Tuesday, 20 September 2016

TUESDAY, 20 SEPTEMBER 2016

TUESDAY, 20 SEPTEMBER 2016

Mr Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

Visitors

India—Honourable Speaker of Lok Sabha

Mr SPEAKER: I am sure that members would wish to welcome Sumitra Mahajan, Honourable Speaker of the Lok Sabha, India, and her delegation who are present in the gallery, and accord the Honourable Madam Speaker a seat to the left of the Chair.

The Hon Sumitra Mahajan, accompanied by the Deputy Speaker, entered the Chamber and took a seat on the left of the Chair.

Motions

New Zealand Paralympics Team 2016—Paralympic Games 2016

Hon BILL ENGLISH (Acting Prime Minister): I seek leave to move a motion without notice congratulating the members of the 2016 New Zealand Paralympics Team.

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

Hon BILL ENGLISH: I move, That this House congratulate the members of the 2016 New Zealand Paralympics Team. On behalf of the Government, I want to acknowledge all of the athletes, coaches, and support staff, and to congratulate the athletes on their outstanding performance in Rio. Our Paralympians are an inspiration to New Zealanders. The athletes have all travelled many unique pathways in order to compete in this spectacular event. The years of dedication and hard work have paid off, not only for those who won medals but for those who made their debut or achieved personal milestones.

The New Zealand Paralympics Team won nine gold medals, five silver, and seven bronze—a total medal haul of 21. New Zealand placed 13th in the medal table, our highest finish ever. In addition, New Zealand retains its title from the London 2012 Paralympics of No. 1 in the per capita medal table. It was also fitting that our most decorated Paralympian, with 15 medals, Sophie Pascoe, won New Zealand’s 200th Paralympic medal. Also outstanding were those team members who successfully defended their Paralympic titles from London: Mary Fisher, Cameron Leslie, and Sophie Pascoe. The joy on the face of Anna Grimaldi as she won the gold medal in the long jump will be memorable for many New Zealanders. Her win set the scene and the inspiration for other members of the team in their own events, particularly her athletics teammate Liam Malone, who set world records in the 200-metre and 400-metre finals.

The team’s success is further testament to the quality of our high-performance sporting system. I would like to recognise the work of Paralympics New Zealand and High Performance Sport New Zealand for their great work in preparing and supporting our athletes at the games. I would also like to acknowledge the enormous efforts of the coaches, the support staff, and, particularly, the families, who played such an important part in our Paralympians’ performance. Again, I offer, on behalf of the Government, congratulations to all members of the 2016 Paralympic team. They are a tribute to sport in New Zealand and have made us extremely proud.

ANDREW LITTLE (Leader of the Opposition): I join with the Government and support the motion of the Acting Prime Minister, and congratulate the New Zealand Paralympics Team for its outstanding result at this year’s Paralympic Games in Brazil. The team smashed its own target of 18 medals at the games, with their medal haul being the second highest of any Paralympic team since New Zealand started attending the games. Crucially, the team defended its record of having the highest number of medals per capita—because after all, as we know, it is the per capita measure that is most important. Our Paralympians gave us so many achievements to highlight—from Sophie Pascoe becoming our most decorated Paralympian ever, to Liam Malone smashing two games records. That is part of the 11 Paralympic records that our team set at these games.

But beyond just the individual performances, there are some really incredible statistics about the whole team’s performance that I want to highlight. Of the 68 events that Kiwis participated in at these games, we reached the finals in 57 of them, and 52 percent of all events contested saw Kiwi Paralympians deliver personal best times. That shows a team that is absolutely on top of its game. In overall medals, New Zealand came 13th in the world—our best ever performance.

I also want to pass on the condolences of this House to the family of Bahman Golbarnezhad, the Iranian Paralympian who was killed in a crash during the games.

I wanted to end, though, by passing on huge congratulations to our team. They have made New Zealand very proud. The thousands of hours of gruelling training, effort, and dedication have paid off, and they have made every New Zealander very proud.

KEVIN HAGUE (Green): The last 12 days in Rio have been amazing—to once again see New Zealand athletes triumphing on the world stage. The Green Party wishes to add our congratulations to those of the other parties in support of the Acting Prime Minister’s motion. We too highlight the performance of New Zealand on the gold medals and medals per capita measures, and, once again, we stand on top of the world.

For New Zealanders wanting to get involved, they can contact their own local para-sport programme or local disability sport programme, and we would encourage people to do that. More New Zealanders, more active, more often—it is a great goal for everybody.

Congratulations to all of the Paralympic athletes, coaches, support staff, and the National Paralympic Committee, who have represented New Zealand so wonderfully on the world stage. The Green Party salutes you. We wish you all the best for your continued success and look forward to seeing many of you represent this country again. Although Liam Malone and Sophie Pascoe have been absolute rock stars who have justifiably dominated the news headlines, we are proud of the whole team. Thank you.

CLAYTON MITCHELL (NZ First): I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to join in the chorus of support and congratulations to all of our Paralympians from the Paralympic team who went to the 2016 Rio Olympics. They really did show passion, dedication, and patriotism for our country. Of course, we saw some fantastic results, which have already been echoed through the House today, with the 21 medals that we actually achieved, compared with the 18 medals that we expected and targeted to only achieve—it was something fantastic. We have nine gold medals, which is our best result for any Paralympian ever. Equal to that, we had a total of five silver and seven bronze medals. It is great to see a change of attitude towards sports—and particularly the Paralympics—where people focus heavily not only on the able-bodied sportspeople but on the results of this wonderful team.

I would like to congratulate and thank all the supporters, the coaches, the support staff, and particularly the families and friends who got behind our Paralympians to get them on their way to compete on the world stage and get them that fantastic result.

Of course, there are a number of standouts and I would not take up the time of the House to go through each and every one of them, but I would like to join in that chorus of support for Sophie Pascoe, our very best Paralympian and the results that she has achieved with three golds and two silvers, and, of course, a total of 15 medals in total throughout all of her campaigns at the Paralympics. Liam Malone—to break the world records on two occasions for the two fantastic runs that he did is very, very commendable.

New Zealand First would also like to send our sincere condolences to the Iranian Paralympic team and to the family and friends of Bahman Golbarnezhad, who, tragically, died in the closing days of the Paralympics. Our thoughts are with him and with his family.

I would just like to say that the amount of money that we as taxpayers invest into high-performance sports and para-sports just shows the importance that this has for New Zealanders, to show our patriotic pride and support for going above and beyond, if you like. And it is somewhat disappointing that we struggle to see those games live and free to air. We had to sometimes stay up to midnight to see games and events being played late, and we would certainly again encourage this Government to step up and put games of national significance live and free to air. We are already investing so much. Why not put a little bit more in so that we can all enjoy it? Thank you very much.

MARAMA FOX (Co-Leader—Māori Party): Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. I am proud to take a call on behalf of the Māori Party and add my mihi to those that have been expressed in the House today. This Paralympic team has been the most successful and, as we have heard, first in the world per capita—as it should be.

Although we are proud of all of the team, there are two particularly proud iwi within the Māori nation that will be trumpeting the sporting prowess of the two champions over the coming weeks and years—that is, Cameron Leslie of Ngāpuhi and Holly Robson of Ngāi Tahu.

Cameron Leslie won gold in Beijing and London, and he got the trifecta in Rio with a win in the pool. He was interviewed before he headed off to Rio and he told Mana magazine this. He said: “People don’t see the support staff who are there crunching numbers, figuring out where you can make gains. We have a biomechanist on our team who analyses all my races to give me different tactics in each part of the swim, and then there’s my coach who has a plan and all those support people who help formulate that plan. … Coming from a place like Northland is a big thing for me. People often see you win on the world stage, and while I might not get to see them every day, I remember all of those who have helped me along the way.” He mentioned the people who gave him a $20 cheque to get him to his very first event. They were all in his thoughts when he stood on the winner’s podium.

When standing there, he said it was a representation of “my country, my community of Northland, and my Māori heritage”. And as with every world champion, Cameron said he lives by the whakataukī: “Inā te mahi rangatira.”—the work you put in is the result you get out. I cannot agree more with Cameron, and his words resonate with us in the Māori Party. Of course, Kai Tahu—when Holly Robson flew the flag on behalf of the team, every member of the iwi, as with every member of New Zealand, would have been the prouder for it. We add our mihi to those of the House and congratulate our Paralympic team.

Hon PETER DUNNE (Leader—United Future): An aphorism that most parents try to instil in their children as they grow up, but which gets, sadly, beaten out of them as they go through the education system and wider society, is that any child can do anything—any child can grow up to be the person who they want to be. I do not think there has been a better demonstration of that philosophy in practice than the Paralympic Games. The triumph over adversity, the triumph of training producing stunning results, the sheer enjoyment on the faces of the athletes and the participants, the sense of excitement that they inculcated in the rest of us, and the fact that we were following most events as best we could, demonstrate, I think, the Olympic spirit at its ultimate. So I want to add to the congratulations that others have put forward to our Paralympic team on their achievements, on the way they represented New Zealand, on their outstanding commitment to sport, and on the fact that they were, as we would say, the very best of ambassadors for our country. We can be proud of them individually and collectively; we can be proud of what they did themselves in terms of their own performances, but also of what they achieved on behalf of our country. They are the ultimate proof that any child can grow up to do anything if the commitment and the dedication is there, and I hope that lesson is not lost on future generations.

Motion agreed to.

Oral Questions

Questions to Ministers

Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary Bill—Protection of Property Rights

1. MARAMA FOX (Co-Leader—Māori Party) to the Prime Minister: When referring to concessions needed on the Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary Bill, what did he mean when he told Radio New Zealand yesterday, “I think if you did it again, you might do it a bit differently”?

Hon BILL ENGLISH (Acting Prime Minister): I meant what I said, but I do not intend to relitigate those negotiations. In our view all parties want to achieve the sanctuary, but we are going to take time over the coming weeks and months to work through the issues that came up during the process, and, of course, we welcome the Māori Party’s involvement in those discussions.

Hon David Parker: You ignored them at select committee.

Marama Fox: What steps, if any, will he take to ensure that property rights are protected?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: As one of the members pointed out, this came up in the select committee and in negotiations. Of course, it is one of the more challenging issues related to not just this sanctuary but any marine protection—in fact, conservation of land-based conservation values raises all the same sorts of issues. So it would not be appropriate for me to pre-empt those discussions, because finding a way through does involve balancing competing sets of rights.

Marama Fox: Does he agree with the Māori Party that it is possible to achieve a sanctuary and to protect property rights that have already been secured in the fisheries settlement Act 1992?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: We do not always agree with the Māori Party. In this case I would hope that we can get to a position where the sanctuary can be achieved and everyone is happy about it.

Kelvin Davis: Does he accept that he erred in labelling allegations of inadequate consultation with Māori over the Kermadecs as “weak” and “mistaken” given that the supporting legislation has now been put on hold and the sanctuary is unlikely to be operational by the planned November 2016 start date?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: No.

Ministers—Confidence

2. ANDREW LITTLE (Leader of the Opposition) to the Prime Minister: Does he have confidence in all his Ministers?

Hon BILL ENGLISH (Acting Prime Minister): Yes, because they are competent and hard-working.

Andrew Little: Does he have confidence in Nick Smith’s handling of the Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary issue, announced with great fanfare by the Prime Minister last year, given the Minister of Finance’s admission that they rushed the consultation process and it should have been done differently?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: Yes. He does have confidence in Dr Nick Smith at all times. He was negotiating according to Cabinet direction. It turned out that those negotiations were not successful.

Andrew Little: Does he agree with the deputy leader of the Māori Party Marama Fox, who says Nick Smith is “riding over the interests of Māori, riding right over the top of treaty rights, taking no consideration of consultation”, or does he just not care what the Māori Party thinks?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: Not for the first time, no; I do not agree with the deputy leader of the Māori Party on that issue.

Marama Fox: Deputy?

Andrew Little: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I will just correct the record. It was a reference to the co-leader of the Māori Party, not the deputy leader.

Mr SPEAKER: I do not think that is a point of order.

Andrew Little: Does he have confidence in the Minister for Primary Industries given that that Minister did nothing while his ministry was covering up evidence of widespread fishing quota fraud?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: Yes. He does have confidence in the Minister for Primary Industries. The actions being taken by the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI), particularly the world-leading, widespread use of surveillance of fishing operations, will almost certainly lead to significantly solving problems that have been quite legitimately raised with the way our fishing system works.

Andrew Little: Why does he have confidence in the Minister for Primary Industries when his regulations to stop fish dumping have, by his own admission, failed and thousands of tonnes of fish have been wasted?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: He does have confidence in the Minister for Primary Industries. The issues that have been raised are longstanding and challenging issues. This Minister has got stuck in to resolving those issues in a way that is fully transparent and, we believe, will be effective.

Andrew Little: Why does he have confidence in the Minister of Police, when in May this year she signed off on the New Zealand Police Four Year Plan 2016-2020, which showed no planned increase in police numbers, and then, 3 months later, she admitted that we need more police now?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: He does have confidence in the Minister of Police, because on that Minister’s watch, public trust and confidence in police is, I think, the highest it has ever been. In fact, one of the challenges for our justice system is that because of those high levels of confidence and trust, more crime is being reported and we are having to gear up to deal with more serious reported crime.

Andrew Little: Does he have confidence in the Minister for Social Housing—also piloting fictional flying squads—when her purchase of the Cimarron Motel is forcing existing long-term tenants back into homelessness?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: I do not think that the member’s description of that is correct. Certainly, the Prime Minister does have confidence in the Minister for Social Housing. There is major change going on in how we deliver social housing, which, I think, everyone supports except the Labour Party. The current housing market is proving to be something of a challenge, but along with the providers of social housing, the Minister is doing a good job of meeting serious need in the housing market. [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order!

Economic Growth—Indicators

3. CHRIS BISHOP (National) to the Minister of Finance: Which sector can he report is mostly driving growth, in view of last week’s GDP figures, which showed the New Zealand economy is the third-fastest growing in the OECD?

Chris Hipkins: What a patsy!

Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance): Thank you for that insightful question. The figures for GDP last week show that it is the private sector driving the majority of growth, with GDP expanding 4 percent in the year to June on an expenditure basis. By comparison, public sector GDP expanded by 1.7 percent. This is quite a turnaround from 7 or 8 years ago, under the previous Government, where, for instance, in the year to 2008 public sector GDP expanded by 4.6 percent and private sector GDP fell by 0.1 percent—and the economy had been in recession for all of that year. Part of the Government’s focus in economic management is to have a thriving private sector and an effective and stable public sector.

Chris Bishop: What reports has he received showing that the growing economy is delivering more jobs for New Zealand households and families?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: One of the measures of economic progress is whether people can see that there are more jobs and better job opportunities. ANZ reports that job ads increased for the seventh consecutive month, and are now 12 percent higher than a year ago. ANZ says: “That’s [the] sign of a strong labour market.” Auckland job ads are up 14 percent; Wellington job ads are up 11 percent. The regions are enjoying even stronger growth in job ads: Waikato job ads are up 21 percent, Hawke’s Bay job ads are up 21 percent, Manawatū ads are up 16 percent, and Otago ads are up 15 percent. All are higher than Auckland and Wellington.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Why has the Minister shirked from admitting what every economist recognises as the biggest driver of our current GDP, mass immigration?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: Because, as so often with that member’s assertions on economics, he is simply not right.

Chris Bishop: How is the growing economy being supported by growth in manufacturing?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: I have paid some attention to the manufacturing figures, because it has been a wee while since the Labour Party declared the manufacturing crisis. In fact, since it declared that crisis, manufacturing has grown pretty much every quarter, and the so-called crisis continues. The recent BNZ - BusinessNZ Performance of Manufacturing Index shows a reading of 55.1, with readings above 50 percent indicating growth. The sector has remained in solid expansion in nearly all months since 2012.

Chris Bishop: How is the growing economy driving an increase in consumer and business confidence?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: Consumer sentiment, according to the ANZ, lifted in September—the fourth consecutive increase and the highest reading since January. It reports a particularly strong lift in the outlook for future economic conditions, with a net 31 percent believing they will be better off in 12 months’ time. I would have thought that with the new positive strategy the Labour Party is following, it would be pleased about that rather than critical.

Fisheries—Heron Report on Fish Dumping and Fisheries Review

4. EUGENIE SAGE (Green) to the Minister for Primary Industries: Does he stand by his predecessor’s statement that “Protecting our aquatic environment by setting environmental standards and fostering good fishing practices results in sustainable fisheries”?

Hon NATHAN GUY (Minister for Primary Industries): Yes, I do. I believe that the fundamental principles of the quota management system (QMS) are sound. This is evidenced by the fact that 96 percent of fish stocks of known value are at or above sustainable levels. However, the Heron report released last Friday clearly shows that the Ministry of Primary Industries’ (MPI) decision not to prosecute in the case of Operation Achilles was flawed. This was disappointing and should never have happened. The Heron report notes that MPI’s processes are generally robust and its people experienced and professional. I will ensure that MPI makes whatever changes are necessary to ensure that improvements are made. [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! I do not mind—[Interruption] Order! I do not mind some interjection, but the level coming from one member to my left is now too regular.

Eugenie Sage: Is fish dumping a good practice that results in sustainable fisheries; if not, why have he and his ministry failed to outlaw it?

Hon NATHAN GUY: No, it is not a good practice. Countries around the world have been dealing and grappling with this issue, and it is mentioned in the Heron report, right back from the Ministry of Fisheries through to MPI. We have the operational review The Future of our Fisheries under way. We have had one round of public consultation; we will be moving to the next round. I am sure there will need to be policy changes and regulatory changes made. The member may also be aware that I have asked my officials to crack on with electronic monitoring, which is going to be very important, and extra compliance.

Eugenie Sage: Does the Minister disagree with the statement by the Director of Fisheries Management that “discarding is a systemic failure of the current system and something we have not been able to get on top of from day 1 of the QMS.”?

Hon NATHAN GUY: If the member was listening, I addressed that question when I answered it previously. Dumping and discarding is an issue that successive Governments have been trying to deal with and grapple with over a period of time. The QMS is now 30 years old. We have the operational review under way, and I am sure that through that process the necessary changes will be made.

Eugenie Sage: Is his current operational review still just a “pulse check” and a “high-level review”, as he has described it, or will it address the big and longstanding systemic problems like fish dumping?

Hon NATHAN GUY: The operational review The Future of our Fisheries is under way. We have had our first round of consultation. We are aiming to have a public discussion document out by the end of the year. This is a very broad review. We will need to deal with the fundamentals of policy and regulatory changes, and I am of the view that I will need to come into the House to ensure that the electronic monitoring—GPS, electronic monitoring, and cameras on vessels will need a law change. But in saying that, we have learnt from the Operation Achilles report. The Snapper 1 cameras are on board those vessels now. We have a legally binding memorandum of understanding so that all that footage can be used for prosecution purposes.

Eugenie Sage: How can the public have any confidence that cameras and video monitoring will help when MPI had extensive video footage of fish dumping in Operation Achilles and senior managers blocked prosecution based on that video footage?

Hon NATHAN GUY: As QC Heron states, MPI’s prosecution processes are generally robust, with high-quality and experienced people. However, a flawed process was followed that was not well-documented and that led MPI to decide not to prosecute in the case of Achilles, and I find that very disappointing.

Eugenie Sage: Does the Minister still think the quota management system is world leading when fish dumping means the ministry has inaccurate information about fish stocks and catch limits?

Hon NATHAN GUY: I answered that in the primary answer, where I said that it is evidenced by the fact that 96 percent of our fish stocks of known value are at or above sustainable levels. We do a huge amount of science, and all of the plenary scientific information is publicly available. The member should be well aware that twice a year, for the 1 April and 1 October fishing seasons, there is a huge amount of scientific evidence that is made available, that is consulted on, and that, ultimately, the Minister decides on to ensure that our fishing system is sustainable for everyone to enjoy in the long term.

Eugenie Sage: Rather than his “pulse check” review, will the Minister now commission an independent review of the operation of the quota management system, given the Simmons report, which showed that commercial fishers were dumping more than twice the amount of fish they caught between 1986 and 2010, and now the Heron report, which shows that MPI fails to prosecute such dumping?

Hon NATHAN GUY: What is really interesting—in the part of that question to do with the Simmons report—is that MPI is trying to get a hold of all of the data sets to analyse that information. Because that report is so politically charged, MPI has been unable to get its hands on all of that information. I find that very disappointing. Instead of that report and those authors choosing to work constructively with MPI and share their information so that we can ensure the sustainability of our long-term fisheries here in New Zealand, that information has, unfortunately, been blocked.

Emergency Housing—Government Measures to Increase Supply

5. ANDREW BAYLY (National—Hunua) to the Minister for Social Housing: What announcements has she made about how the Government is supporting those in need of emergency housing?

Hon PAULA BENNETT (Minister for Social Housing): Today I announced that $33 million that was allocated in Budget 2016 to emergency housing will fund a total of 3,032 new and existing emergency housing places around the country per year. These places will make a huge difference to people in extreme housing need, and the targeted funding—the first of its kind, I would like to say, by any Government—means that providers can now focus on the work that they do, instead of the funding that they need. Of those places, 350 will be new, and they will be available throughout the country.

Andrew Bayly: Which regions will benefit from the new funding?

Hon PAULA BENNETT: Over a third of the places—1,260—will be in Auckland, where there is the most need. Funding is also being given to 30 providers nationwide. For example, the Bay of Plenty is getting 112 places a year, 44 of which are new; and Northland is getting 364, 172 of which are new. In addition, the new Special Needs Grants, which people do not have to pay back, have become available since July to those who cannot access a place with an emergency housing provider.

Phil Twyford: When she admits that only 350 of the places are new, how can she claim that is any kind of adequate response to the 42,000 Kiwis living in severe housing deprivation?

Hon PAULA BENNETT: That is 350 places that we did not have before we did it, and we are now looking at all of those gaps. As you have seen just this week, we have announced the new motel that we are purchasing, which the member has been criticising, and we have got a whole lot of other new places that are coming through.

Andrew Bayly: What else is the Government doing to increase the supply of both emergency and social housing?

Hon PAULA BENNETT: Funding more than 3,000 places a year that have not been funded before is a good place in this work programme. But we have got a much wider comprehensive work programme going on to get even more. I am looking at how else we can increase supply for emergency housing, such as purchasing motels, which is a model that we have used in Christchurch for some time. We are also, of course, ramping up the supply of permanent housing, and seeing at least 15 new come on every week.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: If the Minister had any idea as to what she was doing, why has it taken over 4 months since the Budget to announce these sporadic measures in the hope that the massive problem that she has created will go away?

Hon PAULA BENNETT: Quite frankly, we made announcements for the first 16 providers within weeks of the Budget, and now we have been working through those, many of which have never been funded by the Government. So, as I am sure the member would appreciate—he would want to make sure that we are spending taxpayers’ money wisely, and that is why we go through a comprehensive programme to ensure it. But that member might like to congratulate Kaitāia, which has had a whole lot of new supply come in—35 places funded through this funding, making a difference for those who really need it.

Mr SPEAKER: Question number 6—[Interruption] Order! I might have to be asking one particular member to cease his interjections; they are now continuous.

State Housing—Eviction Notices Served to Housing New Zealand Tenants

6. PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū) to the Minister for Social Housing: Does she stand by her statement that buying a South Auckland motel is a “step forward” when the motel’s existing long-stay residents have received eviction notices and say they fear being made homeless?

Hon PAULA BENNETT (Minister for Social Housing): Yes I do, and I am absolutely assured by Housing New Zealand and the Ministry of Social Development, and I note the comments from the current owner themselves that no residents will be moved out unless they have somewhere more permanent to go. I am sure the House does not miss the irony of your previous question and now this one about new supply coming through.

Phil Twyford: Can she confirm that her latest policy, throwing people out into the street in order to free up their accommodation for homeless people, came from the same logic as her other genius idea of paying people to move to Auckland and then paying them to leave Auckland?

Hon PAULA BENNETT: I can understand that the member does not want to listen to the answer because he does not like it, but the reality is that no one is being moved out unless they have somewhere more permanent to go. Unlike the member, I do not want to see families permanently living in motels. It should be a temporary emergency measure as we move them to more permanent, stable housing, which we are doing. So let me be really clear—listen up, Mr Twyford: no one—[Interruption] Well, he is struggling with it. No one is being moved out unless they have somewhere more permanent to go that is better for them. [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! Both sides now—[Interruption] Order!

Phil Twyford: Why has Housing New Zealand not contacted these residents, why have they just been sent eviction notices, and what does she say to the current motel residents, who say in the paper today that they fear being made destitute and that they will end up sleeping on other people’s couches?

Hon PAULA BENNETT: I imagine that those residents, unlike the member, can understand very clearly that they will not be moved out unless they have somewhere else to go, and even according to the previous owner, Mr Kamal Matta, there is no hard and fast rule about when they are going—they have several months. There is no pressure on anyone to find a new place. So we will continue to work with those residents to ensure that they actually have a permanent, safe—and I quite frankly stand here now and say that, unlike the member, we do not see that the answer for them is to be permanently in a motel, like they currently are.

Phil Twyford: Does this not just say it all about her Mickey Mouse housing policy, kicking out vulnerable people as a way of somehow helping the homeless; and why has the Government been selling off State houses instead of building thousands more?

Hon PAULA BENNETT: I shall try again: those people are not being kicked out. We are going to work with them to ensure that they have permanent and safe housing that is better suited to their needs. I am absolutely thrilled that, yet again, I have to tell the member about the 3,000 new Housing New Zealand homes that are coming on board. Northcote itself—just an announcement last Friday, which, obviously is a great one as well—is seeing more houses coming on there. On average, every single week there are 15 new places that are coming on board, just via Housing New Zealand.

Housing, Auckland—Northcote Redevelopment Project and Auckland Unitary Plan

7. MARK MITCHELL (National—Rodney) to the Minister for Building and Housing: How many new homes will be built from the $750 million Northcote housing redevelopment project being led by the Hobsonville Land Company, and when will the first homes be completed?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for Building and Housing): Twelve hundred homes will replace the existing 300, so there is a net increase of 900 homes. The first new homes will be completed in 9 months, by June next year, but the complete redevelopment will take until 2021.

Mark Mitchell: How will the new Auckland Unitary Plan assist redevelopments like Northcote to provide an additional supply of housing in Auckland?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: The new plan makes a huge difference to the development for Housing New Zealand (HNZ) land. Currently there are 28,000 HNZ homes in Auckland, but that could be increased by only 10 percent under the existing planning rules. Under the new plan, those 28,000 homes can be developed out to 60,000 homes. The Northcote project is one of a number of opportunities Housing New Zealand can now take. It actually illustrates how important the new unitary plan is to resolving Auckland’s housing issues.

Mark Mitchell: How does the Northcote project contribute to the Government’s objectives of providing better quality and an improved mix of housing?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: The Northcote project positively contributes to Auckland’s housing in four ways. Firstly, it adds 900 new homes; secondly, it provides improved quality by replacing older damp housing with warmer, drier, and healthier homes; and, thirdly, it provides a better mix. We are wanting to move away from old-style, concentrated State housing estates to communities with a mix of social, affordable, and open-market housing. The redevelopment also has a better mix of house sizes, in that there is a greater number of smaller one- and two-bedroom homes, which better meets demand. The fourth contribution that the Northcote project makes is moving to more intensive housing. That is actually an important part of the change that Auckland needs to make.

Phil Twyford: Why is he selling two-thirds of the publicly owned land into private ownership, while adding only another 100 State houses?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: For two good reasons. The first is actually we want to tag—just as we have at Hobsonville—homes for homeownership because we on this side of the House believe in homeownership and want to provide more families the opportunity to be able to own a home, and I find it ironic that Mr Twyford would criticise that. The second feature is that we do not believe that old-style concentrated State housing areas work for our communities. We want to move to mixed estates where there is a mix of social, affordable, and market housing, which is exactly what we are doing in places like Tāmaki and Northcote, and it makes damn good sense.

Fisheries—Heron Report on Fish Dumping

8. Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour) to the Minister for Primary Industries: Does he stand by his statement on 18 May 2016 regarding investigations into illegal fish dumping that “There’s been no cover-up here. These are internal, draft investigations, part of which has been unfortunately leaked”; if so, does he now also think it is unfortunate that a report by Michael Heron QC released last week found MPI’s decision not to prosecute was flawed?

Hon NATHAN GUY (Minister for Primary Industries): In relation to the first part of the question, yes; in relation to the second part of the question, no.

Hon David Parker: If there was no cover-up, why did it take a leak, which he called “unfortunate”, to trigger the review of the flawed decision not to prosecute and the release of the Achilles report, which had been suppressed for years?

Hon NATHAN GUY: I stand by my statement: the way in which the draft internal investigation was released was indeed unfortunate. These reports often contain confidential internal information, such as investigative techniques and the details of the fishers involved. These details are normally treated as private and confidential until the subjects are able to defend themselves through the court process.

Hon David Parker: Was the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) planning to launch a review prior to the unfortunate leak; if not, how can he claim that there was not a cover-up?

Hon NATHAN GUY: The member is clearly confused, because, from memory, I announced the operational review last August, and that process has been under way. As a result of the Achilles report, MPI has learnt a valuable lesson in regard to cameras and electronic monitoring on the Snapper 1 fishing fleet, because there is a legally binding memorandum of understanding to ensure that that footage can be used in the court process.

Hon David Parker: Does he agree with the ministry’s Deputy Director-General, who said in May: “To be honest, we’re disappointed that we didn’t have enough evidence to do the prosecution.”; if so, how can he have confidence in his department when the Heron report states that the investigator and the compliance personnel were correct to determine that there was sufficient evidence to prosecute, and that it was senior managers who overruled it?

Hon NATHAN GUY: If you read the Heron report, it does say that a flawed process was followed—that there was unclear communication back to the fishers, and that there was unclear communication between the fisheries management team and the compliance team. That, unfortunately, is regrettable—

Hon David Parker: You covered that up for years—for years.

Hon NATHAN GUY: —and as a result—no, that is not correct. As a result, the director-general has said there are going to be changes made within MPI, and I support those.

Hon David Parker: When a fisherman is quoted as saying “I am not denying it, I have been a criminal all my life, you just haven’t caught me.”, how can the Minister expect the public to come to any conclusion that he is responsible for a ministry that is incompetently putting both New Zealand’s fishery and our reputation at risk?

Hon NATHAN GUY: It is interesting—if the member wants to have a look at 4.112 on page 11 of the report, it says that “the MPI prosecution process is generally robust, thorough, professional, and independent. The people involved are high quality, experienced, and professional public servants who are making complex and difficult decisions in good faith.”

Hon David Cunliffe: And they give lots of money to the National Party, don’t they?

Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! The Hon David Cunliffe—I do not want any further interjection from that member for the balance of question time.

Mental Health Services—Work to Wellness Trial

9. SARAH DOWIE (National—Invercargill) to the Minister for Social Development: What announcements has she made regarding supporting people with mental health conditions into work?

Hon ANNE TOLLEY (Minister for Social Development): Our new trial for beneficiaries with diagnosed mental health conditions, called Work to Wellness, has started this month and will see providers working with clients to support them into employment. Just over half the people receiving a main benefit have a health condition, injury, or disability, and we know that a lot of them would like to work but may just need a little bit of extra help or support. Work to Wellness providers will work alongside about a thousand people a year to identify their individual needs and any barriers they face in gaining employment. This may include referring them to services such as counselling, additional GP visits, or skills training. This Government is committed to helping people who want to work and achieve greater independence to do so.

Sarah Dowie: Who will be eligible for the Work to Wellness trial?

Hon ANNE TOLLEY: People receiving a main benefit who have a diagnosed mental health condition will be eligible to participate in this trial. The 2-year trial will be available in the Auckland, Waikato, Central, Canterbury, and Southern regions. Beneficiaries will be able to opt in through Work and Income, a referral from their GP, or by self-referring directly to the provider. Delivery of this service has commenced with 102 people currently enrolled, and I would encourage anyone who may be interested in participating in the trial to talk to their case manager or GP about taking part.

Sarah Dowie: What are some other initiatives the Government has to help people into work?

Hon ANNE TOLLEY: It is recognised globally that work is generally good for people’s health and well-being, and that the longer people stay on a benefit, the less likely they are to return to work. This Government is committed to breaking the cycle of long-term welfare dependency, and helping people into employment. We have a range of assistance designed to do this, including intensive work-focused case management, the Youth Service for teen beneficiaries, Project 300, and the EmployAbility programme, as well as skills training and in-work support. The latest figures show that the Government’s approach is working, with the number of people receiving a main benefit continuing to fall year on year, and currently at its lowest for any June quarter since 2008.

Immigration—Fraudulent Visas and Exploitation of Students

10. IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North) to the Minister of Immigration: Is the immigration system working in the best interests of New Zealand and of migrants?

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (Minister of Immigration): Overall, yes. Sound immigration policy results in improvements to New Zealand, both economically, socially, and culturally. For migrants, the immigration system supports a great visitor or tourist experience, work, or business start-up, and for those staying longer or permanently, our settlement support framework is recognised as world leading.

Iain Lees-Galloway: Given that answer, why is Hyderabad-based immigration agency Kiwi Overseas Services allowed to continue advising people who wish to study in New Zealand, given that Immigration New Zealand has identified it and several other immigration agents that are still operating as having committed “significant, organised financial document fraud”?

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: The member draws a nexus between two things that cannot yet be drawn. Firstly, immigration advisers offshore were, as a consequence of the legal framework the previous Government put in place, not subject to the immigration advisers licensing regime. I make no criticism of that—part of the reason for that was it is very difficult to police—but, secondly, I am aware that Immigration New Zealand is following up lines of inquiry in respect of that organisation, and where it is appropriate to take action I know it will do.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: If the immigration system is working so well, why has the Immigration Advisers Authority (IAA) received 143 complaints this year about dodgy education agents based in India giving advice about New Zealand immigration unlawfully?

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Well, I do not have the data to back up the comments in the member’s question. They may well be right, but what that would say to me is that people have confidence in speaking up when they see breaches of the licensing regime, and I would expect the IAA to follow up on them.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: To help my colleague, I seek leave to table the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment’s (MBIE’s) Official Information Act (OIA) report to us of 5 August, dealing with exactly that number relating to my question.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! Leave is sought to table that particular OIA. Is there any objection? There is none—[Interruption] Is there objection? There is objection.

Iain Lees-Galloway: Why did the Immigration Advisers Authority, which is a department of MBIE, accredit Vinod Kumar Sharma of Kiwi Studies Private Ltd as a licensed immigration agent able to advise people seeking work visas and all other New Zealand visas, when Immigration New Zealand, another department of MBIE, had previously identified him as being involved in “significant, organised document fraud” relating to student visas?

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: In respect of the application, I am advised that the person referred to in the member’s question has been given a provisional licence. Secondly, I do not have the information about the specific details, but I would expect that the Immigration Advisers Authority believed that that applicant met all of the criteria for admission. In respect of the accusations the member makes, they are subject to an investigation, and I am watching it closely.

Iain Lees-Galloway: Is New Zealand seen as a land of possibility for foreign students because they can get permanent residency easily, given that 40 percent of skilled migrant visas are issued to former students, and half of those go to people with sub - degree level qualifications?

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: I am not surprised that New Zealand is seen as a land of opportunity, and in a growing economy with a confident nation there are a number of people who want to come here, including to come and study to get a world-class education. The member plays with the numbers in respect of those with sub-degree qualifications going on to gain residence. What he does not tell you is that since this Government came into office, the number of visas for residence granted has dropped considerably during that time, and it does skew the proportions of those with degree and sub-degree qualifications.

Iain Lees-Galloway: I intend to seek leave to table a document. It is a document published on a website, but it is a Bangladeshi website, so it is difficult for members in the House to access it.

Mr SPEAKER: Can you describe the document.

Iain Lees-Galloway: I seek leave to table a document—[Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! This is a point of order.

Iain Lees-Galloway: Is the member all right? I seek leave to table a document dated 7 September 2016, titled “Opportunities for Bangladeshi Students in New Zealand”, which contains the quote: “New Zealand has become a land of possibility for the Bangladeshi students. They can get permanent residency”—

Mr SPEAKER: Order! We do not need that full description. A brief description will do. [Interruption] No, I just need to put some leave first. Leave is sought to table that particular document. Is there any objection to it being tabled? There is objection.

Iain Lees-Galloway: How can the immigration system possibly be working in the best interests of New Zealand and migrants when it allows fraudsters to slip people through the back door into residency, into low-skill, low-wage jobs, and into the hands of the next person who is waiting to exploit them?

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: I reject all of the prefacing comments in that member’s question. [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order!

Denise Roche: Does he intend to deport any of the Indian international students who have been taken advantage of by unscrupulous immigration advisers?

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: In respect of that cohort, each case will be judged on its merits and individual decisions will be made in respect of them. This is not a blanket decision. I would reiterate that any visa application is the responsibility of the applicants to verify the veracity of the data contained in it.

Denise Roche: Given that the Government did the right thing and intervened in the case of the Filipino dairy workers who faced deportation in similar circumstances, will he intervene to keep Indian students here who were also the victims of unscrupulous immigration advisers?

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: I would repeat the answer I gave to the previous question, but I think it is also worth pointing out that the circumstances around the Filipino farm workers are quite different from those of the Indian students. The Filipino farm workers—some of them—were found to have embellished their CVs, but it was also subsequently found that even if they had not done that, they would likely have been approved a visa anyway. The Indian students, on the other hand, have provided false documentations to support the level of English language that they, frankly, cannot speak and the level of financial means that they do not have. That latter thing leads to the vulnerability—to the form of migrant exploitation—in employment that that member, I am sure, will agree is not appropriate.

Denise Roche: Given that these students have paid tens of thousands of dollars for the privilege of studying here, will he at least advocate that they get a refund on their course fees if he goes through with the heartless decision to deport them?

Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Well, the contract that has been entered into is between the student and the tertiary education provider—usually it is a tertiary education provider—but I repeat that each case will be judged on its merits.

Youth Court—Rise in Access Age

11. DARROCH BALL (NZ First) to the Minister of Justice: Does she stand by all her statements?

Hon ANNE TOLLEY (Minister for Social Development) on behalf of the Minister of Justice: Yes, in the context in which they were given.

Darroch Ball: Why is this Government even considering raising the Youth Court age to include 17-year-olds, as she stated clearly on Q+A on Sunday when she said: “We’ve got this issue. We’re looking around whether jurisdiction should be included to 17-year-olds.”?

Hon ANNE TOLLEY: Well, that was a recommendation that was made to the Minister for Social Development as part of the Child, Youth and Family reforms. Cabinet has asked the Minister of Justice and the Minister for Social Development to investigate that and report back to it.

Darroch Ball: Is she aware of the comment of the current Minister of Police and Minister of Corrections in regard to a bill in 2008 wanting to increase the Youth Court age in 2008 that “These people would just laugh at this bill and think we are a bunch of wusses.”?

Hon ANNE TOLLEY: I have no responsibility for another member’s comments. However, what I would say is that New Zealand’s youth justice system is recognised worldwide.

Hon Member: Who says that?

Hon ANNE TOLLEY: I have just been to the UN and it has said that. What is more, under this Government youth crime is down 38 percent since 2011.

Darroch Ball: Is she also aware of the comment of the current Minister of Police and Minister of Corrections that “What we should not be doing is trying to say that a 17-year-old who smashes up someone is just a child and is not responsible for his or her actions. We believe that that person is.”, and even the Hon Chester Borrows’ comment that “National believes that if someone is between 17 and 18 years of age, then that person should be treated for the adult that he or she is.”? [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order!

Hon ANNE TOLLEY: Well, what I can tell that member is that the National caucus is a broad church and we have good discussions on a variety of issues. However, the Minister of Justice and the Minister for Social Development are investigating the issue and will take a paper through to Cabinet. No decisions have been made.

Darroch Ball: Is she aware that despite all the politicking around our obligations as a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, when New Zealand signed that convention we did so with reservations, and specifically that “the Government of New Zealand reserves the right not to apply article 37(c)”?

Hon ANNE TOLLEY: I am sure that the Minister of Justice is well aware of that reservation given that this Government has just appeared in front of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child.

Drugs, Illegal—Customs’ Operations

12. JAMI-LEE ROSS (National—Botany) to the Minister of Customs: What reports has she received on Customs’ collaboration with overseas partner agencies to intercept drugs destined for New Zealand?

Hon NICKY WAGNER (Minister of Customs): Customs works with law enforcement agencies around the world to identify drug-smuggling activity and trends, to disrupt the supply chain early, and to stop the flow of drugs to New Zealand. In the last financial year, our work with overseas partners has prevented illicit drugs worth over $204 million, in terms of potential social and economic harm, from reaching New Zealand.

Jami-Lee Ross: How does the New Zealand Customs Service support other countries to stop the importation of drugs, and why?

Hon NICKY WAGNER: By helping to protect other countries’ borders, we protect our own. New Zealand Customs works with overseas partners to insist on the stopping of importation of drugs, and in doing so we develop relationships that benefit everyone. For example, last month Australian authorities boarded a cruise liner when it arrived in Sydney from Auckland, and they seized 95 kilograms of cocaine and arrested three Canadians. New Zealand Customs has worked with the Australian Border Force and other agencies in this operation, which led to the seizure and the arrests.

Mahesh Bindra: Does she understand that much more than $204 million worth of drug-related harm could be stropped if her department were to physically inspect or X-ray more than the current, pitiful 5 to 10 percent of goods arriving in containers?

Hon NICKY WAGNER: Obviously, we cannot be confident that we stop everything at the border, but when we look at the case of methamphetamine, we find that Customs is seizing more meth, that the number of meth users is going down—it used to be about 2.2 percent; it is down to 1 percent, and meth users tend to be older—and, what is more, the price of methamphetamine tends to be stable and very high.

Jami-Lee Ross: How much potential harm has been prevented by the interception of illicit drugs at the border?

Hon NICKY WAGNER: Over the last 3 financial years, our overseas partners have made 30 interceptions of illicit drugs, mainly methamphetamine, on their way to New Zealand. In the 2015-16 financial year, over $875 million worth of potential harm was avoided by interceptions at the border. Combined with that $204 million—outside—that means we have seized drugs destined for New Zealand of over $1 billion worth of potential social and economic harm.

Urgent Debates

Fisheries—Heron Report on Fish Dumping

Mr SPEAKER: I have received a letter from the Hon David Parker seeking to debate under Standing Order 389 the release of the independent review of Michael Heron QC into the Ministry for Primary Industries’ handling of the illegal dumping of fish. This is a matter of recent occurrence involving ministerial responsibility. Earlier this year I declined an application to debate the launch of this inquiry because at that time it did not warrant setting aside the business of the House. However, the inquiry has now concluded and the Government has accepted its findings.

Commercial fishing makes a significant contribution to the New Zealand economy. Its continued success requires effective management of the quota system and effective compliance activity. The Heron report goes to the very integrity of New Zealand’s fisheries management. This issue is of such significant importance to warrant setting aside the usual business of the House. I therefore call on the Hon David Parker to move that the House take note of a matter of urgent public business.

Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour): I move, That the House take note of a matter of urgent public importance. On 16 May the University of British Columbia, in concert with the University of Auckland, released the report on the fish returns in New Zealand, saying that the only way that the New Zealand fish landing records could be correct is if somehow New Zealand fish, unlike those in the rest of the world, miraculously sort themselves into good fish and less valuable fish, and all the good fish line up and go into the net and all of the low-value species and all of the specimens that are below good commercial value and all of those that are too big somehow escape the net and they are never reported. That is, essentially, what the report said on 16 May. It said that the New Zealand returns are wrong and that New Zealand grossly—not just by some marginal amount, but grossly—under-records the number of fish that are caught in the quota management system.

What was the immediate response of the ministry? The ministry said: “No, there’s nothing to look at here.” I have got the release of 16 May 2016 quoting Dave Turner, the Director Fisheries Management in the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI), saying that the ministry had concerns about the methodology and conclusions. Then, on the second page of the release, it says: “MPI takes any suggestion of illegal fishing activity, including dumping seriously. Where evidence is available MPI will investigate and prosecute.” Who was that? Dave Turner from the fisheries management team at MPI.

Within a couple of days of that, a leaked report came out of MPI—in fact, a series of leaked reports, the most serious of which is probably the Achilles report, Operation Achilles. What did that report show? That report showed gross breaches of New Zealand’s fishing laws. I have got the report here—there were two reports. The first report recommended that all permit holders who had been shown to be grossly under-reporting catch by chucking the bycatch away—it recommended that all permit holders and skippers be dealt with by way of prosecution. It said, at paragraph 1.4: “These recommendations are based on each of the parties satisfying the evidential and public interest tests as set out in the Solicitor-General’s Prosecution Guidelines.”

When that came out, what happened? Well, we had the same officials who had leaked in the defence of the ministry at the time say in respect of the Operation Achilles prosecution—and I am quoting from what was said on TV3 by the same Dave Turner: “We ended up with a legal opinion that we could not prosecute the fishermen for discarding fish because the cameras had been placed on the vessels for the purposes of a monitoring trial in regard to protected species.” Was that correct? Did the Heron report find that correct? No. In fact, the Heron report found that that was not correct.

Who else took to the media that day? Another senior person at the ministry, Deputy Director-General Scott Gallacher, and what did he say on that day, on TV3? He said: “Unfortunately, there was not enough evidence to prosecute.” Really? What did the Heron report say in respect of that? The Heron report said there was enough evidence to prosecute. Although one of the reports from Crown Law to the ministry of fisheries has not been released in full because privilege has not been waived, it is pretty clear from the report that the Crown Law advice was that there was enough evidence to prosecute, and yet there was no prosecution. And for 3 years the ministry not only sat on its hands but it supressed the reports, so much so that the lower-level officers within MPI, which were aghast at this protracted and illegal practice—which was so pervasive in the industry and not being policed—in the end leaked the document, which is why it has come into the open.

What did the Minister say back then? The Minister said—and this is Minister Guy on 18 May 2016, regarding the investigations into the illegal fish dumping—“There has been no cover-up here. These are internal, draft investigations, part of which has been unfortunately leaked.” So the Minister is getting in on the lag. “There’s nothing to see here, nothing that’s been done wrong by MPI. There is no evidence of illegal fish dumping. There’s been no cover-up.”—that is what the Minister was saying on 18 May.

It became, within a matter of days, incredible for the Government to maintain that stance and to continue saying “There’s nothing to look at here.”, and so it got Michael Heron QC to carry out a report. What does he say? Mr Heron has done a thorough report.

Andrew Little: He’s a former Solicitor-General.

Hon DAVID PARKER: He is a former Solicitor-General—the lead prosecutor for the Crown in the land. He starts by recounting the University of Auckland study that it had done with the University of British Columbia, and, unlike the Minister and the ministry, he is not quick to wave it aside. He does not say “This is a junk inquiry.”, which is still the ministry’s position in respect of these things. He says that as a result of the news that followed that up and the leaking of the Achilles report, amongst others—there were two others. One was Operation Hippocamp. I do not think I will have time to go into all of them. But in respect of those, he says that it is wrong, the assertion that was being made—that there was not enough evidence to prosecute—and he says it is wrong, the assertion that there was some deal that somehow this could not be prosecuted.

I want to divert just slightly into another issue, which I will not deal with in as much detail, but the camera footage on this Operation Achilles also showed the bringing on board in nets of dolphins that had been caught in the nets and killed. They had drowned—the dolphins had drowned—and that is a terrible thing. What did the video footage show? It showed the fishermen letting the net out again and flushing out the dolphins. In fact, one was so entangled, they could get rid of the evidence of only one of them, and they actually had to bring the other dolphin on board. Again, was there anything public about that at the time? Did the ministry say: “We’ve got problems in respect of dolphin bycatch and we’ve found evidence of this.”? No—absolute silence. Why is this level of silence and incompetence at upper echelons within MPI allowed to continue for year after year after year?

I am going to go back to the issue of the bycatch. Mike Heron QC, in his report, goes through the law and says that, subject to limited exceptions, if it is a quota species, then you are meant to take all of the substandard ones as well—you are not meant to dump them—and if it is bycatch and it is not the quota species that you are targeting, you are meant to take that and you are meant to return that in your fish returns, and you have to pay for a right to fish that bycatch as well. He goes through some of the complexities of that, and he points out that it is not easy to police. But then he says: “Well, it can’t be too hard. At least one of the vessels that was being looked at did it all legally. If one of the vessels can do it all legally, why can’t the others?”.

If one of the vessels can do it legally, why is it that MPI does not think it should be requiring the others to, because the other thing that has become clear in these reports is that this is not just a one-instance breach. This problem has been there for years, and it appears—although I have not quite got to the bottom of this—that for the last 5 years the ministry has been talking about doing something about it, but it is just that in the last 5 years it has not. For 5 years, during the period when it has been developing these new electronic techniques for better monitoring, the widespread illegal practice that it has known about and that has been occurring has not been prosecuted. The most obvious example is the Operation Achilles example, but I suspect that that is just the tip of the iceberg. If the report from the University of Auckland and the University of British Columbia is right—

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Five minutes.

Hon DAVID PARKER: —thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker—then the amount of this illegal dumping is enormous. It is not just a small amount; it is enormous. Indeed, in Operation Achilles it found that fully half of the elephant fish being fished—it is quite a common species—was being thrown away. Half of it—not 10 percent, not 5 percent—

Hon Member: Unbelievable.

Hon DAVID PARKER: —but half of it. It is unbelievable, as my colleague says. So, for this to go wrong, was it some isolated person making a mistake within the ministry? No, this went up very senior in the ministry, and there is correspondence between Scott Gallacher and David Turner, who were both very senior within the ministry—at least one of whom has moved on. We are told it is for unrelated reasons, but I think that deserves a little bit of scrutiny as well. These two people, effectively, had to agree between themselves before the prosecution would be dumped, and did they? Yes, they did.

There is another aspect that worries me in this. There is an internal memo that is dated 2 October 2014. It has got the names obscured, but you can work it out from the report that it is actually from Dave Turner to Scott Gallacher, the two people whom I have talked about, and I am sure of that when I reconstruct this. At the end, having discussed the pros and cons, he said: “If you do decide to warn rather than prosecute, I would suggest talking to [name blanked out].” I am curious as to whom that person is who is blanked out. “If you do decide to warn I would suggest talking to [name blanked out]. [This same person] has swung onside on a lot of issues lately, and walking him through this matter would give him a good understanding of the issues that I think he knows are real anyway, but would show how we are being considered in looking at the big picture. He has a lot of influence over fishers and could be an important driver of change.”

Who is that? I reckon that is likely to be an industry participant, and I think that is evidence of the fact that the ministry may have been captured by industry interests. Why else would it be saying: “Well, look, don’t prosecute. Just talk to this person on the side who’s been helpful in the past.”

Hon Trevor Mallard: Talley or Goodfellow? Which do you reckon—Talley or Goodfellow?

Hon DAVID PARKER: I do not know who it is, Mr Mallard. I do not know who it is. It could be someone completely different.

The other thing is, why did ministry officials choose not to prosecute? Well, again, Heron says, it was for the wrong reasons—partly because they were embarrassed that it would show up that previously they had not prosecuted. So this was not the first time—

Andrew Little: It perpetuates it.

Hon DAVID PARKER: This just perpetuates it. They say: “Well, look, we’d be embarrassed because it would show up that previous times we’ve let people get away with it and not prosecuted them.”

This really calls into question the validity of what we think is the sustainability of our quota management system. These data errors are not minor; they are large. We do not know how pervasive they are. We have got independent research coming out of the universities saying that the data is complete rubbish—well, not complete rubbish, but the flaws are so gross that you would have to question it. There is no doubt in my mind that there is serious doubt as to whether our fishery is being fished sustainably and whether stocks are being driven down.

I know the ministry comes along and it says “Oh well, there’s plenty. There’s abundant fish. Therefore, there is no problem.”, but that is not so much these days based on science as on catch effort, and we do not know whether as a consequence of this misreporting it has got those calculations wrong. And, to be perfectly honest, I do not trust the ministry to do that independently by itself. The first time we have had an inquiry independently into any of this, we have found serious wrongdoing and we have had a cover-up for years, which that inquiry has shown to have taken place, despite the Minister’s queries.

I feel very misled by those senior officials who said there was no evidence and there was a deal that meant that they could not be prosecuted. Both of those assertions were made in the media to protect the position of the ministry. They were both made directly to the media, deliberately. One time, it was also backed up in writing at the time. I think we need to question those ministry officials, and I think we need to get to the bottom of this with some further independent scrutiny of what has been going on in MPI.

Hon NATHAN GUY (Minister for Primary Industries): I welcome the Heron report. In fact, I welcome the debate this afternoon in the House on this very important issue. What is really important is transparency in this matter, and Queen’s Counsel Michael Heron was brought in to have a look at three reports: Achilles, Hippocamp, and Overdue. When the director-general commissioned this report—[Interruption]

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! I wonder whether the Minister would resume his seat. The member who is yelling out constantly, and who did so through question time, was given a warning. The urgent debate is for a purpose. The debate is to hold the Government to account. That is what the Hon David Parker has just called upon the Minister to do, and he is endeavouring to respond to that, and so he should. That is the purpose of an urgent debate. Let us hear it.

Hon NATHAN GUY: Thanks, Mr Deputy Speaker. I think that if Mr Cunliffe wants to make a contribution, he should get to his feet and do it properly.

The Director-General of the Ministry for Primary Industries, Martyn Dunne, established the terms of reference and got Queen’s Counsel Michael Heron in to have a look at these three reports, which I was alluding to before. In terms of Operation Overdue, he determined that the decision not to prosecute was understandable; in another one, Operation Hippocamp, he determined that the decision not to prosecute was indeed understandable then as well; and in regard to the one that is primarily the focus of this debate this afternoon, Operation Achilles, the decision not to prosecute was understandable given the circumstances, but the particular process leading to this action was flawed. As I have told the House this afternoon, I am very disappointed that that did occur.

There is no doubt that the decision not to prosecute in the case of Operation Achilles, when the option was available, is indeed highly regrettable. Given that the limitation period for prosecutions in this case has expired, it is also regrettable that we cannot now hold these fishers to account. However, it is important to note that Michael Heron QC made some other relevant findings specifically in regard to Operation Achilles. He said that it was a very complex matter and that it was approached professionally and in good faith by those involved. Overall, the Queen’s Counsel also went on to state that the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) prosecutes hundreds of cases per year, and he added that its processes are generally robust and its people experienced and professional.

There will be some very important lessons for MPI from this review, and some of those lessons are already in train by the director-general. He has already confirmed to the public that he will act swiftly to put these measures in place.

As Minister, I have two main focuses that have come out of this report: to ensure that MPI will take whatever internal measures are necessary to prevent an issue like this from occurring again, and to provide policy support to give MPI greater oversight over issues like discarding and dumping to help restore the public perception of the fishing industry. And, of course, MPI cannot do that; the fishers need to do that.

In regard to the first point, MPI’s response has already signalled that it has got a review of the compliance functions under way, it is reviewing and updating its prosecuting policy guidelines with input from Crown Law—I think that is going to be very important—and it is ensuring that formalised protocols and agreements are in place for responding to any potentially illegal activity that comes to light as a result of science or any research activity. Also, MPI is developing the standard operating procedures for engagement and communications between the compliance officers, the fisheries managers, and also the scientists around advising on non-fish bycatch events such as Hector’s dolphin captures.

In regard to the second point, we currently have the Future of Fisheries operational review under way. In this broad review, there will be an opportunity for public engagement and consultation on ways that we can improve our fisheries management. The review will look at all policy levers in fisheries management, such as deemed values to make sure we have the right mix of incentives and disincentives that will allow for a more sustainable use of our fishing resources going forward.

I have already signalled that the rights around quota ownership and bag limits will not be part of this review. I believe that the fundamental tension in the quota management system between sustainability and the economic value of our fishing resources is sound—in other words, fishers have a vested economic interest in ensuring that stocks are plentiful. This means that their quota actually has more value, and, in my view, this is a good thing. Also, there is no indication that quota ownership or bag limits are major issues around discarding or dumping. Therefore, we should not undermine the confidence in the rights that fishers have in quota ownership by putting these up for consideration. But what we will be spending a period of time looking at through the process is some of those incentives and disincentives.

As I mentioned before, the rest of the review will be fairly wide ranging. One of the major policy initiatives that we have already started on is to do with electronic monitoring. When I talk about electronic monitoring, I mean a vessel monitoring system (VMS), which is, basically, a GPS system, electronic reporting, and cameras on vessels.

David Shearer: How long has that taken? Four years ago you announced that—4 years.

Hon NATHAN GUY: We have learnt from Achilles, and—if Mr Shearer was connected to fishers in the Hauraki, he would already be aware that cameras and this electronic reporting—[Interruption]

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!

Hon NATHAN GUY: —are on these vessels for the inshore fishery in the Hauraki. So Mr Shearer should keep up to speed that that is already under way in the Hauraki as we speak, and it is actually proving to be very, very beneficial.

I have also said to my officials that we need to crack on and do the next stage with some urgency, because that will be a powerful deterrent to illegal discarding and it will significantly strengthen the enforceability capability. Also, this is going to be very important when you think about adding more value to our precious resource. You know with cameras and VMS exactly where the fish were caught, then you move into the next stage of Precision Seafood Harvesting, which has a fantastic new net design, where fish species are selected at sea for size. They come on board the vessel in a lot better quality, and then you can QR code them because of cameras, and add a premium to our export markets.

So GPS technology will mean we will know whether commercial fishers are fishing where they say they are and not where they are not meant to be. Also, we will know, when they are out of the line of sight, exactly what they are doing. Importantly, in terms of the compliance, we have doubled the number of observers on these vessels in the last 10 years, which has been hugely important for overall transparency.

Also, the industry needs to pull its socks up because at the heart of this issue are fishers. MPI does not go out fishing; the fishers do, and it is hugely important that the public perception here of fishers in the commercial sector improves. So my challenge to those in the commercial sector is that they need to pull their socks up and get on board with these changes, because if they do not, our international reputation will be tarnished. What we should be aware of is that MPI already carries out 300 prosecutions a year across all of the different fisheries, about 3,000 infringements, and 1,000 vessel inspections.

In conclusion, I welcome the Heron report. I will do whatever I can to support MPI to make the changes. When we go through the next stage of the public consultation document—which will, hopefully, be out later this year—I am sure there will be a huge amount of feedback on this particular issue. I think, fundamentally, it will mean I will have to come into the House and change the law, which I am hopeful that I will get broad support across the House for.

I support the director-general, Martyn Dunne, to be able to make whatever changes he deems necessary within MPI. I think it was very telling that the State Services Commissioner, Peter Hughes, came out last week and said that when issues were raised, Mr Dunne commissioned an independent review to look into the matter and to report back to him what happened. Mr Dunne has fully accepted the findings of the review and has a substantial programme of work under way, which I have already alluded to, and he has done everything that I would expect a public servant chief executive to do in a situation like this.

So I welcome the Heron review. I welcome the findings of it. I will do what I need to do to make sure the changes are made, and I want to ensure that the commercial sector steps up as well.

EUGENIE SAGE (Green): Tēnā koe, Mr Deputy Speaker. I think the Minister for Primary Industries had a bit of a Freudian slip there when he started talking about his review of fisheries management being about restoring public confidence in the fishing industry, and then he remembered that that actually is not his job. It is interesting that this review, which the Minister has previously talked about as being a “high-level review” and which the ministry’s own website says is only a “pulse check”, has now been expanded slightly. But I do not think we can have any confidence in this review actually being independent or robust, because of the very sorry tale that we have seen in the Heron report about the way the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) actually operates.

That report shows that senior managers in the ministry actually made the decision to block prosecution when there was good video footage of this major problem of fish dumping in the investigation report for Operation Achilles. That could have gone to court, it could have been robust, but what did MPI do? It blocked that prosecution. I think we are seeing a Minister in denial about the issue of fish dumping. His responses in question time today to my questions just showed that he does not appreciate that it is a major problem. What the Minister and the Government are saying, in relation to the Simmons report—which was a comprehensive investigation involving interviews with several hundred people in the industry and amongst fishers showing that fish dumping is a problem, that the commercial industry is responsible for a major gap in the information that is reported to the ministry and what is actually caught, and that the industry is actually catching more than double what it is reporting to the ministry.

Why is this whole issue of fish dumping important? It is a problem not just because it results in fish being killed and wasted—fish that could stay in the sea and be available to recreational and customary fishers—but because it goes to the heart of fisheries management, because the catch information is critical to understanding what fish stocks are and then setting the catch limits. So if there is inaccurate information, if fishers are catching more than double what they are reporting, it means that the very information that fisheries management is based on is wrong and, therefore, we will not be getting sustainable management. It leads to very poor decisions in estimating fish stocks and then setting those catch limits.

As Dr Glenn Simmons said in his comprehensive report: “Reliable catch data is a basic and essential requirement for the effective management of New Zealand’s fisheries. It is fundamental to the assessment of fisheries stocks and for setting of [total allowable catches]. … Without reliable data, scientists, practitioners, and policy advisors cannot properly interpret fisheries trends, the effects of technology, or accurately evaluate the social and economic impact of actual or projected fisheries management measures. This inevitably leads to flawed decisions …”. So we have had what the Director of Fisheries Management just last year called a systemic problem that has been at the heart of the quota management system since day one, in 1986, yet the ministry and the Minister have failed to get on top of it.

We have had a discards working party going for 4 years—that has failed to get on top of it—yet we have the ministry keeping this quiet. It would not have come into the public domain if the Operation Achilles report had not been leaked and we had not had the Minister and ministry being pressured into establishing the Heron review. At the same time, in October 2014, when the Director of Fisheries Management was highlighting this systemic problem of dumping, we had the briefing report to the incoming Minister. Yet that briefing report fails to even bring to the Minister’s attention the issue of fish dumping.

We have had a ministry that is progressively reducing the attention it pays to fisheries management. The ministry was created in 2011—the stand-alone Ministry of Fisheries was absorbed into that big superministry. In the latest strategic intentions document, fisheries does not even get a separate stand-alone section in this document about what the strategic intentions of the ministry and the Minister are.

Under this Government, the whole key fundamentals of fisheries management are being disguised. The Government is not being transparent, despite the Minister claiming that transparency is a priority of his. In the strategic intentions document, fisheries barely gets a mention. We have not had the ministry bringing the issue of dumping to public attention; it has only been brought to public attention by the three universities—the University of British Columbia, Oxford University, and the University of Auckland—in the Simmons report highlighting the scale of the problem.

The Minister and the ministry are in denial. A third of New Zealanders say that they love to go fishing. They love to drop a line off a wharf; they love to drop a line off a boat. People want to ensure that we have healthy oceans and that we have enough fish in the sea. Yet this Minister seems to think that there will always be more fish in the sea without taking any action to stamp out fish dumping and ensure that every fish that is caught is used and used well. What we have is extensive wastage, and yet the Ministry for Primary Industries and this Minister are doing nothing to stamp that out.

This review that he has set in place is only a high-level review. If the Minister is saying that video cameras and surveillance are the answer, why is he allowing Trident Systems, a company that is owned by 14 fishing companies, to run that video camera monitoring? The public cannot have confidence in a system that has the fox in charge of the henhouse. That is what is happening with Trident Systems being responsible for video monitoring. We have had an independent company, Archipelago Marine Research, that has been shut out. It was Archipelago Marine Research’s work in Operation Achilles that provided the evidence that MPI could have used to prosecute, but did not.

Everyone is interested in healthy oceans and healthy fisheries, but there has been a huge undermining of public confidence when we have the major agency that is supposed to regulate fisheries management and is supposed to be promoting sustainable fisheries failing to prosecute those who break the law by doing extensive fish dumping. That has been a pattern in this ministry. We saw it last year with swamp kauri, where, again, the ministry failed to enforce the law and require that only manufactured and finished timber products were exported. This Minister is allowing his ministry to get alongside industry and fail to be independent. He is allowing his ministry to be captured by the industry by the way it pays for a lot of the administrative functions, and not do its job in enforcing the law.

Sustainable management is supposed to be the purpose of the Fisheries Act, yet when we have massive fish dumping, which not only wastes fish but also ensures that the information that is used to set catch limits is inaccurate, the industry is getting away with it and all the Minister can say is that it should pull its socks up. When you have got an industry that stands to make major profits by dumping fish that are too small to get a good price in the market, they will continue to dump fish. It will not be stopped until the ministry takes action, and, under this Minister, it is failing to do that.

We need the public to be confident that we have an independent regulator, not one that is captured by industry. That is why we need a full commission of inquiry, an independent and robust review into the quota management system, not just the Minister’s pulse check, which is the equivalent of a slap over the hand with a wet bus ticket. People want healthy oceans, they want healthy fisheries, but under this Government, which is prepared to allow the industry to continue to dump fish in large quantities, we are not going to get that. We need a change of Government.

RICHARD PROSSER (NZ First): Here we are at the beginning of a process that should have been begun possibly years ago, certainly months ago. I think it is a bit ironic—a bit on the nose—to hear the Greens suddenly start to jump up and down and call for a commission of inquiry, when that is exactly what New Zealand First did 3½ months ago. In fact—going back through some notes over just this year alone—as long ago as April, New Zealand First was calling for serious measures to be taken to prevent illegal fish dumping. What we were calling for then was increased surveillance on fishing boats—not simply on the decks of a few boats in a certain areas—but on all commercial boats that were bringing in catch, and also in the holds of those boats. It is one thing recording what comes on board a boat; it is quite another to turn a blind eye, or not have any kind of surveillance possible at all down below decks where there is still sorting, there is still high grading, and there is still dumping going on.

Back in May we repeated that call for New Zealand to move to a “land all catch” policy, as is followed by some other jurisdictions, notably Iceland, which has turned around its entire fishing industry from a very low-value industry to a very high-value industry by using some very sensible methods. Back in June, as I said, we called for a commission of inquiry because the quota management system (QMS) is now 30 years old. When it was first brought in, it was regarded as world leading, and back then it quite possibly was. But the world has changed. We have moved on. We have developed. We have evolved certain fishing practices—certainly in the more civilised parts of the world, where we like to count ourselves. The Minister does deserve some credit for the Fisheries (Foreign Charter Vessels and Other Matters) Amendment Act, which went through a couple of years ago, in which we moved to reflag foreign charter vessels from overseas flags to the New Zealand flag so that we could impose upon the owners of those boats decent wages, decent living conditions, and subject to New Zealand labour laws crews who were living in rat-like conditions and were, effectively, operating as slave labour. So they do deserve credit for that, but there is a great deal more that they could have done and should have done, and should really have started doing months ago when it was first suggested.

The short answer is that the QMS—although it was meant to be a measure which addressed the issue of too many boats chasing too few fish and overfishing being rampant—is actually now a cause of some of the problems that this industry faces, because of the way it has evolved over the last 30 years. High-grading—where fishers discard lesser-quality fish in order to bring in as much better-quality fish as they can within their quota allocation—happens because of the deemed-value provisions of the QMS. Any catch that is brought in over quota is deemed to be of a given value, which value fishers must pay to the Ministry of Primary Industries (MPI). It is most frequently more than what the fish can be sold for. So if a fisher brings in an extra tonne of snapper or an extra tonne of any variety that is over and above the quota that they hold, and they cannot find somebody else who holds additional quota that they are willing to lease or sell them, they need to pay that value to MPI. It is meant to discourage overfishing, but, in fact, it is the cause of it. Fishers know that landing catch outside of their limits is going to cost them, so they dump it instead.

The problem with that is the waste that it causes, because—and the Minister for Primary Industries mentioned the Precision Seafood Harvesting system, which is, effectively, a high-tech form of trawl net. I acknowledge that it is a better system than that which has been used in the past, but it has not had wide uptake yet. It is very much in a pioneering state, and it will take a while and a lot of investment before the industry begins to use that kind of technology as a standard. In the meantime, we still have people using traditional, old methods to bring in enormous catches of fish. When you pull a fish out of the water in a net, it is dead anyway. If you have careful handling of fish by people who know what they are doing, they can return undamaged fish to the sea in such a state that they remain alive—but the practical upshot of commercial fishing is that there is neither time nor the methods available in order for that to happen, so it just does not.

There is an allowance within the total allowable commercial catch for what is called “discard”. It is a given quantity of fish that is deemed acceptable for the industry to dump overboard, for various reasons. The problem is exacerbated by the market side of the fishing industry, where fish buyers specify what they want to fishers and to quota holders, in terms of size and species, and either they will not take or they will pay very little for anything that falls outside those parameters.

Our solution is to adopt the Icelandic system of “land all catch”, where all fish that are caught must be landed and must be processed, whether they are undersized or over quota or non-target species or whatever. Any fish that the fisher does not have the appropriate licence or quota for, in the Icelandic system, is then sold at auction, and the proceeds from those auctions go back into the industry. They go back into fisheries management, they go back into fisheries research, and they go back into fisheries policing. This incentivises fishers to target their desired quota species more accurately—the penalty for missing that target being that they do not make as much money as they could, rather than actually losing it by having to pay MPI a deemed value for fish that are not worth what they are being charged.

It also means that under that system the fish buyers do not get to dictate the market. One of the things about a consumer economy is that retailers, wholesalers, want to try to sell a particular product to a given target market that they believe has a desire for it. When we are dealing with a wild resource, sometimes that is just simply not sustainable. With a “land all catch” policy, the power to distort the state of the fishery itself is taken away from fish buyers. It results in a market that is much more honest, that is much more traditional, and that is much more sustainable.

The issue that we have with the results of the investigation released this week is that although the ministry was using its cameras to look for unintended dolphin bycatch as a result of incorrect fishing practices, what it also discovered was illegal dumping, which it chose not to prosecute on the grounds that this would discourage future cooperation from fishers. As we have heard from the Minister for Primary Industries, that may have been able to be partially justified in one case, but it certainly was not at all justified in the other. We are not yet confident that heads have rolled in a sufficient number and in the right places. In actual fact, it is something I think the Minister could do with taking a good, hard look at himself over.

We say that New Zealand as a society allows commercial fishers quota access to the fishery, which is a common property—it belongs to all of us—at no cost but within rules and guidelines, and that fishers have to remain within those rules and guidelines or get out of the fishery. We have created quota access to the fishery as a tradeable property right and gifted it to the industry. It might be that that was a mistake, but that was 30 years ago and that was the decision that was taken then. The solution may be to renationalise the fishery and move to a licensing system, as is operated in some other parts of the world, or it may not. The potential fish-hook in that—no pun intended—is that commercial fishers do have a right to make an honest living, and they do need some surety of access to the fishery in order to justify their continued investment and presence in it. So any licensing system that we brought in would have to be more than simply a lottery. These are the sorts of questions that need to be asked and answered by a commission of inquiry, which is why we keep calling for one.

It is all well and good for the Minister to say he is having another internal review. The time for internal reviews is over. We need a full commission of inquiry into the totality of fisheries management in New Zealand, recreational and commercial, starting at the top and working all the way through. Thirty years on from the beginning of the QMS it is time for this to be completely reinvestigated, and I am glad that we have got this opportunity to debate it this afternoon. I am disappointed that we had the likes of the Greens jumping on the bandwagon. It is good that people are backing our call for a commission of inquiry, but trying to claim credit for it themselves is a bit on the nose. If we do not move to a more sustainable system for managing our fishery, we will have no fishery left in very short order. Thank you very much.

IAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei): Mr Deputy Speaker—[Interruption] The place is falling apart.

Iain Lees-Galloway: That member’s falling apart.

IAN McKELVIE: Ha, ha! The Government welcomes the Heron report into the New Zealand fishing industry. As so often happens in these cases, it is inevitable that these reports lead to a great improvement in practice. I think that without reports and without investigations into the methods that we use as a country, for whatever it might be—whether it is fishing, farming, animal welfare, or whatever—it is very difficult to improve practices, so I am confident that this report will lead to the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) improving its practices significantly.

Just a little bit of background to the report: there were three fisheries investigations put out into the public arena some time earlier in the year. This is the third of them. In the first two, MPI made decisions not to prosecute commercial fishermen who were allegedly undertaking illegal activity. The reports found in those two instances that MPI was justified in not taking prosecution. In the third instance—this one—MPI’s decision not to prosecute has been found to be somewhat flawed. We heard from the Minister for Primary Industries, and he assured us that MPI will move swiftly to improve and rectify its processes. We also expect that fishers and fishing companies will improve their practices and obey the law where appropriate. The industry has proven in the past that it is capable of changing its methods very quickly, and I am sure this will be no exception.

I will go into a couple of instances where those changes have happened very quickly. A couple or 3 years ago, this Parliament debated the foreign charter vessels legislation, which, effectively, banned the use of foreign charter vessels in New Zealand waters. It was very hotly debated at the time by the fishing industry. There was significant concern that some entities in New Zealand would not be able to use their quota and they would not have access to the fishing vessels and practices they needed in order to catch the number of fish that they were entitled to catch. That has proved to be flawed, as the foreign charter vessel fishing legislation was introduced very quickly into New Zealand and picked up very quickly by the companies and the entities that owned quota or fishing vessels. It is a little bit like a farmer getting rid of his “Fergie” TEA—it significantly improved the equipment available to the fishing industry. So, as this sort of process happens, it enables the fishing industry to pick up new technology and move very quickly.

The other thing that has happened in the fishing industry that I think has highlighted a very successful activity—and, interestingly, has come about as a result of the Primary Growth Partnership between the fishing industry, Aotearoa Fisheries, Sanford, and Sealord—is the Precision Seafood Harvesting system, which has enabled the fishing industry to make great progress in the way it catches its fish and the way fish are preserved and not damaged as they go through the process. So this sort of technology will come along, and will continue to come along, and will improve our opportunities as a country to lead the world in fishing practice, with our monitoring systems and the way our fishing industry preserves fish for its long-term future.

If fishermen do not have the appropriate quota for the species that they catch, they pay a penalty for what is known as a “deemed value”. The Ministry for Primary Industries sets these penalties. If you think about the way the deemed value is set, it is hugely important that the balance is right in this respect, as it encourages those fishing companies that are catching fish that they do not have quota for to dispose of those fish—return them to the sea. If that balance is not correct, it is going to create a practice that is not necessarily in our best interests. It is very important that that process is managed in an appropriate manner, and MPI has a challenge with how it does that. I think also, when you come to dealing with things like deemed value and a catch that you cannot manage, there is clearly room for significant improvement in the types of processes and the methods we use to catch those fish. If we can either retain them and use them or return them to the sea intact, we will be a whole lot better off. So there is some progress that I think will be made in that area. It is important that we do—and it is important that MPI moves very quickly to encourage the fishing industry to, I guess, pick up new technology—find new ways of managing the process and get on with their business of fishing in a satisfactory manner.

The Government, as I said earlier, welcomes the report. There are opportunities for us to improve very quickly what is going on. The ministry will move very quickly, and it has proved that in many other areas in the last few years—when you think about MPI, it has some significant challenges. It manages our biosecurity, and it manages almost everything related to our farming systems, which, of course, produce most of New Zealand’s income. I think it has been impressive in the way it has picked up a lot of the challenges it has had around animal welfare and biosecurity particularly. I am confident MPI has the ability and the strength to move very quickly in this area as well. I do not think there is any doubt we will see a significant improvement in processes around this industry and around these practices as we move forward.

The Government will respond to this report very quickly. There are a number of actions that MPI will undertake: obviously, a review of the compliance functions, with an aim to providing clearer national leadership and accountability for fisheries compliance; and, secondly, reviewing and updating MPI prosecution policy and guidelines, with input from Crown Law. I think it is quite apparent that towards the end of this year the Minister will be coming back to this House with legislation to capture some of the actions that MPI deems necessary to rectify some of the issues that have been identified in this and the two previous reports produced this year.

I will not take any more time of the House on this issue, but I am confident that the Government, as a result of this report and as a result of this debate today, will move very quickly in this area. I think, like many other challenges that we face as a country, we will deal with this very quickly. Thank you.

KELVIN DAVIS (Labour—Te Tai Tokerau): I have to say that this issue really brasses me off. To go online, download the video, and see a half-hour-long video of fishermen hauling in fish and throwing hundreds, if not thousands, of fish over the side into the water, dead, just absolutely makes my blood boil.

You see, I am a keen recreational fisherman. It is an intergenerational attribute. My grandfather was a keen fisherman, as is my mother. My father-in-law, on my wife’s, side was a keen fisherman. My brothers and brothers-in-law are all keen fishermen, as I am, and now even my son is a keen fisherman. But here is the thing: we play by the rules. When we go fishing up North—I have got a boat, and we go out fishing on the boat. I have got a net. We can go out to Ninety Mile Beach and we can net for mullet. We have got flounder spears. We go out at night with the lights and spear flounder. We have got a longline. I have got a kite—you set it out, you put on your 25 hooks, and let it blow out to sea. When it comes back in, hopefully you have got a catch for the day. My son and I go right up to the end of Ninety Mile Beach, and we camp overnight and we fish together. It is something that we love to do.

So it just makes my blood boil that people like myself and all the other thousands of recreational fishermen and fisherwomen who play by the rules will get penalised and, potentially, prosecuted if we get a 29-centimetre snapper instead of a 30-centimetre snapper. If we get eight snapper instead of seven snapper, we have the potential of having the law thrown at us, and most probably will. We just need to watch that documentary Coastwatch, where the honorary fisheries officers are going around the coastline and pulling up people for having 200 pipis in their bucket instead of 150 pipis in their bucket. All us little people will get the book thrown at us, but we can go online and we can see commercial fishermen throwing thousands and thousands and thousands of fish—tonnes of fish—overboard. And what happens to them? Absolutely nothing. I thought this Government was the one that was tough on crime. Well, let me tell you, it is a crime to throw fish overboard. What happens to the fishermen? Nothing. Why is that? Because those commercial fishermen are the mates of this Government.

Just imagine how many people all that fish could feed. I was brought up to not waste a single skerrick of fish. You eat the heads, you eat the eyeballs, and you save the backbones and you fry them up the next day. I have not gone so far, I have to admit, as to do what my uncle does. When he catches a snapper he just cuts it open, takes the liver out, and eats it raw, on the spot. I have not actually graduated to that level yet. But the fact of the matter is that if you could make the scales palatable, we would probably be eating those as well. We do not waste anything, and yet we look at the amount of wastage that we are seeing in these videos and see that these people have been able to do it. Six companies were investigated, and what happened to them? Five of them were seen to be throwing fish overboard, and nothing whatsoever happened to them.

What evidence do we need that something is wrong? We just need to look at the video footage, the video evidence, and make a decision based on that. But, instead, we have had a report that has come out and says: “The Ministry for Primary Industries accepts it made flawed decisions in deciding not to prosecute fishing boat skippers”. I say it was not flawed; I say it was downright dumb, absolutely stupid. What happens if somebody gets away with doing this sort of thing and they are not held to account? It is just an incentive to do it again. The Minister stood here and said that he has told the industry to pull up its socks. That is an intimidating threat, is it not? I was a school principal and a schoolteacher for 20 years. When I told kids to pull up their socks, that was an invitation to them to just keep their socks down. That is what the fishing industry is doing.

It is very interesting to see that Martyn Dunne, Director-General of the Ministry for Primary Industries, dumped the report on a Friday and that very same day said that it was time to move on. Well, time for who to move on? Just sweep it under the carpet and pretend that this did not happen? That is wrong. These people need to be held to account. They need to know that it is unacceptable to just dump fish overboard.

Actually, I remember the day when three mates and I jumped in our boat. We went fishing out on the East Coast, in Doubtless Bay, from Mangonui. We got out a couple of kilometres, threw the anchor in, and were sitting there, enjoying the sun, enjoying the fishing, with our four lines over the side. Then my mate goes: “Oh, there’s a dead fish.” We looked over. “Oh, so there is. There’s a little snapper, belly up, just drifting past us.” Then we go: “Oh, there’s another one, there’s another one.” We looked around, and drifting past us was probably a couple of acres of dead snapper, just drifting by, floating past us. We thought: “Hmm, OK.” It was actually the time when all those algal blooms were going on, and we thought that maybe these fish had died because of the bloom. But it was interesting that there were only small snapper. No other species were floating by us.

I wonder, now, whether some fishing boat fishing off the East Coast of the North Island, off Northland, had realised it had all these, basically, goldfish, and so it just dumped them and let them float, hoping that they might float out to sea. Unfortunately, the wind and the tides worked against the fish and they floated back towards land, where we saw them. Thousands and thousands of fish were being wasted. We were sitting there not getting a bite—not a skerrick of a bite—and we wondered why. It was because some fishing vessel had probably been past and whipped up all the fish, and there was nothing left for the recreational fishers.

While I am on it, here is an issue that absolutely drives us mad up North, particularly around the time of the Snapper Classic in March up on Ninety Mile Beach, when a thousand recreational fishermen come by. You can always guarantee that a week to the day before that fishing competition happens, there will be these commercial fishermen coming in at night. People on the beach can actually hear the crews talking while they go past and dredge up all the fish. Basically, if you actually catch a snapper in the Snapper Classic in March you are pretty lucky, because the commercial fishermen have been coming in to within a kilometre of the coastline catching up all the fish before the recreational fishermen have an opportunity to have a crack at it.

It is the recreational fishermen and fisherwomen who are actually having to pay for the fact that commercial fishermen are able to go out, rape and pillage the resource, and dump the fish they do not want overboard. We are threatened. I read something within just the last couple of weeks where there is talk that perhaps we do have to drop the recreational fishing catch down again. In 1986 it was 30 fish—well, 30 is a bit excessive. You do not need 30 fish to feed your family. It is now seven fish, up North, and they are talking about maybe having to look at a catch of two. My son and his three friends went out, as you do up North, a couple of weekends ago at night with the longline. Four 17-year-old teenagers put out the torpedo—25 hooks. They pulled it in and they had 12 fish. That is three per person. What you do up North, of course, is you take the fish home and what you do not eat you give to the neighbours, aunties and uncles, or friends, so it never ever goes to waste. What would have happened if the catch was reduced to two is those four teenagers would have actually broken the law by catching 12 fish, because if the catch had been reduced to two—as has been contemplated in the article I read—they would have overcaught by four fish.

Our way of life up North and our way of life around the country—your right to go out and catch a feed for your family—is jeopardised, not because we are overfishing as recreational fishers but because these commercial guys are able to go out, fill up their nets, chuck away what they do not want, and keep the other ones. I saw on that video that the commercial fishermen were catching dogfish. Dogfish is absolutely beautiful to eat. My son and I, when we have been up the beach, have pulled in a dogfish, filleted it on the spot, cooked it for breakfast in butter—it is absolutely beautiful. I saw these dogfish just being chucked over the side. What an absolute waste. The commercial fishermen are the people who need to be held to account. They should have been prosecuted. Thank you.

SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): I am pleased to be able to take a call in this urgent debate, because I have the privilege of representing an electorate where fishing and what goes on on the water and in the water around my electorate of the beautiful Coromandel is terribly important to tens of thousands of people who use that area for recreational fishing, but it is also important for those people who earn their living commercially fishing in the waters around my electorate.

I listened very carefully this afternoon to the opening contribution by the Minister, the Hon Nathan Guy, when he said that he welcomed this report and that there were some valuable lessons for the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) in it. He said that he accepted the Heron report and that there is no doubt that the decision not to prosecute in the case of Operation Achilles when that was an option is indeed regrettable. Absolutely, I endorse the Minister’s comments made earlier this afternoon.

I know that MPI places an enormous importance on sustainability, and that is important not only for us who are fishing today but for those of us who have children and grandchildren who want to fish in years to come. MPI has, I think, learnt a valuable lesson from Operation Achilles, and one of the important learnings from that regrettable non-action is that there needs to be better, more obvious use of the cameras in enforcement, and of the material and the footage that can be gained from those. These are matters that are very important to me as a local member of Parliament.

I want to make the point to the House that it is my understanding that even though that trial of cameras is going on in the Snapper 1 region in my electorate, that footage—the footage that is gained from those cameras—can now be used in cases in court as legal evidence, and that is a very big step forward. There are, I am told, 15 vessels commercially fishing in the Snapper 1 area, and so those cameras are terribly important in terms of the compliance and the future compliance of those operators in that area.

One of the important things about the Snapper 1 region that encompasses my electorate is that it is the mix of the commercial fishing, the recreational fishing, and also the customary fishing that is important. The Minister has set up a multi-sector working group for Snapper 1 made up of those three interested stakeholders—the recreational, the customary, and the commercial fishers—and, for the first time, such a multi-sector working group is looking at a long-term plan to increase the total fishing biomass in the area. The plan is to increase the biomass by 40 percent by 2040, and by 30 percent by 2025. That, ultimately, means that there are going to be more fish in the Snapper 1 region, and that is good for those people who come from near and far to fish the waters around the Coromandel, but also for those people who live in and around the Coromandel who fish there now.

I want to pick up on a point that was made by Mr Prosser in his contribution to this debate, and that is the undoubted benefit that can come from the new technologies that are going to be available to commercial fishers. The precision fishing technique clearly has advantages for the sector, and that will mean that the fish stock that is caught will be in better condition, alive when it is hauled aboard, and will possibly gain a better price, a higher price, in markets both domestically and internationally. But more importantly, it means that the bycatch can actually be sorted and returned to the sea in a state that means it can continue to thrive and prosper.

These are important technological advances. This is an important debate. The Minister is on the money; he was right on the mark accepting the report. There are valuable lessons here for MPI to learn, and we all acknowledge that.

Hon NANAIA MAHUTA (Labour—Hauraki-Waikato): There is an old saying that goes “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.”, and something stinks here. People are joining the dots and they are thinking about Skycity, they are thinking about the Saudi sheep deal, and now they know something really stinks with the illegal dumping of fish.

The question I want to ask in my brief contribution is: how long did the Minister sit on this information? We know it was for years, based on some of the information that was gathered; but he just sat there. It had the potential to erode the reputation of our fishing industry, and the Minister did nothing—nothing at all. It was an issue that had the potential to erode the confidence in our sustainable quota management system (QMS), and he did nothing. Why was that?

There was information out in the public domain. The Ministry of Fisheries had raised it with the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI), but MPI and the Minister did not act. Why did they wait until 2016, when ex-Solicitor-General Heron produced a report that said that the decision in 2012 not to prosecute those ships that dumped fish was flawed? Why did he wait so long? That is the question that everybody will be asking. You can rationalise everything after the event as much as you want, but people right now are looking at this issue and saying: “Something stinks. Why didn’t he act when he had the information, and do what he should have done when he could have?”. It is as simple as that, because if we do not have accurate reporting of fishing and what is taken, and if there is not reporting of what gets dumped, then how can you have any credibility in your QMS?

New Zealand was seen to be a forerunner of moving into the sustainable fisheries space when it introduced the QMS. But it did rely on good reporting and accurate information, and here we have compelling evidence to do more. The fact that in the bycatch, in the large number of dumpings that have occurred, a Hector’s dolphin was a part of that bycatch—it is all in the report. Still, the Government just sat and did nothing. We want to promote New Zealand as a country that wants to protect the marine ecosystem, yet nothing was done when it could have been.

The other issue, which I think is of more concern to laypeople who are trying to peel their way through this particular issue, is how it is, at a time when we are trying to promote New Zealand as a sustainable country—one that has a high-quality export product in our meat and in our fish—that we are not doing more to try to regulate the system. That is a real worry because, as my colleague David Parker has identified, no one was really policing illegal practices, yet they knew something was happening in this space. So, more needs to be done.

We need to get on top of illegal fish dumping and ensure that we can breathe confidence back into the QMS and better manage fisheries stocks. But I think this will be a matter of trying to do things on the backwash—trying to make good of a very bad situation. The Minister had the opportunity to act, he had information—compelling evidence that was captured by video tape—yet he chose to sit and do nothing. That is just not good enough. The fisheries quota is worth approximately $3.5 billion to our economy, so to not do anything at a time when necessary decisions need to be made, I think puts everything at risk.

But most of all—and this is a comment raised by my colleague Kelvin Davis—it erodes the confidence in those fishers who fish legally, who are doing things by the book, who want confidence in our QMS, and who want to ensure that there is greater regulation within the sector. That is what doing nothing has meant to those who do it by the book, who do it the right way—it is that everybody now comes under a cloud of doubt.

There has been some comment about fishers in Hauraki. Can I say that, yes, they are doing very well there. They are concerned, however, about the way in which the marine protected areas legislation is going to be brought into effect, about not basing decisions on good evidence and practice in the Hauraki, and the impact it will have on those 15 commercial fishers. I have met with them. They are not entirely happy with the Government’s moves in this area.

There is more to do. Let us hope that the Minister does not sit for a long period of time and that he comes up with some practical solutions to this very difficult situation. As for illegal dumping of fish, the Minister sat for far too long before he did anything.

STUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): Well, like the Minister, I welcome the Heron report. I think it is a good report, and although we might not like some of the things that have come out, or the reason for the report, that is precisely what good governance is about—it is about ensuring that we get to the bottom of these things. In the report, Mike Heron found that the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) decision not to prosecute in two of the three cases was the correct decision. In the third case, Operation Achilles, both the decision and the methodology used—or the process leading up to that decision—were flawed. But the report also acknowledges that it is a very complex situation, and there was quite a bit of confusion around the legal admissibility of the camera footage.

As someone who was involved in the formation of a sustainable wine growing programme, sustainability is something very dear to my heart. It is something I care deeply about, and I think I would like to see more of those processes across other industries than just the wine industry. So seeing this situation and how it is played out, it is very disappointing. But I think we have heard some very long bows being drawn in this debate this afternoon. The assertion that recreational fisheries have been impacted and that all of the blame is on commercial fishing is naive. I think doing that does not admit that everybody has an impact on the environment in some way or other, and you have got to own your part of it. I think it was very disappointing to hear that, and we have also heard some other strange things come out as well.

I want to focus on sustainable management in our fisheries. There are three aspects to that: customary, recreational, and commercial fishing. I would like to point out four key points. The Minister has been involved with and has moved very quickly in a multi-sector group, the Blue Cod Management Group, managing a fishery that has a commercial aspect to it as well as a recreational aspect in the Marlborough Sounds. That group worked solidly together and got right to the bottom of the issue—the very nub of the issue—going right down to what impacts on the breeding of fish, as well as the impacts of fishing itself. That management group worked for quite some time. The Minister recognised, I think, the wisdom of getting everyone together to work on these issues. The work of that group has led to a decision to close the fishery, and then to get rid of the slot rule, to lower the bag limit, and get all of the rules around that fishery and how it is being managed done in a right and proper way. And it has got community buy-in. People who told me they did not like the rules, and were breaking the rules because they thought the rules were an ass, are now actually right in behind it and they own that fishery. I think that is really a major step forward and I take my hat off to the Minister.

Also, we have seen likewise in the scallop fishery. The scallop fishery in the Marlborough Sounds is now closed—for both the recreational and commercial fishers. The damage from the dredging in the Marlborough Sounds is a subject of fierce debate. As a former farmer, as well, I know that you cannot keep ploughing the ground over and over and not have an impact. Dredging on the bottom of the seabed is absolutely having an impact. In effect, you are seeing the fines coming to the top. The mud is so fine that it is going through—when the scallops and other shellfish filter the sea water through their systems those fines block them up, and that is believed to be one of the main issues causing a problem. But there is also a theory that it is impacting wider on the cod fishery. There is no evidence of that at this stage, but it is a theory. So all of the sustainable management has been looking at that, and commercial and recreational fishing is completely banned in the Marlborough Sounds as a result of that group—yet again, another sustainable step put forward by the Minster.

The third point I want to make is about pāua. I have had commercial pāua fishermen in my office really lobbying me to lobby the Minister to lower the commercial pāua catch in the Pāua 7 fishery because they are very concerned about the sustainability of that fishery. The Minister announced just a little while ago that in Pāua 7 the catch is, in fact, being reduced by 50 per cent to manage that fishery sustainably. I applaud the Minister for taking that bold step. There are people who are not happy with that, but they are putting their own interests ahead of the fishery. If we do not manage the fisheries, there will not be a fishery. That is pretty simple, really.

The fourth point I would like to make—which has already been touched on by my colleague Ian McKelvie—is about precision harvesting technology, which was a result of a Primary Growth Partnership (PGP) project. That will go a long way to dealing with undersize fish being caught, because the fish self-select through the device in the net, so they do not end up in the net. Fish are brought on board alive, which opens up a market for live fish going overseas that as yet has been unable to be accessed, which is worth a lot of money for New Zealanders. I think it is a marvellous piece of technology. I take my hat off to the Minister, actually, again, because the PGP project is exactly the type of thing and result that we would hope would come from this sort of technology—that it goes right through to the market, reaching further up the value chain, which is exactly where we want to be.

I think some of the other issues that we need to remember are that GPS and camera technology, which are now being put on those boats, is going to go a long way to managing these issues and ensuring these things will not occur in the long run. I come back to the issue and all of the shroud-waving that has been going on across the other side. The quota management system—if it is really such a problem and is as big a problem as everyone is saying, then perhaps we have underestimated the size of the fishery. It would be in severe trouble if what has been mentioned today was actually really the problem. The Minister will move, I am sure, very quickly and adopt the recommendations from the Heron report. I think the Minister did what one would expect from anyone in that position—to wait until they got right and proper advice and then to move on it, and I think that is absolutely the right thing to do.

So I would like to finish just by circling back and reinforcing the point with actions such as the Blue Cod Management Group in the Marlborough Sounds and how that fishery is being managed, with the management of the scallop fishery in the Marlborough Sounds and how that is now a closed fishery, and we also have Pāua 7, which is now being cut by 50 percent to manage that fishery. We see precision harvesting technology that is making a large difference and will go a long way to dealing with these issues in the future. The technology, such as GPS and camera technology on fishing boats in the future, I think will go a long way to ensuring these sorts of issues do not happen again. It is not great when we are in these situations, but it is not the situation you are in, it is how you manage it, and I would put the point very strongly that it is being very well managed. Thank you.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.

Bills

Evidence Amendment Bill

Third Reading

Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (Attorney-General) on behalf of the Minister of Justice: I move, That the Evidence Amendment Bill be now read a third time. At its core, this bill is going to reduce unnecessary trauma and better protect victims who become involved in the court processes through no fault of their own. Being a victim of sexual violence or a child witness who is called to give evidence can, obviously, be a truly harrowing experience, but often these testimonies are critical for the case. The changes in this bill are a major step in delivering on the Government’s aim to improve the experience of child witnesses and victims of sexual violence in the courtroom. So it is absolutely essential that the rules of evidence are kept clear, up to date, and working as intended to try to address this sort of issue. A well-drafted and up-to-date Evidence Act is vital to a well-functioning and fair justice system.

As required by section 202 of the Evidence Act, the Law Commission undertook a periodic review of the legislation in 2013 and found that it was generally working very well. In my opinion, that is not surprising, given the excellent work done by Parliament way back in 2006 when the original legislation was introduced—and I refer, particularly, to the subcommittee of the Justice and Electoral Committee, which was chaired by Russell Fairbrother, then a Labour MP; and assisted by Richard Worth, Nandor Tanczos, and me. We had the assistance of Robert Fisher, an Auckland Queen’s Counsel who acted as special adviser. I think the legislation was very good when it was passed in 2006, but one of the ideas was to have a periodic review. So this is what the Law Commission did, and it recommended a number of technical changes, and the bill progresses all but one.

The bill includes three core changes: to improve the court process for child witnesses, to enhance the court process for complainants in sexual offence cases, and to introduce important safeguards for video record evidence. So let me look at each of those issues—first, child witnesses. Last year, around 450 child witnesses gave evidence in criminal court cases, with a large proportion being complainants in sex abuse cases. The changes we are making will help those witnesses. Giving evidence is a very tough experience no matter what the circumstances, but for children it is especially traumatic. We know that most children, especially those who are very young, are already giving evidence in alternative ways, so the bill creates a presumption that child witnesses give evidence through the video of their police interview via a closed-circuit television or from behind a screen. Generally, a legislative presumption will ensure the alternatives are used consistently all across our courts for those witnesses under the age of 18 years. Encouraging these alternatives will help to shield child witnesses from the more intimidating aspects of the evidence-gathering process, like facing the defendant in the public gallery.

Another of the bill’s measures to protect child witnesses is the automatic entitlement to have a support person with them when they are giving evidence. Judges will oversee this entitlement, to avoid, obviously, any risk of improper influence being exerted by the nominated support person. So, hopefully, these changes are going to improve the court process for child witnesses and reduce that trauma. We also know that when children are less stressed, their evidence tends to be more accurate, so these changes will have flow-on benefits for the justice system as a whole.

The second topic is the issue of sexual offence cases, and the second part of the bill is about allowing sexual violence complainants to be better prepared for questioning. Concerns have been raised about the fact that in criminal trials for sexual offences, the victim is, effectively, put on trial when evidence is called about their sexual history. It is insulting and it is offensive to suggest that any assault was less of an offence because of the number of partners, for example, a woman had or anything else in her sexual history. So we are introducing a requirement that the defence gives notice before a trial begins if they intend to introduce evidence along those lines with a person other than the defendant. Currently, permission to introduce this evidence can be sought at any time during a trial. Admissibility of the evidence would be determined before the trial, which not only allows the trial to proceed uninterrupted but also gives the victim time to come to terms with what is going to be discussed in court. We need to make what is an inherently stressful process as undemanding as possible for victims, and a part of that is to ensure complainants can be prepared for what is going to happen during the trial.

The third issue involves the introduction of safeguards. The bill places restrictions and safeguards on defence counsel access to these video records in sexual and violent cases, and in all cases involving the child witness. It is never going to be easy for a victim of a sexual crime to come forward and make a complaint and then relive their painful experiences in a courtroom facing the judge, the jury, legal counsel, often the media, and the person who is alleged to have offended against them. In cases like these, police interviews with vulnerable witnesses are often recorded and used at the trial as the witness’s evidence in chief. The bill places some additional restrictions on how these videos can be dealt with to ensure they do not end up in the wrong hands or the wrong place. These amendments mean that the defence will no longer have an automatic right to a copy of the video. However, fair trial rights are preserved by the bill. The defence will still have the ability to view the video evidence and to apply to the court for a copy. In the digital age, it is critical that we ensure these legal protections are preserved.

The bill also introduces offences and penalties for improper dealing with video record evidence. Under these changes it will be an offence to possess, copy, or supply video records outside what is prescribed in the Act or in regulations. The maximum penalties for improper use will range from a significant fine to 6 months’ imprisonment. So, hopefully, these changes will support witnesses in sexual violence cases and all child complainants.

Finally, I want to say something about other work that is under way, because this bill will complement the other initiatives already under way to provide better support to victims of crime. These include allowing victims of family violence to give evidence via a video record made by the police on their iPhone at the scene, as often happens now; the strengthening safety service, which has helped 2,600 victims of family violence and their families since it was introduced in October 2014; and the Integrated Safety Response pilot in Christchurch, which brings together a range of agencies and aims to ensure that families experiencing family violence are safe and receive the services they need to prevent further harm. The Minister is also considering the Law Commission’s recommendations to improve the court experience of victims of sexual violence. So there is a lot of work in this area.

In closing, I want to thank the Law Commission, the Justice and Electoral Committee, and those who made submissions on this very important topic. I commend the bill to the House.

Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour): I thank the Attorney-General for his comments. I agree with him that the state of the Evidence Act in New Zealand is very good, in large part because of the expertise that was brought to bear by the ministry. There were very good advisers then at the Ministry of Justice. It would have been Warren Young back then, would it not, Mr Attorney, who would have been—

Hon Christopher Finlayson: Yes, Warren Young.

Hon DAVID PARKER: —in the Ministry of Justice, and this is probably also through his efforts at the Law Commission at one stage. And an expert committee with the experience and expertise of Russell Fairbrother and Chris Finlayson as well as Robert Fisher meant that there was a high-quality piece of legislation passed in this House in 2006 in the form of the Evidence Act. It is a very, very long Act, the Evidence Act, and very complex. And the fact that here we go, 7 years later, putting it through a review, and that we have got this few amendments, actually shows, I think, what a good job Parliament did in 2006 when it passed the Evidence Act.

I will traverse the main points of the bill, but before doing so I note that the Minister ended by talking about some of the other issues or initiatives that are being pursued by the Government, including iPhone evidence taken by constables at the scene of a domestic violence incident, thus enabling the evidence of the complainant to be taken once and to be taken quickly while their memory is still fresh. They do not have to arrange child care for their children while they go down to the police station to make a statement, and I think it is truly in the interests of justice that we facilitate that sort of gathering of evidence and the use of that evidence at trial should charges be laid.

I do have a personal concern that we need to be very careful about one of the proposals that is currently about, which is to say that in some of these sexual crimes we ought not to have a trial by jury. I am yet to be convinced that that is right. Trial by jury has been an essential component of the criminal justice system for many centuries, and I am not convinced we should drop it. You have got to think about what would happen 20 or 30 years hence if you had a deterioration in your democracy and perhaps a poor Government.

I am not suggesting that any of the parties here currently would necessarily act like this, but you have to guard against the potential for having a poor Government in the future that brings inappropriate prosecutions. Such a Government might bring an inappropriate prosecution because, for example, there might have been a breakdown in the independence of the role of the police, and you could have politically motivated prosecutions, as you see in some other jurisdictions overseas. One of the fundamental protections you have against that in society is trial by jury. At that time you really can, in my opinion, rely upon juries to do the just thing. So I, for one, would be very reluctant to give up the right for a defendant or an accused to elect trial by jury in serious cases.

In respect of the main aspects of this legislation, I agree that the three main improvements in the bill are improved rules around child witnesses. Already, as the Attorney-General, Chris Finlayson, has said, most child witnesses give evidence either at a distance or behind a screen. It is, as he has said, a tough thing to do, particularly when the person against whom evidence is being given is often a family member. So it is very, very hard for the child concerned, and we need to protect those children from that experience being any more difficult than it has to be.

Obviously, there are certain circumstances when the accused, through their lawyer, still has to be able to ask questions of the child witness, and not all of the rigours of trial can be avoided. But it can be made less tough through some of the protections such as the change that is made in this bill, which, rather than it being a matter of discretion on the day, creates a presumption that the child witness can give evidence by one of those other methods that are slightly less stressful. That presumption can be overturned in some situations by a court, but that is for the court to determine. The presumption is now made by this law.

In respect of victims in sexual crimes being tested as to their prior sexual history, I agree that it is appropriate that it be done pre-trial, that advanced notice be given so that people can get used to the idea, and also so that a question can be asked by the trial judge: “Is this really necessary?”, and sometimes it will not be necessary. Through this process I think it will probably occur slightly less often. Sometimes it will be necessary and is relevant, and not determinative, but these processes will do that in a better way too.

In respect of video evidence, what the Attorney-General was hinting at was that there are some horrible people in society who will actually use the videos of evidence against the person who has given the evidence. So they will put them on the web, or they will share them amongst other people, or they will just use them as an angle to further abuse the person who is giving evidence. We should not condone that, and given that there are some people with that propensity, and given that there are copying techniques that did not use to exist, we have got to keep the law up to date and we have got to make sure that that does not happen. So I think it is absolutely appropriate that we introduce through this legislation controls on the access to video evidence of witnesses in sexual crimes, for example.

I mention one other thing that is fixed up by this bill. The rule against hearsay has an exception in respect of business records. Normally, the evidence that is tendered at a trial has to be evidence of someone who is in the position to give the best first-hand evidence of what is being deposed to in that evidence. There is an exception in respect of business records, because you can normally rely upon, prima facie, the evidence of a bank statement being accurate as to what it presents. So if there is a deposit made on 1 July for $10,000 and it shows D Parker as the source of it on the coding on the bank statement, you can generally rely on the bank getting that right and there is no need to call evidence to prove that there was, in fact, a deposit by D Parker on that date for $10,000. The business record can be accepted on its face. It can obviously be cross-examined if there is a doubt as to whether there is some fraudulence around that transaction or the like, but, generally, prima facie, that can be accepted on its face as an exception to the rule against hearsay.

That exception to the rule against hearsay is found in the Evidence Act, but it was drafted in a way that was so broad as to encompass a witness statement given to a police officer as falling within the definition of a business record—that is, the record that the police kept of the interview of the witness—and it was not intended that that be the case. In that case you would actually, fairly, want to have the witness who gave the statement to the police turn up to give evidence themselves and tell the court, the jury, or the judge what their evidence is, rather than just tendering a statement from the police of their record of the interview—because the viva voce evidence of the witness is better evidence than the statement by the police officer, which might be edited or it might not be a perfect recollection, or there could have been some misinterpretation of what was said, and it is better to get the evidence of the person themselves.

So this Evidence Amendment Bill makes it clear that the business record exception to the rule against hearsay does not include a police record that contains any statement or interview by, or with, an eyewitness or a complainant or any other person who purports to have knowledge or information about the circumstances of the alleged offending. So that is tidied up by this provision.

Can I thank the select committee for their work, and thank the submitters to the select committee, including the Law Society, who do a lot of really good work in this area in the public interest as volunteers, giving of their own time to make sure that the law we have is better than it would otherwise be. The Labour Party will be supporting this bill at its third reading, as we have in earlier stages of the bill. Thank you.

JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki): I want to thank the previous speaker David Parker for his good summary of the provisions of this Evidence Amendment Bill. As we work our way through the third reading—which means that we are getting ever closer to the enactment of this important piece of legislation—I just want to preface a few comments about the contents of this bill with a number of other initiatives that this Government has undertaken to put the victim at the heart of the justice system and, in particular, the provisions in this bill pertaining to protecting children as they give witness in court trials.

We have already done a number of measures to support the fight against family violence. There was the introduction of police safety orders to help manage family violence situations. We have up to 1,000 victims of family violence who are now kept safe in their own homes, and that is by way of the new National Home Safety Service. With some very simple interventions like alarm systems, locks on windows and doors, and other measures, this has allowed victims—who for some considerable time have felt fearful and afraid—to now feel safe in their homes for the very first time. There is a ministerial group with Ministers from across 16 portfolios that is focusing on family and sexual violence, which will oversee a whole-of-Government strategy for addressing family and sexual violence, and, of course, recently announced last week is a complete overhaul of family violence laws. I do expect and hope that the select committee in charge, if it is the Justice and Electoral Committee, will consider that bill with a lot of serious attention.

For the third reading of this Evidence Amendment Bill, I will not go into too much detail about the main provisions. In the third reading, with agreement across the House, I think the provisions have been well rehearsed over the course of the passage of this bill. I do just want to touch on the provisions around the changes in court processes for those vulnerable witnesses, and, in particular, children. It is about the presumption that child witnesses give evidence in alternative ways and have a right to a support person. Currently, under the Evidence Act, the prosecutor has to apply to the court for the use of alternative ways of giving evidence, and the judge must then give her or his permission for a child witness to have a support person. One of the very strong recommendations of the Law Commission, and one of the very strong submissions made to the Justice and Electoral Committee when we were considering this bill, was that, fundamentally, this was a provision that needed to be brought up to date to recognise the rights and needs of vulnerable children when they are required to give evidence in court. Along with the presumption that all child witnesses will use alternative ways of giving evidence, it also gives children the right to have a support person. For those two provisions alone, it is a very good reason for us to enact this bill not with undue haste, but I think with all speed.

It is a bill that enjoys wide support through this House—and so it should do—because this bill better protects vulnerable witnesses, while also ensuring that evidence is heard and handled appropriately and securely. Look, we never can legislate our way out of the pain and suffering felt by victims, but what this Parliament is doing, rightly, is ensuring that vulnerable victims and witnesses are better supported through their participation in the justice process.

Again, I again want to acknowledge the hard work of the Justice and Electoral Committee, and with those comments, I commend this bill to the House.

JACINDA ARDERN (Labour): I want to acknowledge the comments that have been made from colleagues on both sides of the House. I think the Hon David Parker made a very astute observation when he noted the fact that the Evidence Act 2006 was really the first version of a consolidated Act to dictate and govern the use of evidence in court. The fact that this is our first attempt to review the Evidence Act, following on from the Law Commission’s work in 2013, I think, demonstrates that the original drafting was actually very, very good. So I want to begin by acknowledging that.

Other speakers have briefly touched on the substantive amendments that this bill makes. They include enabling more previous consistent statements to be admissible in evidence. We had quite a bit of discussion around the way the law dictates the use of admissible and consistent/inconsistent statements to be used in the court, and extending the privilege that currently applies to settlement negotiations and mediation in civil proceedings to include plea discussions in criminal proceedings. I think it is useful here to clarify that the Evidence Act is really just stipulating what is already practice, and that is privilege covering plea discussions in criminal proceedings.

But when I read this it did trigger something that I want to use this opportunity to put on record: plea discussions in criminal proceedings. Plea discussions—or what has been termed by others as plea bargaining—in the New Zealand justice system is not new. We do not adopt plea bargaining when it comes to sentencing, but when it comes to discussions in criminal proceedings around charge, it does happen. It has happened for some time. It is not new.

It has, however, been somewhat controversial in recent times and, I would argue, for good reason, because some fundamentals of our justice system have changed, and that includes, I would say, the way that legal representation is incentivised to operate. In 2009 the legal aid system moved to what the Government probably would have deemed to be a more cost-effective way of working. It has moved to a fixed fee for legal aid lawyers, which has resulted in an absolute decline in the availability and accessibility of legal aid lawyers on the one hand, but on the other hand questions have been raised around the quality of the legal aid assistance and advice that people are now receiving as a consequence.

As the Criminal Bar Association vice president said, I think it was last year: “You’re incentivised to do a shoddy job, to enter a guilty plea at the fastest moment, to cut corners and cut everything to the bone because there’s no way you can do the work in those time frames. But because the system hasn’t entirely imploded, the ministry assumes ‘all is well’.” The Evidence Amendment Bill allows plea discussions and criminal proceedings to, for all intents and purposes, remain privileged because in practice they currently are. These discussions around entering guilty pleas—we, anecdotally, have fed back to us—are occurring much more frequently because the system has incentivised that to occur. Sometimes that will be appropriate; sometimes that will stand in the way of a person accessing the full ambit of the justice system. It may stop someone even from accessing the ability to go before the court and argue against a charge that they have not committed. This is fundamental to our justice system, and I just want to use this opportunity to raise the fact that it is our view that it is time we absolutely review the impact of the 2009 law reforms.

I want to come to two of the more substantive parts of the Evidence Amendment Bill, though, which have been touched on briefly but which I want to expand on just a little bit. They are both changes that we absolutely support. One is the creation of a presumption that all witnesses under the age of 18 shall give evidence by means other than sitting in the courtroom. We absolutely support that. Anyone who has sat through the court process, has been a witness in a case, or has been a jury member will know what an intimidating and difficult environment it is for anyone, let alone a child. A lot of thought went into how to make sure that we put the balance right in that change, and I think that the Ministry of Justice has done a good job, in conjunction with the Law Commission.

The second element is the bill’s move to require defence counsel to give advance notice if they intend to bring evidence about the sexual history of the complainant in sexual offence cases. Look, we know that one in five women in New Zealand will experience a serious sexual assault. Those numbers are staggering, but on the flip side of that we also know that only 10 out of every 100 sexual abuse or violent crimes are being reported to the police, and even fewer than that are coming before our courts. We have to look at the full ambit of the way that those cases are treated, from the moment they are reported to the police, right through to the way they are processed through the courts.

But when it comes to the process through the courts, we know of course that the ability to bring up sexual history in the court process obviously acts as a form of deterrent—there is no doubt. The question then becomes how we can deal with that in a way that allows full access to all the aspects of natural justice before a court, while also balancing the very important needs of the victim. I think that, on balance, we have got it about right. I want to reference that on 26 July 2009 there were media reports of the dire consequences that defendants being able to bring up sexual history in a court can have on a victim, and, indeed, if that victim is deceased, on their family. There is no better example than the Sophie Elliott case, where it was reported that there was visible distress from friends and family in the courtroom. Sophie Elliott’s mum said: “I still feel upset her life was played out there so publicly.”

It was argued by Simon Power at that time that getting rid of the provocation laws would reduce the likelihood of sexual history being raised in a court in the way that it was in the Sophie Elliott case. I actually do not think it would have been the case; even if the defendant in that case was not using the provocation defence, I imagine that would have been used anyway. So we do need a provision like this, and this section as it is currently worded will mean that the interests of justice will require the evidence of sexual history to be excluded unless the case for inclusion can be made—so the balance sits on exclusion, unless the case can be made to the judge that it is reasonable to include that evidence. However, there is a bit of an exclusion, and that is when it covers evidence of a complainant’s sexual history with the defendant. I think we need to keep a close eye on the way that that is utilised.

I want to just refer to one of the Ministry of Justice statements on this part of the exclusion. It said: “The Law Commission did not consider it appropriate to expand section 44 to cover all evidence of a complainant’s sexual history. It reasoned that cases involving a prior sexual relationship between the complainant and defendant overwhelmingly turn on the issue of consent or belief in consent, to which a prior relationship will ‘almost inevitably’ be relevant.” We know that in a number of cases, cases of sexual violence will involve someone whom the victim knows. So the exclusion here around a complainant’s sexual history and relationship as it relates to a defendant is likely to be enacted on a reasonable basis, as in frequently. I think it is incumbent upon us as a Parliament to make sure that we really keep an eye on the way that this provision works and on the cases where it has not applied, to ensure that we have got the balance right in the way that section 44 applies. It is something that we need to keep a keen eye on.

Ultimately, all of this is likely to be re-examined when we have the Government’s formal response before Parliament. We saw a quick response to the Law Commission’s report on alternative trial processes for sexual violence. We probably need to look at all of this again as a whole when some of that substantive report comes out. I think it is very likely, hopefully, that we will be debating the option of both court processes and non-court processes, and giving victims greater choices around how they pursue cases of sexual violence against them.

All in all, I think the process around examining this bill has been excellent. It has been a good example of a select committee working well together, and it was a really helpful report from the Law Commission.

JONO NAYLOR (National): Can I just start by agreeing with Jacinda Ardern—I think that the Justice and Electoral Committee did work through this really constructively. I think it is really important and beholden on Parliament that, actually, when we have these kinds of issues, we really do seek to get the very best outcome that we possibly can. With this piece of legislation in particular, the focus is on making things as good for victims within the criminal justice system as possible. One of the great risks that we have in our judicial system is that victims of crime end up being revictimised by the process. I think it is beholden on us to ensure that the process that we have does everything that it can to limit the chance of that taking place—as other speakers have said, talking about the presumption that a child would be able to give evidence in alternative ways, rather than potentially having to sit in an open court in front of their alleged abuser in those sorts of situations, or perhaps face some sort of cross-examination. I think it is critical that we have a presumption—that it is not something someone has to apply for, but they can knowingly go into the situation knowing that they will be protected.

I think also that there is a lot of stress that can be involved for victims if they have given, for example, video evidence—wondering what is going to happen with that video evidence. At the moment, obviously, defence attorneys and the like have access to that information. For a victim to wonder whether or not their video evidence is potentially going to wind up in the hands, again, of their abuser or of the person who has perpetrated an act against them—it will create worry, and it will create stress. Again, putting parameters around that is very positive.

Finally, I want to touch a little bit on the notion of plea discussions. The speaker before me, Jacinda Arden, referred to needing to ensure that we protect people who may give up their rights to a proper trial through a plea discussion process. I think what we also need to remember is that, actually, this particular part of the legislation also has benefits for victims. I know I was involved in a situation a number of years ago with close family members who had been victims of a crime, and had to work through what a defended trial might mean for them; their having to go through the process of a defended trial with this particular offender. In the end, there was some negotiation that took place, and that person did agree to plead guilty—ultimately, actually, not to a lesser charge but to the greater charge, in this particular situation. But what it did actually show is that our system, if we get it right—and if we get the right parameters around it—can be supportive of victims and can ensure that we get good outcomes for victims. I believe that this legislation goes a long way to ensuring that our system overall will be better for victims, and I commend it to the House.

DAVID CLENDON (Green): I am pleased to take a short call on this third reading of the Evidence Amendment Bill. It is a special pleasure because it is not often that we can actually wholeheartedly support a Government justice bill. All too often its amendments or its new bills are locked in an unfortunate, and very dated, punitive 18th or 19th century model. Gladly, this bill is not one of those, and we have been pleased to support it throughout its journey through this House.

The bill does some useful and positive things. I guess our only objection, or our only criticism of this bill, particularly on its way through the Committee stage, was that it could have actually done more. There were a few provisions we would have liked to see included in it, and we had Supplementary Order Papers to that effect, but so be it. The bill as it is does some useful, positive things, and we are happy to support it.

Not to restate what has already been said—but, of course, the bill does, among other things, protect video records when any sort of digital recording is made of witnesses or of evidence, or whatever it might be. There are some fairly rigorous boundaries—some safeguards—put around the integrity of that information, and that is critically important, of course, in this digital age, when information, if in the wrong hands, can be literally worldwide in a moment. I think it is critically important for the integrity of the system that when people are giving recorded video evidence they are reassured that it will be used for only the very specific purpose for which it is made and it is not at any point vulnerable to being misused or abused in any instance.

Jacinda Ardern also touched on the quite significant provision in the bill that, effectively, protects complainants—most often, women complainants—from having their sexual history paraded in front a courtroom, in front of the public domain simply because some particular aggressive defence counsel might see a little bit of way in there to discredit a complainant, to make it appear as though that woman, typically, actually has some weak moral code or some bad practice or some bad history in sexual matters. No doubt there is the odd rock star or two, or the odd exhibitionist, who is quite happy to have the intimate details of their sex life paraded to the world, but for the average person, particularly a complainant in a legal case, that would be most unpleasant and extremely damaging and traumatising for an individual. It does not entirely stop such information or such evidence being given, but a judge, in this instance, would need to be very well convinced in advance that there was legitimate reason for that person’s sexual history to be given as part of the evidence or part of the court case. So that is a very positive and useful provision in the bill.

As we have heard, the bill also introduces a presumption that all witnesses under the age of 18 will use some so-called alternative method of giving their evidence, and that is a very good thing—alternative methods meaning, obviously, that their identity can be protected or that they are taken out of that quite daunting and even intimidating sort of courtroom environment. They can pre-record their evidence or they can sit behind screens—whatever the most appropriate mechanism might be to ensure the privacy and well-being of that person under the age of 18.

On that point, I would hope that the Government, and particularly Ministers and the Cabinet, would give some thought to the provision we have now embedded in this Evidence Amendment Bill when they are making decisions about whether or not all children up to the age of 18 should be included in the youth justice system. At the moment we have this unfortunate system where, in most situations, 17-year-olds are treated as adults. There is no defensible reason why we should maintain that unfortunate situation. It is at odds with our international commitments to the UN convention. Members will be aware that recently 33 organisations wrote an open letter to the Prime Minister and to the Cabinet, encouraging them to include 17-year-olds—anybody under the age of 18—to be dealt with in the youth justice system, as this bill encourages us to do. The 33 organisations that signed that open letter included Unicef, YouthLaw, Barnados, PILLARS, the YMCA, and Prison Fellowship. These are not radical, mad-eyed organisations; these are very conservative organisations with a long history and a lot of credibility that genuinely believe that we should not treat 17-year-olds as adults for the purposes of the justice system. We absolutely endorse that.

Having managed to smuggle that point into my speech, I will quit while I am ahead and simply reflect on the Justice and Electoral Committee. I sat on the committee for most of this bill. It was a good process. It was very positive. Points were debated, discussed, and, on occasion, argued. We got good outcomes, and I think we can stand proudly by what I think is a very good piece of legislation. Thank you.

RON MARK (Deputy Leader—NZ First): I rise on behalf of New Zealand First, firstly, to signal that New Zealand First, as advised by our spokesperson on justice Denis O’Rourke, will continue to support this legislation through the House. Not being the justice spokesperson and not having sat on the Justice and Electoral Committee, I am at a tad of a disadvantage in speaking to this bill, but I shall do my best, guided by Mr O’Rourke’s notes.

We note that in the first reading on 2 July 2015, New Zealand First acknowledged that the bill was designed to give further strength to the Evidence Act 2006 through the review conducted by the Law Commission in 2013, which the Attorney-General spoke of. It was a review that Mr O’Rourke supported on behalf of New Zealand First. We acknowledge that the bill contains some amendments that were considered technical in nature but still important and that there were changes requested. Looking at what Mr O’Rourke and New Zealand First said at the first reading—we spoke then about the changes to laws on hearsay evidence and pointed out that, generally, hearsay evidence is not admissible. The principal Act made hearsay evidence admissible in some cases, but it preserved the common laws rules relating to statements of conspirators and persons involved in joint criminal enterprises.

We went on to speak about the bill altering the law regarding improperly obtained evidence in criminal proceedings and the longstanding principle that such evidence would be inadmissible, but sections 30(1) and 30(2) of the principal Act provide that if evidence may have been improperly obtained, the judge must consider it on the balance of probabilities and decide “whether or not the exclusion of the evidence is proportionate to the impropriety…”.

There were other matters that were discussed in the first reading relating to the admissibility of previous statements and documents used to refresh memory, mainly contained in section 35(1) of the principal Act, which says that previous statements of witnesses are not admissible unless absolutely necessary to respond to the challenge to the witness’s veracity or accuracy and the statement provides the court with information that the witness is unable to recall.

There was mention about the issues around clauses 13 and 14 of the bill and section 37 of the principal Act, which provide that parties may not offer evidence about a person’s veracity unless the evidence is substantially helpful. Then there were issues around section 44(1)—and further there on section 57 and clause 22, inserting new subsection 2(A).

In the second reading I notice New Zealand First did talk about the improvements around hearsay evidence, and the second improvement, in clause 30, which amended section 106, and the need to prevent the misuse of video records. It is something that has been spoken about at length here in this debate this afternoon in the third reading. It pointed out that the Justice and Electoral Committee had made some important improvements to clarify the Act in this respect. There were two improvements. The first one amended section 106 to clearly specify the duties and restrictions relating to those video records that parties and lawyers have access to. We went on to talk about, in relation to that matter, that the committee recommended that it was important that regulations should be made, and that there should be provision to make those regulations, to cover the various ways in which all of that would operate.

The third improvement New Zealand First spoke about and that we focused on was the difficult area of children giving evidence. It was pointed out this actually means people under the age of 18, something that the previous speaker, David Clendon, has just referred to again. It was pointed out by New Zealand First that at the age of 18 these people are not necessarily infantile. Some of them may be able to give evidence in the ordinary way and others not. But the Act improved the situation in that respect.

We noted that there were changes to access to video records of evidence outside the criminal and Family Court cases, which we agreed with. Recommendations were made and adopted by the Justice and Electoral Committee to ensure a clear and broadly uniform regulatory approach to prevent the misuse of those records by making amendments to new clause 33A to insert new sections 119A and 119B into the principal Act.

Generally speaking, getting to the Committee of the whole House, one of the things that I will point out is that we, New Zealand First, did support Jan Logie’s Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 195, because we thought that it added strength to the bill. Like the Green Party has just expressed, we are a little bit disappointed that that SOP was rejected by the Government. New Zealand First signalled it would support this legislation at the first reading, and worked constructively, along with the other members of the committee, to make constructive changes to that legislation, which the Government accepted. At this point in the third reading, we will signal that we intend to support the bill.

CHRIS BISHOP (National): It is good to take a call on the third reading of this important piece of legislation. This was one of the first bills that I, as a new member of Parliament, got to see—not in a ministerial sense—go through all of its stages. It was introduced to the House early in 2015, had its first reading in July 2015, then it went off to the Justice and Electoral Committee, which I am very privileged to be a member of, along with some of my good colleagues on this side of the House, including some people who have spoken earlier in the debate—Jacqui Dean and Jono Naylor, who is the deputy chair.

It is a really important piece of legislation, the Evidence Act. When Parliament codified the common law around evidence into the Evidence Act 2006, it was quite a significant step forward for the law, and actually quite a significant step forward for the rule of law. I remember being at law school in 2006 and studying the codification of the various rules around evidence—

David Shearer: Oh, you’re older than that.

CHRIS BISHOP: No. It was a big moment and a big couple of months. It is a very important piece of legislation. It is really technical. It is one of those complex and technical pieces of legislation, and it is really important that you get it right.

In that context it is appropriate that the Law Commission has done the heavy lifting on this piece of legislation. The far-sighted parliamentarians in 2006 who passed the Evidence Act back then built a review clause into that piece of legislation. The law mandated that the Law Commission would do a review of the Evidence Act in 2011 to see how it was working, to see whether what the drafters said would happen actually turned out to be true in practice. Of course, the Law Commission kicked that off in 2011, it was reported in 2013, it suggested a series of amendments for the Government—all but one, I think, the Government agreed with—and we have this piece of legislation before us that we are going to pass, I think unanimously, through the House. That is very pleasing to see.

I do want to endorse the comments of David Clendon on the bill. He said that the select committee worked in a very collegial fashion, and that is definitely true. On matters like this you do need a degree of cross-party consensus. We received a number of very technical but, in some ways, quite hard-hitting submissions on a number of elements of the bill. We made some amendments that got passed through the House at the second reading and then at the Committee of the whole House stage.

I also want to commend the work of Denis O’Rourke, the New Zealand First member on the committee, because Mr O’Rourke played a very constructive role on the committee. It was interesting to hear Mr Mark just read out some of the comments that Mr O’Rourke had made. Mr O’Rourke, with his legal background, was very useful on the committee, and, indeed, actually, he plays a very constructive role on the Justice and Electoral Committee.

In my short contribution, I just want to mention to the House that I think we are making a very positive change with regard to the changes around the notice requirements for evidence of previous sexual history. In my first and second reading contributions to this bill’s debate in the House I traversed the changing law in New Zealand to do with sexual reputation and to do with previous sexual history. This current bill takes those changes a further step by adding a requirement that the defence give notice before the start of the trial if they intend to use evidence about a victim’s sexual history with someone other than the defendant.

That is a change recommended by the Law Commission. What it will do is allow the admissibility of the evidence to be determined pre-trial, which will ensure that the complainant knows what to expect when it comes to court. At the moment, of course, the law allows that permission to introduce that evidence can be sought from the judge at any moment during the trial. I think it is best that we have these things determined pre-trial.

That is the situation in the state of Victoria in Australia, and it was recommended by the eminent experts in this area, actually, Professor Tinsley and Associate Professor McDonald from Victoria University of Wellington, who, incidentally, taught me. They are the experts in this area. They recommended a bunch of other things that the House has not done. Maybe that will be for another day. I think we have still got some way to go in terms of this element in this area of law.

This is a significant step I believe, in terms of its contribution, as I mentioned earlier, to the rule of law, but in particular when it comes to the previous sexual history of complainants. I think this will go some way towards improving what is a pretty brutal experience for many complainants in these types of cases. So with those brief remarks, I commend this bill to the House.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): The next call is a split call. Dr Kennedy Graham—5 minutes.

Dr KENNEDY GRAHAM (Green): I may not actually take up the full 5 minutes, because, just to confirm, the Green Party will be supporting the Evidence Amendment Bill, as my colleague David Clendon has said already.

The bill makes a number of amendments to the Evidence Act 2006, the 2013 review having established that the Act is basically sound but that there were areas that could be improved upon. These three areas that now figure in the Evidence Amendment Bill certainly do do that, in the sense of offering protection to witnesses coming before the court, especially young children, many of whom have trauma from sexual abuse. I think it was the Attorney-General who said there were 450 cases a year involving sexual abuse that have child witnesses, so the ability for them to avail themselves of screens and other audiovisual devices for the future is well taken.

There are also advanced protections for other individuals who have engaged in similar trauma, and providing them with the advanced knowledge of the circumscription within which they are required to recount their own sexual experiences is critical to strengthening the bill, as well. Finally, there are the safeguards that will be put into place on the access to video records. These are all meritorious and we will be supporting the bill as a result.

I will just make one final comment before I conclude, and that is—not for the first time, no doubt, in this House—although an amendment bill goes some substantive way to improving the legislation on the books, the opportunity is passed up to take it further, in our respectful view, and get it to a stage where it is satisfactory. For that reason we did put forward two Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) in the Committee stage. There was SOP 194, which would have provided greater control and restriction on intimidating questions. It would have sent a direction to judges that Parliament does not consider intimidation appropriate in our courts, and it would have let complainants know that intimidation would not be accepted, or could at least be challenged. That was voted down by a significant majority.

The other SOP that we advanced, SOP 195, would have given victims of sexual and domestic violence the same presumptive right as child witnesses to alternative methods of giving evidence. That, as my colleague Ron Mark just said, did attract New Zealand First’s support, for which we are grateful, and it was a close vote. It did not go through, by five votes—what an opportunity gone missing; so near and so far.

So we will be voting for the bill. We do commend the Government for introducing it. We are disappointed that it does not go quite as far as we think it should. No doubt there will be the opportunity to come back to this House to rectify those shortcomings when the time comes.

PEENI HENARE (Labour—Tāmaki Makaurau): Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. Thank you for this opportunity. I rise for the Labour Party in support of the Evidence Amendment Bill. I do want to extend on some of the comments already made across the House, firstly to congratulate the Justice and Electoral Committee, because, just like Mr Bishop, it was one of the first proposed bills before the select committee that I was able to get my teeth stuck into. I certainly learnt a heck of a lot from members across the House. Robust debate was had right through the select committee and, of course, in this House, and we have come now to what is a good bill, a bill that will pass through this House.

But I take the point by Mr Kennedy Graham and, of course, others in the House who have said: “It is a step in the right direction; sadly, we feel it could have done a little bit more.” I am reminded of the words of Sir James Hēnare, who said: “[We] have come too far not to go further.” This is one of those opportunities where, perhaps, we could have done just that little bit more to ensure that the trust, the faith, and the integrity of the system are sound and strong. We know that in recent weeks it has come under question and it has come under fire.

We know that it is important in society that when those who are processed through the justice system, or for those who have had to appear in front of the court to give evidence and for other matters, we want to make sure that they enter into a system that is fair—a system that carries strong integrity in the eyes of the New Zealand public. I think that this particular bill goes a long way to doing that. It keeps in step with some of the technological changes that, too often, this House is too slow to realise, and I think that is a good thing.

I also want to comment on the ability for children to give evidence in a way that will protect them, in a way that will ensure that revictimisation does not occur, and that tamariki who have important things to say in matters in front of the court are actually heard and are looked after. I also note that, in the bill, the judge also allows for support people to be there for those tamariki, whether one or several. That discretion is left up to the judge, but I think that is an important step. To leave a child in the care of officials or lawyers on such a heavy issue, on an issue that will no doubt have severe consequences, not just for the child but for the entire case—I think it is an important step forward to make sure that those tamariki, those children, receive the kind of support that they deserve when they enter into the justice system. It is good lawmaking. It makes sure that the evidence that is provided is robust.

The members across the House have already spoken about many parts of the bill, but I just want to finish my contribution, given it is a short one, about that opportunity to do just that little bit more. It has been mentioned about the age, it has been mentioned about the Supplementary Order Papers from the Green Party and across the House, and this is one of those opportunities where—and I take the words of Mr Bishop, who said: “Look, perhaps we’ll end up finding ourselves back here to do just a little bit more.” That is a bit of a shame, given that the opportunity presented itself in this term of Government. We hope, then, that in the future we will come back here and we will be able to make this more robust to make sure that the integrity and the way in which the New Zealand public views the justice system are in good stead and are in good vein. Kia ora.

SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): This is the first opportunity that I have had to participate in the debate on this bill. I did not sit on the Justice and Electoral Committee, but as a former member of the committee—indeed, a former chair of the committee—I am delighted to see that the committee has done really good work on an important piece of legislation.

The chair, Jacqui Dean, I think has clearly led a collaborative, worthwhile process that members have been able to participate in, in a cross-partisan way, to achieve a very good result for the Parliament. So in this third reading of what is largely a technical bill with many technical aspects, there are just a couple of points that I do want to highlight and make mention of in the time that is available to me.

This is a bill that will undoubtedly help ensure that vulnerable victims, when they are giving evidence, are better supported through our justice system. For many people there can probably be few more daunting prospects than having to participate in the judicial system as a witness, and sometimes as a witness under hostile questioning from an aggressive legal counsel. It can be very daunting and very intimidating indeed, and none more so than for young people, particularly children, who, from time to time—in fact, too often—are involved in having to give evidence in matters relating to our justice system, particularly our criminal justice system. The use of better, modern technology to help ensure that young children are better supported when they are giving evidence is, I think, a welcome move. It is something that the House clearly wants to adopt, and I think it will be well received, not only by the members of the judiciary but also by those legal officers who participate in it. So the presumption in this bill will be that child witnesses give evidence in alternative ways, rather than having to stand in a dock unsupported. This ability to give evidence in alternative ways, with, when necessary and when required, the support of another person, I think is a very important and progressive step forward in terms of what we are seeking to do.

This is a good bill, I support it, and I am very pleased to see that the committee and members across the House have done a good job on it.

DAVID SHEARER (Labour—Mt Albert): I am going to just take a very short call on this bill, which has, as we have heard, support from right across the House. It is something that I think perhaps the public, when they are watching Parliament, forget: about three-quarters of the bills that come through this House are actually supported by everybody—or a great majority of the people in this House—who are working to help and push and move things through to make New Zealand a better place. Obviously, it is the issues that we disagree on that, of course, attract the attention, and, unfortunately, it distorts the view in which, perhaps, many of us see the House.

I am very aware that the main event has arrived in Parliament here, in the form of Kevin Hague, and I just want to say before I start and just go through a couple of issues on this bill that we will miss Kevin. He has been a terrific colleague to have in the House, in Parliament, and in politics. I wish you all the very best for the future, Kevin, but I think Parliament will be less of a place without your wisdom and the thoughtful way that you have interjected and worked on issues—so all the very best.

As I said, the Act that this bill, the Evidence Amendment Bill, amends was enacted in 2006. It would have made lives a lot better for many people who were facing the gruelling experience of standing in front of a court and having to relate intimate details of their sexual history, etc. in front of court rooms, often in front of the person who was alleged to have carried out those crimes, if the provisions in this bill had been passed then. That was 2006; it is now 2016. It has taken 10 years for this bill to come into the Parliament. It will be passed today; it will be passed, as I said before, with the full support of this House, but I just cannot help but think, if it had been passed earlier, how many people would not have had to go through that experience, as a result of this bill taking so long.

Although I commend the Justice and Electoral Committee and the work that it has done on this bill, I think the Government really needs to front up and realise that, actually, it could have done a lot better on this. New Zealand has a pretty terrible record when it comes to domestic violence and sexual violence. We are fifth from the bottom of 31 OECD countries. We kill one child every 5 weeks and, of those children who die, about 90 percent of them die by the hands of people whom they know. It is not a great record. When it comes to rape and sexual violence, it is estimated that of 100 sexual violations, about 10 percent will be reported and only 1 percent will result in a conviction. That is pretty terrible as well.

This bill will not fix the conditions and the reasons why those offences are committed, but it will make the experience of people who are giving evidence in front of a court that much easier. People have gone through the reasons for this earlier, but first of all, for example, it will mean that children, by right, will not appear in court but will give evidence through an alternative way. That is good news.

I think it was Mark Lyon who molested several children. The father of one of those girls who was molested by him said that if we had had this legislation in place it would have made her life far less traumatic and far easier to give evidence in a private room, rather than knowing that Mark Lyon was at the end of a video camera and able to see everything that she was doing and saying. So that is one good thing. It places restrictions on video evidence that is collected. That evidence cannot just be shared around. It has to be viewed inside a police station.

There are a number of—I just want to mention two, because I know time is ticking on. Those are two very important changes that the Evidence Amendment Bill makes, to make the prosecution of sexual and domestic violence and general violence that much easier on victims. It is, as people have said, something that has the full support of the House. It is something that has been worked on. We have heard a lot of very good submissions from some of the top lawyers in the country, most of whom have made suggestions, but in general have agreed upon the legislation. There is a feeling that it does not go far enough. There is probably a sense that we will be back here, amending it one more time. But nevertheless it is a positive step forward. Labour is very pleased to support this legislation in the House today.

Dr SHANE RETI (National—Whangarei): It is a pleasure to take this, the final call on the Evidence Amendment Bill. I would like to echo the words of colleagues from across the House who are supporting this bill. I would also like to acknowledge the Minister of Justice and the Justice and Electoral Committee for getting the bill through to its third reading.

There are a number of actions and benefits with this bill, and I will briefly highlight some of them. Some of them have already been explained this afternoon. First of all, this bill creates the presumption that child witnesses will give evidence in alternative ways. The clear benefit there is that this improves the environment for children to provide evidence by default, not by request. I think that this, importantly, also standardises the child evidence process.

I think that another clear benefit is that sensitive evidence will be available only on a need-to-have, need-to-know basis, with improved security particularly for video recordings. The benefit here is the surety to those giving evidence of appropriate distribution and monitoring of that evidence. The third feature I want to highlight is the pre-hearing notice of admission of the victim’s sexual history. The benefit here will be allowing pre-trial admissibility and preparation.

The second to last feature I want to highlight is plea discussions. They will now be covered by privilege. The benefit here is that this encourages frank discourse and early disposal of cases. The final feature I want to highlight is that previous consistent statements will now be admissible. The benefits here are that the jury can hear a logical and coherent narrative. This is an excellent bill. I commend this bill to the House, with thanks.

Bill read a third time.

Valedictory Statements

Valedictory Statements

KEVIN HAGUE (Green): Ki te whaiao, ki te ao mārama ka whai reo ahau. Ko te mea tuatahi ka mihi ki ngā Atua, a Papatuānuku Te Whaea me Ranginui e tū nei, tēnā kōrua, tēnā koe e Te Whare e tū nei! Ka mihi ki ngā mate ka tangihia e tātou i tēnei wā, nō reira, e ngā mate, haere, haere, haere ki Hawaiki Nui, ki Hawaiki Roa, ki Hawaiki pāmamao! Āpiti hono, tātai hono, te hunga mate ki te hunga mate, te hunga ora ki te hunga ora, tēnā koutou te hunga ora!

Ka mihi ki ngā Mana Whenua o tēnei rohe, ngā kaumātua, ngā kuia, ngā tāngata katoa o Te Āti Awa me Ngāti Toa Rangatira hoki, tēnā koutou! Ngā mana, ngā reo, ngā iwi o te motu, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tātou katoa!

[To the world of light and enlightenment, I speak. The first thing is that I acknowledge the gods, Mother Earth and Great Father, standing here. My accolades to you both and to the House here. I pay a tribute to the dead that we mourn at this moment; therefore, to you, the dead, depart, leave, and journey on to the great, long, and remote Hawaiki. The lines are joined, the dead to the dead, and the living to the living; salutations to you, the living.

I acknowledge the mandated ones of the land in this region: the elderly men and women, and all the people as well of Te Āti Awa and Ngāti Toa Rangatira, I salute you. And so, to you, the authorities, languages, and all the tribes of the land, I acknowledge, commend, and salute you and us all.]

I used to do a lot of sailing. Ian and I—our first yacht was a 24-foot cutter and we would often be the smallest boat at Great Barrier Island or around the Hauraki Gulf in the various anchorages. I remember in 1988, during Cyclone Bola—and some might question the decision to go sailing—we were anchored in a bay in the outer part of the Coromandel Harbour. The wind was so strong that the anchors would not hold. Together with many other boats, the two of us kept a 24-hour anchor watch. We would anchor in the most sheltered part of the bay, and then the wind would sweep us across the bay. We would turn on the outboard motor, punch back into the wind, set the anchors again, and hope that they would hold for a little while longer. We did that again and again and again. The wind kept up for more than 24 hours, and we were exhausted, but eventually the anchors did hold.

Eight years of Opposition has felt something like that. Going to work each day, standing up for what we believe in, but losing almost all of our arguments—not because we were wrong, but because of the Government’s superior numbers and the resources of the Government. I guess for me, what we have had to do is to find a way to pick ourselves back up and punch back into that wind, into the storm. But now my watch has ended.

It has been an enormous honour to serve in this role, to stand here and to know that along with my Green colleagues I represent an enormous number of New Zealanders who share our vision and our values. I leave here proud of the work that I have helped to do. I also leave here with some regrets. I have projects that I believe in passionately that I will not be able to see through to their conclusion. It goes against the grain for me to leave work unfinished.

I am leaving behind people who matter a great deal to me. I have friends right across this House and right across the political spectrum. I will not get to be a Minister, with the opportunity to implement policy in Government, and I think I might have done a pretty good job of that.

Hon Members: Hear, hear!

KEVIN HAGUE: Thank you. But despite those regrets, I have no doubts.

I want to thank the Green Party, all of its members, the staff, the volunteers, and the other MPs for the opportunity to do this work and for their support and friendship while doing it. Those people who have worked in the Green Party’s parliamentary team have been outstanding, and I especially want to thank those who have worked in my own office: Joanna Plows, Sophie Belton, Nive Kennach, Linda Weijers, Ta’ase Vaoga, Rhydian Thomas, and the incomparable Jenn Lawless. You have seamlessly hidden my flaws from the world while simultaneously doing all the real work. Thank you very much.

I am grateful for the wonderful support that I have enjoyed over the years from the Parliamentary Service team and from the Office of the Clerk. I think, in particular, I am probably one of the biggest users of the Parliamentary Library and the travel team, and they have always been fast, efficient, and reliable.

I said earlier that I have friends across the House. It has always seemed to me that positive relationships stop disagreement about some issues from getting in the way of collaborating on others. I particularly want to acknowledge colleagues from all parties who have served with me on the Health Committee, and my great friends Ruth Dyson and Louisa Wall, with whom I worked closely on marriage equality and other issues, and Nikki Kaye. Nikki and I worked together on a bill to completely overhaul adoption law. I want to extend to Nikki my very best wishes for her recovery and swift return to this House. 1

I want to thank members of the press gallery, past and present. I have pretty much always felt that I had a fair run from you, and for the biggest issues that I worked on, you were also great partners in the pursuit of truth and justice. Thank you.

Always, the work in Parliament has been made possible by others working in the community. It is a role that I have played in the past, and to which I return now. As most people do, I think, in preparing this last speech I went back to my first. As part of that speech, I set out some of my hopes for my parliamentary career and some of the expectations that I knew others held. I talked about the hopes of cyclists that I would help make roads safe and well engineered for all users, and for a national network of off-road cycling tracks.

I want to express my thanks to the Prime Minister for the great opportunity to work alongside him as co-sponsors of Ngā Haerenga, the New Zealand Cycle Trail network. That project has achieved what we hoped for and more. It has created lots of employment, it has provided a major boost to regional economies, and it has got loads more people riding their bikes more often. Those people are now demanding better cycling facilities in towns and cities as well. The trick now will be to sustain and grow that network, and it would be fantastic to see a multiparty agreement to make that happen.

I said in that maiden speech that people who love wild rivers and our natural world for its intrinsic values would be looking for me to make a contribution. I led a major parliamentary campaign alongside Forest and Bird—it is a fantastic organisation, is it not—Whitewater NZ, and the Wild Rivers coalition that led to the Mōkihinui River being saved. My campaign was based on how Lake Manapōuri was saved. I set out to get people all around the country to care about what happened to a place and to animals and plants that they had never directly experienced, and probably never would directly experience, and it worked. New Zealanders love the rivers, forests, oceans, and animals of Aotearoa, and they want to protect them. I was also pleased to work with Kate Wilkinson to conduct major field trials of resetting traps, a project that has laid one of the main foundations for daring to believe that Paul Callaghan’s vision of a predator-free New Zealand was possible.

I said in that speech that the gay and lesbian communities and the wider rainbow family would look to me to keep delivering on the promise of equal rights and opportunity. I have worked on a number of projects over the past 8 years, most notably the successful campaign for marriage equality. I leave behind three important ones: better health services for transgender New Zealanders, the petition that is currently before the House for an apology and for wiping the convictions of gay men who were convicted of consensual sexual activity between adults before homosexual law reform, and my campaign to have the Education Review Office required to audit the safety of all schools for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender students. We showed in 2014 that most secondary schools do not provide such a safe environment and that the Education Review Office never exposes that. Perhaps as a farewell present?

There are a couple of areas where I have been proud of a contribution I did not expect to make. I worked hard to expose what I called a sick culture of disentitlement in ACC. Major improvements were made, and I praise the then Minister, the Hon Judith Collins, but more is still required—more change is still required. I also warned New Zealanders that the insurance industry and small-government ideologues have not given up on their plan of having a privatised ACC, and vigilance is still required.

But the work that I am proudest of is the work I did in the aftermath of the Pike River tragedy. I have felt a heavy responsibility for that work, and I have been pleased to contribute to a major overhaul of workplace health and safety regulation in this country. But I have been frustrated and angry that nobody from the board or from the senior management of Pike River Coal has been held to account, or will ever be held to account, for what has occurred and that 29 men still have not been brought home to their families.

The other area where I know people hoped that I would be able to make an impact is health, and, in particular, increasing Parliament’s understanding that health outcomes are the result of people’s circumstances and environments like poverty, housing, and how empowered their communities are, rather than individual choices—and, goodness knows, I have given enough lectures on that topic in this House. I regret that successive Ministers of Health have preferred to adopt an adversarial approach to their portfolio. I believe that much more could have been achieved by working together across the House on health.

Economists seem to agree that funding for health services has dropped cumulatively and in real terms by almost $2 billion since 2008, while something like $20 billion has been spent on roads of national significance, for example. To me, that suggests that the priorities are entirely the wrong way around. It seems essential to me that the Government should seek to ensure that every person has the basics that will enable them to have a decent life: enough good food, clean air and water, warmth and shelter, the means to good health and education, and a decent income. In this country, a growing number—far too many—do not have these basics and, worse, access to them is unfairly distributed. Remedying these problems should be the purpose of government—that is what government is for.

The economy is not some force of nature; it is a collection of tools that we can re-engineer to help us meet those social goals. Instead, far too often people are sacrificed in the interests of the economy, and that is fundamentally the wrong way around. The same is true of the environment. When the natural world is seen as a set of resources to service the economy as raw materials or waste disposal, we know that something is fundamentally wrong. Restoring and conserving a sustainable relationship with nature should be the other fundamental goal of government, which the economy should serve.

Our country is run as though people and the environment need to serve the economy as inputs to the firm, and this needs to change entirely. When people are homeless because of land banking, when kids go hungry because wages and benefits do not even cover the basics, when they have avoidable health conditions that scar their entire lives because of poor-quality, overcrowded housing, when landowners are still cutting down lowland forest, draining wetlands, and allowing their stock into rivers because there is money to be made, and when the last Māui’s dolphins plunge towards extinction because we prioritised the oil and fishing industries, something is fundamentally wrong. When our very species is at grave risk because Governments around the world refuse to take decisive action on climate change lest it harm business, then we know that making people and the environment serve the economy has reached its logical end point of self-destruction.

There are also areas where change is desperately needed but where successive Governments have taken no action because of what I believe is political timidity. There are others, but I want to single out drug law reform, adoption law reform—which I have already mentioned—and assisted dying. These are all areas where the member’s bill process is poorly suited to considered reform, and where a solid public mandate already exists for change. These are also areas where archaic law harms people in terrible ways every day, so I appeal to all parties to please be brave, and stand for something.

Finally, I want to give my thanks to those who have been on this journey with me: my friends, especially those in whose houses I have so often been a terrible guest, arriving late and leaving early, and those who have had to put up with me not being around for their important occasions. Thanks to my family, some of whom are able to be here tonight, and, above all, thanks to my partner, Ian. In this House our partners and families pay a great price in enabling us to do this work, and I extend my respect and thanks to all of yours.

When I entered Parliament, I said that I wanted to dedicate my time here to the memory of my mum and my sister. I hope that they would have been proud. I leave here now to take on another really exciting challenge. I know that those who come after me in the Greens will bring new skills, knowledge, and energy that I could not have contributed. But in leaving I feel that I have done my best, I feel I have made things better, and I go with my integrity intact. I wish you all the very best. Ka mutu, e noho rā.

[I conclude, goodbye.]

Waiata

Āpiti hono, tātai hono, te hunga mate ki te hunga mate, te hunga ora, ki te hunga ora, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā rā tātou katoa.

[The lines are joined, the dead to the dead, and the living to the living; acknowledgments and salutations to you and indeed to us all.]

Sitting suspended from 6.03 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

Bills

Corrections (Electronic Monitoring of Offenders) Amendment Bill

Parole (Electronic Monitoring of Offenders) Amendment Bill

Sentencing (Electronic Monitoring of Offenders) Amendment Bill

Third Readings

Hon JUDITH COLLINS (Minister of Corrections): I move, That the Corrections (Electronic Monitoring of Offenders) Amendment Bill, the Parole (Electronic Monitoring of Offenders) Amendment Bill, and the Sentencing (Electronic Monitoring of Offenders) Amendment Bill be now read a third time. This Government is committed to public safety and the protection of victims, and on this basis we are supporting the Parole (Electronic Monitoring of Offenders) Amendment Bill, the Corrections (Electronic Monitoring of Offenders) Amendment Bill, and the Sentencing (Electronic Monitoring of Offenders) Amendment Bill, and that they now be read a third time. These bills honour the commitment that we have made to the people of New Zealand. They enable courts to impose electronic monitoring for a wider range of offences and orders than is currently possible, and they confirm that prisoners given permission to go outside the secure perimeter of the prison may be electronically monitored.

Electronic monitoring provides a means of actively monitoring the compliance of offenders in the community with conditions imposed by the Parole Board or the courts. This helps deter offenders from further offending by providing information on their whereabouts. It also enables police and the Department of Corrections to act swiftly when non-compliance is detected.

These bills were originally introduced as one bill, the Electronic Monitoring of Offenders Legislation Bill, which was divided into three bills by the Committee of the whole House. The first bill, the Sentencing (Electronic Monitoring of Offenders) Amendment Bill, removes a legislative barrier to the use of electronic monitoring for offenders released after serving a short term of imprisonment and offenders sentenced to intensive supervision. Electronic monitoring plays an important part in deterring further offending and detecting breaches of conditions about where an offender may live and places they may or may not visit. Without electronic monitoring these conditions are less effective, because breaches are much harder to detect.

The Sentencing Act explicitly states that electronic monitoring may not be imposed by a court as part of a sentence of intensive supervision or as a release condition for an offender sentenced to prison for 2 years or less. This bill removes that barrier. It provides the courts and enforcement authorities with an additional tool to help ensure that an offender released from a short term of imprisonment complies with the conditions imposed as a part of that sentence. It will also help ensure that an offender serving a sentence of intensive supervision complies with the conditions imposed as part of that sentence.

Concerns were raised during the select committee process regarding the scope of electronic monitoring, privacy issues, and whether it is suitable for intensive supervision and release conditions. These concerns have been met by safeguards designed to ensure that the new powers are used in an appropriate manner, including specifying that suitability of electronic monitoring must be canvassed in a pre-sentence report defining the purposes of an electronic monitoring condition as deterring breaches of conditions that prohibit entry into specified places or areas and monitoring compliance with such conditions, and specifying the permitted uses of information collected by electronic monitoring.

The second bill is the Corrections (Electronic Monitoring of Offenders) Amendment Bill. This bill clarifies the Department of Corrections’ ability to electronically monitor a prisoner who is, during their sentence, permitted outside the secure perimeter of a prison. Most prisoners spend their time within a secure perimeter fence. However, on occasions it is necessary for a small number of prisoners to go outside that perimeter fence. Examples include where a prisoner goes to hospital for treatment and is escorted by a corrections officer, where a prisoner is working in a prison but outside the secure perimeter, or where a prisoner towards the end of a sentence is permitted to work outside the prison as part of the prisoner’s transition back into the community in a safe and controlled manner. Ensuring that prisoners outside the secure perimeter are electronically monitored will deter escape attempts, and, if an escape is attempted, it helps ensure early detection and a quick response from both police and corrections officers.

Thirdly, the Parole (Electronic Monitoring of Offenders) Amendment Bill clarifies the special conditions relating to electronic monitoring of offenders following their release from prison or extended supervision orders. The new provisions make it clear that offenders are not only required to have electronic monitoring equipment attached to them but must also comply with written instructions including, for example, to regularly charge the equipment.

We are committed to reducing the harm and volume of offending. Electronically monitoring offenders in concert with a range of other measures can make a significant contribution to maintaining public order and safety, and, indirectly, to rehabilitating certain offenders. These three bills will enable better utilisation of the benefits of electronic monitoring by allowing it to be imposed, firstly, as a special condition of release from a short-term sentence of imprisonment and as a special condition of a sentence of intensive supervision, and, secondly, to monitor prisoners who are permitted to be outside the secure perimeter of a prison. They also clarify an offender’s obligations while subject to electronic monitoring. I commend these bills to the House.

KELVIN DAVIS (Labour—Te Tai Tokerau): The Labour Party too supports the legislation arising from the Electronic Monitoring of Offenders Legislation Bill. As the Minister of Corrections just said, it was divided into three bills at the Committee stage—so into the Corrections (Electronic Monitoring of Offenders) Amendment Bill, the Parole (Electronic Monitoring of Offenders) Amendment Bill, and the Sentencing (Electronic Monitoring of Offenders) Amendment Bill. I will touch on some of those three bills, hopefully, later in my speech.

The bills are to enable the electronic monitoring of offenders who are released from a sentence of 2 years or less, and offenders sentenced to intensive supervision. Intensive supervision is a community-based rehabilitation sentence. It targets offenders assessed as being at medium to high risk of reoffending or who have been convicted of more serious offences—although we do not really define what the words “more serious” mean—and offenders who have complex or severe rehabilitative needs. They would be subject to standard release conditions, and I will just run through those standard conditions quickly: that the offenders are not to reside at a specific address, are not to engage in specific employment, and are not to associate with specific people. In other words, it makes sure that offenders are at the right place at the right time and are associating with the right people.

They will probably have special conditions applied that are similar. Those special conditions, as opposed to the standard conditions, may be that they restrict an offender to a specific address, they complete an assessment in various rehabilitation programmes, they are not to associate with certain people or groups of people—and, if we think of people whose offending was related around gangs, they would probably not be allowed to associate with gangs or go near gang premises. If, for example, they were child sex offenders, they would not be allowed near—you would hope—schools, playgrounds, or parks where children would be playing. Some other special conditions may be that they have to take prescription medicine that may help with any condition that they have, they may be prohibited from entering specific places, and, of course, the imposition of this electronic monitoring.

There was an issue around this legislation coming into conflict with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. There was concern that this legislation is an added punishment in that it restricts the freedom of movement of offenders, and, as Phil Goff so eloquently explained in the Committee stage—that is right. This bill is designed to restrict the freedom of offenders, because why would you not limit the ability of people to move, such as someone who is convicted of a child sex offence? Why would you not restrict their freedom of movement to go into a park or into a swimming pool area where kids may be playing or into a school or a kindergarten or a kōhanga reo? Or, as I said earlier, if their offending is related to gang activities, why would you not limit their ability to go and associate with gang members or go on to gang premises? So, yes, that is the point of this legislation. It is to limit the freedom of offenders and it is, as the Minister said, to keep New Zealanders safe and to prevent more victims from occurring.

There are issues, of course, around electronic monitoring. It is not without its problems. As Kim Workman, an adviser to the justice reform group JustSpeak, said “Every day, as I understand it, well over a hundred people who are on GPS monitoring breach the conditions. So they move outside the boundaries of the order, and so on.”, but the fact is that we do not have the resources to chase up all those hundreds of people in any given day who may have breached their conditions. Most of these people are not a serious threat to New Zealanders, but the fact is GPS monitoring is not a foolproof system, because also, back in 2014, a hacker exposed some flaws in the bracelets in that he was able to trick the bracelets into fooling the system, allowing the offenders to move outside where they were meant to be.

Recently, I visited a man who was electronically monitored in Ōpōnoni, up in Northland there, in the Hokianga. There was an issue around the satellite not being able to access his monitoring equipment or whatever, and it was a bit of a black spot. It would fade in and out. So the Department of Corrections had to shift him, funnily enough, down the hill into an area you would think would have worse reception, as he was perched up on a beautiful spot at the top of the Hokianga Harbour.

There were issues raised around the number of people who are off. In any given day it was stated that between 20 and 47 offenders may be loose. National said: “Look, let’s put it into context. That’s less than 1 percent of people who are on the bracelets.” We said: “OK, that may be right. They may be correct that it’s less than 1 percent of people, but that’s still 20 to 47 communities that may be living with an element of fear because they do not know where these offenders are and there’s very little information given out about them.” Also, Ruth Money, who is a victims’ advocate, said: “It’s completely disrespectful to [families] and actually the New Zealand public as a whole to make a comment, like it’s only 1 percent of everybody with a bracelet.” She said: “It’s absolutely disgraceful that they would make a comment like that when we have 47 people unaccounted for [in January of this year].” So I take her point. We should not downplay the fact that people do get loose and do cut off their bracelets.

Of course, that was the other flaw in electronic monitoring—the ability of offenders to cut their bracelets off. Even when the Government has bought stronger, tougher bracelets and the Minister infamously stated to the Law and Order Committee that offenders had a choice—they would have to use a chainsaw to cut it off and they had a choice of either a leg or no leg. That very night on television, the cameraman from TV3 Billy Weepu just got a pair of scissors and cut through the bracelet. Of course, the Government said “Oh look, he is the brother of an All Black.”, as if a brother of an All Black has these superpowers that the rest of us do not have.

The fact of the matter is that there is any number of people with the immense strength of Billy Weepu, the fine centre who plays for the Parliamentary “Golden Oldies” Rugby Team. He is not unique, and he is not the only New Zealander who would be able to get a blunt pair of kitchen scissors and cut off the bracelet.

The Corrections Act 2004 is amended. As the Minister has explained, it allows monitoring of persons temporarily released from custody and temporarily removed from prison. It allows for the electronic monitoring of prisoners employed in work or accommodated outside the secure perimeter of the prison. This legislation amends the Parole Act 2002 and requires an offender to submit to electronic monitoring and comply with release conditions or conditions of an extended supervision order. The offender may be required to have electronic monitoring equipment attached to his or her body. They must comply with written instructions of a probation officer—it clarifies that.

Also, this amends the Sentencing Act 2002 and creates conditions to prohibit an offender from being in specific places, also known as a whereabouts condition. The whereabouts condition means that they cannot go in certain places in the community. The electronic monitoring may be used to gather evidence of the wearer not complying with the conditions, such as being at the wrong place at the wrong time in the company of the wrong people.

So, as I said when I started off, the Labour Party members agree with and will be voting for this legislation in the third reading. Kia ora.

KANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI (National): Thank you for the opportunity to speak on the third reading of the legislation arising from the Electronic Monitoring of Offenders Legislation Bill, which is divided into the three bills: Corrections (Electronic Monitoring of Offenders) Amendment Bill, Parole (Electronic Monitoring of Offenders) Amendment Bill, and Sentencing (Electronic Monitoring of Offenders) Amendment Bill.

This legislation removes the legislative barriers to electronic monitoring of offenders released from an imprisonment sentence of 2 years or less and offenders sentenced to intensive supervision. It is very important that we amend our legislation from time to time to ensure that we are up to date. The previous speaker, Kelvin Davis, mentioned some of the lacks in the electronic monitoring legislation, such as that there are black spots where the electronic monitoring fails. But those are the things that technology keeps on improving, and part of this legislation is about going from radio frequency monitoring bracelets, because we are now into GPS, which gives us the exact position of the prisoner—where he is and whether he is where he is supposed to be or not.

Reoffending is reducing. Since June 2011 the number of reoffenders has been going down by 25 percent. The vast majority of prisoners are released back into our communities, which is why we are committed to ensuring that they do not create more victims. Through our commitment to prisoners’ education, mental health support, skill training, addiction treatment, working prisons, and reintegration, it ensures that they can be integrated back into our society and ensures that they do not create any more victims, and that is how we can progress in these areas.

There is no magic bullet for reducing reoffending, and we are tackling the drivers of crime in a number of ways. The prisoners have for many years been temporarily released or granted escorted absence from the prison for several recognised reasons such as funerals, medical treatment, and work experience. The amendment would clarify that such temporary release and removal situations may include a requirement that a prisoner submit to electronic monitoring for the duration of their temporary release or removal from the prison.

The Law and Order Committee recommended a new provision to provide that prisoners who are permitted to reside, or who are engaged in work, outside the secure perimeter of the prison—such as those residing in external self-care units and those employed on work parties—may be required to submit to electronic monitoring of their whereabouts so that we can monitor and see whether they are where they are required to be. This would provide exclusive authority for GPS monitoring of prisoners outside the perimeter and give an additional assurance that the prisoners are where they are supposed to be. It would also set out the purpose of the electronic monitoring and limit the use of the information obtained.

This legislation again emphasises that we are committed to making our society safe, and we hope that this legislation will be a step forward. I commend this legislation to the House.

PEENI HENARE (Labour—Tāmaki Makaurau): Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. Thank you for this opportunity. I rise to speak in support of these particular bills. I want to take up some of the members’ comments around the steps, moving forward, with this type of legislation in the House, whereby it is no longer seen as a simple means of making sure that not just the offenders themselves do not go on to commit more crimes but that it is actually seen—and I think this is the bigger challenge—as being part rehabilitation tool, to make sure that their reintegration back into the communities is a successful one. So although we debate this and the rhetoric is generally about making sure that we can keep an eye on them so that we make sure they do not go on to reoffend, I think the bigger challenge is actually changing the rhetoric around how we are able to make this part of a rehabilitation and reintegration system.

My colleague Mr Davis has already talked about our support for these particular bills. This legislation has had its challenges throughout the entire process. My colleague spoke about the black spots and spoke about the herculean strength Mr Billy Weepu needed to cut through the monitoring bracelet. But from personal experience, I spoke in the earlier readings of this legislation about how the legislation will enable the attendance of some prisoners to tangihanga—to get that temporary release from prison to allow them to go. In the past that particular process has not been executed very well, and the hope is that through this type of legislation the ability for offenders to get temporary release for things such as tangihanga, and for things such as work that will help with their reintegration into the community, will be a lot more successful and will not be fraught with the kind of red tape that sees the public actually looking at that person with a bit of a frown or in a light that is not very good.

So these types of bills—and I mentioned it in terms of the previous bill that was debated in the House—are a step in the right direction. They will make the legislation fall in line with technology to ensure that we use that technology better. Sadly, I reiterate my point, as I did in the last bill, that too often the House fails to keep up with that technology—because in the passage of this particular legislation, I dare say technology has already moved on and, in fact, is far more advanced than it was when this legislation went through in its first reading. But we support that change. We want to make sure that we are able to protect the community.

I also spoke in respect of the last bill, the Evidence Amendment Bill, about how the public perceive parole and the parole office, and how the public perceives the corrections facilities and the institutions that are put in place to make sure that those who go through the particular system—through the justice system—serve their sentences and do not exit prison and go on to reoffend. That happens only if the integrity of those processes is solid and the processes are robust. I want to echo the point of my colleague Mr Davis, who has already spoken about the good intentions within this legislation, yet also pointed out the lack of resourcing to make sure that we are able to monitor properly, correctly, and also effectively, to make sure that people in the community at large are looked after and also that that particular person who is under surveillance and monitoring is able to get on with, I guess, their reintegration back into the community.

I will not speak too much longer, other than to say that we do support this legislation. We will be looking further into some of the means by which we will be able to ensure the proper reintegration of offenders back into the community, one that will, of course, take into consideration their rights through the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, as mentioned by my colleague Mr Davis. I will conclude by saying that we support this legislation, and we hope that the outcome and the intention of these particular bills will be exactly as they are intended, so that you get better monitoring, the revictimisation does not occur, reoffending does not occur, and we are able to see a safer community for one and all. Kia ora.

JONATHAN YOUNG (National—New Plymouth): I am very pleased to stand in support of this legislation in its third reading. There are a number of bills that it has been broken up into now. I just want to acknowledge the comments of my colleague Peeni Henare across the House and say that he has identified some very positive aspects around this piece of legislation.

It would be obvious to see, even for any casual observer, that there is a tremendous amount of work being done by the Department of Corrections around the reintegration and rehabilitation of offenders. We see that the levels of literacy and numeracy are increasing. We see that there are a number of working prisons where prisoners are being trained in all sorts of good occupations and trades.

This piece of legislation is enabling a number of, I think, very positive measures. One of the things it means, of course, in terms of being able to have surveillance around offenders or prisoners who have been released from prison sentences of 2 years or less—prior to that they would not have been able to have electronic monitoring—and those under intense supervision and post-detention conditions that may apply at the end of a home detention is we will see a reduction in the number of ongoing victims of crime. We will see and know where offenders are, and there will be areas where they cannot be, and instead of finding out about that later, when they break those boundaries they will be seen sooner and there will be a response by the authorities around that. What that will do is not only will it keep people safer but also it will engender a higher level of compliance with those conditions.

One of the things that we know in New Zealand society is that, except for a very few, every person who enters a prison will come back out and live on the streets of our cities and towns and in our neighbourhoods. So it is very important that there is this developing behaviour of the respect of law. This legislation will enable that.

Another very important and positive attribute of this piece of legislation is that with the availability of electronic monitoring under intensive supervision, this could in fact reduce restrictions on offenders and improve their opportunities for employment and participation in our communities, simply because there is greater and closer contact between the probation service and offenders. In the past that level of contact and observation may not have occurred, and because of that there would have been tighter restrictions placed upon these people. But now, because of this, those restrictions, without compromising the safety of the public, can be relaxed to a measure so that there are greater employment opportunities and a greater ability to interact and engage and reintegrate in our communities.

So I am very grateful to be able to stand in support of this legislation. I am very grateful to hear that parties across this House, by and large, are supporting this piece of legislation, and I think it will progress the work that the Department of Corrections does in reintegrating people into our society. Thank you.

MOJO MATHERS (Green): It is my pleasure to take a short call on the legislation arising from the Electronic Monitoring of Offenders Legislation Bill. What this legislation does is provide an extra option when decisions are being made around sentencing, parole, and bail. In that sense we support it as a management tool, particularly if it helps people to stay out of prison. Obviously, as a management tool it can be used either fairly and appropriately or not.

What we expect is that this management tool will be used fairly and appropriately. In particular, we would hope that this would enable the early release from prison for some prisoners who qualify by providing extra reassurance that parole conditions will be observed and by also allowing for sentencing to electronic monitoring instead of the very restrictive home detention that is often imposed when there is no other management tool available.

So we do support it, but we do want to be able to be reassured that it will be used wisely, because if it is not used wisely it could be counter-productive. We do acknowledge the concerns that some submitters made around the fact that it could actually be counter-productive. For example, we do not want to see minor technical infringements resulting in a mass sending back to prison of offenders. So it is important that how this law has been used and applied is reviewed, because what is really important is to see whether it does actually end up with assisting with the reintegration of prisoners back into society and with reducing reoffending. If it has these outcomes, it will have been a really positive effect, but if it does not, then we need to review it.

What we really want to shift to is true restorative justice, rather than just simply locking up everybody in prison where they do not learn the skills for becoming part of a wider society and building a safer community. It is only through restorative justice that we will we see that outcome, and that is the long-term focus for us in the Green Party. We support this legislation, but we do not see it as the full and final answer to the problems that face us around addressing crime and injustice. There is a lot more that needs to be done, and we have a long way yet to go. Thank you.

MAHESH BINDRA (NZ First): Time and again we have warned this Government against the dangers of this failed electronic monitoring system. We have warned this Government that this system has failed and continues to fail. It has failed 15,500 times and over. We have always—always—warned this Government that New Zealanders have been hurt, New Zealanders have been raped, and New Zealanders have been killed by offenders who have breached this electronic monitoring system. There have been several instances—some very, very sad ones; some very tragic ones—where our citizens have been killed by those offenders who have been on electronic monitoring release conditions and have breached those conditions.

I think that Government members should rise up now, take this challenge, and do something about it, but they refuse to. Why do they refuse to? Because there are savings, in dollar terms, in relying heavily on this system. I know for a fact that, on average, between $77,000 and $99,000 is spent per prisoner every year. What this Government is looking at is saving those dollars—just buying an electronic bracelet and sending those dangerous criminals out into the communities and hoping that they will be all right—“People will be all right. It is an electronic system—nothing will happen. Do not worry about it. You are saving $77,000 per year.”

Public safety is not about dollars. It is about being honest about putting in systems where people can actually feel safe, and New Zealanders do not. New Zealand First is the only party that has stood up against this electronic monitoring system, because we know for a fact that it has been breached thousands of times. Now, with this system coming in, there will be an additional 5,400 more offenders who will be monitored by it, which means that there will be 5,400 ticking time bombs in our community. We cannot afford that. When this Government claims that it is all about protecting New Zealanders, it does not back it up with actions. This legislation goes against the Government’s claims.

As was said in the previous speeches, at any given time there are about 40 to 50 offenders who have breached their electronic monitoring conditions, which means they have actually cut their bracelet and are on the run—40 to 50 offenders at any given time. That costs $2,500 per breach. Multiply that by 15,500 breaches and you get the answer. However, the Government thinks that it is still a cheaper option than keeping those people in prison, where the Government has to spend $77,000 a year. This Government is all about taking cheaper options, not keeping New Zealanders safe. The law enforcement agencies do not know—they do not know—the whereabouts of those 40 to 50 offenders. Probably the offenders’ colleagues do, but this Government does not. The law enforcement agencies do not know where those people are, and those people are ticking time bombs. We have always—always—warned this Government against that.

The dangers of relying on this electronic monitoring system is that every time an offender cuts the bracelet or breaches the system by any other method, there is a time bomb in the community. Such a time bomb was one Tony Robertson, who callously raped and murdered Blessie Gotingco. But for this system—this failed system—Blessie would still be living in our community and Blessie would still be with her family. So we have actually failed her family. We, as lawmakers, have failed Blessie Gotingco and her family. We cannot afford to have any more Blessie Gotingcos in our communities. I am really, really passionately against this system because I know the dangers, I know the bottom line, and I know the intention behind this electronic monitoring bill being pursued so vehemently.

This Government is not very clear about how it is going to manage those 5,400 additional offenders in the community. There is not a murmur about any resources being given to the police. There is not a murmur about any additional resources being given to the Department of Corrections. There is no mention of any staff ratios being maintained according to what the additional number of offenders in the community is going to be. There is nothing at all.

For the many New Zealanders who have been hurt and who have been raped and killed, we stand up. We put New Zealanders first. This Government, unfortunately, does not. This legislation is all about saving $77,000. This legislation is all about saying one thing and doing just the opposite. We have always opposed this legislation and we will continue to do so. Thank you.

IAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei): I feel sorry for those blokes, getting out of bed on the wrong side every morning, year after year after year.

It is a pleasure for me to have the opportunity to speak briefly on the legislation that was the Electronic Monitoring of Offenders Legislation Bill, which is now split into three different bills. I suppose, if you were a minimalist, you would say we have got rid of one piece of legislation and we have tacked some amendments on to three others, which from this perspective is a pretty good thing.

The legislation will make a couple of key differences to what goes on in New Zealand. Much has been talked about already in this respect, but it will give offenders being monitored a much better chance of successfully reintegrating into society. If they are let out into the community and they are in some way or other monitored, and they know that they are controlled, or that people understand where they are at, I think we will be much better off and they will be better off. I think it will give them a better chance, as they go through that process, of not reoffending and of reintegrating into society and into the workforce.

It also makes a contribution to public safety, by putting a boundary on the offenders that they will respect by at times protecting victims, and at other times by restricting movement. There are a lot of options that this legislation gives the Department of Corrections and gives the courts as to the manner in which they implement it.

It is positive legislation. It is a small piece of legislation, but, like many other bits of legislation the Government has put in place around law and order in the last 8 or so years, it will make a difference. The two differences I have just spoken about are two of those.

At the moment there are about 4,000 people on electronic monitoring around New Zealand. It costs about $3,500 per person, so in that respect Mahesh Bindra, the last speaker, was right—it saves us about $90,000-odd if you do not lock them up. From my perspective, I think that is a very positive thing for New Zealand. It is very positive for our communities, and, as I said earlier, it does help reintegrate those prisoners in a much better and more stable manner.

The other thing I just want to talk briefly about—and this has been raised by a couple of speakers—is the concern around the technology. The advances in technology that we are seeing, not only in law and order, of course, but right across our community, are immense. Inevitably, as we introduce technology and use different forms of technology for monitoring or for whatever else we might use it for, there are always going to be challenges around that.

The Law and Order Committee did have an opportunity to go and visit the company that manages this technology for the Department of Corrections. I think, like any other technology that is being introduced into a system, there will always be some challenges around it, but we were quite impressed with the way it works. We got to understand how it operates and what that technology enables the Department of Corrections to do.

To get back to the point that two Labour speakers made, I think our major objective—in fact, the Green speaker Mojo Mathers made the same point—is to get these people who are being electronically monitored back into the workforce and back into our community, and allow them to reintegrate into our community without reoffending. With those few words, I commend these bills to the House.

LOUISA WALL (Labour—Manurewa): Kia ora, Mr Assistant Speaker, and thank you for this opportunity to contribute to the third readings of the bills arising from the Electronic Monitoring of Offenders Legislation Bill. As we have heard, the bill was divided at the Committee stage into the Corrections (Electronic Monitoring of Offenders) Amendment Bill, the Parole (Electronic Monitoring of Offenders) Amendment Bill, and the Sentencing (Electronic Monitoring of Offenders) Amendment Bill. Labour does support these particular pieces of legislation.

I think it is worth reiterating why this legislation was required, and whom it is actually relevant to. Electronic monitoring is about providing for people who either are exiting prison or, under this legislation, have had intensive supervision imposed on them. It will also now cover people who are being released from prison who have a sentence of 2 years or less. Currently those people are not eligible for electronic monitoring, and, in fact, that represents 5,800 prisoners in our justice system. Currently we have 2,000 people who have electronic monitoring devices in the community, so this piece of legislation could potentially double, if not treble, the number of people in our community who are undergoing electronic monitoring.

The extension of the eligibility is really about transitioning people out of prison and enabling us to feel secure as a public that those people who may have had to stay in prison for a little bit longer are actually monitored in some form. The definition of electronic monitoring is really interesting, and I will read it. It is: “a general term referring to forms of surveillance with which to monitor the location, movement and specific behaviour of persons in the framework of the criminal justice [system].”

I would particularly like to draw to the House’s attention in this, the third readings, someone whom I have tremendous respect for, and that is Kim Workman, who made a submission on behalf of the Robson Hanan Trust for the Rethinking Crime and Punishment project. He did have some reservations about electronic monitoring and the expansion of electronic monitoring as a tool for releasing prisoners into the community. From his perspective, if electronic monitoring became an end in itself and we did not ensure that prisoners who were released were released with a proper reintegration strategy and adequate support, then this legislative measure was actually not going to help with reducing the rates of reoffending.

What we do know, particularly for Māori, is that 5 years after release, unfortunately, 81 percent of Māori who have been in prison actually reoffend and end up in prison again. If this piece of legislation and electronic monitoring serve to address that issue, then, obviously, we, as parliamentarians, would have thought that this piece of legislative reform is exactly what we want to achieve in terms of setting some aims and objectives of reducing reoffending. The stated objective is to reduce reoffending by 25 percent. So what we hope is that in addition to electronic monitoring, when people are released they are actually released to a home—that they have somewhere to go to.

There have been some pilots recently—and I did not realise that 20 percent of prisoners actually are in there because of driving issues. Whether it be licensing issues or whether it be fines that they have not paid—for some of them it is dangerous driving—20 percent of our prison population is there because of driving issues. We would hope that when people are released into the community, having an opportunity to get their driver’s licence is something that we would also provide, as well as drug and alcohol counselling if that is what they need, and education and employment opportunities. It is worth noting at the third readings that these were some of the discussions we had at the Law and Order Committee, particular in respect of submissions by Dr Kim Workman.

I would also like to note that there was a New Zealand Bill of Rights Act issue about this piece of legislation, and that related to people who had been released on extended supervision orders. That particular terminology is really important, because the people released on extended supervision orders have been released after they have completed their sentence. These are high-risk sex offenders and very high-risk violent offenders who have to be released back into the community. We have to release them because they have served their time. For this particular group, the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act contention was that we were actually limiting their freedom of movement, and, in some ways, requiring them to then be electronically monitored was double jeopardy. However, the Law and Order Committee and this House have seen fit to say that that limitation for this particular group was justified because of the threat that they pose to the community.

People have talked about a few instances in this House. I think the bigger issue, really, is about sentencing—whether people are being sentenced adequately—and the other part of the equation is about whether people are being rehabilitated adequately. Those will be the continued challenges, I believe, to the justice system within that specific context. But overall I think we have had a fairly robust debate and discussion about this piece of legislation. I think there are still challenges about the actual bracelets themselves—how effective they are. Obviously, some of my colleagues have highlighted members of the public who have been able cut through those bracelets.

I think that, overall, as a Parliament, we are supporting the use of technology. But from our perspective—and I think this is a good point to restate—technology has to be coupled with rehabilitation, with reintegration strategies, and, actually, with supporting prisoners when they are released into the community to make sure that if that is their first time in prison, then it is actually their last. Kia ora.

BARBARA KURIGER (National—Taranaki - King Country): It is a pleasure to take a call on these pieces of legislation. I have not been part of the Law and Order Committee, so I have not been able to hear the submissions as we have gone through, but I have been listening to what has been happening tonight. I really would support what the last speaker, Louisa Wall, said in terms of actually helping these people rehabilitate back into the community. This is one of the tools that we can use.

Having been at the corrections facility recently in Te Awamutu, looking at some of the projects that some of those people are starting to do in our community, I would certainly support this as part of their rehabilitation. It is about keeping our communities safe, but it is actually about how, when our offenders are back in our community, we want to support them to stay away from the drivers of crime and help them to become rehabilitated. Often it is temporary release. They are people who want to attend funerals, or they need to attend medical treatment or, as I mentioned before, work experience. It is partly about temporary release, but it is also about people who are permitted to reside outside the perimeters of the prison. It is giving that extra effective tool to those people so that we can help them keep safe.

Monitoring can improve public safety by making authorities aware that offenders have failed to comply with their conditions, as it relates to their whereabouts. There are a lot of things that we can do now with GPS that we were not able to do in 2000, 2002, and 2004, in these old pieces of legislation. It really makes sense to use modern technology to help our prisoners rehabilitate. So it is my pleasure to commend these bills to the House. Thank you.

Su’a WILLIAM SIO (Labour—Māngere): The main purpose of the legislation is to remove legislative barriers to the electronic monitoring of offenders released from a sentence of imprisonment of 2 years or less, and offenders sentenced to intensive supervision. This largely constitutes the offender participating in special programmes and interventions from 6 months to 2 years. Intensive supervision is recognised as a community-based rehabilitation sentence, although I suspect many of us question whether that actually provides rehabilitation back into the community or whether people end up reoffending. It is given if the court deems that extra rehabilitation and reintegration assistance is needed in order to reduce the likelihood of reoffending and, consequently, according the Department of Corrections, those who receive intensive supervision are generally offenders who are assessed as having a medium to high risk of reoffending, who have been convicted of serious offensives, or who have complex and severe rehabilitative needs. This would mean that the courts have the ability to impose electronic monitoring on such offenders. It does not mean that in all cases such conditions would be imposed. If it was chosen to enforce electronic monitoring of an individual, this would allow the Department of Corrections to monitor compliance with offenders’ whereabouts restrictions in certain areas.

The amendments also allow probation officers to impose reasonable administrative obligations on offenders in regard to their monitoring equipment—for instance, that the offender regularly charges the equipment or does not interfere with its monitoring capabilities.

I note that in the Law and Order Committee report and the amendments that it offered it says that “Prisoners have for many years been temporarily released or granted escorted absences from prison for several recognised purposes, such as funerals, medical treatment, and work experience. The amendments would clarify that such temporary release and removal situations may include a requirement that a prisoner submit to electronic monitoring for the duration of their temporary release or removal from prison.”

In the Labour Party, we support the legislation because we want to be able to give some confidence to the community in terms of providing safety, in terms of ensuring that for those prisoners who are released back into society there is a tool that the Department of Corrections can use to help monitor them. I have now heard, a couple of times, members of the Government say that this keeps offenders away from the drivers of crime. In fact, Mr Bakshi himself said earlier that the Government was working really, really hard on the drivers of crime. I am not sure whether I agree with that, because when we look at the drivers of crime that have been recognised by the police over years of experience, they name families as one, particularly when families are dysfunctional. They name youth as one, particularly when vulnerable youth and children are involved. They name road policing as another driver. They name alcohol, and they name organised crime and drugs. When Mr Bakshi said that this was part of the Government’s efforts to tackle the drivers of crime, you almost get the feeling that, somehow, it believes its rhetoric that it is reducing crime and it is reducing the drivers of crime.

I am not sure whether the Government can confidently say that, because when I look at the statistics that it released from the Department of Corrections that show we have a total number of offenders released into the Auckland region of about 12,000—and here are some numbers for the Parliament to entertain. In Auckland the total number of offenders released as of 31 July 2016 was almost 3,000—2,932. The number of offenders with violent offences was 491. The number of offenders with sexual offences was 46. In Waitematā the total number of offenders was over 3,000—3,129. The number of offenders with violent offences was 497, and the number of offenders with sexual offences in the Waitematā region was 45. In Manukau we had 80 offenders with sexual offences. The number of offenders with violent offences was 1,080, and the total number of offenders released into Manukau was over 5,000. This is one of the reasons why you will hear people in Manukau banging on the drums and saying that South Auckland seems to be a dumping ground.

This Government seems to think that having the electronic monitoring is going to reduce crime. I do not believe that. When it says that it is addressing the drivers of crime, I am asking myself what it is doing about the poverty that families are facing. What is it doing about the growing numbers—the 300,000 children living in poverty? What is it doing about the growing homelessness of many families? Under that heading of “family”—the police are saying that is a driver of crime. I heard Mr Bakshi and his colleagues say that they are addressing that, but they are not. Under the driver “youth”—we have now got more than 70,000 young people who are—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Back on the bills.

Su’a WILLIAM SIO: —not yet in employment, education, or training.

I am only addressing what that side has said—that it is doing something about the drivers of crime and that, somehow, electronic monitoring is going to reduce poverty, reduce homelessness, and reduce the number of young people not yet in education or employment.

Another driver is alcohol, the Government has said. But this is a Government that refuses to be hard on the liquor industry—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Focus on the bills.

Su’a WILLIAM SIO: —and is making it really, really difficult.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Come back to the bills.

Su’a WILLIAM SIO: My colleague Louisa Wall made mention of people who had been released on extended supervision order. We have a case in Māngere, but it is really a case out in South Auckland. It is a case that I believe touches many, many communities, where a person who has rightfully served their time has been released into the community. But this person has been identified by the Department of Corrections as having a high risk of reoffending. The community was told that this person would be under 24/7 supervision, and I suspect—I believe he also has electronic monitoring. But the reality is the difference between this person and every other offender that we have mentioned earlier is that the department recognises him as having a high risk of reoffending. In fact, it felt that his was so serious that it applied for a public protection order so that he would be accommodated within the boundaries of close accommodation next to a prison. But it failed to do that. I keep asking myself, why is it?

One of the drivers of crime is road policing, and organised crime—and it involves the police. It involves the police. We are dependent on the police, yet this Government has underfunded police by $300 million. How can we then expect to solve crime, reduce the number of people who are reoffending, and provide proper, sound, in-depth rehabilitative measures if we refuse to properly fund Government departments? Yet that is what we pay our taxes for. So I do not have any confidence, as others have raised.

I hope that the Government does not think that this is going to be the answer to everything. The answer to everything is not electronic monitoring. The answer to some of the drivers that it says it is tackling is to provide jobs, to provide higher incomes, and to make housing more affordable. Those are the real issues that we should be debating. Those are the real issues that that Government ought to be focused on, but that is not what we are hearing, and it is certainly not what my community is hearing from this Government.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Corrections (Electronic Monitoring of Offenders) Amendment Bill, the Parole (Electronic Monitoring of Offenders) Amendment Bill, and the Sentencing (Electronic Monitoring of Offenders) Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

Ayes 107

New Zealand National 59; New Zealand Labour 32; Green Party 12; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.

Noes 12

New Zealand First 12.

Bills read a third time.

Bills

Agricultural Compounds and Veterinary Medicines Amendment Bill

Second Reading

Debate resumed from 15 September.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Members, when we were last debating the second reading of the Agricultural Compounds and Veterinary Medicines Amendment Bill, Eugenie Sage had the call. She has 4 minutes remaining—[Interruption] She does not wish to take those. I call the Hon David Cunliffe—5 minutes.

Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn): It is a pleasure to take a brief call in support of the Agricultural Compounds and Veterinary Medicines Amendment Bill. Labour does support this bill, representing as it does a balance between two important objectives in fostering innovation around our primary industries. In my brief remarks, I am just going to describe the balance that it seeks to find, note why that is so important to the New Zealand economy, and note a couple of issues that follow from it.

The balance is designed to foster innovation and to allow our producers to extract competitive advantage by gaining a return on the investment that they have made in agricultural compounds. It might seem a technical part of our economy, but this is important legislation because some 57 percent of all research and development undertaken in the New Zealand economy is undertaken in or around the primary sector. It is in agribusiness—broadly defined, from the pasture to the farm gate to the factories that process and then market our protein stream and our fibre stream—that we believe New Zealand has a potential global competitive advantage.

But we on this side of the House also recognise the challenges. New Zealand invests around about 1.27 percent of its GDP in research and development. The average across the OECD is 2.5 percent, almost exactly double what New Zealand invests—and we have a smaller GDP to start with. The average for the “small smart countries club”—the so-called small advanced economies—is closer to 3 percent, nearer to triple what New Zealand invests. When you break that problem down, it is not primarily a Government problem; there is a lot of bipartisanship around science and innovation policy. The previous Labour Government, I think members opposite would agree, did a very good job under Pete Hodgson. Much of what the current Government is doing we support, but we would like to take it further.

The issue that both sides would recognise is that although the Governments have been doing a reasonably average job at this, private sector investment in research and development in New Zealand has been desultory—around about a third to a quarter of the OECD average, putting us at the back of the pack. Neither Government has really truly cracked that problem. The current Government set up Callaghan Innovation to look at manufacturers and services, and it has taken an end-to-end view of the value chain. That is not a bad thing, in principle. It has not worked. Business research and development has not increased as a share of GDP.

It is in this field of primary industry—in agriculture and, in this case, in respect of agricultural chemicals—that we in this House are collectively trying to seek, therefore, a balance between two, essentially, opposing forces. On the one hand, for a new-entrant company or a new developer, it can be an advantage to have short periods of intellectual property protection—short-life patents. What this bill does is it provides longer periods of protection for new information that is used to develop or market new agricultural or veterinary compounds. The reason it does that—and it is quite right and we support it—is that that period of protection allows an economic return to be earned from the investment that has been made in the development of those compounds, and thus provides incentives for further private sector research and development.

Bayer testified to the Primary Production Committee that it costs around about a million dollars to develop a new compound, and around a half a million dollars to develop a derivative or an additive compound off that base. Any investor is entitled to a period of time where they can extract a return from that investment without knock-offs eating their margin. The question is: how long is enough? We think this bill strikes a reasonably fair balance, which is why we are supporting it. The point of difference between the two sides of the House is how far we should go in stimulating research and development and innovation.

We think that the dairy crisis—Mr Assistant Speaker, I know it is close to your heart as the member for the Waikato—has given everybody a wake-up call around diversification. We are fortunate that we have had growth in tourism, construction, and other sectors to offset the dairy downturn. This bill is a small step towards further supporting the diversification of our economy, and, in that regard, the Labour Opposition supports it.

BARBARA KURIGER (National—Taranaki - King Country): It is a pleasure to take a call on the Agricultural Compounds and Veterinary Medicines Amendment Bill in its second reading. As the previous speaker, David Cunliffe, talked about tonight, those who spend the research money get the ability to get a return, and they get a better chance of that with the proposals that are put forward under this piece of legislation. We in New Zealand, particularly in our agricultural industries, want to encourage innovation, and the way this is set up now, it is actually starting to stifle innovation. So this bill strikes the right balance between incentivising the registration of products in the primary sector and encouraging competition in the agricultural market space.

We have heard a few arguments, particularly from members of the Green Party, about corporates and having them taking over and all the rest of it, but, actually, I think this is more about smaller players than it is about bigger players, because if you are a smaller player and you have got a good idea, is it not just a better idea for us to hold on to their data for longer until they get to a point of getting an advantage out of the money that they have invested into the research and development of that product? It is designed to encourage businesses to register new products.

The current case at the moment is fairly marginal, under the legislation that we have. It impacts on the ability of Kiwi businesses to access the latest agricultural products available. I have to make mention of the fact that we talk about chemicals, and that sort of raises people’s heckles, but, actually, there are chemicals that are involved in organic farming as well. There may be some breakthroughs that we can find in technology in our future that can make a huge difference to the way we farm environmentally and that people might want to invest in now if they know that they can have a period of time where they can prove their data and make some money from it. So we would not want to stifle any investment that was coming our way in terms of environmental chemicals and products.

The other example is that if a new product is registered for use on species A and then it is registered for use on species B—so, for example, we find another use for it—then it will get an extra year of data protection, and then, again, if that new product is then registered for species C and species D, there will be another 2 years of data protection. During this new period, if another applicant tries to register a similar product, they will need to go and develop their own supporting data, which I think is fair. I have pleasure in commending this bill to the House. Thank you.

POTO WILLIAMS (Labour—Christchurch East): I rise to take a relatively crisp call on the Agricultural Compounds and Veterinary Medicines Amendment Bill. While researching this—I am not a member of the Primary Production Committee, so I have spent a little bit of time reading about the contents of the bill—I found it quite interesting to do a bit of a comparison on the bill as it was introduced and what came back to the House after the select committee made its deliberations.

I guess the first point to make is really about the difference between an innovative and a non-innovative product. Of course, the innovative product is one where the active ingredient has not previously been registered in New Zealand, and the non-innovative product is one where reformulations or other uses are found for active ingredients that have already been registered in New Zealand. The bill seeks to look at defining the data-protection period for these particular products, and the departmental briefing to the committee made the distinction between data protection and patent.

A patent confers certain market exclusivity, whereas data protection is really about how the original applicant can take time to recover the costs of developing the supporting data before suppliers of competing generic products can use that data to enter the market. But it does not stop other parties from generating their own data and registering competing products. So the bill as introduced extends the data-protection period by up to 3 years under certain circumstances. The departmental briefing made reference to the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement. What it made specific reference to was the requirement for 10 years of data protection under that agreement, and that officials discussed the policy decisions that may align the timing issues of the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement and what may come out of this legislation.

I had a look at a couple of submissions, firstly from Federated Farmers of New Zealand. They were supportive of the default periods for data protection for the innovative trade name products moving from 5 years to 10 years, and for data protection of the non-innovative trade products being moved from 3 years to 5 years. They also suggested that the select committee amend the bill to increase protection of data for innovative trade applications by 1 year for each new use subsequently approved, up to a maximum of 5 years.

The other submitter that I had a look at was Zoetis—I think it is called Zoetis—which was formerly Pfizer Animal Health. It was interested in looking at intellectual property and the distinction between patent protection and data protection. I just want to quote from its submission. It talks about a significant period of time and money being spent on further development “generating data from clinical activities, which must be completed before the product can be made available for use. It is this data that requires protection under the local legislation. In many cases the patent protection for an innovative product will be significantly eroded by the time a trade name product is registered, thereby putting the data at significant risk. It must therefore, be adequately protected by local legislation.”

So what did the committee make of this report and the submissions, and what came back to the House? The committee recommended that the provisions in clause 6 be amended and a new section 74B be included to extend the base level of data protection from 5 years to 10 years, but it did not recommend any extension beyond 10 years. It recommended, in clause 6, a new section 74D, which has a data protection period remaining at 10 years, or 5 years after new use applications—whichever was longer. So it was looking at data protection remaining at 10 years or 5 years if there were new use applications. Also, it recommended, in clause 6, the inclusion of new section 74E, which looked at data protection for 5 years after the application is decided. The committee did consider that 5 years would promote registration and encourage competition, and that any extension beyond the 5 years would adversely affect competition.

In summary, looking at the departmental briefing, the submissions, and what the committee recommended with regard to the data protection periods, I look forward to the Committee stage discussions. Labour will support the passage of the bill.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Agricultural Compounds and Veterinary Medicines Amendment Bill be now read a second time.

Ayes 105

New Zealand National 59; New Zealand Labour 32; New Zealand First 12; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.

Noes 14

Green Party 12; Māori Party 2.

Bill read a second time.

Bills

Statutes Repeal Bill

First Reading

Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister for Regulatory Reform): I move, That the Statutes Repeal Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Government Administration Committee to consider the bill. Today I present to the House the Statutes Repeal Bill. The bill repeals or partially repeals 132 Acts that have been identified as no longer being required, because they are obsolete, redundant, or spent. The bill forms one part of the commitment made by this Government to improve the regulatory environment in New Zealand, as outlined in the Government response to the Productivity Commission’s report on regulatory institutions and practices. This is built around a set of core expectations for departmental regulatory stewardship. Ensuring that the statute book contains laws and regulations that are easy to use, up to date, and fit for purpose is key to having a quality regulatory environment. The Statutes Repeal Bill will help achieve this by clearing the statute book of some unnecessary and spent Acts, without having to proceed with a repeal bill for each of the 132 separate pieces of legislation.

The bill will reduce the total number of Acts enforced in New Zealand by 124. It will reduce the number of public Acts, which is currently 1,116, by 116 or slightly more than 10 percent. That is right—10 percent of all public Acts will come off the books. Without this bill the spent Acts will continue to sit on the statute book, which may create confusion for users of legislation.

The bill contains five clauses. The first two clauses cover the title and the commencement of the legislation. Clause 3 repeals the Acts specified in schedule 1 of the bill in full or in part. Clause 4 enacts schedules 2 and 3. Schedule 2 saves important provisions from a small number of the Acts being repealed, to avoid adverse effects on some parties. Schedule 3 covers consequential amendments, which are references to the repealed Acts in other enactments. Part 2 of schedule 3 covers the consequential revocation of seven regulations. Clause 5 provides for the Statutes Repeal Bill itself to be repealed 28 days after the Act comes into force, thereby removing the need for future repeal bills to have to repeal their predecessors.

Eight of the Acts being repealed are private Acts that are redundant and the relevant successor, entity, or promoter has agreed to their repeal. The Acts put forward for repeal have been identified by Ministers from 10 portfolios. Acts were identified by the responsible department, following a process of consultation led by Treasury and the Parliamentary Counsel Office. Ensuring that the legislation it is responsible for is still necessary and fit for purpose is an important part of a department’s regulatory stewardship obligations. The identified Acts represent an interesting cross-section of New Zealand history, with many relating to significant events, such as the 1931 Hawke’s Bay earthquake and the hosting of Rugby World Cup 2011. A large portion of the Acts originate from the period of 1985 to 1993, reflecting a large number of significant reforms that took place in the New Zealand public sector during that time.

A similar bill, now the Regulatory Reform Repeals Act, was passed by this Government in 2012 and repealed 32 Acts, including itself. New Zealand is one of a number of countries that use omnibus repeal bills to repeal redundant legislation. The United Kingdom has passed 19 statute law (repeal) bills since 1965. The Federal Parliament of Australia has a regular repeals day, where redundant legislation is considered for appeal. It is not my intention that this be the last Statutes Repeal Bill. I intend that an omnibus bill of this nature be proposed periodically, to ensure that Acts that are no longer required are removed from the statute book. I thank my colleagues responsible for the Acts put forward for repeal in this bill. Their decision to put these Acts into the bill shows the commitment that this Government has to improving this stock of legislation.

Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour): I am surprised that we did not hear, in these lists of statutes that need to be repealed, the Airport Authorities (Publicising Lost Property Sales) Amendment Bill. I see that Nuk Korako is here, and hopefully he is going to take a call and explain to the House why it is that the members’ ballot was clogged up with a bill that could have been dealt with in this omnibus piece of legislation, if there was any need to deal with it. Instead, it is a separate piece of legislation.

The Minister who just spoke, the Hon Steven Joyce, heralded the fact that this is actually saving the country money by having less complicated laws on the books and getting rid of costs that would otherwise be incurred in society. I find that impossible to reconcile with the Airport Authorities (Publicising Lost Property Sales) Amendment Bill that, according to the media—they describe it this way—“was plucked from the members’ ballot box on Thursday and added to Parliament’s agenda. It would let airports ‘determine the most appropriate way to advertise lost property’.”, i.e. let them do it as they think fit, rather than have a regulated way of doing it. If that is the case, you do not need the law at all. You could have just repealed it.

I am looking forward to hearing from the honourable member in whose name this bill sits as to why the legislation to get rid of that old, redundant piece of airport authorities rules relating to how you publicise lost property sales—why they are not doing that through the Statutes Repeal Bill, so that we can save this country the hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth, and it is hundreds of thousands of dollars, of parliamentary time that is going to be wasted, as well as stopping members using the members’ bill process for more significant pieces of legislation that ought to be heard by this House.

It is not just me or other Opposition members saying that. Andrew Geddis, Professor of Public Law at the University of Otago, said “Not only is the bill ‘disrespectful to New Zealand’ ”, but that he found it “personally insulting”. He said that it stopped bills of real public significance from being put before Parliament, and then he listed one or two. He makes the point that the members’ ballot is one of the only opportunities for Opposition MPs to get attention to their issues and to have them debated. As others have said, it makes a mockery of the Prime Minister’s claim that the Government is focused on the issues that matter.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: It has been 3½ minutes talking about something that is not in the bill.

Hon DAVID PARKER: That is probably about enough, I would agree.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: It is not in the bill; that is the problem.

Hon DAVID PARKER: That is the problem.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: There is a lot that is not in the bill.

Hon DAVID PARKER: I think that is a fair point. I think I have made enough of a contribution on that issue myself, but I do look forward to Nuk Korako responding to that, given that he is in the House. I see him across the Chamber. I am sure other members will comment as well.

In terms of the statutes that are being repealed, it is good that they are. There are some very old Acts in here. The Consolidated Statutes Enactment Act 1908 is repealed, as is the Counties Insurance Empowering Act.

The Auckland Harbour Bridge Authority Dissolution Act is an interesting one. We have had to have some specific amendments to replace that in this legislation, because evidently the authorities could not be trusted to light the Auckland Harbour Bridge. The Government thought that it was necessary to tell the people who run the Auckland Harbour Bridge that they have got to keep the lights on. “The Agency must at all times ensure that the Auckland Harbour Bridge is adequately lighted so as to provide for the safety of ships and aircraft in the vicinity of the Auckland Harbour Bridge.”

Hon Member: Keep your lights on at the National Party.

Hon DAVID PARKER: Well, perhaps. The other one that I see there—they have got a new section to prevent the unauthorised use of the King George the Fifth Memorial Children’s Health Camps Federation emblem. I am not sure that that required legislative force.

Paul Foster-Bell: Quite right.

Hon DAVID PARKER: “Quite right.”, says Mr Foster-Bell. Well, I am not sure that that sort of thing needs to be stated in legislation, but the National Government thinks it does. Labour will be supporting this bill to select committee. It is a piece of legislation that should pass. It is good that we repeal or partially repeal the 132 Acts that are no longer needed. But I do lament the fact that the Government, having made the enormous mistake of clogging up the members’ ballot, did not take this opportunity to get rid of that old piece of Auckland Airport legislation through just repealing it here, rather than forcing us to relitigate this issue for months to come whilst Nuk Korako shepherds his incredibly important piece of legislation through the House.

PAUL FOSTER-BELL (National): E Te Mana Whakawā Tuarua mauri ora, tēnā koe, ā, tēnā koutou katoa e ngā mema.

[Tēnā koe, Mr Deputy Speaker, and a vibrant life to you and to you all the members.]

At least the Hon David Parker did make a few fair points, particularly around those that agreed that this bill has some useful measures, and at least he had the courtesy to pronounce my colleague Nuk Korako’s name correctly. It is a proud name that that member carries, and his bill, the Airport Authorities (Publicising Lost Property Sales) Amendment Bill, actually does do something useful. Actually, repealing the entire Airport Authorities Act is something that this House does not want to do. Nuk Korako’s bill makes a useful modification, modifying one small provision, so I congratulate Nuk for that good work that he is doing.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Well, do not spend more money justifying it.

PAUL FOSTER-BELL: This is a useful bill. Unlike states like Singapore, which regularly and routinely include sunset clauses in their legislation, we have not had a tradition of doing that, so the statute book does become, over time, somewhat clogged up with bills that have outlived their usefulness. This Statutes Repeal Bill does much to correct that situation. It provides, also, a timely and very cost-effective way of doing this. It is an omnibus bill, as others have pointed out, and this particular omnibus bill removes 124 pieces of legislation—that is actually 10 percent of the total New Zealand statute book that we are repealing here.

Some members have referenced legislation that is being repealed. One interesting example that I would draw on is the 1931 Hawke’s Bay Earthquake Act. We have heard caterwauls from some people in this House that it has taken a few years to repeal the emergency legislation for Canterbury and to transition from that recovery into regeneration, as this Government has been progressing—yet it has taken us the better part of 80 years to consider repealing the Hawke’s Bay earthquake emergency legislation from 1931. We also have one bill that covers Depression mortgages from the 1930s. We have one that deals specifically with the Y2K bug—which one can only assume was a Labour-manufactured crisis because it never eventuated and that legislation is no longer required. We also have the Seamen’s Union Funds Act from 1971, and many pieces of legislation that were passed during the reform period of the fourth Labour Government that have outlived their usefulness—although, at the time, they were necessary. This is a very good, sensible, timely, and efficient way to fix up our statute book, and I commend it to the House.

Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn): It is a distinct pleasure to be able to take an opportunity to commend this bill to the House and speed it on its way to early implementation. My short contribution tonight will be divided into two sections: what is in the bill, and what is not in it.

Let us start with what is not in it. Nuk Korako’s bill is not in it: the bill that has taken up hours and hours of House time to achieve the unbelievable feat of empowering airports to change the way they advertise lost luggage from a classified ad to an internet ad. At least it was not going the other way and going from the internet to a classified ad, because that would be, perhaps, even more wasteful than what we have seen in this House. It has become an emblem of a third-term Government—a Government that is tired, that is out of touch, and that is not focused on the issues that matter to New Zealanders. Mr Deputy Speaker, I see you waving your hand; you are probably feeling what every New Zealander is feeling—

Hon Amy Adams: Bored with your speech?

Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: —why on earth is Parliament talking about lost luggage? Ah, the shrill sound of the lesser Canterbury banshee—is it not lovely?

The other bill that is not repealed by this and should have been is the Litter (Increased Infringement Fee) Amendment Bill by the distinguished former mayor of Palmerston North, Mr Jono Naylor, which, drawing upon his years of experience at the pinnacle of local government, has drawn the time of the House to raise the litter infringement fee from $400 to $1,000—based, no doubt, on the average hourly rate of the average National backbencher. Fair enough.

So what is in this bill? As one thumbs through its many pages, and who can argue with the objective of extinguishing redundant legislation—

Hon Member: What about redundant members?

Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: —of terminating redundant members; we are not looking in any particular direction—but terminating things that have no longer got a useful life in Parliament. As we thumb through the pages, this is the “nuke ’em” bill for old laws. It is appropriate that Mr Korako is here to bless its passage, because he has become an icon of legislative redundancy—an icon of legislative redundancy. What goodies do we find in the annals of this tome? I think it is appropriate that we first turn our attention to the detail of Part 10. This will no doubt be of great relief to you, Mr Deputy Speaker, because at this stage of the day, you will be wanting specificity in the contribution.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: You are not bringing me into this. Carry on.

Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: Part 10, “Fisheries Act 1996”. Clause 45 amends section 186A, “Temporary closure of fishing area or restriction on fishing methods”, and it replaces that section with a section that says that it “may be in force for a period of not more than 2 years and, unless sooner revoked, is revoked at the end of that 2-year period:”. It is followed by clause 47, which says: “in section 197(3)(a), replace ‘not exceeding $1,000 in any one year’ with ‘at a rate determined by the chief executive’ ”.

What is clear—and, Mr Deputy Speaker, your office has earlier today, quite rightly, given this House 2 hours to debate it—is that a rate determined by the chief executive of the Ministry for Primary Industries fisheries division is precisely zero, because they are no longer in the business of enforcing the law in respect of fisheries, and, in particular, bycatch. They have had solid evidence of fish dumping, and they have, at the highest levels, made a conscious decision, despite advice, that it would be sufficient for a prosecution to ignore it and let the culprits away scot-free. As my good colleague Kelvin Davis said earlier in the day, that matters to the average Kiwi fisher because the same Government is blaming recreational fishers for the depletion of fish stocks that is actually being done by commercial players who are not accurately reporting their bycatch because they have illegally dumped it, which brings us back to this bill—

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: To the bill—let us do that.

Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: In clause 47, the words “at a rate determined by the chief executive” reveal the agenda of this Government. There will be no penalties, because it is a happy hunting ground now for illegal fishing.

Brett Hudson: What a load of rubbish.

Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: What a load of rubbish, as the members opposite have said. It is a load of rubbish—it is actually a crime, and it should be prosecuted. Just because someone might, hypothetically, have given millions of dollars to the National Party should not mean that they are above the law, colleagues. It should mean that the law treats the rich, the poor, the insiders, and the outsiders just the same. That is the Westminster democracy that we are here to defend, that is the Westminster democracy that the people around these walls fought and died to defend, and that is what the current Government is not upholding.

From the sublime to the ridiculous, new section 110, inserted by clause 40—actually, this is not ridiculous; this is one of the clauses that I think the Government has got it right on—gives an obligation to give effect to a ministerial direction to a former State-owned enterprise now known as an entity in the mixed-ownership model. It is a sort of mélange à deux between the public and private sectors—

Paul Foster-Bell: Ménage à what?

Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: Mélange not ménage it is, because what a bugger’s muddle this has turned out to be. Those entities do not know whether they are subject to Crown direction or not. So, finally, after months and months of advice being given by Her Majesty’s loyal Opposition, the geniuses on the far side have clarified that in fact those rather muddled entities should be subject to ministerial direction under new section 110 inserted by clause 40 in this bill, just as the Labour Opposition has been advising for the last year or two.

Turning the page—this is a bit like a bedtime story is it not, where the child says: “Oh, that is a good story, Dadda. Wow, can that really be true? Can they really be that stupid?”. “Yes, son, they can.” But wait, there is more. Turn to Part 21, “Protection of Personal and Property Rights Act 1988”, as one scans down through new section 95A and down through clauses 77 and 78—on and on and on it goes, pages and pages of legislative amendment to what end? To achieve the earth-shattering outcome of allowing members of the public to exchange one power of attorney with an updated power of attorney. A laudable goal you might say, one that we would support. We are, in fact, voting for this bill but these are the massive issues of State that are consuming the minds of the bodies politic on the other side of the House, fiddling while Rome burns, and incrementalising while New Zealand slips further and further behind its colleagues in the OECD pack.

Our last bill that we debated was the Agricultural Compounds and Veterinary Medicines Amendment Bill. Let us put this in the language that farmers will understand, 4c in the dollar for milk at the farm gate relative to the consumer price—4c in the dollar. Why is that relevant? Because this bill is a missed opportunity to drive New Zealand forward, up the value chain where we can earn a higher living; none of that is in Part 21 on page 21. Actually, that in itself is a feat that the Government ought to get credit for—

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! The member is talking about page 21 of the bill. In my pages, the last page is page 14. So I have been struggling to find the relevancy of the various clauses. He talked about a clause 47; there is not one. He talked about a clause 120—something like that—there is not one there either. So I am pleased to see that there is only a minute and six seconds left, and I would really hope that in the last minute and six seconds he makes it relevant to the matter under discussion.

Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: Mr Speaker, that timely interjection is really a dagger thrust at the heart of New Zealand’s democracy, because one of three things can have happened: either the Speaker has a different version of the bill from members of this House, which would be a travesty of our democratic tradition; or yours is single-spaced and mine is double-spaced, which is the most hoped for explanation; or possibly that my executive assistant has, in fact, inserted the Statutes Amendment Bill rather than the Statutes Repeal Bill.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I think that is probably it. You are in the wrong place on the wrong day with the wrong bill.

Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: Which might happily conclude my contribution.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Well, I hope that timely interruption by the Speaker is relevant enough to make page 2 of the Dominion Post tomorrow.

MARK MITCHELL (National—Rodney): Mr Deputy Speaker, I think that it was almost inhumane and cruel of you to wait until Hon David Cunliffe only had a minute left, to point out the fact that he had brought the wrong bill to the House. But I am very happy to take a call on this—

Hon David Cunliffe: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I take offence at the fact that it took members opposite 9 minutes to work that out.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I would just like to suggest that there are lots of things that the other members of the House could have taken offence at and did not.

MARK MITCHELL: I have to say that it is not uncommon for this side of the House to always be puzzled about what that member is speaking about in the House.

I am very happy to take a call on the Statutes Repeal Bill. I would just like to highlight the fact that the Productivity Commission’s report made it very clear that it felt that the Government should be focused on our large stock of regulation and making sure that we keep updating that to stay in line with a changing world. I think that as a country we should be very proud that we actually rank second in the world in terms of ease of doing business, at how good our regulatory platform is, and that we remain focused on keeping red tape and compliance costs to a minimum. A big part of being able to do that is bringing omnibus bills like this to the House to make sure that we keep modernising and we keep our statutes up to date. I know that the Hon Damien O’Connor would agree with these comments. I look forward to him taking a call and supporting the bill. Being a good West Coast man he understands how important it is support our private sector and businesses with good legislation.

I would just like to highlight that there is a wide range of legislation in this omnibus bill. I think the Hon Steven Joyce highlighted the fact that we have got legislation dating back to the 1930s when we had to deal with an earthquake in Hawke’s Bay, right through to 2011, dealing with the Rugby World Cup. I am very happy to take a call in support of this bill. Thank you.

DAVID CLENDON (Green): I am very happy to speak to this Statutes Repeal Bill—I think I got that right. It is a good and useful bill. It is a necessary thing occasionally to have a clear out of the statutory cupboard. New Zealand has been, on occasion, referred to as having the fastest legislature in the West. I think we are also one of the most prolific. There is legislation in this repeal bill that dates back over 100 years. It simply serves no purpose and, for that reason, we support most of what we see in this bill.

There is one considerable exception to that, however. If one goes to schedule 1 on page 7 of the bill you find the Sentencing Council Act 2007 is one of those Acts to be excised from the statute books. We are entirely opposing the proposition that we ought not to retain that legislative opportunity, because that is all it is so far. The bill was passed, of course, and the Act came into being during the last Labour Government, towards the end of its term. This Government has chosen never to actually put it into existence. A sentencing council has never been established; if it is repealed in this bill, then one never will be able to without yet another Act of Parliament. We will be supporting this bill to select committee but at the select committee we will be arguing that, rather than repealing this bill, the National Government should look at amending it to suit them. That would be very much in line with their contribution to the debates at the time the bill was passed. To be fair, the Government has been consistent. They did oppose the passing of the bill in 2007, but, as I will come to later, the National Party in Opposition did not object in principle to the idea of a sentencing council, they simply proposed that the Government of the day, the Labour-led Government of the day, had got the wrong model for a sentencing council.

We are very strong on the fact that we actually need a sentencing council. The primary function of such an entity, of course, is to even out sentencing to ensure that there is a level of consistency. I think it is a well-drafted piece of legislation as it sits. It does not take away Parliament’s right to make law. It does not see Parliament interfering more than it ought to in the business of the judiciary. It does enable a judiciary to, within its own realm, come to some sensible guidelines about what sentencing should look like. We have had quite recent high-profile instances where people have really questioned and challenged what appear to be significantly different sentences for offending by offenders where there seems to be a great deal of similarity. As I said, we will support the bill to the first reading but we do think that it is a mistake to repeal the sentencing council legislation.

The 2007 Act, as it stands, was written in response to a Law Commission report at the time called Sentencing Guidelines and Parole Reform. The commission published the useful report and a set of statements about why a sentencing council was both necessary and useful to have. As I said, in 2008 with a change of Government, Simon Power, who was the Minister at the time, referred to the council as “just another layer of bureaucracy”, and suggested that it was unnecessary. But, sadly, the very evident and measurable disparity in sentencing outcomes has been obvious ever since then, and, indeed, I would argue they are getting worse. There is evidence that we are getting considerable disparity in sentencing outcomes, and that is a very unfortunate outcome indeed.

I will not dwell on it at any great length, given the time available, but I would encourage people to go back to the 2006 Law Commission report headed A Sentencing Council and Sentencing Guidelines, a fact sheet. It is a good summary sheet of what the intention was, what the outcomes could be, and, indeed, what the nature of the problem was at the time. We roll forward a little to 2013. The Law Society published a report of a piece of PhD research done just 3 years ago and talked about massive differences in the severity of sentences imposed by District Courts. It used the example of aggravated drink-driving offences. It controlled for things like the number of offences an individual may have committed, the severity of offence, and a number of other variables it took into account. And even allowing for those variables, this particular piece of PhD research came to the very obvious conclusion that there are serious and significant disparities depending on where one is sentenced. Often it is geographic, and it is also to do with the individual judges. That report has been anonymised so it does not identify individual cases or individual judges, but it is a very compelling piece of work that won the support of the Law Society, and I do believe it needs to be taken seriously.

It is also informative to go back to the original Hansard, of the third reading particularly, when the sentencing council legislation was passed. As I say, Mr Power at the time—Simon Power, as he was; still is—who became justice Minister, was somewhat scathing of it. He said that the sentencing council would become the district health board of the justice sector, and he suggested that the Minister of the day would be able to hide behind it if there was any criticism or critique of the operation of the courts. I think a close reading of the legislation indicates that is actually not a reality—that it would absolutely not protect a Minister from reasonable critique if things were not working well within the court system.

Charles Chauvel, for Labour at the time, of course, made the point that we had a very regrettable situation in New Zealand where people of a similar situation have come before different courts in different parts of the country before different judges and have actually received different types of sentences—not only of severity but type.

I would hope the Māori Party would also look long and hard at this repeal Act, specifically in terms of this sentencing council legislation, because of what Pita Sharples—Sir Pita Sharples as he is now—said at the time. I should say that this sentencing council legislation was one of a raft of bills that I think may have been debated as co-joint—wrong word, but you know what I mean: a raft of justice bills were debated together. Mr Sharples said at the time: “The key measure to bring about change in the justice system as mandated by these five bills, is the Sentencing Council.” He went on to say “The Māori Party supports the establishment of this new forum to ensure a consistent application of justice whether one is sentenced in Whangarei or Dunedin; South Auckland or the South Island.” He went to say that he hastened to suggest that tangata whenua expertise must be considered a core priority in considering the appointment of membership—and that, indeed, would be a valid point, at the point that we ever did establish such an entity.

As I said earlier, Chris Finlayson, the current Attorney-General, made a very typically well-informed and thoughtful contribution at the time. He did say that Labour members had got it wrong in terms of the model they chose for the council, but he did not dismiss the idea or the value of having something like it. I will quote him again. He said: “The National Party moved a great deal, from complete opposition at the outset to offering a model that would have achieved the Law Commission’s aims while still being constitutional.” Earlier in his speech he called it “unconstitutional” and “odious”—a splendid word—but I would ask the National Party members, and particularly at select committee, to reflect very closely on the speeches that were made both in support and in opposition to the sentencing council legislation in the 2006-07 debates and think that maybe we are throwing out some babies with the bathwater here if we repeal the Act.

I think there would be considerable value in retaining a council. We are entirely open to the notion of an amendment. It is perfectly possible that the model chosen was not the best and that we might potentially do it better. But we absolutely believe that there ought to be something like a sentencing council to endeavour to moderate, to ensure that the judges—the judiciary themselves—have a forum where they can look. A level of self-awareness could emerge, I think, which could enable much better, much more consistent sentencing, and inevitably, emerging from that, would be much greater public confidence in the outcome of our judiciary and our justice system.

So I look forward to the select committee with interest and I would encourage, as I say, Government members particularly to have a think about the potential for an amendment rather than repeal. Thank you.

RON MARK (Deputy Leader—NZ First): Well, having done a quick scramble through this piece of legislation, weighty as it is, and the schedules attached to it—Mr Deputy Speaker, I think you pointed out it was at least four or five pages—and, on behalf of New Zealand First, and standing in for our colleague Denis O’Rourke, who would normally be speaking on this bill, I say that New Zealand First will support this legislation through to select committee, where we will enjoy having a quick study of exactly what the implications of the legislation are.

I have listened carefully to some of the speeches this evening, and I was very interested listening to the last speaker from the Greens, David Clendon, talking about the Sentencing Council Act. I know that was a piece of legislation that generated much debate in the House back in 2007, from all sides. There were those of us who were somewhat sceptical, but at the same time we could see some of the clear anomalies that were arising.

I think, possibly, it would be a good time to caution the Government, because on the back of what we have seen up in Auckland just recently—where a young man who was found to have punched a female police officer in the head, knocking her unconscious and who then set about kicking her, subsequently received a community sentence—one could say that maybe this piece of legislation is worthy of reconsidering and maybe should be extracted from this bill. There are some clear anomalies right now in sentencing and there has been more than one commentator out in the community who has said things like: “What’s happened to the old National Party? They’ve gone soft on law and order.”

People are asking where the equity and the consistency in this National Government’s law and order policy is, because there was a time when people like Judith Collins and the Prime Minister, John Key, would have leapt all over such an incident and been outraged at the sentence that was given. But, of course, that was when they were in Opposition, and now that they are in Government, they seek to repeal the Sentencing Council Act, which, I admit, at the time when it was brought to the House by Labour was somewhat controversial and did not have the unanimous support of the House. But it certainly did gain some credit in the eyes of people like Simon Power and a few other people who did study it and take the time out.

It is interesting also that on the one hand you can have this Government lauding and applauding the Law Commission’s reports and reviews on aspects of the justice system—indeed, when it comes to the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act—and, on the other hand, dismissing its recommendations quite casually, it would seem, as with this piece of legislation right now. I think it is timely, because one of the things that has been said in the House this evening by a couple of the speakers from the Opposition benches is that they have noted the pieces of legislation that are not in this bill that could quite rightfully be in this bill, and one of those pieces of legislation might be the little piece of legislation the Government is currently running through the House to raise the age of criminal responsibility from 16 to 17.

Why do we say that? Because, looking back at another piece of legislation that was entitled the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Amendment Bill (No 6), from March 2008—we finish a piece of legislation proposed by the Labour Government and vehemently opposed by a chap by the name of John Key. “The overriding factor is we won’t vote for legislation which means 17-year-olds won’t be tried by adult courts. They’re doing adult crimes and should face adult sentences.”, said Mr John Key. Another person—and this was National’s children, young persons, and families spokesperson by the name of Anne Tolley—said that the bill was “a missed opportunity” because it did not tackle child abuse rates. “Moving 17-year-olds into the Youth Court would add too much stress to the system.”, said Anne Tolley, and yet here we have legislation going through proposed by Labour, resisted by National, and now being proposed by National and supported by Labour—

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Come back to the bill.

RON MARK: I am saying that maybe there are some bills that should be included in this Statutes Repeal Bill that are not. Maybe we need to pursue that at the select committee stage to ensure that they are put in there, because, clearly, this Government does not support some of its own legislation that it clearly said before was superfluous and should be going. That fits within the scope of this bill. It is removing legislation that is superfluous.

There is another piece of legislation in here, and it is in schedule 1, on page—oh, my gosh, there are so many finance Acts being repealed in here that it is lost in here, in schedule 1. It is the Children’s Health Camps Board Dissolution Act 1999, and I have just been frantically searching through trying to see exactly what that says. I would be interested to see whether one of the Government speakers could take more than a 2-minute call and explain why that piece of legislation is now redundant. Has it got something to do with the fact that in 1999, the then National Government decided it did not like children’s health camps?

That is interesting, because I would like to hear whether that is what happened—that it actually dissolved the health camps or did away with them, which would now make the Children’s Health Camps Board Dissolution Act 1999 redundant—because I was actually one of those wards of the State who was a beneficiary of the children’s health camps. In fact, we had a children’s health camp at Riversdale in the Wairarapa, where hundreds of us kids who were in State care were sent for our holidays because our foster parents could not afford to send us on holidays. So the State provided these children’s health camps, where we would all go and we would learn a whole bunch of skills—outdoor skills. We would learn to mix and mingle with other kids of our age whom we had never met and to develop social skills and be taught by some excellent New Zealanders—yes, a whole bunch of things that we would never have learnt at home.

It was a holiday that our foster parents could not afford to give us, so we were always grateful, as we grew up and became adults, that the State had these health camps and the State did provide the funding and the State did give us kids who were wards of the State—today, we would be called “CYFs” kids I guess—that opportunity to have a holiday. More importantly, I think it was sometimes to give our foster parents a bit of respite, knowing that for 2 weeks of the school holidays, little Ronnie Mark was going to be away at a health camp somewhere.

So it would be interesting to know why the Children’s Health Camps Board Dissolution Act is included in here, and it would be interesting to know why the National Government of the day did away with the health camps. Maybe it earned a dollar or two selling them off or something—I do not really know.

The Farm and Fishing Vessel Ownership Savings Schemes (Closure) Act 1998—well, we all know that this Government really does not give a toss about helping New Zealanders to buy farms or buy their own fishing vessels and to become owners of their own businesses. So, if that was a savings scheme that was designed to help New Zealanders get on to a farm, I guess we can understand this Government’s desire to repeal Acts like that, and the fact that it has made these Acts redundant and valueless, because it would rather sell off the farms to foreigners, and particularly to Chinese buyers, wherever it can.

The Farm Ownership Savings Act 1974—there we go again. Let us undermine every Kiwi’s ability to buy and own their own farm—something that that Government is very good at. It is more interested in foreign investors taking up ownership, like with the six farms up in the Ōpōtiki area right now that we know are being sold off to a German. There is another one that has gone under the hammer for—I think they outbid New Zealand Manuka by some ridiculous amount. I think it was another couple of million dollars over the top just to make sure that they bought it, but, of course, this Government is not interested in New Zealanders owning their own farms or owning their own land.

The Rugby World Cup 2011 (Empowering) Act—I guess that is redundant now. We are moving on to another Rugby Cup series further down the line. The Seamen’s Union Funds Act, the Sentencing Council Act—those things have been touched on.

I think it is going to be interesting having a conversation as to why these Acts are now redundant. It will be good revisiting the reasons why the National Government does not like New Zealanders—or it cannot be bothered helping New Zealanders—save for farms or save for fishing vessels, and why it helped do away with children’s health camps. I guess that is the sign of a caring, sharing Government! I thank you.

BRETT HUDSON (National): After the earlier and somewhat unexpected segue to another omnibus bill on the Order Paper—that being the Statutes Amendment Bill—I think I will return right now to the omnibus bill that is the Statutes Repeal Bill, which is the one that is actually set down on the Order Paper for this evening.

It is a bill that will reduce and eliminate unnecessary and redundant legislation. By doing so—by having better and less regulation—we help to make our country more productive to help our international competitiveness and, ultimately, to actually improve our living standards. Making the body of existing legislation easier for users to navigate and also actually easier for departments to administer—and in this bill we will remove some 128 laws, reducing the number of public Acts by something around 10 percent, and along the way we also will remove parts of eight other Acts—is well worth doing to help us to be a more productive and efficient body of law.

Mr Mark—Ronnie Mark, as he referred to himself—raised some concerns about which Acts are included or omitted from the Statutes Repeal Bill. Well, when considering what you might or might not include in the bill, one could consider that a way to make sure you get it right is to consult, which is exactly what the Government did. In October 2015 a draft of the bill was put out for public submissions, giving people the opportunity to comment on what was proposed to be repealed and on what potentially was not included. So what is before the House has been tested in the public and, therefore, we can conclude it has some degree of support already.

The other thing that Mr Mark mentioned was something about camps. He waxed lyrical about his enjoyment as young Ronnie Mark in the said camp—and how it was terrible that this Government did not seem to appreciate them. But, being a little confused, he seemed to miss the point that he was actually referring to a dissolution Act. So while talking about how much he loved the camps, he was actually talking about why we are repealing an Act that dissolved those boards in 1999. Well, I have got good news for Mr Mark, because one could ask oneself: in repealing some Acts, what implications are there for those Acts and provisions that are removed? Will they force some Acts to come back into force? The answer is no. The Interpretation Act 1999 has a number of provisions that deal with the effect of repealing legislation, and it confirms that the repeal of an enactment does not affect the validity, invalidity, effect, or consequences of anything done under the enactment, nor any existing right, interest, title, immunity, duty, status, capacity, or an amendment made by the enactment to another enactment, or similar matters.

So, Mr Mark, this Statutes Repeal Bill, should it be passed in this House, will not affect the dissolution Act that you so fondly refer to. On that note, I commend this bill to the House.

CARMEL SEPULONI (Labour—Kelston): I not going to take a very long call on this one. I just want to explain it a little bit and then also just point out a couple of things that have been highlighted by a few of my colleagues.

This bill is an omnibus bill introduced under Standing Order 263(a). This Standing Order provides that “An omnibus bill to amend more than one Act may be introduced if … amendments deal with an interrelated topic that can be regarded as implementing a single broad policy,”, and I guess the big issue for us is, actually, we have had members’ bills, in particular, go through this House that could have been included under the Statutes Repeal Bill. Unfortunately, the National Government would prefer that we waste our time on bills like Nuk Korako’s member’s bill, the Airport Authorities (Publicising Lost Property Sales) Amendment Bill, which could have been included here. It would have saved us a lot of time. It would have saved the country a lot of money. It has been brought up through the media, and the public are starting to ask questions about what the National Government MPs are actually doing in respect of the members’ ballot.

I do want to point out that that is not the only bill in recent times that has been questioned with regard to the point of it and whether or not it is actually something that is important to New Zealand and New Zealanders; it is only one of many. I want to just highlight two others that actually ended up being dumped. They took up valuable places in the members’ ballot. The first was the Public Collections and Solicitations (Disclosure of Payment) Bill, which was put in the ballot—a valuable place—by Matt Doocey, and was drawn out and eventually dumped, actually. It was badly criticised by the officials. I was on the select committee on that one—

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: And not part of this bill, so let us move on.

CARMEL SEPULONI: —and it was dumped. Going back to Nuk’s bill—

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: No, because that is not a part of the bill either.

CARMEL SEPULONI: —this is another good example of a member’s bill that actually could have been folded into the Statutes Amendment Bill but has not been. It is a wasted opportunity for the National Government and a complete waste of time and money for New Zealanders. That is all I have to say.

ANDREW BAYLY (National—Hunua): I hope I am not confused. I believe that we are talking about the Statutes Repeal Bill at its first reading, are we not? Somehow, I have heard three speeches from members of the Opposition talking about the Statutes Amendment Bill at its second reading—not the first, the second. And all this continued reference to my good colleague Mr Nuk Korako about his bill—well, actually, it is covered, as I understand, by the Statutes Amendment Bill, which is not the one we are currently discussing. Anyway, Mr Deputy Speaker, I do feel sorry for you tonight.

This bill is a good bill. It removes 124 laws, and I do note that that is up from 120, the number with which the bill was initially contemplated and introduced. That is a massive 10 percent reduction in the number of laws currently in passage. That is 1,200-odd laws that apply to New Zealand, which I find quite fascinating, and this is a 10 percent reduction. The key feature of this bill—and I have listened to some of the Opposition members—is that this is a bill designed to do this in one big hit. It is a very efficient method and, I do note, very unusual. I do note that the last time such an omnibus bill was passed in this House was in 1907, although overseas it is a bit more common. But I have just listened to some of the Opposition talk tonight and you would think that this is a bad thing. Well, actually, this is an exceptionally efficient way to deal with reducing or removing 124 Acts of Parliament. Most of the Acts of Parliament that we are dealing with and that we are going to remove actually date back to when we made major structural reforms in New Zealand to the public sector, between 1985 and 1993. I do note that there was an 8-week consultation process.

I think this bill is all about continuing to enhance New Zealand’s position as a great place to do business, and on that basis I commend the bill to the House.

JENNY SALESA (Labour—Manukau East): Thank you for this call on the Statutes Repeal Bill. This bill repeals and, in some cases, partly repeals about 124 Acts that are no longer needed because they no longer have any effect or were designed to achieve regulatory outcomes that are no longer relevant. It is a bill that will reduce overall legislation in New Zealand, and some of these enactments have not even been brought into force by Order in Council. Due to the fact that this Government does not have any intention of bringing some of these enactments into force, it is really wise that we repeal them so that we reduce the uncertainty that is associated with them remaining on our statute book.

Some of the Acts that are listed for repeal seem rather curious. Looking at them gives us a pretty unusual and unique overview of New Zealand’s history. For instance, we have the Phoenix Assurance Company of London Act 1887. This is an Act that enabled a London company to sue and be sued in New Zealand. We have the Hawke’s Bay Earthquake Relief Funds Act of 1931. This legislation dealt with the aftermath of the devastating 1931 earthquake in Napier. We have legislation like the Southland Flood Relief Committee Empowering Act of 1992. That was an Act that discharged the Southland Flood Relief Committee from administering money held in trust for providing relief and assistance to people suffering hardship and damage from floods in Southland in 1984. This is legislation that was needed at the time but is no longer needed now.

The Statutes Repeal Bill will also repeal over 60 finance Acts, something that we all agree on, and this is a repeal bill that we in the Labour Party are, of course, in support of. But although there may be colourful and interesting issues for legal historians and researchers in looking at why we are removing some of these Acts, we should also look at why there are certain things that we are not considering. I know that some of my Labour colleagues spoke about Nuk’s bill, but the bill that I would actually—

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: What is not in the bill is not part of this discussion, so let us talk about the bill.

JENNY SALESA: OK, so let me go back to what is in the bill. The oldest statute that this bill will repeal is the Liverpool and London and Globe Insurance Company Act 1879.

Hon Member: Fascinating bill.

JENNY SALESA: This was a fascinating bill, yes—a private Act that was passed in order to change the name of an insurance company to give it corporate identity. The most recent statute that this legislation will repeal is that called the Rugby World Cup 2011 (Empowering) Act 2010. This is an Act that made itself expire on 4 December 2014. However, it still remains as an active piece of legislation still in force. It is absolutely vital that this omnibus bill gets passed so that we can actually clear out some of that old legislation and unclutter our statute book. It is very fitting, and I think it is something that we should absolutely do.

If I can just end on this note: as we are considering the 124-odd Acts that we are repealing, there is one piece of legislation I wish we were also considering. Just today we had the Sisters of Mercy come to Parliament. There were several of us—from different parties—who were there to receive a petition that they, together with five Catholics girls’ schools, came to deliver. It was a petition called “Shelter for all”. They said to us that we, as politicians, should consider housing, especially all of our families and children who are homeless. My wish is that we would also be considering in this bill the Housing Accords and Special Housing Areas Act 2013—something that had so much promise that it would deliver and would house so many of our families, but it has not. We support this bill on the first reading, but, as I say, we wish it also included various other Acts for repeal. Thank you so much.

STUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): It is a pleasure to speak on this bill, but I think it is also an honour to be in the House tonight to witness what is surely the best speech in 50 years on the wrong bill. I am sure the Rt Hon Winston Peters, who would be the best person to make a judgment on that, would agree with that.

This is a serious bill, repealing statutes. I would like to point out that the legislation on mortgages during the Depression that is being dealt with in this bill actually had a significant impact on a lot of New Zealanders. Lower-order mortgages were written off and families who had invested all their savings in mortgages lost everything at a stroke of a pen, so I think it is good to see that one disappear. Also, the Y2K legislation—I know that the hysteria that was around the country at the time of the millennium, when all sorts of things were going to stop working when the millennium ticked over, came to be little more than scaremongering. Some people, I suspect, made money out of it, but it really did not have any impact whatsoever.

This is a good bill, and I have pleasure in commending it to the House. Thank you.

Bill read a first time.

Bill referred to the Government Administration Committee.

Bills

Patents (Trans-Tasman Patent Attorneys and Other Matters) Amendment Bill

Second Reading

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs): I move, That the Patents (Trans-Tasman Patent Attorneys and Other Matters) Amendment Bill be now read a second time. The bill amends the Patents Act 2013 and includes a measure to build on Australia and New Zealand’s closer economic relations. The bill’s key purpose is to provide a modern occupational framework for regulating patent attorneys, and it achieves this by implementing a trans-Tasman licensing regime for Australian and New Zealand patent attorneys.

I would like to begin by thanking the Commerce Committee for its consideration of this bill, ably chaired by Melissa Lee. The committee’s report includes several sensible recommendations for amendments to the bill. I want to also acknowledge the submissions from the public and, in particular, from the patent attorney professions, whose submissions on the implementation of the single patent application process and the single examination process between IP Australia and the Intellectual Property Office of New Zealand assisted the committee in recommending the deletion of clause 5.

When the single patent application and single examination process were first considered back in 2009, they were seen as having the potential to deliver benefits to innovative businesses by protecting their inventions through the filing of patent applications in Australia and New Zealand. It is now clear that, as a result of the passage of time and the development of new international initiatives, implementation of the single patent application and examination processes is unlikely to be used by New Zealand business and, even if they were, would not deliver a net benefit. With this in mind, I approved the committee’s recommendation to remove clause 5 from the bill.

The chief purpose of the bill is to replace the 60-year-old and outdated regulatory regime for patent attorneys, with a modern licensing regime. Patent attorneys are a small profession providing specialist advice to businesses on the protection and exploitation of intellectual property rights. The current regulation of patent attorneys in the Patents Act 2013 is long overdue for an overhaul, as it falls well short of modern standards for occupational regulation. For example, currently there are no legislative requirements for patent attorneys to behave ethically, to provide minimum standards of service, and to keep their knowledge of international property law and practice up to date. There is no accessible means for redress for aggrieved clients of patent attorneys to pursue if their patent attorney has misbehaved. The qualifications regime, which requires a person to sit and pass a number of examinations, is outdated, inaccessible, and does not meet modern educational outcomes consistent with the New Zealand Qualifications Framework as set out under the Education Act 1989.

Because licensing regimes are expensive to implement and administer, our challenge in creating a modern licensing regime for the small patent attorney profession is to make it cost-effective. The bill achieves this by implementing, in Part 2 of the bill, a trans-Tasman licensing regime for Australia and New Zealand patent attorneys—

Hon Clayton Cosgrove: Which you’ve reversed. You’ve reversed it.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: No, that is the single economic market; that is a different part of the bill—which is largely based upon the modern licensing regime in Australia. The trans-Tasman licensing regime is cost-effective because it takes advantage of the economies of scale that can be achieved by merging two similar licensing regimes into a single regime, and recognises that the majority of New Zealand patent attorneys are already registered in Australia and, therefore, are familiar and already complying with the Australian licensing regime.

The trans-Tasman licensing regime will provide a single register for patent attorneys; a single qualifications regime focused on Australian and New Zealand intellectual property law and practices; a Trans-Tasman IP Attorneys Board, comprised of Australian and New Zealand members to oversee the qualification regime, maintain a trans-Tasman code of conduct, and investigate complaints about misconduct and unethical behaviour of patent attorneys; and, finally, a Trans-Tasman IP Attorneys Disciplinary Tribunal to determine complaints about the behaviour of patent attorneys and, where appropriate, to suspend or cancel the registration of patent attorneys who misbehave.

I do also want to take this opportunity to take a moment to address some of the concerns stakeholders expressed during the select committee process. The first obvious concern was in relation to clause 5—the inclusion of the single application process and the single examination process—which, as I have already touched on, we have done away with.

Another concern was in respect of the impact of the trans-Tasman licensing regime for patent attorneys on competition between Australian and New Zealand patent attorneys. The trans-Tasman licensing regime is indeed intended to facilitate more effective competition between patent attorneys, and to make it easier for New Zealand patent attorneys to expand their services into the larger and more lucrative Australian market, and I back the New Zealanders to do well.

Stakeholders expressed worry about an increase in costs for New Zealanders to qualify as patent attorneys. There may be some additional costs, but many patent attorney stakeholders accept that the current regime is outdated and no longer fit for purpose. So implementing the trans-Tasman licensing regime is the most cost-effective means to modernise the regulation of patent attorney services in New Zealand.

Lastly, the availability of accredited courses of study in New Zealand to qualify for registration under the new trans-Tasman licensing regime was another issue that was raised. If no courses are available in New Zealand, the concern is that students may be forced to take more expensive Australian-accredited courses, but Victoria University’s law school is currently developing suitable courses of study for accreditation, and expects to be able to start providing such courses from the beginning of next year, coinciding with the commencement of the new licensing regime. It is also important to ensure that the qualifications regime for patent attorneys is transparent and meets—

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Oh, you said “finally”.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Pardon? [Interruption]—modern educational standards. Mr Deputy Speaker, this is an important piece of legislation. This is achieved by requiring Australian and New Zealand students wanting to qualify as patent attorneys—

Hon Clayton Cosgrove: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. With respect, I think the Minister is making some salient points, trying to illustrate how a Government had a position and then reversed it, and then reversed it again. I think it is noteworthy in the House.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: That is not a point of order.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: May I continue? We are a Government that listens. [Interruption]—

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Do not start.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: It is also important to ensure that the qualifications regime for patent attorneys is transparent and meets modern educational standards. This is achieved by requiring Australian and New Zealand students wanting to qualify as patent attorneys to take accredited courses of study offered by universities and other recognised education establishments. This approach is no different to students wanting to qualify as doctors, chartered accountants, or architects.

Part 1 of the bill implements a minor change to the grounds upon which a person may oppose the grant of a patent. As enacted, the Patents Act 2013 allows a grant of a patent to be opposed on the grounds that an accepted patent application claims patent protection for more than one invention—that is, the application has a “lack of unity of invention”. This is not a ground of opposition under the Patents Act 1953, and there was no policy intention to introduce this as a ground of opposition in the Patents Act 2013. If the ground remains, patent applications may be unfairly disadvantaged by losing the patent rights to other inventions claimed in a patent application. The Commerce Committee has recommended that the amendment contained in this bill, which prevents a person opposing a grant of a patent on the ground that it claims more than one invention, be applied retrospectively back to the date that the Patents Act 2013 entered into force, namely 13 September 2014.

I do support the committee’s recommendation on this matter, and I do commend this bill to the House.

Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour): I have to say two things before I begin. I want to commend the chair of the Commerce Committee for her diligence in trying to transact this piece of legislation, given that it was a Government bill that came to the committee and then was reversed halfway through the committee.

The second thing that I have got to say is that I actually feel sorry for the Minister, and I say this in a non-partisan way. It is rare in this House that one is critical of officials, but I have to say—and I do not set up the chair of the Commerce Committee in doing this—I suspect the chair of the Commerce Committee agrees with me, that the analysis behind this bill was totally flawed. We will support it. It is actually a reversal of the Government’s primary proposition. In the 58 seconds that I have—and we will return to this another day—I have got to say that when we asked officials for the costings, we were greeted with the following explanation, which I wrote down: “Our analysis was back of the envelope, our best guess.” I have got to say, I responded to the officials by saying that I feel sorry for the Minister if that is the depth of the analysis that has been put up to a Minister from officials.

So I have got to say to the Minister, this is a debacle. We will support it. It has been reconstructed through the select committee process. My biggest criticism—in the 16 seconds I have left—is that the innovative community that relies on this sort of legislation was never consulted. It was never consulted. The big end of town was, the patent attorneys said “Life will end as we know it.”, but the innovative community was never consulted—

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: It is tragic to interrupt the member. I am afraid the time has come for me to leave the Chair. I thank members for their contributions this evening, their humour, and their goodwill. The House will resume at 2 p.m. tomorrow. Nō reira, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa.

The House adjourned at 10 p.m.