Wednesday, 16 April 2008

Wednesday, 16 April 2008

Wednesday, 16 April 2008

Madam Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

Motions

Tongariro Tragedy—Elim Christian College

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK (Prime Minister): I move, That this House note its deep sorrow at the tragic deaths of six young people and their teacher from Auckland’s Elim Christian College while participating in an outdoor education programme near the Tongariro National Park. The tragedy near Tongariro yesterday, taking the lives of six high school students and their teacher, is the worst nightmare of every family, every community, and every school. I am sure that the thoughts of every member of this House today will be with those grieving families, the school, their friends, and with the outdoor pursuits centre. Late last night I spoke to Murray Burton, the principal of the Elim Christian College, and passed on the deep sorrow that I felt for what had happened, and the Minister of Education has been at the school this morning. Since late yesterday Government agencies have been engaged in the support of the families and the school community.

I think that each of us can identify with what has happened. The young people and their teacher were away on what was a great adventure, and that great adventure has ended in the tragic loss of life for those seven people in the party. That leaves the families, the school, and the outdoor pursuits centre in shock and in grief, and having to come to terms with what has happened. The Elim Christian College is a faith-based school, and as its principal has said today, those involved will draw on their faith as they make the difficult journey of coming to terms with what has happened. I believe we all stand united with the families, the school, and the outdoor pursuits centre today in expressing our deep sorrow at the loss of the lives of these young people and their teacher, knowing that two of these young people were indeed to celebrate their 17th birthday this week. They had so much to live for, and so much potential. May they rest in peace.

JOHN KEY (Leader of the Opposition): I share with the Prime Minister her expression of the deep sorrow felt by this House as we reflect on the tragic deaths of seven New Zealanders in the Tongariro National Park. Mercifully it is very rare that this Parliament has reason to reflect on a tragedy of this magnitude. It is with great sadness that we do so today. As parents, as members of Parliament, and as New Zealanders we share an understanding of the unconditional love felt for our children, and a sense of the ultimate helplessness felt in the face of events such as these. We can do nothing to lessen their loss, but instead extend our sympathy to the victims’ families, to the students and staff at Elim Christian College, and to the staff of the Sir Edmund Hillary Outdoor Pursuits Centre. At this time of great pain we wish that they are able to take strength from their families, their communities, and their faith. They are firmly in our thoughts. May they rest in peace.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First): I would like to express the deep sadness and shock of all those in New Zealand First at the tragic loss of the teacher and so many young and valuable lives during the crossing of the Mangatepopo Stream. The search and rescue teams, including the police and St John Ambulance, are to be commended for their efforts in very, very difficult conditions. Our thoughts are with the families and friends, colleagues and schoolmates, of those who lost their lives in such a sudden and unforeseeable event. We offer our sincere condolences to them.

JEANETTE FITZSIMONS (Co-Leader—Green): The Green Party joins with other parties in the House to express our deepest sympathy to the families of Natasha Bray, Portia McPhail, Huan Hsu, Anthony Mulder, Floyd Fernandez, and Tara Gregory, and of their teacher Anthony McLean. There can be nothing so hard to bear as the death of one’s child, and I know that the whole country is thinking of those parents and families. Those young people were on an adventure; they were challenging themselves and their courage to tackle the challenges of a mountain and a river. It is really important that young people have the opportunity to do that, and preferably to do it in safety, and it would also be a tragedy if young people were to be prevented from accepting these challenges, from testing themselves, and from proving their courage in the outdoors because of these risks. We hope that it can be made a safer experience in the future, and they will not be forgotten.

Hon TARIANA TURIA (Co-Leader—Māori Party): Ka waipuke mai ngā roimata mai i te kāhui maunga e rere kau ana ki te moana. Ka tangi te awa, ka tangi ahau.

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

[The tears from the cluster of mountains flood forth and flow to the sea. The river mourns, and so do I.]

I stand today extending my gaze from the mountains to the sea, thinking of those who have lost their lives in the Mangatepopo Gorge, and their whānau. Our tears flow as we think of the tragedy that has occurred within the Tongariro River, a tragedy that has dealt a savage blow to the families, Elim Christian College, as well as the staff of the Sir Edmund Hillary Outdoor Pursuits Centre, and, indeed, all who have been involved in this tragic event. No one in this House can imagine the pain that the parents, the wider families, and the school community must be feeling at this time. We can but express our deepest condolences for young lives lost.

The whole process of living, growing, and maturing involves testing boundaries and taking risks. All of those young people—and I include in our thoughts their young teacher—connected through to families who had dreams and aspirations for them that will now not be realised, so tenuous is life! The Māori Party has been shocked at the terrible tragedy that took place at the headwaters of the Whanganui River, a tragedy that extinguished so much hope and potential. We offer our sincere condolences to all who have been affected.

Hon PETER DUNNE (Leader—United Future): We often rise in this House to express our sympathy, our commiserations, or our sense of loss when some prominent figure in New Zealand or elsewhere in the world has suffered a tragedy. But when we do so in respect of six young New Zealanders and their teacher who were going about their normal activity, I think it is all the more poignant, because it strikes home to all of us—all of us who are parents, those of us in this House who have been teachers, and all of us who work with young people day in, day out—that the loss is immediate and real.

To the parents, they will be struggling with immense emotions at the moment: the shock of the loss, the emptiness of rooms that will not be returned to, artefacts and mementos around the home that will not be picked up again, and, I guess, that inevitable question of “Why us?”. Well, we cannot answer those questions, but what we as a House can do is express to the parents, to the teachers, to the pupils, and to the wider community of the Elim Christian College in Auckland our very deepest sympathy as a Parliament, and our sense of standing alongside them in their loss, and standing alongside them in their grief in the days ahead.

United Future joins with other parties who have made a call for sympathy today. We respect the memories of those who have died. We stand with them, and we ask that they rest in peace.

RODNEY HIDE (Leader—ACT): The ACT party joins with the Prime Minister and the entire House in offering our deep condolences to the families, friends, the community, and all of those directly affected by this horrific tragedy and this great loss. Words almost fail us. But what is very clear is that the entire country is united in its grief over this tragic and inexplicable loss. It is fitting that this entire House say to those families that we sympathise, and that we offer them, as best we can as a Parliament, our condolences. May those young people rest in peace.

Hon JIM ANDERTON (Leader—Progressive): The loss of a child is the worst nightmare of any parent. We now have six families of children at the school, the parents and family of the teacher, the school community, and the community at large all working through that nightmare as we speak. The warmth of this House in expressing its condolences we can only hope will wrap itself around these families in their hour of need. We send them from here our best wishes for the strength to work though this extraordinary tragedy that has beset them all.

Motion agreed to.

Questions for Oral Answer

Questions to Ministers

Household Incomes—Reports

1. JOHN KEY (Leader of the Opposition) to the Prime Minister: Does she stand by her statement made yesterday that “there are families who are squeezed”; if so, when did that fact come to her Government’s attention?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK (Prime Minister): Yes; it actually came to my attention in the 1990s, when unemployment and poverty rose to the worst levels experienced in our country since the Great Depression. My Government has been working for 8½ years to address those issues.

John Key: Does the Prime Minister recall seeing in the Budget papers last year a comment from her Minister of Finance that if there was overspending of Budget allowances they would “risk an interest rate response from the Reserve Bank, the exchange rate staying higher for longer, and a more pronounced economic slowdown”?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: I do not recall every sentence of the Budget document, but I am aware that the Reserve Bank has not raised the official cash rate since July last year.

John Key: Given that the Prime Minister reads her papers, why, if she will have noticed that and had had those kinds of discussions with the Minister of Finance, did she agree with him to an overspend of $4 billion in that Budget, and, on the back of that, is she prepared to take responsibility on behalf of her Government for the fact that New Zealanders have now seen interest rates double under Labour’s watch?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: There seems to be something of a misapprehension in the member’s question. This Government has gross Crown debt down to around 18 percent. That member has advocated that it should rise to 25 percent, which I am advised would lead to extra Government spending on debt servicing of around $700 million a year. Everything I see suggests that Kiwis find his policy of borrowing for tax cuts to be simply crazy.

John Key: Does the Prime Minister realise that the debt to GDP ratio has fallen, for the most part because GDP has grown, and nominal debt has largely been exactly the same; and, secondly, does the Prime Minister acknowledge that overspending in a Budget will put pressure on inflation and on interest rates, and, on the back of acknowledging that, is she prepared to give an assurance to the House that she will rein in Government spending in this year’s Budget?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: Firstly, I am pleased the member has noticed that the economy has been growing a lot under a Labour Government. It has grown faster since 1999 on average than that of Australia, the United States, and the OECD average, and it is forecast to keep growing in the next year faster than the United States or the euro zone. Secondly, I would note that for roughly one-third of the time a National Government was last in office, interest rates were higher than they are today.

John Key: Will the Prime Minister acknowledge that if the Labour Government had rolled out National’s proposed tax plan in 2005, which not only was affordable but would have delivered about $40 per week to someone on the average income, and if New Zealanders had an extra $40 or more in their pay packets, do you think they would be able to pay for the food increases that were highlighted in the Dominion Post and the New Zealand Herald today, and do you think they would be in a better position to service the mortgages—

Hon Trevor Mallard: “Do you think”—get the question right.

John Key: —that member might not care about New Zealand households, but I do—which have doubled under a Labour Government?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: Of course, the Government offered far more support to families than the $40 the member is talking about. My recollection is that for a family with two children on $35,000, the Working for Families package is worth $199 in tax relief a week. The National Party opposed the Working for Families package and continues to oppose it.

John Key: Can the Prime Minister give the House an assurance that all four of Michael Cullen’s tests will be met when he rolls out his proposed tax cuts in the 2008 Budget, taking into consideration that one of them is in relation to inflation and that yesterday the CPI data released shows that inflation was at 3.4 percent, or will she not worry about that because she has given him the one test, which was: “Dr Cullen, cut taxes or look for a new job.”?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: I have every confidence that the Minister of Finance will meet his tests, and I know he will not be borrowing the member’s policy of borrowing for tax cuts, because that is just crazy.

Rodney Hide: Does the Prime Minister agree that the best way to assist working families being squeezed is to let them keep more of their money through tax cuts, which would also provide for even stronger growth that would further help those families?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: With respect to the member, I think a range of policies is important. There will be a tax cut in this year’s Budget. A programme will be set out. That has to be set alongside the Working for Families package, cheaper doctors’ fees, the 20 hours’ free early childhood education, and many other measures the Government has put in place to relieve pressure on families.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: How does the Prime Minister explain her railing against Mr Key’s questioning when on all the fundamentals that have been announced by the National Party, its policy in respect of the economy of this country is identical to Labour’s; and that being the case, where is the problem here as being explained by the Prime Minister in her answers?

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK: The problem may be that the Leader of the Opposition is in the process of swallowing so many dead rats that they are starting to come out of his ears.

Schools—Literacy Improvements

2. SU’A WILLIAM SIO (Labour) to the Minister of Education: What reports has he received on literacy improvements in our schools?

Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Minister for the Environment) on behalf of the Minister of Education: The most recent evaluation of the Labour-led Government’s Literacy Professional Development Project confirms very significant improvements in the reading and writing ability of the estimated 55,000 students whose teachers have been helped by the $15 million initiative. Students on the programme improve their reading and writing skills at approximately twice the normal rate, with the progress being made by the bottom 20 percent being about double that of the other students on the programme. It is a real case of a gap being closed.

Su’a William Sio: What practical support to lift student achievement does the Literacy Professional Development Project provide?

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Since the inception of the Literacy Professional Development Project in 2004, it has worked with 4,412 teachers working in 391 schools. It is a 2-year programme, with professional development facilitators going into each school to teach the teachers how to use tools that are proven to raise literacy skills. It has been very successful to date. A new cohort of 1,124 teachers in 103 schools began the project in February. We are looking forward to seeing the excellent results from the first two cohorts being replicated again.

Anne Tolley: Why is this Government gloating about its achievements in improving literacy, when the results from last year’s National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) exams show quite the opposite—that, in fact, one in four students could not even meet the NCEA level 1 literacy requirement, which is a shameful record of failure after 9 long years of a Labour Government?

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: When this Government came into office, 50 percent of students could not pass School Certificate English. If the member wants us to drop standards in the way that she is suggesting, in order to let students through, I can tell her that we will not take that approach. I also say to the member that her policy of exams for 6-year-olds just will not run with this Government.

Anne Tolley: I seek leave to table a document from the national qualifications framework school profile showing that one in four New Zealand students could not meet the level 1 literacy requirement.

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

Electoral Finance Act—Meetings

3. Hon BILL ENGLISH (Deputy Leader—National) to the Minister of Justice: Has she attended any meetings in the past week at which issues related to the Electoral Finance Act 2007 were discussed; if so, did she make any contributions to those meetings?

Hon ANNETTE KING (Minister of Justice): Yes, as the Minister of Justice I have attended several meetings in the past week at which the Electoral Finance Act was discussed, and I participated in all discussions.

Hon Bill English: Can the Minister confirm reports that she failed to speak up at a Labour Party congress meeting on the Electoral Finance Act when the suggestion was made that material produced by Government departments should be used for Labour Party electioneering, and that this practice has been stopped only because the media brought attention to the plan and the Prime Minister intervened to try to stop it?

Hon ANNETTE KING: There is no ministerial responsibility in relation to that question.

Hon Bill English: What confidence can the public have in the administration of the Electoral Finance Act in the light of Labour’s very poor record of breaching electoral law, and in light of the fact that the Minister of Justice, who is responsible for the Act, took part in a session at the Labour Party conference focused on working out how to rort it?

Hon ANNETTE KING: I believe that New Zealanders will have confidence in the Electoral Finance Act if members of this Parliament, particularly Bill English, stop trying to stir up trouble and stop trying to make it into a political issue because they do not like what the Electoral Finance Act does in terms of them cheating the New Zealand public at the last election.

Hon Peter Dunne: At any of the meetings the Minister has participated in in the last week has there been discussion about some of the problems that are now becoming apparent with the operation of the Act in respect of the interpretations being placed upon its provisions by the Chief Electoral Office and others; if so, would she be prepared to consider convening a meeting of all parties to discuss the issues that have emerged to see whether common ground can be reached on amendments needed to make this Act workable so that the people of New Zealand can decide the next election, not the courts?

Hon ANNETTE KING: At meetings there have been discussions about issues that have been raised in this Parliament in terms of problems. In terms of the member’s suggestion that there ought to be a meeting of all parties, I would certainly listen to any suggestion, but I have to say to the member that unless such a meeting was entered into in good faith by every party in this House, I think it would be a waste of time.

Hon Bill English: Has the Minister seen reports such as that on the Ministry for the Environment from late last year indicating that Ministers’ offices and the Prime Minister’s office were coordinating Government department publicity for election year, and can she confirm that it has always been part of Labour’s plan to shut down its critics and use taxpayers’ resources and Government departments to run its election campaign?

Hon ANNETTE KING: I certainly cannot. That is yet another one of Bill English’s malicious fabrications, which this House has been subjected to over many weeks.

Hon Bill English: Is it a malicious fabrication that the Electoral Finance Act led to a decision yesterday that an MP’s newsletter probably breaches the Act, and if an MP’s newsletter breaches the Act, then probably every press release put out in Parliament breaches the Act; and what will she do about that, given that it is her legislation, which has been designed to shut down anyone who criticises Labour?

Hon ANNETTE KING: Can I say in respect of that issue that the ACT member concerned did exactly the right thing in seeking clarification. It would depend what a member puts in his or her newsletter. A newsletter is not open slather; it is not able to be used to electioneer just because it is called a newsletter. That member did the right thing and I suggest that Bill English follows her example.

Hon Bill English: Can the Minister remind the House whether 4 months after the Electoral Act 1993 was passed—which was the last time the electoral law was revised—the following things happened, as have happened this year: a ruling that the Government had breached its own law; two high-profile cases of the Government’s party president getting the law absolutely wrong; and a Government Minister issuing a press release saying that the law is an ass and needs a serious and urgent rewrite, as Minister Peter Dunne issued today?

Hon ANNETTE KING: No, I cannot recall exactly what happened after the 1993 Act was brought into force, but I am advised that every amendment that we have ever had to the Electoral Act has led to problems in terms of interpretation. It does take some time for things to settle down and I expect the same will happen with this Act.

Hon Bill English: Why would anyone believe that a committee of all parties would bring about changes to this law, when we had a committee of all parties called Parliament all last year, where all the issues that have now turned out to be very difficult were raised with Labour and with that Minister and she refused to make any changes whatsoever, and when those parties that supported her in the legislation have now discovered they did not understand the law and are now trapped and paralysed by it as well?

Hon ANNETTE KING: Unfortunately, the member constantly makes things up. Obviously, I was not the Minister of Justice throughout the year when the bill was being debated. Also, the member said that absolutely no changes were accepted; I would ask him to speak to Christopher Finlayson, as some of his amendments were accepted. This is the second thing the member has got wrong. Unfortunately, he has a habit of making things up in this Parliament.

Hon Bill English: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. Last week we had a discussion about the Standing Order that prevents the use of epithets and other discrediting statements in the answers to questions. I pointed out at that time that it was becoming a habit of the Government. Of course, Parliament can tolerate some of that, but not when it becomes a consistent feature of every answer, as it has been from this Minister.

Hon ANNETTE KING: Speaking to the point of order—

Madam SPEAKER: No, I can rule on this; it is all right. The member has a good point and I will be listening very carefully to both questions and answers, which are covered by the Standing Orders.

Immunisation—Meningococcal B

4. LESLEY SOPER (Labour) to the Minister of Health: Why has the Government ended the meningococcal B mass immunisation campaign?

Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Minister of Health): The answer is simple: there are now fewer cases of meningococcal B disease. At its peak there were 370 cases per year. Last year that had reduced to just 47. As a result of this dramatic reduction, expert clinical advice was that there was no longer a need for a mass immunisation campaign. Meningococcal B disease is insidious: it can kill, maim, and leave permanently damaged those who contract it. The meningococcal campaign is an example of a health service reacting to, and successfully taking action on, a serious matter.

Lesley Soper: Do the clinical results of the vaccination programme support the decision to intervene?

Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: Yes. There is clear evidence that the vaccination campaign reduced and curtailed the meningococcal B epidemic. That means dozens of New Zealand children now have limbs and have escaped brain damage, who would not have if the battle had not been fought and won. To quote expert Dr Nikki Turner: “The disease was only very slowing waning when the vaccine was introduced. If we’d not used the vaccine, we would have had a lot more children with the disease while we were waiting for the rates of infection to drop.”

Sue Kedgley: Will the Minister commit himself to releasing all of the official data on the meningococcal vaccine and its implementation, so that we can get beyond the spin and allow independent researchers to assess whether it was effective, why 46 fully immunised children developed the disease and some died, why the number of deaths from meningitis has not declined since the vaccine was rolled out, whether it was wise to target a million children rather than at-risk groups, and also how many serious adverse effects have occurred as a result of the vaccine?

Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: To take the first of those questions, there is, I understand, a comprehensive peer-reviewed study shortly to be released on the campaign, and it does show that the estimated disease rate was 3.7 times higher in the unvaccinated group than in the vaccinated group, and that the vaccine had an overall effectiveness rate of some 73 percent.

Sue Kedgley: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I thank the Minister for his answer, but the question asked whether he would commit himself to releasing all of the official data.

Madam SPEAKER: I have to remind the member, as I have done in the past—and not only that member but other members—that a supplementary question is normally one supplementary question. There were several questions there, and therefore the Minister had the choice as to which one he answered.

Violent Crime—Increase

5. SIMON POWER (National—Rangitikei) to the Minister of Justice: What is she doing about a rate of increase in violent crime that now places violent crime at the highest level ever in this country’s history?

Hon ANNETTE KING (Minister of Justice): The Government is undertaking a wide range of activities to address violence in our society. Violence can be divided into two categories: domestic violence and non-domestic violence. Action has been taken to address both, but there is a current emphasis on domestic violence. That is because the increase in violence was almost entirely driven by the increase in recorded domestic violence, which was 31.5 percent compared with the increase in non-domestic violence of 1.4 percent.

Simon Power: Can she confirm that the primary question was the same one put by the Hon Phil Goff in this House on 11 October 1994, when violent offences numbered 44,580, and can she confirm also that by 1999 this figure had dropped by 11 percent, only to rise under Labour by another 43.6 percent to 56,983 offences in 2007, which was actually the “highest level ever” in this country’s history?

Hon ANNETTE KING: It is fair to say that violence in New Zealand has been rising over many years; in fact, violence has been rising in most countries over many years. But I say to the member that, in the last decade, the highest number for the most violent crime, which is murder, occurred in 1997.

Simon Power: How can she claim that Labour is doing something about violent crime, when statistics released today from her ministry show that since 1999 the average length of prison sentences for violent offences has fallen by 8.5 percent, including 11 percent shorter sentences for indecent assault, 17.5 percent shorter sentences for aggravated robbery, 7.5 percent shorter sentences for assault by a male on a female, and 17.6 percent shorter sentences for assault on a child?

Hon ANNETTE KING: The decision on the length of a sentence—as that member, as a former lawyer, well knows—is not in the hands of the Government. In fact, it is made by the sentencing judge at the time, who takes into account all circumstances. But I can assure the member that in relation to violence in New Zealand—particularly as the member is more interested in non-domestic violence than he is in domestic violence; he does not seem to think that domestic violence is so important—we have increased the number—

Simon Power: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. The Minister is better than that. She will know that I will take offence at any statement that might be taken to mean that I view domestic violence as somehow less serious than any other form of violence.

Madam SPEAKER: Yes, I agree. Would the Minister please withdraw and apologise.

Hon ANNETTE KING: I raised domestic violence and non—

Madam SPEAKER: Order!

Hon ANNETTE KING: I am answering the question.

Madam SPEAKER: No. I have asked for a withdrawal and apology, which is what I heard the member ask for.

Hon ANNETTE KING: I withdraw and apologise.

Madam SPEAKER: Thank you.

Hon ANNETTE KING: The reason why I highlight domestic violence is that the majority of the increase in the statistics of violence in New Zealand has been related to domestic violence. It is a serious issue for New Zealanders. In the last decade—for which the member was quoting figures and trying to highlight that somehow the Government is responsible for all this—there has been over a doubling of the number of reported cases of domestic violence, and there has also been over a doubling of prosecutions against domestic violence. So let us recognise that the issue has been taken seriously in New Zealand, that there is prosecution, and that there is certainly a concentration on it by many agencies. To say that nothing is happening in relation to addressing violence is quite untrue, and I say to the member that many things are being done by this Government to address violence, both domestic and non-domestic.

Hon Phil Goff: Can the Minister confirm that, quite contrary to what Mr Power has just said, the 2002 Sentencing Act considerably increased sentences for the worst and most violent criminals, including broadening the scope of preventive detention—indefinite detention—putting a minimum sentence of 17 years for aggravated murder, and allowing sentences of up to 30 years in the worst cases?

Hon ANNETTE KING: Yes, I can confirm that. And I can confirm that the Minister of Justice then was the member who asked the question, who followed a Minister who had not taken those issues seriously and had not changed the sentencing of our most violent criminals.

Simon Power: Is she surprised by the vicious and unprovoked attack on six tourists on the streets of central Christchurch, which resulted in knife wounds and broken bones, when since 1999 that area has experienced a 23 percent increase in intimidation and threats, a 26 percent increase in grievous assaults, and a 43 percent increase in serious assaults?

Hon ANNETTE KING: I am not surprised; I am horrified at those sorts of attacks on tourists and New Zealanders in the streets of our country. Among the things we have to face up to in this country is some of the causes of street violence. It has been pointed out in the latest crime statistics that alcohol was at the basis of most crimes in New Zealand. It is an issue that this Parliament needs to reconsider, in my view, at some time in the future. Certainly, as one who did not vote to lower the drinking age, I think that at some stage we will have to face up to the fact that there is a problem in this country in relation to alcohol and violence in our homes and on the streets.

Gerry Brownlee: How bad have things become when the Mayor of Christchurch was able to say at the start of this year that “Walking around the streets after midnight is not something I’d recommend to people. It’s crazy out there.”, after an analysis of crime statistics per head of population showed that Christchurch central has the country’s highest rates for violent crimes, including all types of assault, sexual attacks, burglary, car theft, and property damage; and what is she doing to ensure that her Government does something about helping the people who have to live in that zone?

Hon ANNETTE KING: The Government has taken quite a number of measures, including increasing the number of police staff we have on the streets, and working with local authorities in terms of what they can do in relation to liquor bans and stopping alcohol from being sold at all hours of the day and night. But the Government works in partnership on these issues, because everybody knows that not one Minister, or one Government, or one Parliament on its own will address the issue of violence in our homes or on our streets. It becomes a joint problem for all of us to work on.

Gerry Brownlee: If the Minister genuinely believes what she has just said, why are 24-hour alcohol sales available from so many outlets in Christchurch, and why has her Government granted 363 off-licences in Christchurch—more than twice the number available in Wellington—and will she advance legislation around conditions of licence that might give some relief to city councils and residents living in these difficult parts of New Zealand?

Hon ANNETTE KING: I say to the member that if he were prepared to help me with that, and if the Opposition were prepared to work with the Government on that, I am certain that we could tackle the issue of outlets, sale, and availability of alcohol. I have not seen any great desire for that sort of assistance to be given to the Government to date, but if there is a view in this House that we ought to be doing something about outlets—and Christchurch does have a particular problem, but it is not on its own—then I think this Parliament ought to look at doing that.

Nicky Wagner: What does the Minister say to the scores of concerned citizens who have called my office in the last week, worried about the recent spate of violence in Christchurch; citizens who include parents who have forbidden kids to use their local park or to walk on the streets, people working in dairies who are worried about being robbed, and elderly women who are too frightened to turn on the lights in their houses in case they attract offenders?

Hon ANNETTE KING: I would tell that member to say to her constituents that they should not get things out of proportion or be scared into believing that Christchurch is not a safe place to live in. By any comparison internationally, it certainly is. They can take assurance from the fact that this Government, along with New Zealand First in terms of our agreement, has recruited and is recruiting many more additional police to be on our streets. Christchurch is getting its fair share of that police resource, including some of the 250 community constables with high visibility—frontline police, I say, whereas some in the National Party think community constables do not constitute frontline police. That is part of what this Government has been providing.

Ron Mark: What sort of message is sent to young, violent thugs when a 15-year-old who has taken part in a beating of a man to the point where the police thought they had a body on their hands, and who did the majority of the damage to the victim by repeatedly kicking and stomping on the victim’s head, is not sent by the Youth Court judge to the District Court for sentencing, as is provided for under the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act, because in the judge’s words it “was his 15th birthday when the event was going down.”, which effectively resulted in his being given a far more lenient sentence in the Youth Court, presumably as a birthday present?

Hon ANNETTE KING: Although the member may find that obnoxious, I am not prepared to criticise a decision of a Youth Court judge. Certainly, it is not my role to do that, and I was not there to hear the evidence, or what was given, in terms of that case. I believe that in the main our judges do a very good job, and we are well served by the judiciary in New Zealand.

Ron Mark: Has the Minister read the sentencing notes of one of the two accomplices of the aforesaid young person, in which the Youth Court judge states that most of the damage was inflicted by the 15-year-old, and can the Minister explain to the House why, after making repeated requests for the sentencing notes of the Youth Court judge, New Zealand First has been unable to get those notes, and after requests to Judge Becroft, the Principal Youth Court Judge, we have still not received those notes after at least a year; can the Minister offer a comment as to how it serves the best interests of the youth justice system to have the youth justice system hiding behind the secrecy laws?

Madam SPEAKER: I am sorry, but the member has been warned before not to give speeches in the guise of questions. I would ask that in future the member Mr Mark ask his question succinctly.

Hon ANNETTE KING: No, I cannot give the member an answer, mainly because of the principle of judicial independence in New Zealand, whereby I cannot direct a judge to provide that member with sentencing notes—or with anything else, for that matter. I think we really do need to uphold that judicial independence, so that we do not have politicians telling judges what to do, or, for that matter, politicians telling the police what to do. I think that is an important constitutional principle in New Zealand, and I am sure that the member understands that only too well.

Ron Mark: I seek leave to table the sentencing notes of one Dylan Raymond Shannon Corbin in the District Court in Christchurch.

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

Ron Mark: I seek leave to table a letter from my office to the registrar of the Youth Court, seeking the sentencing notes of that 15-year-old.

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

Ron Mark: I seek leave to table a blank page, which represents the answer we got.

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

Ron Mark: I seek leave to table a letter to Judge Becroft, asking for an explanation of the way—

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

Ron Mark: I seek leave to table the reply from Judge Becroft, which totally missed the point.

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

Ron Mark: And I seek leave to table a further letter to Judge Becroft, pointing out that he totally missed the point.

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

Genetic Modification, Royal Commission—Government Response

6. JEANETTE FITZSIMONS (Co-Leader—Green) to the Minister for the Environment: Does he agree with his predecessor the Hon Marian Hobbs’ response to the Royal Commission on Genetic Modification in which she said the Government accepted “the broad outline of the Royal Commission’s strategy of preserving opportunities while proceeding with caution”?

Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Minister for the Environment): Yes.

Jeanette Fitzsimons: Can the Minister confirm that after 7 long years the Government has implemented only 20 of the 49 recommendations of the commission, as revealed in a research report released today by the independent thinktank Sustainable Future?

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: I have received a copy of the report. I am advised that the report may be overly conservative in its assessment of how the Government has implemented the royal commission’s recommendations. However, I have asked officials to provide me with a substantive briefing on it. I am also advised that the report may not fully reflect New Zealand’s current regulatory environment. The regime for assessing applications for GM research in New Zealand is one of the toughest in the world, and this is probably reflected in the fact that no applications have been received for conditional or full release of GM organisms. In fact, a number of New Zealand researchers are doing that experimentation outside the country because of our tough regime.

Jill Pettis: Can the Minister advise the House what recommendations the Government has addressed?

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: I am advised that the Government has addressed the recommendations of the royal commission that it is possible to address at this time—for example, establishing a Bioethics Council, amending the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act to allow a conditional release, enhancing the role and processes of institutional biological safety committees, extending the ministerial call-in powers to include cultural, ethical, and spiritual considerations, developing a long-term biotechnology strategy for New Zealand, and the list goes on. There are, of course, recommendations that cannot be addressed at this point in time—for example, an application of conditional or full release of a GM organism would be required in order to initiate a number of the recommendations.

Jeanette Fitzsimons: Can the Minister confirm that all of the commission’s recommendations, which were designed to preserve opportunities for non - GE growers to continue to produce what their markets demand, without being compromised by the release of GE organisms, are among the 29 that have not been implemented; if so, will he commit to doing something about it?

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: I will take the member’s word, but I am not absolutely certain on the question of 29 recommendations. No, I am not prepared to do so. What would be required for some of those recommendations to be implemented would be a successful application. I am not prepared to initiate that sort of application, or to guarantee its success.

Jeanette Fitzsimons: In the event of a release, how are bee-keepers supposed to know where and when to locate their hives in order that their 10,000 tonnes of honey produced each year remain GE free, when there is no public information about where such crops might be grown, no systems to keep crops separate or to label anything, and great confusion over where liability will lie in the event of contamination; and is the Minister happy to see decimated this $58 million export industry, which is already threatened by the varroa bee mite and the biosecurity amendment legislation?

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: The answer to the last part of the question is no. As to what I am prepared to do with it, I am prepared to continue to work closely with my colleague the leader of the Greens in order to implement our cooperation agreement.

Social Development, Ministry—Non-governmental Organisations

7. JUDITH COLLINS (National—Clevedon) to the Minister for Social Development and Employment: Is she confident that all moneys paid by the Ministry of Social Development to non-governmental organisations in the 2006-07 financial year were used appropriately; if not, why not?

Hon RUTH DYSON (Minister for Social Development and Employment): The responsible Minister for Social Development and Employment reports to Parliament annually on the results achieved through funding distributed to non-governmental organisations. The report for the year in question was tabled by my predecessor, the Hon Steve Maharey, in September last year. In addition, all ministry contracts with non-governmental organisations include reporting requirements to ensure ongoing monitoring of service delivery. Providers are accountable for their expenditure and must have audited financial records. Therefore, I am confident that the systems are robust and complied with by the responsible Minister, the ministry, and non-governmental organisations.

Judith Collins: Is she confident that funding provided by the Ministry of Social Development to the Combined Beneficiaries Union in the 2006-07 and 2005-06 financial years, funding that made up almost 40 percent of the total of the Combined Beneficiaries Union’s revenue, was spent appropriately; if not, why not?

Hon RUTH DYSON: I am aware that a number of allegations and concerns have been raised internally within the Combined Beneficiaries Union, and that the Ministry of Social Development has implemented the appropriate investigations. To the best of my knowledge no inappropriate use has taken place. If the member has any additional information I would be very keen to receive it, because like her I share the view that taxpayers’ money should be used appropriately.

Judith Collins: Can she confirm that the serious allegations she referred to were made against the office manager of the Combined Beneficiaries Union regarding his misuse of this taxpayer funding to pay his personal bills, including dental examinations, cosmetic dentistry, tenpin bowling, and parking infringements, and how is it appropriate for this person to be living the life of Riley while beneficiaries struggle every day?

Hon RUTH DYSON: I am aware that allegations have been made about the person within the Combined Beneficiaries Union and that those allegations have been investigated appropriately. But I do not share the member’s view that it is all right to damage the good name of a person who does not have the opportunity to have the protection that we do within Parliament in the same way as she did against a man whom she made allegations about in Parliament last month, which turned out to be totally without substance. I do not recommend doing that to an individual from within this House.

Judith Collins: Is the Minister then aware that these allegations include that this money was illegally spent on car registration and repairs on the manager’s girlfriend’s car, a microwave for his girlfriend, and accommodation for himself at two different hotels on the same night, and what action will she be taking to ensure that organisations funded by her ministry are using that funding appropriately?

Hon RUTH DYSON: I will just repeat that I am aware of allegations that have been made, and I am confident that the ministry has investigated them appropriately. Last month Ms Collins launched a particularly vicious attack against the Ministry of Social Development in the same way as she is doing, implying an action, today. That allegation turned out to be totally without substance, and I would strongly recommend against the member doing it again. She owes the ministry an apology for that, and it may well turn out to be exactly the same situation today.

Judith Collins: Why did it taken an allegation of misappropriation for her ministry to request the Combined Beneficiaries Union to undertake conviction checks of its staff, put in place processes and procedures to prevent future allegations of misappropriation, and keep records of cases for which funds were applied—surely these are standard procedures that any ministry should be requesting be put in place before it pays out taxpayer funding in this way?

Hon RUTH DYSON: As the member and her colleague from Nelson will know, it is possible to have a conviction and still remain in employment. [Interruption]

Madam SPEAKER: Well, that is one each, so let us get back to asking just the question and giving the answer without the innuendo.

Judith Collins: From what the Minister said today it sounds as though she is not aware of some of the allegations, but has the Minister then seen this pile of documents, including invoices, as alleged, for the grocery shopping, the dental records, and the car registration; if she has not, would she, in fact, receive those and do something with them other than the personal attacks that she has just indulged herself in?

Hon RUTH DYSON: In respect of the last point, actually stating a fact is not offensive, nor is it a personal attack. I was stating a fact—that it is acceptable, in a civilised society, for a person to have a conviction and remain in employment, as was the case in the example the member raised herself in her supplementary question. I have not personally seen the papers. I do not think it is necessary for me to personally investigate, because I am satisfied with the quality of investigation undertaken by the ministry, which is aware of the allegations the member has referred to.

Judith Collins: I seek leave of the House to table a report on the state of the Combined Beneficiaries Union accounts.

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

Judith Collins: I seek leave to table the Ministry of Social Development’s letter to the Combined Beneficiaries Union stating that it was very unhappy with the situation.

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

Central North Island Forests Iwi Collective—Resources

8. TE URUROA FLAVELL (Māori Party—Waiariki) to the Minister in charge of Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations: What are the water and geothermal resources that are referred to in the proposed settlement with the central North Island iwi collective?

Hon SHANE JONES (Associate Minister in charge of Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations) on behalf of the Minister in charge of Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations: Although we have not reached a deed of settlement at this point, the terms of agreement signed on 22 February focus on forest and forest land, while providing the opportunity to discuss additional cultural and commercial redress.

Te Ururoa Flavell: Are the issues in respect of water and geothermal resources also under the definition of “cultural redress”?

Hon SHANE JONES: As I said, the Crown has received a terms of agreement. Obviously, what the other party seeks to enjoy as redress will be teased out in the inevitable negotiations.

Te Ururoa Flavell: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. The issue of cultural redress was raised by the Minister in respect of cultural elements within the settlement. I asked for a definition of it. I am sure that as a part of the negotiations the Minister should have a closer idea about what the definition might be. That was the gist of the question.

Madam SPEAKER: As I have explained on several occasions to the member in the past, you cannot require a specific answer to a question. If you do, if you wish that, and other members do, please get the Standing Orders changed. It would help me immensely. The Minister did actually address the question, if not to the member’s satisfaction.

Dave Hereora: What reports has the Minister seen on reaction to recent progress on the central North Island iwi collective negotiations?

Hon SHANE JONES: The signing of the terms of agreement and the receipt by the Crown of the proposal from the central North Island iwi collective have been welcomed enthusiastically by the iwi involved. The strong support for the process outlined by Mr Flavell in his statement to the press must be noted. Naturally, we also welcome support from Aotearoa tuatahi, New Zealand First. It is important to note that since the terms of agreement were signed in February, Te Pūmautanga o Te Arawa has agreed to work with the collective. All iwi concerned should be congratulated.

Te Ururoa Flavell: What come-back will other tribes have to the water and geothermal resources if they have claims in respect of water and geothermal resources, when these same resources are being included in a proposed comprehensive settlement in which they have no part at this point?

Hon SHANE JONES: The terms of agreement outline the expectations of one party to the negotiations. The negotiations lie between the Crown and the Māori tribes, not the Māori Party. The full import, extent, and meaning of the redress will be teased out in the context of these negotiations, of which Te Pūmautanga o Te Arawa are now a part, but it would be wrong to pre-empt the content or final direction of those negotiations as a consequence of a question from the Māori Party.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Has the Minister received any reports of support in this House for the process that Dr Cullen has undertaken, and do they include the Māori Party, because there are many involved in Māoridom in the central North Island who believe that this is their best opportunity ever to have this matter resolved with some sense of expediency?

Hon SHANE JONES: It is a matter of fact that Mr Flavell was present at the Tūwharetoa hui where this suggestion, this proposal, was put forward. We have decided to conclude that that represents his support, unlike the actions of the party’s co-leader Tariana Turia, who is about to apologise to Ngāti Porou for insulting them over their seabed and foreshore settlement.

Emissions Trading Scheme—Carbon Charges Exemptions

9. PETER BROWN (Deputy Leader—NZ First) to the Minister responsible for Climate Change Issues: Which transport operators, if any, will be exempt from carbon charges under the Government’s proposed emissions trading scheme?

Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Minister for the Environment) on behalf of the Minister responsible for Climate Change Issues: The emissions trading scheme will be phased in over time to cover all gases and all sectors. Oil companies are amongst those that will be required to account for their emissions. We would expect those costs to be passed on to operators in the transport sector operating in New Zealand.

Peter Brown: Can I take it from that answer that coastal shipping will not be exempt; if that is so, at the current activity levels, can the Minister give the House an approximate idea of what the coastal shipping industry would pay by way of carbon charges?

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Yes, the member can take that understanding; my understanding is that the cost will be in the order of $10 a container. Of course, the introduction of the emissions trading scheme will mean that the relative position of coastal shipping vis-à-vis road transport will be greatly enhanced.

Louisa Wall: Kia ora, Madam Speaker. How will the emissions trading scheme help New Zealand to reduce its emissions?

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: The scheme is a means by which New Zealand can meet its obligations under Kyoto in a very flexible and cost-effective way—one that is best both for businesses and for households.

Peter Brown: Is the Minister aware that our coastal shipping competes against foreign operators in so much as their vessels carry coastal cargo whilst they are traversing New Zealand waters, and can he advise whether foreign vessels will be up for carbon charges under the proposed emissions trading scheme?

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: It is my understanding—and obviously I was relatively recently briefed on this matter—that, as is the case with GST, they would not be. But I am also advised that the member concerned is working very well with my colleague the Minister of Transport on the coastal shipping strategy in order to try to rebalance some of those relativities. I will just say that $10 per container is a pretty minor part of the difference in costs faced.

Peter Brown: I would just like the Minister to confirm that cargo that goes from one port in New Zealand to another port in New Zealand and is carried by a New Zealand coastal ship will cost more than the same container, or whatever it is, that goes from the same port in New Zealand to another port in New Zealand when it is carried by a foreign ship; do I have a correct understanding there, and if I have, then what is the advantage in that for New Zealand?

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: As that member is aware—and is much more aware than most members of the House are—that is already the case to a much greater extent than is involved in the emissions trading scheme.

Question No. 10 to Minister

PANSY WONG (National): I seek leave to defer asking this question until the Minister of Immigration is in the House next.

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

Immigration System—Policy

10. PANSY WONG (National) to the Minister of Immigration: Does he stand by his statement that New Zealand’s immigration system is tough and the policy is “we choose them, they don’t choose us”?

Hon SHANE JONES (Associate Minister of Immigration) on behalf of the Minister of Immigration: Yes.

Pansy Wong: Was this the reason for the introduction of the new global investor and professional investor policies last year, with investment thresholds of $20 million and $10 million, which have not attracted a single application?

Hon SHANE JONES: The member is correct that those two policies have now been turned into programmes, but they were introduced late last year, and we need to allow time to pass, because the spending of that degree of money—$10 million and $20 million—requires judiciousness.

Pansy Wong: It’s going to take a long time—

Madam SPEAKER: Would the member just ask the question.

Pansy Wong: What is the logic that leads the Minister to think that taking a previous $2 million investment threshold that attracted just three successful applications, and raising it to $20 million and $10 million, would somehow attract a lot more applications?

Hon SHANE JONES: In 2005 there was a policy whereby $2 million would be deposited with the Government, with a return equal to the rate of inflation. As a consequence of the necessary funds having been increased, it is not necessary to constrain the destination of that money into Government-held stock.

Pansy Wong: Why did the Minister feel there was a need to cap the number of investors at 800 a year, when Labour’s failed investor category policy previously attracted just three successful applications in 2005 and 2006 and when the new global and professional investor policies have not attracted a single application?

Hon SHANE JONES: There are actually three segments to the policy the member refers to. In the third policy, where it is necessary for $2.5 million to be served up, we have had 15 expressions of interest. In respect of the other policies, it takes time before a person decides to commit to investing $20 million. Time will tell.

Pansy Wong: How does the Minister think this policy will be described by the chairman of the association of immigration consultants, given that he has described the policy that attracted three successful applications as a total failure?

Hon SHANE JONES: I have not seen that report, but I look forward to that particular member and his ilk being regulated in the new immigration bill. I record for the House the fact that during the late 1990s there was a scheme where one could use $1 million, it got on to a merry-go-round, people ended up in court, and they were responsible.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Could the Minister advise the House as to whether it is his view or the Government’s view that if we had got into a savings regime many, many years ago—decades ago—we would not be reliant upon these so-called overseas investment categories or classes, and that half the reason why we did not is that the National Party opposed such measures?

Madam SPEAKER: I do not know about the second part of the question, but the first part is in order.

Hon SHANE JONES: It is a matter of fact that we have a deficit in relation to our savings. We wait with bated breath to see what the other side of the House is ever going to say about that constructively.

Pansy Wong: Why should the public and the immigration industry have any confidence in Labour’s ability to run the investors’ category given that its changes to the previous National Government policy have seen the number of successful applicants drop from over 1,300 in 2001-02, to just three in 2005-06, and to zero in 2007-08 under the new global and professional investor categories?

Hon SHANE JONES: As I said, this policy has been around since late 2007, and whether or not the member agrees with it, people require time to undertake due diligence and express the usual level of prudence that we would imagine would be shown when one is spending $10 million or $20 million. For the category with a $2.5 million sum of money, expressions of interest are flowing. No one thought it would be instantaneous, given the $20 million threshold.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Has the Minister got any reports that at one point in our recent history Canada, and Montreal in particular, had more Chinese millionaires than any other country, except that the millionaires all had the same million—a revolving-door policy that the National Party had duplicated here in New Zealand, and which Pansy Wong knows all about?

Madam SPEAKER: Again, the first part of the question is in order.

Pansy Wong: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I take exception to knowing anything about revolving-door policies. Unlike New Zealand First, I am actually very naive about those scams.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: It is not often that a member of Parliament gets up and displays his or her ignorance, but the member just said that she had no idea what the party she joined, the National Party, was doing on immigration when it had its million-dollar investor categories. If National members can share that, then it just shows how perversely stupid they have become.

Madam SPEAKER: No, the member has taken exception. Would the Minister please just withdraw and apologise.

Hon SHANE JONES: The rules concerning the—

Madam SPEAKER: Would the Minister please just withdraw and apologise. The member took exception to what you said.

Hon SHANE JONES: I withdraw and apologise.

Hon Darren Hughes: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I do not think that Ms Wong had taken offence at what Mr Jones had said.

Madam SPEAKER: My apologies. Would whoever offended whom please apologise so that we can move on.

Hon Paul Swain: On the basis of that, Madam Speaker, I think the Minister should withdraw his withdrawal and apology.

Madam SPEAKER: No, I am sorry. If the Rt Hon Winston Peters gave offence, would he please just withdraw and apologise so we can move on. The House has become somewhat sensitive.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I withdraw and apologise.

Madam SPEAKER: Thank you.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. Can I say with respect that this is plain ridiculous. I have given you some facts of history here, and you are asking me to withdraw the fact that I have mentioned. It is well known that that happened—that within 1 day the money would be in a bank account and out of it again within 24 hours.

Madam SPEAKER: The point was, as I understand it, that the member thought it was personal reflection upon her being associated with an illegal scheme. That is why in her statement she requested that it be withdrawn and apologised for. The member has done that.

Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I think we are at some risk of having a problem here, because what the Rt Hon Winston Peters did was indicate that something occurred that was widely known at the time—it was well reported in newspapers—and it was as a result of a policy introduced by the National Government. For the member to say that she was ignorant does not mean, I think, that Mr Peters should have been required to apologise. She said she did not know what was going on. She was probably the only member in the whole House not to know, but I do not think Mr Peters should be required to apologise for the fact that Pansy Wong had not followed the facts in New Zealand.

Simon Power: I think the point here is that the member Pansy Wong took offence at what Mr Peters said. On that basis the Standing Orders require that he should withdraw and apologise. The implication that the Minister makes in respect of knowledge or otherwise is immaterial to the fact that offence was taken.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: The practice was not illegal. That is the very criticism I have. It was facilitated by their ignorance of how to run a proper immigration policy. The money could be in one person’s account one day, then it could be in the next applicant’s account the next day. It was not illegal. So what is the member complaining about and why have I been asked to withdraw and apologise?

Simon Power: Because she took offence.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: So what?

Hon Trevor Mallard: Adding further to the member’s point, Madam Speaker, I think you in your summary suggested that he suggested that she was somehow involved. I think there is a definite difference between awareness and involvement, especially when something is not illegal because it was designed that way by National. [Interruption] Well it was designed by National and given effect to in that way, and if that member does not know that, then he is nearly as naive as the member sitting behind him.

Pansy Wong: The Rt Hon Winston Peters started with a statement along the lines of “in Canada, full of Chinese migrants” and then he made an insinuation that scams were going on, and my name was attached to that whole insinuation. I am deeply offended that another Minister then started to excuse the right honourable Minister by using a very obvious tactic that has been used for a long time in the House to reflect on Asian migrants and Asian New Zealanders in New Zealand.

Hon Trevor Mallard: I now take a lot of offence at what that member is saying. It is quite clear from the record that a former Minister in a National Government, Mr Delamere, was involved in something that, in the end, was found not to be illegal. He had been involved in the design of that scheme. To say that it is somehow a reflection on the people he duped, the people he took money from, and it is a reflection on Asians to say that people in this House should tell the truth about what went on is, I think, very, very offensive. It is far too politically correct to say, as the member Pansy Wong appears to want to say, that Asians were not involved in rorts. They were.

Madam SPEAKER: Would the member just make his point of order.

Hon Bill English: This is ridiculous.

Madam SPEAKER: It is becoming ridiculous. I do agree with the Hon Bill English. I will look at the Hansard and work out who said what to whom. I just make the observation that at the moment the House appears to be going through a particularly sensitive phase whereby people take offence at implications whether or not they are intended. I ask members to be very clear about what they say when they are asking questions and making replies.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Point of order—

Madam SPEAKER: We are moving on. I think we have had enough discussion on this matter. I am reserving whether the member should have withdrawn and apologised. I need to look at the whole record.

Simon Power: He did.

Madam SPEAKER: The member did. I appreciate that he did that and that he has now raised that larger issue. Thank you.

Hon Annette King: Has the Minister seen any reports on an immigration policy introduced—

Ron Mark: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I am sorry, Madam Speaker, but we did not actually get to the Minister’s answer to that question.

Madam SPEAKER: If the member wishes to rephrase his question—I think we have all forgotten what it was—in a way that does not give offence, and just ask the question, we can then move on.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. With the greatest respect to you, I am not going to be told that I cannot ask a question wherein I put out there the facts known by every member of Parliament—except one, apparently.

Madam SPEAKER: I did not say that, Mr Peters.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Secondly, I will not tolerate everybody getting so sensitive that the moment members’ feelings are hurt, whether or not that is justifiable, they can have you require the other member to withdraw and apologise. It is just wrong. It is not parliamentary. You will ruin the whole House if you carry on in that way, in view of these rulings. So I put it to you now—

Madam SPEAKER: Please be seated. I have made that point, but the fact remains that if someone does think there is a personal reflection, then there has to be a withdrawal and apology—that is the rule. Members may or may not agree with that, and they always have the opportunity to change it. I think those who are listening to this will make their own judgments on that, as well. Would the member please just put his question.

Hon Bill English: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I think we just heard a threat from someone who is not just a member of the House but a senior member of the House. I know that on occasions when I have got a bit heated about things and have made that kind of approach to the Speaker, it has been dealt with pretty severely. In fact, I think on one occasion I might have been thrown out for it. I do not think there should be any exception for Mr Peters. He said to you directly: “If you keep making those sorts of rulings, it will ruin the House.” That is understood by everybody here as a threat of disorder because he disagrees with your rulings. That is unacceptable.

Hon Darren Hughes: Speaking to the point of order—

Madam SPEAKER: Well, it is members’ day, so you can take as long as you like.

Hon Darren Hughes: Madam Speaker, Mr English’s point might have some validity if he had not just finished barking at you—as soon as he came back to the House—to fix this problem. We let that go because you had just made comments about our needing to get past sensitivities so that we can get back to the business, but it is a bit rich for the deputy leader of the National Party to interject on the Speaker and bark an order at her, then, as soon as another member says something he does not like, to take great objection to that. I think we should just get on with question No. 11.

Madam SPEAKER: And that is what I rule. We move on. Would the member please ask his question.

Pansy Wong: I seek leave to table the answer to a question for written answer that shows that the category for which the Minister was so proud to have 12 expressions of interest—

Madam SPEAKER: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? Yes, there is objection. Supplementary question, the Rt Hon Winston Peters?

Pansy Wong: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker.

Madam SPEAKER: We still have supplementary questions. You may put a point of order after the supplementary questions, which is the normal practice. Are there any further supplementary questions? No. Well, the member can make her point of order, if there are no further supplementary questions.

Pansy Wong: I seek the leave of the House to table a Cabinet paper that shows that the 2005 investment policy is attracting minimal interest.

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

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Supplementary question—

Hon Tau Henare: He’s just found one.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: What, a doozy like Tau?

Hon Tau Henare: At least I’m not anti-Asian.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Oh no, but Tau is anti-work—that is what he is. That guy was never ever going to talk to the National Party or be any part of it. Do members remember that?

Madam SPEAKER: The interjections are starting to create disorder. Please, let us have the question.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: What reports does the Minister have that gave the Government the criteria for the policy it now has in place that learnt from the mistakes made when we had a million-dollar investment category with no checks on whether the million dollars was particular to that applicant, or applied to other applicants as well?

Hon SHANE JONES: I can point out to the member that during the 1990s a host of investors fell victim to a range of scams. He has referred to one of them.

Pansy Wong: I seek leave to table a statement from the chairman of the New Zealand Association for Migration and Investment that describes the previous 2005 investment policy as a total failure.

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

Pansy Wong: I seek leave to table the written answer from the Minister that confirms that no residence application has been—

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

Pansy Wong: I seek leave to table the answer to question for written answer No. 2744 (2008).

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

Unemployment Benefit—Reports

11. RUSSELL FAIRBROTHER (Labour) to the Minister for Social Development and Employment: What reports has she received on the number of New Zealanders receiving an unemployment benefit?

Hon RUTH DYSON (Minister for Social Development and Employment): In 1999 there were over 161,000 people on the unemployment benefit. That number is roughly equivalent to the population of Hamilton. There are now fewer than 20,000 people in receipt of an unemployment benefit. That number is less than the population of Masterton. That is a fantastic outcome for 8 years of a Labour-led Government.

Russell Fairbrother: What reports has the Minister received on the number of people on the domestic purposes benefit?

Hon RUTH DYSON: I have seen a report that indicates that the Labour-led Government is supporting more sole parents to get off benefits and into paid work. Since the introduction of the Working for Families package in 2004, the number of people on the domestic purposes benefit has fallen by nearly 13,000. That is the largest fall in the number receiving the domestic purposes benefit since it was introduced in 1973. That is quite a contrast to the rising number we saw in the 1990s.

Hon Tariana Turia: Can the Minister tell us whether she has any reports about the number of young Māori who are unemployed and under the age of 25 years?

Hon RUTH DYSON: I can certainly give the member, firstly, some figures, and, secondly, my assurance that I share her concern that despite the dramatic drop in the number of Māori unemployed, including young Māori unemployed, the numbers are still disproportionate to those for the rest of the population and are too high. Currently just over 7,000 Māori are on the unemployment benefit. That number has fallen from a staggering 44,000 in December 1999, so 37,000 Māori have moved off the unemployment benefit in those years.

Hon Tariana Turia: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. My supplementary question specifically asked about the number of young Māori, who make up the majority of the population. Can I have the figures for young Māori?

Madam SPEAKER: No. As the member well knows, one cannot expect a specific answer to a question, particularly to a supplementary question because no notice has been given to the Minister.

Barbara Stewart: Does the Minister have accurate figures for the number of teenagers aged between 15 and 19 who are receiving the unemployment benefit, and can she assure us that every effort is being made to ensure those young people find employment; if not, why not?

Hon RUTH DYSON: The number of under-20-year-olds on the unemployment benefit has dropped by 16,441, or 94 percent, since 1999, and has dropped by 493, or 31 percent, just in the past year. So at the end of March the total figure was 173. I give that member, as I have the member who asked the preceding question, my absolute commitment—a view shared by my ministerial colleagues and the Mayors Task Force for Jobs—to ensure that this investment remains in our young people, so that their futures will be brighter. That will continue.

Russell Fairbrother: What reports has she received on the reasons that people move off the unemployment benefit?

Hon RUTH DYSON: Not surprisingly, although it may be news to the National Party, the main reason for people leaving the unemployment benefit is to enter paid work. In the last 8 years, 8.8 percent of all unemployment benefit cancellations were the result of a transfer to the sickness benefit, and less than one-third of 1 percent of all unemployment benefit cancellations were the result of a transfer to the invalids benefit. Those figures should finally put to rest the accusation that the Opposition spokesperson on social welfare consistently makes that these outstanding figures for the reduction in those on the unemployment benefit are as a result of a transfer to another benefit. That is not true; they are the result of people moving into paid work.

Judith Collins: Why has she not done more to help the 60,000 working-age people who, according to the ministry’s own benefit fact sheets, have been on the unemployment benefit, sickness benefit, invalids benefit, or domestic purposes benefit for more than 10 years; and can she tell the House why the ministry no longer retains the benefit history of those long-term beneficiaries, as per her answer to written question No. 01522?

Hon RUTH DYSON: The number of people on the unemployment benefit has dropped dramatically—by 94 percent in the last 8 years. The number of people on the sickness benefit has dropped considerably, and the member should know that, tragically, a large number of people will be on the invalids benefit for a long period of time because they are seriously and permanently impaired. I support their having permanency in the only form of income they are able to receive.

Charities Commission—Registration Process

12. SANDRA GOUDIE (National—Coromandel) to the Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector: Is she satisfied with the Charities Commission’s process to register a charity; if so, why?

Hon RUTH DYSON (Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector): No. I have advised the chair of the Charities Commission that I expect to see a significant reduction in processing times from those currently being achieved, and in the size of the backlog of applications. I expect all complete applications for registrations that are received by the commission on or before 30 June of this year to be processed by the end of the year, and their charitable status to be backdated to 1 July.

Sandra Goudie: Why had the Charities Commission registered only 2,920 charities as at the end of February 2008—over 5,000 applications are currently waiting to be registered—when it had expected to complete 25,000 by now, and does that not prove that progress to date is woefully inadequate?

Hon RUTH DYSON: I completely agree, and that is why I answered the primary question in the way I did. I am satisfied that measures are in place to improve the performance, and the member can have my assurance that they are being very closely monitored.

Sandra Goudie: How can the Minister guarantee the tax-exempt status of the more than 5,000 applications currently waiting to be registered, when the registration process is reported to take around 140 days; and what will she do to ensure that legitimate not-for-profit charities are not suddenly landed with a tax bill?

Hon RUTH DYSON: I have two points in answer to the member’s question. First, her estimation of the processing time is a little exaggerated, but I still share the primary concern that she has expressed in her question, and I give this House an assurance that any applications that are received prior to 30 June of this year will be processed by the end of the year—that is my expectation—and, second, that the charitable status of those organisations will be backdated to 1 July.

Sandra Goudie: Is the process taking so long because the Charities Commission is spending so much time “weeding out” groups that use their tax-free funds for what the Minister wants to stop—that is, supposed political lobbying?

Hon RUTH DYSON: No, that is incorrect. My understanding is that very few organisations have become embroiled in the dispute about what their primary purpose is and what role advocacy plays in their activity. The legislation, and I personally, strongly support the right of organisations to be both charitable and have advocacy functions, but advocacy cannot be their primary purpose; it can be only part of their activity, to back up their primary purpose, which is to be charitable.

Russell Fairbrother: Why is the Government establishing a Charities Register?

Hon RUTH DYSON: Having a Charities Register is an important step towards protecting the reputation of charities and bolstering public trust. A Charities Register will provide consistent and detailed information about registered charities and the way they use resources. Members of the public will be able to search for information held on the register—for example, the name and address of a particular registered charity.

Sandra Goudie: How long will it take to register all of the applications if the estimated 25,000-plus charities apply for registration, and does she believe that, as one accountant calculated, with 41.2 applications being processed a week, it will take four decades?

Hon RUTH DYSON: It is my expectation that all applications received prior to the end of June will be processed by the end of the year, and those organisations will have their charitable status backdated to 1 July.

General Debate

General Debate

Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Minister for the Environment): I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business. I think that many members of the House will not be aware of the findings of the police, announced this afternoon, in respect of The Hollow Men alleged theft case. People will remember that the National members claimed repeatedly that someone had hacked into their computers, or stolen their emails from former leader Don Brash’s computer. The police have concluded today that this did not occur. The police press release states: “The investigation has concluded that no unauthorised or unlawful breach took place.” That makes absolutely clear that it was an inside job, and I think that if we look at the network—the spider’s web—of who got one email, we will see that it gets it back to English or McCully.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): The member will use the members’ full names.

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: It gets back to Mr English or Mr McCully.

Hon Member: The Hon Bill English.

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: The Hon Bill English—they are all honourable men, are they not?

So which of the hollow men leaked the email? It is particularly important that we find out today, because we know what the hollow men have said about asset sales. John Key was advised, along with Don Brash and Bill English, to inoculate the issue, to get it off to one side, and what did they attempt to do last weekend? Very, very ineptly, they tried to inoculate the issue.

Hon Member: Very slippery.

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: They were exceptionally slippery in their approach, but that is typical of John Key. They did not rule out a whole pile of other things, such as preparation for sales. They did not rule out the issuing of new shares in State-owned enterprises or their subsidiaries. They did not rule out the dilution of the ownership of State-owned enterprises. What those members have made absolutely clear—and Bill English made it clear in the House yesterday when he turned down the opportunity to have a debate on the sale of the Auckland airport shares—is that they do not like discussions about the hocking off of New Zealand’s assets to their mates and to foreigners. They do not like talking about it.

National members are not prepared to get up in this House and defend their position of wanting to sell New Zealand assets to their mates and to foreigners. Asset sales will be a defining issue at the next election, and the fact is that Bill English was not prepared to have that debate. He could not stand up in this House and defend his position. He knew even more that John Key did not have the ability to defend his position in the House, and for that reason they blocked the debate yesterday.

The other point, of course, is that there is not a position within the National Party on this issue. There is quite a degree of unanimity on a position, but it is another position. It is the one that was espoused by Bill English less than 1 year ago. I ask Bill English how many rats he is prepared to swallow. It is bad enough to have John Key swallowing rats, but how often is he prepared to have his integrity and his principles impugned by his leader? What sort of character is he? We always thought of Bill English as someone who would stand up for principles. We thought he would stand up for the things he believed in. He was a hollow man, but he was at the edge of the hollow men rather than right at the core.

Hon Lianne Dalziel: He leaked the emails.

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: He might well have leaked the emails to get them out.

Hon Lianne Dalziel: If he didn’t, he definitely knows who did.

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: I think it is fair to say he is pretty close to the person who leaked those emails. He knows about the leaking of the emails, and it was just one of the—

Nathan Guy: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I have been listening to this debate particularly in the last 20 or 30 seconds. The member keeps referring to “he”. I think he is bringing you into the debate.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Thank you. I do not think the member was doing that. That was a frivolous point of order, which can lead to disorder.

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: It is a question of using the second and the third person. If the member goes back to school he will work that out. Bill English is the person we are talking about. He is the one we are discussing. He is the one who knows who leaked those emails. He is the one who was close to that person, and he knows he does not have the ability to stand up to John Key when John Key is being more and more hollow all the time.

Hon BILL ENGLISH (Deputy Leader—National): Nothing illustrates better Labour’s inability to understand what is affecting New Zealanders in their day-to-day lives than its putting up Trevor Mallard to talk that rubbish. He is a man who used to be scary, a man who used to be perceptive, and now he is not.

I observed the Labour Party congress over the weekend and we heard an awful lot about Labour. We heard an awful lot about what Labour wants to do. We heard an awful lot of a song that I am sure we will hear an awful lot more of. Senior Cabinet Ministers were standing around, singing a ditty written by a Labour candidate. We heard nothing about what is affecting New Zealanders as we speak.

What is affecting New Zealanders as we speak is that interest rates are double what they were when Labour took office. What is affecting New Zealanders as we speak is the growing prospect of unemployment, particularly in the building industry. Yesterday I spoke to a builder who told me that, for the first time in 7 years, he had someone knock on his door a month ago looking for a job, and he has had five more people do that since. If no lending is going into the property market, then no building is being done. If no building is being done, then people will lose their jobs.

The other thing that Labour members are not talking about is rocketing fuel prices. Electricity prices have gone up 5 percent per year in every year that Labour has been in charge. Will that stop now?

Hon Darren Hughes: What’s your plan for that?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: Our plan is not Labour’s plan, which is to ignore it and to pretend. We heard Helen Clark yesterday. Her plan is to tell New Zealanders that they have never had it so good. “Pretend we were not in Government.”—that is Labour’s plan. Labour’s plan is that New Zealanders have never had it so good, that Labour was never in Government, and that this is all about what might happen if people vote for Labour again. I have to say to the member that that plan is not working, because interest rates have not stopped going up.

I ask what Labour members think is happening in households where people are getting notifications from their bank that the money they borrowed at 7.5 percent will be renewed at 10 percent—10 percent. I ask what that member thinks is happening. Does he think those people are thanking Dr Cullen for wasting taxpayers’ money for 8 years and squandering economic growth, for forcing their household into a position where they will have to cut back on everything, and for telling them on the TV that the Government is taking no notice that they will have to run an overdraft so that Dr Cullen can make promises in the next Budget to make them vote for him?

That is what is happening. New Zealanders are running overdrafts so that they can pay the tax Dr Cullen will use to try to buy their votes. By my calculations he has about $4 billion to spend in this election. I say to the Labour members that New Zealanders will see that for what it is—the last gasp of a dying Government that has squandered a decade of growth.

I would ask Labour this question. If Labour is responsible for everything that has happened in the economy in the last 9 years—the growing house values, the greater employment, the rise in people’s incomes—then why does it not make sure that it does not stop now? Labour members will not make sure that it stops. They cannot make sure it stops, because hardly any of those things that have happened are actually due to the Labour Government.

There will be a big job to do in New Zealand—that is, to put away a Government that is, in its own words, focused entirely on power. That is what Michael Cullen said yesterday. When New Zealanders are suffering and want a growing economy, Michael Cullen has said that this was about a contest for power. I am telling him that this is about a contest for a vision for New Zealand over the next 10 years. That is what it is about. It is about raising incomes and raising our economic prospects.

Hon MARYAN STREET (Minister for ACC): Is it not interesting—[Interruption]

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Colleagues, there are 402 Standing Orders that give us good grace and good order, and an opportunity for all members to make a commanding contribution. I am sure there will be some commanding contributions today. In the meantime, let us have some order.

Hon MARYAN STREET: It is interesting, is it not, that every time Mr English is accused of anything to do with The Hollow Men, we never get a denial—we never get a denial.

I will talk today about accident compensation and about the fact that we have a world-class, no-fault system. I ask the National members opposite whether accident compensation is another of their items on the menu for melting down the family silver. Is this another thing on their privatisation agenda—whether they do it by stealth or in an obvious way in front of the public of New Zealand? The public of New Zealand needs to know. Privatisation can occur in a number of ways, and the National Party has been particularly slippery over this asset. Most recently, it has taken its accident compensation policy down off its website. Previously, the party has said that it is in favour of choice for accident compensation, and would be interested in exploring some competition in some accounts. I want to know whether that is something like a partial float. Is it a partial float that the National Party has in mind for accident compensation? I make the point that Mr Key has tried, in fact, to inoculate himself over asset sales, but he and his party have been silent over privatisation and competition when applied to our accident compensation system.

I will explore for a moment just who stands to gain out of privatisation. There is in fact $2.6 billion worth of levies up for grabs if National privatises all the accounts except the non-earners account. Let us say that National is not going to get rid of the whole thing but will privatise just some of the accounts. Well, there is about $2.6 billion in levies up for grabs there.

I wonder whether members remember the leaked Insurance Council memo during the 2005 election. The memo stated in relation to National’s accident compensation policy announcement: “This is a very positive announcement for the industry, particularly the scope of the competition across all accounts.” The memo also stated: “The details of the policy have been deliberately kept out of the announcement after consultation with the Insurance Council.” That was a memo from the Insurance Council of New Zealand, dated 21 August 2005.

Mr Murray McCully said in 1998: “Creating a competitive environment is a vital part of the reforms. Insurers, like everyone, are in business to make a buck.” That was from the Southland Times in 1998. Let me just go back a little further to 1993, when an article written by Brent Edwards for the Evening Post was headlined: “ ‘ACC not for sale’ say Bolger and Birch”. Let me go beyond that to talk about another article in 1993: “Privatisation plan denied”. We cannot even get National members to deny a privatisation plan, because we can remember that last time they denied a privatisation plan, they went ahead and did it. They denied it; they said it was not going to happen. They said that the accident compensation scheme would be safe, and that there was no intention of taking things away.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: It was Labour that sold all the State assets. It was Clark and Cullen that sold them.

Hon MARYAN STREET: It was the National Government. There were absolutely cast-iron guarantees from the Minister for ACC and the Prime Minister at the time that the National Government would not sell and would not privatise accident compensation, but it went ahead and did that very thing. The policy was not to do a sale, not to privatise, but that is what the National Government did. That is what it did, in opening up the scheme for private competition; that is exactly the same thing.

Now we are hearing the same slippery arguments coming across the House. We are hearing the same slipperiness around the definition of privatisation. We might as well add accident compensation to National’s list of items to be sold or privatised.

R DOUG WOOLERTON (NZ First): New Zealand First wants every single citizen of this country to know something that we have been saying for many years now: New Zealand First will not sell strategic assets. We will not sell strategic assets, and we are very, very pleased that other people are starting to come on board with that message, because that is what New Zealanders want. New Zealanders want to know that those things that were gained by the sweat of the brow of former generations, through hard work and sacrifice, will not be flogged off to people to the advantage of other countries. New Zealand First has made that an issue in its very name, and has followed that up ever since we were formed. We will take that issue into the next election.

Just last week National said it would not sell strategic assets in its first term. If we put that around the other way, we could say that National said last week: “We will sell strategic assets in the second term.”, and of course it will. It will sell more than strategic assets; it will have schools for developers. We will see Bob Clarkson’s portfolio, which now includes retail shops all over Tauranga, extended to schools.

Simon Power: Oh, oh, oh!

R DOUG WOOLERTON: There is no “Oh, oh, oh” about it; that is what he does. [Interruption] Exactly.

Simon Power: Well, so what?

R DOUG WOOLERTON: And National members say “So what?”. Its members are quite happy for Mr Clarkson, or any other developer in this country, to own schools. Their response to that is “So what?”.

The National Party dithered around over the recent sale of Auckland airport. At first National members said they did not know whether they would sell it, but when Labour—thank heavens—stopped the sale, National members said that of course they would have sold it. We knew all along that National would have sold it, so I do not know why Mr Key could not have said that right off the bat. That airport returned to New Zealanders $101.9 million in the last financial year—$101.9 million, year on year. Something that we have to learn in this country, and something that we want to say to the shareholders of Auckland airport, who are moaning about the fact that they could not make a windfall gain—in other words, they only bought their shares for a quick sell-off, for a quick sale, and for a quick profit—is that shares in New Zealand should be bought, and investment should be made, for the long-term benefit of the company, of the entity, and of this country.

That is what we said about Fonterra, which is another iconic company built up by former generations in this country. New Zealand First fought—and, thank heavens, sense was seen by the shareholders of that company—so that shares would not be listed on the stock market. We want to see citizens of this country grow their wealth through the wealth of companies they have a beneficial holding in. We do not want to see short-term capital gain becoming the whole and sole purpose of the New Zealand stock exchange and stock market.

There is another situation further south where a little company called Nutritek has been taken over by Russians. It is the same thing, and, members can mark my words, the New Zealand dairy industry is under threat, because bit by bit people from other countries will come in and grab that absolutely prized export commodity of New Zealand farmers. New Zealand First is the only party in this Parliament that can stand up with an unblemished record of opposing asset sales, and we will continue to do that into the next years ahead.

It is no use people running around and papers reporting that New Zealand First, some way or another, will disappear at the next election. That will not happen. Everybody is hoping that will happen. I remember a Speaker of this House who said we would be dog tucker.

Pita Paraone: That’s right, but where is he now?

R DOUG WOOLERTON: He is dog tucker and we are still here. We will remain here and we will stop these asset sales.

SIMON POWER (National—Rangitikei): Members of the National Party were watching the Labour Party congress over the weekend with interest. We were watching because a Government that is as far behind in the polls and as out of touch with New Zealanders as that Government has a lot of work to do in order to get back on the right track. We know that that particular congress did only two things.

The first thing was to run workshops to work out how to rort the legislation that Labour brought into this House. That was the first thing that the Labour Party did. Senior Cabinet Ministers were sitting in workshops and working out how to get around legislation that they had worked very hard to shove down the throats of hard-working New Zealanders who wanted to have a say in this year’s general election.

The second thing that we saw, from Helen Clark, Michael Cullen, and Labour’s answer to the Spice Girls, was a direct attack on other political figures in this House. There were direct personal attacks from four members of Parliament, three of them Cabinet Ministers. We know that the squalor in South Auckland should have been worthy of Maryan Street’s attention, but, no, she had time to write lyrics to a song that she stood up and sang at the Labour Party conference. We know that the Minister for Social Development and Employment should have had plenty of things to think about, with the pressures that families are under at the moment from the rising prices for food and fuel, and from rising interest rates. Blocks of cheese are now around the $14 to $16 mark. But that Minister did not want to know about any of that; she does not care about any of that. She had to spend her time scripting the words to a song at the Labour Party conference. The Minister of Women’s Affairs had time on her hands too, while families are feeling the pressure of rising food prices, to sit and scribble down a little ditty to sing at the Labour Party conference. There was also someone else involved; I cannot remember who it was.

The cost of accident compensation levies is to increase under the administration of the Hon Maryan Street in a matter of weeks, and she had the time to sing a song at the Labour Party conference. We know that Lianne Dalziel was far too smart to let herself be caught up in all of that, but I can assure members that that will not be the last time for the public of New Zealand to see that particular song being sung on their TV screens. What we do know is that at $250,000 a pop, those Ministers, with all the economic pressures that are on New Zealand families today, had the time to sit down and compose a song of personal abuse against the Leader of the Opposition. We can imagine what an outcry there would have been if, in 1998, Doug Graham, Don McKinnon, and Paul East had stood up at a National Party conference and sung a song about Helen Clark. We can imagine the outcry there would have been and what the media would have made of that. But the Labour Party has sunk lower than it has ever sunk before.

Violent crime is out of control. Did we hear anything come out of the Labour Party congress about how to make New Zealand’s households safer? We heard not one single thing about that. Did we hear one single policy about dealing with rising food prices, rising interest rates, and rising fuel prices? No; we had time for a little comic relief from those highly paid Ministers, who should be getting on with the job of helping New Zealand families to deal with the economic downturn. The Labour members have squandered 10 years of economic growth. Their attitude is that they are OK on their big, fat salaries. They do not care about the pressures that New Zealand families feel under today, because they could just leave that conference in their Crown cars and wander home to have a glass of wine, despite the pressures that New Zealanders are under in their homes.

The Labour members do not want to talk about their record over the last 8½ years, but let me just say this right now: we will be talking about their record. We will be talking about their record right up to the election day, and we will be reminding New Zealanders of all the things that those members do not want the public to be reminded of. We will be talking about the wasted money in the areas of corrections and courts, and about the huge increase in violent crime—nearly 43 percent since Labour took office. We will remind New Zealanders of the appalling record of the last 8½ years.

Hon SHANE JONES (Minister for Building and Construction): That speech was made by Mr Power and showed an admirable level of interest in the qualities of the women singers in our party. I am astounded that he does not show a similar level of interest in the ability of his own female colleagues to sing. That, no doubt, is because they are constantly off-key. They are constantly scrabbling around looking for ideas because they have no plan. The very thing that Mr Power refuses to talk about is the plan that was outlined by the Prime Minister: an acknowledgment that on 1 April a variety of very positive changes were brought in that will boost the economic credentials and prospects of our country.

That plan was also aided by the trade deal that was recently signed up, trumpeted up and down the country, and delivered by the quality leadership of Helen Clark, aided by Mr Goff, overseas. What do we hear? We hear petty, ridiculous, irrelevant renditions of the activities of our congress, which, at the end of the day, was a balance between heavy policy, fraternalism, and the ability to have fun. What we are entitled to do is to mix the three, unlike Mr English, who, every time he talks, has a thunderous brow and that same mean-spirited look that he uses to disguise the fact that National has not put through one single idea to this House that will go forward as a contest for the election.

National members act like magpies, stealing all the ideas from this side of the House. Let us just tease them out. There is still no commitment from members opposite about KiwiSaver, which now has well beyond 500,000 subscribers. There is no commitment from those members in relation to supporting the Government on business tax changes. They are constantly carping and exaggerating stories about how badly the economy is going, without realising that there is an incredibly innovative package on its way from Dr Cullen that will pass the four tests he has identified as a threshold. Such tax relief will address the concerns that are being exaggerated by members on the other side of the House. Of course, those members do not realise that it is not the fault of the Reserve Bank or Dr Cullen that credit is tight. Rather, international institutions are pointing out that debt in our economy is at an all-time low in terms of the Crown balance sheet. Only the National members want to ratchet up the balance sheet further. Why? It is in order for them to hand it out in a set of indiscriminate, very hurtful tax relief packages that are designed to worsen the prospects of working-class, poorer people and to reward those who are deeply disappointed because the Electoral Finance Act prevents them from surreptitiously funding that party and undermining the tenets of a social democracy based on universal participation. That is why those members will not join with us to uphold the underlying principles of that particular legislation.

Let me come back to the other things that members opposite are not talking about. They did sell assets; they will sell assets again, I say to New Zealanders, because those spots will not be erased from that particular creature. Whether the creature serves herself up as a pink bat or a leopard, we will not scrub those spots off that creature.

Secondly, without a doubt we would see the further deregulation of the labour market if National wins, and working New Zealanders will realise that a vote in those members’ direction is a vote that will condemn them to a conduit of poverty.

Thirdly, National members will not put forward any sensible ideas for investing in and enhancing the human capital of our own workers, for example. No, they are likely to join a crusade to force wages down, in the belief that we can create greater productivity in our sensitive industrial sectors by squashing the earning potential further out.

When those ideas come to the fore, closer to the election, we will have a real contest. We will not have this phoney war, talking about a ditty, talking about affairs at a congress to which they will never be invited and we will never have them. No doubt their plants were outside with the protesters, advertising free party pills, demonstrating based on the material that they were handing out—their Friends of the National Party pamphlets. But there was nothing, not a single word, said about the recent package to assist the agricultural sector. There was no alternative package. They are sunk.

JUDITH COLLINS (National—Clevedon): On Saturday I was in Papakura, my electorate, at a march for law and order and for more police for Papakura, more visible police, supporting the police. I was very, very concerned by the reaction of people. They felt that this Government did not care about them. In fact, what we saw on Saturday was my counterpart Ruth Dyson, together with Maryan Street, Moana Mackey, and Steve Chadwick, busily creating a personal attack on John Key—a personal attack they thought was so funny they wanted to share it with the people of New Zealand.

That pretty much sums it up. The good people of Papakura care about their city, and care about the fact that grocery prices are now completely out of control. The price of butter rose 82 percent in the year to March, the price of bread has gone up 12 percent in the year to March, it is 21 percent for milk, and 44 percent for cheese. These are not luxury items. These are staples. These are basic food items. Possibly they do not go anywhere near the kitchen table of the Prime Minister, but this is what the people of Papakura are concerned about. They are concerned about being able to feed their children. They are concerned about their children getting a good education that means something. They are concerned about graffiti, and that is why they wanted me to support the bills on graffiti. They are concerned about the fact that violent crime is now at the highest rate it has ever been.

They are concerned about interest rates. They are concerned about the fact that they are now paying 10 to 11 percent in interest on their first mortgages. They are concerned that they have bought houses with a 10 percent deposit, or in some cases no deposit, and now they are finding that their mortgage is worth more than their house. They are concerned about the fact that although we have had good job statistics over the last few years, these will not last while we have these bad conditions. They are very, very concerned. All they can hear from the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister is that the people of Papakura do not matter to them.

Yesterday we heard John Key ask Helen Clark why it is that the Government is not talking about the things that matter to the ordinary Kiwis of New Zealand. He asked: “Why are you spending so much time attacking John Key? Why aren’t you attacking the real issues in this country, the things that matter—debt, the fact that people cannot pay their bills, and the fact that they do not feel safe at night? Why is that?”. Helen Clark said “Diddums.” She said “Silly old John Key, worrying about that!”.

Chris Auchinvole: What did she say?

JUDITH COLLINS: She said “Diddums.” That is exactly what she said, and then she laughed. That is what she did. Of course she does not need to care really, does she, in her mind? She does not have to worry about these things. She does not have to worry about any of it. What did Michael Cullen say yesterday, when he was asked why it is that they are indulging in these personal attacks on John Key, rather than dealing with the real issues? He said: “This is about a contest of power.” That is what he said. Who is in power—that is exactly what it is about, because that is all they care about. He did not say “This is about my vision for New Zealand.” He did not ask “Who’s going to produce a better New Zealand?”. He did not ask “Who’s going to raise up New Zealand’s living standards?”. He did not say any of that. He said “It’s all about power.”, and that is all he cares about.

Yet, today, we saw it again. There was personal attack after personal attack on this side of the House from the Labour Government. There was a personal attack on John Key and a personal attack on some of my colleagues on the front bench. There was a constant personal attack. Who did they get to do it? It was Trevor Mallard, the one they can always rely on to do their dirt and the one they always wheel out every time Helen Clark is in trouble. The people of New Zealand have had enough of this. Maybe it was fun one time, maybe it was entertaining, but I can tell members that someone who has a $400,000 mortgage and a house that is now worth $380,000 is in trouble, and in trouble big time. That is what is happening to many people in my area, and that is what is happening throughout this country. What does the Government do? It has a contest about power, and it has a little ditty that it puts out. Those people thought that was funny. They could not see that this is not just about sideshows, it is about people.

Hon DARREN HUGHES (Deputy Leader of the House): The only time the previous speaker has been a household name in New Zealand politics was when she was involved in a campaign of personal attack that saw her colleagues cringe with embarrassment and have to call her off. Since that time she has hardly been involved in political debate in our Parliament. I will let people decide for themselves about that member.

I have been interested to listen to the National members in Parliament today. They have tried to tell us that they are concerned about the issues of ordinary people. I find that very, very difficult to believe, when I compare their voting record in this Parliament, their public statements in the media, plus all the things they say in private about ordinary people, with what their record is. We heard from the deputy leader of the National Party about National’s concern about some of the things that we know families are finding difficult at the moment. We are listening to people in our constituencies and around our communities, and we know that issues concerning petrol prices, interest rates, and dairy food items are really snapping at the family budget; we know that. I was listening to Mr English, and I wanted to hear from him whether he had any concrete solutions as to how the New Zealand economy would somehow lower petrol prices on the international market. I was looking to Mr Heatley to see whether he had any ideas as to how the price of dairy food items could come down, when there are 100 percent increases across the world economy. We heard nothing from them on these issues. I want to know from them how they would lower interest rates if they got the chance to be the Government. There is simply no concrete substance from these members on any of the things that we know are affecting working people.

We also heard from the National Party this afternoon that despite the fact that its members complain about political correctness, they lack a sense of humour. When somebody got up at a party conference and spent one small part of it making a bit of a joke about the fact that the National leader’s policy positions have come to the point of being so farcical it is beyond words, they take great personal offence, as we have heard. We are criticising John Key, and we will continue to do so up until election day, on the slipperiness of his policy positions. It is his policy positions that we seek to denigrate, I say, because there are so many of them. We disagree with them so strongly when he does this. He is not ready to be Prime Minister of this country. I say to National members that they should get used to the fact that John Key’s flip-flops and slipperiness on policy will be the subject of scrutiny from the Government, because the people of this country deserve to know what they are voting for. No apology is made for that at all.

I wondered, though, when I was listening to National speakers—who are really concerned about the issues confronting working families at the moment—how worse off those working families would be, with all those international prices and pressures that are at them at the present time, if the National Party was in power at the moment. A lot of the policies that Labour is putting forward, as part of its plan for the future, target those issues that are so important to working families. Doctors’ fees are a critical part of those policies. Doctors’ fees have fallen enormously under the Labour-led Government. People pay only $3 to pick up a prescription and the under-sixes go to the doctor for free, which is a longstanding policy of New Zealand First. But if National was the Government of this country, we know that Tony Ryall’s policy would be for people to pay more to go and see the doctor. Working for Families is a Labour policy to help families, with tax credits, and the 20 hours’ free early childhood education a week is saving families lots of money every week. The National Party opposed that policy and said it was terrible. At the weekend it became National Party policy. Then the Nats wonder why we make fun of them for the positions they take.

We also introduced KiwiSaver, paid parental leave, the interest-free student loan policy, and the 1,000 extra front-line police in our communities, which the previous speaker was talking about in her concerns about law and order. National opposed 1,000 extra police going on to the streets, and in fact when National were in Government it was going to cut the number by 450. There is the minimum wage, which has increased nine times in 9 years, and of course 4 weeks’ annual leave for ordinary people.

However, the doozy of them all goes to the asset sales policy at the weekend. That was extraordinary. The Labour-led Government would never support strategic asset sales. That is a clear black and white policy that we have. When it comes to the family silver, National is prepared, as Dr Cullen says, not just to sell the family silver, but to melt it down. So I ask National members this. At the moment there is an issue about railways. Do National members believe that if the Government buys railways they should be sold again?

Chester Borrows: You sold them!

Hon DARREN HUGHES: The member for Whanganui has a train track going through his electorate. What does he think about railways coming in? He is interjecting that we sold them, but it was his party that sold the railways. I get sick and tired, as a young man in New Zealand politics, of realising that the National Party backbenchers are so bankrupt in terms of the history of their own party. How does one get a National Party selection if one does not know what one’s own party has done in Government? It is farcical. National sold the Paraparaumu Airport in my electorate—one of the worst asset sales ever to have occurred—and then there is the Auckland International Airport issue, which Ministers ruled on last week. The flip-flopping that the National Party has done on that in terms of policy is absolutely unbelievable. Its policy previously on this matter was that mum and dad investors should be able to buy assets. That is what happened when it sold Contact Energy, when it cut the pension, when it increased student fees, and when it cut taxes. So that just tells us what National does when it wants to cut taxes. One cannot trust National on asset sales—[Interruption]

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): The member is interjecting in the second person, and it will cease immediately.

PHIL HEATLEY (National—Whangarei): Listeners will be amazed to know that that member, Darren Hughes, is the funny guy. He is the funny guy of the Labour Party. At the Labour Party conference at the weekend, where members had nothing better to do than to pull up stand-up comedians from the audience, Darren Hughes put up his hand to go up and entertain the Labour Party. And this was at its conference in election year! They called on the funny guy, Darren Hughes. He does not know whether he wants to be Charlie Chaplin or a Minister of the Crown. So at a Labour Party conference, while the rest of New Zealand is suffering under high petrol prices, increasing mortgage interest rates, tough taxes, electricity prices going up, and all that type of thing, Darren Hughes is called upon to entertain everyone and to make them laugh. That was Darren Hughes, who is a Minister, apparently, in a Labour Cabinet.

I have a question for the House, because Darren Hughes is here—

Chris Auchinvole: What’s the question?

PHIL HEATLEY: Where are the four canaries? Where are the four canaries now? It was so funny, was it not, seeing the four canaries—the four Labour MPs—sing insulting songs on Saturday night about John Key while the rest of the country was suffering. But where are the four canaries now? Are they speaking to EMI? Maybe they are at Woodstock. Darren Hughes, who wants to be considered a Minister of the Crown, is instead playing the funny guy while people in the country are suffering. The four canaries will not front us in the debating chamber. We do not know where they are. That is the point, is it not?

It was very funny on Saturday at the Labour Party conference, but in the cold light of day, when Darren Hughes and the four canaries are faced with the fact that people’s mortgage interest rates are going up, when they are faced with the fact that petrol is going up and people cannot fill their tanks, when they are faced with the fact that electricity prices are going up, and when they are faced with the fact that the grocery bill is going up, it is no longer funny to abuse and insult people in the National Party, and it is certainly not funny to New Zealanders.

Labour members may not want to talk about their record, and they may ignore it, but their problem is this.

Chris Auchinvole: What’s their problem?

PHIL HEATLEY: Their problem is that every time struggling Kiwis pull up to the BP service station and pull out their wallets, they are reminded of the cost of petrol and of the fact that they are being taxed too much. Every time struggling New Zealanders get to the checkout counter at the grocery store, they are reminded that they are being taxed too much and that food prices are going up. Every time a young kid walks down to the letterbox and brings back a letter for dad and he opens it—

Chris Tremain: Is it another bill?

PHIL HEATLEY: —it turns out to be a bill from the electricity company, and Dad is reminded that he is being taxed too much and that the Labour Government has let electricity prices and everything else get out of control.

That is the problem with this Government at the moment. While those Labour members are laughing and joking at some Labour Party conference, concert, or whatever it was, the rest of the country is struggling to pay for basic things such as food items, petrol, electricity, and mortgage interest rates. It is unbelievable that only Darren Hughes was able to front us today; the others are not here. I will not name them because that would be against the Standing Orders, but even Darren Hughes was here for a while.

It is just not funny any more, is it? One might want to joke at one’s weekend concert, but, in the cold light of day, families are struggling in New Zealand. Labour members should be talking about solutions rather than having a “funny man” contest at its conference in the weekend. New Zealanders and the National Party will not ignore Labour’s record. They will see its record on election day.

METIRIA TUREI (Green): Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. Eighty percent of New Zealanders would rather see set nets and trawl nets banned than have the blood of an extinction on their hands. That is the result of a Colmar Brunton poll released today by the World Wide Fund for Nature New Zealand. Eighty-three percent of New Zealanders would prefer to take the small economic hit than to see our Māui’s dolphins and our Hector’s dolphins disappear from our coastlines forever. There are only about 100 Māui’s dolphins left and just a few thousand Hector’s dolphins. There is overwhelming support from New Zealanders for the conservation of the species. So what can be done to meet this demand from New Zealanders to save the Māui’s dolphin and the Hector’s dolphin?

The Fisheries Act states quite clearly that the Minister has the power to take action. It states that a Minister can take measures, as he or she considers it necessary, to impose a remedy or mitigate the effects of fishing-related mortality on any protected species. Although there has been much debate about the necessity for Ministers’ actions in other kinds of cases, such as the squid fishery cases, in this case, for these dolphins, there is no doubt, at all. A recent National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research report, which included a contribution by an author from the Seafood Industry Council, quite clearly concluded that it is absolutely necessary to fully reduce fishing-related mortality to zero if the dolphin population is to recover at all. Even then, the institute report states that with the best and only option to achieve zero fishing-related mortality, it will still take 50 years for the dolphin population to grow by just a few thousand and not even to double in number. The fact is that if the current management continues, the dolphin population will fall to just over 5,000 by 2050, and that is, in effect, extinction. Dolphins are on the brink of extinction at that stage, and certainly the Māui’s dolphin, with just a hundred or so individuals, will certainly be extinct by 2050 if action is not taken now.

One of our concerns, as the Green Party, is that none of the three options presented in the Government’s draft threat management plan will actually do what is needed. They will not reduce the threat mortality to zero. We need an option four, which is to ban set nets within the area of the entire range of these creatures, and to have observers on all trawler vessels within that range, if we cannot simply prohibit trawling from the area.

There is no population management plan for the Hector’s dolphin despite its critical status, and the plan in the draft threat management plan is very weak—much weaker than what is provided for in the Fisheries Act. The plan is not binding, and its finalisation will not see dolphins protected until the proposals are implemented in legislation. There is no way that we will see any action put in place before the next breeding season of these dolphins in the summer. We know that we have to act right now to prevent the dolphins’ extinction, but we cannot be assured, as I say, that these measures will even be implemented by the next breeding season in the summer.

It is absolutely necessary for this Government to take action to introduce a bill that will implement measures to prevent an extinction. It was not so long ago when there was a dolphin extinction. One of the Chinese dolphin species became extinct. New Zealand is very rapidly reaching for the silver medal of extinction by not taking action to do something about the problem now, when it has the opportunity to do so. If there is one Government bill that should be introduced under urgency—to prevent even one more dolphin slaughter and to prevent litigious fishing barons from delaying the protection that is so desperately needed—then this is it. The Minister should use the power he has under the Fisheries Act to protect these species from extinction.

If there is hesitation—and in all these matters when it comes to the fishing industry there is hesitation—I urge the Government to have a look at the Colmar Brunton poll that was released today. It shows that 83 percent of voters are willing to see set nets banned. It is a popular issue amongst the community itself. People in the community are clearly claiming conservation of the species as a major priority for them and as something they are prepared to give over some benefits for, in order to see these species survive. It is true that there may be something of a loss of fishing revenue for some of the commercial fishers, but it is a matter of pitting that against the survival—indeed, the extinction—of an iconic New Zealand species at the hands of this Government. If the Government and the National Party need to take a more shallow approach to it, then it might be worth reminding them that 83 percent of the voting population is about 2 million people. That is a significant voter population, if that is what is going to push their buttons to make something happen. This species needs to be protected now. Thank you.

Hon PAUL SWAIN (Labour—Rimutaka): I will take this opportunity to talk a little bit about the slippery asset sale policy of the National Party, but I heard some things before that I feel I must comment on. I heard National members saying that they were concerned about petrol prices. Of course, we all are concerned—not just personally but for all the people in our electorates. So I waited to hear what a future National Government would do about the internationally set price.

Chris Auchinvole: You’ve been waiting for 8 years but doing nothing.

Hon PAUL SWAIN: Well, I was previously the Minister of Commerce and had to look at this issue. I found it a difficult thing to deal with. So I ask the National members who are here what they would do about petrol prices. What would a future National Government do?

Chris Auchinvole: We wouldn’t have wasted 8 years—

Hon PAUL SWAIN: It would not have wasted 8 years. That is all we hear. We hear them whingeing, whining, grizzling, and groaning, but we never hear from them what they will do. That is the huge frustration. Of course—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): I am sorry to interrupt the member. The member on my left is interjecting in the second person. That will cease immediately, otherwise he will go back to his own seat. He is using the position to facilitate interjection, which is out of order.

Hon PAUL SWAIN: When National members try to start to talk about what National would do, they slip and slide on it. One of the things that is not well known around this place is that actually quite a lot of humour goes on here, even though the National Party has attacked the Labour Government for its humour, and the National Party is a bit humourless. But a lot of humour goes on around this place, and some of the best humour comes from cartoons. There have been some fabulous cartoons. My own policy on this issue is that having had a few cartoons done about me in my time, if I think they are funny about other people then I suppose they are funny when they are done about me. I think that that is the general rule I have applied.

I have picked up a fabulous cartoon. It shows the leader of the National Party, John Key, sitting at a table with a little label on it that states “National first term”. John Key is holding out in his left hand a turkey—a nicely cooked, fresh, juicy turkey—that has “Assets sales” written on it. John Key is saying, in front of a whole lot of microphones: “Rest assured, this issue is off the table.”—that is, the asset sales issue is off the table. Sitting underneath the freshly cooked turkey is a salivating bulldog with a knife and fork, and with a bib on that states “Second term”. The cartoon means that although the National Party has said that asset sales are off the table for the first term, everybody knows that they will be on the table for the second term. That is the problem with the National Party: even when it tries to clarify, it still tries to be slippery.

Of course, on that policy, the National Party has annoyed everyone. It has annoyed the public because the public know that asset sales are actually on the agenda. It is just that National members have not got the fortitude to say “This term.”; they have said “Oh, next term.” But the National Party has also annoyed its own support base, who are asking “What is wrong with asset sales? Why isn’t my party, the National Party, coming clean and saying that asset sales should be on the agenda?”. We know there are lots of National members over there who think that asset sales should be on the agenda. Bill English believes in asset sales. Why does he not come clean and say so? Maurice Williamson agrees with asset sales. He has said in the past that they should be done. Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith believes in asset sales. In fact, John Key himself—a man of the private sector—desperately believes in asset sales. But they just cannot bring themselves to come to Parliament and say “Well, we actually believe in asset sales, because we are the National Party and our supporters want us to do it.”

What is wrong with them? They cannot do it. Do members know why? It is because National members know that if they said that to the public, the public would never, ever vote for them. So National has had this kind of $1 bet each way—a bit of slip here, a bit of slide there; a bit of flip here, and a bit of flop there. They have said “We won’t sell assets in our first term.”, so everybody knows that that means it will sell them in the second term.

Let us have a look at a bit of history. In 2002 John Key said he believed that some form of orientation towards privatisation in health, education, and superannuation made sense. That was in 2002. In 2003 John Key said “I can’t see any compelling reason to own Air New Zealand.” Then in 2004 Don Brash said they were not willing to say whether there were going to be any State-owned enterprises. And so it goes on—slipping and sliding on asset sales. Assets will be gone under National.

PANSY WONG (National): We have just heard from a departing member, the Hon Paul Swain. He saw the writing on the wall. He is saying goodbye. He saw the writing on the wall: the Labour Government will be gone.

Today is a very sad day at Elim Christian College at Botany. A close-knit school community is mourning the loss of six students and one teacher who were caught in a swollen river during their outdoor training course. Our sympathy goes to the families, fellow students, and teachers, and we entrust the leadership of the principal, Mr Murray Burton, to lead the grieving process at this difficult time. I am sure that the Christian faith can ease some of the pain that must be being felt by the families who are suffering the loss of their dear ones.

New Zealand communities, in general, are suffering a pain of a slightly different kind. They are suffering in order to make ends meet. The latest statistical report shows that in the past year the price of nine common household food items has gone up by 25 percent. Like my effective and hard-working colleague Judith Collins—very shortly the Hon Judith Collins—has said, the household items going up are not luxury items. They are necessary food items. A kilo block of mild cheddar went up from $6.49 to $10.69. That is what New Zealanders want politicians to debate—not asset sales but the price of food on their table. There has been a whopping increase of 82 percent in the price of butter.

The Minister of Māori Affairs, the Hon Parekura Horomia, needs to reflect on his facts.

Chris Auchinvole: What did he say?

PANSY WONG: He accused some of our kids of going to school without breakfast because they want to stay slim. That is an outrage. It shows how out of touch this Labour Government is.

Last Saturday the Hon Maryan Street found her voice. She sang. She was mimicking and having fun at the expense of our leader, John Key. She did not find her voice last December when the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) quietly—on 23 December, 2 days before Christmas—put out a little price increase, a pressie for all New Zealanders. There was a 2c increase in the accident compensation levy for petrol. The workers’ levy went up from $1.16 to $1.24. Senior citizens, who seldom use their cars, will find that their registration fee will go up by $40.

Judith Collins: What!

PANSY WONG: It will go up by $40. Well, Maryan Street did not find her voice at Christmas. She did not speak up and tell New Zealanders the good news of how wonderful the ACC is for dealing them another increase.

Maryan Street did not find her voice in early January of this year when we found out that a serial burglar, who has been behind bars for 12 years, had demanded cosmetic surgery for a part of his ear that was bitten off during one of those burglaries. She did not find her voice to speak up. I, as the Opposition spokesperson, had to put out a statement and say that the Minister for ACC needs to front up and tell the corporation it does not have to be intimidated by that type of demand. She did not find her voice to speak up for the people.

Daily, like other members here, I have people approaching my office about not getting operations when they were genuinely injured in an accident and being made to wait and wait. Maryan Street did not find her voice to speak out for all those people. Instead, she endorsed the corporation to spend $5 million telling the public what a wonderful job it is doing and to tell people that they are covered. But then the Advertising Standards Authority found that the advertisements—$5 million worth—were misleading. People are not covered, and the corporation has had to withdraw the ad. So, with $2 million, what did it do?

Chris Auchinvole: What?

PANSY WONG: It handed out paper fans at the Pasifika Festival. I am not too sure how people with a paper fan in their hands would suddenly learn a lot about the ACC. What is the correlation between the corporation and paper fans?

Judith Collins: Paper fans?

PANSY WONG: Yes, and it gave out minties. What does the ACC have to do with handing out minties? The corporation also spent $1 million on Australian consultants to tell us nothing new.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.

Bills

Manukau City Council (Control of Graffiti) Bill

Third Reading

Hon GEORGE HAWKINS (Labour—Manurewa): I move, That the Manukau City Council (Control of Graffiti) Bill be now read a third time. This bill has been around this Parliament for some little while. Of course, it has taken some time for people to realise the anger and the frustration that the people of Manukau have felt over the years.

I thank all those members of the House who have supported this bill all the way through. I thank my colleague Ross Robertson. I thank William Sio, Pita Paraone from New Zealand First, Phillip Field, and Judith Collins, who has been very helpful in making sure that this bill goes through. Pansy Wong has also helped, and the former Mayor of Wellington has come to the aid of the people of Manukau. In this Parliament we quite often fight and scrap. We mock people who sing and we mock people who are sung about. But with regard to this particular bit of legislation, it is really refreshing to see that people can come and work together for one community.

I thank some people from outside this Parliament for their work in getting this bill to its third reading. I thank Sir Barry Curtis, the former Mayor of Manukau City, who has been absolutely strong and steadfast in his determination to make sure that the community of Manukau has some teeth with which to fight back. I thank one of the new councillors, Daniel Newman. When he was the chair of the community board he made submissions on this bill, and he will be absolutely delighted that it is going through. I also thank the Rev. Mark Beale. What a wonderful person Mark Beale is! He heads the Manukau Beautification Charitable Trust, where people go to get rid of some of the 300,000 tags that Manukau City has each year. He is involved in voluntary work. He gets people working together and I have to say thank you to him.

It is rather interesting that the recommendation of the Local Government and Environment Committee was that this bill should go down the toilet. Well, it ain’t going down the toilet; it will pass into law. It is interesting, though, how this issue affects people. I woke up this morning, read the Dominion Post, and saw that a judge was supporting people in their community to deal with vandalism. This is what this legislation really is. I feel ashamed in some ways that there are people who think that graffiti art on someone’s fence or house is art. Well, it is not. I have to say that of all the Manukau members of Parliament I can recall, only one—Dr Sharples—has been against this bill passing. I believe that he sincerely believes there are other ways of dealing with this; it is just that we have not heard about them yet.

I got a letter today. It is from a non-governmental organisation, and I will not name the organisation, as people will hear when I read from the letter. But it says this, in part, about a break-in to its premises: “The break-in and vandalism of our premises resulted in graffiti being sprayed all over our walls, the carpet and furniture being covered in paint, and files, documents, and equipment being destroyed. The hard drive in the front office had paint poured in it. Some of the files had been urinated on and had faeces on them. It appears to us this was a mindless rage attack, as the only things stolen were two small radio cassette players used by our youth for recording work. At this time the repairs, painting, and replacement is estimated to be in vicinity of $15,000. The vandalism was carried out from the harassment which took place 12 days prior to when our gate padlocks were filled with glue on six occasions, resulting in us having to call locksmiths with bolt cutters to enable the padlock to be removed.” That is from a non-governmental organisation in my electorate—people who are trying to help other people facing difficulty in their lives, who all of a sudden have turned back on them. That is why people feel so annoyed about graffiti. That is why people get so very, very angry. We know—tragically—that a young person was killed when he was out graffitiing one night. That is really very sad, and no one in this House, I think, would believe that anyone should lose their life in that way.

I want to quote something from the report of the Local Government and Environment Committee that I think is very important: “We believe that one way of addressing the promoter’s concerns about the supply of graffiti implements would be to promote a voluntary memorandum of understanding between the Council and retailers regarding the display and storage of spray paints, and possibly restrictions on the sale of these items to persons under 16. The possible advantage of the responsible retailing method over a mandatory lock-up approach is that it provides more flexibility to act appropriately to the particular circumstances of the retailer.” I can say that this Parliament has gone on quite a long way from there, and I think it is very important that we have gone a long way and changed the way we see this issue.

Although graffiti is fairly commonplace in Manukau City, occasionally I see people who come to me and say “I’ve had my place invaded. People have sprayed over the bricks of my house. They have sprayed over the doors. They have bent over my letterbox and broken it.” Quite often, those people are on fixed incomes. They do not have a huge amount of money to get things painted out, or to get people to come and remove the graffiti. Those people are very, very angry. But tomorrow, when they know that this Parliament is doing something about it, they will be pleased. This bill will affect only Manukau City. A Government bill is on the way that will have nationwide implications, but in Manukau people are looking at Manukau. They are looking at what is on their neighbour’s fence, and at what is on their fence, and they want something done.

I will spend the last part of my speech once again thanking all those in this Parliament who have moved so far to help Manukau City—its citizens, its ratepayers, those people who pay rent, and those people who have suffered so much. I also thank once again all those people who have helped to clean up the graffiti—volunteers, church groups, and ordinary people in the community. Manukau is a wonderful community. Some people may think that because it is South Auckland it is not good, but, by golly, I say that the spirit of the people of Manukau is supreme. They have waited a long time. They will be breaking the bottle tops off their milk and celebrating tomorrow.

JUDITH COLLINS (National—Clevedon): I would like to take a call on this bill and endorse every sentiment that George Hawkins has just said in this House. I think that George Hawkins has shown remarkable courage and tenacity in promoting this bill. It was first referred to the Local Government and Environment Committee on 7 December 2005. It is now April 2008. I understand that this is the very first time that a bill has gone to a select committee, been roundly thrown out of the select committee—dissed by the select committee—and survived to end up becoming law, as this bill will become this evening. That has a great deal to do with the tenacity and drive of George Hawkins, and his ability to work with other MPs across the House and to put Manukau City issues first. I congratulate him on that.

When I look at the report from the Local Government and Environment Committee, I see that there are 5½ pages of text about why this is a bad bill.

Chris Auchinvole: You’re joking?

JUDITH COLLINS: I am not joking. There are 3 paragraphs on why it is a good bill, and those paragraphs reflect the views of the National Party and New Zealand First. Those were the two parties that supported this bill and the efforts of George Hawkins. Unfortunately the Government did not support the bill, but George Hawkins just kept on—and I say “Good on George Hawkins!” With him, too, I give my congratulations to the city of Manukau and to the people and ratepayers of Manukau, of whom I am one, who live with this scourge of graffiti. I congratulate the judge—although we should not really bring judges into the debate—whom George Hawkins referred to today, who stood up against these dreadful vandals. I say “Good on him!”, but I say “Bad on the Children’s Commissioner!”, who says that graffiti is art and some sort of legitimate resistance activity.

The people of Manukau City and South Auckland are good people. They are people who care about their environment and they care about their families. In some cases, not all, they are people who do not get a lot of choice in life. They are the people whom George Hawkins talked about: the people on fixed incomes, and the people who often live in situations where they have to watch every single penny. They are often people who do not have expensive burglar alarms or expensive insurance policies. They are people who simply cannot afford anything other than the absolute basics. They need to know that although this bill will not solve all of their problems, it at least sends a message. That message is that this Parliament cares enough to say that enough is enough and that we have had enough of the behaviour that has escalated over many years. It has got to the stage where people have had enough.

Like George Hawkins, I too say that it is very sad that a family in Manurewa lost its child. It is also incredibly sad for the family of the person who is accused in that case. It is extraordinarily sad for the whole area. But I also say that it is about time this Parliament showed leadership. That leadership should be saying that it is not OK to break into the offices of a non-governmental organisation; that it is not OK to graffiti all over someone’s house. That is not art. We have people in my area who graffiti over the footpath. At Kirks Bush in Papakura there is lovely bush but one can go along and find graffiti all over the trees.

Chris Auchinvole: Oh, no!

JUDITH COLLINS: There is, and I am happy to show members. That is what we put up with, but why should we? A couple of years ago the police in Papakura took real ownership of this issue and they got the taggers out cleaning up the graffiti. I say “Good on them!”, and the people of Papakura said “Good on them!”. But what happened? Some namby-pamby QC from somewhere or other came waltzing through and decided that that was an infringement on the rights of those taggers. Well, I have some news for her—if she comes anywhere near us again we will talk about infringement of rights. We will talk about the infringement of the rights of people who should be able to live without fear in their own homes, and who should be able to go about their business without having their property destroyed and defaced.

Chris Auchinvole: It’s intimidating.

JUDITH COLLINS: Mr Auchinvole is quite right; it is utter intimidation. It is about saying whose patch it is. Well I have news for those taggers—it is actually our patch. It is the patch of the people of Manukau; it is the patch of the people of Papakura. It is our patch, and I tell them to get out of our patch.

H V ROSS ROBERTSON (Labour—Manukau East): Kia ora tātou nō reira te Whare, and welcome. In addressing the issue of graffiti and the Manukau City Council (Control of Graffiti) Bill I believe that it is important first of all to acknowledge the individuals who have been instrumental in bringing this legislation to the House. First, I acknowledge the former Mayor of Manukau City Sir Barry Curtis whose fortitude, tenacity, and understanding of what people in the community want drove him to bring this bill forward and to hand it to my colleague the Hon George Hawkins, member of Parliament for Manurewa.

I also acknowledge Mayor Len Brown for continuing the work necessary to ensure this bill continued through the House. It is also important to acknowledge the Manukau City councillors who voted for this bill to continue. I also commend my Manukau colleagues, who have worked tirelessly in bringing this bill before the House—before the people’s House of Parliament—including the honourable member Judith Collins; Pansy Wong; former Deputy Mayor of Manukau and now member of Parliament, Su’a William Sio; Pita Paraone; and Phillip Field. I also welcome the contribution that the honourable member Mark Blumsky, former Mayor of Wellington, has made, because in his capacity as a mayor he has understood the problems and the feelings of the people. I acknowledge those members and thank them for the work they have done. I also acknowledge the Minister of Police, Annette King, and the Hon Phil Goff for the work they have done in bringing in a Government bill that will fit in nicely with the one we will pass today.

There are 300,000-plus incidents of graffiti per annum in Manukau City. I remember well my meeting with the former mayor Sir Barry Curtis over how we should deal with the problem of graffiti. I remember having the first public meeting in Manukau City Council’s White House. The reformed tagger who was invited to participate and to address the meeting was remorseful and contrite, and he realised the misery and distress he had brought to others. Some of those gathered wanted to make their views known, and they did, expressing their grief, their heartache, and the profound sense of loss that they experienced on coming home or waking up to find their fences, bus shelters, street signs, phone boxes, and statutory undertakers such as network rail and educational establishments tagged. It is unacceptable. It is a crime against the conscience of our nation, socially and morally.

I commend in particular George Hawkins, who has brought to the House this bill born of his experience overseeing policing, his service in local government as a former Mayor of Papakura City, and his 18 years here in the House. Like other Manukau members of Parliament he is in touch with what the punters out there want. They want to clean up this eyesore, and the best way to deal with graffiti or tagging is multi-pronged. We need to ensure that the offensive tag is removed within 24 hours to ensure that the fame and power that result from doing graffiti are quickly removed. We need to prosecute the crime vigorously and ensure that the perpetrators are publicly accountable and do community work.

Graffiti is not an easy thing to deal with. In dealing with it, let us accept that no one is to blame but that we are all responsible for this ugly, odious expression of bravado at best, and gangland marking and ill will at worst. Graffiti is like a rabbit warning others that this pile of poo is his own. Graffiti perpetrators are brazenly declaring their contempt for others. What is right and what is wrong comes down to what one can get away with. Having listened intently to the debate at the Committee stage of this bill and the contributions that many members made, I want to put on the table for consideration a proposal that a dedicated antisocial behaviour hotline be established to facilitate education about, and action on, low-level crimes like graffiti. I imagine that the Perito principle applies—that is, 20 percent of the perpetrators do 80 percent of the graffiti.

The ideal, of course, is to be proactive and to continually foster social capital. Social capital was extolled by people like former Prime Ministers Mike Moore and Jim Bolger and is about the propensity to serve others. There are many people out there in the community who are happy to volunteer and work in these areas. Schools, service clubs, and volunteer organisations can be encouraged to adopt certain regions for maintenance and beautification. For, as the tangata whenua say: “Tātou, tātou.” It means: “Together, together.” Together we serve and together we prosper as a community and as a nation.

I have long believed that people have underestimated the effects of tagging on the well-being of our nation and our people. As a country we are known worldwide as being clean and green. Our homeland of the community of Manukau is where New Zealand touches the world. At the last census people from Manukau accounted for themselves into 184 different ethnic groups. When planes touch down in Manukau, passengers see the face of the future. When visitors come to New Zealand they come first to Manukau, and what greets them? Tagging and graffiti. “Clean up Manukau!” has become a war cry for those who work to rub out tagging. This legislation is a start on a long road of doing something to make Manukau and New Zealand beautiful. Sir Paul Reeves said that Manukau is a microcosm of New Zealand today and into the future. So let us make that a future we can be proud of.

Manukau colleagues need to be commended for what they have done, as do the Minister of Police, Annette King, and Phil Goff, because they pushed the Government’s legislation through Cabinet. The legislation, backed by the Stop Tagging Our Place strategy, will see a new offence of tagging and graffiti vandalism added to the Summary Offences Act and will increase fines and/or effective community services. It will ban the sale of spray-cans of paint to those under the age of 18, and shopkeepers will be required to keep spray-cans secured so that people cannot access them without the help of shop staff. Shop staff who fail to keep spray-cans locked away will be subject to fines of up to $1,500. Also, $600 million over 3 years has been allowed for anti-tagging initiatives.

Finally, let me say this: let us make the 300,000 incidences of graffiti per annum in Manukau a thing of the past. Let us move forward together in spirit, strength, and skill to defeat this ugly, odious expression of gangland marking and in-your-face bravado. Tihei mauri ora!

PANSY WONG (National): I am delighted to take a short call in this debate on the Manukau City Council (Control of Graffiti) Bill. I was just reflecting on the generosity of the Mayor of Manukau, Len Brown. When he presented the Manukau City Council’s submission on the Government’s johnny-come-lately anti-tagging legislation, he said that he welcomes the anti-tagging law. He really does not mind who champions the cause as long as the city council gets the tools to do the work. I cannot say that that generosity of spirit was shown by the Labour Government towards one of its own. So tonight I take a short call to compliment the Hon George Hawkins, who, with the support of his colleague Ross Robertson, championed this issue, which is so important to the Manukau community, in order to give the community the tools to make sure taggers get the message that the residents have had a gutsful of the disrespect of private property.

The Hon George Hawkins reached out to the other parties in the House, and I am just delighted that our colleague Judith Collins showed her support and worked, together with New Zealand First, to ensure that this bill, even though it was defeated at the select committee, actually managed to find a second life and was tonight thrown a lifeline to become legislation. But we know there is a little sting in the tail, because a Government bill will probably overtake this bill and supersede it. But that did not stop the message getting out there that the Hon George Hawkins would fight for his community and would back the Manukau City Council, because it knows what it is doing. The Labour Government, in election year, has started to listen, and, hopefully, it will listen a lot more, because it has a lot more to listen to.

I want to highlight a few interesting comments made in the report back on the bill by the Labour members of the Local Government and Environment Committee. Those Labour members believe that this bill, which will be passed tonight, is not the right solution, although they hope it will be a catalyst for the implementation of a multifaceted national approach to graffiti. Maybe they foresaw the possibility that a Government bill would be forthcoming. Also, they described graffiti as “culture”. I do not quite subscribe to that view. I think that budding artists who want to tag properties should tag their own property, not somebody else’s property. I think their own property is the only place for them to start their work.

Labour members said also that the Manukau City Council should use other initiatives to develop and expand its urban design initiatives to minimise opportunities for graffiti, as if that were entirely the city council’s problem. The city council has been very proactive in terms of environmental design to minimise crime as well as graffiti, but, ultimately, individuals need to get the message that tagging public property and other property will simply not be tolerated.

So this evening common sense has won out, particularly in election year, but the credit should go to the Hon George Hawkins for his tenacity in staying with this bill and fighting for a cause that is dear to him. It is a pleasure for me, as part of the South Auckland team, to support the passage of this bill.

RODNEY HIDE (Leader—ACT): With the greatest respect to the Hon George Hawkins, and with the greatest respect to Ross Robertson, Judith Collins, and Pansy Wong, I have never heard so much rubbish spoken in this House in such a short time, in my brief time in this parliamentary debating chamber. The Manukau City Council (Control of Graffiti) Bill is rubbish. The only reason that political parties are jumping up and down in support of it is that this is election year. They all want to be seen to be doing something about the terrible blight of graffiti seen throughout New Zealand, so they will jump on any measure and pass it. The speakers in the debate have admitted that this bill does not fix the problem, so why on earth are we passing the bill if it will not do that? Inherent in the bill it is obvious that it will not fix the problem; if it would why would we be passing it only for Manukau City? If this were the solution for graffiti, would we not be passing a bill to cover the entire country? We have graffiti in Newmarket too and in Mount Eden, but the collective wisdom of this Parliament, New Zealand First, the National Party, and the Labour Government says we need a bill to rescue Manukau from the plight of graffiti. The reason the bill covers only Manukau is that the MPs in this Parliament know that the bill is not a solution.

We all love George Hawkins—over here we love him more than his own colleagues do. He is an honest and straightforward-talking politician who works hard. So I would like to support his bill because I think he is a good guy, but I have to tell the House that in good conscience I cannot. My first commitment, even beyond my respect for George Hawkins, is a respect for the job of passing good law. George Hawkins knows that this bill is not good law. He has to do it because he is the local MP; the mayor and the council are all agitated, and they want to do something to fix the problem of graffiti. The bill has a solution—stop people buying cans of spray-paint! If people are walking down the street carrying a spray-can looking to use it to make graffiti, then that is against the law. What rubbish! Graffiti is a crime against property. It is a crime but making a new law is not necessary. What is required is to enforce the law that we already have. How hard is that to understand? We must enforce the law that we have, not just in Manukau but right throughout New Zealand. Let us not just sit here and say fine words about how we oppose graffiti, and then go back to our electorates and ask people whether they had heard our speeches, and say we are against graffiti. Let us actually do the thing that would fix the problem. Let us not try to fix the problem by talking about it; let us not try to fix the problem by passing even more laws—especially if they apply to just one blighted district and not the whole country. Let us do the right thing.

Are we agreed in this House that graffiti—the writing with paint on other people’s property and on public property—is a crime? Of course it is a crime. Everyone in this Parliament knows it. I could not believe it when I heard Pansy Wong say we need the tools to fight the problem.

Te Ururoa Flavell: Only in Manukau.

RODNEY HIDE: But only in Manukau—I guess they are brown people so we need more tools. I do not know—brown tools! What is going on! We have the tools. It is called the law, as it exists. We have a thing called the police, who are there to enforce the laws. I would much rather the police were out chasing the taggers than chasing me for my newsletters that I am putting out into my electorate telling people what a good MP I am. That would be a proper use of police time. So why do we not unite as a Parliament to fight the scourge of graffiti, because it is disgusting; it is terrifying to have one’s fence, garage door, house walls, or business graffitied endlessly, to go out week after week to repaint it, only to see it graffitied again, and then to complain to the police and have nothing happen. That is the disgusting thing. And then this Parliament comes along with a bill to ban the sale of spray-cans in Manukau—that is our response.

I do not think there is a party in this House—maybe the Māori Party—that has stood firmer for property rights than ACT. Never have we voted to denigrate an individual New Zealander’s property rights. If members think about human freedom, they realise it is all about property rights. We believe it is our job in Parliament, in holding the Government to account, to respect people’s property rights—everyone’s property rights. That is what the problem of graffiti is: we are not empowering our police, and we are not resourcing our police to defend New Zealanders’ property rights. If we want to get tough on graffiti, that is what we do; we do not stand piously in this House passing a law that we know will not work, and passing a law for a particular district for a New Zealand - wide problem simply because that is where the politics lies.

I have heard some of my parliamentary colleagues say in public that ACT does not care about graffiti because we are voting against this bill. Members who have said that know who they are. Those members are shameless and they should be ashamed of themselves. I do not believe they should be ashamed of themselves for how they vote today, because that is their call, but I ask them not to question the people who are voting against this bill, because those members know, just like I know, that this bill is not the answer to the problem. There is an answer to the problem and it is respect for one another and our property, and a court, justice, and police system that enforces that. That is what we should be spending our time on, not this rubbish.

PITA PARAONE (NZ First): I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I just want some clarification. I know there is a speaking order in terms of different bills, and I just want some clarification as to the order for New Zealand First. I know that you said the previous speaker called first, but I have been in this House on a number of occasions where people who have not actually had their voice heard first have been given the call, because of the precedent that has been set in terms of determining the order of speakers.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Marian Hobbs): Thank you Pita Paraone. There is an order and it is agreed, but it is a guide. There are two things playing here. The first is that there is a speaking order and it changes on members’ day, but this one is the same as per normal. The second thing is that people should call. Sometimes on bills people do not call and I am sitting here looking around the Chamber, so I have to weigh up in my mind who calls first and in what order. That is what was playing there. I apologise because I could see you call before and I looked towards you—but it is all yours now.

PITA PARAONE (NZ First): Tēnā koe, Madam Assistant Speaker. Engari i mua i te haere tonu o tēnei kōrero, e tika ana kia tū tēnei ki te tautoko i ngā mihi i mihingia e ētahi ō tātou, ki ngā aituā i pā mai ki runga i ētahi o ngā whānau mai i taku hau kāinga, arā, ko Pakuranga me Howick. Nā reira koutou ngā tauira, ahakoa kua pā mai Te Ringa Kaha o Aituā ki runga i a koutou, ka nui tēnei te aroha, te mihi hoki ki ngā whānau. Kei runga i a koutou te kākahu taratara i tēnei wā, nā reira, e mihi tonu ki a koutou ngā whānau.

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

[Greetings to you, Madam Assistant Speaker. But before I continue with this address, it is appropriate that I rise in support of the condolences expressed by some of us in regard to the misfortunes suffered by some families in my locality of Pakuranga and Howick. So to you, the students, despite the fact that the mighty hand of misfortune has struck you, there is much love and respect to the families. The barbed cloak is upon you at this time, so a tribute to you in particular, the families.]

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak today to the third reading of the Manukau City Council (Control of Graffiti) Bill. First of all, as I have always done during the course of the debate on this bill, I declare a vested interest. I do so on the basis that I am a resident and a ratepayer of Manukau City, so the consequences of the actions that this bill is all about in some way have an effect on me in terms of meeting the costs of removing the graffiti or the tagging, as it is now commonly known.

Graffiti has existed since ancient times, with examples going back to ancient Greece and the Roman Empire. Graffiti can be anything from simple scratch marks to elaborate wall paintings. In modern times spray-paint and markers have become the most commonly used materials. In most countries, defacing property with graffiti without the property owner’s consent is considered vandalism, which is punishable by law, and New Zealand is no exception.

Sometimes graffiti is employed to communicate social and political messages. To some it is an art form worthy of display in galleries and exhibitions. The public generally frowns upon tags that deface bus stops, trains, buildings, playgrounds, and other public property and, not least of all, private property. The goal of taggers, it seems, is to have as many tags as possible. We have seen the level of graffiti reach epidemic proportions in Manukau City—hence the reason for this bill.

People have commended a number of people for bringing this bill to this House. I want to commend especially the fortitude shown by the former Mayor of Manukau City, Sir Barry Curtis, and his council. But I also want to make the point that when they first initiated this particular kaupapa they notified every MP resident in Auckland at the time. But there was an exception, and that exception is the present member on his feet. I recall during the first reading that I thought it was rather ironic that I seemed to be the only member, other than the sponsor of this bill, to be standing in support of it. However times have changed, and obviously we will see this bill pass into law.

New Zealand First has always called for more law and order, and for that reason we give our support to this bill. We do not accept that tagging is a form of self-expression or art as some people would have us believe but, rather, it is a nuisance and a violation on private property and people’s lives. Time and time again it is ordinary New Zealanders who are expected to pick up the tab for antisocial behaviour. It affects not only property values but also the social well-being of those living in areas that are continually targeted. We have heard earlier speakers this afternoon refer to that. Graffiti once scrawled on walls in ancient Greece and Rome might have been considered art and have had historical significance, but scrawled on someone’s garage or wall in Manukau City, or any other city, it is definitely vandalism, and the perpetrators should be punished appropriately.

Manukau City Council is one council that has decided to do something about this crime, and I for one applaud it. As a consequence, the Government announced in February a national strategy to fight tagging and graffiti vandalism. Some people might say that that is not a consequence of this bill, but that is the view I have. I believe that the Manukau City Council (Control of Graffiti) Bill played a large part in the Government’s new strategy, as the select committee hoped that the bill would be a catalyst for the implementation of a multifaceted national approach to graffiti.

The purpose of this legislation is to minimise the graffiti problem in Manukau City, to deter and penalise offenders, and to provide the council and the police with additional powers to deal with graffiti-associated problems. The bill has been criticised for its inconsistencies with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, for being too piecemeal, and for not being a national solution to this crime. Well, the Government has seen sense and its Stop Tagging Our Place strategy shares similar penalties with those of the Manukau City bill.

We in New Zealand First support this bill and welcome the hard-hitting approach taken by the Government in its national strategy. Just today the Dominion Post has reported a story about a youth who has been locked up for 28 days for tagging, and the judge in that case said that tagging was neither art nor culture but covert criminal behaviour. The previous speaker from ACT made reference to the fact that we already have legislation that could be applied. It seems to me that if the law is applied, then the message the court has delivered to that particular offender perhaps will have some impact on those people who are considering making tagging or graffiti art a form of vandalism.

New Zealand First welcomes this tough stance, and commends the judge for taking this hard-line view. This case should send a clear message to other taggers and graffiti vandals that New Zealanders will no longer tolerate this criminal behaviour. The question now is whether other judges will follow suit and have the courage to reinforce this action. Apart from being an eyesore and a nuisance for those affected by this criminal behaviour, graffiti and tagging are strongly associated with gangs. They are often used as a way of marking territory and, therefore, showing who is boss. Disaffected youth in lower socio-economic areas are likely to be drawn into this gang culture if graffiti is made to look cool and tough. A reason for this is that graffiti has become intertwined with and popularised by the hip-hop culture. Many kids are attracted to gangs because, wrongly, they see them as role models and a way out of their poor neighbourhoods. New Zealand First believes that gangs have become a blight on our society and should be outlawed. Certainly, we view graffiti and tagging crime with the same disdain.

I conclude by acknowledging the work of the member for Manurewa, the Hon George Hawkins, in bringing this bill to this House. The thing about this particular bill is that it comes to this House with every likelihood of its being passed, against the recommendations of the select committee that considered it. I wonder whether, in fact, this is setting a precedent, and giving some hope to those of us who bring bills as private members, to reflect the demand, the call, of our constituents to have a bill put into law. In conclusion, I reaffirm the position that New Zealand First will take on this bill; we will support it.

SUE BRADFORD (Green): On behalf of the Green Party I will take a brief call to reiterate that we will continue our position of opposing this bill. I had the privilege of sitting on the Local Government and Environment Committee all those years ago when we heard submissions in Manukau. We heard about the despair, desperation, and anger of many of the people of Manukau, not just of prominent citizens like Sir Barry Curtis, councillors, and others but also of ordinary people who were totally fed up with what was happening in their neighbourhoods every single day of the year. I and the Green Party have enormous sympathy for them. I do not buy into the argument that defacing a local shop, fence, or garage is in any way a form of art that should be cherished and supported, but at the same time I tell the House that the Green Party was part of the vote on that select committee to turn this bill back. It is quite amazing that Parliament has reversed its decision on it.

This is a very odd occasion, on which I find myself in almost total agreement with Mr Rodney Hide from ACT. We do have legislation—we have the Crimes Act—that makes vandalism in its various forms an offence that can be dealt with under the criminal law now. We do not need a new law, and in particular we do not need a new law that carves out one particular local body district of this country and says we will impose a particular criminal law on that one district.

I understand that this legislation is a precursor for a bill that will be nationally applied, but I still think it is a really unfortunate precedent to say that we should pass any kind of criminal legislation that applies to only one part of the country. It reminds me very much of apartheid in South Africa and of other forms of separate application of citizenship. I can see a situation where perhaps we would have a different kind of law to deal with crime in Northland, or in the Kaitāia-Kaikohe district. Would we have a different law that would apply to Porirua or to Fendalton? Do we make different criminal laws for different parts of the country? That was certainly one of the main reasons, I believe, why the majority on the original select committee turned this bill back in the first place. I think that the parties that are supporting this bill tonight are setting a very dangerous precedent, no matter what their opinions are about graffiti.

In relation to graffiti itself, although I do not agree with the opinion that all graffiti around Manukau, or anywhere else, is art—and I do not believe that Cindy Kiro believes that, either—the Green Party does believe that graffiti is a symptom of much deeper problems. It is a symptom of things like social alienation and like poverty, including the generations of poverty that have existed in Manukau City. It is also a symptom of many Māori and Pacific Island young people feeling very alienated from mainstream or upside culture, from education, from our health system, and from employment even in this time of high employment. Many of those young people feel they have no stake in our society, so they turn to gangs and express themselves in ways that the rest of us find, understandably, to be totally abhorrent.

The solution to this issue is not to crack down with heavier laws that apply to taggers but to look for real solutions and real answers. Those answers lie partly in dealing with poverty issues, housing issues, and the reasons that those people feel alienated. The solutions lie partly in changing the education system, so that thousands of young people do not drop out, or are not pushed out, of the education system into nothingness. The answers also lie in providing more opportunities for young people to express themselves through activities, whether through art, sport, or a myriad of other activities, that are more productive for them, and for all of us, than vandalising the neighbours’ fences and shops.

I would encourage this Parliament to think a little more deeply about why we are debating this bill tonight and about why graffiti is such a huge issue in some parts of the country. I congratulate ACT and the Māori Party on joining with the Green Party in opposing this bill, on making a stand for common sense, and on not continuing to demonise young people, and the young people of South Auckland in particular, for something that I believe is a product—often—of their desperation and lack of a stake in our society.

TE URUROA FLAVELL (Māori Party—Waiariki): Tēnā koe, Madam Assistant Speaker; kia ora tātou; kia ora, Mr Blumsky. I te tuatahi me whai atu au i ngā kōrero i te ahiahi nei mō te hunga kua ngaro atu i te tirohanga kanohi, arā, ngā tamariki tokoono me tō rātou kaiako. Ko ngā kōrero i puta inapō mō taua hīkoi i te awa o Mangatepopo, i Tongariro, he mea ohorere tonu, ā, kua pā mai te aroha me te mamae ki a tātou katoa i te rangi nei. Nō reira, moe mai koutou. Āpiti hono, tātai hono ko te hunga mate ki te hunga mate, āpiti hono, tātai hono ko te hunga ora ki te hunga ora, tēnā anō tātou katoa.

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

[Greetings to you, Madam Assistant Speaker, and to us all, including you, Mr Blumsky. In the first instance I want to follow up the tributes this afternoon in respect of those who are no longer before us, namely the six young people and their teacher. News about that trek in the Mangatepopo Stream at Tongariro last night was catastrophic and has caused us all such sympathy and pain today. Therefore, to you the departed, rest there. Remain bonded and united in death. To us the living, bound here in life, greetings once again to us all.]

I say from the outset that I enjoyed Mr Rodney Hide’s speech tonight. It was quite to the point and direct about where he was coming from, and I have to say that he had some really valid points to make. I also say that the Māori Party can understand the motivation for having such a bill as the Manukau City Council (Control of Graffiti) Bill. We can understand the feelings of people as they see their homes, paths, and maybe walls painted, but, like the Greens and ACT, we do not believe that this bill will deal with the problem.

The focus of the bill is on putting in place a harsh punishment regime to deal with offenders—measures that will increase the surveillance capacities available to the police and to the Manukau City Council. When all else fails there will be other options, including increasingly intrusive opportunities to arrest and fine offenders. In its entirety this bill targets young people. It prohibits the sale of spray-paint to minors under 18 years of age and requires evidence of age to be revealed, which are measures the Government has willingly picked up in its tagging and graffiti vandalism bill.

It would hardly be news to anyone in this House that tangata whenua will be disproportionately more likely to experience the new suite of options meted out to address youth crime. Let us look at the facts. The report Youth Justice Statistics in New Zealand: 1992 to 2006 shows that Māori youth arrests were more than three times those of Pākehā and twice those of Pacific peoples. Is there likely to be a different situation in Manukau? Hell, no!

Throughout the duration of this debate around graffiti, some brave people have actually dared to raise another view and to look beyond the hysteria and the hype around graffiti to ask what is happening and why. These people have dared to ask questions about the causes for creating graffiti in the first place and about the motivation that results in the reactions we see displayed on city walls. Why do our young people bother to leave behind these embellished autographs? Why do they want to make their mark in order to stake out their turf?

The Children’s Commissioner was one of the people who dared to speak out, and to demonstrate courage in asking the House to look at the widest possible range of processes and policies to manage tagging and graffiti. She encouraged Parliament to think beyond what she called “punitive and restrictive measures” that appear both in the tagging and, we would suggest, in this bill. But what happened? Dr Kiro was immediately censured, with some at the more extreme end of reason even protesting that by taking a broad-brush approach towards understanding graffiti, she may well have signed an arrest warrant for thousands more young people.

Two years ago this House erupted in anger over a similar debate about whether legislation was promoting the punishment of children. At the time of the debate on section 59 of the Crimes Act, the Social Justice Commission of the Anglican Church called for a more just society in which all members were treated equally, respected, and cared for. Its submission made the case, passionately, “for a legal framework that is clear, consistent, passionate, and caring, especially towards the most vulnerable in our society”. This House passed legislation to create a better society as we outlawed the use of physical force against children as a defence in any court, yet today with this bill we have new legislation to authorise entering private property and removing graffiti, to establish a fine of $2,500, to create an offence of carrying a paintbrush—a graffiti implement—and to put in place a path whereby punishment can lead to jail if fines are not paid.

It could have all been quite different. The Local Government and Environment Committee report gave an indication of other options that could have been available. It described the work of the Manukau Beautification Charitable Trust, the 24/7 graffiti clean-up programme of the Christchurch City Council, and the voluntary memoranda of understanding between councils and retailers regarding the display and storage of spray-cans. Just last week we heard about the initiative being pioneered by a Christchurch primary school, Te Rito o te Harakeke, in fighting graffiti with graffiti. The deputy principal of the kura, Ruawhitu Pōkaia, described the need for taking a different approach to dissuade young people from tagging and bombing their site. The school went out and commissioned artists to bomb its school fence, with Mr Pōkaia concluding not only that the exercise was useful in brightening up the school but also that the eventual product of the art became a teaching resource in itself. The fence now inspires questions about the birthplace of our nation, Waitangi, about the manu whenua, and about Ōtakaro, which is known to some as the Avon River. The very name that the kura goes by reminds us of a holistic approach towards our young people. The name is derived, of course, from the well-known waiata, “Hūtia te rito o te harakeke, kei whea te kōmako, e kō?”

[Draw out the centre shoot of the flax, and where is the bellbird now, young one?]

It is a waiata that reminds us that just as the centre of the stem of the flax bush is nurtured and supported by the older leaves, so too our children must be nurtured and supported by their whānau—their siblings, parents, and grandparents.

We have argued consistently throughout this debate, and in more recent debates on tagging, that punishment is not the only answer. We have raised concerns about the vigilante action that has taken place as people have sorted out their own punishments for property crime, and we have laid down the challenge that a restorative justice approach would look at a comprehensive campaign that included those offending being given the responsibility of eradicating their own graffiti and, indeed, of facing the people who had suffered because of their actions. The greatest fear that we have with legislation like this is that it sets up a scenario by which the world can sit back and let the heavy hand of the law intervene. There is, in fact, no call for people to do anything themselves—to get involved in their communities, to empower themselves, or to make a difference to the future. Our co-leader Tariana Turia spoke up for a restorative justice approach and the thought police exploded into righteous fury, condemning her for her comment that we needed to think about the social commentary that graffiti represents, and respond to the underlying concerns around the alienation of young people.

We have been told that another woman who has dared to try a different approach is an unsung community hero—Minnie of Manukau. She gets up very early in the morning at 5 a.m., we are told, to look over her local park in order to care for the environment “for the sake of the little children”, in her words. She has become the official guardian of the community park in Ōtara. She tries to stop the boys from tagging, runs over to catch offenders in the act and marches them off to their parents. As one of the neighbours described her: “Minnie brings good to the hood.” She tells the parents to care for their children and, in doing so, she encourages us all to care for our environment and for each other.

We can all be like Minnie of Manukau, engaging positively with our young people rather than always persisting with legislation and approaches that punish and condemn, and that impose fines and take the approach of “Lock ’em up and destroy all hope.”, especially if all we are doing is being done for Manukau. We in the Māori Party will never agree to knee-jerk - reaction legislation that seeks to criminalise antisocial behaviour, when we all have the opportunities to support our alienated young people and encourage them to find positive ways of participating in and contributing to our communities. We do not need this overreaction and this continually critical, hostile attack on our young. We need to engage with our young. We need to seek solutions. We need to restore hope that we can all nurture our young to grow into the leaders who will help to shape our tomorrow.

MARTIN GALLAGHER (Labour—Hamilton West): I rise to speak on the third reading of the Manukau City Council (Control of Graffiti) Bill. I join with previous speakers, including, I think, Judith Collins and Pansy Wong, in praising Mr George Hawkins for his tenacity and longstanding support of this bill. I also praise other MPs from the South Auckland area, particularly Dave Hereora, whose work I acknowledge. I acknowledge Ross Robertson’s work. He gave a very fine speech in the House today. I also particularly acknowledge the very good community leadership and role of the former deputy mayor of the city of Manukau, Su’a William Sio, who is sitting next to me. I acknowledge that George and members of the Manukau City Council have worked hard towards getting this bill. I particularly praise the previous mayor, Sir Barry Curtis, for his leadership on this issue, and I also praise the current Mayor, Len Brown.

There was some reference in the speeches to the role of the Local Government and Environment Committee and to the fact that, notwithstanding the ultimate recommendation of the select committee at the time, Parliament is minded to proceed with the Manukau City Council (Control of Graffiti) Bill. I also acknowledge that some members, particularly those opposite, can specialise in the 10-second, half-truth sound bite, or the “glass half-empty and half-truthful” sound bite. However, I think it is important that we acknowledge the conclusion of the majority of the select committee. It clearly acknowledged “the efforts of Manukau City in bringing this matter to Parliament’s attention through this Bill. The committee was assured by the Minister that Manukau would be involved in the ongoing development of future Government initiatives. We are concerned by the spread of unlawful graffiti in New Zealand, and believe that it is an issue that needs addressing in and beyond Manukau City. Although we do not believe that this bill is the right solution, we hope it will be a catalyst to the implementation of a multifaceted national approach to graffiti.”

In terms of a catalyst to a nationwide approach, I pay particular tribute to the team at the Manukau City Council; not just the elected members but the community workers, the community people, and the members of the staff, aided, as they were, by people such as the Hon George Hawkins, Ross Robertson, and other members who represent the city of Manukau. I also want to say, however, that, upon reflection, the Manukau City Council says that notwithstanding the report of the select committee, it wants to get ahead and get on with this local bill. I note a quote from what I think is a very good article. As a Hamilton member, I do not read the Manukau Courier, but—

Hon George Hawkins: You should.

MARTIN GALLAGHER: Perhaps I should, indeed. There is a very good article in the paper and a very nice photo of George Hawkins. The paper gives him great credit for this bill. I have just noticed that there is a quote from the Mayor of Manukau, Len Brown, in which he states he is convinced that local and national legislation is crucial to helping the city of Manukau to get rid of graffiti. He says that city ratepayers pay $1 million a year to get rid of 300,000 tags. That was alluded to earlier in the debate this afternoon. Mr Brown says that if this bill is passed first, a ban on the sale of spray-cans to under 18s would apply to Manukau before anywhere else, and so would new rules around the storage of spray-cans in shops, and other provisions to help fight graffiti. Mr Brown says that the council is finalising an extension to its graffiti strategy that will see a stronger focus on eradication and prevention. In that sense, yes, this Parliament has reflected, and, yes, we are saying to the city of Manukau that we acknowledge that it has introduced a bill, so we should go ahead and enact it. Very quickly behind it, and I think certainly dovetailing with it, will be the nationwide legislation, which is currently before the Law and Order Committee.

As I have said in previous debates in this House, I strongly believe that the legislation that is currently before the Law and Order Committee and the Stop Tagging Our Place (STOP) initiative will dovetail very, very neatly with the Manukau City Council (Control of Graffiti) Bill. As I have said before, and as the select committee itself has done, I strongly applaud the Manukau City Council for its initiative in bringing this bill to the House. I note the very strong leadership and support from the Mayor of Manukau City, Len Brown, in terms of the STOP strategy. In fact, the only people I can hear opposing this Government’s anti-graffiti strategy are the small number of Opposition members. They are the only ones I can hear. I cannot hear the democratically elected members of the Manukau City Council, under the leadership of Len Brown, opposing the STOP strategy. I cannot hear criticism from the Manukau City Council of the nationwide bill. What they hear from me and from others is strong praise for their leadership in getting the show on the road and focusing the nation’s attention on the scourge and the antisocial crime that graffiti is.

As the member of Parliament for Hamilton West, I also must give full credit, as I have done in previous contributions, to my own city council—to the staff and to the councillors—for promoting many positive anti-graffiti strategies, and their strong support, by and large, for the bill. My own city councillors said the bill on its own is not a panacea, is not the total answer. We know that, we acknowledge that, but it is part of a suite of measures that is very important, alongside which goes the bill that we are debating tonight.

The South Auckland members, the Manukau City members, have talked about the strong community support for the bill and the strong community initiatives. I mentioned in an earlier debate on the bill that in Hamilton City 1,600 members of the Latter-day Saints church community, as part of a nationwide day of service, got out and cleaned up tags throughout the city, particularly in the so-called Poets Corner and Five Cross Roads area, but also in parts of my electorate. That was a wonderful example in Hamilton of a church community group showing wonderful community leadership, and, boy, it lifted the morale of the community, which joined in. I give a big bouquet in praise.

That is but one significant example of community buy-in. When I was a member of the select committee, 1 o’clock one the morning I was talking to Māori Wardens and security people from the city of Manukau. They took me around and showed me some of the tags. There are some great community safety programmes, including Māori Wardens, Night Owls—you name it. My good colleague the former deputy mayor of Manukau will certainly attest to that. They are inspirational. These men and women are not on big pay cheques. They just get on and do the work, and I think we owe them a debt of gratitude.

I ask members opposite to please have the glass half-full for once. Let us acknowledge that we are making some profound progress. Let us put cynicism out in the lobby—leave it in the lobby. Let us acknowledge that we are making some really good progress. Let us acknowledge and thank the Manukau City Council and George Hawkins—which Judith Collins did—for their leadership in getting the show on the road. Let us acknowledge that there is some really good Government legislation before the Law and Order Committee at the moment. Let us acknowledge the really wonderful STOP strategy. These are positive things. Let us be positive. I am very, very proud to be part of a Government that has heeded the call of the people and is doing what we can to get a solution to a very serious social issue. Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker.

MARK BLUMSKY (National): In the 1 minute that I have left before we break for dinner I want to comment on the speech I have just heard. The last words that the member for Hamilton West said were that he is proud that he heeded the call. Before that dissertation we heard him asking what everyone had heard—what the country had heard. I just remind the country of what it did hear. It heard that member, Martin Gallagher from Hamilton West, vote against this legislation. I was on the Local Government and Environment Committee with him, and he voted against this legislation. He stood there and said to listen to members on this side of the House and where they stand, but we need to remind everyone listening that he voted against this bill. That was rather hard to pick up in the speech that we have just heard.

The National Party has always supported this bill, right along a path that has been rather tortuous, I would have to say. Guess what? We are not supporting the bill because it is election year; we are supporting it because it sends a message. I will give members that message after dinner.

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

MARK BLUMSKY: It is nice to have the chance to speak again on the Manukau City Council (Control of Graffiti) Bill. I see Mr Gallagher leaving the House. [Interruption] I welcome him back. I took the opportunity before the dinner break to remind Mr Gallagher which way he voted on this bill, and to point out that he did not support it—not that I could tell that from his speech. I tell him that there are no hard feelings. I will be in Hamilton on Friday and Saturday, so I would hate to think he might take personally anything I have said!

National has always supported this bill, and we have done so from the start. Mr Hide made the presumption that we have supported the bill because it is election year; we have actually supported it because we believe graffiti is a very serious issue.

I would suggest to Mr Hawkins that it is not the perfect bill. It is not the bill that National members would have written if we had had the chance. But we have supported it quite simply because the Government needs to be sent a message. We felt that by supporting this local bill we could send the Government a message, and that message is quite simple: the public are absolutely fed up to here with the problem of graffiti. The public are incredibly serious about this issue and about wanting it to be handled now. It is not just the public; every jolly council in the country is having the same problem and wants something done about it now. But the Government was not doing a damn thing.

The Government released a strategy in 2005, which it said was a wonderful strategy, to be completed by the year 2010—its five-step strategy for graffiti. The Government said that it would start the strategy in 2005 and complete it in 2010. Well, that is just not good enough, at all. The public want action, and it was because George Hawkins had brought this local bill to Parliament that we took the opportunity to tell the Government to get off its bloody backside, to sort out the problem, and to sort it out now—2010 ain’t good enough. The Government has to be joking.

I was one of those who sat on the Local Government and Environment Committee, and I heard every submission. I can tell members now that there was heartache and anguish from the submitters. I also took the opportunity to visit the cities of Manukau and Waitakere.

Graffiti is a cancer. It is a cancer that grows. We see one bit of graffiti, then we walk past the next day and see two bits of graffiti, and the next day there is three and four, and it spreads. It spreads like a cancer and, before we know it we accept it, and we do not notice that it has grown. This is bloody dangerous to society, because it affects safety, it affects how people feel, it affects trade—how good business is in those areas—and it affects people’s property. That is just not good enough, and it cannot be tolerated.

It does not happen just in Manukau, and it does not happen just in Waitakere; it happens in the rest of the country. I live in the middle of Wellington City, by a park. A gentleman there has been re-plastering his house. The wall of the house fronts up against the park just outside my place. For 6 months he has had scaffolding there, and he has slowly been re-plastering his house. He finished on the weekend and took the scaffolding down. Can members guess what was there on Monday morning, on the entire wall that he had spent 6 months re-plastering? That is just so cruel. It is so cruel that that man has worked with his hands re-plastering the wall, and then, lo and behold, some hooligans come along, vandalise it, and ruin it for him. Members can imagine the anguish he must feel.

We do not need to put up with that any more. We need to send a message not only to the Government to get off its backside and do something but also to the taggers. We need to say that zero tolerance is where we want to be, and that we will not tolerate any graffiti tagging, at all. We have to make sure that any further legislation coming through Parliament supports local government and gives it the resources it needs to eradicate graffiti, with speed, because we have to eradicate it with speed. There should be zero tolerance. It was fantastic to see that a judge gave a prison sentence to a tagger the other day.

The National Party is proud to support George Hawkins and his efforts with this local bill. I say to the member that he is stubborn and has tenacity. I congratulate him on his endeavours to bring this bill to the House, having had the kickbacks and setbacks that he has had. I congratulate Manukau, and I congratulate Bob Harvey and his wonderful team at Waitakere. Without the volunteers and the support of the councils, the difference would not have been made in those areas. I congratulate George, I wish him luck, and I say to him that we can make a difference in this place, can we not?

SU’A WILLIAM SIO (Labour): I briefly endorse all that the Prime Minister and party leaders have said earlier in conveying our deepest sorrows and sympathies to the students, families, school, and community of Elim Christian College in Howick, Manukau City. E ngā mate, haere, haere, haere. May the dark clouds that hover over those families quickly dissipate.

I rise to make a small contribution to the third reading of the Manukau City Council (Control of Graffiti) Bill. Before doing so, I say to members of the House that I am a Manukau resident. I am also a sitting member of Manukau City Council—

Nathan Guy: Still on the council?

SU’A WILLIAM SIO: —and I will have resigned from that office when this House returns from the adjournment break in May. I have been the chair of the council’s annual plan committee from 2004 to 2007, and I remember that we have always received a large number of submissions from the community on graffiti. The funding for graffiti reduction was a constant matter of debate in the council meetings. I am aware that Manukau City Council, when it considered whether to approach this House through the Hon George Hawkins, did not make the decision lightly; it made the decision to do so after a long and serious process of consideration, debate, and listening to its community.

When graffiti first hit the streets of South Auckland and Manukau in the 1970s it began with a few tags and scribbles here and there. It was generally considered by the public to be a nuisance. In those days there was an unwritten understanding that certain places were not to be tagged because they were sacred, or tapu. That is no longer the case—that was then. Today I am aware that Manukau City Council spends over $1 million on quick graffiti removal, and community education and prevention. This work is carried out by the Manukau Beautification Charitable Trust and its hard-working volunteers, many of whom are staff. A host of volunteers come from churches, local schools, and other community groups. The Manukau Beautification Charitable Trust is chaired by its hard-working chairman, the Rev. Mark Beale, who travelled overseas at his own expense to learn how we could, from the experience of others overseas, tackle the problem in Manukau. I am aware that Manukau City Council felt that without effective legislation to back those initiatives, the city would be fighting a losing battle. This is the context for the decision we made in 2004, with Sir Barry Curtis as mayor, to promote this bill through the Hon George Hawkins. Now with Len Brown as mayor the council has continued to advocate for this bill to go through Parliament.

I acknowledge that concerns were raised by some in this House, with particular reference to young people. I assure members that this bill is not aimed at curbing the artistic and creative talents of our young people. Aerosol art and the creative talents of our young people are not at issue here. Manukau is the land of the young, the beautiful, and the gifted, and we want all of our young people to aim high. The bill will, in many ways, raise the standard for our young people, and it will reinforce and give strength to the work that the community already does now. It will allow for the penalising of graffiti offenders, and it will provide the council with powers to remove graffiti on private property, and to control the sale of spray-paint in the city. I have also heard some members say that this will not solve the problem—that people who do the tagging will go over to Auckland City and buy their spray-cans there. That could very well happen, which is why there would have initially been reluctance from many in this House about this bill.

I heard earlier my learned colleague across on the opposite side of the House accuse my young and handsome colleague here, Mr Martin Gallagher, of voting against this bill at the select committee stage. That may be so, but Mr Gallagher is someone who shows good leadership in this House. He is part of a Labour-led Government that recognises strong leadership. When Manukau City Council put a stake in the ground and showed this House and this nation what true leadership is about, Martin Gallagher and the Labour-led Government understood and recognised that kind of leadership. This Government has engaged, listened, considered, and then acted swiftly and deliberately to support this bill.

Tonight I acknowledge the Government for supporting this bill; for the launch of the Stop Tagging Our Place strategy; and for its willingness to listen, engage, and understand the aspirations and needs of all of our communities, in particular Manukau City. I acknowledge the Hon George Hawkins for persevering on behalf of the people of Manukau City, and thank all those members who considered and supported this bill. I thank in particular those members who reside in Manukau City for their voice on this issue. I also say to His Worship the Mayor, Len Brown, and the councillors and community board members who may be listening “Good on ya for persevering. You have showed this House and, in particular, members of the House how important it is to listen and engage with our communities and to show good leadership.” The Manukau Beautification Charitable Trust, which is chaired by Rev. Mark Beale, also needs to be acknowledged, as do the churches and schools that day in, day out, have to deal with graffiti. I acknowledge them all and say that tonight we have created history with Manukau City, George Hawkins, and the Labour-led Government by passing this bill.

DAVE HEREORA (Labour): Before I begin I too extend and convey condolences to the families for their loss through the tragedy at Tongariro.

I will start by sharing with members this evening the comments made by Judge Adeane, who handed down in court a 28-day sentence to a tagger. He said that “tagging is neither art nor culture but covert, criminal behaviour.” He went on to say “It is a serious crime that destroys property, causes untold misery for ordinary householders and businesses, and costs hundreds of thousands of dollars annually to clean up.” I thought it was appropriate that I preface my contribution with those comments. I have heard from earlier speakers this evening about graffiti being quite a delightful expression of art. Some have described it as being vandalism. I quote my colleague Ross Robertson, who said it was part of an “ugly, odious expression”. I will also mention the comments from the Green member that graffiti, or people who use graffiti, show signs of poverty and alienation.

I suppose that no matter what category one fits into, at the end of the day we all become subjected to being victims of graffiti—whether personally by the stuff being put on our fences or property or by knowing a person who has been a victim of graffiti. I think that describes the web of graffiti and how it affects our community and society. It has become a serious problem. I will also comment on the earlier comments of ACT member Rodney Hide. He said that currently the law is enough to fix the problem and that the police, through the law, are amply armed to fix the problem, and he mentioned the property rights issue.

I will share with that member that about 18 months ago I was invited to a community meeting in the city of Papakura. Graffiti is a real problem within that community. I said to the community that even I was a victim of graffiti. It was not long after the last election that I put up my corflute signs with a handsome picture of me on them—and they got graffitied as well. The community at that stage came up with a plan. It was quite a simple plan. They decided to contribute collectively to helping the police eradicate the problem. They understood that the police, with the legislation, could not do it on their own, so they decided to band together to reinitiate their Neighbourhood Watch schemes and to get involved in the Blue Light programme. They actively found a practical way of assisting the police to do their job. I have to say that the police do a good job but they cannot fix this on their own. Eighteen months down the track, I cannot confirm to the House that the problem is fixed, but at the very least I know that the issue surrounding graffiti has decreased dramatically. That is through a very simple initiative of people banding together and helping out.

I will also make a comment on the statement that Dr Sharples made in relation to the gangs being a part of the solution to the graffiti problem. I say to Dr Sharples that I have two children who go to college. On the way home they get targeted by youth gangs. They target them at a very vulnerable time of the day. They use graffiti as an unfettered tool to try to recruit youths because they understand that graffiti breaks down the very disciplines that are necessary to offset it. The biggest problem with breaking down those disciplines is that it also affects the communication between that child and his or her family. So I do not accept Dr Sharples’ comments that the gangs should be part of the solution. On the other hand, it is my view that they contribute to the problem. I think his comments were quite short-sighted.

We understand that graffiti is a major problem for local councils throughout New Zealand. I acknowledge the work of the current council through Len Brown, but also mention that Sir Barry Curtis was constantly on my back about the issue of graffiti. I understand that he originally sponsored a bill, as well. To that end, I also acknowledge George Hawkins. I have stayed in George Hawkins’ Manurewa electorate and graffiti is a huge problem there and has been ongoing for some time. I commend George for taking the initiative to bring this issue to the fore. I congratulate George for the work he has done. With my other colleagues in South Auckland—Ross Robertson and our new member Su’a William Sio—I acknowledge that graffiti is a problem within the Manukau area and within the greater part of Auckland. We see this bill as an added tool, as added ammunition, to help the community and the police to deal with this problem. Kia ora tātou.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Manukau City Council (Control of Graffiti) Bill be now read a third time.

Ayes 109

New Zealand Labour 49; New Zealand National 48; New Zealand First 7; United Future 2; Progressive 1; Independents: Copeland, Field.

Noes 11

Green Party 6; Māori Party 3; ACT New Zealand 2.

Bill read a third time.

Bills

Wanganui District Council (Prohibition of Gang Insignia) Bill

First Reading

Debate resumed from 2 April.

CHESTER BORROWS (National—Whanganui): I well recall a conversation that started very heatedly with a senior member of the Mongrel Mob at a national conference. When we were discussing the Wanganui District Council (Prohibition of Gang Insignia) Bill, it was pointed out by me that it sought to decrease intimidation and the likelihood of violence by creating what is known as neutral turf, as we have done in hotels, courts, police stations, hospitals, and other Government buildings. That gang member quickly agreed that the bill would be a deterrent to violence and would be of benefit to senior gang members who have stated publicly their desire to lessen gang violence. I spoke to him a few minutes ago, and he refused to comment further and refused to confirm what the stance of the organisation is now. I note that he could not speak on behalf of the Mongrel Mob until the national hui, and he refuses now to say exactly what that position is.

The sight of fully patched gang members in full regalia, yet protesting a desire to turn kids away from criminal offending, has no integrity, to my mind. We have heard the most unusual comments this week from the Māori Party. Those comments suggest that gangs are the solution to youth gang crime and that members of the public should not be intimidated by patched gang members.

Although I esteem Dr Pita Sharples highly, I believe that his view in this matter is skewed. I guess it is the kaupapa of the grandfather of the nation to be generous and forgiving to his mokopuna, but that view defies logic. Gang members have raped, murdered, beaten, and stolen in gang regalia with no hesitation, and they have shown no remorse. When gang members express regret for offending, it is always because they were apprehended or because of the effect the offending has had on their own families. There is never regret about the impact on the victims. They regret time in jail and wasted opportunities, but never the damage they have done to others. In fact, the opposite is true. It is their behaviour—giving the television camera the fingers, sneering, swearing, and barking—and their offending that has instilled reasonable fear in the minds of average Kiwis, and to deny that these fears are reasonable shows a lack of acknowledgment of the legitimacy of those fears. Time and time again we seek to encourage communities to take responsibility for offending by their community members.

The Wanganui District Council has led a response to a situation that exists in many provincial cities around the country. This bill came about part-way through an 18-month campaign of gang violence involving stabbings, beatings, drive-by shootings, and attacks in the streets and suburbs and the CBD of Wanganui. People were intimidated by the sight of gang members who were patched and in close proximity. To minimise this quite reasonable response to 18 months of violence, which culminated in the death of an innocent 2-year-old, and to try to segregate responsibility or sectionalise the right to intervene, is not a helpful stance in dealing with what is a generic gang problem. Gangs and gang offending is not a Māori problem. It is not a Pacific Island problem. It is not an Asian or Pākehā problem. It is a problem for all New Zealanders, and in Wanganui we do not resile from our responsibilities.

There are some problems with this bill. There is a wide interpretation of the term “gang insignia”, which could include tattoos, for instance, and this should be sorted out at the Law and Order Committee. But this bill should not be prevented from proceeding to that end. I commend the bill to the House, and I look forward to full support from responsible members of Parliament in moving this bill through to the select committee.

MARTIN GALLAGHER (Labour—Hamilton West): I rise to support the referral of this bill to the Law and Order Committee. I am very proud, obviously, to be part of a Government that has a plan for the future and is absolutely committed to protecting Kiwis, their families, and their communities. Very obviously, we are committed to a safe environment for families, young people, old people, and other members of our communities.

Indeed, I acknowledge—and Chester Borrows would say the same thing, I think—that banning gangs or patches is not in itself a solution to the gang violence problem. But I do acknowledge that the bill raises some very important issues, and I think that the submission process at the select committee will be very, very useful, as we engage together in terms of addressing this particular issue.

Looking at the bill itself, I want to—dare I say it—give praise to Chester Borrows. I found it interesting to read the background in terms of what other countries are doing. I think the select committee members will find it quite interesting to see what is being done in other jurisdictions to address the issue of gangs and gang insignia, gang patches, and that kind of thing. We have certainly been given examples relating to the United States, England, Wales, and Europe. I myself, along with others, was in the state of Utah last year. I talked to the Utah authorities about the significant gang problem they have in Salt Lake City, in particular with some of the ethnic gangs and some of the second and third generation sons and daughters of migrants, and, particularly—interestingly enough—from some of our Pacific Island nations. We heard about some of the work that has been done, and about the issue of gang insignia, uniforms, and that kind of thing, which was also important. I note also the reference to England, Germany, and Wales, etc. The bill’s general policy statement gives those of us who are not residents of Wanganui or do not have a connection with Wanganui some context and background, but I suspect that the select committee will be looking at this issue in terms of the rest of the country.

I certainly do not want to get into a slanging match with other members of Parliament tonight, but I believe—and I do not think it is rocket science—that people should be able to live in a community and feel comfortable. They should be able to live in a community and not have a sense or a hint of intimidation or be intimidated. Where certain forms of insignia are used in a way that will intimidate people, then that goes beyond the fundamental rights in this country of freedom of speech and freedom of movement. I think anyone suggesting that we do not have a serious gang issue in this country is denying reality. We are not alone in this. We are not the only country that has issues with gangs.

I note a comment that says: “Some members of the Mongrel Mob say gangs can live in New Zealand peacefully, and banning patches is not the way to stop the violence.” In itself, that might be correct. This bill may be part of a broad suite of measures.

Gang members told a Prison Fellowship conference at the weekend that they are teaching young people in the gang about a life without crime. I am very sceptical of that, because from what I have seen, in terms of the evidence, the actual rhetoric does not match the record and the behaviour. So I am very sorry but I am a sceptic regarding that statement. They said they have “encouraged many young people to get into employment schemes and to get involved in their community”, and they said “The bill being taken to Parliament to ban gang patches and insignia in parts of Wanganui will not resolve tension.” They continued: “The Mongrel Mob members say that the recent gang-related fatal shooting of a 2-year-old girl in Wanganui undermines the good work they are doing.” Forgive me, but I say respectfully that I am a big sceptic of that statement. I have seen no evidence of that yet. Frankly, the gangs that have names such as the Mongrel Mob and Black Power are not walking the walk, talking the talk, and there is very clear evidence of that. If members talk to the New Zealand Police, and to the serious crime unit in my neck of the woods in Hamilton, they will hear that there is a very clear involvement of gangs and gang culture in serious crime in this country. So I certainly do not take those statements at face value.

I also recognise that in itself Chester Borrows’ bill is not the complete answer, but at least in terms of this Parliament it starts a very serious discussion. I think that we will be richer, and the select committee will be richer, if we seriously consider this bill. I also acknowledge the Wanganui District Council and the support of the New Zealand Police Association, which says that the bill is a reflection of what frontline police think about gangs and gang activity. Indeed, I quote from a New Zealand Press Association report of a letter to the Wanganui District Council from the president of the New Zealand Police Association, Greg O’Connor: “The Association applauds the efforts of the Council to assist in your attempt to show the citizens of Wanganui that overt gang behaviour will not be tolerated. We believe a successful law in your city could become the model for the country.” Indeed, we note that.

Hon Tariana Turia: It won’t.

MARTIN GALLAGHER: With due respect, I do not want to get into a slanging match with the Māori Party tonight. I will listen really closely to the contribution from the Māori Party speakers because I believe that they have a message, and I will be listening very closely to that message.

I find it unusual to be praising Chester Borrows, but he has been a very constructive member of the Law and Order Committee, which I used to chair, and at least he has put something on the Table for this Parliament to get its teeth into. I think we should be constructive in our approach.

I know that the issue of gangs and gang culture goes beyond purely the issue of insignia. I know that Ron Mark, the chairperson of the Law and Order Committee, and other members on this side of the House would agree with me that this is an important discussion to be had. Can this bill make a contribution in addressing the issues around gang culture? The one thing I will be looking at very closely during the select committee’s consideration is the whole issue of intimidation and the very fact that someone can waltz into town, into a building, or into a pub or a bar in an aggressive way and present aggressive behaviour and all that that implies.

It is not without some substance that a democratically elected city council supports this bill. I absolutely acknowledge that that council will not represent all of the opinion in the Wanganui area or other areas, but the very fact that a democratically elected city council supports this bill, and that the New Zealand Police Association supports this bill, means that it deserves a very respectful and serious hearing. The select committee may be able to come up with some very effective law that will be one way in which we help to address the serious scourge of gang culture in this country. Thank you.

RON MARK (NZ First): I rise to signal to the House that New Zealand First will, of course, support Chester Borrows’ bill, the Wanganui District Council (Prohibition of Gang Insignia) Bill. [Interruption] The Māori Party leader, our respected Tariana Turia, says that of course we will, and she is correct—of course we would support such a bill. Before I commence my speech I say “well done” to Chester. He has done well in the sense that he has brought to the House legislation that the majority of Wanganui wants passed. I think the first thing we need to reflect on before we discuss the pros and cons of the bill is a simple principle and a simple fact: we live in a democracy.

I digress briefly, I have just attended the order of service for the launch of the 2008 Poppy Day appeal and Poppies on Parliament hosted by the Minister of Veterans’ Affairs, the Hon Rick Barker and supported by the Returned and Services Association. In fact, most of them are still standing on the forecourt right now. The men and women who made those sacrifices, not just in World War I and World War II but going back as far as the Boer War, did so in order to give us a nation that is free, a democracy, and to give us the rights—

Rodney Hide: So why do you support Labour?

RON MARK: In comes the dancing star with his chip from the sidelines. He is a smaller man than he used to be—that is what they say around the country nowadays. Rodney should just be quiet for a while and listen.

The people we are commemorating out on the forecourt right now are the people who gave us the democracy we have right now. The key fundamental principle of a democracy is that the majority of the nation has its will. That is the simple fact. Mr Hide seems to like democracy when it goes in his favour, but he seems to champion some other version of democracy when it does not go in his favour.

I have only one thing to say to Mr Hide, who does not seem to support democracy and the will of the people, and it is that 65 percent of the people of Wanganui want this bill passed. If Mr Hide stands against the majority and against freedom and democracy, then I suggest that he should go to Zimbabwe where he can have one-party rule and everyone can bow down and kiss the feet of Rodney Hide, the ruler from on high who has all ground at his purveyance and at his feet because he is the only man with the right opinion. Mr Hide is entitled to have his say and to express the view of his party, which has about 0.2 percent of the support of the population, but the fact is that Wanganui has sent a very loud and clear message to all of us that it wants this bill passed. That is very first thing we need to take on board.

We need to think about the content of the bill, its aims, its purpose, its direction, and what it tries to achieve. I have heard some of the arguments against the bill and I listened, but one thing that is inescapable for New Zealand First is that we cannot see what useful purpose gangs serve in this country at all. Just as Cindy Kiro would say that tagging is an art form expression that should be respected, there are other people in this House who would say that gangs have a place in society and they contribute constructively to society in general. In New Zealand First we say that is wrong—they do not.

Gangs’ principal aims and contributions to the New Zealand scene are crime and the seeking of profit through illegal and criminal activities. They do that through a variety of means. One of the means they use is intimidation. Intimidation can be physical and confrontational with a direct threat to people’s personal well-being, or it can be a message that is sent. Patches and the wearing of insignia are the first level of intimidation that these people exert on the communities that they inhabit.

I saw a situation at Wellington Airport very recently when a group of men swaggered through the airport and slowly, one after the other, took off their jackets to reveal Mongrel Mob patches. The immediate impact right through the Wellington terminal was there for everybody to see. People moved aside, and as these men fanned out through Wellington Airport to assert their authority, with their patches on their backs, the evidence of their intimidation was clear for the 1,000-odd people in that terminal to see. They were there, with their patches, purely to intimidate, to threaten, and to send a message to wider society that they rule, that they have the control, and that everybody else should make way for them. Well, I am sorry, but New Zealand First does not agree. The first step is to remove from out streets the patches and the regalia and the intimidation that comes with that, and the second step is to remove the gangs themselves from our countryside.

Hon TARIANA TURIA (Co-Leader—Māori Party): Tēnā koe, Mr Deputy Speaker. Tēnā tātou katoa. You know, sometimes I have to remind myself that it is election year this year and that we can expect that gangs, graffiti, and anything else that upsets the wider public will be paramount in this House and that members will vote for it on that basis. But segregation on the basis of insignia has a tragic history dating to before World War II, in which particular groups targeted for extermination by the Nazi regime were categorised according to specific signs and symbols. Each prisoner was treated according to the coloured triangle that represented his or her status in the social hierarchy of the concentration camps. A green triangle marked the prisoner as a criminal; political prisoners wore a red triangle; two yellow triangles designated a Jewish prisoner; and the pink triangle was for homosexuals. A yellow Star of David under a pink triangle marked the lowest of the low: a gay Jew. Today many of those symbols have been reclaimed by these groups as a marker of pride, of solidarity, of unity, and of the ultimate resistance against an oppressive regime that forced them out.

I have been thinking of this history as I consider the move to authorise the Wanganui District Council to outlaw people whose crime, in the context of this bill, is to wear gang insignia—the signs and symbols that demonstrate their membership of a particular group. In this bill, particular groups are targeted for segregation, yet it is interesting to note that many gang organisations are in fact exempted from this legislation. When a bill starts to list specific groups for targeting there is always the danger in that in listing some it misses out others. The sponsor of the bill should either list all of the 88 gangs that may come into this territory as part of its target group or, at the very least, provide a justification for why certain groups are named and others are not.

The key issue is that all this bill does is exclude, suppress, prohibit, and ban. All it does is close our eyes and put up walls to force our problems out of sight and out of mind. Banning people by virtue of the bulldog on their back will not address the real issues that this bill is supposedly about. If the problem is violence, then let us work together on strategies amongst our communities to achieve mauri ora for all the whānau. If the problem is criminal offending, then there are laws to address that, too, so let us look into the causes of crimes in the first instance, be they poverty, racism, alienation, unemployment, or drug and alcohol abuse.

The problem, according to the title of this bill, appears to be more about the dress code of gangs than it is about the behaviour of its members. Let us be quite clear. We cannot simply push people out of town and hope that the extent of violence and offending amongst some of our communities will disappear. We must face up to the problems without focusing on the clothes gang members wear. We have heard people talk here today about the behaviour of gang members, of the rape and all the dreadful crimes they commit. I am certainly not here to defend any of that behaviour, but it would be interesting to talk with Women’s Refuge to find out who in fact commits the majority of rapes in this country. We might be surprised to find that it is not necessarily the gang members.

I am aware that even on the council that is promoting this bill there has been heated opposition to it from councillors Barbara Bullock, Sue Westwood, and Ray Stevens. I mihi to their leadership in speaking out against this bill while at the same time making a commitment to address any issues that are associated with gang activities in Wanganui. I support that.

The Māori Party will not support a bill that targets gang regalia or young people as the problem without looking at a comprehensive strategy to restore peace to our communities. I have lived in Wanganui all my life, and, you know, it is actually quite rare to see the gangs uptown in Wanganui. It is not something that happens every day. In fact, members of the business community came out and said it was not the most significant issue for them. So maybe we should talk to the people who are most affected by this behaviour, rather than deciding that prohibiting people from wearing particular clothes will make one iota of difference. It will not.

METIRIA TUREI (Green): I will take just a short call on the Wanganui District Council (Prohibition of Gang Insignia) Bill to advise the House that the Green Party will be opposing it, as we made very clear when the issue was first raised. We have heard a lot of speeches from people supporting the bill saying it is not actually a solution to the problem. This begs the question of why the House is wasting its time and good public money—taxpayers’ money—in promoting and dealing with a bill that will not be effective at what it is trying to achieve.

The fact is that this is a feel-good mechanism by National—very similar to the sorts of things that Labour does, actually—that looks good but does nothing. It will not solve the problems with gangs because those problems are significantly more complex than one’s fashion sense. Frankly, the bill does not deal with the issue of what a gang is. It identifies a particular subset of gangs—those that wear patches—as being the problem. What about all those other gangs that cause problems? What about the members of white power gangs, for example, who do not wear patches but have their own funny little uniform of no hair, big boots, and tight pants? What will this House do about them? Will it ban boots and tight pants? Will it ban the shaving of people’s heads? No, the House cannot do that because it will not be effective. It could not possibly do that. So why should we pick on just the gangs that we can identify through their patches? The answer to that is that it is easy and it sounds good to the public. What about all those gangs of young guys that roam around rolling people? Those gang members do not wear a uniform. They do not wear anything that identifies them. They operate as a little group; they commit crimes as a group, working together to roll somebody or to steal something. What will this House do about that? What will National do about that? Frankly, it will do nothing.

Ron Mark described the opposition to this bill as being somehow anti-democratic. Apparently we are not allowed even to have an opinion about issues like this. The parties that are opposing this bill are suggesting that there have to be other solutions that will work and that it is not good law to be promoting legislation that will fail. This bill will not do anything about gangs. It will not do anything at all. It will not deal with gangs because it focuses only on the very small selection of gangs that can be identified by patches. It is a completely useless waste of time and the public of this country and the ordinary communities deserve more from this House. The public deserves more from the people it elects to make laws. It deserves to see us put our efforts into laws that will actually be effective. The members of all of those parties that vote for this bill should be ashamed of themselves—ashamed of the waste of time, ashamed of the waste of money, ashamed of the discrimination that this bill implies, and ashamed about their frankly useless approach to trying to deal with the serious issues of crime in our community.

RODNEY HIDE (Leader—ACT): I am so pleased that Mr Chester Borrows has relieved me of the obligation of voting for this shocking Wanganui District Council (Prohibition of Gang Insignia) Bill. I said that the ACT party would vote for the bill to go to a select committee. We could never vote for its third reading, but I thought the debate would be useful. But now Labour, in a fit of “election-itis”, is voting for the bill. So I have been to see Mr Borrows, who has kindly said I can vote against it, which I feel so much better about.

This bill is right up there with the “Let’s Get Rid of Spray Cans in Manukau Bill” for all the same reasons. It does not address anything like the problem we confront with gangs. It will not work. The promoter of the bill knows that it will not work. Members of Labour and New Zealand First, who are voting for the bill, know that it will not work. If they had any courage of their convictions that this bill will work, they would make it nationwide so that patches could not be worn from Kaitāia to Bluff. We have the absurdity that, supposedly, gang members can wear their patches everywhere in New Zealand, bar Wanganui, and that somehow that is good lawmaking. I think the bill should be renamed the “Let’s Elect Chester to Be the MP for Wanganui Bill”, because that is its purpose. It is about a member standing up for his local constituents, but actually Parliament should be bigger than that.

Let us cut to the principles, and I want the National Party to think about principles. National members stood up and huffed and puffed about free speech for MPs, and spoke about that being a fundamental right. Yet suddenly one cannot wear something on one’s T-shirt.

Chester Borrows: That’s up to the majority.

RODNEY HIDE: That is a point I would like to take up with Ron Mark, who talked about people going off to fight for our freedom. Well, freedom is not what the majority says. Freedom is about the individual, and the measure of a free society is how we move to protect the minority from the majority. If the majority thinks that people wearing glasses should be locked up, that is not freedom or democracy; if the majority thinks that people of a certain colour should be treated differently because they are a minority, that is not freedom. Freedom is actually about protecting the rights of each and every one of us. The law should be about that.

The concern that we have about gangs is not about what they wear; it is about what they do. Our concern is when they intimidate us, threaten us, and beat us—and not just gangs or those wearing a patch do that. We have all manner of intimidation and threats to our property from all sorts of people. That is what we should be attending to in upholding our law. I see there is a by-law protecting us from gangs. Well, I will tell members about one horrible gang: it is a gang that has taken more property than any other gang in our history, that wears insignia, that threatens our rights, and that has taken away our right to free speech. That gang should be banned. That gang is the Labour Party. The good news is that at least under this bill the Wanganui District Council could ban the wearing of the Labour Party patch in its area. I would quite like to do that in Epsom, and so would the people of Epsom.

Let us have some sense, let us let Chester Borrows do his electioneering and George Hawkins do his electioneering, but in this Parliament let us please aspire to something greater for our nation than this rubbish.

SIMON POWER (National—Rangitikei): I rise to support Chester Borrows in his efforts with the Wanganui District Council (Prohibition of Gang Insignia) Bill. In his first term in Parliament, Mr Borrows has acted on the wishes of his local district council and introduced this bill to try to do something about a problem that the council believes is of major concern to that community.

In a time when we have seen violent crime rise by 43 percent since Labour took office; in a time when we have seen an organised crime strategy as the proposal to deal with some of these issues, a strategy that has only recently been formalised, finalised, and released; at a time when we have seen no legislative amendments at all from this Government to deal with gang problems, Mr Borrows is doing something about the problem. By promoting this bill Mr Borrows is acting on the wishes of his local community so that it can go to a select committee for submissions and further discussion.

I listened carefully to the comments made by Mr Hide and the Hon Tariana Turia, and it is correct that the bill is not without fish-hooks.

Hon Member: That’s a very polite way of putting it.

SIMON POWER: I am a very polite person. In his opening remarks Mr Borrows acknowledged that there was still work to do and that the intention of the bill and the definition of “gang insignia” would need some work to deal with some of the issues that other members of this House have raised this evening.

The fact remains that freedoms for all individuals are important, and I certainly agreed with Rodney Hide when he made that point. Ultimately, the people of the community of Wanganui have as much right to wander the streets as those who choose to belong to particular groups or gangs. The issue has been of sufficient concern to the community for this bill to have come about in the first instance. When a council and a mayor say they are going to take action on an issue and promote a bill of this nature, it is incumbent on the local member of Parliament to make sure that the Parliament has an opportunity to discuss and debate those issues. The select committee is the appropriate place for many of those more thorny issues surrounding the legislation to be discussed and hammered out. I imagine that it will take some time to get those definitions right.

I conclude my short contribution by congratulating Chester Borrows on taking this matter to the point that he has tonight. It is not easy to balance the rights of all parties when it comes to legislation like this. Rather than sitting on a proposal for a local bill or a member’s bill that might not make a difference to the lives of constituents in one’s electorate, Mr Borrows has taken the opportunity to do something worthwhile and allow the debate to continue by preparing a bill for the House that will ensure that these issues are given closer examination. I find it particularly heartening that the Labour Party has recognised Mr Borrows’ efforts in this regard and is making every endeavour to support his efforts in the Wanganui electorate. I am sure he will make that point in his right of reply, later this evening.

I conclude on that note and say that any measure brought to this House on behalf of a council or a local community to make the lives of those people living in those communities better is worth supporting at its first reading.

LESLEY SOPER (Labour): I rise to take a short call on the Wanganui District Council (Prohibition of Gang Insignia) Bill and commence by informing Mr Hide that I am very proud to wear the patch of the New Zealand Labour Party because Labour has a plan for the future, which is to address the causes of antisocial behaviour. Labour is committed to protecting Kiwis, their families, and their communities. We have already shown that through such things as Te Rito, the family anti-violence strategy. We are committed to a safe environment for families. I commend Mr Burrows for bringing his bill to the House; I will support it to go to the select committee for consideration.

It is some years now since my city of Invercargill had a very serious and well-publicised gang problem, which the Invercargill City Council struggled to deal with. That time involved a lot of intimidation and fear in the local community, the building of some very high walls around rival gang headquarters, and some fairly violent confrontations between well-identified rival gangs in the city. That violence and fear spilled out into neighbourhoods, into the communities surrounding those gang headquarters, and into the streets the gangs roared down in their rival cars.

This bill empowers a council, the Wanganui District Council in this case, to approve by-laws that designate specified places where gang insignia may not be worn or displayed. Parliament actually has a duty to examine proposals that come from local councils, and local members have a duty to bring those forward. Local bills should be debated. Banning gangs or patches is not in itself a solution to the gang violence problem, but we have a duty as a Parliament to allow local bills to come forward, to go to a select committee, and to be fairly and appropriately looked at, at that level. On that basis, I join my colleagues in supporting this bill to go to the select committee for consideration. Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.

KATE WILKINSON (National): I too rise today to speak in support of the Wanganui District Council (Prohibition of Gang Insignia) Bill at its first reading. It has been mentioned that although it is a locally drafted bill reflecting local conditions in Wanganui and championed by my colleague the member for Whanganui, Chester Borrows, it is an issue that, I believe, will be closely monitored by other regions and councils around the country that, like Wanganui, are also affected by the presence of gangs and gang activity on a regular basis. I know that this is not an uncontentious bill. Not everyone agrees with it, but it at least deserves scrutiny.

The purpose of the bill, as has been stated, is to prohibit the wearing of gang insignia in specified places in the district of the Wanganui District Council. Gang members are already prevented from wearing their gang patches in public places, including court houses, petrol stations, and police stations. That is not so different from what the Wanganui District Council wants to achieve with the bill: banning patches in the city centre and local parks.

Yes, there is a fear of what comes next—the banning of anything that might be vaguely intimidating, such as burkas and hoodies. That is certainly worth considering. But this bill is a start. It is at least starting the debate. The prohibition of gang insignia is a field we should be looking at. It is debatable and National believes we should debate it.

Wanganui residents have expressed fear of patched gang members, including those from the Mongrel Mob, Black Power, and Hell’s Angels gangs, all three of which are prominent in some neighbourhoods, shopping centres, parks, and central business districts. This fear was expressed clearly in the results of a local referendum in early 2007 whereby 64 percent of voters in Wanganui approved of the intentions of this bill.

Who could forget the fatal shooting of 2-year-old Jhia Te Tua as she slept on a couch in the lounge of her parents’ house in May last year? This poor child got caught up in Wanganui’s gang wars between two of the gangs, and none of it was of her own making. She paid for it with her life. We must make it clear, however, that this bill was initiated before that tragedy and is not a knee-jerk reaction to it.

I also praise the efforts of the New Zealand Police, whose increased presence in Wanganui, policing gang activity in the wake of that incident, substantially reduced crime. Their presence has also made it clear that antisocial criminal activity shown by members who are involved in or with the gangs will not be tolerated. The question that we must ask is what will happen when the spotlight is removed from Wanganui once the trial has been conducted and completed. Will the police be able to police the gangs with the same intensity as has been displayed so far?

There is no doubt that if we want to get tough on crime we need to crack down on gangs. The police are in total agreement. They view this legislation as another tool in the tool box, making it easier for them to do their job. Yes, there are those who portray gangs as a mix of those from the school of hard knocks searching for an identity or for a family substitute, and for where they can find the sense of belonging and connection they are lacking. But it is also arguable that some gangs exist to plan and commit crime. The links of many gang members to crime are plain for us all to see.

I want to make it perfectly clear that the wearing of gang insignia is not the only factor that makes gang members intimidating, nor will the banning of gang insignia in the city centre and parks within Wanganui completely rid the city of gang activity. What it will do, hopefully, is allow the residents of Wanganui to reclaim their streets in order to go about their business without fear or trepidation. This bill is a small step. It may give the police the extra tools they need in order to take direct enforcement action and stop any perceived or real intimidation to public safety.

The bill raises some issues that need to be dealt with during the select committee process. Issues such as enforcement, the tattooing of gang insignia on faces, and freedom of speech have been mentioned, just to name a few. There is a concern that by banning gang patches we are simply glorifying the patch and what is symbolises. But I hope that the Law and Order Committee will be able to take a serious look at the bill, seriously debate it, seriously examine it, and seriously consider the issues. On that basis, National supports the bill going to select committee scrutiny.

CHESTER BORROWS (National—Whanganui): I am very pleased to stand at the end of this debate on the Wanganui District Council (Prohibition of Gang Insignia) Bill, which I know will draw insurmountable support. Yet I am sorry that the bill has not received the support of all parties, and I wish to address some of the matters raised in the debate on it. I heard the speech by the Hon Tariana Turia and the comments she made, without malice, that the groups persecuted in World War II also wore insignia and were persecuted for the insignia they wore. But we have to point out that what separates the Mongrel Mob, Black Power, and Hell’s Angels from the groups persecuted in World War II is that the gangs apply their own insignia, whereas those groups in World War II had the insignia applied by the Germans who went on to persecute them. The suggestion that the Mongrel Mob, Black Power, and Hell’s Angels fit into the same class as persecuted Jews does not wash.

There are very few laws created by this House that fully address the problems to which they are targeted. Does the legislation that criminalises murder and rape prevent killing and sexual abuse? No, it does not, and it is ridiculous to suggest that it does. So is it then stupid to suggest that legislation targeted towards a particular issue in a community is wrong? This legislation is a tool desired by the police and Wanganui people to be applied to the population, or the community, residing in Wanganui, just as the legislation that bans other criminal behaviour is a tool used to combat that behaviour.

Mr Rodney Hide said that the successful passage of this bill would see gang members not being allowed to wear patches in Wanganui, but they could wear them anywhere else. It probably comes as no surprise to him that a lot of gang members stop to take off their patches before they enter another town and put them back on when they leave it, because, what do you know, they are outnumbered and intimidated by the members of other gangs and the patches they wear. Gang members take off their patches when they enter other towns and put them back on when they leave.

I have had a lot to do with gangs over the years. I have had a few scraps. I have had my police car pelted with bottles and clubs as gang members have run across the road towards me, and I was scared stiff. I have been surrounded in gang headquarters and fought my retreat relatively honourably, with a bloody nose and the odd bruise to show for it. At other times I have sat down, had a cup of coffee, and nutted out protocols for engagement with gangs. I am under no illusions about gangs.

I am pleased the Labour Party has seen good sense in supporting this bill. I am under no illusions about that either, necessarily, and I would have liked to think that Labour would support this legislation earlier in the election cycle.

This bill was initiated and drafted by the Wanganui District Council, which did all it could to obtain—and it did obtain—local support for the measure even before the mandatory public process started. It cannot be legislated that all voters in a community will turn out on voting day and vote in a referendum, but in this case over half of them did, and over 65 percent of those who turned out supported the proposal that this bill be forwarded to Parliament for enactment. Only after that did the council put the bill through the public process, where the public were again given the opportunity to comment on the bill’s process—which they did. Yes, there are people who are concerned about the progress of this bill through the House. A lot of them are business people, who are concerned about the effect on their businesses. However, it is often the case that when a community accepts and owns that it has a problem, and take steps in a public manner to take responsibility for that problem, then it draws the attention of others who, without seeing the logs in their own eyes, manage to discern the specks in others’. That is the situation that Wanganui finds itself in.

I am pleased to be the sponsor of this bill from the Wanganui District Council.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Wanganui District Council (Prohibition of Gang Insignia) Bill be now read a first time.

Ayes 106

New Zealand Labour 49; New Zealand National 48; New Zealand First 7; Independents: Copeland, Field.

Noes 13

Green Party 6; Māori Party 4; ACT New Zealand 2; Progressive 1.

Bill read a first time.

Bill referred to the Law and Order Committee.

Bills

Christchurch City Council (Lancaster Park) Land Vesting Bill

First Reading

TIM BARNETT (Labour—Christchurch Central): I move, That the Christchurch City Council (Lancaster Park) Land Vesting Bill be now read a first time. At the appropriate time I intend to move that the bill be considered by the Local Government and Environment Committee. It is with great pride as the member of Parliament for Christchurch Central, as a Cantabrian by adoption, and as a native of the iconic English Midlands town of Rugby that I rise to urge this House to support this proposed law. It will bring ageing and redundant legal structures into the 21st century and free significant impediments to further development of a very special place.

This bill is about a stadium known by many names—initially as the new ground down Ferry Road, then Victory Park, Lancaster Park, Jade Stadium, and now AMI Stadium. It is not just any old sporting venue. It is not a modestly impressive, oversized facility in a provincial town, nor a brash modern architectural statement, or even a place with unrealised potential, hemmed in by high-density residential housing. It is Australasia’s most famous sporting venue. Why do I claim that? I claim it because it has a gripping history that reflects its city and region, because it has hosted a multiplicity of sports, because its backdrop of the Port Hills gives it extraordinary character, because the quality of the rugby played regularly on its verdant green is the best in New Zealand, and because it is loved by the people of our city—the second-largest in the nation—with a depth of devotion unique to the people of our nation’s leading province, Canterbury.

In seeking to reform this extraordinary institution, its guardians have moved with care and determination. The stadium is now managed by Vbase, a fully owned council company, which has an excellent local reputation and is led by Bryan Pearson, who has been generous in keeping me in the loop as this bill has been prepared; he is an exemplary public servant.

I note that a common concern with local bills is the lack of adequate engagement with tangata whenua in the process of preparing the legislation, and that under the Ngāi Tahu Claims Settlement Act, Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu has the right of first refusal to purchase the land in schedule 1 of this legislation. They have agreed, in the interests of the Christchurch community, to consent to the promotion of this bill and the deferral of its rights under the 1998 Act.

The reasons for this new law live in the history of the stadium, and understanding that history has been made much easier for me by Don Neely and Joseph Romanos. I thank them for their superb work in preparing the 2006 publication Lancaster Park, which was presented to each of the local Canterbury members of Parliament. The passion, idiosyncrasy, community-mindedness, stubbornness, and outstanding sporting skills of Cantabrians shout out from each page.

This bill takes the stadium into its seventh age. Its first age started in 1880 when the land, then a cluster of swampy paddocks, was identified, and the proposal to establish a multisport venue there was raised at the Canterbury Cricket Association’s annual meeting in Warners Hotel on Cathedral Square. The Canterbury Cricket and Athletics Sports Co. Ltd was formed, shares were sold, 10 acres of the Lancaster estate were acquired, and a fence was put up so that admission could be charged. By March 1882 there was a high-quality levelled grass area, a cinder running track, and a pavilion costing £1,500 That same year 5,500 people came along to see an all-professional visiting English cricket side overwhelm the locals. In 1888, 10,000 people—one in three of the South Island’s population at the time—came to see a visiting British rugby team do much the same thing. This all happened years before the modern Olympics began, and only a generation after the first mass European arrivals in the province.

The park’s second age began around 1900. By then it had hosted American Wild West shows, athletics, ballooning, band contests, Caledonian sports meets, cricket, cycling—including a unique bicycle band, high-machine races on penny farthings, and the world’s first women’s cycling club—firework displays, lawn tennis, religious sports days, school sports, tradesmen’s sports, trotting, and rugby union, including the first All Black match in New Zealand in 1894. By 1903 the park was recognised as New Zealand’s finest sporting ground. But money was shaky, ownership was unstable, and development was overreaching the fund-raising potential. Hockey, swimming, and motorcar racing were added to the range of activities. Competition between the major codes became intense—and that has been a recurrent theme of the stadium’s history right up to the present day—and the city council became involved in stabilising and improving the facility and its management.

World War I saw a deepening financial crisis, and in 1916 the ground was ploughed up for potato growing. The third age of the park began after World War I. It was saved by the extraordinarily titled Lancaster Park Mortgage Extinction Fund Art Union, which ran a series of fund-raising raffles that made the park debt free for the first time in its existence. In 1919 the park was vested in the Crown through the Victory Park Act so that the Government could hold the land in trust for recreational purposes, and we are now addressing that legislation.

Facilities were rationalised when the park was reopened by the Minister of Internal Affairs, Sir Francis Bell. In his words, it was “a ground dedicated to sport and fit for any sport in the world”. Rugby league made a cautious entry to the scene, although its professional status caused dramas for decades to come. Canterbury became—and, of course, remains—a feared rugby union side, regularly beating international visiting sides. In fact, Canterbury at that ground was the first New Zealand side, including the All Blacks, to beat the Springboks. The famous Victory Memorial Gates in the ground were completed in 1926, their tablet inscription reading “Erected to commemorate the efforts of the Commercial Travellers and Warehousemen’s Association in the preservation of the park for rugby football, cricket and amateur sport as a memorial to the athletes who fell in the Great War 1914-18”.

Also in 1926, 22,000 people—one in three of the city’s population—attended the first Ranfurly Shield game there. In 1930 the first-ever New Zealand cricket test match was held, against England, and over 35,000 people, which was the largest crowd in the first half-century of the stadium’s life, attended a rugby test against the British Isles. This was an era when sport came to the fore because the stadium management was performing so well.

The fourth age of the stadium began in 1940 with an inevitable wartime decline. Indeed, the army took over the whole complex between 1942 and 1945, with 900 trainees and officers living there. The American influence was evident postwar. Softball and baseball, as well as netball, made an appearance. In 1956, 4,000 people watched 3,500 compete in the national marching championships. American evangelical preachers appeared at the stadium. In 1959 Billy Graham attracted over 100,000 people over two nights.

The fifth age of the stadium began around 1961. It was an era when the world’s spotlight was truly on the place. Peter Snell set the world 800 metres record there in 1962 and, although it was not the Commonwealth Games’ main stadium, much activity happened there. The sixth age started in the early 1980s. Usage diversified, politics came to the fore with the Springbok Tour—something that Madam Assistant Speaker is well aware of—with the test on 22 August 1981 generating scenes that are still part of local activist legend. The 1980s also saw the rise of the mega - pop concerts, including one by Dire Straits in 1986, which attracted the largest-ever crowd at the stadium—64,000—and led to complaints from the SPCA that seagulls were choking on used condoms discarded on the ground. Rugby and cricket became internationalised, and expectations of stadia standards rose rapidly. Economic impact also became a factor. The impact of stadium events is now computed at about $20 million a year for the city.

The seventh age comes with this bill. It winds up the Victory Park Board and transfers its assets to the Christchurch City Council. A decade of facility improvement—certainly not creating a Cake Tin but, rather, a proud and tall statement—is cemented with this transfer, and the stadium is now ready for the future, maybe for the opening ceremony for the Rugby World Cup or maybe for the opening ceremony for the southern hemisphere’s first Winter Olympics. Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker.

NICKY WAGNER (National): It is with great pleasure that I also rise to support the Christchurch City Council (Lancaster Park) Land Vesting Bill. Lancaster Park is near to my home in Christchurch Central and near to my heart. It has a distinguished history, as Tim Barnett has been telling us. Like all one-eyed Cantabrians, I say that stints at Lancaster Park have played an important part in my life over the years, and that is not just because it is the home of Canterbury’s favourite sons, the Crusaders.

Firstly, I congratulate everyone who has been involved in developing this bill and bringing it to Parliament: the Victory Park Board, the Christchurch City Council, Ngāi Tahu, sports and entertainment user groups, and the public. I particularly thank Ian Thomson, solicitor for the city council, and Bryan Pearson, of Vbase, who have been instrumental in developing and explaining the need for the legislation. I too pay tribute to Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu, who, for the benefit of the people of Christchurch and Canterbury, have agreed to the promotion of this bill and have generously deferred their rights under the Ngāi Tahu Claims Settlement Act 1998 so that Lancaster Park can be redeveloped now—and it needs it.

Lancaster Park has had many different types of ownership over the years. It was in private ownership from 1881 until World War I, and then, to celebrate the end of the war, the Victory Park Act 1919 vested the title to the land in the Crown so that it could be held in trust. That trust has worked well for the last 89 years, but now those assets are to be handed over to the Christchurch City Council and, with them, the responsibility to fund the necessary updating and redevelopment of the site so that it will become a modern sports stadium that we can all enjoy.

The plans for Lancaster Park in the bill have been discussed and worked on for years, so everyone has had a chance to have a say and the issues have been well and truly ironed out. It has pretty much unanimous support. The process has been intelligently and sensibly handled, and the decisions have gone smoothly. This is in sharp contrast to other cities that cannot make up their minds about stadiums and that squabble loudly and publicly over where, when, and how. Christchurch, and Canterbury, just quietly get on with the job, and our stadium, rebuilt and beautiful, will be finished and looking great well before the Rugby World Cup starts.

Like with most Cantabrians, events at Lancaster Park have shaped my life. My family would not be as it is if Pop had not learnt his lessons well in boot camp at Lancaster Park. Before he went off to the Pacific in World War II, he spent 6 weeks there doing his basic training. He says that he will never forget it. Trainees did not have any tents. They slept on the wooden seats in the stands. Conditions were primitive. They had a cold tap under the stands for washing and shaving. They drilled in the grounds and they marched off to Sydenham Park for further training. Pop is 90 now, and he had a tough war, but he did come home. I have often wondered whether it was the quality of the training at Lancaster Park that kept him alive.

I also remember very well the day that my first son was due to be born. It was a gorgeous summer day and a one-day cricket match was on at Lancaster Park. As my son did not seem to want to arrive, we decided to go to the cricket. I do not much remember the score or even the match, but I do remember the looks—the very understanding looks—when I, with my huge stomach out in the front, sailed through the men’s urinal on the way to the toilet. I had to do that because the queue for the women’s conveniences stretched right around the whole stadium. It needed redevelopment even then.

With two small sons and a rugby-mad husband, I have watched dozens of Crusaders games. I really enjoy going to the matches, but I have to confess that it is the horses, the Crusaders music, and the colour that get me excited about a match, rather than the game itself, and I think that that is true of a lot of other Cantabrians.

I have been to dozens of concerts, too. I have been to all types, from the sweaty excesses of Meatloaf to the cool tunes of B B King—and, yes, Dire Straits—but I do not remember doing anything that might make a seagull choke!

Yes, Lancaster Park is central to the Christchurch way of life. It has been well used in the past and it has served many purposes, and this bill will make sure that it is redeveloped to meet our needs now and into the future.

I also take this opportunity to pay tribute to Tim Barnett, who as the local constituent MP has sponsored this bill. He has worked hard on this bill, as he always does for Christchurch Central, and we will miss him when he stands down at election time. But I can assure him that he will not have to worry about the people of Christchurch Central in the future. After a lifetime of living in Christchurch and over 6 years as a politician in the city, I understand the problems of our community and I will work hard, with energy and enthusiasm, to get some long-term improvements for the central city. So I say to Tim to enjoy the next phase of his life and not worry about the electorate. I will look after it for him.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Marian Hobbs): Before I call the next speakers, I just remind members that there are now 5-minute calls with a bell at 4 minutes.

KATE WILKINSON (National): I had a real battle with my Otago colleague Jacqui Dean even to get this call. I thought it would be absolute hypocrisy and a disgrace if we had an Otago Highlanders supporter speaking in favour of Lancaster Park. Lancaster Park is an absolute Canterbury icon, and only a passionate, parochial, and one-eyed Cantabrian—as Mr Barnett, Ms Wagner, and I are—could possibly speak in favour of the Christchurch City Council (Lancaster Park) Land Vesting Bill.

This bill is about Lancaster Park. Some call it Lancaster Park, some call it Jade Stadium, some call it AMI Stadium, but most of us are old enough that we still call it Lancaster Park. I am disappointed that we have had speeches about Lancaster Park and nobody has mentioned Robbie Deans, nobody has mentioned Fergie McCormick, nobody has mentioned Andrew Mehrtens, Dan Carter, or Richard Hadlee. So many sporting talents have played and entertained us at Lancaster Park. It is an absolute Canterbury icon.

I still remember, when I went to the Ranfurly Shield when I was quite young, a 6-all draw, saved by a Fergie McCormick penalty. I think it was against Auckland. We retained the Ranfurly Shield. I have been to many Crusaders finals. I even went to the Crusaders final—or it might have been the National Provincial Championship—that was played under fog. Nobody could see the game at all. If we looked at the television we could not see the game. If we looked at the match being played on the field we could not see it. We did not know whether the players were going right or left. But at the end of the game we were advised that the Crusaders had indeed rightfully won.

It is my real pleasure to speak in favour of Lancaster Park. It is a stunning sports stadium. It is an absolute disgrace in this day and age, when it is lauded here as being the modern sports stadium for the future, that it may not even feature a Rugby World Cup semi-final in 2011. I do think that is a shame. Maybe we could have a Supplementary Order Paper at the Committee stage— or maybe it could be given proper scrutiny at the select committee—that requires a Rugby World Cup semi-final, at the very least, to be held at our wonderful Lancaster Park stadium.

We have heard of the Crusaders’ horses racing round the stadium, in preparation for a Crusaders game. The Crusaders are one of the most successful franchises in New Zealand’s rugby history. It is only fitting that they display their skills and their talent in an iconic sports stadium such as Lancaster Park. I am very proud to support this bill at its first reading.

MARTIN GALLAGHER (Labour—Hamilton West): It is with great pleasure that I rise to speak. As people will be aware, I am not from Christchurch, but I think it is relevant that a Hamilton member should take a call to acknowledge and pay tribute to what is a national ground of iconic status. I know that my good colleague Tim Barnett has worked very hard with the Christchurch City Council on the Christchurch City Council (Lancaster Park) Land Vesting Bill. He gave an absolutely brilliant historical account of these grounds.

I know that Brendon Burns, the very wonderful Labour candidate—[Interruption] Brendon Burns is a very hard-working person, and he certainly wants me and the people in this House to promote this bill. I know that he will be working, and is already working, very, very hard for the people of Christchurch Central. He will make a great contribution. He is a passionate supporter of Canterbury and Christchurch.

I have here Lancaster Park: An Illustrated History by Don Neely and Joseph Romanos. It is a wonderful publication. It gives a fantastic history. Indeed, even though I come from the Waikato, the home of Rugby Park, which is now the Waikato Stadium, and which I suspect will be hosting one of the semi-final matches of the Rugby World Cup—[Interruption] I tell Mr Colin King opposite not to shake his head. Believe you me, we in the Waikato are on a roll. I am looking forward to the Waikato certainly being one of the significant venues for the Rugby World Cup. This is a brilliant book. It talks about the history of Lancaster Park, and even touches on the painful times, in many senses, of the Springbok Tour.

It gives a very interesting account from Benj Drake, who I believe was the then president and chairman of the Canterbury Rugby Football Union. He states: “I sat next to Ces Blazey [New Zealand union chairman]. The game was delayed while the ground was cleared. When it began, Ces and I looked at each other and said, ‘Thank God’. It had been very violent. There was non-stop chanting in the background. The protesters were mainly on the street on the east of the ground and the atmosphere was most unpleasant.” The book makes the point that the demonstrators represented a large cross-section of the community that day, and their ranks included future members of Parliament: Marian Hobbs; now the late—very sadly—Rod Donald; the future world triathlete champion, Erin Baker, who many years later became a Jade Stadium board member; and Methodist Minister the Rev. Brian Turner.

I know that you, Madam Assistant Speaker, will have both happy and poignant memories of that ground. This is one time when you will be frustrated at being in the Speaker’s Chair, because you cannot make a contribution to this debate, and I know that you would want to, because of your own proud Christchurch credentials. I am sure that you, as a Christchurch school principal, had a number of your pupils attend that stadium, both legitimately and not legitimately. I suspect some went AWOL occasionally, to some of the midweek games. You would have spoken to them very sternly in your office, and would have been taking control and looking after them, as well.

Again, I think the Christchurch City Council (Lancaster Park) Land Vesting Bill is a really good bill. It is providing significant building blocks in terms of the future management of this iconic ground of nationwide importance. I think it is actually quite good that Parliament reflects on some of the wonderful history and the meaning of this particular park. It is not just about the stands and the bricks and mortar. Having looked through this publication that I have alluded to, I say that the park reflects the character and history of our society. It is with great pleasure that I support this bill, and with great pleasure that I say it is really good that as a nation we should recognise and reflect on the history of facilities such as Lancaster Park.

I certainly wish our Canterbury colleagues well in their attempt to host one of the semi-finals of the Rugby World Cup. But again, very clearly, the Lancaster Park development will probably increase the chances of that. I want also to acknowledge Ngāi Tahu in terms of the settlement legislation and the fact that the local rūnanga, the local iwi—tangata whenua—have certainly joined with the interests of the broader Christchurch community and support this bill.

I look forward to the redevelopment of this truly historic park into a world-class sports arena. Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker.

TE URUROA FLAVELL (Māori Party—Waiariki): Tēnā koe, Madam Assistant Speaker. Kia ora tātou i te Whare. Members probably do not know this, but over a century ago a humble advertisement promoted a major event to be held at Lancaster Park in Christchurch. The notice read something like this: “Tena Koutou, Tena Koutou. Haere Mai, Haere Mai. Kapai the Pakehas, Kapai the Maoris of the North Island.”

With that auspicious welcome, a Māori carnival was held at Lancaster Park. It was established to raise funds for what was called the Mahanui Māori Council. Ka pai the Pākehās, ka pai the Māoris. This carnival was held on 12 and 13 November 1903 and it was the largest gathering of its kind, with over 200 people attending. Amongst them were representatives of key pā sites at Tuahiwi, Taumata, Port Levy, Little River, Raupaki—now called Rāpaki—and Temuka. It is a history that does not rate too much of a mention in this Christchurch City Council (Lancaster Park) Land Vesting Bill—a bill that takes as its primary motivation the need to redevelop Lancaster Park as a modern sports stadium for the future.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Marian Hobbs): Excuse me, members, but can we just lower the level of the general conversation. Thank you.

TE URUROA FLAVELL: Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker.

In a land that so often prides itself on its youthfulness, it would be great if we did not lose sight of the invaluable history that can be associated with historical sites such as Lancaster Park. The Māori Party believes that the advancement of Aotearoa cannot be achieved without celebrating, promoting, and, indeed, reflecting on the notable events over time that distinguish our history. I am told that the people of the Sioux nation have a saying that a people without history is like wind in the buffalo grass. We need to understand our history, to learn from it, and to create a record, or else the people and the events of our past will disappear like the wind in the buffalo grass—or, perhaps in our case, amongst the pīngao.

Let us not forget that at Lancaster Park on 3 February 1962 Peter Snell established a world half-mile record, as well as breaking the world record for the 800 metres, and he set an unofficial world record for the 660 yards. On 15 August 1981 a day of massive protest action around the country was galvanised at Lancaster Park, as demonstrators vented a little bit of anger at the first day of the infamous Springbok Tour. In around 1982, or 1983 maybe, I sat on the sidelines as a reserve for Auckland against Canterbury.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Did you get beaten?

TE URUROA FLAVELL: I cannot remember whether we won or lost. In 1985 there was the Ranfurly Shield encounter between Canterbury, coached by Alex Wylie, and Auckland, coached by John Hart—

Jacqui Dean: Who?

TE URUROA FLAVELL: —John Hart—at Lancaster Park. It is said to be the greatest game in the history of the national provincial championship. In 2003 a dramatic new stadium won the New Zealand Institute of Architects Resene Supreme Award for Architecture. Perhaps less gloriously, I am told by my co-leader Tariana Turia—even though she was not watching—that Lancaster Park was the location where, in 2006, All Black Jerry Collins decided to spontaneously irrigate the sacred grounds, thereby creating massive outrage and talkback debate. My co-leader told me about that. And right now loyal Cantabrians are waiting for the announcement of the new name of the east stand, as the groundwork is laid for the 2011 Rugby World Cup.

All of these people have earned a rightful place in the history of Lancaster Park, including, of course, Benjamin Lancaster, of Bournemouth, England, who previously owned the land. The issue of ownership and occupation gives Lancaster Park its most distinctive place in history.

This bill is one of only a few that have come to the House where we can say that the mana whenua have been fully consulted and are clear supporters and participants in the drafting of this bill. Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu has confirmed that there has been an honest and open consultation process with both the Victory Park Board and the Christchurch City Council with regard to the future development of the park. Ngāi Tahu have always considered themselves to be major players in the southern economy and the southern community. Therefore, it is clearly in their interests, and in the interests of the greater Christchurch community, to support the development of the site as a prestigious sports stadium. Ngāi Tahu also note that the Christchurch City Council has an excellent track record in its relationships with Ngāi Tahu—negotiations that the iwi themselves describe as honourable.

This bill clearly demonstrates that the intent and meaning of the Ngāi Tahu Claims Settlement Act were followed and upheld, and that the provisions provided in the Act were sufficient. That in itself may yet be another reason to distinguish this bill from the crowd, in that the settlement legislation has been recognised and adhered to as a vital mechanism for an ongoing relationship between Ngāi Tahu and local authorities.

Ka pai, Ngāi Tahu. Ka pai, Christchurch City Council. The Māori Party is happy to support this bill.

TIM BARNETT (Labour—Christchurch Central): For the last few minutes the House has been discussing Australasia’s most famous sporting venue, Lancaster Park AMI Stadium, in my Christchurch Central electorate. I have to thank my four colleagues for their contributions. I thank in particular the member from Waikato and the member for Waiariki for their validation of the importance of Jade Stadium, and I thank my two Christchurch colleagues for that, as well.

We have barely scratched the service, because there is extraordinary depth and wealth to the history of this institution. I have to say there has not been deep discussion about the actual content of the legislation, because, really, it has inspired us to wax lyrical about Lancaster Park. One serious point I have to make is that I indicated to the promoters of the bill that I was seeking to introduce a small, non-contentious amendment to make sure that the legislation, within its text, contained recognition of the link back to Victory Park. Originally I hoped that this first reading would take place towards the end of last year, when we celebrated the 90th anniversary of Passchendaele. I thought it was very appropriate to make sure that that link back to the First World War was recognised, and I will discuss with colleagues how we do that. I am sure there are ways of doing it without having any massive effect on the legislation.

The only other point I want to make is to assure residents of the Charleston neighbourhood—a very heavily Labour-voting area right next to the stadium—that the member who spoke earlier and claimed that the National Party was about to take over the area was merely raising terrifying concepts that will never become a reality. The thought that the Charleston neighbourhood could ever be represented by a National member of Parliament is both frightening and laughable. People of Charleston vote Labour, and they are well represented by the Labour Party. They have had superb benefits from the Working for Families package, KiwiSaver, and other programmes of this Government over the last few years. They would rise in anger approaching civil disobedience at the thought of a National member of Parliament representing them. With that thought and with those words of comfort for the people of Charleston, I take my leave.

Bill read a first time.

Bill referred to the Local Government and Environment Committee.

Bills

Bishop Suter Art Gallery Governance Restructuring Bill

First Reading

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson): I move, That the Bishop Suter Art Gallery Governance Restructuring Bill be now read a first time. Nelson is very proud of its arts heritage. The fact that our Bishop Suter Art Gallery is the oldest gallery in New Zealand is part of Nelson’s identity. The Suter has played an important role in our community for over 108 years. The problem this bill seeks to address is the archaic structure under which our art gallery is managed. The old 1896 Act has constrained the Suter Gallery, and if this important Nelson institution is to survive another 100 years, we need to update the law under which it is run.

This bill does four things. Firstly, it transfers to a new trust, the Bishop Suter Trust, all the property, the rights, and the obligations of the Suter, including its land and buildings in Bridge Street, Nelson, and its invaluable art collections. The new trust is a standard trust under the 1957 Charitable Trusts Act, and it is to be a council-controlled organisation under the Local Government Act. This change means that the Suter will have a standard trust structure with greater legal accountabilities and a direct link with the people of Nelson through our democratically elected council. The second legal effect of the bill is to dissolve the old trust board and remove it from the register of charitable boards. The third legal effect is to make it plain that there is no legal obligation arising from donations given for the recent redevelopment proposal for the Suter, so that the new board is free to proceed with or postpone that major development proposal. The fourth and final part of the bill repeals the Bishop Suter Art Gallery Trustees Act 1896.

This is not a controversial bill. It has the unanimous support of Nelson City Council, of the neighbouring Tasman District Council, of the existing Suter board, and of the new board, and it has the strong support of the wider Nelson arts community. I also sincerely appreciate the indications of support from the Government and other parties in this Parliament.

I wish to give notice that in seeking the referral of this bill to the Local Government and Environment Committee I shall also be seeking the support of the House for a report-back date of 30 June, so that it might be possible to have the bill reported back and completed during the term of this Parliament. That is very important to the Suter, in that it is somewhat frozen in time. Until this bill is progressed, it cannot move to the new structure or to the new trustees, and some of the exciting development plans for the Suter cannot be advanced. Given the wide support for the bill and the fact that it is relatively straightforward, I hope other parties may support that.

In promoting this bill I acknowledge a number of key players who have helped to get it to this point. Sari Hodgson, the existing trust chair, is a dynamo of energy who has served Nelson in very many ways. She and her fellow trust board members have put months and years of work into developing this bill. They have never shied away from the greater accountability that this bill will place on the governance board, and in that they have done the Suter a great service. I also acknowledge Sir Geoffrey Palmer, who has generously given his time both in the development of the ideas behind the bill and as a former trust board member of the Suter. I particularly acknowledge David Farnsworth of Pitt and Moore, lawyers in Nelson, who has given hugely of his time to draft this bill on a pro bono basis. The community is also indebted to Viesturs Altments, chief executive of Nelson City Council, who has saved ratepayers a mint by doing a lot of the legal legwork himself.

I will keep my comments brief in the hope that we may have the bill introduced this evening, so I conclude by paying tribute to Amelia Suter, who founded this art gallery in memory of her husband, Andrew Suter, the Bishop of Nelson from 1866-91. Her vision of a public art gallery all that time ago has served Nelson very well. We celebrate the fact that this was New Zealand’s very first public art gallery. This bill is all about ensuring that the Suter Art Gallery continues to thrive and to live up to her vision.

Hon MARYAN STREET (Minister for ACC): I will take a short call in support of the Bishop Suter Art Gallery Governance Restructuring Bill. I sought the support of my Labour colleagues for this bill at the earliest opportunity, because I believe that the Suter wants Nelsonians to become more involved in the way the gallery is run. I believe that Nelsonians want that as well. As a result, the Labour Party is supporting this bill and is pleased to do so. We recognise the role of the Bishop Suter Art Gallery as the regional art museum for both the Nelson and Tasman regions.

The interesting thing about this bill is that it is being promoted by a National Party MP. When we look at the explanatory note, we see that it argues that vesting the assets and liabilities of the gallery in a council-controlled body will protect the collection of the art gallery. That sounds very sensible. However, I think the House should dwell on that for a moment. Dr Smith is asking the House to support legislation that is premised on the idea that important regional assets are best held in public ownership. The Labour Party supports this legislation entirely but is somewhat surprised that the National Party does. It leaves us with some confusion about whether the National Party can make up its mind on where it stands on public ownership of important assets.

The Suter is the third-oldest public art gallery in New Zealand and is a regional treasure. It was the first building in New Zealand to be constructed for the purpose of displaying art solely. It has been an intrinsic part of the cultural fabric of Nelson and of that aspect of Nelson’s environment and demeanour for which Nelson is so famous. The Suter is also known for its ceramic collections and has played a big part in locating Nelson’s reputation as an art centre, which together with Nelson’s natural attractions has turned it into a mini tourist Mecca. It also houses John Gully and Sir Toss Woollaston collections, which include unique portrayals of the Nelson region and landscapes.

I too want to add my congratulations and thanks to those of Dr Smith to the Suter board for its constant care and promotion of the Suter Gallery. I was not long in town before I was approached by the Suter and asked to support this legislation, and I was very, very happy to do so. I congratulate all board members, the people who have sustained and worked for the Suter Gallery over a long period of time, and congratulate the board’s most recent and current director, Julie Catchpole, in addition to those people whom Dr Smith named, for her care and cultivation of the Suter as it currently is. I have attended a number of openings and exhibitions in the Suter in the last 6 or 8 months. It truly is a regional treasure.

I pay tribute to the Nelson City Council for its support. The gallery is a very important repository of significant New Zealand art collections, as well as a magnet for the arts in Nelson and in the top of the South Island generally. I look forward to the gallery going into a council-controlled body that will be held in public ownership. I delight in that and am very pleased to support it. The Labour Party will support the bill without any fear of philosophical contradiction. Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker.

DAIL JONES (NZ First): New Zealand First supports the Bishop Suter Art Gallery Governance Restructuring Bill. Galleries, and other historic places like public libraries and suchlike, really epitomise the New Zealand way of life, especially in the more rural areas where they have often been retained by the early settlers who developed them. They are very much part of the community. New Zealand First wishes to ensure that full recognition is given to their historical value and to the contribution they have made to society over the years. The Suter Gallery is very much up in the high rankings of such institutions.

I wish to quote from notes prepared by Mahara Okeroa at the time of the 108th anniversary of the celebration of the Bishop Suter Art Gallery’s new category 2 status on the Historic Places Trust register, and which are available on the www.beehive.govt.nz website—I note that the previous speaker also quoted from a similar source—“A visionary concept of Bishop Suter was to establish a public art gallery, which recognises the value of art as a whole rather than being a pastime for the elite.” That is a really wonderful example of the egalitarianism of New Zealand society. In inspiring the creation of the gallery, Bishop Suter and Amelia Suter have made a permanent imprint on the culture and quality of life of the Nelson region, and in the overall sphere of things in the New Zealand way of life, in my view.

Nelson is a city that has long been recognised as a centre for arts, crafts, and cultural pursuits. In fact, when I was in Nelson a couple of decades ago it was one of the few towns where I went to an art gallery and purchased a painting. I think it was of Māori Bay. Is there a bay in the Nelson area called Māori Bay? It seems to be a fairly popular name, because there is one of that name in Muriwai as well. We still have the painting hanging up where we come into our house.

Bishop Andrew Burn Suter founded the Bishopdale Sketching Club, now known as the Nelson Suter Art Society, which was instrumental in developing the Suter collection and which has remained extremely active financially and artistically in the life of the Suter. A member of the society can also be credited with the notable achievement of introducing Toss Woollaston to watercolour—a very memorable occasion.

The Bishop Suter memorial gallery is important as a piece of architecture, I understand; I appreciate that the member introducing the bill may not have had sufficient time to make that comment, or if he did I must have missed it. The gallery is a memorial to a significant figure in Nelson’s history, and I believe it is a significant piece of New Zealand’s historical and cultural heritage. Apparently, there is a saying that goes with the Suter. The Suter’s byline “Remember, Experience, Dream” encapsulates the ways in which an art centre like the Suter enriches the lives of those who participate in its activities. New Zealand First has great pleasure in supporting this bill.

Hon TARIANA TURIA (Co-Leader—Māori Party): Tēnā koe, Madam Assistant Speaker. Tēnā tātou. On a day on which it appears the full fury of the House has been galvanised in a toxic war against graffiti and gangs, it is extremely refreshing to come to the Bishop Suter Art Gallery Governance Restructuring Bill, and to be revitalised by the unique perspectives that artists can bring to the concept of cultural identity.

At one level this bill, which sets in place a more publicly accountable governance structure for the new Bishop Suter Trust, makes good plain sense. The bill has arisen because the Suter Gallery—Te Aratoi o Whakatū—now depends on local authority funding and support in that it has become a council-controlled organisation. It is entirely consistent with public sector management that if the gallery is to receive backing from the Nelson City Council, then it must be able to show that it has the capability to conduct its affairs properly. But there is much more to the Suter Gallery than immediately meets the eye. This is a gallery that, although it has recently celebrated 109 years since it opened its doors in the 1890s, it is still stirring up debate through the nature of the exhibitions that it unleashes on the Nelson public. It has established a reputation for challenging Nelsonians and for provoking them into taking a look at themselves, their histories, their mythologies, and their culture, and it has done it so successfully that Nelson Mayor Paul Matheson described the Suter Gallery as: “a fundamental part of our make up, our identity”.

In this context, then, the decision that the gallery made last year to single out Pākehā culture as the exclusive focus of an exhibition was both unique and genuinely challenging. Pakeha Now! was the first exhibition of contemporary Pākehā art and was curated by Anna-Marie White of Te Ātiawa. Anna negotiated her way through the icon motifs of Kiwiana—the jandals, pavlovas, and buzzy bees—to present an understanding of what it means to be Pākehā. The decision to stimulate awareness and an expression of Pākehā identity represents a renewed sense of confidence in the use of the term “Pākehā” to convey a sense of pride in the types of values, rituals, attitudes, and practices that come with a culture, as well as marking a connection to Aotearoa, a sense of self that is not from “over there” but that is of being here.

There are other distinctive features of the Suter Gallery that stand out. The Suter Gallery—Te Aratoi o Whakatū—has taken seriously the issue of authenticity when considering its role in developing bicultural tourism. Central to this is its commitment to encourage, nurture, and promote artistic creativity in a bicultural arts environment. One of the outcomes of the memorandum of understanding signed by local iwi and the Suter Gallery in 2002 was the establishment of Ko te Pou Aranga, a consultation committee comprising representatives of the eight mana whenua in the Nelson region. The formal agreement pledges specific Māori representation on the board, and a range of protocols and commitments to sustain the mauri of Māori arts and cultural icons within the gallery. It details such strategies as providing bilingual guides, encouraging Māori participation, separating out the eating space, facilities for pōwhiri to occur, bilingual signage, and a commitment to ensure that all staff receive appropriate training to demonstrate cultural sensitivity, understanding, and respect for Māori and taonga. Out of that original agreement has also come some real and meaningful iwi development in the gallery’s educational programmes, the architecture and design of the gallery itself, and the position of a Māori curator.

In preparing for this bill I also came across the Māori History of the Suter Site and Environs by Hilary and John Mitchell, which sets out a fascinating history, including the relationships of mana whenua occupation of Ngāti Kōata, Ngāti Rārua, Ngāti Tama, Te Ātiawa, Ngāti Kuia and Ngāti Apa. It describes the wealth of mahinga kai situated adjacent to the Suter Gallery, where shellfish, eels, birds, eggs, aruhe, harakeke, tutu berries, and other kai were gathered. It also details the land-grabs of the most fertile lands in the Motueka by the settlers and the church for the Whakarewa School Trust. It paints a picture of a past that will undoubtedly inform our future.

This House has also feasted on the rich wealth of information and perspectives that the Suter Gallery offers the nation. We celebrate its past, and we look forward to an ongoing future of challenge and creative courage. We are pleased to support this bill.

Hon JUDITH TIZARD (Associate Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage): It is a pleasure to see the Bishop Suter Art Gallery Governance Restructuring Bill come before the House, and I join my colleague the Hon Maryan Street in supporting this bill.

I think that an interesting debate has been conducted through Nelson and the wider area about the future of the Bishop Suter Art Gallery and I am, of course, interested to look at the provisions of this bill. I particularly note that we are told that this legislation is required to relieve the future managers and kaitiaki of the Bishop Suter Art Gallery and its collection from the obligations that may have arisen under the assumptions made around money that was contributed some time ago for the renovation of the gallery and its evolution into a more modern gallery. The House has to take that issue fairly seriously. We should not allow trustees to escape lightly from obligations they have entered into. I assume the member sponsoring the bill, Nick Smith, will be able to convince the select committee that the new arrangement is not in any way avoiding obligations under which that money was given.

In general, to a large extent this legislation comes forward because of the extraordinarily popular Regional Museums Fund that this Government has developed over the last 8 years. I am very proud to be one of the people who argued strongly for this fund. We had seen the extraordinary change that Te Papa had made not only to the way in which New Zealand perceived our national museum and art gallery but also to the economic and social culture of Wellington. I think many people would agree with me that if more than 10 years ago we had said to friends within New Zealand, or, indeed, to visitors from overseas, “You must go to Wellington. It is the home of extraordinary facilities like Te Papa, the national museum.”, they would have asked what on earth we were talking about. Te Papa has changed not only the way in which Wellington sees itself but also the way in which the rest of New Zealand and much of the world sees it.

We have seen other major museum developments like the Eastern Southland Gallery in Gore and the wonderful new museum in Masterton, which have been supported by the Labour Government’s Regional Museums Fund. The major museums that have been transformed are the Christchurch Art Gallery and the Auckland War Memorial Museum. More recently we have announced a contribution of $30 million to the Auckland City Art Gallery, which without question has the pre-eminent visual arts collection of New Zealand.

I am delighted to see that councils are recognising this responsibility, not only to look after the physical and functional infrastructure but also to acknowledge the responsibility given to them in the Local Government Act 2002 to consider the social, environmental, cultural, and economic well-being of their communities now and into the future.

I congratulate the Nelson City Council on promoting this local bill. I congratulate the member of Parliament for Nelson on sponsoring the bill. As my colleague has indicated, this is an interesting and refreshing departure for a National member, so I genuinely congratulate him. The Suter is an important gallery for New Zealand. It has, as the leader of the Māori Party said, been an important source of interesting ideas both about Nelson and about the wider region and New Zealand.

I think Nelson is a fascinating town. The early settlers there, along with Māori, saw the importance of music and they set up their wonderful Nelson School of Music, which has been the source of important musical training in the church as well as in secular music. The Bishop Suter Art Gallery has been acknowledged as one of the earliest art galleries and it has made an enormous difference to the way in which Nelson conducts itself. I think the Nelson Arts Festival and the wearable arts festival that have come out of Nelson are an indication of what a community can do to describe its own culture to its citizens and to the rest of the country, to the benefit of everyone.

I look forward to this legislation coming through and, of course, we undertake to examine it with great care in relation to the roles of the trustees now and going forward.

NICKY WAGNER (National): I too rise to support the Bishop Suter Art Gallery Governance Restructuring Bill sponsored by Dr Nick Smith. The Bishop Suter Art Gallery is a highly respected and much-loved gallery with a fascinating history and, after this restructuring bill, a bright future. It is one of New Zealand’s oldest public art galleries and it is the only public art gallery in New Zealand that is not currently publicly owned. This bill will shift the gallery into the 21st century and give it a major legal and administrative makeover. The sign outside the gallery’s main entrance invites visitors to “Remember, Experience, Dream”. Indeed, the whole history of the gallery is the fulfilment of a dream.

The story began in 1890 with the death of Nelson Anglican Bishop Andrew Burn Suter, a Victorian clergyman who knew and loved art. His widow, Amelia, established the gallery to house the Suter collection and as a memorial in permanent form, using funds originally intended to buy the late bishop a farewell presentation. The site was located in Queen’s Gardens, and in 1899 the original building, which is still used today, was officially opened with massed choirs, speeches, and two public slide shows. An elegant new wing was opened 80 years later in 1979.

In the 1890s the idea of a public art gallery was novel, especially in a fledgling colonial community. Suter’s idea of an art gallery reflected the New Zealand Company’s philosophy for the settlement of Nelson. The company brought the full range of British citizens—from gentry to worker—to Nelson in the hope of establishing an egalitarian society that celebrated arts and culture. As the founding president and critic of the Bishopdale Sketching Club, Bishop Suter promoted art to everyone in Nelson. He was a great believer in the civilising power of art, and is often quoted as saying that bad drawing is a kind of sin; it is a libel on nature.

It would be very interesting to speculate on his reactions to modern art and to the modern Suter Art Gallery. The original Suter collection has expanded to become an important catalogue of works of major 19th century and early 20th century artists. It includes a large collection of watercolours by the 19th century landscape artist John Gully and several by Charles Goldie and James Richmond, but it also has an extensive contemporary collection featuring Tony Fomison, Errol Shaw, and Jane Evans. It also houses what is probably New Zealand’s best collection of paintings by Sir Tosswill Woollaston, who is one of the founders of modern art in New Zealand and who spent his early painting years in Māpua near Nelson. Not long ago I visited the gallery and was impressed by the energy of the staff and the Bishop Suter Art Gallery Trust Board. The gallery is full of young people experimenting with art. The exhibition that was on was called Pākehā Now!, curated by Anna-Marie White. The exhibition was discussed recently by Tariana Turia. Here in my hand is the catalogue. It was indeed a challenging exhibition.

Looking beyond all of the activities in the art gallery, I could see that the gallery itself needs redevelopment to upgrade its facilities and to care for its very important and valuable collections. To this end I support this bill and look forward to seeing the Suter flourish and grow, and continue to offer visitors the opportunity to “Remember, Experience, Dream”.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson): I thank members of the House for their contributions. I want to make just a few comments to Dail Jones, Tariana Turia, Maryan Street, and Judith Tizard in response to a few of the points that they have raised.

The Hon Judith Tizard raised questions in respect of the provisions of the bill around the donations that were made for the redevelopment. The questions she raised are quite proper ones. I am assured by both the donors and the existing trust board that this bill confirms the understanding reached with those who made financial gifts. But the Hon Judith Tizard properly asks that the select committee look into that issue and ensure that is the case, so that nobody’s legal rights are being compromised unfairly as a consequence of this bill.

In respect of the comments made by Tariana Turia and New Zealand First member Dail Jones, I thank the members. I think their comments show there is broad support across the House for the artistic fabric. In respect of the questions about the regional arts and museum funds, I note that the Suter did apply to the fund that was established by the Government, and its rejection was one of the key reasons that the redevelopment of the Suter Art Gallery was not able to proceed. I wish to give notice that I think that after this bill is passed, when there is a new reform and redevelopment of the Suter under a council-owned organisation, the Suter will be back knocking on the door of the Government for support in redeveloping the gallery.

I must say I was a little disappointed that Maryan Street chose to use the debate on this non-controversial bill to make some partisan political points in respect of State ownership. I frankly think it showed as much judgment as her ditty at Labour’s congress, in that there is a time for politics and there is a time for unity. I also note for her attention that the Suter Art Gallery was established under an Act of Parliament introduced by John Graham MP, who was a Liberal. There is a long heritage of parties on all sides of the House and from all sides of the political spectrum supporting the arts community. Labour does not have a monopoly on arts policy nor arts wisdom. The very fact that the Suter art collection has been run by a private trust very successfully for over 100 years shows that the private sector, too, has a role to play in the development of Nelson arts and arts generally in New Zealand.

I thank members for their support. This bill is important for the community of Nelson. I hope that we can expeditiously advance the bill so that the Suter Art Gallery can move to a new governance structure that will see its future being as strong as its past.

Bill read a first time.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson): I move, That the Bishop Suter Art Gallery Governance Restructuring Bill be considered by the Local Government and Environment Committee and that the committee report finally to the House on or before 30 June 2008.

Motion agreed to.

Bills

Corrections (Mothers with Babies) Amendment Bill

Second Reading

Debate resumed from 21 November 2007.

BARBARA STEWART (NZ First): I rise to support the Corrections (Mothers with Babies) Amendment Bill and also the recommendation of the Law and Order Committee that the bill be passed with appropriate amendments. The amendments do improve the bill.

New Zealand First congratulates Sue Bradford on her bill and on the very worthwhile debate it has generated, but we have some reservations about the bill and will be interested to follow the bill’s progress through the House. We will want to be reassured about the concerns we have. As Ron Mark said to me, we need to remember who these people are and why they are in prison. We have to be realistic. He also pointed out that the cost considerations implicit in this legislation are fairly high. He emphasised that a cautious approach to the bill is absolutely essential.

As the bill states, this provision would apply to all female prisoners, regardless of their security classifications or whether they have been convicted or sentenced. We have to be realistic and support the premise that any mother imprisoned for any offence associated with child abuse would not be eligible to have her baby with her in prison. That is exactly how it should be. When it comes to females imprisoned for serious offences, security issues have to be considered. Self-care units are minimum security areas at the moment. If the number of people who are eligible for placement in them is extended, New Zealand First would raise concerns about security issues that currently do not need to be addressed.

We have some concerns about the resources that will be needed in order to allow this legislation and initiative to succeed. It has to be set up well, and has to be managed very well. The facilities provided will have to meet the criteria and standards required of other institutions that currently care for children. Prisons will need resources such as qualified, trained staff when mothers are attending programmes; rooms that meet the size requirements, etc.; the ability to keep babies separate from toddlers; and indoor and outdoor play areas. There will be many other things that we have not mentioned. These areas will need to be added to existing prison facilities, so it is reasonable to assume there will be a time lag between the passing of this legislation and its implementation. New Zealand First believes that resources are an issue. It would be great to say that they are not an issue, but the reality is that they are, and that the resources needed in a prison environment are definitely greater than they are out in the community.

I was most interested to hear from Ron Mark, a member of the select committee, that Māori and Pacific Islanders do not necessarily agree with the arguments of middle-class social workers that this scenario would best benefit the child. They argued that a child was raised by the village and the wider whānau, that it was not unusual for elders to take a child from his or her mother, and that it was often the better option to do that, given the mother’s lifestyle and/or drug and alcohol habits. That is a valid argument and one that we will be interested to hear further discussion on.

In New Zealand First we recognise that the well-being of children is absolutely paramount, and that all children deserve the best possible start in life. It concerns us as to what will happen when the child turns 2 years of age. It can be far more traumatic for a 2-year-old to be separated from his or her mother than for a baby, and that issue needs to be very carefully managed. It may mean that the child’s age, or the time that the mother is with her baby, should actually be increased. There is the fact, too, that female prisoners have become older over the last 5 years, and that the greatest growth has been among prisoners in the 15-29 year age group. That is the group of women who are most likely to have babies, so we can see an increase in the number of mothers who already have, or who apply to have, their babies in prison with them.

The more cynical among us could say that young women who face a prison sentence may deliberately get themselves pregnant prior to being sentenced, as the environment may be a little easier or a little nicer for them while they are in prison. That means, again, an increase in the required resources. I also read a paper arguing that there is a danger that more women with babies may end up in prison as, when this bill becomes law, they will definitely be able to keep their babies with them. Hopefully that will not be the case.

On the positive side, New Zealand First believes that this is an excellent opportunity for those mothers to learn some parenting skills, which otherwise they would not have had the opportunity to learn or would not have bothered to learn, in a very controlled environment. Of course we are very aware too of the child’s developmental needs and of the need for bonding with other family members, and we say that is important. We believe that this initiative will benefit the child and the mother in the best possible way, because we believe that it is essential that a mother-child bond is formed. But, of course, the focus always has to be on what is best for the welfare of the child. The reality is that children may be better looked after in prison than if they are separated from their mothers, because the prison environment is a very controlled environment and one where the resources that are provided will ensure that children get the best possible care.

New Zealand First will support this bill, but I must point out that we do have some reservations about it. We will be looking to have those reservations clarified as the bill proceeds through this House. Thank you.

SIMON POWER (National—Rangitikei): I want to make a contribution on the Corrections (Mothers with Babies) Amendment Bill. I start by saying I was delighted that the National Party was able to be the first party to formally support this bill at its first reading following its introduction by the Green Party, as I believe it has real merits in the longer term. Most important, and just to put Barbara Stewart’s mind at rest, I tell members the Law and Order Committee spent some time on making sure that the legislation made it perfectly clear that its principal purpose was to provide for what was in the best interests of the child. In fact, we as a committee amended the original purpose clause to make that the paramount consideration when a placement of this nature is considered by the Department of Corrections.

It is worth spending a bit of time this evening on looking at the eligibility and screening of applicants for such placements. We did recommend that the chief executive of the department “may” make a placement, not “must” make a placement, upon application, although it was the expectation of the select committee that where the criteria were met, the chief executive would approve such a request. I cannot emphasise enough, though, that the primary interests of this legislation are not with the mother but with the child who would be the subject of the placement.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 10 p.m.