminal law and criminal law procedures is not simply to meet the needs of offenders. Instead, it is to persuade a whole lot of people who may conceivably tip the balance and decide to offend that it will not be worth doing that. So to have a youth justice system that sends out a message that the community is a mug and the police and the social workers are drips driven by drippy rules simply encourages people to choose crime—let us not call it by that neutral term—to hurt their fellow citizens, to steal from them, to attack them, to threaten them, to write graffiti, and to trash and vandalise property. We say that is a choice. Young people are quite capable of knowing the moral quality of that choice, yet we are in a society that patronises them by treating them as if they have no capacity to understand the nature of their actions. This pitiful attempt to introduce some more elements of the adult justice system into youth justice just highlights how patronising we are towards young people.

I know it is easy to mock the process of drawing on personal experience, but I cannot go past personal experience in my case. I grew up in a State housing area. Until I was 13 my father had not bought a house for our family, so we were one of the many families with five children, surrounded by families of a similar size, in a State housing area. We ran in gangs, and our pleasure in running in gangs turned partly to vandalism because that was how we made our mark. When I think about what restrained us from a lot more serious offending, it was actually very simple: the fear of being caught and punished. The punishment that we all most feared was being sent to a borstal. I am not claiming some sort of New York slum background; I was a very privileged child. I had loving parents, and I found school easy. I am not trying to say that I came out of a criminal background, but certainly in our community there were plenty of occasions when we broke the rules. But we did not expect the police to go easy on us. We expected the entire community to dump on us.

This bill now states that the principal focus of the criminal justice system for young people is on the offender. The principal focus of the criminal justice system should be on the victims, on those who have not offended, on those who may be thinking of offending, and on those who need to know that it is not worth offending. To recognise the central role of the victims, what does this bill do? It refers us to the utterly effete provisions in the Sentencing Act. I remember what happened when I tried to get a definition of victims’ interests put into the Sentencing Act: the Greens and Labour voted it out. They wanted to have only a slogan in section 7(1)(c). That is the reference in the Sentencing Act to victims that the Minister is now proudly boasting that he will incorporate in relation to youth justice. That reference states: “The purposes for which a court may sentence or otherwise deal with an offender are— … (c) to provide for the interests of the victim of the offence;”. We have no idea what those interests are; this Government has refused to define them. This Government has suddenly found that it hates judicial activism, but has left it to the judges to decide from the context what the interests of the victim may be. Perhaps those interests may be in victims not being confronted with a family group conference where they see an insolent family that thinks the whole affair is a waste of time.

What is this Government doing? This bill states that one does not need to hold a family group conference if certain things are satisfied. What are those things? One requirement is that a family group conference is to be held within 6 weeks of a previous one. Would we not think a simple rule would be that such a person has been given a second chance? Such a young offender has had everyone hanging around waiting for every precious drop of remorse that falls from his or her lips, and for agreement to do something else, so what are we having a second family group conference for? One can think of a family that has been in a conference where the family members all undertook to make sure that the youngster did not fall off the rails again. Must they do that all over again? What possible point is there in doing that? I go further: the introduction—what is called the explanatory note—of the bill states that a family group conference need not be held where: “… previous offending is identified, or a young person offends, after being charged in a Youth Court …”. In other words, the young person has reached the level of seriousness in his or her offending of the 2,000 people a year who are held to have had offences proven against them in a Youth Court. I should say that that occurs in 2,000 out of about 40,000 apprehensions.

We lean over backwards to tell young people that their offending does not really matter, that it is not taken seriously, and that the State and the community accept feeble excuses and only want young offenders to put those excuses persuasively. Under the provisions in this bill young offenders do not need to have a family group conference if they have been in a Youth Court, yet when we look at the substantive provision, we see there are a whole lot more conditions. One is that the whānau must agree. There is a whole provision that states that we may not need to have a family group conference if it will be a waste of time, but only if the whānau agrees not to have a family group conference. People will soon work out from folklore whether a family group conference is a soft option—and which whānau will not agree to one.

The measure of a youth justice system should not be what the anointed experts tell us about it. It should be our youth offending rates. This morning I was lucky enough to take part in a video conference with police chief Bratton. Chief Bratton was the man who brought the New York crime rate down by nearly 80 percent—over 60 percent in every category of recorded crime. He is now the chief of the Los Angeles police, and he made the point that Los Angeles’ youth crime has fallen dramatically. In fact, at a time when the US youth population has increased from 26 million to 34 million, serious youth crime and ordinary youth crime has fallen in every category by more than 30 percent. In the same period, our serious youth crime has increased by nearly 100 percent. So this vaunted system is a piece of tripe. The praise that we hear is self-praise. A whole bunch of people who had very virtuous intentions, and who thought there may be some benefit in being more understanding of young people, are now desperately trying to persuade themselves that they were right all along. It is only the unthinking offenders who have not realised that.

JUDY TURNER (United Future): I anticipate that the select committee process on this legislation will be extremely interesting, because it appears that the two parties prepared to support it going through its first reading do so with a range of extreme cautions. I am not sure whether they are cautions on the same issues. None the less, United Future will support the first reading of this bill, but I want to say right from the outset that we do so with great caution on some points. Ensuring the objectives set out in section 4 of the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act are met has been a major concern for United Future. As the baseline review highlighted, the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services has, we believe, been set up for a bit of a fall. It has been given a set of responsibilities that it really cannot meet. One of the findings of the baseline review was that the department’s activities have been, by necessity, stuck at the critical end of the spectrum. I have often referred to the phrase “the tyranny of the urgent”. It is our worry that the implications of the department failing to deliver the level of preventive work needed to stop the massive tide of child abuse and improve its youth justice outcomes means that vulnerable families do not receive help that could actually prevent abuse, and, instead, the negative cycles of abuse and crime are perpetuated.

United Future has some reservations about the bill. One of its main objectives is to redefine the Government departments that can be responsible for meeting the obligations of the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act. That responsibility will now move beyond the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services to include the Ministry of Social Development. As far as United Future is concerned, that does not go far enough. We would like to see the Act amended so that not just other Government departments but non-governmental organisations can be included and can pick up some of the work, and particularly some of the prevention work that is going undone. We would like to encourage the Government to give that serious consideration, from the point of view that even if its own policy and ideology prevents it from taking advantage of those provisions, there are certainly those of us who, for the future of this country, would like to see those provisions addressed. We think there is a degree of dishonesty in the legislation, because although at present the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services cannot contract that work out, it manages very subtly to talk to different agencies, and to get around the provision very cleverly. The department seconds social workers from organisations like Presbyterian Support and the Salvation Army, and has them officially working for the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services, rather than taking the more honest approach of just giving a contract to the agency it seconds the workers from. So United Future would like to see those provisions extended beyond just the Ministry of Social Development to include the very fine non-governmental organisations that are well able to do the work.

United Future would also like to refer the Government to our policy on a dual-track model in this process. It is based upon models that are already working on the ground in the United States, in Canada, and in Australia—countries that face the kind of numbers crisis that we face here in New Zealand. Those models have made a huge difference in those countries. We are very excited at the appointment of the new Chief Executive of the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services. She is a lady who has had experience in implementing such a programme.

My colleague Marc Alexander has some real concerns about the youth justice issues. The reduction of offending and reoffending is an objective of the department’s activities, but we are very concerned that an offender’s first or second offence may be waived, and that the amendments in section 4(f)(ii)(A) and (B) of the Act inserted by clause 5 create the possibility of legal obligations to reduce reoffending, which youth offenders may profit from. There is an interesting measure in clause 12, which will be interesting to consider in the select committee, that talks of reasonable force being used against a child or young person. That seems to be in direct contradiction to the overturning of section 59 of the Crimes Act, which this Government states is one of its aims. So it will be interesting to overcome that contradiction. Another concern is section 239(3A)(a), (d), and (e), inserted in the principal Act by clause 10(3). Those provisions limit the age and culpability, in terms of a court order, to a youth of no less than 15 years of age, set a time limit of 2 months or more for an offender to be on remand pending a trial, and also provide that detention can be rescinded if it compromises the ability of the department to meet its demand to detain other young persons.

I think other members of the House have covered our concerns in terms of the need at this very early stage of offending, when a young person is beginning what could develop into a life of crime, to send very clear messages from the beginning that a young person cannot start to play one criminal act off against another criminal act, or start playing a game with our criminal justice system. We need to send the message, from the earliest moments that the young person is apprehended and found to be in breach of the law, that that behaviour is not acceptable. We should not send the message that multiple offending will somehow reduce the overall response and consequences. I think we need to think very seriously about the message we are sending through the youth justice system, and I agree that we need to look very closely not just at the consequences of crime but also the causes of crime, when talking about young people. We need to think creatively about interventions into families where crime is a reality, but I think that one does not do it by softening down and compromising on the truth, which is if someone has broken the law, he or she has broken the law, and society frowns on that very, very strongly. We want young people to see that crime does not pay. So we have some real concerns we want to see addressed, and by the sounds of things, the Green Party has a set of concerns, too.

I opened up this speech by saying there will be a very interesting select committee process on this bill. In taking it beyond a first reading, I anticipate a number of serious changes will have to happen. There are, however, some good things in this bill. For instance, the family group conferences have some interesting issues that need addressing, and I think there is a serious attempt in this legislation to do that. It does seem ridiculous that when there has been a family group conference, there is an attempt to bring an intervention, but before there has even been a chance to start to implement it, the young person may be caught in breach of some other law, his or her parole, or something like that, and before there has even been time to implement the last family group conference, another one needs to be set up. That seems to undermine the whole process, so I think some common sense can be applied there. I think there is a genuine attempt in this bill to do that, and we would want to be supportive of those things that do reek of common sense.

But we must make sure that the messages sent to youth offenders are very clear, and that we do not send mixed messages. Nor should we start into a process whereby young people could for one moment believe that when they are caught by the police, charged, and found guilty, they can start to play a game with the law, can start adding up offences, and can have one offence waived because another one is on the books—that some sort of game will be played. That is a very, very concerning message. United Future would be very keen to see those kinds of concerns addressed. So although we will be supporting the first reading of this bill with caution, we look forward to seeing some big changes made during the select committee process.

JUDITH COLLINS (National—Clevedon): It has been very interesting to listen to the contributions from the House on this bill tonight. There is a great deal of common ground. Members clearly have slightly different views on issues, but there is certainly common ground for dealing effectively with youth offending.

I think this bill is a band-aid bill. Unfortunately, it has lots of good intentions and purposes, but I really do not think it will go tremendously far towards resolving some of the issues of youth justice. I commend the Minister for Social Development and Employment for wanting to deal with the issues, but wanting and doing are two different things.

There has been a lot of talk around the place about family group conferences. One of the things Mr Tanczos mentioned that really annoys people who are victims is the fact that family group conferences tend to go on and on—there is one after another—but there does not seem to be any result. Someone says: “Yes, I agree; I’m a bad boy and I’ve done wrong.”, and the next thing is that that person is doing it all again. That is one of the things that very much annoys not only the victims but the police, the social workers, and all the people involved. It makes a mockery of the family group conference. However, my having said that, on a positive note, we do know that family group conferences do work for the vast majority of offenders and victims. We as a House should give a tick to family group conferences and say that we accept that, for most instances, they do work.

But there is a small proportion—something like 5 to 10 percent—where, clearly, the family group conference will never get anywhere, and that is because the family group conference relies on a couple of things. It relies on the goodwill of the family. Not all families are created equal, and occasionally there are, unfortunately, families who are criminal families—who always have been and always will be. Expecting them to be supportive of measures to stop their children from committing more crimes is utterly ridiculous, and we need to accept that. It also relies on the young offender’s genuine wish to change. One of the things that clearly comes out from the research and from the anecdotal evidence of those who know a lot about this area is that one of the most important factors in youth offending is the friends and associates of the young person. As parents should know, if their children are hanging out with young people who are always in trouble, the chances are pretty good that their children will always be in trouble, too. So the family group conference does not necessarily deal with that situation. If a family is dysfunctional, if it is split apart, if the parents are not talking and cousins, whānau, or whatever are not functioning properly as a family unit, the chances are a family group conference is not going to do an awful lot of good.

There has been quite a lot of talk—and very good talk—about victims’ rights tonight. Of course, the victims are always the poor people who go along with a genuine wish to have their issues addressed. They want to see the offender sorry for, and doing something about, the crime. Quite often, of course, youth crime consists of something like graffiti. Certainly, in Papakura, in my electorate—I knew I would come to personal circumstances here, because Mr Franks invited me to—graffiti is a major issue in youth crime. We might ask whether it really hurts anyone. Well, yes, it does, actually. It creates a feeling of victimisation for the people whose property is damaged in that way. One of the things the Papakura police instituted a while ago, which I was very supportive of, was having the young offenders, with their parents’ consent, clean up the graffiti. I thought that was a fantastic measure, as did the parents of the young offenders. Then what happened? Some do-gooder, whom I happen to know, being a lawyer—

Dail Jones: Not a lawyer?

JUDITH COLLINS: Yes, she is a lawyer, and I do know her. She is a nice person, but, unfortunately, she does not live in our electorate and does not have to deal with the issue. She made a complaint and a newspaper, the Sunday Star-Times, got hold of it and all hell broke loose. The poor old Papakura police, who were doing such a fantastic job in getting these young toerags, as some of us would call them, to clean up the mess, and in giving the parents a bit of support in showing these kids a bit of discipline, were suddenly told to stop that now. It was working, and they were told not to do it. Now, what has happened is that graffiti has gone up again in Papakura. That is an instance where the police were doing the right thing and, unfortunately, their Minister did not support them. Unfortunately, the hierarchy did not support those on the ground who were actually doing something, who were helping the parents, and who were taking the situation out of the justice system as such. No social workers were needed in that case, so it could not have been any good!

I think that is one of the areas that maybe the select committee could look at. We could look at those sorts of measures for getting young people to understand that there are consequences to their offending—consequences not only to the victims but also to themselves, and that is an important thing. The National Party has undertaken that when we are in Government, after the next election, we will reduce the age of criminal responsibility, and there is a very good reason for that. We have young offenders in the community aged 12 or 13 years who are being run by older offenders—those who are aged 16 and over. Those people get the young people to go and do their dirty work for them, knowing that they would escape any particular criminal responsibility. That is what they do; they run youth gangs within my electorate and many other electorates in this country. That is where the vast majority of new offending is coming from.

We need to be able to deal with that sort of behaviour, and we need to be able to make those kids more scared of the justice system than they are of their mates. They have to understand that we are not being kind by letting them get away with it; what we are doing is setting them up for a life of crime—that is what we are doing. By being too soft on kids when they are young, we are letting them get away with thinking there are no consequences, until they are so far into a criminal system that they cannot get out because they are so scared. They are more scared of losing the gang’s friendship, the gang relationship, than they are of losing their families—which often are split anyway—and, certainly, they are more scared of that than they are of the justice system or of the police.

There are some things in this bill that we are quite supportive of, so it will be very interesting to see it at the select committee. I hope it is going to the Social Services Committee—

Dail Jones: Law and Order?

JUDITH COLLINS: The Law and Order Committee? Which one is it going to? No one in the Government knows which select committee it is going to.

Dail Jones: Is there a Minister in the House?

JUDITH COLLINS: There is supposedly one here. Having said that, I point out that we have some grave concerns about many aspects of this bill. It certainly will not fix anything much in its current state. It will be good, though, whichever select committee it goes to, to have an opportunity to put a little bit of backbone into it and a little bit of good National Party policy.

JOHN CARTER (National—Northland): I will speak for only a few minutes on this legislation because, like previous speakers—

Martin Gallagher: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I actually did rise. I understood that the senior Opposition whip was moving a point of procedure—albeit that he is not sitting in his normal seat.

Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member is quite right. The member has the call, but he should be in his correct seat. [Interruption] Sorry—he should call from the National side.

JOHN CARTER: If the member is seeking a call, I am happy to let him take the next few minutes and then I will take a call. But I do point out, Madam Deputy Speaker, that I am entitled to take a call from anywhere I like. Indeed, I think I can even take a call standing in the middle of the table.

Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member should go over to the National side of the Chamber to speak.

JOHN CARTER: No, not at all.

Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member retains the call?

JOHN CARTER: I am very happy to allow the member, if he wishes, to take the call and I will then run for another call. We might have to take the leave of the House for that to happen, though.

Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: OK, if that is agreed to, the call will go to Martin Gallagher.

JOHN CARTER: Right, and then I will still get a call?

Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: Yes. Is there any objection? There is not.

MARTIN GALLAGHER (Labour—Hamilton West): I will not be long, and I thank the Chair. I commend this bill. I look forward to it going to a select committee. I have heard quite a bit of the contribution tonight. I take the opportunity to pay tribute to the wonderful people in Hamilton who are working with youth offenders, the fantastic leadership of our police, and, certainly, the police officers working in the whole youth-offending area whom I have spoken to. They are doing a wonderful job. Recently I attended a major meeting of all the people involved with our various youth-offending teams in the city. What a wonderful job they are doing, and I take this opportunity to place on record my profound respect for those people, who really walk the talk. This bill is a positive step forward. I look forward to it going to a select committee. I look forward to the probing and analysis that the select committee will do, which Judy Turner and others have alluded to. I look forward to this bill being returned to the House in due course.

JOHN CARTER (National—Northland): Given that the House will rise in 2 or 3 minutes, and to save my speech being interrupted, I seek leave for the House to rise, and for this bill to be recommenced tomorrow.

Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member is seeking leave for the House to rise now, and for his speech not to be interrupted. Is there any objection to that course of action? There is.

JOHN CARTER: I will be happy to spend a few moments on this bill, because it has one or two things in it that need to be discussed. One thing that causes me concern is the issue of victims’ rights. One of the sad things in this country that is starting to become more and more apparent to me is that we worry so much about the offender and not about the victim.

It is really important that we put time into those who offend. Firstly, we should find out why the offending is happening. Indeed, in my view, we do not put enough emphasis on finding out why it is happening and how we can stop the next wave. For me, that is an important point. Indeed, there is a lot of information around about why young people offend, but we do not do enough, or give enough resourcing, to prevent it from happening. The sad consequence is that we now talk of this nation needing more places to incarcerate people.

At the same time, we have a system that does not do enough to support people who are victims—particularly young people, who often are victims. That really concerns me. We see so often, when Family Court conferences, etc., are held, that the perpetrators are entitled to bring along a lot of support—indeed, as many people as they want—but the victim is not allowed to bring support, or if he or she has support people, they are not allowed to participate to any extent. As I read and understand the bill, it does not do anything to address that at all. It gives quite an imbalance as to what could happen in a case where somebody has been offended against, and that is rather sad.

I hope the members on the select committee that addresses the bill will study that issue quite seriously. There needs to be a far better balance, when we are trying to address this issue. The whole purpose of Family Court meetings is for those who have offended to get an understanding of what they have done to their victim. Quite honestly, if we cannot get both sides of the story out in that circumstance, then we are failing. We have a responsibility, when we are setting up a system, to make sure it works for all parties concerned. I have briefly read this legislation as to its intention, and that certainly has not been addressed by the policy being put before us by the minority Labour Government. That is one aspect that I do urge the select committee to have a very, very serious look at.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 10 p.m.