Tuesday, 14 August 2007

Tuesday, 14 August 2007

Tuesday, 14 August 2007

Madam Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

Visitors

Latvia—Speaker of the Parliament, and Delegation

Madam SPEAKER: I have much pleasure in informing members that Mr Indulis Emsis, Speaker of the Parliament of the Republic of Latvia, is within the precincts of this Chamber. I am sure that members would wish that he be welcomed and accorded a seat to the left of the Chair. I am sure that members would also wish to welcome members of his delegation, who are present in the gallery.

Mr Emsis, accompanied by the Hon Clem Simich, entered the Chamber and took a seat on the left of the Chair.

Speaker’s Rulings

Select Committees—Official Business

Madam SPEAKER: Last Thursday a point of order was raised before this House about Hone Harawira, a non-voting member of the Justice and Electoral Committee, absenting himself from meetings of the committee in Melbourne to pay a private visit to the Northern Territory. I undertook to look into the matter once I had received a report from the Clerk.

First, there is the question of party votes. The Māori Party cast party votes on 8 August, on the assumption that Mr Harawira was at the select committee that day. It is now clear that he was not. Party whips have, nevertheless, assured the Clerk that the party had three members in the precincts during that day, and it was therefore entitled to cast a proxy for Mr Harawira. The party votes cast for the Māori Party on 8 August are therefore all confirmed.

That still leaves open issues relating to expenditure in respect of Mr Harawira’s visit to Melbourne, when he fulfilled less than half of the committee’s programme and, indeed, the obligation of members generally when they are receiving public funding to attend to the business in respect of which that funding has been provided. Ordinarily, where members travel to, and whether they attend select committee meetings, are entirely matters for them. But in this case the committee’s visit to Melbourne was part of the official travel programme, and members attending it have received public funding to participate in its meetings. I believe that they are therefore under an obligation to participate in the committee’s programme as a condition of receiving that funding.

As Mr Harawira participated in less than half of the committee’s programme of business, I consider it to be appropriate that he refund half of the airfare that was paid out of public funds on his behalf. I will be writing to him accordingly. I will also be raising the matter of select committee travel with the Business Committee today.

Points of Order

Select Committees—Official Business

HONE HARAWIRA (Māori Party—Te Tai Tokerau): I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I seek the leave of the House to table a report of my trip to Alice Springs.

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

GERRY BROWNLEE (National—Ilam): I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I wonder whether the Justice and Electoral Committee members who travelled to Melbourne might be prepared to have their travel programme tabled, in order that people might fully appreciate what a complete junket it was in the first place.

Madam SPEAKER: I thank the member, but, as he knows, that is a matter for the select committee.

RODNEY HIDE (Leader—ACT): I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I appreciate your ruling, and the need for Mr Hone Harawira to refund half his travel expenditure. Given the nature of his trip, I am sure he will be prepared to do that. But it raises a wider issue, because the issue was first raised by New Zealand First. In actual fact, the money that Mr Harawira might owe the taxpayer pales into insignificance when we compare it with the money that New Zealand First owes the taxpayer. So I do not see why Mr Harawira should have to pay his money back when New Zealand First gets away with it.

Madam SPEAKER: As the member well knows, that is not a valid point of order. If members have any other matters to raise in this respect, would they please do it in the appropriate way—which is to contact me.

GERRY BROWNLEE (National—Ilam): I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I wonder, given the strong ruling today, which, of course, the House will accept, why you cannot perhaps give us an indication of why New Zealand First has not been asked at this stage to pay up its contribution.

Madam SPEAKER: As the member also knows, that is not a valid point of order, and that matter has been dealt with.

Signage in the Chamber—New Zealand Labour Party

GERRY BROWNLEE (National—Ilam): I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I call your attention—as if you needed it—to the vast array of New Zealand Labour signage in the House this afternoon. Although it may be something that is necessary for that party to have as a disciplinary tool within its own party, what are the arrangements for this sort of display?

Madam SPEAKER: I would appreciate it if the member would raise the matter at the Business Committee. I have noted that other parties have done a similar thing, including the member’s own party and other parties who sit in other parts of the Chamber.

GERRY BROWNLEE (National—Ilam): I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I hope that the Business Committee will consider this from the point of view of the benefit that is perceived to be gained by the various members in putting up such a display. Also I wonder, Madam Speaker, whether it would now be appropriate for members, when they rise, to perhaps indicate where they got their suits, their ties, their shirts, and even their shoes.

Madam SPEAKER: As the member knows, that is not a valid point of order. As I said, there is an appropriate forum for such matters to be raised, and that is in the Business Committee.

Select Committees—Official Business

Dr PITA SHARPLES (Co-Leader—Māori Party): I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. Tēnā koe. In relation to your ruling in respect of Hone Harawira, has the same due diligence been applied to other members of the House on their trips when they were on formal business representing Parliament? From what I understand, there have been all sorts of things, including camel rides and rugby games, on the various trips.

Madam SPEAKER: Certainly, as they relate to select committee visits, yes, that same scrutiny has been applied for those trips that are under my jurisdiction.

Signage in the Chamber—New Zealand Labour Party

GERRY BROWNLEE (National—Ilam): I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. You have made a request that the matter of the extraordinary display by the Labour Party—clearly by lost individuals uncertain of who they are—here in the House this afternoon should be brought up in the Business Committee. The Business Committee is an informal arrangement, as I understand it, to consider the business of the House—the legislative programme and the various other procedural matters that relate to the business of the House. This would be a matter that perhaps needs to be dealt with by the Standing Orders Committee, which obviously does not meet all that often. In the meantime, I think it would be appropriate if you gave some ruling as to whether these displays are appropriate. They are a bit like a peacock, I suppose—

Madam SPEAKER: I just note that the member is raising the same point of order upon which I have ruled. If he does that again it will be considered a matter of disorder.

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Leader of the House): I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I point out that the Māori Party has been doing this for some weeks—and very attractive it looks, I may say, on its members’ desks. I assume under the National Party that it will be one law for all—a law that applies to the Māori Party also applies to a party that covers the general electorates at the same time and that has fewer members of Parliament. I see National Party members at the back displaying National Party signs. I think that Mr Ron Mark and Mr Pita Paraone—New Zealand First—also have been displaying such signs for a considerable period. It appears to be only when the Labour Party does something that Mr Brownlee ventures into one of his rare exercises in energy and rises to his feet to raise a point of order.

Madam SPEAKER: I also raised the matter—that is, I said I have seen similar displays from the National Party, as well. So, as I said, all parties have from time to time exhibited a need to display their signage. It is a matter—[Interruption] No, I am sorry, it is. This is a matter for the Business Committee. If the Business Committee feels it is a matter that should be referred to the Standing Orders Committee, then so be it. I look forward to members’ contributions at that meeting later this afternoon.

TARIANA TURIA (Co-Leader—Māori Party): I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I just point out to the House that the Māori Party signs were donated, and did not have the parliamentary crest on them, and that would imply that public money has been spent on the stickers.

Madam SPEAKER: I just note for members that that is yet another invalid point of order. I sincerely hope that it will be the last of them for the day.

Speaker’s Rulings

Questions—Ministers’ Answers

Madam SPEAKER: On Thursday, the Hon Peter Dunne asked me to re-examine the rulings on Ministers’ answers, on the ground that they may be contradictory. I have done so, and I do not believe that they are contradictory. The Standing Orders and Speakers’ rulings require that the answers must be relevant to the question asked, but they do not—indeed, it would be impossible to do so, in any case—require that they are satisfactory to the House. Each member of the House decides for himself or herself.

What the Speakers’ rulings do recognise is that there may be occasions on which the Minister’s answer, though relevant, may be so patently inadequate that the Speaker may demonstrate some disapproval of it. In an extreme case such as that, the Speaker may invite the Minister to answer again, or even permit an extra supplementary question. No such circumstance arose last week.

Hon PETER DUNNE (Leader—United Future): I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I thank you for that ruling. I think it is very helpful, but could I suggest that the difficulty that has been emerging has been the conflict between the Speaker having no obligation over the quality or content of an answer, and the Speaker’s ruling that states that a question has to be addressed. I think that some of the points contained in your ruling, in terms of the circumstances in which the presiding officer might intervene to say that a question has not been satisfactorily answered, are very helpful. It might be a useful standard, moving forward, if they were to become the yardstick by which to adjudge whether a question has been addressed, rather than this constant situation we get now where questioners who feel they have not got the answer that they thought they were going to get, protest that the question has not been addressed. I take it from what you are saying that the two conditions that you set out in the ruling will be what you will be applying from now on in determining whether the question has been answered.

Madam SPEAKER: I thank the member for his observation, and may I suggest, as I have on numerous occasions in the past, that this matter would be more usefully taken up by the Standing Orders Committee.

Questions for Oral Answer

Questions to Ministers

Education—Competition

1. DIANNE YATES (Labour) to the Minister of Education: What reports has he received about the need for more competition in the education system?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY (Minister of Education): I have seen a report arguing that “there’s plenty of opportunities to have the private sector playing a bigger role in education.”, and that there should be “greater orientation towards privatisation in the education system”. However, I have also seen a report stating that “The New Zealand public education system is really good.”, and that “We rank sixth in the developed world for having a really good education system.” Those conflicting statements come from the same source, Mr John Key, and they leave one saying: “Tell the truth, Mr Key.”

Madam SPEAKER: That last comment was not in order.

Dianne Yates: What reports has the Minister seen on the quality of the New Zealand education system?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: I have seen a report that states that “students are coming out of our schools unprepared for life …”, and that “alarm bells should be ringing in the Beehive.” However, I have also seen a report that states: “We should not expect any drastic reforms from the National Party spokesperson, Katherine Rich.” Those statements are conflicting, and I ask Mrs Rich which one is the truth.

Hon Brian Donnelly: Can the Minister explain the educational advantage to New Zealand of the 37.75 percent decrease in value per student of grants to independent schools created by the capping of funding at $40 million per annum in the year 2000, which is a policy designed to reduce educational competition; and does he believe it is time to revisit the capped funding policy?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: The value of that policy, of course, is to ensure the quality of education for the 96 percent of students who are going to public schools. That is where our investment is going, and I ask the member whether he would care to ask Mr Key whether, during his meeting with the Exclusive Brethren, he carried out the promise of saying he would switch money from the public sector to the private sector—as he said he would in Nicky Hager’s book.

John Key: Did the Minister of Education see page A2 of the New Zealand Herald of a few weeks ago, which had a very interesting story about Lyn Avery, the principal of Glen Taylor School—a decile 1 primary school in South Auckland that has 100 percent Māori or Pacific Island students—who, after 4 years of following the approach that National suggests under national standards, now has stunning results for her students; and on the back of that, will the Minister of Education do something about supporting National’s move towards national standards in education?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: I have seen that report from Glen Taylor School, which after 8 years under a Labour Government is doing stunningly well. Right across the whole of the education system results that were going nowhere under National during the 1990s are now going fantastically well. I say to Mr Key that he can go to any school in the country that he likes, and after 8 years that school would have done better under this Government than under his. I ask Mr Key to tell the truth.

Judy Turner: Has the Minister given serious consideration to claims by the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research that the Government could fund independent schools at a rate of up to 46 percent of the cost of providing a State education for a child and still save money; if so, does he plan to raise the cap on funding that the State provides to independent schools?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: I have to say that this Government is not in the process of trying to save money in our public schools. It may be Mr Key’s policy to move money from the public to the private sector; it is not this Government’s policy to do so. We believe in investing in quality, public education.

Dianne Yates: What alternative approaches to the allocation of education funding has the Minister seen?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: I have seen a report that lower-decile schools are “awash with cash”, and that the decile funding system for schools should change. The very next day I saw a report that stated: “We are not proposing changing to the funding.” Both of those reports came from Mr Bill English. I ask Mr English which one is the truth.

John Key: Will the Government be supporting National’s policy of national standards, which is delivering the stunning results at Glen Taylor School, or will the Government continue with its failed policies that see one in five New Zealand children leave school unable to read, write, or do maths anywhere near their chronological age?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: The last time I looked the bill that the member refers to was still on the Order Paper, yet to be debated in Parliament. How the bill could be having an impact on Glen Taylor School is beyond me. The member is quoting results that arise from the fantastic policies around processes like asTTle in those very schools that are making a huge difference to those students. Under this Government Māori students in particular are finally seeing real progress. I thank the member for his backing, but I ask him to come clean on whether he intends to cut funding to public schools.

Tariana Turia: Does the Minister believe that the high number of Māori boys who are failing in the secondary school system is an example of success?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: An example of success that we are seeing now is that the number of boys from a Māori background who are leaving school is rising in relation to the qualifications they have. We are seeing changes there because of programmes put in place by this Government—unlike Mr Key’s party. What we want to hear from Mr Key is whether he will cut funding to public schools, as he appears to have promised the Exclusive Brethren.

Madam SPEAKER: I wish to put members on notice that the interjections are beginning to create disorder in this House. Members will be leaving the House if it continues.

Electoral Finance Bill—Select Committee Changes

2. JOHN KEY (Leader of the Opposition) to the Prime Minister: Does she stand by her statement, in regard to the Electoral Finance Bill, that “obviously there’s going to have to be some change in the select committee”; if so, what changes does she think are “obviously” required?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK (Prime Minister): Yes; any specific changes are, of course, a matter for the select committee.

John Key: If changes are “obviously” required to the bill, why did the Government introduce it in its current form?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: Election legislation is always very carefully scrutinised in the select committee, as will be this legislation.

Tim Barnett: Are there overseas precedents for the major provisions of the Electoral Finance Bill?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: I understand that in respect of the provisions around third parties, many of the provisions are based on similar ones already in place in Britain and Canada. Of course, that does not suit the hollow men who like to buy elections.

Metiria Turei: Does the Prime Minister agree that if we are to protect our democracy from the influence of money, then we must change this bill in order to get rid of both anonymous donations and secret trusts?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: Those issues can be addressed in the select committee. I note that the Greens have made a number of constructive comments about issues they would like to see addressed there. I have said in the House previously that I believe there are trade-offs between the level of public funding—as in other countries—and what happens with regard to anonymous donations.

John Key: What changes does the Prime Minister think are specifically required to the Electoral Finance Bill?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: At this point those are not determined.

John Key: Why are they not determined, when yesterday they were obvious?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: The member should look more carefully at the quote he used in his own question. It said that obviously there will have to be some change; it did not mention any specific change.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Does the Prime Minister agree that any changes that are to be made should not allow a party that spent more public money in the 2005 election campaign, by a great margin, than any other party to be allowed to get away with that, simply because it did not know when the 3-month—

Sandra Goudie: Pay it back.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I beg your pardon? If the member wants to talk about paying it back, we will start with some National members.

Madam SPEAKER: Will the member now please ask his question in silence.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I take objection to a bunch of backbenchers who have stood for nothing complaining about my party.

Madam SPEAKER: I have addressed the issue. I have asked the member to ask his question in silence.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Does the Prime Minister agree that any changes to be made to the bill should not allow any party that spent more public money on the 2005 election campaign than any other party in this House, by a wide margin, to get away with that, simply because it did not know when the 3-month rule would begin?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: I understand that the National Party, to which the member is referring, did not understand, despite it being clear in the law, that the capped expenditure permitted actually included GST.

John Key: Did Cabinet fully understand and agree on the definition of an electoral advertisement before the bill was introduced; and did Ministers know that they would be regulating bodies and suppressing the ordinary legitimate activities of bodies like Grey Power, the Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society, and the Post Primary Teachers Association?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: Bills like this go through full Cabinet processes. They then go through a select committee process. The issue of definitions is one of many things that others have suggested be looked at in the bill.

John Key: Does the Prime Minister agree that there are really only two explanations when it comes to this deeply flawed, Draconian, and anti-democratic legislation: first, that Mark Burton and Cabinet are totally incompetent and could not see what everyone else could see when it was finally shown to the rest of New Zealand, or, second, that they knew all along exactly what the effects were and they just hoped that nobody else would notice?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: Neither; but what we always expected was that the hollow men would oppose any decent campaign law reform.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: What reports has the Prime Minister received that justify a third party, not being a political party in this House, disguising the expenditure of over $1 million on behalf of one party’s campaign, then of the members of the political party that was supported by that outside group perjuring themselves on the issue of whether they knew about it?

Hon Bill English: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I think you know what my point of order is. To allege that any member of this Parliament perjured himself or herself is completely out of order.

Madam SPEAKER: Would the member please withdraw that comment.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Madam Speaker, I mentioned a party. If the member thinks the glove fits and he wants to wear it, that is fine, but I did not mention him by name.

Madam SPEAKER: The member knows that a member has raised the point that a reflection has been made. I ask the member to withdraw that reflection and to apologise, please.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I withdraw and apologise. I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. It is a fact that National Party members were aware of the Exclusive Brethren contribution. They have all had to admit that via their former leader, Don Brash, and Mr Key, who in the emails in The Hollow Men are disclosed as having known. My point is that just because they are embarrassed—

Madam SPEAKER: Would the member please be seated. The member knows that that is not a point of order. Would the member please ask his supplementary question if he has one.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Madam Speaker, I am seeking to raise a point of order here. I am asserting what is a known fact, and you are demanding that I apologise. With respect, that is not how—

Madam SPEAKER: Please be seated. The member knows that that is not the issue. The issue is whether the member is raising a point of order. The withdrawal and apology was for a term to which offence was taken. The member did the proper thing then. Would the member please just ask his supplementary question, and we can proceed.

Family Violence Prevention—Māori-specific Targeting

3. TARIANA TURIA (Co-Leader—Māori Party) to the Minister for Social Development and Employment: Of the $60 million committed by the Government to family violence prevention over the next 4 years, what specific targeted investment has been made in Māori-specific initiatives and interventions, and what are the names of the programmes and services that have received support?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY (Acting Minister for Social Development and Employment): The member’s figures need to be corrected slightly. In the 2006 Budget, I think she is referring to the $68.8 million over 4 years to programmes that help reduce violence in our families and communities. We should also not overlook the fact that the Ministry of Social Development already funds around $125 million per year into community-based organisations that deliver these kinds of services. All of this spending has an impact to some degree on Māori, but specific programmes that we might mention are Amokura, the Te Rito programme, which funds coordinators and whānau, and the violence programmes. It is worth pointing out that almost half of the 50 highest-paid funders of Ministry of Social Development funds are iwi-based or Māori providers.

Tariana Turia: Has the Minister seen the release from Te Korowai Aroha o Aotrearoa that states: “Despite the efforts of Māori organisations and their initiatives to stem the tide of whānau violence, Government support remains minimal.”, and would he not agree that $2 million out of these funds—given that Te Rito is not a Māori programme—allocated to Māori-specific initiatives is pitiful, and is woefully inadequate to stem the tide of whānau violence; if not, why not?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: I share the member’s concern about whānau-based violence, and I know that one of the things that has happened—particularly in the last couple of weeks—is that a number of people have taken leadership to try to show how this issue can be resolved. I do want to point out to the member that the Waipareira Trust, for example, received $2 million a year alone, and I want to go back to the fact that almost half of the 50 highest-funded providers for the Ministry of Social Development and Employment are iwi or Māori-based providers. A large amount of money is running through a very wide range of programmes that will impact on this issue amongst Māori.

Dave Hereora: What steps has the Government taken to ensure that the issue of family violence has been addressed?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: Of course, one of the core goals of the Government is to ensure that New Zealanders live in healthy, safe, and secure environments, and we have programmes running across all major agencies—health, social development, education, and so on. I point to the Family Violence Intervention programme, the Strong Pacific Families strategy, and the programme that is for young children who witness violence. Just recently my colleague Mr Hodgson released the Violence Intervention programme, which was well covered in the media and means that all front-line staff in hospitals will be trying to deal with the issue of family violence. Next month, I will be releasing the It’s Not OK programme, which will be a large programme focusing on all communities in this country standing up and saying no to violence, and then referring people who need assistance to the proper agencies.

Tariana Turia: Does the Minister believe that $500,000 given to a national Māori organisation to be shared amongst 200 agencies is sufficient to address this significant issue, and when does the Minister intend to take responsibility to invest in the most critical issue facing this nation and allow Māori providers to implement their own solutions, given the limited success of others?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: I repeat that there is a large amount of money, far more than $500,000, running through a variety of programmes that are by Māori, for Māori, and are programmes that will impact on whānau. One of the things I would say to the member is that we have a cross-Parliament group currently working; that would seem, to me, to be an ideal place for the member to make concrete suggestions about how we might approach this issue in the future, and I would welcome hearing from her on those matters.

Tariana Turia: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. In my first question, I gave the Minister the opportunity to share with the House the names of those Māori providers that provide those services, and he chose not to answer it.

Madam SPEAKER: I will ask the Minister whether he wishes to address it. I recall that some names were, in fact, given, but would the Minister like to repeat them?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: Yes, just for the interest of the House, I have mentioned such programmes as the Waipareira Trust, but also I mentioned Hauraki, Ngāpuhi, Te Rawara, and Ngāti Raukawa; I mentioned groups such as Ngāti Maniapoto. As I said before—and I am happy to send the member the list of the 50 largest funding groups in the Ministry of Social Development—most of them are Māori or iwi-based, and she is welcome to have that list.

Tariana Turia: Supplementary question, Madam Speaker.

Madam SPEAKER: There are no more supplementary questions indicated on the list today; three were allocated, and they have been taken.

Tariana Turia: I seek leave to ask one more supplementary question.

Madam SPEAKER: Leave is sought. Is there any objection? There is no objection.

Tariana Turia: With the upcoming launch of a national campaign against family violence, what resources have been set aside for Māori communities and Māori providers to be involved in this campaign, particularly given the greatly increased demand on their services?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: The member will know that the campaign that says violence is not OK has $14 million attached to it. That will pay for the promotional material, and there will be some money available for people to apply for, to provide services. Māori providers will be welcome to apply for that money so they can step up their services in response to need.

Electoral Finance Bill—Freedom of Expression

4. Hon BILL ENGLISH (Deputy Leader—National) to the Minister of Justice: Does he stand by his statement with regard to the Electoral Finance Bill, “Some members have already suggested that the third-party reforms unjustifiably restrict freedom of expression. They do not”; if so, why?

Hon MARK BURTON (Minister of Justice): Yes; because the third-party provisions in the bill do not unjustifiably restrict freedom of expression—a point clearly made in the remainder of the sentence. The member selectively quotes from my first reading speech, in which I went on to refer to the Crown Law advice confirming that very point.

Hon Bill English: Does the Minister believe that for groups like Grey Power, the Post Primary Teachers Association, and Forest and Bird—who could advertise their political views freely in every election up until now—the fact that they will be restricted to a couple of full-page ads for the whole of the 2008 election year might look to them like a restriction on their freedom of expression?

Hon MARK BURTON: No.

Ann Hartley: Has the Minister seen any other selective quotes about the provisions of the bill?

Hon MARK BURTON: Yes, indeed. In this letter—and it very helpfully relates to Mr English’s last question, too—apparently sent to hundreds of organisations such as the one he referred to, Mr English seeks to mislead and cause concern by implying that clause 47 of the bill requires disclosure of all donations to third parties, whereas clause 22 makes it clear that it applies only to donations contributing towards the funding of their election expenses, not their normal community activities. Mr English is making it up again.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: How do the provisions of this bill line up with legislation passed through this House in 1993 by the National Party and designed to stop another political party from using its own money to advertise on radio or TV, at a fine of $100,000 on each and every occasion that that party attempted that, which was the legislation Bill English supported in 1993 to stop New Zealand First getting any public promotion whatsoever—how does Mr English line that one up?

Hon MARK BURTON: I think it would be fair to say that this legislation has a broader base, but I think it is an altogether fairer and more balanced piece of legislation.

Hon Bill English: Was the Prime Minister present at the Cabinet discussion of the Electoral Finance Bill, and did she, along with the rest of Cabinet, agree to the current contents of the bill as introduced to the House?

Hon MARK BURTON: The Prime Minister chairs Cabinet—obviously the Prime Minister is present at Cabinet meetings. But, equally, I absolutely agree with the comments the Prime Minister made in response to an earlier question. It has always been the case that this bill was intended to go to a select committee where other parties and the wider community could have their say, and where I have always indicated it will go. We expect the bill to be refined and, in some cases, improved.

Rodney Hide: Does the Minister agree with the Prime Minister’s statement that in attempting to stop third-party advertising, Labour “may have cast the net too wide”, catching legitimate lobby groups; if so, does he consider Church groups in general and the Exclusive Brethren in particular to be legitimate lobby groups, and if they are not, why are they not?

Hon MARK BURTON: I think it is fair to say that in casting a net that sits somewhere between the provisions in jurisdictions such as Canada and the United Kingdom, the Government felt that this was a good starting point for select committee consideration. Clearly, the intent of this legislation—whether a group is a Church group, so called, such as the Open Brethren, or any other group—is to prevent the sort of National Party - supported rort of a $1 million - plus attempt to buy an election in 2005. Certainly, that goes well beyond any provision this Government can tolerate.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Has he received any reports that go to the issue of integrity and credibility where a party is raising in this House concerns of fairness and freedom of information, and freedom itself, yet its track record is to seek to ban another party from advertising itself in a campaign completely, as recently as 10 years ago, supported by Bill English?

Hon MARK BURTON: Yes, I have. I also can say that that same party is the party whose leader—then leader and present leader—received this correspondence telling them about the intent to spend over $1 million. [Interruption] I say to Mr Key that I am sorry but it is just not credible that he does not read his own mail. It is a $1 million - plus campaign in support of the National Party to get around New Zealand’s electoral law. That is what this bill is about, I say to Mr Key—to protect New Zealanders from that sort of National Party - supported rort.

Hon Bill English: Did the Minister or any other Ministers discuss in detail the definitions of political advertisement and third-party registration requirements with the Green Party, and had the Green Party indicated to him whether it continued to support the bill as introduced?

Hon MARK BURTON: A wide range of matters have been discussed with many individuals and groups, including some with the Green Party. The issue is that the introduction of the bill was secured in order that wide-ranging discussion and consideration of its contents can be made. It has always been clear that this bill, like every electoral bill before it, will be subject to scrutiny and, no doubt, improvement and refinement. That is a good thing, I say to Mr English.

Hon Bill English: Has he heard comments by the Prime Minister that the bill “casts the net too wide”, and does he believe that has happened because Cabinet looked at the provisions and did not understand them, and therefore signed off a drift-net to catch all criticism of Labour, or does he believe that Cabinet knew it was casting a drift-net to catch all criticism and hoped to get away with it? Which is correct?

Hon MARK BURTON: As is so often the case with the member asking the question, neither proposition is remotely correct. Do I agree that, in the context of the select committee, the consideration of whether the precise levels that have been set within the bill, somewhere between the Canadian and the United Kingdom provisions, may be subject to some change? Of course I do.

Hon Bill English: Can the Minister tell the House just what he and the Prime Minister mean when they say that this legislation levels the playing field, and can he confirm that what that actually means to him is to level the playing field between the incumbent Labour Government with the vast resources of the State, on the one hand, and anyone who might dare to criticise them, on the other hand?

Hon MARK BURTON: I think I can perhaps suggest to the member that the Prime Minister and I would, perhaps, agree more with the Supreme Court of Canada’s recent ruling when it said that, clearly, limits on third parties allow all citizens to have meaningful participation in the electoral process and are therefore beneficial. This legislation is about ensuring that the huge amounts of money that were attempted to be used to buy an election in 2005 cannot again be used for such a rort on the electoral system of the people of New Zealand.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Can I ask the Minister—[Interruption]

Madam SPEAKER: Sandra Goudie, would you please leave the House.

Sandra Goudie withdrew from the Chamber.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Can I ask the Minister whether this case would be caught: a business called Fay Richwhite paid a million dollars to the National Party to get itself an exemption from the BNZ inquiry, promised then by the National Party. Would such a donation be caught in 2008?

Hon Bill English: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. It is out of order to allege that any member of Parliament is influenced in that way from outside the House.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: That is not what is being alleged here. What is being alleged here is that an outside party paid a political party $1 million—[Interruption]— which is the fact.

Madam SPEAKER: I grasp what the issue is. There is another issue here besides that, and that is I do not detect there is any ministerial responsibility for that particular matter.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I am asking whether the Minister can tell the House whether the provisions of this bill would catch such a case, and I have laid that case out. He does have ministerial responsibility for that.

Madam SPEAKER: If the member is asking a question of a hypothetical situation that is within the ministerial responsibility, that is correct.

Hon MARK BURTON: It is clearly the case that if an external or third-party organisation sought to influence the outcome of an election by the use of $1 million, indeed, it would be caught.

Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I have noticed, over a number days now, that when Government members ask questions of themselves, they ask Ministers whether they have seen reports, received reports, or could comment on reports. This appears to us, if one reads Hansard, to be a sort of a subterfuge to allow the Ministers to stray into all sorts of areas that are quite extraneous to the nature of the question asked in the first place. This afternoon we have seen two or three of those examples in the case of the Government asking itself questions through Winston Peters. In the case of Mark Burton, he twice answered: “Yes, I have.” If he has those reports perhaps he should be invited to table them.

Madam SPEAKER: On the latter point, it is only if the Minister is quoting from official documents that he is required, of course, to table them. But on the more general point, as the member is aware, there have been rulings that as long as reports are within the ministerial responsibility, then they are perfectly permitted. However, it is when comments stray to other parties and their policies that they are out of order. I would repeat, however, that it would assist no end if the Standing Orders Committee would clarify this, because also, as members know, hypothetical questions can be asked and hypothetical answers can be given.

Rodney Hide: Can he confirm that in the jurisdictions he cited—Britain and Canada—the Government does not limit spending on the basis of whether a lobby group is considered by the Government to be legitimate or illegitimate, and does he not think it is dangerous to have a Government determining what people can do with their own money in expressing their political views on the basis of whether the Government decides whether they are legitimate; and just who does he think is an illegitimate lobby group to be spending its own money putting across its own political views?

Hon MARK BURTON: In a sense the member asks a hypothetical question, because the bill does not do what he represents the bill to do.

Rodney Hide: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Prime Minister is stated in today’s paper as saying that the net is cast too far.

Madam SPEAKER: Would the member who called for a point of order please make a point of order and not a debating point. If the point was that the Minister did not address the question, I say that he did. It may not have been to the satisfaction of the member. If the member has a point of order would he please make a point of order in the context of the Standing Orders.

Rodney Hide: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. The Minister did not address the question. All that he did was declare that it was hypothetical, and there is nothing hypothetical about it.

Madam SPEAKER: No, the Minister did address the question—

Rodney Hide: Point of order—

Madam SPEAKER: I have ruled on this matter.

Rodney Hide: I know. I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. Is it possible for a Minister, in answer to any question whatsoever and no matter the content of the question, simply to say: “That is a hypothetical question.”, and sit down?

Madam SPEAKER: If it is the context of the question, yes.

Hon Dr Michael Cullen: Is the Minister aware that the last time the Post Primary Teachers Association, Grey Power, and the Royal Forest and Bird Protecton Society in any way supported the National Party was in 1990—and Grey Power was rewarded with a broken promise and, effectively, three cuts to New Zealand superannuation—if so, can he confirm that the Government has no concerns about any activity those organisations might engage in?

Rodney Hide: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. If my question clearly was not in order, how could that question possibly be in order?

Madam SPEAKER: The question was in order. Would the Minister please address it.

Hon MARK BURTON: I certainly can confirm that. Of course the Government has no such concern. To be particularly helpful to Mr Hide, I say that the bill sets up a system where third parties that want to engage in election campaigning will have to register with the Chief Electoral Officer, not with the Government—and it will not be a matter of someone determining whether they are fit or proper. They will simply have to go through a proper registration process and declare their intent to participate in New Zealand’s electoral process.

Residential Property—Foreign Ownership

5. PITA PARAONE (NZ First) to the Minister of Finance: What were the findings of the “further work” he requested be done into the issue of foreigners purchasing New Zealand’s residential property?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Minister of Finance): Treasury contacted Quotable Value New Zealand and the Inland Revenue Department to explore with them the possibility of further interrogating their databases. These organisations confirmed that their respective databases cannot provide further information about purchases of New Zealand property by overseas buyers.

Pita Paraone: Does the Minister agree that this issue will continue to cause some concern to New Zealanders who are struggling to enter the housing market, especially without the availability of full and proper information and given that there is much anecdotal evidence that suggests that foreign purchasers are having some effect on property prices?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: There is concern, though the fact that we have seen across-the-board increases in house prices in areas that are not even remotely of great interest to overseas buyers suggests that that has not been the primary driver. I have asked officials to look again, to see whether there are other ways in which we can try to develop better information on this matter. It is clear that the Quotable Value New Zealand and the Inland Revenue Department data does not give an accurate picture.

Pita Paraone: Has the Minister seen the point made by the Reserve Bank, in its submission to the Finance and Expenditure Committee’s inquiry into the future monetary policy framework, that variations in new migrant arrivals should be used as a supplementary tool during periods in which demand pressures in the economy are becoming intense; and does he think that property information both on foreign nationals who are resident and on those who are not resident needs to be collated separately?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: I hesitate to disagree with the Reserve Bank, but on this occasion I do. Firstly, it is extremely difficult, actually, to moderate the flow of migration with any great degree of success. We have seen that quite clearly over a long period of time. The matter is much more related to the economic cycle in New Zealand than to the ability to turn on and off a tap. The second, of course, is that when the economy is going through a strong growth phase, there is very often also a shortage of labour and a shortage of skills. If migration was cut off at that point—which is effectively what the Reserve Bank is arguing—that would lead to stronger wage pressures and the Reserve Bank would then be concerned about inflation.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I seek to table the Sunday paper of 12 August, which discloses that an English domiciled resident and owner has bought 12 farms in New Zealand.

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

Hawke’s Bay District Health Board—Ministry Conclusions

6. Hon TONY RYALL (National—Bay of Plenty) to the Minister of Health: Has the Ministry of Health investigated the handling of disclosures made by the whistleblower at the Hawke’s Bay District Health Board in January 2006; if so, what were the ministry’s conclusions?

Hon PETE HODGSON (Minister of Health): No, the ministry did not. However, the chair of the board rang the ministry in January 2006, and he rang me in January 2006, to advise that he had received a complaint and that the board would respond, which it then did.

Hon Tony Ryall: Is the Minister aware that the Ministry of Health wrote to the Hawke’s Bay District Health Board, seeking full information around the cancelled community services contract and other information associated with that under the Official Information Act; and why would one agency seek information from another Government agency under the Official Information Act if there was not going to be an investigation or a look at those matters?

Hon PETE HODGSON: I rather suspect that that is a slightly different issue—in time, anyway. I do not recall precisely the ministry doing that, but it may well have done so, and, if it did, it probably felt that was necessary because the information was not forthcoming otherwise.

Hon Tony Ryall: Is the Minister aware that the Ministry of Health looked at that information and found “nothing remarkable”; and does the Minister believe that the events that took place involving the whistleblower were in fact nothing remarkable?

Hon PETE HODGSON: I say again to the House—and I am not sure how many times I have said it now—that the continuing innuendo around these issues in general and around Mr Hausmann in particular reached a point where Mr Hausmann, some weeks ago, said: “Despite the fact that this has been looked at at length by this body or that, I would like it to be looked at again.” As a result of that I took the unusual step of asking the director-general whether he would establish an independent review group to take a look at it. That group was formed some weeks ago and is making good progress in its independent review. It has interviewed the whistleblower in question, has looked at a wide range of other stuff, and will report in due course to the director-general, who will report to me, and I will make the information public.

Sue Moroney: Did Mr Hausmann declare any conflict of interest at the time of his appointment?

Hon PETE HODGSON: He did. He did so in writing, and he did so at the outset. He also indicated how he intended to manage his conflicts of interest, and he did that in writing, as well. That contrasts dramatically with the actions of Dr Tony Bierre of the Auckland District Health Board, who kept his board colleagues in the dark and sought to enrich himself accordingly. He is, of course, a member of the National Party and a good mate of Dr Jackie Blue of this House.

Hon Tony Ryall: Was the Minister aware that his officials in the Ministry of Health, Mr McKernan and Mr Hill, in fact met with representatives of the Hawke’s Bay District Health Board to discuss the full set of documents made available to them regarding this matter, and that they advised they had found nothing remarkable—was the Minister aware of that investigation?

Hon PETE HODGSON: I am aware that there have been a number of conversations between the Ministry of Health and the Hawke’s Bay District Health Board, and I am sure that they have included the two gentlemen involved—

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Answer the question.

Hon PETE HODGSON: Could the member just draw breath; I am trying to—[Interruption] OK, the member should not draw breath. The ministry has been interested in issues around the Hawke’s Bay District Health Board for some time. Amongst the many meetings there will have been, I am sure, meetings involving the deputy director-general of funding and planning and the director-general himself. In fact, I think I recall reports of those meetings—whether they were given orally or in writing, I am not sure. However, the fact of the matter does not really change: so far, the audit committee of the board has found that the issues around the contract in question did not occasion Mr Hausmann any particular advantage. That was its legal advice. Because the issues have not gone away, Mr Hausmann himself wrote to me, saying: “Please investigate me further.”, and I agreed to do that.

Hon Tony Ryall: Does he think the whistleblower’s being bullied and threatened that management had power in terms of her future job security was “nothing remarkable”, and how accurate can that conclusion be in light of those comments?

Hon PETE HODGSON: I feel that all those comments first came to my attention in a Sunday paper, probably about 5 or 6 weeks ago, and from memory the comments were made by the whistleblower herself. In other words, they were her view of what an interview was about. That same person has been interviewed by the independent review team, and I am sure other people around the issue have also been interviewed by the team, though I do not know all of the people who have been interviewed. I can assure the member that the independent review team will report to the director-general soon. I do not know when that will be, but it will probably be when the investigation is finished. Its investigations will be reasonably thorough, fair, quiet, reasoned, and reasonable, and I think the member should take comfort from that. Let us see what the review team has to say.

Hon Tony Ryall: Is the Minister aware that within months of the whistleblower having her job security threatened by district health board managers, the Hawke’s Bay District Health Board undertook a staff restructure, and, lo and behold, the whistleblower was the only person in the entire district health board to lose her job; does he think that was “nothing remarkable”?

Hon PETE HODGSON: The member makes an assertion that may or may not be true. He makes an assertion that the whistleblower was threatened. There is another assertion made by the whistleblower, which is that she felt threatened. Let us see what the independent review team would like to make of those two things, and let us see whether the independent review team thinks that the restructuring was reasoned and reasonable, or whether it was not reasonable. I think that team is likely to get to the truth of the matter, and I am quite keen to find that out. I do not think we should use this place as some sort of kangaroo court to try to sort things out beforehand.

Hon Tony Ryall: I seek leave to table the Official Information Act request—something the Minister was unaware of—from the ministry to the Hawke’s Bay District Health Board.

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

Hon Tony Ryall: I seek leave to table an email from the chairman of the audit committee of the Hawke’s Bay District Health Board, reporting on the view of the ministry.

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

Telecommunications—National Environmental Standards

7. SUE KEDGLEY (Green) to the Minister for the Environment: Is he concerned that the proposed national environmental standards for telecommunications facilities would allow masts and antennas for wireless telecommunications networks to be stationed on road reserve all over New Zealand without needing resource consent?

Hon DAVID PARKER (Acting Minister for the Environment): No, I am not concerned. The installation of low-impact masts and small antennas is already permitted, without the need for resource consent, in the majority of district plans. The proposed national environmental standards will ensure consistency and allowable thresholds across districts.

Sue Kedgley: Can he confirm that if the new standards go ahead, in future people will have absolutely no say as to whether that will happen right outside their front gate or school?

Hon DAVID PARKER: No, I cannot confirm that. What I can confirm is that large structures, like traditional cellphone towers, are not covered by the standards but that smaller antennas that sometimes sit on power poles are. I can also confirm that this Government, unlike National, will not gut the Resource Management Act but will advance sensible measures to ensure consistency across the country and to lower compliance costs.

Jeanette Fitzsimons: Is it not the case that the proposed national environmental standards for telecommunications facilities were largely written by the telecommunications industries, which got everything they wanted in it; and will he now be asking Federated Farmers and the coal industry to write the national environmental standards for fresh water?

Hon DAVID PARKER: No, I am sure the Ministry for the Environment took into account more than industry submissions in the drafting of the draft national environmental standards, and I am sure it will take appropriate note of all of the public submissions that have been made upon the draft.

Sue Kedgley: Can he confirm that under the new standards there will be no restrictions on how many antennas and other equipment can be added to telephone poles on road reserves all around New Zealand; no requirement to consult, or even inform people, when new equipment is installed outside their homes and schools; no restrictions on the uses that telecommunications companies could make of these new technologies; and no requirement to take into account the health effects of the new technologies; and why would his Government support these unreasonable requirements?

Hon DAVID PARKER: No, I cannot confirm all of those matters. I can confirm that one of the concerns that have been raised in submissions is that without restriction there could be a proliferation of these things, so that some telephone poles start looking like hedgehogs. I agree that is an appropriate concern, and I am sure that will be one of the matters that will be taken into account in the drafting of the final standards.

Sue Kedgley: I seek leave to table two documents from the United Kingdom pointing out the health concerns of increased radiation exposure.

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

State Services Commissioner—Environment, Ministry

8. GERRY BROWNLEE (National—Ilam) to the Minister of State Services: Did the State Services Commissioner, Dr Mark Prebble, meet his obligations under the no-surprises policy, to inform his Minister in advance of circumstances likely to attract public interest or political comment, in respect of the Ministry for the Environment’s disengagement of Ms Madeleine Setchell; if not, why not?

Hon ANNETTE KING (Minister of State Services): The State Services Commissioner has many obligations, including providing leadership and guidance to the State Service in New Zealand. In order to meet his obligations, he has convened an investigation under section 25 of the State Sector Act 1988. This investigation will establish the facts of the matter, including how well the commissioner has met his obligations.

Gerry Brownlee: Is the House to understand from the Minister’s answer that the man who is responsible for ensuring that public servants adhere to the code of conduct did not tell her as soon as he became involved in giving advice to the chief executive about how to manage Ms Setchell’s possible conflict of interest, which surely was a situation where the Minister needed to be fully aware of all the facts as soon as possible in order that she was not surprised by them?

Hon ANNETTE KING: No, what I am saying is that the State Services Commissioner will enable the investigation that he has set up, with Don Hunn examining the facts, to conclude whether he did meet his obligations.

Gerry Brownlee: Has she asked Dr Prebble to explain why the first time she became aware of the employment situation was when the acting commissioner advised her in early July that he had met with the Leader of the Opposition’s chief of staff to discuss the matter, when she now knows—and we now know—that Dr Prebble had been involved in the matter since May; and what was the date that she first became aware of Dr Prebble’s involvement?

Hon ANNETTE KING: No.

Gerry Brownlee: Why not?

Hon ANNETTE KING: Because I will enable the investigation to get to the bottom of the facts so that rather than hearsay, we will know what really were the facts of the matter, rather than what people surmise them to be.

Gerry Brownlee: Did Dr Prebble tell Iain Rennie there was a significant employment issue being dealt with at the Ministry for the Environment—an issue involving the Minister’s office—prior to going on leave and Mr Rennie becoming acting State Services Commissioner; and has she asked him, if he did not, why he did not?

Hon ANNETTE KING: I am unable to answer that question, because I do not know the answer.

Gerry Brownlee: Did Dr Prebble keep file notes of his discussions or interactions with Mr Hugh Logan on this matter; if so, were these given to Iain Rennie when he was compiling his initial briefing that the Minister released on 20 July?

Hon ANNETTE KING: I am unable to answer that question, because I do not know whether Dr Prebble keeps file notes. That would need to be addressed to him, and I am sure Mr Don Hunn will be getting all the information when he is looking at the facts of this matter in the investigation.

Therapeutic Products and Medicines Bill—Deferment

9. DARIEN FENTON (Labour) to the Minister of State Services: What are the consequences of the Government’s decision to defer progress on the Therapeutic Products and Medicines Bill at this time?

Hon ANNETTE KING (Minister of State Services): The consequences are severe, especially for the complementary medicines sector. Last week the Australia regulator imposed strict new rules on manufacturers who seek to export there. Those new rules will result in increased compliance cost for those manufacturers. That would not have happened if the agency was proceeding to be established; the joint sovereignty arrangement would have prevented unilateral actions like that. I believe that petty politicking by the National Party has ensured that New Zealand loses its preferential position and, as a consequence, our complementary medicines sector is taking a serious hit.

Darien Fenton: Could the Minister remind the House about the progress that has been made on the regulating framework with Australia?

Hon ANNETTE KING: The first joint regulator between our two countries was established in 1995 and regulates our food standards. The framework negotiated meant that New Zealand has one vote out of 10, is founded upon Australian legislation under the control of the Australian Minister for Health and Ageing, and lacks any accountability under the Official Information Act or the Ombudsmen Act. The National Government of the day did not consult with any other political party on that decision, even though it gave sovereignty to the Australian-based regulator. The joint therapeutic regulator, on the other hand, ensures that New Zealand retains its sovereignty. Each country has mirror legislation that is under the control of the two Ministers of Health and is accountable to both partners. The arrangement where 21 million people accepted equality with a country of 4 million people was rejected by John Key and the National Party because he was unable to control his caucus.

Hon Tony Ryall: Are not the facts here that the very costs the Minister is now claiming are excessive are very similar to the costs that she, in fact, negotiated with the Australian Government, and that her costs would have applied to every manufacturer in New Zealand, not just to those who export to Australia?

Hon ANNETTE KING: The member has been poorly informed, has thwarted the process throughout, and continues to thwart the process. He does not know what it means; he is more interested in politics.

Darien Fenton: What advice has she recently received on cross-parliamentary support for the Therapeutic Products and Medicines Bill?

Hon ANNETTE KING: I received an email dated 13 August 2007 from Michelle Beckett, executive director of Natural Products New Zealand, the peak industry body for complementary products in New Zealand, following a meeting requested by Tony Ryall with her organisation. The meeting, according to Ms Beckett, was greatly pared down from what was promised, with John Key seemingly never invited by Tony Ryall and Bill English not turning up. That left Mr Ryall, who, according to Ms Beckett has “quite clearly, previously indicated his inflexibility”. Ms Beckett said that she and her colleagues left the meeting with a feeling that the natural products industry and complementary medicines had “little importance to the new leadership of the National Party and that this sector is seen only as a political football to be leveraged to any political advantage, regardless of the consequences to what has been a growing New Zealand export industry.”

Hon Tony Ryall: Has the Minister bothered to object to what the Australians are proposing to do; and has it not always been the case that those companies that wish to export to Australia will have to meet the requirements to get in, and that what New Zealand natural health product companies do not want is the excessive bureaucratic charges the Minister negotiated that would have applied to the rest of the domestic industry and to those who export other than to Australia?

Hon ANNETTE KING: I think that it is a terrible shame that the member shows his ignorance in the House. The costs for the joint regulator are not negotiated by the Minister; they are in the draft rules that are worked through with the industry itself—the draft rules that the member has never read.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: The Minister approved them.

Hon ANNETTE KING: No, the Minister has not approved them; the member opposite is quite wrong about that. The party opposite has never understood it, never tried to understand it, and has played politics with it to the detriment of not only the complementary medicines sector but the medical devices and pharmaceuticals sectors in this country. The member continues to play politics with it today. When are the National members going to get over it? When is Mr Key going to come out with his pen?

Question No. 10 to Minister

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson): I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I raise quite a serious point of order that goes to the heart of the accountability of the Government to this Parliament. You will be aware that we have a very unusual and novel arrangement in this Parliament—the first time in our Parliament’s history—where we have a Government spokesperson on energy efficiency and climate change. We know from the paper record that that member has been the architect of the policy. That member has given presentations to the select committee on the estimates that are covered in that area of the vote. We know that the member has worked closely with officials. We also know that the member is the person who both announced the policy and responded to media queries about it.

The reason I wish to raise this is that if we go to Standing Order 370(1) we see it states that we should be able to ask questions of members of the House concerning their area of responsibility. It covers Ministers, chairs of select committees, and also those members who are in charge of a bill. The point I wish to raise with you is that if one looks at Speaker’s ruling 140/4, one sees that Speaker Hunt determined that one could ask questions of Associate Ministers. Over time in the Parliament we have had the development of Associate Ministers, and we can ask questions of them. When lodging this question, I attempted to lodge it to the Government spokesperson on energy efficiency and conservation, Jeanette Fitzsimons, but was told that that was not possible.

What I seek from you, Madam Speaker, is an appropriate course of action in response to this novel Government spokesperson. I seek a new Speaker’s ruling that when we have a Government spokesperson who clearly has responsibility for the Government in an area of policy, we as members of this House should be able to ask questions of that spokesperson in exactly the same way as of chairs of select committees, Ministers, and Associate Ministers.

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Leader of the House): I think this issue is actually very simple. One must read Standing Order 369 and also Standing Order 376. Standing Order 369 is quite clear. It states: “Questions may be put to a Minister”. That is what we are on at the moment: questions to Ministers. But Standing Order 376 states: “A Minister or Parliamentary Under-Secretary may answer a question on behalf of another Minister”—and it was not a ruling by Mr Speaker Hunt; it is in the Standing Orders—“who is not present when a question addressed to the Minister is asked.” In other words, the only people who can answer on behalf of a Minister are another Minister or a Parliamentary Under-Secretary. An Associate Minister is, of course, a Minister in that respect.

JEANETTE FITZSIMONS (Co-Leader—Green): While there is actually nothing I would enjoy more than to answer the member’s questions in the House, the member is, in fact, well aware that the constitutional situation is that the Minister retains full responsibility for the programme that I am leading. Everything I do is discussed with the Minister and declared to the Minister. The Minister retains accountability to the House and to Cabinet for it.

Madam SPEAKER: I thank the members for their contributions. I think the matter is a serious one. I agree that there may well appear to be something of a contradiction between the two Standing Orders. I therefore reserve my ruling on this matter and will come back to the House.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson): I seek leave for question No. 10 of the questions for oral answer to be referred to the Government spokesperson on energy efficiency and conservation.

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

Solar Water Heating—Green Party Initiative

10. Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) to the Minister of Energy: Has the Green Party initiative “Switch on the Sunshine” announced last November been successful in the goal to double the number of solar water heating systems being installed?

Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister of Energy): The solar water heating initiative has been successful in establishing quality systems for solar hot water systems, ensuring energy savings are known, and starting new training courses for installers at polytechnics throughout the country. Obviously, as the new incentive programme began in May we have not doubled installations from when we started, but those installations are at over 400 percent of where they were at the end of the member’s time in Government.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: How does the Minister explain the fact that the industry grew by 23 percent in 2002, by 58 percent in 2003, by 41 percent in 2004, by 37 percent in 2005, and by 26 percent last year but that after the Greens announced the “Switch on the Sunshine” initiative, installations, far from doubling, have actually dropped by 5 percent?

Hon DAVID PARKER: I think I addressed that in the previous question. I note that during May installations increased by about 10 percent—and, obviously, it will go up and down from month to month. I also note that Dr Smith’s reported solution is to cut the cost effectiveness criterion, which ensures we subsidise only those systems that repay their cost from electricity systems within 20 years. It is that sort of economic illiteracy that shows the difference between this Government and his proposals.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Does the Minister agree with the Government spokesperson on energy efficiency that: “I don’t want consumers being conned into buying solar heating if it isn’t cost-efficient for them.”; if so, what sort of nanny State is it when the Government, rather than consumers, is left to decide what is cost effective; and what would this carbon-neutral Government view as a con for people wanting to invest in solar technologies for the altruistic reason of wanting to reduce their carbon footprint?

Hon DAVID PARKER: I would tell the member to stop digging, actually, because the cost-effectiveness threshold is designed to subsidise only those units that are cost effective. If they do not repay themselves in 20 years out of electricity systems, they should not be subsidised. People are still free to buy them if they want to buy a system that is not cost-effective, but I am certainly not recommending—and neither would the Government spokesperson recommend—that we subsidise those ones.

Jeanette Fitzsimons: Is the Minister aware of any solar suppliers who believe that they can sell at prices that are cost-effective for consumers?

Hon DAVID PARKER: Indeed, I am. I think that one of the very good aspects of this project, which has been designed in great part by the member who just asked the question, Jeanette Fitzsimons, is that we now, for the first time, have comparable data as to the comparable cost-effectiveness of different systems.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: How does the Minister reconcile his statement to Parliament on 23 November last year that the policy was a very significant advance and was well designed when the Chief Executive of the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority, Mike Underhill, has stated that since the scheme was launched in May, after its announcement in November, not one single grant has been made; and if this is a well-designed policy, would he like to tell us what a badly designed policy might look like?

Hon DAVID PARKER: I am informed by the Government spokesperson on this issue that amongst the applications that have been made for funding have been applications by organisations that are bulk-builders of houses, and that one such application alone represents a proposal to fit solar hot water devices to 1,200 new houses. I think that is an illustration that this policy is going to work and is succeeding.

Peter Brown: Noting those answers, will the Minister confirm that some household solar panels are experiencing corrosion, and that many have been installed without the necessary building consent; and as these problems are creating additional costs for homeowners, will he advise—if he aware of it—just how deep the problem is; and can he confirm that the Green’s spokesperson on this is aware of the issue and has dismissed the allegations as non-events?

Hon DAVID PARKER: No, I cannot confirm that the spokesperson has dismissed those concerns. She has raised concerns with me in relation to the various quality aspects of some installations, and that is why the programme includes criteria to ensure that only effective, efficient, well-priced systems are subsidised and that other systems are not.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Does this policy suffer not from the same flaw as the Government’s so-called 20 free hours early childhood policy in that the Government is imposing price restrictions and regulations nationwide when it should leave the issue of prices to consumers and to a competitive market; and if he is so convinced that this policy will work, given that it has resulted in a drop in the number of installations, will he commit to a date as to when it will achieve a doubling of installations of solar water systems?

Hon DAVID PARKER: That member’s illiteracy suggests that he should go back to preschool and get some education—

Madam SPEAKER: That is an unnecessary comment. Would the Minister please just address the question.

Hon DAVID PARKER: I say to the member who asked the question that that suggestion is just daft. If there are inappropriate systems that do not repay their cost to those people who purchase them within 20 years, they ought not to get a Government subsidy. There is no prohibition on people who want to purchase inferior systems from doing so. They are free to do so, but this Government will not subsidise them to do so.

Jeanette Fitzsimons: Would the Minister agree that one of the primary considerations for a well-functioning market is for consumers to know what they are buying and to have accurate information; that they have never had the information about the energy savings of particular solar water heaters until the performance-testing system that is being developed under this scheme; that there has never been a training scheme for installers in New Zealand until this scheme began; and that its success is shown by the huge enthusiasm for the Volume Build Scheme, where we have already signed off grants for the first 20 houses only a month after launching it and when it is rumoured that there are another 1,300 coming up in the system?

Hon DAVID PARKER: Yes, I can. I would also add that the answer to all things does not lie in subsidies. In fact, one of the most effective parts of this scheme is to ensure the reliability of systems, their cost-effectiveness, and to give confidence in the industry.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: I seek the leave of the House to table the data from the New Zealand Solar Industry Association showing the first ever drop in the number of solar water heater installations.

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

Hon Dr Nick Smith: I seek the leave of the House to table the international data that shows that in terms of solar water heating installations per 1,000 people, New Zealand is running at one thirty-third of the rate—

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

Hon David Parker: I seek leave to table two documents. The first is the industry figures showing a 400 percent increase since 2001, and an increase in May this year.

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

Hon David Parker: I seek leave to table a copy of Dr Smith’s release, where he proposes that the efficiency criteria be dropped.

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

Question Time

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First): I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. You rightly ejected a member of the National Party from this Chamber. I would have understood that that was to be an ejection until the end of question time; so what on earth is that member doing back inside the House? She has vanished now but she was in the House just 5 minutes ago. Now that is in contempt of the Speaker’s ruling. You said that she had to go, we would assume that to last till the end of question time, yet I looked over there just a short while ago and she was plainly inside the Chamber. Again, that is in contempt of your ruling. What are you going to do about it, Madam Speaker?

Madam SPEAKER: I am sorry, I did not actually see the member come back, but if she did, I will look into the matter.

Homeownership—Government Assistance

11. LYNNE PILLAY (Labour—Waitakere) to the Minister of Housing: What assistance is the Government providing Kiwi families to buy their first home?

Hon CHRIS CARTER (Minister of Housing): As of 12 August, 2,930 families have used the Welcome Home Loan scheme to buy their first home. Over 1,000 of these loans have been settled since the Government enhanced the scheme last September. Families living in every region of the country have bought homes with a Welcome Home Loan this year, proving it is still possible for households on modest incomes to buy a home with a mortgage of up to $280,000—although obviously most loans have been in lower-priced housing markets.

Lynne Pillay: Has the Minister seen any reports of alternative homeownership schemes?

Hon CHRIS CARTER: Yes, I have seen a suggestion from John Key that State house tenants should be able to buy their own home. I am advised that the average net assessable income of State house tenants is $303.75 per week, which is an income of $15,795 per year and enough for a maximum affordable mortgage of only $53,000. This is a long way off the average value of a State house in our three major cities of between $204,000 and $289,000. Mr Key’s promise is a hollow promise. There is no way that Sate house tenants could afford to buy their own homes, and it is a cruel hoax to pretend otherwise. Tell the truth, Mr Key!

Madam SPEAKER: I tell Ministers that when responding to questions those comments are not appropriate and are outside the Standing Orders. If Ministers continue to follow that practice they will not have an opportunity to answer the questions.

Phil Heatley: Can the Minister confirm that 6,000 State house tenants currently pay market rents—exactly the same rent as their neighbours—and that if those neighbours have dreams of homeownership, perhaps those 6,000 State house tenants also have dreams of homeownership; and why does the Minister not support State house tenants owning their own home, or does he not like the idea of State house tenants becoming independent of his Government?

Hon CHRIS CARTER: I can confirm that just 9 percent of State house tenants pay a market rent, and many of these tenants—

Madam SPEAKER: Please be seated. We are not going to get through question time with this level of disorder. Will the Minister please answer the question in silence and do so briefly, to the point, and within the Standing Orders.

Hon CHRIS CARTER: I can confirm that just 9 percent of State house tenants pay market rents. Many of these tenants are located in small provincial centres, where the average rent—not the average price of a house—is very low. What I can confirm is that the Government is providing opportunities for New Zealanders to buy their own homes. We are not interested in issuing hollow promises that are simply not true.

Courts—Access to Justice

12. KATE WILKINSON (National) to the Minister for Courts: Does he have confidence that the court system is delivering effective access to justice?

Hon RICK BARKER (Minister for Courts): Yes.

Kate Wilkinson: How can he claim that the court system has been “steadily improving” under Labour when the median waiting-time for criminal jury trials in the High Court has increased by 62 percent since 2003; it has gone up from 6 months to 10 months, and is doubling in Auckland, and tripling in centres like Blenheim?

Hon RICK BARKER: The court does not have any control over the number of applications that are filed with a court; the court simply deals with them. What this Government has done has been to invest heavily in courts. We have invested another $156 million into justice. We have appointed more judges and more staff, and we have put in place more information technology systems and built more buildings. We have invested heavily into the system, and the rates of disposal in our courthouses have gone up dramatically.

Kate Wilkinson: How can the Minister claim that the court system has been steadily improving under Labour, when the number of outstanding High Court criminal jury cases has increased by 79 percent since 2002, including a doubling of the number of cases in Auckland, Dunedin, Hamilton, Rotorua, Wellington, and Whangarei?

Hon RICK BARKER: The High Court disposal rate has increased by 9.4 percent. The High Court has increased its rates of disposal, but what the court does not have control over is the rate of filing of applications. I think it is a sign of how effective this Government has been in cracking down on crime, arresting criminals, and bringing them before the courts.

Kate Wilkinson: Does he stand by this statement that he made at a select committee: “Predictions are always difficult, particularly when they are about the future.”, or is he more confident when making predictions about the past?

Hon RICK BARKER: The point I would make about that Opposition party is that it cannot make predictions. It has no policy. If we want to look at the National Party’s website today to see what its justice policy is, what do we get? We get this statement: “Give us your views on justice.” The National Party is all about whinge, grizzle, and moan, and it is absolutely bereft of any ideas, whatsoever. All it does is oppose. When the Government puts forward good legislation like the Criminal Justice Reform Bill, National opposes and opposes. It has no ideas.

Bills

Imprest Supply (Second for 2007/08) Bill

First Reading

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Minister of Finance): I move, That the Imprest Supply (Second for 2007/08) Bill be now read a first time.

Bill read a first time.

Bills

Appropriation (2007/08 Estimates) Bill

Third Reading

Imprest Supply Debate

Imprest Supply Debate

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Minister of Finance): I move, That the Appropriation (2007/08 Estimates) Bill be now read a third time and the Imprest Supply (Second for 2007/08) Bill be now read a second time. This debate marks the final passage of the 2007 Budget. Let us remember what the key features of that Budget were. The first feature was KiwiSaver. There was a massive addition to the KiwiSaver scheme that means when we next release some data at the end of this month, when we will have the small employer returns, I am absolutely certain we will have 100,000 people enrolled into the KiwiSaver scheme. The National Party opposite, which cannot make up its mind, looks like it might be facing half a million KiwiSavers by the time of the next election—no wonder those members have three fingers up in the wind already on that issue.

The second feature was business tax cuts, with a cut in the corporate tax rate. Mr English attacked that as profligate spending, because he includes the cost of the business tax cuts in his description of the 2007 Budget. I would ask whether National members will continue to vote against those business tax cuts, as they did on Budget night.

Thirdly, there was the introduction of research and development tax credits. This measure is seeing interest coming from offshore, particularly from Australia, about shifting research and development into New Zealand, and it is extremely strongly supported within the New Zealand business community.

Fourthly, there have been tax cuts on savings, with the portfolio investment entity regime and a cut, in effect, on widely held savings vehicles to a maximum tax rate of 30 percent. This will be followed up by the new offshore tax regime, with the introduction of an active/passive distinction, and the legislation on limited partnerships, which may begin its first reading later this evening.

That is a massive series of measures about the improvement of this country’s economy, about taxation reductions, and about addressing the real issues of how to lift New Zealand savings over the long term in order to make us more self-reliant, to lower our long-term costs of capital, and to change the nature of our economic relationship with the rest of the world. In the meantime, the good news continues to flow forth.

Just last week the new employment figures showed 362,000 new jobs under this Government, with the highest participation rate in the labour force in New Zealand’s history, at 68.8 percent. We have a massively reduced unemployment rate compared with the situation under the previous National Government, particularly amongst Māori, where the rate has gone down from 18.6 percent to 7.6 percent under this Government. Not a single region of this country has an unemployment rate of over 5 percent, with Southland leading the way in that particular regard.

Secondly, the dollar is starting to correct and has fallen some 10 percent since the peak that it reached just a few weeks ago. Thirdly, despite all the gloom and doom, the latest numbers actually show that exports have grown strongly over the last year, which was one of the best years we have seen for export growth in a very, very long period of time.

And what does the main Opposition party, National, offer in distinction from that? It offers confusion and contradictions; it offers denial and deceit. That is all National can offer in opposition to the Government’s programmes in these areas.

Let us first of all deal with that dollar issue. When the dollar started coming back down from that peak of 81-odd cents, Mr Key proudly forecasted that it would go back up to 83c.

Hon Member: Oh, that’s really helpful.

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: That was very helpful for exporters. That showed just whose side he was on in terms of the great economic debate. Mr Key was asked whether he had ever speculated against the New Zealand dollar when he was a money changer in the temples of financial industry around the world, and he refused to answer that question. Here is a man who wants to be Prime Minister and thinks he has some divine right to become Prime Minister. He will not even tell us whether he speculated. Of course, it would not matter whether he did tell us—we would not believe the answer anyway, if we are to go by his position on the next issue.

Mr Key will not like this issue, because he does want us going back to the issues that he does not like talking about, but we will talk again about this member and his views on the war in Iraq. We will talk about that because, in February 2003, he said he would be prepared to commit any support requested by the US for a war against Iraq, including SAS and combat troops. He said that New Zealand should be prepared to fight for the values we believe in. That is what he said.

Then, in July this year, Mr Key said: “We made it quite clear we will not be going. We would not have sent troops to Iraq.” When he was asked how he could square that with his saying in 2003 that he would have sent troops, he said: “Oh well, the caucus position in 2003”—and he nods his head—“was that we would send troops, and I was faithfully repeating the caucus position.” But only 2 months earlier, in May of this year, he said that National would never have supported sending troops to Iraq and that his caucus did not support sending troops to Iraq. Which one of all that extraordinary mishmash of different views is the correct one? Mr Key made another attempt on 10 August to explain his views. [Interruption] The members opposite do not want to listen to this. On 10 August Mr Key said: “Oh well, the position was this. Look, National supported the coalition of the willing’s right to engage in the war in Iraq. Um, we believed the war was legal. It is a very technical debate, but it revolves around a sort of UN resolution”—a sort of UN resolution—“which says if you believe you are attacked, you can retaliate, and that was really the argument the Americans put up around 9/11, but also a whole lot of funding of terrorism and various other things, and, of course, the weapons of mass destruction.” So this member is saying—if members can work out what on earth that stream of semi-consciousness means—that he believes there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Not even Karl Rove believes any longer that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

John Key believes that the Iraqis were funding terrorism against the United States and, what is more, he believes that Iraq was attacking the United States. He believes that Iraq was attacking the United States, so a war was all right. These words are not from 2003. This is not when Mr Key was, in his own words, the most junior member of the National caucus, but this was only a few days ago. And he was not the most junior caucus member then, actually; Maurice Williamson was at the time. But never mind, he got that wrong, as well.

After all the previous mistakes, after the chance to sort out his story, he still did not have a storyline that makes any coherent sense at all. This man opens his mouth and hopes that something will come forth that makes some kind of sense.

Let me ask something else about Mr Key. How come he is the only person I have ever met in my life who can remember not opening an email? And what is the email he remembers not opening? It was the one from the Exclusive Brethren.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley): I am sorry to interrupt the member. The level of interruption is just too much at the moment. The members know that.

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: Mr Key is the only person who can remember not opening an email, yet he knows what was in the email he can remember not opening. That is a remarkable achievement—a remarkable achievement for a hollow man, in particular.

Then, of course, Mr Key’s colleague to his right might care to answer the question of just who is being referred to in the article on the front page of Sunday’s Sunday Star-Times about the person, very much closer to the leadership of the National Party, who is responsible for certain leaks. Mr English might care to make it very clear whether he had anything to do with that matter, because that story made it clear that it was not, in fact, anyone from the Labour Party.

Then we have Mr Key on the Kyoto Protocol and climate change. He is a man who has “always been a believer”, but only a year previously he had said: “I actually do not believe in climate change. I am very sceptical about climate change. I am somewhat suspicious of climate change.” He then claimed that he firmly believed in climate change and always had.

You see, Mr Key is a man who says anything to anybody and does not think anybody will compare what is said one time with what is said another time. He is a man whom one cannot believe, because he cannot actually have a coherent policy, a coherent storyline, or a coherent story from one day to the next, from one month to the next, and from one year to the next. That is not a man that New Zealand, in the end, will vote for at the next election.

JOHN KEY (Leader of the Opposition): I have to say that I feel a bit sorry for Michael Cullen. He is leaving, and they did not even give him a gold watch; they gave him a red box. You see, Michael Cullen is the man who is meant to be defending the economy. He is the Minister of Finance. Less than a quarter of his entire caucus bothered to show up to listen to him, and, as we know from the opinion polls on Sunday night, the country not only is fed up with him but has given up on him. The country is not listening.

Dr Cullen had 10 minutes in which to get up and tell the people of New Zealand why they should have any faith at all in his economic management, and he did not use even 2 minutes of his time on that. He is electoral death to the Labour Party. The more he is on TV, the better it is for National. This is the man who is so confused about monetary policy that at one point he was going to suspend the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Act, under section 12. That was until his boss came back and told him to sit down, calm down, and say a little bit less, “because what you’re doing, Michael, is you’re telling the people of New Zealand what they already know.” Labour has no answers. It is an economic basket case, and New Zealanders are paying for its economic mismanagement.

I want to talk about the economy, and let us get a few facts right. These are the facts that Labour does not want New Zealanders to know. We have the worst brain drain in the developed world. A million New Zealanders have left New Zealand. Kiwis leave at the rate of 760 a week. Do members know what happens when they get out to the airport and as they are having their passports stamped “goodbye”? Do members think they say to the immigration officers and the customs officers, on the way out: “I want to thank Michael Cullen for his economic management. He has done such a cracker job for us.”? No; they say: “I’m “outski”, I’m outta here, until these guys are gone.”

I come back to the leader of the Labour Party, Helen Clark. She came into office telling New Zealanders that New Zealand would go up in the OECD. We were 20th. Under Michael Cullen’s economic management, we are 22nd. We are not going up; we are going down. In 1988 they started measuring productivity in the New Zealand economy—and let us get a few facts right. In 1988 the average was roughly 2.5 percent. Well, let us ask Michael Cullen today what productivity is. People are at a standstill in traffic jams in Auckland. If people want to start up a business that needs a long-term power contract, they will not get one. If they want to get broadband around most of the country, they cannot have it. If people in mid-Canterbury want water, they will not get it. If people want to get on a train in Auckland, it will take an hour and a half to go anywhere. The answer is that productivity is at about 0.5 percent, and in the public sector it is negative. New Zealanders are putting in more money and getting less for it.

Let us get back to what Labour really cares about. Labour Party members want to talk about themselves. They want to talk about electoral law reform, about how they can change the rules to make it a bit easier to try to slip back into Parliament. They have no show of doing that. They want to talk about photo opportunities, but they do not want to talk about interest rates. I say to Michael that he does not want to talk about interest rates because the reality is that New Zealanders now pay some of the highest interest rates in the developed world. The Sunday papers are full of stories about New Zealanders who today are tossing up whether they can sell their house and be able to afford another one. That is the truth of it.

Michael Cullen could have done a good job of economic management. He had the chance. This is the Minister of Finance who wrote to his own Cabinet members and said: “Don’t overspend on your budget, because if you do interest rates will stay up longer and they will go up higher, and the exchange rate will go up.” He completely disregarded that and spent a billion dollars more, because he does not care. Those members care about themselves. They care about Labour. They are happy to trawl through fish and chip papers. The Minister of Finance was happy to use 2 minutes of his time in the appropriation debate talking about the economy and 8 minutes talking about me. Labour members are not interested in talking about the economy, because they do not have the answers.

Let us get a few other facts right. Domestic inflation in New Zealand is embedded under Labour. It is running at above 4 percent, and it has been doing so for 4 years. The only answer those members have is to spend more money, and while they are at it New Zealanders are stuck in traffic jams and have waited 8 years for a tax cut—only to be told that, miraculously, in 2008, election year, there is a chance that Michael Cullen might actually talk to them about that. But we do not really know.

Even if Michael Cullen does promise tax cuts, we know that the last time he rolled out a tax cut he never delivered on it. So if we want to get on to the issue of trust—well, he cancelled it. While those members are doing all that, New Zealanders will be working the longest hours in the developed world, other than Iceland. You see, these people have no economic policy at all. Actually, that is not true. Helen Clark has an economic policy, and she declared it in the New Zealand Herald. She said: “This is the way it works. We saved up money in the kitty, and then we spent it on Working for Families. Then we saved up money in the kitty, and then we spent it on early childhood education. Now we are saving up money in the kitty, but we have absolutely no clue what the bribes will be like yet, but don’t worry, we’re working on them.” My colleague Bill English has a description of that. It is called “lolly-nomics”. They save up the lollies, then spend it on someone else.

Here is a place Labour could spend it. Yesterday I received a phone call from a constituent of mine. She is a very good woman, and she is a member of a health trust. She rang to tell me this little story. Last Wednesday she went to North Shore Hospital at 10 o’clock in the morning. She had a small thing she needed to have attended to, but it was acute and serious, and she needed treatment. Did she get treatment? Actually, despite Labour doubling the amount of spending on health—and I will come back to that later—by 11 o’clock that night, she had not had an operation. Was she given a bed? No. She was given a trolley. She was upgraded to a trolley, with a drip, and they put her in the corridor. That is where they left her, until the next morning.

Do members know what happened the next morning? This is health under Labour, folks. The next morning the chief surgeon came down and spoke to the people on the trolleys—because she was not on her own. There were dozens of them there. This is what the chief surgeon said to the people on the trolleys: “If you know someone in politics, ring them up, because it’s a disgrace—health, under these people. It’s a disgrace.” [Interruption] I am happy to talk about the issues, I say to Michael Cullen. At exactly the same time, at North Shore Hospital, they were trying to treat people in an ambulance outside. My constituent finally got her operation. [Interruption] Yes, she did get it. It was a 5-minute operation, which she got on the Friday night. That is what happened—on the Friday night she got her operation.

You see, this is the deal. These people are now, annually, taking about $20 billion more in taxes off people than they used to. They are spending a billion dollars a week, but they do not know how to spend it, they do not know where to spend it, and they do not know what to get for it. But that is what they are happy to do. They spend so much money, waste it, then drive up interest rates, because they do not care about us and they do not care about New Zealanders—they care about themselves. They care about dishing out a few lollies, and they care about themselves.

Why did Michael Cullen not come down to the House and use his other 8 minutes to talk about the economy? Because he has no answers. Those members have no answers. There are no tax cuts, no reform of the Resource Management Act, no public use or private use of infrastructure, no decisions to try to fix up a failing infrastructure in New Zealand, no ability to change labour laws, and no interest to privatise and bring in more things like accident compensation. They have no answers.

I say that the people of New Zealand have an answer. They have had a gutsful of Michael Cullen’s economic management. They have had a gutsful of Labour. Mark my words. When Michael Cullen has gone in 12 months’ time and Steve Maharey is chancellor or whatever he is going to be at Massey University—chancellor or cleaner; one of the two—people will look back on the 9 years under Michael Cullen and say that an economic wave rode over New Zealand and those people failed to do anything with it. I say that the New Zealand public have an answer, and the answer is that they want rid of Labour.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley): I call Doug Woolerton—[Interruption] I am calling a speaker, members, and I ask for order.

R DOUG WOOLERTON (NZ First): I understand how those members have to keep up the morale. We used to have to do that sort of thing when Tuku Morgan was with us.

Today I want to talk about the good things that are going through the Parliament at the present time, the things that New Zealand First would like to see going through the Parliament, and the things that are not going through as quickly as we think they should.

I would just like to say, so that nobody is under any illusions, that the National Party has spent a lot of time—in fact, all during the last election period, and since then—talking about tax cuts and what they would do for the country. But people in New Zealand should know that the last tax cut the National Party gave the people of New Zealand was back in 1960.

Jill Pettis: When?

R DOUG WOOLERTON: Back in 1960, if the member would believe it. Yet it has based its whole campaign on tax cuts, and it continues to talk about them to this day. Just recently New Zealand First was proud to vote for a tax cut, which the National Party voted against. We proudly voted for a reduction in tax on some financial institutions, many of which are involved in the KiwiSaver scheme, and National was not too happy about that, either.

A few weeks ago I stood five times in this House to introduce a bill—the Reserve Bank (Amending Primary Function of Bank) Amendment Bill—to ensure that the targets for the Reserve Bank are wider than we have in New Zealand at the present time, so that instead of just concentrating on the inflation target we concentrate on exporting and so that the Reserve Bank can ensure that it looks at employment at the same time. This happens in other countries, and we do not think it is revolutionary. We think it is plain, good, common sense. Those are the things that we, as politicians, are required to look at, and those are the things that the Minister of Finance is required to look at. We think it makes senses that those are the things that the Reserve Bank governor and his team are required to look at, as well.

It is amazing that just recently we had an extremely high dollar that was hurting our exporters. New Zealand First wanted to do something about that. I was the person who was delegated to do that, but, interestingly, the National Party was not interested. Bill English made a lot of comments in the select committee that there was nothing wrong with the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Act, that it should be left exactly as it is, and that there should be a completely hands-off situation regarding money. Out in the public arena, of course, they were crying crocodile tears for farmers and exporters, they were saying that something should be done, and they were saying that the Government should stop spending—that is, mainly on roads, schools and hospitals. That is completely at odds with what the National Party was saying at the last election when it made a big play on the need to put more money into infrastructure.

So what I am really saying is that while New Zealand First is doing its best to propose solutions, the National Party is proposing none. In fact, it wants to go back on the work that the Labour Party is involved in regarding our infrastructure. We know that at the present time we are looking at record low unemployment. We in New Zealand First applaud that, and, again, sadly I might add, I have to draw the comparison with the time the National Party was in power and we had record unemployment. So something must be going right. Also, we would not like to see the return of the days when assets were sold by both the big, old parties in this House. They sold Air New Zealand, the railways, the tracks, and that sort of thing.

We still look forward to the day when our colleague Peter Brown’s suggestion comes into play. We look forward to a time when we not only have the railway tracks back but have gone one step further and treat the railway tracks as we treat roads in this country. Every tonne that goes across those tracks should be charged to the operator who owns the trains, and there should not be just one operator. One would hope, I suggest to Mr Brown, that we will see the National Party and the Labour Party, if they believe in free enterprise, look to the day when Mainfreight operates on the roads and the railways and the Owens Group operates not only on the roads but on the railways, and pays a levy per tonne as we do on our national roads. When we see that day we will believe the rhetoric that the parties engage in across this House.

It saddens us—and I am not into giving lectures or anything like that—that when crises befall our people, we just point the finger back and forth. The truth is that in the recent situation of the high dollar, we saw both political parties reluctant to do anything while at the same time they paid lip-service to being concerned for our exporters.

I hope that we are not on the cusp of some sort of recession. One cannot pick up a newspaper these days without seeing the pros and cons of that happening; some people say it will, and many people say it will not. But we in New Zealand First do not think that those things should be absolutely inevitable. We have seen far too many reports recently that New Zealand is but a bit player, that we are not in control of our own destiny, and that if America catches a cold we get the flu—in fact, we just about die—and we do not believe that we should put up with situations like that in New Zealand.

Quite obviously there will be hardships if the major economies catch a cold. But we should not have this air of inevitability that we seem to be seeing from the two major parties at this point. We believe that it would be heartening and good for morale, if nothing else, if we could see some constructive action around the possibilities that might befall this beautiful little country of ours. I for one have never subscribed to a completely hands-off attitude to our economy. I have never subscribed to the situation that our exporters should just take whatever comes their way.

I believe that it behoves us in this Parliament to take an active role and ensure that those who export and provide our standard of living are treated in a way that enhances their work and thus makes life better for all the citizens in this country. I look forward to that day. I think New Zealand First will have to be a major party in this Parliament before that happens, but until it does we will work towards it.

Hon STEVE MAHAREY (Minister of Education): I tell Mr Woolerton, who has just sat down after speaking on behalf of New Zealand First, that there is nothing like a good, solid partnership. There has been one between Labour and New Zealand First over the last little while, and when we lead the next Government I am sure that that partnership can continue and that Mr Woolerton will undoubtedly play a good part in it.

In talking of people who have come closer together, I will just take us back to Mr John Key’s speech earlier, and going on his tradition of not using the names that we are asked to use in the House I will just call him “John”. He called Michael Cullen “Michael”, so I will just call him “John”. Now I ask John: when did Mr Key leave New Zealand? Under a National Government—[Interruption] Oh, we do not like it now.

Hon Bill English: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. It is the normal practice to address members by the name they put down. If the Government did not pull up Mr Key when he was speaking, that was its fault. It is not incumbent on the Speaker to do so.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley): The member is quite right. It is up to the House.

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: Madam Assistant Speaker, I am glad that we do agree on that basic principle. So when did Mr Key leave New Zealand? I think it was in the time of a National Government. He went offshore to make a few dollars around the world—

Dr Jackie Blue: Oh, make it up!

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: Well, the member says I should make it up. Mrs Tolley says I should make it up. Did he leave under a National Government, or not?

Hon Annette King: No, no. It wasn’t Mrs Tolley; I think it was Jackie Blue.

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: Oh, it was somebody over there. When did he leave New Zealand?

The question of when Mr Key came back is even more important. When was he attracted back to this country? When did he decide that he had had enough of currency trading, enough of making vast amounts of money, enough of jetting around the world, and enough of living in New York—one of the most wonderful cities in the world—and wanted to come back to this country? It was under Labour. He came back, like many other Kiwis, when attracted by a country that was finally working, finally growing, and finally reaching its potential. That is when Mr Key came home, as so many other New Zealanders have done.

But Mr Key came home wanting to help to lead this country, and I think that is a great thing. I think it is a great thing that people come home and say they want to take up the cudgels and do something on behalf of this country. But, you know, Winston Churchill once said there is nothing more cruel, when one is a leader, than to raise hopes and then not deliver on them—nothing more cruel than to raise hopes and then not deliver on them. Labour knows that. We came to power back in 1999, and people had gone through the 1980s and the 1990s, and they were saying to themselves that they were fed up with politicians. They even changed the system to MMP, which is why Mr Woolerton is in this House today. New Zealanders said they did not like the political system. They did not like the way that things were being done. People in power were not keeping their promises, in terms of saying what they would do and then doing it, so people wanted to see a change of Government.

In 1999 this Labour-led Government had its first incarnation, and do members know what was the first thing it did? Helen Clark directed that if we said something, we would do it: if we said something, we would carry it out; if we had a policy, we would implement it; and if we said we would spend some money, we would do exactly that. And for 8 short years we have done exactly that. If New Zealanders want to know what is to come next from the Labour Government, they can just go to its manifesto, turn to the next page, and see what is to happen. Labour has had success in the economy, and success with regard to families and the national identity of this country. It has had success in policy after policy after policy.

David Bennett: “Chewing gum tax cuts”—you delivered those, didn’t you, mate?

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: But there is one person, I tell Mr Bennett, who is right at the heart of that success, and that is Dr Cullen. Over eight Budgets that man has produced surplus after surplus. Mr English over there produced deficit after deficit when National was in Government. I do not think that the National Party knows what a surplus is. It is no wonder that it has done nothing about tax cuts. It was never able to afford to implement tax cuts. Under the National Government, the country was broke; under Dr Cullen, the country has had a surplus. But all that National members ever talk about is the hope that if they can just get into power one day, they would like to spend the surplus that the Labour Government and Dr Cullen have built up—a surplus that is solely Labour’s claim to fame.

Because of that success, in this Budget we are able to do things like giving the research tax credit, a research and development tax credit of $630 million to try to produce more investment in small to medium-sized businesses. In this Budget, in the education area, we are able to put in place 20 hours’ free early childhood education. What a fantastic policy! Alongside KiwiSaver and the public health organisations, we have 20 hours’ free early childhood education, with 67,000 young people benefiting from that policy now—benefiting from the steady, good funding of 20 hours’ free early childhood education. In relation to employment, we have the lowest unemployment rate in this country since we have had recorded figures: 3.6 percent. Everything that should be up is up, and everything that should be down is down.

In the employment area we will carry on investing in an area like the Ministry of Social Development’s Working for Families. Working for Families has meant that for the first time in about 30 years or so, we have seen a proper redistribution of money to the poorest people around our society. You know, that means that kids—about whom the National Party goes on a bit—who are in poor houses have finally got money coming through the door to pay for clothes, for food, for shoes, and for all the things that lift them out of poverty. We now have the same kind of poverty profile as a country like Denmark, which is one of the richest countries in the world. We are not the richest country in the world, but we have made sure that people who are in those circumstances are able to make ends meet and live in dignity. That is because of the Labour Government.

What has the National Party said? Well, I will go back to leadership—leadership with no ideas, and hope with no practice. That is what the National Party has, and has had. Let us take an example from today. Mr Key said he wants to see State house tenants buying houses. It is a great idea, a nice idea, for them to buy a house. We have some policies that allow people who move up to the level of paying a market rent to move out of those houses and buy a house. What is the National Party saying? It is saying that it wants tenants to buy their own houses. On their $300-a-week incomes, it wants them to buy their own houses. The last time that happened, the tenants did not buy the 13,000 State houses that were sold; speculators bought them—that is who got them. That idea of Mr Key’s is OK, but nothing lies behind it.

Let us take Working for Families. National says that not everybody should benefit from the Working for Families policy, but it does not tell anyone who will benefit from that policy and who will miss out. Who will not get an in-work benefit? Who will not get money coming through the door for their children? Who will not receive assistance from Working for Families? We have no idea of that. Jobs are central to all of our policies, but what does the National Party say? It says it will give us Work for the Dole. It had better hurry, because there are hardly any people left on the dole. But National says that if it were in power and this were its Budget, Work for the Dole would be the policy.

The central point of difference here is between a Government on this side of the House that has ideas, that has a policy, and that says what it will do and does it, and the National Party, which has a different story every day of the week. Let us just run through the issues. We could go through Iraq, education—

Hon Annette King: Housing.

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: —housing, therapeutics; we could go through any issue at all. There is climate change, which Mr Key says is a massive hoax one day, and says is his firm belief the next day. On almost every single issue, Mr Key is unable to hold the same story over a number of days. That is why, I tell my colleagues, the honeymoon is over. It is OK to be fresh-faced, it is OK to have a new haircut—like Mr English—and it is OK for Mr Key to say he is a person with no real experience in politics but is willing to give himself over to serving the nation. That is a great thing, but in the end people know one has to have experience, one has to have substance, and one has to have ideas. A leader has to know how to drive the political machine, and has to know how to get results. That is why this Budget from Michael Cullen—one in a line of eight—has continued to deliver. That is why the National Party cannot outline a Budget and give us one single idea.

I say to Mr English that when he has finished yawning, gets up, and speaks for his whole 10 minutes—he will have a little speech to give over here—one single workable policy will do for us. I want just one policy from Mr English. He is the grinder. He is not bouncing from cloud to cloud; he is down there in the engine room, working it through. So Mr English should know that one single, workable real policy that can be costed and implemented will do—just one. If we can have that, we will say that the National members are not just a bunch of whingers, are not people who are here just to complain, and are not the natural Opposition—

Hon Annette King: Yes, they are.

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: —but do have a chance of offering something to people in this country. But as Mrs King says, and she is right—

R Doug Woolerton: They are the natural Opposition.

Hon STEVE MAHAREY: —they are the natural Opposition in this country. They are bereft of ideas, and they know only how to complain. They have not come up with one single, single thing that they could do.

And I tell Mr Woolerton that I look forward, in just a few months’ time, to forming a new Government over here on this side of the House and to looking for New Zealand First to be our partner in that Government. I will see him then.

Hon BILL ENGLISH (Deputy Leader—National): You know, the hardest thing for a Government whose time has run out is for the people in that Government to recognise it. We know what it is like. We have been there. We gave speeches like that—speeches that were all about how the Opposition had no idea of what to do or how to do it, and the only people who could keep running the country was us. That was National in 1999. Of course, the truth is that the louder we said it the more we portrayed the sinking feeling we all had, which was that even our own supporters thought our time was up.

If there was ever a man whose time is up, it is Steve Maharey. Let us look at his one, big, workable idea that could be costed—in fact, he had two—the single core benefit. After $200 million of expenditure on investigating that idea, it has been canned. It has gone. It will not happen. Two hundred million dollars was spent on thinking about it. He also spent 8 years thinking about tertiary education. He is the man who spent $1 billion in 2 years on courses that no one finished. He spent $400 million on thinking about tertiary education, and they are going to try to implement that on 1 January.

Here is a simple idea for Mr Maharey. We will abandon his tertiary education policy. After 8 years of reform and 24 reports it has failed, and it has cost $400 million. We will abandon it. We will let the people who run tertiary education get on with running tertiary education instead of spending all their time coming to Wellington pleading for money. That is what Labour’s policy is now. It is about bringing people to Wellington to plead for money. I also want to tell Steve Maharey what Helen Clark’s description is of what her Government is going to do. This was the question to her: “You’ve been in power for 8 years. Is there any area of Government where you want to take some action but have not had the chance to do so?”. That question was asked by the New Zealand Herald in a wide-ranging interview with Helen Clark. Let us see what the answer was.

Darren Hughes: Ha, ha!

Hon BILL ENGLISH: Here is the policy over which the member for Otaki is going to lose his seat at the next election: “So undoubtedly there will be areas we will build on for next time, which will be new.” And that is it. That is Labour’s policy, as enunciated by the Prime Minister, just 3 weeks ago, in relation to what she wants to do after 8 years in power: “So undoubtedly there will be areas we will build on for next time, which will be new.” That is what she said, and that came after her description of what Labour has been doing, which was that it has taken a while to build up the kitty. She said it has taken a while to build up the kitty for Working for Families, and it has taken time to work up the kitty for interest-free loans and the early childhood programme. That is “lolly-nomics”, and that is the problem with the economic strategy of this Government. It is not an argument over whether there has been growth—there has been. But it has been mismanaged. And Dr Cullen’s time is up, because he does not even know that that is what has happened.

No one out there believes that 8 years of growth has been Labour’s own doing. What people do believe is that Labour has treated that growing economy like a cash machine instead of a plant that needs to be fertilised. It has treated it as a cash machine to feed the kitty—with middle New Zealand’s cashcard. Why do I say that? [Interruption] People on the average wage in the Otaki electorate—and there are a lot of them—7 years ago paid 19 percent of their income as tax. Now they pay 23 percent of their income as tax. So if one is on the average wage in that member’s electorate—and he thinks they all vote for him—one’s tax has gone up. Twice people were promised by Dr Cullen that their tax would go down because he changed the thresholds. Then Dr Cullen cancelled that in this Budget. In fact, in the background of this Budget he has said not only that he has cancelled those tax cuts but that he cannot afford to shift the thresholds too much next year, because he needs the money for the kitty. That is why that member must know—because if he does not, then he is not out and about—that people on the average wage in Otaki are not going to vote for Labour. They are moving away from Labour because they feel exploited.

But not only that—they have found out that under the Electoral Finance Bill, the union they are members of cannot campaign against National in election year. If there was ever a piece of legislation that has demonstrated—well, there has not been such a piece of legislation—completely Labour’s deep paranoia about its right to electoral office, this is it. You see, Labour’s members use the term “a level playing field”. I ask myself who the players are on this field that needs to be levelled. I can tell members who they are. On the one side is the Government—the Labour Government—and on the other side are the people of New Zealand. That is the playing field that is not level. The Labour Government fears the criticism of the people of New Zealand, so they want to tip the playing field in favour of the Labour Government—as if $55 billion was not enough on its side already. So the Labour Government has $55 billion of public money to spend—$1 billion per week, plus a bit—and it is going to make sure that no group of New Zealand people can spend more than $60,000, and if they want to spend more than $5,000 they will have to register. And you know what, if people want to spend—

Darren Hughes: So covert Customs officers who campaign—

Hon BILL ENGLISH: The member for Otaki should listen to this. If people want to spend $10, they will have to decide whether they are classified as publishers or promoters. If they want to spend $10 on a flyer down their street about the dog control laws, and come and talk to the local MP about it, they will have to make a statutory declaration to each person on that street that they will not spend over $5,000. If people are going to spend anything at all in election year, they will be caught by this bill. So that is the level playing field. It is a case of flattening out civil society, and the wider community, and anyone who has a criticism of the Labour Government, while that Government goes on a rampant spend-up of public money.

What Labour is saying to the public of New Zealand is: “Leave politics to the politicians.” Labour wants to create an elite of latte-sipping, suit-wearing socialists who are the only ones who are allowed to have an opinion in this country, and we are opposed to the principle that third parties cannot have a say. That is the level playing field—the Government versus the people.

Darren Hughes: Oh yeah, the Exclusive Brethren will agree with that bill!

Hon BILL ENGLISH: I want to say to that member that the people will win. The people will win, because this is a small and vigorous democracy.

The people have run out of “lolly-nomics”. They have run out of Dr Cullen ranting at them because they are doing everything wrong—things that he does not like, such as buying houses. They have run out of Helen Clark, who, even on the marvellous occasion of the recognition of the bravery of a New Zealand warrior overseas, could not help giving it just that slight political tone by sticking with Willie Apiata all day, never moving out of camera shot, and not inviting the Opposition to the presentation at Government House. The New Zealand people are tired of that. They want to look forward. They want to know how we are going to face the challenges of a global economy that is showing signs of unravelling. They want to know how we are going to deliver more growth to a community that has found out that economic growth is good for people and can give them more health, more education, more family security, and more savings. That is what people want to know.

KEITH LOCKE (Green): The Budget is a long-drawn-out process. That is the way it is, and, of course, it makes it an accountable process. But people may have forgotten that the Greens are responsible for some of the good points in the Budget, so I thought I would remind my colleagues of some of those.

Today Nick Smith inadvertently drew some attention to one of the gains in the Budget, and that is in the area of energy efficiency. The Greens, through the Budget process and through the delegation of the energy efficiency portfolio to Jeanette Fitzsimons, are in the process of achieving significant gains in terms of energy efficiency in New Zealand. The National Energy Efficiency and Conservation Strategy, which seems to rile Mr Smith, enables interest-free loans to people to put insulation in their homes and to develop cleaner and more efficient forms of heating. For new homes we are developing a new insulation standard, a code. It will enable New Zealand homes, which traditionally have been pretty poorly insulated, to be much better insulated in the future. One of the pluses that caught the imagination of the public was the announcement of the Home Energy Rating Scheme. When houses are bought and sold through real estate agents, each home will have an energy rating. If it has a good energy rating, then, rightly, that will put up the price of the home; if it is the other way round, then, rightly, that will lower the price. That is very good.

In the Budget there is $15.5 million towards the Greens-initiated solar water heating project, which is being developed around quality water-heating. Not every supplier will necessarily qualify. For each device there has to be a minimum standard. That will be a success, and is proving so already for new homes. Obviously, when new homes are built it is good to make sure they have a solar water-heating system installed. That is going ahead well.

One of the other successes of the Green Party in the Budget was in the area of restoring three of New Zealand’s foremost wetlands—that is, those in the Whangamarino, in the Waikato; the Ashburton lakes on the upper Rangitata River; and the Waituna Lagoon and the Awarua wetland complex, in Southland. New Zealand has so few wetlands that it is very important to preserve them, and this Budget funding allows great progress to be made in that direction.

Another achievement in the Budget that I personally have been associated with, as the official development assistance spokesperson for the Green Party, is the increase in overseas aid. In our post-election agreement with Labour there was a section on increasing overseas aid, and we were very pleased when the Budget announced a much greater increase than had been projected in the previous year’s Budget. Instead of overseas aid going from 0.27 percent of gross national income to just 0.28 percent, as had been projected in the long-term projections, the amount has gone up to 0.3 percent, and is projected to rise to 0.35 percent by 2010. We welcome not only the Government’s moving in that direction but also the way that other parties in this Parliament, such as New Zealand First—including the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Winston Peters—United Future, and the Māori Party all pushed for increases in overseas aid. There has been a big community movement for that over some years. Several MPs from various parties—New Zealand First, United Future, and Labour—were privileged to be invited to a ceremony and given little awards for our contribution to the raising of New Zealand’s overseas aid level.

We now have to look forward at how we get overseas aid to go from 0.35 percent of gross national income in 2010 to 0.7 percent in 2015. In those 5 years the figure would have to jump by a significant amount, so we must start developing a timetable now to achieve that. It would be good to have consensus in the House to make sure that, whichever Government happens to be in power through to 2015, that timetable is proceeded with, because the people of the world, particularly those in poorer circumstances who need development assistance, are looking for that.

Also in the Budget—we teased out the details post the Budget—is quite a significant development for public transport, particularly for rail, and, from the Auckland end, particularly for the electrification of the Auckland passenger rail system. There has been a dramatic increase in the number of passengers on the Auckland rail system, to over 5 million. It has been going up very rapidly, despite all sorts of problems, particularly on the western line. People are still hopping on the trains. Completing the double tracking of that line and the electrification will dramatically increase the patronage, and provide an infrastructural background for public transport generally in Auckland. The Budget allows for an infrastructure loan, which the region will pay for through a petrol tax. The details of all that are being worked out. The Greens were a bit worried that some, or a significant amount, of the petrol tax might go on just building new highways, which is not the priority. The priority is public transport right now. It seems that all of the Auckland civic leaders of the different local bodies are for the petrol tax being devoted to, particularly, the electrification of the rail system.

Another big achievement in the Budget is the $11.5 million for the Buy Kiwi Made programme. I was privileged to attend an Auckland launch 2 or 3 weeks ago. It was packed; the audience was a good cross-section of the industry. We do not often get all of the lead people together in the same room: the lead unionists, those in the manufacturing area, business people such as Phil O’Reilly of Business New Zealand, people from the Employers Federation, and various individual manufacturers who are producing good-quality, New Zealand - made products. It was a fantastic launch. I do not think I saw very many National MPs there. [Interruption] It is confirmed there were none. Sue Bradford has been delegated responsibility for that area and is doing great work.

The question looming large over everything, including the Budget, is climate change. The Greens are disappointed that the Budget does not make room for a carbon charge, but there are rumours afoot that the Government will come forward with some proposal in that area soon. I request that the Government be quite radical in its proposal, because the public mood has shifted. The public is open to serious taxes on scarce resources, particularly those that contribute to global warming, such as fossil fuels. The time has come for a carbon charge. For many years people thought the Greens were a bit funny talking about all these taxes on resources, but I think people now realise that resources such as oil are running out, and also that some of those resources are causing great harm and taxation is required to reduce their use. That applies to the carbon charge on any of the greenhouse gas emitters from the energy sector, from the transport sector, or from the farming sector—for methane. There has to be a contribution from all those sectors to reducing our greenhouse gas emissions.

Another problem in the Budget is the huge increase for the Department of Corrections. The amount went up by about 20 percent in the previous 2006-07 year, and in this Budget it has gone up by another 15 percent. We have to look at those figures and ask whether this law and order competition between, in particular, Labour, National, and New Zealand First to see who can imprison people for the longest time, give the heaviest sentences, and all the rest of it is really helping our society. I think we should have another look at it. The Māori Party in particular and the Green Party are saying there are other ways, rather than increasing the budget in that way.

Hon ANNETTE KING (Minister of State Services): Today, in the imprest supply debate the Leader of the Opposition, John Key, coined another new phrase—“lolly-nomics”. Of course, he has a tendency to do this; whenever there is a major debate he comes up with a catchy little phrase that will, hopefully, make the TV clip that night as the sound bite. Mr Key and Mr English, and no doubt all National members, have all been asked to say the phrase in all their speeches today, so we will just tick off how many times they say “lolly-nomics”. I am quite happy to have the new name “lolly-enomics” because it means that we have to have some lollies to be able to spend. We have to build up some lollies to be able to share them with New Zealanders. We cannot share “nothing” with anybody. We have to be able to have something to share with the people of New Zealand, and what this Government has done has built up some lollies so we can spend them. So I thank National for that label. I suppose the opposite of it would be “Scrooge-nomics” and we suffered Scrooge-nomics under the National Government. I think it was called “euthanasia” at one stage, but it was “Ruthanasia”. It became—and I think it was—“Scrooge-nomics” and New Zealanders felt the effect of it, because there were no lollies to spend.

In fact, Bill English, as Minister of Finance, ran deficits. He was so good in his job he ran deficits. He wants the job again, I say to members of this House. He is begging for the job again, and his record is that he ran deficits, and people can only spend deficits if they borrow to spend the deficits.

It is like the household budget. People take out the old credit card, they go into New World, they buy the milk, the bread, the butter, and the meat, they stick it on the credit card, and they think they have actually paid for them—until they get the bill. Then they get the headache, because they now have to pay for what they have put on their credit cards.

I have to say that people could be mistaken in not knowing what this debate is about. It is the imprest supply debate, and it is the end of the Budget 2007 debate. A Budget is the implementation of policy. We heard Mr English say today that Labour has no policy. Of course, we do not have a Budget if we are not implementing something and spending some of the lollies on something. In fact, this party spends the lollies on policy—policy we told New Zealanders about, policy we believe in—and in a Budget we implement policy. Did we hear from Opposition members how they would implement policy? Did they tell us about a policy? They did not tell us about a single policy. In fact, it was the usual rant and rave.

Many New Zealanders may not remember this debate but they will remember that this Budget brought in KiwiSaver for thousands and thousands of New Zealanders. In fact, over 100,000 New Zealanders will be enrolled by 2008. This Budget brought in business tax cuts for New Zealand business people. The National Party—can people believe it—opposed that. They opposed a tax cut for business in New Zealand. I heard on so many occasions National members saying they believed that the businesses of New Zealand deserved to have the same tax rates as Australia. We heard that up and down the country for years and when the first chance came to vote for a tax cut for business in New Zealand, who opposed it? The National Party! That is as shallow as a bird bath.

Who can believe that that party ever believes in tax cuts, when the first chance it got to vote for them, it voted against them? Why did its members vote against them? I ask members to ask themselves that. Why would they vote against them? It can be for only one reason—pure politics. There was no rationale behind it, there was no reasoning behind it; it was pure, naked politics. That is why National members voted against tax cuts.

In this Budget, we also saw some of the last implementation of the Primary Health Care Strategy. I want to congratulate the Minister of Health on the work he has done in ensuring that this policy, which was put in place, has been implemented for the benefit of New Zealanders. I have to say I am particularly proud of that policy, because I have always believed—as this party has—that the first rung of the health ladder ought to be affordable for New Zealanders. We allow people to go to hospitals where it is free, but we say to them that when they want to go to their primary health care provider they pay top dollar.

We did have a subsidy for primary health care—New Zealanders will remember it—and we were subsidised for years, and years, and years. In the years of “Scrooge-nomics”, National members took away the subsidy for primary health care, they voted to take away the subsidy for primary health care, and gave people a “poor card”. If people were poor enough they got a bit of a help to go to their doctor, but if they had a dollar over the benchmark they paid full price. This current provision has brought back affordable primary health care to New Zealanders—not only primary health care, but affordable prescriptions as well. I am very proud that that was in this Budget implementing a policy that I know that many New Zealanders believe in. I know that many of the other supporting parties believe in it as well.

We also saw, in education, the implementation of 20 hours’ free early childhood education. Last Friday I had the privilege of visiting a brand-new early childhood centre in my electorate, called I-Kids. It is private early childhood education centre. If members drive around Greta Point, I ask them to have a look at a beautiful new building that has gone up there—it is spectacular. And do members know what that early childhood centre has done? It has signed up for 20 hours’ free early childhood education. It believes in it. It believes that it is good for the parents, it is providing a quality service, and it is one of many in my electorate. I say: “Good on you, I-Kids, and good on all those who have signed up.” They have put first the children of New Zealand—not raw, naked politics, as some would do because they think they might get the National Party a vote or two.

But one would have to say that the level of debate in this House in recent weeks has been more about getting rid of Ministers, dreamt-up scandals, so-called conspiracies, and a lot of innuendo that we have seen over the last few weeks, rather than sensible debate.

Hon Member: And a lot of rubbish as well!

Hon ANNETTE KING: I would say to Mr Coleman that, as a new member in this House, it is really remarkable how fast he has fallen into those traps—traps that most people take a long time to fall into. I think that Diane Foreman, in the Sunday paper, put her finger on it when she pointed out that the problem she faced in terms of the theft of Don Brash’s emails—another one of the scandals and conspiracies we have heard about in this House—was closer to home. In other words, the problem is around the National Party. I think what we have seen since the election in 2005 is the National Party immersing itself in pursuing issues that are irrelevant to New Zealanders, are irrelevant to the daily lives of Kiwi men and women, and I want to say that the Budget the Government has just put out is very relevant to the people of New Zealand.

The big winner in this Budget was transport. Transport was a winner in 2006. It has been a winner under this Government because we believe we can transform an economy only by investing in infrastructure. Today John Key talked about transport in Auckland, and the gridlock there. I ask him to think about the roads that were not built, about the investment that did not go into public transport, and about the decisions made in the 1990s. It is there for anyone to see, as clear as the nose on your face—there was little investment. We in Auckland are reaping the benefits—or, in fact, we are reaping the results of that lack of investment and it has only been this Government’s commitment to investment that has seen us have a programme under way where there is now money going towards electrification of rail, and into passenger transport, into roads—local and State highways. In fact, we have seen an unprecedented investment into our infrastructure.

John Key also said how a tax cut fixes a traffic jam. I think he said they should have got a tax cut and he implied that that would fix a traffic jam. Well, of course one cannot spend the money twice. The lollies have to go where they are needed. In my view, investment into infrastructure, which is in this Budget, is very good spending indeed.

SIMON POWER (National—Rangitikei): I have quietly been a bit of a fan of Annette King for quite some time. I have always thought that she was a good politician and somebody who could deliver the goods when the pressure came on. I think I know Annette King reasonably well. I have watched her in operation for a long, long time: from back in the days when she was running the local economic development agency in the Manawatū, right through to her being a senior Cabinet Minister in this Government. I can tell the people who are watching or listening to this debate that I do not think she believed what she said over the last 10 minutes. Annette King did not have the old flair about her that we have come to expect of her. She just did not have the same commitment to delivering the message that she has shown in such a strident way for a long period of time. It was almost as though she knew something was about to change.

In the third reading today of the Appropriation (2007/08 Estimates) Bill, which, as Darren Hughes pointed out to me, may be taken with an Imprest Supply Bill, I have only 10 minutes to speak so I thought I would spend my 10 minutes on outlining 10 things that could have been done a lot better in the Department of Corrections. I think it is well worth spending just a minute—[Interruption] I have only 10 minutes—one minute on each.

Hon Annette King: You’ve only got eight now!

SIMON POWER: I probably have only 8 minutes left now; that is right—40 seconds on each. It will cost $253 per night, or just over $92,000 per year, to keep an inmate incarcerated in a New Zealand prison under this Government. Now, that cost does have an impact on the Appropriation (2007/08 Estimates) Bill, primarily because in 2004-05 it was going to be only $57,000 per year. In fact, Damien O’Connor told the House only a month and a half ago that the price was $69,000 per year, when he knew all along that it was $92,000 per year.

That cost is because of one thing, and one thing alone: the appalling way that the process for managing and building the new prisons has occurred under this Government. The Government knows the process has not worked, because the refurbishment of Mount Eden Prison will not follow the collaborative working arrangement scheme for building prisons. Damien O’Connor has given that away. It comes on the back of revelations—despite what Matt Robson said, and despite what the Hon Paul Swain said—that Damien O’Connor has had to come down to the House in the last month and admit to the Northern Advocate paper in Whangarei that Ngāwhā prison is sinking. He told this House there were no expected future problems with regard to site stability at Ngāwhā prison. This estimates bill and the debate we have had around this Budget does not allow for the massive cost that will land on this vote in order to rectify that particular engineering shambles. We know that Mount Eden Prison will not use the system that has been used in such a massive construction blowout.

We know that during the last short time, the Department of Corrections has spent nearly $1 million per month on external consultants. We know that the Department of Corrections is estimated over the next short while to spend $311,000 on chartered flights for prisoners, which is four times the amount that the Government spent in its first year in office on chartering planes to move prisoners around. I can advise members on the Treasury benches that there is more to come on that issue.

We know also that in the year to 31 May, $1.7 million was paid in bonuses to Department of Corrections staff, on the back of everything that has gone wrong in that department in the last 18 months. It is almost impossible to believe that the senior management at the department sat around a mahogany table or the like, and decided they would actually seriously reward managers at the head office for the appalling job they have done over the last 18 months, by writing out cheques—taxpayer-funded cheques—for $1.7 million. We know that not everybody at the head office of the department agreed with that particular assessment of their performance, because nearly a quarter of the staff there have chucked in their jobs in the past year, according to figures that we have obtained.

We also know that much work remains to be done in certain key areas of operation in the department, not the least of which is prisoner transportation. We saw a damning Ombudsmen’s report in recent months that showed the department was told three times in the space of 3 months of serious concerns about the safety of prisoner transport by Chubb and the security monitoring department, but did nothing.

Looking ahead to the 12 months that this appropriation bill will grant vote money to the department for, we know that still outstanding is a report from Treasury into the prison budget overspend, in the sum of just under half a billion dollars, on the building of four new prisons. A figure that Damien O’Connor used earlier this year was $890 million in order to build those four new prisons. In recent days the figure that has crept into debates in this House from Damien O’Connor has been $1.2 billion. The cost has moved up from $890 million to that level without too much of a fuss from those who should have been listening carefully to the Minister’s words.

We have here a department that in the last 12 months has established such a track record for bungling incompetence that it gives the public of this country no confidence at all that the next 12 months will see any improvements in the department. We know that the money that has been spent on things like landscaping prisons—a sum of $11 million—could have been spent on drug and alcohol rehabilitation courses or work schemes for prisoners: matters that operational funding could have been used on to reduce reoffending by our prison population. We know that something like just under 80 percent of prisoners will be back inside prison within 5 years of their release—or certainly they will be convicted of an offence. With those moneys that have been wasted, such as the $1.8 million, or just under that sum, that was paid in bonuses to the department’s head office staff, how many offenders could have attended drug and alcohol rehabilitation courses, or could have been on meaningful work schemes that would give them opportunities and skills that they will otherwise not have when they leave that environment of incarceration? How many of those people—not to mention the victims of their crimes—could have had the opportunity to have crime reduced by money being spent in an appropriate and a thoughtful way, rather than on the wastage that has occurred in the department?

Darren Hughes, who is a well-meaning sort of character in the Labour Party, made a comment earlier in my contribution today, asking what National would do to reduce those costs. Well, I say to Mr Hughes, I think it is pretty self-evident. We would create contracting environments where contractors stick to a simple thing called a quote, which they give at the beginning of a construction project. We would make sure that money is not wasted on things like landscaping prisons or on bonuses paid to head office staff, and that it goes into meaningful drug and alcohol rehabilitation courses, work schemes, and the types of programmes that help the victims of crime to avoid reoffending occurring against them, and that give offenders—particularly, I say to Mr Hughes, young offenders—the opportunity to redeem their lives.

Dr PITA SHARPLES (Co-Leader—Māori Party): Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker; tēnā tātou. I have been wondering what it is with the concept of one in 10. One in 10 New Zealanders live in Australia, making up the largest concentration of New Zealanders living in any other country. One in 10 European families and one in four Māori families fell behind in paying at least one bill for power, gas, or water in the year 2004, according to the living standards survey. Then there is the fact that over 10 percent of all households in New Zealand are experiencing mortgage stress. According to the economist Brian Easton, half a million New Zealanders spend more than 40 percent of their after-tax household earnings on their mortgage repayments. There is the fact that one in 10 boys and one in 20 girls reported being bullied at least once a week. Of course, the breaking news today is that the latest food price index shows that the price of a 2 litre bottle of milk rose by about 10 percent last month. All those indicators may appear haphazard or random, but there is a connection between them, and it is the silent violence of economic injustice.

As we conclude the third reading of the Appropriation (2007/08 Estimates) Bill, the Māori Party seeks to remind the House of the gross wealth disparity across New Zealand that is reflected in persistent and growing economic desperation. Sure, the richest one in 10 New Zealanders have increased their net worth to just over 50 percent of the total median net worth of our nation’s wealth. One in 10 New Zealanders are in that position, and life is looking good for the top 10 percent. The figures show that those people are at least 21 percent better off in 2004 than they were 20 years ago in 1984. But we cannot ignore the fact that for the poorest 30 percent of New Zealanders, it appears that their real income is lower in 2004 than it was 20 years ago in 1984.

The impacts of globalisation have been particularly dire for Māori workers. It is Māori who have been cut and slashed by the sharp edge of the policies of the 1980s and 1990s to liberalise our economy and expose it to the forces of globalisation. With the removal of tariff protections and State sector restructuring, it was Māori workers who were disproportionately impacted on in the textile, clothing, footwear, car assembly, meatworks, and forestry industries, and in the railways. The price of global progress has been at great cost to tangata whenua. Statistics New Zealand’s household labour force survey gives even more room for despondency when it comes to describing the profile of New Zealanders who fall under the line and are classified as poor. Māori children are nearly twice as likely as Pākehā children to fall under the poverty line, and others, including Pasifika peoples, are nearly three times as likely to do so. We have consistently raised in the House the shame that this nation carries in entrenching hardship for the poorest of the poor: some 250,000 children who are still living in poverty.

People are impoverished when they are deprived of access to power and resources. Lincoln University’s professor of agribusiness, Keith Woodford, has told the nation that life will get even tougher, with further milk price rises this year and the cost of other grocery staples, like bread, flour, and meat, likely also to increase. But it is not just the material famine that concerns us. People are also suffering the impact of spiritual poverty: the lack of hope that a better future lies ahead. So although the current Government promulgates an endless mantra of working for some families, or offers to some people the prospect of being a KiwiSaver while excluding all those New Zealanders who are kept on poverty wages, far too little emphasis has been paid to the poorest of the poor.

Part of the problem lies in the lack of robust data for measuring the growth in disparities or policy failures in the area of monitoring. The Child Poverty Action Group has identified that virtually identical names have been transferred across family assistance strategies, yet those strategies now have vastly different eligibility criteria. What that means, as the Muliaga case demonstrated so tragically, is that with the radically changing criteria and the complexity of the family tax credit concept, many families are missing out on obtaining their basic entitlements as a result of the policy confusion.

The other issue is to do with the declining capacity of State agencies to adhere to a tight monitoring framework. In May the Auditor-General’s report on Te Puni Kōkiri’s administration of its grant programmes revealed shocking standards of legal risk and non-compliance, which is concerning for a Public Service agency. Instances of contracts signed before a legal clearance had been obtained, or where recipients had failed to submit progress reports as the funding contracts required, showed the devastating impact of running down the monitoring function of that agency. Just yesterday we revealed more evidence of the monitoring failure, in reviewing the first annual report that the Minister of Māori Affairs had tabled in 12 years on progress made—or not made—against Treaty settlements.

All across this House there would be unanimous agreement that the Government spend on Māori, across education, hospital and primary health care, and community probation or jail, and through the unemployment or sickness registers, appears high. Those appropriations are spent for and on behalf of the Māori partner, yet the Māori partner has little to say about how much the appropriation should be or about the nature of the design, development, implementation, management, and evaluation of the policies associated with that spend. Despite having little or no say, and often having very little dedicated funds allocated, the blame for poor performance in health, education, justice, and the social services is consistently sheeted home to Māori. What is worse, all evidence reveals that the gaps are getting worse and the injustice is becoming entrenched.

The Māori Party, the Tikanga Māori House in Parliament, has a suggestion to challenge the poor performance that parties often clash over in considering the Māori spend. There is no denying that Aotearoa possesses a dual economy: the New Zealand economy, and the Māori economy. The Māori-owned asset base has an estimated worth of $9 billion, of which Māori-owned land-based businesses and incorporations earn at least $1.9 billion annually in revenue, and Māori exports add up to a total of $1.3 billion a year. We know exactly where the spend is, and the estimated profits. For example, we can measure revenue owned by Māori, who own approximately 40 percent of the New Zealand seafood industry, own 10 percent of the forest estate, and produce 7.5 percent of the value added in agricultural production. But in the spend on Māori undertaken by the Crown, whether in education, health, justice, or Treaty settlements, the total amount spent on Māori, by Māori, is often submerged from view. Officials tell us that it is too difficult to aggregate such amounts.

As an example, it has taken the Māori Party an enormous search, involving some 107 written questions pertaining to kura and wharekura, and an additional 104 questions related to bilingual and immersion classes in mainstream schools, before we were able to obtain the information from the Minister about the spend on Māori education. During that search we found that funds previously allocated to kura and wharekura, in the 5 years from 2000-01 to 2005-06, have not been fully spent, with the total difference being $16 million. We are yet to find out where that money has gone. That will probably take another couple of hundred questions and another couple of months of waiting, and who has time to do that?

It is the firm view of the Tikanga Māori House in Parliament that the Māori partner needs better financial data to properly monitor the Government spend on Māori, and then to be able to assess that spend against the promises made in the Treaty of Waitangi. Long-term relief for tangata whenua from present circumstances will depend on the courage and commitment of the nation to be open to the possibility of a Māori-inspired solution. The 2007-08 estimates are not that. Thank you.

Hon PETE HODGSON (Minister of Health): It is a pleasure to take part in this debate. I would like to thank the previous speaker for his thoughtful remarks, and I will respond to them in a minute. But first of all, I will draw attention to the speech made by the leader of the National Party, Mr John Key. It is interesting that he was the first respondent to Dr Michael Cullen. The National Party finance spokesperson was not given the first slot; clearly, Mr Key wanted it, and fair enough. But one would expect, if that were the case, that Mr Key would then use his speech to give this House and this country some view as to how National would have approached the appropriations or the Budget of the land. One would expect that, and one would expect a bit of policy—or, if not a bit of policy, then a bit of policy direction, or a bit of an indication about how much those members would want to do on these benches, versus how little over on those benches. One would expect a bit about where those members see themselves on the political spectrum, and a little bit of a hint about what this National Party might do, now that it has completed almost 8 years in Opposition, should it ever take the Treasury benches.

But, no, we did not get that. We got the catchy stuff, but we did not get a glimpse of the general direction. We got “lolly-nomics”, and that was it. Mr Key had a significant opportunity in this House to make a significant statement, just as he did on Budget night. He did not do it. He did not do it, and time is running out. There is no indication of what National stands for in this Parliament.

We know what those members stand against—they stand against anything that furthers the benefit of New Zealanders. Here are some examples of the things they have voted against. They have voted against KiwiSaver. They voted against it, almost beyond belief, and it was one of the most extraordinary actions we have ever seen. We still have not heard whether they will support KiwiSaver, but they had better make up their minds soon because New Zealanders are supporting KiwiSaver in their droves.

National voted against Working for Families. I guess those members called it “lolly-nomics”. We call it addressing child poverty in our country, and they voted against that. They voted against 20 hours’ free early childhood education, and tried very hard to make sure it would not work. That is what they did about that. They probably call that “lolly-nomics”, too. We call that giving every New Zealander a good start in the education system as 3 and 4-year-olds. We also say that it is a good opportunity for parents to go back to work part time or full time, if they want to; to stay at home and look after the younger child, the 1 or 2-year-old, if they want to; or to get off the domestic purposes benefit. But those National members voted against that.

They voted against cheaper doctors’ fees. Mrs King spoke briefly about that. They voted against that. They voted against reducing the cost of a pharmaceutical from $15 per item to $3 per item. They voted against it. I do not know why they did that. They probably thought that was “lolly-nomics”, too. We thought that was making sure that the first rung of the health ladder is affordable. We knew that if we reduced the barriers of access to primary health care, then we would get an increase in access to primary health care—and we knew that we would end up with better health outcomes as a result. But those members voted against that.

They voted against the business tax cuts. I do not understand why they did that. Mr Key said Auckland’s roading needed to be fixed. Well, we are fixing it. But those members voted against that, too. You see, they vote against everything. So we know what they stand against—it is pretty much anything—but we do not know what they stand for.

Can I say to the colleague who has just resumed his seat that his comments about not being able to find out how much time and effort is going into Māoridom may be his truth, but it is certainly not mine. I can say that in the health sector, we are addressing the disparities in health between Māori and non-Māori with some success. We are not finished, not by any means, but, boy, are we making progress—and it is measurable. I can say without any hint of contradiction that Working for Families disproportionably advantages Māori, that having lower doctors’ fees disproportionately advances Māori, and so it goes.

I want to talk about the leader of the National Party, Mr Key. The received wisdom now is that the honeymoon is over and the scrutiny begins. Well, that is fine; so it should be. Any politician would respond to that by making careful and measured statements and by developing positions or position statements on this or that as they build up their portfolio of policy, preparatory to having a run at the job of Prime Minister in the forthcoming election. That is what any leader of the Opposition does, and in a sense Mr Key has done that. Mr Key has used the opportunity to change the National Party’s policy on, for example, the pre-saving for superannuation, the so-called Cullen fund. National members were against that, too, and they have gone the other way. They have said they are now for that. One could say that they are immunising themselves against changing the popular policies of this Government; that is a reasonable political thing to do. One could say that they are simply trying to make sure that they do not look as if they are terribly bad people, such as those that existed in National in the 1990s, or that they are trying to get away from the Don Brash image—whatever.

That is something Mr Key did. But that is what happened when he had the chance to change certain National Party policies. As soon as the spotlight went on Mr Key, we got a completely different kind of behaviour. Of course, the issue we are talking about is Iraq. Straight away, he lost his sure-footedness. It is true that he has made a number of statements about Iraq that have got him into trouble. He said back in 2003 that he was in favour of sending the troops. That is written down, and we know he said it. In 2007 we know he said he was not in favour, so there is the contradiction. Which way do we deal with this?

That is not, itself, the issue. That was the issue last week—that Mr Key had made a mistake and had contradicted himself in the space of his time here. That is now part of the written record. But what has not been made so obvious is that since then Mr Key has not clarified. There are a range of things he could do. He could say: “Back then I said that, and right now I am saying this, and that is because I was a junior, and now I am running the place.” But he said that once, and he did not say it again. In other words, he did go for that excuse, and then he backed off from it. He could have said: “I needed to clarify.”, he could have said: “ I need to change my position.”, or he could have gone anywhere to get firm ground. But he did not. Instead, what he did was to make it worse.

He went down to Dunedin on Friday and came up with a real doozy. He said that the National Party never said that it wanted to go to Iraq. The National Party’s history has now been rewritten by the current leader of the National Party, in Dunedin on Friday. That tells me that this man continues to obfuscate as soon as the pressure goes on him about what he feels. He does not give clarity; he gives another layer of confusion.

That is an interesting position, because if one wants to tell how a politician is going to do in general, then one needs to look at how the politician is doing under pressure. Under pressure Mr Key continues to obfuscate, even today. It is not as if he has gotten through this; he is still doing it. Not only has Mr Key made a contradiction of his position on Iraq between 2003 and last month, but he has now gone on and done it again. He said that his position is not as described. He said that the National Party’s position is not as described, yet he said that he was a junior, which means that it was as described.

It is not that we have such a riddle of contradictions; that is already understood. For me, the interesting thing is that, given a weekend to think about it, given a bit of time to come to a position, and given a bit of a chance to pick up the phone and say: “All right, from here on, this is going to be our position.”, he has not done it. He has simply tried to rewrite history. We know how he does it. He does it with those fast-flowing, clipped sentences that do not always finish. There is a lot of business-speak in them—often with the participles missing, but we will not get too fussy. He just goes to smooth and sooth, and on the radio, it sounds fine. But when we get the transcript and look at the English language written down in ink, then we know that we are dealing with someone who cannot get it straight, who cannot get a line and hold to it, and who actually writhes when put under pressure.

He writhes. He does not come to a position and stand his ground and defend it, good or bad. Instead, he writhes. He moves around. It is like nailing jelly to a tree. Frankly, a person who behaves like that cannot be a Prime Minister in this country, so Mr Key has two choices. He needs to alter his behaviour, the way that he deals with himself, and the way he views himself, and decide that he will stand on firm ground, here, for this issue, and on other firm ground, there, for that issue, or he needs to give the job back to Bill English.

GERRY BROWNLEE (National—Ilam): Kia ora. This afternoon when we came into the House it was decorated with those red boxes with the Labour Party’s name over them. Mr Hodgson points to his one now, as if I had not noticed it. It was almost as if Labour members had a desperate need to create a feeling of festivity about themselves, so they festooned the party with these baubles, these decorations, these brightly coloured boxes. Most of them are empty, I note; they have clear ends and I can see that most of them are empty.

We know that behind all of this lies the desperate need for Labour to feel as though it is a team again, to get over the fact that it is in such terrible disarray from one end of the party to the other, and to somehow disguise the fact that at least 11 of its members are likely to exit this Chamber within the next 15 months. Further, we know that the prospects of any new members coming to replace them after the 2008 election is starting to look extremely slim.

It is extraordinary that we can also turn to Speakers’ rulings that make it very clear that one cannot have in the House any sort of decoration like this that obscures the Speaker’s view of a member. We have looked across the House today and it would seem that most of the Labour members must be sitting on cushions in order to prop themselves up a little bit and to give themselves a further boost to the ego. It is either that, or else they have been instructed by Helen Clark and Michael Cullen to get down in there and really feel like they are in the trenches.

Today in this appropriations debate we have not heard any proud claims about what Labour has done for the nation or any proud claims about what its policies delivered in the last Budget are doing for the nation, but rather a series of very, very personal attacks on the leader of the National Party, John Key. It is delightful for us that we can bask in the knowledge that if Labour members are attacking John Key, then they know just how deeply attracted the New Zealand electorate is to him. So we are delighted by these attacks.

We are a little saddened that we cannot get, I suppose one would say, a bit of information from Labour about what its aspirations are for the balance of its term. We know that some of those members cannot have too many aspirations, because we noticed also that red boxes were not given to all members of the Labour caucus. I am afraid to say, Mr Assistant Speaker, that we looked at a certain gentleman sitting on a sheepskin in the third row, one seat in, and noticed that there was no red box on his desk. If that is some sort of a foretelling of that particular gentleman’s future, then, in his case, we are saddened.

As for the rest, it is a little bit perplexing that there was no red box on Shane Jones’ desk. I cannot believe that that is because the Labour Government wants to get rid of Shane Jones—I cannot believe that. I cannot believe that he was not offered a red box. What I can believe is that Shane Jones said: “Do not be so stupid. Do not be so silly, guys. We do not need this. Why can we not be proud of what we are, and why can we not just get in there and do the business?”.

Well, we saw a perfect demonstration from Michael Cullen today as to why Labour members cannot do the business. He gave a 10-minute speech that never said anything about his view of where the economy is going in the next short while—nothing whatsoever. We had 8 minutes of Michael Cullen doing the sort of rant that he did last Wednesday, which I have had so many letters about over the last week it is incredible. I suppose that, on the one hand, people might say that if people are writing about someone, it is good for that person, but in this case, nothing those people had to say was particularly good. It is sad, because we know that Dr Cullen is a retiring member. He has been a great parliamentarian, and it is sad to see that, at the twilight of his career and as it is coming to an end, he is being forced to try to prop up the morale of the Labour Government by going on those sorts of seriously vindictive, nasty attacks that really only leave people with a bad taste about the person making the attack, Dr Cullen himself.

So why did the Labour members not talk about their policies today? Why did they not talk about Working for Families? Why did they not talk about 20 free hours? Why did they not talk about KiwiSaver? And why did they not talk about the business tax cuts, and everything else, in a way that expressed their pride in doing those things?

I will explain to the House why that did not happen. It is because Working for Families, 20 free hours, and KiwiSaver are all about taking choice away from New Zealanders. If there is anything that is characterising the current Government, it is the lack of choice that New Zealanders have under its leadership. We have Michael Cullen, Mr Hodgson, and various other speakers saying that Working for Families is the greatest thing this country has ever had, that more families are getting more money, etc., etc. But these statements belie the fact that Working for Families has created a situation where the Government determines the amount of income that anyone has.

It is the Government that puts caps and limits on people’s ability to earn. It is the Government that, through the structure of Working for Families, says to too many workers: “Do not do anything extra. Just accept what we are prepared to give you.” That is an unacceptable situation for many, many New Zealanders. We do not begrudge anyone that income, but we do think that there are much better ways to deliver it. There are much better ways to ensure the work that New Zealanders do is more productive. We need to see a rise in our productivity, because that is really the only way out of the current hole we are in.

The same applies for the 20 free hours arrangements. We know that some childcare centres are signing up for it. We know that many New Zealanders are availing themselves of it. Of course they should; we do not begrudge them that. But New Zealanders are being asked to sign up for the particular type of 20 free hours arrangement that suits the Government, without having any choice on their part. For example, if it were a tax relief for working mothers, or if it was perhaps even a straight payment or subsidy for the choices that people make, the important thing is that the choices would be there. Choices are not there under the 20 free hours policy as the Government currently structures it.

Then we come to KiwiSaver. No one would mount an argument to say that saving is a bad thing, but these days so many Kiwis face pressures in their lives that were not there some years ago in the general cost of living as it relates to the wages they earn. The Government says that if people want to avail themselves of KiwiSaver, then they need to sacrifice a certain percentage of their income, and that if they do that, then there will be some Government contribution. It will all be locked up for 65 years, without any great choice about when that money might become available to people. What is worst of all is the Government says to all those workers who cannot afford to get into KiwiSaver that they will continue paying through their taxes, as well.

If Dr Cullen wonders—in his Walter Mitty view of the world, which is so perfect—why New Zealanders are not switching on to what he has to say, then he need only ask himself why so many people are leaving the country. Why do we have an exodus of 760 New Zealanders each week? Why have we had a slide in our OECD rankings in the last 8 years? Dr Cullen talks about things like the health system. Why is it that in any part of New Zealand we can visit an emergency room that is under stress? If everything is so good in health, then why is that the case? Why, if everything is so good in education, do we have one in five young New Zealanders leaving school technically illiterate? These are the things that people measure Governments by.

Why are we becoming an increasingly violent society? Why do we so often have very, very bad circumstances presented to us on the news where New Zealanders have gone off the rails somewhere in a sense of madness? We saw this sort of situation with the young child who was murdered last week, and we know that that happens once every 5 weeks in this country.

Those are the reasons why New Zealanders are not listening. They are the reasons why the phone is off the hook. They are the reasons why people are saying they want to try something different. They are the reasons why the optimism and the forward thought of John Key are attracting so much attention.

I make the prediction that all the red boxes in the world will not make one iota of difference to the vote that is cast at the end of 2008. It could just well be that some of those wise people who did not display a red box in the Chamber today will end up winning anyway.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): The member is aware that he has 5 minutes, and the bell will give a 1-minute warning.

Hon PETER DUNNE (Leader—United Future): There are some things in this Budget that I am very proud of, from United Future’s point of view, that I want to highlight this afternoon and in so doing pick up the challenge that was implicit in the previous speaker’s address.

I am proud of the fact that as a result of our confidence and supply agreement we have delivered the biggest business tax cut since the 1980s. It is $3.4 billion, over the next 4 years, that will boost productivity and will retain New Zealand’s competitiveness with its nearest trading partner, Australia. I am proud of the fact that as a result of that change and the significant changes to savings vehicles’ taxation arrangements as well, we now have a top business tax rate of 30c in the dollar, and for a number of savings vehicles the rate is 30c in the dollar, as well. That will encourage people to invest more and to save more, and it is consistent with the themes of this Budget overall, which are about investment and saving.

I say to the House that were it not for the provisions of that confidence and supply agreement, these changes would not have been delivered. I am also proud of the fact that we will now see, from 1 April next year, all donations to charitable organisations made by individuals and corporates being tax deductible. That arises out of the discussion document we issued in October last year, again arising out of the confidence and supply agreement of the year before, and it is a very positive step forward that the philanthropic charitable and voluntary sectors across New Zealand will welcome. It will be a spur to their further development and ongoing contribution to the work and the life of this country. Again, that would not have happened were it not for that confidence and supply agreement.

I am also proud of the fact—and this is particularly topical, given the report yesterday from the Environmental Risk Management Authority—that we have in place a comprehensive review team, chaired by the Hon Margaret Austin, overseeing a review of pest management strategies when it comes to game animals such as deer, chamois, and thar, that will also take into account yesterday’s report regarding the future use of 1080 poison. The recreational sector tell us that the establishment of that panel is one of the most significant things to happen to it in recent years and it provides a positive way forward towards striking that balance between the management of pests in New Zealand and the promotion of recreation. Again, that is something that would not have happened but for the United Future confidence and supply agreement with this Government.

I am proud of being able to contribute to those achievements that this Budget delivers. They are ones that in time will have a significant impact on the lives of all New Zealanders. The changes to the business tax regime from next year automatically will trigger consequential changes to personal tax arrangements. That will be the nature of the debate from this point on, and I give notice that as a party we will continue to promote a low tax environment for New Zealand taxpayers. Next year, probably around March or April, we will have a discussion document coming out, again as part of our agreement, relating to income splitting for households and families, looking at the whole area of household taxation arrangements. Again, I think that will shape the tax debate for the future, moving forward.

Further work is being done in the charitable sector on some of the initiatives that the Budget contained, particularly moves towards the establishment of payroll giving. We will be making further announcements about that later in the year, again to boost the contribution to the voluntary sector in New Zealand, the charitable sector in its work, and to establish a culture of giving across this country to promote philanthropy and people’s involvement in it.

As a smaller party in this House, as one of the MMP parties, United Future seeks to be a party of influence on the Government of the day. It is a role we have performed for both major parties over the last decade. I am particularly pleased that this year, with the limited resources at our disposal, we have been able to deliver such significant change. Indeed, I say that if we took out many of the tax changes from this Budget, aside perhaps from the KiwiSaver initiative, there would not be a great deal left. I am very, very satisfied and proud to have played a role in contributing to that and, more important, to see a situation where New Zealand will benefit from these changes, where despite some of the ebbs and flows of political current, they will be sustainable, they will be beneficial to New Zealand households and families, they will be positive for investment, good for jobs, and they will create a beneficial and positive future for this country. That is why I am voting for this Budget this afternoon.

Hon TONY RYALL (National—Bay of Plenty): I would like to acknowledge the comments of the previous speaker, the Hon Peter Dunne, with respect to the tax concession encouragement for charitable giving, which of course the Labour Party announced, having stolen the policy, word for word, from John Key. He announced it weeks and weeks before the Labour Party put it in its Budget. At the time that John Key announced that policy, what did Dr Cullen say? He said that it was Tory charity. But when he got to announce it, only a few weeks later, apparently it was a great new policy—something great for the community, and the way forward. I have to say that I think it is a good policy. It will turbocharge the voluntary sector of New Zealand, as John Key says, and I think that is absolutely vital.

But what is also turbocharged in this economy are the 700 New Zealanders who are leaving this country every week to go and live in Australia. In fact, I know of a young family in my electorate that is leaving New Zealand next week to go to Australia. This is a young man, and his family, who has worked for 20-something years in the New Zealand economy and has contributed well. He has a couple of young kids. He has decided that the lack of opportunity, the stifling political correctness, the high taxes, and the lack of incentive and reward for effort are sufficient for him to want to take himself, his wife, and his two young children to Australia to start a new life. He will be going to Brisbane and joining his brother who is there as well, with his partner and young child. They will be joining more and more New Zealanders who are leaving New Zealand to go to Australia.

What was in this Budget to make that young man and his family from Papamoa stay in New Zealand? Absolutely nothing. Where was the incentive of lower personal taxes, to help families work hard and get ahead? There was not one thing at all. Where was the commitment to improve the quality of our schools? Where was the effort to get trade training in our schools, so that our young people can be equipped to get into the community, as John Key has announced? Where was the commitment to improve the standard of care in our nation’s hospitals, to unleash the malignant spread of bureaucracy that is so stifling our health professionals in their desperate desire to help New Zealanders? Where was that?

Chris Auchinvole: Where was it?

Hon TONY RYALL: Well, nowhere. It was absolutely nowhere. It was a Budget completely bereft of any idea or any motivation to say to that young family to stay in New Zealand. [Interruption] Hold on. Mr Cosgrove says it was full of stuff to get people to stay in New Zealand. Apparently, regulations and putting up the price of land for new families is some great new thing that this Government announced. But there was nothing in this Budget to say to that young family: “Stay in New Zealand.” Where was the sense of direction, the sense of purpose, to say to that young man: “Stay in New Zealand and continue building your life here. We’re going to give you every incentive to get ahead.”? Where was that? It was not there.

Where was the opportunity to say to him: “We’ll give you even more opportunity to get a better house and get ahead, and get an affordable home.”? Where was that? There was none of that, at all. Where was the Government saying: “We’ve got a vision for a quality education system that is going to give young New Zealanders the skills they need to make sure they can compete with everyone else.”? Where was that? There was none whatsoever. In fact, all families get from the education system is the food police controlling what the kids and the mums and dads can put in the lunch boxes to take to school. That is hardly improving the standard of education for New Zealanders, at all.

What was there in health for this young man and his family? Nothing. Where was the Government’s sense of purpose to say that it wants a health system that makes New Zealanders live longer and thrive, and a health system that will bring care closer to home to make sure that people get better services coordinated with social care? Where was any of that appropriate vision from the Government? There was none whatsoever.

Chris Auchinvole: A broken arm in Greymouth!

Hon TONY RYALL: Break a leg in Greymouth today and one has to go and get it set in Blenheim.

Chris Auchinvole: Blenheim!

Hon TONY RYALL: That is what is happening in the health service in New Zealand today. It is absolutely shocking.

Over 700 New Zealanders a week are leaving to go to Australia. There is no incentive in this Budget for them to stay. Sure there is $1 billion worth of tax cuts for business. But do members know what Labour has done? It has cancelled the personal tax cuts that Michael Cullen promised people in two successive Budgets. Michael Cullen cancelled the personal tax cuts—

Nathan Guy: The bubble gum ones!

Hon TONY RYALL: Yes, they were bubble-gum size, but he did cancel the personal tax cuts that he promised New Zealanders.

R Doug Woolerton: When did you give a tax cut?

Hon TONY RYALL: Several times when we were last in Government, I say to Mr Woolerton. Several times when we were last in Government we gave personal tax cuts and we would continue to do so. But this Government has no idea and no vision for the future. If one asks New Zealanders what was the sense of direction given in the Budget, what do they say? New Zealanders cannot name one thing in the Budget that is good for them and their families. They cannot imagine it at all.

Hon Clayton Cosgrove: Give us your policy.

Hon TONY RYALL: Now we hear “give us your policy.” Well, why would we announce our policies for the Labour Party to steal? I tell Labour members to announce their policies, because they have not been announced. Let us actually look at Labour. Remember Pete Hodgson, the Labour Party strategist? He gave advice on when Labour should announce its policy before the last election. The health policy was announced 3 weeks before the 2005 general election. What about the student loans policy? That was announced on 26 July, about 6 or 7 weeks before the election. Remember the early childhood education policy, the 20 free hours? That was announced less than 3½ weeks before the election. What about the Labour Party’s economic policy announced just over a week before the last general election? That told us a lot. I got that direct from the Labour Party website. That tells us where Labour is in terms of announcing its policy. When John Key announced his policy in relation to voluntary groups the Labour Party was downloading that from the Internet in the blink of an eye. It stole it and used it in the Budget, and that is what it has been caught out doing.

So I ask the Labour Party where the sense of purpose is that New Zealanders should be getting from the Government, because they got none in this Budget whatsoever. This is a Budget where the Government is spending more money than ever before, but more kids will be failing in our schools, fewer people will be getting cared for within our hospitals, and more people will be waiting longer and longer on trolleys under fluorescent lights in hospitals up and down this country as a result of this Budget, because the Government thinks that a quality health service is measured by how much money one throws at it. That is what Labour says. It says it is so good for health and $5 billion must be better. Well, tell that to the woman from North Shore who I spoke to on the telephone yesterday, who stayed in hospital for 3 days with a grazed shin that got worse as she sat on the hospital trolley with no one taking any care of her and with her not getting admitted to a ward. That is appalling. That is a Third World health system happening in our country. Emergency departments are absolutely unable to deal with patients presenting to them.

I visited the emergency department of one of the nation’s major hospitals last week. I met with doctors and heard about their frustration first hand at the inability of the system to provide the level of care that New Zealanders should expect for the $11 billion that this Budget is putting into health. One would think that if $11 billion was put in, people who turned up at emergency departments would be seen at a reasonable time and that an 83-year-old woman would not be lying on a trolley under fluorescent lights for hours on end; and that a woman who presented with a badly grazed shin would not be having to hang around a hospital for 3 days and have to discharge herself because she could not get the level of care and support she needed. That is what we have under a Labour Party—and a charity hospital opening in Christchurch! What would Michael Joseph Savage have to say about that? A charity hospital is opening in Christchurch under a Labour Government. Is that Tory charity, as well?

Judith Collins: They have gone quiet.

Hon TONY RYALL: There is silence from the members opposite, because this is a Government putting in huge amounts of money and getting none of the improvement and quality public services that New Zealanders should expect. Nothing in the policy announcements in this Budget from this Government will do a single thing to stop that young man from Papamoa and his wife and two kids from leaving New Zealand in the next 10 days. Nothing in this Budget keeps them here.

Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA (Minister of Māori Affairs): If anybody could understand about discharge, that last member who spoke would know well about it—the verbal rubbish that came out is really, really lowering the essence of this great bastion of cooperation.

I went to the great Otaki electorate the other day and saw Nathan Guy playing rugby with Shane Jones. He was sloshing through the mud in a tigerish example of going forward. I thought: “When that boy gets into Government in about 15 or 20 years’ time he will do well.” But he was charging forward, leaderless, and going forward with the support of everybody else.

I have listened to all this tirade of innocence on how great the National Party has been. So let us just reflect on some of those issues. Remember National in the 1990s? It increased the surcharge, and that member talked about a lot of these issues. Let us talk about trade training. Who got rid of trade training?

Hon Clayton Cosgrove: They did.

Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA: And who brought in Modern Apprenticeships?

Darren Hughes: Labour.

Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA: And who can tell us that 27,000 people are participating in that scheme at the moment? This Government can. It is very, very interesting. Those members talked about housing today. There was a question in the House about housing. Well, let us talk about National’s housing policy in the 1990s, which it had 9 years to work out. National took everything up to market rents, sold all the State houses in Wairarapa and other areas, and now it is coming back with some churlish spin saying that it will give State houses to the occupants, knowing full well—

Judith Collins: No they didn’t.

Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA: That is what was said in the House today. National knows full well that the increased number that that member put out are on a median wage and need support. This Government’s Budget has been about supporting those who are in need, not the greedy.

There are two fundamental paradigms in any fiscal programme or financial strategy for any Government—two parts. The Labour Party’s financial strategy—and the Budget espouses it—is quite clearly about catering for those who are in need and spreading the wealth to ensure, like the $1 billion business, that there is a balanced stack. The National Party’s financial policy, in my mind—and I am not an accountant or a financier, but I certainly understand it—is about tossing big breaks to the big corporate mates, and having tax discounts and all of that, which go overseas to a lot of foreign people and just helps this lot up here. The fundamental arithmetic is that if we spend that money we have to take it from somewhere.

Yet we have had somebody standing up here, saying that they will increase the health vote. They do not know anything. In the health area, I think that people enjoy having $3 prescriptions. I think that people enjoy having the cost of doctors’ visits halved. I think that people enjoy knowing they will get their knees and hips improved and fixed up, when once that was not even on the register. The last National Government got rid of dental technician assistants, and a lot of the shortages created now in those specialist areas was through that Government’s efforts in being negative.

Let us talk about the Charities Commission and this great policy of the National Party. Peter Dunne let out the information. He talked about it before National announced its policy. The National leader went along and listened, and woke up and thought: “Geez, I’ve got a policy now—to help non-governmental organisations and communities. But then National members tried to make out that Labour had stolen it off them. By crikey, that is incredible—it really, really is.

We have quality education with 20 hours’ free childcare, and rates rebates. The minimum wage has gone up eight times—eight times. Let us talk about helping those people who need help. During the period when the last National Government was in office—I have said this three times in this House, but I want to say it again—it did not even lift up the average wage by a dollar. It did not do that, but what Michael Cullen has created in this country is a strong, strong level—

Judith Collins: It’s a travel industry going one way, to Australia.

Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA: And we will talk about Australia after I tell members about the macro and the micro. The macro in this country is very stable. The dairy farmers are not going “boo hoo hoo!”, and that is not just because of international impacts. They have so much income they do not know what to do with it. At the end of the day, I am proud of the Māori assets that are starting to click in, because collectively Māori are the single biggest owners in that shareholding. What about that!

I want to talk about the unemployment rate, because when we came in it was 16.6 percent for Māori and it is tracking towards 5 percent now. When we came in after the National Government, the unemployment rate overall was between 7 to 8 percent. It is just on 3 percent now. That is how we develop people, and trade opportunities for them. That is the sort of thing we do. The issue—

Judith Collins: So what about the sickness rate?

Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA: No, that is not quite true. That is not true. And what about this great story about everybody going to Australia, eh—everybody going to Australia? There are nearly just as many people coming back—not as many, but quite a few are coming back. So that member is leaving out one part of the story. She is leaving out one part of the story. Nearly 70 percent are coming back to New Zealand in the same week that other people are leaving. What do members think about that? You know, Māoris did not know what OE was 10 years ago. So they have the passion and the sense of roaming the globe—

Nathan Guy: What is it? What is OE?

Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA: It is not about overeating, for which the Minister of Māori Affairs is a good candidate. But this Government recognises obesity and all those things, and we front up to correct it. So why should people not go and have a look at the other side of the world? It is a bit of a natural Kiwi inquisitiveness. That member went to London. He went overseas, I know. Is that right?

Nathan Guy: Yes.

Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA: Yes, that is right. And he came back, just as a lot of these people are coming back. A lot of them have been away on their OE, so at the end of the day we need to get things right.

This great leader said he was the first leader since Sir Apirana Ngata to go to visit Tūhoe. It is amazing that someone would say that, when nearly 50 other politicians since that time have been there. I have been there 20 times.

Darren Hughes: The Prime Minister has been there.

Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA: The Prime Minister has been there. Tariana Turia has been there. A whole lot of people have been there. So on what sort of basis is this policy design being made by that party, in relation to that party?

You know, the last National Government scrapped the tax rebate. It actually got rid of it.

Judith Collins: What! What did we do?

Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA: The last National Government scrapped that. This person who winces in horror and pain, and who thinks that everybody is so bad they cannot be helped, sends me into orbit. This Government has delivered one of the best Budgets this country has seen for a long time. It is about sustainability, and it is about going forward. In relation to KiwiSaver, everybody loves it. In relation to early childhood care there is help. In relation to maternity leave, there is assistance for those mums who want to take time out and then be capable of going back to work; we have made space for that. There are a whole lot of issues. Working for Families is a great addition. It is something that is important for those who cannot quite make ends meet. So at the end of the day people need to have a good look at the Budget and appreciate and understand that it is one of the best Budgets pencilled for a long, long time.

I will be very interested in the future to see what other people will do with it—what they would add to it. The reason National has no policy is that it has literally done it all. The reason that that party has no policy is that it is struggling. It is in disarray, it is wobbling, and it does not know where it is going. We saw Bill English leave the House the other day, and leave Mr Key stranded. In the summaries and editorials of recent times we have heard of National’s struggle. We have seen the dressing up for the types of people envisaged by those members, who try to talk like them just to impress them. Some people around here have been in this House long enough to understand that the one thing people look at is the truth. This Government, quite truthfully, has delivered a great Budget.

JUDITH COLLINS (National—Clevedon): That Minister, who has just finished speaking, has just shown why he was chosen to be on the front bench of the Labour Party. What a stunning speech! I think that over here we are all gasping and wondering just how bad someone has to be, to be promoted in the Labour Party. And we have just seen it.

Today in the House we have seen a whole lot of people with little red boxes on their desks. It was very well pointed out by one of the other members in the House today that one of the stunning things about those little red boxes—which are obviously there to tell Labour members where they belong, and to help get themselves noticed on television—is that they are all paid for by the New Zealand taxpayer. On those boxes they have their little parliamentary crests, signifying that unlike the Māori Party, and even unlike New Zealand First on this occasion, they cannot buy their own little red boxes so that they can prove who has paid for them. Well, the taxpayers have paid for them, and that is where some of their money is going from this Budget.

One of the things I would like to talk about today—and it may not have escaped everybody’s notice—is the fact that we do have a new Minister responsible for social development. By the way, he is also the old Minister who was responsible for social development, because social development is of course the trendy name he gave it when he first came in as Minister of Social Welfare. He did not like that term and called it social development. We have Steve Maharey back on the boards, and it is fantastic to have the architect of the single core benefit here in the House, ready to answer some questions about what really ever did happen to the single core benefit. That, of course, was the main plank of Labour’s welfare policy in the 2005 election.

During electioneering we were promised on television—and I remember an interview that Steve Maharey and I myself had with Larry Williams on Sky television all those years ago, back in the 2005 election campaign—that the single core benefit would be rolled out in 2007, and that all the major benefits, all those working-age benefits, would be rolled into one and have multiple add-ons. I think there were about seven different add-ons to that single core benefit. Somehow, taking seven or eight benefits and turning them into one benefit, and having seven or eight different add-ons, was going to save a huge amount of administration costs. What has happened?

Chris Auchinvole: What has happened?

JUDITH COLLINS: Well, they have become phases now—a phase one, and a phase two. Phase one is about asking people who can work if they would like to—work, that is—just in case they would possibly like to work.

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

JUDITH COLLINS: It is a pleasure to be able to speak again on this matter for the National Party. Before the dinner break we were talking about the single core benefit—and I note that the Minister over there, Clayton Cosgrove, who is obviously down here on duty—

Hon Member: Is he a Minister?

JUDITH COLLINS: Apparently he is currently a Minister, but not for long. He wants to know how to get hold of Helen Clark and to see her in the House. I tell members of the House who want to find the current Prime Minister of New Zealand that they should go to www.youtube.com and search for “lonely girl 57”. That is where they will find the current Prime Minister of New Zealand.

Anne Tolley: You’ve been watching Facelift.

JUDITH COLLINS: Mrs Tolley says I have been watching Facelift. I have also been looking at www.youtube.com, and that is where the Prime Minister can be found. She is out there, trying to beat that young buck, John Key, age 45, in getting the youth vote.

Hon Clayton Cosgrove: Speaking of face lifts!

JUDITH COLLINS: I am sorry to tell Mr Cosgrove this, but the young vote is deserting Helen Clark and the Labour Party. Basically, those people do not want to know about them any more. The reason is that they want to believe in, and be part of, a country where people want to do positive things.

One of the things we saw tonight on the television news was the news item that the number of people leaving New Zealand to move permanently to Australia has gone up by 25 percent, just in the last year. That is a shocking statistic—25 percent. So 25,000 people are now moving to live in Australia permanently in the period surveyed. That is a shocking statistic and a shocking situation for New Zealand. I love this country, New Zealand. I am a very proud New Zealander. I have to say that if I were a young person, I also would wonder—after enduring 8 years of a nanny State, Helen Clark Government—what it was we were doing here. That is because people want to be around positive people—people who are not always pulling others down to the lowest common denominator, people who are not always into social engineering, people who are not fighting battles of the 1970s and constantly going on about life 30 or 40 years ago when they were a child. Nobody cares any more, I say to Mr Cosgrove. Nobody cares about that any more.

It has been very interesting seeing the Government’s reaction to John Key. It has been “Attack John Key”. Every single question time has been about “Attack John Key”. And what has happened? Actually, the public do not want to listen. The reason they do not want to listen is that they see in John Key an aspirational leader. They see a visionary, a person who is positive, and a person who has come back to New Zealand to help this country move ahead. They do not want to see John Key being attacked by the hysterical Michael Cullen, who apparently, in his off time, is the Minister of Finance. They want to know what this Government will do about interest rates. They want to know—

Hon Clayton Cosgrove: Did the Minister make the top four on that one?

JUDITH COLLINS: And I was right, was I not, Mr Cosgrove. They want to find out what this Government will do about interest rates. They want to know why this Government is trying to shut down any comment in the media that is not pro them during the election year. They want to know what it is about the Littlies Lobby that the Government has such a complaint about. They want to know why the Government wants to stop organisations like Plunket from campaigning during election year without first registering as some sort of political entity and being able to spend only $60,000. That is what they want to know. They wonder why this Government is so tetchy, so bad-tempered, about other people having a say, when they know that every day they are bombarded with political advertising from the current Government, all of which talks about whatever its policies are. They wonder why we have a double standard.

The taxpayer, as we have seen today, and as we can see right now in the House, is paying for Labour’s political advertising. We have the taxpayer paying for those red boxes that all the Labour members have in front of them—boxes that say “Labour” and have the parliamentary crest on them, showing that they are paid for by the taxpayer. So any people out there in taxpayer land who are wondering why they cannot have a tax cut should come and ask Labour members, because they have been taking $20 billion extra out of tax every year, out of taxpayers’ pockets, and they have not been spending it where they should. In other words, they have not been giving it back to the taxpayers. They have been spending it on that sort of nonsense and on buying votes.

We saw it with the lolly example. We now have lolly politics—lolly elections. That is what it is all about. Helen Clark has made it very clear. She calls it “putting the money in the kitty”, which is code for “buying elections”.

Chris Auchinvole: Kitty?

JUDITH COLLINS: Yes, kitty. Labour members did it last time. They brought out their policies a couple of weeks before the election. They are always after us to put out our policies. Well, hang on, where are theirs? The fact is that they put out their policies a few weeks before the election, except of course their major welfare policy, the single core benefit. That has gone now—just gone. It is gone because we had a change of Minister. Oh, we had another change of Minister—back to the previous one, because the other one could not really tell the truth, and that was a bit of a problem. Finally, after three goes, the Government has worked out that, yes, some of us were right and some on the other side were wrong.

Basically, people want to know what is in it for them. They want to know that their children will want to live in New Zealand and that if they go away they will want to come back and raise their own children here. They want a leader who is positive, who wants to move ahead, and who never refers back 30 years and asks: “What were you doing?”. Frankly, who cares? Actually, what people do want is a leader who believes in his country, who is positive, and who is totally dedicated to getting every New Zealander to be absolutely part of our society. People want a positive, contributing person, and that person is John Key.

Frankly, they are not interested in the current Budget from the current Government, because that Government will not be around for long. People want a John Key - led Budget. They want a Budget that is there for them. They want a Budget that is there for their future, and they want a Budget that deals with the issues they care about. I tell you what, Mr Assistant Speaker, they want a Government that pays more than lip-service to the people who are the most vulnerable in this country. They want a leader who will deal with the issues relating to those people whom we term as being the underclass. They also want people who will deal with child abuse, and we are going to deal with that.

Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Associate Minister of Finance): As Associate Minister of Finance and a member of the Government, I am very proud to stand in the concluding stages of this debate to speak about the Appropriation (2007/08 Estimates) Bill. The member who preceded me made a very interesting couple of points. She said that the Government keeps challenging the Opposition to put out its policy. It is interesting to note that a couple of polls, one of which I think was on television last night, said that 67 percent of the people wanted John Key to put out his policy now. Ms Collins asked in her speech why the Government does not put out its policy. Well, I have news for Ms Collins: a Budget is part of a policy platform, and we have written eight Budgets. Our policies are out there. We are in the process of implementing our policies—policies like KiwiSaver, like superannuation, like removing the cap on charitable donations, like halving prescriptions down to $3, and like halving doctors’ fees. All those policies are out there in every Budget. Working for Families, as my colleague says, means that 350,000-plus families are now getting, on average, around $110 a week. That is our policy, and we have implemented it. Those families are winning. So our policies are all out there.

We write a Budget—I say through you, Mr Assistant Speaker, to Ms Collins—every year, and our policy is around, of course, 3.6 percent unemployment, compared with 6.5 percent unemployment when we took office. Our policy, for the edification of Ms Collins, is 362,000 new jobs created since 1999. The number of new jobs created since 1999 when we took office is 362,000. Māori unemployment is down from 19.5 percent when we took over—inherited from that crew opposite—to 5 percent, which I am advised is the lowest unemployment count for Māori since the time the figures were first surveyed. That is our policy.

We have just heard a good old-fashioned rant from the other side. I watch Facelift, which is not a bad little production, although I am more a McPhail and Gadsby type of bloke. The comedians back then were so good they did not need masks; they expressed it through their own character and own expertise. I do not know whether Judith Collins was actually auditioning to get a mask on Facelift. We know that Tim Groser has taken a starring role this week.

Darren Hughes: He would love that.

Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: He was on the programme; puffing away—like a good steam train! What we heard was the traditional Opposition rant. An Opposition rants when it is hollowed out, it has no ideas, and it has no policy. Judith Collins made a couple of very interesting points, though. She said she had a leader in John Key and he was an aspirational leader. She may have wanted to say “inspirational” leader but I saw her think about it, before she used that word aspirational. She knew that “inspirational” would simply not wash, out in the real world. She talked of an aspirational leader—one who “aspires” to be a leader, and by definition that means no “true-born, ingrained, natural leadership qualities”. That, indeed, is the difference between the Opposition’s aspirational leader and our natural leader. I make the point that John Key is so aspirational that the truth wobbles around like a jelly on a hotplate. It just wobbles from one extreme to the other.

Ms Collins made a very interesting point in her speech, which I invite all those in the House and all those in the communities to reflect upon. She said something akin to: “We’re not interested in what John Key said 20 years ago. We’ve moved on.” I say to Ms Collins that the communities do not think of the truth in terms of a jelly on a hotplate—spewing in every different direction. They like consistency. The National Party hates it, loathes it, when the Government reels out the inconsistent statements that Mr Key has made, whether they be on the Iraq war, whether they be on therapeutics—

Chris Auchinvole: Talking about John Key again!

Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: —and that member is obviously on the wrong therapeutics, but he need not worry, because we will be banning benzylpiperazine; he will be able to get off it—and all the other things that John Key has been inconsistent about.

Let us look at Working for Families. John Key’s old story was in the Otago Daily Times of 5 April where he said: “I actually want to go and have a really good look at Working for Families and the whole structure of welfare in New Zealand.” We know what that is code for. Yet in May 2007 on Campbell Live he said: “I would like to only change the top end of where it’s cutting—in very high-income levels—and replace that with tax cuts.” So in May he says one thing, and in April he says another. We know what the coded message is, because that is what National did last time. We know that the coded message means that for the 160,000 families, out of the 350,000 Working for Families on that programme that are getting their own money back in tax credits, the Leader of the Opposition’s cuts will rip out $50 to $80 per week. That is a fact. Dr Mapp agrees with me. He knows the inconsistency.

Then we had John Key talking on national superannuation. In July this year he said: “There will be no change to New Zealand’s super or the New Zealand super fund under the National Government.” What was the old story in November 2003? At that time he said: “I don’t think there is any doubt”—I invite every Grey Power member to listen to this—“that the single biggest way to reduce that liability”—that is, superannuation—“is to raise the age of eligibility.” People might say that he said that in 2003 and he is allowed to change his mind; he is allowed to flip-flop. Well, we recall what Bill English said earlier this year in the New Zealand Herald. Firstly, he said that superannuation was too generous; secondly, he raised the spectre of lifting the age; and, thirdly, he raised the spectre of means testing the pension—once again. That is a fact.

Hon Members: Oh!

Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: If they do not believe me, then they should believe the independent media. They should have a look and see what the media said. We know that when a microphone is stuck in front of John Key, anything can happen. Audrey Young and her colleagues proved that, over the therapeutics bill.

Dr Wayne Mapp: Mike Moore would be ashamed of you.

Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: They do not like it. I say to Ms Collins, when she asks what our policy is, that our policy is record low unemployment. It means 350,000 families getting their own taxes back in tax credits, or $110-odd, on average, a week; it means $3 prescriptions, halving prescription charges; it means Government debt has gone down; and it means the reinstatement of apprenticeships. I forget which person on the other side waxed eloquent about apprenticeships. In 1995 the National Government abolished the Apprenticeship Act—

Hon Harry Duynhoven: 1992.

Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: My colleague says it was 1992. Today over 10,000 young people are in trade training, and that figure will be 14,000-plus next year. Yet members opposite puff out their chests, like little bantam hens, proud of the fact—

Dr Wayne Mapp: That member is a battery hen.

Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: Mr Mapp says he is a battery hen. I could say something, but it would not be parliamentary. I think he needs to get energised, because it has gone flat—the battery I mean. Those members sit there and gloat, every time we mention trade training. They seem proud that in 1992 National killed off the apprenticeship scheme. That is what they gloat about.

In conclusion, we have a policy and a Budget, and the implementation of said Budget, yet we look across the Chamber and we see the hollow men and women, one of whom is about to get up to speak. They are hollowed out. They are bereft of ideas. They think that if they wait till the last couple of weeks of the election campaign, they can pull off what they tried to pull off last time, which was the biggest almost hoodwink in this nation’s history.

Hon Dover Samuels: Good speech!

Dr WAYNE MAPP (National—North Shore): If Mr Dover Samuels thinks that last speech was good, he has to be dreaming. Members on the other side are dreaming. It has been an extraordinary spectacle over the last 2 weeks in the House to see the desperate flailing around of Labour members. They know they are in decline. I have to be honest and say that National went through a similar experience, from 1996 to 1999, so we know the signs of terminal decay in a party. And the Labour Party is showing every image of precisely that. The real indication is when those members give Opposition speeches from the Government benches. That is what they have been giving in the last few days.

I saw an extraordinary spectacle last week. Mr Phil Goff, a senior Minister in the Government, gave the most bizarre speech. It was not just a vein-popper; we thought his head was literally going to explode. It was a classic example of an Opposition speech. Those members know that is exactly where they are going to end up—in Opposition. I have to say to the previous speaker, Mr Clayton Cosgrove, that I am sure he will make an excellent Opposition member of Parliament. I am pleased to see he is in training for that task already.

At this point, I say this country is ready for the new generation of leadership. New Zealanders are asking the simple question, as to what kind of country they want New Zealand to be over the next decade. The public have seen Labour and they are saying that this country can do better. To quote Judith Collins: “The Labour Government is so boring.” It is just extraordinary.

I want to indicate to Labour Party members how they wasted their years in office. The highest growth rates New Zealand has experienced were from 1994—and actually included some part of Labour’s time in Government—to around 2003. We were gaining on the OECD ladder, so when people said we would be in the top half of the OECD in 10 years, that was a credible proposition. We have only to go at around 0.7 percent of GDP, better than the average, and we would get there. I have to say that Labour lost its opportunity.

Back in 1999 this country was crying out for leadership. That is why the growth and innovation conferences were held. I went to those conferences, I listened to the debates, and I heard the focus. One of the themes of those debates, put together by the vice-chancellor of Auckland University, Dr Hood, was to try to energise the Government—to make it seize the opportunity that it could see was ahead of it. I saw the Prime Minister give her negative speech during those conferences. She gave negative press conferences and basically poured cold water on the idea that this country could drive ahead. Do members know what has happened? Those people have left this country. Professor Hood left Auckland University for greener pastures. I am prepared to say he would still be in this country if the right decisions had been made and this country had seized the opportunity to drive ahead.

Countries get critical opportunities. This country has had a huge opportunity around commodity prices, tourism, and globalisation over the last decade. This Government has rejected those opportunities. They are only little things, but cumulatively they add up. Why did the Government pass, for instance, the second part of the employment relations reforms in 2004? That was guaranteed to slow up reform. Why did it do nothing about the Resource Management Act, when it is a critical blockage to growth? Why has it loaded on compliance costs through the Transport Act? It is all of those creeping—

Chris Auchinvole: Because it is Labour socialism.

Dr WAYNE MAPP: It is socialism. It is the control freak mentality of the Government that stultifies the potential of New Zealanders.

One of the people whom the Government could be listening to is Mr David Skilling. He wants this country to do better. He has been talking about a prescription—so that this country can do better. It needs to be looking more outward. It needs to be providing more investment into research, education—particularly higher education—and driving out towards exports. There needs to be a clear focus on economic growth and doing the right things for that. Individually those might not be much by themselves but cumulatively they add up.

The Government has to ask itself this critical question: “Why has productivity declined so much in the last 2 years?”. There was a period when we were actually getting ahead in productivity—above the OECD. Now we have slipped behind again. Does the Government want to know why it cannot fund Pharmac demands, why it cannot deal with the waiting lists in the hospitals, why it cannot get energy around broadband, and why the country is just slipping behind as a nation? I know that the Government will say the country is not slipping behind, but the proof is in the fact that we have declined from 20th in the OECD ranking 5 years ago to 22nd today. Some people might say that that is not a huge decline. But the point is that it is a decline and this Government is responsible. Members of the Government will wash their hands of it and say: “That was not us, we did not do that. It is because we do not have the right mix of industries, and so forth.” But they have done the things that have stultified initiative.

I want to draw the Government’s attention to this particular point. Why is it that the number of young New Zealanders going to Australia has increased by 25 percent? Why is it that so many young New Zealanders have decided that the pastures are greener elsewhere? Why is it that they have decided this country does not offer enough hope and opportunity for them? Why is it that the numbers of people leaving have gone from 625 a week to 750 a week, in the space of just 12 months? Those people are mostly young people. They are mostly qualified people. It is because they do not have enough hope in this country, to be able to better themselves. They see better opportunities elsewhere.

It might be true that the Government is now starting to hang its head in shame. Its members know they were in office when these things happened. They cannot avoid the accountability around that. That is why New Zealanders do not care what Mr Key might have said about the Iraq war 2 years ago. It is simply not important to people’s lives, aspirations, or hopes. They want to know what the next agenda is for the country. They want to know whether there is a Government that will make the right decisions, that will give incentive and opportunity, and will drive ahead to reach the potential that this country has. We have had a decade of wasted opportunities, as seen by Dr Hood back in 2000.

I can say to the Government that the National Party here is ready with policies, with ideas, and, more important, with a sense of direction, because that is what this Government lacks—a sense of direction. It would sooner muddle around in some pathetic scandals, as it calls them, about events that occurred years ago, when what the public actually want is a sense of hope and aspiration, and this Government has completely failed them on that. National will deliver.

Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Minister of Commerce I find it incredibly hard to believe that the Leader of the Opposition had no idea that one day somebody would ask National members what their policy actually was on any particular subject. What surprised him even further, which has become obvious after hearing some of the comments he has made, was that when he had answered, someone would go back and check to see whether those answers compare with comments he had made earlier on the same subject. Of course, someone doing that would find that there was, in fact, some conflict between the two.

I ask whether the Leader of the Opposition really thought that the honeymoon would last all the way to the next general election. It certainly seems so, from the Government side of the House. He thought that no one would take notice of the subtle but very real undermining that he is receiving from members on his own side of the House, going by some of their comments.

Let us look at Bill English. I just note my comment and throw that name into the ring. I think we should look at Bill English. He is a very disappointed and angry man, who wakes up every morning and asks: “Why not me?”. He has not really got over the fact that he chose Nick Smith to be his numbers man, which was probably not the wisest thing for somebody wanting to win to do. But anyway, let us look at what he says about his mate John Key—the person he is the deputy to. Gosh, I would not want someone this close to me with these views.

Mr English says: “I’m a stayer, he’s a sprinter. I grind away, John just bounces from one cloud to another.” What on earth does he mean by that? Cloud-hopping—how ridiculous! Then we have another comment: “John articulates a confident and aspirational view about the future, I focus on putting together the numbers and the programme”. Well, he is not very good at numbers; we have already noticed that. The last comment is: “The other reason [the Key-English team] works is that we complement each other. John is a terrific marketer, … and I’ve got the experience of government and policy.” That is what Bill English thinks about his leader. The bottom line is that John Key is rewriting history, he is rewriting his own position, and he is rewriting the positions of his party as well.

I actually knew that John Key would find the top job difficult when he could not remember what his position was on the 1981 Springbok Tour. Who else cannot remember what his or her position was on that tour? This is absolutely galling. What people do not understand is which constituency John Key is trying not to offend. That is the one that I have not worked out. Is he trying to avoid offending the pro-tour lobby because he was anti-tour, or is he in fact trying not to offend the anti-tour lobby because he was pro-tour?

I guess we will never know because, of course, John Key cannot remember. And this is the man who can remember what emails he did not read. I think that that is utterly extraordinary. This would require one to know that an email has been received and who it has come from so that one knows that one has not read it. It seems pretty extraordinary to me that this man can remember what emails he did not read, but he cannot remember his position on the Springbok Tour.

What we do know is that John Key has taken—I think I am allowed to say so—seriously diverging opinions on matters of interest to the people of New Zealand. I guess the focus has been on the Iraq war. The National Party’s position on it is that we go back to the Boer War, World War II, and the Viet Nam War, because National members think that the Iraq war is so long ago that the differing opinions that John Key has expressed on the issue are somehow of no relevance to the people of New Zealand. There are people dying in Iraq today.

I think the people of New Zealand have a right to know that National would have sent troops to Iraq. That is one of the reasons why Labour still sits on the Government benches. We have a leader who had the courage to stand up for her convictions and to express a view that was very strongly welcomed by the people of New Zealand—that we would not send troops to Iraq.

Let us look at the differing positions of John Key. In July 2007 he said: “We have made it quite clear we will not be going to Iraq. We would not have sent troops to Iraq.” In February 2003 he said that he would be prepared to commit any support requested by the United States for a war against Iraq, including SAS and combat troops.

Let us look at John Key’s position on therapeutics. On 1 August he said: “Today’s New Zealand Herald story misrepresents our position. The story correctly quotes me as saying: ‘If they came to us now with that proposal, we will sign it.’ ” The previous morning he said: “If they came to us now with that proposal, we will sign it. We sat there waiting for it to turn up.” So we have two different positions on therapeutics.

John Key said on climate change, in November 2006: “I firmly believe in climate change and always have.” In May 2005 he said, “this is a complete and utter hoax, if I may say so. The impact of the Kyoto Protocol, even if one believes in global warming—and I am somewhat suspicious of it—”. One just cannot hold all of these different positions.

But the one that I particularly want to focus on, because it is one that is near and dear to my own heart given the electorate I represent, is John Key’s position on housing. He told the 2007 National Party conference that he supports the homeownership aspirations of everyday New Zealanders. He then described what is happening in Hobsonville as economic vandalism. Hobsonville is an electorate that he represents in Parliament but will not even live in. He lives in Parnell, does he not? I do not know Auckland as well as he does, obviously, but I do not think one can even see Hobsonville from Parnell.

So it is quite interesting that John Key has taken the position of describing Hobsonville as economic vandalism. It is where 15 percent of the 3,000 new homes being built will be reserved for first home owners. I think that that is a good Government policy and that it ought to be supported by the member who represents that area.

I think the real reason John Key has taken this position on State housing is that he likes to run off the back of his own State house background. He is on the record as saying that he looks at his State house background as a great marketing ploy. That is what it is for him. It is a great marketing ploy. He can pretend that he is one of the good old guys, that he is one of the real people, and that he can really look after their interests. Well, I wonder whether that is how he felt about New Zealand when he was out there speculating on the New Zealand dollar.

I bet John Key was speculating on the New Zealand dollar when he was a money market trader. That would be a very good question for him to answer. Maybe he could answer whether that is just something one criticises after the event, when one is a long way away from him. Did he or did he not do that? I think the people of New Zealand have a right to know whether somebody who is criticising people for their actions actually lived up to that criticism himself before he came to Parliament. It would be very interesting to see whether he ever finally answers that question.

I will talk a little about State housing because, as I say, it does mean a lot to my electorate. I reflect on the history of the last time National was in Government. It has a sad and sorry track record on State housing: market-related rents with no market incomes to match. We saw the desperate poverty levels that people were driven to in different parts of Christchurch. It was not the part that John Key grew up in, I have to say. Bryndwr did not suffer like Aranui. I went to primary school in Bryndwr; I know the difference between the two suburbs.

National sold thousands of State houses. How many State houses did it sell?

Darren Hughes: 13,000.

Hon LIANNE DALZIEL: It sold 13,000 State houses. How many of them did National sell to one of their own MPs, Arthur Anae? I remember that. I remember that he bought a significant chunk of South Auckland at the time.

The previous National Government made no investment in the State houses it retained. When I look at Aranui today and compare it with the Aranui that I inherited as an MP in 1999, all I can say is that it has been a transformation in reality under this Government. Despite the massive hurdles that the people of Aranui faced, they have been able to build a community they are proud of. That is a good thing for the country, because they are able to take real pride in the place where they live and are able to make a real contribution.

But the biggest thing that has happened for Aranui has been that unemployment is at the lowest level we have seen in over a generation, and that has made a huge difference. People are earning money and are able to support their households in a real way and they can contribute to the nation’s well-being as a result.

This Government has built this country up. The experience of National in Government is that it brought New Zealand to its knees. This Government has invested in the future of all New Zealanders. We do not distinguish between those who are rich or poor in that regard; National certainly does. It wants to take it from those who have the least and give it to those who have the most.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Appropriation (2007/08 Estimates) Bill be now read a third time.

Ayes 61

New Zealand Labour 49; New Zealand First 7; United Future 2; Progressive 1; Independents: Copeland, Field.

Noes 50

New Zealand National 48; ACT New Zealand 2.

Abstentions 9

Green Party 6; Māori Party 3.

Bill read a third time.

Imprest Supply (Second for 2007/08) Bill read a second time.

Bills

Imprest Supply (Second for 2007/08) Bill

Third Reading

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Minister of Finance): I move, That the Imprest Supply (Second for 2007/08) Bill be now read a third time.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Imprest Supply (Second for 2007/08) Bill be now read a third time.

Ayes 61

New Zealand Labour 49; New Zealand First 7; United Future 2; Progressive 1; Independents: Copeland, Field.

Noes 50

New Zealand National 48; ACT New Zealand 2.

Abstentions 9

Green Party 6; Māori Party 3.

Bill read a third time.

Business of the House

Business of the House

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Leader of the House): Pursuant to an agreement in the Business Committee, I seek leave for the Farmers’ Mutual Group Bill to be set down for its second reading and remaining stages on Wednesday, 15 August 2007, despite Standing Order 292.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Leave is sought for that course to be followed. Is there any objection? There appears to be none.

Bills

Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Remedies) Amendment Bill

In Committee

Debate resumed from 9 August.

Clause 3 Principal Act amended (continued)

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Kia ora tātou. The House is in Committee for further consideration of the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Remedies) Amendment Bill. The bill has been recommitted for the purpose of considering the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 133 in the name of the Hon Clayton Cosgrove and the amendment dividing the bill. When the Committee last considered the bill, it was debating the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 133 to omit clause 3. Therefore, the question before this Committee is that clause 3 stand part.

PHIL HEATLEY (National—Whangarei): Thank you, Mr Chairman; I will just wait for the clapping to die down. We are considering clause 3, “Principal Act amended”. It states: “This Act amends the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services Act 2006.” It is interesting to consider that we have canvassed the purposes of the Act in previous speeches.

The National Party was always supportive—and certainly we listened to the submissions to the Social Services Committee when the original bill was debated—of the view, in terms of general damages, that damages for relevant mental distress, for example, should be claimable through the dispute resolution process. We recognised that many of the people who are going through the leaky buildings crisis have families, and others are elderly people who do not have years ahead of them in which to save money and make payments to repair the destructive job that someone has done on their home. Those people underwent tremendous stress over a period of years, particularly while the Government tried to get the process right in terms of the resolution services, and they should have every right to pursue damages for relevant mental distress. We supported the submissions made along those lines many years ago.

It has taken until now, in this legislation—unfortunately, 5 years later—to recognise that mental distress is a relevant and legitimate claim. So why would the National Party not support that? We certainly supported it when submissions came to this Parliament several years ago, and, of course, we accept it now. The only regret we have is that it has taken 3, 4, or 5 years for the Labour Government to acknowledge that claims for mental distress should have been accepted in the first place. I can only think of the tears, the heartache, the pain, and the family stress that has occurred in the interim for those who have been through the process and who have been unable to claim for stress in relation to mental fatigue and distress. Of course, there is no option for those people to claim for that; that option is available only for those who enter the process now, going forward. So, yes, we support the legislation from the point of view of those claimants.

But in terms of clause 3, which states: “This Act amends the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services Act 2006.”, I say we should not be fooled into being unaware that the legislation we are debating this evening also makes changes to the Building Act. The Minister, in a last-minute bid, has decided to bring in, on Supplementary Order Paper 133, clauses that amend the Building Act. Those clauses have nothing to do with the principal Act, the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services Act. They are clauses on a Supplementary Order Paper to debate and force through Parliament changes to the Building Act. Those changes are all about the ability of local government to be registered as being able to issue building consents. Of course, local government has been issuing building consents for many decades now. The Minister suddenly decided that local government had not been doing that in a particularly good way, and now, for some reason, councils are required to be accredited by 30 November 2007 to issue building consents.

Supplementary Order Paper 133 shifts the accreditation date beyond November, because the Minister knows that the deadline for accreditation for councils currently in the Building Act cannot be met. It is absurd to think that councils, which on the whole have been issuing building consents in a good and responsible manner for many, many decades, will suddenly not be able to issue those consents, whether it be by the date currently in the Building Act or after that date.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Mr Chairperson—

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Are you seeking the call, Dr Smith?

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Yes, Mr Chairperson.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Dr Smith, you have already had four speeches. According to the Standing Orders you are unable to speak again on this clause.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson): I seek the leave of the Committee to take a call. I am sure that members would be delighted to hear a contribution—

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Of course, the Committee is the master of its own destiny. The member is perfectly entitled to ask.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I seek the leave of the Committee to make a contribution.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Is there any objection to that course of action? There is, Dr Smith—

John Carter: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. Are you absolutely certain that Dr Smith has had four speeches on clause 3?

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): I am, sir.

John Carter: If my memory serves me right he has made some very valuable contributions. I guess they have been of such quality that the time seemed a lot shorter than it was.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): The honourable member himself has had only two speeches. If he would like to seek the call I would be happy to accept it.

JOHN CARTER (National—Northland): It is a great pity that my colleague Nick Smith has already taken his time, because, as always, his contributions are certainly well worth listening to. However, I will endeavour to reach his high standards.

I want to draw the Committee’s attention to an issue that is a worry right across this country, and it would pay for the members opposite to listen, because the Minister in the chair, Clayton Cosgrove, is doing the building industry, local government, and homeowners in New Zealand a grave disservice. It is an absolute disgrace that we are here today considering this bill, for two reasons. Firstly, this Minister knew many, many months ago that the deadline he gave to local government would not be achieved. Local government authorities told him that, the Building Officials Institute of New Zealand told him that, and members of Her Majesty’s loyal Opposition—including myself—advised the Minister of it. But this Minister would not listen. He carried on saying that he had set the deadline and that local government authorities would achieve it. Well, the sad fact is that local government authorities were never going to achieve it, and it was impossible to achieve it.

One of the reasons why local government authorities were not able to achieve the deadline is that this Minister and his department have been taking experienced people from local government and employing them in the Department of Building and Housing. I have already told the Committee—and it is worth repeating again—that the Department of Building and Housing has risen in staff numbers from the equivalent of 31½ people employed in 1999—I think the half might have been the Minister—to in excess of 300 people. Where would those people have come from? Obviously, they would have to have some experience in building, although with the stuff that is coming out of the Department of Building and Housing, one would hardly think so, quite honestly. Some of the rubbish that comes from that department is an absolute shame.

The point is that a lot of the people who are now employed in the Department of Building and Housing have come from local government authorities, which, of course, has left local government authorities short of staff. Local government cannot attract experienced people to be building inspectors and, as a consequence, people cannot achieve the goal of being authorised as building inspectors by the date set by the Minister. The Minister knew that. He must have known that, and it surprises me that he has not taken a call and at least once endeavoured to defend the fact that he now has to extend this deadline. But the Minister carries on arrogantly, saying: “Well, so what? It does not matter.” Well, actually, it does matter, because the Committee also needs to understand the negative impact this issue is having on homeowners in New Zealand.

The fact is that the Department of Building and Housing is out of control and it passes regulations day after day that are unnecessary, that are hugely costly, and that are causing stress and delay. In some cases it is so difficult to comply with the rules and regulations that the Department of Building and Housing is putting down that a number of builders are saying they will have to exit this industry. They cannot afford the delays, they cannot afford the costs of the delays, and they cannot afford the cost and the time it takes to fill out the paperwork that is required by the Helen Clark - led Labour Government and, as a consequence, by their local authorities.

What is even worse is that the building industry is telling me there is absolute confusion from district to district as to exactly what is meant by the rules and regulations being passed by the Department of Building and Housing. I wish I had time to gather the volume of rules and regulations that have been passed under this Minister’s ministership. Seriously, it would choke a horse, a whale, or any sort of large animal that we might like to try to get to digest it. In fact, it would actually—

DARREN HUGHES (Junior Whip—Labour): I move, That the question be now put.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): I have not heard from Mr Hayes; there may be something new and interesting in what he has to say.

JOHN HAYES (National—Wairarapa): Mr Chair, I will certainly do my best this evening to deliver your aspirations. The Minister in the chair, Clayton Cosgrove, who is promoting this legislation, had a mantra: “Do it once, do it right.” Let us go back to November 2002, when he was responsible for passing the key leaky home legislation. He did it in a great panic, and the task was done in 2 weeks. A mess of major proportions was made. Then we track forward to 2005, when there was another attempt to fix this mess. The Minister ignored submissions from the public, and he introduced legislation to fix the botch-up. He also had produced a new Building Act, and now he comes to this House in 2007 and says there is actually a further botch-up. This is a classic example of this Minister saying: “Do as we say, not as we do, in the Labour Party.”

I think it is totally offensive for this Labour administration to insult the House by inviting it to suspend or break its own rules. This law change will not come into effect for a further 3 months, on 28 November. I think it is absolutely extraordinary to usurp the House’s rules in this way. I invite the Minister to advise the Committee as to when he first learnt that the councils could not meet their deadline, because in a speech he gave a month ago he said there was no problem. If he had read Molesworth & Featherston this week, he would have been able to read the story of the Labour Party’s rising star who has just been torpedoed by his bureaucrats.

I would ask the Minister why house ownership has been reduced by 1 percent per annum under his stewardship. I would ask him why, under his stewardship, the cost of completing a house has risen by 20 percent per annum because of the Building Act, and why, of all the leaky home cases that have been brought to his attention over the last 5 years or more, only 15 percent have been resolved. I think it is time for the Minister to contemplate an alternative career outside his housing portfolio, because, clearly, he is making a total botch-up of the administration of that portfolio. I see this every day in my electorate in the Wairarapa, where building costs are escalating hugely.

Darren Hughes: The retirement villages!

JOHN HAYES: This Government is imposing collateral costs on retirement villages, as Mr Hughes mentioned, to the point where most of the small ones are being put out of business because the charges for process that are being imposed upon house residents cannot be met by them because they are on fixed incomes.

There is another problem that I wish to draw the Minister’s attention to, and that is the whole question of the administration of the Resource Management Act, which is also negatively impacting on the house construction industry. This is coming about because no two councils administer the Resource Management Act in the same way. Everybody has a different set of standards and a different interpretation, and this is adding hugely to building costs.

DIANNE YATES (Labour): I move, That the question be now put.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the question be now put.

Ayes 66

New Zealand Labour 49; New Zealand First 7; Green Party 6; United Future 2; Progressive 1; Independent: Field.

Noes 49

New Zealand National 48; Independent: Copeland.

Motion agreed to.

Clause 3 not agreed to.

Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Minister for Building and Construction): I move, That the Committee divide the bill into the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Remedies) Amendment Bill and the Building (Consent Authorities) Amendment Bill, pursuant to Supplementary Order Paper 134.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson): This motion from the Minister represents everything that is rotten about this Government. It is about incompetence, it is about abuse of process, and it is about bad outcomes for ordinary New Zealanders out there, in respect of both the Building Act and the Weathertight Homes Tribunal.

Let me first deal with the issue of incompetence. In 2002 the Government rushed through—in 2 weeks—the legislation to deal with weathertight homes. It got it wrong. In 2005 the Minister in the chair came along to the House—again in a rush, again breaching normal process—and said that the Government would fix the botch-up, but got it wrong. Submissions were made to the Social Services Committee that the bill did not provide for general damages, that it was unfair, and that we needed to make it explicit, but the Minister said that he knew best and that the bill did not need to include it. Now we have this amendment bill before the Committee, which is effectively about a botch-up that was fixed in 2005, but turned into a botch-up, and now we are trying to fix that botch-up—again, in a mad rush.

Then we have the splitting of this bill to be inserted into the parts of the Building Act. We see the same levels of incompetence in that area. That is, in 2004 the Government brought this big bureaucratic Building Act into Parliament, and in 2005 it said: “Oops! We’ve made some mistakes and we’ve got to fix it up.” Now, here, at the last moment, after the bill has gone through its Committee stage, the Minister introduces amendments that now require the splitting of the bill. National says that this is absolutely incompetent. What makes it almost laughable is that the Minister in the chair has given speech after speech to the building industry saying: “Do it once; do it right.”, and when it comes to the weathertight homes legislation and the Building Act, the track record is mistake after mistake after mistake. That would be all right, except there has been an awful price for New Zealanders to pay for these botch-ups.

Five years after this Government introduced the legislation to address leaky homes, only 15 percent of cases have been resolved. The Government has spent $85 million on the bureaucratic process to deal with leaky homes. That works out at $111,000 per case. But the tragedy is that the average payout on each of those homes has been $70,000. So I ask the Minister in the chair, who wants to split the bill, why we should agree to that. Why should we agree when there has been mistake after mistake after mistake?

Then we look at the core Building Act, which this legislation also amends. Have we obtained the objective of trying to generate good quality buildings at less cost? My colleague Bob Clarkson—“Bob the Builder”, we colloquially call him, because he knows a thing or two about building—has rightly exposed the fact that 5 years after the leaky homes legislation, the chief executive of the Department of Building and Housing can still not give this House an assurance that there are not more leaky homes being built. That is incompetent. But even worse is that if we look at the bureaucratic nightmare it now takes for any citizen to get a building consent, we see that it is an absolute disaster.

Members should look at yesterday’s Dominion Post, in which the Wellington City Council says that the amount of paperwork that is now required to build a standard New Zealand home has increased fivefold. I simply ask why members on this side of the Chamber would want to do that. The fascinating part is—and this is again where there is a double standard—that the Minister has said that he stands for reducing compliance costs. Then we have, in this crucial area of building, an increase of fivefold in the amount of paperwork that is required in the building industry, to the point that talented, good professionals are leaving New Zealand to go to Australia to avoid the bureaucracy that has been created.

The third point I have made about the motion to split the bill is that the legislation has caused bad outcomes for people. Every year that Labour has been in office we have seen a 1 percent reduction in homeownership—and, really, that is a telling sign of the failures of this Government.

PHIL HEATLEY (National—Whangarei): I would like to carry on from where Nick Smith left off. He has made some very poignant points in his calls over the course of this debate, with none being so poignant, I guess, as when he pointed out the number of times that the Minister for Building and Construction has been into this debating chamber with legislation, saying he will fix the leaky homes crisis.

I was impressed that the Minister for Building and Construction ever got into this debating chamber to fix the leaky homes crisis, because—as colleagues will recall, and perhaps the Hon Dr Nick Smith will support me in this—the Prime Minister of New Zealand, Helen Clark, said there was not a leaky homes crisis, that the National Party was blowing it all out of proportion, and that only a handful of homes in Auckland were affected. Then the New Zealand Herald, through quite a campaign, was able to establish that a lot of homeowners across the country, and particularly in Auckland, were affected by the issues being addressed in the provisions in this legislation that we are discussing tonight.

So the Minister has come into this debating chamber not once, in 2002, not twice, in 2004, not three times, including when this legislation was first debated, but four times. We are here tonight discussing the fact that we now have to split the bill and discuss not only the Weathertight Homes Resolution Service legislation but also the Building Act. Four times we have been in this debating chamber since 2002 to discuss provisions related to the Building Act in order to see this leaky homes crisis fixed—a crisis that the Prime Minister originally denied was a crisis at all.

So does National support the ability to split the bill, and to discuss the amendments to both the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Remedies) Amendment Bill and the Building Act tonight? We say, quite simply, that the Minister has run roughshod over Parliament’s normal processes. Listeners may not be aware of this but normally when legislation is drafted there is wide consultation within an industry—in this case, within local government and councils—to see whether there is a need. Legislation is then worked on by officials and it is tabled in the House. There is a first reading.

The legislation is then sent to a select committee, where it is discussed amongst 12 members of Parliament from across parties. They consult the public, who come to Wellington, or perhaps the committee travels across the country to take submissions, and there is wide-ranging discussion with affected parties out in the public. That part of this legislation is not happening at all. This legislation is being rushed through this Parliament tonight, and on ensuing days. We think that is appalling.

Then, of course, normally legislation would come back to the House, have its second reading, the Committee stage, and the third reading, and hopefully we would see good legislation passed into law. Unfortunately, history speaks for itself with regard to this legislation.

The Building Act came in, in 2002. It was fixed again in 2004, fixed again after that, and now we see these amendments here before us again tonight. What confidence can this Committee and the public have that the Minister has got it right again this evening? He did not get it right on those other three occasions, and I think that is a lesson to this Minister and the Labour Government that we must follow good process. Only by following good process will we have good scrutiny of legislation, and ever have even a hope of getting it right.

This legislation affects leaky homeowners—thousands of them across the country—who are under tremendous financial burden and pressure. Many of them are at the latter end of their lives, they are affected by this legislation, and the Minister should get it right.

JOHN CARTER (National—Northland): I have a couple of questions that I would like to ask my parliamentary colleagues. The first question is who among them thinks that if we pass this legislation, it is going to fix up everything, it is going to fix all the problems, and they are going to disappear. At the moment I cannot hear any members saying that they think that. Not even the Minister for Building and Construction will say that this legislation is going to solve the problems. The next question I have is who in this Parliament thinks that if we pass this legislation, there will not be any more leaky homes. Well, is that not strange! Not even the Minister is indicating that he thinks this legislation will solve the leaky homes problem. Who thinks that if we pass this legislation, we will end up with more leaky homes? A good number of my colleagues are indicating that they think that will be one of the outcomes. Yet the Minister does not even take an interest.

What this Parliament needs to know and what the country needs to know is that right now, in New Zealand, more leaky homes are being built than ever before. We already know that in this country 3,200 homes are registered as leaky homes. What people do not yet know, but what we are being told, is that leaky homes are being built in this country every day. The reason is that this Minister has been derelict in his duty to ensure that the materials that go into those homes are up to standard. We know that materials imported from Asia that are going to fail within 7 to 10 years are being put into homes in New Zealand. Copper piping and plastic piping will fail in 7 to 10 years. It will cause leaks, the moisture of course will go into the timber, which is not treated, and as a consequence we will end up with more leaky homes. This Minister knows that. This Minister has been charged with the responsibility of ensuring that it does not happen, and he will not even stand up and guarantee to the people of New Zealand that under his regime, under the regime that we are dealing with tonight—the two bills that we are splitting the original bill into—there will be security for the people of New Zealand. I say that the Minister should take a call on the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Remedies) Amendment Bill and the Building (Consent Authorities) Amendment Bill, which the original bill is being split into, and tell the people of New Zealand that he is going to improve things and make them better. But the Minister cannot do that.

That is the problem with this legislation. When we pass these two bills, we are going to end up with a bigger mess than ever. It has been recorded, and it needs to be recorded again, that in New Zealand now it is estimated that over 250,000 homes are not compliant. These 250,000 homes, which people are living in, do not have a compliance certificate. People cannot even sell these homes, because they do not have a compliance certificate. These 250,000 homes would take up an area the size of Wellington City. Here we are, debating legislation tonight that is meant to address that sort of problem, and this Minister will not even take a call to defend his own legislation.

That is the problem. We really are dealing with a run-down Government, a Government that knows it is failing. This is just another example of the failure of this Government. Here we are, considering legislation tonight that is just going to add to that failure. The challenge is going to be for the next Government—and we will take it on—to fix this. There are ways that it can be fixed; and it will be fixed. We will give certainty and security to the people of New Zealand and to new homeowners. They will not have to worry about a department of 300 people delivering laws and regulations that make the problem worse, not better. They will know there are local authorities out there that are competent and can provide the security they want. They will know there is a building industry that is robust and confident and has a future, because that is what we will deliver to New Zealand when we get the opportunity to start making decisions, instead of having to put up with the incompetence that this Minister is showing tonight.

One of the things one would expect is that at the very least the Minister would take a call, stand up, and defend his own legislation. But this Minister has sat in that chair tonight and has not taken a call. He has not bothered to defend the Government against any of the comments that we have made. He has not suggested that anything we are saying is wrong. He has just sat there, and carried on. It is a disgrace.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson): I have two questions for the Minister in terms of the motion to split the bill. The first is: why should we trust that he has got it right this time? We know that in 2002 the Government got it wrong, in a rush. We know that in 2005 the Government got it wrong, in a rush. We even know that with this core bill the Government got it wrong. We know that with the core Building Act in 2004 we got it wrong. We know that in 2005, when we attempted to amend the Building Act, we got it wrong. Yet the Minister is asking for an enormous amount of trust from this Parliament. He is asking us to pass these five pages of new law but without having a first reading and without it going to a select committee to receive the scrutiny of public submissions. If this was the very first time, we might give it the benefit of the doubt. We might say: “Yeah, well, we’ll go along with it.” But the Minister has to understand that when the House has gone along with it and agreed to amendments done in a rush five times, and when every one of those five times it has found that it has stuffed up, the House has to say today: “Minister, once bitten, twice shy. We’re not prepared to go along with it.” I will put money on it.

I bet there is not a single member of this House who has gone through these five pages of law line by line, checked back to the Building Act, checked back to the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services Act, and ensured we have it exactly right. I bet not one member of the House has been able to do that.

Maryan Street: Do it yourself.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: How can we reasonably do that? Maryan Street is a new member, so let me put her in the picture. Normally, legislation has a first reading, goes through the select committee process, and has a second reading and a third reading. This arrogant Government has thrown away the rule book of Parliament and suspended the Standing Orders. That is an unbelievably heavy-handed approach. Yes, sometimes it is absolutely necessary. But neither the Minister nor the Government has given even the slightest reason why we should take that extraordinary step in respect of this law.

The second question I have for the Minister is this. When did the Minister know that councils would not meet the deadline of 30 November?

John Carter: I told him 18 months ago.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: My colleague John Carter says he knew 18 months ago. In meeting councils and building officials, it was plainly obvious to me at the beginning of the year that councils were not going to meet that deadline. But I note that the Minister gave a speech to the building officials conference just a couple of months ago where he said that all councils will be able to meet the deadline. Well, what has changed? Why is it that everybody else seemed to know that there was a problem except the Minister? He is the Minister, he has the Crown car, and he has the big salary. How about doing the job? How about staying on top of the portfolio? How about knowing in advance?

I say to the Minister again. If he wants Parliament to override its normal rules, he must answer a simple question. When did he find out that councils would not be able to meet the 30 November timetable? I have a further point and it is this. This change in law is required only before 30 November. What is the mad rush? That date happens to be more than 3 months away. How can it be justifiable to throw away the Standing Orders of our Parliament and the proper scrutiny of legislation when this is not a problem for 3½ months? I have seen the Standing Orders suspended previously. It has happened when there been a crisis whereby if a law is not passed overnight there may be a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars to taxpayers because of a loophole that has been discovered. None of that justification exists in this case.

Hon Pete Hodgson: What were your questions, Nick? I’ve forgotten.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Well, let me explain it again. Perhaps Mr Hodgson may be able to answer. When did the Minister know that councils would not meet the deadline?

Hon Pete Hodgson: I don’t know that.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Mr Hodgson says he does not know that, but the Committee is entitled to know. If we are going to throw out the Standing Orders, and go over the top of all process—

Hon Pete Hodgson: I am not the Minister.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Well, the Minister has been the Minister in the chair. I asked him the question last week. He would not answer then, and he will not answer now. I tell members why he will not answer. He will not answer because it is embarrassing. It is another one of those ministerial botch-ups that he has to explain.

Hon Pete Hodgson: What’s your second question?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Well, my other question for the Minister is why we should trust him.

Hon Pete Hodgson: Who?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: The Minister. Why should we trust his incompetent Government to get it right when on the previous five occasions it has rushed legislation in this area it has got it wrong? In case Mr Hodgson thinks this is just some academic point, let me go to the core of the issue. We have about 5,000 leaky home owners. They have been waiting for justice. They have been waiting to see whether they will get some resolution of those matters.

Hon Pete Hodgson: What’s the answer to my question? Where did those leaky home owners come from?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Well, that is an interesting question.

Hon Pete Hodgson: The Building Act in the early 1990s?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Yeah, and does Mr Hodgson know what the comment to that is? I can quote what Mr George Hawkins, the member’s colleague, said.

Hon Pete Hodgson: What did he say?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: When the Building Act was passed in 1991 George Hawkins said this: “National had no right to claim any credit for that Building Act because all the hard work was done by George Hawkins and Margaret Austin.”

Jacqui Dean: Is that right?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: That is what he said. Labour is pretty desperate. It will dredge anything up. I think we will soon have a debate about the Boer War and what National’s position might have been on it. Labour is so desperate it will dredge anything up.

I say to Mr Hodgson that I want to talk about now. Eighty-five percent of leaky home owners have been waiting for 5 years for a solution. Many of them are living in rotting, smelling, unhealthy homes while they have been waiting for the Government to get it right. Over and over again we get reassurances from the Government that are breached. Leaky home owners have had a rotten deal from this Government, and this legislation is just another sad chapter of botch-ups and failures in that respect.

But these changes are also about the Building Act. I have seen some bureaucratic nightmares in my time, but the new Building Act is just awful. Last week I spoke to the building inspectors of New Zealand at their conference. I was amazed at the building inspectors—the regulators. I was not expecting them to be particularly positive towards National, but I tell members that I was greeted like a saviour. “Can anybody save us?”

Hon Rick Barker: Ha! ha!

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I was, and I have to tell members opposite that I was surprised. I would have thought that council officials would be pretty friendly with the Labour Party. I have to say that they were pleading: “Can you give us a break from the incompetence of this Government and this department, the bureaucratic requirements they are imposing on us, the costs that they are imposing on our councils, and the nightmare they are creating for builders and for homeowners? When are we going to get some common sense into our building laws?”. Those were their pleas, and I had to tell them that they will need to wait for a John Key Government. In the key speech John gave at National’s conference, setting out a forward plan for dealing with issues of homeownership and of home affordability, John rightly said that we need to reform the Building Act, that the Government has made a mess, that the costs are unreasonable, that the paperwork is over the top, and that we have a process that is a very poor way in which to drive quality.

National’s view is that we need building laws that will drive quality at less cost, and that is not what we are getting in this bill. Again, I will just recite the numbers, and maybe the Minister will be able to answer this question for me. Have taxpayers got good value for money for the 85 million bucks that has been spent on the Weathertight Homes Resolution Service? It works out at $111,000 per case—that is not the money to fix the house; that is the money for the bureaucracy of the process—yet the average settlement is $70,000. So I ask the noisy Mr Hodgson whether he thinks that is good value for money.

Shane Jones: Transitional costs!

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Well, Mr Shane Jones has been in the bureaucracy too long. It is a failure and we need change.

JOHN HAYES (National—Wairarapa): This motion is an abuse of the Government’s power. The suspension of the Standing Orders is a draconian provision because it allows the Government to override the rules of this Parliament. I am absolutely—

Shane Jones: The sovereignty of Parliament, it is just changing.

JOHN HAYES: Would the member like a violin? I say to Mr Jones that I think this situation we are in shows a botch-up in the Government’s legislative programme in that it has to resort to such heavy-handed tools. I am dumbfounded that the third parties in this Chamber, including, I tell Pita Paraone, New Zealand First and the Green Party, have agreed to such an abusive process when they claim their role is to check the Government’s abuse of power.

There is no reason that these changes, albeit embarrassing I say to Mr Cosgrove, cannot go through the first, the second, and the third reading processes, because the Government has until 30 November to consider this legislation. This motion is a sign of a legislative mess in the building laws. This is the third time we have had to make changes to the Building Act, which have been in the same fashion as we are debating tonight, and they are about to be rushed through—the third time since the Act was passed in a big hurry in 2004—and much of the Act is still unimplemented. These changes are being tagged on to another mess—

Shane Jones: Parliamentary innovation—it takes time.

JOHN HAYES: This is the third attempt, I tell Mr Jones, that his Government has made to fix the laws addressing the problems of leaky homes. I think it must be seen in the context of the total building law debacle, highlighted recently by my colleague Mr Key, that the level of homeownership dropped 5 percent between 2001 and 2006 to its lowest level in 50 years. And the Government is asking us to split this bill.

Home affordability, as in the ratio of cost to income, is now the worst of any OECD Government. And the Government is asking us to split this bill. Interest rates have gone up by 6.7 percent since 1999, to 10.4 percent in 2007, and house prices have doubled, from an average cost of $172,000 to $348,000. That means that the cost of a 75 percent mortgage has risen from $166 a week to $533 a week. And the Government wants us to split the bill. The Building Act of 2004 has resulted in a trebling of paperwork. And the Government wants us to split the bill.

This motion amounts to a comedy of errors. It has been rushed through, as I have said. In 2005 we wanted to bring in changes to fix the then Weathertight Homes Resolution Service and to change its name to the Weathertight Homes Tribunal. We are going through change after change, only to find that the latest fix still has problems. So we now have the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Remedies) Amendment Bill to fix those problems.

Hon Rick Barker: Put this on a tape; it’s giving us insomnia.

JOHN HAYES: It is unbelievable to the Labour list member living in Hastings that we have to find a split in this bill so that we can now fix another of Mr Cosgrove’s errors. It is unbelievable that after the first and second readings, and the Committee stage, the Government is still in a mad rush and wants to suspend the Standing Orders so that it can again split this legislation. Clayton Cosgrove’s message to builders—and he has repeated it like a Hare Krishna chant—is “Do it once, do it right”. It is a pity that the Government does not apply the same rule to itself. Thank you.

JOHN CARTER (National—Northland): I want to follow my colleagues John Hayes and Nick Smith, and pick up on a couple of the points that my colleague Nick Smith made. He made a very good address to the Committee on the fact that we are splitting this bill. He brought to the Committee’s attention the fact that he had recently been to the Building Officials Institute of New Zealand, where he had addressed them and been welcomed as a hero and a saviour. I can understand that, and this Minister needs to understand that it was not just because he is Nick that he was applauded and welcomed; it was because of his association with the National Party, as well as his being a very good member and individual himself. The Building Officials Institute of New Zealand is looking for someone to get it out of the muddle it is in. Nick Smith referred to that, and brought it to the attention of the Committee—as we should when we are debating this bill and the splitting thereof.

But there is another issue we need to discuss, which we have not mentioned enough tonight. We have talked about the problem of the compliance costs this legislation is putting on local government. We have talked about the worries and failures there are in local government and the fact that it cannot now meet the requirements that this Minister and his Department of Building and Housing are putting on it. But I want to talk about two other things—firstly, who is actually paying. The terrible cost that has been put on homeowners and the building industry in New Zealand is just not acceptable; it is seriously not acceptable. We are seeing price increases because of the incompetence of this Minister and his department. We have reached the stage now where the rules, regulations, and compliance costs that will be put in place as a consequence of passing this bill will mean extra increases in costs to the homeowner.

Compliance has become so difficult that it is nigh on impossible for a layperson now to fill out a building application form. That is what we are putting in place with the splitting of this bill, and that is why I bring it to the attention of the Committee. We need to understand, as we pass this bill and its two parts, that one of the things that will happen is that people will find they have to employ a person to fill out their building permits. Well, that is unbelievable. A building permit application is not actually a difficult thing, or it was not until this Minister and his department became in charge. Under the previous legislation it used to be that a person would fill out his or her name and address, put in the details of the house and a bit of the description of the property, etc., say who the builder was, describe what style of house it was, attach some plans, and away that person could go. We could actually do it for ourselves, pretty much.

Hon David Carter: Do a Shane Jones now.

JOHN CARTER: Well, Shane Jones now would not be able to fill out the building application form. I do not know whether he could before, but he certainly could not now. Under this legislation that we are going to be passing, as a consequence of splitting this bill, people like Shane Jones will have to pay hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars to employ somebody just to fill out a building application.

Hon David Carter: He can afford to.

JOHN CARTER: He may be able to afford to, but many people in New Zealand cannot. This Government is putting huge compliance costs and unnecessary expense on to new homeowners and people in New Zealand, and it is just not acceptable.

On top of that, the Government is causing cost to local government, which means that rates are having to increase as a consequence of this incompetent Minister and his incompetent department. So the people who have to fill out these forms and pay huge money to apply for a building permit are paying twice. They are paying once through the compliance cost of having to hire somebody to fill out their applications, get the plans drawn, and get all the necessary support documents—the multitude of rules and regulations they have to comply with—and on top of that they have to pay through their rates, as well. I say that that is just not acceptable.

In this country we used to be able to get on, build our own homes, and fill in our own forms. We would get somebody who was competent to build our homes, and a building inspector would come along and support the application. But under the legislation we are discussing tonight, and the splitting of the bill into two, if members of this Committee go back and look at what it means, they will see that all that disappears. It means that instead of our having a simple system for the asset that for most people is about putting a huge chunk of their life into, and one that gives security and certainty that it will be there for them in 10, 15, 20, and 40 years, under this legislation we are passing tonight there is no guarantee of that, at all. In fact, the sad thing is that many people will end up being not just disappointed and not just distressed, but being made, if not bankrupt, then certainly severely disadvantaged financially as a consequence of this legislation being passed tonight.

You know, in all the time we have been debating this matter, which is since about 8 o’clock tonight in this Committee, the Minister has arrogantly sat there, not even bothering, apart from reading some papers, to take one call. He has not bothered to stand up even once and defend any of the criticism—justifiable criticism—that has been made by colleagues who have taken part in this debate. The people of New Zealand, the struggling new homeowners who have to go through this tirade of rules and regulations and form filling, have to employ people at huge cost to do it, before they even get started, to make sure they comply with the rules and regulations that have been put out by this incompetent Minister and his incompetent department. They have to spend, I am told, up to $90,000 to comply with rules and regulations—compliance costs, fees, lawyers' fees—before they can start to build. That is just to comply—$90,000! That sounds outrageous. It is absolutely outrageous. It was not that long ago that one could just about build a house for that sort of money. Now, people have to pay that just get started, let alone buy the section and start buying the materials for the house. And this Minister sits there and says: “Well, that’s OK. It’s all OK.” The sad fact is that it is not.

Hon David Carter: Has he got a ministerial house?

JOHN CARTER: Yes, he has a ministerial house. [Interruption] Oh, he is saying he does not have a ministerial house. I can understand that; it is probably leaky and he would not want to be in it. He probably has a tent somewhere.

But the fact is that with the passing of this bill there will be no certainty for our homeowners, no guarantee for our building industry, and no certainty for local government. The only people who are certain are the people who are employed by this Minister and by the Department of Building and Housing, knowing that they have a secure job paid for by the taxpayer and that they can carry on with these building compliances and rules and regulations that are achieving nothing. They are actually making the problem worse.

I only wish there was some way we could get this Minister and his department to understand that we are not going forward at all. We are actually going backwards, and it can be guaranteed that it will not be long before we have another bill of this nature before this House that, no doubt, will have to be split and we will have to suspend the Standing Orders again, and leave the whole House aside so we can try to fix up the mess this Minister is making tonight.

This Opposition has debated the matter well and truly; so it should. We want to put what has happened on record—and we have done that. I think when people go back and check Hansard they will find that the people who knew what sort of a mess we were getting this country into—what sort of a problem we are creating for homeowners, what sort of a problem we are creating for the building industry, and what sort of a problem we are creating for local government—will be on record, because this country’s loyal Opposition at least stands up for reality. At least we are prepared to say it as it is.

This Minister is not even competent enough to stand and defend his rules and regulations. I say to him that that is disgraceful. He should be ashamed. As he gets into his LTD and drives off to his taxpayer-funded house, wherever it might be and whatever it is, at least he knows he will be warm and dry. But the people who have to try to comply with these rules and regulations have no certainty at all. This House should be guaranteeing people’s homes.

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

A party vote was called for on the question, That the question be now put.

Ayes 71

New Zealand Labour 49; New Zealand First 7; Green Party 6; Māori Party 3; ACT New Zealand 2; United Future 2; Progressive 1; Independent: Field.

Noes 49

New Zealand National 48; Independent: Copeland.

Motion agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Committee divide the bill into the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Remedies) Amendment Bill and the Building (Consent Authorities) Amendment Bill, pursuant to Supplementary Order Paper 134.

Ayes 71

New Zealand Labour 49; New Zealand First 7; Green Party 6; Māori Party 3; ACT New Zealand 2; United Future 2; Progressive 1; Independent: Field.

Noes 49

New Zealand National 48; Independent: Copeland.

Motion agreed to.

Bill reported with amendment.

Report adopted.

Bills

Major Events Management Bill

Second Reading

Debate resumed from 7 August.

RON MARK (NZ First): It is interesting that when I was last speaking on the Major Events Management Bill, which I think was about a week or so ago, I raised what I thought to be a rather curious irony. We were debating the Major Events Management Bill 2006, and National Party people stood, applauded, and expressed their solid support for the prospect, the idea—indeed, not a prospect nor an idea now—of a law that will ban entrepreneurialism, and will actually seek to intervene in the free market’s ability to exploit a commercial advantage or an opportunity. I say to the National Party: “Well done! Well done!”. Some of us have been arguing for probably 11 years that the free-market model is not a panacea to the woes of our economy.

For decades the National Party—in fact, I go back to Ruth Richardson after she had eliminated one of the greatest politicians of this country, Robert Muldoon—imposed upon this nation a more vigorous version of Roger Douglas’ free-marketeering. So in this bill we have history in the making. National Party members stand up and say they wish to curb entrepreneurial ventures, put a clamp on commercial opportunity, and interdict and intervene in the free market—to stop the ability of New Zealand men and women from taking a commercial opportunity when they see it.

How strange, too, is the Labour example. It seeks to promote the concept that pitch invasion should be illegal. I say that is an irony, because many of the Labour MPs in this House proudly wear on their chest a badge of honour that says “Springbok Tour 1981”. I think of the number of maiden speeches I have heard from Labour MPs who said: “I was there in ’81, standing up against apartheid, invading pitches, and participating in riots, demonstrations, and violent discord.”, and I see that many of those Labour Party people now support this bill, and proudly say it is important to pass this bill to stop pitch invasion. How can they have forgotten their past? It is a delicious irony.

New Zealand First supports the bill, because, frankly, we want to see a world event. We want New Zealand to have this opportunity to showcase itself. If it means accepting some commercial reality to make sure that happens, then we say that is fine and let us get on with it.

I was reminded by my leader, the Rt Hon Winston Peters, about Justice Thurgood Marshall. I wonder whether members have heard of him. Justice Thurgood Marshall was a judge, and, I think, the first black American to achieve the distinction of becoming the most senior justice in the United States. He was well known for his stand on human rights and civil liberties, and he was against apartheid and racism. It is of great interest that Judge Thurgood Marshall sat as presiding judge at the hearing of a complaint brought by protesters against the Springboks tour of the United States of America. The Springboks, having left New Zealand shores, went to the United States to play a four-match test series against the American Eagles. Judge Thurgood Marshall astounded the world by ruling that the test series should go ahead. He cited as a fundamental principle— indeed, a principle enforced in the American Constitution—that people have a right to choose whom they wish to associate with. He also countered that neatly by reinforcing people’s right to protest and people’s right to demonstrate against laws and policies that they did not agree with.

How ironic that contrary to the New Zealand example—where we saw violence, gang members upfront leading demonstrations, Labour Party activists wearing helmets and carrying shields in direct, violent confrontation with the police—the Americans, whom many people in this House have criticised so often, had a dignified situation where the Springboks played the American Eagles, and where the protest, against one test match and numbering about 1,000 people, was allowed to go ahead, but not in such a way that it could interdict the rights of the players to associate with whomever they chose. The match went ahead. Of course, the Springboks hammered the American Eagles, and I think they lost that test 44-0, or something like that. The Springboks won the entire series 4-0.

Tonight we are debating the Major Events Management Bill. Two fundamental principles that the two old parties—National and Labour—have vigorously and righteously stood for, they are now voting against. How sweet the irony! I welcome all those MPs to the world of reality and pragmatism, and to recognition of the people’s right to do things in a lawful way without sacrificing their own rights. I am one of those people who believe in freedom of association—that is, freedom of association that does not harm or hurt other people—and believe that people have the democratic right to demonstrate and protest. Indeed, one of the reasons that I am proud of having worn the New Zealand Army uniform and served in Her Majesty’s defence forces is that fundamentally that is what we are doing. We are guaranteeing the rights of New Zealanders to live in a free and democratic State where they have the right to protest, to express their points of view. No matter how violently I, or anyone else, might disagree with it, they have that absolute right. Certain people like Willie Apiata from the New Zealand Special Air Service fought to guarantee that people should have that right for ever and a day in this nation.

So here we are debating the Major Events Management Bill. We see National Party members stand up and say that free-marketeering should not be rampant, it does have boundaries, and we should curb it. I welcome the National Party’s view. I am exhilarated by this new-look National Party. I can see the Hon David Carter, who was once a free-marketeer right to the back of his ears and to the very last root of every hair on his head now standing and saying that the free market needs curbing, and ambush marketing should be stopped. We welcome the Hon David Carter to this world where some of us do not believe that the free market should be able to reign unbridled. I also welcome, on behalf of New Zealand First, the Labour members who now realise that their actions during the Springbok Tour of 1981 may not necessarily have been right or proper, although their right to demonstrate and protest most certainly was.

This Major Events Management Bill in 2007 is—how strange—a delicious irony. The speeches that have been made will be recorded in Hansard, and, I guess some interesting moments of reflection will occur as National and Labour, collectively, vote for this bill and curb two fundamental principles that they have long championed, at the expense of other people’s rights.

KEITH LOCKE (Green): The Green Party is opposed to the Major Events Management Bill. It has come out of the Commerce Committee as bad as it went in. It is regulatory madness, all in the interests of big, international corporates who will be the official sponsors of major events—in particular, of the Rugby World Cup of 2011. Those corporates are companies like Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, Adidas, Goodyear, and Heineken—at least, those companies are sponsoring the soon-to-be-held Rugby World Cup in France. This bill puts allegiance to those big multinationals ahead of the rights of New Zealanders and New Zealand business people.

Wayne Mapp of National said we had to pass this type of legislation, otherwise we would not have the world cup here. How come, then, New Zealand was given hosting rights to the world cup event without any mention of this legislation, which popped up only a year later? Clearly, it was never a condition of New Zealand being granted the world cup. This is over-the-top regulation. Sometimes the Greens are criticised for being too strong in terms of regulation, but in supporting this bill both Labour and National have shown they are the kings and queens of over-regulation.

They are protecting powerful, global advertisers like Coca-Cola from competition, even if it is 5 kilometres from the stadium, along what are called “clean transport routes”. If Coca-Cola is again a sponsor of a world cup, then Lemon and Paeroa, and who knows what other brands, will be banned from advertising along the 5 kilometres of a designated clean transport route. It is not just protecting certain brands only on the day of the big game; the definition of a “clean period” is loose. It could be many days before or after the big game. In the Committee stage the Greens will put forward an amendment to remove this provision for clean transport routes.

The so-called “clean zones” are not so obnoxious, because they relate only to the stadium and perhaps the road outside. However, to get carried away and put all this into law may well prompt Kiwis who do not like being over-regulated to come to the game with jokes, signs, or T-shirts advertising a competing sponsor. Will we see Kiwis being prosecuted for displaying a Tui-like slogan, because the official beer is Heineken, as it is in the world cup in France this year? The select committee pushed out the boat a little further by making it illegal under new clause 16(1A) even for a person who is outside the clean zone, such as on his or her own front lawn, to street trade with someone who is in the clean zone.

For any of this banned street trading or any of the banned advertising under the bill, including advertising along the 5-kilometre clean transport route, people can be given a fine of up to $150,000. Is it not a bit sick to protect companies like Coca-Cola to that extent? One of the official advertisers in 2011 might be Emirates Airline, which is one of the sponsors of the world cup in France this year. The Government and the rich princes behind Emirates Airline, who are also trying to take over our key airport hub, Auckland International Airport, may well, in 2011, be protected by this bill, which will stop any advertising by Air New Zealand along the declared 5-kilometre clean transport route. The fine for Air New Zealand would be up to $150,000. How unpatriotic can we get?

A lot of the media attention and public mirth have been focused on the setting up of a new offence of pitch invasion, covering such people as streakers, political protesters, or people with unofficial corporate logos on their clothing. The media have interviewed people in the street on this topic, and virtually all of them are incredulous. With all the problems in New Zealand and the world—poverty, rocketing house prices, climate change—why is this Government wasting time on a new bill to chuck streakers in jail for up to 3 months? Has it not got better things to do than to stifle people’s fun? It is not as if there are not laws already to give streakers a little legal rap over the knuckles. When Lisa Lewis, who presented to the select committee on the bill, ran onto a Hamilton ground in a bikini, she was arrested and fined a total of $330, including costs, for disorderly behaviour. I do not, of course, encourage streakers—and I say this because earlier in the debate I was accused of wanting to facilitate streaking. But, let us face it, most of it is done in good fun, and those who do it expect to suffer a minor legal consequence. We do not need an anti-fun bill.

The one international major event that might well have the odd colourful pitch invasion is the annual Wellington international Rugby Sevens, where, unlike most other games, the action is in the stands more than on the field, and the odd spectator in fancy dress might wander on to the field. The Wellington Rugby Sevens would certainly qualify as a major event under the bill, as would a Bledisloe Cup game, or a Super 14 final between Aussie and New Zealand clubs. Anything can qualify, as long as a fair number of people are coming from overseas for the game and, more important, the advertising exposure is international—mainly via a live TV feed.

Of course, there is an honourable tradition of pitch invasion carried out for political reasons. Back in 1913, Emily Davison ran on to a British racetrack and helped to put women’s suffrage on the political map. There is also an honourable tradition in New Zealand. In 1981 people ran on to rugby fields during a game with a Springbok team representing the racism of apartheid. These people were actually helped in the courts; the judges had a degree of sympathy for them in that they often recognised that the pitch invaders had a humanitarian motivation, and either let them off altogether or gave them a minor fine. Then there are those like the streakers who painted a Vodafone symbol on their chests. That is a tradition we have seen here, too.

Do we really need a whole new offence of pitch invasion to cover these different types of people, none of whom mean any harm to spectators or to rugby players? It is a principle of lawmaking that new laws are not made unnecessarily. There is a perfectly good law against disorderly behaviour now, which covers streaking, and provides for very minor fines. Disorderly behaviour does not have the $5,000 maximum fine that pitch invasion will. Both offences will have a maximum 3-month prison term. But we do not need a prison term for streaking. Some forms of disorderly behaviour, like disorderly behaviour leading to a serious risk of violence—perhaps on a plane—might qualify for a prison term, but there is no way that streaking should ever qualify for a prison term. Most New Zealanders think that is absurd, and Trevor Mallard and the Government should listen to them.

Let us look at the anti-scalping provision, which provides that people are not allowed to sell a ticket at more than its cover price. I understand that people do not like scalpers making big profits, but do we really need to legislate against a second-hand market in tickets? Why should we? We cannot stop it; it will only go underground, or it will go on to the Internet. TradeMe submitted to the select committee, explaining the problems that this bill will pose for it. Even if TradeMe does its best to stop most trading of tickets, people can then just move on to eBay or some other site and trade them there. I do not often agree with Roger Kerr of the Business Roundtable, but I agree with his submission to the select committee that we should not interfere in the free market in this way.

Surely the solution—or a large part of the solution—is for events managers to make sure the tickets are distributed fairly through clubs, through the Internet, or however. This is already done to a large extent, and often, with Internet sales, everyone does have a chance. There will always be a secondary market, which is what smart operators overseas like the San Francisco Giants baseball club recognise. They actually have an Internet site where they run a secondary market where people can onsell tickets. That is a better way to go. There will always be people who have extra tickets, or who get sick, and they should have the opportunity to onsell. Do we really need to get hot and bothered if they make a profit?

I think National and Labour, intimidated by the big, global corporate advertisers, have dropped the ball on this. They have forgotten about the rights of New Zealanders and New Zealand businesses. The champions of the free market—so-called—have become the champions of silly and offensive regulation. Again, it is up to the Greens to carry the flag of freedom.

HONE HARAWIRA (Māori Party—Te Tai Tokerau): Tēnā koe, Mr Deputy Speaker; tēnā koe, Mr Jones; tēnā tātou e te Whare. Hoi anō, tērā pea ā te wā ka tohungia e Guinness ko te tino Māori o ngā Māori katoa, ka kore e riro ki tētahi o tātau o roto i tēnei Whare. Tērā pea ko tētahi ka tonoa ki te Hōro Rongonui, ko Hōri Nēpia o Ngāti Rākaipāka. Nā, koia tērā, i ahau e whakaaro ana mō tēnei pire, i huri ōku whakaaro ki a ia me te haerenga o te Kapa ō Pango ki Āwherika ki te Tonga, i te tau 1960.

Koia rā te tau i huri te Kapa ō Pango hei Kapa ō Mā—nā te tautoko o te Uniana Whutupaoro o Aotearoa ki ngā tono a Āwherika ki te Tonga kia kaua te kiri parauri e haere. I mua tonu o te haerenga nei, i tono a Hōri Nēpia i tētahi karere ki te Rōpū Tautoko i te Kapa ō Pango i Te Whanga-nui-a-Tara me tana kī: “Kia kaha rā. Whakapā mai mēnā e hiahia ana koutou ki tētahi pou muri.” Engari, hara te Citizens All Black Tour Association i te hunga whiriwhiri tīma. He rōpū tēnei i whakatūria hei whakakāhoretia i ngā hīkoi hākinakina rānei i tautoko nei i te kāwana kaikiri. E ai ki tā Hōri Nēpia, ko te take e kore taea e ia te uru atu ki ngā tīma haere ki Āwherika ki te Tonga i te tau, 1928 ko te mea, he Māori a ia. Nā, koia te tīmatanga mai o te tautoko i te tū manapori. He tū whakahē ki te kore tuarā, ngoikore rānei o te Uniana Whutupaoro i whakaae mai kia pērā rawa te whakarite o te tīma, kia taea ai e rātou te tukituki atu i te tīma Springboks

Nā, koia nei te āhua o te rangirua. I ngā wiki kua hipa arā ahau, otirā, tātou a Aotearoa whānui e kaha ūmere ana mō te Kapa ō Pango i tō rātou whiwhinga i te Ipu Bledisloe me te Ipu Whenua Tokotoru. He tika rā ki a au te tono a te Rōpū Kapa Whutupaoro o te Ao ki te komiti whāiti e mea ana: “Ko ngā pou e rua, ko Aotearoa, ko te whutupaoro e kore e taea te wehewehe. He momo hākinakina e kaingākau ana i te iwi, he toa rātou, he piripono, ā, he hākinakina e kaha ana rātou ki te tautoko, ā, kākore hoki e kitea tēnei tū āhuatanga i wētahi atu whenua o te ao, hakoa he aha te momo hākinakina.”

Engari, anei ahau e tautoko ana i te hiahia a wētahi ki te whakararuraru i ngā hui whakahirahira nei kia whai wāhi ai rātou ki te tautohe. Ka kaha whakahē te Pāti Māori i te Pepa Tāpiritanga e mea ana, he hara nui te ekenga o te tangata ki te papa tākaro i te mea, he mea e noho taupatupatu ana tērā i te whakapapa o ngā mahi tautohe e mōhiotia nei tātou i Aotearoa nei. Ki te Pepa Tāpiritanga 106—“Ekenga papa tākaro”, eke poka noa, kua ara ake tētahi hara hōu nei. He hara mauhere tonu ki te toru marama, he utu rānei o te $5000. Mēnā ka eke koe ki te papa tākaro, whiu rānei i tētahi mea ki konā.

He aha i whakahē atu ai ki tēnei Tāpiritanga? Me maumahara anō tātou ki ngā rā o mua, ki ngā whakataetae nui me te mōhio anō hoki, he huarahi tēnei i āta tirohia nuitia hei whakairi i ngā take nui nei ki te ao ngā take tūkino, wehenga ā-iwi, aronga ā-iwi me te māhie anō hoki. Kei tō mātou hītori tērā momo kōrero mai i ngā āhuatanga o te tau 1981. Ka hoki ōku mahara ki taua tau me te ekenga poka noa o te 350 tangata ki te papa whutupaoro i Kirikiriroa, ā, kua whakakorea e rātau te kēmu. Koia rā te ekenga rongonui e mōhiotia nei tātou i Aotearoa nei.

E ai ki wētahi o tēnei Whare, ko tēnei he rā pōuri nui, he rā whakamā hoki. Kua rongo hoki mātou i wētahi o Reipa e kōrero pahupahu ana mō tō rātou tū i taua rā. He tohu nui tērā mō tō rātou whakahē i ngā tikanga kaikiri, meinga, meinga. Kua wareware tere kē rātou. Me pēhea tātou e taea ai te kī, hei aha wēnā momo mahi, me huri tātou ki te tautoko i te pire nei i tēnei rā. Me pēhea rā te waiho i te karanga a “Amandla”, me ngā kōrero mō ngā rākau patu kia moe? I te pērā i Kirikiriroa, i Ōtautahi, i Tāmaki-makau-rau tonu, arā, i te wā i whakatakaina ngā pahūtanga puehu parāoa i te rangi kia mutu ai te kēmu. Ko te tikanga o te pire kei mua i te Whare i tēnei rangi, ko te whakarite whāinga kia kore ai ētahi e whai i ērā tauira, kia hāmenehia tonu te hunga hara.

Ko te mate kē, i konei i Aotearoa nei kua puta tō tātou rongonui ki te ao mō tō tātou kaha ki te whakahē i te mahi kaikiri i te whakawhiunga ā-tangata. Koia rā te āhua o taua wā, ko te ekenga poka noa ki te papa tākaro ka mutu, he wāhanga o tō tātou hītori. He hiahia tonu tērā nō tātou ki te Whakakore i te Haerenga Mai o taua hunga whutupaoro, nā, he tohu tērā mō tō tātou ngākau nui ki ēnei mea ki te noho tahi, te noho ōrite, ki te tika me te pono.

Ki te tautoko tātou o tēnei Pāremata i te Pepa Tāpiritanga 106, arā noa atu ā tātou mahi, ehara i te mea ko te paku rāwekeweke tātou i te ture. Kei te kī kē tātou ko te tū i te tau 1981 he tūnga i tautokongia e te maha o ngā mema o tēnei Pāremata, he hara tonu ka mutu, me mauhere i te tangata ka tika. Koia nā te tino pūtake, āe rā hoki i mau heretia wētahi. Engari ko tāku, kia kaua tātou e here i te hiahia o wētahi ki te whakaatu i tō rātou takariri ki te hara nui whakaharahara nei ki te ao tangata. He herenga tohe, he herenga rangatiratanga.

Nā, ko tētahi take anō hei mea kōrero māku i tēnei pānuitanga tuarua, ko tērā e pā ana ki te tiakitanga me te mana whakahaere i runga ake o ngā mea pēnei i ngā tohu, kupu rānei e hāngai tonu ana ki te Taumāhekeheke o te Ao, o te Kāhui o Ingarangi rānei. He mea rāhui te pire nei i te whakaaturanga o ngā tohu mēnā horekau he whakaaetanga ka mutu i tāna, ka tiakina ā-ture wēnei tohu mō tētahi wā.

I te kotahi marama kua hipa ake nei, i te wā e īnoi ana te Pāti Māori ki te Kāwanatanga, ki te āta titiro ki tētahi kamupene tiaki Wīwī nā rātou te kī, he rōpū Māori nei rātou, he ngoikore tonu te whakautu mai a te Pirimia. Hakoa i mōhiotia tonu te Pirimia, āe, he tauira anō tēnei o te hunga kaipakihi o te ao me wā rātou mahi nanakia ki ngā tikanga o te tangata whenua, hei whakanui i ōna ake rawa, whakaritenga mahi, auare ake, kāore a ia i whai atu i tēnei take.

Engari, anei wēnei whakaaro kia hāmenehia te hunga hara ki te $150,000 mō te kore whiwhi whakaaetanga mō tētahi momo tohu hei whakanui i tētahi hui nui whakahirahira i Aotearoa nei. He aha te tikanga o tērā? Kua tae mai wētahi kōrero ki te Pāti Māori mō ngā momo taonga, momo whakaaturanga kua takahi nei i ngā tikanga. Kāhore he mutunga mai o te rārangi kōrero nei—he huna kanohi Halloween, he haka hei hoko waka Itāria, he tohu Māori i runga pākete hikareti.

Kua puta anō hoki ko te nanakia hōu nei a Baking Industry o Aotearoa me tā rātou rīpene whakaata o tētahi rōpū pihikete parauri nei e haka ana, āe, he pihikete, e haukerekerehia nei ki raro i te pēke paura, te āhua nei he pēke paura mā. Ko te wero nui nei e pēnei ana. Hakoa he mahi poka noa te mahi, ko te āhua nei horekau he rongoā. Kāti, anei tētahi pire e kaha tiaki nei i te hunga whakariterite hui me te hunga kaipakihi nui, whai pūtea nei. Ā, i tua atu i tērā, horekau he tikanga e āhei ai te Māori ki te noho i te tēpu whakatau, kia taea ai e mātou te kī, he hui whakahirahira tēnei hui, ko te ārai rānei i te mahi nanakia i ngā taonga tuku iho.

Hakoa ko ngā take e rua nei, kei te mārama tonu Te Pāti Māori ki te hōnore, otirā, ko ngā hua ka puta ki Aotearoa i tō tātou pōwhiri ki te ao ki te Ipu Whutupaoro o te Ao 2011, te taumāhekeheke Hoe Waka 2010, te Poi Whana mō ngā wāhine Taiohi i te 2008. Kei a Aotearoa te pōwhiri ki te Ipu o te Ao mō te Kirikiti. Mō ēnei momo hui, e hia kē nei te hunga haere mai, mātakitaki mai rānei.

Tērā pea ka whai hua anō hoki ngā hui Māori, hui tangata whenua, arā, he hui kua kawea e tēnei whenua pēnei i te Taumāhekeheke Waka Ama i roto i tēnei pire. Hakoa e mōhio ana mātou he painga ka puta nā ēnei hui nui nei, e rua ngā māharahara nui. Tuatahi, ko te kore tikanga hei tiaki i ngā tohu Māori, tuarua, mō te pūtake o tēnei pire me tōna pānga ki te noho kāwanatanga ā-iwi. Kāore mātou i te tautoko i tēnei pirei. Tēnā koe, tēnā tātou katoa.

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

[Greetings to you, Mr Deputy Speaker, Mr Jones, and all of us in the House. Chances are that when the Guinness Book of Records chooses to make the award for the greatest Māori ever known, it will not be any of us in this House. One person who may, however, be invited into the Hall of Fame, must be George Nēpia of Ngāti Rākaipāka. And so it was, when considering the precedents for the Major Events Management Bill, I was thinking of him—and in particular the 1960 All Black rugby tour to South Africa.

In the year 1960 the All Blacks became the “All Whites”—as the New Zealand Rugby Union sought to comply with the request from South Africa that its team did not want to host coloureds. In the lead-up to the tour, Nēpia sent a telegram to the New Zealand Citizens’ All Black Tour Association in Wellington, saying: “Best of luck. Let me know if you need a fullback.” But the Citizens’ All Black Tour Association was not about to select teams. It was an association established to mobilise pressure against any sporting tour that sought to support a regime of apartheid. Nēpia always believed that the reason he was mysteriously unselected for an earlier tour of South Africa in 1928 was that he was Māori. So began the process of democratic demonstration—an act of rebellion against the gutlessness of a Rugby Union that agreed to submit to a racially selected rugby team in order to play the Springbok team.

So here is the irony. In recent weeks, along with every other New Zealander in the land, I was cheering as the All Blacks secured the Bledisloe Cup and Tri-Nations. The Rugby World Cup submission to the select committee summed it up for me: “It is barely possible to think of New Zealand without also thinking about rugby. It is a game at which it excels, loves, and supports with an enthusiasm and a passion that would be hard to match in any other country for any other sport.”

Yet here I am standing up for the right to disrupt major events by enabling the right to protest. The Māori Party will oppose the Supplementary Order Paper, which makes it an offence for a person to go on to a playing surface, as that provision flies in the face of a proud history of protest that we know here in Aotearoa. Subpart 5, “Pitch invasion”, which Supplementary Order Paper 106 seeks to insert, creates an offence punishable by a term of imprisonment not exceeding 3 months, or a fine not exceeding $5,000, for going on to the playing surface at a major event, or propelling any object on to it.

Why would we object to this Supplementary Order Paper? Let us think back on a history that has recognised that major sporting events are one means, a very high-profile means, of bringing attention to issues of injustice, racial segregation, ethnic targeting, and hatred. That history, of course, is firmly established through the events of 1981. And I think back to that year when 350 people entered Rugby Park in Hamilton and the game was abandoned. That was perhaps the most famous pitch invasion that this country has ever known.

It came from a period of our history that politicians across the House have variously referred to as our darkest days of shame. We have heard Labour MPs refer to their badge of honour in marching against the cause of apartheid. How quickly they forget! How can we say we should forget that history and turn around today to accept this proposal? How can calls of “Amandla”, and stories of the long batons, be left to one side? It was like that in Hamilton, in Christchurch, and in Auckland, when flour bombs were dropped from a plane in an effort to stop the game. The proposal before the House today is that procedures be established to prohibit pitch invasion and make convictions.

Yet it is in this country, Aotearoa, that New Zealanders gained an international reputation for being proud and determined opponents of racism and oppression. The tactics and strategy of that time, which included the actions of the pitch invaders, will be forever a part of this nation’s history in seeking not only to “Stop the Tour”, but also to signal to the world our commitment to racial harmony, equality, and justice.

If we in this Parliament support Supplementary Order Paper 106, we are doing much more than agreeing to a raft of consequential amendments. What we are saying is that the stand taken in 1981—a stand supported by many of the members of this House—was an offence, was a crime worthy of imprisonment. The point is that, yes indeed, some were jailed. But the opportunity to demonstrate and to express our indignation at the greatest crime of humanity must not be squashed. To silence protest is to silence freedom.

The other point I want to raise at this second reading is in connection with the attention given to the protection and control of certain emblems and words relating to the Olympic Games and Commonwealth Games. The bill prohibits the use of such symbols without appropriate authorisation, and suggests, further, that these symbols could be given legal protection for a specified period.

Is it not a bit rich that when, less than a month ago, the Māori Party called for the Government to intervene, after we found a French-owned multinational security company was calling itself “Māori Group”, the Prime Minister’s response was less than enthusiastic? The Prime Minister, while recognising that this was but one of many examples of international businesses exploiting indigenous culture to promote their own products and services, chose not to take the issue any further.

Yet here we have proposals of fines up to $150,000 for false, unauthorised, or unofficial use of a particular brand to promote a major event in New Zealand. What is with that? The Māori Party would be approached once a week about products and promotions that cause cultural offence. The list is endless: Halloween masks, the haka used to sell Italian cars, Māori symbols on cigarette packets.

The latest culprit is the Baking Industry Association of New Zealand with an animated video featuring a group of gingerbread men performing the haka—who are eventually squashed and flattened underneath a large sack of—presumably white—flour. The key challenge is that while Māori cultural and intellectual property is misappropriated, yet here in this bill every effort has been made to protect big-scale organisers and big-business sponsors. Further, it appears there are no mechanisms available to enable Māori involvement in the decision making of declaring events to be “major events”, or around preventing the exploitation of intellectual property.

Notwithstanding these two issues, the Māori Party is very aware of the honour and the opportunity provided to New Zealand in hosting the Rugby World Cup in 2011, the World Rowing Championships in 2010 and the Youth Women’s Football World Cup in 2008. New Zealand will also co-host the Cricket World Cup in 2015. These kinds of major events attract large numbers of visitors and spectators.

We are forever hopeful that there will be benefits in this bill for some of the major Māori and Indigenous sporting events this country has hosted, such as the World Waka Ama championships. Even though we recognise the benefits that will flow from these major events, there are two major concerns for us: firstly, the failure to protect indigenous images, and, secondly, the threat this bill poses to our ability to maintain a healthy democracy. We are not supporting this bill. I thank you, and all of us.]

ALLAN PEACHEY (National—Tamaki): I am grateful for the opportunity in the last couple of minutes of the sitting today to speak in support of the Major Events Management Bill. A lot of work has gone into getting this bill right, by all parties around the House. It was very, very disappointing, therefore, to see the spokesperson for the Government’s junior coalition partner take the opportunity to attack the National Party’s attitude to this bill. It was not necessary, it was not helpful, but it was, unfortunately, increasingly typical of the behaviour of that party in this House—behaviour that is leading us to think that MMP in actual fact stands for “Mickey Mouse Politics”, because that was what we saw from the member of the Government’s junior coalition partner.

A lot of work has been necessary to get this bill right, and this Parliament was fortunate to have the thought, consideration, and reflection that the National members of the Commerce Committee were able to bring to it. You know, I was interested to listen to Mr Mark try to ridicule the concept of entrepreneurship. I would have thought that the supreme example of entrepreneurship was the effort of the New Zealand Rugby Union in going out onto the world market and competing for what I understand is the third largest sporting event in the world—the third largest. The New Zealand Rugby Union went out there, competed, and won the right to host that event against bigger countries and against much more powerful commercial interests. I would have thought that the member of the Government’s junior coalition party actually would have, at the very least, acknowledged that point.

This legislation is all about making—[Interruption] Do I hear a voice from the distance, interrupting as usual? This legislation is all about making sure that the Rugby World Cup 2011, and the other major sporting and other events that will be attracted to New Zealand, can be hosted here. We have to conform, whether or not we like it.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 10 p.m.