Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN (National—Northcote) : After that extremely wide-ranging Government motion No. 2 we now come back to something that is somewhat more prosaic: the Alcohol Advisory Council Amendment Bill. On the last day of the last sitting week I spoke for 1 minute on it, and I made the point that National will be supporting this first reading. Now I have the opportunity to expand on that a little further.

The purpose of this bill is to amend the Alcohol Advisory Council Act 1976 with a view to simplifying and modernising the levy-setting mechanisms of the Alcohol Advisory Council (ALAC). The bill changes the method of calculation of the ALAC levy charged on each alcoholic beverage. ALAC is currently funded by a proportionate levy on four categories of alcohol—beer, wine, fortified wine, and spirits—according to their volumes consumed during the previous year. The total levy collected for ALAC in 2005-06 was $13 million. The new method that this bill introduces is a levy per litre of alcohol content, which is similar to the classification system used by the Customs Service to calculate excise duty. The result is that drinks with higher alcohol percentages will contribute a higher proportion of the levy, so spirits will attract a higher levy than wine, which will in turn attract a higher levy than beers. The levy change will advantage those beverages with high volumes but a low alcoholic content—such as beer, and especially light beer—and low-strength spirits, such as alcopops.

A key factor in the Ministry of Health’s choosing the preferred option was its similarity to the current method that the Customs Service uses to collect excise tax. Industry feedback provided during consultation favoured rolling the levy into the excise tax. The Customs Service and the Ministry of Economic Development also favoured this option in order to reduce compliance costs. Only Treasury and the Ministry of Health favoured the proposed option. The ministry favoured it because it shows a direct link between the industry and ALAC’s work, and Treasury favoured it because it makes ALAC’s costs transparent.

One can see the logic that the Ministry of Health is following. Obsessive consumption of alcohol is harmful and, ipso facto, the higher the concentration of alcohol, the greater the negative effects in terms of health and social impacts. However, there are strong arguments that much of the negative impact of alcohol in New Zealand society may be attributed to beverages that are lower in alcohol but tend to be consumed to excess by at-risk groups. It is a fair bet that young people who get into trouble in whatever form through the abuse of alcohol are more likely to be drinking beer and alcopops than Pinot noir, and I believe we will be hearing a lot more on that subject during the select committee process. There is no doubt that we have problems with alcohol in New Zealand society—problems that stem from our ingrained attitudes to drink. This issue is discussed regularly in different forms in this Parliament, and it is pretty clear that alcohol abuse impacts on the lives of hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders and their loved ones.

ALAC fulfils an important role in encouraging the responsible consumption of alcohol and in minimising its harmful effects. It was set up in 1976 when a royal commission recommended its establishment, following an inquiry into the Sale of Liquor Act. Its budget for 2008 is $12.5 million. Other sources for ALAC’s funding were considered, including having a higher excise tax or funding it through Vote Health, but these were dismissed by the Ministry of Health. ALAC is an organisation that deserves Government and industry support. Its education campaigns and research studies have helped to shape and change many New Zealanders’ views towards alcohol. None the less, by no means is ALAC’s job finished, which is why the alcohol levy is so important and why this legislation is needed.

A recent Ministry of Health review of the levy-setting provisions found them to be outdated and not future-proofed against new types of beverage. They were found to be overly complex, and it was noted that they are presently set by the Minister through a Gazette notice, which is inconsistent with the setting of the gambling levy. This review consulted the beverage industry widely and found support for adjusting the levy-setting mechanisms. Three options were given to industry stakeholders and relevant Government departments to consider. The first would have brought ALAC’s levy under excise and excise-equivalent duty, and the second would have seen all funding for ALAC taken out of Vote Health. The third was the option we are now discussing: using classification bands to determine the levy. This option was seen by Treasury and the ministry as the best one, because it lawfully addresses the problems uncovered by the Ministry of Health review. However, the majority of industry stakeholders, although not opposing this option as such, preferred rolling the levy into the excise tax.

The Beer, Wine and Spirits Council and especially the New Zealand Winegrowers association favour the excise option, because they believe the classification method will unfairly impact on their products, which are by nature higher in alcohol content than many other alcohol products. To the Ministry of Health and Treasury the third option is preferable for a number of reasons. It updates the levy-setting mechanism by bringing it into line with current Customs Service excise-collecting systems, it future-proofs against new kinds of alcoholic products, it more easily takes into account any new types, and it simplifies the system, as the new levy-setting mechanisms are far simpler to calculate than the current ones.

In addition, the bill sets out new provisions to allow Cabinet a role in the process, thereby bringing it into line with the same process as the setting of the gambling levy. An up-to-date, simplified levy-setting mechanism is necessary for ALAC and the beverage industry for obvious reasons, and it is the main reason why the National Party will be supporting this bill going to a select committee.

I would just like to mention briefly three main provisions of this bill. Firstly, there is a new definition of “wine”. This bill repeals all previous definitions of “wine” and replaces them with the following: “ ‘wine’ means the product of the complete or partial fermentation of any fruit … vegetable, or honey, and—(a) includes—(i) cider, perry, and mead; and (ii) fortified wines such as sherry, port, and fruit or vegetable-based liquors; …”. This classification simplifies the definition in the current Act, which defines different kinds of wine, rather than the concept of wine itself.

The second important provision relates to the definition of “class of liquor”, which is a new definition in the bill. This definition classes liquor into groups for the purposes of identifying the amounts of levy that will be taken out of any particular leverage—for example, more than 1.5 percent but not more than 2.5 percent alcohol content, and so on.

The third main provision is in regards to the setting of the levy. This sets out the calculation that the Minister must use to find the correct figure for each class of liquor. Some of these rates may be variable, in which circumstances the bill notes that the Minister must determine what these rates are. In addition, as mentioned earlier, the Governor-General may also fix the levy if directed to by the Minister.

Although National essentially supports this bill at the first reading, we take issue with it for a couple of reasons. Firstly, the bill obviously advantages those beverages with low alcoholic content but high volume, such as beer, especially light beer, and low-strength spirits—those sometimes referred to as alcopops. Whether this will see an increase in production of these alcopop products remains to be seen, but it is an issue that may need to be addressed at a later stage, and one that will no doubt be discussed at the bill’s hearing in the select committee.

Secondly, National is concerned that a number of the industry stakeholders, as well as the Ministry of Economic Development and the Customs Service, favoured rolling the levy into an excise tax rather than the option under debate here. We need to make sure that their concerns about the chosen levy-setting mechanism are heard and appropriately considered. Thirdly, National strongly believes that an extra clause should be added to this bill requiring the Minister to consult with the sector if a levy increase in excess of the consumer price index is planned in any year. This will give the sector confidence in the administration of the levy and allow stakeholders to feel more involved in the levy process as a whole.

So, to sum up, National will support this bill at its first reading and looks forward to the discussion of the bill at the Health Committee. We are sure this bill will attract a wide range of submissions, and I think there will be some quite interesting debate in the committee.

LESLEY SOPER (Labour) : I rise as the deputy chair of the Health Committee to support, in a short speech, the first reading of the Alcohol Advisory Council Amendment Bill, which, as was pointed out on behalf of the Associate Minister of Health Damien O’Connor the last time the bill was before the House, is a non-controversial and common-sense bill. The bill is largely a technical amendment bill, and should be dealt with quite quickly in the select committee, though there will be some interesting discussion.

The prime objective of the Alcohol Advisory Council (ALAC) is to promote responsible drinking and strategies that will minimise alcohol misuse. The Alcohol Advisory Council Amendment Bill amends the Alcohol Advisory Council Act, which had its origins in 1976, to simplify the current mechanisms for setting the ALAC levy. The technical amendment provides for a levy-setting regime that is fair, up to date, and simple to calculate. It proposes calculating the levy for each alcoholic product according to a system using alcohol classification bands that is similar to the approach used by the New Zealand Customs Service to collect alcohol excise and excise-equivalent duty. Basically, the system sets a dollar amount per litre for each alcoholic beverage according to its alcohol content or deemed alcohol content. So beverages with a higher volume of alcohol will contribute a higher proportion to the levy, which seems fairly common-sense. The beer industry will be affected most by the proposed update to the calculation, due to the high volume of imported and manufactured beer products in New Zealand. The spirits and wine sectors will contribute a lower proportion of the levy. Any effect on the price to consumers should be minor.

The bill is also future-proofed against the emergence of new types of beverages that would not fit easily into any liquor class in the current system. For instance, some hybrid drinks have a mixture of wine and spirits. The bill repeals a host of definitions, and replaces them with one very straightforward definition of “wine”, and inserts a new definition of “class of liquor”, each class being defined by reference to the proportion of alcohol it contains.

This bill, as I said, is relatively short and technical. I am looking forward to its swift passage so that ALAC can get on with the very good work it does in education programmes, research, dissemination of information, and treatment programmes. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

JO GOODHEW (National—Aoraki) : I rise to take a fairly brief call on the Alcohol Advisory Council Amendment Bill. I think it has been made abundantly clear by my colleague Dr Jonathan Coleman that National will be supporting this bill and the reasons why we will support it.

This bill is about a method of calculation of the Alcohol Advisory Council (ALAC) levy on alcoholic beverages. The method is a simplification of the current system. We are actually simplifying things for a change, rather than making them much more complicated and bureaucratic, and that is one of the reasons why National will certainly support the bill.

As we all know, ALAC’s role is to encourage responsible consumption of alcohol and minimise abuse. I want to briefly spend a moment or two on why it is so important that we not only simplify the method of calculating the levy but also maintain our funding of ALAC. We have a pattern of drinking here in New Zealand. We have a binge drinking culture, but not only a binge drinking culture; we have a pattern of drinking that is quite damaging and costs this country quite a lot. I would like to quote very briefly from the Proposed ALAC Strategic Direction 2007-2012, which states: “This pattern of drinking results in a range of harms that is estimated to cost New Zealand in 2002/03 at least $2 billion …”. We know that that harm has escalated since then. ALAC also told us “It has been estimated that 22% of all injuries treated in hospital and the consequent ACC costs are linked to alcohol … New Zealand Police estimate 70% of their work is linked to alcohol, and recent Alco-Link data equates this to Police dealing with 258 offenders per day”—every single day of the year—“who have been affected by alcohol.” Regrettably, these numbers are not going down; they are going up.

I want to spend a moment or two talking about the community action that is part of ALAC’s work, and also the community action that is part of New Zealand communities working together to overcome the problems associated with alcohol. On many occasions in my previous job working for the Timaru District Safer Community Council and with other people within the Timaru district and Aoraki electorate, I have seen ALAC and its partnerships at work. I have attended ALAC’s partnerships conferences, and understand some of the ways it tries to lead communities to take action for themselves. I have worked alongside community and public health alcohol educators, along with liquor liaison committees within a community, where the industry, the enforcement agencies, and organisations like the safer community councils all get together to come up with good strategies to deal on a local basis with the local harm to local people.

I tell members that I have taken part in controlled purchase operations, commonly referred to as stings. They are part of the arsenal that helps us to address the harm caused by alcohol, but those very same stings address only a small part of the problem—that is, the sale of alcohol to minors. There is a very much larger problem of alcohol bought legally but then made illegal when passed on to under-18-year-olds to drink. Of course, most of the problem around that is the fact that these under-18-year-olds are drinking an inappropriate amount of alcohol. That is, in many respects, why we have such a lot of harm.

ALAC works a lot with the local councils, with the territorial local authorities, and works under the auspices—or, I should say, alongside—of the various Acts that come into play when we talk about alcohol and its regulation: the Sale of Liquor Act, the Local Government Act 2002, and the Resource Management Act. ALAC works in with communities to discover the very best possible arrangements for opening hours, for monitoring host responsibility, and for days and hours of trade—in fact, all monitoring, enforcement, and, indeed, prosecutions of those who break the law within communities.

I finish by touching on one rather more recent endeavour—or, shall I say, pathway—that ALAC is going down: CPTED, or Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design. It is about councils designing their communities to be safe—safe from any criminals who are out there but also safe for those young people who are drinking alcohol. One example of how that works is when communities have safe lighting pathways. A young person who had perhaps fallen foul of alcohol and collapsed on a street would always be seen because there would not be dark and shadowy areas for him or her to fall into. That is Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design, and it is one of the ways communities are looking to make their young people safer.

Let me tell members that the ALAC helpline, which is an alcohol and drug helpline, had 15,180 valid calls—that is up by 3 percent—in the last year. That is yet one more example of why we need to make the funding mechanism much simpler. National will support this bill’s referral to the select committee, for a very good reason. ALAC’s budget for 2007-08 is $12.5 million. Let us make things simpler rather than more complicated, for a change. The National Party supports this bill’s referral to the select committee.

BARBARA STEWART (NZ First) : On behalf of New Zealand First I rise to support the referral of the Alcohol Advisory Council Amendment Bill to the select committee. It is a relatively short but technical bill, and it is very timely to update and simplify the mechanisms for setting the levy, because it is over 30 years since this was done.

The Alcohol Advisory Council (ALAC) was established in 1976 by an Act of Parliament, following the report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Sale of Liquor. The commission recommended establishing a permanent council whose aim was to encourage responsible use and minimise the misuse of alcohol. There is still a long way to go; ALAC is a very important body.

We were very pleased to see that the levy setting was going to be simplified. We in New Zealand First believe that this new procedure is more suited for the 21st century, and we believe that the public will be keen to have a say on this bill, and it is very important that they do so. No doubt there will be wide-ranging discussion at the select committee. A regime that is simple to calculate is important, and that it should be aligned to the approach used by the Customs Service seems to be very sensible, as the Customs Service actually collects this levy. We are also interested to see that this legislation was important to establish a mechanism for Cabinet to approve the final levy amount, as happens with the problem-gambling levy. Again, this seems very logical.

The explanatory note of the bill emphasises that this levy needs to be future-proofed against new types of alcoholic products and drinks. In New Zealand First we wonder how many new types of alcoholic products we actually need, particularly as alcopops, unfortunately, have changed the way our teenagers consume alcohol. It will be interesting to see what other developments there may be. We can count on the fact, unfortunately, that there will be other developments. New Zealand has changed since the original law was passed in 1976. The levy already encompasses beer, grape wines, spirits, fruit wine, and, no doubt, liqueurs, even though they are not specifically listed in the bill. It is a fairly comprehensive list, and I would have thought it would cover all the alcohol produced and imported for sale in New Zealand.

ALAC plays a very important role in education, research, and advertising, and I was very interested to check out the ALAC website and read its vision statement supporting the moderate use of alcohol and the minimising of harm. I again considered that we still have a very long way to go. The website shows the total amount of the levy payable for the year ending 30 June 2008. It is $12.5 million. The levy rates themselves are very clear on the website, and I was very interested to see the rates set for the year ending 30 June 2008: beer, 1.39c per litre; unfortified wine, 5.02c per litre; fortified wine, 8c per litre; and spirits 44.59c per litre, which is quite considerable.

We in New Zealand First consider that we still have a long way to go to achieve moderate and responsible use of alcohol, despite the campaigns that have been running—very successful campaigns, I might add. The latest campaign “It’s not the drinking. It’s how we’re drinking.”, really does make people look at what they are doing to their lives. The fact that so many days are lost from people’s lives is quite disturbing.

I was very surprised that it was so difficult to find information on foetal alcohol syndrome on the website. I had really thought that the minimising of harm would extend to the prevention of birth defects. We know that foetal alcohol syndrome is the biggest cause of non-genetic mental handicap in the Western World and it is the only one that is totally, 100 percent preventable. It is a sad fact that foetal alcohol syndrome is often undiagnosed. Problems in children intensify as they move into adulthood, and this is when we see many of them involved with the criminal justice system.

New Zealand First supports the referral of this bill to the select committee. We look forward to the discussion there, and we are aware that there is a lot of work to be done in this particular area.

HONE HARAWIRA (Māori Party—Te Tai Tokerau) : Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker. Tēnā tatou katoa e te Whare. Hoinō hakoa e rere kē ana taku mahi ki ngā tikanga o te Whare nei, e tika ana kia tū ahau i tēnei wā hei reo mō te Pāti Māori kia mihi atu ki tō tātou tuahine, a Louisa, kātahi anō kua uru mai ki roto i te Whare. Te mihi anō hoki ki tona whānau kua tae mai hei tautoko, me te mihi anō hoki ki tō mātou tuahine, a Georgina Beyer, kua hoki mai ki te Whare. Nō reira, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, kia ora tātou katoa.

Although it is a little out of line with protocol, I would like to take the opportunity on behalf of the Māori Party to welcome our sister Louisa to the House. We welcome her whānau who have come to tautoko her on this day, and we also welcome our sister Georgina Beyer, who has come back to the House for this occasion. Tēnā koe, Georgina. Tēnā tātou katoa.

Last August I was out on night patrol around the town camps outside of Alice Springs with the Aboriginal equivalent of the Māori wardens—people who have no police powers but are dedicated to helping whānau trying to help themselves. It was a sobering night in many respects: it was sobering to see the commitment and the patience of the night patrol, it was sobering to know that these patrols and other initiatives were going to be disbanded under the racist Australian Northern Territory intervention plan, and it was sobering to see the extent of alcoholism in indigenous communities. Although I have done the serious “party hardy” scene all over the country in my day, I can tell members that I have never ever seen the level of alcohol abuse I saw that night on night patrol. It blew me away, and it also opened my eyes to the way in which we are not dealing with alcoholism in this country. That includes this bill—good bill though it is—to amend the Alcohol Advisory Council Act 1976.

It is important that we as parliamentarians know that while we pitter-patter around the periphery of the problem of alcohol abuse with bills like this—we have already passed legislation to allow the sale of alcohol in supermarkets and the sale of alcopops to teenage kids, and we have extended the opening hours of clubs and bars—we leave our poorer communities to deal with the trauma of the drunkenness, the assaults, the alcoholism, the poorhouses, the night patrols, the soup kitchens, the health problems, the domestic violence, and all the needless tangihanga. It is all fuelled by easy access to alcohol. Those liquor and alcohol outlets that we have sanctioned drain poor families, suck out desperately needed food money, and profit from the addictions of the poor.

So today we come here to consider how best to support the Alcohol Advisory Council (ALAC) in its job of encouraging the responsible use of alcohol and minimising its misuse. That has to be a good thing. ALAC has been around for about 30 years, since the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Sale of Liquor. It has battled through the time since the Sale of Liquor Act 1989 deregulated the liquor industry, increased trade flexibility, removed restrictions on drinking alcohol, and relaxed the sale and supply of alcohol, all of which led, naturally, to greater consumption and abuse of alcohol. ALAC knows more than anyone the effects of alcohol consumption, so when it calls for resources to deal with alcohol abuse in Māori society, the Māori Party hears what it is saying. When ALAC calls for research on the impact of alcohol and liquor advertising on Polynesians, we hear that call too.

Today’s bill aims to provide ALAC with levies based on the level of alcohol in drinks, which will enable it to continue with its work. Fifty percent of all 12 to 17-year-olds in Aotearoa—Māori, Pākehā, whatever—are boozing it up big time. This is a horrific statistic that we simply cannot ignore any longer. While surveys tell us that non-Māori kids drink more often, they also tell us that Māori kids binge drink at two and a half times the rate of non-Māori. It is these kinds of statistics and these scenarios that challenge us in this House to take responsibility for the health of our nation’s future, just like Sir Apirana Ngata did. He was petitioned by Ngāti Porou women to use his parliamentary powers to stop the further sale of alcohol on the East Coast, which unfortunately and unwittingly gave rise to the great haka “Poropeihana” opposing the prohibition of alcohol. Yet here we are, nearly a century later, still trying to deal with the destructive effects of alcohol in Māori communities.

While we support this bill, our greater interest is still in the changes we need in legislation to deal with alcohol abuse. More than half of all teenagers who binge drink say they get their alcohol from their parents, and there are no adults around when these teenagers are getting off their faces. Maybe we should be expending less effort on banging the kids, and more on sorting out the parents by focusing on efforts to turn whānau round by giving them positive options in life such as a decent education, decent housing, decent kai, and a job, rather than more police, more laws, more jails, and more misery. Parliament can set an example by cutting back on alcohol at its own functions, and by MPs being better role models than those dickheads who get drunk down town and make fools of themselves in public.

Anyone who goes out on night patrol with the cops in Aotearoa will see cells filling up with over-intoxicated, drunk people every weekend, as if the police do not have better things to do with themselves! How many tangi could we prevent if we took a harder line on alcohol abuse? How many fights, court referrals, court cases, and convictions? How much community detention, preventive detention, home detention, and jail? These are the questions we need to consider and the targets we should be setting ourselves to reach. Yet we sit here and kid ourselves that we are serious about dealing with these issues while we allow the liquor industry to continue to promote its mind-bending products on national television, for heaven’s sake. I am nobody’s hero, but I do take pride in being a non-drinker, a non-smoker, and drug-free. I know that Māori people respect those who walk their talk.

Hon Darren Hughes: You’re a saint!

HONE HARAWIRA: Thank you very much. I also know that 60 percent of Māori inmates point to drugs and alcohol as major factors in their offending. There is a lot we need to do. We need research to back up our fight against alcohol abuse, but not too much research—there is heaps of it around already. We need to put restrictions on the availability of alcohol. We need to put the brakes on binge drinking. We need more focus on education, sport, and culture, and we need to put more real energy into giving people positive life choices instead of the dead-end lifestyle that sees us lose 22,000 people every year to Australia. Alcohol is still the most damaging drug in our society, bar none. It is scary enough knowing that from the time one turns 18 it is legal, but the really frightening thing is that 50 percent of our kids are already into it before they even make that 18th birthday. We here in this House have the power to change that; the question is whether we have the courage. Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker. Kia ora tātou e te Whare.

• Debate interrupted.

Hon CHRIS CARTER (Minister of Education) on behalf of the Associate Minister of Health: I move, That the Alcohol Advisory Council Amendment Bill be considered by the Health Committee, that the committee report finally to the House on or before 26 June 2008, and that the committee have authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting except during oral questions, and during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House, and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House, despite Standing Orders 192 and 195(1)(b) and (c).

• Motion agreed to.

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Leader of the House) on behalf of the Minister of Māori Affairs: I move, That the Māori Trustee and Māori Development Amendment Bill be now read a first time. At the appropriate time a motion will be moved to refer this bill to the Māori Affairs Committee.

This bill is the outcome of a very substantial amount of work over a long period of time. The Minister of Māori Affairs has been concerned for a very long period of time that there is too much, in essence, dead or poorly used money that could be better used, or more actively used, to underpin Māori social and economic development within a range of agencies.

The bill also leads to some major changes, which have been under consideration for some considerable period also, to the nature and appointment of the Māori Trustee. What will happen under this bill is that the Māori Trustee will actually have its independence further recognised and given greater powers, but also it will bring together a range of moneys. For example, as part of this bill, a certain amount of funding within Te Puni Kōkiri will be capitalised and brought forward, and put in as part of the funding that will be under the control of the Māori Trustee. At the end of this process, in bringing together a range of funding, it is hoped that the amount of money that will be under the control of the trustee will be sufficient to have a real leverage effect in terms of Māori social and economic development.

With those few words, I am happy to leave the remainder of this debate to those whom I acknowledge have more information and knowledge in this respect, although I have been involved to some considerable extent in the development of this policy.

Hon TAU HENARE (National) : First of all, I congratulate Louisa Wall on her wonderful party political broadcast.

Hon Dr Michael Cullen: Looked good, too!

Hon TAU HENARE: It looked good, as well.

We first got notice of the Māori Trustee and Māori Development Amendment Bill when it was included in a Māori Purposes Bill—something that is supposed to be non-controversial. The Minister thought that he might be able to slip this one through, no worries, and get it passed. But it was the National Party that saw through this. This is nothing more and nothing less than what should be called the “Māori Trustee Theft Bill”. Although I think that Dr Cullen has expertise in a lot of areas, I wonder why he led off the debate and not the Minister of Māori Affairs. This bill is in the name of the Minister of Māori Affairs. It is not the Deputy Prime Minister’s bill; it is not the Minister of Finance’s bill.

We have worked out that this is nothing more than the theft of $35 million. I will tell the community now, and the members of the Māori Party if they are listening, that I expect those Māori Party members to stand in the House tonight and do exactly what they did with the foreshore and seabed legislation, which was promulgated by the same Minister—that is, to vote against the theft of $35 million of beneficiary money. This is money that does not belong to every Māori in this country. It is money that belongs to beneficiaries who are beneficiaries of trusts and who are owners of land that has been put in the hands of the Māori Trustee to look after.

What we have in this bill is nothing more than the development of an old idea—a Māori bank. But this is not a Māori bank like the Poutama. The Hon Shane Jones used to be the chairman of the Poutama Māori Business Trust, and not a skerrick of any of that money went to the community for the development of any business ideas, or towards any development ideas. What is the Minister doing about Māori development? He is preparing to thieve $35 million out of the back pockets of beneficiaries and use it for Māori development!

I have here a little piece of paper about this that was pushed through to us, and it says that the bill will establish a new, independent statutory corporation. Well, it cannot be independent, because all the appointees to this corporation are appointed by the Minister of Māori Affairs and the Minister of Finance, for goodness’ sake. It is nothing more than a Labour Party slush fund for Labour’s mates.

The Minister of Māori Affairs has that little grin on his face that he gets when he has been found out. The Māori world is very small. There have been fellas who have come up to me and said: “Hey, bro, what’s this thing that Parekura is on about? You know, this corporation—he’s asked me to serve on it.” One should not try to keep secrets in the Māori world, because they get out. They dribble out now and then at different hui around the motu. So I asked this fella whether he knew that $35 million was being thieved out of the back pockets of Māori and given over to a corporation, basically to do what is a State obligation. It is not a Māori obligation; it is a State obligation. The next thing we know, Māori education will be being paid for out of the back pockets of beneficiaries who have a little bit of the 6 percent of land that is now in the hands of Māori. Up on the East Coast there is quite a bit of land that comes under the Māori Trustee. I wonder what those people would say about their money going out of their back pockets to fund some idea that this corporation has.

Hon Georgina te Heuheu: It’s his own people.

Hon TAU HENARE: Absolutely. They are the Ngāti Porou people, and the honourable Minister is a member of that tribal district.

Mark Blumsky: He’s looking uncomfortable.

Hon TAU HENARE: He always looks uncomfortable. It may not be this bill. He always looks uncomfortable.

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

Hon TAU HENARE: I will quote from a report that was done, ironically, by Richard Charters, Annette Sykes, and Tama Nīkora way back when the Rt Hon Winston Peters was Minister of Māori Affairs. The report states: “The Māori Trustee must not provide funds for the Māori Education Foundation, philanthropic purposes, or the Māori Council.”—that is, anything else other than the beneficiaries of this money. It states further: “These activities are affairs of State, not beneficiaries.”

I also point to the report of the Controller and Auditor-General in his report of, I think, 2004, in which he said: “The Trustee’s main role is to manage Māori land on behalf of its owners, mostly through leasing for conventional farming. … The trustee also disburses rental funds, and invests client funds when requested.” The report of the Auditor-General goes on to state that the trustee’s purpose is to “protect the interests of Maori clients and their land …”. That basically says that this is not an issue about Māori development. That can happen; that is the State’s responsibility. This is about a property right, and the use of a property right, that does not belong to all Māori. It does not belong to me; it belongs to the beneficiaries. In the same way that the Māori Party was created out of the furore of a property rights issue—the foreshore and seabed—I would suggest that everybody, including the Greens, vote against—[Interruption] I say to Ms Turei that it is OK to have one view on one property rights issue, but it is not OK to have another view on another property rights issue.

At least New Zealand First has the principled approach of sending things to a select committee. It does not buy into this carry-on of having one view one day and the next day having another view on pretty much the same thing. At least New Zealand First sends things to a select committee, and then things are discussed there.

For the Government to put its hand in somebody else’s pocket is absolutely wrong. This is about property rights. This is about the theft of $35 million of beneficiary money. It is not for all Māori. It does not belong to all Māori. How dare the Government get up on its hind legs and say that this money belongs to all Māori. It does not. I cannot wait to get around the traps and say to Māori: “Here we go again.” A couple of years ago the Government tried it, and the birth of the Māori Party happened. This time there will be more people who look at the DigiPoll and say: “Yeah, I thought so. Labour isn’t doing anything for us.”

Pita Paraone: The “Dodgypoll”.

Hon TAU HENARE: Oh, that is right—the “Dodgypoll”. The fact of the matter is that Labour has been behind in every poll since March last year. At the end of the day that is all it is about. Whether we see this bill go to the select committee is another story. The fact of the matter is that it is not long to go before we see the back end of this Government.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): I call the honourable Minister Parekura Horomia.

Hon Georgina te Heuheu: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. This is a matter of order. The Minister was meant to take his turn earlier in the piece, and I actually called you before he did. I am sorry—Dr Cullen took his call.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Can I just advise the member that it is not a race about who stands up first and gets the call. Dr Cullen rightly took the first Labour call, and the Hon Parekura Horomia is taking the third Labour call, which he is entitled to do.

Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA (Minister of Māori Affairs) : I listened with interest to the member who has just spoken, Tau Henare. All of the things he has talked about are all of the things he did not do.

The Māori Trustee and Māori Development Amendment Bill is about doing something for the future of Māori. The changes set out in this bill provide the foundations for real and significant progress on key issues affecting Māori. The bill provides a new start for the Māori Trustee by setting the trustee up as a stand-alone organisation and making a number of associated changes. The bill also establishes a new statutory corporation to further Māori economic development for the benefit of the beneficiaries, which will bring a more cohesive approach to realising the potential of Māori business. The new corporation has the working name of Māori Business Aotearoa New Zealand—or MBANZ. To reflect these changes the bill amends the title of the Maori Trustee Act 1953 to the Māori Trustee and Māori Development Act 1953. These initiatives will help Māori to make the most of opportunities for development and innovation.

The bill amends provisions relating to the Māori Trustee’s organisational form and financial accountability. The Māori Trustee undertakes a range of important and valued functions set out in the Maori Trustee Act and other legislation. The bill does not amend these functions, which include administering land where the owners have not been located or where the owners have asked the trustee to do so.

At present the Māori Trustee is an office conferred on an employee of Te Puni Kōkiri. The bill will establish the Māori Trustee as a stand-alone organisation that is separate from Te Puni Kōkiri. This will underline the independence of the Māori Trustee in carrying out the positions and fiduciary responsibilities.

The bill provides for robust accountability for public funding by including the Māori Trustee on the fourth schedule of the Public Finance Act 1989. This will have the effect of applying appropriate reporting, and other accountability provisions, to the Māori Trustee in respect of funding provided by the Crown, while maintaining the Māori Trustee’s independence. The reporting requirements will include preparing an annual report with a statement of service performance. Many a time in this House there have been challenges to organisations that have not done that. The bill provides that the Māori Trustee will be appointed by the Minister of Māori Affairs for a renewable term of up to 5 years. Further amendments enable the new stand-alone Māori Trustee to employ his or her own staff and appoint a deputy Māori Trustee.

The bill also makes changes to the way in which interest on money held in trust in the common fund is determined, and this is one of the key issues. The bill provides that the Māori Trustee must pay the amount earned by the trustee in interest, less the management fee. The Māori Trustee will be required to review the amounts paid on a quarterly basis in light of appropriate market rates, given the nature of the common fund and the conditions under which the trustee operates.

Together these changes underline the Māori Trustee’s role and independence and enhance accountability for public funding, while protecting and furthering the interest of the trustee’s beneficiaries. In August and September last year Māori were consulted on proposals to set up the Māori Trustee as a stand-alone organisation, and there was a good turn-out at the consultation hui held around the country—owners turned out in their hundreds. There was broad-based support for the proposals I have just outlined, provided that the Māori Trustee would be funded on a viable basis.

The second major initiative in this bill is the establishment of a new statutory corporation. This will have the principal function of furthering Māori economic development by utilising the potential of resources available to Māori. The new statutory corporation has the working name of MBANZ—Māori Business Aotearoa New Zealand. It is the result of careful consideration of how to achieve greater synergies between development activities already being undertaken by Te Puni Kōkiri, the Māori Trustee, the Government, and, potentially, other organisations.

During consultation with Māori earlier this year on the proposals for a stand-alone Māori Trustee, a wider discussion emerged at hui about the possibility of the Māori Trustee taking more of a leadership role to promote Māori development. This feedback has been taken into account in the development of the new corporation.

The board of the statutory corporation will be chaired by the Māori Trustee. The remaining members will be appointed by the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Māori Affairs, with the Māori Trustee. The board will be able to undertake services that enable it to fulfil its principal functions. These can include business support services, identifying opportunities for economic development, and developing the capacity to make loans and other payments to help beneficiaries and Māori set up new or developing businesses. As with any new body of this nature, key considerations for the board will include its strategic direction, and the nature and extent of the services it will be able to provide within its statutory responsibilities, as the corporation gets under way.

The corporation will be responsible for a new fund to enable it to carry out its functions. The fund will be made up of a significant contribution from the Government, and a contribution of $35 million transferred from the general purposes fund. The general purposes fund is one of the funds that the Māori Trustee is responsible for under the Māori Trustee Act, and currently it can be used for some development activities. There is the potential also for contributions from other organisations, and that issue has been discussed. There will be ongoing discussions to ensure that that happens.

The bill has a number of provisions that set out the powers, duties, and responsibilities of the board. The bill sets out accountability requirements, which include holding a yearly public meeting, and commissioning, at regular intervals, an independent review of the corporation’s performance.

Finally, the bill provides for a new schedule dealing with the detail of the board’s operations. The bill reflects the Government’s commitment to enabling Māori to realise their potential. It helps to ensure that the Māori Trustee is well placed to provide services to Māori in the future, and this bill is about the Māori Trustee in the future. The new statutory incorporation, chaired by the Māori Trustee, will provide a cohesive focus for Māori economic development.

Dr Wayne Mapp: Thieves.

Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA: That member chortles about thievery. Why are those members afraid of making the Māori Trustee stronger, giving the Māori Trustee independence, and ensuring that beneficiaries know where to go, know how to go, and know that they are continuously supported? There has been consultation on this matter, and I want to share with the House that this bill will be one of the great advancements for Māori in this country.

Hon TAU HENARE (National) : I seek the leave of the House to table a briefing note from the Minister about where the $35 million is coming from.

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

Hon TAU HENARE (National) : I seek the leave of the House to table a copy of the 2004 report of the Controller and Auditor-General.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Is there any objection to that course of action being taken? There is.

Hon TAU HENARE (National) : I seek the leave of the House to table a copy of the 1991 review of the Office of the Māori Trustee.

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

Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU (National) : The Māori Trustee and Māori Development Amendment Bill will be a good test of the position of the Māori Party, the Greens, and New Zealand First, because they need to reflect pretty clearly on what this Labour-led Government is doing in misappropriating $35 million of identifiable Māori moneys. Therefore the consultation should have been with those identifiable persons and land trusts. So this bill will be a very good test of where the Māori Party, the Greens, Metiria Turei, and New Zealand First stand in relation to a Government that seeks to misappropriate Māori moneys. That is exactly what is being done with this bill.

Dr Cullen, who hurriedly took a call because the Minister in charge of this bill was not ready to take the call, gave two reasons for it. Firstly, he said there was a lot of dead money, or poorly used money, sitting around. Secondly, he said the Māori Trustee needed to be reorganised or reformed to face the challenges of the future. So what is the Government’s answer? Its answer is, basically, to set the Māori Trustee up on a funding agreement with the Government, to make the Māori Trustee dependent, now, on the Government, and also to set up a new corporation to be funded, by and large, by Māori moneys—$35 million—taken from the Māori Trustee and put into a new corporation that will be there for the development of all Māori. I ask the House whether the same thing would happen in the general environment. For instance, would New Zealanders agree to the Public Trust’s funds being taken, misappropriated, put into another corporation, and used for the development of all New Zealanders? I do not think so, but that is exactly the same as what is happening under this bill.

However much the Government wants to dress the situation up and say there is a general purposes fund that is available for development, there is no getting past the point that the Government is misappropriating Māori moneys. The Government actually tried to do that recently with regard to the Crown Forestry Rental Trust. That trust’s moneys are not necessarily all Māori moneys, but it is likely that a fair proportion is. Last November, to the Government’s discredit, again through not understanding the responsibilities of trusteeship, the Government tried to take to itself, in the settlement with Te Pūmautanga o Te Arawa Trust, moneys from that fund to put into this new corporation. But that was stopped by Māori, through a court action. I hope that Māori do the same here. I hope that those who are discernible Māori beneficiaries will take court action—litigation—to stop the thievery or statutory theft that is about to take place. That is what is happening here.

The Minister raved on about his so-called consultation hui. He wrote out to all Māori, all over the country, and he says he obtained approval for what he is doing. But nothing in the reports of the consultation says that the identifiable beneficiaries approve of what he is now doing—nothing whatsoever. The Minister should be ashamed to come into this House and take funds that largely come from Ngāti Porou to Waiariki—Te Arawa mainly, and some from the north, I think; largely from three or four identifiable areas—and stand up as though he is doing something great for Māori. He is doing something that Pākehā would never condone. They would never condone the Labour-led Government taking funds out of the Public Trust and using them for all New Zealanders. But that is the same as what the Minister is doing. It is no wonder he was not ready to take his call earlier. He knows that he is doing the wrong thing.

The other thing about this measure is the Government’s patronising attitude or condescension. It says poor Māori do not know how to use their money properly, so it is going to take it from them. The Government is setting up a whole new corporation and says it will distribute that largesse, as though it is the Minister’s, to all and sundry, because Māori do not know how to handle their money. That essentially is what the Government and the Minister are saying. We say the Māori Trustee cannot do his job; actually, he has not done it. Although he has travelled a hang of a lot overseas in the last year, he has not done the basic tasks that are required of that trustee. But if the Māori Trustee cannot do his job, rather than this Government misappropriating these funds I say they should be handed back to where they belong. The Minister should consider doing that.

The Minister should reconsider what he is doing in distributing largesse to all and sundry. First of all that is not right, and, secondly, it is condescending to treat Māori as if they are of no wit and cannot handle their own affairs. But that is typical of a Labour Government, is it not—absolutely typical of a Labour Government. Labour Governments have been like that since mai rāno. They say: “Bring everything back to the centre; we know best.”

That Minister actually runs a department. It is called Te Puni Kōkiri.

Hon Tau Henare: He doesn’t run it; Leith does.

Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU: Well, right—OK, it has a chief executive, but this Minister is in charge of it. A colleague of mine, Gerry Brownlee, still does not know what that Minister does with his department. Actually, some days we do not know that either. Sometimes we do not know either—OK? And the Minister has the cheek to set up a new corporation in order to progress development. His department cannot even use the funds it has properly. Te Puni Kōkiri cannot even use the funds it has to do development properly, anyway.

As I say, this is typical, though, of a Labour-led Government. This is a good test—

Hon Parekura Horomia: And that is how good you were. You made him the spokesperson on Māori Affairs. Shame on the National Party—when you were there and Tau was there, putting down the spokesperson for Māori—

Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Of course, that member is bringing you into the argument, and you held me up for doing that. So I wish you would do the same to him.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): I was actually calling the member to order. But, please, will the member now continue.

Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU: As I said earlier, this Minister ought to be ashamed of himself. He is bringing in a bill in the last throes of a Labour-led Government—thank goodness for that—that in other circumstances, and if he had reorganised the trustee office properly, might have been acceptable. But in this case it is not. It is not acceptable because the Minister is stealing money from Peter and giving it to Paul, Matthew, and everybody, and he has no right to do that. He is setting up a Māori corporation, and we have done that before, I tell the Minister. We have done that before, and it did not work—it did not work, OK? The Government can use its own moneys. Where else do we take money from identified people and give it to somebody else?

I say to the Minister that he should concentrate on running Te Puni Kōkiri properly, because that department is pretty hopeless. It is pretty hopeless. And the other thing I say is that I will be very interested to see where the Māori Party puts its vote tonight, because there is no doubt that this measure is absolutely wrong. What this Government is doing is absolutely wrong. It is tantamount to another “foreshore and seabed”, and as I say I will be very interested to see where the Māori Party puts its vote.

Ron Mark: Its coalition partner.

Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU: And as for the New Zealand First members, I tell them that they need to read the report my colleague referred to arising from the inquiry that Winston Peters set up in 1991. There was no doubt in the minds of those reviewers as to whom these funds belonged to. They do not belong to all Māori, and why New Zealand First should be supporting this Government—who knows?

In closing, I ask the Minister, seriously, to withdraw this bill.

Dianne Yates: No!

Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU: Well, of course it is only natural that some of his colleagues there would say “No!”, because they do not bother about who owns property. They are not worried about who owns property. These assets are identifiable. They are owned by certain people and families, these land blocks, and this Minister has no right—absolutely no right—to misappropriate these funds.

Hon TAU HENARE (National) : I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.

Dianne Yates: Oh, not again.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): There is to be no comment at all during a point of order.

Hon TAU HENARE: I have been booted out of this House on a number of occasions for interrupting on a point of order. I know that you have just ruled, Mr Assistant Speaker, but I suggest that Government members are accorded the same “privilege” that was accorded me on a number of occasions. My point of order is that during the Minister’s speech he motioned to me as if I was to ask a question. I therefore seek leave of the House to ask the Minister a question.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): The House is the master of its own destiny, and the member is perfectly entitled to do that. The member has sought leave. Is there any objection to that course of action being taken? There is objection.

Dr PITA SHARPLES (Co-Leader—Māori Party) : Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. In 1921 the Government of the day created a position ostensibly to protect and enhance the interests of Māori clients and their resources. That position was the Māori Trustee. It was a position created by legislation to manage the adverse effects of fragmented multiple ownership of Māori land. Significantly, the office of the Māori Trustee was expected to provide fair, proper, and prudent administration and management of clients’ assets within the principles and obligations of trusteeship and agency.

Such a heavy investment in accountability and transparency was a logical expectation of the fact that the Māori Trustee was set up to take over the role of the Public Trustee. Yet 70 years after establishment, how disappointing it was to read in analysis by G V and S M Butterworth that “Neither the Public Trustee nor the Māori Trustee and his administration exercised their responsibilities in the best long-term interests of those Māori whose land and revenue was vested in the trustee.”

Pita Paraone: Who were the Butterworths?

Dr PITA SHARPLES: That is a good question. I repeat: “in the best long-term interests of those Māori.” Clearly, 1991 was a turning point year for the Māori Trustee. In that same year Ngāi Tahu made a number of allegations concerning the failure of the Crown’s appointed trustee to administer reserve lands properly. These allegations included failing to consult the owners, failing to act as a prudent trustee, failing to take action to amalgamate land titles and develop lands, and failing to prevent land from being taken for public works. The Ngāi Tahu report 1991 is mandatory reading for understanding how well the Māori Trustee meets the trustee’s statutory responsibilities—and they are sizable responsibilities.

The Māori Trust Office currently administers more than 2,200 properties and special trusts. It cares for more than 156,000 owners, and it manages some 115,000 owner accounts. So when we read through background reports that suggest that the best long-term interests of Māori have not been given due and proper accord, we have to wonder about this new bill.

The Butterworth report also referred to large capital expenditure with little return, problems surrounding the collection and distribution of rents, inadequate consultation with beneficial owners in respect of these matters, and other concerns. We remain unconvinced, when we fast forward to September 2007, and read that the Federation of Māori Authorities has said: “Currently as an administrator of Māori land, it is our view that any value added is limited.”

Set against this backdrop of concerns, and the longstanding issues and reviews that have taken place over the years, one would be expecting a miracle to bring about the changes required to accelerate Māori development. Such a transformation is not inconceivable. Indeed, Paul Morgan, the Chief Executive of the Federation of Māori Authorities, goes as far as to suggest there is significant potential and that this should be provided for in the legislation.

Indeed, as we know, there have been many and vast improvements and achievements over the years, which the Māori Trustee has helped to prosper. Sir Apirana Ngata, during his parliamentary term, drew on Māori Trust moneys to support the unemployed. The Māori Trust fund was a benefactor to support Māori into homes by using the funds as a second mortgage, or even by authorising loans to enable the purchase of furniture for new homeowners. The trade training schemes would never have been as successful as they were, had it not been for the hostels—

Ron Mark: They were shut down.

Dr PITA SHARPLES: —which the Māori Trustee purchased to house apprentices—exactly—in both Auckland and Christchurch. The Māori Trustee made contributions to the Māori Purposes Fund Board to enable the publication of Māori literature, and it also played a large role in supporting Te Māori exhibition that showcased Māori art forms and taonga to the world.

Alongside of the then Māori Education Foundation the Māori Trustee also assisted in the establishment of the kōhanga reo movement, yet sadly much of this work has never been widely appreciated as the Māori Trustee was locked up and encased within the bureaucracy of the Māori Affairs department.

The ongoing issues of independence of the Māori Trustee from the Crown will plague the new organisation proposed in this bill, unless the Minister has the courage to invest in a strategic vision for Māori economic development. But here is the crunch. The legislation aims to transfer $35 million from the Māori Trustees general purposes fund to establish this new statutory corporation. This fund, according to the Charters, Sykes and Nikora review of 1991, is income derived from the beneficiaries and not the Māori Trustee. How this works is that the interest earned on the common fund—money held in trust available for loan—is credited to the general purposes fund, owned by the Māori Trustee. Effectively, the statute empowers the Māori Trustee to operate on beneficiaries’ incomes. If you like, it is comparable to a solicitor using the interest on his or her clients’ funds to run the solicitor’s business. So we have $35 million of Māori money being put alongside $40 million of Crown money to establish a stand-alone organisation. Even from the viewpoint of the quantity of the investment, this is an absolute investment in failure.

In 2001 the Māori Affairs Committee report on the Māori Trustee drew the attention of the Government to the ongoing issue about whether the funding received by the trustee was at an appropriate level for the trustee to fulfil his role. If the solution to that question was meant to be this bill, then it has got it badly wrong. The bill proposes the establishment of a new statutory corporation, Māori Business Aotearoa New Zealand, founded on money that the Charters, Sykes and Nikora review has proven to be in doubt. Even if the Māori Trustee has the right to donate moneys from the general purposes fund to this new incorporation, the tokenistic amount suggested by the Government merely confirms more of the same old handholding, paternalistic, patronising behaviour of a Government destined to perpetuate dependency.

I recall, as a member of the Māori Education Foundation, that the Government, in establishing that entity, provided a subsidy of 3:1. For every Māori dollar invested, the Government would match it with $3. That is the type of foresight we would have applauded in this bill, but instead we have insufficient funding to hope for success, and legislative bungling that continues the apron-strings approach to Treaty justice.

The proposal to establish Māori Business Aotearoa New Zealand is constrained also by the decision to have a Crown-appointed Māori Trustee in the key governance role, as well as in the management and implementation role. This is the classic behaviour of a Government that wants to continue benefiting from the puppeteer role, manipulating all the strings available to it to continue to wield total control. What we have in reality with this bill is a Government that seeks to get its hands on Māori moneys, the possibility of legal doubt being cast upon the validity of using beneficiary funds for establishing a new entity, and then the risk that the Crown will jeopardise any independent status through influencing the making of political appointments.

The Butterworth report concluded: “the Māori Trustee, like the Public Trustee before, had increasingly been used to serve the interests of others ahead of the beneficial owners of the land in his charge”. We support the view of the Federation of Māori Authorities, that Māori should have a say in the appointment of the Māori Trustee, not the Minister of Māori Affairs.

It is also doubtful whether a trustee appointed by the Government of the day will be able to challenge the Minister’s directives, to protect his or her clients’ interests. The conflict inherent in being an agent of the Crown and a trustee for Māori owners is simply too strong to achieve even the appearance of independence.

The Māori Party will not support this bill.

METIRIA TUREI (Green) : Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. I want to take just a very short call on the Māori Trustee and Māori Development Amendment Bill. The Greens will be supporting it—

Hon Tau Henare: Will be what?

METIRIA TUREI: We will be supporting it; I say thank you to Mr Henare.

We had very serious concerns about the legislation when the Government first raised it with us, and initially we refused to support it. We have spoken to a few other people about some of the issues and sought more advice on it. After looking at it a bit more closely, I am very firmly of the view that we need to crack this open and look at it. I agree that there is a serious issue here about the misuse of Māori Trustee money. I want to see where the levers are, what is going on with this legislation, and what the Government is intending to do.

I think that the National Party in particular, with the badgering it is doing, is not really engaged in a practical process. If Mr Henare had wanted to provide me with further information about National’s position on the bill he was always open to do that, but badgering me on the night of the vote is, of course, very unhelpful. We would like to see what is going on with it. I agree that there are really serious concerns, and we make no promises to the Government or to anybody else about what our future vote on this legislation will be.

There are members in this Parliament who have a great deal of historical knowledge about the Māori Trustee and its purposes, and about the things that have happened in the past. What is not well known is the purpose of the Māori Trustee, what it does, and how it operates in the general public view and amongst Māori, as well. This bill will give us a chance to crack the trustee open, have a good look, and make sure it comes under public scrutiny, because if there are dodgy things going on with both the legislation and some of the other practices that this new development body might want to undertake, then we will be able to find that out, expose it, and bring legislation down in the future.

But at this stage I am very keen to look at what this legislation does, and to expose it to the transparent view of the public, particularly of Māori, who have the closest association. If, in the end, it turns out that this is wrong and bad legislation—bad for Māori, a misuse of money, a misappropriation of property—then the Greens will not support it. But until we are clear and sure of that, we are happy to support the bill at least going to the select committee. Thank you.

PITA PARAONE (NZ First) : Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. Tēnā anō tātou o te Whare nei.

Firstly, can I say that I take part in the first reading of this bill with some mixed feelings, in the sense that it was not too long ago that I actually worked in the office of the Māori Trustee, ending my term of employment with that office as the regional operations manager in Whangarei. In listening to the debate so far, I empathise with the staff of the Māori Trust Office if they are listening to this debate. In the former Department of Maori Affairs when the services of that department were devolved, there was a lot of anxiety amongst staff. I am sure that if Māori Trust Office staff are listening to this debate tonight their anxiety will certainly be heightened, particularly by some of the comments that have been made. But, having said that, I suppose I do declare my vested interest in this particular bill because of my being a former staff member.

I cannot continue without making some reference to the fact that the reading of this bill was commenced by the Minster of Finance. He said in his opening remarks that this was a very, very important bill for the Minister of Māori Affairs, and I was somewhat surprised that that Minister did not take the first call. However, he did redeem himself by taking part when he did.

I will reiterate some of the work that the Māori Trustee actually does. First of all, the position is a corporation sole created by the enactment of the Maori Trustee Act 1953 and its role is to help manage Māori land. It is independent of the Crown but is subject to controls similar to those applying to Government departments. It reports annually to Parliament, it has been in existence since 1921, and it is now governed by the Maori Trustee Act 1953. The Māori Trustee is responsible for acting either as a trustee or an agent for owners of Māori land, usually in leasing that land, collecting and paying rent and other income to owners, investing trust moneys, keeping landowners informed about how their land is managed, and also looking after unclaimed moneys. As a consequence of that duty, from time to time a list of unclaimed moneys is regularly published for distribution to organisations around the country. But the Māori Trustee also has the task of keeping landowners informed about how their land is managed and about the investment of trust moneys.

I have to ask myself, with this bill, what new responsibilities will the Māori Trustee have? Can the intent of this bill not be implemented by way of any form of legislation other than separate legislation, whereby this bill is calling for the separate establishment of an organisation called Māori Business Aotearoa New Zealand? If we look at the acronym, it is MBANZ; I just wonder whether it should be “rubber bands”. I ask this question: why are we doing this? In terms of those who have already contributed to this debate and criticised the Minister, I must say that I would have to side with the Minister, as his intent is to look at the economic development of Māori.

Hon Georgina te Heuheu: Can’t even do that properly.

PITA PARAONE: Well, that is why we ought to be supporting any legislation that does that for Māori. The big question surrounding this legislation that has been raised by a number of speakers tonight concerns the use of the $35 million that is currently in the general purposes fund. I know that the Minister, through his department, has had a number of consultation huis around the country—

Hon Tau Henare: Who with?

PITA PARAONE: —with various Māori organisations and some beneficiaries. But I have it on good authority—[Interruption]

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Can I just advise members on both my left and right that the rules permitting interjections are predicated on the assumption that the person being interjected against has the call. There are members on my right and my left who do not have the call and, therefore, are not permitted to interject against each other.

Hon Tau Henare: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. As a point of clarification, my interjections were to comments that were made by the speaker, not by another member of the House. I just want to clear that up.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): I thank the member, but the reality is that it has been going on all night.

PITA PARAONE: Reference has been made to the sum of $35 million. At the present time I understand that that money is held in the general purposes fund of the Māori Trust Office. The big question is who actually owns that money. Although most of it is probably unclaimed moneys, at the end of the day I believe that those still belong to the beneficiaries—whoever they might be and wherever they might be—or to their estates. However, as I alluded to earlier on, a number of consultation huis were held around the country. I am given to understand that no reference was made to the intended use of this money by the new organisation, so I am not quite sure whether, in fact, Māori beneficiaries are aware of this. This is one of the reasons why New Zealand First will certainly be supporting this bill being referred to a select committee. We have always maintained that the select committee process gives the people of New Zealand the opportunity to have their say on legislation. I believe we will certainly hear from those who are affected by this bill, and we will hear what their thoughts are on the use of this funding.

The development of an old idea was what one speaker referred to earlier, and he was making reference to a Māori bank. Perhaps this could be seen as a Māori bank, but at the end of the day it can only be established at the behest of the Māori people of New Zealand. If they do not support it, then what is the point of having something like this?

Another question I would like to ask is why are we having a new entity? Why are we establishing an organisation, a group, that is alleged to be independent? I ask myself how independence can be had if the board in its make-up and the chairman—in this case, the Māori Trustee—will all be Crown-appointed. I know that some members of the House have strong feelings about this and, again, I think that the select committee process will allow those who will be affected by it to express their views. And I ask this final question: why can legislative changes not be implemented outside the scope of this bill in order to achieve the aim that I am sure all members of this House want for New Zealand, let alone for the Māori people?

In conclusion, I reiterate the stance that New Zealand First will be taking on this bill. We will certainly be supporting it going to a select committee. Kia ora.

Hon MITA RIRINUI (Minister of State) : Kia ora, Mr Assistant Speaker. I take the opportunity to take a brief call in support of this bill, which is aptly titled the Māori Trustee and Māori Development Amendment Bill. I also look forward to the bill being directed to the Māori Affairs Committee, because that will provide the opportunity for public submissions on the bill itself. I think that is important at this stage, because a lot of the comments I have heard made in this House by earlier speakers give me a feeling that they have not bothered to read this bill, they have not bothered to take note of the number of consultation hui around the country, and that they are simply just out of touch with what is happening in Māoridom in terms of Māori business and economic development.

I would also make the comment that I feel a number of contradictions were made by earlier speakers who, on the one hand, are very, very knowledgable in terms of the history of the establishment of the Māori Trustee and of the contributions the Māori Trustee has made to Māori social and economic development over a number of years, but at the same time they have said in this House that they will not support this bill. I get the feeling that some people will support something when they are in receipt of the benefits, but when it comes to a benefit that they themselves do not have the intellectual grunt to take advantage of, they are totally opposed to it.

Māori economic development is the way into the future for Māori. People cannot stand in this House and say that they want Māori to be independent, and at the same time, in their lifetime, they have bled the Māori Trustee dry when it comes to a benefit that would elevate the status of all Māori. They are totally opposed to it. But I will give them one thing: they do know their history, but they have very selective memories when it comes to recalling it.

I want to speak a bit more about the consultation hui that were undertaken around the country. There is an assumption in this House that Māori who attend these types of consultation hui have no interest in the unclaimed moneys in the Māori Trustee. These are unclaimed moneys, and they have been held in trust for beneficiaries, in the hope they would come forward one day and claim them. That makes a lot of sense, surely. So why are those members so opposed to that?

I know of a number of people who did attend the consultation hui and wanted to know a number of things. Firstly, they wanted to know why the functions of the Māori Trustee have been incorporated into Te Puni Kōkiri, and it has been difficult to understand. They do support the Māori Trustee being a stand-alone organisation, with a wide range of services being provided to Māori, and not just holding money for the sake of holding it, because the only ones who are benefiting from that money being held in the general purposes fund are the banks; they are the only ones. Māori are getting no benefit from that. Why are they so concerned with the interests of the banks and not the interests of Māori? Listening to the debate in this House tonight, it does not make a lot of sense.

The people from my particular area in the Bay of Plenty who went to the hui want to see an enhancement of the acceleration of Māori economic development and they see the Māori Trustee playing an important role in that. They are not saying that funds should be set aside. They are saying that the Māori Trustee should play an active role. If it has been there since 1921, and it has been accumulating unclaimed moneys since that time, it needs to be set free. It needs to be utilised for the benefit of Māori going into the future.

Hon Georgina te Heuheu: It needs to go back to the areas it came from.

Hon MITA RIRINUI: I listened to the Hon Georgina te Heuheu making her comments. Maybe she should go and have a good read of the bill. Maybe she should go and learn a bit from her people, because a lot of the moneys that are unclaimed come from the Ngāti Tūwharetoa area. Nobody knows why that is, but there is certainly not a lot—

Hon Tau Henare: Why don’t you leave it alone then?

Hon MITA RIRINUI: Nobody knows where these people are, and that is why the money is held there. Rather than letting the banks keep making money out of Māori interests, we should let the Māori people themselves enjoy those benefits.

I heard the Hon Tau Henare, a former short-term Minister of Māori Affairs, make a number of comments about this particular bill. I was a regional senior manager for Te Puni Kōkiri at the time he was Minister and I do not recall anything passing over my desk from him suggesting any way forward for Māori economic development. In fact, I saw the money going the other way, back into the Crown bank account. People have very selective memories, as I said earlier on.

I did say that my call would be a very short one. I am looking forward to sitting down in the select committee and listening to what the people have to say about the utilisation of these unclaimed moneys. Unclaimed moneys—they do have this title, even though they have been held in a general purposes fund. Georgina te Heuheu said there is a list of beneficiaries. In fact, there is not. If there were, the Māori Trustee would have the legal responsibility to ensure those beneficiaries received a return from the Māori Trustee. These moneys are unclaimed and have accumulated interest. The suggestion that the intention is to misappropriate those moneys is totally ludicrous. This money is going towards Māori development, and what is wrong with that? Why is National opposed to that? Surely every Māori in this House—although entitled to ask questions about the technical aspects of this bill—supports Māori moving forward, even if there are a couple of members who cannot bring themselves to support this bill. Once again I say I am looking forward to the select committee process, to hearing from Māori from all around the country, and to convincing those two members that this is good for Māori. Kia ora.

CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (National) : I listened very carefully to what the New Zealand First member Pita Paraone said about the Māori Trustee and Māori Development Amendment Bill, because much of what he said made a lot of sense. The primary issue, as I understand it from what he said, is that there is a need to take a good look at the office of the Māori Trustee. I do not disagree with him, at all, for reasons I will explain in the course of this speech. When one goes through the history of the Māori Trustee, one sees there are serious issues that need to be addressed.

The point that makes this bill unacceptable to the National Party is Part 2 and the way in which the $35 million, which has been referred to in debate, is being filched from the general purposes fund and put into this new body to be used for general Māori development. I think it is one of those issues where although one would normally support a bill to the first reading so it can be properly addressed in the select committee, one cannot do it here because the bill is odious in respect of Part 2.

As I said, some history is required. I noted in Dr Sharples’ speech that the genesis for him was in 1921 with the creation of the office of the Māori Trustee. Let me go back to 1882 and the passage of the then Native Reserves Act of 1882, which provided for the vesting of Crown administered Māori reserves in the Public Trustee. The Public Trustee was the first trustee who was appointed. The trustee had power to lease reserves and collect and distribute the resulting rents to beneficial owners after deducting expenses. The board of the Public Trust Office was extended by the appointment of two Māori trustees. My reading of the history of the Public Trustee’s involvement indicates that it was all pretty unsatisfactory. The board failed to meet regularly and did not provide an opportunity for its Māori members to represent Māori interests. In the early 20th century the majority of the accounts vested in the Public Trustee came under four principal Acts: the Native Reserves Act of 1882, as I said a few minutes ago; the Westland and Nelson Native Reserves Act of 1887; the West Coast Settlement Reserves Act of 1892; and section 185 of the Native Land Act of 1909. Because of the concerns on the part of Māori owners at the administration of their reserves by the Public Trustee, the whole issue was looked at in 1913. There was a commission into the Public Trust Office that recommended that Māori reserves and their administration be vested in an independent body. That is how the Māori Trustee was born after the First World War in 1920.

Then in 1932 an amendment Act saw the amalgamation of the office with the department itself, and under the 1932 Act the position of trustee was combined with the position of under-secretary of the department. It seems that following that time there was the elimination of all administrative signposts of independence and a gradual dissipation of the pool of expertise in the office. From the point of view of the Māori beneficiaries the situation was very unsatisfactory. As Butterworth—to whom Dr Sharples referred—said, there was little room left “for initiative or imagination and its ultimate effect was to turn the Native Trustee into a bureaucratic arm of the Department rather than a prudential financial institution and agent of his beneficiaries.” So there is no doubt that there have been concerns about the way in which the office of the Māori Trustee and its predecessor, the Public Trustee, have administered these funds for over 100 years and there are some serious issues that need to be addressed.

I know that Mr Paraone correctly referred to the summary of the role of the Māori Trustee from Te Puni Kōkiri’s website. He really emphasised the key points, and I want to emphasise them as well. The Māori Trustee is independent of the Crown; accountable to landowners and the Māori Land Court; and, as Mr Paraone said, is responsible for acting either as a trustee or as an agent for the owners of land, for collecting and paying rent and other income to owners, and for investing trust moneys. The point that needs to be emphasised time and time again is that the Māori Trustee is operating an important prudential and trustee function. He or she is not part of the Crown or subordinate to the Crown in any way whatsoever. Then one has to look at the Maori Trustee Act of 1953. Mr Paraone correctly identified that in section 23 there are a number of accounts within the Māori Trustee’s account. There is the special investment account; the common fund, which Mr Ririnui referred to; and the general purposes fund. When one looks at section 32, one sees that there are special purposes for which funds or moneys in the general purposes fund may be used, and they are set out there—for example, section 32(1)(a) states: “the trustee may advance money for the benefit of Maoris or descendants of Maoris upon such terms as to repayment as he sees fit; and upon such security (if any) as he sees fit”. Given the trustee nature of it, it is not for the benefit of Māori generally but for the Māori beneficiaries. That is the way those sections have to be read. Let us face it: the Māori Trustee is a trustee who has to look out for, in a prudential way and in accordance with the Maori Trustee Act, the interests of the beneficiaries.

So what does this bill do? I would be prepared to contemplate supporting Part 1, at least to a select committee, but Part 2 renders the bill totally unacceptable. We say that the Government needs to go back and look at it again. Part 2 establishes a new organisation called Māori Business Aotearoa New Zealand. Its functions are referred to in new section 55, inserted by clause 15. There can be no objection to setting up a body such as this to further the economic development of Māori; it is the way it is done in new section 59 that immediately makes this legislation unacceptable. The objectionable section that we place some reliance on, section 59(2), provides that the Māori Trustee must transfer, as a contribution to the fund of this new organisation, Māori Business Aotearoa New Zealand, the sum of $35 million from the general purposes fund. We say that that is an unauthorised appropriation of $35 million, which properly belongs to the beneficiaries of the Māori Trustee. These funds are not available—or should not be available—to be filched by the Government. They belong to the beneficiaries, and indeed they and no other persons are the ones who should be consulted. Sending out 49,000 letters in a general kind of way, as the Associate Minister referred to in his speech, is unacceptable.

A very important question was asked by the Hon Georgina te Heuheu when she asked what the response of New Zealanders would be if the Public Trustee’s accounts were raided to apply funds for the benefit of all New Zealanders. One simply cannot do that.

Dr Wayne Mapp: That’s a very good analogy.

CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON: Thank you, Dr Mapp. It is a good analogy. The point is that you cannot do it—and by “you” I am not meaning you, Mr Assistant Speaker. I am using “you” in the sense of “one cannot do it”, because I would not contravene the Standing Orders by referring to you in person.

Hon Tau Henare: The royal “one”.

CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON: The royal “one.” So that is the objection of the National Party. This bill is badly drafted. Part 2 is odious. It cannot be referred to a select committee and tidied up, because there is nothing to tidy up. It is one of those situations where the bill should be rejected at the first reading, because what we have here is a misappropriation of $35 million out of the general purposes fund.

Let me conclude by emphasising that the bill raises some important questions. I for one, having gone through the Maori Trustee Act of 1953 and looked at the history of the Māori Trustee, think there are some very important questions that need to be addressed, particularly concerning strengthening the independence of the Māori Trustee, separating the Māori Trustee from Te Puni Kōkiri, and so on. Those sorts of issues are worthy of consideration, but Part 2 is objectionable.

Hon SHANE JONES (Minister for Building and Construction) : Kia ora anō tātou. E te māngai o te Whare, i te tuatahi, me mihi atu au ki te uri o Tūwharetoa kua hou mai ki roto i tō tātou Whare Pāremata i tēnei rangi. Ahakoa nā tana iwi ia i hara mai, nā tana tuakana a Georgina te Heuheu ia i tautoko i tana hākari, me tāpiri e ahau ēnei kupu torutoru ōku, hei whakanui i a ia i te aroaro tana whānau i te nui o te hōnore kua whakawhiwhia ki a ia i tēnei rā. Kia ora.

[An interpretation in English was given to the House.]

[Greetings to us once again. In the first instance, Mr Assistant Speaker, I should extend a greeting to the relative of Tūwharetoa who entered Parliament today. Even though it was her people who brought her here, it was Georgina te Heuheu, her peer, who endorsed her at the feast for her; I should add these few words of mine to magnify her in the presence of her family, because of the great honour that was bestowed upon her today. Thank you.]

Āpōpō, māku anō wāku e hakamāori, e hakapākehā engari, e pai ana. Tēnā anō tātou katoa e te Whare.

[Tomorrow I will translate what I say in Māori to English, but it is fine. Salutations to us all once again in the House.]

This bill, the Māori Trustee and Māori Development Amendment Bill, will pass despite the actions of Dr Pita Sharples of the Māori Party in not conveying to this hardworking, industrious, very popular Minister to my right—the Hon Parekura Horomia—that they were withdrawing their support for this overdue example of institutional reform. This particular bill will ensure that the resources of the fund called the Māori Trustee are available to fulfil a modern purpose and able to be used to drive Māori into the future. Māori have a bright future, but we must not allow future opportunities to be hobbled by legislation that is rooted in the colonial past, and for those reasons it is a very, very sad but predictable act that we have seen today from Dr Sharples.

It is fair enough that the Hon Tau Henare should oppose this bill; he was born to oppose, although he tried incessantly for the period of time he was the Minister. I have to confess he did some innovative things in his time, although I cannot recollect one of them while I am on my feet.

Hon Tau Henare: Didn’t I put you on Poutama?

Hon SHANE JONES: That reminds me—this bill will allow for any surplus funds in funds such as the Poutama Māori Business Trust or even the Crown Forestry Rental Trust to find a home in the future. That is why this bill provides an opportunity for future expansion. But, of course, all that lies in the future with the inevitable settlement of the claims, which is why this is a brilliant vessel that has been modernised, and through using the powers of this House, the sovereignty of the House, we are able to effect this overdue exercise in modernisation. [Interruption] Mr Wayne Mapp seeks a call.

This bill simply picks up on the work that earlier reviewers wrote about, wasting time and ink, and, as a consequence of Parekura Horomia’s extremely expansive view into the future, and a willingness to go to Ngā Hau e Whā, not a single tribe was overlooked by the Minister of Māori Affairs as he has sought to drag the Māori Trustee into the modern world. Tēnā koe, e te Minita. Tō kaha ki te whakahau i tēnei kaupapa mō te kaitiaki Māori pupuri i ngā toenga whenua.

[Well done, Minister. You have imposed your will very strongly on this proposal relating to the Māori Trustee and Māori Development Amendment Bill.]

So all power to the Minister to care for the Māori Trustee, modernise it, and ensure that these increasingly fragmented pieces of land and ever increasingly smaller slivers of money can be brought together, as we say in the Māori language, whakatōpū, consolidated, rationalised, and brought together to fulfil a very strong purpose. Who knows? I have no doubt, as perhaps Mr Henare and others fear, it will grow and move away from the past when Māori were not able to exercise the right levels of accountability over this institution. This fund will inevitably grow through good stewardship, which will reflect the quality of the decisions that the Minister makes.

I commend this bill. Where it is capable of being refined, I have no doubt that the fine minds of the select committee will effect that purpose. Kia ora tātou.

Dr WAYNE MAPP (National—North Shore) : We certainly heard a confession tonight, did we not. It was that the revised superior model Māori Trustee that the previous speaker referred to will be receiving funds from the Crown Forestry Rental Trust. I want to examine the implications of that particular statement because it is fundamental to the reasons why National is opposed to this bill.

Earlier today Louisa Wall of Tūwharetoa was inducted into this House. Much of the funds in the Crown Forestry Rental Trust actually belong to Tūwharetoa. So what does the Minister propose? He is going to put it into a general fund to benefit all Māori. What is that? That is expropriation. I am not surprised that many members of the Labour Party would think to expropriate assets that clearly belong to a particular group of people and then spend them for the general benefit. But I must say I am surprised that Mr Shane Jones, with his understanding of private property rights and the rights that people accrue to property, would want to do that. He was the only member today who confessed to the Government’s real intent here, and I think that should make Māori people very concerned about the intentions of this Government.

Shane Jones said that the bill would be passed into law. I have a prediction to make for members on the other side of the House: this bill will not be passed into law. Yes, it will go to a select committee, but is that select committee going to report back in the next couple of months? Will there be a passage into law by, say, July or August or September of this year? Unless the Government is going to shove it through with no consultation, the answer is no. Therefore, I predict that this bill will never pass into law.

I turn to this issue: the whole concept of the Māori Trustee, referred to by members across the House, is a relic of paternalism. The whole idea that the Māori Trustee can get a general fund of $35 million, essentially expropriated from beneficiaries, to go into general causes absolutely reflects the paternalistic nature of the Māori Trustee as it was originally enacted. I know members will say “Ah, but this is the modern trustee with modern purposes reflecting the needs of a modern community.” If that is so, why is the Government passing a law that would effectively continue a paternalistic expropriation approach to Māori assets? When we on this side of the House say it is thievery the other side proclaims shock and horror that we would use such a term, but we are using it because it means that the property of particular people is transferred to the general class of people at large. That is why we say thievery. Taking the property of an individual or group of individuals and transferring it to other people without their consent or will is not the modern way.

Quite clearly, the role of the Māori Trustee needs to be reformed. There has been an opportunity over the last 8 years for this Government to have done that very thing—basically to get back to the fundamental principles and work out why we have the Māori Trustee and what modern purpose it forms. How does something that essentially originates out of paternalism fit the modern and contemporary world, particularly when so many iwi are getting substantial settlements and there is an opportunity to look at those assets and ask who they really belong to? Even if we cannot identify individuals, we certainly can identify iwi groups. Surely in an age of modern settlements it would be appropriate to return those assets to those large iwi groupings that are now very definitely empowered to benefit their own members. That would be a much more sensible way. We could have respected the approach of the Government if it had done that.

Hon Shane Jones: Denese Hēnare agrees with this.

Dr WAYNE MAPP: The member is not supposed to do so, but I heard him refer to members of my family. I know full well that members of my family want iwi, not Government agencies, to be empowered. I know full well that when my wife reviewed the Māori Trustee back in the 1980s that was exactly the intent she had in mind. Frankly, it is inappropriate to bring family members into the debate, and I would have expected Mr Shane Jones to know better if he has greater aspirations.

I draw members’ attention to this point: National believes that the role of the Māori Trustee needs fundamental revision. National believes that it is time to have a deep think about how Māori land should be reviewed, particularly the assets involved with the Māori Trustee. It is fundamentally wrong to have this approach, 8 years into the Government’s term, which simply perpetuates paternalism. It simply transfers assets that could have been transferred to iwi back into a centralised approach.

Hon Shane Jones: The power of modernisation. A modern Minister!

Dr WAYNE MAPP: I hear the Minister say it is a modern approach. I say it is a paternalistic approach and, frankly, the Minister, of all people, should know better than that because of his particular experiences dealing with assets that belong to particular iwi. I ask whether the Minister has learnt nothing based on his commercial experience, which members on that side of the House are always saying he brings to their side. All I can say, based on the speech we heard him give before, is that he has apparently learnt very little at all. I am not surprised that Louisa Wall will be breathing down his neck and the necks of his other colleagues, because they need her to sharpen up their act.

Hon Darren Hughes: Gone beyond Muldoonism.

Dr WAYNE MAPP: Yes, that is exactly the point, Mr Minister. We have gone beyond Muldoonism. National believes that assets that belong to beneficiaries, or to large groups of beneficiaries, should be returned to those people. This is not an opportunity to expand on the paternalistic approach that this Government has.

Hon Shane Jones: They are deceased!

Dr WAYNE MAPP: I say to the Minister that that is exactly what he is doing. Indeed, that is one of the very questions being asked by New Zealand First members and, frankly, I am disappointed that based on the questions they asked, they are voting for the bill. Based on the speech I heard from Pita Paraone, the New Zealand First Party should be voting against the bill and giving a proper opportunity for a full and complete review of the role of the Māori Trustee. It should be a review that would respect the ownership rights of beneficiaries and large collections of beneficiaries and return assets to where they properly belong—that is, not with the Crown and not with some Government agency, but to the people who actually own those assets.

Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA (Minister of Māori Affairs) : I move, That the Māori Trustee and Māori Development Amendment Bill be referred to the Māori Affairs Committee.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): First of all, there is an amendment in the name of the Hon Tau Henare that we have to vote on.

Hon RUTH DYSON (Minister for Social Development and Employment) : I move, That the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Amendment Bill (No 6) be now read a first time. At the appropriate time I intend to move that the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Amendment Bill (No 6) be considered by the Social Services Committee.

The purpose of this bill is to amend the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act 1989 to give better effect to the Act’s objectives and principles. It will update the Act in line with best practice today and strengthen the application of its principles in the family decision-making model that underpins it. When the Act was passed in 1989 it was recognised as world-leading legislation. It has positively impacted on the lives of thousands of children, young people, and their families. It has empowered families in the formal process of resolving issues of child abuse and neglect and of youth offending.

Our Government is committed to improving child welfare and reducing offending by children and young people. It is now 18 years since the principal Act was passed, and we owe it to New Zealanders to ensure it continues to provide the most effective legal framework for safeguarding our vulnerable children and young people, and promoting their well-being and that of their families, whānau, and family groups. In those 18 years there has been rapid practice development. Many countries have adopted key elements of New Zealand’s legislation.

The Act pre-dates significant developments, such as the Victims’ Rights Act 2002, the Sentencing Act 2002, the Care of Children Act 2004, and New Zealand’s obligations under international conventions. In April the Ministry of Social Development released a discussion document for consultation. It outlined ideas and suggestions from stakeholders for updating the Act. As part of the robust consultation process, 98 submissions from key stakeholders, practitioners, and academics from across the care and protection, disability, and youth justice sectors were received.

One of the key messages from those submissions and the various workshops and discussions held since was that our Act is fundamentally sound. Many expressed support for the overall intention and framework provided by the Act, and there was no feedback that opposed the general framework. Practitioners were passionate about improving and strengthening the legislation. A significant number of proposals to update and improve it have resulted from that consultation and further policy development.

Madam Assistant Speaker, it is a pleasure to be the first member of Parliament to be given the call by you in your new role, and I congratulate you on that.

These proposals, together, amount to the most substantial and far-reaching improvements in child welfare law since 1989. To realise the benefit of all the changes in a timely manner, and because they cover both discreet policy changes and significant redrafting, I am proposing to amend the Act in two distinct phases.

This bill represents the first phase of the suite of amendments required for updating. It contains the important additions and discreet policy changes that can and should occur at the earliest opportunity. It includes important changes to the general application of the Act, and the care and protection, child offending, and youth justice provisions. Phase-two amendments will include redrafting and other procedural amendments so that the Act is expressed in plain language wherever possible and any unnecessary complexity is removed. Those changes require some time to draft and do not form part of this bill.

So the changes that impact across the principal Act are, firstly, to increase the upper age in the definition of a young person to include 17-year-olds. This change will have considerable operational impact, and the bill proposes that the upper age for care and protection and youth justice provisions can be brought into effect at different times. In youth justice this will ensure that we can tailor responses to offending by 17-year-olds, and involve their families in addressing their behaviour.

Research indicates that our youth justice system is better than the adult criminal justice system at stopping reoffending. The change, of course, also means that the Act will be consistent with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which New Zealand ratified in 1993. The second point is that the bill will make clear when Government and non-Government organisations can appropriately share information about the safety, welfare, and well-being of children and young people, and it will strengthen the participation of children and young people in all processes, especially in family group conferences, planning processes, court proceedings, and reviews.

Thirdly, the bill requires the chief executive of the Ministry of Social Development to prepare and implement policies and procedures to promptly and appropriately address and resolve individual complaints by children, young people, and their families. Fourthly, it ensures that the chief executive prepares and implements procedures for reviews of professional best practice. This amendment will support Child, Youth and Family to rapidly and accurately identify areas for practice development or improvement. Fifthly, it ensures that at all times an employee is appointed or designated as the chief social worker, and it sets the functions of the chief social worker, which will include providing professional leadership and conducting practice reviews.

These changes are consistent with contemporary international improvements to child welfare legislation and with our Government’s desire to support professional practice and increase accountability and transparency in our child welfare system. Within the care and protection provisions the bill proposes to reinforce the important role of service collaboration and information sharing, and to protect people who assist with inquiries about children under the care and protection provisions. It will also improve responsiveness to the needs of children and young people when concerns are reported. That includes the ability to undertake an assessment of child and family needs rather than a statutory investigation. This change enables children and families to access the support they need in a timely and appropriate fashion. It will ensure family group conferences are timely and well informed to achieve the best outcomes.

The bill will improve support for young people leaving the care of the State as they move towards independence. It also contains changes to the provisions for the care of disabled children and young people. The amendments will ensure that other options are properly explored before agreements for long-term out-of-family care of disabled children and young people can be entered into. Where agreements for out-of-home care are required, the changes will ensure more regular family group conference review and monitoring of placements. These amendments will align the disability provisions better with the principles of the Act.

The Government believes that the provisions relating to child offending in the Act can be difficult to understand, and overly complex. The proposed amendments simplify the process and the documentation required in responding to child offending. They provide greater commitment to the interests of victims and communities affected by child offending, as well as asserting the importance of ensuring that offending behaviours are addressed.

With regard to serious or persistent offending by children, we need to ensure that measures are effective to reduce further offending. The bill proposes to improve the child-offending provisions by consolidating and simplifying them. It clarifies the applicable principles and options available for holding offenders accountable. It increases the flexibility of the Family Court in making custody orders and reviewing plans; it addresses the role of adults in child offending; and it strengthens victim provisions.

The bill enhances Youth Court options by introducing two new Youth Court orders—an extended supervision with residence order, and an extended supervision with activity order. These orders will support more intense programme involvement for serious and persistent offenders. It also reinforces our Government’s anti-tagging strategy. The bill enables the Youth Court to make orders when discharging proceedings against a young person, and will subject the remission of supervision with residence orders to further conditions relating to the young person’s behaviour and adherence to his or her plan. It strengthens the role of victims in the youth justice process.

These changes provide an important balance of accountability, safety, and assistance. They will help to better address and prevent offending, and so achieve more effective outcomes for the young people involved, their families, and, of course, their victims. This Act determines how the State intervenes to stop child abuse and neglect, and to prevent and address child offending. It also demonstrates how our society cares for and supports vulnerable children and young people.

This bill ensures that we continue to provide an up-to-date and effective legislative framework for improving our response to victims, and the well-being of children, young people and their families. I commend the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Amendment Bill (No 6) to the House.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Marian Hobbs): I call the honourable member—sorry, I forget—Anne Tolley.

ANNE TOLLEY (National—East Coast) : I start by congratulating you, Madam Assistant Speaker, on your appointment to the job, and I hope you will remember my name in future!

The National Party will be not supporting the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Amendment Bill (No 6).

Hon Ruth Dyson: You’ve never been asked to.

ANNE TOLLEY: In fact, we have never been asked to. I have not been contacted at all to see whether we would support the bill. We believe that this legislation before the House today is a missed opportunity, and I note that the discussion document that went out was called Safeguarding Our Children: Updating the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act 1989.

I ask the Minister where in the legislation before the House today are there any major changes that will address the increasing numbers of children in our society who are being abused. The changes in this bill are largely technical. There is no major change that will prevent young children from having dreadful things done to them, like being put in a dryer by people who think that that is fun. There is nothing in the bill before us today that goes to the heart of child abuse in our community.

This legislation is about the system. It is about managing the processes, managing the increasing number of notifications, and ticking off the boxes. It is not about stopping our babies and our children from being bashed and abused—whether that abuse is physical, sexual, or emotional. There is nothing in here to stop that abuse, and that is a tragedy and a missed opportunity.

When the Minister stood and introduced this legislation she talked about the Labour Government being committed to improving child welfare and to protecting children from abuse, and she said that this bill showed that commitment. I ask where we see that commitment. Where is the black and white here? There are some technical changes to the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act. Some of the deckchairs have been rearranged, but the ship is still sinking. We still see increasing violence against our babies and children in our community. Every year the numbers grow. What I have seen from the Minister is some changing of technical stuff and some manipulation of figures, but nothing concrete to stop the abuse. The National Party agrees with some of the technical changes to this legislation. We agree with a number of the changes, and I will come to those. There are also some major changes that we object to, and I will detail those.

I find it very interesting that in the submissions on this discussion document, 15 service providers—major providers of services to the Government who will be working with this legislation—talked about their issues not being with the legislation but with the interpretation and the practical application of the legislation. They talked about the individual interpretations that different officers put on the Act and the actual implementation of the Act itself. In particular they talked about the resourcing of the departments dealing with the Act. They talked about training and education in the detail of the Act, and they talked about practice-related issues. In other words, they talked about how the Act is used to ensure outcomes, and that is what the National Party’s objection relates to.

This legislation and these changes focus on the Act itself, not on the outcomes of the Act. So we have sympathy with those service providers. It was very interesting that resourcing is a major issue for a large number of those providers who did make submissions. They were particularly concerned about the resourcing of some of the changes that this bill will require. I was interested to hear the Minister acknowledge there would be some resourcing difficulties and that various pieces of this legislation could be introduced at different times. That rings warning bells, and I am sure that service providers up and down the country will be very concerned, particularly in relation to the youth justice area, that it means that some of the changes proposed in the bill we are talking about tonight will not be implemented because the resources will not follow the changes. That was not the deal.

The National Party does agree with some parts of this bill. We agree that we need to be able to share information in a much better way, and we hear that every time we talk to people in the community who are working at the coalface and using the Act on a daily basis. National members are not convinced that these changes to the Act will actually change the attitude of some of the bureaucrats in different ministries about sharing their information. It is absolutely vital that that information is shared if we are to change the living conditions of some of those children who are at risk.

So, changing the Act is one thing, and it is great to see some small incremental changes, but I note that we are still talking about “reasonable grounds for disclosure.” It is who decides what those reasonable grounds are that is crucial to sharing information. That can often depend on individuals, and individual district health boards in particular, sharing health information, and, of course, on individual policemen and women, and on individual Child, Youth and Family staff themselves. So we agree with the moves being made in the bill to share information.

We also agree that there needs to be a change in focus for victims, both in the Youth Court and the family group conferences. I met a young boy in Wairoa who had been through a family group conference. He had been stealing from an old lady’s house. She was not even notified of his first family group conference. A second one was convened because she indicated she really wanted to have a relationship with this young man. As an ex-schoolteacher she believed she could reach out to this young man, so she asked for a second family group conference so she could be involved. She got the second family group conference but it was in Auckland, because that is where the boy had been moved to, to another branch of the family. There was no way she could attend that family group conference. She felt that if she had been able to sit and eyeball that young man and build a relationship with him as his victim, then she could have helped in his rehabilitation. That opportunity was taken away from her because it was more important that he was moved rather than that he actually deal with the realities of the victim. So we support a change in focus for victims.

We also strongly support extending supervision with activity and supervision with residence. We believe that ongoing monitoring following supervision with residence and supervision with activity is a major part of this, and, of course, John Key’s state of the nation speech at the beginning of the year elaborated on the National Party’s feelings on how important it is to not just put people into supervision with residence for a few months, then let them back out into the community and expect them to have suddenly changed their lives. So we certainly agree with that part of this bill, but overall National does not support it.

RUSSELL FAIRBROTHER (Labour) : The previous speaker, Anne Tolley, stood up and said that National will not support the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Amendment Bill (No 6) because it did not do anything. My friend the Hon Mark Burton asked what in 9 years National has proposed to do differently, and, of course, she avoided that matter entirely. But it must have circulated down into her thought process, because she then changed tack entirely and started to praise all aspects of the bill. Essentially the National Party is saying: “We will not support the bill because it is not our idea, but we think the bill is a good thing to have because we do not have a better option.” National members will not support the bill because it is too good an idea for them to possess and, therefore, they will vote against it. That is the rubbish we are faced with on this side when a Minister such as the Hon Ruth Dyson brings into this House innovative, forward-thinking legislation.

Let us look at the challenge laid out by the previous speaker. She asked what this bill will do to stop our kids being abused in their homes and to stop children being put into clothes dryers. Well, I ask the member to go to the explanatory note of the bill, which will take her to information on new sections 17, 17A, 17B, 17C, 17D, 17E, and 17F, which are to be inserted in the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act by clause 10. In the short time I have, I would say that sections 17 to 17F will enable a person taking an initial complaint or undergoing an initial assessment, whether it be a policeman or social worker, to bring the agencies together to develop a plan that is not bogged down by bureaucratic and privacy issues, so that when a complaint arises there is an obligation to investigate and to coordinate. That is the total answer to the concerns expressed by the previous speaker, who failed to get to section 17 onward in clause 10 in the bill.

The member then went on to say that she had a person come to see her in a clinic in Wairoa once. This person had been the subject of offending by a youth and was unable to attend a family group conference. What the member forgot to say is that clause 15 makes quite a dramatic change to a well-established and very efficient family group conference practice.

The family group conference practices that are followed in the Family Court are recognised worldwide as leaders in the field. Clause 15 takes away the ability of a child or young person who does not agree—or if the conference does not unanimously agree—with an outcome from stopping the conference’s recommendations from being enacted. So we get to a stage where a family group conference cannot be hijacked by an obdurate parent, caregiver, or youth, and if the wishes or desires of the family group conference generally are for a course of action, then it will be carried out. That answers totally the concern the previous speaker had about wanting to reconvene a second family group conference—she complained that the youth had then been moved up from Wairoa to Auckland—because the family group conference can be made to work.

We find that this bill addresses many issues in the one bill. It covers the field of bringing agencies together and of preventing abuse and harm to children. It raises the age of those appearing before the Youth Court to 18, which happens to be consistent with the Government’s policy of encouraging and keeping young people in a form of education until they are 18. Raising the age of the Youth Court to 18 removes many anomalies in practice, where children of 16 suddenly become adults at 17 when they should still be treated in a nurturing process.

Interestingly, as the Minister pointed out, we have had greater success in the punishments and the jurisdiction of the Youth Court than we have had in our adult courts. What does that tell us? It tells us that when the agencies work together, they provide an opportunity for rehabilitation that has a real impact. So lifting the age to 17 makes more effective the bringing together of the various agencies to make good the promise that our youth justice system already holds.

This is a comprehensive bill. I wanted to move on in the time available—but I cannot—to the provisions that relate to 10-year-olds and 11 and 12-year-olds. Those provisions will have to remain for another speech. All I would say at this stage is that this bill reflects Labour’s commitment to helping young people who offend to get the best possible help and support in order to reduce future offending. This is no idle hope, because the figures show that these provisions work. We are seeing in practice a significant change and improvement, and this bill goes a long way towards doing that.

Labour does care about how young people are treated and are committed, and we care about eliminating child abuse and neglect. We need to make the changes in this bill, as a hands-off approach is not the way to ensure a better future for our kids and our grandchildren. This bill helps to make clear when Government and non-government organisations can appropriately share information about the safety, welfare, and well-being of children and young persons. The bill will help improve responsiveness to the needs of children and young people when concerns are reported. This bill goes to the heart of the improvements needed in the children and young persons, and youth justice area.

As the Minister said, the bill will eventually be in two parts. The second part will address many of the provisions in plain English, and I look forward to the development of that. Needless to say at this stage, this bill raises the age to include 17-year-olds, which coordinates the many services that intersect into a young person’s life when they come across the Family Court or the Youth Court. This bill will build further on the very good results we already have from our youth justice system. I strongly support this bill.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Marian Hobbs): I call on the member Anne Collins—Judith Collins, I am sorry.

JUDITH COLLINS (National—Clevedon) : Obviously, I have not made enough impression in my short time in the House!

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Marian Hobbs): You are very lucky you were not called “Tuppence”!

JUDITH COLLINS: Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker, and, of course, congratulations on your elevation as an Assistant Speaker; and I will remember your name. I am very pleased to be able to follow, bar one, my colleague Anne Tolley, who has set out some of the concerns the National Party has with this bill. I also listened, with interest, to the statements made by the Hon Ruth Dyson and by Russell Fairbrother, and particularly I noted that Ms Dyson talked about anti-tagging and about how this bill was going to have some sort of relationship with anti-tagging provisions, and would work in well with the Government’s moves. Well, I have news for Ms Dyson. Those of us who live and work in South Auckland will tell her that we are well past anti-tagging now. Now we are into etching of glass, and that is the latest response from the taggers in our area. Now they etch glass, so that the tagging cannot be rubbed off. The only way to get rid of that is to remove the glass, replace it, and wait for the next etching. Perhaps we are going to ban the sale of razor blades—

Anne Tolley: Diamonds!

JUDITH COLLINS: Or diamonds, which would be a terrible thing. Ban glass, or anything at all, because, basically, that is what is happening. They use compasses, from maths classes, and that is one of the problems when we try to fix a symptom without dealing with the real issues.

We oppose quite strongly a couple of things in the bill, and that is why we are standing against it, at this stage, unless there are substantial changes. Certainly, the Government does not seem to need our support on it, because it has never bothered to discuss the matter with either myself or with Anne Tolley, who is in charge of the area of children, young persons, and their families from our point of view.

One of the reasons we oppose the bill is that it raises the age of a young person from 17 to 18. That means young offenders aged 17 will now be dealt with by the Youth Court, and will be treated as though they are still children. We think that is a shame, because I would like to take the Minister and some of her people who have never been anywhere a bit rough, around our area and out to visit some of the young people whom she would want to call “children”. They are about 6 foot 2 inches, and upwards, extremely strong, and very, very tough, and they run by all sorts of street gang names. I will not call them child gangs. My colleague Dr Wayne Mapp mentioned one of those gang names, but I think it is best not to, because it just encourages them.

These people would just laugh at this bill and think we are a bunch of wusses. They would say: “You people don’t understand what it’s like. We’re in charge of the streets, and you people in Parliament don’t know what’s happening.” Frankly, most of them do not, because most of them have never been outside of the ivory tower.

At the moment we have a youth justice system that is already struggling to cope with teenage violent crime, and I suggest that the Minister just consider a wee bit the violent crime and the increases in youth violent crime, and young people’s violent crime in South Auckland, and just consider what that is doing for law-abiding people, the vast majority of people who live out their lives there, and what is happening, particularly in parts of Clendon, and Manurewa, which is represented by the Hon George Hawkins, and certainly I know that he understands these issues. I would say to the Minister to come out of Wellington, come out of the Koru Club lounge, come and visit the ordinary people of New Zealand and understand what they are dealing with, and tell them that the person who mugged their mother and took her handbag and stole her money, or hit her over the head, was only a child and needs to be treated as such. I can tell him that some “young” people commit very adult crimes, and we do believe that, where appropriate, those crimes should be treated in an adult way.

It is all very well for the Minister to talk about these great rates of not offending, and family group conferences, but we all know that there are some children who go through 16 family group conferences. So, time and time again, the same people are dragged in to come and hear them say: “I’m a very naughty boy” or “a very naughty girl” and “Yes, I’ll probably do it again.” That is pretty much what happens. Unfortunately, Child, Youth and Family deals with dysfunctional families, dysfunctional children, and often deals with dysfunctional parents, and dysfunctional extended family and whānau, and it is an extremely tough job. The last thing we need to do is try to belittle the efforts they make by saying: “Oh, by the way, you’re going to now have to deal with these 17-year-olds who are as tough as anything, who in many countries and in various stages in our own country have volunteered to go off to war, put their ages up and went off to war, and killed people.” What we are dealing with is “kids”, as in young people, but who are tough, hard, brutal, and they will think that this bill is the biggest con job ever. Of course, it is.

We heard from the Minister tonight what it is all about. It is all about the UN convention. It is about the ticking of the boxes to make sure that we have a UN convention all ticked off, so we can all be happy. Well, certainly the Green Party thinks that 16-year-olds should be able to vote, and they will want to say that, no, 17-year-olds should not be held accountable for their crimes. This is the same Government that says that basically it does not really matter what parents do, because it is young people who should have all the rights.

Well, I think it is time we took some account of victims’ rights, frankly. I think it is about time we took account of the rights of good parents. I think it is extremely important that parents be encouraged to be good parents, not given yet another excuse not to take their responsibilities seriously.

This bill gives greater powers to children and young people by making it mandatory to take their views into account. That is utter rubbish; I almost said a bad word! Why it is utter rubbish is that these are kids who have been very, very naughty. They are difficult, they are very, very trying. They cause difficulties for their parents, for their neighbours, for their teachers, and for their fellow students. Some of these kids are very violent. That is why they are there. And here we are, having to take their feelings into account! Well, sorry, I think it is time we took into account the feelings of the rest of the population who do not go around etching windows, who do not go around snatching handbags off old ladies going to do their shopping, who do not go and break into other people’s property, who do not go and tag it, do not steal cars, do not smash those cars into people, while they are drunk and on drugs, and illegally driving.

It is about time we did that, but nothing in this bill does it. Also, nothing in this bill addresses that other area of child, youth, and families, which is the real cause of child abuse or youth offending. We all know that many of those children, who go on to be young offenders, have at some stage been abused in their own lives. We know that. However, that is no excuse for that behaviour. At some stage, people have to be accountable for their own behaviour. There are also many people who are abused as children, who do not go on to commit crimes; who do not go on to perpetuate that cycle of violence. Those are the people whom we should be helping. Those are the people we should be encouraging.

What we should not be doing is trying to say that a 17-year-old who smashes up somebody, who takes a car, who rams it into a child, is just a child and is not responsible for his or her actions. We believe that the person is. We believe that this bill is far too lenient on young, hardened criminals, and actually does not do nearly enough to deal with the real issues around child abuse and child neglect.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Marian Hobbs): Before I call on the next speaker, can I just apologise to a former member of the House Anne Collins, and to the current member of the House Judith Collins, for confusing their names.

Judith Collins: I am very pleased I do not have to be Mrs Michael Cullen!

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Marian Hobbs): Thank you very much.

RON MARK (NZ First) : I congratulate you, Madam Assistant Speaker, on your appointment. Frankly, I would not have minded if you had called me darling—I know you do so every time I see you in the elevator! That is the way things are down in Canterbury; we get on together, despite the fact we might have differing philosophical views. As a member of Parliament I have been well looked after by one of your former pupils from Avonside Girls’ High School—my electorate agent, Heidi Ireland. I am fortunate to have one of your former students in that role. I am fortunate also to have one of your former students as my daughter-in-law. In fact, your reputation throughout Canterbury stands very, very high. Everyone down home will be saying well done—that is for sure.

Unfortunately, I wish I could say similar things about the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Amendment Bill (No 6). I will start by saying that the bill contains a number of necessary amendments to the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act.

These amendments need to be progressed; New Zealand First will not deny that. Barbara Stewart, who is our spokesperson on social welfare, would be annoyed with me if I did not say that, and I acknowledge that.

I also say that some credit should have come from the Minister for Social Development and Employment, from the ministry, and from the Labour Government for the work behind the scenes of Judy Turner from the United Future party, because some of us know where a lot of this work had its genesis. It did not lie in the offices at certain places around this Parliament. I tell Judy Turner that I think this House does her a disservice when it does not recognise the work and the vast amount of time in research that she and her staff in United Future have put in, in this field. That is the difference between someone who comes here to make a strong and positive difference to the lives of New Zealanders and others who come here to seek and to politick.

On that note, having just listened to Judith Collins’ commentary, I will compare her rhetoric this evening with this quotation out of her mouth on Eye to Eye with Willie Jackson, on 11 August 2007, when talking about kids in gangs: “Kids get involved in gangs because they are looking for fathers. They are looking for someone who cares about them. They are looking for someone who actually gives them some structure in their lives—and that is not romanticising it. The fact is we’ve got kids out there who think nobody has ever said anything good about them, who have never belonged to anything except that everything they have ever done has been wrong. And basically the gang is their new home.” Well, what is wrong with that? Members can compare it with this, from John Key to the Police Association: “National will make criminal gangs a key target in our fight against crime. It’s a battle where we think the police deserve better legislative backing than they’re getting.” The point is that Judith Collins said on Eye to Eye with Willie Jackson that she would not support lowering the age of criminal responsibility—that the National Party would not support it—but the top quote given by John Key 2 months later, was given when the National Party remembered that in its 2005 manifesto it told the nation that it would lower the age of criminal responsibility.

So I tell Judith Collins that if we want to talk about victims, we should not forget the elderly people who were the victims of “no ifs, no buts, no maybes”, the classic promise from a National Government that it would repeal the surcharge and give people back their money—[Interruption]. National members do not like me saying that, eh. And what about the victims of the nuclear tests, who were given $250,000 for a class action by the New Zealand First - National coalition Government? There was a lot of discussion on Morning Report about that today. The moment that New Zealand First was out of the Government, National took the money off the victims. Those members should never forget that, because when we travel the country we talk about victims.

Let us be honest: Judith Collins supports the victims one day if it suits her political agenda but will kneecap them the next day if it suits her political agenda. She is a hollow woman from a team of hollow people, and we cannot believe a word they say.

Coming to the bill—

Judith Collins: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. That member is saying that people cannot believe a word I say. But this is a man from New Zealand First, and I actually take extreme exception to that. His whole speech has been an attack on me—which is quite flattering, frankly—and none of it has been about this bill.

RON MARK: Speaking to the point of order, I thought The Hollow Men was well known and well documented, and seen all over the nation—in fact, it has been tabled in this House—and Judith Collins is quite often mentioned in the book—[Interruption] Oh, it should be “The Hollow Woman”—sorry. I will withdraw. She is a hollow woman.

Coming to the bill, which is where I really want to be, I say that it has some strengths, as we have said. I think that Anne Tolley tried to point that out. But we can see a classic weakness in raising the age of criminal responsibility to 18. In fact, to say “18” is not exactly correct. The bill raises the age to 17 years, 364 days, 23 hours, 59 minutes, and 59 seconds and, miraculously, when that one second ticks over, suddenly that 17-year-old will be able to be held accountable for his or her crimes.

We in New Zealand First are saying that that piece of the legislation totally undermines one of the key principles that we should all be upholding—that is, the democratic right of New Zealanders to have a say in legislation of this type. We believe that it flies completely in the face of the support we have had for my bill, the Young Offenders (Serious Crimes) Bill. We believe that it flies totally in the face of everything we have heard from John Key in his state of the nation speech given after the Christmas holidays. We believe that it totally smacks the mouths of every parent whose child was assaulted over the Christmas break by young teenagers, and of people who were attacked with baseball bats by young offenders.

We believe that that one amendment, under the guise of supposedly making New Zealand fit with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, is a falsity, and it is wrong. Let us remember—let us cast our minds back—what happened when New Zealand signed the UN convention. Did New Zealand, and the people representing it, do it wholly without reservation? No. I find it very annoying—and Anne Tolley is nodding, because she knows—deceptive, and wrong to refer to the convention. Those who do so completely forget to tell us that the people who signed that convention reserved the right of New Zealand to pass laws fitting New Zealand’s situation. Chester Borrows is looking at me. Never once did the advisers to the Law and Order Committee on my bill even tell us that—never once did they table a speech from the UN convention showing that New Zealand reserved its right to pass laws that fitted the New Zealand ethos and situation. No, and now we get the convention thrown at us as if it is a holy grail that we must all bend down and bow to. Well, that is wrong. We do not.

Members should hear this: polls across the country are showing that between 82 and 92 percent of people consistently do not want the age of criminal responsibility raised. I do not know about some people who might have been brought up in other countries that Idi Amin might have led, but this is New Zealand. This is a free and democratic state, this is a place where the majority have the say, and if there is one thing that I thought the Labour Government might be reflecting on, given its polling right now, it is that what is writing its doom is its persistence in socially re-engineering New Zealand along the views it holds. Well, Government members should get this: not everyone holds their views.

This bill has many good things about it. It extends care and protection to the Youth Court and the options available on sentencing are a good thing. New Zealand First does not disagree, and I do not think there is a member in this House who disagrees. But why throw this piece in that raises the age of criminal responsibility? Why slap people back down and say: “Oh, we know what’s better.”? It is like the smacking bill all over again—the Government knows what is better.

I am sorry, but New Zealand First does not think the Government knows what is better. Firstly, New Zealand First would have appreciated some recognition for the work that Judy Turner did. Secondly, we would have appreciated people listening to us. For the Labour Government to slip this piece in, knowing how strongly New Zealand First feels about such things—we negotiated a provision into the confidence and supply agreement with the Government to get my member’s bill at least to the select committee, where we knew the Government would reserve the right to vote against it—smacks of an arrogance that is unbelievable.

I say good luck to the Government. I know that the Government—[Interruption] Ms Collins cannot help saying “poodle”. I think Ms Collins will be told by a lot of vets around the country exactly where she sits, but that is coming in the polls so we should not worry about it. I would say—

Judith Collins: Ha, ha!

RON MARK: That manic sort of laughter only confirms one other thing. She should take a holiday. New Zealand First is sorry. It would like to be supporting many aspects of this bill, and no doubt they will pass and we will say well done on those aspects. But this piece inside the legislation flies in the face of things we have stood for, and we will not be supporting this bill.

SUE BRADFORD (Green) : Madam Assistant Speaker, I too would like to take this opportunity to congratulate you on your promotion and say we look forward to working with you over the next few months in your new role.

I would like to take just a brief call tonight to confirm that the Green Party will be supporting the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Amendment Bill (No 6) going to the select committee, as we believe that on the whole it makes a series of very useful changes to the legislation relating to children, young persons, and their families. We are especially pleased with the increase in the upper age of the definition of a young person to 17, as that finally brings us into line with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child in this particular area. We are delighted that neither the Government nor a majority in this House has supported the reverse approach taken by Ron Mark’s Young Offenders (Serious Crimes) Bill, which sought to lower the age of criminal liability originally to age 10, and then to age 12. The Green Party believes it is important that New Zealand not only moves the age upwards in order to comply with the UN convention but also gives the Family Court and the Youth Court the power to deal more effectively and more pragmatically with young people, rather than have many more of them forced into the maw of the mainstream justice system at an earlier age, as Mr Mark advocates.

One related aspect of the bill where we do have some concerns is around the move to extend to 14-year-olds the Youth Court’s power to convict young people and transfer them to the District Court for sentencing. Although I acknowledge that it relates to indictable offences only, the Green Party is anxious about its implications and will listen with interest to submissions in this area. We also continue to have ongoing and deep concerns about the adequacy and availability of both care and protection and youth justice facilities. I hope that alongside the work on this bill the Government will continue to deal with the infrastructure problems that dog the system at present.

Another area in which I have a particular interest is the whole issue of the transition from care to independence for children and young people who are in some form of Child, Youth and Family care or jurisdiction. In the 1999-2002 Parliament I was responsible for a Green Party Budget bid that saw more resources go into supporting some young people who needed help in that transition period when they were very vulnerable once they had turned 17—an age group that has all too often been virtually abandoned once it has left the care and protection of the service. I am therefore glad that this bill expands the availability of extended care agreements, both in terms of the range of young people eligible for them and in relation to possible extensions, where those agreements are approved.

This bill also contains a number of other modifications to the way that Child, Youth and Family operates. I look forward in the select committee process to hearing from people and organisations who are directly impacted on by, or involved in, these processes, as a lot of this bill is quite technical and we MPs can learn from their experiences. Meanwhile we will be supporting the bill to go through its first reading, although remaining open during the select committee process to amendments that may be needed in order to improve it.

Dr PITA SHARPLES (Co-Leader—Māori Party) : Madam Assistant Speaker, like the others I offer my congratulations to you. It is good to see you there.

There have been a few events in the last few days that have given me great room for optimism. One was the celebration of Children’s Day on Sunday, at which we recognise how special and precious children are and that perhaps the most important gift we can give our children is time. We would be into making every day a Children’s Day—a special day. The second event was Cindy Kiro’s challenge that politicians perhaps should look across boundaries when they support events for children or issues relating to children. Perhaps we do not need to be bound by party boundaries.

I guess the final crowning event in this group of three was confirmation of the growing confidence that Māori voters have in the ability of a strong and independent Māori voice to represent them in Parliament. Why this is so important is that 22 percent of the Māori population is under the age of 19, and we are passionate in our belief that these children and young people deserve the very best representation. In fact, when one considers the fact that in 2005, 28 percent of newborn New Zealanders were Māori, it very quickly becomes obvious that Māori are the face of the future. Despite the tired old “play it again” lines of 2005 that Shane Jones loves to bang on about, Māori are showing in statistically significant numbers that they are seeking representation in this House to give voice to their aspirations for the future. A vote for the Māori Party is a vote for a Māori voice—a Māori Party that stands consistently in this House to put forward the views of an independent, strong, and proud Māori voice, which members all know.

Hon Mark Burton: That’s not what it sounded like.

Dr PITA SHARPLES: No, this is real representation of real Māori.

I will not join the queue for an ever-present chorus of complaints about the faults and failings of our young. The adolescent health survey of 2003 surveyed over 10,000 secondary school students, and it found that over 85 percent of those surveyed are thriving and positively engaged with their families. In the Māori-specific component of that study, whānau were shown to be a vital environment for taitamariki—for children—and a strong and positive influence on most of the 2,300 participants.

It is rare for parties in this House to be able to come to the topic of children’s policy and find studies that confirm a basis for hope rather than dwelling on deprivation, dysfunction, and deficit analysis. We must start focusing on the potential of our young people, the hope that they represent our future. We have had more than enough of politicians posturing about the problems of youth—comparing children to snarling mutts—and the association that everything can be fixed by a good dose of boot camp philosophy.

The Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act 1989 compelled State child welfare agencies to consider issues of culture, particularly in the context of their whānau, hapū, and iwi. In many respects it was legislation before its time in the way in which it recognised the centrality and importance of whānau to the care and protection of tamariki and to youth justice. We must preserve the intent of this legislation throughout all subsequent iterations, including those on the Order Paper today.

We are well pleased to see the initiative to raise the legal age of a young person to 17. Although in effect this makes our legislation consistent with international arrangements, such as the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, our key interest is that it ensures that the benefits of the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act will now apply to an age group that too readily slips through the cracks. We are also glad to support the purposes of this amendment today to strengthen the effectiveness of family group conferences. The family group conference has been described as the linchpin of our youth justice system. It receives quite a bit of criticism in this House, but in effect it reconciles the two concepts of justice and well-being by making the young offender accountable while also involving the victims and their families in the decision-making process. Although it is renowned internationally, it has not been without its challenges. The commitment to retain children within their families takes enormous effort, time, resources, and the belief that family-based solutions are worth all of this work.

The changes introduced in this bill are to ensure that representatives of victims at family group conferences can be accompanied by support persons, that courts and lawyers encourage the participation of children and young persons in family group conferences, and that family group conferences are advised of the health and education needs of children and young persons. These are all excellent enhancements to the original model, and we hope that there will be sufficient investment to achieve optimum success.

Findings of the research undertaken by Dr Marie Connelly, who reviewed 15 years of family group conferences in 2004, revealed that although the original Act supports a family-led process, in practice professionally driven processes have been creeping into the system. As someone who has been involved in many family group conferences, I am greatly concerned that the original intentions of the process towards facilitating healing and restorative justice have been treated in such a way.

I have particular association with Te Whānau Awhina, which was established over 30 years ago by Māori welfare community volunteers. It began as a community group, providing a forum for dispute resolution at a local high school. In time, the police were brought in and they started referring people to us, then the courts, and then Judge Michael Brown started referring a range of offences and offenders to this forum. It was through the influence of Te Whānau Awhina that the family group conference evolved, encouraging the mediation of concerns between the victim, the offender, and their families as a means to achieve reconciliation, restitution, and rehabilitation. I am proud to say that the family group conference legislation proposed initially by Judge Michael Brown drew from the Te Whānau Awhina practices. One of the most important paragraphs in the bill is the commitment to “ensure family group conferences are timely, well-informed, and managed to achieve the best outcomes for children and young persons:”.

So here we are considering a host of consequential amendments to the Act in order to strengthen the responsibilities and the procedures for the care and protection of children and young persons, including the care and support for disabled children and young persons, and the prompt and effective response to reports of child abuse. There are, however—despite a range of positive provisions and amendments to support victims in the area of children, young persons, and their families—some concerns, and we are eager to hear the views of the community on that at the select committee stage.

In particular, we will be eager to hear views on the concept that the Youth Court can transfer young people to the District Court for sentencing a year earlier, at 14 years old, and that young people no longer need to give their consent to community-based orders. There is an anomaly in the current law that has the potentially negative effect of exposing 14-year-olds to longer sentencing options should the offending be proved. Although it is proposed that the power to convict and transfer young people to the District Court for sentencing be extended to include 14-year-olds who have committed purely indictable offences, we are still very keen to seek clarity about what this will mean and the implications it will have for young people.

I return to the idea of our young people as the face of our future. We need to create the optimum environment that invests in every child, no matter what circumstances he or she is born into. We need to invest in children in order to develop their full potential. Then we can truly say we are making a difference for the future of Aotearoa. Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker.

JUDY TURNER (Deputy Leader—United Future) : Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker, and may I add my congratulations to those of others in this House. I am sorry that United Future was not present this afternoon during the speeches regarding your nomination, because we are very supportive of it and look forward to your leadership of the House.

The Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Amendment Bill (No 6) is one that United Future feels particularly passionate about. In the 5 or so years that I have been in Parliament I do not think any constituent cases have kept me awake at night as much as the cases that have come my way involving Child, Youth and Family. I have a file full of them. I thank the Minister for Social Development and Employment for the open door she has shown me on the many occasions when I have advocated for these cases.

I am very, very pleased to see that as a result of the passing of this amendment bill the chief executive officer, whose role will be established more distinctly in the Act, will also have as part of his or her job description a requirement to set up a complaints service for this department. That is the area that has been of greatest concern to me. I could cite case after case that I currently have on file in my office of families who have grievances about the way they were treated and the way their cases were handled, and who have had no redress.

Child, Youth and Family has powers greater than those of the New Zealand Police, and the burden of proof required for it to uplift children is much less than the police would require for a conviction. United Future is not critical of the powers given to this department, but we say that if we give people the power to exercise outcomes for families that are, at times, quite dramatic, they must be accountable for the decisions they make, and there must be a process in place that is credible, and that is independent enough to be credible. Parents, child caregivers, families, and grandparents must be able to ask for a review of the decision that has been made or a review of the way their case has been handled. This is good news. What the chief executive officer chooses to set up is a debate for another day, and I have my own theories about what I would like to see.

I have looked very closely at organisations like the Independent Police Conduct Authority and how it operates. I think there are some things we could learn from the way the authority manages cases. I know there is some talk about offering an internal complaints service within the Ministry of Social Development for Child, Youth and Family. I suspect that is where the Minister will start the process. I have some reservations about how credible that would be. None the less, it is better than the current vacuum that exists for a complaint service.

United Future is also pleased to see that in this bill the definition of a young person will be changed to include people up to the age of 18 years. There are some concerns around that, and I think we have to remind ourselves that the changed definition of a young person applies to this bill; variations in other Acts will remain unchanged. There are several reasons why we are pleased about this change. Recently the Social Services Committee visited a youth sex offenders unit in Christchurch. We met with staff from Barnardos, which has the contract to run this facility, and we met with the young people themselves. One of the complaints that both the staff and the young people had was that there was a magical cut-off point at age 17, when Child, Youth and Family no longer had responsibility for these young people. It did not matter where they were in their rehabilitation programme; out they went. The young people themselves were saying that they wanted to stay longer, they had not finished, and they knew they needed more help, but they had a 17th birthday fast approaching and it would soon be all over for them. It is a crying shame to see them have to leave a programme that has measurable outcomes. These young people were noticing a difference in themselves. They have serious offending backgrounds—not just in the area of sex offences, but that is one of the more concerning behaviours, which the programme is trying to address.

The other area that has come to our attention is under-age sex workers in New Zealand. When we passed the Prostitution Law Reform Bill we made it legal for 18-year-olds to be involved in the sex industry. We now have a group of 17-year-olds who are not captured by the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act. No one from a care and protection position is able to intervene in these young people’s lives and ask some questions as to why they are out on the street, dressed in their hoodies, sniffing glue out of paper bags, and offering themselves for very cheap sex behind grubby buildings. No one is asking where their mums and dads are, who is looking after them, and why they are allowed out unsupervised. Nobody has that authority, because they are in this gap that exists. By lifting the age we can start to ask some serious questions, and have some real opportunities for caring people to put in place some interventions that could help those young people at a time when they most obviously need it. There are a number of situations where young people are disadvantaged purely because their birthday clocks in, and suddenly the services disappear.

There is the issue of 17-year-olds still in high school who are in foster care and suddenly nobody is responsible for them. Quite often, what happens is that caring foster parents, at their own expense, keep these young people in their homes as part of their families, but there is no benefit and no remuneration. They can get unsupported child benefits, but there are all sorts of gaps that these young people fall through, yet we acknowledge that they still need to be in high school and learning for their futures. There are some real advantages in this measure, and to United Future whether it makes us comply with the United Nations Rights of the Child is neither here nor there. It is just a sensible, common-sense thing that needs to happen. These young people are falling through the gaps. That group of 17 to 18-year-olds are falling through the gaps in rather large numbers, and we need to do something to stop that.

From as early as 2003, United Future spoke to the Minister for Social Development and Employment, Ruth Dyson, about the need to respond to the baseline review. It was pretty damning about what was happening in Child, Youth and Family Services back then. One of the problems was that as the department drowned in notification numbers, it needed to share the workload. The idea of a differential response model, which we asked the Minister to look into, has been piloted in New Plymouth and in Royal Oak in Auckland, and I thank the Minister for her openness to that idea. My understanding is that the pilots have been very successful. So we are looking forward to the roll-out of that. The Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act does not allow for the work to be contracted out; we need a law change so that work involving medium to low risk cases and notifications can be passed on in a timely way to competent agencies within the community that can intervene before these cases deteriorate and become high-risk cases that need statutory intervention.

United Future is very pleased with much of the content of this bill, and we look forward to the submissions to the select committee.

• Debate interrupted.