Wednesday, 11 May 2005

Wednesday, 11 May 2005

Wednesday, 11 May 2005

Madam Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

Questions for Oral Answer

Questions to Ministers

Benefits—Trends

1. GEORGINA BEYER (Labour—Wairarapa) to the Minister for Social Development and Employment: What reports has he received about trends in the number of working-age New Zealanders on benefits?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY (Minister for Social Development and Employment): The latest quarterly benefit figures show that the number of working-age New Zealanders on the unemployment benefit has dropped by a record 27 percent in 1 year. The number of sole parents on the domestic purposes benefit has fallen below 100,000 for the first time since 1995. The overall number of working-age New Zealanders on a benefit is down to 293,000, which is 21 percent fewer than in 1999, and for the first time in 16 years the figure has fallen below 300,000. Thousands of people are now moving back into work and achieving financial independence for their families. This huge drop in the number of working-age people on a benefit means that taxpayers have saved $1.2 billion since 1999.

Georgina Beyer: To the Minister—[Interruption]

Madam SPEAKER: The member will be heard in silence as she asks her question.

Georgina Beyer: What Government initiatives have contributed to this excellent result?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: I can understand the hubbub of excitement in the House today, so I will say that we are moving through seasonal-worker strategies, investment in Student Job Search, job partnerships with industry, personal development plans for people on the domestic purposes benefit, and the Pacific Wave strategy that has dropped Pacific unemployment by 50 percent since 1999, and we are now focusing on areas like the sickness benefit and the invalids benefit. Yes, I can understand how excited MPs are about this matter.

Sue Bradford: What specific measures is the Government taking to improve the situation for people, particularly those in the 50 to 65-year-old age group, who are not in work and who want to work?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: The main change worth mentioning is that people who are in that older-age mature group have been work tested and, as a result of that, all the services of Work and Income have been made available to them. So we are seeing the number of those people going into work increasing steadily.

Judy Turner: Can the Minister confirm that as at 31 March there was a total of 116,075 people on invalids and sickness benefits, which is more than double the number on the unemployment benefit; if so, is he confident that the pilot programmes he established last year, such as Providing Access to Health Solutions and ProCare, will prove effective in reducing those numbers?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: Yes, I can confirm those numbers; and, yes, I confirm confidence in those programmes.

Taxation—Australian Tax Cuts

2. RODNEY HIDE (Leader—ACT) to the Minister of Finance: Will he consider across-the-board tax cuts in light of the Australian Government Budget decision to provide across-the-board tax cuts for Australians; if not, why not?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Minister of Finance): The member will have to wait until next week’s Budget for an answer to that question.

Rodney Hide: How is it that Australia can afford across-the-board tax cuts, with a Government surplus of just 1 percent of GDP, but that this finance Minister is running around telling New Zealanders that this Government cannot afford one, with a surplus of four times that amount?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: When next week’s Budget comes out, the member will find that he will have to revise his numbers.

John Key: Is it acceptable that approximately 585 people emigrate from New Zealand to Australia every week; and when will the Minister wake up and realise that Peter Costello’s Budget is a clear example of Australia launching a full-scale charm offensive on New Zealand’s most productive workers?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: At least he is not launching it on John Howard; I think that that has become fairly clear over the last week or so. The main result of the changes made by Mr Costello is that 80 percent of Australians will pay a tax rate of no more than 30 percent. However, they will pay that rate plus 1.5 percent for Medicare, and plus a surcharge of 1 percent for those earning over $50,000 a year. In New Zealand, 75 percent of taxpayers pay no more than 21c in the dollar.

Rod Donald: Does the Minister agree that Australia’s tax rates are still more progressive than New Zealand’s rates, with the top marginal rate at 47c in the dollar and no tax on the first $6,000 of income; and would he consider adopting the Green Party policy to make the first $5,000 of income tax-free and to introduce a suite of eco-taxes, including a carbon tax, to pay for that?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: The approximate cost of making the first $5,000 of income tax-free is about $2.5 billion a year. The net revenue from the carbon charge is about $322 million. It does not matter how often the Greens recycle that $322 million; it does not add up to $2.5 billion.

Kenneth Wang: How big does the surplus have to be before the Minister will proceed with tax cuts for all workers?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: The member will have to wait till next week. I can tell him, as I have already indicated on the basis of the December Economic and Fiscal Update, that the surplus is out in the forecast of the projection periods. It is sufficient only to keep the growth in the debt to GDP ratio constant, once provision is made for capital spending such as the contributions to the superannuation fund.

Trans-Tasman Therapeutic Goods Agency—Standards

3. SUE KEDGLEY (Green) to the Minister of Health: Has she introduced legislation to establish a trans-Tasman therapeutic goods agency; if not, why has she, with the Australian Parliamentary Secretary for Health, set up a committee to oversee the establishment of standards for therapeutic products under the new agency?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Leader of the House), on behalf of the Minister of Health: No. Legislation is being prepared, and Parliament will be fully consulted when it has been introduced. The establishment of the interim standards committee is a necessary and normal part of the preparatory work that is needed.

Sue Kedgley: Does the Minister agree that it is an important loss of sovereignty for New Zealand to give away the right to regulate key industries according to our own particular needs and preferences; and why is she proceeding to put in place the infrastructure for what amounts to a major constitutional change, without even a mandate from this House?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: The committee is an interim one. It has an equality of membership from Australia and New Zealand. If New Zealand is surrendering sovereignty to Australia, then equally Australia is surrendering sovereignty to New Zealand. I think it is stretching matters considerably to say that a body that will operate under parliamentary authority is some kind of major constitutional issue.

Barbara Stewart: Do the facts that she has met with the Australian Parliamentary Secretary for Health and has appointed an expert advisory committee to oversee the establishment of standards for therapeutic products mean that she is planning to proceed in the absence of enabling legislation; if so, does that not demonstrate a cavalier disregard for the democratic process?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: No, and I can assure members that any rules that proceed will be subject to a disallowance provision by either Parliament on either side of the Tasman.

Sue Kedgley: Why is she bulldozing ahead with the trans-Tasman proposal when the national interests analysis prepared by her own Ministry of Health warns that proceeding with a joint agency is likely to lead to “higher prices for consumers”, “higher compliance costs falling on manufacturers and suppliers”, and “pharmaceutical firms shifting their regulatory activities to Australia with the flow-on effect of tax revenues being forgone”?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: My understanding of the member’s position is that we should move to some form of mutual recognition. That would actually give New Zealand less control over these matters than it would have under the joint proposal.

Keith Locke: Will the United States - Australia free-trade agreement in any way restrain the trans-Tasman arrangements on medicines and therapeutics, such as by increasing the period in which Pharmac cannot bring in cheaper generic products?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: No, that is not my understanding. The member could note that in the Australian Budget presented yesterday, one of the means by which the tax cuts are being paid for is by seeking to reduce the costs that are being paid for pharmaceuticals.

Sue Kedgley: Why did she claim to have the support of peak industry bodies, in her press release, yesterday when Thompson’s Nutrition, the Charter of Health Practitioners, Citizens for Health Choices, Bionutrient Ltd, Nature’s Sunshine Products, New Zealand Nutritionals, Genesis Bio Laboratory Ltd, Pacific International Nutrition NZ Ltd, High Performance Health, and many other industry groups strongly oppose any moves toward a joint agency; and are the peak industry bodies she consults with simply a euphemism for those groups that support her or agree with her?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: I think the great majority of the groups that the member mentioned come from what might be called the alternative medicines section. The view of the Minister is very clear: the fact that some medicines are sold by people who engage in basket weaving and waving beads does not mean that they should be considered less reliable than other forms of medicine sold by people regarded as more normal.

Sue Kedgley: Is she confident she will be able to get the necessary support in Parliament to pass legislation setting up a joint trans-Tasman therapeutics agency; if so, from whom?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: From a majority of MPs. But, of course, between now and the passing of this legislation the public probably will have some say on who the majority of MPs will be.

Police—Former Commissioner

4. Dr DON BRASH (Leader of the Opposition) to the Prime Minister: When she stated yesterday that: “It is a matter of judgment for the Prime Minister how I use information from official reports. By definition, I cannot leak.”, was she confirming that she was the source of the material to the Sunday Star-Times asserting that commissioner Peter Doone said: “that won’t be necessary”; if not, what was she telling the House?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK (Prime Minister): No. I was telling the House that it is a matter for my judgment how I use reports I have received.

Dr Don Brash: Can she confirm that she is adopting the approach of former US President Richard Nixon, who stated: “Well, when the President does it, that means it is not illegal.”, and could this be the reason that her conduct was described by Fran O’Sullivan in this morning’s New Zealand Herald as “distinctly Nixonian”?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: I repeat, it is my judgement how I use reports I receive, and the same goes for other ministers. I would observe to the House that Mr Nixon’s philosophy has far more in common with that of the National Party.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: As the Prime Minister has put her judgment into the debate, given that she said yesterday in response to a question on her treatment of Dover Samuels—when she passed on totally malicious and false information that did enormous damage to Mr Samuels—that we all make mistakes, has she ever bothered to apologise publicly to him?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: I cannot accept the assertions in that question, but suffice it to say that Mr Samuels and I later came to an understanding, and Mr Samuels was readmitted to the ministry—unlike Katherine Rich, who is consigned to the outer circle.

Dr Don Brash: Can the Prime Minister confirm the statements in the brief of evidence signed by Oskar Alley that she was the source for his story of 23 January 2000, that she read to him excerpts of the then confidential Robinson report, and that having supplied the story, she then gave Mr Alley a quote for publication to the effect that she had no comment; and can she tell the House whether this is the level of candour and frankness New Zealanders should expect of their Prime Minister?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: I cannot confirm that I gave Mr Alley a quote of “no comment”. I repeat, it is my judgement how I use information available to me.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Is it true that when the Prime Minister said that Dover Samuels could not remain in Cabinet while allegations were swirling about him, she herself had passed on the allegations, which were vicious, malicious, and without any evidence whatsoever, as proven by a later inquiry; and does she not think now that she owes this man a public apology?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: It is a matter of public record that letters received by my office were forwarded to the police. As I said, Mr Samuels is now a member of my ministry, and I enjoy a very good working relationship with him.

Rodney Hide: Does the Prime Minister believe that she is bound by the Cabinet Manual, and in particular by paragraph 3.19, which states, amongst other things: “Ministers and officials should not disclose proposals likely to be considered at forthcoming meetings, outside Cabinet approved consultation procedures.”, or does she put herself, as Prime Minister, above the Cabinet Manual and collective responsibility with her statement: “By definition, I cannot leak.”?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: It is a matter for my judgment how I use information that is available to me.

Dr Don Brash: Will the Prime Minister confirm the report in today’s issue of Molesworth & Featherston that states that perhaps the Sunday Star-Times: “felt it had been misled so badly (and wilfully) by the Prime Minister that she could no longer rely on its assurances of confidentiality.”; if not, what is her explanation for the decision of the Fairfax Group to threaten her with a subpoena?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: I could not substantiate that, at all. I think the member should substantiate the giving of those briefs of evidence to him, which he would not answer on Morning Report this morning.

Rodney Hide: If the Prime Minister believes that she did no wrong in reading out parts of Rob Robinson’s report and parts of the Police Complaints Authority report to the reporter, and that she can put out information at her discretion, why did she work so hard to keep that fact from public knowledge and, in particular, require the newspaper to report that she had no comment?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: I repeat that it was a judgment I made at the time to make information available.

Rodney Hide: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. My question was not about the Prime Minister making a judgment on whether to leak it—because I know that by definition she now thinks she cannot leak—my question was, given that she has told the country that she can leak at her judgment, why did she feel the need to keep it secret and to work so hard to keep it secret? The Prime Minister never addressed that question one bit.

Madam SPEAKER: The Prime Minister did address the question. She may not have addressed it in the way the member wanted, but it was addressed.

Biosecurity—Hoax Threats

5. TIM BARNETT (Labour—Christchurch Central) to the Minister of Justice: What changes to legislation did the Government initiate to deal more effectively with people who issue hoax threats which can be economically damaging to this country?

Hon PHIL GOFF (Minister of Justice): In 2003 the Government passed counter-terrorism legislation that created, among other things, new offences relating to the use of biological organisms to cause sickness in animals. It made the deliberate contamination of food, and infection of animals with diseases such as foot-and-mouth, serious criminal offences with a maximum penalty of 10 years’ imprisonment. It also made it a criminal offence to threaten or falsely communicate harm of that nature—in other words, to make hoax threats—with a maximum penalty of 7 years’ imprisonment.

Tim Barnett: What were the previous penalties for such offences?

Hon PHIL GOFF: The previous maximum penalty for the offence of releasing unwanted organisms under the Biosecurity Act was 5 years’ imprisonment, so the penalty for that has been doubled. For hoax threats, the previous maximum penalty, under section 24 of the Summary Offences Act, was a mere 3 months’ imprisonment, which, clearly, was grossly inadequate. The new penalties for hoax threats represent a 28-fold increase, reflecting the serious consequences of such threats, such as we are seeing at the present time.

Marc Alexander: Does the Minister recall, in overseeing the passage of the counter-terrorism legislation, whether that legislation received unanimous support; if it did not, does he recall which party did not support it because it objected to the heavy penalties for people threatening to engage in forms of protest action that would cause major economic loss?

Hon PHIL GOFF: I recall that that legislation went through with the overwhelming support of the House, but was voted against by the Green Party.

Tariana Turia: How does the Minister respond to a comment made to me that this situation could be a contrived hoax to create hysteria and fear so that the Government can take a patsy question today to describe to the country how prepared and alert it is to deal with such a critical issue?

Hon PHIL GOFF: I regard that suggestion made by the member as being, frankly, ludicrous. Anybody who considers the potential $10 billion loss that this country could face, including the loss of thousands of jobs, knows that a hoax of this nature is incredibly damaging and must be taken seriously.

Tim Barnett: Has he seen any reports that this threat is likely to be a hoax, and that the Government therefore should have covered it up?

Hon PHIL GOFF: Yes, astonishingly, I have seen a statement to that effect. I have it in my hand. It is a statement made by the Leader of the Opposition, Don Brash. I have seen another statement made by Annabel Young, the former National MP and current Chief Executive of Federated Farmers, who rubbishes Dr Brash’s suggestion, saying that we still need to tell everybody because otherwise we are in a kind of Chernobyl situation where people never trust us again. We cannot treat a hoax any differently from a real thing until we know that it is a hoax. Fortunately, every responsible authority has repudiated the ridiculous suggestion made by the Leader of the Opposition.

Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. If this were such a serious issue, why did the Prime Minister not come to the House today and make a ministerial statement, instead of jacking up patsy questions in question time to gain some cheap political points? This House should not be treated in such a scrappy manner, and I would request the Government now to seek leave, which we will grant, for a ministerial statement.

Madam SPEAKER: I thank the member, but that was not a point of order.

Hon PHIL GOFF: I seek the leave of the House to table two documents. The first document is a statement made by Dr Don Brash, which I have referred to previously. The second document is a statement made by Annabel Young, which I have also referred to.

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

Immigration, Minister—Confidence

6. Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) to the Prime Minister: Did she confirm to the House her confidence in the previous Minister of Immigration because she was a hardworking and conscientious Minister; if so, was she aware when she expressed this confidence, of a Najim al-Ali who allegedly came to New Zealand, was accepted as a refugee, and subsequently brought others to New Zealand to live here permanently?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK (Prime Minister): Yes, I did confirm that confidence. No, I had not heard of the gentleman referred to, until Mr Peters named him in the question today. I can inform the House that allegations made against that person to the immigration authorities—and not by Mr Peters—are currently under investigation. I do urge the member not to name people who should be, or are being, investigated, as unfortunately that only increases their chances of being successful in an application to stay in New Zealand, when they might otherwise not be successful at all, and I am sure the member would not want them to succeed if they should not.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Can I point out to the Prime Minister that her last statement is constitutional and legal bunkum, as every lawyer knows; and would she tell me which part of this story is not true: that Najim al-Ali and his wife, Hessa, entered New Zealand on Bedouin status, or stateless with no citizenship, when they in fact hold Iraqi citizenship and used Iraqi passports to get into Jordan, which is where they left from to come to New Zealand; that the same al-Ali and his wife brought in 13 additional family members, claiming some who were his grandchildren to be his children, with one set of claimed twins actually being one daughter and one granddaughter, to then have those children who were previously married in Iraq bring in their spouses as fiancés and to remarry them here in New Zealand, and then to have this bogus family structure re-formed into the family structures they once lived in when they were in Iraq now that they have cheated the New Zealand immigration system—all 15?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: A number of allegations have been made by the member, and a number of allegations have been received by the Immigration Service. What I can say is that the immigration people are investigating the substance of all the allegations. They are trying to make an assessment of whether lies have been told. They are reviewing the original refugee status claim, and they are fully investigating allegations.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Can the Prime Minister explain how this same man and several of his children were able to receive a benefit immediately on arrival and be provided two State houses, while he works for cash under the table at a meat shop and receives additional income from buying and selling cars; or does she not give a damn that the New Zealand taxpayers are being ripped off again?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: People who are judged to be refugees do get assistance. There is no country in the world that does not deal with cheats and liars when it comes to immigration. At the moment, these are allegations and they remain unproven at this time.

Hon Phil Goff: Can the Prime Minister confirm that the current number of spontaneous asylum seekers is about 120 to 130 a year, down from the more than 1,500 a year when Winston Peters was Deputy Prime Minister?

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. If the member is going to make that sort of a statement, which is demonstrably false, let him provide the evidence. He is an experienced Minister; he knows what stunt he is pulling here. He has tried it in the past. Let him now prove what he has said, or apologise.

Madam SPEAKER: That is not a point of order.

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: Speaking to the point of order, I would like to give the official figures when I respond to the question.

Madam SPEAKER: Thank you.

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: I can say that spontaneous asylum-seekers arriving in New Zealand in the last full year for which there is figures, which is 2003-04, numbered 714. That number is precisely 27 percent of the numbers in 1997-98, which were 2,627 when Mr Peters was Deputy Prime Minister.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: What percentage of those numbers that she claims is a higher record when I was Treasurer of this country were successful, as opposed to nearly everyone being successful under her administration; I also ask, what standard of incompetence is she prepared to tolerate from her immigration Ministers when the Immigration Service seems incapable of telling the difference between children and grandchildren of Iraqis and Bedouins, and who is married and who is not; and when will she start to show some leadership on the issue, make some meaningful changes to this type of fraud and stop it dead in its tracks?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: I can say that roughly the same absolute number of people were judged to be genuine refugees in 2003-04 as were judged to be genuine in 1997-98. So, to throw Mr Peters a small bone, that means that the chances of success of the 2,627 were proportionately rather less, but the absolute number is about the same. I repeat that no country has found a way of stopping any cheat getting across its borders, but we work hard to eliminate it to the best extent we can.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Does she have any examples of the administration of which I was part taking hundreds of Afghans or refugees declined by the UN Commission on Refugees—does she have one example of that, in my time; and further, what will she say to Australian officials who have relied on New Zealand’s vetting process and who will now discover that, having duped New Zealand officials and this Government, some of those family members are now residing in Australia?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: Not surprisingly, I have not come to the House armed with numerous examples of compassionate acts by the administration of which the member was part; but this administration did behave in a compassionate way in accepting a number of people, including under-18-year-olds who were stranded on a boat in the Indian Ocean, and I stand by that decision.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Would it be too difficult for her, her Minister of Immigration, her Associate Minister of Immigration, or the hundreds of people she employs to make a simple chart of this family, showing who is telling the truth and who is not, and the fact that the man at the start of the story charged three people $30,000 each to come into this country?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: One of the things that the immigration authorities are investigating is whether lies were told about the make-up of that family. If the member has information that he could make available it would be appreciated. I invite him, again, as I understand he has already been invited by the Associate Minister’s office, to come up and go through the cases he has so we can discuss them.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Knowing the very obvious tactic of this Prime Minister, I seek to table a letter I wrote to Damien O’Connor today setting out the dates of the correspondence from his and other Ministers’ offices so that they cannot pull the stunt of saying that they do not know and they want to cooperate.

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

Question No. 5 to Minister

GERRY BROWNLEE (Deputy Leader—National): I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. Now that we are able to see the document tabled by Phil Goff earlier in question time, it is abundantly clear to us that that document has been used and represented in a most dishonest manner. I would like you to tell us what our remedies may be, albeit that we accept that that is generally the pattern of the Government.

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Leader of the House): The remedy the member has—and I think that he knows it—is to raise the matter by way of privilege, as we did against Mr Key when he misrepresented a statement made by a member on the Government side of the House.

Madam SPEAKER: And I am sure that the member can write to me about it. He may like to write to me and put down the details, with the document, which I have not had a chance to look at.

GERRY BROWNLEE (Deputy Leader—National): Thank you. There is certainly a difference between misrepresenting and straight-out lying.

Madam SPEAKER: That was an unnecessary implication, and the member knows it. Would he please withdraw the comment about lying.

GERRY BROWNLEE: I withdraw the comment about lying and replace it with “being reckless with the truth”.

Madam SPEAKER: That is a qualified withdrawal, as the member knows. Would he please just make an unqualified withdrawal.

GERRY BROWNLEE: I withdraw.

Madam SPEAKER: I thank the member. I appreciate that.

Police—Former Commissioner

7. Dr DON BRASH (Leader of the Opposition) to the Prime Minister: Does she stand by all of the statements in her signed brief of evidence dated 13 April 2005; if not, why not?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK (Prime Minister): To the best of my knowledge, the brief is accurate. It was informed by journalists’ notes made available to me under privilege, as it is not possible for me to recollect details of conversations 5½ years ago. After all, Dr Brash could not recall details of the “gone by lunchtime” conversation only 4 months later.

Dr Don Brash: Can we take from the fact that the Prime Minister went to some effort yesterday to distinguish, for the benefit of the media, between signed briefs of evidence on the one hand, and sworn statements on the other, that she took the same attitude to signing her brief of evidence that she took to signing a painting she did not paint?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: Not at all. I simply point out the difference between the two.

Dr Don Brash: By making it clear to the media that she had signed a brief of evidence and not a sworn statement, was the Prime Minister indicating that she felt under no obligation to tell the truth in her signed brief of evidence; if not, what was she indicating?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: No, I was simply pointing out the difference between the two.

Dr Don Brash: Does she accept that her signed brief of evidence states that she had a conversation with Mr Alley in which she confirmed to him: “The factual position he had discussed with me was, as far as I knew, accurate.”; if so, how does she reconcile that with her statement to the House last week: “I can only imagine that the reporter put those words to me and I would not have been in a position to confirm them, because they were not in the reports.”?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: The factual position was that the car was stopped and the then Commissioner of Police intervened. It is a mystery as to why Dr Brash wants to defend undesirable and inappropriate actions by a Commissioner of Police.

Hon Richard Prebble: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. There must come a point where the Prime Minister cannot be said to have addressed the question. Her answer to that question, which was about her conduct, was to denigrate a former civil servant. He may or may not deserve to be denigrated, but that had nothing to do with the question. I realise that the Prime Minister thinks in this case, and in the case of Kit Richards and others, that she is entitled to destroy the reputation of anyone she does not like, but I say that in her answer to this question she should actually answer the question that Dr Brash raised, rather than telling us what she thinks about Mr Doone, which we have already learnt via the Sunday Star-Times.

Madam SPEAKER: The member is again seeking an answer to a question. What the Prime Minister has to do—

Hon Richard Prebble: That’s right.

Rodney Hide: That’s what we are here for.

Madam SPEAKER: Would members please allow me to finish. The member is seeking a particular answer to the question. What is required under the Standing Orders is that a question is addressed. The Prime Minister did address that question. She may not have done so to the satisfaction of members or in the way that members wanted it to be answered, but the reference in her answer was the same. Matters were addressed that were in the question, but not, obviously, in a way that suited the member. That is what is required by the Standing Order.

Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith: Read it!

Madam SPEAKER: I have read the Standing Orders. Would that member please be quiet.

Hon Richard Prebble: Can I raise a further point of order?

Madam SPEAKER: Yes, the member can.

Hon Richard Prebble: We are in this position. It would appear that if any member were to ask the Prime Minister, for example: “Is she bound by the Cabinet Manual?”, she is allowed to get up and say: “Mr Doone is a scumbag.”, and you will say that she addressed the question. I say that apart from you and the Prime Minister, no one else can see how that possibly addresses the question.

Madam SPEAKER: It was clear that the Prime Minister’s answer did not address only that point. She repeated the point she had made before. So the question was addressed. There was additional comment to that effect, but the question was addressed.

Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I am becoming deeply concerned that a tradition is starting to develop in this Parliament that appears to me to be inconsistent with Standing Order 370. Many members hold the view that in fact a Minister does not have to answer a question, and that is wrong. The first thing that Standing Order 370 states is that an answer must be given. In fact, Standing Order 370(1) states: “An answer … must be given if it can be given consistently with the public interest.” The only qualification to that fact—that an answer must be given—is that the nature of the answer must address the question. To make a statement that may in some distant way address the question is inconsistent with that Standing Order, because that Standing Order requires an answer to be given if it can be given consistently with the public interest. Making a statement that somehow vaguely addresses the question is not an answer to the question, and the Standing Order does not state that.

Hon Dr Michael Cullen: The member fundamentally misunderstands what Standing Order 370 means in that respect. What that is—

Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith: It means you answer the question.

Hon Dr Michael Cullen: No, what it—

Madam SPEAKER: Would the member please leave the Chamber. He knows that when a member is speaking to a point of order, one does not interject. I have been asked to rule on that before. Would the member please leave the Chamber.

Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith withdrew from the Chamber.

Hon Dr Michael Cullen: The point is that a Minister may not give any kind of response at all, if the Minister considers it is not in the public interest to do so. For example, there could potentially be one or two issues around the current biosecurity matter that mean, if a Minister was asked a question about them, that a Minister may consider it is not in the public interest to give any response at all. Standing Order 370 actually states: “An answer that seeks to address the question asked must be given if it can be given consistently with the public interest.” In other words, it requires that the Minister seeks to address the question. That is the basis of the ruling that you have given many, many times.

Madam SPEAKER: That is the nature of the ruling and the Speaker’s—

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker.

Madam SPEAKER: I am in the middle of speaking, Mr Peters. You may raise another point of order when I have finished ruling on this point of order.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: But I want to speak about this point of order.

Madam SPEAKER: I am sorry, but I said that I would take two calls on this matter.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I was on my feet before him.

Madam SPEAKER: I am sorry. I wish to rule on this matter. Members have raised this same point on several occasions, and it may well be that it is a matter that the Standing Orders Committee should look into, to make sure that the Standing Orders are made more specific as to the nature of the answer to be given. But as it stands at the moment, an answer must seek to address the question. In the last instance the answer certainly addressed the question. However, it may not have answered it to the member’s satisfaction. The answer also must be relevant to the subject matter of the question; otherwise it is out of order. In that instance, the answer was relevant to the subject matter. I also note that “answer” is a neutral word. The quality of the answer required by the relevant Standing Order comes from the use of the word “address”. That is the test of adequacy. So I suggest, if that is a matter of concern to members, that we address it in the Standing Orders Committee and not continually have these matters raised as points of order. Can we now please move on?

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. Before I start my point of order, I refer you to past Speakers’ rulings in respect of questions of seniority in this Parliament. I ask you to have regard to them in the future, please, or otherwise you will have some trouble in your position. We will not take being put down while someone who is of lesser service in this Parliament and of lesser authority in any other way that you would like to put it is preferred over us. Do not laugh, Madam Speaker. I was on my feet a long time before Dr Cullen was, and you preferred Dr Cullen.

Madam SPEAKER: And in seniority. Would you please make your point of order?

Rt Hon Winston Peters: My point of order is simply this, and you have referred to it. You said the Prime Minister went further than was required when she answered the question. The Standing Orders call for answers to be terse and to the point. She went much further than that. She had a further free hit at former Police Commissioner Doone, and made an allegation that she made yesterday and has made at other times when she is in the House, which is the key allegation behind the whole issue. She is having a free hit, and you are letting her get away with it. Can you please enforce the Standing Orders?

Madam SPEAKER: I am enforcing the Standing Orders. Thank you, Mr Peters.

Jim Peters: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. There seems to be a practice developing in the House whereby there is organised support on one side of the House or the other, as relevant members rise. It means that we are denied hearing the quality or otherwise of the answers and the questions. I feel that you ought to resort to a situation whereby all members can hear all questions and all answers.

Madam SPEAKER: I thank the member for that. It is a question of judgment and sound level. Answers are not normally heard in silence. However, if the House would like to consider that becoming the case, the Speaker would very much welcome it so that all members could hear the answers as well as the questions. It has been the practice that from time to time members wish to express their views on the quality of the answers, and that is what has happened. However, I take the member’s point. In future I will ask members to lower the level of their contribution on an answer.

Rodney Hide: Is it correct for the House to conclude that the Prime Minister considers former Police Commissioner Mr Peter Doone to be a toerag, and that it is therefore OK for her to confirm fake allegations against him, to leak secret Cabinet documents about him, and to breach the principle of collective responsibility; if that is not the correct interpretation of the answers she has been giving over these last couple of days, what does she actually think?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: I accept the findings of the Police Complaints Authority, which were that Mr Doone’s intervention was undesirable. I accept the outcome of the deputy commissioner’s investigation, which was that his actions and intervention were inappropriate. And I stand by what I said: that it is my judgment as to what I release.

Rodney Hide: In light of her answer that it is her judgment as to what she releases from secret Cabinet documents, does she consider herself to be above the principle of Cabinet collective responsibility as she sees fit, and if that is the case, will she be seeking to amend the Cabinet Manual to reflect that; if not, why not?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: It is a matter for the judgment of any Prime Minister as to what he or she chooses to release, and I have made that judgment.

Rodney Hide: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. We come to the Chamber to ask questions, and we turn up expecting questions to be addressed. I ask you, given the nature of my question—and maybe you will not do it now, because you may not be in the mood to—to look at Hansard—

Madam SPEAKER: I ask the member to withdraw that comment. It was unnecessary.

Rodney Hide: I withdraw. I ask you to reflect on the point of my asking the question that I have just asked, because we can never get this Prime Minister to answer a question, or, indeed, even to come close to addressing it. The Opposition may wonder what the point is. We have a Parliament in order to hold the executive to account. The only way that we have to hold the executive to account in our democracy—in our parliamentary system—is question time. If the Chair is to rule that she considers whatever the Prime Minister says—she can say the moon is made of green cheese—to have addressed the question, then it actually undermines our concept of a parliamentary democracy and our ability as an Opposition to hold a Government to account. I think that is serious.

Madam SPEAKER: I repeat to the member that, particularly in that instance, there was no doubt at all that the Prime Minister did address the substance of the question that was asked.

Dr Don Brash: Why on earth does the Prime Minister not deal with all the serious questions about her integrity by authorising the release of the transcripts and the journalists’ notes, which would end all this debate and controversy?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: As I have advised the House before, journalists’ notes were provided under legal privilege to my lawyer. I could equally ask Dr Brash why he refuses to say where he got the briefs from.

Dr Don Brash: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I did not hear that wisecrack from the Prime Minister. I would love to hear it.

Madam SPEAKER: Perhaps the member could ask some of his own members to enable us to hear the answers to questions. Does the Prime Minister wish to repeat her statement? No. She does not.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: She does not want to answer the question.

Madam SPEAKER: The Prime Minister answered the substance of that question, and made an additional comment.

Student Support—Discussion Document

8. BERNIE OGILVY (United Future) to the Minister of Education: What was the single most popular suggestion amongst submissions made in response to the Government’s 2003 discussion document Student Support in New Zealand?

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: I am advised that the most popular suggestion was a tertiary education pre-savings scheme, although I am sure that United Future’s support for the scheme is based on principle rather than on the mass support and popularity that is evident for that scheme.

Bernie Ogilvy: Can the Minister also confirm that those submitters stated they were in favour of a tertiary education savings scheme because it would develop an expectation that children would work towards participation in tertiary education, and because the scheme would foster a savings culture and counteract the burden caused by student loan debt?

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: I am going to plead guilty to not reading all the submissions but, if the member gives me that assurance, I will certainly support him and we will work together on having this very good savings scheme—as he has been pushing me to ever since I took over responsibilities in the tertiary area. I want to thank him for that.

Lynne Pillay: What other steps has the Government taken to improve student support?

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Of course, we do not have time to give the full list, but a short list would have it that every year since the Government took office there have been initiatives—[Interruption] Is someone causing that member some pain? She seems to be squealing.

Madam SPEAKER: Would the House please settle. I think these questions and answers are worth listening to, so would members please have silence while the Minister addresses the question.

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Every year since Labour took office there have been initiatives to make life a bit easier for students. We have frozen interest on loans while students are studying, changed student loan repayment policy to make loan repayments easier and faster, put an end—

Judith Collins: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. Did I understand you correctly? Are you saying now that we have to listen in silence to this drivel from the Minister?

Madam SPEAKER: No. Other members in the House would like to hear the answer, even if that member does not. So I have been asking for members please to keep the noise down, and to note that some members have stronger voices than others. Would the Minister please address the question.

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Do you want me to start again?

Madam SPEAKER: No, I do not want you to start again; I want you to continue.

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: We have put an end to spiralling fee increases. Under our Government, estimated loan repayment times have decreased from 14.8 years in 1999 to 9.3 currently. That is why even Lockwood Smith described our loan scheme last week as “one of the best”.

Keith Locke: How does the Government expect low and middle income parents to pay for their children’s tertiary education alongside their having to buy a house, pay off their old student loan debts, and save for their own retirement, when this year’s March newsletter of the Ministry of Consumer Affairs and the energy safety service said that over the past 12 months 28 percent of families have had to borrow to pay for such essential things as food and power?

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Under the policies introduced as part of the last Budget, there are families earning up to $62,000 in which students—people under 25—are getting allowances. That is quite a high level of income, and I would have thought that for a low-income family to put $250, $500, or $1,000 into an account is relatively much more valuable than it is for a high-income family.

Bernie Ogilvy: Is the Minister concerned that if a child does not undertake tertiary study, the diversion of savings into superannuation may act to discourage parents from opting into that scheme when they are more concerned about giving their kids a kick-start in their adult life than providing a nest-egg for the end of their adult life, and will he consider allowing them to use some or all of the money to buy a house or start a business instead, as the Child Trust Funds set up by the Labour Government in the UK do; if not, why not?

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: I think the Government is still at the design stages of this and is certainly willing to have further discussions with the member around that. But I would say to the member that we do not want to take the approach that National took under student loans, where the Government provided student loans for people to go to Bali and that sort of thing. We want this money, if it is taxpayers’ contributions, to be used for a worthwhile purpose.

Bernie Ogilvy: Has the Minister considered alternatives for the way in which the funds may be directed into the savings scheme, such as allowing extended family members to contribute, allowing parents to divert a portion of their family assistance payments into the fund, or encouraging the private sector to contribute through, say, loyalty reward schemes?

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: I think the answer is yes to all of the above suggestions and, almost certainly, all of them will be included.

Education Officials—Confidence

9. Hon BILL ENGLISH (National—Clutha-Southland) to the Minister of Education: Does he have confidence in the Secretary for Education and the chief executive of the New Zealand Qualifications Authority; if so, why?

Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Minister of Education): It has not been my practice either as Minister of State Services or as Minister of Education to indicate confidence or the lack thereof in any person for whom I am not the employer.

Hon Bill English: Can the Minister confirm that Ministers have refused to express confidence in Karen Van Rooyen, chief executive of the New Zealand Qualifications Authority, that he expects her to be sacked shortly, and that the Government plans to roll the authority into the Ministry of Education under Howard Fancy?

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: I think that I am responsible for the first and the last of those three questions. I have not until today been asked directly to express confidence, and there are no such plans at the moment.

Bernie Ogilvy: Will he consider merging the New Zealand Qualifications Authority, the Education Review Office, and the Teachers Council into one body called the “Education Standards Authority”, which will be charged with maintaining standards throughout the education sector, rather than restructuring the Ministry of Education and the New Zealand Qualifications Authority, as the Associate Minister of Education has suggested; if not, why not?

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: I am not sure that the Associate Minister has suggested that, at all. I think that he has done what I have done, which is to say that we are waiting for a report from the State Services Commission, Treasury, and the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. When we receive that report, we will consider it.

Deborah Coddington: What, as Minister of Education, will he take responsibility for, given the crisis in education in New Zealand at the moment from the wānanga on life support, the Tertiary Education Commission funding dodgy courses, the Teachers Council having no confidence in teachers, schools fund-raising to buy textbooks, the New Zealand Qualifications Authority damned by two inquiries, to the Ministry of Education under fire, or has he moved on from the Westminster convention of ministerial responsibility?

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: I am left with some passion about politics and I am not running away. What I want to make clear is that we have an education system with some of the best participation rates—[Interruption]

Madam SPEAKER: Please would you just lower the noise level, so that everyone can hear.

Simon Power: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I fail to see how abusive comments hurled in the direction of the questioner are in any way relevant to addressing a question under the Standing Orders. I raised this matter with you in respect of another question yesterday. This is becoming a pattern that will result in disorder from all sides of the House unless Ministers are reined in when they are answering questions.

Madam SPEAKER: One of the difficulties is that when, in asking the question, additional comments are also put in, the chances are that we will get responses accordingly. I accept what the member has said. I have let some of those comments go in questions because I think that it is important to get the question out. But I would just ask all members to show some restraint in terms of both asking and answering the question and to stick to the main point.

Rodney Hide: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. Deborah Coddington’s question was entirely in order. What you have suggested is that somehow Deborah Coddington’s question was out of order.

Madam SPEAKER: No, I was not suggesting that. I am clarifying that point for you at this stage. I was not suggesting it was that member. I was taking the general point. I am sorry about that. The member misunderstood that.

Rodney Hide: The situation we have is that we take great care. The question was entirely in order, but the Minister’s answer was entirely out of order.

Madam SPEAKER: Let us hear the Minister’s answer, because he did not complete it.

Rodney Hide: No, let us hear him apologise and withdraw for the abuse that he hurled at someone who was asking a legitimate question in this House.

Madam SPEAKER: As I recall, the Minister said that he was passionate about education. Was that the matter that the member is objecting to, or was it the next sentence?

Rodney Hide: No, it is not. I will not repeat it, but I can tell you that I took offence at what he said. I think that he should be asked to withdraw and apologise.

Madam SPEAKER: I have difficulty because I am not entirely sure what he said. I heard him say he was passionate and was not running away. I am not sure whether they were the matters at which offence has been taken. Again, this is one of the difficulties that we are having. If people express themselves loudly, it is very difficult to hear exactly what is being said. We will take the next point of order, but I would like the Minister to be able to at least fully answer the question in silence.

John Carter: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. It is on the same point. The fact is that this issue has now become very serious indeed as far as the way in which this House is run. You have just said that you did not hear all the Minister’s comments, or perhaps you heard them and did not recall them.

Madam SPEAKER: I heard two of the comments.

John Carter: Well, you would be one of the few people in this House who did not understand what the Minister said and the implications of what he was saying. They were quite derogatory, quite unnecessary, and certainly well outside the Standing Orders. We do expect you to make sure that you keep control of this House. If you are not hearing and understanding what is being said, then you will not be able to control this House. That will lead to this House being unruly, quite honestly, and we will find that we get into all sorts of trouble. Minister Mallard made quite a derogatory remark about Deborah Coddington that was absolutely unnecessary. He should have been pulled up by you when he said it and asked to address the question.

Madam SPEAKER: I hope that the member, in making those comments, was not threatening the Chair. I will not take those comments to have that implication, but they came close to it. One member cannot ask on behalf of another member for a withdrawal, but if Deborah Coddington did take offence, then the Minister should withdraw his comment.

Hon Richard Prebble: On the point of order, Madam Speaker, one member may not ask for leave on behalf of another, but, in fact, when a member makes a discreditable reference to a member of the House it is actually an insult to the whole House, and any member may object. Even if the member himself or herself is prepared to let it run, if other members raise objections, that is correct. So, with the greatest respect, you cannot rule that it is OK for a Minister to make a discreditable reference to a member of Parliament unless that member objects. That is not the correct ruling. What this Minister did has been drawn to your attention. Mr Mallard makes it not quite an invariable, but a general, practice to start his answers with a comment that in this case comes, I think, under Standing Order 370(2)(c): “discreditable references to the House or any member …”, but normally comes under Standing Order 370(2)(b): “arguments, inferences, imputations …” etc. In fact he did start his answer in that way. A number of members have objected. The quickest way to proceed with question time would be to ask the member to withdraw and, given the level of objection, apologise.

Madam SPEAKER: I thank the member for his contribution. The Speaker’s ruling relied upon was 40/7: “It is not the Speaker’s duty to intervene if objection is not taken to the language used by one member towards another, unless the Speaker considers it is such language as requires the Chair’s immediate intervention.” In that instance I did not accept that the language was such that it required my immediate intervention. Another member has raised that point. I ask the Minister therefore, in those circumstances, to withdraw and apologise.

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: I withdraw and apologise. I am passionate about my job. I like results. During the term of this Government we have the highest participation rates and the highest quality early childhood education in the OECD. We have Programme for International Student Assessment results that are right at the top of the OECD, and on value for investment are the best. We have very high participation rates in tertiary education. We are working on quality right through the system, and I intend to keep on doing that.

Hon Bill English: Will the Minister tell the House whether he has confidence in Mr Howard Fancy, who has overseen a blowout in bureaucratic spending in his own ministry, widespread charging of fees in State schools, requirements for parents to front up with $200 million a year for their children’s free education, widespread rip-offs in the tertiary sector, unexpected financial problems in the wānanga and polytechs, and plummeting public confidence in the secondary school qualification held by over 200,000 young New Zealanders, as well as all major education agencies being under performance reviews because of the mess?

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: As I said in answer to the original question, it is not my practice and will not be my practice as Minister of Education or Minister of State Services to express confidence or lack thereof in State servants who are not my appointments.

Hon Bill English: If the Minister will not express a view of confidence in Howard Fancy and Karen van Rooyen, does this mean that rather than officials being to blame, it is actually Ministers who are to blame for a succession of high-profile policy failures in education; and will he and David Benson-Pope promise to stay on in their jobs to remind the public continually what a mess Labour has made in education?

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: There have been some enormously good results in education, and I promise that David Benson-Pope and I will work hard for the next 5 years in this area as education Ministers if the Prime Minister lets us.

Hon Bill English: Does the Minister not realise that not only would it take a lot longer than 5 years to clean up his mess but also he now has so little credibility with New Zealand parents that he should not be allowed even to try?

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: I, unlike the member, spend quite a lot of time in schools and talking to parents. Parents tell me—and teachers tell me—that the education their kids are receiving in their schools has never, ever been better.

Trade—Access to Australia for Apples and Pipfruits

10. DAIL JONES (NZ First) to the Minister for Trade Negotiations: Is gaining access for New Zealand apples and other pipfruit to the Australian market a priority for this Government; if so, what actions are being taken to achieve this?

Hon JIM SUTTON (Minister for Trade Negotiations): Yes, the Government has strongly argued, and continues to argue, New Zealand’s case for apples access at every appropriate opportunity with the Australian Government. This includes recently applying pressure in a multilateral context.

Dail Jones: Has the Minister been aware of a large number of pest interceptions made on Australian fresh produce imports to New Zealand since 2000, including 471 interceptions on ginger, 1,014 interceptions on oranges, and over 2,000 interceptions on rock melons; and, now that he is aware, when will he make a stand on the issue of apple imports by Australia, by at least making a retaliatory move in banning imports of such pest-ridden Australian products until the Australians have cleaned up their act?

Hon JIM SUTTON: I assure every other member of this House that New Zealand administers its biosecurity rules on the basis of honest science, not on the basis of school playground tit for tat.

Hon David Carter: How long does the Minister intend to allow Australia to procrastinate; and why will he not do something concrete and initiate a World Trade Organization action to bring this 80-year-old issue to a conclusion?

Hon JIM SUTTON: The Government is perfectly prepared to take a case to the World Trade Organization for settlement, if necessary. However, taking such a case is a serious and costly issue, and the outcome can never be certain. We may get one shot at that, so it would be important to move at the most opportune moment. The pending outcome of negotiations on the implementation of the United States - Japan decision recently may well alter the situation.

Dail Jones: Does the Minister recall making a statement in 2000 with regard to Australian apple protectionism that: “If this is not scientifically based, we will take appropriate action.”; and now that he knows that Australia’s grounds for protecting apples are not based on any scientific evidence whatsoever, will he stand by his word, follow New Zealand First’s policy, and refer this matter to the World Trade Organization immediately, because, in the meantime, those Aussie battlers are being prevented from forming a union with a New Zealand Pacific Rose or even with a Braeburn, like the one I have here?

Hon JIM SUTTON: Clearly, the member does not know what he is talking about, but I can assure the House that the Government will take every feasible, practical step to advance our case. For us to initiate litigation when there is a legitimate scientific process under way at this time would be to invite failure.

Gerrard Eckhoff: If a New Zealand Government can take the United States of America to the World Trade Organization over access of our lamb to that country and win, why will this Government, after 6 years in office, not take Australia to that same organisation, with, likely, exactly the same result—a win for the apple growers of this country?

Hon JIM SUTTON: For us to take a case to the World Trade Organization when there is a scientific process under way would be to invite failure. Of course, the member who asked the question is accustomed to failure and apparently thrives on it.

Youth—Employment and Training

11. MOANA MACKEY (Labour) to the Associate Minister for Social Development and Employment: What is the Government doing to help young people into employment and training?

Hon RICK BARKER (Associate Minister for Social Development and Employment): We have put in place many initiatives to get young people off benefits and into work or training programmes that help them become successful contributors to society with a career. This Government has brought back apprenticeships; now there are over 7,175 apprentices, and we expect to have 8,500 by June. This Government has established industry training; there are now over 139,000 people upskilling themselves. We have introduced the Gateway high school programme, which builds a bridge between school and work, and we are opening, with Work and Income, the Youth Transitions Service in 14 locations. We have done a great deal.

Moana Mackey: How effective has that been in reducing youth unemployment in New Zealand?

Hon RICK BARKER: Very effective. There has been a drop in youth unemployment in New Zealand of about 70 percent. I have a graph here: under National, the blue side, the line is going up, and under Labour, the red side, it is continuously going down. Where there were 10 young people on the unemployment scrap heap while National was in power, there are just three today. In April 1999, under National, 45,054 young people were on the unemployment scrap heap; today there are just 13,000. [Interruption]

Madam SPEAKER: Would members please be quiet. Would the Minister please repeat the answer to the question so that we can all hear it. [Interruption] Well, then, please be quiet!

Hon RICK BARKER: We have been very effective. As members can see—

Dr Don Brash: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. The graph that the Minister produced was designed to incite disorder in the House. It is clearly a grossly misleading graph about unemployment that was very carefully chosen to show the point the Minister is trying to make. It is a very incomplete graph.

Madam SPEAKER: I thank the member. We have had many visual aids in the House today—apples, charts, and other charts. That in itself has not been cause for disorder, though you may have depicted it so. I ask the Minister to please answer the question.

Hon RICK BARKER: The Government has been very effective. The number of young people on the unemployment benefit has dropped by 70 percent since April 1999. Where there were 10 young people out of work, there are now three. This graph amply demonstrates it: under National, up until April 1999, the number of youth unemployed was rising; under Labour it has gone down. Where there were 45,000 young people unemployed in the period ended April 1999, there has now been a drop of 31,805. Just 13,000 young people are on the dole. Youth unemployment has dropped dramatically. In Canterbury—if Mr Brownlee would like to know—it has plummeted 82 percent; in the East Coast, my area, 83 percent; in Nelson, 89 percent; and in Madam Speaker’s area, Tauranga, a staggering 96 percent. That is a fantastic job.

Judith Collins: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I seek leave for the Minister now to have the opportunity to explain why sickness and invalids benefits have gone up 39 percent under his Government.

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

Rodney Hide: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I just want to draw your attention to a possible inconsistency. You sought that the House be quiet and asked the Minister to answer the question, whereupon he took approximately 4¾ minutes to give a speech.

Hon Member: It was not that long.

Rodney Hide: Well, that member might want to call out, but I would not. The point is this. When patsy questions get asked of this Government quietness is demanded, and a Minister can give a 5-minute speech in answer. When Opposition members ask questions about important matters of the day any old answer does, and one certainly does not hear the Speaker of this House say—as you did with Mr Rick Barker just now on a patsy question—that the Minister is to answer the question.

Madam SPEAKER: That is not a point of order, but that is also an accusation that the Chair is not conducting the affairs of this House in a fair and impartial way. I would therefore ask the member to stand, withdraw, and apologise to the Chair.

Rodney Hide: I withdraw and apologise. I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. My point was that there is a danger of this.

Madam SPEAKER: There may well be a danger, but it has not taken place.

Rodney Hide: Do I get to finish the point of order, or are you going to interrupt?

Madam SPEAKER: I ask you to withdraw and apologise for that remark, Mr Hide; you are making the same point that has already been ruled on.

Rodney Hide: I withdraw and apologise.

Madam SPEAKER: Now, does the member have a new point of order?

Rodney Hide: Well, actually, I do.

Madam SPEAKER: Please then give it to the House.

Rodney Hide: Is it the Speaker’s position that when a member is giving a point of order, it is OK for the Speaker to use her position to talk over the top of him or her?

Madam SPEAKER: It is certainly OK, as you put it, for the Speaker to be able to rule, when she has ruled on a point of order, that it should not be raised again. That is what I was doing in that particular instance.

Marc Alexander: Is the Minister, in any meaningful sense, concerned that of the 2,342 young people who received an independent youth benefit in the year ended 30 September 2004, 77 percent of them graduated on to an adult benefit, according to answers from his office to written questions; and what specific steps is he taking to avoid, and stop, the independent youth benefit from becoming the dole with training wheels?

Hon RICK BARKER: The member will be delighted to know that the number of people on the independent youth benefit has fallen yet again. It is down to 1,944 as of March 2005. The member will be delighted to know that more of these young people are moving directly on to employment than have done in the past. I seek leave to table the graph that I referred in my presentation.

Madam SPEAKER: Leave is sought to table that graph. Is their any objection? There is objection. It will not be tabled.

Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. The National Party might reconsider its position if the Minister was able to say whether he coloured in the graph himself.

Madam SPEAKER: I thank the member for his contribution.

Taxation—Australian Tax Cuts

12. JOHN KEY (National—Helensville) to the Minister of Finance: Will his 2005 Budget contain personal tax cuts similar to those announced by his colleague in Australia; if not, why not?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Minister of Finance): The member will have to wait until next week’s Budget when all will be revealed.

John Key: Does the Minister stand by his press release of 24 March titled Surplus myth destroyed by data, where he said in relation to tax cuts: “The budget will show how unsustainable such cuts would be over the longer term. The current account deficit shows how foolish they would be in the short term,”; how does he reconcile that with his odd implication that his Budget could contain tax cuts—which his press release clearly rules out—because they certainly cannot both be correct?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: The member will have to wait and see, but I will point out to him, as I have already pointed out to Mr Hide, that the Budget will show that, over time, the gross debt to GDP ratio will flatten right out, and therefore further structural changes will be very difficult. But if he wants to understand why, when the economy is somewhat overheating, it is unwise to pump it up further, I suggest he talk to the former Governor of the Reserve Bank.

John Key: Is it not true that the underlying aim of Peter Costello’s Budget last night was to make Australia an even more attractive destination for skilled and professional workers, in which case for how long is this Government going to sit back and allow the wage gap between the average New Zealand worker and the average Australian worker to continue to widen?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: Mr Costello was proud to announce that he has achieved his aim that 80 percent of Australians pay a tax rate of no more than 30c in the dollar—not, of course, including the Medicare surcharge or the compulsory superannuation scheme, both of which might be regarded as forms of taxation. In New Zealand, 75 percent pay no more than 21c in the dollar. If tax was the driver, then people would be coming back in the opposite direction, from Australia to New Zealand. The second point I would say is that I know that the member was overseas for a long time, making money out of nothing, as paper-pushers do in the financial world; in the real world one has to earn an increase in income, not just pay oneself an increase.

John Key: Does he agree with Brendan O’Donovan, Westpac’s Chief Economist, who in an article today, “Can Spend But Can’t Cut Taxes—Yeah, Right!”, wrote: “The Finance Minister reiterated his view that there is no room for tax cuts without long-term spending cuts or increases in debt, but we have yet to see the analysis to suggest this is the case. Furthermore, the massive increase in spending we’ve seen in recent years would suggest there has been considerable scope for reduced taxes.”?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: I refer the member to two counterfactual arguments. Firstly, in the United States, of course, substantial structural tax cuts have not been accompanied by increased growth—rather, by massive, burgeoning fiscal deficits. Secondly, if the member cared to look at the rest of the Australian Budget, he would find a number of cuts in health spending. I am pleased to announce, therefore, that that is, clearly, now National Party policy.

Urgent Debates

Police 111 System—Review

Madam SPEAKER: I have received a letter from the Hon Tony Ryall seeking to debate under Standing Order 373 the release of the New Zealand Police Communications Centres Service Centre independent external review. This is a particular case of recent occurrence involving ministerial responsibility, and because of the public interest in this matter I consider it does require the immediate attention of the House. I therefore call on the member to move the motion.

Hon TONY RYALL (National—Bay Of Plenty): I move, That the House take note of a matter of urgent public importance.

It was 7 months yesterday that Iraena Asher disappeared. She dialled 111 at a time when she needed the New Zealand Police, and she got a taxi. In the days that followed, New Zealanders became more and more appalled at the sad story of her disappearance. After considerable pressure by this House, New Zealand’s highest-paid public servant, the Commissioner of Police, was forced to launch an external review of the performance of the 111 system.

Today, 7 months and 1 day after the disappearance of Iraena Asher, the bombshell has arrived. The report focuses the blame, like a laser beam, on the Minister of Police, George Hawkins. This Minister has known for months and months how bad those call centres were. He stood in this House and told the Asher family, the Bentley’s, and the young woman who was sexually assaulted and told to walk to a police station, that the New Zealand Police was adequately staffed—that it had all the staff it needed.

This report says completely the opposite. This report says that the public and the police of New Zealand are at risk from a failing 111 system, which that Minister is responsible for. He stood in the House to say, and has said to all the victims of 111 calls, that the police have all the resources they need. This report says exactly the opposite. This report says everything that we on this side of the House have been saying for the last 9 months—that the police are unable to respond to emergency calls, that there is a complete lack of leadership, that there is a complete lack of faith in the system, and that the New Zealand Police and their front-line staff are at risk. This report reflects on the Minister and on the highest level of the New Zealand Police. They have let the public down. There needs to be accountability. Think of the victims of the 111 debacles. They deserve accountability, and they deserve it from George Hawkins. This Minister has known about the failings of the 111 system. He did nothing about getting the additional staff needed. It is on his hands that New Zealanders are suffering from a complete breakdown in the police 111 system.

This report says it all: that there is an inadequate service for New Zealanders, that the system can never provide an adequate service for New Zealanders, and that there is a risk of safety to the public and front-line police. It also says that urgent changes are needed to stop the erosion of public confidence in the 111 system and in the police.

What did this Minister of Police do for 7 months? Absolutely nothing. Day after day we stood in this House and said to the Minister that the victims deserve a response. What did we get? For the first weeks the response was: “Oh, this is just one exception.”; “This is now two exceptions.”; “This is only three exceptions.” Well, this bombshell says that there is no exception. This Minister has let the country down, through the most appalling neglect of his responsibilities. His job as Minister of Police is to get the resources for the police that they need. Here is what he told Parliament and said on television: “I take the rap when things start to break down.” That is what Mr Hawkins said—that he takes the rap when things start to break down. Well, this report states that things have broken down, irretrievably.

I say to the Minister of Police that he has never taken any responsibility. He has never taken any responsibility for the fact that Iraena Asher disappeared. When she needed the New Zealand Police, she dialled 111 and his service sent a taxi. When the Bentley’s were being bashed and dialled 111, and wanted their neighbours, his service let them down. When the young woman was sexually attacked in Hamilton, his service said: “Walk to the police station.” Is he going to take responsibility for any of that, or will he be like the rest of this Government and wash his hands?

In the last 24 hours this Parliament and this country have learnt that we cannot trust the Government on biosecurity, that we cannot trust the Government on immigration, and that we cannot trust a word the Prime Minister says—and this report tells New Zealanders that they cannot trust the 111 system when they need it most. This report is a huge bombshell on the Minister. For weeks he has stood in this House defending his position and saying that absolutely nothing was wrong, that the police had all the resources they needed, and that there was nothing to be worried about. But this report, delivered today, 7 months after Iraena Asher disappeared, says it all. It says that the public and front-line police are at risk because of the 111 system. It is not working. This Minister is responsible for that. This Minister has failed to deliver the staff that the police need to do the job New Zealanders expect of them.

The report details, in a very, very precise way, a huge list of failures of leadership, failures of resource, and failures of management, and it focuses responsibility for those failures like a laser beam on George Hawkins and the Labour Government. This is the Government that reappointed the Commissioner of Police for another 2 years. This is the Government that has endorsed the management of the Commissioner of Police. It has to take responsibility for what has happened. This report details accurately everything the Opposition parties have been saying for years—that this Minister has no idea what is going on in his portfolio, and, when he is told, he ignores it. When he was told that the call centres are crying out for staff, what did he do? There was no response. When he was told that New Zealanders are getting a poor service from the 111 system, he said that it was all our fault for ruining confidence in the police; it was all our fault for ruining confidence in the 111 system. Well, this report today makes it absolutely clear that that Minister of Police is absolutely incompetent. He is the worst Minister of Police this country has ever had. He has overseen a complete collapse in the New Zealand Police. Sixty-eight percent of New Zealanders do not have any faith in the New Zealand Police, because of that Minister’s leadership. There is no leadership whatsoever. He had the opportunity, 7 months ago, to do something about this but he did nothing.

It is even worse. Every month, since the month Iraena Asher disappeared, staff numbers in the call centres have dropped. We revealed that last month. Every month since Iraena Asher disappeared, staff numbers in the call centres have dropped. Does that really say to us that the Minister of Police was determined to fix the problem? Does that say to us that he is determined to do something for the Asher family, the Bentley’s, or for the many other victims of the 111 debacle? Absolutely nothing.

I make it clear to this House that the police need a fresh start, new leadership, and a Minister who knows what needs to be done to get them up and running again. The police need a Minister they can have faith and confidence in. They are not getting that with the Hon. George Hawkins, but they will get it when the National Party leads the next Government in this country. I tell members that the Minister of Police in the next National Government will not allow that sort of nonsense to happen, as it has under George Hawkins. Responsibility will fall where it should, and that is on George Hawkins, the Minister of Police under Helen Clark’s Government. Not only do we have a Prime Minister whose word we cannot trust, we now have a Minister of Police who stood up in this House and said that the police had all the staff they needed. This report today makes it absolutely clear that they do not.

The report talks about the management of the 111 centres being defunct. It states that there is evidence that police units are not making themselves available to respond to 111 calls, that basic things like answering the calls are not being dealt with properly, that radio channels are being linked when they should not be, and that there is a lack of morale and confidence within the call centres. Those things have been apparent for months, and that Minister and the Government have denied those problems all the time. We will get some huff and bluff about a few million that the Minister has decided to throw at the police, under pressure of this report. Frankly, 3 months before an election is just not good enough for George Hawkins to wake up to the problem that has been going on in the police.

We have been saying for months that the problems in the 111 system are endemic and that the public and the police of this country are rapidly losing faith in the 111 system, and the report states that is right. Yes, this report states that more staff are needed and that leadership and direction are needed, and what does this Government offer? It offers absolutely none of the essential stuff that is needed to fix the 111 system. A few million dollars is all too late. He should tell the Asher family why it took 7 months to do anything. He should tell the Bentley’s why, if the police were adequately staffed, they could not have their issue dealt with. He should tell the young woman in Hamilton who was told to walk to the police station after she had been attacked. He should tell the police that it is not right that one has to scream to get better service from the 111 system. This is what the people of New Zealand expect from the police and that Minister. It is a fundamental obligation of the Minister of Police to get the resources and to provide the service the people of New Zealand need.

This Minister told the country that he takes the rap when things start to break down. This report today states that things have broken down, and it focuses the blame, like a laser beam, on the Minister of Police, George Hawkins. It is time he went.

Hon GEORGE HAWKINS (Minister of Police): Oh, how short memories are! Of course, leadership is something the National Party knew nothing of when it was in power. Tony Ryall sat around the Cabinet table and voted to have 540 fewer police. He voted for the police budget to be cut. He forgets that amnesia is something he has plenty of; he remembers very, very little.

This Government has delivered. We have already provided more than 1,000 extra police. We have provided over $200 million, and today I am able to announce another $45.5 million over 4 years. That has happened as a late Budget bid, and this Government has seen to it that that money will be provided.

The commissioner has never, ever had greater resources at his disposal. He has more than 1,000 staff and, of course, this issue is something that could have been dealt with very quickly. The commissioner has the right to shift his staff, and he could have put more staff in communications centres.

The report talks about getting things right. The New Zealand Police is a great organisation—an organisation that gets most things right. The crime rate has dropped 8.2 percent over the last 12 months. The resolution rate is up. But I have to say that the issues raised by the independent review authority, such as management, training, and leadership, are issues for the Commissioner of Police.

However, it is critically important that the public has confidence in the 111 system. This Government has committed to ensure that the commissioner has additional resources to allow him to respond immediately to the issues raised by the review, in order to restore public confidence. Back in February I answered a question in the House, from Tony Ryall, by saying that if the commissioner needed more resources we would make sure he got them. I said that on 15 February and, of course, it has happened. We made sure that the police got that money.

Additional funding of $45.5 million is being committed over 4 years. That sum, requested by the commissioner, equates to the salaries of approximately 100 staff across the range of communications centre roles. The mix between managers, supervisors, support staff, and call-takers is a matter for the commissioner, and we are giving him the resource he has asked for. This Government’s clear expectation is that the commissioner will fix the problems identified. We have committed the additional resources he has requested so that he can do that urgently.

The commissioner took the appropriate action in commissioning a review. Following the case of Miss Asher, the commissioner called for a review. He said that he wanted to get things right, and I supported him on that. When he came to my office after having the draft report and said that he needed more money, I immediately went to the Minister of Finance and to Cabinet and secured the money. This Government has done what it should do, and that is absolutely true. This Government, as I have said, wants to make sure that everything is improved.

Let us look at the 111 system. It gets most things right. As with all bodies where a human element is involved, there are mistakes. We want to try to eliminate as many of those as we can. Of course, human error is difficult to deal with, but better training will help. We will make sure that people have skills, in what is a difficult job.

I also want to talk about the problems associated with the new technology. The review found that the new technology is world-class, but one immediate area of concern is the need to be able to separate communications through more radio channels. The funding we are giving will allow for four additional radio channels. That is what is recommended; that is what we are paying for; this Government is fronting up.

The report mentions the value of Automatic Vehicle Location, so that the police know where their vehicles are, and it will be very important to have a rural component of that system. We want to make sure that rural areas are identified accurately and rapidly and, of course, we say very clearly that the police in New Zealand must make sure that the service is improved.

John Carter: Has it taken you 5 years to come to that conclusion, George?

Hon GEORGE HAWKINS: Well, it took me very little time to know that the Government of which that member was a part wanted to cut police spending. Don Brash will not get up even now and say how he will fund the police. He does not know how many more police he wants. It is a matter of the National Party jumping on the police all the time. The Nats made the cuts, and the National leader makes a fool of himself when he goes to Palmerston North—

Hon Trevor Mallard: Clem Simich was a good Minister, though.

Hon GEORGE HAWKINS: Yes, Clem Simich was a good Minister, but I have to say that he did not get support from his mates.

If we look at the overall situation, we can see that the commissioner has already announced the establishment of a National Communications Centre Advisory Board to oversee the performance and strategic direction of the police communications centre, making it even more transparent and giving the public an overseeing role as well. I heartily agree with the commissioner’s statement that the work of the communications centre must be more closely integrated with the whole organisation, and that external stakeholders need to have a greater role in determining service delivery expectations and standards. All stakeholders have a role in educating the public on those matters.

We are going to look at the number of 111 calls that are not actual emergencies and which could more appropriately be made to a different number. When a person rings 111 to find out how to fix a television aerial, we know there is a need for far better education. Each year the police communications centre receives about 1.6 million calls. Some 466,000 are 111 calls, and more than 50 of those are assessed as priority one calls, which require—and, in the vast majority of cases, receive—an immediate police response.

Overall, the performance of the New Zealand police over the last few years has been exceptional—absolutely exceptional. There are fewer crimes and more resolutions to crime than at any time in the last 20 years. Overall, the performance of the New Zealand police has continued to improve.

John Carter: Oh, rubbish!

Hon GEORGE HAWKINS: That is absolutely right, but the National Party tries to put down the police at every turn.

John Carter: Oh! No!

Hon GEORGE HAWKINS: There is John Carter wailing and moaning. He does not support the police in the way the Government does.

There is still room for improvement, and the Government is making resources available in order to achieve that—and next Thursday there will be more. The Government has always supported the New Zealand Police, which is a far, far different situation from that of National.

National had the Martin review. What was the Martin review designed to do? It was designed to take police out of police stations and put them in the dole queue. National did not want 540 police; it was going to be absolutely shot of them. National was going to save money. Well, New Zealanders will not forget that.

Let us look at the turn-round in things such as burglary. There used to be 96,000 burglaries in New Zealand each year; now that figure is below 60,000. Police do a great job and we support them.

I think that what members opposite forget is that we are making sure that demand and delivery services are improved. We are making sure that leadership is improved. We are making sure that training and supervision are improved. We are also making sure that there are extra radio channels.

This Government’s record is a good one. There was a very quick response from this Government when the commissioner said he needed money and resources. What did we do? We got them for him, and we are producing better results because we listen to the police. We listen to their needs, and we listen to the public’s needs. We answer to the public by making their communities safer.

DAIL JONES (NZ First): For the benefit of anyone who is still taking any interest in this debate, I point out that that was the Labour Government’s Minister of Police. It is hard to believe, but that was the Labour Government’s Minister of Police. He ended his speech by saying that he would listen to this and listen to that. All that the people of New Zealand are saying is: “Would you listen to the 111 calls?”. That is all that the people of New Zealand have been asking for a long time, and that Minister is not prepared to listen to the concerns over the 111 calls, or even to the speeches being made in reply to his. That is a disgraceful act. He is not willing to stay in the House and listen to some responses to what he said.

New Zealand First wholeheartedly supports the New Zealand Police. Without the police force we would not have the type of democracy we have today. Our police force is not corrupt, unlike some of the police forces nearby, as we have seen recently in relation to airport matters and drug smuggling. We have a police force that, until this term of the Labour Government, was held in the highest regard by all New Zealanders. But now, because of the inactions and the type of response we have had from this Minister, unfortunately the New Zealand police force is experiencing problems in its relationship with the public.

Who would have expected that the New Zealand police force would be subjected to a review by someone from New South Wales? When would we have ever expected a New Zealand police force to be reviewed by anybody from Australia, of all places? We know about the problems the Australians have had with their police forces. But we have had a review, conducted by the chief superintendent of the New South Wales police. We have had the Toronto police looking at us. The North Wales police have also come over here and, in this report that was put together and in which PricewaterhouseCoopers was involved as well, have told us how we should be running our police force

This is a disgraceful day for this Labour Government’s Minister of Police. We do not expect him to resign, because he not capable of taking responsibility for anything, at all. That is a measure of the quality of this Labour Government. No one takes responsibility, whether it is the Minister of Education, when education is falling apart, the Minister of Immigration, when immigration is falling apart, or, of course, the Minister of Police. Unfortunately, the police have been falling apart for a long, long time.

This is a damning report on the Minister of Police, and, I think, on the higher echelons of the police force. It is not damning of the men and women on the beat—they are being let down badly by the top echelons of the New Zealand police force.

What is New Zealand First going to do about it? Well, New Zealand First will deal with three fundamental issues in order to restore the safe society we expect in New Zealand. The first issue is the need to restore public confidence, which has been shattered by the Labour Government’s failure to have any policies, at all. The second is the need to dramatically increase police numbers to allow officers to do their duty more effectively—not just to take 111 calls, but also to get out and service them; not to have ghost 111 groups, but to have real, live ones. We have more than a ghost, as far as the Minister of Police is concerned. But he is less than a shadow of a ghost when it comes to doing anything in this House. He would feature well as a ghost in Macbeth—that is about how adequate he is for the people of New Zealand.

The third thing New Zealand First will do in relation to the prioritisation of the police force is to demerge traffic officers from the police force. These are the three things we intend to do: restore public confidence, increase police numbers, and demerge traffic officers from the police force.

It is New Zealand First’s intention to double the size of the police force over the next 5 years. I am sure that as we look at having more police in the police force, we will make extra savings by not needing the number of prisons we seem to have these days. The problem of the increase in prisons is because people are not being caught when they are young, because they are allowed to become more and more hardened criminals, and because when they finally get to court and are facing 175 charges of burglary—and that is the only time they get sent to jail—they are hardened by the time they get there. They stay in prison longer, so we need more prisons. We have to catch those people early and deal with them early. If necessary, we need to lock them up for a short time early on. The only way we can do that is by having enough police to do it with.

The only people we catch today are those who finally make a mistake after they have committed many hundreds of offences. That is the failure of the present system, and it is one that New Zealand First will resolve. I believe that as we increase the number of police we will see a reduction in the number of prisoners, and we will get to the stage where we probably will not even have to double the police force—it will be unnecessary to do that because we will have caught everybody. We will make savings in the prison service.

I have seen, in over 30 years as a lawyer, that if offenders are not caught early, they are history. They come back into the system and are locked up for 7 or 10 years. Do members know how much it costs to keep a prisoner in jail? It costs about $100,000 a year. [Interruption] Yes, that member is embarrassing. It costs about $100,000, depending upon who is being dealt with. That is an utter waste of money. It is the equivalent of a good police officer of high rank. How many prisoners do we have today? About 6,000 or 7,000 prisoners, all costing $100,000 each per year. My God! How many police could we have if we could catch those people early and make sure that we did not have to lock them up? That is the way things need to be done.

We need to better resource the police and to make sure that the 111 system works, because it is clear from this report, which is a disgraceful comment on the Minister of Police, on Mr Goff, and on the other members of the Labour Government, that our police force is falling apart. But New Zealand First is here. We will make sure that that does not happen under a New Zealand First Government.

We in this Parliament should never have come to the stage where we have to debate the police in this way. We are debating this only because of a failure of the Labour Government. That is what it boils down to. It is a failure of the higher echelons of the police. An active, appropriate, and hard-working Minister of Police would enforce his or her personality on the commissioner and make sure that the public’s requests and demands were being met.

It is an utter disgrace that the Minister of Police has said that he is not increasing the number of police in Wellington because the Commissioner of Police has not asked him to, when everyone in Wellington knows that there should be more police in the city. Both men are just not doing their jobs. If the people of Wellington and the police officers of Wellington know that there should be more police in Wellington, and if the Minister and commissioner take no notice of that, then we will have a problem in Wellington. One wonders what the Labour and United Future members for Wellington are doing about this. What pressure are they putting on the Minister to get something done? They are obviously doing nothing whatsoever, because the situation in Wellington, Auckland, and elsewhere remains unresolved. We have ended up with the New Zealand police force being subjected to review by an Australian police officer. I cannot believe that such a day has ever come.

Of course, it is not as though this report has just a couple of recommendations. It has 61 recommendations arising out of the 111 service only—based only on the 111 service. Can members imagine, if the report had looked at the entire New Zealand police force, how many recommendations there would be? Any self-respecting Minister of Police would never have let this happen. But at the same time, any self-respecting Minister of Police who allowed it to happen would go—absolutely go. But not in the Labour administration, where nobody takes any responsibility, whatsoever.

There were 61 recommendations—we needed only three. Those are the recommendations that are contained in the New Zealand First policy: bring back confidence in the police—that is what has to be done—dramatically increase police numbers, and demerge traffic officers from the police. We want the police to be catching criminals; we do not want them to be handing out traffic tickets. That is the biggest thing this Labour Government has achieved with regard to the police force—police officers are now out issuing more traffic tickets. I could be getting burgled around the corner, but the priority of the commissioner and the Minister is to issue traffic tickets. That is an absolute scandal. We want police officers to be doing the job of police officers, with everyone knowing that they are police officers. Traffic officers are a separate matter, as far as New Zealand First is concerned. They can have a different uniform and can do a traffic officer’s job.

The way that the safety service for the public is run is an absolute scandal. Police officers are being made to issue hundreds of millions of dollars worth of traffic tickets in order to earn money. The priority of police officers during a bus strike in Auckland is to catch people driving in bus lanes. I know of any number of cases in which tickets were issued during a bus strike to people driving in bus lanes. What a disgrace. What a scandal that is.

STEPHEN FRANKS (ACT): Usually when an official report is released Opposition members can be expected to get into it and to find tiny fragments, scraps, or very carefully worded criticisms that are as neutered as the authors can tolerate without losing their integrity. When I took this report from the website at 2 o’clock this afternoon, I expected it to be of mild interest; not a cover-up, but a technical document full of recommendations for management tinkering. Without any fear of hyperbole, this is an utterly devastating document. This would be the worst review of an organisation that I have seen, and I went through the 1980s when organisations were collapsing and losing billions of New Zealanders’ dollars. I saw some of those investigatory reports.

This report is a picture, not just of a communications centre in chaos, but of an organisation that has lost any sense of its purpose—where people mistrust each other, do not know what their roles are, and do not know what their leaders value. I imagine that this report has washed the dirty linen of the New Zealand Police internationally in a way that can hardly have been matched. The Toronto Police Service, the North Wales Police, and the New South Wales Police have been involved in the review and, no doubt, this would have been workshopped. There is no doubt that this version of the report is mild compared with what it started off as, because documents like this are shown in draft to the Minister.

Perhaps the most telling line of all was “historically high rates of absenteeism for sick leave”. That seems trifling, but anyone who knows anything at all about management knows that it is one of the first symptoms of an organisation that has lost its morale and its purpose. People do not feel that they need to turn up. I found it surprising that Dail Jones from New Zealand First did not cite that the panel found clear evidence that available units within districts are either not logging on or are not making themselves available for jobs. Ron Mark tried for months to raise that matter with the Minister of Police. The Minister sat smugly and said that we have the best police force in the world.

We see “a structure that needs to clarify the different responsibilities for command and control of critical incidents”. What else would the police management have seen as its highest priority? It would be to have a clear line of authority and control. A “lack of buy-in by districts can be detrimental to the progress of the Communications Centres Service Centre”—that is, the police do not rely on, understand, or want to work with the call centre. “There is a lack of understanding throughout the New Zealand Police and, disturbingly, within call centres on what the purpose and business of the Communications Centres Service Centre is. … The governance is deficient, and needs urgent attention from strategic and operational perspectives.”

Nothing good has been said in this review, except that the call centres have the very latest information technology equipment. In this report the reviewers have not managed to find a thing to balance the bad, except that the call centres have good information technology—which was probably ordered under the previous Government, anyway. [Interruption] The Minister of Justice, Phil Goff, is howling, as he usually does. He is winding himself up for his own speech, I imagine.

The report states: “The Panel is very concerned about the potential risks to the safety of the public, front-line police and CCSC staff … The Panel believes that unless New Zealand Police makes urgent changes to how the CCSC operates, further incidents will occur with the attendant risk of further erosion of public confidence …”. It is easy to wind up on things like this and to lose a sense of perspective. Sometimes in Opposition one feels like crying in frustration at the loss of the integrity and some of the values that New Zealanders once held—the simple belief in ministerial responsibility, or in responsibility of any kind.

I ask members to think how Denis Marshall, who resigned because some clod at the lowest level of the Department of Conservation failed to use bolts in the Cave Creek structure, must have felt. He resigned. He took responsibility for that matter. What do we see here? We see deaths on a routine scale.

I refer back to the Maggie Bentley story. I asked the Minister of Police repeatedly over a number of days how he justified his statement that the 111 centre’s response to Maggie Bentley’s panicked call at 6 o’clock in the morning was what the Minister called a “textbook response”. I asked him from which textbook did it come that she should be held on the phone and told—falsely—that the police were there and that they had called her neighbours. Every time after she hung up and tried to call out and talk to her neighbour, as soon as she called again, she was back on to the same call-centre operator. I asked what kind of textbook led to that kind of account, and the Minister simply abused me for casting doubt on the quality of the police.

This Minister can make a speech and then vanish. He does not even bother to stay and listen to the people who have been warning him and this Government for years—not just months—about the life and death issue that this country has been facing as the police have been corroded. It is all there in bureaucratese. Every warning that has been given and every statement that the responsibility goes right to the top is justified.

I can pick them on every page: a reluctance of sworn staff to work in the centre, the lack of selection criteria and training for staff, the short time many sworn staff spend in the Communications Centres Service Centre, the lack of a career structure for both sworn and non-sworn staff within the service centre, evidence of a blame culture, absence of positive reinforcement or a recognition programme, frustration and low morale of many senior sworn staff, and a general lack of morale. Those issues relate to the service centre. They could operate in a system at the very heart of the police only if the entire police force is infected with them.

This Minister of Police should have stood up in the House and apologised for the bluster he has thrown across the Chamber. He should have apologised to Iraena Asher’s parents, and apologised to Pete and Maggie Bentley for telling them that the police had a “textbook response” to their home invasion. He should have said that the only thing he could say in mitigation is that the Prime Minister and the Minister of Justice were all in this with him, and that if he has to go, they should go, too. The police have been gutted by a culture of lying to themselves and of frustration—the revolving door justice system.

I stand here and I look at a Minister of Justice who passed a Sentencing Act that states that when a judge passes a sentence of 2 years, that means 1 year. There is only one reason for a provision like that in the Sentencing Act. It is so that the judges are obliged to be complicit in the lies of the Minister of Justice. When the Minister of Justice has the courts lying to people to cover up for this Government, where will the police be? Where will be the police’s integrity, morale, or pride in what they are doing if the Minister of Justice passes a law that obliges judges to lie every time they give a sentence of under 2 years?

The culture of this Government has created what every uniformed force fears most of all. A uniformed force, in life-threatening situations, has an esprit de corps and a morale that depends on what its members see happening at the top. It depends on confidence that they are supported, instead of having a Prime Minister whose first action in relation to the police was to accuse them of racism, at Waitara, with no evidence.

We have a police force who cannot be loyal. They were once apolitical. Any member of Parliament could walk into a police station and ask how things were going, but this Minister of Police issued an edict 2 years ago that the police were not to talk to MPs.

John Carter: They still do.

STEPHEN FRANKS: Of course they do, but now they do it covertly—and what is that doing to the culture of the police? This Government has been a disaster for law and order.

KEITH LOCKE (Green): The Green Party is pleased to speak in this debate, because this is a very bad situation. The report on the operation of the Communications Centres Service Centre is very damning. It is good that the Government commissioned an independent review. I congratulate it on that, and I hope it will fully implement the findings of the review, which does not pull any punches.

One of the problems—which the review panel perhaps does not deal with as much as it should—is the implication that the people in the call centres are seen as people who are at the bottom of the heap. Unfortunately, that runs throughout our society. If one looks at the treatment of call-centre staff, one sees a lot of rebellion going on in call centres in different big agencies across the country because the pay is very poor. The pay rate is basically the minimum wage—up to $14 per hour. I am not talking about the police call centres, because the report does not specify the wages rates, but it does state that at the junior level—the new entrants into the police call centres—staff are paid at comparable rates to those of staff in other call centres, so there must be very low wage rates.

The dissatisfaction, the lack of morale, the absenteeism, and the high turnover rate mentioned in the report indicate that wages are low, and that a whole lot of other things are wrong with the way the police call centres operate. There would not be a 17 percent turnover rate, as referred to in the report, if there was not dissatisfaction about that among call-centre staff. The issue is not that they are bad people; the report actually states that the staff are dedicated people. The call centres have access to good information technology. There are various suggestions for improvements to that technology, but the problems are more in the basic conditions such as, I suggest, the wages, the training, and the whole organisation of the places. The picture painted in the report is of an agency moving from crisis to crisis, with very little managerial direction or proper training, and with no real systems for looking at the errors in the system and ironing them out.

The performance of the police call centres is clearly not adequate. The target of having 90 percent of calls answered within 10 seconds is not being met, according to the review body. There did not seem to be any clear direction as to how to meet that target, and quite a lot of calls actually take ages to be answered. The report states that between 3 and 6 percent of calls are not answered within 75 seconds of being made, which is pretty disastrous for an emergency system. If someone is lying on the floor and bleeding to death or is being beaten up by somebody, or if someone’s place is being invaded, 75 seconds is a long time. If that time goes by and still nothing has happened, it causes massive upset and trauma, all around.

What happens to the calls that are not answered within 75 seconds? The Telecom system bounces them to another call centre, and that system itself is not working very well, according to the report. One of the problems that has come through, and it is not necessarily addressed in detail in this report, is that if calls are bounced all over the country and are answered by people in another location—let us say a call comes from Nelson and, after being bounced around, ends up being answered by someone from Whangarei who does not know the streets in Nelson—there is all sorts of confusion. I think that over the months there have been reports of that happening. Sure, information technology systems can improve that, and the report talks about new global positioning system mapping systems, and all the rest of those systems, which are good. We have a company, Navman New Zealand, that has a whole new system to bring details of streets all around the country up on screens at the touch of the right buttons. No doubt technology like that has the potential to improve the call centres significantly, but it is very distressing that no real performance standards are being operated in the present system.

In terms of the problem of overload of the system, I tell members that in the past there have been suggestions, which are being partially implemented bit by bit, to have an alternative line for non-urgent calls. One of the problems is that around the country the only number in people’s minds is 111 when they are in some sort of crisis. It may not be a high-grade crisis—it may not be life-threatening or really frightening—but instead a crisis able to be resolved in a few hours rather than immediately. So is quite important to have a back-up emergency system number in people’s minds. The report states that an alternative number—0800 311 311—is reserved for non-urgent reporting, and that it will come into use at some point in the future. But, clearly, there should be a whole campaign either to use that number or to fix a simpler number in people’s minds, so that when a situation is not really life-threatening but they want a response, and when they are not near a phone book or anything else, they can call the non-urgent number. That may take a bit of pressure off the 111 system. We already know that the ٭555 system for people on the roads is working quite well, so we perhaps need another system to be brought in, as well as that.

I have talked about the problem of the lack of training that comes through in the report, and about the probable underpayment of call-centre staff. I think the whole point with service centres, particularly with the police ones as they are emergency centres, is that they actually have to have surplus staff, rather than a shortage of staff. Today, that rubs a lot of management people up the wrong way. They get their bonuses and rewards by cutting staff and by cutting corners, whereas something like these centres actually has to have surplus staff. For a lot of the time there have to be people sitting around and doing nothing—which is anathema to management—so that when the peak really hits, the staff are available. Sure, that can be fine-tuned so that there is not too much of a surplus in staffing, by reassigning stuff and bouncing it to other centres, provided that is done properly. But we do need to move towards a system that has a few surplus staff.

The report states that the extra staff requirement suggested by the review panel, and in a survey done by a subsidiary body to the people making the report, is for 21 extra staff. That is not a lot of extra staff to serve the needs of the nation, in dealing with people in crisis. Mistakes cause loss of life, as we have seen in the recent Pīhā case, and such cases are only the ones that reach the top in the media. For every case that reaches the media in that way, there are generally hundreds of other cases of people who have felt real problems in terms of failing to get to a hospital in time—of their injuries getting worse, etc., because of the lack of proper standards in the emergency phone agency.

So the Green Party supports the Government in looking at the recommendations—and there are a huge number of them—in this report to improve the staff, improve the management, and improve the levels of payment for call-centre staff. Those people should be treated seriously in order to convey the attitude, which I think the public has, that they are valued. I support the idea in the report of having a public reference point, and engaging the public in the process of improving the service is important. It is quite important to have that channel there.

One of the sections in the report is quite devastating. It describes how the panel observed behaviours such as poor questioning techniques, little rapport being established with callers, little clarification to callers of why questions were being asked, long silences from call-takers during data entry, which led to callers querying whether anyone was still on the line with them, lack of consistency in what was being asked, and expressed anger and frustration, etc.

Debate interrupted.

Business of the House

Business of the House

PETER BROWN (Deputy Leader—NZ First): I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I apologise for interrupting the debate, but I suppose, to put it in simple language, that New Zealand First has been caught somewhat unawares. We did not anticipate this urgent debate, and Mr Peters is programmed to travel tonight, so I am seeking the leave of the House to defer his Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Deletion Bill.

DARREN HUGHES (Junior Whip—Labour): Do you want to talk to us about it—talk first?

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich): Yes, I think that that would be a wise course of action. In the case of leave, it needs to be sorted out beforehand please.

Urgent Debates

Police 111 System—Review

Debate resumed.

Hon PETER DUNNE (Leader—United Future): I welcome the report on the 111 system that has been released today by the independent review team. However, I regret that such a report was necessary, and I do not believe that it goes far enough.

Earlier this year I raised some 17 cases where the 111 system had failed. This report, and other reports into those circumstances, prove conclusively that the failures were not just casual but systemic. I regret the fact that families around New Zealand are suffering anguish and loss today because of those failures. I hope this report, and presumably the implementation of the recommendations that flow from it, will in some small, small way provide those families with some solace in their suffering.

One of the things a community has a right to feel is a sense of safety, and a sense that those charged with the promotion and protection of community safety are able to carry out the tasks required of them in a way that engenders public confidence. It saddens me greatly that the events of the last few months with regard to the 111 system, coming on top of a perception that the police have been more interested in speeding motorists than in community safety, have engendered a climate where for the first time, I suspect, in many generations—probably since the crisis over corruption in the 1950s—public confidence in our police force is diminishing.

When one hears talk about failure to respond or lack of confidence, it is worth recalling that it is a very short step from there to people deciding to take the law into their own hands, and that is the start of the path towards anarchy. In that regard I think this report does not quite go far enough. Let me amplify that point a little. There is a useful recommendation early on that some form of monitoring or overview of the 111 system needs to be established to give the public a sense of confidence. I think that is good. But then one looks at the recommendation as to who that overview panel ought to be: the commissioner and senior police staff. I say nothing against the commissioner, but I make this point: in this climate today, there will not be a restoration of public confidence in the police while they are seen to be trying to do it all themselves. I believe that the panel that has been proposed requires independent participation—someone outside the police being involved—in order to give the assurance that all is well. Because at the moment, sadly, the climate we are in is that when the police give the OK, there is not the level of public acceptance of it that there used to be. I think that is a very sad state of affairs, and does need to be addressed in resolving these issues.

It seems to me that some of the other matters that the report gives rise to also miss the major point. I have read the section regarding the training and performance of the communications centre staff. I think some useful recommendations are made, and some of them have been drawn out in the debate this afternoon. But the real issue, surely, is the type of people being recruited to work in police communications centres to provide that necessary service. I am not satisfied from the recommendations that that issue is being addressed properly. Throughout this saga I heard constant reports from people that the way in which staff were recruited was haphazard and that a lot of the people who came to communications centres were referrals from Work and Income New Zealand—people with indifferent work records or experiences—and when I look at these recommendations, I do not see anything that seeks to address that point. Without that matter being addressed, there is a danger that frankly, to coin a phrase, the deckchairs around the Titanic control room are being reorganised. People are being a little bit better trained, but the fundamental problem is not going away.

Previous speakers have made reference to communications centre staff having difficulty identifying geographic locations, to their manner on the telephone, and to the time taken to ask the critical questions. None of those issues are likely to be resolved if recruitment of personnel continues to be from the same source and quarter that it was from before, and the danger then becomes that we are merely perpetuating an ongoing problem.

Yes, there are wider issues. Members have talked about numbers of police staff—sworn personnel available to do the job. That is important. I think we ought to be moving to have 8,750 sworn police staff in this country. There are issues relating to the range of services. While I think work does need to be done to decouple traffic enforcement from general policing work, I am not naive enough to think that simply doing that somehow makes the 111 system work better, as was suggested by an earlier speaker.

The New Zealand public needs to be assured that when the need is there to dial 111, the call will be dealt with expeditiously and sensitively, and an appropriate response will be provided. This set of recommendations arises from a collective sense of failure of any of those things having been able to be achieved. Sadly, there have been the awful, tragic, high-profile cases like the Asher and Bentley cases, where the system failed completely. They are exceptions, but there are many, many other cases where people have not quite received the response they thought they deserved, where units have been dispatched inappropriately or not at all, and where the right questions simply have not been asked.

This report demonstrates in the totality of its recommendations a system that is in serious crisis. We can wallow in that tragedy in this House all we like and we can point the finger all we like, but the reality of doing that, without action that delivers on achieving improvements, is that the person who rings 111 this evening, tomorrow, or next week has no fresh assurance that anything has changed. It is great sport for politicians on the eve of an election to bag the 111 system, and to criticise the police and the Minister. The real challenge for the Government and for other parties in this House is what happens to give effect to these recommendations to ensure that we do not again find ourselves in a position where our emergency response service, which ought to be the thing that works most effectively and gives the public the most assurance of confidence, looks so rickety, so ramshackle, and so otherwise utterly incompetent.

The challenge arising from this report is to put in place the mechanisms, the policies, the funding, and the staff that will deal with that, and then—maybe then—the public might start to have its confidence restored in the ability of our police service to provide for safety and security in our communities. A community that does not have that confidence is one that is teetering very much on the brink of the abyss. All of us have a responsibility to ensure we do what we can to pull back from that and to ensure that our police are worthy of and capable of public confidence for the duties that they perform. This report is a timely reminder in that respect.

JOHN CARTER (National—Northland): I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Do you, as the Speaker, have the authority to direct the Minister whose department is being debated to be present in the House to debate? Because Mr Hawkins should be here.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich): No, that is not a point of order.

JOHN CARTER (National—Northland): I want to say right at the very beginning that what is important about this debate is the lack of faith the people of New Zealand have in George Hawkins as Minister of Police. As a consequence, they have a lack of faith and trust in the Labour Government—Helen Clark, her Minister, the other Ministers on the Government benches, and the members of the Labour Government—to solve this problem. The public has absolutely no faith in them, at all. [Interruption] People like David Benson-Pope, who is interjecting, should accept that they have as much responsibility to make sure that this is put right as George Hawkins does. He will be caned, just as George Hawkins will be, if he keeps on parroting away about an issue that he should be as responsible for as the Minister is.

The Minister of Police, George Hawkins, is an absolute disgrace as a Minister of the Crown. The way he is administering his portfolio is an absolute disgrace. He has been an abject failure ever since he took hold of the reins of the police and, quite honestly, he has become more and more incompetent as the days go by. He has proven to be incompetent. The members on the Government benches who all have their heads down and who were not here to back the Minister when he was speaking because they were ashamed of him, are now showing that by their body language. They know they are wrong. They know they have an incompetent Minister of Police. They know the way the Government is administering the police has been a failure. They know it is not working. They know that New Zealanders have lost faith in the police because of the way in which the Government administers the police. [Interruption]

David Benson-Pope is parroting on. Phil Goff, who is sitting there smiling away as though the world is rosy, knows that he is just as responsible as George Hawkins, because they are the Government. They know that this has happened under their watch. They know that George Hawkins is a broken man because of his worries around police, yet they allow him to carry on administering the police. They know that the police have lost trust, faith, and the ability to believe that their Minister will help them deliver what they would like to give New Zealand—a competent police force.

I know from speaking with the police that they are as worried as every citizen of this nation about what is happening to them and about their inability to deliver for the community they serve. We know that George Hawkins has failed. The Government knows that George Hawkins has failed. George Hawkins, as Minister of Police, has failed the people of this country. The Government does not even support him on its party list. He is ranked so low that he actually pulled out of the list and has taken the chance that he might hold his seat at the next election. But the Labour Government sure is not backing him.

The good thing is that after the next election Labour will not be in Government. Labour knows that George Hawkins knows he will not be part of the executive anyway, come what may. This Government is showing that it has no faith in him to lead the police force out of its problems. The Government does not even believe in George Hawkins. His colleagues do not believe in him. Most important, the police do not believe in him. And, sadly, the citizens of this nation do not believe in him.

We have wonderful people serving in our police force, men and women. They are dedicated people giving of themselves for this nation, for the force they believe in, and for the citizens of New Zealand. But, sadly, they are starting to lose their way. They are losing their way because they know they are not getting the guidance, the support, and the help they need from the Minister of Police, George Hawkins—and, indeed, from the Prime Minister, Helen Clark. They know that whenever they need support it is not forthcoming as it used to be.

We once had a police force that was second to none in the world. It had great people, was a great organisation, and used to stand up and serve the community whenever it was needed. We cannot say the same thing today, because Prime Minister Helen Clark, George Hawkins, Minister of Police, and this Labour Cabinet have let us down. They have let the police down and they have let the country down. They know it, and they should be doing something about it. They are letting this incompetent, bumbling fool carry on in his position as Minister of Police. It is an absolute disgrace. Quite honestly, it is an indictment on the Government members as citizens of this country that they allow this to continue. Each and every one of them is responsible for the situation and will be held to account at the election, on the election platforms.

One thing that seriously worries me is the public attitude now. Particularly in rural areas, but not just in rural areas, we are getting to the stage where, because of lack of faith in the police, members of the public are saying more and more that they will have to defend themselves. I remind this House of the case of Paul McIntyre, a farmer who decided, after having been burgled numerous times, to defend his own property. He decided to do so because he knew that if he rang the police they would not have the resources and would not be there to back him as he needed to be. So he took a decision to defend himself. Mr McIntyre has spent the last 2 years and some months defending his right to protect his castle—to protect his property—and to protect himself and his family. It is a sad day when a citizen of this nation has to stand up and defend himself in isolation, then gets bagged by the likes of Phil Goff, the Minister of Justice, when all he wanted was to look after himself, his family, and his property. This Government has put this country in such a predicament that Paul McIntyre had to take that action.

And believe me, mark my words—I am glad this will be recorded in Hansard—this is not an isolated incident. It will happen again while this administration—Prime Minister Helen Clark, George Hawkins, and the likes of Phil Goff, David Benson-Pope, and others—is allowed to be in control of this country and our police resources. While this is the case we will continue to see reports such as this coming out to tell us how badly run these organisations are.

It is not just the police and the 111 system. We are seeing it right across the board. We are seeing it in education, with the debacle about all the qualifications.

Stephen Franks: In health.

JOHN CARTER: We are seeing it constantly in health, with more and more people on longer and longer waiting lists not getting the service they need. We see it in welfare, where people need more and more support and are not getting their needs addressed. We see it in defence. We have great people in our defence force—absolutely outstanding New Zealand citizens—but they are sadly let down by an administration that does not believe in defending New Zealand at all and has taken us into an isolationist mode from a defence perspective.

Stephen Franks: In corrections.

JOHN CARTER: We see it in corrections, in the economy, in biosecurities—the list goes on and on. It is all because we have an incompetent Government, fronted in this case by an incompetent Minister supported by an incompetent Prime Minister. Indeed, the only thing we can really say the police have managed to do, because they have had to, is investigate the Prime Minister. It is a disgrace on her and a disgrace on this country that we have a Prime Minister who comes under the scrutiny of the police.

In closing, I sincerely hope that this Minister, these Ministers, and this Government will seriously consider this report, because it is an indictment on them, on their governance, and on the Minister. If he actually were somebody of credibility in this nation who took his role seriously and really believed in his job as Minister of Police, he would do the one credible thing left to him and step down as Minister of Police. There are precedents for it. One hopes that George Hawkins, at least, will take the step others have taken when they have made mistakes and proven to be incompetent: stepping down. That now is George Hawkins’ only remedy.

Hon PHIL GOFF (Minister of Justice): That member got one clap, which was all he deserved. I heard John Carter apologising all weekend on Radio New Zealand for the appalling job the previous National Government had done in running down our Defence Force. But when he got up in the House today did John Carter, a senior member of the National Government in the 1990s, say one word about what National was doing to the police force at the end of its term in Government? Before that we heard Tony Ryall, the Minister of Justice in the last National Government. Those members sat in the National caucus, and Tony Ryall sat around the Cabinet table with his National colleagues, planning to cut our police force numbers by 540. Under the National Party’s plans, 540 police jobs were to be cut. Fortunately that National Government was turfed out of office and never had the chance to do so, but that is what it intended to do.

George Hawkins, the Minister of Police since December 1999, has increased the number of police staff by more than 1,000. We have record numbers of police staff in this country. George Hawkins has increased the annual budget for the police by $200 million. That is $200 million a year more being spent on our police force. We can see it in the record. The police force is now resolving a higher percentage of crime than ever before. In 9 years the previous National Government had run down the resolution rate to a paltry 35 to 36 percent of crime. That rate is already up to 44 percent, and is climbing. The police are doing their job; they are locking away more crooks. That is why four new prisons are being built, and why there are more convictions than ever before. We have a resourced police force and tough legislation that it can use properly. That is why the crime rate today is the lowest it has been in 23 years. The crime rate came down last year by 8 percent.

Stephen Franks: No one believes it.

Hon PHIL GOFF: Stephen Franks grins like a Cheshire cat and says that he does not believe that the crime rate has come down, but he believed it when it went up. He used to parade the crime figures around all the time. We use the crime figures compiled by the same organisation as previously, the police, using the same method of collecting the statistics. Of course the crime rate is down. The violent crime rate is down. National Party members, in an act of absolute hypocrisy, come here to the House to talk about crime. National presided over the highest increases in crime rates in the 1990s and the highest increases ever in this country in the rate of violent crime.

Let me say one other thing to the members of the Opposition, who knock the police for doing their job of making our roads safer. Last year we had the lowest rate of road accidents in New Zealand for decades. But 400 people still died on the roads. Ten times the number of murder victims died on the roads in this country, because people were drink-driving and speeding. Clearly it has to be a function of our police force, alongside fighting crime, to make sure that our road toll comes down and that there are fewer victims—fewer families deprived of their kids, and fewer kids deprived of their mum or dad through being killed in road accidents.

I say, with regard to the 111 system, that it is vitally important that when New Zealanders are facing an emergency and pick up the phone and dial 111, they get a satisfactory response. That is absolutely critical. This report is quite blunt about the shortcomings in the current system. But I give credit to the Commissioner of Police. He has taken responsibility on the chin for that. He has said that it is his job—that the problem is an operational one. That is what this report is about. It is not predominantly about resourcing; it is about operational matters. Stephen Franks has read it; he talked about it before. He knows that of the 61 recommendations, about 59 relate to operational matters, not resourcing. The Commissioner of Police has recognised that there is a problem. There are 460,000 111 calls every year, and it is not surprising that some of those go astray. It is not good enough for the police to get it 95 percent right; it is not good enough for them to get it 99 percent right. We need to be sure that every time there is a genuine emergency and a 111 call is put through, the police respond effectively and efficiently, and a squad car turns up to the site of that emergency. This report sets out a blueprint of what needs to be done. I said before that most of the recommendations are about operational matters, which are purely within the jurisdiction of the Commissioner of Police. We have the tradition in this country of constabulary independence.

The one point the report makes on resourcing states: “While extra staff was frequently raised as a solution, and sometimes the only solution to the CCSC problems, the Panel does not believe staff numbers … to be the only issue. There is inherent capability potential in the existing staff base and developing this potential needs to be a primary focus.” But the issue does require some extra resources. Our Minister of Police came to the House in February, and in reply to a parliamentary question said that a review was going on, and that if the commissioner needed more resources, we would make sure that he got them. The Minister of Police has been as good as his word. He brought the issue to Cabinet 2 weeks ago, he took it up with the Minister of Finance, and he came away with an extra $45.5 million to be spent on putting this operation right and on capital expenditure. This Minister of Police has been a success. He has delivered for the police in that regard.

A wide range of other things need to happen. But just in case those who are listening on the radio to the Opposition spokespeople think that the report was uniformly black, I say that it was not. It talked about the good things in the way our system is running, about the committed staff and management, and about a communications technology that it described in the words “world class”. It talked about the commissioner already being on to the problem and starting to put the solution in place, and it made the point, which should be obvious to everyone in this House, that these problems are not unique. Overseas police forces have had similar performance issues with regard to their communications and emergency response, but the report stated that we can achieve best practice in this country, and that the problems are readily solvable. I believe that they can and will be solved, and I congratulate the commissioner on getting on to the task of addressing them.

In the last few minutes I will talk about those problems. They are problems of demand and service delivery. They are problems of leadership within the police force, the command centre, and the communications centres. They are about training and supervision, and about new technology. In respect of new technology, 1.6 million phone calls come through the centres each year, most of which are not priority calls. In fact, Telecom has said that 68 percent of 111 calls should not be made, and that there needs to be another channel for non-urgent calls. It is talking about an 0800 311 311 number. I hope that that is something the commissioner gets on and does now, because if the system were not clogged up with calls that are not urgent, and that sometimes are simply hoax calls, then it would work better. The report talks about the need for additional radio channels, particularly in my city of Auckland. Four new channels will be made available there. We are piloting an automatic vehicle location system—the commissioner is on to that, and progress is being made. A new rural liaison officer scheme has been set up, because people in rural areas did not feel that they were getting the service they needed. I am in favour of that. A new community reference panel has been set up, so that the stakeholders are involved in how the system is being organised. That will guarantee good service delivery. We also have leadership in terms of a national communications centre advisory board. The report talks about training. Although we have the people, they need to be well trained. We need to have rostering systems so that at times of peak demand, the people are there to answer the calls.

Those points have been made by the review group, and they are points that the commissioner has responded to. He is committed to ensuring that a solution is put in place and that we have the sort of best-practice system that the review team states this country is capable of achieving. I congratulate George Hawkins on getting the resources, and I look forward to the commissioner getting on and doing the operational work that he is committed to doing.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.

Business of the House

Business of the House

PETER BROWN (Senior Whip—NZ First): A few moments ago I was given some very good advice by some of the whips, who advised me that when I have a tricky issue it would be well worth talking to them. I am very grateful for that advice. I seek leave again for the Rt Hon Winston Peters’ member’s bill, the Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Deletion Bill, to be deferred or postponed until the next members’ day.

GERRY BROWNLEE (Deputy Leader—National): I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I presume that if the House does give leave for this, the Government—recognising that the circumstances have changed somewhat—might be prepared to give members the time that is taken up with these reports on the Order Paper some other time.

With all due respect to New Zealand First, if we cut this out today, then we cut out our own opportunities by a couple of hours for whatever remains of members’ day for the rest of the year. I know that the Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Deletion Bill is pretty important to New Zealand First. I have publicly acknowledged on numerous occasions that the bill is in the name of Winston Peters and that we are supporting it. But I wonder whether we might get some explanation of why the bill ended up on the Order Paper today when there are members’ bills below the line that could have come up had we known sooner. It just seems to me a strange quirk of the parliamentary system that, at the last minute, we cost ourselves some time. I know that members have to give approval, but I would suggest, in granting this leave, the House might consider moving the Human Rights (Gender Identity) Amendment Bill back on to the Order Paper.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): I thank the honourable member for his contribution, but that is actually a matter for the Government to decide, not for the Speaker.

GERRY BROWNLEE: No, it is members’ day, it is for the House to decide.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson: It is a member’s bill, and therefore it is a matter for the member in charge. Would Mr Brown seek leave again, please.

PETER BROWN (Deputy Leader—NZ First): I seek leave for the Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Deletion Bill to be deferred to the next members’ day.

Gerry Brownlee: We ask for a reason, otherwise we just get confused.

PETER BROWN: I am prepared to give a reason.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Please do.

PETER BROWN: I did actually outline this in my previous request for leave. We made an error of judgment. We did not anticipate the urgent debate, and we were hopeful that Mr Peters’ bill would come up before the tea break. He has travel arrangements this evening to be somewhere else tomorrow, so we are seeking leave to postpone the bill to the next members’ day.

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

General Debate

General Debate

Hon JIM SUTTON (Minister for Biosecurity): I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business. Yesterday a letter was received in the Prime Minister’s office, which started an alert. The letter stated that foot-and-mouth disease had been released on Waiheke Island and that a further release would be made if certain things were not done.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry officials, the police, and the Government believe that this letter is a hoax, and I stress that there is no evidence that the virus has, indeed, been spread. However, it is a threat we must take seriously. We are a nation reliant on primary industry. The exports vulnerable to foot-and-mouth disease earn half our total export income. No responsible Government could just ignore a threat such as the one received yesterday.

Two operations were immediately launched. The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry began a biosecurity response, and the police are tracking the author of the letter. As of 5 p.m. yesterday, a controlled-area notice for Waiheke Island became effective. There are currently six veterinarians, two specialist exotic disease investigators, and three media liaison staff working on the island. Checkpoints have been established at the two main ferry terminals on the island, and nine police officers are present to support ministry staff. Efforts are focusing on the 12 largest properties, as those hold the greatest numbers of stock and pose the greatest risk of spread. The Department of Conservation has closed the Stony Batter Historic Reserve to minimise foot traffic through the Man o’War Station.

Last night Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry officials were able to contact 18 of the 39 farmers on Waiheke Island. Ministry vets today are making appointments with Waiheke Island farmers to observe livestock for possible signs of foot-and-mouth disease. All stock will be checked every 48 hours for 14 days—the longest possible incubation period for foot-and-mouth disease before clinical symptoms appear. A public meeting to discuss the situation is planned on the island tonight, and details of the time and venue are no doubt being advised by the media. I understand that both major TV channels will be present and broadcasting live from the meeting.

Overnight, over 50 trading partner nations, including major member countries of the European Union, were informed of the situation. Most have expressed appreciation at the early advice, confidence in New Zealand’s management of the situation, and a desire to be kept informed. Our major trading partners, the United States, Canada, and the European Union, have offered assistance. The World Organization for Animal Health, the OIE, has also been informed, and the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry is working with the farming industry to address its natural concerns.

I note that the leader of the National Party thinks we should have held off doing anything. He told Television New Zealand, and I quote—

Gerry Brownlee: Stop telling lies. We won’t have that.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): The member on my left is a long-serving member. He knows what he has just done is out of order. I ask him to stand, withdraw, and apologise.

Gerry Brownlee: I withdraw and apologise. I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Let me point out to you, Mr Speaker, that the member who is speaking is an even longer serving member. He should know that misquoting a document that has been placed on the Table of the House constitutes a lie to the House, and he should desist.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): The member is compounding the situation. The member knows that that is a debatable point, and I am sure that he will be taking a call in this debate.

Hon JIM SUTTON: I will quote directly from the words of the Leader of the Opposition. This is a direct quote from an unaired TV report, which was referred to, so we did the elderly gentleman the courtesy of getting the verbatim account of what he said. TV New Zealand asked: “How do you think the Government has handled the issue?” Brash: “Er, I am surprised they made a public statement about it all, to be frank. If it’s only a hoax, they have done a lot of damage to our reputation. I would have thought they would have tried harder to find out if there was any truth in the allegations at all.” That is what the Leader of the Opposition said. He advocated that we tried to keep secret this alleged outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease.

GERRY BROWNLEE (Deputy Leader—National): What a disgraceful use of Parliament’s time that was by the Minister, Jim Sutton.

Hon Jim Sutton: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The point of order that was raised before, in which the member called me a liar, and to which I did not respond directly because I did not wish to dignify it or waste my own speaking time, I maintain was deliberately put up to disrupt my speech and to shorten the time available to me, and I want an assurance that any time that was taken was not deducted from my speaking time.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): No time was deducted from the Minister’s speaking time.

GERRY BROWNLEE: I would ask the same courtesy, since my time appears to have been disrupted, as well. That was a disgraceful use of parliamentary time by the bumbling Minister of Agriculture. If this issue were of such importance to Government members, why did they not come into the House today with a ministerial statement? Why were they not prepared to make a statement to the nation that all political parties could respond to? Because if it is a true release of foot-and-mouth disease, it is a national crisis, and no party in this country can afford to walk away from the consequences of that.

Mr Sutton had a go at Dr Brash for his comments that suggested New Zealand might have been cost a lot of money if the release did prove to be just a hoax, so I want him and Marian Hobbs to stand up and tell the House how many hoax foot-and-mouth release allegations there were in New Zealand last year. I know there were several. Dr Cullen knows there were several, and the Government did not react like this on those occasions. For Dr Brash simply to say: “Let’s show a bit of caution when we’re dealing with such a huge chunk of our national economy.”, is quite reasonable.

But it comes as no surprise to me that Mr Sutton rose to put his particular twist on things, in the way he did today. From the top to the bottom, that is the style of the Labour Government. The unanswered question in this Parliament right now is: “Did Helen Clark tell a lie to the Sunday Star-Times?”. That is the question that remains unanswered. Nearly 35 questions have been asked in the House on this issue in the last couple of days, and we still do not know whether Helen Clark told a lie to the Sunday Star-Times. One might think that the Prime Minister would come into this House and say, in answer to one of those questions: “No, I didn’t.” But the Prime Minister has not done that. Instead, we have heard: “I don’t remember. I can’t recollect. I’m sure I would have. I think I did. I think I didn’t. I don’t see why I would have.”, etc.

Hon Taito Phillip Field: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The deputy leader of the National Party has continually repeated the word “lie” this afternoon. He has done it twice in the last 30 seconds. I think he should be asked to stop, and be told he cannot apply that word to another member of Parliament.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): To imply that anyone is lying is an insinuation against the integrity of the House.

GERRY BROWNLEE: I will say again: the great unanswered question in the New Zealand Parliament at the moment is: “Did the Prime Minister tell a lie to the Sunday Star-Times?”. There is nothing in the Standing Orders to prevent anyone from asking that question. Day after day in question time that is the question being asked, and day after day in question time that is the question the Prime Minister has failed to answer.

Hon Jim Sutton: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. There is absolutely no question that the member on his feet has accused another honourable member of lying. I find that completely offensive and I think he should be disciplined.

Rodney Hide: If the Hon Jim Sutton had listened carefully, he would have realised that the deputy leader of the National Party was not accusing the Prime Minister of lying, at all. He was saying that that is the question being asked. He was pointing out that the Prime Minister will not come to the Chamber and make a denial. To ask the question is not to make that assertion.

Hon Jim Sutton: That is simply playing with words. There was absolutely no doubt at all about the impression the member on his feet was seeking to convey to members of the public.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Can I just say to members that under Speaker’s ruling 39/4 the word “lie” is out of order. Many other expressions can be used.

Rodney Hide: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Just to be clear—the situation is that we can accuse the staff of the Sunday Star-Times of lying in their statement of evidence, but we cannot accuse the Prime Minister of lying to them. Is that the ruling?

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): I say to members that it is out of order to indicate that a member deliberately misled the House. That is not in order. I ask members to come to order and let us continue with the debate.

Rodney Hide: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I do apologise, but this is an important point. It is quite clear that under the Standing Orders we can accuse the Sunday Star-Times reporters and journalists of lying. It is also quite clear, and you have just said, that it is wrong to accuse a member of deliberately misleading the House. I do not believe that the Prime Minister has deliberately misled the House; I do believe that she lied to the Sunday Star-Times reporters—and we are putting a question about that.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): The situation we find ourselves in is that an inference has been drawn from what has been said. Giving that implication as a member, of course, is an offence against both the dignity of the House and the assumption that all its members behave truthfully and honourably. That is not the case in this particular instance. The reality is that the word “liar” has been ruled out of order on many occasions by many former Speakers. It is not acceptable, because all members of this House are honourable members, and their word is their bond. Any other thoughts on the matter can be raised with the Privileges Committee.

Rodney Hide: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The issue cannot be raised with the Privileges Committee, because the Prime Minister deliberately misled the Sunday Star-Times reporters outside the House. [Interruption] Mr Phillip Field might want to interrupt but I suggest to him that he do the proper thing. When I have sat down and he has something to contribute—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Mr Hide, can we please have the point of order.

Rodney Hide: It is all very well for the member on my left to be chipping in—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): I am going to deal with that.

Rodney Hide: The point is that a breach of privilege cannot be taken against the Prime Minister for what she said to the Sunday Star-Times, as you suggested.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): If members are implying that other members are misleading the House, that is a different matter. Can I just say to the honourable member on my right that there are to be no interjections, at all, during the taking of points of order. It is disorderly and it is not acceptable in this House.

GERRY BROWNLEE: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I point out to you that Speaker’s ruling 39/4 upholds the right of a member to imply that someone has been incorrect in something he or she has said. I will quote it: “A particular mode of expression that has been ruled out of order consistently has been the use of the word ‘lie.’ ” I accept that. However, I am sure it means in the context of saying “you are telling a lie”, which is not what I did. It states further: “Many other expressions can be used to say that a member is stating something that is incorrect—”. I have not said that the Prime Minister said anything incorrect. I have said that there is a question out there relating to something she may or may not have done. Further, it states that “that is material for debate, which goes on in the Chamber every sitting day.” Given that ruling, I think the sensitivity being expressed by the Labour Party is puzzling.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): I thank the member for his contribution.

Rodney Hide: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. It is a very important point. When we read Speaker’s ruling 39/4, we see that it is very clear it refers to Parliament. What happened with respect to the Prime Minister was outside Parliament. She has not taken the opportunity to come to the House to make a personal explanation. It seems to me that we are quite entitled to question what she said outside Parliament, because that is not impugning her mode of speech in the Chamber. Rather, it concerns what she has been saying to the media. Speaker’s ruling 39/4 explicitly refers to what is going on in Parliament, but the issue is not about what she said in Parliament.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): I thank members again. I have already said that the use of the word “lie” is out of order. “Lie” is a mode of expression that has been ruled out of order on many occasions. Its use leads to disorder. There are many other ways of making the point that a member believes something to be incorrect, and I ask members to adhere to the ruling.

GERRY BROWNLEE: The question remains, then: why was the Prime Minister so hopelessly reckless with the truth when she was dealing with the Sunday Star-Times? I do not understand why the Labour Party members over there are so sensitive. I do not understand why they are nodding their heads, shaking their heads, wagging their fingers, etc. All the Prime Minister has to do is come to the House and make a personal explanation, or come to the House and table the transcripts we know she has, table the reporters’ notes we know she has, and save us the bother of having to publish the tapes so that all New Zealanders can hear exactly what she was up to. If it takes us days, weeks, or months to drag some degree of responsibility for this issue out of the Prime Minister, then so be it. All the head-waving and finger-wagging from Marian Hobbs, from the member for Auckland Central, or from a few others over there—outgoing members, I might say; members whose time in this House is relatively short—then so be it. We will just carry on anyway.

The question here is: “Should this country be led by someone who is prepared to go out and besmirch the reputations of anybody who gets in their road?”. The list is very long. It started with Kit Richards and moved on to Peter Doone. Numerous other civil servants have gone down the road. Believe it or not, seven Ministers have gone down the road for less careless behaviour than the Prime Minister seems to have exhibited on this particular issue. The question is whether that is the sort of leader one wants running the country. When a big issue is on, do we want someone who might be prepared to fudge the realities of truth in order to meet his or her own ends? That is what is being asked here.

Hon MARIAN HOBBS (Minister for the Environment): The question is whether this country should be led by somebody who takes our farming and our biosecurity seriously, and I do not think the jury is even out on that. At the moment our country is being served by a Prime Minister who does take biosecurity seriously, in contrast to the Leader of the Opposition who has displayed in the last 24 hours that he obviously does not realise the seriousness of the situation that is affecting our country at the moment.

About 4 weeks ago we undertook—

Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. If you are going to be hard about the ruling that a member cannot deliberately say that someone has lied, or led people in the wrong direction, or other such points, then you need to listen very carefully to what Marian Hobbs is saying. The question she should answer is whether there were five alleged outbreaks of foot-and-mouth in New Zealand last year that she and her Government did not go public on.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): That is not a point of order. Frivolous interjections or points of order designed to break up a speech are out of order. Such tactics lead to disorder and are unacceptable to the progress of business through the House.

Hon MARIAN HOBBS: Just 4 weeks ago we took part in the second round of Exercise Taurus. Exercise Taurus was a simulation of either a hoax or a real outbreak of foot-and-mouth. We went through the whole business of how transparent New Zealand is to other markets out there, how we communicate with the people in the affected area such as on Waiheke Island, and how we talk about and set up all the situations. We take hoaxes or reality equally seriously, because they have impacts on the exchange. The preparedness of transparency is important. If we cry wolf and say that something is not happening, or we keep it secret, then we begin to plant a doubt in the minds of people overseas. It was said so clearly by Annabel Young from Federated Farmers, when she talked about Chernobyl. When people try to hide something, people in the markets begin to doubt when the truth is actually being spoken.

Gerry Brownlee: Five times last year.

Hon MARIAN HOBBS: The Opposition member raises a point about situations that have arisen in previous years. I experienced one of those situations, concerning an incident in Te Kūiti. A cow had eaten some parsnips. The parsnips produced lesions around its mouth. That is a sign of possible foot-and-mouth. At that stage the entire works were closed. We went straight into the process of letting our overseas posts know, and other Governments know. Within an hour of those works being closed, people were on the phone and on talkback, telling those stories. That is why we take hoaxes, threats, or mistaken diagnoses seriously. That is why people are informed. It is to build trust. I find it absolutely amazing that we have a person who purports to want to lead this country—a country whose money is based on trust and trade—who does not understand that, and says, to quote the words used by the previous speaker for the Opposition: “Let’s show a bit of caution …”.

Let us take this question of caution, because that is what the British did. The British did not put into place straightaway a restriction on movements. The result was that in a country and on an island where people move stock between farms far more often than we do in New Zealand, they managed to spread the disease before they began to place restrictions on movement so seriously.

Gerry Brownlee: You’re missing the point.

Hon MARIAN HOBBS: I am not missing the point at all. The point is that we are out there, and as soon as something like this is established, we move extremely fast. If I am so missing the point I would like to quote Annabel Young from Federated Farmers: “This claimed threat is seen as a likely hoax, but should nevertheless be taken very seriously by the Government. We are pleased that it has activated its disease management response system, that it has stopped cattle coming off Waiheke Island. We are also very pleased that the Government has taken the decision to announce this probable hoax as soon as possible. Federated Farmers will be offering its support to the Government to handle this threat.”

I am not playing games. I am absolutely dismayed at this situation. [Interruption] The reason I am not playing this in a party political fashion is that in this situation a statement was made by the appropriate Minister—[Interruption]

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): I am sorry. Would the Minister be seated. Mr Brownlee has implied that a member lacked courage. That is totally out of order and against the conventions of the House. He will stand, withdraw, and apologise.

Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. What did I say? I missed that.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): The member said that the Minister lacks guts.

Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. No, I did not.

Hon MARIAN HOBBS: The point was that an official statement was made at 4 o’clock yesterday, as we went into consideration of this situation. It was not about politics. It was about the protection of the trading reputation and the scientific reputation of our country. It is particularly important that we follow the agreed procedures that we have set down in biosecurity processes all our lives.

RODNEY HIDE (Leader—ACT): The question is this: can we trust Helen Clark? That is the problem that members here—

Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. My apologies to Mr Hide. I do not like to interrupt his speeches. They are always very good, and the House certainly needs to wake up after that last speech. But the senior Government whip has just indicated that we have just had two speeches from Ministers in a ministerial statement situation. If that is the case, let us break the House now and go into a full ministerial statement debate on this issue, as should have occurred at 2 o’clock today given the importance of the issue. I seek leave for that to happen.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): The member is perfectly entitled to seek leave for that to happen. It is members’ day, so the member is entitled to do that. Is there any objection to that course of action being taken?

Jill Pettis: I was interrupted. What is the member saying?

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): The member is seeking leave to have a debate. He is seeking leave for a ministerial statement. There is objection.

Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Do not misrepresent me. Do not get me wrong. I asked for leave for there to be a full debate on the issue. I can see that the Government does not want the general debate interrupted, and that is fair enough. We know that it is members’ day. We know that there is now very little on the Order Paper, because of the House giving leave in respect of the New Zealand First bill going ahead. We know that the House is supposed to sit until 10 o’clock tonight, but in fact there is only enough business on the Order Paper to see us through until about 9. So there is a bit of room. I am suggesting, and I am seeking leave, for the House, at the conclusion of the general debate, to have a full 1-hour debate on the matter of the alleged foot-and-mouth outbreak on Waiheke Island.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Is there any objection to that course of action being taken? There is. [Interruption] I am on my feet. I just ask members to take a big, deep breath and breathe through their noses. Let us have some order.

RODNEY HIDE: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I think it would be appropriate for the clock to be reset, because I was just a few seconds into my speech.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Yes. It has not even started yet.

RODNEY HIDE: Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. The whole problem with this foot-and-mouth outbreak, apart from the hoax and the fear, is that we cannot actually trust Helen Clark. Until recently I had disagreed with her policies and her politics, but I had always believed that we could trust Helen Clark. I believed that when she said something was going to happen, it would happen, or if she said something was true, then it was true. But here is a question for the House: could Mr Peter Doone trust Helen Clark to follow due process and deal with him in an appropriate way? He found out that he could not. That is what we have found out in the last 2 weeks. We have found out that the top police officer in New Zealand could not trust Prime Minister Helen Clark.

Let us be clear about what she did. The Prime Minister of New Zealand, while considering whether to sack the top cop in New Zealand, spoke to the Sunday Star-Times and confirmed for it, not once, not twice, but five times, a false and damning story against Peter Doone. The Sunday Star-Times said to Helen Clark: “Are you sure you’re right? Because this will cost us a lot of money if it’s wrong.”, and Helen Clark said: “It’s correct. I’ve got the reports in front of me.” The following week she reconfirmed it twice. She told the editor: “You will be vindicated when I release the papers.”

Jill Pettis: You’re just making it up.

RODNEY HIDE: Oh, that is great! Jill Pettis calls out that I am just making it up. Sue Chetwin, then editor of the Sunday Star-Times lied in her statement of evidence—that is what the Labour Party is now saying. Labour is saying that the former editor of the Sunday Star-Times swore a statement of evidence that is a lie.

Jill Pettis: No, the member is making it up.

RODNEY HIDE: Oh, it is just hopeless with Jill Pettis, is it not, to hear what happened. That is what Helen Clark did. Then we found out in the following week that Helen Clark picked up the reports and read from them. Secret Cabinet reports were read to a journalist, and here is the thing about the Prime Minister of New Zealand: she was not prepared for the public, her MPs, or her Ministers to know that that was what she was doing, so she struck a deal with the Sunday Star-Times. She said: “I will give you the information. I will read for you the reports, because this is my plan to get rid of Peter Doone,”—that is what she told them—“on the basis that you say that I’ve got no comment, because that wouldn’t be appropriate.” That is what Helen Clark did. She leaked the reports from Cabinet. Of course, that is totally against the Cabinet Manual, which in paragraph 3.19 states that confidentiality is required. So we asked the Prime Minister about this yesterday, and again today, and what did she say?

Hon Brian Donnelly: “I can’t leak.”

RODNEY HIDE: She said: “I can’t leak. By definition I can’t leak.” How does that work? Well, it works like this. The Cabinet Manual is supposed to bind all Ministers, is it not, I ask Mr Donnelly. All Ministers are supposed to agree, but the person who enforces those rules is the Prime Minister, and she says: “If I’m not prepared to enforce the rule against myself, then, by definition, I can’t leak.”

Well, we have heard that before. Richard Nixon approved, way back, the Huston Plan. The Huston Plan involved Nixon going after his political enemies. Does that sound familiar? It involved wire-tapping, burglary, mail-opening, and other black operations. Mr Huston explained to President Nixon that it was illegal, and Richard Nixon approved it anyway. Then, on 19 May 1977, a famous interview took place between President Nixon and David Frost, and Trickie Dickie said this: “When the president does it, that means it’s not illegal.” David Frost was struggling with this concept, and he asked: “Do you mean, by definition?”, and President Richard Nixon said: “Exactly.” And that is what Helen Clark has said in this House—that the rules do not apply to her, the law does not apply to her, and she can do as she pleases, by definition. And she lied to the Sunday Star-Times.

BERNIE OGILVY (United Future): I want to bring the whole matter of the National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) exam programme to the attention of the House. We in United Future have always held a constructive view on the promulgation and the beginning of NCEA. Many of the Opposition parties and politicians, myself included, have publicised the problems, but the solutions have been very slow to emerge, and we are all conscious of that. I want to address that today.

We in United Future have a track record of seeking to improve the NCEA programmes. On arrival in this House in late 2002, I sought a select committee inquiry into the implementation of the NCEA system, thinking, rightly at that stage, that that would probably put the matter back on track. But in reality it did not, and we are here today hearing about it again. In the near future we will hear much more about how the system has not got on track but has, in fact, lost track in certain areas. United Future is still asking for improvements to take place. While we await reports—and we all know that official reports are due on this—I thought I might take the opportunity today to note one or two recommendations that United Future has with regard to this issue.

Our No. 1 recommendation is that the New Zealand Qualifications Authority engage in a very productive public education campaign to ensure that parents, students, and employers can actually understand the NCEA programme. When listening to the radio—last Monday, I think it was—I heard a discussion taking place on a talkback show. Some others may have heard it. In reality it was a phone-in from a girl who was looking for a job, and she was about to go into an interview with a prospective employer. She was asked by the radio host: “While you’re there, why don’t you ask the employer whether he understands anything about your NCEA results?” She did ring back, and she said that the employer never asked for her script, the reason being that he—I am assuming it was a “he”—could not, and would not know how to, read or understand the whole thing.

So the first thing we would recommend—as well as ensuring we took notice of what the official report said—is that the New Zealand Qualifications Authority ensure that a public education campaign is carried out to ensure that parents and employers know all about the NCEA. Students seem to know something about it, but we would like the employers to know something about it. Why would we want to make that a No. 1 recommendation? Simply because we think the programme has failed to get across the basic concept of what it stands for.

Our second recommendation is that we return the New Zealand education system, in the last year prior to university, to a scholarship exam system along the lines of the previous format. The standards-based assessment programme that NCEA is based on does not allow top students to be identified in the easiest and clearest of manners. It certainly focuses on individual achievement, but it does not do the next step, which precedes, certainly, higher learning in a university. So we think very strongly that a return to a scholarship exam, which is norm-referenced and therefore can be ranked so that best students can be assessed correctly, is a good recommendation and a step forward for the future of New Zealand.

Right now there are students who are not clear at all about what to aim for and where to go. Employers are at sixes and sevens and, sadly, parents have no idea of what is going on. They are asking for, and require, a more certain programme. We believe that this recommendation would bring certainty back to the system.

We also believe there should be a good basis on which to legitimise other forms and types of examinations in this nation, and our third recommendation is that we do so.

Hon DAVID CARTER (National): I note that the Minister, Mr Jim Sutton, is still in the House, so I also intend to devote my comments to the foot-and-mouth disease scare that is on at the moment. I say at the outset that a biosecurity scare such as foot-and-mouth disease is the most perilous thing that could face this economy. I have long argued that in an instance like this the most important thing for politicians to do is to leave the politics out of the situation and to concentrate on the issue. Yet today Jim Sutton, Marian Hobbs, and Phil Goff have taken cheap shots and tried to bring politics into the issue. As the farmers around New Zealand face the threat of foot-and-mouth, the last thing they want is to see the Minister of Agriculture, who is also the Minister for Biosecurity, attempting to play cheap political shots. It lowers the Minister incredibly.

I have given him every warning. He has fired the first shot, and I will not hesitate from now on to make sure that we keep the issue open and make sure he performs substantially better than he did on Breakfast this morning. I have had dozens of calls and emails to my office today following Jim Sutton’s performance on Breakfast. I will quote just one, from a man who copied his email to Mr Sutton and said to him: “you are an idiot: a stumbling, bumbling fool.

“I suggest that you contact the Prime Minister at the earliest opportunity to request that she appoint a more intelligent Minister to front this issue. Your clear lack of intellect threatens to do more harm to New Zealand farming than any foot and mouth outbreak ever could.”

That is the confidence in which a New Zealand farmer holds Jim Sutton, and it is typical of the comments we have received all day following the Minister’s performance. It is little wonder, because the farmers of New Zealand face a very significant scare today, and Jim Sutton has come into the House and attempted to play cheap, dirty politics by quoting one sentence from a significant interview that Don Brash gave yesterday and taking it completely out of context.

Jim Sutton knows that Don Brash did say that he was surprised at the reaction when the scare looked like a hoax, but that he went on to say he completely supported the Government’s action. Jim Sutton knows that, yet he has taken the opportunity to play politics with biosecurity. It lowers my estimation of that Minister completely. But he will not be in office long, because the foot-and-mouth issue has only temporarily taken the focus off the duplicity of the Prime Minister. She made some comments to the Sunday Star-Times and now will not front up to the House and repeat them.

Hon Jim Sutton: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I think you know the point I will make. Today the Opposition has ceaselessly accused people, calling them liars, saying they lied, asking if someone lied, and mentioning duplicity. This is not a direction this debate should be allowed to take.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): I thank the member. I heard what Mr David Carter said and I was considering it under personal reflections. I ask the member to withdraw that statement. I saw it as a personal reflection.

Hon DAVID CARTER: Speaking to the point of order, Mr Speaker, I referred to the duplicity of the Prime Minister. You are not suggesting that I have to withdraw that, I hope.

Rodney Hide: I am reading through the list of unparliamentary language. It is quite a long list, but it does not include “duplicity”. Are you suggesting, Mr Assistant Speaker, that you will rule that one cannot accuse someone in this House of being duplicitous?

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): The concern was that it was seen by members on the Government side of the House as a personal reflection. They have drawn it to my attention. Given that it was seen as a personal reflection, I have asked the member to withdraw.

Hon DAVID CARTER: Mr Speaker, now that the Minister of Agriculture has satisfactorily interrupted my speech, I wonder if you could tell me how much time I have left.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): The member has 1 minute and 20 seconds remaining.

Government Member: He hasn’t withdrawn.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Would the member withdraw.

Hon DAVID CARTER: I withdraw. Time and time again over the last few days the Prime Minister has been asked about what she said to Oskar Alley and what she said to the Sunday Star-Times. She is not prepared to come into the House and level with the public of New Zealand about what she said. That is why there is so much heat and doubt about this issue. She could clear it up tomorrow by coming into the House and answering the questions. There will be a lot of questions on the Order Paper tomorrow, because New Zealanders want to know the answer. At the moment we are not getting—

Hon Judith Tizard: They don’t.

Hon DAVID CARTER: Judith Tizard is right. Labour does not want us to know the answer, because it knows there is something at risk. One cannot read little snippets of information from a confidential Cabinet paper to a Sunday Star-Times reporter and then say that one has done so on the condition that one is reported in the article as saying “no comment”. The Prime Minister has a history of setting out to get rid of people, like Peter Doone and Kit Richards, whom she does not like. New Zealanders are now aware of her habits, and they have had enough of them.

Hon JUDITH TIZARD (Minister of Consumer Affairs): As the member of Parliament for Auckland Central, I am delighted to take a call in the general debate to talk about what is really the issue today. It is the fact that the Government has responded thoroughly and well to an appalling attack on our integrity and our economy. This Government has taken very seriously the appalling suggestion, which we believe is a hoax, that there has been a deliberate release of foot-and-mouth on Waiheke Island.

I assure the House and New Zealand that Waiheke people take this threat very, very seriously. I compliment the Waiheke Community Board chairman, Ray Ericson, and the deputy chair, Kelly-Ann Harvey, for the work they have done today with the Auckland City Council and the people of Waiheke to make sure that good information is out, and that people on Waiheke are absolutely clear about what the concern is. We will not know definitely until the person who has written this letter either comes forward or is discovered, or until the tests come back clear—we all hope and pray—on Friday or Saturday.

People on Waiheke Island do take biosecurity very, very seriously. They already welcome the fact that their area is permanently controlled for possums—and there are no possums on Waiheke Island. There are significant farms on Waiheke Island. People on the island will cooperate with the Government, with the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, and with biosecurity officials on this matter.

I am appalled to hear the Leader of the Opposition accuse the Prime Minister’s statement of scaremongering. It was not scaremongering. We are really clear that there are about 20 foot-and-mouth calls per year. People call about suspect symptoms in stock, and we check it out. I am really glad that everyone in New Zealand knows that a foot-and-mouth outbreak would be a risk to the $15 billion to $20 billion export industry, and I agree that every responsible New Zealander, not just farmers, has to be on the lookout. I agree with the head of Meat and Wool New Zealand, Jeff Grant, who says that he does not believe that the virus has been released, but that the Government has been prudent in activating the disease management response.

I agree with Annabel Young that Don Brash is an absolute disgrace to New Zealand when he says that this is scaremongering. Well, it is scaremongering, and as the MP for Auckland Central, I am really proud to say that the people of Waiheke will take the matter seriously and do take it seriously, just as this Government does. Wild pigs are the big problem in the spread of foot-and-mouth disease, and there are not that many pigs are on Waiheke. We do not want this disease to be spread in New Zealand. This Government has been responsible not only by warning our trading partners but by warning the people of Waiheke and New Zealand.

This situation shows the appalling lack of leadership in the National Party. The once-great party that said it was the party of farmers has stooped to making political scaremongering accusations, which is political scaremongering itself. If Don Brash cannot be the leader of the National Party, he should stand aside, as so many of his back-benchers and, actually, so many of his front-benchers—let alone so many of his former colleagues—are now saying. I want to say how seriously I take this situation, and how seriously the people of Auckland City and the Auckland region take it. I believe that the people of Waiheke will do us proud, because they take the economy and the environment of this country very, very seriously. I just wish that other members of this House—election year or no—took this as seriously as the Government does.

I congratulate the Minister of Agriculture and the Minister for Biosecurity on the extensive programmes that they have put in place over the last 6 years, so that, for the first time, this country is properly funded and is properly served by its staff, who understand that this risk is not one that we can ever take lightly. Previous Governments have; we are taking it seriously. I believe that the exercises that were run in the past will stand us proud. I congratulate Waiheke and this Government.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First): If Labour took biosecurity seriously, then it would have kept its 1999 promise to decontaminate every second-hand car brought into New Zealand from offshore—not like what is happening now, with half of them sitting in the Auckland port for up to 3 weeks without any treatment at all.

Before I refer to what is coming up tonight after the break, at about 8.30, which is the Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Deletion Bill, I want to refer to the behaviour of one of my colleagues in this House—namely, Rodney Hide. I was meant to be at another meeting tonight, and I asked for the courtesy, due to the urgent debate today and also to the matter of the Privileges Committee that is coming up tonight, of that bill being deferred to the next appropriate sitting day. Rodney Hide, of course, declined that leave. He is the leader of a political party who wrote, in respect of one Jim Peron, a paedophile, that nothing “in the voluminous writings” of Mr Peron indicated positions that would make him unworthy of working and living in New Zealand. That is what he wrote to the New Zealand Immigration Service. He said that Mr Peron was a great friend of his.

Mr Hide, who is familiar with some of Mr Peron’s recent writings, has refused to say whether he made an error of judgment by writing the letter. If we go to the first indented point of page 6 of the decision of the Chief Censor of Film and Literature—and I cannot read it out—we will see a series of comments taken from the publication of that man, Jim Peron, that clearly point to the kind of man he is; the kind of man who should not be in this country. I cannot read them to members, because they are too gruesome. But on page 8 there is the finding: “The magazine therefore promotes and supports the exploitation of children and young persons for sexual purposes”.

Rodney Hide is the brave leader of the ACT party, soon to be the “Absent party” from Parliament. Yesterday, when Scoop contacted Mr Hide’s office for comments regarding the censor’s decision in respect of Unbound—that is Mr Peron’s publication—it was advised that Mr Hide would be making no comments on the matter whatsoever.

Russell Fairbrother: Very brave!

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Yes. He throws his weight around, but here he has been outed, alongside Jim Peron, and still he has not made a public apology for being the chief facilitator in having that fart blossom in New Zealand. That is the truth.

Rodney Hide: How scary! How upsetting!

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: I tell Mr Hide that it is upsetting, because we in this country and in this Parliament should be concerned for the welfare and security of the New Zealand people—clearly something that is very absent from his mind. He supported bringing in a disgraceful individual from the United States whom no other country will have and who is into rank and file paedophilia to the extent of advocating it down to 8 years of age. Mr Hide should be ashamed of himself. It is a disgrace.

But putting aside that mere aberration of politics, I say that in a few hours’ time a great bill will come before Parliament. It has regard to a tragedy that happened in 1986 when a drafting of the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi was entered into our law. The result has been division, waste, and a corruption of a culture, a people, and a unified country.

In 1986 Geoffrey Palmer put the words “have regard to the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi” in legislation, and then it all started. For all the court cases and all the squabbles between Māori and Māori—and there have been countless millions of dollars spent in such squabbles—and between Māori and others, we have a definition that nobody in Parliament, from the Prime Minister to all her Cabinet Ministers, back-benchers, and so-called lawyers, can describe to the satisfaction of any halfway-sane human being. Not one Labour member—or, for that matter, one Green Party member or Progressive member—can tell me what the principles are. Not one judge, lawyer, or academic can tell me what the principles are. Nevertheless, they remain in legislation. About $400 million per year is spent in all sorts of departments and bureaucracies, by all sorts of civil servants, on having regard to the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi.

Debate interrupted.

Sittings of the House

Sittings of the House

JILL PETTIS (Senior Whip—Labour): As we know, on Wednesday during the general debate members have only 5 minutes to speak. The next member is about to take his call and will get only 2 minutes before the House rises for the dinner break. I seek the leave of the House for us to rise now so that the next member can have an uninterrupted speech after 7.30 p.m.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: How about I go until 6 o’clock? I seek leave for that.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): The member can seek leave himself.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First): I seek leave to continue until 6 o’clock.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Is there any objection to that course of action being taken? There appears to be none. The member has 2 minutes.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Wonderful—

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

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: No, the member was too late on his feet. Now he wants to raise points of order. He made no objection.

Rodney Hide: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I objected as soon as you said it.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Did the member object?

Rodney Hide: I absolutely did.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): The member objected. OK. The honourable member Jill Pettis—[Interruption] I am on my feet. Mr Hide has taken objection, which means that leave will not be given. The honourable member Jill Pettis was seeking leave for the House to adjourn.

DAIL JONES (Junior Whip—NZ First): I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I seek the leave of the House to give Rodney Hide the opportunity to apologise for the statements he has made with regard to Jim Peron, as we would expect any honourable, decent gentleman to do.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): I call the honourable member Jill Pettis, who wished to take a point of order. She was seeking leave for the House adjourn.

JILL PETTIS (Senior Whip—Labour): Yes. I seek leave for the House to rise in 45 seconds.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Is there objection to that course of action being taken? There appears to be none.

Sitting suspended from 5.59 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

General Debate

General Debate

Debate resumed.

RUSSELL FAIRBROTHER (Labour—Napier): It is with some diffidence that I, a mere newcomer to this Chamber, will try to tackle a leader of another party, but, when I consider that his time in this Chamber is the same length as my own, I feel a little more enthused and encouraged.

I think it is a sad day for the leadership of parties when they seek to make leadership an issue on a false premise. The false premise, of course, was revealed when Dr Don Brash tabled in the House yesterday the full brief of evidence of the Prime Minister in the proceedings of Doone against Independent News Auckland Ltd. Interestingly, before doing that, Dr Brash quoted half a passage in the document, and either he did not write the question or he was distracted from reading the full passage, because the truth of what was contained in the statement—

John Carter: Yes, Don Brash can talk about the truth.

RUSSELL FAIRBROTHER: Yes, he should talk about the truth, because the effect of the statement was to underscore the integrity of what the Prime Minister had said on 3 May, 4 May, and 10 May. [Interruption] If Mr Carter would just listen, rather than follow the method in this House whereby those with nothing to say make a lot of noise, he would hear what the brief of evidence said. Clearly, the member has not read it, or he would not have made the statement he made a few seconds ago.

At paragraph 28 in the brief, the Prime Minister stated: “Mr Alley wanted information about process, and also whether the information held by Ministers was consistent with information he had obtained from his inquiries. … I would have confirmed to him that information held by Ministers included allegations that the Constable who stopped the car occupied by the Commissioner had a sniffer in his hand. It also included information that Mr Doone was said to have stated to the constable during the discussion that ‘that won’t be necessary’, seemingly as a reference to the use of the device. “I am informed that Mr Alley said he put those propositions to me and I said words to the effect of ‘you’re not wrong’. I accept that this is correct although I do not have a current recollection of this detail. I am certain that I drew attention to the issue that Mr Doone had disputed these details during the inquiries to which I have referred.” That is the totality of what the Prime Minister said in that interview with Mr Alley, and is entirely consistent—if members care to reflect—with the answers given in this House.

Further, the call from Mr Alley on the next day is dealt with at paragraph 31 of the brief—which has been available even for Mr Hide to have someone read it to him—“I recall that the discussion with Mr Alley focused on his view that the key issue was whether the Commissioner had erred in talking to the constable, given that the constable recognised who he was, and that this may have resulted in normal procedures not being followed. I recall that when discussing the Constable’s evidence, I emphasised the need to make it clear that Mr Doone had described the events differently.”

That is precisely what the Prime Minister said to this House in response to questions from various members, and of course it throws into question the leadership of the parties that have tried deliberately to misquote this brief of evidence. I say “deliberately”, because they have now had the brief of evidence as a tabled document since yesterday morning, and any member making assertions in question time today, or in the general debate this afternoon, does so in the face of that document. It would be surprising if anyone in this House—knowing what is in the document—spoke differently about this issue. It would suggest only that those making the noise in this general debate and at question time have not taken the rudimentary step of reading the brief of evidence that is there for all to see.

If they had, we would have had apologies today from Mr Hide, from Dr Brash, and from those who asserted that the Prime Minister had told two different stories. We would not have had that attempt by Gerry Brownlee to humiliate the Prime Minister, by suggesting that she should come down and confirm she did not lie to the paper, when of course all she had been talking about was not the truth of what happened but about the information she had and its coincidence or otherwise with what the newspaper had.

Rodney Hide: Has she seen the transcript?

RUSSELL FAIRBROTHER: Obviously, Mr Hide has been so busy with his own importance that he has not had time to read this brief; otherwise, he would have moved to an entirely different subject. In the very generous way he has, I am sure he will come to me to get the brief shortly, have someone read it to him—or I will read it to him—and, as he takes a speech later in this or the next general debate, admit that the Prime Minister has acted with the integrity we would expect from her. A lack of integrity shows up the lack of leadership of others in this House in other parties—which perhaps demonstrates why the polls reflect that the Prime Minister is someone who provides leadership. Others who aspire to that leadership start from shaky ground, and the public realise that rhetoric is empty noise without any substance.

SUE KEDGLEY (Green): I know that this House is preoccupied with matters of Mr Doone, and so forth, but ordinary people in New Zealand are concerned about other issues, as well. One of them is featured in today’s Christchurch Press, where a huge headline states: “Children’s teeth rotting away”. The article reports an epidemic of tooth decay in Christchurch, and how young children are having half of their teeth removed, and that there is a huge waiting list of children needing teeth removed. The clinical director of the Canterbury District Health Board’s school and community dental service, Dr Martin Lee, says that the main reason for this epidemic of tooth decay is that children’s diets are overloaded with sugar. In particular, he points to high-sugar drinks.

We have respected community clinicians pointing out to us that high-sugar fizzy drinks and foods are the major culprits in the epidemic of tooth decay amongst our children, and we know they are also the main reason for the epidemic of obesity and for the numbers of children getting diabetes at younger and younger ages. If that is the case, why are high-sugar fizzy drinks in particular, and also junk food, on sale in vending machines in most publicly funded secondary schools in New Zealand? Why are we collectively wringing our hands about the obesity epidemic and dental decay, if we are not prepared to take very simple, small steps, like removing the food and drink that we know is contributing to dental decay, obesity, and diabetes? The Government last year, with great fanfare, launched Healthy Eating—Healthy Action, a national strategy on nutrition, but why, despite all those nicely printed national strategies on healthy eating, is it doing nothing about the atrocious food sold in our schools that is undermining its strategy?

About a month or so ago a researcher in the Green Party looked up on the Internet the school lunches that are sold in tuck-shops in 50 primary and secondary schools around New Zealand—just the schools that had their lunches printed on the Net. We found that the overwhelming majority of the school menus on offer had pies, hot dogs, sausage rolls, chips, cookies, doughnuts, cakes, and chocolate. Most—68 percent—did not even include fruit on the menu. There was not a roll or sandwich on the menu of 22 percent of the schools we surveyed, and in 24 percent the roll or sandwich was more expensive than the pie.

To understand why we are in the midst of epidemics of childhood obesity and diabetes, we need look no further than those school lunches. We worked out that a child eating what is on offer in most of those schools—say, a pie, chips, a cookie, and a fizzy drink for lunch—would be consuming 10 teaspoons of fat and 20 teaspoons of sugar for lunch. Most parents would not feed their children a constant diet of pies, sausage rolls, doughnuts, and chips, which we know contribute to obesity, diabetes, and dental decay. So why are we allowing our schools to sell that sort of food?

This has prompted the Green Party to launch a school food campaign in order to get unhealthy food and drink out of our schools. It is a very, very simple campaign. All we are aiming for is that the Minister of Education will change the National Administration Guidelines and the National Education Guidelines to require schools to develop a policy that only healthy food and drink can be sold—only food that encourages good eating habits and does not contribute to obesity, diabetes, or dental decay. This is extraordinarily simple. It does not require a legislative change.

Last year, to his great credit, Mr Mallard amended the national educational goals and school guidelines to require all schools to give priority to physical education, and that is fantastic. He did it quietly overnight—a little rule change that is having a significant impact in schools. So now we are saying that that is fine to Mr Mallard—or I think it might now be Mr Benson-Pope—but we would like him to make a similarly simple change to require that only healthy food and drink is to be sold in schools. I can assure him that there is huge support for this campaign, because parents are horrified about the food that is being sold in schools.

DAVID PARKER (Labour—Otago): In the general debate we often talk about the relative merits of the leadership of different political parties. Today we have seen again the lamentable performance of Dr Brash, who is now resorting to dirty tactics: misquoting documents to try to discredit the Prime Minister. But let us look at the truth, in terms of leadership. The Labour Party leadership generally gets it right and the National Party leadership generally gets it wrong. Let us look at a few recent instances. We have just had Anzac Day. Anzac Day reinforces that amongst the most serious decisions that we make in this Parliament is the decision on whether our country ever goes to war. The most recent time a decision like that was taken in New Zealand was in respect of Iraq. What did the National Party propose? The National Party said that we should have gone to war without a UN mandate. There was no UN mandate because there was no evidence of weapons of mass destruction. Despite that, the National Party got it wrong. National members said that we should have reversed that most serious Government decision. They said that we should have gone to war, but Helen Clark and this Government got it right. Don Brash, even after his premature elevation to the role of party leader, still said that if he had been leading a National Government, New Zealand would have gone to war. That is wrong.

Let us look at what National members do on other important issues like women’s representation. There are no women on the National Opposition front bench. There is not one woman on the front bench of the National Party, and there are very few women in that party. Three out of four of the women who had roles of significance have been dumped. Firstly, we saw Georgina te Heuheu dumped, then we saw Lynda Scott dumped from health, and then we saw Katherine Rich dumped from the front bench to the second bench—another mistake made by Dr Brash. Let us look at one of the other most significant decisions taken in this country in recent years. It deals with the Superannuation Fund, or putting away a bit of money out of today’s taxpayers’ earnings so that we can afford superannuation in the future. On that issue the Labour Party and, to his credit, Winston Peters got the issue right. What did the National Party do? Those members got it wrong. They are consistently wrong on the big issues. The National Party has since flip-flopped on that issue, of course, and its members now say that they support it. Let us look at the next decision—4 weeks’ annual leave. The National Party members opposed it. They have now flip-flopped, taken the Labour Government’s position, and agree with it.

What is the most recent example of lamentable leadership on the part of the National Party? It is those members’ response to the terrible issue that we have had to deal with in the last day relating to foot-and-mouth. The Government’s response was to go through the legal process, and to learn from the lesson of the United Kingdom, which had a foot-and-mouth outbreak and did not respond quickly enough, leading to the disease’s spread and to a worse incident than that country would otherwise have had to deal with. We have been openly dealing with the issue as if it is real until it is proven to be a hoax. Everyone overseas agrees that that is the appropriate way to handle the issue, and what did Dr Brash say? He said: “I am surprised they made a public statement about it, to be frank. If it’s only a hoax, they have done a lot of damage to our reputation.” Of course, as Federated Farmers and former National Party members have pointed out, we actually do not know whether it is a hoax until it is too late to stop the disease’s spread. It is wrong to ignore the issue as a potential hoax and not to treat it with the seriousness that it deserves.

Let us look at what Dr Brash is doing. He is avoiding all the big issues and attacking the Prime Minister’s integrity. We have Mr Doone, who had been stopped in a car with the person who is now his wife, because the car had no lights on. The policeman walked away to get a breath-testing device. The then Commissioner of Police, Mr Doone, intervened. The then Deputy Commissioner of Police inquired and found that action to be inappropriate. The Police Complaints Authority said that Mr Doone’s actions were unwise. Now, 5 years later, the Opposition is trying to besmirch the reputation of the Prime Minister, alleging that the mistakes were hers and not Mr Doone’s. What a load of tripe! What a load of rubbish! The only thing that we can conclude is that there must be an election getting close.

Let us remember the dirty tactics at the last election, concerning the allegations surrounding the corn incident that were laid at the door of the Prime Minister. It was alleged that she was involved in illegality and a cover-up. Those issues were subsequently investigated by a select committee of this Parliament, which took over a year to hold its inquiry, and what did that select committee conclude unanimously? Members from the Opposition, from the Greens and from this Government found that the allegations besmirching the Prime Minister in that situation were unfounded, and that there had been no illegality on her part. We cleared her of wrongdoing. [Interruption] Yes, “we”—the members of the select committee. I was one of the members, but it was a cross-party finding to that effect, which included Mr Hide’s own party.

Generally, the big election issue is the economy. Why is there not much mainstream criticism of the Government’s handling of the economy now? The criticism has slowed to a dribble.

JOHN CARTER (National—Northland): If we knew someone in our lives who had some confidential information and who had deliberately gone out and leaked it to the media, told half the truth about it—[Interruption]—misused the information, twisted it around, told lies about it, and had absolutely got the story wrong so that it impacted on another person to the extent that that person lost his or her job, we would call the person who did that a liar. We would call that person a scumbag, and we would call him or her all sorts of things—horrible names. In this House members cannot do that, because the Standing Orders prohibit them from using those words. But I have to say that it is an absolute disgrace that we have a Prime Minister who is known to have had confidential information, and who leaked it with the intention to have somebody dismissed from his or her job.

Rodney Hide: Not just “somebody”.

JOHN CARTER: She actually had not just “somebody” but the then Commissioner of Police removed from his job. She misused the truth so that the Government could get its way—whatever that was—and now she is trying to cover it up. That is not good enough.

The problem is that it is our Prime Minister we are talking about. It is not just a member of Parliament or a Cabinet Minister, but our Prime Minister—the most senior political position in New Zealand. We have somebody in that position who misuses the truth, breaks confidences, and absolutely misuses and twists stories so that a person—in this case, the then Commissioner of Police—loses his or her job, and it is not the first time. If members could only use the words that they can use outside the House, they would be able to properly describe what has happened. But this is not the first time. Let us run through some of those instances that Government members are so ashamed of that, whenever one of the issues is raised, they have their heads bowed just like they do now. They know that they are in the wrong, and that the Prime Minister is in the wrong. The body language says it all. None of them are prepared to stand up and defend her—not on your nelly! They know that she has misled this House. They know that she leaked the stuff. They know that she has twisted the truth all the way through.

Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member will be seated. The member cannot accuse a member of misusing the truth or misleading the House. The member will withdraw and apologise.

JOHN CARTER: I withdraw and apologise. I draw the House’s attention to “paintergate”. We all know what happened: the Prime Minister was finally caught and had to fess up. She did not like it and nor did the Labour members, but what happened is on the record. I will leave it for the public to go back and refresh their memories if they need to. We know about “corngate”. That was the same thing, and it is all on the record. We have a Prime Minister who is prepared to make sure that things are covered up. We know about the Ellis issue. We know about the Auckland surgeon Joe Brownlee. We know what happened there. There, again, the Prime Minister misused her influence to have an impact on individuals. We know about the speeding issue. We have a whole raft of things—and now the Doone case.

Why will the Prime Minister not come clean? Why will she not tell New Zealand exactly what happened? If the matter is so simple—if she has told us all there is—why will she not just lay the tapes on the table? Why will she not just put the transcripts out, so that we all know what happened? I will tell the House why: she knows she is in trouble. She knows that the answers she has given have not been the full story. She knows that there is something to be covered up. The Prime Minister knows that she is in real trouble, and those members over there on the Government side of the House—her Ministers and her back-benchers—all know that she has not come clean on this issue at all. Quite honestly, the country is watching and waiting, because the facts will come out. Those things always do. I remind the House that seven Ministers in this administration have lost their jobs for actions less serious than this one. It is an absolute disgrace, and the Prime Minister needs to feel absolutely disgraced because of her actions.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.

Privilege

Consideration of Report of Privileges Committee

Justice and Electoral Committee—Application for Orders and Declaration

Justice and Electoral Committee—Application for Orders and Declaration

Hon MATT ROBSON (Deputy Leader—Progressive): I move, That the House take note of the report of the Privileges Committee on the question of privilege relating to an application for orders and a declaration sought by Mr Darryl Bruce Queen.

This matter of privilege was referred to the Privileges Committee on 19 May 2004. The recommendation of the Privileges Committee by all members of the committee is that the House take no further action. That is because in this case, which has gone to three courts to look at an important question concerning the House—the question of the House’s powers and the constitutional divide between Parliament and the courts—the courts have upheld the longstanding position of the traditional privileges, immunities, and powers of the House of Representatives.

In November 2003 Mr Queen wanted to make submissions to the Justice and Electoral Committee on the Care of Children Bill, an important bill. But he also wanted to bring to that select committee, as part of his submission, the details of a Family Court proceeding. The law makes it clear that proceedings of the Family Court cannot be made public unless there is leave of either the Family Court or a higher court. The Justice and Electoral Committee was prepared to accept Mr Queen’s submission, but returned it to him saying that it would accept it only on the basis that he struck out the private details of the particular case. Mr Queen, as was his right, wanted to proceed and to have the select committee hear, on a private and confidential basis, the submission with the details of the Family Court case. The select committee, in correspondence with Mr Queen—in innumerable letters backwards and forwards—advised him over and over again that it would not accept his submission in a public process, which the select committee is, unless he took out the details of the Family Court case.

In the end, Mr Queen took the first step in his court proceedings. He took proceedings against the Attorney-General. Firstly, he asked for an order requiring the Justice and Electoral Committee to readvertise and hear public submissions on the Care of Children Bill after the High Court, pursuant to the proceedings, had determined the limitations that any submitter must abide by, having regard to section 27A(1) of the Guardianship Act; and secondly, an order that the court restrain the Justice and Electoral Committee from reporting back to Parliament, on the grounds that such a report might breach the said section 27A(1) and result in the Justice and Electoral Committee committing a criminal offence pursuant to section 27A(2) of the Guardianship Act.

The High Court heard an application from the Attorney-General, against whom the action was taken, to strike out proceedings. The High Court did strike out those proceedings, and basically upheld the right of the traditional privileges, immunities, and powers of this House of Representatives. Mr Queen took further litigation to the High Court, this time against the Speaker of the House. The importance of this is that the Privileges Committee at that time could not deliberate further and report back speedily to this House, because the court proceedings were on foot. The High Court confirmed that the action against the Speaker of the House should be struck out. The proceedings were struck out on grounds similar to those of the previous striking-out, except that it was made clear: “The enduring public interest in the proceedings of the House of Representatives being free from interference from the Courts overwhelmed Mr Queen’s private interest in getting his unedited submission heard by the Justice and Electoral Committee.”

But, as we have a Court of Appeal, Mr Queen made a further appeal, as was his right, to appeal out of time against that particular judgment of the High Court. The Court of Appeal, in part of its judgment, stated that Mr Queen had persisted in this litigation well beyond the realm of reasonableness. At this stage the Court of Appeal has been the final court to which Mr Queen has taken his proceedings.

Having given due regard to that, the Privileges Committee came down with the recommendation that is before this House. To quote from our report: “We are satisfied that the traditional privileges, immunities, and powers of the House of Representatives, as protected by section 242 of the Legislature Act 1908, have not been impugned. The Court has recognised these privileges and struck out Mr Queen’s applications in relation to the proceedings of the House.” Therefore, the Privileges Committee recommended no further action in this matter.

JOHN CARTER (National—Northland): The important issue in this matter is the paramountcy of our Parliament. Mr Queen endeavoured to try to force a committee of the Parliament to take an action it did not want to take. One of the important things for us to uphold in our democratic system is the right of the Parliament to make its own decisions. We must always be able to make decisions in our own right, without outside interference. The good thing that has happened in this matter, particularly through the court cases, is that that is exactly what the courts found. The judgment states: “There is a comity between the Courts leaving the House of Representatives alone to conduct its proceedings and the House of Representatives respecting the exclusive authority of the Judges of the High Court to declare what the law made by Parliament is.”

It is absolutely important that that remain so, because there is a clear line between our right to make law and the courts’ right to interpret and administer it. Mr Queen, as a citizen of our country, decided that he wanted to interfere with that decision and with that principle. The Privileges Committee found that it was appropriate for us to make no further recommendation, because the courts had found correctly that this Parliament has the right to make decisions on behalf of the people, without interference. This report, in recommending that no further action be taken, upholds that. A very important matter that members of Parliament who have not been involved in this might want to remind themselves of is the principle of our right as a Parliament to make decisions, without interference.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First): I must say that, having read the report and its conclusions, I entirely agree. I want to say how delighted I am, after all this time, to find that I am surrounded by colleagues who would rush to defend their rights that go all the way back to the Bill of Rights 1688. [Interruption] It says 1688 in this document.

Hon Dr Michael Cullen: It’s always been wrong.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: No, it has not always been wrong. Lawyers would more likely go for the accurate date than historians, who could somehow get confused as to when it came into force. [Interruption] There the member goes, but he is not right. It is recited by the legal fraternity as being 1688. Do members know what is said about historians?

Here is my point: it is wonderful that I am surrounded by colleagues who would rush to shelter behind those great rights that were conferred hundreds of years ago on ourselves and on our profession. I know very well a case in which a member of Parliament was involved. He made a speech in Parliament about a member of the public, then went outside, and all he said was that people had seen that person on TV, and that they had seen him, and that they could make up their own mind. The lawyers had to link the parliamentary speech to get any case up at court, except that the person who claimed to be offended sued for only $50,000 so that he could get a District Court hearing. Why would he want that? I do not know.

The other party to the case decided to take the matter all the way to the Court of Appeal on the basis that it was a very serious case, and that it required a much higher court to decide. The Court of Appeal said to that very worthy MP that it thought a District Court could decide that issue on a case or action such as a strike out. The Court of Appeal told a member of Parliament to go back to the District Court, where he was bound to have his case struck out. But down at the District Court something went wrong, and the other man won. So the poor member of Parliament had to go to the High Court on appeal. He won half the case. Round about then, the money ran out. About seven other legal cases were going on at the same time, so members can see what I mean.

Darren Hughes: How many did the member win?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: I won every one of them. With this one here I got only halfway, because I could not afford to go back to the Court of Appeal, where I am certain I would have got justice. In fact, one might say that, like Cassius Clay, I am about 21 and nought. That is a serious contender!

But here is my point: when I went to the Privileges Committee back then—and this is why I am very curious about this conclusion—I was told by members of that committee, including people like Lange and Caygill, to suck it and see. That is right. Hundreds of thousands of dollars later, they told me to suck it and see. Meanwhile, of course, I remind members that we as a Parliament rushed all the way to the Privy Council in London to defend the rights of a person who was not even a member of Parliament—namely, Richard Prebble. That is the history of this Parliament.

So I am delighted today to know that I am surrounded, all of a sudden, in 2005 by members who understand the majesty and romance of their profession, and the great historic privilege that has befallen us all of a sudden.

Motion agreed to.

Business of the House

Business of the House

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First): I move, That members’ order of the day No. 1 for the first reading of the Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Deletion Bill be postponed.

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Leader of the House): I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. This is a non-debatable motion, of course, but I wonder whether the member could perhaps give us a brief minute of explanation as to why this should happen, given that this bill was New Zealand First’s policy at the last election. The bill has been on the Order Paper for weeks. The member is here, but suddenly he is not ready to proceed with the bill. It is a little bit baffling to those on this side of the House that after all this time—three fingers in the air, and this is one of them—the member cannot proceed with the bill.

Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: No. That is not a point of order. This motion is non-debatable.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First): I realise that, and I do not want to offend against that.

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Leader of the House): We will be happy to vote for the member if he tells us why.

Motion agreed to.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First): I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I want to make this very clear, by way of an explanation. There is a matter on the Order Paper today, for example, that appeared out of thin air, and my party knew nothing as to why. The Privileges Committee report appeared on the Order Paper without being discussed with us.

Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: The explanation is that the Standing Orders provides for that, the Clerk has advised.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: I thank my colleagues for that vote, but I say that I had other things on tonight. I had people here this afternoon whom I needed in respect of this debate. I am sorry that members of the only party in this House to oppose my having leave, when they were put to the test tonight, did not bother even to open their mouths. They have wasted everybody’s time.

Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member knows that that is not a point of order.

Bills

New Zealand Bill of Rights (Private Property Rights) Amendment Bill

First Reading

GORDON COPELAND (United Future): I move, That the New Zealand Bill of Rights (Private Property Rights) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. At the appropriate time I will move that it be referred to the Justice and Electoral Committee. The purpose of this bill is to provide for the protection of private property rights in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. The right to the peaceful ownership and enjoyment of private property is a foundational value of our legal tradition, and common law has therefore always protected private property rights carefully. The common law begins with a presumption against the dispossession of property by the State, as well as upholding the principle that compensation must be given whenever private property is taken for a public purpose.

This bill does those things by inserting in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act two additional short clauses, under the heading “Private property rights”. Section 11A, “Right to own property”, inserted by clause 4, states: “Everyone has the right to own property, whether alone or in association with others.” Section 11B, “Right not to be arbitrarily deprived of property”, inserted by clause 4, states: “No person is to be deprived of the use or enjoyment of that person’s property without just compensation.”

Most New Zealanders are very familiar with two popular expressions of those realities. One is: “An Englishman’s home is his castle.”, meaning that one has the right to defend, use, and enjoy one’s own property. The other is: “No confiscation without compensation.” Those two great private property rights reach right back in our legal tradition to the Magna Carta. Via the Treaty of Waitangi they were also explicitly introduced into the legal framework of this nation. Via the treaty, the protection of the common law tradition was imparted to Māori when they were given all the rights and privileges of British subjects. Those rights were also extended to all the other people of New Zealand, regardless of their race or ethnic background.

As if that history were not enough in itself, property rights were also made explicit in article 17 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, proclaimed in 1948, which provides that everyone has the right to own property alone, as well as in association with others, and which prohibits the arbitrary deprivation of property—a prohibition that requires that no one’s property is to be confiscated without compensation.

However, in spite of those realities, property rights were not included in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. In hindsight, that is a surprising omission. Strong submissions were made to the select committee at the time that property rights should be included. John Fogarty QC, for example, advocated that course. My bill aims to rectify that omission, and I believe not only that it is the right thing to do but also that this is the right time to do it.

Our nation has now acknowledged the historical breach of the property rights of Māori. We are, as quickly as we can, seeking to settle treaty-based property claims. However, in view of the grave past injustices in that regard, the fragility of our property rights, in spite of the common law tradition, will not be lost on Māori, and that should serve as a salutary lesson to all other New Zealand citizens. After all, many of the historical treaty claims resulted from specific acts or omissions of the New Zealand Parliament. Just as in the late 19th century and in the 20th century Parliament overrode the property rights of Māori, so there are now growing concerns that that trend continues into the early days of the 21st century.

Let me mention some current examples. The first is the draft Waitakere Ranges Bill. That bill is opposed by United Future, because it is silent on the question of whether compensation will be paid to affected private property owners. Then we have the question of public access to private property, with some so-called right to roam being bandied about to the great unease of rural New Zealand. But perhaps most blatantly of all, the Overseas Investment Bill, reported back to the House just this week, provides for 20-metre wide marginal strips to be taken from private owners along rivers and around lakes, on the specific condition that no compensation will be paid.

I believe that New Zealanders should be very worried about these developments. In these instances we see Parliament, as it did in earlier times in relation to Māori land, once again expressing an intention to take private land without compensation. In the case of marginal strips the Government may well say that it will do that only when New Zealanders wish to sell their land to non-residents. But I say that this is the thin end of the wedge. Every New Zealander should be deeply concerned that what is true for sales to non-residents today could, unless we have a specific protection in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, be true tomorrow for the sale of both rural and urban land by one New Zealander to another.

The importance of the erosion of the traditional “no confiscation without compensation” principle must not be underestimated. To quote Professor Jeremy Waldron of Columbia University: “The normative resilience of property means that an injustice in property arrangements is a bad thing to inflict on a people and a more permanent form of injustice than many others.” That is a sobering thought. The protection of private property is increasingly being recognised internationally as a pre-condition to the enjoyment of many other rights, and as an indispensable basis for economic prosperity and social well-being. The taking of property without compensation is specifically protected against under the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. It is one of the cornerstone rights that have allowed the people of that nation to enjoy a level of both economic prosperity and social well-being that is the envy of many other nations.

Property rights create stability for families. They create order in communities. They eliminate a potential source of conflict, thus establishing peaceful relationships within a society and, indeed, between nations. By contrast, as the sad history of this country and many others shows, the dispossession of people from their property without just compensation can be the cause of violence, bloodshed, and deep-seated intergenerational bitterness that, unless rectified, can continue over literally hundreds of years. We have to think only of the situation in Cyprus. We have to think only of the situation in the Middle East at the moment between Israel and Palestine. Those are just a couple of contemporary examples that make that point so abundantly clear. Those disputes are essentially about property.

We cannot look at these historical and present realities without concluding that property rights are fundamental to a free and democratic society. Life, liberty, and property were the three foundations on which democracy itself was originally built. Therefore they should—and, indeed, must—be included in this nation’s bill of rights legislation if that legislation is to have any real meaning at all in terms of those fundamental human rights that in a democratic, open, and free society should be enshrined for everyone in such a way that they cannot arbitrarily be set aside just by a single majority vote in the unicameral New Zealand Parliament. With those words I rest my case, and I challenge any member of this House who is so inclined to rebut the proposition I place before the Parliament this day.

Dr WAYNE MAPP (National—North Shore): I thank the House for the opportunity to speak on this quite important bill. I have listened with particular care to Mr Gordon Copeland, and perhaps the thing that resonated with me most was his reflection that property rights are an inherent part of democracy. He perhaps needed to develop that idea a little more because there is a reason why that is true, and it is this. The right to property is an inherent part of democratic societies, because it reflects the individuals’ rights against the State—civil and political rights, which the Labour Party, quite properly, has great attachment to—and when divorced from property rights they are ultimately no protection against the power of the State. It is no accident that democratic societies also defend property, and that speaks enormous volumes about the relationship between the individual and the State. So that is why, in article 5 of the US Bill of Rights, property is such an important component. It is also noteworthy that it is protected in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

I wrote on this subject some years ago in academic journals, and I noted the fact that during the 1950s and the 1960s, when socialism was advancing in Western States, it was really only in the United States, which had the specific legal protection for property, that the values of freedom were most rigorously protected, and only in more recent years has the importance of that been recognised. It was a failing in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, promoted by the then Minister of Justice and Deputy Prime Minister, Geoffrey Palmer, it was an oversight, and that was unfortunate. We could not even reflect the values of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which did give protection, and which is a direct derivation in that particular instance of the US Constitution’s Bill of Rights. So here is an opportunity to fix up that error.

National, because this issue is so fundamental to our values, will be supporting this legislation. Now, I know that the Government is likely to also do so, and it will say: “Well, at least it’s worthy of a debate before a select committee.” It is more than that. It is actually about the values for society. It is not just a left-right debate; it is about the values of the nation of New Zealand, irrespective of which political party might happen to hold the reins of power at the time. So parties will be actually judged, irrespective of who is the Government, down the track as to whether this is a founding value for our country. I think that the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act does need strengthening. The Constitutional Arrangements Committee, which is chaired by Mr Dunne, will have to deeply reflect on this issue. One cannot help but reflect on the fact that only this week there has been a report-back of a bill in relation to riparian rights, and the Government is saying there should be no compensation. My understanding is that the United Future Party—and I am happy to be corrected on this if I am erroneous—actually supported that legislation. If that is true—[Interruption] and I am happy to take an interjection from Mr Copeland—did the party actually support that legislation?

Gordon Copeland: We filed a minority report opposing the no-compensation clause.

Dr WAYNE MAPP: Will you vote for the legislation?

Gordon Copeland: As others have said in this House, all will be revealed.

Dr WAYNE MAPP: Sometimes, particularly when we promote legislation like this, we are required to stand on principle. I think that on a piece of legislation like that it might be true that in 1991 certain Governments voted a particular way. Time has moved on, I might say to the Deputy Prime Minister, and we do recognise that property rights are fundamental. Perhaps there has not been enough recognition of this in the past. When property rights are taken for the common good—and in the case of riparian rights I recognise that that can be the case—there must be compensation. At least I acknowledge Mr Copeland’s recognition of that reality.

I add this point also—and it is really a statement to Transpower. Sometimes when opposing a provocative move, a controversial move, additional compensation should be offered. That is apparently what occurs in Europe. The Deputy Prime Minister might be interested to know that that is one of the reasons why in France there is relatively little controversy about these kinds of issues. It is because adequate compensation is fully offered. In that instance “adequate” means more than generous; more than, we might say, one for one. People have to have a sense that they are restored, not just in a financial sense in the case of Transpower but in a sense of their equilibrium. I invite the Government, when it is voting for this legislation, as I understand it might, to think also of the adequacy of the compensation provisions in the Public Works Act.

In reality, I think the public mood has changed. We have a greater recognition in this nation these days of the importance of property rights. I think that is generally true. There is a much greater defence of that than in the past. Why is that the case? One of the reasons is that the old left-right battle of the past, the classic socialist-capitalist battle, is, in a sense, in the past. I think the Deputy Prime Minister would recognise the truth of that fact. Certainly, third wayism is all about saying that that particular battle is in the past. One of the consequences of that reality is a much deeper and greater focus on the importance of property rights and the need, when they are taken, for them to be properly compensated for.

National is proud to support this legislation. We are saying that when one supports this proposition in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, it has other consequences. It has consequences in relation to the Public Works Act, consequences in takings by the Crown on behalf of the public—that private citizens will be properly and adequately compensated for those takings.

I know that Georgina te Heuheu will talk about this, and the significance of this to Māori. Frankly, she has a point. Let us be honest. Successive Governments are compensating Māori today—maybe in a not entirely adequate way—for wrongs in the past. One of the reasons for that is that we have a deeper recognition of the importance of property rights. One of the ironies, I might add, is that one of the foundations of the Māori Party is its belief—and I think the Deputy Prime Minister would recognise this—that its views have a wellspring in property rights, and I guess we saw that when reading the Listener article.

So from a wide variety of perspectives in this country, there is a much deeper recognition of the importance of property rights. The old shibboleths of the past, the left-right debates, are to some extent in the past. and one of the consequences is a deeper recognition of property rights. That means that legislation that was passed in 1990, the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, needs to recognise that quite fundamental shift in our society. I note in closing that the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, although an ordinary statute, now has huge and tremendous significance. I think that the Deputy Prime Minister, in his office as Attorney-General, will recognise the reality of that particular fact. Although it may be an ordinary statute, it has deeper moral force than in the past, and, as a consequence, this is part of the perfection of that statute.

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Deputy Prime Minister): The Labour Party will be voting for this bill to go to the select committee, but it has extremely serious reservations about the language used. I think the bill is cast much more widely than similar provisions overseas, including those of the United States constitution, the Canadian legislation, the European legislation, and so on.

I want to deal with a couple of the issues raised by Dr Mapp. I understand now why some of his former students are still asleep in lecture halls, waiting to be woken up. The point he made was that property rights are essential to democratic rights. While that is true to some extent, I think a couple of qualifications need to be made. Firstly, property rights are capable of existing independently of civil and political rights, and democracy. However, many non-democracies have quite strong property rights provisions. So the linkage is by no means as strong as the member was trying to pretend.

Secondly, I think we must be very careful not to end up in an argument that says people who have no property are somehow not fully functioning members of a democracy and do not have civil and political rights, which in many respects are more important than property rights. As for saying that this is a founding value of our country, we might decide that it is a first principle now, but to argue that a founding value of our country in the 1840s, 1850s, and 1860s was a respect for property rights is, I suspect, a Pākehā view of life that he would not care to repeat at home too loudly and too often, because it might well be misunderstood. The capture of property without compensation was a rather significant feature of the early history of this country, post-1840.

Finally, let me make this point. The member went on about the marginal strip provisions in the Overseas Investment Commission bill. Let me remind him that what he called a Government in 1991, to wit a National Government, including a fair number of the current front bench of the National Party, voted that when subdivision occurred on the foreshore and seabed, a marginal strip would be created, without compensation. So much for this great lordly principle we have discovered—that we cannot possibly ever do anything about creating a marginal strip, without compensation!

Let me turn very briefly to the bill. The difficulty with this bill is that it does not attempt to define what “property” is, it does not attempt to define what “deprived” is, and both of those are capable of very wide interpretation by the courts. It could, for example, be extended to such issues as taxation, which is why some jurisdictions have quite specific clauses preventing that particular interpretation. But most important, the issue of just compensation does not appear in all similar legislation. For example, the Canadian Bill of Rights of 1960 states the right of the individual to life, liberty, security of the person, and enjoyment of property, and the right not to be deprived thereof, except by due process of law. It is that language of “due process of law” that is also used effectively in European legislation. In other words, the presumption and the detail of that legislation is not around a right to compensation, which is to invite the courts to intervene further into whether that compensation is just, but a right to ensure that any such taking of property is done by due process of law, with the presumption, as the member quite rightly says, that in the vast majority of cases some form of compensation will be available.

I do not accept his view that on issues such as the creation of new transmission lines, there should be some kind of compensation that is over and above the market value of the property being affected. That is to erect property rights, at the individual level, into a right that far outweighs that of the public good. It is difficult enough to arrive at a fair value of what is a compensation in those particular circumstances, but this is the National Party trying to have it both ways—looking as though it wants to support transmission lines to get power to Auckland, and trying to buy off all its rural voters all the way along the transmission line by promising them the same cornucopia of riches that it is promising everybody around the country on every issue at the present time.

The same members promise a $2.6 billion tunnel underneath Auckland’s harbour. They are promising to build every road in the country that has ever been thought of, within the next 5 years. Nothing is too small, or too large, to be promised, as National desperately tries to buy its way back into office. He really does remind me of 1975 and Sir Robert Muldoon. And look how many years it took us to recover from the fiscal consequences of that particular folly in 1975. It did prove that pigs can fly, but it proved also that they come down to ground with an almighty thud, and an awful lot of people tend to be underneath them when that happens.

So we will be looking at this bill very carefully in the select committee. It will require substantial amendment before we will be able to think about voting for it at any later stage.

DAIL JONES (NZ First): New Zealand First will support this bill. Our policy makes it clear that: “Private ownership provides an underlying social stability—a property-owning democracy.”

I am especially interested in the insertion of section 11B by clause 4, and the reference to Magna Carta, the Great Charter of 1215, signed by King John at Runnymede. Mr Copeland is obviously referring to clause 31. The principles of property ownership and property rights are being seriously undermined at the present time in Auckland by the Auckland Regional Council and the Waitakere City Council, so it is very appropriate that this legislation is now before the House. Perhaps those two councils will take some notice of it.

I am referring to a draft bill dated 10 February 2005, which provides that the area of the Waitakere Range, which has been built up since 1894 by Aucklanders to an area of 17,080 hectares since the first purchase in 1894, will be extended—by way of a socialist land grab—by depriving owners of their property rights over 7,000 hectares of land. All that will be without compensation, but we should bear in mind that the parliamentary commissioner who reported on the issue believed there should be compensation.

It is ironic that those private landowners concerned with property rights are prepared to support the provisions of the Resource Management Act in which plan changes and variations are dealt with. Even developers are prepared to support those provisions of the Act, but the Auckland Regional Council, the Waitakere City Council, and this Labour Government, through its members from the west Auckland area who propose to support this bill, oppose proper administration of the Resource Management Act.

New Zealand First supports the application of the Resource Management Act equally and fairly, as suggested by the landowners. As this bill suggests, there should be one law for all, and one Resource Management Act for all.

The Labour Party - proposed property rights bill concerning the Waitakere Range provides in clause 15, for example, that a consent authority must, when considering an application for a resource consent, treat it as if it were a matter of national importance, in relation to section 6 of the Resource Management Act. What a way to treat someone’s property rights! If one wants to alter a garage, landscape a property, or even put in a long drop, such things would have to be treated as matters of national importance by the way in which the bill is drafted at the present time. [Interruption] That is what Clayton Cosgrove is supporting.

The bill would also bind the existing 17,080 hectares of publicly owned land, so that if the Auckland Regional Council wanted to put a walkway through that area to encourage the million or so visitors to walk through it, then that walkway development would have to be the subject of resource consent and treated as a matter of national importance in terms of section 6 of the Resource Management Act.

Gordon Copeland: Bureaucratic!

DAIL JONES: It is an absolutely bureaucratic nightmare, with no regard for property rights. The legislation before the House at the moment will go a long way to ensure that the rights of individuals are protected in property, and that the socialist land grab supported by this Labour Government—with the creation of virtually a Wellington-governed park in the Waitakere Range—will not happen. As I have said before, the Waitakere Range is an Auckland icon, and Wellington should keep its sticky hands off it.

Of course, in so far as that property in Auckland is concerned, none of the present problems would have been experienced if the Labour Government had not passed the Local Government Amendment Bill in 2002, under urgency in this House, and repealed the Centennial Memorial Park Act of 1941. I ask the Labour members for that area, the Hon. Chris Carter, Lyn Pillay, and the Hon. David Cunliffe, whether they knew they were repealing something that protected the Waitakere Range when they passed the Local Government Act in 2002. I am sure that the likes of Lyn Pillay and David Cunliffe had absolutely no idea what they were doing at that time. They would not have had the faintest idea that they were depriving Auckland of the ownership of the Auckland Centennial Memorial Park when that legislation was passed.

I make the same comment to John Tamihere, who supports the removal of property rights from people in the west Auckland area, whether Māori or non-Māori. It is very interesting to know that John Tamihere, who is standing in that area as a member of Parliament, and Dover Samuels, support the removal of the rights of Māoris to land in that 7,000 hectares, but I am sure they will be responsible to their constituents when the time comes. As we mentioned, it is really “death by a thousand cuts” for the landowners, in terms of that old Sung Dynasty rule.

STEPHEN FRANKS (ACT): I am very pleased to have an opportunity to speak for the ACT party on Gordon Copeland’s bill, the New Zealand Bill of Rights (Private Property Rights) Amendment Bill. It was a very pleasant surprise to see this coming across the desk. I do not know whether Dr Michael Cullen, National Party members, or even New Zealand First members who have just spoken on this legislation realise that Owen Jennings had a bill that was almost identical about 7 years ago. As I recall, only one person, other than his colleagues, voted for it, and that was Peter Dunne. I give credit to United Future and to Peter Dunne for being consistent in supporting property rights in that respect. The next speakers for the National Party and New Zealand First have a little explaining to do, given that they now think that this is so self-evident.

We have constantly in this country problems arising from the complete ignorance, or in fact the wilful trashing, of property rights. This week the SILNA forest owners in Southland who were deprived in the first place of proper compensation when their property was taken, were then given forest land deep in the south as compensation, only to have the Labour Government steal it again when it decided that they could not market their trees. That was a classic case of a Western country simply regarding the natives’ property as free to be expropriated because they could not protect it.

Hon Brian Donnelly: Didn’t Nick Smith organise that one?

STEPHEN FRANKS: Did Nick Smith organise it? All I can say is that under this Labour Government John Blincoe, as negotiator, has not been prepared to recognise the property rights of those people who had their property stolen. We have the foothills of the western ranges in Auckland, of course, quite properly mentioned now as another proposed expropriation.

This is not simply shifting assets from one group to another without worrying about compensation. It is not simply a loss to them. It is a loss to everyone. It devalues integrity in almost every institution. Equality of opportunity needs potential for mobility in society, to transcend inherited status. It needs the ability to decide how one uses one’s land without upsetting the status quo. The existing authorities in any community, the political and religious authorities, will always kick for the status quo, because change tends to undermine them.

Individual property rights and the rule of law together were England’s greatest gift to this country. Article 2 of the treaty should have been embodied in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. In fact, it is the measure of the cowardice of the Parliament that passed the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, if it knew that it was omitting something almost every other civilised country had. It was not prepared to stand for property rights. It makes so much of the rhetoric around the treaty industry, the reparations, the noble statements about the wrongs done, and the remedying of wrongs—rhetoric that has come from politicians who did not move at the very first opportunity to ensure that article 2 of the treaty was upheld for every New Zealander.

It is property rights that protect the weak against the strong, not democracy. Democracy actually puts power in the hands of the majority. It is property rights that are fundamental to liberty. People who cannot hold their property inviolate against the neighbours or the State simply do not have the practical security to exercise any liberty such as that of free speech or religion.

Individual property rights save environments. Since Hardin wrote “The Tragedy of the Commons”, we have seen so many instances of communally owned assets simply being turned into deserts. We have seen it in fishing, and we have seen it with the foraging of goats in desert lands. It is a pattern that is repeated time and time again, and we have seen it in New Zealand, where the land that is owned by everyone is cared for by no one.

Property rights create incentives to plan and work for the long term. When occupiers cannot expect to get the residual, they do not have any incentive to stop the property being degraded, and they do not have any incentive to improve it. So property rights are consistent with a society that works for the long term. Property rights secure owners against neighbours’ abuse through common law doctrines such as nuisance and the rules for compensation. They shield innovators. Coercion to maintain the status quo is the hallmark of political—[Interruption] That is it?

Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: Yes. The member’s time has expired.

MIKE WARD (Green): The Greens will not be supporting this bill, which puts property rights into the same category as the right to life or the right to vote. Although title to land does indeed carry with it a range of privileges, the Greens are concerned about the attitudes that have seen too many landowners assume that because they have paid for a piece of land, they are able to do anything they wish with it, notwithstanding the fact that it may have existed and taken on its character over millennia and may have been valued by people in the community. This is not to say that individuals should be deprived of the right to occupy land, to plant it, and to have privacy, but we already have rules and laws that establish what one may or may not do as of right with one’s property, and there are provisions for compensation, where appropriate, when those rights are infringed.

But are those provisions regarding property of the same order as the rights enshrined in our New Zealand Bill of Rights Act? Are they of the same order as the right not to be deprived of life, the right not to be subjected to cruel punishment, the right to freedom of expression, the right to freedom of movement, and the right to freedom of assembly? I suggest that those protections and freedoms are of a much greater magnitude that any expectation of compensation for loss of income should a Government decree that ancient trees or minerals under or on land that a person owns must stay there, in the interests of protecting the environment or our heritage. That is not to say that that person may not be entitled to compensation, but that entitlement is not up there with the right to life or the right not to be subjected to discrimination.

We ought to be a little concerned about this bill, which was last put forward by Owen Jennings. That ought to ring alarm bells. I suspect that this bill is the product of a mindset that I have experienced frequently in my time as a city councillor. It is a mindset that does put property ownership up there with life and liberty. It is a mindset that has clear-felled forests and built over iconic land forms, in the name of property rights. It is a mindset that has persuaded local authorities to allow subdivision of the most fertile soils in this country, and it is a mindset that puts a property owner’s belief that he or she should be able to maximise the earning potential of a property ahead of intrinsic values.

My response to those who claim that they ought to be able to do as they wish with property is to ask how they would feel about my acquiring the property next door to theirs and asserting my right to put a fish factory on it. I recall having to put right the chairperson of a planning applications committee, after she said that it was not her job to tell people what they could or could not do on their own property. I said that that was exactly her task as chair of a planning applications committee. My response to those who claim they should be able to do as they wish on their property is to ask whether it is OK for everyone else to do what they want on their property.

This bill and the very term “property rights” are indications that, for some people, property ownership has already assumed a status alongside life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Property ownership deserves no such status. It is a privilege, and it carries with it very real responsibilities. The environmental and social implications of this bill are clear, in a culture where the money-making potential of land already wields undue influence when decisions are being made and when laws are being framed to protect the environment or the health and well-being of people, and in a culture where property owners commonly have access to lawyers and expert witnesses that are unaffordable to those who act on behalf of the environment and people. The last thing we need to do is to enshrine those privileged positions in a bill of rights.

The situation might be different if there was evidence that we were indeed holding our land in trust for our children and treating it with appropriate reverence. Unfortunately, such reverence is much too rare. Perhaps what we need is a bill of responsibilities. As we look around this planet and see the violation of fragile and endangered habitats in the name of property rights, as we watch wealthy individuals and corporations accumulate vast tracts of property and use it to grow coffee or cotton while all around people go hungry for want of somewhere to grow food, as we watch old-growth forests being removed in the interest of maximising returns, and as we observe individuals acquiring property rights over natural processes and life forms, it becomes blindingly clear that in these perilous times the very last thing this planet, and all the species, communities, and generations we share it with, need is to sanctify attitudes that have brought the world to the very brink of destruction by enshrining them in a bill of rights. I just say, as a former city councillor, that every time an opportunity came up to acquire some riparian rights we did not do so, and the reason we did not do so was that we had to compensate someone. I believe that if farmers are able to go on using their land and lose nothing—except gaining a little security, perhaps, by having people occupying that land and walking over it—then maybe there is no need to compensate them. In a country like ours, sharing what we have would not be a bad start.

The Greens will not be supporting this legislation.

DAVID PARKER (Labour—Otago): I rise to speak in the first reading debate on the New Zealand Bill of Rights (Private Property Rights) Amendment Bill. In doing so I note that the Labour Government is supporting the passage of this bill to a select committee. I also note that it is timely that we have this debate about the extent of private property rights. There are some problems with the bill, however.

The bill at present states: “No person is to be deprived of the use or enjoyment of that person’s property without just compensation.” We already have provisions in law, such as the Public Works Act, which state that the Government cannot take land from people without compensating them for their loss, and that is as it should be. But the provision in this legislation goes substantially further than that. I read it again: “No person is to be deprived of the use or enjoyment of that person’s property without just compensation.”

The Hon Dr Michael Cullen recently made the point that that goes far further than the provisions that are found in the Canadian or United States’ constitutions. Let us consider a couple of the reasons why the bill may go too far. First, let us consider the case of a person who owns a piece of land the maximum value of which could be extracted by having a significant heavy industry on it—say, a factory— and that land is in the middle of a residential area—

Hon Dover Samuels: Or a burial ground.

DAVID PARKER: —or in the middle of a burial ground. So of course, under the wording of the bill at present, the individual would be deprived of some use or enjoyment of that property by not being able to build a factory in the middle of a residential suburb, or in the middle of a cemetery Yet we all agree—or I think most of us agree—that that is perfectly proper for councils to control the adverse effects of factories.

I give members another example, marginal strips. In earlier speeches we heard some suggestion that the provisions that the Finance and Expenditure Committee inserted in relation to marginal strip provisions were in some way undermining a property right. I challenge that logic, which I think is flawed. The idea that a property right of an owner of land includes the unrestricted right of an owner to sell land to someone overseas is wrong, and has always been wrong in New Zealand law. The Land Settlement Promotion and Land Acquisitions Act 1952 always had very significant controls preventing, and often almost banning, the sale of land to overseas persons. That legislation was in place until 1996, so until 1996 there were very, very restricted circumstances in which one could sell land of 5 acres or more—it changed to 2 hectares or more—to an overseas person.

Similarly, under that legislation, controls on sales between New Zealanders were quite strict, as well, so as to prevent the undue aggregation of land. The 1952 Act was repealed on the passing of the Overseas Investment Act. That Act still had controls on the sale of land to overseas persons. So it has always been clear that under New Zealand law a private property right to own land did not include the unrestricted right to sell it to overseas people.

The logic behind the Overseas Investment Act means that we are not going back to the old days of the Land Settlement Promotion and Land Acquisitions Act—from 1952 through to 1996—when in many cases people were effectively stopped from selling land to overseas people; we are saying that as a precondition of people selling to an overseas person we ask them to lay off a marginal strip. They are not being forced to lay off a marginal strip; they can sell to a New Zealander without creating a marginal strip. Given that we have increasing incidence of sales on international global markets to people who are able to outbid New Zealanders, it is quite right and proper that we protect the birthright of all New Zealanders to access waterways.

I find it hypocritical that some parties, like National, oppose that when it was so vehement that the public should retain access rights to the foreshore and seabed. Yet it now says—hypocritically—that private property rights include the unrestricted right to sell land to overseas people, and denies the Crown the ability to say that marginal strips must be retained as a prerequisite if that land is adjacent to waterways. That is why this bill, although worthy of going to a select committee, needs some attention to the detail.

Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU (National): I want to refer to two points that have been raised by my colleague Dr Wayne Mapp and commented on by Dr Cullen. My colleague Wayne Mapp was correct when he said that, basically, the protection of property rights and compensation for their alienation is a fundamental part of our democracy. I note that Dr Cullen said that property rights can exist apart from democracy. That may be so, but I think that the underlying feature of property rights as they exist in democracies such as ours is that if people are deprived of those property rights, they are entitled to compensation. I cannot necessarily think at this point in time, where property rights exist away from democracies, whether that is an underlying principle, as well.

As my colleague said, National supports this bill. I certainly support it. It is important that this bill comes forward at this time, particularly in light of what we have been through in the last 2 years with the issue of the ownership of the foreshore and seabed. It is very important in light of the Labour Government’s intentions maybe to start impeding on other forms of property rights, as well.

The thing about property rights is that their guarantee and the guarantee of compensation in the event of their alienation are absolutely fundamental to the way of life as we know it in New Zealand. Governments may come and go; property rights are forever. Māori, of course, have—

John Tamihere: That’s not National Party policy.

Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU: It is certainly not Labour Party policy. That member, John Tamihere, should know that, because he is now facing extinction in this Parliament. He is now facing the loss of his electorate through the emergence of the Māori Party. He needs to think on that. The reason is that he is seen as being part of the Labour Government, which is stepping right over the property rights of Māori. That member will be crushed in his electorate when the election is held in 2 or 3 months’ time. He needs to think on that quietly so that he does not come up with any more of these remarks. He should think about that. The fact is that this bill is an important bill.

I commend the ACT party for being absolutely steadfast on the issue of protection of property rights. Governments come and go—and this Government is going soon—but property rights are forever. Māori have a number of sayings that embody that notion, as well, including “Toitū te whenua.”—the land remains. I find myself very much in agreement with the underlying principles of the bill.

The other point that my colleague Dr Mapp and Dr Cullen had a little bit of toing and froing over was the issue of the Treaty of Waitangi, and the confirmation of property rights in the treaty. I am very pleased to see the explanatory note—and I commend the member—state: “This protection extends to Māori under the Treaty of Waitangi, which imparted to Māori all the rights and privileges of British subjects, and to all other people of New Zealand regardless of their race or ethnic background.” That clearly relates to article 3. I add that all New Zealanders should be thankful for article 3, because it imparts to us all the protection of our property rights and the expectation of compensation if we are deprived of those property rights. Article 2, however, is also about the protection of property rights: te tino rangatiratanga o o rātou whenua—the protection, the chiefly control, of their land, and also of their forests and fisheries.

I am amazed that the Attorney-General, Dr Cullen, would stand in this House and say that the Treaty of Waitangi is not about the protection of property rights. I am absolutely amazed by that and appalled by it. He too might think on the reason that the Māori Party has now emerged and will take all seven Māori seats. He did not understand that fundamental principle. The Treaty of Waitangi certainly is declaratory, but article 2 is about the protection of the property rights of Māori, and article 3 is about the protection of the property rights of all New Zealanders. It is a great shame that this Labour Government did not understand that, because it is now facing the loss of the seven Māori seats.

Hon PETER DUNNE (Leader—United Future): I congratulate my colleague Gordon Copeland on bringing this important measure to the House, and I want to acknowledge the support of the other members who have spoken in the debate this evening for the principle that underpins this legislation. In essence, it is a very simple proposition: it is to recognise that the right to own property is an unalienable part of our liberal democracy.

Many references have been made already as to whether one can have democracy without property rights, or property rights without democracy. The point they all come back to is that inextricable link. Even when one looks at the history of this country, the link between property and people is profound. In many senses, the Treaty of Waitangi is about recognising the property rights as they were at that time, and about developing a mechanism that said that where property rights are transferred, then effective forms of compensation have to apply. So the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act today, which is the closest thing we have to a statement of the inherent rights of all New Zealanders, is deficient in that it does not take into account that dimension of the right to hold and enjoy property. That is precisely what this amendment proposes.

I have heard some members raise issues regarding the scope of the bill and the extent to which it may or may not cut across other enactments. I make this point: members need to see this bill in the context of what is already in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act and the entitlements and the limitations that are contained within it. If this amendment is adopted as an amendment to the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, then it will stand alongside those other provisions. It will not create new entitlements over and above those already there; rather, it will be part of the menu that is on offer in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. So to that extent a number of the concerns that have been expressed this evening about whether this bill goes too far or is in conflict with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act will be resolved at that point, because this amendment becomes part of it.

Over the last few years, as we have started to work our way through a range of issues associated with the broad interpretation of rights in New Zealand, it has become clear that the absence of a clear definition of property rights and the rights of individuals in respect of those property rights is tearing at the fabric of our society in so many different ways. We have seen it most obviously in some of the debates related to treaty claims. We see it, too, in the debate about people’s rights of access over private property. One of the difficulties we have in resolving the issue is that because we have not determined the basic issue of the right to own and hold property, it then becomes more problematic to determine other people’s responsibilities and rights in relation to that property. So this amendment legislation is timely, for a whole range of reasons.

I think it is entirely appropriate that the bill goes to a select committee. I hope there will be a number of submissions from all those people who, over the years, have wailed and bemoaned the fact that we lack a clear definition of property rights in New Zealand, and that we lack a clear statement of how those rights might be enhanced and protected. Gordon Copeland’s measure provides a way through this dilemma. I am sure he would be amongst the first to say that any constructive improvement of the bill that could be made by a select committee would be not only desirable but highly welcome. That would be as it should be.

The bill as it stands is short and relatively clear, and I think it deserves the considered attention of the House. As New Zealanders become more prosperous and more affluent, the notion of property ownership becomes more appealing. A few years ago one talked about this country as a property-owning democracy. That was an aspirational thing, rather than, as it is today, a statement of fact. More New Zealanders own more property than ever before, and it is only timely that as a consequence we have this consideration of how their property rights might be adequately protected. It is ironic—and somewhat bizarre—to think that we have come this far without a clear definition. It seems to me that this is now long overdue.

I support the work that my colleague has done. I am grateful, as he is, for the support of other parties in this House. I do hope that when the bill goes to a select committee there can be a constructive consideration of the issues that it contains, and that as a consequence, in due course we can look forward to the incorporation into the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act of a provision relating to the protection and enhancement of individual property rights, because that will be very welcome.

RUSSELL FAIRBROTHER (Labour—Napier): I support the New Zealand Bill of Rights (Private Property Rights) Amendment Bill going to a select committee, if only because it is good to review the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act from time to time. The challenge put up by this bill will cause the committee to consider provisions such as section 3 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, which dictates that the rights referred to in the Act apply “only to acts done—(a) By the legislative, executive, or judicial branches of the government of New Zealand;” If the purpose of this bill is to protect property against arms of Government, then that is a much more limited right, I would think, than could be intended by this.

We have difficulties with this bill, which I hope the select committee can grapple with, relating to the definition of the term “property”. By “property” one assumes that we are talking about real property—corporal property—but, of course, intellectual property is a huge market these days. One could argue that it protects intellectual property. One could argue that it refers to securities, to interests one has in equities, to testamentary promises, and to areas of law that will be a litigator’s dream and a legislator’s nightmare. So the select committee will have an awesome task in trying to confine what this bill really means, and one would have been assisted in the start of that if the author of the bill had provided a definition clause. Of course, we all assume we know what is meant by the term “ownership”, but the term has different meanings to different people. For example, if we look at many of the claims under article 2 of the Treaty of Waitangi, we can see some of the confusion that arises. Again, it would have been of assistance if the bill had provided some definition and had dealt with the problem of how the bill is to be reconciled with the scope of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act.

There is a conceptual matter that I have a little difficulty with, and that is about rights and the minimum standard of entitlement that one has when one is living in a democracy. Rights are equivalent between subjects, but, of course, property is owned in unequal terms. There are individuals in this community and this country who own inordinate amounts of property, however one defines it, and there are others who own nothing. So the bill conceptually favours some and does not favour others, because some will never be in a position to exercise any of the rights created by the bill. However, I am just touching on some of the difficulties that will arise. Clearly, it will be a challenge to the select committee to make this bill work within the provisions of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. But I think it is time we looked at some of those issues, and this may well be the Trojan Horse that allows us to examine those issues. For that reason, I support the bill being referred to a select committee for initial perusal.

GORDON COPELAND (United Future): First of all, I thank those members who have spoken in support of the bill for their contributions. It is very gratifying for me, having worked on the issue for a long time, to think that the bill will get through its first reading tonight. In my right of reply, I will mention a few points, in a somewhat pot-pourri way. I begin with a quote from Lord Camden. In 1765 he said: “By the laws of England every invasion of private property, be it ever so minute, is a trespass. No man can set his foot upon my ground without my licence”. It is very important to remember that what I propose tonight builds on the common law tradition. These property rights have been defined in that common law tradition for a long time, and some who have spoken tonight—particularly Dr Cullen and Russell Fairbrother—spoke as if this bill had come from left field. It has not. It exists within the context of that great, long common law tradition.

I was delighted when the Prime Minister mentioned “the ownership society” in her speech in Parliament at the beginning of the year. I ask all members tonight to think about what an ownership society means. It means, surely, that people have the right to own property. There cannot be an ownership society without proper protection for property rights. The two go together.

I also mention briefly that there has been some misunderstanding—particularly from the Attorney-General, surprisingly enough—about how the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act works. He talked about due process of law and so forth as if that needed to be within the clauses I am proposing. But that overlooks the fact that the whole New Zealand Bill of Rights Act is governed by section 5, “Justified limitations”, which states: “the rights and freedoms contained in this Bill of Rights may be subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.” It would be quite stupid for me to put equivalent words in the bill, because they are already within the framework of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act in its entirety.

Likewise, the Attorney-General made the surprising comment that there was no definition of “property”, which was repeated by Russell Fairbrother. I tell those members that the common law and our courts have been working for hundreds of years in defining what property is, and they have long since decided that it is fair and just to raise taxation, because through due process of law Parliament has determined to collect taxation. So to come along tonight with the novel idea that somehow the bill I am proposing would prevent the collection of taxation is really quite nonsensical, and ignores the tradition. The same thing was true of some of the other definitions that Russell Fairbrother raised. That is for the courts to determine. That is not the role of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act itself.

The other thing I want to mention is that in preparing for this speech tonight, I did quite a bit of research on overseas jurisdictions. I can tell the House that the constitution of Malaysia protects property rights. The European Convention on Human Rights protects property rights. The Australian constitution protects property rights, as do the constitutions of Ireland, India, and South Africa. Perhaps most surprising of all, the constitution of China, a communist nation, is now evolving in the direction of recognising private property rights within a communist country. Why? Well, the Chinese Government has decided that it needs to go further in this area, the area of the legality of private property, because it has a rising middle class that wants protection of its property rights. That is a very positive sign in China, because it means that it will eventually be headed towards democracy. The two things do go together. In any decent society on the face of the earth, there has always been the protection of property rights.

I would also like to say that our own Parliamentary Library, in putting together the Bills Digest on my bill, gave it this summary: “In summary, the protections for private property in New Zealand are not very great and property rights can be expropriated under statute without compensation.” That is the Bills Digest statement, and I agree with it. My bill proposes to bring that situation to an end, so that although Parliament can continue to override property rights, at least in future there will be a clear signal, whenever we go anywhere near that issue, that we are deliberately setting out to breach the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. I think that is a very important constraint on the unbridled power of a unicameral Parliament, where we can remove such important rights, which have endured for hundreds of years, by one single vote. We do need the protection that my private property bill will give this nation.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the New Zealand Bill of Rights (Private Property Rights) Amendment Bill be now read a first time.

Ayes 111

New Zealand Labour 51; New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 9; United Future 8; Progressive 2; Māori Party 1.

Noes 9

Green Party 9.

Bill read a first time.

Bill referred to the Justice and Electoral Committee.

Bills

Sale of Liquor (Youth Alcohol Harm Reduction) Amendment Bill

First Reading

Hon MATT ROBSON (Progressive): I move, That the Sale of Liquor (Youth Alcohol Harm Reduction) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. At the appropriate time, I intend to move that the bill be considered by the Law and Order Committee. In 1999 Parliament voted, by a narrow margin, to lower the minimum age for the purchasing of alcohol to 18. The New Zealand Drug Foundation, the Ministry of Health, the Alcohol Advisory Council, and other public health organisations at the time opposed the lowering of the drinking age.

There was one speech in this Parliament that I remember well. It went like this: “I have to say that the term ‘conscience vote’ is something of a misnomer, because I believe that I also have a responsibility to the people who elected me to Parliament to represent their viewpoints. On the key controversial issue of the drinking age, every poll conducted, including a poll I did in my own electorate, shows that, overwhelmingly, by a margin of two to one, the public does not want the legal drinking age lowered.” The member went on to say: “… a national survey showed that a quarter of 16 and 17-year-olds were binge drinkers each week. I wonder whether lowering the drinking age, with the impact that will inevitably have of lowering the de facto age of drinking, will make that situation better.” The member does not have to wonder any more. The Hon Phil Goff, the Minister of Justice, has evidence from his own officials, and from those of the Ministry of Health, to show that his direst predictions have eventuated.

If the justice officials and officials from the Ministry of Health are not enough to confirm what Mr Goff wondered about, the New Zealand Police can present him with conclusive evidence that his worst fears have come to pass. In a recent report available to Minister Goff, the police state: “Alcohol is increasingly available in today’s New Zealand. As well as the 1999 lowering of the minimum legal age for purchasing alcohol, which has legally allowed a whole new group of 18 to 19-year-olds to buy liquor and to drink on licensed premises, there have never been as many places where you can get hold of alcohol as there are today. As the policing task has got bigger and bigger, more and more pressure is placed on already stretched resources. In some cases, this means police cells filling up with grossly intoxicated people on Thursday, and Friday, and Saturday nights. For all those who are less intoxicated, too much alcohol has contributed to them getting into a fight, or being caught drink-driving, or wanting to carry on drinking in a public place despite there being a liquor ban by law in effect. So we are seeing greater numbers of young people being referred to Youth Aid for alcohol-related incidents, involved in alcohol-related crashes or driving offences, and greater numbers of young people being picked up for disorderly behaviour or receiving liquor infringement notices for various offences. And LTSA figures consistently tell us that alcohol is a contributing factor in around 25 percent of fatal crashes and 20 percent of serious injury crashes on our roads.”

The police concur with the ministry officials who report to Minister Goff that all the evidence “presents a picture of the change in legislation having a detrimental effect on young people’s drinking behaviour.” Yet despite the overwhelming evidence that our legislation needs urgently to be reviewed, Minister of Justice Goff and Associate Minister of Justice Barker, having helpfully given me the notes of their Labour caucus, have advised the caucus not to vote for this bill. I can tell them that their Progressive colleagues in Government will vote for it, and will campaign for the public health evidence on this crucial issue to see the light of day. Associate Minister of Health and Progressive leader Jim Anderton has told me that in the countless number of forums he has held on drugs and alcohol up and down the country, the voice of the public health experts, the police, and the community is that they want effective action on the No. 1 drug problem, that of alcohol.

In 2004, public health experts were asked to report to the Ministerial Committee on Drug Policy on the effect of the 1999 legislation to lower the drinking age. The report was delivered in August 2004. Its finding was unequivocal: “From a public health perspective, there is enough international and New Zealand evidence to strongly suggest that there would be overall population health benefits from raising New Zealand’s current minimum legal purchasing age back to 20 years.” I read that report and many others on the effect of lowering the drinking age. I talked with many public health agencies and their experts. I concurred with the ministerial report that we, the members of Parliament, had got it wrong. All the New Zealand evidence, along with international studies, were in agreement with the June 2004 study by a university in Finland that: “Delaying the initiation of drinking from early adolescence to late adolescence is an important goal for prevention efforts.”

In our ministerial report, the research showed that with the lowering of the drinking age in 1999 harmful patterns of drinking alcohol had emerged, and that those harms had extended to young people well below the new legal age of 18. The hopes in 1999 that civilised drinking patterns would develop in the 18 to 19 age group, and that strict enforcement would prevent under-age alcohol consumption, have not been fulfilled. Hospital admissions for heavily intoxicated 13 to 17-year-olds have increased, along with those for 18 to 19-year-olds. Traffic crash data for both age groups, in both fatal and non-fatal accidents, have shown that the contribution of alcohol has dramatically increased. The number of fatal crashes during high-alcohol hours has increased sharply. In all areas studied, from hospital admissions to sexually transmitted diseases, the lowering of the drinking age was associated with greater alcohol-related harm.

It was that evidence that has caused me to submit my member’s bill, which will raise the minimum legal purchase age of alcohol back to 20, and set strict controls on the advertising of alcohol. I must say to members that if any defects in this bill are shown by the public evidence that comes before us, then that is the time for the experts from the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Health to help us to craft a bill that will meet the needs of all our people, and particularly of our young people.

Opponents of the bill have stated that the genie, once released, cannot be put back into the bottle. I am not sure whether those opponents have consciously used the image of the bottle, but Parliament has to deal with the real world, not the imaginary one. We have to learn from other public health measures what the appropriate steps to take are. We cannot use magic. We have to rely on scientific methods and on tried and tested techniques. Some opponents have also criticised my bill as taking a narrow, legalistic approach, and they say that we face a deeper social question. I agree that if we do not take up the deeper social questions and have a range of responses, legislation in itself will be insufficient to deal with alcohol abuse. But an appropriate legal framework is required to keep the genie in the bottle and to allow us to carry out educational activity that is not fruitless. Parliament needs to set a legal age that is in accord with the best public health advice available.

Furthermore, Parliament needs to regulate—as my bill does—the advertising by the liquor industry. That industry does not put forward the public good as its paramount pursuit. Its alliance with the sporting and entertainment worlds to showcase the glamour of alcohol is an alliance with those bodies in pursuit of profit. Alcohol is a mind-altering depressant drug. It is no ordinary commodity that should be marketed like toothpaste or porridge. Without appropriate legislation on and regulation of advertising, all the education in the world to change the culture of drinking will fall on barren soil. In excess of fifty million advertising dollars per year are spent in the broadcast media alone to promote alcohol. Sport and sex are becoming the common ingredients to promote that mind-altering drug. The target audiences are becoming younger and younger. The harm and the staggering number of cancers arising from alcohol are not part of the advertising. Liquor industry psychology researchers callously target the drinking of 11 to 14-year-olds and of 15 to 17-year-olds. They use the knowledge that educationalists have discovered of developmental stages in order to target our young people. New longitudinal studies, particularly in the United States, show that advertising in all mediums is having a great effect on young people, in inducing them to drink at a younger and younger age and more frequently. Our Parliament needs to study those trends, if we are to make appropriate decisions for the public good. We need to decide whether it is in the public interest for Heineken to place two bottles of its beer in the two holders in PlayStation controls. Members will know that advertising like that is aimed squarely at teenage and pre-teenage drinkers.

Appropriate analogies to show the need for legislation, while accepting that a comprehensive approach is required, can be drawn with other public health measures. Safer driving is a good place to start, as alcohol plays a large role in unsafe driving. It is also a major factor in youth crime. Education campaigns and methods that teach us and exhort us to drive safely are an important part of our efforts to lower the road toll and protect our citizens from dangerous, careless, and negligent driving, but a legal framework is needed to ensure that drivers comply with the rules and regulations that make us safe. One important part of that law that is being debated now is the wisdom of the driving age. We have gone from allowing a full driver’s licence to be gained at 15 years and 1 day to putting in place a range of restrictive conditions and hurdles that have to be passed before a full licence is granted. Consideration is now being given by experts as to whether the age of application for a learner’s licence—the first step—should be raised. The objective is the safety of the younger driver and the public. It is not to prevent young people from having fun; it is aimed at allowing them to live a long life.

I would ask members of this Parliament to send this bill to the select committee on the basis that public health evidence is telling us that we urgently need to review the legislation that lowered the drinking age to 18. That would also allow the select committee to soberly—and I use the word advisedly—judge the evidence that comes before it, and allow the public to have their say and have their input into this bill. Parliament could then link science with policy, so that we get the best drinking policy possible for the people of this country. If there are defects in this bill, they should be fixed in the select committee.

Dr WAYNE MAPP (National—North Shore): I will be supporting this bill to the Law and Order Committee. I did note that the Hon Phil Goff sought a call, and I want to make a comment about that. Phil Goff, Matt Robson, and I were all on the Justice and Law Reform Committee in 1999. We heard the evidence, considered it, and—at least in two of our cases—actually voted to reduce the age limit, which was then 20, to 18. I acknowledge that Mr Goff did not do that, and that Mr Robson and I have changed our minds.

There are good reasons for doing that. After 6 years it is time to re-examine the situation properly, look at the evidence, and give the public the chance to make their submissions to this Parliament. I say to those members who might be considering not supporting this bill that if they vote against it, they are denying the public the opportunity to make submissions to the select committee. They are denying Parliament the opportunity to weigh those submissions and the evidence, and to modify the bill in ways that might be appropriate—in short, to review the decision of 6 years ago in light of new evidence and circumstances.

I am one of those who do not support the bill in the way it is written. Parts of the bill do not adequately capture the situation, but select committees are set up to deal with those issues, and I noted that Mr Robson acknowledged that point. But one cannot even consider that issue unless the bill goes to the select committee. So I urge those members who are saying that we should stick with the decision of 1999 to think again and to give the public, to give themselves, and to give the new Parliament—because it will be a new Parliament that finally votes on this bill—the chance to reconsider.

I specifically sought the call tonight because I was a member of the Justice and Law Reform Committee. In that select committee we heard substantial evidence from a wide variety of sources, and in some respects we neglected a critical consideration. It took several months before this even emerged through the evidence. The situation in 1999 was that 18-years-olds could go to any bar or restaurant throughout this entire country, unaccompanied by an adult—and I stress that—and they could drink. The only requirement was that they had to have what was referred to in those times as a “substantial meal”. In reality, that was chips or nachos. So we actually had a drinking age of 18 in on-licence premises: bars, restaurants, and clubs. Because of that, the select committee by a majority recommended to Parliament that it change what was then effectively a de facto age of 18 to a de jure age of 18, and we did that. We also recommended strengthening the identification criteria, which I think is now widely acknowledged to be abused, and a lot of fraudulent cards and driver’s licences have become part of that.

Where the select committee failed—and it was not deliberate; it was essentially through ignorance—was that we did not make an adequate distinction between on-licence premises and off-licence premises. The reality—and a proper review of the evidence might bear this out—is that whilst there may be some problems in on-licence premises, they are not nearly of the magnitude of the problems in off-licence premises. As the submitters said in 1999—and they have been proven to be right—if we change the age to 18, we effectively open the gate to 16-year-olds, 15-year-olds, and younger. The majority of the Parliament was inclined to dismiss that claim. In fact, the parliamentarians were wrong and the submitters were right. We know, from practical experience, that that is exactly what happened.

I acknowledge that Mr Robson has done the right thing by this Parliament and has given us the opportunity to review that move. The reason is just simple human dynamics.

Although 18-year-olds have 16-year-old friends, by and large 20-year-olds do not. That is a fact of life. So 18-year-olds can readily be prevailed upon by their 15 and 16-year-old friends to buy them alcohol, and they do that. They go to liquor stores and supermarkets and buy alcohol, which is then consumed by their young friends. We know the reality of the problems. Mr Robson has done a very good job of pointing out the scientific evidence about binge drinking and the increase in consumption of alcohol by those who are 15 and 16—something, I might add, that parliamentarians did not want to happen but in reality has happened. The only way we can deal with this is to refer the bill to the select committee to hear that evidence.

Some time ago a newspaper polled members of Parliament, and I think most members responded. We had to choose between the ages of 18, 20, and, in some cases, a mixed age. I happen to be one of those who said: “Split the age.” In reality, the problem is not nearly so significant in bars and restaurants. I will be persuaded by the evidence on that. But I am very aware of the serious problems to do with off-licences—liquor stores and supermarkets. I would like to take at least some personal credit for ensuring that supermarkets do not sell hard spirits and alcopops. I moved the particular amendment to that effect, and at least that was carried. But it has not been enough.

Rod Donald: What about wine?

Dr WAYNE MAPP: I actually knew people in the armed forces—young men—who killed themselves through drinking spirits. That was a pretty tragic situation. Two young men who did not know how to handle liquor—if one can put it that way—died as a result of their consumption of spirits. It could not happen with beer or with wine, but the concentration of alcohol in spirits is such that people can literally drink themselves to death in the course of an evening, and it has happened.

Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith: They can do that at any age.

Dr WAYNE MAPP: Yes, that is true, but we have made it worse. I say to my colleague Dr Smith that the change in the law has made it worse, and that we as a Parliament need to fix that. So we do have an obligation to look again at that decision. The select committee, with all the best intentions, thought it was doing the right thing. In some respects, at least, we were not.

My normal practice is to poll the electorate I represent, North Shore, to ask their views. In 1999 the choice between an age limit of 18 or 20 resulted in an extremely close call. It was not a close call on Sunday trading; there was overwhelming support for that. But on the issue of an age limit of 18 or 20, the result was an extremely close call. Because of the short time frame in which this bill has come up, there has not really been an opportunity to conduct a subsequent poll. But, based on the calls I receive and the views of people I speak to, many of those who 6 years ago supported the change to 18 would now like that issue to be reviewed.

This Parliament owes it to the people of New Zealand to review the law, to assess whether we got it right or whether we got it wrong. Tonight, parliamentarians—the 120 members in this House—get the opportunity to give the people of New Zealand that chance. I ask my colleagues at least to vote for the bill to go to the select committee. Defects in the bill, which Mr Robson acknowledges, can be fixed at that stage. But at least we should allow that reconsideration.

Hon PHIL GOFF (Minister of Justice): I first want to correct two things that were said by my friend Matt Robson in his introductory comments. The conclusion of the Ministry of Justice is not, as he suggested, that lowering the drinking age has been damaging and should be reversed. The Ministry of Justice does not take a position on this bill. That would be inappropriate. I have circulated to all members of the House, in a bipartisan way for their information, the comments I have from the Ministry of Justice.

In fact, the principal findings of four reviews by the Ministry of Justice, to try to work out what the impact of lowering the drinking age has been, have all been similar. The ministry states: “As in earlier reports, the statistics show a mixed and partial picture of the possible impact, with no clear picture of whether lowering the minimum purchase age has had a detrimental effect on young people’s drinking behaviour.” That is the conclusion of the Ministry of Justice.

The second thing I wish to comment on, by way of correction, is that I most certainly have not given any advice to my caucus not to vote for the bill. This is a conscience vote. Every individual will make his or her own decision on how to vote, so I am not sure where that mistaken assumption came from.

I intend to vote for the bill to proceed to the select committee. I do so because I believe that there is a public interest in that happening, and I also believe that there is real benefit from a close analysis by a select committee of the problem of alcohol abuse in this country—not only by young people but overall—and of the efficacy of the proposed solution.

I voted in 1999 against the lowering of the drinking age to 18, but I have real reservations about what will be achieved at this point by raising the age back to 20. I am also concerned that the implication of this bill is that the serious problems of alcohol abuse in this country will be solved by making it illegal for one small group—18 and 19-year-olds—to purchase or even to be supplied with alcohol, when we all know there is a critical problem with 12 to 17-year-olds in binge drinking. It is illegal for them to drink, but that is the age group in which serious binge drinking is happening. Nothing in this bill will solve that problem, and it is a helluva jump of the imagination to believe that drinking problems stop at 20. Some people’s drinking problems never stop throughout their lives.

Let me say, as well, that I believe that people aged 18 and 19, because of their lack of experience and maturity, probably abuse alcohol in a higher proportion to other groups. But, having said that, I believe that the vast majority of 18 and 19-year-olds do drink responsibly. Why would we punish the majority to get at the minority who abuse alcohol?

How do we justify a society in which young persons can drive at 15, legally have sex at 16, vote at 18, go overseas and fight in a war for their country in the defence forces at 18, but in which, somehow, it is illegal for them to have a beer or a glass of wine until they are 20? I cannot understand the logic of that.

We should make no mistake about it: alcohol and abuse of alcohol is a serious problem in our society. That is why I voted against the lowering of the drinking age in 1999. There are clear associations of alcohol abuse with road safety, with violence, with unprotected sex, and with health problems. But let us look at where the basic problem comes from. I believe that the problem in this country is that we have a culture in which most of the population see getting drunk as unexceptionable and, in fact, a bit of a laugh. If young people act similarly, with additional propensity for risk-taking and exuberant behaviour, they have learnt that culture from their elders.

We will not solve the problem of alcohol abuse in this country until we change the culture. Why is it that in countries like France and Italy there is no drinking age, yet there is much less of a problem with alcohol abuse than there is in northern European countries, from where we take our culture and where the problems of alcohol abuse are very apparent?

Teenage binge drinking is a serious problem but, as I said before, the greater problem is with the 12-17 year age group, and raising the drinking age to 20 does not solve that particular problem. We have a responsibility to address the problem. I support the bill going to the select committee, but I hope the approach of the select committee is evidence-based and not emotion-based.

CRAIG McNAIR (NZ First): New Zealand First members support this bill. I start by saying that New Zealand First has been the only party to be totally consistent in voicing its absolute opposition to the lowering of the drinking age, with all New Zealand First MPs having voted against the lowering of the drinking age back in 1999. New Zealand First has led the way on this issue not only by voting against the lowering of the drinking age but also by our leader, Winston Peters, introducing the Local Government (Prohibition of Liquor in Public Places) Amendment Bill back in 2001 so that councils could take control of their streets. It has worked.

Another New Zealand First member’s bill, the Sale of Liquor (Increase the Drinking Age) Amendment Bill sponsored by my colleague Ron Mark and now in the name of Bill Gudgeon, would return the law to what it was in 1999. We acknowledge that the bill Ron Mark sponsored is different from Matt Robson’s bill but, as Wayne Mapp said, the bill before us can be sent to the select committee so that it can discuss and talk through the issues, hear from New Zealanders who are working at ground level with teenagers and so on, and make its decisions from there. New Zealand First put its bill in the ballot 3 years ago, before any other member had even thought of doing so, and while Matt Robson was still wondering whether lowering the drinking age was a good idea or a bad idea.

The actions of MPs who voted 5 years ago to bring the drinking age down to 18 years were nothing short of shameful. We have an epidemic of teenage drunkenness in this country, and it is time for the MPs who voted for this madness to accept that they got it wrong, and to restore the drinking age to 20 years. If the police had the resources to absolutely contain youth drinking to those aged over 18, then the current legislation might be appropriate. But youth drinking definitely has not been contained. I believe that every member of this House would agree with that. New Zealand First did its homework on this issue and made the obvious point that drinking would spread like wildfire to younger people. But people did not believe us. We told them, and nothing is as sad as saying: “We told you so.”

Tonight I will name MPs who voted for that legislation who are still in this House, because it is shameful that they even thought of it—that they did not listen to New Zealand First, to thousands of New Zealand parents, and to people who work with young people. They did not listen to those ordinary New Zealanders. Those MPs include Shane Ardern from National, and the current Minister of Police, George Hawkins—an incompetent Minister who finds it hard enough to make tough decisions on a good day, much less make a simple decision that clearly would affect New Zealanders. He voted for the legislation. A Minister of Police, of all people, voted to bring the drinking age down to 18 years. The Minister of Education, Trevor Mallard, the man who is looking after our young people—the children of our nation—

Dr Wayne Mapp: Yeah, right!

CRAIG McNAIR: That is right—yeah, right! The current Minister of Education voted for a disgraceful piece of legislation that New Zealand First warned all members of Parliament about. Wayne Mapp, as he mentioned, voted for the legislation. Tim Barnett did—well, everybody knows that Tim Barnett votes for such legislation. Mark Burton, David Carter, John Carter from National, Lianne Dalziel, Rod Donald, and United Future leader Peter Dunne voted for it. When I was on the campaign trail and at different debates and so on, when we candidates were asked what our party’s stance on the drinking age was, not one United Future candidate—not one future United Future MP—told people what the United Future party thought, how it had voted, and how its leader had voted on this issue. New Zealand First says that that is disgraceful. Bill English from National and Rodney Hide from ACT voted for the legislation.

DARREN HUGHES (Labour—Otaki): I seek leave to table the voting results from the 1999 vote on the Sale of Liquor Amendment Act, so that the member can return to some substantial arguments rather than personal attack.

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

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich): Mr McNair’s speech has ended.

Hon RICHARD PREBBLE (ACT): I am a little surprised to find that I am the first speaker to speak against the bill—

Hon Member: You are opposing it?

Hon RICHARD PREBBLE: I sincerely hope so, and I was a little disappointed I was missed out of the previous member’s list, because my vote has not changed. I realise I may be the only ACT member to speak tonight, so let me make it clear that for the ACT party this matter is a conscience issue. I have proxies here for two members who intend to vote for the bill, and seven who are going to vote against.

The argument of those two members who are going to vote for the bill has, I think, been eloquently put. It is the argument that if we do send the bill to a select committee, at least the matter can be reviewed by MPs, and there is an argument to say that after 6 years we should look at the issue again. But if members think about it, they would see that that is actually an argument to vote for every single bill. The other seven members take this view. Firstly—[Interruption] Well, the Ministry of Justice has produced not one but four reports that refute the emotional statements that there is some sort of disaster happening with our young people.

I want to put a second argument, which I think Mr Goff put, in a way, and it is certainly a position that I hold. We should hold people individually responsible for their actions, and 18-year-olds are old enough to vote and they should be held responsible for their actions. Those who misuse alcohol—and of course there are some; just as there are some 22-year-olds and some 82-year-olds who misuse alcohol—should be held responsible. The idea that we should have collective guilt for all 18 and 19-year-olds is abhorrent. The fact of the matter is that the vast majority of 18 and 19-year-olds have behaved in the way that members of this House hoped.

The next thing I have to say, after listening to Mr Mapp talk about this and about how 18-year-olds know 16-year-olds—I think that was the logic—is that I remember Mr Ken Shirley telling me that he was 6 foot 3 inches tall when he was 10, and when he was 14 and the liquor age was 21 he was sent by 20-year-olds to get the liquor for them. Some members think that this problem has developed only in the last few years. What planet are those members on?

I have another objection. I am a former Minister of Police. I was well aware when I was the Minister of Police that that restriction to 20-year-olds could not be enforced. The police told me they could not do it. Now, they could not do it 10 years ago, and no member really believes that they can do it today. It is bad lawmaking to pass a law that we know our over-stretched police cannot carry out. But it is also bad lawmaking to pass a law that will mean that a lot of 18-year-olds of good character, who will not take any notice of this law if we pass it, could have convictions against them. If members think that is wrong they should go down to their local university drinking hole and have a look, as I did, prior to the passing of the last bill. I actually did a survey at Victoria University, and I discovered some drinking establishments where the people were drinking very well, and over half of those who were there—and this was before the law was changed—were actually under age.

But there are other things. I can remember, as Minister of Police, suddenly being confronted by what appeared to be a crime wave in Hastings. The newspapers were full of it. Crime arrests were way up. I asked for the data and I read it. Of course, as a lawyer I realised that a large number of the people arrested were being arrested for under-age drinking, and others were arrested for resisting the police arresting their mates for under-age drinking. I suggested that the local constable, who was doing such a good job, should be transferred to Ruatōria, where the Rastafarians were, and suddenly the crime wave in Hastings came to an end. It was a nonsense, and this bill is a nonsense. I am sure that amongst New Zealand First’s Grey Power supporters there are people who would vote for a bill to have the age limit set at 30, or probably 40. The truth of the matter, as Mr Goff eloquently put it, is that there are people aged 30 and 40 who do not handle alcohol well. But we know, as a Parliament, that prohibitions do not work. They may be populist, but we have a duty as a House to pass good legislation.

SUE KEDGLEY (Green): Like the ACT party, the Green caucus is treating this bill as a conscience issue. Like ACT, two Green members will be voting to send it to a select committee for debate; the remaining seven Green members will oppose it, because we believe that the age-limit should remain at 18. We will recommend, instead, that a select committee inquiry be set up to have the debate, which everyone says is so needed, on how to reduce the harm caused by alcohol in society, and how to change the drinking culture, especially amongst our young.

All of us agree that there is a serious problem with some teenagers binge drinking, and we all support the provisions to tighten liquor advertising on television—though some of us think they do not go nearly far enough. We agree that the current law is not being enforced properly, and that we need far more resources to ensure that it is enforced, and that existing penalties are properly enforced. But where most of us part company with the supporters of the bill is that we believe that raising the drinking age will not be a solution or a panacea to teenage binge drinking, or a substitute for our taking real action on the drinking culture in New Zealand. In our view, age is not the real issue; the issue is the attitude we have towards alcohol.

The problem of teenagers binge drinking is a reflection not of the legal age-limit but of a drinking culture that pervades New Zealand. It is a culture that is a hangover from the 1960s 6 o’clock swill, a culture that affects all age groups, not just the young, and a culture that tolerates and, indeed, encourages drinking. If we are serious about trying to restrict young people’s access to alcohol, why do we allow it to be sold in supermarkets, which young people frequent? Why do we allow endless advertisements glamorising and promoting alcohol, which young people see every time they turn on their television sets? Why do we allow alcopops and alcohol iceblocks to be targeted at our young? If this Parliament is serious about reducing the harm of alcohol, why do most members of the Health Committee oppose something as simple as putting labels on alcohol that warn of its harmful health effects? It simply does not make sense to pass a law criminalising drinking by 18 and 19-year-olds, while doing nothing significant to change the drinking culture in New Zealand. Young people, particularly those who are convicted of under-age drinking, will see it as utterly hypocritical that a society that tolerates and encourages drinking says it is unacceptable and criminal to drink at 18 or 19. As a recent New Zealand Herald editorial stated, until adults change their drinking habits it seems unlikely that teenagers will mend their ways, no matter what the law says.

We question, too, whether raising the drinking age will reduce alcohol consumption by teenagers or simply drive it underground. Is changing the law really going to stop university students aged 18 and 19 from drinking? I do not think so. Why should it be acceptable for 18-year-olds to be able to vote, to go to war, to become a member of Parliament, to get married, or to have a civil union, but not to drink? Why should it be acceptable for an 18 or 19-year-old to drink in his or her own home, but not in a bar or cafe? It simply does not make sense. Why, if the present law is not being enforced, do we think passing another law will result in more effective enforcement? Members will recall that the Youth Parliament debated this issue at length. The core of its argument was that the age-limit ought to stay the same, the law ought to be properly enforced, and our drinking culture changed. Why not listen to the representatives of youth from around New Zealand whom we paid to come to this Parliament to debate this issue?

So before we raise the age-limit again, let us control the promotion and endless sponsorship of alcohol, including amongst young people and on campuses. Let us ban the advertising of alcohol on television, and, above all, enforce the current law. Research showed in the 1990s that young people see on average 300 to 400 alcohol advertisements every year, and the more they are exposed to advertisements glamorising alcohol, the more likely they are to want to drink. So if we are serious, let us start with getting those advertisements off television. And, yes, there is an argument for allowing the bill to go to a select committee for debate, but, frankly, we can equally have a Health Committee inquiry, or other select committee inquiry, to allow a wide-ranging debate on this issue.

PAUL ADAMS (United Future): I rise on behalf of United Future to speak on this bill of Matt Robson’s. United Future also is treating this issue as a conscience issue. First of all, I will pick up on one of the points made by Phil Goff that a 15-year-old can get a driver’s licence, a 16-year-old can have sex, and an 18-year-old can vote, etc. Those are all very relevant arguments when one is arguing that a young person should be able to drink at the age of 18. There is one difference with drink—it changes our behaviour and the brain begins to alter. So I do not believe that that is a fair argument.

In respect of the drinking age, I personally believe that the maturity to drink does not necessarily come with an age, but rather with an ability to behave in an acceptable manner in society. If we were to restrict the ability to drink solely to age, I do not know what age I would like to place on it. Many people my age—the mid-fifties—to me do not have the responsibility to be able to drink. I do not have a problem with anybody drinking. But I do have a major problem with people getting drunk—off their face—and causing damage to others and to society.

I also have a member’s bill in the ballot that is probably a little different from Matt Robson’s bill. I will be supporting his bill to a select committee, because I believe that it is time for this issue to be discussed and put forward to the public again. However, my bill allows 18-year-olds to continue to drink in licensed establishments, because I believe that supervised drinking is helpful in the process of gaining maturity in respect of drinking.

I feel for a lot of the young ones in this country. I believe that a vast number of young people are, at 18 years of age, well capable of drinking in a licensed establishment, at parties, and with their friends. But, sadly, many have also grown up in home environments where the example from their parents and adults has been very poor and, therefore, they have never been taught responsibility and how to drink.

Likewise, the driving age was mentioned, and the drinking age was associated with the reasons to increase the driver’s licence age. Personally, I would not go along with that. I think that 15 is a very good age to get a driver’s licence, before one comes under the peer pressure that, to a greater extent, comes when one is with 17 and 18-year-olds. I was pleased that my children got their driver’s licence virtually on the day they turned 15. At least they had a year or two of driving under their belt before the pressures came on later. United Future has two members who will be voting against this bill, and the rest will be voting for it to go to a select committee.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 10 p.m.