Wednesday, 6 July 2016

WEDNESDAY, 6 JULY 2016

WEDNESDAY, 6 JULY 2016

Mr Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

Karakia.

Oral Questions

Questions to Ministers

Housing Affordability and Availability—Government Measures to Address

1. DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First) to the Minister for Building and Housing: Does he stand by the Prime Minister’s statement yesterday that the Government has a comprehensive housing plan for New Zealand?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for Building and Housing): Absolutely. This Government has under way the most comprehensive programme of housing reform, covering social housing, covering the planning issues, covering emergency housing, and covering the quality of our older housing as well as our new. The fact that residential construction is at an all-time high of over $11 billion per year—30 percent higher in inflation-adjusted terms than the last boom—shows how successful we have been in growing supply.

Denis O’Rourke: Is the comprehensive housing strategy aimed at accelerating house prices to $1 million all over the country or just in Auckland?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: No. House price inflation is growing too quickly, although I note that it doubled under the previous Government. What I would draw the member’s attention to is that in his own city of Christchurch, this Government’s housing programme has got housing inflation in that city at under 3 percent and rents dropping by 5 percent over the last year. We need to adopt the same measures that we have in Christchurch in other parts of New Zealand to get house price inflation down.

Nuk Korako: What specific steps has the Government taken to address the planning constraints on new housing, noting that the Productivity Commission identified this as the No. 1 reason for declining homeownership over the past 30 years?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Our immediate response to the Productivity Commission was providing for special housing areas, of which we have done 210. That has freed up over 6,000 hectares of land, for a potential yield of 70,000 new homes. We have also passed special legislation for a new plan for both the cities of Auckland and Christchurch, which will be completed next year. The new National Policy Statement on Urban Development Capacity and the Resource Management Act (RMA) reforms that are currently before Parliament are the proper long-term fix to those systematic problems.

Denis O’Rourke: Is the comprehensive housing strategy designed to force skilled workers to leave Auckland or to stop them moving there because houses cost too much?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Having skilled workers in Auckland is absolutely crucial to the record building boom occurring in that city. I am surprised at the question by the member because I constantly hear him calling on my colleague to actually shut down immigration and stop us getting the workers that we need in order to build the houses that New Zealand needs.

Nuk Korako: What specific steps has the Government taken as part of its housing plan to improve the quality of New Zealand homes?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Our first priority was addressing the lack of insulation in Kiwi homes, which has made them cold and damp. We have, to date, insulated 320,000 homes, and with the law that came into effect last week, another 180,000 will be insulated. That makes 500,000 homes that will have been insulated. That compares with fewer than 50,000 under the previous Government. We have also passed laws for smoke alarms—that is saving lives—and for earthquake-prone buildings. We also have a comprehensive programme about improving our building standards so that our new homes support both innovation and good quality.

Denis O’Rourke: Will the Government adopt New Zealand First’s housing policy for a new housing commission to develop a genuine long-term housing strategy for New Zealand, comprising people who know what they are doing?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I have seen New Zealand First oppose RMA reform. I have seen it oppose special housing areas. I have seen it oppose the new unitary plan for Auckland and for Christchurch. I have seen it oppose getting skilled building workers into New Zealand—

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I cannot let that Minister create dissension and discord in this House by telling a tissue of lies.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member will not raise such spurious points of order. His parliamentary colleague asked a question about why the Government will not support a New Zealand First policy. That gives a fairly wide ambit to the Minister in answering the question.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I could also recite the many other laws that he and his colleagues have opposed that are part of the real solutions that will help Kiwi families get access to a good-quality home.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Does the Minister believe that by doubling up on addresses, you can increase the housing supply?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I have noted that imaginative solution—having twice as many addresses—as being one of the answers to housing supply, but, no, we are focusing on building new houses, and, actually, New Zealand residential building activity is at an all-time high.

Denis O’Rourke: Why does he not adopt New Zealand First’s housing policy to reduce demand in Auckland by making it illegal for non-residents who are not New Zealand citizens to buy houses there?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Because this Government is basing its policy on the facts, and the facts are that we have absolute data on the tax residency for every home purchased in the last 6 months. Of 67,000 transactions, there was actually a reduction in the very small number that were overseas, and although the member wants to join up with the Pauline Hansons and those guys who want to blame overseas people, actually, we just need—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! The answer is now too long.

Nuk Korako: What are the next steps in the Government’s housing programme?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: A key priority is advancing the Crown land programme, which has been so successful in Christchurch and in Auckland, and today I announced another block of 10 hectares in Manukau that is surplus from the district health board. That will provide 250 houses, a good portion of which will be social houses and affordable houses, which are needed so much in that part of the city. We have got work under way around urban development authorities, reform of the Unit Titles Act, and reform of the Building Act as the next steps that we need to take to keep up that momentum of record house building.

Richard Prosser: I seek leave for the Minister to table the evidence he has of New Zealand First opposing RMA reform.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member cannot seek leave on behalf of another member.

Government Financial Position—Surplus

2. STUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura) to the Minister of Finance: What recent reports has he received on the Government’s accounts?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Acting Minister of Finance): Yesterday the Government released its financial statements for the 11 months to May. These results show a $2.3 billion surplus in the operating balance before gains and losses, or OBEGAL, $321 million better than forecast. This is the largest full or part-year surplus since before the global financial crisis. Core Crown revenue was $364 million higher than forecast, largely due to core Crown tax revenue being $396 million higher than forecast by Treasury in May. Financial statements for the full 2015-16 year will be published in October.

Stuart Smith: What do the latest monthly accounts mean for the financial results for the full 2015-16 year?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: The Government has been successful in turning an $18.4 billion deficit in 2011 into a surplus last year. Treasury’s latest forecast for the full financial year 2015-16 is for another modest surplus of $668 million. Treasury considers that the current strength in tax revenue is likely to persist, providing an upside risk to the final 2015-16 year-end out-turn. This trend is encouraging. However, as in previous years, we expect growth in expenditure to outpace tax revenue in June, although year-end valuations will also affect the June result. As I said, we will know the final surplus figure for 2015-16 when the Government’s annual accounts are issued later this year.

Stuart Smith: What are the Government’s fiscal priorities now that it has delivered on its election promise and made a surplus in the 2014-15 year?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: With the books in surplus, the Government has choices. The Government’s focus is on paying down debt that was built up through the global financial crisis and Canterbury earthquakes. That will give the Government more room to support New Zealanders and the economy, should we face another economic shock or natural disaster. The Government is on track to achieve its fiscal priorities over the next few years, which are maintaining rising operating surpluses; reducing net debt to around 20 percent of GDP by 2020; beginning to reduce income taxes, if economic and fiscal conditions allow; and using any further fiscal headroom to reduce debt faster.

Stuart Smith: How has the Government’s focus on targets helped deliver better public services to New Zealanders?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: The Prime Minister set 10 challenging targets for public services in 2012. That is because we want results from spending, rather than just simply throwing money at problems. Benefit dependency continues to fall; we have made significant progress on crime; we currently have the lowest crime rate since 1978; we have reduced the number of children and young people experiencing physical abuse; and immunisation rates continue to grow, with almost 94 percent of 8-month-olds fully vaccinated. This is a Government that measures success by the results it achieves, not by the amount of money we spend, or by how much Opposition MPs yell.

Housing Affordability and Availability—Government Measures to Address

3. ANDREW LITTLE (Leader of the Opposition) to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by his statement that he has a “comprehensive housing plan”, given the continued decline in home ownership and rapid rise in house prices?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister): Yes, and here is why. The Government’s comprehensive housing plan includes our social housing build, our emergency housing programme, special housing areas, the expanded HomeStart scheme for first-home buyers, freeing up surplus Crown land, the national policy statement, Resource Management Act reform, and extra tax measures that we took last year. On Sunday I announced a new $1 billion Housing Infrastructure Fund to support infrastructure needed for new housing in high-growth areas, and we are considering independent urban development authorities for areas of high housing need. By any definition, this is a very comprehensive housing plan.

Andrew Little: When fewer than 500 affordable houses are being built in Auckland this year, where in his comprehensive plan is the policy to build the thousands of affordable homes that are so desperately needed?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: The member is incorrect in his assertion.

Andrew Little: If his plan is so comprehensive, why did Nick Smith’s Crown land policy find just 13 of the promised 500 hectares?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: As the member will have seen, the Minister for Building and Housing announced more land today. If one looks across Auckland and looks at the level of building activity, one will see how significant it is and how quickly it is ramping up.

Andrew Little: If his plan is so comprehensive, why have only 1,000 of the promised 39,000 houses been built in the special housing areas? [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! I just need a little more cooperation from the front bench to my left.

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: The member might want to believe that that is happening, but, once again, it is incorrect. If one looks at the level of both building activity and houses that are being completed in Auckland, they are significantly greater than the member says.

Tim Macindoe: How is the Government’s comprehensive housing plan translating—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I want to hear the question. If I hear that sort of level of interjection again, I will be warning a member, and if it happens again, I will be, sadly, asking that member to leave for the balance of question time. Would Mr Macindoe please start the question again.

Tim Macindoe: How is the Government’s comprehensive housing plan translating into more houses being built around New Zealand where they are most needed?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: There are many signs that the Government’s comprehensive housing plan is delivering more houses. For example, we are now in the middle of the biggest housing boom New Zealand has seen. We are on track to build 85,000 houses across New Zealand in this term of Parliament alone. The construction industry is the biggest it has ever been. We have around 40,000 more people working in the sector than just 2 years ago, and there are 42,000 apprentices being trained across the country. The Government will press on with its housing plan, to build on this good momentum.

Andrew Little: If his plan is so comprehensive, why did Bill English build only half the State houses he promised?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Well, I think the Minister himself would say that it took Housing New Zealand a little longer—actually, for some of the very reasons we have been trying to resolve ourselves—through slow planning processes and the like. But, actually, the number is increasing to what we had anticipated, and those 2,000 houses, I think, that had been promised will be built.

Andrew Little: If his plan is so comprehensive, why did Paula Bennett have to make up the mythical Ministry of Social Development flying squads?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: The Minister did not. The Minister put together a team of people through her ministries that engaged with a variety of NGOs, and I think they have been doing some very good work to help those people.

Tim Macindoe: What reports has the Prime Minister seen on trends in homeownership rates in New Zealand and the factors contributing to those trends?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I have seen the Productivity Commission’s very thorough report on housing affordability. It made a number of very valid points. First, New Zealand’s homeownership rates peaked in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when around 75 percent of private dwellings were owned by their occupants. By 2012 homeownership levels had dropped to around 65 percent, which was about the average for the group of the OECD countries for which data is available. And, third, the commission noted that the house prices increased rapidly through the 2000s, when the rental market expanded to accommodate households that favoured renting over homeownership. So this is a very long-term trend and it matches what has been happening in other countries.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I want less interjection from both the Hon Dr Nick Smith and the Hon Annette King.

Andrew Little: In light of the answer to that last question, and if it is correct that there is really nothing to see here and nothing is out of the usual, why is it that he is begging the Reserve Bank to just get on with it when it comes to it controlling housing policy?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Because the Reserve Bank is the one that can control loan-to-value ratios (LVRs). It is certainly giving some strong consideration to increasing LVRs for investors. There is some anecdotal evidence that by musing on these things it might encourage investors to buy now, and so if it is going to make a change, my preference would be that it does just get on with it.

Andrew Little: After years of failed housing policies, a Budget that completely ignored housing as an issue, last-minute announcements, and panicked flip-flops, does he not agree that his housing policy is just comprehensive chaos?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: No. If one looks at the level of construction activity in Auckland, it has grown in double digits, year after year, over the last 3 or 4 years. There has been a substantial increase. It is why we have 24,000 more people working in the construction sector in Auckland alone, and 40,000 people across New Zealand. Interestingly enough, if one does spend just a little bit of time in Auckland and goes around and has a look at the level of activity and the number of people engaged, New Zealanders in Auckland, I think, can actually see how much work is being undertaken. They would also appreciate that these things do not just happen overnight, and the reason why Labour continues to poll at 25 or 26 percent—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! The last part will not help the order of this House.

Housing—Affordability and Availability

4. JAMES SHAW (Co-Leader—Green) to the Prime Minister: Ka tū a ia i runga i te mana o tana kōrero, “if you go back and have a look at the first 3 or 4 years when I was Prime Minister, the issue of housing was not a significant issue”?

[Does he stand by his statement that “if you go back and have a look at the first 3 or 4 years when I was Prime Minister, the issue of housing was not a significant issue”?]

Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister): Yes; certainly in terms of house price inflation. According to the Real Estate Institute data from November 2008 through to the start of 2012, the national median house price increased by around 5 percent—or less than 2 percent a year. More recently we have seen a number of things coming together to boost housing demand, such as low interest rates, growing incomes, more jobs, and a rise in population on the back of a growing economy. The member may not like the statement I made, but, actually, the reality was that a combination of the global financial crisis, a lot of talking heads on television telling people they were going to lose their jobs, and unemployment rising to double digit amounts actually deterred an awful lot of people from buying houses. The member might recall that, actually, the big thing between 2008, 2009, and 2010 was finance companies going broke because they had lent money to property developers for mezzanine finance, who themselves were going broke because they could not sell the properties.

James Shaw: Does he agree with the statement made by the leader of the National Party in 2007 that “We are facing a severe [homeownership] and affordability crisis.”?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Well, it is going to be pretty awkward if I do not agree with myself. The answer to that question is yes—because the complete mismanagement of the previous Labour Government saw interest rates go to 11 percent. So of course it was having a huge impact on affordability. If the member goes and has a look at the Productivity Commission’s report on housing, he would see that one of the really big factors about whether people can afford housing is actually, ultimately, whether they can pay the interest rates on the mortgage.

James Shaw: What was the average Auckland house price when he was elected, and what is it now?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: The member would have to direct that question to the Minister for Building and Housing.

James Shaw: Can he explain why an average Auckland house price of $493,000 back in 2007 was a severe crisis but today’s average Auckland house price of $975,000 somehow is not?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: If one goes back and has a look at that period of time, for a start, house prices had nearly doubled under the previous Government, and interest rates were extremely high. In fact, I do not overly like referring to it because I think that, in principle, it is just one piece of data. But, actually, the Massey index in these matters points to the fact that affordability is more affordable now for the very reason of the interest rates. Yes, that is cold comfort for people paying a little more, but they certainly can borrow money at much lower rates. That is the difference.

James Shaw: If we were apparently facing a severe home affordability crisis in 2007 but after 8 years of National Government there are still hardly any affordable houses being built, does that not suggest that his plan is a comprehensive failure?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: No. If one goes back and has a look at the period of time that the member is asking me about—so that is between 1999 and 2008, of the Labour Government—real wage increases were virtually zero. So any wage increases that New Zealanders got were eroded by the level of inflation. Interest rates were steadily going up to over 11 percent. That is why we saw the significant issues that we saw in New Zealand. It is a very different position today. We have interest rates where, at a retail level, you can go to the bank and borrow for 4.25 percent—maybe even potentially less. Unemployment is at 5.2 percent, and the average wage has risen $11,000 in the time I have been Prime Minister.

James Shaw: Does he agree with the Minister of Finance, who said just 2 months ago that “Very little low-cost housing is being built.”?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Firstly, I would have to look at the context in which the member made the speech. It will be in relation to, I am guessing, probably the release of some sort of land and the like. But part of the overall plan is to make sure that there is more affordable housing being built. As we know, the fastest way to ensure that happens is to ensure land prices do not go up at the rate that they have been. If the Greens want to support us on Resource Management Act reform, to allow us to release that land even quicker, we could do that. So what the member does is parade on TV like he cares about New Zealanders—but he cares so little he is not prepared to change the law. He can keep smiling, but why does he not do something about it?

James Shaw: If there was a severe crisis in 2007, and then it was not an issue for the first 3 to 4 years when he was Prime Minister, and now he is saying that there is not a crisis but there is a comprehensive plan to fix it, does that not just show he is making it up as he goes along?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: No. There is a housing challenge and we are certainly working our way through it. Between 2008 and 2012 there was very little upward pressure at all on housing, and, actually, real estate agents were not that busy because the economy was different. What has happened in the last 4 years is that under National’s plan and under National policies the economy is extremely strong. New Zealanders are no longer deserting the country for Australia, as they did under Labour; interest rates are low; business confidence levels and consumer confidence levels are very high; and, of course, New Zealanders feel a lot more confident about buying a house. They are the policies of success under this Government.

Social Bonds—Mental Health Services

5. Hon ANNETTE KING (Deputy Leader—Labour) to the Minister of Finance: Does he stand by his statement that the chances of getting the mental health social bond off the ground was “oh very high”?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Acting Minister of Finance): The Minister stands by his full statement, in which he also said: “… the fundamental motivation here is that those who look at the kind of issues where we want to apply social bonds are highly motivated about getting better results. So this is a small part of an overall programme where the government is focused less on just spending more money, because that’s often an indication of failure, indicates the previous service didn’t have much impact, and more on getting results for real people.”

Hon Annette King: Was he not warned a year ago in reports from The New Zealand Initiative, from Government departments, and in examples from overseas that the major risk of this experiment is the costly burden of administration and setting it up, and it can end up being a waste of money?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: I am not aware of the exact quotes, but, actually, social bonds have been successful around the world—

Hon Member: Rubbish!

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Well, people as diverse as the Conservative Party in the UK, President Obama, and the Labor Government in New South Wales have participated in social bonds. It is the sort of innovation that is well worth doing to tackle some of the more challenging social issues.

Hon Annette King: If lessons have been learnt, as he claimed yesterday, why is he continuing with a failed experiment that has wasted $1.62 million of taxpayers’ money so far on administration and consultants, achieving nothing, while mental health patients see their services cut?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: The member exaggerates and is not telling the story in the way that it would be if she was being factual.

Hon Annette King: Well, tell the story then; tell it.

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: I will. I know also that the member is a fan of the old way of doing things. But, actually, this particular programme is about tackling the very issues that she, for example, when she was Minister, could not deal with for many, many years.

Hon Annette King: Will he rule out the Government giving cash sweeteners to investors like ANZ Bank to get them to stump up with the money to get the social bond experiment off the ground—something he promised he would not do last year?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: I am sure the Minister has not changed his position in regard to what he said last year. But in terms of achieving these results, actually doing innovative financing programmes to encourage people to change behaviour and operate in a different way is very well worthwhile. It is called innovation, and it can deal with some of the intractable long-term issues that, frankly, even that member, who has been in the House a little while, knows that Governments have struggled with over decades.

Hon Annette King: Why is he wasting more taxpayers’ money by proceeding with his experiment when the national network of mental health and addiction providers said that the whole approach that has been taken appears to them as “… tedious, bureaucratic, slow processes that kill things before they’re even born.”?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: He will continue because this Government is always interested in doing new things in new ways to achieve better results in some of our more challenging social services. The member always wants to go back to the old ways—she always wants to look back into the past. Actually, there are innovative new ways of doing things, and these social bonds are one of them.

Building and Construction Industry—Residential Building Activity

6. ALFRED NGARO (National) to the Minister for Building and Housing: What reports has he received on how much of the $17.8 billion of national construction is being done in Auckland, and what proportion of this is residential building?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for Building and Housing): This $17.8 billion of building activity across New Zealand is an all-time high and exceeds the last peak, in inflation-adjusted terms, by 25 percent. The Auckland boom is even stronger. Total building activity in Auckland is $6.5 billion per year, up 33 percent on the last peak, in real terms, a decade ago. Residential building activity in Auckland is at $4.3 billion per year, and this is 37 percent greater in real terms than the last peak more than a decade ago.

Alfred Ngaro: How much has residential building activity in Auckland grown since the Government’s intervention and housing accord in 2013?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Residential building activity has grown in the last year in Auckland by 26 percent. This is on top of growth of 22 percent in the previous year, and 32 percent in the first year of the accord. Auckland is currently experiencing the longest and strongest boom in residential building in its history, illustrating that the Government’s supply measures are working.

Social Housing—Community Housing Providers

7. PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū) to the Minister for Social Housing: Does she agree with the Minister responsible for HNZC that one of the groups producing social housing in the next 2 years will be “community housing providers—which are contracted to the Ministry of Social Development”; if so, how many houses will they be completing in the next 2 years?

Hon PAULA BENNETT (Minister for Social Housing): Yes, I do agree with the Minister responsible for HNZC. Contracting with community housing providers is an important part of our comprehensive plan on housing. We have over 500 new social housing places over the next 3 years in Auckland—that is a mix of new builds and leases. We also have Budget 2016, which provided for another 750 places over the next 4 years. Also, another 330 houses are forecast to be completed by the end of 2017 from the Social Housing Fund; I could not give that completed number within 2 years because there is a mix of things going on.

Phil Twyford: Does she accept that the 500 places that she cited for community housing providers is a relatively small amount, given the unmet need, and that if she had not sold off 2,500 State houses since 2011 and failed to build to the targets, there would be thousands fewer people living in cars and garages now?

Mr SPEAKER: Two supplementary questions—the Hon Paula Bennett.

Hon PAULA BENNETT: There are a range of reasons for why we have not got more houses being built—and faster—in Auckland, and there is not just one solution to that, which is why we have such an in-depth and comprehensive plan around it. What I will say is that community housing providers do a fantastic job. It is hard for them, as it is with any homebuyer or builder, to actually be coming up with the deposits—that is why the Government is supporting them.

Phil Twyford: Given the unprecedented surge in families living homeless on her watch, does she believe that her $10 million a year promise for emergency housing, which she had to admit will mostly fund existing places, is anything like enough?

Hon PAULA BENNETT: Last year we put in $2.5 million, and, as the member says, an extra $41 million in this Budget alone. We recently announced 14 providers, one of which is the Salvation Army, which is getting $1.2 million, which will make a huge difference for it in the services it can provide. The next tranche is currently out. We expect those to be in by 13 July. We will be making further announcements at the end of the month, and within that we will see a number of new beds that will be available as well.

Phil Twyford: Why will she not support a cross-party parliamentary inquiry into the causes and solutions for homelessness, or does she think the Government has the situation fully under control?

Hon PAULA BENNETT: We have a range of initiatives—some that are already implemented, some that we are implementing, and some that are still in the negotiating stages—all of which will make a huge difference in the issues of homelessness and emergency housing, and that is what we want to concentrate on.

Phil Twyford: Did she instruct her caucus colleagues on the Social Services Committee to vote against the motion for an inquiry into homelessness, given that they had been supportive of an inquiry?

Mr SPEAKER: I will allow the Minister to answer, but it was a pretty marginal question.

Hon PAULA BENNETT: No, I did not instruct the caucus to do anything. We had a discussion and we came to it as a collective.

Homelessness—Government Response

8. MARAMA DAVIDSON (Green) to the Prime Minister: Ka tū a ia i runga i te mana o āna kōrero katoa?

[Does he stand by all his statements?]

Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister): Yes.

Marama Davidson: Ka tū a ia i runga i tana kōrero “Yes, there are more people.”, i te wā i pātaihia a ia “Do you accept that homelessness is increasing on your watch?”

[Does he stand by his statement “Yes, there are more people.”, when asked “Do you accept that homelessness is increasing on your watch?”]

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Yes.

MARAMA DAVIDSON: Tokohia ngā tāngata e noho kāinga kore ana?

[How many homeless people are there?]

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I do not have an accurate number of that. You would need to ask the Minister for Social Housing.

Marama Davidson: Pēhea te comprehensive plan, ahakoa kāre tēnei Kāwanatanga e mōhio ana ki te nuinga o ngā tāngata e noho kāinga kore ana?

[So what is the comprehensive plan, even though this Government is unaware of what the number of homeless people is?]

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Firstly, I am not sure any Government would have an absolutely accurate number. They would have an indication, and that work is done by the City Mission and others, for instance. But one of the reasons we know we have a comprehensive plan—but we are certainly prepared to do more—is that we can look at what we are actually doing, which is spending around about $2 billion a year, which is up from $1.3 billion when we came into office, to support New Zealanders in the social housing and private housing rentals. That is why the Budget included $41.1 million to help people in the emergency housing sector. It is why the Government is moving about 135 people a week into social houses. It is why the Budget had $200 million extra for social housing. It is why the Ministry of Social Development providers have been working at places like Te Puea Marae and others to try to assist people who want support. So there is a very broad range of support being offered. If there is more that is required, the Government will look at those issues.

International Education—Fraudulent Agents

9. TRACEY MARTIN (NZ First) to the Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment: Does he stand by his statement yesterday that “we just have the occasional agent and the occasional provider that doesn’t do things properly”?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment): Yes; I stand by my full statement, which went on to say: “and we have to sort that out.” For the most part, the international education sector provides an excellent education experience for the 125,000 students—from around 176 countries—who come here, while providing over $3 billion in export returns and jobs for over 30,000 New Zealanders. However, some agents, particularly in the Indian market, and some providers are not complying with expectations, and the Government is robustly addressing the situation.

Tracey Martin: Does he think it appropriate to be so flippant and say “We just have the occasional agent … that doesn’t do things properly”, when Immigration New Zealand uncovered at least 57 Indian education agents involved in fraudulent methods in the year ending March 2016?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Well, I have been described as many things, but “flippant” is generally not one of them. The reality is that the member is right. I am very aware of that number. It is out of a number of around about 1,200 Indian agents that supply students to New Zealand, so my point is that there are some who misbehave and, actually, New Zealand is taking a very robust approach.

Tracey Martin: When did he become aware that these agents are saying that independent English-language assessments and interviews are not required for study in New Zealand; can he confirm that they are saying it falsely?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: That was last year, and it is false. Commencing on 1 October 2015 New Zealand changed the rules to require International English Language Testing System 5 or 6—clearly, for those people from India who want to apply for student visas to come to New Zealand.

Tracey Martin: In light of his last answer, what resourcing has he provided to the New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA) and his Cabinet provided to Immigration New Zealand to proactively monitor, enforce, and ensure that private training establishments (PTEs) and agents are meeting the new pastoral care obligations; or will they wait until thousands of students are illegally in New Zealand?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: NZQA has the resources to provide a robust response, and my understanding is that Immigration New Zealand does as well. In fact, they have just been, effectively, provided with more resources because of the new systems that they have, which free up staff to deal with these matters. In relation to the member’s question, in actual fact, their robust approach has led to a 22 percent decline in first-time student visas from India this year. I expect that to continue through the year, because of the very robust approach that they are taking.

Tracey Martin: Is it not a fact that his Government continues to allow dodgy PTEs and unscrupulous contractors to exploit these students, treating them like cash cows as long as they—and I quote him—“generate income for us”?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: I know who wrote that question. The reality is that we do not. The Indian market is a robust market, and it can be challenging. In fact, countries that receive students from India—including Canada, the US, the UK, and Australia—sometimes have similar problems to what we have experienced. But by working together and working aggressively, the immigration departments of those countries and others are able to get on top of some of the issues that we see in India.

New Zealand Curriculum—Digital Technology

10. MELISSA LEE (National) to the Minister of Education: What recent announcements has she made about digital technology and the curriculum?

Hon HEKIA PARATA (Minister of Education): Ā, tēnā koe Te Mana Whakawā, otirā tēnā tātou e whakanui nei i tō tātou Reo.

[Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker, but at the same time acknowledgments to us on celebrating our language.]

Yesterday I was pleased to announce that digital technology is to be formally integrated into The New Zealand Curriculum and Te Marautanga o Aotearoa. This is the first change to The New Zealand Curriculum since its introduction in 2007, and it reflects our Government’s commitment to championing 21st century practice in teaching and learning. The decision is an outcome of the Government’s Science in Society strategy plan, A Nation of Curious Minds: He Whenua Hihiri i te Mahara.

Melissa Lee: How will this assist our young people to be better prepared for the future?

Hon HEKIA PARATA: It will ensure that we have an education system that prepares children and young people for a future where digital fluency will be critical for success. The digital technology sector is best placed to state how this will impact on young people, and feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. For example, Mind Your Own Business has stated: “We welcome the Government’s announcement that digital technology is going to be included in the curriculum. It’s vitally important that the next generation is equipped with the skills and knowledge required to compete in the digital world. … There are enormous opportunities out there for young people looking for a career in IT. This announcement ensures that the most up-to-date digital learning practices will help tomorrow’s tech graduates gain a foothold in the workforce.” From 2018 digital technology will be fully integrated into both The New Zealand Curriculum and Te Marautanga o Aotearoa.

Schools—Funding Review

11. CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka) to the Minister of Education: Is she considering any proposals to allow schools to spend money, currently committed to teaching staff, on other expenses; if so, why?

Hon HEKIA PARATA (Minister of Education): Tēnā anō koe, Mr Speaker. No, I am not considering any proposals as described by the member. However, the funding review advisory group, made up of the key teacher unions and sector associations, is considering a number of options.

Chris Hipkins: Does the bulk funding, or global funding, proposal outlined in her Cabinet paper involve removing the existing maximum class size guarantee for primary schools?

Hon HEKIA PARATA: It would be disrespectful to the funding group to predetermine the outcomes of options that it is currently considering.

Chris Hipkins: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.

Mr SPEAKER: Well, I can anticipate—why do I not just ask the member to repeat the question. It may not have been understood by the Minister.

Chris Hipkins: Does the proposal for bulk funding, or global funding, as outlined in her Cabinet paper involve removing the existing maximum class size guarantee for primary schools?

Hon HEKIA PARATA: The proposals that are before the funding advisory group do not preclude it from making recommendations on all the elements that it has in front of it. Once it has made recommendations on that element, or another, then I will be considering them.

Chris Hipkins: Can she guarantee that class sizes will not increase, or the range of subjects on offer decrease, as a result of schools reducing their spending on teaching; if not, why not?

Hon HEKIA PARATA: No decisions have been made around the options that are in front of the funding advisory group, including the particular elements the member raises.

Chris Hipkins: Why has she proposed in her Cabinet paper allowing schools to use money that is currently ring-fenced for teaching staff on other expenses?

Hon HEKIA PARATA: The principles underpinning this review are greater flexibility for schools to make choices, more and better results for students, and diversity of options for parents. Those are the principles and outcomes we are interested in. There are options before the funding review group. It would be disrespectful to its members and the process of consultation to make predetermined decisions.

Chris Hipkins: Can she explain any scenarios in which a school could reduce the number of teachers it employs without either increasing class sizes or reducing the number of subjects on offer; if so, what are those scenarios?

Hon HEKIA PARATA: An explanation of the kind sought by the member would be premature to the considerations of the funding advisory group.

Chris Hipkins: Why has she proposed ring-fencing funding for school property maintenance in order to “protect the Crown’s investment in school infrastructure” whilst proposing to remove the ring-fencing of teaching staff funding? Is she really indicating that the Government rates protecting property assets more highly than quality teachers?

Hon HEKIA PARATA: To the second part of the question, no.

Chris Hipkins: Will she guarantee that the level of funding schools receive under any bulk funding model will meet the cost of at least as many teaching staff as they currently have under the existing formula and any increase in operational costs; if not, why not?

Hon HEKIA PARATA: Because bulk funding is not one of the options for funding that the advisory group is being asked to consider.

Sport, High Performance—Funding

12. TODD BARCLAY (National—Clutha-Southland) to the Minister for Sport and Recreation: Can he confirm that the Government is investing an extra $20 million over the next 4 years to support high performance sport?

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN (Minister for Sport and Recreation): Yes. Today marks 1 month to go till the opening of the Rio 2016 Olympics, where around 220 New Zealand athletes will compete. As part of Budget 2016, High Performance Sport New Zealand will receive a further $16 million over 4 years to maintain the momentum of our high performance system from Rio through to the Tokyo Olympics and beyond. New Zealand’s system is recognised as world leading and produces athletes who are succeeding on the world stage. I would like to wish all of our Olympians all the very best for Rio, and I am sure they are all going to make New Zealand very, very proud.

Todd Barclay: What extra support is the Government providing to safeguard the integrity of our sport system from doping?

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: Doping is an ongoing concern in sport, and testing protocols have become more complex and costly as doping practices get more sophisticated. As part of this year’s Budget, an extra $4 million over 4 years is going to Drug Free Sport New Zealand to fund more tests for more athletes and to increase the agency’s capacity for analysis, intelligence gathering, and investigations. This increases its funding from $2.2 million to $3.2 million—an increase of 45 percent. We need to ensure that we keep our clean sporting reputation. International experiences show that doping can creep in wherever controls get lax.

General Debate

General Debate

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for Building and Housing): I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business. It is timely today that we take head-on the debate on housing and set out our plan for addressing the long-term issues over supply, over affordability, and over homeownership. We have a well-researched and consistent plan that is not based on prejudice, that is not based on sound bites, but will make a material difference for those Kiwi families wanting to get access to, and be able to own, a good quality Kiwi home.

Secondly, I want to highlight just how much is happening because Opposition members claimed yesterday that nothing was happening and nothing was being built, which could not be further from the truth and shows just how out of touch Labour is. Talk to anybody in the building industry, and they are run off their feet. Building activity in Auckland and across the country is at an all-time high and at a level a third higher—a third higher—than what it was at a peak more than 10 years ago. We have had growth of 26 percent in building activity over the last year. That is on top of 22 percent the previous year and 30 percent the year before that.

I challenge members opposite to tell me any 5-year period when there has been stronger house-building activity growth than in the last 5 years. Tell me any 5-year period when there has been greater growth in residential building activity. They will not find it, because it does not exist. That exposes how shallow the Opposition’s KiwiBuild policy is. Just having the Government build the houses would only displace the building activity that is actually growing at record rates in the private sector. It is interesting to note that prior to the last election Labour said it reckoned that KiwiBuild, in its first year, could build 500 houses. It reckoned that in its second year it would be able to get an extra 2,200, and it said that in its third year it would be able to ramp it up to 3,300 houses. That is an extra 6,000 houses over the term of this Parliament, and that was its big bold policy. Well, actually, we are going to build more than 20,000 additional houses over this term of Parliament. The truth is that that target has already been exceeded.

What is needed is getting the regulatory framework right, and I could spend all of this general debate going through the planning law changes, the changes in tax laws, the emergency housing initiative, the Resource Management Act reforms, the brightline test, the removal of tariffs on building products, the special housing areas that now number more than 210, the fast-track plan process in both Auckland and Christchurch that is due to be completed in the next few months—

Phil Twyford: “Compluted”?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: —and the changes in development contributions. I draw Mr Twyford’s attention to the law change made by this Parliament, which he voted against, in respect of infrastructure agreements that he has now come up with as his bright new idea. I draw attention to the KiwiSaver HomeStart scheme and to the residential tenancy laws that have just come into effect.

Labour has been all over the paddock. Remember when those members wanted a capital gains tax? Now they do not. Remember when they said the metropolitan urban limit had nothing to do with the problem? Now they say it has everything to do with the problem. Remember when Phil Twyford said he supported State houses being transferred to community housing providers but then opposed it? Remember when he came out and he said that he was opposed to loan-to-value ratios (LVRs) and then demanded LVRs? Remember all those contradictions?

This Government has a plan for housing that is working, and that is why there is a record level of building activity. That is why we have got work for an urban development authority. That is why we are looking to reform the Unit Titles Act.

ANDREW LITTLE (Leader of the Opposition): I do not know whether that member, Nick Smith, deserves the award for the greatest level of cynicism or the greatest level of irony, but whatever he said, it was not about a plan that is actually fixing any problem that the rest of the country can see happening today. He talked about “compluting” the building programme; I am glad he “compluted” his speech, because it is time to get on to something that actually talks about the issue.

The reality is this: to the extent that the National Party has a housing policy—and I hesitate to call it a plan because there quite evidently is not one—it is a comprehensive joke. Those members cannot bring themselves to admit that there is a crisis—something that everybody else knows. They have been in absolute denial about it. They cannot bring themselves to say that there is one—except for Paula Bennett, to her credit, who admitted that there was a crisis and, the next day, said that there was not; it was something else. Then there was Bill English, who said that we have some pressures—not a housing crisis; some housing pressures. The Prime Minister said that we have a housing challenge—a bit like The Block or, you know, The Bachelor New Zealand, or something. Those members have got a challenge that they are trying to fix for reality TV.

The reality is that when there are 42,000 homeless New Zealanders, there is a crisis. When 4,000 of them do not even have a roof over their heads, there is a crisis. When the rest of them are jammed into overcrowded housing, there is a crisis. When house prices in Auckland double over the course of this Government—more than double—there is a crisis. When house prices in Auckland increase by 25 percent in a single year, there is a crisis. When house prices in the rest of the country increase five or six times the value of inflation, there is a crisis. When somebody in Auckland earning $120,000 a year, who has saved and saved and saved, cannot afford a deposit on a reasonable house, there is a crisis. When a two-bedroom prefab on a section in Papakura with no embellishments at all goes on the market for $549,000, there is a crisis—there is a crisis.

What are the Government’s solutions? Well, let us go through them—shall I count the ways? Special housing areas—remember, 39,000 homes, which is more or less the current shortage in Auckland. It sounds pretty good; what a fantastic idea! What have we had in the 3 years since? One thousand homes—1,000 homes built, if we are lucky. That is counting the ones that are still under construction, because that is what those members count. Dr Smith accused us of being in the paddock—I wish he would find a paddock that the Government could build some houses on, because the next solution was his Crown land policy. Remember the Crown land plan—500 hectares of Crown land: paddocks galore he could stand in and build houses. How many hectares did he find? He found 13—13 hectares out of 500.

Then Paula Bennett promised more funding for emergency housing, because, you know, when you have got so many people who cannot get into their own home and so many people living in cars and garages—she promised more money for emergency housing. Then what happened? We then discovered that she is actually just funding what the emergency housing providers are already doing—nothing new, not a single new bed, and not a single new roof over anybody’s head. Then we have—because those members were getting really serious and really concerned about the homelessness crisis—“We will set up the flying squads.” Hooray! The flying squads will fly around and they will find people and put them in houses! But they did not exist. For 2 weeks, they went to the Auckland City Mission—for 2 weeks they went there and did not help a soul. That is the Government’s comprehensive housing plan: desperate, panicked, with no answer to anything; giving the appearance of doing something but doing nothing. Well, watch out for Sunday—watch out for Sunday and see what a real and comprehensive plan looks like.

Hon PAULA BENNETT (Minister for Social Housing): We shall be waiting with bated breath, Mr Little, for, I think, the overpromising and under-delivering. I could just about write exactly what it will be at this time, and I think that he may be coming back and apologising, perhaps, for his words that he has given us today on how great that announcement on Sunday just may not be, as the case is.

Really, I am here to talk a bit about—you know, you can see the wide-reaching, inclusive work that has been going on across social housing in particular over the last few years. Previously, when I was the Minister for Social Development, I played a part in moving the wait list and the assessment of people in need into the Ministry of Social Development (MSD), and that, of course, turned over in April 2014. So I do have moments when I kind of laugh about how all of a sudden there is this problem and all of a sudden we have come to the party when I could look back at the announcements that we have made and the work that we have done and see a really comprehensive plan that has been happening over a long period of time.

When I left social development we had for the first time a Minister for Social Housing, and it was the first time that portfolio actually went under one Minister and was not just a percentage of their time. That was because of the importance that the Prime Minister put on social housing, recognising that, actually, it needed more of a focus, and that is what it has had. We started with those changes to MSD, as I have said, and then we worked our way through, trying to look at the whole needs of the person and around how we wrap more support around them for those who are in houses as well.

I do want to clear up a couple of things, though, because Labour can say it as often as it likes, but when the announcement was made around the $41 million that is going into emergency housing—it was made here in Wellington outside the night shelter; there was a lot of media there—it was really clear that it was going to be supporting places like the Wellington Night Shelter to keep its doors open. It had never had funding before from Government—certainly no certainty of it—and, as such, this played a significant part in it being able to not just keep its doors open and provide the beds it already had but, equally, add to it and make sure there were new beds. If Labour picked it up incorrectly and started running out and saying that it was all new beds, then actually that is it and not us who took it there.

The other thing that has been happening is that huge build programme. So I take you back to the Social Housing Fund, which was introduced by Nick Smith about 3 years ago. It produced 890 places with community housing providers, and, as I say, that was more than 3 years ago, so it kind of belies the idea that there is a sudden panic going on, and everyone was caught unawares. It has been a part of our social housing programme, to bring more community housing providers in.

A big step towards that was introducing the income-related rent to community housing providers, giving them, really, access to a huge subsidy that goes against what it costs to actually keep one of those houses running each week. To give you an indication of the actual numbers on that, we were spending something like $600 million on the income-related rent; we are budgeted to spend about $860 million this year, and that is going to over $1 billion by 2019-20—a huge investment there. That is when a tenant pays on average about $100 a week and the Government picks up the rest of the tab, or the taxpayer does.

As you can see, new homes are being built in places like Tāmaki and throughout New Zealand, actually—the rent goes up for them because they are generally bigger, they are cleaner, and they make huge differences to the cost of them. We pick up that rent, and that bill is going up for them, which, as we can see, is happening. The difference now is that community housing providers can get a portion of their income-related rent as well. We are spending over $2 billion in total—over the next 2 years it will get to $2 billion a year. That is on that part, which is the income-related rent, as I said. Equally, the accommodation supplement is helping about 260,000 households in their rent each week and that is making a difference.

Opposition members choose to ignore that the Government is making houses warmer and healthier when more than 300,000 home owners and rental properties have had that this year. I am proud to be a cog in this very comprehensive housing plan.

MARAMA DAVIDSON (Green): Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker, huri noa ki Te Whare nei, tēnā koutou katoa. Ngā mihi mahana ki a koutou mō Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori hoki. Kia ora! Ko te tino kaupapa o tōku kōrero, ko te kaupapa kāinga kore. Ko te tino hiahia o Te Pāti Kākāriki, he whare mahana, he whare maroke, he whare ngita mō ia whānau, mō ia tangata o Aotearoa, ā, nō reira. Ēngari, i tēnei wā, nui haere te hunga kāinga kore i Aotearoa, ā, kai te mamae tōku ngākau ki te kite i tēnā. Mamae hoki te kite atu i te hunga Māori e noho kāinga kore ana. Ā, ko tērā taku tino kaupapa mō te kōrero nei.

Kua ngaringari ake ngā tangata kei te noho kāinga kore, ngaringari haere anō ngā whānau e noho kāinga kore ana, auē te mamae i te mea, i ētahi o ngā mea i noho kāinga kore, te nui o te rēti, te nui o te rēti mō ngā whare ā ka whiua tēnā whānau ki te tiriti. Anō hoki, nui rawa te utu mō te hiko, mō te hiko i tēnei wā makariri. Nō reira, ko te tino āwangawanga mō ia whānau, ā, ka hoko hiko, ka noho makariri. Ka hoko kai, ka noho makariri, ko ēnā ngā āwangawanga mō te whānau ki te hoko hiko, ki te hoko kai rānei. Kāre tērā i te tirohanga mō Aotearoa, mō ia whānau.

Kei te mōhio tātou i te raru. Kei te mōhio ngā tangata o te whenua, he raru. He nui o te rōpū, te hunga kāinga kore, kei te mōhio. Mārama te kitea. Mārama te kite i ngā papa tākaro. Mārama te kite i ngā whānau e noho ana i ngā wahi tūnga waka. Mārama te kite huri noa i te motu. Kāre ko Tāmaki-makau-rau anakē. Kei te mōhio tātou! Ā, nō tēnā mea, i pīrangi Te Pāti Kākāriki, me Te Pāti Reipa ki te hanga uiuinga ki te ruku i tērā i te nui o tēnei raru, te āwangawanga kei mua i a tātou. Ēngari, kāre tēnei Kāwanatanga e pīrangi ana i tērā uiuinga: “Ā, well waiho tērā, kai te pai, kai te pai.” Ka haere tonu Te Pāti Kākāriki me Te Pāti Reipa ki tēnā uiuinga mō te ao katoa o Aotearoa. Ko tēnei taku tino kaupapa, taku tino ngako o waku whakaaro.

Ka tuku mihi aroha, ka whakanui i ngā tangata e kaha ana ki te kohete ki tēnei Kāwanatanga. Nā ō rātou kohete, nā ō rātou karanga ki tēnei Kāwanatanga, ā, ka noho weriweri tēnei Kāwanatanga. Ka noho weriweri tēnei Kāwanatanga i te kōhete, i te karanga o ngā tangata o Aotearoa e kite ana i te nui o te raruraru, ā, nō reira, ko tēnā te tino mihi o tōku kōrero i te rā nei. Nui te kaha ō rātou, te tangata o Aotearoa. Nui te mana o te karanga o ngā tangata o Aotearoa, ā, nō reira ka noho whakamā tēnei Kāwanatanga i te nui o tēnei raru me te nui haere o te hunga noho kāinga kore. Ā, nō reira, mārama te kite i te mana ō rātou, te mana o tātou o Aotearoa ki te whiu atu i tēnei Kāwanatanga ki te hanga tirohanga pai ake mō ia whānau o Aotearoa. Nō reira, tēnei taku mihi aroha, taku mihi mahana ki a rātou o Aotearoa i karanga atu mō tēnei raru. Kia ora!

[Greetings to you, Mr Speaker, and to you all throughout the House. My warm acknowledgments to you as well in regard to Māori Language Week—congratulations! The real essence of my address is about homelessness. What the Green Party really desires is that there be warm, dry, and secure homes for each family and person of New Zealand, and nothing less. But right now, the number without homes in New Zealand is increasing, and it hurts my heart to see that. It is also painful to see Māori without homes. That is the real nub of this address.

Numbers of people and families without homes are increasing, and, alas, how hurtful that is, because some of the reasons for becoming homeless have been caused by high rental rates. One consequence is the family becomes homeless and is evicted on to the street. Furthermore, the cost of electricity is expensive—especially during this very cold period. Therefore, a real concern for each family is purchasing electricity but remaining cold. Purchasing food or still being cold—those are the concerns for the family in regard to buying power or food. That is not a good look for New Zealand and each family.

We know what the real problem is. The people of the country know there is a problem. Many organisations and homeless groups know about it. It is plain to see the homeless at playgrounds and in places where cars are parked, throughout the country and not just in Auckland alone. We are aware of that. And, as a consequence, the Green Party and the Labour Party want an inquiry conducted to gauge the depth of this problem and the concerns confronting us. But this Government does not want that inquiry: “Oh well, leave that there. It is alright, it is fine.” The Green Party and the Labour Party will go on with that inquiry on behalf of the whole of New Zealand. So this is what is really important to me and is the very essence of my thoughts.

I accord a loving tribute to those people who have strongly rebuked this Government, and praise them for doing that. Because of their admonishments and calls upon this Government it has become unhappy. This Government remains disagreeable to the rebukes and calls by the people of New Zealand who see the size of the problem. And so that is where the real tribute of my address goes to today. The effort by the people of New Zealand has been enormous. The power of their call has been massive. And so this Government has become embarrassed by the size of this problem in terms of where it has gone for those without homes. Therefore, the power of those people and our integrity of New Zealanders can clearly be seen driving this Government to create a better outcome for every family in New Zealand. So my affectionate and warming tribute to those New Zealanders who made a call about this problem, and my appreciation to you all. Kia ora!]

JOANNE HAYES (National): I stand to take a call on our comprehensive housing plan because I am very proud to stand here and say that when it comes to Christchurch, that comprehensive housing plan has worked a treat. When I look at the number of homes that were destroyed because of those earthquakes, it astounds me that this Government, over a 3-year period, has been able to redevelop the homes, to build the homes, that were destroyed, especially around the social housing, or the Housing New Zealand, homes.

When we start looking at what happened post-earthquake, this Government established what was known as the Canterbury Earthquake Temporary Accommodation Service, and this was able to house 6,500 people in temporary accommodation while their homes were being repaired. This Government also worked alongside the Department of Corrections. This is not just a housing plan to just put up houses throughout the area; this is a plan that actually encompasses all of the agencies that are in Christchurch. And when I say “the Department of Corrections”, it was the Department of Corrections that actually came along and worked in partnership with this Government and was able to do the repairs that some of the homes needed and some of the rebuilds in the electorate that I look after, Christchurch East. The department came along and built some homes down in Aranui. The land was opened by the Prime Minister in 2014, and by the end of 2015 people were actually living in those homes.

I turn to Aldershot Street in Aranui this year. The Minister for Social Housing, Paula Bennett, opened 15 homes—15 homes—out of the 108 social housing homes that are going to be opened in Aranui by the end of this year. These are homes that will house over 200 people, and they are replacing 97 homes that were destroyed in the Aranui area. I look at the many housing projects that are going on, not just with the social housing but with all the private housing areas, as well. We have got Prestons growing; we have got Pegasus growing. By 2017 all the housing that is required for Christchurch—our housing projects—will be complete and we will be back to the start and growing from where we were before the 2011 earthquakes.

I am shocked that the Opposition has taken a xenophobic approach to people owning homes in the Auckland area and throughout Aotearoa New Zealand. It is a bad look for us as New Zealanders, and it has got to stop. We cannot have that kind of nonsense in this country, because that is not the way that we are.

When I look at the KiwiSaver HomeStart grant, Labour is looking to take away HomeStart. A lot of young people actually use HomeStart to be able to purchase their first homes. And while I am on youth, let us have a look at some of the supported accommodation projects for youth that were developed in Christchurch and in Palmerston North. We have been able to house those young people between the ages of 16 and 19 years old who have been sitting on the social housing register and put them into some homes, where they can stay for as long as they want to.

So many exciting things are happening in the Christchurch area, in the city. Six hundred homes will be enabled through the Riccarton racecourse legislation, which was approved by this House, and that is going to actually open up whole new opportunities for the people living in Christchurch—that is 600 brand new homes, of which a portion of those will be sold for only $450,000 under special housing accommodation. All in all, it is an amazing time in Christchurch. New developments—this is a new city. We are loving it down there. We are leading the way when it comes to housing. Everybody in the country must take a leaf out of the Christchurch book, because we have dropped housing prices from 16 percent down to 3 percent. People are able to buy homes there. People are getting housed. Thank you.

MARAMA FOX (Co-Leader—Māori Party): Tēnā koe e Te Mana Whakawā, anei te mihi atu ki a koe i tēnei Wiki o Te Reo Māori. Kai te hāngai atu au i aku kupu, aku kōrero ki tō tāua Reo, tēnei Reo e rere haere ana i runga i te mata o te whenua o Aotearoa whānui nei.

Nā reira, ka huri ake au ki tōku nei haerenga i roto i tō tāua Reo Māori. I ahau e tupu ake, karekau taku Reo. Haere atu au ki Te Kura Kōtiro o Ōtautahi, i reira au i ako i te reo Wīwī, i te reo Latin rānei. I tēnei wā, kai te kimi atu au i te huarahi mō aua reo i runga i te whenua o Aotearoa, karekau. Moumou wā noa iho te whakaako i ērā o ngā reo ēngari anō, ko Te Reo Māori. I ahau i haere atu ki te kōhanga reo ki te taha o taku tamaiti, i tipu ake au i roto i Te Reo. Kai reira e whakawhānui ana i te mātauranga i mau nei i ahau. He aha ai? I runga i te mea, ko Te Reo te matapihi ki Te Ao Māori, ko Te Reo Māori te matapihi ki Te Ao Māori.

I reira au i rapu kōrero e pā ana ki te hītori o ngāi tātau o te kāinga. I rapu kōrero ana au i runga i te hītori o Te Ao Māori. Ko taku tupuna tēnā i tito i tō tāua mātauranga o te whare wānanga. Kotahi rau, rua tekau ngā pukapuka kai Te Alexander Turnbull Library e noho ana i tēnei wā, nā taku tipuna i tito, ki hea? I roto i Te Whare Pāremata. Ki hea, i roto i ngā whare wānanga o te kāinga ēngari, kāre mātau o Te Wairarapa e paku mōhio, ki aua kōrero, he aha ai? Kāre ō mātau Reo.

Ki a au nei, me ako ia tamaiti o tēnei whenua i tō tāua Reo i roto i te kura. Me ako! Ēhara i te mea ka wepua te tamaiti, karekau. Ēngari, e whitu kē ngā marau ki roto i Te Mātauranga o Aotearoa nei. Kai te whaiwhai mātau i te pūtaiao, te hangarau, te reo Tauiwi, aua momo pāngarau. Kei hea te wāhanga mō Te Reo Māori? He aha ai, me ako? Mehemea ko Te Reo Māori te matapihi ki Te Ao Māori, ka whakakorengia te kaikiri i runga i te whenua. Ka whakakorengia rātou e noho ngoikore mō te hitori o ngāi tātau Te Iwi Māori, ngā pakanga o te whenua, aua momo, mā Te Reo Māori e kite atu te tikanga i ngāi tātau.

He aha anō tētahi take? I kite mātau, mehemea ka mōhio te tamaiti, te tangata ki tōna ake wheako, ki tōna ake mana i roto i Te Reo, i roto i Te Ao Māori, ka eke ki taumata kē atu. Ko Mason Durie tēnā e kī mai, ko tētahi o ngā hua o Te Reo Māori, ā, ko ngā ekenga, ngā taumata o te whare wānanga. Tautoko rawa ahau i tēnā. Kua kite mātau i roto i ngā whare herehere, mehemea ka hāngai, ka whai atu i ngā tangata i roto i te whare herehere i Te Ao Māori, ka huri te whakaaro, ka whakaiti noa iho i te nama o rātou e puta atu ki te whati i te ture.

Nā reira, ka tae atu ki tēnei kaupapa nui ki a tātau i tēnei rangi mō Ngāpari Nui o Ngāti Ruanui, kua whakahē nei te minita i tōna mahi i roto i te whare herehere. He aha ai? Mō te kākahu e mau nei i a ia. Rima tau ia e mahi ana, kāre āna mahi whakahē i te ture, kāre ana mahi whakahē i ngā tangata i runga i te tiriti, kare kau. Ko ngā pirihimana tēnā. Ko te whare herehere tēnā, e haere ake ki a ia ki te rapu āwhina mehemea he raru e puta mai ana i roto i tōna wāhi noho. Kai te whakahē Te Minita i te hiahia, me te wawata o Ngāti Ruanui. Nā rātou tēnei tangata i whakamana. Ēhara mā Te Kāwanatanga hai whakahē, ki te kore ia i mahi hē.

Koi nei tāku ki a koe e Te Mana Whakawā, nei te mihi, kia ora mai tātau.

[Thank you, Mr Speaker, I acknowledge you in this Māori Language Week. I am using words that are appropriate to my address and in our language, this language that flows throughout all New Zealand.

Now I turn to my journey in our Māori language. As I was growing up, I did not know my language. I attended Christchurch Girls’ High School, and there I learnt French and Latin. At that time I was looking for a pathway in regard to those languages here in New Zealand; there was not one, none at all. It was an absolute waste of time learning those two languages, but not so with the Māori language. When I went with my child to the kōhanga reo I grew in the language. It was there that I was able to broaden my knowledge and I am now able to retain it. And why? It is because the Māori language is the window into the Māori world. I repeat, the Māori language is the window into the Māori world.

While I was there I looked for stories explaining the history of our home. I also looked for historical information on the Māori world. It was my ancestor who wrote about that knowledge for the university. At this moment there are 120 books sitting in the Alexander Turnbull Library, in Parliament House, in the learning institutions, all written by my ancestor, but we of the Wairarapa know only a little about that conversation. Why was that? That was because we did not have our language.

To me, every child of this land should learn our language at school. Learn! It is not as if they are going to be whipped, no. There are seven curriculum levels in New Zealand. We are battling with science, with technology, with English, with a variety of maths. And we ask: where is the place for the Māori language? Why should it be taught? If the Maori language is the window into the Māori world, it would eliminate racism from this land. It would illuminate one’s knowledge of the history of the Māori people—land wars, events like that—and the Māori language would allow us to see what is right for us.

What is another reason? We have noted that if a child, an individual, understands through personal experiences and their personal ability in the Māori language and the Māori viewpoint of their world, he or she will progress to higher levels of understanding. Mason Durie stated that one of the benefits of the Māori language was reaching the pinnacle of university. I personally endorse that. We have observed in prisons that if it is relevant, those people will follow the Māori world, they will change their ideas, and fewer people will break the law.

And so we come back to this issue of huge significance to us today in regard to Ngāpari Nui of Ngāti Ruanui, whose role inside prison the Minister of Corrections has opposed. Why is that? Because of the clothes he wears. He has been in the role for 5 years, and has not been offside with the law, nor been in trouble with people on the street—none. That is a police matter. It is interesting that prisons have gone to seek advice from him on workplace problems. The Minister denies the hopes and aspirations of Ngāti Ruanui, because they endorsed the man. It is not for the Government to disagree if the person has done no wrong.

This is my contribution to you, Mr Speaker, I acknowledge you and extend my appreciation to us all.]

STUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): With the announcement on the weekend of the infrastructure package to focus on the five high growth areas of Queenstown, Christchurch, Tauranga, Hamilton, and Auckland it would be easy to think that they are the only places where growth is going on, and that is not the case. With 40,000 more construction jobs now than 2 years ago, there is a boom going on in the building sector. In my own electorate, house prices are up 9.3 percent on a year ago, and the average house price is $375,000. Even so, given low interest rates and other packages like HomeStart, houses are just as affordable, at least, as they were 25 years ago. However, in my region, with the council operating as the regulator as well as the developer of property, it has left itself open for complaints from developers that it is the poacher and the gamekeeper and is dribbling sections on to the market to maximise its return.

Whatever the case, there are real capacity constraints being built up in my region. Section sales are up 900 percent on last year, and building supplies sales are up 40 percent, which is significant in a market the size of Marlborough. The wine industry recently came out with a labour market survey projecting out to 2020 a 29 percent increase in the area planted in grapes. That was along the lines to point out that they would need 2,000 more jobs by 2020. In a population of 45,000 people, that is almost 5 percent of the population of the region.

So a significant amount of growth is required in that area in housing. It is estimated that 189 houses are needed for permanent staff in vineyards alone. That is not counting what will be required in the wine processing industry and the multiplier effect with the associated industries. In addition to that, there will be 442 beds for casual staff, as well as 600 Recognised Seasonal Employer approved beds required. All of this is in a constrained market. So I took the position of getting the wine industry, the mayor, the council, and myself together to have a bit of a discussion about how we might meet that challenge of getting enough houses constructed in the time allowed. Four years will roll by pretty quickly.

I think that what has happened in Marlborough is likely to be what has happened in a lot of councils, where councils have almost sleepwalked their way through this, expecting that the problem will solve itself. When we looked, at a cursory glance, at the number of sections that were available, there are a huge number of sections. But when you drill down into it, in fact a lot of those sections do not have the infrastructure in place and will not have for some time. In some cases, in some of the councils’ assessments—and it is not unique to Marlborough; it is around the country—they are counting potential section sites that are in a large house and section that their owners may be unwilling to sell and subdivide.

Hon Member: A big issue in Gore.

STUART SMITH: Well, it is certainly an issue in Marlborough, and it is in other places. So what to do about that? Well, we are already running up against construction constraints in Marlborough, as well as builders not being able to get to jobs in a timely manner. One developer wants to build an office and a show home on his latest development and cannot get anything started until next year.

We also have the earthworks contractors who are running right to the limit and are running behind schedule because they simply do not have the staff to deal with the jobs in front of them. This is a positive problem. It is fantastic for New Zealand. We are really going to make a lot of difference, I think, with the infrastructure package that gives councils an opportunity to get ahead of the game, rather than following all the time and getting further and further behind.

Just to round out, I am proud to be part of a Government that has got a plan to deal with the events in front of it. People are voting with their feet and coming back to New Zealand because of the positive outlook for our economy and for jobs. I am really pleased to be a part of that. Thank you.

GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central): Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. I do want to start, before I get into the main part of what I want to say today, by actually thanking you, Mr Speaker, for allowing the flying of a rainbow flag today, outside. It is the first time in the history of this Parliament that that has occurred, and it is a recognition of the celebrations that we will be having this evening in Parliament of the 30th anniversary of the passing of that important human rights measure. I can say that it means a lot to the LGBT community that you made that decision today, and I thank you very much indeed for that. I also thank the MPs who are in Parliament still today, who were here 30 years ago. I see my colleague Annette King is with me.

Hon Members: Ha, ha!

GRANT ROBERTSON: Actually, Annette King, Trevor Mallard, Phil Goff, and Peter Dunne have a lot more to be proud of than some of the people who might want to laugh at somebody who has given 30 years’ service to this Parliament and stood up to be counted at a time when it was not popular to do so. I say thank you to Annette King for doing that.

It is interesting to get that reaction from the National Party members over there, because at the conference in the weekend National Party members were told by John Key: “Don’t get arrogant.” “Don’t get arrogant” is what National Party members were told by John Key.

Tracey Martin: Too late.

GRANT ROBERTSON: Tracey Martin might be right to say “too late.” Those members need to be a little careful, because I will tell you what is arrogant. Arrogant is telling people who say that there is a housing crisis that they are being emotive. Arrogant is telling people who live in cars and garages that it is a figment of their imagination that the housing crisis has got worse. Arrogant is Anne Tolley telling people that people living in cars is nothing new and there is nothing to be worried about here. Arrogant is Bill English calling the housing crisis “a pressure”. That is arrogant. But then they have got a good teacher, when it comes to the Prime Minister. He is the person who said earlier this year: “Look, we are very accessible, and that includes being out in the community pretty much every day. That also makes sure that I’m out there. If I go to the Koru Lounge, for instance, I don’t just sit away in a corner.”—Thank goodness for that.—“I stand out in the middle”—by the buffet, presumably—“[and] people come up to me, from all walks of life ...”. The only people coming up to him from all walks of life, in the middle of the Koru Lounge, are the people refilling the buffet. I am going to judge that the Prime Minister does not actually stop and talk to them. So if they want a teacher about getting arrogant, they just have to look up at the leader in front of them.

We have seen that today, because John Key refuses to call this housing crisis what it is. It is a crisis, because in New Zealand we have prided ourselves on the idea that the Kiwi Dream of buying your own home is within reach of all New Zealanders. It is within reach of the people who get up in the morning and go to not well-paid jobs but good jobs, and important jobs. They are jobs like being a school secretary or a bus driver or a security guard or a nurse. The combinations of those people should be able to work hard together and earn enough money to buy a house and stay and live in their community—and that is not happening. That is what is slipping away. What is arrogant is a Government that says that does not matter any more. Well, it matters to me. It matters to me not just because growing up in a warm, dry, safe, stable home is good for somebody’s health, but it means that they get to school and they achieve. One of the worst statistics from Te Puea Marae was the fact that many of the children staying at that marae this year had not had a day at school. That is because they are transitory; they are moving around. It is about the security that those people have, but it is about the kinds of communities we want.

Homeownership is the core of the stable communities that people like you, Mr Speaker, and I grew up in—where we knew our neighbours, where we all got together and played in the same sports teams, and went to the same school; and everybody had the chance to live out their version of the Kiwi Dream. That is what goes missing when homeownership falls. That is what goes missing when homelessness grows. We have to solve this housing crisis. The first step is recognising the problem. The second step is a plan that deals with building houses, that deals right away with giving a roof over their head to the people who do not have a roof over their head. It deals, fundamentally, with the demand side. The Labour Party has a plan, and on Sunday New Zealanders will see, finally, a party that takes this seriously, rather than one that regards it as a joke.

TODD BARCLAY (National—Clutha-Southland): It is a privilege to be able to speak in this general debate. As a country, we have got a lot to be proud of and a lot to be positive about. It is great to be part of a Government that is taking the issue around homeownership very seriously. We have got a wide suite of reforms targeted at getting people into their first home—on the first rung of the property ladder. We have got a suite of policies, as part of our agenda, and in my electorate we have benefitted from many of those as well. There are plenty more to come. We are creating special housing areas across the country, in high demand areas across New Zealand, to help fast track people into their first homes and the building of first homes. We are reforming the Resource Management Act. This is a very important piece of legislation that we have been campaigning on reforming since we came into Government. We hope to get greater support across the House to get that through. We are introducing the brightline test as well, which is assisting in the property tax base.

We are looking at a number of different initiatives to try to broaden the opportunities for people to get into their first home. We are releasing a national policy statement, requiring councils to ensure land supply for housing keeps up with the pace of growth. It is very important. Land supply—opening up land for building, for housing development—is one of the critical things we can do to help councils. Just on the weekend we announced a $1 billion infrastructure fund to accelerate new housing infrastructure in areas of high growth. Part of my electorate is Queenstown, and that is an area of high growth. It is interesting. Only about a year ago, when Nick Smith was down in Queenstown, announcing the housing accord down there, Phil Twyford said: “Oh, you don’t need to worry about going down there. The housing problems are only in Auckland.” How far from the truth could he have been?

We are experiencing challenging growth across the country, largely in my electorate, actually, off the back of the success of the tourism industry. It is another platform that the Government is supporting hugely, through the investment that we are doing in terms of attracting high-value tourists to this country. But Queenstown, nevertheless, does have a housing affordability issue. For Phil Twyford to go down there, just a couple of months ago—he completely changed his tune, saying: “Oh yes. The Government needs to be doing more.” Had he spent more than a day there, he would have realised the Government is doing a significant amount.

On top of those initiatives that I have talked about, we have got a wide-ranging suite of initiatives. The KiwiSaver HomeStart initiative has made a significant contribution to allowing young families to get into their first home. Labour Party policy, on the other hand—its silver bullet to this issue is to ban people with Chinese-sounding names from entering the housing market. Well, I am not sure where Phil Twyford has been, but there are a significant number of voters who have Chinese-sounding names, and they are making a significant contribution to our economy. Many of them have been here for a long period of time. I look forward to the Labour Party’s announcement over the weekend. Hopefully, it is not a regurgitation of the same old things. The flip-flopping of the Labour Party over housing has been astounding. Labour members said they would scrap the HomeStart initiative, one of the key pillars for supporting young families into their first home. Phil Twyford said he had been in favour of selling State housing to social housing providers. Now he is opposed to it. How ridiculous is that?

One of the things that we are proud of in Queenstown is the announcing of seven special housing areas into the area, dating right back to December 2014 when Bridesdale Farm was brought online, bringing on board an additional 140 houses. All sections have been sold. The second special housing area was Onslow Road, bringing on an additional 20 homes. Over the last month we have had five further special housing areas announced: Arthurs Point, bringing on 70 new homes; Gorge Road, bringing on 150 new homes; and Arrowtown Retirement Village, accommodating 175 elderly along with a 100-bed aged-care facility. It is a significant issue that we do not have retirement capacity in Queenstown at the moment. This is just one initiative that the Government has supported to come into our region. Shotover Country is bringing on 95 new homes; our seventh new housing area, announced just yesterday, is at Ladies Mile—our second retirement village coming into the district.

Over the last couple of years under the Government’s special housing areas initiative alone we have introduced seven special housing areas with 1,000 new homes into the district. We are a Government that is tackling this issue, we have got a lot in train, and we are seeing great results. Thank you very much for the opportunity.

MEKA WHAITIRI (Labour—Ikaroa-Rāwhiti): E Te Māngai o Te Whare, tēnā koe. E ngā mema o Te Whare nei, tēnā tātou katoa. I am proud to belong to the Labour Party, the Labour Party that in its DNA introduced social housing to this country—not like that lot who flog off, who dismantle, and who do nothing.

This Monday I had a housing meeting in my electorate of Maraenui in Napier. I want to bring the human face to the impact of that Government’s sleeping at the wheel when it comes to housing. Mary-Ann is due to have her baby in 3 weeks. She has a 6-year-old and an 11-year-old. Child, Youth and Family (CYF) is getting involved. She rings Work and Income (WINZ) on a daily basis to try to find a home. She is terrified that if she does not get into a home then CYF will take her children.

Kimberley has been on the waiting list for a home for 2 months. She needs urgent housing. She has four children: 12, 10, 9, and 7 years old. The children are sleeping on the floor, in damp conditions, in a Housing New Zealand property shared with others—an overcrowded Housing New Zealand property where a total of 11 people are living.

Dee registered on the waiting list in February in Hamilton. Two weeks later she moved to Hawke’s Bay. She has five children aged 4, 8, 9, 13, and 16. In the last 3 months she has moved between families, and at times has had to split her family so they could be accommodated. They are now living in a shed. The tenant of the two-bedroom property lives with nine others and needs his shed back. The emergency housing provider said that she can ring the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) and it will put her in a hotel or in a holiday park. This option Dee refused because she did not want to wear the extra debt burden. She was also told that if she had a car then she was more likely to get a house. Unfortunately, Dee does not have a car.

Jamie has three children whose ages are 1, 4, and 6, and was living in a car with them until 2 months ago. She has been boarding at a Housing New Zealand address for the last 2 months. The property is rented to a family of four. The family took her in only temporarily and is frightened they may be asked to leave as the house will be classified as overcrowded.

This is the real life situation that is facing the people in Maraenui, Napier, Hawke’s Bay, and throughout my electorate. At that meeting, as practical as the people are, they came up with some solutions to some of the housing issues faced particularly by the people of Maraenui. They wanted to see the return of tenancy managers. Once upon a time they had a tenancy manager based in Maraenui, but now that is all shut up and people have to ring an 0800 number—which we all know is never answered.

They talked about the reintegration of the services offered between WINZ and Housing New Zealand. At the coalface, the agencies are often not talking to each other and we are dealing with different people at any one time. They asked whether we could consider reintegrating those services.

The other wish list they had was emergency housing. You know, I have no emergency housing throughout Hawke’s Bay—the closest emergency housing in my electorate of Ikaroa-Rāwhiti is in Palmerston North. We need emergency housing, and we need it now.

The fourth innovative solution that these people came up with on Monday was to do with the so-called homes that are contaminated by P. There is this rumour going around that they are contaminated by the cooking of P. We do not promote any drug use in the home, but there has been some feedback from tenants or neighbours themselves that P has been smoked in houses and that they can be cleaned by a decent domestic clean. These people at this hui on Monday night offered to put their hands up to go into homes in Maraenui that have been tagged as P contaminated and to clean up, to allow more supply to house those who are on the waiting list.

Yesterday I came into this House and I asked the Minister for Māori Development whether he believes that the Government that he is propping up is doing more to help those people living in cars and sheds. I want to share some statistics with the House. This is taken from the Ministry of Social Development’s own website, where it talks about the housing register: 43.6 percent of all people on the housing register are Māori, and 38.8 percent of all those people on the transfer register—i.e., those who are in a house, waiting to be transferred—are Māori. That is a total of 42.5 percent of all people registered on the Housing New Zealand waiting list who are Māori. Kia ora.

ANDREW BAYLY (National—Hunua): We know that housing issues are vital and important to everyone, but I absolutely refute what I have just heard—that this Government is not concerned about it and does not have a plan for it. I think it is drivel to actually say that. In fact, I will go a step further and say it is piffle—piffle.

This Government has a good plan. And do you know why it has such a good plan? It is because—actually, the reason we have got such high demand for housing is that, basically, we are suffering from our own success with high migration, investors wanting to take advantage of low interest rates, and general confidence in this economy.

The Opposition always jumps to the view that the Government has to solve this issue—that the Government has got to build more houses. I put it to you that that is not the right proposition. In fact, I believe it is nonsense. It does not actually matter who owns the houses, as long as they are being built. Secondly, it does not take into account that it is the private sector that is driving most of the house builds. At the moment the big companies account for only about 24 percent to 25 percent of all new houses in New Zealand. The Government accounts for only 1 percent, although I do note that this year Housing New Zealand will spend $1 billion on new houses.

The other factor is that most of the houses—nearly three-quarters of all the houses built in New Zealand—are built by private businesses that are one-, two-, or three-person businesses. They are the people who are driving the growth and they are people whom we have to look after.

What are we doing about increasing supply? First of all, we are forcing councils to make sure they make sufficient land available. I welcome the pronouncement by the Minister for Building and Housing to make sure that councils make a proper estimation of the land available for development. Secondly, we are making use of Crown land that is sitting vacant. Thirdly, we have established over 200 special housing areas. I note that approximately 154 of those are in Auckland. What that is all leading to is a lot more supply.

Dr David Clark: 13 hectares more? The member knows—13 hectares more.

ANDREW BAYLY: If you were good enough to come and join me in my electorate, you would know—as Mr Clark knows, because he grew up in Beachlands—that I have got a problem with new housing development going on in Beachlands Maraetai. Currently, 9,500 people live in Beachlands Maraetai, as you may recall, Mr Clark. I will have 17,500 people living there in another 5 years’ time.

In Clevedon, I have got 1,500 homes going in there. I go to Pukekohe—another 10,000 people will be living there in 5 years’ time. And then down to Clarks Beach—there is another huge development going in there. Across the way, in Glenbrook Beach, there is another development—another special housing area. I have a problem with too many homes going into my electorate.

This gives rise to the next issue: infrastructure. How do we provide adequate infrastructure? I will just draw you back to 2014. In 2014 we changed the local government legislation to allow local authorities to enter into proper agreements with their developers, to help construct infrastructure and to finance it. But, also, the billion-dollar plan, that big plan that was announced by the Prime Minister at the weekend, gives a billion dollars to help councils to put in place a faster track to build more infrastructure. I think that is great.

There is a whole raft of other things, but unfortunately I have got only 5 minutes. There is migration and what we are doing about that. We are giving additional points for people to move out of Auckland. We are giving them $5,000 if they choose to move out of Auckland and go to other areas. There are tax changes to make sure that people are paying their proper tax. The Reserve Bank has put in prudential controls around the loan-to-value ratios. There are new housing loans to help first-home buyers.

So what is the result? The result is that 85,000 homes are to be built during the term of this Government. There will be 210 special housing areas, as we heard, covering 6,000 hectares—or nearly 70,000 homes. That is the size of a big farm. There are another 40 houses being built every day in Auckland—every day. Finally, there were 28,000 consents last year. This is a dynamic plan. Thank you very much.

TRACEY MARTIN (NZ First): Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Just before I begin the topic of my general debate speech, I just want to point out that the housing crisis has been mentioned a lot here today, and so it should be, because it is a crisis. If people would like to be aware, the Rt Hon Winston Peters will be making a very large policy announcement for New Zealand First in Palmerston North tomorrow. They might like to take the time to go along and have a listen and see a real solution to a real problem.

The topic of my speech is, actually, Salisbury School. A year ago—actually it was not quite a year ago—on 13 August 2015 I put out a press release predicting that this Government would starve Salisbury School of students so that it could then publicly debate that it cost too much to keep open. I want to remind the public of New Zealand what has happened since 2012 with regard to the only—the only—single sex, for girls, special-needs boarding school in New Zealand. In 2012 the parents and the elected board of trustees of Salisbury School felt so strongly about Minister Parata’s intention to close Salisbury School, and they feared so much for the physical safety of those very vulnerable young women, that they took the Government to court. They took the Minister to court in 2012—to the High Court, to be precise—and they won. The High Court ruled that it was illegal for the Minister to close that school. The High Court ruled that by creating a coeducational facility at Halswell and removing the opportunity to have a single-sex, high-needs boarding facility for these young women it would place these young women at risk of sexual assault. That is the outcome that happened in 2012.

Let us talk about the fact that the Minister now argues in media releases that it is too expensive for the nine remaining students at Salisbury School to remain there because the Intensive Wraparound Service (IWS) is so much cheaper at $27,000. Let us just address the number of students that this Government has managed to manipulate down to nine. In 2012 there was a cap on the number of students that could be enrolled at Salisbury School of 80. If you extrapolate out the current costs that the Minister herself uses to say it is now too expensive, if that school was still able to maintain the roll of 80—it had 72 at the time of the court ruling—then it would be cheaper to actually have these young women at Salisbury School for 24 hours’ worth of care in a highly educative and supportive environment than it would be to put them into the IWS.

But this Government halved that cap in 2013. There was no consultation. There are no fewer young women out there who actually suffer from Prader-Willi syndrome or any other syndrome, but it halved the cap, because that is the philosophical bent of this Government. Then by September 2015 it had taken it down to 30. Earlier this year it took it down to 20. Nobody was allowed to get into Salisbury School. This Government took away the right of parents to apply for their young women to be inside this school, and they had to go through the IWS committees.

The IWS committees decline, decline, decline parents who want their young women to go into this safe, secure, and educational environment. This Government gives millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money to charter schools under the name of parental choice. This Government is arguing, under global funding, to give millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money to private schools under the guise of parental choice. Where is the parental choice for the parents of these incredibly vulnerable young women? Where is the responsibility of this Minister should a sexual assault take place at Halswell—a pilot that this Minister put forward knowing that the High Court had said it was high risk?

Upon the outcome of that court ruling, she immediately started a pilot of coeducation and she did it deliberately. This Government has deliberately starved Salisbury School of students for this very moment. Mr Smith, this is in your electorate. This is in your electorate, and you stand silently while they put these young women at risk. Shame on you, sir. Shame on you. Stand up for this school and stand up for these young women.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.

Estimates Debate

In Committee

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): The Business Committee has determined that the Estimates debate will be 12 hours in length and will be divided into 10 separate debates covering the sectors set out in the Estimates of Appropriations for 2016-17. Each debate will be led by a call from the chairperson of the select committee nominated by the Government as the major committee reporting on the sector.

Committee chairpersons are expected to focus their speeches on the major findings of the committee. I would expect, following that, that speeches may become more partisan. The Labour Party will have two calls. The Green Party will have one call. New Zealand First will have one call, and the Minister in the chair will have three calls in response. All calls are 5 minutes in length, and members may take unused allocated calls later in the Estimates debate. In addition, there are 64 5-minute supplementary calls that have been allocated to parties and they may be taken as parties see fit during the 10-sector debate.

At the end of each debate, the question will be put that the votes in each sector stand part of the schedules, so the time taken on each question is in the hands of members, depending on parties’ use of their allocation of supplementary calls. However, this debate expires after 12 hours. The Estimates debate should be relevant to the Government’s current spending plans, as contained in the Estimates of Appropriations.

The following sectors are currently available for debate: Environment; External; Finance and Government Administration; Health; Justice, Primary; and Social Development and Housing. The reports on the votes relevant to these sectors are available separately on the Table.

Environment Sector

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Members, we come first to the votes in the Environment Sector, volume B5, volume 3. The question is that Vote Conservation, Vote Environment, and Vote Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment stand part of the schedules.

SCOTT SIMPSON (Chairperson of the Local Government and Environment Committee): It is a pleasure as chair of the Local Government and Environment Committee to lead off this Environment Sector portion of the 2016-17 Estimates debate. The Local Government and Environment Committee produced three reports, two of which I wish to refer to today in this debate. The pro forma report on the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment was exactly that—a pro forma report. So it is my intention today to concentrate on Vote Environment and Vote Conservation.

We heard from three Ministers in this area: the Minister for the Environment, the Hon Dr Nick Smith; the Minister for Climate Change Issues, the Hon Paula Bennett; and, of course, the Minister of Conservation, the Hon Maggie Barry. The committee was, I think, very interested to hear on a wide range of issues that the Ministers were able to bring to the attention of the committee in terms of the Budget Estimates that have been allocated in this year’s Budget. But overarching all three presentations from the Ministers, and our deliberations as a select committee, was a clear indication that this is a range of Ministers who, within their portfolios, bring to the Parliament of New Zealand a clear, definitive, concise approach to managing, protecting, and enhancing the environment of New Zealand, which we are all very concerned for and very appreciative of.

Underlying their messages to the committee, and detailed in the reports, was, essentially, the Government’s blue-green agenda, which seeks to ensure that economic growth and improving the environment can and should go hand in hand. Those are matters that were a constant theme as the Ministers presented to us, and submitted themselves to questioning on the Budget allocations for their various portfolio responsibilities.

The Minister for the Environment, the Hon Nick Smith, I thought, was particularly keen to highlight to the committee—it is featured in the report back to the House—the importance of the resource legislation that is currently before the Local Government and Environment Committee for consideration. He was keen to point out that this is phase two of the Resource Management Act reforms that the Government has been working its way through. He was able to present to the committee an implementation of a work programme that related to the implementation of that legislation. The committee was very keen to hear about that.

One of the other areas that I was particularly interested in as chair was the achievements to date in terms of our marine protected areas and further developments, both legislative and regulatory, that will enable us as a nation to further extend the range and options for the preservation of marine reserves around our exclusive economic zone. Of particular interest to the committee was the matter of the Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary Bill, which is also before the committee for consideration. This proposed marine protected areas bill, which will likely come to the House later in the year, was a matter that the Minister was keen to draw our attention to.

The Minister of Conservation made a number of valid points. Other speakers in this debate will cover those off, I am sure. But there were two that I was particularly keen on, and, again, they are referred to in the report back to the House. I was particularly interested in the matters relating to conservation partnerships, both commercial and community partnerships. We heard from the Minister that for every dollar invested there was a payback of somewhere between $2 and $3, in terms of enhancing the conservation objectives of the Government.

There have been nine significant national commercial conservation partnerships, and the Minister went through those in some detail during the hearing. They included organisations such as the NEXT Foundation, through its Project Janszoon; the Fonterra Living Water programme; the NEXT Foundation’s programme in Taranaki; the relationship with Air New Zealand; the relationship with Genesis Energy; and the relationship with Toyota. All of these organisations are adding their commercial weight to improving and preserving and protecting our environment with conservation initiatives.

Another area that I thought was of particular interest was this area of community partnerships. We know, and we heard from the Minister, that there are now some 600 community volunteer organisations involved in working towards further protection—

Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour): I rise to take a call, mainly in relation to Vote Environment, but I am also going to touch on climate change. Obviously, in the 5 minutes that I have available I cannot touch on all environmental matters, so I am going to use the criteria that the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment used last week when she announced her critique of the Government’s State of the Environment report. She, I think, gave Parliament some wise advice. She said that we should be concentrating on what is important, widespread, and where the trend is worrisome.

If she applied those three criteria she said that some things are getting better, and therefore we do not need to be too worried about them—like air quality. She gave the example of where air quality is getting better—it has for quite a long time now. It needs to improve a little bit in some areas, but we can be pretty satisfied, as a country, that we have got that under control. She said in respect of point-source discharges into rivers, like municipal sewage outlets, factory discharges, those sorts of things, that whilst not perfect—there were some to be cleaned up—overall, as a country we have that under control.

She noted two areas where we are in a worrisome position, where—after 8 years of this Government—things actually are not under control, and in some areas are getting worse. The two she noted were water quality from non - point-source discharges—this is increased intensity of agriculture making our waterways dirtier. Her second point was in respect of climate change and gases. She emphasised—this is a point that I am going to come back to, I hope, if I have time—that at times there is a crossover between those things. This is because where the Government’s policy has been worse it has caused worse outcomes, both in terms of water quality and in respect of climate-changing emissions.

My assessment of water quality is that we are still paying the price of the Government’s having spiked the form of the national policy statement that was awaiting it shortly after it took Government, which had been overseen by the former Principal Environment Judge, Judge Sheppard. It, essentially, said that clean rivers ought to be kept clean; dirty rivers ought to be cleaned up over a generation; and in order to stop clean rivers getting dirtier, and to do this effectively, we had to make it clear that increases in land-use intensity that increased non - point-source discharges could no longer be a permitted activity, until such time as we had decent rules and plans controlling those sorts of eventualities, so that overall effects do not get worse. The national policy statement that the Minister for the Environment, through the Land and Water Forum, has put forward is not yet of that quality, because it is not of that effect. We still have areas in New Zealand where non - point-source discharges are getting worse, and water quality is deteriorating. The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment’s report makes that clear, and reports on the widespread incidence of where it is getting worse.

In respect of climate change, the economic irrationality of the Government’s settings is quite wrong. Yes, we have improved in electricity-generation emissions, because of the emissions trading scheme (ETS) covering them, and because of various other initiatives—mainly from the last Government, but which have been continued by the current Government. Yes, transport emissions are actually getting a little bit better, but there is not nearly as much improvement as there should be. The standout area where things are still getting worse is agricultural emissions. What does the Government do? It excludes it, not just from the ETS but—they see no evil, hear no evil—also from the terms of reference of the review of the ETS, which is just irresponsible. Indeed, some of the major submitters came along and said: “Look, we’ll put up our hand for doing away with the two-for-one emission rights. We’ll pay our full quota. But we don’t think it’s fair that we should have to take on the burden of the increase in emissions that’s occurring in agriculture.” So they came along and said that this is economically irrational and environmentally damaging—and they are right on both counts.

An example of that is what has happened in forestry. As the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment said, if we had better signals around deforestation—if we were charging them a reasonable price for deforestation, instead of letting the price of carbon go to zero—if we were charging agriculture for increased agricultural emissions following land clearance, then we would have had less of both. We would have had lower climate-changing emissions, we would have improved water quality, we would have had less nutrient load, and we would not have blown the dairy bubble bigger—as the Government did, before it popped—flushing billions of dollars of wasted investment down the drain. So the incompetence of the Government in that area has made our climate-changing emissions worse, our water quality worse, and our economy weaker—a trifecta that I am sure that the Minister will call comprehensive.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for the Environment): I welcome the opportunity to engage in this Estimates debate on Vote Environment. I want to acknowledge the contributions made by both my colleague and the chairman of the Local Government and Environment Committee, Scott Simpson, as well as David Parker.

The first point I want to focus on is the areas where there is agreement. It is the Government’s view that the three most important environmental issues for our country are, firstly, the issue of climate change—something that the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment recently highlighted in the review of the Government’s new environment reporting system. The second most important priority is in respect of fresh water quality. I also agree with Mr Parker: the issue there is the one of the non - point-source discharge. We agree that that is a really important area where we need to increase our game. I would add a very important third, and that is the issue of biodiversity protection. When I am privileged to represent New Zealand in international fora around the environment, I am incredibly proud of New Zealand’s “clean, green” brand in so many areas in which we rank very well.

The area that every New Zealander should be concerned about is the fact that we have more endangered species than any other country, and that we have got a real duty to lift our game in that area—the work that Maggie Barry is doing as Minister of Conservation, whether it is the Battle for our Birds, whether it is the War on Weeds, or whether it is the new partnerships with conservation groups. Just to mention one, I celebrate the record number of 34 kākāpō chicks. I note when I was Minister I got all excited when there were three. This year there were 34, and that is a real tribute to the work of the Department of Conservation.

Can I go back to the issue of climate change? The biggest amount in Vote Environment is for climate change. That is the Government saying this is the most important issue. I have a challenge for critics—

Hon David Parker: That’s paying for emission subsidies. That’s the vote for emission subsidies.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: No, no, no—if you take the net of the amount that the Government is taking. Here is a challenge for the Labour and Opposition members: tell me a country that has a more comprehensive emissions trading scheme (ETS), or a country that has a higher carbon price than the $17 that polluters are having to pay today. Because the truth is, in Europe they exempt the whole transport sector—actually, every person in the transport sector, every time you get on a plane, and every time you are in a car, you are paying a price for carbon.

Equally so, here are the numbers, and I do challenge the Parliament: in the period from 1990 to 1999 emissions in New Zealand grew by 12 percent; in the period of the last Labour Government from 1999 to 2008, they grew by 18 percent—18 percent; in the term of this Government those numbers have dropped significantly, to 3 percent. That is a tribute to the progress that we have made in an area like electricity, where emissions were going up under the last Government; but are coming down under this Government.

I make no apologies for the fact that this Government has made a record investment—a record investment—in the issue of greenhouse gas emissions from the farming sector. I point out to Mr Parker that, actually, over those 26 years since 1990, the sector that has the smallest increase in emissions is actually the agricultural sector. There is no point in adding agriculture into the ETS unless we have practical technologies that will enable farmers to reduce their emissions, and the truth is that those technologies are not yet available.

I want to come to the issue of fresh water. This Budget provides for a $100 million further investment in clean-ups around the country. That is on top of the $250 million over the next 10 years that is already committed—

Hon David Parker: No, it doesn’t. It doesn’t.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Yes, it does, Mr Parker. It is an extra on top of the $100 million, and, again, I would challenge the numbers. Here is the story. Over the entire period from 2000 to 2008 Mr Parker’s Government spent $15 million on clean-ups around the country—$15 million, $1-5 million. We have already spent $115 million, we have committed a further $250 million to this Government’s programme of work around fresh water.

Let me give another example. We did not even measure how much water was being taken. When we came to Government the total proportion of water that was metered across our country was 15 percent. That number is now over 80 percent, heading for 96 percent. It is true that, as a consequence of metering those takes in areas like Canterbury, we are identifying people who have breached their consent, and I know parties like the Greens are calling “foul”. What I would say to them, though, is that we only know now. Actually, when Labour and the Greens were in Government they did not know whether anybody was breaching their consents, because they bothered to measure only 13 percent of them. That shows the progress that we are making around a freshwater programme.

The further point I would make is that Labour members can talk all they like about national policy statements. This Government has done more national policy statements—

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! I am going to interrupt the member now and remind him of the scope of the debate.

Hon Annette King: What was their Estimates?

Dr Megan Woods: That’s right.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): I will have two members stand and withdraw.

Hon Annette King: I withdraw.

Dr Megan Woods: I withdraw.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): The Estimates debate should be relevant to the Government’s current spending plans, as contained in the Estimates of Appropriations. We are going to be tighter on that, as well as tighter on the chairs.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: These Estimates provide for a very active programme around the delivery of both national policy statements and national environment standards, to continue our work of strengthening the Resource Management Act framework. For instance, the next national environment standard that we will be completing is the one around telecommunications and the amendments to enable us to make progress there. There is the very important one in respect of pest control, which is out for consultation currently and which is going to make it far more efficient to deal with those predator pests that pose such a risk to our native animals. There is the national policy statement that we are currently consulting on in respect of urban development. There is the new national policy statement around natural hazards that we think will improve the framework around how we deal with those issues. This is a comprehensive programme where priorities are being set around climate change, around the issues of biodiversity, and around the issues of fresh water. I am very proud of the progress that we are making, and which these Estimates will enable us to continue to make.

Dr KENNEDY GRAHAM (Green): Tēnā koutou e Te Whare. I want to pick up on the comments that have been made, especially by the Hon David Parker but also by the Minister Dr Nick Smith, about climate change. Let me first acknowledge the new, and what I take to be refreshing, outlook that the new Minister, the Hon Paula Bennett, is taking to the climate portfolio. She is laying down the foundation for a much more positive approach to this enormous challenge, and I want to convey to her my appreciation for that and my support for her efforts in this direction, whatever policy differences we may have on specific issues. We in the Green Party welcome the challenge just issued by the Hon Nick Smith—we will get back to you.

So what might be the biggest policy differences between National and Green approaches? It has to do, I think, with the magnitude of the global response that she identified to the committee, and the sense of urgency that flows from that. The Government’s approach reflects a particular world view. It is recognition, belated though genuine today, that climate change is a serious problem but it can be handled by the normal machinery of international diplomacy, and New Zealand should calibrate its transformation pathway within the context of traditional notions of economic competition.

The Green approach is different. It is that climate change is a qualitatively new problem of unprecedented magnitude and potentially catastrophic consequences, and it can be handled only through innovative approaches to international diplomacy. We believe that the debate and tension between the top-down and the bottom-up methods to be a false dichotomy, and we think New Zealand needs to calibrate its pathway with a new perception of global economic cooperation.

What might this mean in practice? It means that we need to have regard for where the global response is heading in the post-Paris era of climate policy. The Paris conference itself acknowledged in the decision adopting the agreement, that the intended nationally determined contributions (INDCs) do not fall within the 2 degree scenarios but, rather, lead to a projected level of 55 gigatonnes in 2030, and much greater emission reductions will be required.

The latest and most authoritative calculation on this appeared in last week’s edition of the scientific journal Nature. A consortium of the world’s top scientists calculated that the current pledges are on a path of 2.6 to 3.1 degrees Celsius. Let us acknowledge, incidentally, that this is a 66 percent chance; and a 33 percent chance it could be worse. Let us acknowledge, also, that 2 degrees is dangerous; 3 degrees is catastrophic. We are playing roulette with the planet, once unwittingly, now consciously.

What might this mean for New Zealand? In testifying before the committee the Minister considered New Zealand’s INDC of 11 percent to be ambitious but achievable. The Infometrics consultancy paper that underpins that target makes it clear that our INDC includes international trading. So the 11 percent figure is not just our domestic reduction but our share of the total global response. In fact, from the authoritative research done around the world New Zealand’s responsibility level for that share is larger than 11 percent by a factor of five to eight. So there is scope for debate about the adequacy of our current policy. That said, I believe that the Minister’s new approach opens the door to a genuine cross-party dialogue on climate policy in this House—something that has been lacking for over a decade.

I detect a new-found interest among colleagues along these lines in 2016, and I pledge the Green Party’s positive engagement in such a development. There will be areas where we differ, but an enduring cross-party foundation for climate policy in this country is critically important and long overdue.

Hon MAGGIE BARRY (Minister of Conservation): E Te Tiamana tēnā koe, huri noa i Te Whare Paremata, me ngā mihi ki ngā mema katoa.

[I thank you, Mr Chairman, and throughout Parliament, acknowledgments to all members.]

More conservation work is being done in New Zealand today than ever before in our history. At the Estimates and in the subsequent few weeks we have been talking a lot about Department of Conservation (DOC) funding. I was very surprised at the Estimates hearing that the ferocious Greens and other members of the Opposition did not take the opportunity to clarify the figures around DOC’s Crown funding, which they had misrepresented and got so thoroughly wrong.

For the record, Crown revenue to DOC has increased from $263 million in 2007-08 to $338 million in 2015-16. That, of course, includes the $20 million for Battle for our Birds, most of which will be carried over. Budget 2016 saw $49 million in new initiatives, including that money that was released immediately for Battle for our Birds, which we are about to roll out in the next couple of weeks. There was $16 million for wilding pine control, $600,000 for the Game Animal Council, and $11 million for the Pike29 Memorial Track, which my colleague Dr Nick Smith is leading.

The important thing to know about the conservation, environment, and climate change portfolios across this Government is that we all work together. We work closely with the Ministry for Primary Industries. Colleagues genuinely engage and discuss the best approach, and discuss how we can work closely together to make the hard-earned taxpayers’ money go even further. Vote Primary Industries and Food Safety’s $69 million for bovine TB eradication and Vote Environment’s $100 million for the Freshwater Improvement Fund are two things that we work together on to ensure that nature in this country gets the very best protection that it can with the taxpayers’ money.

DOC, as a department, works far more closely with more species than it ever has before—around 320 of them this year, instead of the 220 under Labour. We work more around ecosystems. So it is the entire environment. It is not just the single species; it is where that species lives. It is the water around it. Nature is not a series of compartments. We treat it holistically, and we are treating it well. There are many good success stories that have come of that. We have wide benefits that have been achieved through some of the measures that we have put in place.

My colleague and friend, the very able and hard-working chair of the Local Government and Environment Committee, Scott Simpson, listed out some of the partnerships and the models that we use with community and volunteer groups to very good effect. What he may not know about, and what I was asked about at the Estimates hearing, was the takahē recovery. Mitre 10 was a sponsor that had been very closely involved for a long period of time and it had withdrawn after more than a decade of support, although it will have an ongoing involvement in the programme as an official supplier and will donate materials.

What was signed yesterday was the partnership between DOC and Fulton Hogan, which is going to help the critically endangered takahē continue their recovery. It is worth $1 million, and it has just come at a time when the takahē recovery programme has had its most successful breeding season on record, with 38 chicks fledged. Along with the kākāpō, the takahē are very difficult creatures to encourage to breed. They are very vulnerable to predation, and there have been some very successful outcomes as a result of a cross-Crown unity of purpose. We work closely together and cooperatively, and we also work very closely with partnerships and philanthropy. I will not list them because Scott Simpson has already done that.

Battle for our Birds will be the largest predator control operation ever launched in New Zealand. It will cover 800,000 hectares of land. The idea with the 1080 is that it knocks it down, it gets rid of the rodent populations as a result of the beech seeding, and then you hold those vermin out with traps. It is a very, very good thing to do. The Minister for the Environment was absolutely correct: biodiversity is an important goal. We do have a high number of endangered and threatened species, and we have to be very aware of that. I created a new position, that of the Threatened Species Ambassador. Nicola Toki has been in that role now for about 8 months. She is doing a tremendous job in formulating a strategy, which we will unveil in due course, for our most critically endangered species. Again, it is an example of working together and making sure that we do what we need to do.

Altogether DOC has a million hectares of land under sustained pest management. We own a third of the country. We make sure that we are very prudent guardians of it.

POTO WILLIAMS (Labour—Christchurch East): I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I wonder whether you could give us some clarification. As the Minister of Conservation has just taken a call, but not from the Minister’s chair, could you clarify whether that is actually one of the Minister’s calls or a National Party call.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): I think what I can clarify is that in the end it does not make any difference. It will count as a ministerial call because she is a Minister, but in the end, because of the way that the spare calls are allocated—and there is a large number of them—when it all gets washed through it will not make any difference.

CLAYTON MITCHELL (NZ First): I would like to rise to take a call in the Estimates debate for New Zealand First on the Environment Sector, specifically talking to conservation. I think the Minister of Conservation was right in saying that there are many aspects and different portfolio spaces that are affected by, of course, the actions and reactions of decisions that are made. Specifically, I want to talk with regard to conservation and how much of a driver our conservation is for our tourism sector.

We have seen a massive spike in tourism numbers, and the spending coming in now is obviously our largest contributor to our GDP. It is something like $13.5 billion, and expecting to boost up to over $40 billion by the time we get to 2025. The start of that positive trajectory was really at the back end of the Hobbit film being released. Of course, that was all about the beautiful nature and the wildlife, flora, fauna, and topography of our country, and, of course, the tourists come driving into our country to spend their hard-earned money—around about $35 million a day. But the reality is quite different, in so far as we are under-investing in this sector. In real terms we are around about $40 million per annum down on spending. In fact, it is more than that; it is $60 million down on spending since 2009. I note that the Minister said we are up on the year 2007-08, but, of course, that was the year that Labour was finishing its reign. I liked the way she cherry-picked those numbers because it suits the Government to say that it is less of a deduction than what it is now.

In real terms our capital expenditure is down since 2008 by $98 million per annum. That goes into our infrastructure—all of our cabins and our tracks. It goes into infrastructure that is there that drives tourists to New Zealand. They are not coming to our theme parks. They are not going to Rainbow’s End in great numbers. They are coming to see the flora, the fauna, and the landscape of this beautiful country, and we are underspending considerably in this factor. In business terms, if you have got something like the jewel in the crown, the thing that is bringing value into your business, you invest in that. You promote that. You actually put your resources there, but we can see a decline in the support and the funding that conservation is getting.

My second point is about our beautiful animals and eradicating our pests. I hear the Minister talking about the Battle for our Birds campaign and spending vast amounts of money to eradicate those stoats and rats and possums. Look, everybody is absolutely on board with that, but nothing in the rhetoric that we hear from the Government is in relation to other, more effective, more efficient ways of controlling those populations.

Hon Maggie Barry: So we’re re-setting traps.

CLAYTON MITCHELL: It was great, Ms Maggie Barry, to see Te Urewera and Tūhoe coming out and saying that they do not want 1080 dropped indiscriminately on their beautiful pristine landscape. We need to manage it. They are not saying that they are not going to use it; they are saying it is not going to be their main priority. Dumping $100 million worth of toxic poison that no full studies have been done on—I mean, it has a federal ban in the USA for good reason. It indiscriminately kills animals. They say that they drop it safely.

We have got new health and safety reforms, so I guess this is one of those other pillars that we can talk about—how the cross-sections actually tie together conservation, environment, tourism, and now health and safety. The people who are directly working with 1080 before it gets picked up in helicopters are fully suited up, but there are no safety measures put in place for those helicopter pilots, and you know what happens to the dust of 1080—it gets put in the atmosphere. They are inhaling it. They are having it on their skin. The truck drivers who are delivering it have got no protective clothing on there, and there is nothing to support them. Yet we do not even know the full insidious nature of this poison, 1080. There have been no carcinogenic tests on it to see whether it is cancer-forming.

We have got helicopters dropping 1080 pellets on children who are walking around in our forests. The pellets are landing on them—this is happening. Up in the Coromandel, we have got absolute evidence that this is happening. We have to protect our environment—absolutely. We have to also protect the safety and the well-being of the people who are part of our environment making up the whole holistic picture. Investment needs to be put into better ways to control these pests with trapping and being more direct, as opposed to flying over and napalming our forests with pellets that kill everything. Thank you.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): The Minister has got the call, but she has got to stand up.

Hon Nicky Wagner: Mr Chair.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): The Hon Nicky Wagner—you cannot call when you are sitting down.

Hon NICKY WAGNER (Associate Minister of Conservation): The money that we spend on Vote Conservation in Budget 2016 is shaped by the history of our environment. New Zealand has a fabulous and unique natural environment, and it is the history of being an isolated and uninhabited land that has shaped our conservation priorities today. It is a country that had no land mammals, and so, in every single ecological niche, a bird had adapted to fit it. We had tiny little birds with long legs that acted like the mice and the rats. We had the kiwi and the kākāpō that were the equivalent of small land mammals. We had a whole number of moa, including the giant moa, that represented the large land mammals, and the giant eagle was our predator. Without mammals on the land, the birds walked and they nested, and they could not defend their nests on the ground.

As soon as humans came here with their entourage of animals—they came with rats, pigs and dogs; later we got possums, stoats, even wallabies, and, of course, trout and salmon—the days were numbered of our precious birds.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! The member will resume her seat just while I remind her of Speaker’s ruling 53/4, which goes to reading speeches. The Minister is at a distinct disadvantage because she is sitting right beside me and I could read the speech.

Scott Simpson: Not as well.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Maybe not as well, Mr Simpson, and that was a shocking thing to say. You have got a warning. I am sure not as well, and certainly not with the same accent. I am going to now invite the Minister to stop reading her speech.

Hon NICKY WAGNER: Even centuries later we have to use that money to protect our birds and to get rid of the predators. So $20 million for the Battle for our Birds is money well spent, and we are getting really good outcomes for that money spent. We find that where you have land that is unprotected—where it is not predator-free—maybe 10 to 20 percent of chicks survive, where, if it were a predator-free area, it could be 80 or 90 percent. But we also have ongoing work with whole ecosystems looking to multiple species. For example, I recently visited Mason Bay in Stewart Island, and there they have unique dune formations. There are over 24 different types of plants that are rare and special to that area—[Interruption] Thank you.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): I was just helping—you got to the end of the page.

Hon NICKY WAGNER: If we can look after those plants, all the rest of the birds, the lizards, and the insects flourish as well.

Hon Member: Are you moving your finger along the words?

Hon NICKY WAGNER: Ha, ha! So, that ongoing work with ecosystems—we have got about 500 different ecosystems right throughout the country.

But I am the Associate Minister of Conservation, and my focus is on community conservation and conservation boards, and, I have to say, there is an enormous amount of work going on in that area. We have 14 conservation boards throughout New Zealand and they are the ones that lead that conservation work, that do the planning to protect our land. But it is the community groups that are delivering for us as well. Just recently we had the Green Ribbon Awards, and at the Green Ribbon Awards we recognise the work of community groups. The Department of Conservation (DOC) is investing $32 million to support those community groups, and we are seeing all types of work coming out of that. We have got educational work, we have got planting, we have got species recognition; we have got a myriad of work—you name it and somebody is doing it.

Just this weekend I am going to visit Awaroa. You will have all followed the Awaroa Givealittle campaign where Duane Major and his brother-in-law Adam Gard’ner got the people of New Zealand activated to protect that piece of land. It was an enormous privilege for us to be able to top up that amount of money with $350,000 from the Nature Heritage Fund to make sure that that land would be absorbed into the Abel Tasman National Park. I have always believed that New Zealanders really love the natural environment—that they want to protect it—and I think this Givealittle campaign is a really vivid example of the work that they are doing and what they are prepared to do to support our natural environment.

Finally, I would like to thank all the conservation boards for the work that they do, and DOC for working hand-in-hand with them and for working hand-in-hand with our community groups, which are everywhere, right throughout the country. Together we can really protect and look after this magnificent environment that we have. Thank you.

KEVIN HAGUE (Green): Ki Te Tiamana o Te Whare, tēnā koe, ki a koutou huri noa i Te Whare, tēnā koutou katoa. Ngā mihi o Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori ki a tātou katoa. Ka tū au mō ngā Kākāriki ki te kōrero i te tautohetohe o ngā whakatau tata e pā ana ki ngā take taiao.

[Thank you, Mr Chairman, and to you collectively throughout the Committee, acknowledgments of Māori Language Week to us all. I stand for the Greens to speak in the Estimates debate on matters relating to the environment.]

I want to specifically speak about conservation. I agree with the Hon Dr Nick Smith, who told the Committee a short time ago that the challenge of protecting our unique biodiversity was at the very top of the challenges facing this country in the environmental sector. I want, perhaps, to begin by also appraising the commitment of the Minister Maggie Barry in relation to the War on Weeds. Her commitment on that topic is certainly welcome and it is possible that the funding the Government has allocated to wilding pine control may be enough to start to make a difference on that issue.

However, the Minister used her contribution in this debate to, again, retail the spin that has characterised this Government’s approach to conservation funding. Under this Government’s watch, since 2008, 162 species of threatened biodiversity have had their threat classification increased closer to extinction. For some of those there are actually fewer of the animal or the plant and for others we have got more data that tells us that the situation was worse than we thought previously. In either case, that should be a stimulus to the Government to spend more on conservation, and yet this is a Government that ranks conservation pretty much at the bottom of the portfolios that it deals with. This is a Government that has chosen to invest a teeny, tiny slice of its Budget—less than the margin of error—towards that vital purpose of conservation.

Since 2008 sometimes the budget has gone up, sometimes it has gone down. Overall, in real terms adjusted to 2015, the Government’s expenditure on conservation on average per year has been more than $50 million less than it was in 2008 when this Government took office. In total, that is more than $350 million in real terms—a massive hole in conservation funding. I have spoken in this Chamber about the huts and the tracks and the structures that are falling to rack and ruin, and I questioned the Minister about that at the Local Government and Environment Committee. I am very pleased to report that, even as we speak, in the huts, the tracks, and the structures of the conservation estate, there is currently feverish activity going on to try to ensure that, actually, the performance of the Government in maintaining those comes just a little bit closer to the standard that has been set, although it is still currently way below that.

The Minister, again, retailed the line that suggested that the Government’s funding for conservation has been retained. What the Minister is not telling the public of New Zealand and what the Minister is not telling the staff of her department is that she is able to make that claim because of the Budget items that are carried over from previous years. And what she does not say is that the work that money was appropriated for has also been carried over. That money is not available for core conservation work.

The funding has declined substantially, and reflects a regular massive underspend by this Government against its budget. So it sets a budget that looks good, and then it massively underspends it. Part of the reason for that is that capital expenditure cannot be spent, because Treasury will not allow it, because there is no money available for the operating expenditure for maintenance. This is a Government that has failed the conservation challenge.

Votes agreed to.

External Sector

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Members, we now come to the votes in the External Sector, volume B.5, volume 4. The question is that Vote Customs, Vote Defence, Vote Defence Force, Vote Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Vote Official Development Assistance stand part of the schedules.

Dr SHANE RETI (Deputy Chairperson of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee): It is a pleasure to speak to this, the External Sector, which, as you have mentioned, Mr Chair, takes into account defence, trade, humanitarian aid, customs, disarmament, and many other ministries. I am going to limit my comments here this afternoon to defence and customs particularly, and I would like to start by talking about the defence white paper that came out a few months ago and set New Zealand’s strategic direction, strategic imperatives, for the next 15 to 30 years.

The official defence white paper had some of its genesis in public consultation through 2015, and I think that is really useful, because we can see how the official document, finally, has been informed by that public consultation. If we look at that, there were 13 public meetings, and a total of 325 submissions to the defence white paper. There were 195 from members of the public, and 108 from Defence Force personnel. There were several questions that were asked, which helped inform the final document, and I have picked out some of them, because I think that you can really see how the final document took the lead from what the public was saying.

One of those questions was around major threats, and the majority of submissions indicated terrorism as a major threat for defence to pay attention to. In terms of international relationship risks, the majority of submitters said that Asia-Pacific geopolitical instability—

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! I am going to interrupt the chair of the committee, to remind him that the Estimates debate should be relevant to the Government’s current spending plans contained in the Estimates of Appropriations. Submissions to a white paper, and a white paper published outside the period, is not relevant, other than the effect that white paper has on spending in this particular year.

Jami-Lee Ross: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. At the Estimates hearing itself, which the report of the committee covers, the defence white paper was canvassed extensively by committee members in questioning the Minister. Clearly the defence white paper has resulted in decisions being made that will carry through into the Government’s Estimates. Surely it is in order for the member to mention it.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): If the chair of the committee had in fact reported that, then he could well have brought what he subsequently said within bounds. I will take the member’s comments on board, but I do want to remind members that we are trying to tighten the debate. So I am not quite going to withdraw and apologise, but I suggest that, in future, chairs relate their comments to what happens at the hearings if they think that they might otherwise be out of scope, although that just does bring into question whether the discussions at the committee were within scope. We will leave that for now.

Dr SHANE RETI: Thank you, Mr Chair. In respect of the hearings that were held, and the discussions that were held, the defence white paper was very important, and the point that I was making was that community consultation substantively informed the official document, which I would like to talk to now as well. The official white paper looked at the strategic challenges through to 2014. And, of course, that is what the Estimates of Appropriations are here to fund—some of those strategic challenges. It set out a range of challenges likely to affect New Zealand’s strategic interests, including rising sophistication in a number of actors operating within New Zealand’s exclusive economic zone—and this was important because it was also mentioned exclusively by public submitters—an increased likelihood of terrorist attack in New Zealand, a more rapid evolution of cyber threats, heightened tensions in the east and south China seas, increases in military spending, and intensifying turmoil across the Middle East.

What the white paper then did was operationalise—and this is where the funding is going to—the Government’s commitment as a $20 billion modernisation of the Defence Force, and we discussed this with officials during the hearing. That $20 billion modernisation of the New Zealand Defence Force included 13 major purchases. Some of those major purchases included replacement of the current Boeing 757 aircraft—I will not go through all of them—and replacement of the current C-130 Hercules aircraft. I know, certainly from Northland, that we were part of the very first inshore patrol boats that were built—four of them; and the Rotoiti was the first one—and we are pleased to see that the offshore patrol vessel is also in the Estimates. It includes replacement of the naval tanker HMNZS Endeavour with a more capable and versatile ship, cyber support, and intelligence support. A network enabled army is what these appropriations are going towards as well.

We had the pleasure of being out at Papakura with the Special Operations Forces, and we were able to see their new facility a few months ago, which is included in part of these appropriations. They were also showing us some of the new equipment that we are voting for in this bill, which will give them more performance and more effectiveness in their role. They also pointed out some of the protected mobility, the light armoured vehicles, which will now be reinforced, and land combat weapons. So, in summary, for this part of the debate, the New Zealand Defence Force is a force that preserves New Zealand interests and enhances New Zealand’s international reputation with the international community.

I would then like to turn to customs as the other area that I want to focus on. The Customs Service continues to apply itself to the increasing passenger and tourism numbers. SmartGate remains a very, very effective tool with efficient processing, and we discussed this in detail as well. In fact, part of that discussion was that the business plan for SmartGate was that the Customs Service would be able to free up some full-time equivalents to do other tasks, and we were reassured that, yes, this is actually happening. Four million people have moved through SmartGate in the last 12 months. We were also told that the appropriations will be going towards detector dogs, which are very efficient for mail and low-value and fast freight - type activities. Indeed, there is support for another five dog teams.

The Budget provided for $1.5 million over 2 years for increased security to customs as a package of $17.1 million over 4 years to further explore the border risk. The sector itself is much wider than the two areas I have focused on—[Bell rung]—notably defence and customs, and I am sure my colleagues will speak to other parts of that, but I think what this does show is that these Estimates—

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Dr Shane Reti.

Dr SHANE RETI: I am sorry. These Estimates and appropriations represent a Government that is investing in security, humanitarian aid, international relations, disarmament, and trade as we grow our economic and social worth as a country, and I fully support these strategies. Thank you.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): I think there was some confusion then as to whether the member called or not. I may have been confused, and we will not count those last 30 seconds as a call.

Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram): It is a pleasure to take a call on the External Sector, which does cover a large number of agencies, as we have heard: the Customs Service, the Defence Force, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Official Development Assistance. I am largely going to cover in my speech the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade vote and what was covered at the Estimates hearing, and I will touch on some of the other votes.

It was a very interesting Estimates hearing, and I think that is covered off in the report that has been returned to this Committee about that hearing. What we had was a Minister of Foreign Affairs who came before the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee who had a number of questions to answer in terms of foreign affairs. There was the $12 million that had been wasted on the demonstration farm, all, supposedly, to stop a legal threat that appears to have been non-existent, and this was something that the committee certainly looked at. Despite this, that Minister said himself in Cabinet papers that the Government needed to enter into the multimillion-dollar deal to avoid the legal threat. It really does open up questions about this most important of portfolios, because the Minister does need to front up and provide evidence that he did not mislead Cabinet, or otherwise there are some very serious questions that need to be asked.

Another issue that was of concern to the committee, and was certainly at the fore of the hearings when the Minister appeared, was the recent report that we have had from the Ombudsman on the inquiry into the diplomats Derek Leask and Nigel Fyfe and whether or not those two men are now owed an apology. This was something that was traversed in some depth at the hearing. Although it was suggested by Opposition members of the committee that this was certainly something that these two men are owed, the Minister simply replied that he did not want to open up old wounds.

One of the other key areas, of course, that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade is responsible for, and has a great deal of responsibility for, is climate change. Although some of the climate change portfolio falls under the environment portfolio, which was talked about in the last theme that we were discussing, some of the issues around the ratification of the Paris treaty fall squarely within the purview of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade and, certainly, so do the issues around overseas aid in terms of climate finance and what goes to our Pacific nations in that respect particularly. So there are questions that have been asked. We have a new Minister who is trying to bring a new energy to the climate change portfolio and do more than her predecessor, but we do have the very real question that the previous Minister for Climate Change Issues said: that whether or not the Paris Agreement would be ratified in New Zealand was highly conditional on a set of international obligations being met. There are still some questions around what happens in terms of the conditionality of the target that New Zealand put on the table in Paris in terms of that ratification process of those international obligations, particularly around the international trading markets put in place.

The other issue that was discussed more fully with the Minister at the Estimates hearing was the issue of climate finance, because, of course, within that financial year the Prime Minister had come to the Paris conference and talked about an additional $200 million of climate aid to be put through the overseas development aid budget, and some of that, of course, is apportioned into this year’s Budget and appropriation. The Prime Minister came to Paris and talked about that funding, but it was good to have a chance to have a discussion with the Minister and to learn that a lot of this was actually just recycled aid money. This was not new aid money that was coming in; it was money that was going through the overseas development fund anyway.

It is not that I have any problem with us delivering a big portion of our climate change finance through bilateral rather than multilateral means. I actually think it makes a great deal of sense. But one of the things that we did ask about at that Estimates hearing was what checks and balances were going to be put in place to check that the money that is spent in this financial year as climate aid is, in fact, around mitigation and adaptation in terms of the Pacific: where that money is going, whether it is really genuinely climate finance, or whether it is overseas development aid that is just wearing a different cloak.

Dr KENNEDY GRAHAM (Green): Tēnā koutou e Te Whare. I want to confine my comments on this report to the section on foreign affairs and, in particular, to the nuclear disarmament section. In this respect, the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee focused on the likely visit of a US naval vessel in November. Over the past 8 years the Prime Minister has approved, under the 1987 nuclear-free Act, every one of the 40 entry applications from many countries. Indeed, over the decades since the Act entered into force not one ship has been refused, whether under a National Government or a Labour Government, and that is fine. This is unsurprising, though, because in the post - Cold War world it is a universal convention that no surface vessel is nuclear-armed, and no submarine, of course, has dared to venture into our harbours, so our nuclear-free policy, I think we can conclude, has stood the test of time.

There is, however, one innovation we could consider as a House. The Act requires the Prime Minister to decide on the entry of foreign warships. Regard is to be had to all relevant information and advice that may be available, and approval is granted only if the Prime Minister is satisfied such a warship is not carrying nuclear weapons. But the Act is silent on both procedure and transparency. There is no gazetting of a prime ministerial decision. There is no public announcement about the decision. By and large, there is no publication of the information and advice given, or of any exchange that might occur between the Governments. There is no reason for this, but there is no legislative provision. I suggest there should be.

The Committee may recall that the decision to ban nuclear-armed warships did not rest on any antipathy towards any particular country. It rested on a strategic determination that nuclear deterrence is irrational. In the case of New Zealand, our national security was reduced, not enhanced, through being defended by a nuclear power, given that we would also become a nuclear target as a result. Whatever the probability of attracting a nuclear strike, it would be greater than zero, and so the national security would be a net negative. US nuclear weapons may strike somewhere else, but Soviet or Chinese weapons would strike us.

I know this because, as a diplomat in Geneva at the time, I wrote a book for the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research explaining the reasoning behind our policy, with advice. Back then we believed in the policy, and the world took notice. I recall the close attention given to our speeches promoting the new policy in Geneva, at least until we caved and adopted the not-for-export rider in 1988, and the Government, somewhat duplicitously, continued then—and has since—to oppose proposals at the UN General Assembly that call for total nuclear disarmament.

Calls for complete nuclear disarmament continue to this day. New Zealand continues to be weak on the issue, citing the non-proliferation treaty (NPT) as the critical treaty-based approach to global strategic stability, but this is incorrect. The NPT is an arms control measure. A comprehensive nuclear weapons convention is a disarmament measure. The NPT lays the path, in article 6, to the elimination of nuclear weapons from national arsenals. The failure of the nuclear powers to negotiate under article VI in good faith justifies the drafting of a comprehensive convention by the non-nuclear States and its entry into force, irrespective of the nuclear powers. This, in turn, rests on the determination of the World Court that the use of nuclear weapons would generally be contrary to international law and humanitarian law, in particular.

That judicial opinion—20 years old this Friday—mirrors public opinion. A global poll 3 years ago showed 90 percent of the global public think such weapons are inhumane, and 80 percent believe they should be banned. The Humanitarian Pledge, signed by many UN member States, reflects that opinion. The committee’s report is fine, but it is important for New Zealand, and especially this Government, to stand firm on its nuclear-free policy and not backslide.

RON MARK (Deputy Leader—NZ First): It is a pleasure to be able to stand, albeit for a only 5-minute call, on the defence service. It does give New Zealand First a little bit of a concern when we read the report from the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee on defence, not so much because of the brief coverage that it does give on various matters but, probably, because of the matters that are not contained in this document. I would point, actually, to the previous speaker, Kennedy Graham’s, comments about nuclear-free New Zealand and the Defence Force and ask him to ponder the Defence Force’s role in that, particularly in light of the white paper that the Government has announced, and particularly in light of the announcement from the Minister for the Environment about the establishing of a marine reserve up the Kermadecs.

One could ask why there is such an absence of any reference to the plying through our waters of nuclear-powered, nuclear-armed submarines. Some reports might suggest there are about 120 from a smattering of countries. Other reports suggest that there might be something as high as 300 or 350 such submarines going through our waters. But there is no mention whatsoever from some parties about this aspect of the nuclear-free policy in respect of how we would protect our territorial waters or our exclusive economic zone on the limited naval resource that we have now if we were to establish a marine reserve up in the Kermadecs, which we would, therefore, be responsible for policing, monitoring, and enforcing, one would expect. There is no mention of how we intend to enforce, monitor, and police illegal fishers up in that area if we do go to the extent of declaring a marine reserve up in the Kermadecs, putting aside the other issues that pertain to iwi, of course, which are still being pursued.

I have got to point to a couple of things, and these are the things that have vexed New Zealand First. Firstly, we looked at the defence budget right from the start and we said there was a $10 billion defence shortfall when we first looked at it. We then got a white paper that came out and said the Government is going to spend $20 billion over 15 years, but we still struggle to find anything in the appropriations that actually give some strength to that commitment or, even in the slightest, a vague pretence of putting out a funding plan in tabulated form so people can see exactly where the money is being appropriated over the next 15 years to meet that $20 billion product.

No one from this side of the Chamber, or from this political party, is arguing that the Defence Force is not facing some huge challenges going forward with what we could call block-ups, in essence, of a range of equipment, be it in the army, navy, or the air force. When the Government announces it is going to spend $20 billion over 15 years we would expect to see a funding plan put in place, but there is nothing.

There is another issue that is causing us some concern, and it disappoints me that it was not covered off. I guess I am going to have to take responsibility, I am going to have to pay more attention, and I am going to have to go to the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee meetings more often. One of things that concern us is this rising gap between the other ranks and the officer corps. Firstly, if we go back over time we see that our Defence Force was three times the size it is now. And when we look at the staffing levels and the officer corps today, it is astonishing. In some areas we have got three times more officers than we had then—three times.

What is particularly astonishing is to see the pay differential now between the Chief of Defence Force at $605,000 and that of a soldier—the person with the rifle and the bayonet at the front end who becomes a casualty in Afghanistan—at $46,000. Let us get our head around that. There was a time in the defence—

Hon Gerry Brownlee: That’s wrong.

RON MARK: Well, these are the papers from your office, Minister. Are you saying that is wrong? The Minister is saying: “That’s wrong. That’s wrong.” I am reading, for the record, from the Defence Force letter to New Zealand First, signed off on behalf of the Defence Force by Commodore G R Smith, Royal New Zealand Navy, dated 31 May 2016. So the Minister says that I am wrong, but this paper says that what I am saying is the truth. So somewhere in between someone does not know what they are talking about.

I will just say that here in this column it reads: Chief of Defence Force earns $605,407.69; a soldier, trooper, sapper, or signaller earns $46,730.33. Is that fair remuneration? Is that what we expect for someone who puts their life on the line and, in the worst instance, comes home to a military funeral? Well, we do not think so. We think that the pay differential between frontline infantry soldiers and troops is totally out of kilter to what it should be and what the officer corps themselves think is appropriate.

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Minister of Defence): I want to respond in a couple calls to a number of comments that have been made this afternoon on this particular sector. The first one I will deal with is the comment from Dr Megan Woods, where she extensively went into the deep concerns of the Labour Party, which were apparently tested at the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee and, I would say, answered at the select committee, but which still cause her to lose sleep, particularly over the $12 million demonstration farm that the Government contributed to in Saudi Arabia. It is worth noting that Dr Woods, in saying that the Minister had said it was an arrangement that was entered into to avoid legal action—that it was in fact the actions and decisions of the previous Government that were going to precipitate the legal action in question.

The member Megan Woods then went on to ask where the evidence is that there was potential for legal action. The mere fact that the demonstration farm was committed to, and there has been no legal action as a result, somewhat vindicates the position of the Minister, who was actually covering for a very poor decision made by a Minister in a previous Government. The member, of course, will not remember that, because she was not here. She is of a view that all things that happened in the past were so pure that they cannot possibly ever have been wrong or bad.

Just reflecting on the contribution by the Green Party spokesman, Dr Kennedy Graham, the Government has no intention of changing our nuclear legislation. At the start of his speech he made it very clear that there is no need—that successive Governments have, over the years, on no less than 47 occasions, been able to accommodate ship visits to this country inside the parameters of that legislation, and there will be no change to that. Some of his comments, though, I think, around nuclear proliferation are slightly troubling. Anybody who watches the goings-on in North Korea would understand that perhaps there does need to be some deterrence when you get complete nut jobs like that threatening the whole of that region with their particularly odd view of how life should be offered to people. The potential that that rocket programme has for destroying a lot of lives—and certainly at the moment—is causing a huge degree of fear in millions and millions of people.

Then we come to Ron Mark’s contribution, which was typically rambling and all over the show. I will try to pick up the threads of it, if I can. I would suggest to Mr Mark that some little effort to understand remedial maths and, particularly, the way in which numbers are added up inside budget columns or sideways columns might be useful. But I would concede to him immediately that this is a problem that all of us have; it is not unique to him.

The concentration there on the salary issue—what Mr Mark would say is a disparity between a recruit who is coming into the armed services who earns around about $43,000 and the Chief of Defence Force, who earns a much higher salary. That higher salary is set by the Remuneration Authority, and there is one Chief of Defence Force. But there are many, many people who choose to serve in the New Zealand military who come in on that base level. What Mr Mark did not appreciate, I suspect, is that when someone goes into a theatre of operation, there is a military factor applied to the salary, which makes that salary a significantly higher salary than the $43,000 that he was talking of earlier.

The other point I would make is that most of those soldiers who are currently serving in those missions have got more than straight out of Waiōuru or Burnham experience. They are, in fact, soldiers who have been around for a time and who, therefore, will have progressed further up that pay scale. I want to say that it is something we constantly look at, and Mr Mark will be pleased to know that there is likely to be modest pay increases once again this year for those lower ranks.

One of the things that the Government has recently done is publish the Defence White Paper 2016. Mr Mark is right to say that although it talks about a $20 billion capital spend over the next 12 or so years, there are not specifics in there about what we will spend on any particular piece of military kit. That is for a couple of reasons. One is that if you go back to 2003 the Government of the day thought a good idea would be to invest in inshore patrol vessels and offshore patrol vessels. There was nothing wrong with that decision. It was probably, given everything that they knew at the time, the right thing to do. It often happens—it is like farmers who buy a bit of kit to use to work on the farm and find out that it is too light or it is too heavy or it cannot manage the particular job it is required to do. The offshore patrol vessels have proved to be less than optimal for the work that we would require. What we are trying to do now is to ask “What is the mix that you might like to have as a capability?”, and then consider what would be the best equipment to deliver that capability.

The white paper talks about a further offshore patrol vessel. It talks about a tanker, it talks about littoral support—and we are talking about only the navy here—and it talks about frigates in the long run. But what it also has in it is a mid-point review in 2018, and an expectation that a future Government will probably do another white paper around the 2020-21 mark. So there are step-off points, but there is a clear signal that we are going to continue investing in the capability of the New Zealand military, and that we do want them to have the very best equipment.

We would expect, given our responsibilities in Antarctica, that we will have a ship that can go down there. We do not at the moment. We will have a plane that can fly down there safely and return. We have aircraft at the moment that are quite compromised in what they are able to do, as far as delivery is concerned. I will go so far as to say that we are being increasingly challenged, in a competitive sense, to hold on to the gateway role that New Zealand has, and Christchurch City has, to the Antarctic. We have near neighbours, Australia, good friends that they are, that have eight aircraft that have a fly down and fly back capacity, without stopping, with huge payload capacity as well. That has to be attractive to the United States, which of course is wanting to build a new base down there. We need to put ourselves into the mix around that.

An advantage we do have is our proximity: a little closer to Antarctica, certainly a lot closer—or several hours closer—to continental USA than Australia. But it means that we should have passenger capacity to the ice and back. It is a long history that we have had. We have the very big Ross Dependency down there.

At the other end of the country there is the Kermadecs. I note Mr Mark said that if we turn it into a reserve, how are we going to patrol it? Here is a question. It is our territory at the moment. How do we patrol it? Nothing changes, effectively, but over time we do need to have naval capacity that can run missions through that part of the New Zealand protectorate.

Ron Mark: Change the priority.

Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: Yes, there will be pirating going on there at the moment. That is why we also want to invest heavily in better surveillance aircraft. The Orions are a great aircraft. They have done marvellous work, over a long period of time, and the air force has extended that life beyond what might normally be expected. The avionics on them are state of the art and as good as anywhere in the world. But new aircraft—and we want four of them—is what is required and we will be acquiring those in the early part of the 2020s.

So there is a combination of things. I simply make the point that in both of these areas, Antarctica and the Kermadecs—and the Pacific, to add a third one—and then in our interrelationship with other countries, we do have to have a defence force that is capable, on a number of levels, and, more important, can be interoperable on a number of levels. Although we say that we have what the member might have said are low salaries for people coming into the military, as they go through, the opportunities to improve on that are quite considerable.

Hon NICKY WAGNER (Minister of Customs): The New Zealand Customs Service is the oldest ministry, but it is one of the most innovative, tech-savvy, and forward-looking. Our job is to actively protect the border, to manage and process passengers and goods across the border, and to collect Her Majesty’s revenue. We are planning to collect over $13 billion this year, and that is in GST, tariffs, and excise.

As the volumes of passengers and goods have increased across our borders over the last few years, and look to continue to increase, we are embracing new technologies, like SmartGate, which is particularly well known, that is helping us to process those passengers—up to 5 million this year—and to process the low-risk passengers so that we can focus our officers on to higher-risk work. We have also got the Joint Border Management System, and we use that to manage and process imports and exports. That has been particularly successful for the industry, with 3.5 million transactions having gone through that process. It speeds up the registration of information from a 24-hour turnover to just minutes, and it is available 24/7.

Overall I think it is the embracing of this sort of technology that has allowed the Customs Service to be ranked by the World Economic Forum, in its latest ranking, as fourth in the world, of 138 countries, for enabling trade, and sixth overall for the efficiency of the border clearance. We are aiming high. All border agencies—we work together, and because we are a small exporting country at the bottom of the world, we want and we need to have world-class border processing.

Budget 2016 focused on managing risk at the border, with about $18.5 million for export security initiatives, and particularly to establish a secure trade lane between Australia and New Zealand. This, of course, will help clearance times and speed for exporters and importers from Australia and New Zealand. We have also mentioned that we have more funding for detector dogs. Detector dogs have been particularly successful in New Zealand. They are successful in detecting drugs, but also money. Just recently we announced that they found $10 million worth of money coming across the border. So we are having another five teams, which will take it to 19 teams, and that will mean that we have good coverage right across the country. They are particularly useful for mail and fast freight, which is increasing.

We have also allocated $4.7 million to our modernisation and transformation of Customs Service operations at the border. This is all about increasing responsiveness and operational efficiency. One of the other areas that I think is really important, which we are funding, is outreach to small businesses. As a small exporting country we want to make the most of every opportunity for these businesses. Sometimes they need a bit of help to negotiate the documentation and the processes at the border, so that they can make the most of our free-trade agreements. We are also signing a mutual recognition agreement with Australia. Again, this is about working with the Australian importers and exporters so that we can have a faster process, and a more efficient and cheaper process as well.

The last bit of technology that I think is going to make a really big difference for us is our Joint Electronic Verification System. That is work we are doing with China’s customs service. It is all about matching documentation as it goes across the border. Because we have preferential entry into China, it is always very conscious that we say what we are, and we are doing what we are doing. So this Joint Electronic Verification System will be able to match our documentation electronically, and that will make sure that we get a speedier clearance and our exporters get their goods to market much more quickly and efficiently.

At the end of this year I am planning to introduce a new customs and excise bill. The reason we are doing this is that the present Act is, at best, 20 years old, but some of it is 50 years old and some of it is 100 years old. We are not making any major changes to the powers, but it is all about modernising, simplifying, streamlining, and making sure that our bill can accommodate new technologies and new business practices. We have worked very hard with stakeholders, with importers, and with exporters. The whole idea of this new Act is to make—

MAHESH BINDRA (NZ First): I take this call on behalf of New Zealand First, and I will try to restrict my comments and my contribution to within the area of the Customs Service. We are all aware—and the Minister of Customs just mentioned it—that $4.75 million has been allocated for the modernisation and transformation of the New Zealand Customs Service workforce. A major portion of that, we suspect, is going to go towards modernising technology, and not enough focus has been given to developing human resources.

We all know that SmartGates has been functioning well, but we also know that no SmartGate was able to stop Phillip John Smith from fleeing the country and going right up to Brazil, embarrassing us internationally. This move towards developing technology and investing in technology is all good, but what we do not accept is the move away from developing human resources. Whenever this type of announcement is made by the Government we suspect that there will be job losses—and that has happened, actually.

By providing SmartGates and good technology, what we are trying to achieve here is to give travellers—the international passengers—a world-class experience, but at what cost? We suspect, and we know, that it is coming at the cost of the protection of our borders. SmartGates do not stop crooks from coming in; smart people and smart policies do. If you are not employing more skilled people—and with this supposed increase in funding the Government is directing funding toward technology and not enough toward human resources. That is going to result in more embarrassment in the case another escape takes place from one of our borders.

There is a huge issue of drugs coming into the country. In the last Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee hearing the Customs executives told us that only 1 percent of consignments are actually physically checked; the other 99 percent are not. So nobody knows what the contents in those 99 percent of consignments are. They go only on their profiling—only on the little intelligence that they have collected. They profile the importers and they profile the exporters from other countries, and they depend on that information to check just 1 percent of consignments. That is not acceptable.

We in the Law and Order Committee conducted an inquiry into the firearms issues. We have a large number of illegal firearms in the country, and we suspect that this 99 percent of unchecked packages could be a source those illegal firearms. This is actually discouraging our own sportsmen, our own hunters, and those who have legal firearms from actually practising their own skills. The result is that the people who actually own legal firearms are discouraged by this kind of legislation and the Government’s apathy towards our border control.

About the fast processing and improving of the travel experience—yes, foreign travellers are happier now. We do process a large number of foreign travellers through those SmartGates, but those SmartGates do not stop undesirable elements. The Joint Border Management System, which the Minister just mentioned, is actually behind schedule and it is over budget. Just because it has capacity comparable with Canada, the USA, Australia, and the UK, it does not mean that we follow their systems entirely. I am aware that in other countries at least 50 percent of cargo is physically checked at the border.

Votes agreed to.

Finance and Government Administration Sector

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): Members, we now come to the votes in the Finance and Government Administration Sector, volume B.5, volume 5. The question is that Vote Audit, Vote Communications Security and Intelligence, Vote Finance, Vote Office of the Clerk, Vote Ombudsmen, Vote Parliamentary Service, Vote Prime Minister and Cabinet, Vote Revenue, Vote Security Intelligence, and Vote State Services stand part of the schedules.

Alastair Scott: Mr Chair?

Hon RUTH DYSON (Chairperson of the Government Administration Committee): Kia ora, e Te Heamana. It is a great pleasure for me as chair of the Government Administration Committee to take the first call in this part of the debate. To save Mr Scott getting anxious about the Chairperson’s preference; it was entirely just going by the rules rather than the quality of the contribution—

Alastair Scott: That’s right; it must have been. You put your foot in that—right in the mouth.

Hon RUTH DYSON: —although he may have done the same had he judged it on that basis. You never know; we will wait for your contribution and make a decision for ourselves.

This is a combination of two committees: the Finance and Expenditure Committee and the Government Administration Committee. Even though our committee had about six votes, Estimates, referred to it this year with a Minister, only two of them are covered in this particular segment—the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, and State Services. So I want to dwell on those two votes out of this big long list, because they are the ones that come under my committee.

When we had the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet before the committee, there was a huge variety of issues that we could have raised with it, but our committee concentrated primarily on the responsibility of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet to oversee the Canterbury earthquake recovery portfolio. One of the two issues that I want to talk about in this regard was the fact that it was very clear from the officials’ response to the committee that they share the concerns of Treasury about the risks that are entailed in the Government investment projects, the constant delay in those projects, and lack of reporting around them. It was reassuring to the committee that the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet said: “Treasury has raised these major concerns, and we share them.” We felt that we were at last getting some accountability for the delays, the budget blowouts—the broken promises, really, that people in Canterbury have felt in relation to anchor projects, particularly.

The second point that I want to raise in that regard is around the convention centre. We had the hearing for the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet on Wednesday, 29 June. We were told that negotiations with the private partners in the convention centre, particularly with Plenary Conventions, were ongoing and the officials could not share with the committee how they were developing and when we were likely to get an announcement. Within hours—literally; before that day was ended in this Parliament—there was an announcement made that Plenary had pulled out of the discussions.

Our committee felt quite cheated, actually, by that. Here we were, with our one point of accountability with the Minister and the department, being told that the discussions were ongoing and that they could not share details with us, but, you know “Hang fire, there will be an announcement soon.”, and later that same day, the announcement was made that the negotiations had broken down. I do not think it is credible for this Parliament to believe that the officials were unaware of that situation when they came before it. So I was pretty frustrated at that.

The other vote that I would like to just comment on is Vote State Services. It was pretty depressing listening to the story from State Services. It seems like every key Government department and agency has had budget withdrawn and is running down services as a result of that. The Government is looking at every opportunity to increase privatisation. What has it learnt from getting Serco in to run the private prisons? Not a lot, by the sound of it: “Anything that moves could be privatised, and if it doesn’t move, let’s kick it so it does, and then we can privatise it.” It is a very narrow, ideological attitude, and it will not deliver the high-quality public services that New Zealanders expect, and, in my view, deserve.

Just this week we had the collapse of the latest brainwave. Why the Minister thought that social bonds, which have failed in every other country, would succeed in New Zealand—it seems to be a trait of that Minister. It is a case of: “Let’s just pick up whatever loopy idea is going and try it out as if New Zealand is good as a guinea pig.” So another part-privatisation venture has failed. The reforms of Child, Youth and Family are another huge initiative that does not give anybody any confidence in transition planning or maintaining the level of services that we have got, let alone filling the gap. Our committee had an interesting time with those two votes, those two Estimates, but overall I think it was quite depressing.

ALASTAIR SCOTT (National—Wairarapa): I rise as a member of the Finance and Expenditure Committee. I would like to make a few comments this afternoon on the prudent and measured expenditure that is in these Estimates. We talk about results rather than the amount of money we spend. So we are talking about results in terms of low crime rates—the best in the last 30 years—higher employment, and lower numbers of people not in education, employment, or training.

Opposition members have spoken about real increases in the budgeted amounts, and in some cases they are right. There have not been real increases in expenditure because, as I say, we are prudent about the amount of money we spend. On average we have been spending around $1.5 billion of new money in the last few years. On the other hand, members opposite spent almost triple that over their last few years in Government. So, again, it is a demonstration of the measured expenditure, the targeted expenditure, that we focus on on this side of the House.

Because our expenditure is targeted we focus on those most in need. That is important, because if we focus on those who are most in need, the incremental increase in productivity, if you like, is greatest for the person, for the family, and for the community, and that improves the economy at a household level. It increases the productivity of that household and that community. It is contributing to the surpluses that we are seeing. There is a modest expectation of a surplus this year and the following year, and of growing surpluses down the track.

We focus on those who are most in need—and we have had discussion at the select committee around the balance sheet—and on those million-dollar kids. So if we can spend a dollar today to improve the productivity, if you like, of that individual, then that has flow-on effects. It has ripple-down effects. And it will save the taxpayer at the end of the day if we can keep one of the million-dollar kids out of the system, out of the social welfare loop, out of prison, and away from Child, Youth and Family. That saves the taxpayer a million bucks.

So we are not talking just about surpluses. We are not talking just about short-term costs and revenues. We are talking about the long-term balance sheet effect that this Budget will have in the future, and that is important. If we can manage the balance sheet appropriately, we can decrease the pressure that would have been on the taxpayer of the future.

These are uncertain times in the financial world. We have had Brexit. We are not talking just about the global financial crisis. We have recent issues of negative interest rates—something that is unheard of. You pay a bank to look after your money rather than receive interest on that money you deposit. So we are dealing with extremely unusual circumstances. We are talking about negative interest rates. We are talking about the possibility of deflation—importing deflation.

But, thankfully, this economy is a robust economy. This economy has greater flexibility and resilience than ever before. This economy has people who understand the economies of the world. They understand the situation they are in, and they understand the need for prudent expenditure on their behalf by the Government.

The projections going forward are very conservative. The surpluses that are projected are very conservative. It is expected, for example, that there will be a relatively rapid decrease in net immigration, from around 70,000, which we have today, to around 12,000 in only 3 years’ time. That net immigration is a nice problem to have. It is talked about as a problem by the Opposition but it is a nice problem to have. So let us say that the Minister has a corner shop, a dairy, that sells a lamb chop, a pint of milk, and a bottle of wine, and it is such good lamb, and it is such fantastic milk, and it is the best wine in the world that people come—

STUART NASH (Labour—Napier): That last member, Alastair Scott, talked about concentrating on those most in need. I would disagree with that from the perspective of the Finance and Expenditure Committee. I would like to talk about Vote Revenue. I firmly believe that a tax system is there to provide fairness and equity, and I think we have seen that a lot of the measures this Government has put in place do not address the fundamental concerns I certainly have, and I know our party has, around the fairness and equity of the tax system.

Let me mention four points, if I may, over the next 5 minutes. The first one is the base erosion profit shifting. This is, basically, large corporates that are not paying their fair share. The Minister of Revenue actually said—and I am going to quote the Minister at our Estimates hearing—“The simple fact is, large organisations with a global reach will work to reduce their tax obligations. I think that is pretty rational behaviour.” It might be rational behaviour, and it might be the way that large corporates behave, but I do not think we should accept that as normal, and I do not think we should actually say: “OK, we’re not going to do anything about it.”

The fact of the matter is that experts have said that New Zealand is missing out on revenue of between $1 billion and $7 billion. That is a very wide range—I accept that—but I think what it does show is that no one actually knows how much revenue we are missing out on. On this side of the Chamber we have asked Treasury and the Inland Revenue Department (IRD) to try to quantify that. They will not do that, so as a consequence we are left hanging, saying: “OK, how much more revenue could we have?”.

I do understand that in order to get this right we have to take a multilateral approach. The OECD is doing some incredibly good work around this, and it is moving at quite a fast rate of knots. But the thing that is disappointing is in terms of putting the measures in place that will allow us to address this. The early adopters—i.e., those countries that are really driving this—are going to implement laws in 2017 that address that. In the signed agreement that we have signed up to we have said we will do this in 2018. That is the promise we made to the OECD. But, disappointingly, our IRD presented a paper and said: “We don’t think we should do this until 2019.” So not only are we not going to be an early adopter but we are going to be seen as global laggards in terms of addressing the problem, which has significant impacts on our revenue base.

I would have thought, being the global citizen we are, that if we were not an early adopter, then we would at least try to meet our international obligations. I think we are going to try to do that now; I am not too sure. But the fact that we even considered being a laggard—and a paper went to Cabinet saying this—just shows that we are actually not taking this seriously at all.

Another big issue that has come up this year has been the prevalence of the use of overseas trusts to hide tax. We have talked about this in the Chamber a lot, and certainly on this side. My view is that this plays into our global brand. It does not matter whether the reality is that we are a tax haven or whether that is just the perception of the global media. The bottom line is that words “New Zealand” and “tax haven” have been used in the international financial media, and what we need to do is address this incredibly quickly before it becomes damaging not just to the integrity of our tax system but to the integrity of our global brand. I would have liked to see the Minister of Revenue move even faster than he has. I would like to think this is an absolute top priority.

It is good to see that the Business Transformation IT system, which the IRD is spending well over a billion dollars on, is coming in. But the thing is we have still got a number of measures in our tax system that are unfair. Let me give you one example: the IRD owes Kiwis $750 million in overpaid tax. We all know that if a taxpayer owes tax, the IRD goes after them like a bulldog—and fair enough, too. But I do not think it goes hard enough in finding taxpayers who are actually owed money themselves—$750 million. And if you have not claimed it after 4 years, it drops off. We need to address that.

Secondary tax—I understand the reason behind secondary tax, but it is a real impost on people who are working incredibly hard. If we make an assumption, which I think is true, that people work two jobs not because they like working 20 hours a day but out of economic necessity, then to impose secondary tax, I think, is quite prohibitive. I would love to have confirmation that this Business Transformation IT system is going to address that. The tax system is about promoting fairness and equity. Let us see it work that way.

Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance): I am interested that the member Stuart Nash was referring to the Business Transformation project in the Inland Revenue Department (IRD), and various tax issues, because the large-scale transformation that is under way in IRD is going to significantly improve the ability of that organisation—and, therefore, of the Government—to deal with some of the issues that he raised, though not all of them. We will see IRD’s technology platform completely rebuilt from the ground up; integrated much more effectively with the private sector systems that are around, particularly those that service businesses; and incorporating a great deal more flexibility for policy and policy change.

As the member indicated, there is a significantly outstanding amount of overpaid tax. One of the features of the system is that it will move tax more towards real time—that is, people being able to understand their tax liability in real time, and the business sector being able to pay when it has the cash to do so, so understanding its tax obligations on a day-to-day basis almost, certainly month-to-month, and being able to pay the tax when it has the ability to do so.

Since these are the collection of votes around finance and government administration, that is just one of the transformation projects that are rewiring Government, as funded by all of these different votes. Even Cabinet has now got CabNet, which is electronic—you do not need Cabinet papers, actually. But other large agencies are going through somewhat similar, but not quite as comprehensive a process as IRD—ACC, the Ministry of Social Development, the Ministry of Education. The whole concept of the data-driven tools around social investment are certainly going to have a significant impact on Government over the next couple of years, and in fact already are. But a feature of all of them—the whole lot of them—is that they are focused on better results and better services for New Zealanders.

The Government brings to the decisions related to these votes a very strong customer focus. For instance, one of the primary benefits that we are aiming for from the IRD revamp is that all those low and middle income New Zealand families who find themselves caught in a web of complexity of all the income support systems—by which I mean the fact that they are repaying a student loan, qualify for Working for Families, are on and off benefits, may be involved with child support, and/or are getting early childhood education subsidies. Those families find it pretty difficult, actually, to understand the impact of any given decision—the decision to take another shift at work, the decision for the mother of a child to return to work—because the tax system, in some instances, cannot tell them for 18 months what the end result of that decision is. This has the basic effect that a lot of them do not take up the entitlements that they could, in case they end up incurring debt—getting a $500 debt 12 months down the track that they did not anticipate can have quite a big impact on that household. We could say the same about quite a lot of the investment that the Government is bringing to bear.

I just want to note here, as we are dealing with Vote State Services, the work of the previous State Services Commissioner Iain Rennie, who finished last week. He did an excellent job of guiding the Public Service through what has been the most successful fiscal consolidation in the developed world—not just because the Government has got back to surplus on the efforts of the Public Service but because it is sustainable. We are able to continue to provide a higher level of service, better customer satisfaction, and better results for New Zealanders, and I want to acknowledge Iain Rennie’s contribution.

RICHARD PROSSER (NZ First): I am pleased to rise on behalf of New Zealand First and on behalf of my colleague Fletcher Tabuteau to take a call in this Committee of the whole House as we debate the Appropriation (2016/17 Estimates) Bill. This is not intended to sound glib, but I really do think that this bill would be better entitled the “Appropriation (2016/17 Wild Guess) Bill”, because that seems to be very much more appropriate. Bill English is no fool. He has been doing this a long time—he has delivered, what, eight Budgets—and he should really know what he is doing by now. We would like to think that—you would want to hope that he does. But there comes a time and there comes a point in most administrations where hubris begins to set in, where incumbent Governments develop a sense of complacency and arrogance when it comes to matters pertaining to the public purse. I believe that we are beginning to see this now with this National Government and with Mr English’s eighth Budget and Estimates bill.

So this Budget really is more like a set of wild guesses than a set of Estimates. There is too much about these appropriations that is vague, that is contradictory, and that appears to have been crafted without proper consultation, without proper forethought, and without proper planning. Time is limited. I want to touch on a few things that this Budget contains—a few things that concern billions of dollars of taxpayers’ money, things that are obscured with smoke and mirrors. The time was that this might have been an opportunity for ridicule and a chance to score points, but I think we have gone past that. I actually believe that the nation has had enough, and not just the New Zealand nation; peoples around the world have had enough of Governments abrogating responsibilities, or Governments hiding behind the façade of “We’re in charge. There’s nothing you can do about it. Just trust us; we know what we’re doing. We’re not going to give you the details, because, well, you know, you don’t need to know. We’ll tell you what you need to know.”

The first of these things is under Vote Revenue. It is a billion dollars for a new computer system for the Inland Revenue Department (IRD)—a billion dollars. How on earth does a country the size of New Zealand have a requirement for a billion dollars’ worth of computer hardware and software for the sole purpose of collecting the taxes that pay for the computer system? And that is on the cheap, apparently, because IRD has discovered a company in Oregon that does something off the shelf that will do the job better than anything that it could have had designed and built on a bespoke basis. You could be forgiven for thinking that where billions of dollars of taxpayers’ money is concerned, the first thing you would do is check whether there was something out there already that would do the job off the shelf, which would mean you would not have to go reinventing the wheel, but apparently not.

That is not really the point; the point is not what IRD has bought, or even the fact that it is going offshore when we have a perfectly capable IT and software industry in this country. We have a large number of very bright, very well-qualified, and very innovative professionals, designers, technicians, and young people who are passionate about IT and software who could quite easily have been called on by this Government to create something specific for New Zealand—indeed, something that then could have been onsold to the rest of the world. It is not really even about that. The point, with regard to the appropriation for that, is that the reference to the cost of the system is buried so deeply, under so much detail, that it is almost impossible to discover, within the body of the Budget documents, as to where it is going.

The best I can find is this reference, buried in “Departmental Other Expenses”. It says: “Expenditure in the years before 2015/16 included the feasibility, mobilisation and high level design phases of the transformation programme. … In addition, 2015/16 and the subsequent years include an allocation for the implementation of the transformation programme’s four stages as well as to cover on-going costs. The allocation is funded through new Crown revenue as well as through fiscally neutral transfers from within the existing departmental output expense appropriations.” To the uninitiated—indeed, even to some of the initiated—that probably sounds like “waffledegook”. I presume it refers to some sort of acknowledgment of the need to put some money aside to actually pay for the thing, but it is an uncertain call.

Under Vote Finance and Government Administration Sector itself, there are several other anomalous and fairly poorly explained expenses detailed. One of these is the increase in non-departmental output expenses for the management of anchor projects by Ōtākaro Ltd. I have to confess I had not heard of that company until just the other day. This jumps by almost $16 million, from about $7 million to $23 million or thereabouts. In the absence of any explanation, you can only assume that this is concerning the takeover of the Christchurch Convention Centre anchor project by Ōtākaro Ltd, given that the private partners appear to have pulled out of that process. We do not know why they have pulled out. We can only presume that the deal was not sweet enough for them in the end. They would have been expecting to make a return on the investment. Had that been the case then we could, perhaps, have accepted that some cost on the Crown’s part, coupled with investment from the private sector, would have returned something that was a good deal for both sides. The private sector, naturally, wants to make a return on its investment, and deserves to, and the Crown would get something back, perhaps in an intangible manner, but perhaps in a tangible manner. But they have pulled out, and we have not been told why.

Not even Ngāi Tahu wants a bar of it now, and that is quite telling, because Ngāi Tahu, as everyone knows, are quite superb capitalists. They can make money out of almost nothing at all, and they do. They are a shining example, not just to Māoridom, but to the whole of New Zealand, to private and public sectors alike. If they do not want a part of it—if they cannot make a dollar out of it, it probably cannot be done, but we are doing it anyway. The Crown is going in and building this convention centre as part of the Christchurch rebuild on the basis, you can only presume, of “Build it and they will come”. And I guess they will. I guess the private hotel chains and mall developers and so forth will come in. When the convention centre is built at public cost, then the companies that know that they can make money out of certain parts of that project will come in. The hotels will be built, the malls will be built, the shops will be built. They will make money, and they will make money for their private investors, and the convention centre will lose it. So yet again we are privatising the profits and socialising the losses.

To get back to what I was saying at the very beginning, I think it is probably pertinent to point out to the Government at this point that there is too much of this going on now. There is the wind of change blowing around the world. We have seen it in Canada with Mr Trudeau’s Government, we have seen it with Brexit, and we have seen it in Australia. This sort of thing—and perhaps the Government could take this as a warning—probably will happen here in New Zealand. The public has had enough of the arrogance, of the hubris, and of the establishment, and of matters like this appropriations debate, this Budget that contains a great deal in the way of numbers, a lot about money, very little about detail, too much in the way of subterfuge and things being hidden and details not being given, and too much that is put out on the basis of “You don’t need to know; we’ll tell you what you need to know.” It is a terrible appropriations bill. We oppose it and, frankly, what is coming to the Government as a result of this, it deserves to have. Thank you.

Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance): I thank the member for his reference to Ōtākaro Ltd in Christchurch. The reason he has not heard about it is because it has only recently come into existence, so that is understandable. But it is taking up the Crown’s assets and liabilities that are extant from the activities of the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority, and putting a board in charge of it to, essentially, clean up, and eventually finish off the role the Crown has played in Christchurch—after a discussion about what rightfully falls to the council and what rightfully falls to the Crown.

I just want to acknowledge the huge contribution of my colleague the Hon Gerry Brownlee in getting to this stage, frankly. The convention centre is just one of any number of highly complex and challenging commercial and engineering problems that had to be solved in Christchurch, and he has shown a remarkable ability to deal with most of them. It is that kind of pragmatism that is guiding the way the Government spends a lot of the money referred to here, in these Estimates.

Members may have heard this general use of the term “social investment”. Increasingly the Government spending, particularly as overseen by Treasury, funded through Vote Finance in some parts—Treasury is using these tools alongside other Government agencies. The combination of ubiquity of data and the relative cheapness of the technology that can make sense of it means that we are going to be able to develop and are now developing a much more refined view of who the Crown spends its money on. More importantly, it is guiding decisions around what actions can be taken to change lives, to change the trajectory, over time, of the lives of those—particularly the most disadvantaged—who are the most significant recipients of Government-funded services.

Through the appropriations of Parliament, and at relatively low cost, we are building a tool kit that will enable both the Public Service and Ministers to see much more clearly and directly both the costs of failure—that is, what happens to people if we spend money and have no impact, or if we do not spend money where we should—and, more importantly, the potential impact of doing a good job of it. As time goes on, more and more Government expenditure will be able to be looked at through the lens of some kind of quantification or prioritisation of investment.

The equation is pretty simple. The tools that are being financed here enable the Government to look at the investment proposition for whole populations—so, for instance, all sickness and invalids beneficiaries, now supported living payment and jobseeker - health condition, injury or disability beneficiaries—or for segments of them, which is actually much more important. That is, you can have two people who are aged 34 on a benefit, with completely different prospects. One may have turned up last week; one may have already been there for 15 years. Understanding that difference would mean providing a different service to each of those people, even though they are both 34-year-old Pākehā males living in Wellington.

In the past, the Government was, essentially, flying blind. The Government has been making assumptions—often reasonably well informed—treating people in broad categories rather than groups or individuals with their unique characteristics. It is certainly going to be a challenge for the Public Service as we develop these tools, because it involves a much more personally driven, personally focused way of making decisions and deriving solutions. As the Committee traverses other votes, we will find more and more that the tools being financed through these votes are contributing to getting better results for all the other spending.

JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green): E Te Tiamana, tēnā koe, ki a koutou huri noa i Te Whare, tēnā koutou katoa, ka tū au mō ngā Kākāriki ki te kōrero i te tautohetohe mō ngā whakatau tata e pā ana ki ngā take pūtea.

[I acknowledge you, Mr Chairman, and all of you throughout the Committee. I rise on behalf of the Greens to speak in the Estimates debate about funding matters.]

I rise to speak on Vote Finance during this call. I joined the Green Party and I stood for Parliament because I believe it is paramount that we protect our planet and that we ensure all people in our communities are able to live in warm, healthy homes, with opportunities for meaningful work that makes this world a better place for all of us. I studied economics before I came to this place, because I knew it was essential to understand how it is we can protect our people and protect our planet—and it is possible.

In this National Government’s Budgets, it has consistently protected the status quo, and that is, essentially, what you see when you look at Vote Finance. There is no attempt to solve the major problems of our time, such as climate change and inequality. There is no attempt, really, to fundamentally set us on a track towards the kind of world that I would like to see us live in, and the kind of Aotearoa that I know most New Zealanders would like to live in. That New Zealand is one where everyone has a fair opportunity and we are not polluting our rivers, we are not polluting our atmosphere, and we are not letting kids go to school hungry or grow up in cold, damp, mouldy homes, or, worse, sleep in cars, as has been the recent trend.

If we look at Vote Finance we see that there are many missed opportunities to address the major challenges of our day. The first one starts with the housing crisis, because the housing crisis is fundamentally bad for our people. It means that there are more children who are unable—

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): Sorry to interrupt the member, but the time has come for me to leave the Chair for the dinner break.

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

Votes agreed to.

Health Sector

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): Members, we come now to the vote in the Health Sector, volume B.5, volume 6. The question is that Vote Health stand part of the schedules.

Hon ANNETTE KING (Deputy Leader—Labour): I want to begin by saying that, unfortunately, at the moment we do not have on the Table the report from the very good Health Committee, so I look forward to it being tabled in a moment so that everybody can read the report that came from our committee. I want to start off by saying that we looked at Vote Health and the amount of money that had been put in this Budget 2016 to see whether there was sufficient money being put in to the Budget to keep up with health demographics and inflation. Unfortunately, the Budget does not meet all the demands in health in demographic pressures, aged care, and cost pressures. What they really needed in this Budget was an additional $635 million just to keep up.

I am going to go on to more about that in a moment, because I think the Minister of Health himself has recognised that the health sector is under tremendous pressure. What this Budget did not do was address that pressure by putting in sufficient money to cover what are the basic costs: population growth, the cost pressures, and demographic ageing. So although the Minister said “There’s more money in health than there has ever been before.”, it is a hollow, hollow cry if it does not meet the needs in the health budget.

The Minister himself, I might remind him, said very recently that “… the country’s 20 district health boards are under more financial pressure than ever, largely because of the population boom.” I am reading directly, Minister, from your very interesting interview with the Listener, where you are quoted. You also said, and here is a quote from the Minister: “They are going to have to absorb a record amount of pressure—no question about that,”. So the Minister himself has acknowledged in a frank interview in the Listener—perhaps he was not aware of what was being recorded. He has admitted that they are going to have to absorb a record amount of pressure. That pressure comes from cost pressures, it comes from population growth, and it comes from ageing. So that is the first point I want to make.

I then want to go on to one particular part of the health budget, which I did raise when the Minister came to the select committee, and that is the amount of money that is being put in to primary health care. Primary health care received $186 million, up from $180 million. That is $6 million of additional expenditure. The Minister said that it had plenty of money. That was his response when questioned about it. It was not a very good select committee hearing, I have to say. The Minister came in in a very bullish mood and argued with most members of the Opposition. But the Minister was asked about the $186 million going into primary health care. He said that it had plenty of money. Well, I would find it very interesting to know now that the Budget is out there and the primary health care sector is looking at the Budget whether it is saying that it has plenty of money.

Of course, the Minister went off to meet with the doctors at their conference recently, and it is interesting to see what the New Zealand Doctor said about that and the Budget for 2016. They headed an article “To the bedside manner born”. It said his “bedside manner was the pits. His delivery of bad news on funding was far from textbook … he was decidedly Martin Clunes—aka Doc Martin—in his …” approach. It said: “He is failing to acknowledge the estimated 600,000 people classified as high needs …” I raised this with the Minister—

Scott Simpson: Who wrote this nonsense?

Hon ANNETTE KING: This is written by a very good person, Mr Simpson—Barbara Fountain, who does write for the New Zealand Doctor magazine. She is usually very, very supportive of the National Party, but this was her editorial following the Budget.

She said that “He is failing to acknowledge the estimated 600,000 people classified as high needs but unable to get general practice care at a reasonable price because their practice is not VLCA funded.” New Zealand Doctor said in this article: “Their blissful ignorance is less of a political liability than what would rise up from the murk if better-off voters lost the subsidy on their patient fees.” It said that the Minister was more concerned about that than he was about the 600,000 people who do not receive a subsidy. “Dr Coleman’s announcement”—it went on to say—“at the Rotorua GP CME … left his primary care listeners stunned and largely speechless.”

The reason why is that the Minister decided not to address an inequity, which I raised with him at the select committee, for 600,000 low-income New Zealanders who do not get the subsidy. I am not saying it was going to be easy, but the Government had a report that made recommendations to the Minister to address this issue in the Budget. Unfortunately, the Minister did not address it.

Today we had the latest comments from the primary health sector. It comes from the largest primary health organisation in New Zealand, ProCare Health. It is demanding to sit down with the Minister over funding fears coming from this 2016 Budget. The chair said it fears—listen to this, Mr Chair and the Minister—for the viability of general practice if problems with the very low cost access subsidy and capitation were not resolved. The ProCare Health board is extremely disappointed with the health Minister Jonathan Coleman. Dr Harley Aish said this: “Combined with the flawed process for determining annual fees increase and the Government’s proposed uplift in capitation payments for the coming year of just 1 per cent, we believe there is a genuine threat to the viability of comprehensive, equitable and high-quality general practice,”.

He said that the working group, in its report, which the Minister got and he could have addressed in this Budget, noted that capitation had not kept pace with inflation over the past decade. Eight years of that have been with the National Party in Government—

Hon Member: How many years?

Hon ANNETTE KING: —and if the Minister wants to raise it—it is 11 years since I was the Minister. Also, ProCare Health said that it then had refuted—

Hon Bill English: How come you did so much damage?

Hon ANNETTE KING: Bill English was Minister of Health, I have to mention that. He was the Minister of Health who left the health sector in disarray, and we had to then spend the 9 years in Government straightening out his mess.

So the primary health care sector has asked to have a meeting with the Minister to put these issues to him, and I say to it: “Don’t hold your breath. Don’t hold your breath, because I happen to know many health groups that have asked to meet with the Minister that are still waiting for the phone call. They are on the never-never.” The Minister is not so keen to meet with people who might disagree with him. And that is what the primary health care sector—his own profession of general practice, the GPs who do the front-line role in health care—is saying, Mr English. Maybe Mr English would like to read it, because if he does not want to believe me, then they are practitioners. He might even hear it at home, because primary health is being starved of funds and practitioners are now saying this is the worry.

Meanwhile, ProCare Health has been encouraging its own very low cost access practices to go for cap-busting fee increases. What does that mean? It means cap-busting fee increases are paid by the patient. They are paid by patients who are very low cost access—people who do not get a subsidy. That is what ProCare Health is saying because it has insufficient funding.

I think that we have got a problem in the health budget under this Government: $1.7 billion is missing from the health budget.

Dr David Clark: How much?

Hon ANNETTE KING: $1.7 billion and by stealth—by stealth—this Government has been running down the health system of New Zealand. Then we hear of some its mad, off-the—

Meka Whaitiri: Shelf.

Hon ANNETTE KING: No, not even off the shelf; they are its out-of-this-world ideas. Bill English’s mad ideas of social bonds—social bonds that play—

Hon Bill English: Fantastic idea!

Hon ANNETTE KING: Fantastic—and it fell over, Minster. It fell over and you said: “Oh no, it’s going to work.” It fell over in mental health because why would you not pay the providers of mental health services, the very good NGOs? Pay them direct and cut out the middle man. The middle man was the ANZ bank. The Government wanted the ANZ bank to fund mental health services, and if the NGOs delivered the outputs and the outcomes, then the bank got a dividend. Have you ever heard of anything so damn stupid in your life? I have to say—

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN (Minister of Health): What great entertainment for people on a Wednesday night just after dinner. They can tune in and hear Mrs King spouting a whole lot of bluster. They will be waiting for the Powerball draw at 8 o’clock, and this is a great lead-in. What Mrs King has done is just make up a whole lot of stuff. She missed out all the highlights of the Budget, but what I did really appreciate, you know, is that she is doing some great media monitoring for me. She seems to read just about every article about me she can find, and I think that shows an Opposition spokesperson with a lot of time on her hands.

I found one article on Mrs King, it was a New Zealand Woman’s Weekly profile, and all I really found out of substance in that one was this. Here is a quote: “In pride of place on her bedroom shelf flanked by an encyclopaedia of erotica is the autobiography of her US counterpart, Hillary Clinton.” Well, I think Mrs King rather fancies herself as the Hillary Clinton—it is all true; you can go and google it—of the New Zealand Parliament.

That was a disappointing speech because apart from all the things she made up you have to balance those with the bits she left out. Well, in terms of bits she made up—$1.7 billion. She says there has been a $1.7 billion cut. Well, in actual fact the health vote has gone up $4 billion under National over the past 8 years. I mean, any idiot can look at the vote and see that that has happened, so how Mrs King can go around with a straight face and say that $1.7 billion has been cut—

Hon Annette King: I can because it’s true.

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: It is completely untrue. Mrs King, once again, has made it up.

But when you look at some of the highlights of this Budget, look at this: $2.2 billion over 4 years, which is going to deal with the cost pressures, it is going to deal with demographics. There is money there for primary health care. Mrs King is very concerned about primary health care but she forgets to talk about the free doctors visits for under-13s that this National Government has delivered. You know, these are the fantastic initiatives we have got in place to actually make sure that some of our most vulnerable people in New Zealand get access to services that they need. These are things like, in this Budget, $18 million for the Warm Up New Zealand: Healthy Homes initiative, and the $12 million for primary care mental health triaging. There is a lot going on that is very good.

But one of the real highlights, Mrs King, one of the things that you failed to deliver, is bowel screening. In a long period of time when Mrs King could have rolled out a bowel screening programme—the Labour Government talked and talked about it, and do you know how much money it put into it? It put in zero dollars—zero dollars. After 9 years in office they started talking about it and they put in nothing. This Government this year is rolling out a bowel screening programme that is going to save 700 lives a year. It is going to screen 700,000 people aged 60 to 74 every 2 years.

But look, what really sums up that speech is that Mrs King is all about money. There is nothing there about policy, so her whole argument in health, as it is for her party in education, is “Oh, this group didn’t get this or this didn’t get that.” There is no focus on services; no focus on making life better for New Zealanders. Mrs King is in there slamming social bonds. Do you know what? She will never try anything new or innovative that is going to deliver a result. She will never try to raise the bar, because Labour, with its tradition of mediocrity—100 years of mediocrity it will be celebrating tomorrow—will never try anything new to get the result, whereas my colleague Bill English, as Minister of Finance, has driven that social investment approach. He has driven trying to try new things like social bonds to deliver results.

Hon Annette King: And it fell over. It fell over today.

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: Mrs King wants it to fall over. She is not interested in the results, because her record as Minister of Health was so woeful I am really surprised she still wants to show her face in this Parliament. You know, under her, the money was doubled; the electives went down by 2,000 per year. It was pathetic—absolutely pathetic. In fact, the Dominion Post wrote in September 2005 that it is hard to believe that any Government could put so much money into the health system and make it worse. And that was all Mrs King. Mrs King goes around and she thinks she is the greatest health Minister ever, but do you know what? She does not even understand—

Hon Annette King: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. This is the Estimates—the Minister’s Estimates—and he has now spent considerable minutes talking about when I was Minister of Health 11 years ago.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): Yes—[Interruption] Order! Maybe I need to stand on a chair. I am on my feet. The Minister is responding to quite a speech, I must say, that the spokesperson gave, and she has now used a point of order to interrupt the speech that he is giving in reply. So he has the floor and he will continue.

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: I would just say she is right; it is about the Estimates. My recommendation to Mrs King is she should spend less time reading that Hillary Clinton autobiography, she should not open up that erotica encyclopaedia, and she should get herself a copy of Vote Health and put it by the bedside. That is what she should be studying each night because she does not understand Vote Health. I can tell you that this is a great Budget. It is focused on results. It is delivering for New Zealanders.

Dr DAVID CLARK (Labour—Dunedin North): I have to say it is actually a pleasure to follow Jonathan Coleman, the “Minister for Underfunding in our Health System”. I mean, he opens the door, does he not? After that particular wide-ranging speech he invites all of the criticism that will follow. There is $1.7 billion in underfunding independently verified by Infometrics. The Minister disputes it. He gets up and says: “Oh, we’ve put X amount of money into this and we’ve done this and we’ve done that.” It has not kept up with the demographics. It has not kept up with the funding pressures in the health system, and the Minister knows that. I can see him looking away; it is an uncomfortable truth. He is earning a reputation as a Minister who is pulling the health system apart. That is why the New Zealand Doctor magazine has a crack at him. Mrs King is quite right to bring that up. He is underfunding in public health, he is underfunding across the system by $1.7 billion, and the wheels are coming off.

We look down south, where I am from, and see what is going on down there in terms of our hospital rebuild. In this Budget there is some money allocated to try to speed up the process. At least, that is what the documents tell us when we can get hold of them, but the Minister has not committed to any new time frames. He has still got this project on the never-never. He will not be held accountable for it. He has got rid of the board, he has wiped it out of the way, and now he has to wear all of the criticism that goes with underperformance in that district health board.

I have not mentioned the bowel-screening programme; I should probably mention that in passing. Labour brought that in. I cannot take credit—I was not a part of that Labour Government—but the last Labour Government brought that roll-out in. The Minister’s Government stopped it—and it is 10 years before you get any progress with it. That is an absolute outrage, but the Minister will get up and try to claim some credit because he has done at least something.

Unfortunately, the highest cancer rates and incidences of death are in the south and that is where his bowel-screening programme is going to be rolled out eventually, but not at the start. Why? We do not know. Let us go back to the case of the hospital rebuild. The Government put some money aside for it, but it seems to be on the never-never. The strategic business case was due out in June—1 month after his commissioners were appointed. Where is it? Where is it? It is still sitting with Ministers. We have not even seen the strategic business case for the hospital rebuild. That building should be beginning to be built before the next election.

If the Minister has the courage of his convictions on the issue of rebuilding the hospital, he will commit capital and time frame to getting that rebuild under way before the next election. It is Dunedin’s turn. The Minister and his Government have acknowledged that that $300 million, at least, that should go down south is due to Dunedin. It is the last major hospital in New Zealand to have a capital rebuild, but this Minister seems to be sitting on his thumbs year after year.

His predecessor, Tony Ryall, said he was committed to getting a business case to his Cabinet in 2014. He pushed that out to 2015. Minister Coleman, when he arrived, said that at the end of 2015 he would have a business case at Cabinet—2015, said Minister Coleman. Then it was 2016. Now June 2016 has passed. The detailed time line for the strategic business case has gone by. We have not seen it, he still has not considered it, he has not committed to the next stages, and we know he could be getting on with it. The planning group is meeting every 5 weeks. It could get together a little more often, it could meet with the architect, it could move things forward, but the Minister has no appetite for health care in this country. That explains the $1.7 billion he has ripped out of the health system. That explains the delay on the hospital rebuild, and the Minister’s poor commitment to the health of New Zealanders.

Every New Zealander should expect to have decent health-care. That is a fundamental that the Minister does not seem committed to. These Budget documents reveal that as bright as day in black and white, because he is committing only the bare minimum to planning processes that are set to drag out for ever and a day.

Hon ANNETTE KING (Deputy Leader—Labour): I seek leave to table two documents that are paywalled, so not available. One is from the New Zealand Doctor dated 6 July 2016, and is headed “ProCare demands sit-down with minister over funding fears”. The second one is also from the New Zealand Doctor and also paywalled—not available unless you pay for it—dated 22 June 2016, and is headed “To the bedside manner born”.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): Leave is sought to table those documents. Is there any objection? There appears to be none.

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

SIMON O’CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): I am very pleased to take a call in this debate, particularly to follow on after the Minister of Health. [Interruption] In fact, it is a debate, because there have been so many inaccuracies coming from the other side. We will put paid to a few of those as well as going through some of the great successes. I will say right from the outset that the New Zealand health care system is in excellent shape—the best shape it has been in for many years. I think a lot of that acknowledgment goes to the current Minister. I want to acknowledge here the very positive working relationship that the Health Committee has most of the time, bar when selective choices are made out of the New Zealand Doctor. I am sorry that I have not brought my copies from the last few weeks here to be able to actually table those positive stories as well. Very, very good news: Vote Health has increased 4.8 percent.

Scott Simpson: How much?

SIMON O’CONNOR: There is a 4.8 percent increase in this Budget, which means spending of $16.142 billion. That is an enormous—enormous—spend, the largest it has ever been. In fact, a huge amount of money is actually going towards the district health boards (DHB). I am not going to break down every cent of it, but two mistruths have to be immediately noted. The first is that funding, as it is calculated, has not fully accounted for all the demographic and cost pressures. In fact, all the demographic and cost pressures over the last 8 years have been completely and fully put in.

We also have to put paid to the absolute falsity, which is put out from the Labour Party in particular, that there is an underspend of $1.7 billion—is that the figure they are up to at the moment? It is an absolute falsity for two reasons. First and foremost, it is absolutely, matter of fact, ipso facto that when you are increasing the budget by 4.8 percent—taking it to its largest amount; $16 billion—you cannot be in deficit of $1.7 billion.

The second element very clearly comes down to how the money is actually spent. The dollars are increasing, but, as the Minister himself indicated a little bit earlier, it is a question of how it is spent. We knew before we came into Government that, to our shame, all the money that was thrown into the health care system did not fix the problems. It did not increase the number of surgeries. It did not improve the hospitals. It did not increase the vaccination rates. It did not improve immunisation. In fact, I mention those negatives because since 2008, and continuing in this Budget bid, there have been positive increases into the health system.

I just want to touch on a few of those. We are continuing down the line of free health-care for those under 13—an absolute recognition of the importance of those first 13 years of life. That is, of course, not only for visiting a general practitioner but also for getting the pharmaceutical products that are needed. We have heard a lot about bowel screening. In fact, we heard from the previous member that bowel screening was Labour’s idea and was implemented, but that would be pretty remarkable if it did not have a Tardis, seeing that it is in fact this Government that started trialling it in the Waitematā and it is this Government, in this Budget, that has found the money to roll it out across New Zealand.

A couple of us were at a talk tonight with some doctors from the New Zealand Medical Association. They were highlighting to us, amongst other things, the real importance of screening programmes, and we spent a little bit of time talking around the whole question of bowel screening. Bowel cancer is one of the top five reasons that men die. In fact, it is one of the top five reasons for both men and women, but higher for men. This bowel screening—

Dr David Clark: Worse in the south. It’s a long time coming. When will it be delivered in the south?

SIMON O’CONNOR: The whole point of bowels is that they are down to the south, but we are not going to get into the medical stuff here. This is a fundamentally important programme, and the money has been fronted up to assist this. Importantly too, there is money for the other forms of screening that are required here in New Zealand.

Money has been put aside—I think, really importantly—for primary care, particularly around that of mental health care. I know members on the committee have raised issues around mental health care. Having worked in that sector indirectly over the years, there is an understanding that there is always going to be more to be done. But I think that this Government, through this Budget, has actually shown a real commitment, first and foremost, by an overall increase in funding for mental health care and, as I am articulating here, particularly the $35 million into primary care. That is where often issues are manifested, are first detected, and I think the ability for GPs, obviously, to assist in that pathway is important. That funding is actually going to enable and strengthen the GPs themselves.

Again, it is not simply about the money. In fact, I can link it back to what we heard a little bit about earlier. We were looking into the science of happiness tonight when we were talking to a medical doctor who was saying that simply having money is not going to make you happy. In fact, service and connection are going to make people a lot more happy, and I think there is a direct metaphor, if you will, in this Budget: it is not simply about spending more money but how you actually increase the connections. We are going to see that, I believe, with this funding around primary care and mental health support.

We have seen already the connections through—is it something like 50,000 extra elective surgeries? And even more money has been allocated for more surgeries. If you have had any engagement in the health sector, including my very short time in the private health care sector, you will know there is an enormous amount of work to be done—hips, joints, rotator cuffs, the whole lot—and this Government is spending the money required. But it is not spending just on that; it is also spending on elements of pain management.

There has been funding in this Budget to increase how we work with pain management, and that manifests itself in two important areas. Firstly, there was the creation of pain teams. This was an announcement in the last Budget, but it has been increased and is further increased in this current one. Pain teams are bringing doctors, nurses, and other care professionals of excellence to help people manage their pain. Again, this is not simply about replacing the hip but about how you get an orthopod, an occupational therapist, a nurse or your GP to help you manage through that. The second is around something very dear to my heart, which is palliative care. There is more money for palliative care. In fact, we have a programme in place at the moment, engaging with the sector.

I would be remiss if I did not raise Pharmac and the enormous amount of extra funding that has gone into Pharmac. Look, we could do enormous—well, we are doing an enormous amount in this space already. A number of us had the privilege of listening to Pharmac last week when it came and gave a briefing to all MPs. It is remarkable what is already funded, but in this Budget there are millions and millions more dollars going to Pharmac to bring about a change, particularly in—well, actually, seven areas. I am not going to go into all of them. The most notable is around melanoma. Of course, remarkably, this Government has not only been able to fund Keytruda, or pembrolizumab, but is also funding Opdivo from another company, enabling a very comprehensive—very comprehensive—approach to this.

Important too—and we have discussed it in the past in this House—are new treatments for hepatitis C, and Health Committee members here in the Committee will absolutely be aware, particularly when we went through the Health (Protection) Amendment Bill, of the cry, the call, from the community for these drugs. Pharmac can now fund those, along with five other drugs, and is continuing to look at positive ways forward. That has been enabled not only by the hard work of the people at Pharmac, strongly negotiating and engaging with the sector, but by the extra funds allocated in this Budget.

I want to talk about immunisation next—it is not quite Pharmac directly, although naturally it touches on it. Pharmac buys the immunisation products required, the vaccines, but, actually, it is this Government that has successfully targeted not only the flu sector—that is for everyone—but also rheumatic fever and the variety of other vaccinations that are required. There are stunning results through extra funding, not just across the sector but particularly in Māori and Pasifika communities, which often, statistically, lag miles behind. In fact, I believe—I am happy to be corrected—that particularly around rheumatic fever, Māori and Pasifika immunisation rates are higher than Pākehā rates, and I think that is absolutely fantastic.

Meka Whaitiri: They’re living in cars and garages.

SIMON O’CONNOR: I am thinking of the immunisation factor. I would be interested to hear more on that. That is my understanding. I am talking of just my general thoughts and what I have read rather than specific notes, but I think there have been remarkable results there. We are seeing more and more funding into areas such as the work on the Healthline. We are seeing more funding into the district health boards. They are going to go from strength to strength.

One of the elements I am seeing is strong and positive communication with the sector, not only with us as members of the Health Committee but with the Minister, and we must continue to be as responsive as we can. I am conscious that I am going to run out of time, which is unfortunate seeing there is actually a whole lot more to be said, but one thing I find manifests itself in my own electorate is the $18 million for healthy homes.

KEVIN HAGUE (Green): Ki Te Tiamana o Te Whare, tēnā koe, ki a koutou huri noa i Te Whare, tēnā koutou katoa, ngā mihi o Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori anō ki a tātou katoa.

[I thank you, Mr Chairman, and to you collectively throughout the Committee, acknowledgments of Māori Language Week once again to us all.]

I thought it was somewhat ironic that Simon O’Connor, in his contribution just now, spoke about the Budget in parallel to the presentation he has just been at, which said that it is not about the money; it is about something else. And, indeed, that has been the approach of the Government to the health budget: it has been about something else; not about enough money. Dr Coleman’s predecessor, Tony Ryall, in my view, was the most political of Ministers. He got up in the morning and approached every single issue through the lens of “Does this win me votes or lose me votes?”, and that led to an awful lot of problems in the health sector. But at least on one occasion he actually got to the point of conceding that the amount of money that was going into health in his budget had not been enough to keep pace with demographic change and with the cost pressures in the health sector. What he said was: “Well, stupid old Greens. Don’t they realise there’s been a global financial crisis and everyone has to tighten their belts?”. It is a point that I disagreed with. I pointed to the $20 billion being spent on roads of significance to National, for example, so it was a question of priorities. But, unfortunately, despite what was, I thought, an early promising start of perhaps approaching the portfolio in a different way, Dr Coleman has now reverted to form.

So the truth is Labour is quite right: over time, National has underfunded the health sector by a lot of money—approaching $2 billion. Dr Coleman denies it and Simon O’Connor just denied it, but in the same way, every time, it is just a denial. There is never ever any kind of attempt to dig into the analysis by independent economists and to say what in that analysis is wrong. The simple fact is that the system has been underfunded, and what I want to talk about are the areas that have particularly suffered.

In the district health board (DHB) sector, the areas that have particularly suffered are those that do not have targets. When I ask Dr Coleman a question about health, he will respond—whatever the question is—by talking about the number of hip operations the health sector has done, and certainly it is true that in the area of targets, the Government has genuinely put more money in. Its performance has improved. But if you put more effort and resource and focus into the areas you have targets for, it is inevitable that the Government must be putting less into everything else, and that “everything else” includes public health—the services that are intended to keep people well in the first place.

It includes mental health, and I am going to come to that in a second. It includes all of those organisations that are not part of the DHB sector, because DHBs, which are under extraordinary financial pressure, know that if they fund their own service, they get to keep the money in their overall bottom line, and if they fund someone else, they lose the money from the bottom line, and the Minister says deficits are not permitted. So the non-governmental organisations, which play such a precious role in our health sector, are the very ones that have borne the brunt of the underfunding from this Government.

I want to talk about mental health in the minute I have remaining. In the review of the Waikato DHB that Dr John Crawshaw led, he identified low staff morale, he identified a funder arm that was paying less than the nationally agreed price for mental health services, he identified patient to staff ratios that were much worse than they should have been, and he identified positions being held vacant so that the DHB could try to balance its budget. All of those things have contributed to the utter disaster that is befalling mental health services, and Waikato is just one of those areas. Capital and Coast DHB is a disaster area. Northland DHB, Southern DHB—the disasters multiply and multiply across the country. And that is why I am saying that this Minister, this Government, must initiate an urgent, nationwide inquiry into mental health services. Thank you.

RIA BOND (NZ First): Tēnā koe, Mr Chair. I am pleased to rise on behalf of New Zealand First to speak to the Appropriation (2016/17 Estimates) Bill. Tonight my main focus is on Vote Health, and I hope to cover four main areas that New Zealand First still maintains continue to be underfunded: district health boards (DHBs), elective surgery, mental health services, and palliative health care services.

We see that the Government has announced a whopping $16.1 billion across the health care services in this 2016-17 financial year. New Zealand First knows that this money is desperately needed within our health care services and, sadly, we feel that this money does not go far enough. My question to the Government is, why now? Why wait until now to improve the lives of New Zealanders when they have suffered within this health care system for 8 years? Minister Coleman said that “This investment in Budget 2016 will help New Zealanders continue to access the healthcare they need. The new Health Strategy sets the direction for a more integrated and patient-centred system. We want more services delivered in the community, with more prevention and self-management.” That was a quote from Minister Coleman. New Zealand First questions why this Government’s previous health strategy was so out of touch with what New Zealanders needed.

The $16.1 billion will be spread out over 20 DHBs, which service 4.6 million people in New Zealand. If you do the math, that works out to be $3,473 per person, but who gets a chunk of that is determined by the population-based funding formula. DHBs are struggling in New Zealand. The Hutt DHB finished $7.5 million in the red in the last financial year. The Wairarapa DHB actually had a budget blowout of $3.3 million. The Capital and Coast DHB showed a $4 million deficit. The Southern DHB has shown a deficit of $22.5 million. There is more. How many more DHBs will it take before this Government realises that there is a problem with the population-based funding formula and it is not adequately supporting our DHBs?

Sometimes we lose sight of the very human cost of choices made within the health sector, like Mr Savage from Invercargill, who walked into my office, beside himself, after years of waiting for knee surgery. Three times over a 2-year period Mr Savage was refused treatment and it was during this time that he appeared, along with his wife, in my office, utterly beside himself and with disbelief that the New Zealand health system had let him down so badly. The pain and restrictive movement Mr Savage experienced meant that he could no longer continue in his day job, which happened to be driving children with special needs to school. These are the great people in our communities whom we need a health system to support so that they do not live a life of uncertainty. Just this week I received news from Mr Savage that after a long, long 6 years his surgery has finally been approved, and thank goodness for that. But, to be honest, it should never have got to this point, and $96 million for elective surgery will not be enough when so many New Zealanders have been kicked off the waiting list around this country. Perhaps now they will have an opportunity to try again, but $96 million spread over 20 DHBs will not go nearly far enough.

Twelve million dollars for mental health is not enough. We do not want to see another tragic—tragic—killing like the killing of Alex Fisher by his half-brother, a disturbed young man who slipped through a mental health system on the brink. We know that there are so many hard-working individuals inside the mental health services doing the absolute best job that they can, but the funding simply has not been there for them to manage the huge caseloads they face on a daily basis. In the case of Eric McIsaac, all the warning signs were present. We heard through the media that the mental health system disregarded the warnings about Eric’s situation. The fact is that this is too much of a familiar story that we are seeing occurring in New Zealand.

Palliative health-care received $13 million. That will not cover the expected $100 million needed for the hospices to run in this next financial year. The shortfall has to be met by the community, and it does that gladly, but it is so unfortunate that without the community support funding for palliative health-care, our hospices run the risk of closing. That is a real worry.

The point I am compelled to make is that this National-led Government’s underfunding of our health care system to the sweet tune of $1.7 billion actually has a real-life consequence for New Zealanders, and New Zealand First simply cannot ignore this. So often in this House we get wrapped up in the numbers and we lose sight of the real-life consequences of our health funding decisions and the impact they have on everyday New Zealanders. When the Minister tells us that all things are great and that he is doing the best he can do, I would like to remind the Minister that he could be doing better and that New Zealand and the public deserve much better.

POTO WILLIAMS (Labour—Christchurch East): E Te Tiamana o Te Whare, ā, tēnā koe, e ngā mema o Te Pāremata, i roto i tēnei Wiki o Te Reo Māori, tēnā koutou, tēnā tātou katoa.

[I acknowledge you, Mr Chairman, and members of Parliament, in this Māori Language Week I commend you and us all collectively.]

I want to talk about disability. I want to talk specifically about the Disability Support Services. When you have one in four people in this country identifying as having a disability—and I agree with my colleague that that is a vastly improved person in the Chair at the moment—Disability Support Services is very, very important for one in four people.

I want to talk about an Official Information Act request that revealed that there was a $45 million shortfall—something that the ministry calls an overspend—in Disability Support Services that was forecast in the 2015-16 year. This was due to increased costs in community care and residential support. The Government made cuts of $8.2 million, which it called “savings”, and the rest of the $37 million was reprioritised. Disability Support Services revised its forecast in March 2016, and the shortfall was found to be $25.3 million for the end of 2015-16. Disability Support Services was given an additional $42 million to meet cost pressures in Budget 2016-17. This speaks to me of a Government that has no clue about what it takes to fund Disability Support Services in this country. That is what it speaks to. The Government uses spin and framing, such as “overspend”, as a convenient way of phrasing an absolute lack of knowledge around what is required.

Let us look at what Disability Support Services is supposed to provide to the one in four New Zealanders who is identified as having a disability. It is supposed to provide home help and assistance with personal care. We all know that someone with a disability who needs to get to work, for example, and who is reliant on someone who comes in to do their personal care cannot get out of the house until that happens. Not being able to access appropriate home help or personal care means that you have created a barrier for that person with a disability to get out there and have a successful employment life. If they cannot get out of the house, they cannot get to work, and that makes them an unreliable employee. So unless we can ensure that we can support our home help and personal care support providers adequately—that they have enough resource so that they can get to people to have their showers and personal care done early enough for them to get to their place of employment—that creates a barrier for people with disabilities.

What else is this supposed to support? It is supposed to provide equipment and modifications to housing and vehicles. Each and every one of the members in this House who have an electorate office will know that there have been people come to them who have said they have had difficulty getting a ramp put at their house and they have had difficulty getting modifications to their car. They say they are a prisoner in their home. If anything happens—if there is a fire at their home—they cannot get out, because they cannot get a ramp to get out, nor can they get a ramp to get in. I have one constituent who actually died before she got her ramp put into her home. This speaks of a Government that actually does not care about providing all the opportunities that people with disabilities need.

The other thing that Disability Support Services is supposed to cover is breaks for carers and respite services. We know that a large cohort of the people who support people with disabilities are family members. Those family members do that because they love their family members, their whānau. But they need support. They need help, and, also, the people whom they support need to have respite services. When we have a Government that cannot count up the numbers—that does not know whether it needs more or less or what is going on—you can bet your bottom dollar that it is those people who will be the first ones to miss out on the support.

Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA (Associate Minister of Health): It is a pleasure to take a call on this debate. We have heard members opposite present all sorts of phoney numbers around cuts and around spending, yet we have not heard one member opposite talk about any bright ideas about how the health system can be improved. There was not one bright idea. There was a lot of moaning, a lot of whining, but not one bright idea. They have talked about how they tried to win votes with health spending and increasing spending, yet we have not heard one member opposite talk about the quality of that spending.

When you peel it all back, the people of New Zealand are not interested in percentages and numbers. They are worried about their kid going to school, and when that child gets sick, they want to know whether they can go along to the local GP clinic and get quality health-care service. And that is what they get today in this country. That is what they get today in New Zealand. They know that their child, when under 13, can get a quality service for free. That was not brought in under the Labour Government; that was brought in under this Government, the National Government.

If you want to talk numbers, simple numbers, the health budget was $12 billion when we took the Treasury benches and it is now at $16.1 billion. It is over $16 billion. That is $4 billion more. The people of New Zealand also want to know how we deal with our most vulnerable. We know that funding of $18 million goes into the Warm Up New Zealand: Healthy Homes initiative, which gives vulnerable children a really good start in life. It reduces their exposure to preventable diseases, respiratory conditions, rheumatic fever, and the like. We know that the rates of rheumatic fever have come down, because this Government has been concerned about those children and their families and the communities that they live in. We have made that investment, and you have seen the rates of rheumatic fever come down.

We also know that there has been extra spending in the area of disability services, which that member complained and moaned about. We know that there is $169 million over 4 years. We know that that money goes to the front line. That money goes to home and community service workers who deal with these issues on a day-to-day basis and who deal with the issues of people’s health, particularly people with disabilities, but also our elderly—and the elderly support that is done in the home.

Our Government is also focused on providing new models of care, new ways that technology can improve how we improve the health of all New Zealanders. I was at a launch of a product last week, where the elderly could do health checks in their home. They would not need to be transported to the local GP clinic or the local hospital. They could do these health checks at home. They could take their blood pressure and do various other things to improve their health. That is how technology and how new models of care are made under this Government, and funded by this Government, in order to improve the health of all New Zealanders.

The members opposite also did not talk about how this Government has improved the quality of spending. I am responsible, as Associate Minister of Health, for tobacco control. We have done quite a bit this year already on tobacco control. We have raised taxes yet again. We know that 45,000 to 50,000 people die prematurely every year because of tobacco. I see Ria shaking her head.

Ria Bond: Make it illegal then, if you know that.

Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA: I will not say we want it. We know that we are progressing the standardised tobacco packaging legislation. These are the things that improve the health of New Zealanders. They improve the health of New Zealanders. I believe that the New Zealand public out there know that. They know that we are committed to improving their well-being. As I said, they are not interested in the percentages and the cuts. They are interested in how they can get a decent health-care service in their local hospitals and in their local GP clinics.

In terms of surgeries, we know that in 2008 the number of patients receiving elective surgeries was about 118,000. That figure is now up, at around 167,000 people.

Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman: That’s great.

Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA: That is great. The Minister says himself that it is great. It is about 50,000 more patients per year receiving elective surgery—50,000 extra patients per year receiving surgery, improving their lives, improving the well-being of themselves and their families and their communities.

JENNY SALESA (Labour—Manukau East): Vote Health needed an additional $635 million just to keep up with demographics and inflation. It did not get that in this Budget. Primary care was increased by only $6 million; it needed up to $26 million. The increase to Pharmac is less than half of the $103 million it needed just to maintain 2009-10 expenditure levels. This means that Kiwis will continue to miss out on effective lifesaving drugs that are funded in Australia and other countries.

The National Government has effectively cut around $1.7 billion out of the health budget over the last few years. It has not even had enough funds to meet enough of the health services and the cost pressures, let alone backfill the cuts that the Government has made. There is only so much that district health boards (DHBs) can do, and only so many cuts that our health providers can take. There is nothing more to cut. There are only core health services now to be cut, and we would prefer that this current Government does not do that. In 2016-17 DHBs will be expected to make even more cuts in terms of efficiencies, as they absorb record amounts of wage, demographic, inflation, and cost pressures. As the Minister of Heath himself, Mr Coleman, said last month, this Government refuses to fund district health boards to meet demand for health services.

A Labour Government and a Labour Budget would invest in health. We are committed to meeting population and inflation cost pressures and reversing the National Government’s spending cuts. I listened very carefully to the Hon Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga’s contribution. One of the things he challenged this side of the House to do was to name one bright idea. I would like to say that one of the things that we, as a health system, should be worried about is the fact that non-communicable diseases (NCDs) are something that we should have initiatives to address.

New Zealand as a country has the third-highest obesity rate in the world—second to Mexico and the United States. This is not something that we should be proud of. As a Tongan and as a Pacific Islander I am most definitely not proud of the fact that Pacific countries have the highest rate of NCDs in the world. As a Tongan I am also not proud of the fact that Tongans as a people are the most obese in the world.

Tonga and the Pacific aside, New Zealand also has a big issue with obesity. The University of Auckland, way back in 2012, did a study and told us that its estimate is that currently it costs New Zealand between $722 million and $849 million a year in health-care costs and lost productivity. In terms of the challenge that the Hon Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga threw at this side of the House—to come up with one bright idea—I would say that one of the things that we as a Labour Government are really good at is looking forward. We usually are a Government that has a long-term view. We have a strategic approach to health, to education, and to housing, as well as to social security.

Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman: You should try it with politics as well.

JENNY SALESA: Just back to health, honourable Minister. When we were in Government we realised that obesity was going to be a big issue, long term.

David Bennett: What did you do about it?

JENNY SALESA: We put aside various initiatives to address obesity. We had various initiatives, Mr David Bennett. We had various initiatives to tackle obesity. We had the Healthy Eating - Healthy Action programme, we had Fruit in Schools, we had health promotion in schools, and we had community actions. We had various things in terms of tuck shops in schools, where we would not allow various foods and sugary drinks to be sold in schools.

David Bennett: Bring back the pies.

JENNY SALESA: Look back 8 years, David Bennett. How has the obesity level in New Zealand fared? How have child obesity levels in New Zealand fared? They have increased.

David Bennett: How much?

JENNY SALESA: They have increased, Mr Bennett, under the watch of your current Government, the National Government, which came through and cut all of those things that we put in place because we could see into the future. We could see that obesity is something that will overtake the current costs. It will actually overtake tobacco.

BARBARA STEWART (NZ First): On behalf of New Zealand First, I am very pleased to take a call in the Estimates debate. From our party’s point of view it was good to see that there was an increase in the health budget, in Vote Health. But the bottom line is that it is not enough and it will never be enough. Therefore, we need to focus on prevention rather than cure. We are never going to have enough money to ensure that everyone has the health care that they would like.

We are waiting to see action on non-communicable diseases, in particular, and the Government providing some educational programmes for parents and for children. There is no doubt, as the previous speaker, Jenny Salesa, said, that these non-communicable diseases are on the increase. Our people are getting bigger and bigger, and people are not aware of prevention at all. As was said, we are now third in the world in regard to obesity. We are rapidly closing in on the USA and Mexico, which is not good when you see how big those people over there are.

But there are good programmes that are out in schools already that are actually subsidised by district health boards (DHBs). The one that I always like to talk about is Project Energise in the Waikato. It is a fantastic programme that all of the school pupils enjoy. It has got a whole lot of outdoor exercise and then it focuses in on foods and sugary drinks and convenience foods—it is a programme that needs to be implemented in other DHBs. We need to start somewhere and get that message out there, because there is nothing surer than the fact that we need to put a fence at the top of the cliff, rather than rely totally on the ambulance at the bottom. The outlook in this area is not good, and even the New Zealand Health Strategy has said that there needs to be a change in the system, with more emphasis on prevention and less on treatment.

One area that is really important to me—and the Health Committee knows this—is oral health. I could not let this go past without saying something about this area. It is interesting to see that over 29,000 children needed to have teeth extracted in 2014-15. That means that four out of every 10 new-entrant children are starting school with tooth decay, and some are even having their baby teeth extracted before they start school. This has a very detrimental effect on their adult teeth, because, of course, they do not come through straight and they do not come in in the right places. Orthodontic treatment is not provided by the State and it is very, very expensive.

I also know that many parents are not following through on the preschool checks for their children, or even school checks—when they have to leave work to ensure that they take their child to the dental therapist. It is very difficult to get away from work, and every dollar is really, really important. Quite often it is easier to leave those children, let them put up with the pain, and eventually have the teeth extracted under anaesthetic. This is an expense that could be reduced for the health system.

There is an urgent need for cancer treatment to be improved for all cancers. New Zealand’s survival rate at 5 years is 4 percent lower than that of Australia, so this is an area that drastically needs attention.

We have heard that elective surgery needs to be increased. I was at a meeting this afternoon and heard one lady say that she was able to get one hip operation but she cannot get anything done for the other hip unless she pays for it herself. As she said, she cannot actually afford to pay for it. No doubt, she will be writing to me and I will be forwarding that letter on to the appropriate places. We know that extra dollars have been put into the Budget for this type of operation—hips and knees—but it needs to be increased.

We heard the Minister talk about bowel cancer screening. We are pleased to see that it is on the horizon, but that is where it is—it is a long way off for most DHBs, unfortunately. It needs to be rolled out in a far speedier manner.

BARBARA KURIGER (National—Taranaki - King Country): E Te Tiamana tēnā koe, huri noa i Te Whare Pāremata, nei ngā mihi ki ngā mema katoa.

[Thank you, Mr Chairman; I acknowledge you, all members throughout Parliament.]

It is a pleasure to take a call tonight. You heard the chair of the Health Committee take a call before and he talked about how he and I had been at a seminar around the science of happiness. I am really happy to take a call because it is great to be up here and know that this is actually a record Budget spend for health in New Zealand—$16.1 billion has been estimated for 2016-17. That is great—that is $568 million up. That is showing progress and that is making us very happy.

We have talked a lot about bowel screening tonight. You know, once implemented, a national bowel screening programme is expected to screen over 700,000 people every 2 years. We know that bowel screening saves lives by detecting cancers at an early age. The danger age is often between ages 60 to 74. More than 80 percent of cancers that were picked up in the pilot were picked up between those aged between 60 and 74, so the sooner we can get on and the sooner we get the screening done—we would have all lost good friends with bowel cancer in the past, so I think it is important that we get on with it.

I think the other thing that is really important—you heard Minister Lotu-Iiga talking before about vulnerable groups. The $12 million that is being put into increased support for social services and primary care for people with mental health, I think is fantastic. I was also at our own Feildays recently at Mystery Creek where we had Ministers Guy and Coleman announce another $600,000 towards mental health. I talked before about the science of happiness—it is about that comfort; it is about that collective thing.

We talk about money, but I have never seen communities look after each other like they have in this dairy downturn. So, I am really pleased to see this extra money going into mental health. It is needed, and what I am finding is that, actually, the stigma is lifting. People are looking after themselves. There was testament to that when I was in Hāwera in August last year and we had 480 people turn up to see John Kirwan—and you never get farmers out in August when it is cold and the cows are calving. So it is fantastic to see that extra money going into mental health.

Supporting other vulnerable people is also really important to me. Every year over 3,000 families in high-incidence rheumatic fever areas benefit from the Warm Up New Zealand: Healthy Homes initiative. We also heard Minister Lotu-Iiga talking about that before. This is actually providing families with insulation, curtains, heating, beds, maintenance, ventilation advice, and mould removal. It is actually looking after our vulnerable people—which is extremely important—and saving them from getting rheumatic fever, which can have a large effect on the rest of their lives.

I also want to mention Pharmac during my call. Pharmac has got a wonderful model of working out which medicines to fund. It is great to see in the next 12 months that $39 million is going in to provide extra drugs. You know, there is that whole thing about Keytruda and Opdivo—I have got a friend who is actually still alive now due to those drugs, who could well have passed away by now. It is a real achievement that that extra money is going into Pharmac so that it is able to fund those drugs that it could not fund before. Pharmac does a wonderful job of getting the best that it possibly can for our people. Last year over 70,000 New Zealanders benefited from 41 new and wider-access medicines—so that is just fantastic to see Pharmac being able to do that.

So, look, I am very proud to be standing here taking a call. We are doing extremely well and we are starting to get some progress going on in health. We are starting to get primary health care closer to home. More funding has been going into the mobile buses—and I see those operating in my electorate and in rural parts of New Zealand—so that people do not have to make the effort to take the trip to the big hospital. We can have smaller versions of the health service actually come to them—very effective. Thank you.

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN (Minister of Health): I just want to wrap up by complimenting an excellent set of speeches from the Treasury benches tonight. I mean, we have got an excellent health team, a great set of very committed people across the Health Committee—actually, on both sides of the House—and, certainly, the chair of the Health Committee is doing a great job in support of the Government’s agenda, working with his team of very able and committed National Party MPs.

We had a set of really deeply anaesthetising speeches from the Opposition tonight.

Hon Amy Adams: Did they have a licence to administer those drugs?

Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: I mean, poor old Kevin Hague—yes, he was like the personification of Temazepam. But what was really disappointing about that set of speeches was that there was really no policy—no policy there. The only bit of policy we got was from the MP for Manukau East, who committed the Labour Government to an instant $4 billion fiscal blowout at its first Budget by saying that it is going to tip in another $1.7 billion straight into the health budget—and then on top of that you are talking about another almost $2.3 billion in its first year.

The problem with Labour in its approach to health is that it just does not see health as part of a wider fiscal context. There is no emphasis on accountability; no emphasis on results. Sam Lotu-Iiga, my Associate Minister, was talking about the money that we put into disability services, and I could just hear someone on my left here saying: “It’s not enough.” Then Barbara Stewart from New Zealand First actually had some very good, common-sense ideas in her speech—a rare outbreak of common sense from over that side. She also was saying that the money will never be enough. The fact is that no one is ever going to say: “Stop sending dollars into health.”, but we have to focus on results. Kevin Hague said something about Tony Ryall—all he ever focused on when he assessed a decision was: “Does it lose me votes or does it win me votes?”. I think that, actually, that would be a great thing for the Greens to start trying themselves, because, actually, in the end they are in politics.

The wider context is this Government, as expressed through these Estimates, is providing the resources to fund the services that New Zealanders need in health, and the Opposition could not name one service that is not better under a National Government. So everything has improved. The funding for everything has improved. The results for everything have improved. But the wider context is also that we are now taking the social investment approach. So we are not just doing things in isolation. We have got health working in conjunction with housing. We are looking at the effects of what we do in health in terms of the flow of people through the education system and what that means, ultimately, in terms of social outcomes, especially for some of our most vulnerable people when they are coming through into adulthood.

The New Zealand health system, when you look at it internationally, is performing exceedingly well. Under this Government we have maintained Vote Health at 6.5 percent of GDP. It is actually higher than the average—less than 6 percent of GDP—that it was under the Labour Government. Labour members have been saying there is $1.7 billion cut from the health budget—completely untrue. The health budget over time has gone up by over $4 billion. But the key thing is that it is producing better and better results: an extra 50,000 operations, an extra 110,000 appointments per year, and an extra 6,000-plus doctors and nurses in the system.

Meanwhile, we are focusing resources on not only our most vulnerable populations but those district health boards (DHB) that have had unique challenges. So if you look at Canterbury, we are in the middle of a $1 billion hospital building programme—the biggest ever in New Zealand. So Burwood Hospital is open, and you would have seen those fantastic television pictures of very happy patients. The Acute Services building is going up. For the outpatients clinic we signed the contract and announced the tenderer for that last Friday.

We are doing Akaroa. We have done that centre in North Canterbury, and next on the block we have got the West Coast. It was going to be $68 million, but we have bumped that up to $77 million. We are going to have a hospital there that is state of the art. It is going to be connected via telehealth to Christchurch, a fantastic resource for the people of the West Coast. And next off the block it is going to be Southern. So for Dunedin Hospital we are going through the Treasury process. Yesterday we announced $11 million for the new intensive care unit. There is good engagement between the commissioners and the doctors and the DHB there to really get those services that people in the south need. The contribution that Jacqui Dean and other southern MPs have made to get that working well is great.

So this is a great set of Estimates, a great injection of funding, but, above all, a great set of health results for New Zealand.

Vote Health agreed to.

Justice Sector

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): Members, we come now to the votes in the Justice Sector, B5, volume 7. The question is that Vote Attorney-General, Vote Corrections, Vote Courts, Vote Justice, Vote Parliamentary Counsel, Vote Police, and Vote Serious Fraud stand part of the schedules.

JACQUI DEAN (Chairperson of the Justice and Electoral Committee): I rise with great pleasure to begin the conversation around Vote Justice. Before I get into the substance of my first 5-minute contribution, I just want to acknowledge the Minister in the chair, the Hon Amy Adams. When she appeared in front of the Justice and Electoral Committee for the Estimates examination, she confirmed very clearly to not only the committee but also the Parliament that her focus is very much on putting the victim at the heart of the justice system. That approach to justice in New Zealand follows what is now quite a good tradition of justice Ministers who have done exactly that—that is, putting the victim at the very heart of what we do in the justice system across its many aspects.

So I just want to note in particular the Minister’s very strong focus on addressing the issue of family violence. Family violence is New Zealand’s shame. Time and time again we have New Zealanders who rise up in anger at what occurs in some New Zealand homes. I am very pleased to acknowledge that the Minister not only says that she puts family violence at the heart of the justice system but is undertaking a suite of ongoing measures, and the Minister outlined some of those in the Estimates examination only a couple of weeks ago. In fact, so important to the Minister and this Government is the issue of tackling family violence that it remains the Minister’s top priority, and I do look forward to the Minister addressing the Committee to expand on some of the initiatives that she and her ministry, together with other ministries—because, of course, it is not just the justice ministry—are addressing. This is innovative work. This is new. It is cross-Parliament work and it is to be commended.

I just want to mention the ministerial working group that has been set up by the Minister. It is an integrated approach involving 16 portfolios, and that is truly a cross-ministry approach to dealing with this problem, led by the Minister of Justice, of course. I also want to acknowledge the Minister for Social Development in that work. The work is focused on changing the approach to how we deal with justice and social agencies in requiring social agencies to be more proactive in stopping violence. It is as simple as stopping violence and managing the behaviour of the perpetrators of that violence.

The incidence that I am going to talk about is rather than removing victims from their homes, which is almost like revictimising them—I want to focus on the National Home Safety Service. Nearly $1.4 million is to be appropriated in this Budget to address the issues around the National Home Safety Service. What this does is it helps victims of family violence stay safe in their homes. It sounds so simple and yet it is so effective. We know already that allowing victims to feel safe in their homes, when before they were fearful—and they had every reason to be fearful because there were perpetrators out there making continuing threats against them—is good for the family, good for the victim, and good for their children.

I applaud this approach by this Government, which is truly putting families, the safety of children, and the safety of victims at the heart of the justice system. So what does this programme do—nearly $1.4 million? What it does—and I will speak more on this later. Thank you.

Su’a WILLIAM SIO (Labour—Māngere): What I have noticed is that this Government has a pattern of partially funding natural increases through immigration and population growth and calling it more funding. That creates a problem when we come to this particular sector.

I want to mention three things. The first is the law centres. The second thing I want to talk about is the police Estimates and then the Department of Corrections. I will try to keep it very brief. The first thing about the law centres is the $10.9 million. I am told in the report I have in front of me that is the same as last year. That causes a problem because it does not take into consideration the natural increases required for the workers in law centres. Lawyers, like everybody else, have to eat. Lawyers, like everybody else in community law centres, are working under contracts, and they are entitled to wage increases. By having this funding remain the same, I suspect a significant proportion then goes to meeting those natural increases, and does not actually provide support for the services that our communities sorely need. Law centres are having to meet the unmet needs of many of our communities right across this country of ours.

The second thing when it comes to the police is that I understand there is $46 million a year allocated. The other thing that this Government does is, when it announces the Budget, it announces it in 4-year periods. It makes it sound big, but when you break it down, it is $46 million a year. The problem with this is that in real terms, the police budget has been cut by 11 percent up to 2020. For police investigation it has been cut by 15 percent. For road safety it has been cut by 8 percent. So of the $46 million a year that we get, 94 percent of that is actually required for wage increases that the overworked staff require.

The result of that is when people need the police, they call up 111. If there is a burglar in the house and somebody calls up 111, the first thing that the person on the other side of the phone asks is “Is the burglar still in the house?”, because they will not come. I have received word from other cases when the burglar is in the house, running away, and the police say “We’ll send somebody.”, but they cannot.

What is happening is that we have had these consistent cuts since 2010 for this particular Budget, and 90 percent of all burglaries remain unresolved, 70 percent of sexual assaults remain unsolved, burglaries have increased by 11 percent, and assaults have increased by 6 percent. We are not going to be able to stop crime and keep our community safe if this pattern of continued underfunding continues. You might be able to underfund maintenance for buildings, but when it comes to services that our communities need—whether it be education, health, our police force—we need to fund them appropriately in order to stop crime, save lives, and ensure justice for victims.

The other night in a meeting with members of the Māngere Bridge community this was a major concern, because they have now lost the kiosk—the office—where volunteers used to provide a service for our community. The Minister of Police may not feel that that is important, but we needed that police office there—they may call it a kiosk—and over a hundred have been closed right up the length and breadth of this country. We needed that to give some sense of confidence.

The fact that we have got reduced funding also means that we know many of our communities no longer have the close relationship that we once had with our community constables, who knew what was happening in our community, who cared for what happened to the young people around the shopping centres, etc. The final point, Mr Chairperson—and I hope you will give me your finger when I am close to—

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): I will give the member a bell in 22 seconds.

Su’a WILLIAM SIO: In 22 seconds. Corrections—here is the issue I have with the Department of Corrections. It has placed a serious violent child sex offender—a guy who was top of the pyramid—in our community, and it is not safe.

KELVIN DAVIS (Labour—Te Tai Tokerau): Tēnā koe e Te Heamana, ngā mihi kau atu ki a koe i tēnei Wiki o Te Reo Māori.

[Greetings to you, Mr Chairman; compliments to you indeed in this Māori Language Week.]

Corrections is the shadow portfolio that I hold, and I have to say that it is the portfolio that just keeps on giving. I think that the National Government has actually come up with another plan to solve the homelessness issue, and that is just to keep locking people up in prison. Despite the decline in the crime rate over the last 20 years—until very recently, because I have to say I hear that burglaries have gone up 11 percent. I believe that if a person was to be burgled, they would have less than a 10 percent chance of that burglary being solved. Any burglar who wants to go out and burgle someone’s house has got very good odds—there is a 90 percent chance of getting away with it scot-free. But despite the decline in crime until recently, the prison population has escalated and it is due to hit 10,000 in the next 12 months or so.

One of the reasons that prisons are filling up, I believe, is the poor quality of rehabilitation programmes. I have asked a series of questions of the Minister of Corrections around the rehabilitation quotients that are in the annual plan. The annual plan has got a whole heap of statistics—it will name a programme, and it will say that it has got a rehabilitation quotient of minus 9.2. Another one has got a rehabilitation quotient of minus 2.2; another one, minus 5.2.

People do not really bother to delve down into what those rehabilitation quotients mean, but let me tell you about this one in particular. It is a special treatment unit programme, and 319 offenders took part in it. That was compared with 319 in a control group that did not take part in it. The cost of this particular course was $5.1 million. The difference in the reimprisonment rate between the group that did the course and the group that did not do the course was just two people—two people at a cost of $5.1 million.

Another programme had a rehabilitation quotient of minus 5.2, and 6,359 people participated in this particular programme. The results were compared with another 6,359 people. The cost of this programme was $15 million. The difference between the two groups was just 19 people. So for every person who did the course and was bettered, it is almost a million dollars per success. That is one of the reasons our prisons are filling up—our rehabilitation programmes are not working. Even the annual report of the Department of Corrections says that its programmes are producing results that are less than statistically significant, although it does say that there is some positive result.

That is true, because you need the results to be that only one person is bettered and there is a net positive result. If the results of the control group and the group of prisoners who did the programme were exactly the same, it would be a neutral result. Of course, if there were more people being reimprisoned after doing the course than in the control group that did not do the course, then of course it would be a negative result. In the first instance I described—two people bettered—I guess it can say that that is a positive result.

The bracelet saga is another gift that just keeps on giving. The Minister has said that these sturdy new bracelets, which the department is buying a thousand or so of, are almost indestructible. The prisoner has a choice of either walking around with a leg or no leg—that is the tough talk of the Minister of Corrections. Then we see on television Billy Weepu—that mighty centre for the parliamentary golden oldies rugby team, and cameraman for Newshub—come out with a pair of blunt scissors and cut the thing into pieces in a matter of seconds. That “snip, snip, snip”, to me, is the sound of the Minister’s credibility being cut to shreds.

But then, after the Billy Weepu incident, the department decided: “Oh heck, we’d better actually test these things.” So it rounded up—a very scientific test this was—a group of prison officers. Apparently they were quite big. It took them into a room, and it filmed them cutting these things off with a pair of scissors. One prison officer did it in 57 seconds. How is that for a great result?

Hon AMY ADAMS (Minister of Justice): At the risk of being not nearly as fluent as Kelvin Davis: e Te Tiamana tēnā koe, huri noa i Te Whare Pāremata ngā mihi ki ngā mema katoa i tēnei Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori.

[Thank you, Mr Chairman, and acknowledgments to all members throughout Parliament in this the Māori Language Week].

Whew! It is my great pleasure to take a call in the Estimates debate on the Justice Sector—Vote Courts and Vote Justice, which, of course, are my responsibility, and, on behalf of my fellow Ministers, Vote Attorney-General, Vote Police, Vote Corrections, and Vote Parliamentary Counsel.

In this year’s Budget, of course, we saw an investment of more than $880 million in the justice sector—a significant investment by any calculation. In my own area of courts and justice we saw an investment of more than $208 million, which I am certainly very proud of. As part of that I want to particularly commend the significant investment into access to justice, which is an issue that I think New Zealand does have a valid and right interest in. We have seen the increase in the civil legal aid threshold. We have seen a full commitment to funding for criminal and civil legal aid. We have seen increases to the Public Defence Service. We have seen a guarantee of continuity of funding for the community law centres—$96 million supporting access to justice is, as I say, certainly a sizable commitment.

In her opening contribution the chair of the Justice and Electoral Committee, who does a fantastic job—Jacqui Dean, the member for Waitaki—made reference to the fact that I have put at the heart of my time in the role of the Minister of Justice, in particular, the victims of family and sexual violence but actually, more broadly, how our system protects and promotes the interests of the vulnerable and the victims in our society. That work has really been the focus over the year in discussion; it will be the focus going forward. Ms Dean talked about our National Home Safety Service, which we put out the first-year statistics on today, and, like Ms Dean, I have been simply amazed at the very significant differences we have seen in the safety of these people—predominately women, but not only women—and their children.

I think, actually, it is more important than that. It actually represents a fundamental shift in thinking in the way the system responds to family violence, which is saying it is no longer the done thing to say: “Get out, get yourself a protection order, get yourself off to a shelter.” Actually, it is not the job of the victim to have to disrupt their lives, separate from their children, and remove themselves from all of their supports, their jobs, the kids’ schools, and the like; actually, it is the system’s job to better deal with the perpetrator. So this is about recognising that we want the victims to be able to stay in their homes and in their communities and their kids to stay in their schools. We want to keep them safe and let us deal with the perpetrator, because the only way we address this behaviour is by stopping the perpetrator’s offending. I know that sounds like a trite statement, but actually it is a significant shift, and an important one.

It is, of course, just one of the changes we have made over the past year in this area, as we work on the more substantial reform that Ms Dean referenced through our ministerial work group programme. We have also seen a significant shift in information sharing, whether it is between the criminal and family jurisdictions of the court—we have seen a far better family violence summary information pack put in front of judges when they are making bail decisions, so that we know that judges have the full information about the criminal and family violence history of the offenders when they are making those critical bail decisions. Through the good work of Minister Collins and police we have seen the new Family Violence Disclosure Scheme, which has enabled people to go to the police and seek information on a partner or prospective partner to ensure that they can keep themselves safe.

And just this week, in Christchurch, we have started a pilot that I have incredibly high hopes for: the Integrated Safety Response pilot, which is not only building on the work that has been done in New Zealand through systems like the Family Violence Interagency Response System and multi-agency response but also taking the best of the learnings from the UK through its Multi-Agency Risk Assessment Conference programmes. It is ensuring that we have all of the agencies from Whānau Ora to Child, Youth and Family to social housing to police, obviously, to counselling services and to NGOs coming up with a plan, doing a risk assessment, wrapping an intensive case management process around high-risk victims, and, importantly, following up. We have been very good at doing triage and not so good at following up. There will, of course, be more to come.

We have seen the appointment of New Zealand’s first ever Chief Victims Advisor to Government in Dr Kim McGregor. I can tell this House that Dr McGregor is doing a wonderful job already, and has already given me several very good pieces of advice and information, helping me to ensure that the voice of the victim is right at the heart of our policy making.

I did particularly want to mention the $16.2 million in extra funding we have put into restorative justice in this Budget. Can I just tell this House that since 2014 the referrals to restorative justice have tripled, and, actually, that is not just a sort of a nice, warm, cuddly thing to do. We know that for people who go through restorative justice, we see 26 percent fewer offences committed and a 15 percent lower offending rate. So that is a real difference, and it is part of the reason why the crime rate has dropped 16 percent since 2011—16 percent since 2011, confirmed by the latest crime stats that have come out—and that is something that we should be very, very proud of. Not to say the job is done—any crime is too much—but we are seeing a steady pattern of reduction in offending, the exception being family violence. That is why, frankly, as a country we have to do more about that.

I want to just mention briefly, too, the commitment in the Budget, also around the $16 million mark, for setting up the new approved agency under the Harmful Digital Communications Act. This is something, again, that I am extremely proud of. We are being looked at. In fact, I have been asked by justice and police Ministers from across Australian jurisdictions to do a presentation to them on our law and how it is working, because it is something that they see as a very successful way of tackling this insidious new form of harassment and cyber-bullying that we see. I was delighted to announce the appointment of NetSafe to the role. I have no doubt that it will be a hugely successful partner for us in that space.

Can I just very quickly, in the remainder of my contribution, talk about our court system. Our court system, I think, does not get the credit that it deserves—277,000 cases a year go through our courts and tribunals, and that, frankly, is just the tip of the iceberg. Even though we are dealing with some very complex cases, some very difficult proceedings, we have seen a 43 percent reduction in the ages of High Court civil appeal cases, a 35 percent reduction in the age of Māori Land Court cases, and a 20 percent reduction in the age of District Court criminal jury trials. This is important—actually, we want justice to be timely. No one wants to be in the system longer than they need to, and, again, we have got more that we want to do, but we are certainly making some very good progress.

I want to just touch on three specific projects that I am very proud of. The first is the commitment that I have made and the funding we have secured in the Budget to restore the Dunedin courthouse. I have to say to this Committee that when I went to Dunedin and saw the court it was immediately apparent to me that this was a building that we simply had to ensure was restored to its full glory and was properly strengthened, and, more importantly, that could return to being a court. It is not a cheap project, I can assure this Committee, but we have fully funded it in this Budget, and we are looking forward to that work getting under way.

Similarly, in Jacqui Dean’s own electorate of Waitaki we have managed to negotiate, with Jacqui Dean’s assistance, the—I would say—saving of the Ōāmaru District Court. Again, it is a fantastic, Victorian-style building in that white stone that Ōāmaru is famous for. Again, we had had to vacate after the earthquakes, and there was a real risk, I think, of court services being lost from that building, and potentially even from Ōāmaru. With the good work of my predecessor Chester Borrows and the work that has been done since, we have negotiated an agreement with the council whereby it will take on ownership of the building and do the restoration and we can lease back to use those court services, which I think has been a win-win for the community and for courts.

The final project I would like to touch on is the Christchurch Justice and Emergency Services Precinct, which really has been a flagship of the regeneration of the Government in central Christchurch. It is looking fantastic. The exterior is almost complete. It is a 42,000-square-metre complex, a $350 million project. Not only does it bring nine different agencies together to work in a coordinated, sensible, integrated way where we reduce the number of holding cells, we reduce the movement of prisoners, and we make it easier for people to come in—better emergency management—but really critically, as a member involved in the Christchurch and Canterbury earthquake recovery, when that precinct is open, around June of next year, it is going to bring 2,000 people a day into the central business district of Christchurch.

If there is one thing you hear from the small businesses in Canterbury it is that until you get those pump-priming, major industries coming in that bring the people in, the little cafes do not start, and the little shoe shops—close to my heart—do not start, and all of those little things that give a city a buzz and a life do not start. The Christchurch Justice and Emergency Services Precinct is one part of that, but it is a very tangible signal to the people of Christchurch that, actually, the Government is in town, we are coming back, the lawyers come back around us, and the banks come back around them, and that will see in a very tangible way the redevelopment, the rejuvenation, and the recovery of the city and the district that I love so much. I cannot wait to be there for the opening, and I am looking forward to continuing to work in this space to promote the vulnerable and the victims in our society, and, as I say, do whatever we can for family and sexual violence victims in New Zealand. Kia ora.

DAVID CLENDON (Green): E Te Heamana o Te Komiti, tēnā koe, ngā mihi o te pō ki a koutou.

[Thank you, Mr Chairman, and compliments of the evening to you collectively.]

I would just like to begin my brief contribution by acknowledging the Minister’s obvious enthusiasm and sharing her pleasure at the success of restorative justice approaches in our justice system. Restorative justice, as a principle underpinning justice, is something the Greens have been advocating for, to my sure knowledge, since about 1993, so we are delighted that the Government has caught up on that.

One other point the Minister of Justice made in her contribution was the fact that the new justice sector will support the creation and success of small business in her community in Christchurch. Unfortunately, in Northland we have exactly the opposite problem. We have small businesses closing down because our rural police in the north are so under-resourced, so stretched, that they are unable to keep up with spates of burglaries. They are unable to patrol sufficiently to discourage the burglars. There are numerous small businesses in Kaikohe, Kaitāia, Ōkaihau that have closed or are in the process of closing because of this Government’s very—dare I say it—parsimonious approach to funding, properly resourcing, our police force.

Indeed, that has been a theme of this entire Budget. It is very well represented in the suite of Estimates we are debating under the general heading of the Justice Sector. Trying to save a dollar now but either not knowing or simply not being willing to confess that the short-term savings will result in long-term costs—you are simply moving a cost from today to tomorrow. You are relocating the costs—economic savings resulting in measurable social costs for our communities—and that is a very unfortunate thing.

Anyone who pays any attention at all to the legal fraternity, to the judiciary, and their commentary over the last year or two will be very aware that there is a serious concern about the cost of access to justice. The cost of accessing our legal system is now such that more and more people simply cannot get the justice they would otherwise deserve. One example of that is the relentless cutting of legal aid. The Minister at the Justice and Electoral Committee rather proudly told us that the income threshold for civil legal aid had been raised 6.5 percent over the previous year. Well, that still means that a person working 30 hours a week on the minimum wage is earning too much to be eligible for legal aid. That is an appalling indictment on the failure to acknowledge that there is insufficient money in many people’s pockets to get them access to the court system in order for them to get justice.

The Minister recommended resorting to the community law centres. I visit the community law centres around the country and engage with them. They are full of hard-working, dedicated people going way beyond the pale, but they are still unable to keep up with the demand because the funding simply is not there for them. The police have done an excellent job over recent years in terms of finding productivity increases. They are using mobile technology very well and wisely. They have managed to deliver a service as effectively, I believe, as anybody could. The increase in their budget this year was some 2.8 percent, much of which will be consumed in a seriously overdue pay rise that will really only be a catch up. They are still, arguably, below the rates that they ought to be on for the very difficult and demanding work that the police do.

Just as an aside, can I take a moment just to acknowledge the reappointment of Commissioner Mike Bush to his role. I think that is a good decision by the Minister, and I congratulate the commissioner on that. But, sadly, Mr Bush is leading an organisation that is stretched to breaking point, and we have seen that. The police are constantly told they must prioritise domestic violence, child safety, community safety, burglaries, and 101 other things. With the best will in the world they simply cannot be everywhere at once, and we are seeing that in our cities. In Auckland—there were some numbers produced that the committee—I think five new officers were added to the total strength of the Auckland police in a time when the population has gone up in excess of 100,000. That is an unsustainable position.

DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First): Access to justice, in most people’s opinion these days, is becoming more and more difficult—in fact, far too difficult—because legal costs are very high, even for relatively minor offences, and, of course, legal aid was intended to solve that problem by providing representation for people who could not afford it themselves. But now the criteria for eligibility are so tough that many people simply do not qualify, so a gap has emerged between those who qualify for legal aid, and can therefore get representation, and those who can actually afford it from their own resources. So there is a gap of people in the middle who neither qualify for legal aid nor can actually afford to get a lawyer. So that is the problem that we have got in the community, and it is getting worse.

I want to refer to some figures from the Estimates because those for 2016-17 show an appropriation of $137.7 million, which is a reduction against the 2015-16 Budget figure of $141.85 million, and also a reduction against the $139.3 million estimated actual cost 2015-16. Those reductions come from three places. First of all, family legal aid cases are estimated to reduce by $1.6 million, Waitangi Tribunal cases a reduction by about $1 million dollars, and duty solicitors a reduction of nearly $2 million.

On the other hand, criminal legal aid is expected to require another $1.7 million in the current year—which appears to reflect an anticipated increase in crime and its accompanying legal aid costs—but civil legal aid is to go up by only about $1 million against the 2015-16 year. Yet although legally aided criminal cases are projected to stay about the same in number, the number of legally aided civil cases is projected to increase from 1,200 last year to 1,350 for the current year. That is an increase of 12.5 percent. What that means is that, despite a declaration in the Estimates document that the increase for civil legal aid is “for increasing eligibility for civil legal aid”, there is clearly not enough funding provided for in order to meet the demand if the thresholds are to be raised, as stated in the document itself.

I also want to refer to the current legal services regulations because they show, as I say, that the criteria are far too tough. This is what it says. The maximum levels of income for civil legal aid are “(a) $22,366 per year for a single applicant: (b) $35,420 per year for an applicant with—(i) a spouse or partner; or (ii) 1 dependent child: (c) $50,934 per year for an applicant with—(i) a spouse or partner, and 1 dependent child; or (ii) 2 dependent children:”.

The maximum level for disposable capital—the threshold for that is only $3,500. That excludes, of course, a family home up to $80,000, and if the applicant has a spouse or a partner or one or more dependent children the capital threshold then increases by another $1,500. The point is these are very low thresholds and far too many people exceed those thresholds but still cannot afford to hire a lawyer, and that is the fundamental problem we have got. We cannot see in these Budget documents whether there is intended to be a new schedule for those thresholds—it is just not available. But the point I am making is this: the amount provided for in the Budget and in the Estimates is simply not enough to provide for any significant change in those thresholds. So what we are going to get is a continuation of a situation where that gap continues.

JONATHAN YOUNG (National—New Plymouth): I would like to just first acknowledge the Ministers in the Justice Sector: Attorney-General the Hon Christopher Finlayson, the Hon Amy Adams, and also the Hon Judith Collins, who have presented to various committees the appropriations. I want to speak regarding the Police vote. We have seen a 2.8 percent increase in funding, which has seen significant allocations including 24 percent of the vote for investigation, 24 percent of the vote for police primary response management, and 19 percent of the vote for road safety programmes. It is good to note that the police public satisfaction percentage has grown to 78 percent, targeting 80 percent. And so we see—[Interruption]

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! I am just going to interrupt the member for a second and ask the member who is on my left—I sort of ordered him last time, but I now want to make it very clear that he cannot interject a person’s first name across the Chamber. He is in the habit of doing it, and he has been doing it repeatedly tonight.

JONATHAN YOUNG: Yes, thank you, Mr Chair. We know that in 2009 we saw an increase in police officers of 600 across the country—300 in the Counties Manukau area. Even though the numbers have been static in recent years the Commissioner of Police reported to us that there have been, compared with 4 years ago, 150,000 more vehicle stops and between 82,000 and 84,000 more foot patrols each year.

So this is evidence of the greater efficiency of the New Zealand Police serving the New Zealand community, which is why the satisfaction levels are so high. I want today to just congratulate Commissioner Mike Bush on his reappointment as commissioner. I believe that he serves this country admirably, and we look forward to his continued leadership in this sector.

The reason why efficiencies are improving—and that is a good thing—is the use of technology, and mobile policing is a very important part of what the police do to achieve huge productivity gains. When mobile technology was first introduced it resulted in productivity gains for front-line police of 30 minutes per shift. That has exponentially increased since then and will continue to be rolled out.

One of the technologies that the Commissioner of Police reported was the trialling of video devices, particularly those recording victim and witness statements. This is creating a far more effective means of recording evidence. Witnesses are less likely to retract their statements due to, perhaps, intimidation—especially in domestic violence situations—and so we can look forward to getting greater responses of convictions in those situations than we have seen in the past. This is part of what the Government is doing in terms of its resourcing of the New Zealand Police in order to see greater effectiveness and greater justice being built in our country.

I want to just very briefly touch on the $16.2 million that has been allocated to restorative justice providers. This is a very, very important part of our justice programme. Restorative justice conferences allow victims and offenders to meet in a safe environment and discuss the crime and the harm it has caused. It is not just about bringing justice to the perpetrator of crime. We understand that crime harms people, and it is bringing resolution to the harm that occurs. At times the victims are able to confront the perpetrator of the crime and often resolution occurs, and sometimes there is a transformational effect that takes place. This is part of why crime is decreasing. As the Minister said not too long ago, there have been 26 percent fewer offences per offender for those people who have gone through the restorative justice process, and that is a good thing.

We are investing $837 million over the next 4 years in the justice sector, and our belief is that investment in law and order underpins our commitment to delivering core services to keep New Zealanders safe, to hold criminals to account, and to provide better access to justice. I believe that we are achieving great results. Of course there is always pressure—there is always criminal activity—but we have a fit for purpose police force that we can be proud of. There would be very few that would be any better in the world, and we thank you very much for the opportunity to take this time to just acknowledge that.

CHRIS BISHOP (National): It is a pleasure to speak on the Estimates for Vote Parliamentary Counsel. This is a little-noticed part of the important justice portfolio, and we did a thorough job investigating the Estimates for this. In particular, I want to make mention of what is known in the legislative lexicon as the ASIP project, which is the Access to Subordinate Instruments Project. Some of my colleagues regularly mock me for the interest and pleasure that I show amongst them for the importance of the regulations review process and the importance of this particular project. This is because this project, which the Parliamentary Counsel Office is implementing, is a fundamental part of the rule of law. It actually comes out of the important work that the Regulations Review Committee did in the last Parliament—chaired by the Hon Maryan Street—which recommended that the Government move towards having a register of delegated legislation.

Many people watching or listening tonight will not know that there are vast swathes of bodies in the public sector in New Zealand that can make rules and regulations and by-laws, and issue notices and all sorts of what is sometimes called tertiary legislation, often referred to as subordinate instruments, which have the effect of impacting on people’s lives. Obviously, some of these bodies are things like the Ministry of Social Development and we have got the police, but there are things like the Institute of Valuers, things like the Dietitians Board, things like the Chiropractic Board, and things like the Nursing Council. Across the broad sweep of New Zealand society and the public sector we have all of these agencies, which, to be honest, sometimes are not that well equipped to cope with the making of these laws or these regulations or these delegated instruments.

What the Regulations Review Committee found in the last Parliament—and we have continued this work in the 51st Parliament—is that it is very hard, often, to find these rules. It is hard to find these instruments. It is hard to examine them and, that is actually our job on the Regulations Review Committee—to examine them and to make sure that they are vires, that they are empowering legislation, and that these agencies are acting in accordance with the rule of law.

So what the ASIP project is doing is it is going to sort this out. So when it is complete—and it is going to take a bit of time because, as I said, there are a lot of agencies and there are a lot of pieces of tertiary legislation—there will be a place that New Zealanders can go, not just to find Acts of Parliament, which is what we have now, and not just to find regulations but to find all of those subordinate instruments. Actually—and this is the really exciting thing—it will eventually be able to distinguish between the various types of subordinate instruments. Members may not know—some members may know; most will not—that there are disallowable instruments that are legislative, there are not-disallowable instruments that are legislative, and there ones that are disallowable but are not legislative. There is a whole variety of different types.

Kris Faafoi: I already know this stuff.

CHRIS BISHOP: Actually, members may laugh over on the other side, but this stuff matters. This is really important because the Regulations Review Committee has the power to recommend to Parliament whether or not something should be disallowable. This is actually really important, and up until the start of the ASIP project and the completion of the ASIP project we did not have the ability to know where they were, and this will help.

STUART NASH (Labour—Napier): Can I, first of all, say that I would like to thank the policemen and women on the ground, who I think do a fantastic job, but what I would like to say is that I just do not think they are being supported by this Government. Let me outline why. I would like to make three points. The first one is about the lack of police numbers—there is no money in the Budget for that—the second point I would like to talk about is crime resolution rates, and the third point is the Safer Journeys road policy.

In the police strategic budget from 2016 to 2020 it says there is no more money for extra police. In fact, the number of police sworn and non-sworn stays exactly the same until 2020. And when we asked the Minister of Police about how she was going to cope with increasing crime rates, a change in the nature of crime—i.e., more violent crime—this is what she said, and I am going to quote from the report: “We asked how the Police can be expected to deal with increasing crime rates, especially violent crimes and crimes against the Police, with no planned increase in constabulary staff.” The Minister told us that “the Police now have access to tasers and firearms to respond to unexpected situations better.” Arming the police with Tasers and firearms is not the solution to solving crime and keeping our communities safe.

I absolutely believe that our police force is underfunded. We have a whole lot of incredibly competent men and women on the ground, who are working very hard to keep our communities safe and solve crime, but they are stretched to breaking point. This was reinforced by the Police Association survey in which 77 percent of members actually said that there are not enough front-line police.

My second point is about resolution rates. Less than 8 percent of burglaries in Auckland are solved. Less than 8 percent of burglaries in Wellington are solved. This is not meeting—

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! Fewer.

STUART NASH: —fewer—the public expectation around the role of police in keeping us safe and solving crime. The police blamed the media. The police came out and blamed the media for MPs highlighting this fact. It is not the media’s fault that there are fewer crimes being solved; it is the fact, yet again, that the police are under-resourced. They do not have the men and women on the ground to make sure that the bad guys are put in jail and held to account.

The third point I would like to talk about is the Safer Journeys road policy. In the answers to the Estimates questions, the police commissioner, his team, and the Minister of Police actually said that there are going to be 111—it is quite ironic, really, the number; is it not—fewer police dedicated to road safety on our roads. We are one of the very few OECD countries where the road toll is actually climbing. We all know that when you see a police car on the road you modify your behaviour. You take police cars off the road and people speed. We had the really unfortunate incident of the police Minister herself saying that it is OK to speed. We had the very, very unfortunate incident of another Minister of the Crown saying, because he got speeding tickets, that he did not see the value in speeding tickets. Let me tell Mr Dunne and let me tell Mrs Collins that this best way to avoid a speeding ticket is actually obeying the law and driving to the speed limit.

Kris Faafoi: Don’t speed.

STUART NASH: Do not speed. You are dead right.

What we have seen is kiosks closing, police being taken off road journeys, police being taken off the road, lower resolution rates, and an increase in crime. No matter what anyone says, the latest police statistics from May 2015 to May 2016—these are the latest statistics—show that every single measure except one, so nine out of the 10 crime categories that the police measure, actually went up.

Dr David Clark: Nine out of 10?

STUART NASH: Nine out of 10 went up.

The Government cannot stand up and say that crime is falling, because the police statistics paint a different picture. What I believe the police need—what I absolutely believe the police need—is not more Tasers, not more guns, but more resources. The police need more police on the ground involved in community policing and more police in the stations solving crime, because the only way we are going to get crime numbers down and resolution numbers up is when we get our community policing working well and our traditional policing working well. Thank you.

MAHESH BINDRA (NZ First): I do not know whether it was meant as a compliment to me or as a criticism of the Department of Corrections, but I was told that the Department of Corrections’ standards declined after I left, so I actually take it as a compliment.

This electronic monitoring system has been failing since 2008. Since 2008 there have been 15,500 breaches of the system, which means that 15,500 times the system has failed, but this Government refuses to learn. This Government absolutely refuses to learn. Not only that but it is now claiming that it has bought a new type of electronic monitoring device, which was easily cut by a TV cameraman.

Denis O’Rourke: A ball and chain!

MAHESH BINDRA: Yes. So you can imagine how long the criminals will take to get rid of those electronic bracelets. So in spite of it having failed 15,500 times, that system is not being corrected.

In terms of the custodial systems within the corrections system, those prisons that are being run by the Department of Corrections do not have that many problems. Yes, there are systemic failures at times, but the prisons run by the private company called Serco have actually failed miserably to achieve anything except profits for themselves. We are told that $33 million is being paid to Serco to run the newly constructed Mt Eden Corrections Facility. I actually worked in the old Mt Eden Prison, which was run by the department and was run very efficiently in spite of the new systems not being present there. There were very few cameras and there were very few electronic gates. Everything was manual but the system worked then. The systems do not work now with Serco. There is $33 million being paid, and then there was a fight club ring run there. The criminals were making calls to community members—extortion calls, just like in Colombia. This was happening in the Mt Eden Corrections Facility run by Serco.

When that was exposed by the media, the department stepped in. It is now managing the prison facility, but the majority of the staff are still employed by Serco. The systems are being supervised by the department but are actually run by Serco again. But it is slightly better than what it used to be earlier.

So that is only about the Mt Eden Corrections Facility. Moving on to the new Auckland South Corrections Facility, that facility is a huge one. There are about 800-plus prisoners at the moment, or 900, and that again is being managed by Serco. However, recently I discovered that the Department of Corrections now gives Serco three senior officers to supervise it, to make sure that the systems work. However, 2 weeks ago or 3 weeks ago there was a case where a prisoner was wrongly released. The prisoner was meant to be released and then rearrested immediately, or moved to a remand facility, but what happened was that the Serco staff, who are not adequately trained—they do not have the skills—went by their own systems. They did not check with the Department of Corrections and did not check whether the prisoner had active charges. So they wrongly released a prisoner, who actually handed himself in 3 weeks later. So for 3 weeks that prisoner, who was meant to be in the prison, was out in the community. That was a huge risk. It was just like the Blessie Gotingco case.

So corrections staff are not adequately trained now. The funding has been cut for training and the qualifications have now been liberalised, and there is a huge turnover of staff because the staff are not motivated to continue working in the corrections system.

So, coming back to Serco, Serco has failed many times, but this Government refuses to learn. This Government refuses to penalise Serco for that. The only penalty that it gets is a cut in its bonuses. It still gets its bonuses, but if there is a debacle like that, like the fight clubs and the drug smuggling and cellphones within prisons—

JACINDA ARDERN (Labour): E Te Māngai o Te Whare, tēnā koe, Mr Chair. Tēnā koutou. It is difficult to speak for just a short few minutes on some of the significant issues that exist in the justice system more broadly at the moment. My colleague Stuart Nash has already talked about the shortfalls for police funding. We have significant issues in the Department of Corrections. I want to talk a little bit about some of the issues that the Minister of Justice herself raised.

When we have a crime perpetrated against an individual or someone who, for whatever reason, may find themselves needing to access the court, access to justice issues become critical. It is a critical part of a well-functioning society and a well-functioning democracy. Being able to access that justice system, whether it is to prosecute a case—a civil case, perhaps—or to defend yourself, if we do not have mechanisms in place that enable people, whatever their circumstances, to do that, then everything falls apart. I have seen within the justice system significant issues in that area.

Access to legal aid is one way that we can make sure that we have an accessible justice system. The thresholds in New Zealand for accessing legal aid are incredibly difficult. You basically cannot earn the minimum wage and be eligible. Yes, it has shifted marginally for civil legal aid, but I would have to say that I imagine that the Minister has almost had her hand forced on that because of the increase we have seen in self-representation. That causes a number of issues, not only for individuals, who often struggle with the complex legal system, but also for the courts, and it tends to slow down cases going through the courts. So that is a significant issue, and I want to give a graphic illustration of how thresholds to legal aid can really affect those who need to access our justice system.

Protection orders—most people in New Zealand would probably think that a protection order was free and accessible, but, actually, we have hundreds of cases of, predominantly, women who are trying to access legal aid in order to have a protection order, who seek the assistance of a lawyer to have an urgent protection order issued and who are being denied legal aid for that purpose. When you have an income test that could, for instance, assess the family home as deeming you ineligible for legal aid, that is obviously problematic when it may be a partner whom you are seeking a protection order against but you are being income tested in that relationship. It should be that either community law centres are funded to help issue protection orders, or we just make a legal aid application automatically approved if it is for a protection order. Something needs to be done in that area.

That leads me neatly to the issues in the Family Court. It just defies belief, to me, that the Government would not want to review the massive reforms it implemented, given the huge issues that are now manifesting. Not only do we have issues accessing protection orders—and, actually, I have had numerous cases now come before me where a protection order, which is meant to be for natural justice purposes, is able to be challenged in a court within a set period of time—but cases have not been heard before the court within 6 months after a protection order has been issued, and these are cases that involve children and that have significant safety concerns attached to them. Access is one of the things that needs to be discussed in the Family Court, and those people cannot access the court. It is a significant problem, one I continually raise with the Minister. The Principal Family Court Judge, Laurence Ryan, acknowledged that there has been an astounding increase in without notice applications, and that is indicative of people trying to avoid some of the processes that have been established through the reforms and get straight to the court so that they can have a lawyer represent them. The reforms, in many ways, have failed. They must be reviewed urgently.

I want to speak briefly on community law centres. They have had static funding, at $10.9 million, for some time since 2008. The Minister boasted that there had been an increase; there has not. In fact, all there is is contingency funding if the special fund dips in order to bring them up to that static funding. They do huge work, on behalf of us as MPs too, I must add. They must be funded properly. I would urge the banks, as a starter, to drop the take of the special fund that they are taking. It is ridiculous to claim 40 percent in costs and charges to administer the special fund that those banks—and they know who they are—should be passing on.

JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki): My colleague on this side of the Chamber gave a very good account of the Access to Subordinate Instruments Project, which I found fascinating—so fascinating I thought I would extend the theme a little—

Jacinda Ardern: Oh, good—very pleased.

JACQUI DEAN: —I know, I know—because Vote Parliamentary Counsel provides a very useful service to select committees and to Parliament. It is only when you find yourself sitting in a committee dealing with the Contract and Commercial Law Bill, which is the first revision bill that we, as a committee, are going to have to get very familiar with the programme—which is called the statutes revision programme. The committee is going to have the opportunity to examine the Contract and Commercial Law Bill, which will have the impact of consolidating and modernising 11 statutes into one. It might sound a little bit dry, standing here in Parliament, but, actually, if you think about the practice of law, all throughout New Zealand there are law firms of every shape and size in practically every town and city in New Zealand that will benefit from this work. Why is that important? Why do we want to make life easier for lawyers? Well, we do not necessarily, but it, again, improves the access to the judicial system and the access to justice. So now I think you can get a little glimmer of the excitement that we are beginning to feel over on this side of the House.

It is going to be an interesting process, because I do not know, and I suspect that none of the other members of the Justice and Electoral Committee know, just how we have the advice that we have. But what is the impact—the real impact—of revising, consolidating, and modernising these statutes? What impact will that have on the justice system in New Zealand? I suspect we are going to see an improvement. It is a large body of work, but we are up for it.

Just continuing my theme on the Parliamentary Counsel Office (PCO), there is also some excellent work going on by the Parliamentary Counsel Office in building capability and training within the Pacific Islands. The PCO is providing drafting assistance in parliaments all around the Pacific. It is providing training, it is providing experience, and it is providing mentoring to officials responsible for drafting legislation in the Pacific Island nations. The work that this involves occurs in the Cook Islands, Niue, and Tokelau, but it also covers other areas when resources permit. This is an excellent form of foreign aid that our own PCO is able to provide into those Realm countries and those neighbouring parliaments. Again, the expertise of our Parliamentary Counsel Office provides each and every one of those who sit on our committee with expert advice in the drafting of bills. The benefit of that is going to be felt even wider, to the betterment of those parliaments in the Pacific. The Attorney-General, in fact, commended the PCO for its work in the Pacific. I think that another aspect is that it provides some form of consistency in lawmaking within the Pacific Islands and also New Zealand. This is increasingly important as we increase our relationship and the nature of our relationship with our Pacific Island neighbours.

In the few minutes or seconds that I have left, I also want to mention very briefly the New Zealand courts. I want to commend the Ministry of Justice for the excellent work that is going into the court system complex in Christchurch. It is utilising new technologies and is providing a more efficient, better service for all those who have to access court services. We have not forgotten Christchurch, after the Canterbury earthquakes 5 years ago. In fact, not only have we not forgotten Christchurch but we are investing hugely—far more and above any other part of New Zealand. This National Government remembers Christchurch, it is investing in Christchurch, it values Christchurch, and this investment in court services in Christchurch is a great example of that.

Just a bit further down the road into my favourite patch of New Zealand, I also want to commend the Ministry of Justice for its investment in the Ōāmaru courthouse, which was vacated, quite rightly, as a result of the Canterbury earthquake events. It will now shortly be reopened as a modernised court, and that, again, provides good access to justice for New Zealanders.

RON MARK (Deputy Leader—NZ First): I think it is probably time we cut to the chase on this. It is interesting reading the Law and Order Committee’s report on the police appropriations, and I do congratulate the team on its valiant effort. I think one of the things that stands out glaringly in this report is what it does not say. So let us cut to the chase.

We hear consistently and continually from this Government that crime is down, we are at record lows, and the Government is so, so satisfied with the wonderful job it is doing in law and order and policing. Well, let us look at Statistics New Zealand’s statistics, which are available on its website right now if the members care to go to nzdotstat.stats.govt.nz.

So let us look at the facts on the Government’s own website. Crime—total offences for May 2016 have gone up. Let us look at homicide and related offences for May 2016. They have gone up. Let us look at acts intended to cause injury. May 2016—they have gone up by about, oh, 500. Let us look at sexual assault and related offences. Oops! Guess what? They have gone up. Let us look at dangerous or negligent acts endangering persons. What does that say? Oops! They have gone up by 100. Let us look at abduction, harassment, and other related offences against a person. What does it say? They have gone up by 90. Let us have a look at robbery, extortion, and related offences. What does it say? Oops! They have gone up.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! I am just interrupting the member. I have drawn the attention of a number of members tonight to the fact that we are debating the Estimates for the financial year that started less than a week ago. The member has to relate his speech in some way to that, rather than totally focusing on the past.

RON MARK: What I am demonstrating here is the untruth that has been said in the justification for this appropriation of funding. The untruth that has been said in the appropriations, that the police have all the resources they need, because crime is going down and policing is effective—

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Again, I just want to warn the member about using the word “untruth” and relating it to things that members have said in this Committee.

RON MARK: The point that we disagree with is that the Minister of Police says that these appropriations are sufficient to cater to crime and law and enforcement because under the Government’s wonderful management crime is going down. Well, these statistics—anyone can go through the statistics right now. If one goes back and looks at—we work on Budgets going forward, based on the progress we have made over the past and what we are going to do by implementing the policies that we have announced. But the policies that this Government adheres to, by promoting the fiction that it is winning with crime and crime is going down, demonstrates quite clearly that it is not. Therefore, one can only say that the reason crime is going up is that the police have been flat-lined in their budget for 6 years now.

This Budget continues that appalling practice. This Budget does nothing to recognise the fact that in rural provincial New Zealand reports are coming in thick and fast from mayors and, in fact, from Local Government New Zealand that they are now having to top up the deficiencies in the police budget by implementing their own crime prevention campaigns by installing, in some cases, a million dollars’ worth of equipment and a million dollars’ worth of policy in Hastings, in particular. The Government’s continued ignorance of the fact, or continued propensity to ignore the reality of what is happening on the streets, is endangering the lives of every New Zealander.

This Government’s Budget for 2016 is not a Budget that it should be applauding. It is not a Budget that it should be celebrating. If the Government has any cause to reflect that maybe—maybe—it has got something wrong, it needs only to go to its own website and look at the statistics. One of the things we have heard consistently as the justification for this funding that has flat-lined—and there is no real great increase in this Budget for the hard-working men and women of the police force—is the Government’s statistics. These statistics are proving to be wrong now. We all know that the Government is fudging them by not actually making arrests and, therefore, recording things as crimes. Even despite all of that, the statistics are trending in totally the wrong direction for this Budget.

Votes agreed to.

Primary Sector

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Members, we come now to the votes in the Primary Sector, volume B.5, volume 2. The question is that Vote Lands and Vote Primary Industries and Food Safety stand part of the schedules.

IAN McKELVIE (Chairperson of the Primary Production Committee): E Te Mana Whakawā, tēnā koe.

Ron Mark: Tēnā what?

IAN McKELVIE: Ha, ha! The primary production sector is the No. 1 sector in New Zealand. It returns $37 billion to New Zealand and causes this Parliament very little work, other than in the environmental area, where, of course, we have some challenges and we have got plenty of work to do. The Estimates discussion with the Primary Production Committee was led admirably by Ministers Goodhew and Guy. We spent an hour and a half discussing quite a number of issues that are going to keep us busy for the next year or so, but I think biosecurity, particularly, is an area that Minister Guy has talked about a lot. We spend an awful lot of money in that area and the new levy that was introduced in last year’s Budget has returned some $108 million.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! The time has come for me to leave the Chair. Before Ron Mark leaves the House, and before I do report progress, I do want to warn Ron Mark and ask other members that when members make an attempt during Māori Language Week, then they should not be ridiculed. A number of members, including myself, do struggle with our pronunciation. I want to encourage members to try, and part of that is accepting that sometimes some of us will get it wrong.

House resumed.

Progress reported.

Report adopted.

The House adjourned at 9.56 p.m.