CHESTER BORROWS (National—Whanganui) : I move, That the Wanganui District Council (Prohibition of Gang Insignia) Bill be now read a second time. Now that this bill has returned to the House for its second reading I wish again to reiterate that I do not believe that it alone can solve the gang problem that exists in Wanganui, let alone in New Zealand, or vice versa. Anyone who argues that gang culture in New Zealand is not as rife as it is serious is kidding himself or herself.

Over recent years we have seen an increased level of gang-related activity and confrontation, both nationwide and within Wanganui, and in most other provincial cities around New Zealand. Probably the most widely known story in respect of Wanganui is the story of little Jhia Te Tua, who was fatally shot as she slept on a couch in her parents’ house. Why? The bullet was meant for her Black Power member father, and she was in the wrong place at the wrong time, even though she was sleeping on a couch in her home, where, but for the gang membership of her parents, one would have expected her to be safe.

I take this opportunity to commend those police officers who were involved in Operation 55, which recently concluded with a total of 12 men being put in jail for the part they played in this tragic incident, which resulted in the loss of life of a small and innocent child. It is interesting to note that the scorn heaped upon the police and their investigation by members of this House and the media at the time of the investigation has not, since those convictions, been replaced by the grateful thanks of members of this House and the media and an acknowledgment that a job was very well done in the investigation of that inquiry.

This bill was proposed and drafted by the Wanganui District Council and put to the people of Wanganui. Over half of the community turned out to vote, and of that group more than 65 percent supported these proposals. They are the people who endure the sight of patched gang members in close proximity to their homes and families. No doubt they think of innocent victims like Jhia Te Tua as these gang members walk past their children on the street. It is interesting to note that the Wanganui District Council conducted a survey on safety amongst young people. The most significant and prime fear that those young people have, as it was reported to the Law and Order Committee, was intimidation from gangs, and pressure to become involved in gangs.

The New Zealand Police Association has supported the bill’s proposals from the outset. Our police officers, who patrol our streets and compromise their own safety to keep us safe, are telling us that in their view this legislation is one of the ubiquitous tools in the tool box that make it easier for them to do their jobs. They are the ones who have to enforce the legislation. The President of the New Zealand Police Association, Greg O’Connor, rightly stated that there is not one initiative on its own that will disempower gangs, but a series of small things can be done that will serve to diminish the standing of gangs in the eyes of those who have intimidated or who seek to intimidate people.

The bill has now been through the Law and Order Committee, which recommended that the bill be passed with amendments. We have always been happy to open the debate, to hear the evidence, and to accept that the bill did not commence without its flaws. This is all part of the democratic process, and we do live in a democracy.

Under the Local Government Act 2002 the power is conferred upon councils to make bylaws for the purposes of protecting the public from nuisance; protecting, promoting, and maintaining public health and safety; and minimising the potential for offensive behaviour in public places. The powers available under the Act clearly anticipate that communities would—and should, I might add—seek to find local solutions to local problems, and this is what we seek to do. The bill seeks to decrease intimidation and the likelihood of violence by creating what is known colloquially as neutral turf. We have already enabled this in hotels, courts, and hospitals, and it is far from uncommon to see signs displayed in the windows of bars and pubs banning the wearing of gang insignia within the establishment. So why do we not extend that ban further?

It is also common, and it has become the rule of thumb, that there is acceptance of those rules—that gang members voluntarily remove their patches as they go into those premises. That is what they do when they want to obtain access to those venues, whether they be rock concert venues, hotels, or the buildings they need to visit.

We are now living in a time when the wearing of colours such as red and blue is such an issue that kids cannot wear them to schools because the colours are perceived to be gang colours. Around New Zealand we have schools—right down to those at primary school level—that ban the wearing of certain colours because they are identified as showing an allegiance to gangs. That allegiance is usually wrong, but in any event that is what is happening in our schools and cities around this country, and certainly not just in Wanganui. This is how out of control the gang problem has become.

I faced some strong opposition to this bill during its first reading. The Hon Tariana Turia made the point that the only thing this bill would do would be to exclude, suppress, prohibit, and ban, and would not address the real issues behind gang culture. To some extent, the first part of that statement is accurate. We do seek to exclude, suppress, prohibit, and ban, but we do so not because we seek to jeopardise the rights of those who wish to affiliate themselves with a group, to dress in the way they wish, or to in any way introduce legislation that is inconsistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act—although there may be some contravention—but because we believe that it is a small but vital step in working towards countering the escalating street violence and intimidation that is a result of gang versus gang conflict, which affects those who have to witness it because of the communities they find themselves living in, usually without the opportunity or option of moving somewhere else.

In 2004 in Wanganui there were 11 such incidents in public places; by 2006 that number had risen to 48. One can only speculate about what that figure could be if we do not take this action now, bearing in mind that with the death of Jhia Te Tua a lot of gang activity ceased almost instantaneously, probably because of the death of a gang member—an event all those gang members could relate to because they want to maintain the safety of those they care about—but also because a dozen of the Mongrel Mob went to jail, and others of Black Power were on remand on similar charges to those for which the Mongrel Mob members found themselves in jail.

During the course of the debate in the select committee, consideration was given to definitions of gang insignia and to whether those definitions would include tattoos. Various parties across the House voted in differing ways, and no doubt that will form the subject of debate within the Committee of the whole House stage.

Amendments were made to allow, for instance, for the stopping of vehicles in public places in which gang insignia are seen, and to extend the definition of public place to include vehicles within a public place. There is the need, under the bill, to denote by signposting the areas the provisions of the bill will relate to, and which public places—whether they be streets or parks and reserves. Obviously, the definitions that relate to “gang”, and the way it will be defined and added to the schedule to which this legislation will relate, were also part of the discussions. The penalties for non-compliance are a $2,000 fine and confiscation of the gang patch. Along with that are the power to seize and the power to dispose of seized gang insignia.

The suggestion was raised by members of the then Government—now the Opposition—that we should wait and see, after an investigation and scrutiny, how legislation introduced in South Australia will impact on the gang situation there. The point the Wanganui District Council wishes to outline in support of its local bill is that introducing, accepting, and passing this bill does not in any way inhibit what action may be taken later on down the track after such scrutiny has taken place, in regard to what is relatively new legislation introduced to South Australia and to how well it may affect, or be used as yet another tool in the tool box in, New Zealand. I commend this bill to the House.

Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour—Waimakariri) : The first thing I want to do is to commend the previous speaker, as the local member, for bringing forward a local bill. I also commend the Wanganui District Council for its efforts, as Mr Borrows himself said, to deal as locals with a local and substantial problem. But I think there are some difficulties with the bill, and I think Mr Borrows alluded to one of them when he said that Wanganui has probably had its fair share of gang difficulties. But he also said that Wanganui is like many other provincial cities in this country that have to deal with this sort of gang activity.

I make no excuses for gangs. They are abhorrent; they have caused tragedies, as Mr Borrows has alluded to, in the youngest members of our population. I do not subscribe to the view—and I know that my colleague Shane Jones does not subscribe to the view—that these gangs endear themselves somehow to Māori culture. The senior kaumātua and kuia whom I have spoken to, and the Māori members on this side of the House, would be of the view that gangs degrade Māori culture—they degrade any culture—and that they are unacceptable. I look at Ms Turia and others who have somehow become apologists for these gangs, and I invite her to go back to her community and ask those many members of her community who have had tragedy visited upon them and who have lost loved ones, whether they feel that somehow the Mongrel Mob or Black Power endear themselves to Māori culture.

I say also that there have indeed been National members who have identified—I think appropriately—that there are difficulties with this bill, and of itself I do not believe that it will address the underlying problem, which is of dealing to gangs. It deals to an issue of insignia and clothing, as it were—and I do not mean that with any disrespect—but it does not deal with the underlying problem with gangs, which is that of violence and intimidation. I note that Kate Wilkinson herself, in the Eastern Bay News on 17 May 2007, said that with banning gangs, “the difficulty was defining the bad gang.”

Well, I have some difficulty with that, because I think that Mr Borrows, quite rightly, and everybody, could define a bad gang. Does Ms Wilkinson not understand that the Mongrel Mob is a bad gang, or that the Headhunters is a bad gang, or that Black Power is a bad gang—

Hon Darren Hughes: Or white power—

Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: —or white power groups are bad gangs? A few of those geniuses said they would invade my electorate. A gang is a gang is a gang, and they are all bad gangs. Ms Wilkinson went on to say: “It is also how far central government can go in doing this.”—that is, defining a bad gang. Well, I pay my respects to Mr Laws the mayor, and to Mr Borrows, because they have made an attempt—and I think a pretty logical attempt—to identify and list, within this bill, which groups are considered gangs.

If we look at clause 4, we see that they do just that. They say, “gang means—”, under clause 4(1)(a), “Black Power, Hells Angels, Magogs, Mothers, Mongrel Mob, Nomads, or Tribesmen; and (b) any other specified organisation, association, or group of persons identified in a bylaw …”. On the face of it—and I say this respectfully—this is a decent attempt to try to deal with the problem. However, here is the difficulty: if I am in the Mongrel Mob I will change my name. Then, quite logically, the district council will move, under clause 4(1)(b), to specify that name as being within the listed definition of a gang. Then I will change my name again, and I will change my patch colours again, or I will put a scarf around my wrist, perhaps, instead of wearing a jacket. I will change my insignia, or I might wear a different set of trousers, or belt, or whatever, and again force the Wanganui District Council to try to redefine that within its bylaw. If it cannot do that, we will come back to this House with another local bill to try to do that. I say, on the record of the House, I mean no disrespect. [Interruption] Some members laugh. I invite them to just read the law, because if they define insignia in that way or list these gangs, and then the Mongrel Mob changes its name to the “Senior Dogs” or something like that—invent whatever name you like—it has to be specified in this law.

There is also an argument that this will actually push gangs to certain parts of Wanganui; it will visit and concentrate those problems on certain parts of Wanganui. Clause 5 of the bill specifies the bylaw’s designated places, and clause 5(5) says “A bylaw must not be made under subsection (1)(a) if the effect of the bylaw, either by itself or in conjunction with other bylaws made under subsection (1)(a), would be that all the public places in the district are specified places.” The law itself does not allow the district council to designate the whole of the district a specified place, and I understand the logic behind this. It allows it to designate and specify only certain areas within Wanganui, as I understand it, I tell Mr Borrows—and he nods; he knows this bill better than I, because he is the good local member.

Sandra Goudie: It’s no different from the liquor ban.

Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: Oh, pipe down; this is a serious issue, Ms Goudie, and I credit Mr Borrows with treating it seriously. I invite the member to follow Mr Borrows’ example.

This bill is a bit like what the Christchurch City Council, in good faith, tried to do with boy racers. Through bylaws it sealed off, if you will, a particular area. What happened is that it pushed them to another area. I do not actually think that it is right that the Government abrogate its responsibility and say that it is a local government issue when dealing with gangs, but I again commend the district council for making an effort. I also commend the 65 percent—I think it was that Mr Borrows said—in the referendum who made a cry for help and said that they support this because they believe that it will assist in resolving the problem. Ms Turia can interject and snipe, but I do not think that adds to the respect around this debate.

Clause 5A talks about signposting. Again, I know that there is a big difference between a boy racer and a gang member. These were some of the things tried in Christchurch, where areas were designated and signposted. I am told by some that the biggest effect was that the signs disappeared “real quick” and were trophies for some of the boy racers. The point I am trying to make is that simply quarantining an area off through a bylaw and saying that if gang members are found there, their insignia will be taken and they will be fined, is not going to address the violence inherent in these gangs. I point out to the House that when we debated the “$50 Bill”, the Minister of Police, Judith Collins, said that fines do not work. No one pays fines, and, with no disrespect, I cannot see members of the Mongrel Mob lining up and diligently paying their fines.

The Labour Party position is that though we support the sentiment of this bill to deal with gangs, we do not believe that the Government should wash its hands and say “OK, over to you, Wanganui, you’re out on your own.” Labour believes that we should deal directly and effectively with the violence and intimidation. That it why my leader Phil Goff, and Annette King, Darren Hughes, and I, met with Mike Rann, the Premier of South Australia. I am again going to see the Premier in a few weeks. We know well that the state’s gang legislation is exceptionally hard hitting, and it appears to be effective in its early days of operation, but it is yet to be fully tested. That is why we will not support this bill, because we believe that it does not deal with the problem. It simply says that if a patch is designated, then the patch is changed and we have to do this again. It says that if we have a list of gangs that then change their names, we will have to redesignate. It says that we may inadvertently and unintentionally designate one area, and push a gang out of that area and into another part of Wanganui. With no disrespect to the authors of the bill, that renders the bill inoperable and ineffective. Labour says that we will continue to study the South Australian model, and, if it works, we will back it.

SANDRA GOUDIE (National—Coromandel) : I am delighted to rise and follow my most excellent colleague Chester Borrows, who makes a huge contribution to this Parliament and supports the Wanganui District Council (Prohibition of Gang Insignia) Bill, which is a local bill. I recently had the pleasure of my brother and his wife visiting and staying with us for a few weeks from New York, where they currently live. They were telling me how former Mayor Giuliani of New York put a peg in the ground, and took a stand of a zero tolerance approach. Now my brother is able to walk the streets of New York at night, without being afraid for his life. People can now comfortably walk the streets of New York because of the zero tolerance approach taken by Mayor Giuliani. I applaud Mayor Michael Laws, who has also finally put a peg in the ground and taken a zero tolerance approach. He is promoting this local bill, and I say good on him. He is supported by the majority of his constituents and his council. They are saying that enough is enough, and they are putting a peg in the ground; hence this bill, and rightly so.

You know, there may be some problems with the bill, but we do not get anywhere by just sitting on the fence and not taking a stand. This is sending a signal; it is taking a stand. Liquor bans have worked up and down the country. A lot of councils are adopting liquor bans because they work, and likewise will the prohibition of gang insignia. The problem with this is that there is not a schedule whereby other councils could add their names to this bill, so that they can also become part of the process. Then they could adopt the provisions of this legislation and say that they likewise are going to be a council that will ban gang insignia in specified areas in their community. I am sure that there will be a number of other councils watching the progress and implementation of this bill to see how it works, and they may then call for the ability to include themselves in the provisions of this bill.

Let us face it: communities are calling out for this. They want this, and they do not want to be caught in gang crossfire. Members of communities want to be able to go to places where they will not feel intimidated or threatened by people who are wearing insignia and whose behaviour is unacceptable. The very wearing of insignia can be quite intimidating, and I do not think anyone would disagree with that. I would like to see somebody stand up and try to disagree with that. Wanganui’s Mayor, Michael Laws, was absolutely incensed at the murder of Jhia Te Tua by three patched Mongrel Mob members. It was the death of a child caught in the crossfire that had such a huge impact on him and his community. There are gangs throughout New Zealand, but they congregate in some places more than others and Wanganui is one of those places.

Hon Tariana Turia: What a joke; it is not.

SANDRA GOUDIE: Well, if the member would like to take a call, she can give us the facts of the matter as she sees it; that would be fine. Gang members are prevented from wearing gang patches in some public places, including courts, police stations, petrol stations, hotels, and clubs. For the same reason, the Wanganui District Council wants to ban them in city centres and in some parks. Why should it not be able to do that? This legislation is part of the council wanting to control what goes on in communities so that people can walk around and participate in community activities without being intimidated, without being afraid, and without being caught in the crossfire, as has already occurred.

The council can make a bylaw identifying a gang only if, as stated in clause 5(3)(a), it is identified by a common name or symbol, and (b) “its members, associates, or supporters individually or collectively promote, encourage, or engage in a pattern of criminal activity.” The penalty for wearing the insignia in prohibited places is a $2,000 fine, and seizure and forfeiture of the insignia. In clause 4(1) gang insignia (a) “means a sign, symbol, or representation commonly displayed to denote membership of, and affiliation with, or support for a gang; and (b) includes any items of clothing to which a sign, symbol, or representation … is attached”. Yes, this could be problematic, but on the whole I think the bill once enacted will serve the community well. In spite of the fact that gang patches are not to be worn when going to court, to the police station, or to petrol stations, I am sure that most members would be aware that still does happen.

The purpose of the bill, stated in clause 3, is “to prohibit the display of gang insignia in specified places” in the district of Wanganui District Council. But as I have said, I think other councils will be watching with interest and they may like to have the opportunity to do the same. Members of the public up and down the country have expressed some fear in having patched gang members in neighbourhoods, shopping centres, parks, and central business districts, and the Wanganui District Council is just one of those places. It was the council, working in conjunction with the local police, that thought it was appropriate that this be done by way of a local bill. It is a very worthy cause to promote. I think this is perhaps just the beginning, and it will not be perfect. Nobody expects everything to be perfect, but it is still a step in the right direction and the Wanganui police are doing a great job policing gang activities in the wake of the Jhia Tutua tragedy. However, when the public spotlight is removed, the police will not have the resources to continue to police gangs with necessarily the same intensity.

The police are supporting this legislation. Police National Headquarters, the police legal section, and the Police Association have all looked at the legislation, and it is another tool in the toolbox, as Chester Borrows rightly said. It is another tool in the toolbox, and I think it is absolutely a very sensible tool. Liquor bans have been a very sensible tool in the toolbox, and have made a huge difference in the behaviour of peoples and communities. Liquor bans have been hugely successful, and they have brought families back into our communities and our holiday places, because families no longer have to contend with drunken youths who make them feel threatened. This is the same. If people start to feel that they have some form of protection, they are not going to feel intimidated by people misbehaving, or by being intimidating through what they are wearing and the way they are behaving. It is going to give a huge amount of confidence to people in our communities. A young couple, Stephen Hurley and Clare Lawler, felt that for the safety of them and their family they preferred to move out of Wanganui. We will not get that type of fear from people and young families. They will stay in communities. They will feel safe. They will make such a difference to the thriving and dynamic places that Wanganui has to offer.

GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) : It is a pleasure to follow Mrs Goudie. I thought her speech was heading towards her saying that the Wanganui District Council (Prohibition of Gang Insignia) Bill was to become a Government bill. If she is so enthusiastic about it and thinks that it is such a fantastic idea, why has it not been picked up as a Government bill? When Labour was in Government, we did that with the graffiti legislation and the boy racer legislation. I suspect that one of the reasons it has not been picked up as a Government bill is that not everyone on the Government side of the House really supports it. My colleague Clayton Cosgrove has already mentioned Kate Wilkinson’s views about it. At the National Party northern region annual general meeting in 2006, Richard Worth said “Efforts to ban gang patches, while well intentioned may in fact aid some gang’s deliberate efforts to lower their profile.” I think there is some dissension on the other side of the House. We certainly know that during the first reading of the bill, the ACT Party members were totally opposed to it. They were going to support it through to the Law and Order Committee, in order to have a debate, but Rodney Hide said that he was totally opposed to it. As the debate goes on tonight, I will be very interested to see what kind of support the ACT Party gives it.

We have a serious problem with crime committed by gangs. We have a serious problem with violence in our towns and cities, and that needs a serious response to those issues; a serious response, not a cosmetic response. With great respect for the people of Wanganui, I am sad to say that this bill represents a cosmetic response to those problems. I understand and I care about the concerns of the people of Wanganui regarding violence, but I do not believe that this bill is going to meet those concerns.

I congratulate Chester Borrows, as the local member, on bringing this bill through. It is a local bill, built of local concerns. As a local member, he has done the right thing in bringing it through to the House. But I believe it is flawed. It is flawed because the patches that gang members wear do not commit the crime. The patches do not perpetrate the violence; it is the people. We have to work as a community, right across New Zealand, on the causes of crime. In the Wanganui police district in 2007 there were 1,000 domestic violence incidents. If we are really serious about addressing the causes of violence and crime around the country, we need to go to those root causes. We do not need to make cosmetic responses, because they will not work and they actually lead the public astray in terms of what is possible and what is achievable.

Taking a piecemeal and ad hoc approach to these sorts of laws is the wrong way to go. Any criminal lawyer worth his or her salt will say that we should not make criminal law on a region-by-region basis. All that does is shift problems around. It simply shifts the problem from one region to another, creating confusion for the justice system. It is not the way to address these sorts of issues. The Government should be taking an overall approach to this issue. My colleague Clayton Cosgrove has already talked about some of the work that we have done, and we are looking into what is happening in South Australia. We need to ensure that we look at those examples, test them, see what works, and come up with a comprehensive plan for New Zealand as a whole. The Wanganui district has a problem with some of the violence and crime perpetrated by gangs, but it will not be solved by a piecemeal and ad hoc approach that simply pushes crime around the region.

I note that the issue of definitions in this bill presents some problems. The bill talks about public areas and public spaces, and the council will define those. But the council will not ensure that there are no gang patches in Castlecliff, Gonville, Tawhero, or anywhere like that. The council will not be looking at those places; it will be looking at the centre of town. In the end, all that is doing is papering over the problem, wishing it away by saying “We will take a cosmetic solution”. The Wanganui District Council has defined the problem, but this response is not the answer. As we know, patches are only one part of gang insignia. My colleague across the House Chester Borrows has already mentioned the issue of the colours red and blue, which are familiar to those of us in the House. But if we are going to move down the path of saying what an insignia is—a colour, a scarf, another form of clothing, or some sort of jewellery—then in the end we get ourselves into the problem of definition, and that will not do anything to reduce crime and violence in Wanganui.

We know from the bill and from the select committee debate that the definitions around gangs, gang insignia, and public places are complicated and difficult issues. While the committee no doubt laboured hard to come up with definitions that would provide some certainty, I believe it has not been able to do that in this bill. As a result, the Labour Party is opposing the bill. We are opposing it because we do not believe that it is a solution to the problem of gang violence and gang intimidation. We need to start right at the beginning and stop people from joining gangs, and we need to do that by ensuring that we work on building strong families and whānau right across New Zealand. We need to ensure that they get the services they need, they live in warm, dry homes, they get their children to school, they are supported to keep involved in our communities, and they feel like they have a place in our communities. I will never stand up in this House and defend gangs of the type that are talked about in this bill, but I will stand up in this House and say that the people who join those gangs should not be there in the first place. We as a community should be taking some responsibility for ensuring that we create the kind of society that those people are included in and want to be a part of.

Once again I say to Chester Borrows that he has brought this bill before the House as a good local member, but, unfortunately, it will not solve the problems of gang violence and gang crime in the Wanganui district. It will merely paper over the cracks, and, unfortunately, the Labour Party cannot support it. Thank you.

METIRIA TUREI (Green) : The Green Party will oppose the Wanganui District Council (Prohibition of Gang Insignia) Bill. We opposed it at the first reading and we will continue to do so. During the first reading debate a number of comments were made by those who support the bill. Members said they would continue to support it even though they admitted that it would do nothing to deal with gang violence—particularly in Wanganui, but anywhere else—that it would not address the real concerns around the behaviour of gang members in public areas, and that it would not constrain gangs in any of their activities. None the less, they wanted to find a cosmetic way—as it has been described—of making some show to the public that they were taking the gang issue seriously. That raises the very real question of the waste of taxpayers’ resources on dealing with legislation—at the select committee, as we debate it now, and then with its implementation—when those who support this legislation know that it will not work.

Chester Borrows raised the case of the child who was killed in Wanganui. He knows that this bill would not have saved that child. It would not have saved that child, nor will it save any child or person who is the subject of violence or gang violence. This bill will not protect a single member of any of our communities, let alone those communities in Wanganui that are suffering and are the subject of this overblown approach to the real issues of gang violence in those areas. This bill is not just ineffective and a waste of taxpayers’ money; it also provides for a significant breach of the rights of citizens. We are not necessarily talking here about the rights of gang members, which is always what the proponents of this bill are talking about, but about the fact that under this bill ordinary citizens will suffer a serious breach of their rights as citizens of this country.

The bill has failed a human rights vetting for a range of reasons. The human rights vetting talked about the bill having a tenuous connection to the goal of reducing the intimidation of members of the public by gangs—a tenuous connection to the goal—but, despite the Law and Order Committee having tried to find ways to soften that breach, the bill none the less continues to breach the human rights of citizens of this country. There are serious issues just with the definition of “gang”. The bill does not necessarily define gangs, although it provides a list of gangs. One of the issues in the public mind is that gangs are traditionally characterised as Māori gangs. Much of the public discourse about gangs and gang violence is not related to the motorcycle gangs, the punk gangs—

Hon Tariana Turia: Or the KKK.

METIRIA TUREI: —or the National Front gangs. Those are not how gangs are characterised in this country. Gangs are characterised as Māori gangs, and for as long as there is a definition or an ability for councils, in particular, to make the decision about what is and what is not a gang, they will be influenced by the public characterisation of gangs as Māori gangs.

As we go through the bill we can see even more clearly how this legislation will have a massively discriminatory effect on Māori—and I will describe that in just a moment. An issue was raised by Chester Borrows around gang colours and the violence connected with them. There are schools in the communities where wearing certain kinds of colours has now been banned in order to try to disassociate those colours from gangs. We know that people in those communities suffer violence as a result of simply wearing certain kinds of colours. We have the case of the terrible death of Jordan Herewini, who was killed for wearing his yellow kura shirt, because he was considered to be associated with one particular gang.

This bill will make that kind of violence more likely. It is already the case that certain colours are associated with certain gangs, so surely the response from a gang might be that the display of those colours will become more likely as opposed to the display of insignia, so the concept in the public mind in particular and in the community mind in general is that certain colours will be associated with gang activity.

This bill will not be able to stop the wearing of colours by any people. That would be ridiculous. We have members in this House who are wearing the colours traditionally associated with gangs. We have the Killer Bees, the Mongrel Mob, and Black Power all represented here in this Parliament by colours alone. If in the public mind the concept of gangs and colours is further associated through Draconian legislation like this, then the chances of violence occurring against those people who display those colours is increased, not decreased. This bill will decrease the safety of those communities and it will increase violence on the basis of colours alone, because of the way it is constructed.

What is of the most serious concern to me—and it will be to all Māori, in particular, in this country—is the inclusion of the wearing of tattoos in the definition of “gang insignia”. The description in the bill talks about a tattoo that denotes “membership of, an affiliation with, or support for a gang;”. If we accept—and we must do; it is a fact—that the public characterisation of gangs is as Māori gangs, then the display of tā moko, for example, could easily be associated in the minds of the public and the minds of the council members, who are so subject to the public’s views about these things, as being related to a gang of some kind.

Will the wearing of a tā moko become associated with gang affiliation? It is certainly true that we have had many examples of discrimination against Māori for wearing tā moko. We had a case just recently where a woman was refused entry into a bar because she had a moko on her face. The bar had a rule about facial tattoos and refused to let her in. That was considered to be a breach of her human rights.

At the same time we have an international display of Māori cultural forms—of tattoos, for example. Famous people, such as famous American pop stars, wear Māori tattoos as a symbol of their recognition of the importance of tā moko as a sacred art form. Air New Zealand uses those kinds of cultural art forms as its insignia. It is its way of identifying itself as being uniquely New Zealand. Those art forms are in some respects treated by this Parliament and the community as a display of our uniqueness as Aotearoa New Zealand. They have a significant cultural impact on us all. Yet we—well, “you”, I should say, because the Green Party certainly does not—as members of this House want to support legislation that will mean the police and the council in that one town will be able to discriminate against Māori simply because they are wearing a tattoo that the police or the council has decided potentially supports a gang whether or not that tā moko or tattoo has anything to do with gang issues or support for a gang.

Let us be clear. There is absolutely firm evidence that the police take a discriminatory attitude towards Māori. We have evidence from a report that talks about the overrepresentation of Māori in the criminal justice system, for example. It states that Māori are more likely to be apprehended—which is what this bill will ask for; it allows for a search without a warrant—and more severely punished than other people, and that key issues around ethnicity cause that to happen. Māori will be the ones who suffer from this legislation more than anyone else, as 47 percent of Māori have tattoos. They will be the ones who suffer and who are discriminated against by the police and by council members who are subject to the whims of public misunderstanding about issues like colours and tā moko.

The Green Party has other major, serious concerns about the Wanganui District Council (Prohibition of Gang Insignia) Bill. At heart, we simply cannot support legislation that will fail to keep our people safe. We cannot support legislation that will make our communities less safe than they already are, and we know that many communities already suffer from such concerns. This bill will not address their concerns. It will not make them safer. It will increase levels of violence, particularly around gang colours, as gangs respond to these processes. The Green Party will not support this bill and urges the rest of the House not to.

DAVID GARRETT (ACT) : Before getting into the speech I have prepared on the Wanganui District Council (Prohibition of Gang Insignia) Bill, I will address some comments made by the previous speaker that were, frankly, just plain incorrect. I do not know what her knowledge of gang culture is—and I use that word “culture” in quotes—but I have visited a few headquarters in my time. When I was at the Magog Motorcycle Club clubhouse in New Plymouth some years ago, it was an all-white gang. The Mothers Motor-cycle Club of Palmerston North, I believe, does not permit Māori members. I do not think we would find a Māori member of the Hell’s Angels, either. They are all white gangs, and they are all targeted by this bill. There is not a focus on Māori gangs, and I dispute the member’s claim that in the public mind the word “gang” is synonymous with Māori gang. That may be some people’s view, but anyone who knows a bit about them knows that claim is simply incorrect.

I will ask for indulgence at the start if my pronunciation is not perfect, but tā moko, as I understand it, has absolutely nothing to do with a clenched fist tattooed on the side of someone’s face, or with a barking dog with a spiked collar and a German helmet. These are the sorts of tattoos we are talking about. They are not the koru on the planes of Air New Zealand, but deliberately intimidating tattoos that are designed to put people off and to frighten them.

I am rising to speak on this bill and to support it. I would like first, if I may, to pay tribute to the sponsor of this bill, Chester Borrows. As more senior members of this House will be aware, ACT voted against this bill at its first reading last year. We did so not because we supported gangs but because of a concern that innocent New Zealanders could be caught up in its provisions. I must say that I think Ms Turei makes a very valid point, unfortunately. I do not mean that sarcastically against her, but the removal of patches per se may well cause confusion, and difficulties with scarves wrapped around hands and with the other kinds of tags that are used by these clowns. If only they were clowns. ACT was originally concerned that legitimate motorcycle enthusiasts, youth groups, and even church members could fall foul of this law, and so voted against it. Following the passage of the bill through the select committee process, Mr Borrows has sought our support for this bill, and has addressed many of our concerns.

One point needs to be made again very clearly, and on this I think I may differ from my colleague sitting in front of me, the Hon Tariana Turia. I guess by definition I am now referring to ethnic gangs. Gangs are not whānau. They are not clubs. They are not family substitutes. They are criminal organisations. They are methamphetamine-dealing, thieving, car-breaking, intimidating groups of people. That is what they are. They are criminals. They should, in fact, be illegal, but it seems to be too difficult for us to make them illegal. This is a good second step. It will target those who wear gang insignia, offensive gang patches, and other things, so I am happy to stand here today and to support the bill on behalf of my colleagues.

At the first reading the Hon Rodney Hide, who is now the Minister of Local Government, said correctly that this bill will not solve the problem of gangs. I think that anyone who thinks it could solve that problem would be incredibly naive. Indeed, the bill acknowledges in its explanatory note that it will not even solve the gang problem in Wanganui. But it will give, as Chester Borrows said, the police and local authorities more power to deal with this problem. It is another tool.

It is pleasing to see that the Law and Order Committee resisted the advice it received and opted to retain a schedule of gangs that will be targeted by the bill. Those are mainly the Mongrel Mob, Black Power, Hell’s Angels, Nomads, Tribesmen, Magogs, and the Mothers Motor-cycle Club. As I noted at the beginning of my speech, at least three of those gangs are, or at least were, exclusively white gangs.

The lowering of the maximum fine is also important. Since this Parliament began last December we have heard time and time again the figure of $700 million - odd in unpaid fines. Lowering the fine may make collection more manageable. Personally I would like to see a return to the days of a fine or, in default, 28 days in jail, but those are very unfashionable provisions these days.

The next amendment recommended by the Law and Order Committee, which I am sure will please the Minister of Local Government, is the inclusion of a new clause 9, which makes the police the sole enforcement agency under this legislation. That is very important. Gang members by their nature are more likely than the average New Zealander to be carrying a weapon and to engage in criminal activity. Council staff are simply not trained to deal in such a way with gang members, who often congregate in large groups. In my view council staff are in the same situation as our country’s fisheries officers—putting their lives on the line to keep the rule of law with little or no training or means to protect themselves. Increasingly, we see fisheries officers targeted and exposed to violence in their job.

Again, I thank Chester Borrows for his willingness to engage with ACT members, to respond to our concerns, and to talk to us about why he thinks this bill is a good idea. It will not solve all the problems. Other measures are required, including the “three strikes and you’re out” bill, which is at present before the Law and Order Committee.

I welcome Chester Borrows’ commitment to me to listen with an open mind to the reasons behind the “three strikes” legislation, and to give it his support along with the support of his fellow members if he can be convinced that it is, in fact, a good idea, and that many of the alarmist claims about that bill are simply without foundation. That legislation, if passed, will ensure that gang members, who are often among the worst recidivist and violent offenders, will be locked up for longer. It will ensure that criminals like Antonie Ronnie Dixon and William Bell will not walk our streets to kill again. We will not have any more William Bells. No one will get the chance to get 102 convictions before graduating to killer status. That bill will ensure that decent New Zealand families are spared the anguish of losing a loved one to a paroled killer.

Legislation passed by this Government on the “three strikes” policy—hopefully—on DNA sampling, and on this ban of gang patches, at least at this local level, will go some way toward keeping New Zealanders safe, which everyone in this House claims to be very keen on, and one would hope that they were. I commend this bill to the House, and I will support it on behalf of the ACT Party.

Hon TARIANA TURIA (Co-Leader—Māori Party) : Sometimes in this House I think we hear everything, yet hear nothing of real substance, and I think that is a worry when we consider the cost to the taxpayer of running this House. I say first of all that the Māori Party has very, very serious concerns about the level of violence and criminal activity in all of our communities. We take that very seriously, and we are really concerned about it. If we thought for one moment that targeting seven gangs, three of which do not belong to Wanganui—interestingly, those are the three white gangs—and that the Wanganui District Council (Prohibition of Gang Insignia) Bill would make a real difference to the Wanganui community, we would support it today.

But there are 88 gangs in this country, and if members of this House genuinely believed that targeting gang insignia was one of the most important things we should do as legislators, then we would have thought that this legislation should be rolled out right around New Zealand. We would say that if members believe that this measure will work in Wanganui, how come we do not think it is important that we take it to every town in this country? Wanganui is not a gang city. I resent anybody in this House who makes the implication that it is a gang city.

I want to address the comments of my colleague who sits behind me that these people are not w’ānau—they are many other things. I want to say today, with considerable sadness in my heart, that the gang members in Wanganui are related to all of us who are of Wanganui descent. They are our w’ānau and we are deeply saddened that they have to find their comfort and their care outside of the w’anau environment. The big question for those of us who have our young people actively involved in these groups is why. What has happened to us in this country that we now have a phenomenon that does not come from our culture, and that does not come from this country? Why? And why do we have so much poverty in our communities that these people are able to offer our kids something that the rest of us clearly do not provide them with?

Although I accept that there may be elements within the gang culture that I do not support, I know that there are many things that we, as politicians—and others—profess to practise but do not. We do not open our doors. We do not care about the young and the dispossessed. We think that the only places where they can be cared for are the institutions of this country. If we were to listen to that member from ACT, we would hear that we would be better off if we locked up most of these people without taking into account the reasons that may have led them down the pathway to where they are today. We have a lot of work to do, as parliamentarians, to look at these issues and to find out why these things are happening. That is why I want to mihi to Simon Power, who is prepared to start to look at the reasons for criminal offending. There are reasons. There may not be excuses, but there are reasons why people go down this track. I am more concerned—and so is the Māori Party—to find out what those things are and what we should be doing to intervene, so that we can help people to become included as an important part of our communities.

I know that many groups that are called gangs have participated in our communities, supported our communities, and done some really great work. Back in the 1980s when we had the contract work scheme, Parekura Horomia, somebody who worked a long, long time with gangs in this country, made a huge contribution as a public servant. He was trying to find ways to ameliorate the situation that was affecting not only the gangs but also the communities. The contract work scheme was working and it cut down on the criminal offending at that time, but, sad to say, it was disbanded. I just say it is easy to sit here and throw stones at a group who are easy to throw stones at because they are really visible.

If I thought for one moment that this legislation would make our streets safer and make a huge difference to the Wanganui community, I would support it. But Metiria Turei is right—there are in fact many things that symbolise belonging to these particular groups, and, as we have seen, some people have, unfortunately, died through the wearing of colours, not the wearing of patches. I think that as a society we owe it to one another to begin to address the behaviour and not the clothes that people wear.

We have to move from the tactics of suppression to strategies that create solutions. I mihi today to people like Kim Workman, the director of the Rethinking Crime and Punishment project, who has shown that different strategies can be employed—not only amongst gangs but certainly amongst criminal offending—and that they inevitably produce different results. He, too, has travelled internationally, trying to find these solutions. I think we need to think carefully and in a considered manner about the best approach towards encouraging self-discipline while at the same time restoring that sense of community spirit. We must resist the temptation to just throw up in the air a whole batch of punitive measures, such as hefty fines, banning the clothes that people wear, introducing bylaws, and asking the police, who are already overworked, to arrest without a warrant those people whose activities they are suspicious about.

So I guess that for the Māori Party all the research tells us that prohibitions generally do not work. What we need most is to urgently stimulate community debate and strategic action to address the upfront issues of public safety, and the underlying issues such as family and community violence. The Māori Party is not a party that supports the tactics of suppression and exclusion. We support a restorative justice system and we advocate for helping agencies, including the Government, to work together with communities to develop and implement their own solutions. I am not saying that what confronts us is not a really difficult issue, and I mihi to Chester for bringing this issue to the House. But, again, I say that if members genuinely believe that this is a significant issue for this country, then this particular matter should be dealt with in every single community in the land. Kia ora.

SIMON BRIDGES (National—Tauranga) : It is good to rise and speak to the Wanganui District Council (Prohibition of Gang Insignia) Bill. I say at the outset that I thought the Hon Tariana Turia’s speech was very thoughtful and was, clearly, heartfelt. I agree with her that this issue is difficult and that responses to it can legitimately differ, and I hope she can appreciate the respect I have for her views though our parties may, on occasion, hold quite different views on matters.

It seems to me that this bill represents democracy in action, and if we take the view that all politics is local, this is local democracy in action. Here a community, its mayor, its council, and its local member are responding to a specific concern or set of concerns in their community: gangs wearing patches are acting in the central business district as though they own the town; the mere act of wearing their patches in the central business district intimidates others; and by wearing their patches, they are acting in a confrontational and provocative way to other gangs and to other people. So I say again that it strikes me that this bill is democracy in action and is a community and its members responding to a legitimate and specific concern.

I pay tribute to a few people. Mayor Michael Laws, it seems, is not just a good talkback host and a good commentator—although Grant Robertson says he is not even that. I liked his column in—I think—the Sunday Star-Times where he said that I was handsome and telegenic; it is hard to disagree with him on that front. He was being charitable, but it is hard to disagree with him. As I say, he is a good mayor. I liked what the Hon Darren Hughes said—I see he is no longer in the House. He said that Michael Laws is effectively the Rudi Giuliani of New Zealand politics. I am not sure if that makes Wanganui the Big Apple of New Zealand, but he is a good mayor and I commend him for his work on this bill.

I commend the Wanganui District Council and the local MP, Chester Borrows, whom I have known for some time now. I have always respected him greatly. I remember his excellent billboard—one of the best ever, in fact—in Whanganui. I think it said: “Outstanding in his field.”, and he was standing in his field. He is a man with a lifetime of law and order experience, and we saw that in the debate earlier this afternoon. I commend the community of Wanganui, which, I see in a poll, was 65 percent in support of this bill. I also understand that, in the process required under these local bills, submissions were called for from the community and after a period of weeks no one had put in submissions against this bill. That has to be significant, and shows that this is local democracy in action.

Regarding the actual bill, I say that the purpose clause is very good: “to prohibit the display of gang insignia in specified places in the district.” It is a good purpose and it really goes to the issue of big men behaving badly—like overgrown children and worse—in the central business district of this area. The bill is directed to that. I do not think anyone in this House will suggest that this bill is some sort of silver bullet in relation to gangs and the issues that they present. It will not be a silver bullet; it will not stop all of the gang evil, frankly, that we have seen in this nation. That is a utopian dream. But it will, I hope—and there is every reason for optimism—do something about the intimidating and confrontational effect of gangs and patches in the central business district of this specific locality.

From the purpose of the bill we move to its implementation. Let us acknowledge from the outset that following through on the purpose of this bill is not easy. I agree with Grant Robertson that there are specification issues in this bill. They are acute, they are not easy, and they are entirely problematic. Let us go through those. Firstly, the bill needs a mechanism to specify the gangs that it covers. In the bill there is a list of gangs, and it is important that there is flexibility through council by-laws for new gangs to be added. In terms of implementing its purpose I say so far so good. The bill also needs to define the insignia used by the gangs. I say to the House that that is a particularly difficult task for the bill. If we make the definition too narrow, then we create problems: we miss out some insignia and we allow the flouting of the law. But if we go too wide, then, of course, we criminalise too many, and we do not want to do that either. As far as the definition goes—I will not read it to the House—I take the view that there is a pretty good attempt at a definition of “insignia” in this bill.

The penalty for breaching the law is a $2,000 fine or—in clause 7, I believe, of the bill—the seizure of the gang insignia. I say to this House that the forfeiture of the patches will hurt the gangs the most. I suspect that that will be the thing that really drives gang members crazy, and it is good to see that in the bill. I do not think the issue of tattoos specifically makes it into the bill. It is more than ironic that Labour members, who supported the bill at the Law and Order Committee, were supportive of the inclusion of tattoos—that is made clear in the commentary on the bill. I am not sure about their inclusion; at the Committee stage we could look at whether to include tattoos. I note that National, when it was in Opposition, was not in favour of the inclusion of tattoos, gang words, and the like in the bill. Frankly, if people have a tattoo from a long time ago, it seems a hard ask to keep them out of the central business district of their city.

The Hon Clayton Cosgrove made some interesting points in his contribution to this debate. He made the point that gangs might change their names. They might go from being the Mongrel Mob to being the “Mongol Mob”, or the like. With respect to the member, I say that I doubt that will happen. Gangs like the Mongrel Mob and Black Power have had these names for some time. They are proud of their names and I doubt they would change them. As I say, I support this bill. I think it is local democracy in action.

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Labour) : I strongly support the underlying intention of this bill—what it is trying to do—but I strongly oppose it because it simply will not achieve its basic purposes and cannot achieve those basic purposes with the mechanisms that are suggested. I think it was Rodney Hide who said in the first reading on this bill that he was opposed to the legislation because what was objectionable about gangs was what they did, not what they wore. Now for some strange reason the ACT Party, which more and more is simply the political arm of the Sensible Sentencing Trust, has decided to do a complete U-turn and support the legislation for reasons that are beyond me given the coherence of the arguments put up by Mr Hide on the first reading of the bill.

Gangs are not acceptable organisations—a means for younger, middle-aged, and, increasingly, elderly people to organise themselves. They are a threat to ordinary citizens going about their lawful business. Gangs engage in criminal activity, they are heavily involved in the drug trade, they create disturbances in public places, and they are a blight upon our society. All of that is true, but what has this bill to do with solving those problems?

The first problem with this bill is a simple one, and it is directly contrary to what Mr Bridges argued. This is not a good bill precisely because it is a local bill. If the issue of gangs is an issue for New Zealand it needs to be resolved by a much broader range of policies across the entire country. We need to monitor what South Australia is doing in this regard and see whether that works, and if it works, it should be done across the country. All this bill will do at the very, very best—and not that—is shift the gangs in Wanganui to somewhere next door. They will become next door’s problem.

This measure is a kind of “nimby-ism” in criminal policy, which is completely counter-productive and still able to come back inside. We therefore need a much more coherent suite of policies that look at the underlying causes of the existence of gangs. We need to look at how we can transform people so that instead of being drawn into gangs at increasingly young ages, they are making a positive contribution to society. If the Government really wants to lift productivity, then it should note that transforming one person from a gang member to an active, involved person working in society is an enormous addition to our national productivity.

What does this bill do, intrinsically? It gives the power to the Wanganui District Council to make certain judgments. Those judgments will be a lawyer’s delight. The poor district council will take upon itself, at its own request, the power to determine whether people or groups of people are known to be engaged in criminal activity. Who are they to make that kind of decision and then issue prescriptions? Indeed, if that power were given to central government we would start using terminology like “police State” about those kinds of powers—prescribing to people on the basis of one’s belief, rather than on the proven facts taken before a court of law.

There used to be a notion in New Zealand that our legal system rests upon the right to a fair trial and upon some demonstration of proof, not upon some local councillors’ suspicions. The very people the Government totally distrusts to engage in resource management planning exercises and come up with the right solutions are those whom the Government trusts to make decisions about criminality and responsibility for criminal behaviour. It is a total contradiction, and it will lead to legal activity occurring, because the gangs are often quite wealthy organisations now. And with an oversupply of lawyers in this country there are no doubt plenty available to act on behalf of gangs, should they choose to do so. Many of Mr Bridges’ colleagues did not work for the Crown but, indeed, worked for the other side of the forces at work in this society in that particular respect.

We are going to have a law that says we cannot ban the whole of Wanganui from having gangs; only bits of it. Which bits will be banned? Well, the central business district will be, and that is fine, but I wonder which suburbs are most likely to have gang bans put upon them. Already, gangs are affecting people at the lower end of society—poor and working-class people—much more than others. We do not see many gangs wandering round Remuera or the Napier Hill suburbs. We see them in Maraenui and Mārewa in Napier. This bill will simply end up with the ghettoisation of gangs. It will constrain gangs within those very areas where they do the most damage already, and to the very people they do the most damage to already. No doubt many National Party supporters will say the bill has worked because the one gang member they saw the previous year, they have not seen again as a consequence of this bill.

What is even sillier in this bill is that the district council will have to put up signs saying: “Dear gang member, please don’t display your insignia.” Of course, some gang members will wonder what an insignia is, for a start. They may think it is their genitals; I have no idea—and they probably think that is illegal anyway. Is it just possible, given our knowledge of gang behaviour, that those signs will not last very long when they are put up and that the poor old ratepayers of Wanganui will find themselves paying over and over again for replacement of those signs? I am sure gang members will find those signs terribly frightening, given the history of gang behaviour and gang attitudes on these sorts of matters!

This bill is silly stuff. It is silly stuff that this House should not be supporting, and shame on those who continue to support these kinds of cosmetic measures that do nothing about the underlying issues. It is not a matter of wearing insignia; it is a matter only of displaying it. So what gang members have to do—to borrow an analogy from another aspect of peculiar behaviour in society—is put a plastic mack over the top of their insignia when within a forbidden area, wait until they get to the edge of it, and whip off the plastic mack. Then, lo and behold, there they are, proudly displaying their Mongrel Mob, Black Power, or Mothers Motor-cycle Club signs—and I hope they know which mothers they are talking about in Wanganui—and they are all hunky-dory and can carry on their behaviour.

Are we really passing legislation of this sort—and why? This is a classic example of the need to be seen to do something, as opposed to actually doing something that will actually address the issue. This measure is purely cosmetic. This is bravely running up to gang members, putting some lipstick on them, and saying they will look a lot nicer from now on and that because they look a lot nicer they will now behave a lot more nicely.

The reality is that in the suburbs of my city where there are large numbers of gang members, most of them do not need to be wearing their insignia for everybody to know they are Mongrel Bob and Black Power members. Most of those people are actually well known within the community already. Mr Borrows knows that that is true. He did not need to see insignia on various people to know who they were when he was a senior police officer within the area. He knew who they were. Even in very dim light at 100 paces he had a pretty good idea who he was talking about.

At the end of the day, Wanganui will end up being an experiment that will prove to be a failure. This bill will not solve Wanganui’s problems. We all want to solve the problems with gangs in Wanganui and in every one of our cities up and down this country. There is not a member in this House who does not want to resolve these problems, but some of us want to have a serious discussion about the broad range of policies that might actually do something.

I fully endorse what Tariana Turia said about the importance of restorative justice and alternative approaches in some of these areas. We are launched down the path of ever more punitive measures—some of them silly; some of them serious—yet we are not drawing the lesson that none of them is actually working at the end of the day.

SHANE ARDERN (National—Taranaki - King Country) : It is a great privilege to rise after the former Deputy Prime Minister and former deputy leader of Labour, which was in Government for 9 years. The interesting thing about listening to the previous contribution from Michael Cullen, articulate though it was, is that one would think that gangs had arrived in Wanganui for the first time last week, or in New Zealand for the first time last week. That was the Deputy Prime Minister of New Zealand up until a few months ago talking about the fact that local democracy—that is, the local Wanganui District Council—came forward and asked the local elected member, Chester Borrows, who is a good friend and neighbour of mine, to sponsor its bill in this House because it was so frustrated with the lack of action by the previous Government over the last 9 years on the matter of law and order. That is it in a nutshell. That is it. Why would local government bring forward a local bill on something that is clearly a law and order matter if it was possible for it to get some action from central government? That is the main point I would like to make.

The irony of that comment also goes back to the issue of who passed the 2002 Local Government Act. Who introduced that legislation, which gave local government the power to do such a thing? Who was that? Can anybody remember who was in Government during the time that the Local Government Act was passed? It was interesting to listen to the earlier contributions from Clayton Cosgrove and from the new member for Wellington Central, Grant Robertson, when they said they do not think this bill is a good thing, because it is piecemeal and applies just in Wanganui. They asked why, if we think this measure is a good idea, we do not pass it across the whole of New Zealand. Well, that is actually a fair point. I think that is a fair question. I think it is one that we should all in this Parliament take note of and listen to.

There is a good response from National. The response is that in the last 100 days this National Government has passed more legislation to do with law and order than the previous Labour Government did in 9 years. If this Government had brought a bill like the Wanganui District Council (Prohibition of Gang Insignia) Bill to this Parliament today, introduced it, and adopted it for New Zealand, members on the other side of the House would be screaming “Foul!” because we had not let it go through a thorough select committee process and given it the due diligence it required. They would say it was a breach of goodness knows which Act and had not been properly examined through that process. I say to former Labour Government members opposite, front-bench Labour members like Clayton Cosgrove, that they should be ashamed to come into this House, knowing that while in Government they supported the referral of this bill to the Law and Order Committee when that Government needed the numbers—like the support of the then chair of the committee, Ron Mark—and now that they do not need the numbers, they say this bill will not work, they do not agree with it, and they will oppose it.

I think the previous Deputy Prime Minister made some interesting comments about gang insignia, and how that will be identified and suchlike. I think they were quite valid comments. There are concerns about that issue, and the localisation of the legislation is a valid concern as well. But how on earth will we find out whether this measure works, unless we give this legislation a go and it is tried somewhere? Should we adopt it as a policy across New Zealand? I was very interested in the comments from the Hon Tariana Turia. She comes from the Wanganui area and knows it well. She also knows some of the concerns on both sides of the argument about whether this bill will work, but I cannot understand why she would not support her local authority, given that 65 percent of people voted to support it, under tight criteria imposed by the House. I do not know why she would not support this bill and give it a go. I ask members opposite what the risk is of giving it a go. What are the downsides? If the legislation turns out to be silly, it will not survive. Why not give it a go? I cannot understand the reasons given for not supporting it.

I think that Dr Cullen and I agree that bad cases create bad law. This issue came to a head because of a particularly bad case in Wanganui involving the shooting of an infant. That was probably the straw that broke the camel’s back. But I go back to my original point: that was after about 8 years of Labour Government rhetoric of what it was going to do in law and order, and absolutely no action or movement on that issue. I think members opposite need to take a look at that, and to decide to give this legislation a go and see whether it will work. People in this Parliament either agree with democracy or they do not—it is as simple as that. I am referring to the Labour members on the other side of the House.

Councillors in the local elected body in Wanganui have decided they have had enough of the gangs in their town. They are frustrated with central government not providing the area with the protection they think it deserves, and they have decided they are going to do something. They have used the powers they have within the local government legislation to bring forward a local bill. They have convinced their locally elected representative to bring it forward to the Parliament to see whether it can get support. He has done so. That is democracy; that is transparency. I cannot see why any person in this Parliament would not support the bill on that basis alone.

The other major issue that has not been properly canvassed in this debate so far is the process the council had to go through. It required 65 percent support from the local community. In this Parliament we pass laws with 51 percent support.

Chester Borrows: It is the Government’s popularity.

SHANE ARDERN: It is the Government’s popularity, and I think it is rising all the time. So if we take the other side of that, we are talking about around 35 or 45 percent—that is what the other parties have. So it is not too bad. That probably has nothing to do with the bill. The reality is that if we look at the high threshold that had to be met for this local authority to get this bill to the Parliament, it is hypocrisy for us not to support it. It is as simple as that, because, at the end of the day, that is democracy. If the previous Deputy Prime Minister is right and what he suggests happens, how long do we think it would be before that local authority, the Government, itself, or the police force, or all of the above came back to the Government and said that clearly this legislation would not work, or was not working, and that some further changes were needed?

Hopefully, under a carefully led National Government, a lot of the concerns that were raised and that have led to this bill will start to be addressed in our law and order policies, as they roll out. Some members made comments earlier about early intervention, and I ask whether they have been watching the news lately. Have they not been listening to what is being said and proposed by the newly elected Government in regard to early intervention with recidivist offenders in our society? Have they not heard any of that, do they just not agree with it, or do they think what their Government did for 9 years should continue for the next 9 years? I think the previous Deputy Prime Minister said that what was being done did not work. I am sure I am quoting him correctly. He said what was being done did not work, so why would the Labour members not want us to try something that, potentially, has an opportunity to work, when it is presented to them and is asked for by the members of the Wanganui community?

About 2 years ago, 12 Mongrel Mob members appeared at a depositions hearing, charged with the murder of 2-year-old Jhia Te Tua in Wanganui by shooting her with a .303 rifle. That was a tragic case. People responded to that. [Interruption] It is interesting that the member for Wellington Central interjects. A similar high-profile case involved Karl Kuchenbecker. The previous Minister of Justice in the Labour Government said we must do something. But nothing was done. The previous Government did have time to do something. That case particularly, that Government had time to act on, because it was a long time ago. Nothing was done. I ask members opposite what they would do if they were in Government today. That is what people ask. The answer is nothing.

This National Government intends to do something. We intend to support this bill. I commend the bill and the member in charge of it.

Hon SHANE JONES (Labour) : Kia ora anō tātou. Greetings to you, Mr Deputy Speaker. Firstly, I rise and acknowledge the member for Whanganui for bringing forward this local bill, the Wanganui District Council (Prohibition of Gang Insignia) Bill. I acknowledge his effort and the angst of the citizens of Wanganui over the scourge known as gangs. Unfortunately, it blights my part of the world, as well, and, although it causes me some consternation, I acknowledge the effort expended—forlornly, I fear and hope—by Michael Laws in bringing the bill to the House.

This bill, I genuinely believe, will worsen the gang situation in Wanganui. This bill will provide a platform for a greater level of notoriety amongst a predominantly younger group of members who are attracted to the wilder side of life. They will now know, as a consequence of this bill, that it is cool, a rite of passage, and actually a measure of distinction, not just to the gangs but to the wider community, to poke one’s fingers at a stupid bill that will never be fully implemented. It will enrich legions of lawyers as they move away from the Treaty trough into the gang insignia trough.

That is why I do not support this bill, but I acknowledge that there was no doubt a bit of soul-searching in the mind of Mr Borrows. As a former policeman he knows a heck of a lot about gangs, but in his heart of hearts he must know that passing an Act giving the ability to the council of Wanganui to regulate what the Māoris—predominantly the Māoris—of Wanganui can wear and where they can wear it is not a good recipe for productive race relations in Wanganui.

Secondly, gangs are fed by criminality. One does not get into a gang unless one is prepared to do serious harm. The reality, however, is that this bill will not bring an end to those offences. This bill will not bring an end to the harm those people do to their own children, to their wives, and to what is left of their parents. This bill is a gesture designed to mollify the anger of the people of Wanganui, but it will not deal with the scourge of gangs.

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

Hon SHANE JONES: Kia ora. Greetings, Mr Deputy Speaker. You are back from a satisfactory meal, no doubt. Let me pick up on what I said earlier. We thoroughly understand why the Mayor of Wanganui and the member for Whanganui felt obliged to respect the fears and anxieties of certain segments of the Wanganui community and bring forward this bill. It is important that we state that. It is not important that we buy into what Mr Ardern was saying—he prattled on about referenda, etc. Mr Laws held a referenda to murder what is left of the Māori language in Wanganui, and I do not see, on the other side of the House, a great deal of interest in continuing Michael Laws’ agenda in that respect. I say to members opposite that they should be very careful about using referenda for purposes that potentially create as much harm as good.

Rodney Hide stood in this Chamber and said he would never support this bill. Voices associated with the Sensible Sentencing Trust have said the opposite. Fortunately, the more that ACT members talk about law, order, and justice, the sooner we will see them go.

However, I will come back to the bill. The problem it is trying to deal with—gangs—is a very serious menace. A lot of the Pākehā members in the House possibly do not realise how deeply infiltrated gangs have become on marae and at major events and hui. I know that some of the gangs in Wanganui are not all tangata whenua, not all Māori. For example, when I was at Waitangi this year I saw a Hummer—the vehicle that Schwarzenegger drives around in—advertising a fight club. The fight club is only a façade and a front for the Headhunters—who, I understand, Hone Harawira is rapidly supporting because of their interest in kickboxing. That is another mark against my relation. The Headhunters are an example of a gang who do not wear insignia or a symbol but who peddle menace. They trade in drugs, and a disagreement over a small deal can lead to 2 weeks in hospital. In fact, I am beginning to fear for Mr Paul Holmes’ life, given the strong stance he has taken against that particular gang. That gang is undoubtedly connected to the gangs in Wanganui.

We may stop the wearing of insignia in a certain area, but lawyers will rock up and have a debate about that. A lawyer may rock up and say on behalf of a gang that the gang is no longer calling itself the “Dogs” but is now the “Kurīs”, and all the Māori and a host of other people in Wanganui will know that it is the same gang with a different name and label. It is a dangerous precedent to incite fear, anxiety, hatred, and hostility and to give people a false sense of belief that this bill will solve a very, very serious and hurtful situation.

I would be the first to agree with the people of Wanganui that a lot of the gang behaviour there has no place in any settled society. But the reality is that this bill, in the hands of clever recruiters, will be a new device for recruiting young gang members. How will they establish new credibility? They will get arrested for wearing their colours. Where will they be arrested? It will be in an area that will be defined after a long debate. I fear that ratepayers will have to absorb the cost as lawyers pound away at the local council as it seeks to define the area.

As a slight aside, a number of the herehere—the prisoners from the whare herehere, the prison, that is not very far from where I live at Ngāwhā—occasionally go to the Kaipara to dig kūmara. They have to do something, and there is a labour shortage in that regard. I am of the school of thought that if one wants to redeem oneself, then kia kaha. We should put out our hands to support such people. But if those people are going to constantly punch me in the nose, then I say “Goodnight, Irene.”—they should stay in the hīnaki for as long as they like. Those people are not allowed to wear gang insignia when they go to the Kaipara to dig kūmara. So what do they do? They all go with a red handkerchief, or a red T-shirt, or a red ring, or some other symbol that will not be described in this bill.

This bill is an understandable response to a source of menace in the local community, but, unfortunately, it will not—and I am disappointed that members on the other side of the House have not seen it for what it is—remedy the problem afflicting that area.

I tell the people of Wanganui that the majority of their gang members are rangatahi, young Māori. The people of Wanganui should not give the gangs a new platform from which to recruit further amongst themselves in order to make people’s lives more miserable. This bill is a nice try but we have a better answer. Kia ora tātou katoa.

JONATHAN YOUNG (National—New Plymouth) : Down at the end of my street in New Plymouth there is a sign that bans alcohol from being taken on to the beach. When the New Plymouth District Council put up that sign, I do not think it thought that the sign would solve the drinking problems in all of New Zealand. But it did think that the sign would preserve a public place for the peaceful enjoyment of individuals and families from the abuse that can come from excessive drinking.

The Wanganui District Council (Prohibition of Gang Insignia) Bill will not resolve the issues of violent crime or criminal behaviour by gangs in New Zealand. I do not think that that is the intention of the bill. I think the intention is to enable the people of Wanganui to recover their city centre and parks for their peaceful enjoyment, just as the New Plymouth District Council wants to preserve the beach. The issues are intimidation and violence. Perhaps we could call this bill restorative justice—the people want their city centre and parks restored to them for the purpose of their enjoyment. They probably feel that this measure is just.

Why ban alcohol from a beach area? It is because it is a catalyst, a precursor, to disruptive behaviour. One thing that has been identified in Wanganui is that insignia—the identification of opposing gangs—can be a significant precursor to violent and disruptive behaviour. The bill states that we want to preserve the Wanganui city centre and parks from the particular behaviour that puts the Wanganui people at risk and removes from them the ability to peacefully enjoy some of the beautiful parts of their city. This legislation will not push the gangs up to Hāwera or New Plymouth. This bill will not stop a gang member from entering the city centre or a park as long as he or she is not wearing the insignia that can so easily inflame reaction and conflict.

Anybody can enjoy the benefit of swimming and sunbathing on Fitzroy Beach, as I did a couple of Sundays ago. On that same day, somebody spotted a great white in the surf—it was not me, as my son told me. But if one comes to that beach with alcohol, then it is a different story.

When it comes to human rights in the story I am telling about New Plymouth, I ask whether we should uphold the rights of the people who are drunk or the rights of the people who want to enjoy the beach. What about the rights of the 65 percent of people in Wanganui who have said they want the right to peaceful enjoyment of their city? Do we deny that to them because of the huge issue of gang violence in our nation? We have a huge issue. I acknowledge the mayor and councillors of Wanganui, the member for Whanganui, and the Wanganui District Council for having the courage to address this issue.

This morning the Commissioner of Police, Howard Broad, said to the Law and Order Committee, when indicating the vexing issues facing the police, that violent offending continues to be a pressure point for the police. In other words, this is the greatest issue stretching the resources and capabilities of our police force. We all acknowledge this. We have heard in this debate tonight that New Zealand has some 88 gangs in existence. This issue needs a comprehensive and cohesive solution. It requires serious discussion, because it is a significant problem that seems to be escalating.

We are living in a time of an unprecedented increase in crime—violent crime, in particular—in this country. Physical violence has increased by 47 percent over the last decade. New Zealanders know that. Currently, we have 17,000 more violent offences per year—a violent crime every 9½ minutes, a sexual attack every 3½ hours, and a robbery every 3½ hours. The rate of kidnapping or abduction has increased, and that of grievous assaults has nearly doubled. The number of robberies is up by 57 percent, serious assaults are up by 54 percent, intimidation and threats are up by 67 percent, and sex crimes have risen by 12.5 percent, and we have a district council in Wanganui that wants to do something about it.

I think that all of us in this House support the overall intent of this bill, which is to make our community safer, and I think we ought not to be naive and think that this bill is the panacea for all our woes. We should acknowledge it for what it is. It is the response of a community that is saying it wants its city centre and parks to be places where its citizens can go for peaceful enjoyment. I think that that is a reasonable request.

If we do not think that it is a reasonable request, then why do we not tell councils to remove the signs that ban alcohol from public places? Alcohol leads to drunkenness, which leads to disruptive and often violent behaviour; we are all in agreement that we do not want to see that happening in our communities. Although there is nothing wrong with having alcohol in our homes, and just as everybody has the right to wear what they want to wear, the issue is where we do these things and what they incite in our communities. When Wanganui gangs wear insignia that incites violence because it is antagonistic towards other gangs, then we should give the Wanganui District Council the ability to keep its public places safe.

This bill is interesting legislation, because it brings two very important aspirations in our country into possible conflict with each other. We have the aspiration of being free from violence and intimidation, which we would all agree is a pillar of a truly free and healthy society. On the other hand, we believe that a truly free and healthy society must protect another such pillar, which is freedom of expression, whether it is spoken, written, or expressed through artistic or symbolic form, as a gang patch may be described. This is where the serious discussion really needs to go. There are times when balance and equity are lost between those two pillars, and one becomes more dominant than the other. Some will say that the right to wear a patch, which is a form of freedom of expression, is a defensible right, a right that should not be taken away, because once freedom of expression is lost many other losses of freedom soon follow. But when freedom of expression becomes more important than freedom from intimidation and violence, then we have an issue that warrants scrutiny and discussion.

This bill brings into scrutiny the balance between the freedom of expression of gang members to wear insignia and the freedom of citizens from intimidation and violence, where the presence of a gang’s insignia contributes significantly to intimidation and violence in the community.

Hon Shane Jones: Speak from the heart.

JONATHAN YOUNG: I am, thank you. We all agree that freedoms can justifiably be reduced in the cause of preserving public safety, but the question is where the line is to be drawn. I think the people of Wanganui have drawn that line. I think they have done it intelligently, knowing that this bill is not a comprehensive answer to the broader issues. But they are saying that they want their city centre and their parks to be places of peaceful enjoyment for all, and I say that we should give that to them. Thank you.

Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Hunua) : I move, That the Franklin District Council (Contribution to Funding of Museums) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I am pleased to sponsor this bill on behalf of the Franklin District Council because it is designed to remedy an unfair anomaly of rating, whereby residents living in the Waikato part of the Franklin District Council are rated not only by Environment Waikato but also with an extra levy for the Auckland Museum and the Museum of Transport and Technology. I am hopeful that the bill will pass its first reading and be referred on to the Local Government and Environment Committee for consideration.

Those ratepayers who live in Tuakau, Port Waikato, Pōkeno, and the vast areas south of the Waikato River unfairly receive a double whammy of rates, where if equity prevailed they would be subjected to rates only from Environment Waikato. The explanation of this bill is well described in the general policy statement, and it is appropriate to paraphrase some of that statement. The bill does indeed seek to ensure that in calculating the levies payable by the Franklin District Council to the Auckland War Memorial Museum and the Museum of Transport and Technology, any part of the district—

Hon Clayton Cosgrove: Ergh!

Dr PAUL HUTCHISON: I was laughing at the emanation from Mr Cosgrove. Yes—it is of concern to me. I will just say that again: the bill seeks to ensure that in calculating the levies payable by the Franklin District Council to the Auckland War Memorial Museum and the Museum of Transport and Technology, any part of Franklin District that is not within the boundaries of the Auckland Regional Council is excluded.

The Auckland War Memorial Museum Act 1996 and the Museum of Transport and Technology Act 2000 require the Franklin District Council to make a contribution to the funding of both museums. Franklin District sits over the boundary of both the Auckland Regional Council and the Waikato Regional Council, known as Environment Waikato.

Historically, the Auckland War Memorial Museum Maintenance Act 1979, which is now repealed, set out in a schedule numerous local authorities upon which the levy was charged, and the differential to be applied, depending on their distance from the museum. In 1980 the geographical area over which the contribution was levied was reviewed by Parliament, and under the provisions of the Auckland War Memorial Museum Amendment Act 1980, the schedule was amended. The amended schedule contained considerably fewer authorities upon which the contribution was levied; clearly, it was recognised that some limit had to be placed on the area from which to levy.

Hon Shane Jones: What about Mount Eden park?

Dr PAUL HUTCHISON: What does Mount Eden park have to do with it? Perhaps the member could explain. Yes, there does seem to be a lack of rationality from the backbenches of Labour.

The Auckland region, as it now stands, was constituted by the Final Reorganisation Schedule (Scheme), Auckland Region, dated June 1989. That document sets the boundaries for both Franklin District and the Auckland region. Previously, the Valuer-General was involved in the provision of approved equalised capital values for the purpose of the museum levy, limited to that part of the district lying within the Auckland region. However, that requirement was removed with the introduction of the new Local Government (Rating) Act 2002. In the absence of the Valuer-General, each museum has interpreted its Act to mean that the Franklin District Council’s share is based on the entire Franklin District, and is not limited to only that part of it lying within the Auckland regional boundary. However, the legislative change has not altered the geographical area upon which the levy should be assessed.

The Franklin District Council believes that this historical accident means that the museums are gaining a windfall at the cost of residents living outside the Auckland region.

Hon Shane Jones: But Rodney says they’ll all be a part of Auckland soon, anyway!

Dr PAUL HUTCHISON: Indeed, he does. But the effect of this change alone meant an increase of 25 percent in the Franklin District Council’s share of the levies from 1 July 2004. A windfall gain is not entirely correct, and I will explain why it is not in a moment.

If passed, this bill will ensure that levies for the museums are calculated only on the basis of the population of the area of Franklin District that is contained within the Auckland region; that is, not those properties that are within the Environment Waikato region.

Yesterday, I was almost overwhelmed by what I am sure was the generosity of spirit of the Labour chief whip, Darren Hughes. He suggested that as this bill is the result of a specific anomaly that clearly needs to be remedied, Labour would be prepared to have it pass all its stages this evening. This would have been an interesting precedent, but I understand there are some members who feel the bill at least requires select committee consideration. What would be helpful to those ratepayers who are adversely affected is if the Labour Opposition would assist to ensure the bill goes speedily through the select committee process and expeditiously through the second and third readings, even if it does not all happen this evening.

It is not correct to say the museums are gaining a windfall at the cost of residents living outside the Auckland region. It is important to note that this bill does not affect the actual levy that the board makes annually; it affects only the way in which the levy is distributed among the seven contributing territorial authorities that make up the Auckland Regional Council. According to the process followed by the Auckland Museum Trust Board, a formula on levies is reached for each territorial authority, so that any decrease in the constituent elements of Franklin District will be accordingly redistributed and will increase the amount proportionately levied on the other six contributing authorities, and will also result in a small increase in the individual ratepayer amount required of those Franklin District ratepayers who live within any newly defined reduced district. That is fair and appropriate.

For 2008-09, Franklin has levied $750,000 for the Auckland Museum and $290,000 for the Museum of Transport and Technology. Of that, 38.7 percent, or $299,920 comes from Waikato ratepayers. There is no doubt that if such unfair levies were set in other parts of New Zealand, grave ratepayer disquiet, and even internecine warfare, could arise. I believe that the affected ratepayers have been very tolerant of a wrong that has been perpetrated on them, and I am encouraged that having written and/or spoken to all members of this House, there will be good support for them. In my view, it is absolutely appropriate to support this bill, irrespective of what might happen through the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Auckland Governance and the Auckland Regional Amenities Funding Act, as decisions on those issues may take some time. Sadly, when central Auckland bodies seek to perpetrate an unfairness in rating such as that for which remedy is sought in this bill, it does no good in terms of the way that rural communities think about the central body. I would personally like to see the Auckland Regional Council, or whichever body replaces it, having just as good a reputation for its appreciation of rural communities as Environment Waikato does.

I would be most grateful for the support of the House for this bill in this first reading. It is designed to rectify a wrong.

PHIL TWYFORD (Labour) : I rise to speak to the Franklin District Council (Contribution to Funding of Museums) Amendment Bill, and I say at the outset that Labour supports this bill after extensive negotiations and consultation. It is an uncontroversial attempt to address some of the anomalies in the law that have seen some ratepayers in Franklin unfairly penalised. As the member for Hunua rightly said, they are subject to a double whammy of rates for services both in the Waikato and in Auckland. This situation has arisen because Franklin lies between the Auckland Regional Council area and that of Environment Waikato. I think approximately half of Franklin’s residents live on the Auckland side and the other half on the Waikato side. We know that when elephants mate, the grass can get well and truly trampled and no doubt that is how the residents of Franklin feel about this issue. I am not sure that internecine warfare is about to break out in Franklin—I certainly hope not; it may well when the report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Auckland Governance is released at the end of this month—but hopefully this bill will go some way towards staving off the threat of internecine warfare.

Some councils in Auckland had to be dragged kicking and screaming along with certain members on the other side of the House to pay their fair share for certain important regional amenities—and the member for North Shore will know what I am talking about; he voted for the Auckland Regional Amenities Funding Bill in the face of considerable local opposition, I would imagine. Certain regional amenities in Auckland like the observatory and planetarium, the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra, the Auckland Rescue Helicopter Trust, Opera New Zealand, and the New Zealand National Maritime Museum are very important organisations. All these fantastic organisations were supported by the Auckland Regional Amenities Funding Act, yet, as I said, many Auckland councils had to be dragged kicking and screaming.

On the face of that, it is an unfair irony that some of the good ratepayers of Franklin have ended up paying twice for regional amenities in Auckland. I am talking about the Auckland War Memorial Museum and the Museum of Transport and Technology. It is not an insubstantial amount of money. For the 2008-09 year, Franklin was levied $755,000 for the Auckland War Memorial Museum—a fine institution—and a further $290,000 for the Museum of Transport and Technology. Of that money, 28 percent, or approximately $299,000, came from Waikato ratepayers. That is not an insubstantial amount. The intent of this bill from the member for Hunua is that Franklin ratepayers who live outside Auckland and inside Environment Waikato’s boundaries no longer carry that burden. It is fair and reasonable, and that is why Labour is supporting this bill. Franklin ratepayers living on the Auckland side of the district have not suffered the same burden. They have not been levied for Waikato amenities.

As spokesperson on Auckland issues and an Auckland-based MP, I am keen to support this bill in the interests of soothing any potential resentment against Auckland or Aucklanders—fearful of the prospect of internecine warfare breaking out. Such feelings will no doubt become more sensitive as we approach the delivery of the report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Auckland Governance, and the member for North Shore knows what I am talking about. It might be worth reflecting for a moment on this issue of boundaries and how vexing they are for people living in and around Auckland. The royal commission’s report is very eagerly awaited, and expectations have been raised by a very fine panel of commissioners who, over the last year or so, have been hearing submissions, engaging in dialogue, and travelling internationally. In fact, the report is so eagerly awaited that there is a growing tide of resentment that the National Government apparently intends to hold on to the report of the royal commission for up to 2 weeks so it can politically massage and manage the public reception of the findings. I know that Auckland’s citizens and ratepayers, and the elected leaders of Auckland, are keen to see that report and to have a proper public debate about it, because it is important. It is important for our democracy, and it is important for Auckland. I am concerned that the Government, at this stage, intends holding on to the report and coming up with its own formulations so it can compromise the public debate that will follow its release.

The very situation that has imposed on some Franklin ratepayers the unjust burden that this bill seeks to lift—that is, being sandwiched between Auckland and the Waikato like some kind of pre - World War II Poland—places the Franklin District Council in a very interesting position with regard to the impending changes coming down the barrel. The Franklin District Council wants to remain a separate and independent entity—separate from Auckland. Franklin treasures its rural status. We can drive through the district of Franklin and see the vege stalls on the side of the road; it is no urban latte-sipping community. The council, in its submission to the royal commission, argues that Franklin is rural and it wants to stay that way. It does not want a bar of Auckland. It proposes, and in this it is backed by Environment Waikato, that the Auckland regional boundaries be pushed northwards, leaving Franklin entirely within the area of Environment Waikato and free from the clutches of evil Auckland.

On the other hand, the Auckland Regional Council makes the argument, and I think it is a good argument, that if the region is to successfully manage growth it is essential that both the urban area and the peri-urban area are managed in an integrated manner. In a city the size of Auckland there is always intense pressure to develop the rural green areas on the fringes of the city. With limited tools to manage this growth, there is likely to be continued and intensified pressure on district councils like the Franklin District Council—and the Rodney District Council is in a very similar situation. With a likelihood that this National Government in a misguided approach to the issue of metropolitan urban limits will free up more land for housing, in a misguided hope that that will somehow make housing more affordable, this pressure on Franklin will get worse. I raise this matter because the issue of boundaries has caused the very problem this bill sets out to fix. I believe we are bound to be back here before very long to debate the issue of boundaries, as the royal commission’s report is released. [Interruption] I do not know when it will be released; I am not sure. Maybe there are some colleagues in the House tonight who can tell us when the Government will release the royal commission’s report. I know that the people of Auckland, which includes the people of Franklin, are very keen to see that report.

The museums of Auckland, which some members on the other side of the House will probably find themselves in as political relics one day, have benefited handsomely from these legislative anomalies. Goodness knows, the museums could do with a few bob. It is a shame that some of the residents and ratepayers of Franklin have had to subsidise this activity. I note that the bill does not give Franklin’s Waikato ratepayers a refund for their contribution in recent years. I wonder why. The ratepayers of Franklin deserve our thanks for that. I commend this bill to the House, and Labour will support it.

Hon DARREN HUGHES (Senior Whip—Labour) : I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I seek your indulgence, just to clarify a procedural point. I heard the member who is in charge of the bill, Dr Hutchison, say that there had been a suggestion from the Labour Party that the bill would go through its first, second, and third readings tonight. I want to clarify to the House the private conversation I had with Dr Hutchison. I said that following the bill’s first reading tonight and referral to a select committee, it might be possible to work with the Business Committee to take the remaining stages as one question. I clarified that point with the chief Government whip this morning, but I was concerned to hear on the radio that Dr Hutchison had implied that I said the bill would go through in one stage tonight, with no select committee process. That is not the consensual offer I was trying to make to him, and I am a bit disappointed that he reported it to the House in that way.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you for that clarification. The remaining speeches are of 5 minutes. I will ring the bell when there is 1 minute remaining.

ALLAN PEACHEY (National—Tāmaki) : I am delighted to be able to rise and commend to the House the Franklin District Council (Contribution to Funding of Museums) Amendment Bill. I will begin my remarks by paying tribute to my very fine colleague Dr Paul Hutchison, the member of Parliament for Hunua. Dr Hutchison is the very finest kind of parliamentarian. He is highly respected in his community. He was returned to this House with a huge majority, something that members opposite do not know very much about—being respected in one’s electorate and having a large majority. I suggest that rather than squawking from the wings, they should reflect on why a parliamentarian like Dr Hutchison is so widely respected in his constituency—something those members know very little about.

Hon Clayton Cosgrove: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I draw your attention to relevance. Although I commend Mr Peachey for paying tribute to his colleague in glowing terms, the bill is not actually about him. Even the member for Hunua would agree that it is not actually about him. We are discussing the content of the bill.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I thank the member. I will ask the member to speak on the bill.

ALLAN PEACHEY: I will be very delighted to speak on the bill.

This bill comes about because of faulty legislation, the Local Government (Rating) Act 2002, passed under the previous Labour Government. We all know that taxation in any form is not good. Double taxation is deplorable. A major injustice has been done to the residents of Franklin District—the ones who live outside the boundaries of the Auckland region—in that they have had to pay twice. That is not right. It is important that this House gives its most urgent attention to correcting that situation. That is what Dr Hutchison is doing tonight, with our support.

It is pleasing to hear the Labour Party will support this bill. It is good to see people tidying up after their mistakes. It is good to see the Labour Party, which has been so bent on “tax and spend”, at least show a little acknowledgment that double taxation of the type that the residents of Franklin District have been subjected to is not right and needs to be corrected. Mr Deputy Speaker, I noted with interest your patience at the irrelevance of the first Labour speaker’s speech. He is obviously a new member in the House, but he seemed to be totally preoccupied with Auckland regional governance and not with the issues in the bill. It is not acceptable to want to use the royal commission in Auckland or the Auckland Regional Amenities Funding Act to delay, slow up, or frustrate the efforts of this House to bring justice and fairness to the people of Franklin District. Thank you.

Hon NANAIA MAHUTA (Labour—Hauraki-Waikato) : I rise to speak to the Franklin District Council (Contribution to Funding of Museums) Amendment Bill, and for the sake of clarity I reiterate what the previous speaker from the Labour team, Phil Twyford, said: Labour will be supporting this bill. Having heard the contribution from the local MP and sponsor of the bill, Paul Hutchison, I say that I tend to agree that he is well regarded by the Franklin District Council—so much so that people think he should be a Minister. Sadly, that is not the case.

However, when we look at the issue that is being—

Hon Judith Collins: He’s got more chance than that member.

Hon NANAIA MAHUTA: We look forward to the reshuffle on the other side of the House, with the endorsement of that Minister that Paul Hutchison will soon be a Minister. I thank her very much.

This bill seeks to rectify something that was an issue through the election campaign. Dr Hutchison will know that I, too, represent the area that the Franklin District is in, and that jurisdictional issues come up when we look at boundaries. Always legislation tends to have an unintended consequence on boundaries, whether they are local government boundaries or iwi boundaries, and there are many examples of things that are in the grey area. This is one of them. We will support this bill because it rectifies an anomaly. When we look at the Franklin District, we see that it is a fine and fantastic model of a can-do attitude. We have market gardens, the Glenbrook steel mill, and thriving local businesses; the district really wants to stand out and apart from Auckland’s growing reach. The point was well made that what happens in the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Auckland Governance will have an impact on Franklin. Let us hope that it is not a negative one, because this district sees itself as a real player in and contributor to the regional economy and, certainly, to the peripheral gains in the Auckland isthmus.

I raise the point as to why this anomaly should be rectified. Both Dr Hutchison and I attended the opening of the local library - museum - art gallery in Pukekohe some time ago. The facility was supported by the Glenbrook steel mill, and was opened at a time when the Hon Judith Tizard was a Minister. One of the things that stood out was that the community itself had evidently invested in its own gains and in what it wanted to see happen in the community. I reiterate that this community punches well above its weight and is doing some fine things.

I am very pleased that residents within the Environment Waikato boundary—in Tuakau, out in Onewhero, and out along the Waikato River in Pōkeno—will no longer have to contribute in the way that they have been levied for previously. Sadly, none of those costs can be recouped for those ratepayers, but the most important thing is that they can continue to support the investments that Environment Waikato has made within that region, and pay only one levy. It would be a bit of a myth to say that if one is not in the peripheral boundaries of the Auckland communities, one does not visit any of the museums in Auckland. I would say, and I am sure that Paul Hutchison would agree with me, that a great number of families from those Environment Waikato communities have visited Auckland museums, including the Museum of Transport and Technology, because they hold a lot of family events and a lot of very interesting events that many families would travel up to Auckland for. But I certainly believe that those people should pay only one set of rates—the rates of either Auckland Regional Council or Environment Waikato. The bill seeks to rectify that situation, and I am happy to support it.

SUE BRADFORD (Green) : Although the Green Party will be supporting the Franklin District Council (Contribution to Funding of Museums) Amendment Bill through its first reading and going to a select committee, it seems a little strange that the issues it covers have had to make it all the way to Parliament to be dealt with. The fact that the legislation that seems to be the source of the current problem—the Local Government (Rating) Act 2002—did not take into account the fact that some Franklin residents live in the Waikato region, rather than the Auckland region, is very odd. I was not one of the MPs who sat on the select committee dealing with the Local Government (Rating) Act at the time, and I wonder whether there was any real reason why the matter was not sorted out then.

It is a bit unfortunate that the Franklin District Council has had to go to all the trouble of getting a local bill into Parliament—and that Dr Paul Hutchison has had to go to all this trouble, as well—in a bid to resolve an anomaly that should have been blindingly apparent back in 2002. It does appear odd that people living in the part of Franklin that is inside the Waikato Regional Council area should have to pay towards the cost of the Auckland War Memorial Museum and the Museum of Transport and Technology, especially when that was not the case prior to the 2002 law going through.

There are a few counterarguments, however, and, being a Green, I feel obliged to make them. Firstly, some people feel that the Auckland Museum and the Museum of Transport and Technology are major facilities to which many people in Franklin and their visitors gravitate at times—as Nanaia Mahuta referred to before—just as people in Rodney, Waitakere, and the North Shore go to the Auckland Museum and the Museum of Transport and Technology at times. Many ratepayers in Rodney, Waitakere, and the North Shore feel just as aggrieved about paying for the museums in the city as do the residents of the Waikato part of Franklin, but it is our Green Party position that there are institutions that need to be supported on a region-wide basis. It is then, of course, a question of where we draw the lines.

Secondly, the Waikato Regional Council does not make any similar charge for its museums in the way Auckland does, so this is not a situation in which residents in the Waikato part of Franklin have to pay twice—once for museums in Auckland and once for museums in Hamilton.

Thirdly, if this bill is passed, it looks as though residents of Franklin who live within the Auckland Regional Council boundaries will have to pay more out of their rates than they do at present, as will ratepayers throughout the Auckland Regional Council region, to make up the difference.

However, looking at the overall picture, the Green Party at this stage recognises that a fundamental inequity is involved. It is a question of where the line should be drawn for regional funding, and there is no reason why the citizens of the Waikato Regional Council part of Franklin should have to pay Auckland Regional Council tithes when, for example, the citizens of those parts of the Coromandel district closest to Auckland do not have to pay tithes. Their access to Auckland’s facilities would probably be about the same.

I also hope that once the royal commission on Auckland’s governance has reported back and we find out what it is proposing in detail, there will be a way in the future to resolve these kinds of issues a lot more quickly, simply, and fairly than through the long-drawn-out, clumsy, expensive, and time-consuming process of pursuing a local bill like this one through Parliament.

Hon Dr PITA SHARPLES (Co-Leader—Māori Party) : Tēnā koe, Mr Deputy Speaker. It would be a brave Aucklander who would go to the people of Ngāti Maru, to Ngāti Pāoa, to Ngāti Tamaterā, to Ngāi Tai, or to Waikato, and tell them that, in fact, they are all Aucklanders. I am going to say right upfront that, as the MP for Tāmaki Makaurau, I certainly am not about to head into the heart of King Country and start stamping around, yet, to all intents and purposes, that is what we have been saying to the communities of Franklin. We have been saying to them all that it is their obligation to pay levies to support the Auckland War Memorial Museum and the Museum of Transport and Technology. Fortunately, because of this Franklin District Council (Contribution of Funding to Museums) Bill, that will change.

I say at the outset that the Māori Party’s decision to support this bill does not in any way represent any slight to either museum. They are both icons. The Auckland War Memorial Museum, on the hill known as Pukekawa, is part of the pride and joy of Tāmaki Makaurau. Established back in 1852—not long after the Treaty—it has distinguished itself through its Māori artefact displays, Pasifika collections, major social and military history archives, and natural history resources. It hosts millions of objects and it welcomes well over half a million people each year. Then there is the Museum of Transport and Technology, which is an interactive museum with over 300,000 items in its collection. It is a fantastic chronicle of transport, technology, and our social history, for future generations to observe. So I have no questions about the quality of the resource that we have within these two museums.

This bill is, however, a bill to aid and assist justice and fairness. And it is an excellent time to be talking about due access to justice on the day that we have announced that we will complete a ministerial review of the controversial Foreshore and Seabed Act by July 2009. This is a day on which fairness once again has meaning. And so it is with this legislation. This legislation proposes to correct the legal anomaly in which all the residents of the Franklin District are required to pay a levy to support these two museums, even those residents who fall outside the boundaries of the Auckland Regional Council. Today we start the process that will rectify this wrong—the wrong that residents living outside the Auckland region have been inappropriately rated for some years. As a result of this bill, in the calculation of levies, the new definition will now exclude any part of the district of the Franklin District Council that is not within the boundaries of the Auckland Regional Council.

The Māori Party supports this bill. It is a fair bill, a good bill.

COLIN KING (National—Kaikōura) : I speak in support of the Franklin District Council (Contribution to Funding of Museums) Amendment Bill. The merits of this bill have been well and truly canvassed. I want to focus on where we have found ourselves subsequent to the Local Government (Rating) Act 2002. Prior to that Act, the Valuer-General made sure that the allocation of rates payable from people who lived in those parts of the Franklin District Council area or the Waikato Regional Council area was at an appropriate rate. However, subsequent to the 2002 Act, the position of Valuer-General was done away with and the two museums interpreted the situation in such a way that those within the Franklin District Council area should pay. That is what we are talking about.

This bill has two parts. The first pertains to an amendment to the Auckland War Memorial Museum Act 1996, and the second is an amendment to the Museum of Transport and Technology Act 2000. When we dwell on it, we see that those two museums have Acts governing them. That indicates the iconic nature of those museums. As we have just heard from the co-leader of the Māori Party Pita Sharples, these are iconic institutions of New Zealand. However, that does not permit them to leverage funds out of a region in a way that is not justifiable. That is why we have this bill.

It is quite interesting that the two Acts being amended are of a similar structure. How will it mechanically work? When we look at clause 7, “Interpretation”, we see that in its appropriate alphabetical order we will have the word “district” included. Under “Interpretation” in the original Acts, we have interpretations of “Annual plan”, “Board”, “Contributing authorities”, “Director”, “Electoral College”, “Establishment day”, “Financial year”, “Museums”, and “Society”. All of those things are laid out according to their definition and their interpretation. In between “Director” and “Electoral College”, the bill inserts the word “district” and gives it a definition. That definition will then apply to that particular part of the Franklin District Council area.

It should work very well. It is in no way a slight on the two museums in question. Being a trustee of a museum myself, I say that a very important part of a museum’s work and its value is to ensure that it has a robust business plan and that it can budget to fund itself. We have a lot of museums in New Zealand, and we are beginning to value the contribution they make to our society and culture. Certainly, it is the way we celebrate the past while we look to the future. This bill is addressing an anomaly that has arisen, and I believe it is well-thought-through. It is indicative that from time to time—with the configuration of New Zealand tied up as it is by regional councils and suchlike—there can be an overlap and the sort of problem outlined in the bill happens.

It gives me great pleasure to support my colleague Dr Hutchison to get this bill well and truly on its way. I take great heart that members on the other side of the House see the wisdom of this bill, and that they will work to progress it speedily through the House. Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.

MOANA MACKEY (Labour) : I am happy to stand and take a call on the Franklin District Council (Contribution to Funding of Museums) Amendment Bill. Despite the fact that often these local bills are not very controversial, they are, in fact, very important to the communities that support them and send them to the House. It is appropriate that we take the time here to acknowledge the work of the Franklin District Council in bringing this bill to the House. I also acknowledge the member for Hunua, Dr Paul Hutchison, for the extensive amount of work that he has done in bringing this legislation into the House. I thought the member who is sponsoring this bill gave a very fair and balanced speech in support of it. What a shame, then, that he was followed up by Allan Peachey! What a real shame! All the statesmanship of the Minister who should have been, Dr Paul Hutchison, was blown away in a bizarre speech by Mr Peachey, who stood up and, after regaling Dr Hutchison as if he were dead and Mr Peachey were at his wake, then announced that all taxation was wrong. Clearly, he meant all taxation apart from his parliamentary salary, which he is happy to accept on behalf of New Zealand taxpayers.

That harked back to a very similar debate that we had in this House last year on the Auckland Regional Amenities Funding Bill, which is very much in sync with the issue we are dealing with here, the Auckland museums. Those provisions were based on the same system of funding that we had for another 10 or so organisations that were facing significant problems with funding in the Auckland region. They were at extreme risk of falling over, if they did not have some form of permanent funding, which was done for them through that legislation. I remember back to that time when National members supported the bill, but every single speaker who got up opposed it. They voted for it in the end, but every speaker who got up opposed it. I thought Mr Allan Peachey standing up to claim that all taxation was bad, and should be done away with, really did hark back to that debate. Mr Peachey then chastised my colleague Phil Twyford for talking about Auckland. I am not sure whether he realises that the museums covered by this bill are in Auckland, or that my colleague Phil Twyford is a very effective spokesperson on Auckland issues for our party.

Hon Judith Collins: He can’t be much worse than the last one.

MOANA MACKEY: The honourable member Mrs Collins might care to tell us when the Government will release the report on the royal commission on Auckland governance if she wants to chip in on my speech. Does she want to tell us that?

Hon Judith Collins: No, I just want to know about the former spokesperson. That’s what I want to know.

MOANA MACKEY: No, she does not want to tell us that. She just wants to make some inane comment, and to not tell the good people of Auckland when they can expect the report on that royal commission. In fact, that is very pertinent to this debate. We had this debate when we considered the Auckland Regional Amenities Funding Bill. The debate was that it would be far better if all these things could be dealt with in a less piecemeal approach when we try to support organisations that are at risk of falling over, that need some form of permanent funding, and that are organisations that members in this House support. There is no question about that—apart from Dail Jones from New Zealand First, I believe, who was quite adamant that we should not be giving those organisations that money. It all came down to the royal commission, because some people thought that we should wait for the royal commission. If it had not been for the fact that those organisations were at serious risk of falling over financially in the meantime, the Local Government and Environment Committee that I chaired may well have decided that the best path to take would be to wait for a royal commission.

In saying that, we need to recognise that the terms of reference of the royal commission did not cover this issue. We do not know. We have not seen the report. It may well be that they have decided that they should look at the issue of funding of all amenities currently funded by this and other means, but we did not know that. So as a committee we decided that we needed to go ahead and make sure that those organisations did not fall over. At that select committee I was very impressed with the Mayor of the Franklin District Council and his submission on the Auckland Regional Amenities Funding Bill. We had a lot of people come along and say: “No, we don’t want it, absolutely not.” The mayor came along and gave a very good submission. It was a very fair and balanced submission. That does actually count for something, when one sees legislation involving the Franklin District Council, and one remembers how impressed one was with the representatives of that area, and how balanced they were, and how they did not just back themselves into one corner and say “No way.” So I acknowledge the mayor and congratulate the council on that. We would like to see this bill passed as quickly as possible. As my colleague Darren Hughes pointed out, we did not actually suggest that it should not be referred to a select committee.

Hon RODNEY HIDE (Leader—ACT) : I rise on behalf of the ACT Party to support the Franklin District Council (Contribution to Funding of Museums) Amendment Bill, and to commend Dr Paul Hutchison for introducing this bill. We often find that people complain, moan, jump up and down in this place, and then do not do anything to fix the problem that they are complaining about—but not Dr Paul Hutchison. He has produced a bill to deal with what is clearly an anomaly and an unjust imposition on the people of Franklin District Council, who, first, have to pay for the regional amenities of Auckland, and, second, have to pay Environment Waikato. This bill makes sure that those people have to pay only once, which is clearly fair and equitable. That is why the ACT Party is supporting this bill’s referral to the select committee, and, in particular, is commending the member for introducing it to the House.

I agree with the previous speaker that whatever the Royal Commission on Auckland Governance reports may well impact on this issue, because the royal commission will be looking at the boundaries of Auckland, and the issues that that raises may cause this bill to become redundant, but I do not think that we should hold back on an opportunity to fix an anomaly.

Phil Twyford: When can we read the report?

Hon RODNEY HIDE: Mr Phil Twyford will be able to read it when, first of all, the royal commission has finished it, and, then, the Government releases it.

Phil Twyford: The people of Auckland want to read it when you read it.

Hon RODNEY HIDE: The people of Auckland are actually far more interested in getting a good result for Auckland. It saddens me that that member calls out like this when he belongs to a party that was in Government for 9 years and—

Hon Member: Did nothing.

Hon RODNEY HIDE: —did nothing about Auckland except to wring its hands and make it worse. Labour established a ministerial post of Auckland issues in the name of Judith Tizard. She was so outstandingly successful that the Labour Government of the time thought that the work was done, disestablished the post of Minister responsible for Auckland Issues, then kicked for touch by not making one decision but calling for a royal commission that would not even report in the lifetime of that Labour Government. Now Mr Twyford, who has been here for about 90 seconds, jumps up and down and asks when he can read the report. My question to that member is why his party did not do something about Auckland. How long was Labour in Government? Nine long years! What did it do, other than have Judith Tizard go along to functions, make a complete ass of herself and Auckland, and call herself and her handbag the Minister responsible for Auckland issues?

I say to Mr Twyford that he should support Auckland for a change, and give the Government an opportunity to read this report. He will get to read it, along with the rest of Auckland, at the proper time. That is what will happen. New Zealand will have a Government that will actually do something about Auckland, unlike the previous Government in its 9 long years.

Dr Paul Hutchison has actually done something for his electorate. He has removed an anomaly. The ACT Party will be supporting this bill’s referral to the select committee.

I suggest to Mr Twyford that if he was to get out of the habit of shouting across the House and thinking it was somehow funny, he, too, might think up a good bill that would be good for Auckland and that this House could support. I am sure that would be a good use of his talent.

NATHAN GUY (National—Ōtaki) : Today I had the pleasure of visiting my electorate, the Ōtaki electorate, which encompasses the Kapiti Coast District Council and the Horowhenua District Council. I was fortunate to be there with the Minister of Local Government, who spoke to the Kapiti Coast District Council in an open forum. A whole lot of issues were raised at that meeting that fit a little bit alongside the Franklin District Council (Contribution to Funding of Museums) Amendment Bill. I refer to the change to the Local Government (Rating) Act 2002, and what that meant for local district councils.

The Kapiti Coast District Council, which the Minister visited today, talked about the increased costs imposed on it, not by this Government, but by the previous Government—the Labour Government. We can prove that, over the last 9 years, 69 pieces of legislation have been shovelled down from central government to the local councils. I thank the Minister of Local Government for turning up in my patch today, fronting up to my local council, outlining his proposals for the future, and giving the council very clear direction.

My local council, the Kapiti Coast District Council, does not have any form of income apart from rates. If local councils incur Manhattan skyscraper - type cost increases, then it comes out of the pockets of local ratepayers. That is a particular struggle in the case of my electorate, as Kapiti has the highest number of over-65-year-olds on a fixed income in the whole of New Zealand.

I now want to allude—

Hon Steve Chadwick: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I have not heard much reference to the bill before us in the House today, and we would really appreciate some reference to it in the last National speech.

NATHAN GUY: Speaking to the point of order, I say to the member that I was just warming up with some opening remarks. We have had a very robust interchange this evening, and now I am focusing on the Franklin District Council (Contribution to Funding of Museums) Amendment Bill.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you. We would like to hear something about that.

NATHAN GUY: This bill is particularly important. I need to acknowledge the member for the Hunua electorate, Paul Hutchison, for bringing this bill to the House this evening. I say “Well done!” to Mr Hutchison. It is very important for Mr Hutchison’s community to have this bill referred to the Local Government and Environment Committee.

This bill tidies up an anomaly. It tidies up legislation that should have been tidied up some time ago. It is all about the residents living in part of the Waikato area who are paying double the amount of rates they should be paying. I say “Well done!” to Mr Hutchison for bringing this bill to the House. I believe that it pretty much has the widespread, broad support of the House this evening. I have heard that the Franklin District Council has submitted to the Royal Commission on Auckland Governance that it would prefer to be part of the Waikato region. Of course, the outcome of that commission of inquiry will come to the House, and I look forward to a robust debate on it when it arrives here.

The Local Government and Environment Committee will be very busy. It will have this bill to deal with, if it is passed this evening—and I believe that it will be. The committee will also have to deal with the important Resource Management (Simplifying and Streamlining) Amendment Bill, which is heading off to that committee, as well. With that, I endorse this very, very important bill for the electorate of Hunua, and it is something that I am sure the select committee members look forward to getting their teeth into.

Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Hunua) : I firstly thank all members of the House for their contributions this evening on the Franklin District Council (Contribution to Funding of Museums) Amendment Bill. I also specifically thank the Hon Nanaia Mahuta for her very gracious comments, and I thank my colleagues Alan Peachey, Colin King, and Nathan Guy for their excellent comments. I am very pleased to sponsor this bill on behalf of the Franklin District Council and the wonderful constituents I represent in the magnificent electorate of Hunua.

I was reminded by Moana Mackey—who also gave an excellent speech—of the contribution of Mayor Mark Ball, who gave a very thoughtful and fine submission to the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Auckland Governance. One of the interesting aspects of his contribution was that members of the Franklin District Council have indicated that they prefer to go along with Environment Waikato, rather than the Auckland Regional Council. Their view is that Environment Waikato has a greater understanding and feel for rural issues than does the Auckland Regional Council.

This bill is a classic example of where central bodies located in Auckland have, unfortunately, perpetuated an inappropriate rate out into a rural community and not taken on board the fact that there is an anomaly and stopped it spontaneously. Unfortunately, this situation gives a body like the Auckland Regional Council a false perception. Hopefully, whoever replaces the Auckland Regional Council, or the council itself if it continues, will gain over time the sort of reputation that Environment Waikato has, in terms of an understanding for rural issues and the needs of rural people.

I was also concerned that the Hon Darren Hughes may have been misrepresented by me tonight. I was extremely pleased with his enthusiasm for this bill and to see it rapidly pass through all stages, and I hope that will happen.

The major point about this bill is that it represents an unfair anomaly in rating that could happen anywhere in New Zealand. New Zealanders are fair-minded people, and it makes good sense to support the bill. I also think it is very important to emphasise the point made by the Hon Pita Sharples that this bill is in no way a criticism of the Museum of Auckland or the Museum of Transport and Technology. Both of these institutions are icons. They are of huge cultural value and benefit to people living in the Auckland region—and, in fact, to all New Zealanders.

It is important to make the point that two-thirds of the Franklin District Council is physically in Environment Waikato but is only about one-third of the population. The area is truly magnificent. It takes in Tuakau, the area of Onewhero, Pukekawa, Port Waikato, and Waikāretu, going down deep into the Waikato. It is a wonderful area.

Once again I thank all my colleagues for their excellent contributions and support in rectifying the anomaly in the bill.

• Bill read a first time.

• Bill referred to the Local Government and Environment Committee.

Dr JACKIE BLUE (National) : I take great pleasure in rising to speak to Part 1 of the Minimum Wage and Remuneration Amendment Bill, a member’s bill in the name of Darien Fenton. National will be opposing the Committee stage of this bill, which, of course, includes Part 1. I note that there have been changes—in fact, extensive changes—to the original bill as tabled in 2006 in the last Parliament, including changes to Part 1. Three successive Supplementary Order Papers have been tabled, which hardly inspires the view that the bill was originally drafted in a very robust way at all.

The purpose of this bill as introduced was to amend the Minimum Wage Act 1983 by extending its provisions to apply to payments under a contract for services that are currently remunerated at a level below the minimum wage. I was not a member of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee, which heard the bill in the last Parliament. When I read the select committee’s report it was evident to me that there was no clear consensus and that members were unable to reach agreement on the purpose of this bill. The purpose as stated in Part 1 is still the subject of amendments in the recently tabled Supplementary Order Paper 4.

The select committee received 28 submissions from interested groups and individuals, and heard 14 submissions. This included commentary on the purpose of the bill. This bill was well scrutinised by the select committee and came back with the recommendation that it should not go ahead. That is the right decision.

The make-up of the select committee included MPs from Labour and National and one New Zealand First MP. The select committee report as such comprised three different views from each party. There was no consensus and no common ground, and for the bill to have stalled at this stage with not a shred of common ground means that it was deeply flawed to begin with. That is the only conclusion I can reach from reading the report. Even the New Zealand First member did not agree with the purpose of the bill. That party’s view in the select committee report stated: “… the bill creates too many administrative grey areas which would have the potential to lead to confusion.” The last thing this Parliament should do is to pass unnecessary and confusing legislation for the sake of passing legislation.

I note that in an amendment to Part 1 in Supplementary Order Paper 4, which was tabled only yesterday—3 March—the commencement date has been amended to 1 April 2009. That is very wishful thinking, indeed.

The Government will be opposing this bill. We do not see it as being helpful in the current economic situation, and it is so flawed that even at the select committee level no common ground could be found. There have been numerous amendments, including those noted to the commencement date and the purpose of the bill in Part 1. National remains concerned about this bill on a number of different levels. We are not convinced there is a need for this legislation and we also believe it would create substantial problems through its implementation. The Supplementary Order Paper that was introduced yesterday, which amended Part 1 as well as other parts, was in essence a complete rewrite of the original bill, which does not give any confidence in the robustness of the bill at all.

As well as the changes to Part 1, I note that the bill has been amended to include a provision that would see the minimum wage rise to $13 this year, to $14 next year, and to $15 the year after. There is a certain irony here. Labour’s record on the minimum wage is inconsistent. Before the election its policy related to average wages and average prices. Now Labour members want to raise the minimum wage to $15. We are in unprecedented tough times. They knew that this was unaffordable policy and that it would ultimately cost New Zealanders their jobs, and it negates the purpose as set out in Part 1.

On 1 April this Government will be increasing the minimum wage from $12 an hour to $12.50, in line with the Consumers Price Index. The minimum wages for those in training and for new entrants will increase also, from $9.60 an hour to $10. The Government felt that in the current recession, when it needed to find a balance between protecting jobs and ensuring fair pay to workers, that was the right thing to do. We found a balance. The Government does not want to see workers priced out of the market during these difficult times, but it is confident that the increase in line with inflation will not harm businesses. We will not be supporting Part 1.

DARIEN FENTON (Labour) : It is a great pleasure to have a members’ day; it is the first of the new Parliament. They have been few and far between, so it is really, really good.

I assure the members on the opposite side of the Chamber that they have some learning and catching up to do on the Minimum Wage and Remuneration Amendment Bill. As a new member I adopted this bill in 2005. I took it over from the Hon David Parker, who became a Minister at that time. After it came out of the ballot it was introduced in July 2006 and had its first reading in August 2006. The Transport and Industrial Relations Committee considered it at length and reported back more than a year later. If Jackie Blue had read the select committee report properly she would have seen that the votes were tied: the Labour members supported the bill and the National members did not, so the numbers were tied. The bill had its second reading in May 2008. I introduced a Supplementary Order Paper that contained the majority of the amendments to the bill that are being considered today. Supplementary Order Paper 4, which has been introduced this week, has only a very, very small number of new amendments; the rest of it has been under consideration for nearly a year.

A lot of work has gone into this bill. The select committee members worked hard on it, apart from the National members, who started with an ideological position against it. They said that we should not interfere with the commercial relationship with contractors and that people have the free choice to work for very little if they want to. Talking on the purpose clause of the bill, in Part 1, I say that it is based on a very simple principle, which all the submitters to the select committee agreed is right: no worker in New Zealand—no matter what their employment status—should be paid less than a socially acceptable minimum wage. I want to hear whether the members on the opposite side—the Government members—agree with that.

The bill began with the issue of leaflet deliverers. Some of their stories are horrific. Leaflet deliverers are usually kids, but also these days they are the elderly, the unemployed, or low-income workers who are trying to get extra income. Companies sign them up as independent contractors and pay them per delivery. The pay equates to around $1 for 100 leaflets for the first leaflet, and 50c per 100 for each additional pamphlet. Sometimes there can be up to 14 different pamphlets in a day. That means that deliverers can spend hours and days delivering all of those leaflets for a pittance. I am sure that some were the National Party leaflets from the previous election. Those workers get no holiday pay, no sick pay, and no other rights, so if the worker falls ill and cannot deliver the leaflets, someone else has to do it for him or her, otherwise the worker can be fired for breach of contract. What redress do such workers have? They have none. They could perhaps go to the small claims tribunal or maybe take up a legal case as an independent contractor. I am really surprised that any member of this Committee thinks that that is an acceptable situation, and is not supporting every effort to do something about it.

Since the bill was introduced—as I said, it started with the issue of leaflet deliverers—many workers who are called either self-employed or independent contractors in a wide variety of occupations and industries have been in contact with me, and came forward to the select committee to talk about their situations. The Supplementary Order Paper outlines some of those groups of workers: fast-food delivery workers—the ones who bring pizzas to our homes when we do not have time to cook dinner—truck drivers, couriers, construction workers, caregivers, home-care workers, security guards, cleaners, telemarketing workers, forestry workers, and even the actors and musicians who work in our much-prized arts industry. They all have the same story to tell. Those workers are behind this bill. I have specific support from each group of workers in those industries.

These workers are being subjected to exploitative working conditions because under our current laws they are not considered employees and therefore have no rights. They have none of the basic protections, including entitlement to the minimum wage. That means they can be paid as little as nothing. Going back to the leaflet deliverers, I tell members that some of them are getting paid 25c an hour. I have come across workers on $4 an hour. I have come across the whole nine yards of exploitation. This whole notion is based on a premise that parties to this sort of contract are treated equally and that they are on an equal footing with each other, and the implication of that is that they are equal parties in the relationship. But there is no recognition in law that a worker trying to negotiate from a position of relative or complete powerlessness should have any rights.

For too many workers there is no choice. They have to accept it. Although some workers decide to work for themselves as independent contractors, many do not—they are not given a choice. For these types of workers it is a jungle out there. We are talking about the law of the jungle, and it seems to me that National thinks it is all right.

Chris Tremain: It’s called an independent contract.

DARIEN FENTON: No, it is not, because they do not have union rights. Why does the member not understand? He should read the bill.

Chris Tremain: You tell me a small business has union rights.

DARIEN FENTON: I am sorry, but we are not talking about small business; we are talking about individual workers. It will only get worse because in this economic climate more and more vulnerable workers will be in this category as jobs become more insecure and workers resort to self-employment or contracting out in a desperate search for work.

Paul Quinn: Why don’t you give up your job here and let someone else come in?

DARIEN FENTON: I wish the member over there would listen; he might learn something.

I also believe that more employers will take up this option and move their workers to subcontracting arrangements to avoid the costs of employee rights as they seek to cut costs such as holiday pay, public holidays, sickness and bereavement leave, and KiwiSaver contributions. Whether or not the members like it, the problem is already here in New Zealand and it has the potential to grow if we do nothing about it. It can be taken to ludicrous extremes, as it has been in many other countries, or we could do something about it—if Parliament has the will. That is what this bill endeavours to do. It tries to something about it. It extends protections to workers within the labour market who have no protections to receive the minimum wage, and it will reduce the temptation for undesirable workplace practices by reducing the incentive on employers to alter their existing work arrangements to contracting in order to avoid paying the minimum wage and other employer obligations.

We in Labour take this seriously. I am proud that we do. We do not think it is fair that any worker in this country should be required to work for anything less than a socially acceptable minimum wage. But National thinks that is OK. It does not care if mums and dads lose their jobs in the recession, as many will, and are forced to contract themselves under this sort of arrangement for $4 an hour. Thank you.

ALLAN PEACHEY (National—Tāmaki) : I appreciate the opportunity to speak on the purpose of the Minimum Wage and Remuneration Amendment Bill, which amends the Minimum Wage Act 1983. I think that the bill, sadly, is misnamed. Having listened to the member in charge of the bill, Darien Fenton, try to justify what, frankly, is unjustifiable, I am even further convinced that this bill would be more honestly entitled the “Interference in the Lives of Ordinary New Zealanders Bill” or the “Let us Restrict the Ability of Some New Zealanders to Get Work Bill”. That is what this bill is all about. If members had listened carefully to the justification given by the member in charge of the bill—

Hon David Parker: Don’t you believe in the minimum wage?

ALLAN PEACHEY: Listening to the interjections from members opposite, I wonder whether they might like to reflect on why the Labour Party and those who advocate and support it seem totally bent on denying some New Zealanders the opportunity to work. We live in some of the most difficult employment conditions in a couple of generations, largely caused by the failure of the previous Labour Government over 9 years in office. Now Labour wants to put through legislation that will further screw down the opportunities of people looking for work to enter into an agreement that has been freely arranged and openly agreed between somebody who wants a job done and somebody who is looking for a job. Let us not be under any illusions: that is what this bill is about—regulate and then regulate some more.

Why are Labour Party members opposite, who claim to care so much about workers, so bent on interfering with the goodwill in relationships between people? When we talk about the purpose of this bill let us remember that those members are not talking about spending their own money—and that was the case when they were profligate in the spending of taxpayers’ money for 9 long years.

I would have thought, frankly, that the Labour Party would get the message from the electorate and withdraw any legislation like this that it still has in its name. The electorate has made it abundantly clear that it does not want this sort of interference in people’s lives.

It will not be lost on the electorate—and people are listening to this debate—that the party that increased the minimum wage is on this side of the Chamber. Boy, that must really hurt the Labour members! The increase in the minimum wage came from this side of the Chamber. Now that Labour members are in Opposition, they want to spend other people’s money. What is it—$13 an hour, $14 an hour, $15 an hour? When will that party get realistic about the desperate need of many New Zealanders for employment?

Any legislation like this that involves spending other people’s money costs New Zealanders the opportunity to work, and that is the true purpose of this bill. The true purpose of this bill is to cost some New Zealanders the opportunity to work. The other purpose of the bill, of course—beyond regulating and then regulating some more—is to spend other people’s money. What is it about members opposite that they have not got the message that New Zealanders are fed up with left-wing Governments that want to spend other people’s money?

Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour) : I have to record that the previous speaker was Allan Peachey from the National Party—

Hon Member: The ACT Party.

Hon DAVID PARKER: I thought he was a National Party member. He pretends to be in favour of the minimum wage, but he supports back routes around it.

Why do people work? They work to make a living. That is why we have a minimum wage, so that people can live off their earnings; that they are not slaves; that they are not indentured for life; that they can earn enough from their labour to live off. That is why we have a minimum wage. But there is a glaring anomaly in our law at the moment, because there is a route around the minimum wage. That is what the Minimum Wage and Remuneration Amendment Bill attempts to remedy.

I congratulate Darien Fenton on advancing this bill, because there has been a hole in our legislation for many years. It is a loophole that was not abused much in the old days, but is abused more and more these days. It is a bigger problem now than it was 10 years ago. The evil that is being remedied through this legislation is the ability of an employer to pay someone a dollar or two an hour, when the minimum wage is what now?

Hon Ruth Dyson: $12.

Hon DAVID PARKER: Well, it was $7 an hour under the last National Government. What is it now?

Lynne Pillay: $12.50.

Hon DAVID PARKER: It was over $12 an hour when we left office, and it has been increased just a little bit by the current National Government. But one can tell that Government members do not believe in it, because they are happy to leave loopholes. They are happy to let people be employed under a contract for service, rather than through an employment relationship, and not be paid the minimum wage. That is all this legislation does. It does not give people holiday pay. It does not give them the protections from unfair dismissal that employees have after 90 days. It does not give them sick pay. It does not give them maternity leave. What it does is give them the minimum wage equivalent—only the equivalent. It is not the $100,000 - plus a year that Mr Peachey is on, but people would get $15 an hour instead of $2 or $5 an hour.

Paul Quinn: Are you giving to the poor? How much did you give to the Home of Compassion last year?

Hon DAVID PARKER: Listen to that diversion. I am actually one of those who think that people should give to charity and I stand on my conscience because I do. I also stand on my conscience because I am happy to pay the minimum wage, and I am a business person. The National members opposite say we do not have any business people on this side of the Chamber, but I tell them that I was a business person. We have plenty of business people over here. I was always happy to pay the minimum wage. I never got around it through a contract of service, and I never will.

Who suffers? I will give an example of who suffers. The Dominion Post has to pay its staff the minimum wage, and it competes against the providers of advertising pamphlets who deliver them through people who are not being paid the minimum wage. How is that fair to the Dominion Post, or the New Zealand Herald, or any other newspaper in New Zealand? It is not fair. Members opposite say that only children are being affected. This issue came to my notice because I had a constituent who came to see me. She made her living delivering pamphlets, and a large number of adults are in that situation. A large number of adults who work as cleaners are now employed on contracts of service, and they are not paid the minimum wage. They are not paid the minimum wage because there is a gap in our law that allows some unscrupulous employers to avoid the intent of the legislation and pay people a pittance, which they cannot live off. That is not fair to businesses that pay the minimum wage. They are disadvantaged from competition by unscrupulous employers who employ under a contract of service and do not pay the minimum wage. It is especially unfair to the people who cannot live off the pittance that they are paid.

It is absolutely shameful that the National Government will not support this bill. Those members pretend to be in favour of the minimum wage, but they are happy to see it so easily avoided. This is very simple legislation to understand and should be supported by all members of the House.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker): Before I call the next speaker I say that I have heard quite a string of interjections involving “you”. The Chair should not be brought into this debate. Let us be cautious about that. Members might want to reflect on that point. Members can say that a member may want to do this or do something else, but they cannot say “you”, as that refers to the Chair.

Hon TAU HENARE (National) : When my father was working in the railway workshops in Ōtāhuhu and in downtown Auckland, it was not the National Government that laid him off; it was the Labour Government. Who was in the Labour Government, back in those days?

Hon Member: It closed the workshops.

Hon TAU HENARE: That is right. That Government closed the workshops and closed the freezing works. Members should not forget that in those days the State owned the railways—the State owned mostly everything in those days, including Telecom. Who were the ones to get laid off first? Guess what? Working-class Māori workers were shown the door by the Labour Government.

Now, after being out of Government for 5 minutes, Labour members are back on their high horse protecting the workers. For the last 9 years they have had this mantra: “The working class can you-know-what. I’ve got the boss’s job at last.” That was the mantra of the Labour Government for 9 long years.

Phil Twyford: Who raised the minimum wage every year, Tau?

Hon TAU HENARE: Absolutely! I was just getting to that point. A new member has sounded out, although it was not from his seat.

The previous speaker said that people can make a living out of delivering pamphlets. I do not believe him one iota. Nobody makes a living out of delivering pamphlets. People subsidise their benefits and their income by delivering pamphlets. How do I know that? It is because somebody very close to me, who is a second-year teacher, for goodness’ sake, also delivers pamphlets to subsidise his income. I say well done and I tell him I am absolutely proud of him, because he is going out and earning that extra money. But to tell members that somebody can make a living out of delivering the Warehouse pamphlets—you have to be joking! I am sorry, Mr Chair—I did what you warned us not to. I apologise.

Let us look at something else. During the 9 years of the Labour Government, the minimum wage increased by $5. Is that right? Well, in 120 days it has gone up 50c! It has gone up 50c in only 120 days. Let us just think about what we could do in 9 years.

I want to ask a question: why, during 9 years of a Labour Government, did this bill not hit the Table of this House?

Hon Steve Chadwick: It did!

Hon TAU HENARE: Oh, sorry, it did. Why did Labour not pick it up as a Government bill? I will answer that for members opposite. It is because they did not really believe in it. Who was the previous Prime Minister? Who was the previous Deputy Prime Minister? Everybody has forgotten. But the facts remain that after 9 long years—

Hon Steve Chadwick: Why isn’t this member a Minister?

Hon TAU HENARE: I am not a jealous person, unlike some people. I am happy being a list member for the National Party, and that member should be happy as a list member, too. In 9 long years there was not a whisper about this being a Government bill.

CAROL BEAUMONT (Labour) : I start by acknowledging Darien Fenton, as my Labour colleague already has. I acknowledge her determination and her commitment to trying to improve the situation of low-paid workers in this country. This bill is another attempt to try to make sure that we provide comprehensive protection to workers in this country. I also acknowledge the chair of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee at the time, Mark Gosche, who also worked hard on this legislation.

At its most fundamental, this bill is about ensuring a socially acceptable minimum wage that is universally applied and that is a right, irrespective of the technical nature of the employment relationship. In other words, everyone should get a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work. No one should earn less than a socially accepted minimum. In economic hard times, such as those we are facing now, it is particularly important to protect all workers in this country, especially low-paid and vulnerable workers. They, explicitly, are the people whom this bill intends to cover.

Many minimum rights, including the minimum wage, apply only to employees, and many hard-working New Zealanders are not entitled to a socially acceptable minimum wage because they are not employees—they are termed and defined as contractors. That is unfair, and I am sure that most New Zealanders would see it as unfair.

Interestingly enough, Fair Go screened a programme last year—I was interviewed for it—about the leaflet deliverers we have just been talking about. It showed real examples of what people were earning delivering leaflets. There was an unprecedented level of response to that programme. Never before had so many people contacted the show. New Zealanders thought it was unfair.

In New Zealand and other developed countries, so-called non-standard work has been increasing, and often that work is precarious and low-paid. In fact, it is quite clear that in some industries and sectors, contracting models have been developed as a way of reducing wages, undermining security, increasing risk, and maximising the cost to workers. We all need to recognise—and the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee recognised—that there is a distinction to be made between those at the lower end of the contractor spectrum and those at the higher end. We are not trying to capture those at the higher end. This bill is targeting vulnerable workers.

Dealing with the area of non-standard work is not easy, and I commend the select committee for trying very hard to deal with this issue and get it right. The fact that something is not easy does not mean we do not do it. We should not avoid what is difficult. Other countries have managed to find solutions to this issue. The United Kingdom, for example, has legislation that ensures that the minimum wage applies to workers, not just employees. In Canada there are similar provisions. Just to be very clear, I note that the scope of this bill has been narrowed, after submissions, to target, in particular, vulnerable workers who are listed in a schedule. It specifically excludes things like household arrangements.

I also acknowledge the hard work of organisations like the Council of Trade Unions and Business New Zealand, which worked with members of the select committee and others to try to find ways of making this work and came up with very real suggestions that have been incorporated into the amendments now before us.

I want to make sure that people understand what this bill is really about. Some people have said that it is unworkable. Actually, the requirements to comply with in the amended bill would be that the contractor was engaged by an organisation or a principal to provide one of the services listed in the schedule. Those parties would agree on what was a reasonable time to provide the service and on the remuneration rate for such a provision of service.

That should equate at least to the minimum remuneration rate to be set from time to time by Order in Council—in other words, the minimum wage. And, shock, horror, the principal would have to keep records as to the hours and remuneration paid—full stop; that is it. That does not sound too hard to me.

Finally, I speak in support of the recent amendment to lift, in a staged way, the minimum wage to $15 per hour by 2011.

AARON GILMORE (National) : I rise to oppose the Minimum Wage and Remuneration Amendment Bill. This bill started with good intent, I believe, to help some contractors who the Opposition thought did not, due to perceived exploitation by business, earn sufficient income. But the bill was extended by a Supplementary Order Paper to increase the minimum wage over 3 years to a target of $15 per hour. Having grown up in a minimum wage household, I know that the use of the minimum wage is not the best way to raise wealth in a minimum wage household. This bill is about freedom of choice—the freedom for self-employed people or contractors to choose how and what they are paid. This bill will remove the incentive to work hard, to take risks, and be paid for it. Instead, it transfers wealth from those people who work hard to those people who do not. This bill will not create one dollar’s worth of wealth for New Zealand. All it will do is transfer wealth from one household to another. This Government believes that should somebody—

Paul Quinn: I know that lot over there wouldn’t know what hard work was, Aaron.

AARON GILMORE: —they would not know what hard work was—choose to be an employee, then he or she should be provided a safety net, that being minimum wage. Someone who chooses instead to be a contractor does so for good reasons—for employment flexibility, for taking advantage of the ability to transfer and claim costs, for tax-planning purposes or efficiency, or even for temporary work. At the end of 2008 about 11 percent of New Zealand workers chose to be self-employed or contractors—11 percent. In fact, the number choosing to be self-employed or contractors had risen by about 5 percent in the period from 2002 to 2007, during the time of the Labour Government. Statistics New Zealand released in November 2008 a document called Employment and earnings mobility of the self-employed. This reported that the self-employed, primarily agricultural and construction workers, comprise over 50 percent of the self-employed or contracted staff in New Zealand. Those people are at the bottom 20 percent of that group, but they are actually paid twice what the bottom end of workers are paid in New Zealand. It appears the category of contractors that this bill is focused on is a small minority. This bill is not focused on fixing any exploitation that exists or is widespread. It is fixed like a Trojan horse—simply to increase minimum wages across the board.

Let us have a look again at the issue of exploited low-paid contractors and self-employed people. Incomes at the bottom 20 percent of the self-employed group in New Zealand are twice those of the bottom 20 percent of wage earners and salary earners in New Zealand. This begs the question of what this bill is all about—which is increasing the minimum wage, of course. Many self-employed people take on a degree of risk, and therefore bid for or negotiate their wages based on their expectations of what they may require. Some get it wrong, and as a result, for that contract they may be paid below the minimum wage. But on average most—as my figures from Statistics New Zealand point out—are earning well above the equivalent wages of wage earners and salary earners. By increasing the minimum wage, and for certain types of self-employed people only, this will simply lead to certainty of income for some at the cost of others.

There is not a big money-tree to pay for all this. In effect, this bill would result in a massive cost increase, which for businesses, in these tough economic times, could not be covered. Some industries would also have an administrative nightmare in relation to things that they currently use contracts for, because it is efficient for them to do so and results in a low administrative cost. Even worse, there is some significant uncertainty about what occupations are in and what are out. A lot of work is still required within this bill to make any definitions sensible. Let us take a specific example. I think this bill is supposed to fix the “phantom newspaper deliverer”. I used to deliver newspapers—probably like some others in this Chamber—the Christchurch Star in North Beach, in fact.

Paul Quinn: Whereabouts was that?

AARON GILMORE: The Christchurch Star in North Beach. The Christchurch Star and the Christchurch Crusaders! We used to deliver $15 worth of newspapers; we would get $15 a night for the delivery of newspapers. There was a choice—we could spend all night delivering, or it could be done in 10 minutes, half an hour, or an hour. I was a diligent young teenager and I used to work hard. I would get it done in about an hour. I could then run off to cricket practice, and help in the community a little.

Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA (Labour—Ikaroa-Rāwhiti) : That drivel we have just heard is what makes me afraid, in this Committee discussion. That attitude is the very reason why this Minimum Wage and Remuneration Amendment Bill is important. That attitude, which pervades certain levels of our society, I thought was well spent. That was a disgraceful rendition against workers; it was anti-worker. It was shocking. I heard Mr Peachey suggest that this bill had a whole lot of issues that were anti-employment, and Paul Quinn knows very, very well that his people are the ones who suffer. Tau Henare was in here, pushing platitudes about why it was the previous Government’s fault. What is so wrong in trying to ensure that people have a life that is fair and equitable? What is wrong with that?

The speech that Mr Gilmore just made was disgraceful; it is the very reason why this party on this side of the Chamber is working it out with the community. And the voters are starting to feel it—the honeymoon is nearly over—they can sense that this is the sort of extreme-right nonsense that that party stands for.

Chris Tremain: Take a look at the polls.

Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA: And Mr Tremain knows very, very well the effect the 90-day bill and all of that nonsense has in Napier on those people who are in the orchards and who are delivering pamphlets. And what did the Labour Government do over the last 9 years? It ensured that there was surety, and that there was collectiveness around the minimum wage. The Labour Government took it up every year by $1. When we came into Government it was $7.25; that miserable lot 9 years ago had taken it up by only 86c—86c over 9 years. What does that tell us? This is starting to be a repeat practice. What does that tell us? Those members should ask that question.

I certainly understand about the recession, and the aiding and abetting of businesses to stabilise financial patterns. But those micro-aspects in relation to workers are things we must never ever forget. To be in this Chamber, and to listen to that sort of nonsense, is really something I thought New Zealanders were well shot of. Where are we at, in the sense of those things like $3 prescriptions, and preschool management and preschool funding? That is how we do it—capping rents, and ensuring that people can live within their earning capacity. What is wrong with taking the wage up? When we were in Government, Māori were going into the labour market four times more quickly than anybody else, and coming out of it more slowly, but they will not do that with this sort of attitude and negativity. I commend Darien Fenton for having the courage to put this bill up front, because there are people masking the difficulties in the recession.

We saw that situation in the 1980s when they put up those fuzzy clouds. Everything was hard—and it is now. But when people make $1.5 million a year profit as individual dairy farmers, and that carries on and they put it somewhere, we know that they have done very well out of the last 9 years. A lot of businesses in this country made huge profits; let us talk about that. Mr Tremain knows that, in the real estate area. They have made major profits—incredible profits. But then when they get to this stage, they say they will look after the top end but never mind the workers. Shame on them! It is a shame they should even think that. It is a shame that Allan Peachey should start to come out with that sort of diatribe and suggest that this bill would divide the employment field. That is a disgrace. The labour market is a serious place, but everybody should be allowed a crack at being able to participate. They should be able to pay their bills, be able to feed their kids, and be able to clothe their kids. What is wrong with that?

That member should not sit there in his pink tie and suit and make out that, at the end of the day, everybody wants to be unemployed, or that everybody wants to have small wages. That member and I know that in earning well on a $100,000 - plus salary, there are a lot of things we do not have to worry about too much. But there are families out there—thousands of them—who are not being recognised at this moment, and who are not being supported in relation to their wage levels. What is so great about denying those people, whether they are delivering pamphlets, picking produce in orchards, or working in factories? What is so great about that?

PAUL QUINN (National) : I join my colleagues on this side of the House in opposing the Minimum Wage and Remuneration Amendment Bill. I start by making the observation that Darien Fenton, in her opening remarks defending the bill, made the observation—as I heard it—that she took over the bill when she entered this House in 2005.

Aaron Gilmore: When?

PAUL QUINN: It was 2005, I think. She gave the impression that she took it over from someone prior to that. So I am left wondering, given the sincerity and forcefulness with which the previous speaker, Parekura Horomia, delivered his heartfelt concerns, and given that, as a former senior Minister in a Government that the people rejected very recently, he had those feelings that were so passionately delivered here tonight, why this bill was not supported by his Government.

The bill has been left to sit since 2006—what a disgrace. Then we have the audacity of the previous Minister of Māori Affairs lecturing me about my people, when he sat in the previous Government for three terms and did nothing—absolutely nothing. My first observation is that if the members of the Opposition are so sincere about supporting this bill now, then I really question their integrity and honesty.

Hon Member: Take a deep breath.

PAUL QUINN: Parekura has got me excited.

Hon Steve Chadwick: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I wonder why we have to suffer the decibels from the member opposite. It is really quite hurtful to our ears over here. I urge you to ask the member to speak more moderately.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker): That is not a point of order. The member is entitled to debate in the debating chamber. This is a loud, robust debate. I suggest that he has been encouraged to speak louder by the interjections from the Opposition benches. I think it is about one all.

PAUL QUINN: I am sorry the Opposition junior whip is having problems with her hearing but she may take her leave if she wishes. The reality is that my ears are deaf from the pummelling they took from the previous speaker, Parekura Horomia, so I am not actually hearing myself properly.

I will carry on. The second point I make is that this bill, as it is now presented, represents the moving feast of the Opposition being unable to decide what to support. We recently had a Supplementary Order Paper that changes the goalposts because the Opposition cannot decide what it is really pursuing. For that reason alone, this bill should be rejected.

Let those members opposite consider that the real reason I stand here is because I want to share with my colleagues on both sides of the Chamber the knowledge that some of the greatest pleasures I have ever enjoyed in life—certainly greater than representing the New Zealand Māori team on the rugby field—

Hon Parekura Horomia: What have you done about the Māori team, Paul Quinn? That’s a disgrace.

PAUL QUINN: I knew that would get the member going.

Some of the greatest pleasures I have had have been as a young master—an adolescent—working for my father on the farm, doing the dipping and helping out in the woolshed in a “penny a pound” type of atmosphere. I was encouraged in my youth to work hard, and I was rewarded for the number of sheep and lambs that I could catch and drench. The reward was at a piecemeal rate, which was great.

I look at the schedule here and see that most of the people mentioned are contractors—and they love to be contractors—such as for courier services.

CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka) : I am very pleased to take a call on the excellent Minimum Wage and Remuneration Amendment Bill, which was introduced by my colleague Darien Fenton.

I was intrigued by some of the comments from National Party members opposite. Tau Henare—I think he is a National member these days; it is hard to keep track—thought that nobody made a living delivering pamphlets. Rather than dealing with the issue, those members will just pretend that a whole lot of people do not exist. National does not need to worry about the minimum wage, because instead it will say that those people actually do not exist, at all. It thinks nobody makes a living from delivering pamphlets—that is what Tau Henare said. He came into the Chamber and said that. I can tell the member that I have met several people in my electorate who do just that, and they get paid a pittance. They get paid a pittance because their employers work their way around the minimum wage by having contracting arrangements. That is exactly what this bill is all about.

Aaron Gilmore talked about choice, but choice for whom? Who chooses to be poor? Not very many people do. He talked about how he grew up in a State house. I congratulate him, but that does not give him the right to pull up the ladder behind him. He talked about choice, but choice for whom? It is choice for the employers who work their way around the minimum wage in order to avoid paying hard-working Kiwis for a fair day’s work. What does National object to about getting a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work?

Hon Gerry Brownlee: Labour suppressed the average wage. It was dreadful.

CHRIS HIPKINS: Gerry Brownlee objects to that because he would not get paid very much, at all.

This bill highlights the stark differences in approach between the Labour Party and the National Party. The Labour Party stands for Kiwi workers when the going gets tough.

Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I think that, given the comments that have just been made by that speaker, it is appropriate for me to point out that this bill sat on the Order Paper under the previous Government—without getting a reading—before that member was out of short pants.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker): The member is not raising a point of order; that is a debatable point. Please let the member continue his speech.

CHRIS HIPKINS: Thank you, Mr Chairperson. The Labour Party stands for Kiwi workers when the going gets tough; we know that the going is pretty tough out there. One in five Kiwi workers are worried about their jobs, and we are ready and willing to work with the Government to ensure that we protect those workers’ jobs. But this Government is not interested in protecting the jobs of the most vulnerable workers. It is not interested in helping people on the minimum wage. It is not interested in helping the people who, because of a loophole in the law, are not even getting the minimum wage. This Government has turned its back on hard-working, low-income Kiwis.

John Key talks about the rolling maul. Well, low-income New Zealanders have found themselves underneath that rolling maul. They are being mauled by the new National Government. They are at the bottom of the maul. First of all, their tax cuts, which the previous Labour Government had promised them, were taken away by National so that National could give them to people on higher incomes. The National Government is like a reverse Robin Hood—stealing from the poor to give to the rich. Then the Government went after those people’s savings by cutting the KiwiSaver scheme in half. National has been going after low-income workers ever since it came into Government, and its opposition to this bill is yet another example of that. The Government will vote against a bill that would extend a safety net to a whole raft of workers who could find themselves struggling as a result of tougher economic times.

Who does this bill benefit? Who will be covered by it? People working in building and construction services and in labouring jobs will be covered by this bill. I want the National Government members to stand up and tell those people working on building sites why one person who does a hard day’s labour should be paid less than another person who does the same job—a hard day’s labour—just because one person is a contractor and the other is an employee. Let us see Government members stand and justify that.

This bill will protect people who are contracted to deliver newspapers and pamphlets to letterboxes. We have seen some shocking examples of their situation. As some of my colleagues have alluded to, the Fair Go TV programme last year uncovered examples of children earning as little as 25c an hour to deliver pamphlets. That is just outrageous. However, there is some good news for the National Party, because one group of deliverers will not be covered by this bill. That group is the legions of volunteers who are out there tramping the footpaths to deliver National Party leaflets. They are the Exclusive Brethren.

KANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI (National) : I stand to oppose the Minimum Wage and Remuneration Amendment Bill. This bill started off by imposing the minimum wage on independent contractors. This bill absolutely confuses contract of service with contract for service. Independent contractors should be free to set their own terms for a contract. This bill will not work because we cannot set hourly rates for independent contractors. How will we define the hourly rates to be paid to painters or plumbers on a project, and the hours they took to get the work done or to plan the work? How will we calculate their hours? I disagree with the view that independent contractors should be paid hourly rates because it is fair. What is fair is that independent contractors have the right to choose to become independent and enjoy their perks. They have the benefits of charging whatever rate they want and working for whatever time they choose.

This is an awkward time for this bill to be passed. It is a difficult time for businesses. They are already struggling, due to high costs. We need people to be employed. We do not want the unemployment rate to increase. If this bill is passed, many of the independent workers will lose their jobs and be unable to work. Unemployment is on the increase. We need to help these people to retain their jobs. Being an independent contractor is a lifestyle of someone’s choice. I believe it is part of New Zealanders’ culture that people should have some option to bring in independent contractors, without the Government interfering in their hourly rate. If contractors wanted to be paid a fixed rate or work fixed hours in order to get the benefits of employment, they would choose to be employees.

Independent contractors have competition in their pricing. Some put forward a low price because they want a job or are new to the industry. This is a business by choice. I believe that independent contractors should be left to make their own choice.

To use an example in relation to the delivery of pamphlets, I say it is ridiculous that a delivery boy should be paid an hourly rate. I remember my own kids used to deliver—

Hon Ruth Dyson: It is delivery man or delivery woman, not delivery boy. Read the legislation.

KANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI: Whatever it is, I remember my children delivering papers. They started by taking 3 hours, but when they finished they used to take only 1 hour and they got the same price as previously. I think there is an incentive if they are paid on that basis.

I oppose this bill. Thank you.

LYNNE PILLAY (Labour) : It is a pleasure to stand and take a call on the Minimum Wage and Remuneration Amendment Bill. I want to give my heartfelt congratulations, as my colleagues have, to Darien Fenton and also to David Parker before her, who originally scripted the bill.

I have heard Opposition members saying that this bill has been languishing. That is simply not true. This bill is the work of a hard-working member who progressed the bill through the member’s bill process. In fact, if the former Labour-led Government had not been so busy passing the Working for Families legislation, which was opposed by the National Party, passing legislation providing for paid parental leave, which was opposed by the National Party, introducing fairness at work, which was opposed by the National Party, introducing support for vulnerable workers, which was opposed by the National Party, improving health and safety, which was opposed by the National Party—

Hon Ruth Dyson: Pay equity.

LYNNE PILLAY: —introducing pay equity, which was opposed by the National Party—[Interruption] They have scrapped it. That is supposed to be the party that cares about people.

I find it very, very offensive to hear the member opposite, Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi, talking about how people should not be paid a minimum wage. I think he talked about struggling businesses and high costs. We are talking about speakers who stand in this Parliament and say that to pay a worker the minimum wage is a high cost for a struggling business. I believe that we have no place for those arguments in this Chamber.

I congratulate the Labour members on the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. To say that the bill was totally rejected is, again, a falsehood. It was rejected because National had the majority on the select committee and the New Zealand First member, Peter Brown, was a little bit confused. I think that if Peter Brown had had the time to really go through the bill, he probably would have supported it, because his heart was often with workers.

But, unfortunately, this bill came back having been rejected by the select committee, because the National members who were on the select committee do not believe in fairness; they do not believe in a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work. I heard Kate Wilkinson in this House today answering questions.

Hon Clayton Cosgrove: Who?

LYNNE PILLAY: Kate Wilkinson, the Minister of Labour. I challenge the Minister to stand up and take a call. I think that it is abhorrent that the Minister of Labour has not stood and taken a call on this bill. She has not justified her Government’s position. I heard her at question time implying that if this bill came into effect and became an Act, so that people who are contractors are assured of getting at least the minimum wage, the minimum wage would be mandatory and nobody would be paid above it. That is just nonsense.

We hear members opposite talk about their contribution to workers in New Zealand. I ask how those members help workers in New Zealand. Apart from their paltry increase in the minimum wage—which they felt obliged to give because of the pressure put on them by workers and unions in this country—their other glowing example is the fire-at-will bill. That is how National members have helped workers in this country. Those members say that they will make life easier for workers and will raise their aspirations and opportunities by letting them get sacked in the first 3 months of their employment, with no right of redress. That is what National members do.

It is not too late for National members to change their minds. For all we know, Kate Wilkinson may be sitting there thinking: “My goodness, I think those Labour people have a point.” I am very hopeful, because she was the only person in that party who was honest enough to say—and I think that members can all repeat this together—“The National Party is not a party of compulsion.” Do members remember that?

Hon Clayton Cosgrove: Say it again.

LYNNE PILLAY: “The National Party is not a party of compulsion.” The National Party believes that by paying the minimum wage to the most vulnerable workers—

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for the Environment) : This Minimum Wage and Remuneration Amendment Bill might be good therapy for a party of downtrodden trade unionists suffering from their biggest electoral defeat for a long time, but it is not good law. It is not good law. It shows that members opposite have learnt absolutely nothing from the trumping they got in the 2008 election.

One of the things that the public have had it up to their eyeballs with is nanny State and its extra regulation. You see, the fundamental view of members opposite is that people cannot make choices for themselves and that this Parliament has to regulate every possible part of everybody’s life.

The part those members really object to is actually people being paid on contract rather than being members of a union. Those members want to be able to control every aspect of people’s lives, because at core Labour does not trust people. Labour has the patronising attitude towards people at the bottom of the heap that only the Labour Party and unions can protect them.

Take people like real estate agents, who are paid on sales.

Hon Clayton Cosgrove: Oh! Your mates.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: The member who chips in, Mr Clayton Cosgrove, wants to—

Hon Clayton Cosgrove: You’re for protectionism there.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: He destroyed them. They all voted for me in my patch. I know they did not vote for him. Real estate agents are paid on sale. They are paid when they sell a property. Labour members do not like that. Labour wants them, too, to be paid on an hourly rate, because Labour objects to any form of performance pay.

When I was a young man I delivered pamphlets as a university student. I learnt that one gets paid on results. I learnt that rip-off artists are out there. That is true, but they are actually one of the lessons of life. I told them to stick their pamphlets where it hurt.

What the members opposite believe is that if we regulate every nook and cranny in life, we can protect people from having to make decisions for themselves. That is not the view of the Government. We are a Government that says the nanny State idealism of members opposite was rejected by voters in 2008. Members opposite actually need to realise that New Zealanders do not want this Parliament passing law to eliminate any capacity to earn on a contract basis. That is not where New Zealanders are at, and it is not where New Zealand has had a proud history.

The last point I make is that members opposite really somehow believe that the only way incomes grow is by this Parliament passing laws. It is not. The only way this nation will pay higher salaries, and the only way this country will lift people out of poverty, is to support enterprising businesses that actually raise living standards with higher skills, innovation, and all those things that make a nation successful. I say to members opposite that they are living in the past. We do not regulate for wealth. We do not regulate for economic growth. We actually have to create it, and that is why members on this side of the House say that voters voted against nanny State. [Interruption] Well, I can see that this bill is good therapy. Members opposite have taken a thumping. They are feeling depressed. They need some group exercise by which they can celebrate their trade union heritage. But that is no excuse for poor law that does not actually do anything for New Zealand.

If we are serious about helping those on the bottom end, let us get on and create the legislation that will create wealth and jobs. [Interruption] The member in the chair, Darien Fenton, raises the issue of accident compensation. That is very interesting because under her previous Government’s policies accident compensation levies will be driven up to 4 percent of what people earn. That is the current policy introduced under a Labour Government. Members on this side of the House ask how a uniform tax of an extra 4 percent on every worker will help the overall wealth levels of our nation.

Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour—Waimakariri) : I have to say that Dr Nick Smith talking about depression is absolutely the pot calling the kettle black. This is the man who said in his speech “We do not regulate for wealth.” Well, I ask Dr Smith, that genius whom we know so well, what a tax cut is by which anybody who earns under $40,000 a year gets zip, and anybody who earns above that, including him and his wealthiest mates, gets heaps. If it is not regulating for wealth—

Hon Dr Nick Smith: Oh, the politics of envy.

Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: I waited for that. I waited for the old stewed prune to say that one. What is the politics of envy? When that member was in Government the minimum wage was raised by 86c in 9 years. What a generous member he was! Talk about the politics of envy! And he voted against every minimum wage increase Labour put through in 9 years. He talks about the politics of envy; I am talking about the politics of compassion. He talks about envy; I talk about compassion. One would think, the cock sparrow that he is, that because his Government, after 18 years—9 of which his party was in Government, and 9 of which it was in Opposition—raised the minimum wage by a paltry 50c, he was the male version of Mother Teresa. I can say that as a Catholic! One would think he should be canonised in his own lifetime for the generosity in giving the workers 50c in 18 years. That was his legacy.

• Progress reported.

• Report adopted.