Wednesday, 24 October 2012

Wednesday, 24 October 2012

Wednesday, 24 October 2012

Mr Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

Committees

Business of Select Committees

Meetings

Hon ANNE TOLLEY (Deputy Leader of the House): I seek leave for the Māori Affairs Committee to meet outside of New Zealand with its counterparts in Australia from 29 October to 2 November 2012, as part of the annual joint committee exchange with Australia.

Mr SPEAKER: Is there any objection to that course of action being followed? There is none.

Bills

Alcohol Reform Bill

Procedure

Hon ANNE TOLLEY (Deputy Leader of the House): I seek leave for one member from each party to have up to six calls in the debate on Part 3 of the Alcohol Reform Bill.

Mr SPEAKER: Is there any objection to that course of action being followed? There is none.

Questions for Oral Answer

Questions to Ministers

Economic Programme—Paid Parental Leave and Support for New Zealand Families

1. DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East) to the Minister of Finance: What measures has the Government taken to support families through the global financial crisis?

Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance): Over the past 4 years the Government has introduced a balanced economic programme to help protect New Zealanders from the sharpest edge of recession. This has ensured we are getting the Government’s books back in order and building a more competitive economy at the same time as improving our support programmes for families. Despite running large deficits, we have retained Working for Families and maintained its value, maintained universal New Zealand superannuation, maintained most other welfare programmes, maintained interest-free student loans, and maintained the value of these with regular adjustments.

David Bennett: How much will the Government invest this year in programmes that support New Zealand families?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: In addition to the large-scale welfare programmes paying benefits, the Government will spend around $4.5 billion this financial year across a range of programmes that specifically support families. This is up from $3.7 billion in 2008—an increase of $800 million over the last 4 years. This includes $1.4 billion in early childhood education subsidies, $2.1 billion for the family tax credit, $570 million for the in-work tax credit, and a number of other miscellaneous expenditures adding up to $250 million to support children in other ways.

David Bennett: As part of its wider programme to support New Zealand families, how much does the Government invest each year in paid parental leave?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: Mr Speaker—[Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! Order! I want to hear the answer. It is a fair question.

Hon BILL ENGLISH: Despite one of the more significant recessions in a generation, the Government has maintained the current provision of 14 weeks’ paid parental leave, which in the year to June 2012 will cost $156 million. As I have pointed out, this is just one small part of the $4.5 billion of support targeted at New Zealand families. The annual cost is likely to rise to $176 million by 2015-16. These figures are based on existing entitlements, before tax, with an estimated 3 percent increase in the average ordinary-time weekly wage each year.

David Bennett: What reports has he seen of alternative approaches to paid parental leave, and what impact would they have on the Government’s finances?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: As I have pointed out, the top priority for the Government has been to increase the value of the Working for Families payments, because that affects over 400,000 families. On 1 April this year Working for Families was increased by—

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I thought it was fair to give the Minister of Finance time, but he was asked what reports he had received. He is well into his answer and he has got nowhere near answering the question that he was directly asked.

Mr SPEAKER: The member has actually raised quite an interesting point, I must concede, because if I heard the question correctly it asked what reports the Minister had received on paid parental leave. The Minister has proceeded to talk so far about Working for Families, which is a totally different issue. Just in case the Minister did not hear the question, I invite David Bennett to repeat his question.

David Bennett: What reports has he seen of alternative approaches to paid parental leave, and what impact would they have on the Government’s finances?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: Well, that is a much better question! The Government’s alternative to increasing paid parental leave, as proposed by the Opposition, has been to make a higher priority of increasing the value of Working for Families payments. These affect around 400,000 families, and on 1 April this year they were increased by 5 percent. I have seen propositions to double paid parental leave from 14 to 26 weeks. When fully implemented, this would cost another $150 million per year, and it is not our highest priority.

Hon David Parker: Does the Minister accept that his tax cuts went disproportionately to the highest income earners, and that for middle and low income earners—over half of all New Zealanders—earnings have not kept pace with the cost of living?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: No, I do not accept that, and I am surprised, if the member is worrying about it, that he is advocating policies like printing money, which around the world advantage the highest earners. So I do not know why he is advocating that policy.

State-owned Assets, Sales—Progress and Programmes in Other Countries

2. DAVID SHEARER (Leader of the Opposition) to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by his statement on asset sales “It’s a minor delay, but in the overall scheme of things, sometimes the longest way home is the fastest way home”; if so, is he still confident that his asset sales schedule is on track?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister): Yes. The Government’s share offer programme is completely on track. Between March and June next year we intend to offer shares in Mighty River Power while still holding at least 51 percent of the company. We always expected legal action from the Māori Council and, in fact, it is better that this is happening sooner rather than later.

David Shearer: Has he read any reports to his Government about the progress of asset sales and privatisation plans of other Governments?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: No, from memory.

David Shearer: Mr Speaker—[Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I want to hear the question of the Leader of the Opposition.

David Shearer: Has he seen advice that shows that in Portugal, Ireland, Greece, and Spain, where asset sales are required as part of bailout packages, sale processes have largely stalled because anticipated revenue was not raised?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I cannot talk too much about the economics in Greece, other than to say that I am pretty convinced that Labour, the Greens, and New Zealand First would probably turn us into Greece. But what I can say is just because there has been a global financial crisis, which the Opposition seems to remember now but never remembers when it is asking every other question about what has been happening in the last 4 years, actually the Dow Jones—

David Shearer: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. That was a pretty straight question, I have to say.

Mr SPEAKER: The member’s point is reasonable. The Prime Minister was asked whether he was aware of certain asset sales programmes in a range of countries. Just to refresh the Prime Minister’s memory, I invite the Leader of the Opposition to repeat his question, if he could.

David Shearer: Has he seen advice that shows that in Portugal, Ireland, Greece, and Spain, where asset sales are required as part of bailout packages, sale processes have largely stalled because anticipated revenue was not raised?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Well, the answer now is maybe, because Clayton Cosgrove is holding something up. I think it was his application to become leader.

David Shearer: Is the Prime Minister aware that Kurdistan recently postponed selling its State-owned mobile network, Russia recently cancelled three State privatisations, Hungary is preparing to renationalise a gas company, and Croatia has cancelled selling off its State bank?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: No, but now it is all starting to become clear where Labour is getting its economic policies from!

Michael Woodhouse: Why is it important that the share offer programme goes ahead?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: It is important, firstly, because the Government can use the proceeds of the share offer to invest in new public infrastructure without having to borrow so much to do so. This is exactly the same situation as in 2005 when the previous Government took $600 million from the sale of publicly owned asset Southern Hydro and used it to invest in roads. The share offer also gives New Zealand savers the opportunity to invest either directly or indirectly in big New Zealand companies, and being publicly listed will be good for the companies themselves.

David Shearer: Has the Prime Minister seen the Privatization Barometer report that noted in 2011 at least 215 initial public offerings totalling a record $44 billion were withdrawn worldwide—most either cancelled or delayed until some time in 2015?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: No, but what I have seen is a report—I cannot recall whether it is from the IMF or the World Bank—that basically looked at countries that over the last 20 or 30 years had involved themselves in partial privatisations, or the mixed-ownership model, and what it showed was that there were literally tens of thousands of them, and by the way, if the argument of bringing a company to the market is such a bad idea in New Zealand, why did it work so well for TradeMe?

David Shearer: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. That was also a specific question about 2011, not some ancient history—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I think the Prime Minister did actually answer the question. He went on to add a little more information, which was reasonable for a while, but then it got unreasonable at the end.

David Shearer: Is he comfortable being in the company of Spain, Greece, and Portugal, the only countries still contemplating sell-offs, or does he think that now is the right time to sell off New Zealand’s assets?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I do not believe that the member is correct. I do believe bringing these companies to the market through the mixed-ownership model is a good, sound economic approach, and actually I think it will deliver a better result for New Zealand without having to borrow more money. I know the member’s policies are to print money and borrow money but—

Mr SPEAKER: Order!

David Shearer: Is it his aim in selling off assets to maximise return to the New Zealand taxpayer or, given that the value of shares is likely to slump as a result of the sales, to give enormous bargains to those buyers rich enough to buy shares?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: The member will be aware, because of the Securities Act, that I cannot offer a comment on whether the share sales are likely to be successful or not. What I can say is that if one goes and looks at TradeMe as an example, one will see it was brought to the market under what can really only be described as the mixed-ownership model, and that has proven to be very successful. I think if one also looks at the number of KiwiSaver accounts, the New Zealand Superannuation Fund, the other pension funds in New Zealand, and mums and dads looking for investments, one will find those to be attractive investments. We know that Labour was happy for them to pour their money—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! The Prime Minister has no responsibility for Labour.

Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I ask the Prime Minister to table the advice that indicates—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member knows he cannot do that.

Michael Woodhouse: What reports has he seen on any alternative approaches to paying for new public infrastructure?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I am aware of a couple of approaches. One is simply to go out there and print money in the misguided belief it will make a country wealthy. Today I have with me actually a $500 million Zimbabwean note. Members might be interested to know that when this was issued in May 2008, you needed 100 of these to buy—

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The Prime Minister did that same trick the other day. It was not relevant to the answer then and it is not now.

Mr SPEAKER: On this occasion the Prime Minister was asked what reports he had seen of alternative approaches to paying for State assets, and the Prime Minister answered that the printing of money was one such proposal, and was giving an example of the possible outcomes of that. I do not see that as being—so long as he does not go on too long—out of order in respect of the question asked.

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: As I say, one option is to print money, and you would have needed 100 of these when it was printed, 100 $500 million notes, to buy an egg—poached, boiled, fried, scrambled, or any other way. The other option—

Kevin Hague: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. How long is too long?

Mr SPEAKER: I think in fairness the Prime Minister had just finished. The Prime Minister was asked what reports he had seen. He may continue as long as he is not going to go on too much longer—

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: The second approach I have seen is to go out and borrow $5 billion to $7 billion, at a time when countries around the world are trying to reduce their debt. We know that that policy belongs to the big-spending, big-promising—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! That is sufficient.

Te Ururoa Flavell: Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Kia ora tātou. Has the Prime Minister had any positive responses at all from iwi Māori to indicate satisfaction with the consultation process over asset sales, and can he provide examples of that to this House?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I have not directly asked that question, but what I have seen are reports that state, as part of the consultation that was undertaken, the belief of some iwi that if “shares plus” had been adopted, it actually would have been a negative step for Māori.

Business Growth Agenda—Building Skilled and Safe Workplaces Progress Report and Alternative Approaches

3. KANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI (National) to the Minister for Economic Development: What is the Government doing to encourage businesses to invest, and grow jobs?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister for Economic Development): The Government is doing many things to help improve the environment for businesses to invest and grow. I recently released the Business Growth Agenda report Building Skilled and Safe Workplaces. This report highlights the Government’s actions to materially lift labour productivity, drive sustained growth, and deliver higher wages and living standards to New Zealanders. It brings together 62 specific actions in a comprehensive programme to encourage skills development across all age groups and lift our productivity. Initiatives include a starting-out wage to help young people into the workforce, a new skills and employment hub for better job-matching in Christchurch, and an annual Occupational Outlook report for parents and students, to give them industry guidance on careers in demand.

Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi: What reports has he seen of alternative programmes?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: I have seen various alternative proposals regarding encouraging investors to grow businesses and add jobs in New Zealand. One, purported to be pro-growth tax reform, is a capital gains tax, which would slap a tax on every single New Zealand business and farm. Another, in relation to the proposed takeover of Fisher and Paykel, suggested Government Ministers should be able to veto the sales of shares in publicly listed companies. Both of these suggestions, if there were any chance of them happening, would no doubt greatly reduce the likelihood of investors wanting to invest in New Zealand and grow jobs. Far from a recipe for encouraging investment, these policies promoted by Mr Shearer and his understudy, Mr Cunliffe, would deter investment.

Hon David Parker: I seek leave to table reports from the OECD, the IMF, Treasury, and the Reserve Bank favouring a pro-growth capital gains tax.

Mr SPEAKER: Before I seek the leave of the House, would the member please identify the reports?

Hon David Parker: Yes. They are the latest periodic report of the OECD into the New Zealand economy, the same from the IMF, and the briefing to the incoming Minister from Treasury. The Reserve Bank document I cannot put a date to, so I will not pursue it.

Mr SPEAKER: We seem to be a bit sort of excited about this. The last two documents, I think, are available to all members—briefings from Treasury and the Reserve Bank. However, the first two documents were the latest periodic publications of both the IMF and the OECD. Leave is sought to table those two documents. Is there any objection? There is objection.

Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi: Has the Minister seen any other reports of alternative programmes?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: In fact, I have. Another such alternative calls for cranking up the printing presses and printing money, in a vainglorious attempt to stop the world economy so that we can all get off. Of course, it would have the immediate effect of whacking up the cost of living for every single New Zealander, and would discourage investment in New Zealand. I have also seen calls for a blanket ban on deep-sea oil drilling, shutting down the fishing industry, and closing the West Coast to further mining development, all of which would undermine local jobs and growth. These particular proposals come from the Greens, and depending on which day it is, the Labour Party as well.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I think the Minister has had enough time. He has no responsibility for those parties’ policies.

Hon David Cunliffe: I seek leave for the Minister to be able to table a copy of his most recent glossy brochure—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! Under what Standing Order is the member doing that? I am unaware of any such Standing Order. If the member can point it out I am very happy to assist. It is just that I am not aware of it.

Hon David Cunliffe: The Minister referred in his previous supplementary answer to the release of his latest Business Growth Agenda paper on skills. Mr Speaker—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! Order! If the Minister was quoting—[Interruption] Order! I am on my feet. If the Minister was quoting from a document, indeed the member can under a point of order ask for it to be tabled, but the Minister was not. There is no provision for what the member is trying to do.

Social Development, Ministry—Security of Private Information

4. JACINDA ARDERN (Labour) to the Minister for Social Development: Does she have confidence in Work and Income’s approach to privacy and the security of information?

Hon PAULA BENNETT (Minister for Social Development): Given what we all know and in reference to the kiosks, I have very serious concerns. The incident that has come to light today is someone has made a mistake. They are always disappointing, as mistakes are, but one cannot always mitigate against human error.

Jacinda Ardern: Will her independent investigation into Work and Income’s privacy breach be broadened to include the at least 10 other incidents reported in the media this year alone, including a ruling from the Human Rights Review Tribunal that found sustained and systemic Privacy Act breaches?

Hon PAULA BENNETT: As I have said, the investigation that is going on is twofold. One is into the current situation with the kiosks. It is then expected that that will be broadened out into looking at other IT areas. What I would say to the member, though, is that mistakes have happened for years. They happened under Labour. They happened under this Government. I mean, we certainly have seen mistakes with other things being leaked—things happen. I do not expect it; it is not the kind of quality we expect, but actually human error and mistakes can be made.

Jacinda Ardern: Does the case I received this afternoon of a Work and Income client who was given a list of jobs to take home, only to find that the papers included a document with the personal details of another Work and Income client, constitute human error or a systemic failure?

Hon PAULA BENNETT: I have had that incident brought to my attention, but only just recently, so I would need to look into the details of it. But you can go back and look at other incidents. For example in 2004, when Ruth Dyson was Minister, her office released—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! The question asked whether this was just a mistake or a systemic error. If the Minister wants to go back, the Minister should, in her answer, then make it clear she is not just attacking the other party but pointing out that in fact she believes this might be systemic. If the Minister wants to do that, I will hear the Minister.

Hon PAULA BENNETT: No, I am not going back and saying this is systemic. What I am saying is that human errors occur. I would take it that when Ruth Dyson released the private information of 1,354 Department of Child, Youth and Family Services children, via a written question, that was a mistake and a human error, and not actually something that was systemic.

Jacinda Ardern: Does the fact that a Work and Income staffer raised concerns about the security of the Work and Income kiosks a year ago but had these concerns dismissed by a local manager constitute human error or a systemic failure?

Hon PAULA BENNETT: I think there is absolutely no doubt that we have very serious problems with the kiosks, how they were networked in, and the access that people had to that information. The fact that it was brought to the ministry’s attention and was not acted on is simply not good enough. That is why there is an investigation that is going on. I expect it to be answered; I expect it to be fixed.

Jacinda Ardern: Does she consider that the Integrity Week that was held by the Ministry of Social Development in March, according to its annual report, to put “a spotlight on information security” was a success, given Work and Income’s recent privacy breaches; if so, will she be running another one next year, with the use of more of what the ministry calls “scenario cards”?

Hon PAULA BENNETT: What I would say is that this actually proves that the Ministry of Social Development takes security seriously. It has made mistakes, and it is the first one to stand up and be counted for that. But there are also things like human error. I find it ironic that the member wants to hang a case manager or a worker out to dry, when that is actually not the case. It is simply a human error.

Question No. 3 to Minister

Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister for Economic Development): I seek leave to table a personally autographed copy of the Building Skilled and Safe Workplaces report, for the benefit of Mr Cunliffe.

Mr SPEAKER: The author of this report?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: It is personally autographed by yours truly, Mr Speaker, for Mr Cunliffe’s benefit.

Mr SPEAKER: Before I seek leave from the House I need to know the source of this document.

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: This is the Building Skilled and Safe Workplaces report, with its personal autograph from the Minister for Economic Development.

Mr SPEAKER: Who produced the document?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: I have just produced it now, in my own hands.

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

Hon Annette King: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.

Mr SPEAKER: We will deal with this first.

Hon Annette King: There is one more question—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member can object, if she wishes.

Hon Annette King: No, I just want to—this is a point of order.

Mr SPEAKER: Well, I will hear the Hon Annette King.

Hon Annette King: There is one more question you usually ask, and that is whether it is publicly available, and if it is, you then usually do not allow the document to be tabled.

Mr SPEAKER: The member is quite correct. On this occasion I was assuming members would probably object. Can the Minister indicate whether this is publicly available.

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Not this particular version. This is a one-off.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I am afraid that does not suffice. If it is publicly available, we will not be seeking leave to table it.

Oil and Gas Exploration—Deep-sea Oil-drilling and Environmental Risks

5. Dr RUSSEL NORMAN (Co-Leader—Green) to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by his statement, “We’re not environmental bandits. If we don’t believe drilling can take place in a way that is environmentally sustainable and wouldn’t put at undue risk the environment, we wouldn’t go with it.”; if so, why?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister): I stand by my full statement, which included that we want to balance our economic opportunities with our environmental responsibilities; because it is true.

Dr Russel Norman: How is deep-sea drilling not putting the environment at undue risk, when just this month Dayne Maxwell of Maritime New Zealand said about the Government’s oil response equipment: “Most of the response equipment that we have is designed for near-shore sheltered conditions, and really there isn’t available internationally any equipment specifically designed to operate in the rough kind of conditions offshore that we have in New Zealand.”?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Well, that is one person’s view. I think it is also worth remembering that if somebody gets a permit to go and undertake these activities in the exclusive economic zone, not only would this Government be filling a gap that was previously left open but also there would no doubt be conditions on that. Finally, as I said yesterday, there have been 50,000 wells drilled in the Gulf of Mexico. Is the member arguing that all of those wells were a high risk and should have been closed up?

Dr Russel Norman: How is deep-sea drilling not putting the environment at undue risk, when the head of the Petroleum Exploration and Production Association said in April 2011: “You know, there is no absolute guarantee that disasters won’t happen, and if you had a major catastrophe, it would be just as bad as you have in North America.”—aka Deepwater Horizon?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Firstly, I mean, the member asked me yesterday about the head of Anadarko. One of the things he did say to me in the meeting was that there were a lot of learnings that had come out of that situation, and that they can be applied so that those things do not happen again. Secondly, if the member is reflecting on a comment by an individual that basically says there are no guarantees in life, well, actually, that is true, but, on the same basis, the member will never get on a plane again, never get in a car again, never get on a train again, never do a lot of things he does, because the risk is that something very bad can happen.

Dr Russel Norman: How is deep-sea drilling not putting the environment at undue risk when a leak at 2.5 kilometres under water cannot be fixed by divers, and companies are forced to rely on robots and relief rigs, and this is diametrically different from operating in shallow water, like the case in Taranaki, where the deepest production well is only 125 metres deep?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: All of those issues in mitigation of any risk would have to be considered as part of an application to drill in the exclusive economic zone.

Dr Russel Norman: How is deep-sea drilling not putting the environment at undue risk, given that the Gulf of Mexico disaster was stopped only when a second rig drilled a relief well, and this Government will not require a relief rig to be on site during deep-sea drilling operations in New Zealand?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: The member is jumping to conclusions. He does not know what conditions will be set. But, in the end, I mean, this is really the fundamental problem, is it not, with the Green Party. What Green members are arguing is that everything contains some risk, so they do not want to do anything, except that they want to give lots and lots of money away, which is why they come up with the only solution that that person could come up with—print it!

Dr Russel Norman: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. That was not a question about the Prime Minister’s former job as a currency speculator. It was about deep-sea oil production. [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! Order! I think we will consider it a draw at that point.

Dr Russel Norman: Given that the Prime Minister is putting enormous weight on this new piece of flimsy legislation, the exclusive economic zone Act, how does he think that this particular piece of legislation will plug an oil leak at 2.5 kilometres under water? Does he plan to shove the legislation in the hole? Does he think that might work?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I think it is unlikely a couple of bits of paper will work. But let us cut to the chase here. We are a Government that is actually filling a gap that has been missing from our environmental protection. That member has been in the House for how long? And how many members’ bills has he put in about this issue? Oh, that is right—none. What he is focused on is printing money. That is his focus of attention.

Dr Russel Norman: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. My question was not about the Prime Minister’s currency speculation—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! On this occasion I invite the member to reflect on the question he asked. It kind of invited the sort of response he got.

Dr Russel Norman: Why has this Government taken a major anti-environmental turn since the 2011 election; is it because of the rising influence of Steven Joyce and others—environmental bandits within the National Party—who now dominate Cabinet and the Prime Minister?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Shock, horror! It is Steven Joyce’s fault. No. It is because this is a Government that wants, in an environmentally sensible and considered way, also to grow the economic opportunities for New Zealanders. That member wants to go down to the West Coast and say it is really bad that people are losing their jobs, potentially, at Spring Creek, while at exactly the same time he is stopping them getting a job down the road. I call that hypocrisy.

Mr SPEAKER: Question No. 6, the Hon Nanaia Mahuta. [Interruption] I beg the member’s pardon. Point of order, Dr Russel Norman.

Dr Russel Norman: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. On other occasions when members have accused others of hypocrisy you have ruled—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member’s question invited a pretty robust response from the Prime Minister. That kind of question is always going to elicit a robust response. As Speaker, I cannot allow a questioner to get away with all sorts of allegations in their question, and prevent the Minister answering it from making a few in return. Where the member keeps his questions objective, I will sit on the Ministers answering them, but with that sort of question there is no way I can stop the Prime Minister having a fair old go in return.

Dr Russel Norman: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Just to be clear, you are now saying that members can call other members hypocrites if there is enough provocation. Is that what you are saying?

Mr SPEAKER: There was so much noise I did not actually hear the final word the Prime Minister used. I did not hear that word. I will check with the Prime Minister whether he actually said the member was a hypocrite.

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: No.

Mr SPEAKER: The Prime Minister says he did not. [Interruption] Order! No, no. Order! I have not called the right honourable Prime Minister. I am not inviting him to say any more. I did not hear that word used. I have checked with the Prime Minister and he says he did not say the member was a hypocrite. Therefore, that is the end of the matter. I have to take the Prime—[Interruption] Order! I am on my feet. I must take the Prime Minister’s word for that.

Metiria Turei: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Could I ask you, then, Mr Speaker, to check the Hansard at a later stage today and to come back tomorrow or later this afternoon with a clear ruling as to whether or not members are now allowed to accuse another member of hypocrisy in this House if there is sufficient provocation according to you.

Mr SPEAKER: The matter is very simple. As I understand it the Prime Minister was saying that a position represented hypocrisy. That is not accusing a member of being a hypocrite. It is the same issue we have had in this House the last few days over whether members provide false information to the House—that kind of thing. This is a robust place. The member in asking his question accused certain Ministers in the Government of all sorts of things. I am not going to prevent Ministers from using pretty robust language in return. I am satisfied the Prime Minister did not accuse the member’s co-leader of being a hypocrite. And I will check the Hansard just to make sure that is correct. But the matter is—[Interruption] Order! The matter is very simple. I do not want to see this House ruling out more and more words. It is crazy that we should do that, but I do not want members to be accusing other members directly of being hypocrites. I do not want that to be happening. I do not believe that happened.

Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Could you explain to the House how someone could hold a position with hypocrisy—a policy that is hypocrisy—and not be a hypocrite?

Mr SPEAKER: I think there is a difference, just as in recent times we have had issues of members providing false information being distinct from being a liar. I think a position can appear to be a position of hypocrisy without accusing the member directly of being a hypocrite. I just think we have go to be—for goodness’ sake, we are grown up. We use robust language. I do not want to be ruling out endless words in this place. Enough have been ruled out long before my time, I think, to last us for many, many decades, and I am not intending to rule out any more.

Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I would like to refer you to previous Speakers’ rulings where using the word “hypocrisy” in relation to another member has been ruled out. It applies regardless of whether the term is used in reference to an individual or to a group of members. Mr Speaker, you might like to have a look right back as far as Guinness in 1905. I have heard it constantly—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I have heard sufficient. Look, that might be the case. I am not going back on my ruling, though. You know, I am not. For years we have heard members getting all upset over words of very little serious damage to members, and yet the other language they use and the way members attack each other at times have been totally derogatory. This is a robust place. You know, sometimes we should toughen up a little bit. The member raising the point of order is not unknown for being fairly tough. I am not going to allow members to accuse each other of being hypocrites, but a position of hypocrisy is not something I am going to rule out. For goodness’ sake, if I was accused of that I would not lose too much sleep over it. People are entitled to all sorts of views. This place is a place where robust debate happens. But I will not have members accuse each other directly of being hypocrites, or liars.

Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.

Dr Russel Norman: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.

Mr SPEAKER: I have dealt with that matter, so I will go to Dr Russel Norman.

Dr Russel Norman: I support your ruling, actually. I think “Fair enough.” So what you are saying is that it is OK for us to say “The Government says it cares about the environment but actually destroys it. That’s hypocrisy.” That is a fair statement for us to make now?

Mr SPEAKER: The only thing is in asking a question it would be unwise—in asking a question—because it invites a very robust answer. The member has seen today that asking provocative questions sometimes delivers answers the members do not like. The incentive is always there. Members need only look at recent history. Where members ask the toughest questions for a Minister to answer—I know from years of experience in answering them—they are the simple, direct questions. They are by far the hardest questions to answer. If members want to hold the executive to account, ask simple, tough questions. Do not make fancy, provocative political statements instead of asking a question. We have seen it in recent weeks in this House, where Ministers have been held to account where simple, tough questions have been asked.

Hon Clayton Cosgrove: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. It may be appropriate, given your ruling, which I am not challenging, that you then advise your Deputy Speaker and Assistant Speakers, because they have ruled exactly the opposite way from you, as others have since 1905.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! We do not need to take this matter any further. For goodness’ sake, we are all grown-ups in this place. I do not want to see language that is common-use language ruled out in this House. I just ask members to use a little bit of common sense—a little bit of common sense. Accusing someone of being a hypocrite is not acceptable. If members in question time wish to put provocative language into questions, do not ask the Speaker to protect them from the answers given. If members want to hold the executive to account, ask simple, tough questions without any opinions in them, and the Speaker will make sure you get answers.

Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Just to confirm your position now: it is all right to suggest that you act with hypocrisy but not that you are a hypocrite?

Mr SPEAKER: There is a difference between accusing a member of acting with hypocrisy and a position appearing to be a hypocritical position. I just ask members to be reasonable. You know, it is not that difficult. There are actually important issues being debated in this House, and this is so pathetic that we get all worked up over whether or not a position might appear to be hypocritical. That is just childish stuff. I would like to think we are actually a bit more grown up than that.

Hon Clayton Cosgrove: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. With respect, I think all members, and, I suspect, on both sides—no one is getting worked up; they are simply asking for some clarity and consistency from you.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I thank the member for that. I think I have given reasonable clarity to people with reasonable intellect. Question No. 6, the Hon Nanaia Mahuta. [Interruption] Order!

Teachers and Support Staff—Problems with Novopay Payment System

6. Hon NANAIA MAHUTA (Labour—Hauraki-Waikato) to the Associate Minister of Education: How many teachers and support staff were incorrectly paid in the latest pay cycle and what is the total amount of outstanding pay still owed to teachers and support staff due to errors in the Novopay system?

Hon CRAIG FOSS (Associate Minister of Education): I am advised that the Ministry of Education is aware of fewer than 100 non-payments or underpayments for the last pay cycle. In the past 5 days it has also been informed of approximately 390 overpayments. In terms of outstanding pay, I am informed that 41 support staff or staff have received advances, and 23 have indicated they are willing to wait to be paid at the next pay cycle. In regards to the total amount outstanding, I am advised that it is not possible to extract this information from Novopay at this time, but I can assure the member that every non-payment or underpayment that has been brought to the ministry’s attention is being addressed.

Hon Nanaia Mahuta: What specific action has he taken to assure relief teachers that the reported problems with inaccurate deductions, payslip, timesheet, and leave error provisions will be fixed, given the ministry’s own website says the time frame for resolving these issues is “TBC”?

Hon CRAIG FOSS: I fully acknowledge the frustration that some of the issues on implementation—particularly at the service centre, and particularly those issues relating to Talent2 as opposed to Ministry of Education staff—have caused for some relief teachers and various non - full-time salaried staff. The commitments that they have are the communication from the Secretary for Education, and, in fact, the commitment that 350,000-odd pay transactions have been made accurately and correctly over the last four pay cycles, but I fully acknowledge there are some outstanding issues relating to the first two pay cycles.

Hon Nanaia Mahuta: What response does he have for a teacher returning from maternity leave at Pomaria Primary School, who received full pay for the first and second pay periods only to find that the third and fourth pay periods had been botched by Novopay, leaving her $2,000 short, unable to pay the mortgage, and reliant on the school having to write a cheque from the operations grant, rather than the Government’s pay system sorting the matter out in a timely way?

Hon CRAIG FOSS: I acknowledge the angst that that caused that particular staff member. But I also acknowledge that we were acutely aware and put in place machinery or a process so that individuals, if, in fact, for some reason their pay was not accurate or they missed completely, were able to be paid from the operations grant from the school so that the individuals themselves did not a suffer penalty. If that individual does suffer a penalty for the mortgage payment, for example, I suggest they get in touch with the payroll officer and the ministry, and the ministry will do what it can to investigate to make good.

Hon Nanaia Mahuta: Did the Ministry of Education’s contract with Talent2 to provide the Novopay system include penalties for poor performance; if so, does he intend to use such provisions in response to the incorrect payment of hundreds of teachers and support staff?

Hon CRAIG FOSS: When the Labour Government signed the contract with Talent2 in 2007 or 2008, I am sure it put clauses such as that in there, but, yes, in any such contract of course there are key performance indicators. I will repeat for the House that I am very frustrated at, and disappointed in, Talent2’s service centre performance, which has led to much angst and difficulty. Ministry of Education staff have had to bear the brunt of that, and they are doing a great job, but Talent2 does need to improve its service centre actions immediately.

Hon Nanaia Mahuta: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The question was direct and it was simple. It asked whether the Minister was going to put into action the provisions of the contract with regards to the Talent2 system, and whether he was going to enact penalties for poor performance. He did not attempt to answer that, at all. It was a very straight and simple question.

Mr SPEAKER: The Minister said that undoubtedly the provisions are in there. He did not indicate in his answer whether he would pursue those provisions.

Hon CRAIG FOSS: Excuse me. The Secretary for Education has had discussions with, and commitments from, the head executives and chair of Talent2 to discuss the enforcement of exactly those matters.

Question No. 5 to Minister

Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South): Mr Speaker, I am doing this in order to give the Government some notice. I am seeking leave of the House for members’ notice of motion No. 1 to be set down in lieu of the general debate for debate and vote, in light of your comments to the Hon Clayton Cosgrove.

Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought for that course of action. Is there any objection? There is objection.

Dotcom Case—Prime Minister’s Awareness of Issues

7. Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) to the Prime Minister: When did he first learn of a German resident living in the Chrisco mansion in the Prime Minister’s electorate?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister): It was some time in 2011, but I do not have a record of the specific date.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Bearing in mind that the Prime Minister told the media on 24 January of his being aware earlier of the German resident in the Chrisco mansion, how was the German national initially described to him?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Just that there was a German living in the Chrisco mansion.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Is it not—[Interruption] Do not worry, we will get there, sunshine—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I want—[Interruption] Order! I want to hear the question. The member has every right to ask his question.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Is it not extraordinary that the issue of a new German resident living in possibly the most expensive mansion in New Zealand, which he had himself seen, and within the Prime Minister’s electorate as well, would not have had him as Prime Minister and local MP asking questions as to who he was?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: No, and it is probably worthwhile noting for the member’s knowledge that in the 2006 census there were 10,700 people born in Germany living in New Zealand.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: All in the Chrisco mansion? All in the Chrisco mansion? Why does the Prime Minister expect New Zealanders to trust him on his statements to do with discussions with Hollywood, the Government Communications Security Bureau, and communications with the Hon Simon Power, the Hon Maurice Williamson, and the Attorney-General, and yet on this issue—on his knowledge of Kim Dotcom—he expects the public to believe that he remembers virtually nothing?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Because they are accurate.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Does this not mean that where serious issues of State and international relations are concerned he has demonstrated a serious lack of curiosity and interest, if any—[Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member has a right to ask his question.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: You will not be laughing about this shortly, sunshine! [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! Order! Members can see that if they interject unnecessarily during a member’s asking of a question, they are likely to get time-wasting, I guess.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Does this not mean that where serious issues of State and international relations are concerned, to quote from an MP in the investigation to do with the BBC last night on the case of the BBC, he has demonstrated a serious “lack of curiosity” and interest, if any of his protestations of a lack of knowledge of Kim Dotcom are to be ever believed?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I do not know why the member would make that statement, because, from memory, when I was told in 2011 that there was a German living in the Chrisco mansion, that was well and truly before there was a raid on Kim Dotcom. To the best of my knowledge, the first I heard of Kim Dotcom was on 19 January when the Solicitor-General told me his name. [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! Is this a further supplementary question? The member—I beg your pardon.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Do not worry, we are right on track. If and when it is proven that the Prime Minister’s knowledge of Kim Dotcom was far earlier than he has said, will he step down from his role as Prime Minister; if not, why not?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: No, and the reason is that—

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Why not?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Well, because the member makes up lots of things as he goes along. To the best of my knowledge, the first I heard of the guy’s name was on 19 January.

White Paper for Vulnerable Children—Children’s Teams and Professional Requirements

8. Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA (National—Maungakiekie) to the Minister for Social Development: What changes will the White Paper for Vulnerable Children make to better support professionals working with children?

Hon PAULA BENNETT (Minister for Social Development): Absolutely central to the White Paper for Vulnerable Children will be the local Children’s Teams. These teams will break down the current silos and get all the professionals working with vulnerable children round the same table. There are some teams that are working very efficiently now; we can build on that and make it stronger and a more consistent practice across the country.

Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga: How will the local Children’s Teams work in the community to support those children most at risk?

Hon PAULA BENNETT: The focus of the children’s directors and the local Children’s Teams will be on those vulnerable children. They will have real power, and be mandated to assess a child’s needs and coordinate and oversee a single integrated plan for a vulnerable child. This will enable Child, Youth and Family to focus on those most needy children who have been very seriously abused or neglected.

Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga: What new requirements will be introduced for those professionals working with children as part of the children’s workforce?

Hon PAULA BENNETT: We will be introducing minimum standards to ensure everyone working with children has consistent quality of practice. New standards and competencies tailored to different roles and sectors will be introduced for workers to identify, assess, and respond to vulnerable children. These common minimum standards, core competencies, and training requirements will be developed across the sector by the end of next year.

Schools, Canterbury—Access to Facilities After Proposed Closures and Mergers

9. CATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green) to the Minister of Education: Will any newly merged or reopened schools in Christchurch be expected to use some community facilities that are ordinarily provided on-site at a school?

Hon CRAIG FOSS (Associate Minister of Education) on behalf of the Minister of Education: This is currently the case. Schools across the country and, of course, in Christchurch already do use community facilities. In fact, the schools themselves are community facilities.

Catherine Delahunty: Can she confirm that some schools in Christchurch have been told by her ministry that they may not have a school library on site under the new school structure?

Hon CRAIG FOSS: No.

Catherine Delahunty: Does she consider it acceptable that if a school did not have a library on site, children may need to walk a long distance or take the bus to town in order to borrow a book?

Hon CRAIG FOSS: There is an opportunity in Christchurch for the communities of Christchurch to not only rebuild schools but build better schools and better facilities to be used by themselves and the community.

Catherine Delahunty: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. It is very interesting to hear the story, but my question was about whether it was acceptable that if a school did not have a library on site, the children may need to walk long distances, etc. He did not address anything to do with libraries or acceptability or distance, which is what my question was about.

Mr SPEAKER: The member’s question actually asked for the Minister’s opinion—whether he considers that acceptable. What the Minister indicated in his answer, when he gave his opinion, was that much was going to be invested in these new schools and facilities for Christchurch. He was implying, I think—but it is up to the Minister to clarify that—that that sort of thing would not be happening. But the Minister had better clarify his answer in relation to the question asked. I realise it is an opinion being sought, but if he could assist.

Hon CRAIG FOSS: I agree with your answer, Mr Speaker.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. That is my very point. Now we have got a Minister having the effrontery to rise and say he agrees with your answer, and that is what the very issue that has been moot in this place for a long time has been about. That cannot be a way to conduct parliamentary question time in this House.

Mr SPEAKER: The member makes a reasonable point and I accept that. I took the Minister’s response as meaning that that was what he intended with his answer. The dilemma is that the member asked him for an opinion, and there is no particular answer when an opinion is asked. That is my dilemma. I try to be helpful to members, but if members seek Ministers’ opinions, it is difficult when they ask the Speaker to intervene when they get an answer that is a little different from what they expected.

Catherine Delahunty: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Can you clarify. I understand what you said about opinions, but if there is no relationship between the answer and the topic, is that simply because I asked him whether he thought something was acceptable? He did not even relate it to the question in any way.

Mr SPEAKER: What it would actually, I would hope, mean to the member is that there is a different way of asking that question that turns the question into seeking facts from the Minister. By asking “Will children have to travel this far to get books from the library?”, then the member can get an answer. But asking an opinion—whether the member’s statement is acceptable—I cannot ask the Minister to be very precise in answering it, and that is the dilemma.

Catherine Delahunty: Will she guarantee that there will be a library and a librarian on site at each school?

Hon CRAIG FOSS: I am looking forward to the recommendations from the consultation from clusters. They may include libraries; they may not include libraries. They may include new learning environments. They may include internet learning, with ultra-fast broadband, across the world, which is, obviously, a fair distance to walk.

Catherine Delahunty: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. It was a very simple, specific question on—

Mr SPEAKER: It asked whether the Minister would guarantee, and clearly—[Interruption] Order! Clearly, from the answer the Minister gave, he is saying that he cannot—he is not guaranteeing that at the moment, because he is saying he will listen to the consultation. That is one way of saying that he is not guaranteeing that. That is not an unreasonable answer to the question.

Nikki Kaye: How much is the Government spending on improving community facilities in Greater Christchurch?

Hon CRAIG FOSS: Thank you; what an excellent question. The Government is spending $1 billion building brilliant schools in Greater Christchurch. A large proportion of these new facilities will become valuable community assets. We do not want to only rebuild schools; we want to build them better for better educational outcomes. That is why we are investing $1 billion over the next decade in Christchurch schools.

Gareth Hughes: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. That was a good example of a very clear question, which asked, if I can read off the transcript, how much the Government is spending. I heard lots of answers but no dollar figure. [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I—

Hon CRAIG FOSS: Mr Speaker.

Mr SPEAKER: Is the member wishing to speak to the point of order?

Hon CRAIG FOSS: I can clarify the question.

Mr SPEAKER: If the Minister is wanting to be helpful to the House.

Hon CRAIG FOSS: It is such a good and large number—$1 billion will be spent by this Government in Christchurch on schools over the next 10 years.

Catherine Delahunty: I seek leave to table a commentary written by the president of the School Library Association of New Zealand in a September 2012 newsletter that highlights the concern about falling writing skills and the importance of free access to books—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! 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.

Government Communications Security Bureau—Inquiry into Unlawful Interception of Communications

10. CHARLES CHAUVEL (Labour) to the Prime Minister: When will he be informed of the Inspector-General’s findings concerning the three cases where the Government Communications Security Bureau has been unable to assure him that its actions have been lawful, and how will he communicate those findings to the House?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister): I expect to be informed of the inspector-general’s findings when his review of the case is complete. Any decisions regarding the communication of those findings will be made then. However, I would note that my own public statement on 3 October said that the Government Communications Security Bureau would issue a further public statement when legal work has been concluded.

Charles Chauvel: Will he ensure that the New Zealanders who were the subject of the surveillance will be informed if it is found that the surveillance of them was unlawful; if not, why not?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I cannot guarantee that. I would have to take advice on whether that is a sensible course of action to follow.

Charles Chauvel: When he told the Leader of the Opposition last Tuesday that he had seen the paperwork on which the bureau relied to support its belief that it had “acted legally” in conducting surveillance on Mr Dotcom and his associates, and that this material had formed the basis of the bureau’s request to the Acting Prime Minister for a ministerial certificate, what was the nature of that paperwork?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Possibly the way I should have phrased that is “some of the paperwork”. I am sure there is more paperwork that the Government Communications Security Bureau has. But, amongst other things, I have seen email correspondence from the legal team at the bureau that supports the view that Mr Dotcom was not protected.

Charles Chauvel: Is he now satisfied that the correspondence to which he has just referred was incorrect in substance?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I think by nature we admitted that was the case, because that was the view formed by the Government Communications Security Bureau’s legal team after it did the review in the middle of February of this year. But, of course, later on, after the affidavit was signed, it was presented to the court by Paul Davison QC on behalf of Kim Dotcom on 7 September 2012. A further review was undertaken, and it was at that point, some time after that, that the bureau formed the view that it had, in fact, applied the wrong legal interpretation at that point.

Charles Chauvel: Is it normal practice for him not be informed promptly by the Government Communications Security Bureau or by his deputy that in his absence the bureau has sought, and his deputy has granted, a ministerial certificate to prevent a court from considering the bureau’s activities in a particular court case?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I could not possibly ask for information on something that I was not aware was taking place. I think I have said in this House a number of weeks ago that, in fact, the failing, I think, was on the Government Communications Security Bureau not to have informed me that it had asked the Minister to sign a ministerial certificate. I might add, though, that had I seen all of the information that the Acting Prime Minister saw, without doubt and without hesitation I would have signed the same documentation.

Child Health Services—Free After-hours Medical Care for Under-sixes for Accidental Injuries

11. Dr JIAN YANG (National) to the Minister for ACC: How will the Government improve accidental injury outcomes for under-six-year-olds?

Hon JUDITH COLLINS (Minister for ACC): I am very pleased to announce that free after-hours doctors’ visits for under-6-year-olds will be extended to visits covered by ACC. Parents should not be put off taking an injured child to the doctor because of the cost. Free after-hours visits for accident care will also enable families to seek the urgent medical care they need when they need it.

Dr Jian Yang: What are the benefits of free after-hours accident care?

Hon JUDITH COLLINS: ACC received claims for about 80,000 children aged under 6 in the last year alone. Today’s announcement will make a big difference for those families who may have waited until the next day before seeing their general practitioner. From December this year they will no longer have to. Free after-hours accident care visits will also help reduce the number of young children presenting at our busy hospital emergency departments with an injury that a general practitioner could have treated.

Hon John Banks—Compliance with Cabinet Manual

12. GRANT ROBERTSON (Deputy Leader—Labour) to the Prime Minister: Has Hon John Banks satisfied the Cabinet Manual requirement of upholding the highest ethical standards in his political and personal capacity?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister): Yes.

Grant Robertson: How is John Banks’ refusal to release his witness statement to the police upholding the standards of ministerial behaviour in a personal and political capacity?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I do not know the particulars of the case, but what I do know about the Official Information Act is that the departments do have to cite relevant sections of the Act if they choose to withhold information. In the end, the decision to release information is actually the responsibility of the department—in this case, the police.

Grant Robertson: Given his publicly stated commitment to high ministerial standards, why will he not ask the Hon John Banks to allow his witness statement to be released, or is that just a position of hypocrisy?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: The reason is that that was an action taken by Mr Banks, not even in his capacity as the leader of the ACT Party but actually as a personal position. He has the right, like any other New Zealand citizen, and if the Labour Party wants to go out there and publicly release the Darren Hughes file, well, it is welcome to do so as well.

Grant Robertson: If the Hon John Banks—[Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I want to hear this question.

Grant Robertson: If the Hon John Banks’ witness statement were to show that he had lied to him or his chief of staff, would he dismiss John Banks as a Minister?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Well, that has always been the test, but the member is raising a hypothetical question. I have been assured by the member that he has told us the truth and I accept that as his word.

Grant Robertson: What would John Banks need to do in order for him to lose confidence in him as a Minister?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: He would need to lose my confidence.

General Debate

General Debate

Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister for Economic Development): I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business. Last week I had the privilege to represent the Government in India supporting and encouraging some wonderful New Zealand companies and entrepreneurs and some of our excellent educational institutions that are getting out there and selling their stuff, their innovation, and their Kiwi ingenuity to the world. It was the same in the US a few weeks ago, and it was the same when I had the opportunity to visit, around the country, regions like Hawke’s Bay, west Auckland, Palmerston North, and so on.

It is not easy for these companies. It is hard work. These people live out of suitcases, they get to know new markets, they deal with the heat, and they deal with the cold, but it is also the thrill of the challenge and succeeding in this most 21st century of pursuits—becoming successful in the global world. It is also about creating things that people value and then working with them to get them to markets, partnering up with people, obtaining capital, and making deals. It is challenging. We have always talked about moving up the value chain, but we are doing it. The euro and the US dollar are making it challenging, but our companies are succeeding. They are good at it, and organisations that the New Zealand taxpayer supports, like New Zealand Trade and Enterprise, Education New Zealand, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Tourism New Zealand, and the research sector are all assisting them in doing it. Our exports are up, due to a lot of hard work from some great Kiwi businesses, and jobs are growing. Our economy has grown in the last 12 months faster than most countries in the OECD.

But meanwhile back home, the Labour, Greens, New Zealand First Opposition are in a very dark space economically indeed. They are seeking to reintroduce 1970s-style fortress New Zealand economics, last seen when Mr Peters arrived in Parliament. They want to somehow strong-arm down the New Zealand dollar to decouple New Zealand from the global world. Leaving aside that it does not work, and that it has not worked in Switzerland and has not worked in Japan, and leaving aside that if it did work, it would cause massive cost of living increases for all New Zealanders, and never mind the depreciation of 20 percent of the New Zealand dollar as proposed by John Walley, Selwyn Pellett, and other fellow travellers of the Labour Party, which would put up the input costs of all New Zealand businesses, they want to go ahead and do it. They want to control the New Zealand dollar and somehow decouple us from the world.

They also want to control and prevent foreign investment in New Zealand. We had the frankly preposterous suggestion from Mr Cunliffe last week that Ministers should decide who owns Fisher and Paykel, not private shareholders. Well, if that actually was allowed to pass, she’d be a very sorry day for capital investment in this country indeed. In fact, we had a taste of that during the last decade when the sharemarket went sideways for all that time because of the strange policies of the previous Government.

They also want to halt immigration, even if it might help the rebuild in Christchurch—halt immigration, even if it helps the rebuild in Christchurch. They are going to say to the people of Christchurch: “Well, it would be really great for us to build these buildings, but we’re not going to bring anybody in from overseas to help do this.” Two of New Zealand’s leading newspapers have used the “x” word to describe that policy. They have said xenophobia is what we are talking about with that policy.

Meanwhile their friends in the Greens are out there trying to stop every opportunity to grow, with renewed vigour. They are opposed to oil exploration. They are opposed to new mines. They are opposed to dairy farming. They are opposed to convention centres. Together, imagine it: you would have the hapless Labour Party putting up the shutters to stop New Zealand being involved in the world and hiding from the world and saying the world is out there, but it is too scary; meanwhile, back at home you would have the Greens stopping everything from happening, and Mr Peters sitting there trying to work out which way the weathervane will run on any particular day. We cannot nor should we attempt to turn the clock back to the 1970s.

Brendan Horan: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Should he not be referring to the Rt Hon Winston Peters? [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I have asked members not to interrupt 5-minute speeches. The way the member was being referred to was not disrespectful. He referred to him as Mr Peters. I think the member is technically absolutely correct, but I do not want 5-minute speeches being interrupted like that. The Hon Steven Joyce has 14 seconds remaining.

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Fourteen seconds to go. We should not, nor can we attempt to, turn back to the 1970s. There is no mother England to buy every mutton leg we can grow. We live in a modern world. There are fantastic opportunities for New Zealand. We need to help our country become more competitive and support the companies that are getting out there and taking their chances and getting ahead.

Dr RUSSEL NORMAN (Co-Leader—Green): I think that what has been demonstrated before us in this Parliament today is a Government that does not understand that the foundation of our economy is our environment. We have a Government that has launched a war on the New Zealand environment since it was re-elected. The first term of this Government was problematic enough, but to some degree it was responsive to public opinion. The second term of this Government has launched a war against the New Zealand environment, and, hence, against the New Zealand economy. Anyone who understands anything about the New Zealand economy understands that it is based on the environment.

The Prime Minister has said: “Well, we’re not environmental bandits.” Actually, Government members have become environmental bandits, under the influence particularly of Mr Joyce, who does not seem to understand that the environment is important, and who is involved in a war against it. The Oxford English Dictionary describes a “bandit” as a lawless, desperate marauder—something of a gangster. We now seem to have a Cabinet that is full of environmental bandits who are determined to wage war on the environment. Let us look at climate change. This Government, in spite of all the evidence showing that climate change is accelerating and the Arctic ice cap is melting more quickly, is weakening the emissions trading scheme to such a point that it is completely useless. It is also very supportive of digging up lignite and burning it, and burning coal, which, of course, will accelerate climate change.

Let us look at the Ross Sea. This is a Government that has opposed attempts to protect the Ross Sea. It could not even get alongside the proposal from the United States, which was pretty modest. The proposal from New Zealand was even worse than the proposal from the United States, in terms of protecting one of the last great pristine seas.

Let us look at the Māui’s dolphin. There are only 55 Māui’s dolphins left. New Zealand is very likely to be one of the countries to drive a dolphin to extinction, yet repeatedly this Government has done very little about it—virtually nothing. New Zealand was the only country to vote against protection measures at the International Union for Conservation of Nature conference. How embarrassing that that was New Zealand’s legacy at that conference. We voted against the protection of marine mammals. When it comes to sea lions, this Government decided to allow 68 critically endangered sea lions to be killed, rather than having a safer squid fishery. So the Minister made a decision to kill 68 endangered sea lions, rather than protect them.

Let us look at deep-sea mining. We know because of Deepwater Horizon, which should have been a wake-up call for all of us, that there is no way to plug a hole at 2,000 metres under water, which is what the Government is proposing to do. The only thing that has worked overseas was a relief rig, which drilled a relief well. That was how they managed to solve the Deepwater Horizon problem. This Government is proposing to have deep-water drilling without relief rigs in place. That is grossly irresponsible.

Then we have seen in respect of fresh water that this is a Government that is subsidising the intensification of agriculture, which will drive the deterioration in freshwater quality. When we look overseas what we see is that people overseas buy our dairy products because they think New Zealand is clean, green, and safe. That is the foundation of our export economy, and this Government is determined to destroy that foundation with its attack on the natural environment. This Government needs to get its head in order, and realise that if it is truly committed to the long-term sustainability of the New Zealand economy, it needs to become committed to the long-term sustainability of the New Zealand environment, instead of waging a war on it. Whether you look at climate change, whether you look at what it is doing in the Ross Sea, whether you look at the Māui’s dolphins, or whether you look at sea lions, deep-sea mining, or fresh water—you could add to the list one issue after another—since the election, this Government has been attacking the environment.

My question is what is going on in Cabinet? Once we thought that maybe there were those in Cabinet who had some sympathy towards the environment—I guess we all hoped Nick Smith would do that. But in the current Cabinet there are no advocates for the New Zealand environment. All we have is decision after decision after decision attacking the New Zealand environment, so that future generations will inherit natural capital that will be degraded and, hence, undermine the long-term sustainability of our economy. Thank you.

Hon ANNE TOLLEY (Minister of Police): The difference between us here on the Government benches and those sitting on the other side in Opposition is clear. It is very clear to us here in Parliament and it is very clear to the people out in our electorates. That lot, the previous Labour Government—and the Greens, who propped it up—had the very best of times. It enjoyed the very best of times. What did it do with all that success? It spent it.

Scott Simpson: Squandered.

Hon ANNE TOLLEY: It squandered it—absolutely. When Labour left office, inflation was running at 5.1 percent. The export sector was not talking about growth. In fact, it was flatlining and it was struggling to survive. The back-office bureaucracy, the media teams, the public relations consultants, the policy wonks, and the “Wassup!” badge designers were all ballooning in numbers, and Treasury’s books showed decades of deficits as government spending and debt spiralled out of control. We were in recession. We were in a recession, the like of which this country had not seen since the 1930s. That is 80 years ago.

But under careful and steady management, this Government has turned those statistics round: steady increases in after-tax wages; inflation at 1 percent, not Labour’s 5 percent; mortgage rates at 5 percent, not Labour’s 11 percent; a top personal tax rate of 33 percent, not Labour’s 39 percent; and company tax at 28 percent, not Labour’s 30 percent. When Labour abolished the youth minimum wage in 2008, 9,000 young people lost their jobs—9,000 young people. Yet the Labour Opposition brayed like asses when we used dollars from Moroccan cooking classes for well-heeled adults to put extra dollars into education and training for those very same young people whom that previous Government had callously written out of employment.

The Taranaki region enjoys the highest regional growth in the country. It is the only region that has oil and gas production and it has had that for 100 years. It has 4,500 jobs directly involved in the oil and gas industry—4,500 jobs—and it has 1,500 jobs indirectly involved. The average wage is $80,000 a year.

Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga: How much?

Hon ANNE TOLLEY: It is $80,000. We envy Taranaki. It is known for its dairy industry, its tourism, and its oil and gas industry. I come from the East Coast. We are known for our sheep and beef farming, forestry, horticulture and viticulture, and tourism. Why can we not add oil and gas industry to that list? Why can we not? Well, this Government wants to.

Last week in the East Coast region just 64 jobs were notified to the Ministry of Social Development—20 more than at this time last year—but 3,637 job seekers were registered with the Ministry of Social Development in the region. Why would any of those job seekers not want to work in the oil and gas industry as cooks, carriers, truck drivers, plumbers, builders, or electricians, and maybe nurses, tea ladies, engineers, or managers?

There are 763 youth job seekers registered with the Ministry of Social Development in the East Coast region, down from 837 this time last year. So a big thanks to the schools, the tertiary providers, and the employers who have worked so hard for our young people, but some of them will have left. Some of them will have gone to Australia to get a job. So why cannot these young people work in the East Coast, in their own home town, in the oil and gas industry?

Well, Labour is all about saying no. Labour says no to everything that is proposed that will provide those young people with jobs. Intensification of farming—Labour says no. Australian companies moving jobs to New Zealand—Labour says no. Ninety-day probation period for new employees—Labour says no. The new youth starting-out wage—Labour says no. To any of our labour market reforms, actually, Labour says no.

Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour): If the Minister who has just resumed her seat, the Minister of Police, wanted an idea as to how to retain Kiwis, the thousand a week who are leaving our shores—including 17,000 Kiwi technicians, tradespeople, and labourers—for Australia, she would do well to look at a thing called the Christchurch earthquake. We need 30,000 to 40,000 trade-trained, skilled people to rebuild the show. It is one of the world’s biggest training schemes, on our doorstep. We know that her Government put forward a paltry 42 million bucks in trade training, 80 percent of which is unused. We know that we have 84,000 young people not in work and not in training. This is a wonderful opportunity in Christchurch, not only to reconstruct our second-biggest city but also to deal with, and train, and get off the dole, 84,000 young people.

Yet what do we find out? We find out that the latest reports are that we are going to import 15,000—nearly half of the quota of trade-trained people whom we need. We are not going to train unemployed folk, as we could have done for the last 2 years. We are going to import 15,000 of them because the Government lacked the foresight 2 years ago to actually take those young people, train them, and turn them into productive human beings. They would be 2 years through a 3 to 4-year apprenticeship. They would have been highly skilled, highly productive, and would have aided and abetted the rebuilding of Christchurch. So if the Minister wants to look for an opportunity—and she is fond of quoting figures—she might look at the opportunity that the tragic earthquake presents, instead of importing folk. It is not xenophobic to say, as Gerry Brownlee committed to, Cantabrians first, Kiwis second, and the rest of the world third, when it comes to filling the capacity and the jobs that the earthquake has created. But, oh no. The xenophobic label is put on by a few short-sighted in the media and that Minister there.

We had a policy at the last election that was fiscally neutral. It was about taking the dole, giving it to the boss, the boss topping it up for 1 year, and the commitment is that that young person be trained. You either use the dole to have the person languish, or you give it to the boss for 1 year—same money, fiscally neutral. That is then turned into a commitment to trade train that person, through a thing called an apprenticeship, and allow that young person to contribute to the rebuild of Christchurch and take that person off the dole. We put that to Gerry Brownlee and others, and we reminded Gerry Brownlee of the deal—Cantabrians first, Kiwis second, the rest of the world, whom we will need, last—and he did nothing about it.

I fondly remember the last time—I was not a member of Parliament—and I did remind a former National Minister of Education at the time, who I think did not have the intellect, the smarts, or the capacity, when that education Minister, I think in 1992, repealed the 1983 Apprenticeship Act. The Minister did not have the intellectual rigour, the smarts, or the capacity perhaps—maybe that member does now—to realise the error of his ways. But, of course, we have got past that, have we not? So I say to that Minister over there that it might be time that she looked at what is happening as a result of the earthquake.

I went to a meeting of Ōuruhia School parents last night. They are fabulous parents. Their school is on the block. Apart from that, which my colleagues will deal with later, these were great parents who want a future for their kids. They believed in the sort of John Key brighter future. Some of them had teenagers who were looking for jobs and looking for a future. Some of them, I wager, are looking for trade training and want to get out there and contribute. But this Government does not have the foresight, like its predecessors, to take advantage of what is a tragedy, but also an opportunity to take those 84,000 young people, to trade train them, and to have them contribute in Canterbury to that recovery process. Seventeen thousand technicians and tradespeople have gone to Aussie—a thousand Kiwis a week—and that is the brighter future. Why would you stay here? You would stay here because there are opportunities, and the Christchurch recovery gives that opportunity. Let us hope that this Government does not repeat the stupidity of past National Ministers.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson): That speech from Clayton Cosgrove showed that he has learnt absolutely nothing from the rejection of him personally in Waimakariri, and the rejection of the Labour Party’s whingeing negativity in Christchurch. New Zealanders, and not just those in Canterbury, are looking for positive leadership, which they are getting from this Government.

You see, the most important challenge for our country today is how we navigate our way through the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. This afternoon I want to quote what President Obama’s budget office adviser told the IMF last week. He said “… if you look across all the developed countries, there is only one country … which has [the right policy combination], which is New Zealand …”. What an extraordinary compliment for the effective governance of this John Key - Bill English - led Government, where in terms of economic policy we have ourselves in great shape.

Let me go through some of the vital signs of the New Zealand economy. Last week we had the inflation figure: 0.8 percent. That is the lowest level of inflation in 16 years. What was the inflation rate when we came to Government? It was 5.1 percent. What does that mean? That means ordinary New Zealand families struggling to keep up with the cost of groceries, with the cost of power bills, with the cost of their rates, and with all of those things that make a difference for ordinary New Zealanders. On inflation New Zealand is doing very, very well.

Let us take interest rates. Interest rates affect the capacity for businesses to invest and to create jobs, and they impact on the costs of every single New Zealand family that is aspiring for that Kiwi dream of being able to own their own home. The interest rate right now is 5.3 percent. That is the lowest—the lowest—interest rate in 40 years. And how does it compare with the interest rate when we became the Government? It was over double that. It was at 11 percent. I know members opposite do not understand how important low interest rates are to businesses and households. We do. It matters. We are delivering.

Then let us look at a figure like economic growth. What an extraordinary result, given all that is going on globally, for the economy to have grown by 2.6 percent in the last 12 months. I look around the world—Britain, Greece, Spain, Italy—extraordinary economic collapse, extreme hardship, and millions of people going into unemployment. Here in New Zealand we have had our economy growing for 13 straight quarters. Let us just look back again to 2008. Do you know that in 2008, in those three quarters of March, June, and October, it was not that we had economic growth; our economy had negative growth and it was going backwards.

Let us look at one of the big issues: government debt. When we came into Government, Treasury said we had a decade of deficits. The debt was going to blow out to 70 percent of GDP, and yet, as was noted at the IMF last week, New Zealand is one of only three developed countries that is going to have a balanced budget in the year 2015. I again give credit to Bill English and the team for being able to deliver that sort of result.

I will mention another positive figure. Over the last year New Zealanders’ debt servicing costs have dropped by $4 billion and New Zealand households have saved more in the last year than they have in 20 years. Every New Zealander knows at heart that we need to improve our savings. That is an extraordinarily positive outcome. It is just one of many vital signs that show that this Government is on top of its game and that the economic management—the big issue—we are getting right. I just challenge members opposite to stop the negativity.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First): Interest rates in New Zealand are four times that of the USA, the UK, the EU, and Japan, and Nick Smith made that claim! But, mind you, he made a claim that he advised Dame Margaret Bazley of a legal fund when she was in charge of the parliamentary pecuniary interests, except Margaret Bazley denied it, and yet he wants to come back and be a Minister when he told Parliament something that was demonstrably not true. Look at the Hansard. It is all there.

Yesterday, of course, the Māori Council won the right to take its case on State asset sales and water rights to the High Court—just one tragic milestone along the road to separate development, apartheid, and assets divided up on the basis of race. How, under a National Party that campaigned on “Kiwi not iwi”—

Hon Member: That’s right.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: It did, did it not? National campaigned on “Kiwi not iwi”. How, therefore, has it come to this? What has New Zealand done to deserve this appalling Government? What manner of Government is it that would plough on with its misguided asset sales programme in the face of all the damage it is doing?

There is no sound economic rationale, and it gets worse. The whole process has been botched, so inept and so shambolic that it is now further undermining New Zealand’s social cohesion, and it is racism that the Government is encouraging. This very privative campaign—inevitable to see that happen. A cynical person might even suggest that this Government intended to have that effect, as people overlooked the nation’s interest and scrambled for their share of the spoils. Why did the Government not foresee the discord its sales programme would generate? It was spending $120 million on consultants to give it advice. Surely, one consultant said that. So many trails and twists and no coherence.

Does anyone remember “shares plus”? Well, last week it was iwi shares that were on offer, coming out of nowhere. So now the proceeds of the asset sales programme—unquantified, of course—are going to pay off debt, pay for schools, pay for hospitals, and now we learn out of left field that they will also be contributing to Treaty settlements. How many times can the same money get spent? Where is this all going to end? Who knows? Those members do not. They just blunder along—ad hoc, shoot from the hip, chaotic, make it up as you go along—despite the serious damage that has been inflicted on our country by this issue.

How petty and small-minded some people are becoming, including the Prime Minister. In response to Rahui Katene of the Māori Council on the question of the right to go to court, this is what Mr Key said: “… hardly a victory when you get the judge to agree to … your case.” So there you have it again: just “Spray and Walk Away”. A classic Key one-liner—dismissive, flippant, sneering.

What is clear is that the issue will fester and create future dispute and discord. How many now think that the country is being held to ransom by certain Māori interests that want to exploit the situation to their own advantage? For those who want to undermine our social cohesion, this Government’s asset sales programme has been a gift. It has put Māori against other New Zealanders, Māori against Māori, and iwi against iwi. What a mess. What a way to run a country. And what a tragedy for New Zealand that someone behind that court case is saying: “When the water passes over our land or rohe, the proprietorship right is with us.” Which part of the water? The foundation, the middle part, the end part, or whatever runs out to sea?

What a tragedy for New Zealand. But the polls say—and this is the only good news in this speech—that we will soon have to address this issue and set it to rights.

JONATHAN YOUNG (National—New Plymouth): I am very pleased to stand to speak about economic growth and development, particularly in the province that I represent, which is Taranaki. I have heard today, prior to coming to the House, a statement that criticism is not an agenda. The more that that lot over the other side of the House criticise, the more they have got nothing to say.

Last month I was invited to speak at a function in New Plymouth—the city in which I live. It was hosted by a social justice group. An officer from the Ministry of Social Development was one of the panellists, and he informed the delegates that there were 280 people in the city of New Plymouth who were receiving a benefit because they were not employed—in a city of 50,000 people. If you look at Taranaki as a whole, with a population of 110,000, unemployment in that region has shrunk by 35 percent since September 2010. Industry is flourishing, opportunities are increasing, and employment is growing. So while they say no, Taranaki is saying yes, and we are flourishing.

The biggest reason for Taranaki’s success is the responsible and active utilisation of the resources that surround us. And those resources are specifically, as you know, the wealth that we walk on and the wealth that is deeper under our feet. We utilise those resources in responsible and careful ways.

New Zealanders are receiving the benefit of a pro-business, pro-growth Government that is not selling out on our environmental obligations. The exclusive economic zone closes the environmental regulatory gap that existed while those on the other side of this House did nothing when they were in a position to do something.

The oil and gas sector in Taranaki, as we have heard from the Hon Anne Tolley, is a world-class industry applying cutting-edge technology and proprietary intellectual property. This has had an amazing flow-on effect not only into the industries and businesses in the region but also into the wider community. That particular field of endeavour and business is one of the cornerstones of our economy. It generates 17 percent of our GDP. More important, it contributes to the capability and the capacity within a number of industries that exist in our region. The exports that come—in 2009 $1.9 billion in export value from this industry, and 17.5 million barrels of oil—all of these are facts, but they translate into jobs and into an environment of world-class expertise, developing technology, and developing practices that maintain and protect our environment.

One of the great things about Taranaki, if you have been there, Mr Speaker, and I am sure you have, is the pristine environment in which we live, the clear air, and the beautiful mountain streams—all of these things that we hold in high value. I know that many members of this House have been there. So it is in our interests and, of course, the interests of all New Zealanders that we maintain all of those environmental standards that have come to deliver a great province and a great environment for us.

I have to say that it is nearly laughable that members of the Green Party try to poke and jab the industry in Taranaki and the regulators of that industry, and all the time are trying to throw spanners in the works to say that what is happening is below par. If you have ever read in the papers that come from our region the accusation and then the response from the regulators, it is actually poetry in motion. If Mr Hughes, in particular, were to go there, he would try to throw his spin ball, and the Taranaki Regional Council, in particular, the regulators there, have answers for every one of his accusations and his allegations of impropriety. We have a tremendous group of regulators there. Recently we heard that we have had some responses from the Taranaki Regional Council that indeed stand up to its great credibility.

GARETH HUGHES (Green): Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. I want to touch on the theme raised by my colleague Dr Russel Norman on the extreme anti-environment ideology we are seeing from the National Party this term in Government. I want to look at just one example, which is the Ross Sea, because here we have environmental bandits in Cabinet literally acting not in our interest and actively damaging our economic interest, our environmental interest, and our community interest. They say they care about the environment like the Ross Sea, but what we know is the way they are acting—the way they are acting like environmental bandits—is akin to a hypocritical fashion.

The Ross Sea, or the last ocean, as it is known, is the last intact marine ecosystem left on Earth. This beautiful wild place is described by the journal Science as the place least impacted by human hand on the planet. Unlike most places on the planet, the top predator is still there. This is the last ocean because it is the last place where man’s impact is being felt, but it is also the last place we are going on our relentless push to catch more fish. But we have an opportunity to change it, to protect it, because right now in Hobart the Commission for the Convention on Antarctic Marine Living Resources is meeting to discuss how we protect all the waters in Antarctica, but this, for New Zealand, is the most precious part, what has been described as the last ocean.

What we have, however, is that after more than a year of negotiations on a joint proposal with the United States Government, we see those bandits in Cabinet urging the Minister of Foreign Affairs to walk out of the joint US proposal, and now New Zealand has tabled its own proposal. It is a proposal in which McCully has literally drawn a line round the main fishing grounds and created a marine reserve only on paper. It is a marine reserve where the areas where we do not impact—where we do not exploit—are left entirely within the marine reserve, but those areas where we do exploit are left out. It looks big on paper—it is a paper sanctuary—but what it lacks in effectiveness it makes up for and compensates in size.

Basically what we see is those bandits in Cabinet protecting the fishing interests, not protecting this pristine, beautiful place, the last ocean. We see the Government swallowing hook, line, and sinker the spin we see from the fishing industry. What we know is that we are protecting very narrow fishing interests—a handful of fishing boats, some contracted to other nations. We are talking about 0.17 percent, or a fifth of 1 percent, as the catch landed in the Ross Sea by New Zealand boats, compared with our larger catch. We are talking about around 1 percent of our fisheries exports, but what we are doing is damaging our brand. By looking out for protecting these narrow fishing interests we are actually letting down all of our fishing exports.

Jonathan Young: From Shane Jones.

GARETH HUGHES: Mr Young, we are letting down all $1.5 billion of our fishing exports. We know already that US supermarkets like Safeway are boycotting New Zealand - caught Ross Sea toothfish.

It is bizarre that we would even walk out of a joint US proposal. I thought this Government would want to go the Commission for the Convention on Antarctic Marine Living Resources with a joint New Zealand proposal. It is one of our aims to work closer with the United States Government, if you look at the New Zealand Government’s spin. What we know is that we are also damaging the chance of an outcome now that we have got three proposals on the table: the New Zealand weak one, the US proposal, and also the better Antarctic Ocean Alliance.

But I want to clear up one thing. What we know is—not the extremism we hear from members like Shane Jones—none of those three proposals is going to ban fishing. None of those three proposals is reducing the toothfish quota.

The fact is that New Zealand once upon a time was a world leader in protecting the continent, the land and the ice of Antarctica, but we are failing to protect our oceans. The Government describes it as a well-managed fishery. Well, it might be in comparison to our poorly managed fisheries around New Zealand waters or what we see in other countries, but the fact is that we still know so little about this toothfish, yet we want to remove an entire 50 percent of its population. We still have not found a toothfish egg, larvae, or an under 4-year-old juvenile. This place is under ice for 9 months of the year. We just do not have accurate information to make these decisions.

We have to ask ourselves why we are going to the ends of the world to catch the fish. What happened to the rest of the fish that was in all the world’s oceans? The fact is we have eaten them. We have eaten the fish and now we have to go right to the limits of endurance technology, to the frontiers of the world, to the last ocean.

The Government says we are down there to protect it from pirates. The same argument was used in England in the age of the slavery debates—that they should keep participating in an improper practice to help somewhat improve the standards. If that was the argument, why are we not going to Somalia? The fact is that if we were going to reduce piracy, the best way we could do it is by having no fishing boats down there so that we would know where the fishermen are.

The fact is that Labour does not have a position, it has got only slogans. The Government is out there protecting fishing interests. We can protect the last ocean.

TE URUROA FLAVELL (Māori Party—Waiariki): Tena koe, Mr Speaker. Kia ora tātou e te Whare. I wanted to take an opportunity to talk on the kōhanga reo report released earlier this week. I feel a bit of a hypocrite doing so in English rather than Māori, bearing in mind the relationship between kōhanga reo and Te Reo Māori, but, be that as it may, I let that sit here.

The survival and the strength of Te Reo Māori has been an issue at the forefront of decades of devotion and advocacy—protest after protest, hīkoi after hīkoi, submission after submission, report after report. In the 1986 report on Te Reo Māori claim, and then in the 2011 Ko Aotearoa Tēnei report on the Wai 262 claim, we were warned that the likelihood of the terminal decline threatening the very survival of Te Reo Māori was imminent. In speaking to the Waitangi Tribunal in 1985, Sir James Hēnare cast the Māori language predicament in stark terms. What he said was: “Ko te reo te mauri o te mana Māori.”—the language is the life force of the mana Māori. He continued: “If the language dies, as some predict, what do we have left to us? Then, I ask our people who are we?”.

Those are pretty important statements—provocative statements, some might suggest. The founders of the kaupapa kōhanga reo responded to that challenge, creating a movement that was never intended to be about only early childhood education but also encompassed te reo Māori, tikanga Māori, and, of course, whānau development.

Last week the tribunal stated that without Te Reo Māori me ngā tikanga Māori, Māori would not survive, and that the two are basically inextricably linked. The Waitangi Tribunal has now confirmed that the trust’s claim was well founded, that the Crown has breached the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi, and that kōhanga reo have suffered severe prejudice as a result of the actions of the Crown and omissions by the Crown. It went on further to suggest that unless kōhanga reo are supported and specific enrolment targets are achieved, Te Reo Māori will indeed die. We are talking about something pretty serious, and therefore we hope that the report will be taken seriously.

Although the tribunal recommendations and findings are not binding on the Crown—that is another debate, and it has been raised on a number of occasions—the report does put on record the problems that the kōhanga reo and the trust have encountered, and lays the foundation for setting things right into the future. The Crown is now on notice that it must take especially vigorous action to protect Te Reo Māori through kōhanga reo. That is the challenge that the Māori Party is prepared also to keep a watching brief on, to ensure that something does come out of that report.

I want to encourage all members of this House to read the report Matua Rautia for the excellent history it provides of the unique and, indeed, internationally renowned impact of the kōhanga reo movement. It traces back in time to the days of Kara Puketapu from here, the successes of the Tū Tangata scheme, and the 1979 hui kaumātua held at Waiwhetū, where it was agreed that urgent action was needed to take control of the future destiny of the language and to plan for its survival. Out of te Wānanga Whakatauira in 1981 was established a working party chaired by Sir James Hēnare and comprising, amongst others, Lady Tilly Reedy, Ruka Broughton, Sir Mōnita Delamere, and Archdeacon Kīngi Īhaka, some of whom have now passed away. Out of this group emerged the origins of the kōhanga reo strategy.

If I could just read how Dame Iritana Tāwhiwhirangi described it, she said: “Dr Tamate Reedy, Deputy Secretary at the time, then came up with the idea of full immersion. The idea was that the language should be learned in the same way a child learns a language, in the context of a home environment. Thus the concept that developed was that the language should be ‘caught’ rather than ‘taught’ in those early years.” The rest, of course, is history. It is our history.

The tribunal challenges us, then, to consider that whānau have the right to choose kōhanga reo as a viable path, a cultural path to preserve and promote Te Reo Māori me ngā tikanga. It asks the Crown to reprioritise spending on Te Reo Māori and to provide urgent funding for property maintenance and upgrades, to avoid exposing, it says, the 3,000 mokopuna tamariki to the possibility of losing their buildings. The report reminds us that the Crown cannot put in regulations that are one-size-fits-all, and that kōhanga reo should not be assessed by the Education Review Office in a way that undermines the kaupapa. It encourages the Crown to promote and uphold the policy in a way that will respect the kaupapa and allow kōhanga reo to flourish. We hope that that is what the Crown actually does.

Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram): Ministers and former Ministers have sat opposite today and kidded themselves that they are doing a good job. What we are here talking about today is opportunity lost, particularly opportunity lost in relation to jobs, to skills, and to education, and particularly in relation to the opportunity that Christchurch afforded us.

The Government’s 2011 Budget—a pre-election Budget, when the Government was full of verve and wanting to court the vote—talked about Christchurch, the rebuild, and the opportunity that was afforded there. Minister Joyce told us: “The government is committed to ensuring that people in Canterbury have the chance to build their skills, so they can contribute to the rebuild of their city. This extra funding will ensure they have that opportunity,”. Well, that has been a monumental fail.

Let me take you through that 2011 Budget package, and let me tell you about opportunity lost, a Government that lacks vision, and a Government that is failing its people. It was heralded that $42 million of extra funding was allocated to train our young people with the skills needed to rebuild Christchurch. We were going to train them up. Well, what has happened? This is a Government that has managed to spend only $8 million of that money. It has managed to train only 654 people with that money—

Hon Lianne Dalziel: How many?

Dr MEGAN WOODS: —654 of our young people, of the 84,000 young New Zealanders not in education, employment, or training. This is a Government that has managed to shift only 654 of them, despite having money in the Budget. Instead, what has it done? It has cribbed $28.4 million from other places in the tertiary education budget. It was meant to do this to create 3,000 places using baseline funding, but it has failed even in this. It has managed only 1,626 placements within this. It has failed on this, and it has failed to deliver.

Not only did Budget 2011 promise training opportunities in terms of the Skills for Canterbury package but it also promised that it was going to get our young people off the dole, into work, and into training. The Government—pre-election and courting the vote—accordingly allocated $1.5 million to shift 650 of our young people off the dole and into education and training. Well, that is a failure—yet another failure by this Government. It has managed to spend only $740,000, less than half of its allocated money.

But more abysmally, and where it is failing our young people, is that it has managed to shift only 262 people from the dole and into work or training associated with the rebuild of Canterbury. It has not met its targets, and it is failing our young people. Meanwhile, 84,000 of our young New Zealanders continue to languish, not in education, employment, or training. We are still waiting for the opportunities. We are still waiting for the Government to actually come up with and do something meaningful to address this problem of 84,000 of our young people.

Christchurch offers the Government that opportunity, and we are disappointed that it is not taking that opportunity. We are still waiting for the Government to actually do something in terms of the infrastructure rebuild of Canterbury. On the day that it announced its “firm proposals” for the closure of Christchurch schools, it was also meant to be launching an employment package around the Stronger Christchurch Infrastructure Rebuild Team and the infrastructure rebuild, but this has disappeared, and we on this side of the House would like to know where it is.

In terms of the relationships with industry, there is just a whole lot of talk—all good in theory, but a failure. The much-vaunted relationships with industry—well, let me tell you. The relationship with Hawkins Construction has resulted in 75 young people getting into training or employment—75—and 26 with Fletcher Building. That is not good enough. This is a Government that needs to do something about offering real opportunity to our young people.

MAGGIE BARRY (National—North Shore): I am very proud to be a member of this John Key - led Government. I think we have a shared vision and a plan to support New Zealanders through these troubled economic times. We believe in helping New Zealanders make the best of their opportunities. We recognise personal responsibilities, and we also believe very strongly that people need to be rewarded for their hard work and their enterprise. These are values that I believe in, and these are values that underpin what is driving our plan to help the New Zealand economy. Let us look at some of the business investment initiatives that lead to new jobs—specific measures, including the 90-day trial period and reducing company tax to 28 percent. We have reduced ACC levies and saved $600 million a year with that measure alone. We have also removed 170 unnecessary and excessive regulations because we are not about red tape. We are not about binding up business and holding back the economy, unlike the Opposition. Most of these measures are completely lost on the Opposition. Those members have had their crack at it and they have failed dismally. We are not about to be sidetracked or distracted by the braying of the opposing forces.

I think that one of the things that has worked most successfully in the past year has been the efforts that we have made—and the Hon Paula Bennett in particular is to be congratulated on this—in getting people off benefits and back into work. That is vital. It is vital for themselves, for their self-esteem and their mana, and also for the future of their family economy and the wider economy as well. These are vital things. What have we done to help people back into work, particularly our young people? What have we done specifically? In the Youth Opportunities package alone there is $152 million, which includes 4,000 places in Job Ops. In the past 2 years, in net terms, something like 60,000 more New Zealanders have been put into work. Our unemployment forecast is definitely forecast to fall. This has all been possible because the economy has grown. It has grown by 2.6 percent in the year to June. Our annual growth forecast is between 2 percent and 3 percent over the next 4 years. That is a lot better than other developed countries are doing at the moment. The after-tax average wage is up by 20 percent from when Labour’s time ended in 2008. We now have—and this is a particularly good thing—the lowest inflation rate since 1999, which means that the cost of living is increasing at its lowest rate in 12 years. This is all good, and this is going to support jobs.

But we are certainly not leaving it to chance, nor are we going into loopy, mad Green ideas à la Zimbabwe to print money and shut down opportunities for jobs and stall the economy. If printing money was the recipe, then that country would be successful. It is not. Printing money increases the money supply, so that increases inflation. It would make the very people whom the Opposition is purporting to help suffer more difficulty because everything would go up in price, from the price of petrol to the price of groceries. The poor would be the hardest hit. But the Greens and Labour are determined to talk New Zealand down, and to promote a bunch of ideas that are in vogue only in the sorts of countries that have run out of all other options.

We have not run out of options. We have a plan and we are sticking to it. As I have said in the past in this sort of situation, standing up in a general debate, it is a very good plan and I support it because economic growth produces jobs, and that is what we are allowing to happen. But do not just take our word for it. Peter Orzag—as my colleague the Hon Nick Smith referred to recently in his call today—has singled out New Zealand as the only country that has provided the right balance of stimulus for the economy, by reducing the deficit in the medium term. This is high praise indeed from someone who has been looking carefully at our measures and looking carefully at what we are able to do.

I think when it comes to New Zealand’s economic performance, for me on the North Shore I look at what has happened with infrastructure and with the broadband rolling out. I can see that people in my area, in my electorate of North Shore, are delighted with that. I was just looking for some tangible information that I had about this because I have had several letters from my constituents about the growing of the economy, and in particular how the broadband has helped. In days gone by, when North Shore Hospital was not in such fettle, there were real issues about people in corridors and people not getting the level of care that they required. With the broadband roll-out, it is now possible to upload and send a file of a sick child within 3 seconds to Starship. These are the kinds of measures that are making a phenomenal difference. That is why in these tough economic times we are continuing to invest in them.

As far as the Opposition is concerned, though, it would want to borrow to pay for reducing things like the retirement age. It wants to lower it to 60 years old for many workers. What is that going to do? Borrowing again to pay for the Auckland rail loop—failed policies.

Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East): I want to begin by acknowledging that families in Christchurch have been through an emotional roller coaster since they struggled to get to the schools where their children were on 22 February last year. I want to acknowledge all of those teachers and principals who stood alongside those children until their parents could make it there. They guaranteed the children one thing for those parents: they would be kept safe and sound until they arrived at the school. Of course, it is the memory of that care and, indeed, the memory of how well the schools have provided both a stable environment and a sense of normality for these children that has left the communities with a sense of absolute obligation and respect for the teachers and for the schools, in terms of how they have supported their communities. That is why these communities are absolutely despairing of the Minister of Education’s shake-up in education.

We have already debated in the House how this was handled by the Government. It was appalling. There could be no worse way of actually diminishing the respect for both the schools and the situation in Christchurch, with people suffering from the ongoing effect of aftershocks, even minor ones—I think one last night woke people up again. It is just a constant reminder of the difficulties that people face. Then we ended up with this sudden announcement. With the impact on principals and boards of trustees who were brought to a meeting, with no idea what was about to be announced, and the way they were treated, how their schools found out, and then how their communities found out, it really has been the worst handled of all of the earthquake-related announcements that this Government has been responsible for, and it has been responsible for some pretty serious ones.

This is not how one empowers communities after a disempowering event. Sir Peter Gluckman, who writes as the Chief Science Advisor for the Prime Minister, said this is not the way that one ensures that communities can recover from the consequences of the disaster. We have got a man-made disaster on our own hands now as a result of the way the Government is treating the response to education.

But I do want to acknowledge that the Minister, according to the Press this morning, has written to the 38 schools that are now earmarked for closure or merger to say, at last, that she will want to talk to them, that she would like to hear from them, and that she will listen to them. I want to hold her to that account. I will be holding her to that account, as will every member of the Opposition in this House, because it is absolutely imperative that she restores the damage that she has done by fixing the problem. Those schools that have asked for an extension of time must be granted an extension of time. It should not be a question of whether they can persuade her or not, or that she will just consider it, as she said in the House yesterday; she must agree to the extension of time. It is simply untenable that schools and their communities that struggle under the circumstances in Christchurch have got term 4 to respond to the proposal to close or merge their schools. That is 7 December this year. That simply is not good enough.

The schools I have talked to have asked for an extension to the end of term 1, which is April 2013. That says to me that the schools are reasonable. They are willing and reasonable to listen to the Minister’s call for change. In fact, they want to see change. They know that things cannot go back to the way they were. But when I read in the paper that at the same time she said that she understood how difficult the changes were for Christchurch, but given the extent of the damage and the population movement the sector simply could not be returned to how it was, I just want to say that that adds insult to injury.

Every single school is willing to have the conversation about the future of education. They have shown willing in terms of the care and support they have given those children in difficult circumstances. They want to build back better. They want to make sure that they are responsive to the needs of their community. That is why they all engaged openly in the conversation around the education recovery plan. The previous Minister of Education made it absolutely clear that that process was not about places or services; it was about the principles of what education could provide and would provide for the future of Christchurch. And yet we have suddenly had it turned into specific places and services. We have had specific options determined by the Minister, and I want to say that there is no way on earth that a Labour Government would allow that to happen.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.

Bills

Alcohol Reform Bill

In Committee

Debate resumed from 23 October.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Kia ora tātou, nō reira e te Whare, e ngā iwi, e ngā reo, e ngā hau e whā. Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa. Before I recognise the first speaker, there is the correction of a vote. Last night the result of the vote on the question that the amendments in the name of Te Ururoa Flavell to insert new Part 2A was incorrectly announced as Ayes 44 and Noes 66. The result is Ayes 44 and Noes 76. The record will be corrected accordingly.

Part 3 and amendment to clause 382 (continued)

KEVIN HAGUE (Green): Could I express my gratitude and that of my party to the Government and to other parties in the House for the change to the rules of engagement for this part to enable us to take an adequate number of calls.

I have spoken several times in the Chamber about the Ottawa Charter in this debate, and in particular about the sense in the Ottawa Charter, to which New Zealand is a signatory, that to improve the health of a community we need to empower that community—I will deal with that part of the charter in another call—but also to create a supportive environment around that community. The evidence that the Law Commission heard and that members of this Committee are, I think, all too familiar with is that the environment that some of our most marginalised and vulnerable communities are surrounded by is such that they are practically being basted in alcohol. It is impossible for them to escape the ubiquity of alcohol outlets and sales if they choose to.

Essentially, in recent years we have come to a situation where alcohol is available for sale in pretty much every community in the country, essentially 24/7—24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Indeed, there are around 1,000 outlets in New Zealand that are licensed to sell alcohol on a 24/7 basis. Indeed, in the years between 1990 and 2010, in that 20-year period, there has been an addition—an explosion—of 8,000 new outlets selling alcohol. Certainly, members will be aware of many alcohol outlets in our own communities. These new outlets are not randomly distributed throughout the country or throughout communities or population centres, but, rather, are clustered in low socio-economic status areas. They are clustered in the areas inhabited by the most vulnerable and marginalised. The distance that a person would need to travel in a low socio-economic status area, on average, to make it to an alcohol outlet is 50 percent less than the equivalent high socio-economic status suburb or area. It is just an indication of how the alcohol industry, at its various levels, has targeted these low socio-economic status communities.

The effects of this are considerable. The evidence is, and I quote from the Drug Foundation again, that “For every off-licence, within a kilometre of a residential area, there is a 4 percent increase in binge drinking. Outlet density is linked to underage drinking, student drinking, and high-risk drinking by young people.” The weight of evidence is that when the density of alcohol outlets increases, we also see increased rates of violence and physical assaults, sexually transmitted infections, child abuse, drink-driving, and those other deleterious consequences of alcohol consumption or heavy alcohol consumption that this bill, the Alcohol Reform Bill, sets out to minimise. So there is a direct relationship between outlet density and the purpose of this bill, which is to minimise harm.

I mentioned yesterday that 70 percent of our presentations to accident and emergency departments over weekends are from people who have been consuming alcohol, and I talked about those 1,000 deaths per year. Those are some of those negative consequences associated with the outlet density. There are also aspects of availability that relate to the hours that these outlets are open. Indeed, there is strong evidence showing that longer trading hours mean increased negative and harmful effects. I will not go through that list again, but it is clear that both outlet density and increased outlet hours are associated with increased harm. So if we want to deal with that harm—and this bill says that we do want to deal with it—then we need to address both of those factors.

In the way that the bill sets out to do that, I think there are some advances, but those advances, as with every other part of the bill, do not go far enough. Again, the Green Party will be voting for all of the Supplementary Order Papers that have been put forward by Opposition members and by the Māori Party to actually gain greater control over where outlets are and the hours that they can be open in order to minimise that harm. The evidence around support for those measures is strong. As usual, the scientific research around those factors says that these are very effective means of limiting harm, and the Law Commission, indeed, drew some conclusions that were stronger than those in the bill itself.

But it is not only the Law Commission. The New Zealand public has also had its say through the Health Sponsorship Council survey in 2010, which showed that 66 percent agreed or strongly agreed with reducing the hours that alcohol can be sold. In addition to that 66 percent, there were a further 18 percent who were neutral about that point. That is a vast majority who are either supportive of our tackling that issue or are neutral about it. There were 65 percent of New Zealanders who thought there were too many liquor outlets. I am going to come in a later call to the issue of local alcohol policies, but for the time being what I want to emphasise is the importance of taking this measure.

Again, just as with the calls we heard earlier in this Committee stage, we are dealing here with an issue that there is strong evidence around, and I will be very interested to hear the Minister of Justice’s calls and other calls taken by Government members to defend the course that is set out in the bill, which I consider to be inadequate. This is in contrast to the raging debate that we had around purchase age only a short time ago, where there is very little evidence indeed of effectiveness. Here is something that has strong evidence of effectiveness, that is recommended by the Law Commission, and that enjoys a very high level of support from the New Zealand public. We believe that the bill sets out in the right direction, but does not go nearly far enough. We want to see much more control over where outlets can be. Louisa Wall’s amendments around schools, for example, are a good example of the kind of restriction that we would like to see in general applied right across the country, in addition to the locally specific controls that local alcohol policies will produce. And we want to see a very substantial restriction of the hours that alcohol can be sold. We heard yesterday from Trevor Mallard in this debate a contribution where he opposed, on the basis of his personal experience, the idea of restricting the hours of sale of alcohol.

Hon Trevor Mallard: That’s right—shift workers. Stand up for the shift workers.

KEVIN HAGUE: Indeed. I have been a shift worker myself and have always somehow managed to get a drink.

Su’a WILLIAM SIO (Labour—Māngere): Malo le soifua, Mr Chairman. Thank you for the opportunity. I want to address my remarks to Part 3, Subpart 3 of the Alcohol Reform Bill, and more particularly the amendment that is in my name, on Supplementary Order Paper 111. But I want to begin with some preliminary comments. If people look at South Auckland, they will find that in the past several years that community has been under constant attack on several fronts, which has had significant impact on people’s well-being in the areas of high unemployment, the high deficit in housing affordability, the low wages, and the area of health. In health we have some of the worst statistics—worse than other communities throughout Aotearoa. In that area, alcohol, particularly alcohol-fuelled violence, alcohol-fuelled domestic violence, alcohol-fuelled suicide, and alcohol-fuelled murders, as we all know, have been in the papers of late and in the past several years. We often forget that this is really about a portion of the community that abuses the consumption of alcohol, but that over the years it has been a part of a culture that collectively we have built up.

In South Auckland, we are beset with the proliferation of liquor outlets, more so in our community than in other communities. We have got signs of alcohol advertising that litter our streets, giving full exposure to everybody, particularly young people who are walking to and from school. We have heard in the news of deaths of young people who have either, essentially, abused the consumption of alcohol or committed suicide, fuelled by the culture that it is OK to get wasted. We continue as a country to perpetuate the alcohol culture—that it is OK to get drunk, it is OK to get wasted. The South Auckland communities, I have to say, are sick and tired of that. You, Mr Chair, and my colleague here, Louisa Wall, will know full well that over the past several years there have been marches, there have been protests, and there have been community meetings held, and you will find that there is a unanimous feel in the community that we are sick and tired of the alcohol culture, which many of our community believe is driven by vested interests that are contrary to the interests of children and families. The majority of communities want parliamentarians to take seriously the recommendations of the Law Commission.

Our front-line emergency people at Middlemore Hospital are sick and tired of having to deal with fixing the broken bones, the wounds, etc., that come in the early hours of the morning. The police themselves have said that they want parliamentarians to toughen up on alcohol availability to protect our communities. I have to say that, by and large, you will find that in the community in South Auckland there is great disappointment that when they had hoped that we had this opportunity as the Government, as parliamentarians, to really make a change for the better for the community, that has not been the signal that this Government has given to our community.

So I want to introduce a Supplementary Order Paper. I will be looking to support all the other Supplementary Order Papers that colleagues are putting forward, because I think it is an opportunity that we should not miss to make some changes that will support our communities and protect future generations from a culture that we have contributed to over the years. My Supplementary Order Paper proposes an amendment to the Alcohol Reform Bill to provide an opportunity for schools’ boards of trustees and early childhood centres within a radius of 3 kilometres to have their views taken into account when an application for a liquor licence is made in that area. The amendment provides an opportunity for schools and early childhood education centres, if they so choose, to have a say in the location of liquor outlets, with a view to reducing children’s exposure to alcohol on their way to and from school. We have too many in my community, and almost all of these outlets will have huge signs, as I have said, that litter our streets and place themselves in the face of children on the way to and from school.

I think most of us will agree that you will find that most of the community representatives on the school boards of trustees or early childhood education centres will have a better idea than most and provide accurate information on which liquor outlets have behaved responsibly in their areas, and which outlets blatantly act irresponsibly and flout the law in advertising, selling to under-age children, and allowing drinking outside their premises. There is general consensus that the harm in the communities is caused by not only those intoxicated or who abuse alcohol consumption but also by those who sell liquor in an irresponsible manner. For the communities who care about what happens in their neighbourhoods, especially with the children in our communities, there is a strong feeling that we have got to do all we can to at least limit the harm and abuse that arise from alcohol availability, and in particular the exposure of young children to alcohol.

My Supplementary Order Paper provides an opportunity to the members of the local community boards of trustees of schools or early childhood centres to have their say and be heard if they choose to provide a view on the location of liquor outlets in their communities. The Minister of Justice, I understand, has pointed out that the Alcohol Reform Bill has provisions for local alcohol policy to be established, and she has indicated that, therefore, she will not support my Supplementary Order Paper. I would say that although the Alcohol Reform Bill does provide for local alcohol policy, these provisions are voluntary, and unless the council initiates it those local alcohol policies will not exist. Furthermore, the process for establishing local alcohol policies will be a long public consultative process, which we all know can be quite draining on the community and can certainly be quite expensive. My amendment offers an alternative that can happen immediately, without the drawn-out consultative process, and can eliminate the costly normal public process. And though it might be difficult for the boards of trustees to be able to determine the future impact of any alcohol availability and advertising on children, my amendment at least provides an opportunity for the local community to be heard if it so chooses, and for the district licensing agency to consider the concerns of that community and of that school, and the substance of those concerns.

I would urge members of the Government, because it is up to them in terms of the numbers, not only to support my amendment but, I think, to take seriously all the amendments that members have put up. It is not about politicking; it is about genuinely representing the strong views that do exist. And the Minister will know this, because those views also exist in her community, in Papakura. So I move that. Thank you.

LOUISA WALL (Labour—Manurewa): Kia ora, Mr Chair. Thank you very much for the opportunity to contribute to the debate. My Supplementary Order Paper 107 really wants to put children at the heart of policy. My community of Manurewa has over 30 off-licence liquor outlets, but within the context of the greater Manukau—and it is great that I have followed on from my colleague Su’a William Sio—we have 494 liquor licences. We have 181 off-licence facilities. Unfortunately for our community, we fit a lot of the profile that my colleague Kevin Hague was talking about. In terms of the demography of my electorate, we have 14 decile 1 schools, we have nine decile 2 schools, and we have four decile 3 schools. So of the 29 schools in my electorate, 27 are either decile 1, decile 2, or decile 3. That really is at the heart of my Supplementary Order Paper, which is about enabling communities to self-regulate, but from a clean slate.

The reason my Supplementary Order Paper came to be was that just before Christmas the Myers Road superette applied for a liquor licence. The Myers Road superette lies between two schools, Manurewa East School and Greenmeadows Intermediate School. The communities were so enraged by the fact that there was an application for a liquor licence that they leafleted all the homes in the suburb, which is part of the Manurewa electorate, and we had 400 submissions from members of that community opposing that liquor application. I want to take this opportunity to commend the leadership of Phil Palfrey, the principal of Manurewa East, Cathy Chalmers, the principal of Greenmeadows Intermediate School, and also Colleen Brown, a member of the Manurewa Local Board, who holds the portfolio of alcohol.

For us it was an opportunity to mobilise the community, which actually did not need much motivation to get mobilised in terms of writing a submission. They had 20 days. I guess the process for us was won because, when the application was made, there was a try to subvert the opportunity for our Manurewa community to have a say in the issuing of that licence for that superette to sell alcohol.

The experience of our community has been that communities can make a difference, and that communities want to ensure that our children grow up in an environment where they can grow and develop in a positive way. So the Supplementary Order Paper about banning off-licence premises within 1 kilometre of a school is very much a recognition that our schools are our learning, nurturing centres for our children and that the immediate environment around our schools needs to be protected.

Where did the 1 kilometre limit come from? Actually, I wanted it to be a bit further—3 kilometres would have been good—but the reality is that children who live within a kilometre of school actually walk to school. My contention—and, I am sure, the contention of the House—is that alcohol is a product that should be consumed by adults only. There is no place in the life of a child for alcohol, and what really concerns me is that our children who do walk to school and stop at the local superette on their way to school are going to be confronted with alcohol in their environment, normalised. We are going to have kids who are going to be buying fruit, pies probably too, and lollies, but alcohol is going to become, and has become, a normal part of children’s lives.

I think that we should seriously think about starting from a clean slate. What my Supplementary Order Paper will ensure is that the current licences will continue to the point that they need to be renewed but within a context of the local alcohol policies being created, which is very much about the community regulating off-licence liquor outlets. I cannot see any reason why this House would not endorse and support the idea of our children growing up in environments where alcohol is not a normal part of that environment for our children.

I do want to highlight some research, because the Supplementary Order Paper was very much a response to the local community. I am sure my colleague Cam Calder, who is also based in Manurewa, will talk about our Manurewa Youth Council and the fact that the Manurewa Youth Council has endorsed my Supplementary Order Paper. Also, for our Manurewa Youth Council, alcohol has been identified as a pollutant. It is a toxic substance that is an incredibly pervasive commodity in our communities. It is responsible for a lot of family violence. It is responsible for a lot of damage to property. It is responsible for a lot of negative consequences, and so for our Manurewa Youth Council—and I would like to commend Simeon Brown and his team—we have to provide our communities with the tools so that they can regulate alcohol and off-licence premises out of our communities.

What I wanted to highlight was a report entitled The Impacts of Liquor Outlets in Manukau City. One of the primary researchers for this piece of research, which was funded by the Alcohol Advisory Council of New Zealand—now by the Health Promotion Agency—was Dr Michael Cameron, who is an economist. There was a team of them. There was a social scientist, Dr Bill Cochrane, and Dr Craig Gordon from the Health Promotion Agency, along with Dr Michael Livingstone from the Turning Point Alcohol and Drug Centre in Melbourne. Essentially, what they found was that there is a density of liquor outlets in communities in South Auckland, and that is because our communities are seen to demand alcohol. For whatever reason, there are stresses in our community that enable the retailers to set up because there is a demand in our community.

Su’a William Sio: They’re targeted.

LOUISA WALL: They are targeted—you are absolutely right. I guess there is a chicken and egg argument about whether the density of outlets then kind of ensure that that demand is ongoing, which is part of the issue about ensuring that our children are protected. We cannot normalise alcohol in communities that already have high levels of family violence, as I talked about before.

One of the critical things that I want to highlight from this piece of research was some research about a media review. There had been 438 articles identified by Dr Cameron and his group, and from the stories they were able to focus on, liquor outlets and the density of liquor outlets is a huge problem. Three main themes emerged from the research they did. There is a dominant view from the community and from the media that there are too many liquor outlets. There are various concerns about the distribution of outlets—that they were clustered in areas of deprivation, that such clustering promotes price competition and longer opening hours, and that both of those things increase the consumption of alcohol. The third point they wanted to highlight was that locating outlets near schools is particularly problematic. So there is evidence from the research that Michael Cameron and the University of Waikato team have conducted that says that, actually, our children need to be protected from alcohol.

I also wanted to highlight the child-friendly cities framework, which is a framework for action. It is really about guaranteeing the rights of our children and young people. Our children should be protected from exploitation and abuse. Child-friendly cities aim to improve the lives of children, and we really do need to recognise the rights that young people have to grow up in an environment that is not densely populated with liquor outlets. Normalising liquor outlets in communities like the ones I represent, the ones my colleague Su’a William Sio represents, and, in fact, the one that you represent, Mr Chair, makes it very difficult for us to transform the lives of young people who are already growing up in socially and economically deprived families.

So to compound the life opportunities of young people who are already growing in a context of material deprivation and to put liquor outlets into that context is, I think, an ethical issue for this House. As legislators, one of the things we should do is do no harm, and from what I can see our liberalisation of alcohol laws historically has done huge harm.

Dr CAM CALDER (National): It is a pleasure to take a call on Part 3 of the Alcohol Reform Bill, a bill that is the first step in decades in a push back against increasing liberalisation of alcohol laws. I agree with my parliamentary colleague Louisa Wall that alcohol does have a toxic effect on much of our Manurewa community, and I can see real value in elements of Part 3 in helping to reduce the enormous harm that alcohol misuse does in our society and in our Manurewa community. It is believed, for instance, to contribute directly to 1,000 deaths a year—1,000 deaths a year. A major cost of approximately $5 billion is estimated to be due to alcohol-related harms, and it is a known major driver of crime, alcohol being implicated in 30 percent of all police offences, 34 percent of all family violence, and 50 percent of all homicides. This bill sets out to reduce those harms.

One of the initiatives in Part 3 that I am most excited about is about local communities being able to create their own local alcohol policies. As a list MP I have chosen to base my office in the vibrant and diverse community of Manurewa, and one of the earliest gatherings I attended in the Manurewa electorate was a public meeting regarding concerns about yet another alcohol outlet opening. I have heard from Louisa how many there are—

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Order! The member will use the member’s full name all the time.

Hon Annette King: No, the Speaker doesn’t mind if they use first names, remember.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): I am in the Chair.

Dr CAM CALDER: I have heard from the honourable member Louisa Wall the number of alcohol outlets in our community. The Manurewa community are all too well aware of the harms related to alcohol misuse. They have been active in making their concerns known in respect of possible solutions. In my two surveys of the electorate the overwhelming majority of respondents to those surveys were in favour of a purchase age of 20 years at both on-licences and off-licences. The Manurewa Youth Council has been actively involved, as the honourable member Miss Wall has observed, supporting a 20/20 purchase age. I argued for this in the House; sadly, the motion was lost—a huge opportunity lost, in my opinion, but that is democracy.

I know that the Manurewa community and communities the length and breadth of the country will be delighted with this legislation and Part 3 of the bill, which empowers local communities to create their own local alcohol plan: the when, where, and how regarding licensed premises. Communities will have more important decisions. Local authorities will be able to limit the sale of alcohol, and set conditions on licences. Councils will be able to develop local alcohol policies to determine the trading hours of licensed premises, limit the location and density of licences, and impose conditions on these licences. They can take into account the proximity of schools, early childhood education centres, and other community assets such as parks when forming their local alcohol policies.

Further, clause 100, which contains the criteria in the bill for the issue of licences, is clear. Clause 100(1) states: “In deciding whether to issue a licence, the licensing authority or the licensing committee concerned must have regard to … (c) any relevant local alcohol policy:”. Well, we would hope that that would be the case. Under clause 100(1)(h) it must have regard to “whether (in its opinion) the amenity and good order of the locality would be likely to be reduced, by more than a minor extent, by the effects of the issue of the licence:”. New clause 100A(1)(b) requires the consideration of “the extent to which the following purposes are compatible: (i) the purposes for which land near the premises concerned is used: (ii) the purposes for which those premises will be used if the licence is issued.” Fundamentally, then, this bill broadens the matters that must be considered in licence decision-making, and also affords a greater opportunity for members of the community to object to a licence application.

In the absence of a local alcohol plan, a national default mechanism of maximum hours exists. These are 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. for off-licences and 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. for on-licences. To me, these provisions seem overly generous, and I would expect many communities to ensure they formulate their own local alcohol policy to reduce the availability of alcohol in their own communities as they see fit. I applaud this local alcohol policy provision in the Alcohol Reform Bill and am sure it has the potential to lead to significant reduction in alcohol-related harms in our community.

DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First): New Zealand First believes in local democracy and in fully empowered local government, unlike the current Government. We say that local alcohol policies must be compulsory, and that is the subject I wish to address in this speech. New clause 75 would provide that territorial local authorities develop local alcohol policies for their districts and would require that the development process for a draft has, first of all, consultation with police, inspectors and medical officers of health. It would also require the draft policy developed in this way to go through the special consultative procedure set out in the Local Government Act, so that the public can have their say too. New Zealand First believes that it is extremely important that public buy-in should be provided for, because if the public does not support the regime for alcohol in their district, then it is going to be compromised, and that is very bad.

It is also very important that a local alcohol policy and Government legislation should enable local attitudes to be reflected and local needs to be met, because there are many and various districts and cities in this country, which have widely different requirements and people with quite different attitudes, and they should be reflected. There should be provision for that. These policies must, under the bill as presented, take into account a range of considerations such as a district plan, with which the local alcohol policy would obviously have to be consistent; the number of liquor licences in the district; the opening hours and locations; also local alcohol by-laws; and, most important, I think, tourism considerations and public health considerations. For those reasons, it is therefore important that all territorial local authorities should have a local alcohol policy so that the residents of the district can have a real and substantial input into local alcohol policy-making. For that reason, the local alcohol policies must be mandatory. It must be mandatory for each and every territorial authority in this country to have such a policy. I cannot understand the logic behind simply empowering local authorities to do so. That lets some of them off the hook, and none of them should be let off the hook. It is an important matter for local communities and local authorities. Each and every one of them must have one and this legislation should make it mandatory. And it would not create any great imposition upon them to do so. It is fundamental to the welfare of their communities. It would not require a huge amount of money; they do a lot of this stuff already. So why not make it mandatory? I cannot see any reason why not.

There are many competing interests in alcohol policy-making and a balance between commercial interests, community interests, public health, and policing concerns will vary from one district to another, and that balance must be achieved on a local basis, which can happen only if there are mandatory requirements for these things to happen. Some districts have significant holiday locations, such as Mount Maunganui, Wānaka, and Queenstown, where there are special considerations because of the sheer scale of visitors to those places to celebrate occasions such as New Year’s Eve.

The Government, it seems to me, has apparently bowed to commercial interests in not making the adoption of local alcohol policies compulsory. Community concerns are therefore, I think, being sidelined in favour of commercial interests because of this, and the balance that I spoke of will not be achievable unless the requirement is mandatory for these policies to be produced.

I would like, in closing, to refer to Supplementary Order Paper 80, in the name of Kevin Hague, which replaces in clause 75(1) the word “may” with “must”, and that is all it takes to do what I am asking for. In fact, if Mr Hague had not put this Supplementary Order Paper in, then New Zealand First would certainly have done so. He also proposes a number of consequential amendments to that, but I would like to particularly refer to one of the other amendments he proposes in respect of clause 84(2) to delete paragraph (c), which relates to abandoning a policy that has already been developed. It seems to me to be utterly unbelievable that legislation should actually empower that to happen. Similarly, in clause 86A there would be a power to discontinue the development of a policy. To me, that is a breach of trust between the local authority and the community that it represents. How can the local authority go through all of these consultative procedures, and then simply decide to give up midstream? As I said, I think that is a breach of trust and is a most inappropriate provision that should be deleted, as Mr Hague has proposed.

Similarly, in clause 91 we see another area in which a similar deletion is required. Mr Hague has proposed to replace subclause (1) with: “A territorial authority may, by using the special consultative procedure, revoke its local alcohol policy, and adopt another in its place.”, which excludes the possibility of simply revoking and not providing another one in its place. So it is very important that those provisions be adopted as well, for all the reasons I have said.

In conclusion, New Zealand First believes very much in local democracy and that every local council must use that principle of local democracy to have a local alcohol policy that is fully consultative, reflecting local needs and reflecting local attitudes. I would commend to the Committee the adoption of Mr Hague’s Supplementary Order Paper 80 to carry out those particular objectives, which we think are so important.

ANDREW LITTLE (Labour): It was pleasing to hear from the honourable member Cam Calder in his contribution to the debate—at least to hear from a member from the Government at last on these very important considerations. As I think we have established in other parts of the debate on this very important bill, the Alcohol Reform Bill, the earlier debate on age alone has somewhat derailed the reality of the requirements or the need for proper regulation around alcohol sale—that is, that it is not just a question of age and regulating the age of purchase; there are other measures that are required as well. Pricing is one, local input and regulation is another, and access and availability is yet another.

I want to talk to my Supplementary Order Paper 110, which deals with the accessibility or availability of alcohol. But before I do that, I just want to say in relation to the local alcohol policies and the ability of local authorities to make effective regulation on the sale and distribution of alcohol that it does sound suspiciously like social well-being that local authorities will be called upon to regulate and to consider and to deliberate upon. Yet we know that in other legislation this Government is doing its darnedest to remove that power and that ability from local authorities. So this is somewhat contradictory to this Government’s strategy—dare I say, because there does not seem to be one—but, in any event, the other failing, apart from being inconsistent with the overarching local government legislation, is that, of course, it is not mandatory. It is, if you like, a voluntary scheme that local authorities can enter into.

If there is one thing that has become clear in my consultations with members of the public or the communities that I have engaged in regularly since I have been a MP on this issue, it is that they are looking for leadership from this House. They look to Parliament to provide leadership. For this legislation as it stands—with or without the age of purchase issue that has been disposed of, leaving it at 18—the overwhelming view is that this is incapable of making a material difference to the very real social problems that the existing regime on the sale and distribution of alcohol are presently creating. People are looking for a material difference, a substantial change that is going to make a real difference to the availability of alcohol, so that we can start—all of us: parliamentarians, local authority members, entire communities—to take responsibility and take control of the very real social issues that a much more liberal alcohol regime has been creating.

In relation to that, my Supplementary Order Paper dealing with the opening hours or the trading hours of off-licence premises is very important. The default position created by the bill is that off-licences will be able to trade or have default trading hours of 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. It is simply unnecessary, in a community and in a society awash with alcohol as it is, for off-licences to be trading for such an extensive and extended range of hours—16 hours in a day. The purpose of my Supplementary Order Paper is to simply accept a reality: for there to be alcohol available at totally socially responsible and socially acceptable levels, it is not necessary for off-licences to be open so early and it is not necessary for them to be open so late. Having opening hours from 10 in the morning to 8 in the evening allows those who are responsible—planners and organisers of events where they wish alcohol to be available either at home or when they are inviting people round—to have ample time to make their purchases of alcohol.

I think one of the arguments that we have to get on top of is this argument we often hear that rights are being infringed. There are no rights being infringed. I make that argument because we consider the issue of rights in this context to be that the obverse of a right is not responsibility but obligation. When we claim a right, we are claiming that there is an equal obligation on another to observe or respect or uphold that right. There can be no claimed right of access to alcohol or access to purchase alcohol. What is now called for is an acceptance that alcohol is a substance that is capable of causing harm, and that demonstrably is causing harm, so there can be no question of a right to alcohol. The reality is that it has been a part of our social landscape—a feature of our social lubrication, if you like—over many decades and over centuries, so no one is arguing that we should ban alcohol, because it can be consumed responsibly. But the regulatory regime we have in place will reflect our view about how important it is or how accessible it should be. My submission in support of my Supplementary Order Paper is that it is time to send a signal that a greater restriction on the availability and accessibility of alcohol is now due if we are to get to grips with the very serious problems that it is creating.

The proposition in my Supplementary Order Paper is to reduce the default hours to 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. There can be no complaint or criticism that that does not allow reasonable access for those who participate in, and partake of, this substance, this drug, responsibly and in a socially acceptable sort of way. I urge members, in particular those members opposite whom I met in the lobby when we came to vote on the purchase age—we were all voting for the raising of the age to 20—who, in the comfort of the lobby, expressed great concern about the more liberal access to alcohol that we presently have, and implore them to think again, to think very carefully about the sorts of changes that are being proposed in all of these Supplementary Order Papers, and to support those changes that are about making a material and sensible difference so that we have a more responsible alcohol sale and purchase regime. They know that they want change. That is what they wanted when they voted for raising the age to 20. There is more they can do. There is more that has to be done. They know it can be done, and by supporting these other Supplementary Order Papers they can achieve that and salve their conscience.

MIKE SABIN (National—Northland): It is a pleasure to take a call on this very important bill, the Alcohol Reform Bill, and to reflect on my time as a former police officer and the difficulties that alcohol has presented in communities across New Zealand. At the outset I would like to make it clear that my view was that the purchase age for alcohol should be 20 years of age, and I have what I believe to be very well-founded reasons for that. But be that as it may, it is clear that this bill has a number of other interventions that will go to restrict access to alcohol by young people in particular, provide better tools for our community, and go towards our goal of reducing the harm that alcohol causes.

On that point, it is important to note that although I believe that the purchase age of 20 was important, it is not the panacea. There are many other provisions in this bill that I think will make an important difference, and I want to speak to one of those. It is contained within clause 224, and relates to the express consent of a parent for a minor consuming alcohol. If we think of the scenario of a gathering of some young people, and a responsible parent, having invested in the child’s understanding of the implications of alcohol abuse, and so on, sends their child to a party where alcohol is provided and is flowing freely, and where supervision of those youngsters drinking alcohol is poor, and before the night is out, the young person is in a situation that is out of control. Adults in that environment indeed become powerless, as do the police when eventually, all too often, they are called to intervene.

This provision allows better tools for responsible parents to ensure that their children are treated with the same level of responsibility by those who would be supervising them. So this provision will ensure that parents who are hosting young children or supplying those under the age of 18 with alcohol must do that with the express consent of the parent of that child. That, in itself, provides a meaningful tool, but the provision will go on to ensure that the parents not only receive that express consent, but also ensure that the hosts are actually in supervision of the young people, so that they cannot just go out of control. That, in itself, will help to limit parties that would quickly mushroom from a few individuals enjoying a social occasion, to hundreds of people sprawling across the neighbourhood, and a situation that is very, very difficult to contain.

This provision will also go on to require that the alcohol is provided in a responsible manner. I want to read specifically what that will entail. In my view, it is something that a responsible parent would do as a matter of their role as a parent, but, unfortunately, they are being let down by those who do not take that caution. That position will no longer be acceptable, with this bill. Let me read the clause specifically. The parent concerned, taking account of their supervision, must “take into account the following: (a) the steps taken by the supplier to supervise the consumption of alcohol: (b) whether food was provided with the alcohol: (c) whether a choice of low-alcohol or non-alcoholic beverages, or both, was offered: (d) the nature of the occasion: (e) any arrangements for, or provision of, safe transport: (f) the period over which the alcohol was supplied: (g) the strength and volume of the alcohol supplied: (h) the age of the minor:”, and anything else that the court, were it the case that it were involved, needed. In essence what this provision allows for is the ability for some more stringent guidelines around the responsibility required when young people are supplied with alcohol, and some fairly clear guidelines for the court for it to make a balanced decision as to whether or not the parents responsible have actually carried out a degree of responsibility in the manner in which the alcohol has been supplied.

As I mentioned, one of the challenges with the consumption of alcohol in New Zealand has been the purchase age. It is fair to say that outside of licensed premises, where alcohol is provided in a private context, often to people considerably younger than 18 years of age, many of the problems certainly that I witnessed as a police officer have been present. The ability now for responsible parents to know that that child goes out with their express consent, or not, as the case may be, and that the parent receiving them must acknowledge and establish that platform, I think is a very prudent and responsible tool that parents will gladly utilise in their struggles in a culture that has been a sad reflection on many of us in society in terms of binge drinking. I believe that this provision goes to the heart of what many features in this bill are about, and that is about restricting access to alcohol and ensuring that there is more accountability and greater accountability in areas that matter.

There is no one provision within this bill—in fact, there is no one activity that we as a community could take on—that is going to solve this issue. More so, it is my belief that it is a combination of a number of different instruments, as well as an acceptance from all of us, whether we be parliamentarians, police officers, schoolteachers, or indeed young people, that taking on a sense of personal responsibility, and taking on an understanding of the consequences of the behaviour of all of us and the examples that we set, is all part of what needs to happen. This particular provision I certainly support. I support the Supplementary Order Papers that make minor amendments to this particular part of the bill. It is my hope that from this exercise, over the many months that this has been in discussion, we as New Zealanders take on an understanding and take on a little of the responsibility that we all must if we are going to address the problems that alcohol has caused in our country. I am very happy, and commend this part of the bill to the Committee.

CHARLES CHAUVEL (Labour): I would like to make a contribution at this stage in the debate on the issue of local alcohol policies. The number of times that submitters came before the Justice and Electoral Committee and told the committee that they wanted to be able to have more input into, and more influence over, the availability and use of alcohol in their own communities was one of the most significant things that I took away from the experience of having sat on the select committee.

First of all, I think it is a positive thing that the Alcohol Reform Bill provides for local alcohol policies. Let me say that up front. But let me also echo some of the things that have been said already by previous speakers about how much better we could do in this area, because, of course, the fundamental problem with the scheme of the bill when it comes to enabling local input on these matters is that local alcohol policies are not required to be operated by a territorial local authority. It is up to the authority whether it actually chooses to have a local alcohol policy. In other words, what the Government is saying to local government is whether you decide to give your communities sufficient input and control over the use and availability of alcohol in your community is up to you. Whether you do it or not is not a concern of ours. It is up to you whether you decide to enable your communities in that way. That is the fundamental philosophical difference that I have with the Minister of Justice and the Government on this point.

The problem, as we know—and I think many members around the Chamber would concede this—is that in the communities where alcohol has the most devastating effect because of its misuse, there will be an inverse relationship to the ability and capacity of people in those communities to influence their territorial local authorities. So making the existence of a local alcohol policy optional, rather than requiring a territorial local authority to actually take into account local input on this question, will be doubly disempowering in the communities where alcohol abuse has the most devastating effect.

That is why I have put forward Supplementary Order Paper 109. The most fundamental change that it would effect as far as the bill is concerned is that it would make it a requirement of every territorial local authority to operate a local alcohol policy. Every authority would be required to take into account the views of their communities, to actively go out and seek those views, and to then incorporate those views in a policy that applied to licensing decisions made in that particular area. I think a fundamental weakness of the bill is that it makes that exercise entirely optional. It says that, well, maybe communities should have input, and maybe they should not; that is a local matter. If we are serious about giving communities some power and some influence over the abuse of alcohol availability, then we really have to make it an expectation of every local authority that it will deal with licensing decisions according to a local alcohol policy that is carefully consulted on in its communities and that takes into account the views of those communities. It is a major deficiency that the legislation fails to do that.

The second change that my Supplementary Order Paper would make is to insert a provision in the bill that forbids territorial local authorities from dealing with any matter other than licensing in the local alcohol plan. Authorities can deal with the location of licensed premises by reference to broad areas. They can deal with the location of licensed premises by reference to proximity to premises or facilities of particular kinds. They can deal with the question of whether further licences should be issued for premises in the district concerned. They can deal with maximum trading hours. They can deal with the issuing of licences subject to discretionary conditions, and they can deal with one-way-door restrictions. Those are all matters that can be provided for in a local alcohol policy, if the particular local authority entity decides to even operate one of these policies. But if the authority does not, none of these matters have to be referred to in licensing decisions.

And even if it does, it is restricted to those matters. Again, this is a problem. The local authority concerned should be able to consider wider health promotion aspects around the availability of alcohol. To restrict the authority in this way is, in my view, to be artificially restrictive about the sorts of drivers of alcohol abuse that exist in communities. So the territorial local authorities not only should have to operate such a plan; they should not be restricted to these licensing matters in the text of the plan. They should be able to deal with much broader issues in the policies themselves.

The third change that my Supplementary Order Paper would make would be to strengthen the content of required local alcohol policies by enabling the consideration of local demographics and socio-economic factors that operate in the particular communities.

The fourth change would be to enable much greater community input into these policies when they operate. So there is an express requirement in my Supplementary Order Paper that local iwi and hapū be consulted when a local alcohol policy is being put together. I do think that would be a real improvement as far as ensuring that we have well-consulted-over documents that actually operate for the benefit of all of their communities when they are put in place.

Finally, there is a requirement that where there are appeals from decisions about the creation of a local alcohol policy, those appeals should be heard in public. There should be a high degree of transparency around the way in which the policies are put together and the way in which appeals about their contents should be heard.

I am aware that the Minister’s Supplementary Order Paper makes some changes to the text of the bill, and goes some way to meet some of the concerns that I have expressed, but it does not go the whole way, and I do think that the changes that I am advocating for would be beneficial. In the same vein, Supplementary Order Paper 80, in the name of the Green member of Parliament Kevin Hague, would make some very good improvements in this area. He recognises that the mandatory nature of local alcohol policies would go a long way to enabling communities, particularly at-risk communities, to have a real say about the availability of alcohol in those communities, and he notes, as I do, that that is actually the recommendation of the Law Commission—another area where the Government has departed from the very wise recommendations that were made right at the beginning of this process around enabling communities to control what goes on in them. Mr Hague’s Supplementary Order Paper, as does mine, also tries to facilitate and enable better community input into the putting together of local alcohol policies.

So what I want to do is not only to advocate for my Supplementary Order Paper for the reasons that I have set out, but also to commend to the Committee the terms that exist in his Supplementary Order Paper, because either of them would really make for much better local input into the way in which alcohol is available and consumed in the communities where the abuse of this substance is such a problem, as we heard at the select committee hearing.

Hon JUDITH COLLINS (Minister of Justice): It has been very interesting listening to the debate this afternoon, and I think all members right across the Committee should be congratulated on the quality of the contributions. There are a few things I would like to deal with in relation to Part 3 of the Alcohol Reform Bill. Part 3 is the substantive part of the bill. It is the most important part, and it is right that we should have the most debate on this issue.

Mr Chauvel, who has just resumed his seat, has mentioned the very wise recommendations of the Law Commission. Well, it also recommended that this not be a matter that has a personal vote. It actually did recommend that we have party votes on these matters, on the basis that it, in fact, brings about more cohesive legislation, rather than some of the messes that, frankly, we have had in alcohol legislation over the years.

On the local alcohol policies, I particularly want to refer to the comments and contribution from Louisa Wall, the MP for Manurewa, and thank her for them. She has made some submissions on her Supplementary Order Paper 107 that she might think I would normally agree with, around the requirement not to have alcohol outlets located within 1 kilometre of a school or kindergarten, but the trouble with having in legislation for the entire country elements of that sort of requirement is that, for instance, here in Wellington it would mean that the Thorndon New World supermarket would not be able to sell alcohol, because it is just down the road from a school—actually, several schools. So I think we do need to have more of an input from the local authorities.

I know her electorate very well, being in Manurewa, and, of course, my electorate in Papakura, which actually includes a whole chunk of the Manurewa area, is one that has some tremendous issues around alcohol abuse and the location of alcohol outlets. I note Mr Hague’s comments—and I hope I am paraphrasing Mr Hague well here—where he said, basically, that liquor shops open up in places where the poorest people live, and they avoid where the richest people live. I think that is pretty much it. I think he is right, actually. Around some parts of Auckland that I know well, there are few alcohol outlets, and in others that I know because they are in my electorate, they are everywhere. Of course, the thing is that it is not so much the use of alcohol; it is the abuse. We know that availability and hours of access, all those things, have a contribution to make, as, frankly, does the age of purchase, in my opinion.

There have been some comments that Mr Chauvel made around whether or not local authorities should be forced to have local alcohol policies. It is a reasonable suggestion, except that we believe very firmly that we need to let local authorities make their own decisions. The comment was made, and on first hearing it it might sound reasonable, that the poorer communities, in terms of social or economic issues—certainly not in terms of culture and heart—might well be the ones least listened to in the alcohol debate for the local authorities. I hope I have paraphrased Mr Chauvel correctly there. Well, it might sound right, but, actually, that is not the way I see it.

In Papakura and in Manurewa we have extremely active communities—and I see Miss Wall and Dr Calder agreeing with me—because it is the local boards in those communities that are the most strident against the proliferation of alcohol outlets. They are the ones that are most likely to contact me about alcohol outlets opening up and to want to start marches and public meetings against them. It is not the people in the rich areas; they generally do not care. Actually, people in the areas where they see their communities being used and abused by excessive numbers of alcohol outlets are the ones who do want a say. I can tell the Committee that the people of Manurewa and the people of Papakura do not necessarily want to have the same requirements put on them as the people of Remuera or Epsom might. They actually want tougher requirements around the outlets that are opened up.

What I would say is that one of the other things that we are constantly being told by local authorities is that the Government and Parliament should stop putting onerous conditions on local authorities and then complaining when they put up rates. We actually want them to take control and take some action, and I think this gives them the opportunities to do so. The chair, for instance, of the Manurewa Local Board, who is Angela Dalton, a very active member and preceded by another very active member, Daniel Newman, will, I know, be out there saying “We want to have the local alcohol policy for the Auckland region take into account what we need for our area.” The Papakura board will be doing exactly the same.

Actually, I think what we do need to do is to give local authorities some ability to make decisions. They are elected by their constituents. They need to take into account what their constituents want, and if they do not, they will be pushed out. Next year we have the local authority elections. There is an opportunity—should this bill pass through in the form that it is in and we get it through in reasonable time—for local authority candidates to, in fact, campaign on what they want in their local authority policies. I think that is a really good thing. I think too that the local authority policies will be able to take into account the issues that Miss Wall has raised, such as, for instance, where the alcohol outlets will be located. Are they going to be near schools? What sorts of facilities need to be taken into account?

The local alcohol policies will also be able to restrict or extend the maximum trading hours. This is a fantastic thing. At the moment we have around a thousand alcohol outlets with liquor licences that have 24-hour, 7-days-a-week trading—a thousand of them. Frankly, how did that ever happen? Because Parliament at some stage thought we were all going to have this European-style café culture. I have no idea why Parliament would have thought we would ever have a European-style café culture. We have never had one before; we were never going to have one.

Of course, Parliament thought back to the days, obviously, of the King Country, where my parents grew up and where there was, in fact, prohibition. Did it stop alcoholism? Not a chance. People would get on the train at Ōtorohanga—OK it was my family who went on the train, and all their mates; that is why I can speak with some authority on this—go up to Kihikihi in the Waikato, get roaring drunk, and go back again. That was alcohol drinking in the King Country. Then there was the fact that there was moonshine, stills, and home brew everywhere around the place. Prohibition did not stop it. People were taking a legal substance that had been legal pretty much for ever, and prohibition was trying to stop it.

What we need to do is to be very reasonable. We need to give local authorities some power. We need to give local authorities the trust that their electors put in them, and if they do not listen, I promise Parliament that they will be punished for it. The local electors will say to their local authority members “Why is it that you haven’t listened to us?”. They will. I know that the members of local authorities in the Papakura, Manurewa, and South Auckland areas are listening to what their electors say, because they understand that they are there to represent them. I do not think it is unique to them. I think that is true around the country, but they have different priorities in different areas. Of course, some of our local authorities are very small. Some of them do not have, for instance, the amount of power, money, and ability to put in place local alcohol policies straight away, and others do.

The Mayor of Auckland has said to me that he would love this bill to get through as fast as possible so that they can get on to it, and I absolutely support that. But we have to debate this. Everyone is contributing in a really positive way, and I am looking forward to the rest of the debate. We are listening to this, and I say that we should give local authorities a chance to show what they can do. I have faith in them, and I think we will see that they will come up with policies that are appropriate for their area, not for the entire country.

Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East): Thank you for the opportunity to address Part 3, which, as the Minister of Justice has said, is really the substance of the legislation. I do want to take issue, not with something that the Minister said, but with something that one of her colleagues said when talking about local alcohol plans. He did refer to local alcohol plans, when this legislation refers to local alcohol policies. When he was referring to local alcohol plans he was actually thinking back to the Sale and Supply of Liquor and Liquor Enforcement Bill, which of course was introduced to the House just prior to the general election in 2008, and which the incoming National Government adopted as its own. It had its first reading in the early months of 2009 and it was referred to a select committee. It does seem rather odd that this is not the first time that we have debated this issue, yet it sounds as if members believe that it is the first time it has been debated in this House. It has taken us 3 years to get to the point of passing a similar version of our local alcohol plans into law.

The Government discharged the earlier bill in December 2010. We have heard from various speakers on the other side that this is in fact normal practice, that this is what Governments do—Governments just knock out legislation they do not like and replace it with something, even if it is almost exactly the same, because they want to have their own name on it. That is not the case. It may be the case when there has been a change of Government and the incoming Government has campaigned on an issue where it has a different set of policies than are reflected in the current legislation before the House. Often that will mean that the Government will introduce its own legislation to replace that. But this is not what we had happen in this case. We actually had a bill picked up by the Government of the day. It was referred to the select committee. Submissions were called for, people made submissions in good faith, and, in fact, there was general support right across the board for the development of local alcohol plans. In fact, really the only objections came from those who felt that they might be disadvantaged by the amount of community control that the Minister quite rightly identified as developing as a result of this process.

There is a sense of something—and I do not know whether anyone has actually said it out loud, but I am going to say it and put it on the table, because it kind of feels to me like there is an elephant in the room—that is, there are some people who feel that it is their God-given right to sell alcohol, and that it does not matter that it would be a restricted drug in any other environment. That is why we have legislation that surrounds the sale and purchase of alcohol. It is because alcohol is, in fact, a drug. In order to sell drugs, normally one has to have a degree in pharmacology of some sort and practise as a pharmacist, and pharmaceuticals can be sold only from certain premises under very strict conditions. In fact, not just anyone who works in a pharmacy can dispense pharmaceuticals. They have to be dispensed by somebody properly qualified, trained to do so, and, actually, subject to quite stringent professional standards and ethics, certain models of supervision, and ongoing training and development. So there are all of these things that are normally around the sale of a drug.

With the sale of liquor, we have said that, OK, it has a recreational use. Therefore, we as a country have allowed for the sale of liquor. In fact, we used to ballot. We used to let the people decide whether we were going to have national continuance, national prohibition, or State purchase and control. I think I have informed the House on other occasions that on the couple of occasions when I got to vote on that, it was for State purchase and control that I voted, but that was not ever going to be the case.

Charles Chauvel: Good old socialist.

Hon LIANNE DALZIEL: I must be a socialist at heart. But the truth is that as soon as the prohibition referendum went off the agenda—and it came off the agenda for obvious reasons; it was dominated by the results for national continuance—there was no appetite for prohibition. Actually, if you look at some of the information that is coming out about recreational drug use, some of the issues around prohibition are just as relevant to the issues around prohibition as far as alcohol goes.

I agree with the Minister that it is a question of balance, and that we as a country have decided that it is not prohibition that we are seeking, but it is important that communities are empowered to stand up to those who think that it is their right to sell as much alcohol as often as they like whenever they like to whomever they like, with the two restrictions that they cannot sell to somebody who is under the age of 18 years and they cannot sell to somebody who is already intoxicated. The trouble is that when we are talking about off-licences and the impact that they have on our communities, often when people go late to the off-licence they are already intoxicated, but the person who is serving them will not know, or, in fact, they may feel threatened by them. That was the one example that did come up in the submissions. People working in those small, 24/7 dairies that masquerade as grocery stores do feel threatened. I know an individual, whom I have spoken to, who personally sold alcohol to somebody who he knew was intoxicated, because the threat was sufficient that if he had not sold it to him, the place would have been burglarised anyway. This is an intolerable situation. Our communities are saying “No more. We do not want these in our communities.”

There is a difference between the local alcohol plans in the original legislation that the Government discharged in 2010 and this bill, which establishes local alcohol policies. I would like the Minister to perhaps take a call on the differences between the two. There were specific provisions we put into the legislation originally that were actually designed to make it clear that when a community was being asked to look at a local alcohol plan, the community would be able to require information that might be specific to their particular area to be submitted with the applications for the granting or renewal of a licence—so the submission with applications for the granting or renewal of a licence of a social impact report—and that is quite different, I think, from the reference in the Minister’s bill around the question of a draft local policy, which talks about “the nature and severity of the alcohol-related problems arising in the district.” I believe that social impact actually looks at a much broader analysis than that, which was one of the reasons why we specifically had that in the legislation, and we had the kinds of people who would have to prepare that kind of social impact report.

It did seem, certainly to me and to my colleagues at the time, that a lot of people set up the sale of alcohol in particular areas because they wanted to target the area. They do not actually think about the impact that it has on people; they are thinking purely of the profits they can make. That is why there has been resistance to some of these policies. I recall some of the industry being quite concerned about local alcohol plans as they were originally introduced. Some of that has quietened down, and I wonder whether they can see that some of the more responsible elements of the legislation are not actually there any more and they are not so worried about it.

Also, they were worried that there would be different rules in different parts of the city. Well, I agree with the Minister that it is actually important that communities have a real say about what is suitable for their own community. I think it is really important that we think about local alcohol plans from an empowerment perspective, and how this really does relate to how local government is much more closely related to the community in these sorts of matters.

I just want to say that there have been 2 years wasted in terms of this. We could have had local alcohol plans in place 2 years ago, if that bill had not been discharged. But I want to make the point that that was not the decision of this Minister of Justice; it was her predecessor. It was he who promised to work collaboratively with the Labour Party on this vital issue—and the Government itself had agreed that it was a vital issue, because it is one of the major drivers of crime—and it was he who decided unilaterally to discharge that bill and introduce the one that we have today.

I think it is really important that we understand that community engagement lies at the heart of local alcohol plans. I think it is imperative that all communities have local alcohol plans, and that communities are directly engaged—

DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First): I would like to speak on Supplementary Order Paper 109, in the name of Charles Chauvel, and I want to begin by repeating that New Zealand First has full faith in local democracy with regard to local alcohol policies. We therefore think that it is important that they be mandatory. In that respect I would like to say that I listened carefully to what the Minister in the chair, the Minister of Justice, said, and I did not hear any real argument as to why they should not be mandatory. I did agree with a lot of what she said about the need for local policy-making, as far as a local alcohol regime is concerned. As far as small local authorities are concerned, I am absolutely convinced that each and every one of them could easily handle this function. After all, they would have the support of Local Government New Zealand, which often helps small local authorities with many things, and it would certainly help them with these particular plans.

Small local authorities can also look at what larger local authorities are doing, and perhaps even work collaboratively with other local authorities in the development of their plans. Of course, smaller authorities can, in fact, have smaller and simpler local policies. That would probably be quite appropriate for many of them. So I do not think it is any great imposition at all that we should make the development of local alcohol policies mandatory for smaller, larger, and, in fact, each and every one of New Zealand’s territorial local authorities.

The situation regarding trading hours is a very good example of why local authorities must set them and why they must not be done by Parliament through the clause 44 default provision. If that is the case, then there would be no need for any amendment to those default hours as proposed by some members. New Zealand First thinks that those default hours are far too liberal and should be more restrictive, but we would not wish to do so by amending this legislation. Instead, we would like to see local authority alcohol policies be mandatory. The fact that those liberal hours are liberal will encourage those local authorities to have a good look at what they think is appropriate for their particular districts. They need to reflect local needs. For example, if you look at Queenstown, you would expect that they would want local policies regarding trading hours to be more liberal, whereas, for example, you might expect a city like Invercargill to have more restrictive hours. One would understand why, and that would be very appropriate. But it is important that those two and all other local authorities actually set those hours themselves and not rely on default provisions as set out in clause 44.

With regard to Supplementary Order Paper 109, I fully agree with Mr Chauvel’s proposal regarding clause 45. It would simply be redundant if the requirement for local authority alcohol policies was mandatory. The proposals he makes for clause 46 would also be appropriate. They are consequential. I note also he proposes the same amendment to clause 75 as Kevin Hague has proposed, replacing in that clause the word “may” with the word “must”. That is, as I said before, all it takes and is most appropriate.

Finally, I would like to mention the amendments to clause 77 that Mr Chauvel has proposed. I believe they should be adopted as well. I like very much what he has done in respect of the policies that would be mandatory, especially those in subclause (1), relating to the location of licensed premises with regard to broad areas, and, secondly, the location of licensed premises by reference to proximity to premises or facilities of particular kinds. There has already been some debate about that. I also note the process for managing intoxicated people.

Dr JACKIE BLUE (National): I am very pleased to speak on Part 3 of the Alcohol Reform Bill. It is the most substantial part of the bill. It is where the rubber hits the road. Just before I start I would like to record that I actually was passionate about increasing the purchase age to 20 years old. Unfortunately, that did not happen. That is democracy; that is the will of the House.

On local alcohol polices I could not agree more with the Hon Lianne Dalziel. Engagement and empowering communities are so critical. You just cannot prescribe something or cut and paste someone else’s plan into another community’s plan, and that is so true. The community is in the best position to decide where those outlets should be and how many it should have. I will give you the example that happened in the community that I work in, in Mount Roskill, in the last term of Parliament. Molley Green is an area in Mount Roskill, and an outlet was threatening to open up. It had been given the go-ahead. In fact, there was a lot of density of alcohol outlets in that particular area. There was a kindergarten and there were a number of schools. The community was absolutely outraged that this outlet was going to open up opposite an intermediate school. It took people who were passionate about the community to rally support, and they protested.

I joined that protest. I was very happy to. It was actually a very uplifting experience knowing that the community was being galvanised like a lightning rod. It was a glue. It brought the whole community together, and there was a huge amount of passion. Well, they really did not have much show in the sense that this outlet had already been given the go-ahead, and so there were not a lot of remedies they could follow, but they decided they would protest anyway, and they did. They got loud hailers there, we had placards, and we got toots from cars. That is when I realised there is a real public activism happening out there. There is a real passion and concern about how alcohol is impacting on our communities.

I am just going to sidetrack a wee bit: that is why we have got the FebFast, and we have got the different initiatives like Dry July and Hello Sunday Morning, where people—celebrities, high-profile New Zealanders—are saying “Look, I’m giving up alcohol. I’m going to review how it affects my life.”, and good on them, because they are becoming role models. This legislation is going to go a long way, but it is no magic bullet, and we know that. There are some excellent, excellent parts to this Alcohol Reform Bill, which I believe will go a long, long way, and local alcohol plans will be part of that. Students would have been walking past the outlet. The concern was that there were kindergartens, there were greens, and there were reserves where, if people had easy access to alcohol—there was already pretty easy access, but this would make it easier—we would have glass bottles and broken glass in parks and reserves, near kindergartens, and so forth.

I am really pleased to say that that outlet decided not to go ahead. I am not sure of the reasons why. Maybe it saw the outpouring of emotion and concern from the community, and realised it was on a hiding to nothing, and I am pleased it did not go ahead. So it was a win for the community, and I thought it was fantastic. I thought it was an excellent suggestion by the Minister of Justice, Judith Collins, that local body election candidates could actually campaign on this. If we can get this bill through in a timely way and on the statute book, our candidates for the local bodies next year could go out and campaign on this. Boy, it would be like a lightning rod. I know it would be, because I sense it and I feel it. There is a real undercurrent there. For any candidate worth their salt, if they want to actually get votes and actually engage people—it is all about engaging; I know we are very concerned about the voter turnout in local body elections—that would be an absolute issue of concern. I think we all feel it, because as MPs we walk through the community and we discuss it; we know the severe impact that alcohol has.

The other part to this Alcohol Reform Bill that I am really pleased about is supermarket displays, in that supermarkets will be able to display alcohol only in the single non-prominent area of their store. It will not be at entrances. It will not be at checkouts. It will not be at the end of aisles. There will be no grandparenting laws, which someone did tell me about the other day. They thought that was going to be OK for their local supermarket, and it was all OK—they were going to be grandparented in. Well, that is not going to happen. I think that is excellent. There are also going to be much tighter restrictions on alcohol advertising. Unacceptable practices will no longer be allowed. We will not be able to encourage people to drink heavily. There will not be any advertising of free alcohol, advertising discounts of 25 percent or more on alcohol, or offering free gifts with the purchase of alcohol. Thank you.

TE URUROA FLAVELL (Māori Party—Waiariki): Tēnā koe, Mr Chairperson. Kia ora tātou katoa. I wanted to take an opportunity to look at a fair chunk of Supplementary Order Paper 81, which I have presented to the Committee. But to set the scene and to make sure that it is in a context: one in five Māori will have an alcohol-abuse disorder at some stage in their lives. One in 10 will become dependent on alcohol. Those most likely to have alcohol abuse and dependence issues are those living in the very poorest households and communities. Alcohol use in low socio-economic communities is associated with high levels of crime, educational underachievement, poor economic prospects, and chronic welfare dependency. That is where the Māori Party does not want our people to be. Lifting the standard of living in these communities means addressing alcohol issues.

Māori make up a disproportionate number of the clients in alcohol and drug treatment services. Māori tamariki and rangatahi are seen by alcohol and drug treatment services at a rate of at least three times the rate of non-Māori the same age. So from the Māori Party perspective we have much to do. Although the Alcohol Reform Bill does go some way towards addressing some of those issues, clearly, across the Committee, as we have had the debate over the last 2 days, there are some of us who feel we could go a little bit further.

There are a number of key clauses that I wanted to identify to the Committee in my opportunity to speak. Pretty much most of them are captured in this part, Part 3. The first one is relatively straightforward, and it is talking about the notion of a sinking-lid policy, if you like, on off-licences. What we are talking about here is starting to bring down the number of liquor stores, while allowing relocation of existing premises, not to disadvantage those who are already there, but certainly to look toward the sinking-lid policy, if you want to call it that.

When I was a young fellow in my home town of Ngongotahā, which is just north of Rotorua, there was one pub, full stop—one pub. Whether that is a good thing or bad thing I will not say, but it was a vital part of the community. I listened to the Hon Judith Collins talk about her circumstances when she was younger, and pretty much—my mother, in particular, visited that place, and it was good for the community. It was good for the community. My dad, I can be proud to say, bless his soul, was known as a sly-grogger at Mangakino at the power station at a time when Maori were not allowed to buy alcohol. So there is a bit of a context there. But coming back to Ngongotahā, there was one pub for that small community. If you go through Rotorua heading to Tauranga on the back road, you will find it. Now there are two bottle stores, two pubs, and a supermarket, all selling alcohol.

Hon Trevor Mallard: And the good singer has gone too.

TE URUROA FLAVELL: And the what?

Hon Trevor Mallard: The good singer has gone.

TE URUROA FLAVELL: Oh, well, the point is—

Hon Trevor Mallard: That was Howard’s pub.

TE URUROA FLAVELL: Oh, no, was it? You are joking. It was not the Ngongotahā pub, no. He was up at the lake house. I digress from the topic.

What I am saying, and other speakers have talked about this, is that the proliferation of venues that sell alcohol has grown. I am talking about my small home town that, as I said, had one small pub, which was a central focus. Now it has five places where you can buy alcohol. It just does not seem right. We have heard other stories. Louisa Wall talked about Manurewa, her electorate, or Ōtara, those smaller places where you can walk around and at every corner you will find a liquor outlet—small outlets that can even fit in half the size or even a quarter of the size of this Chamber, set up to sell alcohol. We have got to do something about that, and my amendment is about moving in that direction, and bringing a sinking-lid policy while not disadvantaging those who are already in that business, I suppose. So that is the first point, and I hope that the Committee gives some serious consideration to that.

Another part of the amendment that I bring to the Committee is changing and adapting the trading hours from 8 a.m. to 4 a.m., to 10 a.m. to 3 a.m. That is a change in the opportunity, again, to sell alcohol. The other element that is brought in here is for on-licence premises to have a one-way door policy, meaning that once you are in the premises, you are stuck there. If you go out, goodbye, do not come back—after 1 o’clock, it is time to go home. Very often, I know from having taken some young adults from home into Rotorua, they tend to move around, for whatever reason, and, in doing so, they consume more alcohol as they go. It is likely they have some in their cars, because they want to visit all of the nightclubs. This is one way of dealing with this particular angle of young people moving from place to place. Once you go in the premises, you are there. You are stuck there, and if you go, it is the end of the story between the hours of 1 a.m. and 3 a.m. We think that this is a good provision that will, hopefully, be supported by the Committee. I noted some of the comments made by the Minister of Justice earlier about the trading hours—many comments, actually—that there are only 3 out of 24 hours when alcohol is not available to be sold, at this point in time. That is wrong. That is wrong.

The third part of the amendments that I have put forward are talking about the proximity to schools in respect of being a part of the deciding factors about whether a licence can be issued. I know that Louisa Wall talked about that, and some have talked about perhaps having a distance. What we are talking about here is making sure that it has a little bit more bite on how those licensing authorities actually go about their work. Again, we think this is a sensible thing. It gives a little more clout to licensing authorities to give more consideration to where schools are, in terms of determining whether the place that is selling the alcohol is allowed to have a licence and, in fact, to set up a premises in that proximity.

The last one that I wanted to touch base on in the bit of time I have got available, without diverting too far, is this question about the appointment to licensing committees within territorial authorities. In a sense, because Māori for all intents and purposes have been at the bad end of some of the statistics—and I opened with some of those comments—the view is that it would be appropriate to have Māori representation as of right, if you like, on those territorial authorities. So the Supplementary Order Paper is asking that there be provisions, or rather that the provisions in respect of the appointment of licensing committees within territorial authorities be amended so as to provide for the appointment of Māori members, by local iwi or hapū, to those committees. In the amendment, it proposes that “3 [members] are appointed by the territorial authority for that ... district; and 1 [member] is appointed by local iwi or hapū ...”.

What we found, even in cases like the Rena—and we spoke about it in the debate on the Mount Maunganui Borough Reclamation and Empowering Act Repeal Bill recently—is that not only the impact but also the ability of Māori to be a part of decision-making processes within those authorities by hapū and by iwi is an important ingredient to getting buy in. It would seem to us, thinking back on the experience of the Rena disaster, that having Māori involvement at that level—at the decision-making level—brings about buy in. Certainly it does at a hapū level, because these appointments would be made by hapū and iwi people, and therefore there must be a link back to the local community. In that regard, we would hope that the Minister looked carefully at this one. It is not a big ask—one person, an iwi or hapū delegate, to be appointed on to the territorial authorities to be able to give some insight, if you like, into not how Māori think about alcohol, because sometimes thinking does not come into it, but certainly to be able to have input about the disastrous effects that it has had on Māori hapū, iwi, and kāinga.

So those are pretty much the main thrusts of the amendments, certainly around the licensing requirements and conditions. I have not touched on minimum pricing, because I think we will hold that one for a little bit longer. But certainly we believe that these amendments that are here are fair, are considered, and may well add or at least contribute in some way to dealing with some of the issues that members across the House have raised. We ask the Minister to give serious consideration to amendments in that order. Thank you very much. Kia ora tātou.

LOUISA WALL (Labour—Manurewa): Kia ora, Mr Chair. Thank you very much for the opportunity to just clarify Supplementary Order Paper 107 in my name. It starts from a premise that our schools are the nurturing and learning environments for our children, as are the immediate environments around our schools, which is why the 1-kilometre buffer zone I wanted to create around our schools is so vital. But what I want to add is that I have excluded supermarkets, and I also have highlighted in my Supplementary Order Paper an exclusion for communities to self-regulate. So I have already factored in the opportunity for communities, through the local alcohol policy, to decide whether they do in fact want a liquor outlet within 1 kilometre of a school.

I think the principle that I want to discuss, really, is what the difference or the interface is between central government and local government in terms of ensuring that our children—and especially our children who walk to school—have the protections, and that we as members of Parliament, in our job as legislators, act so that our children do not have to walk to school or to stop into the local superette on the way to school and be confronted with alcohol. It really is a question about alcohol as a commodity, and the relationship that that commodity has with our children.

I agree that the local alcohol policy is going to provide a wonderful platform and opportunity in communities like Papakura and Manurewa, and, in fact, in all of our communities that have strong leadership. I want to acknowledge, as the Minister of Justice did, that we have local board members and leaders within our respective communities who will ensure through the local alcohol policies that such issues are considered. But, in fact, I do not want the Mayor of Auckland to determine, through a local alcohol policy that Auckland City will have, that schools are the learning and nurturing centres for our kids, and that the immediate environment around schools is so vital that we do not want the pollutant of alcohol to inflict and infringe on the ability for our kids to develop—I would like this House and central government to take the responsibility. The principle that my Supplementary Order Paper is trying to address—

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member. The time has come for the dinner break. This debate is interrupted.

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

LOUISA WALL: I would like to recommence my contribution to the Committee stage of Part 3 of the Alcohol Reform Bill by moving to some evidence from the National Institute of Demographic and Economic Analysis from the University of Waikato. That group is headed by economist Dr Michael Cameron. What I want to do is quote from the Manukau research that I have been using throughout my contributions, which is The Impacts of Liquor Outlets in Manukau City. It was published in January 2012, funded by the Alcohol Advisory Council of New Zealand, which is now the Health Promotion Agency. What this research found is that “off-licence liquor outlets tended to be located in high-population, high-deprivation areas, and were associated with significantly higher levels of crime, including violence, sex, drugs, alcohol and property offences as well as motor vehicle crashes.”

What I want to highlight is section 6 of this particular piece of research. What the group did was look at the indicators of social harm from the New Zealand Transport Agency, Counties Manukau District Health Board, and the New Zealand Police. It looked at accident and emergency event data, alcohol-related admissions, and different categories of police attendances. It included things like antisocial behaviour, dishonesty offences, drug and alcohol offences, family violence, property abuses, property damage, sexual offences, traffic offences, and violent crime. That was part of the methodology.

What they concluded in this section was that, per 10,000 people per annum, they have evidence that says “an additional off-licence outlet is associated with 10.4 to 25.3 additional police events and 2.0 to 3.8 additional motor vehicle accidents.” There is empirical evidence that the density of outlets does contribute to a whole lot of social indicators that actually have a fiscal cost to society. So my advocacy of my Supplementary Order Paper and of the fact that we should treat schools as very special places for our children and treat the environment immediately around them as very important to communities has, I think, some merit.

I also would like to highlight in this report section 4, which deals with the community stakeholder view. This particular research project group carried out 20 interviews, had six focus groups, and completed 11 surveys. If I again focus on what they found was the most problematic outlet type, it was the smaller stand-alone outlet. It is these outlets—these superettes, these dairies that somehow have become entrenched in the suburbs, in our communities, providing liquor to the local people—that are the most problematic. What the group found was that “Their role in increasing the incidence of alcohol-related harm in the community was attributed to a variety of factors that can be summarised as relating to three main themes:”.

The first one was about density, and the reality is we have a problem with density. So whether we like it or not, we have to create mechanisms that are going to address the density issue. Density then correlates to availability, and there is increased consumption in suburbs where people have access to alcohol. So there is clear evidence about that. The second one was co-location: “liquor outlets were observed to be located in areas with vulnerable populations, particularly in areas of lower socioeconomic status.”

The third was the unscrupulous business practices of people who manage and run these particular outlets in communities such as Manurewa. So there is sale of alcohol to minors, and there is the granting of credit to vulnerable people. What I really wanted to highlight was the near unanimity concerning potential policy responses. This is what the community identified as the need; this is the community’s response to that need. These are their policy solutions.

The first was to reduce the number of outlets, which my Supplementary Order Paper would do. I also want to highlight Supplementary Order Paper 81 in the name of the honourable member Te Ururoa Flavell, because his sinking-lid policy would also ensure that we address the supply of liquor outlets. The second solution was restricting and controlling the hours of operation of licensed premises, which is what my colleague Andrew Little’s Supplementary Order Paper 110 wants to do.

But the solution is also about implementing planning measures that restrict the number of outlets in particular locations. The contention of my Supplementary Order Paper, of new clause 38A, which I want inserted into the legislation, is that we will not allow off-licence liquor outlets within 1 kilometre of a school or an early childhood centre. What are we talking about? We are talking about our children who are aged under 5—the 2, 3, 4, and 5-year-olds. We are talking about young kids—primary school children—who walk to school not being exposed to alcohol. And it is not only alcohol in the dairies and the superettes that I am worried about; it is also the paraphernalia around alcohol. It is the bottles, it is the cans, and it is the whole culture associated with excessive consumption that I think we also have to be mindful of.

I am really passionate about this issue, and I am passionate because the communities and the people in South Auckland are incredibly passionate about it. So I am asking that the Minister of Justice seriously look at whether or not it is central government’s responsibility to create a safe place for our kids. If we want to put children at the centre of policy and children at the centre of the Alcohol Reform Bill, this is one way that we can do that.

This is the one way that we can actually say to the people of New Zealand that we value our schools, we value our children, and we will protect our children and ensure that they are not subject to the ill consequences of alcohol. We will make sure that the immediate environment around our schools—because they are nurturing, learning centres for our children—will be protected and we will have a buffer zone. The only people who will change that, who can change that, are local people through their local alcohol policies, which is what my Supplementary Order Paper is proposing. As a first-principles response, as an ethical response, I think it is incumbent on all of us to protect not only the children in South Auckland, actually—the principle is to protect all children. Kia ora. Thank you.

Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East): I want to talk about Supplementary Order Paper 113 in my name, which is a regulation-making power for minimum pricing in off-licences. I have written to all members of the House and asked them to support this amendment, because this amendment does not actually introduce minimum pricing; it simply creates the power for the Government to introduce a regulation for minimum pricing when it has reached the position that it says it wishes to adopt post the work that it is doing in this area. The reason that I want to bring this into effect now by way of a regulation-making power is to ensure that the process for delivering a minimum price, should the decision be made, is actually available at the time the decision is made, rather than having to come back to Parliament and ask Parliament to then vote on a change to legislation that we have just passed, in order to implement a minimum pricing regime. There is no way that the Government will be able, under the existing Alcohol Reform Bill, to introduce a minimum price without a regulation-making power within the legislation to do so.

What this regulation does not do is state a minimum price. That minimum price must be evidence-based, and that is why I have chosen a regulation-making process. That would enable proper consultation over the establishment of the correct level to be undertaken. Some people have taken an unscripted reference in a parliamentary debate last year to $2 per standard drink, which is a statement that I did use in a speech, as a position that I have adopted. But I really want to say—as I have said to the Minister of Justice personally, although I know that she has continued to repeat it; I have said it to her personally, and I will repeat it to the Committee—I do not want to implement a $2 per drink minimum price for alcohol. The Labour Party does not have a position on this at all. It is a conscience vote on this side of the Chamber. There is no position that Labour has adopted, and I personally have not adopted a position of $2 per standard drink.

I want to explain what I said in the Chamber, and, as I say, it was unscripted. For some time we have not been allowed to use speeches that we have pre-written when we come down to the Chamber. We are not allowed to read out speeches. I made a reference to an amount per standard drink. I should have said it was an example of a minimum price. It certainly is not the position I have adopted. It was based on my mistaken view that there are six standard drinks in a bottle of wine. That is my mistake—apparently there are 7.2 standard drinks in a bottle of wine. Regarding the $6 bottle of wine, which I was seeking to target—because people can buy $6 bottles of wine; that is well under a dollar per standard drink—I said that that bottle of wine should be around double that price. So that is where the $2 per standard drink came from. It was based on my mistaken view that there were six standard drinks in a bottle of wine, which I thought should be sold for $12, not for $6.

The reason I said they should not be sold for $6 is that people were essentially doing a cost-benefit analysis when purchasing alcohol, although I described it with young people as a “cost-trash analysis”—that is, how little can someone pay for the amount of alcohol required to get them trashed. We are talking about people who will determine whether they have had a good night out by how little they can remember of it, not by the good time they actually had. So I want to make it absolutely clear that I do not believe that politicians should set the price based on what they think, as I have proved that what they think may in fact be mistaken. It should be done by regulation, a proper regulation-making process, and that is all this Supplementary Order Paper proposes. I do ask the Committee to consider it seriously. It means a lot, I think, to the people who have been advocating for substantive change to the law. It does not bind anyone to any particular position. It just facilitates change in the law once the research comes in and backs that change, which, I believe, it will.

The Law Commission had a section on pricing and recommended that work be undertaken, which the Government is doing, and I acknowledge that. It referred to the recently released draft guidance from the UK Government’s expert advisory body on medical treatment, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, and this is a quote from that report: “Making alcohol less affordable appears to be the most effective way of reducing alcohol-related harm. There is sufficient evidence (within the published literature and from the economic analysis) to justify the introduction of a minimum price per unit. The evidence suggests that young people who drink and people who drink harmful amounts of alcohol tend to choose cheaper drinks. Establishing a minimum price per unit would limit the ability of these groups to ‘trade down’ to cheaper products.”

The Law Commission also discussed excise tax over minimum pricing and had this to say: “However, the difficulty with using excise tax to establish an implicit minimum price is that all alcohol products go up in price, including premium products. There is also the risk that, given the purchasing power of the supermarkets and the highly competitive market, retailers will not pass on the excise tax in full, or will pass it on for some beverages but not others, depending on the profit margins associated with different products.” This has been my argument all the way along around minimum pricing. This is not about increasing the overall price of alcohol. This is about increasing the price of just the dirt-cheap alcohol, the extremely cheap alcohol, the alcohol that is cheaper than buying a bottle of Coca-Cola or a bottle of milk. But in the end, the Law Commission felt that more research should be done, and it recommended an immediate increase in the excise tax of 50 percent.

I have not actually supported that as a position, because I know not only about the example the UK report identifies but that supermarkets require suppliers to absorb much of the increases themselves so it never impacts on the price that they retail for, and it does flow on to the high-end as well. High-priced wine and spirits are not the problem; it is the dirt-cheap alcohol that is the problem, and minimum pricing has no real impact on moderate drinking. After all, if you are drinking only a bottle of wine a week, then an extra $6 is not going to make any difference if you were buying the $6 bottle, but if you were already paying more than $12 for a bottle of wine, you would not be paying a cent more. So it does not impact on the people whom we say would be affected by it. The only reason that the Ministry of Justice has given the Minister as to why it opposes the Supplementary Order Paper is that it is investigating minimum pricing. The Supplementary Order Paper relieves the Government of the need to return to the House for an amendment to the Act when the work produces a result, which I believe will support minimum pricing.

In my letter to MPs in the House I referred to a comment made by the UK Prime Minister David Cameron. He said that they needed to get to grips with the problem of super-cheap alcohol, which is fuelling violence on their streets and causing mayhem in their accident and emergency units. He believed that minimum unit pricing is a big part of the answer, and he ends his comments by saying: “this shows a radical government, not frightened of taking big decisions, rolling up its sleeves and getting on with the job,”. I never thought for a minute that I would be quoting positively a Tory Prime Minister in this Parliament here in New Zealand, but he is right. It is time for the Government to roll up its sleeves and get on with the job, without coming back to Parliament to amend the Act, and that is what my Supplementary Order Paper will do.

I want to end by commenting on the Minister’s concerns around what has happened in Scotland. Yes, it is true that the Scottish Government has been forced into a situation where it has had to push back the introduction of minimum pricing as the interests find themselves swirling around this topic, as has occurred with the tobacco lobby. “… the Scotch Whisky Association is essentially arguing that the commercial interests of its members should take precedence over the health and wellbeing of the people of Scotland.” Essentially, “We need to decide if our society is prepared to limit commercial activity to better protect our health and quality of life, or alternatively, allow powerful corporate interests to dictate health policy.” I think that is what we need to take into account here—that, yes, there are powerful interests that want to stop the imposition of a minimum price, but the argument that they are producing on the other side is that this is a matter of competition, and that competition should actually allow pricing to go down to its lowest level for the benefit of the consumer. Well, it may well be for the benefit of the individual consumer that he or she can buy an individual bottle of wine for $6, but it is not to the benefit of our country that that dirt-cheap alcohol is fuelling violence and mayhem and is destroying people’s abilities to make confident decisions about the things they are going to do with their lives.

We have unplanned pregnancies in this country that are the result of people doing what they would not otherwise do other than under the influence of alcohol. We have people making poor decisions or not being capable of making good decisions because they are under the influence of too much alcohol. When the alcohol is so cheap that it is cheaper than a bottle of milk, then you have to understand that it is going to have an impact on the wider society. Are we here in this Chamber seriously going to leave our law unable to respond to a report that may produce a result that says that we must act? If that report, which the Government has asked for, produces a result that says we must act, do we then have to come back to Parliament and amend the Act to make a power, to give us the power to do the thing that we know is the right thing to do? I think we must continue to see the question of who is trying to influence the result on this vote.

Let me just quote from the Scottish situation again. The chief executive of Alcohol Focus Scotland stated: “Having failed to use their formidable lobbying power to prevent the passage of the minimum pricing law in Scotland, the global corporations now seek to get the legislation struck down by the courts. In taking this action, they follow the well-trodden path of the tobacco industry and other transnational corporations who use their considerable financial clout to oppose public health policies that threaten their shareholders’ profits.” Make no mistake about it: that is what this issue is all about. That is why this is the issue that I have chosen for the Supplementary Order Paper that I wanted to bring to this Committee and to have this debate on, because it is an issue that was raised in the Alcohol in our Lives: Curbing the Harm report that the Law Commission wrote after listening to the people of New Zealand. It is an issue that is subject to misinformation, it is subject to an outrageous level of lobbying and attack from a very well-resourced industry, and the poor old publicly funded public health institutions are left struggling to compete with the level of pressure that those multinational corporations can bring to bear.

We were in this House debating this issue on tobacco many, many years ago, and I know that nobody would want to own being on the wrong side of that. I do not want anyone to own being on the wrong side of this issue. It is simply a regulation-making power, which, when the evidence is produced, enables the Government to take immediate action and to have a proper consultation process about what that minimum price should be. I do not think that anyone in this Chamber who would agree that $6 for a bottle of wine, and enabling people to do that “cost-trash analysis” before they go out and expose themselves to an unsafe environment, would stand for that.

KEVIN HAGUE (Green): I want to begin by expressing my support for remarks made by the Minister of Justice from the chair earlier today around the tone of the debate today, because it has been a constructive tone. It has been good to see Government members taking calls, and that is the kind of exchange of ideas that I think the Alcohol Reform Bill will benefit from.

I am going to take some calls on price issues later on, but I want to take this call specifically on local alcohol policies. Members will be aware that I have been giving a rolling lecture on health promotion theory during the debate on this bill and others, and local alcohol policies are a great way of putting into place health promotion theory. But in this call I want to focus a little bit on health promotion practice, because best practice in health promotion involves health promoters—experts—getting alongside communities and becoming resources to them. That is assisting them with money, potentially, to implement programmes, but, perhaps more important, with information, research, knowledge about what has worked in other places, and access to decision makers and to policy-making processes with the objective of assisting that community, certainly, to influence the environment that surrounds it and in which it must live—and I guess this is where local alcohol policies come in—but also, critically, to take ownership of identifying the issues that that community wants to work on, and the kinds of solutions that will work for that community. That is critically important because each individual community has the expert knowledge about culture, values, and ways of doing things within a particular community, and they are the ones who will know what will work and will not work.

So I want to support the basic idea of local alcohol policies. I think it is a fundamentally important idea, because it is about both of those things. It is about empowering communities, and it is also about specifically addressing the environment that surrounds those communities. I have already discussed that, as have other speakers in this debate.

The issue that I want to come to is the issue that is addressed in my Supplementary Order Paper 80, which is around making these local alcohol policies mandatory rather than voluntary. The Minister has addressed that in her remarks, and I thank in particular my colleague Denis O’Rourke for his contributions. He has probably explained my Supplementary Order Paper better than I am going to have the opportunity to do.

The particular point that I want to address, which responds in part to the Minister’s comments, is this: in many of our territorial local authorities the authority represents not just one particular community, but rather a multitude of communities. Take a territorial local authority like Auckland Council, for example. I guess that is the example we are all going to think of. One could not really say that Auckland is simply one community. Certainly from a health promotion point of view it is not; it is a multiplicity of different communities with different interests. The Minister, in her own remarks, noted that the environment around alcohol and, indeed, community motivations around alcohol in different parts of Auckland would be different, and therefore a voluntary regime runs the risk that particular communities that are heavily impacted by alcohol and desperately want to have local alcohol policies may be thwarted by other communities within that territorial local authority. We need in this Chamber to empower those communities and to ensure that they do get the say that everyone, I think, wants them to have, and the way to do that is through making local alcohol policies mandatory. Thank you.

CHARLES CHAUVEL (Labour): I would like to echo the sentiments of the speaker who has resumed his seat, Kevin Hague. After I spoke about the local alcohol policy issue the Minister of Justice got to her feet and explained the Government’s position, but I think, notwithstanding what was said on that occasion, the reality is this: communities that are most at risk from alcohol abuse are going to contain people who are the least equipped and the least motivated to get involved at local government level and to try to make a difference. That is the reality. It is a sad reality, but that was the evidence that the Justice and Electoral Committee heard.

To say we are not going to require local government authorities to act responsibly by considering the issue of the content of what sort of policy should exist in their region, submitted on exhaustively by the public, and containing rules that are appropriate to that region, but that we are simply going to make it optional as to whether they have those rules that will influence their licensing decisions is, frankly, the height of irresponsibility. And if we are serious about trying to address the harm that alcohol can cause in our communities when it is used irresponsibly, we would require the next tier of government down from this House to address the issue. That is all we would be doing. We would not be telling them how to do it. It would be up to them, if we were to follow the approach in either Supplementary Order Paper 109 in my name or Supplementary Order Paper 80 in Mr Hague’s name. We would simply be saying: “Here are the criteria that you can address, here is the consultative procedure that you should adopt, ask your communities what rules you should follow when you make a licensing decision, and then follow them.” Probably the worst abdication of responsibility that we could undertake in this debate if we fail to consider those Supplementary Order Papers seriously is that failure.

I want to address another Supplementary Order Paper that has been spoken to by its sponsor already in the debate, and that is Supplementary Order Paper 113, which stands in the name of my dear friend and colleague Lianne Dalziel. She spoke to this paper only some minutes ago, and I found it, as I always do when I listen to her contributions, a compelling speech. She made a couple of points that were very important. They bear repeating, given the lies, frankly, that have circulated about what her Supplementary Order Paper would do. The fact that those lies have circulated indicates the force and the power of the vested interests that stand against sensible regulation in this area.

What her Supplementary Order Paper would do, as we heard Lianne Dalziel tell the Committee, is this. It would simply insert a one or two-line clause into the bill that would give the Minister in the chair a particular power. That power would be that when she receives the report that she has already asked officials for—that is, a report on the merits of whether there ought to be a minimum alcohol price and whether it would make a difference to binge drinking, particularly in respect of the very cheap, $6 wine - type products that she mentioned in her contribution—then the Minister would be able to make regulations that bring into effect a minimum pricing regime to address those very low-end products.

The point about those low-end products is this, and I am sure that this will be borne out in the evidence that the Minister receives from her working group. When people pre-load—which is a term we learnt at the select committee; it is in the Law Commission report as well; before people go out to drink, they drink at home and get drunk before they go out and get drunker, which is the essence of this binge drinking culture that I think we all agree we need to address—one of the beverages of choice for doing that is those very, very cheap loss-leading bottles of wine that are able to be purchased at the supermarket. If we were able to raise the price at that very low end of the market, through the sort of regime that the Minister would be free to introduce under the powers that Lianne Dalziel’s Supplementary Order Paper would confer on her, then we would make a big difference to at least one important aspect of our binge drinking culture.

That is all that the Supplementary Order Paper does: it just confers a power on the Minister. Who knows? If the Minister is able to overcome the enormous pressure that has clearly been brought to bear on her and others by the industry, at the time that the report on minimum pricing is received by her, and does determine to introduce such a regime, then she is going to have to come back to the House anyway and request that we give her powers to do so. She will have to take powers; they are not already on the statute book. What we are trying to do, what Lianne Dalziel is trying to do, is simply save her the need to do that. We are the Opposition: we are here to help. What we are doing is simply saying to the Minister that rather than having to go to the Leader of the House and ask for yet more time to take up with the parliamentary agenda on alcohol law reform, she could simply have the power now. She would not have to use it. It would never have to be brought into force either if the evidence does not support it, which I doubt, or if she chooses to bow to the status quo and not bring in the minimum pricing regime. But should she choose to do so, then my colleague’s Supplementary Order Paper would empower her to do it.

There would be the usual checks and balances that surround the exercise of such powers. The Minister would bring in a scheme by regulation. The scheme would be laid on the Table. It would be presented to the Regulations Review Committee and scrutinised. It would be open to complaint, so if the industry or anybody else did not like it, or if the punters felt that it was putting up the cost of their harmless leisure drinking—drinking with food, the occasional tipple—they would be able to complain to the committee and seek to have the scheme set aside. And any member of the Regulations Review Committee, as you know, could come along to the House with a disallowance motion. So there would be all sorts of safeguards in place. There would be all sorts of scrutiny that would apply to this sort of scheme, but there would be enormous freedom for the Minister to use the evidence to come up with the sort of regulatory regime that we heard in the select committee would make a real difference, along with the sorts of changes that we have seen proposed in Supplementary Order Papers around advertising, and the sorts of Supplementary Order Papers that we have seen around availability. The final leg in that trifecta is pricing.

All that Lianne Dalziel is trying to do here is empower the Minister to deal with this issue, to give her one of the essential tools that we heard the experts tell us is required if this matter of binge drinking is to be finally and properly addressed by this Parliament. If National Party members decide to vote this Supplementary Order Paper down by accepting the whip, as we anticipate they will, then they will be doing a major disservice to the cause of alcohol law reform in New Zealand. It will be a major lost opportunity.

I remember that when the Minister was addressing the question of local alcohol policies and whether or not they ought to be required by territorial local authorities, she said something like this—and she will forgive me if I am not paraphrasing her exactly—“Members of local authorities will be punished through an electoral reckoning if they fail to live up to their responsibilities.” Well, I want to remind the Minister and National Party members of those words now, because if National Party members fail in this fundamental duty to keep New Zealanders safe by addressing the issue of price, as we were told by the experts that we should on this occasion, then there will be an electoral reckoning. Every member on this side of the Chamber who supports Lianne Dalziel’s Supplementary Order Paper and like measures that are before the Committee will be reminding the electorate of that failure. It is our duty to do that. If members do support the objects and purposes of the bill, which are to try to bring in better controls to combat the problems we have around the unfortunate aspects of misuse of alcohol in our society, then price is a fundamental mechanism. I, for the life of me, cannot see why a Minister would decline powers that would allow her to act in the event that she receives recommendations from a review that is already on foot and could report at any time soon, and that would prevent her from having to come back to the House and seek time on the Order Paper. This is a sensible Supplementary Order Paper—

Hon JUDITH COLLINS (Minister of Justice): I just want to address some of the issues that have been raised by the previous speakers since the dinner break. One of the suggestions that the member who has just resumed his seat, Charles Chauvel, has made is that I am under some particularly difficult and powerful pressure from the alcohol industry. I have to say that the member clearly does not know me that well if he thinks I would actually really care a fig, frankly, about any pressure at all—

Charles Chauvel: I know you too well.

Hon JUDITH COLLINS: No, I do not actually think the member does, really. I think he has got a very short memory, but no doubt he is going to find out differently. One of the things that I found very interesting is that the only people who I can recall lobbying me to bring in a minimum price have been the Opposition parties, which, of course, they are completely entitled to do, and also the alcohol industry. In fact, the hospitality industry has actually come to me and said that it—and, of course, it sells alcohol—

Hon Lianne Dalziel: There’s a difference between the hospitality industry and the alcohol industry.

Hon JUDITH COLLINS: Miss Dalziel says that the hospitality industry is different from the alcohol industry. I am sorry but it actually sells alcohol. It has lobbied me to say that it would like—

Hon Lianne Dalziel: They’ve got different interests.

Hon JUDITH COLLINS: Oh, it has got different interests. So it is not selling alcohol? So it is selling alcohol?

Hon Lianne Dalziel: What did Katherine Rich say?

Charles Chauvel: What did the grocers say, Judith?

Hon JUDITH COLLINS: Actually, they have not been to see me.

Charles Chauvel: You just let them see Margaret instead.

Hon JUDITH COLLINS: Well, actually, I think one of the things is that there has been an accusation in the Committee tonight that I am under tremendous pressure and giving into pressure from the alcohol industry. I hope that that was not the real accusation. That is the way I heard it, and I would just like to put that to bed.

The hospitality industry has been and said to me that it wants minimum pricing, and we know why. It is to get maximum profits—that is what it means. That means as well that the people who have actually been lobbying me against minimum pricing are not the alcohol industry.

Hon Lianne Dalziel: They’re not affected by it.

Hon JUDITH COLLINS: No, no, not at all. Actually, the people who have been lobbying me are people from my electorate, people from around the country, and particularly people who say “Hang on, I’m a responsible drinker. Why should the price of my alcohol go up?”. People who are, for instance, over 65 years old and on a pension say to me “If I can get a bottle of alcohol or wine or something at $6 or $7 on special in the supermarket, why should I not be able to buy it? Why should I be penalised?”. They say to me “Why should the price of my alcohol go up because of the irresponsibility of others?”. If anyone seriously thinks that young people are going into supermarkets and buying up wine at $6 a bottle and then getting drunk, I have to say that I do not think that is actually borne out by the facts. It is a different brand, it is a different style, and it is a different age group. It is just like when Jim Anderton, with the very best of intentions, brought in some extra taxes around ready-to-drinks, and it eventually ended up being a sherry tax. The people who actually did end up paying were the elderly who were buying sherry.

What we have is a situation where people think that this is the alcohol industry against minimum pricing. Why would the hospitality industry want minimum pricing?

Hon Lianne Dalziel: Because they make nothing out of it. They get nothing out of it.

Hon JUDITH COLLINS: Miss Dalziel says it gets nothing out of it. I am sorry—

Hon Lianne Dalziel: They charge above the minimum price. The hospitality industry pays above the minimum price. These are on-licence premises, not off-licence premises.

Hon JUDITH COLLINS: Miss Dalziel, you have had your chance. You have had five calls on this—

Charles Chauvel: More to come.

Hon JUDITH COLLINS: That is just fine. I am looking forward to it. I think, Mr Chauvel, you should let Miss Dalziel get on and do her own, because she is quite capable of speaking for herself. She does not need to be protected.

I think it is important to understand that a minimum price is a very blunt instrument. The Ministry of Justice is working on a paper, a report, about how it has worked. We were told this year that this was all going to be fabulous because Scotland had done it. Now we find out that Scotland has not done this. It has actually stopped it. In fact, what we are finding is that a lot of the things that we have been told are not actually quite correct. I think we do need to be very sensible about this.

The previous Labour Government obviously, along with Miss Dalziel, took this very seriously and brought in a bill. Unfortunately, it was in the last few days or months of when Labour was in power, after the 9 years it was in power. But my predecessor took over this bill and then changed it. Having said that—

Hon Lianne Dalziel: You adopted it. You sent it to select committee.

Hon JUDITH COLLINS: Miss Dalziel says we sort of took it over. Well, we did, in a way, in that the Sale and Supply of Liquor and Liquor Enforcement Bill, which was her bill, had local alcohol policies of a sort.

Hon Lianne Dalziel: Plans.

Hon JUDITH COLLINS: Plans, sorry. It dealt with dairies by stopping any stores with fewer than 150 metres of floor space from selling alcohol. It had a kind of three-strikes regime for the sellers who were out of order, which is something we have kept in. There was some stronger stuff around advertising of alcohol, and some stronger stuff on proof of age to buy alcohol, which was good. Almost all of the rest of it has been transferred into the Alcohol Reform Bill.

In addition, what we have done is brought in local decision-makers, the district licensing committees, to be the first decision-makers for licensing, putting licensing decisions in the hands of local people. We have done a lot more around the advertising of alcohol and put restrictions on advertising significant discounts on alcohol. We have done national default maximum trading hours, with much more robust licensing conditions; new rules on responsible supply to minors, requiring parental consent, which is an important step to give parents more control over how young people drink; changes to liquor ban enforcement, bringing in an infringement offence so that the police can give the infringement and get on with their job; and a whole range of little changes to clean up and streamline the law.

This Alcohol Reform Bill is a very comprehensive piece of work. It is something that is significantly better than what there was before, but I do, however, acknowledge the work that the Hon Lianne Dalziel did, and the efforts she made with the then Labour Government. Unfortunately, it was too late in its term of office of 9 years to do anything about it. But that does not mean that we have to, as a Parliament, give in to all the various things and take on all the new ideas that it has got, without saying that we need evidence-based procedures, we need to think very carefully about it, and we also need to bear in mind that the vast majority of New Zealanders who drink, about 85 percent of the population, do not abuse alcohol. It is not the use of alcohol that is the problem; it is the abuse of alcohol that is the problem.

The other thing we were talking about is young people. I think we are all very concerned about young people, and particularly binge drinking. The best place to stop that is in the home. The best place for parents to take responsibility for their young people and to show them the way in which they behave is in the home. If you have a young person in a home where the parents are binge drinking, guess what? You have got more than an 80 percent chance, I would say, of getting that young person thinking that that is the way you drink. If the father goes out and behaves like a complete idiot on alcohol, I am sorry but the kids are going to either completely go that way or go completely the opposite way. That is what happens. If you have got mothers going around drunk at home, that is what you are going to get. In fact, it is all very well saying to the sellers of alcohol “You shouldn’t be selling it.” Actually, maybe we should not be buying it at the levels we do. How about a bit of personal responsibility there? It is all very well to say “Yes, we target particular areas.” Yes, we know that sellers target particular areas. That is because, unfortunately, people are buying it in those areas.

As to the ideas about saying that we are just going to stop this, do we really want to end up like we did years and years ago, until about the 1950s, when the King Country was dry? We want to look at the west Auckland area. They have licensing trusts there. There are very few outlets for alcohol. I can tell this Committee that that is an area of domestic violence, fuelled by alcohol, just like other parts of the country. There is no lack of domestic violence and no lack of drink-driving in west Auckland, and yet there are hardly any liquor outlets. So we need to be responsible, we need to be sensible, and we must not be hysterical.

I would say to this Committee that we have had a great debate about this. Everyone has put a lot of effort into it. I know we are not always going to agree. I know our hearts are all in the right place, but we do need to be moderate. This bill is moderate, it is sensible, it is comprehensive, and it deals with the major issues. Of course it is not going to be the last word on alcohol; it never will be, because we are all very interested in it.

DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First): I want to make some comments about the proposed new clause 382 of the Alcohol Reform Bill about pricing. First of all, New Zealand First does not necessarily support the concept of minimum pricing; nor necessarily reject it either. But we do acknowledge that price is relevant to consumption, especially by young people, and that, of course, is what leads to abuse. However, we also acknowledge that there are many problems with minimum pricing as a concept, and many possible loopholes. We do agree with the Government that it needs very comprehensive investigation, and we are very glad to see that the Government has committed itself to a programme of investigation on this issue. I would have to say, however, having just heard the Minister of Justice, that I wonder whether she has in fact already made her decision about this, and whether that investigation would make any difference at all. I hope that is not the case. I hope, like us, the Minister will wait, see the results of that investigation, look at the facts, and then make an assessment—firstly, about whether some means of minimum pricing is appropriate and practical, and, secondly, how that might be implemented in a sensible way.

However, although we do not necessarily support, nor reject, minimum pricing, and will wait for the investigation, we do think that there is absolutely no harm in supporting Supplementary Order Paper 113 in the name of Lianne Dalziel, simply because of the reason she and Charles Chauvel gave, and that is that all it does is insert a provision enabling regulations to be made, if any are to be made in the future. That is a completely harmless provision, and it may actually turn out to be very useful if the results of the investigations do indicate that minimum pricing is worthwhile and that there is a practical and sensible way to do it. So I would not understand why anyone would vote against this, because there is no good reason to do that. The Minister certainly has not given any convincing reason why a provision for regulation should not be included in the bill, so New Zealand First will support it for that reason alone, but as to whether we support regulations in the future, we reserve our position.

I would also like to mention labelling. Set out in Supplementary Order Paper 114 is the provision that I wish to address. In that Supplementary Order Paper the intention is to ensure that alcoholic beverages are no longer exempt from the requirement to provide a label with a nutrition information panel according to the Food Standards Code. Alcoholic beverages—

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! Order! The member is talking about Part 6. Can you come to Part 3, please.

DENIS O’ROURKE: Sorry? This is section 382? This is clause 382, Supplementary Order Paper 114.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: It will be considered in Part 6.

DENIS O’ROURKE: Really? Well, I will reserve my comments until then. Thank you.

KRIS FAAFOI (Labour—Mana): Most Monday mornings the staff of Russell School in Porirua East do their security check of their school-grounds after the weekend. Sometimes they have parents joining them. It is not uncommon for them to find pretty clear evidence that some of the locals have used the school-grounds over the weekend to have their party. By solid evidence I mean that they find broken bottles, cans, rubbish, vomit, urine, and, unfortunately, every so often, used condoms and things like that. They have to, in the small time available to them, clean up the school of that kind of rubbish before the kids arrive for their first class. This has been an issue at Russell School for some time, because directly across the road from that school is one of these bottle stores that sell booze quite cheaply.

Russell School has been at the forefront of an effort in Porirua East to try to make sure that we can do something to protect our young children from, you know, the physical evidence of alcohol, and also from exposure to the advertising that they have so close to them. That is why I stand in support of Supplementary Order Paper 107, which is being put forward by my colleague Louisa Wall. I do think that if we are going to make some kind of dramatic culture change, as we keep saying in this House, to try to change the way in which we see alcohol, and which we use alcohol, something needs to be done to reduce the exposure of our young children to alcohol. So that is why I am supporting the Supplementary Order Paper of Louisa Wall—to make sure that there are no off-licences within 1 kilometre of schools, early childhood education centres, and secondary schools.

I do want to add the proviso that, hopefully, there is a local alcohol plan, and that those communities that have just one general store that is obviously quite close to their primary school or to their area school—and I am talking about rural communities, so in my own electorate I am talking about the likes of Pukerua Bay and Pāuatahanui—do actually have the ability to apply for a dispensation from that ban from the radius within 1 kilometre. I think that is a very important aspect of the Supplementary Order Paper that has been put forward by Louisa Wall.

We do need to make sure that we lessen the effect of alcohol advertising that is so close to our schools. As I mentioned earlier, Russell School is directly across the road from a liquor store, which has the likes of Jim Beam, Woodstock, and every other alcoholic beverage that you can think of, blazing from advertising in its windows and from advertising hoardings outside the shop.

If we are, as I mentioned earlier, really serious about reducing the binge-drinking culture within our community, then I do think we need to lessen the exposure of our young children to alcohol advertising, and that is why banning the ability for off-licences to advertise within 1 kilometre of a school or early childhood education centre is something that I support.

The Porirua East community has had to amp up twice over the last 4 or 5 years to stop bottle stores either being established in their communities or acting in a manner that is harming their communities, and to try to stop the behaviour of some of the people who are drinking the alcohol, and the people who are selling the alcohol, to make sure that their children are safe in their own communities. I do think it is important that we give our communities a local voice, through local alcohol plans. I think there is a Supplementary Order Paper in the name of Kevin Hague to ensure that they are mandatory—he is nodding, so that is correct. The ability for councils to have local alcohol plans is very, very important.

I want to note something that the Minister in the chair, the Hon Judith Collins, did say. I also agree that there is a degree of personal responsibility required from people who are buying the alcohol from these stores. I do not want those people buying the alcohol at these stores and then going across to the likes of Russell School—

TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West): I move, That the question be now put.

TE URUROA FLAVELL (Māori Party—Waiariki): I very much appreciate the opportunity just to sort of wrap up the contributions that are encompassed in my awesome Supplementary Order Paper, which I think most of the Committee is going to support, and that is on this question about pricing. I appreciated the comments from the Minister in the chair, the Minister of Justice. I was watching up in the office and listening to the debate, and I did acknowledge some of the points that she made, but, as she said, we all come with a view to trying to make some contribution. I think she talked about this bill being a moderate bill. We would hope that we would take “moderate” on to a little bit better than moderate, and that is why all of us are contributing today.

Just to wrap up, in terms of a number of the parts in my Supplementary Order Paper, I wanted to talk about minimum price. There are two parts to this, and I will refer to the explanatory note, which pretty much wraps it all up. I am talking about a new provision that would be added to set a minimum price per unit of alcohol and to outline the offences related to the sale of alcohol below the minimum price. I acknowledge that minimum pricing is a sort of one-shoe-fits-all approach. It certainly targets the younger ones; I think one of the speakers talked about a box of “woodies”. That is not anything that I know too much about—a box of “woodies”—but I hear our young people talking about it a lot. It is so easy to go in and just get those sorts of drinks, and there are others, of course. There are all sorts of mixtures that I do not see too much of.

And then, of course, at the other end of the scale you have got the older people, and I think the Minister referred to those who have their regular bottle of sherry every week. They might be hit by really exorbitant prices and costings, which would be unfair to them. One of the best days that I have ever had in this Chamber was one night when we were talking on a bill that I forget the name of. The best thing about this day was that the Hon Simon Power was the Minister in charge of a particular bill and he took the time out that night—it was one of the few times I have seen this in the Chamber—and he listened to the debate. It was obviously a controversial issue that I cannot remember. One of the other members may be able to recall it. Was it related to justice?

Kevin Hague: It was Kennedy’s.

TE URUROA FLAVELL: Oh, OK. It was one night when he actually came down and made a change, and I suppose the point I am trying to make is that there is opportunity to make change to this bill. Although I understand the concept of one shoe not necessarily fitting both situations—dealing with the young ones, yet possibly disadvantaging the older group—I think there may be room for movement. If it was good enough for Simon Power on that particular occasion, I would kind of like to hope that it is good enough for the Minister to make adjustments, if appropriate, to deal with this issue.

Someone mentioned how you actually apply some sort of formula to recognising and dealing with the whole notion of minimum pricing. And, lo and behold, I can help you out, because in my Supplementary Order Paper there is a formula that is based on a minimum price per unit versus the strength of the alcohol versus the volume of the alcohol in litres. How we got to that formula, I am not exactly sure, but I think we were given advice by those far more knowledgeable than me about working out formulas. But if the Minister was looking for a formula, well, there is a starting point at least. So it is possible to work it out.

The question about minimum price is one question, but another one is talking about raising the price of alcohol and whether that does contribute in any way, shape, or form to minimising the harm. The evidence that I have come across, and other speakers have talked about, is that raising the price of alcohol is internationally evidenced as the best strategy for reducing alcohol-related harm. It stands to reason because it is the same philosophy, the same drive, that has moved the Minister, the Hon Tariana Turia, in respect of cigarettes. So there has got to be something in there. Clearly, as was also evidenced by a number of speakers, cheap products are favoured by younger drinkers, who are more likely to spend some of the pocket money they might get from their parents on those cheaper drinks. The evidence shows that widespread availability of cheap alcohol products encourages excessive and harmful drinking. In the last decade alcohol has clearly become more affordable relative to income, with the cheapest alcohol available at around 74c per standard drink.

ALFRED NGARO (National): I move, That the question be now put.

The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): The question is that the question be now put.

Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East): I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. Leave was sought before we came into this in order to allow a nominated member from each of the parties to take six calls in this debate, and I know that—

The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Order! I am quite aware of that. It was up to six calls. It was not any guarantee of six calls.

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

Ayes 61

New Zealand National 59; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.

Noes 59

New Zealand Labour 33; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 8; Māori Party 3; Mana 1.

Motion agreed to.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 137 in the name of the Hon Judith Collins to the proposed amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 132 in her name be agreed to.

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

Ayes 111

New Zealand National 59; New Zealand Labour 33; Green Party 14; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; Mana 1; United Future 1.

Noes 8

New Zealand First 8.

Amendment to the amendments agreed to.

The result corrected after originally being announced as Ayes 112, Noes 8.

The question was put that the amendments as amended set out on Supplementary Order Paper 132 in the name of the Hon Judith Collins and the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 137 in her name be agreed to.

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

Ayes 107

New Zealand National 59; New Zealand Labour 29 (Ardern J, Chauvel, Clark, Cosgrove, Cunliffe, Curran, Dalziel, Dyson, Faafoi, Fenton, Goff, Hipkins, Horomia, Huo, Jones, King A, Lees-Galloway, Little, Mackey, Mahuta, Mallard, Moroney, Parker, Prasad, Robertson G, Tirikatene, Twyford, Wall, Woods); Green Party 14; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; Mana 1; United Future 1.

Noes 12

New Zealand Labour 4 (Robertson R, Shearer, Sio, Street); New Zealand First 8.

Amendments as amended and amendment agreed to.

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 81 in the name of Te Ururoa Flavell to amend clause 35 and insert new clause 35B be agreed to.

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

Ayes 40

Noes 80

Amendments not agreed to

The result corrected after originally being announced as Ayes 39, Noes 80.

The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): In accordance with an instruction from the Speaker the next three votes may be personal votes if the Committee calls it. In that case there will be 1-minute bells. It may assist members to stay in the Chamber if the outcome is to have personal votes. So we move to the next question, which is Louisa Wall’s amendments imposing a ban on off-licences—[Interruption] Sorry, unlock the doors. My apologies. I am a bit rusty as well.

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 107 in the name of Louisa Wall to Part 3 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 38

Noes 82

Amendments not agreed to

The result corrected after originally being announced as Ayes 37, Noes 82.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 81 in the name of Te Ururoa Flavell to clause 44 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 47

Noes 73

Amendment not agreed to

MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (Senior Whip—National): Consistent with the Standing Orders regarding personal votes and with the proxy held by the National Party on behalf of the Māori Party, I seek leave to amend the vote on Supplementary Order Papers 81 and 107 and cast a vote on behalf of Tariana Turia in favour of both of those Supplementary Order Papers.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): The member seeks leave. Is there any objection to that course of action being taken? There is none. The votes will be corrected.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 110 in the name of Andrew Little to clause 44 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 42

Noes 77

Amendment not agreed to

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Honourable members, we now have votes on amendments relating to minimum pricing—Subpart 1. The first one is in the name of the member Te Ururoa Flavell.

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 81 in the name of Te Ururoa Flavell to insert new clauses 43A and 230A and to clause 267 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 43

New Zealand Labour 26 (Ardern J, Chauvel, Clark, Cunliffe, Curran, Dalziel, Dyson, Fenton, Goff, Horomia, Huo, Jones, King A, Lees-Galloway, Little, Mackey, Mahuta, Moroney, Prasad, Robertson G, Robertson R, Sio, Street, Tirikatene, Twyford, Wall); Green Party 14; Māori Party 2; Mana 1.

Noes 76

New Zealand National 59; New Zealand Labour 7 (Cosgrove, Faafoi, Hipkins, Mallard, Parker, Shearer, Woods); New Zealand First 8; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.

Amendments not agreed to.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 113 in the name of the Hon Lianne Dalziel to clause 382 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 52

New Zealand Labour 27 (Ardern J, Chauvel, Clark, Cunliffe, Curran, Dalziel, Dyson, Fenton, Goff, Horomia, Huo, Jones, King A, Lees-Galloway, Little, Mackey, Mahuta, Moroney, Parker, Prasad, Robertson G, Robertson R, Sio, Street, Tirikatene, Twyford, Wall); Green Party 14; New Zealand First 8; Māori Party 2; Mana 1.

Noes 67

New Zealand National 59; New Zealand Labour 6 (Cosgrove, Faafoi, Hipkins, Mallard, Shearer, Woods); ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.

Amendment not agreed to.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Honourable members, we come to votes on amendments relating to local alcohol policies—Subpart 2, clauses 75 to 92. The first amendment is in the name of the member Charles Chauvel.

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 109 in the name of Charles Chauvel to Part 3 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 58

New Zealand Labour 33; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 8; Māori Party 2; Mana 1.

Noes 61

New Zealand National 59; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.

Amendments not agreed to.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): The amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 80 in the name of Kevin Hague to Part 3 are out of order because they are inconsistent with an earlier decision of the Committee. Honourable members, we now come to votes on amendments relating to licence process and licensing bodies—Subparts 3 to 7, clauses 93 to 215A. The amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 81 in the name of Te Ururoa Flavell to clause 105A is out of order because it is inconsistent with an earlier decision of the Committee.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 81 in the name of Te Ururoa Flavell to clause 100 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 44

New Zealand Labour 27 (Ardern J, Chauvel, Clark, Cosgrove, Cunliffe, Dalziel, Dyson, Faafoi, Hipkins, Horomia, Huo, Jones, Lees-Galloway, Little, Mackey, Mahuta, Moroney, Prasad, Robertson G, Robertson R, Shearer, Sio, Street, Tirikatene, Twyford, Wall, Woods); Green Party 14; Māori Party 2; Mana 1.

Noes 75

New Zealand National 59; New Zealand Labour 6 (Curran, Fenton, Goff, King A, Mallard, Parker); New Zealand First 8; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.

Amendment not agreed to.

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 111 in the name of Su’a William Sio to Part 3 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 49

New Zealand Labour 32 (Ardern J, Chauvel, Clark, Cosgrove, Cunliffe, Curran, Dalziel, Dyson, Faafoi, Fenton, Goff, Hipkins, Horomia, Huo, Jones, King A, Lees-Galloway, Little, Mackey, Mahuta, Moroney, Parker, Prasad, Robertson G, Robertson R, Shearer, Sio, Street, Tirikatene, Twyford, Wall, Woods); Green Party 14; Māori Party 2; Mana 1.

Noes 70

New Zealand National 59; New Zealand Labour 1 (Mallard); New Zealand First 8; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.

Amendments not agreed to.

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 81 in the name of Te Ururoa Flavell to clauses 177, 179, and 181 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 43

New Zealand Labour 26 (Ardern J, Chauvel, Clark, Cunliffe, Dalziel, Dyson, Faafoi, Fenton, Horomia, Huo, Jones, Lees-Galloway, Little, Mackey, Mahuta, Moroney, Prasad, Robertson G, Robertson R, Shearer, Sio, Street, Tirikatene, Twyford, Wall, Woods); Green Party 14; Māori Party 2; Mana 1.

Noes 76

New Zealand National 59; New Zealand Labour 7 (Cosgrove, Curran, Goff, Hipkins, King A, Mallard, Parker); New Zealand First 8; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.

Amendments not agreed to.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Honourable members, we now come to votes on amendments relating to offences and enforcement—Subparts 8 and 9, clauses 216 to 284.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 79 in the name of Kevin Hague to clause 222 be agreed to.

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

Ayes 58

New Zealand Labour 33; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 8; Māori Party 2; Mana 1.

Noes 61

New Zealand National 59; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.

Amendment not agreed to.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): [Interruption] Order! Order! The amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 91 in the name of Iain Lees-Galloway to clause 220 and the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 115 in the name of Dr David Clark have already been dealt with under Part 2A.

Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East): I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I am sorry, but it is difficult to follow the specific clauses that you are referring to. So these were ones that were dealt with under the advertising and sponsorship provisions that got transferred to the debate on Part 2—is that right?

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): That is correct.

Hon LIANNE DALZIEL: Thank you.

Part 3 as amended agreed to.

Part 6 Licensing trusts, community trusts, and other matters

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): We now come to Part 6. This is debate on clauses 285 through to 399, and it includes schedules 1 through to 3.

Hon MARYAN STREET (Labour): I rise to speak to this Part 6, in particular clause 383. In that respect, the Supplementary Order Paper that stands in my own name, which is Supplementary Order Paper 112, would amend clause 382. I just want to correct that I am talking about clause 382, and my Supplementary Order Paper on that is 112. My Supplementary Order Paper is quite straightforward. It is quite a simple measure, and, again, as with every other speech I have made in this Chamber on this piece of legislation, it has a health focus. It imposes a health levy—in other words, a tax. Indeed, it is a tax, but not an excise tax that is levied on sale but sheeted back home to the producers more often than not. In this case, it is a levy that is gathered at point of sale. In other words, it is an impost on consumers, and it is in regulation form. In other words, it is at the discretion of the Minister, who could levy this health levy as and when required, using what the Law Commission recommended, which was price as a deterrent against heavy alcohol consumption.

The most obvious use of this health levy would be for a Minister to declare that a certain amount of money would be added to the price of a particular product line at the point of sale for off-licences. This would apply only at off-licences; not on on-licence premises, like restaurants, or cafes, or bars, but off-licence premises—wholesalers, supermarkets, bottle stores, and so on, as we are familiar with. This levy could be extracted at the point of sale, it would be an impost on the consumer, and the Minister could apply it to, for example, RTDs—ready-to-drink products. I personally consider those to be the most flagrant attempt of the alcohol industry to lure young people by disguising what is otherwise the bitter flavour of alcohol, and an acquired taste, as a sweet drink that can be attractive to young people. In other words, it is getting young people hooked on consuming quantities of alcohol without really appreciating the fact that they are doing so.

The point of this levy being exercised at point of sale is that it would have the deterrent effect of, in some respects, minimum pricing, but that deterrent effect could be applied to particular product lines for a certain length of time. I also support my colleague Phil Goff’s Supplementary Order Paper, when it comes to ready-to-drink products. But this one has two notable features that I think are worth speaking to.

The first is that this levy is ring-fenced. It is pegged to go back to the health sector; not to go into the consolidated fund, not to go back to the alcohol industry, but to go into the provision of health services arising from excessive consumption and abuse of alcohol. That is why it is called a health levy. It would be targeted for a particular purpose to a particular product for a certain length of time. If it became apparent that there were other products, if, say, the Minister decided to exercise this health levy on ready-to-drinks, and another product line emerged over time that had become fashionable for young people, for example, to consume in harmful quantities—because that is the primary driver or rationale for this Supplementary Order Paper—the Minister could then apply another levy to another product line for an alternative length of time.

So this Supplementary Order Paper has these two notable features that others do not have. One is that it can be applied flexibly to a range of product lines, and the other is that the proceeds from it would go back into, and be tagged for, the provision of health services for those who have problems arising from alcoholism or the excessive use or abuse of alcohol. This is fairly straightforward. It is a health levy at point of sale. It would be established by regulation, and therefore would not need to come back to the House on a regular basis. It could be done by regulation and come to the scrutiny of the Regulations Review Committee. It could be used variably across a range of products so that it could specifically target certain products, such as the one I have suggested, ready-to-drink beverages, or spirits, beer, wine, or other alcoholic beverages, according to their proven and demonstrable harmful effects.

One of the things that I keep coming back to is that the Law Commission did not make its recommendations in a vacuum. I am still disappointed that this Government has not taken up some of the forceful recommendations of the Law Commission, because, as I read it, the Law Commission arrived at its recommendations on the basis of evidence.

This health levy is also predicated on the basis of any new evidence that might emerge in the future that would single out and target particular alcohol products as being harmful—harmful because they are fashionable, harmful because they are marketed in a particularly deceptive way to young people, harmful because they are disguised, harmful because they are more readily accessible than other products, or for whatever reason that they might cause harm. The underlying reason for this Supplementary Order Paper is to avoid harm, to minimise harm, and, where harm has been proven to occur, to ensure that the proceeds from the health levy be applied back into the problem health areas. So its application to health problems arising from abuse of alcohol will in fact address one of the Law Commission’s recommendations in this regard.

The establishment of a point-of-sale health levy only for off-licence premises is also a mechanism that can stop heavy discounting possibly to below cost. It can be used to prevent that loss-leading scenario that happens in off-licences, such as supermarkets. It would also have a very limited effect on those who drink safely and responsibly. If a favourite product is subject to this levy, then people who drink safely and responsibly are not going to be consuming it in such quantities that they feel a huge impact from the levy. But where it is purchased and consumed in excess, and in large quantities, there will be a deterrent effect.

This Supplementary Order Paper combines the deterrent effect of additional price mechanisms, without that being sheeted back home to producers, such as wine growers. It applies that levy to health remedies and services for those suffering from the effects of alcohol abuse. This is a Supplementary Order Paper that is worthy of consideration. I would appeal once more to the Minister to look on it favourably, and I commend it to the Committee. Thank you.

KEVIN HAGUE (Green): I also want to speak on Supplementary Order Paper 112, which stands in the name of Maryan Street, because it is one of three different approaches that are being countenanced in Supplementary Order Papers on this Alcohol Reform Bill overall to deal with the matter of price. As she says, it deals with that in two ways. It provides that deterrent effect associated with, I guess, the standard understanding of price in microeconomics—that an increased price will reduce consumption—and that is a good thing.

Also, as she notes, the levy that she proposes would provide a dedicated fund for health services. That is an important thing, because what we know—and it will be interesting if the Minister of Health, Tony Ryall, takes a call on this part—is that our alcohol and drug treatment services are incredibly important and are under incredible stress.

There is already much greater need and, indeed, demand for those treatment services than can possibly be serviced by the services that we fund at present. I am sure that Government members will have been visited by treatment service providers—as I have been—advocating for a very substantial increase in the capacity of those treatment services. Indeed, the levy that Maryan Street proposes would be one method of providing a revenue source to enable the Government, which, of course, is cash-strapped, to do that.

I want to focus a little now on the other aspect of the levy that Maryan Street proposes, and that is the deterrent effect, and come to those three mechanisms that have been proposed and perhaps weigh up some of the advantages and disadvantages of the three. Certainly, the Law Commission in its report canvasses minimum pricing, and we have heard some discussion about that. It recommends a 50 percent increase in the excise tax on alcohol, and on a later part of this bill, Supplementary Order Paper 130, which stands in my name, seeks to implement the Law Commission’s recommendation. Then there is this third option that Maryan Street has introduced to the debate. So when we look at those three options, I guess we look at which of those is going to have the biggest effect. It may be that some combination of them is appropriate.

We use price in relation to tobacco control as a means of suppressing demand. I think it would be fair to say that, I think, every member of this House has recently voted for increases to the excise tax on tobacco on that basis—to reduce consumption of tobacco products. In that context it is recognised that increasing the price of tobacco is the most effective means of reducing consumption of tobacco products. When it comes to alcohol, there is no reason to deal with alcoholic beverages in any different way from the way that we deal with tobacco. Actually, we know that increasing the price of alcohol—and, as I say, there are three ways proposed for doing that, but whichever way we choose—is going to be the most effective way of reducing consumption and thereby reducing the harm associated with alcohol, which, after all, is the object of this bill. So it is perverse, in fact, that the Government embraces and, indeed, celebrates that price increase mechanism—

Hon PHIL GOFF (Labour—Mt Roskill): I want to speak to Supplementary Order Paper 122 in my name, which has the effect of restricting the alcohol content of ready-to-drinks—the alcopops—to 5 percent and to no more than 1½ standard drinks per bottle or can. I did not really expect to have to move this amendment, because the Minister who introduced this bill, Simon Power, was particularly strong on the need to restrict the alcohol content of ready-to-drinks. Indeed the bill as introduced does exactly what I am proposing now, with one exception. It made the alcohol content 6 percent, and I am proposing 5 percent.

Consider what the Government said in its question and answer document on the Alcohol Reform Bill. It said: “The Government is particularly concerned about RTDs with a high alcohol content and RTDs that are sold in large containers that hold a high number of standard drinks. We are therefore targeting those aspects of RTDs, which will mean RTDs will be a lower-strength drink (on a par with beer), and will be prohibited from being sold in large containers, thereby reducing the risk of excessive consumption by young people.” Those are not my words. Those are the words of the Government Minister who introduced this bill. Then we had an act of absolute gutlessness, where the Government caved in to those in the liquor industry who lined up in the Minister’s office and said “This is going to hurt you.”, and the Minister put the interests of the profit of the industry ahead of the health and the well-being of our kids.

It is a fact that this House has already made the decision that the age for purchase—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member. The time has come for me to report progress.

Progress reported.

Report adopted.

Sitting suspended from 9.55 p.m. to 9 a.m. (Thursday)

Wednesday, 24 October 2012

(continued on Thursday, 25 October 2012)

Bills

Mokomoko (Restoration of Character, Mana, and Reputation) Bill

First Reading

Hon Dr PITA SHARPLES (Minister of Māori Affairs): I move, That the Mokomoko (Restoration of Character, Mana, and Reputation) Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Māori Affairs Committee to consider the bill. At the appropriate time I intend to move that the committee have the authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting except during oral questions, during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House, and outside the Wellington area, and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House, despite Standing Orders 188, 190(a), and 191(1)(b) and (c).

Tuatahi, me mihi atu au ki a koutou kua hara mai nei i tēnei rangi, mō te pire nei mō Te whānau ā Mokomoko. Nā reira, tēnā koutou, nau mai, hara mai. Whakatōhea whānui katoa mai, kua hara mai koutou ki te Whare Miere i tēnei rā, nau mai, hara mai. Hara mai me ā koutou tini aituā, kia mihia, kia tangihia rātou. Nā reira, ko te kōrero kua mihia, kua tangihia, haere, haere ā tātou mate. Kia hoki ki te kaupapa whakahirahira nei, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tātou katoa.

[Firstly, I extend salutations to you collectively who have arrived here today in respect of this bill about the Mokomoko family. And so, greetings to you collectively and welcome, welcome. To all of you Whakatōhea broadly, welcome, welcome. Come hither with your many, many deaths so that we can acknowledge and mourn them. Therefore, let it be said that they have been acknowledged and mourned, so depart, our dead, farewell. And so, in returning to this highly important matter, I extend greetings to each of you collectively and to us all.]

This bill gives legal effect to the agreement to introduce legislation to give statutory recognition to the Mokomoko pardon signed by me on behalf of the Crown and Te whānau ā Mokomoko Leadership Group, along with many more whānau members, kaumātua, pakeke, and rangatahi, at Waiaua Marae on 28 September 2011. This bill will formally restore the character, mana, and reputation of their tipuna Mokomoko, a rangatira of Whakatōhea, who was executed by the Crown in 1866 for his alleged involvement in the murder of the Rev. Carl Sylvius Völkner. You may recall that a free pardon was provided to Mokomoko in 1992 for his role in this event. There are significant unresolved matters related to the form and content of the free pardon that this bill is intended to rectify. I would like to pause here to acknowledge the passing of two esteemed kaumātua and members of the whānau leadership group, Matua Tuiringa Manny Mokomoko and Matua Matenga Biddle. Nā reira, okioki pai kōrua.

[And so rest in peace, you two.]

I would like to emphasise the significance of this bill to the descendants of Mokomoko. The bill progresses the Crown’s express undertaking to restore the character, the mana, and the reputation of the tipuna Mokomoko, and of the whānau, by providing statutory recognition of the free pardon. It represents the efforts of the leadership group to bring the issue to the Crown’s attention, to enable Te whānau ā Mokomoko to finally start their healing process. The bill is a sign of the Crown’s commitment to restoring the relationship with the whānau by expressing its regret that the shame and stigma carried by the whānau was not remedied by the pardon provided in 1992.

I was humbled by the welcome on to Waiaua Marae in September last year, where I met Te whānau ā Mokomoko, and we signed the agreement that underpins this bill. I was delighted to see large numbers of whānau present inside the whare tipuna, Rūāmoko, to witness the signing and demonstrate their support. Members of the wider whānau had, only weeks earlier, attended a series of hui in Wellington and Auckland, and at Waiaua, where they voted in favour of this legislation being introduced.

This bill marks an important step in restoring the relationship between Te whānau ā Mokomoko and the Crown, and I am pleased to be able to promote this bill today. I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the time and effort that Te whānau ā Mokomoko Leadership Group has put into reaching this milestone. I acknowledge the long path that the whānau have trodden, and the burden, the shame, and the stigma that they have carried in seeking justice for their tipuna Mokomoko.

It is now timely for me to provide some background to the events leading to the arrest of Mokomoko, and the Crown’s earlier attempt to resolve this issue. The events surrounding Mokomoko’s execution are a blot on the history of the Crown-Māori relationship. It is important to remember these events, so that we may acknowledge the sacrifices of their tipuna. I want to recount the story of events leading to the execution of Mokomoko in 1866, as I understand them.

On 1 March 1865 the Rev. Carl Sylvius Völkner arrived in Ōpōtiki despite the warnings of Te Whakatōhea to stay away because of the presence of Kereopa and other Paimarire prophets. Völkner had been accused of spying and relaying information about Mātaatua and the East Coast Māori seeking to assist Waikato in their fighting with the British Army. Rev. Völkner was taken from the ship he arrived on and held until his fate was decided by those present, including Mokomoko. According to kōrero from the whānau, when the decision to kill Rev. Völkner was made, Mokomoko departed. He later stated that he had tried to help the missionary escape.

In retaliation for Völkner’s killing, the Government sent soldiers to Ōpōtiki to arrest his killers. The Governor, Sir George Grey, proclaimed that if soldiers encountered resistance, land would be confiscated. Some resistance was encountered and this was used by the Government as the basis for the raupatu, the confiscation, of tens of thousands of hectares of Māori land in the Eastern Bay of Plenty. Government soldiers mounted raids against Te Whakatōhea and other iwi in the region, as they sought out Mokomoko and his co-accused. According to some accounts, many were killed, kāinga were destroyed, and Whakatōhea’s shipping fleet—the entire fleet—was burnt. The kōrero of the whānau is that Mokomoko’s wife, Kimohia, was repeatedly raped before being bayoneted to death by Government soldiers.

Mokomoko surrendered in October 1865 to stop the persecution of his people, but he maintained his innocence. In 1866 Mokomoko was tried and executed for the murder of Völkner, along with his co-accused from Ngāti Awa. Mokomoko was convicted on the basis that it was his rope that had been used to hang Völkner and on the basis of a supposed eye witness who claimed he was guilty. Following that conviction, two of Mokomoko’s co-accused admitted their guilt; however, Mokomoko did not. Mokomoko was hanged, and he was buried at the old Auckland jail and courthouse. Mokomoko’s remains were later re-interred in Mt Eden Prison in the 1890s. Before he was killed, he uttered the words: “E mate harakore ana ahau, tēnā koutou Pākehā, hai aha.”

[“I die an innocent man, so thanks for nothing, Europeans.”]

In October 1989, 123 years after the execution, Mokomoko was finally returned home to his whānau, where he was re-interred at Waiaua Marae near Ōpōtiki.

Seeking and receiving justice for these horrible events has not been easy for Te whānau ā Mokomoko. The memory of the wrongs done to their tipuna has been burnt into the consciousness of each successive generation of the whānau. This is something that the Pākehā world often does not understand—how history still lives with us and is in our actions, in our minds, in our ambitions, and in our aspirations.

In 1990 Te whānau ā Mokomoko sought a posthumous pardon for Mokomoko and applied for the exercise of the royal prerogative of mercy. This application was initially declined on the grounds that the Crown considered there was no new evidence for the granting of a pardon on the basis that Mokomoko was wrongly convicted. The Crown later agreed that section 11 of the Te Runanga o Ngati Awa Act 1988 had the effect of pardoning Mokomoko’s co-accused. The Crown subsequently agreed that for consistency Mokomoko should be afforded the same treatment and it issued a free pardon to Mokomoko. On this basis the free pardon was issued to Te whānau ā Mokomoko at Waiaua Marae on 25 June 1992.

The free pardon should have been a constructive step in the journey of the whānau. The Crown’s intention was right, but the way in which the pardon was provided compounded the grievance in the eyes of the whānau. Unlike the Ngāti Awa pardon, the pardon for Mokomoko did not expressly restore his character, his mana, or his reputation, and it read: “whereas it appears that one of the incidents of section 11 of the Te Runanga o Ngati Awa Act 1988 is to pardon the three persons convicted with Mokomoko of the murder of Carl Sylvius Völkner ... it appears to me just and expedient that a pardon should also be granted to Mokomoko.”

This bill acknowledges with regret that the free pardon granted to Mokomoko in 1992 did not expressly restore the character, mana, and reputation of Mokomoko or his uri. It also acknowledges the Crown’s regret that it did not consult with Te whānau ā Mokomoko about the wording of the free pardon.

The grievance of te whānau in relation to the 1992 pardon was considered by the Waitangi Tribunal as part of the Te Urewera inquiry, and it recommended that the terms of the free pardon be revisited by the Crown as a discrete matter, and that the statutory pardon should be granted. Unfortunately, the Crown is unable to reissue a free pardon once it is granted, but it can provide statutory recognition for an existing pardon, and that is what this bill will achieve. I just want to read this part of my speech. I am aware that the Waitangi Tribunal has also recommended that the Crown create some form of tangible tribute to mark the wrong done and demonstrate to all concerned that the blame for the raupatu did not and does not rest on Mokomoko or his descendants. I would like to assure the whānau that the tribunal’s recommendations on this point will be explored with them by the Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations and by me and our officials as part of the Whakatōhea historical Treaty settlement negotiations.

I would like to draw the House’s attention to some of the bill’s key features. The preamble is significant, as it acknowledges the long journey the whānau has had in seeking justice, and that is 146 years to date. The preamble records the background to the treatment of Mokomoko and the men of Ngāti Awa in relation to the murder. The preamble also sets out the Crown’s acknowledgments that the terms of the 1992 pardon did not expressly restore the character, mana, and reputation of Mokomoko and his uri. This acknowledgment is repeated in clause 3, which sets out the purpose of the bill, and clause 6, where the specific acknowledgment is provided of the Crown’s regret that the free pardon did not expressly restore the character, mana, or reputation of Mokomoko and his uri, and the Crown’s regret for the ongoing shame and stigma felt by the whānau. Clause 6 also provides an acknowledgment of the Crown’s regret that it did not consult the whānau about the wording of the pardon to specifically restore the character, mana, and reputation of Mokomoko and the whānau.

Clause 7 provides a statement that was lacking from the 1992 pardon. It reads: “It is declared that on and after the passing of this Act, the character, mana, and reputation of Mokomoko are restored and the character, mana, and reputation of his uri are restored.” I think that is really a vital clause in the whole thing. This is a simple but significant clause, but I sincerely hope this will help lift the shame and the stigma felt by the whānau and be an important step towards restoring the relationship between the Crown and Te whānau ā Mokomoko.

As the whānau indicated in the agreement we signed, their journey to bring the matter to rest will be finally redressed by the Crown through their negotiations of the historical Treaty settlement.

Finally, I would like to note that this bill records the waiata composed by Mokomoko while in Mt Eden Prison. The first line of the waiata is now a whakatauākī for the whānau. The whakatauākī indicates how deeply the events surrounding the arrest, trial, and execution of their tipuna Mokomoko are etched on the collective memory of the whānau. The whakatauākī is as follows: “Tangohia te taura i taku kakī, kia waiata au i taku waiata”, which has the meaning of “Have the strength to speak up, and the truth will not be silenced”.

I would like to take this opportunity to mirror the sentiments of this bill by expressing the Crown’s sincerest regret for the sense of shame and stigma that the whānau have carried in this period. I look forward to the bill being passed so that Te whānau ā Mokomoko can move on to the next stage of their journey without the shame and stigma they have carried for so long. The next stage will be to address the historical Treaty claims of Te whānau ā Mokomoko, and explore ways of providing an appropriate tribute, and also to resolve their wider grievances, some of which I referred to earlier in my speech, through the Treaty settlement process. For these reasons, I recommend that this bill be referred to the Māori Affairs Committee without delay, and be reported back to the House in due course. I commend this bill to the House.

Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA (Labour—Ikaroa-Rāwhiti): Tēnā koe. I a koutou i tae tahi mai i konei ki te Whare Miere, e tautokotia atu te mahana o te mihi nui o tō tātou Minita Māori ki a koutou i tae kaha mai. E te matua, e reka atu te kite i a koe i reira e noho atu, tata ana ki Te whānau ā Mokomoko nā te mea, e mōhio atu tātou te āhua i Mātaatua whānui mō tēnei tino mate. Nō reira, tēnā koutou.

E tika atu te mihi atu i a rātou e kore i konei, ngā mea pakeke mai rā nō, e whai atu, e mau pakiri a muri a tēnei tino take. Te pai o te rangi nei. Kua tae mai koutou ki te wāhi nei mō ngā tangata o te Whare Miere hei tuku kōrero ki a koutou. Ahakoa ngā piki, ngā heke, he tino pāpōuri o te mahi o te taura. E pai ana te kī pēnei tonu, nā wai e kī kei a te Kāwana te hē. E mōhio atu tātou ko tērā anō te hē i roto i a koutou o te Whakatōhea. E mihi kau ana ki a koutou katoa, ngā mea e whai atu ia tau, ia tau.

E mihi kau ana ki te Minita, ki a rātou ngā mea mai rā nō e whawhai tonu atu mō tēnei tino whawhai. He ātaahua atu ngā kupu o te waiata. I kī atu tō tātou Minita Māori mō te āhua e puta ā-waha te waiata, mō te āhua e tae atu te rangatira a Mokomoko. He tino rangatira kē tērā nā te mea, i roto i ahau he aha ai e kī atu, kei te Kāwana te whakahuri atu i tō rātou mahi? He rōroa atu ki te tae atu ki te wā nei. Nō reira, e mihi kau ana ki ngā kupu e tuku atu te koroua ki ngā tangata katoa o Aotearoa, kei rongo atu i te mamae, ki te koi hoki i roto i a ia, ahakoa tū tata ana ki te rere haere ki te wāhi mate. E mōhio atu tātou ahakoa nā wai, nō whea, ka tae atu tērā āhua ki te katoa. Koirā anō te mea i roto i ngā kupu o te waiata rā. Nō reira, tēnā koutou.

[Thank you. To you collectively who have arrived here in Parliament, I endorse the warm welcome extended by the Minister of Māori Affairs to you all who have worked hard to get here. To the elder, it is delightful to see you sitting there close to the Mokomoko family, because we all know the situation in the wider Mātaatua area in regard to this great tragedy. And so I pay a tribute to you collectively.

It is only right that we acknowledge those who are no longer here, the elders from way back who rigorously pursued this matter of such significance. What a beautiful day this is. You have arrived at this place here so that members of Parliament can address you. Despite the highs and lows, what the rope caused was really depressing indeed. It is fine to continue to say that the Government has erred. We all know that this error has impacted on you all of Whakatōhea. I applaud you all, the ones who have followed up this issue year after year.

I commend the Minister and all those ones from way back who continued the fight over the years for this great cause. The words of the song are just so beautiful. Our Minister of Māori Affairs referred to the circumstances that led to this song and how the revered Mokomoko arrived there. That is very noble because I am thinking: why say it is up to the Government to rectify its own actions? It has taken a very long time to get to this point. So I really acknowledge the words that this elder left to all the people of New Zealand and for them to feel his hurt and the sharpness of his mind even though he was about to die. We all know that it does not matter where it is or who it is, death eventually comes to us all. That song has the same message as well. So I commend you collectively.]

We rise to support this bill, the Mokomoko (Restoration of Character, Mana, and Reputation) Bill, about one of the dastardly deeds enacted by the Crown. Certainly, one wonders and asks the question about how real giving a pardon is in reversing the shame and the burden inflicted on this rangatira in his own right—and he was a rangatira in his own right. The soldiers, and whoever else, chose to take him to Auckland, he was killed there, and then taken home to his marae in later years. In the mid-1990s there was a pardon given. The whānau at that time, and up to now, have plausibly argued that it may have removed the stigma and shame from the individual, the rangatira Mokomoko, but certainly they have had to wear it and carry it through generations.

Those issues are broad issues in relation to the development of Paimarire and the Kīngitanga’s move not to participate in war. In that way—and we have that lesson in the Second World War—the death of Mokomoko brings to light a whole lot of other relevant issues in our history that we tend to have pushed under the carpet. Today we certainly support putting this deed to rest. It will never be put to rest, because at times the Government has to pronounce its shame. It is suggested that this bill is one way of doing it. But no money or response in the sense of assets will correct what was done. In the raiding and the confiscation of lands in Mataatua, this deed was a platform and leverage used to do that. History will tell you that it was thousands of acres. I have always wondered that the great people who came over with Captain Cook had such adeptness to be able to choose where to take. It is high-producing property now. Other people manage a lot of it. Thank goodness Whakatōhea has control of some of it, but, again, like with Waikato and Taranaki, one wonders.

The schedule at the end of this bill reproduces the text of the free pardon granted to Mokomoko. The bill extends it out so that the family can be recognised in the sense of that pardon. There is a key part in there where we talk about restoring the mana and the rangatiratanga of Mokomoko. I do not think those things were ever removed. That death was inflicted on him at the hands of the Crown does not necessitate the reasoning and rationale that they were removed from him. What this bill does do is create a continuum of recognition that he was a rangatira in his own right, and his leadership of his people at that time, for reasons that were important, is something that has to be really recognised, as well as the confiscation of the land.

The bill restores the character, mana, and reputation of Mokomoko, and the character, mana, and reputation of his uri. That is the key part in this. I think that is wonderful and that is OK. But, hopefully, it is bigger than that—that they have a settlement as we are heading into contemporary times. It also opens the question of a whole lot of other deeds not too dissimilar to this done around the country. What do we do about them? I think that, in the sense of it being an initial entry into the Crown being serious about apologising and trying to restore and redevelop its connections with those people, it is something that we have to consider.

Following his conviction and before execution, Mokomoko composed the following waiata. The Minister of Māori Affairs read out the opening lines of it, but I would like to labour through—excuse the pun—some of the lines, not all of them, because I think they are very relevant and show the depth of what happened to this great leader. It is a pronouncement of somebody who is close to death, knowing full well that he is going to be set upon by, and put to death under, the ruling of the Governor from England. He writes this great waiata. It should resonate around this land for us to understand that people can still maintain their humility and have their rangatiratanga recognised, through these lines he wrote. Picture that at the time he was close to death. He knew what was going to happen to him, yet he still expressed, in a fashion of any great rangatira, what was going to happen to him. He said: “Kei te hori te tangata tēnei au ki te raweke”—they treat me like a common thief. “Whakarewha te titiro te hukinga ia hau utiti”—with confused view I reflect on the vengeance taken, and question the reason why. “He ahi mumura te pānga mai o te whakamā”—the memory of the shame burns within me so deep. “Te rerenga o te rā, ko te Kāwana kei Ūropi”—with the passing of time and the Governor of Europe. “That to be taken to a place afar, Right or wrong I am to die”, as he had said earlier on. “Māna e kī … Hei tūtaki ake mō te kuaha o te pouaka”—with the closing of the lid on my box, only then will I get peace and eternal rest.

Here is somebody who knows he is being put to death for no reason whatsoever of his own doing, and he still recites those words in recognition, and he mihis to the people who put him down. It is indeed quite a dramatic situation. I hope we could be a lot more forgiving in contemporary times. If we are serious about nationhood, the resurrection of this deed, the adding of this bill in relation to Mokomoko’s killing is something we could join together and recognise. It is not just the past, history, or something that the Minister puts up to make everybody feel good; it is something that is the right thing to do at the right time. Let us not do it just for the sake of it. Here is a man who has passed on and who forgives the perpetrators, but at the same time he expresses his view in a very clear fashion, as any rangatira would do.

I want to recognise the rangatira Mokomoko for the effort he put in. We are here today as politicians and guardians for the better of this country, trying to put something right that was terribly wrong. Kia ora.

Hon HEKIA PARATA (Minister of Education): Tēnā koe e te Mana Whakawā. Tēnā tātou huri noa i tō tātou Whare i tēnei ata. Te whānau ā Mokomoko, tēnā koutou. Tēnā koutou i hara mai ā-tinana mai ki tēnei, me kī, ki tēnei marae o tātou katoa, te Whare Pāremata. Tēnā koutou mō tō koutou pakari ki te whawhai kia puta tēnei hē ki mua i te aroaro o te marea i te Whare Pāremata, kia taea e tātou te whakatika ahakoa te roa o te wā kua pahure nei. Hoi anō, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa.

Kua mihia kē ngā tungāne i a tātou i tēnei ata, e tautoko ana ahau i ērā mihi. Kua whakaoti e taku rangatira, e te Minita Māori i runga i tēnā whakataukī “Tangohia te taura i taku kaki”. Ahakoa he pōuri, he pakari tonu tērā kōrero ki a koutou o te whānau, otirā, ki a tātou katoa o Aotearoa nei. Nā reira, i runga i tērā whakaaro, tēnā tātou e whakakotahi nei ki te whakatikatika i tēnei kaupapa, i tēnei wā. Ahakoa te roa o tātou e whiriwhiri ana i tēnei kaupapa, ahakoa ko mātou o te Kāwanatanga i tēnei wā ēngari, kia mōhio mai tātou ko tēnei pire, he pire mai i te Karauna o Aotearoa. Nā reira, e tika ana me tautoko tātou katoa i tēnei pire kia whakatinanahia te hiahia o te whānau, otirā, ō tātou katoa kia tū tēnei i runga i te Ture o Aotearoa.

[Thank you, Mr Speaker. Greetings to us all throughout our House this morning. To the Mokomoko family, I acknowledge you. Thank you for coming in person to this place, which I should say, to this courtyard for all of us, Parliament House. I commend you for being staunch in battling to get this wrongful deed publicly before Parliament so that we can collectively rectify it, even though much, very much time has passed. And so, salutations, acknowledgments, and congratulations to you all.

The brother members have already welcomed us this morning and I endorse those words of welcome. My esteemed colleague the Minister of Māori Affairs added the finishing touch with that aphorism “Take the rope from my throat”. Even though it is remorseful, that is saying remain staunch for you, the family, and, indeed, for all of us here in New Zealand. Consequently, I commend all of us here who have come together at this point in time to put this matter right. Despite the fact we have been negotiating this proposal for a long time and we are the Government currently, we should clearly understand that this bill is actually from the Crown of New Zealand. And so, it is only right that we should all support this bill, which will embody the wishes of the family and, indeed, of all of us so that it becomes an Act of New Zealand.]

I am honoured to stand today together with my colleagues to support the passage of the Mokomoko (Restoration of Character, Mana, and Reputation) Bill and the recommendation of it going to the Māori Affairs Committee. It is appropriate, as I have just said, that no matter who the Government is, this is a Crown responsibility to put right in whatever way possible what has been a longstanding error on behalf of successive administrations. In that regard I want to pay tribute to the Māori Party and to the Minister of Māori Affairs, who ensured that this bill would be part of our coalition agreement, that it would come before this House, and that we would memorialise the recognition of the restoration of the mana and character of Mokomoko in the way of this democracy, which is to pass it into law so that it may sit in our statutes mō ake tonu atu. I would like to acknowledge that, because it has been through the commitment of the Minister and of the Māori Party that we take this next step.

It is true that the free pardon that was offered in 1992 had some elements that were not sufficient, but it does reflect that getting the Treaty partnership right is an ongoing process and one that all of us must continue to work on and be committed to. It is appropriate that here in 2012 we are taking another step to strengthen, in substance as well as in form, the dynamism of the Treaty partnership. Our Government is absolutely committed to settling historical grievances. It is appropriate that the Crown takes responsibility for those so that we can pave a pathway of strength forward for all parts of New Zealand society—iwi and the rest of the nation—and this Government, this coalition Government, together with the Māori Party remains committed to seeing that through. We want to ensure that we not only get the words right but also get the process right, and that we give recognition to what has happened in the past, so that we can invest in our future and together grow stronger.

Acknowledged by both the previous speakers, Dr Pita Sharples and Parekura Horomia, were the words of Mokomoko himself of his defiance that he was being found wrong inappropriately right to the very end, and his strength in standing up for his beliefs. Again, I think it is appropriate that the Minister of Māori Affairs has acknowledged that history is for ever present amongst us, and that we must continue to heed those lessons to ensure that our future can be stronger for it, not with amnesia but with full knowledge of how we have come to be the people we are and how we can build on that as we go forward into the future.

With this bill the Crown acknowledges that it regrets any stigma and shame that its free pardon did not restore the character, mana, and reputation of Mokomoko and his descendants. I think the Hon Parekura Horomia has recognised that there were oversights in that free pardon, but, as I have already indicated, it was the best we could do in 1992. Here in 2012 we are doing better, and we will continue to do better.

We acknowledge that the Mokomoko whānau were not consulted about the wording of the free pardon, and this bill endeavours to set that right. It is also acknowledged that the bill does not prevent the Mokomoko whānau from seeking the settlement of their historical Treaty of Waitangi claims through the Treaty settlement process, and this Government, I think, stands on a very proud record. In 4 years we have invested significant resources, and the Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations, the Hon Christopher Finlayson, has committed his time assiduously to ensuring that we can right the wrongs of the past and we can settle historical grievances so that we can move forward on a pathway, and iwi can move forward in restoring their economic well-being, strengthening their cultural identity and language, and providing for the social backbone of their own iwi members as part of who we are as New Zealand.

I am really honoured to be able to speak, albeit for a short time, on this bill and to support my friend and colleague the Minister of Māori Affairs in the leadership he has shown in bringing this bill to the House, and I commend the bill to the select committee. Kia ora tātou.

RINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga): Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Tēnā kōrua, e ngā Minita, koutou rā ngā mema o te Whare Pāremata, tēnā koutou. Whakatōhea iwi, Te whānau ā Mokomoko, nau mai, haere mai ki roto i te Whare Pāremata e takatū nei. Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, ā, tēnā tātou katoa.

[Thank you, Mr Speaker. Salutations to you two Ministers and, indeed, to the members of Parliament, greetings. Welcome to the Whakatōhea people and the Mokomoko family, welcome to Parliament House bustling about here. Salutations to you and you collectively, and to us all.]

I am very privileged and proud to speak in support of this bill, the Mokomoko (Restoration of Character, Mana, and Reputation) Bill. Mr Speaker, as you know, a theme of my speeches on these settlement claims that have passed through this House has been that to understand whakapapa is to understand Māori history. Today’s history lesson has been fully traversed by the honourable Minister of Māori Affairs, so I will give my abridged version. Today’s history lesson is one of the most shameful in the history of our nation, but, more particularly, it is the history of one whānau, the whānau Mokomoko. The settlement bills that I have spoken on in the last couple of months have concerned the settlements in Poverty Bay, namely Rongowhakaata and Ngai Tāmanuhiri. Their story is of Te Kooti and his rebels and the start of the Hauhau wars that spread throughout the North Island in the 1860s as Te Kooti led his followers through the fastness of the Urewera central plateau and finally to the safety of the Kīngitanga in Te Rohe Pōtae, the King Country.

Rev. Carl Völkner was a former Lutheran minister who transferred to the Anglican Church. He was stationed at Ōpōtiki in 1861. In 1864 and 1865 Rev. Völkner reported to Governor Grey of the movements of the Hauhau within his region, and in the mind of our ancestors, of the old ways, this was tantamount to spying. So the chiefs of that time debated Völkner’s fate, and the rest, as they say, is history. But not so, because the aftermath of the Völkner affair in 1866 is why we are here today, 145 years later. On the flimsiest of circumstantial evidence—the rope used to hang Völkner was allegedly owned by Mokomoko—the chief Mokomoko was imprisoned and taken to Auckland jail. He was tried and convicted and hanged at Auckland, where he was also buried. In October 1989, 123 years later, his kōiwi were disinterred and repatriated to Waiaua pā near Opōtiki. Throughout this ordeal, Mokomoko maintained his innocence.

Such were the ways of our ancestors that a rangatira of the status of Mokomoko was apt to compose a death dirge, a lament, a waiata full of pathos. Often these waiata were composed to remind their descendants of how their death came about and how mana must always be retained. The theme of Mokomoko’s waiata is no different. As has been mentioned today, its opening lines are:

Tangohia te taura i taku kakī

kia waiata au i taku waiata.

As Mokomoko stood on the gallows facing his death, the aforementioned words were spoken. Today, the descendants of Mokomoko, ngā uri o Mokomoko, use those prophetic words as a pēpeha, a tribal whānau saying, to mean: “Have the strength to speak up and the truth shall not be silenced.” In his waiata, Mokomoko laments how he is treated like a common criminal:

Kei te hori te tangata tēnei au ki te rawake.

Halfway through his poignant waiata, composed on the gallows of Auckland jail in 1866, with the rope around his neck, Mokomoko pleads to his descendants:

He wareware noa te eke noa i te kaipuke

He ahi mumura te pānga mai o te whakamā.

“Remember how I was taken on board a ship, chained and in shackles. The memory of my shame burns me so deep.” Our ancestors of long ago were a proud people, and at all times maintained and upheld the mana of their whānau, hapū, and iwi. But, more important, he also practised his own personal mana. In the warfare practised by our tūpuna, there was more honour to die in battle than to be taken alive as a slave of the victorious tribes. To be bound, to be a herehere—a slave—was the highest indignity and a shame upon the family as well. So the whakamā of being held captive was too much for many of our rangatira who interacted with our early justice system. Just like being held in remand or waiting for the justice system wheels to be cranking on and the process followed through—again, that was a serious whakamā that was inflicted upon many of our people.

He wareware noa te eke noa i te kaipuke

He ahi mumura te pānga mai o te whakamā

“Remember how I was taken on board ship, chained and shackled. The memory of the shame burns me deep.” These are proud words from a shamed man, who was not afraid to meet his death. Today in this debate we begin the process to ensure that Mokomoko’s descendants have the shame of their tupuna erased, wiped clean, and his mana reasserted. They can begin to write new waiata. He and his descendants deserve no less. So I mihi to the descendants of Mokomoko here today, who have travelled all this way, and I also think of my own whānau connections, my cousins, my many, many Mokomoko cousins in Te Wai Pounamu, my grand uncle—we knew him as John Bull Mokomoko—Teone Āperira Mokomoko, who married my grand aunt Te Rau Ōriwa Tregerthen Tirikatene. I know many of them are tuning in and watching this first reading today, so I mihi to all of them and to all of the Mokomoko whānau throughout the motu.

In June of 1992, the Governor-General issued a free pardon to Mokomoko. The whānau Mokomoko were, however, concerned that the pardon was drafted without consultation with the family and did not expressly restore his character, mana, or reputation to him and his descendants. So, as has been traversed in the kōrero so far, there are several parts to this bill that finally make good that pardon. Among the additions, the Government will acknowledge that the free pardon did not expressly restore the character, mana, and reputation of Mokomoko, nor the character, mana, and reputation of his uri.

The upholding of mana is a constant struggle in today’s world. Every day the mana of Māori is trampled upon and disrespected by ignorant New Zealanders, driven by an even more ignorant Pākehā media, but if there is one word that resounds through the languages of the Pacific, it is the word “mana”, and its meaning never changes as you paddle from island to island. It even means the same up north in Tai Tokerau as it does down in Te Wai Pounamu. Mana is authority, prestige, reputation—things that are important to all Polynesian cultures, especially to Māori. So I commend the passage of this bill through the House. I look forward to participating in the Māori Affairs Committee, and I mihi to everybody here today. Kia ora ano tātou.

CATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green): Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. He mihi nui ki te whānau o te rangatira Mokomoko me Te Whakatōhea hapū, iwi katoa, tēnā koutou.

[Thank you, Mr Speaker. Greetings to those of you of the House. A huge acknowledgment to the family of the revered Mokomoko and to the subtribe and all the people of Te Whakatōhea. Salutations to you collectively.]

Thank you for coming here today to hold us to account, and for your persistence in doing that. For me and my party, the Green Party, we believe that the Treaty gives us a place to stand if we honour it, but you are holding us consistently to account for our failure to do that both as the Crown and as a culture. We are grateful to you for the holding to account that you have done at great cost—a price that you have paid for many, many years.

I would like to speak a little bit about the concept of apology, the history of the Ōpōtiki region, and the way in which colonisation targets individuals in order to commit raupatu, which has been manifest through the story of the rangatira whom we speak about in the House today. Having lived in the rohe—my mother-in-law lived for many years at Ōhiwa—when driving through those beautiful, wealthy, fertile lands the question remains: is the price paid? Is enough price paid yet? Have people been given the right to regain their resources? The answer is no, but this bill, the Mokomoko (Restoration of Character, Mana, and Reputation) Bill, is a step along the way.

Other speakers today, and particularly the Minister of Māori Affairs, have well traversed some of the history. The 1860s were an incredible time in the history of indigenous peoples right around the world, because, if you look at the histories of indigenous people in North America as well as Aotearoa, that was a time when confiscation and death descended upon many of those communities because of the resources and the power they held. The colonisers wanted the resource, and so they had to find a way to get it.

If you read the history of the rohe, hear it spoken on the marae, or study Judith Binney’s contribution, you will see the way in which Tūhoe, Whakatōhea, and the Mataatua waka in general paid the price for the aspirations of the Crown. It is often paid by a particular whānau. That whānau in this instance, the whānau of Mokomoko, has held us to account, and up until this day the Crown has not yet succeeded in apologising. So we look forward to the passing of this bill and succeeding in apologising with the full meaning of apology.

The description that some people have given of the humiliation and the murder of Mokomoko is a very moving story. Again, as with many of the stories, it is not just a story; it is a reality, and it is a particular reality for the descendants. I would love to do a poll of the landowners, the Pākehā landowners, of the Whakatōhea region and ask them how many of them know the story of Mokomoko and the role of the Crown. Because, having been to the church where Völkner was murdered, I do not see a story in that town in English that tells Pākehā how this occurred. If we do not tell the truth, we do not really hear our own part in history. History is always in front of us. History is a very important part of who all of us are in Aotearoa if Te Tiriti o Waitangi is to be fully honoured.

The colonisation process does target an individual. It targets the individual in order to create the opportunity. Mokomoko was the opportunity for the raupatu, and Völkner’s death, the death of one missionary, became an opportunity not only to murder an innocent man but also to confiscate vast areas, to rape literally, and to pillage literally. The waves and ripples of that action, which this whānau have come to ask us to take responsibility for, continue to this day. It is often through the story of a person that we can come to understand the bigger history, and that is why this story needs to be told and must be told.

I would also like to speak about the issue of pardon. I find “pardon” quite a strange word for an innocent person. I think that for the issue of an apology, the word “apology” is the most powerful word. We need to look at what happened in 1992, and we need to look at what is being put forward very positively in this bill today. The first pardon was not negotiated. If we talk about what apology is, and if an apology is going to ring true, then all apologies, but particularly ones between the Crown and wronged families and iwi katoa, need to be properly negotiated. They need to be a genuine expression of contrition with a clear commitment not to repeat or reinforce in any way that action. That is something that needs to happen, and that is a process that does not stop merely with historical process but with contemporary process.

We need to talk about Tūhoe in this instance and whether any Government is prepared to apologise to them for what happened in Ruātoki in 2005. The contemporary refusals to apologise for breaches of legitimate behaviour by the Crown do risk the credibility of what we are doing. We are talking about the fact that history lives on, and it is good that we are apologising. We need to look at all the things, all the hara, all the hurts, that need to be addressed so that this apology is given respect along with all the others.

The other key element of an apology is when it is accepted. If an apology is accepted, then healing can begin between the parties, and that is why it is really awesome to see the descendants, the uri, here today accepting the apology offered in this bill. That was the problem with the 1992 apology: it differentiated between Ngāti Awa and Whakatōhea, which is an unfortunate, maybe well-intentioned, action. But if you do not consult, then it is still justice denied. Justice denied is when the person or the State defines what that justice is. The State cannot under te Tiriti define the meaning of justice or any apology; the State must negotiate in the relationship, and that is about starting with consultation and negotiation, as this bill does. So we celebrate that.

I would also just like to talk about the role of the State in causing the deaths of individuals. The death penalty was repealed in 1958, but it was too late for these people. I remember as a child sitting by the radio listening to Parliament when the death penalty was repealed. My father was one of the people who worked for the repeal of the death penalty, and one of the reasons he did that was that the Crown can make mistakes, and the Crown can cause harm and make use of innocent individuals. So it is important for the Crown to recognise the seriousness of the situation when it uses the death penalty. It is a good thing we no longer have the death penalty, but it will not restore the situation. This needs to happen in a process that is starting here today.

Like the descendants of Te Kooti, the people who are stigmatised by the actions of the Crown are entitled to full, complete recognition and redress even 146 years later. That is why I mentioned contemporary potential issues and breaches, because in 100 years’ time will there be whānau standing here asking us to relook at ourselves?

Again, I recognise the whānau of Mokomoko and recognise that this is a door that opens for a relationship and a continued conversation about the Treaty settlements in that beautiful part of the country, Whakatōhea. We really do need to educate everybody about the story of this rangatira and about the process of what we have gone through, and learn from the fact that a well-intentioned pardon that is not correctly negotiated will lead to the need for another negotiation. I think that learning is a very powerful issue within this particular bill. We all—Māori, tauiwi, Pākehā katoa—need to listen and respect the reason why the descendants of this tupuna have had to come to Wellington to this House today, why he was killed, who benefited, and who paid. The story is an opportunity, but—as I think the Hon Parekura Horomia said—it does not finish the pain and hurt. But it allows for the beginning of healing. So the Green Party is very happy to support this bill through all its stages. He mihi nui ki te whānau Mokomoko. Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa.

Hon SIMON BRIDGES (Minister of Consumer Affairs): Tēnā koutou. Every so often, I suppose, a bill comes to this House that is out of the ordinary. We have our fair share of customs bills, fisheries bills, bills about the internet, and various bits and pieces, and we stand up and we speak. But this is one of those bills that is out of the ordinary. The history of the matter has been well traversed by the Minister of Māori Affairs. It is a matter of record. The context, of course, is the New Zealand Wars, raupatu, and a whole lot of, I think, very egregious things happening in our country. I will not relitigate that, but can I make two or three points. Firstly, there is the beauty of the thought expressed by Mokomoko, an innocent man, in his waiata. I think, like so many war poems and poems throughout the ages, it is simply expressed but with a depth of feeling and of concepts that I think make it a stunning presentation, which I will come back to. As I say, I note its beauty and its poignancy. His last words, as I understand it, which I do not think have been referred to in the House so far in this debate, are: “I die an innocent man. Farewell Pākehā. So be it.” Really, it says it all: “I die an innocent man.” It is certainly true; we know that today. “Farewell Pākehā.” It was a Pākehā, a British, system that had wrongfully convicted him. Then there is the stoicism, I suppose, of that last poignant phrase: “So be it.”—so be it. So it is the beauty of his expressions that I just want to put on record.

Then, secondly—and the last contributor alluded to this, I think, when she talked about the death penalty—we see what this case illuminates about wrongful conviction and innocence. We know, as I say, Mokomoko was hanged for a murder that he did not commit. Really, if you ask me, that is the best argument there is against the death penalty. I am not one of those—and I know there will be people in this House, maybe in the gallery, who disagree with me—who disagree with the death penalty for principled reasons. I actually can envisage cases where someone has perhaps gone on a killing spree and is deserving of the death penalty. But, practically speaking, when you face and encounter wrongful convictions, as we have seen in America, as we have seen in other countries, and in this country so graphically in this case, I could never support the death penalty. There is truth in that phrase that says that—as a former criminal lawyer I used to think this was an overused phrase, but really it is so true in this case—you know it is better that 10 guilty go free than one innocent person is convicted, because the injustice sticks in the craw. Today if we think about this case, it would not even get past a prosecutor’s desk. It would not even get past the desk, because, as I understand it, the piece of rope that was his is about all the British Crown had. Well, arguably, you could make a case about parties—section 66 of the Crimes Act—but that would never pass muster. It would be an entirely unsafe and, as we know in this case, wrongful conviction, not even coming close to being decent circumstantial evidence.

The sense of the injustice of all of this, of wrongful conviction, I think comes through incredibly clearly in that, as I say, beautiful, poignant waiata: “They treat me like a common thief”—the sense of indignity of this. “The memory of the shame burns within me so deep”—the sense of legitimate grievance. He questions the reason why—the bewilderment, really, that comes with finding yourself in a position of wrongful conviction. As I have already said, in his last words, as I understand it, Mokomoko said: “So be it.”—so be it.

So I for one am privileged to speak in this reading in this House, when, as the title of this bill says, we have the opportunity and the privilege to restore the character, the mana, and the reputation here, albeit many years—well, over 100 years—too late. I am glad we do not have a death penalty in this country. I am glad today we do have fair trials with due process. As I say, having reflected in my short contribution on the poignancy of Mokomoko’s words, on the circumstances he found himself in, on the pride and stoicism with which he dealt with that situation, and on the principles of our system today, it means that we do everything we can to ensure that the innocent are not convicted in the same way that he was.

BRENDAN HORAN (NZ First): Ka tangi te tītī, ka tangi te kaka, ka tangi hoki ahau, tihei mauri ora. E ngā iwi, e ngā reo, e ngā mana, e ngā mātāwaka, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa. E rau rangatira mā, ka mihi atu i runga i te karanga o te rā, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā anō tātou katoa. Warea, warea. Huakina te tatau mai i te pō ki te ao, te ao mārama.

[The mutton bird calls, the parrot calls, and I call as well, behold the sneeze of life. To the tribes, voices, authorities, and kinship groups, greetings to you, greetings to you, and greetings once again to you all. Oh, leaders of a hundredfold, I pay homage to you in respect of the call of the day, so acknowledgments, salutations, and congratulations once again to us all. Overcome, overcome. Open the door from the darkness to the dawn, and to the world of light.]

Sweep away and clear the pathway, so the door from bleakness to the world of light is open. Tihei mauri ora!

Mokomoko had tried to assist Völkner, but instead was framed as a murderer. His lands were confiscated, people were persecuted, and mana and character were disgraced. He was hanged, and in the 1890s his remains were re-interred at Mt Eden Prison. He was buried with murderers and felons, and, no doubt, along with innocent victims as well. The 146-year journey that it has taken to be here today has been heartbreaking and arduous for his descendants, and those words “heartbreaking” and “arduous” really are inadequate to truly describe the trials and tribulations of this whānau. How can you possibly describe the profoundness, the spirituality, the darkness, and the light of the experience of searching for Mokomoko’s remains, and finding them buried standing up in Mt Eden Prison? The manner of finding was spiritual and unique. That profound experience and the memories are forever etched on those people who were there for the resurrection of those remains.

One of the most recent kaumātua who was instrumental in us being here today was Manny Mokomoko. Sadly, not so long ago—just a little while ago, earlier this year—Manny Mokomoko passed away, a day after another treasured kaumātua, Matenga Biddle. New Zealand First extends our condolences for the heartfelt loss of these two splendid men. My wife is a Pukepuke from Kutarere, and my whānau knew Manny. It is fair to say that Manny’s goal was a complete restoration of character, mana, and reputation. That was what Manny wanted, and how proud he would be to be here today. We all wish that he was here today. We acknowledge the family’s loss, and wish you plain sailing in the pathways that open up through the restoration of Mokomoko’s mana and character in the years ahead.

New Zealand First supports this bill, the Mokomoko (Restoration of Character, Mana, and Reputation) Bill, and we will work through the closing stages for a journey as expeditiously as possible to the satisfaction of Mokomoko’s proud descendants. Kia ora.

Bill read a first time.

Bill referred to the Māori Affairs Committee.

Waiata

Bills

Ngāti Manuhiri Claims Settlement Bill

In Committee

Part 1 agreed to.

Part 2 Cultural redress

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 139 in the name of the Hon Christopher Finlayson to clause 25 be agreed to.

Amendment agreed to.

Part 2 as amended agreed to.

Part 3 agreed to.

Schedule 1 agreed to.

Schedule 2 agreed to.

Schedule 3 agreed to.

Schedule 4 agreed to.

Clauses 1 and 2

Clause 1 agreed to.

Clause 2 agreed to.

Bill to be reported with amendment presently.

Bills

Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei Claims Settlement Bill

In Committee

Part 1 Preliminary provisions and settlement of historical claims

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 140 in the name of the Hon Christopher Finlayson to clause 12 be agreed to.

Amendment agreed to.

Part 1 as amended agreed to.

Part 2 Cultural redress

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 140 in the name of the Hon Christopher Finlayson to clause 27 be agreed to.

Amendment agreed to.

Part 2 as amended agreed to.

Part 3 agreed to.

Part 4 agreed to.

Part 5 agreed to.

Schedule 1 agreed to.

Schedule 2 agreed to.

Schedule 3 agreed to.

Schedule 4 agreed to.

Schedule 5 agreed to.

Clauses 1 and 2

Clause 1 agreed to.

Clause 2 agreed to.

House resumed.

The Chairperson reported the Ngāti Manuhiri Claims Settlement Bill with amendment and the Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei Claims Settlement Bill with amendment.

Report adopted.

The House adjourned at 10.12 a.m. (Thursday)