Tuesday, 11 February 2014

Tuesday, 11 February 2014

Tuesday, 11 February 2014

Mr Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

Visitors

Viet Nam—Delegation, National Assembly

Mr SPEAKER: I have much pleasure in informing the House that a parliamentary delegation from Viet Nam, led by Her Excellency Madam Truong Thi Mai, member of the Standing Committee of the National Assembly and chairman of the Committee for Social Affairs of the National Assembly, is present in the gallery. I am sure that members would wish the delegation be welcomed.

Visitors

Switzerland—Thomas Aeschi, National Council

Mr SPEAKER: I have much pleasure in informing the House that Mr Thomas Aeschi, member of the National Council of Switzerland and chair of the Parliamentary Association—Switzerland, Australia, and New Zealand group—is present in the gallery. I am sure members would like him to be welcomed.

Points of Order

Trans-Pacific Partnership—Leave to Move Motion Without Notice

Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Leader of the Opposition): I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I seek leave to move a motion without notice that the House call on the New Zealand Government to publish the text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! I now just need to put the leave. Leave is sought for the member to move that motion. Is there is any objection? There is objection.

Questions for Oral Answer

Questions to Ministers

Trans-Pacific Partnership—Release of Information and Ratification Process

1. Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by his statement that “personally I’ve been of the view that transparency is a good thing. As Prime Minister I’ve tried to lead that charge…”?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister): Yes, I stand by that statement, which was made in the context of discussing reform of MPs’ remuneration and travel privileges and transparency around expenses.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Could he explain to the country and the House how he is leading the charge on transparency in respect of the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations when, in his words—

Hon Dr Nick Smith: It’s the same as China.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: —exactly; that’s a communist country, a one-party State, thank you very much—“we do not know what is actually on the table and what is off.”?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: We are following the same process that has been followed for all other free-trade agreements, including the China free-trade agreement.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Why is he trying to keep the New Zealand public in ignorance of Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiating terms and details when the European Commission, in a similar deal with the United States, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, is releasing both the proposed investment chapter and a layperson’s explanation for public consultation?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: For a start-off, all members of the Trans-Pacific Partnership—all 12 countries—have agreed to keep negotiating text confidential. Secondly, our negotiators are negotiating in the best interests of New Zealand. You would not think, actually, that we would go out there and want to give an advantage to the other countries we are negotiating with.

Hon David Cunliffe: Is the Prime Minister aware of the likely date of the text being tabled in the United States Congress, and can he confirm that that will be before the mid-term elections and well before it has the opportunity for ratification?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: No one knows that date, because the Trans-Pacific Partnership itself has not been concluded yet.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Why is the Prime Minister arguing for secrecy in negotiations when it is common practice in the World Trade Organization to release negotiating texts?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: It is not common practice with the way that free-trade agreements have been negotiated in this country. The member is quite aware, actually, that we have a very thorough parliamentary process. At the point at which a text has been agreed, then it will go through the full process, including going off to the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee, for input from the public.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Does ratification by Parliament represent transparency when by that time the public would have had, and will continue to have, no say in the negotiations; and what is in the negotiations and the discussions—[Interruption] Struck a nerve, obviously. What is in the negotiations and the discussions that is of such—[Interruption] Mr Speaker, I would like to try to get this question out. It is rather serious.

Mr SPEAKER: The member has already got the first question out. He is actually asking a second supplementary question within it, but it would assist the order of the House if the member could complete his question without interjections.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Thank you, Mr Speaker. Does ratification by Parliament represent transparency when by that time the public would have had, and will continue to have, no say in the negotiations; and what is in the negotiations and the discussions that is of such concern to him and his Government that they presently want to keep it all secret from the New Zealand people?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: A few things. Firstly, my advice is that the Trans-Pacific Partnership will require legislation, so, ultimately, once it has gone through the select committee and the public have had their chance to have input, and it has gone through all of those various stages, the Government of the day will require a parliamentary mandate, so by definition people would have had a lot of input. The second thing is that the consultation process undertaken by the Trans-Pacific Partnership is amongst the most extensive that a New Zealand Government has undertaken for any trade negotiations. Public comment on the Trans-Pacific Partnership was first sought in 2008, and has been invited since. Negotiators have conducted a proactive consultation process that has included regular meetings with business groups, local councils, the health sector and other representatives, unions and other NGOs, and other individuals and academics. Opposition parties have also been briefed on the negotiations as we go along. I think we all know that Mr Peters is opposed to free trade. This is the man who voted against the China free-trade agreement. Well, good luck, but they happen to be our second-largest trading partner and almost certainly will one day be our largest.

Brendan Horan: Would the Prime Minister think there would be transparency in an entity submitting multiple Official Information Act requests in a made-up name, such as, for example, Bruce Bayliss, and does he think such a practice would be transparent enough for a political party research unit?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I have no evidence to support that Mr Bayliss is putting in Official Information Act requests under a pseudonym or false name, but I am aware that Mr Bayliss is associated with, and works for, New Zealand First. [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! A point of order has been called.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. There is emerging of late a tendency to get up and ask a supplementary question that has nothing to do with the primary question or any supplementary question or any answer that the Prime Minister might give that would give that member liberty to extend his question. I have got no idea who Mr Bayliss is.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! The essence of the question was around transparency and related to the original primary question.

Prime Minister—Statements

2. Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Leader of the Opposition) to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by all his statements?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister): Yes.

Hon David Cunliffe: Does he stand by his 2007 statement in relation to trans-Tasman regulatory harmonisation, that “We always have to make sure what we are doing is in the best interests of New Zealand.”; if so, why did he come home empty-handed from Australia in relation to the supermarket boycott of New Zealand products?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Far from coming home empty-handed from Australia, we came home with a trans-Tasman visa for the Cricket World Cup; we came home with an invitation for New Zealand businesses to be part of the G20 and be part of 400 global chief executive officers; we came home unpicking the terrible deal that Helen Clark and Phil Goff and David Cunliffe signed New Zealanders up to, by making sure that student loans actually will be accessible to New Zealanders who are special class visa holders—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! That answer is quite long enough, thank you.

Hon David Cunliffe: Has the Prime Minister sought any advice as to how many Kiwi jobs will be lost as a result of this boycott; if so, what was the number, and, if not, why has he not asked?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I do not have that number but I do have the number of people who have lost their job in the Labour Party today. It is one—the Leader of the Opposition’s chief of staff has quit.

Hon David Cunliffe: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I am trying to assist the member who is raising a point of order.

Hon David Cunliffe: The question was a simple and straightforward one: “Has he asked for any advice?”. He has not turned himself to that question.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! There were two parts to the supplementary question. The Prime Minister addressed one part in saying how many—he said “None.”

Hon Annette King: He said he didn’t have the number.

Mr SPEAKER: That is true. He said he didn’t have the number, which answers the question.

Hon David Cunliffe: Does the Prime Minister agree with his soul mate that the only appeal available to New Zealand exporters, who could be facing a loss of up to $700 million per annum, is an appeal to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission; if so, why?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: First, and quite fundamentally, I think the Leader of the Opposition is probably inventing numbers from somewhere. They are not from a reliable source. More important—

Hon David Cunliffe: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I apologise to the Prime Minister but we have a point of order.

Hon David Cunliffe: The Prime Minister has called my veracity into question. The number came from the National Business Review, a renowned—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! Order! That is not a point of order. That is a matter of debate within the answer, and the—[Interruption] Order! The member has the opportunity with further supplementary questions, if he wishes to tease out that information. Does the Prime Minister wish to complete his answer?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: What is clear is that this is a commercial matter, and that in fact the Government does not support a buy Australian-made campaign, any more that it actually supports the supermarkets in New Zealand that actually run buy New Zealand - made campaigns. What is clear is that the Australian Government is actually running a full investigation into competition policy in Australia. There is an opportunity for New Zealand companies to submit to that. But these are actions by a commercial company, so if the member is telling us that he is going to intervene with them, that is a very interesting thing to hear.

Hon David Cunliffe: Does the Prime Minister consider cups of tea and shady deals with extreme minor parties to be gerrymandering the MMP electoral system?

Hon Gerry Brownlee: How does that relate to the Prime Minister?

Mr SPEAKER: Order! The Prime Minister is quite capable of answering it.

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I think if the member wants to talk about some of those issues, he should go and look in the mirror and also talk to Dr Norman.

Hon David Cunliffe: Does the Prime Minister stand by his statement that “People want greater transparency.”; if so, why will his Government not release the text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement before any final agreement is signed?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: As I said earlier, firstly, the Government has been involving all of the interested stakeholders. My understanding is that the trade Minister has been talking to both Mr Goff and Mr Shearer. If they feel they want more information and they are prepared potentially even to answer confidentiality arrangements, I am sure we could go another step forward. We are following—

Hon David Cunliffe: Point of order, Mr Speaker—

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: No, no, sit down, sunshine, I have not finished.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! Both members—[Interruption] Order! I am on my feet. Both members will resume their seats. Is there a point of order?

Hon David Cunliffe: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. As the question went to the matter of the text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement, I thought it might assist the Prime Minister to clarify—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! Again—[Interruption] Order! That is not a valid point of order. The question related to transparency, and the Prime Minister was addressing that. Does the Prime Minister wish to add further to his answer?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I do, Mr Speaker. The process that is being followed here is the identical process that was followed with the China free-trade agreement. We are more than happy to try to keep parties up to date once texts are complete and we are in a position to be able to do that through a proper process. This is the same process that was followed for China.

Hon David Cunliffe: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Quite clearly the question concerned the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement. The Prime Minister is obviously new to foreign policy—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! Again, for the third occasion, that is not a valid point of order. What the member is attempting to do is to use the point of order process to debate an answer that has been given. The process would be better accomplished by using further supplementary questions.

Hon David Cunliffe: Given that the Prime Minister routinely refuses to comment on intelligence and security matters, why did he make statements in relation to operational intelligence regarding New Zealanders in Syria?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: From time to time I do offer answers where I believe it is the right thing to do. I have done that on other occasions in the past. Actually, the interesting thing yesterday was that it was a great example of how the Government Communications Security Bureau actually assists the Security Intelligence Service to protect New Zealanders. Interestingly enough, I remember in this House about 6 months ago the strongest opposition coming from the Labour Party, yet last night David Cunliffe was once again on TV telling New Zealanders he wanted to go further than that. He wanted more information and more laws. Fortunately, Mr Goff straightened him up on the radio this morning.

Hon David Cunliffe: Point of order—[Interruption]

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

Hon David Cunliffe: I seek leave to table an article on Australian supermarkets locking out New Zealand exports—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! The source—

Hon David Cunliffe: —tabled in the National Business Review—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I am not prepared even to put the leave. I am not tabling the National Business Review.

Question No. 1 to Minister

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First): I seek to table a list of the New Zealand First parliamentary staff showing no Mr Bayliss.

Mr SPEAKER: The easiest way is for the House to determine this. Leave is sought to table a list of New Zealand First staff. Is there any objection to that being tabled? There appears to be no objection. It can be so tabled.

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

Job Creation and Unemployment—Statistics

3. Hon KATE WILKINSON (National—Waimakariri) to the Minister of Finance: How is the stronger New Zealand economy supporting more jobs and higher incomes?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Associate Minister of Finance) on behalf of the Minister of Finance: There are a number of indicators confirming that the stronger economy is translating into more jobs and higher incomes. They range from business confidence and employment intentions running at the highest levels for around 20 years, and the number of job ads on the SEEK website increasing 13 percent to almost 24,000 in January. Just last week Statistics New Zealand issued the labour market data, which confirmed further growth in job numbers and real wages, and a decline in the unemployment rate from 6.2 percent to 6 percent in the December quarter. They are all further signs that the Government’s economic programme, including the Business Growth Agenda to help businesses invest, grow, and employ more people, is working successfully as we recover from the global financial crisis.

Hon Kate Wilkinson: What did the official labour market statistics say last week about the growth in jobs during the period to December 2013?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: The household labour force survey confirmed that employment increased by 1.1 percent in the December quarter. That means 24,000 more New Zealanders were in jobs in that quarter alone. For the year to December the news was also positive. Between the December quarters of 2012 and 2013 employment increased 3 percent, meaning another 66,000 New Zealanders were in work compared with a year earlier. That is the strongest annual increase since June 2006, again confirming that the Government’s economic programme is heading in the right direction for the benefit of New Zealand families.

Hon Kate Wilkinson: What other indicators in the labour market statistics issued last week provided further evidence that the improving labour market is helping more New Zealanders to get ahead?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Apart from the lower unemployment rate and the strong increase in new jobs, another positive indicator is the continuing growth in wages. The quarterly employment survey is the best source of wage movements, and that is why it has been used by successive Governments as the basis for setting, for example, paid parental leave and New Zealand superannuation. Using this measure, average weekly earnings rose by 2.8 percent over the year to December, while inflation was only 1.6 percent. So, on average, wages are continuing to rise faster than inflation. The gains are even more significant when measured on an after-tax basis. The average weekly earnings after tax—[Interruption]; they do not want to hear it—have gone up 25 percent since September 2008, compared with inflation of just 10 percent over the same period.

Hon Kate Wilkinson: How has the growth in new jobs over the past 4 years, as reported by Statistics New Zealand, compared with Treasury forecasts issued as part of Budget 2010?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: In Budget 2010, Treasury forecast that there would be 174,000 more jobs in the economy over the 4½ years to June 2014.

Hon David Parker: That’s not what you promised, though—170,000 extra jobs over 3 years, not 4.

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: I am pleased to report we a tracking pretty close to that forecast, which I remember Opposition parties dismissing at the time as being way too optimistic for New Zealand. Actual employment growth in the 4 years to December 2013 was 139,000 jobs, Mr Parker. To meet that full 4½-year Treasury forecast, another 35,000 jobs need to be created over the next 6 months, which is not unrealistic, given that 52,000 new jobs were created in the 6 months to December. This is further evidence that the Government’s economic programme is working.

Wage Growth—Measurement and Comparison with Inflation

4. Dr RUSSEL NORMAN (Co-Leader—Green) to the Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment: By how much did wages and salaries increase between December 2008 and December 2013 according to the Labour Cost Index and how does this compare to inflation according to the Consumer Price Index over the same period?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment): I will give the member the information he has asked for, but the House also needs to know that the labour cost index he refers to is not a measure of actual wage and salary increases in the workforce. Wage and salary increases in the workforce are captured by the quarterly employment survey and, in particular, the measure of average weekly earnings. That has increased 16.1 percent since December 2008. The labour cost index, on the other hand, is a statistical construct designed to measure inflation in the labour market. It ignores pay increases that are due to increased performance or productivity, for promotion, for taking on extra responsibilities, or for changing jobs. The labour cost index increased 9.3 percent since December 2008, which, not surprisingly, is similar to the other measure we have of inflation, which is the CPI, which increased 10.8 over the same period.

Dr Russel Norman: Can the Minister confirm that the labour cost index went up by 9.3 percent under the National Government over this period, while inflation increased by 10.5 percent over the same period, meaning that people’s pay packets have gotten smaller in real terms under the current Government?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: No. With the greatest respect to the member, he is being a bit tricky here, because the labour cost index does not measure changes in wages, salaries, and earnings over the period. It mentions the pure inflation in the labour market for somebody who does not get any pay increases from improved productivity or anything like that. The quarterly employment survey is actually the method via which changes in employment, total weekly gross earnings, total weekly paid hours, and average hourly and average weekly earnings are reflected. I think the member does know that because he has asked questions on the quarterly employment survey previously. Today, interestingly, he is asking only about the labour cost index.

Dr Russel Norman: Is the Minister aware of Statistics New Zealand’s User guide for Statistics New Zealand’s wage and income measures, the third edition, which says that “if you are interested in changes in earnings across time, the Labour Cost Index (LCI) is a better measure than the QES.”?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: I have not got that particular example in front of me, but I can tell the member that on page 15 of the quarterly employment survey, which has just been released last week—helpfully, on the same day as the labour cost index, which may be why the member has confused it—it says: “The unadjusted LCI measures changes in salary and ordinary-time wage rates for a fixed quantity of labour.”—

Grant Robertson: Arrogant man.

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: —no, just correct, Mr Robertson, in this case—“It fixes the relative importance of industries and occupations,” but does not fix the market rates, and so on, in terms of the quarterly employment survey. Again, successive Governments have used the quarterly employment survey for calculating things such as superannuation and paid parental leave because that measures the change in actual earnings of New Zealanders, and if the member was not being tricky, that is what he would use.

Dr Russel Norman: Does the Minister not understand what Statistics New Zealand is saying in the quote from its own documents where it says that the labour cost index is the official measure of the change in earnings over time, not the quarterly employment survey—which is why it puts it in its documents—because the quarterly employment survey will produce misleading results, such as showing an increase in the average wage when lots of low-wage jobs are lost, as has happened under this Government?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: I disagree with the member on a couple of points here. Firstly, if he has noticed in the previous question, we were able to show the increase in jobs over the period that this Government has been in office—certainly, in recent times and since Budget 2010. But, again, I think the member is, I am sorry, being deliberately disingenuous here, because the labour cost index is about a measure of pure inflation in the labour market for a fixed and equal quantity of labour that does not change. In reality, people’s income goes up because they are more productive, it goes up because they have been given a promotion, it goes up because they have changed jobs. That is captured in the quarterly employment survey, and that is the actual measure of wages for New Zealanders and of how they have changed over time.

Dr Russel Norman: Who is right: Statistics New Zealand, which produces both the labour cost index and the quarterly employment survey, and says, as I quote again, that if you are interested in changes in earnings over time, the labour cost index is a better measure than the quarterly employment survey—is Statistics New Zealand right about the right measure, or is the Minister right, because he seems to know more than Statistics New Zealand?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Well, the member and I can exchange these phrases as often as we like. The unadjusted labour cost index, according to Statistics New Zealand, measures changes in salary and ordinary time wage rates for a fixed quantity of labour. It does not fix the quality of labour within occupations. As that changes, that actually changes with the quarterly employment survey. So perhaps to try to resolve this we could make a suggestion. If the member believes that the labour cost index is the correct way that we should calculate the increase in wages of New Zealanders, then perhaps he would like to commit to using that calculation for the calculation of New Zealand superannuation, which would mean that we would all have to reduce New Zealand superannuation to go back to the labour cost index level, and perhaps he would like to commit to that for paid parental leave. I think, regardless of how the Greens spin this, the reality is that when in Government, Labour and the Greens use the quarterly employment survey because that is what measures New Zealanders’ wages.

Tim Macindoe: In light of the previous member’s questions, can the Minister clarify for us what in legislation has been used as the definitive measure of wage and salary growth, and what, in particular, that measure tells us about average weekly earnings?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: The New Zealand Superannuation and Retirement Income Act passed under the previous Government uses a measure of wage growth to set the floor for New Zealand superannuation payments. That measure is average weekly earnings from a thing known as the quarterly employment survey. Also, the Parental Leave and Employment Protection Act, which was amended by the previous Government, uses a measure of wage growth to increase the payment rate for paid parental leave. That measure is average weekly earnings from the quarterly employment survey. Average weekly earnings have gone up by 2.8 percent in the last year, compared with inflation of 1.6 percent. Once again, if the Greens and their friends are going to be consistent, they should go out and tell superannuitants that they would intend to give them less superannuation from a Labour-Green Government because they are changing the way they measure wage growth in the New Zealand economy.

Dr Russel Norman: Well, then, could the Minister tell the House how Statistics New Zealand has got it wrong when it says in its User guide for Statistics New Zealand’s wage and income measures, third edition—the most recent edition—if you are interested in changes in earnings across time, the labour cost index is a better measure than the quarterly employment survey? Can the Minister explain exactly how Statistics New Zealand has got it wrong and he has got it right?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Well, I can only quote Statistics New Zealand to the member, and I suppose we could go on all afternoon if we liked, but the labour cost index, according to Statistics New Zealand, measures, as I say, changes in salary and wage rates for a fixed quantity and quality of labour input. That is a statistical construct that determines inflation in the labour market. What it does not determine is how much people get paid, because, in fact, the quality and quantity of their labour does not stay unchanged over a time period. They get promotions, they change jobs—

Hon David Parker: They work longer hours.

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: —they work more hours—all those things. That adds up to their quarterly employment earnings, which is reflected in the quarterly employment survey. If the member wants to ask another five supplementary questions, we could save the House’s time if I just table the answers the same way.

Dr Russel Norman: Given that the Minister thinks that he is right and Statistics New Zealand is wrong, does he also believe that he is right and everybody else in New Zealand is wrong when most New Zealanders’ lived experience is that under this Government they have struggled to get ahead as prices have gone up and wages have not kept up with rising prices? That is exactly what the statistics produced by Statistics New Zealand show: the labour cost index is falling behind inflation.

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: I am sorry; the member is simply wrong in this case and he really does need to go and get some advice. The simple reality of the situation is he is wrong on so many levels. Firstly, wages have been going up. Real after-tax wages have been going up faster than inflation under this Government by some margin. Under the previous Government it might have looked like people’s wages were going up, but, as we all know, the inflation was much higher. If the member cannot make a distinction between inflation and wages, then we really do have a problem.

Wage Rates—Public Sector

5. Hon DAVID PARKER (Deputy Leader—Labour) to the Minister of Finance: Does he stand by his statement “I think there’s going to be an expectation, particularly for those people with skills that are in demand, that they will be doing better than zero pay increases”?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Associate Minister of Finance) on behalf of the Minister of Finance: Yes, in the context that it was made. I would point out that in the year to December 2013—and I hope we do not have to repeat everything from the last question—average weekly earnings rose 2.8 percent while consumer price inflation was only 1.6 percent. [Interruption] Again, for the members opposite, that is 2.8 percent versus 1.6 percent, so, on average, wages are already increasing faster than inflation. That is, of course, according to the quarterly employment survey, which is the best source of wage movements and has been used by successive Governments, including the last Labour Government, as the basis for setting paid parental leave and New Zealand superannuation.

Hon David Parker: What level of pay increase has he or Treasury recommended to the State Services Commissioner for public sector workers such as police, teachers, firefighters, and nurses to receive in the coming year?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: I do not have that to hand, but I think it is important to expand on the Minister of Finance’s comments because he was saying—

Hon David Parker: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The Minister started by saying he did not know the answer to my supplementary question, and I think that is a sufficient answer to my supplementary question.

Mr SPEAKER: On this occasion, I think we have had quite a lot of figures bandied about, and I accept the point the member is making.

Hon David Parker: What provision has he made in his Budget for the wage increases that he has promised everybody?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Of course, the Budget each year contains provisions that are different for different parts of the State sector in terms of wage rounds occurring in that year and then, obviously, in the out-years for subsequent wage rounds. I do not think it would be the wisest thing in the world to suggest putting those numbers out in the public domain right now, because those are all subject to negotiation. But I will say that the Minister in his comments was expecting that the demand for skilled people, in particular, would continue to rise and all employers—public and private employers—would have to be cognisant of that as part of the package of wage rounds.

Hon David Parker: Why is it that under his Government public sector chief executive officers get $50,000 per annum wage increases while most workers get close to nothing?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: I would really want to know the source of that comment from the member, because we have a number of situations recently where those things have not added up. I mean, I saw one today where it was suggested that there were 37,000 less 15 to 19-year-olds employed than 5 years ago—

Hon Trevor Mallard: You mean fewer.

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: —fewer, if you like—and, actually, it turns out that they were in education or, in fact, did not exist. That is the quality of analysis that we are getting from the Opposition.

Hon David Parker: Do I take it, then, that the Minister is ignorant of the fact that under his Government a large number of public sector chief executive officers have had increases of $50,000 a year while most workers are getting nothing or close to it?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: The member needs to actually quantify what he is saying. Yes, different people get pay increases at different times for different reasons. The reality is that that occurs across the public sector at different times. In fact, the entire public sector has shown great restraint through the global financial crisis, and that has helped the whole country balance its books and put us in the strong economic position that we are in today. We would not have been in anything like as strong a position under Labour and the Greens.

Hon David Parker: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. In response to an earlier suggestion you made to a point of order to one of my colleagues, I used up a supplementary question to try to elicit from the Minister whether he accepted there had been $50,000 per annum increases, which he denied in an earlier answer. I have had to waste the supplementary question. I have still not got that acknowledgment and I would ask you to ask the Minister to address the question I asked.

Mr SPEAKER: In my opinion, the Minister has addressed the question. The essence of the question was “Do you take it that the Minister is ignorant because of”, and the Minister then went through and gave an answer that addressed the question that had been asked.

Youth Employment and Training—Statistics and Support

6. MELISSA LEE (National) to the Minister for Social Development: What reports has she received about the number of young people in employment, education or training?

Hon PAULA BENNETT (Minister for Social Development): I am very pleased to report that the latest household labour force survey shows that the number of young people not in employment, education, or training—known as “neets”, of course—continues to fall. The number of “neets” has fallen to 11.3 percent of 18 to 24-year-olds—down from 13.9 percent a year ago. This is the lowest number of young people who are not in any form of education or work since the December 2008 quarter.

Melissa Lee: What support is this Government providing to ensure that young people engage in employment, education, or training?

Hon PAULA BENNETT: This Government has invested heavily in ensuring young people at risk of long-term benefit dependency engage with a Youth Service provider, who can help get them into education or work. Unprecedented in getting results, we are seeing local youth workers working with our youth—getting alongside them. Currently, there are 38 Youth Service NGO providers who are actively working with more than 9,000 of these “neets”. As a result 63 percent are currently engaged in education or training.

Melissa Lee: Why is it important to provide support to young people to ensure they are in employment, education, or training?

Hon PAULA BENNETT: Young people who are not engaged in work or education are at a high risk of not only going on to a benefit but, equally, staying on for a very long time. Sixty-two percent of 30 to 39-year-olds currently receiving a benefit first went on welfare as young people. But this Government, through our education policies and through our support via Youth Service, is making a difference, getting alongside these young people and seeing them get into work and further education.

Schools, Partnership—Funding

7. CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka) to the Minister of Education: Is she satisfied that the establishment of Partnership Schools represents value for money to the taxpayer?

Hon HEKIA PARATA (Minister of Education): Yes. They offer choice to parents and students. There is no compulsion to attend. They offer opportunity for raising achievement for five out of five students. We cannot keep doing exactly what we have always done, or we will keep getting what we have always got. All five of the schools offer the New Zealand curriculum and/or Te Marautanga o Aotearoa. Of the 36 teachers employed, 32 are registered and four, for non-curriculum subjects, are not registered. All five schools are not-for-profit. All five are near or above enrolment. In our education system we have just over 830,000 students. These five schools provide for 370 students. In the words of Mrs Sally Ikinofo, the chairperson of The Rise UP Academy and the Labour electorate chair of Māngere, I think that we should give these schools a chance.

Chris Hipkins: Will partnership schools be funded on a broadly similar basis to State schools, or will they be funded more generously on a per student basis?

Hon HEKIA PARATA: I gather that the Opposition is yet again taking its advice from Post Primary Teachers Association (PPTA) blogs. Smaller schools cost us more, whether they are partnership schools, or State schools, or State-integrated schools. We have used decile 3 funding as the general comparison. I will wait to hear the particular numbers from the member, but I would invoke your deputy leader’s advice to compare apples with apples.

Chris Hipkins: I am very happy to help. Why is she satisfied that the taxpayer is getting value for money from partnership schools, given that on a per student basis some are being funded up to $40,000 per student in the first year, about five times the average rate of funding per student for State schools?

Hon HEKIA PARATA: I am sure that the member wants to thank the PPTA for its blog on those numbers. Where it got them from was the original Cabinet paper. I would recommend the member read that paper and see that there is a different range, depending on what the size of the school is and the nature of the achievement level required. If we averaged everything across the State system, we too would find those. So, yes, I am satisfied with the value for money for these young people.

Chris Hipkins: If she is arguing that the smaller size of partnership schools is the rationale for them receiving a higher funding rate, why did she use falling rolls as the reason for closing State schools in Christchurch and in other places around the country?

Hon HEKIA PARATA: That is not the argument that I am making. Again, there are a few facts to get in the way of the argument. In New Zealand, according to the July 2013 roll data, 712 of our 2,500 schools have fewer than 100 students. A further 290 of our schools have fewer than 150 students. So just under half of all schools in New Zealand are small schools. They cost more.

Chris Hipkins: Are partnership schools guaranteed that they will receive all of the funding allocated in their contracts, regardless of the number of students that they actually enrol, meaning that their per student funding could actually be higher than $40,000 per student in the first year; if so, why are they treated differently to State schools, which lose funding on a quarterly basis if their roll drops?

Hon HEKIA PARATA: No.

Chris Hipkins: I seek leave to table one of the charter schools’ funding contracts, which makes it clear that they are funded for their minimum roll regardless—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! Leave is sought to table this particular funding contract. Is there any objection? There is none. It can be tabled.

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

Emissions Trading Scheme—Effect of Carbon Price on Forestry

8. Dr KENNEDY GRAHAM (Green) to the Minister for Climate Change Issues: Is his Government’s emissions trading scheme working, given hundreds of thousands of seedlings are being destroyed across the country due to the collapsed carbon price?

Hon TIM GROSER (Minister for Climate Change Issues): Yes. Forestry is a cyclical business. In the 4-year period from the start of this Government, the sales of tree stocks in this country increased relentlessly from 41 million tree seedlings to 72.5 million tree seedlings in 2012. We are expecting the figures, when they come out for the calendar year 2013, to show a correction on that. So the market has turned, and people who overstocked may have been caught out by it. Let us hope that they made excellent money during the 4 good years preceding it. Markets go up; markets come down.

Dr Kennedy Graham: How can you say the emissions trading scheme is working when Graeme Dodds of Leithfield Nursery in Southland has been forced to destroy 700,000 pine tree seedlings as part of this so-called cyclical industry, losing tens of thousands of dollars in the process, because of a carbon price collapse—going up and down?

Hon TIM GROSER: Well, I am very sorry for the company concerned and I just hope that he gets his projections right in the future and that he does not overstock. The same has happened to many other people stocking many other products—looking at a rising trend and just making the wrong assumption: it is going to go up; it will never come down.

Dr Kennedy Graham: Will he also say sorry to, and is he equally concerned about, Robin Appleton of Appleton’s Nursery in Nelson, who had to kill off 300,000 Douglas fir seedlings, which were grown in anticipation of not an up and down emissions trading scheme but a stable and efficient emissions trading scheme?

Hon TIM GROSER: I would make exactly the same comment about that company too. But there is an assumption underlying this whole range of questions that is fundamentally wrong, and that is that people plant trees only for carbon. People have planted trees in our country for generations before anyone had heard of Kyoto and carbon prices. And log prices, which I think that people should take into account when making decisions with a 27-year horizon in front of them, increased by a phenomenal 20 or 30 percent. I think it went from something like $140 to $180 per cubic metre in December 2011 to around $180 to $206 per cubic metre a year later. So people should look at the two reasons you plant trees, not just carbon prices. I think it is extremely unlikely that in 27 years, carbon prices—which have got nothing to do with the New Zealand emissions trading scheme; they are all influenced by the international price—will be sitting around the current extraordinarily low levels.

Dr Kennedy Graham: Will he move to strengthen New Zealand’s emissions trading scheme to ensure a higher price on carbon, in light of a planned $600 million claim against his Government from the Climate Change Iwi Leadership Group, which actually does plant for carbon, because of value lost on their forests under the current failed scheme?

Hon TIM GROSER: We are not going to intervene to put a fixed price on carbon, which would merely transfer assets and resources from some of the people in those iwi who are farmers, who own businesses, and who pay their electricity bills. You know what the policy is. We are going to stick with our current policy.

Economic Relationship with Australia—New Zealand Exports and Migrants

9. Hon PHIL GOFF (Labour—Mt Roskill) to the Prime Minister: Did he ask Prime Minister Tony Abbott to take any action against the supermarket ban on New Zealand products and unfair treatment of New Zealanders living in Australia; if so, what did he ask for?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister): Yes. I took the opportunity to raise with Prime Minister Abbott the issue of Australia’s two biggest supermarkets procuring products for their home brands from Australian sources only. I told Prime Minister Abbott that although this practice might be legally consistent with CER, I did not think it was consistent with the spirit of the agreement. We agreed that New Zealand firms that have specific concerns should make submissions to Australia’s competition watchdog, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, and those with wider concerns should engage with the Australian competition policy review. I also raised with Prime Minister Abbott the issue of New Zealanders living in Australia. We want to see New Zealanders treated fairly in Australia. We also recognise that it is up to the Australian Government as to how it sets its policies. I will virtually guarantee for the House that that is consistent with what Phil Goff thinks, and when I have an opportunity in a few moments I will read out the very paper he penned on the topic in 2001. I cannot wait. Please fire away with the supplementary questions.

Hon Phil Goff: Hold your breath, Prime Minister. When the Prime Minister—[Interruption] When you are ready. When the Prime Minister has just said that the ban imposed by Australian supermarket monopolies on New Zealand goods is consistent with the letter of CER, how does he reconcile that statement with article 1(c) of the CER agreement, which sets the objective “to eliminate barriers to trade between Australia and New Zealand”, and article 1(d), which says that the objective of CER is “to develop trade between New Zealand and Australia under conditions of fair competition”, and did he actually ask Tony Abbott to honour that agreement?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: For a start-off, they are actually not, in Australia, banning New Zealand products. What they are choosing to do is buy from Australian suppliers for their home brands, which is exactly what they are doing in New Zealand. I really wish the member was right. If he was right, then of course the Government would be able to resolve that issue.

Hon Phil Goff: When the Prime Minister denies that the action by the supermarket monopolies was to ban New Zealand goods, how does he reconcile that statement with the fact that the supermarkets have stated that they will not even accept bids from New Zealand producers because they are New Zealand producers?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: What the Australian supermarkets are doing in relation to their home brands is buying from Australian suppliers. That is also consistent with what is happening in New Zealand. I happen to agree with the member that the Australian supermarkets should not do that. As I said yesterday, they should buy from Australasia. I am pretty sure that if the member wants to come and get a briefing, he might find that it is unfortunately—and I say “unfortunately”—unlikely to be a breach of CER.

Hon Phil Goff: In order to promote a resolution of this dispute rather than saying that he cannot do anything, will the Prime Minister use article 22(2) of the Closer Economic Relations agreement, which is designed to deal with the situation where “the achievement of any objective of this Agreement is being or may be frustrated”; if he will not use article 22(2), why not?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: The Government has actually made it clear that it has looked at the matter, taken advice on the matter, and would progress whatever we could in relation to the matter. I wish the member was right. Unfortunately, the advice is that the member is wrong.

Hon Phil Goff: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. As you recall, my question was very specific: will he use article 22(2)? If he does not know what it is, fine, he can say that—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! The Prime Minister has addressed the question that was asked by the member.

Louise Upston: What reports, if any, has he seen regarding the previous Labour Government’s support of the 2001 bilateral agreement?

Grant Robertson: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I do not know what responsibility the Prime Minister has for the actions of the former Labour Government.

Mr SPEAKER: Yes, but the question was not that; the question was “What reports has the Prime Minister received?”. I will listen to the question again.

Louise Upston: What reports, if any, has he seen regarding support for the 2001 bilateral agreement?

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The offence with that question is that it has nothing to do with the question Mr Goff asked—question No. 9—or any of his supplementary questions. It is a totally different matter.

Mr SPEAKER: No, I do not agree with the Rt Hon Winston Peters. The question is certainly relevant to the primary question, and I see no reason why it cannot be answered by the Prime Minister.

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Yes, I have seen a paper written by the Hon Phil Goff when he was the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Clearly, the leader of the Labour Party—the current leader, because it changes—has not seen it. He said the following things—and let us just go through a few. He acknowledged that Australia had the right to determine for itself what additional benefits it would make available to migrant New Zealanders. He said: “The new arrangements remove a significant and long standing irritant from our most important bilateral relationship. The new arrangement preserves New Zealanders and Australians’ ability to enter, live and work in each other’s country under the Trans Tasman … relationship.” He said that “It was clear to this government that we needed some sort of circuit breaker. … We looked for a fresh approach that would contain the New Zealand taxpayers’ fiscal obligation”—[Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! Order! That answer is long enough, but for the benefit of Mr Robertson I will determine that. I appreciate the member’s assistance.

Rt Hon John Key: I seek leave to table The Trans-Tasman Relationship: A New Zealand Perspective, 2001, from Phil Goff, so that Mr Cunliffe can read it.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! That has been satisfactorily explained. Leave is sought to table that particular document. Is there any objection? There is no objection. It can be tabled.

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

Teachers—Recognition and Development

10. SIMON O’CONNOR (National—Tāmaki) to the Minister of Education: What recent announcements has she made on recognising and celebrating the teaching profession?

Hon HEKIA PARATA (Minister of Education): Yesterday I announced a new website called www.inspiredbyU.org.nz, aimed at acknowledging the lifelong impact that teachers have on their students’ lives. Members of the public are able to go online and write a virtual postcard of thanks to—[Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I am sorry to interrupt the Minister but I cannot hear the answer that is being given.

Hon HEKIA PARATA: Yesterday I announced a new website called www.inspiredbyU.org.nz, aimed at acknowledging the lifelong impact that teachers have on their students’ lives. Members of the public are able to go online and write a virtual postcard of thanks to inspiring teachers. Following up on my letter to each member of the House yesterday, I reiterate the invitation that they, as well as yourself, Mr Speaker, take the opportunity to stop attacking the profession and start thanking teachers for the critical contribution they make.

Simon O’Connor: What other initiatives are in place to strengthen and value the teaching profession?

Hon HEKIA PARATA: This Government is committed to celebrating excellence in education, raising its status, and recognising the critical contribution that quality education achievement makes to New Zealand, including through the $359 million announced by the Prime Minister, investing in four new roles to create further professional options for teachers; hosting the international summit on the teaching profession here in New Zealand in March; holding festivals of education concurrent with the summit, in Auckland, Wellington, and Christchurch; introducing the Prime Minister’s Education Excellence Awards; and establishing the new professional body the Education Council of Aotearoa New Zealand. All of those are part of acknowledging, celebrating, and valuing the teaching profession.

Internal Affairs, Minister—Information Security

11. Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) to the Minister of Internal Affairs: Further to his answers to supplementary questions to Oral Question No 11 on Thursday 30 January relating to his responsibility for the security of information, does he believe that all his actions as a Minister mean he is an appropriate person to hold the position of Minister of Internal Affairs?

Hon PETER DUNNE (Minister of Internal Affairs): Yes.

Hon Trevor Mallard: Did he, as part of the process of his recent reappointment as a Minister, give the Prime Minister an assurance that he did not leak the draft Kitteridge report or make it available to a Fairfax reporter?

Hon PETER DUNNE: The discussions I had with the Prime Minister are between the Prime Minister and me, but I reiterate the answers that I gave to the House on 30 January. I have had no ministerial responsibility for any issues relating to the Kitteridge report.

Hon Trevor Mallard: Was the reason that he is not prepared to tell the House that he has given the Prime Minister an assurance that he did not make the draft Kitteridge report available to a Fairfax reporter because he in fact made that document available to that reporter?

Mr SPEAKER: I call the Hon Peter Dunne, in as far as there is current ministerial responsibility.

Hon PETER DUNNE: I was appointed to this position on 28 January. In relation to the primary question, I have honoured the responsibilities entrusted to me fully since that date. In relation to other matters, I have no responsibility for them.

Hon Trevor Mallard: Is he in a position to give the House now an assurance that he did not make the draft Kitteridge report available to a Fairfax reporter; if not, why not?

Mr SPEAKER: Again, I will allow the Minister to answer the question, but in as far as he has current ministerial responsibility as Minister of Internal Affairs.

Hon PETER DUNNE: I refer the member to my previous answers on this very subject.

Hon Trevor Mallard: Referring to his current responsibility for security of information, can he give the House an assurance that he is a suitable person to oversee this for New Zealand by now stating that he has never made a confidential report available to a Fairfax reporter?

Mr SPEAKER: Again, I will invite the Minister to answer the question in line with his current ministerial responsibility.

Hon PETER DUNNE: My current responsibilities began on 28 January, and the question that is made is answered in respect of those answers, and I refer the member to previous answers on earlier subjects.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Having regard to the security and secrecy of information, particularly in his present job, why does he not admit the time, the date, the room, and the circumstances of his leaking of the Kitteridge report?

Mr SPEAKER: Order! That question is not in order at all.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Why not? I put the issue of confidential information, which is critical to the Inland Revenue Department, up front—which is the job he had then and now—and I am asking a straightforward question. Why is it not in order?

Mr SPEAKER: I have ruled it out of order because—

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Yes, I’m asking you why.

Mr SPEAKER: If the member gives me a minute, I will explain it to him. Although he prefaced his question by referring to the Minister’s current employment, he then went back to an issue that occurred prior to Mr Dunne being appointed as Minister of Internal Affairs. On that basis I ruled the question out of order.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.

Mr SPEAKER: Can I just clarify for the benefit of the House, in raising—

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Mr Speaker, you—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! Order!

Rt Hon Winston Peters: What’s your problem now?

Mr SPEAKER: If the member wants to stay in the House to raise a point of order, I expect him to sit down when I rise to my feet. I will hear a fresh point of order from the member but I want to be absolutely clear to the member that if he is attempting to relitigate in any way a decision I have made in ruling that question out of order, I will take that as leading this House to disorder. Does the member wish to raise a fresh point of order?

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Yes. I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. There would not be one self-respecting Western democracy where fitness for appointment was not the issue. In countless cases in the UK, Australia, and elsewhere—Canada, the United States, and here in this Parliament, one of only nine that has had unbroken elections for 155 years—you are saying that suitability and fitness for appointment, on a past record, is not a present consideration?

Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member will resume his seat. He is very lucky that I am not asking him to leave the Chamber. The member is now attempting to relitigate a decision I have made.

Hon Trevor Mallard: Would his current position be properly characterised as having absolution without confession, in order to set up another dodgy deal on the part of the Prime Minister to give him the Ōhariu seat?

Mr SPEAKER: Again, I will invite the Minister to answer that question as far as it is in his current ministerial responsibility.

Hon PETER DUNNE: That may be the characterisation the member would choose to apply; it is not actually the fact.

Police Resourcing—Front-line Foot Patrols and Mobile Technology

12. MIKE SABIN (National—Northland) to the Minister of Police: What recent announcements has she made on the number of foot patrols undertaken by Police?

Hon ANNE TOLLEY (Minister of Police): Today—

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Nothing in Kaitāia.

Hon ANNE TOLLEY: Has he finished? Have you finished?

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I have called the Hon Anne Tolley to answer a question.

Hon ANNE TOLLEY: Thank you, Mr Speaker. Today I announced that there has been a 155 percent increase in foot patrols undertaken by the police in the last 2 years. They have increased from 40,918 in 2011 to 104,321 in 2013, while recorded crimes have dropped by 17.4 percent over the last 3 years. Front-line foot patrols help cut crime because officers are out and about and are visible in the community. They walk the beat in known trouble spots, and at the times when crime is most likely to occur. This acts as a strong deterrent to criminals, helps our communities feel safer, and leads to fewer victims.

Mike Sabin: What steps has the Government taken to ensure our front-line police are able to be so visible in the community?

Hon ANNE TOLLEY: Last year, visibility—[Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order!

Hon ANNE TOLLEY: Last year this Government supported the roll-out of mobility technology to all front-line police officers. Smartphones and tablets allow the police to have access to the information that they need while they are out in the community, and reduce the amount of time that they need to spend behind a desk completing paperwork. This technology allows each officer to spend an extra 30 minutes a shift—

Rt Hon Winston Peters: How come the numbers are falling?

Hon ANNE TOLLEY: —30 minutes extra a shift, Mr Peters—out in the community preventing crime, which is about half a million extra hours, and is equivalent to an additional 354 front-line police officers every single year.

Points of Order

Points of Order

New Zealand First Parliamentary Staff—Leave to Table Document

BRENDAN HORAN (Independent): I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I think it would be quite helpful for Mr Peters if I seek leave to table—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! Can the member just succinctly raise his point of order. I will invite him to do so.

BRENDAN HORAN: I seek leave to table a list of New Zealand First parliamentary staff some 12 months ago, to remind—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! The document has now been described adequately. Leave is sought to table the staff list of 12 months ago of the New Zealand First Party. Is there any objection to that? There is. I call on Government order of the day. [Interruption] Order! Members who wish to leave the Chamber may do so, but please do so in an orderly fashion.

Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement

Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement

Debate resumed from 30 January.

Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (Attorney-General): It is great to be back for what will doubtless be another action-packed year, especially in the area of Treaty settlements. Just last Friday I signed a deed of settlement in the far north with Ngāti Kurī, and I want to acknowledge the support and presence of Mrs Turia, Shane Jones, Hone Harawira, Claudette Hauiti, and Mike Sabin at that very important ceremony, and I ask Mr Harawira to pass on to the troops up north that the Te Hiku Claims Settlement Bill is going to be introduced to the House within the next couple of weeks.

Over the break a number of my colleagues indicated they were intending to retire from Parliament, and I want to wish them all the very best. They are fantastic colleagues and friends, and I am sure they are going to do very well in a post-parliamentary life. Before the year gets too partisan, Mr Assistant Speaker Robertson, I also want to acknowledge your contribution. You are, beyond doubt, an outstanding member of Parliament, have been a great Assistant Speaker, and I want to wish you all the very best for the future. There are a number of others whose retirements are being reported about at the present time, and so, in advance, may I wish Dave Clendon, Steffan Browning, and Rajen Prasad all the very best for the future.

I hope honourable members are pleased with the progress on the National War Memorial Park—I certainly am. The concreting of the floor has started and it should be covered by August, and the tunnel will be open by September. In fact, it is hard to believe that Helen Clark was going to have a highway going through the park right next to a school—

Grant Robertson: Always nasty!

Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON: Oh, the unpleasant member for Wellington Central cannot contain himself. Every statement he makes is unpleasant. I do think it is most unfortunate.

We had a very busy end to 2013. Just before Christmas the Prime Minister, the Minister for Economic Development, and I announced new film incentives and that the next three Avatar sequels will be filmed in New Zealand. It seems that the Leader of the Opposition was apparently opposed to this wonderful announcement, though Jacinda Ardern, at least, appeared to be pleased. I have heard it said that Labour supporters in Rongotai are saying that Annette King had a role in getting the Avatar sequels here. Well, that is, of course, a complete falsehood. The self-styled “MP for Weta Workshop” had nothing to do with that announcement, just as she did nothing in 2011 when trade union thugs were trying to destroy the film industry.

Hon Annette King: What a lie. Your nose is growing, Chris, and I’ll beat you a third time.

Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON: I hear the honourable member interjecting. I think she is saying that she knows something about James Cameron’s films. She remembers the film The Abyss. I think she thinks it was a documentary about what happened to the Labour Party when she was deputy leader and Phil Goff was the leader, but I am afraid that is not correct.

On the subject of these two venerable members now in their fourth decade here, it is worth noting something about their careers. In the 1980s they were zealous Rogernomes in a neo-liberal Government. In the 1990s-2000s they reinvented themselves as social democratic spendthrifts. Now in their fourth decade here, they are tribunes of the working class in a far-left Labour Party. In fact, it has been quite a journey. It does not matter whether they are administering liberal policies, or social democratic policies, or far-left policies—so long as they are the ones administering. They stand for nothing except for self-interest. They are the worst form of careerists.

But looking at the Opposition today, as I do, one is left with one conclusion: Labour members are heading for an extinction event when they sell out their party’s great heritage to a coalition with the Green Party. One has only to look at the experience of Tasmania. Having entered a coalition with the Green Party in Tasmania, the Labor Party in that state is morris dancing its way to oblivion. Listen to these words from the national secretary of the Australian Workers’ Union. He said: “There’s no advantage in Labor and the labour movement being aligned with the Greens. The Greens’ … views and ideologies are contrary to the views and ideology of the labour movement. … I can understand why Tasmanian workers would be concerned about the destructive and negative role the Greens have played in destroying parts of the Tasmanian economy when they go to the ballot box,” because that is the experience in Australia of a coalition with the Greens.

The current stewards of the Labour Party are betraying their party. I think of some of the greats from the Labour past—people I greatly respect: Peter Fraser, Norman Kirk, Michael Bassett, Roger Douglas, Fran Wilde, Paul Swain, and that wonderful, wonderful friend of mine Winnie Laban. One could never imagine those people walking out on the traditions of the Labour Party and doing a deal with the Greens. The Greens are out to destroy them and the Greens regard them, as Lenin would have said about the kulaks, as nothing more than “useful idiots”. That is going to be the fate of the Labour Party as it turns away from its traditions and betrays its traditions.

In the last couple of weeks there have been a few articles in the press about my outstanding style guide. The style guide is actually very helpful. It is modelled on, actually—in fact, someone sent to me—Tom Shand’s style guide from 1967, which was very, very similar. The key points about speech writing are these: use plain English, avoid waffle at all costs, get to the point quickly, state the point, and move on. That, as you can see from this speech, is exactly what a style guide should be—where there is a need for clarity.

Of course, elections are about choice and elections are about clarity. The people deserve to know where the parties stand on various issues. Waffle is of no use, as Mr Cunliffe found out last week when he tried to be tricky over the “baby bonus” announcement. Among the policies dumped by Mr Cunliffe has been his policy of letting Dr Norman have a podium next to his at announcements. But do not be fooled; everything is not as it seems Members opposite are listening very carefully because they are worried. What we see now is a Labour Party that is selling out on every single policy.

So we need clarity on some of these points, for example. The Greens support internet freedom whereas Labour wants to shut down Facebook. The Greens want to legalise cannabis but Labour is opposed. The Greens want to print money; Labour does it the old-fashioned way through borrowing and raising taxes. Russel Norman wants to be Minister of Finance; David Cunliffe says no, but there could but a role for him in some of the broader economic portfolios. We are entitled to know what the true position is on these and other issues.

My advice to the Labour Party—friendly, constructive advice—is that as we approach the election season, use plain language, get to the point quickly, state the point, and then move on. That is certainly the approach that I am going to be adopting in the great seat of Rongotai later in the year, when the venerable Annette King and I front up for another fight. She just about lost the party vote in 2011—

Hon Annette King: But she thrashed you, Chris—11,000 votes.

Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON: She did thrash me in the electorate vote, but so what? As the great Judy Kirk said, it is the party vote that matters. I say to Annette King—fond of her as I am on a personal level—that she is hopeless. I am very much looking forward to a good scrap in Rongotai in 2014 as she stands there for the 40th time.

PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū): I was worried there that the previous speaker, Christopher Finlayson, was slipping into a catatonic slumber as he began to speak more and more slowly as the minutes dragged on. The House is mercifully released from that last contribution.

I want to talk about National’s housing crisis. The entire country is talking about it, so it is right that this House talks about it too. The reason that everybody is talking about the housing crisis is that it is corroding away things that we care deeply about in New Zealand. Under the National Government, first-home buyers are shut out of the housing market and homeownership is dropping more quickly than ever before. Our children are being hospitalised because that Minister of Housing, Nick Smith, refuses to regulate the private rental market and require a decent roof over people’s heads—at least insulation and efficient heating.

Housing costs are not only squeezing middle-class families across New Zealand, they are wiping out household budgets. Interest rates are about to go up. They are going to add hundreds of dollars to the mortgage repayments of families in the mortgage belt. As the Child Poverty Monitor told us a few weeks ago, it is rising housing costs that are keeping child poverty high in this country. At the sharp end of the housing crisis, the most vulnerable families are living in tents, in sleepouts, and in garages, and Government agencies are even referring people to live on camping grounds.

Well, it is a mess. It has been brewing for several years—almost the entire time that National has been in office. National has failed to act for 4 long years. It has failed to do anything about the housing crisis. I guess that when you represent the big end of town and about half your caucus are major landlords, the concerns of young, struggling first-home buyers, of families who are living in substandard and overcrowded accommodation, and of State house tenants are not at the top of your list of priorities. I suppose, given this and given that members of the National Party caucus are major property owners in their own rights, it is not surprising, for instance, that they oppose a capital gains tax. To wait 4 long years before doing anything about the housing crisis is unforgivable.

Then what do we get? Last year we got Nick “Calamity” Smith running around like a mad thing, turning up at the unveiling of a new door handle, pretending to be Michael Joseph Savage carrying the furniture of State house tenants into their new house. There was an endless stream of photo opportunities and little schemes like flogging off broken-down old State houses to first-home buyers at a heavy discount in provincial New Zealand where there is not a housing crisis. That is what passes for a housing policy under this Government.

But it is too little too late. Not even the full force of the Reserve Bank, with its loan-to-value ratio lending limits, appears to be able to dampen the Auckland housing market. If you look at the front page of today’s New Zealand Herald, you will see that house price escalation is as rampant as ever under this Government. Not even loan-to-value ratios seem like they can put a dent in it. The latest data from Quotable Value shows that first-home buyers have been squeezed out of the market, but that has not stopped prices rising, because the speculators, both foreign and domestic, have stepped into the space. They are snapping up the houses and that Minister will not do anything about it.

The crazy thing about the housing crisis is that the National Government had the perfect opportunity to do something about it back in 2011 as the housing crisis was beginning to bite. We had low interest rates, an army of builders with nothing to do, a city that needed rebuilding after the Canterbury earthquakes, and an economy that desperately needed the stimulus. It would have been the perfect time for a Government-backed building programme to build houses for first-home buyers and to add to the State housing stock—instead of flogging it off, as this Minister is doing—but the Government did not want to know. It wasted the perfect opportunity to head off the housing crisis as it began to bite.

Why is the housing crisis such a problem? Why do the opinion polls show that New Zealanders are desperately concerned about it and so disappointed in the failure of the National Government to act? Well, I think the first reason is that the housing crisis and escalating house prices, particularly in Auckland and Christchurch at the moment, are a major cause of the yawning gap between rich and poor in New Zealand. Under the National Government there are basically two classes of people. There are those with assets, who are the property owners who are raking it in from tax-free capital gains. Most of the National Party caucus are in that category. Then there are the rest: the people who contribute to the prosperity of this nation from the sweat of their brow. They pay tax but are struggling to get ahead because this National Government is content to run an economy that rewards the speculators.

And because National has allowed Auckland house prices to get away on it and because it mismanaged the roll-out of loan-to-value ratios, it has failed to protect first-home buyers. The Prime Minister in the middle of last year was crying crocodile tears for first-home buyers, saying that he was going to sort it out with the Reserve Bank. He said he would organise a carve-out for first-home buyers so that they would not be affected by loan-to-value ratio lending limits, which have imposed a 20 percent minimum deposit on first-home buyers in this country. The National Government said that it would do something about it, but it did nothing.

In fact, under the Official Information Act, what we know is that Bill English did not ask for advice from Treasury about the effect of those lending limits on first-home buyers until after he had negotiated an agreement with the Reserve Bank to roll out those limits. What we know is that he did not even ask Nick Smith, the Minister of Housing, for advice in writing on the impact on first-home buyers. They simply discussed it at one of their regular catch-ups. That is how much National cares about first-home buyers. It has allowed these loan-to-value ratio lending limits to shut first-home buyers out of the market and, as a result, Generation X and Generation Y are becoming a nation of renters under National.

But perhaps just as bad, just as depressing, is that the housing crisis and Nick Smith’s inept, chaotic mismanagement of housing policy is blighting the life chances of hundreds of thousands of Kiwi children. When a youngster in Te Atatū, in my electorate in west Auckland, is living with her family and her four siblings in an uninsulated, one-room garage, as was reported in the Western Leader recently, it is inevitable that that youngster will get sick in the winter. She is not going to be able to do her homework properly when she is sharing a one-room Skyline garage with the rest of her family. When that family moves from place to place, as it inevitably will—to relatives, crammed into a spare room or into a sleepout, or to emergency accommodation, if they are lucky—that young girl is going to be moved from pillar to post, from one school to another, and that is why in west Auckland there are a number of primary schools that report a wildly fluctuating roll. It is because of housing insecurity. It is because of the housing crisis and this Government’s failure to do anything meaningful about it.

The Bay of Plenty Times reported today that a desperate family were forced to live in a tent for 5 weeks as they waited for the Housing New Zealand Corporation to find them a house. Housing New Zealand has apologised for that. It has apologised for the fact that it took a story in the Bay of Plenty Times before it even visited the family. Housing New Zealand statistics themselves tell us that there are 77 vacant properties in the Bay of Plenty at the moment, but Housing New Zealand staff could not even visit a family living in a tent in a park by a river because a house was not available to that family.

So even though National’s housing crisis is widening the gap between the rich and the poor and even though it is driving families into poverty and making our children sick, that Minister, Nick Smith, refuses to regulate the standard of housing in the private rental market. National is denying ordinary New Zealanders a decent start in life for their children. It refuses to tackle the fundamentals of the housing crisis. It refuses to tax speculators, even though Auckland has become a speculators’ paradise. Speculators both foreign and domestic are driving prices higher and higher and out of the reach of ordinary New Zealanders. National refuses to build affordable starter homes for first-home buyers. It refuses to set minimum standards for private rental properties. All we get are photo opportunities, tinkering with the Resource Management Act, and the running down of Housing New Zealand, the last part of the housing safety net for New Zealanders in need. It is a disgrace.

Hon JUDITH COLLINS (Minister of Justice): Mr Assistant Speaker Robertson, a happy New Year to you and to the House. It is, in fact, with great pride that I speak in this debate, because I am also privileged to be the Minister of Justice, the Minister for ACC, and the Minister for Ethnic Affairs. I would like to take the opportunity to acknowledge my colleagues in the justice sector, the Hon Anne Tolley, the Hon Christopher Finlayson, the Hon Chester Borrows, and our chief executives, for the very hard work and concerted work of working together that they have done over the last 2 years. Can I also acknowledge in the ACC area the Hon Craig Foss, who is the Associate Minister for ACC. Craig and I work very well together, and he has done sterling work, particularly over the last 2 years. In the ethnic affairs area I would like to acknowledge Melissa Lee, the Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Minister for Ethnic Affairs, and all of our ethnic affairs team in National, which, I have to say, is a fantastic team, working together for the people of New Zealand.

The member who has just resumed his seat, Phil Twyford, made some very interesting comments about what he had learnt in his local newspaper about what was happening in his local electorate. Let me give him a piece of advice. As an electorate MP, he should not be getting his stories out of his local newspaper. He should be giving the stories to the local newspaper. He should be getting up off his chuff, getting around to the garage, getting the story, helping these people to get their home through the Housing New Zealand Corporation or some other provider. That is what electorate MPs do. They do not sit around waiting for the newspaper to give them the stories.

Sue Moroney: That’s Simon Bridges’ job in the Bay of Plenty.

Hon JUDITH COLLINS: I understand that there are a couple of list MPs over on the other side of the House who do not agree with me. Well, let me just tell them that that is how it works in the real world when you are an electorate MP and you want to stay one.

Today is the first day that I have been able to speak in the House this year, because I have been representing New Zealand at the United Nations Human Rights Council at Geneva. I have to say that it was a very proud experience for me because New Zealand’s record on human rights is, frankly, second to none. I would like to say that the good thing is that the Labour Party was still on holiday, so it could not actually put out a press release attacking New Zealand or our record on human rights. However, the Greens were not. So Jan Logie from the Greens put out a press release and made many other comments, and you would have thought, if you had listened to them, that New Zealand was one of the worst countries in the world for human rights. Actually, we are pretty much the best.

The response that we got from other nations to our report, where we acknowledged, for instance, that we want to do so much better as a country when it comes to things like domestic violence, and where we acknowledged that children still live in relative poverty—but, having said that, look at our immunisation rates. Look at our rates of early childhood education. Look at the way in which people are given a chance to get ahead. We acknowledged those as well. We are never going to be perfect, because nobody ever can be in the real world, but we are always going to keep trying to be.

Instead, what did we get from the Greens, these people who want to be in Government with the Labour Party and however many other parties that they would need to put together? Well, we got that the next day, after that. This week, what did we get? We got them bullying Nauru—Nauru—and refusing to apologise for bullying Nauru on its record. For goodness’ sake! Why do these people not just get to work and do a decent living, instead of attacking every country in the world except those that they think are going to do whatever they want? So Nauru. Nauru has its challenges; so do all countries. But we should applaud where people get ahead, applaud where they improve their human rights record, and applaud where there is democracy. These are the things that we want to applaud.

One of the things that we need in the country is a lack of corruption. This country has been recorded by Transparency International as being the least corrupt country in the world, by the perception of the public of our Public Service, for the last 8 years in a row—either first or first equal. This is a fantastic record, and what it does is it says to New Zealanders that when you want to get a passport in New Zealand, you do not have to pay a bribe. What you do is you go through the normal process and, in New Zealand, that is something we should value.

Crime generally—5 years after we came into Government, recorded crime is down to the lowest level it has been in 33 years. When I came in as the Minister of Police in 2008, I was told that we could do nothing about the crime in the Counties Manukau Police District in South Auckland, where my electorate of Papakura was. I was told that this was all demographics. That was utter rubbish—utter rubbish. What it needed was policing. It needed smart policing, it needed preventive policing, it needed strong morale, and it needed a Government that backed the police, and that is exactly what we did. All these years later what have we got? Five years later crime is down to its lowest level in 33 years. We have set Better Public Services targets and results. Our targets are to reduce by 2017 overall crime rates by 15 percent, violent crime by 20 percent, and youth crime by 25 percent. Where are we at the moment? Total crime is down by 12 percent, violent crime is down by 8 percent, and youth crime is down by 19 percent, and we have still got 3 years to go on these targets.

So what we are seeing is that things are changing. We got the alcohol reform legislation through. We changed the law on alcohol. In fact, just before Christmas, what did I get from the Green Mayor of Wellington? I got condemned by her because we did not think it was all right for people to be out drinking on the streets until 6 o’clock in the morning. She wrote to me and said that was dreadful; it was stopping business. These are the same people who rail day in, day out at alcohol—apparently, all other drugs are all right—except, of course, when they are running for local government or to be members of Parliament.

What else did we do? Well, we brought in maximum jail sentences with no parole for the worst serious violent offenders under the three-strikes law. One of the other previous Labour spokespeople on law and order and on justice said Labour was going to get rid of that. That was about four people back, so I am not quite sure whether that is still its position. It certainly is the Greens’ position. We brought in tougher sentences for crimes against children. Now it is a crime to stay silent if you know that a child or a vulnerable person is at risk. We brought in tougher sentences for involvement in gangs, and we have brought in 24-hour GPS monitoring for highest-risk and child sex offenders out on release in the community. We have toughened up and strengthened the bail laws. We have done this with the support of other parties in the House that believe that this is important. We have also made 17 to 19-year-olds subject to adult tests for bail if they have served time.

What we have done is make it a lot easier for the police to do their job. We know there are 600 extra police on the front line. We also know, and we heard again today from the Hon Anne Tolley, that the technology that police are now using means they can spend more time on the front line and less time back at the office. We had 70 percent more police foot patrols in 2012. The police now have Tasers, lock boxes in their cars, DNA testing of offenders, smartphones, and tablets. What we now have is a much safer New Zealand.

The police are not just getting tough on things; they are getting smart on things. We have got pre-charge warnings: 41,000 of them in the 24 months up to May last year. That means actually dealing with issues straight away rather than waiting 6 or 7 months for a court case. We have rolled out the smartphones. Illegal street-racing offences—remember them? Remember how the Labour Party said our law would not help? Well, by the way, they are down 35 percent. There are huge changes: a clamp-down on gangs, organised crime, and methamphetamine.

The big thing that is different from all the years that Labour was in office is we have put our victims first. We have put victims first. We have brought them back into the system and we have said that we will not censor them when they want to say what they want to say in their victim impact statements. We are bringing in the Harmful Digital Communications Bill, the Public Safety (Public Protection Orders) Bill, the Parole Amendment Bill, the Objectionable Publications and Indecency Legislation Bill, the Victims’ Orders Against Violent Offenders Bill, and the Victims of Crime Reform Bill.

This is a Government that works very seriously and works very well on justice and on law and order issues. I would like to say thankyou to my colleagues for the support and the backing you have given us, and thank you to the people of New Zealand for giving us the privilege of continuing to do this work.

DAVID SHEARER (Labour—Mt Albert): Could I take this opportunity, as well, to wish you, Mr Assistant Speaker Robertson, and the House a happy New Year. In a few months the Minister of Finance, Bill English, is likely to present his first Budget surplus—his first Budget surplus in 6 years. It will be the last Budget that he presents to this House and—good for him—it will be in surplus. It must be galling that after nine surpluses under Labour it has taken 6 years in order for him to be able to deliver one Budget surplus to this House. He is obviously getting the hang of it. Nine years of surplus and 5 years of deficit, and finally we get a Budget surplus, or that is what we are led to believe. A Budget surplus, to the Labour Party, is a given. That is what we do when we are in Government: we produce Budget surpluses. That is what we do.

Here is another statistic. Ever since the first National Government came into office, the average GDP growth under all National Governments right back through history has been 2.9 percent—the average GDP growth. The average GDP growth under all Labour Governments throughout history has been 3.7 percent—3.7 percent. Every Labour Government has been able to produce better growth than any National Government. So, despite what this Government says about Labour Governments, they are the most economically prosperous Governments, and they have been able to deliver what New Zealanders want. We have been sound financial managers and we have been able to do that every time we have been in Government.

Our economy has gone through the global financial crisis, as has the rest of the world. We have had the rebuild of Christchurch, which has helped with half of the GDP growth that we are seeing at the moment. Our commodity prices are doing very well, and that has obviously contributed much of the rest. But although our economy is starting to move again, along with the rest of the world, the question is whether New Zealanders are any better off. Are New Zealanders any better off? Are they doing as well as the New Zealand economy is said to be doing? I know that many of those people out there who might be watching this now will say no, because 50 percent of them will not have had a pay increase. Fifty percent will not have had a pay increase in the last year.

House prices are unaffordable. I ran into a couple the other day and we were talking about their particular plight. They lived in a rented house, saving hard for a house. They made improvements to their rented house because, to be quite honest, the couple wanted to live in good accommodation. So they painted it, they put in a sandpit for their kids, and they even put in a barbecue. As soon as they did that, the landlord moved them on. They are now in more expensive accommodation, renting, and still trying hard to save for that house, but finding it more and more difficult to be able to do that because this Government completely ignored the cost of housing and the price of houses in the economy.

As a result, young couples who have spoken to me say they go along every week to yet another auction and they are always outbid. They just cannot seem to be able to get to that price. A father of a young woman I know said to me that it makes him angry that his daughter, his son-in-law, and their three kids cannot do what he did when he was young—move into their own house and be able to afford that. That is the opportunity those people had back then and young people today simply do not have. The opportunities for young New Zealanders are simply not there and have slipped away under this Government.

In fact, you were telling me today, Mr Assistant Speaker Robertson, that a house in a street that I grew up in, in your electorate in Papatoetoe, the other day sold for a million dollars—a million dollars. That is a house for hard-working New Zealanders, middle of the road, middle class—it went for a million dollars. To buy that house, because this Government has brought in the loan-to-value ratios, you would need a $200,000 deposit. What sort of family can afford a $200,000 deposit? Absolutely nobody. Not a young couple—

Hon Simon Bridges: You can.

DAVID SHEARER: Maybe you, Mr Bridges, but certainly not a young couple who are aspiring to own their own home. Who has that sort of money?

And, while we are on the subject, power prices have continued to climb. House prices and electricity prices have continued to climb. I will not forget a woman who has come to see me and said to me that she gets so sick in her stomach every time that she goes out to her letterbox, just in case her electricity bill has arrived—just in case her electricity bill has arrived. Yet she reads in the paper comments from Mr Bridges and from everybody else and all his friends that we have one of the most competitive electricity markets in the world. It is just that it does not bring lower prices—that is all. Everybody is changing companies, but it does not bring the price down. Last year the inflation rate was 1 percent and the electricity rise was 5 percent. You tell that to Kiwis—that somehow their competitive market is making them better off—and they will laugh in your face, because they are turning their driers off, their heaters off, because they cannot afford to pay their bills, and this Government will do nothing about it.

That is why people want a Labour Government—because we want a fair society. We do want to see opportunities. We want New Zealanders to have opportunities—the same opportunities that I had when I grew up, the same opportunities that I want for my kids as they are growing up, as well—where New Zealanders can afford a house, where they can afford to pay their power bills. That is the sort of country that I want to live in; not a country where this Government is so out of touch and so arrogant that it does not actually understand what real New Zealanders actually want. The Government believes that somehow the house prices can be cured by Mr Nick Smith’s pixie dust that he sprinkles around all over the place or Mr Bridge’s plaintive cries that we have somehow got a very competitive energy market. It is absolute nonsense and people out there know that.

Yet Government members are not listening to ordinary New Zealanders. They are so arrogant and they are so out of touch that they do not actually understand what it is that New Zealanders want. They are not listening. They are not listening to the fact that this Government is about to sell off yet another power company. Genesis Energy is soon going to be on the block—Genesis Energy, which no mums and dads will invest in. Let us face it. When was the last time that you heard about mums and dads investing in power companies? They do not. Only 1.5 percent of New Zealanders actually invest in these power companies, and I can tell you what. They are not ordinary mums and dads—not the people whom I speak of. That is how out of touch this Government is. Does it really think that mums and dads are buying them? No, the corporates are buying them. The financial companies are buying them. The overseas companies are buying them and shipping the proceeds and the profits off to other places outside of here.

This Government is out of touch. It is out of touch, it is arrogant, it has lost the plot, and that is the reason it will lose this year. I congratulate Mr English on his last Budget being in surplus. I am so sorry that the other five were in deficit, but at least his last one is in surplus. His days are numbered and so are this Government’s.

Hon TODD McCLAY (Minister of Revenue): I do not think that the last member who spoke in this debate, David Shearer, believed anything that he said there, but at least finally we have received an apology from the Labour Party for the atrocious mess that New Zealand was left in when we took office, and it was a heartfelt apology to the New Zealand people. In fact, as I looked across, it was almost like that was a speech from the latest member of the former leaders’ club, and there are two of them sitting there together. It used to be so very, very exclusive, but it is not that exclusive any more—almost as exclusive as the membership of former chiefs of staff of leaders of the Labour Party—numbering around about five now.

But both of those men over there are better than their current leader, because they are genuine men who believe in making a difference for New Zealanders. They are not tricky. They do not go to one audience and say one thing and then go to another audience and say another thing. The one thing I would say that I learnt in my 5 years in this time about Phil Goff and David Shearer is that when they stood up in the hustings and said something, they meant it. They might have been wrong every single time, but at least they meant it.

That cannot be said for the new leader of the Labour Party, “Mr Tricky Dickie”, who actually likes to go to parts of Auckland and stand on top of buses with a microphone, putting on funny voices and telling people what they should do and how they should vote. I have got to tell you, on behalf of those people whom he was speaking about, that that was an outrageous thing that he did. He was condescending to them. He was horrible to them, and I bet you that he then went to another audience, changed his voice, was oh so very tricky, and gave them such a different idea of what the country would be like.

I actually say that there needs to be another member of the former leaders’ club, and that is their current leader on that side, “Mr Tricky”. He should go and join them. On behalf of the Labour Party and New Zealanders, I say that either of those last two gentlemen, David Shearer or Phil Goff, who actually did a great job on behalf of the Labour Party and who were let down by the Labour Party, should come back and actually fill the great void that sits over there.

Hon Simon Bridges: Now who’s being tricky?

Hon TODD McCLAY: I am not being tricky at all; I am being genuine. Anyway, enough about them, because that is it. What I want to do is congratulate my friend and colleague and our newest Minister, the Hon Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga. What a great thing it is—and such a diverse party we have here in the National Party—that he becomes a Minister in our Government. Indeed, the great thing about this Government, compared with that party opposite that governed for 9 very long years when New Zealanders were left in the cold, is that it is about what is best for New Zealanders going forward. I think that having Sam Lotu-Iiga become a Minister says so very, very much.

Indeed, I read in a newspaper the other day that when we come to the election later this year, there will be 13 people who were members of this Parliament from the National Party, as it stood at the 2011 election, who will have resigned. Some have already gone. Some are retiring and going back to their lives—great service to New Zealand—and they are going on. As I skimmed down that article and had a look, there was only one person from the Labour Party who actually has done a great service to Labour over many years, who has decided to retire and who can be very proud of what they have done. I think the reason that that person has decided to retire is that they have just had enough of the trickiness and they want to go back to their life—and some members are nodding their heads—and they said that the Labour Party they are in today, which they have served dutifully for all of those years, is not the Labour Party that they joined all those years ago, which actually seemed to care about New Zealanders at the time but now will just say anything to any audience to get any vote so it can get over on this side and start ruining the country again.

Can I say I am grateful to our Prime Minister not only for the leadership he has shown over the last 5 years but also for giving me the honour of doing a little bit of extra work, as part of his Government, as a Minister.

I want to pay a tribute to another very hard-working member of this Parliament who, I think, has many, many years of good service ahead of him, and that is the Hon Peter Dunne. Can I say that when I took on the revenue portfolio, I thought there were very big shoes to fill, but I can say honestly, with my hand on my heart, that there is a man who did a great job on behalf of New Zealand taxpayers to make our tax base fair so that New Zealanders would comply and pay their taxes, and to make sure that we had a broad base and low rates, compared with most countries of the world. I know that he had to fight tooth and nail when he was part of a previous Government under the Labour Party to try to get those tax rates down to be fairer to New Zealanders. If you work hard and earn income, we want you to actually be responsible for spending it yourself, rather than taking it off you, spending it on your behalf, and expecting you to be grateful. I think that Peter Dunne has done a great job and I look forward to working closely with him in his new portfolio areas.

I can also say that in the 6 or 7 months that I have been Minister of Revenue, I have had a chance to get out and meet so very many people who work for the Inland Revenue Department—our staff—and they are hard-working individuals who actually also come to work every day to serve New Zealanders and to make their lives better.

Here is the great thing about tax: we all have to pay it, but we know that lots of people do not want to. I heard a story not so long ago, during this term of Parliament, about somebody who had a bank account in New York who was keeping money there. That would not be so that they did not pay tax on it at all. It must have been because they wanted to save up that $200,000 deposit that they are now saying they need to go and buy a house on the old street that they grew up in. But the thing about tax rates is that when they are lower, when they are broad, and when New Zealanders see that they are fair, then they will pay them. As soon as you start tinkering with these things—if you try to be tricky, if you try to move the rates around and put them up in some areas—then people look for ways within the law to avoid those taxes.

The great thing that we have in New Zealand is that our tax base is broad, the tax income that the Government is getting is going up, and we are doing so in an extremely fair manner. New Zealanders expect to pay their fair share and they are happy to when they see that their Government is using that money well and using it to good effect to better things in society. They do not want to pay their taxes when the rates are far too high, when they are unfair, or when the money is being used and squandered. Let us say, for example, that you put the tax rate up as far as you can and then you take that money and you give it back to a couple who might—I do not know—earn $300,000 a year. The wife decides to have a child and not work, and their income goes down to $150,000 a year, and you give them 60 bucks a week for that child.

Sue Moroney: They have a child and they stop work.

Hon TODD McCLAY: I guarantee you that there will be hard-working people—hard-working plumbers and builders in Hamilton, the seat that that member opposite has continued to fail to be elected in—who are earning $60,000 or $70,000 a year. They go to work every day, and they do not have any kids. The Labour Party wants to be tricky and take their hard-earned taxes and give them to somebody down the road—from the really expensive houses like the Leader of the Opposition owns—who earns $150,000 a year. Labour wants to give them $60 of the hard-earned taxes that that builder has paid. I think that that is ridiculous. It is sad and it is disgraceful that members opposite will say and do anything—by being quiet when their leader makes things up and is tricky—to get any vote so that they can get on this side of the House and ruin the great record that New Zealanders have worked hard on over the last 5 years.

Here it is as easy as it gets. Most other countries in the world have an unemployment rate higher than ours and it is going up. Our rate went down. Labour does not like that because it wants people to be dependent and miserable, and that is why the number of people in the country who are members of the Labour Party is at a record low.

Sue Moroney: The unemployment rate was the lowest under Labour.

Hon TODD McCLAY: Here is the thing about the member opposite with the loudest voice on that side. It sounds good when she is on TV but every 3 years, when it comes time for people to vote for her, she is too tricky and it never works out. Here is a prediction: if she does not swap seats and go somewhere to help out another National Party candidate to get a bigger majority, Tim Macindoe, up and down his electorate, will tell people what is going on. The people of Hamilton are very, very intelligent people. I give you an absolute heartfelt guarantee that her result will be worse than that of the member opposite who is really tricky, the leader of their party, who is trying to convince people all over the country. It will be. Tim Macindoe will continue to be the hard-working MP for Hamilton, as David Bennett is. The Prime Minister was right: if those guys want to be tricky, I cannot wait for the election this year. Let us bring it on.

MOANA MACKEY (Labour): That was an extraordinary contribution from Mr Todd McClay. He spent the better part of his speech talking about himself and thanking people. You were not winning an Academy Award, Mr McClay. It was meant to be a debate on the Prime Minister’s statement, but most of the first part of the speech was talking about himself and all the people who have supported him throughout his career and thanking them.

The take-home messages from Mr McClay’s speech were these. One, I want to justify tax cuts for the wealthy. His first message was that tax cuts for the wealthy, which overwhelmingly go to people who do not need them and did not ask for them, are good for this country. That was his first message. His second message was “Do not support children.” He said it is a bad idea to ensure that every kid in this country gets the best start in life. This is coming from the party that taxed paper boys on their income. We know that National does not want to support children—those little bludgers—it just wants to tax them on their paper routes. National does not want to see a Government that is going to take the tax cuts that were given to the wealthiest New Zealanders and distribute them to the most important people in this country, who are our future: the children of this country. His final message was that, you know what, everything is great. Everything is fine.

Well, you know what, Mr McClay? Everything is not fine. Everything is not great in New Zealand at the moment. The National Party might think that just by saying the Crosby/Textor playbook lines over and over again they are going to fool New Zealanders into thinking that everything is great, but every time that Kiwi families open the power bill, or go to the supermarket, or have to pay their rent, they know that things are not great. They know that this Government is not listening—that it arrogantly just wants to tell them that they are wrong. Do you know what? In the big end of town things probably are pretty good at the moment, but most New Zealanders are struggling to keep their heads above water, and too many are going backwards.

I want to talk about a young single mum I met who came to tell me her story in my office. She said to me that she was on the DPB. She is trying to do good by her kids so her bills are paid automatically—they come out before she sees the money hitting her account. But then one week that did not happen, so one week she ended up with a whole lot of money in her account. And she got a rush of blood to the head—she is human—and she spent it. She should not have. She rang the Budget Advisory Service because she was so upset. She knew that she had to pay it back. She did not know how she was going to do it. She was scared that she was going to get into trouble.

The Budget Advisory Service staff went to see her. When they went around there they were expecting that she had spent the money on alcohol or cigarettes. Do you know what she had spent that money on? She had spent it on non-perishable food. She had filled her pantry with that money. She said to me that she knew that she should not have done it, but she said that she just wanted that security—to feel that security that she had not felt for a long time of knowing where the next couple of weeks’ meals were going to come from. And she said that she wanted to say to her kids: “Tonight you get to eat until you are full.”

When did food become a luxury item in this country? Because, I tell you what, it is under this Government.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Rubbish!

MOANA MACKEY: In New Zealand food should not be a luxury item and for too many families it is. Nick Smith can say “Rubbish!”, but I was moved by that young woman who came to see me, because it shows that New Zealand has changed. And it has not changed for the better. Todd McClay and Simon Bridges can laugh, but the fact is that that is the reality out there for too many of our families. That is the reality out there for too many of our children, and you tell me that $60 a week is not going to help. I tell you that it will, and I am proud of that policy. I am proud of that policy.

I want to talk a little bit about power prices—a little bit about power prices. Simon Bridges and John Key constantly tell us that power prices are competitive; that power prices are not too high. We know that that simply is not true. We have flattening demand for electricity in this country. We have an over-surplus of generation. We have a collapsed carbon price.

Hon Simon Bridges: That’s right, and you want to ramp it up. You want to ramp it up on poor Kiwis.

MOANA MACKEY: If power prices are not going to go down now, Mr Bridges, they are never going down. So this side of the House is saying we are going to do something about that. We are going to bring down power prices.

What is Simon Bridges’ response to this? That people can go on the website, if they have a computer and access to the internet, and use the What’s My Number campaign to change power retailers. That is your answer, Mr Bridges. Well, you know what, Mr Bridges? For a lot of families, they are lucky—

Hon Simon Bridges: Why don’t you just ask me a question in the House?

MOANA MACKEY: You do not need to scream at me. I know this is sensitive because you know that you have failed in this area. But most families I deal with are lucky if they can get one electricity retailer to pick them up. The idea that they have a choice, Mr Bridges, is pure fantasyland, la-la stuff, and shows how arrogant and out of touch this Minister of Energy and Resources is—just how out of touch the Government is. They are lucky if they can get one power retailer.

Most of the difference in power prices actually comes from early payment discounts. That is the big difference. Well, an early payment discount does not matter if you cannot pay the bill, Mr Bridges. You do not get the early payment discount if you cannot afford to pay the power bill. Oh, a little light bulb goes on over his head. So the What’s My Number campaign does nothing for the poorest families in this country. It actually does nothing for many of the middle-class families in this country. But that is this Government’s solution to power prices. That is this Government’s solution.

So I want to come on to the issue of housing, which my colleague Phil Twyford talked about. I want to talk about social housing a little bit, because in the provinces what we used to have is a waiting list of categories A, B, C, and D, in declining need. And what this Government did is it said “You know what? Anyone who is category C or D, we’re going to kick them off the waiting list. That category no longer exists, because they’re not needed.”

Hon Dr Nick Smith: That’s not true.

MOANA MACKEY: That is absolutely true. In the provinces—and I know in Gisborne—80 percent of our waiting list was categories C and D. And it is not that these people are wealthy; it is that the rents, on which we base the income-related rents, are lower than they are in the cities. So it is not that these people’s incomes are high; it is that the average rent is low. But we do not have enough landlords in provincial New Zealand to meet the need.

Hon Simon Bridges: You haven’t been in provincial New Zealand in years.

MOANA MACKEY: That is where social housing fills an incredible—I live in Gisborne.

Hon Simon Bridges: No you don’t.

MOANA MACKEY: Oh, for God’s sake! That is how pathetic it is. I do not live in Gisborne when I live in Gisborne. That is what Simon Bridges is choosing to focus on. This is a man who in his electorate had a family living in a tent for 5 weeks. For 5 weeks they were living in a tent. What did you do about that?

Hon Simon Bridges: I didn’t know about it.

MOANA MACKEY: Nothing. Why do you not just talk about how I do not live in Gisborne? That is how seriously this Government is taking the difficulties facing families in this country.

So, if I go back to it, what happens is we have State houses sitting empty right across New Zealand—3,500 houses sitting empty right across New Zealand—while families are living in tents. How does that make sense? We have 4,500 people on the Housing New Zealand waiting list, and that is ignoring the 5,000 people it kicked off categories C and D. This Government’s social housing plan is to kick people off waiting lists, stop putting people into houses so it can then pretend that there is no need, and then have an excuse to flog the houses off. That is what National did the last time it was in Government, so we should not be surprised. We should not be surprised. It hocked off nearly 13,000 State houses in the 1990s.

When we were in Government we managed to rebuild nearly 8,000 houses, and that was despite the fact that we were going through a building boom, and you could not get a builder for love or money, because we had to rebuild that housing stock. We brought income-related rents back. We started the maintenance programme that had stopped under the National Government. You know what? In 9 years we did not get to repair all the damage wreaked by 9 years of a National Government—we did not. And had we won again in 2008 we would have continued to repair the damage done to social housing by the 1990s National Government.

But, unfortunately, all we are seeing is history repeating itself. It is dressed up differently. Crosby/Textor has put a different spin on it, but it is the same old Tory policies—kick people out of social housing. They do not deserve to be there. Kick them while they are down, rather than using social housing and seeing social housing as the one opportunity that Governments have to provide security in a family’s life. We do not get to do it with any other intervention that we have as Governments. But with housing we do. We can give people a home. We can give them a community. When there is social housing, we can connect them to the support that they need. Because, let us be honest, Housing New Zealand is often the landlord of last resort—it is. But if we just keep kicking people out of social housing, where do they go? They do not disappear. They do not suddenly vanish and not be a problem any more. They just become someone else’s problem and we never ever get to the root of that problem.

You see this with what you saw in Gisborne with an 80-year-old man who had a stroke. He was living in a Housing New Zealand house. Housing New Zealand approved his nephew moving in to look after the house, do the maintenance, and look after the gardens while he was in hospital. Well, the nephew planted some dope on the property. The police came in. There was an investigation. The 80-year-old man was completely incapacitated after his stroke. He got evicted from his Housing New Zealand house because this lot are so inflexible when it comes to housing that they could not see that it was not that elderly gentleman’s fault. He had been in that home for 50 years. It was his home. Housing New Zealand staff locally were distraught that they had to evict him, but they said that there was no wriggle room. They were no longer allowed to take—thank you, Mr Heatley, for that, by the way—the personal circumstances of those tenants into consideration when making these decisions. That is the New Zealand we now live in. That is going to change this year when we elect a Labour Government.

Hon TAU HENARE (National): Fancy living in a Housing New Zealand home for 50-odd years. Fancy not going and buying your own house. Fancy not asking the Government for assistance to buy your own house but rather staying there for 50 years. It is a State house. It belongs to the State. It is there to help those in need, for goodness’ sake. That is the reason for a State house.

Moana Mackey: He was in need.

Hon TAU HENARE: And while we are talking about State houses, Ms Mackey—before she goes—cast your minds back to 1936 and Michael Joseph Savage. Phil Goff was there, but I was not. Cast your mind back to that day when Michael Joseph Savage was given a broken gold watch, three huia feathers, and a pounamu tiki. They represented the deal done between Rātana and Labour. Four years later, Mickey Savage died. Since then no one has seen these taonga, these artefacts that supposedly bound the Labour Party and Rātana together—or, I should say, that supposedly bound Māori together with the Labour Party in 1936. You would have thought that Labour would keep hold of them. You would have thought that they were so precious and they meant so much to the Labour Party and to New Zealand, in fact, that these taonga would be kept on display for the rest of the nation to see.

So let us talk about relationships and where they go. Let us talk about Treaty settlements and the 67 Treaty settlements since they were established. Out of 67 Treaty settlements, 41 were settled under National in the last 5 years. Billions of dollars were created out of those just settlements, and the Tūhoe settlement is still to come. There were 26 of those 67 settlements in the 9 years—9 years—of the Labour Government. When I delivered the Muriwhenua report as Minister of Māori Affairs, way back last century, some bright spark on the other side said: “Er, mate, what we’re going to do is wait for Labour, because they’ll give us more.” Well, they waited for Labour, and Labour came and went. In those 9 years Muriwhenua still had not been settled. It is only through the good grace of our Cabinet and of our Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations, the Hon Chris Finlayson, that on the weekend a deal was signed with Ngāti Kurī, part of the Muriwhenua conglomerate.

What have we done in terms of land use? Well, let us have a look at Te Ture Whenua Maori Act / Maori Land Act. There is around $8 billion worth of land that actually sits idle because nobody had thought of trying to unlock it. Who is out there now trying to unlock that? Who is out there doing the business to review Te Ture Whenua Maori Act? None other than National and the Māori Party. That is what we call “engagement”—engagement. You know, I love to go to huis and listen to how Labour has a great relationship with Māori. Labour members talk a good game, but who delivers on that relationship? It is the National Party. Who funded kōhanga reo first and foremost? Oh, that is right, it was actually Muldoon who funded kōhanga reo way back. But anybody would have thought that it is this relationship between Māori and Labour that does all of this. It is not. It is not. It is a lie.

The previous speaker, Moana Mackey, talked about housing. Well, here is something that all New Zealand should know about. At Rātana there are houses—State houses, even—that were in need of some work. And who was the Government member who sat down in a relationship with Rātana about this? My colleague and my friend the former Minister of Housing, the Hon Phil Heatley. All of those homes have been fixed, they have been made warm, and they have been made safe for that community. You would have thought that over a 70-year period Labour would do something along the lines of a real relationship, but oh no. The real relationship comes when there are people who are interested not in talking a good game but in playing a good game. That is the difference between Labour and National. National does not just sit there and pontificate and talk a good game; our Ministers get in and get their hands dirty and do that—$100 million has been spent on the insulation project. Many of those homes that have been insulated are Māori homes. There was nothing under Labour.

Hon Dr Nick Smith: 45 percent.

Hon TAU HENARE: Forty-five percent of those homes are Māori homes.

I think that what we are seeing today is the realignment of where history should sit—that is, that National has been good for the relationship with Māori. Have a look at education, for goodness’ sake. In terms of early childhood education, there are more Māori in early childhood education than ever before. The uptake of early childhood education for Māori families is hugely significant—hugely significant. There are more Māori achieving now under national standards and under the National Certificate of Educational Achievement than ever before. They are staying at school longer. There are more graduates from wānanga, from universities, and from polytechs. Out of 9,000 places under the Youth Guarantee scheme, 4,000 are Māori students—4,000 are Māori young people.

So when it comes to talking about relationships, the delivery of service to Māori under a National Government is beyond reproach. We have done our fair share. I implore the community to think very seriously about where their vote goes. It is OK in the individual vote. I mean, people have their own individual preferences. But, as my colleague said, the most important vote is the party vote, because that is the party you want to see in Government. Who do you think—no, not you, Mr Deputy Speaker; them folks out there—should govern this country on behalf of the country? That is why I say to those who have been duped over the last few years—Māori and others, and the Pacific Island community as well—by this touchy-touchy-feely-feely way of handling politics where members have empathy with the poor old Pacific Island community, they have empathy with the poor old Māori community, and they even go to lengths like I saw at Waitangi the other day, with David Cunliffe trying his best to pull the waka on board, trying to say—

Hon Phil Goff: Where were you?

Hon TAU HENARE: Where was I? Actually, I was planning my father’s unveiling that day, Mr Goff.

Hon Phil Goff: OK. We’ll let you off, then.

Hon TAU HENARE: Oh, you will let me off. That is the attitude—

Hon Maurice Williamson: Sanctimonious.

Hon TAU HENARE: —the sanctimonious attitude, with something like that. When somebody tells the truth, they go back into their little shell and—

Hon Maurice Williamson: “We’ll let you off.”

Hon TAU HENARE: Yes, “We’ll let you off.” Well, thanks very much. Thanks very much, Phil. I am sure my father feels great at this moment, 6 feet under or wherever he is.

You know, the fact of the matter is that we have delivered on our relationship with tangata whenua and delivered so much that we will keep delivering because it is good for the country—not because Māori want it and not because we think that Māori want it but because it is good for the relationship between the Government and tangata whenua. Kia ora.

Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON (Minister for Building and Construction): It is with great delight that I get to speak in support of the Prime Minister’s statement to this Parliament.

Hon Simon Bridges: This could go viral.

Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON: This could go viral, yes. What I can say to the House is that given that it is an election year, I think it is worthwhile trying to nail down here once and for all what it is that voters actually use to make their decision about how they will vote. I think it is as simple as this—just two straight things. Is it: “Time for a change.”, or “Do not change a winning formula.”? For nearly every election I have been involved in over many, many years, and before that just working as a member of the party, there were times when you could see that it was time for a change, that there was a stale, old Government that needed to be changed, and there were other times when people said that the last thing this country could afford was to change to the alternative and therefore create mayhem again.

So on that basis I am going to raise some issues along the way. The first one is for the voters of this country to try to get to understand what the other side’s policies would actually be, because, for the first time ever in an MMP Government, if there was to be a Labour-Green coalition it would not be one enormous big party with the vast bulk of things and a couple of smaller support parties of one or two or maybe four or five; it would be Labour only fractionally bigger than the Greens, and the Greens having a huge amount of say—a huge amount of say—in the coalition policy. Whether I agree with some of Labour’s views on economic policy or not is irrelevant. The fact is that you would not know whether you were getting that or not, because the Greens have an off-the-planet view about what the economy should look like and how it should be run. Voters should be very afraid of putting at risk the fragile gains that have been made. And they are fragile.

Let us go back to when we came into office. We came into office in 2008 with the global financial crisis just beginning to break. I accept that on “Planet Labour” the global financial crisis did not occur. Those members quite regularly get up and say “Look how much higher unemployment is under National than when we were in office.”, or “Look at National having run deficits when we ran surpluses.” Well, guess what! In 2008 the financial world changed. Some countries went into bankruptcy. The United States fell out of bed, as did its sharemarket. We were lucky that the Western World’s economic structures stayed in place. To then say “Well, look, you’ve got a deficit and not a surplus like we used to.”, and “You’ve got higher unemployment.” is not the question.

What is so good about the general voting public of New Zealand is that they are not stupid enough to fall for stupid rhetoric like “You’ve got deficits now and we had surpluses.” In fact, the vast bulk of the voters whom I talk to now are terribly, terribly positive in the fact that Bill English, as the finance Minister, took us through some of the roughest, toughest times that you could ever possibly face and did not do it with a slash-and-burn mentality of throwing out everything that was trying to keep the ship afloat. He did take up some big borrowings—and, yes, we have got a lot of debt on the books—but he still was very careful and very frugal about new spending and about what we did in terms of trying to get some economic growth back. So I think that the public will judge the economic situation that we are in now as a real plus for the current National-led Government. They will also know that it is terribly fragile. Even if the economic situation was very robust and guaranteed, some of the extreme lunacy that would come from a Labour-Greens Government would blow it out of the water. They have got these absolutely crazy schemes. They have opposed just about every measure we have taken—in fact, I put it that they have opposed every measure we have taken—to try to settle the economy down.

Dr Cam Calder: And so have Labour.

Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON: Well, I am actually talking about both lots. They have opposed the lot. I am talking about Labour, the Greens, and whatever other Uncle Tom Cobbleigh they would have to pull together to try to make the thing work. But what I find really interesting—and we have got another example today with the Trans-Pacific Partnership—is just how their institutional memory seems to have been wiped. The public will not fall for that. The public will not have a bar of it. They will not have a bar of it, for example, in terms of the sale of land to foreigners. Let us take that one—it is a cracker. Phil Goff has even got a member’s bill because he is so opposed—he is so opposed—to selling land to foreigners.

However, let us have a look at the track record. In 9 years in office, Labour sold five times as much land to foreigners as we have—five times.

I will give you the best year, the very best year—it was 2006. This is my personal favourite. Winston Peters was foreign Minister in the Government of the day, and he cannot deny that. He was foreign Minister in the Government of the day. In that one year alone, the Labour Government, with Mr Peters as foreign Minister in it, sold 300,000 hectares of land. We have not even broken 120,000 hectares in our whole time in office, and yet Labour is coming along with what I think the general public would say—and I cannot use the “h” word; I will go with something else—was a double standard.

It is a double standard for a party that presided over the Government of this country for 9 years and sold 666,000 hectares of land to foreigners to then say: “We’re opposed to selling land to foreigners, and this dreadful National Government has sold just over 100,000, about 120,000.” They are not laughing, but they should be. It should be so embarrassing that that is Labour’s policy. Then you get some more, like David Cunliffe saying: “John Key came back from Australia with nothing in his hand, and didn’t get the rights for New Zealand residents over there—didn’t get them.” What he should have said was that it was the former Labour leader, the former Labour Prime Minister, who signed away on that when she went over there. Oh no, not a mutter, not a murmur, not a whisper on that one. What sort of a double standard is that?

If I had done something, and then some years later claimed that it was wrong for the person who did it, and it turned out it was me, I would be so red in the face it would not be funny. Mr Goff is rabbiting on about something else. How about the free-trade agreement negotiations with China? They were kept under wraps, for very good reason, until they were finalised. It is the same with the Trans-Pacific Partnership right now. They were kept under wraps, for very, very good reason—because they are in negotiation.

It is a little bit like asking: “How much did you pay for your house?”. Well, I would be happy to tell people what I paid for my house once I had signed the deal and the bank stuff had gone through and the mortgage had been set up. But I would not be telling anybody what I was currently negotiating with the seller of it, because I would be hoping to get a little bit more here, or get them to leave the chattels in here, or put in some furniture, and, of course, negotiations are normally always confidential. But, again, it is to do with double standards. If everything Labour did when it was in office was transparent, Labour members would have every right to come to this House today and say: “That Government over there isn’t transparent, it doesn’t tell us, and we always did.” But the bizarre reality of it is that they do not.

So here is my last bit of advice to Labour. I should not be giving Labour advice, but I will. The voters of this country actually make a decision based on the things they talk about at the breakfast table—not the sideshows and the bizarre stuff about Kim Dotcom, or who leaked what, or whatever. There is not a single family that sits at the breakfast table and says: “What do you think about the secrecy of the Trans-Pacific Partnership document?”. They do not. What they do is they get up and say: “Will I still have a job? Will our income pay the bills? Will my kids be getting a good standard of education?”. In the case of every one of those headline elements that matters—in the case of every one—this National Government has delivered fantastic outcomes, be it the lowest crime rate in 30 years, be it a surplus coming in the Budget, or be it a number of things, like standards in education and the national standards, which are giving parents some good information. Every one of the things that parents talk about at the breakfast table with their families, every one of the things that matter to them, is heading in the right direction. The general view of the public will be that we cannot afford to put this at risk while we have got the lunatics wanting to take over running the asylum. That is it.

KRIS FAAFOI (Labour—Mana): Can I take just a few moments of my first speech in the House this year to deliver some pleasantries. I hope everyone had a good break, and I wish everyone the best for election year.

There are two things on which I do agree with the previous speaker, Maurice Williamson. The first is that people will make their decisions on how they vote around things they talk about at the breakfast table or the dinner table, if they are lucky enough to have dinner that night, and they will decide whether the formula for a party is a mood for change or not. So let us talk about what people do talk about at the breakfast table. The power bill comes in. I want to talk specifically in terms of the community I represent, and that is the Pacific community.

Hon Maurice Williamson: It went up dramatically more under Labour than us.

KRIS FAAFOI: The power bill comes in, Mr Williamson, and a Pacific family will be wondering how they can pay that power bill. If you look at the Salvation Army report last year, it shows that in the period between 2007 and 2012, although the average weekly income for every household in this country went up by $54 during that period, for the same period a Pacific household’s income went up by $2 a week. So when that family looks at how they are going to pay the power bills, they will make a decision about whether or not they feel better under this Government and the track record, when someone else’s average household weekly income goes up by $54 a week and a Pacific Island family’s average weekly income goes up by $2 a week. Twenty-seven times more is the national average than for a Pacific Island family. That is from the Salvation Army report released last year.

They will also sit around the breakfast table wondering whether Johnny is going to have a job. They will talk about that, so let us look at the Pacific unemployment rate at the moment. It is 13.7 percent, which is twice the national average at the moment. They will do that maths in their head, Mr Williamson, as to whether they think they are getting a fair deal and whether it is time for a change. You will see the Pacific community mobilise this year, because they have felt the rough edges of the recession. This Government has done nothing for them. Their average weekly income has pretty much stayed the same for the last 6 years under this National Government, and the Pacific unemployment rate means their families are twice as worse off than any other family in this country. So they will do that maths, sitting around the breakfast table, and they will make a very wise decision to turf this Government.

We are speaking to the Prime Minister’s statement. John Key, the Prime Minister, the Rt Hon John Key, the National leader, call him what you like, but over the course of this year you will find that he will have another title and that will be Nigel-no-mates. Over the rest of the year he will realise—and he is already starting to realise—that his friends around this House will soon disappear and he will not have enough, when it comes election time, to cross the threshold and have a majority in this House. He has already started making signals around that to other parties that he would not accommodate in the past because it goes against everything in his political judgment—he would not go into coalition with these parties. But now, all of a sudden, Mr Key is Nigel-no-mates and has to start thinking about who his mates might be post election.

Look at his mates who are propping up the Government at the moment. We have got John Banks, who will spend most of this parliamentary year in the dock, facing electoral fraud charges. That is a really good look. That is a really, really good look for this Government. And who else have we got? Oh, the United Future leader, Peter Dunne, who was asked in this House today whether or not he has the integrity as a Minister who is responsible for the security of documentation and security of information in this country, whether he is the person who should be in charge, whether or not he leaked sensitive documents, and he will not give a straight answer. Well, I think the people of New Zealand will read behind the lines of that and realise that this Government is being propped up by two MPs who are, I guess you could say, tricky or dodgy in that respect, and as this year progresses old Nigel-no-mates over there will realise that his parliamentary term will come to an end whenever he calls an election. This Government is being propped up by two MPs whose time will soon come to an end.

Also, we are seeing this Government trying to gerrymander its way back into Government, but not necessarily making the decisions around MMP that it should, and trying to make sure it has got its mates back in this Government by making sure that the coat-tail rule in MMP stays in. It is a piece of law that 70 percent of New Zealanders say sucks. But, no, this Government is so out of touch that it will keep it there, just to make sure that in the faint hope that one of those two get back in, National can still be the Government.

Who are the other options? Colin Craig. Even Maurice Williamson cannot have a straight face. I did not even say anything about Colin Craig. I just mentioned his name, and Maurice Williamson cannot even keep a straight face. This is the man whom this National Party wants to do a deal with in order to stay in power. This Government will do almost anything—almost anything—to stay in power. That is not a Government that we should be keeping.

We are looking forward to this election year, actually. As Mr Williamson said, there is a mood for change out there. We are looking forward to going out there and telling our story about how this Labour Party will bring in policies that will help Kiwi families. We have already announced one piece of policy, and that is our Best Start policy, which will look at investing in Kiwi children to make sure that we give them the best start in life. We will, as Sue Moroney’s member’s bill is proposing, extend paid parental leave for 26 weeks. I think you will find that most families out there in New Zealand who are looking to start families, or to have another child, really support making sure that there is a good period of time, when they do have young kids, when mums or dads can spend time with them in that first 6 months. We will also look at making sure that those families are getting $60 a week for the first year of the baby’s life to make sure they can meet the needs of those kids and that those kids can get the best start in life.

In terms of early childhood education, there is something that Trevor Mallard introduced, with 20 free hours early childhood education. That will be extended from 20 hours to 25 hours. When I visited the Discovery kindergarten in Whitby about a week ago, those parents to whom I spoke about that part of our Best Start policy were more than happy to make sure that they could have some more hours available to them, so they could either get more work or look for more part-time work, as parents of young children. The Best Start policy is about investing in our children and I am proud of it. I am really proud that we have laid the platform of what this campaign will be about for the Labour Party. It is about investing in our children.

We have heard too many extreme stories about children in New Zealand—horror stories—to sit here in this Parliament and not take action. I think my colleague Poto Williams spoke of one extreme case in her maiden speech, James Whakaruru, who was beaten to death by one of his caregivers. We hear too many horror stories of children living in poverty. I understand that the statistic is that roughly about one in four children in New Zealand lives in poverty. In this House that is not good enough. So the Best Start policy, which David Cunliffe introduced a fortnight ago, is one way that this Labour Party is going to go out there and tell its story in an election year to garner support.

That Best Start policy will help a lot of families locally in my community. Around 1,500 new babies are born in the Mana electorate every year—roughly 1,000 in Porirua and 500 in the Kāpiti area. So that investment will be a good investment for children locally. Every one dollar spent in those early years of a child’s life results in $11 of taxpayers’ money saved later on in their lives, in terms of education, health, and keeping them out of the justice sector. That is a good investment. If you told anyone on the street that you would give them $110 if they handed over $10, they would certainly take those odds. What have we had from the Government on this policy? Well, it has just been scaremongering and more out of touch rhetoric from the National Party. It is so out of touch that even in what you would call a relatively strong National Party area of my electorate in Whitby, they quite like that policy.

So, as you can see, this Government is full of rhetoric and is out of touch, and the people of Mana know that, especially when you ask them their opinions on policies like that one, and on policies like stopping asset sales. The Government tried to hide the last referendum result but it was a resounding victory for those New Zealanders who did not want this Government to sell assets. Around 70 percent of people in the Mana electorate said no to asset sales. But what did this Government do? Did it listen? No, it did not. This is a Government that is out of touch. We are looking forward to this election campaign, when people will make their decisions around what they discuss at the breakfast table, as Mr Williamson said. This Government has a poor track record on incomes and jobs.

Dr CAM CALDER (National): It is a huge pleasure to get up and take a call on the Prime Minister’s statement. I cannot believe that the previous speaker, Kris Faafoi, who is normally a man of some rectitude, and who has been known to contribute on the field to the parliamentary rugby team, was talking about power bills. Mr Faafoi, power bills went up 77 percent under your watch—77 percent. The people in your electorate will be just giving thanks that there is a fine National Government there that is taking control of this situation, which was out of control under your watch. They probably enjoy having you there briefly from time to time visiting them, but on these matters of power bills, Mr Faafoi, they are very happy that there is a National-led Government.

This is a National-led Government that is producing results. These are results for our most vulnerable, results for our newborn, results for our young people, results for our families, results for our seniors, and results for Māori, Pasifika, and our recent immigrants. These are results for all New Zealanders. I will come back to this in more detail because the Prime Minister’s statement reflects our deep understanding of the global financial situation and our success in navigating our way through it. It is a statement that reflects our steadfast resolve to cushion the most vulnerable from the worst edges of the recession, and an appreciation that we as a nation have to work together in a smarter way and formulate intelligent and innovative policies to facilitate this.

This is a Government that respects New Zealanders. What a contrast to the recent announcement from the third Labour leader in 3 years, David Cunliffe. That was the announcement of a scheme to pay money to virtually any fertile New Zealand family to have a child. It is a poorly targeted spray of dollars, loopy largesse, and unfocused, loose thinking, and is giving money to thousands of high-income families who have no need of it. How would this be paid for? Here, the Prime Minister has pointed out that the third Labour leader in 3 years has been very tricky. Has Mr Cunliffe been cunning? Perhaps he thought he had been. Who does not like being given money? But New Zealand voters are more insightful that that. Has Mr Cunliffe been conning the electorate with his explanation of how this cadeau would be paid for? Cancelling policies that are not in force saves nothing. Has he been conning the electorate? Many believe he has.

Labour is living in an economic Middle Earth and the voters of New Zealand are underwhelmed and cynical at an opening salvo in the 2014 campaign that portrays the author as both “Disingenuous David” and “Devious David”. Instead of a Best Start, it is a stuttering misfire, which underlines the fact that Labour has learnt nothing in the last 5 years in Opposition—nothing, nada, nil—and has disregarded the global financial crisis completely. It is firmly stuck in the same old mind-set of tax more, spend more, and hope. The 2014 parliamentary year is just a few weeks old and already the Labour Opposition is promising $750 million in more spending—$750 million. That is three-quarters of a billion dollars in money that it does not have, and it has no idea where it is going to get it from.

This speech by the third Labour leader in 3 years was an opening pirouette in a dance of the desperate. It is only early February in an election year and Labour is already promising $750 million in the hope of buying voter support. But he was not done there—he was not done there. The very next day he complained that the majority of New Zealand meat exports were frozen carcasses. That is wrong. The fact is that well over 90 percent of our meat products are cut and prepared in New Zealand before export. Anyone who has been overseas and seen our meat products on display will know how well we do—how well we do and how well they have been presented.

Where else has the Labour Party been wrong, I hear you ask. Labour members would have us believe that income inequality in New Zealand is getting worse. That is wrong, wrong, wrong. The figures of long-term Ministry of Social Development research statistician Bryan Perry are clear that over the last 10 years or so the numbers have barely changed. Interestingly, Australia is less equal than New Zealand. Labour members would have you believe that the wage gap between Australia and New Zealand is widening. That is wrong, wrong, and wrong again. The fact is that in real, after-tax terms, the gap between wages in Australia and New Zealand is narrowing under this National-led Government. Labour members constantly complain and claim that more and more New Zealanders are going to live in Australia. That is wrong, wrong, wrong. We have got the Minister of Immigration saying it is definitely wrong, right here in front of us. The fact is that according to Statistics New Zealand the number of New Zealanders moving to Australia has been falling steadily since December 2012.

Labour members would have you believe that National ignores older people—wrong, wrong, wrong. The fact is that, under National, superannuation for a married couple has increased by well over 25 percent since 2008—25 percent since 2008—which is far more than compensating for the increase in prices from inflation over the same period.

There have been well over 40,000 more elective surgeries, improving the quality of life for over-65-year-olds. Our older people are doing better under National.

So far, the third Labour leader in 3 years has been caught out in a web of inaccuracy, a slew of untruths, and a comedy of errors. You can understand why the Labour caucus is so ambivalent about supporting him. You know, if this is the Best Start possible, it is going to be a long slide to virtual irrelevancy by the time the election comes around—and that is just the leader, “Devious David Cunliffe”. What other innovative ideas has the Labour Party developed as it enters its sixth year in Opposition? How many ideas? Well, actually, not many. Its spokesman on revenue, Dr David Clark, normally a man of sober thought and mien, obviously gave the matter a little bit of thought—a little bit of thought. Possibly he was texting Kim Il Sung of South Korea for inspiration, because Dr Clark has been on the record as proposing to ban multinational—

Hon Phil Goff: Kim Il Sung is North Korea.

Dr CAM CALDER: —of North Korea—corporations like Facebook from the internet. Closing down Facebook is certainly a left-field suggestion, even from a party of the left, and certainly seemed to take his caucus colleagues by surprise. So Labour members in their first days back after the rejuvenating summer break have proved themselves bereft of new ideas, instead serving up ill-conceived, poorly costed, ill-directed, middle-class welfare, and plainly risible fantasy—and that is just Labour.

The possibility of a Labour-Green coalition would pose a very real clear and present danger. The Labor-Greens have left the economy of Australia a virtual train wreck. After years of Labor-Green misgovernment there, Australia is facing huge deficits and rising unemployment. Globally, the recovery from the worst recession in decades is still very gradual. I heard my erstwhile colleague here, the Hon Maurice Richardson, point that out himself. The Greens would have a more dominant role in New Zealand with the Labour Party than they do in Australia and they are philosophically opposed to farming, to manufacturing, to exportation of oil and mineral resources—the major underpinnings of our economy.

This is a Government of fresh ideas that is willing, ready, and able to provide principled and pragmatic leadership for New Zealand so that all can share in a brighter future and seize the growing opportunity our burgeoning economy provides.

Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills): In that extraordinary theatrical performance, the member who has just resumed his seat, Dr Cam Calder, accused our side of the House of being a bit loose with the facts. He then rapidly promoted Kim Il Sung to be the leader of South Korea. That will come as a bit of a shock to many, many people living in that country. Then, in a bit of a revival of the “mother of all Budgets”, he referred to his colleague Maurice Williamson as “Maurice Richardson”. I think it is a bit rich for that member to tell us we are a bit loose with the facts; he cannot even remember his own colleagues’ names.

I am very pleased to be speaking in this debate in support of the amendment of David Cunliffe to the Prime Minister’s statement, which reads “this House expresses no confidence in this National led Government because New Zealand has become more and more divided, because those in the middle are struggling, and because the poor are going backwards.” The facts speak for themselves on that amendment. That amendment is absolutely accurate and every member of the National Party knows it. They can come into this House and spin their lines as often as they like, but the facts will, in the end, get in the way of their story. The reason that will happen is that outside this House people are living their lives and they know how their lives are. They know when they hear John Key speak that he is arrogant and that he is out of touch with the reality of how hard they work and how little they earn compared with the effort that they put into their jobs.

I remember Bill English saying at the time he cut the tax for the highest income earners in New Zealand that if people were not earning enough money they should work harder. That is an example of the arrogance of the National Party members and how out of touch they are with many, many New Zealanders who work much harder, frankly, than many people in this House and who cannot get enough money from their wage or salary to give their families the opportunities that many of us have just taken for granted, like the opportunity to get a higher education and the opportunity to get into a job that is challenging and satisfying and gives people value in their wage packet that is comparable to what they are putting into our economy.

Many people have had that opportunity taken away from them by the National-led Government. Its members are out of touch with many, many New Zealanders and that is where the truth will come to bite them, because those are the New Zealanders who choose our Government. Later on this year, whether it is September, October, or November, they will cast their ballot in favour of the party that they know represents their voice and understands their lives—and that certainly is not National. I know that it is Labour.

Labour wants an economy that works for all New Zealanders. We do have growing inequality in New Zealand for retired people, for middle-income earners, and for young families. It is now harder and harder for them to pay their bills and live a quality life. They do not want to go to Hawaii for a holiday, necessarily. That would probably be the icing on the cake, but what they would like is at least one layer of the cake, one slice of it, to give their life some added value, to have some good times, and to not have every day with just enough to get by, or perhaps not even that much. At the same time, they are seeing people on really high incomes getting massive pay increases and bonuses. That does not equate to a fair or a just society.

In New Zealand we used to be so proud of so many things. We used to be so proud of being an egalitarian society where it did not matter where you were born or what state your family was in at the time—you would have access to early childhood education, you would have access to a high-quality local school, a public education system, and you would be able to afford to go to a polytechnic or a university and have a really good chance at a decent job in the future. For many people, that is just off their menu now. This National-led Government has taken that chance away from so many people—that opportunity for everyone to be the best they can possibly be because of the collective services that we provide them with, whether it is through the education system, whether it is through the health system, or whether it is through social housing. Those supports give people the chance to give back to their country everything that they are capable of, and that is the opportunity that is gone.

One of the other things that New Zealanders feel very passionate and proud about is our environment. I have been just appalled at the lack of passion from the National Party for anything in the environmental space. We used to boast about our clean, green image and John Key even dissed that. He said: “Forget about that. It’s not real; it’s just a marketing slogan.” He told the world that we did not have a clean, green country, that it was just a marketing slogan. And, actually, it is getting closer and closer to the truth. We have seen our water quality standards degraded. We have seen the lack of protection of our national parks. We nearly had mining in our most precious parts of the country. If it was not for 40,000 Aucklanders who cared passionately about Great Barrier Island and Coromandel, mining in the most precious parts of New Zealand would have gone ahead. Thank goodness that the Government listened—just that single time—to the voices of New Zealanders.

We have also seen a complete undermining of the principles of the Resource Management Act in some areas. We have seen it in the exclusive economic zone, in the lack of passion and commitment, and certainly in the lack of action from the fisheries Minister and the Minister of Conservation for protection of the Māui’s dolphins. There are 55 Māui’s dolphins left—not just only around New Zealand but on the planet—but this Government has failed to take any decisive action in order to protect that species. I think that is a disgrace. What will happen to the New Zealand reputation that we have been so proud of in the past if this Government oversees the extinction of that species? It is a disgrace. It is so irresponsible, it is so arrogant, and it is so out of keeping with the pride and passion that New Zealanders have in their society and in our environment.

Labour has been putting up some good alternatives, and I was delighted to see David Cunliffe’s first announcement—and it will be the first of many this year—being a strong commitment to New Zealanders who have young families. That is a very good place to start, and it was very appropriately named Best Start, because that is what Labour wants to give every child who is born in New Zealand—the best start. I am sure that “Maurice Richardson” would agree with that commitment. I am sure that he would agree with the principle of giving every New Zealand child the best start, so that is an important package.

I just want to conclude by looking at the state that the National-led Government is in now. I remember John Key boasting about how he would provide New Zealand with a stable Government. We have got the Māori Party, which has been roundly criticised by its own supporters for propping up a Government that has done so much damage to Māori around New Zealand. The party itself is very torn about that. It thinks it gets more by being in coalition, but, actually, the price of that support is far too high, in my view. The price of supporting damage to your own constituency is a price that I do not think should ever be paid.

John Banks is up in court for forgetting he got massive donations from Kim Dotcom, who is a very big man. He lives in a massive mansion—an extraordinary place—with his wife. John Banks flew in a helicopter to have lunch with this very large German man with a really unusual name, got the cheque, and then forgot it. Perhaps he does that quite regularly. I actually do not go out to lunch at a mansion in North Auckland to get a cheque from Kim Dotcom very often, but perhaps John Banks does it so often he forgot about it. So that is another coalition partner, and now we have got John Key giving Peter Dunne back his job.

Again, today the question and answer session at Parliament at 2 p.m. provided very little relief about what Peter Dunne actually had as his involvement with the Kitteridge report. John Key is now reneging on his previous criticism of Winston Peters and offering him a lifeline. This is not the stable Government that we were promised. It is arrogant and out of touch.

DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East): That speech by Ruth Dyson is not worth commenting on, but we have got a changing world out there. It is especially heartening to see the public of New Zealand understand the change that is going on in New Zealand and around the world. They see a Government that understands that change, is part of that change, and is leading that change in a positive and constructive way. They see a Government that is getting its house in order, that has got through the worse recession in our generation, and that has started on the rebuild of Christchurch. They see a Government that understands what needs to be done for its people and that has a wide ambit of knowledge and understanding of what can be done for New Zealanders going forward. It is a positive, future-looking, and aspirational Government. It is what the people of New Zealand have demanded for years and they have finally got.

On the other side, we have an Opposition that cannot get out of the trenches. The members look behind themselves all the time. They have no vision, no understanding, and no comprehension of the modern world. They live in an environment where they think everything should be protected as it was in 1950. They think that everybody should have the same job that they had 20 years ago. They think that everybody should have the same income that they had 20 years ago. They do not live in the modern world and that will be the difference at this election. The public will go out there and look at a Government that will deliver and build a stronger future or an Opposition that will try to attack and demean New Zealanders going forward, and the public will not accept the approach of the Opposition.

Often we hear in our city, like other cities, about the loss of jobs, and people say that it is terrible that there has been a loss of jobs. Well, it is. Nobody wants to see anybody lose their job. But there is the development of the workplace and there is the development of new jobs that come into each city, like Hamilton, for example, where the number of people employed has increased in the last few years and where the participation rate in the workforce has increased over the last few years. There are more people working, more people looking for work, and more people getting jobs. That does not mean that there will not be any change in employment in the state of where somebody has been working.

A great example was a few weeks ago: Kodak. Everyone remembers Kodak, that great company that just filed for bankruptcy recently. It had 145,000 people working for it in its heyday. It was huge. It was a world brand. Everybody knew Kodak. But it did not understand the digital market. It did not pick where the market went in the products that it provided, and it went under. Something like Instagram, which Facebook has just recently bought for about a billion dollars, shows the development and change that you see in a modern society and in a modern economy. We cannot all maintain those jobs that were there in 1950. We have to look forward to a country that goes forward, is competitive, and can take its place in the modern world. That is the change and the direction that we need to look at. We need to be innovative, we need to work off our strengths, and we need to look forward, not look backwards. Our public does not want us to look backwards; they want us to give them that direction going forward.

When you see the policies of the Opposition, they are all negative policies. It wants to tax those people who are earning income. It wants to increase the taxes on those people earning income. We will see that later in the year when it comes up with its tax policy. It wants to tax and tax and tax. Then it says that it is bringing in this parental policy, this Best Start policy. That is a policy that is a trick for New Zealanders. Most New Zealanders will not get it. We did not know the detail until 2 days later. Even Mr Cunliffe did not know the details until 2 days later, which counted out basically half the people who would be getting paid parental leave. When you actually bring the taxes in that will go on those middle-income earners to pay for these policies, there will be nothing in it for them. They will actually be losing money to pay for more money to be spent on the core vote that the Labour Party seeks to get. That is not a progressive policy. That is not a future-forward policy that looks at building a stronger economy or country. That is a policy of going backwards and trying to keep people under the control of the Government. That is where the Labour Party stands, and it has always stood that way.

You will hear things about the minimum wage, and even the Green Party will talk about living wages and things like that. How the Government of the day will suddenly be able to tell people what their income level should be and then make it work will be great to see. I would like to see where it sits on that number, because the Green Party has certainly got a higher number than the Labour Party in terms of what it sees the minimum wage should be. Where that will actually go in the end is something that is yet to be seen.

When you look at the other party on the other side there, you have got the New Zealand First Party. That is an anti-immigration party that is against the changing face of New Zealand. It is a party that is stuck in the past. It does not understand the future of this country going forward. It is disgraceful that we have a party like that in this Parliament that says the things it does and attacks those New Zealanders who come here and build their future in this country. That party should be ashamed of what it says. It is a disgrace to this Parliament that it says those things when we have a country that will go forward. Those people who come here and migrate here to build this country to be stronger should be encouraged. We should be encouraging those people. We should be rewarding them for making the choice to come to New Zealand. We should be making it easier for people to make that choice, and not be listening to the 1950s rhetoric of a party that has no understanding of the modern world going forward.

Then the Green Party is here—the Green Party that used that mantra of the clean, green image that it stands for. The Green Party does not stand for environmental reasons. The Green Party is the far left of socialism in this Parliament. It seeks to have a socialist agenda. “Communism” is too good a word for the Green Party. It is to the far left of socialism, and it will not be successful. Look at the countries around the world that have gone left in recent years: France and Australia. How are those two economies doing? They are in the mire because they have listened to the people who are talking of the past policies that you see from the Labour Party and the Greens. When you look at countries that are going forward, they have been progressive right to centre-right Governments. This Government is looking at building a stronger economy, giving everybody the opportunity through the education system, and making sure that we look after all New Zealanders, regardless of their country of origin. Thank you.

Hon PHIL GOFF (Labour—Mt Roskill): I have spent the afternoon in the House listening carefully to the speeches made by the Government members, and what actually surprised me more than I thought it would was the sheer arrogance and out-of-touch nature of what they have been saying. You know, this is a Government that is so out of touch that when two-thirds of New Zealanders vote in a referendum to say that the Government’s policy is wrong, the Prime Minister gives them a two-fingered salute. That is how arrogant the Prime Minister is. He totally ignores the clearly expressed views of New Zealanders on the question of asset sales. New Zealanders do not want to see their country asset-stripped. They do not want to see the assets, the institutions, that were owned by all of us as New Zealanders now being owned by 1 percent of New Zealanders and a whole lot of foreign investors, and that is what is happening.

Then they consider the Prime Minister on another set of recommendations, from the Electoral Commission. The Electoral Commission is an independent body. It made recommendations that included that there should be no more coat-tailing—an MP who wins an electorate seat being able to bring a whole lot of other MPs in with them even though the MP’s party does not get to the threshold level of 5 percent. It was the Electoral Commission that made that recommendation, yet this National Party relies on two discredited members of Parliament, one facing electoral charges before the court; the other who deliberately leaked a document contrary to the ministerial oath that he took to preserve the confidentiality of the Executive Council. And National wants them back. It wants them back, despite the fact that the public does not want them. That is arrogance; that is out of touch.

But what is also out of touch is that I have not heard a word from the National Government on the sorts of issues that I hear my kids, my family, my electorate, and my friends talking about and that actually worry them. You know, when you consider it, I come—and you come, Mr Assistant Speaker—from a very lucky generation. Our fathers went to war. They went through a Depression. They did not get a chance for an education, but, by God, they worked hard to give their kids a chance. They really worked hard to do that. Their goal, with the helping hand of the State, was to enable their kids to achieve the Kiwi dream. What was the Kiwi dream? The Kiwi dream was that everyone had opportunity—not just a lucky few but everyone had opportunity. I and my benchmate here, David Shearer, went to a school called Papatoetoe High School, a public school just down the road from King’s College. We got an education that was the equal of a private school education. It gave us kids from a working-class background a chance to go forward.

We had a health system that meant that when we were young, my parents never took out health insurance for us, because the health system was there when we needed it. You could get a prescription. You could get in to the doctor. You could afford that. You could get into hospital. Of course, we had the aspiration that we wanted to own our own homes. That is part of the Kiwi dream. At 23 or 24 I was able to buy my own home. It was fantastic. When I look at my kids, two of them—the two boys—have now got a home of their own. They could not buy in Mount Roskill. Why not Mount Roskill? It is a working-class suburb. Yeah, like hell it is! The median price of a property is $650,000. You know, they are on good wages. They are tradesmen. They work hard for their living. They got their skills, they do their overtime, and they were looking at paying seven or eight times their annual income for a house. For my generation—I paid two and a half times my annual income; I could realise the Kiwi dream.

In each of these cases the State was there to give us a helping hand. We did not rely on it. It was not dependency, but, if you wanted to get into your own home, your parents might get a loan from the State Advances Corporation at 3 percent, or they could capitalise their family benefit. You could realise that dream. Eighty percent of Aucklanders could realise that dream; now it is barely touching 60 percent. More people are being locked into renting because the Government does not care about those who are struggling to get ahead and who are working hard to get ahead. In fact, it is going backwards.

We have heard all the fine words from the Government and from Maurice Williamson. We did not hear anything about the fact that in the last 5 years New Zealand educational standards, compared with other countries in the world, have gone backwards. What is this Government’s answer? It is to give charter schools five times the payment per student that it gives public schools—the charter schools. It is not interested in public education and strengthening it; it is not interested in the majority of New Zealand kids, but it will give the big handouts to the private schools and to the charter schools. That is not the answer.

I worry about my kids. I worry about their generation because they are going to have to meet the cost of us baby boomers going into retirement, and there are a whole lot of us. When dad came back from the war, you know, he wanted what he had missed out on for 5 years. He decided to have his family and to expand his family—and good luck to him—and thousands of other New Zealand men did the same thing. But we are all retiring at the same time. My kids, who will not be able to retire at 65, will be supporting me for a very long time. My dad turns 93 the week after next. He has been retired for 33 years. He knows, and my kids know, that that sort of policy is unsustainable and that we have no intergenerational equity.

What I think Labour did that was a really good idea was to give a helping hand to those having families. None of my kids have kids yet. How can they have babies of their own when both incomes are going to pay off the mortgage? So Labour comes along in a family-friendly way and says that, OK, instead of the mum having to go back to work and put the kid in a creche when the baby is only a few weeks old, she will have the opportunity to have paid parental leave for 6 months. What a great idea—help thousands of New Zealanders and encourage our kids to have kids of their own because they can afford it and it can give them the chance and the opportunity that they need. What is wrong with giving that benefit of $60 a week to the families that are middle income as well as to low-income families for the first year, and then targeting the lower-income families to help them with those basic costs—the napkins and the food? It just gives them a helping hand. Mum and Dad got six bucks a week from the Government way back in the 1950s. That is at least $60 now. This is not generous; this is just acknowledging that having kids is expensive, so you give people a helping hand. That is what the community is about. That is what the State is about.

Those are the positive things. We can create a really good New Zealand. You know, I am in this place because New Zealand gave me a chance. I want to see our kids in the next generation get the same chances that you and I did. That is what we should be here for, but it is not happening.

I just want to finish by talking about the Prime Minister’s trip to Australia last week. There were two big issues on the agenda. One was that the monopoly supermarket system in Australia of Coles and Woolworths, which together control 80 percent of the retail trade, are not selling New Zealand products as part of their home brand, simply because they are made in New Zealand. They are banning New Zealand - made products. You know, Mr Assistant Speaker, you and I can remember that 30 years ago we brought in Closer Economic Relations. What does Closer Economic Relations say? Well, I have got the agreement here in my hand. It says that it is about eliminating “barriers to trade between Australia and New Zealand”. That is article 1(c). It is about developing trade between New Zealand and Australia under conditions “of fair competition”.

The Aussie supermarkets have done what our Government wanted the opposite of. They have put up new barriers—not tariff barriers, not quota barriers, but behind-the-border barriers—that stop our producers selling their goods in Australian supermarkets. John Key said that he does not think that that is against CER. Of course it is against CER. CER was explicitly about gaining entry and about fair competition. I wanted to see my Prime Minister go across to Australia and stand up for the rights of New Zealanders. Instead I saw on television that Tony Abbott stroked him like a cat—stroked him like a cat. He flattered him, and in return the Prime Minister behaved like a pussy, a wimp. He did not stand up for New Zealanders. He forgot one thing: the only thing the cat gets is to swallow dead rats. That is what New Zealand has had to swallow because John Key did not stand up for the rights of New Zealanders.

There is another set of New Zealanders. It is the 300,000 that he has chased to Australia because they could not get opportunities here. The Australian Government last year passed the National Disability Insurance Scheme, and every New Zealander paying tax in Australia is levied specifically to pay for the National Disability Insurance Scheme. That is fair enough. There is one thing wrong. They pay the levy but they are not entitled to the benefits. It is like you, Mr Assistant Speaker, paying your premium to an insurance company but not being able to claim when you need help. How can that be fair, and why did John Key not stand up for the rights of New Zealanders? That is not too much to expect from our Prime Minister. He failed, and he has failed to do the right thing by this country here and abroad.

LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupō): I am going to speak today in the debate on the Prime Minister’s statement and focus on the things that do matter to New Zealand. I am not going to resort to the sorts of comments and offensive remarks made by the speaker who just resumed his seat, Mr Phil Goff. I am really surprised at the Labour women sitting in the House, who did not violently object to the phrase that Mr Goff just used about the Prime Minister.

Hon Phil Goff: What phrase?

LOUISE UPSTON: I am not repeating it, Mr Goff, because it does not honour this House. No, no, I refuse to use that word, and I am just shocked that none of the Labour women did anything about using such offensive language in this House.

Anyway, this side of the House, this Government, under John Key’s leadership, is creating a New Zealand that is better today and better tomorrow, a stronger place for today’s families and tomorrow’s families. If you think about the things the Prime Minister covered in his address at the opening of Parliament, they are the issues that matter to Kiwis up and down this country: a stronger economy, more jobs, better front-line health and education services, a safer New Zealand, and, of course, rebuilding Christchurch and Canterbury.

But, actually, all of this stuff comes from having a stronger economy. We have Labour members who instead speak about the need or desire to interfere with a private company’s business and think that that is going to solve the problems of the New Zealand economy. Well, we have spent 5 years—this is our sixth year—focusing on what does make a difference in the economy, and we are reaping those rewards. We do not reap those rewards for our benefit; they are for the benefit of every single New Zealander. In the first week in the House the Opposition was instead already talking about spending three-quarters of a billion dollars that is not even sitting there. So we have an Opposition that just wants to go back to the old ways of the past, thinking that just because we are getting the books balanced this year, we then go off on a lolly scramble, we go out and spend when we still have a fragile economy. Yes, it is growing, and, yes, things are looking up, but, actually, we should not go out and spend all of the benefits of what has been a very tough period of time.

One thing I am really encouraged by, though, is visiting the different towns, the smaller towns in the Taupō electorate, whether it is Cambridge, Tīrau, or Tūrangi. It is really, really encouraging to see the number of new businesses that are opening, whether it is in retail, manufacturing, or tourism. There are new businesses opening every week, which is really fantastic. That comes from the confidence of an economy that is growing, because no one in their right mind would go out there and start a business, start employing staff, and take on those sorts of commitments if they did not think that the economic environment was one that could sustain that opportunity. So I want to say congratulations to those small businesses in the Taupō community that are out there doing it and taking risks to employ people in this environment that is growing. Business confidence is clearly up.

So what we are seeing is that the signs are there and it is looking positive, but we should not basically be putting that at risk. We have still got to be cautious. We have still got to be careful and not basically just go out and spend everything that we have in the strength of position we have got to. If you look at business confidence, it is the highest it has been since 1999. That is a phenomenal result. We often have conversations in this House about wages. Well, the average weekly wage has gone up 2.8 percent in the last year, and that is compared with an inflation rate of 1.6 percent. So, yes, the gap is small, but it means that in terms of wages we are heading in the right direction.

One example, Mr Assistant Speaker Tisch, that I wanted to speak about today, and one that you will be very familiar with, is the Cambridge section of the Waikato Expressway. One of the platforms of the Government’s Business Growth Agenda is infrastructure and its role in helping to fuel this economic growth and opportunity. We are talking about a 16-kilometre section of the Waikato Expressway that I visited just yesterday. It is really fantastic to see the number of people who are employed as a result of that project. But, more important, the real benefit that I am immensely proud of is that, as a result, out of that project’s 300 jobs, 20 are done by people who were on benefits in the local Work and Income office and who now have jobs. That is 20 people who, before this project, did not have jobs, and now do. Not only do they now have a job and a pay packet to take home each week; they are getting skills, they are getting certifications, and they are passing the rigours of the work environment that is in place on that project, which is fantastic.

So it was fantastic to see that this is another section of the Waikato Expressway that, when finished, will carve something like 20 or 25 minutes off a trip from Tīrau to Auckland, which is great. I know that the Greens will always talk about the fact that they do not want more roads and they do not want roads of national significance, but people in my electorate still drive cars on roads, trucks are used to get their export goods to market and to the ports, and, although it is great to see the increase in cycling, good luck if you wanted to try to cycle from one end of my electorate to the other any day soon.

In terms of other opportunities or other things that this Government is focused on, one of the other aspects of the Business Growth Agenda is, of course, around education and skills. This is an area that members on the other side of the House absolutely get wound up about because we are getting results in areas where they did not when they had the chance. So I was proud to accompany the Prime Minister at Ratana and at Waitangi. I am enormously proud when he stands up and speaks to audiences and gives the results that this Government is achieving in Māori education. We often hear that Māori are disadvantaged, that they turn up in all the statistics we do not want them in, but, actually, education is one of the main areas where we get to improve those statistics. We are getting higher levels of participation in early childhood education, lifting achievement in National Certificate of Educational Achievement, and increasing numbers in trade training opportunities and apprenticeships. They are the things that count. They are the things that count in terms of getting results, getting achievement, and getting opportunities for the rest of their lives.

One of the highlights for the start of this year was the Prime Minister’s announcement about the opportunities for high-quality teaching and principals, because it is an issue, particularly in some of the rural areas. We do sometimes have difficulty attracting teachers and principals into the small rural areas, and that has been an issue that some of the schools and the boards of trustees have raised with me over and over again. Well, this way we get to have the teaching excellence shared amongst a group of schools in a small community. They get to share that with one another. I think that is absolutely superb and, again, is one of the very practical, sensible things this Government is doing to lift educational achievement. The group that will really benefit in the Taupō electorate more than any other is those Māori students. We are unwilling to have them left behind.

So I am very proud that the Prime Minister’s statement to the House this year talked about the priorities and where we are heading as a Government as we lead into election year in a very, very strong position with a growing economy, raised achievement in education, quicker attention in terms of health requirements, and safer streets and communities.

Meka Whaitiri: Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): You must ask for the call. Meka Whaitiri.

MEKA WHAITIRI (Labour—Ikaroa-Rāwhiti): Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. Tēnā koutou katoa. E ngā mema o te Whare nei, ngā mihi o te Tau Hou.

[To the members of this House, greetings of the New Year.]

I join with others on this side in wishing warm greetings to you and all members of the House and of this complex for the new year of 2014, and I hope you have all had a good rest. I join members on this side of the House in support of David Cunliffe, the Leader of the Opposition, and his motion that this House express no confidence in this National-led Government because New Zealand has become more and more divided, because those in the middle are struggling, and because the poor are going backwards.

I stand as the proud member for Ikaroa-Rāwhiti, an electorate that has raised and nurtured many fine people, some famous and some infamous, all of whom in their time have etched their mark on the unique canvas that makes up Ikaroa-Rāwhiti. It is an electorate of fertile lands, prime coastline, and majestic rivers, where an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay is the norm, where having fruit trees and vege gardens and the ability to go to the river or to the beach to gather food is a normal way of life. For many, the prospect of an honest job for honest wages and for gathering food from our beaches and our waterways is no longer the norm. In fact, it is under serious threat. I may be a new member to this House, but you can rest assured that I come with some 25 years of serving our people, creating employment opportunities, and creating platforms to grow capacity at the local, regional, and national levels, for supporting initiatives that work, and for calling out those that clearly do not.

This National-led Government is failing the people of Ikaroa-Rāwhiti. I have sat on this side of the House for some 6 months—hopefully, not on this side for too much longer, come the general election—and I have heard what this National-led Government has done for the people of New Zealand and for the people of Ikaroa-Rāwhiti. Well, I am here to put the story right. I am here to give you the real low-down on my electorate. I am here to do what the people of Ikaroa-Rāwhiti have asked me to do, and that is to be their voice in this House. This National-led Government is arrogant. This National-led Government is out of touch. This National-led Government is in it only for its mates.

One of my first questions in this House was to the Minister for Economic Development, Mr Steven Joyce. When I asked what he was doing about the high rates of unemployment in Gisborne and Hawke’s Bay, did I hear “more apprenticeships”? Did I hear “a greater focus on transition from schools to jobs to further training”? Did I hear “enterprise development support”? And did I hear “unlocking potential opportunities in partnership with iwi”? No, I did not. The reason why I did not is that those are Labour policies. What I heard from Mr Joyce, in terms of his addressing unemployment in Hawke’s Bay and Gisborne, was three things: cycleways, mining and drilling, and—wait for it—a dam. That is right—a dam. I can report to this House, as I stand in front of you, that there have been no jobs created in Hawke’s Bay and Gisborne in those areas. Again, that is a legacy of this National-led Government.

But do not listen to me. Let us look at the statistics. Let us look at the unemployment statistics. The household labour force survey statistics for December 2013 say that since National has been in office, the number of unemployed 20 to 24-year-olds has increased by 11,300. A total of 27,600 20 to 24-year-olds are without jobs in the Hawke’s Bay and Gisborne region. That is not a record to be proud of. It is not a record to be laughed at or to be jeered at or to be flicked aside. Youth not in employment or training or education—since National took office, the number of 15 to 24-year-old “neets” has increased by 5,000 to a total of 72,000. That is an indictment on this country when we have 15 to 24-year-olds, 72,000 of them, with no hope, with no platform, and with no opportunities to seek what they have every right to have as citizens of this country, be it employment or education or training—72,000 have been forgotten. Long-term unemployment is 44,600—an increase of 29,800 since National came into Government in December 2008. In my region specifically—the unemployment figures in Hawke’s Bay and Gisborne—when Labour was last in Government there were 6,900 people who were unemployed. By December 2013 that number had grown to 8,100. Again, on these statistics you cannot argue that many more of our people in my region are not suffering—and the jobs are simply not there.

One of the burning topics in my region has been the management of our fresh water. It is to that area that I turn the House’s attention, to talk about the Tukituki catchment proposal, which has been undergoing a board of inquiry for some 28 days. I was fortunate, before I joined the House of Representatives, to be the chief executive of Ngāti Kahungunu Iwi Incorporated, which took a very strong stance on water quality issues and water management, not only in the catchment of Ngāti Kahungunu but also throughout the country. So before coming to this House I was well aware of what was happening in our particular area.

Coming here to this place and hearing the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management from the Minister for the Environment, Amy Adams, I have been really quite interested in some of the responses to what clearly are very complex issues: water quality, water use, and water management across the nation. I want to acknowledge, first and foremost, the work of all the stakeholders in the Land and Water Forum, who have committed to undertaking this critical issue.

Jacqui Dean: Who set up the Land and Water Forum?

MEKA WHAITIRI: Yes, I know. I know who set it up, but I am also aware that there were some very significant recommendations that the forum put to the Minister, and it is very upsetting to see the Minister cherry-pick—cherry-pick—some of those recommendations to accelerate the building of the Ruataniwha Dam. So I stand here, having sat in on a majority of those hearings, where iwi were clearly calling out the lack of consultation through this process. Clearly, the fact that a lot of our safeguards, in terms of the work of Fish and Game—incidentally, a lot of the members of that organisation are with the National Party, who themselves say that this has been a shoddy process. Also, we have the Environmental Defence Society, which also says that due process has not been accorded to something as complex as water storage. So this is why I stand here to say to all those Government members that we could do better. We absolutely need better processes, but, unfortunately, under this National-led Government we have not got them.

So, in closing, I want to say, with reference to the Prime Minister’s speech, that there was only one line that actually got me listening, and that, actually, was the last line, where he said: “We are going to say to New Zealanders that they can trust what we say, and they can trust us to deliver what we do.” I can assure you that when I go around all the communities in Ikaroa-Rāwhiti, “trust” is not a word they align with the National-led Government and its coalition partners. So I look forward to what the year presents. Tēnā tātou katoa.

Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA (Minister of Pacific Island Affairs): It is a privilege to speak on this, the Prime Minister’s statement to this House, and to speak for the first time as the Minister of Pacific Island Affairs. I am honoured and humbled to be entrusted with that particular title, as well as that of Associate Minister of Local Government. I am honoured that the Prime Minister placed his trust and his faith in me to deliver for those portfolios. I am honoured to have a Prime Minister who has led a Government that has stabilised the economy, that has grown this economy, and that has grown jobs in this nation of Aotearoa New Zealand. It has also provided an infrastructure, educational services, and health services that all New Zealanders should be proud of.

Just on education, last Friday I attended an opening ceremony for a unique school in my original home community of Māngere. The Rise UP Trust is a not-for-profit community organisation that provides educational services for Pasifika and Māori whānau. This was the first—but it will not be the last—partnership school with Pacific leadership, with Pacific governance, with teachers teaching Pacific values within the New Zealand Curriculum. Those programmes were designed by teachers who have grown up and worked in South Auckland schools for many years. This school started in a Māngere garage, culminating last week in the opening of this second partnership school. I consider this school to mark a small but significant milestone for this country’s youngest and fastest-growing population in and around Māngere. It represents a promising new approach to teaching Pasifika children, and I am proud that this National Government has poured resources into Pacific people, into Pacific communities, and into the communities of South Auckland so that they can have opportunities, they can have hope, and, ultimately, they can have financial freedom and self-reliance. The Pacific community, which makes up 64 percent of Māngere, has mobilised itself and is taking charge of its own children’s futures. It is going to be a bright one.

In the last 5 years we have seen big results based on the commitments and the promises that the National Party electioneered on—the platform that we came in on in 2008, which we are delivering on. It is about building a faster-growing economy with more jobs, raising incomes, and supporting New Zealanders and their families. It is also about being fiscally prudent so that a Budget surplus is forecast for the next financial year, 2014-15. Why would New Zealanders risk that with a Labour-Greens coalition, which is prepared to tax and spend at exorbitant and reckless rates? Our economy has grown 3.5 percent, and it has been picked up by leaders around the world as a role model for developed nations. Our wages have outpaced inflation, as Mr Simpson knows.

Carol Beaumont: Tell that to all the people who haven’t had a pay increase.

Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA: Ms Beaumont might scoff, but here are the facts. We have had a 16.1 percent rise in wages since 2008, and inflation has gone up only 10.8 percent.

Carol Beaumont: Forty percent didn’t get a pay increase last year.

Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA: I suggest, ma’am, that you do your homework and find out—

Iain Lees-Galloway: Was that the median wage, Sam, or is that just rich people getting richer? Sam, is that the median wage, or is it the rich people getting richer?

Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA: —that wages have increased faster than inflation. This morning—and Mr Lees-Galloway knows this—66,000 more people went to work in New Zealand than this time last year. There are 66,000 more New Zealanders currently employed than this time last year. As the last 5 years have shown, this National-led Government has delivered stable leadership and put New Zealanders back on the right track.

The future success and prosperity of Pacific people will influence the outcomes for New Zealand as a whole. We know that they currently represent 8 percent of the population. It is estimated that by 2026 they will represent 10 percent of the population. They predict that by 2050 Māori and Pacific people and other ethnic groups will form approximately 50 percent of the population. So we need to have our next generation of Pacific people in prominent positions, not just as doctors, lawyers, teachers, scientists, and accountants but also in trades. The most important thing, which this Government has stated, is that they are employed and that they have better skills to meet the demands for the 21st century—a century in which we are competing with nations in not just Asia and Europe but also the Americas. Our Government is working hard to prepare young people for the future, giving them the educational foundation to succeed in life.

Last year I attended the Prime Minister’s Pacific Youth Awards scholarships right here in Parliament. I was proud to see seven young people given awards for leadership, creativity, technological flair, and educational promise. Each of them was a tertiary student, and I would offer the view that each will go on to great success. A common theme was the tribute that each of these students paid to their families and the support given to them by their whānau and families in their educational endeavours. It is not just about education, programmes, buildings, sports fields, and the like; it really is about the support that whānau can give. It is about the support that their families can give outside of school. It is about the support and encouragement and love that they can give to whānau in order that they can succeed, not just at school but in the workplace and in our communities. Without exception, they credited education as fundamental to that success. That is why our Government is focused very much on standards in education. It is focused very much on achievement levels. It is focused very much on our kids gaining the skills that they need to succeed in the future.

In 2012 Minister Parata released the Pasifika Education Plan 2013-2017. It is an overarching plan to increase Pasifika achievement and participation in education, from early childhood education right up to tertiary-level education. One of the goals is to raise National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) level 2 pass rates in ways that are connected with entering employment or further training. Already I can report to this House and to our country that Pacific achievement in NCEA level 2 has improved from 56.5 percent in 2009 to 64.8 percent in 2012.

Last Friday I attended a breakfast for Pacific students at Rosmini College on the North Shore. These Pacific students achieved a 100 percent pass rate at NCEA levels 1 and 3 and a 91 percent pass rate at level 2. So we have got some stars out there. We have got young kids who are really performing and achieving. Although we accept that these achievement levels are going up, there is still more to be done out there.

We have introduced programmes like Pasifika Power UP, with Minister Parata leading the charge to help Pacific students prepare and study for exams. It takes a whole-of-family approach. Pasifika Power UP is a 12-month engagement programme with an intensive 8-week challenge delivered through eight Pacific community - based study hubs, predominantly in South Auckland. The young people receive support and advice around their studies. Parents are informed about the structure of NCEA and its significance. The hubs provide advice around family support for their children’s success. These Pasifika Power UP programmes help give effect to the energy and the desire in Pacific communities for young people to do better in NCEA levels 1, 2, and 3. We had over 1,600 Pasifika students, parents, and families attend these programmes right across the country—as I said, predominantly in South Auckland. That is a great sign that Pacific people are passionate about education and eager to be part of the skilled workforce.

Just on employment, I have said that there are currently just under 2.3 million people employed across our country. Forecasts show that these trends will continue this year as the Government’s Business Growth Agenda leads to expanded export markets, more innovation, better infrastructure, greater skills development, and improved resources. Our Pacific community is sharing in the employment gains. The unemployment rate for Pasifika is down 2.3 percent from a year ago. Since 2011 Pacific Employment Support Services has assisted providers to help raise NCEA level 2 success in 25 schools throughout Auckland.

I just want to sum up by saying that we are approaching a general election where New Zealanders will have a clear choice.

Carol Beaumont: That’s true. That’s very true.

Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA: Through difficult times, this Government—and Ms Beaumont knows this—has put New Zealand on a strong financial footing. The economy is growing, we are creating jobs, and we are having higher incomes. That is for all New Zealanders. This Government will continue to deliver those results going forward.

JAMI-LEE ROSS (Junior Whip—National): I move, That this debate be now adjourned.

Motion agreed to.

Bills

Smoke-free Environments (Tobacco Plain Packaging) Amendment Bill

First Reading

Hon TARIANA TURIA (Associate Minister of Health): I move, That the Smoke-free Environments (Tobacco Plain Packaging) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Health Committee to consider the bill. As a great-grandmother and grandmother of close to 50 mokopuna, I am acutely aware of the importance of branding upon the psyche of the young person. What really matters is not so much about being neat and tidy but more that your socks have the tick strategically placed, the shirt is emblazoned with the latest label, and the cap is the right colour and the right look. So when I read the research revealing that consumers buy branded products as much for their symbolic value as for their utility, it made perfect sense.

In essence, the decision to introduce plain packaging for tobacco products in New Zealand is all about the branding. It takes away the last means of promoting tobacco as a desirable product. When tobacco manufacturers push tobacco, they are not simply selling a stick of nicotine; they are selling status, social acceptance, and adventure. The design and appearance of tobacco products and, in particular, the way they are packaged influence people’s perceptions about these products and the desirability of smoking. Brand imagery demonstrably increases the appeal of tobacco brands, particularly to youth and young adults, helping to attract new smokers and also implying wider social approval for tobacco use.

The Smoke-free Environments Act 1990 introduced extensive restrictions on traditional forms of advertising for tobacco products. A quarter of a century later tobacco companies have deliberately used packaging design and appearance to make their products appear more desirable and to promote their use. The objectives of this bill are very clear: to reduce the appeal of tobacco products and smoking, particularly for young people; to further reduce any wider social acceptance and approval of smoking and tobacco products; to increase the noticeability and effectiveness of mandated health warning messages and images; and to reduce the likelihood that consumers might acquire false perceptions about the harms caused by tobacco products.

For too long tobacco companies have been creating brands in advertising to persuade us to think that smoking is glamorous, fun, cool, sophisticated, and a part of life, knowing that they had to sell only the myth and the nicotine addiction would take over. I want to commend those parties across this House that have been consistently committed to this goal of being smoke-free. When Parliament moves together in one direction, we can make significant progress and improve the health of New Zealanders. That is surely what should be uppermost in the minds of every politician—protecting the health of future generations while at the same time taking prudent responsibility for the use of taxpayer funds. We have been able to take a courageous approach to tobacco control measures, and I strongly recommend we continue to do so. In this way we will create better health outcomes for all New Zealanders.

Plain packaging will be most effective in building on other legislation to improve tobacco control, such as the annual 10 percent tobacco tax increases through to 1 January 2016, and the ban on displaying tobacco products at the point of sale, which this House overwhelmingly supported in 2011. No one measure will make the difference in isolation. Each of these measures addresses specific elements in establishing a comprehensive tobacco control regime. Tax increases are a particularly effective policy tool to reduce tobacco consumption. We also know that reducing the visibility of tobacco products contributes to this objective. Having removed the display of tobacco products in shops, we are now tackling how these products look by greatly reducing their appeal, especially to young people—our children and our grandchildren.

I am determined that we must denormalise smoking and build on the progress that we have seen to date. This bill is about sending a very clear message to tobacco companies that this Government is serious about ending unnecessary deaths and poor health outcomes related to tobacco use. The intent of the legislation is to prevent the design and appearance of packaging and of products themselves from having any visual or other effect that could serve to promote the attractiveness of the product or increase the social appeal of smoking.

The plain packaging regime will tightly control the design and appearance of tobacco product packaging and of the products themselves by allowing the brand name and certain other manufacturer information to be printed on the pack, but with tight controls—for example, on the font used, its size, its colour, and its position on the pack. It will standardise all other design elements of tobacco product packaging, such as the materials, colours, and type faces or fonts that may be used. It will require the packaging to carry larger, more prominent, and more pertinent warning messages and graphic images, controlling the design and appearance of individual cigarettes and other products.

The colouring and wording used on tobacco packaging has been shown to create misconceptions that tobacco products are less harmful and that it is easier to quit than is in fact the case. Internationally, smoking remains the largest cause of preventable death. It also contributes to profound health and social inequalities and outcomes for Māori and Pasifika peoples. There is no other consumer product that is so widely used and that directly poses such a high level of health risk to users, particularly long-term users. Quitting smoking or, even better, never smoking is the key to enjoying a longer and healthier life with loved ones.

As a nation, the burden of disease and the national health costs caused by smoking are massive. The introduction of plain packaging will do much to turn this situation round. It will discourage people from taking up smoking or using tobacco products, and encourage people to be smoke-free and healthier. It will also reduce people’s exposure to second-hand smoke from tobacco products. I want to signal that I am still of the view that we can do a lot more on this front, particularly on the goal of increasing the numbers of parents and caregivers who do not allow smoking in their car at any time, fully cognisant of the threat that it imposes on their children.

Finally, this bill will support New Zealand in meeting its international obligations and commitments under the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, and it will align the tobacco plain packaging legislation in Australia consistent with the Trans-Tasman Mutual Recognition Agreement. I am confident that this bill is consistent with all New Zealand’s international obligations. We are convinced that plain packaging is a really important step on our path to being a smoke-free country by 2025, and that it will stack up against our World Trade Organization obligations. That is why we are pushing forward to take the legislation through the parliamentary processes without delay.

New Zealand takes all of its international obligations seriously. Our plain packaging regime has been developed to be consistent with our trade obligations, and our approach to negotiating new trade agreements continues to protect our ability to take public health measures such as plain packaging. The agreements and treaties can, and should, work together to boost both international trade and public health, and this is a good example of where we can achieve both objectives.

Although the tobacco industry may have laid down a threat if this legislation is passed, my message to it is that our country has a sovereign right and a legal right to protect its citizens. I am firmly of the opinion that it is not for any tobacco company to be telling us what we should be doing in our own land. Five thousand New Zealanders die from smoking a year, and that death toll places a responsibility on every politician to pass legislation in our land that will help save lives and increase well-being—legislation that makes a tangible, enduring impact on the lives of the people of this country. I commend this bill to the House for its first reading.

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

IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North): It is a great pleasure to rise to speak in favour of the Smoke-free Environments (Tobacco Plain Packaging) Amendment Bill. Labour has undoubtedly the longest and most consistent track record of any parliamentary party for supporting measures that reduce the harm caused by tobacco. It goes right back, of course, to 1989-90, when the Smoke-free Environments Act, the Act that this bill amends, was first passed by the Labour Government under the then health Minister, Helen Clark. Subsequent to that we have made a number of amendments to the Smoke-free Environments Act—removing smoking from bars and restaurants and removing smoking from the workplace. It is fair to say that, at times, the debate has been rigorous, and many politicians have found themselves unable to support these measures, but Labour has always driven the agenda to reduce the harm caused by tobacco. This is the role, I think, of progressive parties, because progressive parties do want to effect positive change for the people whom they represent and, often, conservative parties find that change difficult to grasp. But what we find, of course, is that with the passing of time, those things that seemed like they were going to bring about the end of the world just become normal practice, and everybody accepts that, indeed, it was the right thing to do at the time.

Labour has a very proud history of being on the right side of the tobacco debate. That is because our interests lie in representing the people of New Zealand. Our interests lie in doing the right thing for our citizens. Our interests certainly do not lie with the tobacco industry. The tobacco industry wails and cries every time a measure like this is implemented, and the more it wails, the more I am convinced that we are doing the right thing. So it is outstanding that the vast majority of parties this evening will be supporting this first reading of the Smoke-free Environments (Tobacco Plain Packaging) Amendment Bill.

What it seeks to do is to get rid of the last bastion of tobacco advertising. We got rid of most advertising back when the Smoke-free Environments Act was first passed, but the packaging has been the last opportunity that the tobacco industry has had to push its product. We made a significant step forward during the last term of Parliament when we got rid of the tobacco displays, and now we are pushing the last boundary of tobacco advertising by getting rid of this branding and packaging. There is no reason for branding to be used to differentiate cigarettes, because tobacco is tobacco is tobacco. It does not matter what you wrap it up in—it kills. Five thousand people are killed every year as a result of tobacco-related diseases. It kills around half its users. That is not a normal product that ought to be treated normally like any other consumable. It does not belong in dairies next to the bread and the milk and the lollies. And it does not deserve to have branding designed to entice young people to use this lethal product.

We support this legislation, but we are a little bit concerned about one aspect of it in particular, and that is that the commencement of this legislation is handed over to an Order in Council. Effectively, the Government gets to decide when this legislation comes into force. The reason for that, of course, is concerns around being sued by the tobacco industry as a result of a potential breach of trade agreements. The real concern is that the Trans-Pacific Partnership will foist upon New Zealand rules and regulations that stop us from doing exactly this, which is to legislate in the best interests of the public health of New Zealanders. We must be vigilant. We must be vigilant and ensure that any trade agreements we sign up to do not allow us to fall into that trap. We are watching Australia closely, but I want New Zealanders to understand that the agreement that Australia has with Hong Kong was poorly drafted in this area and left Australia exposed to the type of litigation that it is facing. New Zealand’s trade agreements, generally speaking, have avoided that, and we need to ensure that should the Trans-Pacific Partnership go ahead, it avoids this, as well.

That is why we are asking the Government to be transparent about the Trans-Pacific Partnership. That is why we are asking that when the text is finalised, it be published so that New Zealanders can see what is in it before the National Government signs us up to it. We need to know whether the Trans-Pacific Partnership will have any bearing on the implementation of this legislation, and we on this side of the House are concerned that the reason the Government does not want this legislation to be implemented as soon as it is passed by Parliament, and instead is handing that right over to itself, the Government, is that it wants to keep in the back pocket the opportunity not to enforce this legislation, in the event that it sells off to American interests that are pushing their agenda through the Trans-Pacific Partnership our right—our sovereign right—to legislate in the interests of the public health of New Zealanders.

That would be a very unfortunate consequence, indeed, because it is clear that this measure has broad support in Parliament. It has broad support out in the public as well. New Zealand is a sovereign nation that ought to be able to say that we do not accept that 5,000 of our citizens are killed every year by tobacco, and that we do not accept that the tobacco industry has the right to push its product on to youngsters to try to get them hooked at an early age so that when they do make the decision that they want not to smoke any more, they are addicted to nicotine and unable to get away from the habit. We do not want the tobacco industry to be able to do that, and we do not want to give up our right to regulate in the interests of New Zealanders. But with that one concern aside, we do support this legislation.

It is the right thing to do, and we congratulate the Minister Tariana Turia on the work she has done in advancing the cause of tobacco control while she has been a Minister in this Government. There is no doubt to those of us on this side of the House that in the absence of Tariana Turia the progress that has been made over the last 5 years would simply not have happened. We would have probably rested on our laurels, allowing only the advances that the Labour Government had driven to set in place, and we would have had to wait for another progressive Government to come in and continue the work. It is great that we have not lost those 5 years, and we congratulate Tariana Turia on those efforts.

This is just another step in a long line of measures that have over the last three decades moved us towards a smoke-free future, but now we have the absolute goal that we want New Zealand to be smoke-free by 2025. I think that this is a very positive measure that will over time have the effect of reducing the number of young people who take up smoking, so they do not then have to have the lifetime battle of trying to get off nicotine and have to save themselves from the damage done by tobacco. It is not the silver bullet. We will not see instant results, but this is a positive measure towards making New Zealand smoke-free and preventing awful diseases that take life and cause enormous cost to the health system. We support this bill.

Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Hunua): It gives me great pleasure too to speak on the Smoke-free Environments (Tobacco Plain Packaging) Amendment Bill. Although I believe that Mr Lees-Galloway had a somewhat one-eyed view of the genesis of this legislation, I do agree with him that its genesis has been long and the legislation has been contributed to by many tens of thousands of people over many, many decades. I must remind you, Mr Deputy Speaker, that at the end of the Second World War, tobacco smoking had been generally normalised in most Western societies. The troops were given tobacco as a daily ration, and unfortunately it was not until the 1960s, when Sir Richard Doll did his extraordinary epidemiological work, that it was shown beyond doubt that carcinoma of the lung was caused by tobacco smoking. It was not until the 1990s, however, that this country really got into making legislation to—

Hon Annette King: 1989-90.

Dr PAUL HUTCHISON: That is right. The early 1990s, and then later on there was the smoke-free amendment legislation. I absolutely accept that, and I would like to acknowledge Professor Robert Beaglehole, who is the founder of Action on Smoking and Health in New Zealand and has been very much the intellectual brains behind a lot of the work done, which has required a huge amount of effort and energy over a long period of time. There have been people who have doubted such things as bringing smoke-free transport and smoke-free restaurants into New Zealand, and now we all celebrate that fact.

The purpose of this legislation indeed is to introduce plain packaging for tobacco products, but particularly the aim is to reduce the tobacco uptake among young people. As the Hon Tariana Turia mentioned in her speech, branding can be very appealing to young people in its many forms and sorts, and in fact it can be very appealing to all people. The whole aim of the tobacco companies is to induce that Pavlovian dog reflex whereby the person who sees the brand just cannot help but get stuck into the goodies, and the whole idea of this legislation is indeed to help reduce the glamorisation of packaging that the tobacco companies have been just so very happy to use, despite the harm tobacco causes.

I understand that ACT and Mr Banks will be one of the few parties not supporting this bill, but might I say to Mr Banks that as I understand it, libertarian philosophy would say: “As much freedom as possible provided it does no harm.” What we do know is that there are probably 400 to 500 New Zealanders per year who die prematurely because of second-hand smoke. So I would invite the member—

Hon John Banks: Will this work?

Dr PAUL HUTCHISON: Well, I did see in the New Zealand Herald today that you say you are very much a supporter of people stopping smoking, and indeed this is yet another piece in the long number of amendments to that initial smoke-free legislation that we believe will contribute to the diminishment of smoking in this country. [Interruption] We have yet to see them, and I would say good on the Australians for bringing in the legislation. It is the first country in the world to do so. The jury is out, but the evidence we have seen from the early academic papers from Victoria suggests that it is indeed highly effective, Mr Banks, so keep an open mind and keep your libertarian philosophy high.

I would say that the record and the contribution of the National Government in this area is absolutely beyond doubt. We have increased the excise on tobacco products year after year—the area that we know is most effective. We have banned smoking in prisons and the display of tobacco products at the point of sale, and we have seen a big increase in the uptake of Government-subsidised nicotine replacement therapy. We have set the health target for hospitalised patients to quit smoking to 95 percent by 2014, and it has already been achieved. We have now got the target out there in the community for general practitioners to give advice to all their patients who smoke, and we are now working on a target for pregnant women. So that too has to be extraordinarily good.

I must acknowledge the Māori Affairs Committee and its tremendous effort when it suggested Aotearoa should become smoke-free by 2025. This has been taken up by the National Government and is another example of where we have shown our absolute commitment to reducing the harm from smoking. We are making sure that time-bound targets are flexible, realistic, and cost-effective.

I was interested to see that the tobacco companies are still able to have their individual brands on the packages but with very tight controls. Hence the controversy in Australia. Good on the Aussies. Unfortunately, it has bitten them in terms of the way that they are now embroiled in a very difficult court case, through those countries that are producing tobacco and, of course, the tobacco companies, which are doing everything they can in the Third World to encourage and promote smoking, which is very much against the public health in those countries.

There is no doubt in my mind that although we do not know exactly when this legislation will be enacted, the majority of the Parliament is very much for it. But the issues around the World Trade Organization (WTO) are that every country has the sovereign right to protect the health of its people. I do not believe the problem is so much about free trade and the WTO; I believe it is much more about scurrilous tobacco companies colluding with tobacco-producing countries to bring in expensive, delaying court action.

In respect of the issues regarding the Trans-Pacific Partnership, we have clearly signalled that that legislation will come through this Parliament. We have clearly signalled that we will not compromise our sovereign right to protect the public health of our people. This legislation is another step in protecting the public’s health from the proven harms of tobacco. I commend it to the House.

Hon ANNETTE KING (Labour—Rongotai): It is such a shame that the member who has resumed his seat, Dr Paul Hutchison, never had the opportunity to become the Minister of Health. I believe he would have made a very fine Minister of Health because he has always stood by his principles, and you have just heard some of them tonight, when it comes to the control of tobacco.

You know, there are some things that happen in your political career that are less than memorable, and then there are other times when you are involved in policy or change that remain with you for the rest of your life. For 5 years I was involved as Minister of Health in the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. New Zealand along with Australia and Norway—and for the first time, with the involvement of NGOs—were the driving force in getting in place a comprehensive framework on tobacco control. At those meetings Dr Robert Beaglehole was there supporting, encouraging, and guiding, along with Dr Don Matheson and others. At the 56th assembly on 21 May 2003, the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control became the first World Health Organization treaty adopted under article 19 of the World Health Organization constitution. In fact, it was one of the most quickly ratified conventions in the history of the UN. The treaty itself came into force on 27 February 2005. At my last visit to Geneva at the World Health Organization assembly, I was fortunate to be there to celebrate the final implementation of this historic convention. It had been signed by 168 countries and was legally binding on 177 ratifying countries.

What did the treaty seek to do? It sought to protect present and future generations from the devastating health, social, environmental, and economic consequences of tobacco consumption and exposure to tobacco smoke. It also set up a universal set of standards stating the dangers of tobacco and limiting its use in various forms worldwide. It provided rules governing production, sale, distribution, advertisement, and taxation on tobacco. It provided a minimum set of standards and encouraged ratifying countries to go even further. It was and still is considered a watershed moment for international public health because it was the first multilateral binding agreement regarding a chronic non-communicable disease.

Some of the requirements in that convention were: the need to have public awareness, and we have that in New Zealand; demand reduction through taxation measures, and we have that; a comprehensive ban on advertising, and that has been in place for a long time; restriction of sale to minors, and that has been in place for a long time; to have cessation programmes for addiction, and, of course, we have had major policies in smoking cessation programmes in this country for a long time; and, on passive smoking, an obligation to protect all people from exposure to tobacco indoors, in workplaces, and on public transport. New Zealand has done those things. A significant measure was on packaging and labelling—that there be a minimum of large health warnings, and a minimum of 30 percent of the package covered, but 50 percent or more was recommended. This bill, the Smoke-free Environments (Tobacco Plain Packaging) Amendment Bill, meets one of those last requirements under the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.

I heard some of the interjections from the Hon John Banks, asking whether plain packaging works. Mr Banks, on its own, it would have to be proven. The bill was put together as part of a framework and as a package of measures, which are together believed by the best experts we have internationally on health to be able to reduce the consumption of tobacco, and not only the consumption but the prevalence of tobacco smoking in countries. So I urge you to see it as part of the continuation of the implementation of that very, very important framework.

New Zealand has always been a leader in tobacco control. So I have been pleased at the measures that have been taken. Dr Hutchison, I have no doubt of your sincerity, but I have to remind you that in the 9 years that we were in Government as the fifth Labour Government—go back and look at the record—unfortunately, your Government voted against every tobacco control measure that we implemented. I am quite sure that it was probably not your choice, but that is the record. It is on the record. I do believe that Tariana Turia, who was part of our Government and was very, very aware not only of the evils of tobacco but of what was required under the convention, has continued to promote tobacco control. I commend her for that. I was disappointed when I heard her say recently that Labour did nothing for tobacco control. I think it must have been a slip of the tongue, because without that convention, and ratifying that convention, and the legislation, and the measures that followed, we would not be where we are today.

I would also like to commend the work that was done by our former leader Helen Clark. She was totally committed to tobacco control and probably brought in the hardest measure, the first measure. It is always hardest to bring in the first one. That measure was banning smoking in workplaces. Many of us who had factories in our electorates and who had working people who voted Labour were very aware of the impact when it came to the 1990 election, and some of us were made redundant for a short while.

I too am very disappointed at the reaction of the big tobacco industry and businesses. I agree with Phil Goff. They ought to butt out of telling New Zealand what we ought to do when it comes to public health. They have no right to dictate to New Zealand and New Zealanders what we ought to do with a product that—every one of them—is dangerous for a person’s health. But then, I have to say, it is not unusual that they would do that, because, unfortunately, the USA has not signed the convention on tobacco control. It has refused to sign or to ratify it. In fact, President Bush refused to take the treaty to the United States Senate. So the Senate never even got the opportunity to debate it. Here we have big tobacco companies, which make their money from a product that kills people, trying to tell New Zealanders what we ought to do in terms of our own legislation.

I would have to say that I am a little disappointed that we have to wait for the passage of this legislation and that we are waiting to see what happens in the Australian court case. I think it is good on the Australians for having the courage to say to those big tobacco companies: “Bring it on.” I am glad that they have got the money to be able to fund their legal case.

Hon John Banks: Why are we waiting?

Hon ANNETTE KING: Well, that is a good point, Mr Banks. He just asked why we are waiting. It is a question that you need to put to the Prime Minister.

Hon John Banks: Do we believe in it?

Hon ANNETTE KING: Yes, I agree that we believe it. It is part of what we believe and where we are heading. The Prime Minister wants to wait to see what happens in the court case in Australia. I think the fear is probably that the tobacco companies might then take us to court. Well, I would give them the two-finger salute and say “Bring it on.”, because we as a Parliament will first of all want to protect the health of New Zealanders. The big tobacco industries continue to peddle their products into Third World countries now. When you look at the countries that have not ratified the convention—and some of them have not signed it—you will find that most of them rely on the growing and the smoking of tobacco. The tobacco companies prey on those people, and I say “Shame on them.”

Some of you would have seen the press release that came out from the New Zealand Association of Convenience Stores. I was also disappointed to see that it is opposed to this measure. It says that the Ministry of Health is hell-bent on supporting this legislation. Well, if the association is listening tonight, it needs to know that the majority of this Parliament is hell-bent on moving a measure that is going to add to the package of measures we have to reduce the consumption and the prevalence of tobacco in New Zealand, and, as Dr Hutchison said, save hundreds and hundreds of people’s lives.

KEVIN HAGUE (Green): I begin my contribution this evening on the Smoke-free Environments (Tobacco Plain Packaging) Amendment Bill by welcoming the near-unanimity of this House in being determined to minimise the harm caused by this scourge, tobacco. We Greens have often in the House been criticising successive Governments over time, and it is a great pleasure, I have to say, to be able to praise instead successive Governments since 1990 for a succession of measures to reduce the harm associated with the consumption of tobacco products.

I want to give special praise, as others have, to Minister Turia, who has contributed a very great amount to this cause while she has been an Associate Minister of Health. I also want to acknowledge the role of the Māori Affairs Committee and Tau Henare, and Hone Harawira also, who played a pivotal role in achieving that Māori Affairs Committee landmark report, because the target that we have bought into as a nation—of having a smoke-free Aotearoa by 2025—is a powerful motivator for Government action.

Just in the last month or so we had some very good news about our progress towards that goal. We heard that there has been a substantial drop in smoking rates since 2006 up until the current census, so, overall, we have a smoking rate that is now well on track to being much lower. But it is still not fast enough to achieve the goal of a smoke-free Aotearoa by 2025, and, what is more, although the overall figure looks great, there are still very substantial inequalities. Prevalence rates amongst Māori and amongst Pasifika people are still much higher, and rates in those communities are nowhere near on track for reaching that smoke-free goal by 2025.

What that says is that we absolutely still need that comprehensive strategy, and we need more urgent action than we have implemented to date if we are to achieve our collective goal. That comprehensive strategy is an approach of regulating this product proportional to its amount of harm, and tobacco remains the single greatest cause of preventable death in this country—the amount of harm it causes is astonishingly high.

A number of speakers have referred to the 5,000 deaths each year from tobacco. What that translates to is 13 preventable deaths every single day from this product. I believe, and I think that most members of this House believe, that that kind of death toll—that enormous harm caused to our country and to our population—is reason enough for urgent and dramatic action. Other speakers have put this particular measure into that broader context and I will not dwell on that. But what I do want to point out is something that I think is important to this debate, and that is around the fundamental role of Government. What is, in fact, more fundamental to the role of a Government than to prevent the death of its citizens?

Shane Ardern: Nothing.

KEVIN HAGUE: “Nothing.”, I hear it said, and I agree with that member, Shane Ardern. This cuts to the very heart of what a Government or a State is about. It is deeply disturbing, therefore, that the Government is proposing to delay the implementation of this bill until such time as the various court cases and actions against the Australian Government are settled. Others have mentioned this. Iain Lees-Galloway spoke about the commencement process—on a date appointed by an Order in Council, or during a period up to 18 months after the date on which the bill is passed. I do not believe that that is acceptable. In the face of the size of this problem and the role that this measure can play in solving that problem, I do not believe that that kind of delay can possibly be acceptable.

Tobacco companies are scared of this bill. They are scared of this measure. Indeed, it falls into a pattern that has existed for every one of the tobacco control measures that has been implemented in every country, every time. Tobacco companies have fought them tooth and nail, and the ferocity of their fighting has been proportional to the likely effectiveness of the measure being considered. Their sole motivation is profit maximisation. That is not a goal that our State, our Parliament, ought to share.

Members will recall the vigorous and expensive advertising campaign that the tobacco companies unleashed upon our nation, and I would put it to this House and to the nation that that is evidence that the tobacco companies are aware of how effective this measure will be. It will be effective at stopping new people taking up smoking, it will be effective at undermining the reinforcement of smoking behaviour of current smokers, and it will be effective at assisting those who have quit to stay quit—all of which the tobacco companies resist and oppose, and all of which this Parliament should be supporting with its whole heart and whole effort. So the Government’s caution in terms of implementation is inconsistent with that need for dramatic action.

What we need instead is a clear and urgent timetable to enact this legislation. I signal thanks to the US Chamber of Commerce and its fellow traveller organisations for putting out just so clearly their intention—that those international agreements ought to undermine this country’s sovereignty—with their threats to this country over the last couple of days. I agree with Dr Paul Hutchison, who said that every nation has the sovereign right to protect the health of its people. I agree with that, and the Greens say that if that sovereign right is threatened, then there is all the more reason for the Government to stand up and protect that sovereign right.

Delaying the implementation of this legislation is caving in to the threats, extortion, and delaying tactics of an evil industry. Thirteen deaths every day demands urgent action, it demands the exercise of that core Government sovereignty, and it demands that this bill is brought into law as soon as it possibly can be.

Hon JOHN BANKS (Leader—ACT): I rise to oppose this Smoke-free Environments (Tobacco Plain Packaging) Amendment Bill with lower case narrative. It seems rather interesting, does it not? I do not seek to be churlish, but I remind this House that I was the only member of this House who voted against recreational drugs in this country. Yet we hear tonight about the sovereign rights of every nation to protect its citizens. I do not disagree with that, but I would have thought those many weeks ago that there was a sovereign right for this House to protect its young people around Sunday recreational drugs. But we will leave that aside.

I am not unhappy that this bill is going to the Health Committee, but it is an exercise in rain dancing in the early stages of an election year. That is what it is: an exercise in rain dancing. It will make members feel good—feel that we have achieved something this week in Parliament for the people and exercised our sovereign right as a nation. We want plain packaging of tobacco, but we allow alcohol to be advertised on TV tonight—

Hon Annette King: Good point.

Hon JOHN BANKS: I thank the former Minister of Health and I give praise and thanks to her colleague who is now at the United Nations. Phil Goff and I remember well, 10 parliaments ago, sitting in an aeroplane at 7 o’clock in the morning flying to Wellington with most of the people up front chain-smoking cigarettes.

Hon Phil Goff: And we sat in “smoke-free” with no barrier.

Hon JOHN BANKS: And we did. We sat in rows A and B in the smoke-free section of Air New Zealand, and, of course, when we got to Wellington we all smelt like ashtrays. No one could believe that Phil had started smoking, not even Mike Moore, who never smoked, by the way—at least, not in an aeroplane.

We got these deaths last year from tobacco, but alcohol causes much more harm than tobacco. I suppose that as a wowser it is easy for me to say it, but I am opposed to both alcohol consumption and tobacco use. They are both available at the corner dairy and they are both legal products sold by legal entities into a market of free enterprise. We wanted to ban tobacco advertising, but what are we doing about it, really? We are introducing a bill early in an election year so that we can feel good about taking a stance against tobacco addiction, mainly with our young people, and the harm that it causes. But this legislation will not see the light of day until the next parliamentary term. I think if this country and the parliamentarians supporting this legislation were committed, they would ram it through the House in the dead of night and put it on the books. But we are not doing that—we are not doing that. So I see this as a very interesting exercise in futility.

But I want to say to the Associate Minister of Health Tariana Turia what a great soul she is and what a fine member of Parliament and a great ambassador for her people she is. She has done a very good job extending the work of previous health Ministers in getting rid of tobacco in this country. I am looking forward to 2025 when this country is tobacco-free. We will see pigs flying across this Parliament, but that is OK because I will not be anywhere near this place.

The point I am making is that if we really want to get to the bottom of tobacco addiction in this country, which is mainly amongst the young, then the international evidence is that increasing the price substantially—increasing the price substantially—is the single biggest initiative we could take. If this Government wanted to take that initiative by doubling the excise duty on tobacco over the next 5 years, I would support that. No one dislikes smoking more than me. Idleness, educational failure, and despair drives the take-up of smoking in so many of our young—idleness, educational failure, and despair. You can see it in the eyes of the people who consume these products on the streets of this country every day of the week. We should address the underlying cause of the deep vein of deprivation. For many, smoking is merely a symptom of those causes of that deep vein of social deprivation.

I congratulate the Associate Minister again. I need to put that on record. However, I ask my Māori Party and National Party colleagues to carefully consider the precedent they will set with this bill. This bill guts the intellectual property rights of tobacco companies. Some will ask: well, who cares? But do we want to gut the intellectual property rights of KFC or Red Bull sugar drinks? KFC and Red Bull sugar drinks are putting this country’s level of obesity up at the top of the OECD. They help to contribute to that. It may be seen as a long bow, but the removal of intellectual property rights to the names and brandings of their products from tobacco companies without compensation is wrong, because which international company selling products that are bad for our health will be the next target? The State is effectively seizing their property because it does not like the health effects of their still lawful business. It is still a lawful business.

If a member wants to bring a bill into this House to ban tobacco, that would be an honourable proposition, because it then would be an illegal activity. But successive Governments have reaped massive benefits from excise duty on tobacco products. It is a fundamental tenet of our common law that citizens should not be denied their property rights without just compensation. You would not let it happen to the neighbour in your street if the local council was just as cavalier with its seizure of some of the property on your front garden. It is a property right. It is a property right.

I know the Opposition does not talk about property rights. This is a parliamentary Opposition that goes to Dotcom’s mansion and tells him that if it becomes the Government, he will not be extradited to the US. So it is all very well—[Interruption] I know it has hit a raw nerve. The members opposite might have to rush out and have a smoke. I know I have hit a raw nerve.

The House should not do this. The common law is not only the gift of our British forebears but also of Māori, who believe in a country under the rule of law where property is rightfully protected. We will have debates in this Parliament this month, next month, and for the next 10 years about property rights for the indigenous people of this country. The property rights for the indigenous people of this country are the same as the property rights for international companies lawfully trading in a lawful product in this nation. I say again that no one dislikes smoking more than me. I say to the Greens: what about a Supplementary Order Paper to this bill at some stage where you double the price of tobacco over the next 5 years? That will have an effect.

Kevin Hague: We’re going to propose that.

Hon JOHN BANKS: He is going to propose that. Of course, we are waiting for the Aussies—we are waiting for the Aussies. If we really believed that banning advertising on cigarette packets in the local dairy was going to fix the problem of the uptake of smoking with young people—young Māori women, in particular—then why do we not pass it through all its stages tonight?

The point of principle is tough to apply in hard cases. The pain and loss caused by tobacco use is heartbreaking. It is heartbreaking. The pain and loss caused by tobacco is heartbreaking, but this is a battle of the lawyers about freedom of expression. The second principle is that we should protect the freedom of expression of which the names of products, their branding, and their intellectual property are part. If we do not like it, then increase the price of tobacco over the next 5 years by 100 percent, use the money that we raise to buy the property rights of the international tobacco companies, get rid of them for ever, and become smoke-free in 2018. What a good thing that would be. I would support it. I would support it. I note my friend the Attorney-General has not issued a section 7 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act report on this bill, so it seems to have been cleared.

Yes, we want New Zealand to be smoke-free. Of course I support the amelioration of harmful tobacco. However, I oppose this bill for the propositions I have outlaid, and I welcome it going to the select committee.

BARBARA STEWART (NZ First): On behalf of New Zealand First, I rise to speak to the Smoke-free Environments (Tobacco Plain Packaging) Amendment Bill. This is a very thought-provoking piece of legislation. New Zealand First—[Interruption]; I am not a smoker—will be supporting this bill only to go to the Health Committee at this stage. It is important, we believe, to get the views of the submitters on a bill such as this, because it can have unintended consequences, both positive and negative. We know that tobacco is responsible for 6 million deaths globally and annually, and 5,000 deaths in New Zealand, as Iain Lees-Galloway was saying. There is no doubt that in New Zealand First we want to see the smoking rates in our country continue to decline as well, but there are many aspects to look at with this legislation and we are going to be looking at those very closely.

We know for a fact that many smokers purchase quite elaborate containers to put their cigarettes into. Are these containers going to be allowed be sold? Of course they will. So tobacco and the cigarette containers will still look just as good as they always have done, because who wants that horrible eye or mouth in their pockets? Currently, too, we know that retailers have had to spend quite a lot of money to ensure that the tobacco products are not visible in the stores. That is a move that we also support. But we do not want to punish the retailers even further, creating a situation where they have got to have further costs in order to conform to this law. After all is said and done, it is a legal product.

Research in this area is pretty mixed, and it is from relatively small studies. The results are very, very mixed and are not a clear indication. In many of the studies there is an assumption right at the outset of harm reduction—all participants giving support for plain packaging without the evidence to back it up. We know too that the conclusions of the reports are very different depending on who is paying for the actual report to be written. New Zealand would be the second country in the world to approve plain packaging, after Australia, and we are likely to meet the same legal challenges. I know that the New Zealand Herald article in December last year outlined it clearly: “New Zealand was also likely to face legal challenges if it followed Australia’s lead, and officials have estimated the cost of a legal dispute as between $2 million to $6 million, not including compensation if a case was lost.” So that is something else to consider.

It is also interesting to note that the idea of plain packaging for legal highs was not included in the Psychoactive Substances Bill. Their packaging is very colourful. If plain packaging is effective in reducing the appeal of harmful substances, when are we going to see amendments to how legal highs are actually being sold? And, as Mr Banks pointed out, what about alcohol? What about fast foods? What about sugar products? They are all causing harm to our people, so when are we going to take the next step?

New Zealand First questions whether plain packaging is the best use of money to prevent youth uptake, because preventing uptake should basically be the primary focus for our young people.

On another aspect, we have also been made aware that hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of cigarettes are actually flown into New Zealand at the end of the calendar year to take advantage of the annual 10 percent increase in excise duty. We hear that the number of cigarettes brought into New Zealand in the pre-Christmas period is in excess of 6 months’ worth of normal consumption, so when will this loophole also be closed? We are quite concerned about that.

We want to see some action on smoking. I am not a smoker. I do not particularly approve of smoking myself. We believe that prevention is actually the primary way to go, and we question whether or not this measure is going to get the results that we would like. So we are going to be supporting this bill’s referral to a select committee so that we can get an opportunity to hear the opinions of the submitters. At this stage we have more questions than we have answers, and we are going to be listening for evidence from the submitters, not emotions. We will be looking for real evidence and not prejudice. So at this point in time we will take the first step and then reconsider from there on. Thank you.

SHANE ARDERN (National—Taranaki - King Country): It is a pleasure to rise in support of the Smoke-free Environments (Tobacco Plain Packaging) Amendment Bill. I have listened to a number of learned speakers, I would have to say, including former health Ministers, the former Labour Minister of Health herself, and the chair of the Health Committee, who is himself a medical doctor and someone who has had a passion for this issue over a long period of time.

I just thought I would share, in the few moments that I am going to take a call for, some personal experience in the fact that both my parents were smokers. My father was a returned serviceman and, of course, he was encouraged by the State, in fact, to take up smoking as a way of settling nerves while he was away from late 1939 to early 1945 in the Second World War. So he was absolutely addicted to tobacco to the day he died, and I have no doubt that it aided in the shortening of his life, along with a lot of other war-related issues. So I personally have always felt that reduction in the use of tobacco, and smoking in particular, was in the best interests of New Zealand health.

I just want to add that since National has come into power, it is something that this Government has been very, very seriously focused on. I have listened to some of the comments wondering why we are not getting on with it a bit quicker and why we are not doing it a bit faster, but I just need to share with you some of the statistics that have come out of the last round of statistics. Between 2006 and 2013 the number of regular smokers dropped from 20.69 percent to 15.11 percent. That is a sharper reduction, you could argue, than what we have seen historically. In Māori, in particular, there was a drop from 42.2 percent in 2006 to 32.7 percent in 2013. So progress is being made. I have heard the argument put forward tonight that it is not enough and it should be happening quicker. Well, you could argue that on a number of things. I have not heard the Greens argue, for example, that riding bicycles is dangerous because people get killed on them and that you would be better to drive a big car because it would be safer. So there are a lot of silly arguments you could put up. You could argue against the risk involved in certain activities, but at the end of the day we need to see progress in this area, and we clearly are seeing progress in this area.

I would also like to point out that over $50 million has been made available in programmes by this Government to aid people with all sorts of better quit programmes, if you like, and medical support for that with various nicotine replacement drugs and other such. Overwhelmingly, I think that it is in the best interests of New Zealanders’ health and it is in the best interests, particularly, of our indigenous Māori and also Pacific Island people’s health. On that note I want to congratulate the Māori Affairs Committee on the work and the report that it did, because it was quite a brave step for the Hon Tau Henare and that committee to take in their recommendations. I suspect that over the next few years a lot of those recommendations will be implemented. Certainly, I acknowledge the work that went on in various international forums around what needed to be done and what is being done in regard to smoking cessation. Thank you.

Hon PHIL GOFF (Labour—Mt Roskill): I agree with some of what the member Shane Ardern, who has just resumed his seat, has said. But it was a curious analogy with bicycles, was it not—that people should not ride bicycles because they would be better off and safer in big cars. I would just like to remind the member that, unlike tobacco, bicycles do not kill 50 percent of the people who use them in the manner in which the manufacturer intends. Tobacco has the unique—

Iain Lees-Galloway: Characteristic.

Hon PHIL GOFF: —characteristic—thank you—of actually killing the people who use it in the way that it is intended to be used. I have absolutely no time for big tobacco, for its selfish, vested interest reasons, sending the message to this House and saying: “You’ve got no right to control our product.” We have got every right to control that product. They are lucky that we even tolerate the legality of the product, and, frankly, if I thought that prohibition worked, then I would be inclined to support prohibition. But it does not, and this at least is a step in the right direction.

I want to congratulate Barbara Stewart, the New Zealand First contributor to this debate. I know that she was in a very difficult position. I am sure that she had her leader leaning over her shoulder as she delivered that speech. New Zealand First is at least going to support the referral of the Smoke-free Environments (Tobacco Plain Packaging) Amendment Bill to the Health Committee, and I want to say this. I hope that New Zealand First takes an evidence-based approach—

Barbara Stewart: We will.

Hon PHIL GOFF: —and Barbara Stewart says that she will—because an evidence-produced response will come up with what the Ministry of Health has found. It said: “Tobacco packaging has been demonstrated to be a highly effective form of tobacco marketing. Research has indicated that current tobacco packaging glamorises smoking, and can mislead consumers as to product safety. Research has shown that the primary role of tobacco packaging is to promote brand appeal, particularly to youth and young adults. With increasing restrictions on tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship throughout the world, tobacco packaging has become the tobacco industry’s key marketing tool to attract and retain consumers.”

That is an evidence-based approach. That is why we are supporting this legislation, not because we think that is a silver bullet solution. Together with the other things that have been done, such as increasing the tax and therefore the price of tobacco, such as stopping point-of-sale displays, and such as the smoke-free environment bills introduced under Labour Governments, we can have a real impact. That is why smoking is declining, as Shane Ardern said—because we have acted.

I want to congratulate Tariana Turia on this bill. I think she deserves credit in moving the National Party from its traditional vested interest support for the tobacco industry.

Jonathan Young: Oh!

Hon PHIL GOFF: I say that in a rather measured way. It is true, Mr Young. It is true that the National Party opposed every single measure of tobacco control introduced under the last Labour Government. That is a fact, and the members of the National Party from those days should hang their heads in shame about that act. Bill English in the 2002 election campaign promised to reverse the Smoke-free Environments Act if National was elected.

Iain Lees-Galloway: What did he do again?

Hon PHIL GOFF: Bill English promised to reverse, to repeal the Smoke-free Environments Act if he was elected. No party in this House today would do anything so crazy or would be so irresponsible. Times have changed, and we are finally taking the action that we need to take. I understand where Tariana Turia is coming from, and the Māori Affairs Committee, which did very good work on this, as well. The Māori community has disproportionately been a victim of addiction to tobacco.

In supporting this bill, I am not attacking smokers. Smokers are addicts. Nicotine is an addictive substance. When the tobacco industry has finished promoting the product to get people to use it for the first time, it then sits back and relies on the addictive qualities of tobacco to ensure that those people are hooked in. We should have sympathy and we should provide support for smokers, but we should provide nothing but condemnation for the tobacco industry’s outrageous attempts to allow it to continue to promote a product that is a lethal product.

The facts, again, if it is an evidence-based approach, are very clear. Smoking is the single biggest cause of preventable deaths and disease in New Zealand. What is it about that that any New Zealander does not understand? It kills 5,000 people a year, who die directly of smoking-related diseases. It shortens the long-term smoker’s life, on average, by as much as 15 years. That is the reason why this House should take every step that it can to reduce the appeal and to stop the promotion in any way of a product that kills our fellow New Zealanders.

I want to add another condemnation. It is a condemnation of not only the tobacco industry but the fellow travellers and the apologists for that industry, who would pretend that they can dictate to this country about what we should do in terms of tobacco promotion. It is a long list: the Emergency Committee for American Trade, the National Association of Manufacturers, the National Foreign Trade Council, the US-ASEAN Business Council, the US Chamber of Commerce, and the United States Council for International Business. Shame on those groups, which in many other aspects of their work do responsible work, that they should act as apologists for a product that kills people.

They may pretend that the debate is about intellectual property. They may pretend that the debate is about removing barriers to trade. I am a believer in reasonable protection for intellectual property and I am a strong believer that we should remove barriers to trade, but neither argument stacks up to defend the promotion of a product that kills people if used as the manufacturer intends. Neither argument stands up. They are red herrings. Those councils, those vested interest groups, should butt out of our debate. New Zealand, as every country does, must have the sovereign right to legislate and to regulate for the public good.

There is some question about what the Trans-Pacific Partnership might do in regard to this legislation. I want to say that I have got a letter in front of me signed by the Minister of Trade, and he makes the point—and I rely on his assurance and will hold him to it—that our Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement will be based on the trade agreements that I negotiated with China and with ASEAN, which do not allow companies, corporates, to succeed in suing New Zealand when we regulate or legislate for the public good, whether it be for the environment, for health, or to do the things that are for the well-being of New Zealanders.

I think that the Philip Morris case against the Australian Government is a disgrace. The Australian authorities tell me that they will succeed in that case. We should not lack the courage to confront the vested interests that promote for their own material benefit the peddling of tobacco as a lethal product. We should not be frightened to confront them. We should not be frightened to bring in this legislation on the date that we consider appropriate and to take on those corporates, because we would have the support of the World Health Organization. We would be aligned with the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. That has been passed internationally by a responsible body, and I do not believe for a moment that another international body, the World Trade Organization, would in the end defend the right of companies to kill people with their products. It just does not stack up. It is not credible.

I support this bill. I commend those with the courage to vote for this bill now, and I urge the Government to bring it into effect as soon as possible so we can stop that last bastion of promotion of a lethal product by the vested interests of big tobacco.

SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): It is great pleasure to take a short call on the first reading of the Smoke-free Environments (Tobacco Plain Packaging) Amendment Bill. It is particularly a pleasure to be speaking in a debate where it looks like we will have near-unanimous support for the introduction of this bill into the House, with the exception of one vote from the ACT Party. Others have spoken eloquently and with passion about the harms and the evils of smoking, and I want to join with them in supporting this legislation tonight. We have heard from a number of speakers that smoking remains the single largest preventable killer in New Zealand society, and what we know also is that cigarettes are killers that travel in packs. We can have an impact in removing the attractiveness of those killer packs by removing the logos, by removing the bright colours, and by making the tobacco companies conform to a style that is going to be unattractive to smokers and users.

It is a pleasure to support this bill. I commend it to the House.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Split call—Clare Curran, 5 minutes.

CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South): Three years ago I lost a very good friend to lung cancer. He was not only a good friend; he was a mentor. I miss him. I started smoking when I was 15 years old. I used to smoke Rothmans and some dreadful menthol product before moving on to Camel cigarettes and Marlboros. It took me 20 years to kick that habit after several attempts, and that is not an unusual story. But do you know what? My kids say to me these days: “Mum, how could you ever have put poison in your lungs?”. And it is really quite difficult to answer that question other than to say it was addictive and there were really, really strong marketing campaigns targeted at people like me. That is why we have so many people in our country and in our world who smoke—because of the really clever marketing and because the product is so addictive.

In, I think it was, August 2013, the day that the High Court decision came down in Australia to uphold the world’s first plain packaging law—and I know they are not there yet, but that was the date—the then Attorney-General in Australia, Nicola Roxon, and the then Minister for Health, Tanya Plibersek, said: “This is a victory for all those families who have lost someone to tobacco-related illness. No longer when a smoker pulls out a packet of cigarettes will that packet be a mobile billboard.” Those Ministers said that plain packaging was a vital measure “which removes the last way for big tobacco to promote its deadly products. Over the past two decades, more than 24 different studies have backed plain packaging, and now it will finally become a reality.” Well, it is not quite a reality, but it is pretty close and I really am proud of this Parliament tonight for sending this bill to the Health Committee.

I want to say that the argument that is used by big tobacco—the apologists who pretend that this is a debate about intellectual property rights or removing barriers to trade—is wrong and that that has been proven. The sovereign right of Parliament to make its own laws on matters of public interest should be something that we should all fight for.

I want to refer quickly to a paper called Packaging Phoney Intellectual Property Claims: How multinational tobacco companies colluded to use trade and intellectual property arguments they knew were phoney to oppose plain packaging and larger health warnings. And how governments fell for their chicanery. I urge everybody to track down this paper and to read it. The synopsis states: “It shows that the companies decided to fight plain packaging on trade grounds because it provided them a more solid footing than allowing health issues to enter the debate. For this reason, they focused their energies on the Intellectual Property agreements governed by WIPO and the investment protection contained in NAFTA agreements … Despite being told repeatedly by WIPO”—that they had no legal basis for their arguments, that there was no legal basis for any of those arguments, and—“that their analysis was flawed, the companies persisted in telling the government”—and this was Canada—“and the public that plain packaging would be inconsistent with international intellectual property protections. Following the industry’s misrepresentation of international trade law, new health ministers in Canada and Australia forsook plain packaging as a tobacco control measure they mistakenly believed to be contrary to their countries’ obligations under international trade agreements.”

Finally, this battle is moving towards a conclusion. We are seeing it in Australia. We should not be taking notice of big tobacco’s argument that this is an intellectual property argument, because it is not. There is no basis in law for that argument. This Parliament should be commended by every New Zealander tonight for sending this bill to a select committee and for seeing it through the House.

METIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green): Kia ora, Mr Deputy Speaker. For every person I love who smokes cigarettes, that cigarette is a direct threat to their life. That cigarette increases their chances of dying of some horrible disease much, much younger than they would otherwise. Tobacco kills people. It is a drug that kills people, but it is a legal drug in this country. And so it is treated quite differently in the law and in policy, and even in people’s minds, although that has changed over time, because of its legal status. So it becomes a real issue for policy makers, then, as to how the risk that this drug that kills people should be handled in policy and in law.

I agree with my colleague Kevin Hague, who today stood up and asked what greater significant role does a Government have than to regulate or control industries that kill people. There is no other. So it is really fantastic that this legislation is before the House and that there is so much support for it proceeding. I join with Kevin Hague and with others in congratulating the Associate Minister of Health Minister Turia on her relentless advocacy for this law change and for further law change, and Hone Harawira on bringing to the Māori Affairs Committee the inquiry into tobacco control, which really opened my eyes not just to the personal effects that tobacco has on the people I love but also to the wider issues that affect so many of the Māori community and everybody, and all the people that they love too.

What is most important to me about this legislation is that it controls the industry. This legislation does not punish individuals for what is an addiction. Nicotine is addictive. Some people are able to kick that addiction, and it is great to have supportive services available for those people, but it is an addiction and there are hundreds and hundreds, thousands and thousands, of people who simply cannot kick it. We can continue to punish those individuals for the fact that they have succumbed to a terrible addiction to this drug, or we can also control the industry that makes significant profits from this drug. I am extremely pleased that the Parliament that I am a member of at the moment is making that significant change, because it is about time that we make those who profit from the peddling of this drug that kills people pay some of the consequences.

I watched the industry come to the Māori Affairs Committee and argue that making changes like this in the legalisation would make no difference to the smoking rates of the people whom we love. Actually, the argument by it really was: “We want to keep our branding; we want to keep control of the industry.” If it is the case that the way the packaging on cigarettes looks does not make any difference to people’s smoking, then it does not make any difference if it has got the tobacco companies’ brand on it either. Frankly, it was a ridiculous argument that they should never have thought they could pursue.

As long as this industry is legal, it does require serious regulation, and it is important for us to hold the industry to account for what it does. We do have controls on advertising and other forms of regulatory control over the industry, but more is needed and this is a great first step. We—the country, the Government, the community—are being threatened by the tobacco industry. We saw in today’s paper that there are further threats by the tobacco industry for the consequences of this policy. We are quite right in saying, so be it, bring it on. We are in the job of making good policy for the health and well-being of our country, and none of us make any apologies for that whatsoever. If that causes a cost to an industry that peddles a drug that kills, well then so be it. They bear that cost. They are in that industry. That is a cost that they have to take. Thank you. We support this legislation, the Smoke-free Environments (Tobacco Plain Packaging) Amendment Bill.

PAUL FOSTER-BELL (National): It is a pleasure to rise and take a brief call on this latest amendment to the Smoke-free Environments Act, the Smoke-free Environments (Tobacco Plain Packaging) Amendment Bill, which brings about plain packaging for tobacco in New Zealand. It is of note that this is the latest of a number of measures that this Government has introduced in order to reduce the smoking rates in New Zealand, such as banning smoking in New Zealand prisons. Those are environments where people are tightly confined and often cannot get away from the residual smoke exuded by other people. So I think that that was a very positive measure. The measures around restricting the display of tobacco in convenience stores, supermarkets, and the other places in which it is sold were also positive measures. This latest measure joins that long line of measures that will have a real effect in reducing the rate of smoking.

As previous Government speakers have noted, the rate of smoking in New Zealand has reduced significantly between the 2006 census and last year’s census in 2013. So the wider population rates have dropped from nearly 21 percent prevalence in 2006 to just over 15 percent. That is a 25 percent reduction in the smoking rate among the wider population. More significant is that among the Māori population there has been a massive drop from 42 percent to 32.7 percent. So I endorse this measure and I commend this bill for further consideration.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Members, this debate has concluded. The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Hon John Banks: A vote called for.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Sorry, was the member wishing to say something?

Hon John Banks: Party vote.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Well, we have not got that far yet—

Hon John Banks: I’m just giving you fair warning.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Yes, well, OK. When I do call for the vote, I am sure that the member will respond. The question is that the motion be agreed to. Those who are of that opinion will say Aye, to the contrary, No.

Hon John Banks: Mr Speaker—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): The Ayes have it.

Hon John Banks: Mr Speaker—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): You call out “Party vote required.” That is the wording.

Hon John Banks: I’m a new member.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): You are a new member?

Hon John Banks: Yes.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): You want a party vote?

Hon John Banks: Of course—that’s why I came down,

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Well, you ask for one. A party vote has been requested. [Interruption] Order! Votes are taken in silence.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Smoke-free Environments (Tobacco Plain Packaging) Amendment Bill be now read a first time.

Ayes 118

New Zealand National 59; New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 12; New Zealand First 7; Māori Party 3; Mana 1; United Future 1; Independent: Horan.

Noes 1

ACT New Zealand 1.

Bill read a first time.

Bill referred to the Health Committee.

Bills

Subantarctic Islands Marine Reserves Bill

Third Reading

Debate resumed from 30 January.

Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills): It gives me great pleasure to speak in support of the Subantarctic Islands Marine Reserves Bill at its third reading. We have supported this bill all the way through. I guess part of the reason it gives me great pleasure to do so is that this bill—and better protection of our marine areas—is a real reflection of some of the strongest values that New Zealanders have. These values are pride in our environment, a passion for the great outdoors, and recognising the responsibility that the current generation has to ensure that protections are enhanced so that future generations can benefit from the beautiful surrounds that we have. This bill really is a bit of a step towards a recognition of that passion, and I want to acknowledge and thank the Minister of Conservation, the Hon Dr Nick Smith, for his work in this. I believe that he is a person who has a personal commitment and passion for the conservation portfolio and also for the great outdoors more generally. I am sure that it has given him great pleasure to be able to progress this bill to this stage.

What this bill does is better protect three of the Subantarctic Islands marine areas around the Antipodes Islands, the Bounty Islands, and Campbell Island. I have had the pleasure of visiting Campbell Island and I can say that it—and the whole of the Subantarctic Islands area—is a part of the world that more members of Parliament should visit. Some perhaps need not hasten on their return from such a visit, but it is certainly very worthwhile to see such an amazing area. We should consider ourselves very fortunate that we live in New Zealand and are able to access such beauty.

The bill also provides for an independent review of the Campbell Island Marine Reserve in 5 years, because there is part of the surrounding area of Campbell Island that is not included in the marine reserve area. The review would look at whether or not the reserve should be extended to include that part in the marine reserve.

The third part of the bill is making the commanding officers of the New Zealand Defence Force rangers so that they are able to enforce the protections that this legislation gives to those three islands. I think that it is a very good piece of legislation and I am very pleased to be part of the Labour team, which totally supports this. As I said, one of the reasons it is so important is that it is a reflection of the values that so many New Zealanders have: our passion for the great outdoors, our love for the natural environment, and our understanding of the responsibility that we have for future generations. The record of the National Government has not been great in all those areas, though. There have been what I would regard as broken promises, and I think that is deeply disappointing in an area that is so important to the average New Zealander.

One of the two areas that I just want to touch on in comparison with what I think is a great bill that gives us this enhanced marine protection is the total lack of a sense of urgency, of a sense of responsibility, and of any strong action to protect the Māui’s dolphins. In the world there are 55 adult Māui’s dolphins left. That is fewer than the members of this Parliament. But yet when the opportunity arose for the Minister of Conservation and the Minister for Primary Industries to say that we have the responsibility to ensure the future survival of this species, the Ministers said: “No, that is a little bit hard for us. It is a big call. We are not going to do it. We are going to back away and take the easy option.” They tinkered with the protections and it was a total lose-lose. The biggest loss, of course, is the future of the Māui’s dolphins. It will be an unforgivable act if those Ministers end up being responsible for the demise of the species. It will be an unforgivable act when they have had such an opportunity to adopt the precautionary principle, which would be to take all possible action to protect those dolphins. They are critically endangered. I do not know what part of “critically endangered” Ministers Nick Smith and Nathan Guy do not understand, but they clearly do not.

It is also an opportunity for a win-win in regard to the fishing industry. Internationally now scientists and lovers of the marine environment are calling for a boycott on New Zealand fish because it is the bycatch of our fishing industry that is endangering the Māui’s dolphins. So our fishing industry is also under threat, as well as the Māui’s dolphins. How can that be of benefit to anyone? The Ministers had a chance to say that they want to move our fishing industry forward in a sustainable manner by putting some money in to back that transition. It does not need to be much. The people in the fishing industry are up to it. They are bright people. They can see the benefits for them and for the country. They know the benefits for Māui’s dolphins. They do not want the bycatch. They do not want to be tarred with the brush of the extinction of a species. So we could have had, with a bit of vision from the Ministers, the sort of reflection, again, of the values of New Zealanders that would make us all proud. Instead, we got a wishy-washy, half-hearted approach. Nobody was happy. We now have a critically endangered species when the potential for saving it was much higher.

The other area in which I want to express extreme disappointment is the involvement of the Minister of Conservation in the process and the submissions from the Department of Conservation in the proposal on the Tukituki River—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! That is not part of this bill.

Hon RUTH DYSON: The Minister of Conservation, unlike his actions in regard to this legislation establishing three marine reserves, did exactly the opposite in the case of the Ruataniwha Dam, where he meddled to the point of the department being silenced.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! We are on the third reading, and the third reading relates to the contents of the bill as reported back from the Local Government and Environment Committee. If you look at Speakers’ rulings 122/4-7 and 123/1, it is very clear that third readings relate to the report back from the committee.

Hon RUTH DYSON: I am absolutely confident that the Minister of Conservation exercised the correct approach in regard to the Subantarctic Islands Marine Reserve, and did not exercise the correct approach in regard to either the Ruataniwha Dam or the Māui’s dolphins. It actually shows a bit of arrogance from the Minister that such important issues with such strong community and, in fact, international concern could be so disregarded. That is not the sort of leadership that I want to see from our Minister of Conservation.

Just going back, in my final comments, to the Subantarctic Islands Marine Reserves Bill, as I said at the beginning of my contribution, this has been legislation that Labour has supported since it was introduced. We supported it at the select committee and I am certainly very pleased to support it in the third reading. It is the sort of opportunity that this Parliament does not have very often. Well, I cannot speak for the Hon John Banks. Heaven only knows what he might do in regard to his party vote on this bill. But I am pretty sure that all other parties are going to say: “This is a responsibility that we have. This is an opportunity that we have as legislators, and we are very pleased that the Minister of Conservation has taken this opportunity and enhanced our marine reserves.”

I have seen a poll that the Government is undertaking at the moment to see whether New Zealanders support the establishment of a further marine reserve in the Kermadec Islands. I guess the Government is waiting for the poll results to come back to see which way the wind blows. It is not an approach that I would consider principled or visionary; it is a poll driven by fruitcakes, actually. That is what a former Prime Minister said. It is definitely not evidence-based or driven by any ambition for New Zealand. I hope that a Kermadec Islands reserves bill is introduced. I actually hope that it is introduced by Gareth Hughes, because he has got a member’s bill in his name. He is well ahead of the Government in that regard. I know that if the polling comes out right, Steven Joyce will say: “That looks like a winner for us. Let’s get on to it. It won’t cause any controversy.” That is not the sort of approach that I like to see running our country. But leaving that concern aside, if that bill came to Parliament, I would certainly support it in the same way that I support the Subantarctic Islands Marine Reserves Bill.

NICKY WAGNER (National—Christchurch Central): I too want to support this Subantarctic Islands Marine Reserves Bill at its third reading. The Subantarctic Islands are a unique and spectacular natural environment. The land in that area is already protected under the national nature reserves status, but this legislation will protect the ocean around that land. The whole area is so spectacular that it has World Heritage status. This legislation will make sure that these three island groups—the Antipodes Islands, the Bounty Islands, and Campbell Island—are able to join with the Auckland Islands in having marine reserve protection. The Auckland Islands were protected in 2003.

These new reserves cover an enormous area of about 435,000 hectares. It is a great step forward in protecting our oceans. It is absolutely in line with National’s long-established interest in marine protection. It was the National Government back in 1971 that passed the first Marine Reserves Act. That led to establishing the first marine reserve at Leigh, just north of Auckland, in 1975. In those days that was absolutely groundbreaking legislation and new to the world. That reserve in Leigh has gone on to entertain, to educate, and to inspire New Zealanders and people who visit our country, from that day to this.

Currently, New Zealand has 48 marine protected areas. That covers about 8.2 percent of our territorial seas. These new reserves are so big that when they are gazetted that will increase to 9.5 percent of our territorial seas. Under our present legislation we can create marine reserves only in our territorial seas. There are more reserves to come. Since National has been in Government we have announced nine new marine reserves, and there are further areas that are beginning stakeholder talks.

Creating marine reserves can be quite difficult for communities. New Zealanders are absolutely passionate about the sea. They love to recreate there, to swim, and to fish. But sometimes there is a bit of a difference of opinion as to where marine protected reserves could be. Of course we all want to protect the ocean, but maybe the community does not want it happening quite in their own backyard. We have come up with a new collaborative stakeholder process that seems to make decisions about marine reserves much more palatable and easily done. That was based on the first collaborative approach taken by the Guardians of Fiordland’s Fisheries and Marine Environment. It is similar to the collaborative approach that we are seeing nationally in terms of things like the Land and Water Forum, and we are also seeing it locally in terms of things like Te Korowai o Te Tai o Marokura in Kaikōura, which is another marine protection mechanism.

Basically, the strengths of these models is that they allow everybody to have a say and allow them to work together to create a compromise that works for all stakeholders. Indeed, this bill was written as a result of a collaborative stakeholder forum with input from iwi, industry representatives, scientific and conservation groups, and the general public. This bill was based directly on their decisions. There is even a compromise written into the bill, as there had been identified the possibility of a commercial deep-water crab-fishing industry around Campbell Island. This bill gives a window of time to explore that option. If the evidence shows that a viable, sustainable fishery with minimal impact on the marine environment and ecosystems is possible, then the boundaries will remain as stated in this bill. But if not, the reserve will be expanded to take in the whole of the territorial sea around Campbell Island. The Local Government and Environment Committee has ensured that this will happen in a timely fashion and that the review must be completed within 5 years of the bill being passed.

Finally, I would like to say that the whole of the Local Government and Environment Committee supported this bill. We enjoyed working on it. It was extremely interesting. We believe that we have passed good legislation. We believe that it was based on a fair and effective process and that it will have a valuable outcome for our oceans. My only regret is that we as a committee did not manage to have a site visit.

DAVID SHEARER (Labour—Mt Albert): It gives me great pleasure to also support this bill, the Subantarctic Islands Marine Reserves Bill, and to commend to the House the work of both the Minister of Conservation and the Local Government and Environment Committee in getting this bill through. It was actually started back in Labour’s time, and it has been good to see that this has been continued and processed through so that we do actually have a piece of legislation, as many of the speakers have said up to now, that we can be rightfully proud of.

New Zealanders do care about their environment. They do very much feel a distinct link to our environment. It is something that you feel a certain longing for when you are on the other side of the world and you see a New Zealand environment or a New Zealand landscape. I recall just a few years ago an advertising agency that was looking into what stimulates New Zealanders, what sells goods, found that the environment was one of the most important things that it could use to help sell products. When it asked New Zealanders what they thought about the environment or how to describe it, they talked about recreation in and around it, caring for it, being part of it, and looking after it—those were the main values. It did the same thing in Australia and the response was totally different. The response in Australia was that it was a harsh environment, you needed to tame it, you needed to control it, you dug it up, and, basically, you dominated it. New Zealanders had a very different approach and an approach that I think comes through in this piece of legislation, the Subantarctic Islands Marine Reserves Bill.

We have wanted—and I think there is a real appetite in New Zealand—to protect our broad areas, our natural areas, and this goes to the hearts of many New Zealanders. It will mean now that in addition to the Auckland Islands, the Antipodes Islands group, the Bounty Islands, and Campbell Island will be protected. We have already had protection on the terrestrial part of the islands, but this now extends to the marine areas around those islands and expands, as was just said, the area up to about 450,000 hectares. A novel part of this is that the rangers who are going to be looking after this are actually going to be from the Defence Force. Because they frequent these areas more frequently than others, they will be able to do that.

The process by which this has gone through has been a very collaborative one, and that is very good. There has been wide-ranging exploration of various people’s feelings about it. There were no real issues around mining. There was little interest in petroleum that might be there. And Ngāi Tahu, the iwi of the South Island, was very comfortable with the progression of this bill, as well. So in many ways it ticks a lot of boxes. In return for that, in terms of economic benefit, there is actually a significant tourism benefit to New Zealand from the tourist boats that do go down there. It is a niche type of industry but nevertheless one that looks at natural environments and sees them in their most natural and most pristine state. But it also, of course, enhances New Zealand’s overall reputation, a reputation of looking after our environment, even though in some cases this is not exactly what I would call warranted.

I want to just pick up on two points in this regard. One is the absolute shambles around trying to bring New Zealand into the Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources. We were offered a partnership with the United States, which we refused and then belatedly took up. The shambles that resulted meant that that convention flopped when it could have actually come to pass and we could have had greater protection over the Ross Sea.

In addition to that I also want to pick up what my colleague Ruth Dyson was talking about in terms of Māui’s and Hector’s dolphins, but particularly Māui’s dolphins. I mentioned in the second reading of this bill that I was out surfing one day when a couple of surfers around me called out “Shark! Shark!”, disappeared off a wave, and paddled frantically to shore. I was a bit slower to get off the mark, but what I did manage to see were two Māui’s dolphins—only very, very small but with a beautiful, rounded fin—swimming around my board and disappearing out to sea. There are only 55 of these left in existence, and I saw two in one go while sitting on the back of a board. I have to say, I came in feeling absolutely enthralled that I had actually seen these two wonderful animals while out on a surfboard all alone.

We have got an absolute responsibility to protect those dolphins. They are the most endangered in the world. There are only 55 of them. They live only to the age of 23. The females do not breed until the age of 9 and then they have a calf only between every 2 and 4 years. Therefore, they are incredibly endangered in terms of their ability to fight back, and we have to make absolutely sure that we do. Unfortunately, I do not believe that Nick Smith—perhaps his Cabinet colleagues rolled him on this one—has done enough in order to actually protect them.

The other issue that I wanted to just point out as we are pushing through this special piece of legislation—this good piece of legislation, which we do have quite widespread agreement on—is that the 1971 Marine Reserves Act, which my colleague across the House, Nicky Wagner, was just talking about, was brought in in 1971. It was world leading in its time, but that was a long time ago. We now need to look at updating that legislation so that we do not have to go through the same procedure every time we want to make a particular area like the Subantarctic Islands a marine reserve. We want to be able to have an efficient piece of legislation that looks at, and facilitates the creation of, marine reserves within our territorial waters and beyond into our economic zone in addition to that.

I would like to see many more marine reserves enacted and brought into place. They do have a real role in the ability to regenerate fisheries. Anybody who has gone up to Goat Island or any of the other marine reserves or the Poor Knights Islands and who has seen the proliferation of fish and marine life in those areas knows that these areas are valuable not only in terms of the information, the education, and the wonder they can provide us with when we are in those areas but also in terms of helping those areas regenerate and the fish stocks regenerate as well.

I am not going to continue any further on this. I just wanted to say once again that the Labour Party has been behind this bill and supported the Government on it. It was something that we felt strongly about during our time in office. This Government is taking it on further. The work of the Local Government and Environment Committee has been very good. I commend once again the Minister of Conservation for pushing this through. I think it is a very good point for this Parliament to be agreeing to the protection of a particularly important part of our ecosystem around New Zealand through the Subantarctic Marine Reserves Bill. So with that I commend this bill to the House.

GARETH HUGHES (Green): Kia ora, Mr Assistant Speaker. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. It is a great pleasure to rise in support of the Subantarctic Islands Marine Reserves Bill tonight. Like the last speaker, David Shearer, I think probably every member in this House and, I believe, everyone in our country has a similar example where they had a spiritual, a visceral, a human connection with the oceans or the incredible animals that live within them. It is something that is, I believe, unique to our country. We are a maritime nation. We have got waters 15 times larger than our land masses.

I grew up in Gisborne. Every summer we used to go camping at Pouawa Beach. My dad had a lifestyle block up at Whangarā. No doubt Hekia Parata knows that location well. For 18 years we used to camp at the same campsite. I learnt to swim there. I used to go out on the dinghy with my dad and put the crayfish pots out. Reflecting on the debate tonight reminded me of when I learnt to scuba-dive just before the last election in 2011. That was at the Taputeranga Marine Reserve, a new marine reserve we have created in Wellington—an absolutely spectacular place. I think that when New Zealanders get to experience these beautiful marine reserves we have around the country, they are committed and they want to see more of them.

That is the science that informs the debate—that we need more marine reserves. Our oceans are under threat, despite having these amazing dolphin sightings, shark sightings, and experiences with our oceans. We love them but we also know that they are threatened. We see it when we go down to the beach and we see the waste washing up. We see it when those dying, starving turtles wash up in Northland. We see it when the finned sharks wash ashore. We all know that our oceans are sick and they are unhealthy, and we need to do something about it. This is why it is good to see this Parliament coming together to do something about it. But this bill is not enough. It is not going to save our oceans. It is not even going to protect the full waters around these World Heritage listed islands. It is going to be protecting only 39 percent of Campbell Island’s waters and 58 percent of the Bounty Islands’ waters. But it is good to be doing something about marine reserves. They are something we all love and we all want to protect.

We see when we watch the news and read the science reports that there is rising acidification, the great garbage Gaia—the great giant Pacific garbage patch, as it is also known—and overfishing in the oceans. We are literally replacing keystone species in the marine ecosystem with jellyfish. I am your stereotypical greenie vegetarian who does not eat fish, but you know what? I think many people in New Zealand—and, perhaps more relevantly, around the world—will have to get used to having jellyfish and chips instead of their fish and chips. The jellies are literally taking over our oceans because of overfishing. The question is not where the fish went, because the answer is clear: we have literally eaten all the fish. Using our industrial fishing fleets and the might of our industrial civilisation, we have gone out to harvest the world’s fisheries, and we are seeing them collapse. Our large shark species have seen a population decline of 90 percent since 1950 because we are using the advanced technological fishing techniques we now have to hunt, target, and—unfortunately, for 73 million of them every year—fin them and dump them overboard.

We all know the risks, the threats, and the dangers facing our oceans, and we all know the answer. Marine reserves are a simple, effective, and cheap way we can protect our oceans. That is why it is good to be going some way towards that tonight. It is clear we need more marine reserves in New Zealand. Sure, you know, these reserves cover 435,000 hectares. It sounds like a large number when you have the National members trumpeting about it, but these marine reserves take the percentage of New Zealand waters in marine reserves only from 0.31 to 0.41 percent. That is still less than 0.5 percent.

Here we see the Minister of Conservation trumpeting these announcements and saying that he wants to gazette a record number of marine reserves. Nick Smith thunders about eight new marine reserves in his kayak as he does his media stunts. He says we are going to set a record. Never mind that the eight marine reserves he is talking about were started under the last Government. Never mind that all his marine reserves are still taking us to less than 0.5 percent of our waters protected. Never mind that a single year’s oil block offer is greater than all of these marine reserves we are creating tonight. Let us put it in contrast. We need more progress. Kiwis know it, they support it, and that is what they told Colmar Brunton—96 percent of New Zealanders want to see more marine reserves. That is why in a recent Andrea Vance column recent polling showed that, in fact, most New Zealanders thought we already had 30 percent coverage. No, we will have only 0.41 percent, if this bill passes.

I have talked before about the irony of needing a law from Parliament to create marine reserves. It shows how out of date and out of touch our legislation from 1971 has become. What we need to do is modernise that law. Under National it languished for the second-longest period of any legislation in our country’s history. Remember, we are the fourth-oldest democracy in the world, and the second-oldest bill ever to languish and die in a select committee happened over marine reserves, and we still cannot produce them in the exclusive economic zone.

Remember, we saw this Government decline the Akaroa marine reserve. The Government members are trumpeting as if they are environmental champions or something, yet let us not forget that they declined the Akaroa marine reserve. It was not until they were taken to court and had a judicial review go in the Akaroa community’s favour that they did something about it. Let us not forget that this is a Government that is quite happy to have oil wells in the middle of those Māui’s dolphins sanctuaries. It is not providing a sanctuary.

The Government is quite happy for the iron sands and Chatham Rock phosphate miners to literally vacuum up the seabed between 5 and 20 metres. On the West Coast, for example, 50 million tonnes of sediment is going to get vacuumed up, but the Government is quite happy for that to happen in benthic protected areas. These are areas where fishers cannot go, 100 metres above the seabed. This Government is quite happy to have industrial fleets literally vacuuming up the seabed and is not providing protection in these benthic protected areas.

This is my last call in this debate, and I want to reiterate the support for this legislation. It is good to be doing something about it. The Greens would go further. We would protect 100 percent of these World Heritage listed islands and the waters surrounding them. But I want to touch on the politics, because, after all, this is a house of politics. This is a year of politics, being an election year. I want to question what the rationale is. What are National’s focus groups showing? Why do National suddenly feel compelled, after 5 years of doing nothing—in fact, taking a toxic “wreck it, destroy it” approach to the environment—to be rushing through legislation like this? Why, finally—5 years in and after allowing innumerable sharks to be finned and thrown overboard, dead—does National have to do something about it?

What we know—and I think what the data the National Party strategists are looking at shows—is that this is an issue National is incredibly weak on. It is an issue where some of its voters are potentially leaving it. We know that female voters in particular have historically had a problem with the National Party. The National Party has got a problem. The problem is that it does not care about the environment. It is not protecting the environment. It is actively destroying it. It is not a problem that is going to be remediated through spin or through public relations. It is a problem that can be addressed only by taking action, by actually producing more marine reserves. We have talked about expanding the Kermadec Islands Marine Reserve, which I am advocating for and trying to build parliamentary support for. That would see 15 percent of our waters protected overnight. We need to upgrade our laws. We need an integrated oceans policy. We need to stop the deep-sea drilling that is risking our marine environment. We need to stop the seabed mining. We need to protect our Māui’s dolphins.

These are the solutions Kiwis support. These are the solutions the prosperity of our country is going to be built on. We know that the $1.5 billion aquaculture and fisheries sector depends on our brand. International consumers do not want to be buying crabs from a World Heritage area that is not protected. They do not want to buy our fish when they know that our Māui’s dolphins and Hector’s dolphins or those sea lions we heard about last year are becoming extinct,. If National has identified it has a problem when it comes to New Zealanders’ perceptions of its environmentalism, the answer is not more spin. The answer is not more gloss or more media stunts for Nick Smith. The answer is to do something about it. But I guess I am not holding out in hope or holding my breath, because what we have seen under the 5 years of this Government is a callous disregard for the environment and the prosperity that the New Zealand economy relies on that is based on that environment.

So it is quite good that New Zealanders will get a choice this election. They will get to choose between protecting the Māui’s dolphins or slaughtering them indiscriminately in those unsustainable fishing nets. They will get a choice between more marine reserves—protecting the Kermadec Islands and other marine reserves around New Zealand—or the spin. They will get a choice between clean energy or deep-sea drilling. That is the challenge we are giving to the National Party, and that is the challenge and the option we are giving New Zealand voters at this election. Kia ora.

Hon PHIL HEATLEY (National—Whangarei): As I said before, National has got a proud history of marine protection. We did pass the original Marine Reserves Act in 1971 and at that time, leading up to that, the Labour Party had talked about it for many, many years, as is its habit. The Green member who has taken his seat, Gareth Hughes, discussed the fact that the Labour Party had proposals for eight marine reserves on the books for the 9 years while it was in Government, and that is quite true. The Labour Party did do that, and talked about them for a year, then it talked about them for a second year, then it consulted on them for a third and fourth year, and then talked about them again for a fifth year. Labour wrung its hands, for a sixth year, and then talked around and around in circles again for another 2 years, making it 9 years of talking about marine reserves and how wonderful they are, but not actually establishing this marine reserve or others that National has put in since being in Government.

It is great to hear that Gareth Hughes, before the 2011 election, took the opportunity to do some diving in a marine reserve—again, one that the National Government had decided to put in place. Although the Labour Party and the Green Party talk big about marine protection, they are so busy consulting, so busy arguing, so busy going around in circles that they do not actually do anything. I think this country’s fear is that although the Labour Party and the Green Party are very good at talking, consulting, holding hands, and hugging, actual action and decision making are not their strong suit. As we have come out of the recession and we are starting this rebuild of the economy, which is a delicate thing, and of our environment, I do not think that we really need a bunch of hand-wringers in charge. Anyway, this is another solid run on the board for the National Government.

Here we are looking at this particular marine protected area, in the Subantarctic Islands Marine Reserves Bill. I recall myself as Minister of Fisheries and Kate Wilkinson as conservation Minister at the time pushing through the consultation on this marine reserve. We eventually landed on a decision that we made about 18 months or 2 years ago. Further submissions to the Local Government and Environment Committee have resulted in this particular proposal and we are very proud of it. Although the three island groups have a protected area status, the territorial waters around them are not currently protected but they will be under this bill. It recognises great opportunities for tourism, research, and fishing. There is very little current extractive use in the islands surrounding our waters. Some of that will continue with the deep-water crab fisheries around Campbell Island.

I must reiterate too how important it is that the fishing industry and recreational fishers are able to fish sustainably outside these marine reserves. Although the Green member Gareth Hughes talks about marine reserves actually improving the fisheries environment outside the reserve, that is not generally the case, because most fish species are territorial. Although you get wonderful growth and development of fish species within a marine reserve, outside a marine reserve it does not tend to flow over. We have to manage those fisheries well as well, within the quota management system.

I gladly commend this legislation to the House. It is another substantial run on the board, one that is measurable and that National has done. It is something Labour did talk about for 9 years. Again, we have actually achieved it. I am very proud of the result.

ANDREW WILLIAMS (NZ First): I take a call on behalf of New Zealand First, and in my address I hope to take the politics out of it and get back to the basis of this debate, which is all about the environment and about these very special islands in the subantarctic.

This bill, the Subantarctic Islands Marine Reserves Bill, represents a 400,000 hectare area that will be protected under law as a result of this bill going through the House tonight and when it is signed off by the Governor-General. These three sets of islands—the Antipodes Islands, the Bounty Islands, and Campbell Island—off the south-east coast of the New Zealand mainland are a very special part of New Zealand. The Antipodes Islands, some 860 kilometres south-east of Stewart Island, were first discovered in 1800 by Captain Henry Waterhouse on the HMS Reliance. So we are talking about one of the very early discoveries several hundred years ago in terms of the island mass of New Zealand.

It is also now one of three World Heritage status areas in New Zealand. We have Fiordland as one of our World Heritage status areas, we have Tongariro National Park up in the North Island, and then this third one, the Subantarctic Islands, which in 1998 were accorded World Heritage status. So it is a very important third part of our World Heritage collection. In having World Heritage status we are effectively the guardians on behalf of the citizens of the world for this particular location. Therefore, it is very special and it is incumbent on us as New Zealanders to ensure that this area is protected.

The sea around the Bounty Islands is the deepest in New Zealand’s territorial waters. It is some 3,000 metres deep. So it is an extraordinary piece of ocean in New Zealand’s territorial waters. Eighty percent of endemic protected species in New Zealand—meaning that they exist only in New Zealand—are found out in the oceans around New Zealand. Over a dozen species in these Subantarctic Islands are endangered, such as the southern royal albatross.

We are very fortunate that New Zealand now has 34 marine reserves and that this will become the latest marine reserve. It is very special when you do visit some of them, such as the original one at Goat Island up near Leigh, which now has wonderful fish life. It is wonderful for schools and universities and the public to go and to visit to see what has happened as a result of that marine reserve, and to go to the likes of the Akaroa marine reserve that has now been provided, and other marine reserves around the coast, where fish species, fish life, and marine life have been preserved as a result of making areas protected.

The Local Government and Environment Committee considered a great deal of evidence on this bill. It was one of the more pleasing bills, in that the whole committee was in agreement with what was required to put this through into legislation. The committee agreed on a shorter review time in terms of what was originally in the legislation. Again, we felt that it was appropriate that the review period be reduced because of the special nature of these islands. It was a very good, cordial agreement by the Local Government and Environment Committee to achieve a good outcome for this bill.

It is pleasing to see that this week the HMNZS Wellington set sail from Devonport naval base yesterday, heading to the Subantarctic Islands. It will be picking up the Minister of Conservation, Nick Smith, somewhere on the way as it travels south. The Minister will be on there. So by the time this bill is enacted and perhaps signed off by the Governor-General in the next couple of days and is in force, the Minister will actually be arriving in these islands to make the appropriate announcement. I am sure the National Party will make sure that that is heard loud and clear in all available media.

More especially, on board the HMNZS Wellington there are 12 Sir Peter Blake Trust young leaders. They left from Auckland. They have been selected as some of the top young leaders that this country has. They are going down there to the Subantarctic Islands. In the spirit of Sir Peter Blake and all the great work that he has done out on the oceans around the world and in the marine environment, those 12 young New Zealanders are going for a 13-day expedition to look at the Subantarctic Islands with representatives from the Department of Conservation, from the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, from Otago University, and from a number of other organisations and hosted, of course, by the Royal New Zealand Navy.

The group, while they are there looking at the islands, will be drafting a feasibility plan for a world-leading subantarctic research station, which is hoped to be completed by 2015. The station will allow New Zealand scientists and worldwide agencies to study the effects of ocean and climate change and also the effects on many of those endangered species, wildlife, marine life, and the southern oceans around the islands. This has, again, huge potential for the outreach of New Zealand into a special part of the oceans that surround New Zealand. We certainly commend those young people for the good work they will be doing over the next 13 days on board that naval ship—with the naval officers and the many other Government support people and scientists who are in support of them—to come up with some good recommendations as to how that station will be established.

In closing, it is not often that we have unanimous support in this House, but this is one of those occasions. This is a special occasion because this will be our most far-reaching outpost in terms of a marine reserve for New Zealand as a nation. It is very special and it shows that New Zealanders, as a whole, place a high priority on the environment and conservation and on ensuring that we do our very best for the natural environment. So New Zealand First is very happy to support and commend this bill.

JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki): It is amazing how jealous we all are of the Hon Nick Smith’s trip down to the Subantarctic Islands. It speaks volumes, I think, for New Zealand’s regard for those islands, and so I proudly stand to support the Subantarctic Islands Marine Reserves Bill at its third reading.

MOANA MACKEY (Labour): The previous speaker, Jacqui Dean, is earning her salary tonight! I am very happy to stand and take a call—

Hon Judith Collins: Well, you know, at least she does earn her salary, not like that member.

MOANA MACKEY: Oh, calm down! Calm down! It was just a joke, Mrs Collins. Have a sense of humour. Anyway, I am very happy to stand and take a call on the Subantarctic Islands Marine Reserves Bill. It is a very interesting bill and it was a very enjoyable experience having this bill at the Local Government and Environment Committee. I wish we had more pieces of environmental legislation coming to the Local Government and Environment Committee that we could all agree on and that are actually doing good things for the environment, as opposed to undermining and destroying the environment, which is usually the tenor of environmental legislation we deal with at that select committee. But, in this instance, it was a very good piece of legislation.

I think it is important to note that nearly all the submitters who came along did say that they did not think it went far enough. They were very supportive of the protections that were being put in place, but they did feel that the areas being protected were not sufficient. We responded by amending the review period in this legislation from 5 years down to 2 years in order to reflect the fact that they did not feel that we needed to wait that long period of time in order to make those decisions and determinations.

This bill will create three marine reserves: the Antipodes Island Marine Reserve, or Moutere Mahue; the Bounty Islands Marine Reserve, or Moutere Hauriri; and the Campbell Island Marine Reserve, or Moutere Ihupuku. These are incredibly important parts of our subantarctic ocean. They have been recognised as World Heritage sites, and in that respect we welcome this piece of legislation.

Marine reserves have had a bit of a bumpy ride in New Zealand in general. I think it is fair to say that in terms of marine policy right across the board we are kind of playing catch-up. We do not really know a lot of what is out there in our marine environment, particularly around the various ecosystems, around the make-up of the sea floor. In fact, the Australians have a lot more information than us because when they did a lot of their oil and gas development in the 1970s they required the companies to do that work and to provide that spatial information about the marine environment to the Government. They have been able to base a lot of their policies and decisions on information that they required as a bottom line and as a condition of that activity going ahead. We have not had the benefit of that, so what has happened is that right throughout the decades we have sometimes had a rather piecemeal approach to how we deal with marine policy. As previous speakers have said, it would be very, very desirable to see a far more coherent approach to marine policy in New Zealand and to have a strategy for how we want to use, to enjoy, and to extract resources from our marine environment, but to have a strategy instead of siloed debates around each of those issues without connecting them up. That, unfortunately, is what has been missing in New Zealand.

Again, comments were made around the fact that we have benthic protected areas but then we have issued mining permits in those benthic protected areas, and for a lot of the general public that does not make a lot of sense. Why would you create these protected areas and then allow mining to go ahead? These are conversations where we have enormous numbers of layered pieces of legislation all sitting on top of each other, different strategies, and different approaches, but it is difficult to find a coherent strategy for the use and enjoyment and protection of our marine environment.

Marine reserves have had a long history in New Zealand, but we have not actually gone that far in terms of the percentage of our marine environment that is put into these protected areas. They are important because they are very effective. We have a marine reserve up near where I live—from Pouawa, just north of Gisborne, up to Whangarā—and it was very controversial when it went in. When you are dealing with marine policy, because that work has not been done, there are a lot of existing interests there. There are a lot of people who make their livelihood out of that environment, so when you start to talk about changing the way in which they may have to operate in that environment, sometimes they do not like it. There was real concern that we were locking up the ocean, I think they call it—cutting off large parts of areas that had previously been open to fishing and shutting those down. Of course, the idea of locking up an ocean is not very real. Fish are not going to magically stay within a marine reserve or go outside—

Dr Rajen Prasad: Passports.

MOANA MACKEY: They do not need passports; thank you, Mr Prasad. But what in fact happened was that within a very short period of time we saw an incredible resurgence of the fish stocks within the marine reserve. We saw species coming back that we had not seen for a long time in our waters, and this was in a relatively short period of time. I think Chris Carter was the Minister of Conservation at the time when we went up there, and it was only 4 years after the marine reserve had been created. They had a PhD student who was doing her PhD work on that particular marine reserve. What she was doing was she was measuring the amount of legal size crayfish that she was getting outside of the marine reserve and comparing that with inside the marine reserve. Bear in mind that, of course, crayfish do not know where the marine reserve is. I do not know, maybe they do, but it would seem unlikely. And yet outside of the marine reserve, after 4 years—and we have a real issue with our crayfish stock on the East Coast; it is really heavily depleted—she was getting half a kilogram of legal size crayfish per pot, and inside the marine reserve she was getting over 30 kilograms of legal size crayfish per pot. So that was an extraordinary resurgence of our crayfish stock, which was in serious trouble. What happened was that the fishermen actually quite liked the marine reserve because the best fishing was suddenly on the border of the marine reserve. Everyone would ask how the fishermen were going to know where the marine reserve was. Well, anyone who did not know where the marine reserve boundary was just had to look at where all the fishing boats were. It was pretty clear where the boundary was.

What happened was that there is a reef at Whangarā that was not actually included in the marine reserve initially at the time. They actually ended up with an unofficial agreement to extend the marine reserve out over that reef in order to protect the crayfish stock. It was fantastic because kids would come down and go out to Whangarā. They would go walking on the reef. The crayfish were walking around in the day with their antennae sticking out of the water, which is highly unusual because they are meant to be nocturnal. But they were walking around. Kids were getting to see crayfish in their natural environment. The Department of Conservation said to us that when it sends people down to actually just check on the stocks and do some of the chipping that it does and the tracing, people actually ring the police to say that someone is fishing in the marine reserve and that they are taking crayfish out of the marine reserve. So then, of course, the police say that, no, that is a Department of Conservation worker and he is just there making sure that everything is OK.

So we have had an incredibly positive experience of that particular marine reserve on the East Coast, and that is why Labour would like to see more of these marine reserves created. The subantarctic ones do raise an interesting difference, which is that it is one thing to police marine reserves that are just off the coast of New Zealand like this one, but policing them in areas that are far away from New Zealand is a completely different matter. There are clauses in this bill to allow rangers to be appointed from the New Zealand Defence Force, but I know that there have been concerns around fishing boats that have been seen around the Kermadec Islands Marine Reserve, and from time to time other concerns are raised about fishing boats that just seem to be kind of hanging out there. Foreign fishing vessels—there is really no reason why they would be there. These people do email us and say that they have contacted the Ministry for Primary Industries and it really does not seem that fussed about it. Unless these marine reserves that are far offshore are going to be policed or checked—however that is done—then you can pass all the marine reserve law in the world, but if people can just breach it and there are no consequences, then it does undermine that particular piece of legislation.

We are very happy to support this legislation. I would say to members on the other side of the House that I would not get too carried away. We are not solving climate change here. It is a good piece of legislation, but there is an awful lot more to do. As previous members have said, when we look at our marine ecosystem, it is tied in to our rivers and our waterways in New Zealand. The entire health of that marine ecosystem is linked with the health of our land and with the health of our fresh waterways, and we cannot just divorce them from each other and pat ourselves on the back for doing this whilst we turn the Tukituki River toxic in Ruataniwha, which is going to spill out into the marine environment. You cannot just separate everything out and pretend that they do not all join up, because that is not how these ecological systems work. We need to look after our environment on land, at sea, in our freshwater waterways, and in the air, and until we have a change of Government, unfortunately we are not going to get that kind of strategic approach.

CLAUDETTE HAUITI (National): Ka tū ake ahau ki te mihi i a koe.

[I rise to acknowledge you.]

I stand to commend the Subantarctic Islands Marine Reserves Bill to the House. Kia ora.

PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū): That was—even by Claudette Hauiti’s standards—a very short and enigmatic speech. There is plenty to say about this bill, the Subantarctic Islands Marine Reserves Bill. Marine reserves, I think, are increasingly an important part of the conservation agenda. I want to start by noting that marine conservation has been, I suppose, the poor cousin in the conservation field. As New Zealanders, I think we were probably late to the game. For at least a couple of decades, much of the conservation energy was really devoted to protecting our forests and our terrestrial biodiversity.

I think it has been heartening to see that New Zealanders increasingly see the importance of not only our coastal and marine environment but also our inland waterways. The degradation of our streams and our rivers from intensive dairying and the other uses that are putting those waterways at threat has become a major public focus. Our marine environment has also become a major public focus, particularly in areas where you have got large populations, urbanisation, and industrial development, and where even just recreational use depletes fish stocks and shellfish populations. So this is something that is increasingly coming up on the agenda.

As a number of colleagues have pointed out, there has been a little too much self-congratulation on the Government benches over this bill, considering that these marine reserves have been sitting around for a number of years and were, in fact, started during the fifth Labour Government. Also, I think that although it is undoubtedly a positive thing that these marine reserves are being created, they are, you would have to say, low-hanging fruit. There is very little in the way of commercial fishing where these zones are, down in the Subantarctic Islands. There are not big vested commercial interests that are wanting to protect their right to fish in the area, although I know that earlier in the debate a number of speakers pointed out that one of the zones was somewhat truncated in order to allow the possibility that the industry might develop some commercial fishing in that area.

These reserves are low-hanging fruit, and it would be great to see the Minister of Conservation show the same kind of enthusiasm and resolve for establishing marine reserves in the Hauraki Gulf. That would be a fine thing. It is an altogether more complicated proposition to establish marine reserves close to a large population base, but that is exactly what I think we should be doing.

I recently spent a few days kayaking around the Waitematā Harbour and spent time with many of the marine biologists, scientists, and environmental activists who are working in the Hauraki Gulf and working to restore those waters. They make the case that in terms of repairing the damaged marine habitats, marine reserves are probably the most powerful tool that we have. The particular problem in the Hauraki Gulf is that the depletion of crayfish and snapper stocks has been so severe that it has allowed for an explosion in the population of kina, believe it or not. What the kina do when they reach a certain level is that they wipe out the kelp forests, which are an endemic habitat there in the gulf, and they create these things called kina barrens. Basically, a kina barren is a completely bare ocean floor, devoid of any kind of vegetation and devoid of any life except for kina. If you really love kina, you might think that that is a fine thing, but it is very much a degraded habitat.

The only way that we know of to restore that habitat and to restore the biodiversity, like the snapper and the crayfish, is through having marine reserves. Reserves at places like Hāhei and up at Goat Island have demonstrated how successful that is. I do not suppose that the problems are the same down in the Subantarctic Islands, but nevertheless we do support the creation of these reserves, and we want to see many more of them.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I call Eugenie Sage—5 minutes.

EUGENIE SAGE (Green): Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. I am pleased to be speaking at the third reading of the Subantarctic Islands Marine Reserves Bill, but I think we need a bit of a lesson in history here. One of the earlier National speakers, the Hon Phil Heatley, a former Minister of Fisheries, was almost claiming that National was responsible for marine conservation in New Zealand because it had passed the initial legislation in 1971. But the honesty around the history is the fact that that member and other National speakers need to acknowledge that the substantive work to establish these marine reserves was actually done under the previous Labour Government. It was in 2006 that the Department of Conservation produced this background resource document. It described the immense conservation and scientific values of the land and sea communities of the Subantarctic Islands. It was this document that recognised the strong international interest in better protecting the marine environment in the Subantarctic Islands. It was also an initiative of the previous Labour Government—not the National Government—that established the Subantarctic Islands Marine Protection Planning Forum in 2008 to actually go and investigate and consult on the options for marine protection around the islands. So National is reaping the reward of this work, but it cannot claim all of the credit for it.

In relation to the work of the subantarctic forum, the bill is very much a missed opportunity because it implements the option for protection that was recommended by commercial fishers, not the option that was recommended by Ngāi Tahu, by environmental organisations like the Environment and Conservation Organisations of New Zealand and Forest and Bird, by the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research representative, and by the scientific representatives on the forum. They were recommending that there be full protection of the territorial sea around the Bounty Islands and around Campbell Island. It would have been world leading if National had done that in developing the bill and if it had listened to the submitters to the Local Government and Environment Committee who supported that full extent of the territorial sea being protected. So what we have is a much-truncated couple of reserves coming through this bill. Nearly a third of the territorial sea around the Bounty Islands will be outside the marine reserve, and that is so a longline fishery for ling can continue—a fishery that results in about half a million dollars a year of revenue, so it is hardly a valuable fishery.

The bill should have included the full extent of the territorial sea, because the Bounty Islands have got hundreds of thousands of seabirds using the land mass and using the seas around the islands. We have got the biggest breeding colony in the world of New Zealand fur seals. If we had had a decent reserve there, it would have gone right out to the extent of the territorial sea. That is critical because on the Bounty Islands you have got very little vegetation and very little soil, and the seabirds and the other species depend absolutely on the oceans. Yet we have failed to recognise the full extent of that interdependence by failing to protect the full extent of the territorial sea.

It is also a missed opportunity because around Campbell Island 61 percent of the territorial sea is going to be open to fishing, subject to a prohibition on Danish seining, and it is not going to be part of the marine reserve. One of the good things that the select committee did was to ensure that there was a review of that and of the potential for a deep-water crab fishery within 3 years of the bill going into law, rather than 5 years, as was proposed in the bill as introduced. But the far greater worth of an intact ecosystem would have been much better recognised if we had had a proper, full marine reserve there.

The Greens obviously would support that 100 percent protection, but we do support this bill because something is always better than nothing. The United Nations Environment Programme described the islands as the most diverse and extensive of all the subantarctic archipelago, so this bill, with some protection, is definitely better than nothing. But the fact that we are establishing the marine reserves under special legislation and that Parliament’s time is being taken to pass it shows again the fact that National has failed to introduce the marine reserves bill that it has long promised. Thank you.

LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupō): I am proud to support the Subantarctic Islands Marine Reserves Bill.

Bill read a third time.

Bills

Victims of Crime Reform Bill

Second Reading

Hon JUDITH COLLINS (Minister of Justice): I move, That the Victims of Crime Reform Bill be now read a second time. This Government is committed to improving how victims experience the justice system and making the system more responsive to the needs of victims of crime.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 10 p.m.