Thursday, 13 June 2013

Thursday, 13 June 2013

Thursday, 13 June 2013

Mr Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

Business Statement

Business Statement

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Leader of the House): Next week the House is in a 1-week adjournment. When the House resumes on Tuesday, 25 June the Government will look to make progress on the State Sector and Public Finance Reform Bill, the Appropriation (2012/13 Supplementary Estimates) Bill, and a number of other second readings on the Order Paper.

Questions for Oral Answer

Questions to Ministers

Economy—Monetary Policy Statement, June 2013

1. JOHN HAYES (National—Wairarapa) to the Minister of Finance: What reports has he received on the economy—particularly on progress in building growth and jobs?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Associate Minister of Finance) on behalf of the Minister of Finance: The Reserve Bank this morning issued its Monetary Policy Statement for June. This confirmed the official cash rate has remained unchanged at 2.5 percent. It also confirmed that the Reserve Bank has slightly revised upwards its forecasts of economic activity over the near term with GDP growth expected to accelerate to about 3.5 percent by the second half of 2014. This will be supported by stronger private consumption than projected previously, along with increased business investment and investment relating to the Canterbury rebuild. The forecast growth is expected to support more jobs and result in lower unemployment over the next 3 or 4 years.

John Hayes: What are some the factors behind the Reserve Bank’s latest forecast for growth in the economy?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: There are a number of factors. Private consumption expenditure is expected to grow moderately over the next 4 years, reflecting a pick-up in consumer confidence. Investment also remains a key driver of growth, particularly related to the Canterbury rebuild. There is also a stronger outlook for business investment, particularly gross capital formation, following recent strength in business confidence surveys. The Reserve Bank’s view of trading partner growth is slightly more favourable than in its March forecast. All of these factors are expected to contribute to economic growth in New Zealand over the next 4 years.

John Hayes: In the light of its outlook for improving economic growth, what does the Reserve Bank say about the outlook for the labour market, and especially the rate of unemployment?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: The Reserve Bank says the expected increase in domestic production will continue to support a gradual recovery in the labour market. Employment is expected to grow modestly with relatively stronger growth expected in Canterbury, and, in fact, across the South Island. Overall seasonally adjusted annual employment growth is forecast to be between 0.4 percent and 2.2 percent over the years 2013-16. The Reserve Bank also forecasts the unemployment rate to fall from 6.2 percent currently to 4.8 percent by 2016. The Government is supporting these positive forecasts with a comprehensive economic programme aimed at encouraging businesses to invest, grow, and employ more people.

John Hayes: So how does the economic outlook compare with New Zealand’s position 5 years ago, and what are the benefits of the subsequent improvements for New Zealand families?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: It is really quite a turn-round on 5 years ago. The outlook for both the economy and New Zealand families is considerably better. For a start, the economy is now growing faster than those of most other developed countries. In 2008 it was deep in a domestic recession that started before the global financial crisis. The cost of living is low, increasing by about 1 percent annually. In 2008 inflation was more than 5 percent. Mortgage rates are at 50-year lows, around half of what they were in 2008. That saves a family with a $200,000 mortgage around $200 a week. The export sector and jobs in that sector are growing. Five years ago the tradable sector had been in recession since 2005. Households are now saving a bit more and paying down debt. Five years ago, encouraged by Government policies, they were borrowing and consuming beyond their means.

Grant Robertson: Further to that answer, can the Minister tell us whether New Zealand’s ranking in OECD unemployment statistics is better or worse than it was 5 years ago?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: I cannot actually tell the member exactly what it was, but I can tell him, though, that it is one of the better performing in the OECD right now. And today we have more adult New Zealanders employed in jobs in this country than Australia has in Australia.

Grant Robertson: Can the Minister of Finance confirm that in his Budget recently presented to this House, Treasury projects that his Government will fall 61,000 jobs short—

Hon Member: How many?

Grant Robertson: —61,000—of its 2011 election promise to New Zealanders?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: The good news for the member is that there is a projection along roughly every quarter, including from the Reserve Bank. What I can tell him is that there is one even in the last couple of days—

Grant Robertson: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. It was a very specific question about Budget 2013, the Minister of Finance’s Budget. I asked about that.

Mr SPEAKER: It was a question about whether the Minister could confirm some Treasury advice?

Hon Gerry Brownlee: He used the word “election.”

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I am asking the Hon Steven Joyce to address the question.

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: I do not have those numbers to hand. I would be deeply suspicious of the member in that regard. But the point I was making, which was related to that, is that the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment short-term employment outlook just came out in the last couple of days—

Grant Robertson: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. He clearly does not know the answer, so I seek leave of the House to table the pages from 2013 Budget that indicate—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I am not prepared to put leave to table a document that is available to everybody.

Forestry—Timber Processing and Revenue

2. RICHARD PROSSER (NZ First) to the Minister of Revenue: How much tax revenue is forecast from the predicted increase in log export volumes over the next four years?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister for Economic Development) on behalf of the Minister of Revenue: The Government’s tax revenue forecasts are calculated on a whole economy basis, and are not generally separated into industry sectors of the type that the member is seeking. Obviously, everything else being equal, an increase in export volumes should increase domestic profit and, therefore, tax revenue. But at the granular level the member is requesting, it is not possible to give him any sort of accurate estimate.

Richard Prosser: Does he concede the fact that greater volumes of timber being processed in mills such as Red Stag Timber, in his own electorate, would lead to greater revenue for the Government and reduced unemployment?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: It does not necessarily follow. It would depend very much, for example, on the profitability of the foresters versus, for example, the profitability of the processing company. If the processing company was not profitable, then obviously it would not be paying any tax. So I do not think that you can make any sort of assumption based on just a suggestion about one type of company versus another.

Richard Prosser: Is he aware of the significant financial benefits to the Government and to the regions of processing those logs for export here in New Zealand with Kiwi workers, rather than just exporting just large volumes of unprocessed logs offshore?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: I think we are getting away from the Minister’s portfolio a little bit, but in terms of the member’s specific question, I do not think you can necessarily make assumptions in regard to it. I am aware that there are a number of organisations looking at doing more processing in this country in a number of different markets, and, presumably, if that turns out to be economically viable, that will be done. But I think some of the advice that I have seen in this regard is that it is actually the control of the value chain right to the consumer that really creates the value. So it is not just enough to create a processing plant in a region, as against, for example, having control of the brand right across to wherever you are selling the product.

Richard Prosser: Would he, in light of the considerable benefits, consider adopting policies aimed at increasing the domestic processing of timber, such as New Zealand First’s lower domestic log price policy; if not, why not?

Mr SPEAKER: Hon Steven Joyce, in as far as the question is associated with the revenue portfolio.

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Again, I am not really sure how close this is to the revenue portfolio, but I think it would be difficult to suggest that the Government should necessarily just go out there and by fiat declare a price on logs—although it would fit with the Greens’ power policy, of course. I think probably the best approach is to let the competitive forces play. It is important to note, of course, that the forestry industry, including the logging industry, is making a very big contribution to New Zealand’s exports currently.

Government Communications Security Bureau, Review of Compliance—Investigation into Leak and Ministerial Involvement

3. GRANT ROBERTSON (Deputy Leader—Labour) to the Prime Minister: On what date did his Chief of Staff inform him that “there were issues of Ministers having to comply” with regard to the Henry Report and did his Chief of Staff tell him that the Minister in question was Hon Peter Dunne?

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Leader of the House) on behalf of the Prime Minister: The Prime Minister’s chief of staff had a brief conversation with him on Wednesday, 29 May, in which he told the Prime Minister he planned to reiterate on the Prime Minister’s behalf an expectation that Ministers comply with Mr Henry’s inquiry. He also told the Prime Minister that there was an issue around Mr Dunne making some emails available to the inquiry.

Grant Robertson: Why, then, did he tell the House on 5 June that he had no details about the inquiry, when the chief of staff had been informing him about it a week earlier?

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: The Prime Minister had no details of the inquiry. He had a briefing from his chief of staff, who, of course, had also had discussions with Mr Dunne’s chief of staff and was therefore aware of the issue.

Grant Robertson: Why, at that point, having received that briefing on 29 May, did the Prime Minister not directly ask Mr Dunne to comply with the inquiry?

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: The Prime Minister does not consider a conversation held briefly with his chief of staff to be a briefing. It was a notification. It was—[Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! Would the Minister please finish his answer.

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: The Prime Minister’s chief of staff notified him of his intention to reiterate with all Ministers that there was an expectation they would comply with the requirements of the inquiry.

Grant Robertson: When his chief of staff told him that one of his Ministers—and named that Minister, Peter Dunne—was not complying with an inquiry into the leak of a highly sensitive document, why did he not directly ask Mr Dunne to comply with the inquiry?

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: The Prime Minister was notified that there was an issue around some emails, and he agreed with the chief of staff that he should reiterate with all Ministers that they should comply with the inquiry.

Grant Robertson: Is it not the case that the reason he did not ask Mr Dunne to comply with the inquiry is that he did not want the inquiry to find that one of his Ministers directly leaked the report?

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: No, because the inquiry was under way. There was no point in trying to pre-empt what a result of the inquiry should be. It was appropriate that all Ministers were re-informed that the expectation was they would comply. It was not until the report was made that it was evident that Mr Dunne had not complied.

Grant Robertson: Why, in numerous interviews and in questions in this House, did the Prime Minister not give MPs or members of the public the full story about what he knew about his Minister Peter Dunne not complying with the inquiry?

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: Because it was not evident until the inquiry document was released that there had been a lack of compliance. When the Prime Minister was told by his chief of staff, he agreed with his chief of staff that he should reiterate the expectation that all Ministers should comply. But the non-compliance was not known until the report was released.

Grant Robertson: How can that answer be correct when his chief of staff told him on 29 May that Peter Dunne was not complying with the inquiry?

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: It is not reasonable for that member to take the words I used—in saying there was some issue around the release of emails with Mr Dunne—as meaning that the Prime Minister knew he was not releasing emails. It is quite untrue.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Why is the Prime Minister prepared to put out a report that Sir Bruce Ferguson says was sanitised, that did not contain all the information he saw, and, further, where the classified information that was highly sensitive was removed out of the original report, then put into the appendices, and then never released? Why is the Prime Minister prepared to tolerate that if he is not engaged in a cover-up?

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: Because the report in question was prepared for public release. It did not carry classified information, and neither should it.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. It is very clear that my question refers to the original report that Sir Bruce Ferguson saw, he being the former head of the Government Communications Security Bureau and a man of serious significance in this matter. It is that original report that I am talking about, and the Minister speaking for the Prime Minister is seeking to duck the question.

Mr SPEAKER: No, on this occasion the Minster answering on behalf of the Prime Minister has addressed the question adequately, in my opinion.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Again, I raise with you this idea of a subjective judgment where you depart from the standard practice of saying that you believe the Minister has answered the question. That may be at variance with other people’s views, but we have to accept that because you are the Speaker. But when you start putting a subjective judgment on it, like “very adequately” or “adequately” when demonstrably it is not, then you are going to get disorder in this House, and rightly so.

Mr SPEAKER: No. The trouble with the potential for disorder in the House is the member’s persistence in raising points of order when he does not get an answer that satisfies the member. My job here is to determine whether the Minister—in this case, the Minister answering on behalf of the Prime Minister—has adequately addressed the question in my opinion. That is my job, and I have so ruled. If the member continues to raise points of order questioning a decision I have made, that in itself then leads to disorder in this House.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Will the Government be holding an investigation into, first, the Government Communications Security Bureau morale review leak; second, the Government Communications Security Bureau personnel appointment leak; and, third, the Intelligence and Security Committee proceedings leak; if not, why not?

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: I am not able to answer that question.

Grant Robertson: Did his chief of staff have any further conversations with him after 29 May and before 5 June about progress with the Henry report?

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: Depending on the day on which the report was received by the Prime Minister, which was 5 June, then the answer would be no.

Skycity, Convention Centre—Gambling-related Harm

4. DENISE ROCHE (Green) to the Minister for Economic Development: Will the Government release papers detailing the costs of gambling-related social harm at Skycity Auckland before the final sign off on the Skycity convention centre deal; if not, when will these papers be released?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister for Economic Development): No. As I have said publicly a number of times, I would anticipate that if and when negotiations are complete and a final agreement is signed with Skycity, the Government will then proactively release a large number of documents previously withheld on the basis of commercial sensitivity and prejudicing the Crown’s position in commercial negotiations. As the member will appreciate, due to the ongoing nature of negotiations with Skycity it is not possible to provide her with a fixed date yet at this time.

Denise Roche: What is the estimated cost per annum of the social harm caused by the Skycity deal?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: I think the member is asking me to provide that information now, and I have just answered to the primary question why I am not prepared to provide that information at this point. But as I have said previously, once and if an agreement is completed, the intention would be to release that information.

Denise Roche: Has he received any advice regarding the social harm caused by the 12 extra gaming tables granted to Skycity under this deal, given these tables are the equivalent of an extra 240 poker machines, as they allow up to 20 people to play games from a central computer; if so, what was that advice?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: I do not necessarily agree with the member’s characterisation of those machines, but, again, I would not want to give the advice at this time. I suppose I could just say, in more broad terms, that it is possible to have social harm from any nature of social activities—for example, having drinks at a corporate box at a rugby match with Skycity—

Denise Roche: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! I have a point of order from Denise Roche.

Denise Roche: The question related to poker machines, not to Skycity corporate boxes.

Mr SPEAKER: I think the bigger—[Interruption]

Denise Roche: Supplementary question.

Mr SPEAKER: Supplementary question, Denise Roche.

Denise Roche: What evidence, if any, does he have that the Host Responsibility measures proposed in the heads of agreement by Skycity will reduce problem gambling, and will those Host Responsibility measures be subject to review by independent experts; if not, why not?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Again, the member is asking me to particularly address the information that I have said that I will release in due course. But it is important—and I can point out again for her—that in relation to the requirement for Skycity to meet its Host Responsibility requirements, none of that is changed by any proposed agreement. It would be required to meet the requirements that are set up and overseen by the Gambling Commission, so none of that changes.

Denise Roche: Why did he not instruct financial consultant KordaMentha to count the costs of the social harm of this deal when it was contracted to analyse its costs and benefits?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: The purpose of the KordaMentha report was to assess the economic value of the arrangements between the parties to ensure that they were fair on an economic basis. The social harm discussion is dealt with separately, with a separate stream of advice, and, as I say, that will be released in due course.

Denise Roche: Does he consider that any social harm caused by the deal is a cost to the Crown and the country, and why has he not let the public know about that before the contract is signed?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Well, as I said at the time, the Government has made its assessment. Cabinet has made its assessment of the merits of any arrangement and considered an arrangement, and has, on balance, decided to proceed on the basis that the benefits of it outweigh the costs. That is Cabinet’s view. As I said, there is a range of supporting information that will be released in due course.

Denise Roche: Why will he not release the papers detailing the financial and other costs of social harm before signing the deal? Is he concerned about the outcry from the Auckland public if they know in advance how bad this deal will be for their communities?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: No, I am not concerned about that at all. It is just not appropriate when there is a whole range of information that is being considered as part of the negotiations of the final agreement. I noticed there are a number of people in public who are saying that they are very concerned. Some of them, of course, have close links to various political parties. Other members of the public probably have a more even view, which is around the balance of economic growth and jobs versus the potential for some social harm, and I am sure they will consider that when, and if, any deal is finalised and legislation is put before the House.

Children, State Care—Addressing Historical Abuse Claims

5. MELISSA LEE (National) to the Minister for Social Development: What announcements has she made to support the ongoing resolution of historic abuse claims?

Hon PAULA BENNETT (Minister for Social Development): As part of Budget 2013 the Government has committed $16 million over the next 4 years to continue the Ministry of Social Development’s successful historical claims resolution process for those abused in care. To date more than 400 historical claims have been resolved. Only 55 were resolved prior to 2008, but we have done more than 350 since then.

Melissa Lee: What else is the Government doing to support people who were abused in care?

Hon PAULA BENNETT: The Government has committed a further $1.9 million over 2 years to continue the Confidential Listening and Assistance Service. The Confidential Listening and Assistance Service provides a forum for people who allege abuse or neglect, or have concerns about their time in State care in the health, child welfare, or special education sectors. The service has provided support to more than 700 people so far, and another 2 years is necessary.

Melissa Lee: What steps are being taken to fully resolve these historical claims?

Hon PAULA BENNETT: In addition to this further funding, I have asked the ministry to develop a comprehensive plan that will aim to resolve all historical claims by 2020. Further work will be completed over the coming months. The historical claims process established in 2006 includes those who first came into State care before 31 December 1992.

Christchurch City Council—Building Consent Accreditation

6. Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills) to the Minister for Building and Construction: When did he or anyone in MoBIE first become aware that the Christchurch City Council was placed on notice by the International Accreditation New Zealand (IANZ) of its intention to revoke the Council’s Building Consent Authority Accreditation?

Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON (Minister for Building and Construction): The independent accrediting agency International Accreditation New Zealand wrote to Christchurch City Council on 30 May and copied that letter to the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment. The letter gives the council notice of the intention to revoke its accreditation if substandard performance and poor systems are not corrected by 28 May. The ministry briefed me on 4 June about that, and on 6 June my officials met with the council. I seek leave to table the report of International Accreditation New Zealand.

Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought to table that report. Is there any objection to that? There appears to be none. It can be tabled.

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

Hon Ruth Dyson: Mr Speaker, just as a—

Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON: I had better correct that, I am sorry. It is “by 28 June”.

Hon Ruth Dyson: Thank you for that correction. For how long has the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment been involved with this issue, what problems have been identified, and what solutions have been found?

Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON: Accreditation for the Christchurch City Council under the International Accreditation New Zealand regime dates right back to 2007, when the council failed on a number of occasions to actually get accreditation and when a number of people worked with it—this was under the previous Labour Government. I can give the member the dates when the council failed to get accreditation—let me give them—starting back in November 2007, then in April 2008, and it finally got across the line in October 2008. Of recent times ministry officials have worked extensively with the council, trying to assist it in meeting its requirements to maintain its accreditation. Sadly, they have been unable to convince the council of things that needed to be done.

Hon Ruth Dyson: Given that amount of work, was he surprised this notice was given to the council by International Accreditation New Zealand; if so, why?

Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON: No, I am not surprised. International Accreditation New Zealand is an independent accreditation authority. It works completely independently of Ministers. Its role, as set up by the previous Government, is to check on every certifying authority and make sure it meets the requirements laid down in the Act. In fact, what it found with Christchurch City Council was that a number of issues have failed to be met on a number of occasions, and that when remedial action was put in place, it still did not do it.

Hon Ruth Dyson: Has the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment been providing regular updates on this issue to him; if so, how was that information communicated to the Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery?

Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON: The ministry cannot provide detailed updates on this on an ongoing basis, given that International Accreditation New Zealand went in and did its evaluation in May, and it was at the end of that evaluation that they both wrote to the ministry and to the council on that same day—30 May, I think; I have got the letter here—and it was only at that point we were aware that International Accreditation had come to the conclusion that it was not meeting the criteria. So I repeat again, the whole aim of the Government is to make sure that consents are done properly and they are done without devaluing quality but also that they are done in a timely manner. I heard on Morning Report this morning that a particular Mark McGuinness from the Belgian Beer Cafe Torenhof took 89 days to get a consent through the council, and it was costing him $70,000 a week for that delay.

Hon Ruth Dyson: Does he share the view of the Mayor of Christchurch when the Mayor said: “I am confident that we will be able to clear the backlog and process all consents within the statutory timeframe. We are confident we can retain our accreditation as a building consent authority.”; if he does not share that view, what are the consequences of his view for the people of Canterbury?

Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON: It is not relevant what my view on this is; it is an independent agency that determines whether the accreditation is kept or not. I will not intervene in that process. But we are looking at what options the Government might invoke if, in fact, that accreditation is withdrawn. And I say to the House that if it is withdrawn, it will be the first time since the whole consenting regime was ever put in place. We have had a couple of councils get into a bit of trouble, but with work and time they have always maintained their accreditation. So if 28 June comes and the Christchurch City Council loses it, Ministers are now looking at what various options—

Hon Ruth Dyson: What?

Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON: Well, the Building Act is not clear. The member says: “What?”. Actually, it is the Building Act passed by her Government that does not say what options are available. It never canvassed the option of a certifying authority losing its accreditation.

Hon Ruth Dyson: Point of order, Mr Speaker. [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! Is this a point of order or a—

Hon Ruth Dyson: It is a point of order.

Mr SPEAKER: A point of order, and it will be heard in silence.

Hon Ruth Dyson: In light of the media comments this morning from the chair of the planning and regulatory committee of the council, Sue Wells, and the Mayor, Bob Parker, that he had not heard from Maurice Williamson or Gerry Brownlee, I seek leave to table their email addresses and cellphone numbers to improve the communication in future.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I am not prepared to put that to members.

Minerals Exploration—2012 Northland Tender for Permits

7. MIKE SABIN (National—Northland) to the Minister of Energy and Resources: What recent announcements have been made about mineral exploration in Northland?

Hon SIMON BRIDGES (Minister of Energy and Resources): Today I announced the results of the Northland 2012 tender, which sought interest in exploring for metallic minerals in the region. This was the first major minerals tender and, as a result, five permits have been offered to three companies. This represents an exciting opportunity for Northland. Past studies have highlighted the potential for mineral resources in the region to create jobs and income. The Government is keen to see regions like Northland reap the benefits of such development.

Mike Sabin: What is the value of the minerals sector to the New Zealand economy?

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: The minerals sector now contributes around $20 million each year in royalties and over $1.1 billion to GDP. The mining sector directly employs more than 7,000 people throughout the country. Total exploration expenditure in New Zealand last year was estimated at almost $50 million, which is a new record and points the way to continued growth in mineral exploration.

Employment Relations Legislation—Minister’s Statements

8. DARIEN FENTON (Labour) to the Minister of Labour: When he goes to the International Labour Organization Conference in Geneva, does he intend to repeat his comment that New Zealand’s employment law is “unworkable”, “sloppy” and “creating real problems”?

Hon SIMON BRIDGES (Minister of Labour): No. I think the member is being a little bit tricky in her quotation. What I actually said was that our employment law is fundamentally sound but certainly there are parts that should be changed to achieve a more flexible and fair labour market, and that is exactly what this Government is doing.

Darien Fenton: What exactly are the parts of New Zealand’s employment law that he thinks are unworkable, sloppy, and creating real problems?

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: If the member had watched an excellent interview on Q+A she would have been given several examples of moderate, centre-right employment policy that this Government is promoting. One was in relation to Part 6A, where I made it clear that there are issues around holidays, pay, and transferring them over, which are very difficult to work.

Darien Fenton: Will he be asking the opinion of the ILO Director-General, Guy Ryder, whether he agrees with the Minister’s assessment that New Zealand’s employment law is unworkable, sloppy, and creating real problems; if so, will he share the director-general’s opinion with the rest of New Zealand when he gets back from his trip to Geneva?

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: We will see how it goes.

Darien Fenton: Does he agree that one of the very sloppy and unworkable parts of New Zealand employment law currently is that there is a $6 an hour gap between the Australian and New Zealand minimum wages; if so, will he be following the example of Wellington and promoting a living wage?

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: No. The fact of the matter is that our minimum wage, as a proportion of the average wage in New Zealand, is the highest minimum wage in the OECD.

Darien Fenton: Does he agree with the Prime Minister’s comments on 27 May that a law change to allow employers to take on temporary workers when permanent staff are on strike or are locked out was not on the Government’s agenda; if so, will he be voting for Jami-Lee Ross’ Employment Relations (Continuity of Labour) Amendment Bill?

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: In the wider context of everything I am sure the Prime Minister said, I certainly do agree with the Prime Minister.

Veterans—Korean War Commemorations and War Pensions

9. Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Hunua) to the Minister of Veterans’ Affairs: What plans does the Government have to mark the 60th anniversary of the Korean War Armistice in July and recognise the contribution of New Zealand soldiers in the conflict?

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (Minister of Veterans’ Affairs): I can announce that next month I will have the honour of leading a delegation, which includes 31 New Zealand veterans of that conflict, to attend commemorations in the Republic of Korea to mark the 60th anniversary of the Korean War Armistice. New Zealand played an important part in the Korean War, with nearly 5,000 Kiwis serving as part of K-force and another 1,300 on Royal New Zealand Navy vessels. It is pleasing that we are able to help bring these veterans back to Korea to reflect and to pay respects to comrades lost.

Dr Paul Hutchison: In what other ways are veterans of the Korean conflict being served by the Government?

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: The Government pays a war disablement or surviving spouse pension to more than 770 veterans of that conflict and 300 surviving spouses. On 1 April this year those payments were boosted by an increase of 5 percent, on top of the annual CPI increase. The Government recognises the sacrifices our veterans and their families have made for our country, and we are committed to providing the support and care they deserve.

Iain Lees-Galloway: When will he recognise the contribution of New Zealand soldiers in that conflict and others by finally introducing the legislation to implement the Law Commission’s recommendations from its review of the War Pensions Act, which his predecessor Nathan Guy promised would have been done long before now?

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: As the member well knows, that is a very complex piece of legislation and it is 59 years old. The Government has made decisions about the replacement of that Act, and work is under way right now to introduce the bill. The Prime Minister has made a commitment, which we certainly support, that that bill will be implemented in this term of Parliament, and I stand by that commitment.

Māui’s Dolphin—Preservation

10. GARETH HUGHES (Green) to the Minister of Conservation: Has he implemented the recommendations of the 2012 meeting of the International Whaling Commission’s Scientific Committee to protect the estimated 55 adult Māui’s dolphins remaining; if not, why not?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister of Conservation): The recommendation of the International Whaling Commission’s Scientific Committee was to ban set nets and trawl fishing from Maunganui Bluff to Hāwera out to a depth of 100 metres. The Government has implemented a set net ban, but out to 2 nautical miles. My scientific advisers do not agree with the width of the ban area being determined by water depth rather than distance offshore, as the evidence shows a greater correlation between distance from shore than depth. The dolphin death last year was the first in a decade. It was inside the 2 nautical miles, caused by set netting, and we do not know whether it was a Hector’s dolphin or a Māui’s dolphin. I do appreciate that Māui’s dolphins are one of New Zealand’s special endemic species and that their numbers are worryingly low. The Government is currently reviewing the threat management plan and I can reassure the member that we will be taking all practical steps to ensure the survival of the Māui’s dolphin.

Gareth Hughes: Is it not the Minister of Conservation’s job to prevent the extinction of the last adult 55 Māui’s dolphins; if so, why is he still allowing lethal gill-net and trawl fishing in 81 percent of where scientists say Maui’s dolphins live?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I do not accept the member’s view on the figures. The difference between the approach determined by depth and that determined by distance out from shore means that in some areas the current protection goes further than what the International Whaling Commission’s Scientific Committee recommends. In terms of the broader issue, since becoming Minister I have asked for a number of additional reports on options for measures that might enable us to better protect the Māui’s dolphin. It is my expectation that I and the Minister for Primary Industries will be in a position to announce any changes to the threat management strategy next month.

Gareth Hughes: Given that the Government’s own risk assessment attributes over 95 percent of human-caused Māui’s dolphin deaths to gill-nets and trawl nets, why will he not stop these fishing methods in the 100-metre contour, which is the recommendation of not only the International Whaling Commission’s Scientific Committee and scientists but also the International Union for Conservation of Nature, the Society for Marine Mammalogy—the list could go on—and why will you not take the steps that scientists and experts are calling for?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I assure the member I am taking the very best of scientific advice around ways in which to protect the Māui’s dolphin. The Government has sought additional options around steps. I do think it is a bit of an esoteric argument as to whether it is a distance, as in 2 nautical miles, or whether it is a depth, when, for instance, the area where the dolphin died last year—the first in 10 years—is actually an area where the approach of the International Whaling Commission would provide for a lesser level of protection than the 2-nautical-mile approach.

Gareth Hughes: Given that there are only 55 left, it is not exactly esoteric for them, and is it not clear that we should listen to the international experts, the international bodies, and maybe the Minister should get better scientific advice—and my question is will the Minister consider it in the threat management plan?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I do find it a little rich getting a lecture from the Greens about following scientific advice. When it comes to genetic modification, they reject it. When it comes to issues of fracking, they reject it.

Gareth Hughes: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. He did not even attempt to address the question. He just tried to attack the Greens.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! I invite the member to carefully look at the Hansard around his question when he has the opportunity. He was asking why the Minister should not take into account the international evidence and the Minister responded by asking why the Greens could not also, in his opinion, take into account other international scientific evidence. I think it was adequately addressed.

Gareth Hughes: Given that we are talking about Hansard, my question to the Minister asks whether the public should read anything into a document prepared by the Parliamentary Library that shows that in the Minister’s career, as reported in Hansard, he has talked about mining 95 times, but in this House he has talked about dolphins zero times?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Actions speak louder than words. I have been directly involved in approving 16 marine reserves, which is more than any other member in this House, and, actually, 16 more than that member or the Green Party. I could solve the member’s problem by saying “Māui, Māui, Māui, Māui” or “Hector’s, Hector’s, Hector’s, Hector’s”, but I actually think the Māui’s dolphin would do better by us actually putting in place the very best threat management plan.

Biosecurity Management—Confidence

Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Labour—West Coast - Tasman): My question is to the Minister for Primary Industries. Does the Minister have confidence in his biosecurity system? [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! There was a bit of disruption upstairs there. Can I ask the member to please repeat that question.

11. Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Labour—West Coast - Tasman) to the Minister for Primary Industries: Does he have confidence in the biosecurity system?

Hon AMY ADAMS (Minister for the Environment) on behalf of the Minister for Primary Industries: Yes.

Hon Damien O’Connor: Does the Minister agree with the KPMG state of the nation report that assesses that many agribusiness leaders believe “we struggle to score more than a ‘could do better’ in respect of biosecurity”?

Hon AMY ADAMS: As I am speaking on behalf of the Minister for Primary Industries, I cannot give that answer, but what I can tell you is that biosecurity is the Minister’s highest priority.

Hon Damien O’Connor: How can the Minister claim that it is his highest priority and that we have a world-class biosecurity system when it took a report from two Kiwi farmers on a private trip to alert the ministry to the potential risk of foot-and-mouth disease from contaminated palm kernel expeller from Asia?

Hon AMY ADAMS: The Minister responded to the concerns that were raised, examined the system, and sent officials to investigate and view the facilities in the countries concerned. Those officials have returned, and have found that overall there are good systems in place. They have, however, identified some areas for improvement. Those are now being given immediate effect to.

Hon Damien O’Connor: What assurances can the Minister give the New Zealand brassica vegetable growers that their industry is safe from the great white butterfly when infestations around Nelson have soared, or does the Minister agree with the Department of Conservation Motueka Area Manager, Martin Rodd, who said: “It is something that has got away on us.”?

Hon AMY ADAMS: Given the width of the primary question, I simply do not have that information in front of me.

Hon Damien O’Connor: Why should New Zealand pig farmers have to spend a fortune and rely on the judgment of the Supreme Court that was just announced to protect their industry against this Government’s determination to lower the import health standards for pork and allow in high-risk contaminated pork from Canada?

Hon AMY ADAMS: On the information I have, that matter is still before the courts, so it would be inappropriate for me to comment.

Hon Damien O’Connor: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I suggest the Minister go and—

Mr SPEAKER: Order!

Hon Damien O’Connor: I seek leave to table a report, the KPMG Agribusiness Agenda 2013, which identifies biosecurity—

Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought to table the KPMG report from 2013. Is there any objection? Yes, there is objection.

Hon Damien O’Connor: I seek leave to table the report Malaysian Palm Kernel Industry Study Trip, dated September 2012, which was delivered to the Ministry for Primary Industries by two farmers—

Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought to table that particular report. Is there any objection to that? There is not. It can be tabled. Question No. 12, Jacqui Dean.

Hon John Banks: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. There is objection.

Mr SPEAKER: I apologise. I did not hear the objection. It will now not be tabled.

Roading Infrastructure—Rural and Regional

12. JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki) to the Minister of Transport: What support is the Government giving to improve roading infrastructure in regional and rural New Zealand?

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Minister of Transport): There are numerous projects around the country that will lend support to regional roading infrastructure. I want to highlight one particularly for the member, though, and to state that work has begun on the first of two new Waitaki bridges at Kurow. The new two-lane bridges are being built across the river on State Highway 82 between Kurow and Hakataramea by the New Zealand Transport Agency to replace the two ageing 132-year-old single-lane wooden bridges, which have reached the end of their lives. I would like to thank the local member Jacqui Dean for her great work in advocating for her electorate, and helping progress the replacement of these bridges.

Jacqui Dean: What other projects that will improve roading infrastructure is the Government progressing?

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: As I said, there are a lot of these projects around the country, but I would like to talk about the 125-year-old Beaumont Bridge, which is being replaced at a cost of $15 million, and the single-lane Kawarau Falls bridge, being replaced at a cost of around $20 million. Both of these upgrades are modern and in a part of the country that the member will also be very familiar with.

Amended Answers to Oral Questions

Question No. 3 to Minister

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Leader of the House): I seek the leave of the House to correct an answer that I gave, on behalf of the Prime Minister, to the last supplementary question from Grant Robertson.

Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought to correct that answer. Is there any objection to that course of action? There is none.

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: Highlighting the difficulty, I guess, of a Minister answering on behalf of another Minister, I have made inquiries so I can better answer that question on behalf of the Prime Minister. The answer I gave on behalf of the Prime Minister was no. What I should have said is yes, there were several conversations about the matter, meaning the entire inquiry.

Bills

Appropriation (2012/13 Supplementary Estimates) Bill

First Reading

Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Associate Minister of Finance) on behalf of the Minister of Finance: I move, That the Appropriation (2012/13 Supplementary Estimates) Bill be now read a first time.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Appropriation (2012/13 Supplementary Estimates) Bill be now read a first time.

Ayes 63

New Zealand National 59; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.

Noes 53

New Zealand Labour 30; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7; Mana 1; Independent: Horan.

Bill read a first time.

Intelligence and Security Committee

Membership

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Leader of the House): I move, That under section 11 of the Intelligence and Security Committee Act 1996 this House endorse Hon Tony Ryall as a member of the Intelligence and Security Committee, nominated by the Prime Minister under section 7(1)(c) of the Act. This vacancy has arisen due to the resignation from the Intelligence and Security Committee of the Hon Peter Dunne.

The Hon Tony Ryall is a respected and long-serving member of Parliament. He was first elected to this Parliament in 1990 for the electorate of East Cape, and has represented it since—although the electorate has changed its name and border a number of times, including a brief change to Eastern Bay of Plenty for the 1996 election, until its current name of Bay of Plenty.

The Hon Tony Ryall served as Minister of Justice, Minister for State Owned Enterprises, Minister of Local Government, and Minister of Youth Affairs in the Shipley Government, and has more recently been Minister of Health, Minister for State Owned Enterprises, and Minister of State Services, and he is a member of a very exclusive club of former Acting Prime Ministers.

Tony Ryall is a good choice to be on the Intelligence and Security Committee. He has good judgment, elected longevity, and ministerial experience. I support this motion. And might I say how good Clayton Cosgrove looks in the Leader of the Opposition’s seat. This may be one of the few occasions he ever gets to occupy it. Thank you.

GRANT ROBERTSON (Deputy Leader—Labour): If Tony Ryall is the answer, it must be a pretty silly question. That is what I think.

I want to cover a number of issues on the question of the proposed appointment of Tony Ryall to the Intelligence and Security Committee. I do want to acknowledge—as the Minister Gerry Brownlee has—that Mr Ryall is a reasonably long-serving member of this Parliament, coming into the House in 1990, as stated. He has been through ups and downs in that time—ins and outs and ups and downs in that time. He has certainly had a few issues that we have discovered we might have found a basis for, which is that unknown to many members of the House, Mr Ryall is one-eighth Jamaican—one-eighth Jamaican. As my colleague Clayton Cosgrove unkindly suggested, he is the limbo member. How low can you go, Tony Ryall? I do want to acknowledge Mr Ryall as a person who has been in the House for a long time.

The fact that we are today debating this vacancy itself is a matter that members on this side of the House are greatly concerned about. The first point I want to make is that when John Key announced that Tony Ryall would be nominated for this position, he said that he was forced into that position because Peter Dunne, who was then a member of the Intelligence and Security Committee, was no longer a Minister. He was no longer a Minister and therefore he could not serve on the committee. Well, the Prime Minister is wrong, and the Prime Minister has failed to correct the misleading impression that he has left with the New Zealand public that Peter Dunne had to be replaced on the committee—that he had to be replaced—because he is no longer a Minister.

Section 7(1)(c) of the Intelligence and Security Committee Act 1996 makes clear that the Prime Minister can appoint any member of Parliament—any member of Parliament—after consultation with parties in the Government. So any member could be appointed. In fact, Peter Dunne, according to the Government, currently remains the leader of a party within the Government. So for the Prime Minister to try to justify to New Zealanders that Peter Dunne is going off the Intelligence and Security Committee because he is no longer a Minister is, quite simply, false. What that leads us to is that the Prime Minister is quite clearly telling New Zealanders that he does not trust Peter Dunne to be on the Intelligence and Security Committee. Presumably he is doing that because he believes that Peter Dunne is the person who leaked the Kitteridge report.

The problem that members on this side of the House have, and the problem that members of the public have, is that that was not the finding of David Henry’s investigation into the leaking of the Kitteridge report. David Henry says that he cannot say who leaked the Kitteridge report. John Key—who ordered the investigation, who said he wanted to get to the bottom of who leaked the Kitteridge report—cannot tell New Zealanders today definitively who that was. Instead, we have a situation where Mr Dunne insists that he did not leak the Kitteridge report, and Mr Key is asking us just to turn a blind eye to the fact that he has not got to the bottom of who leaked the sensitive report, and to accept that we can brush the whole episode under the carpet and that he can get on and appoint Mr Ryall to this committee in Mr Dunne’s place. Well, that is not good enough. New Zealanders deserve significantly better from their Prime Minister on intelligence and security matters, and, unfortunately, this—his sweeping under the carpet of definitively identifying who leaked the Kitteridge report—is typical of this Prime Minister’s approach to intelligence and security issues.

From day one this Prime Minister has not been upfront with this House about the activities of the Government Communications Security Bureau. We have gone through question time after question time trying to get to the bottom of what the Prime Minister knew about the Kim Dotcom raid, and what the Prime Minister’s role was in the appointment of his childhood friend Ian Fletcher to run the Government Communications Security Bureau. We discovered via the Kitteridge report that John Key actually knew from as far back as February 2012 or May 2012 that there had been illegal spying on New Zealanders, and he did nothing about it until the Kim Dotcom case broke. This Prime Minister’s lax and, in some cases, deliberately misleading information and advice about the activities of our intelligence community lead us on this side of the House to be deeply suspicious of any appointment he might choose to make to this kind of committee because this Prime Minister does not have the interests of ordinary New Zealanders at heart. This Prime Minister, John Key, has the interests of his mates at heart. That was never better emphasised than by appointing his childhood friend to run the Government Communications Security Bureau without anyone else being interviewed, off the back of a phone call that he made. He was riding roughshod over that process.

The activities of our intelligence agencies, which are monitored by this committee, are currently being questioned by many New Zealanders. New Zealanders have lost their faith in the intelligence and security agencies of this country, and I believe that that is a direct result of the way that the Prime Minister has undertaken his duties as the person whom we as New Zealanders have, on our behalf, in charge of those agencies. He has got that oversight, and he is not performing properly.

The Intelligence and Security Committee currently has in front of it legislation to expand the powers of the Government Communications Security Bureau. Some of my colleagues, I think, will speak more on that legislation. What is quite clear is that this Intelligence and Security Committee should have a pivotal role in our Parliament. It should be a watchdog over the activities of our intelligence and security agencies, and it is toothless at the moment. It is a toothless committee because it is unable to actually get to the bottom of issues that New Zealanders are concerned about when it comes to intelligence and security.

The Labour Party believes that there needs to be a full and independent inquiry into the activities of our intelligence agencies. It is not good enough for this Government to bring to the House legislation to extend the powers of those intelligence agencies when there is such a cloud hanging over them, and when there is activity in the international community in terms of cyber-crime, which is increasingly a worry to people in New Zealand. New Zealanders are worried about their privacy, they are worried about whether their details are available to Governments overseas, and this Government wants to ram legislation through this committee in a way that I do not believe many New Zealanders would accept.

We need better oversight of our intelligence agencies. One of the matters the Labour Party would like to see discussed in a full review of our intelligence agencies is what the best kind of parliamentary oversight that we can get is. As we stand today, the Intelligence and Security Committee cannot give New Zealanders the confidence that they need about our intelligence agencies. I believe that, as part of that review, we need to include what level of parliamentary oversight is appropriate, and how we ensure that it is not just that we have to trust Mr John Key when it comes to the activities of our intelligence agencies but that as a Parliament we can own those. As we stand today, the privacy of New Zealanders is at risk. We do not have a Prime Minister, in John Key, who seems to care about that and who seems to take his job as the watchdog over our intelligence agencies seriously, and he comes to the House today to appoint Tony Ryall to this committee.

The committee itself is flawed. The process by which Peter Dunne lost his position on the committee has been fudged by the Prime Minister, and today we have a situation where our intelligence agencies are not trusted by New Zealanders. This appointment of Tony Ryall today will do absolutely nothing to increase that confidence. We need a full and independent inquiry into our intelligence agencies, and the National Government should agree to that today.

Dr RUSSEL NORMAN (Co-Leader—Green): I am speaking on the proposal by the Government to appoint Tony Ryall to the Intelligence and Security Committee. I think that in considering this proposal we need to give ourselves a little bit of context. That context starts with—it does not finish with—the extraordinary events internationally of the last week, whereby the international spying done with PRISM software run by the US National Security Agency was revealed to the world by Mr Snowden. As a leaker, or a whistleblower, he exposed the existence of an enormous conspiracy, effectively, which was that the US National Security Agency was spying on the electronic communications of basically everyone in America and, essentially, the electronic communications of most people in the world, because so much of our internet traffic passes through America.

The reason why that matters to us is not only that the US National Security Agency would have been spying on everyone in this House and pretty much everyone in New Zealand who uses the internet, because at some point or another the traffic is routed via the United States. It is not only an issue because of what the agency would have collected, it is an issue also because of what the intelligence communities might be doing in New Zealand and what the oversight is that the Intelligence and Security Committee is supposed to provide to those agencies. Were the reports that PRISM generated sent back to the New Zealand security agencies, and were those reports looking at what New Zealanders were doing? We do not know the answer to that.

The Prime Minister tells us that that is not true, but, of course, the Prime Minister either has no idea—as we have seen in the past—or simply is not revealing the full truth. He does not answer many questions about this issue, and when he does answer them, the answers are not always right. So we do not know how much of the PRISM information was being passed back to the security services here.

What we also do not know is whether the security agencies in New Zealand are attempting to establish their own domestic version of PRISM—whether that is what the Palantir company is trying to do. Palantir is a company established by some Silicon Valley high-tech people along with the Central Intelligence Agency—the Central Intelligence Agency was one of the founding investors of the company—in order to promote data mining or data analysis on a very large scale. It would appear that it has Government contracts in New Zealand now and is embedded in some Government organisations, from what PRISM put on its website, though the Prime Minister refuses to tell us, as usual. So the question is whether the security agencies have established a similar kind of framework here, and whether the Intelligence and Security Committee should be able to provide oversight over those kinds of activities.

In other jurisdictions parliamentary oversight is taken a lot more seriously than it is in New Zealand. They have proper committees and they have real powers. For example, the Norwegian committee is not made up of MPs. It is purposely made up of non-MPs so that it is independent of Parliament. It has powers to require intelligence agents to appear. It has the power to make those intelligence agents hand over information. The Intelligence and Security Committee in New Zealand has no such powers. It cannot force people to appear. It cannot force them to hand over information. Under the amendments that are being proposed by the Government, that will not be changed. Basically, they will not have to give us on the Intelligence and Security Committee information about what they are doing. So it is very difficult to have the kind of oversight that we need when we do not have the Intelligence and Security Committee as a proper committee.

If you look at other jurisdictions, even more of the Westminster-style jurisdictions, you see that they do not have Ministers on these committees. By rule Ministers cannot sit on the intelligence and security oversight committees, for the obvious reason that the Ministers, representing the executive, cannot provide independent oversight of what is an arm of the executive in the security services. In New Zealand we see that the Prime Minister, who is also the Minister responsible for the intelligence services, chairs the committee—an immediate conflict of interest. Then we have two other Ministers sitting on the committee—a majority of the committee are Ministers. So the executive has given itself authority and a majority on the committee that is meant to oversee the executive’s operations of the intelligence services. It is obviously not a serious kind of oversight.

Appointing yet another Minister, Tony Ryall—whatever may be the excellent qualities of Tony Ryall that Gerry Brownlee has described—on the Intelligence and Security Committee undermines its function and its purpose to provide oversight of the executive’s operation of the intelligence services. It is a clear conflict of interest, which is why in other jurisdictions you cannot be a Minister and sit on the security oversight committee. It is so obviously a conflict of interest.

Likewise, the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security, who is also meant to provide some kind of oversight, should be an Officer of Parliament. Instead, essentially the Inspector-General works with the executive. The Inspector-General should be an Officer of Parliament, like the Auditor-General or like the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, who report to Parliament rather than to the executive.

If we want to have proper oversight of these agencies, then we need to set up proper oversight functions. What we have seen internationally with PRISM, with the tremendous growth of the secret surveillance State—though not so secret any more, because it has all been revealed, or some of has been revealed, I guess—is that we desperately need dramatically improved oversight of the intelligence agencies. The Intelligence and Security Committee simply is unable, because of its legislative mandate, to provide that kind of oversight.

It is impossible for the Intelligence and Security Committee as it is statutorily defined at the moment—and including the amendments the Government is pushing through—to do its function. In fact, some of the legislative change that the Government is proposing will enable the security services to operate more of a PRISM-type scheme. The changes it is making to the Government Communications Security Bureau Act will mean that the bureau can spy on all New Zealanders, whereas previously it was not supposed to be spying on New Zealanders. Of course, it was spying on New Zealanders, but it was not supposed to be.

Likewise, the changes to the Telecommunications Act will give the intelligence agencies the ability to require the telecommunications companies to give them back-door access to all internet traffic in New Zealand, just like the PRISM system. So they are giving themselves the powers to establish at a New Zealand level something like what we have seen in the United States with PRISM. That is exactly what the changes to the Telecommunications Act are all about.

This is, I believe, a deeply disturbing development, and, of course, it has arisen since 9/11 in particular. It was there before, but it has got much worse since then, especially as the technological capacity of the State to monitor and provide surveillance of all electronic and online communications has developed further and further, and we are now in a total surveillance environment. Everyone, whenever they go online, cannot be sure whether they are being surveilled by the US National Security Agency, or by the New Zealand security services. That fundamentally corrodes privacy. At a fundamental level that is like Nineteen Eighty-Four, where you had the television on the screen and you could never know whether or not they were watching you. That is the kind of environment we have now established with regard to online communications.

That fundamentally undermines privacy, and privacy is fundamental to being a complete human being. If you have no space and no time of your own when you know that you are communicating with other people in confidence and where you can discuss ideas honesty and openly, where you can have thoughts in an uncensored manner, you cannot possibly develop your identity as a person. That is exactly what Nineteen Eighty-Four was all about, and what George Orwell was warning us about, and that is exactly the kind of total surveillance State that has now been established. That is what Mr Snowden has revealed to us the National Security Agency was doing in the United States, and we have no idea whether that is what the New Zealand security agencies are also trying to establish here, and we do not have the legislative tools and the legislative teeth to actually find out what is going on inside those agencies.

That is why we have supported a proper inquiry, not only into what has happened with regard to Ian Fletcher and so forth but, more important, into what the role of these kinds of agencies is, how much we need them, and, if we need them, what kind of proper parliamentary oversight and democratic oversight they need in order to protect our privacy, in order to protect our fundamental freedoms and democratic rights.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First): Gerry Brownlee today corrected John Key’s misinformation earlier on in these series of questions. He said that Mr Key had been the beneficiary of multiple briefings. That was a sizable admission. On Monday the Prime Minister told the nation that this motion has “got nothing to do with what happened last week”. Mr Key, of course, had Mr Dunne leave the Intelligence and Security Committee on a technicality, to use his words. He then told the media that Mr Dunne could not stay on the committee, because he was no longer a Minister, all of which we have demonstrated by reciting the Intelligence and Security Committee Act 1996 as not being the case. So there you have got “Mr Spray and Walk Away” being caught out demonstrably, palpably, every day. John Key is spinning quicker than the blackjack wheels at Skycity Casino.

The law is clear. That law of 1996 says that anyone who is a member of Parliament can be on the committee. John Key nominated Peter Dunne to sit on that committee not because he was a Minister, but because he was propping up the Government and Mr Key trusted him. Be under no illusions here. Mr Dunne’s resignation from the Intelligence and Security Committee has everything to do with what happened last week. It is central to the whole story. Contained in the wording of this motion we are discussing today is a clear admission by the Prime Minister that he can no longer trust Mr Dunne on matters of national security. The question is whether we can trust the nominee, Tony Ryall.

The Prime Minister is leaving the House and the country in no doubt about who leaked the Kitteridge report, and the question must now be asked: why did he go to such lengths, as a Prime Minister, to cover it up? Why did he choose David Henry? Did David Henry, his inquirer, not seek the powers to get to the truth, or did Mr Key not give him the powers to get to the truth?

Hon Member: Ha, ha!

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Those questions are fundamental, and they are not laughing matters. I want to say this to those National members over there: how is it that one member of Parliament knows precisely how Peter Dunne leaked that Kitteridge report? How come one member of Parliament knows exactly how he did it, and yet Mr Key claims he does not know and Mr Henry claims he does not know? In fact, no one knows, except for one member of Parliament, who knows exactly how he did it.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: Who’s that?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Well, that member is the one who has been giving this speech, and that is why I am certain where I am going. Is it because what is in the report is so damaging—that is, the report that should have been written about what Mr Dunne did—to Mr Key and his Government? For we know it is damaging to Mr Dunne. The material is comical and sad, and it is also worthy of a psychological study. But we will get to that sometime in the future.

But what Mr Key is doing is allowing and pervading a cover-up. Why has he appointed Tony Ryall to do Mr Dunne’s old job? It became apparent that the Prime Minister, in his interviews, is not just absolutely perplexed by this appointment but is set on spreading bulldust as wide as he can. This is not a case of the Prime Minister’s now famous brain fades. It is not a case of the Prime Minister getting lost in the detail. Rather, it is indicative of John Key’s wilful, irresponsible ignorance as the Minister in charge of the Government Communications Security Bureau to do his duty.

The truth is he does not want to know so he does not have to share it. There is the corpse, fingerprints, blood on the floor, DNA everywhere, and no one but one member of Parliament knows how it was done. Mr Key does not want to spell out exactly who was leaking what and when. You see, it was not just one leak. This person leaked the report on the morale of the Government Communications Security Bureau. There was a leak about the new head and appointment of the Government Communications Security Bureau. There were leaks about the review of the Government Communications Security Bureau, leaks about the briefing that was coming up on the Government Communications Security Bureau, a leak about the Intelligence and Security Committee’s proceedings, and other leaks as well. All those leaks, and the Prime Minister and his colleagues over there, who call themselves the National Party, do not want to know.

There is an acrid stench rising from those benches—an acrid stench of ignorance. They might be sitting there embarrassed, but I am asking Mr Bennett over there, from Hamilton, why the people of Hamilton are not entitled to know that their millions of dollars in the security industry are being so blithely handled. Where would you get a Parliament where members of Parliament say: “We will put somebody on the committee who will do everything to serve our bidding, and he will engage in the cover-up. He won’t ask who’s leaking. He won’t ask the import of these leaks. He won’t ask how embarrassing it is internationally. He’ll just sit there and make sure there is a cover-up.”?

Mr Dunne is not qualified, by his own actions already. This Parliament is asked to trust Mr Tony Ryall to go on the committee and represent it, and to oversee the intelligence and security issues of this country. I have no confidence in Tony Ryall, and the reason is that he is already involved in the cover-up. You have got two members of the committee who want to know more—Russel Norman and David Shearer—and now you have got a member of the committee who does not want to know, and who wants to engage in the wilful ignorance.

This has been a cover-up from the word go. Look at the terms of reference given to David Henry. There was no mention of Mr Henry having the power to access the information, the electronic information, and five sets of it—no reference about those powers whatsoever. Then you go to the Henry report, page 2, and it is there—cheap, obvious, and not even clever. He says he could have got from the State Services Commissioner all the powers if it was a civil servant. He could have got—next paragraph—the support of the Prime Minister in respect of Cabinet Ministers. And then, in the next paragraph, he says that someone who came under suspicion was the leader of a political party. He did not say it was another Minister. Why did he distinguish that—Mr Dunne being the leader of a party, and not a Minister? Because if you go down further, you will see at bullet point 13 on page 2: “I remain of the view that I need to have full access to all 86 emails.” Why just those 86?

There is much more here. The man has been leaking like a sieve. What the ramifications for our international reputation are, we do not know. But, over there, we watch National members. They are telling the whole country—Mr Bennett, Ms Adams over there, and those from the South Island, from the West Coast, the member from Hawke’s Bay, and the one from Dunedin; they are all there—by their inaction, inertia, and wanton behaviour that they do not want the taxpayer to know.

Heavens, it must be embarrassing to behave like that. It must be extraordinarily embarrassing to go on the hustings and say: “My No. 1 duty is to serve the country and look after the security of its people.”, then come to the committee—

Hon Tau Henare: Why don’t you like David Henry?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Oh yes, oh yes, Mr Henare is guilty as sin. He is another yes-man—another yes-man, a “let’s pull the wool over my eyes” man. Boy, I mean, in the Māori world, do you know what you would call that?

Hon Annette King: What do you call it?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: It is a “c” word. It starts with “c” and ends with “e”. Mr Henare, does that member want the powers to find out the truth? Mr Henare, does that member there want the powers to have the truth? No. Does he want to know who leaked the report? No. Does he want to know why Winston Peters knows how he leaked the report? Oh no, he does not want to know that—he does not want to know that, does he? No. Does he want to know why we spent all that money on—[Interruption] Yes, but does he want to know why we spent all that money on Mr David Henry, and he never got to the truth? No. One last sentence: as Muhammad Ali would say, if Mr Key even dreams that this is going away, he should wake up and apologise.

ANDREW LITTLE (Labour): I take a call on this very important issue. In a liberal democracy such as we have and such as we aspire to, we seek to ensure that the freedom of the citizen is maximised. As part of maximising every citizen’s freedom, we accept that there is a divergence of views, and we accept that everybody is entitled to express their views and take actions to express their views, even if sometimes those views are repugnant and sometimes they cause revulsion within the community. That is the nature of a free and democratic society. That is the nature of a truly democratic country.

Alongside that, we also seek to preserve the nation State and the institutions that make it up. What goes to the heart of this issue is these very important principles that underpin our constitution, such as it is. Some in the pursuit of their freedom of expression may act in ways to bring down the institutions of the State, if, indeed, not the State itself, and they may seek to undermine the accepted mores and the ways that we choose to live. Some of those are up for negotiation. They are matters of cultural values. They are matters of the way that as humanity we change, we evolve, and we develop.

As social democrats, as we are in the Labour Party, we typically see the institutions of this State as offering protection to citizens and, above all, protecting the weak against the strong. The threats that the State sometimes faces can be internal, and they can be external. But we strive to uphold the State because we think it delivers—has the potential to deliver—the best in terms of benefits for the community at large and for every citizen.

The price for preservation of the liberal State is appropriate security—appropriate security measures. This, of course, is not new. Those of you who know our history, or know the history, at least, of the Westminster system, know that this does not go back to Queen Elizabeth II; it goes back to Queen Elizabeth I. The first attempt of the Crown to ensure the security of the State was her attempt to set up a small group, which became known as “the cabal”, or a cabal of the various lords and dukes who made it up: Clifford, Arlington, Buckingham, Ashley, and Lauderdale. Unfortunately, that fell apart because of the anti-Catholicism of the day, reflected in the Bill of Rights 1688. But, in any event, it was an attempt by the Crown of the day to ensure that there was some sense of security about the State, at least, and the monarch. This goes back well before then, of course, to the nation States upon which we now base our democracy: the Greeks and the Romans. The Romans had their praetorian guard and all those attempts to shore up the State of the day.

There is always a tension between a free State and the apparatus needed to protect and preserve that State, which can interfere with people, interfere with their freedoms, pry into their privacy, and defeat their rights. But, against that, we accept the need for security. Although we do that, the oversight that we then have for our security apparatus is absolutely crucial, absolutely essential. In a free and democratic country such as we aspire to be, that oversight must then rest with the duly elected representatives of the State, and they are the members of this House. So the Intelligence and Security Committee Act under which this appointment is being made has been conceived to achieve that purpose.

The Intelligence and Security Committee is part of the apparatus that we have to provide that oversight. It is a bulwark against excess and the abuse of power by our security agencies, which must act, if they are to act effectively, often in darkness—if I could use that metaphor—and out of sight of the general public. But I have to say that when we look at the legislation governing this committee—at section 6, in particular—the oversight it provides of the committee to which we are now making an appointment is the barest oversight possible, and that must cause us some concern.

The truth is that the public—every citizen of New Zealand today, as always—must have the highest degree of trust and confidence not only in our security apparatus but also in the oversight bodies we have to ensure that it does not stray too far. We must have public confidence—that is a bottom line. The tragedy about this, and the reason why this is the source of debate today, is that every aspect, every historical act in the lead-up to this appointment today, has undermined the public’s confidence in our security apparatus and in our oversight.

We can go back to the Kim Dotcom fiasco, where the security agencies, particularly the Government Communications Security Bureau, clearly acted without authority. The bureau acted outside its own laws, it acted outside its own rules, and, worse, the role that is meant to provide the most effective oversight of that body, the Inspector-General, was found wanting—was found wanting. That may be a resource issue, or it may be a question about the powers that the Inspector-General has, although I do not accept that. The powers of the Inspector-General under that role’s legislation are extensive. The Inspector-General can stop unlawful activity, as, indeed, they must do and as, indeed, they are charged with doing. But even at that level our system has been found wanting and failing.

The consequence of all that was that it led to reviews and, ultimately, to the Kitteridge review, and then, of course, it is around there that we have seen that even those elected representatives who are charged with an oversight role and with providing confidence to the public have been found wanting. They have failed in their duty. That is a great pity, because if there is one group in whom we must have confidence because we entrust to them a very important role, it is the elected representatives on this committee, the Intelligence and Security Committee. We require them to act as our conscience and voice if things are going wrong.

So from Kim Dotcom to the Government Communications Security Bureau review and the fiasco around that, to the leak of the report—and, of course, since the report has been leaked we have had this from the Prime Minister, who is really the one where the buck stops. He is the one who chairs the committee. He is the one who has ministerial responsibility for the security agencies. When pressed for an answer about how the leak could have happened, he repeatedly and adamantly averred that it could not have been a Minister in his Cabinet—it could not have been a Minister—and yet now it turns out that it was a Minister. When that was disclosed we have very quickly seen a further fudging and nudging to say: “Nothing to see here. We’ll make an other appointment, and life will carry on.”

So then we look at the appointee and we ask whether this is enough to give renewed trust and confidence in this committee, in the oversight of our security agencies, and in the security agencies themselves. Mr Ryall is a staunch loyalist to this Prime Minister and to this Government, and I think that we, the public of New Zealand, must say of this Government—5 years into its life, having shown a shabby and tawdry regard for its responsibilities towards the security agencies—that it is impossible to have confidence in this appointment.

As the deputy leader of the Labour Party, Grant Robertson, said, nothing less than a full-blown, proper, open inquiry into all the matters that have led to this appointment—into the issues about Kim Dotcom, into the issues about the Government Communications Security Bureau—is required. Nothing less than a full-blown inquiry that can expose the truth and enlighten the public and assure every citizen is required. That is what is needed to restore public confidence, and we need to see that. Simply making an appointment of a prime ministerial loyalist, of a Cabinet and National Party loyalist, is not enough. I repeat the call: we need an inquiry, we need the truth, we need honesty.

BRENDAN HORAN (Independent): We are having this debate because the Prime Minister sacked Peter Dunne from the Intelligence and Security Committee—not, as he tried to spin it, because some mysterious rules require it but simply because John Key wanted Peter Dunne “outski” from the committee. That is the sole reason.

The Prime Minister can nominate any two MPs to the committee, subject to the endorsement of Parliament and the motion “That, under section 11 of the Intelligence and Security Committee Act 1966, this House endorse Tony Ryall as a member of the Intelligence and Security Committee, nominated by the Prime Minister under section 7(1)(c) of the Act.” So the question today is whether we should endorse Tony Ryall. I will come to that in a minute and, having done so, I will then be moving an amendment to the motion.

I note that other speakers have raised the very real issues around oversight of the Government Communications Security Bureau and the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service, which is their full titles. The short version would be the spooks. Spooks, by nature, operate in the shadows, furtively and secretly, and I can see the Minister’s attributes in these areas echo appeal. After all, who earned the dial “Secret Smile Tony Ryall”?

But my concern is that the Minister is liable to capture by bureaucrats. Let us look at Tony Ryall. We have found in recent weeks and months that he is very vulnerable to capture by bureaucrats. He becomes the mouthpiece of those departments, rather than the champion of hard-working Kiwis. Let us look at some specific examples, such as diabetes. Already since I mentioned on Facebook that I would be speaking today, I have had a number of people calling in, and they are calling him “Denial Ryall”. The Minister of Health funds only the CareSens meters, and many diabetics are finding serious problems with these meters. A 20 percent variation in test results for a child could mean death. The CareSens meters do not have a backlight. There are concerns about testing strips.

I am concerned about the Minister’s intelligence, because when asked a question yesterday about the number of people who had concerns, he said there were 14. But just from the past 4 days, right here in my hand are thousands of comments from people concerned abut the CareSens meters for diabetes. There are heartbreaking stories here. There is intelligence here of a mother with a young child, who while she was driving him to hospital had to pull over to the side of the road and give mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. There is a story here of an elderly gentleman whose wife was having a hyperglycaemic event, and the worry and concern of that elderly gentleman. There is a lot of intelligence in here, but it seems to have escaped the Minister, who has adopted a “hear no evil, see no evil” approach. So is that Minister appropriate for this committee? This Minister does not seem to want to know about intelligence, but here is just a simple week’s worth.

I am hoping that Pharmac has intelligence, and I trust that it will because I know that there are people leading Pharmac who care. I know that they will stop some of the inane answers that people have received when they have written to Pharmac on its diabetes feedback line. When people have said they are concerned that their machine is not working, the feedback they have received, or the lack of intelligence, has been: “Oh, put the meter under your armpit and warm it up.” Where is the intelligence in that? We are moving into winter. At the end of this month it is going to be severely cold. What about all the diabetics? How are they going to test their blood sugar levels this winter? There should be real concern here, because there is real intelligence about this. I would ask that Pharmac cast its people to it immediately, and come up with a solution. I do have confidence that the leaders of Pharmac will do that, because where there has been need in other areas they have acted appropriately.

Therefore, we come to our Minister, who is, I guess, a ghost Minister, so again I can see how the title fits, and how he might be able to get on to that Intelligence and Security Committee. He is a ghost Minister indeed. I refer also to an example of him being a ghost Minister. A Tauranga mother with a very ill child went to see Mr Ryall, as Minister of Health. Mr Ryall said: “Well, I’m actually seeing you today as your electorate MP and I’m going to have to write a letter to myself as Minister of Health.” So we do have a ghost Minister there. Again, he does have certain attributes in that area.

That small girl was denied money for a lifesaving operation because she had to go overseas to get it. Where was his intelligence then? Where was the security or the thought for that small girl? His intelligence told him that the girl could not be cured, so he did not fund the trip. But guess what? The solo mother went to the community, raised the money, and sent that little girl to the States, and now she is alive and well and going to St Thomas More Catholic School—no thanks to the intelligence or the security of “Denial Ryall”.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Order! Can I just say to the member that name-calling by and large comes from frustration, and that is understood. But it is out of order as a personal reflection. I refer the member to Standing Order 117 and also to Speakers’ ruling 28/1, because it can lead to disorder. I also remind the member that no good comes from personalised attacks, as they bring Parliament into disrepute. I urge members to play the ball, not the man.

BRENDAN HORAN: Thank you. I will note that. I do not mind apologising and withdrawing that comment. I meant it as a friendly moniker. I found it on Facebook.

But let us have a look at the New Zealand Public Health and Disability Amendment Bill (No 2), which was trumpeted as “paying family carers”, when the reality was that it was paying less than the minimum wage to a bare handful of families. That means there must be real questions as to whether Tony Ryall is an appropriate person to be endorsed to be part of the democratic oversight of intelligence and security.

Whilst we are thinking about security, the Hon Tony Ryall is the electorate MP for the Bay of Plenty. That is right—Psa. Rife. It went through the area under his watch. Where was the security or the intelligence there? If it was not for Zespri, one of our main export earners in this country would be down and out. Where was our ghost Minister then? Well, he was—he was a ghost Minister, hands-off.

Let us take a look at the Rena. Yes, that is right. Where is the intelligence for the Rena? Where is the security? What happens if a ship wrecks on that very same reef tomorrow? Well, guess what? There is not much room for it, because there is still a wreck on the rocks, just about 2 years after the incident, although that Government over there promised it would remove the Rena from Tauranga. Guess what? There is still pollution leaking from that, but we do not know about that, because we cannot get out there and go under, dive under Astrolabe Reef—which should be every New Zealander’s right—because there is still this aura of secrecy. So again there are certain attributes that the Minister exhibits that are fine there.

There is also Solid Energy, which he is responsible for as the Minister for State Owned Enterprises. It is a total basket case, but the Minister is still digging.

I conclude, when asking whether Tony Ryall is an appropriate person to be on the committee, that the answer is no. And so I move, That all the words after “That” be replaced by “this House invites the Prime Minister to submit a fresh nomination to the Intelligence and Security Committee”. I urge the House to adopt this amendment.

IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North): New Zealanders who are listening to this debate will find it no surprise whatsoever that the Prime Minister John Key has been less than honest about the reasons why we are debating Government motion No. 1 today, relating to the appointment of Tony Ryall to the Intelligence and Security Committee. The Prime Minister stood up at a press conference and said that this was all about Peter Dunne not being a Minister any more. The fact that Peter Dunne was a Minister and is no longer a Minister has precisely nothing to do with whether or not he should be on the Intelligence and Security Committee. There are already members of that committee who are not Ministers. Some of the members are Ministers; some of them are not. But that matter is absolutely irrelevant when considering the members who make up the committee.

In fact, what the Intelligence and Security Committee Act actually says, in section 7(1), is: “The Committee shall consist of—(a) the Prime Minister: (b) the Leader of the Opposition: (c) 2 members of the House of Representatives nominated for the purpose by the Prime Minister following consultation with the leader of each party in Government:”. It says “members of the House of Representatives”, so it does not have to be a Minister. Actually, I think that section might be starting to get to where the problem is here, because there has to be consultation with the leader of each party in Government. I wonder whether the Prime Minister is doing what everybody else in the country is doing and is no longer recognising Peter Dunne as the leader of a party for parliamentary purposes. That is what the Standing Orders say. They say that Peter Dunne is no longer the leader of a party for parliamentary purposes.

Hon Ruth Dyson: I thought they’d registered now?

IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: No, no. Ruth Dyson says she wonders whether United Future is registered now. No, that is not the case. As far as the Electoral Commission is concerned, there is not currently a party called the United Future party, and should a party called the United Future party become registered at some point in the future, that would be a new registration. Our Standing Orders—[Interruption] Yes, Peter Dunne has to go out there and find 500 people to sign up to the United Future party, and what the Standing Orders of this Parliament say is that if a party is not recognised under the Electoral Act by the Electoral Commission as a political party having 500 members, it is not a political party for parliamentary purposes and does not get all the perks that come with that. So, given that Peter Dunne is no longer the leader of a party, and is essentially here as an independent member of Parliament, maybe that is why John Key actually decided that he should no longer be on the committee.

I was not quite sure who the other member of the committee nominated by the Prime Minister was, so I went away and found out who it was. Can anybody guess who the other member on the committee nominated by the Prime Minister is? It is the Hon John Banks—the Hon John Banks. If this is a matter of trust, if this is about whom the Prime Minister can trust to be on the Intelligence and Security Committee, I think there are some real question marks over the presence of John Banks on that particular committee. He is the man who, we all know, was not completely honest—I cannot use another word, but he was not completely honest—about the donations he received in his mayoral campaign in his failed bid to become the mayor of the Auckland super-city. The police had a look at that and the police pretty much said that he was not absolutely honest about where those donations came from, and now he is actually in court facing a private prosecution about his breaches of the Electoral Act and the fact that he was not honest about where his political donations came from. So I would have thought that if Peter Dunne cannot be trusted to be on the Intelligence and Security Committee, maybe we should also be debating the replacement for the Hon John Banks, who probably ought not to be on that committee, either.

For the benefit of the folks who are listening at home, they might also be interested to know that the other person on the committee is a person nominated by the Leader of the Opposition, and that person is Russel Norman. That is how the committee is made up. So there is no need to consider whether or not a member is a Minister or is in Cabinet, but that is what the Prime Minister told New Zealand was the reason, and, of course, we now know that that was John Key, as usual, being less than honest with the public of New Zealand.

So we are debating today whether or not Tony Ryall is an appropriate person to be one of the Government’s representatives on the Intelligence and Security Committee. Well, looking at Tony Ryall’s history here in Parliament and the way he operates, I think he has actually got a few characteristics that make him absolutely appropriate for what is the “spooks committee” of Parliament, because he likes to engage in a bit of cloak-and-dagger. He likes to engage in spy operations. As a member of the Opposition and as a Minister he has been known to camp out in the emergency departments of our hospitals around the country—

Hon Maryan Street: Under cover.

IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: Under cover, in disguise—

Hon Maryan Street: Under whose cover?

IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: Maryan Street asks: “Under whose cover?”. That is a good question. But Tony Ryall has this history of going into the emergency departments disguised as somebody else to see for himself what is going on in the emergency departments.

Actually, this has extended into his behaviour as a Minister, which is extraordinary, really. He has been said to text or call any official of whatever rank whom he believes to be underperforming. He is an astonishing micromanager of his portfolios. It is said that he has close to 600 phone numbers saved on his phone. He might want to check to make sure that those details are secure—that the privacy of those 600 people that he has on his phone is secure—and that might be an issue that Tony Ryall wants to bring up as a member of the Intelligence and Security Committee. There are 600 numbers, because those are the numbers of all the different district health board chief executive officers and chairmen and managers, and the ministry managers and the ministry officials—the people whom he likes to keep a very, very close eye on.

Tony Ryall likes to build little fiefdoms, and the health portfolio is certainly one of Tony Ryall’s fiefdoms, over which he has omniscient control. He is a man who knows every tiny little detail and likes to control every tiny little detail. So I think Tony Ryall does have some characteristics that lend him to being an appropriate member of this committee.

It is fair to say that all his cloak-and-dagger operations have not quite gone to plan. He was on Jenny Shipley’s side when she stuck the knife in Jim Bolger’s back. Tony Ryall was quite a senior member of that little cloak-and-dagger operation. He was one of the lieutenants who brought Jim Bolger down. That was a success.

However, following the downfall of Jenny Shipley, he was then an English man. He supported Bill English in his defence against the Brash coup, which, of course, up until the last minute he probably thought he was on the right side of. He was probably doing the numbers, along with Nick Smith, and thought that English was going to survive that coup, but we all know that when the master of the flip-flop, John Key, saw his own personal ambitions being tailored to by Don Brash, he made the last-minute change and got Don Brash the leadership back in about 2004 or 2005, I think it was—about 2004.

So Tony Ryall has not always been the greatest operator in the shadows, in that kind of cloak-and-dagger world that our spy agencies and this committee operate in, but he certainly has experience in that world, and that, I think, lends itself very well to his being on this committee. But we are, of course, debating the wrong thing here today. What we ought to be debating is a full inquiry into the operations of the Government Communications Security Bureau. The Opposition will not rest until that is what we are actually debating.

CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South): The question today is whether Tony Ryall should be appointed to the Intelligence and Security Committee, that very important but very secret committee of Parliament. A huge amount of responsibility rests on the members of Parliament who sit on it. The question is whether Tony Ryall is suitable for that appointment. In order to examine that question we need to look at what is currently before that committee, and that is the Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill, a bill that is extremely controversial.

The bill is extremely controversial for a number of reasons. It was extremely controversial before last Friday when it was revealed that there were very serious allegations and evidence appearing about a massive surveillance programme operating out of the United States, and there was comment about the implications of that for our country and, in particular, for the legislation that is currently before that secretive Intelligence and Security Committee. There are too many questions for this legislation to be before that committee now. That was our position before last Friday. It is even more our position today. We have said that we need an inquiry. Before we look at legislation like this, we need a full inquiry into our intelligence agencies.

The Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill, which is before the Intelligence and Security Committee, is one of two bills that are being considered together, but at different select committees. The second bill is the Telecommunications (Interception Capability and Security) Bill. It is also a bill over which there rests an enormous number of questions. We believe there has to be an inquiry into the intelligence agencies because of the importance of privacy and the importance of balance. It is absolutely important to put on the record that communications security is important—it is absolutely important—but so are the freedoms and the privacy of New Zealanders. Who is looking after that? Who is representing New Zealanders when we are taking into account the issues that are in these two bills? Nobody on the Government side of the House. That is what we fear, and that is why there are huge question marks over whether the appointment of Tony Ryall to that committee will actually make things worse.

Getting the right balance between privacy and security is absolutely critical. It is a huge responsibility for a Parliament—for a Parliament as well as for the people who sit on that committee. They have huge responsibility. Our fear is that another brother is going to join Big Brother on that committee and that the legislation, which is going to be forced through, will not have adequate scrutiny.

So is Tony Ryall fit to sit on that committee? Will he ask the questions? Will he represent New Zealanders? Or will he obfuscate and block? This is about integrity, and that is what is under scrutiny—integrity and trust. On 10 June John Key said: “to make a contribution, you have to have integrity, and to have integrity there has to be a directness and a fullness in your answers.” The problem is that there is no fullness in his answers, because there are usually no answers at all. The answers that are given skirt around the questions and certainly do not provide adequate answers. It is happening time and time again in this House, and it is a serious issue.

I want to pose some questions. Before that, the question of integrity and trust is absolutely critical. Yesterday a major telecommunications company told me that it would have knowledge as to whether the Government Communications Security Bureau or another security agency wanted to access New Zealand phone numbers in our country, because there would have to be a warrant, but it would not know whether an overseas intelligence agency such as the National Security Agency or the FBI was hoovering up intelligence on New Zealanders’ phone calls, texts, and use of social media and the internet. The company said to me that it has to take the Prime Minister on trust that that is not happening in our country. The problem is how we would know, because he will not tell us, and that is a serious issue.

In considering whether Tony Ryall is a suitable appointment to the Intelligence and Security Committee we have to know whether he is going to ask the right questions. I want to put some of those questions to the House today, because he needs to be accountable if he is sitting on that committee. We need to know that those questions will be asked or that at least he will want to know the answer to questions such as whether the new provisions within the Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill will make it possible for a PRISM-like system to operate legally within New Zealand. On the face of it, that is what it does.

Will including services, what they call the service providers, like Facebook, Yahoo!, Skype, and Google, in the Telecommunication (Interception Capability and Security) Bill, which impacts on the Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill, have a chilling effect on the growth of the weightless export economy within New Zealand? On the face of it, that is what will happen.

Will the Telecommunication (Interception Capability and Security) Bill and the Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill have a far-reaching impact on the privacy of citizens? There has been no New Zealand Bill of Rights Act vetting released yet, so we do not know. Will Tony Ryall ask why new section 15A(1) and (2), in clause 14, in the Government Communications Security Bureau bill explicitly gives the Prime Minister unilateral authorisation to allow the Government Communications Security Bureau to act unlawfully? Because that is what this bill does. If he does not ask those questions, if he does not want the answers to those questions, then he does not deserve to be on that committee.

This is such a serious piece of legislation before that committee. Mr Ryall’s position on that committee is absolutely critical—that he gets it right. The notion that personal privacy is a right rather than a privilege is being eroded at a blinding speed. Those were the words of a New Zealand commentator this week. The whistleblower who made the revelations about PRISM in the United States has sparked deep anger and unease in countries across the region, in the United States, in Australia, in Canada, and in the UK.

In our country those issues are continuing to raise concern. There have been requests from stakeholders and organisations for extensions on the time to make submissions on this legislation. I am pleased to say that there does appear to be an extension of 1 week for the Government Communications Security Bureau legislation. In the case of the other piece of legislation there is no extension. This is not democracy. This is not accountability. This is very concerning.

There is one risk that is not in this—one of our biggest risks is that the good guys who catch the bad guys will not always be seen as the good guys if their capacity to delve deeply into what should be private goes too far. Instead of appointing Tony Ryall to this committee there should be an independent inquiry into New Zealand’s intelligence agencies. That is what we need to have in this country.

Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn): I am absolutely delighted to have an opportunity to contribute to this debate. I believe it is one of the more important matters that this House has had the opportunity to address itself to. It is very much important for all New Zealanders because of the far-reaching implications of the recent revelations about the United States’ security agencies—of the PRISM, the US National Security Agency capabilities—and the implications they have for all New Zealanders and the freedoms that we hold dear.

In World War I, I understand that about 10 percent of New Zealand’s population served overseas—100,000 out of one million New Zealanders. Of those, 40,000 were wounded and 18,000 were killed. Over half of the one in 10 New Zealanders who served overseas became casualties of the Great War. When we look around this House, we see names like Messines, Egypt, El Alamein, or Gallipoli. We are reminded that the freedoms that we enjoy today have been paid for by the price of the blood of earlier generations of New Zealanders. We who stand or sit here in relative security and comfort can have no idea of the sacrifices that they made and the hardships that they endured. But we can have pride, for example, that when the tide turned at El Alamein, it was the Kiwis and the Aussies who were in the front line of that break out. We have always punched above our weight as international citizens, and we are not cowards.

The Labour Opposition is not calling for proper constitutional safeguards because we are scared to play our part in constructive international citizenship, nor are we saying that New Zealand citizens do not deserve the protection of proper, legally authorised, and capable intelligence agencies. The three questions that we must address ourselves to in this debate are: how did the vacancy occur that the Hon Tony Ryall is now being called upon to fill; what are the key challenges of that role and how are they changing; and what changes are required for the security apparatus to keep up to date with the changes around the world?

Let me first address the first of those issues. Obviously, as others have said, this vacancy has arisen and Mr Ryall is being called forward because the Hon Peter Dunne is no longer asked to serve on the Intelligence and Security Committee. It is not, as the Prime Minister has said to the public and to this House, because there is any legal reason that as he is no longer a Minister he cannot serve. The Prime Minister lied to the public. And that is material because, at the end of the day, the entire intelligence apparatus—and the public confidence in it—rests upon confidence in the word of the Prime Minister, who is the head of this committee, and upon the public’s trust in the political independence and neutrality of that apparatus. Like in no time that I can remember since Rob Muldoon used the intelligence agencies to spy on Colin Moyle, have I ever been more concerned than today about the political neutrality of this important institution. John Key is the new Muldoon. This is the new Colin Moyle scandal, and this has to stop.

Peter Dunne may or may not have leaked the Kitteridge report ahead of time. He has not been able to satisfy the Prime Minister that he did not, and the Prime Minister is entitled to sack him or ask for his resignation as a result. That is not in dispute. What may be in dispute is that another member of Parliament may have had access to copies, he says, of the self-same emails and text messages. If so—and the Prime Minister disputes it—I ask how that could have occurred. If his communications as an individual or as a Minister were secure in this complex, how could another member of Parliament have received copies of them?

I would go so far as to say that the stability of this Government is being called into question, because there is a Minister who has lost his portfolios and who may yet lose his seat if the Privileges Committee were to find against him or if the police were to find against him in a prosecution with a sentence of over 2 years. The stability of the Government would be under threat, because another John Key appointment on this very committee is John Banks. The public will not forget that Mr Banks is under the gun because he somehow forgot that he accepted thousands—tens of thousands—of dollars in donations from one Kim Dotcom. Kim Dotcom was the person whom the Government Communications Security Bureau was allegedly illegally spying on in the first place, which gave rise to the Kitteridge report. What a terrible closed circle of dysfunction. In trying to sort out the Dotcom mess, another National Party prop may have leaked the very report that was supposed to tidy it up. The Government’s majority hangs by a thread—a thread that may be called Peter Dunne, may be called John Banks, or may be called, perhaps, Winston Peters or Tariana Turia.

So New Zealanders must be under no doubt about the gravity of these issues. And John Key says “Trust me.” Well, do you know what the former head of intelligence and security said about the Prime Minister? Sir Bruce Ferguson said that he must be smoking dope for linking the failings in the Government Communications Security Bureau to the deep defence and intelligence background of its former overseers. The former head of the agency has said that the Prime Minister has been blowing smoke because he appointed an old school friend, instead of following a vital—vital—constitutional tradition of political impartiality. It is not OK to ring up your old school friend and tell him to apply for a job that you happen to be responsible for, and to reject every other candidate put forward by the State Services Commission and the intelligence agencies in favour of your mate. Why does that matter? Because the freedoms of New Zealanders, paid for at El Alamein, matter. If I am angry, it is because I feel that we are dishonouring them.

New Zealanders may not appreciate the seriousness of this issue, but here is why it does matter. I bring the House to the second of my two key points. This week a commissioner of the European Commission wrote to the United States Attorney General and said that she was raising serious concerns that the American intelligence agencies are “accessing and processing, on a large scale, the data of European Union citizens using major US online service providers, [which] could have grave consequences for the fundamental rights of EU citizens.” She asked the following question of the US Attorney General: are PRISM and other similar programs aimed only at the data of US citizens? And for New Zealanders, just to be clear, these computers pick up every email, every text, and every Facebook post. Every time you access the internet—every single time—they record the trails that could identify those communications. That may not be wrong. The world is a dangerous place and we need to be proofed from legitimate threats. We do not want terrorists or foreign powers taking down our electricity system or our hospital system or our buildings. But they can be right only if they are protected by the law—the rule of law—and by the dispassionate, apolitical, demonstrably transparent oversight of the intelligence community. It is that tradition that is under the greatest threat today that it has been under since Rob Muldoon jacked up the resignation of Colin Moyle using the SIS.

I say to New Zealanders that the time has come to be very, very concerned about the progressive erosion of your freedoms and civil liberties by this National Government. Nobody now trusts John Key. Nobody trusts John Key, a man who appointed his school friend to run the spy shop, then lied about it. He is a man who lied about how he was required to sack Peter Dunne off this committee. And who knows what else he is lying about—

Tim Macindoe: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. That member knows that he cannot accuse anyone in this House of lying.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Yes, I just ask the member to be very careful. He has 11 seconds left.

Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: I challenge the Government to assure New Zealanders that the spy agencies are not accessing the data of other international counterparts to spy on New Zealand citizens in circumvention of legal warrant requirements, and to have that requirement written into the Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill that it has brought to this House. I require the Government to assure us that it will implement every recommendation—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Sorry to interrupt the honourable member. His time has expired. Members, this debate has concluded. The question is that the amendment in the name of Brendan Horan be agreed to. Those of that opinion will say Aye, to the contrary, No. The Noes have it.

Amendment not agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That under section 11 of the Intelligence and Security Committee Act 1996 this House endorse Hon Tony Ryall as a member of the Intelligence and Security Committee, nominated by the Prime Minister under section 7(1)(c) of the Act.

Ayes 63

New Zealand National 59; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.

Noes 1

Mana 1.

Abstentions 52

New Zealand Labour 30; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7; Independent: Horan.

Motion agreed to.

Bills

Immigration Amendment Bill

Third Reading

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (Minister of Immigration): I move, That the Immigration Amendment Bill be now read a third time. This bill forms part of a wider package of measures aimed at deterring people-smuggling ventures from targeting New Zealand. The bill will also enable the effective and efficient management of a maritime mass arrival, should one occur. The bill was introduced last year, was considered by the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee, was reported back by the committee in August 2012, and was read a second time in April of this year.

A mass arrival of asylum seekers has the potential to quickly overwhelm the ability of the New Zealand immigration system and the courts to manage the number of asylum claims. The arrival of a vessel carrying asylum seekers also has significant security and resource implications. As the previous Minister of Immigration, the Hon Nathan Guy, said in his first reading speech, and I reiterated in my second reading speech, New Zealand cannot afford to ignore the risk of a mass arrival reaching our shores. Recent experience has shown that we are a target for people-smugglers, and we cannot afford to be complacent. I hope a mass arrival does not occur, but hope and a head-in-the-sand attitude will not reduce the risk or increase New Zealand’s readiness. It will happen, and when it does, this bill will ensure that we can effectively manage it.

I want to summarise what this bill does. It introduces a definition of a mass arrival. This is now, thanks to an amendment by the Committee of the whole House, set at an arrival of a group of more than 30 people. The bill introduces a provision to enable those who arrive as part of a mass arrival to be detained, if necessary, under a group warrant for up to 6 months. The bill will also allow this detention period to be extended by up to 28 days at a time, as determined by a District Court judge. Detention will enable the relevant agencies to inquire, as necessary, into the backgrounds of the asylum seekers, pending decisions on refugee or protection claims. This will help confirm identity and assess whether the asylum seekers pose a risk to national security or public safety. The bill also establishes provisions that will help ensure the efficient processing of asylum claims and subsequent appeals. These changes apply to all asylum claimants, not just those arriving as part of a mass arrival.

I also took the opportunity during the Committee stage to introduce Supplementary Order Paper 232, which will amend the Immigration Act to support people-smuggling prosecutions that were not captured under section 98C of the Crimes Act. This oversight was highlighted by a case recently where a Thai woman accused of smuggling migrants had her case dismissed because the offence she committed met neither the people-smuggling definition of the Crimes Act nor the aiding and abetting offences set out in the Immigration Act.

I also want to highlight what this bill does not do. It does not introduce arbitrary detention. It does not breach our international obligations to refugees and asylum seekers. Opposition members claim that it breaches article 31 of the refugee convention. For the benefit of those members not versed in the articles contained in the refugee convention, article 31 states that countries “shall not impose penalties, on account of their illegal entry or presence, on refugees who, coming directly from a territory where their life or freedom was threatened … [and who] enter or are present … without authorization,”. Article 31 goes on to say that States shall not restrict the movements of asylum seekers and refugees “other than those which are necessary and such restrictions shall only be applied until their status in the country is regularized”. This bill does not use detention as a penalty, and once the identities and circumstances within the group are understood, the refugees’ immigration status can be regularised, as appropriate, and detention will no longer be necessary.

It does not breach the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, despite the ridiculous rant by Mr Cunliffe during the Committee of the whole House stage. In fact, the Ministry of Justice confirmed in its New Zealand Bill of Rights Act vet dated 2 April 2012 that the bill is consistent with the Act. I would like to quote from that very New Zealand Bill of Rights Act vet: “We have concluded that the Bill appears to be consistent with the rights … to be free from arbitrary detention and the right to judicial review as affirmed in ss 22 and 27(2) of the Bill of Rights Act”. The bill includes a number of safeguards that ensure that detention is not arbitrary. Again, quoting from the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act vet: “We consider that the Bill contains appropriate safeguards to ensure that detention is not and does not become arbitrary:”. Those safeguards include, firstly, that an immigration officer may, not must, apply to a District Court judge for a warrant of commitment authorising the detention of members of a mass arrival group. The judge then needs to be satisfied that the warrant is necessary for the reasons set out in the bill. The judge is able to authorise a shorter period than sought. The judge can require the immigration officer to report at specified periods throughout the duration of the warrant on whether the warrant is still necessary, and an immigration officer can seek a variation of the warrant at any stage.

Finally, the bill does not mean that this Government is no longer committed to providing excellent support to refugees and asylum seekers. Accompanying the bill are two key policy changes intended to discourage people-smugglers from exploiting vulnerable people by attempting to reach New Zealand via a mass arrival. Firstly, those granted refugee and protection status will initially be granted a 3-year temporary visa, rather than residence. Their status will be reassessed after 3 years, and only if this reassessment is successful will they be able to apply for residence. Secondly, those granted residence after this reassessment will be able to sponsor only immediate family—a partner or dependent children—for entry to New Zealand, rather than being able to apply to sponsor wider family, such as siblings, parents, or grandparents, as those granted residence under refugee categories are able to do.

The policy changes that accompany this bill aim to deter people-smuggling ventures by showing that New Zealand is not a soft touch. In the event that a boat does manage to reach our shores, we want to be ready, and this bill provides a way for managing such arrival efficiently, effectively, and humanely.

I want to thank everyone who helped support the passage of this bill; the previous Minister of Immigration, the Hon Nathan Guy; members of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee; and the 33 submitters to the committee. I would like to acknowledge the contribution of the committee’s chairman, David Bennett, who managed very well throughout the process. I commend the Immigration Amendment Bill to the House.

DARIEN FENTON (Labour): I think it is very disappointing that on World Refugee Day we are having the third reading of the Immigration Amendment Bill.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: It’s not World Refugee Day. That’s 20 June.

DARIEN FENTON: Well, 20 June, but the Minister—

Chris Auchinvole: Oh, only a few days away!

DARIEN FENTON: Except that it was recognised in Parliament today—and there was the Minister of Immigration, making nice speeches about refugees. So he is allowed to have it ahead of time, but we are not allowed to mention it. It is really important that we remember what World Refugee Day is about, and it is about remembering the 1951 United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and its importance. The theme of this year’s World Refugee Day is that one family torn apart by conflict is one too many. Ban Ki-moon has said: “On World Refugee Day, let us reaffirm the importance of solidarity and burden-sharing by the international community.” There is nothing in this bill that speaks to that plea from Ban Ki-moon, and there is nothing to celebrate in Parliament on World Refugee Day.

It did not have to be like this. The Minister in charge of the bill, Michael Woodhouse, was not a Minister when the bill had its first reading. The Minister of Immigration at that time was Nathan Guy, as has been mentioned. Early on in the process I wrote to Nathan Guy about this bill, and I said to him that apart from one submission—this is a fact—all submitters had expressed serious concern about the bill. They included organisations with significant human rights and refugee experience, and they have expressed their concern that the bill is a significant change in direction, away from New Zealand’s traditional and very positive approach to asylum seekers and refugees. They warned that the bill is a risk to our reputation as a good international citizen. They have also raised important questions about the bill’s compatibility with New Zealand’s obligations under the 1951 convention and other human rights treaties to which New Zealand is a party. The Minister can spin all he likes, but there are serious concerns about this.

My letter went on to say: “Labour is particularly concerned that this bill may become a political football in the way that the detention and treatment of asylum seekers has become in Australia, and we are keen to explore whether there are alternatives to this. Many submitters have suggested the need for a cross-party accord, and I am writing to ask if you would be prepared to meet to explore the potential for this.”

I did have a meeting with him. The Greens were supportive. Peter Dunne was supportive. The Māori Party was supportive. New Zealand First was supportive. It was a 5-minute meeting where this idea of a cross-party approach, instead of this sledgehammer of a bill, was, essentially, ignored, which, I think, was extremely disappointing for those of us who oppose this bill and who sat through the select committee hearings and met with various refugee organisations like Amnesty International, the Human Rights Commission, and so on. I know the Minister made very, very clear his disdain for those organisations during the Committee stage of the bill. However, that was a genuine attempt, not a political attempt—a genuine attempt—to try to find some cross-party solution so that we do not end up in a situation like they have in Australia, where neither main political party can get itself out of the mess that is now the asylum seeker detention policy.

It does not matter what they do, and it does not matter which Government they have, they have enormous difficulties with that, and they have tried on occasion to change it, but it has now become a political issue—it is about who can be the toughest. We have Tony Abbott campaigning in the Australian election campaign about how they are going to get even tougher on asylum seekers and will continue to lock them up. It ends in tragedy so many times, as we saw in the case of a boat of asylum seekers that sank last week—they all drowned. But also there is any amount of evidence that that policy not only does not work but is expensive. Locking people up and providing the barbed wire approach that they have in Australia is much, much more expensive than actually placing people in the community while they are processed.

We had all these figures and we had all this evidence. We also had evidence during the submissions on the bill that there is nothing about punishing the victims, the asylum seekers—absolutely nothing—that stops people-smuggling. So this whole idea that it is going to deter people-smugglers is quite ridiculous.

I think, and I am absolutely convinced, that this is about our relationship—John Key and the Minister of Immigration hobnobbing with the big boys, the big white five, including the US, the UK, Australia, and Canada. It is no accident, actually, that the Canadian Minister of Citizenship and Immigration came down to New Zealand and had a couple of secret meetings with the Government to deal with a mass arrival and did not need to change anything, that we had the systems in place, and that he was confident that that could be dealt with.

That was in May 2011. This bill was introduced in May 2012. It is now June 2013. How many boats of asylum seekers have arrived in that time?

Hon Ruth Dyson: How many?

DARIEN FENTON: How many—how many? You cannot think of any.

Hon Ruth Dyson: Fewer than 10.

DARIEN FENTON: Fewer than 10? Fewer than 30? No, actually, there have been none. The Minister would like us to believe that a boatload of asylum seekers who arrived in Australia, waving a flag and saying they would like to come to New Zealand, constitutes a threat—that it constitutes a threat. We all know how ridiculous that is. The chances of a leaky boat coming from Australia—in fact, one of them was on the wrong side of Australia, so they are going the wrong way—and making it here are just incredibly small. So this is much more about hobnobbing, as I said, and signing up to secret deals with other countries so that we can be seen to be in the same league as them.

We did see that with Mr John Key when he met with Julia Gillard and gave away 150 of our precious refugee quota to Australia. He said it was giving them a helping hand, but what it has done is reduce 150 places for other desperate people from around the world who will never be able to come here as refugees because we have agreed to take 150 from Australia. You know, that was apparently a helping hand, but I have not been able to find any evidence that the Prime Minister or the Minister of Immigration was advised about that or sought advice on that policy. There is nothing. There was nothing. I think he made it up on the day because he thought it might make him look good with Julia. And, as I say, the consequences of that are that 150 potential refugees who are sitting in camps in desperate, war-torn countries with their children, and who have been there, in many cases, for years—you know, people on the Syrian border, in the Syrian conflict at the moment—will never have a chance to come to New Zealand as part of our quota, because we have agreed to help Australia out.

I just want to dispute one little thing about the convention, if I may. Article 31 says that there should be no presumption by receiving Governments as to whether the claim of any particular asylum seeker is or is not genuine. The genuineness of each claim should be determined only after due process. I mean, there is a lot in article 31—a lot more than the Minister read out, actually—and it is a very, very clever and well-crafted convention. But what that means is that we are breaching that part of the convention, because we are presuming these people are guilty. We are presuming that by detaining them. We are presuming they are guilty by detaining them, and detaining them for up to 6 months.

I want to finish by saying that this bill is unnecessary. It is an overreaction to a non-existent problem. It will be a stain on our international reputation.

DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East): I just want to congratulate the Minister of Immigration, the Hon Michael Woodhouse, on his very fine efforts in getting the Immigration Amendment Bill through the House. I know that the Minister is very interested in immigration, and has a particular interest in refugees and providing the best opportunities for people coming to New Zealand. I see that with the Government investment in the Māngere Refugee Resettlement Centre redevelopment, which shows the level of intent and desire of this Government to look after people in a vulnerable position. It is disgusting for the Labour Party and, I assume, the Green Party to come into this House and pretend to be all high and mighty, and prey on the vulnerable attitudes of people at their most difficult time. I think it is disgusting for those two parties. They come in here and they pretend that they look after the interests of the vulnerable, when they have no concern for them at all. All they are interested in is getting headlines.

Darien Fenton mentioned the words “political football”. Well, the only parties that have made this into a political football are the Labour and Green parties, which have used it against people in their time of need, and it is a shame that those parties have to stoop to such levels of political expediency to get their message across.

This is a good bill. It is necessary for New Zealand. It is something that we never wish to have to actually engage in, but it could happen. It could happen, and New Zealand needs to be ready for that situation.

Catherine Delahunty: So what?

DAVID BENNETT: If we are not ready—the Green Party says: “So what?”. If we are not ready, guess who will be on the front line protesting about having rights for individuals? It will be the Green Party out there saying: “Why haven’t we got these rights enshrined? These people deserve everything and anything.” That is what the Green Party will be saying, will you not?

Catherine Delahunty: Yeah.

DAVID BENNETT: Exactly—you will be. To pass a law like this now is something that the Green Party will not have anything to do with. It does not want to look forward to those situations and protect New Zealand’s and those people’s interests, and that is the reality. I bet you the Green Party would be the first one out there, playing it all up, making political capital out of somebody else’s misfortune, and trying to take advantage of somebody else’s difficult situation for its own political capital. The Green Party is not in it for the people; it is in it for itself. It always has been and it always will be; that is the Green Party.

The Labour Party is not much better. When I heard Darien Fenton start her speech by mentioning World Refugee Day—and my heart bled when I heard her comments about World Refugee Day—I remembered that at the Committee stage of this bill she said that the Australian Labor Party got a good deal in getting rid of those 150 people—a good deal for the Labor Party in Australia was to get rid of refugees. How dare she come into this House today and talk about World Refugee Day, gloat about it, and say that this bill is against the interests of refugees, when merely a few weeks ago she was in this House saying that it was a good deal to get rid of 150 people—it was a good deal, a great deal, for the Australian Labor Party.

There is no presumption of guilt in this bill. This bill sets up a structure and a system that give people rights and responsibilities. There is nothing wrong with that. It protects New Zealand’s interests. It protects those people’s interests. I would like to see the other parties in this House take a constructive, practical approach to this solution, rather than use other people’s vulnerability for their own political pretences and look forward to situations that they can just milk for their own occasion.

This is not a political football. It should not be used as a political football by the Opposition. Being a refugee is a very difficult position in which to put oneself in life. It is very hard to come in through that system. It is a very difficult system. To make that change, we must be very aware of the circumstances of those people, and not use them in a way that Opposition parties use them in this House. Thank you.

ANDREW LITTLE (Labour): Once upon a time I would have said that when you do not have an argument, you resort to ad hominem attacks, you avoid the issues, you do not talk about a bill, you talk around it, you shout, you carry on, and you abuse everybody. Now I have synthesised that into a new argument, especially for this National Government. When you do not have an argument, you put David Bennett up to speak, because he has never made a constructive contribution on a piece of legislation in the, admittedly comparatively short, time that I have been in this House. That last speech was, frankly, a shocker. The people of Hamilton East—or west, north, or south, in fact—will be dreadfully embarrassed, those who are tuned in this afternoon, anxiously sitting over their wireless sets, wondering what their highly paid local member is saying in their name and on their behalf. They will be sitting there with their stomachs turning, their noses turning up, and their lips dripping with even greater anxiety and concern than ever before. That is the disappointing thing about it.

This Immigration Amendment Bill has its genesis in the chartering on commercial terms of a ship, a seagoing vessel, from Sri Lanka to Canada. It was a rather nice ship and well laid out. It carried about 500 Sri Lankans who felt as if they were being harassed in their own country and who wanted to get out. The Sri Lankan diaspora in Canada had chartered a vessel to convey them from one side of the Pacific to the other, and they washed up, or, at least, turned up—via tug, no doubt—on the west coast of the great North America. On that basis, this Government, because of a representative in Canada, was frightened into believing that there was this mass market of citizens in other countries who were feeling harassed and put upon and were trying to flee their country, and that they would come to New Zealand. In fact, that has never happened. It has never happened here, and it did not succeed in Canada either.

So this is a piece of legislation that has no basis at all. There is no evidence, and in the time I sat on the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee, which considered this bill, we heard no credible evidence from anybody saying that there was even an iota of risk that this mass arrival, as contemplated by this bill, would happen. That is why we are so opposed to it, because it assumes the possibility of something that is virtually impossible, and then it grants extraordinary powers to immigration officials and to the courts to treat those people in a less than humane way. Here is what Tracey Barnett, who is a well-known columnist for the New Zealand Herald and also a board member of the Auckland Refugee Council, wrote about this and the approach under this bill in a recent New Zealand edition of the Amnesty International newsletter: “Detention will be more expensive, damage our international humanitarian reputation and punish the world’s most desperate, while doing absolutely nothing to deter traffickers. Not to mention one tiny, confounding detail; New Zealand has never had a boat arrival of asylum seekers in modern history.” And that is the reality of it. This bill is not about remedying a known problem; it is about making something up and pushing political buttons in the Waikato hinterland in the chance that it might attract a few more votes.

Here is the reality of this—here is the reality. If 30 or more people turn up at an airport or, indeed, on a boat, and they do not have proper documentation, then an immigration official can go off to the District Court and apply for this mass arrival, or mass detention, warrant. Here is the thing. Here is why it fails the test of due process. The immigration official, and the immigration official alone, can swear the detail needed for the warrant. They can assert that it is needed to manage the group of people, and a variety of other things. When it comes to the judge, the judge’s hands are tied. The judge has very few choices because, under clause 12, new section 317B as it will be in the amended Act, the judge must, if satisfied that matters specified—which I will talk about shortly—are there in the application, grant the warrant. There is no discretion. And here is the more horrifying thing about it. The matters about which the judge must be satisfied are nothing to do with the substance of the claim that they are asylum seekers, that they are seeking refuge from a country that they no longer wish to be part of. The judge simply has to be satisfied that the application is made on oath—well, that is easy enough—and it must include the number of persons to whom the application applies—well, that is a matter entirely dependent on what the immigration official says. Each person must be identifiable—they do not have to have identification documents, just that the immigration official can specify the number. And each person must specify the particulars of the craft they came in on—was it a flight, was it a seagoing vessel—and have a description of the circumstances in which they have arrived. Then the immigration official must state one of the reasons why they consider that the warrant is necessary, and that is a matter of mere assertion. No evidence has to be supplied; it is a matter of mere assertion. Then the application must state how those bland criteria apply to each person.

Once the judge is satisfied that that is all in the application, without making any inquiry into the substance, without any verification sought by way of evidence, without any scope for challenge by any of the people who are the subject of the warrant—because they will be in no position to seek counsel and instruct them or to make their own application or to make a counter-application, and the judge is dependent entirely on what an immigration official says—then the judge must grant the warrant. The judge must grant the warrant. The scope for review and appeal is hugely limited. Upon the granting of the warrant, we know exactly what will happen. Those people will be bundled up and they will be shipped down to Waiōuru, or up to Waiōuru, depending on where they have landed. They will be shipped to Waiōuru. How do we know this? Because we saw in the Customs Service newsletter last year that it has run an exercise. It has trialled this. It knows exactly what it wants to do. It wants to bundle them up, ship them off, and plant them in Waiōuru, one of the most inhospitable parts of New Zealand—that is why we train our hardiest and our best military personnel there—under who knows what conditions, until the system is ready to deal with them. They can be there for up to 6 months. In fact, it might be longer, because the warrants are renewable, simply on restating and repeating the earlier application, again, without evidence and, again, on the basis of mere assertion by an official. That is the basis on which this system will operate.

It is a disgrace for New Zealand to now have this on our statute book. This will be an international embarrassment. The Minister of Labour, who is shortly to go to an international forum—next week—will understand what it means to be internationally embarrassed. He might take a little visit while he is at the Palais des Nations in Geneva to have a look at the committee room where they do the human rights appeals and applications. It is a highly secure facility. He will see the people who are represented there. They are the dispossessed and the poor and the bedraggled, those who are degraded, and those who feel stateless because they are. This is the environment in which we are now playing. We are passing this law, and we want to hold our hand up in international forums to which we belong, including the ILO next week. We will wave our hand and say that we are a progressive, socially progressive, liberal democracy. This bill lends the lie to that. This is a disgrace for us, and members in this House will hang their heads in shame, as the Minister of Immigration is doing right now. He cannot look up. He has to look down, as, indeed, is the Minister of Labour and as is the chief Government whip. They are all looking down because they know that this is wrong. This is bad law, this is a bad statute, and it will go when a progressive Labour-led Government takes the Treasury benches again.

JAN LOGIE (Green): The Green Party strongly opposes this Immigration Amendment Bill. I would like to thank my Labour colleague Andrew Little for such a clear exposition of how this bill will work in practice once passed. I want to start my speech against this appalling, unnecessary, and divisive piece of legislation by again reminding this House about why we have signed up to the refugee convention. In 1944—and the Minister of Immigration mentioned this today at the World Refugee Day celebrations—prior to signing the convention, New Zealand took in over 700 refugees and about 100 supporters from Poland, all in 1 year, at one time. That was at a time when our economy was just a fraction of what it is now and our population was well under half what it is now. True, we did not do it that well. We put those people in a camp. That was because back then, decades ago, we had not had the international experience that we now have the benefit of to realise the harm that that kind of approach takes. But, as a consequence of taking in those refugees at that time, as a society we have seen the benefits of their contribution to our society.

We have had a chance to reflect on what it means to participate in this world and be a responsible global citizen. Ever since that time we have been a strong advocate for the refugee convention and have supported it in this country. Yet, sadly, through the process of this debate the Government members and others in this House have started using provocative language, such as economic opportunists, queue-jumpers, and illegal refugees in reference to this bill and the people whom it refers to. I want it on record in this House that those terms have no place in a compassionate or, indeed, an informed society.

Mike Sabin: They have a place in the real world. That happens.

JAN LOGIE: That is not what this bill is referring to, and a common misperception that my colleague possibly believes in about refugee protection is that applying for resettlement overseas is the proper channel for seeking protection. In fact, the resettlement of refugees in third countries is the exception, rather than the rule. In general, resettlement is used as a solution for refugees only in cases where it is not possible for them to return home or establish permanent residence where they have found asylum. In 2009, as an example, less than 1 percent of the world’s refugees were resettled through that process. That is not the norm. Refugee flows are primarily effected by war, unrest, violence, and human rights abuses. Most people do not wish to leave their homes, families, friends, and everything they know and hold dear. They do so as a last resort, to escape persecution and find safety and security for themselves and their families.

For many refugees the search for protection does not end once they have escaped their country of origin, and that is particularly true in this area of the world that we live in. Most countries in the Asia and Pacific region are not signatories to the refugee convention, and when people leave their country to go into those countries, they are often treated in the same way as illegal migrants. That means that they are typically unable to work, own or rent property, access health care, or send their children to school; they frequently face violence, harassment, exploitation, and abuse; and they are at risk of being detained and forcibly returned to their country of origin. These conditions are what drive asylum seekers and refugees to seek protection elsewhere. That is the source of people seeking asylum in this country.

I really want to remind this House again that we are not doing our fair share globally. We get about 300 asylum seekers a year. We need to put that in the global context. Pakistan and Iran, hardly rich countries, in 2010 took in 2.7 million asylum seekers. Three hundred asylum seekers is how many we take, and we are looking at putting on limitations and saying that we could not possibly cope, that our systems could not cope with 30-plus people—in the original description of this bill it was 10—and that somehow we would have to send them to a camp, put them into mass detention, and limit their rights because as a country, as an advanced country, we could not cope with processing 30 people. That is plainly ridiculous.

Until now we have had political consensus in this country on the importance of the convention. Until now we have committed to doing our bit in the world, recognising how lucky we are in this country and recognising that really we cannot take in our fair share of people, so we will take an active role internationally in advocating for the convention and advocating against those who breach it. We have prided ourselves as a country and as a Parliament on being different from Australia. We have challenged Australia on its breaches of the convention. Everyone I know has looked at what has been happening in Australia, with its mass hysteria around boat people, the awful suicides, and the conditions in the detention camps, let alone the dodgy offshore processing tent camps in malaria zones. In the words of Tracey Barnett, they and I have thought “We are better than that.”, and I still resolutely believe we are better than that. But this Government has stopped criticising the Australian Government for its breaches of the convention. This Government has undermined our commitment to the convention, and has aligned us with those whom we have long, and for good reason, critiqued. John Key has said that we will take people from their camps, out of our refugee quota, and has even suggested that in return we might send people to those camps if we had a mass arrival here. Gone is the critique. Gone is the sense that we are better than that.

We have been told that this bill will improve efficiency and act as a deterrent against people-smuggling. Well, tell me truthfully how enabling courts to detain groups of 30 or more people, adding another layer of bureaucracy by reviewing refugee status decisions after 3 years and limiting family reunification to immediate families for those claiming refugee status after a mass arrival, suspending the processing of all refugee and protection claims by regulation, without parliamentary oversight, and removing rights for claims to be heard at the Immigration and Protection Tribunal will improve the efficiency of our system or do anything to protect or stop people-smuggling.

We believe that this bill is unnecessary, that it will not achieve its stated purposes, and that it will breach human rights obligations. It jeopardises our international reputation as a world leader in this area, and hinders progress towards a genuine regional solution. But the saddest thing for me about this bill is that it breaks our political consensus on the convention. It undermines the safety and security of people with a refugee background in this country, who now feel judged. It tarnishes our global reputation, and will certainly compromise our long-held role of being a bridge between developed countries and developing countries at international meetings. But, fundamentally, it shows a lack of empathy and humanity. That makes me despair because I know we are better than this.

MIKE SABIN (National—Northland): The trouble with the member who has just resumed her seat, Jan Logie, is the assumption she makes that we are living in some sort of a vacuum in this world, which actually bears no resemblance to reality, and that we can just wax lyrical and theorise about things. But this is about having—

Dr Rajen Prasad: Oh, it’s the status quo that you want.

MIKE SABIN: Do not get started, Mr Prasad, because I might just launch into that member, as well. I might just launch into that member, as well. The reality is that we are blessed in our geographic isolation in this nation. That is a positive thing in some senses, but in some senses it also puts us in a position where, in circumstances like these, we have to make a call. Ultimately, this is a country that takes 750 refugees under the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees agreement. We play our part—for a very small country in the world, we play our part.

If we look across the Tasman at our neighbour Australia, and at the challenges that that nation is confronted with when it comes to mass arrivals and this issue of refugees, there is no more salient message for us than seeing what happens there. The relationship that we must have with Australia, and we do have with it, and we have forged with it, over this is very, very important. So it is about doing our bit. But one thing is for sure. I ask those members who think: “Oh, this is ludicrous. It could never happen. We will never get a mass arrival here.” how this country was founded, at the end of the day. Did people drop in from Pluto on a spaceship, or did they fly in a jumbo jet? They must have arrived on, I do not know, a boat—that is right, a boat—which is an unusual assertion from the Opposition members, if we are to believe what they say. People have been doing it for thousands of years.

The fact that we have not had a mass arrival to date is amazing, to say the least. At an estimated $50 million for a mass arrival, I would like to suggest that the first people who would be up in arms, who would be on the front page of the paper crying: “The sky has fallen in, Turkey Lurkey!”, would be the members from the Green Party, followed very closely by their “mixed-ownership model friends” over there on the Labour benches. They would, because they have the luxury of doing what Opposition parties become renowned for—that is, picking winners and having all care and no responsibility. They want to take a position, but they could not actually take a stand. They would not be in a position where they could make a decision as a Government, because they are used to saying things that happen only in this hypothetical vacuum that they seem to live in.

This bill, the Immigration Amendment Bill, is actually about pragmatic deterrence. It is about confronting the reality of the world that we now live in. I commend the Minister of Immigration for the work that he has done on this bill. It speaks volumes about a Government that will actually make the tough calls and that gets on with doing what needs to be done. Again, that is the fundamental difference between this National-led Government and what is still languishing on the Opposition benches. That is what it comes down to. I have great delight in commending this bill to the House.

DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First): New Zealand First takes people-smuggling and border control very seriously. We understand that New Zealand has international obligations for the fair and humane treatment of refugees, which we fully support, and we fully accept that this country has a culture that demands such treatment.

New Zealand First does not believe that unfair or inhumane treatment should itself be used as a deterrent. But we do believe that people-smugglers and false claimants for refugee status, or just simple queue-jumpers, must see that this country will not allow that the act of just getting on a ship or boat or aircraft and coming illegally to New Zealand will mean that this will result in admission to this country. That is the deterrent that we must project. Such people must understand that although they will be humanely treated here, they will be held in a secure facility and will not become free in New Zealand unless and until they achieve legal admission, and that must never simply be because they have arrived here; and none but the most clear and genuine cases of refugee status should be recognised according to internationally established norms and conventions.

New Zealand cannot afford to be seen as a soft touch by would-be people-smugglers or illegal immigrants. New Zealand First sees the secure detention of illegal immigrants, especially those in mass arrivals should they occur, as being the paramount consideration in this matter. And we in New Zealand First accept that there is, in fact, a risk that mass arrivals, as defined in the legislation, are possible here; they have occurred in Australia. We agree that for New Zealand the risk is small for now, but what about next year, or, indeed, what about next month?

Although the risk is low, it is not acceptable for that risk to be ridiculed in the way that I have heard some members do. That is simply foolish. Some members have spoken dismissively about how unlikely it is that boat people could arrive in New Zealand. But, in fact, small vessels sail across the Tasman Sea with ease, and larger vessels have already attempted landings in Australia. Indeed, the use of aircraft with transoceanic capability is even more unlikely but still possible for these people.

Most New Zealanders do want this risk taken seriously, and we want to see adequate preparations made, in terms of legislation, in terms of regulation, and in terms of preparation of facilities capable of ensuring not just humane accommodation once a warrant is issued but also detention in a secure way. It is unfortunate, I think, that Labour and the Greens do not seem to take these risks seriously enough, and we in New Zealand First think that National, in Government, in this bill is not doing enough about it either.

As I have said, deterrence, in the way that I have described it, is an important element to discourage mass arrivals by boats and all vessels with the capability to reach New Zealand. Therefore, although the amendments proposed by this bill will be supported by New Zealand First in principle, they fail in one vital respect, and that is that they will not mean that adequate secure facilities will be established to ensure secure detention for illegal mass arrivals, should they occur. Supplementary Order Paper 219, in the name of Winston Peters, would have added the necessary additional provisions, and I will refer to that again in a moment.

New Zealand First has the most consistent stance, of all political parties, on border control. We have what I would call a strict regime approach to the whole issue of immigration, which we think is currently far too lax in too many ways. It is not just about illegal immigrants, as I have said, but also about allowing a much too generous intake of family reunion, and especially parent category, migrants into New Zealand.

Because of China’s one-child policy, the Chinese can make excessive use of the centre-of-gravity policy allowing young, skilled Chinese immigrant couples, whom we do want, to bring in both sets of parents, and we should place a country-specific cap on their numbers. Currently, the ratio is that these people are 120 percent of Chinese skilled immigrants, when the ratio for other countries is around only 24 percent. These older immigrants need only 10 years’ residence to get full New Zealand superannuation, and will also get the benefits of free health care, ACC, and so on.

This Government’s policies about immigration generally, in respect of both illegal and legal immigration, are far too lax. This is not what New Zealanders want. Nobody could have any confidence in the immigration policies of Labour or the Greens either, if, indeed, they actually have comprehensive policies at all. But New Zealand First is especially concerned in respect of all cases of illegal entry, and more especially again if New Zealand is faced with illegal mass arrivals in the future. If it means that perceived but not actual non-compliance with international convention is the result, then so be it, because we in New Zealand First see New Zealand’s interests first and as the priority, rather than the soft approach that other parties would foist upon us.

In this day and age this matter is at the forefront of the protection of New Zealand and the integrity of our borders. New Zealand First will not tolerate that situation. It will not accept the many and various excuses that some people give for their illegal entry. It wants to see the maximum effort made to fight back at illegal people-trafficking, with all the criminal usages that it involves. We also know that if we adopt a soft approach, we will not be doing enough to protect the lives of people who are the customers of those people-traffickers.

New Zealand First’s hard-line approach is the one it thinks New Zealand should adopt. But New Zealand First is committed to meeting New Zealand’s international obligations under the United Nations quota programme of, currently, 750 people, less the 150 people gifted, for some reason, to Australia. Illegal immigration puts a strain on our ability to meet those obligations, and too many illegal arrivals are actually queue-jumpers, who must not be rewarded at the expense of those who follow the correct process.

The bill assumes that New Zealand authorities have the capacity required to deal with a mass arrival, as defined in the bill. This means the relevant Government departments and agencies must have the capacity to set up detention centres for illegal refugees soon after their arrival. There is no guarantee that such systems or plans are in place, and the bill in its present form places no expectations on the authorities to develop them. New Zealand First deplores the Government’s failure to support Winston Peters’ Supplementary Order Paper, which would have ensured that proper systems are in place to deal with mass arrivals, should they happen.

Parties should set aside their differences and do what is in the national interest. Our national interest is in making the protection of our national borders paramount. Our national interest is in making the protection of our immigration system paramount. Our national interest is also in making the protection of New Zealand’s international reputation paramount. New Zealand’s interests require nothing less. This bill fails to sufficiently deliver a robust approach, so New Zealand First will vote against it. We want a much better bill than this.

CHRIS AUCHINVOLE (National): I stand to speak in favour of this Immigration Amendment Bill in the name of the Hon Michael Woodhouse. For a moment I thought I would be able to stand and say: “Ah, it is nice to be able to agree with almost everything that Denis O’Rourke said.” I did—I did—but then what happened? He got to the end of it, and he said: “But we are going to vote against it.” Having said that it met his requirements but was not quite tough enough in some directions, he then spoilt it all. I did have that line, honestly—I had shared it with my friends. That is what I was going to say, Mr O’Rourke—that is what I was going to say.

I listened with interest, though, to Andrew Little, to Darien Fenton, to Jan Logie—[Interruption] No, no, it was. I always like listening to them. But the thing was that they expressed great concern—great concern—that we have gone to the trouble of making this legislation and it was never, ever going to be used. Never. It was never going to be used, because it would never, ever happen. So I wonder why they had quite so much concern, if it is never going to happen. I think it is a little far-fetched and a little fanciful to say that something will never happen. It is a responsibility of the Government to be prepared.

The policy package this bill forms is about two things. It is about deterring a mass arrival, and about managing a mass arrival, should one occur. The bill is not anti-immigration. As an immigrant myself in my own lifetime, surrounded by people whose parents or grandparents or great-grandparents were immigrants, I could not in good conscience support something I felt would move this country away from the inviting, understanding, and multicultural nation that it indeed is.

The Immigration Amendment Bill forms part of a package of measures aimed at deterring people-smugglers, who are despicable individuals—and collectively despicable as well—and asylum seekers from making a highly risky journey to New Zealand by boat. The bill would also enable the effective and efficient management of a mass arrival to our shores, should one occur. My wife and I have been reading a lot about people-smuggling and slavery. It goes on in far too great a volume. People are extremely vulnerable if they land in a country with no identification, with no sense of security, and with no knowledge of the country. We have a responsibility to look after them. It is our obligation to deter people from making wildly dangerous journeys, but it is also our obligation as a responsible Government to plan how to handle those who do.

This legislation, contrary to the expressions of others, is not about punishing people with a genuine claim for refugee status; it is about sending a strong message to people-smugglers that they are not welcome here, that their work is not required here, and that the protection of the vulnerable boat people, including children, whose lives are put at risk is paramount. The appalling reality of these trips means a higher number of lives lost at sea. Since 2009 there have been 600 people who have lost their lives—that we know about.

Dr Cam Calder: How many?

CHRIS AUCHINVOLE: About 600.

Su’a William Sio: Where?

CHRIS AUCHINVOLE: On their way to seeking asylum in Australia. These people have been taken advantage of, and it is only right that we ensure that we are not encouraging such accidents by stating that it is “unlikely” that these ruthless people—they will do anything for the money—would attempt to land in New Zealand. They do not put themselves at risk; they just put their cargo at risk. We must not sit idly by and watch this happen. The bill is firm but fair, and will work to undermine the ability of these deplorable people to continue to use our nation as a selling point for their risking of desperate lives.

The New Zealand Government is working hard across agencies and with international partners to ensure that the risk of mass arrivals and illegal immigrants in New Zealand is properly addressed and mitigated. I am very proud to support this bill and its sentiments. Thank you.

IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North): At 5 minutes in length, Mr Auchinvole’s speech was quite a lengthy one for the kinds of contributions he normally makes to the House. I wonder whether he is preparing himself for life in Opposition in the near future.

I have struggled to find much that is positive about this legislation, the Immigration Amendment Bill, but in the last 20 minutes or so I have discovered something that is positive about it, and that is that it is not ruthless enough to meet New Zealand First’s particular prescription for immigration and asylum seeker policy. So there you go. There is one redeeming feature about this legislation: it is not tough enough for Winston.

I actually think that this legislation represents two of the most odious characteristics of politics anywhere in the world, really. There are things that politicians like to dabble in that are utterly disgraceful. The first is fearmongering and the second is targeting vulnerable populations. This piece of legislation does both of those things. It really is nothing more than a distraction from the series of scandals that the Government has faced. There is no better way to distract the public than to raise the fear that there are going to be boatloads of people appearing on our shores and causing havoc in our nation, that we will not be able to deal with them, that we will not know what to do with them, and, I do not know, that they will take our jobs and our houses and everything else. So there is this raising of the fear level but also really creating quite a draconian situation for these incredibly vulnerable people, who, if they did actually manage to find their way all the way to New Zealand, do not need to be locked up in a detention centre. They will be in need of pretty high-level and acute medical attention, I should think, and a serious amount of care. That is the principle that we should be adopting if considering any legislation to deal with asylum seekers.

It has been said a number of times that it is incredibly unlikely that people will arrive en masse by sea, in particular, but that, in and of itself, is not necessarily a reason to oppose this legislation. It is a reason to point out that it is nothing more than a distraction, that it is probably unnecessary, and that it should not be one of the Government’s priorities. There are a whole lot of other things that the Government could have been doing rather than wasting its time on this legislation, but it is not really the reason to oppose it.

The reason to oppose it is that it simply will not work. The experience from overseas, particularly our closest neighbours, Australia, is that draconian legislation, the threat of being locked away in detention centres, the threat of having your human rights eroded, and the threat of a long and arduous process once you actually land in the country that you are wishing to seek asylum in actually does absolutely nothing to stop either the asylum seekers or the loathsome people-smugglers, whom I have heard members opposite speak at length about, because they do not care about the legislative framework in the country that they are seeking asylum in. The people-smugglers certainly do not. All they care about is extracting money from the people who wish to make that journey. It really does not matter what we put in place at this end; it will not stop those people. The fact is that the situations that true asylum seekers are trying to escape are far more terrible than anything that this legislation could put in front of them. They will still try to get away from those situations and seek asylum in other countries.

Really, this does nothing other than put up costs for the New Zealand taxpayer, because it is estimated that in Australia the cost of detention is $137,317 per person. That is more than it costs us to keep people in prisons each year. If we really are anticipating huge numbers of people coming to New Zealand and washing up on our shores, who will then be processed and sent to Waiōuru to be kept in a detention centre built by Serco, then it is going to cost the New Zealand taxpayer in the order of $140,000 a year to do so.

What has been proven in Australia and in other countries is that processing people in a community-based arrangement is 90 percent cheaper, and, frankly, it is just a better way of doing things. It is the New Zealand way of doing things, not the Australian way, the American way, the British way, or any other way, or anybody else’s way whom the Prime Minister is trying to impress with this legislation. We should be doing things the New Zealand way. The New Zealand way is to be a good neighbour to the other nations in our region and around the world. We have an excellent international reputation for being peacekeepers, a peace-loving nation, and a friendly, safe, and secure nation. This approach of putting up metaphorical barbed wire fences around our country and trying to act like the big bullies that do exist around the world is going to do us no favours on the international stage, and does our reputation no favours whatsoever. And it will not work. It will not actually achieve the outcomes that the proponents of this bill say it will.

We have tried to work with the Government. Darien Fenton tried to sit down and actually reach a cross-party consensus around how we would deal with asylum seekers. Darien Fenton and other members of the Opposition—Jan Logie—have put up amendments that would soften some of the harder edges of this legislation and actually make it a little bit more sensible, such as making it a requirement that the Māngere Refugee Resettlement Centre be the place in which, in the first instance, asylum seekers would be kept, because their needs are quite different from other people whom we detain. They are quite different from people who end up in police cells or people who end up in prisons. There are always enormous mental health issues that need to be dealt with. We know before people arrive from the situations that they have escaped from, and the harrowing journeys that they have embarked upon, that psychological illness, trauma, depression, and anxiety are all acutely manifest in those groups. And, of course, detention serves only to exacerbate all of those problems. They are also likely to have other physical, emotional, and psychological problems, and the Māngere Refugee Resettlement Centre is actually the one place that is ideally set up to deal with all of those issues.

The Minister of Immigration himself actually said that he thought that that was what was likely to happen, but he was not prepared to codify that in law. In other words, the Government wants the ability to be able to ship people off to a place like Waiōuru, put them up in a military detention centre, and hide them away from the general public, as though sending them to Waiōuru means the problem is no longer there. So if that was not the Minister’s intention, he would have supported Darien Fenton’s amendment and we would have been able to improve the bill in that way.

Darien Fenton’s other amendment would have required individual assessment to meet our obligations to use detention only where necessary. So we could have had some asylum seekers who might have been determined to be of higher risk put in detention, whereas most others could have been put into a community-based approach to processing. All of these things—plus Jan Logie’s amendments—would have improved this bill. But improving this bill, getting good legislation, and getting a good framework around how we process asylum seekers and how we deal with the question of who is a genuine asylum seeker was not the aim of this bill. The aim of this bill was to pick on some of the most vulnerable people in the world—let alone in our community and in our country—and to provide a distraction from the failings of this Government and all the scandals and problems that have confronted this Government over the last 12 to 18 months. So, Mr Deputy Speaker, it should come as no surprise to you or anybody else out there listening that Labour is fundamentally opposed to this legislation.

Dr CAM CALDER (National): I find myself actually agreeing with the previous speaker, Iain Lees-Galloway, in one sense, in that New Zealand is known as a good neighbour. We are peace loving, and our skills at peacekeeping are well recognised. We are firm people and we are fair people, but we are not a soft touch for those folk who would seek to profit from others’ misery.

I had occasion this very day to go to a celebration at lunchtime here in Parliament that was run by the Red Cross and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, honouring the journey of refugees to our country, to New Zealand. These were refugees who had gone through the process of being accepted by New Zealand to come and live in our country. I must say that it was compelling testimony.

There was one young man who spoke beautifully. He had not been here for very long, but he spoke beautifully of his wish to contribute to our country. He left an African country. He had to leave in the dead of night, he had to cross the border at night to avoid being shot, and he was in a camp with his sister for a couple of years. Eventually, he applied for, and was accepted by, New Zealand, and he has been making his life in New Zealand for the last 5 years. He is a person who went through the approved processes and mechanisms, and we welcomed him to our country. We welcomed him, along with approximately 700 other refugees each year. New Zealand does have a proud record of fulfilling its obligations to the international community. We also get 300 asylum claims each year, of which approximately a quarter are approved. I want to make that point. This Immigration Amendment Bill is to protect the most vulnerable, who are being taken advantage of by those who would seek to profit from bringing them into our country.

I must say, time and time again from across the House we hear classic reasons why those in the Opposition are not fit to govern. One of the reasons has come out today. I have to say that I have a lot of admiration for some of my colleagues across the House, but as a group, a collective group, they are not fit to govern. And why is that? Well, they are unfit to govern because they display a huge lack of imagination. Time and time again we have heard: “It has never happened. It has never happened.”, as though it will never happen.

People laughed at the Wright brothers. No one had ever flown before. But, surprise, surprise, people now fly around the world in large aircraft. In fact, my colleague from across the House, Denis O’Rourke, who came within an ace of supporting this legislation, was making the point that people could actually fly across the Tasman, not come just in vessels. We know that it is very possible to come in vessels. A gentleman came across in a kayak, sadly losing his life within kilometres of the coast. People sail across at regular intervals. There is no reason to suggest that because something has never happened it never will happen and it need not be considered.

This is just another reason why members across the House have proven—have proven to any thinking person in the electorate—that they are not fit to govern. I mean, some of them presumably have been boy scouts. I think I see a boy scout across the House right now. A boy scout should be prepared—be prepared—and that is what this Government is doing. “First do no harm.” is a great aphorism in medicine. We want to protect the vulnerable from themselves and from being abused and seduced by unscrupulous folk who would smuggle them into this country, by sending a very clear message of deterrence.

This bill sends a clear message of deterrence to any of those who would seek to come to our country and avoid the normal mechanisms of doing so. The overall package is firm and fair, and it sends the message that New Zealand is not a soft touch. It has a range of measures to deter future attempts and better manage one should it occur. We are sending a clear message, as I say, to potential smugglers that we are not prepared to be an easy target. The changes will, in fact, bring us more into line with Australia, with which we are cooperating on this issue.

There are formal, transparent, and well-established processes by which persons can seek to reside in New Zealand. We applaud those being available. We welcome those people to our society. I am happy to be based in Manurewa, one of the most vibrant and diverse communities in New Zealand, and I acknowledge the cultural and economic benefits that migrants bring to our country, but I do not condone, nor does this Government condone, people trying to enter the country through the back door. I commend this bill to the House.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Is this a split call?

Dr Megan Woods: Yes, it is.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Five minutes.

Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram): I must say that sometimes I do feel some sympathy for speakers opposite who get up and give speeches about how the Immigration Amendment Bill is a bill to protect the most vulnerable, whom people are taking advantage of, and that this is going to be a deterrent to people-smuggling. I actually have a great deal of respect for the speaker who just spoke, Dr Cam Calder. I believe him to be a good and honest man. I think, actually, that he would like to be standing up and promoting legislation that was doing what he told this House this piece of legislation is doing. But unfortunately for that member and for the people of New Zealand, the legislation that we have in front of us now does no such thing. This is not a deterrent to those people who seek to people-smuggle. This is about taking some of the most vulnerable people, whom that speaker just spoke about, and actually treating them in a very harsh way, should they arrive. I do not see that as good.

One of the things that I am also really sad and disappointed about, now that we are standing here at the final stage of this legislation, is that this Government has missed a huge opportunity. It has not seized the opportunity put to it by other parties in this House to actually take this very serious issue of how we deal with the issue of refugees and how we deal with the issue of people-smugglers in a way that has cross-party accord so that we do not see the situation that has arisen in Australia. There, it is a political football, and every party has to out-tough the other. It just ratchets up so that each election each party needs to take a tougher line. It does not matter whether we are talking about the Liberal Party of Australia or the Labor Party; both parties now see the need to take an incredibly tough line on people-smugglers because it has been made into a partisan issue that has been politicised.

We had the opportunity in this country to gain political consensus. Unfortunately, the fact is that the Government was not willing to take that approach and to engage with other parties to come up with a piece of legislation that we could all accept was the right and proper way to deal with this very serious issue. The Government did not seize that opportunity, and we have lost it.

This bill that we have before us, which is about to become law, is simply a disgrace. It is about splits and divisions, and it is about unnecessary scaremongering. It is about John Key taking a line from the John Howard playbook about how to gain some political popularity and be seen as popular. John Key endorsed a less punitive approach on a recent visit to Indonesia, but that practical solution, the one that he was talking about, does not get the headlines. This bill does not have the political clout that, actually, a sensible, right, proper, just, and moral approach to this problem would have. Instead of that, he has taken the easy option and he has gone for the populist approach. Maybe Crosby/Textor included it in one of its packages of advice that came across the Tasman. Maybe it said: “You know, John, things aren’t looking quite good. Those polls are slipping. How about you slip a bit of legislation in there to go hard on people-smugglers and the arrival of boat people?”. That is what this legislation reeks of.

We do not support this bill. We see that it is unnecessarily punitive and that it is actually unnecessary. The bill defines a mass arrival and allows for mandatory detention under a group warrant for an initial period of up to 6 months for illegal migrants, other than unaccompanied minors, arriving as a part of a mass arrival group. I would like the previous speaker to reflect on how this is protecting the most vulnerable—how this is protecting the most vulnerable people, who have been taken advantage of. In the purpose of the bill, Dr Calder, I do not see anything that is about protecting those most vulnerable people. It provides for further periods of detention for up to 28 days with court approval, or release on binding conditions. It empowers the suspending of the processing of refugee and protection claims by regulation. Rights are stripped away from these people. This is not about protecting people; this is about stripping away rights and making life even harder.

Millions of people enter New Zealand every year, tens of thousands obtain student visas, and many more are granted work visas or permanent residence. Our system copes with the very few instances otherwise, and the unlikely threat of a group arrival of more than 11 asylum seekers should not pose a significant problem. We already have ways to deal with this. It is not a problem; it is a political line looking for a problem.

CATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green): Tēnā koutou katoa, and tēnā koe to Mr Speaker. I am rather amazed that this bill, the Immigration Amendment Bill, has been put on the statute book at this time. I am rather surprised. It is an imitation of Australia, and I do not know who asked for this imitation. I am not sure who dreamt this up and why it was necessary. It seems to me deeply political, lacking in a fundamental approach to the idea of refugees, and a breach of the culture that we have always had in this country.

In that sense, World Refugee Day next week will not be a day for celebration. It would be good to be able to celebrate this, because we have had a proud tradition of, and we have been a country known around the world for, a very positive attitude towards citizens who are vulnerable. This bill is the breach of the consensus. As many others have already said, there was an opportunity to do it differently, instead of which we have got what I can describe only as paranoia and a punitive approach. The Green Party has not said in our speeches that this could never ever, ever happen. What we are saying is that a mass arrival of 30 people is possibly within the capability of this country to deal with, and to do so with respect. We could actually cope with 30 people arriving.

There have also been some really interesting speeches about the fact that anyone can get here on a boat, that it is not impossible, and that many citizens in the last 1,500 years arrived here on boats. That is true, but they arrived here on boats with a great deal of skill. So, for example, the Pacific navigators who came from islands right across the South Pacific were not stumbling around in the dark. They knew what they were doing. They were skilled navigators, and those waka could do the most extraordinary things because of the understanding of the area, because they were locals and Aotearoa was part of the local Pacific track. They found their way through experimentation and they were skilled sailors. But refugees from Afghanistan do not have the same experience. They come, in many cases, via parts of Asia where, as Jan Logie said, they are utterly unwelcome and badly treated, and they are vulnerable to people who do not have the skills of the original Polynesian navigators or the skills of Captain Cook or access to cruise ship arrivals, where people arrive here with the best in terms of shipping, sailing opportunities, or cruise ship management.

We are talking about refugees here. We are talking about doing to them what some people like to do to people who are criminals. We are actually making the leap from refugee to criminal in this bill, so the most abused in other countries will become abused again here. That is the Australian model, and it is nothing to be proud of.

At their annual general meeting, Senator Richard Di Natale from the Australian Greens talked about this problem and the way in which the Australians have failed to deal with it. He talked about the cost, the protests, the meltdowns, the international disgrace, and the human misery that can occur when you do not deal with an issue properly. And that is what the Australians have done. They have just completely failed, and it comes out of a tradition in Australia, which I remember as an older person, called the White Australia Policy. They do not have a tradition of respect for difference, and that has come home to roost in the most ugly way. They are abusing Nauru and Papua New Guinea, and using those places for dumps for human beings. And we are going down that track. We are talking about going down that track through this bill, and people are acting as if it is somehow protecting the vulnerable. I think it is just a disgrace, as somebody else said. The breach of the consensus means that we cannot hold our heads up any more.

I spend a lot of time talking to taxi drivers, some of whom came here through some of the most horrific experiences.

Hon Member: You should be cycling.

Hon Member: Ha, ha!

CATHERINE DELAHUNTY: Fascinatingly, these guys actually thought this country would be better than this. They ask for this country to be better than this, and it can be better than this, but not through this bill. When you listen to these guys’ stories, it is not that funny. It is not that hilarious to be a refugee. It is not that much of a joke, as Jan Logie found recently when she went to a camp in Thailand. It was on the border of Burma and Thailand. She met people who had been there for 26 years and who had no hope of a better life. Are we going to go for the camp culture? Is that our solution?

SIMON O’CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): I am very pleased to rise in support of the Immigration Amendment Bill. I want to acknowledge the Minister of Immigration, the Hon Michael Woodhouse. I believe that this is his first Government bill that is coming through the House. I also want to acknowledge the work of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee.

“Preparation” is not a bad word. Legislation that prepares for the future is not a bad principle, whether to do with immigration or any other policy side. We have heard from others about their experiences, and I think it is always good to acknowledge experience. One of the great things about this House is that pretty much 121 people have had experiences, be it in taxis, be it talking to refugees, or be it visiting camps, and so on. No one holds a monopoly on that. Nor does any party hold a monopoly on serving the vulnerable, on compassion, or on looking after people.

This bill is a moderate bill. It is preparing to assist those people who ultimately come to New Zealand, if they choose to come, if they turn away from all the deterrents. This is a moderate bill to deal with 30 or more people so they can be taken to a safe location like the Māngere Refugee Resettlement Centre, their status can be understood, and they can then be reintegrated into the community. We have heard a lot of scaremongering from different people here. We have heard that people are going to be locked up in detention centres and all sorts of awful things, but that is not what is happening. This is New Zealand. We engage with people, however they come here, but in this case, with the bill, we are putting in place a process to work with these people, to identify who they are, noticing they have come through an alternative, unusual, and improper channel and acknowledging that. So that is “What about the full, factual approach?”. It is about acknowledging that but working with them.

The select committee has worked on moderations, as well. You have not heard that from the Opposition. Yes, we are using group warrants—it is quite appropriate—but a judge can choose to move to individual warrants if it is felt that it is appropriate. So I return to where I started. This is a moderate bill. I think this party, this Government, is proud of its record across a number of areas, including the area of immigration, and again I acknowledge the Minister as his first Government bill is set to pass.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Immigration Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

Ayes 63

New Zealand National 59; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.

Noes 53

New Zealand Labour 30; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7; Mana 1; Independent: Horan.

Bill read a third time.

Su’a WILLIAM SIO (Labour—Māngere): I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I wonder whether this may not be a good time for you to take a look at Standing Order 48 and see whether you would give effect to that Standing Order.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: No, it is not a good time, but I will have a look at it. The Clerk was just announcing the third reading of the bill.

Bills

Local Electoral Amendment Bill (No 2)

Third Reading

Hon CHRIS TREMAIN (Minister of Local Government): I move, That the Local Electoral Amendment Bill (No 2) be now read a third time. I am very pleased to speak at the third reading of the Local Electoral Amendment Bill (No 2). The bill makes a number of important changes to the Local Electoral Act, the principal Act, which provides the rules for local authority elections. The bill tightens and increases transparency around campaign donations. It streamlines pre-election processes and it improves the availability of information about candidates.

The Local Electoral Act has three core principles underpinning it, which are upheld and advanced by this bill. The first principle is fair and effective representation for New Zealanders and for communities. The second principle is that qualified people have an opportunity to cast an informed vote to nominate a candidate and to become a candidate. The third principle is public confidence in local electoral processes and public understanding of local electoral processes.

As I mentioned, the bill deals with pre-election processes and candidate campaign donations. The bill makes a number of practical improvements to pre-election processes. These are based on earlier reviews of the local authority elections, and changes sought by councils and others involved in the elections. Specifically, the bill gives unitary, city, and district councils greater flexibility to set ward boundaries in a way that better encompasses local communities and geographic areas in their territories with common interests. The bill streamlines candidate nomination processes. The bill also provides electoral offices with an extra week to produce high-quality voting documents.

The other set of changes in the bill are important improvements to the rules for candidate campaign donations. Many provisions in the Local Electoral Act for candidates’ campaigns are modelled on the Electoral Act. The Electoral Act provides, of course, the rules for parliamentary elections. Over time the Electoral Act has changed and the Local Electoral Act is now out of step, specifically in the way that electoral campaign donations must be received, recorded, and reported by candidates. The need to modernise the Local Electoral Act and bring the two sets of rules closer into line is a major driver of this bill. The changes in the bill around campaign donations to achieve closer alignment with the Electoral Act include, firstly, a limit of $1,500 on the amount of an anonymous donation; secondly, a requirement for a candidate to include in his or her return of electoral expenses and donations information about donations above $1,500; and, thirdly, a more rigorous definition of anonymous donations and an obligation on a third party or a person administering the affairs of a candidate who receives a candidate’s donation to disclose the identity of the donor to the candidate. For maximum transparency, the bill will also require the publication—online or otherwise—of every candidate’s return of electoral donations and expenses.

At the Committee of the whole House stage, the Government introduced changes to the bill through a Supplementary Order Paper 198. These changes affect donations to local electoral candidates that are made up of pooled funds. This includes donations from trust funds or where there is a fund-raising collection for a candidate’s campaign. The changes include a new requirement for a candidate to disclose whether a donation is made up of pooled funds. The candidate will also have to disclose the names and addresses of any individuals contributing more than $1,500. It will mean a candidate cannot accept an anonymous contribution of more than $1,500. This is a good change by the House at the Committee stage. It closes a potential loophole, it achieves closer alignment between local authorities and parliamentary elections, and it supports the overall purpose of the bill.

Can I thank the Justice and Electoral Committee, under the guidance of Scott Simpson. Can I thank all its members for the collaborative process and constructive work that they undertook in bringing this bill together. Can I also thank members of this House for their contributions to the debate during the Committee of the whole House stage. I think that has generally added to a better bill.

Like parliamentary elections, local authority elections are held every 3 years. The next local authority elections, on 12 October this year, are fast approaching. The elections are for local councils and district health boards. In many parts of New Zealand, elections will also be held for local and community boards and licensing and community trusts. All local authority elections are held by postal voting. Electoral activity is picking up pace in advance of the 2013 elections. There is, indeed, a lot going on behind the scenes to ensure smooth elections. Important milestones and dates for this year’s elections include nominations for candidates, which close on 23 August; voting documents to be delivered to electors between 20 and 25 September; and that voting will close, as everyone is aware, on 12 October at noon.

In closing, the public rightfully expects high levels of transparency and confidence in the conduct of all public elections. For this reason, I am pleased to progress this bill in time for the elections on 12 October this year. I look forward to those elections, and I look forward to the bill enhancing the transparency and efficiency of the elections. The public can indeed be confident that the rules promote efficiency, democracy, and increased transparency. I commend this bill to the House.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Before I call the next member, during the process of the last vote a member raised the issue of Standing Order 48, which invites the Speaker to adjourn the House. The test is disorder or impending disaster. I am not aware that either standard has been met, so I will not be adjourning the House.

ANDREW LITTLE (Labour): Although I rise to speak in these dying moments of this sitting of this Parliament—a long sitting, a 3-week sitting—on the Local Electoral Amendment Bill (No 2), I do say to you, Mr Deputy Speaker, in relation to Standing Order 48 that we can oblige if you prefer. However, as will have been apparent from Labour contributions in earlier debates on this bill, we do support it. It is long overdue. Indeed, without wanting to get into a “Na, na, na, na, we did it first.” argument, I do want to say that we got there first. We had a draft member’s bill ready in place to go, with the great prescience of mind that members on this side of the House so frequently show, but before it was drawn from the ballot, the issue about John Banks and the Auckland mayoral race then erupted in full colour across the political landscape, and everybody knew why it was necessary to have reform of our local electoral laws.

I think it is important, even at this third reading stage, just in case some people have not heard the earlier debates and have tuned in only just recently or this afternoon, to put on the record why this bill and the changes in it have become so necessary. The reality is that the provisions governing local body elections had come adrift from the rules governing general elections. There was an inconsistency that could not be explained. Then we saw the conduct that we saw in the 2010 Auckland mayoral election. The conduct included that of at least one candidate who, having received donations—donations about which we now have clear evidence that that candidate played an active role in soliciting and receiving, donations that to all intents and purposes he knew the origins of—when it came time to make his election return, feigned no knowledge of the origins of those donations. And they were significant donations. That exposed to all who could see them the gaps, the problems, and the loopholes in the law as it then stood. Donations that were nominally anonymous were, in reality, not anonymous at all. The recipient of them, the candidate for whose benefit they were made, could avoid declaring them as contributions made by a known donor and could have them declared as anonymous donations. That was a very distasteful part of the history of local government in this country. It will go down in the annals of local government history as a poor time, as a black day, but it will be remedied by the provisions in this bill.

As the Minister of Local Government, who took the floor just now, has adumbrated in his account of the bill, in addition to putting limits and caps on donations, this bill will now tighten up the requirements for declaring expenses for, and donations to, local government campaigns, and that is long overdue. We do not want to live in a country where public office, whether it is at the local government level or at the central government level, can be purchased and can be won by those who have the privilege of being in receipt of the highest amount of donations because they are the person who happens to routinely rub shoulders with the wealthy and the rich and the privileged and the elite of this country. That is not the New Zealand that we believe in, and I do not believe there is a member in this House who would want our systems of democracy to be disgraced in that sort of way.

This bill comes in the nick of time for the forthcoming local government elections, as Mr Tremain said in his contribution. The provisions of this bill will take effect for the forthcoming elections. That will give some comfort to people as we sit around and wait for the onslaught of the next local government elections. We wait for the doorknocking and we wait for the material to come through our letterboxes, but, most important, we wait for those ballot papers to come in. We have our period of 2 weeks to consider and ponder and cast our vote in the election, and we will be able to do that this year safe in the knowledge that no candidate taking part in this year’s local government elections will be allowed to get away with acting in an untoward and an improper way. They will have been subject to spending limits and to donation limits, and the donations received by them will be properly disclosed. Any potential for misleading or rorting it around anonymous donations is now much diminished, and that will be good. People will have a greater sense of confidence in the elections that will take place this year. So we welcome the changes.

It has taken time. It is a pity that we are running right up against the timetable needed to administer the next local body elections—they are a matter of only months away. We acknowledge the work that our electoral officials do, here and at the local government level. They will be hard-pressed to meet the timetable, but, as the Minister said, we can be confident that they will meet it. That will be good for people. That will be good for confidence in our electoral systems, and that will be just one small step, the first step, on what will be a journey to restore genuine public confidence in our local body election system. So on that basis, and at this time, I say that we support the bill and look forward to its full implementation.

SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): It is a great pleasure in my capacity as the chairman of the Justice and Electoral Committee to rise in support of the Local Electoral Amendment Bill (No 2) in its third and final reading. The bill is in the name of the Minister of Local Government, the Hon Chris Tremain, and I want to thank him for his support during the course of this bill’s progress in instituting the very good Supplementary Order Paper 198, which assisted the work of the committee no end. This legislation, as other speakers have indicated, is planned to be passed well in time for the local body elections to be held in October this year, and it is timely that we should be considering this matter at this time, at this stage of the afternoon, and in this session.

This is a Government that is improving transparency at local electoral levels in terms of the donations that candidates will have to return and will be accountable for. The bill combines the changes of the local electoral amendment bill that was first tabled in 2011 with further changes to the electoral donation laws. There are three main aspects to the bill. First, it will improve provisions for the conduct of local elections, and that is a very good thing. Second, it increases the transparency and accountability in relation to candidate donations, particularly anonymous donations, and there would be many who would say: “Not a minute too soon.” The third aspect that this bill addresses is that it strengthens the integrity—

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! The time has now come to adjourn the House.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 6 p.m.