Wednesday, 29 January 2014

Wednesday, 29 January 2014

Wednesday, 29 January 2014

Mr Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

Business of the House

Business of the House

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Leader of the House): Following discussions at the Business Committee, I seek leave for the debate on the Prime Minister’s statement to adjourn at the conclusion of a speech near 5.30 p.m. today for Poto Williams and Joanne Hayes to deliver their maiden statements at that time, and for the House to suspend for the dinner break following the maiden statements.

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

Questions for Oral Answer

Questions to Ministers

Families—Financial Support

1. Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Leader of the Opposition) to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by his statement in 2011 that “for the average New Zealand child, most of them are doing extremely well”?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister): Yes.

Hon David Cunliffe: How can the Prime Minister say that the average child is doing “extremely well” when 265,000 of them live in poverty, when 180,000 children go without things that they need, like shoes, and when one in three Māori children and one in three Pacific children is in poverty?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Firstly, I would be interested in the Leader of the Opposition tabling this source that he keeps using saying that one in five New Zealand children own only one pair of shoes. I would be very interested, because that is what he has been saying. We know from his speeches that when he says 59,000 families will all get $60 a week for 52 weeks, it is not true—25,000 of them get paid parental leave, and will not get it for 52 weeks. Today we learnt that 15,000 currently get the parental tax credit, and they will not get it for 52 weeks either. In fact, one in three families are the only people who will get $60 a week for 52 weeks of the year, and they are beneficiary families and the new working poor, who, according to Labour, earn $150,000 a year.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! That question has now been answered. [Interruption] Order!

Hon David Cunliffe: If the Prime Minister cannot answer that question, then perhaps he can answer these numbers.

Mr SPEAKER: Order!

Hon David Cunliffe: Why does he oppose increasing early childhood education opportunities for kids when independent international evidence shows that for every dollar invested, $11 is returned in the long run, and when the Children’s Commissioner’s Expert Advisory Group on Solutions to Child Poverty report says that the economic cost of child poverty is around $6 billion a year?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: The first thing is that if we want to move people out of poverty—and the way that poverty is defined in New Zealand is 60 percent of the average wage—by far the fastest way of doing that is through work. This is a Government that is pro-jobs, and that is an Opposition that is opposed to jobs. Secondly, the member should get his facts right, because once again he has got it wrong. So in 2007-08, under the previous Labour Government, $860 million was spent on early childhood education. The member says that we are spending less. So how much are we spending now? Well, the answer is $1.5 billion. And as for fewer kiddies getting it, well, actually, we now have a 96 percent participation rate in early childhood education. So here is the top-line message that you will not need to check the fine print for: 96 percent of kids, a record number, are now enrolled in early childhood education. This Government is spending nearly twice as much as the previous Labour Government.

Hon David Cunliffe: I seek leave to table the article in Child Development journal, “Age 26 Cost-Benefit Analysis of the Child-Parent Center Early Education Program”—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! Order! The document has now been—[Interruption] Order! [Interruption] Order! The member will resume his seat. The document has been suitably described to the House. Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There appears to be no objection. It can be tabled.

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

Hon David Cunliffe: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Just a clarification: I think the Prime Minister might have been asking what the document referred to—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! Would the member please resume his seat, if he wishes to continue. Leave was sought. I have put the leave. The document has been tabled. That is the end of that matter. I invite the member to now continue with his supplementary question.

Hon David Cunliffe: I seek leave to table the Children’s Commissioner’s expert advisory group report that provided the $6 million—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! Let me just clarify. Has that not been presented to the House already?

Hon David Cunliffe: I am unaware whether that has been presented to the House or not.

Mr SPEAKER: Well, on the basis that the member is unaware whether it has been presented to the House, it is easier that I put leave. Leave is sought to table the expert advisory panel’s work. Is there any objection to that being tabled? There appears to be none. It can be tabled.

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

Louise Upston: Does Working for Families currently include a parental tax credit of $1,200 for parents of newborn babies; if so, how many families get that credit, and has he seen any reports that the $1,200 tax credit might be scrapped?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Yes, Working for Families currently does have a parental tax credit of $1,200 for parents of newborn babies. It is a $150 payment paid eight times, or it can be taken as one lump sum. Fifteen thousand families currently get that, and they are the same families whom on Monday David Cunliffe told would get, on top of that, 52 weeks at $60 a week. In fact, those families will not get that; they will get only 32 weeks. So maybe Mr Cunliffe needs to explain. [Interruption] Well, we are shaking our heads, too—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! That question has now also been answered.

Hon David Cunliffe: Given the Prime Minister’s new-found enthusiasm for Working for Families, can he confirm that he voted against the introduction of Working for Families and described it at the time as “communism by stealth”?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Absolutely, and that is because under the old tax system and abatement rates under the previous Labour Government, it was actually possible for people to lose more in abatement than they actually got. And, by the way, today we have found the parental tax credit, yesterday we discovered the paid parental leave, and, mark my words, there might be more news coming on misleading the public on that little bit, as well.

Hon David Cunliffe: Given that the Prime Minister has now shifted his position on Working for Families and has shifted his position on various coalition partners, can he tell the House whether he has also shifted his position on the following quote—that some mothers in receipt of such benefits are just “breeding for a business”?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Well, that was made in an article, from memory, from 2002 or 2003, and that is a very long time ago. But, actually, I do not think we should have a welfare system that encourages people to stay on welfare. I think we should undertake the reforms that this Government has, which are actually to encourage people off welfare and into work. If the member really cares about poverty in New Zealand, then he will move people—like this Government is doing—off welfare and into work. We are doing it for 1,500 people a week, and 17,000 people left the benefit last year. So the member gets up and says that there are too many poor people, the majority of whom are on welfare, and his response is: “Stay there on welfare. Don’t get a job. Back the policies of the Greens.”, who are anti-growth. See you at the election. It is going to be a lot of fun.

Hon David Cunliffe: Indeed, it will. Why did National vote against paid parental leave when introduced in 2002 and again last year, yet last week it shifted its position to support it, just not as much as Labour; and is that because he thinks it is creating a welfare trap, or has he shifted his position again?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I cannot answer the first question in respect of 2002. I am not sure whether it occurred when I was even in the House, because I came in in 2002, and I can go and check that time. In terms of paid parental leave, here are a few facts that might be interesting to the New Zealand public. We currently pay 14 weeks of paid parental leave. It costs $165 million, and only 40 percent of the people can take up the scheme. That is because it is actually not well targeted, so not everybody gets it. There are lots of people who actually miss out. So what this member is saying—[Interruption] Well, actually, here is a really interesting point. What this member is saying is that he wants to spend $500-and-something million on this policy annually and he is saying that, somehow, he wants to be fiscally conservative. This is the only way through that: you have to tax more and spend less in other areas. And, mark my words, when that caucus starts talking about: “Do you want more police officers? Do you want to pay teachers more? Do you want more cancer drugs? Do you want more—”

Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! That question has now been answered.

Hon David Cunliffe: Can the Prime Minister confirm that he has got more positions than the Kama Sutra when it comes to tax policy, and does he consider it OK for National to give away $1 billion in tax cuts to the wealthy and tell other New Zealanders not to be jealous, but consider giving money to support kids and middle-income families a “spend-athon”?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Firstly, from time to time conditions will change. As we have always said when it comes to paid parental leave, yes, when there is more money, maybe it would be a nice thing to extend. I do not think the country can afford to go to 26 weeks. It may, over time, be able to afford to go a little bit more. The member seems to think, as conditions change, that slightly tweaking one’s position is a bit odd. Was he having a bit of an amnesia fit about his own press conference last week, when he did some backflip on a couple of other crazy policies? Things do change. But—

Hon David Cunliffe: Answer the question.

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Actually, I will happily answer the question. OK, where does the top personal rate cut in, in New Zealand? Seventy-odd thousand dollars a year. Who is going to get his $60 a week for 52 weeks? Well, not many, as we now know, but some of them are going to be people earning $130,000, $140,000, $80,000, $90,000, and $110,000. Guess what is happening to those people under Labour? The top personal rate is going up—mark my words. And guess what—

Hon David Cunliffe: We said it.

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Exactly, you said it. So, OK—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! Order! I will have a debate later on.

Economy—Outlook and Wage Growth

2. PAUL GOLDSMITH (National) to the Minister of Finance: What reports has he received indicating that progress in lifting economic growth will create new job opportunities and support higher wages in 2014?

Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance): There are several such reports. Just this morning Moody’s, the credit rating agency, said the New Zealand economy and Government finances were on an improving trend and we remain one of only 10 countries with a top triple A rating and a stable outlook. The latest BNZ-Business New Zealand Performance of Manufacturing Index confirms not just that the manufacturing crisis is over but that there never was one. Manufacturing activity increased in every month in 2013, which is the first time this has happened in a year since 2007. The manufacturing sector has enjoyed 15 consecutive months of expansion—starting, I think, at about the time the Opposition began its crisis hearings. That is consistent with the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research’s most recent business opinion survey, which showed confidence at a 20-year high.

Paul Goldsmith: What reports has he seen on trends in wage growth?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: Contrary to statements that no one in New Zealand in the middle incomes has been getting ahead, in fact average hourly wages have gone up 5.5 percent over the last 2 years and weekly wages have gone up 6 percent, which is not a bad average, although we cannot know the circumstances of every single family. Further to that, data released by SEEK, the job website—which will not be shut down, we hope, when Facebook gets shut down—shows that across jobs advertised on the website, the average pay packet increased by 3 percent over the past year, to an average of $74,000 per annum.

Paul Goldsmith: How does this wage growth compare with inflation and what does this mean for families?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: Again the data seems to contradict statements that have been made by the Leader of the Opposition. Over the past 2 years hourly wage rates have risen by 5.5 percent and weekly wage rates by 6 percent. Inflation, however, has been less than that over the last 2 years. In fact, it has totalled 2.2 percent. This means that families and households have, on average, had real increases in their weekly wages—that is, wages have grown faster than inflation by some considerable margin.

Paul Goldsmith: How will Budget 2014 support New Zealand families and households to get ahead?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: The Budget will be delivered on 15 May. As in previous Budgets, it will focus on delivering a faster-growing economy, more jobs, and higher incomes. The Budget will be reorientated to managing growth, rather than recession, but that of course is a good problem to have.

Student Achievement—Effect of Child Poverty

3. METIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green) to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by his statement yesterday that “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”?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister): I stand by my full statement, which began with: “When it comes to education, we will not say the answer to fixing the whole problem of the education system is giving the odd kid a lunch.”

Metiria Turei: Is the Prime Minister saying, with his statement to the country, that he believes that the main cause of underachievement is that the principals and teachers in lower-decile schools, where underachievement is concentrated, are no good at their job and are failing their pupils?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: What I am saying is that the single-biggest thing we can do to help young New Zealanders of all backgrounds is have a world-class education system. What I am also saying is that it is actually quite difficult sometimes to attract the very best principals to small underperforming schools, and one of the biggest changes we can make is to pay a premium of $50,000 to attract one of those world-class principals to those schools. I personally happen to think that if you can put a fabulous principal in charge of a school and fantastic teachers in front of those children, you are much more likely to make a big difference to them than by giving them lunch.

Metiria Turei: Does the Prime Minister accept the Programme for International Student Assessment finding that family and out-of-school factors, like being well fed and well housed, accounts for more than 75 percent of the difference between high and low-performing New Zealand schools?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I prefer to rely on Andreas Schleicher, who is actually the architect of the Programme for International Student Assessment. This is his exact quote, when he spoke to the New Zealand media not so long ago, on Nine to Noon: “Another part of the education that is actually underperformance in New Zealand isn’t actually all about poor kids in poor neighbourhoods. You know, there are actually many kids in more advantaged neighbourhoods where you can see performance challenges.” I think the reality is that there are two factors that make a big difference to children’s ability to learn at school. One is the home they come from, and the second is ultimately the teachers and the principals who are in front of those kids. We cannot always potentially change one of those factors, but we can certainly heavily influence the other. Secondly, the Government provides enormous support to those at-risk families. That included this Government borrowing tens of billions of dollars through the worst of the recession to support the most at-risk families in New Zealand.

Metiria Turei: What then is his response to the Principals’ Federation, some of whose members would benefit from his policy, who have praised the Greens school hub plan, saying that out-of-school influences, like decent food, have by far the biggest influence on underachievement?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I suppose the way to respond to that is to quote the Principals’ Federation, which said: “It’s hard for me to say but it’s a pretty damned impressive amount. It’s a huge amount of new money, and I’ve never seen such a transformation of ideas and discussion into policy and money in my life.” Sounds to me like they are backing the National Party.

Metiria Turei: Does the Prime Minister not understand that it is impossible to fix “underperformance” simply by helicoptering in 20 high-paid principals when he knows that 75 percent of the influence on underachievement is family background and out of those principals’ control?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: First, I think the member is just plain wrong. Second, I think the member is not doing justice to that very fine policy from the National Party. It is not 20 change principals; it is actually 100 over a period of time—5 years—and it is also 5,000 lead teachers. It is a large number of executive principals and expert teachers. It is $150 million dollars per year to lift the performance of all of our schools and principals across the country. Let us be blunt: I came from a State house and a solo mother. I happened to go to a world-class school with world-class teachers, and I am now the Prime Minister of New Zealand. Frankly, I think that made a bigger difference—

Mr SPEAKER: Order!

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. With respect, the Prime Minister had ample time to answer that question without trying to show—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! Can the member just come to the point of his point of order?

Rt Hon Winston Peters: The point is very, very clear—as daylight. He has had far too long to answer the question, and I am asking you to stop him.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! And if the member wants the privilege of asking question No. 4 in the House he will allow me to run question time. It was quite a lengthy question that was asked, and I thought the Prime Minister was attempting to genuinely answer the question. I will decide when I think a Minister, be it a Prime Minister or any other, has spoken for too long in his answer, not the Rt Hon Winston Peters.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. You are surely not suggesting that I do not have the right to raise a point of order about the length of question, are you?

Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member will resume his seat. No, I am not suggesting that, but I am telling the member—it is not a suggestion—that I will ultimately decide. The member can certainly raise the point of order—

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Thank you for that.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I am on my feet. I will ultimately decide when I think an answer has gone on too long, and I have done that on two or three occasions already in this question time.

Metiria Turei: If the 1970s welfare State was so good to the Prime Minister when he was a child, will he consider reviving some of the core policies that were in place at that time, such as secure State housing, a universal child benefit, and genuinely free public education to every child now; if he will not, why does he believe that today’s kids are not entitled to the same support he had when he was a child?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: No.

Metiria Turei: Is the Prime Minister concerned that the chance of people like him escaping poverty and doing well has become close to impossible under his watch, when the percentage of poorer children who are achieving at the highest levels has now dropped from 6 percent in 2009 to just 4 percent in 2012?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I am pleased that yesterday I described the Opposition as deluded, because the member has absolutely demonstrated that. Over the course of the last 5 years of this National Government, we have poured enormous resources into supporting the most at need. We have lifted, I think, the resources going into education, which is the single biggest factor to help young New Zealanders. To make the case that somebody could go to school today—somebody, say, 15 years of age, in year 11, who has spent the last 5 years at school under a National-led Government—and be condemned to never doing well because they grew up in a poor household shows how out of touch that member is.

Metiria Turei: When will the Prime Minister drop his inequality denial and admit that his policies are creating a growing class of people who sit at the bottom of the most unequal education system in the developed world?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Again, the member is just completely and utterly wrong. She wants to be in denial, but the penultimate findings in this area, done by the Ministry of Social Development—they are basically the findings of Mr Perry—have shown that actually income inequality has not been widening in the last 10 years; it has been very consistent over the last 10 years. If the member wants to cut and paste information so that she can mislead her supporters, she is welcome to do so, but, in fact, income inequality is not growing in New Zealand.

Immigration New Zealand—Resourcing, Performance, and Immigration Fraud

4. Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) to the Minister of Immigration: Does he believe Immigration New Zealand has the required level of resources to uphold the immigration laws of this country?

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (Minister of Immigration): Yes, I am satisfied that Immigration New Zealand is adequately resourced to do the job, but I am interested not only in the quantum of those resources but also their smart use. One good example is of policies that have dramatically reduced the number of overstayers at the same time as reducing the cost of their removal. That, to me, is a smart use of resources.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: How many thousands of overstayers are there in this country now, and is not each one of them a breach of our immigration laws?

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: The last estimate of overstayers suggests that there are 13,151 overstayers presently living in New Zealand. This is the lowest number this century—down 6.3 percent from last year and 33 percent lower than the 2005 estimate of nearly 20,000. I think that is a pretty good result.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Only a fool would clap 13,000—

Mr SPEAKER: Order!

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Lighten up.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I do not need an instruction from the member to lighten up. Would the member simply stand and ask his supplementary question. Otherwise I will allow someone else to ask theirs.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I know what you are going to do. How can the department possibly have the resources when significant immigration fraud is taking place, and just one illegal operative, Jerry Lee, claims on Campbell Live in the last 2 nights to have brought immigrants into New Zealand in circumstances that are demonstrably illegal?

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Well, this is a very important case that has been on the Immigration New Zealand radar for the last 2½ months. These are complex issues that I am satisfied my staff are working through very carefully, and when there are appropriate actions to take, they will be taken.

Brendan Horan: Can the Minister say in a specific case where two political party research officers here on work visas are summarily dismissed by that political party leader without natural justice or due process—can the Minister give an assurance that Immigration New Zealand would still act with natural justice and due process—

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. First of all, there are a number of laws that are about to be breached by way of that question, plus the facts are demonstrably false, as I will demonstrate—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! The Hon Gerry Brownlee, are you speaking to the point of order?

Hon Gerry Brownlee: How is the House to know that the member asking the question was speaking about the Rt Hon Winston Peters?

Mr SPEAKER: That is right. I am not ruling the question out of order. I would like the member to come to the conclusion of his question. It would be better if he did not have to repeat the whole question, but then it is for the Minister to decide how to answer it. It is not for some other member of Parliament to then question the validity or the accuracy of the question.

Brendan Horan: Can the Minister say in a case where two political party research officers here on work visas are dismissed or fired by that political party leader without natural justice or due process—can the Minister give an assurance that Immigration New Zealand would still act with natural justice and due process in respect of work visas?

Mr SPEAKER: The Hon Michael Woodhouse, in so far as there is ministerial responsibility.

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: It would be inappropriate for me to comment on any specific cases, but, as a point of principle, where there are matters of natural justice and fairness, when serious accusations are being levelled at an individual or individuals, it would behove anybody laying those accusations—laying charges, perhaps—to have all of their facts right first before doing so, particularly when the costs of doing so might be ejection from, say, a country or a caucus.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Can I seek leave to make a personal explanation?

Mr SPEAKER: The member can certainly seek leave to make a personal explanation. Is there any objection to that course of action? There is objection. The member sought and there is objection.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: It is like taking candy off a baby, is it not? Can I ask the Minister as to why he is not severely embarrassed at the incompetence of his department when Campbell Live can out illegal activity, but his department cannot?

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: I simply reject the suggestion that the department has been in any way other than professional and careful and diligent in a very complex investigation that involves not only one individual but a number of companies and individuals, and when the facts are known, they will be acted on.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Will he take a zero-tolerance policy and dismiss and prosecute any Immigration New Zealand official who is found to be involved in the corrupt practices laid out by Campbell Live this week?

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Well, I think the member needs to be very careful again to get certain facts right before impugning the good character of the nearly 1,400 Immigration New Zealand staff working in New Zealand and around the globe. But I will say this: Immigration New Zealand has a zero-tolerance policy for the sorts of behaviour that has gone on in the past, I concede, albeit that it was under the previous Labour - New Zealand First Government, and I do hope it does not carry on—

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. You know full well there was never a Labour - New Zealand First Government.

Mr SPEAKER: That is fact. It is useful if members do not refer to a past New Zealand First - Labour Government.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Will the Minister do the right thing and resign if another immigration scam like this is uncovered under his and his officials’ noses; if not, why not, because it is going to happen?

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Again, that calls for an opinion or a prediction about the future that I cannot make. But I will say this about honourable members: when there are things that go on—for example, when someone says “No” when they really should know or mean “Yes”—then there may well be grounds for resignation. I hope the member is consistent with that.

Inequality—Assets and Income

5. Hon DAVID PARKER (Deputy Leader—Labour) to the Minister of Finance: Does he stand by his statement that “Government policies have helped to reduce income inequality at the margin”; if not, why not?

Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance): Yes, I do stand by that statement because, first, the Government borrowed through the recession to maintain the real incomes of those who were most vulnerable; secondly, through our welfare reform and investment approach we are getting more people into work, which is the best fix for poverty; thirdly, we are lifting achievement in schools among those who have consistently failed because, unlike Labour and the Greens, we do not believe that where you are born decides whether you can learn; and, finally, we have moved to free up the supply of housing so that we can change the policies of the previous Government, which were designed to lock low and middle income people out of our metropolitan housing markets.

Hon David Parker: Does he agree that one in four children living in poverty, as found by the expert advisory group relied upon by the Children’s Commissioner, is evidence of an unacceptable level of asset and income inequality in New Zealand?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: First, there is a difference of views about what exactly those measures mean. Secondly, Labour might want there to be growing income inequality in New Zealand, but there is not. Income inequality is not growing by any measure. It does not matter how often those members say that on “Planet Labour”, because on planet Earth it is not true.

Hon David Parker: Does the decline in homeownership to the lowest level in six decades demonstrate rising inequality in New Zealand; if not, why not?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: No, there is no necessary connection between those two. But what I can tell the member is that the kinds of planning rules that his party favours about dense cities ensure that middle and upper-income people who own houses in Auckland do very well out of that market, and low and middle-income families cannot even get into it. Labour should be supporting the Government’s measures to free up the flexibility of supply in housing so that low-income New Zealanders can get access to the housing market.

Hon David Parker: Will he now admit he was wrong in opposing Working for Families, which, as my colleague noted today, the Prime Minister called “communism by stealth”, given that it was Working for Families that reduced income inequality for the first time in decades; and does he agree that the Best Start package will help the next Labour Government to do the same thing?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: No. In fact, the member should go back and read the press releases that his party put out when it announced Working for Families, because it said then that it would fix inequality and poverty and that there would not be any more of it, and, of course, 10 years later there is. So the solutions are not splashing cash around the place; they are about addressing complex social dysfunction, which this Government is digging into in a way that no previous Government has.

Hon David Parker: Why do National MPs claim that we have a rock star economy but then deny that the country can afford more provision for our children?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: I think that one of the member’s banker economist mates used that term. This Government has not used that term because we know that this economy needs more work to deliver more jobs and higher incomes for New Zealanders, and we know that if the policy course is changed to those advocated by the member, that will not happen.

Student Achievement—Investment in Teachers

6. Dr CAM CALDER (National) to the Minister of Education: What recent announcements has she made on lifting achievement of children in schools?

Hon HEKIA PARATA (Minister of Education): Recently the Government announced that we will invest $359 million over the next 4 years to introduce an innovation fund and four new roles in our schools: executive principal, expert teacher, lead teacher, and change principal. These changes are the next step in our plan to raise student achievement. Although our education system is doing a great job for many kids, this is about how we can do even better and raise achievement for all. New Zealand has a longstanding challenge of lifting those who are not succeeding in our education system, as shown in last year’s Programme for International Student Assessment results. The analysis of those results showed that socio-economic status accounts for 18 percent of the differences seen in the student achievement data. That means that 82 percent are factors not about poverty. Decile is not destiny.

Dr Cam Calder: How will the proposed changes strengthen the teaching profession?

Hon HEKIA PARATA: This investment in education will give teachers the opportunity to further their professional careers, keep good teachers in the classroom, and allow for the sharing of expertise across schools and amongst teachers and principals. We have got outstanding teaching practice going on in classrooms around the country. This gives our profession the opportunity to open up those classrooms and share best practice to make it standard practice.

Dr Cam Calder: How will the proposed changes help lift student achievement?

Hon HEKIA PARATA: International evidence and New Zealand - based research clearly shows that the quality of teaching and leadership are the most important in-school factors in a child’s education. These changes will strengthen the quality of teaching and leadership in our schools by recognising some of our most capable teachers and principals and giving them the opportunity to systematically collaborate with, support, and mentor others. The education investment initiative will be instrumental in ensuring we have the best-quality teaching to raise achievement for five out of five kids.

Chris Hipkins: Will teachers in all subject disciplines, including social studies, art, music, health, physical education, and materials technology, be eligible to become expert teachers; if so, why does the documentation she released suggest that only maths, science, digital technology, and literacy teachers will be eligible?

Hon HEKIA PARATA: The next step in this process is for the Secretary for Education to sit down with the design group representing the profession. In the paper that I set out, I said that a priority of our achievement challenges was in maths, science, and digital technology, but there was never any exclusion of the most capable teachers.

Families—Financial Support

7. JACINDA ARDERN (Labour) to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by his statement that “I want to see every one of our children getting the very best start to life. They deserve nothing less”?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister): Yes.

Jacinda Ardern: Does he believe that parents who are eligible for paid parental leave are the only ones who would benefit from extra support when their baby first arrives?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: No. I think there are people who enjoy the parental tax credit, although Labour is scrapping that, unfortunately.

Jacinda Ardern: Can he confirm that those who are eligible for the current parental tax credit, which Labour would replace with the Best Start payments, would, as a result, receive support for 52 weeks instead of 8 weeks and would be markedly better off?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: There is absolutely no question that those people who currently get $1,200 under Labour’s plan would get more money. That is not the argument. But David Cunliffe—your leader—said that 59,000 families will get $60 a week for 52 weeks of the year. It is just plain wrong. Only 19,000 will, and no shaking of the head and smiling will actually get her leader through what the press gallery now knows—that your leader is tricky.

Jacinda Ardern: Why does he agree with the principle of universalism for our national superannuation but not for the first year of a baby’s life?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: There is a range of different issues involved in that, and we will see what National’s response will be in the fullness of time. But what I think is becoming quite clear—and maybe that explains the furious text messages on the plane from the member on Friday—

Grant Robertson: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! This is a point of order. It will be heard in silence.

Grant Robertson: The Prime Minister was asked a direct question, and he has not, in the period of time he has been standing up so far, answered it. Under the Standing Orders he is required to address that question. It was not particularly politically loaded but it was a very direct question.

Mr SPEAKER: The difficulty I have is I actually did not hear the question fully, and part of that was because of a large barrage of noise coming mainly from both front benches. I am going to ask Jacinda Ardern to ask that question again.

Jacinda Ardern: Thank you, Mr Speaker. Why does he agree with the principle of universalism for our national superannuation but not for the first year of a baby’s life?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Because there would be families that earn an enormous amount of money, and taxing a family that has a 3-year-old or a 4-year-old and earns $49,000 a year, and giving that money to people who earn a million, does not make sense.

Jacinda Ardern: Does he stand by his Government’s claim that Working for Families has helped families stay afloat; if so, does he therefore also agree that increasing that support for low-income families with preschool children would also have a positive impact?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: It might. It depends on a range of circumstances, but, firstly, it depends on how it is funded. The member is basically arguing the case that there is a magic $1.5 billion. There is not. She is arguing that her leader did not say that 59,000 would all get $60 a week for 52 weeks of the year. He did. What the member is demonstrating is she might understand the policy and she might have been furiously texting her leader on Friday, but he does not understand the policy, which is why—

Jacinda Ardern: What are you talking about?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Well, we all know, do we not?

Canterbury, Recovery—Progress of Canterbury Home Repair Programme

8. NICKY WAGNER (National—Christchurch Central) to the Minister responsible for the Earthquake Commission: What progress has been made on the Canterbury Home Repair Programme?

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Minister responsible for the Earthquake Commission): The Earthquake Commission’s project-managed repair programme for damaged properties in Christchurch with damage under $100,000 as of today has completed 50,220 homes. That is a number equivalent to the number of occupied dwellings in Napier and Hastings combined. That means that more than two-thirds of the homes under the programme have now been repaired. Around 1,800 full home repairs are being completed each month, with more than 500 local contracting firms completing about 90 repairs a day.

Nicky Wagner: How is the managed home repair programme contributing to the wider recovery in Christchurch?

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: Well, after the earthquakes many people claimed that the value of real estate in Christchurch, particularly domestic property, would fall by tens of thousands of dollars—in fact, tens of percentage points—and that would have tossed many, many people into negative equity. Now we have real estate magazines proudly proclaiming that houses have had their repairs completed under the Earthquake Commission programme and putting it on the bill of sale as a mark of quality. The home repair programme has also had a huge impact on constraining prices and making sure that Cantabrians were protected from cowboy builders, and, as such, it has contributed to overall confidence in the recovery.

Power Prices—Increases and Electricity Market

9. GARETH HUGHES (Green) to the Minister of Energy and Resources: Does he agree with the Electricity Authority that households have been paying too little for power in the past and how has this issue been corrected under the current Government?

Hon SIMON BRIDGES (Minister of Energy and Resources): Firstly, that is, in my view, a mischaracterisation of what the Electricity Authority said. Secondly, what the Electricity Authority report, in my view, does implicitly make clear is that talk of super-profits, like we had from co-leader of the Greens Dr Russel Norman yesterday—despite Professor Wolak, whom the Greens once relied on, reversing his views on that—is absolute nonsense. Certainly I do support the Electricity Authority’s conclusion that the best way to sharpen prices is to see increased competition and competitive pressures, and that is exactly what this Government and the Electricity Authority are focused on.

Gareth Hughes: So does the Minister believe that the Electricity Authority is correct when it says that rising power bills for Kiwi families have been justified, or does he believe that power prices are too high under the National Government?

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: As I have made very clear a number of times in this House, no one who is a consumer wants to see power prices rise. What is true is that this Government has halved the power price increases that we saw when Labour, propped up by the Greens, was in power. We are seeing an increasingly competitive market in New Zealand with very sharp offerings. Meridian Energy, for example, offers a $100 credit and a 10 to 12 percent prompt payment discount. Contact is offering fixed prices until 2016, and 10 to 15 percent prompt payment discounts. My advice to consumers is to shop around.

Gareth Hughes: Does the Minister think that the electricity system is working, given that electricity prices have increased by 22 percent under the current Government and that in the past year alone power prices have risen by 3 percent, despite demand falling by 2 percent?

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: The market is workably competitive. We want to see it more competitive. The member raises the point of 3 percent. Well, that is approximately half of what we saw year by year when Labour, propped up by the Greens, was in Government. What we also know, of course, is that with increased emissions trading scheme costs and with less competition under Labour and the Greens given what they are promising, we will certainly see prices rise by much more.

Gareth Hughes: No you will not. Is it acceptable to the current Government that 42,600 Kiwi families had their power disconnected in the past year alone and were left in the cold and the dark because they could not afford to pay their rising power bills in a “workably competitive” market?

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: The issue of disconnections is a concerning one. I am concerned about it and I have written very recently to the electricity providers—the retailers—to make clear my views. It is something that I and the Electricity Authority will continue to work on to get those numbers down.

Gareth Hughes: Given the current Government’s opposition to the Green Party and the Labour Party’s NZ Power plan to reduce household power bills by $300 a year, will the Minister be campaigning on his track record of rising power prices this year?

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: Yes. It will be very difficult to see where that $300 comes from, given that around the world no country that has introduced less competition than they already had has seen prices decrease—in fact, quite the reverse. Vastly increased costs through a ramped-up emissions trading scheme will mean, I think, conservatively, at least half a thousand dollars—$500—added to the costs that consumers pay in New Zealand year on year by Labour and the Greens.

Gareth Hughes: I intend to seek leave to table two data sets. They are from Government websites, but from very large databases that are not readily available—

Mr SPEAKER: On that basis, if the member just quickly describes the websites, I will put the leave to the House.

Gareth Hughes: Thank you. The first is from Consumers Price Index data showing that power prices have risen by 22 percent under National—

Mr SPEAKER: I will put leave for both together. And the second website?

Gareth Hughes: And the other data shows disconnections, from the Electricity Authority, and shows 42,600—

Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought to table those two pieces of information for the benefit of the House. Is there any objection? There appears to be none. They can be so tabled.

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

Health Services—Access to Elective Surgery

10. Hon ANNETTE KING (Labour—Rongotai) to the Minister of Health: What recent reports has he received on access to elective surgery?

Hon TONY RYALL (Minister of Health): I have received many reports, two of which I think are worth sharing with the House. One report confirms that the number of patients receiving elective surgery has increased from 118,000 people a year under the previous Government to over 158,000 patients a year now. That is an increase of 40,000 a year. The other report is yet more good news in elective surgery. I can confirm that the Government has today announced an extra $10 million will be spent delivering almost 2,000 extra operations.

Hon Annette King: This question is—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I call the member to ask the supplementary question.

Hon Annette King: How has he arrived at the number of 1,800 more patients to receive elective surgery, as per his announcement today, when specialists are saying there is huge unmet need, and why will he not agree to an independent scientific measurement rather than this sort of regular drip-feeding of funding in an effort to close down criticism and debate?

Hon TONY RYALL: The Government is investing into those extra 1,800 operations. Because of careful management of the health budget, we have been able to free up resources to help those patients. This Government has made elective surgery a priority year after year after year, and it has been criticised by the Opposition for doing so year after year after year.

Hon Annette King: Why was he so fast to dismiss and denigrate recent research undertaken by TNS that found 280,000 New Zealanders meet the clinical criteria for elective surgery but only 110,000 have been placed on a waiting list, leaving 170,000 patients living with pain and disability, when the Ministry of Health found TNS research reliable enough to undertake the New Zealand smoking survey—information that he is quite happy to quote and crow about?

Hon TONY RYALL: Because the survey was commissioned and overseen by the Health Funds Association. They are the private health insurers of New Zealand, who want to jack up as much business as they can. I understand that the private health insurers and the private hospitals are under pressure. When the Government increases the amount of publicly funded surgery from 118,000 operations a year to 158,000 operations a year, I can see why they are concerned.

Hon Annette King: I seek leave to table a document from the New Zealand Smoking Monitor. It is very difficult to find on the website. It shows the Ministry of Health was prepared—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member is now trying to use the point of order and the tabling of documents to make a political point.

Dr Paul Hutchison: Why has the Government made such a commitment to increasing elective surgery?

Hon TONY RYALL: That is an excellent question. The Government inherited a very difficult situation in elective surgery, where between 2000 and 2006 the health budget increased significantly, yet the number of patients getting surgery was actually slashed under the 6 years of Annette King. Waiting lists were culled—30,000 people were removed off the waiting lists for no reason other than the fact that the Minister wanted to dress up the waiting list. That is why we have worked so hard—40,000 extra operations a year. What a great effort by the doctors, nurses, and hospitals of our great New Zealand public health service.

Hon Annette King: Is MidCentral District Health Board one of the regions that have thousands waiting to get on a list for surgery, in light of a recent report from its hospital advisory committee that states that it can no longer give certainty for treatment within 5 months to those patients, that there is significant concern about it, and that one board member said publicly that patients will continue to be in pain for a longer period of time and the pain will not go away?

Hon TONY RYALL: I know that the MidCentral District Health Board will be benefiting from the announcement that we made today, and, in fact, compared with when Labour was in office, 5,400 more patients have been treated for elective surgery at the MidCentral District Health Board. I think it is doing a very good job and I would expect more surgery to come.

Hon Annette King: Will he give a commitment today that when district health boards are required to shorten waiting times for surgery to 4 months later this year, the threshold to get surgery will not be lifted and more patients pushed out of the system, as some specialists are predicting is likely to happen; if not, why not?

Hon TONY RYALL: I can give that member the assurance that it has always been this Government’s intention that we shorten waiting times by increasing the amount of surgery that is provided. That is the reason why there were 40,000 more operations done in the last 12 months compared with when we became the Government.

Hon Annette King: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I asked the Minister whether district health boards would be lifting the threshold for surgery. He went nowhere near that question, and that is the guts of the question.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member now cannot insist on an answer that she so desires. The question was wider than that, and I rule that the Minister has addressed the question.

Business Research and Development—Funding

11. SIMON O’CONNOR (National—Tāmaki) to the Minister of Science and Innovation: How is the Government encouraging New Zealand businesses to undertake more research and development?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister of Science and Innovation): Mr Speaker—[Interruption] I will just wait for Ms King to—[Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order!

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Let it go, Annette.

Mr SPEAKER: I have now called the Hon Steven Joyce.

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Earlier this month I announced—[Interruption] It is important that we get this, Mr Speaker, as the Labour Party does not understand that this information and communications technology stuff and innovation stuff is going on. So I think that we might wait—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! Would the Minister now simply address the question.

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Earlier this month I announced that 31 high-tech New Zealand businesses have been awarded—

Hon David Cunliffe: How to delete a tweet? Or how to roll out broadband so that people actually use it?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: —listen, Mr Cunliffe, because you do not know it is happening—$140 million over 3 years to assist with their research and development programmes. Research and development growth grants available to mid-sized and large New Zealand - based businesses provide each company with 20 percent co-funding of up to $5 million a year to help encourage the conduct of business research and development in New Zealand. As part of our Business Growth Agenda the Government is committed to creating the right environment incentives for businesses to double their expenditure on research and development to more than 1 percent of GDP, and we are making good progress on that target. Business innovation is crucial for New Zealand companies in a tough international environment. These grants help our businesses invest more so that that they can compete more effectively internationally.

Simon O’Connor: How do businesses qualify for these growth grants, and what other research and development support is available?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Research and development growth grants are available to New Zealand - based businesses with a track record in research and development and a commitment to spend at least $300,000 a year and at least 1.5 percent of revenue on research and development occurring in New Zealand. The $140 million in funding is part of a wider—

Tracey Martin: How does that help SMEs?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: —listen, you will get there—business research and development support programme administered by Callaghan Innovation, research and development growth grants, research and development student grants, and—yes, Tracey—research and development project grants for smaller businesses, with a total of $566 million available over 4 years. The project grants are available for smaller companies and those that are new to research and development, while incubator support programmes assist start-up businesses.

Simon O’Connor: What other policy proposals did the Minister consider for encouraging high-growth innovative business, particularly those based online?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: I am always considering suggestions, and I considered one suggestion that I received yesterday that was about shutting down major websites if the Government of the day does not like them. However, I do not think the proposed Facebook ban from the Labour Party is likely to encourage innovation in the New Zealand information and communications technology sector. So although we have no plans to introduce a great firewall of New Zealand for social media websites, we do appreciate the suggestion from a Mr Clark all the same, and I think that we can observe that he has had an even worse start to his year than Mr Cunliffe has.

Immigration—Fraud and Exploitation of Workers

12. Dr RAJEN PRASAD (Labour) to the Minister of Immigration: Is he concerned about the level of illegal job selling taking place according to reports on Campbell Live this week?

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (Minister of Immigration): Naturally, I am concerned, as I would be about any potential breach of immigration law. In terms of the show on Campbell Live, it was certainly compelling TV and very good investigative journalism, but for Immigration New Zealand it was nothing new. It has been aware of these cases since last year and has an active investigation under way.

Dr Rajen Prasad: What actions is the Minister taking to increase the number of migrants and others coming forward who have been affected by job-selling, given that many migrants are vulnerable if they disclose their involvement?

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: As the member should know, given he is Labour’s immigration spokesman, I changed instructions in June last year to direct officials to turn their turrets on employers not employees. I also introduced legislation increasing penalties for those legally working in New Zealand who are subject to exploitation. I note the member’s press release yesterday where he said: “I have had constituents, friends and acquaintances tell of many examples where either an intermediary, a business owner or a registered practitioner has engaged in job selling.” Well, if that member wants to get rid of his reputation as the least energetic member of this House—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! [Interruption] Order! Order! The member will resume his seat.

Grant Robertson: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. You stood on your feet to sit the member down, which was the right course of action. The member continued speaking for some time, not unlike what the Prime Minister did earlier. If people are going to disobey your rulings like that, it will lead to disorder in the House.

Mr SPEAKER: I fully accept the point the member is making. I will take this opportunity of reminding all members that if I rise to my feet, it is essential that the member returns to his seat. To give the Minister the benefit of the doubt, he may well have been concentrating on an answer that was unhelpful to the order of the House, and I will give him the benefit of the doubt that he did not see me rise to my feet. But in future all members must resume their seat as soon as I rise to my feet. Are there further supplementary questions?

Dr Rajen Prasad: Yes, there are. The member will keep—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member will also simply ask the supplementary question.

Dr Rajen Prasad: Given the views of those working in the field that job-selling is now endemic, why will the Minister not immediately establish an inquiry into the abuse of our immigration system, with appropriate immunity granted for those who come forward?

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Because I am satisfied that no such review is necessary. The investigation is going on—[Interruption] If the member will listen, the case that was the subject of the Campbell Live exposé on the last two evenings was referred to Immigration New Zealand by an anonymous tip to Crimestoppers. It is a pretty simple process to pick up the phone and dial an 0800 number to alert immigration authorities to the potential for this behaviour going on, and I encourage the member to communicate with his constituents just that type of behaviour.

Mr SPEAKER: Before I call the member, can I ask for a little less of a barrage coming from members to my left when an answer is being given to a question that has been raised by a member of the Opposition.

Darien Fenton: What steps has he taken to prevent job-selling in the Christchurch rebuild, given that there have already been cases of migrant worker exploitation and reports of job-selling offshore?

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: I am certainly aware of some issues in respect of the Philippine diaspora in the Christchurch area. The Philippines Ambassador and I visited the city late last year to talk to employers, employees, and the Chamber of Commerce. I am also working with my colleague the Minister of Labour on a set of standards for employers in respect of the employment of foreign migrant workers. I am satisfied that the message has got out in the Canterbury community that anybody who has information about illegal activity can safely contact the authorities in order that those claims be investigated.

Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement

Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement

Debate resumed from 28 January.

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery): I rise to support the motion moved by the Prime Minister yesterday and to defeat the amendment to that motion moved by the Hon David Cunliffe. If there is anything that typifies the way in which this election year has started, it would have to be the ill-named start that the Opposition leader added to his programme last week.

It has been a bad start. If we are to see this year progress on the same sort of basis, then I think by the time we get to the election we will see David Cunliffe dressed in a plaid jacket, white shoes, and sunglasses, going around and peddling his policies to New Zealanders. The one thing that they have learnt this week is that when it comes to this guy, whether it is his CV or a policy, it pays to read the fine print. It pays to understand all the nuances that are in it because, apparently, whether it is policy or a CV, it is a living document.

The other extraordinary thing that we have come to learn this week is that you do not have to have money to spend it or save it. It is going to come as a huge revelation to so many New Zealanders who go out every day to work—to earn a little bit more, to hopefully get into a better tax bracket because they have a Government that respects what they do and what their contribution to the community is—that, in fact, they do not have to do that! They can simply go around anywhere, observing something that they would like but not acquiring it, and then assume that that is a saving that they can go off and spend somewhere else. I talk, of course, about the $1.5 billion that David Cunliffe has now said he has available to him and his caucus for policy initiatives.

The other thing that sits behind that is the suggestion that tax and taxation is an amount that sits there and you decide how much of it you require. Well, that is not how it works. Taxation is money that comes directly out of the pockets of working New Zealanders. Whenever he says that we gave away tax cuts, he is trying to say, in fact, that his party felt it had some entitlement to have its hand deep inside the pockets of New Zealanders who work hard every day, every week, every year, to try to get ahead. That will not wash. Sooner or later he and his colleagues are going to have to come out and tell New Zealanders, beyond the head-shaking that they did today in confirming this, how much extra tax they are going to require of them, how much extra borrowing is going to be done on their behalf, and how much turning of a blind eye to New Zealand’s current debt picture is going to go on under any regime that might be led by Labour.

The contrast yesterday was between a Prime Minister outlining the programme that the Government has embarked on, outlining the work that the Government is doing, and outlining the intentions that the Government has for the betterment of all New Zealanders in the year ahead, noting that we have an election where there will be other policies put in front of New Zealanders to consider—that was contrasted against a Leader of the Opposition who spent his time making a semi-coherent attempt, I suppose, to bring together every lefty cliché that you could possibly imagine, and also making what you might describe as second-rate comical contributions along the way. There was very, very little content, if any, about what his proposals for New Zealand’s future might be. It was simply a list of what he sees as being wrong, in his very jaundiced eyes. New Zealanders are aspirational people. They will not be moved, in my opinion, by those who simply want to be negative all the time and talk down the good things that are happening in their lives. That, I think, will become very, very evident as the year progresses.

I want to make a couple of comments about the Government’s commitment to Christchurch, which I have considerable involvement with. It is well supported by every Minister in Cabinet and well supported by every member of caucus. People seem to forget how big that disaster was. We announced today that more than 50,000 houses have been repaired since those disasters occurred. When you consider that that is the equivalent of every house in Napier and Hastings having a substantial repair done to it, it gives a little bit of context to what we are dealing with. That is only two-thirds of the task that is in front of the Fletcher EQR office at the present time, that Earthquake Commission - managed repair.

In addition to that, there are another 30,000-odd homes where private insurers are currently engaged in getting progress for those people. There will be MPs who come out, along with other people, who say those people are being ill treated or mistreated or whatever. All I can say to them is that since September I have repeatedly said to bring those cases to us and we will look at them. I want to put on record today that I have had no member of Parliament bring a single case to my office where there is an allegation of mistreatment by an insurer or by the Earthquake Commission. It is quite an extraordinary thing. I have had lots of letters to me personally, and they have all been dealt with as they have arrived.

The point, though, is that Christchurch is a very, very good example of the resilience that New Zealanders instinctively call upon. Over the last 5 years, while the Labour Party has been in denial over the difficulty of our economic circumstances, New Zealanders have got on with making things better for themselves, alongside a Government that has supported them through it. It is extraordinary that having spent all those years in Opposition saying there is no economic problem, Labour is now out there claiming that the problem has gone and that it can start spending the gains that come from better management of the economy. People will not be fooled by that.

Can I make a couple of comments too about some of the investment that National has made in our economy. Any economy is driven by the quality of its infrastructure. We have those commitments in broadband, we have those commitments in education, and we have those commitments in the transport sector as well.

I can report that the biggest project in New Zealand’s history, the western ring route in Auckland, is under way, it is on target, and it is tracking to its budget. The Tauranga Eastern Link is under way. It is under construction, it is on target, and it is below the projected budget. The Waikato Expressway continues to be developed. It is a work in progress. Everyone can see it when they go up and down that road. It is also tracking below budget. The Christchurch motorway—and there are two big projects there; one is completed and the other is starting—is also tracking on its original budget path. Further, we have the Wellington Northern Corridor, a road that has been promised for a very, very long time, and that is also looking as if it will start some time towards the end of this year.

Governments are elected because of the way in which they connect with people. I would remind our colleagues across the other side of the House that one of their great leaders, Norman Kirk, once said that there are five great rights that people expect from a Government: the right to be well housed, the right to have good education, the right to be healthy, the right to have a job, and the right to feel secure in their homes. On every one of those points our record outstrips them and their past history by a very long shot. I strongly support the Prime Minister’s motion.

Hon DAVID PARKER (Deputy Leader—Labour): I follow the member from Christchurch Gerry Brownlee, who has been giving the one-finger salute so often in Christchurch that he has had an occupational overuse injury and has had to seek medical advice.

Having a lecture from Gerry Brownlee on fiscal surpluses is just the same joke that it is when we get it from Bill English or from John Key. They are fiscal virgins. Five years into a Government and they have never run a surplus—they do not know what it feels like. We did that every year. The first year of our Government, the second year of our Government, the third year of our Government, the eighth year of our Government, the ninth year of our Government—every year we ran a surplus. We know how to balance the books; we know how to run a surplus, so we do not take lectures from the National-led Government implying or saying otherwise.

This is a disreputable Government, increasingly desperate to hang on to the baubles of office. We have got it propped up on the one hand by John Banks—in the dock for electoral fraud, and the National Party is hanging on his vote. He got here only because of the tea party stunt, which was orchestrated by the Prime Minister and which he should be ashamed of.

On the other side we have got Peter Dunne. Peter Dunne, whom the Prime Minister did not believe and whom he stripped of his ministerial office merely months ago, is this year being brought back into the ministry because of the desperation of the National Party. So much for those high standards from the Prime Minister. Not only that but those members are giving him a soft deal once again in Ōhariu in order to try to take advantage of the MMP rules, which this disreputable Government has twisted again for its own benefit. The MMP review recommended that the one-seat lifeboat be removed, but National ignored it, and we see why. Now there are soft deals available all throughout the country as this desperate National Government tries to cling on to power. The polls are agin it, it knows that this election looks like it is going to go to the Opposition parties, and so it is trying to twist MMP to its advantage.

The cronyism does not end just in Parliament; we have got crony capitalism rife in this country. Last year it was all over the news, and this National-led Government will try to make New Zealanders forget about that this year, but we are going to remind them: tens of millions of dollars for Rio Tinto; a shady deal with the casino operators in Auckland, which was criticised by the Auditor-General; and the sale of our State-owned enterprises from the 100 percent to the 1 percent—hundreds of millions spent on National Party cronies in order to flog off assets. Those are but a number of examples.

We have got reduced opportunity in New Zealand because National refuses to deal with the causes of inequality. There are tax cuts that go to the most wealthy, asset sales that go to the 1 percent, and a refusal to rein in excessive profiteering on our hydro power using public water resources, to name but three examples. No wonder we have got reduced homeownership rates in New Zealand, because we have got rising inequality. The only time that income inequality has gone down in the last three decades was under a Labour Government, under Working for Families, which gave tax cuts to families with children. It was opposed by National, which voted against it and called it communism by stealth.

We have got rising asset inequality, which grows every year when you have got inequality in incomes as high as we have in New Zealand. The OECD pointed out that we have got higher rates of income inequality than is average, not just in the world but in the Western World, and it is shameful that National’s policies make that worse, not better. Even if that income inequality did not get worse in a year, it gets worse over time as it causes the concentration in assets.

Homeownership rates are now the lowest that they have been in New Zealand in 60 years. When do homeownership rates decrease in New Zealand? Under National Governments. It happened under the Bolger Government, and it is happening again under the Key Government. We have got rising inequality. We have got New Zealanders who are being denied choices. They cannot buy a house. They cannot get decent wages. Who benefits from having some people not being able to buy one house but other people buying lots of houses? The National Party cronies—the National Party cronies. Those people can afford to own lots more houses, and we get this concentration of wealth.

Not only that; we have got people in insecure work and we have got wages at the bottom end not keeping pace in the way that they do at the top. I heard the Minister of Finance saying that the Government is doing well on wages. Well, for the past 5 years real wage growth has been less than 1 percent per annum if you are an average wage earner. What has happened to chief executive officer pay? In 2010 it was 21.9 times the average pay. Now it is up to 26 times the average pay, just 2 years later, and that was 2012 figures. So over 2 years under National, chief executive officer pay goes up hugely, while ordinary New Zealanders’ wages stay static.

We have got rising rates of inequality. We know that the Expert Advisory Group on Solutions to Child Poverty to the Children’s Commissioner, an arm of the Government, said that one in four children live in poverty. The Government is willing to spend another $3.5 billion on superannuation over 5 years every year from now on, but it says that it cannot afford more money for the Best Start programme for children. That shows where its priorities lie. There are tax cuts for the wealthy and universalism for superannuation, but an objection to universalism of support for children. Those members cannot have it both ways. They cannot tell us that the economy is doing well, but then tell us that we cannot afford money for children in need.

The policies that have been put forward by Jacinda Ardern, Annette King, Sue Moroney, and Chris Hipkins—all announced by David Cunliffe on Monday—really are a holistic solution to intergenerational welfare dependency, for income support for those who need it, for early interventions through Plunket, and for better education. It is a very sophisticated package, which the Labour Party is proud of.

Those members send the chief spinner for the National Party, Steven Joyce, out to criticise the numbers and, once again, he is wrong. We have dumped our earlier policies on taking GST off fresh fruit and vegetables and on the first $5,000 of income being tax-free. Our fiscals are clear that we collect more money from a capital gains tax and a higher rate on the highest earners in New Zealand. Having collected that additional revenue and having abandoned some of those other expensive policies, we have got more than enough headroom to run surpluses and fund this package.

Hon Annette King: And even they’ve got a billion.

Hon DAVID PARKER: Yes, that is right. National members say that they are going to introduce a pale version of paid parental leave and some other changes. You know, when we do things, it is called bribery, but when they give tax cuts to the wealthiest in society, disproportionately benefiting them, and when they refuse to close the tax loopholes that the OECD criticises, which both increase inequality and make the economy go slower, no, that is not seen to be some sort of preference for a sector of society. No, they say that that is fair. Well, we do not think it is fair that the wealthiest people in New Zealand get capital gains free of any tax.

Neither do we think it is fair that some of the multinationals that plunder the New Zealand economy—like Google, like Apple, and like Facebook—take hundreds of millions of dollars out of the New Zealand economy, compete with New Zealand - based companies, and pay virtually no tax. We in the Labour Party are willing to move on that, but the Government is not because, once again, it is preferring the interests of the wealthy. It is not willing to take on the multinationals, despite the fact that there is a glaring unfairness there. They should pay their fair share of tax too, which they do not, and there are mechanisms that could be used.

Returning to the Best Start package, I would be proud to be part of a Government that says that the fair allocation of resource should not see it all going to the wealthy and that it should not all go to older citizens, worthy though they are. We do believe in universal superannuation made sustainable, just as we believe in proportionate universalism when it comes to the support of children. It is a disgrace that in New Zealand we have one child in four living in poverty. It is one of the reasons, and it is only one of the reasons—I do not pretend it is the only reason—that we have got declining educational standards in our compulsory school sector. It is a major reason, if not the only reason, and we in the Labour Party are absolutely up for fixing that problem.

Hon JO GOODHEW (Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector): I rise with much pleasure to support the Prime Minister’s statement and his speech. In doing so, I rise absolutely sure that this Government continues to implement its plan to build a faster-growing economy with more jobs and higher incomes and to support New Zealanders and their families. There are so many different examples that I just cannot wait to tell you. I am going to start, however, with something that is an absolute example happening in my electorate, announced today by the Minister for Social Development. You see, this Government is the Government that does not just talk about things. This is the Government that actually has action that eventuates in outcomes that are good for New Zealanders, and that is the way it should be.

Today the Hon Paula Bennett announced the results of a recruitment partnership in mid-Canterbury, in my electorate of Rangitata. The TerraceView Retirement Village opened back in November and it needed at least 25 new staff—probably closer to 30—most of them working part-time hours. What it did was it went to Work and Income and said that it was going to need some more staff, and got itself into this recruitment partnership. The people who were actually successful in going into work from Work and Income numbered 11, and there were others as well whom the retirement village recruited. This was indeed a partnership made in heaven, because some of these people were beneficiaries who were referred for the job openings. Some of them had been on a benefit for a while. Some of them had never worked. But, in fact, there were jobs—real jobs, not imaginary jobs—there for them, and this has been very, very successful. This is about case managers who actually understand what their job is—not just to simply have people trundling in and out through the office but actually to take these real people and assist them into jobs. So what have we got? We have got thousands and thousands of New Zealanders now in jobs who had been relying on benefits for some years. They also do a New Zealand Qualifications Authority - approved caregiving course. They are getting qualifications. Over 1,500 people are leaving the benefit every single week and becoming financially independent as a result.

Actually, this is where we have got another disconnect because, apparently, we have huge amounts of poverty in New Zealand. What is the way out of poverty? There are two ways: education and work, and they are very intricately linked. What we have got on the other side of the House is something that this week was called a Best Start. Well, I would have to say that it was a mediocre start, maybe even a worst start, but Labour is calling it a Best Start. What I would suggest—

Mike Sabin: Possibly a false start.

Hon JO GOODHEW: A false start?

Mike Sabin: Yes.

Hon JO GOODHEW: A false start. What I would suggest to the Opposition is that when it tries to sell this policy—when it decides what this policy actually is, when it has determined how many people might actually be able to apply for it and receive this $60—it actually hands out free magnifying glasses, because, by golly, any policy under this Labour Opposition is going to need the fine print read very carefully. So free magnifying glasses out of the Labour Party budget would be a really, really good idea.

It is evidence-based policies that actually create real change for New Zealanders that will continue to keep this country humming. And it is humming. What did we have last year? We had 3.5 percent growth. It will be at least that this coming year. Boy, that must be hard to swallow for a Labour-Greens Opposition, which is wanting to convince New Zealanders that they are going backwards when they do not feel like they are. Business confidence is soaring. It is at its highest in how many years? Thirteen years?

Mike Sabin: 20.

Hon JO GOODHEW: Oh, 20 years, is it? Well, there you go. This is what we have got happening under this Government. It has been steady as you go because, actually, although the Opposition trumpets surpluses, what it has forgotten was the sorry end to its surpluses: a tradable economy going south before the global financial crisis even arrived. Opposition members have forgotten about that. Their short-term memory—there must be a bit of a health problem there. Presented with 10 years of deficits, they wonder why we have not experienced a surplus—their 10 years of deficits, left on a plate for us, before the global financial crisis really even kicked in. And then there was a small thing like, oh, a couple of large earthquakes and the biggest hit on a GDP basis, or the second-biggest, I think, for any sort of Western nation around the world. So from an insurance perspective, yes, we now have the opportunity for lots of jobs, but that has been a significant fiscal thump that this Government has had to negotiate its way through.

What happened during the global financial crisis? Did this Government cut benefits? No. Did this Government protect New Zealanders from what we called the potential sharp edges of the recession? Absolutely we did. And one of the things I am going to go on to is older New Zealanders, because one of my responsibilities is older New Zealanders and they give me lots of feedback. They are very good at giving feedback. Not only do they engage in voting but they engage with politicians. That is great because we know what they are thinking. They are actually pretty comfortable with the fact that their superannuation has increased by 25 percent since 2008. It is not a bad story that under this Government we actually enshrined in legislation that they would get superannuation from the age of 65 at 66 percent of the average wage—not the ethereal 65 percent it must be or maybe 66 percent this year, but we cannot promise it ongoing. One would think that the Opposition could have done that while it was in Government.

Older New Zealanders care about crime. They really care about being safe in their communities. And I tell you, the country is outraged when we read about crime against older people. So it really does help their sense of security to know that crime is at its lowest in 33 years. Do we still need to make more inroads into that? Absolutely we do, but we have now tougher bail, sentencing, and parole laws, and we are keeping the worst of the criminals behind bars.

Older New Zealanders disproportionately are the people who are requiring elective surgery. That is just the nature of growing older. We know that. So when we tell them that although there are some people who are still waiting for their surgery—and nothing has changed since the Opposition was in Government, I might remind those members. So there was no one waiting for surgery back then? Actually, we had 30,000 people who were sent off the list. Nobody was interested in them. We did not send them back to their GP. We did not engage them in exercise classes that would help them until their surgery came along. None of that happened under the previous Government. So what have we got? In 2007-08 we had 118,000 people who got elective surgery. Any way you put it, 158,000 this last year is a—what have we got—34 percent increase. It is a 34 percent increase. That is reassuring. What is more, we are giving certainty that when you go on that list for your appointment, when you go on the list, you know you are going to get your surgery. You are not going to be on—

Hon Annette King: Yeah, but what about the 170,000 who don’t get surgery?

Hon JO GOODHEW: Oh, I can remember the stories about waiting lists. People were on them for a year, for 2 years, for 3 years. They never knew when their surgery was going to happen, but they were reassured because they were on a list. They thought that it was actually going to happen.

The other thing that older people care about is their children and grandchildren, and particularly about their grandchildren getting a good education. What they will tell you is that they remember the schoolteachers who made a difference for them. I absolutely remember the principals who made a difference for me. Unfortunately, I also remember the ones who did not, but that is the way it is. We know the ones, and we watched it with our own children when they were growing up. We saw which teachers inspired them, and we wanted them to stay in that class for every year. That is because that is where they really learnt. That is where they loved education. Those were the subjects—goodness, I can remember one subject that I sat at high school where the whole class failed.

Hon Hekia Parata: Oh!

Hon JO GOODHEW: I know. Fortunately, that person left teaching. Older New Zealanders are also really keen to know that their children and grandchildren are going to be getting jobs. We have reduced unemployment by 53,000. If you talk to an older person and they say that their child, their son or daughter, is out of work, it breaks their heart because they know that they want to be in work.

We are heading, as a Government, in the right direction under the stewardship of Prime Minister John Key. He has an absolutely united caucus, with everyone doing their bit. We have got fantastic things happening in primary industries, and I am proud to be associated with that. We have got irrigation happening in my constituency. We have got the Irrigation Acceleration Fund and we have also got the irrigation investment company. We are not resting on our laurels. We are not throwing cash around in a lolly scramble. What we are doing is getting absolute, real results out of New Zealanders. They come up to me in my electorate every week. They come up to me and they tell me that they appreciate the fact that we understand fiscal responsibility as a Government—this National-led Government. Thank you.

BRENDAN HORAN (Independent): John Key has presented New Zealand with an election year message. It is a triumph of corporate spin that pretends to deliver for New Zealanders, when in reality it does nothing of the sort. It pretends to deliver on jobs, on health, and on our environment, on our rivers, and on our oceans when it does nothing of the sort. I can assure you that the voters are not pulled that easily. That is the message that I am getting from Mount Maunganui beach, from Papamoa, from Greerton, from Ōtūmoetai, from Arataki.

Yesterday, for the first time, that party demonstrated that perhaps it can think long term in its headlong rush to congratulate Lorde, who will not be able to vote until the election after next, which is in 2017. So clearly that is National’s idea of long term, anyway.

But in the Prime Minister’s statement where is the vision to take our children, our people, to 2020—2020—in terms of trade and education and people’s health, welfare, and well-being? Where are the educational programmes to teach children to learn, to learn, to learn? Where are the educational tools to bring our schools into the 21st century and to inspire teachers to teach, to teach, to teach, and to learn? Teachers touch lives for ever, but we do not need executive principals, lead teachers, so-called expert teachers. We simply need democracy—openness, honesty, and transparency; inseparables—and it has to come first and foremost from the leaders in our society.

We have the ludicrous situation where here in Parliament the Government changes the constitution, but parliamentarians and those who work within Parliament do not enjoy or live by those rights, or work by those rights. How can we have one rule for Parliament and another rule for the rest of our nation? Party politics have provided platforms for party leaders to construct sense-making frameworks that constrain MPs to do their party’s bidding, not that of their electorates—the very people who elected them.

I will read a quote from Plato: “One of the penalties for not taking an interest in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.” In the last election over 800,000 people voted with their feet, so disheartened were they with the succession of parties that have led New Zealand and that have written legislation that has affected every waking and sleeping moment of every New Zealander’s life. The sad fact is that if I constructed a “Let’s Not Vote Party”, it would probably get more votes than the one million votes that National got in 2011, and that shows just how disenfranchised New Zealanders truly are.

I take this moment to thank New Zealand First because there is no way that I would be able to stand here and speak on democracy—to talk on true, inclusive democracy—if I had not been so undemocratically dumped by the New Zealand First Party. It is a tragedy of our political system that such a party can be captured by one man who did not even stand in an electorate. I can hear the cult screaming now: “But we voted for him.” But what of those people who voted for the principles of New Zealand First, which include an MP’s first duty being to the people of New Zealand and their electorate, and having an open and accountable Government, and what of the fact that New Zealand First campaigned for a fair go? What of those voters who believed that that party would give people a fair go? Ask Ben Craven, the party’s youngest candidate in 2011—

Andrew Williams: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. This is the debate on the Prime Minister’s statement. This honourable member is not speaking at all to do with the Prime Minister’s statement.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! This is a very wide-ranging debate, and the member is certainly speaking within the Standing Orders.

BRENDAN HORAN: Thank you. As I was saying, ask Ben Craven, the party’s youngest candidate in 2011, and ask Josh Van Veen whether they got a fair go when they were sacked on a rumour, with no investigation, no disciplinary hearings, and no chance for them to say what really happened—just sacked. This breaks every labour law in the real world, but not here within the walls of that political party.

So what really happened? Well, like most victims of workplace bullying, neither of them will talk. But people who know the full story will not be silenced. It turns out that they dared to question the integrity of Mr Peters’ director of operations, Apirana Dawson. There was a promising young man who was led to the dark side, taken astray by his leader.

Mr Williams, you must remember this article here: “MPs trade slurs over blog ratings”. Here is a beautiful picture of the honourable Richard Prosser—he looks young and vital—and also a very good-looking Denis O’Rourke. “MPs trade slurs over blog ratings”. I am talking about the same Apirana Dawson who leaked confidential emails between New Zealand First MPs to his friend working for the Christchurch Press—

Andrew Williams: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Surely, this is not within the Standing Orders, to be getting into personal matters relating to individuals and individual Parliamentary Service staff—surely not.

Mr SPEAKER: Well, I am afraid that on this occasion, when we are having the debate on the Prime Minister’s statement, it is a free-ranging debate. The member making these statements needs to do so responsibly. I cannot in any way cease a speech or rule it out of order at this stage.

BRENDAN HORAN: Thank you, Mr Speaker. This is the same Apirana Dawson who not only leaked confidential emails between New Zealand First MPs to his friend working for the Christchurch Press in 2012 but also traded expressions with the media, using the false name of Bruce Bayliss, and also filed Official Information Act requests about an MP, using that same false name of Bruce Bayliss. Would taxpayers approve of their money being used in this way—this dabbling in the dark arts? What happened to the principles of that party?

One asks what the New Zealand First MPs are doing for Ben Craven and Josh Van Veen, the two young researchers unceremoniously and unfairly sacked on hearsay, the innocent victims of plots and subterfuges, all overseen by the leader of that party. What have New Zealand First MPs done about this injustice? How would one describe a New Zealand political party that would unfairly sack its most loyal staffers in favour of keeping its dodgiest? Is this another demonstration of a political party leader’s serious lack of judgment? How can anyone in that party speak on workers’ rights and be taken seriously or believed?

Look closely: you are witnessing the demise of New Zealand First. The question is, will New Zealand First MPs have the courage and conviction to take the step that was forced upon me and then broadcast their points of view? I remind those New Zealand First MPs of a quote from Albert Einstein: “Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.”

But there is a change coming—a fresh, new, welcome breeze on our political landscape, a breeze that promises hope, strength, integrity, and a democratic voice for all New Zealanders. The New Zealand Independent Coalition is being formed, and we realise what the rest of the world realises, which is that ultra-fast broadband will revolutionise trade, education, and people’s health and welfare—occupational welfare, individual welfare, employment welfare, spiritual welfare, health welfare, and wealth welfare.

In 2020 there will be 75 billion devices connected to the internet, and over 6 billion users. The New Zealand Independent Coalition will prepare our children to learn, to learn, to learn; to exercise imagination, knowledge, vision, wisdom, and judgment; and to pave pathways of prosperity for our people here in our country, New Zealand. We would dramatically increase the pace of the ultra-fast broadband roll-out so that New Zealand can compete on an equal basis worldwide. In 2012 at Skycity, at the Commerce Commission conference on ultra-fast broadband, the statement was made that, at current rates, in 2017 New Zealand will be where North America was in 2010—

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

Hon CRAIG FOSS (Minister of Commerce): I support and endorse the motion from our very good Prime Minister, Mr John Key, “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.” We will continue our hard discipline and transparent work as we build a much brighter future for our wonderful, wonderful country.

The Leader of the Opposition, David Cunliffe, is an invisible man leading an invisible party, spending invisible money on invisible problems due to some invisible crisis that will inevitably lead Labour to invisible poll results. Invisible money is being spent on invisible problems due to some invisible crisis. How often have we heard about a manufacturing crisis, an economic crisis, a fiscal crisis, an education crisis? I heard the other day from the Leader of the Opposition that there was an early childhood education crisis, for goodness’ sake. The Leader of the Opposition’s very bad start to this year and his leadership continues. I believe that his polling results are still under those of the previous leader, Mr Shearer, and have not yet reached his dizzying heights of about 13 or 14 percent, I understand. We will wait and see over the coming weeks.

Labour’s big announcement, David Cunliffe’s tricky announcement, the other day is continuing to unravel—absolutely tricky. His bad start continues. He left New Zealand with the impression, and he sold a policy to New Zealanders, that said, that regardless of who they were and where they were, and as long as they were under $150k of income—but Labour is unsure now whether that is a single or a double income—for every child born, every family would receive $60 for the first year of that child’s life. In no uncertain terms he told New Zealand that, he told the gathering in Auckland that, and he told the media that again and again and again.

Well, Patrick Gower has called that quite dishonest—deceptive and dishonest—because New Zealanders were left with that impression, and Labour knew that that was the impression it gave out, and no one corrected it. No one corrected it until Labour was found out because the fine print was read. The tricky policy was unravelled and continues to unravel as the fine print is read. I imagine that David Cunliffe is now kicking himself and furiously trying to back-pedal, knowing that he should have understood that policy, he should have understood the details, and he should have read his very own fine print when the policy was released.

I know that Mr Cunliffe is very interested in fine print. I quote Mr Cunliffe—because this is, in fact, what is happening right now under this National Government as we unravel the fine print of Labour’s policy and discover what is in it. This is what Mr Cunliffe said in this House a couple of years ago: “this debate to uncover some of the hidden traps, the fine print, and the places where the gloss is not as good as people were led to believe”. That is what the current Leader of the Opposition said a couple of years ago in this House. Well, that can apply to this exact policy, which if it was applied under the Fair Trading Act or advertising would be misleading and would be deceptive, and someone would probably be held up before the courts.

Our Prime Minister, John Key, continues to lead the National-led Government and our coalition friends and partners through tough times in New Zealand, but we continue to work for all New Zealanders, regardless of where they come from, regardless of their parentage, regardless of the definition of their family, regardless of how their parents or birth parents ended up, and regardless of the state of their caregivers. We govern and work every day for all New Zealanders all the time, regardless of where they come from. We do not grab the short-term highlights or whatever; we make every decision for the medium and long-term betterment for this wonderful, wonderful country.

We are open, we are transparent, and we will lay out our policies before the electorate, as we did last time. There will not be any fine print. There will not be any hidden details. Our leaders, our Cabinet, understand their policies, our policies, which have led this country to a position where we are so much stronger than we were, albeit just 5 years ago. We will continue the hard work and the discipline, making some tough calls. You have got to do that in Government, and you have to do that even more so in an environment around the world where there has been a global financial crisis. When National came into Government New Zealand had been in recession for a couple of years, and our export sector had been collapsing since 2005. For an exporting nation, that is tragic.

We will continue our prudential management of our Crown accounts, the taxpayers’ balance sheet, while maintaining our dedication to the betterment of social services, and that will lead us to deliver what we said we would, so that every New Zealander, regardless of who and where they are and why they came into the world, has an opportunity to realise their awesome potential for our awesome country—regardless. If they trip up along the way our social conscience and our social help will be there to assist them. That is who we are, but that must be balanced with our economy, with our social conscience, and, of course, with our environmental aspirations. There will be no tricky nonsense or silly details hidden in the fine print way down in the bottom somewhere—no stuff that, hopefully, no one will notice until after the election.

The National Government has had a first 5 years that have been quite challenging, with the Christchurch and Canterbury earthquakes and the tragedies around those socially, in a human sense, and, of course, economically. We have had an export crisis, which we inherited, as I spoke to earlier. But we have got through. We have got through. We have built a platform where New Zealand can begin to fly. The platform for growth for a better New Zealand, even better than we have now, is ready and waiting. We cannot put it all at risk. We cannot put it all at risk. Just as the global financial crisis is starting to really step away, just as Europe, the United States, Japan, and Asia are starting to come right out of the global financial crisis, we cannot put it all at risk with silly things such as invisible spending, invisible money, making our country more vulnerable to global waxing and waning around the world.

Just as confidence in New Zealand reaches a higher level than it has been for many, many, many years—which means hiring one more person, which means investing in our country—we cannot put it all at risk. The policies articulated and the track record of a Labour-Greens - far-left Government would be tragic for New Zealand. It would put at risk every single hard call over the last 5 years, just as things are coming right not only for New Zealand but for the world. We cannot put it all at risk.

We are just about to reach surplus in 2014-15. We cannot put it all at risk with printing machines, invisible money, and uncosted spending promises to try to grab electorate gain. We cannot put our awesome decline in crime statistics at risk. A Labour-Green coalition, if it were ever to get into Government, would continue the old policies, forgetting about victims and doing the catch-and-release policies we inherited from them in 2008. We cannot put our health gains at risk. Just as we are now gaining 40,000 extra elective operations every year, a Labour-Greens Government would put it all at risk. It would put it all at risk because every time it is pushed, it would go back to the situation where people were lying in corridors, bleeding into buckets.

We cannot put at risk 3.5 percent growth in New Zealand—3.5 percent growth, some of the best growth in the developed world—with Labour and Greens policies. We cannot do that. We cannot put at risk the progress we have made in Treaty settlements. We cannot put at risk the gains in after-tax wages. And, of course, finally, we cannot put the gains of internet and information and communications technology at risk in New Zealand by crazy, silly policies such as trying to ban Facebook, ban Google, or whatever Labour is trying to do over there—just ban it and that will fix it.

This is a serious, serious game. New Zealand has turned the corner. We are about to take off. The platform for growth and a much brighter future has been built. We must be able to continue the work. We cannot put it all at risk with a far-left - Labour-Greens Government.

SUE MORONEY (Labour): Well, that was the arrogance of the National Party personified, was it not? There was Craig Foss of the National Party telling New Zealanders that their problems do not exist. “Invisible problems”, he said—“invisible problems”. When one in four children lives in poverty, Mr Foss said that that does not exist in his or the National Party’s world because it is invisible to them. It is an invisible problem. Then he went on to talk about invisible money. Well, is it not interesting that when the Labour Party has an idea that really resonates with the community, one that it really needs, then that is funded with invisible money, but when the National Party finds $360 million to give some bonuses to a few principals, somehow that is not invisible. Well, I say to Mr Foss and his colleagues in the National Party: “Open up your eyes and stop being in denial about some of the very real issues and challenges that exist in this country.”

I think the National Party is just demonstrating how arrogant and out of touch it has got, talking about problems that New Zealanders have, that we have as a society, and pretending that they do not exist—invisible problems. One in four children is living in poverty in this country and National members laugh about it. They think it is pretty funny but actually these are the issues that schoolteachers are dealing with day in and day out. If they think that the expert principal with $50,000 more in his pocket is going to be the answer to the problem of children who are constantly on the move from school to school to school because their family is staying one step ahead of the bailiff—if they think the expert principal is going to change the course of that child’s life—then they need to start remembering that these are not invisible problems; these are very real problems.

But it is a Government that is clearly out of ideas, because what has its members been talking about since the beginning of the parliamentary term? They have been talking about extending paid parental leave, because they have so run out of ideas about what to do next that they have come looking to the Labour Party for their inspiration. It is absolutely clear that it is Labour that has been setting the agenda from the beginning of the year, because what has the conversation been about? It has been about children and it has been about prioritising children and it has been about extending paid parental leave. That Government is out of ideas because it is out of touch with ordinary New Zealanders.

In the Labour Party we do not have to do the focus groups and the constant polling research that the National Party does to find out that paid parental leave and extending it is a very important thing for most New Zealanders. We are in touch with most New Zealanders and we knew that that was actually something that would make a real difference—a real difference to families. We do not have to do the constant polling that suddenly has given National a bit of a fright after years now of voting against any form of paid parental leave. National members voted against it in 2002, they voted against it when Labour extended it three more times during the course of our term, and they voted against it when my bill, the Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Six Months’ Paid Leave) Amendment Bill, was drawn out in 2012.

These are really interesting issues because suddenly they have had an epiphany. Not only have those in National voted against it every time that it has been in this House but also we had a Minister of Women’s Affairs on her feet before who is the first Minister of Women’s Affairs in New Zealand ever to vote against paid parental leave. She was standing up here trying to lecture this side of the House on what she thinks is right for New Zealand, but they have voted against extending paid parental leave or even introducing it in the first place. It is in their genes to be opposed to it. It is absolutely in their DNA.

Not only that, when they realised that they had lost the majority support in Parliament and the majority support of New Zealanders over their stance on this issue, they threatened a financial veto to stop New Zealanders from being supported in this way. Well, I welcome their backflip on this. I actually think that despite the fact that it is not because they firmly believe in this policy—it is a bit of electioneering that is going on; but come and talk, the door is always open—the National Party is not going to get away with saying: “Oh yes, we’ll do this sometime after the election.” New Zealanders are not going to buy that. They know the National Party’s record on this. They know the track record of the National Party.

The National Government needs to put its money where its mouth is. There is a bill before this Parliament right now that they should be supporting. If they absolutely believe in prioritising families and children, then they will do the right thing and support my bill, which is due back in this House very soon for its second reading to extend paid parental leave to 26 weeks If they really believe that then they will come and start discussions through the Government Administration Committee to support this very good Labour bill. And, yes, it does happen to be in my name, but it is the Labour Party that in the last election pledged to have 26 weeks’ paid parental leave and now we have confirmed it. We have confirmed it and we have wrapped around it a much more comprehensive policy.

I almost want to apologise for the National Government if it cannot understand comprehensive policies, because I think that is the problem here. If it cannot understand the very comprehensive problems that exist in New Zealand and the comprehensive policies that are needed to fix them, then I think that tells us we have got a Government that is way past its use-by date—way past its use-by date.

My bill is simple but it is effective and it is actually putting money where it needs to be, and that is with children and with families, not into your casinos, not into your Rio Tintos, and not into the hundreds of millions of dollars spent on your consultants to flog off the country’s State assets. That is where that Government has put its money. That is where it has put your invisible money, Craig Foss. If you are looking for it, it is actually in the pockets of the consultants whom you spend hundreds of millions of dollars on, flogging off the State assets.

Well, we do not want to spend money on that. Our priority in the Labour Party is different. Our priority is with children, and we have said: “Here is a Best Start package.” It is not just a one-off thing; it is actually a Best Start package. Children are going to benefit because their families will have $60 more a week in their pocket. That is $60 more a week in their pocket to actually help with all of those things in the first year of life, when that money is so desperately needed—$60 a week more.

Mr Foss seemed confused. He wanted people who were on paid parental leave to be able to double-dip and get it as well. Well, Mr Foss, here is news for you and your National Government cronies. The Labour Party is not going to support double-dipping. It will not support what you are wanting. Instead, for the people who are actually entitled to, and eligible for, paid parental leave, we are going to extend that by another 12 weeks for them. So do the maths—$488 a week times 12 weeks extra is kind of a little bit more than $60 a week for the 12 weeks that they are not going to be allowed to double-dip under Labour’s policy.

National members might be crying out for double-dipping. That might be in their DNA, but it is certainly not in our DNA. But we will make sure that all of those children are well supported in the first year of life, and that is what is important. They are going to benefit, because either their parents will be entitled to $60 a week that they have not got now to help them out with buying nappies, food, and all of those things that come with having a new baby; or their parents will be entitled to extended paid parental leave under Labour. It is as simple as that. It is not that complex, but it is important to get every one of those families having better support under a Labour Government. It is really clear that it will only be under a Labour-led Government.

This year, fortunately, New Zealanders get a chance to actually say what they want to see as priorities in this country. You know, I reckon they are going to pick children over casinos.

Hon TONY RYALL (Minister of Health): I am very proud to be part of a Government that focuses on the things that matter to New Zealanders, and I think it is somewhat ironic to have Mrs Moroney claim that she is, when she is in the party that wants to ban Facebook. I do not know whether anyone saw the train wreck of an interview on television last night with the once up-and-coming member for Dunedin North, Dave Clark, where he was just wound in and ended up committing Labour—and, actually, it was Labour’s policy. He said he had been talking about it for some months—allowing Labour to ban Facebook. Honestly, is that what Labour is about? It is on every media site, every TV channel, banning Facebook. That is not concentrating on the things that matter—that is not concentrating on the things that matter. It is actually just being stark bonkers to make those sorts of things.

So, anyway, what we are doing on this side of the House is really focusing on the issues that matter for growing a fast-growing economy for the betterment of New Zealand families. That stands in really stark contrast to what we have seen from the party opposite, which is really just back to where it always used to be, which is tax and spend, wasteful spending, bureaucracy, and spending money that it does not have. That is what it has always done and it is what it is always going to do. But on this side of the House, because of our very prudent and careful financial management of the New Zealand economy, we are on track to get the country back into the black. We are on track to be able to keep New Zealand moving forward. Although countries all around the world are struggling with debt and deficit—the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Spain, Greece, and even Germany; public debt is at levels like 100 percent of GDP in some of these countries—we are peaking at around 27 percent. So we have got this plan. We have been sticking to it. It is about controlling spending and it is about taking the sharp edges off the recession to benefit the most vulnerable families in New Zealand and protect our social services, and that is what we have done. It is a programme that really works for New Zealand.

We are focused on our key priorities. I think that the Prime Minister’s statement, which we are debating this afternoon, continued to build the country’s prosperity on those four platforms. The first is about managing New Zealand’s finances responsibly, just like people would expect us to do. Secondly, we are building a more competitive and productive economy, because in the end creating jobs, incentives, and reward for effort is what makes a strong, growing economy. Thirdly, we have been delivering better social services, Better Public Services for New Zealanders within very tight budgets, because that is what the public expects of a National Government—careful spending and a focus on results and services for New Zealanders. And, fourthly, surely one of the greatest responsibilities of our Government is leading the rebuild of one of our great cities, Christchurch. On the very first day of the earthquakes, that is the commitment that our Prime Minister gave—that we would stand with that city. And we are, and we are investing strongly in the support that we are offering and working with them on.

So, look, our economy is growing. More jobs are being created. Family incomes are rising. Crime is down. We know that more elective surgery is being provided for New Zealanders and more preventive health care is out there. Long-term welfare dependency is falling, and we are continuing to help New Zealand families with a very generous income support system. So our Government is focused on the business that New Zealanders have sent us here to do, and that is to get New Zealand through the recession, get our country going forward, get our country in the black, and make sure that we have a strong, growing economy for New Zealanders. But month after month we see the Opposition parties attacking what our Government is doing, and policies that Labour and the Greens in Opposition continue to push on New Zealanders—stuff that will not make jobs and stuff that will not benefit families in getting ahead, like a capital gains tax, which will punish people who work hard to grow their businesses. You are out there and you have got a small takeaway, you have got a small bookshop, you have got a small dairy, or you have got a small kiwifruit orchard. You work hard, you increase its value, and you grow the wealth—bang! They will take a big dollop of that when you come to sell your business.

Opposition members want a big gap between the company tax rate and the personal tax rate. They want a more punitive emissions trading scheme. So they stand up every day and worry the country about electricity price rises, which are half what they were under Labour, but they will not say what they will do and what impact their punitive emissions trading scheme will have on prices. It will push up their power prices way beyond what they ever saw before. They want to nationalise the power industry. Look, no country in the world that has moved to anything that Labour and the Greens are proposing has reduced power prices. So they say: “Oh, this is the sort of system that they run in Ontario.” If only they knew the power price rises that the people of Ontario are facing. They are significant.

They have got this half-baked plan to become the country’s biggest property developer. They are against the International Convention Centre and all of the jobs that they are going to have there. And now they are going to become the insurer of choice for New Zealanders—the 97th insurer in New Zealand. So, really, Labour and the Greens are not focused on what really matters. Their record is rejecting everything that this Government has done to speed up and support the economy. They are against every Resource Management Act change that makes it easier for jobs to be created. They are against everything that means that more houses will be built. They are against everything that means more jobs—unless, of course, they are Government jobs. They are all in favour of Government jobs but not private sector jobs. They are against the International Convention Centre. They hate the investment in The Hobbit and they hate what we have done with Avatar as well. So they are against all of that.

They are against other international investment from overseas. They are against what we are trying to do with aquaculture in the Marlborough Sounds. They are against what Bathurst Resources is trying to do to create jobs on the West Coast. They are against the increase in jobs, wealth, and opportunities that irrigation and smart water use can provide for New Zealand. So time and time again we see that when push comes to shove the Opposition parties cannot support anything that will actually create jobs and opportunities for New Zealanders. But we see it as the major job of our Government to continue supporting the wealth creators, the families, the small businesses, and the individuals who are trying to keep New Zealand moving ahead. That is the reason why, for example, we continue the reduction in ACC levies. Hundreds of millions of dollars are being returned to New Zealand businesses.

We continue with the Business Growth Agenda and all of the initiatives there, research and development, and the ultra-fast broadband investment. These are all of the things that build the nation and build an economy and that is what we are doing, because that is how we pay for important health, education, and social services in New Zealand. It is not by doing some tricky things, like saying: “Ah, in the last election we were promising $1.5 billion worth of stuff that we could not afford, but now we are pulling back on that and we are just going to spend another $500 million.” That is not actually responsible finances. We need to have a strong, growing economy. That is what creates jobs, but it is also what funds the better public services that New Zealanders want. It is what is going to fund what is already budgeted, like these excellent education announcements that have been made by John Key and Hekia Parata—excellent. For years we talked about incentivising and rewarding the best teachers and the best principals, but the people who have opposed it the most are the teacher unions and their handmaidens in the Opposition. They have always opposed anything that would reward and incentivise the best teachers in New Zealand. And it is coming, as Simon Bridges says, because this Government is delivering it.

This Government is also delivering better health services for New Zealand. There are 1,300 extra doctors in our public hospitals, 3,000 extra nurses, and 1,000 fewer managers and administrators. We have put the resources on the front line and, by golly, they are delivering. There were 40,000 extra elective surgeries this last 12 months compared with when we came to office. It is a really significant investment in elective surgery. More of our kids are being immunised than ever before. More of our New Zealanders are being discouraged from smoking. That is a fantastic investment and a huge turning point that our Government has created in the fight against tobacco. This is a Government that is focused on what matters, which is a strong, growing economy, and we are making a difference to New Zealand families.

METIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green): Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. Where was the inspiration and the hope for our kids in the Prime Minister’s speech? Where was the compassion and the humanity for our kids in the Prime Minister’s speech? It said nothing about making life better for our children; nothing about them deserving a good life or having a fair future. Children just existed in that speech as outcomes and outputs and, even more horrifyingly, as targets. Children just do not exist for John Key and for the National Party. And if we would like another example of that, after that miserable speech from John Key, I think we can see it in the answers that he gave to questions in the House today.

I note that John Key talked about how he was a child who grew up in poverty and how he was able to escape that poverty because of the support that he got from the State and the great, free public education that he received. When I asked him whether he will guarantee that all of today’s children will have access to exactly those same services, to secure State housing, to a universal benefit—remember the family benefit—and to a free public education, he said no. He said no and he sat down, because he will deliberately deny today’s children the same opportunities that he had as a child to escape poverty and to do well.

That is John Key, the Prime Minister. That is the National Party. That is the stark choice that New Zealanders have at this coming election: between John Key and the National Party, who say no to children, and the Green Party, which will put children at the heart of all of our policies and our political decisions. That is how we began this year, with the launch of our school hubs plan to put children right at the heart of the education system and to put children right at the heart of the Green policy—to deliver directly to families and children on the needs and issues that they have. While National will focus on rewarding a few individuals or, as in the tax cuts—they cost $1 billion dollars—rewarding the very wealthy, the Green Party will invest in families and children and focus on the needs of many. This is the stark choice.

I want to briefly describe the school hubs plan for members and those listening. We have proposed a number of services for all decile 1 to 4 schools that those schools will be eligible for and entitled to as a matter of right. The first is a school hubs coordinator. This is a person employed in that school—paid for not by the operations grant but by new funding—to take the burden of organising and facilitating social services away from the principals and the teachers who currently have it. Instead, the school hubs coordinator will engage with their school community on what the issues are that the school community faces and what the solutions are that that school community wants to put in place. That full-time person will have the job of going out and finding the services that meet the solutions that the community itself has decided are right for them.

There are lots of examples of this. There are many schools in the country that are providing free food in some way—they have got community gardens or they have got relationships with organisations that surround them—but it is the teachers who are having to do this work; it is the principals who are having to do this work. They cannot do that and concentrate on their core expertise, which is teaching our kids, educating our kids. So if we provide this resource—it is a full-time person—to these schools, that person can take on that responsibility.

What are the other services that that person can then bring into the school? Well, one very important one is free after-school care and holiday programmes for kids. The expert advisory committee set up by the Children’s Commissioner was very clear that there are serious issues for poorer children who cannot access after-school activities, who cannot access holiday care. For after-school activities, it is very important because these are the activities that can often best explore their talents—musical talents, sporting talents, creative talents. If poorer children cannot access those kinds of programmes because they cannot afford it, those talents are wasted.

We have seen just this very week what happens when a child has access to what they need to explore their talents—what success is possible. That success is an entitlement of every child in this country. Just by doing something as simple as opening up and making freely available after-school care activities to all children in low-decile schools, we can have many more of those kinds of success stories.

Free holiday care for a maximum of 3 weeks is another proposal. It is particularly important from an educational point of view because it means that kids maintain their standard of education—their standard of reading, their standard of maths, their standard of engagement in the institutions—over the holiday period. The expert advisory group was very clear in saying that there is a slippage that happens over the school holidays, particularly for poorer kids. One of the best ways to prevent that slippage is to provide free holiday programmes for children in decile 1 to 4 schools. The Green Party has heard that. We have heard the evidence. We agree and we will provide it, should we be in Government.

We have also talked about dedicated school nurses in decile 1 to 4 schools. There is no dedicated school nurse programme operating in this country. We surveyed low-decile schools in New Zealand and we found that most low-decile schools get, at best, a little under 2 hours of nursing time each week. That is the average—2 hours of nursing time each week. Most of those schools complained that the nursing support that they got would often be called away. National has a national programme for rheumatic fever, which is a good idea, but it takes away the school nurses. So schools can lose access to their nurse for a month, for 2 months. Some said they had not seen a nurse for 6 months. We need dedicated school nurses in the schools so that families and children know they can access the health care that they need, so that we know that those children can get to a doctor because there are good quality referrals, and so that a nurse can build trust with that family and deal with those continual complaints that every parent knows about, whether it is nits, scabies, school sores, skin infections, bronchitis, or asthma—all of those things that parents have to deal with daily. If they can find their health service and support—their nursing support—at the school, where the kids go every day, we know that their kids’ health will improve. And if their kids’ health improves, their learning improves. That is why we will put dedicated school nurses in the schools.

Finally, as part of the core service under our school hub there is the school lunch fund. This is a national fund. It will average at about $3 a child per school, per week, and is based on the average number of children who we understand go to school without sufficient food. That is around 9 percent of the school population. This fund will be available to the schools. They will automatically be entitled. They can use that fund to provide lunch to their students in any way that they see is best for them. This is the job of the school hub coordinator: what is the best way to provide lunch for their schools? There are some great examples where schools have a community garden, and what they need is a little bit of money to support some volunteers, or maybe employ somebody part-time, to come in and gather that food, to help with the kids, to cook the food with the kids, and for the kids then to share the food amongst their school community. It builds a sense of sharing, a sense of community within the school. It reduces inequality because all children can access the food if there is enough to go around. And it means that our kids have a decent meal in the middle of the day, so that they can learn for the rest of the afternoon. It improves their education.

The Green Party will put children at the heart of everything we do. We have shown that with our policies to date. We will continue to do so. This is why I believe that the country will choose the Greens to be part of a great progressive Government in 2014. Thank you.

Hon SIMON BRIDGES (Minister of Energy and Resources): It is a tremendous privilege to be speaking in election year in this debate on the Prime Minister’s statement. It is interesting, of course, to follow Metiria Turei, who has outlined her schools policy for the Green Party. But I have got news for Metiria Turei: we are already doing most of it. We are actually already doing it. The only difference I could detect between what we are doing on the ground today in New Zealand’s low-decile schools and what she proposes is that she says “Well, we’ll throw more money at it, and we’ll do that without targeting it in any sort of way.” And somehow that ill-disciplined kind of approach means they care more in the Green Party—they care more. Well, no, they do not. This side of the House cares passionately about children and our future in this country, and we have seen that with recent announcements made by the Prime Minister this year.

What a great start to the year for the Prime Minister and the New Zealand National Party. It has been our privilege to be the Government of this country. We are offering this country—and we have seen this outlined in the speech from the Prime Minister—stable, good Government. We have done that through very difficult and actually somewhat tumultuous times in New Zealand and around the world. With disasters, we know about the earthquakes and, of course, the worst global financial crisis in some 70 or 80 years, but we are coming through that in very strong shape. No one would say we are entirely out of the woods or that things could not go back with the wrong governmental policies—with the sort of ill-disciplined approach that we have heard about from Metiria Turei—but we are on the right track in this country.

The Prime Minister has talked about our several options for coalition or certain agreements after the election, on the basis that what New Zealanders actually want this year, given the maturation of our system of MMP, is some straight, matter-of-fact transparency about whom we can work with, whom we prefer to work with, and whom we cannot work with because their policies are on the far left and are incommensurate with the kind of New Zealand we are creating day by day, month by month in Government.

Giving the lie, really, to Metiria Turei’s speech was the Prime Minister’s announcement last week on education, on training and retaining our teachers with $359 million more—dollars well spent. We are rewarding the best and doing a great job there, and, by so doing, we are ensuring a higher attainment of our children so that they have a brighter future in this country. Of course, we have heard from members of Opposition parties that they actually did not have any criticism of substance about the policy. Frankly, as far as I can see, they think it is good policy, but they could not bring themselves to say that as yet.

But they do say poverty is increasing. Well, it does not matter how often they say that, it is not increasing. Inequality in this country is not increasing. That is what independent people and the Ministry of Social Development have made clear. It may arguably be diminishing. Indeed, the speech by the Prime Minister and the policies of this Government ensure that New Zealanders in those low-decile schools that Metiria Turei talked of actually have equality of opportunity in this country. It does not matter whether they come from parts of West Auckland, like I do, or parts of South Auckland, like Jami-Lee Ross does; they do not have to suffer from the soft bigotry of expectations that some on the other side have. Frankly, they can have the best teachers—who are rewarded for their efforts and who will have the training that they need—they can get ahead, and they can learn as well as at any other school, private or otherwise. Those are the sorts of policies that we stand for and that we believe New Zealanders stand for.

Of course, we have a very busy agenda in election year, focusing, as the Prime Minister has outlined in his speech, on the things that matter. Those things really are, when you boil it down, fourfold. The first is an economy where our disciplined policies over time are ensuring all the economic indicators that should be going up are going the right way up, and those that we want to go down—like unemployment, although it is still too high—are going down. We have excellent policies in education. We are spending more than ever before, but spending it right. With national standards, we understand where children are at, and we now have policies aimed at probably the most important thing in schools: the quality of teaching that is provided.

We have a health care system that focuses on results. There are some 30,000 more elective surgeries, I think it is, in hospitals around this country each year because of this Government and the magnificent job that Tony Ryall is doing. I see it in my electorate. When I first came into office in 2008 as a slightly slimmer, no-grey-hairs backbench member of Parliament, I would see people every week who had issues with elective surgeries and delays. I just do not see them in anything like the volume that I used to. We are getting results from the focus that Tony Ryall is providing there.

In law and order, there is the lowest crime rate we have seen in some 33 years. I think one policy really is a metaphor for what we are doing: the introduction of smartphones and the thousands of hours that is saving bobbies on the beat.

Phil Twyford: A metaphor? Blimey, that’s a bit highbrow for you, isn’t it, using metaphors?

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: Every so often I can pull that out—every so often. I grew up in Te Atatū; it is a great part of the world, actually. The tablets and the iPhones are saving police officers thousands of hours, and I think, from memory, the equivalent of some 345 additional police officers a year are on the street rather than back doing paperwork.

The Prime Minister spoke about oil and gas and the terrific opportunities we have there. I think he talked about some three-quarters of a billion dollars being spent on exploration. Actually, on some measures out there from commentators, it is more like $2.5 billion. But contrary, actually, to what the Green Party says, we are not all about non-renewables. I am just as excited about our renewables opportunities. We are focusing on all of these things and exploring all of our opportunities. It is not an either/or, like the Green Party thinks. We can explore all of those things.

We are, I think, third in the world at the moment for renewables in our electricity system. Look at Germany—23 percent renewables, despite spending trillions of dollars, I think it is, and, actually, last year, through very perverse policy outcomes, more coal was being used than before. We have a great system. It is renewables focused. We have a target of 90 percent. I believe, actually, that we can reach that. We are investing in bioenergy in many things. We have a balanced, mixed approach. The Greens could not be more wrong.

Of course, we have seen from the Labour Party that it now supports oil and gas while saying that it has to be at world’s best practice. Well, let me tell the Labour Party that we have done that. We have gone from the Wild West, actually, that the Labour Party had when it was drilling through its time in office under Prime Minister Helen Clark to a much more regulated regime. It is a great thing to see. I am excited about 2014. Bring on the election.

ANDREW WILLIAMS (NZ First): I rise on behalf of New Zealand First in reply to the Prime Minister’s statement to this House. The Prime Minister has not been frank with the New Zealand public. He has not told New Zealanders the truth: what is actually happening to this economy. Let us put aside all the spin and let us look at the reality. Right now the sun is shining on the New Zealand economy but these are good times for the dairy and agricultural industry. However, this has nothing to do with John Key’s Government. It is just the beneficiary of record prices for dairy products. It was not of its doing. Yet despite this massive advantage, what is the reality?

The reality is that we have 150,000 unemployed in this country. On top of those 150,000 unemployed, we have a further 60,000 underemployed women and we have a further 30,000 underemployed men. That is another 90,000 people in New Zealand who currently are not getting sufficient work to justify their daily existence. Under our unemployment statistics, if you work for more than 1 hour, you are deemed to have employment. Many people are struggling because they cannot get full employment, and therefore, as a result, their children and their families suffer. Particularly in this category women are suffering, Māori are suffering, and Pasifika people are suffering.

We heard during the manufacturing inquiry, for instance, that at Summit Wool Spinners in the South Island, many of the women who were working in that factory were laid off but many of their husbands had work in the district. As a result, those women could not find alternative work and they were not deemed to be unemployed. They simply had to go home with their family incomes virtually halved. As a result, many of those people from Summit Wool Spinners now are in hard times and looking for alternative work. They do not appear on the statistics.

One million New Zealanders live overseas. Further to the Government’s statistics, there are many, many of those—particularly young graduates. I know so many young graduates from the Auckland universities and from the North Shore universities who simply have not been able to get work in this country and have had to go abroad to find work because it is not here. So the spin that this Government puts on that everything is rosy—it is not. Ask young New Zealanders, particularly those under the age of about 28 or 30, who are really struggling to find jobs. There are graduates who have spent 3, 4, or 5 years earning a degree and are now struggling to get good gainful employment to cover the ever-spiralling cost of housing, particularly in the likes of Auckland, Christchurch, and Wellington.

Ordinary Kiwis are still dealing daily with the pain of zero or minimal wage increases. The chief executives and top people are getting significant gains, but good, ordinary New Zealanders are not necessarily seeing that. So many of them are on minimum wage or very low wages, and they are not going up by any great steps at all. Meanwhile, New Zealand has ended up with $150 billion in total overseas debt. Some $60 billion of that is Government debt. When the National Government took over in 2008, Government debt was at $6 billion. It is now at over $60 billion. That is not a record of success. That is adding to this country’s debt, and now New Zealand has one of the highest debt-per-capita ratios in the world.

Auckland, at the same time, is in the grip of a speculative housing bubble because this National Government will not address the situation that foreigners are coming in and buying houses, buying property, and buying land, and are speculating on that growth in the Auckland demand for housing. As a result, good, average Kiwis are finding it increasingly difficult to find housing that they can afford in the Auckland area. And it is happening. It is happening all over Auckland. Any member should ask young Aucklanders—and I have got three in their 20s—how they are going to get into housing in the Auckland market. They will get into housing only because their parents assist them or their families assist them. How can they put a deposit of 20 percent down on a $700,000 property? It is impossible. It is impossible for young graduates coming out of university, and you know it, Dr Coleman. New Zealand First will fix this because when we are in Government, we will ensure that speculative purchasing of houses and property in New Zealand by foreigners is stopped. It will be stopped under New Zealand First.

On top of this, we are seeing speculative trading of New Zealand’s currency. The Reserve Bank of New Zealand Act is some 26 years old, and this Government will not review it. This Government will not review an Act that was brought in before computers were even here, before cellphones were here, and before fax machines were here. It will not review an Act that at the present time constrains the Governor of the Reserve Bank to working within tight inflation rate criteria, ignoring all the other factors that are driving the value of the Kiwi dollar up. We are now at nearly 95c to the Australian dollar, one of our second major export markets, and New Zealand exporters to Australia are really, really finding it tough because this Government will not step in and review the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Act. Well, New Zealand First will. The Rt Hon Winston Peters has had a member’s bill twice in this House in the last year, which the Government has knocked back, but we will review the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Act and we will give the Reserve Bank more means to address the situation and run the economy in a better way that does not drive the New Zealand dollar even higher.

The Prime Minister also did not mention the State asset sales programme—the programme that instead of getting some $7 billion or thereabouts, which the Government sold to the public when it first put forward that programme, ended up at much less than $5 billion. On an annual basis now New Zealanders are losing close to $1 billion in dividends each year. This year, next year, and every year thereafter, there will be a loss of nearly $1 billion in dividends from those State assets as a result of the National Government selling our beautiful dams on the Waikato River, selling our beautiful dams in the South Island, selling our geothermal power stations, and selling our iconic airline, Air New Zealand, down the river. Well, New Zealand First will also address that. We will buy back those power stations and those power companies and we will merge them into one State entity for the generating of power in this country. We will ensure that power is put under one State-owned enterprise. We will get on top of that situation.

We are also seeing, through this, power prices escalating. Residential consumers are now paying in excess of 27c a unit, while commercial users are paying 15c a unit, and industrial users are paying only 10c per unit. Meanwhile, the Government gives $30 million to Rio Tinto, and it will be paying less than 10c per unit. Again, New Zealand First will sort that out by bringing those entities together so it will bring down the wholesale price of electricity. We will ensure that the likes of grandma in her cold house, in the middle of winter, will receive discounts from those State-owned enterprises and ensure that there is cheaper power for our seniors in the winter months.

New Zealand First will give support to the export sector, which this Government is not doing. We will ensure there is far greater diversity, in terms of going away from agricultural products and into a far stronger base for manufacturing. We will also support—and give meaningful support to—our veterans. We will give meaningful support, as we have always done, to those who have served this country. We will also give meaningful support to the health system and social services. For instance, New Zealand First brought in medical checks for children under 6, and again we will ensure that those sorts of areas are extended and added to. We will also bring in a community wage. New Zealanders who are underemployed or unemployed will work for their local communities, will work for their local councils. They will be encouraged to work in areas in their communities, to receive money back from the Government, and, in turn, will be providing assistance to their communities but being paid to do so. New Zealand First will be doing a lot more as well. Thank you.

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN (Minister of Defence): There are some interesting characters in this Parliament, and you have just heard from one of them. That was the New Zealand First MP from the North Shore, Andrew Williams. I tell you, it will be really interesting to see him front up to Korean Day in a couple of weeks’ time and tell the Korean voters of the North Shore that he does not want them to be able to buy a house on the North Shore. I do not think he will be invited to Chinese New Year at Northcote this weekend because they will not want to hear that sort of xenophobic rant, either. There was so much wrong with that speech that it is hard to know where to start. But one thing I did pick up is that New Zealand First has today announced a community wage. Of course, it is completely uncosted, but you could heap that on to the other heap of $750 million of uncosted promises that Labour, the Greens, and New Zealand First have announced, and we are not even at Waitangi Day.

Of course, there are some other pretty interesting members in this Parliament, as well. I was sitting in my electorate office the other day, doing my electorate work, when this red van went by with “MP for Te Atatū” on the front of it. I thought: “This is a long way from Phil Twyford’s stamping ground.” But what I found out is that Mr Twyford has been doing a kayak tour of the Waitematā Harbour to test water quality, when, really, all he needed to do was log on to the council website. But I guess when you are in Opposition there are very few ways to productively use your time, so you may as well just go kayaking and pretend it is work.

But neither of those two are quite as interesting as that shaven-headed whack job who was on the TV last night. He is a member who, frankly, I once thought had a great future, but for him the future ain’t what it used to be. It was the member for Dunedin North, David Clark, who was there. He looked like he had just drunk Jim Jones’ Kool-Aid, and was pronouncing that Labour would ban Facebook. It would ban Facebook. So if you do not comply with what Labour wants and if you are not falling into line, it will ban you. Labour will ban Facebook. It will probably ban the North Shore because the North Shore is not going to fall into line with what Labour wants. Labour will probably ban 50 percent of the National electorate because National certainly does not agree with the Labour Party, either.

But none of those three members are quite as interesting as the leader of the Labour Party, who yesterday announced the “Worst Start” policy—that is, the worst start for Labour’s year in Parliament. It was a couple of days ago—his state of the nation speech. David Cunliffe has actually misled the public of New Zealand, because he said that anyone having a baby and earning a household income of less than $150,000 a year would get $60 a week in the hand. I guess a lot of people thought, well, that was pretty good. But, unfortunately, the fine print was not included with that policy. As Patrick Gower has written today, his opinion is that Labour has been “dishonest”. That is Patrick Gower’s word, not mine. His opinion is that Labour has misled the electorate, because, when you look at it, if you are getting paid parental leave for 26 weeks, you do not get the $60 until after that is over. That was yesterday’s revelation. Today we also find out that on top of that, if you are getting the in-work tax credit for Working for Families, you do not get it.

So David Cunliffe went out there yesterday, and he was here, doing his opening address for the year, being all sort of faux blokey, leaning on the desk like this—like he is leaning on the public bar leaner. I do not think they have public bars in his part of the woods—that is, Herne Bay, which is not actually his electorate. But he has been misleading the public of New Zealand. So the more David Cunliffe talks, the more the public is going to find out what is going on.

You see, the real problem for David Cunliffe is that, fundamentally, I do not think he believes in a lot of the policies that he is being forced to announce. He came in with this big, left-wing backing from the unions. He knows that $60 a week—do you know what? When my child was born when I was a backbencher, I would have qualified for that $60 a week payment. That is ridiculous. That is not targeted, good public spending. That is crazy stuff. The electorate is not going to be impressed with that.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the fence, we have got the Prime Minister’s statement yesterday. It was a very coherent, concise, and well-reasoned explanation of the Government’s programme, and that is the truth of it. We have focused on the things that matter to New Zealanders. We have had our four priorities—growing the economy, sound fiscal management, better public services, and rebuilding Christchurch. We have focused on those relentlessly. In the end, I can tell you—take a tip—the public will vote on those things that really matter to them. It is the economy, it is being able to get to the hospital when you need to, it is being able to feel safe in your own home, and it is being able to ensure that your child is going to a school where you feel confident in the educational management. That is what we are focusing on, and that is where Labour has lost the plot. I tell you what. Those members know it, because, actually, they are not united on the approach they should take. They have gone further and further to the left, over time. Actually, if you are going to grab those middle New Zealand votes, that is not going to work. I can tell you that.

So it is going to be very interesting to see what happens this year, because there are two clear sides to the argument. There is a Government that has stuck to its priorities and that has presided over 3.5 percent economic growth over the last year, that has a firm plan for the way ahead, and that actually does what it says it is going to do. Then, on the other hand, you have a Labour Party that will be in cahoots—in coalition—with the Greens, who are going to be there, if they ever get on the Treasury benches, spending and spending and spending more money that they do not have. It is going to be bad.

I will give you a couple of examples. David Cunliffe has already said: “Well, we’re going to scrap the GST off fruit and vegetables plan, and we are going to scrap getting rid of that tax-free first $5,000.” He reckons that is going to free up $1.5 billion, to spend. Well, that is about as silly as someone walking down the street here in Wellington, seeing a nice suit or a nice dress, or whatever, in the window of a shop and saying: “I’m not going to buy that, and by doing that I’ve actually saved the amount of money that I would have spent otherwise.” So it is false money because, actually, there is no GST revenue to spend. There is no tax-free threshold to remove. So these guys are playing with phoney money, and they do not understand that.

What they also do not understand is that, actually, when you make spending promises, the money comes from somewhere. I can tell you where it comes from. It comes from taxpayers’ pockets. What these people do not understand—because this is the best job they will ever have, being backbench MPs in this Parliament—is that the wealth in New Zealand is created by entrepreneurial people who go out there, who take a risk, who create jobs, and who actually stimulate the economy.

What the Greens want to do is saddle the average New Zealand household with a $500 increase in the energy bill that that household will have every year, OK? These guys over here in the Labour Party want to put up the top personal tax rate. I tell you what. This “Bad Start” programme will be paid for by increasing taxes. In the meantime they are going to be increasing the gap between the company tax rate and the top personal rate, and what that will do is it will encourage tax avoidance.

So I can tell you that on the one hand you have a very coherent set of policies, you have got a very solid record, and you have got a brilliant Prime Minister in John Key, who understands the electorate and who understands what is needed to get the economy going forward. If you do not believe me, look at Moody’s rating yesterday on the New Zealand economy. We are in the top 10 developed economies in the world and we are progressing on the right track. The alternative is an incoherent, tax and spend, profligate group of people with vastly different approaches to life. There is Hone Harawira, the right wing of the Labour Party, the left-wing core of the Labour Party, and, frankly, the crazy Green Party. Who do you think the public are going to choose? The future for New Zealand is with the solid, dependable path to growth that the National Government under Prime Minister John Key represents, and I totally affirm his statement.

LOUISA WALL (Labour—Manurewa): It is my pleasure to take a call in this debate on the state of the nation. I guess we have already seen the territory be defined by some of the realities of our country. We have growing inequalities in New Zealand. We have children living in poverty, and as a consequence of that reality we have seen the Prime Minister announce a policy that is really trying to say that the Government cares about children. The reality is, however, that under this National Government more families and more children are in poverty because the priority of the Government has been about giving tax cuts to the rich and it has been about ensuring that its mates are better off. So I think that the big challenge for New Zealanders is to see past the policies that have been announced and really look at an alternative, which is what we in the Labour Party want to present. We make no apologies for prioritising children. We make no apologies for ensuring that those most in need receive the services that they need to run their families in a way that means that, ultimately, our children will have the best start in life.

I want to highlight particularly our Best Start policy and our focus on mothers and children. One of the policies that I particularly want to talk to is our antenatal initiative, which will see us provide free antenatal classes for every expectant mum and also ensure that 80 percent of pregnant mums are booked in for antenatal checks by 10 weeks. Why is that relevant? Well, it is incredibly relevant in South Auckland, where we have approximately 13.5 percent of births of children in this country. That is, over 9,000 of the babies who are born in this country every year are born in South Auckland. I want to congratulate Ron Paterson and the Counties Manukau District Health Board on their report and inquiry into maternity services, because the reality in South Auckland is that only 16 percent of expectant mothers actually have that 10-week antenatal check.

People make assumptions and judgments on the face of it about why mothers do not go to see a lead maternity carer—so either a midwife or a general practitioner. What we found out through the inquiry before the Health Committee, which was focused on improving health outcomes and preventing child abuse, with a focus on pre-conception until 3 years of age, was that, in fact, in South Auckland we have only 5.5 percent of the midwives in New Zealand. What does that mean in reality? It means that we are 200 midwives short. So when I look at initiatives like setting a key performance indicator for the health system to ensure that 80 percent of pregnant mums have an antenatal check, the relevance of that particular policy is that we are going to see the distribution of midwives and of general practitioners into areas where we most need them.

Why should we care as a country about setting policies with that aspiration? Well, what we know is that in South Auckland over 110 babies die every year before 28 days of life. That is called perinatal mortality. What we on this side of the House know is that unless you redistribute resources—midwife and general practitioner resources—those statistics will continue to be negative. So we will set this policy agenda based on that evidence because, for us, evidence is what drives the policy that we will take to the electorate.

In terms of addressing the whole inequality that is currently faced by some members of our community, the way that we have seen fit to do that is, obviously, to have initiatives such as this one providing for 80 percent of pregnant mums to be booked in for antenatal checks by 10 weeks, but also to have an emphasis on early childhood education. I want to focus on a quote from Professor Mike O’Brien, who is the spokesperson for the Child Poverty Action Group, where he talks about the Better Public Services outcomes framework and this obsession by the National Government for home-based care or playgroup services, which is somehow supposed to mean that every child gets a good start in life in terms of their education pathway. What we know, because the City of Manukau Education Trust has done some research, is that we have only 34 percent provision for under-5-year-olds in South Auckland. We do not have quality early childhood education opportunities for all our children.

What does that mean? It means that a lot of our children are going to school and they are already in deficit—5 and 6-year-olds who have had no early childhood education and who, in terms of the national standard, are already 18 months to 2 years behind. If this Government were really serious about improving educational outcomes, it would be providing quality early childhood education opportunities for all New Zealand children. The reality is that it does not have the solutions and it does not understand the circumstances of a lot of our communities, and so it has not got the solutions to help us address the growing inequality issue here in our country.

Before Christmas I made an appointment to see Professor Graeme Aitken and Professor Elizabeth McKinley. I wanted to go and see them specifically because they run an initiative called Starpath. Starpath is an incredibly ambitious but also concentrated and targeted initiative, because what it does is fundamentally accept that the biggest obstacle to student achievement is social inequality. So what do they do? They work with decile 1 and 2 schools to create opportunities for students at those schools to get into university. What is the relevance? Well, actually, if you want to move the agenda from identifying what the problems are, you actually have to create solutions and you also have to look at equality of outcome, which is also something that this side of the House is preoccupied with. It is not good enough just to identify that we have problems; you actually have to have solutions.

What Starpath does is work with principals and work with students, families, and communities to provide clear pathways into university. The relevance of that discussion to the Government’s prioritisation of the teaching profession and creating more bureaucracy is that the reality is that if you come from a decile 1 or 2 community, one of you will go to university for every three students from a decile 9 or 10 community. So if we want to fundamentally address social inequalities, then we actually have to look at equality of outcome. Starpath has been created specifically to address the underachievement that I believe comes from the lack of clear pathways to university for children from decile 1 and 2 schools. So we are committing to continuing to work with initiatives like Starpath. Actually, I think that Starpath, as a specific initiative currently concentrated at the University of Auckland, is something that we should be looking at rolling out to other universities and to other communities.

I would also like to talk about the teaching profession and also the principals and teachers in communities like South Auckland and Manurewa specifically, who I know are excellent teachers. They are passionate and committed to their students, but the reality for those teachers in some communities is that addressing the social determinants of educational achievement is actually about making sure our children are fed. There is without question a direct and clear correlation between our children fulfilling their potential and, within the context of all schools in my electorate, those schools providing some form of nutrition for children. Whether it be breakfast clubs that are provided by external agencies—a lot of church groups and other community groups in the community—or the schools taking responsibility themselves, the reality is that that is the biggest issue for a lot of our families.

So that side of the House may make light of the fact that we want to commit to every parent of children in their first year getting the $60 a week payment—and for some families it will extend to years 2 and 3—but we know that parents need support, and that $60 a week will go a long way to ensuring that our children have a better start in life. I am incredibly proud to belong to a party that has prioritised children, and we will go into this election being very clear that our biggest challenge into the future is addressing the inequality, the growing inequality, that we have particularly seen under this National Government. So, yes, I agree with the previous speaker, Jonathan Coleman: bring on the election and let us fight it out in the communities. Kia ora.

Hon NIKKI KAYE (Minister for Food Safety): I am very pleased to speak in this debate on the Prime Minister’s statement. I must say that yesterday I was very sad to listen to the Leader of the Opposition’s speech, and I want to tell you why. I reflected on the fact that I had been in Parliament for 5 years, and there are times in this House when we hear the rhetoric, when we hear the same arguments. But when I reflect back on us coming into Government, I think it is important to remember the situation that we were handed and where we are now. This is important because this year New Zealanders will go to the polls and they are going to have to ask themselves some fundamental questions. One of those questions is about the record. I am proud that when we came into this House 5 years ago, we inherited a current account deficit that was almost 9 percent of GDP and it is now 4.3 percent. Net external debt had blown out to 84 percent of GDP and it is now 71 percent of GDP. Inflation was running at 5.1 percent; it is now 1.6 percent. Mortgage interest rates averaged 10.9 percent; they are now 5.9 percent. The list goes on, from an economic perspective.

But what made me sad yesterday was that we heard this rhetoric from the Labour Party—that our party has not done anything for children. That is not true. Our record in the area of helping some of our most disadvantaged is outstanding. Part of it is a philosophical difference. On this side of the House we believe that fundamentally one of the greatest things that you can do to enable children to get the best start in life is, actually, to have their parents in work, because the life chances of a child are much better if their parents are in work than if they are on a benefit. Our welfare reform under the Hon Paula Bennett has done everything that it can to see more New Zealanders in work.

The second area where we have invested in children is in immunisation and our health system. The other area that obviously I am intimately involved in, as Associate Minister of Education, is education. I want to acknowledge the Hon Hekia Parata because when you look at our record in education, what you will see is that, under this Government, every year we have increased the education budget. That is extraordinary when you look at the deficits that we came into Government with. We have prioritised, fundamentally, for the young people of New Zealand.

I think that the second question that New Zealanders should ask themselves this year is if you look at the record, then what are the policies that each political party is going to fight on? We saw the opening shots, and I think they were very telling. I think that when New Zealanders sit back and decide at the end of this year whom they are going to choose to lead, they should ask themselves this: are the policies costed? Where is the money coming from? Are they well researched? Are they targeted at those who need it?

If you look at our education policy that was announced by the Prime Minister and the Hon Hekia Parata, it is costed and it is targeted at our students who need the most in terms of lifting achievement and improving their life chances. It is not a blanket “Let’s hand out money to people who don’t need it.” It is actually focused on those young New Zealanders who need help, from an achievement perspective. That is why, when we look at the people who have really stood out there and said that this is a great policy, they are diverse. They are from across the political spectrum. They are everybody from business people to unions, and if we look at the Principals’ Federation President, Phil Harding—and I believe that the statement has already been quoted in the House—he said it was “a pleasant surprise and he was certain principals would be keen on it” and “It’s hard for me to say it but I am pretty damn impressed.”

This is a policy that is about taking our country to another level. We have shown that we have the record, but now we are showing that we have policies in areas like education and the economy that will take New Zealand to another level in terms of being a smarter nation and a more open nation. What I say to New Zealanders is that we are the only party that has the vision and the policies to take New Zealand to that level. The reason for that is that in two key areas there is a massive contrast and difference between the two sides of the House. Education is clearly one of those areas. We believe that through areas like technology there will be more of an opportunity for honest conversations about children’s learning, and that will happen online with parents and teachers and students.

We have spent $200 million last year, and that is saying that our Government is committed to uncapped data and fast connections funded to every State school in the country that wants it. That is incredibly significant because, again, what we are saying is that this is about providing more learning opportunities and also resolving traditional issues of equity. So when members opposite say that this party does not care about children, well, how about you go and have a look at that policy. The $200 million is saying that we will finally be able to provide some opportunities that mean that every child, wherever they grow up in New Zealand, will have access to drive their own learning and other learning opportunities.

This is a party that has not only the economic policies but also a very strong heart, but our idea of a strong social conscience is not a whole lot of welfare dependency. It is not a whole lot of schemes whereby we say to middle New Zealand at the election: “Yeah, here’s a little bit of money and everything will be sweet, mate.” It is about turning the country into a place where we value work more, where we actually see real opportunities for young people. We have shown with this policy at the beginning of this year, and with the fact that it is accepted by so many different parts of New Zealand, that we are serious about investing in young people.

Again, if we look back through history, we contrast that with what I think we are seeing: a Labour Party that has not learnt the lessons of the “noughties”. In that era—and I do give credit; there was a level of economic management. The problem with it is that Labour spent everything. That is why we had the deficits that we had. So we were in a situation where we have had to have careful economic management to get to the situation that we are in. But what Labour has shown again is that it has not got fully costed policies and that it is prepared to give out lolly scrambles again, that it is also prepared to have, basically, middle-class dependency. That is what we saw with their first policy this year.

My belief is that this election will be fought on record, this election will be fought on vision and policies, and, finally, this election will also be fought on leadership. We have seen from Prime Minister John Key an ability to lead the country and have a caucus that is united and that backs him. So in all of the areas from policy to record to leadership, I think that our team, our National Government, should be given the opportunity to have another term, to be able to take the country to another level and not go back to the old big-spending policies of the past. Labour has not learnt.

Dr RAJEN PRASAD (Labour): I am delighted to make a contribution to the debate on the Prime Minister’s statement, because what it does give me is an opportunity to show the stark differences between that side of the House—the National-led side of the House—and what Labour will do, what this side of the House will do, in Government. Although the last member, Nikki Kaye, paints that in a particular way, it actually is very far from what is needed and what this side of the House would do. What that side of the House does is preach a particular brand of politics, which is the politics of arrogance. What this side wants to do, under a David Cunliffe - led Government, is something quite different. I will explain that as I go. The John Key - led Government is arrogant. There is no doubt about that. There has been plenty of that on display in the House today by the bucketload by new Ministers and a few others. But that arrogance is palpable, and Ministers show it. The Minister of Labour shows that every time he gets up, and today those bounds were breached by the Minister of Immigration just a couple of hours ago.

I was reading Rebecca Macfie’s Tragedy at Pike River Mine over the holidays, and it is a good read. Anybody with a social conscience ought to read that. It is a classic case of how capitalists design spin around greed and actually drive it mercilessly to produce profit. That is what Pike River was about, when you follow the 10 to 15-year history of the company that set Pike River up. It was around greed and spin, and it drove it. It drove it with guile, it drove it with dishonesty, and it drove it with spin. It did not care a damn about what was going to happen, either to the environment in that area or to those men who went down the mine. And look what happened—look what happened. People paid for that with their lives. That is the politics of arrogance and the politics of spin that that side of the House internalises, and this side of the House will expose it every time.

Whenever we come up with policies, as indeed we have, the National Party will do what it has displayed in the House today. Its modus operandi is clear to see—find the little holes, find the little bits that do not quite synchronise, find the bits that it does not understand, but apply spin to it. [Interruption] I say to the member from the back—many of them are quite new; members are learning spin already. But there is so much spin. I say to that member that there is little truth to it, and they do not care a damn. That is nowhere more palpable than when it comes to the most vulnerable.

The Prime Minister’s statement used three words. One was “desperate”. Yes, the Government is desperate. It is desperate to match Labour on education. Education has been a mess. We have come up with policies. We are looking at it. What has National done? It has now moved from that big thinking about national testing to what is now really performance pay by any other name. So by a small number of teachers going around schools getting paid $50,000 more each, the whole education system will change! Actually, it will not. We will see plenty more of that. National is not putting our children first. I am sure National will do that, as well. It will become desperate with our childcare policies, and it will come up with something similar.

It is quite interesting. Whenever this side of the House comes up with a policy and it costs some money, that is unaffordable according to the National Government. That is unaffordable. But the same day—the same hour—it comes up with hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of expenditure. Oh no, that is investment! That is the spin that that side of the House puts up. When it spends it, it is investment; when this side of the House talks about spending, it is unaffordable. That is intellectually dishonest. But those members are used to that. That side of the House has been doing this branding for a long period of time. None of that is convincing. We know what those members have done. They have given a billion dollars of tax cuts. They have to sell State assets to pay for them, and now everything else has to take its place. Those members have made so many mistakes. Now the desperation that they have is coming to the fore.

Secondly, I will talk about the divide. Yes, indeed, the Government has divided this society. That is what it has done. The Prime Minister used the word “divided”. National takes away from the poor. Look at much of what the Government has done. It has taken away from the poor. It has divided our society. Look at all of the welfare reform programmes. They are punitive. They are punitive towards the most vulnerable in our society.

The Prime Minister also talks about “delusional”. Well, indeed, the Government is delusional. It talks about running a surplus. It talks every day about running a surplus. But this is the Government that has borrowed $55 billion in the last 5 years—$55 billion. When it came into power, national debt was $10 billion. What is the national debt today? It is $65 billion. Oh no, but that is all the recession! That is on everything else!

Hon Michael Woodhouse: Ask the member to your right why we did it.

Dr RAJEN PRASAD: I will come to the Minister of Immigration in a minute, and I promise the Minister that I will, because he was part of the arrogant brigade this afternoon, and I will show him why that actually is not the way to do things. That side is delusional. Those members are the ones who created a huge debt for this country, and it will take a Labour Government to come into power and change that.

This side believes in the politics of conviction. It is a very, very different approach to that side of the House, and it is most evident when we look at the approaches to children. Indeed, when you look at this side of the House—and National might try to find real chinks in the armour. But there is no doubt about it: $60 a week for the most vulnerable with young children under 1 year old will make a huge difference. There is no doubt about it. There are many outside here who are confirming that and, actually, looking to raise early childhood education. There is no doubt about it. It is going to make a difference in the lives of parents with young children—25 hours. That needs to be included. We will fund the building of early childhood centres. That is going to make a difference. We will reverse the cuts of qualified teachers in early childhood education. We will reverse that.

When it comes to paid parental leave, it is quite interesting. Those members are not interested. We know that it is paid parental leave that makes a difference. Parents with children make a difference. We know that an early start for children makes a difference, which is why Best Start is designed by David Cunliffe. It will make a difference, and we know from the best science. We know that it is from the beginning, from the start—what children get at home, the communities in which they live, the resources that are provided, and the commitment that society shows. If that is not done, then they suffer. But what that side of the House is happy to do is to discount the children. Somehow those members present this spin that we can do it through work. Well, it is going to take a long time for the parent of a child born today to actually get a job to make the difference. So there is a lot more that this Government needs to do to convince anybody that it is not just the politics of spin.

I want to come to immigration for a moment. Here is a Minister of Immigration who is presiding over one of the worst rorts we have ever seen in New Zealand, and that is the job selling that is going on right now. Campbell Live exposed that, and there are many, many like that. There are people who are working in immigration—professionals, parents, businesses—who have come to many of us to display those. But when that evidence is presented to that Minister, the Hon Michael Woodhouse, what does he do? “Oh, well, they can come and complain.” That Minister shows no understanding of how that system works. How will a person right in the middle of that system come and complain, Minister? What is going to happen to them? So there is no appreciation. We have called for an inquiry. Have the conviction, Minister—have the conviction—to have an inquiry into that, made up of smart people. Get people the protection so that that Minister can then learn what the actual rorts are. That Minister is presiding over the destruction of the reputation of a good country and a good system.

Finally, I say to that Minister that he is very used to throwing rocks today. But I say to the Minister to have a look. There is nobody in this caucus who has been investigated for selling jobs—nobody in this caucus. So do not go far from home. If you live in a glass house, do not throw stones. I say to that member that there is a lot more that that member has to learn about immigration.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: Pick up the phone. It’s not hard.

Dr RAJEN PRASAD: Nobody will call you, Minister, because the moment they do, what happens? Immigration currently does not have the resources to do the job. Immigration cannot do this work. So I say to that side of the House that spin will get you nowhere, and we will expose that throughout the election campaign. Thank you.

Debate interrupted.

Maiden Statements

Maiden Statements

POTO WILLIAMS (Labour—Christchurch East): E ngā mana, e ngā reo, e ngā kārangarangatanga maha, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa.

[To the authorities, voices, and many callings, greetings, salutations, and acknowledgments to you all.]

Mr Speaker, distinguished members, colleagues, friends, supporters, and family, kia orana kotou katoatoa, na roto I te aro’a ma’ata o Te Atua. My parents came to this country in the 1950s to give their family a better life. We had a happy childhood amongst our wider whānau and the children of other immigrant families. We did not have a lot, but Dad always had a job, we owned our home, and we always had food. But times changed in New Zealand, and by the time I started working in the social services sector I realised that some families did not have it so good.

On 4 April 1999 Riri-o-te-Rangi James Whakaruru died from injuries sustained from severe and prolonged beatings from his mother’s partner. He was not the first child to die from the euphemistically described non-accidental injuries, and he has not been the last, but his story, like no others before it, left me with a deep sadness of the lives many of our children live. I return to him often to honour his short and tragic life and to reaffirm my commitment to our children. There is an image of James where he holds his face in the palms of his hands—a boy with a sunny disposition who in his darkest hours must have thought “What have I done to deserve this treatment?”. And what would be our response to him if he asked us why?

A decent, respectful society is one that shows the highest level of care for its most vulnerable and marginalised citizens, and it enhances the mana of us all if, when at their lowest ebb, we show them the deepest of our love and care. Every member of this august House would hold that to be the sacred duty of the Government—to care for its people. However, we may differ on how we achieve that and on who is the most vulnerable and therefore the most deserving. For me, actively engaged in the very grassroots of community life, the dream I have for my community is one where all of our people are housed in warm, dry, appropriate, and affordable homes, where families can put down roots and develop those social connections that enhance and sustain our lives. It is a place where none of our children go hungry, where they are warm, they are healthy, and, above all, they are safe from the violence in their homes at the hands of those who are charged with their care.

My dream includes ensuring that we all have the same opportunities, the playing field is levelled, and everyone has a fair go at reaching their potential. It is a place where, when unwell, health care is accessible and affordable according to our circumstances. It is a place where the wealth of the nation can be more fairly distributed to those who need it, without discouraging those who earn it, and where we all pay our fair share. It is also a place where a decent day’s work is rewarded with a decent living wage.

In our current environment of a low-wage economy, we have pushed the unwaged further and further into poverty. We require of them, whether they are capable of it or not, to jump through increasingly more difficult hoops in order to satisfy ourselves that they deserve the help we provide. I fully believe that it is a privilege to have the support of the taxpayer, but it also has to be noted that if those who avoid paying their fair share were required to do so, there would be more to go around. It has also become a place, like no other time before, where holding down a job does not guarantee that you have enough to care for the needs of your family, even if you are working in more than one job.

What I want is a place that listens to the voice of children; that provides support and care for them when they witness and experience the trauma resulting from violence, abuse, or neglect; and where we do not permit damaged children to go on being harmed, but support them to become well, whole, and capable of reaching their potential.

So what would this have meant for James’ mother? What outcome would there have been for him if she had had teenage pregnancy help and support for her mental well-being? What if bonding and attachment with her young baby had been encouraged and nurtured? What if she had had access to training, resources, and housing to raise her young child confidently? What outcomes for James then? He could have been a young man now, embarking on training, work, or study. We will never know, but surely it would have tilted the odds more in his favour.

There is a direct correlation between the level of inequality in a society, the haves and the have-nots, and the level of social harm experienced by that society. Mental unwellness, teenage pregnancy, suicide rates, dependency issues, poverty, and poor health outcomes occur to a greater degree when that gap widens. Tax changes, the living wage, job creation, a regional renewal programme—all these things contribute to a more egalitarian society, a fairer society.

I have actively championed communities to be empowered to decide for themselves what is in their best interests. This can be achieved to benefit communities if they are provided with the right information to make informed choices. There is no doubt that in Canterbury the extraordinary times require extraordinary responses, but I for one have always felt that you should bring the people along the road with you when decisions are made that impact them, their assets, the places where they live, and how they live their day-to-day lives.

So why are communities where I live, in a period of the most significant and profound change of their lives—of an entire generation, most likely—not able to make decisions for themselves? When we measure our responses, as I believe we should, to the plight of our people in the most difficult of times we have experienced in our recent history, will the examination of our conscience make us proud or ashamed?

Here I must pay my respects to my predecessor, Her Worship the Hon Lianne Dalziel, who has taken her formidable skills to now lead our city into a more stable and positive time. I look forward to working with you and thank you for the opportunity you have provided to me. Many of your supporters have said that I have large shoes to fill. At least I start with a healthy footprint.

I would like to take this opportunity to honour the people of the Christchurch East electorate, who, believe me, are not shy to tell you what they really think and who have high expectations for their representatives. Their needs are fairly simple and specific—the opportunity to be heard, for their views to be considered, the ability to be fully participant in the decisions that impact their lives, and, above all, a fair go.

For you, the electorate, I will champion affordable housing that meets your needs and is fit for purpose. I will also champion inclusive democracy in decision making and the speeding up of processes that have stymied your opportunity to move on from the quakes. To the battlers of you out there, keep battling on. Let us get our homes repaired and rebuilt and let us get our community and families reconnected and enjoying the most naturally beautiful part of our city.

As the third anniversary of the 22 February quake nears, I want us all to reflect on the impact that 3 years of stress and unresolved trauma have had on the people I represent, and the resulting ill health, alcohol and substance abuse, rates of violence in the home, high divorce rates, and separation. We have had help to combat the medium-term effects, but as funding for these services is relinquished later this year, the NGO sector will likely pick up an increase in demand, with no resulting increase in resource.

All international literature on the impacts of major disasters states that it is post the third anniversary that levels of unwellness truly escalate and our ability to cope diminishes. It would appear that vulnerability can be determined by a date, and that after 30 June we will no longer need earthquake support to the level we currently receive. We have had to bring in large numbers of workers to cope with the level of rebuild activity for our city, and I would like to think that we are able to provide opportunities for our young people—very many of them unemployed and not in training—with the chance to be the rebuilders of our city. This takes commitment by us to invest in their training in the trades and associated services.

Hand in hand with this is the commitment to invest in activities that create jobs, not just for Canterbury but across the country and, in particular, regional New Zealand. One such activity will be KiwiBuild—Labour’s commitment to build 100,000 homes for New Zealand families. Families build communities, especially if they are able to secure long-term tenure in their homes The relationships and networks that develop are the very threads of a strong social fabric that supports us in our times of need and shares with us in our times of joy and celebration. Our young people could be involved in building the nation’s homes—homes that they may have a once-in-a-lifetime chance to own themselves. However, affordability can be achieved only through the Government’s ability to build in quantity and the ability to access its favourable finance terms.

Today is one of great honour to my family. My loved ones have joined me today and I thank them for their continued support and love and advice. It is an important day for the Cook Islands and Pacific communities as well, and here I want to acknowledge Alfred Ngaro for being the first Cook Islands member of the New Zealand Parliament.

I have the honour of being the first Cook Islands woman in the House of Representatives, the first Cook Islands elected member of Parliament, and I am also the first Pacific representative from Christchurch and from the South Island. I have colleagues and friends here from Christchurch East, including Pacific leaders, without whose support and encouragement and very hard work I would not be celebrating with you today. Meitaki Ma’ata, Faafetai Lava, Malo Aupito.

I want to conclude with a Cook Islands saying: “Me kai koe i to kou poke, e uri to aro ki manava ra.” Never forget that you do not succeed by yourself. At times of your greatest achievement and celebration we must acknowledge those who have provided the opportunity and support that brings you to this reward. And, most especially, we must acknowledge our ancestors, our heritage, and those who have passed on. Therefore, to my parents, Nahora and Marion Williams, my brother, Aaron Marsters, and my guiding light, James Whakaruru, I say moemoe ra, aere ra, meitaki ma’ata.

I hope that all these things bring honour to your memory and serve as a marker of what can be achieved when we stand on your shoulders and raise the expectations for our people who come after us. I leave you with this challenge: to find within you that guiding light, like James Whakaruru is for me—the inspiration to make our country the best place for us, for our children, for our families, and for our community. Mr Speaker, I thank you.

Waiata

JOANNE HAYES (National): Kei āku nui, kai āku rahi, kei āku whakateitei ki te whenua, āku tamarahi i te rangi, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa. I rere mai i ngā pā tūwatawata o tōku matua, a Paikea Ariki Apanui, ka tirotiro noa ki ngā pae maunga o Hikurangi rāua ko Whetūmatarau hei manu taikō, hei manu taki o ngā wai ora o Waiapū rāua ko Awatere, hei oranga mō ngā uri whakaheke o Hinerupe rāua ko Awatere. Kei taku tua, kei taku aro, āku whakaruruhau, te whānau Tūwhakairiroa rāua ko te whānau Te Aotaihī kua eke noa i runga i te waka o Horouta, he mihi maioha ki a koutou katoa. Te kuku o tōku manawa Te Whanau Apanui rāua ko Te Whānau Rangihuna, ngā uri whakatipu o Porourangi, tēnā koutou katoa.

I rere mai i ngā pā tūwatawata o tōku whaea, a Te Arorangi Karaitiana Kate, ka tirotiro hoki ki ngā pae maunga o Rangitūmau rātou ko Ruapehu me Tararua hei manu taikō, hei manu taki o ngā wai ora o Ruamāhanga rātou ko Whanganui me Waipoua, hei oranga mō ngā uri whakatipu o Te Oreore rātou ko Te Puke me Ākura hoki. Kei taku aro, kei taku tua, āku whakaruruhau Ngāti Hāmua rātou ko Te Uenuku me Ākura kua eke noa i runga i ngā waka, Kurahaupō rātou ko Aotea me Tākitimu, he mihi maioha ki a koutou katoa. Te kuku o tōku manawa Rangitāne o Te Wairarapa, Te Āti Haunui-a-Pāpārangi me Ngāti Kahungunu-ki-Te Wairarapa, ka mihi matakuikui anō hoki ki ngā uri whakatipu, te whānau Karaitiana rātou ko te whānau Te Whareponga me te whanau Herewini, tēnā koutou katoa.

[Greetings to my superiors, my numerous, my illustrious to the country, and to those of mine in heaven who can speak for me, salutations and acknowledgments to you all. I came from the fortified villages of my father, Paikea Ariki Apanui, which gazed randomly upon the mountain ranges of Hikurangi and Whetūmatarau, primary and significant sources of health-bearing waters for the Waiapū and Awatere rivers, which sustain the well-being of the descendants of Hinerupe and Awatere. To the families of Tūwhakairiora and Te Aotaihī, members of the Horouta canoe who support, heed, and shelter me, affectionate greetings to you all. To you Te Whānau Apanui and Te Whānau Rangihuna, love of my heart and descendants of Porourangi, greetings to you all.

I came from the fortified villages of my mother, Te Arorangi Karaitiana Kate, which gazed randomly upon the mountain ranges of Rangitūmau, Ruapehu, and Tararua, primary and significant sources of health-bearing waters for the Ruamāhanga, Whanganui, and Waipoua rivers, which sustain the descendants of Te Oreore, Te Puke, and Ākura as well. Ngāti Hāmua, Te Uenuku, and Ākura as well, members of the canoes Kurahaupō, Aotea, and Tākitimu, affectionate greetings to you all. Love of my heart, Rangitāne of Wairarapa, Te Āti Haunui-a-Pāpārangi and Ngāti Kahungunu at Te Wairarapa, and a joyful salutation as well to the relatives and the Karaitiana, Te Whareponga, and Herewini families. Greetings to you all.]

Mr Speaker, tēnā koe and thank you for inviting me to speak my first words in this House. I am privileged and I am humbled that I am able to do this in front of my superiors and my peers, my whānau, and friends here and at home, and surrounded by the taonga that represent the many wars the people of this nation fought on behalf of us so we could live in peace in our whenua, Aotearoa New Zealand.

Prime Minister, the Rt Hon John Key, tēnā koe tōku rangatira, I am ecstatic to be joining the National caucus team under your outstanding leadership. I bring to you and the National caucus my can-do attitude, my loyalty, and my ability to work diligently within the team and for the people of this country.

Mr Speaker, I wish to mihi to our coalition partners, my whanaunga, co-leader of the Māori Party the Hon Tariana Turia, co-leader Te Ururoa Flavell, and the Hon Dr Pita Sharples; the leader of United Future, the Hon Peter Dunne; and the leader of ACT New Zealand, the Hon John Banks. I also want to mihi to the leaders and members of Parliament from the Opposition benches and to the press gallery.

Mr Speaker, I started my life in the small rural town of Eketāhuna, the second child of PK and Kate Apanui. My father worked on Te Hoe station in Alfredton and played rugby for Eketāhuna and the under 21 Wairarapa Bush side. When I was a child, my parents moved from Eketāhuna to the yet smaller rural town of Rangiwāhia. It was there where I spent my childhood. Both my parents dedicated their lives to ensuring that we had kai on our table, clothes on our backs, and a roof over our heads. We were poor in money, yet rich in love and support for each other. Yes, I come to Parliament from a tight-knit whānau with a background of hard work and an attitude that nothing is insurmountable. My father believed that if one worked hard, one would reap one’s just rewards. He knew that our world would be so different from his and so he instilled the whakataukī “E tipu e rea” [grow up and thrive] from our tūpuna, and one of the first Māori MPs, Sir Apirana Ngata. Those words encouraged us to take hold and learn the ways of the Pākehā world while holding on to our Māori world. My father modelled that whakataukī throughout his life. He wanted our future to be one of reaping the rewards that we all worked hard for.

In 1997 my father succumbed to cancer and is buried at Ākura in Masterton. I miss him dearly because I was his wild child turned good. I am fortunate to have my mother in the gallery this afternoon, along with my whānau and extended whānau, hapū, and iwi. Mum was the disciplinarian and educationalist of my parents. Today she is a nan and also a great-nan, a kuia for Wairarapa, and a member of the Wairarapa kaumātua group. Kia ora, Mum. Kia ora, whānau whānui.

It was not until I left home that my life changed dramatically. At age 22 I became an unmarried mother on the domestic purposes benefit, with little to no education qualifications. It was this fright that changed me for ever, and I adopted the saying “If it has to be, then it’s up to me.” I started a successful re-education programme that persists. Along the way I met my soulmate, a man who took me and my son into his life and has believed in us, a man who at times says little but does a lot, a man whom I am proud to have by my side, and one whose side I am proud to stand by. We are equal partners in everything we do and I love him to bits. Mr Speaker, please meet my husband, Pat. Kia ora, Pat. Our sons, Mat and Ben, who are unable to be here today, have brought immense pleasure and pride to our lives as we have watched them and guided them towards adulthood. They are now men of the world, with all the lessons that that brings. Thanks to my daughter-in-law Shan for producing two beautiful mokopuna, Carter and Eli, for it is they who carry the future of all our tomorrows. I know they are watching. Nani J loves you.

I have been blessed with a number of opportunities in my life, but these would have been for nought had it not been for the people whom I have met along the way. There are too many to mention here, but you all know who you are, and I thank you for your support and your guidance. To my friends who have come here today to support me and to those watching at home, I thank you all, for without you even knowing it, your influence and support for me has been invaluable. As you can see, I come to Parliament having walked many roads and learnt many lessons, yet still I want more because I have not finished yet. My past has shaped my future, my family is my foundation, my mokopuna keep me real, and my friends continue to support me on the many journeys I have made and are yet to make.

Today I take the road less travelled than others, and one where I can utilise my skills and experience and learn new ones. I come to Parliament after contesting the 2011 election in the Dunedin South electorate and winning the party vote, a historic feat for the National Party and one that I am most proud of. I thank the Dunedin electorate teams and send my heartfelt thanks to Robyn Broughton, Pippa Newstead, the Young Nats, and volunteers. I bring a wealth of experience, both community and professional. I was one of the first school board trustees to take on the Tomorrow’s Schools challenge, serving for a number of years at our local primary schools as chair and treasurer and then later as deputy chair of FAHS—Feilding High School.

I bring my professionalism in the sectors of health, education, welfare, business, and the rural sector. I have worked in the community and for the community, I have worked for Government agencies and local government, and throughout my career I have taken people with me, as the journey has not been about me alone. I am proud to be a member of National and I want to thank our party president, Peter Goodfellow; the board, with a special mention to Kate Hazlett and Roger Bridge; the regional chairs, with a special mention to Ele Ludemann and Malcolm Plimmer; the electorate chairs; and the service centre staff for all their hard work. Most important, though, I pay tribute to the many volunteers and party supporters who make this party a great party to be a member of and to be a servant of the people of Aotearoa New Zealand.

As the newest National MP, I bring a rigid determination to make a difference for all people of Aotearoa New Zealand and to be an outstanding, hard-working National member of Parliament. Ka mutu taku kōrero tuatahi i roto i tēnei Whare, nā reira, koutou kua rāminemine mai i runga i te whakaaro kotahi, arā, te Whare tāwharau nei, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa.

[So ends my maiden speech in this House. Therefore, to all of you who have assembled here with the one thought in mind about this House of shelter, I greet, salute, and acknowledge you all.]

Waiata

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

Bills

Subantarctic Islands Marine Reserves Bill

In Committee

JAMI-LEE ROSS (Junior Whip—National): I seek leave for all clauses in the Subantarctic Islands Marine Reserves Bill to be taken as one question.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Leave is sought for all provisions to be taken as one question. Is there any objection? There is no objection.

Clauses 1 to 11 and schedules 1 to 3

Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills): Can I first of all express my disappointment about our agreement not to have this bill, the Subantarctic Islands Marine Reserves Bill, taken as 11 separate parts and say that that would have provided us with a lot of opportunity to discuss in depth the matters within this bill. But we agreed to having it taken as one part because we agree with the bill. It is a very good bill. It extends the marine protection for three of the Subantarctic Islands: the Antipodes Island, the Bounty Islands, and Campbell Island. I have had the pleasure of going to Campbell Island but not to the other two yet, and I want to say that having the whole of Parliament agreeing to these provisions, which is what I expect will happen in the third reading, is a very good message to future travellers there.

I also want to extend my congratulations to the Minister who is sitting in the chair, the Associate Minister of Conservation, who has recently been appointed again as a Minister, and I want to acknowledge that and congratulate him. He is, I guess, Associate Minister of Conservation, in his current capacity as Minister in the chair, amongst other things—or perhaps because other Ministers had urgent matters of public business to attend to rather than coming to the House. I actually think that it is very good for the recently reappointed Minister that his first task is to shepherd through a bill that has the support of the entire Parliament. I think that this is a good step.

There are a few issues that I want to raise—

Chris Hipkins: Stop with the sucking up.

Hon RUTH DYSON: It is actually manners, Mr Hipkins. I do not know what has happened to the younger generation. In my day, we would have thought that that was just good form and manners. But I do not know—these young ones today. On a serious note, though, the primary issue that I want to raise in my initial contribution on this bill is a matter that is raised in the interpretation clause, clause 3, which looks at the role that the Minister of Conservation has, but also looks at the role that the Minister for Primary Industries has. I think that in this bill the tension that exists in other examples is not so bad, but in other examples it has provided a dysfunctional process and a very flawed outcome.

Let me give you two examples. The first one is in an area where I think the Government should have absolute shame, and that is the lack of application of the precautionary principle when it looked at provisions for protecting the Māui’s dolphin. There are only 55 Māui’s dolphins left—not just in the North Island, not just in New Zealand, but on the planet. There are 55 adult Māui’s dolphins left in total. When the Minister of Conservation had the job of looking at extended protection, 21,000 submissions were made on those proposals and every single one of them—there were half a dozen exceptions, to be truthful, but nearly every single one of them—wanted exceptional caution to be applied. They also wanted widespread protection to be given to the Māui’s dolphin’s territorial area, like where the Māui’s dolphins crossed Cook Strait, where they settled in the inner harbour, and where they were clearly going out beyond the nautical miles that are in the current provisions. But the Minister of Conservation was not able to adopt what that overwhelming number of submissions said. He was not able to do that because he was tripped up by the need to make that decision with the Minister for Primary Industries.

Unfortunately, just at the current time—but only until the beginning of October, when we will have a new Government elected—the current Minister for Primary Industries does not have a lot of confidence or vision, let alone a bold approach to the future of the fishing industry.

Moana Mackey: Who is it?

Hon RUTH DYSON: That is a very good question. Mr Guy is his name.

Moana Mackey: I thought that it was Phil Heatley.

Hon RUTH DYSON: No. Oh, yes, it might be Phil Heatley. So the Minister for Primary Industries does not have a bold vision, let alone the courage, to put forward a new approach to take the fishing industry not just into the future but into a much better future. We had the opportunity, through that process, for the Minister of Conservation and the Minister for Primary Industries to come out with a solution that was a win-win for everyone. We had the opportunity for a win for the Māui’s dolphin, which we could have saved but is now at real risk of being extinct within our lifetime; we had an opportunity to have a real victory for the fishing industry; and we had a real opportunity for a major victory for New Zealand.

Just imagine the marketing opportunity if the New Zealand fishing industry was able to say that we fish New Zealand waters in a sustainable way. Just imagine the pride that the Minister of Conservation could have had if he had been able to say that we have done every single thing possible to save the Māui’s dolphin. But, oh, no—we will just tinker at the edges. The fishing industry is unhappy because it has lost a bit of its fishing, but the Māui’s dolphin remains critically threatened and our fishing industry is in danger of being subject to a boycott.

The people who buy New Zealand products overseas are looking at the labels more and more. They want to know where the produce was grown, where it was caught, in what manner it was produced, and in what manner it was harvested. If they see that fish was caught in New Zealand waters and threatened the Māui’s dolphin, they are going to say: “To heck with that—we’ll buy our fish from somewhere else.” That is a lose-lose situation. In the interpretation clause of this bill, there is exactly the same lack of clarity about whose job it is to make the proper decision. I think that is a fundamental flaw.

The other example where that joint decision-making creates a tension that is unable to be resolved sensibly is the example that I used in an earlier debate, and that was the proposal by the Hawke’s Bay Regional Council to build a dam in Ruataniwha—

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Order! That is nothing to do with this.

Hon RUTH DYSON: It actually is, Mr Chairman, in regard to the joint decision-making in the interpretation clause of this, which is between the Minister of Conservation and the Minister for Primary Industries. In the Ruataniwha Dam proposal it is a joint decision-making process between the Minister of Conservation, again, and the Minister for the Environment. Unless you have clear leadership from one Minister with a vision about what is proposed, you will end up with the total mess that we have in the Hawke’s Bay—actually, if the dam goes ahead, we will have more of a mess. The Tukituki River is at risk of being turned toxic because of the model they are using in that dam proposal.

This is the only concern that I have with the provisions in this legislation. The bill itself, offering better protection in the subantarctic, is excellent, but having the joint decision-making that is in other legislation—in here made slightly weaker by the requirement to consult with the Minister for Primary Industries—is, I think, a fundamental flaw The Government should decide that if something is worth protecting in a marine reserve, in a national park, in schedule 4 land, or in conservation land, then it should be protected. That should be the message, that should be the bottom line, and that should be the process that is set out in regulation and legislation.

This is another example where the Government cannot quite get it right. It tries to have a dollar each way, and I think it ends up giving unclear messages to the sector, which is foolish and unfair, particularly if it is given to the business community. But it also means that we are less likely to have that vision of protection for some of the most pristine and important waters in our jurisdiction offered to the fullest extent. In my view, that tension is something that should be avoided. We should go back, or go forward, to a time where the Minister of Conservation has a clear mandate to be an advocate for conservation and to be an advocate for better marine protection, and not for that advocacy or vision to be watered down by any responsibility to consult.

I just want to conclude by saying that it is always good to see marine protection supported. New Zealanders have a very strong affinity with the sea. We are surrounded by it. We are an island at the bottom of the world. We love the protection. We want to enhance the quality of our water that goes to the sea. Hopefully, we will be able to do that through other legislation that is not yet before the House. But in this particular instance, it will be a pleasure to cast our vote alongside the Government and—I know—every other party in support of this bill.

GARETH HUGHES (Green): Kia ora. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. It is a great privilege and a pleasure to rise to speak in support of the Subantarctic Islands Marine Reserve Bill in the Committee stage. This is a bill that the Green Party supported through every stage. It is great to see more marine reserves being created around our waters. We want to congratulate the Government and acknowledge the work done by the former Labour Government, which kicked this ball off back in 2006-08.

Marine reserves should not be a partisan, political issue. This should be something that unites the parties, that unites the people, because all New Zealanders, as we have heard in this debate, have an affinity for our oceans. We love it. We want to protect it. Obviously there is always going to be a debate about where, how much, and what level of protection, but it is something that unites us. All of us have our experiences of learning to swim in the sea and summers at the beach or fishing and putting out the craypots with your dad, as I vividly remember doing at Pouawa Beach on the East Coast.

It is important to remember this because New Zealand is an oceanic country with the fourth-largest exclusive economic zone in the world. We may be big on the world stage in some aspects and small in others, but when it comes to the oceans, we are a global superpower. It is great to see the work we have done in the past—from protecting Antarctica to advocating for the Ross Sea and protecting sharks, which we have seen recently in New Zealand. It is great to see New Zealand embrace this, but we need to embrace our oceanic destiny even further. This could be the basis of our prosperity going forward, from more marine protection through to sustainable fishing and export products, through to being a pioneer, even, when it comes to wave and tidal energy. We could be trialling and selling our expertise and services around the world.

We welcome this bill. We support it. We believe that protecting our waters is our future. We were quite happy to support it. If you read the bill, it is pretty small, but a big chunk of the bill is actually taken up with the Green Party minority report. Although we support having marine reserve protection round these three Subantarctic Islands, we would protect all of them. These are World Heritage listed areas. We think they should all be protected. We do not think that anyone around the world is going to be potentially buying crab from a World Heritage listed area that is not protected as a marine reserve.

We are making, I guess you would say, some small progress when it comes to the 10 percent target originally signed up to by the Labour Government in 2000, subsequently signed up by the Minister for the Environment, Amy Adams. We have still got this target of 10 percent of our marine waters being protected in marine reserves. At the moment this legislation takes us from 0.31 to 0.41 percent. The 430,000 hectares contained in this reserve takes us to less than 0.5 percent.

The Green Party would go much, much further than this. We would do things like protect the Kermedec Islands, which overnight would take us to 15 percent. We would modernise our marine reserves legislation, because although we have been voting in support of this bill, it is deeply ironic that in 2014 New Zealand needs legislation to create marine reserves. I find it ridiculous, frankly, that New Zealand needs legislation to make marine reserves.

We were pioneers once upon a time, in 1971, with the Marine Reserves Act. However, subsequent delays by successive Governments mean we still have this antiquated legislation with out-of-date purposes and out-of-date processes, as we heard from the Hon Ruth Dyson. We have this antiquated process that has not served New Zealand well. It has not served our sustainable fisheries brand and it has not served us well in terms of marine protection. So although we support this bill, we oppose the principle that we need legislation. We should have modern, progressive legislation that brings communities together, gives stakeholders a genuine say, gives a genuine voice to iwi, and actually protects our waters, because what the science informs us is that we need 30 to 40 percent of our waters protected in marine reserves for the health and viability of those ecosystems.

This being the Committee stage, it is a chance to go clause by clause through the bill. I am going to take only one or two calls because a lot has been said in the previous stages. I want to acknowledge the select committee process and the Local Government and Environment Committee chair, Nicky Wagner. We obviously put a minority report in. Eugenie Sage and I, the Green members on the Local Government and Environment Committee, pushed for full protection. We were not a lone voice. This is what the majority of submitters were urging—to fully protect these World Heritage areas. That is what a future Green Government would look to be doing.

We welcome the 5-year review, which has been brought forward from 7 years. That is a positive move. I would have preferred that to be brought forward a little sooner, because I think that we can move to 100 percent protection a lot sooner. The single Supplementary Order Paper we have in front of this Committee, Supplementary Order Paper 410—the amendment to be considered by this stage of the debate—relates to moving the establishment of this marine reserve forward. Although we welcome and will be voting for moving the protection of these three Subantarctic Islands forward in time, we have to acknowledge the rationale.

This is what I want to communicate to the people of New Zealand: the Government is doing this to try to look good on the environment. It is trying to look good on the environment because in reality it is hopeless. No amount of spin, no amount of gloss, is going to cover over or paper over those glaring gaps in the environmental performance of New Zealand under 5 years of a National Government. It has managed to take us to less than 0.5 percent of our waters in marine reserves. It is quite happy to see oil wells in the middle of marine mammal sanctuaries. It is quite happy to see benthic mining in the benthic protected areas. It is quite happy to see sanctuaries for Māui’s dolphin that do not provide sanctuary and benthic protected areas that do not provide protection.

We see Ministers standing up and advocating for a company—Trans-Tasman Resources—to literally vacuum up 50 million tonnes of iron ore and sand off the Whanganui coast, a Māui’s dolphin habitat. It is a Government that is prepared to give that very same company $25 million over 5 years. It is the very same Government that stacked the Environmental Protection Agency process against and is not delivering for that small group of brave Kiwis trying to fight this gigantic seabed-mining experiment on the coast. It will not even help them out with environmental legal aid and is putting them through the ringer. We see it in the Chatham Rise, another area under threat from New Zealand. This Government is advocating putting the pompoms on and cheerleading for Chatham Rock Phosphate to mine—to literally vacuum up—the first 5 metres of the seabed. It is quite an interesting situation when it is the Green Party and the fishing industry opposing that particular proposal.

We have heard a lot about the Māui’s dolphin—the 55 that are left. What the Green Party would do is stop the killing of them in nets. It is as simple as that. What the Government’s own data shows is that 95 percent of the mortality is human-induced by unsustainable fishing methods. We would stop the lethal fishing nets. We would protect us from the seabed mining. We would act to reduce our waste flows going into the great garbage patch—our ocean, which is filling up with plastic waste. I am sure Mr Heatley heard about the turtles that are arriving in Northland, his neck of the woods, that are unfortunately ingesting so much plastic that they cannot dive, they cannot eat, and they are unfortunately washing up in New Zealand and perishing.

What we need to do is embrace a future in New Zealand that takes this seriously, that has integrated oceans policy, and that undertakes spatial planning so that we know where to protect and what resources are appropriate and right, obviously with due consultation with iwi and the public of New Zealand. What we need to do is protect what we love, because this is the basis of our $1.5 billion seafood export industry.

This is the basis of who we are as New Zealanders. We love our waters and we want to protect them, and that is what I am quite happy to sing to the rafters in election year. Obviously the Government is trying to make a focus of this during the election campaign and trying to literally use legislation, first of all, to create marine reserves, and, second, to bring forward amendments to try to rush it through to bring it sooner. We welcome the faster inclusion of this reserve. If the Government wants to have an election battle fought on marine protection, I think both sides of this House welcome that. We have got some great ideas and great policy. When you look at the track record, I think New Zealanders know that if you are going to protect the basis of your livelihood and if you are going to protect what you love, you are going to be voting Green in 2014. Kia ora.

NICKY WAGNER (National—Christchurch Central): I am very pleased to support the Subantarctic Islands Marine Reserves Bill. It is very exciting that we are going to have three new subantarctic marine reserves. As we have noted in the Chamber tonight, New Zealanders really do care about the environment, are closely connected to the sea, and really have embraced the idea of marine reserves. Under National, we were the first country in the world to create marine reserves, and the first reserve that we created was in Leigh in 1976. Now, nearly 30 years later and 34 marine reserves—mostly created under National—later, once again we are establishing three huge marine reserves in the Southern Ocean. When I say “huge”, I mean they cover 435,000 hectares. I have just been trying to figure out how much space that actually is. It is about three times the size of Stewart Island. Of course, they are established about 800 miles south of New Zealand—probably south-south-east of New Zealand.

That is an amazing part of the world. There is an incredible, unique biodiversity and there are significant heritage values in those areas. These reserves will surround three island groups in a very similar way to the existing marine reserve surrounding the Auckland Islands. The groups they will surround are the Moutere Mahue/Antipodes Island, the Moutere Hauriri/Bounty Islands, and the Moutere Ihupuku/Campbell Island. Already the land masses of these islands have World Heritage status because they are one of the most untouched areas of the world. They are known for their very prolific and special birdlife and for their unique vegetation, particularly their giant herbs, which are absolutely amazing plants. Now they are going to be surrounded by an ocean that has equal protection.

The Local Government and Environment Committee enjoyed working on this bill because we were really keen to see these reserves put in place and we learnt a lot about these fascinating areas. In fact, there was quite a lot of information about the plants that were there, about the fish, and about the bottom of the seabed. It was a particularly interesting thing to do. We felt that we really wanted to get on with getting these marine reserves in place. We all supported the majority of the bill, but there was some debate over the size of the marine reserve, particularly round Moutere Ihupuku/Campbell Island. We have allowed for an investigation into the deep-sea crab fishing in that area, but we wanted to make sure that that was done in a reasonable time frame, so we shortened the length of time for it to begin—within 3 years—and for it to be completed within 5 years.

I would also like to comment on some of the discussion about the amount of oceans that we have protected as marine reserves. There has often been debate about the idea of 10 percent of our territorial waters protected as marine reserves. In this case, when we add these subantarctic reserves, we will bring that up to 9.5 percent of those territorial waters, and, of course, we have more marine reserves in the pipeline. So I think we are doing a good job to try to cover all the particular diverse environments under the sea, and we are looking at certain areas around New Zealand, particularly in Otago, which is one area that has not been covered as yet.

Overall, the Government and the Local Government and Environment Committee are very happy with this bill and we support it passing as soon as possible through Parliament. I commend the bill to the House.

ANDREW WILLIAMS (NZ First): Firstly, in terms of the Subantarctic Islands Marine Reserves Bill, can I wish the Minister of Conservation all the very best for his cruise down to these islands on a naval vessel in the next coming weeks. In that respect, it is interesting that the very first piece of legislation in this House, this Parliament, of 2014 is this particular bill. It is probably because the Minister tapped his Cabinet colleagues on the shoulder and said: “I am going down there in a couple of weeks. It would be very nice, for the photo opportunity for the National Government, for me to be able to go down to the Subantarctic Islands and be photographed announcing that this has become an Act through Parliament.” Anyway, the Hon Nick Smith will be down there in a few weeks to look at this and we wish him well.

Our Local Government and Environment Committee did wish to visit the same islands to look at this, and the chairman, Nicky Wagner, said that that would be a lovely opportunity for us all to do that, but 12 MPs going to the Subantarctic Islands was not possible. Therefore, we are sending our delegate, the Hon Nick Smith, on our behalf, who sat on our committee when he was in purgatory last year for 6 or 7 months and was being retrained by our committee. While he was being retrained by our committee, he learnt that he would, when he returned to being Minister of Conservation, go on our behalf down to these islands and see what we have come up with.

Dr Paul Hutchison: He will represent you well.

ANDREW WILLIAMS: He will represent us well, we hope. I would note in previous Governments, under a more enlightened Labour Government supported by New Zealand First in previous years, that such delegations with Ministers often included Opposition MPs who have travelled south with our Royal New Zealand Navy to such places. But under this less enlightened National Government, it does not seem to include the Opposition to go to the same places. I think it is something that should be marked in this Parliament—that when we are going to outreaches of the greater New Zealand land mass, which includes these special islands, perhaps some consideration from the Government would be given to the Opposition to ensure that this is seen. Because this has been universally supported by all parties, perhaps the Government could also include other parties who have supported it as well. It would be something that perhaps a National Government could take on board—to be a little bit more inclusive in the future.

But in relation to this bill, it was interesting sitting on the Local Government and Environment Committee. These three groups of islands include the Antipodes Island, the Bounty Islands, and the Campbell Island, with Antipodes Island being the most extreme at 860 kilometres south-east of Stewart Island. It is a most interesting part of the extension of New Zealand’s control. The Antipodes Island was discovered in 1800 by Captain Henry Waterhouse on the British ship HMS Reliance, and it has remained there under the New Zealand coverage ever since. It is now a World Heritage site, which adds to its uniqueness. It is in our most southern ocean. It is most interesting that between the South Island and this area, there will be future exploration for offshore oil, offshore gasses, and all that sort of thing. So it is a most interesting area to now include a marine reserve, while at the same time going into those great southern oceans to explore what minerals and what reserves are out there.

In so saying, New Zealand First is very pleased that there is a 3 to 5 -year review process in terms of what is happening in parts of this reserve. We believed that that was appropriate so that after 3 years or so, the officials and all those involved in this would see how it is working and how it is being administered. That is very good.

In terms of some of the comments that Gareth Hughes made in terms of the Green Party, New Zealand First does have concerns in some of the areas in relation to responsible administration of our environment and the conservation estate. He mentioned, for instance, that the seabed mining on the Chatham Rise was of huge concern to the Green Party and should not be taking place.

I think we all have to be aware as MPs, as parliamentarians, and as New Zealanders that we are sitting on the fifth-largest exclusive economic zone in the world. Out there, there is potentially huge resource. We sat also on that Chatham Rise situation, in terms of the exclusive economic zone—[Bell rung] Mr Chair.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Andrew Williams. You must go for the call. You do not continue speaking. You must go for the call.

ANDREW WILLIAMS: Sorry, Mr Chair. I was too busy thinking of the—

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Well, you have the call now.

ANDREW WILLIAMS: Thank you. I was thinking of the debate on the Prime Minister’s statement, where we had some minutes afterwards.

In terms of that Chatham Rise, they are proposing to take something like 1 percent, in terms of the seabed mining, for rock phosphate, which will provide potentially 100 percent of New Zealand’s phosphate for our agricultural requirements to be brought onshore to the South Island and then distributed through New Zealand. At the moment, all that superphosphate for agriculture comes from Morocco, Algeria, and other sources of questionable future ability—depending on their political situation. It is interesting that we have to, as a nation, properly identify the environmental risks, the sustainability, and what is involved long term in terms of whether we should therefore actually say that 1 percent of the Chatham Rise is worth the risk, to take that phosphate to provide 100 percent of our agricultural phosphate and superphosphate for our agriculture, or say that that 1 percent is not worth the risk.

Certainly in New Zealand First we are known as being the party very much in the centre. We believe that all those economic, sustainability, and environmental issues have to be properly balanced, worked through, and properly identified and properly scrutinised, so that at the end of the day we do not leave New Zealand wanting for the sake of perhaps a very extreme Green Party element, which would cut off opportunities for this economic development of New Zealand for the benefit of the whole nation. In that respect New Zealand First is looking at all these things, such as marine reserves. We are very supportive—right back to 1976, with the Goat Island reserve, through to the latest one in Akaroa Harbour, the reserve that has been gazetted in the last few months, and the 34 other reserves. We in New Zealand First want to see a very, very clear balance between good economic development in this country but, at the same time, good environmental sustainable performance.

This bill, the Subantarctic Islands Marine Reserves Bill, is another example. We see huge merit in this. We see merit in other areas of New Zealand getting marine reserve status, but at the same time ensuring economic opportunities as well, through our fishing industry, through our aquaculture, and through our other industries around the coastline of New Zealand, making sure that they are also looked at in consideration. We have to look at a clear balance. We have to look at a balance that is good for all New Zealanders, but at the same time always, always, try to give the environment the benefit of the doubt. If we always give the environment the first benefit of the doubt, then I think as New Zealanders we can say we have done our very best. In this case, I think as parliamentarians we can be very proud of what we have achieved through this bill. New Zealand First commends it to the House.

BRENDAN HORAN (Independent): I will take a short call in this Committee stage of the Subantarctic Islands Marine Reserves Bill. At the outset I want to affirm my support for the bill, which will establish marine reserves around some, but not all, of the waters round Antipodes Island, the Bounty Islands, and Campbell Island. That is good. Marine reserves are great for our oceans. In more accessible areas, they attract people wanting to see the abundance of marine life.

Hon Todd McClay: What would the weather be like then?

BRENDAN HORAN: Just after Christmas, Mr McClay, I went out to White Island, and it was magnificent. But what was extremely sad was that 30 years ago when I went out to White Island, there was such an abundance of yellowfin tuna. Today they are extremely rare. People are dreadfully aware of what they are dreadfully aware of. The diminishing fish stock that we have in our oceans is something that all New Zealanders should be concerned about.

There is a severe risk to these new marine reserves that we are establishing tonight, and, indeed, to all marine reserves. The risk is the hands-off approach that this John Key - led Government adopts towards maritime transport, to the ships that traverse our territorial waters. There have been a number of shipwrecks over the years on the islands that we are discussing, and of course near my home in Tauranga Moana we had the disastrous event when the Rena met the Astrolabe Reef. Perhaps even more disastrous is the fact that this Government is doing nothing to stop the Mediterranean Shipping Co. from leaving that rotting wreck on the pristine Astrolabe Reef. As John Clarke so notably said, the front came off the ship, and the front is not supposed to come off the ship.

Members opposite might think that I am being alarmist with talk of another Rena type of disaster possibly occurring in these marine reserves that we are creating tonight. But I say this to those members: let us take a brief look at the track record of the Mediterranean Shipping Co., the operator of the Rena. Just 4 weeks ago the Mediterranean Shipping Co. vessel Monterey was off the coast of Newfoundland in the North Atlantic—

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Order! This is about those islands you identified at the beginning and about marine reserves. It is not about a shipping company with a flag overseas. Focus on the 11 clauses and the schedules of this bill.

BRENDAN HORAN: Point of order—

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): No, I have ruled. You have the call.

BRENDAN HORAN: OK, thank you. My great concern with these islands—Antipodes Island, the Bounty Islands, and Campbell Island—is that they are vulnerable to pollution if one of these maritime shipping company vessels goes within even 200 kilometres of those islands. Where are the safeguards? The fact is that this Government has proven it cannot remove oil from a ship wrecked on a rock just 20 kilometres off the coast of New Zealand. What is this Government going to do if a ship strands on these islands? That is the question that I ask of those members. How do we enforce fishing regulations around those islands? How do we stop foreign vessels going there when our armed forces have been decimated by this Government?

Mr Chair, I do not want to get offside with you, but I am extremely concerned about the risks that these ships pose to these islands, so I will end here. I support this bill. Thank you.

Hon PHIL GOFF (Labour—Mt Roskill): Former Labour Prime Minister David Lange once famously described New Zealand as being a strategic dagger pointed at the heart of Antarctica. He was making a very obvious point to, I think, the geriatric generals at the time, which was that if anybody was planning to invade New Zealand on the way to somewhere else, the only place that they were on the way to was the subantarctic waters and Antarctica.

But we have had a very special relationship with those areas. They are part of our exclusive economic zone. We have particular responsibilities for the Subantarctic Islands. We have responsibility for the fisheries that are there, and we have special responsibilities for Antarctica. That was reflected in the fact that New Zealand was an original signatory to the Antarctic Treaty back in the 1950s. New Zealand would very much like to be seen as a world leader in protecting the environment in these areas. We had the chance to do this when, in 1998, the areas that we are talking about, the Subantarctic Islands and their territorial seas, were declared to have World Heritage status.

World Heritage status created special responsibilities for New Zealand. We were the guardians for the world community, to ensure that these areas were properly protected. I was proudly part of the fifth Labour Government, which started to make some very important inroads into the protection of those areas. For example, in 2003 we moved to fully protect as a marine reserve the area round the Auckland Islands, which are part of this widespread island group. In 2007 we moved to prohibit both bottom trawling and dredging. There is an important reason why we did that. We looked at the northern hemisphere and we saw how the northern hemisphere countries had turned their oceans into deserts, wiping out the fish life. Having wiped out the fish life in the northern hemisphere, the next target would be the southern hemisphere, including the areas for which we had responsibility. So those important steps were taken to protect the Auckland Islands as a marine reserve area and to stop bottom trawling and dredging.

Then in 2006 the Government brought together the Department of Conservation and the Ministry of Fisheries, and said that it needed a marine protected areas policy—a marine protected areas policy—which was the foundation for the legislation that we are looking at tonight, the Subantarctic Islands Marine Reserves Bill. To develop that policy, in 2008 we set up the Subantarctic Islands Marine Protection Planning Forum. That was to bring in expert and public opinion to go through a thorough consultation process, to determine how we could protect the islands and the seas round them. The islands themselves were not so much of a problem because they are protected under the 1977 Reserves Act. So we could protect the pristine, beautiful, and bleak nature of those islands, but we needed further legislation to deal with the marine areas around them.

The islands that we are talking about are very special places. Antipodes Island, which in Māori—if I have got my pronunciation right, and Moana Mackey will correct me if I have not—is Moutere Mahue. What does that mean? It means an abandoned island. Well, when you look at the Antipodes you cannot imagine that it was ever inhabited, but the term “abandoned island” gives you a sense of the bleakness but also of the beauty of that place. The Bounty Islands in Māori are Moutere Hauriri—angry wind—and that tells you something about that area of the world and the nature of it, which is inhospitable, but, nevertheless, because it was so inhospitable, it was an area that remained ecologically pristine. Very few human beings intruded on that area and therefore the ecosystems were intact. Our obligation in this generation is to continue to protect that ecosystem.

Campbell Island has another meaning in Māori—Moutere Ihupuku—which is “nose and belly”. I have tried everywhere to find out why it is called “nose and belly”. I think I talked to Shane Jones about it at one time, and Shane Jones said something about it reflecting that Government policy was belly up on this area.

All of these islands are very special, and the areas around them are equally special. When I look at the regulatory impact statement on this bill, it makes these comments, and I think they are worth reflecting upon: “each of the island groups”, it says, “is highly distinct biologically, geologically and geographically. [The] Antipodes Island rocky reefs support subantarctic shallow subtidal marine communities dominated by encrusting coralline algae, the rocky reefs at the Bounty Islands are dominated by filter and suspension-feeding invertebrates, such as encrusting sponges, barnacles and mussels.” It says this: “Each island group also supports its own suite of threatened and/or endemic species, living or breeding only on and around these remote islands. The subantarctic islands and their territorial seas have been subject to minimal human impact and are therefore near-pristine …”. The reason that we need this legislation is to ensure that it stays that way.

We have progressed this legislation at each point. I spoke at the first reading in support of it. Our members on the Local Government and Environment Committee did a great job in examining and supporting it. My only regret is that it is 4 years since the forum was set up to make progress. I think it is a reflection of the low priority that has been given to environmental protection by this Government that it is has taken 4 years for this legislation to get here today. It is our intention today not to delay the legislation in any way, but to ensure it proceeds through its Committee stage and gets its third reading so that it can be brought into effect as soon as possible.

If we want to be leaders in the protection of the subantarctic and Antarctic environments, we need to act here. I regret that we have not been effective in other areas. We seem to have totally stuffed up, if I can use that term, the Ross Sea marine protected area, which is before the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources group, which is trying to protect the fisheries in the Ross Sea. One of the reasons that we stuffed it up is that we failed to coordinate with the Americans in the first instance, and it looked more like we wanted to protect our $20 million fishing industry in the area than protect the inherent value of the environment. That lost us credibility in the world because they said: “You’re just like all the other countries. You’re only interested in this for what you can extract out of it.” We have a responsibility as the guardians of this area.

I have to agree with my colleague Ruth Dyson on her comments about the Māui’s and the Hector dolphin. Those are the most endangered species in the world, but in the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s World Conservation Congress meeting in Korea in 2012, we were one of only two countries that opposed the protection of these dolphins—in our own area. There are 55 Māui’s dolphins left, and the National Party opposed it. So one of the reasons why we need this legislation to go through with all speed now is to try to resurrect some of our credibility as a country that is worthy of leadership in the subantarctic and Antarctic areas, and that is why we are supporting this legislation.

This is legislation that was initially promoted not by a National Government but by a Labour Government, but was fortunately followed through with all due slowness by this National Government. It is time we had this protection on the books and in legislation. It is time for this legislation to pass.

EUGENIE SAGE (Green): Yes, it is certainly time for this legislation to pass, and the fact that it has taken nearly 6 years before we get marine reserves in the Subantarctic Islands shows—[Interruption]

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Order! This barracking across the benches is unacceptable. I am going to ask the member to start again.

EUGENIE SAGE: Thank you, Mr Chair. It is certainly time for this legislation to pass, and the fact that it has taken 6 years for these marine reserves to be established in a World Heritage area I think highlights some of the flaws with our marine reserves legislation. We had the multi-stakeholder forum, as the Hon Phil Goff noted, being established in 2008. That forum went out to public consultation in 2009, it made recommendations to the Minister in 2010, this bill was introduced in 2012, and it will come into force in March of this year. That is 6 years. The fact that we have got special legislation being needed to establish them, rather than their being done under the Marine Reserves Act itself, again shows the urgent need for an overhaul of that Act. This Government has made promises that there will be new marine reserves legislation. We have not seen it yet. One of the flaws of the need for special legislation is that we will not see these marine reserves in the subantarctic protected from mining, because the legislation is not specifically referred to in schedule 4 of the Crown Minerals Act, which I will talk about in a minute.

The Green Party is supportive of this bill and it is because the Subantarctic Islands are, as other speakers have noted, really distinctive. They have got a whole raft of marine life and seabirds that are found only there, and really important breeding and feeding areas for the New Zealand fur seal, for the New Zealand sea lion, and for a range of albatross and petrel species. Because they were recognised in 1998 as being internationally important, with World Heritage status, our obligation to protect the Subantarctic Islands is not just to other New Zealanders and to the species themselves but to all of humankind. So we are very pleased to see the legislation proceeding.

As others have noted, we already have a marine reserve round the Auckland Islands. That was established in 2003. This bill will establish marine reserves round Moutere Mahue, the Antipodes Island; Moutere Hauriri, the Bounty Islands; and Moutere Ihupuku, Campbell Island, but in the Green Party’s view it falls well short of providing the protection that the outstanding and internationally important biodiversity values of the Subantarctic Islands actually deserve. The Government has been too cautious, and that is because although it protects the full extent of the territorial sea round the Antipodes Island, it protects only 58 percent of the territorial sea round the Bounty Islands and 39 percent of the territorial sea round Campbell Island The Minister has said that he wants the Government to establish a record number of marine reserves this year, but if they are all like these ones, they will fail to protect all of the habitats and all of the biological diversity that deserves to be safeguarded for its own sake and for present and future generations, and to ensure that our fisheries are sustainable.

As Phil Goff noted, we had the chance to be a world leader. Here, in relation to the Subantarctic Islands, I do not think we have been because of the truncated nature of the reserves. One of the reasons that the Green Party believes that we should have all of the territorial sea round both the Bounty Islands and Campbell Island protected in a marine reserve is that all of these islands are separated by large expanses of ocean. That means that their geology, their geography, and their biology are quite different. They are quite distinctive in each of the island groups and they have a number of endemic species, which again deserve protection. On the Bounty Islands you have got the Salvin’s mollymawk. There are at least five species of albatross that rely on Campbell Island, and there is a huge link between their habitats on the islands and their feeding areas at sea, so it would make sense to recognise this interdependence of land and sea by protecting all of the territorial sea.

Doing that round the Bounty and Campbell Islands would have also included the core breeding and feeding area for the second major population of the threatened New Zealand sea lion, as well as the feeding areas of several albatross and petrel species. By including all of the territorial sea, we would have recognised the endemism—the fact that some of these species like the Bounty Island shag are found nowhere else in the world—and it would have had minimal impact on other users such as fishers because of the very limited commercial fisheries in the area. There is no customary fishing. Ngāi Tahu supported full protection of the full extent of the territorial sea. So what we have got is one reserve round the Antipodes Island, which encompasses the full extent of the territorial sea, but we have reserves with big bites out of them where fishing can continue round the Bounty Islands and round Campbell Island.

Again, this fails to take account of the views of submitters. The Tourism Industry Association said in its submission there was “a unique opportunity to fully protect the marine environment and in doing so to show environmental leadership” and demonstrate “a commitment to the environment and long-term sustainability.” In the view of the Tourism Industry Association, where you have got about 800 to 11,000 visitors a year, making a full marine reserve to encompass all of the territorial sea would have enhanced its attractiveness as a destination. It would have given scientists the opportunity to study undisturbed ecosystems, and it would have reflected the option that the environmental groups put forward to Ministers from the Subantarctic Islands Marine Protection Planning Forum. So it was really disappointing that the Minister and Government members of the Local Government and Environment Committee refused to take that extra step and that they were so cautious and only wanted to go with the original boundaries that were supported by the fishing industry.

One of the reasons that the Government is even prepared to create reserves here in the first place is the very small amount of commercial fishing—there is a limited amount of ling fishing around the Bounty Islands—and the fact that the Petroleum Exploration and Production Association said that its members had very little interest in the area. They are not interested in deep-sea oil exploration in this area and there are no proposals for mining activity. If there had been the slightest interest from the mining industry or from the oil-drilling industry, Ministers would have run a mile from establishing marine reserves, given the record of this Government to open up our deep sea to oil exploration and to seabed mining over large areas of the seabed.

One of the problems with this bill, which I alluded to earlier, is that schedule 4 of the Crown Minerals Act, as amended last year, protects marine reserves and restricts the Minister of Conservation and the Minister of Energy and Resources from granting access for mining. Schedule 4 refers only to the Marine Reserves Act. It does not refer to specific legislation like this Act. So I would ask the Minister in the chair whether he could comment on that—certainly the select committee should have probably picked this up, but we did not—and whether there could be a Supplementary Order Paper that makes sure that the outstanding biodiversity and ecological values of the Subantarctic Islands marine reserves that the bill will create will be protected from mining through being recognised in schedule 4 of the Crown Minerals Act, because they are not at the moment.

I would just like to go on and talk about clause 6 of the bill, which sets out the boundaries for the Bounty Islands reserve. There, longline fishing is going to be able to continue because of the small nature of the reserve round the western and south-eastern part of the territorial sea. Yet why is the Government allowing this when in recent years the average ling catch has been 129 tonnes within the territorial sea, worth about $500,000? So the impact on fishers of having a proper marine reserve here would have been minimal. That amount of fishing is equivalent to about 20 longlines a year—potentially only one ling fisher, Forest and Bird has calculated. So it is hardly essential to the fishing industry and the Government could have easily established a reserve over all of the territorial sea. If the Government had chosen to do this, it would have protected seabirds from becoming bycatch in that fishery.

We will be supporting this bill, but it does not go far enough because of the big areas that are missing round the Bounty Islands and the Campbell Island group. We do congratulate the Minister on actually progressing the legislation to coincide with his trip south, the chair of the Local Government and Environment Committee, Nicky Wagner, on the process that she has organised for this, and also officials, particularly from the Department of Conservation and the Parliamentary Counsel Office, on their contribution. We look forward to the legislation passing. Thank you.

MOANA MACKEY (Labour): I want to start off by following on from my Green colleague Eugenie Sage and her question around the status of this piece of legislation, the Subantarctic Islands Marine Reserves Bill, in terms of the schedule 4 protection that would normally be accorded to marine reserves under the Crown Minerals Act. It certainly was not something that we picked up at the Local Government and Environment Committee, either. I think it is something that probably should have been raised at the committee, given the numerous pieces of legislation that we have had through Parliament around this very sensitive and contentious issue. I suspect that the fact that it was not raised with the committee answers the question. I suspect that if some kind of level of protection at the level of schedule 4 was being accorded to these marine reserves, as it would have been under the Crown Minerals Act, we would have been told that and it would have been trumpeted in every speech from Government members. But I would ask that the Associate Minister of Conservation in the chair clarify that point. If, in fact, we are saying that this is a lesser form of marine protection, then that is deeply concerning.

That is not to take away from what is on the whole a good piece of legislation, and a piece of legislation that Labour will be supporting. But if mining activities are allowed to be carried out in the waters surrounding the three islands where these marine reserves are being created, then that is of deep concern because that is not in the spirit of the marine reserves legislation. That is not in the spirit of the policy that has certainly been followed by Labour Governments and, purportedly, from speeches in the House that we have heard on this bill, by National Governments. So I would really appreciate the Minister in the chair, even if it is only a 20-second contribution, letting us know whether or not that is the case—whether or not, in fact, this is a lesser form of marine protection.

Our understanding, given the advice we were given at the select committee—and I want to acknowledge the work of officials on this—was that, in fact, the Marine Reserves Act is very outdated and clunky. It is a very long process. It takes a lot of time, and certainly we do not disagree with that at all, and so this is a way of making sure that we get this protection in place as quickly as possible through a separate legislative process. We took that on board and thought, well, it does raise the bigger question of what we are going to do about the marine reserves legislation in New Zealand. If our marine reserves legislation is actually preventing the creation of marine reserves in and of itself, then that is a much bigger problem that needs to be addressed and a debate for a different piece of legislation. But certainly we supported a stand-alone bill if it meant actually getting some protection afforded to these very ecologically unique and significant World Heritage sites. So I look forward to the Minister’s clarification on that particular issue.

I want to come back to this issue of shared decision-making, power, and responsibility between the Minister of Conservation and what was formerly the Minister of Fisheries but is now the Minister for Primary Industries. This is particularly relevant in this piece of legislation because in clause 8 we have a process within the bill to review whether or not the marine reserve that is currently partially surrounding Campbell Island should be extended further. The select committee decided that that review should occur after 3 years, not 5 years. Submitters who came to the select committee were asking for a review after 1 year of marine protection. As a select committee, we thought 3 years was a compromise. But the process that is outlined in this piece of legislation is not a process that I am aware occurs in any other piece of legislation in terms of these decision-making powers and, in particular, with relevance to marine reserves. What we go through in this process that has been outlined in clause 8 is what the review must take into account.

Of course, this is an issue because there is a deep-water crab fishery around Campbell Island, and, obviously, the Government had concerns about the impact on that particular fishing industry, so it did not include the part of the marine area round Campbell Island where that activity was taking place. So it has to consider the value of that additional area that is not going to be in protection, the impact of that deep-water crab fishery in that additional area on the marine environment and ecosystems, and the biodiversity values in the additional area that is proposed to be added if that review deems it should be.

The review must include consultation with relevant stakeholders. Then the Minister of Conservation must, after receiving that review report, provide the report to the Minister for Primary Industries. Clause 8 then goes on to say that the Ministers must consult each other about the report, which is fine, and then no later than 90 working days after receiving the report, the Minister for Primary Industries must provide to the Minister of Conservation his or her response to the report. Well, that all seems, you know, very fine and OK. But it does go on to say that the Minister of Conservation may recommend the making of the Order in Council only with the agreement of the Minister for Primary Industries. So, again, we have this decision-making power where a power—and there certainly should be, in terms of marine reserves, consultation between the Minister of Conservation and the Minister for Primary Industries, absolutely. But, again, we have this kind of veto power that we are seeing, time and time again, once again undermining the role of the Minister of Conservation.

We have seen that in terms of mining on the conservation estate, where the decisions as to whether or not to grant a Department of Conservation concession for mining activity on the conservation estate used to be held solely with the Minister of Conservation; that is now a responsibility shared with the Minister of Energy and Resources. I remember that the former Minister of Conservation Kate Wilkinson, when that was announced, was sitting alongside the then Minister of Energy and Resources, Gerry Brownlee, trying to convince us that this was an equal relationship and an equal decision-making capacity. Minister Wilkinson was not allowed to say anything, and Minister Brownlee controlled the entire press conference.

Here we are seeing it again. Here we are seeing it again, where again we have the Minister for Primary Industries having this veto power. I do not know what kind of precedent there is for this kind of process that we are putting in this legislation. I do not know who trumps if they cannot agree—if the Minister of Conservation says: “Well, actually, I disagree with the Minister for Primary Industries that this should not go ahead.”, and the Minister for Primary Industries says: “Well, actually, I think it should go ahead, so I disagree with the Minister of Conservation that this should be protected.”

The wording of this bill really worries me because it makes it sound like it is the Minister for Primary Industries who has the final call. It actually says that the extension cannot go ahead without the agreement of the Minister for Primary Industries. So let us be quite clear that that is who is making the decision about the extension of the marine protected area around Campbell Island. It is not the Minister of Conservation; it is the Minister for Primary Industries. That is not how it should be. That is a further undermining of the role of the Minister of Conservation under this particular Government.

I think the other issue that we have is that when you put these processes in place—and we are seeing it right throughout environmental legislation—you need a process that really does do away with the kind of natural hierarchy that exists, or the bias that exists, within Governments for one group over another. You want a process that gives everyone fair input and that reflects the relative power of the various groups, and I do not believe that this process meets that test. Certainly, with the undermining of the Resource Management Act, with the exclusive economic zone legislation, and with the changes to the Crown Minerals Act—we could go on and on and on—what we are seeing is an injecting of the Government’s natural bias for its preferred supporters and preferred submitters into actual legislation. That is also extremely unhelpful and actually undermines public confidence in these processes, which should be there to ensure that that bias is accounted for and does not become part of the decision-making process.

To finish on a positive note, I think the select committee enjoyed working on this bill. It was nice to have a piece of legislation at the Local Government and Environment Committee that was not environmentally destructive for once, so we enjoyed working on it. I think there is scope for parties across the House to work far more collaboratively and closely—

Hon Peter Dunne: Work together.

MOANA MACKEY: —working together, thank you, Minister—on marine protected areas, because I think there is some common ground. I take on board the points that Eugenie Sage raised about how these areas are not valuable for fishing or mining and that is why we have gone ahead. At least we have gone ahead. You know, if we can get common ground at least on those things, then let us do it and let us really ramp this stuff up, and then in areas where there is more contention, we can have votes across the House where we disagree or where the National Government does not want to stop mining or fishing in a certain area. But I think there is a lot of common ground and there are a lot of areas where we could really make great progress in this area. I notice the Minister is consulting his officials, and hopefully we have some clarification. That is all we need, so I am happy to sit down now and I am happy to support this bill.

Hon PETER DUNNE (Associate Minister of Conservation): I am happy to accept the invitation of the member and take a micro-call in response to the concerns that she and the previous speaker, Eugenie Sage, raised about the status of marine reserves that might be established under this legislation. Can I just refer both of them to clause 9 of the bill, which says that a marine reserve declared by the relevant sections of this bill “is to be treated as if it were declared by an Order in Council made under section 4(1) of the Marine Reserves Act 1971 in accordance with that Act.” In other words, the status of these reserves will be the same as the status of other reserves established under the Marine Reserves Act.

Can I just simply acknowledge the support of all members of the House for the bill. It is, as various members who have spoken have said, a very positive step forward. We did act collaboratively and positively, and I am very keen now to see the bill progress to its next stage.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 410 in the name of the Hon Dr Nick Smith to clause 2 be agreed to.

Amendment agreed to.

Clauses 1 to 11 and schedules 1 to 3 as amended agreed to.

Bill to be reported with amendment presently.

Bills

Airports (Cost Recovery for Processing of International Travellers) Bill

In Committee

Debate resumed from 10 December 2013.

Part 1 Preliminary provisions (continued)

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 18 in the name of the Hon Nathan Guy to Part 1 be agreed to.

Amendments agreed to.

Part 1 as amended agreed to.

Part 2 Cost recovery

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Papers 18 and 225 in the name of the Hon Nathan Guy to Part 2 be agreed to.

Part 2 as amended agreed to.

Schedule

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Papers 18 and 125 in the name of the Hon Nathan Guy to the schedule be agreed to.

Amendments agreed to.

Schedule as amended agreed to.

Clauses 1 and 2

Clause 1 agreed to.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 225 in the name of the Hon Nathan Guy to clause 2 be agreed to.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause 2 as amended agreed to.

Bill to be reported with amendment presently.

House resumed.

The Chairperson reported the Subantarctic Islands Marine Reserves Bill with amendment and the Airports (Cost Recovery for Processing of International Travellers) Bill with amendment.

Report adopted.

Bills

Arts Council of New Zealand Toi Aotearoa Bill

Third Reading

Debate resumed from 28 January.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Honourable members, when the Arts Council of New Zealand Toi Aotearoa Bill was last being debated, I think my cousin the honourable member Grant Robertson had 8 minutes remaining to speak.

GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central): Sorry, Mr Assistant Speaker, how long have I got left?

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Mr Robertson, you have 8 minutes remaining.

GRANT ROBERTSON: Excellent—very, very good.

Chris Hipkins: I move for an extension of time.

GRANT ROBERTSON: Well, that is right, before I have begun—that is a good idea. I think we should start by first saying that the Assistant Speaker and I do indeed share a last name, and I admire the Robertson tartan tie that he is wearing—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Thank you.

GRANT ROBERTSON: —distantly related as we are.

When I was talking last night I had come to what is one of the Labour Party’s principal concerns with the Arts Council of New Zealand Toi Aotearoa Bill, and that is the disestablishment of Te Waka Toi, which is the Māori arts funding body, and the Pacific Arts Committee. Both of those organisations, which have a long history of funding the arts in New Zealand, disappear from view tonight. In fact, as we discovered in the Committee stage, “Te Waka Toi” is now a banned phrase. Nobody is allowed to use the phrase “Te Waka Toi” from this moment onwards, as a result of one of the clauses in this bill. So not only is the bill expunging Te Waka Toi from its job and its work but it is taking the name out and saying that it actually cannot be used. That is just how far this Government is going with this bill.

It is not true to say that the Arts Council or Creative New Zealand are perfect bodies. There is always room for improvement. There is always room for streamlining of governance structures. But the problem with this bill is that it takes a sledgehammer to that issue and it says that there will be one body, that there will be four people who will be responsible for making sure that Māori perspectives are covered, and that there will be two people making sure that Pacific perspectives are covered. On this side of the House we simply do not believe that that is an adequate representation for Māori and Pacific arts in New Zealand.

The truth is that Māori and Pacific arts have flourished under the model that has been working through the Arts Council in the last few years. Māori artists believe in the Te Waka Toi brand. They believe in the fact that they will be supported as Māori artists by a body that understands them. The Pacific Arts Committee has overseen the development of Pacific artists like Jonathan Lemalu, like Victor Rodger—people who have contributed so much to New Zealand—and that leadership goes tonight with this bill. We on this side of the House simply do not agree with that approach.

The Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage has told us that it will be perfectly possible for the Māori members or those with knowledge of Māori custom who are on the new Arts Council to form their own committee and potentially make funding decisions. That is what he told us in the Committee stage. Well, if that is the case, just leave Te Waka Toi in place and let it get on with doing its job. But, no, the Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage, who knows so much better about the arts than anybody else—

Moana Mackey: And everything else.

GRANT ROBERTSON: —and everything, in fact—says to us that this is the structure—

Maggie Barry: More than you, that’s for sure.

GRANT ROBERTSON: Maggie Barry, another member of the arts scene over the back there—

Hon Member: The brains trust.

GRANT ROBERTSON: That is right.

Maggie Barry: Jealous and unpleasant, as usual.

GRANT ROBERTSON: You should not talk about Chris Finlayson like that. Maggie Barry should not talk about Chris Finlayson like that. Calling Chris Finlayson jealous and unpleasant is a terrible, terrible thing to do in this House tonight.

Moana Mackey: An understatement.

GRANT ROBERTSON: It could be an understatement, Moana—it could be.

In addition to the complete destruction of Te Waka Toi and the Pacific Arts Committee, this bill is also confused in several areas. One of those is in the future of community arts and the name of the community arts councils. In the Committee stage we were simply unable to get a clear answer from the Minister as to what the future of community arts councils is. It is quite clear from those who submitted on the bill that they also were concerned about this. It now seems that the name “community arts council” is potentially available to people from outside a region to come into a region and call themselves a community arts council, but the control of that name is also now kept within the Arts Council.

To me, this speaks of a Government and, in particular, a Minister who does not understand the importance of community arts, who does not understand what grassroots communities need when it comes to fostering creativity. It is a Minister who thinks that arts start and end at the symphony orchestra and the ballet, and he might chuck Neil Diamond in on a good day. That is the arts to Chris Finlayson, and that is not enough.

Kris Faafoi: Come on, don’t be mean to Neil.

GRANT ROBERTSON: Oh, there are some Neil Diamond fans on this side of the House, so I withdraw and apologise for saying that. But it is fair to say that this Minister does not have an understanding of the arts beyond the narrow field that he believes constitutes what should be funded.

We have at this time, for instance, a crisis in the publishing industry in New Zealand. It is a fantastic thing to see Eleanor Catton up on the world stage, but the reality is that support for authors, writers, and publishers in New Zealand is at an all-time low, and they are struggling.

Maggie Barry: Rubbish!

GRANT ROBERTSON: Maggie Barry says that is rubbish. Go out and talk to people in the publishing industry and actually listen to what they say—actually listen to what people in the publishing industry say. They say that this National Government does not support them. Independent publishers want to know where the support is for them. Authors want to know where the support is for them. This is a Government that has overseen the end of a publication that has been published annually for 20 or 30 years—Sport magazine—which publishes new authors every year. It is gone under this Government because this Government does not understand the importance of arts and literature beyond the narrow field that its Minister sees.

This bill, unfortunately, will pass tonight because it has been unthinkingly put through by this Government. I expect that in years to come we will return to a different model, a more inclusive model, of arts funding, because this is not the answer. The Arts Council of New Zealand has funded fantastic things over the years. This Minister has decided that his great legacy will be to tinker around with the bureaucracy. That is not good enough. We need a Government that will support arts, from the community level right up to those who go overseas, like Lorde and like Eleanor Catton—

Maggie Barry: You had your chance and did nothing.

GRANT ROBERTSON: Oh, Maggie Barry says that we had our chance and we did nothing. Maggie Barry says that. We had to put in an arts recovery package because Maggie Barry’s party was so hopeless in the arts. We had to put $80 million in.

Helen Clark led the arts in this country. When Labour gets back into Government again, we will ensure that the arts recover, and Maggie Barry will see what a real arts Minister looks like.

CHRIS AUCHINVOLE (National): What a crescendo the last speaker, Grant Robertson, ended with—what a crescendo he ended with. He did not, however, say or conclude his little story of throwing money at the arts with the bit about reminding them there was GST included, which caused considerable stress to the recipients of the funds.

It is a privilege to be speaking at the third reading of the Arts Council of New Zealand Toi Aotearoa Bill. Here we are in Wellington, the arts capital of New Zealand, a good location to be discussing the future of one of New Zealand’s—as National perceives it—most important arts sponsorship organisations, the Arts Council of New Zealand. We will talk shortly about the purpose of this bill, but did I hear a tinge, just a sense, a touch, a pinch of envy from the members on the other side when they speak about this bill?

Maggie Barry: Jealousy.

CHRIS AUCHINVOLE: Jealousy? Perhaps jealousy or perhaps they wish this was their bill that they could introduce, because it is what should have been done. They will deny that, but we know, as Labour members do in their heart of hearts, that they wish this was their bill, hence the impassioned plea, because they did get a tinge, just a touch, through the activities of their previous Prime Minister, of working with the arts. Then, though, they neglected the structure. The purpose of this bill is to streamline the fundamental organisation, saving $200,000 per annum, and making a leaner single council of 13 members, including four representatives with specialist knowledge of tikanga Māori and two representatives with specialist knowledge of Pacific arts.

When Minister Finlayson began speaking about this he described the previous structure as a series of tiers, and that put me in mind of the wonderful quote of Dylan Thomas when he said: “Cardiff is built like an onion, tier upon tier. And you can spell ‘tier’ however you like.” I guess it was the same with the previous council structure here.

With the representation of New Zealand as the guest of honour at the Frankfurt Book Fair, New Zealand experienced a coming of age internationally, recognised for its myriad of authors, actors, musicians, as well as the living oral tradition of Māoritanga. To maintain such a presence over such a long period as the guest of honour was a tremendous tribute to the organisation that Mr Finlayson oversees. So the timing of the adjustment to the Arts Council can be seen as a coming of age and a chance to recognise that the strength and functionality of the arts sector in New Zealand is another vital way of recognising New Zealand’s increasing status as an emerging leader in the international arts world. I am sure every member of this House can reflect with pride on some of the achievements that have been given status lately.

Technical adjustments to the funding body of what is currently known as Creative New Zealand include making a single council composed of 13 members under a single Minister so that communications are clear and, just as important, timely, allowing decisions about upcoming projects to be made in plenty of time. This bill not only includes but actually enshrines Māori and Pacific representation, allowing the all-important self-representation of these living arts traditions. The bill removes the necessity of providing a strategic plan every 3 years, which absorbs so much of experts’ time, so that the fine minds hired by this organisation can be used to discuss the arts, artists, and their current and future projects, as opposed to the joys of being mired in renewing the debate on updating committee principles or the didactics of rewording the company philosophy.

There is also a focus on arts projects for youth, such as the Original Scripts Youth Company, which funded 16 to 19-year-olds in Christchurch to write a play as a reaction, a response, to the earthquakes, allowing young talent to get the kind of coverage that would be hard to replicate without the support of a group such as the Arts Council. Whether discussing the Indian Ink Theatre Company, which wrote the popular Krishnan’s Dairy; the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra; or the new plans for Te Papa in Auckland, it is impossible to avoid mentioning a project sponsored by the Arts Council.

By passing this bill, increasing the efficiency and ensuring the longevity of this important arts organisation, we will strengthen this leader in New Zealand’s international arts representation. I commend this bill to the House.

JACINDA ARDERN (Labour): I listened with interest to the last speaker, Chris Auchinvole, before he resumed his seat. He talked about his concerns about throwing money at the arts, before he embarked upon what was a very poetic statement. I was not entirely sure how it fitted in, but I am sure that quote is going to stay in my mind for years beyond any actual use. Thank you for sharing it with us.

But as for concerns about throwing money at the arts, I think those concerns seem to be quite misguided. When Labour came into Government, an $80 million investment package was put into the arts off the back of what could only have been described at that time as a severe state of decline. The arts needed not just a boost but a recovery package to deal with the significant neglect at that time. National members may describe that as throwing money at an issue, but it seems actually that whenever Labour talks about anything to do with investment or bolstering particular programmes, or any alternative vision to that of the National Party, it is described as throwing money at something. Oh, but a billion-dollar tax cut—no, that is not throwing money at something. It is not a bribe. That is just good, sound political policy-making, is it not? So you can see that there is an absolute distinction in the National Party’s thinking on some of these issues. It is an unfair distinction as well.

Coming back to the bill specifically, we are debating today the final stage of the Arts Council of New Zealand Toi Aotearoa Bill. All through this bill we have consistently made the point that it is not entirely clear what has driven the Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage to go through what is always a very lengthy process to get to the point where you debate through the full stages of the House a structural change like this when it requires primary legislation. It has never been entirely clear what vision the Minister had by this bill. Indeed, it has never been entirely clear to me what his vision for the arts is generally.

I will concede this one point: there are many other Ministers in the National Cabinet who could have come into the arts portfolio and absolutely gutted it—they could have. They could have come in and just hunkered down, stripped out funding from all sorts of sectors, and really put us on a backwards path. Chris Finlayson, to give him his due, has not hollowed out the arts portfolio in that regard, but I do not believe that we have seen the arts advance under his leadership. It has been very, very clear that there are certain aspects of his portfolio that he enjoys, that he is quite happy to support and bolster, and there are others that he is quite content to neglect entirely. I would say it is almost as bad to take a vicious campaign against a particular sector as it is to just neglect it and let it fade but not give it any rallying point, because everything just looks like it is the status quo while there is a subtle decline. That is the kind of behaviour that means that Labour then has to come in and try to rejuvenate a sector.

What this bill does, really, is just consolidate the council. That is all it really does. It is not a visionary piece of legislation, despite the fact that it has been a very onerous process. In fact, for many communities it sets back the representation that they have had to date under this status quo. Why has the Minister chosen to do that? Well, I would contend that it is because he has issued a jihad on committees.

You know, we already know that this is a Minister who has declared a jihad on jargon, and now we have a jihad on committees within the arts sector, but without him actually giving much reason as to why that is. Perhaps these committees mention too frequently in their papers, in their work, or even in their interactions with the Minister the words “heads-up”. Or perhaps the word “process” entered into their thinking too often. Or perhaps in one too many meetings with the council it used the term “outcome”. You may not be aware of this, but these are all words that the Minister’s office has put into writing and declared that the Ministry for Culture and Heritage—indeed, no other official that the Minister deals with—is not to use. It is not to use any of those terms with the Minister. He has an absolute hatred of the words “heads-up”, “process”, “outcome”, and “stakeholder”. I do not know what he prefers them to be called—

Tracey Martin: How about “step change”?

JACINDA ARDERN: “Step change” is definitely out—no “step change”. And the worst yet, the biggest sin of all when dealing with Minister Finlayson, is to mention the word “community”.

“Community” is absolutely at the top of his list of things that shall not be mentioned. Perhaps we then start to see the rationale why, for instance, the Minister has decided to get rid of the more substantive representation that exists within the Arts Council for the Pacific Island, Māori, and ethnic communities. He has taken a leaf from what his self-declared idol, who is Margaret Thatcher, did—and I am not saying this in a derogatory way. The Minister has proudly stepped forward and said that Margaret Thatcher is his idol. She is framed and on his wall, as I recall. I believe I saw a Twitter picture of it—a lovely golden, gilt frame—in his office. And, of course, we know Margaret’s view on community. Perhaps this is why he has taken a leaf from her book and banned the use of the word.

Mr Finlayson concludes his requirements to his officials by stating that he has “always preferred the understatement”. He has always preferred the understatement, which I am sure was at the centre of his thinking when he declared recently that we are in the golden age of the arts. That, of course, was not understatement, according to Minister Finlayson. No, according to him, we are absolutely in the golden age, even though, as my colleague Grant Robertson has pointed out, we have seen a decline in our publishing sector. Ask representatives of our authors in New Zealand and they will tell us that despite, of course, the fantastic works by people like Eleanor Catton, we cannot let that paper over what is otherwise a sentiment within that sector of the arts that we really have had a decline and that we need the Government to focus its attentions on how to bolster those parts of the sector that are experiencing such a rapid change around them in the digital age.

Add to that the film, TV, and screen industry. Sure, at the eleventh hour this Government finally conceded that it had got it wrong when it came to working with those industries and that, actually, we had seen significant job losses—at the eleventh hour. Actually, it was even beyond the eleventh hour, because by the time the Government finally listened to those stakeholders and members of the screen industry community, it was already too late for groups like Digipost, which was one of the companies that Minister Finlayson heralded as being part of the golden age of the arts. It was a post-production group that was involved in creating the Everest documentary, which he was so proud to claim was an indication of how good things were in the screen industry. As he declared that, that company was shutting up shop, openly. It had told the Government what was happening to its industry.

On almost the same day as the Minister declared that he was finally changing his tune on the way that National dealt with the industry and the incentives regime, Oktobor Animation was closing its doors. Some may claim that there was ignorance on the part of the Government as to just how bad things had got within that part of our arts sector and industry, but Steven Joyce knows that he sat at the table of Oktobor Animation almost 6 months before it closed its doors, which is when it told him that it was on the brink. But if the incentive regime had been changed, it would have seen some of the biggest production companies in New Zealand giving work to Oktobor Animation.

DreamWorks wanted to come to New Zealand. Minister Joyce shakes his head as I say that, but he knows that he had that piece of information. He ignored it, and jobs were lost as a result. It was too late.

Claudette Hauiti: Oktobor Animation hasn’t closed.

JACINDA ARDERN: It was too late. You can go and visit the empty offices, if you like. It was too late for that company. It had every plan to try to rebuild that business, but jobs were lost. Oktobor Animation, I am sorry to tell you, has had to close up shop until it finds its work.

Claudette Hauiti: You’ve got the wrong company.

JACINDA ARDERN: I have not got the wrong company. The member might like to go and speak to the directors of Oktobor Animation about that particular issue.

The point is that we do not have a clear vision from the Minister as to what he is trying to do. Those involved—the communities involved with the Arts Council—have suffered as a result of the Minister’s decision that he does not want the word “community” to be involved any more, and communities will suffer as a result.

CATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green): Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. He mihi nui—[Interruption]

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Order! There are two members interjecting on each other.

CATHERINE DELAHUNTY: Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. Tēnā koutou e te Whare i tēnei pō.

[Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. Greetings to you collectively the House this evening.]

I would like to start my speech in this third reading with a couple of whakataukīOne of them is: he toi whakairo, he mana tangata [artistic excellence is human dignity]. The other one, which is more appropriate to the Arts Council of New Zealand Toi Aotearoa Bill, is “It’s a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

The Green Party is opposing the third reading of this bill with regret. We are passionate supporters of the arts and getting the best possible structure for the administration of arts funding and arts promotion. We think that every form of art, from murals on the street to the Te Matatini competition, Pasifika Festival in Auckland, Shakespeare in the Park, Play It Strange Trust, Arts Access Aotearoa—you name it—deserves its share of the funding, as well as opera and sculpture. The highbrow and the lowbrow are all part of what makes us a creative country. Although I did not agree personally with everything Helen Clark did, we cannot deny that she backed the arts like no one else as a Prime Minister or even as a Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage before or since. That is a legacy we should be proud of rather than trying to tear it apart.

However, we have four issues with this bill. The first is the change to the structure of the Creative New Zealand bodies into a single body, which will have 13 members. The concern that has been raised with us is that Te Waka Toi will be subsumed into a single body and lose its identity and ability to provide tangata whenua artistic achievement. Te Waka Toi will be replaced by four members who will be “qualified” by their knowledge of tikanga Māori and Māori art—four out of 13. The argument has been made to me by some people I respect that this is timely and appropriate. It is said that we have matured as a country, so that Māori art and artists will never again be marginalised by being subsumed into a single arts body.

However, I am not sure that the national cultural consciousness has matured to that point. It is very optimistic. It is not what we have heard from Māori artists. Māori artists have told us in simple language that they are still struggling to get a share of the resources and that they would prefer to keep the iconic Te Waka Toi because it is their waka. It is their waka and it is for them to say what happens to it. That is actually what Te Tiriti o Waitangi means. It means that to uphold article 2 the Crown does not second-guess tangata whenua and decide to disestablish their specific and unique arts body without their full endorsement. The Green Party stands by that principle, and we are yet to be convinced that those four out of the 13 people on the board are an expression of Te Tiriti o Waitangi.

It is certainly true that the Government Administration Committee had a very small number of submissions, which made the job of the rest of us harder. It is difficult to evaluate the merits of a bill when there has not been much input, but we need to face the reality that some people will never come to the select committee to make a submission. They are actually intimidated. That does not mean that their voice is not important. We need to approach rōpū and networks in the arts sector and gather their views, listen to what they say. The select committee is not the only place where we should gather opinion and it is not necessarily the best place to gather opinions from many sectors. The select committee is only one place, and the select committee remains a very Pākehā, very formal—except for the Māori Affairs Committee—and very parliamentary, Westminster way of assessing an issue, so I know why some people did not show up.

Of equal, if not greater, concern to us is the disbanding of the Pacific Arts Committee, replacing that with two Pacific representatives on the single body. These unfortunate two people are meant to represent, and be the advocates for, the huge diversity of Pacific communities in Aotearoa, which includes Polynesians, Melanesians, and Micronesians. And within each part of the Pacific there are many different countries and ways of approaching art. It is quite correct to assert a wide diversity within that label of “Pacific Islander”. I would like to pay tribute here to a great Pacific arts promoter, who was also a great friend of mine, whom we lost less than 2 years ago, Mr Jim Vivieaere from Mangaia in Rarotonga, and to acknowledge all the struggle and legacy of curators like Jim who, in forging the Pacific arts identity, always respected that diversity. I know that the preference of those arts leaders and curators was for clarity around the role of Pacific art and a particular resourcing of that and around the value of a strong, independent committee. If that is lost, some of the power to support the emerging Pasifika artists—because the emerging artists are the most vulnerable—as well as the well-known artists of Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa, will be diluted and undermined. And there are also other migrant cultures that need to be provided for. So, rather than subsuming everything into one group, we believe not so much in a tiered system but in a double-hulled waka, where the waka is joined and everybody has their own place and they come together to discuss things, but they have their own committees if that is their choice.

There are also real concerns from small communities and rural communities about what exactly is proposed for community arts providers. Like Grant Robertson and others, I have struggled to get clarity about what the goal of these provisions is, because they are really opaque and weird—that is the only way to explain them. It would appear to be a centralisation and an opening up of local arts funding to anybody from other parts of the country, and that is not going to help community arts. I am putting a caveat on that because none of us could really get it clear what is being suggested for community arts providers, and that is going to be bad law. If we cannot get it and it is not clear to us, how the hell is the community going to understand it? The community arts are the seedbed of some of the great talents in Aotearoa, as well as playing a critical role in making smaller communities culturally vibrant. When a national talent like Bella Kalolo and her band showed up in my valley in the tiny Kauaēranga Hall last year, fresh from their appearance at Glastonbury, it was an amazing moment for us. I felt the power of Creative New Zealand, which had helped such tours animate our small communities.

When my partner started working on a community project with nationally renowned artist Michael Smither in Thames, painting the footpath along by the sea, I had first-hand experience of the value of artists who work in the community, as the community now comes by every day to check on what they are doing, to talk about it, and to engage with it. This is very much about our small town expressing itself. There are many volunteers—people are not paid, but there are donated paints—but there is a need for some support for the management of it. But if art is alive and reviving our community, there does need to be local and specific community arts funding. Some wonderful people are trying to restore kapa haka in the Hauraki at the moment, but they are struggling to get cash for the most basic things. I think that the role of Te Waka Toi and others can be important for that. The problem that has been identified is that community arts providers will not be able to ring-fence their funding for their local area alone. If the small and unsophisticated have to compete with a large, urban voice, we will see the unravelling of community arts in the regions. That is actually where quite a few people live, and quite a bit of culture lives, and quite a bit of reality actually develops. And much of the content of the greatest art that we produce comes from those communities, let alone the people.

Finally, the fourth point that we were concerned with was Minister Finlayson’s dismissive approach to 3-year strategic plans for the new Arts Council. If the strategic planning approach is an apparent waste of time—and I can agree with the possibility that strategic planning can be a waste of time if it becomes an end in itself, rather than becoming a road map to ensure direction and coherence—let us not dismiss the idea of a coherent plan just because some strategic planning can be very badly managed and inward-looking. We are actually talking about the whole country and we would like to see a coherent, strategic plan.

So, overall, we are disappointed that the restructuring has been designed but it is very unclear who will actually benefit, except people who want—as the previous speaker, Jacinda Ardern, said—to get rid of committees and ban words like “community”. Therefore, we are not able to support the bill at this point. I was interested in the previous speaker’s comments about language, because language is very powerful in the arts community, and what language Minister Finlayson will accept. In my office we have other rules about language. It is not so much about banning words; it is about making whatever we communicate understandable to everybody we are talking to and everyone in the community, and making sure that everything that we say is about respecting and welcoming people to participate—not trying to intimidate them by using Latin and words of more than one syllable. If we are going to have a country where everyone can participate, we need to look at ourselves in this House and ask how we are communicating. Art is about communication. This bill does not cut it. We cannot support it. Kia ora tātou katoa.

KANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI (National): Sat sri akaal, Mr Assistant Speaker, and a happy New Year.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Thank you.

KANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI: I stand to support the third reading of the Arts Council of New Zealand Toi Aotearoa Bill. This bill streamlines Creative New Zealand’s four governing bodies into a single entity. This bill replaces the Arts Council of New Zealand Toi Aotearoa Act 1994, which established a council known as Creative New Zealand. The single Arts Council board will be responsible for the policies, strategies, and funding allocation, replacing the present divided council. There will be 13 members, down from 28 under the present structure.

The new council will have a minimum of four members with a knowledge of Māori art. These members will be appointed by the Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage in consultation with the Minister of Māori Affairs. At least two members with a knowledge of Pacific arts will be appointed. These members will be appointed in consultation with the Minister of Pacific Island Affairs.

The bill does not continue the requirement for the Arts Council to prepare and publish, after public consultation, a strategic plan every 3 years. Under the Crown Entities Act 2004, the Arts Council is required to prepare a statement of intent. This bill will result in savings of about $200,000 per year, and will therefore secure the benefit of staff being able to wholly concentrate on the arts sector.

Rather than spending important time and resources on preparing a strategic plan every 3 years, the Arts Council will be required to prepare a statement of intent. The key significance of this bill is to eliminate bureaucracy and red tape. This bill will permit the Arts Council to concentrate entirely on the strategy and funding of the arts sector.

I do not agree with previous speaker, Catherine Delahunty, that the select committee process is very formal. I think this is one of the best processes, where every New Zealander is invited to participate. With these words, I support this bill.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): I call the honourable member Tracey Watkins. Tēnā koe.

Tracey Martin: I’m not—I’m not Tracey Watkins.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): How could I get it wrong? Tracey Martin.

TRACEY MARTIN (NZ First): Kia ora, Mr Assistant Speaker.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): I accept your apology.

TRACEY MARTIN: One day, before you leave this House, you will get my name right.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): I will keep trying.

TRACEY MARTIN: Kia ora. I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to oppose the Arts Council of New Zealand Toi Aotearoa Bill. Originally, New Zealand First did actually support this bill, with reservations, because we saw the streamlining and we thought we saw what was an intent to actually improve the processes around this and save money that could be reinvested into the Arts Council for redistribution to our communities and to the arts in New Zealand.

However, we then had an opportunity to go away—because this bill was introduced some time ago, prior to New Zealand First, unfortunately, not being in this House for a short period of time. So we had an opportunity to then go away and discuss with members of our community—the Māori, Pasifika, general Pākehā, and other ethnic group communities—the proposals here. We came back and we tried to talk to the Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage. We put a Supplementary Order Paper on the Table because we were concerned about the complete, 100 percent removal of consultation with the people of New Zealand, with the communities of New Zealand, on what their money would be spent on with regard to the arts.

From 2010 to 2013 I had the privilege of actually being a member of local government. One of the duties that I had there was to participate in the submissions process around the distribution of arts funding for the Rodney Local Board area. What I found during that process was that many people inside the bureaucracy of the arts—those deciding what is worth funding and those deciding what is not worth funding—although they were lovely, lovely people, were incredibly snobby with regard to what the general public wanted in the arts with their money.

There is something to be said for a level of understanding, and perhaps for presenting a new art form or a new artist to expose the public to such works. But then there is also another side to the arts, which is that this is actually the place where these people live. This is actually their money, at the end of the day. So, therefore, individual communities, the wider community of New Zealand, should have some opportunity to place their voice inside the decision making on what their money is spent on.

The Minister in his third reading speech yesterday said that “These reforms will ensure that this good work continues, but free of excessive bureaucracy.” What he means by “excessive bureaucracy” is consultation. What he means by “excessive bureaucracy” is what he termed the waste of time of strategic planning. I can understand that the Minister might be frustrated at having to consult with people, because it is always easier to just do what you like and to get other people to do as they are told. This Government has a particular penchant for that.

Perhaps 3 years is too short a time frame, which is why New Zealand First put down Supplementary Order Paper 35 suggesting that a strategic plan for a 5-year period be made, because during that strategic plan process the voice of the general public would be heard by the council. The Supplementary Order Paper was subsequently not supported by the Government. So, therefore, the strategic planning will be dropped. The members on the Government benches say that strategic planning is not necessary because there is a statement of intent. What that statement of intent could turn out to be is actually a group of really snobby people telling the rest of us what we will like about art, and then going ahead and spending that money, which is our money at the end of the day.

So New Zealand First believes that it is this lack of consultation—this lack of concern about the ability of our communities to continue to have a voice inside, in terms of what their arts money will pay for. I note also that the Minister in his speech yesterday said that “This will enable the Arts Council of New Zealand to meet the expectations of our artists and communities in the 21st century.” My question still is how you will know what their expectations are. Because at no stage is there any commitment to asking them. So, again, New Zealand First will have to oppose this bill. We cannot support something that completely takes away the voice of the public about the spending of their own money. As my colleague Catherine Delahunty said, it has been so unclear. There are interesting statements inside the bill that the council may or may not consult. If it feels like it, it will consult, and if it does not, it will not. That is just not good enough for New Zealand First.

I am not going to take much more of a call, because that is the major point. The voice of the people is not inside this bill, and the Minister reminds us of the Medici family, taking complete control over arts in New Zealand, and he will decide what we will all see and do—

Darien Fenton: He’s a bit snobby too, isn’t he?

TRACEY MARTIN: And he is slightly snobby too, I have got to say, when it comes to these things. So New Zealand First hopes that we are not now witnessing the death knell of arts funded projects in rural New Zealand.

But before I finish my contribution here today, I would like to share with the House that the last arts grants that were placed in the Rodney Local Board area were given to the Rodney District Council prior to the amalgamation of Auckland, and they had to be allocated prior to the district council being absorbed into the Auckland Council. One of the projects that was consulted on with the community of the Rodney Local Board area was around the Warkworth town clock. That clock was built by a young, unemployed labourer working with more experienced engineers and masons back in the 1950s and 1960s. Right now it stands in the middle of that town. It is white. It is discoloured. It is in the centre of its town, yet from the visual perspective it carries no mana. When the designs went forward to the arts specialists who were consultants to the Rodney Local Board, they called the design chosen by the people of that town visual pollution and historic vandalism of what is a concrete clock built in the middle of that town.

On 3 February the clock will begin its transformation by a local artist, Joy Bell, who is a mosaic artist. I wanted to share with the House the design that the people of Warkworth chose for their clock in their town, because it represents the things that are important to them, with the backdrop of the Mahurangi River. This would never have gone forward on the advice of the arts professionals who have been sent to local councils or who may very well decide what will be funded for the communities of New Zealand. Regardless of what any other town or what any other arts specialists think, this is what the people of Rodney wanted. This is what the people of Warkworth want in the middle of their town. It is their money from their taxes. They should get the right to say. We will oppose the bill.

Dr JIAN YANG (National): Ni hao, xiexie. Efficiency is what this bill, the Arts Council of New Zealand Toi Aotearoa Bill, will achieve. It is in line with the National Government’s priority of delivering better public services. Efficiency will be achieved by establishing a streamlined unitary board that will require fewer resources and will free up staff so that they can focus on what is important, including the arts, artists, arts organisations, and, of course, arts development. So, for that reason, community arts will benefit from this bill. I commend the bill to the House. Thanks.

DARIEN FENTON (Labour): Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. I rise with disappointment to oppose this Arts Council of New Zealand Toi Aotearoa Bill on behalf of the Labour Party. My colleagues have spelt out that we have concerns around this bill regarding representation for Māori and Pacific ethnic groups, youth, people with disabilities, and, of course, local communities.

When you work your way through the bill—Part 1 talks about the purpose of the bill—you cannot really disagree with any of it. It all makes quite a lot of sense, really. It talks about continuing the Arts Council of New Zealand Toi Aotearoa. It talks about recognising the cultural diversity of the people of New Zealand. It talks about recognising in the arts the role of Māori as tangata whenua and recognising the arts of the Pacific Islands peoples of New Zealand. It talks about upholding the principles of “(i) participation … in the arts; and (ii) access, by supporting the availability of projects of merit to communities … and (iii) excellence and innovation, by supporting activities of artistic and cultural significance that develop the creative potential of artists and art forms; and (iv) professionalism … and (v) advocacy …”.

No one can disagree with the purpose of the bill. In fact, Labour certainly does not disagree with the overall purpose as described by the bill. In fact, there is much in the bill that is hard to disagree with. The fundamental issue for Labour is that tonight we are in a rationalisation process that is completely unnecessary. It will see the end of an entity called Te Waka Toi, which has provided support to Māori organisations through Creative New Zealand, and of a Pacific Islands representation arts board. What is worse is that no one else can ever own or use that name—Te Waka Toi—to describe an arts activity in New Zealand.

I think that all of us value and understand the importance of art in this country, whether we have artistic backgrounds in any of the performing arts or creative arts or whether we do not. It is the lifeblood, the soul, of our country. It is about how we describe ourselves. It is about our unique identity. New Zealand arts and performing arts are different from those in any other country. There is no other country in the world that produces the kind of artistic talent that we have here. The arts are about reflecting ourselves and our cultural diversity, and I do not believe that anyone here would disagree with the importance of the arts in this country.

What does puzzle me, however, is why we are doing this bill. I have spelt out a little bit our objections and our concern about representation, and also about why this bill was introduced in 2010 in the last Government before the last election—2010. It is a rationalisation—very important. I would also remind the House that before Christmas—I think it was on the very eve of the House rising before Christmas—we were debating the Committee stage of this bill almost 4 years after it was introduced. I do not understand why, if the Arts Council and Creative New Zealand have survived thus far as they are without this rationalisation and without the removal of the right for Māori, Pasifika people, and ethnic communities to be involved, we have to do this 4 years later.

Tracey Martin: $200,000—that’s nothing.

DARIEN FENTON: That is right—$200,000 is nothing. Absolutely. This Government just throws money at all sorts of other things, yet wastes the House’s time on this pitiful little bill, which has caused so much concern to artists and arts communities. I know that the Government Administration Committee heard from those communities. I was not on the select committee, but I know that the parties that opposed this bill have heard from those communities. Those who were involved in the consultation process expressed their concern to us in no uncertain terms but also told us that they were quite nervous and they even felt afraid of expressing that view in front of the select committee in case the organisation might be adversely affected. Is that not a sad state of affairs? Do we not hear that so often when it comes to anything that is funded in the community by this Government?

I am sure that my colleagues have heard exactly the same story from community organisations that rely on the beneficial hand—the handouts, I should say—of Paula Bennett. I wanted to call her “Paula Benefit”, but, anyway, I did not. I did not. I resisted the urge. Oh!

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): The lights have gone out. The power has gone.

DARIEN FENTON: The power is off.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): The member may continue, mind you, but there is no—

DARIEN FENTON: I think I will not, Mr Assistant Speaker, because it is kind of creepy. It is kind of creepy. You cannot see the bill.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Honourable members, I think that, given the circumstances, I should suspend the House until such time as the lighting resumes.

DARIEN FENTON: And the lights are back.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Ask and it shall be given.

DARIEN FENTON: It is really quite a strange atmosphere. Is this emergency power we have got now?

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Yes, it is.

DARIEN FENTON: Is it? OK. You see, I was being so forceful and impressive that I put the lights out. It was the mention of the Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage. That is what it was. Yes, it must have been the Minister, you know. That is why. He is being a scrooge. He must have been turning the lights down, I think.

However, I heard the member for North Shore, Maggie Barry, yelling across the Chamber earlier in the debate about how Labour had its chance and did nothing. Well, I just want to let that member know that she needs to go and visit some of the community arts organisations in the North Shore community, including the Depot Artspace, that have written to her and written to others to talk about their deep, deep concern about the parlous state of community arts groups throughout New Zealand, and their concern about funding that is being cut by the Minister for arts courses at Unitec and in poor communities like Rāwene, whose people depend on these types of courses. They have written about how important the involvement of community arts is.

What we have here is a Government that does not really believe that arts have any value unless you can put a money value on it. That is what we hear from Minister Joyce all the time. That is why we are seeing cuts to creative courses at Unitec and others. I met a young woman tonight who has just finished a degree in performing arts, in acting. I was asking her what she will be doing. She knows that her life is going to be a struggle because the value placed on her education is completely ignored by this Government. Anything to do with the arts and anything to do with music, unless it is the ballet or the opera, is ignored and seen by this Government as worthless.

Tracey Martin: They pat themselves on the back for Lorde, though.

DARIEN FENTON: Oh yes, of course, the Government had to say something about Lorde, although I cannot say that Christopher Finlayson had anything to do with her success—or, for that matter, the member for North Shore, Maggie Barry. Lorde goes to school in her electorate.

That is the unfortunate thing about this bill. The Government does not value the arts. It sees them as a cost; it does not see the benefit to the communities. The Government is passing a silly bill that did not need to be passed. What the Government needed to be doing was investing more in the arts. It needed to be making sure that there is a Māori, a Pacific, and an ethnic voice in community arts. It needs to be encouraging and supporting community groups up and down New Zealand that do wonderful things. We need to be celebrating the artists and the performing artists in this country. We need to be giving them the message that we value them. Labour values them and that is why we cannot support this bill.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Honourable members, just to advise you, as I have been advised, there was a power surge, and as a result the lights went out. But I am advised that the lights are all starting to come back on. So who is next?

IAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei): On account of the fact that I cannot read my notes, I will commend this bill, the Arts Council of New Zealand Toi Aotearoa Bill, to the House.

Rino Tirikatene: Mr Speaker—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Is this a split call?

Rino Tirikatene: Does it have to be?

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): In that case, I call the honourable member Rino Tirikatene.

RINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga): Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. I am very pleased to speak in this final reading of the Arts Council of New Zealand Toi Aotearoa Bill. I have listened to and I have followed the debate on this bill, which we oppose.

I was prepared to give the Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage, Christopher Finlayson, the benefit of the doubt—almost prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt—that this piece of legislation would live up to the rhetoric that has been coming from the other side: that this bill is about efficiencies and it is about changing the governance structure of the Arts Council so it can make things more streamlined. But we know that the passage of this bill just in this House alone has taken nigh on 3½ years. So much for the streamlining and the efficiency that the Government wants to drive through for the Arts Council, when it has taken 3½ years to get this far. We know that this priority area for the Government was announced in its 2008 manifesto—it was announced way back then. So it has taken some 5 years—we are nearly into the sixth year—for this bill to come to fruition. It does not live up to the rhetoric.

I was really disappointed in the Minister’s remarks last night. There were a couple of things that I really took offence to. Yes, we know that there has been a delay in the passage of this legislation. Yes, we know that there is a full-on onslaught that has been ravaged against the Māori committee, against the Māori arts community, and against the Pacific arts community, through the disbandment of their identifiable respective committees. But the Minister really offended me last night when he said that he is adopting this streamlined structure because he wants to take on the Australian model. Apparently, the Australian equivalent has gone through a similar streamlining or the creation of a flat, single governance structure for the arts there. Lets us think about that. How dare the Minister take on an Australian model, when we all know very well how good the Australians are with their indigenous affairs?

Darien Fenton: Exactly.

RINO TIRIKATENE: It is absolutely appalling, and yet this Minister is looking to Australia as the model that we should be following. How much support do the Australians give to their indigenous communities and their indigenous arts? Very little, I would say, and yet this Minister was holding up the Australians as a grand example that we should be following. It is absolutely disgraceful. But then the Minister went on and said that under this streamlined, efficient, flat governance structure we will take care of the special interests of Māori and Pacific arts communities by giving them seats at the table. Have we not heard that before? They will be sitting at the top table. It is no different from what we hear from the Māori Party—[Interruption] Absolutely! The Māori Party should have a seat at the table. We all know how Māori have benefited from those seats—we all know.

What I really want to know is—there is this so-called illusion that by having seats at the table it will transform the interests of Māori and Pacific arts communities to being real power players. But then I am really disappointed because when they get to the top table, the table is always very, very big. There are a lot of seats around that table, and the Māori seats and the Pacific seats are always just—well, they never actually get to the point of being equal power partners around the table. So, unfortunately, the disbanded Māori committee, Te Waka Toi, will be replaced with four committee members. They will be sitting at this table, but they will be only four—four out of 13. This Government likes to say “Oh, but there will be at least four. You will have at least four.” That, actually, is meaningless when you do not have power equivalence in terms of the discussions and the decisions that are made. So sitting at the table is really nonsense.

What I would like to know is what shape is this table that they are sitting at? Is it a round table, where all the voices will have an equal say and they will all meaningfully contribute to the decisions that have to be made at that table? I do not think it will be. It is not that. It is not going to be a nice round table like that, because we know that the brown faces, the Māori and the Pacific, will always be in the minority. We also know that this table is one of those big rectangular tables with the big throne chairs at either end, because that is where the power resides. It does not reside with those interest groups being at the table.

I also want to make another comment, because there is a huge, glaring omission from the structure of this new governance body, and that is the complete disregard for our ethnic communities. It is great that Māori have four seats; Pacific people, you get two seats; ethnic people, you get none. And yet they are the fastest-growing demographic group in our country. They have a huge contribution to make to our arts communities, and they have absolutely no recognition at all—let alone the pressure.

Can you imagine the pressure that the people who are appointed to this body will be under, to represent such a broad area? Four Māori—well, they do not actually have to be Māori. They can be just any person with a knowledge of Māori arts and culture, which is even more pathetic. These people have to take into account the broadness of the Māori arts, and I am talking of all traditional and modern arts, and all different iwi. The entire breadth, the completeness, of toi Māori has to be taken into account, and the pressure will be on those people.

But I guess those people will be able to conduct their jobs, because the Minister will be appointing them. We know that the Minister of Māori Affairs will be appointing the Māori representatives, and the new Minister of Pacific Island Affairs, Sam Lotu-Iiga, will be helping to make the decision to appoint those respective representatives. But, again, it is just lip-service, and it actually weakens and demeans the role of Māori and Pacific people in the arts in New Zealand. It is especially disrespectful with the complete absence of an ethnic voice on this new committee structure.

I also want to take this opportunity to do a poroporoaki, as we do in Māori—a farewell. You might wonder what the purpose of this is. This bill, when it comes into force, will spell the end of some iconic names and some iconic labels and brands that have been bestowed upon the arts bodies—what was the Arts Council of New Zealand. Those include terms such as “Te Waka Toi”. Te Waka Toi is going to be put to bed. People out there will no longer see Te Waka Toi once this legislation is enacted. So we must say to Te Waka Toi: haere, haere atu rā ki tua o te ārai, tū Te Waka Toi [go, go beyond the veil, Te Waka Toi has beached.] Likewise, Creative New Zealand—that is going to be put to bed. So we will give a haere rā to Creative New Zealand. The Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council of New Zealand is also getting tucked away, but I do not think too many people will miss that one. But those iconic labels, those great arts organisations, and those names—which flourished under the former Labour Government and the greatest arts Minister that this country has ever had, the Rt Hon Helen Clark—will be no longer. They will be resurrected only if the Arts Council chooses to do so. It would be very unfortunate if those—especially Te Waka Toi; you know, iconic, poetic terms like that in Te Reo Māori—were never to be used again. That is what will take place under this bill. And so I bid those terms—those names—farewell. But I do hope that they will be resurrected.

But, in a sense, where is the originality in having to go through this whole restructuring process, change all the names, and then bring them back again? It defies logic, in my opinion, and it speaks to a complete muck-up, really, from this Minister. Maybe that explains the delay. Maybe that explains why it has taken 3½ years—nearly 5 long years—to get this through. The Minister has had no problem zipping through plenty of Treaty settlements, but, unfortunately, this is a really disappointing piece of legislation. The disdain that the Minister has shown to the arts community has been really disappointing, as evidenced by this bill, and we definitely oppose this bill. Kia ora tātou.

LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupō): I am very pleased for my colleagues who have really shone the light on this particular bill, the Arts Council of New Zealand Toi Aotearoa Bill. So I do not find myself needing to say anything, and I proudly support this bill.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Arts Council of New Zealand Toi Aotearoa Bill be now read a third time.

Ayes 64

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

Noes 56

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7; Mana 1.

Bill read a third time.

Bills

Trade (Safeguard Measures) Bill

In Committee

Debate resumed from 2 May 2012.

Part 1 Safeguard investigations, provisional safeguard duty, and safeguard measures (continued)

Hon PHIL GOFF (Labour—Mt Roskill): This Trade (Safeguard Measures) Bill seeks to repeal the Temporary Safeguard Authorities Act, which goes way back to the fourth Labour Government in 1987, and to implement a new safeguard regime for New Zealand that is consistent with the World Trade Organization’s rules. According to the Government, it is to promote “efficient, transparent, and objective investigative and decision-making processes.” Those words are important, and I want to come back to them shortly, but I want to consider the history of this bill because it is a rather curious history.

The origin of this bill was actually as a consequence of a review carried out under the last Labour Government and after wide public consultation. In fact, it was the now Mayor of Christchurch, Lianne Dalziel, who introduced this bill into the House. With the parentage of this bill under a Labour Government and under a good Minister, the Labour Party’s inclination is to support this bill, and as a former Minister of Trade my inclination is to support it. But there have been things that have happened under this bill that raise real questions about how competent the management and the oversight of this bill have been.

The first question is why, 6 years after it was introduced, are we now only in the Committee stage? I want an explanation from the Minister of Commerce, Mr Foss, another Minister in the chair, as to why it has taken 6 years. Has the Government had second thoughts about it? Or is it because such was the incompetence of the ministerial oversight of this bill by a previous Minister that the Government does not have confidence that it has got it right?

After Lianne Dalziel brought this bill into the House, it came back from the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee in the name of Simon Power. Simon Power, of course, is no longer a Minister in the House or, indeed, a member of Parliament. It fell to the Hon John Banks to marshal this bill through the House. The real question that we are wondering about in the House today is why Mr Banks is not in the chair. Well, I suppose we know why, do we not? Mr Banks is not in the chair because he is no longer a Minister because he is facing criminal charges for electoral fraud.

I worry about what happened to this bill under Mr Banks, because Mr Banks clearly had a memory problem. If he could not remember things, how could he remember what was in this bill or what the intended changes were that were necessary to the bill? Why do I accuse Mr Banks of having a memory problem? Well, because he forgot a helicopter ride and he forgot the biggest house in the country, which he went to after that helicopter ride. He forgot about meeting one of the most oversized members of our population, a certain German entrepreneur and internet expert. He forgot that he asked for two cheques for $25,000 each, $50,000, and then he forgot to declare them and said they were anonymous, though he had asked for them. If a Minister has that sort of—

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Sorry to interrupt the honourable member, but the time has come for me to report progress.

Progress reported.

Report adopted.

The House adjourned at 9.55 p.m.