Tuesday, 8 March 2005

Tuesday, 8 March 2005

Tuesday, 8 March 2005

Madam Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

Election of Speaker

Election of Speaker

Madam SPEAKER: I have to report that, accompanied by members, I waited upon Her Excellency the Governor-General at Government House on Thursday, 3 March when I addressed Her Excellency as follows:

May it please Your Excellency:

In obedience to Your Excellency’s request, the Members of the House of Representatives, in the exercise of their undoubted rights and privileges, have proceeded to the election of a Speaker, and, as the subject of their choice, I now present myself to you and submit myself for Your Excellency’s confirmation.

To which Her Excellency replied as follows:

Madam Speaker: It is with much pleasure that I confirm the choice that the House of Representatives has made in your person.

I congratulate you on your election to this distinguished office, marking as it does the appreciation of the House of Representatives of your impartiality and ability.

I have further to report that I also addressed Her Excellency as follows:

I humbly thank Your Excellency for your confirmation of the choice made by the Members of the House of Representatives of me to be their Speaker.

I desire to repeat my respectful acknowledgment to the House of the high honour it has done me in electing me to be its Speaker.

Authority to Administer Oath

Authority to Administer Oath

Madam SPEAKER: I take this opportunity to inform the House that I have received the following commission from Her Excellency the Governor-General authorising me to administer the oath or affirmation prescribed by law to be taken or made by members of the House.

The authorisation reads—

Pursuant to section 11 of the Constitution Act 1986, I, The Honourable Dame Silvia Cartwright, Governor-General of New Zealand, hereby authorise you, the Honourable Margaret Anne Wilson, Speaker of the House of Representatives, to administer to members of Parliament the Oath or Affirmation of Allegiance to Her Majesty The Queen required to be taken or made by every such member before that member shall be permitted to sit or vote in the House of Representatives.

Helen Clark, Prime Minister

Authorised: Silvia Cartwright, Governor-General, 3 March 2005

Questions for Oral Answer

Questions to Ministers

Te Wānanga o Aotearoa—Concerns

1. RODNEY HIDE (Leader—ACT) to the Prime Minister: Did she or any of her Ministers convey the reported concerns that she said she had for some time over Te Wānanga o Aotearoa to Dr Rongo Wētere; if so, what was Dr Wētere’s response?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK (Prime Minister): There have been many communications between the Government and the wānanga in recent years, with correspondence mainly being directed to the chair of the wānanga council. There have also been meetings between education Ministers and Mr Wētere in recent years, focusing in particular on the high growth in the wānanga’s enrolment numbers and the conflict of interest issue. I am advised that Mr Wētere’s response at the first of the meetings on the roll numbers almost 2 years ago could be described as “forthright”, notwithstanding that the Government did move to impose caps on the numbers enrolled, later in 2003.

Rodney Hide: Could the Prime Minister tell the House where it all went wrong, in that under her administration the funding for the wānanga went from $4 million a year to $239 million a year, then the Government froze the funding and put in a financial controller, presumably to control the wānanga?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: Equivalent full-time student numbers were uncapped in 1998, and local courses did not require approval by Government agencies. In my view that has been a mistake, and it is one of the issues that we are focusing on now. When the considerable blowout in numbers became apparent, Ministers began communicating with the wānanga and with other organisations where this was an issue.

Rodney Hide: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. My particular concern was “where it all went wrong”. It is of some public interest and of interest to members in this House that funding went from $4 million to $239 million. We have just had a nice dissertation on caps. That was not part of my question. My question was where did it go wrong, whereby the Government pumped the funding up to $239 million and then suddenly froze the funding and put in its own commissioner. I ask you to ask the Prime Minister to address my specific question.

Madam SPEAKER: That was not a point of order. The substance of the member’s question was addressed.

Hon Brian Donnelly: Has the Prime Minister been briefed on the report on the financial review of Te Wānanga o Aotearoa by the Education and Science Committee, tabled in December, and does that report contain a minority report by the ACT member on the committee expressing concerns about financial mismanagement at the wānanga?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: I have not been briefed on that report but I think I can infer from the member’s question that no such minority report was tabled.

Dr Don Brash: Can the Prime Minister confirm that since 2002 Government agencies have initiated at least 22 audits, investigations, or inquiries into issues at Te Wānanga o Aotearoa, and that despite those failings the Government has never acted to reduce the funding available to the wānanga?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: I am aware there have been a number of formal communications from the Government to the wānanga raising a range of concerns, and those are being worked through with a varying degree of success, I might say. Certainly, steps were taken to lower the runaway enrolments. I am sure the Leader of the Opposition benefited from his personal briefing by Mr Wētere at the kapahaka celebrations.

Hon Ken Shirley: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. The Prime Minister referred to a number of Government requests and reports. Could we please have those tabled?

Hon Trevor Mallard: It is quite clear under the Standing Orders that if something is quoted from by a Minister it must be tabled, otherwise it does not have to be.

Hon Ken Shirley: What difference, if any, will Brian Roche’s appointment make, and, in particular, will he have the powers to countermand a spending decision made by the wānanga council, in view of Trevor Mallard’s stated claim that Rongo Wētere controls the council?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: My understanding is that the Crown manager will have charge of the finances. If the member wants to pursue that further, I suggest he pursue it with the Minister of Education.

Dr Don Brash: Does the Prime Minister have complete confidence in the way the previous tertiary education Minister, Steve Maharey, handled issues with Te Wānanga o Aotearoa; if so, why did she move him out of that portfolio in December, leaving Trevor Mallard to deal with the mess?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: Yes, I am satisfied that the Minister took steps to address the runaway enrolments. I might say that I have taken a rather conservative approach to reshuffles, unlike the constant reshuffling that goes on over there, particularly in respect of women members who are not allowed to keep jobs for very long.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. The Prime Minister’s accusation that constant reshuffles are going on “over there” and pointing at us is utterly untrue.

Madam SPEAKER: Is this a point of order?

Rt Hon Winston Peters: My point of order is that the Prime Minister’s answer was not terse, to the point, and accurate. Perhaps she should particularise what her claim is.

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: I am quite happy to put the member’s mind at rest. My reference to musical chairs was not directed at New Zealand First; it was directed at the National Party.

Hon Ken Shirley: Does the Prime Minister support the decision made by the Minister of Education to decline my request under the Official Information Act for the Graeme McNally report of 9 February 2005 to the Tertiary Advisory Monitoring Unit; if she does support that decline of the public release of that document, then why; and what does her Government have to hide?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: I do not spend my life getting briefings from Ministers about what Official Information Act requests they agree to and do not agree to. The member should take that matter up with the Minister of Education.

Rodney Hide: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. The Prime Minister is making misleading and false statements to this House. As you know, we met with Dr Rongo Wētere yesterday and he was insistent that he did not brief the Leader of the Opposition, Dr Don Brash, that he did not spend the weekend with Dr Don Brash, as has been alleged, that he had never met Dr Don Brash before and he went over and said hello to him for 5 minutes at a kapahaka. I think it is an outrage that the Prime Minister—

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: Ha, ha!

Rodney Hide: She might laugh, but these are serious matters. It shows that the Prime Minister is quite prepared to stand up in this House day after day and simply make things up.

Madam SPEAKER: That is a debatable matter, not a point of order.

Hon Ken Shirley: I seek leave to table a letter dated 4 March from Trevor Mallard to myself declining my request under the Official Information Act for the Graeme McNally report of 9 February to the Tertiary Advisory Monitoring Unit.

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

Crime—Asians

2. Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) to the Prime Minister: Does she still hold the same view as she did in the House on 13 May 2003, arising from questions about the increase in reported kidnappings by Asians, when she said “there is not a crime wave.”; if so, why?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK (Prime Minister): Yes, because high-profile individual incidents do not constitute a crime wave. For example, Asians accounted for only 2 percent of all apprehensions for violent crime last year when they are estimated to comprise 6.6 percent of the population.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: After a 760 percent increase in kidnappings in Auckland alone in just 3 years, whom are we to believe—the Chinese community leaders and police, who have an understanding of the Asian community and are quoted in today’s New Zealand Herald as saying there is a serious problem with kidnappings and extortion amongst the Asian community in this country; or do we believe the Prime Minister and her Labour cronies, who state that “there is no crime wave”?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: The latest figures I have for 2004 kidnapping and abduction, recorded apprehensions of Asiatic persons—official statistics—show that 4.8 percent of the kidnappings and abductions in 2004 were carried out by Asiatic persons. If we go back over the past 5 years, we find that the absolute numbers were: five in 2000, three in 2001, 24 in 2002, 72 in 2003, and way back down to nine—the 4.8 percent—last year.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: How on earth did the Prime Minister get those figures, when the Ministry of Justice does not even record the visa status of criminals, and in 2003 the police blamed an increase in reported kidnappings in New Zealand on the rise in the number of students from Asian countries, where such crime are common, and, more particularly, there is the acknowledgment by Chinese leaders that this matter is kept under wraps?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: I am not sure what the relevance of the reference to visa status is. The figures I have are recorded apprehensions of Asiatic persons. If we are talking about intimidation and threats, for example, we find that 2.7 percent of the recorded apprehensions last year were of Asiatic persons, which again is well under their proportion of the total population, which is 6.6 percent.

Kenneth Wang: How can the Government claim to be dealing with crime, when four under-17-year-olds can burglarise a Mr Li of over $30,000, be caught the next day, and then be released, with the only penalty being a family group conference; and when will she reply to Mr Li’s letter asking for some justice and “equal rights with burglars”?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: The crime rate has come in at its lowest since 1982. That does not mean there is no crime. Obviously, too many crimes are committed, and one wants to get their number down further. As to the specific letter, the member should take it up directly with my office.

Kenneth Wang: I seek leave to table a copy of the letter from Mr Li, dated 3 March, to the Prime Minister outlining the burglary by those four young, hardened criminals, outlining the joke—that is, the family group conference—and asking for equal rights with the burglars.

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. Can I ask whether Mr Wang has obtained the permission of the person to table that correspondence?

Kenneth Wang: Yes, I have.

Madam SPEAKER: He has obtained permission. However, that is not really the issue. The issue is whether the document will be tabled.

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

Ron Mark: I seek the leave of the House to table answers to written questions last year, which show quite clearly that kidnappings and extortion crimes had risen at that date by some 600 percent among Asiatic people.

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

National Certificate of Educational Achievement—Inquiry

3. Hon BILL ENGLISH (National—Clutha-Southland) to the Associate Minister of Education: Has the Government initiated an inquiry into NCEA results; if so, when was the decision to undertake that inquiry made?

Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Minister of Education), on behalf of the Associate Minister of Education: Yes, on 15 February.

Hon Bill English: How does the Minister reconcile the following two public statements: firstly, his confirmation on Radio New Zealand on 16 February that it was “only scholarship under the microscope”—contrary to the answer he just gave—and, secondly, his telling the New Zealand Herald on 4 March that he had not issued a statement about the National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) inquiry because “it was already covered by the States Services Commission inquiry”?

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: I do that quite easily. As was indicated, the State Services Commission inquiry will determine whether reasons for variability in some standards were not for valid educational reasons—that is, were they the result of deficiencies in the New Zealand Qualifications Authority’s systems? That was at the beginning of the inquiry. It was always covered.

Hon Brian Donnelly: Would the Associate Minister agree with the statement last week by an experienced maths teacher, who wrote: “It is not the teachers and the pupils who have varied; it is the hurdle height.”; and will he give parents, students, and employers a guarantee that steps now being taken will stabilise these unacceptable variations in the “hurdle height”?

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: On the matter of unacceptable variations, the answer is yes.

Deborah Coddington: How much importance, if any, did the Minister’s Government place on the repeated warnings about the NCEA scholarship given by the New Zealand Education and Scholarship Trust; and now that its predictions have come true why does he not just give scholarship exams back to the trust to run?

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: I have a copy of the correspondence from John Graham to the Ministry of Education in 2002, and the trust does indicate a fundamental feeling that a standards-based approach is not the right approach. It has always been honest about that, unlike some other people.

Hon Bill English: Can the Minister confirm the answer he just gave to the House that the decision to have an official inquiry into NCEA was made on 15 February; if that is true, how does he explain the following exchange on Radio New Zealand—presenter: “So it’s only scholarship under the microscope?”; David Benson-Pope: “That’s right.”?

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Again, I can confirm that very easily. On 15 February the Associate Minister wrote to the State Services Commissioner, asking him to review the effectiveness of the New Zealand Qualifications Authority in carrying out its functions relating to the school qualifications system. The rest of the NCEA might not have been under a microscope, but it was certainly within the scope of that inquiry.

Hon Bill English: Can the Minister confirm that the person who has been appointed as an independent adviser to the inquiry into NCEA is Dr Alan Barker, and is this the same Dr Alan Barker who spent 7 years working in the New Zealand Qualifications Authority between 1992 and 1999 as manager of planning and strategy, and who is acknowledged as one of the two architects of NCEA; and why should parents, students, and teachers have any faith in an inquiry run by the person who designed the system?

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: I fear there might be two Dr Alan Barkers. The Alan Barker who has been appointed worked for the New Zealand Qualifications Authority from 1990 until 1997, after which the National Party issued the green paper on NCEA. He was not there at that time.

Hon Bill English: Why did the Minister tell Radio New Zealand on 16 February that only scholarship was under the microscope, when he has just told the House he had apparently decided the day before that there would be an inquiry into NCEA, and why should the public or this House believe a word he says about this issue?

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: To answer the second question first, I am not a Tory; and to answer the first question, there is a difference between a microscope and a wide-angle lens, and the Minister has both.

Madam SPEAKER: Would the Minister please address the question.

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: I look at things both with microscopes and with wide-angle lenses in order to focus on appropriate issues, and I do not mislead people, because I am not a Tory.

Hon Bill English: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. The question was quite direct and it was to ask the Minister why he told Radio New Zealand that only scholarship was under the microscope when he had already decided—apparently the day before—that there would be an inquiry into NCEA. I have asked him why he told Radio New Zealand that only scholarship was under the microscope. That was a direct question and it deserves a direct answer, particularly given the contradictory statement that he has made in answers to this House. That is why the matter is important. The House has to decide on the veracity of what is being said here, alongside what was said to the public on Radio New Zealand.

Madam SPEAKER: The Minister addressed the question. The member may not like the answer, but the question was addressed and it was relevant to the question that was asked.

Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. With regard to the Minister’s answer, he does have to answer in line with the Standing Orders. I would ask you—perhaps not now, but later—to just look at the Hansard from today and consider how that last answer lined up with Standing Order 370(2)(c). I think that it was slightly provocative, and I am sure it was not the sort of style that you would want to see from this point on.

Madam SPEAKER: I thank the member for his assistance. I will look at the matter.

Indonesia—Spiritual Leader Abu Bakar Bashir

4. LUAMANUVAO WINNIE LABAN (Labour—Mana) to the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade: Has he received any reports on other countries having withdrawn their ambassadors from Indonesia in protest at the inability of prosecutors to secure court convictions on the most serious charges against Abu Bakar Bashir?

Hon PHIL GOFF (Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade): I am advised that no country has done so, and that, in fact, the only person even to suggest taking such an action has been Dr Brash. Everyone else has been able to work out that Indonesia’s track record in bringing Bali bombers to justice has in fact been extraordinarily good, and that the inability of prosecutors and the justice system to make serious charges against Bashir stick is separate from the decision-making process of the executive. Everybody in the House understands that. Dr Brash’s failure to do so is, at best, naive and, at worst, an example of desperate opportunism. [Interruption]

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I do not know whether you heard the response in respect of that answer, but, frankly, we on this side of the Chamber could not hear it for a constant cackle and barrage of complaint, when, obviously, no complaint was warranted. I think those members should be required to restrain themselves.

Madam SPEAKER: Thank you. The answer from the Minister was also too long.

Luamanuvao Winnie Laban: Is there any evidence that the Indonesian Government has failed to take action to hold to account those responsible for the Bali bombing?

Hon PHIL GOFF: No. To the contrary, there is overwhelming evidence that Indonesia has cooperated actively on investigations with countries whose citizens were victims of the bombing, and has worked hard to collect evidence, bring charges, and secure convictions of the Bali bombers. With the high number of convictions, to a large extent the Indonesian justice system has been successful in doing so, notwithstanding the disappointment we share with others that the court did not regard evidence on the most serious charges against Bashir as being sufficient to convict.

Hon Peter Dunne: When high-profile trials of this type occur, is it normal for a Government like the New Zealand Government to intervene, in any shape or form, with another sovereign Government to suggest what the outcome of those trials might be?

Hon PHIL GOFF: No, it is not normal. We would take the view that if there was a court trial before a New Zealand court, and another Government sought to instruct the executive to interfere in an independent judicial process, that would be totally out of order. However, what we can do is ask questions, as we are doing, as to whether an appeal will be taken.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Did the Minister or his colleagues see the disclaimer from the National Party leader as to the purport of his first demand that the ambassador be withdrawn from Indonesia, and does he give any credence to it?

Hon PHIL GOFF: I did indeed see the disclaimer. It shows that Dr Brash was last night scrambling to explain his statement, stating that he meant that New Zealand should withdraw Mr Elder for consultations unless Indonesia indicated it would appeal against the sentence. The report notes that that is not consistent with Dr Brash’s original statement.

Gerry Brownlee: I seek leave to table a document in front of me that makes it very clear that, on the morning Dr Brash released the statement, it stated that New Zealand should bring the ambassador home for consultations.

Madam SPEAKER: What is the document?

Gerry Brownlee: It is the press release.

Madam SPEAKER: Leave is sought to table the press release. Is there any objection? There is.

Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. If it is not possible to table the press release in the House, what possible verification could the current Minister have for his whole line of answering to the House?

Madam SPEAKER: It is in the gift of the House as to whether members grant leave. They decided not to.

Hon PHIL GOFF: I seek leave to table a document from the Dominion Post that states that Dr Brash’s original statement made no mention of Indonesia not appealing against the sentence, which contradicts his attempt to explain himself—unsuccessfully.

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

Hon Dr Nick Smith: I seek leave to table the press release made by Phil Goff when he was in Opposition in 1994, asking for New Zealand to withdraw its ambassador from Indonesia as a consequence of dissatisfaction with the handling of the Dili massacre by the Indonesian judicial authorities.

Document not tabled.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I seek leave, as we cannot read the latter document or learn of its contents, to table the original statement in respect of Dr Brash’s comments, which is all about learning on the job.

Madam SPEAKER: That was not a point of order.

Hon Peter Dunne: In light of the Minister’s earlier answer that it is appropriate for New Zealand to express concern to Indonesia regarding the outcome of the trial in terms of any appeal that is to be lodged, can he now tell the House what specific actions, if any, the New Zealand Government has taken in respect of that?

Hon PHIL GOFF: I have asked the Ambassador to Indonesia, through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, to ask the Indonesian Government whether it intends to appeal against the decision. I am, of course, mindful that there is no way that we could instruct such a thing. I am also mindful of the fact that to demand such a thing, and for the Indonesian Government to be seen to be responding to a foreign Government’s demand, would be totally counterproductive to what we are all trying to achieve against terrorism in Indonesia.

Rt Hon Helen Clark: How would the Minister react if another country threatened to withdraw its ambassador to New Zealand because the executive here refused to interfere in a court decision?

Hon PHIL GOFF: Quite frankly, to use the vernacular, we would probably tell it to sod off.

Luamanuvao Winnie Laban: How many people has the Indonesian judiciary convicted on terrorism charges related to the Bali bombing, and what sorts of sentences have been imposed?

Hon PHIL GOFF: More than 30 people have been prosecuted and jailed in Indonesia on terrorism charges relating to the Bali bombing. Those convicted of the most serious charges, such as Amrozi, have been given the most severe penalty in Indonesia, which is death. In light of this track record, not to mention the separation of the judiciary from the executive, the proposal by Dr Brash to withdraw our ambassador is clearly ludicrous.

Madam SPEAKER: That answer was marginal to the Minister’s responsibility.

Benefits—Core Benefit Level

5. SUE BRADFORD (Green) to the Minister for Social Development and Employment: Does he agree with economist Dr Susan St John, who was reported in this morning’s New Zealand Herald as saying that the new single benefit would be sensible if the core benefits were high enough but they were not; if not, why not?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY (Minister for Social Development and Employment): The focus of the single core benefit is on helping even more people into work, rather than categorising them as to why they cannot work. It is about providing more people with more opportunity to get a job. No one will be financially worse off as a result of the changes to the single core benefit, just as no one will be financially worse off under the Working for Families package. In fact, under the Working for Families package currently being implemented, all beneficiary families with children will be better off.

Sue Bradford: Has the Minister given consideration to increasing core benefit levels as part of the Government’s Working for Families and/or single benefit welfare reform; if so, when can beneficiaries expect to see a real increase to bring them up to pre-1991 equivalent levels?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: The Government is not considering increases to the rates, apart from the 1 April consumer price index adjustment, which will be around 2.7 percent. I should note, however, that one of the key policies of this Government has been to ensure that people get their full entitlement. As the member will know, that has meant, for example, a dramatic rise in the number of people who have access to benefits, which has meant substantially more money for beneficiary households.

Georgina Beyer: How much will beneficiary families gain under the Working for Families package?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: Working for Families will deliver an average increase of $100 a week to families with children by the time it is fully implemented. Family support rates and thresholds will be regularly adjusted for inflation. The lowest net gain a beneficiary family will receive by the time Working for Families has been fully rolled out is $17.86 a week for a couple with one child, and at least $92.86 a week for a couple with four children. Key changes from 1 April include increases to family support of $25 a week for the first child and $15 a week for an additional child, and changes to the accommodation supplement that will lift the average increase, for 100,000 people, to around $19 a week.

Judith Collins: How long will it be before we know the true cost of the Minister’s proposed single benefit system, given that nothing has been decided, apart from the fact that he wants a single benefit, which was first announced in 2000; and how can anyone have confidence in the idea when no detail has been decided and nothing has been costed?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: As I said at the time of the release of the single benefit, there is a time line for the release of aspects of the policy. The first part of the policy will be done within baselines, as was announced at the time, within the Department of Work and Income. The questioner can trust what I say, because I am not a Tory.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. Twice today we have heard Ministers, the moment they are challenged or are caught being less than honest, give us the line that they are not Tories. Are you going to accept those responses in terms of the Standing Order that requires Ministers only to answer questions and not to deal in irrelevancies, let alone make those sorts of derogatory remarks?

Hon Mark Burton: In at least one of those cases the member was asked why he should be trusted, and the remark was offered as a perfectly reasonable explanation as to why he should be trusted.

Madam SPEAKER: The Minister did address the question. The term “Tory” is not unparliamentary, but it was not strictly relevant to the answer, either.

Rodney Hide: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I would like you to rule on whether that is acceptable, and I draw your attention to Standing Order 370(2)(c), which states: “discreditable references to the House or any member of Parliament or any offensive or unparliamentary expression.” What you have here is Ministers standing up, question after question, and saying that an entire party cannot be trusted. If we are going to have that, then what is the point of question time? It is the Ministers who are being asked, it is what they are responsible for, and they should be confined to that.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Madam Speaker, perhaps I can assist, my having been here in this Parliament for some time. I think the idea that you would banish the word “Tory” in here is a shameful one. There was a great tradition at one time, of course, of a party of principles and beliefs that was prepared to make sacrifices for the nation. Otherwise, if you ban—

Hon Maurice Williamson: But he left!

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Actually, I did leave; the member is right. Otherwise, we will have to substitute things like “redneck”, “opportunist”, or “reactionary”.

Madam SPEAKER: Thank you, Mr Peters. I think the point Mr Hide was making, if I may say so, Mr Hide, was that the term was more irrelevant rather than insulting, in terms of the context of the answer.

Rodney Hide: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. It was not the phrase “Tory” that I was objecting to; of course it is allowed. What I was objecting to is the idea that an entire party—well, I do not even want to repeat it, but it is the idea that Labour can be trusted and another party cannot, simply because of their party affiliation.

Madam SPEAKER: That is not a point of order. Would you please sit down.

Judith Collins: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. The inference from the Minister’s answer is that all Tories are untrustworthy. It is not as though it is our party that has had to leave the benches because of dishonest Ministers.

Madam SPEAKER: That is not a point of order. It is a debatable matter.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I refer you quite specifically to Standing Order 370(2). It states: “The reply to any question must be concise and confined to the subject-matter”, and must not contain “inferences, imputations, … or ironical expressions,”. There is no objection on this side of the House to our being referred to as Tories; what there is objection to is the implication that members are less than honest. If you are going to allow it, not just from one Minister twice but also from another speaker, I think the standards in this House will significantly decline. We simply ask, on this side of the House, that you enforce Standing Order 370(2)(b).

Hon Trevor Mallard: This point has now been raised in one guise or another, I think, on four separate points of order, none of which were actually points of order.

Madam SPEAKER: That is right. I will ask the Minister Steve Maharey, however, to clarify what his response was in terms of the objection from the National Party members who have raised the points of order.

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: I was simply trying to clarify my position in relation to the question I was asked about the true cost, when it would be announced, and whether I could be trusted on this matter. I was simply clarifying that I could be.

Rodney Hide: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. It is very odd procedure for a Speaker to go to a Minister and seek a ruling. The issue that I am objecting to, and I think all of us in this House should just take a moment to reflect on this, is that if a Minister is able to stand up and say: “Look, I can be trusted because I am not a member of the Green Party.”—or not a member of New Zealand First, or not a member of the Labour Party—then that is a drop down in parliamentary standards. We could not say that about an individual MP. I think the idea, Madam Speaker, that you go across to the Minister and ask him to clarify what he was saying, and consider that to be a ruling, is very, very unwise.

Madam SPEAKER: I was asking the Minister whether, in fact, he was reflecting upon the other members. That is a perfectly acceptable process—for the Minister to clarify—and he has done so.

Hon Richard Prebble: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. Your final comment to the House is absolutely correct: it would have been perfectly in order, and, in fact, the right response, to ask Mr Maharey whether he was making a reflection on other members when he made that statement. But I think you will find that you did not actually put that question to him; you just asked him to clarify, which gave him another opportunity, as they say, to take a free shot. But I think it would be helpful if you were now to ask Mr Maharey to give us all an assurance that when he gave that answer, he was not making a reflection upon any honourable member in this House. If he was—as I thought he was, and, obviously, so did many others—then he should withdraw and apologise for it.

Madam SPEAKER: I listened carefully to the Minister’s answer. He, in fact, was clarifying his own position, not casting aspersions on others.

Rodney Hide: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. It was not the clarification we were objecting to; it was the Minister’s original answer, which cast aspersions on members of this Parliament. That is what we are objecting to—not his clarification. The point that my colleague the Hon Richard Prebble raised is that this could easily be cleared up by your asking him whether he was casting an aspersion—we certainly heard it; members here all heard it—and, if he was, to withdraw and apologise.

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: If members have taken offence, I simply withdraw and apologise.

Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I am sorry to take time on this point, but I just want to rise to support my friends in the ACT party.

Madam SPEAKER: Please come to the point of order, Mr Brownlee.

Gerry Brownlee: I think the mere fact that the Minister has now stood to withdraw and apologise indicates, surely—if he is an honourable member—that he did have some intention other than what you have managed to extract from him to this point. So I ask again, as I did earlier today, that you come back to the House after some consideration of today’s questions and give us as Opposition members some clear steer of what we can expect when a Minister gives an answer, and give Government members a clear steer of what you expect from them when they give an answer, relative to all of the parts of Standing Order 370.

Madam SPEAKER: Thank you, Mr Brownlee. The matter has been dealt with by the withdrawal.

Sue Bradford: Given the Minister’s reply to my question some time ago that all families with children will be at least $7.86 a week better off after 1 April, can he give that same assurance to a one-parent, one-child family currently receiving a special benefit of $90 a week, following their first special benefit renewal after 1 April this year?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: That family will be moving on to a higher rate of support through the family support system, so, yes, there will be no losers in this system.

Sue Bradford: Will the Minister reconsider this Government’s policy of retaining the child tax credit, given that his colleague Michael Cullen called its predecessor, family support under National, a “simplistic tangle of bigotry and ignorance and barely disguised attack on beneficiaries”; if he is not reconsidering the retention of a child tax credit, why not, given that sole parent beneficiary families are still disproportionately living in poverty, despite the Working for Families package?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: The main reason that we are moving from the child component being delivered through the current system to putting it into family support is to ensure that people can take it with them into the workplace. That is one of the major advantages of doing that. We have two payments now. There will be one payment in the future, and that payment will be portable because it goes to people through the Inland Revenue Department.

Cancer—Initiatives

6. STEVE CHADWICK (Labour—Rotorua) to the Minister of Health: What initiatives in the area of cancer control has she announced recently?

Hon ANNETTE KING (Minister of Health): Yesterday I had great pleasure in launching the New Zealand Cancer Control Strategy Action Plan 2005-2010, and in announcing the Government’s response for the first year of implementation. The action plan is based on the Cancer Control Strategy I launched in 2003 and covers the continuum of cancer services from prevention through to treatment, palliative care, support, rehabilitation, and research. The Government will spend an extra $40 million in 2005-06.

Steve Chadwick: How were decisions made on what should be included in the first and second phases of the action plan?

Hon ANNETTE KING: After I launched the Cancer Control Strategy in August 2003, the Ministry of Health appointed a Cancer Control Taskforce to develop the action plan. The task force has included some of New Zealand’s most committed professionals working alongside the Cancer Society of New Zealand and the New Zealand Cancer Control Trust. It was chaired by oncologist Chris Atkinson, and the Government’s funding announcements yesterday were based on what experts advised us to do. I am delighted by the warm responses we have received from groups such as Hospice New Zealand and from the medical director of the Cancer Society, Dr Peter Dady, who says that he is very heartened by the approach being taken.

Madam SPEAKER: That answer was too long.

Dr Paul Hutchison: Does she accept that the $5.3 million allotted to cancer treatment services will not ensure “optimal treatment” for those on radiation waiting lists, or for cancer chemotherapy patients such as Raylene Hewitt, whose recent 13-week wait was described as callous and inhumane?

Hon ANNETTE KING: The Government certainly puts in a lot more than the $5 million that the member mentioned; that is a small amount in terms of cancer drugs. But I am pleased to tell the member that cancer waiting times for radiation therapy have improved significantly this year, to the extent that we do not send patients to Australia. And I am pleased to tell the member that chemotherapy has come back under control, unlike the years we have had to tolerate when it went out of control through the lack of a trained workforce brought about by the previous National Government.

Barbara Stewart: Is the extra $4 million now available to boost access to cancer drugs and allow Pharmac to buy new drugs a response to the public dismay that was expressed over Pharmac’s proposal to assume control of drug spending for cancer treatments—a move that was described as “potential dynamite” by the chair of the clinical oncology group?

Hon ANNETTE KING: No.

Heather Roy: Why is only a paltry $5.3 million of the $40 million package actually for the delivery of cancer treatment services, and how much will this election-year announcement reduce the growing number of patients who die on her waiting lists—now up to 22 each week?

Hon ANNETTE KING: The member has been shown to be incorrect in her deaths on waiting list numbers, and is a laughing stock up and down New Zealand for the way she interpreted those numbers. I tell members of this House that over $139 million is spent on treatment services. This money is for drugs that are added to that. Also, this policy looks at the whole continuum of cancer—from prevention right through to palliative care—and $40 million in the first year has been applauded by the many sectors throughout New Zealand.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: How are we to interpret her emotions when she knows that in the last measurable year 1,200 people on waiting lists in this country died, and how are we to feel after seeing her and the Prime Minister dishing out apples in what is a public relations exercise put on by TVNZ?

Hon ANNETTE KING: I suggest that the member asks TVNZ whether it was part of some exercise in publicity. I was delighted that TVNZ turned up to the launch, but maybe that is because it recognises that cancer is a serious issue and not to be trifled with, as that member just has.

Steve Chadwick: Why was it necessary for the Government to develop a cancer control strategy in the first place?

Hon ANNETTE KING: The World Health Organization recommends that countries have cancer control strategies; it recommended that in the 1990s. Unfortunately no such strategy was developed, despite repeated warnings to the previous National Government. This Government has taken hold of this issue. We have replaced linear accelerators. We have trained more radiation therapists, and we are prepared to work with the sector to invest in an approach that is being applauded. Unfortunately, the members opposite do not like that.

Heather Roy: I seek leave of the House to table the Minister’s own figures from the Ministry of Health, the Health Information Service figures, showing that 1,166 patients on waiting lists have died in the past year.

Madam SPEAKER: Leave is sought. Is there any objection? Yes, there is an objection.

Tertiary Education Commission—Impact

7. Hon BILL ENGLISH (National—Clutha-Southland) to the Minister of Education: Does he believe the Government has fulfilled the commitment made by Hon Steve Maharey in 2001 that, “The Tertiary Education Commission will positively impact on you by providing a more strategic and systematic approach to the way that tertiary education is funded and regulated.”; if so, why?

Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Minister of Education): Progress has been made. The Tertiary Education Commission has successfully implemented a significant improvement in the way that tertiary education research is funded. It has implemented caps on community education, aviation, and other high-growth areas. It has begun allocating private training establishment funding on a strategic basis. Last week it commenced reviews on the strategic relevance of four areas of provision. We are not there yet, but, as Rachel Hunter said: “It won’t happen overnight, but it will happen.”

Hon Bill English: Can the Minister confirm that between 2000 and 2003, the latest years for which official figures are available, the growth in certificate and diploma courses was 10 times the growth in trade and skills training?

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Off the top of my head, no.

H V Ross Robertson: Has he seen reports proposing other options, instead of a more strategic and systematic approach to the way in which tertiary education is funded and regulated?

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Yes, I have seen an approach that states: “Fund every student who comes through the institution’s doors. What can be unfair about that?”. I have seen another approach that states: “Trust institutions to run themselves. Students do not need some dictatorial Minister in charge of tertiary education, telling them what they should, or should not study.”; and “Māori should be able to set up their own schools and universities.” Those comments were made by Wyatt Creech, Nick Smith, and Rodney Hide. That is a “bums on seats” approach; not the approach I am happy with.

Hon Ken Shirley: How does the Minister reconcile the flowery dream of Steve Maharey’s 2001 commitment, with his own announcement on 21 February this year asking the Tertiary Education Commission to negotiate changes to the wānanga charter to strengthen governance, and is that not an admission that Mr Maharey’s 2001 commitment was not fulfilled?

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: We are not there yet.

Hon Bill English: Can the Minister confirm that one of the results of the Government’s commitment to strategic tertiary education is that between 2000 and 2003 the Government spent $2.5 billion on certificate and diploma courses, that only 30 percent of the students who started those courses ever finished them, and that that means that $1.7 billion was spent on courses that students did not finish?

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: No.

Student Loans—Repayments

8. LYNNE PILLAY (Labour—Waitakere) to the Minister of Education: What recent reports, if any, has he received on average student loan repayment times?

Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Minister of Education): I have recently received a report that shows that 40 percent of borrowers had completely repaid their loans within 6 years of leaving study, and a further 10 percent had repaid three-quarters of their debt. The report shows that the average student loan repayment time is down to 9.3 years compared with 14.8 years when Steve Maharey took charge of the area. Labour has delivered on our pledge to make the loan scheme fairer.

Lynne Pillay: Is there any correlation between the levels of a graduate student loan debt and future income; if so, what?

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Yes. Students with bigger student loans at the time of graduation generally earn higher incomes and pay their loans back more quickly—absolutely, as well as relatively. For example, students studying health leave with more debt, but they have the highest post-study incomes and repay their loan debts faster.

Craig McNair: What will the Minister do about the major problem facing students today that has the average student debt increasing from $13,743 in 2001 to $18,726 in 2004, giving young New Zealanders a bleak outlook under this Labour Government?

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: I am not sure that the member’s figures are right. I am happy to offer him a briefing on them.

Nandor Tanczos: Can the Minister assure the House that the reduction in average student debt repayment times that he has just told us about cannot be attributed at least partly to lower starting levels of debt because of an increase in sub-degree courses; if he cannot give us that assurance, is this not just being cute with the figures?

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: I can give the member a number of assurances. The starting debts are lower than they would have been, because there is no interest when people are studying, more students are eligible for allowances, and average fees have dropped significantly.

Nandor Tanczos: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. My question was specifically around the increase in sub-degree courses and the resulting lower starting debt as a result of that, and I would be obliged if the Minister would actually answer that question.

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: I am prepared to supplement my answer by indicating to the member that it is people who have degrees, and are therefore more likely to have higher incomes, who pay their debts off faster than people who have equivalent debts from sub-degree courses.

Bernie Ogilvy: What impact will the decision to abolish the independent circumstances allowance have on average student loan repayment times?

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Marginal.

Craig McNair: I seek leave to table page 27 of the 2004 student income and expenditure survey prepared for the New Zealand University Students Association, outlining the statistics referred to in my question to the Minister.

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

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: I seek leave to table an authoritative document—that is, the document prepared on the basis of the facts collected by the Inland Revenue Department and the Ministry of Education, rather than one that asked a few students what their debt was.

Madam SPEAKER: Is there any objection to that document being tabled? There is.

Dail Jones: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. It seems to me that the Minister has just committed some type of breach, because in his answer to Craig McNair he said he did not have the information, but now he is saying he does have the information and he wants to table it. All I can say is why did the Minister not answer the question he was asked by Craig McNair when he had the information all the time and that he now wants to lodge before the House, to which we have not objected. It is very contradictory.

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: I am quite prepared to have the document sent to the House so I can table it. I do not have it with me now, but in the interests of having quality information, rather than things made up by students, in front of the House, I am prepared to table the accurate information.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: My colleague asked a question and he was dismissed by the Minister on the basis that he did not have those figures and he was happy to give him a briefing. But he did have figures, and he just sought to table. The least he could have done was to deal with the figures that he had so that question time could be meaningful rather than a total waste of time where my colleague was concerned.

Madam SPEAKER: The Minister offered to table the information; the House did not give leave.

Dental Clinics—McDonald’s Sponsorship

9. SUE KEDGLEY (Green) to the Minister of Health: Does she agree that district health boards which accept sponsorship for mobile dental clinics from Ronald McDonald House charities and allow the McDonald’s clown to be painted across the dental vans are effectively endorsing McDonald’s marketing and advertising plans?

Hon ANNETTE KING (Minister of Health): No, no more than district health boards accepting Ronald McDonald House charities funding for houses for children who are receiving cancer treatment, endorses McDonald’s marketing and advertising plan—these houses have cared for 2,500 families in New Zealand in three cities over the past 16 years—and no more than the trust donation of half the building costs for the children’s liver transplant unit at Starship Children’s Hospital endorses McDonald’s marketing and advertising plan. I have not heard the member complain about either of these activities.

Sue Kedgley: Does she agree with the Obesity Action Coalition that diet is a very important contributor to dental health, or ill health, and that much of the food and drink sold at McDonald’s is high in sugar and rots kids’ teeth, and, given that, is not accepting McDonald’s sponsorship of dental clinics a little bit like accepting Benson and Hedges sponsorship for lung cancer treatment; if not, why not?

Hon ANNETTE KING: No. This is sponsorship from the trust. And, yes, I agree with the Obesity Action Coalition that diet is an important issue. But diets are like having everything in moderation. If one were to eat McDonald’s hamburgers every day, then we would all be worried. However, I would be worried about anyone eating corned beef and peas every day.

Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I think that was a direct attack on the Leader of the Opposition, and probably it should be withdrawn.

Madam SPEAKER: That was not a point of order.

Judy Turner: Does the Minister agree that of greater concern than what is painted on mobile dental clinics, is the fact that large numbers of New Zealand children are currently not receiving the recommended number of dental check-ups and that large numbers are not able to access dentists with district health board contracts for more specialised treatment; if she does agree, what does she plan to do about it?

Hon ANNETTE KING: I agree entirely with the member. The member probably knows that one of the reasons we are unable to provide the contract is that in the 1990s all dental therapy training schools were closed.

Government Members: What!

Hon ANNETTE KING: All of them were closed. How can dental treatment be provided if none of the workforce is trained? In 2001 and 2002 this Government reopened dental therapy training. We are now getting some graduates. [Interruption] Listen to members opposite braying about it—they are responsible.

Sue Kedgley: Is dental care a core health service; if so, why is dental care so underfunded and why are district health boards so cash-strapped that they are having to turn to fast-food companies, like McDonald’s, to fund a core health service?

Hon ANNETTE KING: Yes, it is a core health service, and into which we are putting considerable money, energy, and commitment. This is a decision by the Northland District Health Board, which has formed a partnership with the trust—one it believes is beneficial for people of the far north, most of whom are rural people. According to the child nutrition study, very few rural children eat a lot of McDonald’s hamburgers.

Sue Kedgley: If she takes the view that there is nothing wrong with allowing a fast-food company to fund a core health service, where would she draw the line? For instance, if McDonald’s were to offer a sponsorship of $1 billion for the Ministry of Health and for various other core health services, would she consider rebranding the Ministry of Health with the McDonald’s logo, or perhaps with Ronald McDonald the clown; if not, why not?

Hon ANNETTE KING: As usual, the member confuses issues. It is the trust that is funding this. I am sure the member has seen other companies and trusts fund all sorts of things in New Zealand, from Sky City, to pub charities, food producers, and big business. Usually we support them in terms of their having joint projects with us. The member, I am afraid, is inclined to criticise any good initiative.

Sue Kedgley: Was the Minister suggesting that the Ronald McDonald trust is not an offshoot of McDonald’s? Could she please clarify that.

Madam SPEAKER: Is the member asking another supplementary question?

Sue Kedgley: No. I have one, but that is not it. That was a point of information.

Madam SPEAKER: There is no point of information. It was not a point of order; it was another question. It is the member’s choice. Does she want to ask a supplementary question?

Sue Kedgley: I would like to ask a supplementary question that is different. If the Minister really is committed to dental health, as she claims, why is she not requiring district health boards like the Northland District Health Board, where there are such problems with dental cavities, to take incredibly simple steps that would vastly improve dental hygiene, such as requiring it to remove high-sugar drinks from schools in the Northland District Health Board area and introduce water-only policies?

Hon ANNETTE KING: I am pleased to tell the member that the Ministry of Health and schools are working together in terms of reducing the content of high-sugar drinks. But there is one other simple measure that could help the people of Northland—that is, to fluoridate the water supply. Unfortunately, that member opposes it.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Why, having regard to the last series of questions and questions typical of that, does the Minister get so vehement in her answers, when she knows full well that the Greens have promised to support Labour after the next election and that their words are not worth the air they pass on?

Hon ANNETTE KING: I feel very strongly in my answers, because the member who asks these questions is so often wrong.

Wages—After Tax

10. JOHN KEY (National—Helensville) to the Minister of Finance: Is he concerned about the level of real after-tax wages currently paid to the average New Zealand worker; if so, what does he propose to do about it?

Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Acting Minister of Finance): Treasury advice is that the unadjusted labour cost index provides the broadest measure of changes to individuals’ remuneration over time. This showed wage growth of 4.8 percent between December 2003 and December 2004. Inflation growth over the same period was 2.7 percent. That reflects a strong economy and a labour market at capacity. Also evident of that strength is that we now have the lowest unemployment rate of countries with comparable data.

John Key: Will the Minister explain how New Zealand workers who earn $50,000, who have two children, and who receive a 5 percent pay rise while in receipt of the Government’s Working for Families package will see their gross pay rise by $2,500 per year but their take-home pay rise by $5.20 per week; and does he think that is what the unions had in mind when they started asking for “5 in 05”?

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: I am sure that that is not what they wanted.

John Key: Will the Minister explain why, under his policies, many hard-working families with kids will lose up to 90c of every extra dollar they get in future pay rises; and how on earth does he call that “Working for Families”?

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: One of the issues, whenever one makes a tax credit system, is the marginal amount that families get. I agree with the member that having effective marginal tax rates at that level is not highly desirable, but the alternative would be to stop giving families at that level any money at all—the way the Tories say they would. We will not have that, because we know that families on $50,000 with two kids do need more money.

Peter Brown: Is the Minister aware that places like Britain, the USA, Australia, and Singapore, to name a few, are regarded as countries with high wages and low taxes, whereas in comparison New Zealand is regarded as a low wage - high tax country; if he is, would he tell us how the Government intends to bring thousands of New Zealanders from all over the place back to their country of birth?

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: I am not an expert on the rates of all the countries the member has mentioned, but I do know that effective tax rates in the United Kingdom and in Singapore—when one takes into account superannuation and medical levies, and everything that sits on top of those—are a lot more than those in New Zealand. I say to the member that families in New Zealand have on average received over $1,000 extra of health spending per year as a result of the very good work of Annette King.

John Key: Can the Minister confirm to the House that he is telling us this afternoon that if working families with kids receive a future pay rise of 5 percent worth $2,500, they will get to keep $250 of it; and how can that be helping those working families?

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: No, I cannot confirm that.

Hon Richard Prebble: Does the Minister stand by the answer the Minister of Finance gave in the House on 7 December to oral question No. 7, when he told the House that the average household income after tax increased in the 4 years since the 1999-2000 year, and that in those 4 years the increase in the average family’s income was exactly the same as the increase in the consumer price index—in other words, the average family is no better off after tax—and if the Minister does stand by that statement, why does he not at least adjust the threshold levels for income tax?

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: One of the effects on the average wage income of New Zealanders is that as more and more people who previously did not have jobs go into work, they are generally in lower-income jobs and the average can actually drop.

John Key: Does the Minister agree with Andrew Little of the Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union, who said at the weekend that cutting personal tax rates would not increase real after-tax wages; if the Minister does not agree with him, why has he spent the last 5 years in raising personal tax rates and not in cutting them?

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: From my memory, there has been one small change to personal tax rates in the last 5 years, and that was right at the top. The reason this Government is collecting so much more in taxes is that many more people are working, and also that the enormous loopholes opened up by the previous Government for its mates in order for them to avoid tax, especially company tax, have been closed.

Women—Choice and Opportunities

11. MOANA MACKEY (Labour) to the Minister of Women's Affairs: What has the Government done to improve choice and opportunities for women?

Hon RUTH DYSON (Minister of Women's Affairs): There is a long list of Labour-Progressive Government - introduced initiatives that create more choice and opportunities for women at home and in paid work. They include paid parental leave, which increases to 14 weeks this year; increased childcare subsidies; a significant boost to income support through the Working for Families package; and a programme to produce pay and employment equity in the public sector.

Moana Mackey: Does the Minister have any comparable measures to assess the progress this Government is making in implementing policies to support women?

Hon RUTH DYSON: Unfortunately, only one of the policy initiatives I referred to earlier even existed in the 1990s, so we have made enormous progress since then. In fact, in 1990 the incoming National Government as its first act repealed pay and employment equity legislation.

Judith Collins: Does the Minister agree with a Ministry of Women’s Affairs paper suggesting that New Zealand’s immigration policy should be more open to polygamous marriages; and why should any New Zealand working mum support the existence of a ministry so devoid of common sense?

Hon RUTH DYSON: No.

Tariana Turia: Is it correct that the Ministry of Women’s Affairs is working with the State Services Commission to improve choice and opportunities for women by developing pōwhiri guidelines to redefine tikanga and the role of women?

Hon RUTH DYSON: Not to the best of my knowledge.

Judith Collins: I seek leave to table a document entitled Work and Family Balance: A Policy Perspective dated 25 March 2002 that was produced by the Ministry of Women’s Affairs.

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

Question No. 12 to Minister

LARRY BALDOCK (United Future): I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. Noting that the Minister to whom my question is directed is absent from the House today and that this is the second time recently on which this has occurred, and in the hope of avoiding any impression amongst the public that he is avoiding answering my questions, I seek leave to postpone this question until the Minister is present.

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

Marine Reserves—Proposals

12. LARRY BALDOCK (United Future) to the Minister of Conservation: How many new marine reserves, if any, are currently being proposed or considered by the Department of Conservation, and what are their proposed locations?

Hon RICK BARKER (Minister for Courts), on behalf of the Minister of Conservation: There are currently three formal marine reserve applications under consideration by the department: one near New Plymouth, one on the eastern side of Great Barrier Island, and one in Akaroa Harbour. In addition, eight marine reserves are proposed in the Fiordland Marine Management Bill, and other specific marine reserve proposals are being investigated at Mimiwhangata, at Nugget Point in Otago, and in the subantarctic ocean.

Larry Baldock: What progress, if any, has been made on the promised inquiry into the Department of Conservation’s consultation processes with regard to the proposed Aotea (Great Barrier) Marine Reserve?

Hon RICK BARKER: As I understand it, there is good progress being made on that. As far as the possible outcomes go, I am not prepared to make any comment, because it is still under due process.

Jim Peters: Has the Minister seen the press statement made last month by my colleague Edwin Perry for the setting up of independent and objective hearing groups to adjudicate upon the department’s proposals on applications for present and new marine reserve applications; if so, is the New Zealand First proposal being properly considered?

Hon RICK BARKER: No, I have not seen that statement.

David Parker: How many marine reserves has the Government created in the last 3 years?

Hon RICK BARKER: The Government has created four marine reserves over the last number of years, covering half a million hectares. My colleague the Hon Chris Carter has announced the fourth reserve today at the Glenduan marine reserve at Nelson, which has received the concurrence of the Hon David Benson-Pope, the Minister of Fisheries. This reserve covers 948 hectares and protects an adjoining area, the famous Nelson boulder bank. I expect it to be increasingly popular with divers, snorkellers, and others wishing to study marine life.

Larry Baldock: Does the Minister agree that the Department of Conservation should be removed from being the initiator in the application process for new marine reserves and be replaced with something along the lines of the Fiordland Marine Guardians model, in light of the ongoing negative reaction from large sectors of the community to the department’s proposals for new marine reserves?

Hon RICK BARKER: I do not specifically agree with the removal of the Department of Conservation and Government agencies in decision making about marine reserves, but I am aware that the select committee has been looking at the decision-making process, and the Minister is open to any good suggestion on this matter. I invite the member to speak to the Minister and his department.

Larry Baldock: Will the Minister give an assurance, in light of the fact that the Marine Reserves Bill is now unlikely to pass before the election and of the ongoing work on the oceans policy and the marine protected areas policy, that the Department of Conservation should pause for a cup of tea and stop overzealously proposing more and more new marine reserves and upsetting communities all over New Zealand; if not, why not?

Hon RICK BARKER: No, I will not give that assurance and I do not agree with the member that the department is overzealous. There is a proper process to go through, there is due process, and those applications that are in the system are entitled to go through that due process and be heard.

Jim Peters: I seek leave to table the press statement, “Marine Reserves Bill should not stand alone”.

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

Bills

Relationships (Statutory References) Bill

Second Reading

Hon MARIAN HOBBS (Associate Minister of Justice), on behalf of the Hon David Benson-Pope (Associate Minister of Justice): I move, That the Relationships (Statutory References) Bill be now read a second time. Today we have the opportunity to consider a bill that will strengthen New Zealand’s human rights record. This bill supports the different choices people make about their relationships. One in every five New Zealanders living in a relationship—some 300,000 people—have chosen to live in a committed, exclusive, stable relationship other than marriage. However, the law does not currently support that choice. This bill will remove the unjustifiable discrimination people face on the grounds of their marital status. De facto couples will no longer need to cope with injustice and feel distressed over the lack of recognition of their relationship. Furthermore, same-sex couples are unable to marry and, therefore, have been unable to have their relationship either formally or legally recognised.

The bill will ensure that couples in a civil union have the full rights and obligations that should be attached to the kind of commitment they are making. This gives meaningful effect to the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act and the Human Rights Act by ensuring that New Zealand’s laws are consistent with our human rights obligations. It also recognises and embraces the diversity of committed, exclusive, and stable relationships that exist in New Zealand. New Zealand will benefit from the legal recognition of different relationships, because people will be able to focus their energy on strengthening their relationships and positively contributing to society, knowing that the law supports their relationship decisions.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Justice and Electoral Committee; its chair, Tim Barnett; and the officials who worked on the bill for all their hard work. The select committee has done an excellent job in carrying out the lengthy task of carefully analysing each proposed amendment in the bill to ensure that the amendments will not cause any unintended consequences.

The select committee has recommended a number of worthwhile amendments to the bill. In particular, it has suggested that some legislative provisions not be amended to include de facto couples because they do not, in fact, discriminate against de facto couples. The two main areas in which the committee wanted to limit the bill’s application to de facto couples relate to laws about minors and those that bestow certain interests in property upon surviving spouses. The committee was concerned about removing existing legal protections for minors if they enter into a de facto relationship. I agree that there are some difficulties with provisions relating to minors, and therefore support the approach taken by the committee.

The committee has also recommended that a number of laws bestowing interests in property on surviving spouses, particularly in Māori land legislation, should not be extended to de facto partners. The committee decided that people in de facto relationships would need to expressly nominate their partner as a person to whom they wish to leave their property interest when they die. The committee considered it inappropriate to vest automatically a property interest in a surviving de facto partner when the deceased partner may never have intended such a result. The committee believes that that amendment will respect the choice of de facto couples to make their own property arrangements.

The committee has not recommended, however, as has been reported in the media, that surviving de facto partners should no longer have relationship property rights under the Property (Relationships) Act. The select committee has suggested amending the statutory definition of de facto relationship that was to be inserted into the Interpretation Act. Rather than accepting the original definition, which included a list of factors characterising a de facto relationship, the committee prefers one that refers to two people who are living together as a couple: “… in a relationship in the nature of marriage or civil union”, and requires a decision maker to have regard to all the circumstances of the relationship and the context or purpose of the law in which the question is to be determined. Although I still think that the list of factors could have proved useful, I understand that the committee was concerned about the uncertainty of the types of relationships that could be covered by the definition. I think that the amended definition will achieve the right result.

It is also noteworthy that a number of amendments have been added to the bill during the select committee process. Many of the amendments arose out of legislation that was previously subject to review or that was passed after the introduction of the bill. I am aware that some submitters objected to the drafting in the bill, and, in particular, to civil union and de facto partners being included in definitions of spouse in some legislation. The committee has recommended amendments to ensure that marriage is referred to separately from civil union and de facto relationships in each provision that accords rights and entitlements to persons in those relationships. The terms “spouse”, “husband”, “wife”, “widow”, and “widower” will be defined or used only in the context of marriage. I am happy to support those amendments.

Finally, the committee has recommended that the Law Commission could review the issues it has raised around the extension of rights and obligations to de facto couples. The Government will carefully consider that recommendation from the committee. Overall, the amendments recommended by the select committee maintain the essence of what the bill is designed to achieve.

This legislation will ensure that New Zealand continues its fine tradition of leading the world in the area of domestic human rights protections. It is about legally recognising the diversity of relationships that people choose to form and promoting a fair-minded, inclusive, and tolerant society that respects differences. I strongly commend the bill to the House.

Dr RICHARD WORTH (National—Epsom): The last speaker made the point to the effect that this is leading edge legislation, and I do not doubt that in many respects it is. But we need also just to reflect on the fact that it continues the Government’s committed policy of social engineering. It is one of a number of pieces of legislation that cause concern to members of this House. I guess that the latest excrescence by way of example is the gender identity legislation that would see cross-dressing in the military, police service, prisons, and classroom.

This bill is a companion piece to the Civil Union Act that was passed in 2004, yet, in logic, it is not necessarily a companion piece. I say that because there has been a determination by a majority in the Justice and Electoral Committee to see this legislation strongly linked into the Civil Union Act and passed within a time frame that will permit both pieces of legislation to come into force at the same time.

I oppose this legislation on a number of grounds, but it is a conscience vote for members of Parliament in the National Party as to the stance they will take. My concern is that legislation of this type, because of its substantial social impact, should not proceed without a binding referendum. I make that point. Also, I will briefly say why I opposed the civil union legislation. On offer in that legislation were representations made in this Parliament that I believe were grossly misleading. The reality is that in the case of heterosexual couples, there is no significant difference between civil union and marriage. Both events are registered under the Births, Deaths, and Marriages Registration Act. The civil union legislation is all about enabling the legal recognition of same-sex relationships. Whether that is right or wrong is a matter for the individual consciences of members of Parliament, but the legislation was never represented to us on the basis on which it should have been represented. It was to deal with issues raised by submitters—issues that in the context of the Relationships (Statutory References) Bill are not addressed. I sought a number of major changes to the civil union legislation, which I suggested be called the “Civil Relationships Bill”.

I have said that the present bill is a conscience vote for National members of Parliament, and it would clearly be inconsistent with my stance for me to support this legislation because of my opposition to the Civil Union Act. But the real point of substance is that this legislation creates rights and responsibilities for de facto couples. Such couples often make a deliberate choice not to enter into marriage or, now, to enter into a civil union. They prefer to be in a de facto relationship. They deliberately, in some cases, opt for the perceived advantages of a less formal, sometimes transient relationship. It is a matter of recorded history that de facto relationships are less stable than marriages sanctioned by the institution of the State. Yet this bill proposes to fix those de facto couples with rights and responsibilities that are in many cases akin to marriage and civil union. [Interruption] I am not sure who the troublesome woman is who is interrupting, but I will come to the points that I think she is trying to make in just a moment.

I want to say, in the context of the substance of the bill, that the bill does two things. It gives legal effect to civil unions and it takes the view that in general terms all relationships should be protected—the relationship of marriage, the relationship of civil union, and this relationship, which is difficult to define but is broadly encompassed under the hat of de facto relationships. Why do I say that? Because that is what the majority of the select committee say. They say in part in the commentary on the bill: “As a result of the work of the committee we recommend that terms of reference be developed for referral to the Law Commission to further assess any remaining inequities between de facto couples and couples who are married or in a civil union.”

For the reasons I have already explained, I have real reservations about adding rights and responsibilities to de facto relationships when people deliberately and determinedly enter into those relationships in order not to be fixed with such obligations. But there is another, and perhaps more significant point. I do not believe that it was appropriate that the Justice and Electoral Committee was involved in substantive policy work as it sought to make major changes to this bill that the Government introduced. The Minister has already commented about those sweeping changes. The committee does not have the resources—and I would say that it does not have access to the necessary third-party skills—to do that type of work, so it is not surprising that a large number of errors have been made along the way. Nor is it surprising that a large number of anomalies have been created.

Let me give an instance of that. Let us take the case of a male, aged 16, in civil union with another male, aged 40. It is quite possible for a male aged 16 to be in a civil union. The legislation contemplates that possibility in a number of ways, but two of them are the consent of the parents for that civil union to occur or a court order to that effect. Under this legislation the 16-year-old male will be the stepfather of the children of the older male’s first marriage. That seems to me utterly bizarre. It comes about because of the interrelationship of the definitions in the bill as they currently stand. It could be quite significant, because there could be substantial property issues in the context of assets held by that younger male. So I see in this legislation, which should be about the protection of young people, the very real possibility of substantial exploitation.

The final point I would like to make is that I believe that the legislation fails to address an issue that I have urged should be addressed: the position of next of kin and other domestic relationships. The committee touches on this on page 7 of its report. It notes the submissions that have been made on this topic, which I think is a truly troublesome one. I suggested through my proposed amendments to the Civil Union Bill that that issue should be addressed there and then. The clerk ruled that those concerns of mine that were translated into amendments were properly within the scope of the bill. The committee states: “We believe that further work should be undertaken in respect of any proposal to recommend a next of kin register or to include relationships that were not in the nature of marriage or civil union.”

As the Minister has said, there has been a decision to take out the indicators in the bill that established, or did not establish, the presence of a de facto relationship. A de facto relationship is difficult to define. I thought that those indicators were, in fact, helpful, but they have been stripped from this legislation as reported back. Instead—and I would say unhelpfully—a de facto relationship means: “a relationship between 2 people (whether a man and a woman, a man and a man, or a woman and a woman) who … live together as a couple in a relationship in the nature of marriage or civil union;”.

TIM BARNETT (Labour—Christchurch Central): As chair of the Justice and Electoral Committee, which dealt with this complex legislation over a period of about 6 months, I would like to commend the report of the committee to the House. I begin by thanking the submitters—we had many submitters on this legislation—the committee staff, and the departmental staff who spent many hours dealing with the issues arising from the legislation. I also thank the select committee members, particularly those who had a strong objection to civil union but were able to cooperate very positively in addressing some of the real issues in this legislation.

I would like very quickly to go through a number of aspects of the bill. Firstly, looking at the environment it addresses, there are 186 New Zealand laws that provide rights or responsibilities to people who live in relationships. The committee discovered that almost exactly half of these laws—95—already cover people in married or de facto relationships, and the remaining 91 cover only married people. We assumed that there was some dramatic difference between the 95 and the 91 in terms of the nature of the legislation; in fact, there is very little difference. The only rationale that explains why half our laws cover married and de facto people and half do not is that the first category of laws—the 95—are either new to this Parliament in the last few years or have undergone reform of their original drafts. That means that over time this Parliament, under various colours of political control, has been adding “de facto” to existing legislation.

The committee then went further and found out that before 1984, de facto couples were added to five laws; between 1984 and 1990, five other laws were amended to add “de facto”; between 1990 and 1999—when I believe Mr Worth’s National Party was in power—20 laws were amended to add de factos to married couples; and 61 further laws have been amended since 1999. I do not remember back in the 1990s allegations of social engineering or calls for referenda over the sombre reality of adding de facto couples to legislation already covering married people. So what we are doing with this legislation is effectively a tidy-up of a trend that has been going on in Parliament for many years.

The second key point about the environment of the bill is obviously that we now have a Civil Union Act. The first civil unions take place on 30 April 2005, and no New Zealand law currently gives a right or a responsibility to people who have entered into a civil union; so the second purpose of this bill is clearly to give life to the concept of civil unions.

The third social reality behind all of this is that according to the last census, which was carried out 4 years ago, a quarter of all New Zealand couples living together are not in a marriage. Among younger people—those aged under 45 years—that applies to a third of couples. So an increasing number of New Zealanders are living in de facto relationships, yet half the relevant laws do not cover them. This bill amends the vast majority of those 91 laws that currently exclude de facto couples, and it amends all but one of the relevant laws to include people living in civil unions. The committee really examined the bill on that basis.

I would like to address directly a comment made by Richard Worth. He said that de factos opt not to marry or to civil unionise, and that some do this actively and some do this passively. That is absolutely accurate. But when one actually looks at the legislation that is being addressed, one has to apply the reality of a de facto relationship to the Acts being amended by this bill. For example, there is a whole category of legislation that calls on the spouse of somebody who is on a board to have his or her interests revealed also, but this legislation does not currently apply to a civil union partner or a de facto. It is in the interests of the wider society that there be transparency in the operation of boards. That is why we already have laws dealing with board members who are married. And, quite properly, for the benefit of the wider society those laws should be expanded to include de facto couples and civil unions.

On the issue of access to a body in a mortuary, currently the mortuary regulations that define who can access a mortuary to see a body apply only to married couples. Most people in a de facto relationship, I suspect, would not foresee themselves coming across such regulations were one of them to die and the other to want to get into the mortuary to view the body. To take another example, income tax law currently has a mixture of treating all relationships equally, and actually separating marriage from de facto relationships. This completes the process, which has been going on for years, bit by bit, of treating all couples equally for income tax purposes.

I will give a last example: there is a package of legislation around committal orders for drug or alcohol addiction that gives the partner of the person who has an addiction the ability to sign a committal order for that person, and, again, legislation has to be amended so that de facto and civil union partners are treated in the same way. So these are all about realities. These are all situations that people can get into. We will now, as a result of this bill, have much clearer law.

What we then did—noting, by the way, that giving civil unions and de facto relationships broadly equal legal status is not the same as giving them equal social status, in whatever way—was to look in detail at the legislation. We have made three crucial changes. Firstly, as touched on by the Minister and by Richard Worth, we changed the definition of “de facto” to continue the current practice, which is to define “de facto” as a relationship in the nature of a marriage. Into that we added “or civil union”. That was on the basis that flexibility would be maintained; that although the checklist approach—the definition of de facto relationships—may be appropriate for property relationships, it was not appropriate for the vast range of scenarios envisaged by this law. Also, we felt that a simpler, more straightforward definition would encourage courts to handle disputes that might arise in the context of the law to which they relate. That was the first change made by the Justice and Electoral Committee.

Secondly, we removed some of the proposed new rights for de facto couples relating particularly to under-18-year-old de factos, and also for inheritance rights when one of a de facto couple dies without a will. We felt that there should not be an automatic assumption that the surviving de facto partner should be the inheritor. A very particular amendment we made was that the Wills Act of 1837, which is currently being reviewed as part of a Law Commission review on succession, should not have civil union added but that the Law Commission should be able to report first.

A third point is on the language of the legislation. We found that not only was the bill as drafted a bit of a mixture, so that on occasion the word “spouse” was read to mean “de facto and civil union partner”, but also we found that a number of laws passed by this Parliament over the last 20 years also mixed up the language of “marriage” and “de facto”. We also recommended, as touched on by the two previous speakers, terms of reference for the Law Commission by the relevant Minister, and those will proceed on a range of issues, including people living in a non - de facto relationship with another person..

This is a moderate and common-sense approach to tidying up discrepancies that can lead to discrimination in our law. I commend the bill to the House.

DAIL JONES (NZ First): The bill that we have before us is the Relationships (Statutory References) Bill. It follows on from the Civil Union Act and it really should be called the “Civil Union and Other Relationships (Statutory References) Bill”, because without the Civil Union Act having been passed we would not need this legislation. It is all to do with civil union.

There is a conscience vote on this bill and there is almost a total majority on the part of New Zealand First members against this legislation. Our policy is quite clear on this type of social engineering. There should be a referendum on the issue, and all the people of New Zealand should decide, rather than a few of us here in Parliament expressing our own personal views.

When this bill was before the House on its first reading, both myself and Stephen Franks commented on the fact that somehow or other de facto relationships had become dragged into a civil union type of bill. I think we were the only two members who really grasped that that was the situation. Of course, the question of de facto relationships has received a considerable airing before the Justice and Electoral Committee. Many changes have been made in this area—some for better, some for worse—and various comments have been made by committee members. I am a member of the Justice and Electoral Committee, but I regard this bill as being rotten to the core, and there was no point in wasting my time in the select committee on it, because I knew that, regardless of what happened, I was always going to vote against a civil union bill. From time to time I tried to take some note of what was going on—and I have noted the various comments made in the select committee process—but I note that the majority report talks about “most of us”, which, in the select committee, tends to mean, I think, the Labour Party and the Greens. I do not think it includes—[Interruption] No, the Labour Party and the Greens. So when people read this report and see what is before—

Stephen Franks: And Clem Simich.

DAIL JONES: The Labour Party, the Greens, and the Hon Clem Simich, who is a member of the select committee. That is what is meant by most of us. It does not include New Zealand First, the ACT party, the United Future party, or any other National Party member who might have been present, like Richard Worth. The report itself shows the confusion in the minds of committee members when they looked at de facto relationships. The commentary, under the heading “De Facto Relationships”, states: “Although this leaves a degree of uncertainty, most of us believe that the ability to tailor the definition to the purpose of the law is preferable to courts struggling to stretch a common definition…”. That is very true. This bill does leave a lot of uncertainty.

The United Future party member tried to make an amendment. As a lawyer he made the point, as the commentary states, that he “…believes that not including the common law provisions in the bill creates greater confusion.” I am absolutely sure he is right. Again, if we look at the amendments made by the select committee, we see that the commentary states, under the heading “Social Security Act 1964”: “Most of us recommend that some of the proposed amendments to the Social Security Act 1964 relating to de facto couples be omitted.” There was a considerable degree of change, messing around, and alteration in the select committee, as far as I can see, on this bill. As far as de factos are concerned, there seems to have been a considerable degree of gutting of the bill, in so far as those relationships are concerned.

But, of course, the vast majority in New Zealand who support decent family standards are even more gutted that this type of legislation should proceed in any form at all. This bill makes it clear that the Government does not give a damn about the welfare of New Zealand and decent family relationships. As I have said before in this House, this bill is being debated here only to please the coterie of homosexuals and lesbians who surround the Prime Minister. It does not matter what Mr Tim Barnett has said about it in trying to give us an exposition on what is meant by “de facto relationship” and suchlike, because all those changes are being made for only one reason, which is that there was a Civil Union Act in the first place. If we had not had this Act, we would not have had this bill.

I ask this House, and the country, why we are wasting time on legislation that will benefit less than 0.2 percent of our adult population when there is an enormous amount of important legislation on this Order Paper, some of which has been waiting for years to be completed. There is only one reason. Again, I say it is that coterie of homosexuals and lesbians, who are more important to the Prime Minister than the rest of the people of New Zealand, especially those who have decent family relationships. We should be here in the House to establish decent standards of behaviour in our society. This Labour Party Government, which has been kept in office by the United Future party and which receives the full support of the Greens in this legislation, is signalling to all New Zealanders that the standard for New Zealand society is that of a homosexual and homosexual relationship, or a lesbian and lesbian relationship.

I also note that, in particular, the leader and the deputy leader of the United Future party support this legislation and have voted for it—

Murray Smith: On the first reading.

DAIL JONES: I will be interested to see whether they change their minds on the second reading, but so far the leader and deputy leader of United Future support this legislation.

What a difference there is in Australia. No wonder New Zealanders are leaving to go to live in Australia. Why would they ever want to come back? The Labor Party, the National Party, and the Liberals in Australia have rejected this appalling type of family-bashing legislation. Why would anyone want to come back to New Zealand to put up with high-cost housing, low wages, and an atmosphere where families are derided by the Government of the day, which is supported by the Greens and kept in office by the United Future party? Why on earth would they want to come back? This bill does not even have the courage to consider the question of those people living in relationships having the best part of all worlds.

The majority of the select committee was not capable of confronting many of the questions, and decided that some of the issues should be dealt with by the Law Commission. What a waste of time! The Government and the majority are saying that they want to pass some of the problems over to the Law Commission, instead of making the decision, here and now, so we can vote on it, here and now.

New Zealanders are making it clear, in their tens of thousands, that they cannot stand this type of legislation any more. The prostitution legislation has gone through this Parliament, thanks to the Greens vote, and United Future supported the Government on supply matters. We have seen gender-bending legislation, in which fathers have been called mothers, and mothers have been called fathers, pass through this House, thanks to this Labour Party. We now have legislation that is aimed at assisting barely 0.2 percent of our population. New Zealanders cannot get health care, they have to pay through their nose for education, yet this Government’s priority is to rush this type of legislation through the House.

No wonder families in New Zealand are on their knees, and just about down and out. What consolation is it to a solo mother on her own, who is trying to bring up three children and get them into school this year, who sees this bill go through the House at a cost of about $10 million to $20 million when we look at both pieces of legislation? That money should be spent on her and her children, instead. She has to pay school fees, and pay for school uniforms and for all those unforeseen incidentals that crop up. If her child loses his or her shoes, or if they are stolen, perhaps even on the first day at school, she has to find the money to replace them, while Helen Clark and her coterie waste the public’s money on a civil union, statutory relationships bill.

What an absolute load of nonsense to have this type of legislation going through the House. Of course, to top it all off, as Richard Worth has said, on members’ day we will have to put up with this gender-bending, cross-dressing legislation from Georgina Beyer. What an utter waste of money. Presumably she had the approval of the Labour Party to bring her bill into the House.

Jill Pettis: Oh Dail, go and have a lie down.

DAIL JONES: The senior Government whip cannot take it any more. She has to put up with it in her caucus, and she will have to vote for it, too. That is what we have to put up with in this House. The Labour Party is pushing cross-dressing legislation in this House, and somehow or another is making that law as well.

What is this country coming to? No wonder New Zealanders prefer to live in Australia, and do not come back to New Zealand. We should be concentrating on real issues, rather than wasting all this money. We should be looking at encouraging decent family relationships in New Zealand, rather than this type of rubbish. New Zealand First has a conscience vote on this issue, and just about all of us will be voting against it. I will have the utmost pleasure in doing so, with my New Zealand First colleagues.

Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: I call Stephen Franks.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson): I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. My understanding is that on conscience votes the precedent is to take members in terms of their seniority, not on the basis of their party affiliations. Can you give the House a steer as to the modus operandi you are operating with respect to this conscience vote, in terms of allocating speaking slots, as to the likely order in which you will call members, simply so members can plan accordingly when they have other commitments outside the House?

Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: I cannot make that presumption. I call members as I see it, but I certainly cannot presume the way they will be speaking or voting. I call it in the way that I see it.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson): I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. There is a long run of Speakers’ rulings and Standing Orders about the order in which speakers will be called on a Government bill, and there is a different set of Speakers’ rulings for a conscience issue. I am seeking clarification from yourself as to what set of Standing Orders you are dealing with. Although this is a Government bill, it is a conscience vote. It is perfectly reasonable for me simply to ask you which rules we are abiding by. Are you calling members in the order of party rankings, as per a Government bill, or are you doing it as for a conscience vote, in which those Speakers’ rulings and Standing Orders would apply?

STEPHEN FRANKS (ACT): If you would like a little time to consider that point, I am perfectly happy to allow both Dr Nick Smith and the United Future member to speak before me. I understand that the United Future member has another commitment, and I would be interested to hear Dr Smith’s address. If that assists you to take the time to consider his request, I am perfectly happy with that.

Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: In the end, the matter of how I call members is at my discretion but if the member wishes to follow that course, I will invite members to call.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson): Firstly, I acknowledge Stephen Franks and thank him for his generosity, because I have another commitment and I have people waiting for me. This bill is another dose of this Government’s anti-family policies and puts it down as the most anti-family Government in the history of New Zealand. The bill has been described as the companion bill to the Civil Union Act, but in every respect, whereas that Act was the symbolic packaging, this bill is the substance and the grunt of that radical piece of social engineering.

This bill is based on two premises that are fundamentally flawed. The first of those is that all relationships are equal, whether they are a married relationship between a man and a woman, a relationship between two men or between two women, or a de facto relationship. It is like the “NCEA-ing” of families—that is, let us not have any difference; everything is going to be just the same. I say to Government members that all relationships are not the same, for two very basic reasons. The first of those is that men and women are different but equal. The notion presented by the Government that a relationship between two men is exactly the same as a relationship between two women, or between a man and a woman, is wrong. It is wrong because for hundreds of years of culture and history, a man and a woman have been the foundation of a family in which children are raised, who are the next generation.

The further point that is lost is the idea that the length of the relationship is relevant. Two people who make a public commitment to each other for life are considered by this Government to be absolutely identical to two people who go into a de facto relationship. It may be the view of Government members that every couple that goes into a de facto relationship is just very dumb, and that the couple really meant to get married. It is my view that those are distinctly different relationships. The fact that a man and a women enter into a relationship with the intention of it being a lifelong relationship is quite different from a man and a woman living together without that concept of, without that commitment towards, it being a lifelong partnership.

There should be no surprise at, and I notice there is a lecture in Parliament this evening about, the radical change in demographics. The reality is that fewer and fewer people are choosing to have children. In many instances in Western countries, the number of children being born now is even fewer than that needed for the population replacement rate. That is little wonder, when we have one Government bill after another stating that families do not matter—they are irrelevant. To the Government it does not matter whether someone is in a same-sex relationship, a de facto relationship, or a married relationship—it is all just the same. I say to members of the Government that for all the debates that we have in this House about issues of drug abuse, youth crime, educational attainment—

Jill Pettis: You’re an intelligent man. Stop talking like that.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: —and all the risk factors, all the social policy research, I say to Ms Pettis, shows that children overwhelmingly do better when they have a mum and a dad.

Jill Pettis: That’s not true.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I challenge Jill Pettis on the Government side of the House to show me the research, whether it be from the Christchurch school of medicine or elsewhere. I could quote sociologists who have said that if there is any area of sociology in which there is a consensus, it is that in respect of issues such as drugs, crime, educational attainment, self-esteem, or poverty, children generally, on average, do best in two-parent families. Now, of course there are families—single-parent families—that do really well, and I say good on them. But we, as a Parliament, need to think about what works best for society as a whole, and it is my contention, absolutely unapologetically, that children in New Zealand will do best when they have a committed mother and father who are going to raise them. This bill undermines that very principle of our society.

This is radical legislation; it changes 186 laws. It means, in respect of superannuation, of rights at the hospital, of what takes place in the courts of the land, and of the family relationships that are recognised, that it is ground-breaking law. This is not an academic piece of tidying-up. It is radical social engineering, in terms of the way that our society has functioned for hundreds of years.

My concern is quite contrary to the contribution that was made by Tim Barnett. This legislation does not provide certainty. Let me explain why it does not. This bill states that any two people who are living together—two men, two women, or a man and a woman—are deemed to be living in a de facto relationship if the relationship is in the nature of marriage or civil union. That is all it states. If the court deems that one lives in a relationship that is in the nature of a marriage or a civil union, then, bang, one is part of a marriage in every sense, in terms of 186 different statutes. Now how is a young person at university, who decides to flat with a person of the same sex or the opposite sex, to know at what point he or she gets certainty as to way that he or she is clawed into all the very extensive legal obligations covering over 186 Acts? There is no certainty. Any court can deem that to apply—and we have even removed from the initial bill the criteria that would have given people some guidance as to whether they are deemed to be married. I tell this House that the Minister in charge of this bill has done more than the Reverend Moon could ever have dreamt of doing. He used to be proud of the fact that he had married 2,000 or 3,000 people at one time. Under the provisions of this legislation we are effectively marrying off over 250,000 New Zealanders without their consent, and that is wrong.

I also say that Government members’ argument about semantics is quite galling. They are saying to the House that they respect marriage and respect a husband and a wife, because they are going to protect those terms. But the reality is that, in every legal sense, a civil union will be identical to a marriage. The words change, yes, but the reality does not. That confirms the giant fib from the Prime Minister that this legislation was not a gay marriage bill. Of course it was, because in every single respect, and in every single law on our book, a relationship between a man and a woman is to become identical in the courts of New Zealand—in the law of the land—to a marriage between a husband and wife. That is nothing less than a con job; it is a game in semantics. The reality is that this Government does not know the difference between those relationships.

We do need to acknowledge people’s freedom to have relationships of their choosing. It is wrong for this Parliament to pretend that all relationships are the same. Marriage is a relationship and an institution that has served many, many generations of people for centuries, and it is quite wrong for this Government to engage in this sort of radical social engineering. It is not good for society. It is not good for families. This legislation is aimed around the interests of a few people, rather than the interests of our country. We should reject this bill. We should acknowledge that marriage, civil unions, and de facto relationships are different.

MURRAY SMITH (United Future): Giambattista Vico, after completing an exhaustive study of ancient history, concluded in 1725 that marriage between a man and a woman is an essential characteristic of civilisation. Without strong social norms that encourage a man to direct his sexual attentions to a single woman and thereafter care for his offspring, Vico concluded that chaos ensued. Marriage, he wrote, was the seedbed of society.

British anthropologist J D Unwin reached the same conclusion some 200 years later. In his 1934 book, Sex and Culture, Unwin chronicled the historical decline of 86 different cultures. His exhaustive survey revealed that “strict marital monogamy” was central to social energy and growth. Indeed, he said, no society flourished for more than three generations without it. Unwin stated it this way: “In human records there is no instance of a society retaining its energy after a completely new generation has inherited a tradition which does not insist on prenuptial and postnuptial continence.” In the 21st century, the findings of Vico and Unwin are confirmed by hundreds of sociological studies that document the impact of marital forms and marital dissolution on men, women, and children. Those studies speak with a surprisingly uniform voice: enduring marriage between a man and a woman is the best environment for the social, physical, mental, emotional, and economic development of men, women, and children. Without stable marriage, women suffer, men suffer, and children suffer the most. Every deviation from the ideal model of enduring monogamous marriage between a man and a woman increases the suffering of men, women, and children.

We were fortunate in the Justice and Electoral Committee to have a submission from John Sax, a well-known Auckland philanthropist. Unfortunately his submission had almost no attention paid to it by the select committee. He outlined for us the social statistics on marriage relationships and children who are born into marriage relationships when compared with other forms of relationship. Just extracting a few of those makes salutary reading.

According to Australian studies, family abuse and child abuse leading to the deaths of children are three times more likely to occur in de facto parent families than in marriage, four times more likely to occur in solo-parent families than in marriage, seven times more likely to occur where a family includes a stepfather or blended marriage, five times more likely to occur where the child is living with a family without one or more biological parents, and, from UK studies, 18 times more likely to occur with cohabiting biological parents, and 73 times more likely to occur where the mother is cohabiting with a non-biological partner.

When it comes to the area of health problems, solo mothers are four times more likely to have health problems than married mothers, and adolescents in divorced or unmarried relationships are twice as likely to have health problems.

In education, children from single-parent families have a 76 percent lower academic completion rate than children from families with parents who are married, and twice the number of high-school leavers who leave with no educational qualifications have parents who are not married rather than married parents. Children with parents who have never married are 1½ times more likely to be expelled. Children in families with solo mothers are twice as likely to drop out of school than children who have married parents, and children whose parents have never married are four times more likely to be expelled.

When it comes to economics, solo parents have 4½ times the level of child poverty of married parents, and de facto relationships are twice as likely to have child poverty within them than in married relationships.

When it comes to suicide, children from families with step-parents, or blended families, are twice as likely to commit suicide. Children with single parents are three times more likely to commit suicide. In fact, in Sweden, the factor was 20 times. In Sweden, which is upheld by our Prime Minister as a model, it is 20 times more likely that children from a single-parent family will commit suicide than children with married parents. Children with separated parents are 20 times more likely to commit suicide. Children from fatherless homes are 40 times more likely to commit suicide.

When it comes to teenage pregnancies, the number of teenage pregnancies in daughters who live in homes without fathers is over six times the level of teenage pregnancies of daughters who come from homes with married couples.

When it comes to the area of serious crime resulting in imprisonment, the number is three times higher for boys raised in step-families than for boys raised in married-couple families, two times higher for boys raised in solo families, and 3.7 times higher for children raised in a family with a stepmother. There is a 2½ times higher chance of jail for boys born to unmarried parents and a three times higher chance for males who live with stepfathers, and it is 19 times more likely that children who come from fatherless homes will be involved in a serious crime resulting in imprisonment.

All the statistics point us towards the fact that children raised in a married-couple family do far better on all socio-economic indicators than children in other forms of relationships. We should be providing a safe place for our children. We should be minimising the violent offending, sexual abuse, youth suicide, addictions, and mental health problems of our children, improving their health, and providing the best education outcomes for them. Promoting marriage ahead of all other forms of relationships helps to do that.

This Government does the opposite. This bill undermines marriage. It states that civil unions are equivalent to marriage, but there are no guidelines in terms of what civil unions will end up as. As I said in my minority report on the bill, future societal expectations have been left in limbo. In terms of same-sex civil union relationships, there is a failure to recognise the important but different contributions that mothers and fathers make to the raising of children. What the proponents of this bill are saying is that two mothers or two fathers are just as valid and just as helpful to children as having a mother and a father is, and that is just plain wrong.

Marriage deserves to be discriminated for. All the statistics say so. Instead, this Government is bending over backwards to reduce marriage to equal status with other, far weaker forms of relationship. We should be funding and encouraging pre-marriage counselling. We should be teaching the importance and value of marriage as a stable, exclusive, heterosexual, and long-term relationship to our children. We should be providing early intervention for marriages in trouble. We should be encouraging a culture of staying in marriages as far as it is possible to do so. Until we seriously address the environments in which our children have been raised and encourage the level of parental commitment that marriage alone provides, all other factors are like ambulances at the bottoms of cliffs, and the money will be largely wasted.

Why do we not address the causes of those problems—namely, the breakdown of family relationships—rather than keeping on addressing simply the results that we suffer? Why are we creating new forms of relationships such as the civil union when we have no idea what that will involve? But in my view, it undoubtedly will lead to relationships that are less stable, less exclusive, and, probably, more temporary than marriage. If that was not going to happen we would not need to introduce them. Why are we doing that when all those indicators point us in a different direction? They point us to the fact that marriage is the one strong institution in our society that provides the best outcomes for our children.

This bill should not pass.

MOANA MACKEY (Labour): I rise to support the Relationships (Statutory References) Bill and I shall make some comments about some of the speeches that came before mine. I find it ironic that the Hon Dr Nick Smith gave us one of his tirades about adding de facto relationships to statutes in this House, when he was part of the National Government in the 1990s that added de facto relationships to no less than 20 pieces of legislation. But I guess in Opposition, as per usual, the National Party says one thing, then gets into Government and does something different.

When we speak about adding de facto relationships to our laws, it is always a difficult topic. When we are considering the demographic shift that we have seen towards more New Zealanders entering into de facto relationships, I believe that we need to get away from the rhetoric and look at what the evidence really says. New Zealanders deserve law that is based on reality, not just on frothy-mouthed rhetoric, which is what we have been seeing in this House.

Many de facto relationships are very stable. They involve children. There are members of this House who have been in de facto relationships for longer than some members in this House have been married. I apologise to all the families out there who are raising children, doing a wonderful job, who are not married, who are in de facto relationships, or may be in homosexual relationships, who have been insulted time and time again in this House by people who think that somehow, just when a person gets married a switch flicks on inside that makes that person a good citizen and a good parent, with good financial status, and a good educator of children, when we know that that is not a fact.

Marriage does produce very good outcomes for children, more so than de facto relationships, not because marriage makes good parents, but because more good parents choose to get married. If more good parents choose not to get married, then the demographics that come out of de facto relationships will also improve.

I agree with the Hon Dr Nick Smith that all relationships are not equal. But that does not mean that all marriages are good and all de facto relationships are bad, that all heterosexual relationships are good and all homosexual relationships are bad. What it means is that it depends on the individuals in those relationships.

One thing that we hear time and time again is about the transient nature of de facto relationships. Certainly, for some that is true, just as for marriage. For example, a large number of my friends got married for the student allowance when they were at university. Marriage is not immune to those kinds of transient relationships that really are not based on love at all. A study that was done in New Zealand showed that a conservative figure of 70 percent of New Zealanders who marry now, cohabit in a de facto relationship before they marry. With an average of 20,000 or 21,000 marriages per year, that means that 15,000 de facto relationships end every year. They do not end because the relationship is unstable, or because the couple do not want to be together any more. They end because the couple got married.

That is quite a different point of view from the one put up by people who say that de facto relationships last on average only 4 years. That is not surprising when one considers the incredibly large number of de facto relationships that end every year because that couple choose to get married.

This bill is about supporting families—but all families, not just families who choose to get married. It is about supporting the children in those relationships and giving them certainty. I ask members who stand up here and say that this is destructive to families, what they would say to the children of parents who have chosen not to get married. Do those children deserve to have less certainty in their lives because of a choice their parent made? No, they do not, and that is what this bill is about. It is about recognising that there are changes in this country in relationships, children are in those relationships, and all children in this country deserve to have the full protection of the law, not just those whose parents just happen to be married.

STEPHEN FRANKS (ACT): This bill is the second limb of the civil union change; Parliament has voted on the Civil Union Bill, and I believe that only now does Parliament really know exactly what it was doing. The Civil Union Bill created a statutory pantomime of marriage. That was not what the Law Commission had suggested. The Law Commission suggested that people who live in any kind of relationship other than marriage should be able to opt into a predetermined or a convenient set of legal rights and responsibilities in relation to each other without necessarily being married. Instead, the Civil Union Bill decided very consciously to use the symbolism that the State first borrowed or took over from religion. It has run it for the last 50 years and gradually gutted it to the point where marriage means very little.

When I spoke on the first reading of the two bills I went through that progression, that running down of the distinction between what the Government likes to refer to as stable committed relationships where there was a genuine commitment, where there was some exclusivity—what we recognise in marriage—and all the other kinds of ways in which people choose to live. The Government is now rushing this second limb through, despite the fact that this bill has come back from the select committee absolutely transformed.

If we just weigh the bill in our hands we can feel the difference, the changes that the committee made. The committee was very conscientious. I was proud to be a member of it. Although the Government came to the House with a set of legislated slogans: “There is no difference between marriage and any other relationship”, and although the Government tried to say that that was because it favoured what it called protecting the parties to stable committed relationships, the bill that was introduced did nothing of the sort. The bill that was introduced simply stated: “Marriage, schmarriage, they’re all the same.”, and ignored the fact that marriage is consensual—the quintessential contract. In fact, marriage was one of the earliest glories of English law. As the British spread throughout the world they spread this then radical idea that marriage should be the free and uncoerced consent of two competent parties to a lifelong relationship.

The idea that both parties would have a choice was radical. The idea that it would be done in public so that people could see that there was no coercion was a huge advance. What this Government brought in was a bill that simply stated: “Your consent doesn’t matter at all, and far from worrying about coercion, we, the State, will simply treat you all as married.” It was an appalling bill to bring in.

I now want to give a bit of credit to Tim Barnett, the chair of the committee, and Lianne Dalziel, who is on the committee. They both recognised that at an early stage. Instead of being locked into the position that they had started with, they conscientiously worked through to try to eliminate, I will say the worst features of that automatic marriage—that is, the changing of 80-odd pieces of legislation to say that it did not matter whether people consented to marriage obligations if they happened to be living together. Indeed, the definition was so vague that it could have been as casual as a few nights together, it could have been flatmates taking advantage of their temporary closeness, or it could have been women or men under duress. It could have been any of those things.

Through an intuitive process the committee knocked out a large number of the provisions that stated: “De facto is the same as marriage.” Indeed, Lianne Dalziel went further. I think she worked out over the summer break a kind of principled rationale for what we were doing. She would have probably stated it pretty clearly in the report back to this House except for the fact that had she done that it would have made it crystal-clear that her own Government had been party to some pretty appalling treatment of marriage and family law over the last 4 years. So, instead, we got a relatively neutral, anodyne report from the committee. If we had journalism that went behind the appearances, and if we had a genuinely robust debate on family law matters, it would have been seen that what this committee has said is radical in terms of the trend of the past few years.

The committee’s reasoning says that the Human Rights Act is absolutely wrong to be making marital status a prohibited ground of discrimination. This committee has just gone through the law and said that there are lots of times when it is sensible to discriminate on the grounds of marital status. That is because marriage is a promise of a stable committed relationship where the parties volunteer and where people choose to change not only their social status, but also their legal status, yet the Human Rights Act states that the State can penalise people who draw distinctions on the basis of marital status. So it is a pretty radical report back, but members will not see that clearly in the majority report.

Dail Jones: It’s very hidden.

STEPHEN FRANKS: Yes, it is very hidden. This bill discretely notes that a lot of the tearful rhetoric we heard around the civil union debate—for example, the unfairness of people not being allowed next of kin rights when they clearly were the closest companions of people, for example in hospital. The bill does not deal with next of kin rights. We have kicked it to touch. We have sent this sort of stuff off to someone else to think about—the Law Commission. That is because, ultimately, the Labour majority on the committee could not be seen to be showing up the disastrous steps taken by the Hon Margaret Wilson, and others, earlier in the life of this Government to tell us that marriage does not matter.

So we have a bill that is an awful lot better than we started with. Is it still a bill to oppose? Firstly, for me, the bill still does not deal with the problem of the Human Rights Act. Although it amends the Human Rights Act, it does not take out that immoral and stupid prohibition on discrimination on the basis of marital status. The bill amends the Human Rights Act, but it does not protect, for example, the taxi-driver who does not want to be associated with a civil union. It does not protect the church that does not want to rent out its church hall for a celebration, whether it is civil union or simply those flaunting a sexual orientation the church disagrees with. This bill does not protect them, or their freedom to associate or not to associate. It does not protect their freedom of speech—in other words, their normal freedom to discriminate, to uphold their beliefs and live their beliefs.

I cannot support this bill when no attempt was made, other than by repairing the particular provisions that were before us, to go back and do what the Government’s rhetoric said it was really doing—that is, trying to create a foundation for stable and committed couples to live together. Interestingly, there is still nothing in the bill that says anything about “committed” or”stable”. Even after the work we have done, a de facto relationship can still be a relationship of a few days. All that rhetoric about stability and commitment means nothing. The bill still deliberately discriminates for at least the next 2 years. A gay couple will be able to draw the single benefit—some $60 a week more than a heterosexual couple in the same circumstances. That is wrong.

Lianne Dalziel: They can now.

STEPHEN FRANKS: The Hon Lianne Dalziel points out that they can now, but this law is supposed to be changing those things. This bill was introduced to end that kind of discrimination, but the Government carefully preserved it. Why did it preserve it? It preserved it on the grounds that it would not be fair to disturb people’s circumstances without giving them adequate warning. That did not seem to worry the Hon Margaret Wilson when she compulsorily married everyone for property purposes. It did not worry her, at all. Although this bill is far better than what we started out with—and I would understand people changing their votes—from the way that it was towards the end of last year, I believe it should still be voted against as a signal that this is not the way to play with family law.

LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East): I had intended to begin my comments on this second reading by thanking Stephen Franks for the gracious comments that I thought I was listening to on my entry to the Chamber, but, unfortunately, it was not to be. They were a kind of backhanded compliment.

I want to put on the record how hard the Justice and Electoral Committee worked to get the bill right. We went through every single proposed amendment, to make sure that if we were to extend rights to those who were in de facto relationships, it was the right thing to do. I am confident we have made the right decision on each and every one of them.

There are areas where we have not extended the coverage of the law to de facto couples, and I think reasonably so, taking on board the comments that the previous member made. There are occasions when people who enter into a marriage, or—now—in the future, a civil union as well, are making a positive decision to enter into a relationship that brings with it certain rights and obligations. That is clear-cut. It is a clear definition of the relationship. But for de facto relationships, different tests need to be applied. In the area of property relationships, those laws do not apply until the couple have been in a relationship for 3 years. We did not put an entry point, or a threshold point, into the definition of de facto, because why would people want to see a time limit or a time threshold included for every single situation? We have made some very sensible decisions to extend the laws to de facto couples where appropriate, and to leave certain matters for future consideration of Parliament if they are more appropriately dealt with in another area.

I will come to social security in a minute, but will just use the Evidence Act as an example. We have not amended the Evidence Act to remove spousal immunity. For those who consider that that is discrimination—personally I do not, but for a different reason—I point out that spousal immunity is a key issue within evidence law. It is best dealt with by the review of the Evidence Act. There has been a full Law Commission report on the Evidence Act, and I know that the Government is considering that report and will be introducing amending legislation, I hope by way of a code, at some stage in the future. We discovered when we were going through all the individual parts of the bill that we had an amendment to the Courts Martial Appeals Act that itself was an expression of spousal immunity. We made a decision as a committee that we should leave the spousal immunity issue to the review of the Evidence Act, and that the Courts Martial Appeals Act should be amended in line with the decision made about the Evidence Act, and I support that approach. It was a very sensible one.

Stephen Franks: Tell us about the Governor-General.

LIANNE DALZIEL: I do not want to go with the Governor-General issue, at all. I think the chances of those provisions ever being applied are so slim that I would be wasting my breath to spend a moment on them.

I want to respond to one issue that Stephen Franks raised—that is, the issue of next of kin status. Next of kin status, we discovered, is mentioned in very few pieces of legislation. In fact, probably half a dozen laws in this land actually use the expression “next of kin”. But we all know that the term “next of kin” is used in many, many other situations that are not covered by the law. A classic one is hospitals, where people have to provide information on their next of kin. The bottom line is that marriage does not have next of kin status in an Act. “Next of kin” is not defined in any Act. Obviously, everyone would accept that my husband is my immediate next of kin, and I am his. Civil union status will give the same status—that is, it proves the relationship without question. So next of kin status, as it applies in practice to married couples, will also apply to civil union couples. The same cannot be said of de facto couples, and that is why it is to be determined on a case by case basis.

The last thing I want to comment on in this second reading is the definition of a de facto relationship. The committee actually poured a lot of energy into this. We were concerned that taking the definition in the property relationships legislation into the Interpretation Act could have unintended consequences. The bottom line is that all of that law is about what happens to property at the end of a relationship; it is not about establishing rights and obligations during a relationship. We were deeply concerned that all the court cases that have led to the development of this interpretation, both in Australia and in New Zealand, are about looking at property issues at the end of a relationship, or about social security entitlements. We did not think that was a good enough basis for taking us forward in terms of the Interpretation Act, which is why we have simply added to the definition that it is a relationship in the nature of marriage or a civil union.

In terms of the Social Security Act, I take Stephen Franks’ point: yes, the Government made a decision not to extend the de facto provisions—that is, to extend the definition to include civil union, being a relationship in the nature of a civil union of longer than 2 years. But as a result we have actually left the definition of a de facto relationship out of the Social Security Act, because we felt that the Ministry of Social Development in its advice to the committee was really trying to struggle with the definition that came out of the Ruka decision. We felt that that would be much better introduced as a separate amending bill and referred to the specialist select committee that deals with social security matters. So it was not as though members of the committee wanted to walk away from what was intended by the amendment; what we wanted was to make sure this issue got the full and proper consideration it deserves.

There are all sorts of cases relating to people trying to prove they are not in a de facto relationship, for social security purposes. If Mr Franks wants to contemplate why the Government might want to distinguish between a same-sex couple and a de facto couple in similar circumstances, it is really as a result of all of those unsatisfactory cases where people say they are not living in a relationship in the nature of marriage. People have not had the opportunity to enter into a civil union in the past, and there are many couples living together in a relationship in the nature of a civil union who, to the public, are not seen as a couple, because they are still hiding their relationship. That is an issue from a different perspective that I think sets them apart from other couples. We still have discrimination in this country, and couples do not always want to be outed, as it were—certainly, not by somebody looking at whether their benefit entitlement is appropriate.

So I think the select committee has worked very hard. I would like to place on record my congratulations to Tim Barnett on an excellent job in chairing a very hard-working committee.

NANDOR TANCZOS (Green): I must say that in listening to the debate, at times I felt I was in an extended déjà vu. Then I realised that many of the opponents of the bill had simply dug out their Hansard record of the debate on the Civil Union Bill and were rereading their speeches. Listening to Mr Dail Jones felt, in a way, like taking a trip back into history, to a simpler day when everyone knew his or her place, and, if one was gay, then that place was firmly in the closet.

Dail Jones: That’s untrue. I did not say that.

NANDOR TANCZOS: Well, that was the implication of Mr Jones’ statement. He cited Australia as being the golden paradise we should aspire to, with its fantastic record in terms of social tolerance and, of course, race relations!

Nick Smith said that the law counts all relationships as being the same. I think he was incorrect in that. As Moana Mackey pointed out, it is about treating people equally. That does not necessarily mean that all relationships are the same. Of course all relationships are different; they are unique to the people who have them. Nick Smith referred to men and women being equal but different. That is instructive and is exactly what I think this bill tries to acknowledge. It states that relationships should be treated equally but that they are different. We accept that the law should not discriminate between men and women, but we also accept that men and women are different and that each sex is better at some things than the other. Breastfeeding is the most obvious example of that.

Murray Smith recited a list of studies—the same studies, I think, that he referred to during the debate on the Civil Union Bill. A lot of the statistics he referred to are questionable, I believe, and the proto-anthropological studies he referred to are as likely to reveal the assumptions of their authors as to reveal any historical or sociological facts. By Mr Smith’s use of those studies he showed obscure reasoning. If we took the same line we would say that because bilingual children do better in school over the long term compared with monolingual children, we should just ban monolingual children from school.

That is the implication of that form of reasoning, and I do not think that it stacks up. In fact, what we are about here is the creation of protections and of a regime that will support long-term, committed relationships, regardless of whether they are between same-sex or opposite-sex couples.

Of course, this bill has not drawn the kind of attention that its companion bill, the Civil Union Bill, did, because it does not have the kind of symbolic value for both supporters and opponents that that bill had, which made it so contested and so important for this country. But this bill makes a number of very real changes in the lives of ordinary people, because it extends rights to couples in civil unions. The Civil Union Bill simply created the framework for civil unions, but this bill is the legislation that extends rights to those couples. It also clarifies significant sections of the law that relate to de facto partners. Like much of the business of this House, it is the relatively unremarked legislation that can often have the most profound impact on the day-to-day lives of ordinary people.

I would like to echo the remarks made by Lianne Dalziel about the Justice and Electoral Committee. As committee members, we did a lot of work. We did a substantial amount in working through amendments to almost a hundred Acts. We listened to the concerns of submitters, and we responded to those concerns. One of the specific concerns expressed by submitters—and, to be fair, raised also by various committee members independently; I think in particular of Stephen Franks—was that of the issues around de facto relationships. I, myself, was also concerned about that issue, and other members raised concerns. To be fair to the committee, I think that the whole committee, when those concerns were pointed out, saw the need to address them.

In the past, in the absence of civil unions, same-sex marriages, or something of that nature, we have seen legislation enacted to provide protection for same-sex couples in a roundabout way. For example, the Property (Relationships) Amendment Bill, which came before our select committee in the previous term of Parliament, was at least partly about recognising same-sex relationships when they broke up, even if Parliament at that stage could not bring itself to recognise those relationships when the people were still together. That same approach was continued in this bill, as it was introduced. So we saw an overly intrusive approach to de facto couples, extending to them many of the rights and obligations that properly applied to married couples—and apply now to civil union couples—but in a context where they did not necessarily fit. Marriage and civil union, of course, have an explicit declaration of commitment and interdependence that may be missing in a de facto relationship. Many people choose to remain in de facto relationships rather than to be married or now to enter a civil union, because they do not want the State’s intervention in their business. There are a whole range of reasons why people stay in de facto relationships. It is not for us to assume what those reasons are, nor is it for us to place obligations on relationships where the participants have not indicated that they want those obligations.

The committee looked carefully at the actual effects of the bill; we went through it quite thoroughly. We supported a number of basic approaches, and we tried to develop clear criteria by which to evaluate those things. One of the first things was around ensuring that the laws covering married couples will be extended to cover couples in civil unions. That is probably the area that so incenses members and other people who think that same-sex couples should not be recognised in law—that they should be punished for their love or, if not punished, then at least ignored in the hope that they will go away. As with the Civil Union Bill, that is a basic point of principled difference. We can debate those things, but we are unlikely to convince each other of our point of view. So it just comes down to what the majority will say in this House, and to what the majority of New Zealanders also think. Mr Franks referred to the fact that civil union ceremonies do not require an explicit long-term commitment or exclusivity, but I note that those things do not apply to marriage, either. As marriage does not require them, I think it is quite right that civil union relationships should have similar provisions in the law.

One of the things the select committee did in order to address some of the concerns, and to keep some distinction between marriage and civil union, was to use different language. Words like spouse, husband, wife, widow, and widower are used only in the context of marriage, and other language is used to describe other kinds of relationships. As I said, we looked at the de facto provisions quite carefully. Lianne Dalziel has already referred to the social security definition amendment that we removed from the bill. I think that that was the right action. It was an attempt to codify the Ruka case, but the Green Party in particular was especially concerned about the submissions from beneficiary rights groups, who indicated the very real problems that that amendment could create. I think it was quite right for the committee to leave the status quo in place—to leave the case law there to be the measure—and to allow that issue to be addressed later. As the honourable Lianne Dalziel said, it should be addressed by a committee with the requisite expertise to deal with those questions.

We looked at things like the laws relating to minors, and that is outlined in the commentary on the bill. There is the issue of what happens when guardianship ceases, so we had to look at how we could ensure protection for such people, particularly for those in a de facto situation. A young person can enter a de facto relationship fairly easily and move out of it again easily, leaving himself or herself in a vulnerable position with regard to the law, so we looked at that. We looked at the issues around bestowing property on another party, when people die intestate. I referred earlier to the principle behind our decision there. We looked at the laws to do with evidence.

After long hours of hearing submissions, of committee consideration, and of discussion outside the House, I am more convinced than ever that this bill is needed.

Hon BILL ENGLISH (National—Clutha-Southland): This is indeed a curious piece of legislation, now that it has been reported back. We are seeing here today a back-down by the Government from the extreme and ideological position it had taken about the nature of legal rights and obligations for relationships in New Zealand. I hope that today will be seen in the future as a turning point—as the day when the tide turned back towards respect for the customs and practices of the people, and as the day when Parliament finally realised that it can no longer try to impose a theory of relationships on our community.

There is no doubt that the Government has retreated significantly from the original purpose of the Relationships (Statutory References) Bill—no doubt, whatsoever. The waves of theory have crashed against the rocks of reality. The reality is, and always has been, that New Zealanders will choose their level of commitment, but in the past this Parliament has not respected that choice. For instance, in the Property (Relationships) Act, Parliament came up with a completely arbitrary definition of de facto relationships, and imposed a whole lot of obligations on people who met that definition, regardless of the choices they had made.

By contrast, I welcome the efforts of the select committee, which has now ditched the rather academic definition of de facto relationship that was in the original bill and replaced it with the definition that we have always had. That is that it is a relationship in the nature of a marriage, and now a civil union, and the court must have regard to the context and the circumstances of the relationship whenever it matters to a court to determine what the relationship is.

So the project has fallen apart, and we should be grateful. We will not be saddled, as was threatened, with a theoretical and ideological construct of relationships that corresponded to almost no one’s reality. But what has happened here has been done in such a haphazard way that I am sure that unintended consequences and sadness will arise from this legislation. What do I mean by haphazard? What should have happened was that the substantial policy analysis that has been done as part of the select committee’s work should have been done in the context of rewriting this legislation, because, as one of the members of the select committee has said, the committee went through and decided that in some contexts it was appropriate to extend rights and obligations to de facto couples, and in other contexts it was not appropriate. Well, who are Tim Barnett and Lianne Dalziel to decide on that matter? Who are they? Who are the rest of the select committee—even my colleague Stephen Franks—to decide on writing the law, and on selecting the appropriate circumstances where discrimination can occur and the circumstances where it cannot?

It does not make sense. It would be much better for this Parliament to leave well alone, let the common law draw the distinctions it needs to draw, and stop trying to fiddle, impose, and theorise about how people will live their lives.

Of course, there is one aspect of this bill that does have a symmetrical and thorough approach, and that is to ensure that all the rights of marriage are extended to civil unions. That points back to the hypocrisy of the Government’s original position, which was that civil union is different from marriage. Well, in law, it is not different from marriage, and this was the legislation—hundreds of pages; 230 pages in this latest version of the bill—that says it is the same.

The committee knew that it would set off a firestorm if it were to abolish the language of marriage, and I appreciate the efforts of those who were on the committee to ensure that the language of marriage was retained. That is important to so many people in New Zealand. It was a shame that it had to be pushed on the Government—it had to be pushed on the Government right through—that, in the view of the community, marriage has a status that is different from other relationships. Certainly, the people involved in marriage believe that their relationship is different from others, and that is why they have sought out that particular type of relationship.

So the language of marriage has been retained, but in the usual swap between substance and appearance, the Government has accorded to civil union all the rights and responsibilities of marriage. Now, that will probably not be sustained, simply because the relationships are so different in reality. Civil unions, for instance, are much less likely to produce children or to have children in them when they break up, and they will break up after shorter periods of time and more regularly than is the case with marriage, and ultimately the law will have to reflect that. Parliament can pretend that it will push water uphill and can legislate for those couples to be the same, but people are not slaves to our theories. They will live the messy, unpredictable lives that we all live, and the law, ultimately, will have to reflect that.

So in that sense, while this bill may represent some kind of conceptual victory for Margaret Wilson and Helen Clark, it is a pyrrhic victory for Parliament, because people will do what they were going to do anyway, and that is how it is.

I am also concerned about the confusion now in our law around laws of discrimination, and my colleague Stephen Franks covered this issue to some extent. This bill was originally based on the idea that there should be no discrimination on marital status anywhere. The select committee figured out that that just cannot work, which is why it dipped out on the definition of “de facto” and on extending all the law to de facto relationships. That is why the committee totally wimped out on the issue of social welfare entitlements. That was always the most difficult issue in this bill.

What did the big, brave select committee do with those advanced social theorists? It just said that it would not deal with it, and that it would leave the definition of de facto relationships for social welfare purposes—where it actually really matters—to someone else. It would not deal with that in this bill.

Well, thank goodness for that! Thank goodness we will retain a modicum of common sense, where relationships will have different definitions for different purposes. That is life! If people do shack up after a couple of weeks, they should not be drawing two benefits. They should be described as a couple. But just because they are described as a couple for the purposes of benefits, it does not mean they should be described as a couple for the purposes of custody of children, or division of assets, should that relationship break up. That is how it has always been and, despite the best efforts of this Government, it will always stay that way. I welcome that particular change.

But what sense does this move now make of the Human Rights Act? If Parliament has decided to discriminate among different relationships, as is written in this legislation, why does the Human Rights Act say that we cannot do that? Are we breaching the Human Rights Act by attributing different rights and obligations to different sorts of relationships? Well, the answer to that is yes—yes we are! This legislation makes a nonsense of the provisions of the Human Rights Act that outlaw discrimination on the basis of the type of relationship one is in. The sooner more people decide to ignore the Human Rights Act, the sooner common sense will be restored to the law to make sure that we accept a pretty simple principle: different relationships are different. People choose different relationships, and the rest of us have every right to treat them differently because of the relationships they have chosen.

Hon JUDITH TIZARD (Minister of Consumer Affairs): It is my great pleasure to rise to support the second reading of the Relationships (Statutory References) Bill, and I say I am truly astonished at the flip-flops from the Opposition side of the Chamber. I listened for 9 long years as the previous National Government justified passing Act after Act where the definition of “spouse” included people in de facto relationships, and I would like to point out to the ludicrous Opposition members, particularly to the one who preceded me, that Parliament has frequently defined relationships that people may not have been comfortable with. I would take him back to 1966 when illegitimacy was outlawed and, regardless of the fact that a father ignored his child, that child could still inherit. It is absolutely outrageous to suggest that human rights should be determined by what a few people in Parliament think will get them a few votes, because that is what the opposition to this bill is about.

I would take the Opposition members back to the 1977 Human Rights Commission Act, which did indeed outlaw discrimination on the grounds of marital status. I would take them back to the fine words that people like Doug Graham said in 1993, when the Human Rights Act was passed. This bill is about doing what Doug Graham and the previous National Government said they would do for most of the 1990s. What the Opposition is now saying is outrageous, when we consider the Consistency 2000 project. Doug Graham kept telling us, during those 9 long years, that he would see the discrimination against, in particular, women and children in de facto relationships, but also against gay and lesbian New Zealanders, taken out of our law.

I am proud of the work the Justice and Electoral Committee has done. I am proud of the work this Parliament is doing. I tell Opposition members to stop scrabbling like rats in a cupboard for a few votes, and to start thinking about people’s lives.

A personal vote was called for on the question, That the amendments recommended by the Justice and Electoral Committee by majority be agreed to.

Ayes 76

Noes 42

A personal vote was called for on the question, That the Relationships (Statutory References) Bill be now read a second time.

Ayes 74

Noes 45

A party vote was called for on the question, That, pursuant to section 8(4)(b) of the Electoral Act 1993, this House nominate David Francis Caygill of Christchurch, to represent the Government, and John Kenneth Warcup Isles of Wellington, to represent the Opposition parties, each to be appointed by Her Excellency the Governor-General as a member of the Electoral Commission for the purposes of its jurisdiction under Part VI of the Broadcasting Act 1989 be agreed to.

Ayes 80

New Zealand Labour 51; New Zealand National 27; Progressive 2.

Noes 39

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

Motion agreed to.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Appointments

Electoral Commission—Membership

Hon RICK BARKER (Associate Minister of Justice): I move, That, pursuant to section 8(4)(b) of the Electoral Act 1993, this House nominate David Francis Caygill of Christchurch, to represent the Government, and John Kenneth Warcup Isles of Wellington, to represent the Opposition parties, each to be appointed by Her Excellency the Governor-General as a member of the Electoral Commission for the purposes of its jurisdiction under Part VI of the Broadcasting Act 1989.

Just to recap the announcement today, the Government has agreed with the Justice and Electoral Committee’s recommendation to increase the amount of money to be allocated to the Broadcasting Commission, as recommended unanimously by the parties in this House on the select committee, and that is a good decision. The committee is therefore, under the existing legislation, to determine how that money is to be allocated.

Hon TONY RYALL (National—Bay Of Plenty): We, of the National Party in Opposition, will be supporting the Government motion, which will see the appointment of two representatives—

Rod Donald: The two-party club.

Hon TONY RYALL: It is the good old days.

Rodney Hide: At least he’s honest!

Hon TONY RYALL: There are very good reasons, which I will talk about, as to why it should happen that I support the nomination of the Hon David Caygill and Mr John Kenneth Warcup Isles. They are for no lesser reason than the very grand-sounding name that Mr Isles brings to the Electoral Commission, but also because I think that Mr Isles, together with Mr Caygill, brings a perspective to the commission that is fundamental to the responsibilities for which they have been appointed. In allocating the proportion of funding for the various political parties, it is vital that the practical, political experience of those two appointees is brought to the table for the deliberations that the commission makes. If we look at the make-up of the commission, we see that it is made up of people with minimal practical, political experience. They are people who have no necessary appreciation of what it is to explain a message to the public, and who have no practical appreciation of the logistics required for a party of any size within this House to get its message out to the voting public in New Zealand. So that is the reason why these two representatives, one for the Government parties and one for the Opposition parties, are to be appointed.

Mr Isles has done this job previously, and he did come and talk to the Opposition parties—

Rt Hon Winston Peters: No, he didn’t.

Hon TONY RYALL: He didn’t come?

Rt Hon Winston Peters: No.

Hon TONY RYALL: He should have. I would expect him to make sure that he talks to the various parties. I think it is important to make sure that this expertise is brought to the table, which is why Mr Caygill and Mr Isles have been appointed. I do not think that anyone could accuse them of favouring one political party over another. Frankly, after looking at the allocation of moneys that was made last time, I do not think there is anybody who could accuse either of them of doing a favour to any party, because everyone was very disappointed in the outcome of the commission’s considerations last time.

In summary, the National Party in Opposition supports this motion. We think it is important that people with practical, political experience are involved in the commission. These two men bring their personal credibility and reputations to the responsibilities that they will perform on behalf of this House, and I think they will play an important role in supplementing the generally academic experience of those involved in the commission, which is involved in a process that is most practical. That is why their expertise is needed.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First): What we heard there was the best defence on behalf of the two old parties—the old boys’ club that is dominating the management of New Zealand’s electoral system. I want to point out exactly what that means. I am told that we should have Mr Caygill because of his immense experience—whatever that is, I do not know. How many jobs does David Caygill have, and when will the Government wean its mates off?

Lianne Dalziel: Oh, come on!

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: No, no, the member cannot say “Oh, come on.” Job after job is given out by Labour to its crony mates.

Hon Ken Shirley: From the president of the Labour Party downwards.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: From the president downwards. That is how it supplements its lack of income in running a party—it puts all its party hacks on to some governmental or quasi-governmental board and has the taxpayers fund its lifestyle while they go about exclusively, 24/7, working for the Government. It stinks and it is not right. So how many jobs does Mr Caygill have—Accident Compensation Corporation? Yes?

Lianne Dalziel: No!

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Oh yes, he was.

Lianne Dalziel: No, no longer.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Oh, no longer! It is just a merry-go-round of jobs. How many jobs has Labour given its mates? Well, they would fill a telephone book. My, how they are going to be disappointed come September; they will be dug in, like ticks on a hound, until September, but not after that date I assure members.

The second man, John Isles, is the one who was appointed by the National Party because apparently, according to Mr Ryall, he has an “illustrious name”. Is that the same John Isles who stood for the National Party in 1975 in Napier? Is that the sum of his experience? What is the practical dimension—

Darren Hughes: Made Don Brash the leader.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: He knows more about politics than Don Brash, that is fair enough. But what does that mean? He has more experience than Don Brash, and he will learn how to lose, earlier than Don Brash, but that is all it means. But what practical dimension on earth is Tony Ryall talking about?

Lianne Dalziel: He’s probably the next leader of the National Party, on that theory.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: The member does have a point. We are told they will bring practical experience to the table of the Electoral Commission. But here is the rub. How many votes did National get at the last election, in proportion to the other Opposition parties? Did it get half the votes of the other Opposition parties, or less than half? It got less than half. National got 20.8 percent of the vote, and notwithstanding that—their old chubby mates; when it comes to the system that is—the Labour Party is happy to have National decide who the Opposition nominee will be. There is no consultation at all.

Have members ever seen anything so imperious and arrogant as a National Party with less than half of the Opposition votes, saying nevertheless that it will make the appointment? Can there be any reasonable New Zealander out there who thinks that is fair?

I will tell members of something worse that the National Party was involved in. When there was a call for a Māori person to be associated with the commission, guess what National did? Without so much as a by-your-leave, it appointed somebody, even though National does not have a Māori vote in the whole country. Well, if it has, it is a lone one. National never had a Māori seat—New Zealand First had them all—and National still had the audacity to think it was appropriate that it should appoint someone who I notice is no longer as enthusiastic about the National Party as he used to be, and his name is John McInteer.

This is just one more repetition of that. Over and over it goes, on and on it goes—the old club, Labour and National, appointing their favourites to jobs like this. But it is particularly repugnant to New Zealand First because we know full well that when it came to that appointment we were better qualified. We have proven it. We have actually won a few Māori seats. But National has never won one. It was not a problem with Jenny Shipley. She went straight ahead, in 1999, and did just that. But then again, where is she now? Who remembers her? Likewise, this man Don Brash making the appointment—with but 6 months to go, and with not so much as a by-your-leave, he has appointed a former National Party man from way back. And then, as Tony Ryall says, who can say they have not been impartial!

Darren Hughes: Don Brash didn’t even tell Gerry Brownlee who the nominee was going to be.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: That is possibly true, but then again, that is the B team. The B team does not talk to the C team, and the C team does not talk to the A team, and we know why. Let me tell members this. No longer is Murray McCully doing the job he used to do. Is that not a fact? Murray McCully would not have been a bad appointment, because he does know something about elections and has been involved in a few, from a long way back—all the way back to when Richard Prebble beat him in 1975 in Auckland Central. I know that Murray McCully won that seat, excepting that the votes had been fixed by the Labour organisation.

Darren Hughes: Ha, ha!

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Oh yes, make no bones about it. I remember it. That experience took us to Hunua, to win a devastating petition on what we had seen in Auckland Central. Although Richard Prebble should not have got here in 1975, he did because the National Party, as usual, was not ready, was not prepared, and was not forearmed to do the job. However, here is my point. What qualifies the National Party to make these nominations?

Peter Brown: Nothing.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Nothing, at all. Precisely! National has said that it is bigger than New Zealand First. Do members reckon? Let me tell members what they will see, month after month, in 2005. They will see the rise of a third party again, and they will see another party that is above us, despairing and clawing around for having no other party even to connect with. Members know what that means. It means goodbye nurse for the National Party, and particularly when its members carry on in this way.

Hon Tony Ryall: Oh, come on!

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Let me ask Mr Ryall: when did John Isles ever consult us? When did he ever walk across and say to New Zealand First: “What do you want as a view of representation in this area?”. Do members think we will get a fair go in 2005? I do not think we will get a fair go, at all. We never got a fair go in 2002. We never got a fair go in 1999. We had all sorts of other considerations entering into it, all designed around protecting other people. But of course we in New Zealand First have learnt how to make $1 go where other parties make $10 go. It is the secret of our success, actually. We have been very frugal and very Scots about it, which is probably due to the background inheritance, legacy, and pedigree of the party itself.

But I want to make this point in closing. What is fair about the National Party getting an appointment, when its members do not comprise half of the Opposition? Can it be said by ACT that they can trust Mr Isles? We will find out shortly. Can it be said by any other party in Opposition that it can trust Mr Isles? He probably is a great man for the National Party. He has a long lineage in the National Party. He has had numerous appointments for the National Party. But that is not what this is about. In a democracy, the procedures should be open, accountable, and transparent. It is no use telling Iraq and Afghanistan to run an election properly, when we have such patent absurdities going on, back in one’s own country. That is a lesson the National Party should remember; so should its bedmates on this issue, the Government and the Labour Party.

RODNEY HIDE (Leader—ACT): I rise in support of my colleague the Rt Hon Winston Peters, and I say to the National Party and the Labour Party that it is now MMP. What we have here is a carry-over from and an artefact of a first-past-the-post stitch-up, whereby the two old parties would get together and decide what the rules of the election would be. Here they are deciding the funding that the parties will get for TV. The amount of money that will be allocated, as we see in the Dominion Post today, is to go up to $3 million. We heard from Mr Ryall that the advantage of Mr Isles—and I am not criticising Mr Isles personally—

Rod Donald: Charging his purse strings!

RODNEY HIDE: —I am not going to say that—is that he is a guy with a great name and he is a great National Party guy. We heard from the Labour Party that David Caygill would represent its interests well. Not only is that the case, but Mr Isles is supposed to represent—let us wait for it—the Opposition parties. Mr Isles is representing the National Party, and Mr Caygill is representing the Labour Party. I turn to my colleagues from the United Future party and ask them this: when did David Caygill become a member of the United Future party?

Rod Donald: He does not represent them; Mr Isles does.

RODNEY HIDE: Is United Future an Opposition party?

Rod Donald: That is what the law states.

RODNEY HIDE: So Mr Isles is to represent the United Future party. Well, I am sure that Don Brash, Gerry Brownlee, and Mr Isles consulted with the United Future party, and that Mr Isles has been off to see the United Future party and has told its members that United Future is an Opposition party, so they have him as a representative. Did they do that? There is absolute silence from the United Future members.

Here we have an absurdity—and I am sure that Rod Donald from the Greens will stand up and agree with me on this. One could not get two parties that are more different in the political spectrum in New Zealand than the ACT party and the Green Party. But the ACT party and the Green Party can agree on a stitch-up, against the interests of the voters of New Zealand and against the interests of taxpayers. I see members of the Government hanging their heads in shame, and so they should, because they are only one party in this election. I look across at the National Party, and tell its members that it may suit their purposes from a National Party perspective to have “your man” in this position, but I ask whether that serves the interests of New Zealanders. Does it serve the interests of taxpayers and does it serve the interests of democracy, when two parties can decide on who will carve up $3 million? The United Future party does not get a say. The Progressive Party does not get a say.

Simon Power: Some good has come out of that!

RODNEY HIDE: The New Zealand First Party does not get a say, nor do the Green Party, the ACT party, and the Māori Party. Mr Power may like to call out and say some good comes out of it, because some parties have been excluded. But I ask Mr Power how that serves democracy.

The idea is that the money that the poor taxpayer has been socked to pay for broadcasting will be spent without reference to parties that have been voted into this Parliament. How can that serve their interests? How can we seriously say that this is in the interests of democracy in New Zealand? It is not just a stitch-up against the parties in Parliament; it is a stitch-up against would-be parties in our democracy. What we have in New Zealand is a rule that states one cannot broadcast. That is an offence against freedom of speech. We passed a law that one cannot put an advertisement on TV. That is an offence against free speech. Why should we not advertise? Then we turn round, and the Labour Party and the National Party, having banned all would-be parties and all other parties the opportunity to advertise, then say they will allow the other parties to advertise if they comply with Labour and National’s rules. They say they will pay the money to TV3—to CanWest—and to the State-owned TVNZ, and they will give the other parties the money. But hang on; it is taxpayer money that is being given. Well, that is an offence against free speech. It is an offence against the democratic ideal of an open contest of ideas.

On top of that the National Party and the Labour Party, having denied the other parties and would-be parties the opportunity to talk through the most powerful medium that there is in politics, have then conspired to put on the Electoral Commission David Francis Caygill—he was a Labour Party candidate, a Labour MP, a Labour Minister, and a Labour Party appointee to various positions—to represent the Labour Party, and Mr John Isles, who I heard from Mr Winston Peters was a National Party candidate, to represent the National Party. I ask members who represents ACT. I know that Mr John Isles does not, and I know that Mr David Caygill does not. Who is here to represent the Greens? Who is here to represent New Zealand First? Who is here to represent the United Future party? No one. It may be all very well for the two old parties to club together again in their own seedy interests of winning the election and gaining power, but they are doing so in a cheap and tawdry way, and the ACT party opposes this motion for those reasons.

I look across to the Labour Party and to the National Party, and I say we have MMP—mixed-member proportional representation. That means that there will be multiple parties in our Parliament—multiple parties contesting an election—so I ask why those members are supporting this artefact of first past the post. Well, there is only one reason for that. It is that it serves National’s interests to cook up a deal with Labour against us—the other parties. The Labour and National members may think they are clever because they have the numbers to do that. But do they feel good about it?

Rt Hon Winston Peters: The Tamaki by-election all over, isn’t it?

RODNEY HIDE: It is the Tamaki by-election all over—the Tamaki by-election when Labour and National conspired together to do over the Alliance. Labour went in with National, and Helen Clark was a negotiator for the Labour Party to give Gardiner across to the National Party so Clem Simich could win against the Alliance! The two parties had an interest in keeping out a third party, and we see that situation time and time again.

I have a message for Labour and National: the voters are going to know that it is MMP. The voters know that they will have a choice, and I have to say that they are very, very tired and sick of the old two-party club. That is why they voted for MMP, why they will continue to vote for MMP, and why they will continue to vote for other parties. Why? Because they want something better than National and Labour are offering.

ROD DONALD (Co-Leader—Green): Before the dinner break I would like to say something positive about what has happened with regard to the Electoral Commission, and I will save my other comments for after dinner. The positive aspect of today’s debate is that we are pleased that the Minister has announced a funding increase for the broadcasting allocation. It is a good move that the funding has been increased from its 1990 level, because the cost of running election broadcasting on television and radio has increased significantly since then. Advertising rates have gone up by something like 30 percent since the last election, but the funding would have been locked for five elections at $2 million. At least now there will be $3.2 million to share amongst the parties. So I agree with the Minister—

Debate interrupted.

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

Voting

Correction

JILL PETTIS (Senior Whip—Labour): I have a brief procedural matter. Just before the dinner break when we took the vote on the Relationships (Statutory References) Bill, inadvertently a vote was cast for one member on our side of the House in both lobbies. It was the Hon Phillip Field. I want to record that Mr Field was voting against the bill. I seek leave for that voting record to be amended.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Is there any objection to that course of action being taken? There appears to be none. The Ayes are now 76 and the Noes are 42.

SIMON POWER (Senior Whip—National): I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I apologise to Mr Donald. This will not take a moment. For the sake of clarification, which vote was that for? Was it for the amendments coming from the Justice and Electoral Committee? There was also a second vote in respect of the second reading after those amendments had been passed.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): The correction is for the vote on the question that the amendments recommended by the Justice and Electoral Committee by majority be agreed to.

Appointments

Electoral Commission—Membership

Debate resumed.

ROD DONALD (Co-Leader—Green): As I said before the dinner break, I agree with the Associate Minister of Justice, Rick Barker, when he says that an informed public is critical to good democratic processes, and the Green Party is obviously very pleased that the Government has finally seen fit to increase the election broadcasting funding, especially as it turned down a similar request from the Electoral Commission in May 2002. But it will not surprise anyone, especially members of the old two-party club, that the Greens are not pleased that National and Labour appointees have power to decide how much of that total allocation will be allocated to the Green Party. It is not just the money that we are concerned about; it is also the time allocation.

The motion before us belongs to the first-past-the-post era. It has no place in an MMP Parliament. Either no parties should have representatives on the Electoral Commission or all parties should have representatives on it, including those that are registered but not in Parliament and that total about 24 at the moment. But let us face it, the public already thinks that we have our snouts in the trough, and given that the party representatives are on the commission only to allocate money and time to parties, the argument for no political party appointees is compelling—indeed, so compelling that back in 1999 the commission itself recommended the removal of party hacks.

The commission’s report stated: “The commission again submits that it is not appropriate for the commission as an independent body to have membership of this nature when it carries out any of its statutory functions. This is particularly the case when the commission is able to require parties to provide information relating to the election campaigns, and where the commission reports to the police when it believes that a candidate or party may have committed an offence.” That statement was unanimous. Even the two-party representatives supported the abolition of their positions. That was 1999; this is 2005. It has taken the Labour Government 6 years to do nothing. Mind you, the previous National Government ignored similar Electoral Commission calls for party hacks to be removed.

Let me put this issue in terms that the two old parties will understand. Letting big party hacks divvy up the broadcasting money is like asking South Africa and Australia to set the rules for all the teams in the Rugby World Cup. Quite simply, players in the political game should not also be the referees. National and Labour are stuck in a time warp. Labour’s person at least represents a party with almost a majority of the seats. National has a representative, yet its person represents a party that does not command even half of the Opposition seats in this House. As the Government representative represents only the Labour Party and the Progressive Party, the National Party representative is meant to act in the best interests not only of New Zealand First, the ACT party, the Māori Party, and the Green Party but also of United Future, despite the fact that United Future has a confidence and supply agreement with the Government. Also, that person is meant to represent all the parties that are not in Parliament at all.

I do not challenge the personal integrity of the two nominees, David Caygill and John Isles, but I point out that this process undermines the integrity and independence of our electoral process. It is totally unreasonable for political parties to have to disclose their membership numbers to the National Party and Labour Party representatives, yet we have no choice if we want the criteria to be taken into account in the allocation. The Electoral Commissions in the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, South Africa, and Australia are all free of political party representatives, and we should be too. In any case, it is totally unreasonable for Mr Isles to try to represent the competing interests of the six parties I mentioned before.

No matter how fair the members of the commission try to be—not just the party representatives but all the commissioners—no matter how wise they are, and no matter how comprehensive their criteria, they simply cannot accurately second-guess how parties will perform at this year’s election. Just look at what happened in 2002. They got the allocation badly wrong. Yes, it was fair for the Greens, compared with 1999 when we were badly disadvantaged, but there was still wide variability in the allocations. United Future got only 55c a vote. The Alliance got $3.88 a vote. National was given $1.17 a vote, while Labour received only 79c a vote.

The measure of whether the two political party representatives will act like a two-party club this year will be whether National is downgraded at this year’s election. Last time National got $617,000, the same as Labour. This time National is well behind in the polls and has only about half the number of seats. National should certainly get less than Labour if the criteria are to be properly taken into account.

But let us face it, the criteria are redundant in an MMP environment, and the Electoral Commission agrees. It wants a comprehensive review. In fact, it has been calling for a comprehensive review since 1996. It called for it in its 1999 report, and in its 2002 report it again stressed the need for a comprehensive review of the current legislation relating to election broadcasting. The select committee continues to kick for touch. It will not face up to the fundamental need to change how the electoral broadcasting regime is done. For that matter, it will not face up to the need for proper State funding of political parties.

I call on the Government to get the review under way. The Associate Minister of Justice, Rick Barker, keeps talking about it, but it does not happen. It is time to get a review under way. We have only to look as far as Australia to see what is needed—that is, a very straightforward system that will lead to political parties receiving State funding immediately after the election in direct relation to their vote at the election. So it is very much a performance-based system that I am sure some of my colleagues would support. There will be no issues about the commission having to weigh up how parties performed at the last election, whether to take the electorate vote into account—which, of course, should not be taken into account, because electorate candidates can do their own television and radio advertising—what to do with any by-election results, how many members parties have, and what the political polling is at any point in time, then try to weigh up all the criteria and come up with a conclusion. It is simply unreasonable to expect the members of the commission to second-guess what the voters will do at the election and try to predict the outcome. It is time we got rid of a system where the variations are so wide.

As I said before, instead of at the one extreme parties like United Future getting only 55c and at the other extreme parties like the Alliance getting $3.88, there would be a straightforward formula where parties would get, for example, $2 a vote after the election. Obviously, parties would need to do a lot of fundraising beforehand and perhaps even take out some loans in the knowledge that they would get some funding after the election, but it is by far a fairer system than the one we have now.

I might also add a personal note that I think it is time we looked at the issue of parties being able to spend their own money for election broadcasting. It is not a Green Party policy, but there is a certain inequality at the moment that the two old parties each got $600,000 at the last election and the next ranked parties got $166,000. There is a big gap in between. It perpetuates the system that the two old parties got three times as much exposure through the broadcasting media than any other party. I think it is time for that to be looked at, and I am pleased that the commission keeps calling for it to happen. However, I am disappointed that the Government is not getting on with it. It should get on with it now. The Government should get this inquiry under way before the election, because it never seems to happen in the period following an election. Now is the time to start.

MURRAY SMITH (United Future): I rise to speak on the motion moved by the Hon Rick Barker. United Future opposes this motion, and we will vote against it.

I start by saying that that is no reflection whatsoever on John Isles and it is not a personal reflection on his ability to do the job, but it is because we, like the other smaller parties in this House, believe that the provision of political representatives on the Electoral Commission and on the Representation Commission is anachronistic. It is really one of the last, if not the last, vestige of first past the post. It seems strange to me that the major parties want to hold on to something that is anachronistic and harking back to first-past-the-post days, when we are now well advanced in terms of the mixed-member proportional system. It is time that those parties started to release that last area and to recognise that it is no longer appropriate to have, in this day and age.

Under the proposal, the Government parties—that is, the Labour Party and the Progressive Party—would have one representative, while the Opposition parties, which comprise six diverse parties, all non-Government parties, would have one representative to represent all their diverse views. In fact, it is not as simple as saying, as the motion does, “Government” parties and “Opposition parties”, because United Future is neither one nor the other. We are a party that generally, but not exclusively, supports the Government from outside Government. In that regard, we represent a positioning between Government and Opposition that is really a new creation of MMP, and that United Future has given strong effect to, in this term of Parliament.

In previous MMP Governments, as people will know, a small party has generally been part of the Government and has supported it, but in both previous cases those parties failed to go the full distance and therefore caused huge instability in terms of Government in this country. After the last election United Future deliberately took a whole new pathway, which is the pathway of being neither in Government nor in Opposition. Instead, we are a party that has the freedom to move from one side to the other, in terms of supporting the Government or opposing it, but our pledge is not to bring about instability in our political system.

It is quite arguable, and it is probably the case, that the Greens are in a similar sort of position—albeit more tenuous in terms of their relationship with Labour. Once again, it is hard to classify the Greens as comprising a pure Opposition party: though outside Government they have a similar sort of relationship with the Government. That means that they support the Government from time to time, but oppose it most of the time.

That is a feature of MMP that makes this whole dichotomy, between Government on the one hand and Opposition on the other, a real farce. We are not in a first-past-the-post situation where two parties swap places every few years, and where one is for everything and the other is against everything. We now have a diverse range of parties, and the interests of those parties will necessarily be very different.

How can Mr Isles wear six different hats in representing National’s view on the Electoral Commission while at the same time representing the views of New Zealand First, ACT, the Greens, United Future, and the Māori Party? That is simply impossible. In my experience of situations where people are trying to represent a diverse range of views, inevitably they end up being completely impotent in terms of what they want to do. They have to go along and say: “Speaking with my National hat on I think such and such, but speaking with these other hats I think so and so.”, and so on. At best they are indecisive, and at the end they are completely unable to reach a position because their various representations prohibit them from doing so.

There really is no need for political representation on the Electoral Commission or on the Representation Commission. I reiterate comments that have already been made that in 1996 the Electoral Commission recommended unanimously that those provisions be removed, and in 1995 the Representation Commission commented adversely on the presence of political representation.

The key reason is that if there are to be political appointees, then the perception quite clearly is—even with the best of intentions, in this case, of Messrs Caygill and Isles—that there is political interference in the work of those two supposedly independent commissions. The commissions have important roles—the Representation Commission in setting electoral boundaries and the Electoral Commission in being called upon to determine issues relating to the election process. It is absolutely imperative that both of those bodies are not only apolitical in terms of their approach to making their decisions but are also seen to be apolitical.

Putting political representatives on the commissions totally undermines that process, therefore it is not surprising that both of those commissions have come out very strongly, saying: “Please take them away from us. We don’t want them. They are anachronistic. They are detrimental to our endeavour to try to create an image that we are apolitical and will treat all parties so—not just the parties already represented in Parliament but the ones yet to be represented. We are there to act in a totally unbiased way and will not give any political party preference over any other.”

It is clear, however—and it is to their shame—that Labour and National do not trust the Electoral Commission and the Representation Commission to do the job without those parties having representatives on the commissions. Labour and National are the big boys, and they want to influence the decisions of those two bodies. Why else would they put their political representatives on them? Why else would only Labour and National support the motion and all other parties, which have arisen largely as a result of MMP, oppose it? Why else would there be political appointments if they did not want politically to influence the decisions of those bodies?

What is also strange is that the Government already appoints the commissioners, anyway. If it wants to have a political influence, it has tons of opportunity for that. The Government can already put on to the commissions people that it feels will do the best job. What is it trying to do, then, by putting a representative on who has a political hat? If the Government wanted another way to do that, and if it felt that somehow the Opposition representative would counteract its political influence, it could get a cross-party agreement of all caucuses on the appointment of commissioners, to ensure that there was an apolitical element to the process.

But the Government does not need to go down that path. This is a silly provision; it needs to go. This motion, of course, would not remove it even if the motion was defeated, but it would mean that the positions remained vacant. We believe that until the parties—the Government parties in particular at the present time, but also the National Party—wake up to the facts that this is an anachronistic provision, that it is a last vestige of first past the post, and that it is time to let it go, the best option is that the positions remain vacant so that the commissions can get on and do their job in an apolitical fashion and without any perception of bias. We will oppose the motion.

Hon RICHARD PREBBLE (ACT): I have come down to the Chamber to speak against this motion, because I think it is a very, very important one. With it we are setting in some of the rules for the next election. The Government, with the help of the National Party, is nominating a representative to go on the Electoral Commission, which will hand out the money and allocate the amount of time a party can advertise on television. So we are actually seeing an example of the two old parties joining together.

Labour and National very rarely vote together against the rest of the House, and I think the media should be taking some notice of that. Why are they doing it? We know it is because this is a massive handicap system that works in favour of the two old parties. As an example, in the last election, and in the two elections before that, the two old parties agreed that whatever funding the Labour Party got the National Party would get, and vice versa. That gives those parties a huge advantage, especially when one discovers that New Zealand is one of the few countries in the world where it is illegal for a political party to buy radio or television time. The only time allowed is the time the State allocates, and if the State allocates most of the time to the two major parties, then of course they will be major parties. If they were allocated the same time as other parties, would the result of the election be different? Of course it would. Politics is a mixture of publicity, money, people, and policy and this measure ensures that money and publicity are given to the two major parties.

We have the farcical situation whereby a Mr John Isles is nominated to represent all the Opposition parties, and, as the various parties he is supposed to represent have already said, we know that he will not represent us. I know that David Caygill will not represent the Progressive Party, because once he represented me.

Hon Brian Donnelly: Did he?

Hon RICHARD PREBBLE: Yes, under the same sort of rule. He is always put up by the Labour Party. I discovered that he was representing me on the boundaries commission. When the boundaries came out I received the most unfavourable boundaries that could possibly be mathematically drawn—so unfavourable that although my vote went up in Wellington Central, I lost. The reason was that Mr Caygill and the rest of the commission decided that Cashmere and Khandallah should be taken out of the Wellington Central electorate and Newtown, for the first time ever, be put in it.

Hon Brian Donnelly: Didn’t you pick up the Newtown electorate?

Hon RICHARD PREBBLE: I actually did quite well in Newtown; but it is a bit of a handicap. What did my representative do? Of course he represented the interests of the Labour Party. I am sure that Mr Isles will go on the commission and claim that the Opposition parties think the National Party should get the same funding as the Labour Party. He has no moral right to do that, at all. Some people have been saying that those two gentlemen are men of integrity. I say that they are not. People of integrity would not accept that position, because this is a squalid political deal that has only one purpose: to rig the next election. It is a handicap system.

I put this point: the third parties that will be penalised by this—New Zealand First, the Greens, ACT, and United Future—have only themselves to blame. When the coalition agreement was being negotiated, it would have been the easiest thing in the world for the Greens and United Future to say that they would not give the Government support unless it set up a fair system for elections. I do not intend to be in Parliament next year, but I say that the third parties should get together, because it would be in their interests to have an honest, open, and transparent electoral system. It is no good deciding in election year that they should have raised the matter. I do not think that United Future will get another chance at coalition, but if it does, then before Peter Dunne sits down and decides how big his doormat is to be, he should think about putting in a clause that there has to be a fair election system.

In the US Supreme Court, this law would be struck down as being unconstitutional. The Australian High Court struck down its rules about this. These ones are even more outrageous. We could have a whole lot of alternatives. We could be like the United States, where people decide how good a party is by how well it raises money. They have a dollar for dollar subsidy on what is raised. In New Zealand a major party may have no support whatsoever yet still get the same support as the other old party.

I draw the House’s attention to this interesting situation. The Māori Party, I think, will win all the Māori seats.

Government Member: Ha, ha!

Hon RICHARD PREBBLE: The member can laugh. It does not help me to put that forward. I am just stating a fact. That is seven seats. That is about a quarter of what the National Party will get on present polling. Does anybody think that the Māori Party will get a quarter of National’s funding? Of course it will not. But the system is even more unfair than that: the two representatives decide what the television allocations will be on Television One. Who thinks that the Māori Party would want its allocation to be on Television One? Of course it would not. So not only do third parties get unfair allocations but they are then told where they have to advertise.

I have yet another criticism. If Mr Caygill and Mr Isles were any good, they would also be pointing out that the political parties do not get a good deal. Advertising time is allocated on a schedule basis. No advertiser pays the schedule rate. I have bought television advertising in the past—sometimes I have bought it for a quarter of the schedule price. I object to the fact that State television jacks up its schedule just so it can gouge the taxpayer—that is the only reason I can think of that it has a schedule—and charge twice as much per minute as it charges anyone else to be on television.

I say to the two representatives that if they really want to help Parliament, they should basically say to the commission that there should be a dollar for dollar subsidy, then let New Zealand First go out and do whatever deal it can. If New Zealand First wants to be on Sky television rather than on Television One, that should be its choice. Why are third parties forced, just because we have two old parties who cannot think past State television, to go on to that travesty of a programme? I am told by the ACT party’s advertising managers, who are supposed to be the best in the business, that the amount of seconds that third parties are given on television is not enough for them to be able to win over any votes. It is enough time only to be able to make a fool of oneself.

What is the point of spending a large sum of taxpayers’ money? At the last election I seriously suggested to the ACT party that we should just put up a sign on our space that read: “The ACT party objects to taxpayer-funded election expenses and we refuse to advertise.” We would have done just as well with a placard like that rather than having me being forced to walk along the beach or doing something equally ridiculous, which is apparently supposed to help people vote for me.

This measure is a shame on Parliament. It is a shame on the two major parties, and it is a shame on the fourth estate that they do not criticise them. When will State television point out what a rip-off this system actually is?

Bills

Animal Products (Dairy Products and Other Matters) Bill

Second Reading

Debate resumed from 1 March.

PHIL HEATLEY (National—Whangarei): I would like to continue my speech by giving thanks to those submitters to and members of the Primary Production Committee who worked with David Carter, our chairperson, and me on the Animal Products (Dairy Products and Other Matters) Bill. We had just a small number of submissions, but they were substantial, because this legislation affects a substantial industry in this country—the dairy industry. I acknowledge, in particular, the Dairy Companies Association of New Zealand, which was able to brief the select committee on the minutiae of this bill. Officials had covered that to some degree for us, but they had not foreseen some of the consequences of passing this legislation.

For example, the Dairy Companies Association of New Zealand pointed out an issue around the testing of operations inside dairy factories and dairy sheds. Regulation 8(3)(c) of new schedule 6, inserted by schedule 2, is: “(c) to enable a person to do whatever is necessary or desirable to respond to a finding that a residue in dairy material or product is unsafe or suspected to be so.” Members will recall that this bill is all about quality standards and food safety, not just in New Zealand but internationally, so for the bill to empower any person to do what is necessary or desirable to respond to a finding of a residue is quite an interesting point. The association was quite concerned that that is quite a broad power; it is a power that gives any individual huge responsibility. It was those types of submission that were of significant use to us.

This bill will come into force with the National Party’s support, because it updates the Dairy Industry Act of 1952 that currently regulates the dairy industry in relation to trade in dairy products and to food safety issues. Food safety administration in New Zealand, as it is overseas, has moved a long way since 1952, over half a century ago. International trends, international rules, and multilateral arrangements and agreements have to be adhered to. They were not foreseen in 1952, and we need to do something now. This bill facilitates the entry of the dairy industry into a climate of inter-country negotiations in relation not just to dairy products but to the offspring products that we do not necessarily equate with the dairy industry yet that originate from it.

The committee took great interest in the fact that there was a call from the industry to make sure that there is a legislative platform not only for Government to Government agreements but for access requirements across trade barriers, so that trade can occur between those seeking market access and those receiving goods from our country—that is to say, that official assurances can be given even if no Government to Government agreement exists. The reason for that is that traders, particularly those in the dairy industry, are often outstripping or moving well ahead of the bureaucrats. Those negotiating Government to Government agreements, or multilateral agreements where more than two Governments are involved, often take many, many years, whereas marketers—particularly those in the dairy industry, who are so proactive—are often well ahead in terms of marketing their products into countries where Governments have not reached agreement, at all. So there is in this bill the ability for a lower level agreement to be made through official Government assurances even when some formal multilateral arrangement is not in place.

There was a call from the industry, and we in the National Party acknowledge it, that the Director-General of Agriculture and Forestry should not be able to issue notices specifying the requirements to be met in relation to animal material or products that are to be exported—in other words, to make assurances to other countries that those goods are OK and that they have been given the thumbs up in terms of quality standards—and that those notices should not be put forward by any Government to another Government before there is consultation with the industry. We thought that that was a good call from the industry, because the industry, particularly dairy companies around New Zealand, could provide the checks and balances necessary to make sure that all market access requirements and food quality standards are met.

The bureaucrats may not necessarily have had that information. However, officials put to us that there are particular reasons why consultation at that level of detail is not necessary. The main reason is that the turnaround time for consultation with the industry every time a Government wants to make assurances to another country would prohibit trade and involve the industry in the minutiae of negotiations. We would have the issue of having to do a deal and close it because we are trading product—it is a competitive environment; we have to get on with the job—when the industry guys are demanding some sort of consultation procedure. The committee accepted, for the good of “New Zealand Incorporated” and for the dairy industry as a whole, that that should not happen.

As I say, there are four main reasons for that. The first is that there is often an urgent nature around the resolution of Government to Government agreements, so that access is gained to a particular market at a particular time through that short window of opportunity. That is the first reason. Secondly, minor or technical changes mean that the increased costs of consultation, not just in terms of time but in terms of money, resources, and people, make it completely unnecessary—where there is small detail around the fringes, why would anyone have to consult with a whole industry? The third reason is that many negotiations are restricted and confidential, and consultation would mean opening up those confidences to the wider industry. A Government to Government agreement that might involve just one particular dairy company, or strategy within that company, would be opened up to the view of competitors. That is often sensitive information and it would be inappropriate to do that. The fourth reason is that the New Zealand Food Safety Authority undertakes consultation with the industry on a continuing and regular basis, anyway. It knows where the expertise is, so why would it need to go back to the industry at every step of a Government to Government negotiation?

Those are the reasons why the National Party has supported the status quo in the bill—not to go back to the industry time and time again through a negotiation but rather to ensure that the industry is standing right beside Government officials during the period of the negotiation and that officials are well briefed beforehand. We support that view. If we recognise the ability of the dairy industry historically to get into markets overseas and to make a success of that, we must always include that industry when we are involved in marketing strategies, particularly at the higher level Government to Government agreements.

There are also issues around cost recovery in transition, whereby levies have been paid historically under the previous Act and are not necessarily rolled over into this bill, and around whether they should be refunded. We would like to address those issues during the Committee stage, because we have some concerns that levies will be charged twice from the industry and ask whether that is fair. I would be interested to hear members’ points of view on that matter during the Committee stage before the National Party presents any amendments. It is doubtful that we will do so, but that might possibly be the case. National commends this second reading of the bill to the House.

Hon MITA RIRINUI (Minister of State): I stand very briefly to support the Animal Products (Dairy Products and Other Matters) Bill, and I thank the previous speaker for his supportive comments. I also congratulate all members of the Primary Production Committee on the important work they undertook in relation to this bill, by ensuring that it went through a thorough consideration and had an unimpeded return to the House.

I feel it necessary, though, to reiterate many of the points outlined in the bill. As the previous speaker has already detailed, the bill provides for the regulation of the dairy industry under the Animal Products Act of 1999, and it repeals the Dairy Industry Act of 1952.

The bill has two very important public policy objectives. The first is to manage risks to human and animal health from the consumption and use of dairy products, and the second is to facilitate the entry of dairy products to overseas markets. This bill is very important to this country and to the industry and, coming from a dairy farming background, I for one can quite clearly state the excitement of the industry out there.

As stated by the previous speaker, the bill is required because of the limitations of the Dairy Industry Act. That Act has increasingly presented difficulties for both the Government and the industry. The bill will also provide a flexible means of managing current and potential risks posed by dairy material and dairy products.

Finally, another important matter to keep in mind is that the dairy industry is New Zealand’s largest industry, worth $5.81 billion to this economy annually. I do not have too much more to say to the bill, but once again I congratulate the Minister, the select committee, and the parties on both sides of the House.

R DOUG WOOLERTON (NZ First): New Zealand First will support this bill. We commend it to the House and support its being passed into legislation.

The dairy industry provides 25 percent of New Zealand’s exports, which I think is a particularly relevant figure. I know that it is not fashionable to separate areas of financial activity, but we in New Zealand First happen to believe that exporting is vital to our country and that exporters should be helped in any way possible.

Hon Ken Shirley: In any way possible?

R DOUG WOOLERTON: In many ways possible, as well! When this bill was being considered, we thought about removing regulations, keeping the status quo, mending the Dairy Industry Act, or having a new Dairy Industry Act, but in the final analysis it was agreed that provisions about dairy products should be integrated into the Animal Products Act, and that is what this bill does.

On behalf of our farmers and our major exporters we spend a lot of time, and the bureaucrats and the people in the Government on whom we rely to facilitate such matters spend a huge amount of time, to ensure that access to other countries for our products is—to the degree it can be—guaranteed. That is not an easy task. We are constantly having to update Acts and to rejig the things we do in New Zealand in order to line them up with the restrictive regulations of other countries—regulations that are really no more or no less than non-tariff barriers.

So that is the market where we are putting our product. It is not a friendly market; it is a hard-won market. We have thousands of people in New Zealand working hard to ensure that we remain in that market.

I will not go on about the details of the bill. I worked with a very wise gentleman for many years in the milk business. I was deputy chairman of the company.

Ian Ewen-Street: The milkman?

R DOUG WOOLERTON: No, I was not a milkman, but I might as well have been. At the time those people in the business were earning more than I was, actually.

He was a very wise gentleman, my chairman, and he always used to say to me—and it has stood me in good stead—“Doug, don’t worry about the figures. We pay people to do that. Doug, don’t worry about whether the grammar is right or whether the full stops are in the right place. We rely on their education to do all those things. What you have to look for is to make sure that what they are trying to achieve is what we as shareholders are trying to achieve, and to make sure that we are not working in their interests but that we are working in our shareholders’ interests.” I like to regard things that go through this Parliament in the same light, with the people of New Zealand—and particularly in this case the dairy farmers and the people employed by them upstream and downstream—being substituted for the shareholders.

It is important that we facilitate in any way we can the streamlining of regulations and those things that add costs to our industry participants, and this bill to a degree helps to do that. There is a clause that enables the Director-General of Agriculture and Forestry to give official assurances. Those things all used to be given in various degrees by a wonderful organisation called the Dairy Board, and I had a lot of time for the men and women who worked for that board.

They used to work at the cutting edge. The cutting edge was not technology; it was the law—international law. They used to work around it, up to it, and to all sides of it to get our products out. I admired those people for their entrepreneurial spirit and for the fact that they were able to push the boundaries to the absolute maximum, if sometimes a little too far. I would like to think that that spirit is still alive and well in Fonterra today.

Those people were the guys who used to sign off the sorts of things that we will now ask the director-general to sign off, and I think that with the entrepreneurial brains available in Fonterra, our major exporter, it is fine that the director-general takes over that role. I think it is quite right that a governmental person has that role rather than a quasi-Government body, or an industry body as the Dairy Board used to be.

We agree with the contents of this bill and we will support it, but I have to say that we must always be aware that we are here in this Parliament to try to make things easier for the people who produce for this country and for the people who export. By doing so, we can bring in the money that allows us to import what my father used to call luxury goods, and he used to frown on that as only a person who has been through the Depression could frown on things such as nice cars, nice lounge suites, and even nice food, I might say. I grew up in very hard and tough times, and I like to think that I still have empathy for those people. For that reason, New Zealand First will support this bill.

IAN EWEN-STREET (Green): The Greens will support this bill, but I personally find myself with a degree of ambivalence about it. My head tells me that bringing dairy products into line with other food products makes sense. My head tells me that reducing risks to consumers from pathogens also makes sense. So my head tells me that supporting this bill makes sense.

But my ambivalence is due to a sense of loss—a loss of innocence or something. I cannot quite put my finger on it. It marks the passing of the time when food products in New Zealand were safe simply because they were grown in New Zealand.

Maybe it is a function of my age. After all, I am old enough to remember the “milko” coming to my parents’ home in a horse-drawn cart, if one can believe it, and ladling the milk from a steel can into a steel billy, on our back doorstep. In retrospect, of course, I know that that whole process was entirely unsanitary, and I am certainly not advocating a return to it.

Milk, as somebody said, is a bacterial soup that is just waiting to be an expert transmitter of all sorts of infections and diseases. It needs to be pasteurised, handled hygienically, and kept cold. So bringing all stages of milk production under a risk management programme—from the cow’s teat to the foreign consumer—makes a lot of sense.

Of course it makes sense, but I am still a bit saddened by the process. I still mourn the passing of simpler times, when the quality of the product was paramount to the farmer. The idea of extracting maximum productivity from each blade of grass was still years away—even decades away for Mr Carter. Times were when cows grazed on the available pasture, and we did not force-feed grass with overdoses of nitrogen, superphosphate, and other chemicals. Times were when we did not have to transport irrigation water many kilometres in order to grow cows where they did not want to grow naturally. Times were when we did not need to generate more electricity to pump that water or to run the cowsheds.

These days, of course, it is the export of milk solids that is the imperative in the dairy industry. That industry is the only primary industry in New Zealand that provides a genuine commodity on the international scene. That commodity is the only thing about which we are genuinely internationally competitive, so it must have guaranteed production systems.

We must always be able to provide a product of the highest quality. We all know that. The production system must be verifiable and accountable, and exporters must know what they are getting. Any trace of pathogens or bad husbandry must be traceable back to individual herds, and once a herd is identified we can get back to individual cows.

My head knows those things, but my heart still grieves for the small operators whose doors now must always be open to bureaucracy, who face large compliance costs in maintaining their risk management programmes, and who always have to be aware that somebody will come knocking on their doors wanting to inspect what they are doing. I am sad for the solid Kiwi sharemilker who just wants to get out there and milk cows. Those sharemilkers have always done it well, always done it efficiently, and always done it in a way that ensures a safe product.

But the pressure to produce more has almost converted dairy cows into factories. We put in grass at one end and we get milk out at the other end. We put more and more chemicals on to our pasture, and we put more and more chemicals into our cows. One thing I think we overlook is that we are tending to specialise in grass species, as well. We are putting fewer and fewer grass species in front of the cows, so we are making the ecosystem consist of fewer and fewer elements, and it becomes less and less robust as we do that. Now, of course, some people also want to introduce genetic engineering—but let us not go down that road.

Yes, of course we need our risk management programmes. We need to have verifiability; we need to have accountability; we need to have traceability. We need to make sure that our food products are safe. My head says to vote for this bill, but I confess that my heart is not in it.

Hon KEN SHIRLEY (ACT): I was not going to take a call, but I found the previous contribution so interesting that I thought I would add to it. The ACT party, like, I think, every other party, will support this legislation, and that is why I do not wish to prolong the debate any longer than is necessary. But the Green spokesperson made some very interesting points. He made the observation that milk is actually a big bacterial soup—I think that was his language. He was dead right. It is also one of the most versatile products we have, after oil. An enormous array of products is made from milk and caseinates. Then the member had a romantic notion when he recalled how in his childhood the milkman used to arrive in his horse-drawn cart and ladle milk out into a billy. It makes one wonder what part of New Zealand he lived in and what decade that was.

Ian Ewen-Street: It was in Australia.

Hon KEN SHIRLEY: Was it in Australia? The member has just revealed the fact that he is an Australian; that may explain it.

There are issues of reality, if one wants to trade internationally: one has to maintain quality standards and have a standard product. Whether or not we like it, we should rejoice in the New Zealand milk industry—one of our biggest export earners, a major success story, and a key component of the New Zealand economy. But it is interesting to see the double standards. In order to trade into Europe we must maintain our standards; we must have pasteurised milk and everything in stainless steel. But the Swiss make wonderful cheeses, and they make them in old wooden boxes with non-pasteurised milk. In fact, they insist that the best cheeses need to be made in the wooden crates, because the bacteria live and thrive in the wood frame that produces the cheese. If one really wants to make that top-flavoured cheese, one would need to use the old techniques of wood and non-pasteurised milk. Of course, one would then run the risk of listeria and serious diseases like that. Hence, with our large factory production, we cannot take those risks, but must adopt standards that assure the purchasers of our products that there is minimal risk of pathogens—close to zero—and must give the assurances and have the systems in place to ensure that.

The ACT party supports this bill.

LARRY BALDOCK (United Future): I stand on behalf of United Future to support the second reading of the Animal Products (Dairy Products and Other Matters) Bill. This bill is a worthy example of what can be done to ensure best industry practice, fairness, long-term sustainability, and added value. There is nothing in the report back from the Primary Production Committee that suggests that United Future should re-evaluate its position of support for this legislation. It is a common-sense bill that will greatly benefit the dairy industry in this country. The introduction of reforms pursuant to this bill has been long awaited, and is absolutely necessary to help ensure that New Zealand’s valuable dairy industry remains in good order.

The bill is, in large part, a mechanism to bring the industry up to date, and to ensure that standards of best practice and efficiency are firmly put in place. The bill before the House rescinds the antiquated Dairy Industry Act, which is 51 years old, and consolidates a mix of legislation, some of which can be traced back to 1892. The Act is unyielding and prescriptive. The time has indeed come to put that Act out to pasture.

Because all parties in the House will support this legislation, United Future will keep its contribution brief at this stage. We will make further comments at the third reading, which we hope will occur later this week so that this useful and very common-sense legislation can be put into law for the benefit of the dairying industry.

Hon DAVID CARTER (National): It is a pleasure to take a call on the Animal Products (Dairy Products and Other Matters) Bill. I say at the outset that my colleague on the Primary Production Committee Phil Heatley has excellently analysed the technicalities of the bill, so I will confine my comments more to some of the politics of it.

Firstly, the fact that the bill received very few submissions—there were four submissions on the bill itself and two submissions on the Supplementary Order Paper—in no way decreases the importance of this legislation to our dairy industry.

The second point I want to make was touched on by my parliamentary and select committee colleague the New Zealand First member Doug Woolerton. He reminded the House in his contribution that dairy products now make up 25 percent of New Zealand’s exports. That means that this economy is vitally dependent on the future of the dairy industry. Doug Woolerton made the interesting comment that it is no longer fashionable to talk about New Zealand’s dependence on the dairy industry. I take grave issue with that view. I think it should be entirely fashionable to talk about the importance of the dairy industry to this country. [Interruption] Dianne Yates now has something to say. She had nothing to say earlier, but she is totally agreeing with me that, yes, it is fashionable to talk about the importance of the dairy industry to New Zealand.

We are now so dependent on dairying as the major contribution to export earnings that no other industry in New Zealand comes anywhere near to matching its importance. Therefore, New Zealanders ought to take note of what happens to commodity prices in that industry. To the benefit of the current Labour Government, those prices are at an all-time high, not because of any action taken by the Labour Government but because of world markets. So I take the opportunity to remind all New Zealanders of the importance of the agricultural economy, and particularly the dairy industry, to New Zealand.

The third point I want to make concerns the rather unusual occurrence whereby the bill and a Supplementary Order Paper were presented to the select committee at exactly the same time. That shows particularly unsatisfactory drafting by the Minister. My first reaction when I heard in the middle of last year that this legislation was coming to the House was again to think that Jim Sutton—“Silent Sutton”, as he is now known throughout New Zealand—had been particularly sloppy with it. But I was prepared to excuse him because, after 5½ long years of “Silent Sutton” looking after the agriculture portfolio, it appeared that he had finally had the initiative to bring into the House some legislation that might be helpful to the agriculture industry. Surprise, surprise, when we actually got to see the bill when it was brought into the House for its first reading, we found that it was not in the name of the Hon Jim Sutton, at all; it was in the name of the Hon Annette King, the Minister for Food Safety.

The point I make is that Mr Sutton finally had the opportunity to do something creditable for the farming community—to do something that could have ruined the very bad track record he has established over 5½ long years of giving nothing back to the agricultural sector—with this particular legislation, but that opportunity has now passed Minister Sutton by. He still has the unenviable record of not having promoted any piece of legislation that he can claim to have initiated, and that he can claim has made things easier for New Zealand farmers.

I was at a public meeting in Feilding yesterday amongst many, many farmers. One of the people at that meeting stood up and suggested that the Hon “Silent” Jim Sutton was responsible for the dairy reform that had taken place—the Dairy Industry Restructuring Act of, I think, 2000. “Wrong again!”, I had to say to that person. Jim Sutton only tidied up what had been initiated by the previous National Government. It was John Luxton, as the Minister responsible for agriculture, who in around 1998 staked his career on making sure that we deregulated our dairy industry. It was he and he alone who was at the forefront of the formation of Fonterra, which to date has been a remarkably successful enterprise for the New Zealand dairy industry. Mr Sutton came along after all the work had been done, and happened to be in the position to attach his name to the legislation, but I remind the House that he can take little or no credit for it.

As Mr Phil Heatley outlined very well, the Animal Products (Dairy Products and Other Matters) Bill facilitates trade. Of course the National Party supports anything that facilitates trade. In that regard, this legislation is particularly helpful. But it gives me the opportunity to think about the fact that already, because of the Labour Government, the dairy farmer in Australia has a significant advantage over the dairy farmer in New Zealand. I am referring, of course, to the free-trade agreement that Australia has negotiated with the United States of America—something that should have been available to New Zealand but was not, because the American Government quite rightly became fed up with the insults that were being tossed at it by our current Prime Minister, Helen Clark.

Ian Ewen-Street: Jolly good!

Hon DAVID CARTER: The Green member interjects. He says it is “jolly good” that Helen Clark has taken every opportunity to insult the Americans to the extent that the Americans will not allow New Zealanders to have a free-trade agreement with them although the Australians have one. Ian Ewen-Street goes on record tonight as saying that that is good for New Zealand. I say to the member that that is crazy. In every international market for our dairy products we compete with the Australians. In every market, Australia either has the lion’s share of the market with us a close second, or we have the lion’s share of the market with Australia a close second. But we are cut out of the one important market—the United States of America, which is still the biggest economy in the world—because the Australians now have a very significant advantage. And Ian Ewen-Street and Labour say that that is good for New Zealand. Well, I say that that is absolute rubbish. We are now light years behind the Australians in that regard, because of the insults of the Prime Minister to the American administration.

The important thing about this legislation is that it facilitates trade. We as a nation, particularly as we are so dependent on the dairy industry, must grab every trade opportunity that exists. The attitude expressed in this House tonight by Labour and by the Green Party is that one particular market—the United States of America—does not matter. It does. While this legislation is a step in the right direction to facilitate trade, we have another important opportunity: to seize every chance we get to negotiate a free-trade agreement with America.

In my closing comments I want to reiterate that Mr Sutton can take no credit at all for this legislation. It was handled very well by the select committee. It was put before the select committee by the Hon Annette King, the Minister for Food Safety. I still hope to see Mr Jim Sutton, before he loses his job as the Minister of Agriculture after the general election, at least take the opportunity to introduce some legislation that he can claim makes things easier for New Zealand farmers.

Hon Rick Barker: That member will never get it.

Hon DAVID CARTER: I say to the member interjecting that if Mr Sutton were to do that, we might see an end to the motions of no confidence in the Minister of Agriculture that have been moved round New Zealand—something that I have never seen before in my time in New Zealand politics.

SIMON POWER (National—Rangitikei): I wish to take a short call to wind up the discussion on the Animal Products (Dairy Products and Other Matters) Bill. Much of the detail has been canvassed by my very able and competent colleagues from the Primary Production Committee, the Hon David Carter and Phil Heatley, both here and in the work they did with the committee.

Essentially, this legislation grapples with the complex issue of food safety and, in particular, with how that issue relates to global marketplaces. Until now, the particular regulation of the dairy industry has been dealt with by the Dairy Industry Act of 1952, legislation that, if I am correct, came in at about the time Harry Truman was President of the United States.

Hon Ken Shirley: I remember it well.

SIMON POWER: The Hon Ken Shirley remembers it well. I wish I could, but I say to him that it was probably a bit before my time. However, when put in those terms, it is clear just how old the industry’s dominant and governing piece of legislation is. It was necessary legislation for the Primary Production Committee to consider. It was important that regulation around food safety and dairy products was updated not only to the 1960s but, more particularly, to a new century. Of course, at the time the original legislation governing the dairy industry was enacted we lived in a very different and protectionist period. I see Ian Ewen-Street looking back on those days fondly, wishing that Harry Truman was still President of the United States and that it was still 1952. But time moves on.

This legislation is designed to capture broadly the global perspective that is necessary for those markets to operate efficiently and, more particularly, to recognise that some legislation and regulation around food safety is necessary. I must say that I found the Green member’s head versus heart contribution to the debate—

Phil Heatley: Moving.

SIMON POWER: I would not go quite as far as that. I think that the Green member knows what is right, and I would be very surprised indeed if the Greens did not vote for this legislation, given their particular—and I choose a kind word—“obsession” with food safety. One had only to tune into question time today to see exactly how concerned the Greens are about these issues.

The fact that the dairy industry will now have its produce covered by legislation such as this means that it is important legislation for the House to recognise. Although it is worth noting in the commentary, as my colleague Phil Heatley pointed out, that “while consultation would provide checks and balances” to the New Zealand Food Safety Authority, we consider, perhaps, that it is not practical to consult on all market access requirements. Part of that is because the turn-round time on that consultation may result in lags and hold-ups. In a truly global market, taking advantage of those offshore markets in a quick and efficient way would not be possible with those levels of consultation holding matters up. In fact, it could be seen—I guess in a miniature way—as a sort of Resource Management Act of the dairy industry. Part of this is important, but being fleet of foot and being able to access those international markets at short notice is perhaps even more important. This legislation, whilst referring to the consultation as checks and balances, I think provides the necessary framework for that market agility to occur at the point at which we want to access those markets. We would find ourselves in some difficulty, frankly, if we did not have a bit of flexibility around those types of hurdles before accessing the markets where negotiations were otherwise confidential, or restricted.

I do not have a great deal more to add other than to reiterate my main point, which is that the previous legislation governing the dairy industry in 1952 was current when Harry Truman was President, and it is time to move on. It is time for a new legislative framework—

Hon David Carter: A great man.

SIMON POWER: He was a great man in many ways—even for a Democrat. In fact, history has remembered him better than his contemporaries have. But this is not a discussion about Harry Truman; it is a discussion about this dairy industry legislation. I just say this: the time is right, and I believe that this House will support this legislation in a way that shows that every party in this Parliament understands the importance of international markets, global access, and being able to be fleet of foot when making decisions, meeting the food safety requirements, and getting our goods into those markets to benefit this economy.

JILL PETTIS (Labour—Whanganui): There have been some very positive speeches tonight. I think that that speaks volumes, and it speaks significantly about the recognition by this House of the importance of the Animal Products (Dairy Products and Other Matters) Bill, and of the importance of agriculture to this country’s economy.

There are occasionally times in this House when we all rise together in support of legislation that is in the country’s best interest. I am pleased to take this very brief opportunity to congratulate colleagues who have spoken well, and to support the bill.

SHANE ARDERN (National—Taranaki-King Country): I was not expecting to take a call on the Animal Products (Dairy Products and Other Matters) Bill tonight, but I am pleased that I have the opportunity. It is interesting to note that there is confusion between myself and the whip, but I will talk to him about that later.

This is very important legislation that we are debating here tonight, because it is for an industry that contributes 25 percent of this country’s export earnings. It is the largest single industry in New Zealand, and I will never let this Parliament forget it. It is the biggest industry in New Zealand, and it is made up of 13,500 hard-working New Zealanders—the mums and dads that this Government purports to represent but never has. The Prime Minister has never mentioned them once in her opening speeches to Parliament—there has not been one single mention of the dairy industry or of agriculture.

This legislation will help that industry to get on with what it is good at, which is trading internationally. As previous speakers have said, this bill updates the 1952 Dairy Industry Act, which of course has fallen by the way, as it were, in a number of ways because it is so old. This industry is a very modern one and trades now in a wide range of different products. Because of that, legislation needs to be updated to assist the industry with its trade. The dairy industry not only exports products commonly known as commodities but has also gone into products now like pharmaceuticals and nutraceuticals. In fact, the biggest growth in the industry is in that value-added end, and that is why this legislation has been recommended by the industry to tidy up some of the loose ends that have occurred as a result of some of that sophistication.

This bill was considered by the Primary Production Committee. I know that that is a very, very good select committee, and that those who are on it would have given due consideration to some of the issues raised by various submitters from the industry. It is my understanding that all of those who submitted to the committee were in favour of this legislation. It is very seldom—and the member for Whanganui touched on this—that we have total support for legislation in this Parliament. But when we have all submitters in favour, right across all sectors, then we will of course always have a much more supportive House in relation to getting the legislation passed. The legislation upgrades a number of areas within the dairy industry’s trading arms, and for that reason the industry came forward and asked for it to be passed.

I have been a part of this industry all my life. It has been much maligned at times by political commentators and other economic experts—Treasurers and the like—who purport to have some knowledge in this area. But I say to them that they should front up with some facts at times, instead of being sideline critics and taking cheap shots at what has been a remarkable growth industry over the last 10 years. In fact, the industry has grown faster than any other industry in New Zealand, so I say to critics to front up with some facts about how it could have done better.

There was much debate in the House not that long ago about the structure of the industry, and whether Parliament should be involved in the formation of Fonterra. I think history has proved the critics wrong. The industry has gone forward, overwhelmingly, and it is still growing strongly. I will be interested to hear contributions from others, though, because I know that they may have a different view.

This industry is still growing strongly and I wish it well with its current negotiations in Australia, because yet again that will be another major frontier from where we can push forward into a market of 19 million people, then have leverage off that into the South-east Asian area. I say to the industry: “Good luck with your negotiations in that regard.” I will not add too much detail to that because I know that some of it is still confidential, and I know that plenty out there will be taking cheap shots at it, as well.

I say as well that this industry is not only very good in its marketing structures but it is also very good in its manufacturing structures. The dairy company site in my area in the south of Taranaki—in the member for Whanganui’s electorate, I hasten to add—is still the largest single manufacturing site for dairy products in the world. Where else can we put our finger on an industry that has singularly been so successful? Not only is that dairy company the largest; it also manufactures over 2,000 different product ranges, from the very high-end, sophisticated pharmaceuticals and nutraceuticals to the basic commodities of skim-milk powder and suchlike.

The industry itself has gone through some growing pains, and there have been various times when parochialism and politics have had too much of an influence over it. But I guess the fact that we are now in a position where the dairy industry came to this Parliament to have a bill such as the one before us tonight tidied up, demonstrates to us that the industry is on top of the issues that concern it.

I was not a member of the select committee so I do not know exactly what was discussed or debated with regard to the number of issues that were raised in submissions, but I do know that those submissions were overwhelmingly in support of this change. So I recommend the bill to the House tonight, and I know that the House will support it. This is a very good day for the dairy industry.

Hon RICK BARKER (Minister for Courts): I rise to support the Animal Products (Dairy Products and Other Matters) Bill, and I note that it is the Labour-Progressive Government that has introduced this legislation. It is the Labour-Progressive Government that has taken the concerns of the dairy industry on board. Despite the protestations of Opposition members, who normally just oppose, oppose, and oppose, we have put forward a very progressive bill that will protect the interests of the dairy industry in the long term.

We are very concerned about the dairy industry’s well-being. The progress of the dairy industry is vital to the health of the New Zealand economy, and this Government takes its obligations very seriously indeed. I think that Opposition parties have been churlish in their criticism of the Government when trying to claim that it does not take the interests of dairy farmers to heart. This bill is ample demonstration that it does. This Government is about action: there was an issue; we have dealt with it; and we will continue to deal with other issues in the future.

Bill read a second time.

Bills

Lawyers and Conveyancers Bill

Second Reading

Hon PHIL GOFF (Minister of Justice): I move, That the Lawyers and Conveyancers Bill be now read a second time. I would like to thank the Justice and Electoral Committee for its consideration of the bill. I accept all but one of the committee’s amendments, and I intend to move a Supplementary Order Paper in relation to that amendment at the Committee of the whole House.

The vast majority of submitters agreed that there was a need to reform the regulatory regime for lawyers. This bill replaces the existing regulatory framework for lawyers with a co-regulatory regime that also covers the new profession of conveyancers, created by the bill. The new regime will enable both professions to respond more effectively to the changing needs of consumers and suppliers in the legal services market.

Many areas of work traditionally reserved to lawyers, such as conveyancing and the making of wills, will be opened up to other service providers. Consumers will have greater choice about where and from whom they purchase their legal services, and suppliers will have greater choice about the range of legal services they provide. Freeing up the market in this way will not, however, compromise consumer protection. Those areas of legal work requiring the level of expertise and knowledge that can be gained only by completing a law degree and obtaining a practising certificate will remain the preserve of lawyers.

Consumer protection will be further enhanced by a strengthened complaints and disciplinary scheme. The first of its three tiers is an accessible, low-level complaints service, funded and operated by the professions. The second tier is a complaints review body appointed by the Government and independent of both professions. The third tier is a disciplinary tribunal comprising professional and lay representatives. The new occupational framework for lawyers and conveyancers combines the benefit of industry self-regulation, flexibility, innovation, and industry buy-in with sufficient regulatory oversight to maintain consumer confidence.

I turn now to the changes to the bill recommended by the committee. The new purposes clause in Part 1 gives greater emphasis to the bill’s aims of consumer protection and the maintenance of public confidence in the legal and conveyancing professions. The changes in clause 6, dealing with interpretation of terms, are largely technical. An important clarification, however, is made in the amended definition of “reserved areas of work”. This term could have been interpreted as meaning that non-legal specialists, such as accountants and patent attorneys, could no longer advise clients on matters within their area of expertise, if those matters relate to litigation proceedings. The bill will not, and was never intended to, have this effect. Although lawyers retain the exclusive right to appear for clients before courts and tribunals and to provide advice on the direction and management of court and tribunal proceedings—that is, subject to statutory exceptions—this will not prevent non-legal specialists from providing litigation-related advice. I am confident that the committee’s amendment will clarify the policy intent.

The committee has also recommended amending the definition of “conveyancing” to address concerns that the term could capture work currently undertaken by non-legal specialists in areas such as taxation and intellectual property. It is not intended that any additional work should be reserved to lawyers, and the amended definition makes this clear. The committee also recommended two changes to the definition of “misconduct” in relation to the provision of regulated services by employees. I am comfortable with the first of those changes, which clarifies that volunteer lawyers in community law centres or citizens advice bureaus can provide regulated services to the public. I do not, however, support the committee’s second amendment to that provision. The amendment is intended to clarify that lawyers employed by non-legal specialists are not prevented from holding a practising certificate if they are providing legal services to their employer’s clients.

I understand that the committee drafted that amendment to address concerns raised by the accountancy profession. There is no intention to stop in-house lawyers employed by non-legal specialists, such as accountancy firms, from holding a practising certificate. Nor do we intend to prevent those employed lawyers from providing a full range of legal services to their employer, or from assisting their employer to provide certain services to the employer’s clients. However, the committee’s amendment is inconsistent with the bill’s prohibition against multidisciplinary practices and could undermine consumer protection. Both the accountancy and legal professions are now in agreement that the committee’s amendment is unnecessary and should be dropped. I therefore intend to move a Supplementary Order Paper at the Committee of the whole House to replace that clause and to clarify the intent of the original clause.

There are also changes to the “misleading descriptions” provisions in Part 2. The committee wanted to address the problem where a service provider who is not a lawyer uses a title such as “legal specialist” with the intention of causing clients to think that he or she is a lawyer. The amendments will provide additional safeguards against non-lawyers attempting to pass themselves off as lawyers, and I know that that was something Lianne Dalziel was particularly interested in.

I support the enhancements made by the committee to the complaints and disciplinary provisions in Part 7. It is recommended that standards committees be empowered to direct publication of their decisions, that the legal complaints review officer be empowered to publish its decisions, and that the chair of the disciplinary tribunal be required to publish the notice of an order prohibiting a person from employment by a law firm. These changes will improve the accountability and the transparency in the complaints and disciplinary scheme. Changes to widen remedies for complainants and enhance the cost-recovery and enforcement procedures will make the scheme more accessible and effective, and improve procedural efficiency.

In Part 8, which deals with the functions and powers of the New Zealand Council of Legal Education, the committee has recommended changes to the formula and process for setting the levy on lawyers to address the concerns of the Law Society and the council. These will lower the levy ceiling, require the Law Society to consult the council in setting the levy, and provide for the matter to be referred to the Minister where agreement cannot be reached. These proposals appropriately balance the interests of both parties and will improve the workability of the provisions.

There is a change to the Part 9 provisions relating to the division of interest on nominated trust accounts. The bill as introduced provided for community law centres to receive 55 percent, and the banks to receive 45 percent. On the basis of the submissions made by the Bankers’ Association and community law centres, the committee has recommended an increase in the proportion of interest received by community law centres to 60 percent, with the banks’ share reducing to 40 percent.

The committee supported the requirement in Part 10 for each profession to maintain a fidelity fund for consumer protection purposes. It has, however, recommended an additional rule-making power for the respective societies, enabling them to make rules providing for the minimum size at which the fidelity fund must be maintained if it is to be held out as a protection for clients.

I thank members of the Justice and Electoral Committee for their contribution, which has resulted in improvements to the bill. The bill will enable the legal profession to continue to provide high levels of service to the New Zealand public, and will enable the long overdue establishment of the occupation of licensed conveyancers. I commend this bill to the House.

Dr RICHARD WORTH (National—Epsom): On behalf of the National Party I say that with some reservations, which will be covered more fully by myself and by other members of National, we support the Lawyers and Conveyancers Bill. But we do so against the background that this bill provides for a long, cherished hope that the present Minister, who is a non-lawyer, has had for non-lawyers to carry out conveyancing tasks. I wish to say something about that in the course of the short period of time I have to speak about this legislation.

The purposes of the bill are simply stated: to maintain public confidence in the provision of legal and conveyancing services; clearly, to protect the consumers of those services; to recognise the status of the legal profession; and to establish the new profession of conveyancing practitioner—Mr Goff’s dream. All that is miraculously encompassed in no less than 350 clauses and seven schedules. In fact, there are more clauses than that, because a number of clauses have additional lettered clauses.

There are parts dealing with the restrictions on the provision of legal services and conveyancing services, the admission and enrolment of barristers and solicitors, a whole lot of material on the New Zealand Law Society and the new fangled New Zealand Society of Conveyancers, and the conduct of practice by practitioners. There are also parts dealing with complaints and discipline, the New Zealand Council of Legal Education, and so on.

I would like to talk about some specific aspects of the bill that I believe should warrant the concern both of the profession and of the public. I do that against the background of the New Zealand Law Society’s having a respected and honoured history. The New Zealand Law Society was established by statute in 1869, and in this bill we are amending legislation set out in the Law Practitioners Act of 1982.

There has been a concern—and I can speak of this with some knowledge, because I was a treasurer of the New Zealand Law Society for a number of years—that the work of the society has been made more difficult by the number of districts there are throughout New Zealand. Quite clearly, the functions of the New Zealand Law Society and district law societies have overlapped to some extent. That has been particularly demonstrated in smaller district law societies, where it has been troublesome for them to administer a complaints and discipline function when they have known their confreres almost too well.

The issues I would like to talk about tonight concern the reservations I have in respect of this legislation. The first issue is that lawyers have traditionally maintained a fidelity fund. That is a hark back to the period when lawyers were actively involved in the business of moneylending. It was a period in New Zealand’s history, which continued for quite a significant time, when banks provided a most limited range of financial products and when lawyers substantially provided second mortgage finance on a flat basis for relatively short terms. There was always a risk, because for lawyers to be involved in that business was not seen as necessarily compatible with the delivery of legal professional services, so to manage the risk a fidelity fund was established.

It is the Government’s plan—which is wrong in my view, completely wrong—that the present bill should legislate for that fidelity fund to continue in place. I would say that no sufficient case has been shown for the continuation of the fidelity fund, under Part 10. In case people think that some special exception is being made for lawyers, I tell them that is not so, because the fund has been abolished for most other occupations, including chartered accountancy, motor vehicle dealing, and sharebroking. The fund had its place when lawyers were actively involved in mortgage lending, but the current range of banking products has meant that lending by lawyers is rare, and in the major urban areas it is exceedingly rare. So the fidelity fund is the first point.

The second issue I would like to deal with is the Minister’s plan for this New Zealand Society of Conveyancers. I would like to draw to the attention of this crowded House, and this crowded gallery, the fact that the Justice and Electoral Committee heard evidence from the New Zealand Law Society that there might be five or six persons who would be qualified to join the society, and that there is the faint possibility that Australian conveyancers might also seek to join. The indication in looking ahead—Mr Goff’s fulfilment of his dream—was that there might in total be seven or eight such people in the future. That clearly raises the justification for highly prescriptive statutory rules, and signals the impossibility for this New Zealand Society of Conveyancers realistically to fund a fidelity fund. How could eight people fund a fidelity fund?

Russell Fairbrother: It could work in New Zealand!

Dr RICHARD WORTH: It is foolishness in the extreme. I do not know who that troublesome young member is who is interrupting at the moment, but I would like to go on and deal with another issue that relates to reserved areas of work. Mr Goff has indicated some further changes are required to that part of the bill by way of a Supplementary Order Paper, and we need to see what those changes are. But quite clearly it is critical that the law be clear, and that it permit, for example, taxation lawyers to practise in accounting firms.

The next area concerns complaints and discipline. I am not persuaded by that—in my view—cumbersome and overly bureaucratic structure proposed in the legislation, albeit that the Law Society has blessed that model. I would rather see that the legal complaints review officer was reconstituted as a legal ombudsman resourced by the legal profession.

Finally, in the limited time I have I shall talk briefly about the last issue, the question of rule-making powers. National is concerned that issues of policy like compulsory legal education, like permission for senior counsels to practise within law firms, and like compulsory indemnity regimes, are being left to rule-making powers. There is also a proposal in the legislation that the Minister approve such rules.

I shall take one example, which is the whole issue of professional indemnity insurance. Now, insurance is a significant cost for lawyers. The reality for most law firms is that the market is an English market, either accessed locally or through Lloyd’s of London. Each year the terms and conditions of acceptable cover change, as the underwriters form a view as to the acceptability of the risk.

This is an area where the Minister and the Government should not be involved. What will happen is that the making of rules touching things like maximum indemnity levels, terms and conditions of cover, and minimum acceptable indemnity levels—I am talking about excesses when I make that comment—will change, year in and year out. It is an issue for lawyers to grapple with as to what is acceptable and appropriate cover, both in terms of affordability and in terms of looking after the people to whom they provide legal services.

I am not aware, and I do not think that National is aware, of comparable powers being held by a Minister of State in respect of any other professional organisations. I do not believe that the Minister, with all the skill he may have as a non-lawyer, is in any better position than the New Zealand Law Society on rule-making issues, or that he—or she, as it may be in the future—will be able to strike a balance between the interests of the legal profession and the interests of the consumer. So those are the reservations that I offer

Of course, we see in this legislation a further step that the Government is taking towards its determined path of republicanism. I express regret that the bill proposes that the office of Queen’s Counsel should go. I express the hope that when there is a change of Government, probably in the period of September 2005, a bold National Government will reinstate the role of Queen’s Counsel.

RUSSELL FAIRBROTHER (Labour—Napier): This is a lengthy bill that has been long in development. It has been long in development because it is the work of the Minister of Justice, in his aim to make the law applicable to people who cannot afford high-priced services, but who need good quality delivery of legal work. [Interruption] That is reflected in the conveyancers’ provisions that Mr Franks has not read. The bill enables the development of a profession of conveyancers who concentrate on the straightforward transactions in land sales.

The important thing about the bill is that it is the child of the Minister of Justice, and the Law Society itself. That takes us to how we should approach this lengthy bill. Members will not find in the bill the essence of what is a lawyer, and they should not. Lawyers, probably along with politicians and doctors, are the last true professionals in our society. They are professionals because they put the public interest ahead of their own personal gain. It is that paradoxical position where one earns one’s income because one advocates against one’s own personal interest. Most lawyers—in fact, all lawyers—are bound by their obligation to the court to accept instructions, even though they personally may not approve of or like what is happening. As long as what they do is advancing their client’s interests and is not deliberately misleading another party or the court, then they stand aside their personal feelings and recognise their obligation, steeped in a long period of study and experience, to advance the cause of those who do not have those advantages.

As I look at clause 4(a) I find some reference to the essence of what being a lawyer is all about. It refers to upholding the rule of law and the administration of justice. These terms are very easy to write and very easy to read, but are very rarely understood. We hear on many occasions in this House members of this Parliament who seem to fail to understand what the role of a lawyer is in this society. Too often they align the position a lawyer takes as being a lawyer’s personal position, as opposed to the position taken by a doctor on behalf of a patient.

To uphold the rule of law a lawyer must put aside his or her feelings and make sure that the law develops in an organic fashion. Whether it be a conveyancing practice or a commercial practice, or whether a lawyer’s work is in arbitration or at the cutting edge of the court, he or she must advocate to advance his or her client’s interest. In the hurly-burly of legal practice, the truth emerges from debate and the adversarial system. In this bill we see that, by the introduction of the concept of conveyancers. There may be only eight people today who want to be conveyancers. There may not be a great demand for them, but we will not know until it operates. If conveyancers lower the cost to the average person who is buying and selling houses and still deliver a good product, then much will have been achieved in this bill.

This bill should stand as a salutary reminder to the firms that now seem to require themselves to populate high-rise towers in the middle of our city streets and to have men who wear uniforms, which are dark suits—they all look alike; they could be street cleaners, with shiny shoes—who charge exorbitant fees and go to the top of the market for their work. The top of the market does not trickle down. It is the people at the bottom, on low wages, who have to find the community law centres, and find law firms that will now do legal aid. A law firm that does legal aid is now a rarity. One is more likely to find a firm that says it does not do legal aid. To be a true lawyer in this society, one must be prepared to do pro bono work and to act for those who cannot afford the top-flight services. Paying a lawyer a lot does not mean that one gets good services. Delivering a good job for one’s client, in the public interest, means that one is a good lawyer, as long as he or she abides by his or her obligations to the court and puts his or her client’s interests ahead of his or her personal interests.

Members will not find in this bill the essence of what is a lawyer. It is not a prescriptive bill. It is a bill that sets up a regime for the Law Society to govern itself, because the essence of a true provision is a society that governs itself in the interests of the public. So I urge this bill upon the House. It has been a long time coming. It is long overdue. It demonstrates to the profession at large, particularly those insular members of the profession who spend their time in high-rise buildings, that many members of the public require a range of services that cannot be reached by a fast-moving lift.

DAIL JONES (NZ First): The previous speaker from the Labour Party spoke with a great deal of sincerity and a great deal of knowledge about the criminal law side of a lawyer’s work—a side he is very familiar with and very well qualified in. Unfortunately, however, when he started to drift into conveyancing, especially modern-day conveyancing, perhaps in Queen Street or on Lambton Quay, he was totally off the mark. Those big, shiny law firms, with their lawyers in their dark suits and shiny shoes, would not know a mortgage from a search of a title, but they could tell us all about bank debentures and the like.

In 1963 when I started off as a law clerk, law firms in Auckland did everything. The senior partner did the conveyancing and the big finance deals. Today that does not happen. Those who work in big law firms today and are members of the conveyancing team are never ever able to match the amount of fees earned by those who are part of the corporate banking team. The people on the conveyancing side struggle to do about one-fifth of the fees earned by the people on the corporate banking or other side. All that those people in those big shiny offices ever do—if they do any conveyancing at all—is to provide a service to existing clients, and such like. They are not there to make money, because at Queen Street prices there is no money to be made in conveyancing. That is why people are moving out into the suburbs. That is the only way they can afford to do conveyancing. Lawyers will tell us that they have no problem in competing with conveyancers, because conveyancing fees from lawyers are so low already that if anyone else can do it for a lower fee and still pay all the costs lawyers have to pay in the way of fidelity fund, professional fees, and such like, then “Good on them—let’s have the competition.”

At least that is where this bill provides a level playing field. If we are to have conveyancers, then bring them on. But, as any lawyer would say, they must have a fidelity fund as well, because if lawyers have to have a fidelity fund then so should conveyancers. The problem for conveyancers, of course, will be that if they have only five, eight, 10, or even 20 members, then that is too few in number to fund a fidelity fund adequately. As Mr Worth pointed out, at the moment it is a struggle, with all the insurance and other things involved, to keep a fidelity fund going when there are 1,000 members.

If the honourable Minister Phil Goff and Mr Russell Fairbrother think that conveyancers can get under way with a fidelity fund when they have only seven or eight members, then, as far as this is concerned, they are trying to hoodwink the public. In that sense this bill is an entire sham. To put lawyers and conveyancers into the one piece of legislation is, to take the medical profession as an example, like putting obstetricians and midwives into the one piece of legislation. My experience with obstetricians and midwives is that they have no time for each other at all, and up until now lawyers and conveyancers have had very little time for each other, as well. This bill will change that and, as I said, lawyers have no problem with that whatsoever.

As far as the bill is concerned, New Zealand First will support it. We have a couple of issues to raise, one of which relates to Queen’s Counsel and the inclusion of a new thing called senior counsel, by way of statute. As mentioned by the Minister, there is a change to the provisions in clause 276 that means that banks will now have to run those accounts at a loss. They will pass on the costs to the lawyers, who will, of course, then pass them on to their clients. As a result, this bill will have the effect of making conveyancing and legal services even more expensive. I will come to that in a moment.

As far as introducing senior counsel is concerned, we already have senior counsel in the court system. Often a judge will refer to someone as senior counsel rather than as Queen’s Counsel, which is a title that is awarded. We currently have a system of senior counsel, and those senior counsel are usually lawyers who appear before the court. We are now to have a senior counsel system that will effectively remove the title of Queen’s Counsel. The senior counsel system will apply to those who might be working in an office in a high-flying law firm, or perhaps in a firm out in the suburbs, based on their experience and such like. Many lawyers will be confused for a long time as to what is meant by the term “senior counsel”, as we already have that term in practice. Some other name might have been used. It is not only the title of Queen’s Counsel that we are getting rid of but also the special role that Queen’s Counsel have. If called upon, Queen’s Counsel must appear for the Crown and assist it in a case. We are to get rid of that situation, and the Crown will then appoint certain people to assist it—I will not say “cronies”, because the trouble with appointing lawyers who we think might be cronies is that because of their traditions, experiences, and such like, they often disagree with one straight away. It is very hard to get lawyers to do what any particular client may want. It goes against their whole training and experience.

Getting rid of Queen’s Counsel is a sad day for New Zealand. As Mr Worth pointed out, it is just another example of this Labour Government’s republican attitude. It got rid of the Privy Council and it now has a select committee on the constitution whose chairman, Peter Dunne, has already shown his republican sympathies by suggesting he is looking forward to the day that New Zealand ceases to be any part of a monarchy and becomes a republican state. That is the way the Labour Party is going, supported by United Future and Peter Dunne. There is no reason to get rid of Queen’s Counsel.

I have never aspired, or felt inclined, to be in that position, but I have the greatest admiration for those who have the brain, who have the ability, who work hard, and who aspire to doing something day in and day out at the highest possible level of the profession. That is what being Queen’s Counsel is all about. It shows up the people who are the very, very best of the profession. Senior counsel will not do that, because they will be hidden away in law firms and never appear before a court. We will never know who those people are. It will just be x, y, and z senior counsel who are very good at the Northern Club, the Wellington Club, and, perhaps the Wellesley Club—“So and so is senior counsel now, whatever that means.” Queen’s Counsel have to prove themselves before judges and before the whole country, and that is a very important role. It is sad that the level of attainment we insist upon for the All Blacks—the top 30 who play out there on the field—because we want to see the best in sport, is not the same as for the law, with its tradition going back about 700 or 800 years. This Labour Government wants to get rid of that tradition, because somehow or other it is linked to the monarchy.

My other point, which I have lodged by way of a Supplementary Order Paper, relates to clause 276 and the reduction in the amount available to the banks. At the select committee, Lianne Dalziel made the point quite clearly as we discussed the matter around the table—I seem to recall that the point was raised, and she was discussing it, too—that if we reduce the amount available to the banks below cost, then the banks, if they are making loss, must pass that on. The information that has been made available to us all is that on the figures, now at 40 percent, the banks will make a loss.

Murray Smith: No, they won’t!

DAIL JONES: Mr Smith can make his comments if he likes. I have the information from the banks. Mr Goff has been misinformed, if he says the select committee discussed it fully. The banks will make a loss, and the costs will be passed on. The clients of lawyers will have to pay. Time will tell whether I am correct, but the banks told us they will make a loss. I have the information, and I will table it further at the Committee stage. If the Labour Party wants to see the banking system make a loss, then that is up to the Labour Party. But, of course, the costs will be passed on to lawyers’ clients when doing conveyancing transactions. They will be shown in disbursements. The lawyers will just pass them on. At the end of the day they will probably even have GST added on to them, as well.

This is a sad state of affairs—and so far as community law firms are concerned that is great. If I look back at, say, 1984 when I was out of Parliament and starting up a law practice, if there had been a community law centre in Kūmeu I probably could not have started a practice. But there was not one, and I went ahead and formed my own practice myself. I did not need any support from the State. Nowadays one disadvantage of the community law centres—which I set up in the 1982 legislation; that is where they were all started—is that, with so many of them, they now hinder the establishment of law practices. Greater consideration must be given to the way in which they operate.

STEPHEN FRANKS (ACT): I am surprised that I am not following the honourable Lianne Dalziel, but—never mind! This bill is very interesting if one is a lawyer. It is probably hard to get a lot of interest if one is not, but it is a really—

Simon Power: It’s hard enough if you are!

STEPHEN FRANKS: No, no. It is quite easy to get interested if one is a lawyer when one realises what a mark this is on the Hon Phil Goff’s career. I think he is one of the few Ministers who the Prime Minister can correctly describe as “hard-working and conscientious”. His reputation for diligence extends to doing the sort of staff work that means he can do the things he has done very well—the rescue he made of the Prime Minister after 9/11’s terrorist attack in New York, and other things.

But occasionally, of course, Atlas shrugs. In this case, the bill started as a campaign—a crusade—in the interests of all those poor suffering clients of conveyancing practitioners. I think that that was in 1998, and in that year it was relatively straightforward—[Interruption]—or was it in 1997? We needed to reform the legal profession with a deregulatory opportunity for greater competition.

As I said, this bill might be one of those blights that I am sure many hard-working and conscientious Ministers fear, and it is the reason why they do their homework late at night. I suspect that the reason we did not see the bill in its second reading until 2005 is that the Minister is deeply ashamed of it. It achieves virtually none of the objectives he would set for himself, or the standards he would have for the legislation he wants to see in his name. It achieves nothing for New Zealand. It does not even achieve much for the Law Society, except a set of own goals.

This bill will probably go down as being one of the low-water marks of legal drafting, not in terms of the draftsman’s technical competence but in terms of the ability to take a set of principles and a set of objectives, to walk them past the interest group, and to get them translated into a structure that achieves all of the slogans originally claimed for it. The original driver of the bill may have been the need to reflect changes in the market and in legal practice, and to create a more flexible regulatory regime, but what we actually have is an incredibly prescriptive edifice—360 pages in this case—that we could compare with the very successful regime for accountants.

I think that the accountants’ bill, at a similar stage, was about 40 pages. It was a good bill, and it is working. There is no significant difference between the role lawyers perform in maintaining confidence in the integrity of the justice system and the role auditors perform in maintaining confidence in the integrity of financial reporting—not in terms of the stresses, the conflicts of interest, and the pressures. There is virtually nothing that can seriously distinguish one from the other.

We know that those who are in the small subset of the profession in the Law Society are proud of this bill. We know it from the submissions from the Law Society, and from the process whereby every time the Justice and Electoral Committee or anyone else seemed to make a comment, the Minister’s officials trotted back to get their instructions from that major interest group. We were told that the provisions of the bill reflect in general terms a model unanimously agreed upon by the New Zealand Law Society Council and all the district law societies in 1998. That is what was said. We were told that last year.

So this bill is the achievement of the dream of the body the Minister wanted to deregulate. It is pretty hard to imagine that it actually does anything that seriously threatens those residual monopoly powers that the generally smaller practitioners in the Law Society were so desperately keen to preserve. We have own goals right at the start. We have a statement of fundamental obligations that very few country practitioners could live up to. How can the smaller communities in this country require that their lawyers have no conflict of interest, when in fact they are always involved in transactions with the clients of their own clients on the other side? They are relied on for having the integrity to transcend their conflicts of interest, not to make sure they do not have them.

Right at the beginning of this bill’s process we see that it was captured by people with very little conceptual framework. Had the Minister waited long enough, he could have drawn on some very recent stuff. On 24 February 2005, the Irish Competition Authority came out with a massive study of competition in legal services. The Minister could have used some principles from that.

It would have saved this country an awful lot of wasted money and time if this bill had been quietly dropped. No one would have complained except the Law Society, and who would have cared if it were the society? Of course, National cares because National kicked this off. The Hon Tony Ryall kicked off this whole process just before the 1999 election, when I think he succumbed to Law Society pressure and promised it something, probably feeling that he would sort it out when he got back into Government. But, of course, National did not return to Government.

The Minister wanted his conveyancing bill to go ahead but found foreign affairs to be much more interesting, much more pressing, and much more important. So he left the bill to his officials who, in turn, left it to the Law Society, and we ended up with his little bill, ambitious but reasonably simple in concept, transformed into this doorstop bill.

The Minister could have looked at, say, the UK Office of Fair Trading reports on the future of Queen’s Counsels for a way of analysing things in principle, at the UK Office of Fair Trading report on competition and professions or, maybe, at the report that was commissioned by the New Zealand Law Society when it got a firm of economists to do a grassroots, ground-up evaluation of the law profession in the future—multidisciplinary practices, all the hard issues—but the Law Society Council panicked, and then suppressed that report in the mid-1990s. I think Judith Collins might have been involved at that stage. The society flatly panicked. It suppressed four chapters in case the report saw the light of day and gave any momentum towards a genuine deregulation. But that report would have been around somewhere if the Minister’s officials had just thought to ask, and the Minister might have had—

Judith Collins: I have it at home.

STEPHEN FRANKS: The member still has the suppressed document at home—the secret codicils to the report that the society never wanted people to see. I wonder if the society paid for it. Does the member know whether it paid?

Judith Collins: I think it was about $50,000.

STEPHEN FRANKS: Those were very well-spent dollars. The report was very well conceived, but the society panicked and would not allow even its own members to see it.

Yet this is the society that the Minister has now got into bed with and that is now going to push this bill through with the assistance of National, because who wants to be against the powerful interest groups when one is a member of New Zealand First or of the National Party. Even if members think this is a crock they will vote for it, because, well, the Law Society says it wants it.

At least the Minister will not be alone in his embarrassment over this bill, as the future unwinds in the disciplinary process. Here is the proud Law Society, the self-governing profession, that bulwark of the citizen against the State, now handing over the control of its rule book to the Minister. It has handed over the disciplinary authority to people appointed by the State. What does the society have left? What brand control does it have?

It has the lowest common denominator—the same structure, essentially, that has governed schoolteachers. Why are schoolteachers so universally underpaid? The reason is that they are in a least common-denominator system whereby the State exercises all the control. What do we have ahead for the law profession? We have precisely the same structure—a monopolistic, representation body endorsed by statute.

Just that small change would have made a change. The possibility of a challenge to the Law Society by a competing Law Society would have transformed this bill—absolutely—as it has in many other countries, including the United States, and as it is for accountants. Accountants do not have a monopoly. They have to live, compete, and make rules, and they uphold those rules knowing that if they do not, anyone can establish another New Zealand society of accountants in competition—but not the Law Society! It has managed to roll the Minister so that there is no room for competition even among societies—not even for the emergence of something like the family law section.

NANDOR TANCZOS (Green): The Greens do support this bill, and I have to say, as a member of the Justice and Electoral Committee, that I was somewhat disadvantaged in considering it by never having practised as a lawyer. I guess that meant I was far more reliant on what submitters said to the committee and the advice that we received, in order to determine the Greens’ view. On that basis we have taken the decision that we should support the bill because, with the exception of certain specific areas, many of which were addressed by the select committee, the submitters were largely in favour of the bill. I think it is important that select committees be guided by the submissions presented to them. There were criticisms that the bill is overly prescriptive and detailed, and that may well be the case, but my sense was that there was a clear view that this Parliament should progress the bill and get on with it. As a non-lawyer, I take cognisance of that.

Not being a lawyer, I was also interested to listen to the debate in the select committee, and to look at the issues that excited the lawyers on the committee. Of course, one of them was the need for a purpose clause. There was a great deal of concern to make sure that the purpose clause included a provision that recognised the status of the legal profession. Having so many lawyers on the committee ensured that that provision got into the purpose clause. But I think it is good that we have a proper purpose clause to the bill now: to maintain public confidence in the provision of legal and conveyancing services, to protect the consumers of legal and conveyancing services and, as I said, to recognise the status of the legal profession and to establish the new profession of conveyancing practitioner. I thank Mr Fairbrother for his contribution to the debate because, as Mr Jones acknowledged, he gave a very genuine, heartfelt, and useful contribution to the House in outlining some of the roles and responsibilities of lawyers. It was useful for us to hear that.

There are a few provisions that are probably of most interest to the Green Party in this bill. One of them is around the provisions relating to community law centres, and there was some discussion around the definition of those centres. Originally, such a centre simply had the meaning given to the term by section 85 of the Legal Services Act, but community law centre representatives came to the committee and made a very strong submission that that was an inadequate definition. In particular, they asked us to replace that definition with one that recognised what they considered to be the things at the heart of the community law centre network—what it was that drove the development and setting up of community law centres in the first place, and what actually drove people to continue to contribute their work, often in very low-paid or in unpaid situations, in order to keep those law centres going and to make sure that legal services were available to members of the community who just do not have access to them in any other way.

I think it is unfortunate that the committee more or less ignored that request. It has now put in the definition that a community law centre “means a community law centre within the meaning of section 85 of the Legal Services Act 2000 that is providing community legal services under a contract entered into by the Legal Services Agency pursuant to section 87 of that Act”. So the committee has not replaced the definition; it has simply tacked on that the centre should also be one that is being funded by the Legal Services Agency. I think that that is a shame, because of the funding constraints that community law centres face, and in particular, the difficulty in securing funding for new community law centres given the enormous strains on the special fund that funds community law centres. So I think it is unfortunate that the funding is being restricted to people who are being funded by the Legal Services Agency, an agency that as I say simply cannot afford to fund new law centres. Basically, that denies the possibility of a community law centre setting itself up with alternative funding sources. That is not inconceivable—in fact, the committee was told that at Wanganui that is exactly what had happened—but the definition in the bill denies the possibility for such a centre to set itself up as a community law centre with alternative sources of funding and to still receive the coverage of this legislation as a community law centre. I think that the committee made a mistake in doing that.

The other issue about community law centres was around their funding, because of course they are funded through the Legal Services Agency from the interest on the special fund. Over the years, as a result of a number of pressures—faster transactions, more demand for money, and a lower interest rate—that funding has become tighter and tighter. In fact, in previous years the Green Party has been responsible for securing extra funding as a Budget initiative with the Government, when we had that kind of arrangement, to provide extra money for community law centres. I acknowledge that the Hon Phil Goff has made that part of the baseline funding, and that is appreciated, but clearly the funding of community law centres is an ongoing problem. This bill, as originally introduced, increased the proportion of the interest that would go to community law centres. It had been the situation that 50 percent went to the banks as their fee, and the bill made that 45 percent. It has always seemed to be exorbitant that the banks would take 50 percent of the interest as their fee. [Interruption] I thank Mr Jones; I appreciate the point.

The banks came to the committee and said that they could not afford the change, and that they would lose money if the amount of money they were taking from interest was changed. When the committee was given evidence from a different source that, in fact, the banks were being a little disingenuous with regard to how they had presented that information and we offered the banks an opportunity to further clarify or substantiate their claim, they simply chose to ignore the committee. The banks ignored requests to present information, and they actually treated the select committee with a great deal of contempt. I think that is quite shameful, and I am pleased that the select committee chose to challenge that figure and has now recommended a 60:40 split in favour of community law centres.

The last point I would make is around the issue of Senior Counsel/Queen’s Counsel. I think, as Mr Jones said, that more than a simple name-change is envisioned here. By extending the grade of Senior Counsel to solicitors working in firms, it does change the nature of the grade. The committee heard quite strong submissions from people that it was important to retain the exclusivity of that grade for the retention of the independent bar, and that it was quite a substantial incentive for people to leave firms and operate as barristers sole in terms of the status that it brought and also the possibility of earning increased money by it, because Queen’s Counsel, or in this case, Senior Counsel can obviously charge more for their services. I was persuaded by that argument, but I was also persuaded by the argument that the current system is unfair and politically biased in some cases. That is not to say that people who attain the grade of Queen’s Counsel should not get it or that they are undeserving or unmeritorious, but the comment was made quite strongly that some people who should get it, do not—that people who certainly do show merit do not get that grade or get it only after an unjustifiable delay, because they can offend the powers that be.

I am convinced that it should not be a matter of Crown prerogative and should not be for the State to determine who gets such a grade. If it is important to recognise a senior grade of lawyer, it should be up to the profession to determine who attains it, and to regulate that. Accordingly, I intend to put forward a Supplementary Order Paper to amend this bill so that it becomes the job of the Law Society to regulate that.

MURRAY SMITH (United Future): Mr Fairbrother said he thought the legal profession was one of the last true professions. I will not comment on what he thought the other one was, in case of accusations of self-interest. Whilst a lot of lawyers whom I know act without self-interest and do a very good job, I must say I have been extremely disappointed with some of the actions and attitudes of the New Zealand Law Society in respect of this matter, and particularly with the way the Government and the Law Society have colluded to misappropriate $6 million of fidelity fund moneys—that is, moneys that are part of a public insurance scheme—and give it to the New Zealand Law Society, which will become a voluntary organisation under this bill. The way that that has been gone about, and the effect of that, is something that I, as a lawyer and a member of the society, am ashamed of. I will speak more about that later.

This bill is a dog’s breakfast. In fact, it seems that everybody admits that this bill is a dog’s breakfast—the Government, the New Zealand Law Society, and practitioners. As I will also demonstrate, practitioners do not want this bill. The New Zealand Law Society, however, wants to continue with the bill because it has been around for the best part of 10 years—and probably longer in terms of the drafting of it. The society’s attitude is that it wants something rather than nothing. The fear is that it would much rather accept extremely poor and ponderous legislation in order to achieve some of the things it wants to achieve, and would rather give up a lot of its rights and put them in the hands and control of the Government for the time being, than have no change at all. I think that that is a terrible way of approaching legislation. I would much rather we had a situation whereby we tell the Law Society that we will go back to square one and draft a bill that is far more appropriate, on the promise that, effectively, we will move it through quickly. That would be much, much better. It is in the capacity of the Government, particularly if National were to support it, to do that and make that promise to the society.

Of course, the Government is really pushing this bill through just because the bill has been sitting around for so long and the Government wants to get it off its books. Yes, the Government is under pressure from the Law Society, because the Law Society wants to see this new scheme in place. That in itself is also a bad way of approaching legislation. The bill is far too prescriptive, and that can easily be demonstrated when we compare it with legislation that has gone through in relation to other professions. The Architects Act has 58 sections, and the new Architects Bill that has been drafted has only 45 clauses. The Chartered Professional Engineers of New Zealand Act has 77 sections, and the Institute of Chartered Accountants of New Zealand Act has a mere 24 sections. Even the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act, which covers a myriad of different forms of health practitioner, has 227 sections. The current Law Practitioners Act has 193 sections, and I have calculated that this bill is 390 clauses long—it is almost double the size of the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act.

It is very, very prescriptive. It is also very outdated, and certainly demonstrates the fact that it was a creation of a decade ago. The setting up of conveyancers for competition is no longer a real issue. The level of competition within the conveyancing regime since the abolition of the scale many years ago—and I can testify to that because I have been around, experienced that, and done a lot of conveyancing—is huge. In fact, lawyers are often accused of effectively competing below cost, because they very often lack the wisdom and marketing insight to see that if they do it for less than a certain figure, they will actually lose money on it. They tend to be extremely competitive. The idea of lawyers selling real estate is also something that has been tried and has failed. Now most law firms say that really they do not want to get into the real estate business.

As I said before, the vast majority of lawyers do not want this bill. The New Zealand Law Society, in thinking that it is representing the interests of practitioners, is simply wrong. It is out of touch, particularly with small to medium sized law firms—

Stephen Franks: And big ones.

MURRAY SMITH:—and big ones. I know that the Waikato Bay of Plenty District Law Society was one society that opposed the bill, but it was pulled into line by the hierarchy of the New Zealand Law Society. The editor of the magazine who spoke against it was sacked. Since then, I have seen emails—misleading, at best, and deceptive, at worst—coming out of Law Society circles trying to argue some of the points. I did a survey. Because the Law Society was not prepared to hear what its average members think of this bill, I thought I would do a poll myself. I prepared a Supplementary Order Paper, which I will be tabling in the House for debate during the Committee stage, that provides that $6 million—two-thirds of the current trust fund—be held by the Law Society and applied by that society as stipulated by the majority of respondents to a referendum to be held among all persons who were liable contributors to the fund at the date of winding up. Therefore, lawyers themselves could determine what should happen with regard to the fund, given that they had put the money in for that specific purpose.

I did a survey of lawyers, asking whether they agreed with that amendment. Eighty-one percent said yes. I asked them whether they supported what the Law Society wanted to do. Only 10 percent said yes; 61 percent said no. I asked whether the moneys should be added to the new fidelity fund. Forty-six percent said they did not want that to happen, and 26 percent said they did. I asked whether it should be returned to current contributors to the fund. Twenty-two percent answered yes; 35 percent said no. I asked whether it should go to contributors to the Renshaw Edwards special levy, and 68 percent of the lawyers felt that that was what should happen to the fund.

There was some logic in that argument, because all the contributors—all Law Society members who were principals in firms—had to cough up $10,000 to bail out the losses that were incurred by the public in the collapse of the law firm Renshaw Edwards. They had to cough up $10,000 over a relatively short period of time, and many of them suffered a great deal of hardship in doing so. It was only reasonable, in the view of some, that when it seems that the Law Society will have a surplus of funds, the Law Society should say that it really appreciates what they did then and, as a result, is prepared to look at giving some money back to those who contributed. But I was not even asking for that response; I simply thought the lawyers should make the decision.

Some of the comments that I got back from my survey were interesting, as well. One was: “The New Zealand Law Society proposal is nothing short of theft. I have no faith in the New Zealand Law Society and do not consent to my share of these funds being applied to the New Zealand Law Society’s general purposes. It is tantamount to a fraud on the contributors.” Another was: “The New Zealand Law Society has a palpable and serious conflict of interest in this matter. I fear, however, as a humble urban/suburban general sole practitioner that such as I have been able to contribute to the debate on this subject so far to the New Zealand Law Society and the Auckland District Law Society has amounted to no more than ‘farting against thunder’.”

And so it went on. I did a second survey. I went back to the respondents and asked them whether they supported the passing of the Lawyers and Conveyancers Bill in its current format, and 74.5 percent said no. I asked them whether they would support the bill if my amendment were passed by Parliament, and 80 percent said yes. So there is a lot of dissatisfaction among them.

The Institute of Patent Attorneys is also upset about the situation, because basically the bill provides that the Law Society will determine to what extent patent attorneys can operate in their specialist partnership with lawyers, engineers, and scientists. They tell me that they have tried to meet the Minister to talk about that but that he has refused to meet them.

A lot of other things are wrong with this bill. The whole conveyancers thing is out of whack. I have mentioned real estate sales. I am also concerned about the amount of money the banks are getting, instead of the community law centres, and that is something else on which I will be putting forward a Supplementary Order Paper. I will also be putting forward a Supplementary Order Paper about patent attorneys to try to rectify their situation in a way that is fairly low-key and reasonable.

United Future will support the second reading of this bill. We will support its being reported back. But I will be tabling those Supplementary Order Papers, and unless we can get a change to the fidelity fund, in particular, United Future will not support this bill any further.

LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East): I did not want the call now! I just want to make a brief contribution to the debate as one of the members who have a particular interest in this bill as members of the legal profession. I am an associate member of the Canterbury District Law Society. This is not a declaration of a conflict of interest, because there is no conflict. There is no pecuniary benefit to me and I accept that, if I return to the legal profession when I leave this place, it will impose obligations on me. I accept that. It is a privilege, not a right, to be a member of a profession. If the provisions of the bill that certain Opposition members wanted to amend had been amended—and Murray Smith certainly identified those—then there would have been a pecuniary benefit to them, but I am sure that the disappointed failed candidate for the presidency of the New Zealand Law Society will talk about that in her contribution to the debate.

I note the Minister’s acceptance of the Justice and Electoral Committee’s recommendations in all but one respect. I am pleased that the Minister is introducing a Supplementary Order Paper to resolve this matter.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 10 p.m.