Tuesday, 28 January 2014

Tuesday, 28 January 2014

Tuesday, 28 January 2014

Mr Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

Resignations

Katrina Shanks, New Zealand National

Katrina Shanks

Mr SPEAKER: I wish to advise the House that I have received a letter from, resigning her seat with effect from Tuesday, 21 January 2014.

List Member Vacancy

List Member Vacancy

Mr SPEAKER: I have received from the Electoral Commission a return declaring Joanne Kowhai Hayes to be elected a member of Parliament to fill the vacancy created by the resignation of Katrina Shanks.

By-Election

Christchurch East Electoral District

Mr SPEAKER: I have received from the Electoral Commission a writ declaring Munokoa Poto Williams to be elected to represent the electorate of Christchurch East. I understand that Poto Williams is present and wishes to make the affirmation. Would she please come forward to the chair on my right.

Members Sworn

Members Sworn

Poto Williams was presented to the Speaker, made the affirmation required by law, and took her seat in the House.

Mr Speaker administered the Oath of Allegiance to Joanne Hayes, who then took her seat in the House.

Motions

Grammy Awards 2014—Lorde

Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister): I seek leave to move a motion without notice congratulating Lorde on her success at the Grammy Awards.

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

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I move, That this House congratulate Ella Yelich-O’Connor, also known as Lorde, on her success at the 56th annual Grammy Awards. Yesterday young New Zealander Ella Yelich-O’Connor made history. The singer-songwriter known as Lorde won the Grammy for best pop solo performance and together with co-producer Joel Little won song of the year for “Royals”. She was nominated for an unbelievable four Grammys.

Rolling Stone has called Lorde pop’s most unlikely new superstar, and for very good reason. She has just achieved something no New Zealander has, and that it has happened so quickly and so comprehensively has taken the world by surprise. In less than a year Lorde has gone from being a year-12 student at Takapuna Grammar School to superstardom. Her unique brand of alternative pop has seen her top charts not just in New Zealand but in Britain, Australia, Belgium, Ireland, and Canada. She has appeared on the Letterman show and on Ellen, and exchanges text messages these days with Taylor Swift.

She is just 17 years old, but what is most remarkable about Ella is that she has done it all in her own way—a typically Kiwi and unassuming way. If there were rules, no one told Lorde. She has busted stereotypes and, along the way, won hearts. Her performance at yesterday’s Grammys earned her a standing ovation—think about that, a standing ovation—from the most influential names in the history of music.

New Zealand is a nation of high achievers. We almost always punch above our weight. However, the success of Ella Yelich-O’Connor is remarkable even by those standards. Yesterday this talented young woman make New Zealand sit up and take notice. I suspect there will be many such moments as her career goes forward. Ella and Joel, you have made New Zealand very proud.

Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Leader of the Opposition): Labour today congratulates young New Zealand musician Ella Yelich-O’Connor, aka Lorde, on her Grammy success yesterday. All New Zealanders are proud of Ella’s achievements, her lyrics, and what she stands for, which resonates with all young New Zealanders—young musicians striving to achieve their dreams. Ella is a role model for all New Zealanders and New Zealand musicians. Lorde has won two Grammys: one for Song of the Year for her hit “Royals” and one for Best Pop Solo Performance. Lorde was nominated amongst big names in the music business, including Bruno Mars, Katy Perry, Macklemore, and others. Past winners of Song of the Year include Adele for her 2011 hit “Rolling in the Deep”.

Many musicians have praised the young New Zealander nationally and internationally for her amazing achievements, and she now joins a long list of worldwide music legends. She joins the most recent New Zealand Grammy winner Kimbra, who last year won Record of the Year and Best Pop Duo/Group Performance with Australian musician Gotye for “Somebody That I Used to Know”.

METIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green): The Green Party joins with this Parliament and with the rest of the country in congratulating Ella Yelich-O’Connor and Joel Little on their amazing success at the Grammys. It was a very proud moment and there were thousands and thousands of New Zealanders amongst the 30 million other people around the world watching this young New Zealand woman and this young New Zealand man take the stage and take the world by storm in this amazing event. It is all about their passion and their creativity and their hard work, which led them there, along with the support of their families and their friends and the creative community that sits around them. How amazing it is to see this young, 17-year-old woman meet all of her talent and fulfil all of her potential, and how amazing it would be if we could be assured that every single New Zealand child had everything they needed, too, to meet all of their potential, to fulfil all their talents, and to achieve on the world stage or at home in the best way that they can. She is a fantastic example of what can be achieved by our young people if they have the support that they need.

I am also really pleased that the song itself was the one that won best song—“Royals”—because this song was all about how we do not need all of that crazy wealth or all of that crazy greed. Actually, it is enough to have friends and family and to do amazing things, to have your talent and your potential fulfilled. What a great thing that is—[Interruption] Absolutely—let us clap that. And let us clap a young woman who was able to write about that and to express that to the world in such an amazing way. We are very proud of this young woman and everyone who supports her. Thank you.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First): New Zealand First wishes to join other political parties in offering our congratulations to both Ella and Joel on their stunning success. I want to also say that we do not seek any vicarious benefit in this parade today. So, suffice for us to say, on behalf of New Zealand First, we are very proud of you.

TE URUROA FLAVELL (Co-Leader—Māori Party): He mihi tuatahi, ngā mihi o te Tau Hou ki a koe, otirā, ki a tātau. Ko tā te Pāti Māori, he tautoko i ngā kōrero ki tēnei o ngā wāhine i whakanuia inapō nei. Ā, ka nui te mihi ki a ia.

[First of all, greetings of the New Year to you, Mr Speaker, and, indeed, to us. The Māori Party endorses the statements made to this among the women who were honoured last evening and acknowledge her greatly.]

I stand on behalf of the Māori Party to support other comments that have been made about Lorde and Mr Joel Little and congratulate them on their win. Maybe there is something to be said about changing your name to get that ultimate success, and I suppose I have got to say for myself that something like “Jimbo” or “James” or something like that might be a good idea in the future. I have got to say that Beyoncé still does it for me, but Lorde is still right up there—Lorde is up there.

I understand that Dame Kiri Te Kanawa back in 1984 won the first Grammy awarded to a New Zealander, and so Lorde has joined a long queue of other people already mentioned today whom we must acknowledge as bringing pride not only to themselves and their families but also to the country. We have got to think about their parents as well, who have been mentioned, and say that obviously that talent must come from somewhere, and we acknowledge Lorde’s parents.

I understand that as a young person in 2009 at Belmont Intermediate, Lorde won with a song called “Warwick Avenue”. I do not know the song—it was a little bit after my time—but apparently that video was shown to Universal Music Group representatives and, of course, subsequently they signed her to that label. Five years later, of course with the support of her family, those around her, her school, and with her music—and I understand that she went back to her school not long ago—she has clearly demonstrated that she has the talent, and, according to most commentators, will carry on with that success.

The last word, I think, would probably need to go back to her. In her first interview, not even 1 year ago, she admitted to the success of her song-writing style as this: “You’ve got to be honest for it to lock with me. It’s got to have real things …”. We love the fact that she keeps it real and writes about real things that are important to her, and possibly touches the hearts and minds of many people. Clearly, it does. We wish her well.

HONE HARAWIRA (Leader—Mana): Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Huri rauna, tēnā tātou katoa e hui tuatahi i tēnei rā roto i tō tātou Pāremata, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou. Me te mihi anōki ki a tātou katoa kua tae mai, horekau he painga e pā ana ki tētahi i tēnei rā, tēnā koutou, kia ora tātou. Me mihi anōki au ki tērā o wā tātou nei kōtiro, a Lorde, i tae atu ki te taumata o tōna waiata. Ēngari, e tika ana kia kaua e wareware ki ngā wāhine rongonui o roto o Aotearoa, e noho tonu nei ki roto i a tātou, i tae atu ki tērā o ngā hui whakangau o Ngāpuhi, e tū ana ki roto i a mātou i te wikiene kua pahure ake nei. Tetahi ko Maisey Rika, ko Whirimako Black, ko Ria Hall, Billie Anne Monga me taku kōtiro anōki a Magic. E tika ana kia mihi atu ki a rātou e w’akarangatira ana i ngā kaupapa waiata o roto i a tātou i tēnei wā. Mihi atu ki a Lorde, mihi atu ki a rātou, mihi atu ki a tātou. Tēnā koutou, kia ora tātou katoa.

[Thank you, Mr Speaker. Greetings to us all throughout, who are meeting for the first time today in our Parliament, greetings. I acknowledge us all, as well, who have nothing but goodwill for each other today, so greetings and well done. I also pay a tribute to Lorde, that one of our girls whose song has reached its pinnacle. But it is right that well-known women entertainers in New Zealand who are living here still in our midst are not overlooked. They arrived in the weekend just past at one of the festivals held amongst us in Ngāpuhi. One was Maisey Rika. Others were Whirimako Black, Ria Hall, Billie Anne Monga, and my daughter Magic as well. It is fitting that they are acknowledged for promoting the songs being sung amongst us today. In congratulating Lorde, I congratulate them too and us. Salutations and congratulations to us all.]

Hon JOHN BANKS (Leader—ACT): What an extraordinary achievement for a young New Zealander. Lorde has brought great credit to herself, her family, Takapuna Grammar School, and the country. On behalf of the people of Epsom, I join with the Prime Minister in publicly congratulating her, her family, her supporters, and her friends.

My bench mates suggested that on this occasion I should try to be very cool and hook up with the young people listening to this broadcast this afternoon. I am sure that there are tens of thousands of young people tuned in to their crystal sets and hanging off of every word we are saying about this great New Zealander.

This award represents a family who have given her unconditional love and a world-class education and taught her the value of hard work. It also represents her—obviously inherited and worked—huge talent and ability, much confidence, and a brilliant future. I was reflecting while my colleagues were speaking that, now that she is famous, if she is thinking of coming to Parliament, do not. Stay with your day job. She can bring much, much more credit to New Zealand than coming here. It is her sheer genius that has brought her to where she is, and she has much more ability to come and many more accolades to arrive. I congratulate her and her family on this great award.

Hon PETER DUNNE (Leader—United Future): I doubt that there are many people in New Zealand, or anywhere else in the world for that matter, who were watching yesterday who did not become filled with emotion at watching this extraordinary spectacle of this delightfully natural, talented, effervescent young New Zealander steal the show both with her rendition of her song at the beginning and then with her genuine, unvarnished, natural remarks at the time when she received her awards. She was a reflection of all that we would like to think is good about young New Zealanders: confident, assured, certain, but also natural, unaffected, and charming. Lorde displayed all of those talents yesterday. But yesterday is but a step along the way in what will obviously be an extremely successful career.

Her achievements to date in getting to this point should not be overlooked. Her passion, her skill as a songwriter and a performer, and the chemistry that she exudes that attracts people to watch her performances are all part of an extraordinary gift and an extraordinary talent. Lorde, her family, her supporters, her workmates, and her team around her can all take extraordinary satisfaction from her achievements to date. And we as a country can be proud of her, not just for the representation that she gives us but for the fact that she shows the world what a good young New Zealander can be like. She is a remarkable ambassadress, an extraordinary songstress and writer, and she is a person we should be very, very proud to celebrate and acknowledge long into the future.

Motion agreed to.

Points of Order

Tabling of Documents—Process

ANDREW WILLIAMS (NZ First): I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I seek leave of the House to table a letter to this Parliament from Viet Nam veteran John “Doc” Mountain on behalf of many New Zealand services veterans, some of whom are here today in this House, expressing grave concerns in the way war pensions, disabled pensions—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! That is enough information for the House. I put leave to the House. Leave is sought to table that particular document. [Interruption]

Hon Gerry Brownlee: I am seeking leave to speak to the point of order.

Mr SPEAKER: I think that on this particular occasion it is useful for the Leader of the House to seek clarification.

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Leader of the House): Mr Speaker, we have arrangements in this House, as you well know, through the Business Committee, where matters like this are often put in front of parties prior to their being brought to the House. I do think that in this case it would be better if the member were prepared to put that to the Business Committee today to see what might come of it tomorrow, rather than putting the House in a position of having to decline something it has not seen.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First): With respect, it has crept in of late that the Business Committee seems to be controlling events that really belong with this House. The plain fact is that my colleague has sought the House’s permission to table a document. I cannot believe that there is any responsible member of Parliament who would oppose him doing so.

Mr SPEAKER: I thank the member for his contribution. The Business Committee works to smooth the running of this House. Mr Brownlee is quite right to suggest that in the normal course of events such a matter as this would be raised through it. I think it is now in the hands of the mover of the motion, Andrew Williams. He is in the situation where he withdraws it or I put the leave as he has requested. It is either of those two choices. Can I seek clarification from Mr Williams. Does he want to proceed with me putting the question of leave?

ANDREW WILLIAMS (NZ First): Mr Speaker, we have veterans here in the House today—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I take it from that that the member wants me to proceed with putting the question of leave. I therefore put the question. Leave is sought for that letter to be tabled. Is there any objection? There is objection.

Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement

Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement

Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister): I move that this House express its confidence in the National-led Government—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! Can I first of all ask the Prime Minister to present the Prime Minister’s statement.

Grant Robertson: He’s a first timer.

Mr SPEAKER: Order!

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Quite the opposite. Mr Speaker—

Mr SPEAKER: Simply present the—

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I present the Prime Minister’s statement.

Mr SPEAKER: That paper is published under the authority of the House. Copies are available on the Table. I call on Government order of the day—[Interruption] Order! I know everybody is very keen to get this year under way, no more so than myself.

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Mr Speaker—

Hon Members: Yay!

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Well, thank you for the applause because I move, That this House express its confidence in the National-led Government and commend its programme for 2014 as set out in the Prime Minister’s statement to Parliament. This Government starts the year where it left off: with a plan for New Zealand that we present today; with a sense of what is required for economic management—affordable, sensible, and responsible; with a vision for this great country; and with a united, dedicated, and committed team.

The Opposition begins the year where it left off: desperate, divided, and delusional. Mercifully it was quite quiet over Christmas, I have to say. David Cunliffe was very much like a white tiger: he was out there but no one actually ever saw him. Russel Norman spent his entire summer break working out how he could get an invitation to go back to the Dotcom mansion for the third time. Hone Harawira took a public tour of Parliament to see what it is actually like. One thing that did happen over Christmas, though, was that the Opposition proved, I think quite clearly, that it should have gone to summer school when it comes to mathematics or economics, because it is quite one thing when the Green Party wants to print money, but David Cunliffe has actually taken that to a whole new level. You see, he has gone right past the printing press, right past bitcoin, and he has now gone into imaginary or make-believe money. It is fantastic stuff. You do not have to borrow it. You do not have to print it. You most certainly do not have to earn it. According to David Cunliffe, all you have to do is spend it. That takes you into that kind of interesting space of where the Opposition is these days.

As John Armstrong quite rightly pointed out in the New Zealand Herald this morning, it is a bit of a tricky Opposition. You need to actually read the fine print. This is the Opposition that last year wanted New Zealanders to believe that if they earned under $18.40 an hour, they would get a pay rise under Labour. But it turns out in the fine print that it is actually only if you are working for a Government department pretty much in Wellington. He wanted them to believe that there was $1.5 billion just sitting out there mysteriously waiting to be spent. Yesterday he wanted New Zealanders to believe that if for an entire year they had a 1-year-old or younger and they earn under $150,000 a year—Labour’s new definition of poverty—they would get 60 bucks a week. But actually when you read the fine print, they do not. They get it after the paid parental leave has finished. That is right. The Opposition was not rushing to say: “David Cunliffe here to talk to you about my policies for the middle part of 2016.” It was like: “Vote for us and you get the money.” Well, the Opposition has gone from yeah, nah to yeah, nah, maybe. Read the fine print. They are Labour and the Greens. They would be a high-spending and high-taxing Government if they ever get there, which is good, because that is the only high that Labour and the Greens look like they can agree on at the moment.

Let us go to this Government and what it has actually achieved and what it is actually delivering for New Zealanders. The programme today spells out where this Government is going to go. But what is worthy of discussion is also where this Government has been and whom the New Zealand public actually trust with New Zealand. It is this Government, a National-led Government, that has balanced the books in this country and will see us back in surplus by 2014-15. It is this Government that guided Christchurch through the tragedies of the Christchurch earthquakes, stood behind it, week after week after week, making sure it had the support that it needed. It was this Government that guided the country through the global financial crisis, to a point where economic commentators around the world talk about New Zealand as the stand-out developed economy.

It is under this Government that 17,000 people left a benefit last year and 1,500 people a week leave a benefit and get a job. It is under this National-led Government that people are employed. It is under this Government that ACC rates are being reduced for New Zealanders, for workers, for employees, across the board, and it is under this National-led Government that when we look out there at the crime rate in this country, we see it is at a 33-year low.

It is this Government that can be trusted to roll out ultra-fast broadband. I know David Cunliffe is saying that he is going to close down Facebook. That is actually something that most leaders around the world have not managed to do. But that is right. That was today’s proclamation from David Cunliffe—the fine print. He is going to close down Facebook. That will be interesting. But this is also the Government with the track record that has seen an enormous increase in elective surgical operations available to New Zealanders. This is the Government that stood up with a plan to prevent the harm that is taking place in our communities against young children.

This Government and its plan is the reason that three-quarters of a billion dollars will be spent this year in New Zealand on looking for oil and gas—because of this Government. And actually, despite what David Cunliffe said about his new-found friends in Norway, it was Labour that had no rules in the exclusive economic zone, let alone tough rules. It had no rules whatsoever, when it came to deep-sea drilling. Last year, when we were in this House, Labour members were the ones being critical and all of a sudden, miraculously, that has changed.

It is under this National-led Government that housing will become more affordable, because we have the right approach to fixing that issue. That is through the accords with the Auckland Council and ultimately around the country. That is with making sure that new land is released. That is with making sure that there are refinements to our legislation, particularly over time, to the Resource Management Act, to allow young New Zealanders to buy a home.

It is this National-led Government that has stood up and is tackling the issues of teacher performance and principal performance, so that every young New Zealander gets a chance to succeed, to do well, and to have a world-class education. That is what is happening under this Government. Under this Government Transmission Gully will be built, like the Waterview Connection is.

In the plan for the year the Government goes back to the four key points that it has been implementing for some time. To responsibly manage finances—that has got to be the top priority. I say to New Zealanders who see these other political parties offering something that if it is too good to be true, it probably is. When David Cunliffe tells you he has found $1.5 billion at the end of a rainbow and he is out spending it, roughly, depending on whether you read the fine print, maybe, just maybe, you need to ask where that is coming from. By the way, if you are earning $150,000 and you are in that category of poverty, according to Labour, you will also have your tax rate going up year after year after year. And if you are a young couple who is buying the bakery in Hāwera and you are trying to make a living, under Labour, it will put a capital gains tax on you, because you are rich, and because you are out there trying to create employment, because you care about trying to get other people a job. When Labour has done all that, and when it has spent like it did last time it was in office—if it ever gets there again—we know what happens. Interest rates go up. The competitive part of the economy goes south, and a National-led Government has to come in and tidy things up.

Their heads are down over there for one reason and one reason alone: they know it does not add up. They know we are not even out the end of January and they have spent three-quarters of a billion dollars with their mates the Greens—let alone everything that happened last year. That is what New Zealanders like about this plan and trust about this Government—that in the course of 5 years we have actually held Government spending pretty much at the same rate, but we have prioritised what matters. At-risk New Zealanders have had Working for Families maintained, pensions maintained, and accommodation supplements maintained. This Government has reprioritised to ensure that happens.

This Government will also stick to its plan of building a competitive and productive economy. It will continue to deliver better public services and it will rebuild Christchurch. Let us go through some individual bits of the plan. Back in 2008, when we became the Government, this is what Treasury told us: the debt to GDP ratio was going to 60 percent by 2020. Why? Because we were inheriting a bunch of the stuff we saw yesterday: say anything, do anything to try to get there, and try to tell people you are doing them a favour with their own money, until the music stops and you get booted out, and someone actually has to come in and tidy the place up. What does this year’s plan show? It shows that by 2014-15 we will not be a decade of deficits; we will be back in surplus—we will back in surplus. Debt will have peaked at 26.5 percent, and by 2019-20 it will be at 17 percent—16.9 percent. New Zealanders take enormous confidence from that. This Government will work on repaying debt, because we actually trust New Zealanders and they trust us to be able to take care of them when there is actual need. When a Christchurch earthquake comes, a strong Government can stand in support. A profligate one cannot.

When it come to competitiveness, this Government will remain committed to the Business Growth Agenda and to expanding export markets. That includes trying to complete our free-trade agreement with Korea, with Russia, and with the Trans-Pacific Partnership countries, not the least of them being the United States. In 2014 this Government will do something that parties on the other side of the House talk about but never actually support, and that is get behind the film industry. This is the Government that saw over—Jacinda Ardern is shaking her head, but she was the Hobbit-hater, out there saying not to create 5,500 jobs for the hobbits—5,500 jobs created. Now we have got Avatar 2, Avatar 3, and Avatar 4 being made in New Zealand because of this Government’s actions. That is what happens when you have good government.

We are committed to smart investment. We are committed to making sure that science is at the heart of the Government. We will continue to work with Callaghan Innovation in making sure that New Zealand firms and New Zealand businesses across the country have the very best science available to them. We will continue down the path of our National Science Challenges and of our Primary Growth Partnership, and making sure we use science to make New Zealand a more competitive economy.

When it comes to skills and in the workplace, this Government will continue to do that and it will ensure that we reach our target that 55 percent of 25 to 34-year-olds have some sort of advanced trade qualification, diploma, or degree by 2017. There will be an additional 4,500 places in trades and services academies, and this year alone over 10,000 people will have access to the Youth Guarantee—fees-free learning for 16 to 19-year-olds under a National-led Government.

When it comes to safety in the workplace, that will be a priority for the Government this year, as we look, through WorkSafe New Zealand, to improve the culture in our workplaces so that workers across New Zealand can go to their place of work and be confident that they will come home from their daily work. We will make sure that WorkSafe New Zealand works with those industries that need support and need change to ensure that that takes place.

We will make sure that ACC reductions continue to be delivered so that New Zealanders can pay less for their ACC. When it comes to infrastructure, as I said earlier, work on Transmission Gully will begin, work will continue on the Christchurch Western Corridor, work will continue on the Waikato Expressway, work will continue on the Waterview Connection, not from borrowings—not from borrowings—but in some part from proceeds of sales of minor assets in New Zealand companies that have deepened our capital markets.

This party and this Government remain committed to ultra-fast broadband so that every school in the country, every hospital in the country, and three-quarters of all New Zealand homes can be wired to the world. We looked with great amazement and pride at Lorde yesterday. She is a great example of how New Zealand music was delivered over the internet. Joel Little himself said that they produced that music to give away on the internet and, in fact, it turned her into a singing sensation.

We will carry on our work around housing and addressing those issues, and particularly Christchurch will remain an important part of the Government’s agenda, as it has been since the Christchurch earthquakes. There are those anchor projects—the justice precinct, over a billion dollars going into schools and into housing. And when it comes to education, we will not say that the answer to fixing the whole problem in the education system is giving the odd kid a lunch. That is not actually going to fix the problem. What will fix the problem is paying $50,000 to a world-class principal to go in and fix up a school that is failing those kids. That is what is going to fix their education. We are going to say to those teachers to stay in the classroom, share your expertise, be paid more for that, be an expert teacher, go around the other schools in your cluster, or be an executive principal and expand that. We are going to continue with national standards so that parents can understand the progress of their child, and we will continue to work on moderation amongst schools.

We will continue our work in law and order, because New Zealanders feel safer under a National-led Government. We will continue with Addressing the Drivers of Crime and rehabilitation. We will look to strengthen and expand the rights of victims in legislation that makes it easier for children who are witnesses or for rape victims. We will continue our work on cyber-bullying. As I said, when it comes to health, one of the top priority areas for this Government is that we will continue to ensure that patients are at the centre of what we focus on in our health system. We will make sure that they continue to get access to elective surgery faster, we will continue to make sure they have world-class and gold-standard cancer treatment and that there is more money for magnetic resonance imaging and CAT scans, and we will continue to make sure that people can feel confident in what we are doing.

You can walk the walk or you can talk the talk. This is a National-led Government that walks the walk. This is a National-led Government that has shown through the work of the last 5 years, and will continue to show in 2014, that we are up for any challenge that is put before us and that we can meet those challenges and deliver a brighter future for New Zealanders. We are not going to sit there and try to bribe the electorate with imaginary money that does not exist. We are not going to ask people to read the fine print, like a commercial contract, when I give a speech at a school someplace in New Zealand. We are going to say to New Zealanders that they can trust what we say, and they can trust us to deliver what we do. We are a good Government, not a tricky Opposition. Bring on 2014.

Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Leader of the Opposition): I move, That all the words after “That” be deleted and replaced with “this House express no confidence in this National-led Government because New Zealand has become more and more divided, and because those in the middle are struggling and the poor are going backwards.” What is going to be that Prime Minister’s legacy when he finishes up later this year? Just how is he going to be remembered? Well, it will not be for that visionless, defensive speech full of tinkering and the same old, same old. It might be for his half-finished, user-pays cycleway, but I doubt it because “John Key Memorial Cycleway” does not really have a certain ring to it. It might be for the holiday home in Hawaii. Hawaii, also known as “Planet Key”—the place where there are lots of golf courses but no toilets, which will not be easy for the President of the United States or his security detail. Or it might be for the Budget surpluses that Labour always ran but National has yet to sample. In 9 years of Labour Government we never ran a fiscal deficit and National has never run a surplus. Being lectured on fiscal prudence by those clowns is a bit like being lectured on tact and discernment by Gerry Brownlee.

I think that John Key is actually going to go down in history by what the international press calls him: “unidentified guest”. No wonder—the photo ops are about as flaky as his commitment to reducing unemployment. I think he is going to be remembered for his true achievement: in short, fiddling while Rome burns—he is doing it now—and for being the last gasp of an old, tired, failed way of doing things. He will be remembered as the Prime Minister who clung to “business as usual” while every day more and more Kiwis find themselves struggling—left behind by a Government that is increasingly out of touch, arrogant, and patently just in it for its mates. He talks about an economic recovery, but let us be blunt. The only good news comes from the insurance cheques from the disaster in Christchurch and some damn good prices for milk solids. Neither of those can the Government take credit for. It does not milk the cows and it does not milk the dairy markets.

Milk is New Zealand’s greatest export—nearly a quarter of our export receipts. When the price of milk powder goes up, our economy goes up with it. That is all very well if you have got a dairy farm, as half the National caucus seems to have—at least one; sometimes five—but not much good if you are trying to run a manufacturing business and export something other than milk powder. It is not much good if you are trying to do smart, value-added, sustainable business in a world where your future seems dependent on the end of a cow’s udder.

If you take a devastated city and the price of milk out of the equation, what are you left with? An unidentified guest. But putting that aside and putting aside the fact that the Government can claim no responsibility whatever for any type of recovery, what is it doing with what there is? I will tell you what it is doing. It is making sure that it goes to the top few. That is the kind of recovery we are seeing—recovery in luxury car sales, sales of million-dollar homes, profits of big corporations, and the record highs being added on the rich list. It is interesting to hear him talk about it. He still puts his faith in trickle-down theories, but 30 years of increasing inequality, increasing child poverty, and a shrinking middle New Zealand clearly says otherwise.

Unlike milking cows, this Government is milking New Zealand, and it is called “trickle up”, not trickle down, which would explain why the chequebook is always open for big business but not for Pike River families. It is why it is happy for the employment law to be changed for Warner Bros but there is not even a chance of an inquiry for the families of dead forestry workers. It is why the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment would be happy to cough up a hundred grand for an Auckland to Invercargill yacht race that never happened but the Ministry of Social Development cut a similar amount from a trust that helps disabled children. It is why there is a billion dollars of tax cuts for the richest New Zealanders but the most vulnerable get booted when they cannot get a job. It explains why elite private schools get tens of millions of taxpayer funding, while a decile 1 Christchurch school gets unlawfully shut down.

It explains why major supermarkets are posting record profits and mums and dads with good jobs struggle to keep up with the bills. It is why power companies are raking in super-profits and retirees are going without heating because they cannot afford to open their power bills. It is why the stockbrokers who helped John Key sell our assets made over $150 million on clipping the ticket while manufacturers that are trying to sell real value-added Kiwi-made goods get a high dollar and lay-offs. It is why a select few are making millions on investment property tax-free and everybody else who works hard, plays by the rules, and earns a salary or a wage pays tax on every dollar they earn. The top 1 percent under John Key owns 16 percent of the wealth, and the bottom half owns only one-twentieth.

Like I said, the Government is arrogant, out of touch, and out for its mates. I am struck by just how out of touch it is when I hear Mr Key talking about safe and skilled workplaces—tell that to the families of the dead forestry workers or the miners—and about a so-called commitment to export markets, which is code for trade deals he will not even let the public see. There is one commitment that New Zealand would like to see, and that is a commitment to lowering our dollar right now, because the Reserve Bank says that we are 15 percent overvalued, and that adds up to jobs lost and families ruined. And that is not even scratching the surface. Listen to the Prime Minister and his southern henchman Mr English and Mr Joyce and they will tell you that you should count yourself lucky, that this is as good as it gets, and that there is no alternative. I will tell you something. There is an alternative, and that is called a new Labour-led Government.

Just yesterday in my state of the nation speech I outlined the vision for a better New Zealand, a fairer New Zealand, one where everybody has the opportunity to make the most of themselves—the kinds of opportunities that both the Prime Minister and I had when we were young. Neither of us came from families that had any money. We both benefited from a good State school. We benefited from a good health system when my dad was desperately ill. But John Key has been pulling the ladder up after himself. He is continuing his 30-year project of widening the gap between the haves and have-nots, and that is not a future that we want for New Zealand. It is not one that New Zealanders want for themselves.

We are a fair nation and we value attributes like hard work and compassion and looking after each other, because we know that when some of us do well, we all should do well. It should not be to pit New Zealander against New Zealander. It should not be to pit the 1 percent against the 99 percent. I think that, actually, in his heart of hearts, that is something that even the Prime Minister recognised when he launched his little pet teacher bonus scheme last week. It was a pretty clumsy shot at softening his image. He even used the word “egalitarian” and—wait for it—a rugby analogy, and I just think that I am soon going to see a picture of him as an unidentified guest at a barbecue with Prince William. Predictable.

Never before, though, in all seriousness, has New Zealand faced the critical choices it faces now. We are at a crossroads. One path points to an increasingly fractured and divided society, a widening gap between the haves and the have-nots, a Government that is arrogant, out of touch, and out for its mates. We want a better, fairer New Zealand. The other path is one of courage, of compassion, and of ingenuity. We want a country that embodies all that is good about our past and combines it with our highest vision for a modern, fair, inclusive economy. It means building an economy worthy of our Kiwi values, a country based on those values—and with good clean water; the water in my glass just now was very good.

In that New Zealand a full day’s work will cover the basics. There will be more jobs available, and wages will catch up with prices. New Zealanders will pay what is fair whether it is for their power bill, their tax bill, or their grocery bill. Every child in the country will have what they deserve: a fair chance, an opportunity to make the best of themselves, to work hard and to get ahead, to start life healthy, to learn early, and to fulfil their potential.

It is not just the right thing to do, it is the smart thing to do, because when every Kiwi kid can be the best they can be, this country will be the best it can be. It will be a successful economy with strong regions, with investment, with training, and with research and development, not just a speculator’s paradise or some foreigner’s farm. It will be an economy with strong regions where there are good jobs for all who need them, a networked, digital economy with faster, cheaper broadband rolled out faster than those clowns could roll out a roll of toilet paper. It will be an economy with decent work, good conditions, high wages, and safe workplaces, an economy built on a world-leading education system with high-value exports.

New Zealand is not going to get rich by exporting raw logs or raw milk powder or bulk fish caught on foreign vessels by foreign crews who are not paid the minimum wage, who do not pay tax in New Zealand, and who export the processing offshore; or by a freezing industry riddled with overcapacity that is now exporting whole carcasses so somebody else can cut them up and add the value; or by limiting a technology industry with inadequate, overpriced broadband—[Interruption] I say to Ms Adams—or by cutting research and development funding for our most innovative industries.

Over the next few months the Labour Party will be launching a series of joined-up policy packages designed to rebuild and rebalance this economy, from this country, from local communities up, and with it we will outline how the economy needs to work for New Zealanders both now and in the future. We started yesterday with our Best Start package, a set of policies that is about giving the next generation the best start possible: 59,000 families with newborn babies will receive a Best Start payment of $60 a week for the first year of the child’s life. The investment will go to all families with a combined income of $150,000 or less in their first year, and it will give them more choices about how they juggle work and home life. We need to keep easing the pressure for modest and middle-income families beyond the first year. That is why for those families earning up to $50,000, the payment of $60 will continue unabated to the child’s third birthday.

I also announced that we will be increasing free early childhood education to 25 hours, up from 20 hours. We all know that early childhood education makes a real difference, and the experts tell us that the return is $11 for every $1 invested. Alongside that we need to expand access to early childhood centres, because free hours are not enough if you have not got a centre to study in, and we need to restore funding for qualified teachers.

Why is it that that Prime Minister will pay bonuses to high school principals and cut funding for early childhood educators? Come to think of it, why is it that Hekia Parata cuts teacher development for all teachers so that the National Government can pay bonuses to a few top teachers? Does it want elites in our schools as well as everywhere else? Oh, I forgot. You are allowed more subsidies if you are a private school, or a charter school, where you do not have to teach the New Zealand curriculum, you do not even have to have a qualified teacher, and you are not subject to the Official Information Act. For that special treatment, you get paid extra by the National Government.

By contrast, in partnership with communities, Labour will fund the development of early childhood education centres in lower-income communities to ensure there are places for every Kiwi kid, and we are committed to funding 26 weeks of paid parental leave for every New Zealand family that needs it. This is interesting. What are members opposite going to do? They told us that they were committed to working this through. Now they say that they are going to veto our bill just so that they can bring in a smaller one of their own. That is like John Key saying to Barack Obama: “No, you can have your driver back. I’m going to drive with the putter.” It is the sort of lack of integrity that people are coming to expect from a Government that is not looking after New Zealanders but is just looking after its mates.

Success in the early years involves health as well as education. That is why we are going to make sure pregnant mums get booked in for antenatal checks at 10 weeks. That is why every expectant mum will be able to get free childcare training classes when they are pregnant, that is why we will extent well child checks, and that is why we will provide early access to early childhood education for those families who need it. The Best Start package will ensure parents have more choices and better support so that their kids get better opportunities and New Zealand gets a better future.

I am reminded of Mr Key’s comments a few years ago, when he described women on the DPB as “breeding for a business”. How telling about Mr Key’s values. This is a morally bankrupt Government. It is old, it is tired, and it is, as we can see from the number of Nats getting off the sinking ship, on its way out—on its way out. The challenge before New Zealanders in this decisive election year is to restore values, restore heart, restore opportunity, and restore equality.

The Labour-led Government is waiting to take New Zealand forward. We are waiting for this Government to hasten out of office so that this country can get a new tomorrow, a best start for our kids, a best start for New Zealand. Thank you.

Dr RUSSEL NORMAN (Co-Leader—Green): The 2014 election offers New Zealanders the opportunity to make history by electing the first genuinely progressive Government in more than a generation. The 2014 election offers New Zealanders the opportunity to make history by voting for a strong Green Party at the heart of a progressive Government. There are few elections that can genuinely claim to be turning points in history, few elections that can genuinely claim to be forks in the road of history, but the 2014 election will be such an election. The result of this election will be either a forward-looking, progressive Government—a reforming Government in the tradition of Seddon, Savage, and Kirk—or a right-wing, throwback Government, the likes of which we have not seen since Ruth Richardson.

In the last 24 hours the contrasting values of these two alternatives have been very clear. The Green Party has proposed spending $100 million a year to ensure that poor kids at school have food in their stomachs and access to health care. The National Party has attacked this policy, yet this is the same National Party that is spending $1,000 million a year on tax cuts for the top 10 percent of income earners. Green Party values lead us to prioritise spending $100 million a year giving food and health care to hungry, sick New Zealand schoolchildren. National Party values lead it to prioritise spending 10 times that amount—$1 billion a year—giving more money to the top 10 percent of income earners. The choice of values is stark. Is it any wonder that the Prime Minister’s statement did not mention children? In 2014 New Zealanders will get to choose which kinds of values they want in their Government.

New Zealand has a strong history of world-leading, progressive, reforming Governments. The Liberal Government of the 1890s introduced the old-age pension and women’s suffrage. The Liberals worked with unions to protect working people while developing the New Zealand economy. They started our public health system. Forty years after the great reforms of the Liberals, in the 1930s, the Savage Government led the world in introducing a social welfare State that treated people with humanity in the midst of the Great Depression. The social and economic policies introduced by the Savage Government led the world, and after the Second World War they were adopted and admired across the world. The New Zealand economy boomed under the settings established by Savage. Forty years after the reforms of the Savage Government, the 1970s Kirk Government updated the welfare State by introducing such things as a domestic purposes benefit for single mums. It staked out an independent South Pacific foreign policy by protesting against French nuclear testing. It stood up to apartheid by blocking the tour of an apartheid rugby team, because, unlike our current Prime Minister, “Big Norm” knew whether he was for or against apartheid. It established the Waitangi Tribunal and returned the minimum wage to 66 percent of the average wage.

These three progressive reforming Governments—Seddon, Savage, and Kirk—were far from perfect, and some of Seddon’s views on race were offensive, but they changed the course of history and they made life better for ordinary New Zealanders. They set up New Zealand as a world leader. Forty years after the Kirk Government, it is time again for a new wave of progressive Government reform in New Zealand. It is time to refresh the progressive vision for Aotearoa New Zealand. It is time for a Green Government. It is time for a Green Government that reinvigorates our common, progressive commitment to the values of egalitarianism, sovereignty, and democracy. More than that, we need a Green Government that integrates these historically important progressive values with the new, modern values of sustainability. We need a Green Government committed to fairness, independence, democracy, and sustainability.

The next wave of progressive change that is sweeping the world is green. The green revolution is transforming the way we live on planet Earth as we learn to live good lives on a finite planet with limited natural resources. We are learning to access the unlimited resources of human creativity, ingenuity, and generosity in order to live prosperous lives within limited natural resources. That is why smart and green go together. We need to learn how to live smarter so that we can have prosperity while recognising the natural limits of a finite planet. Unleashing human innovation, creativity, and generosity so that we can all live good lives while loving and protecting our natural environment is what the green movement is all about.

History is, of course, littered with those who said that progressive change was not possible, those who opposed women’s suffrage, racial equality, the welfare State, homosexual law reform, public health, and public education. They opposed nuclear-free New Zealand and cannot remember whether they are for or against apartheid. They said that clean energy was impossible. How wrong they were. Renewable electricity generation is now the fastest-growing sector of electricity generation in the world, set to overtake gas generation as the second-largest source of electricity in the world in the next couple of years, according to the International Energy Agency. Green jobs are the fastest-growing sector of the economy. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics found that the greener the industry, the higher the rate of job growth over the last decade. The clean energy future is here, and those who railed against it are now seeing our new reality happening before their very eyes. So, yes, there are those who will rail against history and against the green movement, but they have always been there, and yet we have made history before and we will make it again.

But as I said at the start of this speech, this election is a turning point. Although on the one hand we have the choice of a genuinely progressive Government, the alternative if the current Government is given a third term will be a very different Government from that elected in 2008. It will be a hard right Government, economically, environmentally, and socially, beholden to the damaged and discredited ACT Party, United Future party, and Conservative Party.

John Key’s claim to be a moderate has evaporated over the last couple of years. He has overseen increasing water pollution, blocked attempts to set strong rules to clean up our rivers, and subsidised polluting irrigation schemes. The Government has destroyed a price on carbon and subsidised fossil fuels, with the result that New Zealand’s greenhouse emissions are projected to increase 50 percent above 1990 levels by 2030 according to the Ministry for the Environment’s own projections.

This Government has made it much harder for people just to get by. There are 50,000 more people unemployed than when John Key first came to power. Median household income has fallen 4 percent after inflation under this National Government. Electricity prices were up 3 percent last year, despite falling demand. Rising mortgage rates this year will wipe out any pay increases many families get. This Government has failed to manage the economy. Its irresponsible tax cuts to the top 10 percent, costing $1.1 billion a year, have contributed to National’s record borrowing. In just 6 years National has borrowed more than all prior Governments combined. National’s economic priority, asset sales, has failed and has cost taxpayers $440 million so far.

But this will be nothing compared with what will happen if the National Party is re-elected. The first thing, I bet, is that John Key will not stay a full term as Prime Minister. He will be replaced by someone even further to the right, like Steven Joyce or Judith Collins. The second thing is that National can be re-elected only if it has the support of the Conservative Party, a party that wants to roll back all of the gains made in the last 30 years for the rights of women, gay and lesbian New Zealanders, and children. Such a hard right Government will further turn its back on science—climate science in particular, as Tony Abbott is doing across the Ditch. Such a hard right Government will take away the ladder of opportunity that many of us here climbed to achieve our potential. It will embrace the politics of the conservative right, which believes that a woman’s place is in the kitchen and a gay man’s place is in the closet, and it will turn its back on New Zealand’s opportunity to be a world leader in green economics and green jobs. That is what we will get if we have a third term of a National Government. The choice is stark: a broad, inclusive, progressive, reforming Government or a narrow, ideological Government of the far right.

Alongside the historic gains in economic, social, and environment policy that have been achieved over the years by progressive activists and Governments, there is one other important achievement that is worth celebrating this year, and that is the proportional voting system, MMP. The year 2014 is the 18th anniversary of MMP. MMP has come of age. The new generation of voters who will get to vote for the first time this year has known New Zealand only under MMP. These young voters did not have to experience what it was like to vote in a first-past-the-post election, with the winner-takes-all system that left the majority of voters without representation in the Government. First past the post produced Governments that had the support of a minority of voters but that had almost absolute power. It probably seems inconceivable to those young voters that we had elections where a party could have a majority of MPs and form a Government with only 35 percent of the vote, as was the case with the National Government elected in 1993.

Under MMP a party share of the popular vote is directly proportional to its share of seats in Parliament. Those who campaigned for MMP, like Rod Donald, were working to deepen and strengthen our democracy, but under this Government democracy is being hollowed out. Under this Government New Zealand has been denied the best of MMP. In fact, John Key is now telling us that he should automatically get to form the next Government and be Prime Minister even if he has the support of only a minority of voters. It is worth repeating this, because it is quite outrageous: the Prime Minister is saying that he should get to lead the next Government even if he has the support of only a minority of voters. That is his take on democracy. I do not think that he really understands why New Zealanders voted for MMP.

MMP was about bringing an end to the era where one person, like Robert Muldoon or Roger Douglas or Ruth Richardson, could force through their unpopular agenda. But John Key and Steven Joyce have returned us to that world MMP was meant to be about Governments respecting the opinions of others. Coalition Governments, cross-party select committees—these were supposed to mean something, to be a check on executive power rather than the rubber stamp they have become.

But this Government has used its power to ignore the will of the people. It showed its arrogance and blatantly flouted democracy by publicly stating before voting had even begun that it would ignore the results of the citizens initiated referendum on asset sales. We saw exactly the same behaviour when this Government decided to ignore the results of the MMP review for purely partisan, political reasons. New Zealanders voted to keep MMP at the 2011 referendum, and then thousands of New Zealanders took part in the review to make MMP even fairer. The Government was given a very clear steer by the public and the independent umpire, the Electoral Commission, on what changes the public wanted—in particular, abolishing the coat-tailing provision, which has allowed this National Government to do its dirty deals and cobble together a Government. Acting in pure self-interest, National ignored the will of the people and left MMP unchanged. It undermined our electoral system, and now John Key is doing dirty coat-tailing deals all over the country just to keep his political options alive in this election.

MMP is not supposed to be about one party struggling to maintain power by relying on a couple of dodgy hangers-on. MMP is not about the biggest minority party automatically having the right to govern. It is about forming Governments with majority support. But this Government, with its single-vote majority and its unstable and unethical coalition reliant on disgraced MPs, has forced things through against the will of the majority of New Zealanders. Entirely because of the support of Peter Dunne and John Banks, this Government has been allowed to pass into law a series of obscene policies.

Firstly, it sold off the assets built up over generations, transferring the wealth from the 99 percent to the 1 percent. It attacked our privacy, our freedom, and our liberty. It passed the Search and Surveillance Bill, the Government Communications Security Bureau Amendment Bill, and the Telecommunications (Interception Capability and Security) Bill. The role of the State is supposed to be to protect human rights and civil liberties, but instead the National Party has passed laws that restrict our freedom of expression and our freedom to live free from State surveillance. It attacked local democracy as well as removing the vote from Cantabrians even before the earthquake. It also showed that it does not understand, respect, or trust local government or local communities by undermining the independence of local government.

The National Government attacks the most vulnerable people in our society: the sick, the young, vulnerable women, and the disabled and those caring for them. It introduced unacceptable discrimination into our law through youth rates, telling young people they are not worthy of our respect, and reinforced New Zealand as a low-wage economy. With the support of the Māori Party it removed the rights of family carers of disabled people to have their day in court. It rushed that law change through this Parliament in a single day. Muldoon would be proud.

The National Government attacks the environment. It weakened the emissions trading scheme, facilitated the exploitation of schedule 4 conservation land, and polluted our rivers. It threatened to lock up the defenders of the environment if they went anywhere near an oil rig or an oil vessel. It facilitated a morally contemptible, dirty, dodgy deal, swapping gambling laws for a convention centre. All of these disgraceful changes to our laws were possible only because of the support of Peter Dunne, whom the Prime Minister tells us he does not trust, and John Banks, who is in front of the courts for electoral fraud. This is how this Government has undermined the promise of MMP and our democracy.

But New Zealanders can take back the power this year. New Zealanders have a real chance to elect a truly modern MMP coalition. True MMP is about stable government where the majority of New Zealanders are represented in a strong coalition of strong partners. It is about principled parties coming together and working towards policies that meet the needs of New Zealanders. It is about a Government that is representative and has a range of smart new voices at the table. This is what MMP should be. This is what those who fought for MMP were fighting for.

As MMP turns 18 it is time for New Zealand to have a true MMP Government—MMP as it should be. It is time for a strong, progressive Government. It is time for a Green Government. The Green Party is ready to govern. We are ready to sit at the table and deliver real gains for real people. Yes, we will compromise—MMP requires that of all partners in a coalition—but we will not compromise on our principles or our values. We have the ideas, the experience, and the credentials. We have been a parliamentary voice for change since 1999, and we are more than ready to make a real green change in Government. We have stable leadership supported by our team of MPs who are smart, progressive, forward thinkers. We have an experienced party organisation and a strong grassroots membership. We have made real changes already in New Zealanders’ lives. We have warmer homes, cleaner food, and better transport options as a result of our work. We set the agenda and we follow through with solutions. In Government we will achieve even more. A strong Green Party in Government will focus on building a sustainable economy, dismantling inequality, and protecting our environment. We will build on our wins to make sure that we have a smarter, cleaner, more compassionate country for all New Zealanders. Bring on the election.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First): The Prime Minister wants the House to express its confidence in the National Government. Well, we do not. The plan outlined by the Prime Minister for 2014 brought to mind the word “hoover”—not the great water dam in the United States, and not the first FBI boss in the United States, but the vacuum cleaner. You know why? Because it sucks. John Key has spent too long running around after the movie moguls. He is in his own fantasy land. His speech had the most confused start of any speech that I have ever heard by a party leader in this House—the most confused start that I have ever heard.

And then the anxiety when he looked to Gerry for help! His speech should have been an honest and objective statement of the conditions facing the country, the challenges ahead, and the solutions the Government has to offer, which are all the big things that matter to ordinary people. Instead, it was pure spin and manipulation and deceit, and incorrect statements. New Zealand Prime Ministers of the past would have been embarrassed to have spouted such dribble. I think that a leadership spill in the National Party is not long away. Gerry is smiling, because he may be able to get on the right side and perhaps prolong his already far too long career. But I know that it is going on. My inside information tells me that.

National is a Government of non-achievers with a woeful record of failure. It always puts the interests of foreign big business ahead of ordinary New Zealanders. It keeps selling valuable State assets in a process that can only be characterised as economic madness. Here are some of the many examples of economic failure. There are 150,000 New Zealanders unemployed, while immigrant work visas and permanent residencies—

David Bennett: Come on—anti-immigration.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: —are sold like expensive bus tickets. That member saw Campbell Live last night. He should watch it again tonight. All over the country it is going on, and the member from Hamilton East, Mr Bennett, thinks it is a laughing matter. It is not. It is an abomination to a First World country and to First World laws. There is a housing crisis, but the Government refuses to acknowledge that migrant numbers and overseas speculators are creating havoc and are cheating Kiwis out of a decent home. There is not one country in Asia that would tolerate such a policy. The Government could not find one politician in Asia who would support such a policy, so why is it doing it to its own people?

Nothing has been done to address the massive overseas debt. Here is what is worse—the Prime Minister did not admit it, but it is all in the documentation—the massive overseas debt is not coming down; it is going up. That is why he uses 2020 figures and 2021 figures. Look, he will be gone a long time before that. In fact, there will not be one member there left—possibly we will be, for obvious reasons. But there will not be one member there left, and those members are using figures that they first started to use in 2008—12 years away from 2020—and now they are still talking about 2020 like they are going to hold on until then. I do not think so. It is still rising. The exchange rate is crippling exporters and manufacturers, and again the Government refuses to act. It is paralysed. Worse still, it contemplates an official cash rate rise shortly, which will boot up mortgage rates, and then what will happen as well is that it will kick up the exchange rate even further.

Here it is today: Mr English, trying to show that he is in control. He says he is concerned about the high exchange rate, and that it was a concern for the economy. Whoop-de-do! We have got a finance Minister—

Grant Robertson: The penny’s dropped!

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: The penny has finally dropped. He has been here for far too long. He has been the finance Minister for far too long. You have got people saying that our currency will possibly reach parity with Australia. It is doing enormous damage to an export-dependent nation, and what does he say? “Well, so, it’s a bit of a concern.” Oh, and this is what he also said, though. He said this, which absolutely belies what the Prime Minister was saying: “I think it’s too high, yes, and I think the Australian economy is a bit stronger relative to ours.”—relative to ours.

Grant Robertson: That’s a concession.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: That is a concession. He says that that indicates that, all in the one quote. In the House, and out in front of the National Party’s cannon fodder, he persuades them by saying one thing, but privately he has to admit that things are seriously going wrong with the high currency.

Andrew Little: Amazing what a week in Davos does.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Yeah, well, that is what a week in Davos does. Mind you, half of that backbench over there do not know where Davos is.

Andrew Little: They thought it was on the West Coast!

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Those members think it is on the West Coast, between Hokitika and Greymouth. Worse still, as I say, they contemplate the official cash rate going up, and up will go the dollar even further. And then they will say: “Well, that’s a sign of a healthy economy.” It is unbelievable the kind of economic drivel that they get people like Mr Hayes and Mr Bennett to keep on repeating. I know those two gentlemen, and privately they are alarmed. They know in their hearts that that threatens their election prospects. I know Mr Hayes is smart. He is jumping ship now. He is getting out now. He is getting pushed, and he is jumping now because he is wise. He does not want to be standing around amidst the mayhem and debris of chaos, post election night 2014, whenever National flies the white flag. Mr Hayes is an experienced man. He knows he can smell danger. Mr Bennett should pay attention, as Mr Hayes can help you.

Let us look specifically at the economy. No effort will be spared by the National Party to pump up the feel-good factor in advance of the 2014 election. “Mr Spray and Walk Away” thinks he can pull it off one more time, but I have got bad news for him. He cannot—he cannot. All the storm clouds are assembling now. Within the National Party ranks, they look ready now for an alternative leader.

Hon Members: Ha, ha!

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Oh yes, they are. Just because Hekia Parata is not part of the cabal does not mean it is not going on. In fact, I think Hekia will be the first tragedy when it takes place. There will be lots of talk of an economy firing on all cylinders, the rock-star economy, which still cannot match New Caledonia, by the way, going at 3.5 year after year. National has had stagnated, bottlenecked, corked-up growth, it gets it for a temporary, 1-year term, and it starts talking about the rock-star economy. What a joke. No effort will be made to dispel or challenge the spin that New Zealand is a rock-star—a superstar—economy. Well, look at all the fundamentals. It ain’t true. A responsible Government would have immediately corrected this sort of false and misleading claptrap.

Let me sound a warning about this rock-star economy. It is only a suggestion, Gerry, but do not forget who is making it. Treasury has never won a Grammy award for accuracy of its forecasts. It has never won—

Hon Member: Who wrote that, Winnie?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Well, actually, Treasury wrote it. Thanks for asking the question. I could not have done better myself for timing. It is here and it says this—this is from November last, the 5 months ended 30 November: “The operating balance before gains and losses (OBEGAL) was in deficit by $2.3 billion, which was around $400 million more than expected, mainly due to lower core Crown tax revenue.” Who wrote that? Why, it is from the Government itself! It is from the Financial Statements of the Government of New Zealand for the 5 months ended 30 November 2013. You see, an $86 million surplus is cigarette-paper thin, and you are getting there because the Government is suspending spending, like, for example, on overseas aid, whereas the others spent $92 million last year, and like, for example, suspending certain roading projects. Just hold them back. Those members think: “We will get a surplus any which way we can, like we will hold back some Waitangi settlements. We will not pay out to these victims of the Viet Nam War. We just will not do anything like that there, and we think we will con our way through it.” I have to tell those members that it has all been tried before and it always fails. Do not let it happen again.

As I said, only a few days ago Treasury forecast that this so-called deficit was not going to be what it thought it would be. National, aided and abetted by its pet intellectuals—and, yes, its puppets, bank economists, money traders, and corporate cheerleaders—will put a positive spin on every bit of economic news, even when it is bad. The facts are staring us in the face. Our manufacturers and exporters will get no help, with an overvalued dollar. Bill English said today about the Aussie dollar itself that it is going up by the day. It will keep going up, as I said, if interest rates are increased. But National could not care less about every manufacturer, whether they have closed or moved offshore. In the halcyon days of our great country, when National was a good party and knew what it was doing, and had practical men of experience, we used to rock on at 4.5 percent per year and manufacturing was 33 percent of our economy—the GDP. Now it is 13 percent and falling, and the Government has no plan, because manufacturing means offshore exports and it means jobs. It does not have a plan. Its plan is hands-off and to let the free market work it out.

I know the apologist from Epsom thinks that that is a great policy. He also thinks that pulling down your hoardings when you are campaigning—not on election eve, which the law requires. No, he pulls them down during the actual campaign itself.

Paul Goldsmith: You couldn’t win an electorate.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Oh, really? Let me tell that member that I have won electorates that no one else could win. We won all the Māori seats once. Nobody else would be able to do that. We won all of them.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: What happened then?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: What happened was they got duped by their National Party colleagues and failed to show the loyalty, and that is why the National Party is now in trouble. It is because the Māori Party that they put—

David Bennett: Andrew Williams wants to go.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: No, no. Mr Key made a speech last week, if you recall, and all of sudden he says: “Oh, we will be happy to talk to New Zealand First.” You know, it is a bit like that famous quote from Jesse Jackson, when he said that it seems like that when Santa Claus is running into heavy weather, he decides that now he will call upon Rudolph. It is unbelievable—unbelievable.

There is no basis for this National Government to boast about its economic record. Export prices for dairy produce have been at record levels. New Zealand has been the beneficiary of the best terms of trade for 40 years. There is nothing great or glorious about 150,000 New Zealanders not being able to get a job. What is so brilliant about creating a speculative housing bubble for foreign speculators in Auckland? Is this part of some brilliant economic plan known only to the inner circle, or what they have politely termed the “kitchen cabinet”? Do you see that phrase the “kitchen cabinet”? Well, I know some of them have spent too much time in the kitchen, but they do not make a good—

Denis O’Rourke: Or in the dining room.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Or they are the product of the kitchen, but they are not a kitchen cabinet. As I said, New Zealand’s external balance sheet is in an awful state. The dollar is going up, and over the past 5 years National has failed totally to diversify our economic base. We are now even more vulnerable to what is known as a black swan, or an unforeseen event or shock. That is where we sit today, and wise people have said it.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: What about the film industry?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Nick Smith asks what I will do about it. Well, let me tell you. We have an economy based on, or characterised by, one dominant export product, which is milk powder; one dominant export company, which is Fonterra; one dominant export market, which is China; and one dominant import, which is people—immigration. That is not a plan that a party calling itself National, which would evince putting its people first, should ever be proud of.

David Bennett: Anti-migrants—anti-migration.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: The stark, ugly truth is that New Zealand is nowhere near paying its way in the world, Mr Bennett. It is clear that this Government is clueless as to how to address that.

Young New Zealanders have been betrayed by this Government. Their hopes of homeownership have been snatched away. Barely any young couple can save at the speed of soaring house price inflation, and, Mr Bennett, you cannot save that fast, either. No member over there can save that fast—oh, maybe Mr Key can. But, of course, that is Merrill Lynch. The rest cannot. None of those members can save that fast, to match housing inflation. Young New Zealanders struggle under the burden of student debt, and their prospects of a decent, secure, and well-paying job have been trashed by wholesale immigration policies.

Immigration is the most thriving and corrupt industry in New Zealand today. It is not a laughing matter. It is all laid out there, and you will hear a lot more as these few months unfold in the term to come. Incredibly, over 150,000 migrant work visas were issued in the year to June 2013—150,000. Today the Prime Minister announced more work visas, and the whole process, he said, of issuing visas is going to be sped up. Apply online—get a visa online. Come to New Zealand and take a Kiwi’s job! This is lunacy and it is going to be stopped.

David Bennett: Are you going to stop it?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Most certainly it is going to be stopped.

Just a point on what the Prime Minister claimed in the House this afternoon. He said that the Hobbit movies created 5,500 jobs. That is what he said. They know over there that that statement is bulldust.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: No, it’s not.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Oh no? Well, this is direct from the Prime Minister’s office—his senior adviser. It says this: “The PM was asking yesterday for the total number of people who will work on both Hobbit movies. The context, if he is asked about Labour’s industrial relations policy and how it might impact on the New Zealand film industry, is he can say something like ‘About 3,000 people will work on the Hobbit movies.’ If that policy had been in place, then all those people might never have got a job.” So it is 3,000 by guess here; now it is 5,500. But he is not going to get away with that sort of stuff in this campaign—oh no, sirree. We will be waiting there every time he tells a porky—wahoo, exposure. He goes on to say this: “Would it be possible to get an estimated number—just to the nearest 500 or 1,000 would be fine.” That is straight from the senior adviser of the Prime Minister, and the Prime Minister gets up in the House and tells people something else. He is misleading the House again.

The Government has no idea of who or what is coming into the country. Why should New Zealanders give up their jobs to immigrants? The Government is not loyal to the people of this country. Sure, it is a Government for the people. Sure, National is a Government for the people—the people of China, India, anywhere but New Zealand. The winter is going to be tough. Jobs will be hard to get and power bills are going through the roof. As for the statement about increasing competition in the electricity industry—well, that was pure garbage. We all know we have got a price-fixing cartel operating here. Domestic consumers pay up to three times more for their power than big companies do, and many small businesses and domestic consumers are being ripped off. We all know it. It is an exercise in deception, as is the broadband roll-out. A Southern Cross cable conglomerate of Telecom and Chorus is exploiting New Zealand, the Government, and the taxpayers, because the Government is paying them more than twice what it is worth—over $1 billion. Somehow the Government is trying to put across that it is doing consumers a favour, when they have actually been ripped off.

It is just like the plan for the police. It is all about glib words. Do you know what the Government said today? It said that the Government is going to reduce the rate of crime by 15 percent—the rate of violent crime by 15 percent and the rate of youth crime by 25 percent. What a brazen abuse of figures and statistics. It sounds something like the police files out of North Korea and Pyongyang. It does not sound like a First World country. Has the Government told offenders how much to reduce their offending? Who is negotiating with the criminal community over these statistics? It is an absolute fact that if you do not have sufficient law enforcement resources, then you will not have the capacity to fight crime and much crime will go unreported. We know that on that matter, New Zealand First is the only party with a great record. Last time we had the power, we got 1,000 extra frontline police, just like that. Now the Government runs around the place talking about the police resources.

The Government is even claiming that they brought in free medicine for under-6-year-olds.

Hon Members: Oh!

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: No, Mr Key is claiming that boldly out on the public stage. Thank heavens people remember. [Bell rung] Two minutes to go, Mr Speaker? One minute to go? Wonderful. That will be enough to finish off this party.

What we have heard today, if you look at the penultimate page, is a statement about taking steps this year to introduce a National match-fixing policy. That is what we heard today—National’s match-fixing policy for the election. If you cannot win the game, cheat or fix it. Well, we are on red alert and ready to hand out a card. We cannot say it will be a red card. We cannot say it will be a green card. We cannot say it will be a yellow card. But we most definitely can say that it will be a white card. It will be a white and black card as soon as National—as it will—flies the white flag.

One last statement: remember what Mr Key said about the SIS raid last year? He said he did not know about it. We will prove in this House that he did.

Hon TARIANA TURIA (Co-Leader—Māori Party): Mr Speaker, may I formally acknowledge you and all other members at the onset of this important year, a year in which I hope we can genuinely work together for the best interests of all who call this land home. For many political commentators, the year begins with the annual pilgrimage to Rātana Pā. I acknowledge, therefore, the enduring legacy of Tahupōtiki Wīremu Rātana, the significance of his teachings encompassed in the Ture Wairua, and the ongoing relevance of his message for Ture Tangata. The message of Ture Tangata, of course, deals with te mana motuhake, the concerns of tangata w’enua for our land claims, and our rights and responsibilities as embodied in Te Tiriti o Waitangi. It is a very strong basis for establishing our priorities for the year, and it is always pleasing when those coming to the pā acknowledge those dual objectives of our nationhood.

This year, however, Winston Peters chose the moment to attack the Māori Party for what he labelled apartheid policies. I cannot let such an outrageous claim stand, and I have deliberately waited for this first speech in the House this year to remind all politicians of our moral and ethical responsibility in the use we make of language for effect. For the record, the crime of apartheid, as stated by the 2002 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, is defined as inhumane acts of crimes against humanity “committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systemic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other”.

In South Africa the Government implemented a regime of apartheid with penalties such as fines, imprisonment, and whippings. In 1960 a large group of black citizens in Sharpeville refused to carry their passes, and in retaliation the Government declared a state of emergency for 156 days, leaving 69 people dead and 187 wounded. Thousands of individuals died in custody, frequently after gruesome acts of torture. How, then, does this crime against humanity apply to the introduction of Whānau Ora?

Whānau Ora is about empowering and enabling families to set their own priorities to focus on outcomes. Common themes in w’ānau plans include better lives for children, employment, housing and homeownership, education and skills development, and health and cultural wellness. Presumably, this is the nature of what Mr Peters labelled sociological objectives, which are of no interest to Māoridom at all. Although it is pleasing to note that in a different waka Mr Cunliffe stated that he would listen to the voices of Māoridom as to where they want to take Whānau Ora, in the next breath he admitted that he would not be keeping the policy going as it is, suggesting that Whānau Ora is not something Labour would limit to Māori and that Labour wants to extend it to community service agencies and NGOs around the country.

This too must be challenged. Whānau Ora is available to any family—any family—who wants to support and accept responsibilities and obligations to one another. The days are gone when progress is measured by what others do to families in the name of development. Whānau Ora is not about being done to, or being on behalf of, others. Whānau Ora, contrary to the view above, has been openly embraced by New Zealanders of all cultures and creeds and is about families standing confidently and being capable of taking care of their own. Call it transformation. Call it liberation. This is about a revolution of the masses to set their own direction. I really implore our political colleagues to think seriously before they jump in and attack merely for the sake of gaining traction on the hustings.

I would ask this House to think back to the debates around section 59 of the Crimes Act, where the use of violence as a means of disciplining children was outlawed, or, more recently, in the wonderful coalition of minds that came together for tobacco reform to ensure improved health outcomes for all New Zealanders. Both of these policy initiatives were championed by activists, lobbyists, health professionals, families, children’s advocates, academics, and communities. They came together to mobilise the masses in the interest of change. So when I look at the 160 providers that have entered into Whānau Ora and, most important, the 33,000 New Zealanders who have been touched by the impact of positive approaches for w’ānau and families, I know that we are observing a new form of political activism, driven by results and by widely felt support.

When people attempt to denigrate their efforts or think they can look from afar and want to meddle in the lives of participating families who have worked so hard to build their collective capacity, it makes no sense to me. These same people, who for years have created dependence on the State, cannot think that people can restore self-belief in what they can do for themselves. Our efforts this year will continue to strive for the highest results to make the lives of New Zealand families and w’ānau better. We will not resile from that pursuit of excellence at every encounter our families have with the State.

I for one fully support the Government’s mission of five out of five children succeeding in schools. I have no tolerance for accepting mediocrity when the future of our children is at stake, but I do not believe that simply pouring more personnel into the school grounds will necessarily bring the results. A chorus line of school nurses, social workers, cafeteria caterers, and the like will not make the difference we need, unless we actively enable our families to be in charge of supporting their children in their educational pathways. The Māori Party has consistently spoken up about the key priority to address income disparity, and we are relentless in our call for Government, business, and the private sector to take seriously the campaign for a living wage.

Finally, I want to address the myth-making that is associated with our role as a partner in Government. Our founding president, matua Whatarangi Winiata, always challenged the members of the Māori Party to lift our sights high, to do everything possible to herald improvements for all those who call Aotearoa home. Our current president, Naida Glavish, has continued this theme with a message that the days of doing the haka outside the fence are over. We have an absolute responsibility to anyone who places their faith in kaupapa Māori as a framework for this nation, and we will not let their aspirations be left to flounder by choosing to sit defeated on the Opposition benches.

Our reason for being is to apply every mechanism possible towards strengthening our w’ānau to do for themselves, and I make no apology for the investment that we have been able to negotiate in a stronger future. I am proud that through our work we have achieved an extra $47 million to support trade training places for 3,000 Māori and Pasifika peoples and an additional 400 cadets in the energy, infrastructure, and telecommunications industries. I am proud that we fought for an extra $100 million to insulate homes of low-income households—especially those with children with high needs—increased resources to reduce rheumatic fever, a warrant of fitness trial for Housing New Zealand properties, and 2,000 vege gardens. I am particularly pleased at the wide range of initiatives that we have championed to change social attitudes and increase the participation of disabled peoples in all aspects of life, and the progress made in enabling Māori and Pasifika families to confront and address family violence in their midst, and there is much more. The point is that if our greatest fault is that we have stepped up to make a difference for our constituency by working with this Government, then so be it.

Returning to Rātana, I want to end by talking about the absolute standout performance in the Rātana talent quest by a young Tūwharetoa singer called Jackson Owen, who will in a couple of weeks’ time be making his way to Florida to start his music career. Jackson was discovered when his w’ānau uploaded on YouTube tracks of him singing. If the last 24 hours have told us anything, with backing and support even a humble schoolgirl can overnight become a two-time Grammy award winner. Would it not be a great day when our combined efforts could reach across the House to make sure that every child experiences success, that every w’ānau knows the meaning of mauriora in their lives? That is a campaign that I am determined to uphold.

HONE HARAWIRA (Leader—Mana): Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. Tēnā koe whaea mō tērā kōrero.

[Thank you for that speech, Madam.]

Seeing as the Prime Minister may have missed the fact that while he was up in Hawaii playing golf and his MPs were sizing up more investment properties to buy for the biggest untaxed capital gains they could get, most Kiwi families were actually going backwards. Since Parliament last sat, housing has become even less affordable, more families have fallen behind in their rent, more families have been evicted, more families have shifted to caravan parks, the price of food and just about everything else has continued to rise, more jobs have become more precarious and more people have become poorly paid, more food parcels have been given out at food banks, more families have had their electricity cut off because they cannot pay the bill, more children are in hospital with poverty-related illnesses and diseases, and more children are regularly going hungry.

Big bank economists tell us we are about to benefit from a rock star economy in 2014, but that is rubbish. Everywhere in the world, the benefit of the economic recovery is going to the richest 1 percent while the 99 percent either stagnate or go backwards, and New Zealand is no exception. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer under a system where people strive to get as rich as they can and the winner is the person who has the most money when they die.

How crazy is that? How does that make sense when kids go hungry because families have to pay the rent, the electricity, the petrol for the car, doctors’ bills, and medical bills before they can even afford to buy food for the kids? But does this Government care? Not for 1 second.

Take loan sharks, for example. Six years ago this Government said it wanted to deal to loan sharks for preying on poor families. Well, what did it do? Nothing. Instead, it bailed out the banks, wealthy investors, and companies like South Canterbury Finance, which got a $1.7 billion taxpayer windfall, which in one single gift to the rich was more than the entire 22 years of Treaty of Waitangi settlements, where iwi ended up with less than 3 percent of what was stolen from them. Meanwhile, the victims of loan sharks are told that they have to pay up to 500-plus percent interest rates so that a small loan to pay a power bill rapidly becomes a crippling debt to the loan sharks, with no bailouts for the poor.

Housing is the same. Everyone knows that housing is becoming less affordable. Mortgages are through the roof, and as interest rates go up—it was in the paper this morning—so do rents. But this Government has no plans to create more affordable housing for low-income families who need them the most. In Glen Innes and elsewhere, the Government is actually pushing people off the waiting list, then telling everybody that State houses are no longer needed, and then bulldozing those homes so private developers can build mansions for the rich.

In education, the Government is also missing the mark. Instead of ensuring that every child can learn by adopting a comprehensive food in schools programme, as recommended by its own experts, it is focusing on a failed charter schools model from overseas and drop-in principals. We have all heard the drivel about how poverty has nothing to do with educational underachievement, but that is a refrain delivered only by those commentators who choose not to hear the advice and Governments that choose to ignore the inequality that is at the heart of increased social problems in low-income communities.

As for those jobs, Mr Key, are you happy that unemployment helps to keep wages down and to keep workers worrying that they might lose their jobs? Is it your plan that 260,000 workers cannot get a job or cannot get enough hours at work to pay for a decent chance in life for themselves and their families? Is it your plan that this Government has no policy at all to create meaningful employment, except to leave the fate of the worker in the hands of the free market? Instead, all we get is policy after policy, bill after bill, to take even more from low-income workers—employment rights, social support, tax dollars, and all of that—to feed oil and mining giants, property developers, foreign bankers, casino bosses, private consultants, and the like.

Families are struggling—Māori families, Pasifika families, and increasingly more Pākehā families—after decades of the deepest cuts this country has ever experienced. These cuts come from policies that have deliberately driven hundreds of thousands of families into poverty, policies that have led us to a direction that has been disastrous for all Kiwi families outside of the comfortable middle class and ruling elite, and a direction that has brought us to a critical crossroads in our lives. There is growing inequality, homelessness, and unemployment, and a growing population of working poor who cannot even make ends meet.

At the end of the last year, the world mourned the loss of Nelson Mandela and celebrated his momentous life. But Mandela was not just an anti-apartheid campaigner; he was also a fighter for the poor who once said: “Overcoming poverty is not a task of charity; it is an act of justice. Like slavery and apartheid, poverty is not natural. It is man-made and it can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings.” Mandela considered poverty to be one of the great evils of the world and believed there could be no freedom where poverty persists.

At the beginning of this new year, Mana stands resolute in our determination to find ways to eradicate poverty—particularly child poverty—wherever and however it may exist. We will do all we can to ensure that this issue is the issue by which political parties are measured by voters in 2014. Mana wants a new deal for Aotearoa—one based on everyone playing their part and everyone paying their way, not just families but Government and big business as well—and an economy where everyone can live in dignity and respect and where jobs are secure, hard work is rewarded, and people can earn enough to give their families a decent standard of living.

Mana is calling for homes for every Kiwi family—the building of 10,000 homes a year, especially for those on low incomes—until every child in every family is housed in a clean and warm home. This will create thousands of jobs in design, architecture, carpentry, cabinet making, painting, roofing, electrical work, plumbing, drainlaying, landscaping, roading, community infrastructure, and all the related jobs that come with a strong and vibrant housing sector. Mana will encourage immigrants to build new homes rather than buy existing ones, to increase the jobs in the housing sector and to keep the current housing stock for kiwis. And Mana will introduce a serious capital gains tax to force those with too many investment properties to sell back into the housing market, drive down the prices, and free up homes for those who can afford to buy but cannot find anything in the overheated market place.

Mana wants jobs for all and Government-created community work on an index minimum wage for everyone else who is able to work in hospitals, schools, old people’s homes, marae, sports clubs, local parks, and the like, giving people the opportunity to rebuild their confidence and develop basic work skills, while helping to revitalise their communities. Mana wants financing and mentoring for small business, because if you back small-business owners, they commit to a future in this country, rather than leave, and their success encourages their families to do the same.

Mana also calls for taxing the rich to free the poor, introducing a “Hone Heke tax” on all financial transactions, adding billions to the national budget and enabling Government to launch positive jobs programmes, feed the kids, provide a well-resourced and positive educational environment at all levels, reduce taxes for low-income earners, and abolish GST on food and essential services. Of course, Mana also supports taking back the power. In today’s world, access to a consistent and affordable supply of electricity is a staple part of life for all New Zealanders. It was never envisioned that it be owned by private investors. Mana supports reclaiming all electricity assets for the benefit of all citizens of Aotearoa.

Mana’s position is clear. This is not a time for tinkering. This is a time to be bold, to chart a new path, and to establish a new deal, where a life of dignity and respect is a birthright afforded to everyone. We call on all of the parties to rise to the challenge rather than surrender to the squabbling. Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, kia ora tātou katoa.

Hon JOHN BANKS (Leader—ACT): Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. The seeds of my political philosophy lie in my background. I am not sure how much the previous speaker, Hone Harawira, knows about child poverty. I know a lot about child poverty. I know what it is like to live in a house with no power and no running water; having a bath once a week in a 44-gallon drum cut in half; sleeping on straw covered with sacks; going to bed every night hungry, piddling the bed every night—psychologically disturbed—and being thrashed every morning for piddling the bed every night. I know what it is like going to school every day in an ex-army uniform with no shoes; spending all day, every day, out of the classroom stealing other kids’ lunches; going home to bread and milk—at best—at night, cooked over an open fire with sugar on top; if I am very lucky, taking Weet-bix covered in dripping to school each day; and living in a very dark hole. That is child poverty.

If I thought that the policies of the previous speaker from the Tai Tokerau would work against that—and they do exist; they do exist—I would go to the other side of the House and support him. I would be the first to line up to support him. Why would I not be the first to line up to support Hone Harawira if he had the answers to this country’s deep, deep vein of underprivilege, desperation, desolation, and despair that so many of our kids live under? If I thought that his policies were the answer, I would line up with him and I would say so.

But let me give him one ticket out of child poverty that he might like to think about. That one ticket is twofold: living in a home with unconditional love—and I never knew about that—and a world-class education. I did get that—a world-class education. If every one of his people lived in a home with unconditional love and access to a world-class education, then in a generation we would get rid of the deep vein of social deprivation and child poverty in this country. That is the ticket. That is the only ticket—not welfare, not big Governments, not more borrowing, and not more handouts. It is instilling in people that having children is a God-given right but an awesome responsibility, that love goes a long, long way, and that a world-class education is a ticket to the future for so many of these people whom the previous speaker talked about and represents to the best of his ability in this House. But he is misguided.

In a couple of weeks we are going to open the first charter school—they call it—in Northland. I do not mind whether they call it a charter school or whether they call them partnership schools, but this is what I can tell you. The first partnership school in Whangarei will open in 2 weeks’ time. As a private provider for the last 4 years it has taken 40 Māori boys and girls from the poorest, poorest families in the whole of the Tai Tokerau. It has boarded them in Whangarei, and it has given them an opportunity to go to the best State schools in Whangarei, mostly Whangarei Boys High School, and after school they are tutored. They get in that collective home unconditional love every day of the week and tutoring every night of the week. They feel a sense of purpose and direction.

Those young people sit National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) level 1 with a 100 percent pass rate, I say to the Minister of Finance, a 100 percent pass rate in that partnership school in Whangarei for the last 4 years, a 100 percent pass rate in NCEA level 1 in Whangarei with Māori boys who come from places that the previous speaker represents and knows nothing about. The previous speaker has a doctrine he peddles in this House that is bankrupt—more borrowing, more welfare, and less responsibility. He does it because he thinks there are votes in it. There are no votes in representing people who have no hope, and that member will not get up on his hind legs and say to this House: “I’m going to support the partnership school that has served my mokopuna in Tai Tokerau for so, so long.” That member and the Labour Party have promised to close down that school, which gets a 100 percent—100 percent—pass rate in NCEA level 1.

That is the ticket out of deprivation. That is the only way, the one-way street, the only way out of poverty in this country. It will take a generation, but this is what this Government is working on. It stands for bringing those people up. It is like high tides raising all boats. Lift the standards at the bottom and the high tide will rise and raise more boats—all boats. We have tried throwing money. We have tried borrowing money. We have tried big welfare. And what we do know is that any Government big enough to give you everything you want is a Government big enough to take from the hard workers everything they have.

So if we want to deal with the deep vein of social deprivation—and I do because I know what it is like, and it is a dark place, a very dark place—then we have to deal with the fundamentals of human behaviour: taking responsibility for your family, giving them unconditional love regardless of your status or your wealth, taking advantage of a world-class education that is there for you at the school down the street, and encouraging young people to do that. It will be a generation, but it will lift them out. If we want to empty the jails, we have got to educate the young people. If we want to get the health lists down, we have got to teach young people what it is like to be in charge of yourself and take responsibility for your own actions. Then we will make progress. But borrowing from the savings of offshore people to hand out to others in a country and mounting up the debt to the next generation is not the way we deal with poverty in this country.

Of course I support sandwiches and food in schools—by God, I would have loved some sandwiches and some food in school—but that is not the answer. The answer is getting the fundamentals of the New Zealand economy so that we are internationally competitive. I pay tribute to Bill English, whom I have worked with closely these last 2 years, who has done a remarkable job of turning this economy round. I give praise to the Prime Minister and Cabinet and the National Party caucus—my coalition partners—for taking tough decisions. The answer to child poverty, I say to the parliamentary Opposition, is not about taking others’ money and throwing it at a problem, because we have tried that and it has failed.

The answer is education. The answer is giving everybody the opportunity of the dignity of work, and you can have a job only if you are educated. And you can get educated only if you go to school. And you can go to school only if you come from a home that loves you. And the corollary to that is a dark place, and I know about living in dark places. So if we want to deal with the fundamental issues of about 20 percent of this country’s young people coming from dysfunctional homes and families, we have to deal with the causes, not with the political side effects for the purposes of getting a few votes.

Hon PETER DUNNE (Leader—United Future): I commend my colleague the Hon John Banks for his candour, for his courage, and for his plain speaking in the House this afternoon. It is a timely reminder to all of us, as this parliamentary year starts, about why we are here. Whatever our political perspective or our philosophies, my colleague’s speech has reminded us that, ultimately, the challenge all of us face and the responsibility we accept is to try to do good for our fellow New Zealanders through our service in this House, to make sure that every child gets the best start in life and that it is more than just a slogan, to make sure that families are valued as the cornerstone of our society, and to make sure that from good, strong families vibrant communities grow. They will be diverse. They will be different. While we hold, amongst our differences, the collective view that that is what we are about, our responsibility is to focus on the issues and to make sure that we make the best fist of what we have got, in order to achieve those goals for the people we represent.

And it is in that vein that I welcome our two new members who were sworn in today. I congratulate them on their election to this Parliament, I wish them well for the time they are here, and I look forward to the contribution they will make. If I can offer one word of advice, it is that when I first became a member of Parliament many years ago, an elderly predecessor in my seat, the Rt Hon Sir John Marshall, befriended me and gave me the advice that when you work on your maiden speech, do it from the perspective that every few years it is worth re-reading again to see whether you still hold true to the values you expressed in that speech. And use that opportunity not just to tell the electorate at large about you and what you stand for but to anchor your philosophy for the time you will be a member of Parliament. So I wish both those colleagues well.

Let me turn to the Prime Minister’s statement and say how delighted I was both at the announcement late last year and the reaffirmation in the statement today that the Transmission Gully motorway north of Wellington is to proceed this year. That has been a critical part of the confidence and supply agreement between United Future and National, it has been part of the Wellington agenda since about 1939 to have a coherent northern access and egress constructed as an alternative to what was then the goat track of Ngauranga Gorge, and it has been something that Wellingtonians for generations have held out there as some mystical thing that might one day appear, all the time having the sinking feeling in their stomachs that it will never happen. That yin and yang, if you like, of hope and missed opportunity was given a very confident stamp of approval by the Prime Minister before Christmas, and the people of the Wellington region look forward with confidence to the commencement of work on this long-overdue project during this year and will be casting their eyes very widely at other political parties to see what their intentions are with regard to its continuation and its development and its completion within the time frame that has been set out.

As recent events—as recent as last Monday—showed in this region, we are vulnerable to a major seismic event and in that eventuality our ability to get in and out of this place with any form of efficiency or rapidity will be severely compromised by the lack of an alternative to the existing access and egress points, so it is a vital part of our safety and our transport network and it will be very much welcomed by the people of this region.

Over the last few days the political debate for 2014 has started to take shape around the issue of what is the best way of delivering what looks like being a period of Government surplus to the benefit of the families of New Zealand. I am not going to play politics with some of the solutions that have been proposed, because I think there is merit in all of them, but there are also fish-hooks in all of them as well. The critical point is this: the Government already spends billions of dollars in assistance and support in various forms for the families of New Zealand. The Working for Families tax credit scheme is the obvious example. The changes made to personal tax rates, particularly the bottom two steps, in recent years is another. We have paid parental leave. We have various other forms of assistance. If one was to tally up the quantum, one would see that it is a very large figure, but the questions that the current debate gives rise to are whether these entitlements are properly and efficiently structured, whether there are too many anomalies and uncertainties that will be perpetuated by the types of changes now being proposed, and whether there are alternatives for the delivery of the goal, which I do not think there is any great disagreement about seeking to achieve.

I note, interestingly enough, that in Mr Cunliffe’s statement yesterday he positioned his policy around the figure of a household income of $150,000 per annum. Yet there is already legislation before this House, the Taxation (Income-sharing Tax Credit) Bill, that allows households with a joint income of up to $140,000 to split their income for tax purposes. The principal argument that has been raised against that has been that the benefit is delivered to those too far up the income scale—those earning up to $140,000 as a household income. But now it seems acceptable to pay $60 per child a week to families earning up to $150,000. I think that highlights some of the dichotomy that I am speaking about. It would seem to me that a far more logical approach, which would be not only more efficient in its distribution but actually less costly long term, would be to proceed with the income-sharing legislation, to restructure the Working for Families tax credits so that the principal benefit was delivered to families who fall below about the $70,000 household income mark, who are those who would currently benefit least from a change to income sharing. We could then use the additional finance that would be saved by that move to extend paid parental leave, certainly to 26 weeks and beyond that ultimately to 52 weeks. We could then look at moving out from there to take some of the antenatal moves that were announced by the Labour Party yesterday as being in its policy, extend those, and more coherently fund them. And then we could look also at the issue of both the provision of medicines and also early childhood education. We could then put together an overall integrated package using to maximum impact the totality of the funding currently available and getting around the situation that we have at the moment and its inevitable consequence of a targeted approach, if you like.

But if we take the Labour Party example as just one example of this problem, we see that at up to $150,000 you are OK, but at $150,001 you fall off the cliff. I am not blaming the Labour Party particularly for that, but it is always that issue when you come to drawing the line. I think that what we have with the measures that Labour proposed yesterday, with the measures that were in the Prime Minister’s state of the nation speech last week about education, and with some of the measures that the Greens proposed at the weekend—although I think they were largely in our policy 3 years ago—is that if we put them altogether, we have the capacity, utilising the finance that is available, to bring out a coherent, rational, workable scheme that benefits those whom we seek to assist, and there does not seem to be too much disagreement about who those audiences are, but which also removes a number of the boundary traps, the poverty traps, or even those effective high marginal tax rates that cut in when some of these changes occur. So I hope that the debate this year is not about my auction versus your auction, or my bribe versus your bribe, but about using the totality of measures that have been proposed to bring forward a constructive proposition from which all New Zealand families will benefit in the future, and that the timely reminder given to the House by my colleague the member for Epsom just a few moments ago is one that stays in our minds throughout the year and is one we all seek to do our very best to deliver upon, alleviating the conditions that that member so eloquently described.

I say to members in conclusion that it is great to be back this year. I hope that everyone enjoys the challenges of the year that lie ahead, and may they all get the desserts that they deserve, come a certain event later in the year.

Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance): Can I start by acknowledging two of my colleagues. Sam Lotu-Iiga, just the third Pacific member of Parliament to become a Government Minister, is a man of real capacity who will benefit not just his community but New Zealand. I also acknowledge Jo Hayes, whom the Labour Party members may not know well but they should understand that she was the person who helped us win the party vote in Dunedin South with an excellent campaign on the ground in heartland Labour territory, increasing the National Party vote by thousands, and she is a welcome addition to the caucus—

Hon Christopher Finlayson: Even with Clare Curran as her opponent.

Hon BILL ENGLISH: Even with Clare Curran as her opponent. Can I also acknowledge the leadership of the Prime Minister. I think in his address today he demonstrated again that his leadership of New Zealand through these last 5 or 6 years has been critical to lifting New Zealanders’ sense of confidence and aspiration, their greater sense of self-reliance and resilience, which has seen this country come through very difficult economic times in about as good a shape as it possibly could, and he has helped lay a platform for this country and its families to enjoy the benefits of one of the better-growing economies in the developed world.

What a sharp contrast with the Leader of the Opposition.

Hon Member: Who?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: Well, nothing has really changed in 12 months with Labour. Twelve months ago it had an unpopular leader, who was going nowhere, and Grant Robertson was undermining him, and the same thing is going on now. Quite apart from the huge difference in their speeches, the Prime Minister enjoys the support of his caucus. The Labour caucus is not enjoying David Cunliffe, and that shows up in its support.

You see, what we heard was a speech about the kind of country and Government that Labour and David Cunliffe wish they were campaigning in. They wish income inequality was growing, but it is not. It is not growing. The facts are clear: the poor are not falling behind, the middle class is not flat-lining, real incomes are growing, the most vulnerable have been protected, and income inequality is stable to slightly improving. But on “Planet Cunliffe” something quite different is happening, or he wishes it was happening. He wishes he was campaigning against a Government that was hostile to the most vulnerable, but, of course, it is not. We borrowed billions of dollars to protect the most vulnerable through a recession. He wishes there was no innovation in the economy, but, in fact, we are seeing a blossoming of New Zealand’s IT and manufacturing sectors, public floats, international deals—you name it. He wishes there was a manufacturing crisis—what happened to that inquiry—but there is not. In fact, because those members declared a crisis, manufacturing started doing well. He wishes the regions were weak, but, actually, the data shows very clearly that the regions are doing better than the metropolitan areas—again, because Labour declared that they were doing poorly. He wishes that public confidence was on its knees, but it is not. More New Zealanders believe more positively in the aspirational future of this country than at any other time I can remember in 25 years of public life, and they know that it has got a solid basis.

But on “Planet Cunliffe” there is no confidence. People are fearful. People have no hope. And you can hear it, can you not? He stood in front of the mirror and said that line and enjoyed it. But it is just not true; that is all. It sounds really good; it is just not true. He wishes that all those people who have traditionally supported the Labour Party in the social service sector—iwi, churches—and he wishes that teachers were marching in the street. And what did they do last week? They applauded the Government’s education policy in a way that I cannot recall for a National Government in a long time in this Parliament. Those people, who used to feed the Labour Party cases of Public Service breakdown, are working every day with this Government and its agencies to improve our communities, to make our communities safer, to lift the achievement of those who have underachieved, to reduce the reoffending rates of our prisoners, and to reduce welfare dependency, because the policies of this Government in those areas are meritorious, they are thoughtful, they are progressive, and they are working.

So, again, on “Planet Cunliffe” all those people would be supporting the Labour Party. In fact, they might go and vote for it in the booth if Labour can achieve its brilliant new strategy, which is to get Labour voters to vote Labour. That is the strategy: get Labour voters to vote Labour. Well, I can tell those members that we are doing a better job of getting Labour voters to vote National, and that is why we can go into this election year with some confidence.

I used to think it was “Planet Labour”, but increasingly I think it is “Planet Cunliffe”. I think there are two planets now, actually. There is “Planet Labour”, which is still sitting there pining for the return of Helen Clark and Michael Cullen—leaders whom those members took seriously, and the country did for a while, too—and then there is “Planet Cunliffe”, which is a noble and lonely place to be. There is no doubt about that. It is a noble and lonely place.

It is the “Bad Start” policy that has highlighted that gap enormously—the announcements in the last week or so. David Cunliffe’s policy around payments to families is based on the idea that he can save $1.5 billion by not pursuing promises he made that would cost $1.5 billion. At least the Greens went to the trouble of running their money through the photocopier. On “Planet Cunliffe” you just imagine it. It is like going into the shop and saying: “It’s a bargain. I saved money because it was going to be $200 for the running shoes, but they are on sale at $100. I’ve saved $100, so I can go and spend it on something else.” The $1.5 billion does not exist in the Government forecasts, so it is not available for saving, and the media and David Cunliffe and the Labour Party have figured that out only today.

The other thing that those members have said today is that in order to enforce international tax obligations on companies like Facebook, they might ban them from New Zealand. They might ban Facebook from New Zealand. Well, we know that that works. We know that that works because they have done it in North Korea and it has worked there. [Interruption] Well, there is no income, so they pay no tax. That is how they do it: get rid of the income and then they get rid of the tax problem.

The Labour Party is dealing with the New Zealand public, who are suspicious of any cash splash, as we have seen in the last few days, but it is too lazy to deal with the problems that are actually about our most vulnerable: getting immunisation rates up, protecting children from violence, and lifting educational achievement. The Government will continue to advance its Business Growth Agenda this year. It will continue to advance its prudent fiscal management. It will continue to advance a programme of microeconomic reform to support jobs and incomes. Jobs will come faster and incomes will grow faster under an ongoing National Government. Our process of considered and consistent change, working closely with the community and the business community, is starting to yield real benefits. Communicating openly and being accountable for those policies has built real confidence that the National Government has its finger on the pulse of what is required, the political will to do what is required, and the leadership to take the public along with it. That is why we can face this motion of confidence in Parliament with some real confidence.

JACINDA ARDERN (Labour): I want to begin by acknowledging some of the contributions that have been made by my colleagues in the House today, particularly the personal address that was made by the Hon John Banks, and to just again articulate that, of course, when we discuss issues of poverty, we often also discuss at times issues of neglect. But they are in some cases two very different things, and we have always required different policy responses to address those issues. No one has ever argued that those issues are simple. They are complex and require not just one response but multiple responses, and I will speak today to some of Labour’s ideas in that area.

State of the nation speeches, as we have seen in the past 2 weeks, speak volumes about the vision and direction that political parties want to take not just their parties in but voters—indeed, the entire country—in the future if they are the successful Government after an election. You can see where there is commonality and you can see where there is a very big difference. You can see where there is consensus and where there still remains debate. If you want to talk currently about areas of consensus, it is very hard to argue that not all of us want children to have a good education in this country. In fact, we want children—no matter which school they go to, no matter which community they grow up in—to have the best education possible. There is absolute consensus on that. That is why you saw Labour respond to even the Government’s package as having some good ideas that we think we could use. We acknowledged that because of course we are always trying to ensure that we have good professional development and support for our schools. We can quibble over details, but that principle remains. That is why you will have seen us supporting, in the area of education, the Greens’ ideas. Community hubs are fantastic. The ideas around nutrition in schools—good stuff. Of course we are in support of that; in fact, we had similar ideas in our 2011 policy.

But where there continues to be division is the idea of whether or not children can have their entire lives turned round by the experience they have once they walk through the school gate. Can a child leave behind their home life, their upbringing, the nurturing they have or do not have, whether they have got enough resource, and whether there is a computer in the home to do their homework with, enough money for a school uniform, or money to participate in school trips? We can throw all the in-kind assistance in the world that we want to to families, but if families do not have the resources they need to do the job that is there, we will always have this debate. In kind goes only so far, and that is why the recent OECD report, the Programme for International Student Assessment statistics—the ones we all debated about why we are going backwards—pointed out that New Zealand and Chinese Taipei are standout countries when it comes to the fact that we have not been able to overcome those inequalities in our education system and that perhaps it was time to start looking at socio-economic factors. The OECD spelt it out for us. New Zealand would benefit by looking at policies that would improve the socio-economic status of the children who are currently failing in our education system.

You cannot isolate a child’s life. You cannot simply fix everything through a teacher, and nor should we ask teachers to fix everything. So that is why we are looking beyond that. And why should we look beyond that? Because, quite simply, the cost of families not having enough to provide for their children costs us money. We spend an estimated $6 billion per annum on the unnecessary cost of things like health care—picking up a child in a hospital system because the family could not afford their prescription or doctor’s costs. You may argue that under-sixes are free, but I can guarantee that a parent does not take their child to the doctor for their free doctor’s visit if they have got a bill that they did not pay when they last visited. We know that that is happening in our communities.

Those are the kinds of costs we can save if families have the resource they need to do their own job that they want to be doing for themselves. It is not just a waste of money; it is a waste of human potential. So, as much as National stands up and says that we cannot afford to invest, we say that we cannot afford not to. We need the political courage to do it early, to do it at a time when it will take 9, 10, 12 years to start seeing some of the benefits of what we are proposing now. But it is not about political brownie points. It is not about these bribes that somehow doing the right thing is all about. It is about actually getting the outcomes that we need further down the track. When Labour brings these policies in, I can guarantee that there will be a whole lot of political parties that benefit down the track when our prison numbers drop and when we start having preventable hospitalisations drop. It is not about point-scoring; it is about doing what is good for New Zealand.

Also, when the Government says that there is not enough money in the kitty to do this, well, there apparently is enough money to spend $40 million on private schools. That is how much this Government has spent. There is enough money to spend over $1 billion on tax cuts to the very people it is now saying are far too rich to get anywhere near close to any kind of support when they have a first child, but they can benefit from a tax cut from the National Government. There is enough money for those things, but there apparently is not enough money to invest in children. There is enough money to ignore that we are spending an extraordinary amount on our universal superannuation scheme without looking at whether or not we need to start looking at the age of eligibility, not only to guarantee that it remains universal and that it remains sustainable but so that we are able to start investing in children in their youngest years and not just in our older generation. Both groups deserve our attention as politicians.

But I want to talk in more detail about the Best Start programme because some of the members on that side of the House seem to have missed the point and the savings that can be made through this kind of investment. First, starting with the Expert Advisory Group on Solutions to Child Poverty, the Children’s Commissioner led this group. Business New Zealand was a member of this group. Even Business New Zealand acknowledges that businesses are going to suffer if their future workforce is not properly supported. Not even Bill English seems to have acknowledged that point that it has strongly made. Business New Zealand was a member of the advisory group that recommended that New Zealand return to a universal family benefit. We had one. We had one for many, many years. Many members of this House grew up in families that received a universal family benefit. In fact, most members of this House did, because it was cancelled only in 1991, under Ruth Richardson. So most of us in this House benefited from that. It went to a mother primarily and it benefited children. It was a great part of our system. The expert advisory group recommended that we go back to that—that we return to a universal payment up to the age of 5. Labour has committed to bringing it in in year 1. There is no year that you can more justify than the first year for having such a near-universal payment. We say “near” because we did decide to put a cap in. We wanted to reach as many families as possible, and this payment will, but we did decide that in these particular times we needed to put a cap in place. The expert advisory group said to go even further than we have, but we wanted to put in place the building blocks for a system that acknowledges that we need step change. We need to acknowledge that from 0 to 3 is not only the most important developmental stage for a child; it is also the portion of time that is the hardest for parents to juggle care and work in. Those are the years that we need to be supporting, and that is exactly what we will do.

The one thing that that side of the House refuses to acknowledge, as well, is that 60 percent of people do not get paid parental leave. Sixty percent of people are not eligible for paid parental leave. At the moment, what can they do? Oh, maybe there is the parental tax credit that Jenny Shipley chucked in just so that it would try to be a little bit of a sop to the people who missed out on paid parental leave. We need something that acknowledges that the vast majority of our families are not eligible for something that has broad support in this House. So why is there not broad support for a payment that acknowledges that important year in the same way that paid parental leave does but that goes further, that reaches more people? I would like to hear the Minister of Finance’s view on that, given that he seems to have an issue with paid parental leave as well.

The Best Start package is not just about income. It is about education and it is about health as well, but, ultimately, it is about saying that New Zealand children deserve our support and that parents deserve our trust and support for them to do the job that is theirs. Thank you.

Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister for Economic Development): Well, it must be election year.

Hon Maurice Williamson: Really?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Yes, apparently it must be. Labour and the Greens have already rocked up with nearly three-quarters of a billion dollars a year of spending ideas, and it is not even the end of January. It must be election year. As reliable as at any other time in this House, the Greens and Labour together want to spend your money before you have even made it, which is remarkably similar to how they have spent their lives, historically. Once again, we have not even managed to get to surplus yet and they are casting around, trying to spend billions of dollars. Why do I say billions? Because it is three-quarters of a billion, and we are not even at the end of January in an election year yet.

David Bennett: They’re going to find oil.

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: It is like the global financial crisis—well, no, they are not, not with the Greens. There will not be any oil. There will not be any milk for that matter either. It is like the global financial crisis never happened. Labour’s last big spending splurges were between 2005 and 2008. It dramatically increased the deficit. Remember the decade of deficits it left because the music was never going to stop? It dramatically increased interest costs for New Zealanders, and it put the New Zealand economy into a premature recession, and it is like that never happened.

That is the trouble with this Opposition, and Bill English touched on that. There is this wilful denial to learn anything at all from its period in Opposition, a wilful denial to actually learn a single thing. I actually think that it is quite conceited. It was thrown out once in 2008, but also in 2011 it was rejected again, and it comes back with the same old policies in 2014, looking for the same old smack-round Labour has not learnt a single thing in Opposition.

Mr Cunliffe actually adds another dimension to it, because he is a bit tricky. He is a bit tricky, our friend Mr Cunliffe, and the journalists are working it out. Last week Mr Cunliffe was there saying: “Oh, look, I have just saved $1.5 billion a year, so I am off to spend it all, everybody. It is all wonderful. So I have cancelled these policies. I now have a cheque that I can write out for $1.5 billion a year.” And some of the scribes gleefully reported that that was indeed the case—that clever Mr Cunliffe had saved us $1.5 billion a year and he would now go off and spend it.

Except it was never there—except it was never in the country’s accounts. There was nothing about GST off fruit and vegetables going out in Treasury projections for the next 4 years. There was absolutely nothing about the tax-free threshold. But Mr Cunliffe, by cancelling something that never previously existed, has suddenly found himself $1.5 billion a year. And now he says: “Oh, but that is to do with last election’s costings of our economic plan.” Well, we know how that ended. Those costings in 2011 sunk Phil Goff when he could not show us the money in 2011. Whose projections were they? David Cunliffe’s projections. So Mr Cunliffe is back, except this time he is knee-capping himself. He should have thought that through.

The reality is that he has no idea how this “Bad Start” package is going to work. And I say “Bad Start” package because you could not get a worse start to an election year than an Opposition leader who firstly trips himself up over the way that his package is going to work—and I understand he is still doing that as we speak; the package is being redesigned minute by minute—but who also has no answer to the question about how he is going to pay for it. That is the trickiness of Mr Cunliffe, because he is basically saying: “Everybody, you can have everything that is being done now and, yes, probably some of the Green Party stuff as well—including that nice bit that it did yesterday—and you can have the $600 million and it will all be sweet.” So says the Leader of the Opposition. Well, he is wrong. It is not sweet. It was not sweet in 2008 after 9 years of progressively worse policies that were about spending more money than the country had made, and it is not sweet to go back to it today. The real answer to lifting Kiwi incomes is attracting investment that boosts jobs. And that is what this National Government is doing.

That is another thing—Mr Cunliffe is Rip Van Winkle on the economy as well. He has gone to sleep in 2008 and turned up with the same arguments for business growth in 2014. He says that we should not be exporting lamb carcasses overseas. We do not—98 percent of New Zealand’s lamb carcasses are processed in this country. Wake up, Mr Cunliffe. Life has moved on. He says that we should innovate. We do innovate. We are spending $566 million over 4 years to innovative New Zealand companies, and New Zealand’s information and communications high-tech and medium high - tech manufacturing industry is growing up like that, and is about to get to the point where it is already nearly half of our dairy industry exports. That is the reality.

By the way, before Mr Cunliffe gets in with the Greens and tries to shoot it down, dairy is only 20 percent today of New Zealand’s total exports of goods and services. So here we are doing the things that old Rip Van Winkle over there has woken up to and said: “My gosh, it would be a good idea if we actually exported something else besides meat carcasses.” He needs to do his homework. That is the conceit of the Labour Party. It went out of office and it has come back today with the same prescription for 2014 as it had in 2008 and 2011. It has not learnt anything. It has not bothered to check what is going on today, which is also conceited. Meanwhile, the New Zealand economy is growing strongly, New Zealand confidence is growing, and the public of New Zealand know that the way to become successful is to keep doing the things that this Government has New Zealand doing.

That is the focus that this Government has and we have the greatest level of confidence since the 1990s. We have one of the greatest levels of growth across the OECD, and it is likely to continue. It is not nirvana yet, but if you give us another 3 years, you never know how far you will get. But what you do know with the Labour Party is that you go backwards to a bunch of failed and rejected policies—policies that were rejected in 2008 and rejected again in 2011. What we do need to do is continue on the considered, sensible, conservative path, where we understand that there is a balance between spending and people’s incomes. We understand that you actually have to reward people for their own hard work and you have to trust them with their incomes to make good decisions. Those are the sorts of things that you have to do. And you have to do good public services.

I was bemused to see another one, Jacinda Ardern, up there before, going on about how they will get prison populations down. Well, hello, we have done that. While she was not looking, in 2008 we inherited a prison population projection that was going up like this. Now it is going down like that, and crime levels are at record lows. Meanwhile, Jacinda has picked up the 2008 election plan and says: “Oh, we had better protest about the state of the prisons and how too many people are going to be in the prisons.” Believe me, these people in the Labour Party need to update what they know. Sadly, I do not know what they have been doing in the last 5 years, but they have not been updating their knowledge at all, they have not been learning what is happening in the world today, and they have not been learning what is working.

This Government has been getting on with the job of improving public services and of delivering far better results than Labour ever managed with its avalanches of money. This Government is getting on with building a strong, competitive economy that supports and encourages investments and competitive Kiwi businesses; getting on with, frankly, balancing the books, getting rid of the decade of deficits, and getting New Zealand into a position where we can have a strong economic future in this country; and, above all, getting on with rebuilding our second-largest city.

Yes, we get an economic benefit of that—this country does—but, by goodness, we got the economic pain of that in 2010 and 2011. For Mr Cunliffe, in his conceited manner, to wander around and say that you should discount the growth of Christchurch—well, that basically involves discounting the pain that Christchurch went through as well, and we cannot do that. So, yes, there is some benefit in that, but if he thinks that it is about a milk and Christchurch story, then, frankly, he is damning the efforts of many New Zealand businesses up and down the country that are competing and succeeding on the world stage.

This Government supports those people. It is providing a platform for growth and competitiveness from this little country at the bottom of the Pacific. The Opposition needs to wake up and decide it needs a new song.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Green Party will split its call. There will be a 4-minute bell.

KEVIN HAGUE (Green): Happy New Year to you, Mr Deputy Speaker. It is just a shame that we had to start the parliamentary year with such a disappointing statement from the Prime Minister.

Hon Members: Oh, come on.

KEVIN HAGUE: That is what I thought too. In my area, in health, we had a statement that the Government was going to focus on prevention—well, that would be a total reversal of the strategic direction it has followed for 5 years. There is going to be more of the same in elective surgery, an area that the Government has generally put more money in to at the expense of everything else in the health sector, but, actually, because of the focus on numbers, we see those with the greatest need often still missing out because their surgery requires more time or complexity. We are going to see ACC levies come down. The Prime Minister failed to point out that it was, in fact, his Government that unnecessarily put levies up in the first place.

More generally, we saw more “short-termism”, more 19th century thinking, more lack of vision, more lack of hope, and no imagination. We saw more sacrifice of the environment to further intensify already overly dangerously intensified industries. We saw more driving of wages and conditions down so that ordinary people more and more serve the interests of a few. For most New Zealanders, it truly is becoming someone else’s country.

The Green Party offers something different. We bring an understanding that although what individuals can do by themselves is important, if we actually want to transform outcomes across all of the areas that matter to people, then the Government needs to be vitally concerned with whole communities, whole systems, and the linkages between sectors. We are focused on good lives and a fair future for everyone, in contrast to policies that drive inequalities wider. We are focused on a sustainable relationship with our natural environment and a clean, green economy that helps us all deliver on our social and environmental goals and that does not just exist as an end in itself.

It has been interesting to watch over the past 5 years National members’ tactics in the general debate each week, because it tells us what their smear tactics are going to be against us in any given week. The increasing desperation is instructive. First of all, we had the devil beast. Remember that? I guess that is a hard line to maintain nowadays when National is increasingly reliant on John Banks, Peter Dunne, and the entirely untested Conservative Party, leaving us to wonder what rough beast it is that is slouching its way towards election day this year. Then we were described as the “party of no” because we said no to all of the National Party’s ideas. Well, it is no surprise that our philosophy is fundamentally different from National’s. So, yes, we disagree with a lot of its ideas, just as it disagrees with a lot of ours.

But it is very interesting to me that when at the beginning of this term of Parliament the Green Party pointed out to National pages and pages of areas where our policy and National’s coincided and where we could collaborate, National said no to all of that. The context for that is that we have been working together with National under a memorandum of understanding for 5 years on warm, healthy homes; toxic sites, which my colleague will speak about; resetting traps; and the area that I have been working with the Prime Minister on, which is Ngā Haerenga, the New Zealand Cycle Trail network. I welcome his comment in the statement about the opening of new cycle tracks. I will be standing alongside him, celebrating a resource that brings economic, environmental, and social benefits to communities around the country.

Ours is a party that is based on values and on a charter. They give us an anchor that provides us with a stable direction over many years. We understand that New Zealanders want us to work together with others. We understand that they want us to provide practical, evidence-based, and creative solutions to the problems that our nation faces in the long term. We are a party that is ready for the election. Bring it on.

CATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green): Tēnā koe, Mr Deputy Speaker. Tēnā koutou e te Whare Pāremata. It is great to be starting the year on such a positive note. That positive note is that this is the year when people have the opportunity to vote for a party committed to positive solutions. The Green Party is looking forward to engaging with all New Zealanders about a smart and sustainable economy and a compassionate economy, with strategies that will actually reduce inequality and protect the environment, because the environment is what sustains everything and everyone in this country. It is just the Government that has not understood that yet.

Today the Prime Minister’s statement was a little bit of a cheap shot. It is the kind of thing that Lorde was talking about in her song when she said that the privileged live at a particular level but the rest of us do not live there and we actually do not want to. The Prime Minister had a number of cheap shots against the Greens, including a highly selective interpretation of the economic situation, where he took credit for all kinds of things that no one in this House can take credit for and he skipped over the difficult issues like climate change; the causes and effects of poverty, unemployment, and under-employment on people; children’s needs; and the ever-degrading state of our environment.

The Prime Minister’s written speech had a focus on natural resources, which really continued that “mine it, drill it, kill it” agenda, and conveniently failed to mention some of the MMP collaborations that have made real change. This is possibly because, as my colleague Kevin Hague has just said, the Government does not want to undermine its own rhetorical attacks on the Green Party by talking about joint achievements where we have played a leading and positive role. An example of this is the memorandum of understanding that I negotiated with Dr Nick Smith, and then with Amy Adams, on cleaning up toxic sites. It is kind of hard to characterise the Green Party members as a bunch of fringe crazies when we have managed to work with Ministers and actually deliver some very positive changes and leadership on issues of significant public and environmental risk.

I was a reluctant participant in the contaminated sites memorandum of understanding at first, because I was not sure what we would be able to negotiate. I have been characterised by the right-wing commentators who do not know what is going on in politics as someone who might be a bit too challenging to work with on these things. But, in fact, despite the changes to the Ministers and the Government’s instability in the Government team, we have made some solid and important progress on toxic chemicals, which will benefit all New Zealanders. The clean-up of the Tūī Mine was an urgent task, and now the Greens, the local authority, the Minister for the Environment, and mana whenua have overseen the clean-up of the unstable tailings dam and an improvement of water quality from that abandoned mine. We have negotiated a national register of contaminated sites, and we are collectively engaging with regional councils on issues of consistency, recording, and transparency.

These are all going to benefit the environment and people. This is a matter of public health and the health of the environment. I look forward to working with the Government further on this and to being part of a new progressive Government to also work on this in the future, to make sure that we clean up the mess of previous bad practice and weak regulation, as well as the frightening ignorance around chemicals. The clean-up of our country is a Treaty issue, and it is the responsibility of all political parties to make it work. The opportunity of MMP, as Russel Norman said today, is to get good things done without compromising our principles and our values. So I look forward to more solid and constructive work on the contaminated sites issue.

The Green Party has also started the year with an excellent policy launch for reducing inequality through education, which the Prime Minister dismissed as giving the odd kid a lunch. This particularly unfortunate disparagement is completely inaccurate because, in fact, this programme has been well received by many groups outside this Parliament. Groups such as the Youth Hub Barbadoes in Christchurch said it was excellent and right on the button because it will help decile 1 to decile 4 schools give children a lunch, and it also provides an opt in for other schools where children need to eat to learn. You cannot learn if you cannot eat—food for thought, Prime Minister. It is very typical of the Greens that we have thought it through. First things first, let us make sure our kids are fed, then we can improve the quality of their learning.

We have a very positive and necessary vision that we offer to this country, and a very green Parliament is what we actually need. So when it comes to attacking the Green Party, as Kevin Hague just said, we have made many positive changes in this term of Government. Despite the disparagement, attacks, and opposition, we have worked with Ministers. Despite National having amnesia about that, we look forward to leading a progressive Government that will actually make change on many of these issues. Whether it is education, whether it is cycleways, whether it is unemployment, whether it is union rights—

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! The member’s time has expired.

Hon HEKIA PARATA (Minister of Education): Mr Deputy Speaker, tēnā koe. Otirā, tēnā koutou, tēnā tatou katoa huri noa i tō tātou Whare i tēnei Tau Hou.

[Greetings indeed to you collectively and to us all throughout our House in this New Year.]

I would like to join in the congratulations to our colleague Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga on becoming a Minister, the Minister of Pacific Island Affairs. I look forward to working with him in carrying on our Government’s commitment to ensuring that Pasifika communities are recognised for the contribution they make to our country and that they have the opportunity to grow and strengthen that contribution over time through education and through other investments.

I would also like to acknowledge Jo Hayes. Tēnā koe, Jo. Kei te tū whakahīhī a Ngati Porou i tō hou mai ki roto i tēnei Whare o tātou.

[Greetings to you, Jo. Ngati Porou stands proud because of your arrival in this House of ours.]

I acknowledge those members’ competency and hard work and the fact that they reflect the diversity and strength of this National Government and its ability to speak to communities up and down our country.

Our Government has an effective, successful, and sustainable education plan. Our education plan is comprehensive. It focuses on raising achievement for five out of five. It values the voices and aspirations of parents, and it is devoted to strengthening, recognising, and celebrating the profession while also using taxpayer funds to wisely invest in infrastructure, a modern learning environment, and digital technology. We want every New Zealand child to get a better education so they can be successful here at home in New Zealand, as well as globally competitive, whether based here in New Zealand or working overseas.

A quality education and relevant skills are the sustainable answer to hardship and poverty. We have a very, very good education system. That has not happened by accident, and nor will it continue without attention. It is successful for most, with our best students being right up there with the best in the world, but it has not been successful for all, and we are focused on ensuring that we lift up those who have been falling behind, while also pushing those who are doing well to do even better.

The evidence is clear. The two in-school factors that have the greatest effect on raising achievement are the quality of teaching and the quality of leadership. The major new investment that the Prime Minister announced last week reflects this best evidence. It also follows the best practice in the education systems around the world that are confronting and beating the challenge of delivering equity and excellence—in other words, that all children get a great education in their education system. It is what our education professionals are telling us and telling me when I am in schools almost every week of the school year.

Our Government has invested the most ever, with $9.7 billion this financial year—a 40 percent increase over the past 5 years—going into Vote Education. That has been in the toughest times. Over and above that, despite those challenges, our Government is investing an additional $359 million over 4 years because we are backing the evidence, backing what works, and backing our teachers and principals to raise the achievement of all New Zealand children. We are resourcing collaboration within, between, and across schools; creating career pathways that give teachers and principals further and better professional options; raising the status and profile of the profession; and keeping, growing, and attracting the best and brightest into it. That is what our new major education investment is built and funded to deliver, and we will work with the profession to ensure that we have the design right so that we can meet the achievement challenges of ensuring that five out of five of our children and young people can be successful at school, and that we get them on to a pathway to realising their potential and living the lives they want for themselves and their families.

We are investing in 250 executive principals who will work with, support, mentor, and lead a community of schools; 1,000 expert teachers who will work with that community of schools, whose teaching practice, quality learning, and rich, deep, and engaging curriculum knowledge and practice will be shared with a range of schools; 5,000 lead teachers with exemplary classroom practice who are willing to share this in open classrooms so that other teachers can learn from that practice and take it back into their schools; and 100 change principals who can go into the schools that are struggling the most, those of highest need, and turn those schools round.

These will not be compulsory appointments. They will not be parachuted in. They will not be unfamiliar with the culture of our smaller schools. They will be principals with a proven track record in a diverse range of schools who understand the many inputs that are important to making a school successful for all of those children. Those principals can be appointed to schools only where there have been vacancies and where the board of trustees opts in to the conditions. If they do so, then we are making an allowance of $50,000 per year, on top of an existing salary, for those boards to be able to appoint those principals.

In addition, we have established a $10 million teacher-led innovation fund. We know from the best evidence that professionals learn best from each other and they learn best where they are operating in situations that are practical and realistic and that they face every day. We know that there are outstanding teachers and principals in our education system, and we want to make sure that their best practice can become common practice.

This major new investment of $359 million is part of a quality teaching agenda that is already well in progress under our Government. It includes a ministerial cross-sector forum, which engages leaders from 30 peak bodies, professional and unions, iwi and Pasifika, academics, and business people. In that forum, many ideas are challenged, interrogated, and often adopted. We are engaged in transforming the New Zealand Teachers Council into a 21st century body that will meet the needs of 21st century teaching and learning challenges. We propose to introduce legislation to give effect to that. We are lifting the standard of entry and quality of initial teacher education by introducing this year new postgraduate qualifications. We are reviewing professional learning and development for the compulsory school sector. We are reviewing the regulations, or are about to review the regulations, under the Education Act 1989 to free up the operating environment so that teachers and principals can get shot of the compliance and constraints that really do not make very much difference, to create more room for them to make the magic that they do in learning situations in our schools across the country.

We are hosting the international summit of the teaching profession here in Wellington at the end of March. We expect to host Ministers of Education from all around the world. At the same time, we are hosting education festivals in Auckland, Wellington, and Christchurch to highlight school best practice to each other, to parents, and to the community, and to celebrate what is happening in our schools. We are having the inaugural Prime Minister’s Education Excellence Awards in June this year.

All of these together comprise a quality teaching agenda that is all about the education plan that our Government has. We know that by raising, recognising, and strengthening the value, profile, and status of our education profession, it cannot help but lead to deploying best-quality teaching practice and best-quality leadership practice across our 2,500 schools, so that all of our children can have the opportunity to succeed, to have a better education, and to go on to have a better life.

There has been a lot of talk about education in the last couple of weeks. I am very proud that our Government opened this year with a focus on education and is leading this debate. It is a debate about education. Many of the other announcements that have been made are a debate about social development, and that is appropriate. We are happy to engage in those debates because we are already doing almost everything that has been announced in these fresh, new policies by the Opposition parties.

We are focused on education, and this major new investment is part of an overall education plan that we have been delivering for the past 5 years, and demonstrates the fresh ideas we have going forward. I am delighted to participate in the debate on the Prime Minister’s statement, and we look forward to raising achievement for five out of five New Zealand children and young people.

TRACEY MARTIN (NZ First): Kia ora, Mr Assistant Speaker. Just to take up a point from Minister Joyce’s contribution to the debate on the Prime Minister’s statement. He criticised certain Opposition parties, namely the Greens and the Labour Party, for putting forward policies valued at, according to him, around three-quarters of a billion dollars. Of course, Mr Joyce has completely ignored the fact that his Government has just stood in this House and promised over a billion dollars in new spending, and that the Prime Minister has gone on record as saying that this will grow in subsequent years. So I am not quite sure how Mr Joyce can throw stones when he is living in a particular glass house.

I also pick up the fact from the Minister who has just resumed her seat, Hekia Parata, with regard to the suggestion that the new ideas that are being put forward by the Opposition parties are not new—possibly. I am not sure whether the Minister of Education is aware that lead teachers already exist and that lead teachers have actually been in schools for a good number of years, opening their classrooms for new practice. This might be another situation where the Government is going to have to change the name, in the same way that it changed the name of charter schools, because unfortunately the Government was not aware that every school had a charter as well. So the Government may need to change the name on that policy.

I am going to spend my time talking particularly about the education announcements and the $359 million worth of new money going into New Zealand schools. Nobody will criticise more money being placed inside education, as long as it is appropriately targeted and well spent, and it can actually have proven outcomes. I need to compliment the National Party spin doctors on the brilliant job they have done on spinning this announcement in the last week. I liken it to a cupcake with brilliant icing on it, which makes you just want to bite into it. But the moment that you do, you realise that somebody has substituted salt for sugar. This looks great, but when you get down to the nitty-gritty of this spend, you can see that there is issue upon issue upon issue, and the New Zealand public and the teachers unions, particularly the New Zealand Post Primary Teachers Association and the New Zealand Principals’ Federation, need to continue to have a really close look and conversation about what is being announced in these policies.

It looks to New Zealand First like another opportunity for divide and rule, and even within the week since this announcement has been made—or the days since this announcement has been made—it has caused a wedge between the teachers unions. We cannot afford as a nation to have the teachers unions, the teachers, the parents of New Zealand, the boards of trustees, and all those who care for true, free, and wide success criteria in education be manipulated in this way by spin doctors from this Government. This is a very similar spin, and it is possibly the same company that came up with the spin that national standards were going to be good for our children and that creating a single line in the sand that every single New Zealand child had to jump over at the same moment, in the same year, and in the same way was going to be good for our young people.

This is another cynical attempt by this Government to portray itself as the party that cares about public education in New Zealand and its quality delivery for our kids. In reality, these latest announcements are—and they have been identified as such by the Quality Public Education Coalition—nothing more than a banker’s solution, providing additional top-down expertise, and very highly paid at that, rather than a workforce development approach. These policies create another level of middle managers, such as in a corporate environment, whose job it is to tell other people what to do. And how will these executives be identified as using best practice? Why, they are going to be based on their national standards results, of course. Even the Prime Minister has gone on record as saying that the national standards results are ropy at the least.

But we will fix that, says Minister Parata. We will introduce a computer program where you can enter test and assessment scores for each child, and the computer will spit you out a result for that child. You are either at, above, or below the national standards. That is called the PaCT tool. The PaCT tool was included inside the announcement that went out with the Minister’s press release. How convenient is that—how convenient is that? We now do not need teachers who can actually think for themselves. We do not need teachers who actually have a relationship with their children. We do not need teachers who can use their personal judgment. It is so annoying when teachers invest themselves personally inside their children, inside their students, and inside their classrooms! It is so annoying when those people will not do as they are told! So we need to develop a way by which we can force those people to do as they are told. I mean, after all, they are public servants. There is a very good reason why in most dictatorships the first people that are got rid of are the teachers. The first people a dictator removes are the teachers, because they are the people who think and who truly care about their young people, and provide knowledge, and will not back away from a confrontation.

This is a trickle-down theory. This is a trickle-down policy. This Government has just repackaged its educational policies from the 1990s. It has possibly got in some new spin doctors and put a different label on it, but this is trickle-down. It is going to put bonus payments on to a certain number—6,700-odd—of our thousands of teaching professionals, and it is going to make them compete for those positions. It is going to put bonus payments on top of them. It is going to shoot them into other schools to tell them what to do, and it is going to hope that that trickles down to the 5-year-olds, 6-year-olds, and 7-year-olds inside those schools.

This new money could have been used to employ the large number of teaching graduates who cannot find teaching places inside this country. It was only in October 2012 that the Ministry of Education went and told three-quarters of the teaching graduates to go overseas to find work. The ministry said that it might need them in 20 years’ time or it might need them in 10 years’ time, but it said that unfortunately they needed to go overseas then. We could have put 9,000 beginning teachers into classrooms, being mentored right now, today, by experienced, senior teachers. We could have cut those classes—basically, the class size would have been cut in half—giving that experienced teacher the opportunity to take those students who require extra support, and leave the beginning teacher who is under their supervision with the majority of the class to run those rote or basic lessons or classes, and actually expand that experience base.

We would have futureproofed our education environment, and we know that we need to. We know that we have an ageing population inside our classes. What is the solution that this Government is going to come up with—import teachers because we have sent all our young ones away? There was an opportunity here to use this money to take away those barriers. Current graduates cannot get the time in the classroom that they require to then become registered, which means that they cannot then go on and actually fully participate.

This new money could have funded mandatory professional development in every staffroom in New Zealand in the delivery of Te Kotahitanga. The Minister took issue with the teachers of New Zealand and said that they did not know how to show respect to Māori students because they could not pronounce their names. Yet there is no solution here. There is no support being offered. Resource teachers of Māori are out there in New Zealand and nobody knows anything about them. They are on the payroll. They are out there wanting to help, and they want to support the delivery of Te Reo and tikanga Māori inside our classrooms. Here was an opportunity to actually bring the resource teachers of Māori on board with some more money, to go and professionally develop Te Kotahitanga throughout the country—a programme that we know does not just benefit Māori students; it benefits every student. It is based on principles of respect and understanding, on individual education programmes, and on being the best you can be—not on meeting that line, but on being the best you can be.

This money could have been used to review Tomorrow’s Schools. Twenty-five years on we have ripped bits away and we have chucked in something else. The Minister says that she values the parental voice. Not a single time in any of these statements is there any parental voice. Not a single in time in any of these statements has there been any student voice mentioned. Where are the voices of the young people who are actually inside these institutions? Where is the student voice? Where is the collaboration with those parents and those students? Where is the widening of the success criteria, not the narrowing of them? Lorde actually came to school and recognised at 5 years old, as she has been quoted, that she loved singing and music. That was inside a State school. At 13, she won Belmont Idol—inside a State school, supported by State teachers, and with a wide curriculum. This money was squandered.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister of Conservation): What sort of planet is New Zealand First on, when the Government announces additional money to reward lead teachers and expert teachers, and New Zealand First describes it as an attack on teachers and makes analogies with dictatorships around the world?

Dr Cam Calder: “Planet Winston”.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: It truly is on “Planet Winston”.

The contrast today between National, Labour, and the Greens could not be clearer than from this afternoon’s debate. Prime Minister John Key has set out a clear, balanced, and affordable plan for our country—a plan that is about balancing our books. It is a plan that is about striving for excellence in education. It is a plan about rebuilding Christchurch and about growing businesses and more jobs. It is about reducing crime and improved road safety. It is about making houses more affordable.

Denis O’Rourke: And you haven’t done that either.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: It is about a First World health system. It is about more operations, about improving—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! I just remind the member Denis O’Rourke that he cannot bring me into the debate. You cannot say “you” because it refers to the Speaker.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: It is about better health care for our country. And it is about sensible, practical environmental policies, which I also want to talk about as Minister of Conservation.

Labour’s latest leader’s speech shows that Labour has learnt absolutely nothing from its big spending, its big taxing, and its anti-growth time in Government. In that Labour leader’s address, I did not hear a single sentence about how we might grow the economy. You see, the members opposite are all about spending our wealth, rather than the focus on how we created it. I loved Labour’s notion of saving, with this dropping of the dopey idea of removing the GST on food and removing the $5,000 tax-free zone, saying “Oh, we’ve saved $1.5 billion that we can now spend on the baby bonus.” Well, this is like me telling my wife that I have decided not to buy the thousand dollar flash suit, but I am going to spend the thousand dollars on some fancy Gucci shoes—

Hon Maurice Williamson: And that you’d saved it.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Yes, that is right—and that I have saved it.

I also fret when Labour now tells us that families are in poverty if they are earning less than $150,000 a year. We are going to have a baby bonus for a very fertile member like Jami-Lee Ross, who is expanding his family. Jami-Lee Ross is a wonderful father, but I am sorry, members on this side of the House do not think that we need a baby bonus for backbench members of Parliament—actually, aspiring backbench members of Parliament. We are on track for a surplus by the slimmest of margins and we certainly do not need handouts of that sort. We will go straight back into deficit and debt—the pattern of Labour Governments.

Let me challenge Labour’s claim that this Government has done nothing for those families that are doing it tough. Well, let me take Labour members through it. This Government has a very proud record. Take warm and dry homes—in 2013 we completed our programme of insulating every single State house.

Denis O’Rourke: It was the Greens’ idea, not National’s.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Every one of those 69,000 State houses. For the benefit of New Zealand First, that was not part of the confidence and supply agreement from 2008 in respect of the Greens; that was about another programme, and that was for 300,000 homes that we have insulated. Let us ask the question: in the boom economic times, in the 9 years in which Labour had its hands on the purse strings, how many homes did it insulate? Very, very few. That is less than 2 percent of what this Government has done in far tougher times, and Labour members have the gall to say it is they who have a monopoly on caring.

Let us go to another area—child immunisation rates. What were the child immunisation rates when we came into Government? They were less than 80 percent. They were comparable with those in Third World countries. And do you know what? We now have child immunisation rates of above 95 percent. And do you know what I really celebrate? Pacific Island and Māori rates of immunisation are now above even European levels and are some of the best, having gone from some of the worst in the world. I congratulate Tony Ryall and the health team on what they have done in that space.

Let us take the Government’s latest efforts on rheumatic fever—giving families priority for State housing to address that. The strategy that we have worked on, together with the Māori Party, addressing that Third World disease is part of our programme for dealing with disadvantage. Every member in this House would know that it is a good principal and a quality teacher who are the real breaker of poverty—the real breaker of poverty—and that is why this Government is backing the incentives for improving the quality of our teachers and the quality of our school leadership. You see, there is not a monopoly on caring in this House. What there is over there is a party that is hell-bent on giving a handout, when we on this side are hell-bent on giving a hand up, and that will long be the case.

I want to talk about housing. Let us first get the record straight. All of the measures of housing affordability show that houses today are more affordable than what they were after 9 years of the Labour Government. The truth is that house prices doubled during Labour’s time, interest rates were over 10 percent when we came into Government, and that had a really tough impact on New Zealanders aspiring to own their own home. We have got a programme last year that we have really been getting momentum on: freeing up land supply with that Housing Accords and Special Housing Areas Act. We have already, through that legislation, approved 15,000 new sections in the city of Auckland, and we now have work under way on accords with Christchurch, Wellington, the Bay of Plenty, and other communities.

We have got a bill before the House dealing with those infrastructure costs. Actually, an area that has gone up more than any other part of the cost of the House is those council development charges, and we are fixing that. We have got the work progressing on the materials’ cost, which is going to be delivering and bearing fruit this year, the work on sector productivity, and the work that my colleague Maurice Williamson is doing on compliance costs. And if there are any of those initiatives that excite me, it is the online building consent service, which has huge potential to make a difference.

Let us look at the results. Last year—here, listen to this—we built more than 20,000 new homes. That is the most in more than 5 years. That is evidence that this Government’s housing policies are working. I went back through the statistics. There was a bigger growth in the number of new houses—a bigger growth in the number of new houses—from 2012 to 2013 than in any year in history. But it is more than that. We are committed, this year and next year, to building a thousand extra State houses in both years—a thousand houses in both years. That is more new State houses in more than a decade, and, as well as that, we are partnering with the community sector to build community houses, and we are going to do 300 of those this year. That is the biggest record ever in terms of growth of the community housing sector.

The last area I want to cover is the Prime Minister’s speech about conservation and the goals for this Government to create a record number of marine reserves this year—a record number of marine reserves this year. I do have to challenge members of both parties opposite. It was an extraordinary comment. They said that National is allowing deep-sea drilling without any environmental rules. That is the claim they have made. Let us tell the truth—let us tell the truth. The reality is that during the last Labour Government there was deep-sea drilling with absolutely no environmental rules in the exclusive economic zone. It is this Government that has passed that exclusive economic zone legislation and set up the Environmental Protection Authority to ensure that there are checks. With the subantarctic islands, with Akaroa, with our initiatives on the West Coast and in Kaikōura, we are going to be making more progress on marine conservation in any year, again furthering the balanced programme this Government has.

Hon ANNETTE KING (Labour—Rongotai): Mr Assistant Speaker Tisch, can I first of all wish you a very happy new year and say how much I enjoy it when you are in the Chair. I would like to respond, before I give my contribution to this debate, to Dr Smith on one point. Dr Smith, I suggest that you read the article by Professor Graeme Aitken, the Dean of Education from Auckland University—someone who, I suppose, knows a little bit about education—who wrote in the New Zealand Herald today: “the Everest of research … shows that socio-economic status is the strongest predictor of achievement.” So maybe, Dr Smith, you might like to start with this.

In April 2011 the Chief Science Advisor to the Prime Minister, Sir Peter Gluckman released a seminal paper on the better use of evidence in policy formation. He said this: “policy formed without consideration of the most relevant knowledge available is far less likely to serve the nation well”. He then went on to say this: “evidence-based approaches must also lead to greater efficiency in the provision of public services. One suspects that there are many Government-funded programmes now in place that when properly assessed would not meet objective tests of effectiveness; such evidence of non-performance would allow both the public and politicians to accept, and indeed require, redirection of effort.”

The Children’s Commissioner, appointed by this Government, set up an expert advisory group on solutions to child poverty in New Zealand. It reviewed both the international and New Zealand literature. It spoke to overseas experts and to local experts. It talked to officials and to civil society groups. It heard submissions. It even listened to members of Parliament.

In November 2013 the Health Committee released a comprehensive report on improving child health outcomes from preconception to 3 years of age. We listened to officials. We read international research and local research from groups like the Brainwave Trust and others. We came to the conclusion—we, the members of the select committee: the National Party, the Labour Party, New Zealand First, and the Greens—that the Government needs “to put more focus on and investment into the pre-conception period to three years of age,”. We said: “Such policy is not only backed by science, equity, and ethics, but also makes sound economic sense.” I repeat that—sound economic sense.

So why would this Government or any future Government not listen to the science, the evidence, the ethics, and the economics of investing in our kids—investing in our kids? You see, we have heard passionate speeches from the Government today about all that it is doing for children. Nick Smith nods. So how is it, Dr Smith, that one of Parliament’s select committees, the Expert Advisory Group on Solutions to Child Poverty, the Prime Minister’s own science adviser, and others are saying: “Listen to the evidence.”? The evidence in New Zealand is telling us that we are not doing well by children in New Zealand.

This Government says members on this side of the House have learnt nothing. I have to say it is sad—it has learnt nothing. It learns nothing from evidence and nothing from science. Well, I have to tell you that a Labour-led Government has and will. New Zealanders have had enough of cheap words and flash slogans about the value and the importance of our children. We hear the platitudes. They are rolled out all the time—lines like “Children are our greatest gift.”, “Children are our future.”, “We value children.”, and “We are already doing so much for children.” Well, the evidence shows that that is hogwash.

We have some of the most appalling statistics relating to children in the OECD—the OECD, countries we like to compare ourselves with. Well, I am disgusted and distressed when report after report shows that this country is failing its children. This is a country that has so much. The Prime Minister has said it is an egalitarian country. When did he connect with New Zealand? This country has not been an egalitarian country in that way, probably, for 30 or 40 years. We have seen slowly the destruction of that egalitarian society, accelerated under this Government. We see statistics about the high rate in this country of child accidents, of child abuse, of child poverty, of youth suicide, and of failing educational achievement. You have got to ask yourself: where did we go wrong?

The Prime Minister likes to say he was brought up in a State house, but this Government, although it is building 1,000 extra, does not tell you about the ones it has knocked down, the ones it has closed up, and the thousands it has sold off. It does not tell you how it treats State house tenants—as worthless citizens. The Prime Minister likes to say that he was brought up on a widows benefit—plus the family benefit, and maybe it could have even helped pay for their first own home. But “benefits” is now a dirty word. Beneficiaries, especially those caring for children, are worthless in the Government’s eyes. They are judged for their predicament.

Homeownership is now out of the reach of thousands of New Zealanders, and as for giving a universal payment for children, that is now called an election bribe—the very universal payment that helped Mr Key when he was a kid. Paula Bennett likes to crow about how she got off the DPB and made good. She got a degree and she got it with a training incentive allowance, but she got rid of that allowance. Why has the Government not stopped and asked itself a few questions? If the Government supports families and if these policies supported the Prime Minister, Paula Bennett, and others within the National Party, why is National denying those very policies for New Zealand kids today? If those polices helped those members as children, why are they not appropriate to help children today?

You see, it is all about priorities. The reality is that the priorities have changed in New Zealand, and children are no longer as important to this Government as they were in the past. Instead of seeing the future of our country in healthy, well-educated, motivated children and families, this Government does not believe they are a priority. It is now dog-eat-dog. Top dogs get the top dollars and the rest get the leftovers. It has to change. It is going to take a Government with courage, with commitment, and with priority.

I can assure New Zealanders that Labour members are totally committed to turning round the position of children in New Zealand. Yesterday we announced Best Start, based on evidence, research, and what New Zealanders say needs to happen for children. Why will that Government not open its ears and its eyes and for once look and see what is happening to our kids and, instead of opposing everything, support it?

Hon NATHAN GUY (Minister for Primary Industries): What a fantastic speech today, with the Prime Minister’s statement leading off the start of this parliamentary year, 2014, which is going to be a fantastic year for the Government and for the National Party—a statement that, of course, those opposite do not believe. They do not buy into it. They hate the fact that the economy is really starting to move—3.5 percent from September to September last year. Is that not fantastic economic growth, when we think about what is happening in the Canterbury rebuild, helping those people get back on their feet, and when we think about the big plans that we have for infrastructure in this country? It is a fantastic Prime Minister’s statement.

We need to also acknowledge Bill English and the way that he steered this economy forward over the last few years. We are all going to reap the benefits of that going forward. It was interesting that David Cunliffe, in his—whatever it was—state of something speech, came out and suddenly magically said: “Oh, we’re not going to take the GST off fruit and vegetables. We’re not going to do something else on tax-free status and that’s magically just generated $1.5 billion.” That is not at all budgeted in the Government books. So therefore he just felt that he could come out with a delusional policy and announce all of this stuff, which, actually, some have said is to encourage those on incomes up to a level of $150,000 to have more babies Some have labelled it middle-class welfare, and that is the way it will be portrayed out there in the electorate. We have a Labour Party that is old and tired.

Hon Annette King: How ignorant. What an ignorant member.

Hon NATHAN GUY: Annette has not got any new, fresh thinking. She has not got any new ideas. For Mr Cunliffe to come into the House today and actually start criticising primary industries, he is actually not in touch with what is happening in our rural communities. He does not feel a part of what is happening with the productive sector of the economy, because for that $1.5 billion to be spent, it has to come from somewhere. It has to come from the productive sector of this economy, and that is the primary industries. It does not just drop out of the sky. It is not budgeted for. It is not factored in to our forecast going forward. Yet Labour just expects the primary industries to pick it up.

Here we had Mr Cunliffe today, who is not in touch with rural communities. He would not give a damn. He says that they are not adding value in the dairy industry. We should be proud of the New Zealand dairy industry and what it has achieved, exporting to around 200 countries all around the world. What we have is the fact that, of course, Labour is opposed to anything that is happening that is productive in our primary industries. It is against the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which has the opportunity to generate more income for our rural communities, more income, actually, for most of New Zealand. It could potentially be $2 billion.

Labour is, of course, against other trade opportunities, as well. I cannot believe that. We have also got the Primary Growth Partnership, which is a real showcase policy, working well with those in the primary industries—17 projects up and running, supported by this Government, and $700 million invested. That is going to generate billions and billions of dollars in research and development, and Labour is opposed to that. Labour is opposed to research and development. This Government is partnering with primary industries to lift our growth potential, to put more products into different markets. Labour is opposed to that. I cannot believe it.

It is also opposed to irrigation. This Government has invested $80 million and is forecast to invest $400 million in total in decent water storage projects in our regional economies. This, of course, is going to grow our regional economies. It is also good for the environment—

Moana Mackey: Oh, yeah. OK. Poisoning water is great for the environment!

Hon NATHAN GUY: —because when water is stored it takes the pressure off the aquifers. You can maintain summer water flows, and, of course, that is good for the aquatic and marine life. Of course, Moana Mackey chips in from the back seats over there in Labour. It just goes to show that Labour does not care about job creation. It does not care about regional economies. [Interruption] I am sure that is Moana Mackey. Labour does not even care about growing jobs in our regions. Here it is against research and development. Here it is against irrigation. Here it is against opening up new markets. We have just had a new market open up in Peru. Is Labour against that? Yes, probably. We are working hard in other international markets as well. Russia and South Korea are looking promising. We have got to acknowledge the good work that Minister Groser and Minister McCully do on the international stage, supported by the Prime Minister as well, to open up these international markets so that we can continue to grow our primary industries, because you cannot have policies rolled out, like the dopey one that Labour announced just a couple of days ago, that cannot be supported by the productive engine room of our economy.

We have $32 billion worth of exports at the moment. We have set a target of doubling that to $64 billion. That is going to happen with the Primary Growth Partnership. That is going to happen with more trade opportunities. That is going to happen with water storage projects. Also important is lifting the potential of Māori agribusiness. That is where we are working closely with the regions like Northland. We are looking at other opportunities over in the East Coast as well, where we need to partner with iwi and other communities to lift their overall growing potential. If you look at the potential in Māori agribusiness, there are about 1.5 million hectares owned in multiple ownership of iwi, and about 300,000 hectares are under full production. If we can lift the rest—the other 1.2 million hectares—if we can lift the potential there, that is worth an $8 billion prize in growing our exports. It is worth 3,500 jobs. That is why we need to celebrate this Government and what we are trying to achieve in primary industries.

Also in the Prime Minister’s speech he talked about the importance of biosecurity and investing in our front line. We have got 100 new biosecurity officers that we have rolled out in the last 14 months. That is hugely important. We have got 11 new X-ray machines as well in our major airports, which is important and a real focus of mine. It is my No. 1 priority. I need to acknowledge the work that the Ministry for Primary Industries is doing right now in the Whangarei area, working closely with that community, where we have had a fruit fly that was detected in one of the traps up there—a Queensland fruit fly. As a result of that, we got 70 people on the ground there, another 80 or 90 or so working as well, and a big response to ensure that we do more trapping to hope that we do not have any more fruit flies in that area. I want to acknowledge the wonderful work that our biosecurity people do and also acknowledge the support of the Whangarei community in this response, and what it has been is a very good response.

Also in the Prime Minister’s speech he talked about infrastructure. I cannot work out whether Labour on the other side of the House is opposed to Transmission Gully or it supports it.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: We don’t know.

Hon NATHAN GUY: We do not know. We do not know. We might hear today. What does Chris Hipkins think about Transmission Gully? Does he support it or is he against it?

Chris Hipkins: Support.

Hon NATHAN GUY: He supports Transmission Gully. It is good that we now have Labour on the record as supporting Transmission Gully. If we move up to the end of Transmission Gully, where it comes into my electorate, the wonderful electorate of Ōtaki, Labour is opposed to the Kapiti Expressway. A thousand jobs will be created by the Kapiti Expressway, and Labour is opposed to it. The biggest Government investment in the Kapiti district, and Labour does not give a damn. It does not give a damn about my constituents sitting in a traffic jam getting into the capital city of New Zealand. It does not give a damn about freight getting through to the port here, or about people getting to their hospital appointments on time. It does not give a damn about the Kapiti Expressway. It does not give a damn about infrastructure and investing in that in the community. Of course, how do you grow the productive engine room of the economy? You make investments in roads. You make investments in ultra-fast broadband—200,000 people are going to benefit from the roll-out of ultra-fast broadband—

Hon Annette King: When?

Hon NATHAN GUY: —in rural communities, and that is happening as we speak. Annette King says “When?”, yet when she occasionally comes up in her van and sees the people of Levin, she does not acknowledge the fact that ultra-fast broadband is going to connect us not only domestically but internationally. This is a fantastic Prime Minister’s statement, and it should be endorsed by every political party in this House. Let us roll on to the 2014 election.

CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka): If we needed a clear statement of the lack of enthusiasm and lack of ideas that permeate this National Government, we just had it. We just had it from that member, Nathan Guy, who talked about the research and development tax credit. Well, I have a question for him. Who cut the research and development tax credit? Who was it that removed the financial support for firms to invest in research and development? Oh, that would be the current National Government.

Of course, Nathan Guy argued that by providing $60 a week for families who have newborn children, we are going to be encouraging people to have a whole lot more babies. It is like saying that because New Zealand superannuation is universal, more people are going to get old. No, that simply does not compute. It simply does not compute. Is the Government arguing for means testing New Zealand superannuation? If it has a problem with providing universal support to New Zealanders, is it going to means test New Zealand superannuation? Because that is the logical extension of what it has been arguing. Nathan Guy talked about Transmission Gully. After 5 years in Government, not one sod has been turned for Transmission Gully, but I will tell you what—there will be a sod turned in Ōtaki at the next general election. There will be a sod turned in Ōtaki at the next general election—you can mark my words—because Nathan Guy’s term in this Parliament will be coming to an end.

I want to talk about the fantastic announcements in the education area that David Cunliffe made in his speech yesterday. We will be extending free early childhood education for 3 and 4-year-olds to 25 hours per week. That is something that I know parents all around the country are going to be looking forward to and will welcome. We have said that simply extending access is not enough, however. We have also said that we want to increase the quality of early childhood education in New Zealand and that means that we will reinstate the commitment to having a fully qualified and registered teaching profession in early childhood education. That is something that this Government has moved away from.

It is interesting that Government members are willing to talk about quality teaching in schools, which is something that I support, but they are not willing to talk about quality teaching in early childhood education. In fact, they do not see that as a priority. Giving kids the best possible start with their education—and that means investing in quality early childhood education—is one of the most progressive things we can do for the education system. That is why I am absolutely proud that Labour’s commitment to increasing the number of hours that children can access is being accompanied by an absolute commitment to increasing quality by funding fully qualified teachers in early childhood centres.

We also have to recognise that there are some parts of the country where the funding model has been one of the contributing factors to a lack of provision, because the current model that we have has seen most of the growth in early childhood education in the last decade or so come from the for-profit early childhood sector, and that has meant that in many communities—or in a small number of communities but vitally important areas—there is underprovision, because the for-profits do not see a profit-making opportunity in it. We actually have to get serious about that and that means that we will put money in. We are unashamedly saying that the Labour Government will put money into building new centres where there is underprovision, because underprovision is—particularly in many poor communities—one of the contributing factors to those kids not getting access to early childhood education. That is the third leg of the stool of Labour’s early childhood policy that David Cunliffe announced yesterday and I am really, really proud to stand behind that.

It is a pretty clear contrast to the things that John Key has been talking about—John Key’s six-page apology for Hekia Parata, which he made last week. This, of course, is the same Minister of Education who brought us school closures in Christchurch; who thought that increasing the quality of education was going to rest on having bigger class sizes; who brought us Novopay—if they are talking about increasing the pay for teachers, there are still teachers around the country who are waiting to be paid at all as a result of that botch-up—who brought us charter schools that do not have to have qualified and registered teachers; who brought us national standards, which, of course, have been proven to be neither national nor standard; and who is now saying that the Government wants to focus on the quality of teaching.

Well, I thought that was a very interesting argument, because I think that quality teaching is vitally important, but I do want to pick up the comment by Graeme Aitken, the Dean of Education at the University of Auckland, who said in an opinion column that there is an “Everest of research that shows that socio-economic status is the strongest predictor of achievement.” When the Government talks about quality teaching being the strongest predictor of achievement, it is not actually correct. Quality teaching is the strongest in-school predictor of student achievement; there is no argument about that. But it is simply wrong for that Government to bury its head in the sand and claim that all of the things that happen outside the school do not have an impact on kids when they get through the gate. As Graeme Aitken has argued, the changes that the Government announced last week will have “limited impact if they are not accompanied by bold initiatives to address social inequality and poverty.” That is exactly what the Labour Party has done this week with our Best Start programme that David Cunliffe announced yesterday.

I also want to quote—because I think this is actually really important when considering the package that John Key announced around teaching last week—Graeme Aitken on paying good teachers more. How is this Government going to decide what a good teacher is? If it is going to decide it based on national standards and the National Certificate of Educational Achievement, then it is setting our education system up for failure. As Graeme Aitken has argued here: “Top teaching is not about cramming for results”—

Hon Gerry Brownlee: What about the member’s own thoughts?

CHRIS HIPKINS: —“on limited measures of learning. It is about leaving students with greater enjoyment of reading, writing and mathematics and feeling confident about new learning in these areas. It is also about opening students’ minds to the rich curriculum offered in the arts, sciences, languages, technology, health and physical education and the social sciences.”

I say to Gerry Brownlee that I agree with him. My thoughts are very, very similar to his. I think he is absolutely right when he says that we cannot simply narrow the definition of success in our education system into cramming kids to pass a couple of tests in a few areas. We actually have to give them a broad, well-rounded education. That includes subjects like woodwork. Some kids do quite well in woodwork—probably not the ones who had their educational opportunities completely hamstrung by having the misfortune to have Gerry Brownlee as their woodwork teacher, but many kids do quite well in woodwork and they do find that a bridge to other opportunities in education. Kids learn quite well in context, and I actually think, if we are talking about numeracy, that kids doing woodwork quite often find woodwork a very good context in which to learn better numeracy skills. They have to learn skills around measurement and around all sorts of things; it is a good context.

But this Government does not seem to think that is important. It thinks that instead you should be cramming kids full of literacy and numeracy alone without the rich context that comes from a broad curriculum, which is what I think we should be focused on in our schools, and that is certainly—

Moana Mackey: Where’s the science?

CHRIS HIPKINS: “What about science?” I hear Moana Mackey saying. Science, of course, is a vitally important part of the curriculum as well. There are no national standards in science. It is not a priority for this Government. Well, I think—

Hon Annette King: All that stuff from Nathan Guy.

CHRIS HIPKINS: After all that stuff from Nathan Guy about science, it is a shame that National does not seem to think that science is important in schools. I think employing a Chief Science Advisor to the Prime Minister was a very, very good idea. I think that listening to him would be an even better idea, and that is certainly not something we are seeing from this Government.

Instead, of course, we have John Key and his dance of the desperate and dateless. It is like political speed-dating over there on the National benches. We have got Colin Craig, John Banks, and Peter Dunne. Peter Dunne is now restored to be a Minister of the Crown. I am really interested to know from John Key and from the National Government who leaked the Kitteridge report. Who leaked the Kitteridge report? If it is happy to have Peter Dunne, the prime suspect for leaking the Kitteridge report, back in the Government, it must think that somebody else did it. How could John Key sack Peter Dunne last year for leaking a Government document and then turn round and reinstate him without actually establishing, if it was not Peter Dunne, who it was?

Carol Beaumont: Who done it?

CHRIS HIPKINS: Of course—who done it? But we know that this is nothing to do with principle. This is everything to do with the desperate clinging to power by this National Government, which is out of ideas and which is out of energy. It is time, and in the coming election it will be replaced. It will be replaced and there will be a Government with a commitment to ensuring that all New Zealanders share in the economic recovery that is taking place—all New Zealanders get their fair share of that. That is not going to happen under this Government, which is committed to the trickle-up theory that sees all of the wealth concentrated in fewer and fewer New Zealanders, while those in the middle get squeezed, and those on the lowest incomes get absolutely clobbered.

The days of those policies are coming to an end. We have to bring in fairness. We have to restore the balance. We have to restore a fair and just society in which every New Zealander is rewarded appropriately for their efforts, every child in this country gets the best possible start in life, every school is a great school, and every teacher is a great teacher. This is not about picking winners; it is about giving everybody their fair opportunities in life.

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Leader of the House): I move, That this debate be now adjourned.

Motion agreed to.

Sittings of the House

Sittings of the House

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Leader of the House): There is about a minute or so before the dinner break. I seek the leave of the House for the House to lift now and resume at 7.30.

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

Sitting suspended from 5.59 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

Bills

Subantarctic Islands Marine Reserves Bill

Second Reading

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister of Conservation): I move, That the Subantarctic Islands Marine Reserves Bill be now read a second time. We have just come from debating the Prime Minister’s statement, in which he outlined the ambition of his Government to create a record number of marine reserves this year, and it is entirely appropriate that the House now works on progressing three very substantive marine reserves, covering 430,000 hectares in the subantarctic area.

Gareth Hughes: Smaller than the oil blocks.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I hear interjections from the Green Party. There is sort of the view that the bigger gains that are made for conservation and the environment are made by the political left. Let me put Mr Gareth Hughes correct. The Marine Reserves Act, which was a world leader, was passed in 1971 by a National Government. The very first marine reserve created in New Zealand was in 1976: the Leigh reserve north of Auckland. Of the 34 marine reserves that have been created in New Zealand, the vast bulk of them have been created by National administrations, and we are proud of that. I would also point out that in the term of this Government we passed very important legislation to put in place proper environmental regulation of our exclusive economic zone. So this Government—

Moana Mackey: It’s not proper.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Well, I hear Moana Mackey from the opposite side interject and say that she questions that legislation. I remind that member that she and the Greens sat in this Parliament for 9 years, allowed deep-sea drilling, and did not raise a finger—

Moana Mackey: None of it happened under a Labour Government.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Yes, it did. There was deep-sea drilling for 9 years during Labour’s Government, with no environmental regulation, and there was not a squeak from the Green Party during that period, which really does expose the double standards that we witness in some of the arguments about the marine space. But I am absolutely pleased that this bill receives the very wide support of Parliament, and I want to acknowledge the good work that the Local Government and Environment Committee, under Nicky Wagner’s very able leadership, has made to this bill.

I would remind the House that the Subantarctic Islands do have World Heritage status. It is actually a status that I was involved in establishing in the 1990s, when I was also the Minister of Conservation. What this Subantarctic Islands Marine Reserves Bill does is enable—through the collaborative process that was set up back in 2008, which provided a report to Ministers in 2010—us to proceed with the agreement of the key stakeholders that participated in that forum on the creation of these new marine reserves in the Antipodes Islands, the Bounty Islands, and Campbell Island.

This Government does believe that the best way forward with issues like marine conservation is not the very long, the very protracted, and the very divisive sorts of arguments that we have seen in places like Akaroa, but by actually getting stakeholders working together in the collaborative way that has delivered five proposed marine reserves on the West Coast and these three marine reserves here. Another issue for the Government to work through this year is the proposals for marine protection in Kaikōura that have come from the Te Korowai o Te Tai o Marokura process. So I do want to acknowledge the strength of that collaborative process, which has brought about these proposals.

There have been amendments proposed by the select committee in respect of the review of the reserve around the Campbell Island area. I think the changes that have been recommended by the select committee make good sense. There has been the issue of the timing—whether it should be 5 years before the review of the area in Campbell Island takes place. That has been shortened by the select committee to 3 years. Given the fact that 18 months have passed in between, that makes good sense, and the Government will be supporting those changes. I would also acknowledge the improvements that have been made to the bill on some of the details.

I know that with every environmental initiative that this Government makes—or, frankly, that the previous Government made—the Green Party always says that it is never enough. There is nothing new about that. I am going to have a heart attack the day the Green Party ever gets up and says: “Yes, that’s good and that’s enough and we’re satisfied.” It has not happened once—it has not happened once—with any initiative made by a Labour or a National Government in the 16-odd years that the Green Party has been part of this Parliament.

The last point that I want to make on this bill is to just note the very special ecology of the three Subantarctic Islands areas that we are looking to protect here. It is true that the ocean environment is the new frontier for conservation. Seventy percent of the species that are endemic to New Zealand—70 percent—are not actually on land, where all the terrestrial concentration has been. They are actually out there in the marine environment, and that is why this Government is giving a particular focus to marine conservation. It is my intention, which I want to give the House notice of, to table a Supplementary Order Paper during the Committee stage just to note that we want to bring the reserve in as quickly as possible after the passage of the bill. Other than that I think it is in good shape, and I commend the bill to the House.

MOANA MACKEY (Labour): We will be supporting this bill, the Subantarctic Islands Marine Reserves Bill. We welcome the creation of three new marine reserves: Moutere Mahue, or the Antipodes Island Marine Reserve; Moutere Hauriri, or the Bounty Islands Marine Reserve; and Moutere Ihupuku, or the Campbell Island Marine Reserve. As the Minister of Conservation said, these are indeed incredibly unique ecosystems, World Heritage sites, and they deserve the protection that this bill will be affording them. It is important, coming out of the select committee, to note that the majority of submitters to the Local Government and Environment Committee did want the extension of those marine reserves. I do not think I have seen the creation of a marine reserve where people have not wanted to see it extended. There are always good reasons and we need to be mindful of those.

We have a particularly successful marine reserve at Puoawa up off the East Coast, where over time that marine reserve was actually extended over the reef at Whangarā because of the unique ecosystem there and, in fact, in the meantime the locals and the local fishermen—and anyone who worked in that area, actually—abided by an unofficial marine reserve because they could see the sense of that. I can tell you, the best fishing on the East Coast is on the borders of the marine reserve. Anyone who says that no one will know where those borders are just needs to look at where the fishing boats are, and that will tell you.

I remember going with the Hon Chris Carter, when he was the Minister of Conservation, to have a look at the success of that marine reserve. It had been highly controversial. There is this idea of locking up the ocean, which I always found slightly odd, given that fish are going to freely move in and out of the marine reserve. But we have had some serious issues with crayfish stocks on the East Coast and with the overfishing of that particular species. There was a PhD student there and she was doing her PhD on this particular marine reserve. It had been in place for only 4 years. Outside the marine reserve she was finding about half a kilogram of legal-sized crayfish per pot, and inside the marine reserve it was 30 kilograms of legal-sized cray per pot. I do not know how the crayfish knew to stay within the marine reserve—I am not quite sure what kinds of communications were going on there—but we also saw the restoration of stocks that we had not seen on the East Coast in a while, in numbers that were significant. So, hopefully, I do not think you need to convince anyone in this House of the benefits of marine reserves, and for our part we are very pleased to see this extension and we would like to see further extensions of marine reserves.

Can I also say how nice it is to have a piece of legislation at the Local Government and Environment Committee that is not diabolically awful and damaging for the environment. So on the one hand the Government giveth and on the other hand it taketh away massively. It is a balance, I guess, which seems to be a phrase that comes up constantly in environmental law and environmental protections. But it was nice to have a really positive piece of legislation, notwithstanding that some people wanted it to go further, and to be able to look at the photos and the images and learn more about a part of the world that most of us will never go to but is incredibly important to the entire marine ecosystem. So that is the good stuff.

I cannot let the Minister’s comments go without commenting on the protection of Māui’s dolphins, because although I am quite happy to acknowledge that this is a bill that is going to strengthen marine protection and the marine environment, on the other hand we saw in September last year the Government’s decision to oppose further protection measures for Māui’s and Hector’s dolphins, some of the most endangered mammals on our planet. New Zealand was one of just two countries to vote against new protections for these dolphins at the International Union for Conservation of Nature conference in Korea.

For New Zealand to stand up on an international stage and oppose a motion to protect one of the most endangered dolphin species in the world kind of runs up against all the really good stuff the Hon Dr Nick Smith was saying right now about marine conservation, protecting marine ecosystems, and protecting the marine environments. The actions, as the Minister will be aware, did cause environmental concern, and they do not make economic sense. Our future is not in unsustainable fishing practices at all.

Just as we have this debate between the Government side of the House and the Opposition side of the House about our “clean, green” branding generally across our environment and climate change issues, we see that same branding being incredibly important to our fishing industry. On this side of the House we believe that New Zealand really does have an opportunity to be a truly sustainable fishery, and the protection of Māui’s and Hector’s dolphins absolutely has to be at the top of that. So, again, Minister, here we are debating a very good piece of legislation where—

Hon Dr Nick Smith: We’re extending the protection for Māui’s.

MOANA MACKEY: Yes, Minister, but we voted against proper protections on an international stage—

Hon Dr Nick Smith: No, we didn’t.

MOANA MACKEY: Yes, we did. The protections have not gone as far as every single expert who is working in the area of the conservation of Hector’s and Māui’s dolphins has told us we need to do if we do not want to see a native species die out and become extinct on our watch—die out and become extinct on our watch. And so I think that it is highly unfortunate that the Government cannot extend this wonderful ethos that we heard from the Hon Dr Nick Smith about marine protection right across all areas of policy and not just have it in one area—cynically perhaps—because it is election year. Maybe that is cynical but you get that way in this place.

I want to come back to another issue as well that I think flies against the very good ethos we have heard here about the protection of marine environments, and that is actually the protection of our other waterways, which feed into our marine environment, all of which is part of one great big ecosystem. It does worry me sometimes when I hear National Government Ministers just say that we should not have any kind of water from rivers flowing out into the ocean, because it is a waste; we should put it all in a dam. I mean, water storage is a fine idea—

Louise Upston: That’s outrageous.

MOANA MACKEY: Go back and have a look at what the Minister said. It is a great idea, but having water go out to the ocean is not a waste. It is actually a really important part of an ecosystem. At the moment we have a very important process going on to decide about a water storage system in the Hawke’s Bay that would turn the Tukituki River catchment toxic. It will turn the Tukituki toxic. That is the concern of the many environmental groups and experts who have appeared before a truncated board of inquiry process that has been geared against community organisations. The Department of Conservation, for some reason—and maybe the Hon Nick Smith can enlighten us as to what that reason was—saw fit to produce a large submission on the Dunedin City Council discharging more stormwater but did not see fit to provide a submission on whether or not the Ruataniwha Dam scheme would turn the Tukituki River catchment toxic. I am not sure why that is, the Hon Dr Nick Smith. Maybe you might have more of an idea about that than me. So the burden has fallen—

Hon Dr Nick Smith: The department decided that.

MOANA MACKEY: Oh, the department had decided that! No one believes that for a second. So what we have is that the burden has fallen to community groups, to individuals, to local iwi, and to NGOs to pick up where the Government has slacked off and has not done its job in protecting the conservation of our waterways. So we have got a truncated process. We have NGOs, community organisations, individuals, and iwi who have not been properly consulted, who were messed around before Christmas, given days in the lead-up to Christmas to change the times that they were doing their submissions and were given mere days for rebuttal.

We have a process that is not protecting our waterways and that the public can have no confidence in. There is no doubt that a number of these schemes are going to be controversial. That is why the process is so important. That is why the Government’s role is to ensure that the best analysis is done of water quality issues and that any issue that goes through this board of inquiry and the Environmental Protection Authority process is done to the highest standard and highest transparency, and is not just a rubber-stamping exercise that is going to turn the Tukituki catchment toxic. That is what it is going to do. That is what the experts are telling us it is going to do. We should be having a far greater look in that scheme at the single nutrient management system that is being proposed.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Is Labour opposed to the scheme?

MOANA MACKEY: We are opposed to an absolutely dodgy process that is not going to ensure that the environment is protected, Dr Smith.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Ah! She’s not saying.

MOANA MACKEY: No, I am waiting to see what the board of inquiry comes out with, and—

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Oh, so are we.

MOANA MACKEY: Well, I think we know. I think we know, but I am prepared to give the process its shot. But from everything I have heard from people on the ground, Dr Smith, we know what the result is going to be. You know what the result is going to be. That is why you refused to put anyone with a water science speciality on to the board of inquiry—because they might actually know what they are talking about.

I want to finish up by just referring to Dr Nick Smith’s comments about the exclusive economic zone legislation. Here is another example where National thinks that it can put something incredibly weak in place and use it as an excuse for not doing something that would actually protect the exclusive economic zone. There were eight deep-sea wells drilled before the exclusive economic zone legislation came into place. When we went and had a look at them, they were under National Governments in the 1990s and in the 1980s. [Interruption] Yes, they were, in the exclusive economic zone. So when the bill first came to the House, we thought: “OK, maybe the better-than-nothing argument actually is a good one.” But when we read through it, the bill was such a dog and such a developers’ charter that we could not give the National Government the excuse of saying that this had complete and total support in Parliament, because it was not adequate. It is so much weaker than the Resource Management Act. So we have drawn a line in the ocean, a line that is jurisdictional only, and said that on this side we are going to have proper environmental protections, and on that side we are going to have pretty much no environmental protections, no right for the public to have their say, no right for the public to go out and protest—

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! The time has concluded.

Moana Mackey: Oh, but I was just really getting going.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I am sorry to hear that. You have now finished.

Hon PHIL HEATLEY (National—Whangarei): Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak in support of the second reading of the Subantarctic Islands Marine Reserves Bill. I was interested in the comments of the previous speaker, Moana Mackey, that Labour may be opposing the Ruataniwha project there in the Tukituki. That is something I have not seen as a public statement by the leader, but Hawke’s Bay listeners tonight will be interested in that information. I, of course, am pleased that the Minister of Conservation, Nick Smith, is bringing forward the legislation that we have got here before us. He did that before Christmas, and we have looked at it in the Local Government and Environment Committee.

It was 3 years ago today, in fact, that I, as Minister of Fisheries, and Kate Wilkinson, the then Minister of Conservation, announced that these three huge marine reserves, totalling over 435,000 hectares, were to be established in the Subantarctic Islands. We were very proud of that at that time. A considerable amount of work has been done since because there has been a high level of public engagement, which is usually the case when the National Government is doing environmental law. Then action occurs. There will be marine reserves after us.

It is true that Labour and the Greens do like to consult more. They do; they go round and round and round again. They do not reach a conclusion. They do not make a decision. People are consulted with thoroughly. They do indeed run a very robust consultation process. We, on the other hand, prefer to have consultation and get better ideas from the community than we have at the current time, once we have put something on paper. Then we make a decision, and in this case, of course, we have. There will be marine reserves. We will not be going out for years and years of more cyclical conversations, love-ins, and hugs, which the Green Party and the Labour Party seem to need. We have made a decision here, and these marine reserves will be put in place.

So we will see a marine reserve cover the entire territorial sea out to 12 nautical miles, surrounding the Antipodes Island, with two further marine reserves around the Bounty Islands and Campbell Island. At the time we made the original decision, it was covering about 58 percent and 39 percent of those islands’ territorial seas, respectively.

There are prohibitions today in seining. They will be introduced in the remaining territorial sea. Of course, these islands as a land mass boast World Heritage status, in recognition of their international conservation importance; what we are essentially doing is extending this to the sea mass. I remember Kate Wilkinson at the time saying that some of the most biologically diverse marine communities in the world are found here, and recent research shows that their diversity compares to locations such as the Galapagos Islands. So it is no wonder that we have good cross-party support for this legislation. I just thank the Minister Nick Smith for making sure that it is cemented in and for, essentially, carrying the ball, I guess, and doing the work to get this over the line and drive it through Parliament, as is his habit. So as a previous Minister of Fisheries involved in this decision some years ago, I would like to thank the Minister Nick Smith for taking this on and making sure that it happens.

I do want to thank the Subantarctic Islands Marine Protection Planning Forum, at that time chaired by Buddle Findlay partner Paul Beverley, which conducted a tremendous amount of work consulting on and assessing the marine protection options. When complete, the new marine protected areas will boost the area of New Zealand’s territorial sea that is protected to over 10 percent, which is a wonderful record. I do know that Minister Nick Smith is very passionate about marine reserves. Before I was a member of Parliament, I recall him bringing in the marine reserve out of the Poor Knights Islands, off the Northland coast, which was quite controversial at that time. I recall that the Green Party and the Labour Party had talked a lot about that too for many, many years, and consulted and talked, and consulted and talked some more. They do like to talk. They do like to consult. We like to make decisions. Here is something again that is concrete and not just empty promises, hot air, and love-ins. Thank you, Minister Nick Smith. I look forward to supporting this bill as it goes through the Committee stage and the third reading.

DAVID SHEARER (Labour—Mt Albert): The Labour Party is proud to support this Subantarctic Islands Marine Reserves Bill. We want to support this because, actually, Labour started the process to bring about these marine reserves. It is not about “love-ins” or anything like that, as Mr Heatley seems to suggest. We started this in 2006 and 2007. As he said, the bill has sat there and languished for some time since he was Minister of Fisheries, and now he is no longer fisheries Minister and it still goes on. Yet, here we are, at the second reading.

It is, however, good that we are able to progress this bill this evening. It is something that I believe all New Zealanders will be very pleased to see. It will extend that protection out much further. Right now the terrestrial elements of those islands are under protection but not actually the sea around them. This will enable this pristine and very biologically diverse and biologically precious area to be protected properly and fully.

The concept of marine reserves is something that the Labour Party is, in general, supporting. It is Labour Party policy to extend the protections of marine reserves to about 30 percent of the area under New Zealand’s jurisdiction by the year 2020. That is something that we want to move on. It is something that I would encourage the National Party to actually put in its manifesto as well, because we have made a good start in being bipartisan on this particular issue and it would actually be rather good for it to be taken further along.

These islands, as I have said and as everybody knows and as has been said before, have extraordinary biological significance. But as a result of that they also have some economic significance in the form of tourism. We are seeing more boats going down to these areas so that people are able to take a look for themselves and actually experience the diversity that is there too. So although there has been some talk about the economic cost, there is also a huge economic benefit. That will also contribute to New Zealand’s standing internationally in terms of our ability to have islands of such significance available.

As I said, the Labour Party is very proud and pleased to be able to support this bill. It also adjusts or rebalances some of the policies by this Government, which have come up before international fora anyway, that have been less significant and certainly more embarrassing to our country. I am talking of the debacle over the Ross Sea and trying to get an agreement that was actually—we could have had an agreement with the United States over the Ross Sea, but we lost that opportunity. We lost the opportunity to protect that area, for the sake of around a $20 million fishing industry, I think, which would not have been closed out completely but certainly would have been affected. When we balance that up against the hundreds of millions of dollars that we get in benefit as a result of our reputation and also as a gateway to the Antarctic that the United States is using, I think that was an enormous missed opportunity to actually put some sort of credentials down there as well.

The other area, of course, that we have been less illustrious on is the protection of Māui’s dolphins and Hector’s dolphins. We were one of two countries that actually went against the international agreement to protect these very precious mammals—the most endangered species of dolphins in the world.

On a personal note, I remember some years ago being out surfing off the west coast off O’Neills Beach. I was paddling out there, and some of the surfers around me called out “Shark! Shark!”, and swung their boards round and took a wave in to get away from what they thought was a shark. I was a little more slow off the mark—unfortunately, I am not as quick as some of those guys—but I had the opportunity of seeing two of these enchanting dolphins swim around me, within 10 metres of me, and disappear. So being slow off the mark in that particular case was to my advantage. I was actually able to see these dolphins in the wild, up close. Those small round fins and the way that they were able to move through the water certainly made me feel not only very privileged to see them but also pretty determined to make sure that these dolphins actually survive. If we were ever to lose these dolphins as a result of the policies that we are about to implement and the fact that we are unable and unwilling to sign up to an international protection for these dolphins, I think it would be an absolute travesty.

I am very pleased to once again be here to provide support as a speaker from the Labour Party to ensure that these islands in the south of New Zealand do actually get protection. They were awarded World Heritage status in 1998. The marine reserves and the prohibitions on Danish purse seining, combined with the existing Fisheries Act regulations and prohibitions on bottom trawling and dredging, will provide those marine protected areas in the wider area of the territorial sea of New Zealand and the Subantarctic Islands with the sort of protection that they are going to need.

There will be some impact on commercial fisheries. I note that some of the ling fisheries will be extended. From the regulatory impact statement that I have seen and read, the way that these ling are taken has a very small bycatch. As a result of that, the phasing out of that over the next 5 years will be welcomed, but obviously it will be up for review at the end of that time. Of course, this legislation will also be up for review within the course of 5 years. That is a good initiative. I think it needs to be done between 5 years and 7 years. That will ensure that our fisheries are well reviewed, and ensure that the Subantarctic Islands Marine Reserves Bill—which I am sure will go through Parliament—is working in the way that we would like it to, and ensure that the protections are being afforded as we would like them to be.

It is certainly with pride that we are able to come together today with the Government and, I believe, all parties in the Parliament to protect an area that will serve New Zealand well in terms of its reputation. It will serve those marine ecosystems well in terms of their unique fauna and flora that are found in those Subantarctic Islands, which have been compared to the Galapagos Islands, for example, and, as I say, have been awarded World Heritage status. That will also enable us to further develop the tourism potential in those places, and ensure that there is some economic benefit that comes back to us that can be put back into ensuring that these islands are well and truly protected. So it is with those few words that I would like to conclude my comments today and to once again ensure that Labour will be supporting this bill in its entirety. Thank you very much.

GARETH HUGHES (Green): Kia ora, Mr Deputy Speaker. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. I would like to wish all the members in the House and people listening over the TV, the live stream, or the radio a very happy New Year, and I wish them all the best for 2014. Of course we celebrate great Kiwis doing great stuff, like Lorde. Obviously, it is election year and we kicked off the debate with the Prime Minister’s statement. We saw a robust debate. I think all of us are going to put our values, visions, and solutions for this country forward, and it is going to be an exciting year because being an Opposition party, as the member Dr Nick Smith points out often, the Greens are opposed to things, but in election year the Greens are going to be going out there putting out our positive solutions and vision. I think we have got a great deal of that, so I relish the opportunity this year to talk about the positive things, the things that make our country good.

I echo the sentiment of Dr Russel Norman. This year we can make history. When it comes to ocean protection and protection of our beautiful Subantarctic Islands, this year we can make history and take it seriously. I am glad we did finally hear from the Labour Party that it started the process. Listening to the Hon Dr Nick Smith, you would think he had come in dressed as Neptune himself with a bit of seaweed on his hair and his trident, for all of his talk of being the champion of marine protection. I welcome the Government taking marine protection seriously. I want to see more action. I want to see more talk. I want to see more consultation. But here is the Minister making out like he is the greenest thing since whatever the greenest thing was.

What we see is the year starting on marine reserves. I think that is great for our country. It is great for our environment. It is great for our economy. Kiwis love our marine reserves. We were pioneering in 1971. I have got to somewhat point out the irony to Dr Nick Smith that here he is coming in as the champion of marine reserves pointing out the National Party’s history. It is somewhat ironic that it has taken 40 years to get to this point with these areas, but even more ironic that the legislation that he refers to from 1971 has been bypassed. We actually need legislation of the Parliament to see these marine reserves adopted. It is not good enough. I think we can all agree on that. Obviously, we saw two marine reserve bills languishing in select committees, the second-oldest in our Parliament’s history.

I would like to reopen the invitation made to your predecessor Kate Wilkinson—I have made it to you yourself—that the Green Party wants to work constructively because it is high time we modernise our antiquated yet pioneering for its time marine reserve legislation. I mean that seriously. I want to work with the Government, be it a blue or a red one, because it is high time we actually addressed the fact that we cannot make marine reserves in the exclusive economic zone. The criteria for getting marine reserves off the ground are incredibly difficult, so let us work together. We need to protect more of our waters. We do need to do more. It is great to be seeing marine reserves around the Subantarctic Islands. I have never been there myself. I really hope to get there. I doubt very many New Zealanders will get to see this very special part of the country. Although the Minister is trumpeting the size—it is substantial at 430,000 hectares—that, of course, is considerably smaller than just this year’s petroleum block offer. Just 1 year of oil blocks, massively, is larger than this. What did the Minister call it? Trumpeting this particular marine reserve. So it is great to see it but let us put it in context.

We need to do more. These marine reserves take New Zealand’s percentage of marine reserve protection from only 0.31 percent to 0.41 percent. So less than half of 1 percent of New Zealand’s waters, the fourth-largest in the world, are protected. Obviously, it is around 79 percent for the territorial sea, but when you look at the exclusive economic zone, it is less than half of 1 percent. We want to work with the Government to see more of our waters protected. When you look at all the academic studies, we know there are significant local economic benefits. When you look at the studies, you see there are significant fisheries benefits and biodiversity benefits—win-win-win for communities. The collaborative process has been good to help stimulate some of those discussions. There have been some controversial ones in the past.

The Minister also liked to point out that the Greens will never celebrate the Government’s good decisions. That is just not right. It is not on. I think in the space of a single week I was tweeting in support of the Akaroa marine reserve decision and the decision to finally ban shark finning—in a single week. I would like to acknowledge the Akaroa decision because there you really see the nexus of the environmental and economic benefits. There are around 200 businesses directly related to the environment in Akaroa and in the harbour. The small marine reserve and the Taiāpure played a significant economic role in that beautiful township. It is great that we are finally seeing progress there. But we need to do more than having 0.41 percent of our waters protected.

What we would be pushing for is greater modernisation of the legislation, a greater focus on working collaboratively with people. Again, it is somewhat ironic that former Minister Heatley comes down to the House and bangs the table and talks about how the Government, the National Party, is all about action, action, action. But we also heard in this debate that these areas were gazetted as World Heritage areas in 1998 under a National Government, which did not protect them then. This Government has been in power for 5 years and it has taken until this point, the election year, to finally get on and do it under legislation. Maybe the action call is not as apt as the Minister made out.

What we would like to point out is that we support the Subantarctic Islands Marine Reserves Bill. We would like to thank the submitters, the Local Government and Environment Committee members, and the chairperson, Nicky Wagner. We think that the bill was improved in the select committee. The fact that the review for full protection has been pushed forward is a good thing. But what we were urging, and you can read it in our minority report, is the fact that these are World Heritage listed areas. They should be fully protected. I think it makes a mockery of protection to see only percentages. It is 39 percent of Campbell Island and 58 percent of the Bounty Islands. The rationale is the potential crab fishery in the future. I challenge any member to say who is going to be marketing crabs caught in a World Heritage area and exporting them around the world. I do not think that they will find many consumers, particularly in those premium markets that we should really be going on.

I welcome the focus for marine reserves. If the Government wants to have an arms race, a competition, when it comes to protecting our waters, I welcome that because we have got some really good policies when it comes to that area. When it comes to the Māui’s dolphin, we have a protection plan that would stop the trawling that is happening in the marine mammal sanctuary. We would end the mockery of our marine protection laws, which see that in the benthic protected areas fishers cannot fish 100 metres above the seabed, yet a company can literally vacuum up the top 5 metres of the seabed—a protection area that does not offer protection. We see an oil well in the middle of a marine mammal sanctuary. We see the Government this year in the petroleum Block Offer 2014 literally offer deep-sea oil permits that cross into a marine mammal sanctuary around Akaroa. Good on the Christchurch City Council and Vicki Buck, in particular, who made a submission to the Government opposing that, pointing out the risks of deep-sea drilling.

What we would do is have sanctuaries that actually provide sanctuary and protected areas that actually provide protection. We would set an ambitious target for marine reserve protection around the country. We would update the antiquated Marine Reserves Act. Again, the invitation goes out that we want to work with the Government to modernise this old-fashioned legislation. A good green Government that comes in and makes history could start by protecting the Kermadec Islands. Overnight, New Zealand could go from less than half of 1 percent to 15 percent of our waters protected in marine reserves by expanding the marine reserve around the Kermadec Islands. For the cost of only around $120,000 per annum of fishing we could send a message to the world that New Zealand takes this seriously. We have an economy built on smart sustainability that takes environmental issues like conservation seriously. That is where our economy is coming from and that is why I am pushing incredibly hard, after the Greens won the shark-finning victory, to protect the Kermadec Islands. We want to work with all parties to do that.

We would start the development of an integrated oceans policy, which has been talked about for years and years but we need action. So all in all the Green Party stands for protecting our waters and protecting the economy, which depends on our beautiful environment. As New Zealanders, we should say that this is something that should unite us. I grew up in Gisborne, on the East Coast, where every summer we would go camping at the same beach, Pouawa. That is where I learnt to surf, and it is where I would go out with my dad and put out a cray pot. I think every New Zealander has got that story.

We heard of David Shearer’s story about seeing Māui’s dolphins live in the marine environment when he was out surfing. I think it is an incredible tale, and it is a tale our kids and our grandkids unfortunately may miss out on. But it is not too late; we can protect our Māui’s dolphins. We can see more of our waters protected. We can see a thriving fishing industry built on sustainability. We can protect our waters from the other threats facing them, like deep-sea drilling and like vacuuming up the seabed with some of the incredibly crazy marine mining proposals. A Government that takes it seriously is a green Government. That is why I think you will see that a good green Government will make history protecting our waters, protecting our environment, protecting our economy, and protecting the things we love.

JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki): Just, perhaps, a few facts about National’s record. In the 5 years of the National Government, we have announced nine new marine reserves, which will significantly increase biodiversity protection in New Zealand waters. So that is nine new marine reserves.

Louise Upston: How many?

JACQUI DEAN: Nine—and that is nine new marine reserves over a period of 5 years in Government, so I think that is a pretty good record. New Zealand currently has 34 type 1 marine reserve areas and 14 type 2 marine reserve areas or other management tools. That covers just over 7 percent and just over 1 percent of the territorial sea, respectively. National has got a pretty good record in this area. Approximately 9.5 percent of New Zealand’s territorial sea will be protected by marine reserves once the three new Subantarctic Islands marine reserves are gazetted, and those are the three marine reserves that are contained in this bill, the Subantarctic Islands Marine Reserves Bill.

Just, perhaps, a reference to the previous speaker, Gareth Hughes, and the Green Party minority report that it put into this bill, where it talked about 0.41 percent being covered by marine reserves. This refers to marine reserves as a percentage of New Zealand’s economic zone, not of the territorial sea, so I stand by the percentage of 9.5 percent of New Zealand’s territorial sea being covered by marine reserve status once this bill is enacted. That member is also absolutely correct in that National has a proud history of marine protection. In 1971 we passed the original Marine Reserves Act and established the first marine reserve, and that was at Leigh in 1975. Incidentally, Leigh was one of the very first no-take reserves in the world. So I stand by National’s proud record and I stand by the record of the Hon Nick Smith in his sponsorship of this bill.

The proposal for the marine reserves is the result of a pretty extensive and collaborative stakeholder forum, with a lot of input from iwi, industry representatives, scientific conservation groups, and also the wider public. That kind of consultation, and collaborative consultation, is one of the hallmarks of this National Government. It has been undertaken in a number of other forums and it is proving to be very successful, as indeed it is with this marine protection legislation.

Just for a little bit of background, although the three island groups contained in the bill have protected land area status, the territorial waters around them are not currently protected in marine protected status. They do not have that status as it applies to the land. So the proposal recognises great opportunities for tourism, for scientific research, and, of course, for fishing in a responsible and sustainable way. Although I appreciate the words of the Green member of Parliament, with him saying that in their view there should be no fishery take in these marine protected areas, I have a different view, as does the Minister of Conservation. That is why there will be protection in this bill for the ling fishery and also a possible exploration for a crab fishery.

This is a thoughtful bill. It was considered well by the Local Government and Environment Committee. I do commend it to the House.

ANDREW WILLIAMS (NZ First): Can I just extend my greetings to all members of this House at the beginning of 2014, and also to all those out there who may be listening to this broadcast. It is great to start the parliamentary year at the end of January with already so much on the agenda.

The Subantarctic Islands Marine Reserves Bill is a very interesting bill. I have had the great pleasure in the last couple of weeks to be down in what you would say is as close as you can possibly get, on mainland New Zealand, to this area. I visited Stewart Island, Fiordland, and Queenstown. When you go down there and you see what has been done in terms of the—

Hon Ruth Dyson: You’re not going to stand in Clutha-Southland, are you?

ANDREW WILLIAMS: No, no, I am not going to stand in Southland, no. When going down into your area, Mr Deputy Speaker, into Eric Roy country, and seeing what is being done on the likes of Stewart Island, with Ulva Island and the marine reserve there, and seeing what is being done in Fiordland, in the World Heritage status area, and throughout that whole area of Southland and Stewart Island, it does make you reflect on where New Zealand is in the world, in terms of our nature and our flora and fauna, and the special place that we have within world global status. This Subantarctic Islands Marine Reserves Bill is an extra addition to that, in that the islands are some 860 kilometres south-west of the extent of this area, of Stewart Island, and they are, again, a very special area of the greater part of New Zealand Inc. that we have.

The Local Government and Environment Committee was very privileged last year to sit on the exclusive economic zone bill that looked at that huge area of water around New Zealand. I am told that it is the fifth-largest exclusive economic zone in the world—

Hon Dr Nick Smith: That’s right.

ANDREW WILLIAMS: —others say it is the fourth-largest, and others say it is not. I am told it is the fifth-largest, and the Minister of Conservation confirms it is the fifth-largest. In terms of the size of our country, it really does show how important that exclusive economic zone is to our country. Therefore, the Subantarctic Islands, as part of that, and these islands that are out there, the Bounty Islands, the Antipodes Islands, and Campbell Island, are a very important part of that outreach of the New Zealand land mass to show our presence in the South Pacific and into the subantarctic ocean.

These islands were first discovered in the 1800s by Captain Henry Waterhouse on the British ship HMS Reliance, so this goes back a long way in New Zealand’s history, in terms of that we are now talking several hundreds years ago when these islands were discovered. It is most important that they are now given this level of protection, and it is important that these marine reserves are put through in terms of also supporting the World Heritage site situation that they have been accredited.

The islands are a very long way away—as I said, 860 kilometres south-west of Stewart Island. When you think about the distance that New Zealand has, it is very important in terms of our impact in this part of the world. Many people around the world do recognise the fact that although New Zealand is a very, very small land mass, we do have a great presence in this part of the Pacific Ocean and the Tasman Sea, in this part of the world. We are the guardians. It is interesting that many submitters who came to our Local Government and Environment Committee have said and have reiterated the fact that this generation and every generation are the guardians of the environment. We are the guardians of what we are given. We are very fortunate to live in a place like New Zealand where we are given this enormous, beautiful, natural resource out there, and we are the guardians of that.

All parties are supporting this bill. We support the National Government in terms of what it is bringing through in this bill. We think it is important to provide these additional safeguards. When I was on Stewart Island I was told by some locals that the Minister is visiting these islands in the near future, coming on a naval frigate, apparently, or something to that effect. Are you visiting, the Hon Nick Smith, in the near future? Is that the case or not? Can you confirm that?

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Maybe.

ANDREW WILLIAMS: Maybe. Again, I think it is a good thing that a Minister is going down there to show interest in this particular area. I know that our Local Government and Environment Committee suggested that the whole committee should go to the Subantarctic Islands to personally check out these islands and make sure that they are legitimate—that we should all go. But it was determined—

Hon Dr Nick Smith: No, just the New Zealand First caucus, for a long time.

ANDREW WILLIAMS: No, no, I am sorry, Minister. No, no, we cannot let you get away with that. Our chairman said that it was not appropriate for the whole select committee to go to visit these islands, even though we were receiving the submissions on this particular bill in relation to this important area off the southern coast of New Zealand.

But it was very interesting, and I would like to thank all those who submitted on this bill, and also the Department of Conservation, with all the work that it is doing down there. I was greatly impressed with what the Department of Conservation is doing in the likes of Stewart Island and in Fiordland, and was talking with many of the Department of Conservation rangers down there during my visit to both those areas and seeing what the Department of Conservation is doing. This bill is another extension of that whole conservation area, which is most important.

New Zealand First does continue to have concerns about the level of funding to the Department of Conservation. We have constantly said that we feel that with the growing demands on the natural resources of New Zealand, we cannot be short-changing our conservation measures. In this area, there certainly are concerns out there within Department of Conservation circles that it is having to tighten its belt all the time to provide for what is required.

When you look at the level of tourists and when you look at the level of New Zealand domestic visitors to many of these areas around New Zealand, there is huge pressure on our natural resources, on our national parks, and on our natural environment. Therefore, I think that every New Zealander can say that the more out of every taxpayer dollar that we can provide to support our natural environment, the better. We would recommend to the Minister that please, Minister, we cannot be short-changing our Department of Conservation when it is so vital.

When I was tramping the Routeburn Track last week, we were the only Kiwis in the Falls Hut on the Routeburn. Every other tramper was from overseas—from Europe, from Australia, from Asia, and other places. They recognise the fact that this is a very, very, very special part of the world that we have in all these areas like Fiordland, like the Routeburn, like the Milford Track, and like Stewart Island, and they come to New Zealand for a reason. In many cases, they come to New Zealand because we offer a special part of the world. We cannot cut back in terms of what resources we provide to these areas, because it is most important for New Zealand to maintain its world image in terms of the importance of New Zealand as a protector of nature and as a protector of the environment, and we must ensure that those resources are provided and that we do not cut back on them.

Also, in terms of marine reserves, this area is another addition. We heard from Jacqui Dean that there are now something like 34 A class reserves around the country. I was in Akaroa Harbour with a lot of eminent scientists in December for Dolphin Day in New Zealand. Again, that was a recent and new addition to another marine reserve, which the Minister approved last year. It is increasingly important that these marine reserves are recognised, and the importance of them to New Zealand. Although in the scheme of things it is a small percentage of the overall ocean and it is a small percentage of the overall area that New Zealand covers, they individually and cumulatively add up to a significant factor in terms of protecting our marine life around our shores in very, very critically important areas such as Akaroa Harbour.

These latest marine reserves in the Subantarctic Islands are yet another example of this. It stands New Zealand in great stead on the international global stage that we do this, and New Zealand First supports it in every way so that New Zealand can stand on the global stage and say that we do support the environment.

MAGGIE BARRY (National—North Shore): I rise to talk to the Subantarctic Islands Marine Reserves Bill at its second reading. As others have noted, this is a bill whose time has definitely come. It establishes three new marine reserves around the subantarctic Antipodes Islands group, the Bounty Islands, and Campbell Island. Like other members of the Local Government and Environment Committee, I regret that we were not able to go there in person and sample their delights, because this is a unique part of the world. Perhaps because it is so remote and it has had very little impact from human beings, it has an enormous heritage value. These three island groups have enjoyed World Heritage status, but, of course, as others have said, the waters surrounding them do not enjoy that same status.

This is a bill that needs to protect the area of water around these islands. It is going to be the first marine protected area to be implemented under our Government’s marine protection areas policy. We were in Government when the Marines Reserve Act was established back in 1971. That Act is no longer fit for purpose. It is outdated and it needs now to be improved upon. We need to have marine reserves that will have a broader range of protection tools and a more integrated approach, I suppose you could say, to marine protection.

World Heritage status does afford a lot of protection, but protection of the marine areas around the islands is a vital part of our overall philosophy, which was outlined very eloquently by the Minister of Conservation at the start of this debate tonight. The very special ecology of these three islands is important to us. As the Minister said—and I will leave it at this—the ocean environment is the new frontier for conservation. That is why this bill, among the raft of measures that we are bringing in for marine conservation, is so vital. I commend it to the House.

Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills): Can I just begin by wishing you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and all members of the House and their families a very happy New Year. I think it is going to be a very busy one ahead of us, and a year in which many of us go through our 3-yearly job interview process, and one which you will happily—by the look on your face—avoid this year, by your own choice.

Can I next commend the Minister of Conservation for this legislation, the Subantarctic Islands Marine Reserves Bill. It is not very often that we get bills in the House that are supported by every speaker, but this is one of those measures. It really is an indication of the passion and commitment that New Zealanders have for the better protection of our environment, including our marine areas. But it is not always the case that we get a Minister of Conservation who does those things, and who pushes them along, and who, I have to say—he would not say this, but I will—pushes them along against the tide of his own Cabinet. So that shows a bit of political nous and a bit of courage. Whatever other trickery that was used to get this past the Steven Joyce radar, I want to commend the Minister of Conservation because it is very good stuff.

I am very fortunate to have been to some of the Subantarctic Islands—of the three we are offering better protection to tonight, only one, Campbell Island—and they are just extraordinary. They are mind-changing when you see life in the subantarctic and the Antarctic. So I am particularly pleased to be supporting this legislation, as is Labour.

There are some other areas, though, on which I think the Government and the Minister of Conservation need to do a bit of rethinking and recalibrating, and some of it needs to be done with some urgency. There are two areas that I just want to make comment on before I return back to the key points in the legislation. The first point is what has been a very controversial proposal and debated with some heat in this House, and in relation to which I have to express the opposite of what I recently commented on in terms of the Minister of Conservation and his actions. Although I supported him in this legislation, I feel exactly the opposite in terms of the role of the Department of Conservation in the proposal for the Ruataniwha Dam. That dam, in the Hawke’s Bay, uses an entirely new model, called the Tukituki River In-stream Model (TRIM model), where the proponents of it, the Hawke’s Bay Regional Council, have said that changes to the nitrate level in the river that are caused by the dam should be disregarded. That is new. It is frustrating scientists—

Hon Dr Nick Smith: The member is saying NIWA’s wrong?

Hon RUTH DYSON: —and the board of inquiry process has not been able to give enough time for robust discussion and consideration of that new model. That is not a criticism; that shows the ignorance of the Minister of Conservation on this particular matter. He would be wise not to have comments like that said in a way that they can be recorded in Hansard, because they will come back to bite him, and I will guarantee that they will come back to bite him. So he is advised not to do that, from my perspective, although I would enjoy it politically if he put some more of those ignorant, ill-informed comments on the record in Hansard. So the board of inquiry has not got the ability to give the time, because of the constraints that are put on it by the Ministers who set up the board of inquiry. This is not—

Hon Dr Nick Smith: The law says 9 months.

Hon RUTH DYSON: That is how Ministers make instructions—through law. This is not a criticism of any individual members of the board of inquiry. They are doing what they are required to do, but it means that on a brand new model, which has never been considered in New Zealand before, which has the potential to turn the Tukituki River toxic because of the level of nitrates caused by the dam, the Minister of Conservation has supported his department having no role at all to play in that proposal other than a very minor one. This is despite the fact that his department had spent a lot of money, a lot of time, and had put very high-quality expertise into preparing a submission that challenged the model. That has to be wrong, in my view. If we have public servants who know what they are doing, who are competent to express a view, and who are stymied by some sort of political process from doing that because it does not suit the political irrigation agenda of the Government, that is wrong. We should not have the good people of Hawke’s Bay not only subsidising the dam for 120 farmers but risking their river being turned toxic as a result. So for all the praise of the marine legislation, for all the proposals that we support in this bill creating the three new marine reserves, it pales into insignificance, which is a tragedy because we should be able to celebrate good progress in this House—if only it was consistent.

There is another area that I want to talk about, and that is in the area of dolphin protection. There was a protest a little while ago outside the front of Parliament. There were more people at that protest than there are Māui’s dolphins left on the planet. Yet when all the submissions to the latest extensions were being called for, the Minister of Conservation and the Minister for Primary Industries went for the least possible protection extension—

Hon Dr Nick Smith: It’s not true.

Hon RUTH DYSON: It is an extension. But, in my view, when you have only 55 dolphins left—not just 55 around here; 55 on the planet—what bit of “critically endangered” does the Minister of Conservation not understand? There cannot be fewer for that species to have a future. So we should take the precautionary approach. Every possible measure that was supported by the best marine scientists should have been picked up—

Hon Dr Nick Smith: We have.

Hon RUTH DYSON: The Minister is once again giving me a fantastic political opportunity because again he is showing his lack of understanding of the very submissions that were sent to him. I do not think he has read them. I do not think the Minister read the submissions that said we need the best possible protection and that the precautionary approach must apply when we have a critically endangered species that it is our responsibility to protect.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: We have.

Hon RUTH DYSON: There were 21,000 submissions on that proposal. Did the Minister read the submissions?

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Yes, I did, but they were standard submissions.

Hon RUTH DYSON: Did the Minister read 21,000 submissions on the—

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Not 21,000 identical—

Hon RUTH DYSON: Oh, so did the Minister read 21? Did the Minister read 21?

Hon Dr Nick Smith: I read all the submissions.

Hon RUTH DYSON: No, no. I just asked that, and you said “No, I did not read 21,000.”, but, actually, there were 21,000. There have never been more submissions on any proposal, according to a Ministry for Primary Industries senior staff member. On the public record they said we have got more submissions about this issue than ever before. So we missed the opportunity, in my view, to adopt the most responsible position possible, and—

Hon Dr Nick Smith: So what’s Labour’s position? Tell us—

Hon RUTH DYSON: Well, there you are. The Minister should have read my submission, because that outlined Labour’s position. Actually, that would have been a big help. The other issue that our lack of protection risks is the future of the fishing industry in New Zealand. In my view, we should have the Government backing not just the Māui’s dolphins but also the fishing industry. If we were able to support our fishing industry to transition to sustainable fishing, we would not only save the dolphins and we would not only save the seabird bycatch but we would be able to say that we have the first sustainable fishing industry in the world. What an export brand advantage that would be. So then we would be winning. Then our whole country would be winning. The Māui’s dolphins could be saved. A large number of seabird bycatch could be saved. We could have a brand label of sustainable fishing, which would make our fish popular, instead of currently, where international experts are calling for a ban on people buying our fish. How can the Minister for Primary Industries let that proceed? It is irresponsible and it is tragic.

Just going back to the bill, I want to again commend the Minister of Conservation. He does show courage, he does show passion, and I believe he has got a strong personal commitment to conservation issues. That is well reflected in this legislation, which I am delighted to support.

PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Happy New Year to you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I just want to respond briefly to the idea of the previous speaker, Ruth Dyson, that somehow the National Party has been reluctantly brought to this piece of legislation, the Subantarctic Islands Marine Reserves Bill. That is a load of nonsense. This is a Government that gets on with things. It does not talk about things endlessly; it just gets on with them.

This piece of legislation is bringing in three new marine reserves. That will mean that approximately 9.5 percent of New Zealand’s territorial sea will be protected by marine reserves, once these three new Subantarctic Islands reserves have been gazetted, and that is a marvellous achievement for this country.

This is the party that also introduced regulations covering the exclusive economic zone. Other parties jump up and down, wail, and sound terrified at every proposal that comes in, yet they were quite happy for a long time not to have any legislation operating in the exclusive economic zone to regulate and protect our waters. We are the party that is making good progress on water quality, through the work of the water forum. So, when other parties posture and puff and talk about the environment, the National Party gets on with it. I am very proud to be part of that party and to commend this bill to the House. Thank you.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Is this a split call?

Phil Twyford: It is.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Phil Twyford—5 minutes.

PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū): Labour is, of course, supporting the Subantarctic Islands Marine Reserves Bill, as my colleagues have pointed out. We support the inclusion of these three areas in marine reserves. They are a treasure that belongs to this country. They are part of the World Heritage network, and it is the right thing that they are included as part of the marine reserves. We congratulate the work of the Minister of Conservation on getting the legislation to this point.

I want to make just a few comments about the general state of the marine reserves legislation and note that this bill basically uses special legislation to achieve marine reserve status for the Subantarctic Islands. The reserves are not being set up under the law that currently exists for the creation of marine reserves, which is the Marine Reserves Act 1971. That legislation, now 40 years old, is cumbersome. It was ahead of its time when it was passed and highly rated, but no longer. That legislation has been left behind by international best practice. Unfortunately, I think, and in spite of the fact that many New Zealanders applaud the goal of achieving 10 percent of our waters being declared marine reserves, this has been a very difficult issue over the last couple of decades.

I think the Minister would probably agree that that primary legislation is in dire need of an overhaul. I think that most parties in this House would agree that work needs to be done to find a mechanism that can work in the kinds of political and social realities of New Zealand conservation policy today. It was difficult, I think, during the time of the last Labour Government when efforts were made to revamp that law and reform it. The numbers in this House were not there. There was not majority support to reform the marine reserves legislation and update it. I hope that now there is majority support for reforming that legislation, because it is long overdue.

The regulatory impact statement for this bill points out that the average time to establish a marine reserve under the Marine Reserves Act is about 12 years. It ranges between 1 and 23 years, and that clearly is not good enough. The Environmental Defence Society released a publication last year that I thought made some very good points. It argued for the need to overhaul the legislation and produce a Marine Reserves Act that allows for the efficient promulgation of marine reserves for the creation of a network of different types of marine protected areas, all the way from no-take areas right through to full protected reserves. I believe that we need that kind of legislation.

I spent much of last week kayaking around the Waitematā Harbour in the Hauraki Gulf in Auckland, looking at conservation issues and talking to many of the movers and shakers within the Hauraki Gulf Forum. That forum is a collaborative governance model set up to advance the agenda of preserving the Hauraki Gulf for future generations—cleaning it up, addressing issues of water quality, and protecting biodiversity. The establishment of marine reserves—in fact, establishing the 10 percent of the Hauraki Gulf earmarked as marine reserves—is one of the key elements in that agenda, allowing crayfish, snapper, and other species to regenerate beyond current stock levels so that the ecosystems can be restored and repaired and the gulf protected for future generations.

Marine reserves are one of the really big challenges that we have. I hope that the Hauraki Gulf Forum can achieve something like 10 percent of the Hauraki Gulf set aside. It is a big ask and I hope that as well as establishing reformed marine reserve legislation in this House we actually see real, practical progress on the ground in places like the Subantarctic Islands and places like the Hauraki Gulf. Thank you.

EUGENIE SAGE (Green): Happy New Year to you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and to other members of this House and their families. I am pleased to take a call on the Subantarctic Islands Marine Reserves Bill, which, as Gareth Hughes explained, the Green Party will be strongly supporting.

I congratulate the Minister of Conservation on his stewardship of this bill, on getting it to the House, and on his commitment to establishing a record number of marine reserves this year. But we would also like to see progress on the marine reserves legislation because, as Phil Twyford pointed out, it is outdated and it is cumbersome. There have been a number of promises by National and by the previous Minister of Conservation to introduce a new marine reserves bill. One has languished before the select committee for over a decade and not progressed. Given that collaborative processes are the flavour of the month now, we would like to see some collaboration around that legislation.

In a former life I was a member of the West Coast Marine Protection Forum, which made a number of recommendations to the Government on the reserves that are now going to be established. The reserves that conservation groups would have liked to see were somewhat larger than the ones that are being established, but that collaborative process was very valuable in getting everybody around the table—iwi, conservation groups, commercial and recreational fishers, divers, and others—to actually work out where the common ground lay, to understand others’ points of view, and to understand what the areas were that were favoured by fishers.

Again, here in this bill, it is the result of a collaborative process and a forum that was established to look at marine protection in the subantarctic. That is a process that was triggered by the Marine Protected Areas Policy, which was introduced by the former Labour Government, but there have been very few of these collaborative forums established under National until quite recently, when one was established, I think, in Otago. They are a good process—

Hon Dr Nick Smith: And in Auckland.

EUGENIE SAGE: Thank you, Minister—and in Auckland. With legislation that is establishing protected areas and a review of the Marine Reserves Act, it would be useful, I think, when we are dealing with law that is creating benefits for present and future generations and that is protecting biodiversity for its intrinsic values, that there should not be the party political differences. We should be able to establish common ground. So it would be valuable, Minister, if there was some discussion between parties before the legislation was introduced to see whether and what sort of consensus could be agreed on for the Marine Reserves Act, given that it failed before because of the widespread different views around it. So, Minister, we would encourage the Government to look at similar consultation and a similar commitment to collaborative processes before new legislation is introduced, and to that sort of collaboration that it is endorsing at a regional level in investigating individual marine reserves.

Turning to this bill, we are pleased to support it. There is only one marine reserve in the Subantarctic Islands at the moment, and that is around the Auckland Islands. That was established in 2003. The islands are really important. They do have World Heritage status because they are some of the least modified islands on the planet.

This bill is a step forward in giving us a marine reserve around the Antipodes Island and some protection around the Bounty Islands and Campbell Island. But—I do not want to disappoint the Minister—the Green Party believes that the bill could go further and could take on board the submissions by Environment and Conservation Organisations of New Zealand, Forest and Bird, the Southland Conservation Board, and others to protect the full extent of the territorial sea around the Bounty Islands and around Campbell Island, because the very strange boundaries around those islands are to ensure that the ling fishery continues and to allow for a speculative potential deep-water crab fishery. There have been investigations in the 1970s and the 1990s of that crab fishery. Nothing has come of it. Given the distance to the subantarctic and the cost of diesel, it is unlikely to be profitable.

The Green Party would see a proper commitment to marine conservation and marine protection by establishing the full extent of the territorial sea around those islands as marine reserves. That would recognise their internationally important values and World Heritage status. Nevertheless, this bill is a step forward. Thank you.

CLAUDETTE HAUITI (National): Ā, ka tū ake ahau ki te mihi i a koutou katoa, ngā kaimahi roto i tēnei Whare, ngā mihi ki a koutou mō te Tau Hou.

[And so I rise to acknowledge you all, users of this House; salutations for the New Year to you collectively.]

The Subantarctic Islands Marine Reserves Bill is probably one of the best pieces of legislation that we have seen, apart from the Te Urewera-Tūhoe Bill. We know that it is a most outstanding piece of legislation because it is being supported by the parties around this House. So I commend the Minister of Conservation for bringing this bill to us to be debated and to be discussed. Nō reira, e te rangatira, ka tū tautoko ahau i tēnei pire ki tēnei Whare. Kia ora.

[Therefore, I stand in support of this bill to this House. Thank you.]

Bill read a second time.

Bills

Accounting Infrastructure Reform Bill

First Reading

Hon CRAIG FOSS (Minister of Commerce): I move, That the Accounting Infrastructure Reform Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Commerce Committee to consider the bill. At the appropriate time, I intend to move that the bill be reported to the House by 30 May 2014.

The Accounting Infrastructure Reform Bill will enable the accounting and audit industry to be more efficient and effective. The bill will continue to progress a raft of important changes, which began with the passing of the Financial Markets Conduct Act 2013 and the Financial Reporting Act 2013. These Acts contribute to the Government’s Business Growth Agenda by promoting fair, transparent, and efficient financial markets. The Financial Markets Conduct Act ensures financial markets are fairer. It regulates how financial products are offered, promoted, issued, and sold. This supports confident and informed market participants. The Financial Reporting Act improves transparency. It has reformed reporting obligations by removing the requirement for smaller companies to produce complex financial statements. It allows shareholders of small and medium sized companies to decide whether the company must prepare financial statements, enabling companies to better direct resources where the need is greatest: growing their business.

The Accounting Infrastructure Reform Bill will improve efficiency. It will realign the structure of the audit and accounting industry so that participants are able to quickly adapt to an evolving environment. A more competitive and efficient accounting market will ensure better business practice and advice for New Zealand firms, while a robust audit industry provides improved assurance for users of financial statements, building confidence in our financial markets. Together, these pieces of legislation will encourage the confident and informed participation of businesses, investors, and consumers in our financial markets. This supports the capital market initiatives of the Government’s Business Growth Agenda.

This bill will enable the accounting and audit industry to be more efficient and effective through five key amendments: firstly, to amend the rules of who may perform statutory audits. The bill refines the rules on who may perform non-financial markets conduct statutory audits. Financial markets conduct audits are those audits required by the Financial Markets Conduct Act. There is a separate auditor regulation regime already in place for the auditors of the financial markets conduct entities. It is designed to support increasing public interest in those audits and to raise investor confidence. Under that regime, auditors are licensed by professional bodies that have been accredited by the Financial Markets Authority. This Accounting Infrastructure Reform Bill addresses non-financial markets conduct audits. It recognises that accredited professional bodies have undergone rigorous checks under that regime and have strong systems and processes in place for all of their members. The bill will allow accredited bodies to authorise their members to perform non-financial markets conduct statutory audits. In the same vein, the bill will amend the few remaining public Acts that specify that a chartered accountant must perform a statutory audit. This will ensure that the qualification requirements for all non-financial markets conduct audits are consistent across all public statutes.

The second change is to replace references to a chartered accountant in a range of statutes with the term “qualified statutory accountant” where the context is for a statutory accountancy function other than audit. This new term encompasses both chartered accountants and members of other accredited bodies. This change will enable more people to perform statutory accountancy functions, providing a wider choice of professional bodies. The third change reduces restrictions on legal form for audit firms. It allows New Zealand audit firms to incorporate as a company and allows incorporated overseas audit firms to operate in New Zealand if they meet certain requirements. The ban on incorporation is outdated and no longer serves a useful purpose.

The fourth change introduces a requirement for independent assurance of financial statements for medium sized and large charities. Charitable entities with a total operating expenditure of $1 million or more over the two preceding accounting periods are large and will need to have their financial statements audited by a qualified auditor. Charities that are not large but have a total operating expenditure of $500,000 or more over the two preceding accounting periods will need to have their financial statements audited or reviewed. The fifth change is to allow the New Zealand Institute of Chartered Accountants, or NZICA, more freedom in how to structure itself. The members of the institute have voted to join with the Australian chartered accountants in a new trans-Tasman professional body. However, this cannot be given effect to with the New Zealand Institute of Chartered Accountants Act 1996 in its current form.

There is one issue that I am sure the select committee will pay attention to, which is that the Registrar of Companies has the power to approve overseas professional accounting bodies, whose members can then conduct non-financial markets conduct statutory audits in New Zealand if they are eligible to do so in their home State. The registrar can also directly approve individual auditors. This issue is closely related to the bill and has been raised with me by several professional accounting bodies during the drafting of the bill. I expect that these accounting bodies may repeat their concerns in submissions on the bill. I agree with them that it could be an issue, and I look forward to the select committee’s consideration of the bill.

There are two potential weaknesses in the system. First, the registrar has been given no criteria to apply in considering applications. Second, there is no ongoing check that professional bodies and auditors are still up to the approval standard. I recognise that audit is a highly skilled and specialist profession, and I wish to ensure that clients and users of financial statements can have confidence that overseas auditors meet the same high standards as those based in New Zealand.

To conclude, a more competitive and efficient accounting market will contribute to the Business Growth Agenda by providing better business advice for New Zealand firms and building confidence in financial markets through better assurance to investors. The New Zealand Institute of Chartered Accountants and the Institute of Chartered Accountants Australia merger will contribute to the single economic market initiative with Australia by supporting a seamless trans-Tasman business environment. Thank you.

Hon DAVID PARKER (Deputy Leader—Labour): I rise to take a call on the first reading of the Accounting Infrastructure Reform Bill. Can I thank the Minister of Commerce for his explanation of the bill. The Labour Party accepts that this is, on its face, good legislation. It is housekeeping legislation that updates the regulatory framework that oversees audits outside the financial markets audits, which are provided for in separate legislation. I agree that it is timely that this be done, in part because it also enables through the same legislation the ambitions of the New Zealand Institute of Chartered Accountants to merge with its Australian counterpart to form a trans-Tasman body. My understanding in respect of that, from the explanations that have been made to me, is that as a consequence of that we are likely to see an increase in its back-office functions in New Zealand, which will increase employment opportunities in New Zealand. It is somewhat sad that, again, New Zealand is trading on its low wage comparison with Australia, but we will take that particular advantage on this occasion.

I understand that there are sections within the accounting profession that think that this decision is not the right one, and they will, of course, have the right to make submissions to the Commerce Committee and try to convince the select committee as to why their viewpoint is correct. I think there are some within the profession who think that although the majority of accountants quite clearly want this change, they would like to be able to prevail despite the fact that they are the minority. They have the right to put their submission to the select committee, and the select committee will consider it properly.

One of the issues that I will be interested in at the select committee is in respect of incorporated audit firms and whether there will be a requirement of a certain level of either capitalisation or professional indemnity insurance, because if we are going to allow the incorporation of partnerships, they of course then escape the personal liability that accrues from partnership structures through limited liability company structures to provide audits. I think it is proper for the select committee to inquire whether, given that we are effectively letting the current auditors have personal liability, through their partnership structures, to people to whom they owe duties as auditors, if they negligently breach their duty—and I am not saying that it often happens, but it does and can happen on occasions—then the damages for which they could be liable to the injured party would not be limited through a corporate veil, whereas if we allow limited liability auditors, then they will not be able to have recourse to the personal pockets of the auditors.

I am sure there are strong reasons for the proposal as put forward, but I would be interested to see whether there are minimum capitalisation rules or insurance indemnity rules that apply, to ensure that there would be a remedy for someone who is relying upon an audit that has been negligently conducted. I am sure there is some complexity around that that we can explore at the select committee.

In terms of the proposals in respect of the audits of charities, I agree that larger charities should have decent audits. They are responsible for large amounts of money and they trade, sometimes, on their charitable purpose and present themselves to the public as being a worthy recipient of charitable donations. So in respect of large charities I agree that audits are appropriate. I think that at select committee we would want to check the thresholds that were applying to what is medium and large, because we do not want to unduly regulate small charities and push them into difficult circumstance through expensive compliance regimes. We know that a lot of small charities do a lot of good work. They often run on the smell of an oily rag, they do not have a lot of income, and there is actually not a lot there to audit. So I do not want to impose on those smaller charities onerous audit rules that would be inappropriate, given the size of the money that is in question and therefore the number of things that can go wrong.

You can get disproportionate in regulatory response if you try to apply the same rules to organisations of all sizes. It appears that the Government recognises that, because for medium and large sized charities it is introducing rules that are different from those that apply to smaller charities. So we will have a look at whether it has got that differentiation about right when we go to select committee, and we look forward to receiving submissions from interested parties who would be interested—the charities; in particular, the smaller charities—as to whether they are being unduly caught up in this.

It is important that we have audits. It is one of these things that we so often take for granted in Western countries—that we can rely upon information that is presented in accounts that are relied upon by citizens when they go about their business with different legal entities. People can have some assurance that the company, for example, has a certain level of assets. If there is an audited set of accounts that certifies that the accounts have been prepared in accordance with some accounting standards and that, according to the audit, it all looks in order, that then aids commerce, because we have people being able to have confidence that the institution they are dealing with is likely to be good for the contract that they might be entering into with them.

I do not want to overstate the importance of this legislation. It is not going to, I think, in any meaningful way change the way in which the New Zealand economy operates, but it is a bit like most areas of legislation—they do have to be tidied up periodically, and I thank the Minister for his efforts in that regard.

JONATHAN YOUNG (National—New Plymouth): I am very pleased to stand in support of the first reading of the Accounting Infrastructure Reform Bill. Just touching on what the previous speaker, the Hon David Parker, just spoke on, the Commerce Committee recently processed through the Financial Reporting Act, which has passed through the House and which, particularly for charities, enabled them to account on a cash basis, as opposed to an accrual basis, if their operational costs were less than $140,000 per year. We are very mindful as a Government that compliance costs for smaller groups need to be addressed and made aware of, so I am sure the matter that he raised will come up in the select committee process.

This bill is actually part of a suite of reforms in legislation that the National Government has progressed over its previous two terms. All of this is designed to restore confidence to the finance sector and also confidence to investors and the business environment here in New Zealand. We established the one-stop shop, the Financial Markets Authority, with a sharper focus on enforcing the law and we have tightened oversight of those working in the financial markets. This includes financial advisers, trustees, and auditors. We passed the Financial Markets Conduct Act, which is a major update of a 33-year-old securities law. We have removed barriers to trans-Tasman business and progressed legislation that will enable us to meet our single economic market goals and aspirations with Australia. We are working on the improvement of financial literacy, progressing legislation cracking down on loan sharks—which is very important, particularly in Auckland—and combating anti-competitive behaviour such as price fixing. All of these measures are ones that we as a Government have been working on.

We come to this one in particular, which is going to bring greater efficiency in an increasingly competitive environment in the area of auditing and accounting, in particular. That is going to be good for business, because we will hope to achieve through this better value for money for businesses in terms of what they receive from that industry. The bill proposes a number of important changes to enable the industry to be more efficient and effective. It widens the scope for qualified members of accredited professional accounting bodies to perform statutory audits. It updates legislative references to a “chartered accountant” with references to a “qualified statutory accountant”.

One of the things that the Minister of Commerce has mentioned is that the members of the New Zealand Institute of Chartered Accountants and the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Australia have voted in favour of the proposal to create a trans-Tasman voice for chartered accountants. This bill will enable them to put that proposal into action and will also recognise that New Zealand members of accredited bodies like the Certified Practising Accountants in Australia are well-qualified to perform accounting and audit functions. This is good because it enables the accountancy firms, particularly here in New Zealand, to have an international outlook and it enables them to be able to operate more competitively across the Tasman. The New Zealand Institute of Chartered Accountants and the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Australia merger will contribute to this single economic market initiative with Australia, which we desire to be effective and even more effective by supporting a seamless trans-Tasman business environment.

We look forward to this bill coming to the Commerce Committee. We will be open for submissions this week and will have a period of time where we look forward to receiving the views of the industry that the committee can then consider. Thank you.

CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South): Happy New Year to you, Mr Assistant Speaker Tisch, and happy New Year to all my colleagues on the Commerce Committee looking forward to another year of robust discussion and debate on legislation coming before us. I think it is important to say that, despite the robustness of the debate that happens in this House, in select committees the work of devising new and important laws that upgrade existing laws goes on.

This bill, the Accounting Infrastructure Reform Bill, appears to be one of those pieces of legislation that, as my colleague across the House, Jonathan Young, has noted, fits within a suite of particular legislation that is looking at financial reform. It also fits within the legislation around harmonisation of law, particularly between New Zealand and Australia. Certainly in principle those things are important. The upgrading of law in this area, the importance of trying to raise awareness of financial literacy out there in the community, how these sorts of laws operate, and ensuring that our laws make sense between us and our closest neighbour, Australia—all of those things are important. We certainly do support the referral of this piece of legislation to the Commerce Committee, and, in principle, we support its intent.

I do have, on looking closer at this bill, some questions in my mind that I am keen to see played out during the discussion in the select committee. I want to just touch on a couple of those tonight. We know that there is certainly broad agreement between New Zealand and Australia, and, to get to the guts of this legislation, it is enabling that harmonisation to take place. That seems to me to be one of the core things that underpins it. It is one of the core reasons for it. I suspect that it is something that will hasten the bill’s process through the second reading and further readings in this House, because it seems that there is quite a lot of support for that.

However, it is not universal support. There were some important issues raised in the discussion that preceded and happened during the merger discussions between the Institute of Chartered Accountants of New Zealand and its Australian counterpart that I think are worthy of some further scrutiny in the select committee. I am sure that we will be hearing the voices of New Zealand’s smaller accountancy firms in particular, and what I personally would particularly like to hear are the voices of smaller firms and also firms in rural and regional New Zealand, so that we can actually hear what their views are on the impact of a merger between the New Zealand and Australian chartered accountancy groups. Although big firms and urban firms may see direct benefits, those benefits do not always naturally accrue throughout the whole of New Zealand, and I have got a little warning bell in the back of my mind. We must be certain, if we are looking at any potential changes to this bill, that there is no disadvantage happening in rural and regional New Zealand.

There are three concerns that I have seen being raised around such a murder—merger. That was a Freudian slip, which may come back to haunt me. However, the perception was that this could be seen as a potential takeover of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of New Zealand by the Australians. Personally, I do not think that is the case. It seems to me that there has been a fairly robust discussion between the two organisations. I have read a number of things that have been written by the Chief Executive of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of New Zealand, Craig Norgate, who is very much in favour of the merger and sees some practical benefits accruing to New Zealand. However, as I have pointed out, there is the representation of those smaller accountancy firms.

Another issue that has been raised is the potential, if there is a merger of the two bodies and they become one, for us to see—I do not know whether “exodus” is the right word—some accountants moving across the Tasman. We must ask whether that would impact on New Zealand. So those things are things that I think we must be asking questions about. We must be looking at them and thinking about them while we are considering this bill.

There is another issue that I am interested in teasing out. This bill has four main aims. There is the amalgamation, which is one. There is also the allowing of competent auditors with appropriate qualifications to offer audit services to New Zealand firms, allowing audit firms to incorporate as companies if they decide that that is the most efficient business form for them, and replacing references to “chartered accountant” in various Acts, etc.

One of the changes that will be occurring is the requirements on charities, which my colleague David Parker touched on. There will be a requirement within this legislation for registered charities of a certain size to have their financial statements audited or reviewed by a qualified statutory auditor. The bill makes a differentiation between large charities and smaller charities. Large charities, which are those that have operating expenses of more than $1 million, are to have their financial statements audited. Medium-sized charities, which are those with operating expenses of between $500,000 and $1 million, must have their financial statements audited or reviewed. Smaller charities will have some requirements on them, and I think this is another thing that we must look at carefully.

As I understand it, there are around 26,000 entities on the Charities Register. Most of them are small or very small, so the impact of this on all of them, as I understand it, is quite minor, but I think that is something that we have to look at carefully. If there is an onerous impact on particularly those smaller charities, then we have to weigh up the effect that that might have, but around 2,800 of those registered charities, as I understand it, are put into the “large” or “medium-sized” categories. About 80 percent of those large or medium-sized charities already have an assurance engagement completed.

So I suppose that I am a little bit confused as to what import this actual change is going to have. I do also hope that charities are aware that this legislation is going through the House and is going to a select committee. I hope that charities do take the time to consider this legislation carefully, to come before us and tell us what they think the impact will be, or to ask us to consider certain matters. So those are the major issues that leap out at me on first looking at this piece of legislation, which is about to hit the select committee.

As I said, we support this bill. We agree with its intent. We think that it does fit within the broader scheme of changes to financial management in all of those pieces of legislation. We will be looking carefully, we will be listening carefully, and we will be listening for the voices of those who are raising concerns and issues with this bill, so that we can be assured that we are not rushing into an amalgamation in a way that may come back to bite us later on.

JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green): Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. I rise to speak in the first reading debate of the Accounting Infrastructure Reform Bill. This bill, as other speakers have noted, makes changes to the auditing sector. On the first reading the changes seem to the Green Party to be a bit of a mixed bag. Some of the changes are good and we can support those changes, but some seem to take us in a general direction of deregulation, which we have some concerns about.

So, as the Minister of Commerce outlined, there are five main changes in the bill: expanding the definition of those who can conduct audits, enabling auditors to form limited liability companies, introducing penalties for auditing offences, requiring medium and large charities to be audited, and allowing the New Zealand Institute of Chartered Accountants to merge with its Australian counterpart. We can agree strongly with the move to audit medium and large sized charities, and allowing auditors to incorporate into limited liability companies is also fine. It is standard practice elsewhere, and currently auditors have the ability to limit their personal liability through trusts here in New Zealand, so it seems like standard practice.

The fish-hook for us is that the Government is proposing to set the minimum standards for audit companies in regulations, rather than putting them down in legislation. I guess it is important to realise that these standards really lie at the heart of the auditing profession and sector, and the auditing sector is crucial to the healthy functioning of markets, particularly in the long term. It is really important that investors have confidence and that the public have confidence that the auditors are doing their job correctly. So by leaving these standards to regulation that is set by the Minister, it makes the whole process quite a bit less robust, because the regulations do not come before Parliament and that means that one person or a few people in Cabinet are responsible for setting those regulations. It makes the process much more vulnerable to lobbying.

The Minister set out an excellent explanation, and we accept that the Government wants to do the right thing with this bill, but there were a few key buzzwords in his speech and in other Government MPs’ speeches, particularly “increasing efficiency”. That really should give us pause, because although it is easier to say that it is better to get things done quickly and cheaply—and I am sure a lot of people would agree that it is better to get things done quickly and cheaply—sometimes that can end up costing us a whole lot more in the end. I am sure that New Zealanders sitting at home watching this debate tonight would agree with that—that sometimes taking the quicker and easier option in the short term leads to unforeseen costs in the long run.

The global financial crisis really should have taught us about the importance of independent regulatory oversight, broadly and generally speaking. The loss of hundreds of billions of dollars of wealth across the world did not happen because of too much regulation; it happened because of too little regulation and a cosy relationship between the finance industry and regulators and legislators in many, many countries.

We should remember here in New Zealand that we are a small country with a small market, which makes us particularly vulnerable. We need to be very cautious. Ireland and Iceland come to mind as small countries that seemed to achieve enormous economic growth for a few years thanks to a certain level of deregulation, particularly in the finance industry, but that did turn out to have quite disastrous results. I appreciate that the factors leading to financial and economic calamity in Ireland and Iceland may seem quite far from a bill in New Zealand that is primarily focused on deregulating the auditing sector, but I think it is worth considering.

The pressure investment banks put on politicians in other countries overseas, and no doubt here in New Zealand, to deregulate so that they can earn bigger profits in the short term is suspiciously similar to the rhetoric that we hear from this Government all the time—cutting red tape to supposedly help the economy. I suppose there is some logic to that facile argument if one is concerned about only the short term. One of the big differences between this Government and the Green Party is that we are very focused on the long term and getting the best results for all New Zealanders and the New Zealand economy for more than just tomorrow or next year or next quarter. We are thinking about generations to come.

So although we agree with some areas, as I was looking through the regulatory impact statements on this bill I was really struck with the number of times officials had written that there was not any evidence to support the benefits that were justifying the changes that are laid out in this bill. One of those areas is the merger of the New Zealand Institute of Chartered Accountants with its Australian counterpart. I have spoken with the New Zealand Institute of Chartered Accountants. I accept that there might be some logic and that that is what its members want, but it is worth noting that the role that the institute plays in New Zealand is quite different from the role that its counterpart plays in Australia. Australia has a direct regulation model, whereas we in New Zealand have self-regulation. It is quite an unusual situation where on the one hand we have the professional body that is self-regulating and has a statutory function set out in legislation, and yet on the other hand it is also operating in a kind of commercial environment, as is its Australian counterpart.

So this regulatory impact statement explores the different areas on the regulatory spectrum. There is no regulation, self-regulation, co-regulation, and direct regulation. Australia actually has direct regulation, whereas we are already in this light regulatory regime of self-regulation. The regulatory impact statement really outlines that there are a large number of risks that come with self-regulation, and, in fact, with quite a few of the goals of promoting quality audits and achieving the extra benefits of aligning New Zealand’s regulation with other jurisdictions, because we are an outlier in this area. Most other comparable jurisdictions have either co-regulation or direct regulation. The UK has a co-regulatory model. So New Zealand is in the situation of already being less regulatory in the audit sector than many of its trading partners in other comparable jurisdictions. The regulatory impact statement states that many of the benefits that we want, like quality audits and being aligned with other jurisdictions, could be achieved if we moved to one of these other models. Yet that is not what we are doing, because it might cost more money in the short term.

So although the Green Party accepts that there are some good proposals in this bill, we will be listening very carefully—I will be listening with great interest—to submissions that we hear during the select committee process. We are simply a little bit concerned that there has not been enough evidence put forward for this move and that it is taking us away from more oversight, and independent oversight—which is so critical, particularly in 2014, I think—in the financial sector. And the auditing sector is absolutely crucial to the health of our financial markets in the long term. The Green Party will be listening carefully at the Commerce Committee, but we will not be supporting the bill at this reading.

MARK MITCHELL (National—Rodney): I am very pleased to take a call on the Accounting Infrastructure Reform Bill in its first reading, and I look forward to receiving it as a member of the Commerce Committee.

I found it really interesting to hear the Greens spokesperson Julie Anne Genter get up and start advocating for more regulation and not less regulation. In a competitive economy where the country’s wealth is being generated through our private sector, it is extremely important to make sure that as part of our Business Growth Agenda we actually look at ways of making our companies more efficient and more competitive. That does not mean layering more red tape on them. It does not mean weighing them under with more red tape. It does not mean more regulation. It actually means good regulation.

This bill, on the face of it, looks like a very good bill. Its purpose is to make the accounting and audit industry increasingly more competitive, more agile, and more effective and efficient in a growing, globally competitive environment.

Just from my own experience with, say, a small organisation like Age Concern in my own electorate of Rodney, if we can find a way of creating more efficiency and reducing the compliance costs in terms of audits for an organisation like that, it would go a long way to relieving stress on organisations that actually sometimes rely on voluntary services to carry out an audit.

So this looks like a very good bill. I look forward to receiving it at the Commerce Committee and having a look into the details of the bill. Thank you.

ANDREW WILLIAMS (NZ First): I take a call on behalf of New Zealand First on the Accounting Infrastructure Reform Bill. New Zealand First will be supporting this from its first reading through to the Commerce Committee for the very reason that we see merit in some aspects of the bill. However, we do have some concerns in other areas. With that in mind we feel that it is appropriate for this to go to the select committee to allow New Zealanders, New Zealand accounting firms, New Zealand auditing firms, and all those others involved to have their say in this legislative process.

New Zealand First supports this bill for the fact that it will help reduce compliance costs for small companies. We are a party that supports New Zealand enterprise, and we stand by the reduction in costs to operate small companies in New Zealand, which are increasingly burdened by compliance costs. The audit and accounting industry will be more efficient as a result of this legislation, we are told, so it will be interesting to see how this bill, coming through the select committee process, will show the greater efficiencies that can be achieved.

We are also advised that accredited bodies will allow members to conduct audits under their umbrella controls. Therefore, as a result, if you are part of an accredited body, an auditing company, you are supposedly accredited to conduct audits. Therefore, it will be interesting to see how that fleshes out through the select committee process as to how those accredited bodies will administer that.

It is interesting that this bill replaces the longstanding terminology of “chartered accountant” with new terminology: “qualified statutory accountant”. Again, whether or not that has much meaning we do not know, but the longstanding term where people say that you have to get a chartered accountant goes back a long way in New Zealand’s history. Again, it will be interesting to see whether this is just playing with names or whether there is any real substance to that name change.

This bill will also, if enacted, allow overseas audit companies to operate in New Zealand. We are advised that many companies that have international auditors currently have difficulties in that they have to have a local auditor to undertake their work, and that provides some difficulties for some international operators, and I can imagine that could be the case. There would be merit in that change. We would hope that as a result of this bill many international firms might see fit to establish offices here in New Zealand to conduct such audits on behalf of some of their global companies. New Zealand would gain by international audit companies establishing local branches.

We are also advised that in terms of charities, larger charities would be required to be audited by qualified auditors. We see merit in that. When you are the purse holders of public money, taking public charity money in excess of $1 million, there is great merit in ensuring that those funds are audited correctly. Therefore, we see that there is advantage in ensuring, for those New Zealanders who are donating—and New Zealand has a reputation for being one of the highest-donating countries in the world per capita—that those funds are properly administered. Medium-sized charities, in the order of half a million dollars up to $1 million, will require audit or reviews, and those smaller charities under half a million dollars will have lesser requirements.

Again, as we have heard from other members, when you are talking about very small charities the burden in terms of auditing and compliance can be very onerous, and it can chew into a lot of the very good money that is being donated to those charities. Again, if through the select committee process we can identify ways that very small charities can reduce their costs, then that would be a benefit.

This bill also brings together the opportunity for New Zealand and Australian accounting bodies to come together as one trans-Tasman statutory body to oversee Australasian auditing. This is an interesting process, bringing those trans-Tasman accounting practices together. We do operate in a CER situation, where we do try to operate in harmonisation with our Australian sister country, and therefore this can potentially bring great benefit to both sides of the Tasman by being able to offer standard practices across businesses on both sides of the Tasman.

However, as New Zealand First has always said, we would have great concerns if this was seen as some sort of takeover of New Zealand accounting practices by Australian practices. We are informed that this is not the case and that, indeed, it could be the reverse, whereby the smaller partner could in fact benefit much more greatly by being part of this harmonisation with Australia and many Australian firms could actually look to New Zealand firms to conduct much of their business on this side of the Tasman on their behalf. If that is the case and we benefit out of it, then that is fantastic. However, if it is another situation, as in the banking industry, where the Australian side of the deal seems to be the great benefactor, then New Zealand First would have grave concerns about that. So we will be following that issue through the select committee process and we look forward to submissions from all those involved to flesh this out and ensure that New Zealand does indeed protect its interests.

Just in closing, New Zealand First has always stood on a basis of supporting New Zealand commerce, supporting New Zealand business, and, particularly, supporting greater efficiency in New Zealand business. We have always stood for reducing compliance costs and helping our people of New Zealand operate for the benefit of all New Zealand citizens and all New Zealand businesses. We see significant merit in many aspects of this bill, and we will be following the bill through the select committee process with great intensity. Thank you.

KANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI (National): I am pleased to stand in support of the Accounting Infrastructure Reform Bill in its first reading. The Minister of Commerce mentioned in his introductory remarks that the bill is part of the Government’s Business Growth Agenda. This bill will keep achieving efficiency, competition, and an international outlook in the New Zealand accounting market. A more competitive, efficient accounting market will contribute to the Business Growth Agenda by providing better business advice for New Zealand firms and building confidence in the financial markets, to the better assurance of investors. With these words, I commend this bill to the House.

ANDREW LITTLE (Labour): I rise to add yet again Labour’s voice in relation to the Accounting Infrastructure Reform Bill. I take this opportunity to sound just a note of caution about this bill, notwithstanding Labour’s support for it, at least in its first reading and to get it to the select committee. I have to say I get very nervous when I see as one of the objectives of a bill of this nature what is described as a “more efficient and effective” accounting and audit industry. If that is one of the objectives for this bill—a more efficient accounting industry—let us just understand what that means, because it may not necessarily be good.

We need an accounting industry that operates to professional standards, because that is what is needed for commercial transparency—at least for those who operate in the public eye, such as listed companies—and certainly when it comes to the audit function, the last thing we need is an auditor motivated by greater efficiency. What we need, actually, is auditors motivated by the need to do their job of scrutiny, exercising professional judgment, so that existing owners of the business and potential future owners of the business can make an informed decision about their ongoing ownership or potential future ownership. That is what we require of auditors—to cast a searching eye over the work that the finance arm of a particular company has done and to provide some level of assurance that the reports that have been provided and the picture that has been painted of the financial health of a company are largely accurate. That is not achieved by greater efficiency; it is achieved by having a proper set of standards and by having those who have the professional responsibility operating within, not so much an industry, but a sector that has a culture of high professional standards. So when we have a bill that is about facilitating, as it says, greater efficiency and effectiveness, let us be clear about what is being asked for.

You know, well within the memories of every member of this House, and many others besides, are the activities of Enron and its auditor, Arthur Andersen. Let us face it: the big chartered accountancy firms operate on a commercial basis. That is not necessarily a healthy thing. We do not need accountants and auditors who are motivated by greater profit—who are motivated by trying to get the job done as quickly as possible for the least cost and the greatest charge out to the client. That is actually not a good thing. What we need is an accounting profession that is motivated by the best professional standards and is doing the very important task for those who undertake the audit function of making sure that proper scrutiny is applied.

The consequence of Enron and what was ultimately the failure of Arthur Andersen, the auditing company, was in the United States the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which then led to the International Financial Reporting Standards, which we adopted and which have become, frankly, the bane of many organisations as they adapted to them. But for organisations that are required to undergo a statutory audit—and in this country trade unions are one of them—we gladly adopted the higher standards required in the International Financial Reporting Standards that were adopted by our Institute of Chartered Accountants because we thought that provided greater transparency and greater assurance. I think that set a good standard. What we do not want to do is undermine that by having a set of measures in this bill that enables or empowers accounting firms to operate in a way that is about pursuing the profit motive.

My colleague David Parker alluded to one of the provisions in this bill that is allowing accounting firms to operate as limited liability companies. The question will arise: how will they be capitalised? And the question will also arise: who will own them? Will it just be the professional operators—the professional accountants and auditors—in the firm? Or will other private owners be able to have a stake in that firm? It does not engender a great deal of confidence in me that we could have accounting firms with a multiplicity of ownership spread throughout those who have no stake in the professional standards of the organisation, but who have a great stake in the profit-generating capacity of it. So let us be very careful about what we are asking for, because the fear is that we might actually get it, and that will not necessarily be a good thing.

You know, we have just come through the global financial crisis. I know that the Government members are going to try to convince the public that we are still in the middle of it for some things and say that they are the great austerity managers of the decade, and then they will be splashing the cash around for other reasons when they want to—

Hon Damien O’Connor: Deficit after deficit.

ANDREW LITTLE: Deficit after deficit. But now the Government wants to try to present a softer face after 6 years of flintiness, 6 years of presenting a hard-nosed face to the public of New Zealand. Now it wants to splash out on education. It will splash out on early childhood education—we can see that coming—and when it is talking about those things, the global financial crisis will not rate a mention. But when it is about taking money away from other things, of course, we are still in the middle of a global financial crisis. But let us remember what underpinned that. It was a failure of audit standards. It was a failure of transparency. It was a failure of the commercial sector. What we do not want to do, having just got through one of the biggest financial lurches in Western history, is to then start treading down the path as if none of this matters. Well, it does matter. Professional standards in accounting matter.

The accounting profession is a very important profession—notwithstanding the number of them running this Government—and we should pay great homage to those who have qualified in that profession and earned their chartered status.

Hon Damien O’Connor: Don’t overdo it.

ANDREW LITTLE: I am not trying to over-egg the pudding here, but this is a very important profession, and accountants and auditors provide a very important function in our commercial world. But let us not contaminate their function and undermine their professional standards through measures that will actually have the opposite effect of providing greater assurance, greater transparency, and better oversight for the benefit of all those operating in the commercial sector but principally shareholders, commercial owners, and prospective owners as well—those who are looking to take up greater ownership, invest more, and expand their investment. What the accounting profession does, both as accountants and as auditors, is fundamental to our commercial integrity as a nation, and we do not want to undermine it.

I just want to add this point finally, before we get off this, in relation to the prospects of a trans-Tasman merger of the various chartered accountancy societies. We have had another example of this recently in the commercial sector—that is, with patent attorneys. We passed a law recently that provided some sort of harmonisation of measures for patent attorneys on both sides of the Tasman What that is gradually leading to, I am told by that profession, is an absorption by the Australian patent attorneys of work that would otherwise be done by New Zealand patent attorneys. I have no doubt about it because I know Australians, and I love them dearly, they are great people, and they are great comrades to have in many respects—

Hon Damien O’Connor: Not all of them.

ANDREW LITTLE: —even though they have not imported our apples for a long time. But they are very good at maximising opportunities for themselves. They are very good at making sure that they maximise their opportunities, often at our expense. We do not want to pass a piece of legislation that simply gives them carte blanche to be the auditors of New Zealand. We need to retain our own standards and integrity here, and we need to retain our capacity and capability in this area as well in New Zealand.

So let us give this bill some very close and intense scrutiny and examination at the select committee, but let us understand what the real commercial risks are here, the risks to our reputation as a nation, and what those commercial risks are. But, on that note, let us send the bill to the select committee and let us have a good look at it.

Dr JIAN YANG (National): I am delighted to speak on the first reading of the Accounting Infrastructure Reform Bill. The bill proposes a number of important changes, and these changes will promote efficiency, competition, and an international outlook in the New Zealand accounting market. The bill is part of the Government’s Business Growth Agenda to improve regulation and promote healthy financial reporting frameworks. I commend the bill to the House. Thank you.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I understand the next call is a split call—Brendan Horan, 5 minutes.

BRENDAN HORAN (Independent): May I say a happy New Year, and it is great to be back. I extend a hearty welcome to all MPs who are here tonight. I hope everybody had a wonderful break, and we are looking forward to an exciting year. I will take a short call on the Accounting Infrastructure Reform Bill. At the outset I say I am supporting the first reading, and I look forward to a speedy but not rushed process through the Commerce Committee, as it receives and considers what will no doubt be many hundreds of submissions.

Earlier we heard the honourable Julie Anne Genter speak of her party being the only long-term planners. Over on this side of the House we realise that National looks generally to only the next press statement, but in its headlong rush today to be seen to congratulate Lorde we see a momentous shift in its psyche. With Lorde being only 17 and not eligible to vote for a couple of years, perhaps that is an indication that National, by its standards, is finally thinking long term.

We are told that the main purpose of this bill is to enable the accounting and auditing industry to be more efficient and more effective. It will enable more people who are competent to perform audits to do so. That sounds good—replacing outdated and prescriptive legislation with a more appropriate and enabling framework is generally good. Lord knows, there is certainly a party here that could do with replacing its outdated leader. But it is interesting that the roll-out of our broadband infrastructure means that every accounting system is still in analog. I look forward to the move to digital and the many jobs that will be created by the industrial internet, with new skills and competencies required to change systems over to digital infrastructure. However, I digress.

There is one point that I would like the select committee to seek advice from officials on, and it is this. Although this bill builds on the changes made by what is now the Financial Markets Conduct Act 2013 and the Financial Reporting Act 2013, the three pieces of legislation together are quite complex. At present section 199 of the Companies Act sets out who may and who may not audit a company. There is also a flow-on effect as other pieces of legislation reference section 199 to define the qualifications of auditors of other entities. Yet it is not clear how or where, in the two Acts already passed and in this new bill, section 199 of the Companies Act will be updated to allow more competent people to perform audits of companies and other entities. This draws attention to the Electoral Act, perhaps, and who can audit parties’ returns of donations and expenses. So I would hope that the select committee can delve into this point and can shed some sunlight on this in its report, and I look forward to that report. I support this reading.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Accounting Infrastructure Reform Bill be now read a first time.

Ayes 106

New Zealand National 59; New Zealand Labour 34; New Zealand First 7; Māori Party 3; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1; Independent: Horan.

Noes 15

Green Party 14; Mana 1.

Bill read a first time.

Bill referred to the Commerce Committee.

Hon CRAIG FOSS (Minister of Commerce): I move, That the Accounting Infrastructure Reform Bill be reported to the House by 30 May 2014.

Motion agreed to.

Bills

Arts Council of New Zealand Toi Aotearoa Bill

Third Reading

Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage): I move, That the Arts Council of New Zealand Toi Aotearoa Bill be now read a third time. The Arts Council of New Zealand, which was formed by a National Government in the 1960s, has played an important role in New Zealand’s cultural life. These reforms will ensure that this good work continues, but free of excessive bureaucracy.

The purpose of the bill is to improve the governance structure of the Arts Council, because the existing governance model has proved to be very unwieldy indeed. So under this bill, the resources required to support multiple tiers of governance will instead be directed to the core business of the Arts Council. Let me recap: a single board, to be called the Arts Council, will replace the existing council, two arts boards, and the Pacific Arts Committee. Thirteen members will replace the current 28 appointed members. Instead of having one body responsible for strategic planning and policy setting and three others to consider funding applications, the new Arts Council will be responsible for both functions. As a result, decisions will be better informed by an understanding of current and emerging sector issues. The new structure will deliver clearer lines of accountability from the council to the Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage, and between the council and the chief executive.

The complaints by the Labour Party during the Committee stage were unpleasant and hysterical, and showed no understanding of the proposals. The Green Party complaints were not so much unpleasant as just plain hysterical. The changes are in fact less radical than the Rudd Government’s reform of the Australia Council in 2013. The major proponent of those changes was, in fact, Simon Crean. Previously, Australia had a 12-member governing board, seven artform boards, and two committees. The governing board comprised the chair, the deputy chair, the chief executive, two community interest representatives, and the chairs of the seven artform boards. The seven artform boards, most of which had seven members, were the principal administrators of the Australia Council’s funding role, and were the council’s major source of advice on arts policy and grant programmes.

Australia has now reduced the total number of members from 57-plus to a unitary board of 12 and, indeed, section 16(1) of the Australia Council Act 2013 says that the board will consist of the chair of the board, the deputy chair, the chief executive, and not fewer than five but not more than nine other members. So, quite frankly, there is nothing new under the sun. On both sides of the Tasman there has been a study of the Arts Council model and a desire to strip away bureaucracy, strip away flab, and concentrate on the core objectives of what the Arts Council is supposed to do.

This bill delivers very sensible and desirable changes. They have been sought by the Arts Council and the sector and have been broadly supported in submissions to the Government Administration Committee. There was a concern that Māori and Pacific Island perspectives could be diminished. However, I think that the Arts Council’s work in respect of both Māori and Pacific Island arts will, in fact, be improved.

Instead of representation in a subsidiary board and committee, those perspectives and the expertise of both Māori and Pacific Islanders will be represented at the top level of decision making, informing policy, strategy development, and funding decisions. The Minister of Māori Affairs and the Minister for Pacific Island Affairs will be consulted about the appointment of the four Māori board members and the two Pacific Island representatives. These appointments will be on the basis of a robust set of selection criteria to ensure appropriate representation for both Māori and Pacific Island arts. Māori and Pacific Island projects will continue to be assessed by suitably qualified assessors and by knowledgable and experienced Māori and Pacific Island staff.

I particularly refer the House to clause 10(4) of the bill, which provides that at least four Māori appointments will be required. Of course, there is every possibility there will be more than four members of the Arts Council who have an understanding of the role of Māori in the arts of New Zealand. Those members of the council will also be able to meet as a separate committee providing advice on matters relating to Māori arts.

The support for this bill reflects the desire for reform. This bill will enable the Arts Council of New Zealand to meet the expectations of our artists and communities in the 21st century. I am very pleased to have been able to promote these changes. I certainly look forward to working with the Arts Council and the chief executive of this very highly valued Government agency. I was asked to continue to the witching hour, but Mr Grant Robertson is here, so he will have a couple of minutes. It is doubtless it will be unpleasant and off the topic, but over to him.

GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central): I am grateful for that introduction from the Minister Chris Finlayson, who has shown his customary dynamism with the Arts Council of New Zealand Toi Aotearoa Bill, which first saw the light of day in 2010. Chris Finlayson said: “I want this one to move quickly.”, and here we are, 3 years later—nearly 4 years later—and the Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage can proudly say that he has made his contribution to the arts in New Zealand, by fiddling around with the boards and playing about with bureaucracy. Well, on this side of the House we say that we know what a good arts Minister looks like. Her name was Helen Clark. Since that time we have had to put up with an arts Minister on the other side of the House belittling the achievements of the Labour Government in the arts area. Well, we can say that we are proud of the achievements we have made, and we do not see that this bill actually particularly adds very much.

I am quite sad that the Minister has described the contributions from Opposition parties in the way that he has. We had hoped that he would engage with us on whether or not this approach was actually justified, and we simply have not heard from the Minister a justification for the kinds of changes he is making. He likes to tell us that Māori and Pacific perspectives will now be heard at the table, but let us take just the example of the Pacific community for the moment. Two members of the Arts Council will now be expected to represent the views of all of the Pasifika communities in New Zealand—two members. It is simply not going to be possible.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 10 p.m.