Tuesday, 21 November 2006

Tuesday, 21 November 2006

Tuesday, 21 November 2006

Madam Speaker took the Chair at 2.50 p.m.

Prayers.

Questions for Oral Answer

Questions to Ministers

Stadium—Legislation

1. KEITH LOCKE (Green) to the Minister for the Rugby World Cup: Is the Government prepared, in the words of constitutional law expert Dr Bill Hodge, to damage “the constitutional fabric of New Zealand” by ramming through a waterfront stadium requiring legislation that “would override almost every law it came across, including the Local Government Act and the Public Finance Act, as well as the Treaty of Waitangi”; if so, why?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Acting Minister for the Rugby World Cup): It seems very likely that whether Eden Park or a waterfront site is preferred as the Rugby World Cup’s final venue, resource consents will need to be delivered through special legislative mechanisms in order to ensure certainty of completion of the venue in time for the event. I note that the National Party has already committed to support such legislation in respect of Eden Park.

Keith Locke: Is not the Government forcing Auckland City Council and the Auckland Regional Council to break the law by imposing a 2-week time limit for a stadium decision and thereby not allowing time for the formal consultative processes that are mandatory under the Local Government Act, such as having development options open for public inspection, inviting submissions, and holding public hearings?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: That would not be my view. We have asked for views from the Auckland Regional Council, as to what its preference would be. That does not mean to say that other processes would not follow in either case. In the case of either Eden Park or the waterfront there will be a need for special legislation, and that legislation will go through normal parliamentary procedures, with select committee hearings.

Keith Locke: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. My question was not in relation to subsequent legislation that may override the Resource Management Act. It was about the Local Government Act procedures prior to the Auckland local bodies making decisions this Thursday and Friday. Could the Minister answer that question?

Madam SPEAKER: I thought the Minister did actually address the question.

Keith Locke: Does he agree that no matter what the design, a 37-metre stadium—about the height of a 10-storey building—will dominate the Auckland vista and create a solid visual barrier between the city and the sea?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: No, because looking from the sea, it is dominated at the moment by the Sky Tower, which is much taller but was designed by the person who says that the stadium will be too tall.

Dr Pita Sharples: Kia ora tātou. What meaningful discussions did the Minister have with the board of Ngāti Whātua o Ōrākei in the light of the advice from the Waitangi Tribunal and the courts about the requirement for consultation to ensure informed decisions are made through meaningful discussion, and what resolutions were arrived at?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: We are advised that the Minister for Economic Development has met with the chief executive of Ngāti Whātua o Ōrākei. He indicated that they were not interested in pursuing the matter as Ngāti Whātua had limited interest in the port land, but further discussions will occur with Ngāti Whātua if a waterfront option is proceeded with.

Dr Pita Sharples: What implications will the construction of the stadium have on the agreements with Ngāti Whātua following the deed of settlement signed on 9 June this year?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: No implications other than, obviously, the need to maintain consultation with Ngāti Whātua around any development.

Dr Pita Sharples: Does he recall the words of the late Sir Hugh Kāwharu: “… Māori must have an effective say in respect to the ongoing control, administration and management of the area of land. The key is the retention of mana.”—authority—and in what ways will Ngāti Whātua retain their mana in the ongoing issues relating to the construction of a stadium on the waterfront?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: I repeat: the chief executive of Ngāti Whātua o Ōrākei has said that Ngāti Whātua has limited interest in the port land, and that any further involvement would be in the usual manner with Auckland City Council around design and development issues, and with Auckland City Council’s offer to meet and discuss matters further with Ngāti Whātua before any decisions are taken.

Keith Locke: Is the Minister aware that the ANZ bank was recently forced to take control of Sydney’s former Olympic stadium, which now owes $140 million, and who does the Government think will carry the financial can should its waterfront stadium costs blow out to a billion dollars and its operation incur substantial ongoing losses?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: I know of no major stadium that, taken within its narrow confines as a pure commercial venture, would make a profit. I assume that that is why the Eden Park Trust Board has so far not presented a proposal to the Government about how it intends to fund a $387 million stadium and associated works.

Keith Locke: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I asked who would carry the financial can. I do not think the Minister really answered that question. He just answered a question about Eden Park.

Madam SPEAKER: The member did actually ask several questions in his supplementary question, and certainly one of them was addressed.

Heather Roy: Would his Government contemplate retrospective legislation should any concerned citizen injunct the Auckland City Council or the Auckland Regional Council for not consulting Aucklanders about a waterfront stadium in the manner required by the Local Government Act 2002—law introduced and passed by his Labour Government?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: The effect of any injunction on the Auckland City Council, of course, does not affect the ability of Parliament to pass legislation. If Dr Hodge wants to take on parliamentary sovereignty, I invite him to do so.

Stadium—Prime Minister's Statement

2. Dr DON BRASH (Leader of the Opposition) to the Prime Minister: Does she stand by her statement to the House on 7 November 2006 that “I have formed no view whatsoever” about whether the Stadium New Zealand proposal should be preferred ahead of the rebuilding of Eden Park?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Acting Prime Minister): Yes. As she has said, she will enthusiastically support whichever option is chosen.

Dr Don Brash: Has the Prime Minister seen the estimate for the cost of a waterfront Stadium New Zealand, done by two separate quantity surveyors and released by the Eden Park Trust Board, of more than $900 million, a figure that according to Mr Mallard’s formula would lead to the region and the Government each having to come up with $375 million; and is she prepared for the project to go ahead if the cost is anything remotely close to that figure?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: Should eventually a preference be expressed for the waterfront stadium, then, clearly, further work would need to be done. Work will need to continue in relation to planning for Eden Park as a back-up. The Government will release all information into the public arena; I invite the member to release all his information into the public arena, as well.

Dr Don Brash: Can the Prime Minister confirm that the Minister responsible for the Rugby World Cup, Trevor Mallard, has proposed a $10 per head Auckland International Airport departure tax, which I am advised would raise about $27 million per year—a sum too small to pay even the interest on the regional contribution, if the estimate of $900 million is to be believed—and what other revenue-raising measures does her Government have under consideration?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: Neither option—and I hesitate to sound like a broken record—has a fully costed budget, or an explanation in full of how it is to be paid for. In one instance, Eden Park, the board seems to be trying to persuade the public that it is paid for, but is looking to the Government to pay for it; in the other instance, it is quite clear that the means will be found to pay for the stadium. Those facts will be published as they are available; I invite the member to publish all facts in his possession.

Dr Don Brash: Can the Prime Minister confirm that the Government’s current offer of contribution, based on Mr Mallard’s $500 million guesstimate, is around $175 million if the stadium is located on the waterfront; and if Aucklanders decide on the Eden Park proposal, can she tell the House what level of Government contribution it would receive?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: To the first question, yes. To the second question, the Eden Park board is yet to make any proposal, based on full and final costings, about where the money will come from for the Eden Park option. Clearly, by far the cheapest option is Jade Stadium. All the facts will come into the public arena as and when they are made available. I invite the member to table all his facts—including any book he may have in his possession!

Dr Don Brash: Is the Prime Minister aware that when London bid to host the 2012 Olympic Games, the estimated cost of the facilities was ₤2.4 billion, and that UK Treasury officials already expect that cost to exceed ₤6 billion—150 percent above the original estimate?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: Yes; and I note also that the Eden Park project is already 150 percent above its original estimate, and potentially still climbing.

Dr Don Brash: Why, more than a year after New Zealand won the right to host the Rugby World Cup, is the Prime Minister’s Government giving Aucklanders just 2 weeks to choose between two very expensive projects, with the cost, design, feasibility, and financing of the project preferred by the Minister for the Rugby World Cup being entirely unclear?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: The cost, financing, and feasibility of the Eden Park project is almost equally unclear at this point. The reason we are in this process is because the Eden Park project came back with 150 percent cost inflation on the latest estimates. At that point the Government asked whether we really want to spend $400 million on putting a stadium in the middle of a suburb that may be used only 25 days a year. I say to the member, again, that the full facts will come into the public arena; will he let the full facts about what he has been up to over the last 3 or 4 years come out?

Navy—Project Protector

3. DIANNE YATES (Labour) to the Minister of Defence: What progress is being made on the revitalisation of the Navy under Project Protector?

Hon PHIL GOFF (Minister of Defence): Good progress. Project Protector is on track towards adding seven new vessels to the Royal New Zealand Navy by 2008 and being within its $500 million budget. The first and largest ship, the Canterbury, will give New Zealand much-needed sealift capacity. The multi-role vessel will arrive in New Zealand in the first half of next year. The second, the offshore patrol vessel Otago, was launched in Williamstown on Saturday and will be commissioned in the second half of next year.

Dianne Yates: How does the Canterbury compare with its predecessor, the HMNZS Charles Upham? [Interruption]

Hon PHIL GOFF: If I can be heard over the embarrassment on the other side of the House, I will answer. There is no comparison. The National Government bought a lemon. That vessel was unstable, it was not fit for purpose, it was never used for the purpose for which it was purchased, and it was then disposed of at a huge loss. The Canterbury, by comparison, on its maiden voyage from Europe to Australia handled 9-metre waves—that is sea state 8—with ease and, according to the Navy officers on board, much better than the Anzac frigates. It is a large ship. It is 130 metres long and is capable of transporting 250-strong company groups, their vehicles and equipment, and five helicopters. It represents a huge increase in deployment and disaster relief capacity.

Dianne Yates: What capacity will the new offshore patrol vessel Otago add to the Navy?

Hon PHIL GOFF: Again, a lot. It is an 85 metre - long ship. It will undertake a variety of tasks, including border protection, working with police and the New Zealand Customs Service, surveillance of our exclusive economic zone, and, if need be, counter-terrorism. It has a range of nearly 10,000 kilometres, which is much the same as a frigate. It is helicopter-capable, ice-strengthened, armed, and able to carry 30 embarked troops. Like the Canterbury, it will considerably increase the New Zealand Navy’s capacity. I have to agree with what Hank Schouten said in an article, which is that this is the biggest revolution for the New Zealand Navy since it was established 65 years ago.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Is this the same Charles Upham vessel that Tau Henare told this House he had proof that Ron Mark had supported purchasing, even though it was purchased 2 years before Ron Mark got to this House—

Hon Tau Henare: Tell us about the dogs!

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Well now, he wants to talk about the dogs. That will be his speciality. If he wants me to talk about the dogs, I will talk about his speciality. I am asking whether it is the same Charles Upham that he told this House he would table evidence that Ron Mark had supported purchasing, even though Ron had not been a member of the House at the time it was purchased?

Hon PHIL GOFF: If Tau Henare made that remark—and he has not denied it in the House since the question was asked—then he was clearly in error. It is the same Charles Upham that the National Government—which spent very little on the Navy—spent millions of dollars on. It was bought secondhand, it was not fit for purchase, it was an absolute disaster, and it ended up carrying lemons in the Mediterranean—and it was just that: a lemon.

Ron Mark: Can the Minister confirm that the major challenges facing the Navy over the next year are not only the introduction into operational service between January and December of the seven new vessels that are part of Project Protector whilst at the same time delivering outputs to the current fleet but also the staffing of all those vessels, to ensure that they are all able to put to sea and do the job they are designed to do?

Hon PHIL GOFF: Staffing is always a challenge, but I am really pleased to report to the member that our attrition rates are down and our recruitment rates are up. We increased the Defence Force’s personnel by 600 last year, and we have put $4.6 billion aside in the Defence Sustainability Initiative to ensure that we can increase our overall defence forces by 12 to 15 percent—this after the National Government ran down the defence forces for a decade during the 1990s, halving their spending and cutting their personnel.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Is this the same Charles Upham vessel that was purchased in 1994, in a time and a year when Tau Henare was a member of Parliament for New Zealand First, a party that was not supporting the purchase; should he not have remembered that when he got up in this House and claimed he would table evidence that Ron Mark supported it?

Madam SPEAKER: No, the second part of the question is out of order; the first is all right.

Hon PHIL GOFF: I am sure it is the same Tau Henare, but he articulated a lot of statements then that he is now saying exactly the opposite about—and does not even have the good sense to blush about the contradictions.

Otago District Health Board—Fraud

4. Hon TONY RYALL (National—Bay of Plenty) to the Minister of Health: What reports, if any, has he received on an alleged $16 million case of fraud at the Otago District Health Board, and what do these reports say?

Hon PETE HODGSON (Minister of Health): I have had a number of oral briefings on this issue, all consistent with the no-surprises policy we have in place. A number of the matters are likely to be dealt with in court, in both a civil and a criminal context. As a result, I cannot comment on them as freely as I might otherwise.

Hon Tony Ryall: Can the Minister confirm that the alleged fraud, which involves the board’s former information technology manager, Michael Swann, and which is now being investigated by the Serious Fraud Office, relates to $16.9 million of contracts, over a 5-year period, with a single company, supposedly for computer maintenance and software licence agreements; and is he concerned that the chief executive officer has now admitted that none of these multimillion-dollar contracts were ever tendered?

Hon PETE HODGSON: I can confirm some of those facts, but I cannot confirm all of them. I will just say to the member that this issue is under very close scrutiny from the Serious Fraud Office. There is a story to be told, and I am confident that it will be told.

Hon Tony Ryall: Is the Minister aware that Michael Swann bought a former marine research vessel in Hawaii, berthed it in Dunedin—where it underwent a massive refit, becoming a 50-metre luxury launch, reportedly with a plasma television set in each room—and, despite this high-profile activity, is the Minister telling the House that no one at the district health board asked how a former bankrupt and hospital manager on $200,000-a-year could afford such extravagance over such a period of time?

Hon PETE HODGSON: The alleged extravagance is actually greater than the member portrays, and I cannot confirm that there was no earlier investigation—I cannot confirm that.

Hon Tony Ryall: Have you asked?

Hon PETE HODGSON: I most certainly have. It is not in the public interest for me to reveal more than I have, and the reason is that we have a serious investigation before us, and I am determined that the investigation will be allowed to proceed utterly unmolested.

Hon Tony Ryall: Is the Minister aware the Otago District Health Board has now secured asset-protection orders over property that Mr Swann has an interest in—including 30 vehicles, mostly luxury cars; several boats, including the 50-metre luxury launch Townsend Cromwell; a substantial home and other property in Wānaka; a residence in Dunedin, with a Government valuation of $1.1 million; and a property in Central Otago; and is the Minister telling us that no one ever asked about how a former bankrupt and district health board manager could afford such a lifestyle, with no one ever asking about it over the 5 years he was doing it?

Hon PETE HODGSON: Let me just repeat that the first part of the member’s question and its content are substantially correct. I will not confirm that no one ever asked questions in earlier years, and I will not reveal—because it is not in the public interest at this stage—what questions were asked, in what year, and by what persons.

Hon Tony Ryall: What eventually prompted the Otago District Health Board to sack its chief information officer, Michael Swann, “for gross mismanagement of the district health board’s IT procurement, including failure to comply with delegation of authority and purchasing policies”; and what action is the Minister taking now to assure the people of that region and this country that district health board information technology procurement policies and other such policies are safe, and to ensure that the public’s money is protected, despite what appears to be 5 years of extravagance when a district health board did nothing?

Hon PETE HODGSON: I say gently to the member that the issue of extravagance may exceed 5 years. District health boards around the country need no further incentive to ensure that what has happened in Otago does not happen elsewhere.

Paula Bennett: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I just thought that there might be something wrong with the Minister’s microphone, because we are having a lot of trouble hearing him back here.

Madam SPEAKER: I think there might be trouble with a lot of microphones today.

Hon PETE HODGSON: I repeat for the member that the issue about 5 years of activity might actually be short of the mark. Secondly, district health boards need no further incentive to ensure that they take care with their information technology contracts or, indeed, any of the other contracts of any size in district health boards.

Hon Tony Ryall: Have you told them how it happened?

Hon PETE HODGSON: I say to the member that they do not need to be told by me, because the story has spread very quickly—well before it became available to the member who asks the question. Finally—in case the member wants to ask—I cannot give an assurance that there are no issues of fraud elsewhere in the health sector. There are some 16,500 active contracts in the health sector. There was serious fraud about 10 years ago in the New Zealand health sector, involving about $5 million. I say to the member that that is why we have law against fraud.

Jo Goodhew: Can the Minister confirm that he has just told us that he does not know whether there are, perhaps, some Mr Swanns still lurking in the system who are misusing highly sought after health dollars?

Hon PETE HODGSON: I have just proactively said that I will not give an assurance that there is no other case of fraud in the health sector. There are about 16,500 contracts that I know of in the health sector. I remind the member that about 10 years ago there was a significant fraud case in the health sector. Unfortunately, fraud occurs from time to time in this society, which is why there are laws written against it. I say to the member that this investigation will be completed, will be thorough, and will become public as the months go by.

Police—Legislation

5. MARTIN GALLAGHER (Labour—Hamilton West) to the Minister of Police: What progress has been made on modernising the legislative environment for the New Zealand Police?

Hon ANNETTE KING (Minister of Police): In March this year I announced a comprehensive review of the Police Act 1958 to bring the legislation up to date for the 21st century. Since then, consultation has been occurring around the country, and, so far, seven issue papers have been released by the New Zealand Police team that is coordinating the review. This evening the process goes one step further, when I open the New Zealand Police - Victoria University of Wellington School of Government symposium on the future of policing in this country. I expect this to be a challenging and invigorating symposium at which overseas policing and criminology experts, and academics will join local people in one of the most important debates to be held on policing in New Zealand for many years.

Martin Gallagher: What support has there been for the review of the current Police Act, which I understand is almost 50 years old?

Hon ANNETTE KING: I have found considerable support for the review and the process being followed. The rewrite of the Act will take around 2 years to complete, thereby giving many New Zealanders an opportunity to have an input. The New Zealand Police staff are taking a very keen interest in the review, as are the Law Commission, many other Government departments, and members of the public. I am particularly pleased with the political parties that have agreed to be part of a multiparty approach to the important rewrite of this legislation.

Simon Power: Can the Minister confirm that it is proposed, as part of the review of the Police Act, that police should receive the proceeds of assets that they confiscate from criminals; and is this the reason why the Criminal Proceeds and Instruments Bill sat for a year on the Order Paper before being pulled before its first reading?

Hon ANNETTE KING: No, I cannot confirm that. As the member knows, his having received each one of the discussion documents that went out, a series of questions have been asked in those documents; they do not pose answers, nor do they suggest the direction that, at the end of the day, this Parliament will take when we rewrite that Act. The discussion documents ask the questions; they do not give the answers. It will be up to this Parliament and the people of New Zealand to give the answers.

Immigration Service—Confidence

6. Dr the Hon LOCKWOOD SMITH (National—Rodney) to the Minister of Immigration: Does he have confidence in the New Zealand Immigration Service; if so, why?

Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Minister of Immigration): Yes; because it is a hard-working and conscientious department.

Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith: Did the New Zealand Immigration Service raise with the previous Minister of Immigration, the Hon Paul Swain, concerns about the representations made by Taito Phillip Field on behalf of failed asylum-seekers, and about the number of those representations resulting in the exercise of ministerial discretion by the previous Associate Minister of Immigration, Damien O’Connor; if so, what was the particular nature of those concerns?

Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: I am advised that the Department of Labour workforce deputy secretary raised with the previous Minister in very general terms the number of failed refugee cases being brought forward by Mr Field.

Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith: Given that Mary Anne Thompson, now the Department of Labour workforce deputy secretary, told the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee last Thursday that after her meeting with Mr Swain she “went back to the department and had a chat with Mr Tavita”—the group manager of service international of the Department of Labour—“and said it might be a good idea to let the Associate Minister, Damien O’Connor, know more generally about our concerns.”, did Mr Tavita tell the then Associate Minister, Damien O’Connor, about those concerns; if not, whom did Mr Tavita tell?

Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: I can confirm that that is the gist of what the workforce deputy secretary told the select committee. I can further confirm that Mr Tavita, the group manager of service international, attempted to communicate with the previous Associate Minister’s office. However, the Associate Minister’s private secretary has no recollection of that attempt to communicate, and the communication was not passed on to Mr O’Connor.

Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith: What was the response of the previous Minister of Immigration to the concerns raised with him by Ms Mary Anne Thompson, and did that Minister discuss those concerns with his then Associate Minister, Damien O’Connor, who was granting the approvals on Taito Phillip Field’s submissions that were causing such concern at the most senior level of the New Zealand Immigration Service; if not, why not?

Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: I am advised that it is the recollection of the Department of Labour workforce deputy secretary that the previous Minister agreed that she should notify the group manager of service international. It is, however, not my understanding that the Minister spoke directly to the then Associate Minister.

Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith: Given that Mary Anne Thompson told the select committee last Thursday that the group manager of service international, Kerupi Tavita, had drawn her attention to the number of failed asylum-seekers who were having those decisions reversed following submissions from Taito Phillip Field, how many failed asylum-seekers did Associate Minister O’Connor approve following representations from Taito Phillip Field?

Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: I do not have that specific information with me, but I would be happy to get it to the member.

Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith: What changes were made to the approval process of the previous Associate Minister of Immigration, Damien O’Connor, following Mary Anne Thompson’s raising with the previous Minister of Immigration, Paul Swain, concerns about the number of approvals issued by Mr O’Connor for failed asylum-seekers in response to submissions from Taito Phillip Field, or did the Minister fail to act on those serious concerns from the most senior level of his department?

Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: The chief executive has acknowledged that the department could have done better in its attempts to communicate this information to the Associate Minister. In particular, the best way to do so would have been to note the matter on the application management system records. Because this did not occur, the review branch, which was preparing the briefing for the Minister, was not privy to the information.

Climate Change—New Zealand Policy Leadership

7. Hon MARIAN HOBBS (Labour—Wellington Central) to the Minister responsible for Climate Change Issues: What reports has he received on New Zealand leadership in climate change policy?

Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister responsible for Climate Change Issues): I have received reports that climate change is now firmly on the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation group’s agenda. APEC leaders in recent days pledged to find further ways to reduce their countries’ carbon emissions. This move was personally led by Prime Minister Helen Clark. Labour is proud to have a strong and decisive leader who recognises the importance of climate change. Some other parties are not as lucky as Labour is.

Hon Marian Hobbs: Has the Minister received other reports on New Zealand leadership on climate change policy?

Hon DAVID PARKER: Indeed, I have received a report from a recent climate change event in Auckland that indicates that a prominent American was “particularly impressed with the tremendous leadership that New Zealand is providing.” That report, praising the New Zealand Government’s leadership, was from the former Vice-President of the United States of America, Al Gore. It is clear that the Government’s leadership on climate change will bring both economic and environmental benefits to New Zealand.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: What sort of leadership is New Zealand providing, when the official United Nations’ figures on emissions show that during Helen Clark’s prime ministership to date New Zealand’s emissions have grown by 8.6 percent, as compared with the United States’ growth of 3.8 percent or Australia’s growth of 5.1 percent—or does this Government dispute the official figures published under the Framework Convention on Climate Change?

Hon DAVID PARKER: New Zealand’s emissions, excluding our agricultural emissions, have increased substantially, but at a lower rate than Australia’s.

Peter Brown: Does the Minister share New Zealand First’s view that by getting climate change on the APEC agenda, the Prime Minister has advanced the possibility of the issue being effectively addressed by the nations that are actually responsible for the majority of the problem, and that this is a far greater achievement than penalising New Zealanders and making them feel guilty about switching their lights on?

Hon DAVID PARKER: I agree that it is a significant advance that APEC is now looking at further emissions cuts. I do not agree—if the implication was intended—that the Kyoto instrument is a bad instrument. It is the best current instrument in the world and, indeed, is the most effective cause of emissions reductions around the world to date. But it remains true none the less that emissions reductions by other major emitters, including the United States and China, are vitally important in order to win the overall battle. So we see this as progress.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: What sort of leadership is this Government providing on climate change, when the policy has been one botch-up after another, including the failed carbon tax, the failed animal emissions levy, the failed energy efficiency strategy, the billion-dollar bungle over carbon calculations, the collapse in the negotiated greenhouse agreements, and the dropped tender round for projects to reduce emissions; and when the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment says that climate change policy in New Zealand is a vacuum, how does a vacuum equate to leadership?

Hon DAVID PARKER: That was an enormous list to try to respond to in an answer to a supplementary question. There are answers to virtually all of the points that the member misrepresented in that question. Suffice it to say that this Government has been consistent in its pursuit of policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Give us one!

Hon DAVID PARKER: I will give Dr Smith one example. The most recent National flip-flop, of course, is in respect of the Permanent Forest Sink Initiative, which was passed last week in this House in substantially unaltered form to that which that member and the party he belongs to opposed strenuously at earlier stages.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: What sort of leadership is this Government providing on climate change, when forest plantings have collapsed from 45,000 hectares per year in 1999, when Labour became the Government, to a net loss of forest last year—the first time since 1953—and when the Government is turning a blind eye to the ongoing clear-felling of indigenous forests in Southland; and do not we have a Prime Minister who says one thing internationally, while at home her Government is doing exactly the opposite of that?

Hon DAVID PARKER: The greatest drop in forestry plantings actually occurred before this Government came into office.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Not true!

Hon DAVID PARKER: It is true, and I will table a graph to show that when I have finished responding to this question. But it was not the National Government’s fault that that decrease in planting occurred; it was a consequence of the change in the relative economics of forestry compared with agricultural land use.

Jeanette Fitzsimons: Does the Minister agree with Stephen Tollestrup, the executive director of the TEAR Fund, when he commented at the end of the Nairobi conference of the parties to the Kyoto Protocol that “Sadly this conference has been marked by a lack of urgency and leadership. This must change quickly if we are to halt a significant climate shift in the future.”, and what did New Zealand do at the Nairobi conference to provide leadership towards greater action to prevent climate change?

Hon DAVID PARKER: I agree that it is clear from the really undisputed advice from the scientific community, coordinated by the United Nations, that the Kyoto Protocol emissions reductions already in the pipeline through annex 1 countries between 2008 and 2012 are insufficient to avoid the risk of quite extreme climate change, and that more needs to be done by both annex 1 Kyoto countries and other countries, including China and the United States. What is New Zealand doing? Members have already seen, in the last week at APEC, the Prime Minister taking a lead on this issue in an international forum.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Why does the Minister, in explaining the collapse in forest plantings in New Zealand from 45,000 hectares a year when Labour became the Government to net deforestation last year, use the excuse of the relative economics of forestry as compared with other land uses, when across the Tasman Australia, with exactly the same economics as New Zealand, has been able to increase the amount of forest plantings in each and every year over the same period; why is Australia achieving substantial reforestation while this Government is overseeing massive, record deforestation?

Hon DAVID PARKER: Whatever Australia has done in respect of afforestation, it certainly has not been through the devolution of carbon sink credits because, of course, that country does not devolve any.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I asked the Minister to explain why, in his response to an earlier question, he said it was economic factors that had resulted in a collapse of New Zealand forest plantings, and to explain why there was the opposite situation to that in Australia. The Minister’s answer did not in any way address the question; he just stated some irrelevancy around the fact that in Australia credits are not allowed for forest, as is the case in New Zealand. That was not an attempt to answer the question.

Hon Dr Michael Cullen: The policy announced by that member had no part to play in Australia’s policy, so therefore it was not the reason why there was a difference.

Madam SPEAKER: I am not sure that was a point of order. By virtue of the member raising the issue of Australia, I thought the Minister did address the question.

Hon DAVID PARKER: I seek leave to table a graph showing the rate of decline in New Zealand forest plantings over the last decade.

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

Hon Dr Nick Smith: I seek leave to table the huge increase over the same period in Australia’s forest plantings.

Document not tabled.

Question No. 6 to Minister

Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Minister of Immigration): In relation to the previous question from Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith, I seek leave to table two documents. The first is an email from the Chief Executive of the Department of Labour, Dr James Buwalda, which acknowledges the department could have done better in providing information in writing to Minister’s offices on immigration matters.

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

Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: I seek leave to table an email from Dr Mary Anne Thompson, the Department of Labour’s workforce deputy secretary, advising her staff to follow the new procedures set out by the chief executive.

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

Carbon Neutrality—Prime Minister's Statement

8. Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) to the Minister responsible for Climate Change Issues: What progress is the Government making towards the goal of carbon neutrality, as stated by the Prime Minister at the Labour Party Conference 2006?

Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister responsible for Climate Change Issues): Recent progress towards the long-term aspiration of carbon neutrality includes energy efficiency improvements to the building code, a minimum bio-fuel sales obligation, solar water heating initiatives, the passing of the permanent forest sinks legislation, as well as Government leadership through reducing the carbon footprint of governmental activities. Areas where further progressive policies can be expected include the New Zealand Energy Strategy, an updated National Energy Efficiency and Conservation Strategy, and choices about price-based measures such as emissions trading to reduce New Zealand’s carbon emissions.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: What credibility does the Prime Minister’s promise of New Zealand being carbon neutral have when Government officials told the select committee last Thursday that they had not been asked for any advice, either before or after the Prime Minister’s speech, on how New Zealand might be carbon neutral, and does this not tell us that the Prime Minister’s speech on climate change was just all hot air?

Hon DAVID PARKER: No, it does not. I think all New Zealanders know that the Prime Minister is very committed to reducing New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions, and the initiatives we have recently made, which I listed in response to the last question, and the other initiatives we have coming up prove testament to that.

Charles Chauvel: Has the Government received any reports that its climate change policies are facilitating substantial economic opportunities?

Hon DAVID PARKER: Yes, it has. On 14 November PricewaterhouseCoopers stated that the Climate Change Response Amendment Act passed last week, or the week before, “was ‘a major step’ as New Zealand moves towards price based measures for carbon…”, and that the new legislation “paves the way for New Zealand companies to participate in an exciting new market which has seen spectacular global growth in recent months.” PricewaterhouseCoopers noted that a recent survey by the World Bank and the International Emissions Trading Association puts the total value of transactions in the current market in the first 9 months of 2006 at US$22 billion.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Can he explain how the Prime Minister’s goal of carbon neutrality fits with the Government’s State-owned enterprises Mighty River Power, which wants to proceed with a 320 megawatt coal-fired power station at Whangarei, and Genesis Energy, which wants to proceed with a 230 megawatt gas-fired power station near Helensville, when both State-owned enterprises have indicated that the Government supports these massive increases in carbon emissions, and how can that possibly fit with the Prime Minister’s goal of carbon neutrality?

Hon DAVID PARKER: As far as I am aware, Mighty River Power has never sought or been given governmental approval for Marsden B.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Not what they said at the select committee.

Hon DAVID PARKER: With respect, I am not sure that the member represents that correctly, because my understanding is that Mighty River Power’s CEO Doug Heffernan said at that select committee that Marsden B is being prepared only as a back-up option should there be a shortage of supply developing in the future, and that at that same select committee meeting he noted that there are more than enough renewable energy options, in the form of wind and geothermal, to meet demand through to 2015.

Peter Brown: Noting that answer, can I take it from the Prime Minister’s speech that the Government is not particularly interested in research into clean-coal technology, specifically that which will address the carbon dioxide problem, and if that is the position, and noting that the Prime Minister said that we need to be smart and determined, can the Minister explain why?

Hon DAVID PARKER: No, the member should not take that from her answer. Carbon neutrality could well be achieved through carbon capture and storage. Indeed, I think the amount of money that New Zealand spends on research that is involved in looking at carbon capture and sequestration is approximately half of the total energy research budget. If anything, it is actually an overrepresentation in that research budget, in my opinion, rather than an under-representation. None the less, it also remains true that carbon capture and storage is the technology that is likely to be developed mostly offshore, rather than in New Zealand. The United States and Australia alone are spending billions of dollars on that research.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Will he be seeking specific advice from the Ministry for the Environment’s Climate Change Office on how carbon neutrality might be achieved; if not, why not?

Hon DAVID PARKER: The key to carbon neutrality is reducing one’s carbon emissions, and of course the New Zealand Energy Strategy will provide more information as to the way in which we see that carbon pathway developing.

Housing New Zealand—Subletting Investigation

9. PHIL HEATLEY (National—Whangarei) to the Minister of Housing: Why is he asking Housing New Zealand Corporation to engage a squad who will “look into allegations of subletting” and set up “a central file listing all details of those found subletting their homes”, and why has such action not been taken until now?

Hon CHRIS CARTER (Minister of Housing): In my letter of expectation that I sent to the board of the Housing New Zealand Corporation for the 2006-07 financial year, I asked for advice on ways to improve the utilisation of our housing stock. The corporation reported to me in September, and I agreed to the appointment of a new team of up to six specialist case managers who will primarily work with market rent tenants to identify alternative housing options, thus freeing up properties for priority tenants on the State house waiting list.

Phil Heatley: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. My question, which was put down very early today, specifically asked twice about subletting. The Minister did not address the squad working on subletting issues, and I would ask him to do so. He has had several hours to prepare for that.

Madam SPEAKER: I thought the Minister did address subletting. Is that the point?

Phil Heatley: He talked about high-income tenants in State homes, which is a matter that I canvassed in March. I am asking about subletting.

Madam SPEAKER: Would the Minister please clarify that.

Hon CHRIS CARTER: My understanding is that the member asked me a question about a special squad that is dealing with the issue of market renters. We set it up in September.

Phil Heatley: How can the Minister understand that I am asking a question about a squad dealing with high-income tenants, when the question on the sheet—and it has been there for several hours now—mentions subletting twice?

Madam SPEAKER: Would the Minister like to clarify precisely what his answer relates to.

Hon CHRIS CARTER: The squad that will be looking at working with and encouraging people paying market rents to find other housing options, and that will be looking at any allegations of subletting, was set up in September.

Phil Heatley: Why, on Thursday last week, did he deny that widespread subletting rorts existed, cynically asking the National Party to gather cases and do the job for him, yet on Friday he announced a squad and a database to track such illegal activity—why the sudden U-turn on subletting?

Hon CHRIS CARTER: The alleged squad, which is actually a group of six tenancy managers who will work with market renters, was set up in September. I repeat the answer I gave last Thursday: that member has yet to front up with a single case.

Tim Barnett: How successful has the Housing New Zealand Corporation been in securing better use of its 67,000 homes?

Hon CHRIS CARTER: New tenancies are allocated to priority applicants on the waiting list, with 98.1 percent of new tenants last month qualifying for income-related rent. Last year tenancy managers made efficiency savings worth almost $300 million by encouraging tenants to relocate to smaller properties, and encouraging market renters to move into private rental properties or homeownership. The new team of specialist case managers will be able to focus on the remaining market renters, who now are only 9 percent of all tenants—tenants who, I might add, were taken on board mostly during the time of the National Government.

Phil Heatley: Why did the Housing New Zealand Corporation say a central file of illegal subletting had not been set up before now because such situations were extremely rare, and why has illegal subletting increased so much under this Minister’s watch that a central file is needed now?

Hon CHRIS CARTER: I remind the House again that that member, in spite of his allegations, is yet to front up with one single example. The corporation advises that cases of subletting are very rare, which is why I did not consider it a valid use of resources to have staff comb through all 67,000 tenancy files on a wild goose chase for that member. However, I have asked for records to be kept centrally in the future to give the public greater confidence. I remind the House again that such cases are extremely rare, and that that member has yet to front up with one.

Phil Heatley: Why did the Minister say that recent illegal occupations were “not isolated incidents”, and that similar issues “appear to be arising regularly around the country”; why are they arising regularly, by his own admission; and why are they increasing under his watch?

Hon CHRIS CARTER: We seem now to have moved from subletting to illegal occupations. Anybody who illegally occupies a Housing New Zealand Corporation house will be removed. Again, that is a rare situation, and the member fails again to produce any statistics. Perhaps he has been spending too much time having coffees with Nicky Hager.

Madam SPEAKER: I say to the Minister that that was totally irrelevant to the answer. I remind members who are asking supplementary questions that if they ask more than one question, they are unlikely always to get a satisfactory answer to all of them.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Has the Minister read the claim made by Mr Heatley in the newspapers that he knows of—and I quote him—“countless cases”; if that is the case, why has the Minister not done his job and written to, personally called upon, or emailed Mr Heatley to ask him for just a few examples in writing?

Hon CHRIS CARTER: That is an excellent question. Yes, I am still waiting for Mr Heatley to front up with a single example. Come on Phil, where are the statistics?

Phil Heatley: How bad have subletting rorts and high-income-earner rorts got, given that the Minister is now asking for a dedicated squad to “look into allegations of subletting”, and to set up “a central file listing all details of those found subletting their homes”; how bad has it got for this U-turn to happen?

Hon CHRIS CARTER: The member alleges he has had many examples given to him. All I can do is to ask the member to please give me one.

Phil Heatley: How many State homes is he hoping to free up for needy—[Interruption] Madam Speaker.

Madam SPEAKER: Well, members from your own party are causing the disruption at the moment. [Interruption] Yes, they are—the back row again. Please give Phil Heatley the courtesy of allowing him to ask the question.

Phil Heatley: Why is the Minister continuing to deny in this House that there is a subletting problem, when he has asked that a squad be engaged to “look into allegations of subletting” and for “a central file listing all details of those found subletting their homes”?

Hon CHRIS CARTER: The squad we are talking about is working with State house tenants who are paying market rents, to find them other pathways—either homeownership or private rentals—in order to free up our stock. Allegations have been made in this House about widespread subletting. I have not had any examples from Mr Heatley; I would welcome them. Any tenant who breaks the law will be dealt with accordingly.

Phil Heatley: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. How can the Minister possibly say that that squad and database are for high-income tenants, when I had to prove to the Clerk that the Minister had said clearly that the squad is to investigate subletting, and to keep a database of those subletting?

Madam SPEAKER: I have listened very carefully, and I think the Minister has addressed the issue several times.

Phil Heatley: I seek leave to table a statement made by the Minister—after a U-turn last week—that he has a squad looking at subletting, and is going to set up a database.

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

Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I ask you to have a look later today at the Hansard of that particular question exchange. My colleague Mr Heatley makes a very important point: we cannot get a question on the question sheet each day without our proving the veracity of the content of the question. The content of this question was about the Minister setting up a special squad, and the information provided to the Clerk was a quote from the Minister. It becomes an utter nonsense when a question like that is put down on the Order Paper, and has taken a lot of time, and the Minister comes in here and simply says the squad is not for that, and virtually says he did not say it. That is completely unreasonable, Madam Speaker. So I simply ask you to look at the Hansard of the exchange when giving your own response to Mr Heatley’s point of order.

Madam SPEAKER: Yes, I will, because I clearly recall the Minister saying that the squad was to include those matters. I will look at it, but I did distinctly hear that, because I had asked the Minister to address the question again.

Tonga—Inquiry into New Zealand's Relationship

10. Hon PETER DUNNE (Leader—United Future) to the Minister of Foreign Affairs: What steps has the Government taken to implement the recommendations of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee Inquiry into New Zealand’s relationship with the Kingdom of Tonga, presented in August 2005?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Minister of Foreign Affairs): The Government’s response to the recommendations of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee inquiry was tabled in Parliament on 3 February 2006. In most cases, where the recommendations were directed to the Government, it was considered that ongoing activity within the bilateral relationship met the committee’s concerns. In respect of the recommendation that the New Zealand Government support change towards representative democracy, the Government’s continued support for democratisation was affirmed, whilst recognising that the process was one that Tonga had to manage as a sovereign nation. The Government is working on a number of other recommendations, as well.

Hon Peter Dunne: With regard to the Government’s response to recommendation 16, relating to change towards representative democracy in Tonga, that it “supports this recommendation and is already taking steps to implement it”, what specific steps has the Government taken, and have they been accelerated in the light of recent events in Tonga?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: The New Zealand Government has been proactive in its support for peaceful democratic reform in Tonga. Along with Australia, New Zealand has supported financially the work of the National Committee for Political Reform, and we offered the services of a New Zealand mediator to assist with the public service strike last year. Our consistent position has been, however, that the pace and timing of reform must be determined by the Tongan people themselves. It is appropriate that the process of democratisation be handled by Tonga as a sovereign nation.

H V Ross Robertson: Could last Thursday’s riots in Tonga have been predicted?

Madam SPEAKER: I think that is a bit outside ministerial responsibility.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: I do not mind answering the question, because a so-called expert in Pacific affairs wrote just that the other day. I want to say that in the long history of protests and marches in Tonga, they have never ever been violent. In this case the march was one towards reform, happening in respect of a Cabinet that had not decided against reform but yet had risen for the day. It was not an event that we could predict—nor, I believe, could any others have predicted it, because if they did, then they did not tell any nation, including New Zealand, of the likelihood of it.

Hon Peter Dunne: Is the Minister satisfied that the current Tongan Government, led by the current Prime Minister, is acting in a way consistent with recommendation 16 of the select committee’s report regarding moves towards democratisation, and what steps is the New Zealand Government prepared to take to assist the Prime Minister and his Government achieve that objective?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: The facts are actually quite tragic, in the sense that we put together support for a reform inquiry. This was conducted by the prince who, tragically, died in San Francisco. That report came before the Tongan Parliament, I believe, in August, which is not a long time to assemble the findings from it. The Tongan Cabinet was deciding on that issue on the very day that the protest happened. I understand that certain demands were being acquiesced or agreed to when what began as a reform march all of a sudden turned quite ugly. Certain incidents that I cannot describe to this House suggest that certain planning was afoot—planning totally dissociated from the reform process—but it got out of hand.

Landfills—Prime Minister's Statement

11. NICKY WAGNER (National) to the Minister for the Environment: What, if anything, will he do to give effect to the Prime Minister’s statement at the Labour Party annual conference that “We can now move to … minimise, if not eliminate, waste to landfills.”?

Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE (Minister for the Environment): The goal of minimising, if not eliminating, waste to landfill is a long-term goal that aligns with the Government’s focus on sustainable development. Significant progress has been made, under the New Zealand waste strategy and the New Zealand Packaging Accord 2004, in minimising and diverting waste from landfill, and there is more we can do. Working in partnership with industry and local government to develop markets for recycled products, and supporting and strengthening product stewardship schemes are just two areas where we are currently focused.

Nicky Wagner: What does the Minister say to the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment’s comment that the Government’s failure to follow through on key actions of the New Zealand waste strategy “undermines the whole process of democratic engagement with Government”, with the result of a loss of confidence that “may raise questions about the Government’s commitment to the New Zealand waste strategy, and even to other strategies.”?

Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE: The 2-yearly review of the waste strategy will be completed shortly, and the Government will need to consider that review before deciding what other measures might be desirable to support the Government’s goal of sustainable development, particularly in the area of waste minimisation. Can I say that I, and other members of this House I am sure, welcome the current interest of the National Opposition in recycling.

Dave Hereora: What specific progress has been made to date with regard to waste to landfill?

Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE: In 1998 there were at least 209 landfill sites in New Zealand. Today there are just 60 landfill sites, and we expect another 10 sites to close within the next 18 months. By 2010 we expect to have reduced the total number of landfill sites to 43 quality, engineered locations. I can also advise the member that the volume of waste to landfill has decreased, on a per capita basis, since 2002. This is due, in part, to a substantial increase in the amount of material that is recycled. I acknowledge there is still a great deal to do, but we will continue to make good progress working in partnership with local communities and industry.

Nandor Tanczos: Does the Minister agree that the excellent Waste Minimisation (Solids) Bill, currently before the Local Government and Environment Committee, provides a package of measures to give effect to the Prime Minister’s statement, including provision for economic instruments—which was the subject of the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment’s report—and will the Minister be encouraging Nicky Wagner and the National Party to give effect to their new-found enthusiasm for waste minimisation by supporting my bill?

Madam SPEAKER: The second part of the question is not relevant, but the first is.

Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE: I am pleased to advise the member that the key principles of the Waste Minimisation (Solids) Bill do align with Government policy. In particular, the Government is supportive of the introduction of a legislative framework to back up or support industry-led product stewardship schemes, where that might be necessary or appropriate. The Government also supports the concept of a waste levy, to assist or improve waste minimisation initiatives. The member has conceded previously that some parts of his bill are overly prescriptive, and I agree with that view, but I look forward to seeing how the bill develops and progresses in the select committee process. Yes, I would certainly encourage members of the Opposition, including National members, to support aspects of the bill.

R Doug Woolerton: Is the Minister considering increasing levies and taxes on waste going to landfill?

Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE: I note the support of a substantial number of the industrial sector, and the overwhelming support of local government, for exactly that sort of levy.

Nicky Wagner: Why has that Minister’s ministry kept secret the October 2005 ministry report on packaging and recycling, which found this Government’s strategy to be useless, when the original research contract makes it plain that this document would be publicly released?

Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE: I am not aware of any document that the ministry has kept secret.

Nicky Wagner: What sort of leadership is the Minister’s ministry providing in meeting the Prime Minister’s goal of eliminating waste, when the ministry’s own figures show that waste has grown from 41 kilograms per staff member in 2003 to 101 kilograms per staff member in 2006—an increase of 250 percent in just 3 years?

Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE: I am very pleased with the ministry’s, and general Government departments’, compliance with the Govt3 programme. The member might be interested to know that, for example, in terms of packaging material across the country there has been a very substantial reduction in the amount of material that goes to waste.

Nicky Wagner: What sort of leadership is the Government showing on eliminating waste, when the annual reports published by Government departments total over 26,000 copies and, when stacked, exceed the height of the Beehive by four times; or is this just another case of the Government saying one thing and doing the opposite?

Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE: It is a substantially preferable leadership than that shown by submitting written questions asking how many pages are in such reports.

Nicky Wagner: How can the Minister seriously say that his Government can minimise, if not eliminate, waste to landfill, when the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment found that the ministry had made little progress in improving waste data, vital for evaluating the effect of current policies, that current legislation is acting as a barrier, and that an independent review is needed to oversee and report on the New Zealand waste strategy, giving his Government has made such appalling progress?

Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE: Easily.

Nicky Wagner: I seek leave to table the leaked internal Ministry for the Environment report—[Interruption]

Madam SPEAKER: I remind members that points of order are meant to be taken in silence. [Interruption] No, I warned before also.

Nicky Wagner: I seek leave to table the leaked internal Ministry for the Environment report of October 2005 showing that the Government’s waste strategy is flawed.

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

Nicky Wagner: I seek leave to table the Ministry for the Environment’s financial review of 2005, which promised a review of the New Zealand waste strategy by the end of 2006.

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

Nicky Wagner: I seek leave to table a press release from the Packaging Council of New Zealand admitting that there is not currently any consistency to the measurement of waste recovery across New Zealand.

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

Business of the House

Business of the House

Hon MARK BURTON (Deputy Leader of the House): Before we go into the Committee stage, I seek leave, following discussion between the whips, I understand, for Government notices of motion Nos 2 and 3, which are Government orders of the day Nos 2 and 3, to be taken as a single debate and to be followed by two questions.

Madam SPEAKER: Leave is sought for that course of action. Is there any objection? There is no objection.

Bills

Evidence Bill

In Committee

Part 1 Preliminary provisions

CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (National): I will take a brief call on Part 1, “Preliminary provisions”. There are about five points that I wish to make. The first deals with the definition of “document”. I am pleased that the Minister has proposed a Supplementary Order Paper to provide for a more general definition of “document”, because I always thought that the definition of “document” in clause 2 as drafted had the potential to be construed in a narrow manner. The definition contained in the Supplementary Order Paper is not quite the same as the definition of “document” in the equivalent High Court Rule, but I none the less think it is an improvement, and the National Party will support the Supplementary Order Paper in that regard. It is extremely important, in this kind of area, that there be a very clear and general definition of the term “document”.

The Justice and Electoral Committee has made a couple of other changes to the definitional clause. I refer simply in passing to the definition of the word “court”, the definitions of “investigative questioning” and “official questioning”, and the definition of “proceeding”—which, again, is not the same as that contained in the High Court Rules. But those definitions are of relatively minor importance in the overall scheme of things.

Clause 5 deals with the application of this legislation, and subclause (2), which was itself the subject of some minor amendments, makes the very important point that if there is any inconsistency between the legislation and any provisions of rules of court—being rules made by the High Court Rules Committee for the courts of New Zealand—then the provisions of this legislation are to prevail. Of course, there can be a clash, because the rules committee, which is mandated under section 51C of the Judicature Act to make rules governing the practice and procedure of the courts of New Zealand, sometimes makes not only rules of evidence but also rules of substantive law. Sometimes there will be an inconsistency, and this clause makes it clear that the legislation is to prevail.

It is important for me to refer to clause 6, which sets out the purpose of the Act, because the select committee made two changes, both of which are important. The first is the insertion of paragraph (ab). Clause 6 now states: “The purpose of the Act is to help secure the just determination of proceedings by— … (ab) providing rules of evidence that recognise the importance of the rights affirmed by the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990; …”. That theme will be developed in the Committee stage when, for example, we look at clauses like clause 26, “Improperly obtained evidence”.

The second provision we added to clause 6 was paragraph (e), which provides that another purpose of the legislation is to enhance access to the law of evidence. Some people said that there was no need for a bill; that the work of the Law Commission was in vain because the judges knew what the rules were and, by and large, the lawyers did; and that it could be left to the common law. But one of the reasons why I am so pleased this legislation is shortly to be enacted is that it will enhance access to the law of evidence.

I recall years ago going to a course in Boulder, Colorado. What was immediately apparent from that course was that the American lawyers always had with them for the purposes of the exercise the Federal Rules of Evidence. They knew those rules of evidence much better than, I think, New Zealand lawyers know ours. I think that New Zealand lawyers, and sometimes judges, do not know the rules of evidence well enough, and one of the reasons is that the laws of evidence are not easily accessible. So it is extremely important that this legislation be passed in order to make the law of evidence accessible.

I will make two points about clauses 10 and 12. Clause 10 deals with the interpretation of the Act, and it follows on from the point I have just made. This really is a major change to the law of evidence. As I said in my second reading speech, this bill is the first comprehensive, substantive reform of the law of evidence for 100 years. So it is important, after all the work that has been done by the Law Commission, the ministry officials, and the select committee, that the legislation itself will be the starting point for all inquiries. The existing common law will continue to remain, but, as clause 10(1)(c) states, only to the extent that the common law is consistent with the provisions of this legislation, and consistent also—importantly—with the promotion of its purpose and principles.

The second point that needs to be made concerns clause 12. I am sure that sometimes, as always happens, lawyers will find that this legislation does not cover everything, notwithstanding the fine work that has been done on it. Clause 12 deals with what is to happen where evidential matters are not provided for. Again, if one faces that situation, the courts will be able to make a decision on a particular question having regard to the purpose and the principles of the legislation set out in clauses 6 to 8 and, to the extent that the common law is consistent with the promotion of that purpose and those principles and is relevant to decisions to be taken, one must have regard to the common law.

So it is important that all lawyers and judges realise that when this legislation comes into force, it will be a new regime; it is not a question of this legislation tacking on to the common law a couple of new principles. The starting point for inquiry on any evidential matter will be the legislation, and the common law can continue to apply in the circumstances I have outlined.

The final point I will make about the Evidence Bill concerns clause 11. A couple of minor changes that have been made to it simply emphasise the point that the inherent jurisdiction of the court and the implied powers of inferior courts are not affected by the passage of this legislation, except to the extent that the legislation provides. Sometimes there will be situations where, for example, the High Court, in reliance on its inherent jurisdiction, will want to make a ruling in relation to a particular matter, and clause 11 provides that the powers of the court are not so affected. With those preliminary comments in mind on Part 1, I can rest my case and await to address the Committee on Part 2.

Hon MARK BURTON (Minister of Justice): I just want to take a brief preliminary call and thank the member Christopher Finlayson for his comments. He has covered the key issues of Part 1, including the relevant parts of the Supplementary Order Paper. As he indicated, although the Supplementary Order Paper generally has relevance to each part of the bill, and proposes essentially minor changes—correcting errors, omissions, and so on—his comments on this part relating to the definition of “document” are very much relevant. I take this opportunity to refer to what is, perhaps, the other significant part of the Supplementary Order Paper, which is in respect of Part 3 and refers to cross-examination of duties. Perhaps they are the two significant aspects of the Supplementary Order Paper.

I take the opportunity to echo comments made at an earlier stage. Firstly, I acknowledge the Law Commission’s good work over many years, and that of ministry officials. Most recently, and in particular, members of the Justice and Electoral Committee and the subcommittee, including the member who has just resumed his seat, have done outstanding work. That work is long overdue. It will serve the interests of simplifying and drawing together law of evidence into one place, effectively, from a functional point of view, and will certainly serve the interests of all New Zealanders over the years to come.

With those opening comments I look forward to continuing the progress of this bill through the House.

KATE WILKINSON (National): Thank you, Madam Chairperson, for allowing me to take this call. I must say that I am absolutely delighted to take a call on the Evidence Bill—on Part 1, in particular. I was interested in the explanatory note of the bill, which stated: “In 1989 the Law Commission was given terms of reference by the Minister of Justice to make the law of evidence as clear, simple, and accessible as practicable,”. As one who studied the law of evidence some 30 years ago, I have to say it was neither clear nor simple nor even very accessible, even in those days. Having not appeared in court for some 26 years, I have to say that the law of evidence is not really very much easier, either.

This bill has been a long time in the making. I too congratulate the subcommittee of the Justice and Electoral Committee on having the patience, the tenacity, and the ability to wade through the current evidence complexities and to tie them into a comprehensive, codifying, and hopefully simpler bill.

To reiterate on the current situation, and by way of introduction, evidence law is largely judge-made, and the statutory provisions that deal with evidence are contained in a number of statutes. Evidence law has been reformed on a piecemeal basis since about 1908, and issues have been responded to reactively as they have arisen. The explanatory note of the bill was rather descriptive: “The Evidence Bill brings the current mosaic of case law and statute into one comprehensive regime.” This bill’s fundamental principle is that all relevant evidence is admissible unless there is some reason to exclude it—for example, if it is irrelevant, if its probative value is outweighed by its prejudicial effect, or if it would needlessly prolong any proceedings.

It is indicative of the complexity of this area, firstly, that my colleague Mr Finlayson finds it so intriguing, but, secondly, that the Law Commission spent a decade reviewing aspects of evidence law, publishing discussion papers, and seeking the views of those involved with the justice sector. This legislation is hugely technical, but it is also hugely important, and it is pleasing to note that it has been dealt with in a non-partisan way.

I turn to Part 1, which is one of the shorter parts. Mr Finlayson has already mentioned some of the definitions in the interpretation clause. The definition of “document” will hopefully be amended by Supplementary Order Paper 79. The new definition is fairly self-explanatory. It will include any material, whether or not it is signed or otherwise authenticated, that bears symbols, images, or sounds, or from which symbols, images, or sounds can be derived. The point about definitions is that they have to be able to foresee what is happening in the future. With technology advancing as quickly as it is at the present time, the definition of “document” does have to be very, very wide. It has to take into account future technology. In that regard, the Supplementary Order Paper will amend the definition of “document” to include information that is electronically recorded or stored, and information derived from that information.

One of the cornerstones of evidence law is, of course, the hearsay rule. That is included in the interpretation clause and further referred to in clause 17, which comes under Part 2. The basic rule and fundamental premise of evidence is under clause 7. Subclause (1) states: “All relevant evidence is admissible in a proceeding except evidence that is—(a) inadmissible under this Act or any other Act; or (b) excluded under this Act or any other Act.” Subclause (2) is the corollary: “Evidence that is not relevant is not admissible in a proceeding.” There is further provision, in clause 9, that evidence that is not otherwise admissible, may be admissible by consent of the parties.

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 79 in the name of the Hon Mark Burton to Part 1 be agreed to.

Amendments agreed to.

Part 1 as amended agreed to.

Part 2 Admissibility rules, privilege, and confidentiality

CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (National): This is a very large part and it raises a number of issues, so I hope to be able to take a couple of calls. The first provisions of Part 2 deal with hearsay evidence. This is consistent with my theme that the bill amounts to a new dawn in the law of evidence. These provisions are contentious, and were the subject of a number of submissions to the Justice and Electoral Committee.

For example, the Criminal Bar Association was opposed to the new hearsay rules. Members of the association thought that the provisions were wrong in principle and unworkable in practice. They did not think that the admission of hearsay should be expanded further than the exceptions that are currently recognised, and they thought that the bill would create uncertainty. Certainly, some of those comments were replicated in other submissions made to the select committee. Officials from the Ministry of Justice disagreed with them, and so did we.

We note that the Law Commission stated in its report that the overall purpose of the hearsay provisions is to simplify and rationalise the law in civil as well as in criminal proceedings, and that the hearsay rule should operate to exclude evidence only if there are sound policy reasons for doing so. That, really, is at the very heart of it. Clause 18 provides that, henceforth, hearsay will generally be admissible if: “… (a) the circumstances relating to the statement provide reasonable assurance that the statement is reliable; and (b) either—(i) the maker of the statement is unavailable as a witness; or (ii) the Judge considers that undue expense or delay would be caused if the maker of the statement were required to be a witness.”

Members should note that there are some changes to the rules from what was contained in the bill when it was originally introduced to the House. The first change, contained in clause 18A, deals with the admissibility of hearsay statements in business records. Following on from submissions, we have gone back, essentially, to the equivalent provision in the Evidence Amendment Act (No 2) 1980.

The second change, which is contained in clause 18B, picks up a couple of the High Court Rules that deal with hearsay, or statements of belief, in certain circumstances. In civil proceedings, hearsay statements and documents related to interlocutory applications, interrogatories, or discovery will be admissible, provided that grounds are given. It is appropriate that those sorts of rules are contained in the Evidence Act and are not simply contained in the High Court Rules or their equivalent.

Clause 18C is a better formulation of what the consequences are for a defendant who does not give evidence in a criminal proceeding and whether that person may offer his or her own statement. Clause 19 provides for a bit of a tidy-up of the requirements of the notice of hearsay in criminal proceedings.

We take the view that these are good changes, that they change the emphasis of the law of hearsay, and that they are workable. We have gone through them very carefully and we disagree with the Criminal Bar Association’s view that they are unworkable. On the contrary, we say that as the legislation is given time to work out in practice, these provisions will be shown to be sensible and achievable rules.

Next I will address the issue of expert evidence. This is an extremely important question. Clauses 22 and 22A deal with the issue of expert evidence. As a general rule, under the existing law, opinion evidence would be inadmissible unless it came from an expert, and clause 22(1) provides for exactly that. It states: “An opinion by an expert … is admissible if the fact-finder is likely to obtain substantial help from the opinion in understanding other evidence in the proceeding …”.

But it is fair to say that in recent years many proceedings have suffered in terms of cost, and in terms of time and delay, because of what is often referred to as the battle of experts. It is clear law that the expert is not someone who goes into bat for his or her client, but someone who has a duty to the court. That is a very important issue; the person is there to assist the court in reaching its decision. Over the years, regrettably, both in New Zealand and overseas, there have been problems with expert evidence where the expert, rather than recognising that primary duty to the court, has become, as it were, a soldier in the army of a particular party.

As a consequence, both in New Zealand and overseas, there is increasing dissatisfaction with expert evidence and witnesses because, either consciously or subconsciously, they slant their testimony in favour of the party who retains them. There is a perception that in many cases the trial process does not afford a reliable means of adjudicating between groups of what could be called biased experts, and the judges who seek the assistance of these people find that the experts say exactly contrary things. Bearing in mind those concerns, that it why it is important that the select committee has included clause 22A, “Conduct of experts in civil proceedings”, in the bill.

Some years ago the Rules Committee of the High Court introduced a code of conduct for experts. Before a person could give evidence as an expert, that person would be required to sign a document indicating that he or she had read and understood what was expected of himself or herself in the proceeding. Essentially, expert evidence witnesses had to understand the sorts of things I have just been talking about. We have emphasised the importance of this principle by suggesting that clause 22A be enacted in this legislation, and that “experts are to conduct themselves in preparing and giving expert evidence in accordance with the applicable rules of court relating to the conduct of experts”.

Those rules will be re-enacted when the High Court Rules are updated in the next few months, and that code of conduct will continue to apply. But we have put this provision into this bill in order to recognise that there has been dissatisfaction with the behaviour of experts and to emphasise, through this legislation, that experts are expected to conduct themselves to a standard and to know just where their loyalty is to lie.

The next point I will touch on briefly is clause 26, which is an important clause dealing with improperly obtained evidence. As I said in the second reading debate, during the course of our consideration of this clause we had to consider what, if anything, was to be done about the Judges’ Rules. The Judges’ Rules were originally drawn up by the judges of England and Wales and, as I said in the second reading, they were imported into New Zealand many years ago. As we were looking at clause 26 and the possible applicability of the Judges’ Rules, it became apparent that no one really knew which Judges’ Rules were still in force in New Zealand, particularly given the passage of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990. No one could tell us that or give us a definitive set of those rules.

So it is quite clear that the time has come for the Judges’ Rules to be updated in the light of the passage of this legislation and in the light of recent developments such as the passage of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. That is why we referred to it in the commentary. We had considered incorporating the Judges’ Rules into the bill, but we thought that there were constitutional and logistical reasons why we should not. However, we noted the advice from the judiciary, who have assured us that a practice note of current guidelines on the matter will be issued before the commencement of the new Act.

The next part I will deal with—I can whip over some of the other parts reasonably quickly—

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I sure hope so!

CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON: I would have thought that the Minister of Foreign Affairs, as a former lawyer, would be riveted by this sort of stuff. I am disappointed that he is not. Subpart 8 deals with privilege and confidentiality, and there are just a couple of points I want to emphasise—I will certainly speak on the definition of “legal adviser”. We played around with that definition to a certain extent. It not only means a lawyer, but also can mean a registered patent attorney or an overseas practitioner, as that person—[Interruption] Is that my second or my third call, Madam Chairperson?

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): Third; you can have another one.

Hon Mark Burton: Times flies when you are having fun.

CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON: Time flies when you are enjoying yourself. “Overseas practitioner” has also been defined, and I will not go into that definition in any detail.

There are a couple of other matters about Subpart 8 that I would mention. The first concerns clause 54. I mention it, not because there were any great submissions on it, but because there were no submissions on it. However, we decided to retain the privilege for communications with ministers of religion. As the report of the select committee stated, we had a good look at that provision and wondered whether the definition was actually rather too narrow, because in the old days “minister of religion” was a tolerably clear term, but it may not be broad enough to cater for all theological groups in modern society. However, we thought that if we were to broaden the definition set out in subclause (2), we ran the risk of exposing the privilege to abuse. There was some debate about whether this clause should be retained and, if not, whether the general rules on confidentiality would apply, but we decided against making any changes to the provision because we thought we might upset too many people.

Finally, I will mention the privilege against self-incrimination. One interesting issue that arose was whether the privilege against self-incrimination should be available to body corporates. This matter was the subject of a number of submissions to the committee. Having given a lot of thought to the issue, and having borne in mind some submissions that said it should apply, we decided it should not apply. The privilege does not apply in Australia, Canada, and the United States. I think it still applies on a fairly limited basis to corporations in the United Kingdom. But we took the view that the privilege is an individual or a personal right and that it is designed to protect the human rights of an individual. Although an individual company director or officer of a company could rely on the privilege in an appropriate case, we decided that it should not be available to the corporation.

The only other thing I want to say is about clause 59. As originally introduced, the clause dealt with the replacement of privilege in relation to Anton Piller orders. We have broadened that out—as members can see—in the proposed new clause 59, so that it applies not just to Anton Piller orders but also in relation to other types of mandatory disclosure orders in civil proceedings.

Part 2 is a very large part, but I think we have dealt very fairly with the issues. I have tried to deal with the key issues as they have arisen and, as I say, the select committee was pretty happy with the end product.

KATE WILKINSON (National): I rise to speak to Part 2 of the Evidence Bill. It certainly is the more meaty part of the bill and deals with matters of admissibility rules, privilege, and confidentiality, much of which has been already covered by my colleague Mr Finlayson. In relation to Subpart 1, which deals with hearsay, we commonly know hearsay as testimony or documents that quote persons who are not actually present in court, because the person, who supposedly knew the facts, is not in court to state his or her exact words. Therefore, the trier of fact, if you like, cannot judge that person’s demeanour or the credibility of that witness; and, importantly, the other party’s lawyer cannot cross-examine him or her. So we have a basic rule that hearsay statements are not admissible at all, unless and except as provided.

Clause 18(1) is specific as to when hearsay statements are admissible. They are “admissible in any proceeding if—(a) the circumstances relating to the statement provide reasonable assurance that the statement is reliable; and (b) either—(i) the maker of the statement is unavailable as a witness; or (ii) the Judge considers that undue expense or delay would be caused if the maker of the statement were required to be a witness.”

Mr Finlayson covered clause 18A in respect of hearsay statements that may be admissible when contained in business records. The reason for this exception is fairly self-explanatory, which is that business records are generally thought to be reliable. They may even have been independently audited. If they are accepted as reliable, then significant savings in time, costs, and court time may be made, rather than the person having to show that each statement in every business record satisfies that reliability test. Clause 18A(1) specifies: “A hearsay statement contained in a business record is admissible if—(a) the person who supplied the information used for the composition of the record is unavailable as a witness; or (b) the Judge considers no useful purpose would be served by requiring that person to be a witness as that person cannot reasonably be expected … to recollect the matters dealt with in the information he or she supplied; or (c) the Judge considers that undue expense or delay would be caused if that person were required to be a witness.”

Subpart 1 also differentiates between the rules for civil and criminal proceedings. Clause 19, “Notice of hearsay in criminal proceedings”, inserts new Subclause 1AA, which provides that no hearsay statement may be offered in evidence unless there has been notice. So there are notice requirements. Clause 19(1) provides that a party who proposes to offer a hearsay statement in a criminal proceeding must provide every other party with a written notice stating the party’s intention to offer the hearsay statement in evidence; and the name of the maker of the statement, if known. That notice must also be accompanied by a copy of the document in which the statement is contained. There are a few other bits and pieces that relate to hearsay statements in criminal proceedings.

In looking further through these subparts, I see that Mr Finlayson has more than adequately, and eloquently, covered them. He has covered Subpart 2, “Statements of opinion and expert evidence”. I have to say that Mr Finlayson is certainly more of an expert in evidence matters than I am or ever will be. Clause 20 relates to opinions, which is a bit like the hearsay provision. A statement of an opinion is not admissible in a proceeding, except as provided for under this part of the Evidence Bill.

Clause 21, “General admissibility of opinions” states: “A witness may state an opinion in evidence in a proceeding if that opinion is necessary to enable the witness to communicate, or the fact-finder to understand, what the witness saw, heard, or otherwise perceived.” Clause 22, “Admissibility of expert opinion evidence”, states: “(1) An opinion by an expert that is part of expert evidence offered in a proceeding is admissible if the fact-finder is likely to obtain substantial help from the opinion in understanding other evidence in the proceeding or in ascertaining any fact that is of consequence to the determination of the proceeding.”

Subpart 3 deals with defendants’ statements, improperly obtained evidence, silence of parties in proceedings, and admissions in civil proceedings. Clause 24, “Exclusion of unreliable statements”, relates to criminal proceedings, not civil proceedings. There is a new subclause (2): “The Judge must exclude the statement unless satisfied on the balance of probabilities that the circumstances in which the statement was made were not likely to have adversely affected its reliability.” Clause 25 provides for the exclusion of statements that are influenced by oppression. Subclause (1)(b) states that the judge must exclude the statement unless satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the statement was not influenced by oppression.

Clause 26 relates to improperly obtained evidence in criminal proceedings, and that evidence must be excluded. The court in determining whether the evidence should be excluded, can have regard to a list of matters, including the importance of any right breached by the impropriety and the seriousness of the intrusion on it; the nature of the impropriety; the nature and quality of the improperly obtained evidence; the seriousness of the offence; whether there were any other investigatory techniques not involving any breach of the rights that were known to be available but were not used; whether there are alternative remedies to exclusion of the evidence that can adequately provide redress to the defendant; whether the impropriety was necessary to avoid apprehended physical danger to the police or others; and whether there was any urgency in obtaining the improperly obtained evidence. So that is a fairly conclusive list to have regard to.

Subpart 5 deals with the veracity and propensity rules. Clause 36, “Propensity rule”, basically means evidence that tends to show a person’s propensity to act in a particular way or to have a particular state of mind, being evidence of acts, omissions, events, or circumstances. Again, a party may offer that propensity evidence in either civil or criminal proceedings about any person.

Subpart 8 deals with privilege and confidentiality, and certainly there is legal privilege, legal confidentiality, and trust accounts, and such records are privileged. Communication with legal advisers is privileged, if the communication was intended to be confidential and made in the course of, and for the purpose of, the person obtaining professional legal services, or the legal adviser giving such services to the person. It is always interesting to note, in relation to this privilege for legal communications, that it does not actually extend to communication with financial advisers, tax advisers, and accountants but relates only to those professional legal services.

As I said earlier, Part 2 is the more meaty part of the bill. Its clauses will probably be the most thumbed through in due course—not by me, I would have to say. National certainly supports Part 2 of this bill.

NANDOR TANCZOS (Green): I rise to speak to Part 2, and there are a couple of things that I would like to touch upon. Some of them I did briefly address during my second reading speech, but I would like to touch on a couple of points in more detail and on some other matters that I have not already covered in this debate.

The first point, which has been covered to some degree by previous speakers, is around issues such as the exclusion of unreliable statements. The Justice and Electoral Committee made a unanimous recommendation to change subclause (2) of clause 24 so that it now states: “The Judge must exclude the statement unless satisfied on the balance of probabilities that the circumstances in which the statement was made were not likely to have adversely affected its reliability.”

I think it is important that that clause is read in conjunction with clause 118, “Judicial directions about evidence which may be unreliable”. In that clause, if a judge is of the opinion that any evidence given may be unreliable, then the judge may warn the jury of the need for caution in deciding whether to accept the evidence or deciding the weight to be given to it.

But in a criminal proceeding tried with a jury, under clause 118(2), the judge must consider whether to give a warning under the subclause I have just referred to whenever certain evidence is given. That includes evidence of a statement made by the defendant to another person that was made while both the defendant and the other person were detained in prison, in a police station, or in another place of detention, among other things. I think that that is important.

That particular subclause was inserted by the select committee—again, unanimously—because of the deep concern that many New Zealanders have around the issue of cellmate confessions. There are cases in this country that currently cause concern, where that has been an issue. We felt that ensuring that the judge must consider whether to give a direction in those cases was appropriate, just to ensure that the jury would bring its mind to bear on the question of reliability around cellmate confessions.

I turn to clause 26, “Improperly obtained evidence”, and again I did touch on this in the second reading. Subclause (2) states: “The Judge must—(a) find, on the balance of probabilities, whether or not evidence was improperly obtained;”—if there is a suggestion that it has been—“and (b) if the Judge finds that the evidence has been improperly obtained, determine whether or not the exclusion of the evidence is proportionate to the impropriety, by means of a balancing process …”. That issue was the subject of some discussion, because if we are looking at, particularly, breaches of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, a balancing act already goes on in deciding whether there has been a breach of that Act. So the fact that there should be a further balancing act to determine whether excluding the evidence is proportionate was an issue of some discussion.

Of course, again, as I indicated in the second reading, this is all predicated on the Shaheed decision and the discussions around that, and whether codifying that decision was what Parliament should be doing. Certainly, my view is that it is not the way to go. When we look at the issue of excluding improperly obtained evidence, there are two purposes for doing that. The first one is to remedy a breach of the rights involved, and there are other ways that those breaches can be remedied. Clause 26(3) states, with regard to this matter: “(f) whether there are alternative remedies to exclusion of the evidence which can adequately provide redress to the defendant:”.

The other issue is the sanction on the agencies of the State. One of the concerns is that if there is no adequate sanction on the agencies of the State, then there is a temptation for the State to continue to breach the rights of accused persons with impunity because there is no real sanction against it. There is an argument that a civil case can be taken, but anyone who has had the experience of having their rights being breached by the police, for example, will know that that is a fairly strong call to make. Most people—particularly the most marginalised and powerless in society, who are most likely to be subject to such breaches—are often not in a position to take those civil cases. So that is where the exclusion of evidence is an important sanction on the police and other agencies of the State.

Clause 26(3) provides that in deciding whether the exclusion of evidence is proportionate, “… the court may, among any other matters, have regard to the following: …”, and it talks about the importance of the right breached, the seriousness of the intrusion upon it, the nature of the impropriety—whether it is deliberate, reckless, or done in bad faith—the nature and quality of the improperly obtained evidence, and the seriousness of the offence. It also included, in particular, whether the evidence is central to the case of the prosecution. We felt very strongly that that was inappropriate. The seriousness of the offence might be a relevant factor. If someone is charged with a very serious, heinous offence and a technical breach of his or her rights leads to the exclusion of evidence, which means that the person is acquitted, then there is a justice issue there and the injustice of it will be very apparent to the public mind.

But whether the evidence is central to the case of the prosecution is another matter entirely. Regardless of whether we are talking about a minor traffic offence or a serious violent offence, to my mind the fact that the prosecution relies on that evidence to get the conviction makes it even more important that we exclude it, otherwise we create this enormous temptation for the investigating agencies to deliberately breach rights because that is the only evidence they will get. I think that it should weigh in the opposite direction. In any case, the select committee resolved to remove that particular part, and I am very pleased that we did so.

Subpart 6, “Identification evidence”, caused us some discussion because we heard that identification evidence is often the least reliable kind of evidence in court. So the bill provides for formal procedures to be developed and used when providing for identification evidence. Previously, clause 41(2) stated: “If a formal procedure is not followed by officers of an enforcement agency in obtaining visual identification evidence of a person alleged to have committed an offence and there was no good reason for not following a formal procedure, that evidence is inadmissible in a criminal proceeding unless the prosecution proves on the balance of probabilities that the circumstances in which the identification was made have produced a reliable identification.”

The select committee changed the burden of proof in clause 41(2) from being “on the balance of probabilities” to “beyond reasonable doubt”, and changed “the circumstances in which the identification was made have produced a reliable identification.”, rather than that the circumstances “were likely to” produce a reliable identification. I think just strengthening up that provision was important, because if there is no good reason for not following a formal procedure, then the procedure should be followed. It is as simple as that. If there is any doubt that not following a formal procedure may lead to a reliable identification, then of course we must exclude that evidence, given the intrinsic unreliability of this kind of evidence. If we were to allow it, again there would be the temptation for agencies simply to forgo the formal procedures because they do not produce the evidence that they want.

One of the provisions that was not changed because there were no submissions on it, if I remember correctly, was protection of journalists’ sources, which is quite curious, given that the media is often very quick to point out these matters. But, nevertheless, we thought that the protections in the bill were adequate for journalists who have promised an informant not to disclose his or her identity, to make it not compellable for them to provide that information. A judge of the High Court may order that that protection be overruled in the public interest, but it is a fairly high hurdle, so we thought that those protections were basically sound. But, as I say, we thought it unusual that no submissions were heard on that.

The other issue that I would like to touch on finally is around evidence of jury deliberations. The select committee, again unanimously, made a recommendation. Previously, clause 72, “Evidence of jury deliberations”, stated: “A person must not give evidence about the deliberations of a jury concerning the substance of a proceeding unless, and only to the extent that, the Judge is satisfied—(a) that the evidence tends to establish that a juror has acted in breach of the juror’s duty; and (b) in the circumstances of the particular case the public interest in protecting the confidentiality of the jury deliberations is outweighed by public interest in avoiding or remedying any possible miscarriage of justice.”

Clause 72 has been changed to: “(1) A person must not give evidence about the deliberations of a jury …”, and that: “… does not prevent the giving of evidence about matters that do not form part of the deliberations of a jury, including (without limitation)—(a) the competency or capacity of a juror; or (b) any conduct of, or knowledge gained by, a juror that is believed to disqualify that juror from holding that position.” It makes a clear distinction between the deliberations of a jury, and other matters. It is quite right that there should be the ability to provide evidence if the competency or capacity of a juror is at question, or if a juror’s conduct or knowledge means that he or she should be disqualified. That evidence should be available to be looked at.

But we have also included, in clause 72(3), that: “(3) [Subclause (1)] does not prevent a person from giving evidence about the deliberations of a jury if the Judge is satisfied that the particular circumstances are so exceptional that there is a sufficiently compelling reason to allow that evidence to be given.” This is important, because jury decisions are pretty much considered sacrosanct within the criminal justice system. But we thought it was also important that, in exceptional circumstances—and this would not be something that would be widely used—those deliberations should be able to be subject to some examination, again because of the real concern that currently exists in the public and among some members of this House around some convictions that continue to cause disquiet in people’s minds.

So although there have been some interesting recommendations made about agencies that we might set up to review those cases that raise concerns around miscarriages of justice, I think those recommendations should be looked at very seriously by this Parliament. We thought that just allowing in these exceptional circumstances for jury deliberations to be subject to some scrutiny was an important and useful thing.

That is a taste of just some of the things we covered in the select committee. Some of the things we covered were well outside my expertise, and I am still not sure I fully understand what an Anton Piller order actually is, although we spent many hours discussing that. Nevertheless, I think the select committee did a good job and I also welcome the Minister’s Supplementary Order Paper.

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 79 in the name of the Hon Mark Burton to Part 2 be agreed to.

Amendments agreed to.

Part 2 as amended agreed to.

Part 3 Trial Process

Hon MARK BURTON (Minister of Justice): I will take just a brief call. I referred in my earlier remarks to the Supplementary Order Paper’s reference to clause 88(1), dealing with cross-examination duties. As I noted then, this is perhaps the other significant matter dealt with in the Supplementary Order Paper, along with the minor technical changes, etc. It has been amended effectively to include explicitly in subclause (1) that the duty to cross-examine arises when there are significant matters that are relevant and in issue, that contradict the evidence of the witness, and that the witness can reasonably be expected to give admissible evidence on. I think it is fair to say that the requirement added by this amendment will prevent the party who is cross-examining from having to ask questions about which there is actually no dispute. It is arguable that this requirement is implied already in the clause, but I think the amendment clarifies, and therefore prevents, any possible argument about the scope of the duty of the clause.

CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (National): I am happy to follow on from the Minister, the Hon Mark Burton, on this issue, and to say that we agree with Supplementary Order Paper 79 in his name. Perhaps it is worth spending a little time on this issue, because it is incredibly important. Clause 88 deals with cross-examination duties. When I looked at the Supplementary Order Paper I also went back and looked at my notes and at the very helpful materials provided by the ministry to the Justice and Electoral Committee, because this matter had been the subject of a number of submissions—for example, from the New Zealand Law Society. The ministry noted that the bill is intended to reflect existing law in practice. It clarifies that the duty is limited to questioning a witness about those parts of the cross-examiner’s case that contradict the evidence of the witness.

It is important to note that the bill and the New Zealand Law Society agree as to the scope of the clause, but just disagree on how to express it. That is why this clause has been through various permutations. Everyone is agreed that the current law is that any counsel has a duty to put his or her client’s case to a witness who is called by the opposing party. The rule is designed to ensure trial fairness. If the court, particularly—and this is often called the rule in Browne v Dunn—is to be asked to disbelieve a witness, the witness should be cross-examined. Cross-examination of witnesses in this manner is intended to ensure that the witness is able to address and explain such evidence, and that the other party is able to call evidence against any contradiction. So it ensures that battle is joined on key evidential matters. I think it is fair to say that everyone was in agreement about what the current law is and what the Act should say, but it became a question of terminology. I know that late last week a number of concerns were raised about whether the formulation that the select committee reached really did do the job properly or, as the Minister said, possibly gave rise to a number of concerns. That is why the wording has been changed, so we are very happy to go along with that.

That issue is probably the most important one that needed to be addressed in Part 3, which deals with trial process, but there are a couple of other matters in this part that I want to address. Subpart 1 deals with eligibility and compellability. Initially there was going to be no clause about bank officers and the evidence that they are sometimes required to turn up and produce: banking records, bank statements, old cheques, and those sorts of things. But having heard the submissions from various interested parties, we decided to include a new clause 70A. All that does is to insert the provision set out in section 47C of the current Act into the bill. It provides that bank officers cannot be compelled to produce banking records.

An important discussion ensued over clause 71 as to whether persons who are in a close relationship with a defendant should be excused from giving evidence. We gave a great deal of thought to that particular issue, and, having heard from various submitters, we concluded that this clause, which allows persons in a close relationship with the defendant to be excused from giving evidence for the prosecution, should be deleted. I think the report of the select committee sums up the considerations. We recognise that sometimes for people in this position there can be grave difficulties and great problems when they come to give evidence against someone with whom they are in a close relationship. But those concerns were outweighed by, first, the danger that the absence of compulsion would give even greater encouragement to complainants to decline to give evidence because of, for example, intimidation or guilt at giving evidence against members of their family; secondly, the arbitrariness of determining what constitutes a close relationship, which is a difficult definitional issue on occasion; and, thirdly, as the report says, the anomalous consequences that would flow from the hearsay provisions.

I can assure the Committee that that clause was the subject of a great deal of consideration and advice from the special adviser, Mr Fisher. At the end of the day, we decided that it should go.

Hon Harry Duynhoven: Why would we not have bank records made available?

CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON: Bank records will be available, in answer to the member for New Plymouth. The issue is whether a bank officer should be compelled to turn up in court, or whether those records can just go in as part of the record, for example. However, if a question arose, for example as to whether the record had been altered, or if there was some other kind of special reason, clause 70A provides that a contrary order may be made by a judge.

The next issue on compellability that I wish to address, very briefly, is that of the evidence of jury deliberations, and Mr Tanczos has addressed that point very well. Again, I say it is intended—for the benefit of those who may be nervous about the passage of clause 72—that the bill should reflect the current law. Evidence regarding matters outside the deliberations, such as matters regarding the competency or the conduct of a juror, should be allowed. Other kinds of evidence will be allowed if the test—and it is a very, very stringent test—set out in subclause (3) can be satisfied. I doubt whether many cases at all will come into the exceptional category.

I do not intend to talk about Subparts 2 or 3, but I want to say something about Subpart 4, which concerns the questioning of witnesses. Again, it was the subject of submissions, particularly from the Bar Association. Clause 79 sets out the basic rules about the way that evidence is to be given. As subclause (1) says, the ordinary way for a witness to give evidence in a civil proceeding, for example, is orally—viva voce, as it is called—in a courtroom in the presence of a judge and a jury, if there is one.

Some questions have arisen in recent years about the practice on the provision of what are called written briefs of evidence, which was first developed about 20 years ago and has become an established procedure of both the High Court and the District Court. In order to speed up court proceedings, rules now provide that within a certain time the plaintiff and the defendant are to file and serve on the other side briefs of evidence—written statements of what they are going to say. Then, when it comes to the trial, they will read out those briefs of evidence, sometimes answer questions orally on any supplementary matters, and then be made available for cross-examination. But it is fair to say that the practice, although it has some advantages, adds large costs to litigation. It is also an unfortunate by-product of the practice that sometimes—and I have seen this myself—when people give evidence in court, it is apparent that they are reading their statement of evidence for the first time or that their lawyer has drafted the brief of evidence for them. That is an odious practice, and it needs to be stamped out.

It is because of the cost and the delay factors that two representatives of the Bar Association appeared before the select committee and submitted that the current practice about written briefs in civil cases should be abolished, and that in civil cases we should go back to viva voce evidence. In other words, the person should simply stand in the witness box and give evidence orally. I imagine that, given the passage of time since the development of the written briefs procedure, most lawyers would be incapable of leading evidence in that way. Hopefully, when this legislation has been passed and lawyers learn what the rules are, we may be able to get an improvement in the standard in that area, but, certainly, I have my doubts at the moment about that.

What is the purpose of my statements about those matters? It is really to address subclause (2) of clause 79, because although we say that the rules governing written briefs are within the purview of the Rules Committee—and indeed the Rules Committee is looking at the issue now—none the less it is an important point to emphasise in the legislation that any affidavit or written statement can be permitted in evidence, but that it has to be the personal statement of the deponent or maker and must not contain a statement that is otherwise inadmissible under the legislation. I think that should serve to remind practitioners that when they are doing these things—the briefs of evidence—the evidence is to be that of their witness, and they are not to prepare statements of evidence based on what they think the witness may think the evidence is. That kind of practice, as I said, is odious and needs to be stamped out.

It is fair to say—and I hope the Rules Committee will look at this—that for some years written statements have also been tendered in Australia as evidence-in-chief, but that many judges require oral evidence to be led in chief on selected issues such as, for example, those where credibility is an issue or may be decisive, as in the case of disputed conversations. So in Australia a statement is tendered with parts dealing with important credibility issues struck out, and then leave is given to lead oral evidence on the struck out parts. What happens in New South Wales, for example, is a hybrid approach. It is thought to combine the time-saving advantages of written briefs with the need to see and hear the witness on important credibility questions. I hope that in New Zealand we end up with that kind of procedure, as well.

Those are the points I wanted to make. I have dealt with clause 88 and with witnesses’ briefs. The rest of Part 3, dealing with trial process, is largely unexceptional and essentially enacts what is currently the law.

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 79 in the name of the Hon Mark Burton to Part 3 be agreed to.

Amendments agreed to.

Part 3 as amended agreed to.

Part 4 Evidence from overseas or to be used overseas

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 79 in the name of the Hon Mark Burton to Part 4 be agreed to.

Amendments agreed to.

Part 4 as amended agreed to.

Part 5 Miscellaneous

CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (National): Having bored the Committee silly on Part 3, I will be very brief on Part 5. There is only one clause I want to address: clause 194A. An important issue arose in the select committee. The issue was how, once the legislation has been passed, we will ensure that it is kept up to date. That is an important factor, bearing in mind the legislative history of the Evidence Act, which was first enacted in 1908 then amended three or four times. The last real substantial amendment to the Evidence Act 1908 was the Evidence Amendment Act (No 2) of 1980. So periodic review of this kind of legislation raises important questions. Given the huge amount of work that has been done by the Law Commission over the years and, more recently, the excellent work by the ministry, it is important to ensure that the new legislation is kept up to date. On the other hand, we do not want to see regular amendments as soon as there has been a case on a particular aspect. In other words, the legislation will need to have time to settle down.

That is why we discussed how we would best go with periodic review and who should do it. I will briefly address that second question first: should it be the Law Commission, which was responsible for preparation of the report; should it be the select committee; or should it be the ministry? We took advice from the Law Commission and from the ministry. As a consequence of that, we decided that the appropriate body for this legislation would be the Law Commission. The next issue is how frequently it should be reviewed. Clause 194A(1) answers that question: “as soon as practicable after 1 December 2011 or any later date set by the Minister by notice in the Gazette,” and thereafter on at least one occasion during each 5-year period following that date the Law Commission will consider this legislation.

I commend this bill to the Committee as a good model for post-legislative review. I am not saying that it should be all legislation, but, certainly, with this kind of legislation we do not want those finicky amendments that sometimes bedevil legislation. It will be good for the body that authored the reports that gave rise to the legislation to look at this legislation after it has been in operation for 5 years, and in a principled way go through the various provisions to see whether the sorts of innovations we have been talking about this afternoon actually work and, if they do not, what changes need to be made. So I simply say that it is a good and workable clause, and it will enable this very important area of the law to be kept up to date, not in a piecemeal or an episodic fashion but in a principled way.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 79 in the name of the Hon Mark Burton to Part 5 be agreed to.

Amendment agreed to.

Part 5 as amended agreed to.

Schedule 1 agreed to.

Schedule 2

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 79 in the name of the Hon Mark Burton to schedule 2 be agreed to.

Amendments agreed to.

Schedule 2 as amended agreed to.

Clauses 1 and 2

CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (National): I think I have really said my bit and will therefore be very brief. I do acknowledge the huge help of the ministry officials. I think Chelly Walton and Boris van Beusekom have done a superb job working with the Justice and Electoral Committee, as has Robert Fisher QC. I think the legislation that is about to emerge from the Committee is a good piece of work, and that work was done in a bipartisan way by various representatives of parties in this Chamber. So I am delighted that the bill has come through in this shape.

I have no doubt at all that in due course amendments will be needed, but I sincerely hope for the Minister’s and the ministry’s sakes we have not made any howlers in the body of the legislation such as will necessitate an urgent amendment bill before the end of the year. If that is the case, I certainly do not intend to be around. I simply emphasise that this is new legislation—

Hon Harry Duynhoven: All care and no responsibility.

CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON: All care and no responsibility, as Harry says—which is fair enough. I simply emphasise that once the bill is passed it will be a new day, and I certainly hope the passage of this legislation will result in us seeing a real raising of standards in the High Court.

It was interesting when I asked a member of the Legislation Advisory Committee in the select committee whether he thought the standard of knowledge of the law of evidence was particularly good in this country, and he said that, no, it was not. This legislation gives the practitioners and the judges a chance, really, to master the rules of evidence. They will have the key rules of evidence available to them in a coherent form and readily available, and in my opinion there will be no excuse for not ensuring that standards rise. That in itself will help the just, speedy, and efficient dispatch of both civil and criminal proceedings.

I recall being in the gallery many years ago when I was watching the passage of the Evidence Amendment Bill (No 2) and listening to Sir Geoffrey Palmer go on about such cases as Hollington v Hewthorne, and so on. The debate on that bill all those years ago covered only three or four matters, whereas this bill covers a huge variety of matters. So I am delighted it is about to be passed, and I must emphasise the huge contribution made by the Minister’s officials and the very pleasant and productive team that worked on this bill.

Hon MARK BURTON (Minister of Justice): I echo the sentiments of the member who has just resumed his seat. Indeed, we should again put on record the outstanding work undertaken by the officials. But that work did add to the decade-long, as one member referred to earlier, work of the Law Commission.

It is interesting, as Chris Finlayson just noted, that Sir Geoffrey Palmer not only featured in the House’s earlier efforts in this area but, as President of the Law Commission, continues to feature as we progress this legislation. I believe, as I said earlier, that by drawing together common law and statutory provisions into one comprehensive scheme, and dealing with many of those ambiguities and inconsistencies that have accumulated over many years, the law book is being well served, notwithstanding the member’s warning to us all that as a new day begins, with it comes new opportunities to add confusion!

But I think this measure is a good example of the benefit of this institution and the others I have referred to working at their best. The Justice and Electoral Committee and its subcommittee considered what was already, I think, a substantial and good piece of work. In my view, the further amendments they made to it improved it. I think that we have before us the best efforts of many good minds and intentions, and that we are the better for it. I look forward to taking a call in the third reading of the bill in the not too distant future and seeing it enacted.

Clause 1 agreed to.

Clause 2 agreed to.

Bill reported with amendment.

Report adopted.

Appointments

Representation Commission

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: As agreed earlier, Government notices of motion Nos 2 and 3 will be debated as one.

Hon MARK BURTON (Minister of Justice): I move, That, pursuant to section 28(2)(e) of the Electoral Act 1993, this House nominates Hon David Francis Caygill, of Christchurch, to represent the Government, and Hon Roger Morrison Sowry, of Paraparaumu, to represent the Opposition, to be appointed as members of the Representation Commission.

Further, I move, That pursuant to section 28(3)(b) of the Electoral Act 1993, for the purposes of determining the boundaries of the Māori electoral districts, this House nominates Whetumārama Weretā, of Lower Hutt, to represent the Government, and (Terrence) John McEnteer, of Wellington, to represent the Opposition, to be appointed as members of the Representation Commission.

The Representation Commission is the body charged under the Electoral Act 1993 with determining the number of electoral districts in New Zealand and fixing their boundaries. Section 28(2)(e) provides that two persons shall be appointed as members of the commission for the purposes of determining the boundaries of the general electoral districts, one of those members being nominated to represent the Government and one to represent the Opposition. Section 28(3)(b) provides that for the purposes of determining the boundaries of the Māori electoral districts, two persons shall be appointed as members of the commission—again, one of those members being nominated to represent the Government and one to represent the Opposition. Appointments to the Representation Commission are made by the Governor-General by Order in Council on the nomination of this House of Representatives.

I shall speak briefly to the nominees. Mr Caygill has served two previous terms on the Representation Commission. He is a former senior Cabinet Minister and served six terms as a member of this House. Mr Caygill is a lawyer by profession. Mrs Weretā has served three previous terms on the Representation Commission. She has a background in research, and is currently general manager of the Māori statistics unit of Statistics New Zealand. Mr Sowry commenced as Chief Executive of Arthritis New Zealand in September 2005. Prior to this, as members will know, he spent 15 years as a member of Parliament, holding numerous responsibilities that included being Associate Minister of Health from 1997-98, Minister of Social Welfare from 1996-99, and National Party spokesperson on health from 2001-03. Finally, Mr McEnteer runs a consultancy practice specialising in environmental resource management, Treaty of Waitangi issues, and business development from a dual cultural perspective. He has strong links to Tainui, and has held a number of directorships and trusteeships, including being an executive member of the Federation of Māori Authorities and chairperson of a Coromandel-based trust.

ANNE TOLLEY (National—East Coast): I rise to speak to the motions on the Order Paper today. This process of course, as the Minister has just said, is required under the Electoral Act. The Representation Commission is known colloquially, I guess, by MPs and the public as the boundaries commission. There is a huge amount of interest taken in the work of that commission, both here in Parliament by MPs, because we are directly affected by it, and of course by the wider general public, who are also affected by it. It determines the electorate they can vote in, and the member of Parliament they can support or elect.

The commission is charged with the responsibility of setting down the boundaries for the next general election, and by law we are required to have two representatives nominated—one nominated by the Government and one nominated by the Opposition. There is also a requirement for two Māori reps, one from the Government and one from the Opposition. When people are nominated to the commission, political knowledge and experience are extremely useful to commission members. Although at all times they must be detached from the political process, if they have some knowledge of how it works it makes their job easier.

When forming electoral boundaries, commissioners have to take many factors into consideration. Communities of interest are particularly relevant and, in general, those communities that have those interests in common form a more cohesive electorate. For an MP to be able to cover an electorate or, more important—to put it the other way around—for members of the public to be able to readily access their elected representatives, is significant in the process. I want to spend a bit of time on that in the discussion here tonight.

My electorate, the East Coast, is I think the largest geographical area for an electorate in the North Island. My colleague Shane Ardern and I debate as to who has the larger electorate, but they are both considerable. Of course, there are some extremely large ones in the South Island. It makes it extremely difficult for an MP to adequately cover the territory. My colleague here Phil Heatley, who represents an electorate up in the Northland area, agrees that it makes it very difficult for members of the public to be able to pop along to their local MP when they have a problem or issue.

Phil Heatley: And I have to run Housing New Zealand.

ANNE TOLLEY: Ha, ha! I think that, particularly in rural areas where we are seeing a decline in population, the concern is that the commission takes into account the practicality of the size of some of those electorates. My electorate, the East Coast, has two quite distinct population bases. The larger, of course, is Gisborne, but there is also the growing town of Whakatāne. That means one has to spread oneself across a large area, and the difficulty that members of the public have expressed to me is that one MP can be in one place at only one time. That makes it hard for MPs to give adequate service to their populations. So when commission members come to look at those areas where in particular the rural population is declining, I ask them to pay attention to the practicality of geographical size in relation to the communities of interest those populations have.

A detailed knowledge of each electorate on the part of commission members would also be of valuable service. Much of the work they do is technical, and we rely on their having accurate demographic data. Again, I come back to areas like mine. I was talking to someone who had been involved in census collection over a number of years, who is absolutely adamant that on the last census night there were at least a thousand people from the local area missed from the statistics. They were up alleyways, out in the bush, or for various reasons did not want the State to know that more than one or two people were living in their houses. There are a whole variety of reasons why we do not get an accurate count. Again, we need the members of the commission to have an understanding of some of the communities in these electorates when they come to set the new boundaries.

I think the members of the commission need to understand political processes as part of looking at how electorates function. Both the Opposition’s nominations, I am confident, have the experience and knowledge to contribute admirably to the process. Mr John McEnteer was first appointed by National in 1997. He is well respected, and he brings to the process that good, ongoing understanding of what is happening with population movements and the developments of electorates.

The Hon Roger Sowry, a former colleague, is of course of the highest integrity, and he has extensive experience in business, politics, and community service. He was elected as an electorate MP for Kapiti in 1990, and in 1996 became a list MP, so he has that varied knowledge of the work of MPs. He has also been a junior whip, a senior whip, a Minister of very large-spending departments—the Department of Social Welfare and the Department of Work and Income—and he has also been the deputy leader of the National Party. His political experience covers a wide range of knowledge.

Phil Heatley: He reached giddy heights.

ANNE TOLLEY: “He reached giddy heights.”, my colleague to my left says. I do not want to comment on the Government’s appointments, Mr Caygill and Whetumārama Weretā. The latter is unknown to me, but both are very experienced in this process. My position is that the Government side should appoint its representatives, and we of the Opposition should appoint ours. So I commend Mr John McEnteer and the Hon Roger Sowry to the House as Opposition representatives on the Representation Commission.

PETER BROWN (Deputy Leader—NZ First): I think that the two nominees for the Representation Commission are really a reflection of first past the post. It is about time we came to terms with the fact that this is an MMP Parliament, and the representation on such committees should reflect that. There are eight parties in this Parliament, but if we listened to the member who has just resumed her seat we would think there were only two. I have to say that that goes for Government members also; they speak as if it were a Parliament made up of just National and Labour.

We are quite upset by the fact that smaller parties are not even considered in this issue. Names of representatives come up. The member went into the background of the people she is supporting. They have been around for so long—well before MMP came into being—that they are entrenched in first past the post and are not representatives of this Parliament as they should be. It is all very well for the member to say they have a good understanding of the political process, but, first and foremost, Parliament had better start understanding. Those two particular parties, Labour and National, had better start understanding that this is MMP. Like it or lump it, it is MMP. Smaller parties here should have some sort of say in who represents them.

We are so concerned about this that we have written to the Prime Minister. We would like this issue addressed. We would like it addressed now, but I guess that is unlikely. We are certainly concerned enough that we want it addressed before the next Parliament.

I do not know what else to say, except that New Zealand First will be opposing this. I am hopeful that all the small parties will be opposing this. The Māori Party has four Māori seats, but the representative for, supposedly, the Opposition is an MP for National, which has never won a Māori seat in its life.

Phil Heatley: Is that true?

PETER BROWN: If it has, it was years and years and years ago. The Māori Party has been totally ignored.

We think this is not the way forward. We think this is just being entrenched in the past, and we are hopeful that the Labour Government will take our concerns to heart and try to rectify the situation. New Zealand First will oppose both these motions.

HEATHER ROY (Deputy Leader—ACT): ACT New Zealand also will oppose both of these motions. A couple of months ago, much was made of the fact that in New Zealand we have had a decade of MMP—10 years of proportional representation. In fact, in many situations in this Parliament we still have an overhang of the old first-past-the-post system. The Representation Commission—or the representation on it from this House, in this regard—reflects exactly the fact that in many ways we have not moved on from first past the post to a proper MMP system.

In December 1986 the report of the Royal Commission on the Electoral System was released. It recommended that “each of the parties in the House of Representatives should have its own representative on the Representation Commission, to be appointed by the Governor-General on the nomination of the House. Such representatives should not be members of the House and should not have the right to vote at meetings of the commission.” As is often the case, however, this recommendation seems to have been lost in the history of time, and it was never implemented. What we have today is not reflective of the way this Parliament should be under MMP. Certainly, the way the Representation Commission appointments are made is not in line with MMP.

Appointments—one each for the Government and the Opposition—place a burden on those appointed, who need to apply the wisdom of Solomon when looking at boundaries and representation for our Parliament. Not only is that unfair on the small parties in this Parliament but it is also unfair on the two nominees, one from the largest Government party and one from the largest Opposition party. The burden on those people of representing what should be the whole Parliament is clearly unfair. That is unfair to the two people who have been nominated, because their appointment will promote the electoral interests of two parties only: the National Party and the Labour Party. When eight parties are represented in Parliament, I contend that that is a very unfair situation, indeed.

The system affords the other smaller parties direct representation in the House but, in fact, the commission has nothing approaching that. Smaller parties like ACT have won electorate seats—ACT, of course, has had Wellington Central in the past and now holds the seat of Epsom. United Future holds a seat, New Zealand First has held a seat, and the Māori Party holds electoral seats. Despite the fact that we should have the right to have our views represented fairly on the commission, our views, for the most part, are well and truly ignored.

This system needs to be reviewed very quickly. It needs that because we pride ourselves on having very fair political representation in this country, but in this regard we do not. ACT proposes—and I believe that many of the other small parties agree with this view—that, at the very least, the small parties should have a representative of their own on the commission. This means that National would have one representative, Labour would have one, and the small parties jointly would have one. If that is not palatable, we contend that nobody should have a representative—or, at least, that those representatives should not carry a vote on the commission. So there are two choices that would be much fairer than the present system. Certainly, we are not prepared to stay silent any longer and pretend that we have a fair system. We will be writing to the commission and suggesting those two options. We will suggest, firstly, that the small parties share a representative—and I believe that we have the support of the other small parties in this Parliament to do so. Secondly, if the commission feels that is unfair, we will suggest that there should be no representation from any party, so that officials can look in an unbiased way and make the decisions that, at the moment, only two parties—the major parties in this Parliament—can contribute to in any fair or meaningful way.

For that reason, ACT New Zealand will not be supporting either of these motions. We feel that the unfairness of the situation is paramount. This really is no reflection on any of the people who have been nominated. I am sure they are all very good people and have the best of intentions, but the unfairness of the situation that presently exists is the overriding consideration in this debate. For that reason, ACT will oppose both these motions.

NANDOR TANCZOS (Green): The Greens are very pleased to be standing in solidarity with other small parties to say that we oppose these two motions, just as the Green Party opposed last year the nominations of David Caygill and John Isles to the Electoral Commission. We consider that it is just not tenable in the 21st century in New Zealand—which has a proportional representation system of Parliament that comprises eight political parties, which has had minority Governments for the last three terms, and in which there is the very strong likelihood that we will continue to have minority Governments for the foreseeable future—to retain a system whereby Labour and National get to appoint nominees on bodies such as the Representation Commission, and other parties have no representation whatsoever.

The fact that the National Party seems to be unable to get the reality of MMP, as evidenced by its election campaigns, simply highlights the problem that we and other members have already spoken about.

In those circumstances, how can having one political representative of the Labour Party and one of the National Party on the Representation Commission possibly be appropriate or just? How can representatives of the two dinosaur parties possibly represent anything other than dinosaurs? It is just not possible. We believe that it is just not tenable to allow this situation to continue. For that reason, as I have said, the Greens oppose these two motions.

Just to reiterate a point that Heather Roy made, this is not in any way to question or impugn the integrity or ability of the nominees. We are not attempting to do that, at all.

This is simply about the position. However, it is an exacerbating factor that both David Caygill and Roger Sowry were first-past-the-post politicians. Their experience of electoral matters has been wholly, or largely, conditioned by that bygone system. So that just makes it even more difficult for those people to represent the small parties in an MMP environment. That may not be true of the nominees for the Māori electoral boundaries, Whetumārama Weretā and John McEnteer. Nevertheless, their positions remain untenable for the reasons that have been outlined by myself and other members.

How can a representative put up by the National Party properly represent the Opposition in this Parliament? The Opposition is not just the National Party, of course; it includes the ACT party and the Māori Party—never mind how those people can possibly start to represent parties like the Greens, which is abstaining on confidence and supply. Of course, in an even worse situation are the parties involved in confidence and supply agreements with the Government, such as the Progressives, New Zealand First, and United Future. A Labour Party nominee cannot represent either those parties or the rest of us—it is just not possible.

So the Green Party opposes political representatives on electoral bodies like the Representation Commission and the Electoral Commission. We join voices with the other small parties to say that it is time to come up to date and realise we are in an MMP environment—a proportional representation Parliament—and that these kinds of cosy first-past-the-post-arrangements between Labour and National simply cannot continue. We will vote against these two motions.

Dr PITA SHARPLES (Co-Leader—Māori Party): The motion nominating Whetumārama Weretā and John McEnteer to represent Government and Opposition on the Representation Commission is a topic of much debate amongst tangata whenua. Tangata whenua have long held a view about the unique status of tangata whenua representation within the New Zealand democracy. This status is underpinned by three essential values: first, our status as tangata whenua people indigenous to Aotearoa; second, tribal leaders of Māori nations entered into an agreement with the Crown in 1840—Te Tiriti o Waitangi—that marked the beginning of constitutional arrangements in this land; and, third, the recognition of the special constitutional status accorded to Māori by virtue of the four parliamentary seats since 1867.

But the constitutional status needs to have life breathed into it by the quality of the representation delivered. The motion today is one means of achieving that quality. Members of this House will recall a report of the Royal Commission on the Electoral System, Towards a Better Democracy, which was produced 20 years ago. In that report the committee noted the overwhelming support of Māori submitters for retaining separate Māori representation as a measure of self-determination—mana motuhake—and the demand for formal recognition of Te Tiriti o Waitangi and all its protections and rights that it guarantees. The report suggested that these claims were not an end in themselves but rather the most effective means to ensure the cultural survival of Māori. Therefore, the question we consider today as being of the utmost importance concerns the ongoing protection of the rights and interests of tangata whenua. But we have to ask whether it is fair that these rights and interests are to be put forward by two people to represent the Government and two people to represent the Opposition, as members of the Representation Commission.

In the case of the Māori electoral seats in particular, is it not strange that the party that holds a majority of Māori electoral seats did not have a particular influence in the appointment process for the commission? We know that part of the difficulty for this Parliament is that our very existence is not one that falls into line with either black or white, left or right, or Government or Opposition thinking. We have always been proud of our position as the independent Māori voice in Parliament. The party accords particular priority to our relationship with tangata whenua, and, in this fashion, to enable the expression of rangatiratanga, along with the kāwanatanga partner.

We support the position put forward by New Zealand First that representation must mean something about moving forward and recognising we are no longer in the days of first past the post. This is particularly so when we look at the impact that Māori political representation has had in both of the largest parties. National, which has four Māori members included in a caucus of 48, has consistently denied the value of the Māori electoral seats. Labour’s Māori MPs have recently voted against the principles of Te Tiriti, and even more recently have introduced a fresh new concept of confiscation—the Crown stratum.

In 1993 Māori voted for MMP by a much higher margin than others. The MMP—mixed-member proportional—voting system provided an opportunity to make progress in the path towards tino rangatiratanga, or self-determination, through the means of indigenous political representation. The quest for the political emancipation of Māori has been one that Māori have looked to since the advent of MMP, as well as looking to the mechanism of the Māori electoral option to hold as a restorative right to be heard. Yet, as recently as last year, we have seen that the path to political equality has been fraught with obstacles. One needs only to turn to the report of the United Nations special rapporteur to recognise that honour and justice have not yet been accorded to the Māori voice.

The United Nations report recorded compelling evidence that historical and social processes that systematically disadvantaged Māori, such as colonisation, discrimination, and racism, were deep-seated in the nature of New Zealand society. It was as a result of Professor Stavenhagen’s observations on the ongoing political marginalisation of Māori that he made the following recommendation: “The Treaty of Waitangi should be entrenched constitutionally in a form that respects the pluralism of New Zealand society, creating positive recognition and meaningful provision for Māori as a distinct people.”

We have heard that around town, in various faculties and law firms, rumbling moves towards constitutional debate are being held behind closed doors. The Māori Party is here today to say that this debate is a vital one in our evolving maturity as a State, and that the State must respect the rights of iwi nations to be fully involved in those discussions.

I return to the issues raised by New Zealand First, which challenged the motions on the grounds that they do not represent the full range of political parties, and the diversity of representation that has already been envisaged and, indeed, was established through the introduction of MMP. I make it clear today that although we support the challenge raised by that party, the Māori Party absolutely endorses the two Māori members who have been nominated to represent the Government and Opposition on the Representation Commission.

Whetumārama Te Rangiita Weretā has a legendary reputation in presenting a voice for effective Māori political participation. She was instrumental in the work behind the Picot report in 1988, and provided vitally needed critique about the status of Māori in the reformed educational environment. In 1994 she was part of Te Aho Matua o Te Ture, a standing Māori committee, alongside Bishop Manuhuia Bennett, Judge Michael Brown, and Professor Mason Durie, that advised the Law Commission on the “development of a bicultural framework for the law in New Zealand”. She has also had her fair turn in the bureaucracy, as manager of Māori language services, whether it be Te Puni Kōkiri or as general manager for Māori statistics at Statistics New Zealand.

Meanwhile, John McEnteer has made a huge contribution across every sector of Māori development, including fisheries, Māori land, the Federation of Māori Authorities, Mighty River Power, the Capital and Coast District Health Board, and the Department of Social Welfare. Alongside Whetumārama he possesses unique and specialist skills in his background on the Representation Commission. It was John McEnteer also who described the special rapporteur’s report as an “insightful and intelligent report”, a report that is wide ranging, and displays a good understanding of the situation. He understands only too well, as, indeed, does Whetumārama, the hard work ahead that is required to achieve true political representation.

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

Dr PITA SHARPLES: Between Monday, 3 April and Wednesday, 2 August 2006 tangata whenua were given the opportunity to choose to be either on the Māori electoral roll or on a general electoral roll when they vote in the next two general elections. Dr Rawiri Taonui has described the Māori electoral option as a success for Māori political aspirations. Dr Taonui described the additional 14,900 voters on the Māori roll as showing “a clear trend towards a greater sense of self-determining political empowerment by Māori.” This is a level of Māori political momentum that every day provides us, the Māori Party, with a burning desire to do the best we can to defend Māori rights, and advance Māori aspirations, in the best interests of the nation.

It is not, however, reflected in the tight two-party Parliament of yesteryear. We join with all smaller parties in challenging the notion of a Representation Commission that does not represent MMP. We will vote against the second motion, as we believe that it represents the constraints of a first-past-the-post mentality in reserving one seat each at the decision-making table for a former Labour and a former National MP, at a table supposedly to represent all. We will, however, support motion No. 3 in the interests of an independent Māori voice in the House, and in our desire to shape a destiny in which Māori political representation will truly honour justice.

Hon PETER DUNNE (Leader—United Future): United Future joins with other parties in this House in opposing these two motions. The suggestion that we have one representative representing the Government, however that is defined, and one representing the Opposition, however that is defined, is anachronistic. It is out of time and out of place, and, frankly, we should have nothing more to do with it. In the longer term the solution may well be to have no political representatives on the Representation Commission. But if that is too big a step to take, United Future would certainly support the proposition that has been advanced that there be one representative to cover the Government, one for the Opposition, and one for the smaller parties, as well. The suggestion at the moment that just the two major party representatives can cover the interests of six other parties is, frankly, preposterous. It is arrogant to assume that that can be the case. I say that with no disrespect to the individuals who are involved; they are placed in a difficult, if not an impossible, position.

The absurdity of this situation was highlighted by some discussions that took place earlier, when this motion was first contemplated, about the status of both New Zealand First and United Future. As parties in confidence and supply agreements with the Government, were we to be covered by the Government nominee, or were we free to choose whom we would be covered by? I understand that even the advice of the Crown Law Office was sought to clarify that point. The problem is really one of trying to fit square pegs into round holes, and it highlights how absurd the situation has become.

I can recall periodic outbursts over the years, when these types of debates have taken place. About 10 years ago a debate took place when the then leader of ACT, Richard Prebble, ourselves, and one or two other parties—I think New Zealand First, as well—joined forces over appointments to the Electoral Commission on precisely the same basis as this. I even recall—and you, Mr Assistant Speaker, will, as well—back to somewhat before the advent of MMP, when the then small parties in the House, who were the Alliance, United, and, I think, New Zealand First, came together to oppose the design of the ballot paper by the two major parties because it was being orchestrated to the major parties’ advantage. So what we see tonight is one more attempt by the old club to do things its way. Frankly, that time has long passed us by.

The smaller parties will not win the vote on the motions tonight; the two old parties will ensure that they prevail. But the message should be loud and clear. When we have parties as diverse as the five parties who will vote against the resolutions all saying that this system of representation is unacceptable and that the time for change is nigh, then it behoves both the Government and the major Opposition party to listen to them, and to ensure that when we next vote on the Representation Commission’s membership in about 5 years’ time, the law has been amended to address these concerns. I am pleased to stand alongside the other parties that are opposed to these motions this evening and to indicate that we will also vote against the motions. We do this in the confident expectation that this will be the last time we do so, because by next time the message will have been received and the law changed to provide for more flexible, proper, and adequate representation.

A party vote was called for on the question, That, pursuant to section 28(2)(e) of the Electoral Act 1993, this House nominates Hon David Francis Caygill, of Christchurch, to represent the Government, and Hon Roger Morrison Sowry, of Paraparaumu, to represent the Opposition, to be appointed as members of the Representation Commission.

Ayes 99

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

Noes 21

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

Motion agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That pursuant to section 28(3)(b) of the Electoral Act 1993, for the purposes of determining the boundaries of the Māori electoral districts, this House nominates Whetumārama Weretā, of Lower Hutt, to represent the Government, and (Terrence) John McEnteer, of Wellington, to represent the Opposition, to be appointed as members of the Representation Commission.

Ayes 102

New Zealand Labour 50; New Zealand National 48; Māori Party 3; Progressive 1.

Noes 18

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

Motion agreed to.

Bills

Energy Safety Review Bill

In Committee

Part 1 Amendments to Electricity Act 1992

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): Part 1 is clauses 3 to 39. The debate includes schedule 1.

PHIL HEATLEY (National—Whangarei): Members will know that the National Party is supporting this bill. This was not our position at the beginning, when the Government first introduced the legislation to the House. That was because we, as a team, were somewhat disappointed to be hounded up and down the country in our electorate offices—from as far north as Kerikeri, in John Carter’s electorate, to as far south as Bill English’s electorate of Clutha-Southland—by plumbers, gasfitters and drainlayers who were concerned that they had been incorporated into the legislation that Harry Duynhoven had introduced without any consultation whatsoever regarding the technicalities and specifics of their industry. They were absolutely appalled at this. The first they had heard of changes to their industry—changes to the standards they practised under, changes to the framework they trained under as tradespeople; all those issues addressed in this bill—was when the legislation hit the Table in this House.

So National opposed the first reading, because of insufficient consultation with plumbers, gasfitters, and drainlayers, because of the appropriation of standards setting—we felt it was inappropriate at that time—and because of a lack of assessment of additional costs and the impact on the availability of skilled tradespeople. Believe it or not, the original legislation included gasfitters, drainlayers, and plumbers—they have been set aside from the bill we are considering tonight—as well as those working in the electricity industry. The standards were so absurd, in terms of training and professional development, that they baulked at it, knowing first of all the waste of their time that would ensue, and also the costs that would be rammed home to them. Fortunately, changes were made. The initial bill removed the registration of plumbers, electricians, and other trades, and, at the time, National argued the importance of keeping registration, and we were fortunate to have the bill changed at that point so that we could keep the registration of those tradespeople. It was a major win for all those involved.

It was one of the rare occasions when people came to constituency offices of members of Parliament—from John Carter in the north through to Bill English in the south—put an issue on the table, and the National MPs came to Wellington and brought about a change. In this case, people came back to us and thanked us personally for the work we did. Occasionally Harry Duynhoven does work in his electorate office, too, and he will find that it is not often that people come back to thank their members of Parliament for the work they have done. But I can say that plumbers, drainlayers, electricians, gasfitters, and all those involved in the trades included in the original legislation made the effort to come back to National members of Parliament to thank us very much for the changes we had brought about, to say that they were generally happy with the legislation before us now and looked forward to our speeches in the House, and to ask us to please support this legislation. Of course, the National Party does support this legislation.

That brings us to Part 1, which we are discussing this evening. I would like to spend some time on the definitions within Part 1, and my colleague from the West Coast, Chris Auchinvole, will deal with other issues of substance further on in Part 1.

First of all are issues to do with the term “serious harm”. I note that the Commerce Committee members thought it prudent not to put the definition of “serious harm” in subsidiary regulation. Instead, they decided to strike that out, and to put the definition of “serious harm” occurring in the energy sector—harm to, perhaps, electricians or others affected in the course of their work—into the primary legislation.

The legislation states that “serious harm” includes death. It will come as a surprise to members that the select committee decided that death falls into the category of “serious harm”! It is no surprise to me. Of course, illness or injury that results in someone “receiving medical treatment from a health practitioner who is, or is deemed to be, registered” with an appropriate authority constitutes serious harm. It is also an “injury that necessitates the person suffering the injury—(i) being admitted to hospital;”. Harry Duynhoven, the Minister in charge of the bill, in his wisdom had decided that “serious harm” would also be defined as death. So if someone died, serious harm had happened to that person. We in the National Party support that. I do not think we had to take that to our caucus. We agree that that would be the case. That is one definition that needed to be changed, and I think it was wise to bring that into the legislation, rather than put it into regulation, to make it clear that “serious harm” is indeed significant harm.

Secondly, there is the issue of applicable minimum standards for licensing. This means the minimum standard for the class of licence in question, and that comes under new Part 10, in clause 12. The National Party argued quite strongly on behalf of tradespeople that the licensing regime that Harry Duynhoven had dreamt about would not be the best way forward. Gasfitters, plumbers, drainlayers, and those in the electricity sector, whom this bill addresses, wanted to retain registration. Registration as a builder, a plumber, or a gasfitter is widely understood amongst the public as having some significance. The Associate Minister wanted to introduce licensing, and there was some confusion, even amongst those in the trades, as to what that would mean and how it was different from registration. Registration is very much part of society and there is understanding of it. There are registered nurses, registered medical practitioners, and, now, registered engineers because of the work of our predecessors in this Parliament. People understand what registration means. So issues in the definitions to do with licensing were struck out. That shows the shift back to registration, which the National Party fought for, and we certainly support the select committee pushing that through.

Part 1 also addresses accidents and the danger that can occur in the energy sector when tradespeople do their job incorrectly, or without the knowledge or skills required. There was some concern originally that this bill should focus substantially on safety—hence its title. Issues in clause 8 relate to the notification and investigation of accidents: how that is to be carried forward, how information regarding an accident that has occurred is recognised and catalogued, and, obviously downstream, what can be learnt from that accident so that it does not happen again. There are also issues about how we deal with a situation where work that an electrician has done causes a danger to someone. The danger may be to the electrician himself or herself, or an unsafe environment may be created that is a danger to all those involved, whether they are working as electricians or are members of the general public. Those issues are also addressed in the bill.

Clause 12 deals with restrictions on electrical work. Section 74 is headed “Restrictions on doing or assisting with prescribed electrical work”. The original section 74 that the Associate Minister introduced stated: “(1) A person must not do any prescribed electrical work, or assist in doing any prescribed electrical work, unless that person—(a) is authorised to do so under a licence …; and (b) does so within the limits prescribed by regulations.” Again, that has changed.

Dr PITA SHARPLES (Co-Leader—Māori Party): The Māori Party will support the Energy Safety Review Bill, but I have an amendment on the table to omit Subpart 2, “Employer licences”, from Part 10, “Registration and licensing of electrical workers and employer licences”. This amendment was suggested in the public submission of the Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union to the Commerce Committee. The Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union is New Zealand’s largest trade union, representing some 50,000 workers in 10 industries, including 2,500 who work in the electrical industry.

Currently the Electrical Workers Licensing Board can issue practising licences to individuals and employers. We do not support the board being able to issue employer licences whereby employers can hold a practising licence on behalf of their workers. That compromises both workers and the public. It is important to have highly trained people that fellow workers can absolutely rely on. It gives workers confidence to know that their colleagues are properly trained and hold their own individual practising licence, rather than knowing the licence is held by the employer. Business costs and skill shortages mean that employers may use less trained, less experienced people, putting the other workers and the public at risk. Workers do not have faith in allowing companies to self-regulate.

The intent of this bill is to ensure the safety of workers and of the public. Employer licences potentially compromise the safety of both.

CHRIS AUCHINVOLE (National): I rise to join my colleague Phil Heatley in speaking to support the Energy Safety Review Bill. Part 1 explains the significance of the purpose, and it is, I would suggest, extraordinarily important. It affects not just the 38,333 electrical workers in this country, or the 20,099 registered electricians, but every household, every business premise, and, indeed, anywhere that benefits from the provision of light and power supplied by electricity—as long as, of course, the generation and transmission systems are still extant. The bill is about the assurance that members of the public can have that the electrical workers are competent to undertake work that electricity and gas supply systems provide, and that they do not put people at significant risk.

In speaking to Part 1 of this bill I feel it is significant to spend a little time to reflect on new section 1A. Part 1 clearly states that the bill is amending the principal Act, the Electricity Act of 1992. The reason why this all came about is contained in the initial commentary, but, in essence, it was to align the regulations governing electricity workers to those of gasfitters, and it also incorporates plumbing and drainlaying in turn, because the regulations cross-refer from time to time. So that Act needed changing. The present Government tried to do it all in one hit. Frankly, it did not really work, and we had speakers covering the detail of that last week, so I will not go over the ground again.

But I am delighted to say that the Commerce Committee was a wonderful committee to be part of. National had to, I think, come to the rescue of the bill and of the industries involved. One could say that we largely saved the day, and no doubt my parliamentary colleagues from the other side will graciously confirm that when they speak to the bill as well. I am sure they will. It was a bill on which everyone worked hard with their shoulders to the wheel.

The bill seeks to provide the public and individual members of the public with an assurance of safety in matters electrical. That this is necessary is borne out by the experience of anybody who has been obliged to move around the country a bit in pursuit of their career. In my own case I have had a number of shifts, and on each occasion bought a house that needed what real estate agents call “TLC” or tender loving care. In every case when we moved in, after we had fixed the foundations and re-roofed, we found that there were electrical faults and we had the house rewired. It is an expensive business.

In one house that we had, and I am not suggesting that it was done within legislation of any sort, the previous owner had clearly done the wiring himself. The electrician we engaged explained the consequences of the cowboy operation that had been performed. He demonstrated that the system was unable to cope with the amount of electricity being drawn through it, and that the result was that the old-fashioned fuses would have blown frequently. He then said: “I’ll show you what they do then.” We moved to the fuse box. He removed the fuses and showed the thickness of the wires that had been used to replace the original frequently failed wire. I am not suggesting it was number eight, but gosh it was not much narrower than No. 12 or No. 14 gauge.

Hon Harry Duynhoven: Ha!

CHRIS AUCHINVOLE: It really was, Harry, it really was! The consequence, the electrician explained, was that we could easily have had a wiring failure in the wall cavities or the ceiling cavities, which would have caused a fire with disastrous consequences; it was an old kauri house.

I agree, of course, that for an unqualified person to wire a house was no more legal then than it is now, but it did happen. How vulnerable the public are when that sort of thing occurs. I was extraordinarily grateful, and continue to be grateful to the dedication of skilled tradespeople who ensure that everything is done in a safe way. Electricity is a service and a skill that cannot be other than best practice.

Hon HARRY DUYNHOVEN (Associate Minister of Energy): I would like to thank colleagues who have spoken, for their support for the bill and for their positive comments. Can I say that it is a little unfortunate that the speaker who spoke immediately before me was referred to as “erstwhile” by his good friend and colleague Phil Heatley. I think “erstwhile” means former, or at one time, rather than current. However, let us talk about the bill before us. I would like to tell Mr Heatley that the consultation—and I absolutely accept that the plumbers, gasfitters, and drainlayers of this country felt very aggrieved and believed they had not been consulted in the process of the preparation of this bill; I absolutely accept that that was their feeling—

Phil Heatley: They came to see me.

Hon HARRY DUYNHOVEN: They came to see me as well, of course, as an electorate MP. Can I assure Mr Heatley that I am a very active and very busy electorate MP. Can I also tell him that the consultation with the plumbers, drainlayers, gasfitters, and electrical workers was much the same. It was done through their organisations that represent them. Unfortunately, as the Commerce Committee members well know—and I think Mr Heatley was a member of the select committee from time to time; and his colleagues on the select committee well know—the Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Board had some quite substantial difficulties that resulted in a complete review of the organisation of that particular industry.

The lack of consultation between the board and the participants in the industry caused a lot of grief. I am pleased that what has occurred since then has redressed some of the problems. I would like to thank all members of the select committee, especially the chair, Katherine Rich, and Maryan Street, who led from the Labour side, for the huge work that the whole committee did, but especially those two, in resolving some of the issues.

There was a lot of consultation with the electricity and gas sectors over many years leading up to this bill, which was actually prepared and written in the time of my predecessor. Those making submissions to the select committee recognised quite clearly that there had been a lot of consultation and work done jointly in trying to make a whole new bill to look after the interests of the energy safety side. There was not the same level of consultation with plumbers and drainlayers—

Chris Auchinvole: Why didn’t you bring them together?

Hon HARRY DUYNHOVEN: I did try to bring them together. Plumbers, drainlayers, and gasfitters have traditionally been one industry, but the energy safety service oversees all of energy safety—electricians and the gas industry. As a result the gasfitting side of plumbing, gasfitting, and drainlaying had been consulted and well involved, but unfortunately the plumbers and drainlayers had not received the same level of consultation from their board.

Can I show Mr Heatley this tattered remnant of my own registration as an electrician, from many years ago. I have carried it in my wallet from the day I was awarded it as an apprentice. The reason I have carried it—[Interruption] No, this is the replacement one, from 1984, but the original was from 1974 or 1975. The reason I carry it, even though I do not carry my teaching diploma or my masters degree, is the fact that this was the first solid qualification I had after I left school. There are many, many electricians, plumbers, and mechanics who are very proud of the initial qualification that they received, and for that reason my argument to the officials was that we should keep registration, because it is the core of competency. It is just as in the aviation industry: a pilot is registered with the Civil Aviation Authority as a pilot, and then he or she has a currency that allows that pilot to practise at that time. That was the regime we have adopted, and I am very pleased that that is where we have come to in the bill. We have registration that says someone has done the basic core work and needs to be competent in the job, and then there is a practising licence.

The original proposal was about lining up with the building industry—the builders, the architects, and many others—but there has been a rethink on that issue, partly because of all the submissions and partly because of the Minister and others saying: “Hey, is this a step too far? Should we keep registration?”, and that is where I have always been and I am very pleased that the select committee has agreed with that.

I say to Dr Sharples, who has put forward an amendment on employer licences, that this issue has been very solidly considered. The original concept of employer licences was to ensure that employers were confident that the employees working in their particular industry were competent in the particular tasks and in the particular equipment in that industry—power station people, substations, etc. Employer licences have been valid in the electricity sector and used for well over a decade. They are an alternative to individual electrical worker licences, but still require the same high levels of competency of workers. There had been some discussion—and this is what the New Zealand Amalgamated Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union and many in the industry argued strongly against—about dispensing with the concept of employer licences. This was a matter of quite some discussion. I personally had many discussions with workers in the electrical industry who were very, very concerned about this issue.

Electrical work is high risk, and employees need to be sure that their fellow workers are suitably qualified. Employer licences do require that, they do require the competence, so for that reason there has been nothing in the bill that will reduce the need for electrical worker competency in the workplace; rather, the competency requirements for individual workers need to be matched, for an employer licence to be granted, or indeed for a practising licence if one is a registered worker under the normal registrar of electrical workers.

I think the issues Dr Sharples has raised have been well covered in this legislation. I think what we have arrived at, with the assistance of the select committee, is a bill that covers a number of the issues very, very well indeed. I thank the Commerce Committee for its work. It has been thorough. This has not been an easy amalgam of different trades and industries to manage in one bill. That is why the select committee decided to break the bill into two halves and then to combine it at a later stage, when the issues were sorted. I believe they have been largely sorted. There is a Supplementary Order Paper from myself, which will be debated later in the process, that addresses some of the issues involved.

The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Dr Pita Sharples to clause 12 be agreed to:

to omit Subpart 2 of new Part 10.

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

Ayes 9

Green Party 6; Māori Party 3.

Noes 109

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

Amendment not agreed to.

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 76 in the name of the Hon Harry Duynhoven to Part 1 be agreed to.

Amendments agreed to.

Part 1 as amended agreed to.

Part 2 Amendments to Gas Act 1992

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 76 in the name of the Hon Harry Duynhoven to Part 2 be agreed to.

Amendments agreed to.

Part 2 as amended agreed to.

Part 3 Amendments to Health and Safety in Employment Act 1992

CHRIS AUCHINVOLE (National): I rise with pleasure again to speak on this particular bill, because it deals very much with best practice. For best practice to occur, the regulations governing the supply and use of electricity, and health and safety in employment, are very much part of the requirements. Now that National has worked on the initial proposals in the bill and has progressed them to the present stage, we feel that the bill is able to fulfil its requirements. The amendments in the bill largely concern themselves with matters of health and safety—clause 56 deals with that—and the regulation of electrical workers.

I refer again to my opening comments, in which I mentioned the 2005 total of 38,333 electrical workers and 20,099 registered electricians. That is a lot of people who will be responding to the requirements of the bill. I think it is significant to recall that we have seen a little bit of equivocation on this matter. The initial bill removed the registration of plumbers and electricians, and I note the Minister’s response. It was kind of him to stand and take a call to explain that. But National argued the importance of keeping it, and got the bills changed.

This is a major win for all the relevant tradespeople. I too have had meetings and contact with tradespeople when putting this bill together. The present Government really showed a considerable turn-round towards submissions, and I was delighted to experience that. For many tradespeople, registration is the zenith of their career achievement, and deservedly so.

One can say only that best practice has to extend to the entire business of electricity provision, and health and safety is, as I emphasised earlier, particularly important. Another major feature of health and safety is the recording and notifying of accidents and serious harm. This has been allowed for in the bill so that the provision is in compliance with other parts of the Health and Safety in Employment Act.

The transfer of accident information is important, too. In other words, it is not sufficient simply to report an accident or serious harm; it has to be conveyed properly to the secretary. The secretary must then notify the particulars of an accident to the person who must be notified under section 17(3) of the Gas Act, if the secretary is of the opinion that that section applies to the accident. Also, if the secretary is of the opinion that section 17 of that Act applies to that accident, then he or she must also notify the person who must be notified of the particulars of the accident under the Electricity Act.

I think that what we are seeing is a very satisfactory conclusion to something emphasised throughout the select committee consideration by the submitters, and that is the safety aspect of their work. I remember talking to the submitters when they were referring to connecting electrical units with gas units, because often the two skills are combined. The Committee will have heard that we have some 38,000 electrical workers and 20,000 registered electricians, so not everyone who works in the electricity sector is a registered electrician. Similarly, there were concerns on the part of both the electrical industry and the gas industry that for the people who actually install equipment, there was no real requirement for them to be qualified.

The submissions included aspects of concern, which have now been addressed. I think we have reached a satisfactory arrangement so that it is the connecting of the same, not just the installation, that has to be overseen and properly authorised. As they said: “Where does the responsibility lie?”. There can be a big bang. It was good to be part of that select committee. Thank you, Mr Chairman.

MARYAN STREET (Labour): Thank you, Mr Chairperson, for allowing me to take this slightly late call. I just wanted to respond to something the previous speaker, Chris Auchinvole, said. It is to do with Part 3 and the registration process, which my colleague is keen to take credit for. I think it is stretching things a little to say that it was a National Party intervention that caused this.

The first purpose of this bill, in the initial stage, was to simplify the registration and competence procedure surrounding trades. To that end the first bill was introduced with a single process called licensing. In the course of submissions it became very clear that there was a significant emotional attachment—in fact, it was more than an emotional attachment; identification—with registration. I have made this point in previous speeches, but it is worth saying again that the registration for electricians and other tradespeople, as we will see when we move on to later bills before us tonight, is as important to them as a doctor’s registration is to her or him. It is a very important rite of passage. It is an important milestone in their career. To that end, all parties around the select committee table agreed that it should be reinstated as registration and licensing—registration to recognise the gaining of the ticket, and licensing to ensure ongoing competence. When that was put as a possibility to the Minister, the Hon Harry Duynhoven, he agreed entirely that that was an appropriate thing to do, given the strength of feeling and given his own experience of that, as well.

So what was I think in the first instance an effort to simplify the procedure, became reinstated as a two-stage process for registration and for ongoing competence. So I could not let the previous speaker claim that the National Party has sua sponte made a huge improvement for electricians and the universe in this regard. Thank you.

Part 3 agreed to.

Part 4 Amendment to Ministry of Energy (Abolition) Act 1989

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 76 in the name of the Hon Harry Duynhoven to Part 4 be agreed to.

Amendment agreed to.

Part 4 as amended agreed to.

Schedule 1

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 76 in the name of the Hon Harry Duynhoven to schedule 1 be agreed to.

Amendments agreed to.

Schedule 1 as amended agreed to.

Clauses 1 and 2

PHIL HEATLEY (National—Whangarei): I remind the Committee that the purpose of the Energy Safety Review Bill is to assure the public that electrical workers are competent to undertake work and that electricity and gas supply systems do not put the public at significant risk. The legislation seeks to improve procedures for addressing complaints against workers and it enhances enforcement provisions. It broadens obligations to notify authorities of accidents caused by or involving electricity, electricity generation, electricity conversion, electricity transformation, or electricity conveyance. So everyone is affected. It relates to safety issues around electricity generators, electricity transmission, and, of course, the end-user. The legislation provides an obligation for electricity system owners to implement a safety management system—they must have one.

The legislation restricts people from doing, or assisting with, what we call prescribed electrical work, unless that person is licensed, but provides for exemptions from this. Members will recall that National argued strongly that registration would stay. Yes, the Minister axed it at the beginning when the legislation was first put into the House, but we argued that registration would remain. Maryan Street is quite right, registration remains because the select committee recommended that, and, of course, licensing is there as well to keep account of ongoing professional development and maintaining professional standards.

The legislation allows for different classes of licences and associated licensing standards. Originally in the bill the licences would last for up to 2 years but, of course, that provision has now been extended to 5 years, because it was madness to go through the licensing process every couple of years. The cost involved and the time involved would have been pretty tough for tradespeople, who are in short supply and who, on the whole, are doing a very, very good job, so we extended that to 5 years. It provides for licensing of employers for up to 5 years to ensure that their employees are licensed and supervised, and it establishes a register of electrical workers that is publicly available and allows for complaints made by any person.

When the gasfitters, plumbers, and drainlayers came to National members across the country and said: “Listen, we don’t want to be part of this bill.”, the National MPs came to Wellington, banged the tables, put the case, and ensured that drainlayers, gasfitters, and plumbers fronted the Commerce Committee and told it of their concerns. The legislation was then split in two so that we deal with drainlayers, gasfitters, and plumbers in one bill, and electrical workers and others in another bill, which, of course is the ultimate outcome because there are issues that are specific to both and unique to both. I thank the members of the select committee for seeing the sense in that, and my National Party colleagues for bringing those issues to Parliament.

National did oppose this bill at the first reading because of insufficient consultation with plumbers. We support the bill now because the Government has seen good sense. It knows good sense when it sees it. There is the issue of standard setting that we were concerned about; that has been addressed. The initial bill removed the registration of these groups, but of course the select committee process has seen that return in there. The Minister in the chair, Harry Duynhoven, is himself still a card-carrying tradesperson—that is what it is called in the Labour Party, is it not?

Hon Harry Duynhoven: Tradesman or tradeswoman.

PHIL HEATLEY: The term in Harry Duynhoven’s party is “tradesperson”. He can be recognised if he is licensed. Of course the Minister never said whether he would continue with licensing. He never said that. So we have the Minister with a registration certificate in one hand and a taxpayer-funded pledge card in the other, and he is all ready to do business, because no matter how the votes fall he will have a job.

National is pleased to support this bill in its entirety, and we commend it to the House for its third reading.

Clause 1 agreed to.

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 76 in the name of the Hon Harry Duynhoven to clause 2 be agreed to.

Amendments agreed to.

Clause 2 as amended agreed to.

The Committee divided the bill into the Electricity Amendment Bill, the Gas Amendment Bill, the Health and Safety in Employment Amendment Bill, the Ministry of Energy (Abolition) Amendment Bill, and pursuant to Supplementary Order Paper 77.

Bill to be reported with amendment presently.

Bills

Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Bill

In Committee

Part 5 Preliminary and key provisions

PANSY WONG (National): I am really delighted to take the first call on the previously non-existent Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Bill. When we flick through Part 5, we can hardly find a single page that has not been amended. So I am delighted to say that the Commerce Committee is indeed a very hard-working and responsible select committee—all the more so because of the National Party members on the committee. We have actually gone through Part 5 with a fine-tooth comb, even though it deals largely with matters of definition. I will share with members some of those distinctive details. I am raising them because the Minister the Hon Harry Duynhoven is in the chair. I am glad about that, because I know he will take them quite seriously.

For example, we actually spent quite a bit of time on clause 69, “Exemption for sanitary plumbing in rural areas”, and on clause 70, “Provisions relating to alteration of boundaries of local authority districts”, and, ultimately, we ran out of time. The officials could not quite get all the background information that would have enabled the select committee members to understand why the exemption relating to sanitary plumbing in rural areas is to be continued. Do we care less about people in rural districts than in urban areas, or is it the practical issue that if we impose the same requirements in rural and urban areas, then rural people might not get plumbing, etc., done? And why is it that the boundary of a local authority district would be subject to the type of exemption set out in clause 70?

So I point out to the Minister in the chair, the Hon Harry Duynhoven, that although the select committee worked diligently on the issues, we regret that because of the time limit some of the important issues have not been tackled. I first register for the benefit of the Minister that there is unfinished work for him to champion. [Interruption] I am not sure why there is all this movement in the Chamber; I would like members to respect the plumbers and the drainlayers, etc., who appeared in front of the select committee to make submissions. I promise that we will raise the unfinished business so that the Minister can continue to look into it in the future, given that those exemptions have not been explained to us properly because the officials said that their records did not go back very far and they could not really get to the bottom of the issue in the time available. So, in the meantime, the select committee has accepted that those exemptions will continue. But, certainly, at some appropriate future time, we need to get to the bottom of what the valid reasons for those exemptions may be.

Some of the other exemptions that we have raised are good ones. For example, apprentices are exempt during training. We have accepted that it is very practical for them not to be licensed or registered while they are going through their study.

I think the Minister will appreciate that the select committee has worked diligently to improve on these now separated bills, given that National opposed the first reading of the Energy Safety Review Bill.

CHRIS TREMAIN (National—Napier): I rise to speak to Part 5 of the Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Bill. As we have said tonight, its provisions began as part of the Energy Safety Review Bill and morphed, as members know, into the Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Bill. Before I rose to speak tonight, I was thinking about the stages we have gone through on this bill and the various plumbers and electricians who came before the Commerce Committee. I cast my eyes through the telephone book here to see which plumbers from Hawke’s Bay will be sitting tonight with their ears to the radio, listening to the debate on this bill. They are the likes of J J O’Connor—the Minister in the chair, the Hon Harry Duynhoven, may know some of these guys—my own brother, who owns Total Plumbing and Irrigation Ltd, Rigby Plumbing, and Hagen and Owen Ltd. Those are all core guys who are part of the Hawke’s Bay network. In particular, I pay my respects to E G Wall, a plumber from Hawke’s Bay who passed away recently. He had had over 40 years’ service in the plumbing industry in Hawke’s Bay, and he will be difficult to replace. It was guys like E G Wall whom we heard talk before the select committee about some of the issues they would have to face, which I will talk about in relation to Part 6 and Part 7, regarding licensing and registration.

I will step back to Part 5, which deals with the purpose of the bill and gives a number of definitions for the legislation. We spent much time on deciding what the definition of “drain” and “drainlaying” would be, and on discussing the meaning of “gasfitting”, where a gas supply would start and where it would finish, and the meaning of “sanitary plumbing” and various aspects of that part of the bill. Those matters are hardly earth-shattering but are important. In coming back to the purposes of the bill, I say this legislation will replace the Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Act of 1976. It covers the registering, licensing, and disciplining of plumbers, gasfitters, and drainlayers, and it contains mechanisms designed to assure the public that people engaged in the provision of sanitary plumbing, gasfitting, and drainlaying services are competent to undertake the work.

When we first came to the Commerce Committee, a number of submissions were before the committee, and those submissions were one of the key reasons for this bill being split from the Energy Safety Review Bill. The likes of George M Todd, craftsman plumber, came before the select committee and told us he strongly opposed the introduction of competency-based licensing and the move away from registration-based licences. In fact, that gentleman strongly opposed the Energy Safety Review Bill. He felt that it gave too much power to the Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Board. That was one of the first reasons for splitting the bill. As Minister Duynhoven announced earlier, there had been very poor consultation from the board back to the plumbing fraternity, so we made the decision to split this legislation from the Energy Safety Review Bill. That meant we could go back and consult the industry in more detail.

The second reason for splitting the bill off from the Energy Safety Review Bill has not been covered in much detail tonight. That was the issue around the relationship between the industry training organisation and the Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Board, which, at that point in time was the subject of a ministerial inquiry, undertaken by Hazel Armstrong. But there were two major concerns in that regard. The first was the level of pass rates that were coming out of the industry training organisation. The commentary on the bill states that in 2005 only 11 percent of national certificate holders who sat the final qualifying exam set by the Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Board passed that exam. That was down from a pass rate of 39 percent in 2003. So the second concern was that it was very clear that there had been a breakdown in the relationship between the board and the industry training organisation. The board was putting in a capstone examination and it had failed to talk closely with the industry training organisation. The relationship was so bad that the industry training organisation was not putting through the plumbers at the level that was needed. Those reasons, together, meant there was a change to the original bill.

BRIAN CONNELL (National—Rakaia): I was in my office listening to the debate and found it so enthralling that I thought I would come down and make a contribution. The reason is that I have some experience with the plumbing industry—and I declare a conflict of interest upfront—in that I own a company that manufactures hot-water cylinders. My company has been in business for 45 years, and my association with the plumbing industry and the history of my company in that association is one that deserves recognition.

Registration as prescribed in the Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Bill is overdue, but that is not to tarnish the reputation of those people who have been in the industry for a long time. In fact, it provides them with the due credit they deserve, because here is an industry, if there ever has been one, that is worthy of our respect. Anyone who has had something go wrong with their plumbing recognises the need not only to get someone who is competent to fix it but also, as an added advantage, to get someone who is registered and is able to do the job and can give that guarantee of quality service that the community deserves. That is the type of tradesperson we in this country respect.

I heard the Minister say in an earlier debate that he is an electrician by trade, and I think he takes pride in the fact that he has that recognition. Is it not as reasonable to give that recognition to the plumbing industry, as well? So here is a bill that, in my view, is long overdue.

When I had the opportunity to sit on the Commerce Committee on the bill, I was very impressed with the way members of Parliament interacted. They were taking the issue extremely seriously. The contribution from members around the table was one that gave me confidence that the parliamentary process does, at times, work well. Of course, I think the lead was coming from the National members on the select committee. My colleagues there were taking the issues extremely seriously. They were putting issues on the table and saying that we needed to work around them to make sure we structured a bill that would work, not for the time being but for the longer term.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): There is too much idle chatter going on. It is very disconcerting for the member who is trying to address the Committee.

BRIAN CONNELL: I apologise for my idle chatter, Mr Chairperson. I will give you something a little more specific.

One issue in the select committee really triggered my interest—that is, the lack of apprentices who have qualified through the registration board. That really did trip my interest. I know that members of the select committee took that issue extremely seriously. Some of the statistics I saw showed that pass rates were as low as 11 percent in terms of qualifications. That in itself is a real indictment on the way the industry was being structured, and something had to be done about that. I congratulate the committee on taking that issue head-on.

I know that the Minister takes these issues extremely seriously, as well, and it might be something he would like to take a call on and explain how we will do more about tightening up registration around the plumbing industry so that the competence I have talked about can be captured in perpetuity. I thank you for your indulgence, Mr Chair.

Hon HARRY DUYNHOVEN (Associate Minister of Energy): Thank you, Mr Chairman. I think it is a pity that Katherine Rich, the chairperson of the Commerce Committee, is not here this evening, because—

Simon Power: Point of order—

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): I know what the member is going to say. The Minister knows he cannot refer to the absence of a member. All of us, at some time or another, have urgent public business to attend to.

Hon HARRY DUYNHOVEN: Thank you, Mr Chairman. You are quite right. Can I say that it is a pity that Katherine Rich has not taken a call this evening, because she would have added considerably to the debate and maybe even have been able to help some of her colleagues who seem to have had a little amnesia in regard to the processes here. I say to Brian Connell that I greatly appreciated his comments. One learns something new every day. I did not know, for example, Brian—even though I have known you for a fair while—

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Use the member’s full name, please.

Hon HARRY DUYNHOVEN: I did not know that the member was in the business of making hot-water cylinders, many of which I have probably installed without realising they came from his company.

The issue of the relationship between the Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Board and the Industry Training Organisation was one of the really difficult ones that had to be considered during the process of this bill. The registration and competence issue that the member referred to is a really important one. First is the basic qualification, which is necessary. Secondly, it is necessary to ensure ongoing competence, and I think the member who has just spoken was the first speaker in this debate from his side of the Chamber who actually recognised that a very important feature of this bill is to ensure ongoing competence.

To Pansy Wong I say that, yes, the Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Bill was split out from the original Energy Safety Review Bill, but the bills were kept as companion bills. If one looks at the two bills together, one will see that Parts 1 to 4 remain with the original bill and that Part 5 onwards becomes the Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Bill. It does indicate that they will be reassembled some time. We also had the view—and on one occasion I sat in the Commerce Committee and took part in a round-table discussion, which I thought was a very valuable thing to do—over the issues about how we managed the dysfunctional relationships that were in the plumbing, gasfitting, and drainlaying industry. Whereas the electrical part of the bill was ready to proceed—the electrical industry and the gas industry were keen to have the bill progressed—we still had work to do with the plumbing and drainlaying side of the industry.

I am pleased that the select committee took that approach. I am pleased that the issues that were so obvious then have now been largely resolved and we have moved on, and that the review that Hazel Armstrong conducted on behalf, I think, of the Minister for Tertiary Education showed that the issues being spoken about by many members—the low pass rates and the difficulty of getting qualified people out into the industry—were actually being addressed. I think that the review has given us a way forward. It has allowed the industry to regroup, to refocus on its core task of training apprentices and ensuring that those tradespeople are properly qualified. That means not only that they are registered to be tradespeople but that their practising licence, if you like—their currency—is established, and that will see the industry in much better stead.

I think we now have the bills in pretty good shape. The select committee has done a good job. It has done the job that select committees are there to do—to listen to the public and to get feedback from them. I thoroughly agreed with the concept of keeping registration. I actually strongly argued that we must keep registration as well as a practising licence regime. I think it would be unfair, if I were not in Parliament, for me to be expected to resume work in the electrical trade after 18, 20-odd years away without having any refresher course, for example. That would be just crazy stuff. So that is why we have the concept of an original registration plus a currency—a licence to practise. I think that that is a very good model on which to build, and the electricity, gas, and plumbing and drainlaying industry all now have that concept embedded in this legislation. I think we have done a good job.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 78 in the name of the Hon Harry Duynhoven to Part 5 be agreed to.

Amendment agreed to.

Part 5 as amended agreed to.

Part 6 Registration and licensing of plumbers, gasfitters, and drainlayers

PANSY WONG (National): The Minister is not going to get away with many of the statements he has just made. Although the Commerce Committee may have listened to the public, I am afraid the Minister has not. Let me list some of the very strong feelings against the bill in its original form.

First of all, let me remind the public that National did not support the first reading of the Energy Safety Review Bill. But we are now supporting the Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Bill, because, firstly, it has been separated out and, secondly, a lot of changes have been made to it. Let me share this submission from the Horowhenua branch of Master Plumbers, Gasfitters and Drainlayers (NZ) Inc. First of all, the reason why plumbers were against the original bill—wholesale—was that they had received a letter from the Hon Damien O’Connor on 27 May 2004. The Minister made it very clear to plumbers that the Energy Safety Review Bill—[Interruption] If members on the Labour benches would calm down, I do intend to share the detail with them.

I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. As a member of Parliament, I am completely offended tonight by the total lack of respect for the Committee process. Members on the Opposition side are debating this bill seriously, because a lot of submitters felt very strongly about it. But all I am getting is a barrage of people talking, on the Labour side of the Chamber. Mr Chairman, I would like you to exercise your authority and bring some respect back to this process.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Thank you. I say to the member that I have already raised the issue once with the Committee this evening, and I appreciate what the member is saying. But the talking is coming from both sides. I remind members that it is a matter of good conduct and of being considerate of others who are trying to address the Committee. It is a longstanding convention in this place that members should not conduct conversations in the Chamber unless it is absolutely necessary to do so, and then only in a way so as not to disturb proceedings. Proceedings are being disturbed, and another member on my right has also approached me with concern about the level of noise in the Chamber. I ask members to show some courtesy to the honourable member Pansy Wong.

PANSY WONG: Thank you, Mr Chairman. In his letter the Minister the Hon Damien O’Connor reassured the Horowhenua group that the original Energy Safety Review Bill would include only requirements relating to electrical and gas workers, and include provisions similar to the ones in the Electricity Act to allow for interim suspension of electricity workers’ registration. And then, according to the group’s submission, the Minister went on to say that those provisions did not include plumbers and drainlayers, as similar provisions were expected to be included in the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Bill. Therefore, I ask the Minister to take note that, first of all, plumbers do not agree because they were expressly told by the previous Minister that the Energy Safety Review Bill would not include them. Secondly, their concern is with regard to cost.

The group raised that subject on Tuesday, 19 October 2004. A delegation from the Society of Master Plumbers and Gasfitters met with the Hon Damien O’Connor, who was responsible for the bill at that stage. The Minister asked the tradesmen what their current charge rate was for plumbers. They told him that it differed, but that in the Horowhenua area it was around $45 to $50 an hour, plus GST. Well, the Minister’s response was to ask why the group did not simply charge the consumer $80 an hour, because of the introduction of this new bill.

I think it is appalling, when a group of plumbers was taking the issue seriously and explaining that the bill would unnecessarily increase costs and that it would affect the charge-out fee to consumers, and all the Minister could say was to put up the costs. That is incredible, for a Labour Government that is supposed to look after ordinary New Zealanders, yet all it could say was to put up the tax, put up the cost, as everything is going up. When National members are confronted with submissions like that, we demand to know, in detail, about these increased costs. Of course we support competency, professionalism, and protection of the public, but that has to be balanced and reasonable. So we are glad that we have argued that point.

I want to register our appreciation of the Labour members on the Commerce Committee, because they listened to large groups of submitters, particularly from the plumbing sector. We listened to them, and we believed that their submissions were made in good faith. The plumbers were outraged because of the lack of consultation, and because of their concern for the unnecessary cost that might have to be passed on to consumers. More important, these plumbers are very, very proud of the fact that they are registered plumbers. This is a very emotional issue, which they debated and argued very strongly in front of the select committee. As a member of the Commerce Committee, I can say we take on their issues very seriously.

MARYAN STREET (Labour): I would like to endorse some of the comments that the previous speaker has made in her speech on this Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Bill. The select committee treated this bill with a great deal of seriousness, but I want to traverse a couple of points in it that were critical to the development of this part. Clearly, a number of issues were raised in the course of our hearing the submissions on this bill that were almost beyond the scope of legislation as such, but that were issues of real concern.

We traversed some of these issues in the first reading of this bill, when Katherine Rich, as chair of the Commerce Committee, made reference to exam pass rates somewhere in the order of 11 percent. The issues to do with the relationship between the industry training organisation and the Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Board were behind a lot of the feeling and the impetus that resulted in this bill.

The registration and licensing components of this bill have been traversed previously in debate, but it is worth noting that the Commerce Committee did take very seriously the concerns that were raised—certainly, concerns that some of us, by our own research, discovered as we proceeded with some of the submissions to this bill. I took the opportunity to look through 10 years’ worth of annual reports of the Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Board in order to look at pass rates, and I discovered that there was certainly something rotten in the State of Denmark in respect of the numbers that entered into apprenticeships and the numbers who exited the other side as qualified plumbers, gasfitters, and drainlayers.

This issue was addressed largely by Hazel Armstrong’s report, which was commissioned by the Minister for Tertiary Education because of his interest in the provision of education for apprentices through tertiary institutions. As a result, we heard a number of things that, as I say, may not have been specifically within the scope of this bill, but they were important and did deserve a respectful hearing. I think that where we got to in terms of registration and licensing was absolutely right, and it reflected where we had got to with the electricians and their registration, as well.

So with the combination of these two pieces of legislation, we now have a uniform process for the registering—that is, the training and the acknowledgment of the completed training—of tradespeople, who in this particular case are plumbers, gasfitters, and drainlayers, and for the ongoing licensing of competence of these tradespeople. It was distressing to see how many young people—young men—had chosen to go into these occupations and had not been permitted, through some dysfunction between the industry training organisation and the Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Board, to take up a career of their choice.

I will not speak to subsequent parts of this bill at the moment, but when we come to Part 8 I may well take another call to point out the areas where we have corrected those particular issues in this legislation. Suffice it to say, right now we have a streamlined and unified registration and licensing process that not only protects the identification of tradespeople as registered tradespeople but also protects the public and workers in respect of ongoing safety issues.

CHRIS TREMAIN (National—Napier): I rise to speak to Part 6 of the Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Bill. Before doing so, I acknowledge the officials for the hard work they put into this bill, which has been ongoing and arduous. I say well done to them; they have done an excellent job.

Part 6 gets to the heart of the bill and deals with the registration and licensing of plumbers, gasfitters, and drainlayers. When this part was originally considered by the Commerce Committee as part of the Energy Safety Review Bill we got comments from plumbers in the field who had not been consulted by their board or did not really understand how this licensing or continuing professional development would impact on them. That is when we had the likes of George M Todd saying in a submission that he strongly opposed ongoing professional development.

When that happened, I realised I needed to understand where this licensing was going, what it would entail, and what ongoing competency would be required of plumbers. So I went and had a talk to the Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Board. I found out that licensing is still required right now, and that it costs $90 per year. There is already a licensing regime with the existing registration certificate. Of the three trades we are talking about—plumbing, gasfitting, and drainlaying—there is already an ongoing competency requirement for gasfitters, which, at the time, I was not aware of. Gasfitters are audited on an annual basis, unlike plumbers, who are audited on a job-by-job basis on the major plumbing jobs they do in houses. Gasfitters are not audited this way; they are audited annually by the board, so they already have a continuing professional development requirement. But what does that actually mean?

Plumbers were coming to the select committee concerned that the requirement would take hours and days of their time and would cause ongoing costs for them by taking their employees out of the trade to go on courses. I found out that the board was proposing a 16 credit per annum continuing professional development qualification. Those 16 credits were divided into two lots of eight credits, whereby people could choose between technical courses for eight credits and non-technical courses.

The technical courses included welding and pipe sizing—the standard types of courses that one would think it would be good for a plumber to go forward with. It was the non-technical courses that the plumbers were—justifiably—concerned about. These included the likes of becoming a Microsoft Word user, for which people could get four continuing professional development points. They could get points for gaining email and Internet qualifications. These options were on the table, and this is where many of the plumbers became concerned. They thought these courses would become compulsory.

The reality is that the non-technical side of the course is non-compulsory, which made a big difference. Many plumbers, particularly those who were heading towards the end of their working life, were concerned. E G Wall, whom I talked about before and who has been plumbing for 40 years, came to see me in my electorate office and said: “Why in God’s name do I need to be doing a foundation Excel course in spreadsheeting?”. I could not argue with him. The very fact that these non-technical courses are not compulsory made a big difference.

Moving on, I approached a number of gasfitters, who are already involved in continuing professional development courses. A young gasfitter called Carl Simons said that there should be ongoing competency. He felt it was a good thing but that it needed much better consultation and course provision. I say to the Minister that we need to make very clear to the Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Board that the provision of these types of licensing courses should be available throughout the regions, so that plumbers and gasfitters do not have to travel around the country to attend a particular course. I think that is a very important point. Young Carl Simons believed that the ongoing licensing requirement added another level to his trade, and said he was right behind it.

I talked to Murray Rigby, who is a 52-year-old gasfitter in the Hawke’s Bay. He did not think it was a bad thing. He thought the courses were pretty straightforward. He felt there was a lot of resistance initially but that overall it was good for the profession and would take him forward. So I recommend to the Minister that these courses be made available on a regional basis and that there be plenty of them, so that plumbers, gasfitters, and drainlayers can get to them easily.

Licensing has been a key issue in this legislation. It is an area we were concerned about. Lastly, National members, Labour members, and the wider committee were concerned about the older plumbers. In the commentary to the bill the committee put in something that I think officials and the board need to take note of. We stated: “We were concerned by the introduction of licensing requirements for tradespeople in the later years of their profession, who after thirty or forty years of plying their trade will be required to pass competency tests.” We were concerned that if those tests were too onerous, guys in their twilight years would just say: “Enough! I can’t be bothered going on.”, and we would see those people leave the trade. We did see that happen initially when continuing professional development was introduced to the gasfitting side of things. That is something we need to be careful of, and that is why members from National, certainly, and I know ones from Labour, put that particular part in the commentary on the bill. Thank you, Mr Chairperson.

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 78 in the name of the Hon Harry Duynhoven to Part 6 be agreed to.

Amendments agreed to.

Part 6 as amended agreed to.

Part 7 Discipline and offences

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 78 in the name of the Hon Harry Duynhoven to Part 7 be agreed to.

Amendments agreed to.

Part 7 as amended agreed to.

Part 8 Administration, appeals, and miscellaneous provisions

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): The debate on Part 8 includes debate on schedules 2 and 3.

Hon HARRY DUYNHOVEN (Associate Minister of Energy): I will take just a brief call partly to answer Chris Tremain, who mentioned in the debate on Part 6 some issues in regard to the way courses were structured by the plumbing industry, etc. Mr Tremain quite rightly said there was concern in the industry, particularly among its older participants, that these courses were somehow mandated by the legislation. Well, that is the job properly of the Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Board, and Part 8 of the bill sets out how the board will function. It improves the transparency of the board, addresses some of the issues in this bill, and addresses some of the issues that have been causing some grief in the industry. That is a result of the review that the committee had. The committee saw fit to change this part of the bill and to strengthen it.

The determination by the industry training organisation—the Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Board—as to what sorts of courses are necessary for a practising licence and what sorts of courses might be offered, is entirely up to the board to make rather than for us to prescribe in legislation, and that is fit and proper. I think that it is probably what we have now, and that this bill will be welcomed by the industry.

I take on board what Mr Tremain said about how plumbers were saying that they were fearful of this legislation and that the changes were going too far. The bill is now in better shape as a result of the select committee work done on it, and as a result of officials working with the industry to try to redress some of the misinformation that had gone out early on.

The industry, as we heard earlier, had not been adequately consulted—not by the officials, the Minister, or the ministry in terms of getting the bill together, but because the industry itself did not have effective communication between the board and the participants. The ordinary plumber working in society was not getting the feedback from the Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Board as to what should be happening.

There is, of course, split accountability. The Energy Safety Review Bill properly comes under my delegation, but the Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Bill was a subset of Ministry of Health delegations. Therefore, different Ministers were involved, as well.

So I will just say that I am very pleased with where this legislation has got to. The points made by Mr Tremain were valid, and they have largely been addressed by what has happened. I shall be particularly interested to see, when we get to the review stage in 3 years’ time—as is set out in the legislation—how this has worked out, and whether the plumbing, gasfitting, and drainlaying industry wants to change the provisions that are now before us in this bill. Thank you, Mr Chairperson.

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 78 in the name of the Hon Harry Duynhoven to Part 8 be agreed to.

Amendments agreed to.

Part 8 as amended agreed to.

Schedule 2 agreed to.

Schedule 3 Consequential amendments

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 78 in the name of the Hon Harry Duynhoven to schedule 3 be agreed to.

Amendments agreed to.

Schedule 3 as amended agreed to.

Clause 1 agreed to.

Clause 2 agreed to.

Bill to be reported with amendment presently.

House resumed.

The Chairperson reported the Energy Safety Review Bill with amendment, and that the Committee had divided it into four bills; and the Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Bill with amendment.

Report adopted.

Bills

Crimes of Torture Amendment Bill

Third Reading

Hon MARK BURTON (Minister of Justice): I move, That the Crimes of Torture Amendment Bill be now read a third time. This bill will enable New Zealand to ratify the United Nations Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. The optional protocol entered into force in June 2006, and the first meeting of the State parties is scheduled for 18 December this year.

This process marks another key milestone for the protection and promotion of human rights at the international level. It is a process in which New Zealand has played a crucial role, and a role of which it can generally be very proud. New Zealand is among good company in taking the lead in respect of the optional protocol. For example, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Spain, and Denmark have already ratified the optional protocol.

The protocol establishes a system of regular visits to places of detention. Visits will be conducted by both international and New Zealand experts. The visits are designed to prevent the occurrence of torture, by providing objective assessments and enabling a dialogue to take place between visiting experts and the State. The bill will substantially bolster New Zealand’s already impressive system of monitoring places of detention. New Zealand inspection bodies under the bill will have a strong mandate to monitor and make recommendations in respect of the treatment of detainees. These bodies will also enjoy appropriate immunities, to ensure that they are able to conduct visits in an effective manner, without fear or interference.

The focus upon prevention represents an innovative development within the United Nations human rights system. Because of its far-reaching physical and also psychological effects, the harm inflicted by torture on the victim can often not be undone. Therefore, prevention is of primary importance. The optional protocol provides for a cooperative approach to preventing torture and ill treatment, based on transparency and the implementation of relevant legal norms.

This preventive approach has been very successful in Europe. The European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment has operated for a number of years. Most would agree that it has had a positive effect throughout the European continent in improving conditions of detention and in helping to prevent ill treatment.

The optional protocol is, therefore, different from some other United Nations mechanisms that have a reactive focus to addressing human rights concerns. Further, the optional protocol breaks new ground by setting out, for the first time in an international instrument, criteria and safeguards for effective, preventive visits by national bodies. This aims to ensure the implementation of international standards at the local level.

The New Zealand legal system already provides strong protection against torture under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act and the Crimes of Torture Act. The optional protocol further complements this existing framework, and provides concrete steps aimed at preventing crimes of torture from occurring. The bill itself provides for a regime that enables New Zealand to comply with its obligations under the optional protocol. It includes provisions that enable the United Nations subcommittee to visit places where people are deprived of their liberty in New Zealand, that allow the designation of one or more New Zealand bodies—as national preventive mechanisms—also to examine places of detention, and that allow the designation of a central national preventive mechanism to coordinate the activities of the New Zealand monitoring bodies and, of course, to liaise with the UN subcommittee.

The bill reflects a carefully tailored balance between legislative and administrative compliance. It provides the core framework for the optional protocol to be complied with in New Zealand, while ensuring that members of the executive must also take responsibility to ensure that the optional protocol is given effect. Key reporting requirements are also included to ensure transparency and accountability.

This bill is an illustration of New Zealand’s strong commitment to the protection and promotion of international human rights. Most important, the bill is an example to all countries of how to ensure compliance with the optional protocol, with the goal of preventing torture. The bill not only is a measure to ensure that New Zealanders will continue to be protected against torture and other forms of ill treatment in the future but also is a strong signal to others around the world that torture must not, and will not, be tolerated, and that with the collective efforts of the international community it can be prevented.

I again extend my thanks to the members of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee for their diligent and constructive consideration of the bill during both the parliamentary treaty examination process and the inquiry into the bill itself. I further extend my appreciation to members of the House who have supported this bill to date. I believe it has been a positive display of the New Zealand Parliament acting in a cohesive way to fight the global scourge that is torture.

This Government is committed to ensuring that New Zealand continues to be a world-class nation in the development of human rights law. This bill is a clear illustration of that commitment. I am confident that the bill will ensure that for generations of New Zealanders, now and in the future, torture will remain a remote concept and something this country continues to treat with disdain. Accordingly, I commend this bill to the House.

TIM GROSER (National): National supports the Crimes of Torture Amendment Bill. We played a very active part in listening to submitters, who have themselves been very active in the process leading up to this amendment bill. The bill reflects the fact that multilateral disciplines on human rights have been a very important cross-party policy over decades. The issues dealt with in this amendment bill are very much in that tradition.

The key point of this amendment bill relates to article 2 of schedule 1: “Each State Party shall take effective legislative, administrative, judicial or other measures to prevent acts of torture in any territory under its jurisdiction.” We can derive from that the key principles at stake there. The first is the issue of partnership. That is not just about international pressure but about the international community trying, over time, to work with governing States, which is the only way we will get gradual progress on this issue in the areas of the world where it remains a serious problem.

The second key feature that we can derive from article 2 is the focus on prevention; we have already heard a number of comments from Minister Mark Burton on that. The third feature is the very broad scope of the agreement. It covers any territory under the State’s jurisdiction. The optional protocol, which we are addressing here, obviously reflects the fact that after 20 years of experience with the core convention, we have learnt that it needs to be beefed up in certain ways. Basically, it needs to make the original provisions operationally effective, and that is why there is such a strong focus on prevention.

Coming from where we have come, politically, in New Zealand, we have long forgotten these issues. But they were very much a part of the early political culture of the United Kingdom, from where most New Zealanders of European ethnic descent come. Like many other New Zealand parents over generations, I took my children to the Tower of London and, of course, they wanted to see the torture chambers. They are now a great tourist attraction. There are many other torture chambers in the great castles of the United Kingdom that, equally, are centrepieces for tourists.

If one cares to reflect on that, it is a reminder of a couple of things. First of all, those torture chambers originally served a deadly political purpose; they were not conceived of as tourist assets when they were put together. Secondly—and this is the key point—I doubt that there is a single culture or a single country that has not had human rights abuses of the most extreme nature as part of its evolutionary political process. There would not be any culture that was immune to that. If we extend the analogy further, one can just imagine, for example, in respect of the Tower of London, how King James I might have reacted in 1605 to a visit of the UN subcommittee on the prevention of torture and other forms of degrading punishment. If members think that that is far-fetched, I would argue that exactly that dynamic is in place in areas like Darfur or countries like Myanmar. We are dealing with exactly that dynamic in the early part of the 21st century, and we must expect progress to be slow and evolutionary in the process.

Obviously, the definition that I read out shows a wide scope in terms of the areas where people can be subjected to risk of degrading or inhuman treatment, if not of torture in its most extreme forms. It was natural during the process of putting this bill together, and in the select committee process, that all the focus was on the national preventive mechanisms—or NPMs, as they are called—in the context of New Zealand society and the various institutions of the State of New Zealand. I have said before that although this was necessarily the case, I think that a good job has been done on this bill in identifying, by a right and flexible approach, the different national preventive mechanisms that need to be established—and in some cases strengthened—in New Zealand to ensure that people in our places of detention are not subjected to improper treatment.

But although the focus of the process was entirely “New Zealand - centric”, for me, and perhaps for other members of the select committee, there was a certain air of unreality about this whole process. We were concerned, frankly, that this convention focuses on what I have called at various times, colloquially, the real bad guys. But given the way that the UN system works, the nice per diems available for international travel, and the way things are done in the reality of international diplomacy, I am sure that at some stage New Zealand will be visited by the subcommittee. I do not want that to happen, but I am very sure the subcommittee will come here, and when it does it will essentially be wasting its time.

I do not quite know what it is that they will be investigating. Somebody in a prison might have been given a cold hamburger, which some civil liberties lawyer has thought, perhaps, to be inhuman treatment, or perhaps the underfloor heating in one of our prisons has gone on the blink in the middle of July and, in spite of 2 weeks’ efforts to the contrary, it is claimed that nothing has been done about it. So we will probably hear extreme stories of this nature—

Christopher Finlayson: Being exposed to “Mini Mike” for 5 minutes. That’s torture.

TIM GROSER: That would indeed be a form of inhuman treatment We will probably get a visit of the subcommittee in due course, which will have something—“mother and apple pie”—to tell us about our own conditions. But the key thing is that we should have a process in place—and I am confident this amendment bill will provide it—that allows New Zealand to be able to defend its position in the United Nations process.

It is really important, I think, that the subcommittee does not focus its real attention on minor problems. We will have problems in our places of detention from time to time. No matter how effective the filter process of authorities is, some people who should not be given the power of control over other people will find their way into the system. But we do not need the United Nations to help us sort that out. We, as a society, are perfectly capable of handling those issues by ourselves.

In concluding my comments on this bill, which National supports, I tell members I really hope that the next focus of New Zealand officials in New York will be to encourage very strongly a programme of visits that actually addresses the real problem, because there is a very substantial issue out there in many countries of the world. It is not just with the most obvious of places that major human rights abuses are concerned. There are countries, which many of us would—quite accurately—describe as democratic, where in jails, police cells, and other places of detention there is, unquestionably, totally unacceptable behaviour taking place. That is where the United Nations should focus its attention, and not here in New Zealand.

RON MARK (NZ First): It is really quite interesting. I sat up in my office listening to the Minister the Hon Mark Burton’s introductory speech. There has been much debate on this bill over the last few weeks. It is interesting because, at first glance, one can be forgiven for taking a similar view to Tim Groser, the member who has just resumed his seat. That view is that there is nothing in the Crimes of Torture Amendment Bill that really pertains to New Zealand other than feel-good policy and feel-good implementation of some international protocol that a bunch of back roomers have dreamt up in the United Nations corridors—and God knows those corridors are full of a lot of people who dream up wonderful ideas and expect the rest of the world to toe in behind them.

I guess they spend many hours sipping their martinis, their sherries, and their chardonnays and congratulate each other on the reams and reams of paper that they fill up with ink and the numbers of forests they fell in order to come up with such agreements. They probably spend months haggling over the exact wording of one sentence and then rejoice and celebrate the fact that nations all around the world such as New Zealand are moving, by legislation, to ratify those agreements.

It is wonderful, and as a former military man—forgive me—when I first saw this bill I thought to myself it was an interesting notion. If one caught an al-Qaeda terrorist in Afghanistan and politely asked him to give the address of Osama bin Laden, I guess, according to this legislation, he would gleefully hand over the address. He would need no encouragement other than a polite request to get him to accede to the demands or requests and give, without the need for any form of duress or intimidation, all the information needed to round up terrorists and would-be killers, and mass murderers of that type. A part of me says that is fanciful, it is interesting, it will not really affect the lives of New Zealanders, and it does not pertain to New Zealand at all, except for one extraordinarily uncharacteristic blot on our record.

I am holding in my hand the report for the State Services Commissioner into the Department of Corrections’ Canterbury emergency response unit. Has any member seen this big, thick, huge document? It is a document produced by Ailsa Duffy QC on 16 December 2004. I remind the House that much as we like to congratulate ourselves on being a civil society and a society and a nation that touts itself around the world as complying 100 percent with all the human rights legislation and protocols that the United Nations likes to churn out in this area, when it comes to the way we treated people in our own prison in Canterbury, this country and, notably, this Government failed. It did not fail on its own.

It was interesting to hear the Minister Mr Burton give such a wonderful speech recognising and reaffirming the rights of prisoners who are detained by the State to be treated humanely and fairly. But this huge, thick report, which took me, and New Zealand First, 4 years to get the Government to agree to have completed by means of an investigation, suggests that we are, on occasion, completely the opposite. What is even worse is that the issue was brought to the attention of the relevant Ministers of Correction of the Labour – Alliance or Progressive coalition—they had so many names, I cannot remember which one it was at the time.

The Hon Matt Robson, a notable campaigner of human rights around this country—and, in fact, I saw him in the paper today again prattling on about the human rights of some particular group of people—failed in this area. When I met with Mr Robson in his office for a private one-on-one discussion about the goings-on of the emergency response unit in Canterbury prisons, he did not want to know and he did nothing.

I had discussions with the honourable Tariana Turia the other night. She was—and I said so in a speech—an Associate Minister of Corrections at the time. It is interesting that she now says that it was impossible for her to get the Government to accede to my request for an inquiry into the inappropriate conduct, the inappropriate actions, the abuse of human rights, and the abuse of prisoners and inmates that had being going on in Canterbury’s prison for years.

It is not purely a Labour Government problem; it actually started under National’s term. It is interesting that people like Brian Neeson had the fortitude to stand up and say that an investigation was needed. Then slowly a number of other MPs from the Law and Order Committee stepped up, including Brian Connell. He said that what they were hearing about what was going on down there and the information he was receiving in Rākaia was telling him that something was not right in the kingdom. Despite all the rhetoric from the Government Ministers about respecting human rights and the rights and obligations of a State in terms of the way it treats those people incarcerated in its prisons, precisely the opposite was happening.

Mr Connell had many discussions, as I did, with good men and women of the Department of Corrections—officers who had subsequently, as a result of their blowing the whistle, found their performance reviews suddenly taking a nose dive. They found that their retention in New Zealand’s Department of Correction was suddenly now in question.

I put it on the record here that I am still to this day appalled by this Government’s Ministers of Corrections—and there was a series of them; there were four of them. I ask members not to listen to all the rhetoric but to judge people by what they do, not by what they say. It is wonderful to have Government Ministers and members standing up and saying that they will respect the rights of those people incarcerated and held by us in our prisons, but those words do not match their actions. Their actions were those of a Government in denial. Their actions were those of a Government that did not want to know. Their actions were those of a Government that preferred to put the word of the officials and the departmental managers in the Department of Corrections over and above that of the staff in the prison and over and above that of the inmates who were writing and complaining and explaining their stories.

The summary of findings on pages 1, 2, and 3 of this report just about sums it up. Ailsa Duffy QC stated: “Allegations of inappropriate behaviour came to the attention of the department between late December 1999 and August 2000.” Is that not funny? It took 4 years of political pressure from Opposition benches, led by New Zealand First, and backed by people like Brian Connell, to get the Government to finally agree to appoint a State Services Commissioner to investigate the matter. What did she say? “The Department failed to recognise the wider implications of the complaints certain prisoners made to the Prison Inspectorate and the Ombudsman about inappropriate conduct towards them by the CERU.”

Guess what? To this day no manager has been fired, not one. The men who were in charge of Canterbury’s prisons at that time, Monk, Rushton, and Smith—not one of them has been fired. Let us not forget that a man died. I will say that again. An inmate died at the hands of the “goon squad”. The officer who was involved in the control and restraint who tried to get the team to stop their action and who tried to render assistance to the person still, to this day—a fine, young man—has nightmares of that incident. Sometimes it just annoys the living heck out of me and New Zealand First.

I say to this Government that this wonderful piece of legislation, the Crimes of Torture Amendment Bill, has wonderful words of compassion. It is wonderful to hear that the Government is so concerned about inmates and about the rights of humans who are incarcerated. It is just a shame—just a pity—that it took 4 years of denial, 4 years of inaction, and 4 years of pretending that the very things this bill seeks to stop happened in our prisons, and four consecutive Labour Ministers of Corrections refused to do anything about it. I again pay my respects to Brian Neeson, Brian Connell, and those in the National Party on the Law and Order Committee who came to our aid. But I do point out that all this happened in this country in 1999-2000 during two terms of Government, and two sets of Governments denying that it ever took place. Members should read the report.

Dr PITA SHARPLES (Co-Leader—Māori Party): One does not have to go far in Aotearoa to witness the cruel, inhuman face of torture. Torture—the infliction of severe bodily pain, especially as a punishment or means of coercion—is a breach of the basic, fundamental rights to life that we would defend for all citizens of Aotearoa. The New Zealand Bill of Rights Act specifically includes the right “not to be subjected to torture or cruel treatment.” Yet despite it being in legislation and regulation, our performance to date is far from good.

The Māori Party comes to this House knowing that our national crisis is also the focus of international shame. It is not as if this was the first time the international spotlight has identified our failings as a nation in the upholding of basic human rights. At Mangaroa Prison in 1991 and 1993, abuse and injustices of such magnitude were recorded that they were subsequently reported to the United Nations committees for human rights and torture. The reports revealed that some of our prisoners, New Zealand prisoners, were held naked in outdoor yards overnight and denied medical attention for injuries including bruising, black eyes, and cracked ribs. A later ministerial inquiry found that the prison used informal squads of guards known as “designated hitters” to restrain and beat inmates in a series of systematic beatings. Eventually 12 guards were sacked and the Government issued a formal apology to the prisoners involved. There was a disturbing implication that because the crimes these inmates had committed were so grotesque, the behaviour of the prison guards was seen as almost acceptable. Such experiences indicate how vulnerable the state of democracy is in Aotearoa.

It was as a direct consequence of the ghastly events at Mangaroa Prison that the 1998 report of the United Nations Committee against Torture on New Zealand stated: “The committee considers it important to strengthen the supervision of the prisons to prevent the misuse and abuse of power by prison personnel.” That is paragraph 177 of that report. How could it come to be that in the very same year, 1998, the Pāremoremo behaviour management regime was set up? That unit provoked nine inmates to eventually turn to the High Court, taking their case against treatment that they described as constituting psychological torture, and that included their being kept in inhumane conditions. The prisoners described being held, as punishment, for too long in small, windowless cells in solitary confinement—some for a period of up to 2 years. The cells lacked adequate ventilation and natural light. The inmates were forbidden to exercise outside. How could it be that the recommendations from the United Nations Committee against Torture were breached to such an extent?

But it gets worse—and Ron Mark has referred to this. One year later, another unit was set up in a Canterbury prison, supposedly to tackle crime in prisons. The unit, infamously labelled the “goon squad”, was scrapped in 2000 following the death of a prisoner while being moved by the unit, and amidst claims that its unorthodox methods intimidated both inmates and other officers.

What sort of system do we have operating in our so-called “corrections” department, when year after year it is its own misadministration that needs correcting? How could it be that the behaviour management regime and the “goon squad” were set up after the 1998 report, which explicitly directed New Zealand to “prevent the misuse and abuse of power by prison personnel”? Was it ignorance, arrogance, or simply a case of “didn’t care”?

Other concerns raised by the United Nations Committee against Torture have been about some aspects of youth justice in New Zealand, including children being held in police cells, the mixing of young prisoners with adult prisoners, and the low age of criminal responsibility. Yet New Zealand had already sought to make a reservation to article 37(c) of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child about mixing young people with adults in prison. What this meant in practice was that at the end of 2002 there were 99 children under 17 years of age in prison custody. Eight of the boys were mixed with adults, and all 13 girls under 18 remained mixed with adult women.

I have to ask what sort of experience we are looking for for our young children, if we actually go out of our way, by introducing a reservation to the convention, to enable young people to cohabit with adults in prisons. Māori Party members do, of course, support the intervention that the Minister of Corrections made just 2 months ago, following the tragic death of a young prisoner in transit, to ensure prisoners aged under 18 are always kept separate from adults while being transported. But the crunch issue remains that the mixing of young people with adults remains a central problem in our prisons. The Māori Party supports the intention of this bill, in that it will raise the heat on the need for transparency and greater public scrutiny of practices such as this. We are particularly supportive of the opportunity for greater monitoring of institutions where people are deprived of liberty, and specially in the case of young people.

In my research into this bill I looked through the accounts from the working group on youth justice, which consulted 40 young people throughout 2002 and 2003 who had been deprived of their liberty and held in prison or specialist Department of Child, Youth and Family Services facilities. The experience of the children deprived of their liberty included lack of access to whānau, youth workers, and support staff; lack of information about their basic rights in the justice system; lack of safety in prison, including receiving intimidatory threats and stand-over tactics from other young people; lack of opportunity for educational support, and restrictive obstacles created by tuition fees; lack of access to mental health care support or physical health care—long waiting lists, harassment, and delays were frequently cited—and few, if any, cultural or social opportunities being available. In fact, to my horror I learnt that young prisoners had been prohibited from speaking, chanting, or singing in te reo Māori. As a result of these interviews, the working group on youth justice concluded that slow progress was being made in meeting the needs of young people deprived of liberties. Slow progress—that is an oxymoron if ever I heard one.

The shame of woeful compliance with international conventions is not a new occurrence in this nation. In March of this year the United Nations special rapporteur reported on the association of human rights abuses in relation to the indigenous people of Aotearoa. His report states that the Māori ancestral land base has been appropriated by a variety of historical processes, including voluntary sale, fraudulent purchase, and confiscation or alienation of land through legislative subterfuge. The special rapporteur concluded that the inherent rights of Māori were not constitutionally recognised, and identified that “underlying institutional and structural discrimination that Maori have long suffered” were still being inadequately addressed.

To our great disgrace as a nation, there has not yet been any sort of response that can serve to restore honour to the name of Aotearoa. Despite our great disillusionment with a Government that discredits the United Nations in the way that has been done regarding the report of Professor Stavenhagen, the Māori Party will not deny the opportunity for the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment to be received. We are hopeful that the Government will this time take seriously the urgent need to eliminate cruel, degrading, or inhuman forms of treatment or punishment. We are hopeful that by the time of the next report by the committee against torture, the events and crisis state of our corrections system will have been addressed in a way that is meaningful and sustainable, and involves all parties. We must have hope. To not do so would be to admit the situation is hopeless, and we will never ever concede that.

JOHN HAYES (National—Wairarapa): I would like to share the hope expressed by my colleague from the Māori Party, but I have some bad news for him. In the two books that I am holding up, one of 596 pages and the other of 471 pages, we have the New Zealand Consolidated Treaty List. The first list was compiled in 1948, and the second in December 1996. There has been no record of treaties since then, and I bet the member a dollar that he would not know the name of one treaty in these books. As for the people on the Government benches opposite me, I do not think they would know the names of very many of them, either. The fact is we do not know, as a country, what we have signed up to. It is not just a question of signing up to treaties; we have to take each treaty and turn it into domestic law, in order to do something with it. That is what we are engaged in doing here tonight with this Crimes of Torture Amendment Bill.

But I say to my colleague that this legislation is simply a make-work scheme for New Zealand bureaucrats and international bureaucrats. It will not make an iota of difference to any New Zealander, and I regret that. I have been sitting here, reflecting on what people have been saying and thinking about my transition to this debate from having spent a couple of days in my electorate with real people who have real problems, such as underfunded schools, police stations that are not working, and hospital waiting lists that are not running properly. There is problem after problem. Then I find this House engaged in dealing with this issue tonight, and essentially wasting its time.

However, I have lived in countries like Iran and Saudi Arabia, and I have seen what Governments do to their people. In that sense I was thinking about the chameleon in the New Zealand First Party, who came into this House wearing a pink tie. I think he supports the Labour Government tonight. He sounds eloquent because he has spent a lot of time on the back bench, making speeches in this House. He has never moved past the back bench. But, then, we would not really expect that from a former sergeant in the service of the Sultan of Oman—a man who is a dictator. We learn about all the problems in New Zealand, but the former sergeant who was in the service of the Sultan of Oman worked for a dictator who practised torture in the form of whacking off someone’s right hand, perhaps, for theft, without an anaesthetic. Worse still, on a Friday afternoon if someone had transgressed—a man might have had a relationship with a member of the opposite sex that he should not have had—boy, it was off with his head. Or, in the case of a woman, she would probably be stoned to death in a pit.

Hon Tau Henare: Is that in Oman?

JOHN HAYES: In Oman, under the sultan who was protected by our very own member of Parliament, the list member for Waimakariri.

Hon Clayton Cosgrove: No, not Waimakariri.

JOHN HAYES: I am very sorry; it is not the Waimakariri electorate. He is certainly a list member of Parliament.

But let us come back to the issue we are dealing with, because I do not want to waste all evening on the former sergeant in the service of the Sultan of Oman—he does not merit much attention at all. [Interruption] Mr Deputy Speaker, would you like to call for some order, please. It is very difficult to speak amongst the total disarray in this Chamber.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I think that is sufficient.

JOHN HAYES: Did you call for order?

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: They will quieten down.

JOHN HAYES: I am supportive of this bill, because I have seen people strung up, in a capital city in which I used to live, and have a heated barbecue grill applied to their back. I have seen young women put into prison, and I have seen parents have to watch as their son had his face forced into a boulder wall by members of a security establishment, simply for holding hands with a member of the opposite sex. So I am strongly supportive of any measures that will stop torture, and I share the views of my colleague in the Māori Party on that.

Unfortunately, this bill will not do that; it will make no difference at all. That is why the Australian Government decided, I think with some good sense, not to proceed down the same road that this Labour Government has led this House. It did that for two reasons. Firstly, it had procedural concerns. The draft protocol first saw light in 1980. Can any Labour member opposite tell me which country proposed it to the Human Rights Committee at its 47th session in 1980? They would not have a clue, would they? It was Costa Rica, but they would not know that. But then from 1980 until 2002 many, many squadrons of bureaucrats travelled the world, debating these issues. The draft text was eventually adopted by the Human Rights Committee. Do members opposite know how many people voted for it? Do they know how many countries, out of 198 countries in the world, voted for this legislation to go through the UN? Fifty-three countries got to vote on this issue. Of the 198 countries, 29 voted for it, 10 voted against it, and there were 14 abstentions. Only 53 of the world’s 198 countries were engaged in manufacturing this draft, so it does not exactly have huge international support.

Secondly, the Australian Government, which conducted a very serious inquiry into the issue, felt that the United Nations treaty bodies were not operating effectively and needed significant reform. It was opposed to the legislation that we are signing up to because people were not focusing on the areas of greatest concern in human rights violations around the world. But, as my colleague Mr Groser said, they will focus on the countries that do not matter and we can expect a UN team to be down here pretty soon, because this is a comfortable place to visit.

I think that the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee needs to look much more closely at New Zealand’s interaction with the UN treaty committee system, and that we need to develop a much more robust and strategic approach to the functioning and effectiveness of the treaty committee system, because it is expensive and it is not delivering an iota of value to the people whom I represent in the Wairarapa. We need to ensure adequate recognition in these processes for the primary role of a democratically elected Government, because it is Governments that take on human rights obligations and are responsible for fulfilling them, and the role of non-governmental organisations is subordinate in that respect. Of course, as the former sergeant in the New Zealand First Party who protected the Sultan of Oman would understand, when there is a one-man Government there is no human rights protection. Clearly, he would have been protecting that man’s sole power and supporting the use of torture through the exercise of that power.

I think it is also important that we ensure committees and individual members work within their mandates in these international groups—and we now have no control over that. We have no way of reducing duplication of or improving coordination between the agencies that are to be out visiting in order to work in this area. The other thing that we have to really think about, because it is not addressed in this legislation, is that the committee officials who are to come here will never have enough money or finances to do their work.

I draw attention to one further issue that I believe is really important in this treaty area: the Public Records Act of 2005. The Act requires public offices to fulfil two key obligations: first, a requirement to create and maintain public records, and secondly, in accordance with normal business practice, a requirement to include the records of any matter that is contracted out to an independent contractor—and the information needs to be kept in an accessible form, and one is not allowed to get rid of the records. I raise this Act of 2005 because we have a real problem with regard to our whole treaty process. As I come back to the books that I have laid on the Table, I draw the attention of the House to the fact that the first lot of treaties was assembled in 1948. The second time the job was done was in 1996, and nothing has happened since then. But we do have an Act of 2005 that requires us to keep a proper consolidated treaty list. Again, we should take an example from Australia’s book, because the Australians have a very good web-based treaty system, and I think we need to go there.

So with those few words, I say I certainly support this bill but that we need to improve our record-keeping.

Bill read a third time.

Bills

Crimes (Intimate Covert Filming) Amendment Bill

Third Reading

Hon MARK BURTON (Minister of Justice): I move, That the Crimes (Intimate Covert Filming) Amendment Bill be now read a third time. Intimate covert filming is often regarded as a contemporary form of voyeurism: the act of a person visually recording others covertly as they undress, undertake intimate bodily functions—such as using the toilet or showering—or engage in sexual activity. With the aid of modern technology this behaviour can pose a significant threat to commonly held notions of privacy. The recordings of the images can then be held for future use or sharing with others—particularly by placing the images on the Internet—or for commercial gain. We indeed live in a very different world from the one we lived in previously. Generally, covert filming has a sexual element, but not always. However, it always constitutes an invasion of personal privacy, as it concentrates on behaviour and aspects of the self that are, for the vast majority of people, very personal and private.

Since 1997 most instances of intimate covert filming have been investigated as breaches of the Films, Videos, and Publications Classification Act 1993. That Act relates to the making and distributing of objectionable publications. However, an inquiry into the operation of that Act by the Government Administration Committee highlighted the fact that that approach is no longer appropriate. This was because of the weight given to considerations such as breaches of privacy, which do not come within the reach of censorship law. Therefore the Government referred the issue of intimate covert filming to the Law Commission. In its 2004 study paper Intimate Covert Filming, the Law Commission proposed a dual response to intimate covert filming in New Zealand.

This bill deals with the criminalising of specific types of conduct engaged in by a film maker, distributor, or person possessing a film. Under existing legislation there is no provision that specifically prohibits the taking of a photograph or other visual record of a person who is nude, partially nude, or engaged in sexual or other intimate activity, or that prohibits the distribution of such images. The bill proposes amendments to the Crimes Act 1961 to create three new offences, in line with the Law Commission’s recommendations. These relate to making, possessing, publishing, importing, exporting, or selling images taken without knowledge or consent of a person who is in a place where that person could reasonably have expected to be private, and where that person is naked or has the sexual parts of his or her body exposed, partially exposed, or clad solely in undergarments, or is engaged in an intimate sexual activity or other personal bodily activity that involves dressing or undressing.

All the offences have a penalty of imprisonment for a period not exceeding 3 years, other than simple possession. Possession without an intention to publish, export, import, or sell the intimate visual recording has a penalty of imprisonment for a period not exceeding 1 year. Upon conviction, the court will have the power to order a recording to be destroyed and any equipment used in the commission of the offence to be forfeited to the Crown.

This legislation provides the victims of covert filming with an effective response. The investigative and prosecutorial resources of the police can be utilised. The process of conviction and penalty will, I believe, have both a deterrent and a rehabilitative effect. I thank members for facilitating the rapid passage of this legislation through the House. I commend it to members in the House.

BRIAN CONNELL (National—Rakaia): Thank you for the opportunity to speak on the Crimes (Intimate Covert Filming) Amendment Bill. This bill is one I feel very strongly about. In the past I had been critical of engaging Parliament in unwarranted legislation, but not this time. This time I believe that Parliament has got it dead right and, accordingly, National will strongly support the passage of this bill.

I want to take a couple of moments to set out exactly what we are discussing. Intimate covert filming is the making of a surreptitious visual recording of another person in intimate circumstances without—and these are the key components—that person’s consent or knowledge and in circumstances in which he or she would reasonably expect to be private. So what are we talking about? Essentially, we are talking about putting away modern-day peeping Toms. That is all we are talking about—people who are using modern technology to engage in old-fashioned peeping at other people in intimate positions.

I, along with my colleagues, believe extremely strongly that we need to stamp out this type of behaviour. I have a concern, however, that I want to raise now. There is absolutely no point in making this behaviour a criminal offence, enabling the police to intervene, if the police cannot organise their resources to take the appropriate action. The police have to look to their laurels on this issue. I am a strong supporter of the New Zealand Police, but sometimes the police make it very difficult for one to support them. It comes down to a clear resourcing issue.

Two examples come to the top of my mind. One is the incident where two women were involved in a car accident on the West Coast. They lay trapped in their car for 2 days, and the police, in their wisdom, decided to take a prosecution. I ask my colleagues how the public good was being addressed by taking that type of prosecution. My second example around police resourcing is to do with the issue of the gun shop owner who is now being prosecuted because someone took a knife to a gunfight. How ridiculous is that? And the hypocrisy—

Anne Tolley: It was a machete.

BRIAN CONNELL: A machete is a knife. It is a big knife. That person took a knife to a gunfight and, amazingly, was shot. The police, in their wisdom, decided to take a prosecution. However, Police Constable Abbott can shoot a citizen in Hawera who is carrying a golf club and, of course, there is no prosecution. The police took care of that issue themselves. I do not want to go off on a tangent but just make the point there is no use in putting legislation in place, unless the police can get their resources properly organised.

During the second reading debate my colleague Chester Borrows raised the issue of whether intimate audio recordings should be included in the bill, and I have to ask why not. I am sure Mr Borrows will address this issue himself when he takes a call, but I have to ask why not. Is someone less invaded if they are listened to rather than watched?

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 10 p.m.