Wednesday, 29 April 2015

WEDNESDAY, 29 APRIL 2015

WEDNESDAY, 29 APRIL 2015

Mr Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

Visitors

France—Delegation, Senate

Mr SPEAKER: Honourable members, I am sure that members would wish to welcome a parliamentary delegation representing the French Senate, led by Senator Jean-Marie Vanlerenberghe, official representative of the President of the French Republic, for Anzac Day, who are present in the gallery.

Motions

Indonesia—Death Penalty

Hon MURRAY McCULLY (Minister of Foreign Affairs): I seek leave to move a motion without notice and without debate regarding the recent executions in Indonesia.

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

Hon MURRAY McCULLY: I move, That this House express its dismay at the executions carried out today by Indonesian authorities, despite the vigorous representations on behalf of the condemned prisoners by Australia and other Governments, reiterate its condemnation of the death penalty in all cases, and strongly urge the Government of Indonesia to reconsider its use of the death penalty.

Motion agreed to.

Oral Questions

Questions to Ministers

Climate Change Policy—Commentary

1. Dr RUSSEL NORMAN (Co-Leader—Green) to the Minister for Climate Change Issues: Does he care what New Zealanders think about climate change, and does he take their calls for action on climate change seriously?

Hon SIMON BRIDGES (Acting Minister for Climate Change Issues): Yes.

Dr Russel Norman: What is his response to Stephen Keach, who asks: given that the majority of known fossil fuel reserves must remain unburnt if we are to keep below 2 degrees warming, why is the Government continuing to pursue a programme of fossil fuel exploration?

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: Because I think the world needs to transition to a lower carbon economy. We cannot turn the tap off overnight—indeed, not all fossil fuels are created equally. For example, gas can play a significant role, given its significantly lower emissions, in displacing coal. As I say, not all non-renewables are created equally.

Dr Russel Norman: What is his response to Michelle Raill from Levin, who asks: when will the Government start investing in the reforestation of New Zealand’s hills and wetlands in native trees and bush, which will help to offset our emissions?

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: We are supporting a number of reforestation projects of New Zealand’s hills and wetlands. Examples include, over the next 5 years, $20 million available for afforestation under the Erosion Control Funding Programme. Of course, the Permanent Forest Sink Initiative supports those creating permanent forest sinks of either native or exotic species, and the Government and Fonterra are sharing coordination of a $20 million community investment fund that will allocate funds to protect sensitive water catchments through projects such as plants, pest control, and the like. So I think there are a range of things we are doing in relation to reforestation of New Zealand’s hills and wetlands.

Dr Russel Norman: What is his response to Dennis Tegg from Coromandel, who asks: when will the Government comply with the terms of the international memorandum it recently signed and end all domestic fossil fuel subsidies, including production subsidies?

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: I think it is important, first, to outline that the Government does not subsidise the consumption of fossil fuels and has called for other countries, indeed, to phase out their subsidies of fossil fuels in the lead-up to the Paris climate conference in December this year. We are also a leading member of the Friends of Fossil Fuel Subsidy Reform group, and I will also note that the Minister of Energy and Resources has submitted New Zealand recently—in fact, it is the second country to do so—to an APEC peer review of our fossil fuel subsidies.

Dr Russel Norman: What is his response to Iain Palmer from Masterton, who asks: if the Government is taking climate change seriously, why then is it allowing KiwiRail—[Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! Allow the member to ask his question.

Dr Russel Norman: If the Government is taking climate change seriously, why is it allowing KiwiRail to withdraw the electric locomotives on the main trunk line and replace them with fossil fuel - powered locomotives?

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: We do take climate change seriously and I hope my answers have indicated that to both this House and the public. I understand that KiwiRail is considering a number of options for locomotives used on the Auckland to Wellington line. At this stage no final decisions have been made.

Dr Russel Norman: What is his response to Sam Gribben from Wellington, who asks: the Government says we are playing our part with regard to ISIS—a small but symbolic role. Why doesn’t the same apply to climate change?

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: I think, as the Government has repeatedly stated, that we are committed to doing our fair share on climate change. We take responsibility for emissions in a way that does not impose unreasonable costs on households and businesses. We have got a climate change response that is comparable to the efforts of other countries, and we play a leadership role globally where we can make the greatest contribution. One such example is the Global Research Alliance, on which we have seen significant research developments over the last 24 to 48 hours that I think are actually very exciting for our emissions profile.

Dr Russel Norman: What is his response to Jim Robinson from Ōpōtiki, who asks—

Hon Members: Ha, ha!

Dr Russel Norman: You may laugh—you may laugh.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! Just finish the question.

Dr Russel Norman: Has there been comprehensive forecasting on the total cost to the New Zealand economy resulting from a 1-metre rise in sea level; if not, why not?

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: No, it is not clear that that would be relevant, given the uncertainty around the time over which a 1-metre rise might occur. The correct approach to preparing for climate change, we believe, is to have robust planning that allows for this uncertainty. The Government provides guidance to local government and recommends a risk-based approach including all hazards, not just the sea level rise.

Dr Russel Norman: What is his response to Stefanie O’Brien from Auckland, who asks: given the increasing number of climate change - related deaths, would the Minister agree that it is completely immoral that the Government has issued 16 oil and gas exploration permits in 2014?

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: I simply do not accept the premise of the question.

Dr Russel Norman: What is his response to Cindy Baxter from Pīhā, who asks: what is the advice from Treasury on the cost to New Zealand of climate change impacts at 2 degrees Celsius warming or 4 degrees Celsius warming, and does any such advice even exist?

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: Treasury has not provided such advice.

Dr Russel Norman: In light of the huge increase in net greenhouse gas emissions under this Government, is he prepared for this Government to be remembered as the one that failed today’s generation and future generations of New Zealanders by refusing to act on climate change?

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: I do not accept that at all. I think, and I hope, that I have demonstrated both to this House and to the public that we do take climate change seriously. We are committed to doing our fair share. We have a comprehensive emissions trading scheme. We show international leadership in areas of comparative advantage. Again, I note the Global Research Alliance and the very significant research that it has been doing that, I do not think is an exaggeration to say, is world leading; as well as the significant work that we do at home in our own backyard with many millions of dollars going into Pacific renewables projects and the like. I think that New Zealanders can hold their heads up on this issue and see that we are, as I say, certainly doing our fair share.

Business Confidence—Reports

2. JOANNE HAYES (National) to the Minister of Finance: What reports has he received on the benefits for businesses of the growing New Zealand economy?

Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance): The New Zealand Institute of Economic Research recently released its Quarterly Survey of Business Opinion. It shows that the New Zealand economy remains on a reasonably solid footing. A net 25 percent of businesses surveyed expect higher business activity, down slightly from a net 27 percent in the previous quarter. However, confidence remains above the long-term average of 15 percent. Inflation indicators collected through the survey remain subdued despite the fact that these businesses are anticipating growth, and there are signs that growth in construction activity has peaked, although activity in Canterbury continues to pick up. The New Zealand Institute of Economic Research says that by its historical measures, this level of business confidence is consistent with growth of around 3 percent in the economy.

Joanne Hayes: What does the quarterly survey say about the outlook for hiring intentions and business investment over the next 12 months?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: Our Government sees that an important part of its role is in supporting businesses to assist them to take the decision to invest another dollar and create another job, so it is good that the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research report shows reasonably strong employment optimism, with a net 15 percent of businesses expecting to hire new workers in the next 12 months. Again, that is down slightly from the previous quarter. A net 18 percent of businesses plan to invest in buildings and a net 24 percent expect to invest in plant and machinery. This has been relatively strong, partly because of the high exchange rate, which makes these kinds of investments more affordable. Overall, this level of business confidence points to a reasonably positive outlook for jobs.

Joanne Hayes: How can the Government contribute to sustained growth that helps to deliver more jobs and higher wages?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: We can continue to take the policy actions that support that kind of confidence in business. The effect of that over the last 4 years is that average wages have increased by around $6,000 from $50,000 to $56,000. Treasury’s most recent forecasts now show the average wage rising to above $62,000 by 2018—that is, $62,000 per annum. I might say the Opposition members also scoffed at forecasts some years ago of 170,000 new jobs by June 2015. I can report to them today that as at December 2014—6 months early—there were 188,000 new jobs. I suspect we will do better on the average wage than they think today too.

Grant Robertson: Can the Minister of Finance confirm, in light of that answer, that there are 38,000 more people unemployed than when he took office, a 36 percent increase?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: Yes. Once again, I thought I might remind Opposition members—because clearly they have not been listening to the questions and answers in Parliament—that there was a thing called the global financial crisis. I know on “Planet Labour” it did not happen, but in the real world it did.

Joanne Hayes: What other recent reports has he seen on the outlook of New Zealand businesses?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: Because the outlook for New Zealand businesses is pretty positive, there tends to be a number of reports that reflect that. For instance, the ANZ today released its monthly ANZ Business Outlook survey. It shows that business confidence remains pretty good. Investment intentions, profit expectations, employment intentions, and export intentions all remain high. The ANZ also considers that the economy remains on track for around 3 percent real GDP growth this year. Of course, our objective is to do what we can to sustain that level of growth, because it is a level of growth that New Zealand seems to be able to achieve with relatively benign inflation, it creates new jobs, and it delivers moderate but consistent income increases to households.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I seek leave to table a recent speech that shows that 72,000—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I do not need the content of the speech; I just want to know who made the speech and when.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Mr Steven Joyce made this speech.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] The member can resume his seat. It is freely available.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I am seeking leave to table it.

Mr SPEAKER: And I am not prepared to put the leave. Would the member resume his seat if he wishes to stay in the House.

District Health Boards—Funding

3. Hon ANNETTE KING (Deputy Leader—Labour) to the Minister of Health: What impact would a tighter funding path for district health boards in 2015/16 have on their ability to provide quality, safe and timely services?

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN (Minister of Health): It is a hypothetical question because, of course, district health boards will be getting more money in the Budget, as they always have. The member will just have to contain her excitement until 21 May. What I can say is that despite tight financial times, this Government has always made funding health its top spending priority every year.

Hon Annette King: Would a tighter funding path, as stated in the Cabinet paper he took to Cabinet in December, lead to cuts in service, delays in service, or mounting deficits in district health boards?

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: The paper that Annette King refers to was never actually considered by Cabinet. What I can say is that we will be putting more money into health. But what we will not be doing is doubling the health budget, as Annette King did, and at the same time delivering 2,000 fewer surgeries a year and sending 761 people to Australia for cancer treatment.

Hon Annette King: Bearing in mind that it is 10 years since I was the Minister—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! Just ask the question. [Interruption] Order! That is an example whereby if the member would just ask her question, rather than give an introduction at the start, it would help her and me contain order in this House.

Hon Annette King: Do reports of mounting deficits in district health boards for the 2015-16 financial year reflect a funding allocation of $250 million, as recommended by Treasury, or $320 million, as recommended by him?

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: What I can say on the matter of deficits is that when Annette King was the Minister—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! Answer the question. I can have the question repeated if that would be of assistance.

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: What I can say is that the member is wrong on both counts. She has no idea what is in the Budget, but it will be a nice surprise for her.

Hon Annette King: If there is sufficient funding for district health boards for 2015-16 and they are going to get a nice surprise, why did the chair of Tairāwhiti District Health Board say just 3 weeks ago: “We have used all the fat in the system. We are really stretched. We can’t sustain this pressure”, with a $1.5 million deficit looming?

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: Mr David Scott never says things like that. I know that he is very happy with the $27 million extra that Tairāwhiti District Health Board has received under this Government, the nine extra doctors, the 50 more nurses, and the 1,721 extra patients treated there than under Mrs King. David Scott is very happy, and I know because he tells me.

Hon Annette King: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I am asking for your help in this. The Minister just said that the chair of the district health board did not say that. I can table the evidence—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! That is not the approach you must take in raising a point of order. The member certainly made a statement and effectively the Minister gave an alternative view, alleged to be from the same man. If the member thinks there has been a misleading of the House she knows the appropriate course of action, and it is certainly not by way of a point of order.

Hon Annette King: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The action I would like to take is to table the report from the chair of the district health board, which is reported in the Gisborne Herald.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! If the member is seeking leave to table something that is in the Gisborne Herald I am not interested in putting it.

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

Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member will resume her seat. If the member is going to relitigate the fact that we are not tabling pieces of newspaper in the House, then that is something I will take a very dim very on, and she is likely to be leaving the Chamber.

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

Mr SPEAKER: A fresh point of order, the Hon Annette King.

Hon Annette King: I would like your advice. When a Minister accuses a person on this side of the House of not telling the truth—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I have a very good mind to be asking the member to leave the Chamber. [Interruption] Order! I have advised the member what to do if she thinks the Minister has made a statement that is factually incorrect. She knows the procedure. She has been here for a very long time. She does not raise it as a point of order. Supplementary question, the Hon Annette King. [Interruption] Supplementary question, otherwise we will be moving on.

Hon Annette King: Yes, Mr Speaker. Well, there are interjections across—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! Just ask the question.

Hon Annette King: If there is sufficient funding for 2015-16, why did the chair of the Canterbury District Health Board say very recently: “We need more resourcing … and the current funding is not keeping up.”, and that compounding the lack of resources will create an even bigger problem?

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: What I can say to that member is that over the past 6 years Canterbury has received an extra $269 million. There are an extra 143 doctors. There are an extra 486 nurses—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I am going to invite that question to be asked again.

Hon Annette King: If there is sufficient funding for 2015-16, why did the chair of the Canterbury District Health Board say very recently: “We need more resourcing … and the current funding is not keeping up.”, and that compounding the lack of resources will create an even bigger problem?

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: I have talked to Mr Cleverley on many occasions and he tells me, actually, that there is plenty of money there in that huge budget that Canterbury has. He tells me that he is determined to continue to provide excellent clinical services for the people of Canterbury.

Hon Annette King: Is the Minister saying that the reports from both the chair of Tairāwhiti District Health Board and the chair of Canterbury District Health Board are incorrect, that the members did not say that, and that they were lying?

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: Well, the last time Annette King raised a point like this in the House, she was saying that Counties Manukau District Health Board had a hundred-million-dollar deficit. We went away and checked, and it actually had a multimillion-dollar surplus. So, no, I do not actually believe anything that member says, I am afraid.

Kaipara District Council—Commissioners

4. Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) to the Associate Minister of Local Government: Did she consider all relevant factors in reappointing the Kaipara District Council Commissioners; if not, why not?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON (Associate Minister of Local Government): Yes.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Prior to making her decision, did she discuss with the commission its decision to not take action against Beca Carter Hollings and Ferner Ltd concerning that company’s involvement in the Mangawhai waste-water scheme cost blowout of tens of millions of dollars?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: In coming up with my decision to extend the term of the commissioners, I met with them and others and took into consideration a number of issues and challenges that the council faced. The two biggest issues that I considered were the effects of the uncertainty of the Local Government Commission’s reorganisation proposal and unresolved legal proceedings related to the Mangawhai community.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I am asking specifically—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I am going to invite the member to re-ask that question.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Thank you very much. Prior to making her decision, did she discuss with the commission its decision to not take action against Beca Carter Hollings and Ferner Ltd concerning that company’s involvement in the Mangawhai waste-water scheme cost blowout of tens of millions of dollars?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: One of the matters that did come up in my discussions with the commissioners was the issue of Beca. I am advised that, having considered the matter carefully, the commissioners decided that the cost of pursuing a claim with a limited chance of success was not a productive use of ratepayer funds and that it was reasonable to call time on this stream of work.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Well, when the commission gave the Limitation Act issues as one of its reasons for not taking legal action against the Beca Group, was it not obvious to her that the commission at all times had the power to not be caught by that law—that is, not delay making a decision and then use that delay as an excuse to not take legal action?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: Members of this House will be clear about the very complex challenges that the Kaipara District Council faced when the intervention was put in place in 2012. One of those included a very comprehensive review by the Auditor-General. The commissioners had a number of issues that they wanted to address and they addressed them in order of priority. Beca was one that they decided was not the best use of ratepayer funds in pursuing a legal challenge.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I am putting at issue the question of the Limitation Act—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! No. On this occasion I listened very carefully, and that question has been addressed.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: What investigations has she or her Government initiated into the appalling circumstances behind the sewerage scheme cost blowout, thereby demonstrating to Kaipara ratepayers and voters the simple principle of accountability to both of those groups?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: It will be clear to many that the very reason that this Government put an intervention in place and appointed commissioners was the interests of the Kaipara ratepayers. As you are well aware, there was a significant blowout and mismanagement of a waste-water scheme project, which has been investigated by the Auditor-General, who is an Officer of Parliament.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Did she consult with the local member of Parliament before making her decision to reappoint the commission; if not, why not?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: I consulted widely and broadly in coming to my decision. As that member knows, I gave him the courtesy of a phone call before the announcement was made and I have offered to brief him in my office on the issues. I would welcome the opportunity to discuss it with you in detail.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Now for the truth. Given that she called me within 1 hour of making the announcement and that in the recent by-election in the Northland electorate the Kaipara ratepayers and voters, amongst many issues, made their displeasure over this issue very clear at that time, why did she and her Government not get the message?

Hon LOUISE UPSTON: As I said in my last answer, I consulted widely. There were many letters, emails, and phone calls to my office. I also took the time to visit the district and talk to individuals and community leaders. I was very clear then, on the receipt of two different petitions. The one that was in favour of the commissioners retaining their positions for another 12 months was three times the size of any other.

Housing Affordability—First-home Buyers

5. TODD MULLER (National—Bay of Plenty) to the Minister for Building and Housing: How many applications have been made for KiwiSaver HomeStart since the scheme took effect on 1 April 2015?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for Building and Housing): Housing New Zealand received the 2,000th application this morning, which is a stunning result given that the scheme has been in place only since 1 April. That is treble the number that was received in April last year under the old schemes, and it shows how the Government is helping hundreds of families every week to get into their first home. The scheme has actually proved so popular that Housing New Zealand has had to expand the number of staff that are processing the applications.

Todd Muller: What response has there been to the HomeStart public meetings from prospective homeowners, building companies, and banks?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: We have had an average of over a hundred people at each of the four meetings that we have had in west Auckland, in Christchurch, in my own electorate of Nelson, and last night on the West Coast, where there was a very wide level of participation, particularly from young people who are looking to purchase their own home. They are quite excited by the potential to put the HomeStart grant and the changes that have been made to KiwiSaver home withdrawal, as well as the Welcome Home Loans, together for them to be able to realise the dream of owning their own home. I am also quite encouraged by the very high level of interest from building companies that see the opportunity for increased demand for houses in a more affordable range, and I am confident that it is going to result in more homes that are suitable for those people utilising the HomeStart scheme.

Todd Muller: What changes have been made to the support for first-home buyers that will help direct the assistance from the Government towards building new homes?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: A common complaint has been about the old scheme being very difficult to use for purchasing a new home. That was, firstly, because you could not previously use your KiwiSaver withdrawal for a deposit on a new home; that did not work. Secondly—

Phil Twyford: What did Treasury say about this?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Treasury said it was very supportive of the extra support for growing new homes. I am very disappointed that one of the common questions I have had at the meetings has been about how soon people have to get in and get their grant given that Labour is promising to abolish the scheme. I have had to advise people that, yes, they can be guaranteed that this Government is committed to the scheme for the next 3 years, but they will have to vote for a National Government if they want HomeStart to continue beyond 2017.

Phil Twyford: Has he seen the latest AMP360 Home Loan Affordability Report, showing that lower quartile house prices in Auckland rose to $587,000 from February—that is up $32,600 in 1 month, completely wiping out his HomeStart programme in a single month, showing that his tinkering is only making the housing crisis worse?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I do find the accusation of tinkering interesting from that member because when I intervened in the Auckland Council with the special housing area this was the member who put hoardings all through Auckland telling me to butt out and that I was doing too much. So it is a bit rich for him now to be telling me I am not doing enough. Actually, in Auckland we have doubled the rate of house build. We were doing 4,000 per year; we are now building 8,000 per year. I accept that the challenge has got more difficult because we do not have 40,000 people a year leaving for Australia. They want to stay here. We are going to need to build more houses, and we are up to that challenge.

Government Financial Position—Return to Surplus

6. GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) to the Minister of Finance: Is it Government policy that the Government will return to surplus this financial year and stay there so it can reduce debt, reduce ACC levies on households and businesses, and start modestly reducing income taxes?

Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance): Yes, it is the Government’s policy to return to surplus, to maintain surplus so that we can reduce debt to 20 percent of GDP by 2020, to reduce ACC levies on households and businesses, and in 2017 to begin reducing income taxes. One more point the member missed is that if there are any positive revenue surprises, we would use those to get debt down, but there do not look to be any positive revenue surprises.

Grant Robertson: In light of that answer, does the Minister of Finance recall this document Our 2014 Priorities from the National Government, which lists as the first priority “Return to Budget surplus in 2014/15”?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: Yes, I do, and the Government has worked very hard—and I must indicate support for Ministers and public servants who over recent years have worked very hard—to contain Government expenditure at the same time as improving public services consistently across the board. However, they do not have any control over revenue and it is the revenue that amounts to a challenge to getting back to surplus.

Grant Robertson: In light of that answer, can the Minister explain this document, featuring the same photograph of a smiling Prime Minister with Our 2015 Priorities, which lists as the first priority “Return the Government’s books to surplus”—leaving out the date 2014-15?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: Yes, I do, and I am pleased to see that the member, as the new finance spokesman, is studying sound public policy so intently. He can be reassured—

Hon Simon Bridges: No, he’s just looking at the pictures.

Hon BILL ENGLISH: He is just looking at the pictures? No, no, he has read it. He has read it. Give him some credit. And I can assure the member that all the numbers related to the surpluses of course are fully transparent.

Grant Robertson: In light of the Minister’s desire for transparency, why did he ditch his 2014 promise for a surplus this financial year, just months after making that election promise?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: It is not a matter of ditching promises; it is a matter of dealing with reality. The member may not have noticed that in the Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update, which is a statutory requirement of any Government to publish in December, we forecast a $550 million deficit for the 2014-15 year, so there is nothing new or exciting or different about that. We budgeted a surplus, a number of things have changed—like I think there is $6 billion less GDP because of low inflation, and the half-year update forecast a deficit for that year. I do not know why the member seems surprised about that or seems to think it is a secret.

Grant Robertson: In light of that answer, can the Minister of Finance understand why it is not a surprise to New Zealanders that he is once again breaking a promise—this time, one made in 2014 that there would be a Budget surplus in 2014-15; or is this not just the smoke and mirrors that the New Zealand Herald has accused him of, of breaking yet another promise?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: The process is incredibly transparent—in fact, more transparent than almost any other country on earth. That is, at the half-year update, halfway through the financial year, 2014-15, Treasury published a forecast that said that in 2014-15 there would be a small deficit. That is pretty clear and it is an indication that achieving a surplus in 2014-15 is going to be quite difficult.

Iraq, Military Deployment—Release of Information

7. RON MARK (NZ First) to the Minister of Defence: How does he reconcile not providing any further detail on the deployment of troops in accordance with the NZDF policy of “non-identification of personnel and for reasons of operational security” with the Prime Minister confirming overnight that New Zealand troops were transiting through Dubai?

Hon SIMON BRIDGES (Acting Minister of Defence): As has already been publicly stated, we expect all of the New Zealand contingent involved in the Building Partner Capacity mission to Iraq to be deployed in Taji and Baghdad by mid-May. It should not come as a surprise that personnel have been going to the region in advance of deploying into Iraq. The Prime Minister and the Minister of Defence made it very clear on 15 April that the deployment would be staged, with groups entering Iraq at different times. I also want to reiterate for the member that we have been very clear that, for reasons of operational security and in order to keep our soldiers as safe as possible, we will not be going into detail on specific travel arrangements. Although it should be no surprise that some of our troops are in the United Arab Emirates, just as some have been in Australia, we will not be announcing when they will be moving into Iraq.

Ron Mark: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I made my question very specific, and he has had time to prepare, asking how does he reconcile—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! The question has definitely been answered. The member should listen to the answer.

Ron Mark: Has the Prime Minister breached New Zealand Defence Force operational security by first talking to Gulf News, and then telling New Zealand media: “I just don’t see it as newsworthy. You guys might, but I don’t. I mean, they have to fly through somewhere. That’s the base they use going into Baghdad, so pffft.”? [Interruption]

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: That was pretty good. No.

Ron Mark: Can he explain the Prime Minister’s unauthorised release of official information, when the Chief of Defence Force told Q+A: “I think most people would understand the sensitivities around getting forces into a country like Iraq, and is that a matter for the public? I don’t think so.”?

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: As I say, the statement that troops are in Dubai should not come as a surprise. We have always been clear that this was a deployment that was staged, but we do not go into details on specific travel arrangements, certainly into the theatre of operation in Iraq.

Ron Mark: I seek leave to table a document that suggests that the Prime Minister might be—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! All I want is—[Interruption] Order! I just want details of the document.

Ron Mark: Well, can I refer you to Speakers’ Rulings?

Mr SPEAKER: Yes.

Ron Mark: Speakers’ ruling 147/3—I quote from Deputy Speaker Revell and Speaker Hunt, back in 1998 and 2003, who say that “In seeking leave to table a document members should not only succinctly describe what is in the document but also sufficiently describe the nature of the document to inform members.”, so that they can make a decision.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member will resume his seat. If he had adhered to that and succinctly described the document, I would be happy to listen to it. But when it is a long read of the document, I will not be putting up with that. So a succinct description would be very much appreciated.

Ron Mark: Thank you. It is a document that suggests the Prime Minister might be in breach of the Crimes Act 1961 that—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I am not putting up with much more of this from Mr Mark. He must succinctly describe the document, not whether the Prime Minister is breaching anything, or we will not be putting the leave—simple as that.

Ron Mark: Well, Mr Speaker, when—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! We are moving to the next question.

Ron Mark: Can I take you back to Speaker’s ruling—

Mr SPEAKER: No. The member can resume his seat. I will give the member one more chance to succinctly describe the document, as to the source of the document and the date of it, and then I will determine whether to put the leave.

Ron Mark: The document’s title is the Cabinet Manual. The succinct description—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member will resume his seat. The Cabinet Manual is available to everybody.

Beneficiaries—Numbers

8. Dr PARMJEET PARMAR (National) to the Minister for Social Development: What reports has she received on welfare numbers in New Zealand?

Hon ANNE TOLLEY (Minister for Social Development): Thanks to a growing economy and this Government’s welfare reforms, benefit numbers are at a 6-year low. There are 11,000 fewer people on a benefit compared with this time last year. Over 5,000 of those people were on job seeker support at that time. This is extremely positive and continues the downward trend in the number of people on welfare. Getting off a benefit and into employment or study reduces long-term welfare dependence and allows individuals and families to thrive.

Dr Parmjeet Parmar: How have the Government’s welfare reforms supported sole parents off benefits?

Hon ANNE TOLLEY: The number of sole parent support clients reduced by 5,471—7 percent—which is the lowest number since 1988. Even better results were achieved for those sole parents aged 18 to 24 years, with a 10 percent reduction. That is 1,700 young people no longer on sole parent support. We have invested millions into intensive support and training, as well as helped with study and childcare for those sole parents, so that working while raising children alone is achievable and rewarding. The evidence is very clear that this means far better outcomes for those parents and the long-term prospects for their children.

Darroch Ball: Will the Minister stand by her Better Public Services target results of reducing benefit numbers, and have them independently scrutinised by the Office of the Auditor-General; if not, why not?

Hon ANNE TOLLEY: Yes, I do stand by the targets that have been set under the Better Public Services targets. But, actually, the best audit of those results is by the public, and that is done on a constant basis.

Welfare Reforms—Productivity Commission Report

9. CARMEL SEPULONI (Labour—Kelston) to the Minister of Finance: Is the Productivity Commission report released yesterday indicative of a Government agenda to privatise the welfare system?

Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance): No. It is indicative of a Government agenda to get better results for people who really need them. We are happy to debate the kind of toolset that the Productivity Commission has laid out, but I would like to signal to that member and to the Labour Party that we are focused more on getting better results and less on their ideological obsessions. What we are doing is building a system that allows Governments to invest upfront in personalised interventions for the child, the individual, or the family for a long-term impact, and to track the results of that investment. The Productivity Commission has produced a framework that gives the Government a wider range of tools. It has been heavily consulted on with the social service sector to a draft form, and now it will be further consulted on before it gives us a final report. But I expect at the end of that that the Labour Party will be out of step with pretty much everybody by sticking to its 1970s models.

Carmel Sepuloni: Does the Minister intend to establish a voucher system for social services in New Zealand?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: Yes. We are under way in establishing a voucher system particularly for people with disabilities. It is called Enabling Good Lives. It has been broadly welcomed by the disability sector. I suspect that the mass adoption of it by the Australian Government in the form of the National Disability Insurance Scheme is going to put a lot of pressure on New Zealand to further develop a sophisticated voucher system for people with disabilities. The reason why is that it gives them some choices rather than being subject to a system where the Labour Party tells the providers—

Mr SPEAKER: Order!

Jami-Lee Ross: What progress has the Government made in delivering better outcomes from social services?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: We have made considerable progress in focusing on our customers—that is, getting to know much better the circumstances and prospects of those most vulnerable New Zealanders. For instance, a child under the age of 5 who is known to Child, Youth and Family, whose parents are supported by a benefit, and where either parent is in contact with the Department of Corrections—and there are a lot of those families; around 470 of them in Rotorua, for instance—is around five times more likely to end up on a long-term benefit and seven times more likely than the average to get to be in prison before the age of 21. In the light of that information, we feel a moral obligation, as well as a fiscal one, to act now to reduce the long-term costs, and we are not—

Mr SPEAKER: Order!

Carmel Sepuloni: Does he agree with the findings of the Productivity Commission’s draft report he commissioned that the Government faces incentives to underfund contracts with NGOs for the delivery of social services, with probably adverse consequences for service provision; if so, does he agree that greater contracting out could harm service provision?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: I agree with the first one but not the second one. The Government often does deliberately, as a result of Government policy, actually, pay less than the full cost of services, and often the users of those services need a higher level of more sophisticated service than what we currently offer them. There is no evidence at all that contracting out, as the member calls it, will reduce service provision. Sometimes that is the right way to do it. For instance, the Government owns no elderly care beds in New Zealand. It is all contracted out. That has been a bipartisan approach for many years with a highly vulnerable population. There are other areas where there are benefits from competition and also benefits from cooperation.

Jami-Lee Ross: What results has he seen from investment in Better Public Services?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: One of the first results we are seeing from taking an investment approach to public services is a much better understanding of our customers. The reports, now published 6-monthly, into the welfare liability have lifted the lid on a very complex ecosystem of dependency. Now we are starting to take initiatives in order to change the way that system works. For instance, around 70 percent of the people who sign up for a benefit in any given month have been on a benefit before. They are long-term regular and returning customers. In the past we have thought that because we found them a job once, that was the end of it. In fact, they need sustained support and employment, and we expect to be taking more measures in order to back up that initiative. But there will be hundreds of others that will involve contracting out, will involve competition, will involve the private sector, and will involve better results.

Chris Hipkins: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I just ask that you perhaps might reflect on this particular question today, which was set down by my colleague Carmel Sepuloni, regarding a report of the Productivity Commission and a particular aspect of the report that she was questioning on, the very broad nature of the supplementary questions allowed from the Government, and the extensive and lengthy answers from the Minister and whether, in fact, that is acceptable.

Mr SPEAKER: I certainly will reflect very carefully on the questions that have flowed. The answers on this occasion have been long, and on two occasions I have curtailed the answer as it has continued. But it is an issue that is, I think, relatively important to this House, and when I looked at the tone of the question about a suggestion of privatising the welfare system, I felt that the topic was important enough to have a reasonable airing in this House. But I will reflect on the nature of the questions that have flowed from the primary question, and I certainly accept the member’s point that some of the answers have been quite long.

Carmel Sepuloni: Does he agree with the finding of the report, which he commissioned, that “Problems with contracting out are often symptoms of deeper causes such as the desire to exert top-down control to limit political risk.”?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: Yes.

Carmel Sepuloni: Does he agree that the Government needs to take responsibility for system stewardship and for making considered decisions that shape the system, including taking the overarching responsibility for monitoring, planning, and managing resources in such a way as to maintain and improve system performance?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: Yes, the Government can do a better job of what the Government does. We are still unravelling the damage done by the previous Labour Government to our social services delivery, where that Government turned it into what I would call a dumb funding system. Communities and families have an important role as well as Governments—in fact, a more important role. In fact, one of the programmes that the commission refers to is Whānau Ora, which is designed around the radical proposition that a lot of our most dysfunctional families can actually heal some of their own problems and improve some of their own aspirations. We are going to go along with that because—

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

Surgery, Elective—First Specialist Assessments

10. SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel) to the Minister of Health: What recent reports has he received on improved access to first surgical assessments?

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN (Minister of Health): I have received a recent report confirming that over the last 6 years the number of first surgical assessments has risen from 267,000 a year to 317,000. This increase means that now 50,000 more patients each year are seeing a surgeon for a first assessment than in 2008. That contrasts dramatically with the 8 years prior to 2008, where access to first specialist assessments was actually cut in real terms.

Scott Simpson: Has the increase in the number of first surgical assessments resulted in reductions to waiting times?

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: Yes, it has led to significant reductions in the time that patients have to wait to see a surgeon. In 2006 there were over 15,000 patients waiting over 6 months for their first surgical assessment. Today there are only two patients waiting over 6 months and only a small number waiting over 4 months. That is the result of the hard work of our dedicated health workforce and the Government’s commitment to increasing health funding despite tough times.

Hon Annette King: How many New Zealanders have received letters in this last year telling them that they cannot have a first specialist assessment because they do not reach the threshold set by the district health board, even though they have not even been seen by a specialist?

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: District health boards have always set thresholds. We are the first Government that has ever attempted to count what the member is referring to, and we are in the process of doing that. But what I can say is that we are not going to be removing 30,000 people from waiting lists, which happened when Mrs King was the health Minister.

Mr SPEAKER: Question No. 11, Iain Lees-Galloway.

Iain Lees-Galloway: Thank you. My question is to the Minister for Workplace—[Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I am sorry to interrupt the member. If the member Annette King was unhappy, she should have risen to her feet on that occasion, not by interjecting subsequently after I called her colleague.

Hon Annette King: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker—if you believe I need to get to my feet. If you go back and look at the answers of the Minister of Health today, at the end of nearly every answer he has referred gratuitously to the time that I was Minister of Health. I was not—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member will resume her seat.

Foreign Workers—Conditions

11. IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North) to the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety: Does he stand by all his statements regarding workers employed by CNR Dalian Locomotive working in New Zealand?

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety): Yes.

Iain Lees-Galloway: Will he clarify the law so that all people working in New Zealand have the same rights—for example, the right to be paid at least the minimum wage and the right to be safe at work; if not, why not?

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: No, because there is no—[Interruption] No, because all people working who are subject to minimum employment standards in New Zealand are already well covered.

Iain Lees-Galloway: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. My question was whether he will ensure that all people working—

Mr SPEAKER: No—[Interruption] Order! The member wants to go back now and study his question. The question was whether the Minister will clarify and change the law, or words to that effect, and the Minister straight away said no.

Iain Lees-Galloway: Why did he compare the railway workers, who have been working in New Zealand for at least 6 months, with pilots and cabin crew who are here for only a matter of hours?

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: I made the analogy with a pilot because the circumstances are similar. The workers at the hub workshops are employed offshore by a foreign company, they are under employment agreements governed by Chinese law, and they are in New Zealand only to carry out work under a warranty agreement with KiwiRail. The Ministry for Business, Innovation and Employment concluded that it was unlikely that New Zealand employment law applied.

Iain Lees-Galloway: Why did he state that he is “very happy with the circumstances under which the employees of CNR Dalian Locomotive were asked to do the work in New Zealand”, given that the labour inspector was unable to determine whether the workers were receiving minimum wage, annual leave, or bereavement leave and could only guess as to whether they received sick leave and paid public holidays?

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: The circumstances as described by the member in his question are absolutely incorrect. The Ministry for Business, Innovation and Employment was able to establish that they did not work on public holidays, they did not work when they were sick, and they were receiving paid sick leave and paid holidays. The ministry did not find any evidence to support allegations that they were living in cramped conditions or allegations suggesting that they had limited access to food, and when they were asked to provide wage records, the workers themselves told the ministry to mind its own business. It is a private matter between them and their employers, and they did not make the complaint.

Sue Moroney: Has he informed the Minister of Immigration, Michael Woodhouse, of his view that these workers are not covered by New Zealand employment law and will he therefore recommend to the Minister of Immigration, Michael Woodhouse, that they should have their work visas revoked to protect New Zealand employment standards?

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: I have been diligent in consulting my colleague the Minister of Immigration, and he is very satisfied that the Chinese workers in this instance were on short-term visas, and these were generally for no more than 3 months per year. As such, their entry was tied to the terms of the original contract and warranty. I should note that those terms are actually covered by a free-trade agreement—a free-trade agreement that the previous Labour Government put in place.

Iain Lees-Galloway: Why is it appropriate to ensure that workers on foreign fishing vessels working in the New Zealand zone do get entitlements of minimum wages and other minimum employment standards but workers in other situations do not?

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Workers employed by foreign charter vessels are in a very different situation from this. Foreign charter vessel workers are fishing in New Zealand - controlled—[Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! That level of interjection from a member asking a question is totally unsatisfactory. Would the Minister now complete his answer.

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Those workers are fishing in New Zealand - controlled waters for permit holders that are based in New Zealand. The Government has introduced reforms that should ensure compliance with both New Zealand employment and maritime laws. The Chinese workers, on the other hand, are in New Zealand temporarily, on behalf of their Chinese employers, to undertake warranty work.

Rental Properties—Standards

12. MARAMA FOX (Co-Leader—Māori Party) to the Minister for Building and Housing: Does he support the Māori Party’s call for guaranteed healthy homes through the introduction of a Warrant of Fitness for all rental properties; if not, why not?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for Building and Housing): The Government is open-minded about regulatory changes to ensure a better quality of rental property in New Zealand and is keen to work with the Māori Party on reform that is practical and that fully understands the implications for both supply and affordability. It needs to be sophisticated. For instance, if you have a blunt instrument that simply says that every home that has to be rented has to be insulated, I am advised that there would be about 100,000 homes where, practically, you cannot get under the floor or into the ceiling to insulate them, and to take 100,000 homes out of the rental market would have an enormous impact on supply as well as affordability. Equally so, I have seen some proposals where, for instance, they want to regulate the amount of hot water coming out of a shower. Well, we are not keen on those sorts of—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! The answer is too long.

Marama Fox: Will the Minister work with the Māori Party to create safeguards for tenants who fear eviction if they complain to authorities about the state of the substandard properties they rent; if not, why not?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I am keen to work with the Māori Party. The issue is actually around enforcement. The current tenancy Act makes it an offence for a landlord to take action against a tenant who has raised a concern about, for instance, whether the property meets the fit and proper standard of being tenantable now. The situation has been particularly acute in Christchurch following the loss of 12,000 homes, and so we need to look to—

Denis O’Rourke: So what are you doing about it?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Well, for a start, we have built 11,000 houses to date. The rents have now stabilised in Christchurch, and so there is the opportunity—

Dr Megan Woods: You have, have you? Where are they? Where are the ones you’ve built?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Well, the local member who is screaming has actually objected—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! The Minister will resume his seat. The general debate will take place shortly.

Marama Fox: Will the Minister work to establish a platform for tenant feedback to identify and rate both good landlord practice and poor “slumlord” practice; if not, why not?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: We are open to good ideas, but we want to make sure that things are practical, that they are workable, and that they are actually going to make a difference. That is why, for instance, our Government has insulated over 200,000 homes. That is making a practical difference. We have gone to a particular extent around ensuring that every State house that can be insulated is insulated, and if there are other good ideas that the Māori Party has, we are happy to work with it to ensure we improve the standard.

General Debate

General Debate

Dr RUSSEL NORMAN (Co-Leader—Green): I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business. In 2015 a Government-owned railway company in New Zealand is proposing to remove electrification for the main trunk line and replace an electric railway with diesel engines. Nothing, perhaps, epitomises the disastrous climate change policy of this Government more than that one simple fact—the fact that 15 years into the 21st century this Government’s own railway company is proposing to remove electrification from the main trunk line and replace it with diesel engines.

Climate change is the defining issue of this century. The issue that will define the judgment of history on this Government, and on all of us in this House, is climate change and whether we take action on it. Yet New Zealand’s net greenhouse gas emissions have increased by 42 percent from 1990 to 2013—a 42 percent increase in net emissions, a 21 percent increase in gross greenhouse gas emissions. Nothing could define a failure more than those numbers. It is for that reason that today we did something different with question time. We crowdsourced a series of questions about climate change because we thought it was important that the people of New Zealand are given the opportunity to directly question the Government on the issue of climate change.

Some of those questions related to the issue of the Government railway company removing electrification, which, of course, is an incredibly stupid and backward move. But, of course, I do not necessarily blame KiwiRail for it. It is actually being driven by the Government’s own policies. It gutted the emissions trading scheme and removed the price on carbon, so of course it makes sense, at some level, economically. And, of course, the other impact of the Government’s policies is that we now have twice the level of deforestation of plantation forest than we have of afforestation, even though the Minister for Climate Change Issues did not know this and put out a press statement saying that we were planting forests faster than we were knocking them down. In fact, the truth is the exact opposite, and the Minister for Climate Change Issues had to issue a press release correcting his statement.

What we have seen in New Zealand is that not only have we gutted the emissions trading scheme but the Government is now subsidising the exploration for fossil fuels. This is in a world where we know that we have already found far more fossil fuels than we can possibly afford to burn if we want to stay under 2 degrees of warming. What could be more insane? What could be madder than using $50 million of taxpayers’ money to subsidise searching for, and producing, fossil fuels that we know we cannot burn without cooking the planet? But that is this Government’s policy: to subsidise the exploration for fossil fuels with taxpayers’ money, even though we cannot burn the existing fossil fuels that we have already discovered.

All around the world people are divesting out of fossil fuels. Even in New Zealand Victoria University has divested from fossil fuels, Dunedin City Council has just announced it is divesting from fossil fuels, and Christchurch City Holdings, and so many others, are taking leadership on the issue of climate change because the Government will not. The Government is embracing the 1950s. It is embracing diesel trains and deforestation; it does not seem to get climate change. That is why we crowdsourced questions about climate change today—so that the voices of ordinary New Zealanders could be heard in this House—and that is why others are having to take the lead on climate change all around New Zealand by divesting out of fossil fuels.

This is not only an ethical and moral issue; it is also an economic issue. This is one of the great economic opportunities of the 21st century and it is passing New Zealand by because we have a Government that does not recognise it. We have a Government that is embracing simple commodities when the whole world is embracing the cleantech, greentech revolution, and yet you would not even know it from New Zealand because we have a Government that is firmly facing back into the middle of the 20th century even though we are 15 years into the 21st century.

Climate change is the compelling issue of our time. It is going to require leadership from ordinary people because we have a Government that will not take action on climate change—in fact, it is accelerating New Zealand’s net greenhouse gas emissions. We know that when it came to votes for women it was ordinary New Zealanders who had to take the lead in order to make that happen. We know that when it came to mining in national parks it was ordinary people who stopped the Government doing it.

Hon AMY ADAMS (Minister of Justice): You have got to say that sitting here in the House day after day it is getting harder and harder to figure out who the Leader of the Opposition is, is it not? It is getting harder and harder to sit here and work out who is actually leading the Opposition. We have got the Greens scrapping for Russel Norman’s job. Given the enthusiasm with which they are going after that, they clearly think it is them. We know that in New Zealand First leadership contests are banned. They are not allowed in New Zealand First. Labour has had three leadership contests and still cannot find a Leader of the Opposition that anyone likes.

One thing remains true, and that is no matter who is driving the bus on the left, no matter who is in charge of the Opposition parties, they hate it when New Zealand does well. Do they not hate it? Do they not hate the reality that New Zealand is envied across the world? They truly are merchants of misery. They are at their happiest when there is doom and gloom to peddle. We know New Zealand is growing at 3.5 percent a year, one of the fastest rates in the world. We know average wages are up. We know that employment is growing. Do they not hate it? They absolutely hate it.

The reality is that New Zealand is on a track that is envied by most of the world. You have only to read any international respected media and the commentary on New Zealand is saying: “Look at what New Zealand is doing. Why can’t we do that?”. And yet in New Zealand we have got Opposition parties that want to pretend that the sky is falling. They hate it. They want to get excited about all sorts of sideshows and they miss the fact that New Zealand and our leader are held up across the world as absolute beacons for how to get it right.

Let us look at this week. This week we have got Andrew Little posing for selfies with Ed Miliband, while the Prime Minister is off in the Gulf, brokering a trade deal that will put more jobs into New Zealand, that will raise incomes for New Zealanders, and that will create more of the things that this country needs. It means growing incomes for our Kiwi families and our Kiwi mums and dads. It means New Zealand will keep having some of the lowest mortgage interest rates that it has had for many years, and it means that we will continue to have an economy that can deliver the things that Kiwi families want.

The economy can deliver greater early childhood education for our children, and more high-quality early childhood education for more students. It can deliver parental tax credit increases, extending them, and increasing them for those in the lowest income brackets. It means we can deliver on things like free health care for children under 13 in this country. That is the dividend of a growing economy—free health care for those under 13. It means that 90,000 first-home buyers are locked into their first home under the Homestart package that my colleague Nick Smith has delivered. It means hundreds of millions of dollars of ACC levies returned to Kiwi families, put back into the pockets of hard-working families. It means extended paid parental leave. It means any number of policies that really help New Zealand families to get ahead.

This is a Government that is helping to keep women and children safe in their homes when they want to leave a violent, abusive domestic relationship. We have ensured that the most vulnerable people in our justice sector—women, children, and young people—are protected through tougher bail laws, tougher parole laws, and tougher sentencing laws, whether they are being victimised in the community, in their families, or online.

We know it is working. We know that more Kiwis are voting with their feet and returning home. We know that more students are getting National Certificate of Educational Achievement level 2, thanks to the good work of Hekia Parata. We know that more people are getting elective surgery. We know that more children are getting immunised. We know that our communities are safer. We have the lowest crime rates that New Zealand has had since 1978.

This is a Government that protects New Zealand families, that keeps them in work, and that keeps incomes rising. Over the last few years we have raised more than $16 million from the offender levy alone to help 6,000 victims a year. This is a Government that is providing for New Zealand families, that is creating action, while Andrew Little’s Labour Party continues to do nothing and has no vision for this country.

GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central): There was a time when New Zealanders were proud of the Prime Minister. They respected the person occupying the job. One of the most common refrains I used to hear about Helen Clark was that even if you did not agree with her, or with every policy that she put forward, you respected her. You respected her dedication, her commitment to New Zealand. The same was said of David Lange when he made New Zealanders proud at the Oxford Union. Goodness, they even used to say they respected Jim Bolger, even if he adopted the accent of the last person he talked to. But who do we have now as a Prime Minister? A grown man who repeatedly pulls on the hair of a cafe worker, despite her telling him not to do it. That is right. Instead of a respected leader we have the “Parnell ponytail-puller”, for ever to be known for his tail-tugging, plait-pulling, weirdo ways. Not since John Key’s political hero Rob Muldoon, in a tired and emotional state, called the “gin and schnapps election” in 1984 have we seen a Prime Minister being regarded with such disdain by the public at large. When I used to work for Prime Minister Helen Clark, there was always a conversation about whether she should have to wear a hairnet when she went to visit factories, and so on. Now we have got workers in factories and offices around New Zealand who want to wear hairnets when John Key comes. It is a form of protection. They are asking for protection from their Prime Minister.

Amy Adams wanted us to learn about the international media. Well, do not think the disdain about John Key is limited to New Zealand. He has made it on to the world stage: the New York Times, the Guardian, the Toronto Star, the Washington Post, CNN, the Hindustan Times, the Sydney Morning Herald—the list goes on and on. The world does not know just about the “Parnell ponytail-puller’s” mane-mauling. It has also been reminded about his mincing, handshaking, and language-mangling of years gone by. Then, John Key decided that the way to get away with this was with two bottles of JK’s Pinot noir. What a massive ego, to decide that the best way to make up for being such a tail-tugger is to give your own wine. To echo John Oliver, he is meant to be the Prime Minister, not a real housewife of Helensville.

How proud New Zealanders in the UK were to read in the Guardian of a psychologist’s attempt to unravel the childish roots of John Key’s behaviour. The psychologist made our chests burst with nationalistic pride when he said that John Key’s behaviour may be an example of the psychological process of regression. The psychologist said: “Regression can be thought of as being malignant or benign. An example of a benign regression would be an adult taking their teddy bear to bed with them.” Has anyone asked Bronagh whether John Key has brought something small and furry to bed with him? I am not talking about Moonbeam here. The psychologist went on to say that the less benign forms of regression included Uruguayan footballer Luis Suárez biting an opponent or Jeremy Clarkson punching a producer. Happy days for New Zealanders. Our Prime Minister, the “Parnell ponytail-puller”, is in the same breath as a soccer player with a biting fetish and a brawling TV buffoon. So proud we are. The Washington Post had it right when it headlined its story “New Zealand’s ponytail-pulling prime minister becomes national embarrassment”, and that is the truth. This is a Prime Minister who has lost the plot leading a Government that has lost its way. It is out of touch, out of ideas, and out for itself. Once upon a time the Prime Minister told us he was ambitious for New Zealand. Now he is just making us embarrassed for New Zealand.

Let us not forget that there is a serious side to this weird behaviour—a woman in a cafe simply trying to do her job repeatedly being harassed. She deserves respect from each and every one of her customers, and from the most powerful man in the country she deserves it just as much. Instead she got harassment and inappropriate behaviour again and again. The fact that the “Parnell ponytail-puller” did not even work that out and that he called it horsing around and said that it was not his intention to make her feel uncomfortable shows a major loss of moral compass. John Key warned against the arrogance of third-term Governments, the danger of surprising behaviour. He could have added the risk to the reputation of the Government that its leader is a creepy weirdo. This might not be the end of the road for John Key, but it is a very sure sign that he and his Government have lost their way.

Hon HEKIA PARATA (Minister of Education): It is really rather sad and depressing that the Opposition uses this general debate in this House of Parliament as a really sad attempt at a comedic performance. What we have in this country is the leadership of a Prime Minister who has focused on what is important to New Zealanders—to the families, the hard-working families, up and down this country who under this Government have seen and felt the ambition of this Prime Minister and this caucus. We have been committed to what really counts: how we can help families to get the best access to health, how we can ensure that those who have been victims of crime get the support that they need, how we can ensure that the police are policing our communities and providing the kind of safety that New Zealanders expect, and how we can ensure that in education every young person gets the opportunity of the best possible pathway in life. That is what this Government is focused on and that is what this Prime Minister has provided leadership on over the past 6 years, and will continue to do in the future. I am proud to serve in this Government on an agenda of this kind of substance.

In education parents want the best for their kids, and this Government is determined to provide an education system that is nimble, is responsive, and is modern because we know that a good-quality education is a passport to a stronger future. The carping of the Opposition members demonstrates that they do not understand that. They want to talk about failures of the past while we focus on how we deliver now and into the future. What we see is that in our education system young people are starting earlier, staying longer, and leaving better qualified. One of the key focuses we have had for kids in terms of our education system is how we can ensure that their parents, their families, their whānau, their aiga are well informed about what makes the difference for a good education. We have done that in real, practical, and meaningful ways.

First and foremost, the evidence is that we have put the most ever of any Government into Vote Education. We put in over $10 billion. In early childhood education we have doubled the amount that the Opposition committed to when it was in Government. We are at nearly $1.6 billion and almost 98 percent participation. We know that kids who start behind too often stay behind, and we are intolerant of that. We want every child and their family to get the best possible start in life and that is why we have invested so heavily into early childhood education. We are the Government that is prepared to be transparent and accountable.

My colleague sitting beside me Minister Tolley, when she was the Minister of Education, introduced national standards, and in 2012 we started requiring schools to report every 6 months to parents. Since then we have gone on to build a Public Achievement Information framework, which makes data available in real time on what is actually happening in every school across this country so that parents can partner with the hard-working teachers and principals of the schools that their children are attending to ensure that they are getting the lift they need and deserve. In terms of the National Certificate of Educational Achievement, we have built pathways into the sectors that make the most difference in our economy, and we have built trades academies and Youth Guarantee initiatives, which help these kids to get the best education possible. We have held public meetings and community meetings so that parents and whānau can come along and learn about the National Certificate of Educational Achievement.

Ron Mark: Come to one in the Wairarapa, then.

Hon HEKIA PARATA: We have done this in the Wairarapa, as we have done it in every other part of the country. We have worked with the Education Review Office to ensure that parents get answers to the questions that they can ask of their teachers.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: What about at Whangaruru?

Hon HEKIA PARATA: And yes, Whangaruru, I say to the recent member for Northland, who is suddenly taking an interest in education. Yes, they have had difficulties, but this Government has not resiled from tackling difficulties. Actually, we do not consider it a failure; we consider it a challenge and we will continue to work on that. We have established a parent portal on the Network for Learning so that parents can available to them in real time meaningful, useful, and accessible information. We have been looking to encourage more and more schools to provide e-profiles. For the member for Northland, generationally, in the 21st century, that means parents in real time can go on to this thing called social media and find out what is happening with their kids, how they can work with them, and how they can understand what their kids need in order to get a better education. So the member can moan on and whinge on—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! The member’s—[Interruption] Order! The member’s time has expired.

Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram): Clearly, the order has gone out: “Talk about anything but “ponytail-gate. Tell them they’re not allowed to talk about it. Tell them that it’s wrong and to concentrate on anything else at all.” We heard from Amy Adams, a former Minister for the Environment, who finally discovered recycling today. She pulled it out of the bin that she probably put it in 2 years ago and went on in a desperate effort to fill 5 minutes. It was better than her colleague Hekia Parata tried to do at a million miles an hour.

This is a Government that is out of touch and a Government that is rattled. It is a Government that is stumbling from one disaster to the next, and it seems the longer that time goes on, the weirder and creepier it gets. It is like Peter Pan’s lost boys and girls have gone down the rabbit hole and found some very strange mushrooms on the way down. And when they get there, they are led by their very own boy who cannot grow up, “Peter Pan John Key”. John Key—let me try this alliteration—the perpetual pre-pubescent ponytail-puller who is leading from the front.

So picture this. It is 1972. An 11-year-old John Key sets off to school. He arrives and stares wistfully at the sign overhead—ah, Aorangi primary school. A keen observer would see a self-satisfied—some would say smug—look on the young John Key’s face. He thinks to himself: “One day I’ll close this school.” He is joined at the gate by his close buddy Ian Fletcher. He is a lad that seems to have his finger on the pulse. He seems to know what is happening all around the schoolyard. What is better, he keeps John Key informed. John decides he would like everyone in the class to know what is going on, so he slips his mate Cam a note, taking careful note to change his hat before he gives Cam the piece of paper and deciding to himself that, if asked, he will say that he was just replying to Cam and that he did not start it; Cam did. Just as he passes his note to Cam he sees one of his former besties Judy sitting up there on the back steps and crying all over her spilt milk.

Then the sun comes out and it is sparkling. It is a frosty Canterbury morning and a classmate with long, flowing, glistening locks saunters by. Fetchingly, those locks are caught in a ponytail. She walks past. He cannot contain himself. He reaches out and he touches that ponytail. She asks him to stop. He pulls it again, he does not care. He is John Key, and he can do what he likes. After all, he is just horsing about and his mate Steve had told him it was pretty acceptable to touch someone’s hair when they had asked you not to, so he does not think he will stop. In fact, he goes on to do it eight times, despite being asked to stop.

This behaviour is cringeworthy enough in an 11-year-old boy, but we are talking about the behaviour of the Prime Minister of New Zealand. This is a standard of behaviour that is not acceptable from the Prime Minister. It is a standard of behaviour that is not acceptable for any adult human being. Doing whatever you like with no regard for how it impacts other people is not the standard that we hold ourselves to on this side of the House. You could not make this stuff we are talking about up. What we are seeing from our Prime Minister is better than Malcolm Tucker’s best serve.

But on a serious note, this is a Government that has absolutely no scruples when it comes to deciding how it is going to tackle a housing crisis. We still have people unable to afford housing, we still have unemployment at 5.7 percent, and we also have a Government that thinks it is better to spend money on election bribes than on core services such as health and education. But it is OK because the Prime Minister is just horsing around. We want the Prime Minister to step up and get off his high horse.

TRACEY MARTIN (Deputy Leader—NZ First): Kia ora, Mr Speaker. I would like to spend my time talking about education. It was interesting to have the Minister of Education speak quite fervently about the wonderful things that this Government is doing, in those members’ view, for education here in New Zealand, and I want to take my time to stand up particularly for Hato Pētera College, because somebody has to—because somebody has to.

I want to point out in the House today that this Government has gone on and on and on—particularly when it was working in consultation with the ACT Party around the opening of charter schools—saying that it was passionate about achievement for Māori students and passionate about making sure that Māori students have the best possible academic start in this country. That was why, for example, it gave $1.68 million to Te Kura Hourua ki Whangaruru up in the far north—because it was passionate about Māori students. It handed over a farm, with taxpayers’ money, and it gave it away because of how passionate it was about Māori students. Yet the other thing that the general public may not be aware of is that since 2009—in today’s current Budget, in this education year—close to $4 million has also been handed over by this Government to private schools in Aspire Scholarships. So this, again, was from working way back with the ACT Party in 2005, I think it was.

The Government has now budgeted close to $4 million—$3.9 million—in Aspire Scholarships to give to private schools to try to lift academic achievement. Wanganui Collegiate School was one of those schools and Destiny School was one of those schools, and yet only $576,000 has ever been put aside by this Government for boarding schools directly catering for Māori students. So that is close to $4 million from this Government and its partner the ACT Party to subsidise private schools and take children out of fine public schools and fund them to go into private schools, but there was only $576,000 in the 2014 Budget to actually support Māori students going into Māori schools and boarding them there so that those living in isolated rural areas who show promise can go to schools such as Hato Pētera College.

Let us also have a talk about how this Minister has lauded the outcomes of some of these charter schools. Let us take the fact that the Minister and the member for the ACT Party stood up and talked about Vanguard Military School, for example, achieving 100 percent outcomes in the National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA), and yet there was not a single word from that Minister when, in 2013, Hato Pētera College had 100 percent NCEA achievement—100 percent. And how did it get it? Hato Pētera College has introduced a programme with past students who go on to study at the Auckland University of Technology, which is just around the road and is well connected to the school in Northcote. Those past students come back and mentor current students. That is future thinking about education. That is futureproofing the education of these Māori students.

Hato Pētera College has also opened a military services academy on the grounds of the college, but is there a word from the Minister to acknowledge Hato Pētera College’s future forward planning? Not a single word. She will stand and she will talk about a private, profit-making institution funded by taxpayers’ money, laud it in this House, and pat the ACT Party on the head, but not give a single word of support for Hato Pētera College. All this school requires is for the Minister to support it in conversation with the Catholic Diocese of Auckland. The diocese was gifted that land for Māori education.

There are other problems with land gifted for Māori education that this Government should be addressing directly, and it should be releasing that information. If the Minister says that the Government is so transparent in education, then why is it so difficult for my colleague to gain any information around the sale of Māori land in the Wairarapa that was given for educational trusts?

Before I finish my time I want to raise two other issues. First of all, I want to congratulate the Northern Action Group on its success in its court ruling after it was summarily dismissed by the Local Government Commission in its attempts to have the northern part of Rodney removed from the super-city of Auckland.

I also want to put a shout out to Salisbury School, which is being strangled by this Government. Salisbury School is down to 9 students. They are the highest-need students, and this Government has decided to kill that school through silence—kill it through non-recommendation. This school is required for these students, and yet this Government will kill off this school within a year.

Dr KENNEDY GRAHAM (Green): In the first speech of today’s general debate, my colleague Russel Norman spoke of the need for a popular movement to bring climate change to the top of the international political agenda. I want to go from there to the theory of climate protection and to why there is such a need to make climate the policy issue of our time. It is 25 years since climate change was placed on the international political agenda. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s first assessment report of 1990 laid the scientific basis for concern, and 1992 was the watershed year, with the Framework Convention on Climate Change and the formal objective of climate stabilisation. We are still operating within that framework, even as we negotiate the global agreement for Paris in December. Yet it cannot be said that nations have made climate change their top priority—certainly not over the first two decades of this period, and not even today. There is a tendency to see it as agenda item 11b on Cabinet’s weekly agenda, to which we shall turn our attention after the tea break.

Equally significantly, we believe the problem will be solved through simply trying harder, rather than acting differently. The result is that for the first 20 years global climate policy was vulnerable to factual denial. In the past 5 years, extreme weather events have forced us all to accept climate change as a reality. At last, the international community is facing up to the inconvenient truth that after 10 millennia of existence human society is fundamentally altering the planet’s habitable zone. We have left the Holocene era, we have entered the Anthropocene era, and we are placing ourselves and other life forms at serious risk. But what remains contentious is whether the problem can be solved through a refinement of the existing world view and economic orthodoxy or whether, to quote a famous commentary, “This changes everything.” If the problem can be solved by Establishment thinking, the line goes, there is nothing to worry about, but if it requires a qualitative change in our thinking then we had better change immediately because Nature will not wait for us to catch up with reality. That is where the debate must be focused in the remaining months before Paris.

This dilemma surfaced recently during our discussions in Europe, with the Speaker’s tour over the past few weeks. Two world views were articulated, both by us as a visiting delegation and by our hosts. The Establishment view is that with global food demand expected to rise by 50 percent New Zealand has an obligation to feed five to 10 times its own population, and we must strive to maximise agricultural productivity. This takes on, amongst its advocates, a moral hue—a manifest destiny. It dignifies the commercial interest. This is buttressed by the argument that resulting emissions will be tamed by scientific progress. Yesterday’s news from Massey University that recent research portends big reductions in livestock methane is a case in point. This view, basically, sees food security as the global policy driver and sees sustainability as a subordinate constraint to be managed.

The alternative view reverses this order. It sees global sustainability—the nine planetary boundaries, of which climate change is one—as the global policy driver and food security as dependent on that sustainability. We shall not be feeding 10 billion people 40 years from now with a degraded planet and a raging climate. There will not even be 10 billion people. The latest news says that there is a 10 percent chance of the planet being 6 degrees hotter than normal. Our stated goal is to keep the increase to 2 degrees. A 6-degree increase is beyond catastrophe; it is essentially a death sentence. Avoiding that requires consensus among and within nations in the next few years—one that reconciles the tensions behind these two world views.

Let me say that I respect the world view that bequeathed so much prosperity to humankind over recent centuries, but I ask, in return, for respect for the alternative—the so-called alarmist world view that we must qualitatively change our approach now and develop new and far-reaching policy positions as a country, leading up to Paris. We need a cross-party consensus on this greatest of all human challenges.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for Building and Housing): Mr Speaker—

Mr SPEAKER: On this occasion, the Hon Dr Nick Smith can make his contribution to the general debate.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Can I, firstly, at least acknowledge that the Green Party wanted to talk about a serious issue in this general debate—the issue of climate change. It would have been good if the member had acknowledged the huge progress our Government has made in increasing the amount of renewable energy, where under the previous Government with the support of the Green Party it went down and under our Government it has consistently gone up, or acknowledged the huge work that has gone into the greenhouse gas research with results out yesterday showing very promising results around the capacity to be able to produce food without increased emissions. But this afternoon in this debate I really do have to express disappointment that when you have got issues around jobs, when you have got issues around housing, and when you have got issues around health and education, Labour Party members want to talk about ponytails. Does that not expose how disconnected they are from the issues that matter to New Zealand that they want to talk about such sideshows?

I actually know why, because if you look at the issues that matter—economic growth, New Zealand growing at 3.5 percent, cost of living going up at the slowest rate in 20 years, 80,000 new jobs in the last year, kids doing better than ever at school with the best ever National Certificate of Educational Achievement results, a health sector that is delivering more operations and better health care—I can see why we have an Opposition that wants to focus on sideshows. But let me talk—

Tracey Martin: Tell us what you think of that.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Well, let me just refer to New Zealand First. It was interesting to reflect on my last contribution in the general debate and I would like Tracey Martin to listen. I said this: “If Mr Peters succeeds in Northland, then—surprise, surprise—we will elect a new member of Parliament from Invercargill, Ria Bond.” And what is Tracey Martin recorded as saying in Hansard? She said that is a lie; that is untrue. So I say to Ria Bond, our new member of Parliament, that you got here on false pretences. New Zealand First told the people of Northland that she would not be coming to this Parliament, and I think that speaks volumes about the integrity of New Zealand First.

I want to talk about housing, because 3 years ago we were building 14,000 houses a year and some members may recall that the Labour Opposition members at the time said: “We have got this bold new plan. We are going to build 10,000 per year.” Although they conditioned it. They said: “We reckon if we went as fast as we possibly could we’d do 600 in the first year.” In the second year they said they thought they would do 3,000. In the third year, they said they would do 8,000. Well, let us compare the record. By getting the rules to work in the private sector we have actually achieved a lot more than what even Labour promised. Let me share the numbers with the House. In 2011, 13,000 houses were built. In 2012, 17,000 houses were built. In 2013 we had 21,000 houses built and the latest figures show nearly 25,000 houses being built per year and that is good news.

I have spent the last fortnight getting around public meetings with colleagues and talking to people about housing and about our new HomeStart scheme. The level of enthusiasm is incredibly encouraging not just from those young homeowners but also from the building sector, which is keen to use this new scheme to enable us to build more homes that are more affordable. This sums it up. We know that housing is an issue. The difference is that we are focused on actually delivering results: more houses and more support for New Zealanders to be able to pull together a deposit. Just as with education, just as with health, just as with jobs, and just as with infrastructure, this is a Government that is delivering on the issues that actually matter.

CLAYTON MITCHELL (NZ First): I would just like to acknowledge the fact that that was a very wind-filled delivery by the Hon Nick Smith. It was full of hot air, and I dare say that the honourable member would probably make a very good hand dryer. I would also like to take this opportunity to welcome on board our newest member, Ria Bond, who sits here beside us. What a fantastic person to have as part of our caucus. New Zealand First now makes up 10 percent of this debating chamber. We have 12 members in the House. New Zealand First continues to grow. It is the fastest growing political movement in the country at the moment.

I would also like to take away some of the filibustering that has been going on and acknowledge some of the comments that have been made in the House this afternoon, particularly in light of the ponytail pulling. Even Dr Nick Smith has mentioned it. Hekia Parata also mentioned it. I do not want to take too much time on it, but I have to say it is a little bit “vierd”—kind of weird like a Dutch accent—and I still have not got my head quite around why, and how, it got to where it is.

Hon Member: Very, very “vierd”.

CLAYTON MITCHELL: It is very “vierd”, yes. It is a little bit creepy as well.

I would also like to take the time to acknowledge the people of Nepal. Four years ago we were in a very similar situation and we had the world come to our aid. Some of those other countries made their way to the shores of New Zealand. Within 12 hours we had representatives from Australia with their urban search and rescue teams arriving here. We had the UK representatives arriving 48 hours later. They were on New Zealand’s shores helping New Zealanders get their lives back on track. We had people from Canada, the United States, Japan—everybody came together to help us out.

I do find it somewhat embarrassing that as a country, with the training that we have got, cannot get our act together. Just last month our urban search and rescue team got a distinction, an accreditation, for its skills in urban search and rescue. Yet we cannot get our act together as a Government to deploy immediately to Nepal, a country with which we have got a very good, strong-standing relationship that goes back 62 years to 1953, of course, when Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay summited Mount Everest. We have built this fantastic relationship up, and we cannot get our act together and get a team—some of the best urban search and rescue operators in the world—over there to lend a helping hand.

I said when I got into Parliament that I did not want to be in Opposition just throwing stones willy-nilly at the Government for argument’s sake. I would like to be able to say that I have not done that, and that this party has the decency to commend the Government when it does good things and to point out the flaws in areas where it is not getting it quite right. This is an area that seriously needs some attention. With the Minister not in the House today—[Interruption]. I beg your pardon?

Tim Macindoe: Tell us the things you like—you were happy to tell us.

CLAYTON MITCHELL: Oh, no—I have got some things I can tell you right now that we need to address. We have got some major issues, particularly with the protocols around sending off our search and rescue team overseas to provide aid. We need to change those protocols. What we should have done, in hindsight, was send off an early deployment team of five or six people, heading over to Malaysia and into Nepal, to do a ground survey. And I have to say, I would much rather be somebody asking for forgiveness for sending people early than be somebody asking for permission.

You, Mr Macindoe, would agree that if your house was burning down and you were not there to call 111, you would expect your neighbour to call the fire brigade regardless. You would not want for them to wait to say to you: “Yes, your house is burning down mate. Would you like to call the fire service?”. And if the fire service arrived and realised that it was not required to assist in any way, it could always turn round and go back.

That is what we should have done with supporting Nepal in its time of crisis, because that is what was done for us when we went through the same situation down in Christchurch 4 years ago. We need to take heed of these mistakes and change the protocols, the way we are operating, because we have got some of the best, most highly-decorated and distinguished operators in urban search and rescue standing around, waving their tongues in the breeze, waiting to be deployed.

What can we take from this? How can we make this situation better? We should be sending our search and rescue people there, and certainly be offering up our services in the urban and regional areas around Kathmandu that need—[Interruption] Miss Anne Tolley, you cannot tell me that sending help is search and rescue. What about clearing rubble, cleaning up, and helping? We had people coming over here promptly, but it took 72 hours—72 hours—for us to get ready to deploy. It is not good enough, and, whichever way you dress it up, this Government needs to look at itself. The Minister of Internal Affairs needs to be doing a better job to get better outcomes for this country.

Tim Macindoe: This is a very poor attack by an ill-informed member.

CLAYTON MITCHELL: It is an embarrassment, Mr Macindoe, and there is no other way of looking at it. We need to get on top of it.

Dr JIAN YANG (National): It really is a great privilege to be able to stand on this side of the House to talk about what we have achieved. But before I do that I would like to say how fortunate I feel to be able to live in New Zealand. Last Friday I attended the Anzac Day commemorations at Waitakere RSA. I was touched by the huge turnout. I laid a wreath on behalf of the Government. It is important that we honour the contribution of those brave men and women for the freedom, peace, and security that we enjoy today. As a new immigrant I am particularly grateful to those people, and it is important that we remember their contributions.

New Zealand is prospering. The National-led Government has achieved so much that we are now the envy of many OECD countries. In 2008, when the National Government came to power, it was forecast that unemployment would be over 10 percent. But the National-led Government has stopped that from happening, and unemployment has dropped from 7.3 percent to well below 6 percent and it will keep falling. New Zealanders have shown their confidence in this National-led Government. They are staying in New Zealand, and they are coming home—more and more people are coming home to New Zealand. These are the golden days for New Zealand. New Zealand is such a great place to raise a family. We have gone a long way to help our Kiwi families. For example, we have now increased parental leave, increased parental tax credits, and also we have free doctor visits for children under 13.

Education is a priority for most Kiwi families. It is also a priority for the National-led Government. We have invested heavily in education. As a former educator, I cannot overstate the importance of education. Education is a key to success, both individually and nationally. So what have we done? I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the Hon Hekia Parata for her great contribution to our education. She has worked tirelessly in trying to lift the standard of our education, which is now world class.

We deliver. We set targets and we meet targets. For example, we said that 98 percent of new school entrants should have participated in early childhood education by 2016. What have we achieved so far? By 2014, 96.1 percent of new school entrants have previously participated in early childhood education. That was 2,957 more kids engaged in learning since mid-2011. Here is another example. We said that 85 percent of 18-year-olds should achieve a National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) level 2 or equivalent qualification by 2017. And by 2013 almost 79 percent of 18-year-olds had achieved at least NCEA level 2.

So how did we achieve these? Firstly, we invested more. For instance, spending in early childhood education has nearly doubled from over $800 million in 2007-08 to $1.5 billion in 2013-14. Secondly, we worked with schools and parents, and we took the leadership. We introduced national standards in 2010 to identify children who are behind so that we can help them, and help their parents help them, and also help schools to focus on what they should do. Thirdly, we encouraged people to perform, and that is why we initiated the Investing in Educational Success programme. We want teachers to share their best practices across schools so that they are able to raise students’ achievement more effectively. We also encouraged principals with good skills to help other schools.

In summing up, basically, families are our focus. A family is the foundation of a society. By helping Kiwi families, we are consolidating our society. Thanks.

KRIS FAAFOI (Labour—Mana): As a young boy I used to watch a show called Hogan’s Heroes, and it is clear that the National Party today is using the Sergeant Schultz strategy. That is: “I see nothing.” They’re not talking about what everyone else has got on their minds—and that is ponytail-gate. How many times today have you heard from the opposite side of the Chamber that they are proud of being in the John Key - led Government? They seem to have not mentioned the John Key - led Government today. I wonder why not. I wonder why not. I want to take up the challenge of one of the National Ministers, Amy Adams. She talked about the robustness of the international media. Well, I want to read some of the headlines that have come out of the international media recently. This is the Washington Post. The headline reads: “New Zealand’s ponytail-pulling Prime Minister becomes national embarrassment”—national embarrassment to not just that party, but, unfortunately, to all of us. And then, in other august international media, the Guardian, out of the UK, put a list together titled “John Key: New Zealand Prime Minister’s weirdest moments (so far)”—so far. He has still got 2 years to go.

I was not surprised to see the Herald-DigiPoll result saying that the Prime Minister has not yet been affected by ponytail-gate. The National Party members say this is not an issue that matters, but deep down in their hearts they know it does, because National’s brand, its man, has been damaged. And it is not some big, gaping flesh wound. It is not going to bring him down next week. But National members know deep down inside it is going to hurt. I would call it more of a hairline fracture injury to the Government. The members know it hurts—they know it hurts—and when the pressure comes on, it is only going to get worse. It is like one of those injuries you get when you step out and you want to get out on the front foot and you go: “Ooh! There’s something wrong there.” Something is not quite right, and you know it is not going to get better. That is the kind of injury that this has inflicted upon the National Party. As I said, its brand is damaged. John Key used to be the millionaire—“Mr Millionaire”. He also used to be “Mr Banker”. He also used to be “Mr State House”. But now he is “Mr Puller”, “Mr Tugger”, “Mr Yanker”, and “Mr Jerker”. That is what our Prime Minister’s brand has become, and deep down inside, in the National Party’s strategy office, up on the 9th floor and out on Pipitea Street—and Chris Bishop—knows this, too. He knows that the man’s brand is damaged, and this is long-term damaging for them.

This hairline fracture is only going to get worse. Which one of them sitting on the other side is going to be the one who makes it worse? Is it going to be—no, it will not be the whip. Will it be Alfred Ngaro? I doubt it. But one of those guys over there is going to do something that makes this hairline fracture worse. It is a political reality that this matters. Let us read what Tim Watkin said about this in his blog. He said: “The repeated hair-pulling”—not just once, but I believe eight times of the waitress’ hair—“directly undermines the affable, goofy persona Key cultivates and gives it a creepy edge. Those who vote on likeability and trust—and there are many—have been given pause for thought.” They know that is why this is damaging. Their man, who is so liked, has all of a sudden created a massive amount of doubt in the New Zealand public. The guy who gets them through the John Key - led Government has all of a sudden put a huge chink in its armour.

Let us read what John Armstrong, the kaumātua of the press gallery, has to say about Mr Key: “…the worry for Key and National is that this unseemly episode is of such magnitude and as something that forces people to take a position could severely jolt positive perceptions of Key, especially among female voters who flocked to National after he became leader.” That is the reality for this party. That is the reality for National. Its affable every guy is now a complete joke in the eyes of the international media, and especially in places like RSAs, rugby clubs, and all the places that we like to go to for a beer. He is not Mr Nice Guy anymore; he is the butt of jokes. And when your brand starts going, you are in big trouble. When your strength becomes your weakness in politics you are in big trouble too. So somewhere someone is doing damage control for the National Party. As I said, it is a hairline fracture, and hairline fractures only get worse.

ANDREW BAYLY (National—Hunua): Yesterday I started to talk about how I have recently been taken to task in the National Business Review for asking the Minister of Finance a question about what this Government is doing for New Zealand families. Mr Hooton thought it was strange that someone with my financial background should be asking such a question. He was wrong and is wrong. Looking after our families is absolutely essential to New Zealand. Not only is it fair and just but it is also good business. As a society, we need to have an equitable society, and having strong families is a crucial part of that equation.

As I noted in my maiden speech, the biggest conundrum that New Zealand faces is how to continue to grow this economy in a way that everyone has the potential to benefit from it. That does not mean that everyone becomes a freeloader, but unless we continue to upskill New Zealanders and enable them to get meaningful, well-paid jobs, the chances of lifting our GDP on a per capita basis are limited. We can take no pride in the fact that there is a group that feels disenfranchised. The causes are many, and this is one of the issues that we need to face, and it is one that actually drew me into politics.

I think that putting the individual and the family at the centre of the issue, rather than focusing on Government processes, is a great way to go, and I commend it. I am proud of the initiatives that this Government has announced to strengthen our families and, at the heart of it, to deal with and help our children. Specifically, I am talking about the initiative to increase paid parental leave to 16 weeks, and, this time next year, to increase it to 18 weeks. There is also extending payments to caregivers, recognising that there are 12,000 children in New Zealand who are looked after by people other than biological parents, and increasing the paid parental tax credit from $150 to $220 per week. All of these initiatives give children the possibility of a better start in life by allowing parents to look after them for longer before they have to return to the workforce.

Every one of us wants the best for our children. This Government understands that. That is why we are focused on educational outcomes, health outcomes, and also housing and security outcomes. Starting with educational outcomes, since this Government came to office, we have doubled the investment in early education up to $1.5 billion, and the participation rate is now 96 percent. We have set ourselves a target of ensuring that 98 percent of all children, prior to going to primary school, are going to some form of early childhood education. Secondly, we are continuing to improve the school learning environment through great initiatives like Network for Learning, where we connected just over half of the 2,500 schools in this country with great digital access.

Thirdly, we are going to invest $1 billion in new schools. My own electorate has benefited from that. It has got a brand new school at Mission Heights, that fast-growing area beside Flat Bush. I have also got Ormiston Primary School. And I have got another school being built nearby as well.

We are also investing $350 million in the community of schools. That is a great way to get our teachers—to help them and equip them—to be able to get better educational outcomes by collaborating. In my own electorate I can already bear witness to some of the leaders, the principals, working together in a collaborative approach, and I commend them as well.

In terms of health outcomes, we all know that healthy children learn better, engage quicker, and get better results from schools. So I welcome the initiative to increase free access to education and GP visits for children under 13 from 1 July this year. Also, we are targeting 90 percent of all infants and toddlers to be fully immunised. They are two great initiatives to help our children.

But it does not stop there. The Government is also working on our housing initiatives. Every New Zealander knows that a family home is the foundation of a secure home and also the launch pad for children. Our $280 million Homestart loans package is an important ingredient in that.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.

Annual Review Debate

In Committee

Debate resumed from 28 April on the Appropriation (2013/14 Confirmation and Validation) Bill.

Infrastructure (continued)

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): The House is in Committee for the Appropriation (2013/14 Confirmation and Validation) Bill. The Committee is debating the question that the reports of committees relevant to services for infrastructure—Canterbury earthquake recovery, communications, energy, and transport—be noted. Many of the supplementary calls available for the debate have already been used by parties. National has five supplementary calls remaining. Labour has one. The Greens have one. New Zealand First has three. The Māori Party and ACT have one each.

BRETT HUDSON (National): This Government is aspirational for New Zealand because we have the absolute confidence in Kiwis and Kiwi businesses to compete and succeed when they have a Government behind them that is providing the framework to help them to be successful. And in this National-led Government, that is precisely what they have. Our Business Growth Agenda provides the framework for Kiwi businesses to succeed, to grow, and to employ more people.

Today I would like to talk about investing in infrastructure and what we are doing there to provide enablers for Kiwi businesses to succeed in their markets and to grow and employ more people. I would like to talk about our broadband initiatives: our Ultra-fast Broadband Initiative and our Rural Broadband Initiative. I sit on the Commerce Committee and we were very fortunate in the annual review process to hear from Crown Fibre Holdings. The information it shared with us was that in the 12 months to December 2014 end-users with access to ultra-fast broadband grew by 57 percent. The number of businesses passed by the ultra-fast broadband project has increased by 47 percent. Over 231,000 businesses and households have access to ultra-fast broadband. Over 2,200 schools, including 1,000 rural schools, have access to the capabilities that broadband can provide. Average quarterly orders have increased by 153 percent. That is about this Government investing in infrastructure that Kiwis and Kiwi businesses can use to be successful.

What does it really mean? I have heard Opposition members talk about struggles in the regions, falling employment, and economic woes. Well, this Government has just been getting on and putting things in place to lift prospects in our regions. So what does ultra-fast broadband mean? In South Canterbury, information and communications technology is now the third-largest sector and the fastest-growing sector in South Canterbury. In Timaru there is an example of an IT development company that prior to ultra-fast broadband employed one employee. It now employs over a dozen, because ultra-fast broadband gave it the reach and the capability to take its services and address a broader market. It is the regions that are benefiting, and not just in South Canterbury.

How about the productivity gains that we see in places like Whangarei? In Whangarei there is a software development company. Its network infrastructure was so poor that it used to have to ship all of its development out on CD-Roms; now it can deliver it via the internet, saving it and its clients valuable time and money. Or how about the case in the world of medicine?

Dr David Clark: It’s not working in Karitane. It’s not working in Warrington.

BRETT HUDSON: And that, Dr Clark, is the weakest interjection in 50 years. In the area of health, a medical practitioner, also in Whangarei, used to have to go with his patients to the base hospital to perform retina scans. He can now do that in his practice and send that data across the internet to the hospital, saving time and money and particularly saving inconvenience to his patients.

Or how about the panel beater on the North Shore? The panel beater who has reported a 15 percent improvement in productivity because he can now send videos and photos of damage and assessment directly to insurance assessors, saving incredible amounts of time and helping to get his clients back on the road sooner?

This is a Government that is investing in infrastructure that makes a real, positive difference to Kiwis and to their businesses. It is not just in the information superhighway that we are doing this; we are also doing it with highways. In my own electorate, in this region, we are finally seeing action on Transmission Gully, a 27 kilometre four-lane motorway between McKays in Kāpiti and Linden on the edge of my own electorate of Ōhāriu, a motorway that will see between 18,000 and 22,500 vehicle movements per day. It is an initiative that is unlocking productivity, helping us to move people and goods far more efficiently in our region.

This is a Government that is investing in the things that matter, the things that will make a real difference to Kiwis and to Kiwi businesses, helping to promote growth and an increase in employment. This is a Government that is working for New Zealand.

PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū): Nothing saps the legitimacy of a third-term Government more than the perception that it is governing in the interests of a certain section of society and ignoring another. And regional New Zealand over the last few years has formed a very strong view that this Government governs in the interests of Auckland and the big urban centres and neglects the rest. It is not just the centralisation of services and infrastructure. It is not just the loss of jobs and the cutbacks. Yesterday Air New Zealand abandoned Kaitāia, it abandoned Taupō, it abandoned Whakatāne, and it abandoned Westport, and not a word was said by the National Party MPs who represent those areas. The Minister in the chair, the Minister of Transport, hides behind the fact that it is supposedly a commercial decision of Air New Zealand. He does not have a thing to say about how those cutbacks will affect the economies in parts of regional New Zealand.

But nothing—nothing—demonstrates the cynical neglect of regional New Zealand by this Government better than its cutting and cutting and cutting of spending on local roads. Under this National Government, spending on new local roads has gone down from $180 million in the 2008-09 financial year to $162 million in the year 2013-14, an $18 million cut, a 10 percent cut, over the time that National has been in office. This Government has been running down a multibillion-dollar taxpayer-owned valuable asset—that is, our local road network around the country. Why is it doing that? It is doing it so it can pour billions of dollars into a handful of urban motorway projects, some of which will not even pay for themselves because the benefit-cost ratios are so low.

Last week I was in Invercargill. Everybody whom I spoke to raised with me the fact that Southland has been hit hard by successive cuts to the funding of local roads. Southland is not getting a fair go under this National Government. In the year 2009-10, funding by central government for local roads in Southland was $56 million. In 2013-14, under this National Government, that had been cut to $51 million, another 10 percent cut, $5 million sliced off the funding of local roads by this National Government. The effect of that on the ratepayers is that they are taking a hit. In Invercargill, that means an $810,000 cut by central government for local roads every year. For Southland District Council, $750,000 every year is cut from the spending on local roads. Gore has taken a hit and Clutha has taken a hit.

The reason this is such a serious issue in Invercargill and Southland is that Southland has the biggest network of local roads in the country, outside of the Auckland super-city, but it has only 14,000 ratepayers left to pick up the slack when the National Government turns out the light and cuts its funding off. What is the result? The result is that local roads in Southland are falling into disrepair. There are 100 dairy tankers a day on some of the roads in Southland, and the Minister in the chair will know that for every dairy tanker, that is the equivalent of 1,000 regular vehicle movements. So these roads in Southland, funded by the poor old Southland ratepayer, are clocking up the equivalent of 100,000 regular vehicle movements every day. I want to acknowledge the passing recently of Frana Cardno, the wonderful former Mayor of Southland District, who was a staunch advocate for her region and an outspoken critic of this National Government’s cynical neglect—cynical neglect—of regional New Zealand and the cutting of road funding.

Let us contrast Southland with the other end of the country, Northland, an area that the Minister in the chair knows a little bit about from his recent experience. Let us call him the maestro of National’s humiliating by-election loss in Northland. One bad poll and Simon “Bridges” Bridges went into a flat panic and splashed out $69 million of taxpayer funding on 10 nonsensical one-lane bridges in Northland.

Hon SIMON BRIDGES (Minister of Energy and Resources): I was hoping to give a relatively thoughtful, cerebral speech but then I heard some slippery comments from the member for Te Atatū, Phil Twyford, and I think they really do have to be countered. Firstly, we have this baseless claim that somehow in aviation the regions have been forgotten. Actually, in every single case where Air New Zealand has left, whether it is Whakatāne, whether it is Kaitāia, whether it is Westport, or whether it is Taupō, they have new and enhanced services, from little players—

Phil Twyford: Rubbish!

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: Mr Twyford may not like it, but they have new and enhanced players with more seats and, I think, in most of those cases, bigger planes or good planes. That may be something that Phil Twyford does not like, but, actually, that is what has happened, and I know because I have talked with the mayors and I have talked with the local players. They feel very confident, actually, about the situation that they are placed in.

We have had this discussion about roading cuts. Well, if you talk with the Greens all you ever hear is that that is all we do spend the money on. Actually, in a sense, neither has any truth to it. What is true is that in the latest Government policy statement we have increased funding in every single aspect of transport, whether that is local roads, whether that is State highways, whether that is cycling and walking, or whether that is improvements or maintenance, that is what we have done. In fact, we have spent an unprecedented amount on transport in this country—higher than OECD averages—

Phil Twyford: Not on local roads.

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: —and on local roads. I commend to the member an excellent speech, if I do say so myself, that I gave in a general debate a few weeks ago, where I ran through the figures region by region in local roading, and it made quite clear that in almost all of the areas we have increased funding in local roading. I say to the member to watch that speech. If the facts are wrong, come back to me in question time. Here is what I know—the member will not. The member says that, actually, it all adds up to a picture of the regions not being backed. Well, again, I refer the member to that speech. The facts do not lie. We have backed the regions and we have spent more in a number of areas.

What I want to say very briefly on this annual review process is that it is new and it is something of an innovation, and we are going thematic. I think that is excellent, actually, because it does allow us—Phil Twyford failed the test—to just stand back and be a little bit thematic across what is happening in infrastructure. In a sense, if we think about the hard infrastructure—energy and transport—what is not to like? This Government has invested $16 billion in the last 3 years. I would say it is unprecedented. The rebuilding of Canterbury is probably the biggest, if you want to say it this way, project—certainly undertaking—in the history of New Zealand infrastructure, which this Government is doing, and it is making a good job of it.

I want to say that I like what the chief executive of Auckland Airport said to me a little while ago. He does not think of his company, if you like, as an aviation company or a port company or an infrastructure company. He sees it as a travel, trade, and tourism business. I think that is a helpful way to think about these things, not in terms of the raw infrastructure—the crass way Phil Twyford likes to think about these things—but actually what it means for the end-users and how it enables the end-users. In that sense, yes, transport is roads, it is rail, and it is aviation, but it is also transport, it is travel, and it is enabling lifestyles. Yes, energy is transmission and lines and smart meters and all of these things that we have seen unprecedented take up of in New Zealand, when they have mucked up the way of doing it in other countries. But it is also fundamentally for the end-user, not the anoraks like Phil Twyford or the gentleman over there who is running for the leadership of the Green Party, who obsess about whether it is a bus, what kind of bus, or the colour of the seats. Actually, it is about enabling lifestyles and enabling people to get on with their day.

In energy it is not about the start line. It is about turning on the light, it is about powering your iPhone, and it is about doing good things, and we have done that well. Actually, infrastructure done well, like it has been done by this Government, enables New Zealanders to really get on and capture the benefits. Just to keep with that, there is significant—

Phil Twyford: Come and see about “Darby and Joan”.

Hon SIMON BRIDGES: We will come to that. There are significant things going on and significant technological innovations happening every day. That is why you have seen me talk quite a lot in this Chamber, publicly, about electric vehicles, autonomous vehicles, unmanned aerial vehicles, a number of smart meters, and the internet of things, because these things are happening. I think that New Zealand, with smart regulation and increasingly putting that in place, really can be at the front of all this, making a difference to New Zealanders’ lives.

The Green Party says, of course, that this is a Government that does not think about climate change. I hope, actually, we demonstrated today that that is not true. What is true across infrastructure, transport, and energy is that they do make up a significant part of our emissions. Of course, about half is from agriculture. The other half, broadly speaking, is from transport and energy. We think about those things. We are working through them, and technology can actually be a big part of the answer. We as a country have very significant advantages—generally, in infrastructure, and certainly in energy. I am really proud of the story that we have. We have got, I think, a very significant competitive and comparative advantage when it comes to energy, which is in renewables. I have just been at the World Geothermal Congress. It is remarkable, really, when you think about the story of geothermal. From pre-European times through to now we probably have the best story in the world, and that is set to continue. We are doing special things overseas with that.

Actually, energy as an export, and our expertise and experience as an exporter in this area, is something that I think we should be incredibly proud of as a country. We see Hawkins Construction at the moment with hundreds and millions of dollars of contracts that are primarily in Indonesia but they are looking at Kenya and so on. We have got an amazing story in renewables and we have got a renewable advantage that we should be extremely proud of. I have got to say to the member David Parker—he actually turned up in one or two of the slide shows at the World Geothermal Congress. Admittedly he was just cutting the ribbon; I am sure he had nothing to do with the projects, but he was there as well. We should be there. We should proud of that.

We should not forget though, like the Greens want us to, the non-renewable side of the equation. I know that David Parker did not make that mistake, actually, in Government, even though Opposition members now sometimes like to forget. We should actually push on, in oil and gas. We should continue what we are doing there because as the world does transition to a lower carbon future that will be an important part of the mix. The Greens make the, I think, fatal mistake of thinking that all fossil fuels are created the same. They are not, actually. Gas and oil have a significant role to play over the time to come.

In regard to transport, I have already dealt with a number of the, I think, very wrong-headed complaints of Phil Twyford, who, frankly speaking, is just playing politics. We will be focused in this term of Government on results and driving those from the New Zealand Transport Agency in terms of the roads of national significance, the regional roading package, and the cycleway, which will deliver a real step change in urban cycleways right around New Zealand. We will be focused on Auckland, where there are significant transport issues, and significantly engaging with Auckland on their issues for the long term. We will be re-emphasising, actually, that we do have a proud record and that there is more that we can do in public transport and in the alternative modes of transport. We spent $1.7 billion on metropolitan rail in Auckland and about half a billion in the greater Wellington area. We will continue that strong story, as I say, in other areas as well.

We will push on in technology, because, as I say, we can capture those benefits, really, for the advantage of New Zealand. I think there is an economic advantage to us in doing so, if we do become a leader in some of these areas—unmanned aerial vehicles, potentially electric vehicles, and autonomous vehicles. We have been a test bed in these areas before and we can be again. We will also make clear and continue to re-emphasise that transport and energy and infrastructure can be very strong enablers of economic growth and of productivity. That is why we will continue to focus on aviation, the good record in the regions, the air services internationally, where we have seen the number skyrocket under this Government, which means more tourists to New Zealand and more of our goods overseas, on our ports strategies, and on opening New Zealand up to markets regionally and right around the world.

We have a very strong cross-infrastructural story to tell as a Government. We are going to continue pressing on with that and getting results. I am sorry that you as a Committee had to put up with Phil Twyford’s appalling speech. This Government knows what it is doing.

DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First): The dust has not yet settled on the Canterbury earthquakes recovery process and there is a long way to go as far as infrastructure and homes are concerned. What is needed now is a shake-up, but a shake-up of the political kind, not, of course, of the physical kind—we have had enough of those. Some of the fixes are obvious and one of those is to fix the position concerning the Quake Outcasts group. Those people were inexplicably offered 50 percent of the 2007 valuation of their bare land or self-insured homes. They have spent years going through the courts and appeals and they have won every one of them. The Supreme Court has finally confirmed that the insurance status of those properties cannot be taken into account by the Government in deciding on an offer. They must surely now get the same 100 percent of the 2007 value that other red zone homeowners got, but the Government wants to delay the situation even more with a consultation process that is utterly futile and meaningless. The Minister now needs to accept that Government policy on this was wrong and give full compensation immediately without any further delay.

The Government should also direct the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority to take another look at the priorities for the rebuild generally. For example, spending hundreds of millions of dollars on showpiece projects when the Christchurch City Council cannot meet the massive costs of its infrastructure repair programme, needs review right now. Otherwise, huge rate increases can be expected by Christchurch City ratepayers and the council will be forced to sell strategic assets that provide an excellent return for the council and that the people in Christchurch do not want to be sold. The council would also have to borrow—borrow too close to potential limits. So that whole area needs a good review. When Lancaster Park is repairable at a fraction of the cost of a new stadium, that sports stadium is a prime example of why such a review is needed. The need is for spending on the basic infrastructure, especially in the east of the city and elsewhere. That is the top priority. So much still needs to be done there and it is taking far, far too long.

The Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority - led rebuild of the central business district has also stalled. We see some new buildings going up, but they tend to go up outside the central business district zone so that they can avoid having to deal with the authority’s bureaucracy and some of the silly decisions it has made, too. Those plans and processes need serious review as well. Some of the silliest proposals need urgent reversal, such as the plan to destroy Victoria Square, which is not broken and which people want retained as it is.

I turn to transport infrastructure. This Government and its agencies seem determined to run down the country’s railway system instead of doing what it should do to invest much more in it. Just a few minutes ago, the Minister Simon Bridges talked about how much was being invested, but, actually, that is a tiny fraction of the amount that needs to be invested over the next decade or so in New Zealand. The roading system, of course, does also need continuing investment, but there is a need for a strategy to better integrate transport systems to make better use of the railways, in particular. We know that there are plans to de-electrify parts of the North Island electric rail system in favour of inefficient imported diesel locomotives. That is utterly ridiculous. When we have already got an efficient electrified system, we could make electric locomotives in New Zealand, and yet, what are we doing? We are going entirely in the wrong direction under this Government. Within 10 years the amount of freight that must be moved around New Zealand is going to at least double—just think about that for a moment.

What we really need is a strategic funding model, with more emphasis on long-term strategic planning and the integration of transport systems—all of the transport systems, not just Auckland motorways. There are many rail routes needing improvement so that they can compete effectively for freight, such as, for example, Auckland, Whangarei, Ōpua, Wellington, and Gisborne. Northland also needs a good rail connection to Whangarei’s deep water harbour. That is a harbour that does not require dredging and where there is plenty of land for expansion, unlike Auckland, which has problems that are virtually insurmountable in the long term. I see today in the newspapers that half of Aucklanders do not want to see the port in Auckland expanded. So let us look at the port at Whangarei and let us get a good railway system between Whangarei and the rest of the country. That is something that needs to be looked at with great urgency.

There needs to be a rolling electrification programme for railways throughout New Zealand. That is necessary not just because of the increasing cost of fossil fuels and the fact that we need to do that for climate change and emissions purposes but also because, actually, it is the most effective and efficient system of moving heavy freight within the country, and New Zealand is made for it. A long, narrow country should be ideal for an efficient railway system. For example, we could start with electrification from Papakura to Pukekohe and also extend electrification north from Waikanae and from Upper Hutt to Masterton, amongst a lot of other very good opportunities that there are.

There is so much that we should be doing in transport that we did not hear from the Minister in his recent speeches that, really, it is a huge disappointment. Railways, in particular, need much more attention, but so do the Cook Strait ferries, for example. There is not enough investment in them. So we do need a more strategic approach, and that is what New Zealand First wants to see. We do also need to see much more progress, and much more intelligent progress, in the infrastructure in Christchurch as a result of those earthquakes. New Zealand First wants to see the Government take a more considered and strategic approach and to actually get things done, and it is not doing that so far.

ALASTAIR SCOTT (National—Wairarapa): Thank you for the opportunity to take a short call on the infrastructure services theme. Specifically, I am going to talk about connections—connectivity—and that specifically relates to the internet. And then, if I have some time, I will talk about roaming. Some facts: ultra-fast broadband is now in 2,200 schools, including 1,000 rural schools. Most of the schools in my rural electorate are connected. Over 231,000 households have access to rural broadband—and I say “rural” rather than ultra-fast broadband—but there is more to do. So we are planning to raise the percentage so that more than 75 percent of Kiwis—stepping up to 80 percent—have access to ultra-fast broadband. We are also aiming, by June next year, to connect rural Integrated Family Health Centres.

So what does that mean? What does that really mean for the people in my electorate? Well, when we get internet ultra-fast broadband in, say, Carterton or Dannevirke, it will not be for the work that people can come to those places to do. It is not going to be about creating work driving trucks or work in retail. People will be going there to export services. It will be about what work can be done from that town. So it is quite a different approach. For example, just recently, I was at Dannevirke High School judging an entrepreneurial competition amongst year 13s. There were about a dozen entrepreneurial teams, and more than half of them invented or created products that one could not touch—they were all internet-based. They were all out to service the world from Dannevirke. There are guys in Dannevirke who have Chinese customers—an accounting firm has Chinese customers and customers on the west coast of America. That is possible only because of their access to the internet.

Minister Adams has initiated the bid to raise the percentage of uptake from 75 to 80 percent, and I am pleased to say that all five of my councils are participating in that process. They know that the internet will make a difference to the people in their communities. Because it is all about productivity, is it not? This internet—this connection—was not even around 10 years ago. If we think about the world, it is now a much smaller place, not just because of the internet but because of travel. Travel has become cheaper. Just think, about 25 years ago, when I jumped on a plane to go overseas, goodness me, the price of that airfare has not changed a hell of a lot. Communications have become cheaper. You could not make a toll call from London to New Zealand—it was just too expensive—but now we can text instantly.

Communications have become cheaper, faster, and more efficient, enabling us to conduct business on one of these phones. These phones were not even around 10 years ago. These are the enablers of the future. These things will increase productivity and free up people to be more creative and to provide income and wealth for themselves and their families. These smartphones, and technologies like them, are the steam engine of centuries ago, when manual labour was automated and weaving became a mundane process and became automated because of steam engines. This is what we are going to see, and we will continue to see, simply because of the access to market driven by the internet.

We will be able to conduct our business from anywhere in my electorate. Martinborough, Carterton, and Masterton are very commutable to Wellington. Fast speeds enable architects and movie directors—and they do—to live in the Wairarapa, to spend a couple of days at home, and then to see their customers in Wellington a couple of days later. This is the way we are going to develop our rural electorates and towns. This enables the private sector to get on and create products that are able to be sold to the Chinese or the Koreans, and accentuate, promote, and support the free-trade agreements we have with those countries.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): I am just checking that the Green Party is choosing not to take its call on this. OK.

Reports noted.

Justice

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): The question now is that the reports of committees relevant to justice—corrections, courts, Crown legal and drafting services, justice, police, and serious fraud—be noted. In calling members for this debate, can I just ask people to at some time make a reference to the period of expenditure under review or one of the select committee reports, just to make the speeches relevant to the year before last.

KANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI (Chairperson of the Law and Order Committee): First of all, I would like to take this opportunity to offer my condolences to the people of Nepal, India, and Tibet, where the earthquake happened. I see that the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr Murray McCully, has just announced another $1 million of aid to Nepal, bringing it to $2 million of contributions from New Zealand. So that is what I wanted to start with.

Thanks, Mr Chair, for the opportunity to talk about the justice system in New Zealand. As you said, the reference should be to the last year. I will try to deal with this and try to comment on the things that we have achieved in the last year.

It has been a clear policy of National to have better public services—

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! Sorry, one thing that the member has to do at the beginning of his speech—I let him go on because he was making comments about Nepal—is move that the report be noted.

KANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI: I move that the reports be noted. As I was saying, National has concentrated on delivering better public services in the past few years. We have built up a strong economy and safer communities, and we are proud of that. That is the reason why we are in Government. Everyone wants to have a place of work that is safe, and they also want to reside where there is no crime. People are feeling safe under the National-led Government. When I go out and talk to people, they really appreciate what we have done. They are very comfortable with the economic conditions, plus they feel safe at their workplaces as well as in their homes.

The issue relating to the needs of victims and their families has been in the forefront of the mind. Labour promised on a number of occasions that a victim compensation scheme would be delivered, but nothing happened. I would like to bring to the notice of this Committee and the people of New Zealand that National has delivered that. We gave support to more than 6,000 victims from the offender levy. Another thing that I would like to share with this Committee is that we have passed a law to improve the coordination and delivery of victim support services, where, by giving their victim impact statement, victims can express how the criminal action has or had affected their families and their future.

The third thing that I would like to bring to the notice of the Committee is protection for victims by reducing the likelihood of offenders of serious violent and sexual offences coming into contact with them. Legislation bringing in tougher penalties for those who breach protection orders and increasing the term from 2 years to 3 years in jail was passed last year. We have plans to reduce reoffending and modernise our justice system.

National has adopted a number of initiatives to move communities away from the crimes. Audiovisual links are one of the examples where courts and prisons are connected. These give an opportunity for the offenders to appear in court through these links—another example of modernising the justice system.

I would like to acknowledge the Minister of Justice, the Hon Amy Adams, the Minister of Police, the Hon Michael Woodhouse, and the Minister of Corrections, the Hon Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga, for their work and commitment to improve our law and order situation in New Zealand. Our better policing has helped the country to achieve the lowest crime rate since 1978. Also, our approach to addressing the issues involving family violence is well taken care of. This approach has helped—

JACINDA ARDERN (Labour): It is my pleasure to rise to speak to elements of the appropriations that relate to the justice sector. I want to start though by just making a general statement about the Government’s aspirations generally when it comes to the appropriations and its Budgets generally. We have heard repeatedly from this Government that its goal is to reach surplus in the upcoming Budget. We have heard it repeatedly. Only recently has the goal of reaching surplus been removed. I do not think it is fair, though, for the Government—having said that that was its priority, having said that that was its promise—to now claim that it was an artificial target and to back away from it altogether. The public place their trust in the Governments they elect. Governments do not get to walk away from promises that they make in such loose terms, simply because it is a target that they could not reach. They must take responsibility for when they fail, as often as they take responsibility when they succeed.

In that regard I want to speak to some of the massive failings that we have seen in the justice system. Clearly, in the past few Budgets the appropriations for the police have been blatantly inadequate. I know that our police spokesperson will speak to this, but you cannot run a well-functioning justice system with early intervention and prevention as a priority, and at the same time cut $40 million from the police budget. We are seeing stations close. We are seeing police who are no longer able to employ the same level of support staff. We are seeing police no longer attending callouts. Mr Bakshi is listening to this because he knows that members from his community have been raising this with Labour frequently. I know they will have been raising it with him.

Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi: That’s not true.

JACINDA ARDERN: It is not true—so the communities are safer, are you saying, Mr Bakshi?

Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi: Yes, they are. They are much safer.

JACINDA ARDERN: Well, I will send some of those individuals back to see you, if you are making that claim. That could not be further from the truth. Crime reporting is dependent on people raising with the police when they have been the victim of a crime. If the police do not attend it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. The Minister said, when I raised it in the select committee, that it was a very 1990s view. It is not a 1990s view; it is a reality today. At the same time, it is an indictment. This Government’s main target when it comes to justice is to reduce reoffending. What about reducing offending? What about reducing the incarceration rate in this country? Because as much as that Government claims that crime is coming down, incarceration rates certainly are not. In fact, the Government is in the middle of opening its mega private prison at Wiri. You can bet your bottom dollar that we are contracted to keep that place full. Who benefits from that? Nobody but a foreign company under the banner of Serco. That is an indictment on this country, as is our access to justice issues generally. Big cases like, for instance, the Teina Pora case, which the Minister of Justice claimed demonstrated that our justice system works, are in fact the exact opposite. Real justice is timely justice, and the delay in that case was not timely justice.

What we should be considering as a Parliament is having an independent criminal case review commission and it is something that we as the Labour Party will continue to champion, as we will continue to champion the issue that was raised in the select committee the last time we had the ability to review the Ministry of Justice, and that was legal aid thresholds. It is a bureaucratic roundabout, when 10,000 people are granted legal aid write-offs because they cannot afford to repay their legal aid debt. That is an indication to the Minister that something must change, and that is what we are pushing for.

I want to finish with a final plea. Protection orders in this country should be free. They are not. A woman who is in a violent relationship, who may have equity in a home that the perpetrator of that violence shares the equity in, cannot access a free protection order. That is wrong. I call on the Minister, in her address to this Committee, to acknowledge that issue and to acknowledge that she is going to do something about it. If we can afford nothing else in this country, we should be able to afford protection for victims of family and domestic violence.

Hon AMY ADAMS (Minister of Justice): Thank you for the opportunity to take a call in this section of the Appropriation (2013/14 Confirmation and Validation) Bill debate, looking at the broad issue of justice. In one sense that really does indicate where I want to start. Since I have been the Minister of Justice one thing that has become incredibly clear is that you cannot look at issues like justice through the lens of individual portfolios. What my colleagues and I have been very focused on is the need to ensure that when we think about justice and justice issues they do not stop just with justice, police, and corrections, but really do extend right across the social services. The issues that you see in the justice sector, of crime and victimisation and the terrible harm that they cause, are really manifestations, more often than not, of much wider and deeper social issues that are addressed primarily through interventions in health, education, and welfare. Along with my colleagues we are working very much in a joined-up way to address those issues.

What you have seen from this National-led Government is a considerable focus on having fewer victims in our system. When I am looking at policy issues and the spending on our appropriations, the touchstone for me is always whether this will create fewer victims. Will this reduce the harm that is suffered in our society? What we know is that over recent years—and I take no personal credit for it; I have recently come into the portfolio—the success has not only been in bringing down the overall crime rate, which as I mentioned this afternoon is at its lowest since 1978. There have been significant drops in the youth crime rate—a 38 percent drop since 2001—and drops in the violent offending rate and the reoffending rate. Those last two I would like to see more movement in, but it is certainly very pleasing that those rates have dropped.

One of the areas where I think we have to recognise that there is not enough movement by any stretch is family violence. The speaker who resumed her seat just before me, Jacinda Ardern, certainly addressed this in the last part of her comments. Family violence is an absolute scourge on our society. It is an appalling statistic and an appalling state, and the prevalence of it is a national shame. When I speak on this topic I never fail to let the audience know that every 6 minutes we have a notification to the police of family violence. Those are just the issues that are being reported. We have taken a number of steps already as a Government, and there are more to come, to try to address this issue. But it is not simply an issue that you can fix by regulation or spending money in the right way. It really does require a quite different approach from society. We have to change the level of tolerance or acceptance or expectation that I think exists in society.

Some of the things that I did want to highlight are the efforts that we have put into police safety orders, so that safety orders can be put in place on the spot. We have increased the penalties already for the breach of protection orders, but I do acknowledge there is more work to do in the space of protection orders. I think that is a system that we can look for better outcomes from, and shortly I will be launching a document looking at the review of the Domestic Violence Act, so that we can engage in that. We have put in place victim safety orders against violent offenders. We have tightened the sentencing, parole, and bail laws for those who offend against the most vulnerable in our system. Just recently, of course, we passed the Objectionable Publications and Indecency Legislation Bill, to make sure that those who offend against the most vulnerable in our society, children, and those who seek to exploit them online, receive much more significant punitive sentences than would otherwise have been the case. This House will soon continue its consideration of the Harmful Digital Communications Bill to again try to protect children and young people particularly, but actually all of our communities, from harmful digital communications.

I come back to domestic violence specifically. There are two other initiatives in terms of the appropriations that I did want particularly to highlight because I think they are incredibly successful. The first of those is moving from the pilot programme for the National Home Safety Service to a nationwide programme. This has been one of the most successful pilots I have ever seen certainly in my time in politics, but actually more widely than that. Before the pilot programme, 85 percent of, I will say women, but it is victims—sometimes it is men—in this category reported having to move home to feel safe from their partner. After the pilot, none of them had had to move. So before the pilot 85 percent had had to be moved out of their homes to be safe, to none after the pilot. Before the pilot, 73 percent of those with children had had their children hurt by the offender. After the pilot, no children had been hurt. Before the pilot, 40 percent of victims reported having suffered serious injuries from their offender, and after the pilot, again, there were no reports of any serious injuries. We accept that pilots are not guarantees of future success, but those early indications are tremendously encouraging and so we are very excited to roll that out nationwide.

MAHESH BINDRA (NZ First): This Government has built a brand new prison in South Auckland, spending $350 million of public money, when there was no need for a prison. We had 1,861 spare beds in our prison system, as at 31 October 2014, and that includes those that were made available as emergency accommodation. That $350 million could have been used to fund or upgrade schools or hospitals. But now this Government’s priority is towards building a brand new prison that is not required—not educating Kiwi kids or providing better health-care services. This is not even close to common sense.

The South Auckland prison was built with a view to be handed over later to a corporate to run, so that the corporate—principally, Serco, which is known to carry out shonky financial deals in the UK—could improve its bottom line. Prisons for profits: this, in spite of the fact that the rehabilitative programmes provided by that company are in no way comparable with the ones provided by the public prison service. The public do not get any value for money. The staff do not get the benefits. The prisoners do not get the benefits. The only one to see any benefit is the company called Serco.

Staff and prison safety: the Minister of Corrections admitted that private companies are not required to maintain the prisoner to staff ratio that is required in public prisons. This has had a detrimental effect on the safety of both staff and prisoners, as evidenced at Mt Eden prison. There have been some serious assaults on staff at the Serco-run Mt Eden Corrections Facility, and the Minister is aware of those. The number of prisoner assaults on staff and on other prisoners is relatively high in that prison, and the reason for that is that there are fewer staff to manage violent incidents in that prison—that is, when the prisoners are unlocked, there are fewer staff to manage those units, which results in prisoners getting violent and staff getting hurt. This has had a demoralising effect on staff, and there has been a high staff turnover in that prison. New Zealanders do not feel safe working in privately run prisons.

The next thing this Government does is close down units in publicly run prisons in order to fill the privately run prisons, because that is what the contract says. We see no wisdom in this. In fact, it is pure folly. This is the only way that the Government can justify the building of a new prison—shut the ones that we already have and move the prisoners into the new one at Wiri. It might seem like sense to this Government, but to New Zealanders, it makes no sense at all. This move is likely to render around 260 staff jobless—this, from a Government that prides itself on creating jobs. It makes no sense at all. Our thoughts are with those staff and their families who will be affected by this new prison, and with the communities that face an uncertain future. Thank you.

DAVID CLENDON (Green): Reading the reports of the Ministry of Justice, one could be forgiven for thinking all was well. Certainly, the ministry has not been idle. Nor has the Minister of Justice over the previous financial year. There has been legislative change. There have been new programmes implemented—a lot of change, a lot of restructuring. What is not so apparent—and one has to dig a little deeper to discover—is that, actually, we have a very serious problem in New Zealand emerging in terms of people’s access to the justice sector and particularly to the courts.

Largely, one of the major barriers to access to justice is a financial barrier. That is becoming a very serious problem. The former Chief High Court Judge, Justice Helen Winkelmann, commented on this last year in the Ethel Benjamin Address, when she talked about the justice gap that is emerging and indeed widening in New Zealand. She pointed to one of the primary symptoms of that, which is a dramatic increase in the number of people self-representing to the courts—so-called self-litigants. People are endeavouring to navigate their way through the court system unaided by professional legal assistance. The ministry has only recently started to record the numbers of people self-litigating, but it is evident anecdotally and from informed members of the judiciary and of the legal profession that the numbers are increasing dramatically. In the Wellington High Court last year some 20 percent of active appeals involved self-represented litigants. In the Auckland High Court the figure was around 30 percent. Something like 50 percent of applications for leave to appeal in civil cases in the Supreme Court last year were from people intending to endeavour to represent themselves. That is a symptom of something seriously wrong in our justice system.

We live in a liberal, democratic country. The people of this country expect to have access to the courts to resolve their differences, to defend their rights, or to assert their rights—whatever it might be. We are fast reaching a position where New Zealanders will be able to rely on one thing, and that is that they can get the best justice that they can afford. That is not a situation we want. The cost of a simple, straightforward 1-day hearing in the High Court is approaching $7,000 simply for filing fees, scheduling, the cost of the hearing, and the sealing of the judgment. It is almost $7,000 before anybody gets anywhere near a lawyer. That is beyond the ability of most people to pay. Certainly the registrars can choose to waive, and on occasion they do, but nevertheless the barriers are mounting. The financial barriers are becoming serious.

We have a legal aid funding system. Of course we do. As a member has previously commented, the financial threshold for eligibility is set extraordinarily low—ridiculously low, in fact. For a single person, it is a gross annual income of $22,000 or less before one can apply for legal aid. That is significantly below the minimum wage for a person working full time. For an applicant with a partner or one child, it is $35,000. Again, that is a very low income by our current standards. Justice Winkelmann has commented on that and pointed out that that is simply inadequate to allow legal practitioners to do any useful work for their clients. In the event that a person is successful in getting legal aid, they may be obliged to repay that money. If they are so obliged, they have 6 months to pay it back or 8 percent interest is applied to that money, getting people further into a financial hole if they have not had the money to come up with that.

The dean of law at the University of Canterbury, Dr Chris Gallavin, wrote recently: “The deficit between eligibility for Legal Aid and the reality of paying for legal presentation oneself is large and likely places a significant number of ‘middle class’ in an intolerable situation.” It has been noted that a large number of lawyers and legal firms are simply withdrawing from legal aid, because with the best will in the world they simply cannot afford to devote hours to that work given the cost, the legal obligations placed on them, and the associated cost of running a legal practice. They simply cannot afford to participate in legal aid work to the extent that they might wish to and that, indeed, we require. Some of the slack, as we know, has been taken up—

KELVIN DAVIS (Labour—Te Tai Tokerau): It was refreshing to hear Minister Adams speaking earlier about the emphasis that the Government is placing on domestic violence. The Labour Party agrees entirely with the importance of this issue. Our law and order caucus committee has written to the Minister asking that we participate in an apolitical way to address this issue. We look forward to the Minister taking us up on the offer to sit down and work out solutions around this issue.

It is not just domestic violence that is an issue. Sexual violence is an issue, and only 5 percent of crimes are recorded. We need to do more to make sure that people have the strength and the courage to speak out. We need to make sure that we create the conditions where people feel that when they do speak out they will be heard and listened to and their issues will be dealt with. We need to make sure that people will speak out, regardless of whether they are survivors of sexual violence, whether they are observers of sexual violence, or whether, in fact, they are perpetrators of sexual violence. Would it not be great if we could create the conditions where perpetrators spoke out about their problem before they actually created any victims? To take a line from the Madden Brothers’ song, we all need to be “done with being a silent many”. We all need to learn to speak out and not put up with sexual violence in any way, shape, or form.

I would just like to touch on a number of issues around the Department of Corrections, and, if I have time, I will get on to some police issues. Issue No. 1 around the Department of Corrections was the absconding of Phillip John Smith from his prison cell, basically from a Release to Work programme, over to South America. He was able, from the comfort of his prison cell, to apply for a passport under an alias and then abscond, go through Auckland Airport, get on a plane, and have a bit of a jaunt over to South America.

The issue there was that the department and the New Zealand Customs Service did not actually share information around the fact that many people in prisons go under aliases, and so he was able to use an alias that he had been known under at another time to get his passport and then to abscond. It is about Government agencies, ministries, and departments working together and sharing information. I hope that the Minister of Corrections, Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga, has fixed that issue up.

Then we also have the issue around New Zealand prisoners in Australian prisons who are paroled and then deported back here. The issue raised its head earlier this year when a woman who participated in a murder in Australia some years ago was deported back to Kaikohe.

At the time, when I was approached by media, I said: “Look, it’s obviously a loophole that has been found and needs to be addressed, but my concern isn’t so much for this woman, who I don’t think poses a problem to the Kaikohe community. But what happens when a sexual offender is released on parole in an Australian prison and he’s sent back here and we aren’t able to track or trace him?”. What if we do not know whether that person is living next to a school, or an early childhood centre, or a kōhanga reo, or a park where children may be playing? He could be a sports coach or a Scoutmaster. The Government needs to make sure that we treat those paroled prisoners from Australia as if they were paroled from New Zealand prisons.

Speaking of prisons, there have been three recent partial closures of prisons—at Rimutaka, at Waikeria, and at Rangipō. The member from New Zealand First Mahesh Bindra is correct in saying that 260 jobs have been lost. I know that the Government will say that those corrections officers may be able to go to the new prison at Wiri. Again, it will be really difficult, I think, to sell your house in Tūrangi for probably $120,000 or $130,000 and shift up to Auckland, where the average house price is $750,000. I think if you are a 55-year-old corrections officer you would not really want to remortgage to that extent. So it makes it really difficult. But the reality is that the prison at Wiri is a private prison. It cost $900 million to build. The member from New Zealand First gave a different figure—I was told it was $900 million. It was built at the height of the recession. Serco, the company that is running the prison, has had the Government—

Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA (Minister of Corrections): It is an honour to stand and take a call in this annual review debate. I want to take a call in the area of corrections. As the Minister of Corrections I think it is appropriate to talk about a department that has $1.2 billion worth of services that are provided, firstly, to protect the public. It is important that the Department of Corrections protects and secures the public from certain criminal elements that have broken the law.

Secondly, prisons should be a place of rehabilitation so that when prisoners return to civil society they are able to reintegrate and go back to become contributors to our wonderful society that we have here in New Zealand. Of course, it has a certain punitive element whereby prisoners are denied their freedoms and liberties. On any given day there are over 8,700 prisoners and we have over 30,000 offenders in the community who may be subject to release conditions, probation, and other such conditions upon release from our prisons.

In 2011 this Government, the National Government, committed to a Better Public Services target of reducing reoffending by 25 percent by the year 2017. Those targets are important, as I said last night when I spoke about the health portfolio, because it is about accountability, it is about outcomes, and it is about the prudent and efficient use of taxpayers’ funds. So we set that target in order for us to better rehabilitate people and in order for us to get to a point in our society where we have a prison system that we can be proud of and that is one of the best prison systems in the world. So how do we do that? Well, I will talk about three things: firstly, I will talk about working prisons; secondly, I will talk about the role of education, training, and opportunities that are available to inmates; and, thirdly, I will talk about alcohol and drug treatments for prisoners that are available in order for them to go back into society and make a meaningful contribution to our society.

Firstly, on working prisons, we know that the best way out of poverty, the best way out of welfare, and the best way to contribute to your family and to look after your families and your communities is to be in work. We know that outside the wire—outside of prison—and we also know that for people who are in prison. We are working towards a target in 2017 where every prison in New Zealand will be a working prison, where each prisoner will have the opportunity to have a work routine of 40 hours per week. In 2014, the financial year that is under review here in the Committee today, three working prisons were delivered, with about 650 prisoners subject to or having full working rights within those prisons. We have four more on track this year in Northland, in the Hawke’s Bay, at Spring Hill Corrections Facility, and in Otago. In 2013-14 we had 806 prisoners who participated in the Release to Work programme because we know that prisoners can contribute to society when they are work-ready, when they have opportunities to work on the outside, and when they are educated and trained.

Secondly, it is about education because we know that education unlocks opportunities where, again, those who are released from prison are better able to contribute to society. One of the sad facts that is present within the prison system is that two-thirds of prisoners are basically illiterate. They are illiterate. So we have put a great amount of resources into numeracy and literacy programmes inside prisons, where last year there was a 206 percent increase in the number of level 2 and level 3 National Certificate of Educational Achievement qualifications that were available to our prisoners—a 206 percent increase. That is important because without basic literacy, we know that they are not able to contribute.

Finally, we come to alcohol and drug treatments. We know that the programmes we have run have made a huge difference to our prison system. Thank you.

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (Minister of Police): It is my pleasure to follow my colleague Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga and to talk on the justice group of portfolios. I want to commence by acknowledging the member for Te Tai Tokerau, Kelvin Davis, and in his intervention, his advocacy for victims—and for perpetrators, actually—of adult sexual assault. In his intervention, he referred to a statistic that is quite alarming—the fact that only 5 percent of victims speak up about that.

I was in the Counties Manukau area last week visiting not only the police station but also the Manukau multi-agency centre. It is a very good area and a very good centre, which is the joint collaboration between New Zealand Police, the Counties Manukau District Health Board, and Child, Youth and Family. I was extremely impressed with the approach to family violence and to child and adult sexual abuse cases that are reported in that district. It is a concerningly high number, but I think the model they have and the multi-agency approach that they take to that very important issue is an excellent initiative, and I applaud everybody who is working in that very challenging area.

Of course, we have recently had both the Independent Police Conduct Authority report and the findings of Operation Clover into the Roast Busters case, and I know that police are very committed to joining the dots that failed to be joined in respect of that case. I am pleased—and relieved, actually—that the authority’s findings were that this was not a systemic issue and that police are working extremely well on improving victim empathy and their commitment to the resolution of those complaints.

It is a very interesting environment in which police have been operating. Naturally, they are straitened times. But through the Policing Excellence programme that they have initiated, their challenging targets have not only been achieved but also been considerably exceeded. In the 2013-14 year a 13 percent reduction in recorded crime and a 19 percent reduction in non-traffic prosecutions was the goal. They exceeded that by a considerable margin, I have to say: a 20.1 percent reduction in recorded crime and a 41.3 percent reduction in non-traffic prosecutions. I think that reflects very much a professional police organisation that is regarded extremely highly, not only in New Zealand but also around the world. As a consequence of those efforts, that equates to 90,000 fewer crimes being committed in that period. That means tens of thousands fewer victims, and I think that is what we would all like to see.

They have done that by very, very smart uses of technology. I think the deployment of smartphones and tablets in order to increase the mobility and the technical capability of New Zealand Police has had a significant impact on the reduction of crime and also on the visibility of our police. You know, there has been a lot of talk about bricks and mortar—and I think that is important—but, actually, what people want is to see their police on the street, on the beat, and being very visible; not just investigating but preventing crime from happening in the first place.

Phil Twyford: How about resolving burglaries?

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Yes, burglaries have gone up, that is right. The burglary rate has gone down but the resolution rate has too, and that is something that I have spoken about at length with the Commissioner of Police and his leadership team. I think that is an area of homework, but one cannot deny—one cannot deny—the statistics on the lowest reported crime rate in 30 years, and I think we need to congratulate New Zealand Police for its excellent efforts in that.

I want to come back to that technology. Mr Davis: I must say that although I will give him a bouquet, I will give him a brickbat as well for his irrational release, in January, on the upgrade of the iPhones and iPads, which was, actually, part of a very generous contractual arrangement with Vodafone to improve the ubiquity and the technical capability of New Zealand Police. In December I opened the Vodafone Mobility Innovation Lab and Experience Centre in Newtown, in south Wellington, where a number of organisations are working on tools to enable police to be more mobile and more visible and more efficient with the resources that they deploy. Those efficiencies are real. About 900,000 extra hours of policing time have been available to them, and that dividend has been paid right back to the New Zealand public, because we have maintained the number of sworn officers, reduced the number of crimes, and increased police presence on the street, and I think that is a very good outcome.

JONO NAYLOR (National): Well, these opportunities for debate are incredibly valuable. They are valuable to the Opposition because they give it the opportunity to practise its unsubstantiated wild accusations and they give us on this side of the Chamber a very valuable opportunity to reflect objectively on the advancements and the achievements that we have been able to make over a period of time. So it is great for me to be able to objectively reflect, and objectively reflect on the fact that we have now the lowest crime in New Zealand since 1978. We have been able to achieve this while staying tough on criminals, because that is something that we have always wanted to do, and something that our public want us to be is tough on the perpetrators of crime. But, more important, we have been continuing to work hard on putting the victims of crime at the centre of our policies, at the centre of our thinking, and ensuring that victims of crime are foremost in our mind when we are doing things. It is really, really important that we do this, and so we have been passing legislation to reflect this focus on victims.

We have been working on the parole amendment legislation. The parole amendment legislation has served to reduce the number of unnecessary parole hearings that an offender has to have when they have little prospect of release. I know that some people will confuse this with being tough on the criminals, but, of course, with the parole hearing what often has to happen is that victims have to be notified and they have to relive the process all over again. So by passing this parole amendment legislation we are indeed focusing on victims.

We have been able to work on the objectionable publications and indecency legislation to increase the maximum penalties for child sexual abuse online. This is something that has been pervading society, not just in New Zealand but right around the world, for far too long, and so this Government has been taking steps to ensure that children not just here but overseas are offered greater protection through this legislation by ensuring that we are getting tougher on people who are either downloading it or sourcing it—it is not just about storing in on your computer any more, but accessing it alone. By our getting tougher on those people we are again supporting victims of this kind of behaviour.

We are working on the Harmful Digital Communications Bill to tackle cyber-bullying. Again, it is showing that this is a Government that is responding to the technological challenges of our time. It is a Government that is recognising that there are new ways that people are finding to victimise others and we are responding to it through things like the Harmful Digital Communications Bill, and we hope to see some improvement in the way that that is affecting particularly young people in New Zealand, but not just them, through social media and other methods as well. We are progressing the Coroners Amendment Bill, again, to improve the timeliness and the efficiency of the coronial system to better support families. This is a Government that is caring about families. This is a Government that is focusing on victims and we have been working on this legislative programme that reflects that and is ensuring that New Zealand will be a better place.

We are working on policies too that will also improve the outlook for people within this country. We have just heard from the Minister of Police about IT upgrades that have been occurring throughout the police in terms of the type of technology that they have available to them. That has meant extra hours that they can now spend on front-line police services, which is what we want them to be doing, not necessarily sitting back at the station filling in forms. Through these technological advances we have been able to create effectively 300 fulltime-equivalent extra policing hours. It is like employing 300 extra people just by being smarter, just by being innovative, and just by doing the right things and responding to what our country needs. We have been able to put 600 extra police on the front line. Our offending rates are also decreasing. I heard a previous speaker from the other side ask earlier what we were doing about offending rates and why we were concerned only about reoffending.

Reports noted.

Natural resources

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): We now move to the next theme, and the question is that the reports of committees relevant to natural resources—conservation, environment, and lands—be noted.

SCOTT SIMPSON (Chairperson of the Local Government and Environment Committee): I move that the reports be noted. I do so in my capacity as chairman of the Local Government and Environment Committee. In preparation for this short debate speech this afternoon I went back and had a look at this year’s report of the committee for the Department of Conservation. The committee conducted a very thorough investigation of the financial performance and review of the Department of Conservation only a month or so ago, and I am delighted to report to the Committee that the Department of Conservation appears to be in very good shape under this very effective National-led Government. Lou Sanson and his team are doing a particularly good job on behalf of all New Zealanders in preserving, maintaining, and conserving our natural heritage, our natural domains, and that part of our environment that is so core to our quality of life as New Zealanders.

Our natural environment is an enormously big and important part of our national identity. It is an important part of our competitive advantage internationally, and it is important to all New Zealanders. We enjoy, as Kiwis, some of the most pristine, most beautiful natural environments anywhere in the world. The Government has a very clear blue-green approach to conservation and the environment, and this means that we are able to provide real environmental leadership without the nonsense that goes with, for instance, the Green Party’s view of the environment. We bring support for a sensible approach to the environment, a common-sense approach to protecting, conserving, and ensuring that future generations have the kind of environment that we as all New Zealanders are so proud of.

The Local Government and Environment Committee annual reviews included the Ministry for the Environment, and also a review of the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, Dr Jan Wright, and her office. They are also agencies of Government that are doing a particularly good job on behalf of all New Zealanders. I want to, in the short time that is available to me this afternoon, just highlight a couple of points from the Department of Conservation’s annual review. In particular, I want to just draw the attention of the Committee to the work that is being done in terms of partnerships that the Department of Conservation has entered into, which are providing much greater support for our natural environment than was previously the case. Fonterra has entered into a partnership relationship with the Department of Conservation, and is participating in a project it refers to as the Living Water project. That involves five wetland projects around the country.

One is of particular interest to me, in the Coromandel electorate, on the Firth of Thames at Miranda Pukorokoro, on the Kaiaua coast, which is affectionately referred to as the Seabird Coast. That is an area that members will know is famous for where, each year, the godwits and the red knots feed up on the wetlands around the Firth of Thames over the summer months. Then, in the autumn, they proceed on one of the most remarkable natural journeys known to the world, where they fly for 8½ solid days without touching ground, without stopping. They then end up at a coastal wetland area on the coast of China. They rest there for a week or so, and then they pause to rejuvenate. And then they head off again, to Siberia or Alaska.

The work that is being done by the Department of Conservation and Fonterra to preserve and maintain the wetland area at Miranda Pukorokoro is very significant, international-quality work. Not just for New Zealanders, because these birds that choose to summer here are in fact not New Zealand birds. They are birds of the world, really. They are birds of the globe. They are not Chinese birds. They are not Alaskan birds. They are not Siberian birds. We have this wonderful opportunity, in fact, to enter into a sense of global bird-diplomacy, if I can put it that way. That means that the people who man the trust at Miranda have been able to go and do work with the North Korean Government. As a non-threatening NGO they are able to establish relationships that mean that the wetland preservation can occur in North Korea, in China, and in other parts of the world just as important as it is in New Zealand.

Another area that is important to me is kauri dieback, but I will not have time to talk about that.

CLAYTON MITCHELL (NZ First): I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to talk, in large, about the Department of Conservation. Over the rest break, I spent quite a bit of my time actually going around the rural and more provincial areas of New Zealand seeing at first hand the neglect that the Department of Conservation is under. It is not through the neglect of staff; it is through the neglect of resources and support for its staff. We all remember, back in 2013, that we had probably the largest restructure of any public sector ever in the history of New Zealand, when over 100 Department of Conservation staff members lost their jobs. We know that that was an absolute debacle. Restructure, I think, is—

Hon David Parker: Centralised in Wellington.

CLAYTON MITCHELL: Centralised in Wellington. That is right—people in Wellington making the decisions for the rural and provincial parts of this country, and not actually thinking about the impact that that is actually having on the rest of the country.

I think that if we use the word “refocus” and then change the letter “o” to a “u”, you might get a feeling for how some of those Department of Conservation staff feel about it. Having seen first-hand what has happened—specifically down in Stewart Island, where I have spent a bit of my time—with the neglect that is taking place there, I will talk specifically around the way in which the permits for those shark-cage diving operators have been put forward. I will talk about the lack of time and effort that has been put into the actual cause and effect that shark-cage diving is having on the residents of Stewart Island. This is the sort of thing that is happening throughout our country—not to mention the neglect that is happening with our Department of Conservation huts, which are in a serious state of disrepair.

Just cast your eyes to the headline here: “DOC retreats from controversial $12.5 million restructure”. The article says: “Only 18 months later, it is about to reinstate some roles and test new ways of working as a result of numerous flaws in the restructuring…” And it says that even last year “DOC did its own extensive review … which concluded its staff lacked clarity about their roles.” There seems to be a real issue in the Department of Conservation. It is underfunded, under-resourced, and clearly understaffed. This goes towards the poor decisions that are being made. It is under-resourced. It has not been able to focus its time on the things that really matter, and the provincial parts of this country are really feeling that.

If I could just give you some facts: the Department of Conservation manages all New Zealand conservation land and waters, comprising about one-third of New Zealand’s area, including national parks, marine reserves, and marine mammal sanctuaries. As of June last year it has 1,950-odd staff. It has an expenditure of $344.8 million put aside for that, with a surplus last year of $1.9 million. I find it surprising that we have got a surplus of $1.9 million. If you actually looked at some of the issues that we are faced with, with regard to the Department of Conservation—and even looked at some of the issues around those huts that are not provisioned and are starting to show signs of neglect—then if we put 27 more staff members out there looking after our environment, looking after the animals, and looking after the things that we need to be showing some serious attention to, that would give us 27 more full-time employees working underneath the Department of Conservation. That is just for the $1.9 million of surplus.

I think that it is also important to note that some areas of work have been affected by staff shortages, including work with protected and threatened species, the processing of permits and concessions, and the management of those huts, which I have already touched on. The people of Stewart Island and the rural parts of New Zealand want to see more money put aside for the Department of Conservation because we understand that to have a vibrant economy we must have a vibrant ecological set-up and, of course, make sure that our conservation is met on a global scale.

The Department of Conservation operates pest-control programmes on 15 percent of conservation land and aims to increase coverage to 50 percent. When asked how this would be funded, it said that science and technology breakthroughs should improve the effectiveness of pest-control programmes—should improve. We absolutely must ensure that we get better outcomes for the money that we are spending, rather than it just being poured down the sink, or, as we see quite often, the 1080 helicopters and planes dropping tens of tonnes of 1080 randomly across our preserved lands and nature around the country. That has got to have some serious implications, particularly with the disappearance of our rock wrens and what goes on around that. I would certainly like to see more funding put aside in the next Budget. Thank you.

Hon NICKY WAGNER (Associate Minister of Conservation): First of all, I would like to thank Scott Simpson and his Local Government and Environment Committee for their report on conservation. He is absolutely correct: the Department of Conservation is working hand in hand with iwi, with conservation boards, with community conservation groups, and with the public to deliver successful conservation outcomes right across the country. I have listened carefully to the member Clayton Mitchell, and I do not recognise the Department of Conservation he described at all. I certainly will mention the Battle for our Birds and what we have been doing with 1080, and the very successful results, and the fact that we have found the rock wren.

I was very delighted to read recently in The New Yorker that the author considers that New Zealand may be the most nature-loving nation on the planet, with some 4,000 conservation groups. One of the interesting comments she made was that whereas an amateur naturalist in Oregon or Oklahoma might track butterflies or band birds, in Ōtorohanga he will poison possums and crush the heads of hedgehogs. She also noted that a coordinator of a volunteer group said: “We always say that, for us, conservation [in New Zealand] is all about killing things.” I think that is absolutely true. New Zealanders love to get out in our national parks to enjoy our conservation land, to visit our lakes and rivers, and to spend time on our beaches, but they also volunteer with the Department of Conservation. They volunteer more than 35,000 days a year to work with the Department of Conservation, and so often that work is to do with managing pests, because our plants, our animals, and our birds are totally unique, and we have to protect them.

To be a conservationist, we have to be able to kill, because the biggest threats to our birds and our forests are pests—rats, possums, and mustelids such as stoats and wild cats. It is estimated that 25 million—25 million—birds are killed every year by these pests. We cannot afford to continue with that sort of death rate. Many of our birds are particularly vulnerable because they are flightless, but these predators are efficient killers. They climb trees. They steal eggs. They kill chicks. They attack adult birds sitting on their nests. The Committee will hear later from Minister Barry about the Battle for our Birds, which was the Department of Conservation’s response to the particularly heavy beechmast last season, and about how effective it has been in protecting our bird populations.

The key fact that I like to reflect on is that wherever we have used 1080 protection, we have had the same results. If we go back to 2006 and the mōhua in the Dart Valley, where we had protection, 80 percent of those birds survived. Where we had no protection, it was only 10 percent that survived. In 2005 and 2006, 70 percent of the brown kiwi in Tongariro survived with protection; only 22 percent survived without. The Battle for our Birds has delivered a similar result this year. With the rock wren, 85 percent of them have survived where there was protection; 30 percent without. Again, there is the mōhua. It had 100 percent that survived with protection this time, whereas it was more than 50 percent that survived without. Also, we often forget about our long-tailed bats. The protection has helped them, too. We would often lose between 30 and 40 percent of them during a beechmast, but we have had unprecedented numbers surviving this time.

As I work really closely with environment community groups, I am always impressed by the energy and the ingenious ways they have to kill predators. The Community Conservation Fund supports many of these groups, and many of their volunteers are expert killers. They set and maintain trap lines. They monitor pests and eradication programmes. They support predator-proofed areas. And high numbers of volunteers do this work week after week, year after year. It is a fantastic and wonderful commitment. The Department of Conservation will be supporting them over the next 4 years with an escalated anti-predator campaign.

Recently I visited the goodnature company in Wellington. This is a company that has invented automatic resetting traps for possums, stoats, and rats, which is a fantastic step forward.

Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram): Thank you for the opportunity to take a call in the Natural resources section of the debate. We have been hearing a great deal about the Department of Conservation so far in this debate. One would never think that the central piece of environmental legislation, which could be discussed in this section, is, of course, in tatters on the Government’s books. This is a Government that treats the environment with contempt. It has failed to keep our rivers clean and to protect our oceans from oil spills. It is lagging behind on setting climate change targets, and it wants to pull apart the central and fundamental piece of environmental protection legislation that we have in this country, the Resource Management Act.

Let us turn our thoughts briefly to the Department of Conservation, which we have heard so much about from the Government members. The Associate Minister of Conservation, the Hon Nicky Wagner, told us that she does not recognise the Department of Conservation that is being described by the Opposition members in this Committee. Well, I suggest the Minister leave the centralised Wellington offices—where the centralisation of resource into the Department of Conservation is—a little more often and get out to the regions where the cuts really have taken their toll. If we turn our attention to the Department of Conservation report that we are considering here today, we can see that the very report we are considering says that some areas of the department’s work have been affected by staff shortages, including work with threatened species, the processing of permits and concessions, and the management of huts. The report that we are discussing here today even tells us that staff shortages within the Department of Conservation are biting, and that the department has had to increase its spending on travel. That is not surprising, given the concentration and centralisation of resource into Wellington.

We have heard a lot about the Battle for our Birds. I think that, even from the chair of the Local Government and Environment Committee, we were getting dangerously close to some kind of treatise about “Birds of the World Unite”. That was coming from the chairman there. We have heard a lot about wetlands and the work that the Department of Conservation is doing in wetlands. Well, I implore this Government to use the mechanism of a national policy statement, which is open to it under the Resource Management Act, and actually issue a national policy statement that protects our wetlands—that is, if we really are going to get serious about the protection of these areas, if we are not just going to have easy and empty words offered in the Committee, and if we would actually like to see some action.

Listening to the Government’s words, it would be very hard sometimes to picture the kind of degradation that we are seeing in New Zealand. Two-thirds of our monitored rivers are not swimmable, according to World Health Organization standards. For me, that is not good enough. That is not the New Zealand I grew up in, and it is not the New Zealand that I want to grow old in. I think we all like to imagine that our rivers are there for our enjoyment and that we can swim in them. Having wadable rivers is simply not good enough. It is not something that we should be content to accept in a country that prides itself on its clean, green image. We really do have to get serious.

I want to turn your attention to the Resource Management Act, which is a central part of the Ministry for the Environment report. Of course, the Ministry for the Environment report was produced before the results of the Northland by-election were counted, and in a fit of frenzy, the Prime Minister ripped up all the reforms that the Minister for the Environment had been working on. But we are told that the Minister is getting them in good shape. I have got images of Nick Smith out with his Sellotape, frantically trying to put together what has been ripped up. What everyone is fundamentally scared of is that this Minister will do what the last Minister for the Environment in this Government tried to do, and that is to weaken the core protections for the environment that we have in the Act.

The Resource Management Act needs to cornerstone legislation. The Resource Management Act should not be something that you try to scrape through on one vote. The loss in the Northland by-election showed the tatters that this Government is in—that the loss of one seat means that a central piece of legislation, which they went to the ballot box on last September, is not going to be able to be passed in this House. It requires a fundamental rethink. I believe that when we are talking about cornerstone legislation, when we are talking about the very legislation that is there to offer the fundamental protections for our environment, that we should be looking to get some cross-party dialogue happening. We should be looking to ensure that we are not scraping by with the barest of majorities, that we are having conversations, and that we can actually see where there may be some consensus. I think there would be very few people in this Committee, or indeed in this country—and I know, certainly, in my city of Christchurch—who would not think that, actually, having some consideration within the Resource Management Act for natural hazards might be a good idea. So I implore the Minister to actually show us what it is that he now wants to do with the Resource Management Act. What does he have in mind for section 85, in terms of private property rights? What is it that the Minister now wants to do with the resource management reform that we are told is coming?

I also want to turn my attention to the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, which is, of course, another part of the suite of natural resources that are examined by the Local Government and Environment Committee. The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment has called on the Department of Conservation to speed up its classification of stewardship land, but this Government continues to sit on its hands. The new Minister of Conservation, Maggie Barry, has yet to do anything about this issue. So I would hope that when reading these reports, that is something that Maggie Barry will go and have a look at and see that, actually, she does need to get some urgency behind that piece of work.

We also heard from the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment about the very important role that she will undertake under the Environmental Reporting Bill, which is due to come back to this House after being considered by the Local Government and Environment Committee. It was with great sadness that the Labour Party was not able to support that piece of legislation at its first reading, and that was for a very simple reason: it was because we saw that there was too much Government control and not enough independence in deciding the topics that would be under consideration in the bill. We hoped to get some change at the select committee, and that was not there. What was also very disturbing for me when the Parliamentary Commissioner came before us—and it is contained in the report, which is contained in these volumes—is that we know that she has an increased function with this legislation and she has some interim increased funding, but, under questioning, she was able to tell the select committee that she is not going to be able to continue to carry out all that function with the current levels of funding that are there for her. The function that the Parliamentary Commissioner has under this legislation is so critical, and I would hope that this would be listened to and that we would see some increased awareness around the need to properly resource the Parliamentary Commissioner to carry out that role.

The other topic that underwrites all of the natural resources considerations is, of course, the very pressing issue of climate change. We have heard a number of things on this. We know that New Zealand has to go to Paris at the end of this year. We also know that New Zealand, unlike many other countries, has yet to release its new target. We are not sure; the Minister is still playing very coy with when it is that we will see our new target, which we will be taking to the Paris talks in December of this year. We were also told by Treasury, in the briefing to the incoming Minister, of the immense cost that New Zealand is facing by not meeting its emissions targets—that by New Zealand missing its targets we are staring down the barrel of a deficit of anywhere between $3 billion and $52 billion, and that our emissions are rising, not decreasing. We are not going to meet the targets that have been set, and we do not see that there is enough action being taken. We still have a Government that has yet to do anything to fundamentally address the issue around the price of carbon. We know that we are going to be looking at the emissions trading scheme legislation later this year—or so we have been told. Who knows? But something needs to be done, and we need to make sure that we have got the proper mechanisms in place. We need to do something to ensure that we are actually incentivising our foresters to plant forests that can act as carbon sinks and, in terms of carbon sequestration, can play the vital role that needs to occur. But we are not seeing action from the Government that would lead this to happen.

Climate change is real. Just last week 272 workers in my electorate lost their jobs at the Sanford mussel processing plant. The reason that was given was the limited supply of mussel spat, and the company put this down to rising sea temperatures and the inability to get that through. Climate change is not something that is happening in the future and that we can choose to ignore. This is getting real. This is about people’s pay packets. This is about the ability of people to get on and of their families to make ends meet. This is a Government that has been woeful and is neglecting the environment. It needs to do more.

GARETH HUGHES (Green): Kia ora. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. I rise to take a call on the Appropriation (2013/14 Confirmation and Validation) Bill, the annual review debate, and on the natural resources theme. I would like to touch on the Department of Conservation annual review. For anyone viewing this broadcast, this is a new debate with a new structure where we have grouped the annual reviews of Crown entities into these various issue themes. To begin my address I would actually like to look at the naming of this section. My understanding of the process is that the Government put out the proposal of what the various issue themes could be. I would actually like to take issue with this theme that is called natural resources. I would like to posit that some of the many issues you are seeing facing the conservation estate and facing natural New Zealand come from a mind-set where we are viewing these things as simply resources to be exploited, when we should actually be thinking about them in terms of natural capital, natural treasures, or taonga, or in terms of natural carbon sinks, not just somewhere we can “drill it, mine it, frack it”.

When we group the Department of Conservation and our natural heritage and special places as natural resources, you are obviously going to think about them simply to be exploited. When you see something simply as a resource, such as the conservation estate, of course you are going to open it up to mining, drilling, and fracking interests. In fact, we can see it. We can see it with the actions of the Government, which sees our natural environment as simply a resource to be exploited. Just a few months ago we saw Simon Bridges open up an area of our oceanic estate larger than the entire landmass of Greenland, more than 400,000 square kilometres. We have seen the Māui’s dolphin sanctuary opened up for oil drilling permits. We have seen Victoria Forest Park, which the Department of Conservation itself describes as being pristine, a home to kiwi, and with some untouched landscapes, opened up for oil drilling.

When you view the natural environment simply as a resource, you are actually going to support those companies that are trying to exploit it. We have seen that. In the last week we have seen the clear hypocrisy of the Government at the international level—and we heard it again in the crowdsourced climate questions—that is railing against fossil fuel subsidies globally. But it is being very nuanced about it. It is saying “consumption subsidies” because, clearly, we do not do that in New Zealand. But when it comes to the production subsidies like the $46 million in annual tax breaks that the taxpayer is paying to big oil, the $20 million in seismic survey subsidies, and the $210,000 spent by Minister Simon Bridges to host only 11 oil executives over 4 days, these are the subsidies that are not being addressed by the Government.

We have seen the Māui’s dolphin sanctuary opened up for oil drilling, and the conservation estate of Victoria Forest Park opened up for oil drilling. We have seen a massive historic amount of New Zealand’s natural environment opened up for oil interests. We should be talking about these not in terms of resources to be exploited but as treasures. The last 55 Māui’s dolphins on the planet—the world’s smallest and most endangered dolphin—are a natural taonga, and we should not be seeing their habitat and environment, their home, simply as a resource. We should be looking at this area and imagine we were debating around natural capital and the ecosystem service benefits of this corner of the country, a significant area of our marine environment, for the New Zealand economy. We have seen an estimate previously that the “clean, green” brand, in which the conservation estate plays such a critical and vital role, has been estimated at $20 billion annually. Obviously, it is a key plank in a more livable New Zealand. My vision of New Zealand is one where talent wants to live, and having beautiful, untouched, unspoilt, unmined, undrilled, and unfracked places is an important part of it.

Finally, we should not be seeing them just as natural resources because, in fact, when you look at the coal, oil, and gas resources, those holes the Government is racing to throw taxpayer subsidies down to exploit, they are actually natural carbon sinks. This is, in fact, sunlight that fell on the Earth more than 100 million years ago. Those plants that decayed formed those fossil fuels. Scientists are advising us that we cannot afford to burn between 70 and 90 percent of all the stuff we have found, let alone throw taxpayers’ money at subsidies, hoping someone finds some more. No matter what you call it, and even if you call it a resource, we have seen Kiwis stand up against it. We have seen groups such as the Dunedin City Council yesterday, the Anglican Church, and the Catholic Church making strong statements. They want to see our natural environment protected, not just natural resources.

TODD MULLER (National—Bay of Plenty): I look forward to speaking for a few seconds now and after the break on natural resources. This evening I would like particularly to spend just a bit of time talking about water. This country is blessed with extraordinary natural resources, and it is a privilege to be part of a Government that has provided more fresh thinking around how we manage our natural resources than we have had in a couple of decades. There was not a single major environmental plan from members on the other side of the House in either 2011 or 2014, and some others in this House were more focused on ensuring that—

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

TODD MULLER: We are talking at the moment in terms of natural resources, and I was discussing water and particularly the leadership that this Government has brought to the management of fresh water. It was effectively outlined in the report that we are reflecting on tonight.

When we came into Government there was not even a scenario in place whereby if you took water you had to measure it. We have obviously turned that round in the last few years, because we held the view, and it is a correct view, that before you can manage something you need to be able to measure it. That came in in 2009.

In particular, tonight I would like to spend just a few moments talking about the national policy statement on freshwater. The debate had been going on in this country since 1995 and essentially had not gone anywhere. We introduced the Land and Water Forum and it helped us to deliver the first national policy statement on freshwater in 2010 and then, as reported on in this report, the limit setting and minimum standards over the course of the last year, in 2014. I think these are profound reforms.

The Land and Water Forum is an example of how this Government works to get enduring outcomes. It brought together a myriad of stakeholders who, quite frankly, had only really met each other either in the courtroom or in the media, taking barbs at each other. We took the approach that you needed these people around the table, and they were persuaded to sit around that table and create a collaborative framework that has enabled communities to have an informed debate on water quality and allocation issues.

These are hard debates. Let us witness, as an example, the Canterbury water zone. Those battles are challenging. I have been in the middle of that myself in a previous life. You have incomplete data and you have a wide range of views amongst the community around how water should be improved and over what time frame. We have absolutely taken the view that a model of collaboration, a model that sees well-informed debates based on good science, is the way to go. That is how you build an enduring solution through a community. This is part of the reform package that we have driven as a Government, particularly in respect of freshwater.

I sat in the Land and Water Forum a couple of times whilst at Fonterra, and I note that those issues are difficult and complex, but through the leadership of Alastair Bisley and our previous Ministers, Amy Adams and Nick Smith, the framework worked because deep down we knew that there is more security and community-endorsed collaboration underpinned by science than in expensive litigation. As noted—and this report covers it—this year we expanded the national policy statement for freshwater with the introduction of our national objectives frameworks and in particular the associated bottom lines for ecosystem health and human health and recreation.

We all know that freshwater management is ultimately the purview of the local council and the local community, but it is significantly assisted with national guidelines to inform and guide debate and deliberation. That is what this Government has been involved with and driven in terms of its reform package over the last couple of years. Again, this is genuine reform.

There are two further policy commitments that we are driving this year in freshwater. One is the $100 million fund on freshwater. That, again, is a significant development. We all know that farming at times has ended up in places where, in retrospect, perhaps it should not still be. This fund is about the community working together, identifying where those buffer zones should be, and being able to work measuredly with the community to be able to restore that back to its previous use, and create a buffer between intensive land use and the water body that is seeking to be protected and enhanced. It is good thinking. It is driven by this Government, and as we work with communities we are seeing some fantastic outcomes throughout the country. For examples of those outcomes, look at the water quality improvement in Rotoiti, in Taupō, and in Waituna. We have backed that with good reform and significant money. We are spending $350 million.

Hon MAGGIE BARRY (Minister of Conservation): Tonight I thought I would talk about some of the outstanding developments that have occurred in the conservation portfolio, and the gains and achievements made for the natural environment in this country. The first one to talk about is one that cost around $13 million. We called it Battle for our Birds. This was a particularly important thing to do because every 10 or 12 years you get a thing called the beech mast where beech trees, particularly in the South Island, will seed, and seed in extraordinary quantities. Something like a million tonnes of seed was due to be dropped, which means, of course, that you get predators who make a lot of bounty out of this. There were estimated to be something like 25 million extra rats, a plague of rats indeed, and with them come the mice and the stoats. So with this threat—veritably a plague—we decided to intervene.

Controversially, we used 1080 aerial drops, which many people do not approve of, but the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, who is independent, has done two particular studies that have shown that 1080 aerial drops are the best weapon that we have these days in trying to ensure that we do not let vast areas of New Zealand turn to waste and be overrun with predators. The trouble with New Zealand is you can have too much of a good thing, and it is such a good environment and such a good place for creatures and plants to grow that some get too good. The 1080 poison drop was entirely successful in that we were able to knock back the predator numbers to the point that, for example, in the Kahurangi National Park, rats were down to near zero levels. What this means, effectively, is that something like 16 species of birds that would otherwise, experts tell us, have been made extinct by this plague of rats, stoats, and possums as well, actually, were then able to be saved. We did that for about 8 months and it was an extremely successful outcome.

The poison 1080 works well in areas where you are unable to do traditional forms of trapping, where hunters and others cannot get in. These are very extreme terrains, and really it was an essential thing and highly successful. We are doing the measurements of it at the moment. The whio, the blue duck, had its most successful breeding programme in 11 years. There are now great numbers of them. The mohua in the Dart and Routeburn valleys has now gone beyond being endangered and is breeding in great numbers. In respect of the Battle for our Birds, over 600,000 hectares of land was a very successful outcome. The Department of Conservation will continue to monitor it. We need to be vigilant.

Kauri die-back is one of the things that, as the incoming Minister of Conservation, I was very concerned about. In last year’s Budget, $26.5 million was allocated to fight this pernicious disease. We do not know what causes it. It attacks in a poison that is soil borne, and it is carried in water. We do not know how it came to New Zealand. We think it was probably here over a very long period of time, maybe around 50 years or so. It is a very slow killer. It affects only Agathis australis, our native kauri tree, and it is incurable. So once a tree is infected, that is the end of it. The money was due to be starting to be spent only in July this year, at the beginning of the financial year, but I felt such was the urgency of the situation, we needed to bring that forward. We have done planning now and are about to execute those plans to have 100 extra kilometres of paths upgraded. That means either in a boardwalk, which is about five kilometres’ worth, or done with gravel. That stops the soil from spreading and that is the way that this kauri die-back disease spreads.

We also have 300 new cleaning stations. These are the kinds of things that we need as a Government to involve the population in, because only by winning hearts and minds and engaging with the public are we able to fight this disease. We need everybody’s cooperation.

Stewardship land is an issue that is about protecting our special places. Our natural environment is under threat by predators, as I have outlined, but it is graded in different layers of protection. Jan Wright, the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, had identified that in her view the stewardship land was not being protected to an adequate level, so we have reclassified some of it. About a month ago we finalised plans for the Aotea Conservation Park, which is on Great Barrier Island. I was able to go over there and open that park. It is not contiguous but you have a large area of land. It adds up to about 42 percent of Great Barrier Island. This area of land is in one particular place, and I think it has about eight or nine other parts that are also under that umbrella protection of a conservation park, which affords it a greater level of protection than we would have otherwise been able to do with stewardship land. We are about to do the same with Mount Aspiring. [Bell rung]

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Just before I give the Minister the supplementary call—I will just get her to sit down for a second—and I know there were a lot of members in the Chamber who were not here this afternoon, but I just want to remind members that it is an annual review debate and members must at least give a passing reference to either a report of a select committee on the annual review or the estimates for the year in question, which is not this year but the previous year. Passing reference is fine.

Hon MAGGIE BARRY: The costings when it comes to “Healthy parks, healthy people” have not yet been done, but what we have been availing ourselves of—and why reinvent the wheel in a country like New Zealand. We have gone to Korea, we have gone to the United States, and we have gone to Australia, and received figures from them that are being considered now in terms of forming some legislation that will be going to a select committee in due course. Again, it is what I was saying about classification and stewardship land: the costs of putting a park together are many and varied. I suppose you could look at it and say some things are priceless, and, certainly, when it comes to the reclassification of stewardship land—the degree of work that was done by our officials and then teased out in the select committee environment. Funds were allocated from within baseline with the Department of Conservation. We were then able to go ahead with the Aotea Conservation Park.

When it comes to the concept of “Healthy parks, healthy people”, we are looking to broaden it out. I have spoken already with my colleague the Minister of Health, Dr Jonathan Coleman, about taking some funds from Vote Health and taking some funds from the disability sector, from conservation, and from education because what we want to do is take a holistic approach, which is what some of these other countries have done to try to combat such difficult issues as obesity. By getting children away from their computers and into parks, and by introducing them to the environment and introducing them to the notions and concepts of conservation, their lives will be considerably enriched. As a Government, and as the Minister of Conservation, those are the sorts of initiatives that I am planning for now.

When it comes to the money that we have allocated—as I said earlier, $26.5 million from kauri die-back, for example—that money needs to be allocated in a way that is in keeping with our policy framework and also the needs of the trees themselves. Often you need to be responsive to what is happening around you in the environment, and the progression of something like kauri die-back disease means the re-prioritisation of the moneys that we were intending to spend—and it probably would have been early in the coming summer—we are now not able to do because we do need to move more quickly and respond in a way that is not predetermined but is determined by the way that this disease has spread.

So with the $26.5 million, for example, about a third of that is going to be put into paths and boardwalks; about another third of that is going to be put into the teams of people who will be delivering the services and the things that we need to do to inform the public—and it is public education, as I have said—and the rest of the money is going to be used for science-based information so that we will be able to work out what causes the disease. It is very important, I think, that we do not go past an evidence base, and from my perspective as the Minister, it is enabling me to reach out further, involving people like Sir Peter Gluckman, the Prime Minister’s Chief Science Advisor, and Scion research, and directing them to give us the evidence that we need to make the decisions to apportion the funds so that they will be most effective and they will be able to do what needs to be done.

I suppose when it comes to birds, in particular—when you look at what is happening to our iconic kiwi—the funds that have been put forward there are adequate, but we need to do more. I remain hopeful that I will be able to prevail in the Budget round and get some more money to bring together a really strategic plan that will enable our kiwi population to stop the decline. At the moment it is declining at a rate of about minus 2 percent a year. We need to get that up to plus 2 percent a year. We are working with various organisations—the NEXT Foundation, Kiwis for Kiwi, and so forth—as a collaborative process. Partnerships with individuals, with philanthropists, and with others will be the thing that, I think, as a nation will enable us to do what needs to be done. As I have said, it is not just up to a Government; it is not just up to a single department.

Although the Department of Conservation is putting not inconsiderable funds into saving kiwis, for example, we are also putting it into the management of weeds. When it comes to wilding pine control, we are collaborating with regional authorities and with local authorities, as well, to ensure that they match the funding that the Government is putting in to halt the spread of wilding pines, which, if unchecked, in the next 25 years will take up nearly a quarter of our landscape. They are choking productive farmland, they are smothering and suffocating our native plant species, and they need to be stopped. But when we allocate money in a Budget sense, which we have been doing over the years, we recognise that it is not at the level that it needs to be, and so we are working in collaboration.

EUGENIE SAGE (Green): I am speaking to the annual review of the Department of Conservation—page 41 of reports of select committees, 1.20A. I am pleased to hear the Minister of Conservation suggesting that there may be an increase in funding for the protection of kiwi because, of course, it was the briefing to the incoming Minister that warned that kiwi could potentially be extinct on the mainland within 50 years. We have got a biodiversity crisis in New Zealand and our national icon, the kiwi, is one of those threatened species. Forty percent of our native bird species are threatened with extinction, as are 74 percent of our native freshwater fish species, 85 percent of our native lizards, and nearly 40 percent of our indigenous plants.

We are supposed to be halting the decline in biodiversity, but we are failing to do that, and one of the reasons is this Government’s miserly approach to conservation. We have got the Government being quite extravagant when it spends public money on promoting intensive dairying and irrigation and when it spends to promote deep-sea oil exploration, but it is miserly when it protects nature. We have got a Department of Conservation that is responsible for a third of New Zealand’s land area, yet only $163 million of its $346 million annual budget last year was able to be spent on natural heritage management.

The department is able to control pests on only 15 percent of the conservation estate, and, yes, Battle for Our Birds was a brilliant initiative, but that was funded because the department did not spend quite as much on redundancies in its disastrous restructuring exercise as it had anticipated. There needs to be an increase—a significant increase—in baseline funding for the Department of Conservation so that it can invest in controlling predators over much more of the conservation estate.

Mr Simpson said that the department was in very good shape. He obviously has not been reading any of the reports about what a disaster the restructuring exercise that the department undertook last year was. It was done by the former director-general in response to National’s Budget cuts, back in 2009. Last year 126 Department of Conservation staff were made redundant and, with that, there was a huge loss of technical expertise in the regions—places like the West Coast, where there are major challenges on the ground—and that loss of 126 jobs last year was on top of the 197 jobs that have been cut in the department under this National Government.

So we have seen 323 jobs go in the Department of Conservation. It shows how serious—or not—the Government is about protecting our conservation estate. This was the largest restructuring in the public sector. The Government talks about having better public services, yet the restructuring cost the department $7 million last year. There has been no clear rationale as to why it was needed. It has restructured the department into two silos: operations and services.

I get regular comments about the fact that things are going through the gap in the middle. There is no clear, integrated line of decision making. Has it led to better public services? No. What did the department do last year? It spent $1 million more on travel. Why? Because a lot of the staff are now in offices where their managers are not present in that office. That $1 million extra being spent on travel could have funded aerial predator control over nearly 60,000 hectares, an area almost the size of two Paparoa National Parks. Where did it go? On travel.

The restructuring has increased the number of people on salaries of more than $100,000—another 10 last year. It has meant another 20 staff in the Wellington office of the department, when a lot of the work has actually got to be done in the regions. So the restructuring has been an abysmal failure, and that is just looking at the financial side. It does not include any accounting of the losses in terms of conservation management when staff have been so stressed, concentrating on whether they are going to have a job or not, that they have not been able to get on with the operational programmes that they are responsible for.

Hon Maggie Barry: Don’t be so pessimistic.

EUGENIE SAGE: And not just that $7 million—the Minister says: “Don’t be so pessimistic.” Yes, the new director-general is implementing a new pilot, but that is costing another half a million dollars to try to fix up the utter shambles that the restructuring has created.

Hon Maggie Barry: It’s money well spent.

EUGENIE SAGE: It is not money well spent. Under this Government $17 million has been spent on restructuring the Department of Conservation that could have been spent on pest control.

Reports noted.

Primary industries

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): The question now is that the reports of committees relevant to primary industries—primary industries, agriculture, fisheries, forestry, horticulture, biosecurity, and food safety—be noted.

IAN McKELVIE (Chairperson of the Primary Production Committee): I move that the reports be noted. I guess it is a privilege for me as the chairman of the Primary Production Committee to get an opportunity to speak in this debate. The last year has been extremely busy for the Primary Production Committee, with some very big pieces of legislation passing through its hands: the Fisheries (Foreign Charter Vessels and Other Matters) Amendment Bill, it very nearly got to the post with the Animal Welfare Amendment Bill, and, of course, the Food Bill, which is a very important piece of legislation and one that backs the whole of the New Zealand economy, really, as a significant part of our income comes from our ability to deal with food and our exports of it.

Also during the year we have had significant discussion around the Primary Growth Partnership and the Sustainable Farming Fund input that the Ministry for Primary Industries has. The Primary Growth Partnership, in my view, is a very big part of this Government’s effort—the very ambitious plan of this Government—to improve our lot as a nation. If it is possible to hurry up science, the Primary Growth Partnership is certainly a method of attempting to speed the progress of science. It costs the country a significant amount of money, and I am sure in due course we will get a significant repayment from that.

The agricultural sector, of course, has had a great deal of success in the last couple of years, with new jobs, new revenue, and new opportunities being created. That is in no small way due to the efforts of the Ministry for Primary Industries and the amount of resource it puts into this country. It has a very large budget and a huge staff. The kiwifruit industry is projecting more than 2,000 permanent jobs being created in the next 4 years, 4,000 more seasonal jobs in the next 4 years, and a shift from $1.4 billion worth of income to $2.2 billion worth of income by 2019. That is just one example of the way that this sector is diversifying under the current Government and the current Minister. I think it is an extraordinary result.

We talk about diversifying our economy. Although milk has dominated both our biosecurity and our country’s economy in the last few years, we are certainly diversifying agriculture under the current plans, and doing it very well. The wine industry is in a similar space, projected to grow by 7.6 percent next year.

I want to touch on the forestry industry, which, of course, is one that comes in for a lot of discussion. We have a significant investment in that industry through the likes of Scion and the work it is doing in science around the growing of trees and doing it quicker and more efficiently. We are also putting a significant investment into the development of better processing facilities in New Zealand. That is one that is pretty challenging, because as log prices move to where they were a few weeks ago, it has much the same impact as it does with whole carcasses if you look at the sheep meat industry. It is very easy to export a whole carcass or a whole log, if that is where the money is. That is what has been happening, to some extent, in New Zealand in recent times.

The real success stories in the last year or two have been around the sheep meat and beef industries—I guess the old, old industries of New Zealand. Both of them have had significant increases in prices, and very fortuitous for the country it is too when you look at the environmental challenge we have around the country and the fact that we need to keep our agricultural sector as diversified as we can. The more diversified we keep it, the better we are able to at least be compatible with our environment and make it work for us, so I think that is pretty important.

I want to touch very quickly on the horse industry and the Minister’s recent inquiry announcement. By my estimate—and it is certainly only my estimate, and I had a little bit to do with the horse industry in earlier days—it is liable to produce a significant increase in income to New Zealand as a result of this inquiry. That is what, I guess, the Government is all about, and certainly what the ministry will be looking at as a result of this inquiry.

The dairy industry, as I said earlier, is struggling a little at the moment, and that is the way the world markets are. I think we will be looking at some significant pick-up there in due course, but it is just the way I guess we have always been in agriculture, and it is one of the challenges we face as farmers.

I want to touch on biosecurity. We have seen this with the reaction to the fruit fly in Auckland. That is, I think, a classic example of a biosecurity system that is working extremely well. We have seen, I guess, the industry partnerships also assisting that whole system to work extremely well. Thank you.

Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Labour—West Coast - Tasman): It is great to see the Minister for Primary Industries in the Chamber here. What the industry is saying is: “We never see him when we need him.” I would like to build off the speech of the last speaker, Ian McKelvie. He said that the Primary Growth Partnership was a very ambitious programme for the National Government, and indeed it was, but now it is very embarrassing—a bit like the Prime Minister, I guess. It is very embarrassing because the Office of the Auditor-General said that in spite of programmes being over halfway through their length, there has been no economic benefit identified so far from $350 million given by the National Government to its mates for the Primary Growth Partnership. I will not dwell on that.

The industry is crying out for leadership from the Minister and the National Government, and it is not getting it. We have got fruit flies flying around in west Auckland and an industry asking for one thing, and one thing only: bring back 100 percent X-ray baggage screening. When we had that in place we had no fruit flies. Minister, step up to the mark, get the funding, and reimplement 100 percent X-ray screening of baggage. We had a botulism scare because this Government’s oversight and systems did not have testing that could guarantee botulism was not present in the milk powder it tested. That muck-up—that is the politest thing I can say—is costing this Government hundreds of millions of dollars. The Minister did not step up and the Government had not funded a proper system of food testing, which we need in this country. The meat industry members have gone out there, spoken to farmers, come up with a report, and said that they need some help to consolidate their industry. Where is the Minister? Or where is the Minister’s assistant, the Associate Minister? They are nowhere to be seen. All the industry asked for was some leadership to get in there and show the way forward and assist with that collaboration.

One issue that is very rarely spoken of is tuberculosis funding—the funding of pest control in this country to prevent major outbreaks of tuberculosis. That disease is potentially a huge hurdle to our export of primary industry products in this country. The Government has, in its last Budget, slashed funding from $30 million down to $7 million, and then gone out to the industry and said that it is going to have to front up. Well, there are no answers to that. I say to the Minister that if he has got some in this upcoming Budget, please identify them now, because the industry is in disarray trying to work out how it will do this. At a time when we have an overvalued dollar because we have got speculators out there wheeling and dealing in the dollar, our primary sectors are being squeezed.

The member before me spoke of the forestry industry. Never before have we seen so many logs go out of this country in raw form, leaving opportunities for this country at the ports. It is an outrageous indictment on the National Government’s oversight of primary industries that we are letting opportunities flood out of this country. In the meat industry we are cutting carcases into six pieces and sending them to China. The Chinese have been absolutely strategic in their investments into New Zealand, and they are getting further and further down the value chain. They will have, in a very short time, vertical integration through all the sectors because this Government and this Minister refuse to intervene and protect the interests of New Zealand farmers, of New Zealand Inc., and of New Zealand companies. We have got speculation under a National Government because the Prime Minister is a wheeler and dealer. The Minister for Primary Industries does not have the courage and the mana to stand up to him and say, on behalf of the farmers—

Ian McKelvie: Farmers are traders, you know.

Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR: That member is a farmer; so is the Minister himself. They know full well what the farmers are thinking about what is happening at the moment, and they are increasingly concerned. In the dairy industry there is so much uncertainty. There is so much uncertainty that they do not know which way to jump next. They have been told that prices will lift, but indeed the indicators are otherwise. They have been told that we are in charge of that industry, and every day we see creep from Chinese investors and overseas investors into our dairy industry that ultimately will see us lose control of Fonterra, unless there is leadership from the Government. All I ask is that the Minister takes the opportunity, takes the responsibility, to stand up and show some leadership so that the sectors have some confidence.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Before I call the next member I am going to repeat the comment I made earlier, and it is that members must at some stage make a passing reference at least to the annual review or the report or the current operations of an agency. One of the three will do. But it would be good if that happened.

RICHARD PROSSER (NZ First): I am always pleased to follow on from my erstwhile colleague Mr O’Connor. I am going to echo some of Mr O’Connor’s thoughts, but I bring with me one or two bouquets along with the brickbats. Being as we are a constructive party of the Opposition, we recognise that the Government has made some advance moves in the field of primary industries—not as many as perhaps we would like, and not as many as perhaps we think it could have. It is an opportunity to take the Government to task as we look at the way it has allocated its funding over the past year and in the year to come, and where it places its priorities. It is no understatement to say that the primary sector is absolutely vital to New Zealand—to our economy, to our nation, to our way of life.

Ian McKelvie: Good boy, Richard.

RICHARD PROSSER: Thank you, Mr McKelvie. I do realise that we are all actually on much the same page here as the chairman of the Primary Production Committee, on which I am proud to serve. We have differences of opinion in terms of the best methodology that should be employed, obviously, and that is as it should be in an open and wide-ranging democracy such as we have here.

Ian McKelvie: We’ve put the guns away.

RICHARD PROSSER: Never put the guns away—never put the guns away, Ian.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Back to the debate, I think.

RICHARD PROSSER: Thank you, Mr Chair, for that reminder.

As members here will know, New Zealand First is of course rapidly becoming the party of choice for people in the provinces. We are becoming the town and country party, as it were—something that perhaps the National Party used to be many years ago when people in the provinces, in the rural sector, and in the farming sector used to look to the National Party to represent their interests. But of course nowadays the National Party has become the party of Queen Street—

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): I am now going to stand up, and the member will sit down. I am going to remind him to come back to the debate. It is not a general political debate.

RICHARD PROSSER: Thank you, Mr Chair. Because of that shift in its priorities, the Government has failed to adequately resource some of the most important things to the primary sector, in terms of its budgetary allocations.

Ian McKelvie: The racing industry?

RICHARD PROSSER: I am not going to talk about the racing industry, Mr McKelvie.

I want to look at two things in particular, and one of course is biosecurity. I know that Mr O’Connor has touched on this, and we have similar concerns. We want to see sufficient resourcing in the Budget put into biosecurity so that we do have 100 percent X-ray of all luggage. That is hand-held luggage, in-hold luggage, cargo, and mail. We would like to see the 0800 pest line staffed 24/7. As we discovered during the Queensland fruit fly incursion, it has not been. We want more staff at the ports as well. We know that there have been increases in boots on the ground in recent years, but it is also fair to state that some of those additional boots on the ground have been to replace staff who were taken away from the front line in the years preceding. We are not actually back to a net profitability situation as much as we could be, and really as much as we should be.

This is one of the bouquets. We are pleased that the Government has announced that there is going to be a review of biosecurity at the border. I think that behind the scenes the Government probably does recognise that when the move away from 100 percent screening was made it was a mistake. We know that since the green lane has been instituted and people are able to enter the country without any kind of inspection, something like 9 million people over the last 3 years have come through that channel.

We also know that this channel, according to the surveys afterwards, has proven to be the most reliable and the most effective in terms of voluntary compliance with biosecurity regulations. But we know that the target for the Ministry for Primary Industries was 98.5 percent, and we also know that at no airport in the country was that target achieved. There might have been achievements up around 95, 96, or 97 percent. But even had that 98.5 percent target been achieved, something like 135,000 people would have come through the green lane in the last 3 years, carrying something that they should not have been carrying. It would have been an item of fruit, a jar of honey, or an item of clothing that had been on a farm or in a forest in a country where foot-and-mouth disease is endemic. We know that at least 135,000 incursions have happened over that time, since 100 percent screening was abandoned. It is actually more than that—it is definitely more than that because we know that that 98.5 percent compliance was not achieved.

We do appreciate the fact that the Government has recognised that a review is needed, and that it will undertake a review. The Government will, we hope and believe, look at the money that is required in order to reinstitute 100 percent screening. We believe that the primary sector is so vital in terms of the sheer volume of money, the sheer percentage of the economy that is dependent on it, that we think and hope the Government will see sense and it will allocate the money and restore that 100 percent screening. It will be a great thing for the primary sector.

The other issue that I want to touch on briefly, and it is something that we have made mention of in recent weeks and months, is the OVERSEER nutrient budget management tool. OVERSEER is a piece of software that was developed in order to help farmers manage the nutrient inputs on to their farms, and from that calculate the amounts of leachate that were coming off at the other end. However, OVERSEER was never designed as a rule-setting tool, but in the absence of anything else it is being used for that. OVERSEER is a good system that can be made a lot better with the addition of just a very, very small input of money. In the grand scheme of things about $5 million or $6 million over the next few years, allocated by the Government, through its Budget, would provide sufficient resourcing for that management tool to be calibrated properly and brought up to standard for all farming models and for all soil types in New Zealand.

At the moment what we have got is a computer program that was not designed to be used as a rule-setting mechanism, which in the absence of anything else is being used as that rule-setting mechanism. The Government is allowing local authorities, regional councils, and local councils to use OVERSEER as the baseline for their monitoring systems. We believe, and we hope that the Government will accept it, that if the Government is going to allow local authorities to use a tool like this for that purpose, then the Government has a responsibility to make sure that that tool is fit for that purpose. We would like to see this Government, through its Budget, allocate sufficient funding to OVERSEER. As I say, only about another $5 million or $6 million, according to Federated Farmers, is all it will take to bring this tool up to speed.

Only this morning we heard about a farmer in Canterbury who is an award-winning farmer in terms of environmental performance, who has been told by Environment Canterbury that the nitrate leaching from his farm is over and above what he is allowed to put out. This farmer is an organic farmer. His nitrogen inputs to his farm are zero. So when you have a program that tells you that a farmer who puts no nitrogen on his farm has too much nitrogen coming off it, there is a problem—there is a problem. It is a problem that is easily solved with a small cash injection, and we would love to see the Government do that. Thank you.

Hon NATHAN GUY (Minister for Primary Industries): It is great to be able to talk about the annual appropriation for the Ministry for Primary Industries for 2013-14. Can I acknowledge the Primary Production Committee chair, Ian McKelvie. Can I acknowledge the Minister for Food Safety, Jo Goodhew, who is also the Associate Minister for Primary Industries, and can I take a special moment to acknowledge all of the Primary Production Committee, who by and large do a lot of wonderful work across the whole of Parliament.

This is a great time to be in front and leading primary industries. I know that there is a challenge in the dairy industry—that is being well talked about right now—where we have a very volatile market, particularly when we look at what is happening with the four big global milk regions being awash with milk. We have product that is banned from going from the European Union into Russia, looking for a new home. We have China inventory stocks reducing and, hopefully, soon they will be re-entering the market. I was interested to see that Westland Cooperative Dairy has downscaled its payout for this season, and we are waiting to see what Fonterra does towards the end of May. Also, everyone is interested in looking into the next season and what that might bring.

I think we are going to be in a period of some volatility for some months to come, but we have been here before. The average price for milk solids has been $5.25 over 15 years. In about 2004, 2005, and 2006 it got down to a very low $4. So farmers are resilient. They have been here before. They will get through this. That is why the Government is investing in the Primary Growth Partnership. That is why we are working with industry right across the value chain—

Hon Damien O’Connor: No economic benefit.

Hon NATHAN GUY: —to lift performance inside the farm gate. Mr O’Connor always interjects. He hates the Primary Growth Partnership. He did not acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research report, an independent report, which says that by 2025 the Primary Growth Partnership could return $6.4 billion, and if you add on the aspirational stretch of targets it could be out to $11.1 billion. Also, what is interesting for Mr O’Connor is he does not want to acknowledge any of the benefits of the Primary Growth Partnership or what it is delivering already.

Close to Mr O’Connor’s electorate is the steeplands harvester. This is an amazing machine that was developed in Nelson and is now being sold offshore, and that is reducing health and safety events and fatalities in our forestry industry, working on steep land slopes and making a difference. Mr O’Conner does not want to acknowledge that. I was down very close to his local electorate the other day celebrating an investment that we have made in SPATnz for green mussels. This is going to make a significant difference for the seafood industry. Right now they have to go up into Northland and collect spat that has washed up on the shore. It is like the dairy industry whereby this is going to allow the industry to be able to select good breeding mussels indoors very close to Nelson.

We should be celebrating the Primary Growth Partnership, and yet Damien O’Connor and others stand up and say that the Government is not doing enough. Just the other day we announced $7.8 million for the Sustainable Farming Fund. There are 29 projects up and down the country working at the grassroots, making a difference in environmental management, and making a difference in supporting the dairy industry, the beef industry, and the horticulture industry. We are doing a lot and yet our opponents say that we are not doing enough. I cannot believe that. They do not stand up and acknowledge the investment that the Government is making with industry.

Also, when we refer back to the annual review of appropriations for primary industries, it was interesting that when I had my officials in front of the select committee, they spent a lot of time talking about biosecurity. Biosecurity is my No. 1 priority and will continue to be. It is interesting to have a look at the comments from the select committee when my officials were there. The committee was talking about how the Ministry for Primary Industries is investing more in biosecurity—a bigger budget than when National came into office. There are more people—130 front-line quarantine inspectors are working. Dog detector teams have gone from 26 to 40 in the last couple of years. As the Committee has seen and the New Zealand public have seen, the Ministry for Primary Industries can set up a very quick response when we do have an incursion like we have had in the case of the Queensland fruit fly in Grey Lynn. This has been a good response. We have put a lot of resource into this, and I acknowledge the people of Grey Lynn in Auckland and the people whose properties have intensive surveillance happening on them. I am very confident that we can eradicate the small, localised population in Grey Lynn. I am very confident. We have done it before with the Mediterranean fruit fly in 1994 and we will do it again now.

What I have also instigated in the last couple of weeks is a biosecurity strategy review looking out to 2025. Mr Prosser rightly acknowledged that and said it is timely to have a look at it. The reason it is timely to have a look is we have got Government industry agreements on board and four signatories. Some of those signatories are working with the Ministry for Primary Industries on preparedness and response, sitting around the response table, dealing with the Queensland fruit fly in Grey Lynn. We are also seeing an increase in passenger numbers. We are also seeing an increase in trade volumes. It is appropriate now that we do the review and we reach out to industry, we reach out to the New Zealand public, we reach out to the regional councils, we reach out to the universities, and we reach out to our international trading partners to make sure that we get a strategy that is going to look forward to 2025.

Also what has been very important to acknowledge in the last 12 months over this period is we have come through a couple of significant events, and they are droughts. We have had quite a significant one on the East Coast of the South Island. I was down talking to about 450 farmers in North Canterbury recently. Gosh, it has been dry down there. Nearly every farmer who came up and talked to me talked about the value of water storage and the value of storing water and utilising it in those summer months. In the Government’s view, we do not do enough in storing water. We only collect and store about 2 percent of the rain that falls in this country. The rest of it heads out to sea. It is not that we have a shortage of water in this country; it just does not rain at the right place and the right time. That is why we have set up the Irrigation Acceleration Fund. Twenty-eight million dollars has been invested in about 18 different projects in Canterbury, in Hawke’s Bay, in the Manawatū, in Northland, and in other areas to get investment ready to move up into the Crown Irrigation Investment fund.

We know also that water storage is hugely important for the environment. We know that it takes the pressure off groundwater aquifers. Just look at the Ōpua dam, which had to close down for a period of time this summer. We had Fish and Game out there collecting and rescuing fish species from nearby streams, rivers, and creeks that would have otherwise died, because they were dry. Where were they releasing these fish? Into the Ōpihi River, which is fed by the Ōpua dam. Also, we have water coming from the Ōpua dam into Timaru city. So we have social benefits from water storage, we have environmental benefits, and let us not forget about the economic benefits—500-odd jobs in that region have been created from the Ōpua water storage, and there are numerous other examples as well.

Another investment that the Government is making in the environment is dealing with animal emissions. It is great that we can acknowledge New Zealand scientists who have been working hard on trying to come up with technological advances in livestock that are going to reduce methane emissions. They just had a conference earlier this week in Palmerston North, where they are celebrating the success of non-toxic compounds, which they have been working on for a long time, changing methane emissions from livestock. Hopefully, in 5 years or beyond they might be at a point where they can commercialise this product. They have done a huge number of trials, and early indications from these trials are that they believe they can reduce methane emissions in livestock, particularly in sheep and cattle, from 30 percent as a minimum up to 90 percent.

The Government is making a significant investment in a Global Research Alliance, working closely with our New Zealand scientists and also the other 45 countries around the world that are partnering with us. So we should acknowledge the investment that the Government is making through the Primary Growth Partnership, through the Sustainable Farming Fund, through the Global Research Alliance, and through other areas where we are investing as well. Thank you.

CATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green): I am pleased to be able to take a call on this issue, although I have not sat for much time on the Primary Production Committee. I want to talk about the annual review of Landcorp for 2013-14 and about its statement of intent, which also looks forward from 2013-14 to 2017.

There is an odd disconnect between the rhetoric in these documents, the rhetoric that it came to the select committee with, which my colleague Steffan Browning was part of, and what actually happens on the ground by Landcorp. Believe it or not, I was at the A and P show the other day in the Waikato talking about the statement of intent, which may not seem like something you would expect the public to be interested in. But I had a petition about Landcorp, and the public were very interested in the statement of intent. They live with the downstream effects of the statement of intent, which is the pollution of the Waikato River and the increasing contamination of the waterways downstream of Landcorp’s dairy conversions. And so there is, actually, a great deal of public interest in what Landcorp, which is the biggest farmer in this country, says it is going to do in the annual review in terms of the environment, in terms of downstream, and in terms of what it is modelling.

In the report to the House from the select committee about environmental sustainability, for the annual review of 2013-14, Landcorp asserts it is an “environmentally savvy farmer” and says it is serving the interests of both the environment and the industry. But when I took these quotes to the people who were signing my petition at this A and P show they were saying: “But why is it converting volcanic soil forestry into dairy farms that are going to increase the loading of nutrients to the point where farmers downstream will not be able to meet their own budgets?”. And so we have the unique situation of Federated Farmers Waikato and others saying that Landcorp—the leading Government agency around farming and the actual biggest farmer in the country—is failing the farmers downstream.

It was quite extraordinary to hear the people in the Waikato talking about their understanding of the statement of intent, which was that Landcorp intends to convert more and more land into dairying up on the volcanic plateau and that Federated Farmers there wanted a conversation on a moratorium. They have read the statement of intent and they know that anything between 17,000, which is Landcorp’s figure, and up to 70,000, which is some of the local’s figures, more dairy cows are going to be at the head of that catchment. And the Waikato River just cannot take too much more of this.

Landcorp, in its statement of intent, said that it is interested in community engagement by fronting up to concerns about the environmental impact of farming. This is not fronting up. This is the worst role model from a Government agency for good farming practice that we have seen in a very long time. I mean, we could talk about the commodity price, we could talk about reliance on selling milk powder to China, we could talk about all those vulnerabilities, but what is even worse is that we are selling out water quality not just for now but for many years to come.

If you know anything about how it works in the environment you know that the contamination of waterways in upper catchments takes years, years, and years to filter through. That is why Federated Farmers Waikato is saying: “Hang on, what about us downstream who are trying to balance the nutrient budget?”.

It is not acceptable to put these kinds of rhetorical devices about being environmentally savvy in a statement of intent while being the main culprit in the continuing destruction of long-term water quality in this country. There is a responsibility when we review Landcorp to actually make sure that it is doing role modelling best practice. This is worst practice. This is 60 percent of monitored rivers being no longer swimmable. This is a nutrient budget for Waikato farmers that will blow out, not because of their practices but because of the practices of the Government-owned Landcorp farms and Landcorp-managed farms in the Upper Waikato. The people are signing the petition because of this statement of intent. The intent to continue to destroy the environment for the sake of a monocultural and agricultural intensification in a catchment that simply just cannot take it is irresponsible on behalf of Landcorp.

If we look at Landcorp’s rhetoric, it has got this saying “leading the way”, which some poor person had to make up. “Leading the way” was something that some poor person in the department had to make up as a new phrase for what Landcorp is doing. It says its bottom lines are “volume, value, efficiency, people, and the environment”. Environment, of course, is the last one. It also says it has an aspiration, from 2013-14 to now, to go from 1.5 percent to 5 percent pastoral livestock, which is more than tripling the number of current pastoral livestock on Landcorp farms. So forget about climate change and forget about the fact that it is going to cut down the forests that would have mitigated some of that and turn them into dairy farms that no one wants.

Why are we doing this? Why are we cutting down forests and converting land to a polluting, greenhouse gas-emitting industry when our climate targets are a joke already and it is a Government department in its own statement of intent that is leading the way on this?

I went to a public meeting the other night at Lake Karapiro. There was a famous rower there, Mahe Drysdale. He said: “My lake is turning pink as a result of the corporate intent of Landcorp in this catchment. My lake is turning pink.” He may not have used the words “statement of intent” or “corporate”—maybe that was me hearing it—but he was very concerned about what was happening in the upper catchment. He was saying: “I’ve been rowing on this lake for many, many years and all I can see is degraded water quality and what’s happening upstream.” Unlike the farmers in the Lower Waikato who are actually trying to meet nutrient budgets and are trying to manage what is now acknowledged as a damaging approach to farming when there is no fencing, when there are nutrient loads that rivers cannot take, and when there are phosphorous nitrates and sediment—they are trying to modify and to meet those agreements—Landcorp is not. Mahe Drysdale can be assured that Landcorp will continue, according to these plans, to convert the Upper Waikato—and we will not even talk about the Manawatū, because that is still pretty much a disaster—into more pollution.

Instead of just talking about being awash with milk we are actually awash with cow urine, pollution, and a Government-owned enterprise that plans to do that more. It plans to do that more. I cannot even get sense out of Landcorp as to how many more cows it is going to put into that area, but one thing is for sure: we cannot keep adding to the nutrient load, which is what it plans to do in all of its documents. It is leading the way. It is leading us away from a solution. It is going to be a huge cost. It is going to cost us an enormous amount of money, because if you look at what the Government is already spending on Lake Taupō, Lake Rotorua, the Manawatū River, and Lake Wairarapa, these are multimillion-dollar clean-ups because of the long-term, bad agricultural intensification practices in the catchments. Now Landcorp is going to make that worse.

The Green Party believes that Landcorp should be saying, in its statements of intent and in these plans that go from 2013 and look ahead—it should be coming to the Primary Production Committee and saying: “We will role model best practice in the following ways. We will actually set up a farming system that is non-polluting—a farming system that, rather than being based on the permanent excessive growth model, is based on proper management of dairying and other industries that will not convert land that should stay in trees and that will protect the environment for the long term.”

Landcorp should be the leading agency that is doing that. But these documents, these reports, that I have here are all saying to us that Landcorp is way back in the 1950s and it is not supporting the farming sector let alone the water quality of this country. If a Government agency is incapable of planning for or modelling protection for water quality in these documents, everybody downstream is going to suffer. Everybody downstream is going to pay the price—they are, and they will.

When you get Federated Farmers, the Green Party, Olympic rowers, and community groups all saying the same things, these statements of intent need to be reviewed. They need to be taken apart. We need to tell Landcorp that it does not have a mandate to pollute this country. It does not have a mandate to contaminate water with its bad agricultural practices. This is a disgrace.

Hon JO GOODHEW (Minister for Food Safety): I rise to take this call not only as Minister for Food Safety but also as the Associate Minister for Primary Industries, with responsibility for forestry. I would like to acknowledge the Primary Production Committee chair, Ian McKelvie, and the other members of the committee. On reading the annual review report from this year, there are a number of things that I want to touch on in the course of my short address this evening.

The first of those is the 1080, threat and the second of those is going to be food safety in general, because members of the Opposition certainly need to hear a wee bit more about putting this in context. It is always quite amazing to me how memories of the Opposition members fade in terms of what was present at the time when they were the Government, so I want to talk a little bit about what our Government has been doing.

Let us start with 1080. It was a criminal threat, and we must always remember it was a criminal threat, to contaminate formula and other products. It was a heinous threat, and to the most vulnerable: the babies who would be drinking formula. The potential for harm—in fact, the potential death of babies—really struck at the heart of New Zealand. But, from the time that threat was received, the Ministry of Primary Industries worked alongside the New Zealand police, who were investigating this matter. The Ministry of Primary Industries brought into being a complete response. It had certainly learnt a lot from the whey protein concentrate 80 inquiry and the recommendations out of that, and was able to put up a response that meant it looked at the whole of the supply chain.

I will refute one of the statements that was made by a member of the Primary Production Committee—well, it appeared to be, through the report—that they were concerned about the fact that there would be compromises and divergent interests within the Ministry of Primary Industries in terms of dealing with an incident like that. Far from this—far from this—what the response to the 1080 threat showed was that the Ministry of Primary Industries had the interests and the safety of the consumer absolutely front and centre. It showed that the ministry was able to work right across the supply chain of those products in order to work with the sector, in order to work right from the farm gate where the milk was being collected all the way through to processing, through the retail chain, and then on to our export markets. It was able to prepare the whole of that supply chain for far better security so that we could be able to stand in front of the public of New Zealand and say that this product is now likely, because of the security on our supply chain, to be safer than it was before.

I want to move on to what we learnt from the whey protein concentrate 80 inquiry. It is very sad to think that the Opposition members think that all of the woes that were exposed by the various inquiries after the whey protein concentrate 80 incident were present only under the National Government. How short-sighted that is. We heard the former Associate Minister talk about the fact that this was all down to National. The member simply must be joking. There are things that have come out of the whey protein concentrate 80 inquiry. We now have a Food Safety Science and Research Centre, where the business plan is currently being constructed. We have a Food Safety and Assurance Advisory Council. We have had two traceability reports. We are rolling that out across not just dairy but also the rest of the food sector as well. You see, this country now understands how important traceability is, because of the false alarm over botulism and the inquiries that were happening subsequent to that.

So there is quite a lot of work under the food safety portfolio that I can tell you the Ministry of Primary Industries is turning itself to, alongside the fact that, unlike before the portfolio came under the Ministry of Primary Industries, we are now seeing increasing numbers of prosecutions for food that is not safe for our local New Zealanders to be consuming. What we require, in order to export what is $47 billion worth of food manufacturing receipts each year and $29.3 billion worth of food itself, is for the other countries that take our food to trust us, to see us as a reliable supplier of safe, high-quality food, and that depends on our reputation. I can tell this Committee that I believe our reputation is even better now than it was because of our transparency, because of the work we are doing, and because we share our knowledge as a nation around food safety processes with other countries that are developing countries.

Steffan Browning: Mr Chair.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): No, Mr Browning, you cannot have a call. Your calls have been exhausted on this debate and your spare calls have all been used.

Steffan Browning: I think your numbers are wrong.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): I beg your pardon?

STEFFAN BROWNING (Green): I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. With respect, I believe your numbers might not be right. I believe there is still a spare call.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): The numbers I have show that Catherine Delahunty had one of the substantive calls and had the only floating call. She took two calls and, as I indicated at the beginning of the debate, the Greens had two. They were used tonight by Eugenie Sage and Catherine Delahunty. If the figures were incorrect there, the member might want to talk to Kevin Hague, James Shaw, and I am not sure who “DR” is who had the earlier calls.

STEFFAN BROWNING (Green): I believe there is another one for Jan Logie to come that I could use.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): There is a further call that can be held on the next theme, but the party has used all calls on this theme and all of the spare calls.

RINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga): I am pleased to take a call in this appropriations debate. I want to talk about the primary industry forgotten by this Government, and that is the fishing industry and also its sister aquaculture industry. We have heard three calls from Government Ministers, 15 minutes of kōrero from the Ministers, and other than a passing reference to maybe some SPATnz research and some rescuing of some freshwater fish in some drying-up rivers down south we have had nothing from these Ministers and this Government on our fishing industry. Let me remind this Committee that the fishing industry is the seventh-largest commodity exporter in New Zealand and we have the fourth-largest exclusive economic zone in the world—15,000 kilometres of coastline. It is a very important industry. And not only that—it is important culturally and it is important socially. We all love to fish. And it is very important commercially. Basically, the lack of support for the fishing industry from this Government is evidenced by the contributions from these Ministers or the lack of support for the fishing industry.

If we delve into the annual review we can see that there is no leadership from the Minister, because we know that he has been disempowered by his Cabinet because of the disaster that occurred in the Snapper 1 fishery and the debate that roared from that fiasco. So we are not getting the leadership in the fishing industry, and if you look into the great department of the Ministry for Primary Industries, where is fishing in the Ministry for Primary Industries? It is an undersized, under-resourced little back office within the Ministry for Primary Industries, and that is what our great fishing industry has been turned into under this Government. If we look at the fishing industry, that industry is funded largely through cost recovery levies from the commercial operators. They pay their way and they would expect better services out of the Ministry for Primary Industries and from this Government.

As an example, let us look at the front-line fisheries officers. I mentioned earlier how vast our fishing resources are and how vast our fishing industry is, and yet we have barely over 100 full-time fisheries officers actually investigating and working across our fisheries, and that is across that vast fishing area. Coupled with that, there is just lack of resourcing all the way through the Ministry for Primary Industries, and the commercial sector has been underserved by this appalling Minister and the lack of leadership. He is not coming up with any of the goods. It is evidenced by this annual review. There is no mention whatsoever from the Minister about the seventh-largest commodity export industry in our country, the great fishing industry. We are not seeing the resourcing going into front-line officers. We are also not seeing those other proposals that the Government has talked about. Two weeks before the election we heard about these proposed recreational fishing parks. We are waiting to see the discussion paper. It was supposed to be released months ago, and yet we are still waiting.

Hon Damien O’Connor: Another broken promise.

RINO TIRIKATENE: Another broken promise. It occurred back in 2008, and now it is repeating itself. This is a Government that is absolutely disempowered. It is not delivering for the fishing industry. We are still waiting on these proposed fishing parks. But at the core of it we have a quota management system, and we will shortly, next year, be celebrating 30 years of our world-class, world-leading quota management system, which controls the take from all of our fish stocks to ensure sustainability. It is world-leading. It has been lauded internationally, and yet this Minister and this Government have been undermining, and have not been defending, our quota management system. Fisheries management goes to the heart of that. Where is the fisheries management advice that is coming through from the Ministry for Primary Industries? It is absolutely all about process. It does not want to tackle the big issues. Shame!

STUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): Well, it is great to have an opportunity to speak on the primary industries appropriation tonight, and I would like to start by talking about fishing, which seems to have been raised by the previous speaker, Rino Tirikatene. In fact, some really good news came out overnight. Aotearoa Fisheries Ltd’s subsidiary has just got the first business agreement with the Dubai Government, which is fantastic news. It comes from very good investment by the Ministry for Primary Industries into that area.

I would also like to talk about shellfish and the production technology company that has just been set up in Nelson, which the Minister touched on earlier. That is a Primary Growth Partnership in conjunction with Sanford, and I have had the pleasure of being out with Sanford and looking at the aquacultural industry in the Marlborough Sounds not so long ago. It was really interesting, only a few weeks ago, to talk about the opportunities that that particular project will bring to the industry. It is phenomenal. In the wild, there are 30 to 40 million eggs released by a female mussel, but only two of those mature through. The opportunity to do it in a controlled environment, with a controlled gene stock, really, is the opportunity here. At the moment the industry gets its spat from two sources. It is really just relying on the spat either washing up on shore in seaweed up in Northland or blundering on to racks in Golden Bay. It really is not reliable, and the source is not really top quality either. So this gives a real breeding programme opportunity. So it is a fantastic opportunity.

The other Primary Growth Partnership I want to talk about this evening is Precision Seafood Harvesting. That is a wonderful innovation that is driven by the Primary Growth Partnership. It has developed new fishing technology, which is going through the patent process as we speak. It gives an opportunity to be much more selective in what is caught in the net. Smaller fish escape from the net, fish are landed on the boat in much better condition, and it gives an opportunity to return bycatch over the side. Most fish are landed alive and are in much better condition, and that gives an opportunity to make a lot more money by selling high-quality fish through to our export markets. So it is a great result for the fishing industry.

Turning to biosecurity: one of the big issues, as far as biosecurity goes in the Kaikōura electorate, is Chilean needle grass. A group of people got together and it was one of their top issues. During the adjournment I had the pleasure of hosting the Minister for Primary Industries and the Prime Minister at Te Mania Angus in the Conway Flat area, and that had over 400 farmers there. They were concerned about such things as Chilean needle grass and how to double primary sector exports by 2025 whilst operating within the environmental constraints that they are operating under.

I note that my colleague was talking earlier about OVERSEER. The Ministry for Primary Industries have put a lot of money into OVERSEER. It is an iterative program, and it will take time. It would not matter how much money you threw at it today, tomorrow you would want to be putting some more in it, because it just develops over time. One of the problems we have is that the science and the regulators are having trouble keeping pace with change. But farmers on that day at Te Mania Angus were there to really discuss all those issues and to really drive home to the rest of New Zealand that, although the primary industries are the economic engines for the New Zealand economy, they are also guardians of the land. They care very deeply about the environment, and realise that their lifestyle and their income is dependent on a good environment and a good environmental result.

The other big announcement, which was, I think, briefly touched on by the Minister earlier, is the Pastoral Greenhouse Gas—

Reports noted.

Internal affairs and Government relationships

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): The question now is that the reports of committees relevant to internal affairs and Government relationships—arts, culture, and heritage, defence, finance and revenue, internal affairs, Māori affairs, Pacific Island affairs, Prime Minister and Cabinet, security intelligence, services for Parliament, sport and recreation, State services, statistics, Treaty negotiations, and women’s affairs—be noted.

Hon RUTH DYSON (Chairperson of the Government Administration Committee): I move that the reports be noted. I am taking a call as the chairperson of the Government Administration Committee, which has responsibility for a number of the topics under this theme. It is really interesting to speak in the first themed, bracketed debate of this sort in the Appropriation (2013/14 Confirmation and Validation) Bill. I am referring specifically to the Appropriation (2013/14 Confirmation and Validation) Bill, Mr Chairman, because you may be inclined to have the same very hard-line approach to refer to the topic as your predecessor in the Chair had, and I just want to cover all bases before I get on to a broader contribution to the debate.

I do want to take the opportunity, and I will be upfront with you, Mr Chair, that it is slightly outside the mandate of the debate, but given the contribution that I am going to make next I think you will excuse me. I want to take the opportunity while the Hon Chris Finlayson is in the chair to acknowledge and thank him, not on behalf of my party, but on behalf of all New Zealanders for the drive and leadership that he demonstrated in enabling our National War Memorial to be completed in time for the 100th commemoration of the most tragic episode in New Zealand military involvement, the landing at Gallipoli. I know that previous Ministers and Governments were involved in the purchasing of the land, but I am reliably informed that if it was not for the Minister’s personal passion and drive to have this completed on time, it may well not have happened. So, Minister Finlayson, I will not do this too often. I know that it is extremely risky for my reputation as it possibly is for yours, but it is a genuine commendation of the work you did. I think that the whole nation has benefited from that experience, which was broadcast throughout the day on Radio New Zealand, and probably featured on Campbell Live too, possibly, because that is a fine contributor to public debate as well.

I want to talk in general about some of the reports that we are considering that our Government Administration Committee considered, particularly on the State Services Commission, the Ministry for Culture and Heritage, and the Department of Internal Affairs. I say that for core public services they were plagued by a lack of policy leadership and a lack of vision from their Ministers to the point that there was quite a lot of despondency. And the icing on the cake was clearly that they were, in large part, underfunded. Despite the significant funding cuts that many departments have had to face—even in health, which has not kept pace with population growth or inflation—the National Government this year is still going to break a significant election promise that it made in 2011 and 2014. It was the No. 1 commitment from the Prime Minister in both those election campaigns that in this year’s Budget we would see a Budget surplus, and now we have been told that that Budget surplus has been put out yet again. So it is hard to work out where the money has gone to.

We know we have had a recession. We know we have been part of the international global financial crisis. We know that the Government has put in significant amounts of taxpayers’ money, as we in Canterbury have put in ratepayers’ money, to the rebuild facilities that are needed, particularly in the infrastructure. But that does not make up for the poor financial management that the Minister of Finance has demonstrated, and the waste of money that we have seen. There were wastes of money like the bailout of corporates. Skycity and Rio Tinto are the two obvious ones. There was the extraordinary amount of money that was put into giving the highest-income earners—or those who declare their income—the 10 percent of top-income earners, a significant tax cut in the very same National Budget that was cutting home support services for older New Zealanders.

So the priorities of this Government have been wrong, the financial management of this Government has been weak, and we have had New Zealanders duped—told in two successive election campaigns that the No. 1 priority is that there would be a Budget surplus this year. Now we know that that is a broken promise. I wonder how National members of Parliament who are elected as constituency MPs feel when they go back to their electorates and have to face up to people they have duped. They have misrepresented what was going to happen, and now they have to go back and say: “We’re breaking our promise.” It is a very sad indictment on our political system.

Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations): The theme of internal affairs and Government relationships encompasses quite a number of portfolio areas, and I particularly want to start by referring to the report of the Government Administration Committee and its review of the Ministry for Culture and Heritage.

I particularly refer to the category of World War I commemorations and begin by thanking the previous speaker, the member for Port Hills, for her very generous comments. I do appreciate them. They should also be directed at the outgoing Chief Executive of the Ministry for Culture and Heritage, Lewis Holden, who is moving to Auckland to take up a senior position in the State Services Commission. I worked with Lewis over a period of 5 years. He was a very good chief executive officer. He and his team, and, in particular, Brodie Stubbs of the ministry, did a tremendous job in ensuring that the World War I commemorations that we had here in New Zealand were of real international quality. So I am very pleased that, in terms of continuity, the Government of the 1930s established the War Memorial Carillon, and the previous Labour Government established the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior. This Government has been lucky enough to continue that tradition by developing the War Memorial Park and the Arras Tunnel. I think we should all be very pleased with what we achieved.

Of the areas within my particular sphere of influence at the present time, I want to refer to the report of the Ministry of Māori Development. This ministry is doing some hugely important work on the reform of Te Ture Whenua Maori Act 1993. Eleven percent of the North Island is governed by this legislation. Eighty percent of that land is undeveloped or underdeveloped, and there have been a number of reports that have been released, and I particularly refer to the recent Ministry for Primary Industries report that says that if we can free up this land for development it could be worth up to $8 billion to the Māori economy and create thousands of jobs, with inputs of a couple of billion dollars. So this Government has said it is worth the challenge.

I pay tribute to the people in the ministry, the advisory groups, who have done so much work on this particular exercise. It is hugely important work. I would go so far as to say it is one of the biggest pieces of economic reform that this Government has undertaken. Very shortly an exposure draft is going to be released so that people can talk about it. There have been some people who have been saying that there has not been enough consultation. There has been a glut of consultation up and down the country, talking to people, to make sure that we get it right. This is a complete rewriting of the legislation, and it is hugely significant for New Zealand.

I also want to say something about Treaty negotiations. It is never easy to advance Treaty negotiations, but we are making very good progress. I particularly want to acknowledge the very good work of the Office of Treaty Settlements and Crown negotiators like Paul Swain and Rick Barker. They are fine people. They could have stayed here in Opposition, hurling insults across the Chamber, getting bored, but instead they got out into the wide world, working with me—not for me, but with me—and I would like to think that they and the other Crown negotiators are making very good progress.

Highlights of the previous year include the Te Ātiawa settlement and, of course, the hugely significant Whanganui River settlement. There was 130 years of litigation laid to rest through that particular settlement. There is a huge amount of work that is being undertaken at the moment, and every person in the Office of Treaty Settlements is utterly dedicated to the job at hand. I believe we are making good progress.

I also want to say that the Māori Affairs Committee, first under the chairmanship of Mr Tau Henare, and more recently under the chairmanship of Mr Korako, has been doing tremendous work in pushing the legislation through the House. I am very satisfied that in the area of Māori development this Government has been doing a huge amount of work. It is incredibly important work for our nation. I am particularly excited by the proposed reforms of Te Ture Whenua Maori Act, which will benefit the Māori economy.

PEENI HENARE (Labour—Tāmaki Makaurau): Tēnā koe, Mr Chair. Can I take this opportunity to acknowledge a great man whose legacy is vast and broad. Perhaps the most enduring part of his legacy was his ability to connect with Māori people, young and old alike. You may be asking whom I am talking about. I am actually talking about “Kia ora, Chief”—the Hon Parekura Horomia—who on this day 2 years ago passed away. I want to acknowledge him as a segue into our contribution this evening around exactly what the Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations has just spoken about—Māori development, or, I would argue, the lack thereof.

One of Mr Horomia’s legacies was a strong Te Puni Kōkiri. The focus was to ensure that the Government of the day met its obligation to the Māori people, as sanctified in Te Tiriti o Waitangi. In fact, it says that our principal duties under the Act are to monitor and liaise with Government agencies, and to promote increases in the achievement of Māori in key social and economic development areas. This, I believe, is not what is happening. I believe that our people are being duped into believing that only via an economic pathway can they also achieve cultural wealth, which is one of the key priorities of Te Puni Kōkiri.

In the annual review, I am concerned by the appropriation. If we look over the past 6 years, Te Puni Kōkiri’s appropriation rate has barely kept up with inflation. Some might be asking what that means in real terms. Well, for a young Māori fella, what that means to “Joe Public” is that he is getting ripped off. In fact, it has been a cut. If you look at that, if it has slowly risen, barely keeping up with the rate of inflation, I would argue that, over the past 6 years, in real terms that means there has actually been a cut. You know, this is certainly being felt in real terms across the regions and in the urban centres.

But let me tell you whom I feel for the most. I feel sorry for the staff of Te Puni Kōkiri, who are being asked to match biblical deeds at this point in time, to turn water into wine, to make miracles from the measly portion of money that has been allocated to Te Puni Kōkiri. What I am saying is that, currently, as it stands, the annual review shows us that there are over 30 vacancies in Te Puni Kōkiri in what is an already depleted rank. Of more concern is that no waka can head in the right direction without the right leadership, and, as it stands, there are four vacancies in key leadership roles in Te Puni Kōkiri right now.

What is the plan of this Government? Well, apparently, we have been promised that those positions will be filled by the end of the calendar year—by the end of the calendar year. There is a difference in the Māori world between time and wā, and I can tell you that this is definitely really exaggerating and pushing the boundaries of wā. What that means is that it has been over a year since the election, and these key leadership roles within Te Puni Kōkiri have not been filled.

Pita Paraone: Mā te wā.

PEENI HENARE: Mā te wā—mā te wā. That is, of course, one of the big concerns in the new operating model that Te Puni Kōkiri is currently operating by. That operating model is one that, as the Minister has already alluded to, talks about the economic growth and economic prosperity of the Māori people. Well, it just so happens that another priority of Te Puni Kōkiri is to improve the cultural wealth of the Māori. Nowhere in the annual review of Te Puni Kōkiri, and almost nowhere in the discussion from the Minister this evening, has there been any reference to the growth in the cultural wealth of te iwi Māori, of the Māori people. This is an important priority in my eyes. A focus on business growth and initiatives has been at the cost of the well-being of the Māori people. In fact, in my opinion, this Government has lost faith in the Māori people, and, not surprisingly, our people have lost faith in this Government.

JAN LOGIE (Green): I rise to speak to the annual review of the Ministry for Women. I would like to start by sharing with the Committee a quote about the recent report Fault Lines: Human Rights in New Zealand, which was produced by some academics from Waikato University, including the previous Equal Employment Opportunities Commissioner, Dr Judy McGregor: “Professor McGregor says we keep telling the United Nations we were the first to grant women the vote, but we still don’t have equal pay for women or pay equity for carers. ‘Nor do we have adequate paid parental leave, and we continue to suffer completely unacceptable levels of violence against women. We say how good we are, but the reality is we’re in trouble.’ ” The Ministry for Women, newly named in this term of Parliament, is the Government’s principal adviser, according to its annual report, on achieving better outcomes for women. Quite similarly to the previous speaker, Peeni Henare, I feel that this is another case of a ministry being asked to turn water into wine. With a small group of people and a budget of under $5,000, this group of mostly women are expected to help this Government, to work with this Government, to deliver on better outcomes for women in this country.

I do want to spend just a very brief period of time talking to the structure and the fact that this ministry has a Minister, the Minister for Women, who is outside of Cabinet. We have seen in the last week that, I would suggest, the Minister feels that her political career and her personal political ambitions are in conflict with her ability to speak out and advocate for women in this country. When the Minister for Women chooses to reiterate the Prime Minister’s minimisation of a case of harassment and chooses not to raise any of the wider issues around women’s safety in the workplace, we see the consequences of this position being based outside of Cabinet, and the low priority that this Government gives to the status and the progress of the rights of women.

The ministry has three core goals: economic independence of women, more women in leadership, and increased safety for New Zealand women. These are ambitious goals. The reality is that when one in three women in this country is likely to experience sexual violence and when one in three women in this country is likely to experience physical violence at the hand of their most intimate partner, we know we need ambition and we know we need someone who will stand up and actually work to turn that round. What do we have instead? We have a Minister outside of Cabinet and we have a small, under-resourced ministry that is able only to give advice.

In the last year and a half, this ministry has produced 17 media releases, the majority of which are congratulations to other organisations. Only three of them reported on information that had been put out by Statistics New Zealand. There were only three pieces of research and advice that media releases were put out on. I am not blaming that group of people who are in there, who I believe have the best intentions. This is an issue of this Government’s lack of priority around the well-being of women and the well-being of families in this country. It is a sad indictment on the state of things in New Zealand. Just to take the one example of paid parental leave, where the Government here had the opportunity to grant this country 26 weeks and it chose—

Hon TODD McCLAY (Minister of Revenue): It gives me pleasure to take a call in this stage of the debate around revenue and finance and the work of the Finance and Expenditure Committee. Can I recognise all members of that committee and thank them for their diligence and say that I particularly enjoyed reading their report. When looking across the impact that many of the members had, some members seemed to know much more about what is going on than others. Therefore, I certainly recognise my colleagues on the right of the chair at this moment.

The Inland Revenue Department has a very big work programme in front of it. It was announced a few years ago by a former Minister of Revenue. It is about modernising and simplifying tax administration in New Zealand—a very large mouthful, that, as a description, but it is a very important one because one of the ways the current Government and, indeed, future Governments can make sure we are serving the public well when it comes to tax is making sure that the cost of administering taxation in New Zealand is as low as it can be.

There are two parts of this. The first is the cost to the Inland Revenue Department and, therefore, to the Government, to run the tax system. That is one thing we should focus on, but for this Government our focus is very much on reducing the costs to comply with tax on individual taxpayers, large taxpayers—larger companies—but particularly small to medium sized enterprises. The country is not actually in a bad space in this area. A survey was done not so long ago in America of the costs of tax administration or tax compliance for small to medium sized enterprises, and it found that the cost, on average, in a given year in America was about $10,000. A similar evaluation in New Zealand shows that it costs small to medium sized enterprises in New Zealand about $4,500 as part of tax administration. So they are significantly better off than in the case of America.

When one considers how many small to medium sized enterprises there are in New Zealand, that adds up to some billions of dollars. Through business transformation, through an opportunity for the current Government, and indeed all of the House, to look to simplify and modernise tax administration in New Zealand, that cost could come down. If it only came down by, oh, I do not know, a billion dollars within that, that could be as much in some cases as half a percentage point of GDP. That is money that businesses get to keep themselves and certainly the Government believes that businesses are the ones who are doing the hard work and they should keep more of their own money to invest in their businesses, to help grow the economy, and to employ more New Zealanders.

This is an exciting opportunity. It is not actually about only a computer system, although the current computer system, called “FIRST”, is more than 20 years of age now, and indeed it probably already costs more to maintain than it does to replace, but this is an opportunity to make sure that we have a tax system that is fit for purpose. Before any party in this Parliament needs to contemplate increasing tax rates in the future to meet some of the costs associated with the services that New Zealanders demand and deserve, it is our duty upon the Parliament, and indeed the Government, to look to reduce the cost of complying with tax to simplify and to modernise it.

There are a number of issues that we are working through that I know the Finance and Expenditure Committee canvassed during their hearings and their deliberations around this. The first is that we have set up a number of groups and bodies to consult and be involved with New Zealanders to ask them to consider how we can make the tax system simpler for them. This is not about reducing tax or saying to them that they do not have to pay their tax—indeed, they do—but how we can make it easier for them to comply. Of course, the majority of people in New Zealand comply with their tax obligations voluntarily. That means we do not have to make them pay their tax, but certainly we want to make it as easy as it possibly can be for those who want to comply to do so, and then to focus resources upon those who choose not to so that we can make sure that they are paying their way as well.

We set up a taxpayer simplification panel where businesses large and small, and individual taxpayers, can send their ideas into Inland Revenue for an independent group to assess. We hope we can make some changes this year, and others will be part of business transformation. We had a listening campaign as a trial in the Hawke’s Bay, where we asked people to text or go online and tell us about ways to simplify taxation. A significant number of people took time to do that. We had a tax administration conference that also gave us an opportunity to consider the issue more widely. Just recently I launched two consultation documents: a green paper on tax administration and making tax simpler, and a second one on better digital services and how we can bring Inland Revenue up into the 21st century to make things easier for people as technology allows. Thank you.

PITA PARAONE (NZ First): Tēnā koe, Mr Chair, tēnā anō tātou ēngari, i mua i te haere tonu o tōku kōrero i te pō nei, he tū wāhi poto tēnei ki te tautoko ngā kōrero i a taku tuakana a Peeni, tana mihi ki a Parekura, nā te mea, i te wā e ora ana, ko ia tētahi o ngā tangata o te ’hare nei, i tū kaha ana ki te kawe atu i ngā kaupapa e pā ana ki ngā take Māori.

[Thank you, Mr Chair, and greetings again to us. But before continuing with my address tonight, this is a brief call to endorse the statements by my elder kin Peeni in his tribute to Parekura, because when he was alive, Parekura was one person in this House who was strong on addressing policies about Māori matters.]

Just by way of explanation I stand first of all to support the comments made by my elder brother Peeni Henare in terms of acknowledging the work of the late Parekura Horomia on promoting and advancing the cause of Māori as Minister of Māori Affairs. My comments are in relation to the 2013-14 financial period and I will refer to the Ministry of Māori Development. I will also touch on matters concerning the Māori Language (Te Reo Māori) Bill and the Treaty claims.

We have heard that the debt owed by this country at the moment is $85 billion. Over the past 7 years we have ended up having a deficit. I make that comment wondering why is it that the Ministry of Māori Development over a similar number of years has underspent their allocation, and wonder whether or not they have been asked to contribute to reducing that debt by underspending their annual allocation. If in fact that is the case, then I am very disappointed to hear that, given that the very people they are set up to serve—apart from their political masters—Māori, youth, the elderly, and the dispossessed, given their needs, I would have thought that the department would not have enough money to spend.

I want to give you an example. During the course of the review of that department, the Māori Affairs Committee heard that for the Māori wardens their budget was underspent by 10 percent. They have received the same allocation for this particular activity since 2008. And in every year the department has failed to expend the full amount, and I wonder why. We asked the officials as to why this was the case. Their response was that the administration funding had not been paid out. I find it rather strange that for 7 years in a row the same budgetary item was not paid out. Hopefully, as time goes on we will learn more about the reason why they had underspent.

Let us look at some of the other examples where I believe that the department is having difficulty. We heard that they underwent a restructuring of their staff and the way that they would operate over the next year or so. We found that a number of experienced staff had been let go. It seemed to me that this was a clear example of allowing institutional knowledge to be lost by that department. I will say to this Committee that over the next 12 months or so we will see the effect of the loss of that institutional knowledge. The Minister, when he took a short call on Treaty settlements, made reference to—[Bell rung] Mr Chair?

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): No, sorry, the member’s allocation is completed.

PITA PARAONE: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I inquired of the Chair before you—

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): My apologies. There is one supplementary.

PITA PARAONE: Thank you. I just wanted to make comment on the issue around the reform of Te Ture Whenua Maori Act. The Minister made quite a statement that there had been enough consultation around the reform of Te Ture Whenua Maori Act. I would suggest that there may have been a lot of consultation, but the people were told that it was a review of the Act. The review of the Act and the reform of the Act I believe are two different matters. I am not arguing against the reform. I think the time has come for the reform of the Act, but to suggest that there has been sufficient consultation, then I would suggest that the people have been misled, because they were told during the course of that consultation that it was going to be a review and not a reform of the Act.

The other point I want to make concerns the issue around Whānau Ora. A lot of money has been expended bringing this programme up to where it is today. One of the challenges that we were advised that the ministry would have to face was ensuring that the people knew what Whānau Ora was about. I am really surprised that it has taken this long, given that it was introduced 3 years ago by the former Minister of Māori Affairs and co-leader of the Māori Party at the time. I am really astounded by the fact that, given the amount of money that has been allocated to Whānau Ora, the ministry is still talking about ensuring that people know what this kaupapa is about. I think that some monitoring should really take place in terms of how Whānau Ora funding is being expended.

Finally, I want to make comment about the Māori Language (Te Reo Māori) Bill, which the ministry has a purview of responsibility for. One of the changes that has been mooted is the removal of the status of Te Taura Whiri i te Reo Māori—the Māori Language Commission—from being a Crown entity to being just an ordinary entity. When we spoke to officials, they told us that the responsibility of a Crown entity was to report to its board. The proposal under the bill is that the Māori Language Commission will be responsible to a group called Te Mātāwai. I believe that there is no change, no serious change, in the set-up that the commission has now, and that the commission itself should retain its status as a Crown entity. We in New Zealand First will certainly be pushing for that to be retained when the bill comes before the House.

I just want to conclude by saying that, overall, Te Puni Kōkiri appears to be doing what it was set up to do, but one of the things that I believe it should have taken a lead from its previous Minister on is making more contact with the people whom it is set up to serve. Kia ora.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Members, there is one call left, but the Business Committee determined that this would be a time-limited debate of 7 hours, not just a debate of 84 5-minute calls. Hence, when all calls are exhausted or where those with remaining calls are not seeking a call, the call may go to any member seeking the call.

The Business Committee determined the calls allocated to each party to ensure that each party has the opportunity to contribute to the annual review debate, taking into account the proportion of seats held by that party in the House. However, once those calls are exhausted or not sought, the overall time limit prevails and the call may go to any member seeking the call.

SARAH DOWIE (National—Invercargill): Thank you very much for this opportunity to speak in the last part of this debate, on the internal affairs and Government relationships theme for the 2013-14 annual review debate. It is a pleasure because this debate is so wide ranging. The topics under this heading include arts, culture, and heritage, finance and revenue, Prime Minister and Cabinet, and State services, to name a few. I think that that leads really nicely into the fourth priority of this National-led Government, which is delivering better public services.

We want the public to have confidence in our departments. We want the public to have confidence in the services provided. They need to be provided in an effective way, and they need to be fit for purpose for that individual who walks through the door. We have asked our Government departments to do more for less. This Government has been pragmatic in its solution-finding, and has set tangible targets for each department, and we measure those achievements and those targets so that we can track progress. And we actually monitor it—a novel idea, I know, for the Opposition. We monitor it to see that it is working, and if it is working we capitalise on that.

But we are a Government that is brave, because if things are not working so well, we are prepared to take the hard decision and modify whatever we are doing for the betterment of all New Zealanders. This is why we have kept Government spending down, because we have focused officials on key measures. We have kept Government spending down and built a stronger, competitive economy, one that grew by 3.5 percent in 2014. It is the best performance since September 2007. With an economy that is growing, with production increasing, and with more jobs—80,000 last year, to be exact—the wealth for ordinary New Zealanders is growing for families and for businesses. The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet advises the executive on the Business Growth Agenda—some 350 initiatives that have helped grow the regions—

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Who wrote that?

SARAH DOWIE: —and I find it disturbing when some members opposite take a trip on the wild side and come down to Southland and then tell me that we are not doing well. I have got one thing to say to the member opposite—Mr Twyford—which is that the Bluff portion of State Highway 1 is currently being resealed, with the Greenhills overbridge reseal having been completed. If generating 14.4 percent of New Zealand’s total export receipts, if having an unemployment rate of 3.3 percent—

Stuart Smith: How much?

SARAH DOWIE: —3.3 percent—and if having some of the most affordable housing in the country and above-average household income is doing badly, well, then I do not know what is good.

Southlanders enjoy a high quality of living, and we are highly satisfied with our lives, according to the 2014 regional activity report. See? We are happy—happy. One of the key parts of the Business Growth Agenda advice from the Prime Minister and Cabinet is to open up our new markets, and Southland is obviously a trading export economy, but we are not going just for dairying. We are diversifying and growing other markets, including fishing and aquaculture, meat, tourism, and wool—over $3 billion in export receipts—and we are even investigating new industries like cropping, oil and gas, and platinum, in an environmentally sustainable and responsible way. So one can see that Southland has got a lot going for it, and different competitive activities, but that those activities can coexist if the right conditions are put in place in respect of the operating parameters.

Mr Clayton Mitchell would be well advised to listen to the answer that the Minister of Conservation gave yesterday in respect of shark tourism operators. That is a competing business, but with the right parameters it is operating in a sustainable way. I want to just end—

Rt Hon Winston Peters: What do the pāua divers say?

SARAH DOWIE: —Mr Peters—by extending my condolences to the family of Frana Cardno, the former Mayor of Southland District. She was a champion of Southland and, as such, she encouraged people who had Southland’s best interests at heart, and that actually transcended the colour represented in Parliament. She encouraged me while I was at the Department of Conservation, she encouraged me while I was a lawyer, and she encouraged me as the member for Invercargill.

GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central): It is a pleasure to take a call in what I guess we would call this grab bag of portfolios that fall under this final item. I would actually encourage members who want to take a look at the estimates document, if you do want to get a flavour of the Finance and Expenditure Committee’s consideration of these matters, to take a look at page 295, which is the annual review of Solid Energy, and, in fact, the transcript of the exchange between the Solid Energy board and Clayton Cosgrove MP. It is well worth a read, if anyone wants to have a look at it, and it certainly indicates to this side of the Chamber a topic that should we have had a little more time we could have got into, which is the way in which the Government managed to run a State-owned enterprise like Solid Energy into the ground.

But I want to talk about the review of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, which is contained under this particular set of annual reviews. I want to make two particular points. The first of those is a general one that emerged during the committee’s hearing. Throughout the period covered by this annual review and, indeed, for years prior and, now we learn, for years to come the Reserve Bank has not met and will not meet the target that it has for inflation within the policy targets agreement it signs with the Government. This is a policy targets agreement that has covered both sides of the House. It has been slightly tweaked by both Labour and National Governments at different times. But the reality is that the Reserve Bank is actually going to fail to keep inflation within the 1 to 3 percent band, which Governments of both hues have decided is what is good for New Zealand. Now, when the Reserve Bank came to the committee it was clear with the members that it saw that objective as something that happened over the medium term. We had a discussion about what the medium term might mean—but the reality is that it will not meet that agreement.

I think the time has come to review the policy targets agreement to ensure that while we do what all New Zealanders would want us to do, which is to keep inflation under control, we look at the overall mandate of the Reserve Bank. It is high time, in my view, that we have monetary policy in New Zealand that not only looks at the control of inflation and not only looks at price stability but looks at employment outcomes, looks at whether or not in our country we are generating the kinds of jobs that New Zealanders would want to see, and looks at how exporters are performing. Although there might be some around New Zealand who want to have a party to celebrate parity with the Australian dollar—and if you can afford yourself a trip over to the Gold Coast, it might make you feel good when your spending power is a bit better—the reality is that our exporters, who will drive growth in the economy, are the ones who are suffering as the dollar remains, as the Reserve Bank Governor told us at this review, at an unsustainable and unjustifiably high level.

We clearly, in this country, need to look—it is what he said, Dr Coleman. He says it every time he gives his Monetary Policy Statement. He will say it again tomorrow. And tomorrow when he says it—

Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman: What’s the right level?

GRANT ROBERTSON: Well, that is the point. I am not going to say that I am the person who should justify that, but if the Reserve Bank Governor is telling New Zealanders that, if exporters right around the country are telling New Zealanders that, Mr Coleman, then we need to make sure we listen to those people.

Tomorrow when the Reserve Bank Governor makes his in-between Monetary Policy Statement he will leave the official cash rate at 3.5 percent. He has given a clear signal of that. But the reason that he will leave the rate at 3.5 percent is the fear of what will happen in the Auckland housing market if he were to cut those rates. That is clearly what is on the mind of the Reserve Bank Governor, because right around the world central banks have been lowering their official cash rates and lowering interest rates. Here in New Zealand we now have the highest interest rates from a central bank of most Western countries. The reason he cannot lower that rate is because of the failure of this Government to deal with the Auckland housing crisis.

Grant Spencer, the Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank, made a speech the other day that was quite extraordinary in the history of this Government—quite extraordinary. Having come to the select committee on various occasions to tell us that it was not his job to talk about managing the demand side of the Auckland housing market, the deputy governor came out and said that not enough is being done—not enough is being done by this Government to manage that. That is the clear message from the Reserve Bank Governor and the clear message to this Government that it has failed.

NUK KORAKO (National): E te Kaiwhakahaere ka mihi. I know this is probably one of the final calls in this themed debate, but I want to speak about Māori development and Treaty settlements. We have heard tonight—and in the last couple of days, but particularly tonight—from my colleagues on the other side of the Chamber talking about the Ministry of Māori Development. A lot of that was very much around the glass being half empty. What I want to do is talk a little bit about Māori development.

One thing that has stood out to me after going through the annual review of the Ministry of Māori Development was a lot of the initiatives that it is championing to build and strengthen the Māori economy. One example that it provided was the launch of the Māori Economic Development Strategy in the Bay of Plenty. This had been the culmination of 2 years of development, with input from more than 200 iwi members and Māori business representatives. When you look at the Māori Business Facilitation Service, it is out there supporting many of the initiatives like this one to promote Māori business growth, such as the joint project in Te Wai Pounamu with Ngāi Tahu, and also with the tertiary institutions in Dunedin.

This Government is also promoting Māori science and innovation, recently giving the Vision Mātauranga Capability Fund an extra boost of $1.9 million to that funding. The other thing is also to acknowledge the great work being done by organisations such as New Zealand Māori Tourism Council under the leadership of Pania Tyson-Nathan.

It is clear that the ongoing development of the Māori economy is slowly but surely giving Māori the key to their own destiny. We often hear—and we do use this term—about Māori aspirations, but it can mean different things to different people. To me, when we talk about Māori aspirations it is a reflection of what matters to Māori and their whānau. It is about really holistic well-being. When an iwi can manage its own economy it has the ability to build its own platform to invest in its people and transform its aspirations into positive outcomes. In turn, that builds strong whānau and strong communities.

Over the last 2 days I have heard a litany from the other side of the Chamber in playing down the importance of economic development, which would result in keeping more Māori dependent on the Government for their livelihood. On this side of the Chamber we say no to this sort of defeatist attitude. We have focused on economic growth over the last 6 years. As a result, wages have gone up by 15 percent. We have focused on getting people off welfare and into work. That is why we now have 80,000 people in jobs.

But the growth of the Māori economy has the potential to benefit Māori even further, through the settlement of historic Treaty claims. That is why it was so disheartening over the 9 long years of the Labour Government to see the settlement process all but stall. This Government has signed 47 deeds of settlement over the last 6 years. That is compared to a pitiful 16 signed by the Helen Clark Government when it was in office for 9 years. That is the statistic that really reflects that. It was a National Government that got settlements moving in the 1990s. Labour put the brakes on, and so now, under National, things are moving fast forward very, very quickly.

The Māori economy continues to grow, and it is growing very quickly under this Government’s programme of Treaty settlements. It is that growth, along with the strong development in the rest of the economy, that gives me much hope for the economic future for Māori. This Government has turned round an economy that was sinking under Labour.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First): Let me say that I was down on Stewart Island recently, and the place was packed out. The reason it was packed out, for the benefit of the member for Invercargill, is that down there they are in the top export bracket of New Zealand and the lower—

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member. The time for this debate has expired.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Point of order.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): The time for this debate has expired.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I said a point of order. That means you sit down while I give it. All right?

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): You will sit down.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I want my point of order, though.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): You sit down. This is a 7-hour debate. The time for this debate has expired.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First): I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. It is not unusual when you are going to have a planned debate like that, that you have so many speakers or a time limit. That is why we objected to this process in the first place. I made it very clear in a point of order in this Chamber. My point is, surely, one should have the courtesy of being able to finish their 5-minute speech in this Chamber.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): No. The member will sit down.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Well, that’s why we’re going to oppose this sort of crap in the future.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): The member will sit. [Interruption] Order! The 7-hour time limit was determined by the Business Committee. [Interruption] I am on my feet and I am going to explain the position. Let me explain. The Business Committee determined that this would be a debate of 7 hours. There would be 84 5-minute calls. As I explained earlier, if all those calls were not taken or the time for those debates was not expended, then there were extra calls allocated. The 7 hours are now up. That is the end of the matter. I intend to put the vote. [Interruption] I am on my feet.

The Business Committee made this determination. You have a member on the Business Committee who—[Interruption] Order! Points of order will be taken in silence. New Zealand First has a member on the Business Committee, and that member would have been able to put their case at the time. That is what has been resolved, and that is the process that we are now following. I intend to put the vote.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Point of order.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): If the member is trifling with my decision—

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I am having a point of order. That is within the Standing Orders. Can I please put it?

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): A point of order, the Rt Hon Winston Peters.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First): I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. It is a fresh point of order, and it is this. Were there 84 5-minute speeches?

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): That is not my point. The point is that this is a 7-hour debate, full stop. The question is that the reports of the committees relevant to internal affairs and Government relationships—[Interruption] Order! We are having a vote. The question is that the reports of committees relevant to internal affairs and Government relationships—arts, culture, and heritage, defence, finance and revenue, internal affairs, Māori affairs, Pacific Island affairs, Prime Minister and Cabinet, security intelligence, services for Parliament, sport and recreation, State services, statistics, Treaty negotiations, and women’s affairs—be noted.

Reports noted.

Clauses 1 to 13 and schedules 1 to 5

A party vote was called for on the question, That clauses 1 to 13 and schedules 1 to 5 be agreed to.

Ayes 63

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

Noes 58

New Zealand Labour 32; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 12.

Clauses 1 to 13 and schedules 1 to 5 agreed to.

Bill reported without amendment.

Report adopted.

Bills

Appropriation (2013/14 Confirmation and Validation) Bill

Third Reading

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN (Minister of Health) on behalf of the Minister of Finance: I move, That the Appropriation (2013/14 Confirmation and Validation) Bill be now read a third time.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Appropriation (2013/14 Confirmation and Validation) Bill be now read a third time.

Ayes 63

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

Noes 58

New Zealand Labour 32; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 12.

Bill read a third time.

Bills

Social Assistance (Portability to Cook Islands, Niue, and Tokelau) Bill

Second Reading

Hon ANNE TOLLEY (Minister for Social Development): I move, That the Social Assistance (Portability to Cook Islands, Niue, and Tokelau) Bill be now read a second time. This bill seeks to provide greater pension flexibility for people who wish to live in the Cook Islands, Niue, and Tokelau. This Government wants to make sure that those countries and territories that have close constitutional ties with New Zealand are recognised, and that their ongoing economic and social viability is supported. We also want to ensure that superannuitants have as many options as possible as to where they choose to live.

Current pension portability arrangements allow people to take their New Zealand superannuation to 22 Pacific countries and territories, including the Cook Islands, Niue, and Tokelau. The provision that makes this possible is called the Special Portability Arrangement. Under this arrangement New Zealand superannuation is paid at a minimum of 50 percent after 10 years’ residence in New Zealand, rising to 100 percent after 20 years’ residence. There are also general portability provisions that cover all other countries with which New Zealand does not have a social security agreement. The payment formula for the Special Portability Arrangement is more generous than the payment formula for the general portability provisions. This is because the Special Portability Arrangement is designed to recognise the contribution Pacific peoples make to New Zealand and the inability of Pacific countries and territories to fulfil the reciprocal obligations necessary to conclude social security agreements with New Zealand. There are currently nearly 650 people receiving their New Zealand superannuation in the Pacific, and approximately 300 of those people live in the Cook Islands.

Currently, to be eligible under the Special Portability Arrangement, a person must be resident and present in New Zealand on the date of his or her application. Consequently, people who wish to receive New Zealand superannuation in the Cook Islands, Niue, or Tokelau are not able to leave New Zealand until they are 65, which is the age of eligibility for New Zealand superannuation. Should they choose to return permanently to the Cook Islands, Niue, or Tokelau prior to the age of 65, they lose their ability to apply for New Zealand superannuation. This bill will remedy that situation by eliminating the “resident and present in New Zealand” requirement for the Special Portability Arrangement in respect of the Cook Islands, Niue, and Tokelau. The bill will allow persons to move to the Cook Islands, Niue, and Tokelau after attaining the age of 55 and apply for their New Zealand superannuation or veterans pension from these Pacific Islands at age 65. People still need to live in New Zealand until they are 55 because in order to be eligible for New Zealand superannuation or the veterans pension a person must have lived in New Zealand for 10 years since the age of 20, five of which must have been after the age of 50. This rule of 5 years’ residence over the age of 50 applies to all applicants for New Zealand superannuation.

The Social Services Committee has examined the bill and recommends by majority that it be passed with only minor amendments. These amendments are to change references in the bill to the War Pensions Act 1954 to refer to corresponding provisions in the Veterans’ Support Act 2014.

The select committee received 13 submissions on the bill, all but one of which were generally supportive. However, the majority of submissions sought the removal of the 5 years’ residence over 50 rule for applicants in the Cook Islands, Niue, and Tokelau. The Social Services Committee decided that this aspect of the bill should not be changed, because the rule applies to all applicants for New Zealand superannuation, and therefore it would not be right to remove it for only those people who wish to move to the Cook Islands, Niue, or Tokelau. I fully support the select committee’s decision. The 5 years’ residence over 50 rule is about ensuring that there is some connection with New Zealand close to a person’s application for New Zealand superannuation. People born in New Zealand who move overseas prior to the age of 50 and then return to New Zealand at a later stage are also required to meet the 5 years’ residence over 50 rule before they become eligible for New Zealand superannuation. It would be inequitable to remove this requirement for people who have moved to the Cook Islands, Niue, or Tokelau before turning 50 but still require this rule to be met by those New Zealanders who move to other countries and wish to access New Zealand superannuation when they turn 65.

We must also bear in mind that without the 5 years’ residence over 50 rule there would be nothing preventing a person born in New Zealand who then lived overseas for most of their life returning to New Zealand at 65 years and claiming New Zealand superannuation. So the 5 years’ residence over 50 rule attempts to keep a balance between supporting New Zealand’s ageing population and ensuring people who were born here but have limited connection to New Zealand do not access New Zealand superannuation.

Another issue raised in submissions on the bill was the applicability of the changes in the bill to all Pacific countries. The change is restricted to the Cook Islands, Niue, and Tokelau because this bill is about recognising New Zealand’s close constitutional relationships with these Pacific Islands that enjoy shared citizenship with New Zealand and unique legal arrangements. Both the Cook Islands and Niue have adopted constitutions enabling self-government and free association with New Zealand. Free association is a status distinct from that of full independence, in that it allows the Cook Islands and Niue to maintain New Zealand citizenship while administering their own affairs. Tokelau is a non-selfgoverning territory of New Zealand.

It is important to note that this bill is also about ensuring the economic and social viability of the Cook Islands, Niue, and Tokelau. Depopulation, and its related social and economic consequences, are longstanding issues for the Cook Islands, Niue, and Tokelau. The current resident and present in New Zealand requirement has been described as a disincentive for those people who are established in New Zealand to return home before the age of 65. Removing this disincentive could potentially help boost economic development and skills capacity in these islands through an increased return of experienced people able to apply skills acquired in New Zealand effectively in their home communities. People returning at age 55 would have the capacity to contribute to the workforce 10 years in advance of the age of qualification for New Zealand superannuation. As pension payments are paid in gross it is expected that local income and value added tax will be paid by returning migrants to contribute to the local economy.

As I said before, people who wish to live in 22 Pacific countries already receive better provisions than other superannuitants who wish to live overseas, because they are covered by the Special Portability Arrangement. People paid New Zealand superannuation under the arrangement receive 50 percent after 10 years’ residence in New Zealand, rising to 100 percent after 20 years’ residence. This compares with the general portability provisions that provide 10/45ths of the total rate of New Zealand superannuation after 10 years’ residence, rising to 100 percent after 45 years’ residence.

Currently the portability provisions for the veterans pension and New Zealand superannuation are exactly the same. One submission argued that portability provisions for the veterans pension and New Zealand superannuation should be separated. I understand that this issue was also raised in the context of the Veterans’ Support Act, which was passed in December last year. The veterans pension has been paid at the same rate and under the same conditions as New Zealand superannuation since its introduction in 1990. There does not appear to be any pressing reason to change this situation, and the select committee did not suggest it.

I want to reiterate that this Government wants to make sure that those countries and territories that have close constitutional ties with New Zealand are recognised and that their ongoing economic and social viability is supported. This Government also wants to ensure that superannuitants have as many options as possible as to where they choose to live. By allowing people to apply for New Zealand superannuation and the veterans pension while resident in the Cook Islands, Niue, or Tokelau, this bill will achieve both these things. Finally, I want to thank the select committee for the work it has done on the bill. I commend this bill to the House.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First): We have a Supplementary Order Paper in respect of this bill, because this is a bill that is extraordinarily biased and prejudicial towards the Realm countries in the Pacific. Minister of Foreign Affairs, Murray McCully, has continually emphasised the special and historic relationship of the Realm countries, and the Social Assistance (Portability to Cook Islands, Niue, and Tokelau) Bill is doing just half a job. We appeal to the Minister to finish what he started and amend the agreement to exempt the Realm countries from section 8(c), and that is what our Supplementary Order Paper will be about.

A concession to those who retire to these three islands is a gesture of goodwill, and their special relationship to New Zealand—and I mean that with a capital “S”—notes that the citizens of the Realm country of the Cook Islands are born New Zealand citizens. The simple change in the rule means that you do not have to return if you are a Cook Islander, Niuean, or a Tokelau Islander, or, for that matter, if you are a New Zealander working in the islands—you do not have to return and live in New Zealand for 5 years, as is the requirement now. It seems illogical to deny a similar concession to a special group of retirees of the Cook Islands, Niue, and Tokelau, as well as expat Kiwis who continue to be unfairly treated by the New Zealand superannuation system.

You will recall that Mr McCully made it very clear that he intended to change the law, and to give full portability to people living there, whether they be from New Zealand or the islands, without the 5-year rule, and then he used the Christchurch earthquakes as the reason why he would not do it. With respect, that is not even remotely reasonable. I want to ask members in the House how they can possibly sit there in this Government, and the select committee, for that matter, knowing that 65,000 people came into this country and after 10 years got full superannuation. There was no 50 percent requirement, of course; just after 10 years they got full superannuation and there is the National Party excusing that absolute bias in favour of them while the special relationship countries, which Alfred Ngaro knows all about, are treated in this way. Fewer than 100 people would be affected—100 against 65,000 now, and rising.

So what does the Ministry of Social Development say about that? Well, of course, it has got a deafening silence, and I want New Zealanders to know just how unfair this Government is to those people whom we have known since the great Richard Seddon decided to go on an expansionist tour around the Pacific. This is history we are talking about now. We are talking about probably 100 people from those three islands being so grossly unfairly treated, whereas people are coming in from overseas, and in their tens of thousands—now 65,000 plus—and they do not think it is anything of a moment at all. How can they be so biased? My plea to Alfred Ngaro and his other mates over there is to talk to his colleagues and try to get some sense into their heads. If you can condone 65,000 picking up full pension and superannuation after just 10 years, whether a contributor taxpayer or not, how can you possibly deny 100 people in the islands this sort of equity?

Mr Barclay has been here for about 5 minutes and he thinks it is a joke. Well, Mr Barclay, it is not a joke. For us who know the Pacific Islands and understand their peoples’ needs, this is important to their development, dichotomy of population, economics, and social life. It is grossly irresponsible to think, as Mr Barclay does at the moment, that it is a joke. It is not. He cannot answer the question: why should people come in who have never worked in this country, and after 10 years get full superannuation? Any explanation for that?

Hon Member: Who?

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Who—65,000 of them have come here. Mr Key was asked this question last year and, like everything else, he fobbed it off, and now we are talking about these three countries that Murray McCully 4 years ago made a promise to fix up.

I know that Mr Ngaro is an honourable man, and I ask Mr Ngaro to put his career on the line here, make a statement for his people. That is what he is in the National Party for. We do not want tokenism in the National Party. We want someone who will stand up for the very people he says he is committed to in all of South Auckland and places like Christchurch and all over the countryside where there are huge Pacific Island populations. Mr Ngaro, stand up for your people now and be remembered for it.

CARMEL SEPULONI (Labour—Kelston): I just want to thank the previous speaker, Winston Peters, for giving me 30 seconds to speak in the House before we go home tonight.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 10 p.m.