Thursday, 29 September 2011

Thursday, 29 September 2011

Thursday, 29 September 2011

Mr Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

Business Statement

Business Statement

Hon SIMON POWER (Acting Leader of the House): When the House resumes on Tuesday, 4 October the Government intends to move the first reading of the Crown Entities Reform Bill, the remaining stages of the Criminal Procedure (Reform and Modernisation) Bill, the remaining stages of the Subordinate Legislation (Confirmation and Validation) Bill (No 3), and the first reading of the Victims of Crime Reform Bill. The adoption of amendments to the Standing Orders, as recommended by the Standing Orders Committee, will also be debated, and a further seven retiring members will give their valedictory statements. On Thursday it is the Government’s intention to move that urgency be accorded to the remaining stages of the Video Camera Surveillance (Temporary Measures) Bill and the Sleepover Wages (Settlement) Bill, as well as the adjournment debate.

Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South): I thank the Acting Leader of the House for his full explanation of his intentions for next week. I want to check with him as to whether one of two things has been sorted out: either the Attorney-General on the Video Camera Surveillance (Temporary Measures) Bill, or the catering from Bellamy’s for the weekend.

Hon SIMON POWER (Acting Leader of the House): That member has been in this House a lot longer than I have, and he will know that what goes on in a select committee stays in a select committee until such time as it is reported back to this House. I am sure Bellamy’s will do its best to maintain its very high standards when it comes to food.

Questions for Oral Answer

Questions to Ministers

Economy—International Liabilities

1. NIKKI KAYE (National—Auckland Central) to the Minister of Finance: What reports has he received on New Zealand’s economic vulnerabilities?

Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance): New Zealand’s main economic vulnerability is the combined public and private debt to the rest of the world. This debt, which is measured by our net international liabilities, is one of the main indicators that lenders and credit rating agencies focus on when deciding our creditworthiness. New Zealand’s net international liabilities have improved in recent times, reflecting an increase in savings. But with US and European fears driving global uncertainty, there is clearly more work to do.

Nikki Kaye: What progress has New Zealand made in reducing its international liabilities?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: New Zealand’s net international liabilities have dropped from a peak of 86 percent of GDP in late 2009 to about 69 percent of GDP in March 2011. This improvement is even more marked when compared with Budget 2009 forecasts, which suggested that the figure would have climbed to 106 percent of GDP by now. So instead of it being 106 percent of GDP, it is actually around 69 percent. The Government has been working hard to reduce its own borrowing while putting in place policies that lift economic growth.

Nikki Kaye: Why is reducing New Zealand’s international liabilities important?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: I think it is important just because the current state of the financial markets, particularly in the US and Europe, make it clear that financial markets are becoming more sensitive to debt—that is, any country that has significant international liabilities will come under the microscope. So although the New Zealand ship is in better shape than it was 3 years ago, global waters have become significantly rougher.

Nikki Kaye: What reports has he seen of policies that would increase debt and heighten New Zealand’s vulnerability in uncertain global markets?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: I have seen reports of a number of policies that would require more borrowing in uncertain global markets—for instance, a tax package that would result in $6.6 billion more debt. It is certainly not one for which the Government is responsible.

Hon Trevor Mallard: Supplementary question—

Jonathan Young: Ah, another marginal member.

Hon Trevor Mallard: Ha, ha! That was Jonathan Young.

Mr SPEAKER: Members should just ask their questions, although some interjections, I do acknowledge, are difficult to ignore.

Hon Trevor Mallard: Does muddling through, as the Prime Minister described the Minister of Finance’s policy, involve losing another 50,000 jobs, or does he stand by his forecast of an employment gain of 175,000 net jobs over the next 4 years?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: To deal with the first question first, we had a question yesterday about the National Employment Indicator. It is a partial measure of jobs. The household labour force survey, which the Opposition has used for the last 2 years and 11 months while in Opposition, is the standard. By that measure, the number of jobs has grown. Treasury has forecast 175,000 new jobs, and we do not see any reason as yet to change that figure.

Job Creation—Statistics

2. Hon ANNETTE KING (Deputy Leader—Labour) to the Minister for Social Development and Employment: Does she stand by her statement “there are jobs out there”, given statistics released this week show there are 47,000 fewer jobs than three years ago?

Hon PAULA BENNETT (Minister for Social Development and Employment): Absolutely, particularly in light of statistics released a few weeks ago that show that more people are employed than ever before.

Hon Annette King: In light of that answer, is it now the Government’s position to rely on the household labour force survey as the measure of unemployment and employment, in light of the Prime Minister recently dismissing the household labour force survey as being “notoriously volatile” and just a survey?

Hon PAULA BENNETT: There are a number of reports on employment and unemployment that come out during the year. I know that the members on the other side pick which sort of report they want to use at different times, and that those choices are actually of some concern. But, as I am saying, there is a measure here that says we have more people employed than ever before. I know we do not want to see that as being a good story, but actually it is.

Hon Annette King: Was she aware, when the Prime Minister said yesterday that employment is at the highest level ever, that in fact the increase was a mere 5,000 people over 3 years, while the working-age population actually grew by 103,200 people?

Hon PAULA BENNETT: Yes, and I think in the light of our having one of the worst global recessions that this world has seen in a long time that it is actually quite remarkable that we have seen that level of growth in employment.

Hon Annette King: Where are the additional 98,000 working-age people who have been added to the household labour force survey figures over the past 3 years, and do they account for some of the 45,000 extra unemployed people under her stewardship?

Hon PAULA BENNETT: Did the beginning of that question ask where they are? Can I just check that, Mr Speaker?

Mr SPEAKER: That is correct.

Hon PAULA BENNETT: They are in work, because they are counted as being in employment, or they are in training, which is a reality as well. Just by the sheer measure of the household labour force survey and the numbers that are coming into the country, that is how it is made up.

Hon Annette King: Were the 170,000 new jobs National promised in its May Budget predicated on 4 percent growth by 2013; if not, what was the promise of 170,000 new jobs based on?

Hon PAULA BENNETT: That was a Treasury prediction, and as the Minister who spoke before me just said, it is one that we feel can be reached. We can see no reason to question it.

Hon Annette King: In light of that answer, if 4 percent growth helps to create 170,000 new jobs, as set out in the May Budget, how many jobs is the Government now expecting to be created, given that the Minister of Finance said yesterday that he expected growth forecasts to come back over the next 2 or 3 years?

Hon PAULA BENNETT: Those sorts of predictions are for Treasury. I suggest to the member that she may want to put her questions to the Minister in charge of Treasury.

Hon Heather Roy: In light of the Department of Labour report that revealed that the abolition of the youth minimum wage pushed up to 9,000 young people out of work, does the Minister think the report was wrong, or does she concede that abolishing the youth rates was a mistake that should be fixed immediately?

Hon PAULA BENNETT: I think there are a number of reasons why young people are out of work disproportionately at the moment. Some of the main ones are the recession and the effects of that, and their having fewer skills and experience to take into the workforce. I know that the member certainly cites reports that say the abolition of the youth minimum wage is one of the reasons, but I think there are also others that need to be taken into consideration.

Grant Robertson: Further to that answer, can the Minister advise whether she has received any reports on policies promoted by the ACT Party for young people that, rather than saying “Let them eat cake.”, say “Let them smoke dope.”?

Mr SPEAKER: Only a couple of days back I did not allow a similar type of question asking about reports on Labour Party policies.

Hon Trevor Mallard: But you let it go.

Mr SPEAKER: No, I did not.

Hon Trevor Mallard: No, we talked you into it.

Mr SPEAKER: No, I did not allow that question, and I am not going to allow this one, either.

GDP Growth—Budget 2011 Projections

3. Hon Sir ROGER DOUGLAS (ACT) to the Minister of Finance: Has he received any reports that suggest Budget 2011’s nominal and real GDP per capita growth projections are unlikely to be met; if so, what are the consequences of this?

Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance): I have not received any such advice as yet. Treasury is currently preparing the Pre-election Economic and Fiscal Update that will be released next month. The most recent assessment of the outlook was in the Reserve Bank’s Monetary Policy Statement, released 2 weeks ago, which showed cumulative growth and inflation broadly similar to the Budget forecasts, although data for the year to June 2011 has generally been stronger than the Budget assumed.

Hon Sir Roger Douglas: Given that the Budget update for the last 7 years has overestimated 2-year real GDP growth projections by 1 percentage point on average, what specific contingency plans, if any, does he have for lost revenue of $14.5 billion if future growth is also 1 percent lower than Budget 2011’s optimistic projections over the next few years?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: Well, this is a Government that has always taken a pretty considered and balanced approach. We keep in mind that there is a range of outcomes from any Budget: things could turn out worse than one expected; things could turn out better than one expected. At the moment, though, I would have to say that, with the combination of performance in 2011, the economy has been doing better than expected and it is quite likely, given the international circumstances, that growth forecasts 2 and 3 years out might be a bit lower. We have yet to see from the pre-election fiscal update what that adds up to, but certainly in these uncertain times Governments should be prepared for a range of different outcomes.

Hon Sir Roger Douglas: Given the Minister’s reply, could I ask him whether, if growth is 1 percent lower than projected, as it has been in the past, the Government will cut spending; or will it abandon its commitment to New Zealanders that we will be back in surplus by 2014-15?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: In the Budget we showed a track to surplus for 2014-15 and it is pretty important in these uncertain times that the Government sticks to that track and achieves that surplus.

Hon Trevor Mallard: In light of the fact that he will have received the first draft of the pre-election fiscal update background documents now, is he as confident of his current growth forecast as he was in Budget 2010, when he promised a growth of 4.7 percent between December 2009 and today, given that the actual growth has been less than half of that amount?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: As the member will know, the pre-election fiscal update, at least under this Government, is one that is produced independently by Treasury. Whether or not I have seen the documents, I would not tell the member anyway. We have yet to see what Treasury forecasts are going to show. What I can tell the member, though, is that, whatever those forecasts show, we will not revert to the damaging and wasteful economic policies of the Labour Government.

State Housing, Auckland—Tāmaki Transformation Programme

4. MOANA MACKEY (Labour) to the Minister of Housing: On what date did he make the decision to reverse the previous Labour Government’s commitment to the Tamaki community that the Tamaki Transformation Programme would reduce the concentration of State housing in Tamaki but not reduce the existing number of State houses?

Hon PHIL HEATLEY (Minister of Housing): I do not direct the Tāmaki Transformation Programme board; it is a partnership between the Government, the councils, and the community. It does not direct the Housing New Zealand Corporation, which is a separate entity. However, the Tāmaki Transformation Programme does support the corporation’s moves, and so do I. Subdividing large sections, upgrading brand new houses, and reducing the concentration of State housing in Tāmaki to below 56 percent is sensible. So is increasing State house numbers by 1,400 right across Auckland, including central and east Auckland.

Moana Mackey: Has a decision been made to renege on the commitment made by the previous Labour Government to not reduce the number of State houses in the Tāmaki Transformation Programme area?

Hon PHIL HEATLEY: It is very clear that a decision has been made by the Housing New Zealand Corporation, which I support, to increase the number of State houses in Auckland by 1,400; in Tāmaki, to reduce concentrations of State houses below 56 percent, so that one in every two houses is not a State house; and to rebuild State housing in Tāmaki and elsewhere. We are reducing the number of State houses in Tāmaki, we are subdividing sections, and we are reducing the concentrations.

Moana Mackey: Then why is the commitment to not reduce the number of houses in Tāmaki still on the Tāmaki Transformation Programme website, in a document dated 19 March 2009, when he was Minister, stating that although the proportion of State housing would reduce, they would be “retaining at least the absolute number” of State houses—why is that still on the website today?

Hon PHIL HEATLEY: That might be exciting for members of the Opposition, but I have been saying for the last few days—and just so that people are clear—that we will no longer have quarter acre sections in Tāmaki, we are reducing State house concentrations below 56 percent, we are increasing the number of State houses across Auckland, and we are getting rid of the old, and cold, and mouldy ones. Have I made myself crystal clear about Tāmaki and Auckland?

Moana Mackey: Does he realise just how much time and effort went into consulting Tāmaki residents to develop a comprehensive plan that they were comfortable with, that reflected their vision for their community, which was handed to him on a platter at the last election; if so, why has he arrogantly reneged on that commitment to not reduce the number of State houses?

Hon PHIL HEATLEY: It was the previous Government’s habit for years to consult year in and year out, and do nothing. Essentially, in Tāmaki we are building new State houses on subdivided sections, first-home buyers are able to buy other sections, and community housing organisations will also get involved in Tāmaki. But we will no longer have excessive numbers of quarter acre sections in Tāmaki, and we will no longer have State house concentrations of 56 percent.

Moana Mackey: Why, then, did the National candidate, Sam Lotu-Iiga, promise before the last election in the East and Bays Courier that “the aim is not to reduce the number of state houses but the percentage.”?

Hon PHIL HEATLEY: Right across Auckland we are increasing the number of State houses, including in central and east Auckland, where Tāmaki is. I think the member has to realise that we have a difference of view here. We do not believe that State houses should be on hundreds if not thousands of quarter acre sections, in concentrations of 56 percent. We believe that State housing stock needs to increase in Auckland, and it will. And we believe that it needs to be upgraded, and that is what we are doing. If those members do not support that, that is fine. Let us go to the election with that view, and let us go to Tāmaki with that view.

Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I was somewhat surprised that the question was allowed to go through, but your having ruled that it was in order, I think there is a requirement on the Minister to address whether he supported the current member’s commitment before the election.

Mr SPEAKER: Well, I think the Minister did answer that, because he—

Hon Trevor Mallard: Did he say no?

Mr SPEAKER: No, no. The Minister said it was his policy to increase the number of State houses in Auckland, and I believe that was part of the question. No, it might not have mentioned Auckland; it did not mention any area, if I heard the supplementary question correctly. Where it referred specifically to concentrations of number of houses, it did not actually mention an area. The Minister, in my view, answered that.

Greenhouse Gas Reduction—Subsidies and Carbon Pricing

5. Dr KENNEDY GRAHAM (Green) to the Minister responsible for International Climate Change Negotiations: Does he stand by his statement that “it is completely incoherent for the world to be now tentatively coordinating actions to put a price on carbon on the one hand, while simultaneously massively subsiding consumption of carbon”?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for Climate Change Issues) on behalf of the Minister responsible for International Climate Change Negotiations: Yes.

Dr Kennedy Graham: Well, how does he reconcile that statement with the work of his colleague the Minister of Energy and Resources, who stated last year: “We’ve taken a number of actions as a government to support the oil and gas sector”, including $25 million worth of free geotechnical information and 183-day tax exemptions?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: The world spends about US$500 billion per year on subsidies. There are countries that spend more money on subsidising fossil fuels than they spend on education. The programmes that this Government has funded include GNS Science being funded to do seismic surveys and gather petroleum information on New Zealand’s huge exclusive economic zone and extended continental shelf. Those amounts are quite minuscule, and I think it is a long stretch to call those programmes subsidies. It is simply New Zealand wanting to know what resources it has in the huge ocean area for which it is responsible.

Dr Kennedy Graham: How is the granting of millions of dollars of taxpayer-funded research and tax breaks to private fossil fuel companies not a subsidy on fossil fuels?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: It is about the Government spending its money to find out what is in the ocean area for which New Zealand has responsibility—an area 20 times our land area—and this Government makes no apologies for funding both GNS Science and other parties so that New Zealand can make informed decisions based on knowing what resources are in that huge area of ocean.

Dr Kennedy Graham: Is he perhaps, then, concerned that the Government’s emissions trading scheme, which grants large, unconditional subsidies to trade-exposed sectors with 80 years of phase-out, and which allocates free units to polluters, could be determined to be arbitrary or unjustifiable discrimination by the World Trade Organization; if not, why not?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: It is a very long stretch for the member to claim that a partial exposure to the emissions trading scheme—for instance, like our aluminium smelter or our steel mill, which are among the very few such operations in the world to pay any price for their emissions—is to pay, effectively, a partial price. There is a huge difference between those businesses paying a partial price and those countries that deliberately set out to spend hundreds of billions of dollars subsidising fossil fuels. It is absolutely consistent for this Government, internationally, to advocate that those large fossil fuel subsidies be reduced if the world is serious about reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Dr Kennedy Graham: If we are in the business of comparing size for size, then how does he reconcile the Government’s further delays to the emissions trading scheme, which, according to the emissions trading scheme review report, will result in New Zealand taxpayers and households further subsidising greenhouse gas - emitting industries by, at least, hundreds of millions of dollars?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: This member and other members make the gross error of trying to claim that not exposing industries or consumers to the full price of carbon over all their emissions is somehow a subsidy. A subsidy implies that there is a cost to taxpayers. That is not true. It is not true, and members opposite who attempt to run that argument ignore the fact that there is no international agreement beyond the end of 2012 for reducing emissions at this point, and without it, there is no cost to the New Zealand taxpayer.

Dr Kennedy Graham: Taking the Minister’s definition of a subsidy as a cost to the taxpayer, then what is his response to the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment’s report on lignite, which stated that as things currently stand, companies that develop products from lignite on a large scale are likely to receive subsidies of millions of dollars per year from the taxpayer?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: The question as to whether the development of lignite resources for briquettes, urea, or diesel and whether they would be eligible for an allocation under the emissions trading scheme is an open question. The reason that I am hesitant to give a judgment on whether they would or would not be eligible is that there is a proper legal process when an application is made, and I would be subjecting myself to judicial review if I expressed a view on that prior to the proper legislative criteria that are set down in the Act being considered, and prior to even receiving an application.

Dr Kennedy Graham: Is it, then, this Government’s hesitant policy that the rest of the world should produce and use less fossil fuel, but New Zealand should produce and use more; if not, why is his Government granting subsidies to greenhouse gas polluters?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: No, it is not, and this Government is not providing subsidies to greenhouse gas polluters. I remind the member that we are the only country outside the EU to have an emissions trading scheme. Our aluminium smelter in Bluff is the only aluminium smelter in the world to face any price at all for its greenhouse gas emissions. This Government is about New Zealand doing its fair share on climate change, and that is exactly what we are doing.

Earthquakes, Canterbury and Christchurch—Trade Skills Training Policy

6. DAVID SHEARER (Labour—Mt Albert) to the Minister for Tertiary Education: Does he stand by his statement migrant workers will only be used in Christchurch to fill jobs where New Zealanders “won’t be able to be trained in time to do the job” such as engineers that take four to five years’ training?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister for Tertiary Education): Yes, I stand by my full quote, which was as follows: “You will have a need for people who won’t be able to be trained in time to do the job, and that’s why we’ve also got the Department of Labour involved to look at what sort of occupations will not be able to be filled, just because of the time it takes to train them. So if you look at engineers, 4 to 5 years, where realistically we have what’s going through the pipeline right now, so that’s the sort of areas where they might look at some extra migration to help with that particular part of the skills requirement.”

David Shearer: Given that it takes only 18 months’ training to obtain a basic scaffolding qualification, why is the Government advertising this occupation in its special Christchurch migrant skills list, instead of investing more money into Modern Apprenticeships, in Budget 2011, to help Kiwis into jobs?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: In fact, that is an interesting example, because the Ministry of Social Development, I am advised, has just done an exercise with Scaffolding and Rigging New Zealand to subsidise 27 scaffolding trainees into jobs. I understand they are from the Limited Service Volunteers course. So it all moves around, which is the reality of it. We are balancing two things: firstly, ensuring that as much as possible we use the skills of New Zealanders and train New Zealanders—and we are doing that—and, secondly, not delaying the recovery in Christchurch by having particular areas of skills needing to be filled. So that is the balance the Government is looking to strike on all cases.

David Shearer: I seek leave to table a document from the Immigration New Zealand website, which sets out the—

Mr SPEAKER: We do not table stuff on departmental websites. It is available to all members. Does the member have a supplementary question?

David Shearer: Given that it takes 2 years’ training to become a qualified electricity line mechanic, and that the Christchurch rebuild is expected to take 15 years, why is the Government advertising this occupation in its special migrant skills list instead of training Kiwis to do that job?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: The member implies that it is some sort of mutually exclusive situation where one cannot walk and chew gum at the same time. The reality is that we are training very large numbers of people right now for the Christchurch rebuild and for the wider building and construction requirements in the country. For example, we currently have around 8,400 construction trades - related equivalent full-time students active in New Zealand right now, and we have 15,000-odd trainees in the Built Environment Training Alliance now, too.

David Shearer: Does he stand by his statement that 1,500 new training places should be more than enough to meet the skills needs in Canterbury, given that the most recent estimate from the Canterbury Employment and Skills Board states that 30,000 extra trades workers will be needed for the rebuild?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: I am not sure where the member gets that particular view from. We have added $48 million specifically into a pool for additional trades training, which, if it were applied to equivalent full-time student places, would equate to 1,500 places, but also that could be applied to industry training and to a range of other things as well. On top of that, I inform the member that right now we have equivalent full-time students places available in polytechnics and in universities around the country. We have full-time subsidy places with the Ministry of Social Development in Christchurch for the give a local a job programme available now, we have industry training places available now, and Modern Apprenticeships places available now. So if the member knows of anybody who is interested in stepping up and being part of the rebuild in Christchurch—

Hon Member: A few of them might be stepping out.

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: My colleague points out that a few members across the aisle might be interested after November, and they would be most welcome to contact their local polytechnic or industry training organisation and ensure they have the opportunity to participate. There are lots of places available.

Grant Robertson: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. In the Minister’s answer to the second-to-last supplementary question, the Minister appeared to be quoting from an official document. I ask that he table that document, as per the Standing Orders.

Mr SPEAKER: I will check with the Minister. Was the Minister quoting from an official document? That is not a document prepared for him by his officials?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: No.

Mr SPEAKER: It is not an official document.

Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I did not want to interrupt the rest of the question, but you ruled, as you have consistently, that members are not allowed to table documents that are from websites. Yesterday we had an assurance from the Minister for Social Development and Employment that she was not, and in fact she did. I wonder whether that matter is going to be taken up.

Mr SPEAKER: The Speaker cannot just take up matters like that, although he notes the point the honourable member is making. He noted it yesterday, and there is not a lot the Speaker can do about that, but it is in the Speaker’s mind and if it happens again, I will be very concerned about it.

Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I know that it is relatively unusual, but when the Speaker receives an assurance from a Minister on a matter of fact that is incorrect, one would have thought that the Speaker would take some action. I know that it would be very hard to refer a breach of privilege to oneself, but it was not a simple question. You asked the Minister, and she gave you an incorrect reply, which has not been corrected.

Hon Paula Bennett: Just in light of the conversation we had yesterday, you asked me whether the document was from a website. Yesterday I said that I believed that it was not. I had it in a hard form in front of me; it did not indicate that it was from a website. It turns out later on that it was on a website, which they found, but the document itself was not.

Mr SPEAKER: We will not debate this issue right here and now. Yesterday I asked whether the particular document was from a departmental website. I noted later that the document had “Department of Labour” across the top of it; it was rather difficult to have not been able to see that the document was from a Government department. The member who raised the original point of order may note that the Standing Orders proposals will provide a mechanism for the Speaker to deal with this kind of issue, because the Speaker is not particularly happy when this kind of issue occurs. It troubles the Speaker that such an issue is not of sufficient moment for it to be considered to be a matter of privilege, but it is an important issue none the less. I think the new proposals will enable matters like that to be dealt with.

Brendon Burns: Given that there are 10,000 18 to 24-year-olds out of work in Canterbury, and given that we have a $30 billion rebuild over a generation, why will he not step up and give young Cantabrians real opportunities to train, and rebuild their city, rather than importing migrant labour?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: I think the member might have misheard the answer to the previous supplementary question, when I listed a whole range of things that are available now, including subsidised jobs into Christchurch. The big challenge that we are all dealing with in Christchurch is the ongoing seismicity and when that will settle down, and that has an impact on everybody’s desire to step up and do things, but the places are available right now. I think the only thing we could do is sort of march the people into the places at the point of some sort of compulsion, and I do not know whether the member is suggesting that, but I think that would be inappropriate. If he knows of anybody in his own constituency, for example, who would like to take up one of the many, many training opportunities of all types in Christchurch, then I ask him to please tell them to contact their local industry training organisation, or they can contact my office if they like.

Resource Management Act Reforms—Consents Process

7. CHRIS AUCHINVOLE (National—West Coast - Tasman) to the Minister for the Environment: What progress has the Government made in addressing the problem for homeowners and businesses of slow and delayed processing of resource consents since passing the Resource Management (Simplifying and Streamlining) Amendment Act 2009?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for the Environment): Delays in processing resource consents got progressively worse over the last decade, from 18 percent in 2002, to 23 percent in 2004, to 27 percent in 2006, and to 31 percent of consents being late in 2008. In the last year, only 5 percent of resource consents were late. This means that in contrast to 16,107 consents being late in 2008, there were only 1,807 late in the last year.

Chris Auchinvole: What steps and progress have been made in addressing other problems over resource consent processing, such as the councils granting themselves extensions of time for nearly one-third of consents, and extensive and repeated requests for more information?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: The Government’s legislative changes limited the circumstances in which the councils could grant themselves an extension, and also the number of further information requests. I am pleased that since 2008 the number of extensions of time has dropped from 15,000 to 5,400, and the number of further information requests has dropped from 22,000 to 13,000. These improvements show that the Government’s first phase of resource management reforms is working well and supporting the Government’s agenda for investment, for jobs, and for growth. The Government is planning a further phase of reforms to further improve the way in which the Resource Management Act works.

Hon Trevor Mallard: Subsequent to the Minister’s last supplementary answer, can he detail some of the policy points involved in the legislation currently being developed in the Ministry for the Environment for introduction in December or February, if in fact his Government is returned?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: The National Party will be publishing an aggressive policy that will make further important changes to the Resource Management Act. They are changes that will, for instance, deal with the issues identified in the technical advisory group’s report on urban growth, on issues of infrastructure, and on getting greater collaboration, and I invite the member to watch this space. The second phase of resource management reforms will be at least as effective as the first phase.

Hon Trevor Mallard: Can he give this House an assurance that the items that the Ministry for the Environment is currently working on are not part of the National Party manifesto?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I can give the member that absolute reassurance, albeit the ministry is developing work on the technical advisory group’s report on both urban design and infrastructure. But the policy of the National Party is being written by the most capable blue-green caucus this Parliament has. Its 18 members are focused on making the Resource Management Act work. When that member was Minister, things just got progressively worse.

Aged Care, Home-based and Residential—Management of Wellington Services

8. Hon STEVE CHADWICK (Labour) to the Minister of Health: Has he received any reports on changes to the aged care arrangements in Wellington; if so, what assurances can he give to workers in the aged care sector that they will not lose their jobs?

Hon TONY RYALL (Minister of Health): Yes; and although this is an operational matter of the Capital and Coast District Health Board, it has informed me that the two providers going forward will need to increase their workforce to meet demand. Capital and Coast District Health Board has also advised that the changes to providers should not mean job losses for support workers.

Hon Steve Chadwick: Does the Government have any plans to implement a qualified workforce in the aged-care sector; if not, why not?

Hon TONY RYALL: As the member will know, the industry and the industry training organisation Careerforce are providing training opportunities for people working in the aged-care sector across the board. The Government has also added to that with a significant investment in supporting further education and training for aged-care nurses, and for other people in that sector.

Hon Steve Chadwick: Does he have any plans to establish a Government-funded national training pathway for all staff in residential and home-based care that is linked to a national qualification framework and recognised in pay negotiations; if not, why not?

Hon TONY RYALL: Well, the Government supports the work that the industry and Careerforce are doing, as they take a bottom-up, quality-focused approach to improving the training. I do not think we need the sort of top-down lecturing that that party opposite might be promoting.

Hon Steve Chadwick: Has the Minister seen the Auditor-General’s report entitled Home-based support services for older people; if so, when will the Government be responding to the recommendations in the report, tabled in July?

Hon TONY RYALL: Yes, I have seen that report. In fact, it is a shocking indictment of the previous Government’s management of these services—it is absolutely disgraceful. That is the reason why this Government has invested more money in home-based support services.

Roading, Waikato—Waikato Expressway

9. TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West) to the Minister of Transport: What progress has been made on the Waikato Expressway Road of National Significance?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister of Transport): This morning I was in Ngāruawāhia to turn the first sod, beginning construction on the $150 million bypass project, which will add 12.3 kilometres to the Waikato Expressway. Construction of the Ngāruawāhia section is expected to create up to 300 local jobs, with many more created in downstream industries, demonstrating the Government’s commitment to boost regional economies with further infrastructure investment. The project is expected to take only 2 years to finish, because things are moving much faster under this Government. It will help to make the journey between the Waikato and Auckland shorter and faster.

Tim Macindoe: What risks are there that the Waikato Expressway will not be completed within the 10-year time frame?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: There is only a small risk that the Waikato Expressway may not be finished on time. This was raised with me this morning by the Waikato Times. This scenario would occur if, for example, funding for roading infrastructure on the expressway was diverted to other projects, particularly non-roading projects. This would be a serious blow for the Waikato, because the project, of course, will lift productivity, create local jobs, and get Waikato goods to market faster. As I said to the Waikato Times, this scenario would occur only if Labour or the Greens became the Government and slashed investment in infrastructure, so the reporter would have to ask them.

Mr SPEAKER: Question No. 10, Stuart Nash. [Interruption] I say to both sides of the House, please, I cannot hear Stuart Nash.

Economy—2008 Statistical Survey Results Compared with 2010

10. STUART NASH (Labour) to the Minister of Finance: How many more families report their income is “not enough” to meet everyday needs since the Government took office, according to the Household Economic Survey (Income) comparing the 2008 survey to the latest survey?

Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance): First of all, I am advised that comparing this measure across different surveys is not advisable, given that it is a subjective, self-reported measure that is very dependent on day-to-day events. I am also advised by Statistics New Zealand that the 2008 data was later revised, so I can give the member the revised data. In the 2008 household expenditure survey, 18.6 percent of households, or 295,000, reported their income was “not enough” to meet everyday needs. In the latest survey, for 2010, 18.5 percent of households—roughly 295,000—reported that their income was “not enough” to meet everyday needs. So no change.

Stuart Nash: Can he confirm Australian Bureau of Statistics and Statistics New Zealand data that show that the GDP per capita gap between Australia and New Zealand has widened by 2.6 percent since his Government took office?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: I cannot confirm that, but I can confirm the data I think quoted yesterday, which is that since this Government has been in office all of the drop in per capita GDP occurred before the middle of 2009. In fact, per capita GDP started shrinking in 2008, under the previous Government. There was a big drop in 2008-09. Since then it has levelled out, and now it is likely to rise.

Stuart Nash: I would like to table a document that shows—

Mr SPEAKER: Before the member says what it shows, we must know the source of the document.

Stuart Nash: It is a document prepared by the Parliamentary Library, and it shows that the GDP per capita gap has widened by 2.6 percent under this Government.

Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is no objection.

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

Stuart Nash: Is he aware that the real average wage has fallen by 3.2 percent since his Government came into office, according to the labour cost index?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: Just for the member’s assistance, the labour cost index is actually a measure of wage inflation—that is, how much is paid for the same work. It is not a measure of the wages actually paid. Secondly, in respect of real wages, after-tax real wages have risen. I know that sticks in the member’s craw, but actually, despite a recession, in New Zealand after-tax real wages have gone up.

Stuart Nash: I have something prepared by the Parliamentary—

Mr SPEAKER: I cannot hear the member.

Stuart Nash: —sorry, Mr Speaker—prepared by the Parliamentary Library showing that real wages have actually fallen by 3.2 percent since National came into office.

Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought to table that document prepared by the Parliamentary Library. There is objection.

Stuart Nash: Can he confirm that according to the household labour force survey, 49,000 more New Zealanders are unemployed since his Government came to power?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: No, I cannot confirm that number, but I can confirm that the Government is working very hard to get on top of the unusual situation where, under his Government, despite there being a long phase of global growth, the number of New Zealanders on benefits rose significantly. We are taking on the challenge of getting those numbers down despite global growth looking a bit moderate.

Stuart Nash: I seek leave to table something from the Parliamentary Library giving Statistics New Zealand figures that show that the number of people unemployed has increased by 49,000 since December 2008.

Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought to table that document prepared by the Parliamentary Library. Is there any objection? There is no objection.

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

Electricity—Generation from Renewable Resources

11. JONATHAN YOUNG (National—New Plymouth) to the Acting Minister of Energy and Resources: What updates has she received recently on renewable electricity generation in New Zealand?

Hon HEKIA PARATA (Acting Minister of Energy and Resources): Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. I am delighted to advise that the New Zealand Energy Quarterly released by the Ministry of Economic Development earlier this month shows that nearly 80 percent of New Zealand’s electricity was generated from renewable energy sources in both the March and June quarters. Over the last 3 years this Government has focused on increasing renewable electricity generation in New Zealand. I am incandescent with delight to see this providing both heat and light.

Jonathan Young: Why is the Government committed to renewable electricity generation?

Hon HEKIA PARATA: Mr Speaker—[Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: I apologise to the Minister. The Speaker must be able to hear the answer. I ask members please to not interject too much.

Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Can I ask you to rule on whether that question was ironic?

Mr SPEAKER: The question is perfectly in order.

Hon HEKIA PARATA: Thank you for that great question. The Government is aiming for 90 percent of electricity generation to be from renewable energy sources by 2025. There are significant benefits from increased levels of renewable electricity generation, including a reduction in our reliance on thermal generation, which results in reduced emissions from the electricity generation sector.

Rahui Katene: What place will iwi and hapū Māori have in renewable electricity generation consents, or will issues such as those experienced by hapū of Kaipara Harbour continue to happen?

Hon HEKIA PARATA: Ah, I have been engaged—

Hon Members: Ah!

Hon HEKIA PARATA: Whakarongo. Kua tūtaki ahau i ngā iwi me ngā hapū o Aotearoa mō te kōrero e pā ana ki ēnei kaupapa. Ko tāku, e mihi ana ki a rātou mō tā rātou whakahau ki tēnei mahi mō tā rātou whakaaro me uru pai i roto i tēnei mahi. Nā reira, ko toku whakaaro mō te aro whakamua kia haere ngātahi ai i runga i te kōrero. Kia ora.

[Members should listen. I have engaged with tribes and subtribes in New Zealand about these policies. I really congratulate them on their endeavours to become involved in this type of venture, and also their thoughts to be involved at all. So my view, in terms of going forward, is that it is done collaboratively and by consulting with each other. Thank you.]

Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I ask you to rule on whether the question was answered. I think the core of the answer was that there was a Minister’s thought to think forward—

Mr SPEAKER: No, the member cannot wax lyrical under a point of order, as the member well knows. Points of order have to be expressed tersely under the current Standing Orders. I am satisfied with the Minister’s answer, and that is the end of the matter.

Hon Nanaia Mahuta: He pātai ki te Minita mēnā ka tautoko e koe ngā hiahia o taua rohe e pā ana ki ā rātou nei āwangawanga ki te take mō ngā ruarua ki reira?

[Does the Minister support the wishes of that region about their concerns relating to the number there?]

Hon HEKIA PARATA: Point of order!

Mr SPEAKER: Is it a point of order? The Minister should answer the question unless there is a real problem with it.

Hon HEKIA PARATA: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Ko tāku pātai, kei te kōrero koe mō tēhea o ngā moka o ngā rohe? Kei te kōrero koe mō te Kaipara?

[My question is this: which extremities of which regions is the member referring to? Is she referring to Kaipara?]

Hon Nanaia Mahuta: Āe.

Hon HEKIA PARATA: Ā. Ko tērā kua whakakorehia i tēnei wā nā ngā āwangawanga o te hapū o reira, nā ngā āwangawanga hoki o te kaipakihi, nā rātou te whakaaro me whakatū tētahi mīhini kei roto i te moana, nā, kua whakaae mai e ika, me whakakorerohia i tēnei wā kia taea e rātou te kōrero ngātahi ai. Kia ora.

[Fine. At this point, that has been abandoned because of the concerns of the subtribe there, and those also of the business unit whose proposal it was to put up a construction at sea, and as a consequence it has been abandoned at this stage so that the two can collaborate. Thank you.]

Accident Rehabilitation—Returning to Work

12. CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka) to the Minister for ACC: What recent reports, if any, has he seen on the role that returning to work can play in accident rehabilitation?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for ACC): The recent reports I have received show marked improvements in ACC’s rehabilitation rates. These deteriorated every year from 2000 to a low in 2009 of 90.6 percent, but they have improved each year under this Government and are back up to 93.6 percent. Noting that a single 1 percent improvement results in an improvement of $500 million in ACC liabilities reinforces how important returning to work is in the effective management of ACC.

Chris Hipkins: Does he believe that Government employers should lead by example when it comes to providing opportunities for injured employees to return to work, such as providing opportunities for injured employees to return to light duties; if so, why?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Each individual Government agency decides on its own response. A large number of Government employers are part of the Accredited Employers Programme and have shown quite stunning rehabilitation rate improvements and also lower accident rates. I will give just one example. New Zealand Post’s injury rate has fallen by 24 percent, and the degree to which it is bringing back workers at an early stage by having them on limited duties is resulting in it making very considerable savings.

Chris Hipkins: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Before I call the honourable member for a point of order, I say to members in the House that question No. 12 is just as important as any other question, yet the number of conversations going on around the House means that it is very difficult to hear answers. A point of order has been called by Chris Hipkins.

Chris Hipkins: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. That was very interesting information from the Minister. I wonder whether he could now turn his attention to answering the question I asked, which was whether Government employers should lead by example in this matter.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: It was a very broad question, covering any number of Government agencies. I simply said it is up to each Government agency to choose its own approach, albeit a large number of agencies are in the Accredited Employers Programme. I gave a specific example in respect of New Zealand Post.

Mr SPEAKER: I must say, I thought that, in fact, it was the answer to the primary question that the member may have expressed some concern about, rather than that to the first supplementary question. But the Minister is aware that there is concern about whether questions are being answered. I invite Chris Hipkins to continue, but I ask for the answers to be more specifically related to the question.

Chris Hipkins: Is it consistent with Government policy for the Fire Service to insist that injured employees who are otherwise able to return to light duties use up all of their accrued sick leave and then be placed on unpaid leave, rather than return to work; if so, why?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I would want to follow that up with the New Zealand Fire Service, because claims I have heard previously about that particular employer have varied from what actually occurred. I note that since the New Zealand Fire Service has been part of the Accredited Employers Programme, we have seen a 21 percent reduction in the number of injuries—

Hon Tony Ryall: How many?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: —a 21 percent reduction in the number of injuries—and we have also seen a 26 percent drop in the number of lost-time claims. I think all members of this House who care about injuries to our firefighters would be pleased with those excellent results.

Chris Hipkins: Why should firefighters who have been injured, possibly in the course of their duties, be forced to take unpaid leave rather than return to work when their ACC compensation has ceased, and how is that consistent with his Government’s commitment to preserve the 24/7 comprehensive nature of accident compensation cover?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: The New Zealand Fire Service is part of the Accredited Employers Programme. Its entry to the Accredited Employers Programme was approved by the previous Government. It was approved by the previous Government. The Accredited Employers Programme sets down the very specific conditions that an employer must meet. If the member has information that the New Zealand Fire Service is not meeting its obligations under the Accredited Employers Programme, which Labour approved, I would be happy to look into it. I am not aware of this specific example.

Questions to Members

Inquiry into the Identification, Rehabilitation, and Care and Protection of Child Offenders—Consideration

1. SU’A WILLIAM SIO (Labour—Māngere) to the Chairperson of the Social Services Committee: Will she call a meeting to consider the Inquiry into the Identification, Rehabilitation, and Care and Protection of Child Offenders; if not, why not?

KATRINA SHANKS (Chairperson of the Social Services Committee): I have not yet decided whether to call a meeting.

Su’a William Sio: Will she call for an urgent meeting of the committee to deliberate on the inquiry, so that it can be reported back to Parliament before it rises next week; if not, why not?

KATRINA SHANKS: I still have not decided whether to call a meeting.

Pacific Bilingual Education, Petition—Request for Submissions

2. SU’A WILLIAM SIO (Labour—Māngere) to the Chairperson of the Education and Science Committee: Has he called for public submissions on the petition of Judy Taligalu McFall-McCaffery and John McCaffery and 6,686 others which asks this House to urge the Government to fully fund Pacific bilingual education?

ALLAN PEACHEY (Chairperson of the Education and Science Committee): No.

Su’a William Sio: When will he call a meeting to consider the petition of Judy Taligalu McFall-McCaffery and John McCaffery and 6,686 others?

ALLAN PEACHEY: I do not intend to do so.

Bills

Criminal Procedure (Reform and Modernisation) Bill

In Committee

Hon SIMON POWER (Minister of Justice): I seek leave for all the provisions of the Criminal Procedure (Reform and Modernisation) Bill to be taken as one question, for one question to be put on each member’s Supplementary Order Paper or amendments, and for the debate to conclude at 4.50 p.m. and the questions to be put in time to report to the House by 5 p.m.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there any objection? There is no objection.

Clauses 1 and 2, Parts 1 to 9, and schedules 1 to 6

CHARLES CHAUVEL (Labour): The Committee stage debate will include debate on the Supplementary Order Papers that the Minister has just referred to. I will talk about some of the changes that are being made in the Minister of Justice’s Supplementary Order Paper 281, and I indicate that the Opposition will support those changes, because they are the result of an agreed and negotiated process.

I place on record my thanks to those parties in the House that have worked with the Labour Party to bring about these amendments—the ACT Party and the Māori Party, in particular—and to the Minister for agreeing to the amendments. I also acknowledge the work of the Green Party. Those members were quite willing to be involved in the discussion in order to try to get to the position that we have arrived at today. It was always a pleasure to work with Kennedy Graham on the issue. I am somewhat sad that that wider discussion did not occur, but that might be a matter that the Minister decides to touch on at some point this afternoon, as that was effectively his decision.

In terms of the main objections that were made by the Labour Party in our minority report concerning the original draft of the bill, I think these are now well known. We did not like the idea of raising the jury trial threshold from the current level of 3 months to the level of 3 years, as was originally proposed. In respect of that matter, we have a proposal in the Minister’s Supplementary Order Paper to continue to raise the jury trial threshold, but not to the level that was originally proposed. The new level proposed is 2 years. It is a difference of 1 year only, as opposed to the difference between 3 months and 3 years. I think if members look objectively at this question, they will see that it is a much better system. It has to be said that the evidence given at the select committee and the analysis delivered in favour of a 3-month threshold really did not stack up in the view of many members, including me. In order to make the sort of fundamental change that would have been contemplated under that measure, I think really it was incumbent on the Government to make a better case than it did.

Why 2 years, as opposed to 3 years? I know that this is a matter that the Green Party does not agree with and will want to take issue with and take some calls on. I ought to admit, first off, that there is not a lot of science to it. The problem we have here is the lack of analysis that I referred to just now. We did not get, in my view, the sort of careful consideration of what the new jury trial threshold should be.

As I have said before, when this House deals with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, as we are, and seeks to amend it in a way that derogates from rights as opposed to augmenting rights, greater care ought to be taken. None the less, for the sake of getting agreement in order to preserve such fundamental liberties as the right to silence, we were willing to agree to the 2-year threshold, and there is some logic to it. If members care to look at the Crimes Act, they will see that there is something of a delineation in the regime concerning offences. More serious offences tend to be tried at above the 2-year imprisonment level and less serious offences, obviously, fall below that line. I think the example I gave in the second reading speech was of male assaults female, or an assault by an adult on a child. It will still be possible for that level of serious offending to be the subject of a jury trial if the defendant insists on it. So there will still be a safeguard, for relatively serious offending, at that 2-year level.

Could we have chosen another level? Could we have engaged in a less arbitrary process? Would that have been more desirable? Absolutely. But as I say, in order to preserve and maintain a position where a better solution than simply the 3-month threshold was achieved, this is where we find ourselves, and I do urge members to look carefully at the position as it is now proposed.

The other major problem with the bill as it was originally proposed is that it made major incursions into the right of the defendant, of an accused person, to say to the Government: “If you say I am guilty of an offence, then you must prove all the elements of that offence. I, as the person you have accused, am not obliged to help you prove me guilty.” That is a very important principle. I need not labour the point.

Government members have in the past referred to the provisions in the bill as being simply an innocuous way of bringing a bit more order and hygiene to the criminal justice system by requiring the defence to disclose the broad outline of its case to the prosecution. Those members have said that it was not a problem and that it was just a way of trying to speed up the system. Well, that is nonsense, and I am glad that the Minister has agreed that these incursions on the right to silence should go. The House of Lords back in the 1930s, when the State was much smaller and much less powerful, set out a ringing defence of the requirement of the Crown to always do its job to prove all the elements of an offence. The State is much more powerful and has many more resources available to it now. The citizen needs more protection than ever and, by agreeing to retain the right to silence, this Parliament has done what it should do in this case. I am pleased to say that we are supportive of the way in which the amendment is drafted.

There are a number of other matters that are dealt with in our minority report that the Minister has agreed to action, but there are also some further matters that I think should be dealt with in this legislation in order to try to speed up the criminal justice system without compromising the fundamental rights of New Zealanders. I have proposed these measures in Supplementary Order Paper 286, which is on the Table. I will speak to the amendments that are set out in that Supplementary Order Paper.

The first amendment relates to inserting a new clause 25A. This would apply only in cases where a person is arrested under what we are now going to call a category 1 or a category 2 offence. This used to be summary offending, or indictable offences that were able to be dealt with summarily—so they are the more minor types of offences—in the situation where the police cannot immediately bring the accused person before a court. So a person is arrested for a relatively minor offence and cannot come before the court in a speedy fashion. The provision that I am proposing will allow the arresting officer to release the defendant under this section and to serve the defendant with a summons that would require him or her to come to the court within 2 months of the offence, and the clause sets out some provisions there. It is really designed to try to speed up the system, as I said, without prejudicing the accused person or the person arrested. A similar procedure is set out in the proposed clause 26, which relates to what should happen following an evidential breath test.

Then, in clause 35, I have set out a provision that I understand codifies existing practice, but it is not a practice that is written down anywhere. I think it would be useful if the courts were to put this practice into effect, rather than simply having it as something that is observed as good hygiene. There is a practice known as disclosure. The Crown has to give disclosure against the defendant. That is the point at which the Crown sets out its case. The Crown says what evidence it has and what the defendant must respond to during his or her defence. Supplementary Order Paper 286 proposes that the defendant should have 21 days to consider the disclosure before having to plead. Before anybody thinks this is simply a pro-defendant move, it is actually designed to try to speed up the system. At the moment, if one is required to respond immediately to what one gets from the Crown, of course what one does is enter a tactical plea of not guilty, because it buys one time to respond. If we put in a 21-day limit, then we will actually avoid a whole lot of tactical not guilty pleas and we will achieve the Minister’s end of trying to speed up the system without doing anybody a disservice.

In my amendments to clauses 58 to 63 I have tried to set out a statutory basis for a very good system that operates in our courts at the moment: the sentence indication system. Again, it just operates informally off the back of the general powers of the court to do justice. This is a system whereby we can avoid trials going forward by allowing a judge to say: “If this went to trial on the basis of having read the file before me, you would probably get this sentence.” The defendant can think: “Well, maybe I should just plead guilty to this charge on the basis of that sentencing indication, avoid a trial, and get a discount for an early guilty plea.”, effectively. There is no statutory basis for that at the moment. It is a very sensible system. I am trying to put it into the bill so that we can have that in the legislation going forward.

My amendment to clause 105 will modernise a silly piece of the law that says one cannot address the judge in the District Court on the evidence at certain times. There is no reason for this archaic practice to exist any more; we should do away with it. Again, we might speed up trials.

Clause 128 will further confine the circumstances in which trial and sentencing can continue in the absence of the defendant. The Minister has agreed to narrow that quite considerably in response to a request from me and others. I am pleased that that has happened, but I would narrow it further to say that the court may not proceed in a defendant’s absence where a reasonable excuse for that absence exists. A good, simple test known to the law at the moment will not lead to a whole lot of test litigation, and we can proceed on that basis.

There are two final changes. My proposed new clause 176A will prevent the prosecution from offering new evidence or from correcting deficiencies where it could have done so earlier but simply failed to do so through its own oversight. Finally, my amendments to clause 361(1) and (2) will restrict the circumstances in which the court can give a costs order against a defendant or a defendant’s counsel to situations where a failure on behalf of one of those two individuals is exceptional and intentional and is done without reasonable excuse. I have not lobbied the Committee for these amendments or gone around asking for support. I hope the Committee will consider the amendments with an open mind. They would, I think, lead to a better system. Along with the Minister’s amendments, which we have agreed to, I think we would have a better bill.

It is not a perfect bill. There is much more work to do in making our criminal law better, quicker, fairer, and more responsive. We could start with the drivers of crime and address them in a multiparty fashion, and we could then look at updating the Crimes Act 1961 and the Summary Proceedings Act 1957. Many would say, and many have said, that those would have been better places to start than diving right into the procedure and the evidential rules, which is what this bill does. None the less, that is the choice the Government has made. We on this side of the House have done our best to cooperate, to offer constructive criticism, and to put forward amendments—whether or not they were on time—that try to make the bill better, so that New Zealanders will have a more efficient criminal trial system.

I hope we will have intelligent debate in this slightly shorter Committee stage than one would normally expect on a 600-page bill, and I am pleased that there has been such high a level of discussion amongst the parties and that we are talking very much about the detail of amendments. I think that is where we should be in the Committee stage. I would much rather that this discussion had occurred in the select committee, but we are not in that situation. I commend the amendments I have mentioned.

Dr KENNEDY GRAHAM (Green): I do not want to take up too much of the Committee’s time, in view of the need for speed. Let me begin first by paying tribute to the Ministers, starting with the Hon Rick Barker right through, obviously, to the Hon Simon Power, and Ministers in between, for the indefatigable work that has been undertaken on this Criminal Procedure (Reform and Modernisation) Bill. It is a 10-year project, more or less, and a huge amount of effort has gone in both by officials, whom I also acknowledge, and by Ministers. It is not a simple task. We understand the thrust of the bill. We understand the well-intentioned purpose of the bill. We would prefer not to stand in the way, and we know that we will not be doing so.

Let me also say that the Green Party is quite pleased to support the Supplementary Order Papers submitted by the Minister and, as well, by Charles Chauvel as, in our view, they make improvements upon the improvements. I recognise also the quite extraordinary efforts that the Minister has put in in the last couple of weeks to get agreement. On that basis I can only proceed from now with just a touch of sorrow that we do not appear to have complete unanimity in the Committee in the sense of at least netting us all, although hope can spring eternal for 5 or 10 minutes in the sense that we, for our part, have whittled down our concerns—at least, our concerns have been met—to the point of only three remaining. It might not be beyond the realm of the imagination, at least, if not the possible, that we could arrive at a consensus on those three concerns, as well, which no doubt would trigger support from the Green Party.

I will identify the three concerns, and, in the best constructive spirit, we have put on the Table two Supplementary Order Papers and a late amendment to address those three issues. Each of them is in the context of the broad theoretical comments I made in my second reading speech. It seems to me that the essence here is a trade-off between judicial efficiency and the principles of fairness. We will come down on different sides on that, and that perhaps reflects the different political philosophy as to which constituent segments of society we are representing. I did say that in my view we could strive to be as efficient in our judicial system as possible, but not at the expense of fairness, when we must not breach the perimeter of that fairness for the sake of any marginal incremental efficiency. I recognise that different judgments can be made on that.

Where we appear to differ at the moment is on three areas. Let me fast-forward to clause 128, where I understand that the clause as it is proposed now would have the court proceed in the absence of a defendant providing the court is satisfied that the defendant will not be prejudiced. We could have a defendant having a reasonable excuse that the judge recognises as a reasonable excuse, but the judge proceeding in the absence of the defendant. We think that that unduly penalises the defendant, and in Supplementary Order Paper 284 we propose adding the four words “and the defendant consents” at the end of clause 128(3). In our view that returns the balance of fairness, as we identify it, to the status quo ante. I recommend that particular amendment to the Minister of Justice and to the Committee.

The second amendment is to clause 431. We have it in Supplementary Order Paper 285. It is here that we part company on the overall thrust. The Sentencing Act identifies around 15 aggravating factors that a judge can take into account in determining a sentence and can increase a sentence if any of those aggravating factors are present, but they are all pertaining to the substance of the crime. Particular cruelty, abuse of a position of authority or trust, and so on all pertain to the crime. None of them pertain to the procedure of the trial. Now we would have the bill allowing a judge to increase a sentence—increase incarceration—purely through procedural non-compliance in the course of the trial. We believe that procedural non-compliance is in a category of its own and should not be included in an aggravating sentencing factor of that kind. We simply propose that clause 431 be omitted, and in our view that would also be within the context of that balance between fairness and efficiency.

Now I move to the big one for us, and it pertains to the jury trial issue, which has been there right throughout from the very beginning. We recognise the complexity of this matter. I have been through pretty thoroughly the comments from the Attorney-General on it, in his New Zealand Bill of Rights Act review. I have looked at the submissions from the Law Society, the Law Commission, the District Court judges, and those against the idea, and at submissions from the community law centres, the Human Rights Commission, the Criminal Bar Association, and others. I see opinion coming down on either side if we increase the threshold from 3 months to 3 years, and that was the basis on which the submissions were submitted.

I understand that the argument is to increase it to a certain level for the sake of efficiency and financial cost-cutting. We understand the reason. In our view that reason is not sufficient to alter the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. We understand that the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act is not entrenched. It should be; it is not. We understand that the right to a jury trial is not a universal human right. We understand that there are different systems. We understand that in the common law system it is arbitrary—or at least it is for societal determination—where the threshold of a jury trial is. We recognise that it can be 5 years in Canada and 10 years elsewhere. We recognise that there is probably agreement, as I think Charles Chauvel said, that it is not a science; it is an art. Let us get the art correct. The Minister in the chair, the Minister of Justice, might wish to comment on this, but our understanding from some of the submissions is that it is by no means proven that there would be massive and guaranteed cost savings gained by raising the threshold. That gives us pause, as well.

We speak for those people out there in New Zealand society who may choose to engage in civil disobedience, who may choose to go to the edge of the law and at times consciously violate the law in a peaceful manner for what they take to be a higher purpose. We will stand firm for those people. We do not think that cost cutting and the efficiency of the judicial machinery should be at the prejudice of those people who are well intentioned. Let them have a fair trial at 3 months; let them be able to elect a jury. There are cases, there is argumentation, that if we raise it beyond 3 months we are prejudicing the inherent right to a fair trial of certain people. The Minister might wish to dispute that, but that is the position we take. We take it in full responsibility for them and in full recognition of the thrust of the bill. It is sufficiently important for us to oppose this bill on that point alone, with great sorrow, because we know the amount of work that has gone into it, we know the complexity, and we know the well-intentioned effort. We will not compromise on that point, and I hope that that is respected.

I do appeal at this last minute to the Minister, the Government, and the Committee to understand where we are coming from on this point and, at this late stage, to drop that reference to 2 years—instead of 3 years, it is 2 years; we understand that point, too—and keep it at 3 months, and that would make the difference. We have submitted an amendment at the end. It is late, but it is on the Table. I do not need to go into detail, as we have been here long enough to know how it works. It would simply restore the situation to the current law of 3 months for an election of jury trial. I appeal to the Minister and others to accept that, and then indeed we would probably have unanimity.

STUART NASH (Labour): There are two points I will raise and perhaps ask the Minister in the chair, the Minister of Justice, a couple of questions on. I start on clause 201, “Power to clear the court”. Clause 201 states: “A court may make an order excluding from the whole or any part of any proceedings in respect of an offence all or any persons …”, and it lists the people who are allowed to stay in the court after an order to clear the court has been given. The question I ask is on this: there is an exception for members of the media. The bill says that when the judge declares that the court must be cleared, the media are actually allowed to stay in there, except if it relates to the security or the defence of New Zealand—let us park that to one side.

Let me give an example. Clause 203 “Court must be cleared when complainant gives evidence in cases of sexual nature’’ is something I understand, completely agree with, and think anyone with a heart would agree with. But my question comes round to why the media is allowed to remain. Why put in the legislation that the media is allowed to stay in some of these cases when the complainant may, in fact, find the presence of the media intimidating to the point where they do not give evidence? I think we are all aware of a number of those cases where the media have stayed and these cases have been reported. I wonder where that line is between society’s right to know versus the right of the victim or the complainant. I argue that in some cases, and certainly in some sexual cases, the right of the victim or the complainant should override society’s right to know what happened in that trial. So that is the question: I wonder why the media are specifically being given an exemption.

Clauses 204 to 208 talk about the suppression of the identity of the defendant, and that includes the identity of defendants in sexual cases and identity of child complainants, or, in fact, where the judge determines that it is not in the public good. There are a couple of questions. Firstly, in the bill as introduced clause 204(1) stated: “A court may make an order forbidding publication of the name and any other identifying information about a person”. For some reason the Justice and Electoral Committee changed that wording to read: “A court may make an order forbidding publication of the name, address, or occupation of a person”. I would have thought that “name, address, or occupation” are simply a subset of “any other identifying information”. I do not know why the committee narrowed that provision right down from “any other identifying information”. I would have thought there was a risk that with identifying information other than name, address, or occupation someone whose name was suppressed could be identified. It is a question I have on that point.

Another thing also is that clause 204(2) states: “The court may make an order under subsection (1)”—which I have just read out—“only if the court is satisfied that publication would be likely to—(a) cause extreme hardship …”. What is the definition of “extreme hardship”? I am not too sure; it is not defined in the bill. Extreme hardship for one is not extreme hardship for another. We have seen a number of high-profile people in this country who have been given name suppression due to the fact they are a sportsperson or high-profile business person, yet others, who could well be identified within their circle of friends but are not considered high profile by the media or by the court, do not get name suppression. Where is that line? I have a huge concern about this. Again it comes back, of course, to the community’s right to know versus the rights of the complainant. I understand that, but there has been huge debate around this name suppression and where the line should be drawn. If you were an All Black—not you, Mr Chair—but if the defendant is an All Black—

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Could be!

STUART NASH: —could be, no disrespect to your rugby-playing skills, Mr Chair—is that enough to cause extreme hardship? Clause 204(2) lists a number of times when the court may make an order to suppress a name, as it would cause extreme hardship. I understand that, but what is the definition of “extreme hardship”?

Another, in clause 204(2)(b) is “cast suspicion on another person that may cause undue hardship to that person;”. I would have thought that is a reason to actually name a defendant as opposed to suppressing their name. We recently saw a case where a high-profile person has been given name suppression and others—normally sports or business people—have felt they had to come out and say: “It’s not me. Don’t cast aspersions in my case. I have not done this.” In a recent case a high-profile rugby player has written an autobiography and he has put in that autobiography a case where he was sent to court, and I think he was tried, although I am not too sure. He did that because he did not want aspersions cast on other members he played with. What we get are cases where suspicion is cast on other people simply because there has been name suppression.

Again, I would not mind a definition of the word “address”. It sounds pretty simple, if one was a postie. Does it mean someone’s city? Does it mean someone’s suburb? Does it mean the road someone lives in? Remember the media are allowed to be present during these trials. Are the media allowed to say: “Mr Businessman from Ngapuhi Road in Remuera, Auckland has name suppression.”? If that is not defined as “address”, because it does not specify that person’s exact house, then it is easier for an investigative journalist or someone who has the wherewithal to go through any sort of roll and determine that, OK it cannot be 95 percent of residents, and therefore it must be three, four, five people due to the fact there are only five people who fit the profile in Ngapuhi Road in Remuera, Auckland. So the definition of “address” would be good. This is why I am unsure why the select committee amended the words “any other identifying information about” and simply went to “address, or occupation”. So there are a couple of questions there, as well.

The other thing is one of the areas where we can have name suppression is, as clause 204(2)(d) states, where it would “create a real risk of prejudice to a fair trial;”. If it is a jury trial, then obviously the jury will know who this person is, anyway. If there is name suppression, then the media is not allowed to put this information out there, but in a lot of cases the name is out there. We are seeing this at the moment in the United States where Michael Jackson’s doctor is being tried by media. It is a shame, but that is the way it works. The question I ask is where the line between the community’s right to know and the defendant’s right to a fair trial lies. I am not too sure, and that is why I have major concerns about identity suppression. There are cases, of course, where it is an absolute given, and my personal view is that it relates to children, of course. If a child is a defendant, then we do not want that person’s name released in any way, shape, or form. I suggest other areas where perhaps it concerns a trial of a sexual nature. It does outline this in clause 205, and I completely agree with it. Clause 205, “Automatic suppression of identify of defendant in specified sexual cases”, makes complete sense, but these other cases I have concerns about. I just wonder whether the Minister can just allay my fears—there may be a very good reason for this—as well as the concerns of many others. It is a debate that has gone on in the blogosphere, through the courts, as well as in society over the last couple of years.

Again, I come down to clause 209 on the suppression of evidence and submissions. We come to that undue hardship test again, as well. I wonder whether there is an undue hardship test, or whether undue hardship is a concept that will be determined by the presiding judge. If it is, this may mean that undue hardship is, in fact, a term that will be open to legal precedent, as opposed to something that is defined by legislation, and I just wonder whether there perhaps should have been a definition of “undue hardship”. As I say, it is a relative term, but I think there could have been a test that outlined that matter. That is all at this point, but there are some questions there that I would not mind just a little bit of a steer on. Thank you very much.

Hon SIMON POWER (Minister of Justice): After 10 years’ gestation for the Criminal Procedure (Reform and Modernisation) Bill, it would be remiss of me not to make a contribution on a range of issues that have arisen. In particular I will comment on Supplementary Order Paper 281 in my name, recommending a series of amendments to the Committee of the whole House after pretty substantive discussions with a range of political parties over a reasonable period of time. Before I get on to those points, I should just notify the Committee of the whole House that I withdraw the amendment on Supplementary Order Paper 283 to new section 277(10) that is to be inserted into the principal Act by schedule 3. I have been advised that there is a simple overlap between two subsections, and it is just a matter to tidy up on the way through.

It is worth reflecting that after something like seven discussion papers, a Law Commission report, an exposure draft bill, 6 months at a select committee, and numerous interactions with the legal profession, the judiciary, and just about anybody else who had an interest in this bill, the bill came out of the select committee with quite a number of changes made to it, after what can only be described as a comprehensive due diligence process. It became apparent, though, that there still remained some concern from some quarters of the House about a range of issues that they still required some amendment to. Remarkably, the issues seemed similar for a number of parties, so I was happy to sit down with them all and work our way through them.

As part of that process, it became apparent about halfway through the discussions that the legislation probably could have been advanced on a small majority. At that time it occurred to me that because the changes had been in gestation for such a long period of time, and because they were to fundamentally alter the way the criminal justice system operated, probably for the first time in 40 or 50 years on this magnitude, it was worthwhile to pause and engage, if you will excuse the rugby pun during the Rugby World Cup—

Hon Maryan Street: You missed “touch”.

Hon SIMON POWER: I did miss touch: touch, pause, engage. It was worthwhile to pause, engage, and talk to other political parties to see whether there was a way through this process.

My thanks go to John Boscawen, and the ACT Party, who approached those negotiations absolutely in good faith. We had a range of discussions about issues that, I have no doubt, genuinely concerned the ACT Party’s position on a number of matters. I thank publicly John Boscawen for the way he conducted those negotiations with me, and for the way he worked within his own caucus to see those negotiations end up where we are today. I thank Peter Dunne from United Future for his very constructive and determined advocacy on a number of points. I also thank the Māori Party, which also made clear to me, very early on, two or three areas of objection it had. I was pleased that the negotiations with other political parties in the House were able to relieve the Māori Party of those concerns, and then it too was able to pledge its support for the progression of this legislation.

I also thank the Labour Party, and a couple of people in that regard. First of all—and I know that he will probably deny it—I know how important this bill was to the Hon Rick Barker. I know that he spent a considerable amount of time as the former Minister for Courts trying to push this thing along. All I can say to that member is that, probably of anybody else in the House, he knows best how I feel. This is a huge piece of work, and I was not going to let it come unstitched at the eleventh hour because there were three or four—or slightly more than that, actually; five or six—areas where agreement could not be reached. Given the way that members of the Labour Party, and particularly Charles Chauvel, conducted themselves in negotiating these matters with me, I was very satisfied.

The nature of negotiations under MMP, particularly when we are trying to find a broad consensus beyond just a bare majority, means that not every party will get everything it wants. The truth is that that probably applied to every party in these negotiations, not the least of which was National, which had—and has, I guess—slightly different views on what the right to silence is and what issues in dispute are. None the less, we are where we are. I said publicly throughout this process that I would be practical and pragmatic about those discussions, and I believe the Government was. Here we are today with broad agreement from the second-largest party in the Parliament, the ACT Party, the Māori Party, and United Future—and I have not given up on the Greens just yet, because I will address Kennedy Graham’s concerns. He asked me to reconsider the jury trial threshold, on which I advise him in good faith that the Government will not do so at this point. I hope to be able to persuade him over the course of the next couple of calls that this bill is worth supporting, and I intend to give that my best shot over the next 6 or 7 minutes.

First of all, it is worth the Committee just reflecting briefly on what Supplementary Order Paper 281 in my name does—where the compromises have been made, and how much common ground we have come to. The Supplementary Order Paper amends the bill to retain a shorter, 6-month limitation period for the least serious offences. It prescribes safeguards for defendants by circumscribing when the courts are able to proceed in the absence of the defendant, an issue that I know is particularly of concern to Mr Boscawen. It removes the provisions requiring defendants to identify, before trial, issues in dispute—not the particulars, not what was actually going to be argued, but just issues in dispute—and removes the ability for a fact-finder to draw an adverse inference from a failure to identify issues in dispute. And, of course, it restricts the circumstances in which costs orders can be made and simplifies the miscarriage of justice test.

Unless I have read it wrongly, the Green Party supports all of that, in one form or another—unless I have read it wrongly. The outstanding issue for the Green Party—I guess the big hurdle for it—seems to be the jury trial threshold issue. Before I get on to addressing that directly, I will just sow a seed in the minds of Committee members here today, now that those issues have been resolved, and ask what effect this bill will have on victims, on witnesses, on court staff, on jurors, and on all the others who are in the court system.

The number of sitting hours saved will be 9,360. That is a vast reduction from the savings of the original bill, which would have seen 16,000 sitting hours being saved in our court system. But that is the nature of the system we work in. The number of court events saved before the agreement was to have been 43,000; following the Supplementary Order Paper in my name the number is now 36,650—that is, individual court events saved. People will be able to get on with their lives, and to move through the criminal justice system with 36,000 fewer court events. The number of cases that no longer need to be designated for a jury trial was previously to have been somewhere between 1,000 and 1,400; it is now between 750 and 1,200. The time to dispose of judge-alone or summary trials saved was previously to have been 5 or 6 weeks; here it is back to about 3 to 5 weeks, so that is not too much of a loss. In respect of time to dispose of a trial saved in the District Court, it was to have been 13 weeks; it is now 6 to 9 weeks—6 to 9 weeks. I will come back to why that is significant. The savings were originally to have been in the zone of $29 million, but are now back to about $23 million - odd.

So why does that time to disposal and the number of jury trials saved matter? I will talk about that in the context of the change to the threshold, because this is why the change in the jury trial threshold matters. I will just spend a bit of time on that. The specification in the Attorney-General’s report under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act about a 3-month threshold for a jury trial—as the case is now and will be until this bill is passed—was that it “has had a profoundly negative effect on the conduct of criminal litigation in this country, causing serious delays in the criminal justice system, which may raise far more serious concerns about access to justice.” It goes on to say that the proposed increase in the jury threshold—this was when it was to 3 years, so I am not arguing about the substantive point—“would neither put New Zealand in breach of its international obligations”, which was a point acknowledged by the Green Party, “nor would it place defendants in this country at any comparative disadvantage to those in comparable jurisdictions.” The report notes that Canada, which in my opinion is one of the most liberal common law jurisdictions in the world, provides a threshold for jury trials at imprisonment for 5 years or more.

There is very little historical justification for the current 3-month threshold, which was originally based on the UK threshold at the time when the provision was enacted in New Zealand. But of course this no longer represents the UK position. Although the right to a jury trial—and this comes back to the time to disposal issue—is an important aspect of the criminal justice system, the critical issue identified by the Attorney-General is not the threshold at which the trial is elected but whether the right to a fair trial is preserved. Most significantly, and I really urge the Green Party to think about this, another important constitutional right under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act is the right to be tried without undue delay—the right to be tried without undue delay. That is why the time to disposal matters.

When the absolute adherence to one right results in a negative impact on another, as I think the Green Party is putting the position, consideration must be given to the greater public good in redressing the balance to better ensure adherence to principles underpinning both rights—not just one right but both rights. And in this case we are not just talking about the right to a jury trial; we are talking, fundamentally, about the right of people to be tried without undue delay. When the court system and the justice system clog themselves up at the bottom end of the pipeline, without addressing what should really be occurring in those systems, but rather with game-playing and to-ing and fro-ing occurring at the front end of the process, the right to receive a trial without undue delay is put at risk—is put at risk. I ask the Committee of the whole House to give that right, under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, some serious consideration—some serious consideration.

And let us remember here that the criminal justice system and this legislation is not just about the rights of the defendant. There are other participants in the criminal justice system—witnesses, victims, jurors, and the like—who find themselves in that system through no fault of their own. We as legislators have a responsibility when we pass legislation to have their interests in mind as much as the rights of the defendant. It is absolutely critical that any legislation we progress here today bears that in mind as we work our way through the Supplementary Order Papers.

Hon RICK BARKER (Labour): I want to speak on the Criminal Procedure (Reform and Modernisation) Bill. Firstly, I congratulate the Minister of Justice on bringing this substantial piece of legislation to the House. I thank the Minister for his kind comments about me, and say that I do share his views on this legislation. I was the Minister for Courts for some time, and at a time when we had queues of people extending out of the court. I looked at our court system as an administrator, not as a legislator or a lawyer. When I looked at how our courts were run, I was dumbstruck. I could not think of a system that was as antiquated and out of date as our court system.

On numerous occasions I have read—I do not know whether people here have read it—the brilliant trilogy by Mervyn Peake about Gormenghast and the 77th Earl of Groan. He takes a pot-shot at the British aristocracy and how ossified they were. The Earl of Groan has a Master of Ceremonies, and at certain points of the day and at certain points of the week he requires the Earl of Groan to undertake a certain ceremony, the purpose of which is long since forgotten, and the meaning of which is completely irrelevant. But the Earl of Groan has to perform this ceremony. It is just a mind-boggling process. Well, the nearest I have seen to Titus Groan, the 77th Earl of Groan, and the Master of Ceremonies existed in our court system. There were procedures that went on that had absolutely no relevance to the people there. They were required to turn up to court, there would be a few words mumbled at the beginning of the session, and then it would be all over and the person would leave. The defendant would ask what that was all about. The person who had an interest, the victim, might turn up to see what was going on too, and they would ask what was happening, and be told it was a call-over, or it was this or it was that. If they asked why a certain thing happened, the only explanation was that it was required—because the Master of Ceremonies said that it was required.

We had large queues of people outside our courts at 10 o’clock on a Monday morning, and it was a shambles. The whole place was paper-based. I have never seen so much paper in my life. I asked the court staff why there was all this paper, and they said it was a legal requirement—they had to have paper. I said that we conduct legal transactions in the Customs Service, and there is not a piece of paper anywhere. They are all perfectly valid legal transactions, and there is not a sheet of paper there. But I would go to court after court and there would be great stacks of paper hanging perilously over the staff. How they found their files, I will never know. All of those things clogged up our court system.

I started to make inquiries about what was going on, and I have to say that there was a bewildering network of overlapping, intersecting law that simply did not work. Each court was taken as its own jurisdiction; each High Court had its own systems. It was an absolute muddle. While all of that was sitting there, more and more people were waiting to get through the court system. We could do everything possible to speed up the court system in terms of buildings, staff, and staff training, but the system overwhelmed us. I started digging around and I came across the work that the Minister has referred to, but it had stopped. It had stopped simply because it was too hard. I thought of that at the time, and I remember saying to some of my justice staff: “Well, shouldn’t we have the words of Kennedy when he sent the space rocket to the moon: ‘We go not because it is easy; we do it because it is hard.’ ”? Their faces were a bit white, but we restarted the work. I have to say that a lot of this stuff dates back to 1947 and a lot of the legislation and the way in which the courts do things has remained unchanged since 1947. I would often remark to the staff: “Well, have things not changed in New Zealand since 1947?”. They replied: “Of course, Minister, they have.” But nothing else has changed.

This legislation is a fabulous piece of work, and I think that the real issue here for this Parliament is that we have had Ministers of Justice of all hues for many years who have been really interested in the important principles of justice, but very few have taken much interest in the administration of justice. I think that is to the detriment of the justice system, and it reflects poorly on this Parliament. I hope that what happens subsequent to this legislation is that this Parliament continues to take a keen interest in the administration of justice, because it is the administration of justice that is critical to the public’s perception of our justice system. If the public feel that the justice system is incompetent, Mickey Mouse—dare I say it—and harking back to Gormenghast, the Earl of Groan, and the Master of Ceremonies, they will treat our justice system with contempt. The public have a right to expect that our justice system is administered in the style or the manner in which the rest of our society is administered—fast, efficient, and effective.

This is a fabulous piece of work, but there is much more to do. One of the things that was very dear to my heart was to get rid of the paper and have an electronic system. I know the Minister is as keen on that as I am, and a lot of good work has been done on that. It will not happen overnight, but, like the shampoo ad, it will happen. It needs to happen, because we have files that are missing, files that only one person can deal with, and so on. We have to have electronic files so they can be accessed by all and processed much more quickly. I have looked at electronic systems overseas, and I am deeply impressed by how much more efficient they are than our paper-based filing system. We need to get on and fund this, and improve the legislation so that we have an efficient administration of justice.

I come back to the issue of jury trials. I agree with the comments made by the Minister of Justice when he talked about the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act and the obligations of the system to take into account the interests of the victim as well as the interests of the defendant. The critical part of this is to have a system that brings cases to trial for decision quickly and promptly. We still have an unacceptable delay. But I think there is another argument in favour of shifting the threshold for jury trials, and I will put it to the Green Party this way. It is a practical observation, because I am a practical person. I want to back up the truck to another part of my job: I was responsible for dealing with making recommendations to the Governor-General on royal prerogatives of mercy. I had a case before me from a man who had committed rape quite some long time ago. This conviction for rape was impeding something he wanted to do, which I will not tell members. I went through the case. A young woman who was a friend of his came by his house one night to see the man’s partner. He dragged her into the bedroom and raped her. This was a premeditated act, a brutal act. When I read the case notes—the trial decisions were very short in the late 1950s—I was quite surprised, but I was revolted. The thing that struck me most about the case was that for that rape the man received a 1-year jail sentence.

In the context of this Parliament today that is unthinkable—utterly unthinkable. I say to the Green Party that many of the cases that were heard at that time would have had a similar threshold. What has happened in the last 30 or 40 years is that the sentences we impose for things have shifted dramatically and have gone upwards. A 3-month threshold when it was put in, in the 1940s, would have been for a very significant offence. The only thing that has not changed in this time has been the threshold for a jury trial. Had there been some process of indexing the threshold of the jury trial to the types of cases and the terms expected, I say to the Green Party that we would have arrived very easily at a threshold for a jury trial that is much higher than what is proposed in the bill, and nobody would have said a thing.

A jury trial in the 1950s was rare, because the threshold was high. But what has happened over succeeding generations of Parliament is that we have raised the threshold for cases, we have raised the stakes in terms of the penalties, but we have never raised the threshold for a jury trial. If one thinks about the 1950s, a 1-year sentence for rape, and the threshold for a jury trial at 3 months, one is talking about a very serious offence. If this Parliament simply continued consistently along the argument of the Green’s view that 3 months was sacrosanct, I respectfully suggest to the Green Party that in 40, 50, or 100 years’ time a person would have access to a jury trial for a parking ticket. [Interruption] Well, I have to say that. The threshold would get that. Everything else moves, but the threshold for a jury trial does not. There are times when this Parliament has to say that when all of the other elements of the justice system are moved, then it is time for us to move the basis for a jury trial. I think that is a practical observation, as well as the observation that other people have made.

There are many things that can be said about this bill. I support it. I think it is a very good piece of work. I commend the Minister for his efforts on it. I also think that we will have to come back to my theme and look at the other elements of this. One of the other pieces of legislation that needs updating is the Judicature Act 1908. It is a fabulous piece of legislation. In another life I had to make submissions on, for example, people who had been erroneously paid holiday pay and had been overpaid. I always quoted the Judicature Act 1908.

Hon Simon Power: Section 92A

Hon RICK BARKER: Section 92A.

Hon Simon Power: That’s right.

Hon RICK BARKER: That is exactly right. But I have to say to the Minister in the chair that it won the case without anybody else, because no one knew about the Judicature Act 1908. They said: “Wow!”.

Hon Simon Power: Altered your position in reliance.

Hon RICK BARKER: Exactly. It was fabulous legislation. The point about this is that the Judicature Act covers a vast array of things, but it is out of date. Again, when I suggested that we embark upon a rewrite of the Judicature Act 1908 the officials went white as well, because it would be very, very difficult. I say to Parliament and to the Ministry of Justice that these are things that have to be done, not because they are easy; we have to do them because they are hard. We have to do them to make sure that the administration of our justice system is what the public of New Zealand expects. Everything else is being administered differently and improving in its pace and efficiency, and there is no reason for us to have an antiquated system of administering our courts—none whatsoever. I do not believe that a pile of people should turn up at 10 o’clock on a Monday morning and have to wait there until 2 or 3 o’clock in the afternoon for their case to be heard. No hospital sends out a note saying: “Hip operations on Monday. Tell everybody who needs a hip operation to turn up at 10 o’clock, and then you wait your turn for the surgeon to come to you.” No one else does that, but our justice system does.

There are many other aspects that our justice system practises that were appropriate and OK in the 1940s and early 1950s, but they are not OK today. This Parliament must continue to update the administration of justice. If we do not do this, the perception the public has of our justice system will fall well behind and they will not be getting the justice system they deserve. Thank you.

Hon JOHN BOSCAWEN (Leader—ACT): It is always a privilege to work collaboratively with parties on both sides of the House in discussing legislation. We have just heard from the Hon Rick Barker a very, very good argument for passing the Criminal Procedure (Reform and Modernisation) Bill. Although he is a member of the Opposition, as a former Minister for Courts he has set out some very eloquent arguments for passing this legislation. I also compliment the Minister of Justice, the Hon Simon Power, on the arguments that he put—in particular, the way that he reasoned well his arguments for the Green Party to support this bill in its amended form.

There are significant changes in this bill, which I will be discussing shortly, and the Minister acknowledges that. But I have to say that throughout the negotiations that the ACT Party conducted with the Minister, we were incredibly conscious, as I said to the Minister on many occasions, that there are good things in this bill—there are good things in this bill. We recognise that the justice system is outdated and cumbersome. We recognise, as the Hon Rick Barker just told the Committee, that we have large queues of people turning up at the courthouse at 10 o’clock on Monday morning who are left waiting for many hours. Although there were important principles to stand up for, we were also concerned not to throw the baby out with the bathwater, and not to lose the considerable benefit of all the many years of work that have gone into this legislation.

Like other speakers in this debate this afternoon, I pay tribute to my parliamentary colleagues. As I have mentioned, I have been involved in negotiations with Mr Power over the last couple of months, and I thank Simon Power for the generous comments he made about me and about his negotiations with the ACT Party. Just recently I was talking with Kennedy Graham of the Greens, but I have also had extensive discussions with Charles Chauvel.

This is a wide-ranging debate. We are taking this bill as one question. So I would like to use this opportunity perhaps to make some wider comments on the submission process. I have been a member of Parliament for just going on 3 years. In the time that I have spent here it has always amazed me how easy it is for members of the public to make a submission on legislation that is before Parliament. In fact, Parliament and civil society demand it.

In the year prior to my coming to Parliament I ran a campaign against Labour’s Electoral Finance Bill. I made a submission, I asked to be heard, I turned up at the Justice and Electoral Committee, which was chaired by Lynne Pillay, and I was given 10 minutes to state my case. I found it an amazing experience that individual New Zealanders could make a written submission, ask to be heard in front of members of Parliament, and state their case. As a parliamentarian myself I know that sometimes submitters are not well listened to, particularly if they express views contrary to one’s own, but, generally speaking, submitters are treated courteously and their views are respected.

We depend on people and organisations making submissions on legislation. Just yesterday the Justice and Electoral Committee heard urgent submissions on the Video Camera Surveillance (Temporary Measures) Bill. A number of organisations and members of the public had come together at relatively short notice to make submissions on the legislation.

Coming back to the Criminal Procedure (Reform and Modernisation) Bill, as Mr Power said, this bill was with the Justice and Electoral Committee for 6 months. There were a number of submissions from no less a person than the Chief Justice herself, from various Criminal Bar Associations, from the Law Society, and from practitioners. But I want to use this opportunity to publicly acknowledge three particular people who were involved in the submission process, whom the parties that have been involved in negotiating this legislation are all very well aware of. They are Patrick Winkler; his assistant, Samira Taghavi; and Roderick Mulgan. They are three barristers who believe so strongly in upholding the right to silence as a major constitutional principle that they have put an enormous amount of time into this legislation. I imagine they will have spent literally hundreds of hours preparing submissions, studying the provisions of this bill, and lobbying members of Parliament—in particular, Mr Graham, Mr Chauvel, me, the Māori Party, and Mr Power.

We need to pay tribute to those three people because I suspect, with the exception of Mr Power, no other people in New Zealand today have contributed more to the format of this bill than those three with the work they have done. I think Supplementary Order Paper 281 represents a back-down by National. It is a very important back-down, and it is a back-down of major constitutional significance. This Parliament owes a huge debt of gratitude to those three people, as it owes to other New Zealanders who come to this place to make submissions on legislation because they believe that in a civil society we need to have good legislation and they are prepared to spend their time on it.

The Minister referred to the Supplementary Order Paper and to the major changes that it represents. Clearly, as he outlined, there is a difference in the view held by National and others in this House as to what contributes to, or what in actual fact is upholding, the right to silence. I will take just a few minutes to read from Supplementary Order Paper 281—in particular, the section headed up “Issues in dispute”. That particular issue has drawn major concern from the ACT Party. It says: “Currently, the Bill requires the defendant to formally identify the issues that are in dispute before the trial. If the defendant fails to identify those issues adequately, the Bill allows the fact-finder (whether Judge or jury) to draw adverse inferences from that failure when deciding whether or not the defendant is guilty.”

This 640-page bill, when it came back from the select committee, required a defendant, a person charged by the State, to tell the State—the police or the Crown Law Office, whoever is bringing the prosecution—the aspects of the charges that the defendant disagreed with and what they disputed. If the defendant failed to do that, the judge or jury was able to draw an adverse inference, which means the judge or jury may have found that person guilty when they otherwise would not have.

Why was it important that we take that provision out? I believe that Mr Chauvel outlined the reasons for that very, very well this afternoon. He said that it is a well-known constitutional principle that when one is charged, it is up to the State to prove beyond reasonable doubt that one is guilty. It is up to the State to prove the charges beyond reasonable doubt. It should not be incumbent upon the defendant to assist in their own prosecution. To put it another way, it should not be incumbent upon the defendant to help to find that they are guilty. As this 640-page bill came back before the House, that is exactly what we were setting ourselves up for.

As the Minister well knows, he asked the ACT Party for its five votes in support of this bill back in August. We had an option. We could have said yes, that we would pledge those five votes, and with those five votes this bill could have come back and it could have been passed through this House without any amendment whatsoever. Let me repeat what I said during the second reading debate. The five ACT MPs held solid on that issue. We were absolutely united that we were not prepared to support the legislation in that form.

Finally, I once again acknowledge the huge amount of work that Patrick Winkler, Samira Taghavi, and Roderick Mulgan put into convincing me and my colleagues of the importance of that position, just as they put work into convincing other parliamentary colleagues.

I am prepared to leave my contribution at that. Other speakers, I know, will want to speak in the debate. There have been a number of other changes, and I referred to those during my second reading debate. On this occasion I have focused just on the right to remain silent. Thank you.

Hon RICK BARKER (Labour): I want to follow the Hon John Boscawen on a point that is related to the theme made by the Minister of Justice, and it is about negotiation. I think it is a credit to this Parliament and a credit to MMP, which people should acknowledge, that we have negotiations on this sort of legislation. The Criminal Procedure (Reform and Modernisation) Bill will go through the House, it will be confirmed, but no one will make the connection between the style of Parliament we have and the outcome. But I think it is really important to make that connection.

In the past we had first past the post, the leading party would have made the decision, and it would simply have been imposed upon the Parliament. What we have now is negotiation and discussion, and we reach an agreement. I think we should celebrate that. If the Greens are unhappy about the decision at the end of it, at least they have been part of a negotiation and a discussion. I think this is of great credit, and I think we should mark that.

I want to endorse the comments made by John Boscawen. I am not sure I will always agree with everything the man says, but it is fabulous that we have this discussion. I do not think the public see this aspect of this Parliament very often. It happens very often, but this is a clear demonstration of how it has happened, and I commend the Minister for the way in which he has conducted those negotiations. It takes a leadership position to say: “I am willing to negotiate.”, rather than: “I say, and you will follow.” I think the Minister has taken a very good leadership role on this, and I hope he sets this as a model for other Ministers to continue. I hope that will be the legacy he leaves—that this is the style by which we do things and the style by which we arrive at decisions. Of course, not everybody will agree; we are human beings. But at the end we have a decision that is strong and robust and has been well debated.

I want to come to a minor point, now that we have dealt with all the higher things. I am really interested to see that the Justice and Electoral Committee has done some very good work—and the bill does some very good work—on community magistrates. One of the things that the Law Commission, in its report Delivering Justice for All: A Vision for New Zealand Courts and Tribunals, recommended at one stage was that the District Court be split into two. One court would deal with minor offences, and the District Court would deal with the bigger offences that the District Court deals with in its jurisdiction. In actual fact, we would have tribunals, a lower court, the District Court, the High Court, the Court of Appeal, and then the Supreme Court. We would have a multilayer of courts. I always thought this was a bit extravagant for a country of 4 million people.

I think that the evolution of JPs and community magistrates dealing with minor matters is a good thing. It means that we keep the single jurisdiction of the District Court. The District Court, after all, is the court that deals with most of the volume of our court work. It is the real workhorse of it. The District Court has the most courts. It is where we have the most judges. Its lists are longer, and the number of cases it deals with is much larger than in any other court, and that is as it should be. But being able to have community magistrates and JPs dealing with some of the machinery of the District Court is, I think, a really good innovation. It will help to speed up the process of justice and ensure that people get through this. I am very pleased to see that the jurisdiction and the powers of community magistrates and JPs have been extended, enhanced, and strengthened. I think this is a very good innovation.

I could go on about this legislation. There is a lot of very good work in it about upcoming potential epidemics, about getting rid of boroughs, and about changing all the structures. This is a vast piece of legislation that covers a myriad of issues, and I think the select committee and the people who have done the work on this bill have done a fabulous job. I feel it will take quite some years before people feel the full effect of the benefit of this legislation. It is long overdue and well done.

CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka): I am very happy to take what will be a relatively brief call on the Criminal Procedure (Reform and Modernisation) Bill. I agree with what my colleague Rick Barker said about the importance of Parliament coming together on matters such as this, and I acknowledge the contribution that the Minister of Justice has made to this debate. Generally, in the 3 years that I have had the opportunity to sit in this House, I have found that Committee stage debates are far more useful, constructive, and informative when Ministers, as well as Opposition members, engage in the debate. Sometimes we can spend an awfully long time talking amongst ourselves on this side of the Chamber. When Ministers engage in the debate, I think that makes it a lot more useful.

However, I want to sound a word of caution around the way the Minister framed one of the central issues in this debate, which is about the right to a jury trial and the right to a speedy trial. He framed the issues as if those two things necessarily were in conflict with one another, and that is something I fundamentally disagree with. I do not believe that the right to be tried without undue delay necessarily should result in a trade-off with the other rights that somebody has when they are being tried. If we were going to go down that road too far, in fact we could find that the court system could be made a heck of a lot more efficient timewise if we did away with a whole lot of the other rights that people who find themselves before the court system have at the moment, as well. So I think we have to be very, very cautious if we want to frame this debate in that particular way, as the Minister did.

I listened very carefully to the first contribution of my colleague Rick Barker. It was actually the points he raised in that speech that sold me on the extended time frame for a jury trial. As he pointed out, the lengths of sentences for different crimes have changed significantly since the threshold was first established, and it seems to me that it is therefore reasonable that there be some indexation of the penalties relating to the threshold for a jury trial. I think that he made a very reasonable point, which ultimately convinced me that we are probably doing the right thing in extending the time frame to 2 years, which is what Supplementary Order Paper 281 will achieve.

I do note in this debate that this is only the second time that the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act has been amended since it was first enacted in 1990. The first time it was amended—in 1993, not long after it was first passed—the amendment extended the protection it offers. This is the first time since that law was passed that Parliament will be voting to reduce the protection afforded by the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. I think it is really important therefore that in doing so there is broad consensus amongst the Parliament about that. I think it would be very unwise for a Government to do as others have suggested and pass an amendment simply by a narrow majority. I acknowledge the fact that the Minister made an effort to secure more than a simple majority for this legislation. I cannot envisage any Government—any responsible Government, whether it be a National-led one or a Labour-led one—endeavouring to do anything other than that. I think it would be absolutely wrong for a Government, whether it had a majority or a minority with support from others, to scrape together the numbers to get a bare majority to pass an amendment to this legislation. The New Zealand Bill of Rights Act is something that Governments should not tamper with lightly. There should be broad consensus when changes to it are brought forward and it is welcome that this has happened in this case.

I want to turn now to one other amendment that I had some concerns about, which has been addressed in the Government’s Supplementary Order Paper 281. It is to do with the case management system and the requirement for the defence to formally identify issues that are going to be in dispute. I think it is a fundamental rule of the court system that it is up to the prosecution to determine or to prove somebody’s guilt beyond reasonable doubt, and the suggestion that at the beginning of a trial it should be up to the defence to specify the issues they will be raising in their defence outright at the beginning, therefore potentially limiting the defence’s scope, seems to me to cut across that principle. One of the things the Government Supplementary Order Paper that has been introduced today ensures is that issues in dispute can be identified by the defendant only if he or she wishes to do so. So they are not necessarily going to be compelled to do that and I think that that is a reasonable amendment.

I was going to talk a little bit about the absence of the defendant, but having read the Supplementary Order Paper I am reasonably comfortable now that it has dealt with most of the concerns I had around that.

I want to turn now, finally, to another issue, which I think we need to look at further in a future Parliament—that is, the issue of name suppression. I am not going to go into too much detail at this point because the concerns I have are wider than the scope of this particular legislation. But it is apparent in my view that we are developing a two-tier justice system where those who have significant money, status, and prestige are able to obtain name suppression without too much difficulty, while those at the lower end of our society’s status ladder are subject to a different form of justice, and to me that seems fundamentally wrong. There was a case recently—and I am not going to go into the details of it, because there is suppression involved, but it was widely publicised only a few weeks ago—to do with a security breach at an airport. Most of the details have subsequently been suppressed. It was widely covered in the media. Anyone following it in the media would know all of the details. For reasons that I cannot fathom at all, the details have now been suppressed, preventing people from talking about it further. It seems to me to be totally bizarre. I think that name suppression is an issue that the next Parliament must deal with, because there are huge anomalies in the number of people receiving name suppression at the moment, and in many cases I do not think it can be justified. I think that it is something that definitely needs to be very closely looked at. So I will conclude my comments at that.

I am not a lawyer, so I take a layperson’s view of this particular legislation. I followed the debate quite closely. I am satisfied that the major concerns I would have otherwise had around the fundamental human rights have been addressed. There is a balance to be struck between ensuring individual rights and making sure that people have access to the justice system in a reasonably speedy way. Definitely, there is a problem with New Zealanders’ rights to a speedy trial being compromised at the moment, and I think it is important that that be dealt with. This legislation definitely seems to do that.

Hon SIMON POWER (Minister of Justice): I want to respond very briefly to some comments that were made by Stuart Nash in respect of name suppression. The bill will see defendants be able to apply for name suppression, but only on the following grounds: to prevent extreme hardship to them and/or persons connected with them, and on the grounds that publication would cast suspicion on other people that may result in undue hardship. That is in clause 204. To address the concern that the public have, rightly in my view, about supposed well-known people being given preferential treatment, the legislation provides that there will be no presumption of extreme hardship solely on the ground that publication will identify a defendant who is well known—or, as I have referred to it more broadly, people who think they are well known.

Victims, witnesses, and others will be able to seek name suppression on grounds including that identification would result in undue hardship to that person. It is important to note that clause 205 is designed to protect victims. Automatic name suppression will continue to apply to victims of specified sexual offending, defendants in cases of incest or sexual conduct with a dependent family member, and child witnesses. It will be extended to also apply to child victims. I think that goes some way towards addressing Mr Nash’s concerns.

I think the broader points raised by Mr Hipkins lend themselves to reinforcing the reason that the Government has asked the Law Commission to look very closely at the issue of the relationship, broadly speaking, between suppression and the new media, which makes suppression a lot more difficult. I am not an expert in technology; I would not even regard myself as an amateur. Frankly, I am pretty relaxed about that. As I always said, no good ever came of Facebook. Putting that to one side, this is an issue that, eventually, future Governments will have to grapple with when the Law Commission brings its report back to whoever the Minister of Justice is at the time. It is not straightforward. On talking to colleagues in comparable jurisdictions, I was told that they have struggled with it. The way in which suppression has interacted with the new media means that there is much to do to ensure that those protections, where appropriate, are protected. Much work remains to be done in that area.

PHIL TWYFORD (Labour): Also as a non-lawyer, I must say I have found this debate very interesting. Like Chris Hipkins I have been following the public debate as this Criminal Procedure (Reform and Modernisation) Bill has progressed, and observed the negotiations with a great deal of interest. I really appreciated the Hon Rick Barker’s comments about the provenance of this bill, and the impassioned plea that Rick Barker made about the need to modernise the administration of justice.

I will confine my comments to Labour’s Supplementary Order Paper 286, and invite the Minister in the time remaining to get up and respond to some of the clauses proposed in it. For the benefit of people at home, let me just speak briefly about what is contained in the amendment Labour has put on the table in the name of Charles Chauvel. Included is new clause 25A, which inserts a procedure modelled on clauses in the Summary Proceedings Act, which would provide for an on-the-spot summons procedure to apply in certain limited circumstances. Clause 26 would clarify the procedure to be followed following an evidential breath test. The changes to clause 35 would ensure that the defendant is not required to plead unless the defendant has had at least 21 days to consider the material obtained under disclosure from the Crown.

There are a number of minor things in the Supplementary Order Paper, but it is worth, probably, mentioning the changes in clauses 58 to 63, which substitute the word “undertaking” for the word “indication”, which is, I think, designed to ensure consistency with other statutes. The changes to clause 105 set out to modernise the law as to when the court may be addressed on evidential issues.

Probably the most substantial part of the Supplementary Order Paper is the additions to clause 128, which have the aim of confining further the circumstances under which trial and sentencing can continue in the absence of the defendant. This is to ensure that the court may not proceed in the absence of the defendant when a reasonable excuse for that absence has been given. The court is asked to consider a number of factors when making a decision about whether to proceed in the absence of a defendant, and these things would include any information available to the court about the reasons for the defendant’s absence, any issues that the defendant has indicated that are in dispute, and the extent to which the evidence is critical to an evaluation of those issues, and the likely length of an adjournment. In spite of the fact that the court can consider and decide whether to proceed in the absence of the defendant, the court must not proceed under these provisions if it is satisfied that it would be contrary to the interests of justice to do so. So we would particularly appreciate a response from the Minister on the additions to clause 128.

The final two elements include a new clause 176A, which would prevent the prosecution from offering new evidence, or correcting deficiencies where earlier offering or correction was reasonably foreseeable, and amendments to clause 361(1) and (2), which would restrict the circumstances in which a costs order against a defendant or the defendant’s counsel may be made to cases where a failure is exceptional, intentional, and done without reasonable excuse.

Those are the elements in Charles Chauvel’s Supplementary Order Paper, and in the time remaining we would really appreciate a response from the Minister.

CAROL BEAUMONT (Labour): This has been a fascinating process, indeed. I was a member of the Justice and Electoral Committee, which heard many of the submissions on what is a substantial bill and a far-reaching bill. The fact is that only 2 days ago when I was speaking on the Criminal Procedure (Reform and Modernisation) Bill, we were still finalising negotiations on Labour’s position at that point, and now we are supporting this bill. I have found the process to be a very interesting one, as others have also commented.

It has been fascinating for me, as a still relatively new member of this House, to watch a number of people operating to try to deal with what were quite fundamental concerns. On Tuesday when I spoke on this bill I referred to the role of Charles Chauvel. I again acknowledge the work that Charles has done on raising the fundamental concerns that the Labour Party had about the potential for the bill, as it stood then, to fundamentally affect the human rights of New Zealand citizens. So I am pleased to see that the Minister of Justice, the Hon Simon Power, has addressed those concerns, and dealt with them in a constructive manner.

There is no doubt that there are substantial problems with the current criminal procedure system. I will repeat what the Ministry of Justice has concluded, because I do not think this bill, despite how far-reaching and substantial it is, deals with all of the issues of concern yet. I have to say that I was not aware that there was such a thing as the judishicature Act—terrible, I cannot even say it!

Hon Simon Power: Judicature.

CAROL BEAUMONT: —Judicature Act—but now I know that there is that Act from 1908, which will also be part of this reform of our justice system.

There is the issue of excessive costs. There is the increasing cost of operating the court system, and the stress and inefficiency that is being placed on the court system. I think the Hon Rick Barker explained that issue with quite a deal of passion, really, as a former Minister for Courts.

There is excessive delay. I have to say that excessive delay has negative consequences both for the defendant and for the victim of crime. As Labour’s women’s affairs spokesperson, I am concerned about it from the point of view of victims of crime. We want a court system and a justice system that operate in a way that means that defendants and victims do not have to wait too long for justice. That is certainly a reason for reforming the system. This bill will assist with that issue, as the Hon Simon Power has outlined in some detail, when he explained where we will see improvements, reduced delays, and justice being served.

As for excessive complexity, certainly this bill has been a really major attempt to categorise different criminal matters and to try to simplify them. That is good, I think. It is a positive move forward, and the Judicature Act is clearly one of those outdated parts of our legislative framework. The issue, for example, of thresholds for jury trials was a fundamental part of our legal framework that we were very concerned about.

I acknowledge the Hon John Boscawen in relation to his comments on the right to silence. These are cornerstone principles in our system. Quite rightly, I think, various parties have said that they would not support the bill in its previous form.

There are a number of people who should be thanked for creating this monster bill—it is huge, is it not—and those people, first of all, are the submitters. There were 72 submissions made, and we heard 35 of those submitters. These people were submitting on very important technical matters. We had a number of members of the legal profession and the judiciary submitting, because they certainly wanted to make these reforms more robust, and to make sure that we were not threatening fundamental elements of our justice system.

Then, interestingly, there were a number of submitters who specifically submitted on matters to do with suppression orders, the internet and new media, and so on. As others have commented, we still do not have that sorted. We still do not have the fact sorted that some people who are using the internet and social media are getting around suppression orders, so that matter will need to be dealt with in a future Parliament, as others have said.

The bill is large, substantive legislation, as I have said. It goes to 650 pages and has nine parts. I have already mentioned categorising of offences. There has been a simplification, so we now go to four categories of offence, which is a major step forward. Then, in Part 2, we have the proceedings and preliminary steps. This is one of the areas where Labour’s Supplementary Order Paper would come into play. I agree with the member Phil Twyford that it would be very helpful to have the Minister in the chair, the Minister of Justice, talk through the Supplementary Order Paper in the name of Charles Chauvel.

While I was talking about the people whom I wanted to thank, I forgot to mention the people who really should be thanked for their massive amount of work, and they are, of course, the officials who have worked on this legislation of great complexity and substance. They should also be acknowledged when we are dealing with this bill.

Pre-trial procedure is covered in Part 3. We now have this issue of the jury threshold. I think it was very interesting and helpful to hear the comments made by the Hon Rick Barker about how sentences have changed, and therefore the relative significance of thresholds. That was very helpful for a number of members here.

It is worth noting that the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act is being amended as part of this legislation. We in Parliament need to be very aware of that, and take a great deal of cognisance of that, if we are looking at amending the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. Certainly, there were quite significant matters and concerns raised by the Attorney-General in relation to this bill in its form prior to the Supplementary Order Paper that will change it. He raised many concerns.

Part 4, of course, deals with the trial provisions, and again Labour’s Supplementary Order Paper has some relevance there. As I said, it would be interesting to hear the Minister’s comments. Part 5, “General provisions”, also deals with proceedings held in the absence of the defendant. Part 6 deals with appeals, Part 7 with provisions concerning jurisdiction of District Courts, Part 8 with miscellaneous and transitional provisions, and Part 9 with amendments to other enactments.

So that is the scope of this huge bill. As I said, I have been pleased and interested to watch and see how we have almost reached the point where this substantial change to our criminal procedures will be passed by the House. Thank you very much.

The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): I shall put the questions, of which there are a number, and we will work through them chronologically. The first amendment is to clause 4.

The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Dr Kennedy Graham to the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 281 in the name of the Hon Simon Power to clause 4 be agreed to:

to omit “of less than 2 years” and substitute “of less than 3 months”.

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

Ayes 54

New Zealand Labour 42; Green Party 9; Progressive 1; Mana 1; Independent: Carter C.

Noes 67

New Zealand National 57; ACT New Zealand 5; Māori Party 4; United Future 1.

Amendment to the amendment not agreed to.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 284 in the name of Dr Kennedy Graham to the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 281 in the name of the Hon Simon Power to clause 128 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 54

New Zealand Labour 42; Green Party 9; Progressive 1; Mana 1; Independent: Carter C.

Noes 67

New Zealand National 57; ACT New Zealand 5; Māori Party 4; United Future 1.

Amendment to the amendment not agreed to.

The question was put that the following amendment in the name of the Hon Simon Power to the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 283 in his name to clause 435 be agreed to:

to omit the item relating to new section 23(3)(b)(iii) and substitute the following item:

23(2)(b)(iii) to omit “are outstanding” and substitute “have been issued”.

Amendment to the amendment agreed to.

The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): The next question is to the Minister’s amendments set on Supplementary Order Paper 281, and his amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 283, as amended, except for new subsection 277(10) in schedule 3, which has been withdrawn.

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 281, and the amendments as amended set out on Supplementary Order Paper 283, except that to new section 277(10) in schedule 3, in the name of the Hon Simon Power be agreed to.

Amendments as amended agreed to.

The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): The amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 286 in the name of Charles Chauvel have been ruled out of order as the Government has indicated that the proposals have a fiscal impact to the aggregates. Standing Order 320 requires a 24-hour threshold of notice, and that was not done.

The question was put that the following amendments in the name of Dr Kennedy Graham to clause 4 be agreed to:

to omit from subclause (1)(j) “if the matter proceeds to trial, the trial will be a Judge-alone trial” and substitute “a defendant charged with a category 2 offence has a choice about whether or not to elect a trial by jury (see section 48):”; and

to insert the following paragraph after paragraph (j):

“(ja) if the defendant elects trial by jury, and the matter proceeds to trial, the trial will be a jury trial (unless a Judge-alone trial is ordered under section 102 or 103):.

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

Ayes 54

New Zealand Labour 42; Green Party 9; Progressive 1; Mana 1; Independent: Carter C.

Noes 67

New Zealand National 57; ACT New Zealand 5; Māori Party 4; United Future 1.

Amendments not agreed to.

The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Dr Kennedy Graham to clause 429 be agreed to:

to omit this clause.

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

Ayes 54

New Zealand Labour 42; Green Party 9; Progressive 1; Mana 1; Independent: Carter C.

Noes 67

New Zealand National 57; ACT New Zealand 5; Māori Party 4; United Future 1.

Amendment not agreed to.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 285 in the name of Dr Kennedy Graham to clause 431 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 54

New Zealand Labour 42; Green Party 9; Progressive 1; Mana 1; Independent: Carter C.

Noes 67

New Zealand National 57; ACT New Zealand 5; Māori Party 4; United Future 1.

Amendment not agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That clauses 1 and 2, Parts 1 to 9, and schedules 1 to 6 as amended be agreed to.

Ayes 110

New Zealand National 57; New Zealand Labour 42; ACT New Zealand 5; Māori Party 4; Progressive 1; United Future 1.

Noes 11

Green Party 9; Mana 1; Independent: Carter C.

Clauses 1 and 2, Parts 1 to 9, and schedules 1 to 6 as amended agreed to.

The Committee divided the bill into the Criminal Procedure Bill, the Bail Amendment Bill (No 3), the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Amendment Bill (No 3), the Corrections Amendment Bill, the Crimes Amendment Bill (No 5), the Criminal Disclosure Amendment Bill, the Criminal Procedure (Mentally Impaired Persons) Amendment Bill, the District Courts Amendment Bill (No 2), the Evidence Amendment Bill, the Juries Amendment Bill, the Justices of the Peace Amendment Bill, the New Zealand Bill of Rights Amendment Bill, the Sentencing Amendment Bill (No 6), the Summary Proceedings Amendment Bill (No 4), and the Victims’ Rights Amendment Bill, pursuant to Supplementary Order Paper 282.

Bill reported with amendment.

Report adopted.

Bills

Victims of Crime Reform Bill

First Reading

Hon SIMON POWER (Minister of Justice): I move, That the Victims of Crime Reform Bill be now read a first time. At the appropriate time I will move that the bill be considered by the Justice and Electoral Committee. In March 2008, the then National Opposition launched its victims’ rights policy, which centred on the establishment of new initiatives for victims funded by an offender levy, and a review of victims’ rights and services. As we draw to the end of our first term in Government, I am proud to see that the offender levy is up and running, and doing even better than we had hoped for. In its first year the offender levy collected $3.7 million, which is paying for 13 new entitlements and services for victims of serious offences, including travel assistance, increased support, discretionary and funeral grants, and counselling.

We have also completed the review of victims’ rights, drawing on submissions from interested groups and the wider public. The results are to be found in this bill, which amends the Victims’ Rights Act 2002, the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act 1989, the Sentencing Act 2002, and the Parole Act 2002. Notwithstanding the contribution of the previous Government in passing the Victims’ Rights Act in 2002, we have known for some time that victims continue to find it difficult to understand criminal justice processes and their role in these processes. This bill will increase the opportunities for victims to be more involved in the cases affecting them, where they choose to do so.

Victim impact statements are a vital opportunity for victims to voice their views on the offending, and to look offenders in the eyes and tell them firsthand the impact of their crime. However, victims have been frustrated by the way in which this expression has been restricted to date, and that serves only to underscore the perception that the courts are more concerned with form and formality than with humanity. This bill will provide greater scope for victims to talk about the effects of the offending on themselves and on persons in a close relationship with them, such as their children. Victims of serious offences will have the right to read out their statement to the court, or to nominate someone else to read the statement for them. Importantly, to improve the process for child victims and families of homicide victims the bill also allows drawings and photographs to be attached to the statements.

This bill also requires the police or the Ministry of Justice to tell victims who have made submissions to bail hearings the outcome of the hearings, and any conditions that relate to the victims or their immediate family. Currently, victims can receive notices about offenders in custody, and this bill builds on the notification system to include events such as when the offender is convicted of breaches of short-term release conditions, is convicted of breaches of home detention conditions, or completes his or her sentence. The bill also widens the eligibility for notices to explicitly include all victims of sexual offences. The bill will clearly allow victims to appoint a representative to receive a notice, and will improve their ability to notify a change of their address or that of their representative, or to withdraw from receiving notices.

It is vital that the rights and services that victims are entitled to are understood and enforced as Parliament intended. This bill makes amendments to improve the accountability of agencies that provide services to victims. The bill requires a victims code to be developed by the Ministry of Justice. The ministry will be required to consult other agencies, non-governmental organisations, and other members of the public to ensure that the code not only outlines victims’ rights and services and the duties of agencies but also, importantly, is accessible to victims. The bill also requires agencies to deal with victims’ complaints promptly and fairly when these rights or services are not met. Details about each agency’s complaints processes will be included in the code. The Victims of Crime Reform Bill also extends victims’ rights to the youth justice jurisdiction.

This bill is part of our commitment to put victims at the centre of the criminal justice system, and it is a privilege to fulfil yet another pre-election commitment in the justice portfolio. I commend this bill to the House.

Debate interrupted.

Valedictory Statements

Valedictory Statements

Dr ASHRAF CHOUDHARY (Labour): Mr Speaker, my parliamentary colleagues, and my former parliamentary colleagues, first I wish to greet you all in some of the languages of the people I have represented over the last 9 years: kia ora, assalam o alaikum, shalom, namaste, sat sri akaal, ayubowan, ni hao, and good afternoon, and to my Pasifika colleagues I say talofa lava, and malo.

I acknowledge the presence of members of my family, and the many members of the diplomatic corps, tangata whenua, community leaders, friends, and supporters, who have come from various parts of New Zealand to join me on this occasion. Many of these individuals and community representatives, too numerous to mention here, have provided me with guidance, encouragement, and support in fulfilling my role as an MP for the Labour Party, and in the implementation of its policies over 9 years.

Every member of this House realises the value of the work and support of their life partner. I wish to thank my wife, Samina, who has been the foundation of family support over my three terms as an MP, which resulted in me being away from home over long periods while undertaking a large amount of travel around Aotearoa New Zealand. Samina kept the family stability and gave loving care to our daughter Mehreen and her husband Shahid, my elder son Anwar and his wife Rabia, and our younger son Atif. Through this unending love and encouragement, our children have achieved high standards academically and vocationally, and have become positive contributors to society. Their ongoing success has fulfilled my dreams.

My political journey actually started some 40 years ago during my student life at university, as the journeys of many in this House probably have done. I joined a progressive political party in my first homeland of Pakistan, and took part in my first election as an activist. On election day, for my safety, and to avoid his own embarrassment, my father locked me up in my room because I was going to vote against his party. So that was the end of my very short political career in Pakistan, and I left that country soon thereafter. From then on, as I would journey through life, I decided to help open closed doors for others in the fields of education, community development, and politics.

My waka to Aotearoa New Zealand first landed in 1976. As an Asian, on my arrival I felt prejudice as conveyed by the often-used words such as “curry-munchers”, “wogs”, and “niggers”. Once I understood the meanings of these words, I started working across different communities to change such prevailing racism. In conveying my beliefs of fairness, justice, and equality, I aligned with the core principles of the Labour Party. As a grassroots worker I undertook to assist ethnic communities to understand Aotearoa New Zealand democracy, the rule of law, tolerance, and human rights, and to provide leadership quietly and peacefully for us to ingest ourselves with positive, law-abiding qualities as contributors to the Crown and tangata whenua, the two co-signatories of the Treaty of Waitangi. It was my long history of involvement in the Muslim and ethnic communities that, under MMP, eventually led me to become the first member of South Asian extraction and the first Muslim member of the New Zealand Parliament, in 2002.

Often there is a stigma attached to list MPs, as members have probably heard many times—that they have no electorate or constituency of their own. In my case, I believe that this has been far from the truth. I have had the largest constituency, spread across the cities and towns of New Zealand, for all these years. As an MP I was able to promote and support ethnic diversity in New Zealand, as well as offer my expertise as an agricultural and environmental scientist. As such, I represented all people, irrespective of their ethnicity, creed, or religion. I took upon myself additional roles to continue to educate the migrant and ethnic communities about democracy, the rule of law, tolerance, and the New Zealand way of life. Many migrants have come from countries and regions where democracy is either non-existent or not practised as we know it in New Zealand. I have facilitated our ethnic communities becoming involved in decision making at all levels, and I have quietly worked to break down barriers, including providing access to MPs, and visiting within the confines of this building—strange to many new migrants to this country.

The Asian population in New Zealand is projected to have the largest relative growth, averaging 3.4 percent a year. Their share of the population is likely to equal the Māori population within the next few years. These demographic changes need to be catered for. All the political parties need to uptake their responsibilities. It is not good enough to just use ethnic MPs and their communities as a kind of ATM machine. Ethnic communities seek respect and long-term relationships with political parties, not just lip-service and a few minutes of attendance at their annual festivals before people leave them as if they might catch bird flu.

Education is a key to understanding our differences, through the common goals of peace, security, and opportunity for our families and communities. I have undertaken this through encouraging numerous community leaders to undertake interfaith dialogue, ethnic workshops, and the strengthening and inter-participation of ethnic communities. The growth of non-Christian faiths, as reflected in the last New Zealand census, provides the platform for continued diversity through knowledge, understanding, sharing, and peace in Aotearoa New Zealand. Associated with this endeavour, in my first term I initiated the hosting of faith and cultural festivals within Parliament for community representatives, starting the Diwali festival for the Hindu community and the Eid festival for the Muslim community.

The Labour Government set up the Māori Television channel, which I regularly watch. This has been a great success in reaching out to the Māori community and celebrating their contribution. The time has come where we need to do something similar for the ethnic communities of New Zealand. Last year I promoted my member’s bill on establishing an ethnic broadcasting commission of inquiry. Because of our diverse society, I envisaged this as a way to promote a choice of more multicultural and multilingual television services that inform, educate, and provide entertainment accessible to all New Zealanders. Unfortunately, this bill has not been drawn out of the ballot for debate so far. I trust that future Governments on both sides of the House will take serious note of this urgent need for the ethnic communities.

I have been a keen member of the Primary Production Committee continuously for 9 years, and the Education and Science Committee during my first two terms in Parliament. This was a choice I made and it was granted. I also chaired the Education and Science Committee in 2008. I believe that members on both sides of the House have appreciated my contribution as an agricultural scientist on these committees. I will certainly miss colleagues on the Primary Production Committee; I thoroughly enjoyed it.

In these roles I confirmed my view that we need to continuously innovate in our agricultural sector. Knowledge, science, and research and development, as the skills of our primary industry, are our competitive advantage in the world. High-value exports rely on innovation. Innovation requires investment in education, research through universities and the private sector, and development through business interrelationships. This is required for our future economic growth in order to meet the overseas demand for premium products and services that are currently required in the high economic growth countries.

With rising GDP and the economic influence of Asia in the world, our small country down under needs to seriously reassess our association with Asia. It is my sad observation that for too long our relationship with Asia has remained transactional in nature, whether in the field of business, education and training, or tourism. From what I have learnt through my interactions, we politicians and the New Zealand public need to broaden our thinking and outlook and more deeply engage with our tangata whenua, immigrants, and particularly Asian people, to earn their trust and respect.

These matters have also often come up during discussions when I have been interacting with, or hosting, many overseas diplomats, particularly from the Asian and Middle Eastern regions. I believe my close working relationships with members of the diplomatic community from the wider Asian region and Middle Eastern countries, as evidenced by the presence in the gallery of many of them today, have brought significant benefits to Aotearoa New Zealand in the growth of education, trade and political relationships, and a better understanding of the diversity and significant value to New Zealand.

Yesterday we heard the sad news of the death of our SAS solider Leon Smith in Afghanistan. I wish to extend my heartfelt condolences to his family and his loved ones. As the Hon Phil Goff said yesterday, I know this is not the time to talk about the rights and wrongs of the presence of our troops in Afghanistan. However, we must reflect on these issues urgently, as we cannot continue to fight other people’s immoral and unending wars of retribution and vengeance. We cannot stand tall among independent nations unless we follow our own home-grown policies. These policies need to be based on fairness, justice, and equity, and human rights for all.

When entering Parliament I was particularly fortunate to work with the previous Prime Minister, Helen Clark. Her leadership skills are unparalleled in her long service to the people of Aotearoa New Zealand, coupled with the visionary support of her deputy, the Hon Michael Cullen. These leaders have been aptly replaced by the Hon Phil Goff and Annette King, who have professionally continued the leadership, the direction, and the vision of the Labour Party. They are backed by colleagues full of the vibrancy, intellect and skill to bring Aotearoa New Zealand to the economic, social, and skill levels needed to become fully competitive within our wider world. These skilled members of Parliament and members of the caucus provide a supportive environment and I have always enjoyed their company. To that end, I acknowledge my former colleague from Palmerston North, the Hon Steve Maharey, for being my mentor during the first 6 years of my career as an MP. I also wish to thank my colleagues George Hawkins, Su’a William Sio, and Ross Robertson, who included me in the “Southside Caucus” of our caucus. I thank them for their support and wisdom.

On joining Parliament, I established the Ethnic Sector Council within the Labour Party, which drew a lot of ethnic people to join the Labour Party over the years. At the beginning of this term, when Raymond Huo and Rajen Prasad joined me in Parliament, we established the ethnic caucus within the Labour Party. I thank them both for their support and collegiality.

To all those who worked with me in Parliament, my current and former executive assistants, Rebecca Papprill, Sandra Wilson, Helen Toner, and Gunda Tente, and to my out-of-Parliament issues assistant in Auckland, Mr Alamgir Afridi, I say thank you for your high-quality work. I say a thank you also to the tireless work of Parliament’s receptionists, messengers, Hansard reporters, select committee staff, security guards, and Copperfield’s and Bellamy’s staff.

Finally, many ethnic community leaders and opinion leaders texted me when they heard the news of my stepping down from Parliament as a Labour MP. I thought I should quote just three of them. Brijesh said: “It’s a big loss to Labour as I’m not sure who will be the voice of the Indian people after you resign. Thank you for all your support and assistance when we needed it.” Mr Zaker said: “Dear Sir, your entrance into politics not only lifted our morale, but paved the way for ethnic migrants to actively join politics and to become bees of the beehive. You are an icon and I hope that many will have benefited from your political wisdom.” Then, from Ilango: “Dear Dr, I am shocked. We Indians were always proud to be represented in Parliament by you.” He says: “In my eyes, you were never just a politician; you are honest, simple, humble and approachable. I am looking forward to working with you in the future. I am always with you.”

So these words give me confidence that I have been able to open closed doors for the ethnic people of New Zealand, and that my 9 years in Parliament have been a positive platform from which others can launch their waka and take up the challenge to continue in the development of a land not only of milk, sheep and honey but also a diverse, progressive society of equality, understanding, and peace.

Before I finally finish, I have a postscript. Last night I received a great, but very pleasant, surprise in my life. At a moving ceremony I was given this gift of pounamu. I was honoured by Mr Jack Wood, on behalf of a number of iwi leaders, to wear this at this occasion. This generosity reflected the mana of our people. I say publicly that my family and I will not forget this gesture. I thank you, Jack and Pushpa Wood, for this. Finally, Mr Speaker, can I also say thank you for your many, many invitations to meet with the visiting guests at Parliament and for the opportunity that I had to travel with you to Viet Nam and to Japan at one time. Thank you very much and God bless all of you.

Waiata

Hon HEATHER ROY (ACT): My introduction to politics came at the tender age of 20 in 1984. They were exciting political times. Sir Robert Muldoon had called a snap election, and Sir Robert Jones had launched a new party, the New Zealand Party. For the first time I had a flicker of interest in what was going on in the political arena, and Sir Robert Jones’ youngest candidate wanted my vote. I liked his politics—the freedom and prosperity message appealed—but I liked him even more. He got my vote that year—albeit a special vote because I had not enrolled—and I got him. A vote is a precious thing, as is a husband, and I think it was a fair trade.

A total of 12.5 percent of the population thought that a free and prosperous nation was something worth supporting in that 1984 election. Under MMP that would have been around 16 seats for a party that believes in freedom of market, of mind, and of body. I still believe fervently in those ideals.

My next political encounter was many years later in 1996—that first MMP election—when ACT was established as a political party. In 1999 I was persuaded to stand. I thought I was flying the flag. Sir Roger Douglas and others decided I should be making a serious tilt at Parliament and gave me an electable list position. Luckily, with five small children I did not get in at that election, but politics, as we all know, gets in the blood, so I stuck with it and was elected in 2002.

My early parliamentary life seemed destined for a time to be marred by the curse of mistaken identity. When Deborah Coddington and I came to Parliament in 2002, then Speaker Jonathan Hunt—and it is a pleasure to see him in the Chamber today—had difficulties telling us apart. Deborah, who is tall, dark, and statuesque, and I, who am none of those things, just seemed to confuse him every time we stood up to ask a question or to speak. It probably did not help when we turned up at Parliament one day wearing men’s suits, in response to his comments that the women in the House were dressing too scruffily. So sometimes I was myself, sometimes I was called to speak as Deborah Coddington, and even once, I think, as “Deborah Roy”. We eventually got our identities sorted out with the Speaker over a bottle of his very nice red wine.

Then there was the case of the swapped Bellamy’s bills. Eric Roy, who had not returned to Parliament when I arrived in 2002, was receiving my bills in Invercargill, and I was receiving his much smaller bills. I recognised the problem when I was charged for the baking of a whole trout that I had apparently caught myself and supplied to the Bellamy’s kitchen. Much to my father’s dismay—he is here with us today—I am no trout fisherwoman. I rang Eric, who complained about the amount I had been spending and that he had been asked to pay. We agreed to swap bills when I was next in the south. We duly did so, and a Southland Times photographer kindly immortalised the moment for us. Just for the record, despite constant speculation, Eric and I are not related. We are not brother and sister, we are not father and daughter, we are not second cousins twice removed, and I am not, as Eric once jokingly said to a reporter, his love child. We are, however, friends.

Hon Members: Ha, ha!

Hon HEATHER ROY: I ran it past him first.

Finally, an ongoing but pleasant mix-up usually begins with the comment: “You’re from the south, aren’t you.” I am originally, as it happens, but I know as soon as I am asked that question that the person thinks I am former National MP Katherine Rich. Clearly, it is the healthy but pale southern complexion we share that causes the confusion, or perhaps it is that we share similar views on many issues.

So once my identity crises had been dealt with I was able to get down to work. Most of my first term was under the watchful leadership of Richard Prebble. His aim, he said, was to get us to ministerial level by the end of our first term. That meant being thrown in the deep end, which is undoubtedly the best way to learn—like an apprenticeship of sorts, I guess. There was no namby-pamby breathing through your nose for ACT MPs.

During Richard Prebble’s time in Parliament he left many legacies to the country. Those I have personally benefited from most are his “Prebble-isms”—words of wisdom best adhered to or taken notice of if you know what is good for you. I frequently pass these gems on to others. Amongst his best are: “If you can’t say it in 2 minutes, it’s not worth saying.” This is true, I have discovered, of every conceivable topic. Another one was: “Don’t be scared of making mistakes. MPs who don’t make mistakes aren’t doing their job.” This was given either as advice to take some risks or sometimes as an unspoken reassurance that although you had stuffed up completely, it probably was not going to cause the sky to fall in.

“In politics the highs are so high and the lows are so low.” The highs include successes like the voluntary student membership bill, which is now an Act; demotion from my ministerial portfolios rates amongst the lows. Richard claims that the highs always make up for the lows, and in this he is absolutely right—“no ifs, no buts, no regrets”. There is nothing like a solid political win.

“Keep in touch with the friends you have before politics, because you cannot tell whether the ones you make in politics are real friends, until you leave.” I think I have made many friends in my time here and established many respectful relationships with those from across the political spectrum. I am hopeful that most will stand the test of time.

The apprenticeship served me well for my time as an MP. There is nothing like coming up against a good Minister—and I am looking directly over at Labour—while in Opposition to teach you the ropes. Several Labour Ministers taught me valuable lessons about how to handle issues, although their aim of course was generally to tell me nothing at all. Parliamentary questions become your friend, as do the Official Information Act and the Ombudsman.

ACT battled for 12 years in Parliament before we formally became part of the Government. I look back at the many talented and hard-working ACT MPs before me who would have been great Ministers. Ken Shirley and Stephen Franks taught me by example that principles are important, and sticking to them results in consistent policy gains. Had they had the opportunity to become ACT Ministers, both would have made a real difference to the lives of Kiwis. But in politics timing is everything, and I found myself in the right place at the right time to be appointed to a ministerial post after the 2008 election.

Turning ACT policies into reality has been our big win. School choice is on the agenda. Aspire Scholarships for those from low-income homes and a review into special education were big projects I was proud of leading. Among my defence highlights was participating in the defence review. I continue to believe a strong reserve force will give the New Zealand Defence Force greater flexibility and capability, and I hope there will be a real focus on this for the future. My companion studies on New Zealand’s defence industry and voluntary national service raised interesting proposals for “New Zealand Inc.”, and I would be very sorry if this work was not useful as a base for future thinking. Alongside Rodney Hide’s Regulatory Standards Bill, the Spending Cap (People’s Veto) Bill, and local government changes, I think ACT supporters and voters can be satisfied that our policy wins were significant.

Like my fellow retiring colleagues—those from ACT and from other parties—I have been honoured to have been elected to this House to speak on behalf of the many Kiwis who have entrusted their vote to the ACT Party and sometimes to have my personal views on conscience issues heard. There is nothing like being a Minister and getting things done. Serving one’s country in this way is a rare and special thing, and I thank those who over three elections have given me the opportunity to do so on their behalf.

Politics is the contest of ideas. Situations change, people’s attitudes change, and the relevance of policies changes. In order to keep up and for parties to remain relevant to voters, it is imperative that new ideas are encouraged, examined, researched, and pursued according to their merit. I would like to think we have a Parliament that welcomes the contest, but I have been disappointed by the lack of courage to tackle entrenched problems with innovative solutions and a refusal often to even engage in reasoned debate. Frequently these issues see the light of day only as members’ bills.

On the very slim chance that a space would open up on the members’ Order Paper in the past year, I drafted a bill to allow nuclear-propelled ships to once again visit New Zealand waters. Our current policy is a relic of a bygone era, with no relevance to modern life and it is holding our country back in so many ways. I was pleased to see Sir Paul Callaghan make similar comments recently. People will happily expose their bodies to nuclear material such as X-rays, but will not even contemplate having a vessel propelled by nuclear power in a New Zealand harbour. ACT has been the only party in my time here to want to engage in a debate that is not dominated by hysteria and deliberate confusion. The same is true regarding the youth minimum wage, education funding following the child, and so many other issues.

Sir Roger Douglas personifies the contest of ideas. He is a reformer, and our Parliament has too few of his ilk who think outside the square and tackle issues from a solid, principled base. His endless optimistic pursuit of solutions to the really thorny problems our country faces is truly inspiring. He is a numbers man, and the numbers are usually explained on a serviette or in detail on a whiteboard. Sir Roger says politics is all about numbers, although now of course he is talking about different numbers—those that win a policy battle with a majority. He is right, but politics is also about people, and I have appreciated hugely his mentoring, his friendship, and his unwavering support over many years, especially the past 3 years.

There are a few things that I believe would make our Parliament work better, and I hope the Constitutional Advisory Panel, set up to conduct a wide-ranging review of New Zealand’s constitutional arrangements, will give serious consideration to a 4-year parliamentary term and have a discussion on the appropriate size of Parliament and the executive, especially given the strong suggestion by Kiwis in 1999 to have fewer MPs. I believe we need a mechanism to hold our executive and Parliament more accountable. In other countries this is achieved with an Upper House. A position I have reached after being involved personally in a number of conscience votes is that referenda on conscience issues are worthy of serious consideration. I am not convinced that 120 MPs, or 122 currently, are any better placed to make decisions on issues of conscience than the adult population.

There are always a huge number of thankyous to make. Most of these I will do personally, but I would like to acknowledge and thank those who work tirelessly to make Parliament tick and to make life easier for MPs: the Clerk’s Office, the Parliamentary Service and Ministerial Services, the Parliamentary Counsel Office, the library staff, the messengers, and especially the security staff, who always ask how my Territorials training is going.

I would like to give a collective vote of thanks to the hard-working and loyal party members: my Aoraki team from 1996 to 2000, and my Wellington-based teams in Ōhariu and Wellington Central more recently. To the ACT parliamentary team past and present, heartfelt thanks for a job well done. Our successes are your successes because of your commitment to our shared cause. I also want to thank my loyal and supportive ministerial team.

Finally, my family. To Duncan, Johnny, Barbara, Penny, Finn, and Jack, thank you for your love and support, putting up with the constant phone calls and my frequent absences. I hope that my being around a lot more is not going to cramp your style, but I for one am looking forward to that enormously. And when my mother calls for a chat she will no longer have to end the conversation with: “Well, just don’t work too hard.” I have a good friend who reminds me that there are plenty of beaches to walk on and wine to drink—wise advice I intend to take. There will still be a few boundaries to push, I suspect, but perhaps at a more sedate pace.

In my maiden speech I noted that I was the 80th woman to have been elected to this Parliament. I asked the Parliamentary Library to calculate for me how many had left before me. It turns out that I am also the 80th woman to leave this Parliament. I have taken from this that the time is right for me to move on to other things—not a moment too soon, not a moment too late. Timing in politics is everything.

As I look around these four walls of this Chamber for the last time, I will take particular note of the battlements—the 12 carved circular wreaths around the balcony at the top and the 18 carved plaques on the wall panels, representatives of battles and places where New Zealand troops have fought and served, below them. They remind me of the reason I came to this place—to continue the fight for our freedoms that our forebears began for a prosperous nation, one where we all have the same opportunities. Our freedoms are hard won, with many New Zealanders having paid the price with their lives. Freedoms hard won are not so easily eroded. I have been honoured to serve my country in this House and I hope that the 50th Parliament and beyond will also be reminded of their responsibility to uphold our freedoms.

I wonder, Mr Speaker, if I could make a last request before I leave this Chamber. There are some battlements missing from our walls. The first Gulf War, Afghanistan, and our recent peacekeeping missions are not represented, despite the fact that our Defence Force personnel have participated with the same courage, commitment, and distinction as those who served before them. They too have suffered injury, and, in some tragic cases, loss of life in their quest for freedom around the world on our behalf. I know that my fellow soldiers would be touched by such a gesture and I think it would be entirely fitting. Lest we forget.

Mr SPEAKER: These are very special times, but time is also moving on. Could I now call on the Hon Sir Roger Douglas to make his valedictory statement.

Hon Sir ROGER DOUGLAS (ACT): I was first elected to this House in 1969. I had the privilege to serve in this Parliament during a period when Parliament was dominated by members such as Keith Holyoake, Robert Muldoon, Norman Kirk, and David Lange—more about that later. The year 1969 was to all intents and purposes the end of the Holyoake era. They were different times: new members shared an office; new members shared a secretary—four members to one secretary—Parliament did not sit until June, 7 months after the general election; if Prime Minister Holyoake found you in the billiard room, he would hang around and chat to you for 10 or 15 minutes. We had two popular bars then—the members and the messengers—they were full every night. Lobbyists, journalists, MPs, messengers, private secretaries—no one seemed to worry about any leaking in those days.

Estimates were always dealt with under urgency. If you got home at 1 o’clock, you counted yourself extremely lucky—2 or 3 or 4 o’clock was the norm, especially if you had a Leader of the Opposition like Norman Kirk. I can remember sitting in the third row one night at 3 o’clock, and Norman Kirk took eight calls in a row—four on State Insurance, and four on Government Life Insurance Corporation. In those days, the bills were put into a bill binder, and he had a monstrous fist. At 3.30 he was pounding the damned bill binder and it was jumping up, and here I was, trying to sleep.

The library was pretty important in those days, because parties did not have a research unit. It was actually one of the staff in the library, Keitha Booth, whom I pinched when I became the Minister of Broadcasting in 1972.

By the end of January 1973 I had a paper ready to go to Cabinet. That Cabinet meeting in many ways indicated, I think, the character of Norman Kirk. I think the paper was something of a surprise to most Cabinet Ministers—there was no Treasury report and, when all is said and done, I did not have any help in preparing it within Parliament. The discussions went on for about an hour, and Norman Kirk had not said anything, so I did not know, really, how it was going. Then he looked at me and said “Can you implement this?”. And what could I say but yes? He went on to say “It’s nice to be implementing our policy, not someone else’s.”—meaning the Civil Service, of course—“Show Martyn Finlay your press release before it goes out.”, and that was it. It was often said about Norman Kirk that he was a man in a hurry because of his illness. In my view, he was just built in that way. I liked it. He was impatient, and sometimes he was impatient in an unrealistic way, but it definitely showed that he cared. Clashes in the House between Kirk and Muldoon were something to behold; they were the things that legends were made of.

Kirk’s passion had always been in housing, and after his death I inherited the housing portfolio. Housing at the time was Labour’s Achilles heel: too much demand, too few resources, prices out of control; what to do? Well, you know what you do: you get the caucus committee together, you get the housing committee, and you prepare a paper. So that is what I did. I prepared a paper that was 61 pages long. It was really a great paper. I thought it pretty good until Treasury’s paper came along, and that was 75 pages long, and it said no to every recommendation. So we went to Cabinet, and I remember that the discussion went on for a couple of hours. At one stage I thought Bob Tizard had gone to sleep. I was not opposed to that, and at one or two points I thought I should give up. But Joe Walding was saying “Keep going, Rog, keep going.” Then all of a sudden they passed the lot. You can imagine: a whole paper passed.

I waited for the Cabinet paper, and I thought “That’s fine.” Then on Sunday I was playing cricket with my son, Grant, in Simla Crescent, and up the drive walked Henry Lang: “Minister, could I see you for a moment?”. “Yes, Henry, come in. Would you like a cup of tea, Henry?”. “Yes, I’ll have a cup of tea.” We sat down, and he said “Minister, we can’t really have this, you know.” And so we had a good debate, and the fact was that I knew he was right, so I gave about 90 percent, or slightly more, away.

There were a lot of great civil servants I have served with over the time; Bernie Galvin was another one. Bernie went on to be head of the Prime Minister’s department, and head of Treasury. I can always remember Bernie, in 1974 or 1975, coming to a Cabinet committee and telling Hugh Watt that a roading project that he was recommending did not meet the 10 percent rate of return. Hugh looked at him in puzzlement and said “Young man, I’ve got to tell you, it’ll never be cheaper.” Joe Walding and I, we enjoyed that so much that we postponed it for 1 week. Obviously, Hugh won in the end.

After Kirk’s death, Parliament and the political scene were dominated, of course, by Muldoon. After 1971 Muldoon would come in here at 2 o’clock, create absolute havoc, and then leave, either because he wanted to leave or because the Speaker had decided that he should. But the fact was that he was particularly formidable. I remember my first encounter with Muldoon. I was a young backbencher. I got up to make a speech on the estimates and I made the speech, and he was sitting in the chair and he got up. One thing that I liked about Parliament then was that Ministers actually replied a lot more than they seem to do now. I know that the time-limited debates have changed that, but it was certainly something. Anyway, Muldoon got up and said “Oh, the member for Manukau. He made a couple of points. Well, when he has been here a little longer, he will understand.”, and then he sat down. I thought “Blow that, I will have another go.” I had another go, and he got up and said “There he goes again. He’s new. You probably have to forgive him. Oh look, I’ll tell you what. If he comes and sees me later, I will tell him. I will explain it to him.” I thought “Blow that, I will ring you up.”, so I rang up Muldoon’s office and explained. I heard nothing, so I thought “Blow that, I will ring again.” In due course he made the appointment, and he sat me down. We did not go anywhere, but it was a good story.

He was always one for one-liners, Muldoon. He always had them ready. I remember there was a vote on liquor here. I am not sure what the actual vote was about; it might have been about wine in supermarkets. Anyway, only 12 of us went into the Ayes lobby and about 80-odd members went into the Noes lobby. We were standing there, and one of the 12 was Muldoon, so Ruth Richardson and I were really ribbing him, asking: “What are you doing here?”. He looked at us and finally said “Oh, I was going to vote on that side, but I saw Geoffrey Palmer go into the lobby.”

It was not until Lange came along that Labour had a match for Muldoon in a political sense. In some ways Lange was particularly quick, maybe even quicker than Muldoon. One famous night I remember that Lange was at full throttle. Muldoon was sitting there—he had had a couple of gins, I might add—and he was chipping Lange. Lange was ignoring Muldoon, and Muldoon finally leant over and said “You’ve got a big, fat gut.” Lange, quick as a flash, said “Yes, but mine’s much higher off the ground than yours.”

You know, he could be incredible in many ways, Lange. I had to deal with the New Zealand Steel expansion, which was part of the previous Government’s Think Big. It was actually a financial disaster. John Ingram, who was managing director of New Zealand Steel, came to see David Lange and me. When John came into the room, David said “Hello, John. If I didn’t know you better, I would be thinking your financial adviser was Bernie Cornfield.” For the benefit of those who do not know who Bernie Cornfield is, he was a noted London fraudster in the early 1970s. It was very hard for John Ingram to make any progress after that. I have flown down from Auckland with David, and he has had the crossword done before the plane took off.

Much has been written, and even books have been written, about the differences between Lange and me. I will not go into that tonight, other than to say that probably the biggest difference was our approach to things. David sometimes got threatened if policy suggestions got outside his comfort zone, whereas I just liked the debate anyway. I liked to win, but if I lost—well, there you are. It reminds me that luck plays quite a big part in politics. I remember people like Jim McLay, who may well have been a great Prime Minister, but he was up against Lange, and he was just never going to win. That is just one of those stories.

I will not go into one or two other things, such as how I nearly left Parliament in 1981. I can probably thank, in part, David Lange and my committee. I told the Labour Party caucus in 1981 that I was going to leave, and I was persuaded to do otherwise. What that shows you is that events can, in fact, change your life. I always remember that I was pretty uncomfortable with the way we were promising every group everything. I think I had been sacked from the front row here, and I was in No. 14 position and Palmer was sitting up behind me. Now, Geoffrey is a very efficient operator, and he was sitting there. I was reading the Evening Post and there were promises on education and something else, and I turned round to Geoffrey and I said “Geoffrey, do you know what’s wrong with the Labour Party?”. “No”, said Geoffrey, very seriously. I said “You are. If you weren’t so dammed efficient, Geoffrey, we wouldn’t have all this policy.”

I need to wind up and thank a number of people. I have been well served in my parliamentary career. I had the luck to have both Richard Prebble and David Caygill as Associate Ministers, and if I did accomplish anything, I certainly accomplished it with their help. They were different characters. I can remember, and it is maybe just one small case, the first time I met Roger Kerr at any length. He was coming to tell us why we should reduce tariffs, which I wanted to do anyway. David Caygill was a bit more cautious, because he had to deal with the manufacturers in any case. The meeting went on, and, of course, Preb’s attitude was, why do we have tariffs at all? But Preb had the habit that he would like to turn the train round that was going at 200 miles in one direction and point it in the other direction. The only problem was that sometimes you wondered whether he was doing it just for the sheer hell of it, whereas with David Caygill you would be in Cabinet and would have a paper from him that was 800 pages long on a health regulation, and he would tell you there was a word spelt wrongly on page 262. But they were great.

There was Trevor de Cleene, of course, and I have to tell one story about Trevor, although I should not.

Hon Rick Barker: Please!

Hon Sir ROGER DOUGLAS: I have to; I am sorry if I go over my time. Trevor was a character, and you never knew whether—well, he was on your side. But Trevor was one of those guys. You went to a meeting with 100 people there and if two did not leave, he was pretty upset. In any case, a new company listed on the stock exchange and I did the opening, but Trevor was the after-match speaker. I heard him this night, and he told the story about how we had lowered taxes. He said “We’ve lowered taxes from 66c to 33c, and I’ve got to tell you, Roger and I were on the 6th floor and the money’s pouring in. The money’s pouring in; we’re drowning in it.” Then he whispered to them “The only problem is, we send it down to the 5th floor and Ann Hercus flushes some of it down the toilet.” I can tell you, Ann was not very keen on that, and I got roasted.

I want to thank some of my staff during the 1984-87 period. I had some great staff. Geoff Swier—I always remember taking Geoff to Palmerston North to a farmers’ meeting. I never understood why farmers were angry with me, but anyway they seemed to be. After the meeting I walked out and looked around for Geoff. You could see him anywhere: at 6 feet 6 inches, for heaven’s sake, you could see him anywhere. I got out to the car and I said “Geoff, where did you get to?”. “Ah”, he said, “I didn’t mind them thinking I was your bodyguard, but sure as hell I didn’t want them to know I was your economic adviser.” Murdo Beattie came to me from Treasury. I had dinner with Murdo 2 nights ago, and he reminded me of when we met up with Keating in Paris. I explained to Keating that we were having a bit of trouble with the affluent oldies: I had put a surcharge on them, and they did not like it very much. Keating commented to me “Well, look, if you get into that situation, you might as well hit them for six.”

People like Geoff Swier, Murdo Beattie, Bevan Burgess, Loraine Hawkins, Ian Dickson, Pattrick Smellie—I had a great team, and I am very grateful to all of them. They were not afraid to come and tell me off if they wanted to. I always remember going on strike with journalists for 2 days, and Pattrick, who used to look after my day-to-day stuff—Bevan used to do the long-term stuff—came to see me, stood in front of me, and said “Minister, get over it!”. So I said “Out!”. About 30 seconds later I said “Pattrick, you know I think we ought to be doing A, B, C, and D.”

Pauline Elmes, who has served me in my electorate and in a private capacity, is here today. She spent 30 years with me. Margaret Cosgrove, whom many of you will remember, was my secretary here for 15 to 20 years. I owe them a debt of gratitude.

It would be remiss of me if I did not mention Graham Scott, who was head of Treasury when I was the Minister of Finance. Graham worked day and night and is an enormously dedicated civil servant. People used to say to me “You don’t seem to get worried.” I said “Why would I worry when I’ve got Graham Scott?”. The only time I got Graham worried was when I suggested that the goods and services tax should be called the “Graham Scott Tax”. He was not very keen on that, for some reason.

Finally, if I could, I want to thank my family. Glen is here tonight. Glen took most of the load in raising our children. I think Glen would have preferred that I never went into politics, but, on the other hand, when I needed her assistance or guidance, she was always there for me. To my children Grant and Megan, I am grateful for them and what they have done to help. One always worries—I think most of us worry—about how our children will make out, because politics is not easy, and it is sometimes not easy on the children. Grant went to Auckland Grammar School, and it is probably 90 percent National there. I think the fact that he was in the first XV for a couple of years and the cricket first XI for 4 years helped, whereas Megan just gets on the front foot and nothing will worry her anyway.

So with that, I am sorry if I went overboard. I have enjoyed my time. I have enjoyed my time here with members on all sides of the House. That is another thing I did not mention: I think in the early period, 1969 to 1970-odd, members mixed a lot more than they probably do today, and I think that is probably a good thing. But thank you to all of you.

Mr SPEAKER: Colleagues, with time moving on I request your indulgence. We move now to the valedictory statement of the Hon George Hawkins.

Hon GEORGE HAWKINS (Labour—Manurewa): I pay my respects to the family, friends, and comrades in the SAS of Lance Corporal Leon Smith on their sad loss.

Today is a remarkable day for me. Today I have listened to the valedictory speech of one of my constituents, Ashraf Choudhary. I have also listened to the person who held the seat of Manurewa immediately before me, some 21 years ago, the Hon Sir Roger Douglas. That we both give our valedictories on the same day is quite remarkable. But that is not all; there is more. My wife, Jan, is having her 65th birthday today. Happy birthday, Jan! But that is not all. My dear old mum had her 65th birthday on the day I was selected for the seat of Manurewa, on 12 February 1990. That makes her one of my oldest supporters.

I am also pleased that my two brothers, Donald and David, and their wives are present. David was involved in politics, having been on the Auckland Regional Council, and he followed me as the Mayor of Papakura. Maybe Donald had the most sense—he kept out of it. As a youngster I was politically active. When I was 7 or 8, I put fresh dog droppings in the letterbox of our local National MP—perhaps great training for this place.

Leaving Parliament, I look forward to my retirement. However, before I get into that, I should go back and say that I came from a very political family. My father, another George, was an expert in politics. He told us that every politician is a mug. That is perhaps the reason that my two brothers, David and Donald, and I all vote for three different parties. I have had 12 electoral victories, the first as a councillor on the Papakura City Council. Then I had three terms as mayor. I have been elected to this Parliament seven times, and—I am fairly stupid—I put my name forward and got elected to the Manurewa Local Board. There is no stopping some of us.

I am a baby boomer. I was born exactly 9 months after the end of World War II—my parents knew how to celebrate victory. When I went to Mt Albert Grammar School there was military training. We had an armoury full of World War I .303 rifles and a shooting range. Little wonder that I protested against the Viet Nam War and was involved in the antinuclear protests.

After leaving school I worked for the Auckland Star as a photographer, and I acknowledge Fred Freeman and Harold Paton for the help and guidance they gave me. I also went to teachers college. They were great days, and that is where I met Jan. There were no electronic meeting places, and no Facebook or twittering, although there was plenty of that good old-fashioned romance. Jan and I taught at various schools in Auckland and Hawke’s Bay.

The first time I stood for Papakura City Council was way back in 1974. I stood with Geoff Braybrooke. Geoff is not very well at the moment; many people here will know Geoff. He wanted to be here. I hope you get to feel a bit better, mate. We both failed. In fact, we got a real thrashing. I tried again in 1977, with another equally dismal result. I also tried a third time in a by-election. Once again I lost. By the time of the 1980 council election, I managed to scrape in as the lowest-polling successful candidate. It was a great learning experience.

In the 1983 election I became Mayor of Papakura with all of my team elected to council. My wife, Jan, was a marvellous mayoress and very popular. My deputy mayor, Nancy Hawks, was very loyal and served on the council for many years. She was award the QSM and I think she thoroughly deserved it. Graham Tagg, the town clerk, was a clever and wise adviser.

Tragedy hit my family in 1989 when our youngest son, Cameron, died. Our lives were ripped to pieces. It was difficult to carry on our public roles. However, with the strong support of friends and the people of South Auckland, we managed. Our oldest son, George, was also a great help to us. Young George is married to Olga, and has a wonderful and caring family. Jan and I are very proud of him.

I had a stroke in 1991 followed by deep-vein thrombosis. More recently I survived bowel cancer, and I must say how glad I am that doctors and surgeons did not take too much interest in politics.

When I first came to Parliament in 1990 I was elected under the first-past-the-post scheme. It appeared to me to be an admirable scheme. Then in 1996 along came MMP. It took ages for a Government to be formed. There was a bit of the tail wagging the dog. But there is a feature about MMP I strongly dislike. It is simply this: a candidate can stand for election in a constituency, lose the vote—could even finish third or fourth—and still be elected to Parliament on the party list. The each way bet in an election should go.

It is at the moment unfair to voters. They have rejected some candidates only to see their vote diluted and that the party has more say. The individual party bosses have more say than the individual voter. They place someone high on the list because he or she has the ability to get large donations or can help the numbers of a particular faction. In some cases, these defeated candidates enter Parliament on the list and then open an office at the taxpayers’ expense in the electorate in which they were defeated. It is no wonder some politicians are not held in high regard.

People should think very carefully about this at this year’s referendum. Candidates should be allowed to stand for a constituency or as a list candidate but not both. I acknowledge that there are people in this House who are beneficiaries of the present MMP system, and they will strongly disagree, but I believe that the views of the public should be paramount.

Another area I feel Parliament—perhaps I should say successive Governments—has failed to properly address is the way new babies and their mothers are treated. I know of cases where mother and baby are booted out of the hospital within 2 hours of the birth and sent to make their own way to a birthing centre for 1 or 2 days. Most are sent home before the mother’s milk has come in. I think we are all really failing the mothers and the next generation. Hopefully, future Governments will address the way hospital services treat mothers and their babies.

I want to say that the Parliament that I entered in 1990 was very different from the Parliament I leave. There were only 29 Labour MPs and we had to work together, even talk to each other, although not everyone listened to each other. Mike Moore was our leader. He was very tough; he was a slave-driver. He gave people an outstanding role model. He is a very caring and compassionate New Zealander. I was very pleased when he became head of the World Trade Organization, and I was also delighted that the National Government appointed Mike as the New Zealand Ambassador to the United States. He is a real and genuine friend.

Back in the time I was first in Parliament there were people like David Lange, Rob Muldoon, and Richard Prebble. I must say how delighted I was to hear stories about them, and members will be delighted that I will not give them more publicity. Debates in Parliament then were often very heated. The reading of speeches was not allowed, and speeches were a great deal longer than they are now. The Grand Hall was quite different then. It held six snooker tables and comfortable leather armchairs. There was plenty of blue smoke and a number of equally blue jokes. It was, in fact, a gentlemen’s club. How things have changed. We have had women Prime Ministers, women Governors-General, and a woman Chief Justice. Gone are the days of the typewriter; Parliament is filled with computers, laptops, cellphones, iPhones, and iPads. Some MPs read their speeches off them directly.

Jonathan Hunt—and I am glad he is here today—was the chief Opposition whip when I entered Parliament, and there was no problem for an MP that he had not seen before, and none that a chat and a quick G and T or a little wine would not cure. He fully deserved the title of father of the House.

I was lucky to serve in two of Helen Clark’s Cabinets. I place on record my sincere thanks to her. She was a great Labour leader. I also take the time to mention my gratitude to Michael Cullen for his guidance. I enjoyed my time in Cabinet—well, most of it. I had a number of interesting portfolios: internal affairs, ethnic affairs, veterans affairs, police, and civil defence. I really enjoyed being New Zealand’s first Minister for Ethnic Affairs and the work that I did in that area, especially the Government’s apology to the Chinese for the way it had treated them many years ago. I got a huge amount pleasure out of that work.

Having taken the 2002 Civil Defence Emergency Management Act through the House, it gives me a degree of personal satisfaction to see it in action in Christchurch. Those dark days in Canterbury will never be forgotten, and I hope it never becomes a political slanging match. The introduction of the police highway patrol and the drop in road deaths have been important. Working with the voluntary sector, especially the volunteer firefighters, was a privilege and most enjoyable. I also loved working in my electorate, especially the schools.

I now come to the stage when I want to thank people who have helped me on my political journey. To my wife and my wider family, thank you. Thanks to Vicki, Bill, Murray, Daniel, and Ian for running New Zealand’s busiest electorate office. To Terry, who has just come back from having a hip replacement, it is good to see you here today, and to the late Beryl Booth, I extend my gratitude for the work they did for me and the people of Manurewa and for running my parliamentary office. Teresa McMahon and Melissa Turner were towers of strength as senior private secretaries in my ministerial office. Selwyn Manning had the unenviable task of looking after my media. The office had real smart people like Daniel Newman, who has gone on to represent some of New Zealand’s largest commercial property owners and is speaking a great deal of common sense in Auckland government. I hope he arrives at this place some time soon. Mark Oldershaw went on from my office to become general manager of the National Party.

A person I really admire is Gerry Cunneen; many people will know him. He worked as my police adviser. He is a wonderful, wonderful person. Thanks, Gerry. I was also very lucky to work with Jacki Couchman. She always gave me good advice and is a person of the highest integrity. Jacki is one of the country’s outstanding career civil servants. I thank Bruce Kohn, who helped me and many people in this building—Ministers and members—for over 40 years.

I also thank the people of Manurewa for giving me such an honour of being their elected member of Parliament for the last 21 years. In particular, I thank those people who worked for me locally—especially Faye, Trevor, Tom, June, Raj, and the Thandi family—and all the other people who gave up their time so freely. I should also make mention of the late Fred Anderson, who was a very loyal friend.

My thanks to everyone who has helped me over the years: the staff of Parliament, especially the messengers, security, the staff of the library, various Speakers and their staff, and the staff of the Clerk’s Office and Bellamy’s. I also made a promise to my opponent from the North Shore who stood against me, Cam Calder. I promised I would give him a plug in my valedictory speech, and here it is! You can come and get it after.

I wish all those making valedictories all the best for their lives outside Parliament. To those who wake up on 27 November and wish they had made a valedictory speech, I say good luck anyway.

I want to say farewell to a person who is leaving this place without a valedictory: Rodney Hide. Rodney, you were very courageous in reorganising Auckland, and it actually worked from day one—a legacy that Don Brash cannot take away from you. I was going to say something about grass, Don, but I see you sitting over there. This is a smoke-free area, so I will not go into that.

I also wish Phil Goff, Annette King, and the Labour team they lead all the best for the general election and the years ahead. I wish Clayton Cosgrove, Shane Jones, and my South Auckland colleagues Ross Robertson, Ashraf Choudhary, and William Sio well. Louisa Wall: look after the people of Manurewa, Louisa, and they will look after you. Good luck and thank you. Goodbye.

The House adjourned at 6.22 p.m.