Wednesday, 28 June 2006

Wednesday, 28 June 2006

Wednesday, 28 June 2006

Madam Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

Questions for Oral Answer

Questions to Ministers

Rates Rebate Scheme—Low Incomes

1. JILL PETTIS (Labour) to the Minister of Local Government: When do the Government’s new measures to improve the rates rebate scheme for those on low incomes come into effect? [Interruption]

Madam SPEAKER: This is a final warning. Questions are to be asked in silence.

Hon MARK BURTON (Minister of Local Government): I am very pleased to be able to tell the House that from 1 July an estimated 300,000 New Zealanders will be eligible for a rebate of up to $500 under the rates rebate scheme. This marks a significant increase from last year, when fewer than 4,000 people received a rebate. We now know that this is exactly the sort of scheme that the National Party would scrap to fund its tax cuts for the rich. That is why National joined ACT in voting against this part of the Local Government Law Reform Bill, which extended this coverage, both during the Committee stage and the third reading of the bill.

Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. You will recall last week that you pulled up someone on this side of the House for asking a question that you considered to be outside the Standing Orders. You referred to Standing Order 372. I believe that Standing Order 377, which is the mirror image of Standing Order 372, prevents Ministers from answering in the way that Mr Burton just did. So I would ask, Madam Speaker, that if you are to be consistent, and require that we adhere to the Standing Order in the asking of questions, that Ministers be required to adhere to the Standing Order in the answering of questions.

Madam SPEAKER: I recall that at the time I said that the Standing Order did apply to both questions and answers. I thank the member for reminding the House of that matter.

Jill Pettis: Could the Minister please advise how this new measure would impact on a single woman on New Zealand superannuation living in the community of Wanganui?

Hon MARK BURTON: Under the current thresholds, sadly she would not be entitled to any rebate. But, as of Saturday, if she was paying average regional and district council rates, she would be entitled to a rebate of $500 on her rates. That is very different from what would have happened had National and ACT got their way last week.

Mark Blumsky: Did the Minister take into account the impact on all ratepayers of the rates rebate scheme, considering that the Auckland City Council has complained that the administration costs alone have increased the rates bill of Auckland City by up to $160,000?

Hon MARK BURTON: We did indeed take into account the overall effect. I guess it illustrates the difference in the priorities of this Government and the National-ACT Opposition.

Jill Pettis: Could the Minister please advise the House what would have happened if Part 7 of the Local Government Law Reform Bill, which provided for the inclusion of uniform annual general charges in the rates rebate scheme, had not been passed?

Hon MARK BURTON: If the bill had not been passed, people in districts or regions where those charges make up a significant part of the rates bill would not have had their eligibility entitlement. So that is why people like Bill English’s constituents in Gore, John Carter’s in Kaipara, and Bob Clarkson’s in Tauranga would be outraged to know that their representatives voted against their getting that increase.

Rodney Hide: Could the Minister advise the House, in light of this rebate scheme, what the total extra cost is that central government has imposed on local government over the last 7 years—or does he not know or care—and what does he say to Auckland ratepayers who are staring down the barrel of a 37 percent rates increase over just 3 years?

Hon MARK BURTON: Firstly, this rates rebate scheme has not imposed any costs over the last 7 years; it is coming into effect only on Saturday. Secondly, considerable draft rates increases are being proposed at the moment. They are not yet finalised in most parts of the country. Many of them deal with long-overdue infrastructure investment, and I have to say that during the 1990s, a great deal of the effect of that under-investment was compounded.

Electricity—Transmission System Upgrade

2. Dr DON BRASH (Leader of the Opposition) to the Prime Minister: Does she stand by her statement to the House regarding the electricity transmission grid in New Zealand: “The transmission system needs an upgrade”; if not, why not?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Deputy Prime Minister) on behalf of the Prime Minister: Yes.

Dr Don Brash: How can New Zealanders have any confidence that the upgrades required in the transmission grid will actually happen, when Transpower is operating with one hand tied behind its back, thanks to the refusal of the Prime Minister’s Government to reform the Resource Management Act, and the continued use of the flawed grid investment test by the Government’s Electricity Commission?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: Taking the first part, I say that of course last year changes were enacted to the Resource Management Act to include improvements requested by industries including infrastructure companies such as Transpower. That includes revised call-in provisions. The National Party voted against those specific provisions, which are able to be used in these circumstances.

Tim Barnett: What reports has the Minister seen on the construction of new lines and significant upgrades, over the last 7 years?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: I have seen a claim by the Hon Dr Nick Smith that not a single additional kilometre has been added in the last 7 years. In fact, a number of new lines have been built, though admittedly building has been very limited—as was the case in the previous 7 years. In relation to the up-rating of lines, I tell members that over 2,000 kilometres of lines have been up-rated in the last 2½ years alone. Why Dr Smith does not know that, I do not know, because I hold in my hand a photograph that is captioned: “MP inspects progress” on the installing of another circuit on the Stoke to Blenheim line, and, holding the material as though he knows what is going on, is the Hon Dr Nick Smith.

Dr Don Brash: Is the Prime Minister aware of criticisms by Transpower, and more recently by the Employers and Manufacturers Association, that the grid investment test introduced by her Government’s Electricity Commission puts narrow economic tests well ahead of crucial social and business concerns about the security of electricity supply, and results in much-needed upgrades in the network simply not occurring?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: I am aware of criticisms of the grid investment test. That is one of the reasons the Government is preparing, as a matter of urgency, a new energy policy statement, which will lay considerable emphasis upon increasing the margin for security. Of course, it is the previous Government that instructed Transpower to set up a committee whereby the consumers determined what upgrades should occur.

Dr Don Brash: How can Transpower effectively manage the grid network, and conduct vitally necessary upgrades, when her Government has tied the company in regulation from both the Commerce Commission and the Electricity Commission, and then continues to subject it to an overly onerous requirement of an unreformed Resource Management Act?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: As I said, the Resource Management Act was, in fact, reformed last year specifically with projects such as this in mind. Of course, the fact is that it was some of the member’s own colleagues who most vehemently opposed that upgrade, most noticeably Ms Judith Collins, who said she would fight to oppose higher pylons running through her electorate.

Dr Don Brash: When will she stop making excuses and passing the buck for every single infrastructural issue in this country, and actually admit that the initiatives taken by her Government, in creating the failed Electricity Commission and tying up the various players in Resource Management Act red tape, have actually made the situation markedly worse?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: It is quite clear that the failure that occurred in Auckland was not a consequence of the Resource Management Act. It was a consequence of reliance upon a single process through the Ōtāhuhu substation. The question of the major upgrade of the transmission line is one that, obviously, the Government is seized with. The Resource Management Act amendments last year are able to be used in that circumstance. The member’s own colleagues led the charge—both Ms Collins and Dr Paul Hutchison—and I ask him why.

Immigration—Maritime Industry

3. PETER BROWN (Deputy Leader—NZ First) to the Minister of Immigration: Is his department addressing problems regarding immigration compliance within the maritime industry; if so, how?

Hon RUTH DYSON (Minister of Labour) on behalf of the Minister of Immigration: Yes, by working with the fishing industry to strengthen policy on terms and conditions for foreign fishing crew, while undertaking compliance activity.

Peter Brown: Does the Minister accept that some employers in the fishing industry advertise jobs to New Zealanders at minimum wage, have no takers, so then seek to employ foreign workers under the approval in principle system; and if she does accept that, will she concede that such a system is putting huge downward pressure on New Zealand wages and working conditions?

Hon RUTH DYSON: The Government does take this issue very seriously and is taking positive steps to ensure that working conditions and wages paid to New Zealanders are not undermined in the way the member indicated. The intent of all immigration policy is to ensure that no New Zealanders are deprived of opportunities for employment, to protect terms and conditions for New Zealand workers, and to facilitate employers sourcing labour offshore if no New Zealanders are available.

H V Ross Robertson: Can the Minister tell the House what is the Government strategy for foreign chartered vessels in New Zealand waters?

Hon RUTH DYSON: The Government is facilitating a legitimate high-quality foreign charter fleet to complement the New Zealand fishing industry, including ensuring that terms and conditions for New Zealand fishing crew are not undercut, protecting all fishing crew from mistreatment and exploitation, managing immigration risks, and ensuring that no competitive advantage is gained over New Zealand crewed vessels.

Peter Brown: Noting that answer, does the Minister share the New Zealand First view that jobs on fishing vessels should go to New Zealanders first and foremost, and that with better wages, conditions, and training there would be a greater uptake of these jobs; and if she does share that view, will she consider making it much more difficult for employers to engage foreign labour under the approval in principle scheme; if not, why not?

Hon RUTH DYSON: Yes. The Government has already taken action on this by tightening conditions around pay and pay deductions. I refer the member again to the basic intent of immigration policy: ensuring no New Zealanders are deprived of opportunities for employment, to protect terms and conditions for New Zealand workers, and to facilitate employers sourcing labour offshore if no New Zealanders are available.

Air New Zealand—Meeting of Ministers and Executives

4. JOHN KEY (National—Helensville) to the Minister of Finance: Which Ministers and which Air New Zealand executives were present, for all or part of the time, at the dinner held at the Boulcott Street Bistro on 13 March 2006?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Minister of Finance): The Ministers were myself; the Minister of Commerce, Lianne Dalziel; the Minister of Tourism, Damien O’Connor; and, for part of the time, the Minister of Transport, David Parker. The only Air New Zealand executive present was Rob Fyfe.

John Key: Does he agree with Air New Zealand’s chairman, John Palmer, who said over dinner that “The issue of the Tasman and, particularly, the impact of Emirates on the Tasman were certainly discussed.”; if so, what issues relating to the Tasman were discussed that night?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: I can confirm that Mr Palmer also said the issue of code-sharing was not discussed. The issue of Emirates Airline was discussed, because, of course, it had been having a severe impact upon Air New Zealand on the trans-Tasman route. Air New Zealand had proposals around joint Government - Air New Zealand action to promote tourism.

R Doug Woolerton: Does the Minister believe that it is better to have dinner in a public place and discuss Air New Zealand and the welfare of the country, or to have discussions with the Exclusive Brethren behind closed doors?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: If I were to sup with members of the Brethren, I am sure they would bring a very long spoon, at least.

John Key: Did anyone present at the dinner raise or discuss any of the points relating to the Tasman route that chief executive officer Rob Fyfe has previously raised: that Air New Zealand is losing tens of millions of dollars annually, that too many empty seats are hurting Air New Zealand’s profitability, or that Air New Zealand could make a profit on the Tasman if some of the planes were taken off the route?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: I can confirm that what was discussed was that Emirates Airline has an impact upon Air New Zealand—primarily, of course, because that airline avoids downtime in Sydney by going backwards and forwards across the Tasman at marginal pricing. That, of course, is why the member opposite supports the code-sharing arrangement, unlike his leader, who opposes it.

John Key: Can the Minister confirm that Emirates Airline is a competitor of Air New Zealand and Qantas on the Tasman route; when those present at the dinner discussed the impact of Emirates Airline, did anyone make the point that Rob Fyfe has been making publicly, which is that stiff competition from airlines like Emirates Airline is one of the key reasons that Air New Zealand’s Tasman routes are in their present form unviable, and hence a solution to that problem needs to be found?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: The reason why Mr O’Connor was there, as I am sure Opposition members have begun to grasp, is that the discussion was around how the Government and Air New Zealand might work better together in terms of tourism promotion. The Government had its own proposals at that point in time. If the member finally gets around to asking the right question, he may find out what that proposal was.

John Key: If no one at the dinner talked about competition on the trans-Tasman routes, about the viability of Air New Zealand’s current schedules, or about the possible solutions to Air New Zealand’s problems, does that not make a mockery of—

Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I realise that the member is reading from a prepared question, but he has already received an assurance that competition on the Tasman route between Emirates Airline and Air New Zealand was discussed. Therefore, to preface a question with: “If that was not discussed …” must be to doubt the word of the Minister.

Madam SPEAKER: I think that is a very long bow. The member can ask the same question twice, and presumably there will a response to that question.

John Key: If no one at the dinner talked about competition on the trans-Tasman routes, about the viability of Air New Zealand’s current schedules, or about possible solutions to Air New Zealand’s problems, does that not make a mockery of the statements of the Air New Zealand chairman that the issue of the Tasman was certainly discussed; or does he expect the people of New Zealand to believe his recollection of events over that of John Palmer?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: The problem with members reading out a prepared question when they do not listen to the answer is that they look like idiots. As I told the member and the House—[Interruption]

Madam SPEAKER: I ask the member to please be seated. I certainly could not hear the answer to the question. I know that members at the back could not hear it, either. As I reminded members yesterday, I am receiving an increasing number of complaints from those who listen to this broadcast but who also cannot hear the answers to questions.

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: As I said to the member in my previous answer, the issue of the impact of Emirates Airline as a competitor to Air New Zealand was discussed at the meeting.

Hon Tau Henare: Why did you say it wasn’t, then?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: I said it was discussed.

John Key: When the Minister said yesterday that he did not recollect having a discussion on code-sharing, yet John Palmer confirmed there certainly was a discussion on trans-Tasman air services, is that a bit like saying there was no discussion about horses but just one about hoofed quadrupeds that eat oats and all happen to be born on 1 August?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: I answered that in my first answer. I can quote from Mr Palmer, who after all did sit on Ruth Richardson’s electorate committee at one point. He said: “I can absolutely confirm that the issue of the code-share application was not discussed.” The member may consider it appropriate to doubt my word, but by also going around doubting John Palmer’s word he will get himself into serious trouble.

John Key: Actually, we believe Mr Palmer.

Brian Connell: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I did not want to interrupt the Minister, but prior to his answer my colleague John Key was asking a question. During the course of it, Minister Mallard interrupted him. As you have already issued a final warning, I expect you to ask him to leave the House.

Madam SPEAKER: I have also had interruptions during other questions, and I ask members to please respect the Standing Orders about that. Otherwise, there would be no one left in this House.

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. As I was finishing my answer, Mr Key interjected, saying he accepted that code-sharing was not discussed. Can I be certain that that will be entered into the Hansard?

John Key: I did not say that. I said that I accepted Mr Palmer’s word; I did not necessarily accept the Minister’s.

Madam SPEAKER: Thank you.

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: I seek leave to table the quotation from Mr John Palmer, where he states that code-sharing was not discussed—the word that Mr Key has just accepted.

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

John Key: I seek leave to table Mr Palmer’s comments, where he says that issues about trans-Tasman air services were certainly discussed.

Document not tabled.

Peter Brown: Will the Minister clarify the situation; is it necessary for Air New Zealand to get the Government’s permission to get involved in a code-sharing arrangement with Qantas; if so, when is it likely that that permission will be granted?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: Strictly speaking, I could say that I do not have responsibility for that, but I have received advice on it, obviously. Yes, Air New Zealand does require that permission from the Minister of Transport. Because the Minister of Transport’s electorate includes Wellington Airport and that well-known private sector monopoly has rather strong views on this matter, she has asked my colleague Mr Hodgson to take responsibility for making that decision, which I am sure he will do in the fullness of time and without discussing with me what the decision should be.

Hospitals—Government Investment

5. MARYAN STREET (Labour) to the Minister of Health: What progress has the Government made in reinvesting in New Zealand hospitals?

Hon PETE HODGSON (Minister of Health): I am pleased to announce that the Government has today approved a $36.7 million redevelopment of Wairau Public Hospital at Blenheim. This is just the latest chapter in Labour’s reinvestment in public hospitals, which is the largest hospital programme in New Zealand’s history. This is what can be achieved when a Government invests in communities, instead of pouring money into reckless tax cuts.

Jill Pettis: Does the Government plan to invest in any other hospital building projects?

Hon PETE HODGSON: Yes, we do. I am also pleased to announce today that the Government has committed nearly $30 million for the redesign of Wanganui Hospital. I recognise the member’s diligent attention to the progress of this project, as does my predecessor, the Hon Annette King. The redesign will ensure that people in Wanganui have access to the world-class health system services that they deserve.

Chester Borrows: To the Minister—[Interruption]

Madam SPEAKER: The member was hesitating. He was not in the middle of his question. The member needs time. Just give him the space and time to ask his question.

Chester Borrows: Will the unbudgeted $517,000 that the Whanganui District Health Board had to spend due to the ministry’s delay in approving this capital spending eventually be met by the ministry, or will this lead to a cut of half a million dollars in surgical services in Wanganui?

Hon PETE HODGSON: The member apparently does not understand, notwithstanding the fact that he is the current representative of the electorate, that this hospital is being built in partnership. The partnership is between the Whanganui District Health Board and the New Zealand Government. It is a partnership that is vibrant, that will be successful, and that could not have been successful had that member’s party won the election. Only 9 months ago he stood on the hustings and said: “We can afford tax cuts.” Now he has the gall to stand up in this House and ask: “What about a hospital?”. He can have the hospital, but only because the Labour Party won the election.

Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. Can we now take it that you have ruled that if a member asking a question pauses between being called and beginning to speak, interjection during that period is perfectly reasonable?

Madam SPEAKER: Yes, it is the interjection on the member speaking that is the purpose that lies behind it. Obviously, that member needed time to be able to think of his question in the light of previous answers.

Hon Dr Michael Cullen: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. Those rulings also apply to interjecting on the Speaker while she is giving a ruling. In the middle of your ruling, Madam Speaker, Mr Gerry Brownlee shouted towards the back benches. I do not know whom to and why, but that clearly is out of order.

Madam SPEAKER: Yes, it is out of order. I would ask the member to take note of that and to please desist.

Hon Brian Donnelly: Could the Minister tell the House what plans there are—[Interruption]

Madam SPEAKER: I am sorry, but there was an interjection when the member was speaking. Can the House please settle. I know it is members’ day. As I said, the purpose of the Standing Order is so that we can hear the question. Would the member please get on with his question.

Hon Brian Donnelly: I would like to, Madam Speaker. I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. The problem I have is that I am not going to start my question while that raucous noise is coming from the other side of the House. I believe it is your responsibility to ensure that there is a platform on which members can ask their questions.

Madam SPEAKER: Thank you. Please proceed with the question.

Hon Brian Donnelly: Could the Minister tell the House what plans there are for upgrading Kaitāia Hospital and indicate the planned costs of this upgrade, and has this been the outcome of the diligence of the MP for that area?

Hon PETE HODGSON: There are two members of Parliament in that area. I have heard from neither of them in respect of the Kaitāia Hospital upgrade. However, I can assert that my colleague the Hon Dover Samuels continues to stay on my back. I am pleased to be able to report to him and to the rest of the House that the Kaitāia Hospital upgrade is proceeding according to plan, and we should be pleased about that.

Hon Brian Donnelly: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. There was no way I could hear the answer to that question. I asked the question because I was after some information, but because of the noise from that side of the House, I was not able to hear it. I ask that the answer be repeated.

Madam SPEAKER: Yes, would the Minister please repeat the answer.

Hon PETE HODGSON: Two members of Parliament serve the area surrounding Kaitāia. I have heard from neither of them. I have, however, heard repeatedly from my colleague the Hon Dover Samuels, who has been on my back over this issue—and, I am sure, on my predecessor’s back—for long enough. The Kaitāia Hospital redevelopment is proceeding apace. The cost the member asked about is, I think, a little over $8 million. The latest phase—which, as I recall, was upgraded maternity services—was completed only a few weeks ago, and we should be pleased about that.

Education, Courses—Question for Written Answer No. 2740

6. Hon BILL ENGLISH (National—Clutha-Southland) to the Minister for Tertiary Education: What types of courses are paid for out of the nearly $120 million referred to in his reply to written question No. 2740 (2006)? [Interruption]

Madam SPEAKER: Did a member interject? I heard an interjection or a comment from someone.

Jill Pettis: Begging the Speaker’s pardon, I was not interjecting on the member; I was gesticulating to somebody. I apologise. I was not interjecting.

Madam SPEAKER: Members, please have some order here. My difficulty on this particular ruling is that frequently members talk—they do not interject; they talk amongst themselves—particularly those seated especially close to the speaker, and it is often difficult to determine whether they are in fact interjecting so that people cannot hear the question or whether they are having a conversation. We have no rule that says members cannot have conversations, so I ask members to please keep a level of quietness in this House so that we can conduct question time in an orderly way.

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Minister for Tertiary Education): Foundation studies courses.

Hon Bill English: Why, when the courses have cost the Government $120 million of public money and involve 79,000 students, is the Minister unable to give any definition of what those courses are?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: Foundation level courses are those that are classified as mixed field. They focus on literacy, numeracy, life skills, employment skills, etc. I am advised that that is for a statistical purpose, and I will elaborate on that further when the member asks his next supplementary question.

Moana Mackey: Why is the Government investing in foundation studies courses?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: It is doing so because, clearly, issues of adult literacy are major issues within New Zealand. Clearly, too, it is desirable to try to reconnect people with the formal education system to address those issues. Of course, that does not mean to say the Government should not be very conscious about value-for-money elements, which is why my predecessor started taking some action in these areas.

Hon Brian Donnelly: Can the Minister confirm that data on foundation courses for the year 2000 is unavailable because the system his Government inherited from the previous National Government was so poor that the data is of insufficient quality to provide reliable numbers?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: That is the case—that is the advice I have—which is why we are able to make comparisons only from 2001 onwards. Those comparisons are available.

Hon Tau Henare: Why, 6 years after the beginning of the Modern Apprenticeships programme and after $100 million of spending, does the Minister still not know how many apprentices actually drop out of those courses?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: What we do have are completion numbers. As I explained to the select committee, calculating completion rates is quite difficult when one has a developing scheme, because obviously the numbers gear up over time in terms of completion. The completion rate for the first year is almost 0 percent. Clearly, that tends to rise significantly from then on. We now have well over 2,000 completions.

Te Ururoa Flavell: Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker; tēnā tātou katoa. How many foundation courses with a specific Māori focus were cut over 2004-05, and what has been the impact on Māori participation in the regions?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: I am afraid I do not have that number in front of me. It would probably be very, very difficult to extract that level of data from the system. I will try to do my best to get back to him, but I doubt the data is available in that form.

Hon Bill English: Can the Minister confirm that he has told the House today that the Government last year spent $120 million of the money that was meant to subsidise students in tertiary courses—those offered at universities and polytechnics—on literacy, numeracy, and life skills, and does he think it appropriate that universities should be teaching those sorts of courses?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: There is some role for universities to teach those courses. It is fair to say, however, that very little of that money has been spent by universities. The only really significant provider at university level in that area is the Auckland University of Technology.

Hon Bill English: How can the Minister avoid waste in these large programmes—such as $120 million for student component foundation skills and $100 million on Modern Apprenticeships schemes—when his own officials have told him that the data-recording system can show students are completing those courses when they were never enrolled in them and that many tertiary institutions are themselves dismayed at the low quality of data about these courses, and how can he exercise any accountability for this $200 million?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: I think the problem the member highlights is not one that relates, particularly, to the Modern Apprenticeships scheme. I accept there have been some difficulties elsewhere. It is part of the reason I took—I think—some six or seven different papers through Cabinet committee today on changing the system we inherited from the previous Government.

Hon Bill English: When will the Minister answer the very simple question I put to him as a primary question, and have put to him a number of times in written questions, and that is to lay out in detail the types of courses and the institutions that were paid $120 million of student component—that is, tertiary student subsidy—for teaching foundation skills, and why will he not answer that question?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: I am happy to table today data for 2001-04 in terms of foundation education courses. I would emphasise that these are self-identified by the institutions—

Hon Bill English: So you don’t know.

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: If the member waits for a moment—

Hon Bill English: 120 million and you don’t know.

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: If the member cares to shut up for a minute and control his anger—

Madam SPEAKER: Let the Minister answer.

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: I was about to say something nice about the member but I will forgo that opportunity given his interjection.

Food Labelling—Consultation

7. SUE KEDGLEY (Green) to the Minister for Food Safety: When she recommended to the Cabinet business committee that New Zealand opt out of the proposed Australia - New Zealand country-of-origin food labelling standard following a review, why did she indicate “that consultation is not required with the government caucuses or other parties represented in Parliament”?

Hon ANNETTE KING (Minister for Food Safety): As it is longstanding Government policy not to support mandatory country-of-origin labelling, and as the Australian-only standard does not change the current situation in New Zealand, no consultation was necessary with parties in Parliament with which the Government had entered coalition, confidence and supply, or cooperation agreements.

Sue Kedgley: Does she agree that a decision not to introduce country-of-origin labelling of food is of vital interest to New Zealanders, and that, as the representatives of New Zealanders, MPs and political parties have not only the right but the duty to engage with this issue; and is she concerned that by making this decision in secret—without any consultation—she has undermined the democratic process?

Hon ANNETTE KING: No, because the Government has made it clear for many years—as had previous Governments—that it does not favour mandatory country-of-origin labelling. We have not changed our mind. The member is able to use the democratic process. She has a member’s bill in this House, and that allows her to speak on the issue, and allows members of the public to give submissions on her bill.

Sue Kedgley: Is this Minister the same Minister for Food Safety who is quoted in today’s New Zealand Herald as saying that if the trans-Tasman therapeutic products agency fails to go ahead, there would be “transtasman ramifications”, and why, on the one hand, does she criticise parliamentary parties for not supporting her unilateral decision to harmonise with Australia, yet, on the other hand, behind our backs and without any consultation, she made a highly unusual and unilateral decision, with obvious trans-Tasman ramifications, to opt out of a joint food standard with Australia for the first time?

Hon ANNETTE KING: I honestly do not know where the member lives. It is not unilateral, secret, hidden, unknown; the Government’s position—as was the previous Government’s position—which is a sensible position, has been well known for years. I could ask that member why she is so in favour of strong regulations on food but does not want any regulations on complementary medicine.

Sue Kedgley: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. The Minister made an incorrect statement, and I ask her to withdraw and apologise. She said I was not in favour of any regulations.

Madam SPEAKER: That is not a point of order. [Interruption] Yes, it is a debating point.

Sue Kedgley: Why does the Government support mandatory country-of-origin labelling for clothing and footwear but not for food?

Hon ANNETTE KING: Mandatory country-of-origin labelling on footwear and clothing is a hangover from the phase-out of tariffs. That is why it is there. It is something of the past, and, obviously, is being reviewed—as is the country-of-origin labelling on wine. I think we have had a very sensible position in New Zealand, with cross-party support. It is not possible to argue against mandatory country-of-origin labelling by the rest of the world against New Zealand, and then want to impose it in New Zealand. That is a hypocritical position.

Sue Kedgley: Is the Minister saying she does not support country-of-origin labelling for clothing, footwear, and wine, as well, and why is her Government denying New Zealand consumers something as basic and democratic as their right to know where their food comes from, which is a right that consumers in most Western countries already have, and which 81 percent of New Zealanders said in a recent independent survey they want?

Hon ANNETTE KING: Most New Zealanders want to know whether the product is a New Zealand product. They want to buy New Zealand - made products. I think the Buy Kiwi Made programme that is being worked out with my colleague Trevor Mallard is a start in that direction. That, I think, is what most New Zealanders want to know. But if the member were to put to New Zealanders that they could have mandatory country-of-origin labelling, and then were to ask them to pay extra for it on top of the price of their food, I wonder whether the answer might be different.

Sue Kedgley: I seek leave to table documentation from the Cabinet business committee where the Minister advised her Cabinet colleagues that consultation was not required with the Government caucuses or other parties in Parliament on what is a fundamentally important issue of concern to all New Zealanders.

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

Health—Priorities

8. Hon TONY RYALL (National—Bay of Plenty) to the Minister of Health: What are the Government’s priorities in health?

Hon PETE HODGSON (Minister of Health): The Government’s top priority in health is to make a world-class health-care system affordable and accessible for all New Zealand families. I have also set out specific priorities for the coming financial year, which I would be happy to provide for the member if he is looking for ideas for his long-awaited National Party health policy.

Hon Tony Ryall: What does it say about the Government’s priorities in health that the Government is funding $1.5 million for a stop-smoking programme that involves giving away hundreds of free, state-of-the-art videophones, and what sort of message does that send to the many young New Zealanders who do not smoke and will not qualify for the free give-away of cellphones?

Hon PETE HODGSON: I invite the member to hold his judgment. He seems to be in favour of doing nothing to stop smoking, whereas we know that reducing smoking is one of the key ingredients in having a healthy population. The member has the view that we should do nothing positive to help someone get off smoking; that all we should do is just berate that person. That does not work.

Sue Moroney: Has he seen any reports on political support for the Government’s health priorities?

Hon PETE HODGSON: I have seen many reports of support from around the House but not from the National Party, which opposes affordable primary health care; opposes expenditure increases in health in general; wants to involve the private sector for the sake of doing so; is secretly wedded, even now, to part-charging for services; has nothing to say about beating diabetes; and seems to be against smoking cessation. The exception is Dr Brash’s view that people who overeat should not get dialysis treatment. That may be National’s policy. It is the only glimpse I have had of its policy after 7 years of it being in Opposition.

Barbara Stewart: What has the Cancer Control Council done, to date, to address its key purposes of reducing the incidence and impact of cancer, and reducing inequalities in respect of cancer treatment?

Hon PETE HODGSON: The Cancer Control Strategy, launched last year by my predecessor, is getting underway and will have a very significant increase in funding from Saturday. I met with the chief executive of the Cancer Control Strategy this morning. We launched a programme that ensures that people who had cancer as children receive better care as adolescents and adults, because it has become apparent that young adults who suffered cancer as children often suffer subsequent chronic disease. That is an interesting undertaking, it is the first time that any country in the world has followed children through into older age, and it is something the House should be proud of.

Hon Tony Ryall: Does he really think that wasting money on free videophones is a priority for the health system—and if he does not realise that some young people are going to milk this programme to get a free videophone, then he does not deserve to be Minister of Health?

Hon PETE HODGSON: I suspect that the member should suspend his judgment, take a closer look at the programme, get an understanding of how it is being made to work, and wait for its evaluation; then he can come up with his bumptious judgments. He should suspend them until then.

Hon Tony Ryall: Will he explain how giving away hundreds of videophones to young people will stop them smoking, and does he not realise that this sounds so much like the freephones offered by Te Wānanga o Aotearoa, where people stampeded to get the phones, only never to be seen again?

Hon PETE HODGSON: The member is a spoiler: by nature he is a negative person; by nature the glass is always half empty. He cannot stop grizzling. I ask the member what his viewpoint would be if, 1 year from now, we evaluate this programme—this new, different, innovative, has-not-been-done-before programme—and find that it works. I wonder what he would say then.

Dr Jonathan Coleman: How does the Minister reconcile the wasteful videophone giveaway with Mr Maharey’s stance on the use of inducements for enrolment in tertiary courses: “We want students to think carefully … and to not have these decisions influenced by free goods or other offers.”?

Hon PETE HODGSON: Has it not occurred to the member—

Madam SPEAKER: Order, please! It is again becoming difficult to hear.

Hon PETE HODGSON: Has it not occurred to the member that taxpayer funding is already going into Quitline, the subsidising of chewing gums, etc., and counselling, and that that is having an effect, because the prevalence of smoking is now down to 23 percent. What is more, it has become apparent that those who do smoke have reduced their daily consumption from 20 cigarettes to 13. Reducing the incidence of smoking is the most significant thing—apart from reduction of obesity—that can be done in the public health arena to improve New Zealanders’ health. I am appalled that the National Party opposes experimenting with it.

Dr Jonathan Coleman: What message does it send to young people who do not smoke that this Minister is prepared to give a videophone to their mates who do smoke, and does that not continue the Government’s theme that the more irresponsible people are, the more it will give them?

Hon PETE HODGSON: I offer the member the same advice that I offered his colleague. Would he please take the time to have a close look at the programme, to look at the incentives and disincentives embedded within it, and to take a look at those who have planned it, and see whether he can come to the view that maybe—[Interruption]

Madam SPEAKER: I am sorry, but I cannot hear, and the Minister is right beside the Speaker’s chair. Would the Minister please repeat the answer.

Hon PETE HODGSON: I am happy to do so, Madam Speaker. I advise the member in the same way as I advised his colleague. I invite him to take a close look at the programme, to look at its design, to see whether the incentives or disincentives may work, to suspend judgment until we have given this thing a go, and to consider the possibility that if it is successful because it is innovative, then we should be celebrating it. It is OK to take a risk with some taxpayers’ money sometimes, if the possibility exists that we can get kids to stop smoking. I point out that having kids stop smoking is a good thing to do.

Residential Care, Long-term—Spouses

9. GEORGINA BEYER (Labour) to the Minister for Social Development and Employment: How is the Government assisting superannuitants who have a spouse in long-term residential care?

Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE (Minister for Social Development and Employment): From 1 July this year all superannuitants and veterans pensioners who live in the community and have a spouse in long-term residential care will be eligible for the higher single rate of New Zealand superannuation and veterans pension. This will mean an extra weekly income of up to $60 for as many as 2,000 superannuitants and veterans pensioners living in the community who have a spouse in long-term residential care. This is, of course, another example of a Labour-led Government delivering on its election promises and correcting the injustice and unfairness of the 1990s under a National Government.

Georgina Beyer: What else is the Government doing to ensure fairer and more equitable treatment of older New Zealanders?

Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE: From 1 July this year also, the sharing expenses rule, which currently prevents some superannuitants from receiving the living alone payment, will also be removed. Also, from 1 July a person carrying out volunteer work overseas for a recognised aid agency will be eligible for New Zealand superannuation or a veterans pension for up to 3 years. Currently the maximum payment period is 1 year. In addition to those improvements, from 1 April this year, thanks to this Government, 494,000 older New Zealanders were better off by up to $420 extra a year, thanks to increases in the rates of New Zealand superannuation and the veterans pension.

Barbara Stewart: Does the Minister have any specific plans to improve the fairness of pensions for New Zealand superannuitants who also have overseas pension entitlements?

Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE: That matter, as the member is aware, is the subject of active discussions with myself and the Minister of Finance.

Judith Collins: Why has it taken 7 years of his Government, Mrs Barbara White’s petition, and the work of the Hon Dr Nick Smith, for his Government finally to take action to fix a situation that was clearly unfair to married couples?

Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE: I know that most New Zealanders know how seriously to take statements by or about Dr Smith. But I do know that in 1995—and the member may not be aware of this fact—when National was in Government the then Minister for Senior Citizens, Peter Gresham, investigated exactly this policy. He even had it costed, but, typically, the National Government failed to do anything about it.

Budget 2006—Regulations Review

10. KATHERINE RICH (National) to the Minister of Commerce: Does she stand by her statement regarding the Government’s review of regulations announced following the 2006 Budget that “Nothing of this magnitude has been attempted before.”?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Leader of the House) on behalf of the Minister of Commerce: Yes.

Katherine Rich: If this is the biggest review of regulations that New Zealand has ever seen, can the Minister explain why she told the Commerce Committee: “We haven’t developed a budget for it. We’re doing it out of baselines.”?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: It is perfectly possible to do a wide-ranging review out of baselines. If that member ever gets the chance, she may find she has to.

Lynne Pillay: What responses has the Minister received to the Quality Regulation Review?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: Support has been received from a wide range of business organisations, including the Chambers of Commerce and Industry, Business New Zealand, and the sector groups participating in the sector reviews. The only negative response that I saw was from Katherine Rich, who said there was a “collective groan” from business. It might have been one of those groans of pleasure, of course.

Katherine Rich: Why does the Minister continue to promote her review as being “horizontal, vertical, fast-track, and in-depth. In other words it’s dynamic”, when she cannot explain how the fast-track mechanism is going to work, and can say only: “Well, we haven’t got the paper finished yet, but what we are planning to do is look where departments can fix things.”?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: We already have buy in from business sector groups to the sector reviews. We have support from Business New Zealand. Work is ongoing, and the member should wait—she will have a long time to wait, in Opposition—to see these reviews unfold.

Katherine Rich: Can the Minister confirm to the House that her fancy “fast-track mechanism” is just an omnibus bill, a process that has always been open to the Government; is that not just another example of economic transformation spin?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: No, I do not have the document in front of me, but I am sure there is a large flow diagram associated with the fast-track review.

Chris Tremain: How can the New Zealand business community have confidence that the regulations review will be any more successful than other reviews conducted by that Minister, especially when the Small Business Advisory Group has already scored the Minister at as low as two out of 10 for the implementation of recommendations from its recent report into issues faced by small business?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: My recollection is that roughly 90 percent of all the recommendations of the Small Business Advisory Group have either been implemented or are being implemented. The one, of course, that is not is the proposal for a 90-day ability for employers to take on people and boot them out without any good reason.

Katherine Rich: Why does the Minister not just admit that her review is hot air, because she has no budget, no extra money at all, and no idea how the fast-track mechanism will work, and because she has directed that all key policy areas of interest to business are off limits?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: Not all of that statement is correct, but the member will need to learn that it is possible to carry out change without spending more money. If she does not, of course, she will find it difficult to support programmes for large tax cuts, which imply increases in spending.

Katherine Rich: So which part of my statement was correct: that the Minister has no budget, no extra money, and no idea how the fast-track mechanism will work, and that she has directed that the main areas of interest to business are no-go areas?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: Roughly speaking, it is all of those.

Sawmill Workers, Whakatāne—Health Services

11. TE URUROA FLAVELL (Māori Party—Waiariki) to the Minister of Health: What resourcing, if any, has been made available from Vote Health to former sawmill workers in Whakatāne who have raised concerns about the numbers of deaths and ill health resulting from chemical poisoning?

Hon PETE HODGSON (Minister of Health): I thank the member for his interest. There has been quite a lot of resourcing. The member will be aware that the full range of primary and secondary services are available to this group, and that, in addition, the Bay of Plenty medical officer of health takes a special interest in ensuring that all services are able to be readily accessed, and that local general practitioners are kept up to date on health issues that may emerge from within the former mill workforce.

Te Ururoa Flavell: Kua rongo ia mō te rapunga kōrero o te tau 2001 i kī nei, nā te pentachlorophenol, tata atu ki te 30 ōrau o ngā kaimahi 62 o te mira kani rākau i māuiui, ā, he aha hoki te take kei te tirohia anō ngā mōrehu kaimahi o taua 62 i runga i te āhua, kei te mōhiotia he aha i māuiui ai?

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

[Is he aware of the medical study conducted in 2001 of 62 former sawmill workers that found that pentachlorophenol was the probable cause of health problems in about a third of cases; if so, why are the survivors of the original 62 being forced to go through yet another series of tests to confirm what is already known?]

Hon PETE HODGSON: I think the member is making the point that this is an issue greater than dioxin—that it includes pentachlorophenol and, indeed, a range of other organic chlorines, as well. I agree with him that there is a mix in there. The member asks why we are going through further experimentation and research. The answer is that this is an issue for which there is no settled science, and we need to try to get some.

Judy Turner: Can the Minister explain, then, what results or amelioration have come out of the medical study carried out on the 62 sawmill workers in 2001, which found that pentachlorophenol was the probable cause of one-third of health problems amongst workers in this industry?

Hon PETE HODGSON: I am afraid that it is not as easy as we would like it to be to link a particular chemical to a particular condition in a particular population; it just is not. So the Government is continuing to explore relationships as far as it is able, with research as far as it can do it. But the most important thing is, of course, to look carefully after the health of those people who have been, or who may have been, exposed in a damaging way to a range of chemicals in an earlier time.

Judy Turner: Will the Minister consider compensating first-generation sufferers of dioxin poisoning even if all the research into its effects has not yet been completed, in light of the fact that many sufferers will be dead by the time the research is completed?

Hon PETE HODGSON: The Government’s approach has been to meet with, to talk with, and to provide services as necessary and appropriate to, this workforce. We do realise there is a high chance that they are damaged as the result of earlier chemical exposures. It cannot be proved and it cannot be disproved, but it is clear that, as a population, they suffer serious health issues that they should be receiving ongoing special care for, and we hope to deliver it.

Te Ururoa Flavell: I runga i te āhua o te whakapapa o te paitini dioxin, arā, he ōrite ki ngā ariā kino o te Hanga Ārani, he aha te take kāore i te tirohia i tēnei wā mēnā kua pā te mate ki ngā uri, tamariki, mokopuna hoki o ngā kaimahi tawhito o te mira kani rākau i Whakatāne?

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

[In light of the genetic aspects of dioxin poison—similar to the effects of Agent Orange—why are the children and the mokopuna of the former sawmill workers of Whakatāne not being tested in current studies, to determine whether their health has been negatively affected?]

Hon PETE HODGSON: I do not have a detailed answer available for the member, I am sorry. My recollection—and I am afraid that we will have to go on that—is that there is research under way on DNA disruption. I think it is coming out of Massey University. That should help us understand whether there is a generational issue of consequence.

Housing New Zealand Corporation, Chairman—Confidence

12. PHIL HEATLEY (National—Whangarei) to the Minister of Housing: Does he have confidence in the chairman of Housing New Zealand Corporation; if so, why?

Hon CHRIS CARTER (Minister of Housing): Yes, because under his leadership Housing New Zealand Corporation has been delivering the Government’s social housing objectives efficiently and effectively.

Phil Heatley: What date did he find out that the chairman knew about the now famous gagging clause a full 2 weeks before the media, yet did nothing?

Hon CHRIS CARTER: I have already delivered a personal explanation to the House correcting my answer to that question Mr Heatley asked me earlier. A mistake was made. The chairman apologised and informed me as soon as he became aware of it. I corrected my answer in this House at the first available opportunity. That is the end of the matter.

Phil Heatley: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. We know that the Minister corrected the answer in the House—that is what has brought about all these questions. I asked the Minister what date he found out that the chairman knew he had made a mistake in telling the Minister the wrong dates. I want to know what date the Minister found out so that he could correct the answer in the House.

Madam SPEAKER: That is not a point of order.

Phil Heatley: How can the Minister have confidence in the chairman when the chairman failed to tell him that he knew about the gagging clause, even though there was widespread adverse publicity week in and week out about what the chairman knew and when he knew it, and why did the chairman not tell him he already knew about the gagging clause?

Hon CHRIS CARTER: We have spoken at length about this issue already in the House. I can once again assure the House that as soon as the chairperson informed me of this matter—

Phil Heatley: When?

Hon CHRIS CARTER: On the first available day—it was during the parliamentary adjournment. On the first sitting day, in the first 2 minutes of the House, I corrected the answer.

Phil Heatley: Why did only media pressure convince the chairman that the gagging clause was severe enough to warrant an Auditor-General’s inquiry, and not the chairman’s own conscience and professionalism?

Hon CHRIS CARTER: It seems to me that to answer that would be quite speculative. I have absolute confidence that as soon as the chairman became aware of the matter Mr Heatley initially raised he spoke to me about it. I have to say that throughout this process the chair of the corporation has acted promptly. Indeed, the Office of the Controller and Auditor-General’s report tabled in this House says that there was no wrongdoing.

Phil Heatley: Why did the chairman not ask for an external Auditor-General’s inquiry into the gagging clause when he found out about it—why did he delay for 2 or 3 weeks until the media put pressure on him to call an inquiry?

Hon CHRIS CARTER: The member again seems to be confused over timing issues. We have already been through these issues several times in the House. I would like to repeat for the members who seem to be rather slow at picking it up that we acted very promptly. In fact, I could spend a considerable amount of time reading out media quotes about how promptly and effectively the Government dealt with the issue.

Phil Heatley: Why does the Minister say that he has dealt with the issue and that the issue was not serious, when, firstly, the Auditor-General was called in, now the chief executive is going home to Australia, and Gerald Coles’ job is still in limbo?

Hon CHRIS CARTER: The member may not be prepared to accept what I say, but this House surely must accept what the Auditor-General’s report stated, which was that no wrongdoing was done.

General Debate

General Debate

SUE BRADFORD (Green): I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business. I doubt there is anyone in this country who has been left unaffected by the Kāhui case, including every MP in this House. There is something about the murder of twin babies that cuts to the heart. As a mother of twins myself, I find the thought of what happened to Chris and Cru Kāhui simply devastating. However, the critical thing for us here in Parliament is to not spend our time trying to make party political capital out of a fraught situation, or to berate the police or Child, Youth and Family Services for what they are and are not doing in the aftermath of the killings. Nor is it for us, in our position of comparative power, to spend our time attacking the individual members of a very dysfunctional family, when we are far from clearly knowing the facts of the situation. Most of all, I hope all politicians will avoid falling into the kind of egregious racism that was demonstrated in Rod Emmerson’s cartoon in last week’s New Zealand Herald, and in associated follow-up letters to the editor, all of which showed, once again, how the raw underbelly of anti-Māori racism can rear its head when given the slightest excuse.

Instead, the Green Party believes that our role as members of Parliament at a time like this is to work together across traditional party lines to seek ideas and solutions about what more this Government or any Government might do to help reduce violence within families, and the dreadfully high rates of domestic homicide in this country. I hope the cross-party working-group that Parekura Horomia has talked about will go ahead once the task force on action on family violence has completed its task. I hope we will be able to use the task force’s recommendations for ways forward as a starting point, and that we will be looking for solutions rather than focusing on research, plenty of which is already being done. I also hope the Government will have the will to make any such solutions a top priority within its fiscal and policy programme.

A complexity of issues are at stake here, and there are no simple, magical answers. Government, social services agencies, and health providers need to find better ways to identify babies and children at risk. We should consider seriously the suggestions of the Children’s Commissioner around keeping track of all babies from birth, and providing more information and support for parents as children progress through each life stage.

We should be looking at how we treat mothers who have just given birth. In the old days we used to have the option of staying for up to 2 weeks in hospital after having a baby. Now we are lucky to be there for 48 hours, if at all. For some mums, hospital used to be a place of sanctuary and rest, where we could bond with our baby or babies away from the stresses of home life. It is a pity this option barely exists any more. Post-natal depression needs to be taken a lot more seriously. Mothers who suffer from it need every bit of support they can get, even when they do not realise they have a problem. Groups that work in this area deserve better and more consistent resourcing.

The Kāhui case also raises the question about the number of working-age beneficiaries in the whānau, and why only one of them appeared to be in paid employment. Instead of just blaming those who are the victims of generations of unemployment, poverty, and total alienation from regular society, at a time of low unemployment such as this the Government should be looking closely at whether it could do more in the way of introducing front-on employment creation programmes that incorporate a whole range of features for those who have a multiplicity of problems adapting to the regular workforce.

What we should not be doing is removing benefits and income-related rents, as Rodney Hide seemed to be suggesting yesterday. The consequences of that course of action are almost unimaginable in terms of a total descent into crime, violence, neglect, and children running the risk of becoming, ultimately, discardable. We see that happening in societies where infanticide is an everyday, normalised evil.

Finally, I will say a few words about the connection between child homicide and section 59 of the Crimes Act. Although repealing section 59 will never, in itself, stop the murder of a child, it will get rid of a law that legitimises the use of violence against children. As MPs, we should have the courage to change the law so that no adults should ever think they are mandated by law to assault their babies and children. How can we expect parents to change their attitudes towards violence when we still have such a law on our books?

In the end, of course, this issue goes way beyond anything a Government or we MPs can do. All of us, including those in and around the Kāhui family, need to take responsibility for what is happening to children in our families in our community, and not just turn a blind eye to the damage being done, out of fear or wilful indifference.

Hon STEVE MAHAREY (Minister of Education): As winter closes in and the darkness settles across New Zealand, those few people who are followers of John Key—the rich and the restless of the nation—are not satisfied. Last year those people put their faith in Dr Don Brash, who now seems to reside in Bondi Beach. They had hoped by now to be enjoying their extraordinarily large tax cuts, and to be observing a strategic deficit being used to privatise, to cut back on social services, and to create an environment where they could once again gain from all of the public enterprise that has taken place in this country. As they choked back their champagne, they realised their dream has not come true. They spent so much money last year. They even had to go and spend time with the Exclusive Brethren, whose only virtue was that they were rich too—and all for nothing.

To make matters worse, they know that on 1 July this year they are going to have to watch being put in place a whole range of policies that the extremely rich get nothing from. On 1 July they will watch ordinary Kiwis gain a great deal, because they voted a Labour-led Government back into office. It is enough, I have heard, to make these extremely rich people like John Key shift to Australia, pay higher taxes, higher accident compensation charges, higher childcare charges, and higher charges for selling their eight or nine houses—and they would do all those things just in spite, because all their efforts have come to nothing.

We thought today that we would begin to make their pain worse by telling them exactly what will happen on 1 July. On 1 July the amount of money going to early childhood education will rise by $30 million.

Darren Hughes: Are they for it or against it?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: The National Party was against it, because it would have had to fund tax cuts and would not have been able to pay for it. On 1 July primary health organisations will roll out for 45 to 64-year-olds—it will not affect me but it will affect people like Mrs King, who has just crept into the age group. That age group will be watching their subsidies go up and the costs to the doctor go down. Therefore, their visits to the doctor will be cheaper.

On 1 July the manifesto promise to extend the paid parental leave entitlement to self-employed New Zealanders will come in. This was opposed by the National Party because it needed the money for tax cuts. On 1 July the phase-out of asset testing for people in residential homes will begin. The first $150,000 of assets will now be exempt, and that will rise by $10,000 per year. That was opposed by the National Party, because it needed the money for tax cuts. The National Government actually brought in all those changes, of course, so to be consistent National wants to leave the system as it is. On 1 July the rates rebate scheme will mean that 300,000 low-income New Zealanders will become eligible for $500 to be deducted from their rates bill. That has been opposed by the National Party, because it needed the money for tax cuts.

On top of all that, I just remind the sobbing friends of John Key that the amounts paid out under the Working for Families package went up on 1 April, interest-free loans came in on 1 April, superannuation went up on 1 April, business tax changes came in on 1 April—all opposed by the National Party, because it needed the money for tax cuts.

Next week we celebrate the 90th anniversary of the Labour Party, and we are to have one helluva party. For over 90 years the Labour movement has represented progress for ordinary, decent Kiwis, not for those limousine liberals who ride around with John Key worrying about why they cannot get more tax cuts for the rich. Labour will celebrate its 90th anniversary next week and the National Party will sob.

JOHN KEY (National—Helensville): The one defining difference between Steve Maharey and everybody else in the Labour caucus is that Steve Maharey is the only one who does not want to be Minister of Finance when Michael Cullen goes.

Tonight I am making a great sacrifice, I must be honest. At 4.20 tonight I am getting on a plane to fly to Palmerston North to give a speech at a public meeting. I am doing so because the locals of Palmerston North have asked me to come and give them some real representation. I am giving up the National Party’s mid-winter Christmas function, an invite to which is always very sought after and which is always very well attended. I am going to Palmerston North because I know, as the people there know, that that electorate is a marginal seat. The only difference between Steve Maharey and all those who are on Labour’s despatch list is that Steve Maharey knows he is No. 3 on the list, which means that for at least 12 to 18 months after the election he will be safe.

They assembled on the night of 13 March. It was a balmy summer evening, and Cabinet had just broken up. But their business for the night was not done. Four Ministers—Michael Cullen, David Parker, Lianne Dalziel, and Damien O’Connor—were accompanied by Rob Fyfe, the chief executive officer of Air New Zealand, John Palmer, the chairman, and Ken Douglas, that well-known Labour supporter. These were Ministers whose portfolios, when it came to Air New Zealand, represented more conflicts than one would find on an average day in downtown Baghdad. They were Ministers who knew they should not be in that room together, and who over the last 2 days have found themselves in the very uncomfortable position of having to answer some very uncomfortable questions.

Michael Cullen, who remains the shareholding Minister of Air New Zealand, is responsible for looking after the value of Air New Zealand. David Parker, the Minister of Transport at the time, had oversight responsibility for the regulator of Air New Zealand. Most important, he was the person who would have determined the crucial decision of whether Air New Zealand would get the green light for its code-sharing operation. He was also, and remains, the Minister who would decide on the climate change policy that was very important to Air New Zealand. The third of the important three who had the most conflict was Lianne Dalziel, who has oversight for the Commerce Act and who on 22 May said: “If ‘New Zealand Inc’ is to be truly competitive on a global scale then we need to consider whether the strict application of competition policy is inhibiting our capacity in any way.” That led Fran O’Sullivan to write in the New Zealand Herald on 24 May that Air New Zealand had been lobbying for a review of the Commerce Act, arguing it should have rights around it.

Just 5 days prior to the meeting on 13 March, Dr Cullen received from Treasury an update that outlined the current issues on Air New Zealand’s agenda. The first issue was the code share. Dr Cullen, who has had an amazing number of conflicts, admitted to the House yesterday: “I absent myself from any discussions or decision making relating to aviation. … 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.”

He went to dinner with two or three other Ministers who had direct conflict. It is a very interesting position. This is the Minister of Finance who agreed to attend a dinner where there were wine lists, where there were menus, where there were very important matters to discuss, and where there were conflicts all over the show, but, incredibly, there were no officials and no notes. Well, how jolly convenient for the Minister of Finance. This is from a Government that is not too averse to using notes taken by junior officials, even if they are never corroborated by officials and are never backed up. This is a Minister who knows that when notes are out there and officials are present, the truth could come out, and he did not want officials at that meeting. So that was the plan. It was jolly convenient. It was Monday night—they could go and watch Desperate Housewives and not bother coming to the meeting.

Hon RUTH DYSON (Minister of Labour): It is extraordinary that John Key does not understand the irony of his accusing Dr Cullen of having a secret meeting in the Boulcott Street Bistro because no members of the public ever go there, when just about every one of those members, including Rob Fyfe, would be very well known to the public, coming and going. After all, Mr Key is the member who organised and attended meetings with the Exclusive Brethren, and then forgot about them. He organised the meetings with the Exclusive Brethren, set them up with his leader, and attended those meetings but, just like Dr Brash, he could not remember anything about them.

John Key: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I have never attended a meeting with the Exclusive Brethren with my leader.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): No, the member will be seated. That is not a point of order. If the member wants to make a personal explanation, that is another matter.

Hon RUTH DYSON: I am delighted to hear that John Key is visiting Palmerston North today. I was thinking of the differences between John Key and Steve Maharey, but the list got too long. But I am pleased that John Key is visiting someone’s electorate, even if it is someone else’s. I have heard that people in Helensville would like him to visit their electorate, which happens to be his electorate. Steve Maharey actually lives in his own electorate, unlike that member who does not choose even to reside within an hour’s drive of his.

Then Mr Key has the audacity to say in public—while representing his constituency that is not good enough for him to reside in—that he does not want State houses in his electorate. He does not want people living in State houses in his electorate: “Why don’t they live in Shannon, or somewhere? Why don’t they live further down the line?”. I say to Mr Key that someone who has a supposedly proud background of being raised in a State house should understand that security and affordability in housing are part of a good start to life, and that is why we support building State houses, not selling them off. That is why we would support State houses being built even if the poor tenants had to have that member of Parliament as their elected representative. I do not think that it would be for very long.

This week is a very proud week for members of the Labour Party and for the organisation itself. As Steve Maharey said, this week marks the commemoration of the 90th year of our establishment. When we look into the history of the Labour Party, which is the longest-established political party in New Zealand—over 20 years older than the National Party—we see that the original vision of a more just society, where every citizen is able to live in comfort and security, remains totally unchanged to this day. That vision of a fair and inclusive society remains totally unchanged. In the intervening 90 years we have not had nearly enough time in Government but we are certainly doing our best to address that. We have set, throughout that time, progressive and sometimes radical agendas to ensure that security and opportunity for New Zealanders is entrenched as part of our vision. Even when we are out of office, frankly, we have often set the agenda for political debate.

We came into being as part of a wider industrial support system for political action, and as we became a major force in the 1920s we broadened our policies and our membership to ensure that our base reflected the aspirations of all of those people who wanted to build a better New Zealand. Nowhere is the difference in policies in those early days more obvious than after the Great Depression of the 1930s, which demonstrated without doubt the failure of conservative policies, both social and economic. Michael Joseph Savage led Labour to a sweeping victory in 1935, on the promise of radical changes.

Labour then introduced a number of measures that have become an integral part of our social and economic fabric. For the first time, access to health care became affordable for all. The State assumed a major responsibility to provide low-cost housing to those in need—I am not sure whether there was an attempt to put State houses in Helensville at that stage. A comprehensive social welfare system gave security to the elderly, to the infirm, and to those without employment. Access was opened to both secondary and tertiary education. Judicious Government intervention rebuilt our economy and reduced unemployment. Workers benefited by industrial relations legislation that introduced the 40-hour working week and made it easier for unions to negotiate on workers’ behalf.

My colleagues and I are very proud to be part of the current Labour-led Government. It is a Government that is building on exactly those original traditions—in health, in housing, in education, and in jobs.

KATHERINE RICH (National): The previous speaker, Ruth Dyson, talked about the big celebration going on in the Labour Party, but I think she has missed an opportunity. She is the Minister responsible for the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services, and she has missed a big opportunity to at least acknowledge or comment on the concerns of a lot of Kiwis at the moment about the plight of the Kāhui family. It is a real shame that she did not take the opportunity to at least make some comment—not to politicise, of course, but some comment would have been appropriate.

Trevor Mallard wants to be New Zealand’s next State planner. He has lost faith in New Zealand business and in the private sector, and he wants to fix things by having more control than Michael Cullen. That is why he is promoting the rapid expansion of State-owned enterprises, which many say will crowd out private sector investment. Not only that—he wants Michael Cullen’s job.

Members will recall seeing the Agenda interview in which Trevor Mallard confirmed that he wanted the job. He described Michael Cullen in such a way as to leave us with the impression of him as Methuselah-like character who has trouble chewing his food and is about to go off to Hawke’s Bay with a Zimmer frame at any moment. Trevor Mallard kept mentioning that Michael Cullen is in his sixties and that some Asian leaders keep going for many years, but really he was just planting the seed of the idea that Dr Cullen is aged and hinting to him that it is time to move on.

It is interesting that Trevor Mallard used exactly the same language to describe Michael Cullen that the Prime Minister used in her Listener interview some weeks ago, so one can perhaps conclude that some collusion is going on there. I do not think the use of the same language is any coincidence, at all. I actually think Dr Cullen wishes Jim Anderton were back in the role of Minister for Economic Development, because at least all Jim Anderton did was travel the country handing out cheques—

John Key: Or a camera.

KATHERINE RICH: With a camera—and getting his photo in the local papers. He did not dive into areas that are Michael Cullen’s domain.

Ever since Trevor Mallard expressed his interest in becoming the Minister of Finance he has made a wide range of dopey comments and statements. The first, members will recall, is that it is OK if Government businesses fall over because at least the Government owns the assets. Well, we on this side of the House hate to tell Trevor Mallard this, but if Air New Zealand fell over, the people with the first call on the planes would be that airline’s creditors, not the Government as the owner. The same goes for his arguments about the dams and windmills that he thinks are so special.

He went on to say that one of the reasons for reorganising State-owned enterprises is to make them less boring and predictable. I imagine that a lot of Kiwis up and down the country would say they quite like their postal services to be reliable and they quite like the idea of having a reliable electricity system, so that at least when they flick a switch they know they will get some power. He went on to say that no cronyism exists on State-owned enterprise boards. It was a shame for him that Victoria University research confirmed that State-owned enterprise directors themselves felt that a problem existed with a lot of his appointments and had concerns about some of the political processes that put people around those board tables who were not in a position to make good commercial decisions. They might have been good at delivering Labour Party pamphlets, but that did not mean they had the commercial nous to make decisions about multimillion-dollar deals.

He went on to say—and this is one of my favourite musings—“We cannot expect private individuals … to commit long term to this country’s prosperity if they are at risk of having their assets stranded or devalued by Government intervention.” Hello? A lot of Telecom shareholders and other business investors are shaking their heads at the moment and wondering how the Minister can sleep at night given the obvious concerns in that area. At the last election Trevor Mallard campaigned on not selling State assets, but he was the one to muse openly about partially floating subsidiary companies of State-owned enterprises. So it seems that although he is keen on not selling off the family silver, he thinks it is OK to put the silver in another drawer and sell it off from there.

He then talked about tax deductions instead of grants, which is something that I do not think he has discussed with Michael Cullen, who oversees the Inland Revenue Department. Quite clearly, Trevor Mallard is not fit to be the next Minister of Finance.

MARTIN GALLAGHER (Labour—Hamilton West): I rise with huge pleasure in the general debate this afternoon to acknowledge and celebrate the announcement of the wonderful things that will happen on 1 July. Before I do so, I want briefly to acknowledge the tragic recent events in Auckland. I take this opportunity not to go anywhere near politicising such tragedy but to acknowledge the wonderful work in my own community of groups that are working around issues of family violence, and to pay a heartfelt tribute to organisations such as Parentline, the Institute for Child Protection Studies, our Family Start teams, the New Zealand Police, our Family Violence Intervention Programme—all of these wonderful people in our community who are doing their best. I also want to honour the wonderful work of the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services in my own city.

Hamilton in the Waikato is on a fabulous roll as a result of the work of this Government. It was very nice to hear the Minister for Sport and Recreation, Trevor Mallard, in response to a question in the House from my good colleague Sue Moroney the other day, talk about the wonderful impact of partnership between central and local government and the community in terms of some of the big events that will be attracted to the Waikato. I congratulate all of those who have been responsible for bringing the rowing world cup to Karapiro. I particularly congratulate Mayor Michael Redman and his team on bringing the wonderful V8 Supercar race to the area. Along with the Minister for Sport and Recreation and the Government, I honour the wonderful people in the Waikato who have brought these events here. I went to the National Agricultural Fieldays—another wonderful event. We are on a roll. Unlike the Leader of the Opposition, who is sunning himself on Bondi Beach—who has taken off his pinstriped suit, for a bit of midwinter tan—we are on a roll. We are here, working for this country; we are not selling this country out.

I am so proud to be part of the Labour Party, to be part of the 90th anniversary celebrations, when we look back on the achievements of New Zealand’s oldest political party. When we gather in Parliament next week it will not be a black shirt and tie do of the elites of this country, of the people who want to sell this country out and buzz off and sun themselves on Bondi Beach, as the Leader of the Opposition does; it will be to celebrate our achievement and our commitment to this nation. I am so proud to be a member of this Government.

We will be celebrating the announcement of the Labour-led Government’s policies, to come into effect on 1 July, that will further improve the quality of life of Kiwi families—the Kiwi battlers, the people we represent, not the black shirt and tie, penguin-suited crowd on the other side of the House. We have built things that will bolster our economy and build our national identity. Early education subsidies will be increased—achievement; tick the box. Primary health organisation funding—cheaper doctors’ visits will be rolled out to the 45 to 64-year-old age group. Paid parental leave will be extended to the self-employed—tick the box. Rates rebates schemes for our elderly and lower-income people will come in—tick the box. Just the other day I visited schools in my electorate to hand out books as part of Government Book Week. This Government actually cares.

I was amazed when I heard Mr Key say that he would make a rare visit to Palmerston North. Mr Key should go back to his own electorate—the one he does not live in. He should visit that electorate, because the Government members of Parliament are in their electorates working, rolling up their sleeves and getting on with it.

Hon Maurice Williamson: Who wrote this speech?

MARTIN GALLAGHER: I wrote this speech, because I am so proud to be a Waikato member and Waikato is on a roll. Let me tell the House about the $200 million that the Government has allocated to Waikato transport, in addition to the record transport spending in the Waikato. The Government is awake and alive, unlike the previous National Government, which was in a coma. It was in a deep-induced coma when it came to the transport needs of the Waikato. Let me tell the House about that particular roll-out—about that particular achievement.

JUDY TURNER (Deputy Leader—United Future): How ironic it is that just yesterday MPs stood on the steps of Parliament to receive a petition calling on the Government to reinstate PlunketLine so that parents of young children can be a phone call away from help and advice. This event was separated by only days from the news that had the nation reeling; the news of the death of two more children raised within—and I think I am quoting the co-leader of the Māori Party here—“a dysfunctional family environment”.

As the country reaffirmed, through a petition of 53,000 people, the urgent need to ensure that every support is provided to families with small children, we have to recognise that a number of good community agencies, which specialise in the work of early intervention with such families, were a walking distance away from the home where these twins lived and these twins died. Did agencies that were geographically so close to the problem fail? Did Government departments fail? Did neighbours fail? It was pretty obvious that in this case the family failed. But when families fail, how do we ensure that somebody knows, because our safety net has holes. These holes are created when agencies are disconnected from each other and from appropriate Government agencies, and the agencies are disconnected because they scramble and compete with each other for the scarce funding that is handed out.

If we are going to engage in some cross-party problem-solving—and United Future welcomes that idea—I imagine that we will find areas in which we can agree so that we can provide clear, decisive, and unified leadership from central government to communities looking for solutions to our appalling record on family violence. We will—of course—have to wait, I imagine, until the report on family violence is put out. But then we need to decide together what we agree on. We certainly agree the problem is there; what we need to find also is where we can agree on the solution.

I suggest there is one area that we could rally around, and that is the area of supporting the work of the third sector. The previous speaker, Martin Gallagher, complimented the many non-governmental organisations in his community that do a great job in reducing family violence. I also mention one in Christchurch—the Family Help Trust—that has been doing an amazing job with some of the most at-risk families in that community for years and years. It failed to get the needed Government assistance to expand its capacity to continue to make a difference. The voluntary, the charitable, and the not-for-profit organisations make a huge difference. If we could all agree to support—not undermine—the third sector, I think we could see some real reduction in the figures that appal us all so much. This sector, which links New Zealand families and the State, is like the glue that holds this country together. Government agencies focus on high-risk cases, but non-governmental organisations need to be empowered and resourced to continue their competent work with those identified as medium to low risk cases.

So what do these agencies spend all their time doing? They spend a lot of time raising money and filling in application forms and compliance reports; they are up to their elbows in administrative work. If we are going to seriously work to depoliticise this issue and work together on issues we could agree on, I think supporting the third sector is an area where we could all rally around and make a huge difference. I spend a lot of time in my electorate during adjournments meeting some of these agencies and hearing their concerns. They say it is sometimes difficult for them to take up the offer of Government money because of the strings attached. The very ethos of who they are is threatened because of the price that comes if they accept Government money to do the work they are doing.

I met with an agency in Christchurch the other day that is doing amazing work with offenders. When the offenders come out of prison, they are found accommodation and paid work. Why does this organisation not take Government money? It does not take Government money because, if it does, it has to take every prisoner who is put in its direction.

Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON (National—Pakuranga): On 13 March, at the Boulcott Street Bistro, an event occurred that will go down in the political history of this country as “bistro-gate”. What happened that night at “bistro-gate” is a complete breach of Cabinet rules, and a complete breach of avoiding a conflict of interest. I have some lovely quotes from Ministers, but first I will paint the picture.

Air New Zealand makes no bones about the fact that it is in big trouble financially on the trans-Tasman service. Its solution is to get involved with a code-share—let us get the word code-share—with Qantas, so that an Air New Zealand flight can have a Qantas tail on it and a Qantas flight can have an Air New Zealand tail, etc. But there are some real issues there, especially issues involving the shareholding Minister, Dr Cullen, being involved in discussing that, given that Ministers will need to decide whether it can go ahead. So there is a straight conflict of interest. And what happened? On the night of 13 March, the chairman of Air New Zealand, the chief executive of Air New Zealand, and that well-known Labour Party supporter Ken Douglas, who is on the board of Air New Zealand, trundled off to the Boulcott Street Bistro for a dinner with Dr Michael Cullen, the shareholding Minister who has to make some of the decisions; Damien O’Connor, the Minister of Tourism; David Parker, who was then, before he resigned, the Minister of Transport; and Lianne Dalziel, who is in charge of the Commerce Commission.

I ask members to put up their hands if they think that code-share was not discussed. There is one hand in the entire House. Of all the members in the House, David Parker put his hand up; that is what I want the listeners to this debate to know. The rest did not put their hands up because they remember that back in 1999, National was subject to a similar smear campaign from Labour about our Prime Minister, Jenny Shipley, and a dinner she had had with the boss of Saatchi and Saatchi, Kevin Roberts. I sat in my chair—just in front of where Nanaia Mahuta is sitting today—and I remember the day well when Labour asked whether the then Prime Minister had had dinner with Kevin Roberts. I could not understand what was wrong with that anyway; Prime Ministers have dinner with all sorts of people. But I think Jenny Shipley made a mistake. She said she had had dinner with Kevin Roberts, and then she went on to say something that may perfectly well have been true—we do not know. She said politics was not discussed at that dinner. This whole Chamber sucked big air in and Don McKinnon, who was sitting next to me, said her reply was really foolish, because no one would believe her.

I raise that as an example, because everybody in this House believes that on the night of 13 March, representatives of an airline that was in real trouble—desperately looking for a solution to get itself out of trouble—met with the Ministers involved and did not discuss the code-share. I know how to do those things. What they would have done was to say they would talk about the financial problems, they would talk about the capacity issues, and they would talk about the frequency of service, but they would not use the “c” word. They would then be like Bill Clinton, who was able to say: “I did not have sexual relations with that woman.” That is true, but we all know what actually happened. The same thing happened at the Boulcott Street Bistro. They were all careful—whoops, I nearly used the “c” word. Let us go back to the situation. They asked themselves how they were going to get around the capacity issue, how they were going to get around the fare structures, and how they were going to get around sharing the passengers in the seats—how they were going to get around all the issues—but without using the “c” word.

Then Dr Cullen came into this House and said they discussed the Tasman service—he openly admitted that—they discussed Air New Zealand’s financial problems and how the airline was haemorrhaging red ink because of Emirates Airline, and so on, but they did not discuss code-share. If there has ever been a chance for a Tui’s billboard, this has to be it. Four senior Cabinet Ministers met with an airline that is haemorrhaging and had only one solution on the billboard, which was code-share—I am sorry to use the “c” word; I know it is actually within the Standing Orders to use the “c” word here—and then they said they did not discuss that at the dinner. Who believes that? Only one person put a hand up. It is the best Tui’s billboard I have ever seen: “ ‘We did not discuss the code-share’, says Dr Cullen. Yeah, right!”. Nobody believes that.

Hon NANAIA MAHUTA (Minister of Customs): The only thing anyone listening to this debate will remember about the previous speaker, Maurice Williamson, is that he used the “c” word so many times that people were beginning to wonder what he was talking about.

Now, more than ever before, it is great to be Labour. It is great to be Labour because there are a lot of things this Government has done to improve the lives of people. We know that is what really matters. While groups on the other side of the House like to spend a lot of time talking about animals, this party likes to talk about people. We are making a contribution to the lives of families and communities, where it really matters.

On 1 July people will hear a number of announcements that will build their confidence in what this Government achieves and delivers—we say what we will do, and we deliver. On 1 July there will be announcements made around the roll-out of primary health organisation funding for the 45-64 year age group, ensuring that affordable, accessible primary health care is available to that group of people. It really builds on previous gains made by this Government in the primary health care area. First, we signalled the roll-out of funding for the under-fives. We said we would do it and we did it. Then we said we would focus on over-65s and provide affordable, accessible health-care to that category of people. We said we would do it and we did it. The next focus was on the under-18-year-olds. We said we wanted to ensure that that category of people would be included in affordable, accessible health-care through primary health care organisations. We said we would do it and we did it.

Now, on 1 July, the next group of people to be included is the 45 to 64-year-olds. So we now have a broader net of people being included in affordable, accessible primary health care. All that is left is the 25 to 44-year-old age group, and that group will be included next year. When we say we will do something, we do it. What that really means for a lot of people is that when they go to their health services they are now paying $10 for a doctor’s visit. That is a far cry from when National was last in Government, when people were paying anything up to about $25, $35, or $45 per visit. It makes a difference where it really matters. Also, on some prescriptions, people are paying $3 rather than $15 or $20. That is making a difference where it really matters.

The announcements of 1 July will be really important because, again, they signal the intent of this Government. We have already introduced paid parental leave and, on 1 July, that measure will be extended to self-employed people. This will be particularly significant for women—Māori women in particular—because we have a lot more women going into self-employment. I know it will make a difference for a number of them.

In terms of the rates rebate scheme, on 1 July there will be an announcement about the extra 300,000 people who will be eligible for a rates rebate—up to $500 will be deducted from their annual rates. Again, that will make a real difference where it matters most for people.

The previous Labour speaker touched lightly on the issue of Books in Homes, and we know that a real issue for all our families is to improve literacy. This Government has contributed about $32 million per year to lift literacy standards in schools, but Books in Homes is a big part of that, because kids remember a good story. They enjoy taking home a book that they have been given.

This Government has consistently contributed $1.2 million per year to the Books in Homes initiative. In the Budget this year the Government announced that a further $750,000 will be added to that particular campaign. All week through the adjournment Labour members will be visiting schools, because they know that literacy in the home is actually where it matters—and that is what Books in Homes achieves. When young people get a book, they are able to take it home, their parents are able to sit down and read it with them, and that reinforces the learning. We know that all children really enjoy being able to read at home.

The other thing about this Government is it recognises that early childhood education is really important for all our children. The early years, and the good start children recive there, make a fundamental difference to their growing up. So the fact that we have invested an extra $30 million to lift early childhood education teaching, making sure that we have good-quality early childhood teachers in our schools and in front of our kids, again makes a difference where it really matters.

The fact of the matter is that in order to ensure that all children have a good opportunity in life, they must have a good education. Part of that is to ensure they have good literacy. Part of that is also to ensure they have choices—and that is what this Government is contributing to.

JO GOODHEW (National—Aoraki): I begin by making a comment on the previous speaker’s words. Nanaia Mahuta said that although we on this side of the House like to speak about animals, they like to talk about people. I just make the comment that maybe that is why one law for all dogs failed.

I will tell members a story from the cold, snowy south—the electorate of Aoraki. I can tell members that last week we were very pleased to welcome the Minister of Civil Defence, Rick Barker, and to be able to tell him tall, but true, tales about the effects of the snow on our community. But two of Mr Barker’s comments have stuck in the minds of the people, and they have retold them to me. First of all, Mr Barker was offered a cup of tea. He declined the cup of tea because he said he had to get back to Christchurch before it got dark. Then the enormity of what he had said struck him. “Whoops!”, he said, “I guess you guys are in the dark a lot of the time at the moment, without any power.”

The other suggestion from Mr Barker was as follows. There they were with a water tanker outside the church hall, where the community had bandied together to cook for those without power, and he pointed over to the school and asked whether they would not be warmer in there. “Ah, no, Mr Barker,” they said, “your colleague Mr Mallard closed the school.”

That brings me to the message I would like to share here today. If Trevor Mallard is going to be the next Minister of Finance, and on the programme Agenda—

Chris Auchinvole: No, no!

JO GOODHEW: Yes, yes—he confirmed he would like the job, the people of Aoraki will be very worried. Why? Because in 2004 Mr Mallard closed 13 schools. If it was not for the outcry of the community of Aoraki, it would have been 19 schools, because that is how many were originally proposed. When Mr Mallard arrived with his team of officials they showed the gathered community the figures about why some schools should close or merge. They then discovered that those figures were from another region. They had got the wrong numbers.

At one stage a member of the Pleasant Point community asked why Mr Mallard was closing its schools when it would mean they would have to put their children on buses, and they would not get the activity and exercise that Mr Mallard wants them to get. I am told the response from Mr Mallard was that parents should get the kids to jump out and run behind the bus. Here we have a Minister who is nothing short of offhand about what should happen to the people of Aoraki.

Why should they be really nervous about this man as a potential Minister of Finance? It is because it seems he cannot count—which is a bit of a problem for a Minister of Finance. Merged schools such as Timaru Main School and Timaru West School, which have become Bluestone School, now have too many students because of the enrolment policy—zoning, by another name. It is too full, I say to Mr Mallard—as is Beaconsfield School. So, really, when they added up the number of students, they got something wrong. Such is this man’s notoriety in Aoraki that at the Christmas parade they had mallard ducks hanging by their necks, swinging merrily along on the back of trucks.

Pleasant Point High School, Seadown School, Ōrari School, Clandeboye School, Milford School, Washdyke School—those are just some of the schools that have closed. Clandeboye School was my primary school, and it was a sad day indeed when we celebrated the last students being at Clandeboye school. Even sadder is the fact that the building programmes these schools were promised are not finished now, in 2006. The Waitaki Valley School is not finished either—and that review was begun years before.

My colleague Katherine Rich reminded us of something that Mr Mallard implied—that it was OK if Government businesses fell over because at least they owned the assets. He said that he wanted State-owned enterprises to be less boring and predictable. I can tell members that the people of Aoraki would sure like their power to be predictably on right now—and to stay on.

My colleague John Key told a woeful tale of “bistro-gate”—of conflicts of interest, of muddled stories, of no-notes meetings. Maurice Williamson also told us a tale of the words they did not mention—that “c” word, code-share. Of course, a lot of people on this side of the House are saying: “Yeah, right!”. I know that the people of Aoraki are incredibly worried about Mallard as finance Minister.

LYNNE PILLAY (Labour—Waitakere): The previous speaker used the term “Yeah, right!” but let us consider the history of the behaviour of the National Party before the last election. Given that an agnostic had prayer meetings with the Exclusive Brethren, yet National claimed that no political activity was going on, one can say “Yeah, right!”. Let us remind that member, who is grizzling about buildings, that under this Government’s 5-year building programme in schools, schools are actually building new buildings and renovating others, and they are in a really pristine condition, compared with how they were when the Labour Government came into power.

Opposition members bang on and on about tax cuts, and we all know what tax cuts mean. Tax cuts mean health cuts. Tax cuts mean education cuts. Tax cuts mean police cuts, Working for Families cuts, and superannuation cuts. Tax cuts mean rates rebate cuts, because we know National did not support the rates rebate for superannuitants and lower-paid workers. Tax cuts also mean apprenticeship cuts, industry training cuts, transport cuts, employments rights cuts—we are seeing that happen with the Wayne Mapp bill—and wage cuts. When Opposition members talk about tax cuts, they should be more honest about just what they would do if they were in Government.

But we are not in Government to wallow in despair, as National does; we are here to celebrate. In July, in less than a couple of weeks’ time, the Labour Party will be having a big party to celebrate its 90th birthday. We will be celebrating 90 years of being in Parliament, representing good, hard-working Kiwis, and delivering for them—in the words of Michael Joseph Savage—from the “cradle to the grave”. It is really heartening to know that that philosophy or goal has not changed with the Labour Party of today. We now see paid parental leave being extended to self-employed people. That is a wonderful thing. I remember, when I was part of the union movement, working really hard with women to lobby for paid parental leave, which we considered was very important. The introduction of that legislation was again opposed, of course, by the National Party and by its friends in ACT. But now it is a given that every mother or father is entitled to paid parental leave. Initially the period was 12 weeks’ leave. That was extended to 14 weeks, and eligibility has now been extended to self-employed people. We think that is a wonderful thing.

Primary health organisation funding has been extended to include 45 to 64-year-olds. Next year the whole of New Zealand will be included in healthier, more affordable primary health care. We know that makes for healthier New Zealanders, and that is really good for our economy.

I heard the speech made by my colleague Nanaia Mahuta, and I say she is a great Minister of Youth Affairs. She is doing a fantastic job. She talked about the Books in Homes programme, which is something else the Government is very proud of. We are extending that programme, because we know that if children’s learning is extended at an early age and they can take books home, then that very much starts them off with learning at school and later on in life.

Although I was talking about starting off learning at school, we know that one of the best investments we have ever made is that in early childhood education. My children are a little too old for early childhood education—

Hon Mark Burton: Surely not!

LYNNE PILLAY: Yes, they are. I remember, when my children were young, the challenges of being a working mum and finding quality, affordable early childhood education. When we implement the 20 hours per week of funded early childhood education in all early childhood centres with registered teachers, that will be a wonderful thing for parents and children in this country. I know that everyone in the Labour-led Government, including all our friends who supported the programme, believe it will be very much a great benchmark for our people.

I am a former nurse, and I think our Primary Health Care Strategy is great.

CHRIS AUCHINVOLE (National): The only true way to measure the value of Government policies is on a comparative basis.

Hon David Parker: In an election.

CHRIS AUCHINVOLE: Exactly! I thought about this when I read of the 300 West Coasters being culled from the hospital waiting lists, and 500 in Nelson at the Tasman end of the electorate. I made a quick comparison of the National caucus health team with the present Government’s health team. National has Tony Ryall, who is experienced, thorough, and insightful. It has Dr Jackie Blue, Dr Jonathan Coleman, Dr Paul Hutchison, and Jo Goodhew, who is a registered nurse tutor. We have four health practitioners and an astute political leader. That is the National caucus health team. What has Labour got? A vet. It is no wonder that Labour culls patients like cattle.

Let us look at the National caucus foreign affairs team. We have veteran Murray McCully, career negotiator Tim Groser, and career diplomat John Hayes. The present Labour-led Government’s foreign affairs team includes a list MP from New Zealand First, who is not in Cabinet but who is a careering politician best described as a political chameleon of ever-changing hues.

In agriculture, the National caucus team has experienced farmers David Carter and Nathan Guy, plus other members with a heap of primary production experience. Labour has Jim Anderton. Wow! When did he last milk a moo-cow, if ever?

One could go on and look at all the portfolios such as energy, education, law, and commerce. In each and every portfolio, National’s caucus is a Government in readiness. Labour knows that. The key to the country’s future—the key that can unlock doors that are locked with stifling over-regulation and compliance—is the finance portfolio. That is the key to success, and National has its very own key—John Key. He has a solid record of success in each of his endeavours. He leads National’s finance team of Bill English, Lockwood Smith, and Craig Foss. The present Government line-up in finance is uncertain. But no matter who is put up, the comparison is all in National’s favour.

I note the reduced influence of Dr Cullen. Let us remember that I have been a member only since last September, but I have come to realise that the erstwhile Dr Cullen is to Ms Clark what Hugh Watt was to Norman Kirk. Hugh Watt did the work, but sadly received little recognition or more than cosmetic credit. It is not fair, but what is fair on that side of the House? It looks as if someone else has designs on Dr Cullen’s position, and that someone is purported to be Mr Mallard. Mr Mallard is the maestro Minister of Education who did for the Grey Valley schools.

Like many of the present Government’s financial would-bes, wannabes, and never-weres, Mr Mallard seems to believe that we can suddenly activate State-owned enterprises into becoming entrepreneurial enterprises in order to get more globally competitive firms. He says we need organisations of scale that can afford to have a few losses on the way. It is news to me that any successful business venture sets forth on the comfortable basis that it is OK to make a few losses on the way. That is a recipe for structural and leadership disaster. That is Eastern bloc economics without the laughs. The whole point of business development, regardless of scale, is not to take away risk but to take away uncertainty. That is what stimulates entrepreneurs to take away uncertainty, and let them measure the risk and take it.

Uncertainty is the currency this present Government deals in. It puts regulation as its paramount principle, and uncertainty follows as surely as night follows day—the uncertainty of resource consent, regulation change, and cost compliance. Labour policies are like a giant pillow shoved over the face of aspiring businesses, and Mr Mallard does not have the pinch, punch, or clarity to be even a mediocre pillow fighter within the suffocating Labour-led caucus.

I ask to be allowed to make an impassioned plea to the present Prime Minister’s chief of staff to consider the reality that such a change will be an economic, social, commercial, and financial disaster, with overwhelming ramifications for the future of New Zealand. Labour should choose a replacement for Dr Cullen who can act with responsibility, integrity, and good commercial sense—someone like, well, I guess there lies the problem.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.

Bills

Gisborne District Council (Alfred Cox Park) Validation Bill

In Committee

ANNE TOLLEY (National—East Coast): I seek the leave of the Committee for the bill to be taken as one question.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Is there any objection from any member to the bill being taken as one question? There is none; we will proceed accordingly.

Clauses 1 to 5 and schedule

MOANA MACKEY (Labour): I am happy to stand in the Committee stage of the Gisborne District Council (Alfred Cox Park) Validation Bill. As has been said in the first and second readings of this bill, it is a relatively straightforward bill, but it is very important to the Gisborne community. As has been said before, many of the activities carried out in Alfred Cox Park, which have been carried out for a very long time, have since been deemed to be illegal under the Reserves Act. Those activities include the flea market, which is a great drawcard for people in our community, the information centre, and, of course, the intercity bus depot. I urge all members to support this bill. This bill will mean that many of the activities that we have always taken for granted in Gisborne will continue to be carried out unabated.

TE URUROA FLAVELL (Māori Party—Waiariki): Tēnā koe, Mr Chairperson. In the Māori Party’s first opportunity to speak on the Gisborne District Council (Alfred Cox Park) Validation Bill, at its second reading, we opposed it. Our reason for doing so was in line with our reason for opposing any bill—if we do not believe that it will defend the rights of, and advance progress for, tangata whenua. We believe that it is in the interests of Aotearoa that each and every development reflects the unique perspectives that come from consultation with tangata whenua.

Our aspirations for advancing any initiatives will reflect our belief that an appropriate and mandated consultation process has been undertaken in formulating ideas. Consultation is defined by Justice McGechan: “Consultation does not mean negotiation or agreement. It means: setting out a proposal not fully decided upon; adequately informing a party about relevant information upon which the proposal is based; listening to what the others have to say with an open mind (in that there is room to be persuaded against the proposal); undertaking that task in a genuine and not cosmetic manner; reaching a decision that may or may not alter the original proposal.”

When Dr Sharples spoke in the second reading of the bill he raised the issue of consultation with Rongowhakaata. It was our position, as set out in his kōrero, that given that Rongowhakaata had a key interest in the land associated with the Gisborne District Council (Alfred Cox Park) Validation Bill, their voices had to be heard. That was our first opportunity to talk on the bill. The bill’s first reading was on 27 July 2005, when the Māori Party had only one member in Parliament—a member who was not allocated a speaking slot in the debate. So it was disappointing to read that the member sponsoring the bill, Anne Tolley, was angered by the last minute efforts and supposed political grandstanding, but I think we have worked through those issues. I imagine that such anger might be felt in the same way by Rongowhakaata.

If we are to move forward as a nation, we must respect the important perspectives that come from the first-nation people of the land. Rongowhakaata have a significant association and history with the land that is implicated in this bill. It is a history that many others in this Chamber may be unfamiliar with, but it is nonetheless part of the history of Aotearoa.

We will stand up for the right of all Māori to be heard in this Chamber, as we do today for Rongowhakaata. We do so in our belief that a prosperous future for Aotearoa will involve us all working together to share our different histories, and to focus, through our differences, on what we can also share together. Kia ora tātou.

Hon BRIAN DONNELLY (NZ First): I rise to take just a very short call on the Gisborne District Council (Alfred Cox Park) Bill, because New Zealand First has already indicated that it will support it. We believe that the provision with regard to the use of Alfred Cox Park is common sense and quite important in terms of its usage by the residents of the city of Gisborne.

We listened with interest to the presentation put forward by the Māori Party at the second reading and again today about the position of Rongowhakaata. I guess that in some respects we are not convinced that this bill has any impact on those rights, because all it does is validate something that is already taking place. Therefore, although we agree with the Māori Party that there is an issue in that area, we certainly do not agree that this legislation will affect those particular rights because of the consultation issues raised by Te Ururoa Flavell.

New Zealand First will continue to support the bill, and hopefully we can get it through as quickly as possible.

ANNE TOLLEY (National—East Coast): I rise to speak in the Committee stage of the Gisborne District Council (Alfred Cox Park) Validation Bill. I want to make just a couple of points. First, my colleague Moana Mackey has already explained that this is a small bill, but is of significant importance to the Gisborne District Council because it has found that it is operating outside the law, and no council wants to be placed in that position.

The bill has a reasonably long history. I understand that it has taken about 7 years to get to this stage, and, as I indicated earlier, it was started by the former member Janet Mackey. That leads me to my second point, which is about consultation. Dr Pita Sharples spoke in the second reading stage on behalf of Rongowhakaata, whom he said had not been consulted. I want to raise two points about consultation that apply particularly to this bill, but that have wider implications. There are processes that form part of a local bill. The council was obviously very surprised to hear that there were people who had some concerns about the bill who had not already expressed those concerns to the council. This was despite the fact that the council’s Māori liaison officer was of Rongowhakaata descent, and despite the fact that one of its own councillors was a member of the same political party that stood in this House and raised objections. So it came as a surprise to it.

It also came as a surprise to the council that it was required to go and consult, when, in fact, there was no resource consent or legal obligation to go and seek out affected parties, other than that it had advertised the fact it was promoting this local bill and had called for people to come forward if they had any issues they wanted to raise with the council.

So, having followed that process, the bill then came to Parliament and went to a select committee, which, again, advertised locally in the Gisborne district for people to raise any concerns or objections they had to the bill. But no one came forward, either from the affected iwi or on their behalf. We have to ask, having gone through that process, how reasonable it is for people then to raise their hands and say they are upset because no one consulted with them.

Quite obviously, the Gisborne District Council is concerned, and I assure the Committee that the mayor is making contact with the iwi to discuss their concerns. But I have no doubt that if this matter had been raised at the select committee, committee members themselves would have required the council to ensure that Rongowhakaata were satisfied and happy and had been consulted.

So there is a process to be followed, and it behoves everyone involved in a consultation process to play his or her part, and not to come along at the last minute. That is how one is accused of political grandstanding.

This little bill has no relevance to what may or may not have happened under the Public Works Act. It has no relevance to that, whatsoever. It is just a small bill, looking to validate uses of the Alfred Cox Park, so that the Gisborne District Council is operating within the law. I am pleased the majority of the Committee will support the bill going through.

MOANA MACKEY (Labour): I want to follow on from what Anne Tolley was saying about the consultation. This bill has been around for a very long time—at least, the recognition that we needed to clean up the law in relation to Alfred Cox Park has been around for a long time. To be fair, I think it is reasonable to expect that over the course of a decade people would be aware that this was happening, and that the consultation was going on. It was certainly reported in the Gisborne Herald a lot.

I have to also say that in Gisborne we do things very differently. In Gisborne there is not an “us and them” mentality—not at all. We pride ourselves on the fact that when we live in a fifty-fifty, Māori / non-Maori mix, the usual political grandstanding about this kind of thing tends to go away, because we all know each other, and we work really well together. No matter what goes on in the rest of the country about race relations, we tend to kind of shrug our shoulders and say well, living in a bicultural society like Gisborne, when Māori fails, Gisborne fails, and we get on with the reality of dealing with that.

Mr Flavell raised the point that during the first reading debate, Tariana Turia was not able to have a speaking slot. I also point out that I did not have a speaking slot in that debate, because of all the people who wanted to speak on the bill. Judy Turner did not have a speaking slot, and Phil Heatley, who had an interest in the bill, did not have a speaking slot. But all of us sought leave to be able to speak, because we felt strongly about it. There are ways and means in this Parliament to have our say, even if we are not, through normal processes, allocated that time.

I also note that the Māori Party at that time did not raise any concerns after the first reading of the bill, which would have been the time to do that. As we have heard from Anne Tolley, in that way, at the select committee stage, if the committee really felt that the proper level of consultation had not been carried out by the Gisborne District Council, the bill could have been sent back to the council.

I have to say, having met with Rongowhakaata about this bill, that they have no bones with its content, at all. They think it is a sensible bill—indeed, they enjoy going to the flea market, as do members of the Māori Party, on a regular basis. But they felt that, given they are just about to enter into their consultation with the Crown, it was a good vehicle for them to be able to raise their concerns about the history of Alfred Cox Park. OK, fair enough—they wanted to make a statement. But I think that to suggest Rongowhakaata are horribly opposed to this bill on its very merits, simply is not true. I said to Mr Stan Pardoe, whom I talked to, that this was fine. I said that I accept he had seen that as a good way of highlighting the iwi’s concerns before going into negotiations with the Crown. But it is important that this Committee knows that Rongowhakaata are not opposed to what this bill is trying to do. Indeed, they said it is particularly sensible.

But we also have to acknowledge the political nature of the fact that this concern was not raised after the first reading, when something could have been done about it. It has been raised now at this stage of the Committee, when we very much want to get through the bill so that when people from Rongowhakaata and the Māori Party go down to the flea market and hold their stalls, they are not doing so illegally.

TE URUROA FLAVELL (Māori Party—Waiariki): Tēnā koe, Mr Chairperson. I thank the members who have spoken just before me, in order to provide some clarification. I cannot comment on what happened before I came into the House; all I know is what is ahead of me right now.

The issue of consultation is something that affects all Māori, and we have a concern in the sense that the historical context tells us there are all sorts of consultations. Sometimes, though, consultation does not allow Māori to fully express their views and points of view. In fact, sometimes it does not even involve them. Thus, there is a concern. All we are asking is for the bill to be taken back, to get sign-off. I do not know whether Rongowhakaata agrees or disagrees with the bill, but the issue we are raising is that we should have the kōrero. We should have the kōrero and bring the sign-off back to the House, so that we can be convinced, as the party that defends the rights and advances the interests of Māori people in the best interests of the nation, we can say, yes, we did our part.

That is really the main issue here. Whether members of the Māori Party are or are not on the council, and whether there was a liaison officer, or whatever else there was, are really secondary issues. At the end of the day we are asking for the discussion to take place—that Rongowhakaata can advise us that the discussion has taken place, and that they are happy with it. We will certainly move towards supporting any initiative that allows our people to move forward in a positive manner. I will not talk about any select committee process, because I was not involved in it. But I do want to make the point that as a small party—as other smaller parties will know—we cannot cover all of the ground or every issue that comes up in this Parliament. All we can do is to respond to the matters that happen to arrive on our table, and that is what we are doing today.

So that is not to say this is the end of the world or that, politically, we are doing a grandstanding act. But it does say we will continue to defend the rights of Māori, and to ensure that our processes are robust and give Māori the opportunity to respond in a positive or negative manner. That, surely, is a part of their right.

ANNE TOLLEY (National—East Coast): I wish to thank members for their contribution, and I refer particularly to what my colleague Te Ururoa Flavell has just raised in respect of the discussion around this bill. As I said earlier, I can assure him that the mayor of the Gisborne District Council is seeking a meeting with Rongowhakaata, but that is not to impede the passage of this bill. My instructions from the council are that the bill is still to proceed through. If it is passed through the Committee stage today, it will come up for its third reading on the next members’ day. I thank all those members of the Local Government and Environment Committee who worked on this bill. It is a simple bill, but often simple bills are the most tricky ones. Working our way through the Reserves Act took some doing, so I thank them for their attention, and for their support of this bill.

A party vote was called for on the question that clauses 1 to 5 and the schedule be agreed to.

TE URUROA FLAVELL (Whip—Māori Party): I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. Can you give me some clarification, in terms of the Māori Party and the vote being taken, as to how we declare an abstention vote? Is it appropriate that we answer with a “No”, or do we ask for a party vote at the end of the vote? I ask for that clarification, please.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): The vote can be carried on the voices, but there is provision for the member’s party to abstain, if it wants. In other words, the vote is carried and that is it, or the member can, if he so wishes, record an abstention—which is a party vote.

TE URUROA FLAVELL: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. It is a point of clarification. In recording a vote, do we do it after the vote has been carried, or do we call out “No”, then have the vote recorded as an abstention? Could you just give us the process, for clarification?

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): If you want the vote to be recorded, when I put the question you say “Party vote called for”, and in that way you will have the opportunity for an abstention.

A party vote was called for on the question, That clauses 1 to 5 and the schedule be agreed to.

Ayes 117

New Zealand Labour 50; New Zealand National 48; New Zealand First 7; Green Party 6; United Future 3; ACT New Zealand 2; Progressive 1.

Noes 0

Abstentions 2

Māori Party 2.

Clauses 1 to 5 and schedules agreed to.

House resumed.

Bill reported without amendment.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): I move, That the report be adopted.

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

Ayes 117

New Zealand Labour 50; New Zealand National 48; New Zealand First 7; Green Party 6; United Future 3; ACT New Zealand 2; Progressive 1.

Noes 0

Abstentions 2

Māori Party 2.

Report adopted.

Bills

Trustees Executors Limited Amendment Bill

Second Reading

Hon MARIAN HOBBS (Labour—Wellington Central): I move, That the Trustees Executors Limited Amendment Bill be now read a second time. I also give notice now that following the second reading I will be seeking leave from the House to move directly to the third reading of the bill.

This bill is a private bill promoted by Trustees Executors Limited. Trustees Executors was previously known as TOWER Trust Limited. The company was incorporated in 1881, and is New Zealand’s oldest trustee company. Trustees Executors has its own private Act and is a statutory trustee company under the Trustee Companies Act 1967.

The Commerce Committee has given careful consideration to the bill and recommends that it be passed with only minor drafting amendments. The bill has three objectives: to amend the title of the TOWER Trust Limited Act 2002 to reflect Trustees Executors’ current name; to ensure that the TOWER Trust Limited Act reflects Trustees Executors’ current ownership structure; and, most important, to allow Trustees Executors to transact trust and estate business with its current and future parent companies and their subsidiaries.

The bill achieves this last-mentioned objective by adding a mechanism to the principal Act in order to allow Trustees Executors’ future parent companies to be named by Order in Council. Such orders can be made only on the recommendation of the Minister of Justice after consultation with the Minister of Commerce. That sensible, business-friendly approach is supported by the committee. As a result, Trustees Executors will not need to seek an amendment to the name of its parent company shown in the principal Act, should its parent company change. But there remains appropriate scrutiny of each new parent company before Trustees Executors can transact business with it. That scrutiny will ensure that beneficiaries’ interests are preserved. As the committee concludes, on page 3 of its report: “We are satisfied that there are sufficient protections in trust law to protect the interests of beneficiaries. We consider that the Government scrutiny entailed in the regulation-making process may also be beneficial.”

In conclusion, Trustees Executors has advised me that it supports the committee’s conclusions, and endorses the bill as reported back. The bill is a sensible approach to the naming of parent companies in the future, which in no way will affect the protections for beneficiaries. I commend the committee’s report to the House, and in doing so I want to thank the Commerce Committee and the House for their cooperation and work on this matter.

CHRIS TREMAIN (National—Napier): I rise to speak to the Trustees Executors Limited Amendment Bill, and firstly to congratulate the Commerce Committee, under the leadership of Katherine Rich, on the way it proceeded with that bill. I think we worked well together, and got through it very quickly and in due course.

The purpose of the bill is to expressly authorise Trustees Executors Limited to transact business with its current parent company, Sheffield Investments Inc. (NZ) Holdings Ltd, whose name has changed to Sterling Grace (NZ) Limited, and with the parent company’s subsidiaries. It also introduces, as Marian Hobbs said, a regulation-making power that authorises the Governor-General to amend by Order in Council the schedule to the principal Act, by adding, amending, or deleting the name of a body corporate that is a holding company of Trustees Executors Ltd.

In looking at Trustees Executors Ltd, and given the proposed change to the Act, which will require less scrutiny in the future, the select committee did have to go through a scrutiny process in relation to the company in this particular case. So for the benefit of the House I will go through a little bit of what Trustees Executors Ltd actually does. There is some confusion, I imagine, for those of the listening public, too, as to what it does and how it got there.

Trustees Executors Ltd is a provider of specialist investment administration services. It provides a whole range of outsourced services to financial institutions, charities, pension schemes, investment managers, and managed fund providers. The custody and investment accounting teams hold more than $20 billion of client assets, so the company is significant. Some of the other services it provides include custody and settlement reporting, trade capture and settlement, safe keeping, cash management, corporate actions, portfolio valuation, financial reporting, and unit pricing.

Trustees Executors Ltd is an interesting company in its very own right. In fact, it was first established back in 1881. Back in the 1880s it was the practice of people to appoint friends or acquaintances as their trustees when they drew up a will or a trust deed, and often the most able business people were used in that instance. But in 1881 a prominent Dunedin businessman looked to Australia and decided to adopt the concept of a trustee company, so Trustees Executors Ltd was born, known then as the Trustees, Executors and Agency Co. of New Zealand (Ltd). In 1882 a private Act of Parliament was passed, enabling that company to become a statutory trust company.

In the early 1980s Trustees Executors Ltd was acquired by the National Insurance Company of New Zealand Ltd. In 1988, along with that company, Trustees Executors became a wholly owned subsidiary of the Government Life Insurance Corporation Ltd, which became the Tower Corporation. One can look back at the number of changes that have happened in the last 100 years, and see that there have not been many. So the arguments that have been put forward by the Commerce Committee about enabling changes in the future to be handled by Orders in Council make some sense.

In 2002 Trustees Executors started trading as the TOWER Trust Ltd, but in 2003 TOWER Trust was purchased by Sterling Grace Corporation, which is a US-based private investment company. That purchase prompted a return to the name of Trustees Executors Ltd. Interestingly, in 2006 the company will be 125 years old—the oldest trustee company in the country.

Let us deal with the current ownership change. The current Act defines Trustees Executors’ parent company as being TOWER Trust Ltd. However, TOWER Trust sold Trustees Executors to Sterling Grace, and that has brought about the necessity for the current bill.

I want briefly to touch on the fact that the bill will add a schedule to the Act that lists the authorised parent companies of Trustees Executors Ltd, but the name of the company’s present parent company, Sterling Grace (NZ) Ltd, is the only name set out in the new schedule. So the bill, as I said earlier, provides the ability for the Governor-General, by Order in Council, to amend that schedule by adding to it the name of a body corporate, which means a name listed in the schedule—that is, a holding company or Trustees Executors Ltd—or removing a name from it. In future that will make it a lot easier to change the name of the company.

A concern was raised—by only one submitter, to be honest—that allowing a name change by an Order in Council would not provide the parliamentary scrutiny that we might like in the future. On that point, it was interesting to note that in my own electorate back in Napier and Hawke’s Bay a situation arose between Trustees Executors Ltd and the Wine Country Credit Union. The Wine Country Credit Union was attached as a trustee to Trustees Executors Ltd, and the credit union had significant issues with the company in trying to get out of that relationship. In fact, it had a relationship with Trustees Executors Ltd that ended up being somewhat dysfunctional, and over a 3-year period when it tried to get out of that relationship it continually came up against a brick wall from Trustees Executors Ltd in allowing it to do so. I have an 18-page letter here from the Wine Country Credit Union that was written to John Grace of the Sterling Grace Corporation, which goes into all sorts of detail regarding its issues with Trustees Executors Ltd. Principally, Trustees Executors Ltd had had an agreement with the Wine Country Credit Union that said it could not change its trustee company. From the point of view of the Wine Country Credit Union, that situation was somewhat insane, because it was unable to go out and look at other trustees—like Perpetual Trust Ltd—to see whether it could get better fees or better management of its trust. That situation, to me, was a concern.

So I have to say that when I sat in the Commerce Committee and considered whether Parliament should continue to have the scrutiny of those types of organisations or whether we should allow amendments to be enacted by an Order in Council, I was somewhat concerned and took some convincing that the latter should be the case. However, the officials did a good job of convincing me of that. Given the regular number of changes that those organisations go through, it was appropriate that we moved on with the matter and went to an Order in Council situation.

In summary, the bill allows the name of the Act to be changed, and we see that clearly. It allows Trustees Executors Ltd to transact business with its parent company. We note that the bill removes the ability of Parliament to scrutinise any future company name changes, although there are underlying methods of doing that through Orders in Council and through the officials at the Ministry of Economic Development. As I said, I am assured that the process is robust enough to ensure that that scrutiny will happen in the future. So the National Party is supporting this particular bill, and we are pleased to do so.

R DOUG WOOLERTON (NZ First): New Zealand First supports the Trustees Executors Limited Amendment Bill, which is in the name of Marian Hobbs. But in supporting this bill, I want to say a couple of things. We always worry a little bit when these sorts of things are in the hands of American corporations, but, by and large, trustees in New Zealand have done a marvellous job in many areas of business, and people give of their time and effort to them.

I know that this bill provides that charges can be made and the head company can receive some remuneration, and for that reason we support the fact that Parliament continues to keep some oversight of those sorts of organisations. It is always particularly necessary to do so because those kinds of organisations are less public, if I may say so, than some others that we see listed on the stock exchange, and so on and so forth, and their tentacles reach into so many corners of our economy.

There was concern as we went through the 1980s and early 1990s, when we had a bit of a Wild West situation in New Zealand’s economic markets. There are people around now who are saying we are entering a time of some instability. We are seeing financial lending institutions getting into trouble. Nobody is predicting that the end of the world is nigh, or anything like that, but there are warning signs, and in our view it is time for some prudence.

We are convinced that the Commerce Committee has given this bill the once over. I am pleased to hear that Chris Tremain was not immediately wedded to the idea, and that he required some undertakings to give his name to the approval. I am pleased that the bill has received that sort of scrutiny.

I wish we were giving our OK to a New Zealand company—to something that was staying in the hands of all the people in this country. That is not the case, but we will have to put up with that fact. Parliament still has overall jurisdiction of these things, and that is as it should be. So we support the bill.

TE URUROA FLAVELL (Māori Party—Waiariki): Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker. Tēnā tātou katoa. I will take a very brief call on the Trustees Executors Limited Amendment Bill. The Māori Party supports the bill for its purpose of tidying up the technical aspects of legislation and, hopefully, avoiding the need for yet another retrospective omnibus bill to be introduced at a later point. We think it is a thoroughly sensible idea to correct the preamble to the bill in order to recognise that the current owner of the company has changed its name from Sheffield Investments Inc. (NZ) Holdings Ltd to Sterling Grace (NZ) Ltd.

The recommendations from the Commerce Committee, as I understood them, make sense. Sterling Grace (NZ) Ltd is the current owner of the company, which the bill recognises. The mechanism also removes the need for parliamentary approval of a new parent company, should Trustees Executors Ltd be sold. We are happy to support that change, because we recognise that the procedure will still allow appropriate scrutiny of future parent companies before transactions with them are authorised.

We have some familiarity with the concept of parent companies and trustees through our experiences with what are called whānau trusts. In the whānau trust, the rights of individual owners are submerged beneath the trustees’ powers to manage the property, and to select suitable beneficiaries of the profits gained from the land.

A very interesting part of the bill concerns future-proofing with an Order in Council mechanism, so that we will not have to relitigate matters in the House. We are very supportive of that sort of notion, and we will be behind the bill when the time comes for voting. Kia ora tātou.

Bill read a second time.

Procedure

Hon MARIAN HOBBS (Labour—Wellington Central): I seek leave from the House to move directly to the third reading of this bill.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley): Is there any objection to that leave? There is not.

Third Reading

Hon MARIAN HOBBS (Labour—Wellington Central): I move, That the Trustees Executors Limited Amendment Bill be now read a third time. This bill is a private bill, promoted by Trustees Executors Ltd to amend the TOWER Trust Limited Act 2002. The bill updates the principal Act to reflect Trustees Executors’ current name and ownership structure and, importantly, allows Trustees Executors’ future parent companies to be named in the principal Act by Order in Council. As previously noted, the Commerce Committee has unanimously endorsed the bill and has made only minor drafting amendments. Trustees Executors agrees with the committee’s conclusions.

Once again, I take the opportunity to thank the Commerce Committee and its members for their thoughtful consideration of the bill. They were not easily persuaded at the beginning, and the bill really did need that kind of consideration. I take it from the three members who have spoken that there were pros and cons to the process that was set in place, but I think we have come to an almost midway point that still allows for some parliamentary control through Order in Council. I commend the bill to the House.

CHRIS TREMAIN (National—Napier): I rise to support the third reading of the bill and to echo Marian Hobbs’ comments regarding the bill. As we have discussed, its purpose is to expressly authorise Trustees Executors Ltd to transact business with its parent company, Sheffield Investments Inc. (NZ) Holdings Ltd, which is now Sterling Grace (NZ) Ltd. The bill allows that transaction to take place. In all instances up till now, that needed to happen through an Act of Parliament. We are now changing that situation, particularly in this bill, by introducing regulation, and by giving power to the Governor-General to amend, by Order in Council, the schedule to the principal Act. Quite simply, that will allow the process to be speeded up in future transactions.

We have already talked about the fact that name changes are more prevalent in today’s economy, and I think it is important that we introduce legislation that allows us to mirror where the economy is going. We cannot have a situation where bills are redundant or historical. We need to be constantly looking at our legislation and taking such bills out of the system, and reducing compliance costs for those companies. I did not talk about that point during the second reading debate, but there are significant compliance costs for those types of organisations in even bringing an amendment bill to Parliament and getting name changes through. So there will now be a definite reduction in compliance costs. Off the top of my head, I think, the cost of bringing this legislation to Parliament and getting the whole procedure through was about $25,000.

We were led to believe by the officials that the compliance costs would be smaller by going through the Order in Council channel. I am yet to be convinced of that, but I am told that that is the case. So without further ado I say that this bill is taking trustee legislation forward, and we support that.

Bill read a third time.

Bills

Rotorua Library Trust Fund Variation Bill

First Reading

DIANNE YATES (Labour) on behalf of Steve Chadwick (Labour): I move, That the Rotorua Library Trust Fund Variation Bill be now read a first time. At the appropriate time I intend to move that the bill be considered by the Local Government and Environment Committee. The first reading today will be welcomed by the Rotorua District Council and the Rotorua Public Library. I have agreed to give this speech today on behalf of the MP for Rotorua, Steve Chadwick, who is attending the tangi of Guide Bubbles in Rotorua. This bill is non-controversial and, in effect, realises the intention of the deceased Elizabeth Ann Seddon-Johnson as expressed in her will, which was probated in 1936. We do not know a lot about Elizabeth Seddon-Johnson, but we can assure her descendants that her desire to support the library will be honoured by this bill, almost 70 years later.

The current library building is located in Haupapa Street, Rotorua. It is located on the ground and first floors of a four-storey building. The top floors are currently leased out, though those leases terminate at the end of this calendar year. The library desperately needs the additional space that will be freed up as a result of the leases’ expiry. The drafters of the bill have been advised by Jane Gilbert, the library manager, that, effectively, the library has been in a holding pattern for the last 5 years or so, due to the shortage of space. It is proposed that the library will occupy the whole of the building, and the additional two floors will increase the space available at the library by around another two-thirds. In that regard, the two top floors provide less space than the two existing floors occupied by the library. The council has allocated a budget of around $1 million for its 2006-07 year, commencing on 1 July 2006, towards the necessary renovations, refurbishing, fitting out, and provisioning of the library as a result of the top two floors becoming available on the expiry of the leases.

The essential and primary purpose behind the bill is, therefore, to enable to council to access the capital of an endowment currently vested in it pursuant to section 31 of the Local Legislation Act 1937. In that regard, I refer members to the explanatory note of the bill, which spells out the basic background details. The fundamental difficulty the council currently has in administering the endowment vested in it pursuant to the 1937 Act is that it does not have the ability to apply the capital of the endowment for the purposes of the library; rather, it is only the income that can be so applied. Further, the purposes for which the income can currently be applied are arguably not sufficiently specific to enable the income, let alone the capital, to be applied in the way the council intends.

There is no doubt that the primary and fundamental purpose—and the driver—behind the bill being promoted by the council is the need to access the capital to enable the work intended to be carried out once the leases of the top two floors expire at the end of this year. Members will note that clause 5(2) enables both the capital and income of the endowment to be applied for a range of purposes, including any expansion of the library. It is fair to say that the bulk, if not necessarily all, of the endowment will be applied for that particular purpose. However, that is not inconsistent with the basic thrust of the bill. There may or may not be excess funds available for the other stated purposes covered in clause 5(2).

The endowment has a rather tortuous legal history. Members will note from the explanatory note that the endowment can be traced to the will made on 30 December 1932 by Elizabeth Ann Seddon-Johnson. That will, probate of which was granted on 1 September 1936, provided for certain legacies and then directed the residue to be held in trust for the then Rotorua Borough Council to be used for, or towards, the erection of a new wing for the Rotorua Public Library. It is fair to say, therefore, that the purpose intended to be achieved by the bill effectively restores the legal position to one whereby the original intent of Miss Seddon-Johnson is achieved. In that regard, although what is contemplated by the council is not the erection of a new wing to the existing library, it does involve an expansion of the existing library.

The residue of Miss Seddon-Johnson’s estate comprised a Crown lease situated in Rotorua. The purpose of section 37 of the Local Legislation Act 1937 was to enable the then Rotorua Borough Council to acquire the lease and to borrow a sum for the purpose of paying out the legacies provided for in those provisions of Miss Seddon-Johnson’s will that needed to be satisfied. As a result of the Rotorua Borough Council acquiring the land under the power conferred by the 1937 Act, revenue was derived by it. Accordingly, further provision was made in the 1937 Act whereby the income it so derived could be applied for certain specific and relatively narrow purposes associated with the Rotorua Public Library. The 1937 Act did not, however, go so far as to enable the capital of the endowment to be applied for the purposes of the library.

The council has, on at least two to three occasions over the last 20 years or so, approached the drafters of this bill, seeking advice as to whether it was able to apply the capital of the endowment for the purposes of the Rotorua Public Library. The advice, the most recent of which was given in 2005, has consistently been that the council does not have the power under the 1937 Act to apply the capital, but can apply only the income, for certain particular purposes associated with the library. The purpose of the bill is therefore to enable the council to access the capital and to apply it for a wider range of purposes than is currently available, but in a way that seems to be entirely consistent with the original intentions of Miss Seddon-Johnson.

In conclusion, as is the case when member promote local bills, I request the support of the House for this bill. However, I did make an error in my speech. The bill should be referred to the Government Administration Committee, not to the Local Government and Environment Committee.

Hon TONY RYALL (National—Bay of Plenty): The National Party in Opposition will be supporting the Rotorua Library Trust Fund Variation Bill. As was noted by the list MP for Hamilton and previous member for Hamilton East who has just spoken in the debate, this is in respect of an endowment and the philanthropy of Elizabeth Ann Seddon-Johnson of Rotorua. Subsequently, over the years, this bill is to provide for the capital to be used for the extension and development of the Rotorua Public Library.

I am probably one of a handful of members in this House who have visited the Rotorua Public Library. Probably, those other members would be Mr Te Ururoa Flavell, Mrs Chadwick, and maybe one or two others. The thing that struck me the most when reading the bill when it was introduced was the generosity of the benefactor, Elizabeth Ann Seddon-Johnson, and I have been reflecting on the fact that in many of our communities today we do not see the level of private philanthropy in public amenities that we have seen previously. The library in Gisborne, for example, was donated by H B Williams. The Williams family from Gisborne, of course, have donated a large number of public amenities to the people of Gisborne and the East Coast area. If we go to other communities we can sometimes find significant public buildings and parks that have been donated by individuals. These days, however, we do not see that level of philanthropic investment.

I suppose the closest we have seen in recent times to that level of philanthropy in public amenities is from the member for Tauranga, Mr Bob Clarkson, who built a stadium in Tauranga, privately, and is now offering it back to the people of Tauranga City at quite a substantial discount. I know that the people of that city and of the wider western bay—and, indeed, of the North Island—would appreciate that very, very generous act. Mr Clarkson’s generosity is, I think, one of the very few projects of private philanthropy we have seen in this country for quite some time.

So, I reflect on the fact that the endowment of Elizabeth Ann Seddon-Johnson was made at a time when people did donate and build public amenities, and Rotorua Public Library is certainly a case in point. These days people look towards trusts and ratepayers to build public amenities, and I think we have to salute those individuals in the past who were so generous as to contribute those sorts of assets.

Last week Mr Clarkson and I attended the opening of the Papamoa Public Library in my electorate of Papamoa, where there has been a very significant investment of $6 million by the community. The rates bill was increased by 1 percent to pay for the library, so the investment by ratepayers is very, very significant. But what was clear, both at that opening of the library in Papamoa and during my visit previously to the Rotorua Public Library, was the very strong depth of feeling and commitment local communities have to their public libraries. Public libraries—in terms of availability of information, access to information, and the ability to work with others of a like mind—have changed so much since the time of that investment by Elizabeth Ann Seddon-Johnson all those years ago. Indeed, when visiting the Papamoa Public Library, I saw that it now has a widescreen television in a room where people can come in and watch Sky news from Australia, about happenings around the world. It also has a number of community meeting rooms that enable people to use the library in a similar way.

The vision the Rotorua District Council has for its public library is similar: it is to expand it and make it an asset for the future. That is why the library is seeking the ability to access the capital of the endowment, which is about $300,000. The National Party made some checks to make sure that this would not be controversial. There appeared to be very little controversy, if any, about it in Rotorua. There is a very keen commitment to get on and develop the library, to improve the assets for that city for the 21st century.

Hon BRIAN DONNELLY (NZ First): I just want to make some preliminary statements. I have a real affection for Rotorua—I holidayed there as a young boy—and that affection was reinforced by the fact that when my parents retired they went from Mangakino to Rotorua. They lived out at Lake Ōkareka. During that time I was teaching on the East Coast, so our family spent a lot of time up there with mum and dad. I must admit I really enjoyed Rotorua, and I still enjoy going back there. My parents ended up passing away in Rotorua. All this was in the mid-1980s. Since then Rotorua has increased in size quite considerably, and there has been quite considerable development.

The secret to understanding this bill is to go back to the will of Elizabeth Ann Seddon-Johnson, dated 30 December 1932, and its intention. It is quite clear that Elizabeth Ann Seddon-Johnson wanted to enhance the library facilities in Rotorua for the people of that area to enjoy. As a consequence of legislation passed from the time of that will, the situation has come about that the capital from the legacy is not able to be used for that purpose. Although the legacy may not be used particularly for the erection of a new wing, it certainly will be used for the expansion and enhancement of the library’s facilities. That, obviously, is what the Rotorua district wants, and it seems entirely sensible to release the capital to enable it to be used for that particular purpose, and the purpose as explained by Dianne Yates.

New Zealand First will be supporting the bill. As the previous speaker said, there is no controversy over it, and we believe we should be able to move it through as quickly as possible. We will be voting for it.

KEITH LOCKE (Green): The Green Party will be supporting this bill. I would like to make a few comments on behalf of Sue Bradford, who has been the MP following this issue. She spends a lot of time in Rotorua, dealing with issues there. I would like to take just a brief call to offer our support for the bill and to extend our best wishes to the Rotorua District Council on its efforts to improve the public library in Haupapa Street.

The substance of this private bill is fairly technical but significant for those who are involved. It deals with a request from the council that it be allowed to return to the original intentions of a will made in 1932 by a certain Elizabeth Seddon-Johnson, probate of which was granted in 1936. This generous donor directed the bulk of her estate to be held in trust for the then Rotorua Borough Council to erect a new wing for the local library. The current unfortunate situation in which the council finds itself seems to have occurred because certain events subsequent to probate being granted meant that the council had lost—if it ever had—the power to apply the capital of endowment to purposes associated with the library, despite that being the benefactor’s original intention.

When faced with issues like this the Green Party has always taken the position that, where possible, Parliament should abide by the original intention of wills and bequests. From looking at the information available, I think there is no doubt that this is in fact what the current Rotorua District Council proposes to do in seeking to use the bulk of this money towards acquiring and appropriately refurbishing another two floors of its current building. For that reason we are supporting the bill to the select committee.

I would just like to add that I think it is great that the council is moving to expand the library, because in a district like Rotorua with a proportionately high number of low-income people it is especially important that public libraries provide as good a service as possible. Libraries are a great leveller, offering the opportunity for any child or adult, no matter what their income or background, to read, learn, and develop in ways that are not constrained by their immediate economic circumstances. In supporting the council’s intentions with this bill I simply exhort it not only to focus on the library’s physical expansion, but also to maintain and improve its acquisitions programme in the years to come. Books, not buildings, are the heart and soul of any library, and I trust that the council will not get its priorities wrong as it moves forward on this project.

TE URUROA FLAVELL (Māori Party—Waiariki): Kia ora anō tātou katoa e noho nei i tēnei pō. [Greetings to us all sitting here once again tonight.] I stand with considerable pride to support my colleague Steve Chadwick in respect of this bill, the Rotorua Library Trust Fund Variation Bill. As the member for Waiariki I am delighted to endorse the original intention specified in the will of Elizabeth Ann Seddon-Johnson in relation to the Rotorua Public Library. Like others, I note the generosity and foresight of the benefactor in bequeathing the residue of her estate to be used towards the building of a new wing for the Rotorua Public Library. This sort of idea is really commendable and will bring huge benefits to the whole community. I indeed have visited and used the facility. My children are all members of the library—they are all cardholders—and I have a fine thesis sitting in a cupboard of the library, which I hope will benefit all.

I understand that Mr and Mrs Seddon lived on the corner of Arawa Street and Fenton Street in Rotorua. Mr Seddon owned the Comet shop, one of the first shops in Rotorua. On the grave in which he is buried in Sala Street is a great bust of himself, whereas the original library had a more modest plaque that acknowledged Mrs Seddon. That plaque is today nowhere to be found. So in many respects this bill serves another purpose in honouring her and her intentions as per the terms of her 1932 will.

I am also profoundly proud to stand here today in recognition of the respect that books and literature receive in te Waiariki. It is a source of encouragement to me that many of our rangatahi Māori take up the opportunity to use these fabulous resources. The Books in Homes concept, for example, is encouraged at Te Kura Kaupapa Māori o Te Koutu, which my children attend.

In this last week in which we have honoured Guide Bubbles, I think too of another hostess guide at Whakarewarewa, Guide Maggie, Makereti Papakura. She was of Ngāti Wāhiao, Te Arawa, and Pākehā descent. Maggie Papakura was raised by the senior members of her mother’s family and educated in Māori knowledge from the time of her birth in 1873. She developed a love of literature and writing that was formalised in 1924 when she settled at Oxford University in England and began to record her knowledge of Māori life and customs for a Bachelor of Science. Tragically, just weeks before her thesis examination in 1930, she died. However, her work The Old-Time Māori was published posthumously and remains a significant scholarly reference source that will no doubt be a treasured part of the Rotorua local history section of our library. Following Makereti Papakura’s death in 1930, her friend and Oxford academic counsellor T.K. Penniman wrote: “The secret of her own greatness of soul lay in knowing who she was.”

Thinking about the benefits and value that this bill offers to the Rotorua library, I turn to the resources that will stock the shelves and tell us who, indeed, we are. The use of the book as a vital tool to advance the revitalisation of Māori society has its source in 1923, when Sir Apirana Ngata established the Board of Māori Ethnological Research to publish Elsdon Best’s manuscripts on Māori culture, and other writings by contributors to the Journal of the Polynesian Society. Throughout the next 80 years the bibliography of Māori books bloomed, each new decade bringing a distinctive chapter in our history of Aotearoa. One need only look at the pageant of New Zealand books published in 1958 by A.H. and A.W. Reed—classics such as How the Māori Lived, Living in a Māori Village, and How the White Men Came—to get a fascinating insight into the society of the time. Of course, questions about whether a book is a Māori book or whether it was written by a non-Māori will inevitably come into the debate.

Yesterday the Hon Brian Donnelly talked about Ken Mair’s whanaunga Captain Gilbert Mair in relation to a new book called Māori Treasures of New Zealand: Ko Tawa. It includes stories of the tribes and people associated with each of the taonga he collected in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The book includes interviews with and photographs of descendants of those who both created and gifted their taonga to Gilbert Mair, including Murirangaranga, the flute associated with the stories around Lake Rotorua that were to do with Tūtanekai and Hinemoa.

The history of our taonga and ourselves, and our knowing who we are, can illuminate the past to enhance our present. In light of this I refer to one of our most recent taonga, The Art of Māori Weaving: The Eternal Thread—Te Aho Mutunga Kore, written by Miriama Evans and Rānui Ngārimu and published by Huia Publishers. This book has been named as a finalist in the 2006 Montana New Zealand Book Awards in the lifestyle and contemporary culture category. The Art of Māori Weaving has also been nominated for the Textile Society of America’s R L Shep Award for its exceptional scholarship in the field of ethnic textile traditions. In making reference to just one or two examples, I do not say that one is better than the another; I do so to illustrate the variety, the excellence, and the distinctive body of work encompassed in Māori literature that our libraries can draw on.

The production of that literature is being nurtured by three key initiatives that I want to refer to briefly. The first is Te Hunga Taunaki Kaituhi Māori, a committee that has encouraged writers to publish works reflective of the best writing in Māori. The committee, consisting of Wena Tait, Dr Merimeri Penfold, and Dr Hirini Moko Mead, is committed to the retention of Māori knowledge through publications in te reo Māori. The committee assists in finding publishers and provides a mentoring role for new writers. One example is Eruera Manuera, written by Te Onehōu Phillis, which was published by Huia Publishers and won a special award in the Montana New Zealand Book Awards in 2002.

The second is Te Hā, a forum of contemporary Māori writers to promote excellence in writing and to encourage new writers. The initiatives include On the Bus, an annual showcase of readings and performances that takes Māori literature around the country and provides workshops on writing. Te Ha was first kicked off in 1991 by Witi Ihimaera and Patricia Grace, who are well known throughout Aotearoa, with a tour of Taranaki. They came to Waiariki in 2004, and this year are travelling across to Gisborne and the East Coast.

The third initiative I refer to is the Māori writers’ national hui, the biennial gathering of Māori writers and other individuals passionate about contemporary Māori literature. This year’s hui is to be held here in Wellington in September.

I wanted to use the opportunity provided by the Rotorua Library Trust Fund Variation Bill to talk briefly about Māori literature because I wanted to correct a perception some people have that denies our distinctive role in the written genre. Our strength as tangata whenua artists is derived from our oral traditions, our stories, our truths, and our learnings from the past that guide us into the future. But because we are fine orators or passionate storytellers does not mean that we are not also excellent writers of books.

Although our whaikōrero is distinctive, our talents as Māori publishers are also worthy of note. Publishers such as Huia Publishers produce books that have a significant Māori voice and build on the high quality of Māori work already published. Mauri Tu was formed by Robyn and the late Dooley Kahukiwa, and Kaitora Publishers, based in Hamilton, publishes educational products and services that have a strong Māori theme. The Kia Ata Mai Educational Trust develops and promotes Māori literacy programmes for readers in kura kaupapa Māori and Māori medium schools.

The Rotorua Library Trust Fund Variation Bill will enable the Rotorua district to access capital—some $300,000—to support the much-needed extension to the local library. As the member for Waiariki I am delighted to support this bill, and I realise the benefits of the smooth passing of this legislation, which will ensure access to these sorts of facilities throughout our community. Te Arawa, indeed, will be much richer for the opportunity to access increased resources that will lead us further to knowing who we are. Kia ora tātou.

LINDSAY TISCH (National—Piako): The folk of Rotorua—Rotorua City and district—are indeed indebted to the generosity of this lady, Elizabeth Ann Seddon-Johnson of Rotorua who, the explanatory note states, “By her will dated 30 December 1932, probate of which was granted on 1 September 1936”, left through the Public Trustee “the residue of her estate on trust for the benefit of the Rotorua Borough Council to be used for or towards the erection of a new wing”. The district council, which has now taken the place, of course, of the borough council, I am sure is indebted to her, and this is a fine legacy for someone whose generosity the whole area appreciates.

Libraries are important facilities in our community. We have seen instances where libraries have been taken away and only at some later date did people say it was a sad loss. In fact, we have a case in Cambridge where that happened in a school and that library has now been put back for the benefit of the students.

Here is a very generous legacy that has been left from way back in 1936. National has much pleasure in supporting this bill known as the Rotorua Library Trust Fund Variation Bill.

Bill read a first time.

Bill referred to the Government Administration Committee.

Bills

Consumer's Right to Know (Food Information) Bill

First Reading

Debate resumed from 14 June.

MARYAN STREET (Labour): I wish to speak to the Consumer’s Right to Know (Food Information) Bill. The Labour Party is opposing this bill. We oppose it on a couple of grounds and I will make those clear as we go along. The key purpose of the bill is to address the labelling of food, particularly in respect of GM-derived food or GM-derived ingredients, country of origin, and method of production.

There are some central points to this. Setting up a system to verify a food product requires a multilayered approach covering point of production, point of manufacture, point of export, etc. We have in our system currently the Fair Trading Act and Consumer Guarantees Act, which are, generally, consumer protection laws that require traders and manufacturers to be able to verify any claims they make of food they produce and sell. In New Zealand we have gone for general verification procedures, redress around those procedures, and strong food safety provisions. What we require of anyone selling food in New Zealand is that it is safe. Our concern is that every New Zealander has access to safe, nutritious, affordable food. A lot of public health and safety information is currently mandated for foods, including allergenic ingredients for the top eight products that cause allergies, use-by dates, nutrition information, and the contact details of the manufacturer in New Zealand or Australia, or the importer. Even more information is often available by contacting the manufacturer should a consumer want to pursue any particular concerns.

However, this bill is not about better nutrition. Food needs to enter the market place as safe and once it is in the market, it is too late. That is why we have pre-market assessment for foods, such as additives, processing aids, novel foods, and GM foods. We have heard quite a lot recently from the submitters to the Health Committee’s obesity and diabetes inquiry that labelling is already problematic. In fact, it is quite frequently—

Dr Wayne Mapp: Which way are you voting?

MARYAN STREET: I have said that we are opposing the bill. Labelling is already problematic. Sometimes it is said that one needs a degree in chemistry or physics to read or interpret labels.

The second point I wish to address is the issue of country-of-origin labelling. Historically, New Zealand has not supported the concept of a mandatory country-of-origin standard for the following reasons. Country-of-origin labelling is primarily a marketing tool that should be employed by food suppliers on the basis of commercial decision-making. It is clear from a very recent report on cost-benefit analysis conducted by the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research that there was nothing to be added to the case for country-of-origin labelling. It identified the costs of country-of-origin labelling for industry that are likely to be passed on to consumers. It notes that the increased burden of compliance costs will fall more heavily on New Zealand food suppliers than Australian suppliers, but it was not able to quantify benefits.

It would be inconsistent and potentially damaging to New Zealand’s international trade interests if New Zealand were to oppose mandatory country-of-origin labelling internationally—as we have done in relation, for example, to United States and Canadian requirements for meat—while adopting it domestically. When I have been shopping overseas the discovery that the beans came from Kenya and the dates came from Egypt has not influenced my purchase of food. The key point in food available to the consumer in New Zealand is that it is fresh and it meets the New Zealand food standards we have in place already.

BARBARA STEWART (NZ First): New Zealand First will support the Consumer’s Right to Know (Food Information) Bill going to select committee. We believe that this is a very important issue that New Zealanders want to have some input into. I have received many emails about this bill. It is an important enough issue to be discussed widely, and this is an opportunity to do so. It is really ironic that, as consumers, we are told where our clothing, shoes, and electronic equipment have all been manufactured—and I know the Minister Annette King said this afternoon in question time that that was a legacy from a trade agreement—yet we do not know where our food originates. That is really taking away the choice for all New Zealanders.

In New Zealand First we believe that if our food—and here we are talking particularly about canned food—is grown overseas or imported, we should be informed on the label. Yet we are not. We know we are given that information for fresh fruit and vegetables—

Sue Kedgley: We’re often not.

BARBARA STEWART: Mainly; sometimes we are—but not for most other foods. So we cannot find out where our food comes from by reading the labels in the supermarket. That is quite outrageous. Many New Zealanders are becoming increasingly concerned about their health, and they want to know where their meat, chicken, whitebait, tinned fruit, vegetables, and even their apple and orange juice actually originated.

We all like to think these products are New Zealand - grown products. After all is said and done, we are buying them in a New Zealand supermarket, so we automatically assume that those products are grown here in clean, green New Zealand. But the unfortunate fact is that, quite often, it is only the packaging that occurs here in New Zealand—sometimes only the labelling. So what we have is the product being grown overseas, the packaging being carried out here in New Zealand, but the consumer being left with the impression that it is a wholly New Zealand - grown product. How wrong we often are. We could really say that, in this case, the packaging is totally misleading. New Zealanders deserve to know what they and their families are eating. It is our right to know. Consumers want the opportunity to choose locally produced goods over imported goods. We want to know the way they were grown and harvested.

I received an email some days ago from a Dr Anderson in Tauranga, who told me that country-of-origin labelling is carried out far and wide, even though it is not carried out here in New Zealand. In Europe, the US, Canada, and Australia, most foods have to list their country of origin. In the European Union, beef, fruit, vegetables, fish, olive oil, eggs, poultry, meat, and honey all have to be labelled as to their country of origin. In the US, country-of-origin labelling is mandatory for all imported foods. In Australia, the country of origin must be identified for packaged foods, fish, pork, fresh fruit, and vegetables. So, all in all, we are lagging behind in this particular area, I believe.

There needs to be more stringent rules around the labelling of foods containing GM products. It would definitely make it far easier to identify those products on the supermarket shelves. In Europe, foods derived using GE technology have to be labelled. Really, when we look at it we can see that New Zealand’s labelling laws for GE or GM foods are far from adequate. With around 25 genetically engineered foods approved for the New Zealand food chain, it is nigh on impossible to find a food label that states that a product contains a GE ingredient. That is not good enough. Animal feed derived from GE should be labelled so that we are aware of that when those products are passed into the human food chain. We really want to know whether our food contains GE ingredients.

The bottom line is that we do not know half as much about our food as we should. This bill is about honesty in food production. Consumers have a right to know more about their food. There is an old saying that we are what we eat. Therefore, it is really important that we are fully informed about what it is we put into our bodies. New Zealand First supports this bill.

TE URUROA FLAVELL (Māori Party—Waiariki): Tēnā nō tātou katoa. Over half a century ago there was a bilingual quarterly publication entitled Te Ao Hou, which had as its purpose “the provision of interesting and informative reading for Maori homes … like a marae on paper, where all questions of interest to the Maori can be discussed.” I turned to Te Ao Hou in terms of trying to find some way forward with regard to this particular bill, the Consumer’s Right to Know (Food Information) Bill, at this point in time—in particular, around the views that Māori people had about health.

In that source I found this quote: “The traditional foods of the Maori people built splendid men and fine looking, strong women and all of these foods were gathered from New Zealand’s soil or waters. With the coming of the pakeha and his food, however, the Maori people are forgetting some of their own foods and adopting more and more of the pakeha foods … Pakeha food such as meat, bread and tea has come and come to stay, but do not neglect your own excellent foods, your puha, your fish and your kumaras.” There is some sound advice in there. The excellent foods of tangata whenua—our pūhā, fish, and kūmara—may well have stood us in good stead in a world that is rapidly being spoiled by food that is affected by pesticides, heavy metals, industrial chemicals, and other contaminants.

The food industry in Aotearoa has been grappling with the sweeping tidal wave of genetic modification over the last decade. Over the last 10 years, food manufacturers have been requesting information about the levels of GM-derived ingredients in food products and animal feed products. They also require the country of origin of certain foods to be on their labels at a point in time. Back in 1952 the origins were indisputable. Octopus, kina, rock oysters, kōura, crayfish, kuku, pāua, pipi, and toheroa—where else would one come across those but on the foreshore and seabeds of this fine land? Hāpuku, tarakihi, snapper, kahawai, mangō, and pātiki—there was no risk then of purchasing such foods with “Made in Taiwan” emblazoned on their wrappings.

It is from the base of that pure, healthy kai that the Māori Party is delighted to support Sue Kedgley on a bill that is very dear to our hearts and our puku. We believe that all consumers—tangata whenua and tangata tauiwi alike—have the right to make meaningful decisions about the kai they purchase. And they can do so through having sufficient accurate and detailed information on all labels, or at the point of sale. We support the right of consumers to know the composition of all foods derived from gene technology—not just those with detectable levels of GM protein or DNA remaining after processing. We support the right of consumers to know whether eggs are free range, barn produced, or from caged hens. In this so-called information-rich world, mandatory labelling on egg packages and seafood—whether caught wild or farmed—is surely in the best interests of all consumers. Accurate, truthful, and meaningful food labelling will also enable us to be compliant with national and international food standards.

Of course, we acknowledge that it will require more work to ensure that manufacturers follow rigorous standards in the way that they source, develop, and manufacture food products. That will inevitably bring increased costs to manufacturers, which will no doubt have to flow on to consumers. But how much is a human life worth? The Māori Party will always vote in balance for human life, over and above issues of fiscal cost. We understand the risks of particular chemical contaminants arising from the production processes of some nations, or indeed from post-harvest or post-fumigation treatments.

This House may not be aware of recent research from Otago University, which revealed that several traditional Māori food plants are rich potential sources of cancer-fighting antioxidants. A study of 17 native plant species found that some native plants have an extraordinary potential to scavenge free radicals, which are implicated in cancer, heart disease, and neurodegenerative conditions. The study provides some exciting insights into why, perhaps, pre-European Māori appeared to have low levels of non-infectious diseases.

The Māori Party believes that consumers have the right to know the derivation of GM ingredients in food products and the right to know the life-enhancing potential that is evident in pūhā, rewarewa, tītoki, and swamp maire. We support the bill, in the interests of a future GE-free Aotearoa.

KATE WILKINSON (National): National will not be supporting the Consumers Right to Know (Food Information) Bill, not because we do not believe that the consumer has a right to know in relation to food labelling but because New Zealand’s food standards and law already provide a comprehensive labelling and information system. I support totally accurate and informative labelling. As a person who has always had a food allergy, labelling is particularly important to me, but labelling should be science based and evidence based, ensuring proper food safety, rather than emotion based.

The bill requires country-of-origin labelling, but already we must provide on labels the company’s name and address, and we have an 0800 consumer line for any inquiries. Furthermore, in the bill, interestingly enough, if there is more than one ingredient, it is sufficient to have a statement to the effect that the food is made from ingredients imported into the country or from local and imported ingredients. So we are none the wiser as to where the food came from in the first place. It is absolutely meaningless to say food is made from ingredients imported into the country or from local and imported ingredients. It is also a costly exercise, and that cost would be handed down to consumers. But for what benefit?

How do the provisions of this country-of-origin labelling measure actually satisfy the demands of consumers who insist that they have a right to know where their food comes from? They do not. Yet if it is truly important for a consumer, for example, to buy only New Zealand pork, then the consumer should not buy pork that is not labelled as being New Zealand pork. The consumer has the choice of what pork to buy and what pork not to buy, and the consumer has the right to ask where the pork comes from. If consumers are misled, they have remedies available under the Fair Trading Act. We do not need to have a duplication of laws.

There is provision in the bill for food derived from GM or containing an ingredient derived from GM to be labelled as such, lowering the threshold from the current 1 percent to 0.5 percent. The honourable member Sue Kedgley has conceded that, firstly, no manufacturer can guarantee any product as GM-free, and, secondly, she would consider increasing the threshold to 1 percent, anyway. We already have a 1 percent threshold, and it is mischievous for Mrs Kedgley to ask lobbyists to confirm that they want to know whether there is any GE ingredient in food, when she knows full well that that is unrealistic and she herself concedes that no manufacturer can guarantee any product as being GE-free.

The bill also deals with the labelling of eggs, requiring that they be labelled as coming from free-range, barn-raised, or caged hens. I know that many people will not buy eggs produced by battery hens, and certainly that is their choice. Others do not care, and some believe that free-range eggs are not as safe or as hygienic as eggs from battery hens. Whatever side of the argument one takes, it is surely a simple matter for those producers who have free-range eggs to label them as such, market them as such, and sell them as such, and consumers can then duly make their choice.

We are certainly against the mislabelling of food and certainly in favour of high food-safety standards, but we have the existing protections already in place. We have the Fair Trading Act, which prohibits misleading and deceptive conduct. We have the Food Act and the Food Standards Code. We have the remedies. We are not against proper labelling—we have it. We are not against consumers’ right to know what is in their food, but we have that too. What we are against is unnecessary, unworkable legislation that would impose unnecessary costs on consumers. That is exactly what this bill would do. Our objection is not about taking away consumers’ right to ask or about taking away their right to choose. It is about being sensible, and not imposing unnecessary costs on consumers because of an idealistic viewpoint.

We oppose this bill. It is not in the best interests of consumers, at all. It would be an extra cost, an extra burden, on them. Consumers do have the right to know. They already have it: they have the right to ask, and they have the right to decline any product that they are not certain about. National will not be supporting the bill.

KEITH LOCKE (Green): Maryan Street said not to worry; that labelling already exists, although there are some problems with reading labels. Surely if labelling exists on products, which it does on many of them, it is not too difficult to add the country of origin. That is a very simple thing, and the idea that somehow it is damaging to New Zealand’s interests is quite false. It may be true that if New Zealand labels some of its exports “Made in New Zealand” some consumers in America might prefer the local product. Well, that is their choice. Surely it is just an extra motivation to our exporters to get our food standards to a high quality, to have good organic produce free of chemicals, and all that sort of thing, because it will make it more attractive to the discerning consumer who is choosing, partly, on the basis of country of origin.

The idea that it will cost a huge amount to put labels on food is absurd, I think. We are not saying that there has to be a sticker on every little kiwifruit. One of the problems is that sometimes food is over-labelled in that sense, but we at least need the bins to state where the product comes from. That is not too difficult for supermarkets and shops to do. In fact it is important for supermarkets, if they want to keep good quality products and make sure they are promoting the best producers, to have a traceability system and a labelling system so that everyone—from consumer back to supplier—knows which country the product comes from.

Maryan Street said that labelling was problematic because with some of the labels it is difficult to work out the chemicals, and so on. That is just a challenge to Governments to improve that aspect. But the point—and this is where Maryan Street misses out—is that it is not a question of trusting the State to get it right, and the State will make sure that everything we consume is nice and fresh, and perfectly healthy, etc. The bill is about the consumer’s right to know; the right of the people themselves to determine what might be the best food for them to eat, and to judge for themselves if it comes from a country that uses too many chemicals on its tomatoes. They might say the Australians use too many chemicals or the wrong chemicals on their tomatoes, which is what Sue Kedgley said in her speech on the first reading. They might say we want to eat New Zealand tomatoes. It is the right of the consumer to choose. In fact, in Australia they have that right. It is so bad that our Government is dissociating itself from the joint food standard with Australia, when Australia has that food labelling and we do not. The Green Party, through Sue Kedgley, got information under the Official Information Act that says the decision to dissociate ourselves from Australia, from the joint food standard on country-of-origin labelling, was made in secret and without consultation with any political party in this Parliament or any debate in the House.

The Cabinet paper, disclosed under the Official Information Act, said that New Zealand is moving to veto the joint approach of mandatory country-of-origin labelling of food, without consultation. It actually said that in making the decision, one did not need consultation—“consultation is not required with Government caucuses or other parties represented in Parliament”.

This really is Muldoonism. It is executive decision-making without any consultation. It is also a bit like Roger Douglas, who said: “Don’t worry about public opinion, just do it.” It is not what should happen in an MMP Parliament, particularly when we have a history of minority Governments. The whole concept of MMP is to incorporate the whole Parliament and all parties in decision making in order to have educated debates.

How can we properly choose what foods to eat? There has been talk about pork. When going through supermarkets I have not seen pork labelled as being from overseas. We just do not see it and we are not able to make a choice as to what country’s pork we want. It is a basic democratic right to be able to decide for ourselves. We could decide on either side. For example, garlic comes in from China. Some people may love buying Chinese garlic but they cannot find out whether it is from China. Most people might say that they want to support their local garlic producers rather than consuming Chinese garlic. People should have an equal right to choose.

JUDY TURNER (Deputy Leader—United Future): I rise on behalf of United Future to say that we will support the first reading of the Consumer’s Right to Know (Food Information) Bill, although we do so with some serious reservations. Sue Kedgley has been a very strong and passionate advocate for this issue during the whole time I have known her here in Parliament. I also know that a lot of other people are really keen to see how viable it is to have information around GM foods, and the discussion should be had. However, one concern we do have is how realistic it is.

I was talking to somebody the other day who advocates for the food industry. He was in my office about quite a different matter, but I asked for his input. One of the examples he gave me was of a company he knows that packages sun-dried tomatoes. The product was imported from somewhere in South America, although I cannot remember which country he told me it was. He said that the problem the company had was that if there was a drought, or the climate was unfavourable, it would need to source the product from somewhere else to continue to supply its markets, and at that point for the company, having registered its product, the whole system would fall over quite badly in terms of how it would manage the costs.

I am a reader of labels on the back of products in the supermarket, and I appreciate the amount of information I am given. My first response is that I feel I get sufficient information, but I think it is a growing thing and that people are becoming more and more interested in picking up something off the shelf and checking the back for a few minutes to see what is in it. So I do not see that there is any harm in having a discussion at a select committee, listening to submitters—to those who are involved in the food industry and to consumer groups—and hearing what they have to say. My concern is that it is unrealistic, but we may be able to problem-solve around that and find ways forward to learn what made it workable in other countries and what particular concerns there are for our own New Zealand food industry. There are a whole lot of questions that could well be answered very successfully. Compromises could be reached to the benefit of everybody. So United Future is very happy for that discussion to be had and we are happy to support the first reading.

SUE KEDGLEY (Green): The Consumer’s Right to Know (Food Information) Bill has overwhelming support from the vast majority of New Zealanders, who want better labelling of their food. The bill should be supported by every party in this House because it is about the basic, democratic right of New Zealanders to know what is in the food we are eating and where it comes from. I thank the Māori Party, ACT, New Zealand First, and United Future for listening to ordinary New Zealand consumers and supporting this bill. And I thank the 4,000 New Zealanders who have sent emails and postcards to MPs imploring them to vote for the bill. Some have started petitions for the bill and others have even staged a protest in support of it. I also thank the 25 organisations that have come out in support of the bill, ranging from Parents Centres New Zealand to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

Rarely has a member’s bill had so much support from ordinary New Zealanders, because it actually addresses something that really bothers consumers every time they shop for food—namely, the lack of any information on a label to tell them whether the food they are buying contains GE ingredients or where most of it comes from. Some MPs may not do the shopping or push trolleys around the supermarket, so they may not realise just how important this issue is for ordinary consumers or realise the growing concerns consumers have about the safety of our food and the way it is produced, which is why consumers want labels to tell them what they are eating and where it comes from.

Maryan Street said that we do not need better labelling because all of our food is safe. But GE ingredients have never undergone any safety testing, so how do we know they are safe? If GE ingredients have not undergone safety testing, surely we should at least be able to figure out where they are so we can avoid those foods that contain them if we consider them unsafe. And if we are going to encourage container-loads of meat to be imported into New Zealand, in a world awash with bovine spongiform encephalopathy and avian flu, surely we have a right to know where all that meat ends up and whether the meat we are buying comes from New Zealand or China.

New Zealand is being left way behind in our labelling laws. Most Western countries already have mandatory labelling of all GE ingredients in food and mandatory country-of-origin labelling. Many countries already require eggs to be labelled as to whether they come from caged, free-range, or barn-raised hens. The only reason we do not already have country-of-origin labelling is because our Government decided—in secret, in classic Muldoon style, without any debate or even consultation with any member of Parliament, other than those in Cabinet—to veto a joint standard that would have made country-of-origin labelling compulsory in New Zealand. As Barbara Stewart said, we have it for our footwear and clothing. Surely it is more important that we know where the food we put into our bodies comes from than where our jandals and T-shirts come from.

National tried to justify its opposition by saying that the labelling would impose overwhelming compliance costs on industry. What utter twaddle! The GE labelling provisions would apply to only the dozen or so food producers in New Zealand who have not already removed GE ingredients from their food. And there is virtually no cost to install country-of-origin labelling or to provide labelling on egg cartons. The country-of-origin provisions exist in Australia, so that argument will not wash.

It speaks volumes about the contempt that the two major parties have towards ordinary consumers, that they would deny something as simple and as fundamental as consumers’ right to know what is in food and where it comes from. It shows how totally out of touch they are with the concerns of mainstream New Zealand and how they will always put the interests of food producers ahead of the interests of consumers. Maryan Street said that we cannot have country-of-origin labelling in New Zealand because it would be unhelpful to a couple of our companies internationally. How outrageous! The interests of a couple of exporters come way ahead of the interests of consumers! How bizarre that a Labour Party, which claims to be democratic, is acting so arrogantly. How bizarre that the National Party, which says its core values are about individual freedom and responsibility, is opposing a bill that is all about giving individuals the freedom to choose through proper food labelling. New Zealand consumers will remember which two parties denied them the right to better labelling of their food. I will make sure of that.

I seek leave to table a postcard from Jill Turner Lloyd, which states: “The right to know and choose is crucial for our freedom as individuals in this society.”

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

SUE KEDGLEY: I seek leave to table a postcard from Charlotte Minson, which states: “It is a basic right of consumers to know what we are putting in our bodies.”

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley): How many more are there?

SUE KEDGLEY: I want to table several hundred, but I wanted to read just three or four.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley): I am sorry, but the time has come for the dinner break. I will resume the Chair at 7.30 p.m.

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

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley): Before the dinner break we were just about to vote on the Consumer’s Right to Know (Food Information) Bill. The debate had finished.

SUE KEDGLEY (Green): I seek leave to table a postcard from Fenja Jones in Nelson, who, as a consumer, says: “I want to know which country my food comes from, whether it contains GE ingredients, and whether eggs have come from hens that have been kept in cages.”

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley): I ask the member how many documents she is going to table.

SUE KEDGLEY: I have several hundred here to table, but I will just table one more, specifically, here—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley): I say to the member that to do that would be an abuse of the process of the House. This is members’ night, your bill has been debated, and other members are entitled to—

SUE KEDGLEY: I said I wanted to table one more. I do not think that is an abuse of the Standing Orders.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley): One more? Well, it would be if there were 200 to 300.

SUE KEDGLEY: No, no. I said I will be tabling 200 to 300, and I would specifically table one more.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley): But not individually?

SUE KEDGLEY: No, that is right. I am sorry; I did not make myself clear. I would like to table a card from Mr Wells, who says: “As a consumer I want to know: whether my food contains GE ingredients or not, whether eggs have come from hens that have been kept in cages, and which country my food comes from,”, and he continues: “because better labelling means more informed choices.”

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

SUE KEDGLEY: Finally, I would like to table these several hundred postcards from consumers, all of whom say they believe that it is the basic right of individuals to have informed choice about the food they are going to purchase.

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

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Consumer’s Right to Know (Food Information) Bill be now read a first time.

Ayes 20

New Zealand First 7; Green Party 6; Māori Party 2; United Future 3; ACT New Zealand 2.

Noes 99

New Zealand Labour 50; New Zealand National 48; Progressive 1.

Motion not agreed to.

Bills

Corrections (Mothers with Babies) Amendment Bill

First Reading

SUE BRADFORD (Green): I move, That the Corrections (Mothers with Babies) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. At the appropriate time I intend to move that the bill be considered by the Law and Order Committee.

I have brought this Corrections (Mothers with Babies) Amendment Bill to Parliament for consideration because of what I believe are elements of grave inhumanity in the way we often treat mothers of babies within our prison system. The catalyst came for me when I heard stories of mothers being refused any chance to breastfeed their newborn babies, at all, and having those newborn babies forcibly removed; when I heard of the trauma of mothers losing their babies at 6 months or at other random points of time during the cycle of imprisonment; and, worst of all, when I learnt that the right to breastfeed is at times being used as a tool of prison discipline. In the 21st century, in a supposedly civilised country like Aotearoa New Zealand, I think we can do a whole lot better than that.

My bill has two overarching goals: to ensure prison authorities allow mothers to breastfeed their babies, and to extend the period during which mothers are allowed to keep their babies with them from 6 months to 2 years. There is not an implication there, as some have suggested, that the breastfeeding and the time period are intrinsically linked together. They are two separate issues, and I still want to see mothers given the chance to keep their babies with them, even if they are unable to breastfeed at all, or choose to stop breastfeeding before the 2 years are up, as most women in fact do.

In 2002 the World Health Organization adopted the World Health Assembly’s resolution to: “protect, promote and support exclusive breastfeeding for six months … and to provide safe and appropriate complementary foods, with continued breastfeeding for up to two years of age and beyond”. Not only international resolutions like that but also all the research I have ever seen show that breastfeeding is best for both the physical health and mental well-being of our babies. It also assists hugely in the bonding process that is so critical for babies’ long-term chances in life. I do not think a small group of babies should be denied that very fundamental human right simply because their mothers are languishing in either the remand or the sentence parts of the prison system.

The breastfeeding issue underlies the broader question of how long babies should be allowed to be accommodated with their imprisoned mothers, and, indeed, whether they should be with their mothers at all. In 2002 New Zealand prisons took a brave new step into the future by allowing babies aged under 6 months to live with their mothers in self-care units in prison. I would like to acknowledge here the former Alliance MP and Minister of Corrections, Matt Robson, for the role he played in assisting that to happen. I am sorry he is not actually here in the House tonight to help us take the further steps that I am proposing—steps that I am sure he would have backed all the way.

Although 6 months in 2002 was at least a start, it means we are still lagging a long way behind many other parts of the world. For example, the state of Victoria in Australia allows children to stay with their mothers for up to 6 years. Malaysia and Canada allow it for 4 years, and Singapore, Hong Kong, and Thailand allow it for 3 years each. Some of those countries are not exactly renowned for their progressive prison systems, and I think that is an indication of just how far behind international best practice we in fact are.

Some commentators have criticised my bill because they say that 2 years is far too young an age to take a child away from its mother. I agree with them, but it is a whole lot better than 6 months. I also add that I would certainly welcome support from the House to amend the provision at the select committee to at least 3 years, which I think is a much more reasonable age at which to take the risk of forced separation. More mothers would have finished their sentences by then, as well. However, if we are not yet ready in this country to be quite that advanced in our reforms in this area, I hope my fellow MPs will at least support an extension to 2 years.

Forcibly separating a mother from a baby at 6 months, or at any time before then, is nothing short of barbaric. Some MPs will have seen the letter from a prisoner that I copied to them yesterday. I do not know how any mother among us can remain unmoved by the extract from her story. I will quote a small portion of it: “Nine hours after I gave birth to my precious daughter, I was told I was coming back to prison. I said with my baby? I was told, no, just me. I broke down. I deprived myself of sleep because I was so scared that I would wake up and my baby would be gone. I lost my appetite. Giving birth is meant to be such a happy occasion. The way I feel is that my heart doesn’t beat—it bleeds. I couldn’t even breastfeed, because I didn’t know what was happening.” The process of having one’s baby taken away against one’s will is infinitely traumatic.

Some people say that those women are criminals and do not deserve the right to breastfeed or to be with their babies. My response is that actually it is better for all of us if mothers and babies can have a better start in prison, because in fact the mothers’ chances of rehabilitation will be so much higher. Women who are living in the criminal subculture often are addicted to alcohol, drugs, and gambling, and exist in the kind of parallel universe most so-called mainstream members of society know nothing or little about. One of the main hopes for their rehabilitation can come from their giving birth and raising a child or children. It does not always work, of course, but having a baby, and being given the opportunity to be a mother in a safe, secure situation in which to love and nurture the child, can make all the difference in that mother’s life.

The converse is true, too. If the baby is ripped away from the mother at 1 day, 2 days, 3 months, or 6 months, the despair and trauma that result can be absolutely devastating, and the woman can end up being plunged back even deeper into the subculture from which she came. Our corrections system should be about maximising rehabilitation. It should be about giving prisoners the utmost possibility of turning their lives round when they come out. I do not think many parties in this House still believe that all we should focus on is punishment at the expense of the chance of change and redemption.

Then, of course, there is the question of what is best for the child. Some people seem to think that I am proposing to put mothers and babies into the kind of environment we see in TV programmes such as Bad Girls, or hear about in so many movies, books, and so on. Far from it. For a baby to stay with its mother in prison, both need to be in mother and baby self-care units within the prison and well separated from the general population. I was pleased to hear tonight that the new Auckland women’s prison south of Auckland will have one of these units. These places give the children concerned the chance to live for a period in a stable and regulated environment, often with a lot more peace and security than can be offered in life outside—something that is on the minds of many of us at the moment, I think, after the double murder of the Kāhui twins last week.

My bill does not say that the needs of the mother should be paramount over those of her child, but they are intertwined. For the best possible start in life, a baby should be able to stay with its mother for at least 2 years. It should have the opportunity to be breastfed wholly, then partially, for as long as the mother desires and is able. Mothers in prison do have to abide by protocols and ensure a drug and violence free environment for their child. They also have the chance to receive the kind of parenting education and support that they might not be able to access on the outside for any number of reasons. For the child, too, I believe that it will often be better to spend the first 2 years of its life with its mother in prison than to be passed from one relative to another or through a series of foster homes, which is often the only option.

A further question that is sometimes asked about all this is the potential cost to the Department of Corrections of establishing mother and baby units in all women’s prisons sufficient to meet demand. I believe that this is a cost we cannot afford not to meet, and in any case the cost would not be particularly large given that we have some units already. According to the best current information I have, there are only 13 pregnant women within our prison system at present, and we have quite a large female prison population right now. Although this number will always be subject to fluctuation, it is hard to imagine it ever growing substantially.

At a purely instinctive level, I think anyone who has been a mother can understand the trauma a woman goes through when she has her baby removed against her will. Whatever our attitude, individually or as political parties, to crime and punishment, I believe that my bill represents a reform whose time has come. I would like to thank all those political parties in the House who have come out in support of, at least, my bill going to a select committee, and I hope that support will continue. It is a tribute to all those members that they have seen past traditional approaches to law and order issues, and have understood the potential benefits of putting the needs of babies and mothers before the urge to condemn and punish. I look forward to the debate.

KATHERINE RICH (National): Tonight I am pleased to speak to the first reading of Sue Bradford’s Corrections (Mothers with Babies) Amendment Bill. I would like to acknowledge the contribution that Sue has made in bringing this bill to the attention of the Parliament. It is a well written bill with good intentions, and as a result I am pleased to say that the National Party is supporting it going to the select committee. There we will hear from experts and the public about the benefits and costs of the proposal.

The areas of key interest to the National Party are protecting the safety and well-being of the child; the benefits of bonding and attachment; the promotion of breastfeeding; the role this idea can play in the rehabilitation of the mother; and the contribution this bill could make to reducing recidivism. Although the academic and practical information on the latter issue is scarce, we recognise the strong belief that encouraging bonds between an inmate and her child plays a key role in helping that mother to go straight.

I have been interested in this issue since 2001, and, not coincidentally, since I became a mother myself. My interest was sparked by a letter to the Dominion in June of that year. It was a short letter, but one that was very moving. Margaret Long of Ōtaki made the comparison between me—a new mother breastfeeding my baby, and having the freedom to do so—with the situation of another woman who had just weaned her 2-month-old baby so that she could begin her 15-month stint in prison for stealing money from a bank. Members will know that 2 months, of course, is well short of New Zealand and World Health Organization goals for breastfeeding. The correspondent made a plea for Ms Foia to continue her feeding, and made the point that a breastfed baby in prison is “a cheap guest”. She also asked the question: “Why cannot Ms Foia care for her baby in prison, as Ms Rich will do in Parliament?”. Apart from likening Parliament to a prison, I understood her point.

After that I started to ask some questions about the numbers of women and babies in the same situation. At the time my interests coincided with a lot of good initiatives being promoted by Matt Robson, the then Minister of Corrections, who was at that point establishing the mother and baby units in New Zealand women’s prisons. A few years later I worked for another inmate who had been handcuffed during labour—something that is against the rules. She and her mother were most distressed to be told that she had to dry off her milk because she would not be able to breastfeed, and she would not even have the opportunity to apply for one of the units.

It has been some years now, so I think it is timely that we check whether Matt Robson’s mother and baby units have succeeded. I have to commend his courage in putting the units in place. It was a new concept for New Zealand, but it was commonplace in prison systems around the world. Members will be interested to know that countries we have studied, except Sweden, allow mothers to keep their children till varying ages. Although regulation 55 of the Penal Institution Regulations 1961 allowed mothers who gave birth to keep their babies with them up until the age of 6 months, in reality there were few resources to support this. So although there are mother and baby units here in New Zealand, there has been feedback that they are underutilised and lacking in resources, meaning that some women who should be eligible just do not get the opportunity. One of the cases was that of the constituent I have mentioned.

It is important to know that the mother and baby units around the world are run to a certain routine and standard. They are not free and easy nurseries where inmates can do as they please. If one looks at those in the UK, one sees that there are well established systems. There is a stringent selection process. The rights, welfare, and safety of the child are paramount at all times. There are strict rules, such as no smoking, no smacking, no drugs, good care, good feeding, etc. If the rules are not followed, then those mothers are removed from those units.

There will be two big debates, I think. The first will be around whether prison is a good place for a baby, and the second will be around the age of the child—to what age is it OK to keep a baby in prison? I do not think there is a person in this Chamber who would say that prison is a great place for kids. Certainly it is not an ideal place, and as a country we would like to see no women in prisons, let alone mothers. Likewise, I do not think there is a mother on the planet who dreams of experiencing those first few months behind bars. The reality is that we have this situation and we have to accept that fact.

Some adults might not think that babies should be in prison at all. That is Sweden’s view, and I think it is funny, given its progressive attitudes in other areas of child welfare. To those who think babies should be banned from prison, I say that babies do not care. The baby does not have a clue where it is; what it does know is that it is warm, it is fed, and it is in the arms of someone who cares. Yes, there is a financial cost, but there is a financial cost to the State in any case, be it via Work and Income, Child, Youth and Family Services, or foster care.

I cannot help but think that some of those babies will be a hell of a lot safer in the mother and baby units than in homes such as the one that has dominated debate in the last 3 weeks. Opponents need to remember that 33 percent of woman inmates have dependent children when they enter prison, and many will have more children when they get out. We need to accept that they are there for a wide range of reasons. The mother I mentioned before had been stealing, and the other was up for armed robbery. We need to accept that some of those crimes are not crimes that mean the women cannot be mothers. Our system is designed to remove the liberty of the mothers, but we overlook the fact that we are removing the rights of those babies to be breastfed and to be cared for by the most important person in their lives.

There will be some women who will not be eligible. Some crimes against children are unforgivable. A woman who has been a child abuser or has committed some kind of crime that puts children at risk will never be eligible to care for her child in prison. The Tracey Lee Sutherlands and the Tania Witikas of this world will never be eligible for these units.

Mothers need to buy in to strict agreements if they are going to take part. One of those agreements is that they take part in extensive parenting education. Such programmes capitalise on the fact that there is literally a captive audience for good parenting advice, and there is an opportunity to assist them to become better mothers. These programmes offer good parenting advice on things like nutrition, constructive play, and the importance of early childhood education. All of us who talk tough on crime must always be able to speak credibly about rehabilitation. Some of the rehabilitation courses in our corrections system have had pathetic results, but I do believe that appealing to a mother’s instinct to look after her baby cannot help but make the difference in getting that mother back on track.

I hope the select committee will hear from the child development experts on what the best age is. I hope officials have up-to-date information on the results from Australia and the costs of that initiative.

I have a message for those who think National’s support of this bill is a bleeding heart, liberal lurch to the left. It is not. The mother and baby unit model is a practical and common-sense approach. This bill requires reasonable reciprocal obligations and responsibilities, and that is in keeping with our principles as a party and our interests in rehabilitation and responsibilities. All the research shows that bonding and attachment as a baby contribute hugely to long-term development. Although any intervention for the mother might be seen as an ambulance at the bottom of the cliff, for a baby it could be the fence at the top. That is why National supports this bill going to the select committee.

Hon MARK BURTON (Minister of Justice): I am pleased to speak to the Corrections (Mothers with Babies) Amendment Bill on behalf of the Labour Party and the Government. This sort of bill, which comes into Parliament from time to time, brings out the best in the debates we have in the House, and I commend the member who has just resumed her seat, Katherine Rich. I do not think anyone in the House could disagree with the underlying principles espoused by Katherine Rich and Sue Bradford, the member whose bill we are debating.

The issues the bill puts before us are worthy of wide discussion and consultation, and an opportunity for us to hear from wide expert opinion and community interests. The Government certainly will be supporting the bill going to the Law and Order Committee, but Sue Bradford and Katherine Rich both raised a number of significant and important issues and questions. There can be no doubt that bonding and attachment between mother and child are fundamental to the issues that we cannot avoid discussing when we consider the bill. Certainly, the proposal we have shifts from the current arrangement, which effectively has an upper age-limit for babies who are with their mothers in prison. Again, I emphasise that the current legislation recognises not only the importance of the opportunity to establish and maintain breastfeeding in its own right but also bonding. It is important to acknowledge that both of those factors are taken into account.

As the members have said, the bill would provide for the increase in the upper age-limit for babies in prisons to 24 months, and that does raise a number of significant questions. The bill is timely, for a number of reasons. I acknowledge the Department of Corrections, which was planning to undertake a review of the woman and dependent child policy in the 2006-07 year. So this bill comes at an opportune time from that point of view. As part of that review, it was the intention that the current age-limit for babies in prisons, in light of the literature that has been previously referred to on child development and attachment to primary caregivers, would be part of the consideration during that review. So, again, the timing of that review, given the obvious consideration that it will have in the select committee, lines up well.

Of course, extending the age-limit suggests a number of important and challenging issues, some of which have already been canvassed, and I will echo them here. For instance, there is a challenge relating to the capacity to meet the child development needs of the child in prison, because, as the member who has just resumed her seat indicated, this is as much about a baby and his or her developmental needs and rights as it is about the mother in question, and the bonding between them. There is no doubt that there will be new challenges to be addressed in that regard. Potentially—for some, at least—there is the question of dealing with separation at an older age, because in some cases it may be that a mother who is serving a longer sentence may be forced to confront the same issue at age 2 rather than at 6 months. Certainly some literature would suggest that the issues are at least as serious at that point, albeit different. Practical support for mothers in that situation would be quite different if we went out to a 2-year timeline.

There are security issues. Basically, self-care units are minimum security at the moment. If we extend, virtually without control, the number of mothers who might be eligible, then we raise issues around security that currently do not necessarily need to be addressed. There are a number of other issues, not least of which is the resourcing issue. It would be good to be able to say the issue is too important to allow ourselves to be sidetracked by such mundane things as money, but, sadly, that is never the case in Government, and I think none of us in this House should pretend that we can simply make decisions in a financial vacuum—we cannot. So resourcing issues would be real and would have to be considered. But, as I said at the outset, the Government will support the bill going to the select committee. We look forward to hearing wide-ranging debate, and I thank members for their consideration of the bill.

BARBARA STEWART (NZ First): New Zealand First supports the Corrections (Mothers with Babies) Amendment Bill going to the Law and Order Committee. We must acknowledge Sue Bradford for bringing this issue to Parliament. This is an important issue that needs to be addressed. Although New Zealand First, like many other parties, has some concerns about children up to the age of 24 months being in prison with their mothers, we will be most interested to hear what the submitters to the select committee have to say about this issue.

We believe that at that age toddlers are usually pretty aware of the environment they are growing up in. However, on the positive side we believe that this is an opportunity for mothers in prison to learn some parenting skills in a very controlled environment, so that a baby or toddler can have the best possible start. We want to ensure the future development, health, and well-being of the child. When we look at it realistically, we see that it is not the baby’s fault that the mother has committed some offence.

New Zealand First believes that mothers and babies should have the opportunity to bond, as it can play a very significant role in rehabilitation, and that is basically what we want prison programmes to do. We know that the results of not bonding are absolutely disastrous for the mother, for the child, for the family, and, of course, for the State. As we have already been told, other countries have a parenting programme that allows babies to be in prisons for up to 2 years, and the results have been very positive. So we will be interested to follow this issue further.

We are very aware that strict criteria would need to be imposed, such as it being a non-smoking environment. We believe that the safety of the baby is absolutely essential, and it would be essential to have strict rules. There would need to be a ban on drug use and other detrimental behaviour that can occur in prisons.

The opportunity to attend parenting classes is far greater in prison than what it would otherwise be, because quite often these women would not have attended any community classes whatsoever. So this is a great opportunity for those mothers to learn about the health, the well-being, the hygiene, and the nutrition of their babies. We are very aware, too, as Katherine Rich has said, that mothers who have a crime associated with child abuse would definitely not be eligible to have their babies with them in prison.

This is basically a cost that the country cannot afford not to meet. We know that the well-being of the child and the right to breastfeed is absolutely paramount. We are very aware, too, that it is better for many of these babies to be with their mothers in prison in a stable and regulated environment. If they are removed from their mothers to the environment of violence, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, and/or substance abuse and dependency that has led to behaviour that has resulted in their mothers being imprisoned, then absolutely everyone has lost. We do not believe that the child should lose at all in this situation.

New Zealand First supports this bill. We will follow it through the select committee process with interest and we welcome the opportunity to have it discussed. Thank you, Sue.

TE URUROA FLAVELL (Māori Party—Waiariki): Tēnā koe, Madam Assistant Speaker. Kia ora anō tātou katoa. The Māori Party has a vision for the nation that is about uplifting and strengthening whānau and restoring thriving, positive whānau environments. Whānau can be the site of generosity and respect in which our future success is shaped, and that can be whether one’s tupuna is Turei, Horomia, te Heuheu, or Kāhui. I was reminded about the importance of whānua in the last 2 weeks. Unfortunately, I have been to five tangi. In one case a young woman from our kura was killed in a car crash, and I was with the police when I had to tell her father on Saturday that she had died. Last Saturday a relation of mine had to bury his wife of 24 years. On Sunday a friend buried her 21-year-old son, who died as the result of an asthma attack. When we have to experience burying our own, we realise the importance of whānau, no matter what ups and downs we ever have to go through.

For those reasons we will support this important legislation, which extends the opportunity for children aged from 6 months to 2 years to enjoy their fundamental right to be with their māmā. Those children have committed no crime, but the price they pay for their mothers’ offending is steep. Currently, babies aged up to 6 months can stay with their mothers who are imprisoned. But we have to ask whether prison facilities are the best place to support the mental, emotional, and physical development of a child. Prisons as they are at present are not a safe and positive environment for women, babies, or young children. We are in a catch-22 situation. It is not a question of choosing between a good option and a bad option; it is a question of alternatives, each of which is problematic: separating a 6-month-old baby from his or her mother, or isolating an infant from his or her wider whānau. Whatever arrangements are made for babies and children on the outside, the impact of their mothers’ imprisonment affects every aspect of their lives. The rest of their lives will bear the stigma of imprisonment, the trauma of isolation, and the separation experienced at a critical stage of their development.

The introduction of this bill is influenced by similar developments overseas. The Māori Party has been especially interested in developments for Aboriginal women in Australia. Tauto Sansbury, chair of the National Aboriginal Justice Advisory Committee, has identified the need for programmes to assist indigenous mothers and children—and I quote: “In a population where incarceration rates have been so high for so long, we need to consider what the effect of this is upon the next generation—the impact does not end with the generation that is in prison now … the impact will continue to be felt by every child who has been deprived of a parent, who has seen their parent locked up, who has known what it is to fear the justice system.” When mothers are given a jail sentence, their children are given a life sentence. They are sentenced to the effects of family separation, and the strength of whanaungatanga is restricted by the barriers of cell walls.

In the last fortnight there has been a call for collective courage in addressing the issues of how best to care for children, for our tamariki. Those thoughts are fundamental to Te Ao Māori. Our well-being is intrinsically linked to the width and depth of our whānau network. As a part of that, we absolutely believe that women need support to maintain contact with their children while they are incarcerated. The well-being of our children depends on appropriate support and education being readily at hand to ensure their needs are met. The Māori Party is therefore supportive of the concept of a parenting agreement, and particularly of the provision that states parenting education will be provided and the mother must participate in it. We believe that is the key. If we want our children to be loved, to be nurtured, and to be treasured, we need to assist our whānau to know how to do that.

I was thinking today, as I do most days, about my own five children. When my wife and I had our first child, we lapped up the advice and stories that whānau shared with us, eager to do everything just right. We took part in antenatal classes, read the books, and talked to other young mums and dads. One thing that helped me at that time was the belief that this new-born baby was a taonga. She was our legacy, our contribution back to our people, and she needed to be treasured as the precious hope of our future. That way of thinking was strengthened as her brothers and sisters duly arrived, and it is a way of thinking that reminds me of the honoured place they hold in our lives. I hope this Corrections (Mothers with Babies) Amendment Bill will nurture and develop that way of thinking. Kia ora tātou.

JUDY TURNER (Deputy Leader—United Future): Every now and then a speech is delivered in this House that should be written up by a good calligrapher and framed, and I commend Katherine Rich for delivering one of those tonight. I also commend Sue Bradford, because I think this is a very well-thought-through bill and United Future is very pleased to support its first reading. We will follow with interest what happens to it at the select committee and the issues raised there.

I think the bill is well-thought-through because after pondering its possibilities and thinking through all the pros and cons, I found that those were pretty well all covered. In fact the only issue I could not find and that I thought could be of interest is in the area of prison protocols relating to access to the child by other family members, and the issues of supervised and non-supervised access that may need to be considered and factored in. I do not think it is a major problem, and it may be that it is well covered by a regulation within the prison service. Certainly, it was the only thing I could think of that the member has not covered.

To me the issue is a lot more important than just a child’s right to be breast fed. I acknowledge the importance of that, but I think the bonding and connection with the mother is also hugely important. I have a gut feeling about this issue. I feel that allowing mothers this opportunity will result in us seeing much lower recidivism rates. Children do something magical to our lives. No matter who we are as parents and what skills we have, children change us for the better, and I think that if these mothers are given the opportunity to have a fresh vision for their lives based on the opportunity that parenthood offers them, then we will see some very, very good results.

I am keen to hear from submitters on what will happen when the mother has a sentence longer than 2 years and the child is separated from her when he or she turns 2. That does worry me a little bit, because that would be more traumatic for a 2-year-old than for a newborn baby. We need to think that issue through fairly carefully.

I am really pleased to see the sensible provisions around the unsuitability of some women who have a history of violence, or who have risk behaviours that would jeopardise the child. The area of the cost of mothers’ units is a really interesting one. We need to have a whole-of-Government look at the issue of cost and ask what it will cost if we do not allow this, in terms of benefits and potential recidivism. The whole cost factor needs to be looked at thoroughly—beyond just the bricks and mortar that would be required to build some special units.

The thought of having these units in a women’s prison has huge appeal to me in terms of creating a positive environment where people are highly motivated by parenting opportunities to make a change in their lives and are given a positive environment in which to do that. I do not think the prison environment will be at all detrimentally affected by the fact that there might be some nice parenting units attached to it; in fact, it could be very, very good.

I think we need to remember that victims of crime often see prison very much as being punitive—justice is being portioned out to people who have done them harm or deprived them in some way. I have read some articles by people who are concerned that this is some sort of soft option. But I guess what I am concerned about is that when we think like that, at that point we have stopped thinking about the baby’s interests and the child’s interests and their need to be bonded, to have contact with their mother. I think also we have forgotten that eventually people, regardless of their crime, will be released back into society to take up their parenting roles again, and we need to be very mindful of that. I am particularly pleased that this bill includes provisions for parent education. I think that is an extremely good use of a mother’s time in prison, and I commend the member for considering that option. We are very happy to support the first reading of this bill.

HEATHER ROY (Deputy Leader—ACT): I rise to speak to the first reading of the Corrections (Mothers with Babies) Amendment Bill. ACT New Zealand will be supporting this bill going to select committee. There are certainly provisions in it that we think are very positive. There are a lot of unanswered questions, too. One of the reasons that we want to see this bill go to select committee is so that we can have proper, thorough discussion, and proper submissions, about the pros and cons of the measures suggested in the bill.

When doing research for this bill, it was interesting to look at what is happening in other countries. In European countries many children are allowed to stay with their mothers up to the age of 2 or 3. That seems to be pretty much the norm. In Australia I think it is 12 months—[Interruption] It varies from state to state; right. But in some states it is up to 12 months.

The point that must be considered paramount, of course, is what is best for the baby in this situation. We must not forget, along the way, that mothers are in prison and usually for a very good reason, so there needs to be a clear balance between what is best for the child involved and ensuring the mother’s obligation to society—the reason for her being in prison in the first place—is met.

It depends a little on whom one talks to, as to the benefits, the pros and cons, involved with a baby staying with its mother until the age of 2. Many people say that the recidivism rate is significantly lessened when mothers have a very good reason to behave well in prison, and to follow codes of conduct that are expected of them while they are in prison. But some of the written evidence I looked at said that the measures were inconclusive. That does not necessarily mean that they are not there; it just means that they have not perhaps been proven, or the research might not have been done. I think sending this bill to select committee will allow for expert advice to be sought, so we can see the benefits to the children when they are balanced with the reasons that the mother is in prison in the first place.

The other important aspect of this bill—and it has been mentioned by other speakers—is the right of mothers to breastfeed. The bond that develops between a mother and her child when breastfeeding is allowed to happen is absolutely well-established, and there would be very little argument about that. It is certainly something that I, too, feel quite strongly about.

One of the things that I think happens at the moment in prison—and this is very much anecdotal—is that mothers know they will be able to keep their children for only 6 months. Very often the child is used as a tool in behaviour patterns and in the decision making that goes on in prisons. This is very sad, because it would seem at that point that the child’s interests are not paramount. If we know that a child is able to stay with its mother until the age of 2, there is less scope for that behaviour to occur in the prison system.

ACT will be supporting this bill to select committee. We do have a lot of questions. We want to know that the evidence is there to show that this is absolutely best for the child. Bringing up a child in prison, of course, is not an ideal situation, so we need to know what detrimental effects, if any, there might be on children up to the age of 2. Some people say there are absolutely none. Probably none of us have memories of before we were 2 years old, so there may be none. But there are other people who feel quite strongly that there will be detrimental effects for children. We need to explore that side of things, as well as the recidivism rate, the benefit it has to the mother, whether she will go on to form strong bonds with her children once she is released from prison, whether she is likely to reoffend—or much less likely to reoffend—as a result of having that bond that will ultimately develop because she has been able to keep her child with her. That, too, needs to be explored and we look forward to those questions being answered and the submissions being given.

We have pleasure in supporting this bill going to select committee.

SUE KEDGLEY (Green): I am absolutely delighted to support Sue Bradford’s bill. I note that in a letter she sent to all MPs she said: “I believe how we treat mothers who have babies while they are in prison is an issue of such common humanity that it transcends traditional party lines.” Indeed, this debate has proven exactly that. We have had an outbreak of cross-party unity, the likes of which we have not seen for many months in this Parliament, and is it not fantastic? Should we not celebrate when an issue comes out that so unites us?

It is just as well that it has united us, because all of us last year, before the election, signed up to the “children first” accord. All of us promised that we would put the interests of children first. The whole thing was about giving children the best start in life. If this bill is measured by that, then there is no question: this bill puts the needs of the child first, and focuses on giving children the best start in life. That overriding objective must be given priority over other desires, such as the desire to punish or the desire to seek revenge. The wonder is that it has taken so long to make this simple but extremely significant policy change. It was interesting that the Minister of Justice said the Ministry of Justice was looking at this issue.

One part of me asks whether we really need a whole, lengthy legislative process. Do we need submissions and a lengthy debate? Why cannot we have a simple regulatory change? The arguments are so overwhelming and so compelling; why cannot we just make the change, and make it tomorrow? But from listening to the debate I see that there are some very important issues that we can explore and would be worth exploring in the select committee. These are issues around parenting education, having a parental contract, and so forth. Those are really important issues, and I welcome the fact that they will be debated in the select committee in the same cross-party, constructive spirit we have seen here tonight.

If we put the interests of the child first, we just have to support this bill. As others have said, there is overwhelming international consensus that breastfeeding is best for every baby, that it is the basic right of every baby. We know that it is the ideal nutrition. We know that every child who has been breastfed for as long as possible will have a better start in life. It will have reduced risks of all sorts of diseases, and therefore will be healthier and will require less support from the State later on.

Of course, the issue of bonding is absolutely crucial, and others have talked about it. It was interesting to learn how disastrous and how traumatising it is for a mother to have her baby forcibly taken away from her. In a former life I wrote a book about the history of motherhood. From the 1930s right through until the 1970s, babies were automatically taken away from mothers for up to about 3 days, then were wheeled out on trolleys from a central nursery, but they were kept away from the mother for 14 or more days. I interviewed many mothers for my book. All of them had found the experience devastating and traumatising. All of them felt that it had undermined their bonding and, in many cases, had undermined their efforts to breastfeed.

So if it is traumatic for mothers to have their babies taken away in a hospital situation for 14 days, how much more traumatic it must be for mothers to have their babies taken away at 6 months for 18 months or so. Obviously, a mother who is devastated and traumatised by having her baby taken away from her will have much greater difficulty in being rehabilitated. So as well as benefiting the baby—which I really believe is what this measure is all about—it will help mothers, help with their rehabilitation, and make them, as others have said, much less likely to be recidivists.

I really do not think we should be worrying about the financial dimensions of this bill. We are, after all, talking about only 13 mothers with babies. As a previous speaker—I think it was Judy Turner—said, the long-term costs of denying a child breastfeeding and bonding with the mother will be infinitely more expensive than the costs of implementing this measure.

SIMON POWER (National—Rangitikei): As the Opposition spokesperson on law and order, it falls to me to make some comments about this Corrections (Mothers with Babies) Amendment Bill before we all get too carried away with how well we are all getting on. I personally congratulate Sue Bradford on bringing this bill to the House. I think it is a very helpful initiative to debate. Initially, I had to request the bill from Sue’s office to read it, because it was not tabled at the time I wanted to have an initial look at it. I have to say that it did not take much to convince me that this bill needed to be supported—at the very least to a first reading.

As the law and order spokesperson, one of the things I will be watching carefully when the bill makes it to the Law and Order Committee is, as one would expect, the nature of the reciprocal arrangements between the mother and, presumably, the Department of Corrections. It seems to me that the point has been made well by contributors tonight, but that it needs to be made once more for those who might be listening and who consider that Parliament has had a bizarre flight of multiparty fancy, whereby everybody has decided that the traditional arguments around law and order should shift to one side.

The key here is the question of where else these children would get the care and attention they deserve. That is the key thing that leapt out at me when I looked at the bill. The reciprocal arrangements around issues of bonding, care, well child checks, and other such programmes—and, in particular, parenting courses for mothers and children where needed—highlighted to me the fact that the alternatives to that type of monitored progress and care did not really get a mention in the bill. The needs of the child must be paramount. I understand that, as Sue Bradford put it, those needs are intertwined with the needs of the mother, but I will be looking at the matter primarily from the viewpoint of the needs of the child. I will encourage my colleagues in the caucus and on the Law and Order Committee to take that view also.

One or two contributors tonight have commented about the need for more resources in order to allow the 13 women who are currently pregnant in our prisons to enter into these types of arrangement. I take this opportunity to remind the House that financial constraints have never really seemed to be a concern for the Department of Corrections, and I am sure this particular initiative will have no impact on the broader scale of spending we have seen in recent months.

I listened to Te Ururoa Flavell make his contribution about antenatal classes, reading the right books, and trying to make sure that parenthood would be simply an exercise in carrying out what the academic literature recommended was the appropriate course of action. As the father of a 2½-year-old, I concur with him that once one has read the first book one might as well biff the rest out. One will find a way to raise a child only by trial and error, and those who find themselves in circumstances where error is more likely than not deserve the opportunity to find a path whereby the child will have an opportunity that would otherwise be denied him or her.

So National will support this bill in its first reading. I congratulate Sue Bradford on the initiative, and I will watch closely the progress of the bill.

SUE BRADFORD (Green): I thank all the speakers who have addressed my bill tonight. I can hardly remember an occasion in this House when there has been such universal support for a piece of legislation, especially for a member’s bill from the Green Party. I am sorry the National Party is not taking a lurch to the left. Nevertheless, it is great to have its support, and great to have ACT’s, as well.

Members have raised lots of interesting points, but I do not sense a lot of controversy, and I continue to wonder whether there is a possibility that the Law and Order Committee could look at the option of, first of all—as my colleague Sue Kedgley said—speeding it up a little, and, secondly, considering whether in fact 3 years would be a better age than 2 years. As paediatricians and others say, 2 years is actually a critical age for a child in terms of its bonding, attachment, and psychological changes. I think it would be a lot better for the child to be left there for 3 years if everything is going well. Also, there is a much greater chance that by that time the mother will have completed her sentence anyway.

I was very interested that the Minister Mark Burton said that the Department of Corrections would undertake a review of policy in this area anyway. That seems very timely, and I am sure it will help us in the process we are about to go through. On the resourcing issue, I certainly also take the Minister’s point that financing does matter. I am well aware that Governments have to count the dollars, but, as Simon Power pointed out, the Department of Corrections has gone many millions of dollars over budget in many of its building projects, and the comparatively small number of dollars that would be required to enable us to have adequate and good facilities for mother and baby units in our three major women’s prisons would be a drop in the bucket compared with where other spending goes.

Some people, both in the House tonight and externally, have raised the issue that, perhaps, a mother keeping her baby in prison up to the age of 2, or being allowed to breastfeed, might be a soft option. I have even heard it said that some women will deliberately get pregnant in order to have that option. My response to that is that, for a start, very few women would do that. Secondly, even if they did, the fact remains—as colleagues have said—that the outcome for the baby should be paramount, rather than the mother. I totally concur with Simon Power and others who made that point. I agree completely that in looking at this legislation we must always remember that the baby comes first, but, of course, it is a situation where the relationship with the mother plays an integral part. So, whatever the mother has done and whatever her motivation for getting pregnant—or how deliberately or not she got pregnant—in the end, that needs to be put to the side. We need to look at what is best in terms of the health and future well-being of the child.

I finish with a personal confession. I have had direct experience of some of the implications of this issue. Quite a long time ago, when one of my babies was only 2 weeks old, I was in court for several weeks and my baby was taken away from me. I was totally breastfeeding during a big court case after the Springbok tour. I was with a group of seven other people and we faced going to prison for potentially quite a long time as a result of the court case. This was under the cells of the High Court in Auckland. The first trial was aborted; the second trial went through. We were convicted, and, at the point of sentencing, I knew that my few-weeks-old baby might be taken from me.

I guess that left an indelible impression on my mind as to what it would mean for a mother to have a baby taken away from her while she was in prison. That was my third baby, and the thought of losing her while I went to prison for perhaps 6 months or a year had a tremendous impact on me, and has helped to motivate me in putting this legislation forward. There is nothing like the realisation, as a mother of a very new baby, of what losing that baby would actually mean.

I put this bill forward, and thank members for their support, in the name of all the mothers who have gone through—and continue to go through—that experience in a very real way.

Bill read a first time.

Bill referred to the Law and Order Committee.

Bills

Human Rights (One Law For All) Amendment Bill

First Reading

RODNEY HIDE (ACT—Epsom): I move, That the Human Rights (One Law for All) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. It is quite amazing. I went dancing for a few weeks and have come back and found myself voting twice in a row for Green bills. I must have become all soft and cuddly in the process. I hope the Greens will extend the courtesy in supporting my bill going to select committee.

I think Sue Bradford’s bill is a very important bill, affecting the lives of several people. I believe that the bill I have before the House is one that affects the direction of our country. Indeed, it goes to the heart of what sort of nation, what sort of country, and what sort of people we are. I take members back—when I look around this Chamber—to our youth. [Interruption] I know Shane Jones is struggling to remember. We go back to the ideals we had. We had a simple ideal; it was to be blind to a person’s skin colour.

Hon Dr Michael Cullen: Yeah, right!

RODNEY HIDE: I heard Michael Cullen cynically yell out: “Yeah, right!” but it was a powerful ideal that we strove to live up to. It was to look past a person’s skin colour, past his or her ethnicity, to see the person underneath; to see his or her character and actions, and to judge the person accordingly.

That is a very, very hard ideal to live up to and we have failed so often, but what an ideal it is. There is nothing we can do about the colour of our skin; we are born with it. There is nothing we can do about our ethnicity, because we are born with it. But there is so much we can do about our character and how we behave. That is why racism is so wrong; it condemns people by their birth—not by what they do, not by what they make of their lives, not by the decisions they make, but by the simple fact of the colour of their skin and the accident of their birth. I am proud of the fact that we belong to a generation around the world that has strived to live by that ideal. I am saddened that Dr Michael Cullen feels so cynical about it because I think it is a beautiful ideal. Who could not be thrilled by Martin Luther King’s speech? Who could not have been thrilled by that speech when we were young people?

I come to where we find ourselves today. We are required by law to have regard to a person’s skin. We have turned the ideal inside out and upside down, so that now when we go to the doctor we have to declare the colour of our skin and our ethnicity. Everywhere we go and interact with government, suddenly the colour of our skin matters. In a generation, we have taken a fine ideal and turned it on its head. We now have State-sponsored racism, because race matters. I remind the House that there is nothing we can do about it; we are born with our skin colour and ethnicity. So how wrong is it that our relationship with the State, our relationship with society, and our relationships with each other should be determined on that basis?

We have the Human Rights Act that outlaws discrimination on the basis of race, so that we cannot discriminate. Yet this legislation has an exclusion; an exclusion for the State. So you and I, Madam Speaker, cannot discriminate on race, but the Government can. I say that is wrong, and New Zealanders say that is wrong. Sure, look after the people in need and acknowledge that Māori, in particular, are in need but let us not draw a line based on skin colour and say that that is a proxy for need, because that is to become racist. It has become so topsy-turvy that Michael Cullen, the Attorney-General, has had the Ministry of Justice prepare a paper to say that my bill to get rid of discrimination—based on race—in the State is itself discriminatory. The paper states: “The provision appears to discriminate against those groups of particular race, colour, ethnic or national origin that the Government identifies as needing assistance because of disadvantage. This is because the bill denies the Government the ability to assist those groups to achieve substantive equality with groups of other races, colours, ethnic or national origins that are not disadvantaged.”

This was written, by the way, by the Ministry of Justice and I want to read the names of those who wrote it. They are Ivan Kwok, Acting Chief Legal Counsel, Office of Legal Counsel, Ministry of Justice, and Margaret Dugdale, Policy Manager, Bill of Rights / Human Rights Public Law Group, Ministry of Justice. These bureaucrats are saying that one has to discriminate not to discriminate. So if a racial group is falling behind in some particular category there have to be special laws for that group to bring them up to speed, otherwise we are discriminating. What Martin Luther King stood for—and people who stood against racism for hundreds of years stood for—has now been turned inside out by our Ministry of Justice and declared to be discrimination.

I beseech members of this House to go back and ask themselves what sort of nation we want. It is one where all our children—all our babies—are treated equally before law, equally with policy, and not divided by the colour of their skin. We know this is a hot button issue in this country and we have heard some fine talk on the election trail from political parties saying yes, we should get rid of State-sponsored racism. Well, this is the test for each MP in this House, and for each political party in this House, as to what side of the fence they stand on. Do we want to create a society where civil servants, politicians, and petty bureaucrats spend their lives—and our money—filling out boxes and ticking them, declaring us to be of this or that racial group? Having ticked those boxes, they then decide what we can have from the Government. It is not based on our circumstance, on our situation, or on our need; it is simply based on the colour of our skin and the box that a bureaucrat ticked.

What we are doing is dividing our country on racial lines, because some people get the tick in the box, and others do not. There is nothing they can do about it; it is where they were born. So the resentment is huge. The idea that some racial groups cannot succeed without special treatment is, itself, racist. Of course, the programmes themselves are inherently counter-productive. There is probably no bigger issue that is cleaving this country and that has the potential to rip us apart than the idea of affirmative action, positive discrimination, or a State determining what one is entitled to, based on race. At the very least, this bill should be debated properly. There might be parties that do not agree with it, but we should have the debate, because that is what this great nation is so desperately in need of.

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Deputy Prime Minister): Rodney Hide’s speech was full of rhetoric, sound, and nonsense, signifying very little, indeed. He asked a question—it was the right question, in a way—which was: which side of the fence do we stand on? From his perspective, the problem is that it is a white picket fence. It is a white picket fence that actually distinguishes those who are privileged from those who are not. He says he stands on the side of the privileged and wants to make sure the fence is high enough and sharp enough to keep the rest of the population out. The situation might be slightly more credible if ACT’s former leader were not now acting as the lawyer for Greek groups seeking Treaty negotiations with the Government, which, no doubt, he would also condemn as a similar kind of policy. But then, of course, that is the ACT party in all its glory.

Rodney Hide’s speech was a truly casuistical speech; that is the only way one could possibly describe it. It reminded me of the electoral laws in the southern states, from reconstruction through to the 1960s. Those laws were not race-based, at all. They did not ever state black people could not vote; they did not state black people could not go on the electoral rolls. They just provided for some kinds of educational and residency tests. White people had a simple set of questions to answer, such as what their name and their grandfathers’ names were, and black people had to answer such questions as who the President of France was in 1886. Not surprisingly, not many of them knew the answer to that, so they did not qualify to go on the electoral roll.

Dr Richard Worth: What is the answer?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: I do not have a clue. Luckily, in New Zealand we do not have to know that, which probably upsets Dr Richard Worth no end, because he probably spends his life waking up and thinking about who the President of France was in 1886—in the same way that Mr Key wakes up in the morning and thinks about what has happened to his Merrill Lynch shares overnight.

Martin Luther King stood for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. He said he looked forward to the day when it would not be necessary for him to take action in the way that he did, but, in the meantime, action had to be taken. We have not reached a stage in this country when no action needs to be taken. Rodney Hide says that even when action is justifiable, it must be banned.

The shoddiness of the thinking in this bill is evidenced in its explanatory note. Members should look at this stuff: “Recent history has seen examples of ordinary New Zealanders being taken to task for perceived discriminatory acts, such as golf clubs being censured for having married golf competitions, or hairdressers offering cheaper hair cuts for male pensioners.” Does this bill ban discrimination on the grounds of sex or hair length? From Mr Hide’s perspective, thank goodness it does not. What do race and ethnicity have to do with married golf competitions, for example? The explanatory note bears no relationship to the content of the bill. The bill is put together as a cheap way of trying to appeal to certain instincts. It is a classic example of the fact that one cannot see the truth if one sticks a bumper sticker over one’s eyes. That is what the member continues to do on those kinds of matters. He sticks a bumper sticker over his eyes and says he sees the truth clearly—even when we know some examples where there are clearly issues where we need to make differences in order to achieve outcomes, if we are to achieve equality.

Rodney Hide said that when we were young—I assume he means people of my and his age; people of around that kind of age, because he is not very far off my age, going by his dancing skills—we were encouraged to disregard the colour of people’s skin. But the funny thing is that there were practically no Māori lawyers, doctors, or managers. Māori had manual occupations, and that was it. They did not appear in our elite schools, at all. Some Māori were allowed to play sport, and we thought they were very good at it. But there was no notion that there was equality. When I grew up in Christchurch, precisely 99.0 percent of the population was of European extraction. It was easy to disregard people who were a different colour—there were not many of them to find when one looked around Christchurch in the mid-1950s.

New Zealand is very different today. We cannot ignore the problems this country faces. We cannot wish them away, and say that as long as we do not—

Rodney Hide: That’s a boy who went to Christ’s College.

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: Yes, and I went there on a scholarship, as the member well knows. I enjoyed myself, and I am very grateful for the experience. But I think there was one Māori boy at Christ’s College in the time I was there. That gives members a pretty good indication of how effective policies are that totally ignore the colour of people’s skin. Of course, sitting in Epsom as Rodney Hide does, he wants to have a society that looks like that again. He finds it inconvenient to have to recognise equality amongst people who do not come from the same ethnic background that he comes from. That is the reality; he wants to pander to those kinds of feelings.

The fact is that this bill would not even do what it is intended to do. It is so badly drafted that it would not achieve its actual ambitions, because it misses out—

Dianne Yates: It’s a pamphlet.

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: It is not even a pamphlet. Goodness me! I think it would be flattering to say it is a pamphlet. It is a slightly extended bumper sticker, but not more than that. After all, it really has only one clause, clause 5, that is slightly longer than the average bumper sticker. At the moment, the Government is not able to have a special exemption to discriminate on the grounds of race, colour, or ethnic or national origin; it is unlawful for the Government or public bodies to discriminate on those grounds, as set out in the Human Rights Act. But what the Government can do is to provide assistance to groups in order for them to achieve substantial equality with groups of other races, colours, or ethnic or national origins that are not disadvantaged.

Let us take an example of that—let us take an American example, so that we do not embarrass the member. There are some diseases that Black Americans are much more prone to than other Americans—sickle-cell anaemia is the classic example. For decades, no research was done on sickle-cell anaemia.

Dianne Yates: Howard University—a black university.

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: Howard University, which is a black university, did some research on sickle-cell anaemia. Of course, later, people finally said it was actually discriminatory that research was being done on all the diseases that afflicted white people, but was not being done on the things that particularly afflicted black people. So it became important to do that research.

If we want to achieve our ambitions in terms of reducing smoking— particularly amongst Māori women, who have an incredibly high smoking rate compared with the Pākehā population—we have to gear programmes specifically in that direction. To have a bunch of poncy, middle-class Pākehā trying to explain to Māori women the dangers of smoking will not work. Mr Tony Ryall’s limply waving his wrist at Māori women will not persuade them to give up smoking, whatever he does. A bunch of middle-class, Pākehā National Party women holding up placards and yelling across the House—which is their favourite occupation these days, and thank God it is, because the placards hide them from us—and saying that Māori women should give up smoking will not achieve that. [Interruption] Of course, the member who is interjecting, Jackie Blue, does not want to prevent disease, because she is one of the people who have made their money out of people having diseases rather than by preventing diseases. We want to prevent those kinds of things from happening, and, having watched my father die of emphysema, I want to do what I can to stop that happening to Māori women, because it is an awful, awful way to die.

That member’s bill says the Government could not take any action in areas such as that, because if it does, that could be a matter of discrimination. It says we cannot discriminate in terms of any kind of funding formula. Even if we demonstrate that independent of all other variables, ethnicity is related to some aspect of social deprivation, this bill says we cannot provide funding on an ethnically targeted basis. That is wrong. It is right to review those provisions and to make sure that, in fact, the particular aspect is ethnically related. But if one arrives at the conclusion that there is an ethnic element that is not determined by other socio-economic factors, then it is nonsensical to say the Government should be precluded from intervening by targeting the funding in that respect. What precluding that does is to ensure unequal outcomes. What precluding that does is to ensure discrimination. What precluding that does is to ensure unfairness in our society. Some people in that member’s electorate may sleep more easily at night because other people may miss out on education, or die, or whatever else, as a consequence of precluding targeted funding. I am not worried about that.

Rodney Hide: That man is a racist.

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: He can call me whatever he likes, but I say that is wrong. It is simply wrong, and it is not the New Zealand way. New Zealanders do not want to have a debate about how to “out-racist” each other.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Did Mr Hide in his speech indicate which select committee he would like the bill to go to?

RODNEY HIDE (Leader—ACT): I was going to do that at the end of this debate, but I am quite happy to do so now. I was going to move that it be sent it to the only committee that has every party on it: the Finance and Expenditure Committee.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you.

Dr RICHARD WORTH (National): The jury will be out on the merit of the comments made by the previous speaker, Dr Cullen, but I think it was unfair and hurtful of him to characterise Mr Hide’s comments as casuistical.

On behalf of National, I say that we will support the Human Rights (One Law For All) Amendment Bill going to a select committee. I am bound to say that National thinks the legislation has been expressed with an economy of effort and also reflection. But we want to look critically at the issues that are raised, in the context of the consideration that a select committee could give to it. Let us, for a moment, review the processes of Parliament that would lead to that consideration, for here we are at a very preliminary stage of the legislation—that is, determining whether it should go to a select committee. Mr Hide has properly nominated that the relevant committee should be the Finance and Expenditure Committee. That committee will obviously call for public submissions on the legislation, it will hear the views of the public on its merits, and it will come to a view as to whether to report back to the House that the legislation should proceed to those further stages of consideration: the Committee stage, and the third reading.

No one would argue—not even Dr Cullen on a wet hair or bad hair day—that we are all equal before the law. Of course, we would also say that no one is above the law, but it is right to say that the way the legislation is drafted does have significant implications, and the particular clause that other speakers have identified, clause 5, might be far-reaching.

I am not sure whether it is Mr Hide’s intention that entities like the Korea studies institute at the University of Auckland, for example, might fall. I am not sure whether what is intended by the legislation is that it will no longer be possible for funds to go to Māori providers for the health care of Māori people. I am not sure whether it is intended that it will no longer be possible, in the context of educational institutions, for the Māori scholarships, and the other scholarships that exist, to continue. Those are issues that do need to be looked at by the select committee.

But, in the context of the race-based comments that have been made tonight, I say that I think we should take pride in racial difference. We see in so many parts of New Zealand today—unlike the New Zealand that Dr Cullen referred to of the mid-1950s—that in the diversity of our population there is both excitement and vitality. Let me give a few examples of that. If we look at the contribution that Māori have made to arts, culture, and sport, no one would deny that that contribution is other than stunning. If we look at what the Korean community has done in the context of cultural advancement and Korean tradition, we see that that has been similarly fabulous. If we look at what the Chinese have done in the context of events like the Chinese Lantern Festival, we see a New Zealand that is hugely enriched.

I am bound to say, and I strongly support Mr Hide on this, that the Labour Government has chosen a significantly targeted approach based on ethnicity. There are big problems with that. I looked at a press release that came out today from the Government, in which the Coordinating Minister Race Relations, Mr Mallard, has released the details of a number of reports and results from the Government’s review of targeted policies and programmes. He is quite shameless in his acknowledgment that the Government plans to continue to use targeted programmes and policies for specific ethnic groups—he said that. He also said those reviews have confirmed that, for most of those programmes, targeting by ethnicity is appropriate. National wants the select committee to look at those issues.

PETER BROWN (Deputy Leader—NZ First): I am reminded of the rumour that young Krystal Stuart apparently said to Mr Hide a few days ago: “You’ve got the right idea, but you simply don’t know what you’re doing.” The Human Rights (One Law For All) Amendment Bill reflects that sort of attitude. He has the right idea, but he does not know what he is doing.

Mr Hide raised the issue of what Martin Luther King fought against. When Martin Luther King was in his heyday, I was a young cadet officer sailing to the port of New Orleans. While I was there, I made the mistake—although I did not know I was making a mistake—of getting on a bus and walking two-thirds down the aisle before I took a seat. As the bus went through New Orleans and its suburbs, I saw a number of black people queuing for the bus, and the driver said: “Sorry, we’re full.” A large number of seats in front of me were empty, but the driver said: “Sorry, the bus is full.” He left them, on a cold day in New Orleans, standing at the bus stop. When I got off the bus, I asked the driver why he had told the people who were waiting for the bus that it was full. He said: “Because black people cannot sit in front of a white person on a bus.”

Rodney Hide: Is that right or wrong?

PETER BROWN: That is totally wrong, and that is what Martin Luther King fought against. Then, months after that, a young black man went to college in the States and they had to turn out the army and the National Guard to make sure he could attend. It was positive discrimination that enabled that young guy to get a start in life on an academic career.

I understand Mr Hide’s idea, and appreciate his intent, but he is clueless as to its application. Let me say to the House that this country takes in 700-plus refugees a year. Many of them cannot speak the language, and many of them do not know how New Zealand society operates. What do we do? What does the Government do? Basically, it gives those people money so they receive training and can become true New Zealanders.

Hon Clayton Cosgrove: It wouldn’t happen under Rodney’s bill.

PETER BROWN: He would not have any of that. I have another issue that Mr Hide might like to address. We hear there is more and more Asian crime in this country and a greater demand for Asian police officers. The police openly say they want more Asian police officers in New Zealand.

Hon Clayton Cosgrove: They couldn’t do that under Rodney’s bill.

PETER BROWN: They could not do that under Rodney’s bill. They could not discriminate positively. Only this very night on television, just before we came to the House—

Rodney Hide: So your election promise was rubbish. They didn’t mean one law for all.

PETER BROWN: I will come to our election promise. On television tonight, people were speaking of concerns about Māori smoking. A huge percentage of people across Māoridom are smoking. It is a habit, an addiction, that I think most New Zealanders would like to encourage Māori people to drop. But we cannot solve that problem with the same solution we might use for Pākehā New Zealanders.

Mr Hide reminded the House of New Zealand First’s election promise. Let me say to him and to all members that we are absolutely firmly committed to everybody in this country getting an equal opportunity and having a fair go. But we recognise that we have to target individual groups differently.

Rodney Hide: On race?

PETER BROWN: On race, on occasion, and on age and sex. I have given Mr Hide some examples of how we discriminate positively on race and, on occasion, on sex and age. The clue for Mr Hide, so he can get it right, is to discriminate positively to the advantage of the group being targeted, which is to the advantage of New Zealand as a whole. That is the clue. He has got it wrong. He should talk to his dancing partner again. She said to him: “You’ve got the right idea, but you simply don’t know what you’re doing.”

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Before I call the next speaker I say to Mr Hide that he has had his 10 minutes and he has another 5 minutes in reply. Please stop interrupting the other speakers continually.

KEITH LOCKE (Green): The Green Party will be opposing the Human Rights (One Law For All) Amendment Bill. The starting point for us is that there is serious social disadvantage among ethnic groups in our society, for various reasons, including a legacy of discrimination that is often combined with a lack of recognition of minority cultures, a marginalisation of those cultures in society, and the exclusion of those cultures and their languages from major institutions in our society, both public and private. No doubt the member from the Māori Party who speaks after me will go into that disadvantage among Māori in more detail, so I will talk on a general level here.

As a society we have a vested interest in ending social disadvantage as fast as possible. To do this, preferential treatment and affirmative action have been proven to work. If Mr Hide wants to quote Martin Luther King, he should also indicate that Martin Luther King was a supporter of preferential treatment and affirmative action. The first thing the black population of America did, once it had overcome some of the legal disadvantages of discriminatory laws, was push for, and succeed in bringing in, affirmative action programmes. Those programmes created social advancement for the black people of the United States, just as affirmative action here has sped up an end to social disadvantage.

We are not, as the ACT model seems to provide, just a number of individuals in one national community. Many of us are members of organised ethnic subgroups—ethnic cultures—and we are proud of that. We can harness those cultures to overcome social disadvantage, and I think the wānanga is a case in point in relation to overcoming disadvantage in the educational area. The wānanga enabled thousands upon thousands of Māori to get a much better education and reduce the difference in educational attainment between Māori and the rest of the population. By recognising affirmative action for different minority cultures we help to create important role models within those cultures.

Michael Cullen mentioned that, years ago, at the time he was going to school, there were very few Māori professionals—Māori lawyers, etc. But through what has happened now, with affirmative action being part of the process, there are many more role models and much more equality in society. More and more we are seeing those role models develop at the very top levels of our society. Most recently the new Chief of Defence Force, Jerry Matepārae, has provided a role model to Māori in that area.

This week the nation’s attention has been gripped by the tragic death of two young Māori babies. Although we should not buy into the prejudicial idea that Māori are more likely to kill babies, there has been a national recognition that Māori can help other Māori in relation to addressing violent behaviour. We saw an example of that on Tuesday on Māngere Mountain—one of our MPs, Pita Sharples, was there—where the Māori community mobilised at 5 o’clock in the morning. There were also other Māori events to help address that issue, and we should all welcome that. What is wrong with the Government providing money and assistance for such initiatives from Māori? Rodney Hide’s bill would stop that. It actually states that preferential treatment cannot be given, and that Government money cannot be given specifically to an ethnic group for things like “family responsibility”, which is one of the terms used in the bill.

One area where there is clear discrimination is in relation to new migrants, from Asian countries in particular, who are trying to get jobs. Those people do suffer discrimination. There has been report after report about that. There are programmes at the migrant centre at Three Kings in Auckland, for example, to help address the problem. Government money is put in to help reduce that discrimination, to talk to employers, and to help those migrants specifically to get jobs, because they suffer very serious discrimination in that area. Why should we not be compassionate like that?

TE URUROA FLAVELL (Māori Party—Waiariki): Tēna koe, Mr Speaker, tēnā tātou katoa. Tēna koe Rodney Hide. Ko koe tēnei e whakaara ake nei i tēnei kaupapa ki mua i te aroaro o te Whare Pāremata i tēnei pō.

[This indeed is you raising this matter personally before the House of Parliament tonight.]

I acknowledge Mr Hide for placing this bill before the House. I am not one who, as a rule of thumb, turns to the church to seek some sort of view about responding to legislation, but in this case I have. I have tried to figure out and get a view from the church. The Māori Party sees this bill, which seeks to amend the Human Rights Act to remove the Government’s exemption in respect of discrimination on the grounds of race or ethnicity, as extremely significant. In an ideal world, one law for all is something that the Māori Party would normally sign up to with absolute commitment. But the reality is that this is not the ideal world.

In October 1994 the Joint Methodist-Presbyterian Public Questions Committee put together a paper. It was called: Towards a Maori Criminal Justice System. In that paper we were told that the concept of one law for all is fundamentally flawed, in that it pretends that the law is culturally neutral. The paper stated: “All law embodies and protects a particular culture’s values. The argument for one law for all in Aotearoa assumes our law incorporates universal notions of justice.” The changes proposed in this bill fail to recognise that the thinking behind one law for all, which translates into one process for all, does not result in one justice for all.

The debate becomes focused on avoiding special privileges, rather than seeing the law as an expression of one set of cultural ideologies. The one law for this bill is a law shaped by the values of a particular culture—not, we would assume, the culture of tangata whenua. Māori cultural values are simply not reflected in our criminal law. What is reflected is the sum of the values of British and Western history, with Māori law dismissed as having no validity, at all.

In case the selection of the Methodist and Presbyterian advice was seen as partisan, I also chose to look at what the Catholic Church was saying about how well one law for all includes Māori. Bishop Peter Cullinane acted as a key signatory for the bishops’ statement, which was called: “Let us be fair and informed”. It was released in April 2004. In that statement, the bishops of Aotearoa told the nation: “The difference between a claim to privilege based on race, and the claim to rights based on indigenous status and recognised by the very existence of the Treaty, has been blurred.” I refer that statement to the members of this House, for the way in which it describes how one law for all has acted so fiercely against the interests of Māori. The bishops’ statement described the impact of the 1862 Native Lands Act, which made lawful the Crown’s extinguishing of millions of hectares of Māori title in wrongful alienations.

The bishops’ statement also articulated the force of the 1864 Public Works Act, which took Māori land without compensation for roads and railways—a bill that was still in force in the 1960s. I could go on and on—indeed, into the 1970s. The Waitangi Action Committee identified at least 57 Acts of the 19th century that discriminated against Māori. In case any member wants to dismiss all that as being part of the long forgotten past, I ask them to cast their minds back to May 2004 and the passing of the latest act of extinguishment, the Foreshore and Seabed Act.

The Treaty of Waitangi gave us a commitment that Māori would be treated as equal citizens. There should always have been one law for all New Zealanders, but there never was. The historic injustice of confiscation and colonisation has led to serious social and economic deprivation that is race-specific. If we really want to talk about one law for all and human rights, we need to ask why there are these ongoing inequalities. We are not all the same, and being treated the same will serve only to increase the inequalities. There are times when special measures are required to ensure the equality of all members of the society.

Although we commend the intention of Mr Hide to aspire to a situation in which all people are equal under the law, our lived experience tells us that we are far from that ideal right now. Two months ago the United Nations special rapporteur came to Aotearoa and urged our Parliament to restore our reputation in the international arena of human rights. His report was pooh-poohed, and he was denigrated.

This bill does nothing to achieve the goal, and for that reason the Māori Party will not support it. Kia ora tātou.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: The next call is split, with 2½ minutes for Judy Turner and 2½ minutes for Shane Jones.

JUDY TURNER (Deputy Leader—United Future): I want to take just a quick call to say that United Future will not be supporting this bill.

I want to reflect quickly on two things. Firstly, I am interested that Mr Hide and the National Party have both scoffed regularly at the issue of political correctness—with the National Party setting up a PC eradicator in response to its concerns—yet this bill is the kind of stuff that political correctness is made out of. Mr Hide is saying that we can talk about need in a general sense, and say that we have needs that need addressing, but we cannot ever quantify them or define those needs in a way that is helpful, so that assistance can be targeted to them. I think we would start engaging in politically correct verbal games in the House, where we can talk in vague terms about the needs that are apparent in the community without ever getting down to specifics.

It is very clear that when we look at the realities of effective endeavours that meet needs we discover that what works well is funding those who are best able to make the best approach, to best communicate, and to best deliver those services. We see it when we fund the gay community to take messages of safe sex to their community. We see it when we target contracts to Māori health providers to provide health services to Māori people. We understood, when we were in jeopardy of losing a key language to this nation, that we needed to put resourcing towards that very specifically. On and on I could go.

This bill is all about political correctness, and I cannot believe those two parties are engaging in it.

SHANE JONES (Labour): Kia ora, Mr Speaker. Tēnā tātou katoa. I begin this brief contribution by reciting a very apposite Māori phrase, and, with your forbearance, I will get the translator to give a translation. E rerengia anō ōna ngutu e te honi, otirā he waiū kē nō te ngārara. Kāria nei ngā rei ka puta, ka horomia te tangata

[His lips are dripping with honey, but it is the saliva of a creature instead. The tusks had not even appeared, and the man was swallowed up.]

Hon Member: Tell us; reveal all.

SHANE JONES: Well, I will give members the Ngāpuhi version, then. Mr Hide has returned. I must acknowledge that he has returned from a period of absence. As we said today in the Finance and Expenditure Committee, his physical appearance has vastly improved since he left this place.

Hon Clayton Cosgrove: Oh, come on!

SHANE JONES: No, I must say that, because a number of us looked enviously at him—but that is not to say that the body/mind index has changed.

However, the proverb refers to the fact that the lips are covered in honey, but it is the milk of the taniwha that waits to gobble an unsuspecting prey. By using slogans, Rodney Hide has this evening really brought a simplistic set of terms to the House, designed, unfortunately, to worsen a situation rather than to overcome one of the main challenges facing us in Aotearoa. Of course, we greet what he says, in relation to everyone having a brilliant opportunity to achieve their potential in Aotearoa, without cavil. However, the notion that the plurality of cultures of peoples in Aotearoa should be shoe-horned into one particular conduit, one framework, is something I cannot agree with. Consequently, as Dr Cullen has said, we will not be voting for this bill.

Our society is premised on diversity. Yes, we have the Treaty of Waitangi, and that accords a place of primacy to the tangata whenua. But, beyond that, Aotearoa is becoming more pluralistic and more diverse. The State ought to continue to enjoy an exclusive monopoly over its ability to legitimise the use of power and the manner in which it intervenes to effect changes in the status and fortunes of the different groups that make up society.

Dr Wayne Mapp: You can do better than that!

SHANE JONES: The difficulty for our friends from National is that, as a consequence of the Ōrewa speech, they will be incapable of independent analysis until they sack their leader. It is unfortunate that they will join with Rodney Hide in supporting this bill, but this bill will not capture the attention of the vast majority of New Zealanders in any supportive sense. This recipe was tried—was trotted around the extent of the four winds—during the election, but people did not buy it. People do not want us to go backwards into an insipid type of existence whereby Māori are marginalised and overlooked. In fact, the logical conclusion of what Mr Hide’s bill means is that the very force that his colleague was serving in recently will not be able to use the words Ngāi Tūmatauenga, and will have to strip the utilisation of the Māori motif from its uniform, which gives it an international cachet, an international reputation. Diversity and pluralism must prevail; this bill must fall. Kia ora tātou.

HEATHER ROY (Deputy Leader—ACT): I rise to speak in support of this very good bill that has been put forward to this House by my colleague Rodney Hide. I am afraid that those people listening in and other members in this House have heard tonight an awful lot of very confused speaking and thinking. This bill is actually very simple. One law for all actually speaks for itself: it means that everybody—every citizen—in this country, regardless of religion, race, or ethnicity, is equal before the law. But when we sit here and listen to the debate tonight, we understand that the Government is opposed to this bill because it knows best. It knows what is best for every person in this country, and it wants to be calling the shots.

Many of the other parties, however, seem to think that positive discrimination—whatever that might be—is OK but negative discrimination is not. We have heard example after example of the abhorrence those parties have for negative discrimination. But positive discrimination is OK, because those parties are in a position to know better than everybody else.

Discrimination of any sort is absolutely wrong. As soon as we give one group in society—any society—advantage or privilege over the rest of that society, we automatically disadvantage another group. I look to health to give an example. Dr Cullen said that his father died of emphysema and that, therefore, it was very important that all the young Māori women in this country who smoke should not experience the same thing. Was he saying, by making that statement, that it is actually OK for Pākehā to die of lung cancer? Was he saying that it does not matter whether anybody else smokes? Asians smoke quite a lot, yet he has not put in place smoking programmes specifically for them. He is excluding people as a result, which is discrimination.

The primary health organisations that this Government is extraordinarily proud of have given all sorts of people cheaper medical attention, but it is based not on people’s need, not on a condition they might have, and not on a disease, but on the colour of their skin. Any people of Māori or Pacific Island descent are eligible for cheaper care if they belong to a primary health organisation that has more than 50 percent of people of the same ethnic group enrolled—Māori or Pacific Island are specified—regardless of any condition they might have and regardless of the state of their health. Whereas, people who might have great health needs but live in a wealthier geographical area, for example, or who belong to a primary health organisation in which 50 percent of people of Māori or Pacific Island descent are not enrolled, miss out on the cheaper care, despite the fact that their health is worse and their needs are greater.

So the arguments tonight are actually very simple. In putting forward this one law for all bill we are giving the Government the opportunity to put forward programmes based on need and not the colour of one’s skin. I say categorically—and I would have thought everybody in this House would agree—that discrimination of any type is wrong and should not be encouraged. Discrimination is exactly what most of the parties in this House tonight, except for ACT and National, are supporting. They are supporting the idea that discrimination of all sorts is OK. We in ACT say it absolutely is not.

Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Associate Minister of Justice): There are times in this Parliament when one hopes that people will rise to the occasion, and in a bizarre sort of way, the sort of David Duke of New Zealand politics, as he is now known—Rodney Hide—has risen or fallen, I suppose, to the occasion. Mr Hide might want to reflect on who David Duke was. He was a former Southern state representative who ran, I believe, for President of the United States a few years ago and was found out for his beliefs on race. I think it had something to do with white sheets and hats, or whatever. But, however, he may want to reflect on that history.

One looks at this bill and has to say that it is a typical contemporary ACT bill. I am sure that Sir Roger Douglas, the founder of the ACT party—whether or not one agreed with Sir Roger—would look at this tonight and agree with his conclusion that he would like to disassemble the ACT party completely. Because the ACT party did not reflect again—politics aside, and whether or not one agreed with Sir Roger—what he wanted. He wanted a party of ideas. He wanted a party that would contribute to the strength and fabric of our community, not a party of the sewer, and not a party of David Dukes. If one looks at this bumper sticker, which I call a campaign pamphlet—but Dr Cullen is right, it is a bumper sticker, not over Mr Hide’s eyes, but more suited to his mouth—and if one looks at the ACT party, this is a typical contemporary ACT party bill.

What does this bill stand for? It uses a nice little neat slogan that people who may not have the privilege of information or education as much as our good selves here, might just sort of click on to. But then when one digs deeper one finds that this piece of paper is all about wrenching and scraping the scab off the wound that is the issue of race in this country. Mr Hide has told us about his road to Damascus, paso doble experience, which was the greatest rapture of his life. He said that he found all his new ideas and his new statesmanship on the dance floor, and he is going to come to this House a new man. Well, I suppose in some ways he is—physically, but not mentally.

This is the party, of course, if one looks at this bill, that if Mr Hide had been in power, God forbid, in 1938 when Sir Apirana Ngata went to Michael Joseph Savage and said: “My people want to contribute to New Zealand’s effort to one of the worst conflicts brewing in Europe that we have ever seen.”—World War II—would have said no. It would have been Mr Hide, the new David Duke of the House, who would have said: “No, the Government cannot provide a unit specifically for Māori.”, called as we know now as we look around at the shields and crests on the wall, the Māori Battalion. Because, of course, that would be some sort of privilege based only on race. Well, I look back and one of the reasons I am standing here, and one of the reasons we all stand in this Chamber, is because of the massive contribution that not only the Māori Battalion made, but all New Zealanders made. The Māori Battalion had a unique place; it was a unique unit and a unique battalion within our armed forces. But Mr Hide, of course, would have said no.

Dr Wayne Mapp: We’ve moved on.

Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: Yes, we have moved on, but I tell Dr Mapp, as an ex-military person, and sitting beside an ex-military person, Dr Worth, that it is worth reflecting on the history. Of course, we have had one of the worst tragedies in the Kāhui family in the last couple of weeks. Domestic violence is based not only in the Māori community and the Pākehā community, it is across all communities. But under Mr Hide’s proposition any sectoral funding to, say, low socio-economic people—race aside—where race may well be a factor, say in health, as Māori are more likely to get diabetes than Pākehā, oh no, we cannot help the most vulnerable. ACT says: “Let us twist that around in the psyche and let us tell all our rich ACT mates that somebody else might be getting a bit more help than us because they need it.” Of course, Alan Gibbs on his big fat salary and his big fat fortune does not need that—but he funds a few call centres, I am told—so a certain sector of the community should feel bitter and twisted. Well, I say to Mr Hide that the little scab, the little 5 or 2 or 3 percent of New Zealand that he is trying to scrape together in his little hands, based on hate, and based on nastiness, to boost his little poll rating, will not work. In conclusion I say that Kiwis, at the end of the day, all politics aside—it does not matter what political party they support—are fair minded. As the Māori proverb goes: He tangata, he tangata, he tangata, it is people, it is people, it is people, and Kiwis of any race—as the stumpy one over there laughs—will see this bill for what it is: shallow, pathetic, and nasty.

Dr WAYNE MAPP (National—North Shore): It is extraordinary to hear the last speaker, Clayton Cosgrove, suggest that equality before the law is somehow mean, shallow, and nasty. Equality before the law is the most fundamental principle of our democracy, and that is the intent of Mr Hide’s bill.

As Mr Jones said earlier, there was a great debate in New Zealand in 2004 and 2005. The debate concerned whether New Zealanders are equal before the law. It was a very deep debate that actually had two sides to it, which the opponents of this bill seem fundamentally to fail to recognise. The argument is quite simple, and it is this. The law should not provide preferences to any particular group, be it on the basis of sex, gender, or race, or for any other reason, because, of course, the law treats us all equally. But there is another side to the coin, and I did not hear about this from the Māori Party. I just remind that party—although I should not need to do so—that everyone has the same set of rights. Surely the Māori Party came to this Parliament partly because it said the law did not treat Māori equally in relation to the foreshore and seabed. Its whole kaupapa was that it wanted its case to be heard in the same way as every other citizen is heard—that is, with equality before the law.

Another point is that this law does not suggest that people be denied cultural expression. That right is clearly protected not just in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act but also in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. People are of course entitled to their language and culture, and to practise it. It is obviously a fundamental truth that Māori culture and language exist, essentially, in New Zealand. That is why Māori is an official language. That is why there are clearly rights and obligations to protect language and culture. Dr Brash said precisely that in the Ōrewa speech of 2004. That is recognised very clearly. We would go further and say that the kura kaupapa and the Māori health initiatives were also said to be protected on the basis that people have choice. It springs directly from section 20 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, which states that people have religious, ethnic, and linguistic rights. Clearly, those things are protected. There is nothing in the bill that argues against any of that, and that is where the Government and—dare I say it, in this instance—New Zealand First have got it wrong. This bill does not argue against those fundamental rights.

We also heard a great deal about sickle-cell anaemia, diabetes, HIV, and all those sorts of things. Who in this country has argued that people should not be entitled to receive care on the basis of need? Clearly, in each of those examples, if people have specific needs they deserve specific help. Dr Brash argued that point in the 2004 speech. Actually, Labour had to concede he was right on that point, and Trevor Mallard’s appointment was precisely for that reason.

I conclude on the following point. I was involved in the issue of special preferences, particularly around admissions to law schools, medical schools, and so forth. Those programmes were established in the 1980s, and, indeed, I was part of that process. But were those programmes intended to last forever? No, they were not. I can say to this House that Mr Shane Jones has publicly stated, along with the honourable John Tamihere, that those programmes have a finite life, and that there is now no need for those kinds of programmes to exist in order to lift people up. People acknowledge that prior to 1980 there were very few Māori lawyers, doctors, accountants, and so forth. Things have fundamentally changed in that regard. Those programmes were not supposed to last forever. They have lasted 20 years now, and the imbalance they were intended to correct has been corrected.

I return to the point that this bill is based on a simple proposition, and that is equality before the law. Will parties vote against that fundamental proposition? I ask the people of New Zealand why that would happen.

RODNEY HIDE (Leader—ACT): This debate just goes to show how misinformed we have become as a nation about the issues of culture, diversity, and racism, and also shows our inability to debate those issues in a way that is wholesome and useful.

I should acknowledge the Māori Party, whose member Te Ururoa Flavell gave a very fine speech, even though that party disagrees with me and will vote against the bill. At least the Māori Party understood the intent of the bill, and actually took the trouble to read it, unlike Peter Brown of New Zealand First and Mr Clayton Cosgrove—who, I have to say, brings a certain nasty side to this debate and to this Parliament.

I pick up the Māori Party’s point that in an ideal world we would live without racial discrimination. The Māori Party’s position is that, yes, ideally we should not be discriminating on the basis of race. I accept that point, but when I look across the House I do not think that is the position of Labour or New Zealand First. Those parties like the idea of Governments discriminating on the basis of race, because that is the source of their power. It is the basis of their ability to make decisions and decide who will get what. The Māori Party at least admits that in an ideal world we would not be discriminating on the basis of race. Its point is—and I do not think I am doing it a disservice—that we are living in a less than ideal world because in the past there has been racial discrimination, so racial groups in New Zealand are behind the eight ball, and we need affirmative action to bring them up to some median for society. Once that has been achieved we can remove the need for affirmative action based on race. I think that is the argument of the Māori Party.

So, following on from Dr Wayne Mapp’s point, affirmative action is a sort of temporary policy we have until somehow society racially equalises. But that goes back to a fundamental point, and it is whether affirmative action—[Interruption] Is it not interesting that Mr Hughes never speaks in this Parliament; he just sits there and chips across the House. He cannot make a reasoned contribution, can he? Our having acknowledged that there has been racial discrimination and disadvantage in the past, I ask whether it is the smartest thing for a society to do to actually perpetuate racial discrimination in a positive way. My answer to that is a resounding no. If we affirm action in favour of one racial group, then every other racial group is disadvantaged.

Peter Brown: Poppycock.

RODNEY HIDE: I ask Mr Brown to consider this: if we have affirmative action for entry into medical school of people who, say, are green in colour, then all people who are not green will miss out because there is no discrimination in favour of them. Mr Brown fails to understand that key point.

The second thing we have to ask ourselves is whether the best way to go forward as a nation is to base our delivery of services on race. We know there are Māori who are doing fantastically well and that some are not. We know there are non-Māori who are doing well and that some are not. The key determinant is not race, and if Mr Brown thinks it is race, then I am afraid he has a genetic explanation for why people do not succeed in society—and there is a word for that.

I say to the Māori Party that, yes, we should go for the ideal and that we should be striving for the ideal now, because nothing will bring Māori up more quickly than a colour-blind country treating them like true citizens and addressing the issues of our society—issues of need, deprivation, and disadvantage, irrespective of the colour of the skin of a man, a woman, a child, or a baby.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Human Rights (One Law For All) Amendment Bill be now read a first time.

Ayes 50

New Zealand National 48; ACT New Zealand 2.

Noes 69

New Zealand Labour 50; New Zealand First 7; Green Party 6; United Future 3; Māori Party 2; Progressive 1.

Motion not agreed to.

The House adjourned at 9.42 p.m.