Tuesday, 27 June 2006

Tuesday, 27 June 2006

Tuesday, 27 June 2006

Madam Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

Obituaries

Dorothy Hūhana (Bubbles) Mihinui

TE URUROA FLAVELL (Māori Party—Waiariki): Tēnā koe. Tēnā tātou katoa. I move, That this House expresses its deep sadness at the recent death of Dorothy Hūhana (Bubbles) Mihinui, who gave 70 years of service to Māori tourism and the community in Rotorua in her role as a guide at the historic Whakarewarewa Village, and express its sincere condolences to Tūhourangi, Ngāti Wāhiao, and Ngāiterangi, who are feeling a profound sense of loss and sorrow at this time. Kia ora tātou.

Motion agreed to.

Questions for Oral Answer

Questions to Ministers

Child Homicide—Multiparty Accord

1. Dr DON BRASH (Leader of the Opposition) to the Prime Minister: Does she stand by her reported statement that yesterday Cabinet agreed to seek a multiparty accord on ways to stem the rising tide of child homicide; if not, why not?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK (Prime Minister): Ministers have agreed to pursue a multiparty initiative in good faith. We hope that will be reciprocated.

Dr Don Brash: Why is the Prime Minister now proposing that such an accord will start in several weeks’ time, after her Government releases yet another report, when on Sunday the Minister of Māori Affairs phoned the deputy leader of the National Party and told him that the first multiparty meeting on this issue was to be held last night?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: Firstly, I can say that Ministers will be inviting other parties to a meeting this week. It will be possible to have a well-informed meeting when the ministerial task force reports. The Government is keen to share that information with other parties.

Sue Bradford: Will the multiparty working-group be solution rather than research focused, and will it be given any real power to get any cross-party solutions implemented in terms of Government funding and policy priorities?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: We would welcome the Greens’ suggestions on how to take it forward. We are proceeding on this in good faith and I am sure, from the tone of the member’s question, so is she.

Dr Don Brash: Why has her Government decided that getting multiparty agreement and urgent action on the issue of child homicide is no longer important?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: As I have said in the House today, Ministers have agreed in good faith to pursue a multiparty initiative. I think it is rather unfortunate that the first statement made by the Leader of the Opposition on this tragedy has been to try to politicise it.

Dr Don Brash: Was the Minister of Māori Affairs correct when he said: “I intend to lead a cross-party team to look at it from a whole-of-Government approach and really push it along.”, or will the accord be led by another Minister?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: The Minister of Māori Affairs has taken the initiative to say that he will lead such a cross-party initiative. He will be working with other Ministers, and spokespersons from other parties who want to participate in good faith. I do hope the member’s statements are not an indication that the National Party does not wish to participate.

Dr Don Brash: Will the cross-party accord focus only on Māori family violence; if not, why is the Minister of Māori Affairs and not the Minister for Social Development and Employment or the Minister with responsibility for Child, Youth and Family Services leading an accord on child abuse?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: Of course the problem is not confined only to one group in the community. It is very appropriate that the Minister of Māori Affairs has taken an initiative. He will be joined by other Ministers. As I say, this is being pursued in good faith. We have had many indications of good faith from other parties. We simply wait to see whether the National Party is more intent on politicising child homicide than finding constructive ways forward.

Economic Growth—Reports

2. SHANE JONES (Labour) to the Minister of Finance: What reports has he received on economic growth in New Zealand?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Minister of Finance): I received a report in January of a prediction that New Zealand was “almost certainly headed for recession”—that is, the March quarter figure would be negative. The actual out-turn for the March quarter was growth of 0.7 percent, which is just below the assumed long-term sustainable rate of growth, despite Dr Brash’s attempts to talk it down.

Shane Jones: Has he seen any reports on the link between business confidence and economic growth?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: I have seen reports suggesting that the misguided prediction of a recession was based on assumptions around business confidence. But those too have been proven wrong, with two recent reports showing business confidence coming off the very low base of late last year in both Auckland and Wellington.

R Doug Woolerton: What would have happened had the Minister put in place an across-the-board tax cut, as proposed by the National Party?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: In the short term, there would have been much further pressure upon demand, and therefore on the current account deficit, and therefore a credit rating downgrade, which the former Reserve Bank governor would have died to avoid when he was in that position.

John Key: Has the Minister seen the report from Westpac, which states that the rebound in first-quarter GDP growth is something of a false dawn and should not be read as an underlying recovery, that trend growth in GDP is only 1 percent a year, and that that trend rate is likely to persist or even weaken further through 2006 and 2007, as the fundamental drivers of slower growth remain in place?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: Yes, but I did not need to see that, because I said exactly the same thing myself in response to the quarterly figure.

Jeanette Fitzsimons: Is the Minister satisfied that the growth assumptions underlying Treasury’s statement on New Zealand’s long-term fiscal position take adequate account of the economic consequences of accelerated climate change, ecological collapse of the oceans, loss of productive soils, and pollution and depletion of fresh waters—none of which are priced or recognised in current markets?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: Yes, I am satisfied that a number of those factors have been taken into account. Although some of them, I think, are slightly less serious than the member implies with that somewhat catastrophic scenario over a 50-year time frame, we look forward to working with a united Green Party on those issues.

Well Child Freephone Service—24-hour Funding

3. Dr DON BRASH (Leader of the Opposition) to the Prime Minister: Does she stand by her statement “we will continue to fund a Well Child service 24 hours a day”?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK (Prime Minister): Yes.

Dr Don Brash: Does the Prime Minister believe that people calling Healthline will be speaking to a qualified Well Child nurse from 1 July; if so, why?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: Because I know that the people to run the service from 1 July already have six Well Child - qualified nurses and a paediatric nurse on staff, and will have a further five Well Child nurses signed up to commence on 1 July.

Dr Don Brash: Was it a service specification in the recent tender for the Well Child telephone advice service that Well Child nurses handle all calls, and that those Well Child nurses have “extensive and recent clinical experience in community Well Child nursing”; if so, why?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: I do not have the micro-details of the contract in front of me, but certainly I am advised that, as I said, they intend to have 11 properly qualified people doing the service from 1 July.

Sue Kedgley: Will the Government admit that it made a mistake in cutting funding to PlunketLine and giving the contract to a subsidiary of a large multinational corporation, many of whose nurses have not had specific training in parenting issues, and will it therefore reinstate the service; if not, why not?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: The answer to the first part of the question is no. In response to the second part of the question, the Ministry of Health continues to be in discussion with Plunket about its contract going forward, and that of course also includes how best to integrate PlunketLine into the contract.

Dr Don Brash: Can the Prime Minister confirm that in fact the Ministry of Health and McKesson New Zealand Ltd are discussing not having Well Child - qualified nurses manning the phones; and how does she reconcile that with her answers to my previous two questions?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: No, I cannot confirm that, because the information I have in front of me is that there are already six Well Child - qualified nurses and a paediatric nurse on staff, and another five nurses begin from 1 July. That, of course, is a component of the overall total of 40 full-time tele-nurses.

Dr Don Brash: When the Prime Minister said: “We have a Prime Minister who claims to be passionate about making life better for mothers and families but stands by while the Plunket telephone line collapses.”, did she have herself in mind; and why is she now standing by while PlunketLine collapses?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: I had in mind a former Prime Minister who refused to fund a 24-hour Well Child health line—[Interruption]

Madam SPEAKER: Would the Prime Minister please be seated. I am receiving increasing numbers of complaints from the public that they simply cannot hear answers to the question. I ask the Prime Minister to please repeat her answer to the question.

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: I had in mind a former Prime Minister who refused point-blank to fund a 24-hour Well Child health service. I am the Prime Minister who has ensured that a 24-hour Well Child health service is being funded.

Dr Don Brash: Is she the same Helen Clark who said: “We will back to the hilt our Plunket.”, and how can preventing thousands of New Zealand mothers and their babies from getting advice from a Well Child nurse be seen as backing Plunket to the hilt?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: The Government is presently in negotiation with Plunket about increasing the price of its contract. What about that does the Leader of the Opposition not understand?

Dr Don Brash: I seek leave to table a memo from McKesson New Zealand to the Ministry of Health making it clear that it will not have Well Child - trained nurses available from 1 July.

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

Child Homicide Case—Benefits Paid

4. RODNEY HIDE (Leader—ACT) to the Minister for Social Development and Employment: What is his estimate of the total weekly benefits and other subsidies and allowances paid to the occupants of the two Housing New Zealand Corporation properties that the family of Chris and Cru Kāhui lived in?

Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE (Minister for Social Development and Employment): I am not prepared to divulge information about individual family circumstances, but I can say that I have asked the Ministry of Social Development to look into this case to ensure that all benefits being paid are legitimate. If there is any evidence that they are not, the ministry will take appropriate action.

Rodney Hide: Does he understand the anger and frustration of Kiwis who work hard to look after their own children, and pay taxes, at providing an estimated $2,087.48 a week to a family who gave no care to their babies despite family members not having to work and having an income twice that of many families who do?

Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE: Yes. Nothing excuses the sort of action we have seen, but I repeat the statement I made in my previous answer.

Georgina Beyer: Can the Minister advise in a general sense what the Government is doing to ensure the integrity of the benefit system?

Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE: I can repeat my advice to the House that the Ministry of Social Development has a zero tolerance policy with regard to abuse of the benefit system. I can also advise that the integrity of the system will be further enhanced by the Housing Restructuring and Tenancy Matters (Information Matching) Amendment Bill currently before the House, which will permit further data-matching between the Housing New Zealand Corporation and Work and Income, and I would like to acknowledge at this point the support that other parties have given to that bill.

Sue Bradford: Does the Minister think the outcome for the Kāhui babies was likely to have been improved had there been no income-related rents or welfare benefits going into that home?

Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE: No. But, as I said earlier, nothing excuses the actions we have seen.

Judith Collins: Why, when the Family Violence Intervention Programme was set up specifically to develop collaboration between Government agencies and departments, did staff at the neonatal unit of Middlemore Hospital fail to inform Child, Youth and Family Services of their concerns regarding Chris and Cru Kāhui?

Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE: I have no responsibility for the actions of the staff at the neonatal unit at Middlemore Hospital.

Judith Collins: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. Perhaps the Minister could reflect on that comment, given that the Family Violence Intervention Programme is a Ministry of Social Development initiative—so he really should have some responsibility for how it has been operating.

Madam SPEAKER: No, that is not a point of order.

Rodney Hide: Does he believe he is overseeing a welfare system that sponsors responsible parenthood, or irresponsible parenthood, and what is he doing to ensure we have more responsible parenting in New Zealand?

Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE: The answer is yes to the first part of the question, and I draw to the member’s attention the very considerable funding in the immediately past Budget for the current year of $35 million for initiatives to address that issue, among other things.

Air New Zealand—Meeting of Ministers and Executives

5. JOHN KEY (National—Helensville) to the Minister of Finance: Were any officials present, or notes kept, at the meeting held on 13 March 2006 between senior Air New Zealand executives and a group of Ministers including himself, the Hon David Parker, and the Hon Lianne Dalziel?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Minister of Finance): No and no.

John Key: Does he agree that the Government has multiple objectives in respect of the proposed code-sharing arrangement between Air New Zealand and Qantas: that the shareholding Minister in Air New Zealand represents the taxpayer’s investment in the airline, whereas the Minister of Transport, who has to approve any code-sharing agreement, is concerned with the interests of consumers, and that those two objectives may well conflict?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: Yes, and we do not talk about the matter.

John Key: Does he therefore think there is a potential conflict of interest involved in himself, as shareholding Minister in Air New Zealand, meeting with the chairman of Air New Zealand and the chief executive of Air New Zealand in the presence of the then Minister of Transport, David Parker, at a time when code-sharing was the biggest issue in the air transport area and foremost in every participant’s mind; if not, why not?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: No, because it was not.

John Key: Is the reason he and Mr Parker were happy to compromise their positions that they knew that no officials would be present and they knew that no notes would be taken, because they knew that the location of the meeting was to be a cosy dinner held in a private room at the Boulcott Street Bistro?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: The member should not let his jealousy of fine dining carry him away. There was, indeed, no secret Beehive meeting—despite what the Sunday Star-Times stated. It was a dinner meeting. Mr Parker was not present for very long, because he had another private engagement that he went to. I do not recollect, nor does anybody else who was at the meeting recollect, a discussion of code-sharing. The primary purpose of the meeting was to discuss proposals around tourism funding and promotion.

Peter Brown: Will the Minister clarify the Government’s position as to whether it believes it is better for the public if Air New Zealand stands alone, with the risk of prices increasing because of a lack of patronage on trans-Tasman routes, or, alternatively, whether the airline should have a code-share arrangement with Qantas, with the risk of prices increasing because of a lack of competition; which alternative does the Government prefer?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: As the other member quite rightly pointed out, the Government has a number of different interests. My interest is as shareholding Minister in Air New Zealand and in the protection of the Government’s shareholding value in Air New Zealand. I play no part at all in any discussions around regulatory issues.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Yeah, right!

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: The member may wish to call me a liar, but I do not follow him in those kinds of matters.

Madam SPEAKER: Did the member call the Minister a liar? I am sorry, I did not hear.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: The phrase I used was “Yeah, right!”.

Madam SPEAKER: “Yeah, right!”; thank you.

John Key: Why on earth should anyone believe the Minister that the issue of code-sharing was not discussed—

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. That very question implies that I was not telling the truth to the House. The reason why he should believe me is that that is what the Standing Orders require. If he has any evidence to the contrary, he should try to present it.

Madam SPEAKER: Would the member please ask his question in a way that is consistent with the Standing Orders.

John Key: Can he understand why members of the public may find it challenging to believe that the issue of code-sharing was not discussed at the meeting, when it was the single biggest issue facing the airline at the time—as it is now—and, 5 days earlier, Treasury wrote to him advising that a subject for the agenda of the meeting would include code-sharing?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: The member must learn to read official documents correctly. That is not an agenda for the meeting; that is Treasury advising me on what it thought might be discussed. However, the member should also check his chronology. No application for a code-sharing arrangement was made at that time. The primary purpose of the meeting was to discuss tourism funding arrangements.

Lynne Pillay: Is it appropriate for the Minister of Finance, as shareholding Minister, to meet with Air New Zealand?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: Yes, it is entirely appropriate. I do so regularly, and if I did not, I would no doubt be attacked by the Opposition for dereliction of duty. But to ensure that there are no possible or perceived conflicts of interest, I have delegated all responsibility for aviation regulatory matters to my colleague the Hon Phil Goff. I absent myself from any discussions or decision making relating to aviation. Right at the start that was delegated to Phil Goff, and I absent myself from any discussions on aviation regulation. I leave the Cabinet room or the Cabinet committee room if any of those matters arise.

John Key: Given that he said to the Sunday Star-Times: “As regards the issue of code share—as shareholding minister I must absent myself from any involvement in the decision-making process on Air NZ’s application”, when the issue was raised over dinner at the Boulcott Street Bistro, did he absent himself by hiding out in the toilets or did he just stick two fingers in his ears?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: The member has obviously had two fingers stuck in his ears. I told him that I have no recollection, nor does anybody else at that meeting, of that matter even being raised.

John Key: I seek leave to table the briefing advice from Treasury to Dr Cullen on 8 March, advising him that the issue of code-sharing with Air New Zealand could well be on the agenda.

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

Early Childhood Education—Teachers

6. MOANA MACKEY (Labour) to the Minister of Education: What is the Government doing to increase the number of qualified teachers in early childhood education?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY (Minister of Education): This morning the Prime Minister and I went to Childspace, an early childhood centre, to announce a $30 million boost to early childhood funding over the next 4 years, coming in from 1 July. Funding rates for all-day services will increase by up to 13 percent, session-based service rates will increase by up to 11 percent, and playcentres will get a 9 percent boost to their funding. This increase in funding will help services meet additional costs and allow them to employ more qualified teachers. This is on top of the nearly $0.5 billion worth of funding that this Government is putting into this crucial area of education.

Moana Mackey: What else is the Government doing to improve the quality of early childhood education and teaching?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: As Mr Goff said, it is probably just enough, being a huge amount of money we are investing—but wait, there is more: 700 early childhood education TeachNZ scholarships to support low-income students to enter teacher education programmes, incentive grants paid to early childhood services to support staff who are studying, study grants and relocation grants, and free recognition of prior learning to assist with the gaining of qualifications through specific training providers. Through these initiatives, the Government is well on target to meet its goal of having 100 percent qualified teachers in early childhood education by 2012—and all of this is in contrast to the fact that on the National Party website, there is no policy, at all.

Hon Tau Henare: When he says “wait, there’s more”, is he referring to the 2006 Education Amendment Act, which will have the effect of adding to the administration of playcentres through imposing greater compliance costs, red tape, and more bureaucratic requirements?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: No, I was referring to the 700 early childhood TeachNZ scholarships, incentive grants, study grants, relocation grants, free recognition of prior learning, and the fact that the National Party has no policy.

Te Ururoa Flavell: Tēna tātou katoa. What has he done to address the under-representation of Māori teachers in the early childhood education workforce, which comprises only 8.3 percent of teachers who are Māori, compared with 19 percent of the early childhood population who are Māori?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: As part of the early childhood TeachNZ scholarships, the incentive grants, study grants, relocation grants, and free recognition of prior learning, we aim to increase that number substantially.

Hon Brian Donnelly: Should an understanding of the philosophical and economic theories of Karl Marx be an essential part of our early childhood teachers’ qualifications, as it was in the 1990s under a National Government, or should such qualifications be focused more on how to optimise the intellectual, social, and emotional development of preschoolers?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: I go along with what the member says, in the latter part of his question, should underlie early childhood education, but I do have to say congratulations to the National Party on its open-minded approach to Karl Marx and its support for his recognition through the system.

Electricity Outage, Auckland—Report

7. Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) to the Minister of Energy: Does the report into the Auckland power blackout on 12 June identify why the failure of a single D-shackle resulted in 700,000 people losing electricity at an estimated cost of up to $70 million?

Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister of Energy): Yes. The failure was caused by two D-shackles breaking. The cost of the power outage is debatable, but was significant.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Why did the Minister’s office advise the media that the report on the Auckland blackout would be available prior to question time today, but has subsequently advised media that the report would not be available because he could not get the photocopier in his office to work; and, if he cannot get the photocopier in his office to work, how the heck does he expect to keep the lights on properly?

Hon DAVID PARKER: The report was received by me on Friday afternoon. It was considered by Cabinet yesterday. I had a number of questions arising from the report that I wanted at least preliminary answers to before I released it. I was going to release it at 1.30, then I had a question from the member, and, as my staff were busy, I put the release back until 3 o’clock.

Maryan Street: What practical action has been taken?

Hon DAVID PARKER: I am advised that a detailed physical inspection of all the shackles at the Ōtāhuhu substation has been completed. Two additional shackles were replaced, in addition to the two that broke. Shackle connections throughout the country are being progressively checked, starting with those in situations where the adverse effects of failure would be highest.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Noting that this month the Minister has overseen a massive blackout in Auckland on 12 June, a lunchtime blackout in Rotorua’s central business district on 19 June, a further Bay of Plenty blackout on the evening of 19 June, and a grid emergency last Thursday in Wellington—all caused by transmission grid failures—does he accept that our transmission grid is so fragile that more grid emergencies and failures under his Government are highly likely?

Hon DAVID PARKER: I do accept that the extreme weather events we have had, together with the peak power demand that that has caused, have put the system under extreme stress and that the safety margins we have in the system are not great enough. I am working to address that.

Gordon Copeland: Will the Minister ask for a similar report into the severe blackouts in the mid and South Canterbury regions that have left households without heating and in the dark during the coldest part of the winter, some for 16 days so far; if not, why not?

Hon DAVID PARKER: It is already apparent that most of the problems we have had in the Canterbury region actually are not with Transpower facilities but with the time taken to rebuild some of the breakages to local networks.

Peter Brown: Is the Minister aware that wherever a D-shackle is used in a strategic position aboard a ship, there is always a preventer system in place to ensure that if the shackle fails, the whole rig does not collapse; and, now that he is aware of that, does he think there is any merit in Transpower having some serious discussions with the maritime industry?

Hon DAVID PARKER: I was not aware of that, but I am sure Transpower will be looking again at its maintenance regimes and reliance on D-shackles in situations such as this.

Brian Connell: Given the long outages following the snow storm in south and mid-Canterbury—it has now been 16 days and some people are still without power—will the Minister be seeking a report from the Electricity Commission or his officials so that we can learn how to deal with these issues without affecting the power supply in the future?

Madam SPEAKER: I just remind members that we start questions with a question word.

Hon DAVID PARKER: I am sure that reports will follow the completion of the repairs to see what lessons can be learnt.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Is the Minister aware that over 2,000 kilometres of new transmission wires were built in the 1950s, the 1960s, and the 1970s, that 900 kilometres of new transmission wires were built in the 1980s, and that another 300 kilometres of new wires were built in the 1990s, but that in the last 7 years not 1 kilometre of new transmission wire has been constructed, despite a 20 percent increase in power usage; and is it not blatantly obvious that his Government must accept some responsibility for the transmission system now being on the blink?

Hon DAVID PARKER: There have been significant investments in additional capacity on existing transmission routes during that period, but more does need to be done.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: What steps or reforms will the Government make to the confusing array of Government bodies with electricity responsibilities, which includes the Electricity Commission, the Commerce Commission, Transpower, and the Ministry of Economic Development, when there is a chorus of commentary from Treasury, the International Energy Agency, KPMG, and industry leaders describing the Government’s set-up as “confusing”, “needing clarification”, and, according to industry sources, “a bugger’s muddle”?

Hon DAVID PARKER: I note, as I noted last week, that the International Energy Agency made very supportive comments about the Electricity Commission, although it did agree that the division of responsibility between the Commerce Commission and the Electricity Commission needed to be sorted out. I can assure the member that one of the changes we will not make is to go back to the system left by the previous National Government, when decisions as to investment in the grid were left to a committee of consumers rather than planned by Transpower or any other Government agency.

Building—Licensing

8. RUSSELL FAIRBROTHER (Labour) to the Minister for Building Issues: What reports, if any, has he received on proposals to license building practitioners?

Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Minister for Building Issues): I have received numerous reports supporting the proposed licensing regime from building industry leaders such as the Registered Master Builders Federation and the Certified Builders Association. The industry leaders agree with this Government’s programme to restore confidence in the sector and to ensure that buildings are built right the first time. I have also seen media reports supporting the proposed regime, including one from the Nelson Mail that stated it is: “a step in the right direction that should help protect the public from shoddy workmanship.”

Russell Fairbrother: Has the Minister received any reports suggesting an alternative approach?

Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: Yes. Indeed, I have received a report that a member of this House plans to promote a member’s bill that “would allow New Zealanders to build their own homes, licensed or unlicensed.” That would allow the status quo to remain, whereby anyone could slap on a tool belt, call himself or herself a builder, do shonky work, and create havoc—which is what National gave us when it deregulated the industry in the 1990s. That report comes from Mr Bob Clarkson, associate spokesperson on building and housing for the National Party. Of course, as with Mr Clarkson’s comments on selling State houses made at a select committee last week, it may be that more senior members of the National Party will denounce these comments, as well.

Madam SPEAKER: I just remind Ministers please to make their answers succinct—and questions should be, also.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Has the Minister visited the Kaiapoi home of former Labour Prime Minister Norm Kirk—in the Minister’s electorate—that he built with his own sweat and toil, including making his own blocks, a feat now outlawed by the Minister’s complex licensed building practitioner regime, which would have required Norm to have a licence for concrete work, a licence for blocklaying, a licence for roofing, a licence for carpentry, and a licence for external plastering; why does the Minister want to destroy with his politically correct red tape the proud New Zealand tradition of Kiwi battlers being able to build their own homes, when there is no evidence that the leaky homes problem was caused by DIY builders?

Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: Unlike that member, yes, I have. And I can say to that member that the Government, unlike the previous National Government, has struck a common-sense balance. On the one hand we are not going to destroy 100-plus years of good old-fashioned DIY tradition, but on the other hand we are mindful of the need to run the cowboys out of the system. Therefore we have allowed the good old-fashioned DIYers to do basically what they can do now. For example, they can build a deck, a bathroom, or a woolshed. But significant work—that is, on the structural integrity of a building—has to be supervised or done by a licensed building practitioner. I say further to that member that Norman Kirk, if he were alive today, could indeed build every aspect of his home, but for parts of it he would have to be supervised by a licensed building practitioner. He could do the roof, he could do the concrete—he could do all of those things—but for parts of the work he would have to be supervised and a licensed building practitioner would have to sign them off.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: I seek the leave of the House to table a picture of the house in Kaiapoi that Norm Kirk built—which, contrary to the member’s assertion, I have visited—making the blocks himself as well, and for which he would not have had a hope of paying the cost of a bureaucratic supervisor for its construction.

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

Māori Affairs, Minister—Statement

9. GERRY BROWNLEE (Deputy Leader—National) to the Minister of Māori Affairs: What are the “whole lot of other issues” he was referring to when he said: “There are several technicalities in relation to the retrospective decisions that need to be made in relation to a whole lot of other issues”?

Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA (Minister of Māori Affairs): The Māori Purposes Bill 2006 addresses a range of technical issues. It retrospectively validates certain decisions made by Māori Land Court judges since the 1980s. These validations will provide certainty and clarity.

Gerry Brownlee: Can the Minister recall telling the House last week that the appointment of six more judges to the Māori Land Court was all about the economy, and can he tell us what sorts of economic indicators we should look to in the future to evaluate the performance of the judiciary on the Māori Land Court?

Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA: Because Māori have more assets and resources to manage, we need to ensure that the judges’ workloads are catered for, and that is the economic part of this bill.

Dave Hereora: Why does the Minister think it is important to make the amendments provided for in the Māori Purposes Bill 2006?

Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA: It is important that legislation that governs Māori assets has clear provisions for accessing, allocating, and managing those assets. It is also important that the status of decisions made by the court are not in doubt.

Gerry Brownlee: Why do we need this bill if the Minister was correct in the House last week in saying that the 83 cases dealt with by Judge Norman F Smith, when he had no warrant, were recognised as decisions he was able to make?

Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA: Judge Smith sat for 10 days, over the period of a month, in excess of his warrant. It is important that we have those decisions validated.

Te Ururoa Flavell: Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker. Would one of the other issues that needs to be addressed respond to the concerns of Sir Hugh Kāwharu, chairman of Ngāti Whātua o Ōrākei, who recently stated: “the Crown … will not accept that one acre of land in the Kaipara or in Invercargill has a different value to an acre of land in the Auckland CBD”; if not, why not?

Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA: We have a Treaty settlement process but certainly this is about those sorts of issues within the Māori Land Court.

Gerry Brownlee: When the Minister said in the House that this Government is about putting wrongs right, did he mean that his definition of right is to ensure that judges can deprive people of their customary or ancestral rights without any warrant to do so?

Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA: Most definitely not. I want to remind that member that it is not the first time that legislation has been introduced to validate decisions in the Māori Land Court. I understand that the National Government introduced legislation in 1991 to validate the decisions of Deputy Chief Judge McHugh.

Gerry Brownlee: When he said in the House that the Te Ture Whenua Maori Act “provides tidy-up amendments that do not warrant enactment as separate amendment Acts” did he mean that requiring all Māori to lodge Treaty claims within 2 years or forgo redress from historical grievance was a matter of such minor importance that it did not require a larger debate?

Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA: No.

Phil Heatley: Could the Minister explain the matrix of dysfunction of the explanatory note relating to Part 4 of his Māori Purposes Bill—what it means by “restricting the definition of pre-commencement space to include areas subject to permits for exclusive occupation of space for aquaculture activities, including spat gathering, but to exclude areas subject to permits for free-gathering of spat.”?

Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA: I do not recall using the words “matrix of dysfunctionalism”; that member may be having a lapse. The definition in the Act inadvertently includes free spat-gathering permits that do not involve the exclusive occupation of coastal space. There are two permits involved.

Residential Care, Long-term—Removal of Asset Testing

10. DARREN HUGHES (Labour—Otaki) to the Minister of Health: What progress is being made towards removing asset testing for New Zealanders who need long-term residential care?

Hon PETE HODGSON (Minister of Health): On 1 July the Labour-led Government will invest $14.3 million to continue the phase-out of income and asset testing for aged residential care. This is on top of our initial investment of $93 million last year. Some thresholds will rise to $160,000, up from as low as $15,000 this time last year.

Darren Hughes: Can the Minister tell the House why the Labour-led Government has committed to the phasing out of asset testing for residential care?

Hon PETE HODGSON: This policy is about fairness. Older New Zealanders who have built up assets throughout their lives should not be unduly penalised when they need to go into residential care. National’s changes to asset testing in the 1990s were so harsh that people in rest homes could not afford to pay for their own funerals. Labour thinks older New Zealanders deserve better than that.

Crown Research Institutes—State Ownership

11. Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Port Waikato) to the Minister for Crown Research Institutes: Does he support the continued ownership of Crown research institutes by the State; if not, why not?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY (Minister for Crown Research Institutes): Yes.

Dr Paul Hutchison: Why did the Minister tell the select committee last Thursday, regarding Industrial Research Ltd: “Right now, the only thing that is up for sale is a piece of land in Auckland.”, when MPT Solutions, a business unit of Industrial Research Ltd whose main asset is its intellectual property, will be sold to the American company Quest by the end of this week?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: Because at the time, that was a commercial matter.

Dr Ashraf Choudhary: What is the role of Crown research institutes?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: That is an outstandingly good question. Crown research institutes play a key role in the economic change that is going on in New Zealand. Through their operating framework, they are expected to undertake excellent science with sound financial management, for the benefit of New Zealand. They are also expected to transfer their knowledge widely and to commercialise their research wherever it is possible, for the benefit of the country.

Hon Brian Donnelly: Would the Minister agree that the establishment of Crown research institutes by Simon Upton in the 1990s has, by and large, been an applaudable success, and that the current move to reduce dependency on contestable funding is a step on the route of continuous improvement, rather than a restructuring of the Crown research institute structure?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: I could not have put it better myself. What is happening is that a model that was established in the early 1990s went from being a highly regulated model to, quite appropriately, going through a period of contestability and competition. Probably, I think, most observers would have said that by 1996 any value out of that contestability had been gained. Unfortunately, the National Party was asleep at the wheel. Until Labour came into Government, the appropriate changes were not undertaken.

Dr Paul Hutchison: Does the Minister stand by his written statement of last year, regarding the sale of a Crown research unit spin-off company or subsidiary unit: “A key criterion when shareholding Ministers consider any such disposals is ongoing benefit to New Zealand, including the continual ownership of intellectual property.”, or, with MPT Solutions, has he conveniently changed his mind?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: No, I have not changed my mind. The whole model for commercialisation is, of course, benefit to New Zealand. The member might like to take a quiet look at the issue, and when he does he will understand that a case-by-case approach means there will be different ways to appropriately capture maximum value to New Zealand. That is exactly what we are doing.

Dr Paul Hutchison: How does the Minister reconcile the sale of a Crown research institute business unit whose strength is intellectual property, with his own claim that keeping intellectual property within New Zealand is key, and Trevor Mallard’s statement on Tuesday, 20 June that Labour will not sell off the family silver?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: Easily.

Dr Paul Hutchison: Should the public believe he is really going to transform the economy through science and innovation, or is this just another “Mahareyism” to, on the one hand, affirm that keeping intellectual property is a key criterion for New Zealand’s benefit, but, on the other hand, flog off a highly successful, innovative company when he thinks nobody is looking?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: No. They should believe it.

Treaty of Waitangi Settlements—Time Frame

12. PITA PARAONE (NZ First) to the Minister in charge of Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations: What advice, if any, has he received regarding Māori satisfaction with the current time frame for Treaty of Waitangi settlements?

Hon MARK BURTON (Minister in charge of Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations): I am aware that more groups than ever have chosen to enter negotiations with the Crown. This indicates to me that Māori are as committed and determined as the Crown to resolve historical Treaty of Waitangi grievances by 2020.

Pita Paraone: Can the Minister confirm that by setting an explicit date for lodging historical claims, as contained in the Māori Purposes Bill, a greater sense of urgency and focus has been brought to the Treaty settlement process?

Hon MARK BURTON: It is certainly the case that this Government is committed to further accelerating the Treaty settlement process and that the provision of a final lodging date in the Māori Purposes Bill is part of ensuring that. It gives, I think, a legitimate opportunity for those with a grievance to lodge a claim. It also indicates to New Zealanders that an end point is in sight.

Gerry Brownlee: Can he confirm that after inflation, the Government’s so-called new initiative funding for Vote Treaty Negotiations in this year’s Budget sees funding fall by some $482,000, and is this confirmation that the Labour Government has a go-slow approach to Treaty settlements?

Hon MARK BURTON: I can confirm that in addition to additions in the provision for the Office of Treaty Settlements in 3 of the last 4 years, increasing its negotiation, research, and legal capabilities, the provision for the next 4 years contained in this year’s Budget will increase its negotiation capability overall, and that, indeed, people are being recruited and interviewed as we speak.

Te Ururoa Flavell: Tēnā koe Madam Speaker. What would the Minister say to the rūnanga currently in negotiation with the Crown who wrote to the Māori Party this morning stating: “We do not look on the settlement process as providing us justice. Recent performance in relation to Māori issues has shown that the compromises that result are not in the interests of Māori.”?

Hon MARK BURTON: I would say that I, and the Crown, enter into good-faith negotiations directly with parties, not through the media and certainly not through second-hand correspondence.

Pita Paraone: Will the Minister ensure that the Office of Treaty Settlements is sufficiently resourced to meet the increased demand that will inevitably occur with an explicit final date for lodging claims?

Hon MARK BURTON: As I have indicated in answer to an earlier supplementary question, as with my predecessors I am committed to ensuring that the Office of Treaty Settlements has the resources necessary to ensure that the target dates are met, and we are on track to achieving that.

Bills

New Zealand Superannuation and Retirement Income Amendment Bill

War Pensions Amendment Bill

Third Readings

Debate resumed from 22 June.

JUDITH COLLINS (National—Clevedon): This is good legislation, and we should congratulate all parties that have voted for it. It is good legislation because it deals with a situation in New Zealand in relation to married couples, where one of the spouses may be very elderly and in care in a rest home and where, because he or she can recognise her husband or wife, that husband or wife cannot get the living alone allowance. There has been a petition in relation to this matter—the Barbara White petition—which we supported. There has also been the work done by my colleague the Hon Dr Nick Smith, who on behalf of Mr Page of Nelson—[Interruption]

Hon Mark Burton: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I notice that the noise from the National members who are leaving the Chamber is really quite distracting.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley): Yes, there is far too much noise. All members should either be sitting down or have left the Chamber. They should leave the Chamber in silence. The noise level is just not fair to the speaker.

JUDITH COLLINS: Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. As I said, this legislation has come about because of some good work done by Mrs Barbara White, who, I note today, has been congratulated by her colleagues, and also because of the work done by Dr Nick Smith, who took up the issue of Mr Page. He fought for Mr Page, a Nelson resident, who had not been able to get a living alone allowance. He had been married for 70 years, and his wife, who was in aged care, still recognised him. That is something we should all think is a good thing, but in Mr Page’s case it meant he could not get a living alone allowance, even though he was very obviously living alone. That is why we in the National Party have been particularly pleased to support this legislation. It is not often that we see in this Parliament legislation that receives the broad support that this is getting.

This legislation deals with, let us say, a very unfair situation. Elderly people who have been good New Zealand citizens all their lives, who have paid their taxes, and who have been trying to keep their relationships going after 70-odd years—and that of itself is worthy of note—have been finding themselves in situations where at one stage they were told to go off and get divorced in order to qualify for the living alone allowance. They were told to separate—to leave their spouses. That was a terribly cruel piece of advice to have been given in the case of Mr Page, and it is certainly a situation we are happy to support fixing through this legislation.

However, it is unfortunate that this legislation—in spite of having been called the New Zealand Superannuation and Veterans Pensions (Entitlement of Spouses and Partners of People in Long-term Residential Care) and Remedial Matters Bill—will not help some of our veterans. I say that in particular because of the situation of Nancy Wake. I brought that issue to the attention of the House, the public, and the media, and I would like to thank the parties—including New Zealand First and the Māori Party—that supported my call to support Nancy Wake and give her an honour as a war veteran.

Hon Jim Anderton: Why didn’t the National Party give her an award 40 years ago?

JUDITH COLLINS: Mr Anderton, who keeps calling out all the time, was the person who insulted Nancy Wake. He is the person that said of her: “Being famous, and born in New Zealand, are not of themselves sufficient reasons for her to be considered for an honour …”. Well, frankly, in her case, that was a shocking insult, and he has not apologised.

Hon Jim Anderton: National was in Government for 40 years, and never gave her an award—not one.

JUDITH COLLINS: Unfortunately, Mr Anderton has not apologised. I am one of the many New Zealanders who did not realise until just a few years ago what a marvellous woman Nancy Wake was, or who knew her story. It was only because of Peter FitzSimons’ book on the issue that I and many other New Zealanders found out about Nancy Wake. For some reason, her story had not been celebrated in her own country.

One of the complaints Nancy Wake had about the Australian Government was that it would not give her an honour because she was a New Zealander. The reason the Australian Government gave, for many, many years, for not giving her an honour was that she was a New Zealander. Then Peter FitzSimons wrote about her work, and the Australian people demanded that their Government give her—a New Zealander who still has a New Zealand passport—an honour. I have been told by the Prime Minister and others that Nancy Wake, a war veteran, does not qualify for an honour because she was not with the New Zealand services. Well, that did not stop the Americans from giving her an honour, and it did not stop the French, the British, and the Australians from giving her an honour, because there are some people for whom we actually have to bend the rules.

Honours in this country are given to New Zealanders, but we know that the people who help us and work for us do not always live here. We honour some of those people every year—and good on us for doing so. But we have that pig-headed attitude from Mr Anderton and his ilk that says that because Nancy Wake left here as a child, and because she has not been to New Zealand for some time—for many years, to be frank—we cannot honour her. That is in spite of the fact that she just happens to have led 7,000 resistance fighters in France, to have helped many Allied servicemen, and to be our greatest living war hero. That we cannot honour her is absolutely disgraceful. That woman is 94 years old. She is still alive and she would like an honour.

In this country we constantly give out honours to people for deeds not nearly as strongly deserving or as remarkable as those of Nancy Wake. If we cannot give her a military honour, then why do we not give her a non-military honour? Why do we not make her a member of the Order of New Zealand? We made our High Commissioner to Britain, Jonathan Hunt, a member of that order, so why not honour someone like Nancy Wake—a woman who went way beyond the call of duty, a woman who took actions that many others would not? I cannot think of anyone else who would act in the way she did, yet we do not honour her. She is alive, so let us do it now. It is not good enough to say that we will stick up a statue later on. [Interruption] That is what Mr Anderton said, I tell Mrs Pettis. He said we would put up a statue. That is no good to her. We should give this woman something now while she is alive. While we are at it, we should do something a bit better for our Viet Nam veterans. I am sick and tired of hearing about how we cannot have the relevant report through.

Hon Annette King: What’s this got to do with the bill then?

JUDITH COLLINS: And by the way, I tell Mrs King, many of these veterans will not live long enough to get the old-age pension, because they are dying like flies. Since the time of the report back, in March, another five veterans have died while waiting. That is how they have died. They have died waiting, waiting, waiting—just as Phil Goff does in his caravan in Mt Roskill. They have been waiting for something to come out. Why can we not have that report? It is supposed to be unedited, so why can we not have it? We know the answer. It is because the report slams the Office of Veterans Affairs. It slams the fact that those veterans have been waiting for months and months—sometimes 9 or 10 months—to get their benefits, when in many cases they are very sick, and in some cases terminally ill. They have to wait, but anyone else who as a civilian goes through Work and Income receives his or her benefit at the click of a finger. That is disgraceful. So we just sit here, giving to this legislation that beautiful name that says it is for spouses’ entitlements, for veterans, and for people in long-term care.

Hon Annette King: This is a party that denied we even had a problem.

JUDITH COLLINS: Well, unfortunately, I tell Mrs King, a lot of those veterans will never live to be in long-term residential care, because they simply will not live. When we poison people, as they were, and we then lie about it for years and years—[Interruption] It was the Labour Government in 1989 that refused to allow Geoff Braybrooke’s bill to come in. The Labour Government refused to support its own member, then it brought out the McLeod report—

Hon Annette King: People know you are not telling the truth.

JUDITH COLLINS: The McLeod report was put out by the Labour Government—a Government that said those veterans were not sprayed. Well, they were. Unfortunately, it took the work of a cross-party group to come to the truth. New Zealand First, the Greens, ACT, and United Future all supported National. The only party that did not want it to happen was the Labour Party. But we got to the truth. It did not happen only once, it happened 320 times. It took us to do it, because Mrs King, who was then Minister of Health, did not want it to happen, either. No, no, she was going along with the party line. That party has now been embarrassed, because it has been asked to front up. This is the Year of the Veteran, and unfortunately we have, in Mrs King, yet another Minister who does not want to admit that we need to do something about it.

I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. We have a stream of barrage—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley): There is barraging going on. Would members please confine themselves to interjections, and not barrage.

Hon Annette King: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. The member is bringing me into the debate directly. It is not unreasonable that I respond. If the member wants to personalise the debate, then I think I have the right to interject on her.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley): The member does have the right to interject, but she does not have the right to barrage.

JUDITH COLLINS: It is time we stopped saying: “You did this, you did that.”, and actually—[Interruption] Madam Speaker, we now have a stream of barrage from Mr Benson-Pope.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley): They are interjections. Would the member please carry on.

JUDITH COLLINS: We have a Government that is happy to say to the few veterans who are still alive, and who are, in fact, in aged care that it will help their spouses—and good on it for that. But there is something so much more important: it is doing the decent thing by veterans, not just talking about it.

JILL PETTIS (Labour): That National member is so isolated from the rest of her caucus that she does not even know that the National members on the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee voted against the Nancy Wake petition. Another example is that in 1995 Peter Gresham, a former National Government Minister, investigated the policy that this Labour-led Government is implementing today. He had it costed. He put forward the same measures that we are enacting today. But he and the National Government of the day failed to do anything about it, even after they had the evidence. There is a word for that, and it starts with “h”. I am proud that this Labour-led Government is enacting this legislation, which will improve the quality of life of New Zealand superannuitants and veterans.

Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Port Waikato): The National Party is indeed happy and glad to be supporting the third reading of this legislation, because we care about the veterans and the elderly in this country. I think it is very important to go back to the genesis of this legislation. It came about when the Labour Government introduced its New Zealand Superannuation Bill in 2001. As a result, 1 year later the petition of Barbara White and 1,519 others arrived at Parliament. The petition pointed out the anomalies this legislation addresses—anomalies that, for 5 years under this Labour Government, saw significant numbers of veterans and elderly in this country being cut off from their entitlements. For over 5 years the Labour Government has knowingly cut out the entitlements of our elderly and veterans.

So here was Barbara White, back in 2002, bringing to this Parliament a petition that has been ignored by the Labour Government for at least 4 long years. What it took was the case of an elderly Nelson man by the name of Mr Page, who was 90 years old and whose elderly wife was in long-term residential care with Alzheimer’s disease. Mr Page applied for his entitlement but was told by this mean-spirited Labour Government that if he wanted to get that entitlement, he would have to divorce his wife of over 70 years!

Hon Member: Is that what they said?

Dr PAUL HUTCHISON: That is exactly what the Labour Government said. This Labour Government has brought in all sorts of liberal laws over the last few years, but it said to this elderly gentleman, Mr Page from Nelson, whose wife was in long-term residential care with Alzheimer’s disease, that it was sorry but the only way he would get the entitlement due to him was to divorce his wife. That is exactly how this Labour Government operates.

But what happened? Fortunately, Mr Page went to see the very good member for Nelson, the Hon Nick Smith, who said he would rectify that anomaly. He went first to the various Labour Government authorities, who said they were sorry but the rules were the rules. Despite the petition of Barbara White, and despite 5 years of that anomaly, they were not prepared to do anything. So Nick Smith, quite rightly, took Mr Page’s case to the Human Rights Commissioner, who immediately said that something was basically wrong and that it reflected an absolute wrong by the Labour Government. It was only then that—after 5 long years of mean-spirited behaviour by the Government towards veterans and the elderly—suddenly the legislation appeared in Parliament. But the elderly and the veterans have been diddled out of a substantial amount of money. It amounts to about $60 a week, and for an elderly person who would otherwise be earning, after tax, only $203 a week, that $263.90, which is the adjustment, represents a large amount—almost 25 percent more than he or she had been getting previously. In fact, it will affect, initially, something like 2,000 people at a cost of $6.1 million in 2006, rising to something like $6.7 million in 2008-09.

But the real worry is that the Labour Government waited so long before it was prepared to give our veterans and our elderly the entitlements that are their due. It is quite interesting that the Labour Government is prepared to continue its mean-spirited behaviour. Nick Smith proposed two amendments to new clause 6A. The first stated: “(1) Any person who applied for the living alone payment prior to 24 July 2004 but were declined on the basis of their spouse living in rest-home care, shall be eligible for payment from 24 July 2004.” That is pretty reasonable—particularly in the case of Mr Page, who has so patiently waited for his due entitlement. But, once again, that very reasonable amendment from the Hon Nick Smith was disallowed by the mean-spirited Labour Government.

On the other side of the ledger, when the Volunteer Service Abroad people came along to the Social Services Committee and pointed out that many of them were finding it difficult to serve the usual routine 2-year stint overseas because they had to come back to New Zealand and apply for their entitlement again, the Labour Government said that it would not just make it 2 years’ entitlement, which is what the organisation requested, but that it had heaps of money—and we know it does not look into things very carefully or seriously—and would make it 3 years’ entitlement.

That response was absolutely unnecessary, absolutely inappropriate, and way over-the-top. If we look at it in the context of the major point of the legislation being about ensuring that New Zealand’s elderly and New Zealand’s veterans are not diddled out of their entitlements, then is it not ridiculous that Mr Benson-Pope can sit on the other side of the House and give to Volunteer Service Abroad people not 2 years’ entitlement but 3 years’ entitlement? Yet not one of them has ever applied for 3 years’ entitlement, nor are they likely to.

One of the other very interesting things about the bill is a submission from Age Concern stating: “While we acknowledge the proposed amendments through the bill improve the situation and make it fairer, the changes do not address the fundamental issue, which is that many older people currently do not receive adequate financial assistance from the Government to ensure poverty does not predetermine their health and well-being.” The issue is all about whether this country’s economic growth is substantial enough and sustainable enough to ensure that our elderly people receive appropriate benefits when they reach old age. What we know is that after 6 long years of a Labour Government—which, when it came to office in 1999, inherited a growth rate of 4.9 percent—economic growth in the first quarter of this year fell to 0 percent. The current quarter is about 1 percent, and predictions by the Reserve Bank over the next few years say it will be approximately 1 to 2 percent.

The submission from Age Concern is absolutely appropriate to the needs of elderly people, but the Labour Government has put New Zealand further and further down the ladder in terms of our ranking in the OECD. When we look to the future, we see that New Zealand is destined to go even further down, if we remain under a Labour Government. If the elderly and the veterans of New Zealand are to achieve adequate recompense, then we should look to a National Government.

BARBARA STEWART (NZ First): On behalf of New Zealand First it is with pleasure that I rise to support the third readings of the New Zealand Superannuation and Retirement Income Amendment Bill and the War Pensions Amendment Bill. New Zealand First is 100 percent behind these bills. We want fair and equitable treatment for our seniors and our veterans, and we believe it is about time that that has come about. We are pleased to see that the bills will at last have their third and final reading today, so that they are quickly passed into law.

New Zealand First always maintains that the treatment of our seniors sends a clear signal of our status as a developed nation. We believe that we must focus the actions and attitudes of both our Government and our Government agencies towards our seniors, ensuring that their valued status in society is clearly evident.

This legislation amends the eligibility rules for New Zealand superannuation under the New Zealand Superannuation and Retirement Income Act 2001 for New Zealand superannuation in relation to persons with partners or spouses living in long-term residential care—and I know that the previous speaker noted how many of those people there are in New Zealand. It also increases the time people can continue to live overseas and work voluntarily for an aid agency while they receive New Zealand superannuation.

This legislation, we are pleased to see, contains some really positive changes that ensure that superannuitants and veterans are able to live in dignity and participate as fully as they possibly can in society. We know that the volunteer sector is hugely important in today’s society, and it is a real credit to all our senior citizens that they donate their energy and time to worthy causes, particularly those who go through Volunteer Service Abroad. New Zealand First believes that the change from 52 weeks to 156 weeks will be most appreciated by people involved in that service overseas. It gives those who are involved far more choice than they have had previously. It is to be hoped that many members here in this House will go on to become involved in Volunteer Service Abroad in the same way.

New Zealand First is happy that the same eligibility changes apply to the veterans pension, so that that pension actually mirrors the provisions of superannuation—and that is how it should be. We all place great value on the service given by our veterans, and we accept that New Zealand has a very special obligation towards all our veterans, particularly those who have suffered as a result of their service, and there are many who have. And, of course, we acknowledge the many families that have been affected by their husbands’ and fathers’ service overseas.

It is absolutely essential to ensure that the floor for superannuation and the veterans pension does not fall below 66 percent of the net average wage. That was agreed to by New Zealand First in its supply and confidence agreement with the Labour Government, and we must say that this is only the start of addressing the needs of our senior citizens and veterans in New Zealand. The next change for our seniors, of course, will be the golden age card for all New Zealand seniors and veterans, and we will be absolutely delighted to see that measure implemented.

New Zealand First was very pleased to see that eligibility for single or living alone rate for New Zealand superannuation and the veterans pension was extended to all New Zealand’s superannuitants and veterans pensioners. We know the hardship experienced by all those people who have a spouse or partner in long-term residential care in either a hospital or a rest home. So we are absolutely delighted to see that anomaly fixed.

We must mention, too, the Year of the Veteran. As I said earlier, we owe our veterans a great deal. I would remind the National Party that New Zealand First’s Ron Mark has recommended Nancy Wake for a Queen’s honour four times—in fact, long before Judith Collins came to this House. When it comes to talking about veterans, often we see the politics of convenience come to the fore. I have heard that veterans say that the National Party is as deep as cellophane, and just as transparent, when it comes to talking about these particular issues. It is also worth reminding the National Party that successive National Governments have not recognised some of the servicemen whom we hear about in this House—for example, Lieutenant Colonel Malone, Sergeant Mahoney, Des Scott, or Nancy Wake, or even the Viet Nam veterans and their plight over Agent Orange, or the nuclear test veterans. There is quite a long list of veterans that National, when it was in power, could have done something about.

R Doug Woolerton: Disgraceful, really.

BARBARA STEWART: It is absolutely disgraceful. New Zealand First is absolutely delighted to see this legislation pass. We want to see a speedy resolution to these issues, and we will be looking forward to hearing some positive stories from our superannuitants and veterans.

SUE BRADFORD (Green): Along with most, if not all, parties in this House, the Green Party welcomes the third readings of the New Zealand Superannuation and Retirement Income Amendment Bill and the War Pensions Amendment Bill, which together will mean fairer pension payments for superannuitants whose partners are in long-term residential care.

This legislation will come into force almost immediately. This was not a controversial issue between parties. Indeed, when Mrs Barbara White appeared before the Social Services Committee with her 1,500-signature petition to have the law changed, she found a warm response around the table, the fruition of which we see here this afternoon.

It has been manifestly unjust that for so long superannuitants and veterans pensioners have continued to receive the lower married rate of pension, even though they have a spouse or partner in long-term care in a hospital or rest home. Common sense has finally prevailed, and people in that situation will now be eligible for the single or single living alone rate. The sharing expenses rule has also been taken out of the legislation, so that payments will be based just on the living arrangements in which people find themselves, rather than on the previous arbitrary mechanism, which ruled people out of receiving the living alone rate if they received any external contribution at all to their household costs from other family members, for example.

The second key feature of these two bills is that the period of time people can continue to receive New Zealand superannuation or the veterans pension if they are working overseas with an aid agency has been extended from 52 weeks to 156 weeks. This is great news and simple common sense, and, in fact, it is a very cheap way for our Government to extend its overseas aid programmes—by subsidising superannuitants who would be receiving the pension at home anyway, while they do useful relief and developmental work abroad.

I would like to congratulate the Government and, in particular, Lianne Dalziel, who has championed this particular cause, on ensuring that the law in this area has been changed at last. Although this erstwhile anomaly in New Zealand’s pension regime does not affect a lot of people, unlike other matters such as portability of overseas pensions—which is currently under scrutiny in our select committee—for those who have been in the past, and may be in the future, suffering reduced rates of income for no good reason, this is a significant, timely, and positive change.

The Green Party welcomes the passing of these two bills into law and looks forward to the day that the many other anomalies within our income support system are similarly dealt with.

TE URUROA FLAVELL (Māori Party—Waiariki): Tēnā koe Madam Speaker. I a au e tū nei ka hoki ngā māhara ki te hunga kua ngaro. E kui, takoto mai rā i te wā kāinga. Moe mai, moe mai, moe mai.

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

[Greetings to you Madam Speaker. As I stand here my thoughts go back to the ones who have passed on. Oh kui, lie there at home. Sleep, slumber, sleep.]

Less than a month ago one of much cherished kuia of Te Arawa and Te Whānau-a-Apanui, Anne Anituatua Delamere, passed away at the age of 85. As we have turned to the New Zealand Superannuation and Retirement Income Amendment Bill, her name came up in conversation. Ani, I understand, was one of the five community members on the Senior Citizens Advisory Council that provided the Minister for Senior Citizens with independent advice on issues concerning the well-being of our older people. As such, I am sure her input will be evident in this bill, as with many others before the House.

Ani Delamere was amongst a distinguished group of former service people, including Tā Hemi Hēnare—Sir James Hēnare—Pita Awatere, and John Rangihau, who were recruited as welfare officers. They were a group of public servants who played a key role in mobilising the Māori workforce, helping to facilitate the urban drift during the 1950s and 1960s, lining up jobs, helping them with housing and education, while still supporting them in adhering to their hapū and iwitanga.

In 1961 Ani Delamere helped to establish and run the then Māori Education Foundation, interviewing thousands of school leavers, setting them on the track to higher education, and watching them and encouraging their progress. Former Māori Affairs secretary Neville Baker said that Ani Delamere was instrumental in helping families with their education, health, employment, and so forth, particularly harnessing the strength of Māori women. Indeed, Ani was a life member of the Māori Women’s Welfare League, having helped to establish it in 1951.

I mihi to Ani Delamere today, because many of those Māori she helped over 50 years ago are the people we are talking about today—those who are seeking to enjoy continued participation in our communities. The New Zealand Superannuation and Retirement Income Amendment Bill helps to make life easier for this group, in much the same way that Ani Delamere did in taking under her wing the hundreds of Māori who left their rural communities for the streets of Wellington.

There is another woman whom I want to acknowledge, as we consider this legislation today—Richmond pensioner Barbara White. She, along with 1,500 others, petitioned Parliament to seek fairer pension payments. I am told that Mrs White had received only a single person’s benefit because her husband was in care, suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. The legislation that is being debated today is indebted to her initiative.

The legislation extends eligibility for the single or single living alone rate, recognising the discriminatory impacts of the strict and arbitrary forms of income testing that currently exist in the sharing expenses rule. I have received over my desk a number of submissions from people who are in this situation, whereby they would have to divorce or declare themselves unmarried in order to be eligible for additional payment. It may not be a huge amount of money that we are talking about—the payments relate to some $20 or $30 a week. But these are significant amounts of extra dollars for Māori, who face a relatively high rate of material disadvantage, compared with the living standards of older non-Māori.

This bill is also very significant for Māori, in that the changing ethnic composition of the older population means that more and more Māori will benefit from the legislation being heard today. We need to bear in mind that while Māori and Pacific peoples account for only a small proportion of the senior population, the demographic is changing. The older Māori population is projected to grow rapidly, around 5 percent per year, reaching 32,000 by 2011 and nearly 84,000 by 2031. Older Māori currently account for just 3 percent of the Māori population. This will increase to 10 percent by 2031. This will also have implications for the proportion of Māori within the general senior population—expected to rise from 4 percent of all older people in 1999 to 9 percent from 2031.

So how will this affect the uptake of New Zealand superannuation? It is extremely significant that older Māori have a slower than average take-up of New Zealand superannuation. Only 78 percent reported having received it, in the 1996 census, compared with 91 percent of the rest of the older population. According to the Ministry of Social Development, the reasons for this are unclear. An issue that has been raised in senior citizens unit consultations with Māori is the effect on Māori of the increasing age of eligibility for New Zealand superannuation. The issue is that the eligibility age for New Zealand superannuation of 65 years, combined with lower life expectancy rates for Māori, means that some Māori will not receive New Zealand superannuation, and indeed most Māori will not receive New Zealand superannuation for as long as their non-Māori counterparts.

Māori life expectancy is 73 years for females, compared with 81.9 years for non-Māori, and 69 years for males, compared with 77.2 years for non-Māori. Despite some ratbag reporting and political pontificating at the time prior to last year’s election, the issues regarding inequities in Māori access to superannuation remain current. These are big challenges which this Parliament must consider carefully. We must invest in our senior citizens, Māori and non-Māori, by assisting access to health services, by challenging all agencies of the State to be responsive to our elderly to ensure that the programmes provided reflect the choices and preferences of a diverse senior population.

In talking to this legislation today, I want also to refer to the War Pensions Amendment Bill that relates to the pensions stemming from service in the Second World War, the Viet Nam War, and the Korean War, with certain New Zealand peacekeeping forces. This bill introduces an entitlement to the veterans pension for spouses or partners of persons in long-term residential care, in hospitals, or in rest homes. The Māori Party is happy to support these amendments in order to ensure that an equitable standard of living is able to be enjoyed by veterans as it is by any superannuitants.

There are, however, some issues that the Māori Party has brought to this House this week that we believe warrant further debate. We have raised with the Minister of Veterans Affairs the discriminatory impact of the differences in pension payments and compensation available for injured soldiers under the War Pensions Act 1954. This compensation, when compared with accident compensation, clearly disadvantages Viet Nam veterans, nearly 60 percent of whom are Māori.

In a report presented to the Agent Orange Joint Working Group on Concerns of Viet Nam Veterans, Viet Nam veteran Bruce Isbister stated: “Their earning capacity has been taken from them by their service to country, consigned to an income akin to poverty line and exacerbated by blatant discrimination. Many veteran pensioners have to sell family assets to stay afloat causing huge disruption to themselves and their families.”

These are major challenges to the well-being and ongoing living standards of our veterans within the senior population, and we must ensure that this group—a group that has sacrificed so much on behalf of our nation—is not treated in a way that dishonours the service they have given for Aotearoa. Finally, in closing I am thinking of the passing last week of Hapimana Toby Rikihana, a retired teacher and principal, who was given the teacher union’s highest honour of life membership. This koroua was a passionate advocate of te reo Māori, who has devoted his life to promoting and teaching Māori language, giving over 40 years of his life to education—making him an inaugural recipient of Te Tohu mo Te Reo Rangatira a Te Waka Toi / Te Waka Toi Award for Te Reo.

It is so easy for us to dismiss the experience, the knowledge, and the gracious and generous spirit that our senior citizens should be recognised for. It might interest members to know that neither Ani Delamere nor Toby Rikihana ever married or had children, but they cared for so many young people and were affectionately known as Aunty Ani and Uncle Toby to many. That is the caring spirit we are honouring here today, and it is the gift of their lives that we think of in supporting this legislation. We will remember them. Kia ora tātou.

JUDY TURNER (Deputy Leader—United Future): I rise on behalf of United Future to speak to the third readings of the New Zealand Superannuation and Retirement Income Amendment Bill and the War Pensions Amendment Bill. Previously, those bills were in one bill under a completely different name, but we have separated it out into two bills for this reading.

The purpose of the legislation is clear. It recognises that many senior citizens or superannuitants who are married or partnered are actually living alone. Those people have all the financial pressures of managing a home on their own, yet until this bill is passed into law they are assessed, if their partner is still alive, on whether their partner can recognise them. The other thing that is often not taken into account when a loved one is in care is the extra expense incurred by things like visits, transport, and the little bits and pieces that the person in care requires. Those things have to be bought out of the partner’s income, and that additional expenditure goes along with the inconvenience of the partner still being treated as part of a couple in terms of the rate of benefit received. So United Future is very, very pleased to see this legislation finally come before the House. The legislation also removes the sharing expenses rule that has applied up until now. For a lot of people who are captured under this provision, that will mean a saving of $20.30 a week.

I always remember a rather interesting lady whom I met during an election campaign at a little meeting in a country hall. She came up and asked to see me privately afterwards. We had a little bit of a talk, and her concern was that she had been sent a $3,000 funeral bill for a gentleman whom she had been living with. His family refused to pay the bill, and it was sent to her because she was deemed to be the partner of that man. It was a confusing conversation. She explained that she had been living with him for only a couple of years. She had heard that the man had health concerns and no one to look after him, so she took it upon herself to move in and look after him. She had been honest and said they were living together, which the department concerned took to mean that they were living as a couple.

Because of the way the conversation went and the little details she gave me, I suddenly realised that they were not actually a couple at all, but that she was just one very kind person. I think the way I queried her was to ask whether their relationship was romantic—I was trying to think of how I could put the question sensitively. She looked horrified, and said: “Young lady”—which I quite enjoyed—“I am no …”, and then she used a word that means a woman of ill-repute, which I probably should not say in the House. It became very clear that that dear, kind lady, who had been living with and caring for that gentleman at a financial handicap to herself—and had now been sent a $3,000 bill—had been captured in the talk of the department, and it had never been fully understood as to what her living situation really was.

The other thing this legislation does is extend to 3 years the eligibility period for New Zealand superannuitants and veterans who are working voluntarily overseas for aid agencies. There has been a little bit of scoffing about the fact that the period has been increased from 1 year to 3 years, but most 65-year-olds are pretty active people who could easily see themselves committing to 1, 2, 3, or more years of living overseas. It is a very sensible provision. In one of my previous speeches I mentioned a lady called Myrtle Whitehead. She was working in Borneo with the Iban people and had to come back all the time to New Zealand so that her superannuation would not be cancelled, then get on a plane and fly back to Borneo to do the work she was so ably doing over there. So the provision is really, really sensible.

United Future believes we could do more, as a country and as a Government, to recognise the superannuitants who volunteer within New Zealand. It could be a case of tokenism, we admit, but we are suggesting that those people could be given something like $500 for 100 hours of voluntary service within the community—some sort of tax rebate that could be given to superannuitants on a fixed income who are doing a huge amount and making a huge difference in the community. To give those people a little bit of a rebate would be a way of recognising, honouring, and thanking them for the work they are doing. We look forward to an opportunity in the future when we may be able to advance that suggestion. Instead of rebating people for the money they donate to charitable causes, we could provide a rebate to people for the hours of service they give when they are on a low, fixed income and when giving money is a much more difficult thing to do.

Finally, this legislation also enables us to adjust veterans pensions and those of superannuitants in an aligned kind of way, which is a really good thing. I have a reputation of being a bit paranoid about Orders in Council. Certainly, if we read any of the recommendations of the Regulations Review Committee, we find that that committee is always a little nervous about Orders in Council, and that has made me a bit nervous, too. My nervousness is always about the open-ended nature of those orders. So I am really pleased that we are looking clearly at the fact that Order in Council provisions can be used to increase veterans pensions or superannuitants pensions, not to drag them back down. Superannuitants need to be relieved about that.

Certainly, I do not think it is the intention of this Government to decrease pensions, and hopefully no future Government will do so, but there have been seasons and times when senior citizens have felt disadvantaged by Government policy. Certainly, we would not like the Government to make any move in that direction without having the full consultation of Parliament and going through the select committee process. I am very pleased that those Order in Council provisions apply to increases, and not to the general adjustment in any direction of pensions of both veterans and superannuitants.

United Future is very pleased to be supporting, along with all other parties, this legislation. We think it is timely; it is probably actually late—it should have been done some time ago. At least it is happening now, and we are very glad to be supporting it.

NATHAN GUY (National): I speak in favour of this legislation, but in doing so I would like to raise quite a few points. I reside up in the Horowhenua-Kapiti region, which has, per capita, the highest number of over-65s in the country. So this legislation is of great significance to those aged over 65 in that particular region.

This legislation has been 5 years in coming. It has taken 5 years for this Government to acknowledge what was simply pathetic. I thank Nick Smith, the MP for Nelson, very much. He is a hard-working man who actually represented—

Hon David Benson-Pope: 1995!

NATHAN GUY: I can handle the interjections from Mr Benson-Pope. We all know he likes to bully people. That member will not be bullying me, so I will carry on. The member from Nelson, Dr Nick Smith, is working hard for 91-year-old Mr Page, whose wife was in long-term residential care because she had Alzheimer’s. When Mr Page tried to get the single living alone allowance, he was told he should seek a divorce. How terrible is that? It is an anomaly that if a civil union couple applied for that allowance, that would be fine. So I thank Nick Smith for raising this issue and bringing it into the House. But it has taken 5 years to get the legislation to where it is today. It is pretty lightweight legislation, so I struggle to see why it has taken so long to come through the House. It is good legislation, but I cannot believe that it was not taken in urgency.

It is interesting to note that the legislation will help 2,000 war veterans—there are about 6,000 of them in this country. We need to take our hats off to those people who have served in uniform and represented our country in wars that happened before my time. We need to acknowledge that, and this legislation goes some way towards doing so.

The increase will be small—$60 a week—but it will be significant. It will lift the allowance from approximately $200 to $263. That increase will be introduced in a couple of days’ time, which is fantastic. But we need to bear in mind that superannuitants are getting walloped by higher taxes and higher petrol, power, and food costs. This legislation goes some way towards addressing those costs for people who are living alone. We all know that the costs for people living alone, or living together where one partner is in long-term residential care, are fixed, no matter whether one or two people are living in the house. I think that that is a significant point.

It is amazing that this cold, callous Government turned down the amendment to backdate this measure to July 2004. The cost to backdate the measure would be $600,000, but—hello—that amendment was turned down. This amount, when taken in the context of the $1.5 billion package for Working for Families and the $1 billion package for interest-free student loans, is a drop in the bucket for the Government. But, no, the amendment was turned down by a cold and callous Government that knows best.

This legislation also covers people on voluntary service abroad. Every year about 40 people choose to travel overseas and help out in other countries voluntarily. It is great that they will be captured in this bill. It is interesting that under the old regime those volunteers were covered for a year, but they put up their hands to ask to be covered for 2 years. The Government chose, in its wisdom, to allow them to go overseas for 3 years, which is fantastic. So we have a bit of an anomaly there, in that a certain group of people said it would be great if their service could be acknowledged for 2 years, but the Government chose to fund them for 3 years, even though they did not ask for that. The cost of that particular item is about $266,000 in 2006, moving up to $300,000 in 2008, which is fantastic.

The overriding issue in relation to this bill that has not been covered tonight is the fantastic job caregivers do, and they should be acknowledged for that. Right now, caregivers are choosing to leave the sector because of rising fuel prices and the fact that they are being rewarded with only the basic wage. That needs to be acknowledged, because on the day the price of petrol rose by 6c recently, 300 resignations were tendered. So caregivers work in a forgotten sector, and they need to be rewarded for the true value of their work. Let us not forget that caregivers use their own vehicles to travel to look after clients in their homes. So they cover their own registration, fuel, and vehicle costs, and they get no travel subsidy. The Government says caregivers do get a travel subsidy. It says that it has given the money to the district health boards. Well, in the MidCentral District Health Board area no money is flowing through to the caregivers. I am working hard to ensure that caregivers get a fairer go for the job they do—firstly, with fair wages and, secondly, with a fair travel allowance.

This is good legislation. It has taken 5 years to get to this stage. It will allow those who have chosen to represent our country in wars to age with dignity and have a better quality of life. It was through the hard work of the National Party and our MP for Nelson that this legislation came to the House, and it will be fantastic when it is rolled out in a couple of days’ time, on 1 July.

To sum up, this legislation will target the 2,000 war veterans for whom an anomaly exists if the husband or wife is living in long-term residential care. It is important that those people are acknowledged. We all know that the costs of running a house continue to go up, with rates, power, running vehicles, etc., as well as the high tax take that the Government imposes on a whole lot of beneficiaries. This legislation will reward the people who have served our country, and it is thanks to the National Party that it is in the House tonight and will be rolled out in a few days’ time.

Bills read a third time.

Bills

Historic Places Amendment Bill

Third Reading

Hon JUDITH TIZARD (Associate Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage): I move, That the Historic Places Amendment Bill be now read a third time. Since its establishment in 1954 the New Zealand Historic Places Trust has functioned under the Historic Places Act to promote the identification, protection, and preservation of the historical and cultural heritage of New Zealand. The trust has played a central role in advocating for heritage values and educating New Zealanders about avenues available for the preservation of heritage sites and buildings.

The trust’s efforts in keeping New Zealand’s heritage alive and encouraging others to do so has, I think, been widely valued and recognised. Today’s climate is one in which the importance of remembering the past is recognised both by Government and by growing numbers of New Zealanders. As people we have moved beyond the bottom-line focus of the 1990s and into an era in which we recognise that our country is not well served if heritage values are constantly overridden by the interests of commercial imperatives.

We know there is a balance to be struck between progress and conservation. We have recognised, too, that in a climate of globalisation we need, now more than ever, to assert our own New Zealand identity that both enhances our experience of living in this country and helps us present a strong and unique face to the world. New Zealand’s heritage is a foundation of that national identity, and, in recognition of the importance of our heritage, the Government has produced a comprehensive package of funding and legislative change aimed at strengthening provisions to protect our legacy from the past. This has included amendment to the Resource Management Act of 1991 to strengthen local authority responsibility for historic heritage management; the introduction of the Protected Objects Amendment Bill currently before Parliament, which addresses shortcomings in the Antiquities Act of 1975 and safeguards New Zealand and international cultural heritage objects; the establishment of the National Heritage Preservation Incentive Fund; and the best-practice Policy for Government Departments’ Management of Historic Heritage document.

We have continued support for regional museums through the capital construction projects fund, and we have increased operating funding for Te Papa. We have also funded the hugely significant Kerikeri heritage bypass, the road around the Stone Store and the Kemp House, and we have also funded a series of baseline increases for the Historic Places Trust over successive years to enable it to implement its statutory responsibilities. Indeed, in the last Budget the trust was given a further $12.8 million over the next 4 years. Combined with earlier increases, the trust’s annual funding from Government has risen to $10.4 million in 2006-07 from $3.7 million in 1999-2000.

The Government’s significant funding contribution to the trust is reflected in our decision to make the trust an autonomous Crown entity under the Crown Entities Act. The Crown entity structure formalises the accountability relationship between the trust and the Government. It better reflects the trust’s status as a statutory organisation with delegated regulatory powers that have an impact on private property rights.

The Historic Places Amendment Bill that we are passing today is a key component of the Government’s programme of changes in the heritage sector. Protection of our historic places requires a strong and effective agency at the national level, an agency with an overview of historic heritage management issues. The New Zealand Historic Places Trust does a most valuable job in fulfilling its responsibilities as defined by the legislation at present. In reviewing and amending the Historic Places Act, the Government looks to strengthen what is already in place and to enhance the trust’s ability to carry out its existing role and regulatory responsibilities.

In summary, the bill enhances the trust’s governance arrangements by reducing the size of the board from 11 to nine members and by increasing the number of Government appointees from three to six, while retaining the three elected members who are elected by members of the Historic Places Trust regionally around New Zealand. The legislation introduces an enhanced notification and submissions regime for affected parties and clarifies sections of the Act that are unclear or difficult to administer.

The changes to the make-up of the board will ensure balance of expertise and, along with the trust’s new Crown entity status, will strengthen its accountability to Government. This is appropriate and necessary, given the significantly increased funding from Government as a proportion of the trust’s overall budget and the important bearing the trust’s regulatory responsibilities have on private property rights. The trust’s key role in the well-being of New Zealand’s historic heritage is also recognised through this legislation. The changes do not, however, impinge in any way on the freedom of the trust to carry out its functions at arm’s length from Government.

The purpose of the other major provisions in the bill—the enhanced notifications and submissions regime—is to provide for greater transparency and accountability and for more involvement by affected parties in the process of registering historic places, wāhi tapu, historic areas, and wāhi tapu areas.

The Government has been pleased to see the positive response overall from the heritage community to the intent and the spirit of this bill. Certainly, there has been a sense that the tenor of the bill is supported by the community that recognises and respects the invaluable service that members of the trust and the trust as a whole have provided to New Zealanders during its long history. I am confident that the provisions of the bill will enhance the ability of the Historic Places Trust to perform its role as New Zealand’s key national heritage organisation.

I thank all of the members of the trust, particularly the board members and the members of the Māori Heritage Council, who have done so much towards developing and promoting this legislation. I look forward to seeing the trust strengthened by the significant extra funding and with the appropriate legislative framework, positioned to be able to continue to assist in the protection and management of New Zealand’s heritage into the future for the well-being of all New Zealanders. I commend the progress of this bill to the House.

TIM GROSER (National): Given the obfuscation that has surrounded the Historic Places Amendment Bill, it might be useful for me to start with a description of what, in National’s view, this bill is not about. First of all, it is not about the principle of which of the two major parties supports arts, culture, and heritage. I fully understand the wish of the Government to try to make it into a test of that principle, but that is not, in fact, what this bill is about. Nor is it about the importance of preserving and enhancing New Zealand’s heritage, and which party is in favour of that principle.

As we just heard from the Minister supporting the Prime Minister, Judith Tizard, the Historic Places Trust was an institution established by a National Government in 1954. Further National Governments, over the ensuing period, have taken a very close interest in this issue. It is vital to our country that we have a proper structure in place to enhance and preserve New Zealand’s heritage; it is part of defining us as a people. Nor, moving down the chain of specificity, is the legislation about the desirability—in the case of Māori sacred sites, wāhi tapu—of having a structure in place to preserve and enhance those sites truly sacred to Māori people and which are a huge part of our national identity.

On these central issues, there is, in fact, a very high degree of consensus between the two major parties, and no doubt, it would be shared by some of the third parties also. That is not what National’s concerns are about. Our concerns are quite specific. First of all, we are concerned about the implementation of those principles. It is about what really constitutes good and appropriate governance for the trust. We know—not just in this context, but more generally—what constitutes the Labour Government’s default option on all governance questions. This is obvious, and I think hardly registers on the political Richter scale. But if we look across at more important issues facing this country, we can see quite clearly that the Labour Government’s default response to every governance issue is larger Government involvement equals better Government involvement. It is a mind-set that seems irrevocably part of its outlook and it inculcates its world view of practically all issues, large and small.

So when we come to see the application of this mind-set, we see once again, what it means. It means—as National members have explained previously—increasing very considerably the ratio of Government-appointed members to “volunteers”, as one may wish to call them. This will have a dramatic effect of strengthening the bureaucratic control mechanisms. It is partly what the bill is about and we think there are severe limitations to this approach.

The Historic Places Trust has operated on the basis of volunteers. It has proven its worth and there are absolutely adequate mechanisms in place for ensuring accountability of public funds. This institution has already been listed an autonomous Crown entity in the 2004 Act bearing that name. I have run an autonomous Crown entity—Asia 2000—in the past, and I know that the Crown Entities Act has all the mechanisms in place to ensure accountability. Of course we agree that when public funding is put into any institution, such as this trust, there must be adequate mechanisms in place. But the 2004 Act fully provides the Government with the administrative, governance, and management tools to achieve those objectives without translating this into a mechanism for ensuring a more bureaucratic structure of control. Obviously, this also raises the danger of cronyism.

So what will we see in the future? More and more Government place holders put into the trust, replacing the volunteers who have run this successfully over 30, 40, and 50 years. This is a concern of members on the National side of the House. With a non-problem—as it were—having been fixed, as National members have explained in the past, what the Act does not do is then address the real problem. I referred to the elephant in the room in the Committee stage of this bill.

The real problem—the fundamental problem—is the lack of clarity in the definitions in the Act on what constitutes sacred sites, wāhi tapu. We accept the principle; it is absolutely essential that the legitimate sites of great historical importance are adequately protected. But we all know that the Act as it stands—and this amendment does nothing to correct the situation—leaves people completely confused. It has confused landowners, who may be Pākehā or Māori, or landowners of any description. It has confused the councils and it has confused the planners. It has confused people who wish to develop this country. Given that this legislation was an ideal opportunity to address that deficiency, we are concerned that no attempt has been made to impart some clarity to this decision. On this side of the House, I think we know full well why. The reason this Government finds it so difficult to fix the compliance legislation in this country, whether it is here, or in the Resource Management Act, or elsewhere, is the same mentality of control.

The Government does not seem to mind the huge time delays involved in this—the fact that developers are held back. There are legitimate reasons why these issues should go through a Government process. Once again, it is not the principle; it is the way in which it is administered that imparts a degree of confusion. It is a very real issue for landowners in this country. We have a concept that is completely nebulous. It must be addressed in due course. This bill does not fix it and I think it is time that somebody stood up and did the business that would remedy it. Thank you.

DARIEN FENTON (Labour): I will take a short call to support the third reading of the Historic Places Amendment Bill. This Government has taken its obligations to the cultural and heritage sectors very seriously, and it has backed up this commitment with a significant programme of funding and legislation. This bill is part of that programme, and its purpose is to amend and strengthen the governing arrangements of the New Zealand Historic Places Trust, to enhance the trust’s accountability to the Government, and to clarify and adjust some of the provisions of the Historic Places Act 1993.

I note, of course, that National is voting against the bill, which is a very disturbing trend. If members on the opposite side of the House ever had the opportunity to be in Government, I think the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra would be worried, and many of our flagship cultural institutions would be very worried. It would be bad news for the development of New Zealand’s arts and cultural sector. I am pleased to be part of a party that supports those very important institutions, and I take pride in supporting this bill.

CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (National): In answer to what the honourable member Darien Fenton said in her Labour research unit speech, this is not a general debate about the value of cultural and arts institutions. National does not do anything other than strongly support the place of the New Zealand Historic Places Trust. If the member knew her legislative history, she would know full well that it was the National Government in 1954 that formed the Historic Places Trust, and it was the National Government in 1980 and 1993 that instigated general reviews of the legislation. So my suggestion to that honourable member is that she should get off her flea-bitten old nag and look at the facts instead of engaging in her tired and tiresome rhetoric.

But at least there was a contribution from that honourable member. The Committee stage of the debate was, I regret to say, a complete waste of time. No rigorous analysis was undertaken of the clauses of the bill. National, the Māori Party, and the Green MPs raised legitimate issues, but I regret to say that the Labour MPs sat like comatose zombies and made no effort to engage in the debate. Unfortunately, debating the issues—as evidenced by the previous speaker, who debated irrelevancies—is not their strong suit. Why anyone would want to enter Parliament to become a Labour MP, then to putrefy on the Labour benches and make no contribution to debates, absolutely escapes me.

National opposes the third reading of this bill, and there are two key reasons for that. First, the governance provisions proposed by clause 19 will destroy the character of the trust. In the Committee stage, on two occasions, I traced the legislative history of the Historic Places Trust since its establishment in 1954. I took honourable members in the Committee stage through each of the changes that had been made to the legislation, and emphasised that although there had sometimes been major changes to the legislation since 1954, what had not changed was the basic underlying philosophy of the membership of the board, which emphasised community involvement in heritage issues, the principle of volunteerism, and the need to have the trust’s board reflect those principles in its membership. Now, as my colleague and friend Mr Groser has said, membership of the board will be dominated by ministerial appointments. If one looks at clause 19, which substitutes a new section 42, one can see that only three of the nine persons on the board will be elected by members of the trust in accordance with certain regulations, and six will be appointed by the Minister.

The reasons given for this change to ministerial control of this great organisation are as follows. First, ostensibly, it is to improve governance. But we were never told why. We were also told it would improve accountability, which is absolute rubbish, because the trust is already an autonomous Crown entity. I refer members to section 7 of the Crown Entities Act 2004 and to the first schedule of that Act, where the trust is named. Those important issues were never addressed. We were never told anything about governance; we were never told anything about accountability.

The second key reason why we oppose the bill is that the proposed registration procedures lack rigour. I refer members to clause 9 of the bill, which amends section 28, and to similar provisions in section 32A, inserted by clause 13. If one looks at the various persons who can apply to register a historic place, one can see that five types of organisations or persons can make applications, including, for example, as stated in section 28(1)(d), inserted by clause 9: “any incorporated society or body corporate engaged in or having as one of its objects the protection of historical and cultural heritage:”. Frankly, that could include a group of extremists who decide to form an incorporated society and say they support the protection of cultural heritage, and who then have some kind of standing to make submissions on whether registrations should proceed. There is no rigour to the process to ensure the integrity of such a claim, and it is important to note there is no provision in the bill for the appointment of independent experts to verify claims.

In contrast, I refer members to a bill that will be coming to the House in the next few days, which is the Protected Objects Amendment Bill. Provision is made in that bill for the appointment in certain circumstances of expert examiners to determine whether permission should be granted for certain goods to be exported from New Zealand. The Chief Executive of the Ministry for Culture and Heritage must be satisfied that the expert examiners with whom he or she consults are experts in the field relevant to the particular application for permission. We really need provisions of that kind in the clauses of this bill so that there can be the requisite rigour, and so that when a decision is made by the trust to register—to quote the proposed amendment to section 31 set out in clause 11 of the bill—it can truly be “satisfied that the proposal is supported by sufficient evidence,”. That is a very important phrase, but no guidance is given as to what analysis is to be undertaken so that the trust can be satisfied with the sufficiency of the evidence.

Having come to this legislation and looked at it very closely in the course of the second reading and the Committee stage, I am of the view that the Historic Places Act needs a thorough review. In that I endorse what my friend Mrs Kedgley said, because I think she is right—it needs a good review. I say to members that only a National Government can and will do that. I remind honourable members once again that National established the trust in 1954 and updated the legislation in 1980 and 1993. All this Labour Government can do is to fiddle with various provisions and destroy the governance regime of the trust.

Even then, the legislative history of this bill is nothing short of appalling. I refer members to page 16 of the bill. This amendment bill was introduced on 5 August 2004, referred to the Government Administration Committee on 9 September 2004, came out of the select committee on 21 February 2005, and did not receive a second reading until 10 May 2006. Quite simply, that is a disgrace. Thereafter, things positively motored, because we had the second reading on 10 May and the Committee stage later in May and again in June.

But that is an example of how this House is not operating properly. The legislative history of this bill is crummy. This legislation is crummy, and it really needs a thorough review. National opposes this bill and exhorts other parties in the House to do the same.

SUE KEDGLEY (Green): The Green Party strongly supports the retention of New Zealand’s heritage buildings and Māori sacred sites, or wāhi tapu. We are deeply, deeply concerned about the continuing destruction of much of our heritage and about the fact that, basically, historic places and buildings in New Zealand are still largely unprotected in our law. We are also very concerned about the fact that there is huge variation in the way regional and territorial authorities carry out their functions under the Resource Management Act in relation to heritage sites, and about the fact that, all over New Zealand, heritage sites and buildings are still being bulldozed, and have been bulldozed over the past century. New Zealand is so much the poorer for it.

There is an understanding between Transit and the Historic Places Trust that if Transit wants the site of an historic place for a road, the trust will not stand in its way. So in Wellington, as one example, our most historic area, Te Aro, which is a wonderful heritage area, has basically been removed to build a motorway. The Historic Places Trust basically just capitulated to a request from Transit and allowed 46 historic homes to be knocked down or shifted. So we agree with the previous speaker that what we really need at this time, and what this bill really should be about, is a fundamental review of the Historic Places Trust and of how we can give it more teeth so that New Zealand’s remaining historic heritage does not continue to be bulldozed.

The parts of New Zealand that have retained their heritage—for example, Timaru, Ōāmaru, and Wanganui—have benefited hugely from that. They have become tourist sites. There is a huge attraction to those areas just because they stand out from other parts of New Zealand because they have actually retained their heritage. But so many other parts have lost much of their heritage and, as I said, we are all the poorer for it.

In relation to the question about why the Historic Places Trust has virtually no teeth, I have here a report from February this year. A historic Pētone building is about to be bulldozed and replaced with a new apartment complex after a developer received the green light from the Hutt City Council. The article goes on to point out that the Historic Places Trust strongly opposed the demolition, that the trust heritage adviser said that buildings contributing to Pētone’s historic character should be protected, and that the decision was disappointing. So in the end the Historic Places Trust was left wringing its hands and allowing yet another precious historic building in New Zealand to be demolished. We think that is what the bill should have been about—giving teeth to the Historic Places Trust to protect our remaining heritage. We strongly support any moves by this Government or any subsequent Government to review the Historic Places Trust.

We support the bill but we do have some very serious reservations, in particular about new section 42 in clause 19, which states that to represent Māori on the Historic Places Trust one no longer has to be Māori. This provision was opposed by the Māori Heritage Council, by the Historic Places Trust, and by many of the submitters, but the Government Administration Committee simply ignored their submissions and it never gave any justification as to why we now have a new definition in law that could set a new precedent across all law in New Zealand that one no longer needs to be Māori in order to represent and advocate for Māori. How ridiculous is that? Why was no justification for it given in this bill?

We might as well say that we no longer need women in various positions on various boards, we can just have men as long as they have a little bit of an understanding of women’s issues. We could start appointing men all over New Zealand, saying that they are advocates for women. That would be ridiculous, and so, too, it is ridiculous that this legislation states that one no longer has to be Māori to advocate for Māori.

The Māori Heritage Council pointed out that whakapapa is the foundation of Māori identity as tangata whenua and it is crucial that the relationship between Māori and their historic and cultural heritage is retained. The council basically said that people need to have whakapapa to be able to advocate for Māori, and in particular for the preservation of Māori’s historic and cultural heritage. We think this provision sets a new, bizarre, and dangerous precedent that we are completely opposed to. It seems to be incredibly patronising and condescending, and it has no justification. No reason was given whatsoever.

So we do have that very serious reservation about the bill, but we rather grudgingly support it, despite the fact that the Government opposed our amendment to change clause 19 and remove that anomaly. We support the bill only because we are committed to supporting the Historic Places Trust, even though we regret the fact that it is so lacking in teeth and lacking in power that over the past decades it has stood by and watched historic building after historic building, and historic Māori site after historic Māori site, be bulldozed and demolished because it does not have sufficient strength to stop it.

We believe there needs to be review of that, and also of the way in which regional and territorial authorities carry out their functions. We believe there needs to be much more funding and much more priority given to retaining what is left of our heritage in New Zealand.

Hon BRIAN DONNELLY (NZ First): The Historic Places Amendment Bill seems on the surface to be bread and butter legislation that mainly reorganises the structure of the Historic Places Trust. In fact, its provisions are set upon three important principles, and I would like to go through them one by one. The first principle is: who pays the piper calls the tune. There can be no doubt that funding for the Historic Places Trust has increased dramatically over the past few years from $4.5 million in 2002-03 to $7.5 million in the last financial year. Moreover, the Government has initiated the National Heritage Preservation Incentive Fund to be administered by the trust to encourage the preservation of privately owned and nationally significant heritage properties, and, once again, a significant amount of money is to be distributed through that process.

Increasingly it is the Government, as the representative of taxpayers, that is paying the piper. Therefore, it makes sense and it is totally justified to tip the proportion of membership of the trust to Government appointees.

The second principle is that no Government should allow greater membership of a statutory body than is essential for the task to be carried out. There are ongoing costs to the taxpayer resulting from the number of members of statutory bodies such as this. I would have thought the Opposition would agree with that principle, yet quite incomprehensibly it has argued against the reduction of this body from 11 to nine members.

The third principle relates to what the member was talking about just before, and that is the amendments to the qualifications and attributes required for the three Māori appointees included in the six Government appointees. I want to read these out, as outlined in new section 42(3) in clause 19: “At least 3 of the persons appointed under subsection (1)(b) must, in the opinion of the Minister after consultation with the Minister of Maori Affairs, be qualified for appointment, having regard to their knowledge of te ao Maori (Maori worldview) and tikanga Maori (Maori protocol and culture).”

One would not have to be a genius to work out that 99.99 percent of those appointees will be Māori by ethnicity, but New Zealand First has always argued that such positions should be filled by the people who have the requisite knowledge and understanding, etc., rather than the DNA in their blood.

A couple of weekends ago I attended the opening of a museum exhibition called Ko Tawa. The exhibition was opened by the Associate Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage on a very wet and cold morning in Whangarei, and I must admit that other than Dave Hereora, I was the only MP to turn up. Ko Tawa is an exhibition of selected pieces from the works collected by Major Gilbert Mair. It was quite a stunning and outstanding collection of over 200 pieces, but the most important pieces were selected for exhibition. I must admit that Paul Tapsell and his team from the Auckland Museum have done just an absolutely marvellous job of curating that exhibition. Gilbert Mair was in fact born in Whangarei, up in the Ngunguru area. Included in the collection, for example, is the kōauau reputedly used by Tūtanekai, for example. There is a rain cape there that Te Kooti gave Mair in honour of his friendship. He said that it would not keep the rain off him, but that it demonstrated his love for him. Yet Gilbert Mair had led the forces that had attempted to capture Te Kooti on the East Coast over many years. It is a remarkable piece.

Gilbert Mair, however, was totally Pākehā. He was baptised by Māori, he spoke the Māori language, and he had a great understanding of Māori culture but, if the Greens had their way, he would not be able to be appointed to the proposed board.

The other little irony that occurred there was that during the pōwhiri, which I must admit was somewhat unusual, the Associate Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage, Mahara Okeroa, spoke, and then had to turn to find somebody to do his waiata for him. Dave Hereora was there, but the person who had to step up to the plate, in the absence of anybody else to do that, was yours truly. In other words, maybe I could be appointed to that board.

Te Ururoa Flavell: You will have to learn to sing properly.

Hon BRIAN DONNELLY: Hang on a second—the member had better ask Dave Hereora before he makes a comment like that! The point is, however, that I think we have to be careful not to be so precious. As I said in my Committee stage or second reading speech, if the principles of the amendment that has been put forward by the Greens were applied to this legislation, we would have a situation where Dame Kiri Te Kanawa could not be on an opera board because she is not Italian. That makes a mockery of the whole thing.

Finally, I say that New Zealand First strongly supports the preservation of our heritage and our culture, and certainly very strongly supports the objectives of the Historic Places Trust. We believe that the changes that have come through into this bill will strengthen the activities that the trust is required to carry out. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

TE URUROA FLAVELL (Māori Party—Waiariki): Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker; it is nice to see you this evening. I spoke earlier today about the loss to the nation of two treasured kōeke. Last night, we of Te Arawa mourned the loss of another of our greatly treasured kuia, and indeed the loss of a legacy, in the passing of the kuia Guide Bubbles Mihinui. We spoke of her passing earlier today in the House. Moe mai e kui i roto i ngā ringaringa o te wāhi ngaro.

[Slumber there in the hands of the world of the dead.]

Guide Bubbles learnt her craft as a protégé of Guide Rangi, Rangitiaria Dennan, and Guide Bella, Bella Papakura. In the mid-1930s her grandfather, Waretini, said that Bubbles had had enough of Pākehā schooling, and it was time for her to learn the family traditions, and learn about tourism and the oral history of the old people.

Guide Bubbles became an apprentice guide in 1936, and in 1938 was appointed as a guide for the then Government Tourist Bureau. Following the death of Guide Rangi, she became senior guide at Whakarewarewa in 1970. In all, she spent some 70 years in the service of the community, guiding people from all over the world around the geothermal areas of Whakarewarewa. Her legacy is of critical importance to this nation, and her experience is part of the rich history of this land, which must not be lost to future generations. Te Arawa has lost a cultural icon—one of the treasured line of guides who have placed Whakarewarewa on the map.

It is fitting, then, that today we come to the Historic Places Amendment Bill and appreciate the significance of the New Zealand Historic Places Trust in giving emphasis to the historic places of our heritage. Our sites of significance, our places of cultural heritage, are hugely important to tangata whenua. Our cultural history is enshrined in those places; they demonstrate and describe the stories that present a picture of the foundation of this nation. In valuing those historic places, we can all play a part in preserving the vitality of Aotearoa for years to come.

It was therefore with great disappointment that we came to this bill, realising that in essence it would do very little to strengthen the protective powers of the Historic Places Trust or, indeed, of the Māori Heritage Council. One of the major concerns with regard to this bill is the representation of Māori. At the second reading, Māori Party members raised concerns around the newly redefined requirements for the Māori board members who have served on the Historic Places Trust. Our particular concern was the removal of ethnicity—the deletion of being Māori as one of the key factors in board membership. The bill serves to reduce and dilute the strength of Māori representation, by providing that those members just have knowledge about Māori rather than be Māori. The Historic Places Trust, the Māori Heritage Council, and other submitters opposed that, but the select committee chose to ignore their submissions and instead to continue the practice of targeting Māori. Post Ōrewa and post Budget, the message we are getting very clearly is not to mention the word Māori, not to ask for any Budget money for Māori, and not to be Māori.

The Māori Party is therefore very happy to support Supplementary Order Paper 33 put forward by Sue Kedgley to amend clause 19, which respects the importance of whakapapa as the foundation of Māori identity. In a literal translation of that concept, “papa” is anything broad or flat, such as a flat rock, a slab, or a board. “Whakapapa”, then, means to place in layers, or to lay one upon another. Hence the term whakapapa describes the recitation in proper order of genealogies and also names those genealogies. The picture we get from the term whakapapa is of building layer by layer upon the past towards the present, and on into the future. Whakapapa may include not just the genealogies but also the many spiritual, mythological, and human stories that give strength to the genealogical backbone of a people.

One would think the concept of whakapapa should be absolutely tied to the core work programme and philosophy of the Historic Places Trust. Indeed, it is a concept that the Attorney-General sought specific legal advice on in 2004, in asking whether the Historic Places Amendment Bill was consistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990. The advice received by the Attorney-General noted that the specific responsibilities of the council in relation to Māori culture and heritage would be enhanced by the involvement of Māori, because only persons of Māori ethnicity possess the attributes of, firstly, whakapapa and whakawhanaungatanga connections based on descent and ancestry and, secondly, kaitiakitanga, or guardianship status, of Māori heritage.

The advice received by the Attorney-General clearly noted that whakapapa and whakawhanaungatanga are the fundamental relationships between Māori and cultural heritage, and are the basis upon which Māori can claim standing on marae and communicate effectively with tangata whenua at a local level. It went further, to explain that for Māori, the kaitiaki relationship with heritage is reserved for appropriate persons of Māori ethnicity and tribal affiliation, and involves the safeguarding of the knowledge of the existence and significance of sites. If that were not proof enough, the Ministry for Culture and Heritage also advised that appointments made to the council solely on the basis of a person’s qualifications and experience, without reference to Māori ethnicity, would affect the credibility and mana of the trust in relation to its statutory responsibility to protect Māori culture and heritage.

Given that background, I thought it was extremely disappointing that the amendment to clause 19 was not supported by the Committee. I want to refer to the comments that the Minister, the Hon Judith Tizard, made at the Committee stage, where she stated: “… I do not agree that anyone required, as in this legislation, to have knowledge of Māori heritage and Māori spiritual values should necessarily be Māori.” The advice presented to the Attorney-General just 2 brief years ago noted: “In our view, the provisions of the Bill that require the Council to include four Māori members are rationally and proportionately connected to the aim of enhancing the ability of the Trust to fulfil its functions under the Historic Places Act. Accordingly, we consider that the limitation is justified in terms of section 5 of the Bill of Rights Act.” What has happened in 2 short years, to have such a turnround?

Tangata whenua consider sites of historical and cultural significance to be central to sustaining a living Māori culture, which is the basic premise of the Treaty of Waitangi and the Treaty of Waitangi principle of active protection. The significance of whakapapa in the concept of Māori representation is thus such that it is essential to ensure the trust has the ability to provide protection of taonga consistent with its functions and powers. What we see now with this weakened legislation is that anyone can be “Māori”. The Māori Party believes that if the Government was truly genuine in its intentions towards tangata whenua representation, the board would call for nominations mandated by hapū and iwi, and not open the floodgates to everyone.

The other concerns that we raised throughout this debate were about the need for the Historic Places Trust to have increased powers in order to provide protection of wāhi tapu, and about the importance of local hapū/iwi knowledge to inform the decision making of the trust. We do not believe that this bill addresses the need for entities such as the Historic Places Trust to have some type of formal relationship with whānau, hapū, and iwi or, indeed, with other entities such as those involved in ecosystem protection and restoration.

Finally, I return to Whakarewarewa for a model of the importance of strengthening the cultural and historic heritage provisions for Māori. Seven years ago, in June 1999, the Te Arawa standing committee of Rotorua District Council was presented with a survey of 100 Te Arawa leaders, which expressed particular disquiet, in relation to tourism, that nothing was being put back into the culture, even though tourism was based on the promotion of things Māori. The leaders suggested that Māori could benefit by having the meeting houses and villages at Ōhinemutu and Whakarewarewa maintained. The report further recommended that the council should work with the tourism industry to identify its costs and benefits to Te Arawa. That report promoted the example of local government, central government, and iwi working together to maintain the precious cultural and historic heritage of our significant ancestral sites. Our historic places—our wāhi tapu; our heritage sites—tell us the story of the nation, just as Guide Bubbles protected and preserved the treasured cultural landscape of Te Arawa.

That is what this bill should have done. We are saddened that the heritage of a nation—the significance of the tangata whenua contribution to the shaping of Aotearoa—will not be enhanced by the legislation coming before this House today, and for that reason we will not be supporting this bill. Kia ora tātou.

SHANE ARDERN (National—Taranaki-King Country): Can I start by saying that there is not a member, I do not think, in this House who does not support and agree with the principles of the Historic Places Trust. To that end, I think, overwhelmingly, there is support for the protection of our historic places. Where the National Party has a difference of opinion over the Government on this issue is that of governance—well, this is one of the differences of opinion that we have. Let me just refer members to the commentary on the bill, where it states: “This bill proposes to strengthen the Trust’s governance arrangements by reducing the size of the Trust Board from 11 to 9 members and increasing the number of Crown appointments from 3 to 6,”.

Now I put it to the House tonight that that is an oxymoron. How can one strengthen the governance of something by reducing the number of board members—those board members who are elected with expertise and chosen from within their various fields of expertise—and increasing the number of Government lackeys that are appointed? How is that a strengthening of the board or of the trust? That is the first question. I would like a Labour member, or the Minister, to take a call and explain that to us. That is the long arm of the State saying: “We know best. You poor, common, unwashed citizens out there have no knowledge of these issues, and we, the all-powerful State, will know how to manage this better.”

Well, history will show any member who cares to spend more than 30 seconds studying it, that that is exactly the opposite to what happens. When one gets the State involved in things that the State has no business in, then the State, generally speaking, makes a worse job of it than those who have the expertise—[Interruption] I ask that member over there from New Zealand First—a very good member of this Parliament—to please take a call. His colleague the Hon Brian Donnelly tried to sustain an argument and defend the indefensible, but that member should take a call and tell us why he thinks the State is a better custodian of historic places than those who have a personal interest in these kinds of affairs. He, I know, would have difficulty with that because he comes from a quite principled position on most issues. So he should take a call and explain to us why that is the case.

I also draw the House’s attention to the second issue that the National Party opposes in this bill, and that is the definition of “wāhi tapu”. Can I relay to the House tonight an issue—

Hon Brian Donnelly: There’s no definition in the bill.

SHANE ARDERN: I have read the bill, which the member is waving around. The definition of “wāhi tapu” is an area of great concern. If people go to my electorate of Taranaki - King Country, they will see some of the effects of these vague references we have had in legislation—and I cite the Resource Management Act as an example. We have had major roading infrastructure, the upgrade of State Highway 3, held up for months, and hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars expended, because a person who was not from the local iwi—local iwi wanted State Highway 3 roading project to go ahead—decided that she should object under the Resource Management Act to the progress of that highway, based on six hāngi stones being found in that road construction. Will that be able to happen once this bill becomes enacted?

Hon Marian Hobbs: No, it can’t happen.

SHANE ARDERN: Well, I am reassured by that. But I am more reassured by the next member from Wellington Central, Chris Finlayson—a very good colleague who spoke earlier—when he said that he did not understand exactly what it meant. I am more reassured by the fact that there is a lot more to this than the member would have us believe.

Let me say to those members over there who are baying with great enthusiasm that this bill was introduced to the Government Administration Committee on 9 September 2004. On 21 February 2005 it was reported from the Government Administration Committee back to the House. Now if this is an issue of such importance, why has the Government dragged its feet with, what can I say, such an enormous amount of reluctance to proceed with it? I guess it was because they were rounding up the numbers, and I guess that is what this is about. It is about politics rather than historic places. It was rounding up the numbers and getting a few more cronies on to boards so it could continue as the Government.

I was interested in the Green member Sue Kedgeley’s contribution to the debate when she said that it was an absolute nonsense to have a person appointed to the board with expertise in Māoritanga who was not a Māori. Well, I need to remind the Green Party that we have a Minister of Agriculture in this Parliament who is not a farmer. If that is not an irony, what is? If a person has expertise it would not be my argument, as the Hon Brian Donnelly put forward, that that person should not be appointed on the basis of ethnicity. I would argue, also, that if a person was competent in the area of agriculture but was not a farmer, then that person would make a reasonable agricultural Minister. The problem is we do not have a person who is competent in that area. We have a retreaded member—a former Labour Party president—who has been around this place for a long time, who is better at spin than substance, who has made an art form of politics, and who is the great survivor of this institution but has no knowledge in the field of which he is the Minister.

I say to the House this afternoon, and to members here, that this bill is a backward step and should not proceed. National will not support it going forward. It has been proven around the world that when one allows socialism to that extent—Stalinism, or call it what you will; it has its origins somewhere offshore and not in the places where democracy was first thought of—it is anti-democratic. We should not support the notion that the Government knows best in its appointments, and the suggestion that that somehow strengthens governance.

We need only look at the things that Governments have been involved in over a long period of time. I am not being political; all sides have somewhat lacked ability to manage institutions, non-governmental organisations, or whatever, that were under State control or had been brought back under State control. The Government used to be involved in all sorts of things—it had its own printing company at one stage; it used to build all the roads, and nobody else could be involved. But over the years it has been found that, not only in New Zealand but around the world, when the State is removed from managing the infrastructure and non-governmental organisations, things improve.

Hon Harry Duynhoven: Look at electricity!

SHANE ARDERN: That is a very good example. At present those State-owned enterprises are directly at the beck and call of the Minister, and the lights are going off! That member strengthens my argument by suggesting that State involvement will guarantee safe electricity-generation. That is not the case. If he looks at what has happened since the State became more involved and all the small power trusts we used to have became less involved, he will see that energy supply has become less reliable and investment in the sector has gone down—not up. The Minister should take a call and explain why the Historic Places Trust will be strengthened by reducing the number of board members from 11 to nine. So the number of those with expertise—the elected or appointed board members within the trust—will reduce and the number of Government-appointed lackeys will increase from three to six. In no way can the Minster justify that change, but that is what is proposed under new section 42 in clause 19.

The title is the Historic Places Amendment Act 2004. That is a surprising thing, given that the Act was substantially altered in 2004. So why are we back before the House again with this proposed amendment? National does not support it.

Hon CHRIS CARTER (Minister of Conservation): I am pleased to stand up and support the Historic Places Amendment Bill for the third reading. As Minister of Conservation in this Government, I too have a responsibility for preserving the unique heritage of New Zealand—its natural heritage, of course; the landscape and species that define us and our identity as New Zealand - Aotearoa—but I share that responsibility of preserving the unique heritage of New Zealand with the Ministry for Culture and Heritage, which is headed by none other than our Prime Minister. The Prime Minister when she became Prime Minister of this country in 1999 was the first Prime Minister to ever take the portfolio of culture and heritage, because she, like this Government, believes that it is culture and heritage that help to define us as New Zealanders; to shape our unique identity in the world. This legislation goes some way towards making that task easier.

It has been interesting being in the Chamber and listening to the contributions made by some National Party members in the last few minutes. I was astonished to hear the previous speaker, Mr Ardern, the member for the Taranaki region, somehow tying this bill to “the lights going off”. I was amused to hear that, because, of course, as a member of the House I would remember well the weeks of darkness we had in Auckland during the time of the previous National Government when it certainly was not able to deal with not only the vagaries of weather but also the under-investment in energy infrastructure.

Indeed, I also heard some nonsense a few minutes ago about our not having a farmer who was a Minister of Agriculture. Well, I think that under the previous Government we had a Minister of Health who was not a doctor and a Minister of Education who was not a teacher, and we currently have a National Party spokesperson on Māori affairs who is not Māori, even though there are three Māori members of National’s caucus. I would imagine those three National members who are Māori, and are proud of their Māori heritage, must find it particularly humiliating and infuriating that none of them has been chosen to be spokesperson for Māori issues in this Parliament. However, that is an issue for the National Party, not for me to pass judgment on; but I just reflect on the irony of it.

What I would like to reflect on, though, is the purpose of this bill. It goes some way towards strengthening the Historic Places Trust, which is playing such a useful role in that important task of preserving our heritage. I think of the excellent work, for example, that is taking place in the Kerikeri basin—a place of unique settlement history in our country, where not only were some of the earliest of Māori settlements in this nation, some 800 or 900 years ago, but there was also the beginning of European settlement, such as the stone store and other historic places there that the Historic Places Trust governs.

The governance of the trust itself is strengthened and enhanced by this legislation. We have had comments about the number of trust board members that we reduce from 11 to nine under the bill. We also have an increase in the Government appointees to the board from three to six members. All Governments appreciate the opportunity of appointing experts to those positions. I am sure that in the natural electoral cycle—long may it be away—and when the present Opposition gets its chance to be in Government, which I guess will come one day, it too will take the opportunity to put experts, I hope, rather than lackeys, in those positions. Good governance is something that all Governments care about. The tasks of the Historic Places Trust are really important. It is an important role.

As my colleague Judith Tizard, the Associate Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage, said in her introductory speech, this legislation will assist in that critical task of heritage preservation. It will make the management and functions of the trust easier, and more effective and efficient. I am certainly very supportive of that role and of the responsibilities I have as conservation Minister.

I am really pleased to be on my feet defending this legislation, and I am looking forward to its passage through the House.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Historic Places Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

Ayes 67

New Zealand Labour 50; New Zealand First 7; Green Party 6; United Future 3; Progressive 1.

Noes 52

New Zealand National 48; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 2.

Bill read a third time.

Bills

Housing Restructuring and Tenancy Matters (Information Matching) Amendment Bill

In Committee

ANNE TOLLEY (National—East Coast): I seek leave for Shane Ardern to assume the Chair.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Is there any objection to that course of action? There is none.

Part 1 Amendments to principal Act

PHIL HEATLEY (National—Whangarei): Mr Chairman, it is a privilege to speak, with you in the Chair. It is also a privilege to welcome back the Minister of Housing, Chris Carter, from his overseas jaunt. He has been away for some time. There has been a lot of movement within Housing New Zealand Corporation in that time with regard to the recent allegations of financial mismanagement and the gagging clause, which have put this country into shock. Essentially, we saw a public servant be gagged by a contract that came from his department. Housing New Zealand Corporation stopped its staff from talking to the media, but what was worse was that it also stopped them from talking to their duly elected member of Parliament, who could have been any one of us, or a Minister of the Crown—indeed, it could have been that very Minister. However, that is water under the bridge, to a degree, though we should explore the details around that issue, perhaps later this week.

This afternoon, though, we are discussing the Housing Restructuring and Tenancy Matters (Information Matching) Amendment Bill. The aim of this bill is to amend the Housing Restructuring Act 1992. First of all, I say we support the Government’s moves to rename the Act as the Housing Restructuring and Tenancy Matters Act 1992, and to insert information-matching provisions in the Act to allow Housing New Zealand Corporation to disclose information about tenants and tenancies to the Ministry of Social Development, as the ministry responsible for the administration of the Social Security Act 1964. The ministry is very interested and quite intrigued to know about the goings-on in Housing New Zealand Corporation. It needs to check that the benefits it parts with on behalf of the taxpayer go to the right people—to those in need, and not to those who are rorting the system.

In fact, it is interesting to note—and Minister may like to pay attention to this particular point, because it is quite a poignant one—that National tried to introduce legislation on this matter in 1999. At that time, Labour did not see fit to support the legislation. However, after 6½ years in Government, I think that the problem has crystallised in the minds of the Labour members, and Minister Carter has decided that perhaps it would have been a good thing to support National 6 years ago. Now he has actually grabbed hold of the baton and carried the torch, so to speak, from that National Government, and has introduced this legislation. So how could the National members not support their very good idea of 6 or 7 years ago?

We are a party of transparency, a party of openness, and a party where privacy rights are protected, but only to the degree that lawful citizens are able to go about their own business in their own private lives. We become concerned where we see rorting of the system—and, certainly under this Minister’s watch, we have seen a fair bit of that within Housing New Zealand Corporation and the State house sector, particularly while the Minister has been overseas, focusing on other things in the fine restaurants of Britain. We have seen a lot of those rorts go on under the Minister’s watch, and I know that he is a bit concerned about that issue and he is chasing his tail. This year I will continue to present him with the facts on the rorts that waste taxpayers’ money. Week by week and month by month I will put them before the Minister, and perhaps he will address them in time. He has addressed this issue—7 years late, yes. But grandma would say—and that Minister’s grandma would say this too, if she were alive today—“Better late than never”. “Better late than never, Christopher—”

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Order!

PHIL HEATLEY: “—Minister Carter”, she would say. The Minister’s grandmother would call him Minister Carter, and she would say that it is better late than never. Seven years after the National Party introduced this idea, he is promoting it in legislation, and I say: “Good for him!”

There is rorting within the State house system, and we see that this legislation seeks to address that problem. For example, many State house tenants profit from having boarders. We understand that at the moment 7,000 State houses have boarders living under the roof—and those are just the ones we know about. What about all those that we do not know about? We see that in Part 1 those particular issues are addressed.

I will talk about the new Part 6, “Information matching”, which is proposed to be inserted in the principal Act by clause 5. It talks about what matching will be going on and why we are doing that. For example, the purpose of the information matching is to “verify the entitlement or eligibility of any person to or for any benefit”. Housing New Zealand Corporation will share its information with the Ministry of Social Development in order that the ministry can verify whether a particular person is, in fact, eligible for a benefit. It would be a State house tenant. The corporation would provide the ministry with information about the tenancy—for instance, the name of the tenant, other names the tenant may use, the physical address where the tenant lives, the start and end date and weekly rent of the tenancy, the tenant’s income, and any address or other details that it may be appropriate to share—in order that the ministry can verify whether the person is eligible for another social welfare benefit of some sort.

The ministry will, first of all, verify the tenant’s entitlement. Second, once the tenant has an entitlement, the ministry will verify the value of the entitlement. It may be $10 a week, it may be $50 a week, or it may be a State house—or the tenant may be on the take wherever and whenever he or she can be. So it is a matter not just of verifying the entitlement as a matter of fact but also of verifying the amount of any benefit to which the person is or was entitled, or to which any person is or was eligible. The third reason that National supports this information-matching bill is not only to verify the entitlement and verify the amount of the entitlement but also to recover debts due to the Crown. We must appreciate that within the State house sector, sometimes debts are drummed up. They are owed to the Crown. The Minister’s collection agency has not been on the ball, and debts build up—for example, back rent where a portion of rent is to be paid to the corporation, or any other debts that have accrued.

Other debts could accrue where there has been damage to the home that the tenant cannot demonstrate is everyday wear and tear, expected maintenance, or some other understandable accident that has occurred either internally in the property or externally on the grounds. So debts can be drummed up. If a door or a wall is kicked in or if glass is broken from the inside because of rough play, debts can build up. Essentially, in some cases, it comes down to vandalism. The thought that New Zealand taxpayers could give the privilege of a home to a State house tenant, who then vandalises it, is a hard one for New Zealanders to deal with. It does not happen very often, but it does happen on occasion. The ratbags that perpetrate that sort of activity and damage homes, and who claim high-value entitlements they are not entitled to, ought to be caught up with, and that is what this bill will do.

So this bill, which is similar to the bill National proposed and Labour opposed in 1999, is a very good bill, indeed. The National team will, of course, be addressing part by part the details of this legislation. Again, I welcome the Minister back into the Chamber—into this debating chamber. We look forward to him answering the specific questions on the bill that National will have for him. He needs to remember that because National did all the research on this matter in 1998 and 1999, and because we did all the hard slog and groundwork, putting blood, sweat, and tears into it, we have a very, very acute understanding of the implications of each of its clauses. So I hope the Minister has been well briefed during the aeroplane flight back from overseas. I hope that he took time out from his first-class travel to talk to his officials back in the baggage compartment, and to receive a good briefing on this legislation.

I would also like to talk about the new section 69, “Information and details to be disclosed”, which is in the new Part 6 being inserted into the principal Act by clause 5. The examples in that section are very, very detailed, and I would like to take the opportunity to speak about them later.

BOB CLARKSON (National—Tauranga): This bill is quite a good idea, but it needs more teeth. I think the information should be going both ways, between the Ministry of Social Development and the Housing New Zealand Corporation. The corporation should get the information from social services, as this would help to catch a lot of multi-benefits that are being paid out when they should not have to be paid out. I know of many cases where one household is receiving two or three benefits, and the recipients are all using the same address—just so members know—and that could be picked up quite easily.

Lindsay Tisch: It’s unacceptable.

BOB CLARKSON: That is right.

I do worry about whether the Labour Government can be trusted with more information, if it were given, after David Benson-Pope—the honourable, if he is—sent a letter to 60,000 State house tenants telling them that if National got into Government, all tenants would be kicked out of their State houses. How did he get that information? I did not think we could get this information. [Interruption] The member should just keep quiet. I am trying hard here. I have a lot to say about nothing.

I suggest we change the name of this bill to “Custer’s Last Stand”—I mean, “Carter’s Last Stand”; I had better get that right. The whole State housing sector is a mess, and badly needs sorting out. There must be a better way, and the National Government will find it, with my help of course. We will help the disadvantaged and still make it affordable. We will not tell Mr Anderton in the House about where I will sell State houses.

Hon Pete Hodgson: You’re in favour of everything that’s good and against everything that’s bad. Is that right?

BOB CLARKSON: Just keep talking; it fills up my 5 minutes. We have 7,000 houses with boarders living in them who are not paying one dollar to the Housing New Zealand Corporation to help lessen its major drain on taxpayers. We have high-income earners in State houses. What is going on? I thought those houses were a hand up, not a handout.

The Government should wake up. Labour Government members have been in the House for 6½ years, I have been here for only 8 months, and all I hear is damn excuses—I would have said “bloody excuses”, but that would be rude—and the Government still has not got it right. Even the name of the bill needs changing, as I said. If this bill made everything transparent, which we hoped it would do, Labour would be in deep trouble. The rip-offs and waste are shocking. The public would be shocked. To finish, I say that we support the bill, but it should go a lot further.

PAULA BENNETT (National): I rise to speak in support of the bill and to ask a few questions. First of all, I will deal with the Green minority view in the commentary on the bill. The Greens say that they oppose the bill because they are: “concerned by the proliferation of information-matching programmes operating between Government agencies and the intrusion this represents into the personal lives of New Zealanders …” who are on welfare. My answer to that would be, quite simply, for people not to be on welfare, then their lives will not be intruded upon, they can get on and live their lives their way, and they can look after themselves.

I certainly support information sharing because I think it has the opportunity to—

Phil Heatley: It’s our bill.

PAULA BENNETT: Well, it is our bill; that is right. We brought the bill in in 1999 but it did not have the support of the Labour Party, so it is good to see it come back and to progress it this time.

This bill gives us the opportunity to look at the information that is coming from individuals to the Housing New Zealand Corporation and through to the Ministry of Social Development. But it is a one-way information-matching system. The Social Services Committee, which I sit on, was given four reasons for the necessity of that matching: first, to assist the ministry in minimising and recovering beneficiary and student debt from benefit and allowance overpayments; second, to provide early intervention in cases that could result in the creation of substantial debt; and, third, to assist in the detection of fraud and to help people track those who are in debt to the ministry. We think these are all extremely admirable reasons, because we all know the trap that some welfare beneficiaries can get themselves into when they find themselves unable to survive on the money they receive. They get further and further into debt, and it creates a vacuum that they cannot get out of. We hope this information sharing is done not to beat up the welfare beneficiary who is trying to do the best he or she can but instead is done to stop the problem before it starts, so that someone is not in that perpetual cycle of dependency and debt, which is the situation of so many people.

I have to say, though, that National does have a concern with the rorts in the system. We can hide our heads in the sand for so long, but the reality is that rorts are there. Someone who lives in the area that I look after for the National Party wrote to me the other day, stating that she was on a list to get a Housing New Zealand Corporation house and that she wanted some support to be bumped up the list. She wanted her information to be carried over. I asked the person what was so unique about her that she needed to have support from the Government. She looked at me, completely stonewalled, and, with a shocked look on her face, said it was because she wanted a State house. I asked her what was so unique about her that she should be bumped up, above other people, in order to get what is in all cases a benefit for those who are the most needy. She could not answer me. She then marched back to my office a few days later with a letter in her hand, which she flashed in my face, and said she now had a letter from another MP who said she should be bumped up the list. I have to say that that is of some concern, certainly to us in the National Party. Is a State house allocated on the basis of need or is it allocated to the person who shouts the loudest? We need State housing, and no one denies that it is an important part of New Zealand’s social services, but let us make sure that people are getting a State house because of genuine need. That is what really starts raising some questions for me.

The fact that there are people earning over $50,000 a year who are in a State house just seems incredulous to me. We all know—and I am sure the Minister would agree—that there are people who are not on that sort of money who would benefit from being in a State house, but instead we have families that are rorting the system and taking houses away from those who most need them. We need to start shaking some cages and watching people. We need that shaking-tree effect. I think we need to start going at it a bit harder in order to see what can be done.

Information sharing has been raised by the Greens and a couple of other individuals as being about people’s rights—they say it will scare people, it is not fair, and everything else. Unless we start asking some of the hard questions then we will not be supporting those who genuinely need support the most. I challenge the Minister as to whether he is asking those sorts of hard questions. National supports this bill purely because it increases transparency and openness. Those are things the National Party hugely advocates.

Hon CHRIS CARTER (Minister of Housing): I thank the previous speaker, Paula Bennett, the National list member. I thought her speech was a thoughtful presentation that raised some important questions, and I will focus on a few of them and on the points she raised.

Miss Bennett asked whether State housing is allocated on a needs-based assessment. I can assure her it is. Since 1999 the allocation of houses for Housing New Zealand Corporation tenants has been entirely on a needs base. There is quite a rigorous test. I represent a constituency that adjoins where her office is, and both of us know well that we live in an area that has the largest Housing New Zealand Corporation waiting list in the country. I regularly have people coming into my office—as does Miss Bennett, as she indicated in her speech—who are very unhappy that they have not yet been able to access a Housing New Zealand Corporation house in west Auckland, because we do follow a very strict needs assessment. Sadly, because of the 13,000 houses that were sold by the previous Government, we are behind in the number of properties we have available to rent out, but we are rapidly catching up.

The issue of wealthy tenants was also raised by the member. It is true that some people pay market rents—about 10 percent of Housing New Zealand Corporation tenants. But they are tenants we inherited, by and large, from a previous time when people were paying large rents and the selection for State houses was made not on a needs basis but on the ability to pay. I can say that 98 percent of new tenants are not paying market rents but income-related rents—they have been placed in a Housing New Zealand Corporation house on a needs basis only. In some areas, particularly rural areas, we do not have a waiting list, so properties are available there that sometimes do go to market renters. But, as I said, 98 percent of new tenants are paying income-related rents, showing that the system of helping those who need help the most is working. But we are still working on the stock.

Anyway, getting back to the bill itself—although I think that background information is important—I will say that there was a lot of focus by the first two speakers on what are essentially rorts to the system. This bill will actually be very helpful for beneficiaries who are Housing New Zealand Corporation tenants. It will ensure that beneficiaries are receiving the full entitlement to social assistance, and the Ministry of Social Development will be able to check that Housing New Zealand Corporation tenants are receiving their correct entitlements. Should Housing New Zealand Corporation tenants move into private rental accommodation, they will then, through the system, be able to be checked as to whether an accommodation supplement is appropriate to their needs.

So this bill is about streamlining the system. It is about identifying where the greatest need is. One of the issues many members of the Committee will have had to deal with in their time as constituency MPs is that of people who run up debts through social welfare overpayments. That does happen sometimes. This debt can be neglected very easily, and suddenly people who are on a very low income or a benefit can discover that they have, through an overpayment process, quite a considerable debt on their hands. This system of matching databases will go a long way to preventing that situation from happening, and, of course, will ultimately be very beneficial to those who have received overpayments so as to nip the thing in the bud as early as possible. So I think it is a very sensible process. I thank the main Opposition party for supporting the bill, and I am looking forward to us working through this process fairly quickly.

LINDSAY TISCH (National—Piako): This is a good bill. It had its genesis back in 1999, when National tried at that time to introduce a bill in order to bring about the transparency and accountability that my colleague Paula Bennett spoke about earlier. It is good that the Minister has acknowledged National’s support for this bill. Other speakers from National will also articulate our position on it.

If we go back in time 6½ or 7 years, when Labour did not support the previous bill, we have to ask why it is introducing this measure now. Why did Labour not support the previous bill in 1999? Was it just because National was in Government and Labour was in Opposition that Labour thought that bill was a bad idea? The same sort of thing could be said now that National is in Opposition, so maybe we should just vote against the bill. But no, this bill has merit because, as my colleagues have said, it will bring about transparency and accountability. It will make sure that there is a matching of information between Housing New Zealand Corporation and the Ministry of Social Development. It is certainly our view that that is advantageous.

There have been rorts, and we want to make sure that any assistance that goes with housing is based on need. If rorts are happening, then they need to be sorted out. The matching of information must be very much part of the process. We do not want to have abuse of the system—there has been too much of that. We actually want the rorts to be sorted out, and we want to see exactly how the process will work.

Section 67, “Purpose of section 68”, inserted by clause 5, spells out the situation very well. Section 67(a) states: “verify the entitlement …”. That is very important. What are tenants entitled to? Are they getting the right entitlement? Time and time again constituents come to see me who do not really know what they are entitled to. It is not until we act on their behalf that we find out what they are entitled to and eligible for. That is fine. If we can help them in that respect, that is well and good. So section 67(a) refers to the verification of the entitlement or eligibility. The second point, in section 67(b), is about verifying the amount of benefit people are entitled to. With all the different benefits that are available, the provision in its totality deals with the benefits a person is entitled to. Thirdly, section 67(c) refers to the recovery of debts due to the Crown. Many people think it is their right, rather than a privilege, to have a State house. They think that is their right. They can do damage. They have no respect for what they have been given by the State and by us as taxpayers, and then debts are incurred. We say we need to have accountability.

I want to give an example that I think demonstrates that. In my earlier days, when I left university, I flatted with a widow. She had a young child. Her mother, who had a three-bedroom State house, did not live in her State house. She did not live there at all; she actually came and lived with the daughter. There was a three-bedroom State house that had nobody in it, yet there were families at that time who would have been overjoyed had they been able to have access to it. In the meantime, because the house was vacant, it was vandalised. I went around there on occasions to try to tidy the place up—to mow the lawns, and do things like that—yet the house became vandalised because there was no tenant. But would that person give that house up? No, she would not. She did not live in it during the 1-year period that I was flatting with that couple, but she did not give the house up, because it was her home. Yet there were very worthy families that could have moved into that three-bedroom home located in a nice part of Hamilton.

So National is fully supportive of this bill. Information sharing between the ministry and the corporation is the way to go. We believe that the bill will break down secrecy, and facilitate transparency and accountability. It will bring together the sharing of information so that everybody benefits and, where there are rorts, those rorts can be determined and ironed out. The matching of data is something National has supported. We also say that the identification of need is the criterion we should use to maximise and crystallise the argument—that the people who are worthy of support should receive it, and we should not have people who want to rip the system off. As my colleague Bob Clarkson said, there are numerous examples of people living in State houses and collecting more than one benefit—in fact, a number of benefits. Even my colleague Phil Heatley has identified that in this Chamber previously.

So National is very pleased to be able to support this bill. It is long overdue. As I said, it had its genesis back in 1999, and we are happy that it is proceeding through the Committee stage tonight.

NATHAN GUY (National): It is interesting to listen to this debate as we go through the Committee stage this evening. I guess I have to raise the question about the relationship we want to forge with the Housing New Zealand Corporation and the Ministry of Social Development. When we look at the triangle, we need to look at the relationship with the Labour Party during the last election campaign, when eviction notices went out to all those State housing tenants. We have to ask ourselves how that information got out. Was it through the Housing New Zealand Corporation?

Paula Bennett: We’ve asked the question.

NATHAN GUY: We have asked the question. It would be great for the Minister to take a call this evening to let us and the listeners know so we can clear that up, once and for all, because the information has come to a bit of a dead end. It is very hard to find out the answer to that question that everyone has asked. All those thousands of eviction notices went out to tenants during the campaign, and we do not know who did it. So here we are forging ahead with this bill this evening and trying to open up the transparency between the Housing New Zealand Corporation and the Ministry of Social Development, and I think that is a fundamentally correct action. This was a National initiative back in 1999. So it is great that the Government has decided to bring it to everyone’s attention now. I think it is wonderful. It has taken a fair while to get here, though.

I need to acknowledge the hard work my colleague Phil Heatley is doing in this portfolio; it is outstanding. He is exposing the rorts that many speakers this evening have alluded to. I need to touch on a few of them. We have had illegal immigrants living in State houses. I believe we have had tenants growing dope in their backyards. We have had families earning over $70,000 who have been able to live in a State house. I believe that the information-matching measures in this bill will tidy up some of that.

It is interesting also to look at the minority view of the Green Party, which is opposed to this bill because it has concerns mainly around intrusion into people’s personal lives. But I believe we have to work through that, because so many rorts are happening with Housing New Zealand that need to be sorted out. So I think it is important to acknowledge the Green Party’s view, but this bill will actually go on to address further the people who are ripping the system off.

That, fundamentally, is what this bill will do. It will protect people’s privacy rights but also allow the Housing Corporation and the Ministry of Social Development to work closely together to work out who is entitled to what, who is getting what, and who is ripping off the system. The good member for Whangarei has worked very, very hard in exposing all of the rorts that are happening in State houses throughout New Zealand, and that is the biggest issue.

Also, we need to look at the debts the Crown is not currently recovering—thousands and thousands of dollars in debts. I think the collection agency needs to have a ruddy bullet fired in its direction to make sure it is actually collecting the debts. We have a whole lot of issues around back-rent and around damage done to homes.

So I would like the Minister to take another call and iron out this question that I and many New Zealanders have about how the Labour Party was able to get information out in the election campaign—to send out a false eviction notice to all the tenants in Housing Corporation houses throughout New Zealand. Now the Government is working on a little triangle, fostering a better relationship between the Housing New Zealand Corporation, the Ministry of Social Development, and Labour. Let us hear the Minister take a call and iron out that issue once and for all—the issue of who supplied the information, where the Government got it from, and whether it will happen again.

PAULA BENNETT (National): As a member of the Social Services Committee that looked at this bill, I would like to help the Committee on a couple of matters. One in particular is the Housing New Zealand Corporation database and how that information got into the hands of the Labour Party so it could distribute that material as a scaremongering tactic—which very much describes Labour’s tactics during the election campaign. Interestingly enough, the corporation’s officials made no response when we asked how its database came to be used by Labour. This raised quite some concern for the National Party, as the corporation deals with information, and the bill is about information sharing and information matching. We asked the corporation—given that something is already so wrong with its database that information could get into the wrong hands and be used maliciously, as it was during the campaign—what this means as far as information matching and this bill are concerned. Well, everyone looked at each other rather sideways and gulped three times, but no one could actually come up with any answers.

I ask for a bit of caution. I certainly follow on from the previous speaker, Nathan Guy, in asking the Minister to take a call on this matter, because it is a vitally important question that I think New Zealanders need to have answered. We are talking about information matching, about a database, and about sharing information between departments. We need to be careful that people’s information is being treated with the respect it deserves. Obviously, we have seen an actual case of that information having been used in a way—

Phil Heatley: For political purposes.

PAULA BENNETT: It has been used purely for political purposes, as my colleague Phil Heatley says. As a consequence, one does need to think about how respect for people’s information is observed.

I am a real advocate for those who need help at times in their lives when they are perhaps struggling and find themselves in a situation they did not expect—being widowed, raising children on their own due to circumstances that are outside their control, or losing their job through changes within an industry. They have the opportunity to receive a handout from the State so that they can get through that part and get on with the rest of their lives. I know personally the sense of self-satisfaction one can have from being in the workforce and looking after oneself and one’s own. I caution that when we are matching information and making sure that people receive what they perhaps need to get them through such times, we do not turn this country into a welfare-dependent State.

National is certainly looking at second and third generation Housing New Zealand Corporation tenants. We say that, by all means, we should help those who cannot help themselves in times of need. But let us be very careful that we are not turning this country into a place that has intergenerational dependency, where people lose the aspiration to get ahead and do something for themselves, because there is nothing like the sense of self-belief that people have when they can look after themselves and provide a role model for others. I passionately believe that the only way to avoid that dependency is through paid work, and I recognise the work the Government is doing in many areas as it pushes towards payment towards paid work.

However, I would like the Minister to answer the question of how the database information that was used for malicious purposes at election time came to be released. The matter is certainly of some concern to the National Party. We have asked questions officially and through the select committee. We have not had responses to those questions, at all. In fact, when we met with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner about this matter and asked its officials questions around the issue, they could not answer the question as to how that information had got out, either. Moving forward, I would like to address other parts of this bill later in the Committee stage, but now I ask the Minister to give us some verification on the matters I have raised.

Hon PETE HODGSON (Minister of Health): I move, That the question be now put.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): I have not heard from Mr Locke and the Green Party.

KEITH LOCKE (Green): I take Paula Bennett’s point that we want to help people get on in life and help those who are in poorer circumstances, as many in Housing New Zealand Corporation properties are. But I do not think we will do that by putting any negative attitude on people who happen to be in State-provided accommodation as against private accommodation. We need the attitude that a good State house is as good as any other house, any other rental property, and, hopefully, any private owner-occupied property.

We have a tradition, going back to the first State houses in 1938, of New Zealanders living in State houses often for long periods of time and really treating them as their own—treating them well and doing the gardens. The State house suburbs that developed in New Zealand have nurtured many of the people in this room, I understand. John Key lived in a State house himself, although he has more recently taken a somewhat negative attitude to State houses in opposing the building of State houses in the Hobsonville development in his electorate. That was a bit of a put-down of State houses. Unfortunately, in some other instances when areas are being planned, people try to impose conditions that no State housing can be developed in those areas or that no State housing tenants can live there.

So there is a certain negative attitude afoot. I think this bill in some ways—even if only minor ways—contributes to that negative attitude, because the data-matching will occur between Work and Income and the Housing New Zealand Corporation, so it will apply only to people who are on benefits and happen to be in State-provided accommodation. There is no parallel matching—and of course that would be difficult—between Work and Income and those people in private rental accommodation.

So there is an inequality there. The Greens are concerned, and issues of privacy have been raised. There are so many matching programmes now; they are expanding year by year. The Privacy Commissioner has indicated a certain concern that the more programmes there are, the more abuse there can be in the system, too. The people who operate these data-matching agencies—the State employees—are human beings and can misuse the agencies, as other human beings do in society. This data-matching system is not necessary, and as the minority report from the Green Party states, the Ministry of Social Development can obtain the information required for benefits through informed consent rather than by imposing this highly computerised data-matching system. There is no demonstrated need for this legislation at this time. It is leading us down the wrong track and placing a negative attitude on those who happen to be State house tenants.

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 38 in the name of the Hon Chris Carter to Part 1 be agreed to.

Amendments agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That Part 1 as amended be agreed to.

Ayes 109

New Zealand Labour 50; New Zealand National 48; New Zealand First 7; United Future 3; Progressive 1.

Noes 8

Green Party 6; Māori Party 2.

Part 1 as amended agreed to.

Part 2 Consequential amendments to Privacy Act 1993

PHIL HEATLEY (National—Whangarei): I rise to talk about Part 2. I have to inform the Committee that I have had some formal discussions with my colleagues on this side of the Chamber and I want the Committee to take into account that we have come to an agreement. Should the Minister choose to answer the questions put by Nathan Guy and Paula Bennett on the source of the State house tenants’ personal details that went to the Labour Party during the last election campaign so it could direct-mail the tenants threatening letters, we would give leave to that if the Chairman felt it was not within the scope of this particular part. We are relaxed about it being in the scope, if the Minister wants to address it. If the Minister wants to seek leave so he can address it and put to death those issues, then this side of the Committee will absolutely support that, because we would like answers, as would the State house tenants who lived in a climate of fear for those 2 months leading up to the last general election, and, of course, the general public as well.

Part 2, “Consequential amendments to Privacy Act 1993”, is a reasonably simple and necessary part that deals with the definition of the specified agency that will be involved in the information matching. In this legislation, we are not passing that every Government agency be able or obliged to share information with the Ministry of Social Development. We could not have that; we could not have every single agency being rash and free with the personal information held dear by Kiwis within the privacy of their lives and homes. We could not have that information splashing around the Internet, across the Minister’s desk, or in the information presented to the Labour Party president every month. What we are talking about here, of course, is just information relating to the Housing New Zealand Corporation.

More important, clause 6, “Interpretation” states: “(2) The definition of specified agency is … the Housing New Zealand Corporation established”—and people will recall this—“(as the Housing Corporation of New Zealand) by section 3(1) of the Housing Corporation Act 1974:”. So there is a play around with words there on the Housing New Zealand Corporation and the Housing Corporation of New Zealand. We are being specific here so that we would not be caught up somehow in the future, if the courts establish that the wrong organisation was involved in information sharing with the Ministry of Social Development. Thank goodness for Part 2.

This part, interestingly enough, formed one of the amendments that I was going to present tonight if the Minister and his officials had not covered it off, but—of course—they had, in the bill that was presented to the House before the select committee looked at it. The Minister’s officials were on the ball there. The Minister did not have to catch them out—I certainly did not catch them out—and the National Party will be cooperative in addressing that particular issue.

We also see clause 7, where schedule 3 is amended by inserting: “in its appropriate alphabetical order, the following item: Housing Restructuring and Tenancy Matters Act 1992”. So schedule 3, after the passing of this legislation, will contain the Housing Restructuring and Tenancy Matters Act 1992 under section 68. That relates to the Ministry of Social Development and the issue of information sharing.

In summing up for this particular part, I will read a letter that was sent in mid-June. It states: “Dear Mr Brash, Thank you for pressing on with your investigations in Housing New Zealand. I’m thrilled to bits with this bill that will enable tenants of Housing New Zealand to be investigated, and that, of course, is investigated if necessary.” This particular person will remain confidential, because we have not passed an Act in this Parliament that allows me to brandish names here, there, and everywhere. I can, of course do it inside the House, but I am not Winston Peters; I am just not going to do it. That person acknowledges that Dr Brash and the National Party in 1999 first of all brought in these provisions, and we thank the Minister for passing them through this stage today.

PAULA BENNETT (National): I rise to talk about Part 2, “Consequential amendments to the Privacy Act 1993”, which amends the definition of specified agency in the Housing Restructuring and Tenancy Matters Act. The question I have as well, which is within the scope of clause 6, “Interpretation”, amending the definition of “specified agency”, is whether anything will be happening with the move to one benefit. I know that the single core benefit—relating to entitlements—is not quite within this part but is within parts of the part. When we move to this single core benefit, can the Minister in the chair, Chris Carter, see what will result when there is one benefit with different parts to it—for example, the accommodation supplement? I wonder whether the Minister has discussed with the Ministry of Social Development how that will happen, given the changes that are going on concerning accommodation allowances, and so on. My own conversations with the ministry and the Minister have suggested that they are not quite sure how this will work; and they have been talking for a long time about moving to the single core benefit. I wonder what, if they have not quite got it right, the provisions about information sharing and the specified agency will mean for those people.

It is fine for us to stand up here and spout about entitlements and say that people should be getting what they deserve, and what they need to survive, but let us talk about some of the theory and the actual practice. The practice at the moment is not clear-cut. certainly the intention of going to the single core benefit is to make it more simple, but I do not know whether that will happen in practice. At the moment, I can see that we will be having conflicts about information sharing, anyway. I ask whether the Minister has thought through how, when we actually change the system, it will meet the information-sharing requirements. That is something the National Party certainly has concerns about. As I said previously, it is incredibly important that people get the help they need while they need it, so they can then move on and live more fulfilling lives and have more aspirations—and perhaps not live in a State house for the rest of their lives.

I take umbrage at a previous speaker who said there should be no difference between living in a State house and living somewhere else. I challenge that, and say I think there should be. I think people should aspire for more for themselves and their families. We in the National Party do not apologise for that. We do not apologise for wanting more for New Zealand—and more for New Zealanders—than having to be dependent on the State. We are not about to start apologising for that now.

So when members say there should be no differentiation and that it should all be the same and we should not be judging people—and there has been talk about entitlements and social development and so on—the reality is that people are on welfare and they are getting help from the taxpayer. They deserve it and, as I said, I have no qualms at all about those needing housing, but let us not start apologising for the aspiration of wanting more for New Zealanders.

There is this crying, bleeding-heart attitude that we need to be looking after everybody’s rights and making sure that everyone is getting everything. Let us make sure we are helping people who need it—in the short term. What is happening is that it is becoming longer and longer, and so we have intergenerational welfare dependency, with people losing that aspiration, in thinking that what they have got is OK—and it is not; they can actually do better than OK. They can actually have more than just “OK”, and they can do better than living in a State house for the rest of their lives, and then their kids’ lives, and then the kids after that. The National Party is the party that stands up and advocates for more for people and sees them having dreams and aspirations and getting off welfare and getting out of their State house. I do not want my information shared, in all honesty. So I am just not going to be in a situation where I need to do that.

Hon Marian Hobbs: John Key and I both moved out of State housing.

PAULA BENNETT: Thank goodness! What happened with him was that the next generation came along and they aspired for more. Look what can happen. I can hear exactly what the Labour Party members are saying, but look what can happen with aspiration, dreams, and hard work—people can turn themselves into someone else. So all strength and recognition to someone like John Key for getting that guidance from a parent who took help from the State while it was needed, but aspired for more for the children.

Hon Marian Hobbs: But what about the next generation?

PAULA BENNETT: Members should look at that next generation and see what happened to them with a bit of aspiration and hope.

BOB CLARKSON (National—Tauranga): The Housing Restructuring Act badly needs things included, but National members will live with the amendments that are in this Housing Restructuring and Tenancy Matters (Information Matching) Amendment Bill. I worry that if the Government gets more information, it might go into overload.

The Government has made a mess of the Housing New Zealand Corporation in the last 6½ years, and I ask how it will improve its performance. The Housing New Zealand Corporation is wasting vast amounts of money at the moment, and has been doing so for years. Yes, this bill will help, but it will not solve all the problems. I am not going to tell Labour how to fix the problems, at the moment; I will, with the National Party’s and Phil Heatley’s approval, tell it what to do, before the next election. The Labour Party members should wait with bated breath. In fact, some of the members on the other side of the House today were taking swipes at me. They got their facts wrong; they must be hooked into the wrong phone or something.

Labour currently has 11,000 people on the waiting list. I hear these figures being twisted around in the House. But is it not strange that when National went out of power in 1999, there were only 14 families on the urgent waiting list in Auckland? [Interruption] Down, boys! This system needs sorting. As I said, this bill and its amendments will help, but I do not think the taxpayers will be happy to wait and hope that the Labour Government sorts out this major problem. It is costing the taxpayers thousands of dollars. Let us clean this mess up. If we can stop the rorts, we might be able to lessen dramatically the Housing New Zealand Corporation funding.

I look forward to making the Act much better when National is in Government. When we change it, the new name of it will be “Housing for Kiwis in Need Act”.

PHIL HEATLEY (National—Whangarei): I endorse the comments of my colleague Bob Clarkson, MP for Tauranga. Certainly—and I use that word “certainly” as something I picked up from Parekura—there is much to do in the State housing sector. I am unsure whether the Housing Restructuring and Tenancy Matters (Information Matching) Amendment Bill will do all the things National wants to do, but we will be targeting some things. We would have used some of these provisions to target Kiwis in need.

There are Kiwi families up and down this country who are in genuine need. Many are in dire financial straits, and all they need is financial help and a roof over their heads—often for just a short time—so they can get on with supporting themselves. Through hearing some of the comments from the Minister Chris Carter tonight and by reading press releases relating to this bill, we see that Labour would rather help those people but keep them in dependency. I do not think it is a deliberate, malicious effort by the Government or its Ministers to keep those people in dependency, but because of the Government’s ignorance and unwillingness to look further at people’s potential, it does, in fact, by default, keep them in dependency. We cannot have a country where the Government provides welfare to an extent that it goes to first, second, and third generations.

The cynical amongst us would say that welfare is cash for votes—that it is cash for votes when Labour tosses out money in New Plymouth just to keep Harry Duynhoven’s majority above 20,000 votes. There are cynical people in this House who would say that Labour would keep people on welfare just to save Marian Hobbs’ seat and to compensate for the Karori Wildlife Sanctuary debacle that she oversaw. But we in the National Party are saying no—whether it is State housing, the domestic purposes benefit, the unemployment benefit, or any other benefit. Benefits are there to help people for a time while they are in need. Labour members do not believe in that, but National members certainly do.

It is a sad thing that list members on the other side of the House, who are replacing the whips—who could not organise a vote for the dog microchipping legislation last week—came in to Government on the back of the votes of many of those receiving a benefit. Some of the people receiving a benefit believe that the key to their continuing on the benefit is a vote for the Labour Party. Labour members believe that the key to their remaining in power is to throw more benefits to those people. It is a dependency culture—the Labour Party depends on the beneficiary, and the beneficiary depends on the Labour Party. It is a sad thing when welfare goes past need and ventures into generation after generation of State dependency. Harry Duynhoven, the member for New Plymouth, and Marian Hobbs, the member for Wellington Central—stumbling in the seat though she is—should be ashamed of that.

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

PHIL HEATLEY: That is essentially why the National Party supports this part.

Part 2 agreed to.

Clauses 1 and 2

BOB CLARKSON (National—Tauranga): Is this the title debate now?

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): This is clauses 1 and 2. I have called the member; is he taking the call? The member should take the call. It is wide ranging, Mr Clarkson, so you have plenty of room and scope.

BOB CLARKSON: I have not had much dinner, and that is the problem; I am not thinking clearly. I am pleased to speak on this Housing Restructuring and Tenancy Matters (Information Matching) Amendment Bill. As I said before, the bill needs a different name. During the break I came up with another one. I suggest that it should be called the “Housing Recovery from Rip-offs (Carter’s Second Attempt) Bill”. I have studied State housing and houses for the last 18 months. By the way, 18 months is longer than I have been here. It shocks me how the Government has allowed a major waste of money in many areas of this field. The bureaucrats have failed, and there are no ifs or buts about that.

I myself have had vast experience in the house rental market and I know how State tenants can and will use all the tricks in the world to delay paying deposits or rent. They may say that mum and dad will pay the rent but they are out of town at the moment.

Shane Jones: The cheque’s in the mail!

BOB CLARKSON: That is right—that happens a lot. I myself did own a lot of houses and I know that does happen. The Hon David Benson-Pope has finally got something right—this is a good bill. The gentleman is not here to hear me say that. I have cases of three lots of tenants living in State houses, and I believe that they are all claiming rent subsidies or benefits. This bill will sort that out. I believe that we should help disadvantaged people—members should take note of that—but we should attack the ones who are ripping the system off. I think the Government will get a shock when it sees how many people are ripping off the system.

Jill Pettis: Name them.

BOB CLARKSON: If we get this bill going, we will certainly find those people. I know of cases where State house tenants are taking in boarders, and I believe that is a major problem throughout the country. In some cases the boarders pay rent that is then used to pay the Housing New Zealand Corporation. It is a stupid situation. It is a shocking situation and the people of New Zealand are sick and tired of it.

I also think the Housing New Zealand Corporation should pass incomes declared by tenants to the Inland Revenue Department for confirmation. The Inland Revenue Department could report back on any false income amounts and we might get some truth in the matter. If tenants are honest, they have nothing to fear. We are here to help them, if we get the right information. Any tenant who gives wrong information should be barred from having a State house.

Hon Judith Tizard: Forever?

BOB CLARKSON: Well, yes, until they die, then. This information sharing will also—why did members not laugh when I said that?

Phil Heatley: No sense of humour.

BOB CLARKSON: “Thick” is the word. The information sharing will also help to find people owing benefit debts to the Crown. The losses in the State house sector are terrible. I actually made a speech about that in the select committee the other day and got stuck into it. The losses are absolutely shocking. We should welcome anything that helps to fix that problem, and we should be pleased. National—and I want to make this point clear—is not against helping the disadvantaged. We just want a fair deal for all, and we want the Labour members to open their ears and listen instead of mouthing all the time. Let us get this bill through. National can make it even better later on. We support the bill.

JUDY TURNER (Deputy Leader—United Future): I want to take a very brief call in support of this bill. I think it is really important when we look at the bill’s title that we understand that what is happening here is information matching, not information sharing, which is a little bit different. What we have here is two Government departments in possession of important information, often about the same people, and they will be able to measure that information against each other to check whether any rort is going on. I think everybody would agree that that is important.

What the bill does not do is to pass on information to an organisation that did not previously have it. That is an important thing. In terms of future developments regarding information, when information is passed from one organisation to another, we need to be extremely careful. I am very glad that we have an Office of the Privacy Commissioner that offers the kind of advice it does to make sure that we keep ourselves in check in that regard.

United Future believes that this bill is really important, for two reasons. It is very important to match this information so that people are getting the entitlements they are due. Where people may perhaps be entitled to more than they understood they were, this is a way of isolating and identifying that those people may be short-changed. Of course, the second reason is that this measure provides us with the opportunity to make sure that people are not double-dipping in the system, which is to the detriment of the New Zealand taxpayer and to the detriment of other people who are in need of the services of Work and Income and the Housing New Zealand Corporation. We are very pleased to support the bill, we think it has merit, and we wish it well on its passage through the House.

PAULA BENNETT (National): I stand to support the Housing Restructuring and Tenancy Matters (Information Matching) Amendment Bill, and I am delighted to have the opportunity to speak a little more broadly on it than I have previously. I found it quite restrictive speaking within the parts, so I am sure the Minister of Housing, the Hon Chris Carter, will agree that it is nice for me to have the opportunity to talk a little about the bigger picture and what it means for this information-matching amendment bill to go through. I would certainly like the Minister to take a call and address for us, yet again, the issue of the single core benefit and the fact that it has been going through the throes and bureaucracy of Parliament for many, many years now, and still we keep being told it is coming, it is coming. I have questions as to how information matching—particularly when it comes to the entitlement part of the bill and ensuring that people are getting their dues—will work in relation to the benefit changes we are looking at with the single core benefit.

The other thing I am very keen for the Minister to talk a little about is how 60,000 letters were distributed via the Housing New Zealand Corporation’s database. There have been calls for the Minister to do that this evening, and I back my colleague the knowledgable and incredibly talented, when it comes to matters of housing, Phil Heatley. It has to be a concern, as far as the privacy of people’s information is concerned, that a malicious letter was sent out before the election campaign. It informed people that if a National Government were elected, they could expect to be thrown out of their State houses, which of course was not true. It was a complete and utter lie. What that did was to fill people with fear.

The question we need to ask, when we are looking at the issue of information matching, is where that information came from and how people gained access to it. We have asked those questions at the Social Services Committee and we asked the Privacy Commissioner about the matter, but we have been stalled and dead-ended. Those are important questions. Leaving aside the fact that the letter was intended to work against the National Party and that sort of thing, we need to look at the broader implications of that sort of knowledge being out there and what it means for the protection of a person’s right to privacy.

The Housing Restructuring and Tenancy Matters (Information Matching) Amendment Bill also talks about transparency and openness, which is something the National Party is delighted to be supporting. We like that level of transparency. We believe that information is power and that sharing it between the two departments makes sense. It makes so much sense that we tried to introduce something like this bill in 1999. Of course, it was National that saw that this bill would give the opportunity to open that up, and to have information going from one person in one department to the next. The ramifications are that this bill will benefit those people receiving welfare payments, because it means they can look at whether they are getting their full entitlement, and whether they are able to survive on that payment.

When it comes to income-related rents, it is always an interesting matter as to how much we help people with a hand up and not a handout. I know that the Minister addressed the matter earlier this evening, but I ask him yet again about the implications of second and third-generation welfare dependants coming through in relation to State housing. I unashamedly say that National has greater aspirations for them than that. Living on welfare and being in a State house is OK, and thank goodness such support is there for those who need that sort of assistance, but it is not the end, and it should not be the means, for those New Zealanders. They can aspire to having more, and we want to be able to take that idea to them and actually share it with them. Information sharing may actually help those people with that side of things.

My colleagues have certainly touched on the issue of welfare fraud a bit, and I agree that this bill will decrease the level of fraud—it will make it that little bit more difficult. Personally, I do not think a huge epidemic of welfare fraud is going on throughout society; I think it concerns a smaller portion. The sad thing, of course, is that those few in the minority make things sound bad and give everyone a bad reputation. We certainly believe in the carrot and stick approach, and this legislation gives an opportunity for us to come down hard on those who actually are rorting the system and taking money from those who really do need it and do deserve it. The facts are that when we spend a dollar on someone who is receiving it illegally and wrongly, it is a dollar taken from someone else who, possibly, really does need it to get by, and who deserves it.

Hon CHRIS CARTER (Minister of Housing): I would like to make a short contribution, first of all to thank the National Party and those other parties in the Chamber that will be supporting this legislation, which is, as the member for United Future said, about a data-sharing programme that will ultimately benefit those in State houses who may well not be receiving the full entitlement they are entitled to. The bill is also to avoid that serious issue I spoke about earlier, whereby people can, inadvertently, be overpaid in their benefits. This will help to correct that sort of situation. So it is very pleasing to hear some positive comments from the Opposition.

Of course, we did hear a number of other, rather foolish things. I heard some comments earlier about boarders. I would like to remind the Committee that State house tenants have been able to have boarders since the 1970s. Sadly, a lot of the time between then and now was spent under a National Government, but National did nothing about it because—well, why would they? Two-thirds of boarders are family members, and who would want to deny the chance of a grandparent, a parent, or adult children to stay in a State house? As I said, that is a situation that has existed since the 1970s.

We also heard Mr Clarkson say some positive things about the need to give support to people who need it. I am sure I do not need to remind him that we do indeed have a list of 11,000 tenants who are waiting to get into social housing. The previous National Government sold 13,000 of those State houses. Did it sell them to the tenants? No! About a quarter went to tenants and three-quarters went to speculators. I wonder whether Mr Clarkson was one of those who bought some of those State houses. A great deal of money was made, of course, out of housing that was paid for by the taxpayers of New Zealand—and we have now a waiting list of 11,000 people. With those 13,000 houses we would have alleviated the need of New Zealanders today.

So I thank Opposition parties for their support for this legislation—those that are supporting it. I urge them to remember that social housing is something that all developed countries seek to provide in as best a way as they can. Just having returned this morning from the UK, where I attended a housing conference at York in the north of England, I was very pleased to see that the Housing New Zealand Corporation is at the cutting edge, internationally, of a really first-class service in providing houses to New Zealanders who have a housing need. It is a corporation that the Auditor-General’s report, just released to this Parliament a week ago, stated was doing a good job.

PHIL HEATLEY (National—Whangarei): In this last discussion around this bill I would like to reiterate that National is supporting the bill as the party that originally brought the idea to this Parliament in 1999. In turn, I thank the Minister, Chris Carter, and Labour members for supporting one of our ideas, and I ask the Minister to consider many others that we have rolling forward at the moment. It might interest him to wander off to England—to have some nice nights in restaurants and hotels, to enjoy the company, perhaps, of the royal family, or to do whatever the Minister does over there—but, clearly, if the Minister is adopting National policy, it would be easier to walk a mere 5 metres across this Chamber, get the ideas, and then pass them into legislation, as he has done with this Housing Restructuring and Tenancy Matters (Information Matching) Amendment Bill. So I thank the Minister for his support.

I would like to clarify the issues around boarders. Of course, National was aware while we were looking after the finances of New Zealand over that 9-year period that some State house tenants had boarders, and we were happy to have boarders in State houses. Who would deny a State housing family the right to have their 16-year-old kid in the house while he or she was studying at polytech? Of course, we would not. Who would deny State house tenants having their 75-year-old grandmother live at home with them? I guess if the Minister wants to label that person as a boarder, then who would deny that? Certainly, National would not.

We do not mind one or two boarders being in a State home, especially not family members who are in need, but my question to the Minister asked what was the maximum number of boarders that a State house tenant had in New Zealand. The answer was not three boarders, or four, or five, or even six. We have one tenancy in this country in which there are seven boarders under a State house roof. That is not a State house; that is a boarding house. That is a business. It is both a boarding house and a business. The Minister reported back to me that many State homes had four, five, and six boarders, and I have illustrated the worst situation where there were seven. I say that because New Zealanders, Kiwis, who pay their taxes, have asked me to say that. We never envisaged that we would be paying our taxes so that State house tenants who were not in need could have five, six, or seven boarders. That was not the intention. We as taxpayers provide State houses for families who are in need. People tell me that if families need to house a couple of extra relatives in the situations I have pointed out—the 16-year-old at polytech or grandma at home—then they accept that. But we do not accept the Minister providing State housing for five, six, or seven boarders. I tell members now that Kiwis will not put up with that, and it is not something that National believes in.

National does believe in this legislation, though, and that is why we support it. Information matching is very important—yes, for the reasons the Minister says, so that those who are in need can assure themselves that they are getting the full extent of taxpayer help when they are struggling. Information matching is also important to catch the ratbags who are ripping off mum and dad Kiwi workers who pay their taxes. Those workers have had enough of it. The majority of people in State houses are genuine, but some are ratbags. Sometimes they are second or third generation Labour Party voters who have been caught up in the cycle of welfare dependency—who have been trapped by Mr Chris Carter and his colleagues. When members throw out the hook of welfare, those people become fish who have been caught, and they will remain on the Government’s payroll for the rest of their lives. They will tell their kids to do the same, and their grandkids, as well. Of course, National has greater aspirations for those people than the Minister has.

So National supports this bill, and we support it for these two reasons—firstly, to make sure that those in need get what is required and, secondly, to catch the ratbags that the Minister would otherwise hook.

ANNE TOLLEY (National—East Coast): I rise to speak tonight in support of the Housing Restructuring and Tenancy Matters (Information Matching) Amendment Bill. I want to continue on from my colleague talking about the major intent of the amendment before the Committee tonight, which is to enable fraud to be detected by the matching of information. I spoke in the second reading debate, when this bill came back from the Social Services Committee, of an elderly gentleman who had visited me in my office in Gisborne. He was living in a State house and was having difficulty making ends meet. As he lived up on the East Coast, he was in a remote rural area where everything costs more—every time one goes to get fuel or food it costs more. So he was really struggling.

He was a delightful old gentleman and he said to me that he did not want to break the law. He was very grateful for the help the New Zealand taxpayer gives him, but he had the opportunity of having his nephew come and board with him, and that would help him pay the bills. He just wanted to make sure that that was legal. He appreciated the fact that he was in a State house and that he was on an income-related rent, and he wanted to make sure that he was working within the rules. Of course, he was within the rules by having only one person board with him.

This matter occupied the select committee when it tried to determine the lengths that some people will go to in order to get around the law. Looking back, we asked the officials questions about what the difference was between a tenant and a boarder. We also asked, in the light of the proposed information sharing between the Housing New Zealand Corporation and the Ministry of Social Development, whether those agencies would be able to pick up the sort of fraud perpetrated where there might be, for instance, joint tenants—two people in a joint tenancy of a State house. Under an income-related rent, a tenant can have one boarder. Therefore, one person could relinquish his or her tenancy and become a boarder, so that his or her income would not then count towards the income-related rent.

There is no way that this bill will address that sort of fraud. There is just no way that we can design a law that digs into people’s lives as deeply as that. It is a sad indictment on our welfare system that some people will go to such lengths to defraud the taxpayer. Unfortunately, what we are debating tonight cannot go to that level of detail to try to make sure that people are honest, but it can provide the information that will pick up those situations where more than one boarder is living in a State house.

I will just refer to a comment my colleague Phil Heatley made about a State house that might have five, six, or seven boarders. Having operated a private hotel for 6 years, and a bed and breakfast for 4 years, I know that under the laws of this country, if more than three people stay in a bed and breakfast overnight, there is a whole new ramp of fire regulations and health and safety requirements around the way that business operates, because the operator is selling accommodation. Therefore, I ask this Committee what the difference is between operating a bed and breakfast and operating a State house that has four or five boarders. It is dinner, bed, and breakfast at the expense of the taxpayer.

Bob Clarkson: And income tax, as well.

ANNE TOLLEY: Well, apart from the taxation purposes, there are no health and safety requirements expected of the person who is the tenant of that house and who is, therefore, responsible for the health and safety of the people who are staying in it.

I think that this bill is timely legislation to try to put an end to those sorts of rorts. National did try to bring this legislation in once, and we are very pleased that the Government has now seen sense.

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

Motion agreed to.

Clause 1 agreed to.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 38 in the name of the Hon Chris Carter to clause 2 be agreed to.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause 2 as amended agreed to.

Bill reported with amendment.

Report adopted.

Bills

Māori Purposes Bill

First Reading

Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA (Minister of Māori Affairs): I move, That the Māori Purposes Bill be now read a first time.

E tika ake anō, ki te mihi ake anō i a tātau katoa mai i te motu. E mihi kau ana i a rātau mō tēnei kōrero.

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

[It is apt indeed that I acknowledge us all from around the country. I acknowledge those as well who are to contribute to this debate.]

At the appropriate time I intend to move that the bill be considered by the Māori Affairs Committee, that the committee report back to the House on or before 21 November 2006, and that the committee have the authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting, except during oral questions and during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House, and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House, despite Standing Orders 195(b), 195(c), and 192.

This bill brings together amendments to a variety of legislation specifically related to Māori administration, Māori assets, and other Māori matters. The initial provisions amend the Treaty of Waitangi Act 1975 and implement a commitment to provide a statutory closing date for new historical claims for breaches of the Treaty of Waitangi and its principles. The bill sets this date as 1 September 2008, and all historical claims made by Māori must be registered with the Waitangi Tribunal by this time. Historical claims made by this date can, however, be amended after this date.

The Government believes that the bill will have a number of important consequences. Firstly, it will ensure that Māori determine once and for all the scope of our historical claims. It will mean we can then turn our focus and energy on to completing the research required to establish those claims properly before the tribunal prior to seeking a resolution and settlement of those claims in negotiations with the Crown. Settlements have provided many benefits to Māori, and it is time we focused on achieving a resolution to our historical claims so that those benefits can be enjoyed by all.

The bill will also provide finality for the rest of the community on the nature and scope of Māori claims for historical breaches by the Crown of the Treaty of Waitangi and its principles. The provisions do not affect contemporary claims or claims regarding the actions of the Crown after 21 September 1992. Based on historical claims registered with the Waitangi Tribunal so far, and taking into account the ability to amend claims and provide greater detail on the nature of a claim following registration, many iwi and hapū have already safeguarded their interests in the historical settlement process. The bill will ensure that the claim registration process is completed for all the country in a timely fashion. The gap between the passage of the bill and its implementation will also ensure that all Māori groups and individuals can be made aware of the requirement and can register their claims prior to the cut-off date.

The balance of the bill includes amendments to a number of Acts, including Te Ture Whenua Maori Act 1993, the Maori Fisheries Act 2004, and the Maori Commercial Aquaculture Claims Settlement Act 2004. The amendments reflect the increasing size and scope of the Māori asset base in the last two decades and the need to provide an effective legal framework within which those assets can be held and administered for the benefit of Māori. They also reflect the importance of ensuring that the legal framework is administered efficiently and with adequate resources.

The bill will amend Te Ture Whenua Maori Act to increase the statutory limit on the number of permanent judges of the Māori Land Court from the current eight to 14. The change reflects the increasing workload of the court as the Māori asset base increases and as Māori rights are extended. So far the court has coped with an increasing workload by the appointment of temporary judges, usually retired members of the court. This is only a stop-gap solution, as the increase in the workload of the court is a permanent one.

The Maori Fisheries Act and the Maori Commercial Aquaculture Claims Settlement Act each results from settlements between the Crown and Māori, and each includes additional specific roles for the Māori Land Court in dispute resolution. The Foreshore and Seabed Act 2004 requires the court to determine Māori customary interests in the foreshore and seabed. This bill will provide the Māori Land Court with the permanent judicial capacity it requires to perform those additional tasks.

The bill also provides for the Chief Judge of the Māori Land Court to delegate specific powers and functions to the Deputy Chief Judge, including the power of correction when there are errors or omissions in court orders. The Chief Judge of the Māori Land Court is also the chair of the Waitangi Tribunal. To ensure that both roles can be carried out effectively, it has long been the practice of Chief Judges to delegate specific functions and roles to the Deputy Chief Judge of the Court. Recent legal opinion suggests that there has been no specific legal provision for such delegation. The bill provides such authorisation and also validates the orders of correction that have been made in the past by Deputy Chief Judges.

In the final matter dealing with the Māori Land Court, the bill includes a provision validating the orders made by a temporary judge of the Court who continued in that role for a short period beyond the term of his temporary warrant in 2000. The total number of orders affected is 83 and includes succession and occupation orders. Those affected by the orders have acted on them, and challenges to their validity would be a significant inconvenience.

The bill will also deal with four issues arising from the passage of the Maori Fisheries Act and the Maori Commercial Aquaculture Claims Settlement Act. The first provision amends Te Ture Whenua Maori Act to clarify the role of the Māori Land Court in dispute resolution procedures under the Maori Fisheries Act and the Maori Commercial Aquaculture Claims Settlement Act. That will give the Māori owners of assets under those Acts clear options for dispute resolution procedures.

Two other provisions amend the Maori Fisheries Act. When the individual transferable quota system was introduced in 1986, provisional quota holders received a right to specified additional quota if the total allowable commercial catch for certain species was increased in the future. That provision, which is known as a section 28N right, has operated since 1986. When introduced it was capped at 20,000 tonnes, and only 3,000 tonnes remain to be allocated. When passed the Maori Fisheries Act did not make provision for the operation of that right. Without amendment that omission will have a negative impact on the allocation of quota shares to iwi by Te Ohu Kai Moana Trustee, by reducing the number of quota shares available over time. The amendment will ensure there is no inequality in that allocation process simply because one iwi receives its allocation at a later date than another.

It was the intention of iwi, Te Ohu Kai Moana Trustee, and the Government that claims over harbour quota covered by the Maori Fisheries Act were to be settled by agreement amongst iwi. In 2004 the Maori Commercial Aquaculture Claims Settlement Act allocated 20 percent of commercial aquaculture space to Māori. For this entitlement to be calculated correctly, a definition was required of the amount of coastal space that was currently exclusively occupied by commercial aquaculture.

Finally, one other matter is included in the bill. This is a provision to amend Te Ture Whenua Maori Act so that it complies with changes in accounting terminology under the Financial Reporting Amendment Act 1997.

In conclusion, I thank the many people who have been consulted on the provisions in the bill. I also note that the contents of the bill reflect the increasing size and importance of our economic base as a people. The asset base will continue to increase, and it is important that the legal framework within which those assets are administered and managed is as up to date and well resourced as we are able to achieve. I commend the bill to the House.

GERRY BROWNLEE (Deputy Leader—National): Those were fine words from the Minister of Māori Affairs, Parekura Horomia, in support of the bill—his first bill before Parliament in some 6 years! He is not a bad Minister when he sticks tightly to the script, but when he sticks tightly to the script he does not tell the full story.

Parliament provides a number of ways in which various legislative measures can be handled. For example, a Statutes Amendment Bill can gather together minor corrections to legislation and be put through Parliament on the agreement of the parties. Omnibus bills are another means by which disparate parts of legislation that are on pretty much the same topic but are larger than just minor amendments—although not big enough for a bill—can be put through, with the agreement of the House. Because this country is bedevilled by so much legislation that relates to all things Māori, there is also provision for a Māori Purposes Bill. One would think that a Minister of Māori Affairs would want to use such a bill somewhat sparingly—perhaps to make those statutory amendments that might be expected, or perhaps to change a section or two here or there, as one might use an omnibus bill. But surely one would not use it to carry Labour’s showcase legislation—the 2008 close-off of claims to the Waitangi Tribunal.

We know that when this bill comes back to the House it will be split into several parts for voting purposes. One part will relate to Te Ture Whenua Maori Act 1993, another to the Treaty of Waitangi Act 1975, and another to the Maori Fisheries Act 2004 that was passed by the House just recently. I signal now that National will go through the select committee process as a party. We will vote in favour of the changes to the Treaty of Waitangi Act, but we will be very reluctant to support those two other aspects of the bill.

I want to talk about those aspects. The first relates to changes to Te Ture Whenua Maori Act. Those are not inconsequential changes. They validate decisions made by the Chief Judge of the Māori Land Court—someone who had no right to make decisions about matters Māori, about matters that came before a court, and about matters that people would have thought were justly resolved by a duly appointed and warranted judge. Although the Minister might say it is only a few decisions, he misleads us, because this has been going on for years and years and years. We asked the department to tell us what those cases were, and all it has been able to come up with is that 83 decisions were made by Judge Norman F Smith over a period of 10 days in 2000 when he did not have a warrant. So here we are, 6 years later, and Parekura Horomia has come into the House and said that Parliament had better make legal what that man did 6 years ago.

What were those decisions? They were to do with the transfer of land ownership from Māori-held land to fee simple title, the appointment of successor trustees, the establishment of trusts—and, in one case, the judge had four goes over 10 days to establish one trust, so for the Government to say there was no conflict is utter rubbish—and the transfer of Māori land to general land. There were also numerous occasions when moneys owed to beneficiaries were paid out because of a direction from the judge. The people who received those benefits are not wealthy. We are being told that over and over; they even have a special tax rate because they do not have the wealth that is apparently available to other New Zealanders. So why would it be any surprise that there has been no appeal in any of those cases? Firstly, those people have not known about those decisions. All of those people who were affected in the 83 cases provided to us—and, in reality, we suspect there are more than 300 cases—do not know that the decision they have lived by for well over 10 years is not legally binding. That, apparently, is justice—that is how we treat Māori in this country. Would anybody else in the population accept that outcome if it had come from any court other than the Māori Land Court? I say to Parekura Horomia that that is a disgraceful way to treat people, and we will not be supporting that measure. We want to know a lot more about some of the cases—some 83 cases—that are so blandly described, but are so clearly controversial, in that list of 10 days’ work by Judge Norman F Smith. Members should think about that. The judge made 83 decisions in 10 days. That guy is a “super-judge”, but the problem is, of course, that he was not a judge, at all.

Now we come to Part 3, which really tickles me. It is do with the Maori Fisheries Act 2004, which was passed just a short time ago—about 18 months ago. When this legislation was passed, a number of members on this side of the House said that it was a mess, that there were problems all over it—

Phil Heatley: We’ll be back.

GERRY BROWNLEE: —and that we would be back in the House trying to sort it out before too long. Sure enough, here we are. I want to know why the high and mighty chairman of Te Ohu Kai Moana Trustee, Mr Shane Jones—double-dipping MP—did not understand that the section 28N rights would eventually affect the way in which Te Ohu Kai Moana Trustee received and allocated its quota. It is a very, very simple thing, I would have thought. But no, all the bright and clever, well and learned people who told us that everything was well and that this was what Māori wanted have been proved wrong.

That is not all. Another little aspect of this really causes me quite a bit of concern. It is Part 4, which amends the Maori Commercial Aquaculture Claims Settlement Act 2004. Within 18 months the Government has seen two of its Acts come back to the House in need of a tidy-up. It is no wonder that the Government does not want to do that in any other way than by this clandestine Māori Purposes Bill method. Clause 27: “amends section 20 by restricting the definition of pre-commencement space to include areas subject to permits for exclusive occupation of space for aquaculture activities, including spat gathering, but to exclude areas subject to permits for free gathering of spat.”

Hon Member: What does that mean?

GERRY BROWNLEE: Well, what happened was that the clever people in the fisheries area—Mr Jones and his mates—declared that there were no free spat-gathering areas and that, therefore, it was easy to hand 20 percent of spat to Māori, because spat is a quota; it is a species. Then those clever people discovered that two massive areas, including the whole of Cook Strait, the whole of the Tory Channel, and the whole of Queen Charlotte Sound, were available for free spat-gathering. So they asked themselves how they would give Māori 20 percent of that bit of action.

Shane Jones: Gerry’s thinking with his puku.

GERRY BROWNLEE: Mr Jones over there confirmed it—the clever people came here and said that cash would do it. They have this method that means, essentially, that when marine farmers take their spat lines from any of the free spat-gathering areas—and we must remember that spat are basically baby mussels, which attach themselves to ropes suspended from buoys, etc.—they can ask for a cheque for 20 percent of the value of the spat. That is what this provision will lead to. There is no question about it, because the Minister cannot deny that there is no regulation around any of this, yet.

I make it clear tonight that the National Party is voting for this bill on the basis that it is, effectively, an omnibus bill, and that it will be back before the House to be split into four bills. We expect we will not vote for the first one; the second one we will vote for, and the third and fourth ones we will not vote for. I can tell the people who are behind this bill now that we will expect much better information from them, as officials, than was given to me yesterday when I attended a briefing in the office of the Minister Parekura Horomia. For some reason it is like going into a great, cavernous room—the offices that those people occupy are huge—where all intelligible thought disappears. I tell the Minister that we do not want any more of that; we want good officials at the select committee. That the rights of so many people were apparently determined by a person who had no judicial warrant to do so will require a lot more explanation.

Hon JIM ANDERTON (Minister of Fisheries): If we wanted an example of all intelligent thought disappearing, we have just heard it. I speak in support of the Māori Purposes Bill tabled by my colleague the Hon Parekura Horomia. The bill includes three technical amendments to two Acts that fall within my portfolio responsibility in fisheries. Those two Acts are the Maori Fisheries Act 2004 and the Maori Commercial Aquaculture Claims Settlement Act 2004. Both of those Acts were major milestones in the recognition of the Treaty of Waitangi. Those Acts are important because they provide for Māori to participate fully in fisheries and marine farming in New Zealand. They make it possible for Māori to create new jobs and generate incomes in the regions where they live.

Two of the three proposed technical amendments are to the Maori Fisheries Act. Both amendments are technical in nature, though through their enactment the original policy intentions of the Maori Fisheries Act and the Fisheries Act 1996 will be able to be realised. The amendments are intended to ensure that the distribution of fisheries settlement benefits by Te Ohu Kai Moana Trustee Ltd to iwi can proceed without impediment. The first amendment affects changes to quota shares held by Te Ohu Kai Moana Trustee Ltd as a result of preferential allocation rights under the Fisheries Act 1996. The amendment allows the changes in those quota shares to be accurately reflected in eventual quota share allocations to individual iwi.

I think that it is worth giving a brief outline of preferential allocation rights to the House. Preferential allocation rights apply to those fish stocks that were introduced into the quota management system in 1986. At that time quota allocations were made based on catch history, and quota was allocated as a specific tonnage. If the combined catch history in a fish stock exceeded the proposed commercial catch limit for that stock, then all fishers’ provisional quota tonnage entitlements needed to be reduced. If a fisher did not choose cash compensation for that reduction in his or her provisional quota tonnage entitlement, the Fisheries Act 1983 included some special provisions. Those provisions ensured that if the total commercial catch limit for a stock was ever increased again, then the fisher would have a right to preferentially receive quota for the same tonnage he or she had had reduced, without compensation, in 1986—tonnage the fisher had essentially lost access to when the catch limit was cut. The ongoing right to reclaim back-up quota to the fisher’s original tonnage entitlement, based on catch history, is what is called a preferential allocation right under the current Fisheries Act 1996.

Today things are done differently. Owners hold a set number of quota shares, rather than a specific number of tonnes of quota. So an increase in the commercial catch limit for a fish stock means there will be changes in quota shareholdings if there are preferential allocation rights. If someone has preferential allocation rights, he or she receives more shares. Everyone else with quota in that stock has their shares reduced, although the total tonnage of annual catch entitlement produced by the new shareholdings is not actually reduced. That is because each share generates a higher tonnage of catch entitlement, due to the new higher catch limit.

Changes to quota shareholdings as a result of those preferential allocation rights are not dealt with effectively under the Maori Fisheries Act at the moment. Quota shares that are held by Te Ohu Kai Moana Trustee are listed in a schedule to the Act. When the number of shares held changes because of a redistribution under preferential allocation rights, the schedule no longer accurately reflects the holdings of Te Ohu Kai Moana Trustee. This bill provides a technical amendment to ensure that changes are reflected in the distribution of shares by Te Ohau Kai Moana Trustee. As a result, no one will be unfairly disadvantaged by the way preferential allocation rights work.

The second amendment to the Maori Fisheries Act is about iwi entitlement to harbour quota. For some stocks, there is commercial catch history in a particular harbour. The Maori Fisheries Act provides for a special allocation of part of the available settlement quota to iwi whose rohe abuts the harbour. However, harbour coastline cannot be measured in the same way that general coastline is measured, so the allocation of harbour quota is based on agreement. An omission from the Maori Fisheries Act means that the different procedure for harbour quota is not accurately reflected in the schedule to that Act. The amendment will accurately reflect the policy relating to harbour quota and ensure that allocation procedures are clearly set out.

The third technical amendment is to the Maori Commercial Aquaculture Claims Settlement Act of 2004. The settlement Act provides a full and final settlement of all Māori claims on commercial aquaculture arising on or after 21 September 1992. It provides Māori with 20 percent of any new marine farming space developed in the future. It also requires that the Crown provide Māori with the equivalent of 20 percent of any marine farming space approved since 21 September 1992. This existing marine farming space is referred to as pre-commencement space in the settlement Act. The technical amendment is to the definition of pre-commencement space. The technical amendment ensures that any space included in the definition of pre-commencement space is space that is actually used for aquacultural activities. Without the proposed clarification, there is concern that the space used for other types of activities could be captured by the current definition. Since the settlement is about coastal space used for aquaculture, it is obvious that the Act should capture only space used for aquaculture activities.

Māori economic development is New Zealand economic development, and aquaculture is a growing part of our economy. The Treaty settlements for fisheries and aquaculture were major milestones in making sure that Māori have their share of and involvement in the business of fishing and aquaculture. They provide a platform for investment to build productive businesses, based on one of New Zealand’s premier natural resources. The Government and the industry are committed to maximising the economic potential of our marine resources. In the 10 years to 2001, aquaculture exports increased by 230 percent. It is crucial to make sure that growth is sustainable.

The new aquaculture reforms have brought marine farming development under the Resource Management Act. Regional councils have the job of planning where development is possible. That requires iwi and the wider aquaculture sector to work together, alongside regional councils. That is a substantial and an important change. It is not without its difficulties, but we are trying hard to resolve those. It has taken time for both councils and the industry to adjust to change and to work through the new requirements. That is true, but one would expect that.

Central government is committed to playing its role. Officials from the Ministry for the Environment, the Ministry of the Department of Conservation, New Zealand Trade and Enterprise, and regional councils and the industry are working together constructively. They are providing practical help to develop some initial aquacultural management areas, and in the next stage the implementation team will help councils to progress their aquaculture planning into the development of aquacultural management areas. In particular, four regional councils—Northland, Auckland, Waikato, and the Bay of Plenty—have been identified as priorities for assistance. The implementation team is working with those four councils to identify barriers to aquacultural development and ways to overcome them. Māori are central to all of those elements of growth, and I welcome the opportunity that that offers for Māori and for New Zealand.

The Maori Fisheries Act 2004 and the Maori Commercial Aquaculture Claims Settlement Act 2004 are key pieces of legislation in ensuring that Māori have the assets they need in order to take their place in the circle of economic development success. We need that legislation to operate in the way that was intended, so it can provide a fair and an equitable distribution of assets. The three technical amendments to the settlement legislation contained in the Māori Purposes Bill before the House tonight will help to ensure that happens. I commend the bill to the House, and to the Māori Affairs Committee for consideration.

Hon TAU HENARE (National): Have we ever heard a more patronising speech than the one from Jim Anderton? He came down to the House. He has never spoken on anything Māori in the House before but he came down to the House because he feels he has a responsibility to say a few words to the natives of the land, to say to them: “You know, you’re part of the economic circle. We want you to do this, that, and the other thing.” He will now go back to his office and feel really great that for once in his life—[Interruption] There he goes, back to the office, feeling great about his contribution to the indigenous people of this nation. I say, on behalf of all Māori, thank you, thank you, thank you bwana. But I come back to the point of the bill. If being patronising was a crime, then Mr Jim Anderton would certainly be serving a long time in prison.

Shane Jones: Where’s the content?

Hon TAU HENARE: Yes, the “big dipper” over there will have his say soon. Oh, I am sorry, the “big double dipper”. Actually, while we are there, in relation to myself and the original waka jumper I am in good company because his name was Ngātoroirangi, but that is another story.

This is the first bill by the Minister in 6 years. In the 6 years he has been the Minister of Māori Affairs he has not brought one piece of legislation to this House. All of a sudden, all he can do tonight is get on his feet and give us a fix-up bill. It is called the Māori Purposes Bill, but maybe it should be an omnibus bill, the “Catch All Mistakes Bill”. That is what it is.

Shane Jones: Missed the bus.

Hon TAU HENARE: That is right. He missed the bus. Let us have a look at the amendments to Te Ture Whenua Maori Act. The maximum number of judges of the Māori Land Court rises from eight to 14. That is an increase of seven extra judges. Normally when we have an increase it is because there is an increase in work, but nowhere in the bill itself or in the accompanying notes to the bill is the increased caseload set out.

Shane Jones: In Tauranga.

Hon TAU HENARE: Oh, in Tauranga. That is right. He is the member who lives on Tinakori Road, but wants to be the member of Parliament for the far north. Yes, get that one. [Interruption] I digress. A comment was made that there are no flash houses up north. Well, Mr Shane Jones knows all about that, because he actually bought some houses from the Meremere power station. They were clapped-out old houses, but he moved them up north so that the poor Māori could have them. I ask Mr Jones how that is going to solve a lot of problems.

But, anyway, I go back to the bill. What is the ratio of cases per judge? How many cases do the judges actually take care of? With 14 judges around the nation one would think that there were hundreds and hundreds of cases, but there are not. So where has the increased caseload come from? The Minister of Māori Affairs is not here to tell us that—[Interruption] Something that also really worries me is, I suppose, the retrospective validation of decisions that were made by a so-called judge. We can call him a so-called judge because in the period that he was a so-called judge, he was not a judge. The bill states that he was purporting to be a judge. Is that not fraud? I am not a lawyer—though two of the best lawyers in the country are sitting right here now—but I would have said that that was illegal. So if at any time one of those 83 people took—[Interruption] It is hundreds of people—the member is absolutely right. It is thousands of people. If any one of those people took an appeal, he or she would win hands down because the judge who was presiding, who was purporting to be a judge, was not a judge at all. Most people on the other side of this Chamber purport to be MPs, but I suppose that is OK.

Gerry Brownlee: Some are fake policemen.

Hon TAU HENARE: There we go—one is purporting to be a policeman. He is just a cardboard cut-out. If somebody outside was purporting to be a police officer or a judge, he or she would be arrested and charged with fraud. But that is not really the bottom of the pit on this point. The bottom of the pit on this point is, who narked on the judge for not having his warrant? Was it the administrators who found out? When it was found out that this judge was not really a judge, did the Māori Land Court contact those thousands of people and say to them that it got it wrong and that they had better come back so the court could have another look at their cases? No, and the Minister said that the reason was that it was convenient to do so. Never mind justice and the justice system, let us just do whatever Parekura Horomia says is convenient. That is an absolute shame and an absolute abrogation of the Minister’s responsibility to make sure that the people he purports to represent are told about what went on.

Who narked on the judge? That is what I want to know. How did people find out that he did not have a warrant? Somebody in the system must have narked to the chief judge. The chief judge went to the Minister and said: “Excuse me boss, you’d better fix this or else we’ll be in trouble, especially if the people in one of those cases that were before the purported judge appeal the decision of the purported judge.” [Interruption] That is right. Leaving it for 6 or 7 years is OK. We are lucky we do not have a statute of limitations. I think it is 6 years in the States.

I also want to touch on the Treaty of Waitangi. The purported bill specifies 1 September 2008 as a close-off date, and we certainly support that. But what I want to know from anyone across the House is that if 1 September 2008 is the new closing date, what was the old closing date? There is no closing date.

Pita Paraone: Does it matter?

Hon TAU HENARE: I tell Mr Paraone—it is good to see him back—the reason why. The explanatory note states that it is so they—whoever “they” are—“will have certainty about the number of historical claims the Tribunal is to inquire into.” My goodness me.

Shane Jones: Bring closure.

Hon TAU HENARE: Well, it will bring closure if Mr Jones resigns. He should tell us about the slum dwellings he tried to sell to those people up north. He is a slum landlord. Yes, National supports this bill going to a select committee. We do not support the selling of slum dwellings to people, but that is another issue. We support the Treaty of Waitangi claims process having a cut-off date. It is simple. It lets everybody get on with it and lets everybody plan. It cannot go on forever, and we support that. But we do not support the dodgy moves made by the Māori Land Court to fix up problems that happened 6 years ago that have affected over 300 people in the Māori community. How do we know—

Jill Pettis: What do you think about it?

Hon TAU HENARE: There is screeching from the back benches over there. It is like a poodle has a microchip somewhere it should not have. National will support this bill, but not all of it. We hope that there will be submissions galore to the Māori Affairs Committee.

PITA PARAONE (NZ First): Tēnā koe Mr Speaker. Tēnā tātou o te Whare nei. E tika ana kia tīmata mai tēnei wāhanga i hōmai ki a au i roto wā tātou reo rangatira nā te mea, he kaupapa Māori tēnei nā reira, e tika ana kia whakatakoto mai waku whakaaro i roto wā tātou reo rangatira ahakoa nō hea te tangata. Engari, ka rongo mai te iwi whānui, ā, kei te ora tonu tā tātou reo.

[Greetings to you, Mr Speaker. Greetings to us of this House. It is fitting indeed that this part given to me should begin in our native tongue, because this is a Māori matter and therefore it is an appropriate way for me to express my thoughts, in our chiefly dialects, regardless of where the person is from. But when the general public hear, ah, our language is alive still.]

I preface my contribution to this debate by acknowledging everyone in the House in the Māori language, given that this is a bill that affects Māori. It was introduced by the Minister of Māori Affairs, and therefore it is only proper that I should say a few words in my mother tongue, irrespective of which tribe I belong to—there was some comment from the sideline that I needed to make sure that my language was correct, particularly that of my tribe.

I stand on behalf of New Zealand First to say that we will support this bill going to a select committee. The system describes the bill as an omnibus bill. The bill amends the following four Acts: Te Ture Whenua Maori Act 1993, the Treaty of Waitangi Act 1975, the Maori Fisheries Act 2004, and the Maori Commercial Aquaculture Claims Settlement Act 2004.

I will just make comment about Te Ture Whenua Maori Act and the amendments proposed to it. One of the amendments is to increase the number of judges of the Māori Land Court from eight to 14. I do not know whether the previous speaker got School Certificate, but I went to Mōtatau Māori District High School, and those figures suggest to me that the increase in the number of judges is six and not seven. One thing the bill does not say—and it will probably be of significance when the time comes for the appointment of extra judges to the Māori Land Court to be considered—is whether the increase in numbers should come from amongst Māori alone. New Zealand First is of the view that, whoever makes up the pool for the number of new judges to be appointed to the Māori Land Court, the best should be appointed—not by ethnicity but by legal intellect. I hope that that point may be addressed during the select committee process.

The previous speaker questioned the need for extra judges. If he refers to two of the Acts this bill amends—the Maori Fisheries Act and the Maori Commercial Aquaculture Claims Settlement Act—he will see that when those pieces of legislation were created and passed by this House a lot of responsibilities were passed to the Māori Land Court. During the select committee deliberation on those two pieces of legislation the bureaucracy was often asked whether in fact the Māori Land Court had the capacity to deal with this extra workload. While we were assured that it had, it is obvious from the introduction of this particular bill that the Māori Land Court clearly did not have the capacity at the time. So I believe that this bill addresses that issue.

The bill itself addresses part of the confidence and supply agreement that New Zealand First has with the Labour-led Government. In respect of the Treaty it ensures that the Treaty settlements process is expedited. This bill proposes that a time line be set, and we will certainly support that time line. While we might think that it should be extended a bit further, we support the setting of a time frame for historical claims—and a lot of people do not have a clear appreciation that the time frame relates to historical claims. What is more pleasing about this bill is that it actually defines what are “historical claims”. So for those of Māori kith and kin who are contemplating making claims, it is quite clear what this bill is all about.

The other issue is the question of delegation to the Deputy Chief Judge. It seems to me quite clear that the Chief Judge has a lot of work on his hands and is therefore required to seek the insertion of this measure into the bill to ensure that he is able to carry out his work and share some of his workload with his deputy. For New Zealand First, that gives credence to our desire to see the positions of Chief Judge of the Māori Land Court and Chairman of the Waitangi Tribunal separated. While the bill does not go so far as to suggest that, I signal to the House that it provides some ground for New Zealand First to submit a Supplementary Order Paper proposing a separation of those two positions, currently held by one person, the Chief Judge of the Māori Land Court.

This bill also provides legal coverage for decisions made by the Deputy Chief Judge back in the 1990s in relation to orders he made when everyone thought that his warrant to be Deputy Chief Judge was still active—and quite clearly it was not. While we have heard Opposition speakers questioning that whole issue, I wonder whether in fact an approach has been made to any of the whānau, hapū, or iwi who have been affected by those orders made by the Deputy Chief Judge at the time. If none has, then I suggest that a lot of the rhetoric we have heard tonight is just that—rhetoric.

In reference to the amendments to the Treaty of Waitangi Act, I have commented that we certainly support—and it is part of our policy and part of our agreement with the Government—the setting of a time frame. I say again that this does not refer to contemporary claims. The emphasis is on the lodging of the claim, not on the settlement. I think that a lot of our people out there do not have a clear appreciation of just what this has meant. We are talking about the lodging of claims and not the settlement, because we in New Zealand First believe it is important that the durability of claims not be compromised for bureaucratic expediency. Therefore we support the limitation to just the lodging of claims. Both the Maori Fisheries Act and the Maori Commercial Aquaculture Claims Settlement Act called for extra input from the Māori Land Court. Therefore it is important that the increase in the number of judges be supported by this House. As the Minister of Fisheries mentioned, Māori economic development is New Zealand economic development. If these two provisions can help make things a little clearer for us and for New Zealand, then they ought to be supported. New Zealand First will certainly support this bill going to the select committee.

METIRIA TUREI (Green): Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. The Green Party is opposing this bill. The bill raises a whole lot of issues, and we will deal with a number of them later on, in the select committee and at the Committee stage. But the most important one for the Green Party is, of course, the closing date for the lodging of claims. This was an election promise Labour made—one of the three main election promises it made before the 2005 election. It was a policy that was developed in direct response to the very racist comments and positioning of the National Party.

Effectively, Labour was trying hard to scrabble back some of what it considered to be lost votes—what is often termed the redneck vote—that had gone to National because of things National had been saying. So Labour put itself in the position of advocating for a closing date and made it a major election promise. Now Labour is stuck with that, even though it knows, as we all do, that a closing date for historical claims is fundamentally and seriously unjust in a process that is supposed to be about providing just redress to victims of historical wrongs—very serious wrongs: property loss, loss of mana, imprisonment, murder, and rape. That is what this process is supposed to be dealing with justly and fairly.

The fact is the Treaty settlement process is a complete farce and provides no kind of just redress at all. It is another process similar to the processes set up 100 or 80 years ago to try to find ways to keep Māori under control so they would stop complaining about the loss of property—their loss of te rangatiratanga, actually—by providing them with some kind of redress, some kind of financial compensation, and hoping that they would then be quiet for a while, which, of course, will never work. The closing date is set down as 1 September 2008—just a little over 2 years from now. The bill defines historical Treaty claims as those relating to events occurring before 21 September 1992.

I can see why the public—and even people here in this House—do not understand why the Māori Purposes Bill is such stupid, terrible, and unjust legislation. For the Green Party, part of the reason it is unjust is that it is based on the Office of Treaty Settlements policy around large natural groupings. This large natural grouping process forces iwi and hapū to gather together their Wai claims and negotiate directly with the Office of Treaty Settlements, using just a few people to negotiate very large claims for very large areas and very large numbers of people.

The process itself picks winners. It identifies specific individuals the Government is prepared to negotiate with. They are the ones who effectively decide, because the hapū are stuck in what has been described as a duress of poverty. If a hapū is without resources, and there is a process for trying to claim some of those back in some form, and there are serious needs in the community that need to be met, and this is the only way to meet them, then there are very few choices. That means the negotiators on the Government side—the Office of Treaty Settlements—have a lot of control over whom they negotiate with and how. It is up to the Office of Treaty Settlements negotiators to decide how they negotiate.

The Office of Treaty Settlements collects groups of Wai numbers. So when people make a claim to the Waitangi Tribunal, that claim gets a Wai number; and is in process. The large natural grouping policy gathers together large quantities of these Wai numbers and then attempts to negotiate and settle all of them at once. But the Office of Treaty Settlements makes those decisions. It has set up a process that looks fair, but iwi have said they have no choice but to include Wai numbers and particular claims into their large natural groupings process, and then their negotiations, and they may not want to.

They know why it is wrong—why people should not be forced to settle their Wai claims without their consent. Māori know why it is wrong, but the Office of Treaty Settlements will refuse to deal with people unless they do it, and what choice do people have? In the end, it leaves iwi and hapū—the negotiators of the claim—to have to cajole these other Wai claimants into the process. It leaves them with the mess to clean up. The Office of Treaty Settlements says that these are internal issues and it is up to Māori themselves to sort them out. But it is because the Office of Treaty Settlements will not negotiate with people unless they include everybody that they are then left with the responsibility of having to include everybody.

It cannot work; it does not work that way. People do not want to be included. So iwi and hapū are left trying to fight with their own whānau. They are separated out from their own whānau and huge divisions are created because there is no choice. Negotiators of the Office of Treaty Settlements leave iwi and hapū to do its dirty work. It is a revolting and disgusting process.

My first real experience of this at a practical level was in this House during the Ngāti Ruanui settlement. I had people coming to me from Tangahoe and Pakakohi who had Wai claims that they did not want settled in the Ngāti Ruanui settlement. Ngāti Ruanui was the settlement around Taranaki, so it was one of the Taranaki Wai claims. A very serious issue was being settled there; it was the first, I think, of the Taranaki ones. Tangahoe and Pakakohi people, and others involved in that settlement, begged us not to support that settlement. They did not want to have their claim settled; they did not want their property, their lands, and their resources going into the hands of a mandated organisation they did not support and did not trust. But they had no choice. There was nothing they could do about it. Their lands and resources, their mana, were put in the hands of others and they could do nothing about it, because the Office of Treaty Settlements and the process—which previous Governments set up and this Government maintains—strip them of their power. That is what this process does.

A deadline that requires people to be engaged and to identify themselves with a Wai claim by 2008, when they have so few resources and so little support, forces them to put themselves on the line and put themselves at serious risk of having their claims negotiated without their consent and beyond their ability to do a good job of the negotiations, and get back those resources and that mana that was stolen from them.

This is about the duress of poverty. This is about stripping Māori and hapū and iwi of the vestiges of control that they have, by forcing them into a process over which they have no control. Claimants tell of this if they are asked the right question but, frankly, very few people in this House ever ask that question because they do not want to know. What people want is an easy process. People in this House—the Government, National, New Zealand First even, if it supports this bill—want an easy process where they do not have to deal with the hard and dirty facts that Māori, every time a settlement happens, are being stripped of even more of their rangatiratanga that they are fighting to retain. We sit here and we allow this to happen over and over again. Hapū are being punished, not rewarded, by this process.

It is absolutely atrocious to me that Government members—and particularly the Māori members on the Government side—have not even bothered to consult with people. The whole process was never properly consulted about; it was developed over 4 years and then taken out. There was widespread opposition to it then. There continues to be widespread opposition. The only reason hapū get involved is because they have no choice. Then a deadline is set where no one has even bothered to ask those victims for whom this process is supposed to provide redress, whether a deadline is appropriate for them. The Government has set a target. It wants everything settled by 2020. A target for them is fine; but Māori have a deadline imposed, because in the end it has nothing to do with providing justice or redress.

In the end this legislation is about finding an easy way to get out of taking responsibility for the fact we live in a country whose Treaty is daily trampled upon, and that we treat the indigenous people of this country like they are rubbish—that we will steal their properties from them even in the 21st century. We write apologies to coastal hapū in the settlements, then steal their foreshore and seabed from under them. The injustice continues in this country. This ridiculous legislation and the cut-off closing date for it is just a perpetuation of it. The Green Party will have no bar of it.

TE URUROA FLAVELL (Maori Party—Waiariki): Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker, tēnā tātou katoa. In looking at the Māori Purposes Bill tonight, I have reflected on the words of the late Martin Luther King, who said: “All progress is precarious, and the solution of one problem brings us face to face with another problem.” I reckon that gentleman knew what he was talking about. Parts of this omnibus Māori Purposes Bill are indeed about making progress. The Māori Party is very supportive of the positive changes made to the Te Ture Whenua Maori Act in increasing the number of Māori Land Court judges from eight to 14. It seems that the increased workload for the Māori Land Court has rapidly exceeded the capacity of the court’s judges.

We are pleased that the statutory cap will be permanently lifted. But such progress has a precarious status. We question the restraints evident for judges working in the Māori Land Court who yet are not able to also work in the District Courts. We believe that appointment to the Māori Land Court should also mean the possibility of an appointment to the District Court.

The peculiar nature of an omnibus bill is often characterised as being wash-up legislation, bringing together loose ends into one big boil-up. The Māori Party remains cautious about this sort of tactic. Changes proposed to the Treaty of Waitangi Act 1975 are examples of why we are cautious. Māori Purposes Bills have often been used to sort out anomalies in the vexed area of Treaty settlements. In looking at this 2006 version, I think it is always helpful to get a steer from our past.

I was interested to find that over 50 years ago the Maori Purposes Act in 1954 legislation recorded the settlement of a longstanding claim against the Crown by the Ngāti Whakaue tribal nation of Rotorua, in connection with the Pukeroa-Oruawhata block upon which the town of Rotorua now stands. This was effected by the payment of compensation of £16,500—the amount recommended by a royal commission in 1948. It is always interesting to look back in history and then to again think of the current legislation in front of the House. Right at this very moment, members of the Pukeroa-Oruawhata Trust and Ngāti Whaoa are working through the complex process required to achieve final resolution of their Treaty grievances.

The Pukeroa-Oruawhata Trust, on behalf of Ngāti Whakaue, is seeking settlement of the gifted lands issue, seeking meetings with the Minister in charge of Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations, and seeking priority to be assigned to resolution of their grievances. As part of the trust’s concerns, it has asked how it can be acceptable that almost 13 years after its assigning of the deed of settlement, resolution of whether the Rotorua golf course land is surplus is still outstanding. It makes one wonder how effective these retrospective wash-up Māori Purposes Bills can be if the 1954 Māori purposes legislation is still being revisited some 50 years later.

The key political hot issue of specifying a closing date for submitting historical Treaty claims to the Waitangi Tribunal is a vitally important one within this bill. It is an issue on which the nation seeks finality, the nation seeks progress. But a pre-set time frame for the Treaty settlement process also stands as a highly precarious issue for debate. Ever since the settlement process began, claimants and lawyers have been expressing grave concerns about the process itself—the terms of settlement, the amount set aside for settlement, and the agency charged with managing settlements.

Issues of timeliness, of commitment to settlement resolution, are absolutely central to this. The bill proposes that any claims lodged after 1 September 2008 cannot include any historical Treaty claim or be amended to include any historical Treaty claim. The critical issues we will be asking about this legislation include what the justification is for setting 21 September 1992 as the date to define historical Treaty claims, and for setting 1 September 2008 as the final date to submit historical Treaty claims, and how whānau, hapū, and iwi have been involved in advising on the suitability of this, or any other, date for a time frame. Those are the questions that are important as part of this debate.

The issue of timing is the absolute crunch issue of the Treaty settlement process. The ongoing crisis of fatigue and overload that so many of our claimants experience in putting their stories before the tribunal must be acknowledged. As uri of Ngāti Kahungunu, Whanganui, Ngāpuhi, and my own of Te Arawa, we of the Māori Party know painfully, acutely, of too many of our loved elders who have carried the grief of these stories to their graves. We know also that there is tremendous richness available in the healing that can result through claimant groups being able to tell their own stories of those of their tūpuna. The very telling of their truths—much like in the truth and reconciliation hearings of other lands—provides a vehicle by which suffering can be heard, and healing can emerge.

But this all takes time—time that cannot be sped up just by the arbitrary selection of a date from the calendar. The process can be effective only if all parties agree to a negotiation framework upfront. Treaty settlements are supposed to be about settling grievances that have arisen from Treaty breaches; yet, at the moment, the Office of Treaty Settlements controls the outcome and the process—on Crown terms. The real value of retrospective provisions being introduced in a Māori Purposes Bill should, I would have thought, have put resourcing into improving the settlement from a Māori perspective. The enhancements that could have been useful would have been ensuring that the process of dealing with Māori claimants was dealt with in a fair and transparent way. As part of this, the Waitangi Tribunal must be resourced so that it can deal with claims more speedily.

The tribunal hearings are often long and costly affairs. The current precarious policy position of Treaty settlements is that because of the lengthy nature of tribunal hearings, and the fact that their rulings have no value, claimant groups are being pressured into direct negotiations with the Crown. The conclusions of the chairperson of the Waitangi Tribunal, Chief Judge Joe Williams, in December last year, regarding the settlement of Treaty claims, provide a particularly useful context in which to view this Māori Purposes Bill. The statement advised that faster progress in achieving resolution of claims would depend on a much higher degree of Crown-claimant cooperation.

Judge Williams said: “It would involve a willingness by the Crown to engage constructively in tribunal inquiries, and even review its practice of contesting the claimants’ positions on every issue.” If the Māori Purposes Bill is really to make progress, it must reflect far more opportunity for supporting claimant groups than it does at present.

Finally, I want just to refer to the amendments proposed for the Maori Fisheries Act 2004. The Māori Party has questions on the application to the quota share held by Te Ohu Kai Moana Trustee Ltd. We wonder why the rights regime under section 28N is being proposed for inclusion in the Māori Fisheries Act 2004, some 2 years after its passage. The bill, as it is currently drafted, is thin on detail. It fails to describe the amount of quota shares that iwi quota owners have been unable to receive due to the current wording of the Māori Fisheries Act 2004, and what this translates to in dollar terms. We are also unable to gauge the projected loss if the Act remains unchanged.

Yet another host of questions emerge when one looks at the Māori Commercial Aquaculture Claims Settlement Act 2004. For example, we wonder what the anticipated risks are to iwi, including development projects and inter-iwi relationships, from the decrease anticipated in this Act.

In closing, I say that the Māori Party is left wondering why the Minister of Māori Affairs has been called on to host a wash-up bill to cram all of this legislation together outside his key portfolio, rather than, say, the Minister of Justice, and the Minister in charge of Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations. We wonder whether it has anything to do with the fact that the only select committee where the Government has much-needed numbers is the Māori Affairs Committee. We will allow this bill to go through tonight to its first reading to allow hapū and iwi to have a say, but we cannot help but think there is something not quite right here, and we will be watching it at every turn as it progresses. Kia ora tātou.

JUDY TURNER (Deputy Leader—United Future): I rise on behalf of United Future to speak to the first reading of the Māori Purposes Bill, which appears to attract as many questions as it seeks to answer. We acknowledge the fact that there are some questions we would like to see answered in order to secure our support beyond the first reading, but we are happy for the discussion to be had and for submissions to be made.

The bill, we note, seeks to amend four Acts of Parliament. It is interesting that the Te Ture Whenua Maori Act 1993 is to be amended to increase the cap on the maximum number of permanent Māori Land Court judges from eight to 14. A lot of people speaking to this bill tonight have talked about an expectation that six more judges would be added immediately. However, the question raised in my mind was that there is the potential for another six, but I guess they could be added as they were needed. So I would like to hear that area quantified a little more as to whether the intention is to appoint six new judges immediately or whether we intend to do that on some sort of incremental basis.

The second issue is around the Treaty of Waitangi Act 1975, and I suspect that is the most controversial issue this amendment bill seeks to address. The bill intends to set 1 September 2008 as the closing date for submitting historical Treaty claims to the Waitangi Tribunal. This move poses a lot of questions. First of all, why that date? Is it anticipated to be before the next election, which means we might have a political agenda here, or is it because we believe realistically that outstanding claims can be lodged successfully by that date? If the latter is the case, the question is whether the Government intends to further resource the issue of Treaty claims so that those claims can be lodged in a timely way.

I believe that there is a real need to consider the claims in a timely way, and I have concerns about some of the dates bandied around this place, as they would mean that many iwi and hapū would be waiting a very long time and the number of kaumātua who would pass on without seeing a settlement would grow steadily year by year. However, I also agree that rushing the process in a way that is unhelpful to that process would be equally as devastating.

I have a concern that the Treaty currently in New Zealand society is coloured a little by the historical grievance process, which makes it difficult for a lot of New Zealanders to consider the Treaty in terms of it having any current or future applications. I think that issue needs to be addressed in the future, certainly in terms of constitutional thinking. It concerns me that sometimes we are captured by just one part of the Treaty’s application, which is its historical grievance process.

There are two other issues, regarding the Maori Fisheries Act and the fourth amendment to the Maori Commercial Aquaculture Claims Settlement Act of 2004, about which I would like a lot more information to help me get my head around them. Certainly the Maori Commercial Aquaculture Claims Settlement Act appropriates for Māori some exciting developments in the area of marine farming and technology, and Māori rightly want to continue to be proactively included as that area develops.

I recently had the opportunity—and it was a fantastic opportunity—to attend a Māori business development hui in Hamilton. I was really encouraged to see the competence and the level of interest shown by key stakeholder groups and key people within Māoridom who want to see Māori business interests progress extensively. They talked very openly. I appreciated their raw honesty at that hui about the challenges they are facing regarding governance and management issues. I found that there was no pretending about the kinds of ways they will have to move and change, and even the possible challenges to tikanga that will need to happen for those issues to be advanced. I was impressed with everything I saw and heard.

When even in this last week we have been talking about how Māori can be overrepresented in the negative social indicators in this country, it was encouraging to sit in a very different environment and hear about some of the very positive things that are happening. There is not just a small dot at the end of the tunnel for Māori, there is a huge glaring light of potential and success. It is already happening and we need to celebrate that. I will be interested to see how that potential is represented through the proposed amendments in this bill.

One of the interesting things I want to alert people to as I conclude this first reading speech is in regard to the controversial area of setting a date by which Treaty settlements need to be lodged. I picked up a very interesting thing in a Cabinet paper on this matter. The paper talked about the fact that for this move to be successful, firstly, it would need to have a targeted communication strategy to make sure that the goal could be reached. But the other thing I thought was even more interesting was that there was an acknowledgment—I am not even quite sure what this means, but I want to read it to members—that it was possible that Māori could settle their claims with the Crown through the direct negotiation process without a registered claim, as there is no statutory constraint on who the Crown may choose to negotiate with.

I think that means that, even if we close the process somehow on 1 September 2008, somehow there will still be opportunities for new claims to be lodged in an unofficial capacity with the Crown, if the Crown so chooses to negotiate—which is kind of an interesting conundrum. I would be very interested to see what submissions are made in that regard to the Māori Affairs Committee. United Future does not have representation on the Māori Affairs Committee, so we will be reliant on hearing back from those on the committee and having a chance to find out what submitters say. We are very happy at this stage to support the first reading.

PHIL HEATLEY (National—Whangarei): I take this opportunity to address the House on this very important Māori Purposes Bill. It is important because three Ministers are involved—the Minister of Justice, the Minister of and, of course, the Minister in charge of Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations. This evening they sent out their messenger, the Minister of Māori Affairs, with his script as to what he was to put to the House tonight on the range of issues that this bill addresses. I was very interested in Mr Flavell’s articulation of how he foresaw events unfolding with this bill, because the issues addressed are very wide ranging. The Minister of Māori Affairs—the messenger boy for the Minister of Justice, the Minister of and the Minister in charge of Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations—came into the House tonight and told us that this bill amends four statutes. It amends not just one statute, not just two statutes, but four statutes. He said that the bill will go to the Māori Affairs Committee and be dealt with there. That is the only committee, out of the committees that deal with justice, and treaty negotiations, that has a Government majority.

The four statutes to be amended include Te Ture Whenua Maori Act of 1993. The number of judges in the Māori Land Court is to be raised from eight to 14. I acknowledge what Judy Turner says—that the number may not be raised by six to 14 immediately—but I think most listeners and most members of this House will appreciate that when the bureaucracy, whether it is the judicial bureaucracy or anything else, is given a cheque or a resource, it is used to the fullest extent. I ask only that in this case when it is used to the fullest extent, we see efficiency, due consideration given to claims, and so forth.

Further, in relation to Te Ture Whenua Maori Act, we see a retrospective validation of decisions made by a Deputy Chief Judge that were made without a valid judicial warrant. That is of huge concern to us, simply because the Deputy Chief Judge has issued hundreds of judicial orders without proper jurisdiction—approximately 300 from December 1999 to March 2004 alone. The practice dates back to the 1980s. The Deputy Chief Judge then asked Judge Norman Smith to serve as a temporary judge, without a valid judicial warrant empowering him to do so. In other words, the issue here is that no valid judicial warrant was present when those decisions were made.

Even in a simple situation whereby someone who purports to be a justice of the peace receives and witnesses a signature or declaration and that goes forward, that declaration is effectively null and void. We see much more serious and far-reaching matters here, where a Deputy Chief Judge actually passed on responsibility to a temporary judge who had no jurisdiction or warrant, and he made decisions on far-reaching and serious matters. This Minister—“the messenger for Māori Affairs”—comes to the House tonight to ask us to say that is OK. Well, National says it is not OK. We are willing to send this bill to a select committee, but we will be digging deep and looking at the situations where no warrant was present when decisions were made. We will be asking what each of the decisions was, how far-reaching the decisions were, and what the parties affected by the decisions think of this bill.

The third statute to be amended by this Māori Purposes Bill is the Maori Fisheries Act of 2004. The processes are clarified for the allocation of fisheries assets. The fourth statute is the Maori Commercial Aquaculture Claims Settlement Act of 2004, and the amendment clarifies the processes for the allocation of aquaculture assets.

Interestingly, in relation to the second statute to be amended, the Treaty of Waitangi Act, the Government is looking at saying that claims submitted before 1 September 2008 can be amended in any way after that date—there is to be no certainty. On one hand the Government is saying that all historical claims under the Treaty of Waitangi must be submitted before 2008. So it has done a bit of a land grab there—a land grab for National policy, because we have basically said for the last 3 years, and certainly said leading up to the last election, that enough was enough. Māori have enough history, with a good 100 years and more since European settlement, to understand the issues, the injustices that were done—and, clearly, there were a fair few of those—and what the traditions, written and oral, are. Surely they know what the historical claims are, in substance. They can articulate the particulars of them, and they can present them to the judiciary with a fair degree of knowledge and detail. Surely Māori can do that. Well, the Government is giving them until 2008 to do so. For us, that is probably not soon enough to end that process, but we will support that part of the bill.

But on the other hand here is the flick in the tail, the twist: the Labour Government is not satisfied with that. It says here that yes, all Treaty claims must be lodged by 1 September 2008, but that they can be amended in any way after that date. So Parekura Horomia’s voters could go to him a couple of months before the election and say they know he needs their vote, and they would like their claim to be amended. It could be like one of those Michael Cullen dinner parties with Air New Zealand, where a deal is done and no one is any the wiser. So I say of Parekura Horomia—nod, nod, wink, wink; say no more—that when we see a Treaty claim that in itself may dislodge other Māori claimants in the same area, he will let that go through. That simply says to Māori that the Government will fiddle around with the process. They will not have any certainty. More and more the clamps will go on, and there will be less and less justice.

The Labour Government also says that it will aim to settle all claims by 2020. I do not know what that says about the process. I think it is acceptable that claims are put forward before the date in the legislation—by 2008. As for the time frame for claims to be resolved—Labour is saying they are to be resolved by 2020—I will be interested to hear at the select committee what submitters on the bill say about that.

The fourth statute that is to be amended is the one that interests me the most, because I was here in the House when the Maori Commercial Aquaculture Claims Settlement Act was passed. Parekura Horomia and other Ministers tossed around the figure of 20 percent of new aquaculture space being set aside for Māori, but people will remember that that was just a quid pro quo for Māori silence—Māori caucus silence in the Labour Party—over the seabed and foreshore issue. Michael Cullen and Helen Clark did not want Parekura Horomia to get all upset about the foreshore and seabed, so they went to him was a quid pro quo deal, saying they would give Māori 20 percent of the aquaculture space if he would just shut up. So the Minister of Māori Affairs, Labour’s whipping boy, went back to his Māori caucus colleagues and told them to keep things down, because there was a quid pro quo deal. He told them Māori would get 20 percent of aquaculture space if they just shut up about the seabed and foreshore. That was the deal that was done—a dirty deal, done dirt cheap—under the noses of Māori.

Now we see no new aquaculture space being developed. Māori, therefore, are not getting 20 percent of the space, because they cannot get 20 percent of nothing. They were to get 20 percent of new aquaculture space, but there is no new aquaculture space. Māori are not getting 20 percent of anything; they are not seeing anything from that dirty deal, done dirt cheap. They saw nothing in the seabed and foreshore legislation, and here the aquaculture legislation is back before this House and soon to be back before the select committee. The Māori Purposes Bill will deal with the aquaculture issue that was passed in legislation less than 18 months ago, so that is appalling legislation.

We support this bill going to the select committee. It will receive the fullest scrutiny by National, and we will add balance to the debate on this legislation.

DAVE HEREORA (Labour): I take the opportunity to take a brief call to speak in support of the Māori Purposes Bill tabled by my colleague the Minister of Māori Affairs, the Hon Parekura Horomia. As chairman of the Māori Affairs Committee, I look forward to receiving this bill, and to the opportunity for that select committee to review it and to report back to the House.

The Standing Orders make it clear that a Māori Purposes bill is a bill that amends one or more Acts relating to Māori affairs, or deals with authorisations, transfers, and validations in respect of Māori land and property. This bill certainly does that. The Māori Purposes Bill 2006 that has been tabled provides for amendments to Te Ture Whenua Maori Act 1993, the Treaty of Waitangi Act 1975, the Maori Fisheries Act 2004, and the Maori Commercial Aquaculture Claims Settlement Act 2004. From my reading of the bill, I will comment on each of the amendments.

Firstly, in relation to Te Ture Whenua Maori Act, and particularly those amendments that affect the Māori Land Court, this bill will mean that Māori will have improved access to justice as provided by that court. Amendments include increasing the statutory cap on the number of permanent judges that can be appointed to the Māori Land Court from eight to 14. That will allow more Māori Land Court judges to be appointed to handle the increasing workload of the court as the need for extra judges arises. The bill will authorise the Chief Judge to delegate his or her powers and functions to the Deputy Chief Judge, which will allow the court to function more efficiently. In line with longstanding practice, this amendment will ensure that minor and necessary corrections can be made in a timely fashion. In relation to the validation of the decisions of Judge Norman F Smith in November 2000, when he was acting outside the the term of his temporary judicial warrant, this amendment will ensure that the judicially determined rights of applicants to the Māori Land Court at that time are protected.

The bill will clarify the role of the court in the resolution of disputes arising under the Maori Fisheries Act and the Maori Commercial Aquaculture Claims Settlement Act. This relates to the disputes resolution process used by the court for disputes arising under those two Acts. This amendment will ensure that Māori Land Court lawyers and applicants will understand how the disputes resolution process is to work. These amendments will provide clarity and certainty to aspects of the operations of the Māori Land Court over the last few years and for the future, given the importance of that court to the processes that are now under way to provide for the better utilisation of Maori assets. These amendments are important, and I urge all members of this House to support them.

In relation to the amendments to the Treaty of Waitangi Act, I am pleased to note that the bill will implement this Government’s election pledge to set a closing date of 1 September 2008 for the submission of all historical Treaty claims to the Waitangi Tribunal. A statutory date will give Māori, the Crown, and the Waitangi Tribunal the certainty of knowing that the historical inquiry process will be completed in a timely fashion. A time limit will allow Māori to concentrate on reaching settlements with the Crown.

The Maori Fisheries Act will be amended to allow Te Ohu Kai Moana to take account of section 28N rights in allocation. The section 28N rights are the preferential allocation of quota share to the holders of those rights. The Act will also be amended to ensure that the processes for deciding harbour quota claims are technically appropriate, and are resolved by agreement between relevant iwi, in line with the original policy intent.

Finally, in the Maori Commercial Aquaculture Claims Settlement Act 2004, the definition of “pre-commencement space” will be amended to exclude areas not intended to be included in that definition. I commend this bill to the House, and look forward to considering it at the select committee.

SHANE JONES (Labour): I rise briefly to take a short call in relation to the Māori Purposes Bill, and to isolate what is potentially its most important portion, which brings forward a set of parameters that will enable us to go to the next stage in relation to expediting the settlement of Treaty of Waitangi historic claims.

This evening we heard from my whanaunga Tau Henare, in a rather churlish and ill-informed way. Unfortunately, in the absence of content he reaches for personality sniping, and he not only demonstrated that he does not do it very well but brought forward an old, scratched record out of the cupboard. It is a scratched record of former hits. The hits are “What Can I Take to the Party?”. Of course, the song that he takes to the party is “What Party? I’ll Join Any Party”.

Then he was aided by Mr Brownlee, and he, too, trotted out some rather unfortunate things about the Minister of Māori Affairs and showed his ignorance about the fisheries settlement. Of course, his song that he takes to the party is “I Ate the Party”. He was followed later in this evening’s discussions by Mr Heatley, and we all know that whatever song he brings forward will be “I Bore the Party”.

We need to remember that although provision is made for an increase in the actual number of Māori Land Court judges, they will be appointed as time requires, through a very vigorous process. This notion that we will all wake up one Tuesday morning, come out of a meeting here in Wellington, Auckland, Eketāhuna, or Kaitāia, and be deluged with judges is actually wrong. The legislation provides for the bench to increase as the need arises. The need that we have addressed in refining and making some technical amendments, to overcome some administrative oversights, is normal lawmaking. I think the Opposition is being not only very childish but ill-informed if it thinks it will be able to stop this bill to tidy up a series of administrative oversights.

I commend this bill and also hope to see a better level of contribution from Mr Brownlee and my whanaunga Tau Henare during the course of people’s submissions, and I look forward to the bill coming back and enabling us to strengthen the Māori Land Court, address one or three small administrative defects in the fisheries and aquaculture settlement, and provide for growth in the number of Māori Land Court judges as they are required. Kia ora tātou.

Bill read a first time.

Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA (Minister of Māori Affairs): I move, That the Māori Purposes Bill be considered by the Māori Affairs Committee, that the committee report finally to the House on or before 21 November 2006, and that the committee have the authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting, except during oral questions, and during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House, and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House despite Standing Orders 195(b), 195(c) and 192.

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

Ayes 63

New Zealand Labour 50; New Zealand First 7; Māori Party 2; United Future 3; Progressive 1.

Noes 54

New Zealand National 48; Green Party 6.

Motion agreed to.

Bills

Justices of the Peace Amendment Bill

First Reading

Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Associate Minister of Justice): I move, That the Justices of the Peace Amendment Bill be now read a first time. It is my intention to move that the bill be referred to the Law and Order Committee.

Justices of the peace play a valuable and vital role in communities throughout New Zealand. The office of justice of the peace is an institution built on volunteering. Justices of the peace share a proud history of community service in this country. The first-ever New Zealand justice of the peace was appointed in 1814 and there are currently approximately 10,700 JPs, one for about every 400 New Zealanders.

A positive trend is the changing face of JPs, which better reflects the increasingly diverse ethnic make-up of our society. Increasingly, members of Parliament nominate to the office of justice of the peace people who add diverse language and cultural skills to their commitment to serve their communities. Equal numbers of men and women were appointed as JPs last year. The strength of those trends suggests that the spirit of community service is alive and well in New Zealand.

In order to maintain public confidence in the role of JPs, in a system preserving the good name of the office, the Justices of the Peace Amendment Bill proposes three areas of reform in training, discipline, and retirement. The bill proposes a modern framework for a long-established community institution and is divided into two parts. The first part relates to the training of newly appointed JPs and the authorisation to use the designation “JP (retired)”, and the second part provides an appropriate and clear disciplinary process for justices of the peace.

In March this year I launched the CD-ROM training programme to assist and support new JPs in their role. While there is an expectation that JPs will undertake training of their own accord, there has never been any formal obligation for JPs to undertake such training. The bill makes training a statutory requirement for all new JPs, prior to taking their oath of office. Of course, the CD-ROM programme is a valuable resource for the training of new justices. The bill will not affect the judicial studies course currently undertaken by the approximately 400 JPs who carry out judicial functions.

The bill proposes to recognise the work of retired JPs who have served the community for at least 10 years, by establishing the statutory title of “JP (retired)”. There is no provision in the existing Act to retain the use of the post-nominal letters JP once a person no longer undertakes active justice of the peace duties. The use of that title will recognise the commitment and contribution of the person in performing an ongoing and important community service. It gives me great pleasure to introduce that measure—one long-sought by the Royal Federation of New Zealand Justices Associations.

It is important that justices of the peace are respected, so as to maintain the credibility of their office. I consider that part of maintaining public confidence in JPs is to ensure they have a fair, effective, and transparent disciplinary system. The Justices of the Peace Act is over 50 years old, and allows only in the most serious of cases for a JP to be removed from office. Part 2 enhances the disciplinary regime by specifying the grounds for removal or suspension of a JP and, importantly, the process to be followed to secure a removal or suspension. The grounds for such action may include misconduct, a conviction for an offence punishable by imprisonment, or the state of being adjudged bankrupt.

The bill introduces a second-tier disciplinary system to address behaviour that requires remedial action but that does not warrant removal from office. Such action may include an official written rebuke, or a written notice to require a JP to attend further training or receive counselling. I consider that specifying the disciplinary regime in the legislation provides a consistent and transparent basis for decision making. It also indicates the high standard of behaviour that is expected of JPs as respected members of the community.

The justice of the peace system is an institution built, as I said before, on volunteering. Justices of the peace are justifiably proud of their history of service to the community, and the Government commends the work and commitment of JPs throughout New Zealand. The Royal Federation of New Zealand Justices Associations, in particular, has waited patiently for the progress of the bill through the House. I am grateful to the federation, and especially to its current president, Gavin Kerr, for working with my officials and liaising with its members on the form of the bill. This Government has delivered what the federation has asked for. I have developed a very positive working relationship with Mr Kerr, the president, and I am impressed by both his and his federation’s dedication and professionalism. I also pay tribute to Martin Gallagher MP, JP, and chair of the Law and Order Committee, who has also worked on the bill, and who has a proud history of community service as a justice of the peace.

The bill will support JPs by modernising their legal framework to reflect their current role more appropriately. I believe that as with any legislation, the law should be clear and effective for those who exercise powers and authority under it. The bill achieves clarity and effectiveness for justices of the peace and, as a result, New Zealanders may continue to have confidence in the office of justice of the peace.

Before I conclude, I want to note an example of the huge contribution that justices make. When, as an Associate Minister of Justice, I had the privilege some time ago of launching the CD-ROM training programme, the opportunity was also taken—sadly—for the community to honour the man who was then New Zealand’s oldest and longest-serving justice of the peace. He was, at 101 years old, the late Mick Goldsbro’ from Hamilton. Mick Goldsbro’ was born in 1904 and appointed a JP on 28 August 1940. He actively served until the late 1960s, having been then warranted as a JP for 65 years. When I became Minister I wanted to seek out the person who was our longest-serving and oldest JP and, having had that privilege before he passed away, which was soon after we honoured him, I can say that Mick Goldsbro’ exemplified my view of the professionalism and the commitment that justices of the peace provide to our community.

Those justices are volunteers. They do the job because they want to commit to our community. They want to offer something back, and in the case of Mick Goldsbro’ a lifetime of service was offered back to this country. They often become embarrassed, as volunteers do, of course, when one shines a light upon them and says what a fantastic job they have done, because the nature of volunteering is that people do it for the pure motive of giving back to their community. They ask for nothing, they ask for no thanks; they simply want to contribute, and contribute in a serious way, particularly in their role as justices of the peace.

This bill has been long sought by the Royal Federation of New Zealand Justices Associations. It is a privilege that I can bring the bill to Parliament. I pay tribute to the previous Minister, Rick Barker, who also did a lot of work to bring the bill to this point. It has been a marathon effort in some respects, but I know that the federation—and it has said so publicly—is pleased that the bill will be introduced and put through its stages.

I have to say to all MPs that I think this is probably one point in time—I live in hope, of course—that politics will not get in the way, because this is a pretty non-controversial bill. I think that both sides of the House—considering that all MPs nominate JPs—believe in the service that JPs provide, and I hope that the bill can pass swiftly through the select committee process, be brought back to the House, and be passed. I hope that as a Parliament, after more than 50 years, we can pay tribute to our justices of the peace by passing the legislation in the fashion that they would expect. I commend the bill to the House.

Dr RICHARD WORTH (National): On behalf of the National Party I would like to start by saying that National supports the Justices of the Peace Amendment Bill. We have had a most informative speech from the Minister as to the content of the legislation, in the course of which he has seen it as appropriate to offer a testimonial to Martin Gallagher MP, justice of the peace, as Martin prepares for his next career!

When I was talking to Mr Finlayson earlier this evening, he reminded me of the comments of Titus Livius, the Roman author and historian who said: “Better late than never”. When the Minister said that the bill has been a long time in the coming, he was so right, for National has pressed and pressed for the legislation to be introduced and advanced into the House. The justices of the peace have become, as an association and a federation, more and more vexed and concerned at the unnecessary and unreasonable delays that have beset the advancement of this important statute.

It is right to start, I believe, by noting that the office of justice of the peace is an ancient and honourable institution. Indeed, the ability to recommend the appointment of a justice of the peace is the last bastion of a constituency MP’s patronage. There were, at last count, approximately 10,000 justices of the peace in New Zealand, and all undertake to provide ministerial duties, document processing, and the taking of statutory declarations as a free service to the community. Some, of course, serve as judicial justices, with their jurisdiction extending to cover more than 90 separate Acts of Parliament. Some of those Acts give jurisdiction over deposition hearings, bail, remands, summary offences, minor offences, local authority infringements, and the swearing of search warrants.

I think it is interesting to reflect on the latest statistics—which the Minister did not refer to in his informative speech—that in the year ended October 2005, the actual number of charges heard by justices were these. There were 12,731 deposition, or preliminary, hearings; 35,603 minor and summary offences, including traffic offences; and 21,046 bails and remands. So that is a total of 69,380 charges heard—and all of that was done voluntarily, with only lunch money of $16 and travel costs reimbursed. So those justices contributed about 26,000 voluntary hours. I think one of the issues that will disappoint some of the justices of the peace when they come to look at this legislation is that the Government has not seized the nettle and dealt with the issue of pay for justices of the peace. I know that the Minister is implacably opposed to rewarding justices even in the most modest way for the work they do.

Hon Clayton Cosgrove: Not true.

Dr RICHARD WORTH: I would just like to capture those words “not true” on the record. It is always important to be flexible, and the Minister has shifted his ground in the last few hours to make it clear that there may well be, it seems, for justices that promise of bounty at the end of the day.

I am a staunch advocate for the role that justices of the peace play in the community, and I would like to see that role strengthened and extended. Although I have spoken about the work that justices of the peace do in a judicial capacity, there is a degree of doubt that the future role of justices of the peace in court duties will continue under the present Government. I say that because the Law Commission proposed in its report called Delivering Justice for All: A Vision for New Zealand Courts and Tribunals that community justice officers be appointed with the intent that they should generally be experienced lawyers.

In one of a series of written questions that I asked the Government last year, to which the responses were not particularly enlightening, the Government stated that it had not made decisions on the long-term future of the judicial roles of justices of the peace. Nicky Wagner has reminded me that the role of justice of the peace is an ancient and honourable one, and that is assuredly so. It can be traced back to the unpaid post of wardens, conservators, and keepers of the peace in the 14th century, and there has been a tradition of unpaid service, accordingly, dating back more than 600 years. It is a matter of historical note that in New Zealand, the first justice of the peace appointed was the missionary Thomas Kendall, who was given responsibility in the Bay of Islands and throughout the islands of New Zealand. When New Zealand became a separate British colony, regular appointments of justices were made and three senior justices were required to be members of the Legislative Council.

There is an issue on which I would briefly like to comment, and when I first made these comments they provoked some controversy. The Auckland association, which is a strong part of the justices of the peace grouping, became concerned that about half the justices of the peace in Manukau City, clearly an important constituent part of the Auckland region, were ignoring their responsibilities to the public. There are approximately 600 justices of the peace in Manukau, but only about 300 were carrying out their duties. It would not surprise me at all if similar statistics could be found for other associations. That is relevant to the issue of the appointment of justices because a statutory test requires the Minister, before making fresh appointments, to see how well served a particular district is. I believe that process involves little more than a numerical look to see the number of justices in a particular area. That is why there is intrinsic merit in those parts of the bill that deal with training and tenure, and permit, in the way the Minister has described, those who have given service to retire honourably and have the honorific “JP (retired)” after their name.

I am in favour, and the bill certainly proposes this, of a much stricter vetting of applications and the validating of the commitment by an individual to undertake the role, if appointed. For there are many who see in the honorific “JP” the opportunity of post-nominal initials and not much more than that. That is a challenge that those administering the legislation must constantly grapple with. I also support compulsory membership of associations and the continuing education of JPs. For those who are not prepared to commit to the task, I would cancel their warrants. For those who perform sterling service, as so many do, and who are not able to continue, I believe they should retain the honorific as a mark of the service they have given.

Quite clearly, without judicial justices of the peace the legal system would not function at the primary level. That will continue to be the case if the Criminal Procedure Bill, which is currently on the Order Paper, is passed. That bill provides that the standard committal procedure in indictable criminal proceedings will be presentation of evidence in written form and automatic committal for trial, unless either party applies for an oral hearing. I certainly have some reservations about that part of the bill, because the way that the legislation is drafted—I believe, in error—will make it extremely difficult to secure an oral evidence order. There is a school of thought that says only qualified lawyers should exercise an adjudicative jurisdiction, but I do not subscribe to that. Despite what the Minister might think, lawyers do not have the monopoly on wisdom in the legal domain. A justice of the peace can bring to the bench a close knowledge of the community and its aspirations, as well as robust common sense. National commends the bill to the House.

MARTIN GALLAGHER (Labour—Hamilton West): I acknowledge the contribution by the previous speaker, the by and large good spirit in which it was given, and the very comprehensive history of the role of justices of the peace. I also thank him very much for his very sincere expression of goodwill for my future, but I assure the member that I want to be serving my Hamilton community in my current role for a number of years yet.

I think praise is in order for the current Associate Minister of Justice, the Hon Clayton Cosgrove, because he has achieved the introduction of this bill on to the Order Paper of this Parliament. He is not a Minister who just goes along to a conference and gives a nice speech—he did that very well, I believe, on the West Coast—he has actually been able to achieve getting this bill into the House. He is a Minister who does not just give speeches. He works very well with the royal federation. In that context, I observe all the very good work of Rick Barker, Mr Cosgrove’s predecessor, in this regard.

I will not be partisan tonight. This is the one time in the Parliament of this country, when we are talking about justices of the peace legislation, when this Parliament should be absolutely non-partisan. We should be focusing our speeches on honouring the wonderful volunteers throughout our country who have given service as justices of the peace.

I observe the observations of the president of the Royal Federation of New Zealand Justices Associations, Mr Gavin Kerr JP, who, in welcoming the introduction of the Justices of the Peace Amendment Bill to Parliament, paid tribute—and I am reading from the federation’s media statement—to the Associate Minister of Justice, the Hon Clayton Cosgrove, for expediting the introduction of the bill. It states: “We have greatly appreciated his guidance”—I know that Richard Worth will join me in this—“and support for our important work, especially since he took on the role of Minister with responsibility for justices of the peace.”, etc.

I know that Richard will support me and, in this moment of non-partisan debate, will join with me in congratulating Clayton Cosgrove on getting this bill on to the floor of the House. I pay tribute to Richard’s very good contribution. He gave a very good exposition of the historic and very honourable role of justices of the peace in our society and in our jurisprudence.

This bill also gives us an opportunity to reflect on the fact that there is a role for a community-spirited layperson in our judicial system. In terms of some of the very interesting and very good observations that Dr Worth was making on the Law Commission’s recommendations, I believe that we move away from and give away the role of the JP at our peril in terms of the totality of our judicial system. That is an issue that I know the Minister will address, particularly in terms of the court work of justices of the peace. I know that Richard Worth expressed concern in terms of some of the financial costs to those JPs who do work in the courts, but I genuinely do not believe that the legislation is the mechanism by which that financial recompense should be addressed. I am totally aware that the Minister is working with the royal federation on that particular issue. Certainly, I would say that the issue of remuneration is important in that we want to encourage a broad cross-section of JPs to serve in that particular role.

I take the opportunity in this first reading to pay huge tribute to my own Waikato Justices of the Peace Association. I pay tribute to former royal federation presidents Mary Symmans and Bob Armstrong for their great work and their constant lobbying to get this bill in. Clayton Cosgrove talked about the spirit of volunteerism. The late Mick Goldsbro’, who was 101 or 102, was a serving justice of the peace for many, many years. What a wonderful privilege it was to go to Hamilton with the Minister to launch the JP training CD-ROM in Mr Goldsbro’s presence. I was so grateful that we did that with the late Mick Goldsbro’ and his family while he was with us on this earth. He was a good example of a wonderful life of community service. In a way, if the Minister will allow me to say, Mr Goldsbro’ is kind of the inspiration for this bill.

There is no doubt the legislation is long overdue for overhaul. As chairman of the Law and Order Committee, to which the bill will be referred, I look forward to hearing the submissions, and I certainly look forward to the very comprehensive submissions and advice of the Royal Federation of New Zealand Justices Association. I commend this bill.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 10 p.m.